Open Q&A
We will be live answering any of your questions.
Transcript
Welcome to Apologetics Live.
We're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the Bible.
Meet your hosts from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport, Dr. Anthony Silvestro, and
Pastor Justin Pierce.
We are live, Apologetics Live, here to answer your most challenging questions.
Anything you have about God and the Bible, we can answer it here.
If you doubt us, well, that's where you can come on in and try your
providence, because we don't believe in luck.
Would that be right, Drew?
Church, do you have providence?
Do you have pot lucks?
I wouldn't say try your luck,.
But I would say just try your hand.
Give it your best and see.
Whether you can.
Any difficult questions, any really hard questions, Drew can answer.
Let's get started with it.
We're gonna do an open Q &A, so any questions you have tonight for us, we are here to answer them.
It is weird, I could not, the only Facebook group that I could not post in is
Apologetics Live, the one that's designed for this group, for the show.
I was able to post in all the other groups except the one designed for the show.
Go figure.
Also discovered that for some reason we couldn't share, at least for my wall, even though it was public on
Facebook.
I don't know, but we welcome those of you who are watching, wherever you're watching, whether it be Twitter, YouTube,
Facebook, or those who are going to ApologeticsLive .com and watching there.
Great place to watch, and there is a great other thing that you could do is you could join us and ask your questions.
Let me start, I always like to start the show, if there's a correction that has to be made, I like to start right
away with that.
And so with that, the thing is, a couple weeks ago, was it like three weeks ago now, we had the debate with
the Black Hebrew Israelites, what was that, like six on one, six on two?
Yeah, well it was pretty much like six on one, I was just kind of monitoring the comments and stuff and trying to keep
the chatter to a minimum so that people could hear what was being said.
It was about six on one, and you know, kudos to them as well.
For, there was really one guy that was kind of talking with you back and forth, and some of the other guys, if they had
something to say for the most part, would write in and comment, hey, you know, I've got something to say to that,
or something, so.
Yeah, you and I were both nervous, and that was.
The reason I asked if you'd come in, because I will admit, I was nervous with it, because we
have had some interactions with Black Hebrew Israelites in the past, and what we've noticed
is they just all jump in and start talking over you, and it was very disruptive, and we were concerned about that, and you and I actually
talked about the fact of, hey, if they're all in one room, we can't stop them, but I wanted
you to be there to be able to mute if there's, you know, just to keep one person talking at a time.
We didn't have to do any of that, I don't.
Think.
There was one that I did, because you were trying to explain something.
He had asked a question, and you were trying to explain, and he kept trying to cut you off, and so finally, I just muted him,
and then I guess he either dropped out and joined later, and ended up backstage, or something like
that, but it was, you know, you got to be able to let the person answer the question.
Yeah, and there was a.
Question I answered incorrectly, so we're gonna correct that now.
Yeah, so we got into a discussion in, I think, now I don't even remember, it's been a while, I
think it was Exodus, where he was making a reference saying that God gave
the title, or, well, yeah, God gave the title of God to Moses,
and I looked it up, and I didn't see the word God in the
copy of the Meserech text that I was looking at.
I ended up, it was, you know, it does have it there, and we dialogued, the Black Hebrew Israelite
and I dialogued afterwards, and he pointed it out.
I double -checked it in Lagos, and it was there, so I don't know what I was looking at,
but I was wrong, and so that's one of the things, if I'm wrong, we're gonna say I'm wrong and correct it right away,
and then say, okay, it's been corrected.
Now, I wish that it was corrected on that same show, because that would have been helpful, because
people now may not go back, like, people who watched just that episode may not end up knowing this, so that
was disappointing, so, but at least it is, I am on record as having corrected
myself for my error, so.
And he as well,.
You reached out to him, so he knows it as well.
Yeah, yeah, he does, yeah, he, well,.
He's the one that pointed it out to me, and he showed me, and I said, well, I didn't see it, and I looked, and
it was there, so, so I was wrong, and I, he knew, I said, okay, but the reality is, I
said, as I said to him, it doesn't change the meaning, because part of the thing is,
what I, what I ended up, and I dialogued with him quite a bit afterwards, his, his thing is, he's,
he was saying, Chris Arnold saying, gasp, admitting when you're wrong, what a concept.
Yeah, Chris, I kind of think it's Christian to do that, but
maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm wrong, maybe, you know, I, I haven't been following the proper Facebook
or social media etiquette for Christians, which is, we double down, call you names,
block you, and yeah, if I'm wrong, I say that I'm wrong.
Chris is saying exactly.
There he goes, yeah.
That's right.
So, it, but we, it was, seemed that what Simon was trying to
tell me was that God is a title, and, and, and so I ended up going back
and re -listening to the three -hour discussion we had, and I started picking
up on it, and him saying God's a, is a title.
Oh, oh, hey, here we go.
Greg, Greg Moore should get in here.
Greg, you know how to use StreamYard, so get in here, man.
Greg Moore and I, along with Keith Fosley, recorded a, a podcast together,
and Greg is saying, wait, when has Andrew ever been wrong?
The answer to that, Greg, is every day, I think.
I can ask my wife, but I'm pretty sure she's going to agree.
Yeah.
Yeah, all you need to know when.
You're wrong is to get married, because your wife will let you know.
Oh, wait, no, your, your kids are still young.
You just wait.
Oh, my kids are gonna let me know.
Oh, yes.
Oh, yeah.
And, and you know, this is a side note, so don't let me forget about talking about the, the podcast we did with Greg,
but you, as, as a parent, you're getting into that age, it's really important for you,
as a parent, and any other parent listening, make sure you allow your kids
to correct you.
In fact, one thing that I had with my kids was I had keywords for them,
so that if they felt they needed to correct me on something, they would say something, I, I told them,
if, if they say, dad, I want to correct you on something, and I said,
anytime you say that, I will stop talking, and let you talk.
And it was a thing, you know, the advantages, and my, my son would, he did once just try it out, and he said it, and I
stopped, and I said, what?
And he goes, I just wanted to see if you'd actually do it.
You know, but the thing is that when you do that, when you give your children the, the
right to correct you, when you give your children a, a, a key phrase so that you know, hey, that's the
phrase I should, I should listen, and they know you will listen, it
really does, it affect the, the parent -child relationship, because we're not perfect, but it lets them know
that.
I, I don't know about you, Drew, my, my dad never admitted he's wrong, ever.
Even, even when I was 47, he was, what, 72, and I tried sharing the
gospel with him, and he stood up and, and, well, he clocked me.
You know, he was a Golden Gloves boxer in the military, and at 72, he had a good right hook.
And it, it was one of those things, you know how people talk about, like, time slowing down, you know, and, and
it literally, really what it is, your mind starts thinking so quickly.
And it's, your, your mind processes so much that it seems like time slowed down.
But I remember, he stood up and squared off, and I knew, I, I'm sitting in a chair with,
with glass, a very thick glass window behind me, so if he hits me, I, I mean, it's, it's more
dangerous.
So I knew to, I knew I needed to get up and position myself so that there was some, some movement.
And I got up, and, you know, I saw him coming around with, with a punch.
In the last second, I saw him open his hand.
And I remember thinking, you know, a slap will not hurt as much as a punch will.
And if I block it, which I was preparing to do, I mean, I stood up and got into the position in Ishinroo, block,
and just as I did it, I thought, like, blocking is, is going to escalate this.
And I was like, better just to take a slap.
Well, he went, boom, slapped me, and it came right around with the right hook that I didn't see.
I was like, whoa, okay.
And so Chris Honnold says, Andrew's so little tweety birds.
No, it wasn't, I didn't.
But, but I tell that story, say this, I mean, there's some good that came out of that, because even though my dad and I didn't talk for two
years after that, we ended up having something happen that we started to build a much better relationship.
And so we have some sort of relationship now.
But the thing was, is that, you know, even after that, he came up with an
excuse.
He said that someone said to him that I said on Facebook, that my parents can go to hell.
And I actually went through and there's, I don't know if it's still, you still can do it.
But I downloaded everything that I've ever posted on Facebook.
And I searched for the word parent and hell.
And it's only appeared one time.
When I talked about parents as an illustration to say no parent would want their child to go to hell.
Oh, wow.
That was it.
And so I was able to show I said here, I did a complete search.
Here's all the posts.
I said, here's all the ones that mentioned parent.
Here's all the ones that mentioned hell.
And here's the only one that mentions hell and parents.
So I had all the evidence.
And even though I showed that, and I said, you know, he was like, you, you did this, you did this.
And I said, I didn't do that.
And I'll prove it to you.
But when I do, you need to ask forgiveness.
And the closest he came was to say, well, we're both wrong.
And I went home that night when tomorrow, what did I do wrong?
Was it my face getting in the way of his hand?
Was it?
What exactly?
I hate it when that happens.
What was it me trying to share the gospel with him?
I guess that's what what he what he felt.
Probably.
But it's, you know, it's always it's kind of back to it doesn't truth doesn't matter.
Narrative matters.
It's the fact that even though the story that he came up with that I said that online, my
aunt supposedly told him, even though that wasn't true, I was still wrong for doing it, even though I didn't
do it.
Right.
And that's what ends up happening.
Yeah.
Story with Greg Moore.
Yeah, well, actually, Chris Huff, Chris Huff said this, you know, Chris Huff, by chance.
I mean, I've heard of him.
Yeah.
I think he's done a podcast or two with him.
We'd actually know.
I think what it is, he does a podcast, you join him and quit and join him and
quit much.
I'm an occasional guest.
Yeah, it's maybe should more be that way.
You should you should do Chris Huff show with the occasional guests that you guys
do.
I was going to say doctrine matters, but that's a different Christian podcast.
One matter of theology.
But Chris Huff is saying, Andrew, same here.
My dad wouldn't either.
This is great advice.
And this is not unusual for guys to have a parent who especially if a parent's
unsafe.
But I know people who have saved parents who feel they can't, you know, guys who who can't say they're
wrong to their children.
And the thing is, is let me just encourage the
fathers out there.
Maybe this is prep for the for the family conference I'm going to be doing coming up soon.
We had to move that.
I can mention that as well.
But the thing is, is when you are vulnerable to your children, they will respect it you
more when you correct them.
Oh, and look, here's Stephen Drew of Doctrine Matters going, matter of
theology is much better than Doctrine Matters.
So there you go.
You have a party, you know, I'm going to agree with Drew and just say, but not with, you know,
the Doctrine Matters, but I'll say the rap report.
I mean, I would rather listen, I think, to Matter of Theology, actually Matter of Theology or Doctrine Matters
than my own.
I mean, Chris does a great job on Matter of Theology.
He does.
So Chris Hough says, love Greg Moore.
Everyone needs to subscribe to listening to the Dead Man Walking podcast.
So here's the scene.
You got Dead Man Walking.
I meant to mention this in the podcast when we viewed this.
So Greg, sorry, I meant to do this at the end, but you know, it was weird.
You have Dead Man Walking, conversations with a Calvinist, and Andrew Rappaport's
rap report.
It just sounded like, okay, two good theologically sound Calvinist podcasts and a narcissist.
I was like, you know, there's a problem here.
I meant to end the show that way when we did it.
It was a lot of fun.
I'm going to encourage you guys.
It should be dropping.
I don't think next week, but the week after we'll drop it.
It was great.
Talk about the importance of church and biblical interpretations.
We're all over the map with it.
It was a lot of fun.
Some great, great theology.
I mean, I said to the guys, I learned some things.
I'm not familiar with a new term, progressive Calvinism,
progressive covenantalism, which used to be known as new covenant theology, but
some changes that have occurred in it.
And so it was really refreshing having a, well, we joked and, you know, said a
Presbyterian, a Baptist and all the denominations, because if you know who
Keith, now I'm saying it wrong.
I am so bad when I get, because once I get it wrong, I have trouble getting it right.
Keith Fosley, he's with conversations with a Calvinist, but he's
better known for all of the videos he does where it's, you know, all of the
different denominations on an airline.
And we actually, Greg and I got to part to give some helping
material for how Christians would order, you know, Buffalo Wild Wings.
And so, yeah, there you go, Keith Fosley.
Thank you, Greg.
So, and it was just, that guy is hilarious.
