Response to Dave Hunt Article on Calvinism

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, you can call now by dialing 602 -274 -1360. That's 602 -274 -1360.

Or if you're out of the Metro Phoenix dialing area, it's 1 -888 -550 -1360. That's 1 -888 -550 -1360. And now, with today's topic, here's James White.

Introduction to the Program and the Day's Topic

Welcome to the Dividing Line today. My name is James White, and we are going to be talking about an interesting subject today. I hope you will join us. The number's here locally, 602 -274 -1360. Or 1 -888 -550 -1360.

We are joined today, Rich Parris runs the board, he handles the phone, he takes care of medical emergencies, he codes in HTML, he makes entire websites change form and look in a matter of weeks. And in fact, that's what Rich has been up to, and all of those of you who are complaining about where your orders are, well, the website looks pretty though, doesn't it?

Yes, Rich Parris runs the board, answers the phone, and you can call in and talk to him and take advantage of his great wisdom. But we are also joined in studio. I've got some in-studio guests, and they have no idea what in the world we're going to be talking about today, but they're here anyways.

Warren Smith is back, and you know, I'm not sure which mic, I think that's Warren's mic right there. You know, if any of you were on 51st Avenue this morning, at about between 6 .30 and 7 .30 in the morning or so, you may have seen two people riding bikes up 51st Avenue and then down 51st Avenue, and the person in the front in the bright orange jersey, the young man looking confident and not straining whatsoever, that was Warren.

And the old, fat, bald guy that was on his tire trying as best he could to keep up, the guy whose heart rate monitor was putting out plumes of smoke right before it exploded, that was me. So if I seem a little bit strange today, it's because I'm suffering from heat exhaustion, and I have you to thank for that.

Thank you, Warren.

Oh, you're most welcome. Very accurate recollection there, too, by the way.

Wait a minute, didn't we have to stop at Chevron for you to get some more stuff to drink, though? Didn't we? It was a little warm out there this morning, wasn't it?

It was quite warm, especially in light of the fact that we spent a good 15 minutes working on the bikes before we actually got out on the road.

Working on your bike, Warren, not mine. Just wanted to remind that. Just wanted to remind you of that. And I'm also joined in studio, I'm also joined for the first time in a long time by, well, actually, both of my kids are here.

For some reason, Joshua is in, finds it more interesting to be in with Rich, but Summer has joined us in studio. Hi, Summer. Oh, I didn't hear that. Why didn't I hear that, Rich?

I have no idea.

Maybe let's try that one. You still have, say something.

Hi.

Oh, there you are, just barely there. So Summer has joined us in studio today, too, and we were going to have some other folks here. We were going to have some other folks. Mike was going to be here. I had hoped that maybe, we had hoped that maybe your Bible study teacher could be here, but he had to work today.

And who's your Bible study teacher, Summer?

Simon Escobedo.

Simon Escobedo. We'd like to have Simon here today, but the reason is, and I think I did mention this to you guys, the reason is that I got an article in the email yesterday morning, and I have asked Mike Porter and Simon Escobedo to respond to it on our webpage.

And it will become the main article on the webpage. When you first go on the webpage, there's a main article you can read, and it'll replace the article that I have there when they get a chance to get it written.

But this is an article that appeared in the August Berean Call newsletter. Now we may want to explain to folks what the Berean Call newsletter is. Dave Hunt and T .A. McMahon have been putting out the Berean Call for a long, long time.

I've gotten the Berean Call for a long time. And of course, since Dave Hunt was, Dave Hunt's a fairly well-known author. He has written books such as The Seduction of Christianity, which launched Harvest House Publishers, and The Godmakers 1 and 2.

And I believe he co-wrote that. I think Mr. McMahon was involved with that as well. And of course, Ed Decker also wrote with Dave Hunt on those. I think those two were involved in The Godmakers. And I don't know how many other books, many, many other books, Whatever Happened to Heaven and all sorts of books.

I saw a new one that just came out. A very prolific author. And I've seen Dave Hunt debate Roman Catholics. And in fact, I've seen him debate, and not in the formal sense of debate, not like what you both saw a few weeks ago in Fullerton.

And in fact, I should mention that Summer has a review of the debate on our web page.

