The Irresistible Grace of God (White vs Hunt)

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Dave Hunt is joining us from up in the, I would assume anyways, the wet and moist northwest, which probably,
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I would imagine Dave, it's not 104 degrees where you are, but it's probably about as muggy as it is here.
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Is it nice up there, or would you like to come down here where it's really nice and hot with us? James, that's a common misperception about Oregon.
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When people lump Oregon all together, there is central Oregon, the western side of the mountains is wet.
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The eastern side of the mountains is very dry. So you're sort of in a little bit of a desert type area there.
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That's right. Is it hot? It's, well, not too warm. I think it was about 38 degrees here last night.
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So we open our windows in the house and we cool everything off and then we shut them during the day. We don't need air conditioning.
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Well, it was 92 for our low last night, if that gets you. No, you're kidding. No, I am not kidding at all.
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That was the low at like 530 in the morning. So it's a little bit different down here. Well, it's been quite some time since we talked,
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Dave, and my interest was brought to the August Berean Call, and I'm sure you have a copy there with you, the question and answer section.
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This was a question that was asked, and I'm assuming because of the personal pronouns that were used, that you wrote the response.
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Am I correct on that? That's true. Okay, and this was the question that was sent in, a question, it seems that Calvinism is gaining an influence and as a result is causing controversy and even division in some churches.
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I think this is an important subject, and I don't recall you ever giving your opinion. Would you please do so in the
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Q &A section? And this was sent to me, I believe sometime late last week, and I read through the response and I sent a letter and I sent a copy of my recent book,
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The Potter's Freedom, up to you folks immediately and then got hold of the phone number on Monday.
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And the first thing I'd like to say is I appreciate you joining us because this is a subject that I believe must be aired, it must be discussed.
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I think it needs to be discussed in a biblical fashion, and unfortunately what
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I'm discovering is that many folks who take a position opposite of my own don't want to discuss this issue in a public setting.
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So my first statement is thank you for joining me because I think that the listening audience and the church at large can only be benefited by biblical discussions, and I think that's something that really needs to take place.
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Well, thanks for having me, James, and I'm always willing and eager, in fact, to discuss issues publicly.
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Well, you know, you and I both have that reputation. In fact, I was thinking today,
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I think between the two of us, we probably have done more debates against Roman Catholics than any other two people put together probably, certainly in the
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United States and maybe on the face of the planet right now, which is sort of a scary thing to think about.
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But I have debated, in fact, this past May, I debated Robert St. Janice, I'm sure you're familiar with Mr.
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St. Janice, and we debated justification by faith on Long Island.
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And one of the key issues that came out there, and this is one of the main reasons I contacted you, one of the main reasons
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I wrote you a letter, and this is one of the first issues I think we need to discuss today on Straight Talk Live, is the issue of monergism versus synergism.
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That is, the idea that there is one force that brings about salvation over against a synergistic viewpoint, which views it as a cooperation, a cooperative effort between two forces, man and God.
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And the reason I brought that up, Dave, as I mentioned in my letter, is that Mr. St. Janice, in representing the
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Roman Catholic perspective, very strongly attacked the Reformed emphasis upon the sovereignty of the grace of God.
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And I guess my first question is, in light of your article, and the fact that your article very strongly presents the idea that you reject the concept of irresistible grace, and we'll get into reading some of the sections here, and I encourage you to read those sections you want to read.
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In light of that, you and I are responding to one of the key issues of the
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Reformation in a different way, and in essence, my first question to you would be, do you feel that the
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Reformers, Martin Luther and John Calvin, were in error in emphasizing the deadness of man in sin, and the absolute necessity, not just necessity, but sufficiency of the grace of God to bring a person to salvation?
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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the Reformers. I have not had time to read them.
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There are truckloads, I guess, of their writings. And I like to just kind of pretend that we're back there in the days of the
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Apostles before all of these things were written. And I like to go to the
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Bible. So whether the Reformers said this or that, I don't know.
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I disagree with a lot of Martin Luther, for example, when I read his 95 Theses on indulgences, and when
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I read the Augsburg Confession, it sounds to me like they were still pretty much
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Catholics, so I'm not trying to align myself with the
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Reformers or with anybody else. I just go by what the
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Bible says, as we all hope we do. Oh, yes. Well, and I want our discussion this evening to be, in the vast majority of it, based simply on the text of Scripture.
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But I think to place it in a context and to explain to our society today why it is so important that we discuss these things, are you familiar with the fact that the first written debate of the
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Reformation between Luther and Erasmus was on the subject of the freedom of the will versus the bondage of the will, and that the
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Catholic side believed in the concept of a free will, and the
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Reformed side believed in the concept of man being dead in sin, enslaved to sin, and that Martin Luther put it this way.
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He said the entire Reformation, this was the hinge upon which the entire Reformation swung, that all the other issues came down to the issue of whether a man is saved solely and completely by God's grace, that he has to be raised to spiritual life, or whether, as Erasmus and Roman Catholics were saying, and that there is this cooperative effort which opens the door for sacraments and the confessional and all the rest of those things.
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On that issue, can you see why, in again dealing with Roman Catholicism, that it would be a good idea to address that subject and ask you, do you believe with Luther and the
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Reformers or with the Bible that man is dead in sin, or is man still in a position where sin just simply affects him, and if it just affects him, how does it affect him?
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The Bible says we're dead in trespasses and in sins, but the Gospel also calls upon men to choose, to believe, pleads with them, and Catholicism, the heart of Catholicism is not that man has the power to choose, but it's insistence that salvation is partly by works, it's by the sacraments and so forth.
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So, because we disagree on election or on what it means that man is dead in sins, it is not fair then to accuse me of siding with the
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Roman Catholics, which I do not, and you've already said that I've debated them. I've debated them on salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
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So you and I would agree on that. Now we have a difference of definition on some of these other issues, but I don't see the relevance to Roman Catholicism.
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I'm not on the side of the Catholics. They believe in falling away. They believe you have to work for your salvation.
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They're not sure whether they're ever saved, and they can lose it at any point, you know, they commit a mortal sin and so forth.
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So I think it muddies the water, frankly, to bring in that issue at all.
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Well, the reason I bring it in is because the fact that I do believe that the fundamental difference between the biblical gospel, which
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I believe is what the Reformers taught, and the gospel as taught by Rome, goes to the heart of the issue, and that is whether it is
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God and God alone who saves, or whether it is a cooperative effort, a synergistic effort, where God contributes
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X amount of the effort, but without man's assistance, there cannot be full and complete salvation.
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That was the issue then, and the generations of Reformers afterwards saw those who, again, started preaching a synergistic viewpoint as being returning to Rome.
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And so I'm not trying to use the argument that you're somehow on Rome's side,
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I'm just simply pointing out that on this particular issue, on the issue of the sovereignty of grace and the deadness of man and sin, there's two very different viewpoints, and at the time of the
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Reformation, it sounds like you would have sided with Erasmus against Luther on this particular issue, even if you had agreed with Luther on nine -tenths of the rest of the stuff.
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You see what I'm saying? Well, yeah, I see what you're saying, but we can't really say that because I haven't read
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Erasmus, I haven't read Luther, but I do not see man as having any part in his salvation.
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No part at all. It's like if I'm drowning and you rescue me,
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I allow you to rescue me. I don't have any part in this. I would be a fool not to allow you to rescue me, but to suggest then that I have some part in my rescue,
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I think is a specious argument. Okay, well let's look at that argument when we come back from this break.