The way his mind works is just hilarious.
And yet, what Yennda ended up seeing when we did a podcast together is he's got a good sound
theological mind as well, can sit in, you know, really understand
nuances of issues.
And I think it was really helpful.
So I encourage you to check out those three podcasts, subscribe to all three, because I think all have
a lot to add, but that was a fun one when we got to do that.
Wow.
So I'm not seeing many questions in chat.
Yeah.
I know, which is really weird when we do like open, when we do the open Q and A's, we have nonstop questions coming in.
This is the time for anyone who wants to come in and join,.
Ask any question.
Or if you just want to bad mouth Andrew.
Hey, that works too.
Wait a minute, my name's Andrew too.
So I guess that doesn't really work.
Yeah.
Well, you said Andrew,.
Not Drew.
So there is that.
We have Chris Honholds in the house here.
What's he saying here?
He's saying, I have tried throughout the lives of my sons to come to them
and admit when I've done wrong.
I pray they see that I have not been the type who never admits he's wrong.
And that's good, Chris.
What I'm saying is for fathers to go a step further and not just admit when we're wrong,
because you know, the reality, if, if your kids are anything like I am, and
probably you are, you remember all the negative things that people do and you forget the
positive.
I mean, it's like someone does one negative thing.
You're going to remember that more than like 10 positive things they do.
And so that was why I decided I wanted to specifically say, this is how
you can correct me.
Like this son that when you say this, this is how I must behave.
And if I don't behave that way, stop me and remind me that I said that.
Um, and so that becomes something.
That we have started, uh, you know, my, my oldest son is three, right.
And he has a, uh, he's got a hard time talking and communicating.
And so there have been some times where he always wants sweets.
Okay.
He always wants just junk food.
And what he was saying, I thought he wanted sweets.
He really wanted strawberries.
And so I was, I was kind of getting frustrated telling him, no, you can't have
sweets.
But when I opened up the fridge, he pointed to the strawberries and I was like,
and so I had to tell him, I was like, I'm sorry.
Like as clearly as I could say it to a three -year -old and him to try to understand, I was like, I'm sorry.
And so I cut him up all.
The strawberries he wanted.
Yeah.
You know, I will say this and you and Chris are still kind of, uh, have kids that are, they're younger, even, even
Chris Honholz, even though his kids are older now and working, but they're still younger.
The neat thing is when your kids get to be adults and then you start
finding out all the stories you didn't know.
Like, like I remember my daughter did that.
They just never told you about.
Yeah.
And it's fun.
Like my daughter, I didn't know this.
We had a garbage can that, you know, like you can, you could, you know, you just push it to put the garbage in
and it could pop up and down.
Right.
And so, so when my daughter went to college and sometimes I think it was her college years, she
came home and we're talking and she ended up saying, she named the garbage can, Gregory,
Gregory, the garbage.
And so she would feed Gregory every time she's, she was like, are you hungry?
Like when no, only when no one was around, she'd be like, are you hungry, Gregory?
Are you hungry?
And so it was really like, we had a lot of laughter that like, I never knew that she would
do it just when no one was around.
So, Hey, look, look at this guy that's backstage.
He looks dangerous.
Should we let him in?
Uh, he, you know what he really looks.
Like?
He looks like a wannabe second rate expositor that tries
really hard to preach.
Well, Chris.
Huff, I believe that's the last of Drew being on your podcast.
Yeah.
We need to go ahead and change the copyright information to just, I'm
taking the name with me.
Well, we, we, we got some questions now coming in.
So let's tackle these one at a time.
Well, first, before you do that, let me just say to the people who would have heard that, that's something I've said to Chris
before, um, a second rate, uh, it's a joke.
Uh, Chris is actually a, a very, uh, well -rounded, uh, Bible expositor and
preacher.
Uh, if you haven't heard.
Him preach, um, well, uh, uh, you're missing out.
Likewise, man.
Yeah, no, that, that, that is an inside joke.
That is a, so for anybody listening, they're like, Oh gosh, did we just witness something?
No, you didn't.
This is not, this is not, you know, check on Q and a 2019 round two.
They did witness something.
They witnessed two brothers having, having a good, enjoyable
conversation with one another and not taking it personally.
What a crazy.
That's kind of like what.
Happens when I come on here anyway.
And I got to deal with Andrew and Justin Pierce and Anthony.
Silvestro.
I should go get a hat.
Obviously I'm the only guy without a hat.
Go for it, man.
Yeah.
All right.
So D D asks this question.
Uh, what is the best verse to prove the doctrine of election?
And so you can start at Genesis one and you can go all the way revelation.
You know, I, I, I'll.
Just put this, uh, Ephesians one four and I'll read verse three, but
blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with every spiritual blessing
in the heavenly places in Christ.
Verse four, just as he elected or chose us from before the foundation of the world
that we would be wholly blameless before him in love.
Yeah.
Verse five, by predestining us to adoption as sons through Christ
himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.
So the reason I would say that's the best one day, uh, is cause it actually uses the word
election or choosing.
Um, I actually had a guy who accused me of being a Calvinist.
Now you guys know, I don't, I don't use that label unless I know what people believe in it because
people have so many different views with it.
Um, someone accused me of being a Calvinist and I said, what, you know,
what have I done or said that convinces you I'm a Calvinist?
He said, it's in your doctrinal statement.
And so I said, where?
And he quoted where I quoted Ephesians one four.
And I said, he said, you said we were elect before the foundation of the world.
And I turned and said, are you saying that Paul is a Calvinist?
Yeah.
So, so there to answer the question to, to, there are so many places you could go.
Um, recently I saw in the chat, in the chat on YouTube, somebody asked about Andy Stanley.
And one of the things that I heard Andy, Andy Stanley say to Layton flowers years ago was, I don't know how somebody can read the gospel of
John and still believe in predestination and sovereign election.
And I'm like, how can you read the gospel of John and not John six 37.
Of course, I'm reading out of the preferred translation of matter of theology, the legacy standard Bible, just putting that out there.
Well, you should have picked up that.
I was too, except for the one word that I, except for the one word.
Yep.
So, but John six 37, all of the father gives me will come to me.
And the one who comes to me, I will never cast out, um, uh, John six 39, all that he
capital H he has given me, uh, John seven, John 10, John 12, John
15 for you did not choose me, but I chose you John 16, 23,
John 17, four, John 17, six, John 17, seven, eight, nine, 11.
I could keep going.
Um, so it's, it's when you see, I'll quote Steve Lawson, paraphrase Steve Lawson.
One of the things that he said about the doctrines of grace, he fought against it for years.
In fact, his first, I think one first or first year or second two years of seminary, he was purposely trying to
disprove the doctor specifically the doctrine of predestination and sovereign election.
And as he's trying to disprove it, it's the Lord is opening his eyes to that truth.
And to quote him, once you see it, you can't not see it.
It's everywhere.
And it's not that you are reading that framework in, it's not that you're reading Calvinism in it's you're
gleaning that from what the scriptures say in context.
It's, it's, it's kind of like the, the arrow in FedEx, right?
You know?
Yeah.
You can't, you know, and if folks have not, if you've never seen the arrow
in FedEx, just watch, you know, look at the FedEx, the E X and the E X
is an arrow.
And now once you, once you see it,.
You can't see it.
That's right.
Yeah.
And now you also have a Romans nine as well, where Paul is talking about the purpose of election.
I have that open, bro.
Yeah.
And then if you keep reading, what does Paul also say?
He says, it's not of man's will.
Yep.
Depends not on the man, on the man who wills or runs, but on God period, period.
You can't.
So D D's asking you, you mentioned nine 11.
How about Romans nine 11?
Yeah.
For, for though the twins were not yet born and had not yet done anything good or bad so that the purpose of God,
according to his choice would stand not because of works, but because of him who calls.
Amen.
Yep.
Yep.
So Greg is saying, did Andrew just reduce the doctrine of grace to a
ship?
Come on, man.
That's the quote of the night, right?
There we go.
That is Katie.
Katie is saying, uh, I guess Calvin was a Paulist.
No, Paul was a Calvinist.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's right.
Calvinism was good enough for Paul.
It's good enough for me.
Yeah.
Chris, Chris on hold says that Chris Huff is the, the diggity diggity, you know,.
Hey, here's, this is from Greg.
Greg Moore said this back to the Gregory, the garbage.
He goes, Gregory, the garbage can is what my reformed Baptist friends call me the doctrine of baptism.
Oddly enough.
Yeah.
So you, you all have to go watch that, that episode that we did together.
There was a lot of fun.
We may have to do that again.
I'm going to turn the banner off so we could see names because we have someone backstage who always changes his name every week
to fit the show.
Let's bring in our, our favorite friend here.
The chicken man, John, who now is the narcissistic Calvinist.
Welcome nurse.
How are you?
Did somebody say Calvinist in a narcissistic way?
I feel like you've been called that before.
Uh, I probably have many times.
The person I'm thinking of is, uh, what was his name?
He came on the show.
Uh, the, who was it?
This is, this is great airtime folks right here where he,.
He was, uh, a pastor or preacher or something, Unitarian or something like that.
Oh, no, you're thinking about the, you're thinking about the guy who is the church of Christ.
Uh, yeah.
Pastor Norm.
You know, that's actually surprising.
John, you, I don't know if you ever looked up on it again.
I know many, many months later you looked up because we were sure he was going to do a response
video to, to us and he never did, but you said he hadn't been, he didn't do any videos for a while.
Um, has, has he gone back to doing videos or.
Uh, I think he has.
Um, I know that he did have some kind of a medical issue.
Um, maybe even cancer.
I can't remember exactly what, but, um, he had to do a lot of, um, healing and recovery
from, from all that.
So he was just, yeah, just not really able to, to do any more videos
after that for a little while.
But, uh, I think he's still at it now, okay.
I haven't checked them out too much, but we'll have to see, bring them on or something.
So Christian videos is saying, uh, Matthew 22, 14, which I have to look up
here.
Um, Nope.
I just changed.
I got it for many are called, but few are chosen.
Ah, so parable of the wedding feast.
Okay.
So he's saying, why is chosen?
He, uh, used here when it says elect us
elect should be used there.
Correct.
Um, well, I'll just say this.
I mean, the fact that there may be, and I, and I'm going to, I have to, let me go check the degree.
Cause I don't, I'm not, don't have it memorized.
So 22, 14.
Um, well, I guess he's saying the word
for the word chosen here.
Yes.
For the word chosen.
All right.
So then, and we're going to just check to see what the word chosen is in our passage we looked
at before, which is choose.
So there is a doubt chosen, chosen by God.
Yeah.
And salvation through Christ.
So, I mean, one thing that I see, you know, the, I mean, there are, so there are different words used and I'd
have to look into those words, which you could, but, uh, I guess the thing I'd say Christian videos is
we do use the word choose or elect in, in different ways in our own English language.
And so the context is always going to be the immediate context is always going to be how we're going to
use it now to, to choose something before the foundation of the
world is to emphasize you had nothing to do with it.
And, and that's the, the emphasis there.
So it has to be, you know, a, what we'd say an unconditional election,
because if it's conditional upon what you do, then salvation is not of God.
It's mostly of God, maybe, or as Billy Graham said, 99 of God, you know, as he would say,
you, you, God's done the 99%, but you have to do the last
one.
Well, then it becomes salvation by your works instead of Christ's works.
Exactly.
Well, the ultimately salvation is by what you do.
The ultimate thing is like, because God's God's helpless.
God, God did everything he can.
And now that's it.
And I don't, you know, that according to Corey Asprey, who wrote that wonderfully, just well
-written, super popular, theologically sound song, um, you know, reckless, the reckless
love of God.
Don't you know, he says God just sits up there in heaven.
He just gives himself away on the off chance that one of us might give ourselves to him in return.
Yeah, man.
Yeah.
I got news for you.
That's it, man.
Yeah.
God is not sitting in heaven, looking on earth and going, Oh, if those humans could
just do the right thing as John has crossing his fingers.
No God's in full control.
I like what R .C. Sproul used to say.
There's not a single atom outside of maverick molecules.
Yeah.
So, all right, let's get to, Rob has a question here.
Question.
Where was Jesus when he was buried?
