April 28, 2006

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Memorial Service for Elder Don Cross and the Freedom of a Non-Network Ministry

Hi, good morning. Welcome to The Dividing Line on a Friday morning. We had a memorial service yesterday. Some of you who have over the years gone to the prbc .org website to listen to sermons and listen to Bible studies will recall that at the bottom of that main page, after you entered into the site, there were three elders listed.

Myself, I am the younger elder. And we have the middle elder, Don Fry, who does the Vast Joy of the Preaching. And then the elder elder, Elder Don Cross. And almost exactly 20 years between each one of us, about 42 years between myself and Elder Cross.

And so Elder Cross went to be with the Lord last Friday afternoon while I was away. And so we had the memorial service at the church yesterday at 11 o 'clock in the morning. And then the graveside interment at 3 o 'clock.

Might have just been able to sneak in here and do the 4 o 'clock Dividing Line. I just didn't want to have that kind of time pressure. Didn't want to be thinking about anything like that. It was a wonderful time.

It's a great encouragement when you see a man of God who is faithful to the end. I could not help but be reminded. We were talking in Channel a couple evenings ago, I think, and someone mentioned at the end of Pilgrim's Progress, which there were two books that Brother Cross kept trying to read, even in his declining health at his mid -80s, his Bible and Pilgrim's Progress.

And as Christian is entering into the river, he feels like the water is going to overflow him. Was it Hopeful that said to him, carry on, my feet have reached the bottom and it's good. You think about that and it's a great testimony.

So that's what we were doing yesterday and that's why the program is on on a Friday. A lot of folks won't be listening. That's bad marketing on our part. But you know what, that's why we are who we are and not who we aren't, I guess is the way to put it.

So it is nice to have the freedom to be able to do what we need to do. That's why we don't do the network thing and people say, I've got to be on radio. Nah, you know, if we did radio, we'd probably have to do it every day and you have hard breaks.

And I know how to do all this stuff. I grew up doing that stuff. Don't like it. If someone wants to take what we do here and ship it off someplace else, that's fine. But you know what, the Internet works pretty well.

Once in a while we have some hiccups but it works pretty well and people are getting better and better connection speeds. Back when we first started doing this, people would be bouncing out all the time.

They'd have a lot of trouble listening and fewer and fewer people have that kind of a problem anymore. So I think this is just a wonderful way to do it. And besides that, that's just how we're going to do it.

So there's just not much to argue about. 877 -753 -3341 was just chatting with one of our long-term friends out there. And he had mentioned that he had taken the program I did in response to Ergon Kanner and has been distributing it all over the place and the Lord has blessed that.

At least one person who has just never heard the issues put that way and that they're listening and considering more and more about these issues. And I'll have to admit, even after posting two days ago now the blog article concerning the great silence of Lynchburg, nothing has changed.

No responses from either of the Kanners. Now obviously that means they have together decided that they're no longer going to talk to Dr. Askell and myself. Now I don't know how you arrange debate when one side won't talk to the other.

Obviously we're going to press on. We are going to, well, we actually have that if you have the computer. Yes, is this the sound that we should use? Waiting for the Kanners to respond. And the final Jeopardy question is, and unfortunately they are holding up blank cards right now.

And they bet all their money. So there's nothing going on there. Obviously what I'm going to have to do is I'm going to have to make a phone call. Someone on the channel just said a student there told me last night that he heard one of the Kanners mention the debate just yesterday.

Well, okay, great, fine, wonderful. I really hope it happens. I'm going to be there even if it doesn't happen. I still want to come and speak at the church there locally and make things available to talk to students.

But someone may be asking why wouldn't it happen. There are a lot of people in the Southern Baptist Convention who would like to see this not happen. There are a lot of political reasons why this shouldn't happen from some people's perspectives.

They don't want this kind of straightforward encounter to take place. And will they prevail? I don't know. I have a feeling as the word has gotten out, the pressures, and as the word continues to get out, and especially as the Southern Baptist Convention meets in just a matter of weeks, that there's going to be more and more pressure placed upon not us.