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We're on Straight Talk Live. My name's James White, talking with Dave Hunt about the issues of the Gospel, and we'll be right back right after this.
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Good evening, talking with Dave Hunt. Dave, how many books have you written? I think about 30.
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You gave me credit for twice as many as you. I think about 30. So that's right about there, about 30 books, and where did
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Seduction of Christianity come in there? What number was that? Boy, I think maybe it was number 10.
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I can't remember. How many did that sell? Or is it selling?
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Is it still in print? Probably 800 or 900 ,000.
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Actually, that's not my best -selling book, believe it or not. I have a couple of others that have sold more than a million copies, but mostly overseas, and you probably never even heard of them.
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Death of a Guru, I don't know if you know that one. That's the true story of a Hindu guru who came to Christ.
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And then Mission Impossible. Wait a minute. Yes, Mission Impossible.
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Sometimes people, in fact the guy I wrote it about, would get checks written out to Mission Impossible.
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He said they had more faith than he had. But that was a true story of Bible smuggling behind the
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Iron Curtain, which I thought was even better than God smuggler. But that sold over a million.
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They're in about 45 languages. In fact, Death of a Guru, I believe right at this time, is a best -seller in all 14
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Indian languages over there in India. Wow. And in case
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I forget it, as we get into our discussions, your web page for folks. It's www .thebereancall
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.org And that's all one word. That's why I had to look it up on a search engine because I kept putting
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Berean Call without the the and that doesn't work very well. Now, before we took our break, you were saying, look,
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I don't have anything to do with my salvation. Let me read from your article and see if we can discuss this for a moment.
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Toward the end of your article, you said, if I should hold a rope 30 feet above a man at the bottom of a well and plead with him earnestly to take hold of it so that I could pull him out, wouldn't he think that I was mocking him?
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And if, in addition, I were to berate him for not grabbing the rope, would he not begin to wish he could grab me by the throat?
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And how could I maintain to any reasonable persons that I really wanted to bring the man up out of the well, but he was the one who wasn't willing?
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So how can God really want to save those to whom he doesn't extend irresistible grace, that being the only means whereby they can believe the gospel?
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Now, this sort of illustrates what I'm talking about, because I don't believe, and Calvinists do not believe, that man is at the bottom of a well and God is dangling a rope above him, and that the matter is that for the elect,
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God puts the rope all the way down so the guy can grab it, and for the non -elect, he doesn't put it close enough where he can grab it.
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The difference would be, from the Reformed perspective, the guy at the bottom of the well is dead.
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He's been dead for a long time. Rigor mortis has set in. Moss is growing on him, and you can drop all the ropes down to him you want, and it's not going to make any difference because he's a stiff.
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He belongs in the morgue. He's dead. The Reformed idea is that God the
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Father holds a rope ladder, and the Lord Jesus comes down the rope ladder, picks the man up, raises him to spiritual life, and carries him out of the well, and that he does that for a specific elect people.
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So using that illustration, would you agree or disagree with that concept?
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Well, James, no illustration is perfect, but if we wanted to use your illustration, we could say there's a bunch of dead people at the bottom of the well.
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There are billions of them down there, and God is shouting to all of them, please believe on me.
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Please repent. Please, I want to save you. I mean, all through the
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Bible you have, choose you this day whom you will serve. We have God crying out to Israel, all the day long
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I've held out my hands unto a disobedient, and again saying, people, I would have fed you with the finest of wheat, and with honey out of the rock would
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I have satisfied you. We have Christ weeping over Jerusalem. How often would
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I have gathered you, but you would not. So God goes down, and out of the billions he picks up a couple of thousand, and I don't think that you could imagine that he really wants all of them to be saved.
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He carries out some of them. Now, so I think we're getting to the big issue. The elect. The big issue is, well, no,
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I think the big issue is God, first of all. I think you and I have a different idea of God, but I would like to be clear on it.
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I don't want to falsely accuse you or have a false impression of what Calvinists believe.
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Do you believe that God really loves everybody and really wants everyone to be saved, or do you believe in a
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God who allows billions to go to hell, whom he could rescue from that doom by extending irresistible grace to them, but for some reason he simply lets them perish?
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Well, that is not really the representation of the reformed position, but I will answer it anyways.
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I believe that God is loving to any creature if he allows him to live past the first moment of his first sin, or in point of fact, he's loving to the entire human family because of original sin, each person being born guilty of that transgression of Adam.
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Every breath a person takes is extended by God's grace to them, but there is a special love that God has for a people called the elect.
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The New Testament is filled with references to God's elect people. Jesus spoke of the
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Father giving to him a special people and entrusting their salvation into the hands of the
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Son, and so those elect people who are not chosen for anything they do, they are no better than anyone else.
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They are just as deserving of eternal punishment, yet in God's grace from eternity he has chosen to place his grace upon them to draw them to himself and to unite them with his
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Son, Jesus Christ, not for anything they've done. They don't deserve it. In fact, the only thing that separates the redeemed in heaven from the condemned in hell is a one -sided love
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There is one word called grace, not anything in me, and so when you say, do I believe that God is attempting to save every person?
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No, I do not. I didn't ask that. Here is one of the differences, Dave, is that I believe that God saves, not that it is an issue of desiring to save and failing to do so.
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I believe that God saves every single individual that he chooses to do so.
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You said desiring, but then you introduced choose, so he has to decide or he has to choose to save.
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Now, James, I'm just trying to get it straight. We have
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Adam and Eve in the garden, for example. They were not depraved.
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They were not dead in trespasses and sins. They rebelled.
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So obviously depravity or being dead in trespasses and sins is not the reason why man sins.
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Man must have a will. He must be able to make choices. What's the difference between a will?
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Again, here's an important issue. We believe that man has a will, but we also believe that since Adam and Eve are no longer here and it's just us folks now, that the will of man is enslaved to sin, and outside of the grace of God, no one would ever choose him.
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We need to look at that when we come back from this break. Straight Talk Live is back.
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1360 KPXQ, Glendale, Phoenix. Welcome back to Straight Talk Live.
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My name is James White, sitting in for Marty Minso on this Friday afternoon, and my special guest, live from the desert
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Northwest, how's that sound, is Dave Hunt. We are talking about an article, not really an article, a question that was asked in the
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August Berean Call newsletter, which is, it seems that Calvinism is gaining an influence and as a result is causing controversy and even division in some churches.
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I think this is an important subject, and I don't recall you ever giving your opinion. Would you please do so in the Q &A section?
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And in that particular response, Dave, you said something similar to what you just said, and that is this.
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Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. How often would I have gathered you together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but ye would not.
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Christ could not state more clearly that he truly wants to bless them and that they have rejected him, but Calvinism changes the whole picture.
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If they are totally depraved and they can't believe in him unless he causes them to do so through irresistible grace, so would
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I and ye would not for the Calvinist really mean I would not and ye could not.
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You just cited Matthew 23, 37 the same way just before we took our break, but if you'll look at your
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Bible, Dave, the citation in the article is in error. First, I don't know where it says he's weeping over Jerusalem, but secondly, your rendition says how often would
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I have gathered you, but the text says how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not.
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One of the reasons I point this out is that I believe this passage is frequently misused.