And so he was buried in the tomb.
So, well, let's, I mean, in one sense, and this is
beyond, I think our ability to really comprehend, but in, in his deity, he's
omnipresent, right?
So where was Jesus when he walked the earth everywhere?
Because he's God, right?
But yet he's in a physical body.
And here's a challenging question for you, Rob.
Uh, and I should, I should, I give some time for the, for you to, to give the answer.
Okay.
And, and others can, can answer this as well.
Feel free.
Does Jesus have a human body today?
So do, do, do, do, do, do, do think about that?
Uh, as I answer the question, uh, I'll let folks put in their, their answers.
Rob, go ahead, put your answer in.
Um, it looks like, it looks like Chris Huff is writing his answer down there.
So you get, Oh, I thought you were, what's your wager?
I did the, the, the noise you're going to put it up.
Um, the, the thing is, I would say part of this question where I think this may be coming from is there's
many people that believe that Jesus was in hell door while during those three days while
he's, he was buried.
Right.
And though we could say yes, cause he's everywhere present the, there's no
evidence he went to hell to suffer under
the, the wrath of, as some would say, Satan, he didn't go there for
that.
Yeah.
We do see this in Peter saying it, but in that passage, what we have a reference to is him going
to the demons that are in chains.
And I, you know, my understanding of, of that passage, as I interpreted it, is he went there for the very
purpose to show them that they failed, that he was the sacrifice
that he claimed he would be.
And so Rob got it right along with several others.
The answer to the question is yes, Jesus has a physical body today.
Chris Hanhold's got it right.
Doctrine Matters podcast, Pastor Steve Dewey got it right.
London 1689 got it right.
Yes.
I believe Jesus had, has a human body and glorified
Matt Yester.
We have not seen Matt Yester in a long time.
Brother, where have you been hiding?
Get on here, man.
Matt's, Matt's a great guy.
I got to meet him once and that was a real privilege, he and his wife, but he said, yes, 1 Timothy 2, 5, D
said, yes, but with different properties.
Not sure what you mean by that.
So I don't know if I'll agree completely because I don't know what the properties are.
I believe that he has a glorified body as Kathy is saying, glorified body.
So Rob's happy he got the right answer.
He said, hallelujah.
You know, and that's the, that's the thing.
Let me real quick just say, that's actually a Matt Slick trick question, by the way.
Matt, I remember, you know, we were at a conference with all these pastors and he just
decided to do a theological quiz.
And it was funny because after, after the, he did that, he said, he said to me, we went out for lunch.
He goes, Andrew, do you realize out of a room full of like a hundred plus pastors, you
were the only one that got everyone right?
The one that got almost every one of them wrong was that question.
Matt said, does Jesus have a human body today?
I was the only one to raise my hand.
Yeah.
And I mean, you know, think about the Ascension, right?
Because they're told Jesus, as you saw him go, you will see him come.
Well, he resurrected with a, a physical body.
And so he ascended with a physical body.
And so he is going to return with a physical body.
His resurrection and human body is what is one of the things that gives us the hope of the
resurrection body that we will receive.
Cause he's the first fruits.
Correct.
I was just about to say that because scripture, I know you were, I wanted to grab it before you.
Yeah.
I mean, he's called the first fruits from among the dead.
And if he didn't have a human body, then that's.
Not possible.
So that's funny.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
Oh, I was, I was always going to point.
Out that as Jesus being the great high priest, it's required for a man to do
it, to, to fill in that position.
So he has to be a man.
Yeah.
That's a big part of the gospel.
Whenever I.
Explain the gospel, it's one of the things I always say is he had to be truly God to have, to be
eternal, to be able to pay an eternal fine, but he had to be truly human
to pay a human fine.
And that's what makes, gee, that's one of the things that sets Christianity unique from every world religion, because if he didn't
have that, like every, every other man -made religion is on a system of
morality.
Christianity is based on a person, a very specific person who's unique because no one else
claims to be fully God, fully man.
No other religions have people who claim to.
Be God, but not God man.
That's right.
Yeah.
Chris, I was thinking about that very same thing earlier today when I was working, because I was thinking
about a sermon that I heard, a sunrise sermon that I heard this past Easter, where
there was a guest preacher.
And he said, when Jesus died, he then transformed
from the flesh into the divine.
And then at his resurrection, he transformed back into the flesh.
And I wanted to go through the screen and slap the screen with the Bible.
Yeah.
So, KT had said, I put this up here, and John is just picking up his nice red Schuyler
Bible to rub it in.
Yeah, he's going to smell it there.
Thanks.
His new body can go through walls, and John saw, looked differently, I think,
Thomas could touch and feel him.
And so with that, Dee answered the question right after that.
She said, by properties, I meant he could go through walls and appear in different places.
I guess I was thinking more of when he resurrected.
And so that, yeah, that is, if you're going to say properties in that
way, then yeah, he's, in his divinity, he was able to, and I would say he probably could have done that
on earth too, because he was still divine.
So, now let's see.
We'll get to that question next.
So, let's get, let me get to the next question here.
This is also from Rob.
Where, I think we answered this one, where was Jesus when he was dead?
Yeah, we just did that one.
Yeah, we did that one.
So, I actually uncommented the wrong one there, Drew.
He had, he had a different one.
Oh, no, he just asked it twice.
Okay, my bad.
All right.
So, some quick ones we can knock out.
KT is asking, Striving Fraternity, have you read Zachariah MacArthur Old Testament
Commentary?
What do you think of it?
I have not, because it is, yeah, how many pages is that?
It was right here, and I just put it on my,.
My shelf.
Yeah, I haven't, because that's my copy.
400.
Yeah, I got Drew a copy.
So,.
That's actually your copy, buddy.
I don't get through books that quickly, but I am planning to get through it, but I did hear the sermon that he did.
Yeah.
Where he was, he was just going to say a few words, just be quick and done.
An hour and 17 minutes later.
Yeah, yeah.
MacArthur fashion.
Okay.
So, Facebook user, I sure hope Greg Moore is still watching.
He's going to really appreciate this.
Facebook user, and by the way, if you go to ApologeticsLive .com, we have instructions for Facebook, how to, how to get
your name to be shown.
So, Facebook user, please go do that.
So, we know who you are, but can you give us two or three of your favorite dead guys?
You need to watch the, the rapper for podcast that we did with, with a dead man walking
podcast and Calvin conversation with the Calvinist podcast, because Greg asked me this question
and then busted on me for not giving an answer.
Now I'm going to, I'm just going to say, guys, you go listen to the end of that podcast and you,
you see, if, if I'm going to say that I did answer it, Greg says, I didn't, you
decide he wanted, he wanted me to give one, one person living
or dead.
I think I might've given two or three.
I'm just saying, so I'm going to hold off and say I think I might've mentioned a living
person and a dead person, but real quick, we'll go through around.
I mean, the one, one that I mentioned on that show, John Owen is a man of brilliance.
Uh, and if, if I could spend, I mean, obviously everyone's going to say Jesus.
So they, they usually say, okay, you can't say that one.
I would, I would love, yeah, I would love to, to get, pick the mind of a John
Owen for an hour.
I mean, like I think one hour with John Owens, John Owen would be like a seminary degree.
Um, I think, uh, you know, I would, if, if we, if we look, I mean, Paul would be someone who
I would, I would love to, uh, sit with to really, because
here's a man who endured great trials at the hands of,
of his own people.
And he, you know, still never seemed to, even though he had named
names, he didn't seem to really hold offense to them.
Uh, I, I would go with Joseph and Daniel,
both for the same reason.
Not one negative thing is mentioned in the scripture, but you don't see these men holding grudges against people.
And that really is something that I need to learn more.
So, uh,.
Those would be mine.
Drew, what about you?
Well, I see that you went with a Bible, uh, writers,.
Scripture, right?
Not, not completely.
I mentioned one outside.
You didn't mention Owen,.
But still, I think that's cheating because we can all just say, Oh, the Bible, you know,
um,.
But excuse me, you know, okay.
Technically is living and active.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Let me correct it.
Let me correct it.
Can you give the name of two or three of your favorite dead authors?
If drew nonita wrote a book, he'd be a good author.
Um, you know, for me, obviously I'm a, I'm a huge Puritan guy.
And in fact, Chris and I, we have part of our podcast that we call the dead guy's reader society, uh,
where we take, uh, a book from a dead guy and we talk about it.
So, um, this, this question is right up our alley, but, uh, for me, I mean,
huge Puritan guys.
So I would say, um, John Bunyan, I absolutely love the pilgrim's progress,
uh, the way he writes because he wasn't a scholarly man.
He was, he was a tinker, right?
He was just a simpleton and he didn't say what's your favorite books.
So you, you know, you can't say it's because of the John Bunyan.
Yeah, that's true.
Um, so,.
So John Bunyan and I love Samuel Rutherford.
Uh, Samuel Rutherford is, uh, a guy that when
he was writing his letters from prison to his church congregation, he was
still pastoring to them while he was in prison.
Um, and if you get a copy of the letters of Samuel Rutherford, um, you'll see what I mean.
Uh, and then I'm gonna, I'm gonna, okay, I'm not going to steal Chris's cause I know one Chris is going
to say, no, no, I thought about stealing that one, but, uh,
I'm sure it's on his list.
So this one is a more, a more modern author.
Um, he passed away in 2010, but his name is Clyde Cranford.
Now Clyde Cranford, he, uh, he discipled, uh, a couple guys.
He discipled a man by the name of John Snyder, uh, who is a pastor in Mississippi does a media gratia.
Um, and he discipled another guy named Jordan Thomas, but he wrote a book called because we love him
and he was huge into discipleship.
And so this book, because we love him is really just, uh, how he, his
steps in going through discipling people.
And I mean, it will break you down.
I have a notebook that I read with it and I have to, at every paragraph,.
Stop and take notes because it's so rich.
All right.
So we, we probably, we probably know what number one is.
Uh, I'm going to go with, uh, John, John Flavel actually.
That wasn't going to be your first choice.
It wasn't.
No, I was going to go with Thomas Watson.
We drew, do we know this man well or what?
So if I, if someone said, all right, right now, like right now, as of this date, pick, pick three
Flavel Watson, Lloyd Jones.
I knew Lloyd Jones.
Yeah.
Flavel Watson, Lloyd Jones.
And then, and then if they pushed me for a fourth, I'd say R .C. Sproul.
The Dr. Matters podcast says, which is, yeah, he, he mentioned
Martin Lloyd Jones, J .C. Rowe, R .C. Sproul.
Which, which if you profess faith in Christ and you have never read keeping the heart, um,
be prepared, but, but get it and read it.
It is so good.
Heaven taken by storm.
Um, have you, oh, there you go.
All right.
We're going to have to get through these quicker.
Uh, John, you have, you have any, you want to add, or did we just steal.
Cornelius Vantill, uh, A .W. Tozer.
Um, nice.
What else?
I'm thinking of, it's gotta be Calvin, John Calvin.
I mean, that would just be a great conversation.
You know, so many people would benefit from reading old authors nowadays.
Yeah.
I mean, so many ways.
In so many ways, because people follow the mega church culture, the new and the hip pastors, right?
Like the abomination that is Michael Todd and what went on at his church this Easter.
But I mean, the old dead guys,
they loved Christ.
They magnified Christ and they wanted to bring the reader closer to God.
You don't see that much now.
Yeah.
You know, in our.
Intro for dead guy reader.
Society, drew has a couple of, um, uh, he, he put together this, this intro.
That's just incredible.
Um, and he has a couple of, uh, a couple of pastors in it that, um, one will call it is Mark
Driscoll and the normal dollar general Mark Driscoll, um, who, who are
insistent that dead guys don't argue with you.
And I'm here to tell you that if anybody has ever read, you've never read the Puritans, you've never actually read the
Puritans.
Like this book.
Right now is arguing with me.
Yeah.
And then, and then if you're a pastor or in ministry, you need to read this book.
And we covered this book.
You gotta give it to winners of souls.
Yeah.
This book will slap you in the face, punch you in the gut.
And then while you're on the ground,.
It will pick you up and do it again.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now you guys, you're going to have to, we're going to have to practice a restraint here.