I mean, what are they supposed to do to us? I mean, that's the nice thing about being us is what kind of pressure you can put on us. I mean, we live on a teeny tiny little budget, and so we don't have to worry about making this person happy and that person happy.

And if Mrs. Widget gave 20 of our income and they could get to Mrs. Widget, then there might be a problem. But that's not us. So not much pressure put on us. And Tom Askle just sort of chuckles at political stuff.

And so, you know, what can they do to us? But there's a whole lot of pressure that can be put on Jerry Falwell, Liberty University, Liberty Seminary, and its new president, Ergon Kanner. And Paige Patterson, of course, is having this wonderful discussion with Al Mohler about the reformed theology and Calvinism at the Southern Baptist Convention.

And so there's all sorts of political clout in that arena that could be brought to bear to where they, you know, would just say, well, we're not going to do it. It would be really hard for me to see Ergon Kanner going, well, we said we'd do it, and we said we're looking forward to it, but we're not going to do it.

They would have to come up with something to make an excuse for this one. It would be pretty tough, I think, to come up with an excuse other than, well, we've just decided this isn't a good thing to do.

So we'll see what happens. Anybody who has the Kanner's ear, you might want to ask them, hey, are you going to respond to Dr. White? He's asked some pretty direct questions of you, and there is that stuff about Romans 9 that you haven't touched on.

And there's all these questions that are not getting any answers, and it's not like you've just written back and said, well, you know what, I'm really busy right now. And I'm really busy right now. In fact, what we're going to be doing today on the program here in a moment after we take our first call is I'm going to be playing what I expect to be the primary portions of my opponent's opening statement on May 7th.

You say, how in the world did you get hold of that? Well, Shabir Ali is predictable in the sense that he, you know, I've heard his presentations, and he uses a lot of the same material. And there's nothing wrong with that.

What I'm saying is he's consistent. You know, when he travels around, he's talking about the same subjects. You better be consistent. I hope I'm consistent when I speak on various issues in various places.

So I'm going to play that section. So I'm very, very, very busy. I mean, I've got a book to be putting together right after that's over with. I'm speaking in London on July 4th and 5th at the School of Theology at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

September, October, November, you can't even begin to chart that period of time. I'm preaching twice as much this summer as I ever have before at the church. So I've got stuff coming at me, and, of course, the blog takes up its amount of time.

I've got stuff coming at me from every direction. So I understand busy, and I wouldn't have had any problem if Dr. Kanner wrote back and said, You know what? Good questions about Romans 9. I can see how people would wonder about what I said.

And so I just don't have time right now. I've got a publishing deadline maybe, and I fully understand those things. I really do. I've got two more articles under deadline right now by the middle of May.

I'm going to have like a week after the Shabir Ali debate to get those done. I understand all that stuff, and if he had just said, I'll get back to you, that would be fine. But they're not responding to anything.

They won't even allow their systems to send back the return receipt requested. And that's purposeful since it's two different people in two different states that are doing that. So they've just decided, let's let them hang for a while in the wind.

And do I find this an overly friendly thing to do? No. Do I find it even an overly mature thing to do? No, especially if you look at the article I put up. I hadn't thought about it. But there is a statement in Dr. Kanner's last response to me.

It's quoted in my response back to him. As to our correspondence, something along the lines of, you know, I'll respond if I feel irresistibly drawn to do so. And at the time, I just sort of chuckled about it.

I thought it was just being a joke. Now that he's gone silent for a week and a half, that would, you know, now I'm going, hmm, I hadn't seen that. I hadn't really read it in that way. So anyway, lots of questions unanswered.

And one side trying to get the best debate possible. Oh, by the way, did you see the news? Congratulations to Liberty University. They have done something no one's ever done before. Their debate team won all three categories of the national debate categories, all three of them.

No one's ever done that before. Look at the list of the people they beat, Dartmouth and Harvard and all these places like that. I mean, they've got the best debate program in the United States. Isn't it utterly ironic in light of that, that the president of their seminary and the dean of their students is the one who's going, well, we're not going to, we're free-flowing debate, man.