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In fact, I sent the Potter's Freedom up to you. You'll notice there's a chapter in there called the Big Three, and that's because Norman Geisler in his book
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Chosen but Free, which I was responding to, cites Matthew 23, 37, 2
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Peter 3, 9, and 1 Timothy 2, 4 over and over and over again in the course of the book, and one of the problems is that Matthew 23, 37, a, is not a soteriological passage.
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It's not a passage talking about how men can be saved. It's not discussing the abilities of man.
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It is instead, secondly, a passage that is in condemnation to the Jewish leaders.
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The entire passage beginning all the way back in Matthew 23 at the very beginning talks about the scribes and Pharisees.
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Verse 13 says, Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people.
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For you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. This is the same thing here, that these men have resisted the work of God all along, and the most important thing is, in verse 37, is that the one that it says
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Geisler wanted to gather, even if you take that to be soteriological, that is, I want to save them, even if you take that out of context, it's not the same people who are unwilling.
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The ones who are unwilling are the Jewish leaders. It's their children, those who are under them, that Jesus wants to gather, and the condemnation is the
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Jewish leaders are standing in Jesus' way. So I found it interesting that both the last time you just read it and then in the article, it was changed,
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I'm sure it's just typographical error, but how often would I have gathered you together, but you would not?
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That's not what Jesus said in Matthew 23. Yes, well, you ask first of all when he weeps.
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Luke 19 .41, when he came near, he beheld the city and wept over it, saying,
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If thou hadst known even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, and now they are hid from thine eyes.
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He's talking about all of Jerusalem. Well, the destruction of Jerusalem there, but here in Matthew 23, there's no mention of that, but that's just secondary.
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But James, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, back to Matthew 23, thou that killest the prophets.
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It wasn't just the leaders that killed the prophets. It was all of the people that killed the prophets.
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And let's forget Jesus for the moment. I think Jesus is saying, he's showing that he's
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God. And all through the Old Testament, you have God through his prophets, the weeping prophet,
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Jeremiah, who weeps over Jerusalem. And this brings us,
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I think, to the crux of the issue, because why does God send his prophets and weep and plead and call upon the people to repent when they can't repent unless he extends irresistible grace to them?
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And this is where I really want to understand this. Do you believe that God could, if he so desired, he could extend irresistible grace to everyone?
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He could save the whole world. They could all go to heaven. But instead, he lets millions, maybe billions, go to hell.
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Darrell Bock Well, we'll get back to Matthew 23, 37, because I don't want to leave that. But A, I don't get the feeling,
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Dave, that you are familiar with what the term irresistible grace means. David Morgan Well, I want you to explain it to me.
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Irresistible grace is simply this. When a Reformed person speaks of irresistible grace, we are talking about regeneration.
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We are talking about causing a person who is spiritually dead to be brought to spiritual life, being born again.
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And we believe that it is irresistible grace because dead people don't resist anything.
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Corpses can't stop you from doing anything. When Jesus walked up to the grave of Lazarus in John 11 and said,
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Lazarus, come forth, it is not an issue where Lazarus could sit there in the grave and go, well,
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I'm not sure. I sort of like it in here. I like being dead. I didn't like my sisters, whatever it is. No. When Jesus says,
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Lazarus, come forth, Lazarus comes forth because what God commands happens.
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And so in answer to your question, if God desired to save every single individual by causing them to be regenerated and born again, it is certainly within the capacity of the
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God who created all things. The God that Psalm 135 .6 says does whatever he desires in the heaven and on earth.
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The God described in Ephesians 1 .11 as the one who works all things after the counsel of his will.
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Those same prophets that you were just quoting said there is no one who can stop his hand or ask him, why are you doing this?
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So if you're asking the question, could God save every single individual, there is without a question that is fully within his capacity.
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The question is, has it been God's eternal will to give his grace, which has to be given freely, to every single undeserving person?
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Or does God have the freedom to give his mercy to whom he will have mercy?
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And that's what Romans 9 talks about. God has the freedom to do whatever he wishes to do. I don't doubt
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God's sovereignty. He can send us all to hell because we all deserve to go to hell.
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But I find in the Bible, God expects me to do good.
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He expects me to be a good Samaritan. He expects me to help people, to love people.
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And I have the example of, for example, Moses, who is willing to be damned himself if it would save his people.
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I have the example of Paul, who is willing to be accursed from God to save the
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Jews. Now I don't think that they made that up themselves. I think this is because of the
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God who has created us. But yet the God who created us, he doesn't care.
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He's going to let billions go to hell, but he could save them if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to.
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I think you're playing into the atheist's hands. That kind of a God, in my opinion, is not the
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God of the Bible. He's not behaving like he expects even me as a kind, compassionate person to behave.
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Well, it sounds like, Dave, your assumption here is that God's mercy and grace can be demanded.
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God does not have to be, as you said, he could rightly send any one of us to hell.
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The amazing thing is not that any person goes to hell. The amazing thing is that any person goes to heaven.
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It is God who himself has said, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom
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I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy and so the difference between us is that I really do believe that God saves, he saves freely, he saves and elects people that he gives to Jesus Christ from all of eternity, and all the objections that you've been raising so far about, well,
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I'm to be a good person and I believe that I have to make these choices, I believe all those things. No, no, I didn't say that,
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James. You're changing my words. I said, I didn't say
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I'm a good person, therefore I have to make choices. No. I said that God expects me to rescue, to be kind, compassionate, loving, to everyone, to be a good
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Samaritan. I have the example even of Paul and of Moses, I said, who were willing to be accursed.
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And it's not a question of demanding. I never said we could demand anything. I said we can't demand anything.
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But the question I'm trying to get straight now is, and I think I'm understanding it now,
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God could extend irresistible grace to everyone if he so decided, if he so desired.
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So apparently the God you believe in, he doesn't care. Let billions go to hell.
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Let them suffer there. I could save them, but I'm not going to.
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Why? Well, God is no respecter of persons, so there's no favoritism, and there's nothing within me that would cause him to choose me rather than someone else.
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So I'm left without any reason. God says, come now, let us reason together. Ephesians 1 gives us the reason.
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We'll look at it when we come back here on Straight Talk Live. We'll be right back. And welcome back to Straight Talk Live.
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My name is James White, and we're having a discussion with Dave Hunt on the subject of Calvinism.
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And right as we were taking a break, Dave was saying, well look, you're saying that your God doesn't care about billions of people going to hell, and that there's no reason why one person's chosen over another.
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I'd like to give two answers, Dave, and see what you think about them. First of all, the apostle Paul said in Ephesians 1, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him.
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In love he predestined us to adoption of sons through Jesus Christ himself. And here's the answer to your question.
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According to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved that is in Jesus Christ.
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And so when you ask a Reformed person, what is the basis of God choosing?
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And I don't know how many. I pray that and believe that it's a very large number, a number that Revelation describes as being without number.
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But choosing the elect is not based upon anything that they do. It is based upon, as it says in Ephesians 1, the kind intention of his will and the purpose is to the praise of the glory of his grace.
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Now I'd like to turn the question around. Do you believe that God knows all future events?
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When he created, did he know what the outcome of his creation would be? Oh, absolutely. That's why you have foreknowledge associated with election and predestination.
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He foreknew those who would believe. And predestination and election is not for salvation, but it's to the blessings that he's pointed out.
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But now you're saying that... Well, wait a minute, Dave. Let me just finish, James. You just made two statements, though, there, that we didn't get back to Matthew 23 and we're going to leave a lot of untied ends here.