Cause we have, we have to get, now we got a bunch of questions we got to get through.
So, so here we go.
So Jason cave, who's a member, he, he supports striving fraternity and local guy
UGA.
Yeah.
Okay.
I didn't know that he's from our neck of the woods.
All right.
Well, he supports us at on YouTube, but better way to support us, by the way, would be the website.
Go to strivingfraternity .org slash support much better.
But cause that way YouTube doesn't just go, Oh, we're shutting you off like they once did.
But Jason is asking are Messianic Jews, brothers and sisters in Christ.
And so Jason, I'm going to hesitate in answering it this way.
It depends on what you mean by Messianic Jews, right?
If you're saying a Jewish person that came to Christ, well, that, that would be me.
Will you call me a brother in Christ?
I hope you would.
Now, if you're talking about people that are in the Hebrew roots movement, where they start denying the
deity of Christ, no, you, you, you do have people, even they come from a Jewish background and they get,
you know, they get into a church.
I can't say they got saved, but then they get into Hebrew roots, start denying that the deity of Christ.
No.
If someone's denying the deity of Christ, like, like the black Hebrew Israelites we had on a few weeks ago, no, they're not saved.
And that's why you pray for their salvation.
But can a Jewish person get saved?
Yes.
And they would be a brother or sister in Christ.
Can a Jewish people, person get saved and still kind of be under the law?
Well, yeah, we saw that in the first century.
They could struggle with that.
And it doesn't have to just be that because I know my mother -in -law, you know, just coming from an
Asian background and had a lot of that Asian tradition and struggled, struggled with that
stuff, never, you know, not really being fed because she wasn't in a good sound church.
So some of it was more just the fact that she, she wasn't well taught.
So, so I can't give a definite answer because I don't know what you mean by
Messianic Jews.
Now you could clarify it in the, you know, in the chat
and we could and engage with it or just better yet, go to politicslife .com and come on in.
Oh, Jody's asking, can you please list the titles of all the books you mentioned?
We mentioned too many.
I was just about to work on that.
I was going to mention as many as I can remember.
So I'll put it on the Facebook chat.
All right.
So we'll, we'll, we'll put that.
And what I'll try to do is when you get that list, Chris, send it to me and I'll try to put that in the show notes
as well.
So, yeah, we'll, we'll try to get that, but, but so, yeah, so I, I guess the, the
answer to your question is I don't know that I can give us a definite answer because
I don't know, um, I just don't know what, um,
you know, what you mean by, uh, by that, but I, I would say,.
I mean, the short answer would be yes, they could be, but, um, now I have some friends
that are, uh, Messianic Jews and they, uh, I've actually been to
their temple, synagogue, whatever you would call it.
Um, and, uh, you know, I've been there for the first Shabbat,
uh, and they do all the, the ceremonies and the rituals, um, they, but they do preach Christ as
well.
Now the interesting, the interesting thing was they called, cause I went with a group of
friends and they called us Gentiles.
So they, they don't quite recognize where they,
where they born Jewish.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, I mean, if they were born Jewish calling you a Gentile, I mean, yeah.
I mean, I mean like,.
Yeah, I understand it, but at the same time it's like, well, and they're not wrong.
Yeah.
You're not wrong.
But at the same time, Paul goes, well, there is no Jew nor Greek.
We're one in Christ.
Jesus.
So, although, you know, just, just for the humor value, make fun of myself because,
you know, well, it's easy and there's, there's plenty of material there.
For years, we've had this card, the qualifications of church leaders that you could get at Striving
Fraternity.
We had this card in print.
We did multiple printings of it for seven years.
And I was, I was in my church teaching through this.
And so I passed that, gave everyone a copy and I had three people come up to me.
And I remember we had, we had been passing thousands of these have gone out.
And, and three people in my, in the church came up to me and said, you're not qualified to be a pastor.
And I said, why not?
Because I misprinted one word instead of gentle in first Timothy three, three, I
said, Gentile.
So they're like, you're Jewish.
You can't be, you're not qualified to be a pastor because you're Jewish.
You're not a Gentile.
All right.
So this one's going to trigger, we're going to be triggered.
Are you ready?
You guys ready for the next one?
Okay.
Christian video says, so Andy Stanley, completely off the reservation or what?
I know you guys want to say that he's there.
He's on reservation.
I know, but true.
No, no, that's he's look at this point.
Here's what we need to be praying for Andy Stanley, the salvation of his soul period.
And that the Lord would protect his true elect that are involved in those churches,
that he would give them wisdom and discernment and that they would leave those churches.
And you can't deny the sufficiency of scripture.
You can't openly accept and welcome unrepentant sinners without
confronting their sin and call yourself a qualified biblical pastor.
And it brings me no joy to say that, but he's, as far as the reservation goes here, here's where
Andy Stanley is.
Andy Stanley right now, I believe based on the fruit of what we've seen, Andy Stanley, Mike Todd, Stephen Furtick, I've put them all in the
same boat is Matthew chapter seven.
They think, and this is, this is the heartbreaking part.
They think that what they are doing is biblical.
They think that what they are doing is honoring Christ.
They think what they are doing is fulfilling the role that they feel like they've been called to.
And according to scripture, it's doing nothing but fulfilling prophecy of people who will be lovers of self
lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, prideful, disobedient, et cetera, so on and so forth.
Andy Stanley gives hearty approval to the sins of Romans one.
And what does the end of Romans one say?
So at this point, you need to be praying for his soul.
If you know of anybody in those churches, you need to warn them that he needs to be marked and avoided.
And they need to get out of that church and find themselves a good biblical, solid biblical church.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah.
We, we did I'll, I'll just answer it quickly with this and say, drew is triggered me.
Um, we were supposed to record, supposed to record on the doctrine of salvation.
And he's like, Hey, let's watch this, this video clip I did on Andy Stanley.
And, and we went off on two hours.
So go back to my Andrew rap reports, rap report.
It's wrapped with two P's.
Uh, just look up rap report, subscribe to it.
We'd love that, but, uh, subscribe to apologize live by the way, as a podcast as well.
But, uh, yeah, we went off on two hours on the fact that he, he actually,
he supports and promotes homosexuality.
He was not, he was not against, he was against a homosexual that's still
married and not divorced living with someone.
He wasn't upset with the homosexuality.
So Chris, Chris says he's not even on the same map.
As the reservation.
So, so yeah.
Yeah.
After that, Andrew said, I've got to keep.
Checking my, my blood pressure.
Yeah.
Oh dude.
All right.
So, uh, Greg, Greg Moore asked the question, uh, Andrew, what is your best
understanding of Christ and the three days in the tomb?
Friday to Sunday doesn't give us the three full days.
Do you subscribe to the high feast Sabbath theory?
Okay.
So I'm not sure we have an episode on this.
Yeah.
I'm not sure what the high feast Sabbath theory is.
So I don't know.
I could speak directly to that.
Uh, I have done, uh, we, we actually did, I think here in apologetics live, we did something
on a good, you know, with good Friday, was it Friday or Thursday or Friday?
Uh, and so I, I do take that it is Friday to Sunday because any
part of the day would, would count as the day.
It didn't have to be three, 24 hour days.
That's just not remember when we talk about scripture, we're talking
about a language that's at least 2000 years old, you know, 2000 to 3 ,500
years.
That culture has not changed as much as our culture.
Okay.
We, we have to recognize that we live in a culture where like ever, it used to be every 40 years, then every 20 years
now, it's like every, every year, I think now it's accelerated to every year.
Everything's changing.
I mean, words, meanings, everything, they've lost, everyone's just lost their minds, but
we have to interpret back in what the words meant at the time it was written.
So that's, that's one thing we have to do.
And I don't, what we have to see is that they did not hold when they would say a
day, like if they say three days, it didn't have to be three 24 hour days.
If any part of the day would count.
And we sometimes speak that way as well, but we are typically more precise with it and saying
three 24 hour days, especially within Christianity, because we're arguing over the literal six
24 hour days of creation.
And I think that causes people to think that the three days had to be three 24 hour days as well.
But I, but they don't have to be.
You guys have anything else you want to add?
You know, I mean, what you said, sounds good.
I mean, and I've always held to that as well.
But I will say the, the argument that was made on, I think, I think it was one of
your rap reports.
It might've been a rap report.
I think it was with, with, with Aaron Brewster from one of his two podcasts,
Celebrate God and Truth, Love, Parent.
So, and he, he made a really compelling argument.
Yeah.
I would actually say, I mean, go back, just go back and search the rap report with Aaron Brewster.
And I'll tell you, I think Aaron made the best arguments I have
ever heard uh, for a, a Thursday sacrifice of
Christ.
Um, but you know, if you, if you listen to his podcast, you'll realize Aaron is a guy that's
pretty precise.
He really thinks through things.
So, you know, he's, he's one of those guys that when he says something, he's probably right.
I disagree with him still, but he had some really good arguments.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That because once I heard that, I was like, okay, now I'm confused.
Yeah.
I thought I had it, now I'm confused.
Kind of like an offhanded comment that, you know, Jim Osmond might make, you know, and confuses you.
Bringing that up again, huh?
Yeah.
I'm just saying.
All right.
All right.
Um, a question from D, a question, what can you say to someone who admits
to election, but denies particular redemption, aka limited atonement?
Uh, so I guess the question becomes, because a lot of people do, there's a lot of people
who, uh, will say they believe in election.
They'll say they're a four -pointer.
The one that most people have issue with is limited atonement.
And when we look at limited atonement, there's, so there's a lot with this to, to,
uh, you know, because the real hangup people have is, can we say that Jesus died for all people?
And this is a thing, there's an interesting book I'm going through right now, and he refers to what he calls
classical, um, classical Calvinism.
And he makes a distinction between the Calvinism before John Owen's book, Death of Death, and
after.
Now, John Owen's book, Death of Death, is a phenomenal book, very, very heady book.
It's, it's a lot to get through, but he makes a outstanding, especially logical
argument that Christ could only have died for the elect.
And, and it really did change what, what this one author is saying.
It changed the view of Calvinism after that.
Uh, the, now I, I, I hold to a view, and, and these guys may jump on me and tell me
I'm not Calvinist, and that's fine.
Uh, I, I hold to a view that I do believe in a, in a limited atonement.
Okay.
But, um, let me bring it up.
Uh, I, I struggle with the text 1 John 2 .2.
Okay.
The reason I struggle with this is it says, and, um,
and he himself is the propitiation for our sins
and not for ours only, but also
for those of the whole world.
So the issue here is Christ was a propitiation.
That word means he, he was the wrath.
Mm -hmm.
He suffered the wrath.
And when we look at that, that is, so the question is,
did that come about when he did that?
Was that just for the elect?
Well, John is saying that it's for the, the world.
He, he emphasizes world by saying whole world.
Okay.
So now we have a whole world.
Okay.
We, we end up with a thing where is that everybody, or is this one of those cases
where world means all the nations?
Well, I don't make that the argument based on the whole or world, but the us and
not us, because he says not for ours only, but the whole world.
So the whole world is defined by who the us are, the ours.
Um, so this is a note that I have in, in my Logos on this.
It says the, the key to this text is the question of who is being spoken of in the text.
There are two groups of people mentioned that Jesus was a propitiation for us and not us.
Thus, the question is who is the us?
Many will claim that this refers to Jew, the Jews and Gentiles.
However, by the time of first John, there was not a Jew Gentile issue anymore.
Furthermore, there is no reference in first John to any Jew
Gentile distinction.
Therefore, that does not seem to fit the context.
The context provides the answer in verse one, the us is my little
children.
This is, this was John's way to speak of believers.
So if the us is and our are referring to believers, then the not
us, the, those that are not of ours only must refer to non -believers.
So a lot of people have a hard time when I say that, but what I'm trying to do is break down that text.
Remember first John, he's writing to Gnostics about the Gnostic issue, not the Jew Gentile distinction.
Right.
And so I, I can say that Jesus died for
everyone.
However, that's in, in, as what the Puritans would say, his death was
sufficient for all, efficient for few.
And so in this sense, what I'm saying is I can say to someone, Christ died for you.
I think I can say that, but it doesn't mean that his death is applied to them.
And so in my limited thinking, I remember we don't have the mind of God.