When you go down to the bottom.

Did I send you that nasty note from that Catholic guy?

Yeah.

Oh yeah, you saw that, didn't you? He wasn't happy that both my wife and my daughter had reviewed the debate as well. He thought that was really cheesy, I guess, or something like that. But you all had a good time there, didn't you?

It was quite interesting. It wasn't what you expected, was it? No, it wasn't what you expected. Anyways, he's debated, not in that formal type of setting, but I've watched him on a television program, Dave Hunt, debating Carl Keating of Catholic Answers.

Now, for some reason, Carl Keating will debate Dave Hunt, but he will not debate me. And I thought that Dave did a pretty good job in corralling Carl and keeping him on topic, which is not an easy thing to do, especially when you don't have a moderator, which most of my debates don't have moderators either, come to think of it, but a moderator who actually steps in and does something and keeps things on topic.

So I've seen him do that, but a few years ago he came out with a book called The Woman Rides the Beast. And The Woman Rides the Beast is a book on Roman Catholicism. And as I looked through it, I noticed that, you know, it's pretty obvious that Dave and I take different approaches to how to deal with Roman Catholicism.

I deal... And it's interesting, years ago, after I had debated Jerry Maditax back in 1990 on the papacy, I had sent the tapes to Mr. Hunt, and he had written back to me and said, well, you know, that was interesting, but, you know, I really don't feel that there's any purpose in getting into early church history and stuff like that.

I just stick with the Bible. Well, all right. The problem is that, you know, in books like The Woman Rides the Beast, most of the discussion is focused on eschatology, on the Book of Revelation, on seeing the Church of Rome in Revelation chapter 17, 18, and things like that, and all sorts of stuff about what the Church of Rome has done in history, and how terrible and horrible it was, and things like that.

So I found that to be rather interesting. Well, I have publicly stated that I feel the Godmaker's books are below the standard of argumentation, apologetic, that we should be using. There are things in the first Godmaker's book that are useful, but especially the second Godmaker's book and the film, very, just simply not good argumentation.

It all uses argumentation that good LDS apologists could just absolutely tear apart, quite honestly. And there's no reason to use that kind of argumentation. It gives them something to write books about, to say, ah, look at these people, they don't accurately represent us.

But the point is that in The Woman Rides the Beast, in the LDS material, there is seemingly no desire for Mr. Hunt and Mr. McMahon to interact with the best that their opponents have to offer. And if you shoot at the low end, then you're leaving yourself open for those who are able to produce the better arguments to refute you and make you look bad.

Dave Hunt's Calvinism Response and the Charge of Synergism

Well, this article in the August Breon Call newsletter, here is, well it's not really an article. It's a response to a reader, and most of the Breon Call is, you know, there will be a particular article and then there will be a section of letters.

And here is the question, Dear Dave Hunt, question. It seems that Calvinism is gaining in influence and as a result is causing controversy and even division in some churches. 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? Well, what we're going to talk about today is the response. And I think what I might just do, I'm not sure. It's going to be hard for me to read. It's three pages, three and a quarter pages long.

It's going to be hard for me to read it and not respond to it. But I'm going to do my best and you all kick me under the table here when I stop and start.

Preaching.

That might be a good way to go. Here's the answer. Here's Dave Hunt's answer. In fact, I have dealt with this subject in at least two books, Whatever Happened to Heaven, pages 235 -237 and How Close Are We, pages 132 -134.

I think that adds up to three pages and three pages. That's six pages. And briefly in The Berean Call, ouch, kicked me under the table there, didn't you? In The Berean Call of March and July 1993 as well as July 1995, we attempt to focus on whatever affects the gospel.

And here's the first thing to remember. And I do not consider five-point Calvinism as a false gospel. It does, however, involve unbiblical teaching. I have fine evangelical friends who are Calvinists.

We have argued without changing anyone's view and left it there. Now, there's the first thing that's stated. Keep that in mind. I do not consider Calvinism as a false gospel. But mark that down and say, does that follow through?

I continue. However, it is important whether man is totally depraved or can, through the wooing of the Holy Spirit, make valid moral and spiritual choices. Whether God wants only a select few, called the elect, to be saved, or whether he wants all men to be saved, 1 Timothy 2, 4, 2 Peter 3, 9.