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But the point I want to make, and if you want to talk about foreknowledge, I'd be glad to discuss the term foreknown with you because it's very, very important and we've still got some time here.
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But the point I want to make, in light of what you said before the break, was that if you were saying your
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God, so I'll turn it around, if your God created this universe knowing that billions were going to end up in hell, and he created it to where he was going to try but fail to save all those billions, are you saying that that is more biblical than teaching that God created this universe, that he allowed the fall to take place, that he redeems a specific people unto himself in Jesus Christ, and that he glorifies himself both in the redemption of the elect and in the just punishment of those that he passes over?
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I believe that he can only be glorified in the just punishment of those who reject him if they have a genuine choice and if they suffer because they genuinely rejected him and not because he refused or neglected to give them irresistible grace.
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That's not the position, Dave. You're not hearing what I'm saying. Grace cannot, to neglect to give someone something means that you have to give them something.
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No, it doesn't. Mercy and grace cannot be demanded, Dave. No, I'm not saying grace is demanded, but I'm saying if I'm sitting here and I have the option, we've got 20 people in a burning building, and I have the option by my grace to rescue all of them, and I have the power to do it.
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Now, you're going to say I rescue five of them, and now this is to the glory of my grace?
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I don't think so. Dave, you need to understand what the reformed position is. I'm trying to understand.
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Let's use the same illustration. Those 20 people are rebels, and you're the king, and they are in a burning building after having killed your family, raped, murdered, and pillaged.
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They are criminals that have escaped from death row in your prison, having been justly sentenced to death.
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They have started the fire in their own building, and what the Calvinist is saying is that even though it would be perfectly just and righteous for God to allow that punishment to fall upon them, that what he does is he sends his son into the burning building to save those five people, knowing it will cost him his life to bring them out.
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They're totally undeserving. That brings him glory, and the point is that when the son goes into the building, there is no possibility that he will fail to save those he was sent in to save.
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Well, the problem is, why wasn't he sent in to save everybody if God is loving and does not glorify
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God that he saves five people when he could save them all? Furthermore, if he had extended irresistible grace, and we don't even know why
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Adam and Eve sinned unless they had the power of choice, I believe the power of choice is essential for a man to be able to love.
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I can't even love my wife without the power of choice. I certainly can't love God, and now you correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me like everything,
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I am totally dead, everything, even after I become a Christian, God must make me somehow by his irresistible grace, he must cause me to live the kind of life
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I'm going to live. So from the very beginning, God has withheld irresistible grace.
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He could have given it to all of Israel. There wouldn't need to be just Noah and his family in the ark.
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There could have at least been a hundred, could have been at least a couple thousand. In fact, there could have been all of them.
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There wouldn't have needed to be a flood. There wouldn't have been sin if God had extended this irresistible grace to Adam and Eve.
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Darrell Bock Well, again, irresistible grace is regeneration, Dave. And if you're saying, well, if God had just done things differently, that's true.
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But again, this is where the problem is. You're saying you don't believe men have real choice.
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What I'm saying to you, Dave, is that a man who is dead in sin will always choose against God.
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Dave No, if he's dead, he can't choose anything. That's where we disagree. Darrell Bock No, what I'm saying is that a person who is dead in sin, what does
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Paul say in Romans chapter 8? He says, those who are according to the flesh, what, cannot do what is pleasing to God.
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Not will not, but cannot. They lack the ability to do what is pleasing to God.
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Isn't that what he says in Romans 8, 7 -8? Yes, but you see, they have to be regenerated, born in the spirit of God.
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But the problem, James, and I think this may be a problem to the people that are listening,
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I don't know, but somehow, as I read, and as I think an ordinary person reading the
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Bible, and he sees what happens, he hears God pleading with people, choose you this day whom you will serve, sending his prophets and calling upon them to repent.
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I think that an ordinary person with an ordinary understanding of the meaning of words would get the idea that man can make some kind of response.
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He can at least believe. He can at least say yes to God. But because of Calvinism's framework, we have to go to these scriptures.
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We've got to say somehow, say world doesn't mean world. We've got to come up with some kind of a more complicated interpretation in order to maintain the position that God, I mean, nobody can even say yes to God.
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It's all on God's shoulders, yes, but he chooses not to save a lot of people.
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I think that's not the God of the Bible. Well, again, Romans 9 says he chose not to save Pharaoh.
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In fact, he chose Pharaoh for a particular purpose, but in response to what you just said, as I pointed out, we do believe that man exercises his will, that he does so always against God unless he has been regenerated and made new by the
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Spirit of God. That is why Jesus taught in John 6, 44, that no man can come to me unless the
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Father who sent me draws him. And I'd like to look at John chapter 6. We need to get back to Matthew 23.
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I'd like to talk about world. Dave just mentioned the world. Well, why did Jesus say, I don't pray for the world in John 17, 9?
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We'll take a look at those things after the top of the hour here on Straight Talk Live. We'll be right back.
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Back to Straight Talk Live, 1360 KPXQ. KPXQ. And welcome back to Straight Talk Live.
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My name is James White, second hour of the program this evening. Thank you for being with us. Oh, excuse me while I take my headphones off and recover my eardrums.
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They're now in my throat. I have bumper music. It's so wonderful. Hey, we're talking with Dave Hunt today.
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I just want to remind everybody yet once again, this coming Monday on the
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Bible Answer Man broadcast, the third hour of my discussion with the
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Roman Catholic apologist Timothy Staples. Now, Mr. Staples and I had a three -hour discussion in studio at CRI, and the first two hours aired.
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The third hour has not yet aired. So especially if you have access to the Internet, I would go to equip .org,
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listen to those first two hours so you've got some context. I'm a little bit afraid that people are going to tune in.
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They're not going to have heard the first two hours. We're already warmed up. We're talking at a high rate of speed, and they're going to figure you people are a bunch of wackos.
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So listen on the Internet if you can, but Monday afternoon, 4 o 'clock here in the
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Phoenix area on the Bible Answer Man broadcast, third hour debate with Tim Staples, a lot of discussion of Mary and the
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Marian dogmas in that particular program. So make sure to tune that in.
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I think you will find it to be most interesting. As I mentioned, we're talking with Dave Hunt. He wrote a response to a letter from a reader of the
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Berean Call in response to Calvinism, and I think it's been very clearly brought out that there are some real disagreements here, and I want to keep in the forefront of our mind, especially in this hour, and we will start taking calls at 630.
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So in about a half an hour, we'll get the calls in as many as we can in the last half hour, but between now and 630,
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Dave, there are two things. You said at the beginning, you go with the Bible and that's what we need to go with, and that is why
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I am a Calvinist, is because I am convinced that this is true from Scripture. There are two passages then that I would like to really focus upon over the course of the next 25 minutes to really give the audience an opportunity to really focus in upon them, open their
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Bibles, read with us as we go through these passages. My request will be
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John 6, verses 37 -39 especially, but I want to go back because we sort of left it hanging and didn't discuss it.
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Matthew chapter 23, you said in your article, Christ could not state more clearly that he truly wants to bless them and that they have rejected him, and one of the statements that you made in briefly responding to Matthew chapter 23 was that, well, it doesn't really matter if it's two different groups here, that Jerusalem is all the people of Jerusalem, and so the idea is still that there is this unwillingness on their part.