We don't, we're not, we are not eternal.
We can't think outside of time.
We're not omniscient.
God is.
And so there are times where God will speak about things because he has a knowledge that we can't
comprehend.
And so there are times he's got to speak down to us.
I know we don't think that we need to be spoken down to like a child because we think we're so smart compared to God.
You are like an infant, my friend.
Uh, you are a little toddler saying goo goo ga ga.
And that's something else out there compared to Satan compared to the
enemy.
You are like a child who knows nothing.
Yeah.
Thanks.
That really hurts.
That's me too.
It's me too.
I'm not, that's not directed just to you, buddy.
Yeah.
And so, so to answer the question, I would say, you know, there are people who, depending
how limited atonement is worded that people, when I know many people that just won't, they don't want to
say Christ died only for the elect.
I get it.
Um, I, I, I can say that Christ died for all.
Uh, and, and this is a bad illustration.
I, I use it, but it's just, it's an illustration cause I know it's true.
Um, I've been in a restaurant and we had a guy who we were
evangelizing and my friend Mark wanted, you know, to just bless him cause that's the way Mark
is and he wants to bless everybody.
So he, he basically said, walked up to the, you know, to the waitress and said, I want to
buy that guy's dinner.
And so he paid for the dinner.
Well, this guy went to pay for the dinner and she said, well, that guy over there paid for it.
He was so upset that, that we, that Mark paid for it.
He paid the meal again.
He paid it.
And then said to, he turned to the, to came over to the table.
He said, no one's going to buy me a meal.
I'm going to pay my own way.
He said, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to have someone pay me.
You can go get your money back if you want.
But I paid my meal.
It was paid.
And I remember turning to him and I said, you know what, you're going to be in hell for the very same reason
because you won't let anybody, not even Christ pay your fine.
And so the reality is, was the, was the meal paid?
Yes.
Did he pay it himself again?
Yes.
He still, he paid it.
You know, even though the debt was, the slate was clean.
Now, I want to say something about, uh, the, the terms because, you know, people get hung up on the
redemption or limited atonement.
Well, first everyone limits the atonement in one way or.
Another.
Right.
Well, except for the universalist, except for the universalist.
Yeah.
So if you believe, you know, John Reese here was the one that said this to me.
He's like, if you believe anybody is in hell, you believe the atonement is limited.
Now we're just discussing how much.
That's right.
That's right.
So, uh, the terms that I would, I would throw out to people is definite
atonement or indefinite atonement.
Either, either the atonement actually does something and it does something to the,
to its fullest extent for those whom it covers or it.
Does not.
Okay.
So, so James is asking, he died for all it's only efficient for the elect.
Well, I don't know that, you know, still I struggle with it that way even because in a sense
he did, but in his mind he knew exactly who he died for.
He knew who, you know, so, so, so the question I always ask with this James, and this is where I struggle in whose
mind are we speaking of?
See, if, if I'm, if I'm speaking to an unbeliever, I feel I can say Christ died for you because I don't know,
but his death was sufficient for that person I'm speaking to.
But in the mind of God, when Jesus was on the cross, he knew
every single person who he would bring to repentance.
Right.
And so in that sense, we would say, and this is a logical argument, we would say, yes,
he died only for the elect.
And, and so this is where people think I'm trying to be wishy -washy.
I'm not, I'm really not.
I'm trying to be precise.
And yet I understand that I have a limited ability.
To understand the mind of God.
Well, I mean, cause we, scripture's clear that there's the predestination and the foreknowledge of
God.
So we have to understand those two things.
Those are true truths that we can't get away from that scripture talks about that, that
happens, but at the same time, did Christ die for all, right?
That's a legitimate question that people ask.
And it's one that deserves an answer.
So, so can we say he died for all?
I would, I would agree with, with Andrew's Andrew's conclusion.
Yes, it's sufficient for all, but it's only efficacious for the elect.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you know, I'll be, I'm surprised.
I.
Mean, cause you guys are agreeing with me and I actually didn't expect that because a lot of people jump on me because they say, well, I'm not a
Calvinist based on that.
Because this is, this is one of the kind of the pet peeves that people have is like, they have to take a
passage and it's got to fit into the theological system.
And I'm like, for me, I'm a man of the word.
And so this is a case where the word disagrees with the theological system, many hold to.
And I have to say, what am I going to put as my, which what's going to be the real authority here?
Is it going to be the word of God or is it going to be the systematic theology?
And where you get guys that put the systematic theology as the authority, they can't
discuss theology with people that disagree with them because they got to be right.
And they couldn't do what we did the other last night, have a Presbyterian, a
dispensational Baptist, and a new covenant or a progressive covenantalist
Baptist sit and have a conversation, disagree, have fun with it, enjoy each other's company.
They can't do that because the theology has got to be right.
But when you're a man of the word or person of word, you can sit and do what we did and say, well, what about this?
What about, and engage with the text and go, you know, you make a really good point there.
Not sure if I agree with you, but you make a really good point.
Because I see how you handle the text.
Now, now going back to 1 John 2 .2.
Now I would, I would disagree in part in some of, some of that, just because
right.
Who is the hour that he's talking about?
Well, the, my little children.
Well, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say that this is a letter
that was generally just written to everyone, right?
This is, it's written to a specific people.
Correct.
Correct.
So when, when John says.
Who was struggling with this specific issue?
Right.
Correct.
And so he's saying my little children.
So he's talking to that group of believers.
So when he, when he says, you know, not just for our sins, right.
I'm reading that as going, well, not just you, you, my little children who I'm writing
to, not just you and me, but I'm seeing it as also the,
the sins of all believers are throughout the world.
Right.
All to whom would ever believe.
And so let me, let me go back to something, Andrew, you said a second ago, and this is where I can just for the record, do what
I think it was more than a second.
It was more than a second.
You're right, buddy.
This is a problem.
I mean, like, I'm like to be precise and it gets me in trouble.
Yeah.
Trust me.
I've I'm, I'm dealing with it right now and I've learned I'm or I'm learning.
Oh man.
I'm, I'm the same way.
So, so here's, and here's, here's the issue too.
And Drew, you brought a good point.
So this is, this is kind of piggybacking on two things that you guys just said a few minutes ago.
Number one, the whole attack on Calvinism and Calvinists and, and, and people that, that, that, that
come at us with verses like first John, you know, at first John two.
And, and they, they, they think we know this, they think this is our Bible
religion.
This is not our Bible.
All right.
What?
And John Calvin would not want you to treat this as your Bible.
And people say that you worship.
Right.
And it's like, this is your Bible.
Hold that up again.
Legacy standard Bible.
Oh no, no, no.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So is that like a goat skin one too?
It is.
It's a, it's a rebound from a buddy of Vitaly over at solely deal Gloria rebounds.
I got, I got one that I'm, I got one that I got to put on order with a post -tenalist tent back.
I can never say.
Jeff Rice.
But look, brothers and sisters, you know, if you subscribe to the doctrines of grace, if you
believe in the doctrines of grace, then you need to be able to first Peter three, right?
Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.
Know the word, be a pro know the word of God, know what it says.
Be ready in season, out of season.
I'm going to combine some verses here.
Be ready in season and out of season.
Always be prepared to give defense for the hope that you have, but do so with gentleness, know what the word says
and what it means by what it says.
I don't believe in the doctrines of grace because John Calvin taught them.
I don't believe in the five points of Calvinism, which by the way, were five points of response to Arminianism.
Yeah.
Believe those because John Calvin wrote them.
I believe those because I've, I've gleaned that framework from what's in here in
context, authorial intent, and how we can apply that to our lives.
So where Calvin got it and Augustine, everyone else, John Calvin didn't want his own
name on his tombstone.
He is not was, he was not some prideful, arrogant man that's worship me.
No, that was not Calvin.
So, but anyway, but, but I mean, the point is, is to, is to be able to have these conversations and Andrew to, to your point as
well with, with Greg and with Keith and like, you know, you guys, everybody that's ever
watched apologetics live knows that Drew is post -millennial.
I'm not, you know, you can, you can have those conversations and still go,
love you.
Right.
Like I, I will, I will, I will storm hell's gates with you.
That's it.
Drew's off the show.
All right.
He's out.
Okay.
I was just about to bring myself back.
So, but anyway, no, I just, I mean, this, this whole conversation just made me think about those, those things just real quick.
Yeah, no, but it's good.
You know, and I'll just before the next question, I'll just say this, you know, I still remember what really good
comment that can't say advice because it wasn't meant to be advice, but I had lunch with one of my seminary professors and he made
a comment that was really insightful.
I've never forgotten it.
He said, yeah, cause this is a, you know, I went to a fundamentals Baptist seminary and
we're right up, you know, just 20 minutes from Westminster Presbyterian seminary.
And so the, the professors would sometimes get together and, and here's my OT professor, old Testament professor.
And he said, you know, I can get together with the guys at
Westminster and I can sit down with them and we can, we can
discuss the Bible.
We can open up the text and we can find a lot of agreement.
He said this, the systematic theology guys, they can't do that because they, they fight over the
theology.
They can't look at the text.
And it really, that was the thing that got me to say, I really want to be a person of the text because
that it really helped me to realize that there are people who, who, who end up knowingly or unknowingly
choosing to put their theology above scripture and they interpret scripture by their theology rather than
their theology by scripture.
Yeah, it was, I'd say who really helped me with that.
And if you guys have never heard Dr. Tom Buck talk about frameworks.
So I, it was in 2020, I went, I did the expository preaching workshop before G3.
And, and that was one of the things he talked about in there.
And he talked about the way that even us and like in reform circles and reform community, like we do it.
And, and so I started praying for the Lord to open my eyes to ways I was doing that.
And there were a lot of things that I was reading framework in instead of taking a step back in
context, context, context, context, and pulling the frameworks from scripture.
So just a good reminder for all of us.
So, all right.
So this next question that we have, oh man, this may put us to sleep.
So now would be a really good time for us to do it.
So to bring up the fact that we're sponsored here by MyPillow.
MyPillow is some great pillows.
Drew, I know you love your good night's sleep with your.
MyPillow, right?
Oh no, you don't because your wife has it.
Well, no, because I bought her, her own.
Oh, good man.
Did you, did you buy her the 2 .0 version though?
Oh no, no, now you got, so, so I will, she doesn't see this.
And so I, I did say that I'd come back and, and, and let folks know I have been
using the, the MyPillow 2 .0 with the MyPillow 2 .0 mattress topper, the three inch mattress topper,
which I absolutely love the mattress topper.
But yet I will say that it has, it has kept me from having that,
you know, the, the sleep where I'm, I'm sweating all night and things like that.
So I've really enjoyed it.
So go get yourself a MyPillow.
They have a lot of great products out there.
So MyPillow .com, use the promo code SFE, it stands for striving for
eternity.
That way they know you heard about them, hear from us.
All right, so let's, let me try to, I'm going to get to this next question.
I want to, we got someone backstage who also asked a couple of questions.
Don't know if we can get through all of his questions, but we'll try.
But, all right, so real quick, so Christian Video says, Matt Slick question again, was Jesus sprinkle,
sprinkled like priests had to be?
Okay, so let me, I first have to explain Matt's view.
I'm going to just do a high level because we're trying to be quick.
We only have 40 minutes left in the show and I, and we still have a ton of questions.
So Matt Slick's view is that when, when Jesus was baptized, he said to John, you know, John said, you
should baptize me, I shouldn't baptize you.
He said, do this, you know, because it's, you know, I forget the exact wording that Jesus had now,
but you know, because it's, it's, it's an all righteousness or something.
So, so basically Matt's view is that what, what John the Baptist was
doing, John being from the family, being a family that was a priest,
that he was, he was sprinkling Jesus based because
what they would do when they would, would ordain a priest would take, would take oil and sprinkle
it on the priest in the order of Aaron.
And therefore he's saying that that's what, what, what John was doing to Jesus.
And he was ordaining him in the order of Melchizedek.
Now, okay.
So a couple of things there.
One, we do not have anywhere in scripture where it says that you have to be sprinkled with
anything in the order of Melchizedek, because there's no instruction on anything with how someone becomes a
priest of the order of Melchizedek.
And I'm going to explain why I think that's the case in a moment.