Now let me stop for a second. Don't kick me. My shins are already sore. But, when the word elect is cited here, no references are given, such as Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 11, Romans chapters 8 and 9, 2 Timothy 1, 8, 9, 2 Timothy 2, 10.

For example, 2 Timothy 2, 10, which says, For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, in the New American Standard, elect in the NIV, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and with it eternal glory.

Paul even says that he endures all things. The sake of whom? For the sake of the elect. No references are given. But, when it says whether he wants all men to be saved, 1 Timothy 2, 4, 2 Peter 3, 9 is cited.

And, for those of you who have obtained a copy of the Potter's Freedom, you know there's an entire chapter in the Potter's Freedom called the Big Three. And those are three verses that Dr. Norman Geisler uses over and over again, Matthew 23, 37, and then 1 Timothy 2, 4, and 2 Peter 3, 9.

So, it's interesting that none of the passages that are classically used to present the Reformed perspective, Romans 8, Romans 9, John chapter 6, so on and so forth, will get cited, but all sorts of the other ones will.

I continue on. Whether Christ died for the sins of the elect only, no references given, or for the sins of the elect, John 1, 29, 1 John 2, 2. In order to discuss these differences, we need to remove some common misunderstandings.

First of all, one who rejects Calvinism is not necessarily an Arminian. Now, where have we heard that one before? It's interesting because Dave Hunt and Norm Geisler don't exactly chum around together, but when it comes to the issue of whether it's God who saves, or whether God saves the cooperation of man, if I didn't have a name on this, I wouldn't be able to tell who wrote it, whether it was Dave Hunt or Norm Geisler.

Isn't that interesting? I continue. Many non-Calvinists believe in eternal security, but object to Calvinism on other grounds. By the way, that's what Dr. Geisler does. He believes in, quote-unquote, eternal security.

Now, I would argue that there is no basis for believing in eternal security, if you reject the rest of these things, but that's another issue. I continue on. Next, it is not a question of God's sovereignty.

God is the potter. We are the clay, and the clay cannot complain about how God uses it. The question is whether God, in his sovereignty, has given man the power to make genuine moral and spiritual choices, or whether man is totally depraved and cannot choose God or.

Good.

So, I break from the quotation. In other words, his understanding is that you do not make genuine moral and spiritual choices if you're totally depraved. Of course, the Reformed person would say that a person who has not yet been regenerated makes genuine moral and spiritual choices.

They're just always against God, because they're dead in sin, and they're enslaved to sin. But they're genuine anyways. They're genuine choices. And I guess he would say, well, unless you are out of slavery, and unless you are absolutely free from any type of constraint, then it's not a genuine choice.

Anyways, it is biblical that we cannot come to God or Christ unless he draws us by his.

Spirit.

But when he does draw us, do we truly respond, or is our response in receiving Christ imposed upon us by irresistible grace? Do we really love God from our hearts? Love requires choice. Or are we deluded if we think this is the case?

Now, I would hope that everyone who has listened to our responses to Norman Geisler last summer, anyone who has heard us discuss this subject, you're automatically going, wait, wait, wait a minute! These are false dichotomies.

These are not the proper questions to be asked. When it says, for example, it is biblical that we cannot come to God or Christ unless he draws us by his spirit, the question then is, who does he draw?

And if you are drawn, will you come? That's not the question he asks. But when he does draw us, do we truly respond? Of course we truly respond. But what he's trying to say is, do we truly respond so that we can reject the drawing of the Father to the Son?

And that the Father can draw all men to the Son and yet still fail to save, in fact, a large portion? Even in Dave Hunt's eschatology, a large portion are not going to be saved. Nor is the issue, and actually, you all haven't been kicking me nearly enough, because I've only gotten through four paragraphs.

Okay, all right, all right, thank you. I will stop commenting, just get through it, and then go back. But this next one is very important, so listen closely. Nor is the issue whether mankind deserves hell.

We all deserve to go to hell, and God will be fully justified in sending everyone there.

Eternally.

The question is whether God wants anyone to go to hell. The Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish, and that he prepared everlasting fire not for humans, but for the devil and his angels, Matthew 25, 41.