You don't need a thesis statement. We don't need to have no stinking rules. We just want free-flowing debate, you know. And we're going, excuse me, but, you know, debate has a purpose. It has a reason.

There are rules for debate so that you don't use bad arguments, so you don't skip subjects. You don't go off, you know, on wild goose chases and waste everyone's time. And isn't it ironic that it's the people, it's the visitors going to Liberty who are the ones who are pressing for the application of meaningful debate format at the championship debate school in the United States.

Evidently, the dedication to sound debate that exists at the undergraduate level has not quite gotten up the chain, shall we say, to those at the top. And we can only hope that that will take place. Anyway, 877 -753 -3341.

A Caller on Elmer Towns and the Meaning of Christ's Death

The phone calls coming in need to get through those so we can get to the Shabir Ali presentation. Let's talk with Jimmy. Hi, Jimmy.

Hello, Jimmy. Hey, how are you doing, Dr. White? Doing all right. Hey, well, God bless you and your ministry. I do give glory and honor to God for men who have been called to provide the services to the body that you do.

My question deals with this. I'm sure you're familiar with the Baptist Fire website. And there was a quote on this website. It was an article. If you get on the Baptist Fire website and go down a little bit on the left, there's a link down there to Dr. Elmer Towns from Liberty University.

And he makes this quote right here, and I've not heard an Armenian quite state it like this, and I was going to get your perspective on this.

Okay, hold on just one second. I'm looking for Elmer Towns. Is it on the right-hand side?

It's on the left-hand side. Left-hand side. Halfway down, and it's going to be a link to Agape Press.

Okay. Well, there's the link to Kanner's sermon. Probably not giving any links to my response to it. What do you think? No. Yeah, I didn't think so, no. And then I've got Bailey Smith, W .A. Criswell, Vance Havner, Alvin Reed, Adrian Rogers, Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler, Vance Havner, and then I ran out of room.

Did I miss it?

Yeah, I think you missed it. It's probably towards the upper third portion of it. It's kind of hard to see. W .A. Criswell? No, it's Dr. Elmer Towns of Liberty University, and what it deals with is it's a response from him.

It's called Theologians Differ on All for Whom Christ Died, and it's Dr. Towns commenting on Dr. Mueller's views. Okay, all right.

Well, I can't find it, but you go ahead with it. I wanted to be able to look at it, and I'm just not seeing it on the left-hand side anywhere. I've seen all sorts of other stuff, but I don't find that one.

Yeah, and I looked it back up this morning just to make sure that it was, in fact, still there. Well, anyway, here's the quote. It says, this is Dr. Elmer Towns, it says, Jesus died for all. No man goes to hell for his sin.

People go to hell for unbelief. They have not believed in Jesus Christ, Towns says, therefore the atonement covers the sin of every person, but that's not universalism. We must give them the message they must believe.

I mean, the obvious implications of this, well, first of all, it just seems to me that turns the gospel upside down and on its head there, because, I mean, the implication of this is that there is no man walking around whom Jesus hasn't paid for his sin, therefore the only sin that somebody would pay for in hell is unbelief, and I'm just kind of curious.

Have you heard in any of your debates or communication, somebody come at it from that perspective?

Yes, in fact, it's quite often, and I finally found it. It is a little teeny-tiny link to Agape Press, but yes, very, very common, and I've run into it many, many times where people do say that Christ has borne the punishment for all the sins of mankind, and they are no longer held accountable for those things.

The only issue is belief or unbelief. Now, of course, there's a little problem with that, and the most major obvious problem with that is unbelief is a sin, and if Christ did not atone for the sin of unbelief, then we're all lost because that is a sin in God's sight just as anything else is.

So you can't find anything biblically to divide up the kinds of sins for which Christ atoned in his death so that everything is covered except for this one particular thing, but yes, I've run into it many, many times, and the way to respond to it is to demonstrate, first of all, that unbelief is a sin, as I just mentioned, and therefore challenge where this distinction comes from, and then secondly to demonstrate that faith itself is the gift of God.