Number two, what they were sprinkled with was oil and not water.
So what you're having is someone say, well, see this sprinkling, taking the sprinkling literally, but then saying,
well, the oil could be figurative, but the oil was not figurative.
It was literal oil.
And so I, I, I love Matt.
This is not a rip on Matt.
It's just the differing ways that we interpret scripture.
Matt is looking and, and, and going through the scriptures to, to fit this in as when, when
Matt and I debated this, what is the instruction for the order of Melchizedek for
ordaining someone there?
And he's like, well, we don't know.
So we use the order of Aaron, but that you can't just do that.
You can't just take it and say, well, this applies to that unless scripture says it applies to that.
So I don't think he was sprinkled.
I think he went, I mean, John was baptizing in Jordan because there was much water.
One of the things that I pointed out a bunch of times to Matt, when we were in Israel together was all the mikvahs that were there,
because that is what John the Baptist was doing.
He was doing a ritual bathing that Jewish people would understand.
And when you go to Israel and you see all the mikvahs, they are big enough to put a person because a person would be
submerged in it.
And that's why John the Baptist went where there was much water because there was enough water
to baptize and submerge someone.
So besides the fact that baptism means to plunge or dip.
Okay.
So it means to be submerged.
Now, why do I think we don't have an order of Melchizedek, any instruction on it?
Because there's only one person in that order and it is Jesus.
I do not believe that when we see Melchizedek in Genesis, that
is a type of Christ.
I believe that is the pre -incarnate Christ.
That is Jesus Christ that goes to Abraham.
And I think Paul, did I give that away?
Paul in Hebrews, because Tom Buck convinced me that that is a sermon by Paul
and that's what he did his dissertation on.
It's like R .C. Sproul.
Yeah.
R .C. Sproul, he would always say that.
He'd be like, he'd be like, so the apostle Paul wrote in Hebrews and he'd stop and be like, yeah, I said it.
Listening to Jim unpack Hebrews, he convinced me it wasn't Paul.
Yeah.
I listened to Jim and I didn't hear that.
So I don't know what you're listening to.
So I think that what you see in Hebrews is he makes it really clear that Abraham is
blessing Melchizedek because Melchizedek is the greater.
Well, the greater was Jesus.
And so that's why, so to answer the question, no, I don't, that's the long answer.
I don't think he was sprinkled.
All right.
Let me just get, let's see if we can get through the number of these and then we have someone
here backstage and I think I'm, the names are different, but I think it's just, it might be the same person just because of the symbol.
But does anti -theism propose theism?
Presuppose theism?
Yes.
You just, you are God.
Well, no, it does just in the fact that you need an ability to reason, you need, you are
first assuming when you say there is no God, you're assuming an ability to reason,
you're assuming truth, knowledge, morality, laws of logic.
All these are immaterial.
If there is no God, you can't explain those things.
They can't exist.
The immaterial world can't be.
So therefore any atheist that says that a man can identify as a woman just
gave up his atheism because he's saying that a person can identify
opposite to their biology.
So they're done.
All right.
I think one of you guys will probably want to grab this one because I've been answering a bunch of these, but question from James.
Does John 6 teach pre -preeminent grace in that we are not, that we
naturally don't seek God, but prevenient grace allows it?
Also, does Romans 9 teach corporate election?
Now, let me explain corporate election for folks.
Corporate election is the idea that when God elected, he elected the nation of Israel and the church,
not individual people.
And so what they're saying, huh?
Eschatology question.
Yeah.
Well, it's not really an eschatology, but it's, so in Romans 9, what they say, and I went to a church where a pastor believed
this, that when it says Esau, Jacob, I've loved Esau, I hated, he's speaking of Israel versus
Gentiles.
So Jews versus Gentiles, Jews I love and Gentiles I don't.
That doesn't fit his right.
See?
So, so yeah, I, so I just gave away the answer for Romans 9.
No, I don't believe that's, I think it's being specific and that's why it's naming names.
What part of John, is he talking about the, on the bread of life?
I'm not sure.
Which section of John 6?
John 6 is a long chapter.
John 6 is a long chapter.
Yeah.
And there's, there's a lot.
71 verses in John 6.
So.
And I'm, so I'm guessing.
So let's, let's, because we've got a bunch of questions.
James, we'll ask James if he could, if he could further clarify and, and we'll move on
if we can, cause we can now get two people backstage.
Let me grab Melissa's question real quick.
And it just says, how can we correct an open theist?
I have given them many scriptures and explained to them the full context, no veil.
The conversation with them can be frustrating.
Melissa, it's frustrating.
I would say because of what we said earlier.
When they're putting their theology above the text, then it doesn't matter what text, what text you give them, they
got their theology.
So my dear sister, Melissa, I would, I would encourage you to have whoever it believes in that
grab one of two things, have them get a copy of Charnock's existence and attributes of God and, or show me
your glory by Dr. Stephen Lawson to study who God is versus who he's not.
That would be a suggestion.
If you haven't tried that, that is, that is hard.
And it's, it's very difficult to have those conversations with people like Andrew said, that, that bring that framework.
And somebody asked about latent flowers, bring that framework in, and they won't budge from that
because the framework is their gospel.
The word of God is not their gospel.
The framework is correct.
And, and, and you just mentioned one of my, like my all time favorite book outside of the Bible.
So, uh, John's asking soteriology one -on -one Dr. Layton flowers.
What are your thoughts now?
What caught me was more, this one's Christian video says Layton flowers is a heretic.
He is a Pelagian and denies original.
Sin.
I don't know that that's true.
I don't think he's a provisionist.
Yeah.
I don't think he would.
Agree with full on Pelagian and I don't, and I don't think he denies original sin.
Um, I, you know, I, and I'm saying this now, what do I think of him personally?
Uh, I haven't spoken to him in, in many years, but you know, he's someone I would, I would consider a friend or at least I used to,
um, incentive.
We used to talk.
He's, he's a really nice guy, sweet guy.
Um, I just wish he'd get off his hobby horse because he's got really bad arguments and, and doesn't interpret scripture
well.
Um, and I, I think I, and I've told him this, this is not anything that I didn't say to him.
Uh, and even, uh, you know, I, I mentioned we did the podcast, you
know, with, um, you know, with Keith and he did one with Layton
flowers.
And when he did it with Layton flowers, one of the things he did was he ended up, uh, getting
all of us to talk about, uh, Layton flowers and Keith played it for him.
And I, you know, my thing was, you know, it seems he's wants to build, he's, he built a
platform ever since he did his debate with James white on being an anti -Calvinist and that worked for building a platform.
And I, you know, I just think he's a good evangelist, which is what his
area is.
And if he stuck to that, you know, I, you know, it'd be, it'd be much better.
Um, all right.
Uh, I'm going to bring in someone backstage.
I think this is the person that asked the question about Isaiah 60, and I don't know how to pronounce your name,
John, just so we could CPL, John, I'm going to put you backstage, but just let us know if you want to come back
in.
So, uh, so just give us your name, introduce yourself.
My name is Ash Shalom Ash Ash Shalom.
Okay.
Thank you.
I, I, I just want to make sure I pronounce it right.
And I didn't know how to pronounce that.
So you, what question do.
You have for us tonight?
Um, looking at numbers 24 versus 17 through 20.
Yeah.
And I thought,.
Yeah, I thought you were the same person that asked about the numbers 24.
I have that question up here as well, but it was, I was, did you
ask, ask one about, did you, you, was this you as well,.
The Isaiah 60?
Um, no, that's my right hand man.
Oh, okay.
Just cause you had the same Z over here.
Okay.
So you asked, this is the one you asked about, um, but it does tie into Isaiah 60 as well.
Um, I wanted to know mainly it's a, it's a multifaceted question.
Do you, um, believe that numbers 24 and 17 is talking about Christ in
future tense?
Okay.
So, um,.
This is going to be one of those ones where I, I, I, I, I'm going to say right off the bat, my initial answer is, I don't
know, just, just because I haven't studied this in depth.
Um, I was trying to read this while, while, while we were talking.
Um, but I, I looking at the, at the context, even I I'm not, I would have to dig into it a
little bit further.
Yeah.
There's a, there's a lot going on here.
Yeah.
And so, uh, but let me, let me put it this way.
So let me ask it this way.
Uh, I'll ask you maybe next week we can, we could dig into it further.
What, what would be your view?
Um, if I, if I could ask for you to explain your view and I can, I can at least look into this and maybe give you an answer
next week.
Would that be fair?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That would be good.
Um, I wouldn't mind just setting up a dialogue entirely.
So we could kind of have a back and forth about it.
Okay.
If y 'all have the time, um, we could,.
You know what we could do next week.
Why don't we, why don't we, uh, that gives me a week to.
Look into it and study this out more.
Um, I'm going to put my email in the private chat.
Okay.
And then, um, you know, look at Isaiah 60 instead, but I'll give my exegesis first.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Explain this one.
And then, and then we could look at Isaiah 60, Isaiah 60, what verses?
Um, Isaiah 60, we'd be starting at verse one, just to make sure that we grab the context.
And then I would want to skip down to verse 10, just because, uh, when you look at
scriptures in the Bible, um, we could, we could take a new Testament stance and we'll look at books like
Acts, go to Acts, the first chapter, the fifth verse.
And, um, the Jews that were around at the time, they asked Christ when he came back,
um, will thou at this time restore the kingdom unto Israel?
So there was some form of the gospel preached to them before Christ hit the scene.
And a part of that gospel consists of them being delivered from the hands of their enemies.
Hence Zacharias's stance in Luke one.
Right.
So this is a part of that view.
Okay.
And I'll just jump straight into the exegesis if that's okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, just, if you could just do it, just do it quickly.
Cause we are getting short on time and we do have someone else backstage and a couple more questions.
So.
Okay.
So it says, um, I shall see him, but not now starting at verse 17, I shall
behold him, but not nice saying that this is something that's going to take place in the distant future.
There shall come a store out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.
So just stopping there, I see that it's prophesying about the King that's going to come
out of Israel in the latter days, that being Christ.
Right.
But it goes on to say that and shall smite the corners of Moab.
This is translated to princes of Moab and other iterations and destroy the children of Seth.
Thinking of, uh, the book of Obadiah, where it says the day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen,
for example.
And it says in Edom shall be a possession.
Seer also shall be a possession for his enemies and Israel should do valiantly.
To me, this is, uh, it brings me back to Psalm 149, for
example.
So what I see is that there's a conquering that takes place echoed throughout the scriptures.
And, um, it's a part of a message of good news for the Israelites.
So I would like to talk about that when we get a chance looking at Isaiah 60, it echoes more of that.
And, uh, my, my captain has arrived.
He wanted to know what your views on that work.
That's why he, uh, asked about Isaiah 60.
Okay.
I'm just, uh, I'm just jotting this.
Down so that I want to make sure that, you know, I can study it out this week and, and, uh, yeah, so we'll,
we'll, we'll, you know, next week we can, we can dig into this a little bit.
Um, what would, what would be, uh, just so I know what's your, your background?
What would, you know, would you, what would you be Baptist or like, what, how would you identify as far as, uh,
your views of things?
Seed of Jacob.
Okay.
I see, I see you have a shirt.
Does that say, uh, Hebrew Israelite?
Absolutely.
Okay.
All right.
So would you, would you identify yourself as a,.
Like a black Hebrew Israelite or?
No, Hebrew Israelite.
We find black Hebrew Israelite as offensive as we minister also to Hispanic,
Native American populace.
Okay.
Okay.
So, um,.
Would, would, would you, and just, would you, would you be, uh,
and this is just me trying to, to understand, um, in asking the questions, but with that, with, are
you, would you be believing that the, uh, the, the blacks that came over in the slave trade
were the Hebrew Israelites?
I would say at least 50 of them were, but I'm leaning towards the majority of them
yet.
Okay.
Yep.
Just, just, I'm just trying to, you know, cause there's, when people speak of Hebrew Israelites or black
Hebrew Israelites, there's, there's a wide range, uh, in that.
Um, and, and it's, it's, uh, there's a lot of different kind of sex or groups in there.