In contrast, the God of Calvinism wants many to perish. If he did not, he would extend irresistible grace to all, and all would go to heaven. Which is the God of the Bible? And you'll notice, see the big old arrow I have here written in orange?

See that, Rich?

You got that?

Good, all right. Did Josh see that? I don't think Josh saw that. He didn't see the big arrow? Okay, Josh, you got the big arrow? Okay. You notice what I've got there? Five-point Calvinism is not a false gospel, and yet, we get down to here, and he's starting to contrast the God of Calvinism with the God of the Bible.

How do you put those two together? If the God of Calvinism and the God of the Bible are two different gods, then why in the world wouldn't you identify Calvinism as a false gospel? I don't follow that, but I will shut up now.

Well, actually, I won't shut up now, but I will stop commenting now. Adam and Eve were not depraved, much less totally depraved, as Calvinism asserts for man today. So, it was not depravity that caused Adam and Eve to rebel and sin.

One wonders, one wonders, why did God not extend to them Calvinism's irresistible grace so that there would be no ensuing sin, sickness, suffering, etc.? One also wonders why Christians who have believed in Christ through irresistible grace don't live perfect lives.

I'm not supposed to stop and comment, am I? Are some Christians, such as Paul, giants of the faith because God causes them to be.

That way?

Or are others failures because God, for his own mysterious reasons, doesn't give them sufficient grace? What then is the purpose of the judgment seat of Christ, and what are the rewards God gives to believers if he is the one who causes some to live more fruitful lives while withholding that grace from others who then are destined to live less fruitful lives?

Is there no responsibility on man's part? Are we robots? God is sovereign, always has been, and always will be. His sovereignty, however, did not prevent Satan's rebelling in heaven, or Adam and Eve's rebelling in the garden.

Choices were made that were not according to God's will. It is not God's will that this world be filled with corruption, abortion, murder, lust, wars, etc. He allows it, but this is not his perfect will.

Calvinism, however, seems to overstate God's sovereignty, to the point that all evil must in the end be blamed upon him.

Why?

A totally depraved man can do nothing but sin unless God keeps him from it, which he could, if he would, for all mankind with irresistible grace. Do you get the idea that irresistible grace is not really liked here?

And what was the one thing that Dr. Geisler constantly harped on in his book? He detests the concept of irresistible grace, refers to it as divine rape. Yes, God can do what he desires. He could send us all to hell, because that is what we all deserve.

However, an innocent reader, taking the Bible at face value, giving the words their ordinary meaning would surely be led to believe that God genuinely wanted to save the whole world, and that Christ came to die for the sins of the whole world and to offer salvation to.

All.

This would seem to be stated by multiple verses containing phrases such as, Which taketh away the sin of the world, for God's love of the world, that the world through him might be saved. I came not to judge the world, but to save the world, to be the saviour of the world, etc., etc., John 1 .29, 3 .16 -17, 4 .42, 12 .47, 1 John 4 .14.

And reading other verses containing such phrases as, Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, whosoever will come to me, that whosoever believeth in him, whosoever commiteth sin, whosoever believeth on me, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, whosoever believeth on him, whosoever will, let him take the water of life, etc., Mark 7 .24, Luke 6 .47, and you can look up the other references.

The average reader would surely believe that whosoever means anyone without limitation, not a special class of people called the elect. Taking at face value statements such as, Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, who will have all men to be saved, who gave himself a ransom for all, the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, etc., Matthew 11 .28, 1 Timothy 2 .4 -6, 2 Peter 3 .9.

The same reader, again believing the all means all, and that any means any, would conclude that God lovingly and freely offers salvation to everyone. The Calvinist, however, because of his belief in total depravity and irresistible grace, those are the two bad things, that's not a quote, that's just what I mentioned, requires that God must not only draw sinners to himself, but make them accept Christ.

The Calvinist thus arrives at an esoteric understanding rather than the ordinary one. He concludes that all, any, world, whosoever, etc., though these words almost always mean what they say, sometimes mean only the elect, when, whenever Calvinism requires it.

Isn't this an artificial view imposed on scripture rather than derived from it? That it is foreign to scripture seems apparent from the fact that Calvinism requires the entire Bible to be reinterpreted in a way that does violence to the ordinary meaning of words.