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God tries, but they are unwilling, and that's why they are not gathered. If you recall, what
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I had said to you was, A, there are two different groups in view here. The ones who are unwilling are not the ones that Jesus says he is trying to draw, that he is trying to gather together, that instead this is a parallel to Matthew 23, verse 13, and that in point of fact, this is
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I think a reference to the deity of Christ, as you said, because you have this statement on Jesus' part, how often
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I wanted to gather your children together, and you were unwilling. That is, the
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Jewish leaders who have been attacked throughout the passage, they were the ones who were unwilling that the
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Lord would minister to those who were under their authority. So in light, can you tell me, is there anything about what
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I just said that is contradicted by the text itself, or do you just disagree with that interpretation for other reasons?
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Dr. Reagan Well, I disagree with the interpretation. I mean, who is unwilling?
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According to Calvinism, everybody is unwilling. Dr. Perry If we are talking about salvation,
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I don't even believe this is talking about salvation. What is the unwilling in Matthew 23, Dave, is that Jesus says,
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I want to gather your children together, but you were unwilling that I gather your children together.
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So that is obviously not the same thing as saying that you are unwilling to embrace Christ. I would agree that if we were talking about salvation here, that everyone is unwilling unless that heart of stone is taken out and they are given a heart of flesh.
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But in this context, would you at least agree that what you said in your newsletter at this point, that a
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Reformed person would have a solid ground for saying, no, that is not what Jesus is saying in that passage, especially the way it was cited.
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Dr. Reagan Well, it is clear he is talking, he says Jerusalem, Jerusalem, and he is talking about thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee.
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Now that sounds like everybody. Dr. Reagan How often would I have gathered together thy children?
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Those are not the children of the rabbis or the religious leaders. Dr. McDonald Who are they?
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Dr. Reagan Well, they are the children of everybody. The children of Jerusalem, that is everybody that lives there.
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Dr. McDonald But you just said Jerusalem is everybody. Dr. Reagan Yes, that is right. That is who he is talking about.
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He talks about, oh daughter of Jerusalem in Zechariah 9 .9 for example.
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Rejoice, oh daughter of Jerusalem. Shout for joy. Behold your king cometh. Does this mean he is the king of the daughters?
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He is not talking just to the daughters. He is addressing all of the people of Jerusalem. Dr. McDonald Okay, Dave, let's stay in the passage.
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Are you going to stay in the passage? Dr. Reagan I am in the passage. Wait a minute, this is a related passage. This is the very thing that he is talking about.
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He is coming to Jerusalem. So verse 39 says, Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say,
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Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. This must be the same ones to whom he says,
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Ye would not. Well, are these ye would nots, these religious leaders that you say are the ones he is talking about there who would not, are they one day then going to bless him?
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No, he is talking to all of Israel I believe. Dr. McDonald Well, actually I would point out that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess and that includes those who are under the earth.
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But if we go back in the immediate context, in verse 35, Jesus says,
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So that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, the blood of righteous Abel, the blood of Zechariah the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.
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Now no one he was talking to murdered him, literally was involved in the murder of Zechariah 400 years earlier.
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So when he is speaking of you, he is talking about who? Well who killed Zechariah? It was the Jewish leaders. And so he says,
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I say to you all these things come upon this generation. And then when he says, How often I want to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you are unwilling.
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My whole point has been that when people use this term to say, See, God wants to gather unto salvation group
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X, but group X is unwilling. That is not what Jesus says in Matthew 23, 37.
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He clearly differentiates between the you who killed the prophets and the children.
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And that is the same thing in verse 13 of the same passage. And I would point out that in both those passages, if you want to talk about, if you want to say this is a satirological or a salvation context,
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I would point out, and this also responds to something else you said. God had his elect people all through the history of Israel.
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And when you say, Oh, the prophets are saying, Return to me, return to me. The remnant did, but only by grace.
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And that is Paul's interpretation of that in the New Testament as well. And so they were not able to resist him.
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Is he only calling out to the remnant? He is only calling out to the remnant whom he is going to cause by irresistible grace to return to him.
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Why does he plead with them so long? Why does it take him so long to give them irresistible grace?
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He who has ears to hear Dave James, an ordinary person reading this would get the impression that he is pleading with people.
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Well, look, let's talk about salvation then for God. So love the world.
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Now you're going to say that's just the elect that the world through him might be saved. He came not and so forth.
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See, if when I read the Bible, I get the impression that God loves everyone he wants.
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He's not willing that any should perish. You could go to First Timothy chapter two and so forth, which, which
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I didn't, which I did in the Potter's freedom in which I pointed out in those passages. I haven't had a chance to read that.
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What did you say about those passages? Well, uh, there's a whole chapter on Matthew twenty three, first Timothy two, four and second
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Peter three, nine. And very briefly, because I want to get to John six in the time we have, because I think if we want to talk about plain words, these are the plainest words
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I know. Uh, second Peter three, nine. The context is to the elect of God. If you look at the passage, it says he is kind.
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He is patient toward you and the only you and second Peter three are Christians.
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Those who are the elect of God. Second Peter one, one says it's addressed to the elect. Those who have the same faith as, uh, as we have.
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Uh, and that's the, you D limits or gives the, the spectrum of the phrase, not wishing that any should perish.
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Who does he not wish that any perish? That is his elect people. Those that he's given to his son,
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Jesus Christ. First Timothy two, four talks about all kinds of men. It talks about those in authority, kings and those who have the rulership over you.
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Not every single individual person. In fact, when you say, well, the normal person reading this, when the normal person reading who is, it wasn't an
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American, the normal person who heard, for example, John the Baptist say, here comes the lamb who takes away the sin of the world.
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They would not have thought the way that modern Armenians do today that this means every single human being they would have understood in the context of which it was spoken.
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The sin of the world means Jews and Gentiles, just as the song of the lamb and revelation five is what you have purchased with your blood.
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What men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and have made them a kingdom of priests unto our
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God. So the natural meaning of the words, I think we could argue that, uh, I think
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I could argue that quite successfully in the context. Yeah. Hi. You know, your argument went right over my head.
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Uh, let's look at this. Uh, first Timothy two, uh, you say he's talking about all kinds of men.
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Okay. Verse four. After talking about all kinds of men, he says, who will have all men to be saved to come and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
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Now how in the world, James, could you get out of that? The elect? Well, it's very easy.
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Look at, uh, look at the context. First of all, then I heard that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, we may in behalf of all men.
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Now, how would that be understood? Does that mean that, that the apostles commanding that Timothy there in Ephesus, get out the
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Ephesian phone book and start with the A's and pray for every single individual person?
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Is that what, is that what you think that means? No, I don't think so. It's a generic for kings.
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Don't have to get the address of every person. I agree perfectly for kings and all who are in authority.
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What are kings and authority? Are they kinds of men? Are those classes of men?
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I don't know, James, I don't understand the point. Kinds of men. Yeah. Pray for Kings. Okay. Are they for those in authority?
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Are they classes of men? I don't know what you call them. Classes of men. Are they different than slaves?
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Are they different than slaves? Are they different than a sailor? Different than a person in the military?
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He's already said prayers for all men. Now he says especially, pray for those in authority.
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We have special reasons to pray for them, that we would leave peaceable and Godly lives. Exactly, exactly.
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And so that is why he says, because remember, this is a persecuted church. The vast majority of the
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Christians are not kings and those in authority. It's kings and those in authority who are persecuting them. So he said, this is good.