It's not given to every single individual. It is related to the work of regeneration. These are things I've tried to do, and you can go directly into the text and do these things if you can find someone who will actually sit down with you and do it, will actually care enough about what the Word says.

Last week I played a citation from just a little brief section, the definition of the five points from Dr. Wilkes down in Alabama, and I had written to him, and we started corresponding, and what I appreciated was at least when he wrote back to me initially, it wasn't the kind of bombastic response you get from a lot of folks.

It was a nice conversation, and we've been going back and forth, but I haven't succeeded in getting him to actually engage the text itself with me, and in fact I've invited him on the program. He even asked in his first email that he have an opportunity to respond to what I would say on the program.

I said, great, I would love to have you on. I'd love to talk about John 6 with you, stuff like that. But the last thing I got from him was, you know, I'm really busy, and maybe someday we'll do John 6, but I don't have any more time for this right now.

And I had sent to him the exegesis of John 6. I had sent to him discussion of 1 John 5 .1 in comparison to 1 John 2 .29. If we can get in the text, we can talk about these things, then we can deal with them.

But I don't find, especially the Baptist Fire Anonymous type people, to have any interest in engaging the subject on that level. I just don't find them to have that kind of interest. They want a monologue, not a dialogue.

So, you know, what can I say?

Well, you know, the interesting thing, too, that I found out is that as I clicked on the Baptist Fire website, in fact, if you're on the website, there's another link at the top where it says, another pastor recants Calvinism.

That's a pretty interesting article when you go to read it, because he's a young pastor and stuff, and you can go to their website and take a look at it. But when you read these articles, I mean, even the stuff that I've read from Dr. Adrian Rogers, it seems everything is at a basis of sort of an emotional appeal that, you know, we Calvinists are somehow these, you know, we're baby haters and all this other stuff.

And it really just ends up being an emotional appeal, which makes it very difficult to deal with, because if you can immediately tap into people's emotions, they will tend to, you know, that's how they're going to come at it and sort of isodate Scripture that way.

And that will really give you an opportunity to come at this from a biblical perspective and to show them, say, yes, this is in fact what God's Word said, and it ends up being more of a man-centered gospel than it does a God-centered gospel, which our ultimate purpose is to glorify and honor Him and enjoy Him forever.

And if that's our perspective, then we're not going to have an issue with appropriately understanding what the Word is telling us. Yeah, quite true.

There's no question about the fact that, you know, you will actually even hear individuals make the assertion that, well, Calvinism appeals to the intellect as if there's something wrong with that, as if God didn't create the intellect or something.

And it really does go back to the fact that people who want to think in a logical, rational way and want to honor God by believing everything He said rather than just, you know, picking and choosing are going to think about these issues.

They're going to want to come to conclusions on these things. And when people start discouraging them from coming to conclusions on these things, they're going to wonder why in the world this is. And so we see this happening all the time.

I just did click on that link, and this is interesting. I'll have to read what this is. It's not an overly long thing, and it goes all the way back to, you know, Adrian Rogers. But I'll have to take a look at that, and maybe it'd be worthwhile responding to that on the blog.

We'll see. But anyhow, actually, you know, I don't spend a lot of time looking at Baptist Fire. And the main reason, and I should, I should probably spend a little more time, but the main reason is these people are anonymous.

And I'm sorry, they won't stand behind what they say. They don't want a dialogue. They don't want a monologue. They won't put themselves in a position of being held accountable for defending their own position on the same grounds they accuse others of errors.

And I have a hard time respecting someone like that. I really do. You know, I mean, I am what I am here and at church and all the rest of the time. You know, what you see is what you get. And if I'm going to hold other people to a certain level of accountability, well, so am I.

That's just the way things work. And when people don't do that, it really bugs me. This is all there is to it. So I probably don't look at them as much as I should. All right? All right. Well, God bless you, brother.

Thank you for your time. All right. Thanks a lot. God bless. All right. Bye-bye. Well, the phones are lining up. Oh, is that that guy in Georgia? Yeah. Did you put him on line 13? Yeah. Okay. Line 13.