Repeatedly, God pleads with men, Choose ye this day whom ye will serve, but no one can make such a choice except God causes them to choose him through irresistible grace. Over and over, God pleads with his people Israel through the prophets to repent and turn from their sin so that he won't have to judge them.

He weeps over Israel, defers his judgment, sends more prophets to warn, and finally and reluctantly pours out his wrath. But all the time he is pleading with the people to repent who are totally depraved and therefore can't repent unless he extends irresistible grace to them.

Yet he withholds it, all the while condemning them for doing the only thing they can do, and which he alone could prevent by extending grace, but mysteriously won't. 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?

By the way, just in passing, that's a misquotation. Look it up, Matthew 23 .37, we'll look at it in a second, look up Matthew 23 .37. 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. If they are totally depraved, then they can't believe in him unless he causes them to do so through irresistible grace. So would I and ye would not for the Calvinist really mean I would not and ye could not?

If they could only reject him because they are totally depraved, why does he weep and plead while withholding from them the irresistible grace they need to obey his pleadings? This is not the understanding that a thinking person, a thinking person, would derive from reading the Bible.

It is an unnatural imposition to support a dogma. 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 I was mocking.

Him?

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? And how could I maintain to any reasonable persons that I really wanted to bring the man up out of the well, but that he was the one who wasn't willing?

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? Isn't the doctrine of Calvinism really a libel on the character of God?

Does it not present a God who does not love everyone enough to want all to go to heaven, a God who sent Christ to die only for the elect and not for all, yet no basis can be given for why God, who is impartial, would elect one and not another?

Nor is there anything in any of us to cause God to elect us at all. For the Calvinist to take verses which clearly say God loves the whole world, and he is not willing that any perish, that he wants all to come to the truth, etc., and to say the world and any and all only mean the elect is to impose on those verses a view which perverts the meaning of what is being said and conflicts with the rest of the Bible.

We have at least one verse where there is this artificial imposed meaning won't hold, and he is the propitiation for our sins, not for ours only, but also for the sins of the.

Whole world.

Surely our hours must mean the elect, and the whole world must be everyone else. It could not be said in plainer language that Christ's blood was shed not just for the elect but for the sins of the whole world.

Limited atonement thus collapses, and with it much of the rest of Calvinism. God is vindicated as a God who is love, who truly loves all so much that he has done everything needed to save the whole world.

Christ paid the penalty for all. The Holy Spirit seeks to convict and draw all. Therefore anyone who is in hell for eternity is there not because God could have saved them by extending irresistible grace, but did not.

They are there because they rejected the salvation God provided and freely offers to all. Well I don't know about you, but I think Dave Hunt's been reading Norm Geisler. But one thing is awfully clear, and that is while Dave Hunt says, see the Bible is clear, the fact that he does not deal with even one of the hundreds of passages that Reformed authors put forward about the electing grace of God, the deadness of man in sin, the slavery of man in sin, the fact that he hammers away on irresistible grace without ever once mentioning that from the Reformed perspective all that means is that God sovereignly raises dead men, those who are enslaved to sin.

He frees them from their slavery. He gives them spiritual life. He takes out their stony heart, gives them a heart of flesh, biblical terminology by the way. The fact that not once does he ever address any one of those verses is what drives Roman Catholic apologists batty in dealing with his stuff on Roman Catholicism.

What drives Mormon apologists batty in dealing with his stuff on Mormonism? He doesn't listen to the other side. He doesn't deal with what they're saying, and now he's turned his guns upon the very Reformation that freed Europe and the rest of the world from the dominion of the very system that he identifies as being the worst in all the world, Roman Catholicism, and in the process ends up agreeing with Rome on this issue over against the Reformers.

He would agree with Erasmus against Luther, Pygius against Calvin. He would agree with Arminius against the Synod of Dort. He's on Rome's side when it comes to the nature of the will and the nature of grace, and yet this finds in Roman Catholicism the most horrible system there could be.

This type of absolute inconsistency just should not be, folks. It should not be. Now some of you may be big fans of Dave Hunt, and he's written some good stuff. He makes good points when he talks. In The Woman Rides the Beast, he makes good points.