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I'm getting there. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
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For there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. So your idea is, verse four means, well, all men means that he desires the salvation of every single individual person who has ever lived or ever will live.
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But the natural reading in the context is that he desires the salvation of all kinds of men, whether they're kings, rulers and authorities, slaves, or anyone else.
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And I think that is clearly established. And here's the question I'd ask you if you say it isn't.
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Verse five says, for there is one God and one mediator also between God and men.
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Now if you're going to say men in verse four means every single individual, then you're stuck believing that Jesus is the mediator between God and every single individual.
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And you know, Dave, what mediation involves, what intercession involves. That's sacrificial language, and that makes
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Jesus a mediator for every person who ends up in hell and who will never be saved, which would force you to believe that Jesus can mediate failure.
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And I don't think you believe that. Dr. Darrell Bock That's not what it says. He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world.
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He is the only mediator that the whole world will have anybody who will have a mediator.
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That's Jesus. And to say that what verse four, he will have all men, means he will have all kinds of men.
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James, I think you're imposing a Calvinistic interpretation on something that doesn't warrant it.
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Dr. Tim Jackson So even though we saw the kinds of men there. Okay, well, we're just about to take a break. In the last section here,
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I believe that the clearest passage that addresses what we've been saying all the way through here is
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John chapter six verses 37 to 39. I really do believe that that section, and verse 44, and I'd like to ask you to look at that.
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Then we're going to open up the phone lines, let people ask us questions in the last half hour, and you know what happens when phone lines open up.
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You never know where you're going to end up. So in the last few minutes that we have control over where we're going,
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I'd like to discuss John chapter six with you, and then we're going to open up the phone lines. Folks, actually, we'll open them up right now.
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602 -274 -1360, 1 -888 -550 -1360. Get online, first come first serve for the last 30 minutes of the program, talking with Dave Hunt.
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Questions for either one of us on the subject that we're raising this evening, the nature of the gospel
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Calvinism, and the opposition to it. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Straight Talk Live.
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My name is James White, filling in for Marty Minto. Special guest on the line this evening is
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Dave Hunt. He's with The Berean Call. Their website is thebereancall .org.
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You can get a hold of their materials there and find out more about what Dave does and his books.
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We're going to start taking phone calls. At the bottom of the hour, we are already jam -packed.
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Every line is filled. Callers, I have one quick request to make, and then
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I want to talk about John chapter six, and that is we want quick, succinct questions and quick, succinct answers from both
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Mr. Hunt and myself so we can get as many callers in as we can. Please, no filibustering.
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Please spend the next few minutes focusing your question down to something very specific so that we can get as many callers in as possible.
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John chapter six, verse 37 says, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one coming to me
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I will never cast out. For I have come down out of heaven not in order to do my will, but the will of the one who sent me, and this is the will of the one who sent me, that of all that he has given me
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I lose none of it, but raise it up at the last day. Now, I believe,
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Dave, that this passage very clearly teaches that the Father has given and elect people unto the
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Son, that the giving of the Father precedes the coming of the person to Christ, that it is the, grammatically in the text there is no way to argue that the giving of the
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Father does not come before the coming of the person to Christ, and that verse 39 tells us that the will of the
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Father for the Son is that of all that has been given to him he lose nothing, and I believe that that proves that Jesus is a powerful
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Savior who saves all of those that he tries to save.
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There is no such thing as trying to save for Jesus. How do you understand John chapter six verses 37 -39?
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Well, James, as you would say in your discussions with Catholics or Mormons or anyone else, we have to understand any passage of Scripture in the context of all of Scripture, and I believe that this is telling us, well, for example, elect according to the foreknowledge of God, whom he foreknew, he predestined, and so forth.
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Certainly no man can come to Christ except the Father draw him, but nowhere does it say that the
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Father does not want to draw everyone or that Christ did not die for the sins of the world, and when we have so many verses that say whosoever will may come, whosoever believeth on the
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Son has everlasting life. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
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Son, and so forth. I mean, there are just verse after verse after verse that sounds, unless I'm a
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Calvinist and I put this strange interpretation on it, it sounds like he loves the whole world so much that he sent his
01:00:07
Son to die for them. Now, do you have an answer to John 6, 37 -39, sir? It sounds like what you're saying is, well,
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I don't have an answer to that passage, but I'm going to go back to these other passages, and I need to correct you on something.
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Well, I think when you immediately left the text, that's not an answer, and you just said that Jesus, that he could draw everybody.
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Do you believe that the Father draws everyone to the Son? I believe that he would like to draw everyone to the
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Son, and I believe that on the basis of the Word of God. He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
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Son. He pleads with men to respond, to believe in him.
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That would tell me that he wants them all. He's not willing that any should perish. Dave, let's go back and forth just a little bit here.
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Let's go back and forth and talk with each other here. No one can come to me, Jesus says in John 6, 44, unless the
01:01:04
Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. Dave, everyone that the
01:01:10
Father draws to the Son is raised up on the last day in eternal life. Everyone that the
01:01:16
Father draws to the Son, yes. You can't come to the Father except he draw you. So if he draws you, you're going to be saved.
01:01:23
But you can also reject it. For example, it's like Jesus saying in John 15, you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
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Of course, but if I hire somebody, I can say to them, you didn't choose me,
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I chose you. You couldn't be hired unless I chose you, but that doesn't mean that that person didn't have the right to say whether they would be hired or not.
01:01:49
I have a call to make a choice. Let's go back and forth. I made a choice because Christ chose me, but back to verse 44.
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I don't think you heard what I said. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.
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All who are drawn are raised up in eternal life. You said a person could be drawn and reject that.
01:02:10
How can that be? No, no, no. I did not say he could be drawn to the sun.
01:02:16
No one can come to the sun except the father draws them. But that does not say that there you cannot that you can't resist and it does not say that the father can make everyone come to the sun, but he chooses not to make everyone come to the sun, even though with irresistible grace he could save the whole world.
01:02:39
Can you tell me how? I can't find it in there. Well, we're looking right at it and for some reason you're not seeing it.
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Verse 44, everyone who's drawn, Dave, is raised up to eternal life.
01:02:50
That's true. So if the father draws you to the sun, you will be saved without question, correct?
01:02:58
It doesn't say that he can't draw you and you don't get to the sun. But Jesus says,
01:03:04
I will raise him up on the last day. It's Jesus who is responsible here.
01:03:11
See, we have two different understandings of draw. I'm drawing someone,
01:03:16
I'm pulling them, I want them to come into this lifeboat, for example, and they refuse.
01:03:25
I'm drawing them. Now, nobody can get in the lifeboat unless I draw them in, but that does not say that there aren't those who can choose not to come in the lifeboat.
01:03:34
Jesus says that he will raise up everyone that the father draws to him.
01:03:41
He has that ability. That's why, Dave, and I want you to answer this when I come back, how can, if what you say is true, how can
01:03:48
Jesus say in verse 39, I will lose nothing of what has been given to me?
01:03:54
I want to know what's been given to Jesus and will be raised up and that Jesus will lose none of them right after this break and then we go to the phone calls and we'll be right back.
01:04:03
Well, time is failing us here on Straight Talk Live and we want to get the callers in as quickly as possible.