So it's kind of hard to know, you know, so unfortunately when someone says they're a black Hebrew Israelite or Hebrew Israelite,
it doesn't give me enough to really know what someone believes kind of like Baptist, that could be anything.
Yeah.
I would, I would.
Recommend looking into one West theology.
Um, West.
Okay.
We call ourselves Hebrew Israelites.
Okay.
And we believe that when, uh, we rule under the dominion of Christ, the world's going to be
all the better for it.
As the scripture says, when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn, but when the righteous are in power, the people
rejoice.
And that's something that's coming.
But, um, you know, first we got to dispel a lot of the
falsehoods that are propagated in this modern version of the gospel.
So,.
Yeah.
Let me ask you a real important question.
Um, do you believe that Jesus is God?
No, I believe he's a God.
A God.
So you, you, do you believe that there's, there's many gods.
And more, more than one God?
Yeah, absolutely.
There's only, there's only one that really counts.
And Christ echoes this when he says, is it not written in your law, ye are gods.
That scripture says you're gods, but you shall die like men.
Okay.
So, so let me just, and I know I, I gotta get to some others cause we only have a couple minutes left, but, uh,
I, I, and I'd like to dig into that as well if we can in more detail next week.
But let me, let me just say this.
Let me, um, I want to just encourage you with something and we could, and it'll give you like, you gave me some things
to study and think about.
I want to give you some things to study and think about as well.
Um, when we look at, when we think about how we get right with God, right?
We, every one of us break God's law and we would, we would have an eternal
punishment because of that, because God is infinitely holy.
And because of that, when we, when we violate his law, it has an infinite consequence.
And so this is going to be my explanation for why Jesus had to be God is the fact that
it's the only way that Jesus could be a, a payment of sin for us is if he was
eternal to pay an eternal fine.
Cause if he wasn't eternal, it would take him forever to pay the final one person being an eternal being, which means he's
God there.
He can pay for more than one person and pay the eternal fine, but he had to be truly human as
well to be a true substitute for human beings.
And so, so I'm going to say something to you, Asher.
I don't mean it to be offensive yet.
I know that it could be taken that way.
And so I'm just, I'm kind of in the caveat because we've just met, but I care about you.
I don't want to, I don't want to come off like I'm insulting you or something, but what I believe the Bible says is that
if we don't believe that Jesus is God, then we're dead in our sins.
And I'm sure you disagree with me in that.
I get that.
But just hear me out at least in knowing that if I, if, if I believe what I believe, the worst thing
I could do is believe that you're going to hell and not try to warn you and care for you.
Okay.
So what I want to do is at least explain to you what I believe about where we all spend eternity, you know, and just
something for you to think about.
I hope we could dig into it more next week as well.
But if, if we don't believe that Jesus is God, then I believe that we, we don't have
the right Jesus, that we don't have the Jesus of the Bible, and then we're, we're going to be dead in our sin.
And we're going to end up spending eternity in a lake of fire, and I wouldn't want that for you.
Okay.
And so, so what we would see like in Romans 9 or 10, 9 and
10, it says we have to believe that Jesus is Lord, meaning God.
And the reason is because that is how we know that He was a payment of sin for us.
And, and, and why, what makes Jesus unique is that being truly God, He could pay an eternal fine, being truly man,
He could be a substitute for you and I so that He can offer us His mercy
and not, you know, because He paid the justice when He died and that we could be set free when we trust what
Jesus did as God on that cross.
So I just, just something for you to think about until next week.
Okay.
And, you know, and, and I'll, I'll tell you, you know, I, and I really need to finish my, my
book on deity of Christ, I know, but just starting to think about, and we could talk about it more, but 48 of the gospels
refer to Jesus as God.
That's a lot of it.
It's almost half because every time He read someone's mind, only God could do that.
Every time He took title of deity, every time that, you know, you, you have His enemies, you
have demons all calling Him God, you, you see Him doing things only God could do.
And I know a lot of people will say He did it because God did it through Him, but He says He does it of His own authority as well.
Where does He say that?
In, in John, I'll, I'll, I'll get the reference for you for next week.
But in John, He says, He, He will often say, I do this of my father.
And so He does, He does say He does it with His father's authority, but He also says He does of His own.
And so the, the thing is, is that He even, He was even challenged when He, when He
forgave someone of their, of their sins in, in Mark 2, He forgave a man of
his sins.
And what happens?
The Jews, Jewish people got upset because He said, who can forgive sins but God alone?
And He, and He said, which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven or rise and walk?
Well, they're both easy to say, right?
But one can be vindicated.
So to prove that He had the authority to forgive sins, which means to prove that He was
God, He said to the man, rise up and walk.
So He did what only God can do.
What was He doing?
He was saying there, I will prove to you, I have the authority to forgive sins.
So what He's really saying is I am God.
And doing that was saying, rise up and walk.
So He did.
Something that no man could do.
If I could, because I want to be respectful on your platform.
I appreciate the moment that you've given me.
I want to look at Isaiah 6 very quickly so that we can give the audience something to look forward to.
And I would challenge you to explain this.
Let me know when you got it.
So, would you be able to share the screen with the audience?
Sure, I could do that.
Very easy.
But I do have, and I heard you read King James.
Let me just ask, I have a different translation.
Is that going to be a problem for you?
That'll be all right.
I'll read the King James and they can look at it in whatever translation you have.
I would urge the audience to just look at it on their own time in any translation they prefer.
So you can cross -reference different translations.
Yeah, which is good to do.
So this is Isaiah 6.
Yeah.
So reading in the King James, it says, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also
the Lord sitting upon his throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Above it stood the seraphims.
So we're getting placement.
We're getting the setting.
There's the Lord sitting on his throne and there's seraphims sitting around the throne.
It says, each one had six wings.
With twain, he covered his face.
And with twain, he covered his feet.
And with twain, he did fly.
And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory.
And the post of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
Then said I, woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst
of a people of unclean lips.
For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
So there's seraphims sitting around the throne.
There's God sitting on his throne and his eyes are affixed on the Lord.
Then one flew of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with
tongs from off the altar.
And he laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, this have touched my lips, and thine,
or sorry, this have touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin
purged.
So here we have the seraphim doing the act of touching the coal to Isaiah's lips and purging his
sins.
We also see that Christ is prophesied to come as a fiery feathery serpent that we can also talk about next
week.
But here we have him alongside of God with other seraphims.
And then we have God sitting on his throne.
Yet the seraphim was able to be the one to take the tongs off the altar and purge the sins of Isaiah.
Looking at that, we can't see that there's this type of existence in the heavenly realm
and then say, because Jesus is able to take away sins, he is God.
Same way, we'll look at it in reverse.
When God destroyed the firstborn of the Egyptians, God was given the credit, but he said
that he sent his angel to do it.
So I would urge the audience to get acquainted with Hebraic thought before making
assertions strictly based off of the Greek mythologies that were installed into the translation of the New
Testament.
But it would be a real good bill to have,.
Hopefully, the sooner the better.
Yeah, let's talk about that next week, because I mean, yeah, I mean, I can talk about this with, this is
actually a passage I have studied out.
I find it sad, everyone stops at verse
eight, where he says, you know, whom I send me and has a whole bunch more verses
to go, but that are really important.
But yeah, I mean, because I actually make the case that was this actually cleansing his sins?
No, it was a picture of it.
And I'd make the, I mean, I would say in Hebraic thought that, you know, they knew that even the
offering of lambs wasn't the actual thing that was atoning for them, but the future Messiah would.
But all right, so let's, so yeah, thank you.
So we're looking forward to that next week, because it gives us a topic.
And so I appreciate it.
It's Asher, is that?
Ash.
Ash.
Ash.
Some people call me Ash.
My name is Ash.
Ash.
Ash.
Okay.
No, I want to try to be correct with it.
So, all right.
So thanks.
Looking forward to that.
So I'm going to put you backstage, bring Jason in.
So Jason, I think this is the first time you have joined us.
Oh, but you're.
Muted.
There you go.
Yes, we hear you.
Hey, nice to meet you.
Finally.
Yes, sir.
I have a long time viewer, as you guys know.
Yeah.
I'm only four years old, just a babe in Christ.
And Andrew is.
An odd man out here, because the three of us are from almost the same part in Georgia.
Yeah.
See, Chris Huff, though, is because you're all wearing a hat and I wasn't.
See, when you actually have hair, you know, you don't need a hat.
He's got a lot of hair.
He's got more than all of us.
So what question do you have?
You had some earlier.
Yes, about the Messianic Jewish.
So just a little bit of backstory.
The church I go to is a Baptist by denomination, but we preach the whole Bible and
you're formed, you know, it's kind of up in the air with me and the pastor and the deacons.
But anyways, so recently, within the last two months, we've had a Messianic Jewish
congregation that has been using our space, our sanctuary on Saturday.
OK.
And so that came about.
One of our former members is now married to a rabbi and but they are Messianic Jews
and they have been intermingling with our congregation as well.
As Drew said earlier, this we actually got invited and went to a Seder dinner this past Easter,
the Passover Seder.
And it was interesting.
You know, that's all I'm going to say about that.
Definitely a lot.
Of, to me, just...
Do you know, do they believe that they have to be, that the law saves them?
I don't know.
I have not clarified and had that conversation with the rabbi yet.
That becomes an important question.
Are they saved through Christ or do they, you know, do they believe that we must do law keeping?
And if they believe we must do law keeping,.
Then, you know, they have a workspace system.
Right.
So they do uphold the Old Testament covenants, as far as I can see, to an extent.
Now, and that's the thing you want to, we want.
To give grace and be careful because some people just like those ceremonies and they think it adds,
it adds more.
You know, I have family that, not obviously my direct family, because
people know no one in my family is saved, but my son -in -law's family, that they,
you know, celebrate Passover and some of the Jewish holidays.
They don't do any work on the Sabbath, but they're not like Hebrew roots.
They're not, you know, they know Christ is the Savior and Christ
is everything.
So there are people like that, that they just, they read the Old Testament, they like
the festivals, and.
You'll have some people that are like that.
Let's see.
And that's what I gather.
The rabbi is Orthodox Jew upbringing, and then has recently, within the last however many
years, come to know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, is my understanding.
And again, you know, the main reason I'm trying to ask this question is, you know, I need to know
if, is praying for discernment for if this is a mission field that the Lord is bringing to us,
or if they are already brothers.
And sisters in Christ.
Yeah, and you'd have to ask them to really know and get some clarifying things, because
it really comes down to, you know, do they, do they,.
A, you know, one, do they believe in the deity of Christ, just like we just talked about?
Deity of Christ, okay.
Do they believe that works save us?
If they believe we have to be saved by doing the law, then they're not brothers in Christ.
If they deny the deity of Christ, then they're not brothers in Christ.
Now, here's the thing I would do if I were you.
I would ask the questions.
I wouldn't make the conclusions, okay?
Right.
I would let your pastor do that.
Here's another good question, Jason.
Ask them what they do with Isaiah 53.
Okay.
Yeah.
Now, part of the thing is you might have just a modern day first century situation.
You have someone who comes out of this very traditional sense, and he's struggling with that, and it's like, but this
is everything.
This is what I know,.
Right?
And that's what I get a sense of.
Like, even at the Passover Seder we went to, his emphasis was more on the
fact that, and of course, just like Drew said, we were addressed as Gentiles, and that's fine.
But his emphasis was still on that we are all family, and we
are all brothers in Christ was what were his specific words.
So I'm leaning more towards hopefully the salvation is there through
Christ and Christ alone, and they just do the works as more of a traditional
deal to honor the old ways, if you will.
Yeah.
And so that's what you got to, you know, you have to work out, and it's going to be just a lot of asking questions and just, no,
I'm just trying to understand.
I'm just trying to understand so that he knows you're not trying to challenge him, but it may take
asking for definition of terms.
Okay.
Because, you know, he may use language and you might have to just say,.
What do you mean by that?
Right.
A lot.
Most definitely.
He's a board certified physician, doctor, very, very
intelligent person, and he's a rabbi as well.
So yeah, most definitely we'll have to ask for the definition of terms.
All right.
So maybe next week you come back, let us know how that goes.
Will do.
All right.
Love you all.
Thank you all for the content.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Go Dawgs.
Go Braves.
Go Dawgs.