In The God Makers 2, and this is one of the main things that even when I did a radio program with two BYU professors and a Mormon attorney, I made this point then. In his books, for example, in God Makers 2, and in fact I wrote to Ed Decker, and I said, Ed, God Makers 2 is a bad movie.

And it's a bad movie because you use bad arguments. And the main thing that ends up happening is you will have one section that talks about how Mormonism teaches that Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer.

And how that's wrong, and it's the wrong Jesus. And Ed, you're right. That is the wrong Jesus. And that's one of the main reasons we have to evangelize the Mormons, is because they've got the wrong Jesus.

But when you then have a section before it, and a section after it, where you're misrepresenting the Mormons, and you're presenting easily refuted arguments against the Mormons, don't you see what's going to happen?

When you use bad arguments against someone, and then you put those right around a good argument, they ignore the good argument, and in fact dismiss the good argument because the bad arguments that you're using.

You have to be consistent. Well that's what we have here. Dave will say right things about Roman Catholicism, but for some reason doesn't seem to recognize that he agrees with Rome on the one issue that Martin Luther identified as being the very hinge upon which the Reformation turned.

And that is the sovereignty of God and salvation, and man's deadness and sin. These are the very same arguments that Robert St. Genes used against me in our debate on justification by faith in May on Long Island, and Robert St. Genes is a Roman Catholic.

Dave Hunt and Robert St. Genes used the same arguments against Calvinism. They cite the same passages and make the same errors. It's truly incredible. Now what do you all think? I'm going to continue going through this, unless we have folks who, and there's so much to respond to.

I already started to respond to some of this. One of the things that I wanted to definitely respond to, and I asked you to look it up Warren, was Matthew 23, 37. I want to, before we take our break, we're going to take a break in just a minute, but before we do, Matthew 23, 37.

Here's what Dave Hunt says, 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. What does Matthew 23, 37 actually say?

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

There you go. He is addressing those who were unwilling that Jesus gather their children under his wings. That is, he's addressing in Matthew 23, the Jewish leaders. The entire paragraph in this article that says Calvinism changes the whole picture.

Christ could not state more clearly that he truly wants to bless them and that they have rejected him. No, that's not what Matthew 23 says. Matthew 23 is saying that the Jewish leaders are the ones to whom Jesus is referring.

He is the one who the Lord has been berating them throughout Matthew 23, calling them hypocrites and a brood of vipers, and he says that they would not allow Jesus to gather their children, those under their authority, and that's not what ends up in the article.

Now is that purposeful? I don't think it was. But it does show you how eisegesis can take place, how you can take a tradition and read it into a passage rather than letting the passage speak for itself.

602.

274.

1360. 1888. 550. 1360. What do you think? Maybe you'd like to get on the phone and talk with us today about this article in the August edition of the Berean Call. We'll be right back. For your information, not all commercials that air during the dividing line represent the viewpoint of the dividing line or myself either.

In fact, that happened last night, too. I found out later on that while I was filling in for Marty Minto that one of the regular commercials actually was promoting King James-only-ism, and in fact, I got it.

Yes. Didn't know that, did you? Rich just gave me. Yes.

Yeah.

That was the Chuck. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

In fact, someone sent me an email last night that said, hey, did you know that that particular individual defends the long ending of Mark, Mark 16, 9 through 20, on the basis of numerics and the repetition of multiples of 7?

And I'm like, joyous. Anyways, it's deep.

Yeah.

It's wonderful stuff. Anyways, we're looking at the response of, it says, Dear Dave Hunt, and it uses the personal pronoun and refers to his books. So from the August Bree and Call newsletter, and one of the things we were just looking at was the misuse of Matthew 23, 37.

And then right after that, we have a further misrepresentation, and by the way, I forgot to mention that I am joined in studio by Warren Smith. Hi, Warren, again. You're still here. You've made it through half an hour.

That's good.

Still here. Mic is still on.

The mic is still on. Well, I've got the controls over here. Summer's here. Hello, Summer.

Hi.

And Josh is sneaking out the door and running even as we speak. The kids are here, and I'm glad to be joined by you all today. Then we saw this incredible misrepresentation. 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 I was mocking.