That's the one that rings in the outer reaches of Mongolia. Yes. Yes. As soon as we get to that call, the lights are going to dim in here, and I'm going to start misspelling everything that I'm typing in channel.

All of a sudden, the phones have gone nuts-a-burgers here, but we'll see if we can't get to the look at that. Hang up one. It's immediately ringing again. So who knows where we get to Shabir Ali. I may have to just say, all right, hold on, everybody.

Let me at least get to Adam real quick. Hi, Adam. How are you doing? Hello, Dr. White.

Doing good. I've got to tell you, I heard Dr. Kanner's sermon. I listened to it before you responded to it, and some of the stuff was just so offensive that I sat down and I wrote him a letter. Oh. And I was a long one.

I told him, and I said, I'm not trying to convert you to Calvinism, I said, but the problem that I'm having is the method of your argumentation. And I told him, I said, you know, the name-calling, I said, is really bad when you say Calvinism is an infection, things like that.

A virus. Then we can just go back and forth. And I can say, well, Arminianism is a diarrhea. You can say, well, Calvinism is a headache. I'll say, well, that kind of a name-calling won't get anywhere.

And I told him that I didn't like misrepresentations, misuse of terms, and I challenged him on that stuff. And you think you're getting the silent treatment. He hasn't written me back.

Well, you know, I've noticed, well, maybe that's why. Your letter was so long that he can't get to mine because he's responding to yours. But I have noticed, I think Dr. Kanner tries to respond to too many letters.

Because in my experience, and by the way, let me just make sure that everyone hears me when I say this. If you choose to write to Dr. Kanner, please, please, please, do so with the greatest level of patience, love, kindness, and respect possible that reflects well upon the truth you're attempting to speak with him.

But I've seen the responses he fires off to people, and they're frequently two sentences long. And they don't look good. You can't provide enough context in two sentences to avoid people going, what in the world are you talking about?

I mean, he made a reference to someone, and he mentioned about my hatred of God or something. And it's like, what do you mean by that? And I even asked him what he meant by that. He wouldn't respond to it.

But later on, listening to his sermon and stuff, I think what he meant was that from his perspective, I would rather preach that God hates people than God loves people. Okay, now he's wrong about that, but it wasn't my hatred of God.

It was preaching the concept that God actually hates sinners, which the Bible says he does. But those sections have been effectively decanonized in much of evangelicalism. But as it may, there wasn't enough context given in this two-sentence response to avoid misunderstanding there.

And so from my perspective, Rich doesn't even send me a lot of those emails. There would be no way that anyone could ever work again around this place if all we did was answer the number of emails that come in.

This is not possible. We don't have that kind of a staff. And evidently, it seems that Ergon Kanner tries to respond to each thing himself. You can't do it in a meaningful way without getting yourself in trouble.

So that's been my experience. But anyway, well, yeah, I have a feeling that, especially as this conversation has gone on, that eventually Dr. Kanner has decided, look, I'm just not going to engage these folks anymore, and maybe that will change in the future.

I don't know. But it's one thing for him to decide not to respond to the Calvinists who are writing to him. It's another thing. I'm not just the Calvinist who's writing to him. He's supposed to be debating me.

And so there's supposed to be some give and take here. There's supposed to be some discussion. And right now, like I said, it's just really, really quiet. Well, thank you, Adam. I appreciate the call.

All right. All right. God bless. Bye-bye. Let's grab one more real quick and then get to Shabbir Ali. Let's talk with Mike. Hi, Mike. How are you doing?

Hey, Dr. White. How are you today? Doing good. Excellent. Hey, listen, a couple of comments and thoughts on your conversation, I guess, with Joe, the Pentecostal minister. Yes, yes. All right. Hey, just out of curiosity, was he from the Assemblies of God?

I believe so. I'm looking over at Rich because, see, he had called, I don't know, was it six, nine months ago? It was well before we started moving. And he had had conversations with Rich, and you heard him talking a little bit at the beginning.