01:04:10
So, Dave, I'm going to just ask you, I know that you didn't have time before we got on the air today, but I'm just going to ask you to take a look at the
01:04:21
Potter's Freedom. I know you're probably a busy person just as I am, but take a look at the Potter's Freedom, especially pages 198 and following where I deal with the assertion that foreknown means that God looks in the future and sees what people are going to do and I believe
01:04:35
I provide a very strong argument against that. And let's find a time when we can get back together again and discuss that when we can do it, for example, on our
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Saturday afternoon program where we don't have a lot of breaks and things like that to sort of break up the time and things like that.
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But I can imagine that our callers are very, very desirous of getting on the air.
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So, very quickly, one last time for the callers, please, no preaching, get to your question very quickly.
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I'm going to ride you on this because I want to get as many people as we can through. Let's start with Belmond in Mesa, Belmond. Yes, hello,
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Dr. White. Hi. I agree with your position, Dr. White, and it's difficult to accept at times.
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And in defense, I want Mr. Hunt to look at John 665 in support of what you were just talking about, and also look at does all always mean all in Mark 1 -5,
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Acts 22 -15, and so on. And also the question for you would be, the difficult position for the
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Reformers is that, and I agree with them, is that the origin, it leads to God being the origin of evil, it seems like.
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So I guess it's a question for Mr. Hunt and for you. Thanks a lot. Okay, Dave, you want to take a shot at that real quick? Yeah, I've already said that I believe that no man can come to the
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Father, I'm sorry, can come to the Son except the Father draw him. I've already said that salvation is all of God.
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But that never says that man has not some response to make, that we are called upon to believe.
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And right here in this context, you wanted just to deal with John 639. John 640 says, everyone that seeth the
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Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life. Over and over, I'm called upon to believe.
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Now it sounds to me like I must believe. Now, I have believed. I came to Christ and believed, but now,
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James, you got me really shook up. How do I know I'm one of the elect? Maybe I didn't really believe.
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Dave, the reason that you've believed and I've believed is because Jesus Christ is a powerful
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Savior. He did not fail to bring us to eternal life. And the question is not, as you just said, you've got me shaken up.
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How do I know I'm one of the elect? If you love Christ, then Christ has worked in your life. The thing that shakes me up,
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Dave, is that it seems that the issue here is I believe that Jesus Christ will save all of those that he desires to save.
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I do not believe that Jesus Christ ever fails to save anyone that he desires to save. I think that's the issue.
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I don't believe that the potter is failing or forcing himself upon the pot.
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That's the difference. I am a potter. The potter has said that he wants all of the pots to be good in heaven.
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Dave Well, actually, if we look at Romans 9, 7, and answer them on really quickly to your question, when you talk about the origin of evil, remember,
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I think the fundamental answer to that is found in Acts chapter 4 where it is said that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was according to the predestined plan and hand of God.
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Here you have an action that is on the part of those who partook in it evil, but on the part of God who predestined the action, his intentions are fully good.
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Just as Joseph said to his brothers, you intended this for evil, God intended it for good. So while the action may be evil, the intention on the man's part, because of what fills his heart, the intention on God's part is good.
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We have a long -distance phone call all the way back to Ogden, New York. Michael? Michael Hello, Dr.
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White. I'm enjoying today's program. You're doing an excellent job. I have a question for Mr. Hunt.
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How can your view of free will be correct if 1
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Corinthians 2 verses 10 -14 be correct? More specifically,
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I would like you to focus in on verses 10 -14, and Dr. White, I would also like to hear your comments.
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Dr. White Okay, thank you very much, sir, for your question. Dave, he's asking specifically about,
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I would assume, verse 14, but a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised.
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Unless God raises a person to spiritual life first, the Gospels foolishness to him.
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I think that's what his question is. Dr. Hunt Yeah, I understand. There's none that understand, there's none that seek after God and so forth.
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A natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. That's true. A natural man cannot. He's talking about those who are indwelt by the
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Spirit of God, they understand the things of God. But it doesn't say that a natural man cannot understand the
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Gospel. My graces were preaching the Gospel to people all over the world, were to go into all the world and preach the
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Gospel. Now, you're going to say we're just to preach the Gospel to the elect, I don't even know who they are. So what's the point of preaching the
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Gospel to people who cannot respond? No, God wants them to respond. So the big difference that we have here is you believe in a
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God who could save everybody but doesn't. We have no basis for knowing why he doesn't save some of them.
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There's no partiality with God and there's nothing in us to cause him to. I believe in a
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God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever, sounds like anybody can believe, whosoever believes in him would not perish.
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That's really the crux of our discussion. Well, I would respond by saying that it is simply not biblical to believe that a natural man who is an enemy of God can embrace the spiritual
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Gospel and do what is spiritually pleasing before God. Romans 8, 7 -8 says that the natural man is incapable of doing that.
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In response, therefore, that's why regeneration precedes the giving of the gifts of faith and repentance.
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That's why the Bible calls faith a gift from God given to his elect people and that's how they are saved and that's why saving faith continues.
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We preach the Gospel because as Jesus said, we spread the seed and the seed falls on different kinds of ground.
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And so we don't know who the elect are. That's why I proclaim the Gospel to all of them and because I do believe that God is the one who saves,
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I don't have to tailor my message or edit out any of the Gospel because some will be offended.
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Instead, I can preach the entirety of the Gospel trusting that just as that seed that landed on the good ground resulted in growth, so too the same thing.
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Last thing, you said the difference between us is that I believe in a God who could save everyone but will not.
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I believe in a God who could damn everyone but in his grace saves and elect people.
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And the difference I see is that I believe that you're presenting a God who desperately wants to save everybody but can't.
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And I don't believe that that's the God of the Scriptures and that is the issue. Paul, on a cell phone real quick.
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Yeah, hello Dr. White. I just want to make a comment. I agree with you about how there's the elect,
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God already knows who's going to be saved and who's not. And we can easily decipher that, especially through Revelation, because if everyone was to be saved, then who are the nations or who are the people that when
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Christ comes back actually to rule on the earth once again, who are those people?
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If everybody is supposed to be saved, then the prophecies in Revelation are totally inaccurate.
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Paul, I don't think Dave's arguing that everyone is supposed to be saved. I think the question is more like what you said at the beginning, that God knows who is going to be saved.
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Well, I think the difference is, I believe that God knows who is going to be saved because he has decreed who is going to be saved from time immemorial, as Paul says to Timothy.
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From eternity this grace has been given to us. So I think the difference is, does
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God have an elect people that he chooses, he specifically elects the salvation, or is that elect determined on the basis of what we choose and God looks down the corridors of time, which
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I do not believe is what the word predestined means at that particular point. 602 -274 -1360.
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Are we needing to take a break real quick here, gentlemen? Okay, let's go ahead and take our break. We have John and Mike and Don on the line, one line open.
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I want to get everybody in during the last quarter hour, myself and Dave Hunt discussing the issues of the gospel,
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Calvinism, those who oppose it. We'll be right back. We fit into less than 11 minutes.
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We are about to find out. Our special guest, Dave Hunt, let's go to Mike in Phoenix.
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Mike, you're on. Hello, Dr. White, Mr. Hunt. Mr. Hunt, my question is for you. Throughout the night you've talked about that if, on Dr.
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White's view, God withholds irresistible grace, it somehow makes him less than loving.
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My question is, on your view, because you've admitted that God is sovereign, he can do all things, I would like to know how you explain the fact that God allows people to go to hell.