Sick them.
Oh, man.
I don't know what you guys are talking about.
All right.
So this one's going to, okay.
So by the way, let me just deal with this.
Proverbs 17, 11 said, I'm born again, not dumb again.
Why would I entertain a Hebrew Israelite?
The reason, you know, look, I know that some people were frustrated with the last time we had someone on that was a
Hebrew Israelite a couple of weeks ago.
And people were like, you know, this guy, you know, they didn't like, well, guess what?
This guy is deceived.
And so this is called evangelism.
This is what our job is to do as Christians, to make disciples, we teach him all things
Christ has taught us.
So why would I entertain a Hebrew Israelite?
Because he needs the gospel.
If you didn't pick up on that, he did.
But the other reason is so people can see how to engage with someone like this, because you're going to
come across them on the streets.
And that's what this show is about, is to help you, the listening audience, to not only answer your questions, but
also not just teach apologetics, but why we do what we do in apologetics.
Correct.
And that's the goal of this show.
And so why would we entertain them to not just show you how to interact with someone like that, but
also to explain why we interacted the way we interacted with that.
So I'll say, why did I let him share what his view was of the text?
Well, one reason is so next week, I kind of have an understanding of what his view is.
That's one reason.
Two, it shows respect to him, to let him voice what he believes, so that he will listen
to what I believe.
And he was very respectful.
And he heard me explain.
I mean, I'm telling him he's going to hell.
And he listened respectfully.
And so, yeah, am I looking forward to next week?
Yeah.
Because he seemed very respectful in his question.
And I think it'll be a good conversation.
Will we get anywhere?
Probably not.
Okay.
So he's saying I stand corrected.
So whoever is Proverbs 1711, I got a lot of respect for you.
No, seriously, because not enough people, and I got to go look up what Proverbs 1711 is.
That's what I'm doing right now.
Because I just don't know it offhand.
Everyone in the audience is looking up Proverbs.
A rebellious man seeks only evil, so a cruel messenger will be sent against him.
Yeah, there you go.
And so, I respect that Proverbs 1711, because a lot of people won't
say, hey, you know what?
Corrected.
So, appreciate it.
So this one's the last one we'll deal with.
And I think this—.
Oh, yeah, go ahead.
Andrew, real quick, as an aside, I just want to say thank you for everything you're doing.
You have really helped me and my family and my children step out in confidence and be bold to
preach the gospel and to talk about the Lord everywhere we go.
Amen.
Amen.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
That's because you figure if an idiot like me could do it, anyone can, right?
That's right.
Amen.
Hey, I got to be good at something, right?
All right.
So, Jessica Bruce put this up, and
let me answer John's question real quick first.
Will you have a show on NAR Prophets on your show?
Will you have some of the NAR Prophets on your show soon, please?
I would if they would come on.
Let me tell you something.
When we went to the Philippines, Justin Peters and I, one of the things I did was I asked the folks in the Philippines, I said,
we were going to name names of people in the Philippines, and they knew which names we were going to name.
I said, will you contact those churches Thursday night before we would like to buy them
dinner so we could discuss what we're going to say at the conference?
They refused to come.
Then they attacked Justin for naming one of the names saying that Justin attacked his father on
his birthday.
How low is him?
He should have done this privately.
And the thing was we were able to say, we tried, and your father didn't want to show up.
Boom.
So there you go.
All right.
Jessica says this.
Calvinism is too exclusive.
The message is not the good news.
Of course, God knows everything, but it's hurtful to insist that he
only chose a few elect.
Now, there's a lot of misrepresentation in there.
I said that this is going to probably, you know, this is hard to do this in two minutes.
What I'd really love to do, Jessica, if you'd be willing to come on one time so we could,
I mean, seriously, I would like to engage in this because there's a lot here that
I think there's a lot here that I think I would say you probably have a different view of Calvinism than we do.
Clearly, I don't know if you were listening to what we were saying, because you're saying it's exclusive,
and I made the case that Christ died for the whole world, everyone.
So I would say that's pretty inclusive in that sense.
Saying it's hurtful, I guess I'm just going like, well, I'm saying not hurtful.
I mean, it's hurtful to Christ when people rebel against him.
That was going to be what I said, brother.
I was going to take a stab at it to do it in now 45 seconds.
Just to say, you know, having first of all, I think the main problem with this
assumption is to think that anyone deserves anything from God.
We are wretched, depraved sinners.
Our best attempts at righteousness are filthy rags.
We don't want fair.
None of us want fair.
We want grace.
We want mercy.
That is the best news that one could possibly hope for.
So if you're coming to salvation and soteriology and the way God saves with the
mentality of, well, that's not fair for God to do that, that only a few people get saved.
None of us deserve it.
So there's the first thing.
We have a very elevated view of man in this framework here.
And to Andrew's point, I literally held up the Institutes of the Christian Religion written by John Calvin and said, this is not our
Bible.
This is the Bible.
You said what I was going to say as well, that we have to have a high view of God, and we have to have a
proper view of man.
And the passage in Isaiah that we just read, I mean, it's a great one because what does he see?
When he recognizes he's in the presence of God, the only thing he could see is a sinfulness.
He's broken, not only of his own sinfulness, but the sinfulness of the nation.
And so Jessica, what I would say is, and this is where I'd love to have you on so we
could dialogue more.
And so if you'd be willing, so Jessica, email me at info at striving
for eternity .org, info at striving for eternity .org.
Contact me there so that we can set up a time for you to come in, maybe the week
after next, so that we could spend time and allow you time to explain.
Because what are we doing?
We're reading into this however many character in this one sentence thing, and we're reading a
lot into it.
And that's also kind of not fair to you either.
But we're trying to unpack it.
And a lot of it's going to take some time understanding what do you mean by that?
And so I'd love for you to come in.
But in a quick answer, I would say it's, yeah, you're right.
God knows everything.
And so it's not that God, see the whole thing with it, it could be that you have a view of Calvinism
of where God is determinate, that God forces people to believe or not believe.
And that's not what Calvinism would believe.
Now there are, now let me clarify, some Calvinists do, okay, there are hypercal, what I'd call hyper
Calvinist, but or determinist, that, and my wife's Sunday school teacher before we got married was
like that.
I mean, he went so far as to say, you know, I asked him, I said, if I just slap you across the face,
did I do that?
Or did God do that?
He said, Oh, God made you do that.
I'm like, okay, I can't, I can't, you know, he just removes all human responsibility.
That's looking at one side of a coin and ignoring the other.
And, and that's not what, what the majority of Calvinists do.
Will you put the last comment she just said, because this is key.
This is key, because this is misrepresenting what true biblical Calvinists would believe.
It says it's hurtful to the mission too, because it implies there's no real need to spread the
gospel.
Jessica, no true biblical Calvinist, no true
reformed believer believes that we, we don't know who all the elect
are.
Therefore we are called required and commanded to preach the gospel, to
pray, earnestly pray and beg God and beg others to repent of their sin
and turn to Christ in hoping that the Lord would extend that grace to them.
It's, it's, it's, it's not, we're not the frozen chosen as Stephen J. Lawson would say.
We don't, we don't sit on our hands and just not do anything because of the doctrine of predestination and sovereign
election and salvation.
So that's a, that's an, unfortunately a mischaracterization.
Go ahead.
One thing that people don't understand or even know as you look through church history is that
all the big missions movements were done by Calvinists.
John Calvin sent out missionaries.
The modern missions movement was begun by Calvin.
Calvin, Knox, Luther.
The modern missions movement, right.
You know, William Terry.
And, and, and I'll just say this.
I, I travel all over this country evangelizing, right.
Many of you know that.
And most of the people that I meet that are on the streets evangelizing are Calvinists.
So I think, and I'm, I'm guessing, I think that she's
thinking, and this is a strawman argument that some people make against all Calvinists, but it's only some extreme Calvinists that
we would disagree with that would say that God saves people.
And what we say doesn't matter.
Well, yes, God saves people.
So Jessica, what I'd encourage you also to do, let me just encourage this.
If you go to, uh, rap report .org, that's my other podcast, R
-A -P -P report .org, or just go on your podcast app, search for that podcast
and search for the word super intending one word.
And I go in and define superintendent.
I say, this is the solution to the Calvinism Arminianism debate.
So I think if you listen to that, it, it, it may be something that would be helpful to you.
Now I saw that she was asking, well, why focus on Calvinism?
I, you know, let me just say this.
We don't focus.
I don't, at least I focus on a lot of different things here.
My, my, yeah, biggest thing I focus on is the gospel, but I also focus a lot on, on here.
And my biggest thing I focus on is how to interpret the Bible.
And now in that process, I'm going to come to biblical truths.
If, if what we call Calvinism is in line with that, then it's not that I'm focusing on
Calvinism.
I'm focusing on the Bible and the doctrines that are known as Calvinism happen to agree with it because
they're getting it from the Bible.
And so that would, Jessica, there's a book, there's a book you should check out.
It's called what's so what's so great about the doctrines of grace.
Repeat the title.
What's so great about the doctrines of grace.
Okay.
Another, another title you'll have to put into for the show notes.
You get a long list there you're going to send me.
All right.
So that, that's that's tonight's show.
Let me just see, cause she did say one more thing.
So I just want to see, I don't know if we'll have time to react, but she said, Jessica says, the thing is I hear so much about
Calvinistic views all over the place, but I feel that's not the good news at
all that at all mature believers can definitely feel good about being saved and being
chosen.
Um, and she's went on to say, but it is really that you want people to know
I'm a believer, uh, for a long time.
And it shakes my faith.
She corrected it after that to think about it.
And I'm hearing that one of the things that strikes me is I think she's hearing about Calvinistic
views from non -Calvinists.
Yeah.
That's what I think.
Or she's hearing a bunch.
People that are trying to defend Calvinism from those views.
And then, and it seems like, well, everyone's being, you know, like, and cause we've seen that where
if, if someone is making latent flowers and making really bad arguments, what's going to happen?
People are, I mean, the question would be why would no one criticize the latent flowers for his anti -Calvinism.
He's got a whole show dedicated to, it goes off for hours and hours and hours.
Nobody complains about him being an anti -Calvinist.
Now he wouldn't be a Pelagian.
He wouldn't, I don't think he'd even say he's Armenian, but you know, maybe semi Pelagian he'd say, but
you know, the, the reality is that nobody criticizes him for being too much
anti -Calvinist.
Right.
Why doesn't he stop?
Well, I guess maybe I did, I did criticize him a little bit for being too much on that, but, but most people don't.
Right.
And so, you know, I, I just, I hope, I hope
Jessica seriously email me info at strivingforeturning .org and, and please let's, let's come on and have a
dialogue.
If not, if you don't want to come on the show, I totally get that at least, you know, either go
to strivingforeturning .org call the ministry and ask to speak with me or, you know, email me
and I'll be happy to, to talk through these things in detail and, and please listen to my rap report
episode on superintending the solution to the Calvinism, Arminianism debate.
Okay.
Cause I think it really does solve the, it really is good, but unfortunately I don't have time to go through it here, but on
that, my podcast, we just got done going through systematic theology and I, you know, I go through
the doctrine of superintending a lot and explain it.
So it might be helpful to just go through that podcast as we go through our, our, our study on what we
believe.
And so with that, that's tonight's show.
I'm really glad that you guys were here.
Thanks guys for coming in.
And this is something that someone shared that someone made for us.
So this is how we're probably going to end the show from now on with a message from Striving for Eternity.
All other religious systems are based on a system of morality of good works.
What makes Christianity unique, it is not a system of morality.
It is about Jesus Christ.
Buddha is dead.
Muhammad is dead.
Joseph Smith is dead.
Mary Baker.
Eddie is dead, but Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
If Jesus Christ was not both fully man and fully God, there would be no payment of sin.
This was a debate in the first century.
Jesus Christ was fully man.
It's important to note that he did not have a human father.
Therefore he did not inherit a sin nature.
Jesus Christ not only had to be fully man, but he also had to be without sin, never breaking any part of
God's law.
If Jesus was not a man, then people would have no payment of sins.
But Jesus Christ is also fully God.
Jesus had to be God in order to pay an eternal fine.
Only an eternal being can pay an eternal fine.