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Very simple. He created man with the power of choice because we cannot love
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God, we cannot love one another, except we have the power to make a genuine choice.
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The power to say yes is meaningless without the power to say no. And there are those who say yes, there are those who say no.
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And God cannot force anyone to love him. But my understanding from what
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I've been hearing from James White is that irresistible grace, God makes people who are dead, he makes them to come alive in order to say yes to him, in order to believe in him, but I don't think that that's real belief.
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They don't really love him. We're like robots now. He makes us love him.
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He's going to have a lot of people in heaven who didn't really want to be there, they were totally depraved, but somehow he zapped them with irresistible grace.
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Now then the question is, I think it's a libel on the character of God to suggest that he could have had everyone in heaven and he just doesn't want everybody there.
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I don't think that's the God of the Bible. So God can't have a purpose in the punishment of the wicked? Oh, his purpose in the punishment of the wicked, yes.
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So he has a purpose. Wait a minute James, you asked me a question. His purpose in the punishment of the wicked is because they really are wicked and they had a genuine choice.
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I believe that people who are in hell are there not because God didn't give them irresistible grace.
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And I don't believe that either Dave. The second time you said it, I'm going to correct you one more time because you're totally misrepresenting the reformed position.
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You're saying that they're in hell because they weren't given irresistible grace. They're in hell because they rejected
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God. They are God haters. No, but they couldn't do otherwise, James. They couldn't do otherwise.
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So because a person puts themselves on death row, I want you to hear what the result of your logic,
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Dave, is this. The result of your logic is that if we have 100 people on death row in the state of Arizona, they're all justly condemned.
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That if the governor of the state of Arizona pardons one of them, your argument would be the governor is unjust and should pardon every single one.
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And I think that illustrates where the problem is. Your objection is always based upon the idea that God has to give grace to every single person, the same amount to every single individual.
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It can be demanded. That's not what grace is. James, you're misrepresenting me. If the governor is sovereign and he could have kept these guys from committing murder, he could have kept them from being on death row to begin with.
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This is the God that you portray. I'm not saying that God has to give grace to anybody.
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I'm saying the Bible says he's not willing that any should perish. Now you twist that to make it a little bit.
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I reject the assertion that I'm twisting that, Dave. You say he's not willing that the elect should perish.
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That's redundant. Of course they're not going to perish. No it is not, Dave. And I would just like to say, since you're going to make the accusation
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I'm twisting scripture, you haven't answered any of the passages that I have presented to you.
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You've run away from them to other passages. And I'd like to say, Dave, you're utilizing the traditions of men to do so.
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It is your tradition to understand the world the way you do, all the way you do. It is your tradition to not see
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John 6 in its clarity where it clearly says that all that the father gives him, it's your tradition to see foreknown as meaning
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God. Dave, the people that are the most enslaved to tradition are the people who think they don't have any.
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That is my experience, my friend, and I'm telling you we all have our traditions, and we have to take our traditions to the
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Bible to see what they are. That is vitally important. We all have our traditions,
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Dave. Exactly what we've been trying to do to go to the Bible. It says, for God so loved the world. And it also says in John 17, 9 that I do not pray for the world.
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I pray for those you've given me out of the world. Can you explain John 17, 9? Well then you reconcile that with for God so loved the world.
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Of course he's not praying for the world in that context. You're great on context, James. He's praying for his own.
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He's praying for those who he knows will be saved. And who are his own? Are they his own, those that God the
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Father has given to him, or are his own those who somehow even though they're spiritually dead, somehow choose to make themselves his sheep?
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It takes both sides. God gives them to him, but they also have to say yes. So God can give someone to the
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Son, and that person still not be saved. Is that your position? No, no. If he only gives them to the
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Son, if they say yes as well, it takes two sides. Their decision determines
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God's decision. No, it doesn't determine God's decision because God's decision is still that he's not willing that any should perish.
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They have the genuine power of choice, or they couldn't love God. Okay, here's Don and Tempe.
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Hi, I really appreciate you coming on to debate this topic. I think it does great for the people of Christ.
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First of all, it's pretty obvious you don't believe in total depravity, am I correct? You're talking to Dave Hunt?
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Yes. Dave, can you hear him? What do you mean by total depravity? You don't believe that man is hopelessly dead to his sin and has to have his spirit quickened.
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I believe that man is dead in trespasses and in sins. I don't believe that that means that man cannot make a choice.
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So he's not so dead? He's not so dead that he can't choose? What does dead mean?
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I mean, was Lazarus dead? Well, James, we've got a lot of dead people running around.
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We have a lot of dead people who make moral choices. Are they totally dead?
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They can't make moral choices? They can make choices to do this or that.
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They can make choices even to do good. There are some do -gooders out there who aren't saved.
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If they can't make a choice to believe the gospel and God calls upon them to believe the gospel, it doesn't make sense.
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Okay, Don, is that what you wanted to ask? I want to make one comment on the word draw.
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I think he takes that out of its proper meaning. And I think R .C. Sproul puts it the best.
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When a man goes to a well to draw the water out of the well, he does so not in a way that he woos the water, but he physically goes in and draws the water out of the well with the bucket instead of standing over the well and saying, here, water, water, water.
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The drawing is done physically and powerfully. It's a very poor illustration.
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There's a difference between drawing water, which is an inanimate object, and appealing to a person to repent.
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It just doesn't fit. You're mixing apples and oranges. John, one last caller real quick.
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We're almost out of time. John Glendale. Yes, do you hear me? Yes, sir. Hi, Dr. White. We have just a couple seconds, so make it quick.
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Okay, a little while ago, actually a couple years ago or better, Dave, you had a seminar that I sat in on, and you brought up a good point about the solemnity of God in answering prayer.
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And over at Cosmos, you related a story where you were a young boy, how you looked out the window, and were praying for either good weather or snow, and you said how magnificent it is that God, or how chaotic it would be if God answered every prayer.
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My question to you is how come, why can't you ascribe the same sovereignty and majesty to this
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God of creation in salvation, or his work in redemption?
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I also ascribe to him love. I also ascribe a simple faith in what he says, that he's not willing that any should perish.
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I do not believe that the God of the Bible lets billions of people go to hell just because he doesn't care for them.
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He doesn't want to save them. You know, I wonder, James, is this a stack deck, or does everybody that listens to you, are they
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Calvinists? Actually, this isn't my... There must be somebody else out there. There are, because I've been on this program many times as a guest, and there are all sorts of folks who called in.
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So this is not my actual... We haven't heard from them. No, this isn't actually my normal time slot. I'm filling in for Marty Minto.
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I would just respond to that by saying that you're making an absolute distinction between sovereignty and love, and the
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Calvinists don't. We believe the fact that God's love is seen most clearly in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for his people, that actually redeems them from their sins.
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I'd like to talk with you some more about this, Dave, when you get a chance to look at the Potter's Freedom. We'll maybe look at some in the future, but I'd like to thank you.
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I've invited others on the program, and they aren't willing to discuss these things.
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So again, thank you. James, real fast, can we give our 800 number? Go ahead, really quickly. 1 -800 -937 -6638.
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And thanks for having me. Okay, thanks, Dave, for the conversation. And thebereancall .org,
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our address, www .aomin .org, if you'd like to get in touch with us. Thank you for being with us on Straight Talk Live today.
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Thanks to the callers. Excellent questions. You got in and got out fast. That's the way we like to do it. Thank you for listening.