He's still sort of upset about the fact that, in essence, Rich said to him, well, you know, you may feel like you're called to debate Dr. White, but we do have some standards as to the people we're going to debate.

And what have you published? What are your degrees? You know, if Dr. White said, all right, then how do you parse this particular Greek verb? Would you have any idea? Would you have to, you know, how could you do this?

And he took offense at that, and I think is still somewhat offended by that from the comments he made at the beginning. So my recollection is, yeah, he knows, for example, Sam Shamoon up there in Chicago.

Then again, everybody in Chicago knows Sam Shamoon. But I think it is an age-y church, yeah.

Okay, yeah. The reason why I asked you, Dr. White, was because I'm from an Assemblies of God background, and I'm no longer in the Assemblies of God. But I would respectfully challenge any of my Pentecostal brothers and sisters who are currently listening to your program and ask them, along with Joe, if they have ever heard a sermon or have studied any materials regarding God's electing grace and salvation.

Yeah. You will never hear that. At least I never did in my 10 years in the Assemblies of God. I never heard one sermon on that very matter. So when I was listening to Joe, I thought to myself, you know, chances are probable, if not certain, that he hasn't really read much material on this subject.

You know, I know he had concluded by saying something to the effect of, I don't think I'm alone on this. And I thought to myself, to me that was quite revealing. I thought, you know, he probably hasn't.

And I don't want to obviously attack the guy, but I was thinking chances are probable, like I said, he hasn't really researched anything with regard to, of course, I know you guys were touched upon Romans 9, John 3, 16, and the like.

But, you know, when I hear somebody, and I've had plenty of encounters with AFG people on that, and I look at that basically as someone, you know, committing the logical fallacy of an appeal to prestige.

You know, perhaps you're saying, well, based on the opinions or testimonials of a certain individual, basically that gets it.

I've been subject to that a lot. It's not just the AG folks. I mean, that's what you get from a lot of our Southern Baptist brethren. And, you know, all you've got to do is just appeal to popularity at that point.

And there's no question that they'll always be able to. I mean, I've had people say, well, look at the history of the church. Look at people down through the centuries. Look at the early church fathers.

And you know what, if that's what determines truth, if it's a matter of, you know, popularity contest at that point, I would simply point out that the fundamental things that are most offensive about the biblical presentation of the natural man is the fact that God's a potter and we're the clay, and that he's holy and we're sinful, and that we are completely dependent upon him.

Those are clearly biblical teachings, yet they're clearly offensive to the natural man. They're offensive to many, many people, even to a lot of religious people. And so I'm not surprised that the proclamation of those truths will always be something that is, in the long run, the least popular perspective to take.

I mean, look at how those truths are treated even within secular context today. They're mocked as being against having a good self-esteem and all the rest of the stuff. So that doesn't surprise me at all.

You look at the early church writers, many of them not even functioning with a complete can of scripture, and it doesn't surprise me at all that they would take a perspective that would emphasize man's sovereignty over God's sovereignty.

If we didn't have a sure word from God, how in the world would we even be able to argue these things? I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, go ahead, sir. Anyway, that's why I really appreciate Reformed theology, because, like I said, coming out of the assemblies of God, it wasn't a grace-centered theology. I did not at all experience that.

It was mostly people dealing with their personal experiences becoming very man-centered.

Yes, well, let's face it. I mean, I want to be kind to any of my Assemblies of God listeners, but my experience in the vast majority of that particular situation is a very emotionally driven form of worship that in essence functions as a battery recharge each time you get together.

And the idea of doing verse-by-verse exposition, exegesis of the text, so on and so forth, that doesn't provide you with the context. That's not going to provide you with the real exciting stuff. And so you get to pick and choose what you're going to preach about.

And so, like you said, ten years, you never heard anything on that. I heard last night one of our channel regulars came in to channel from up at the Together for the Gospel conference that's going on right now, Sproul and MacArthur and Piper and Moeller and just a whole group of folks.

And he mentioned that Dr. Piper had preached on the glory of expositional preaching. Wow, wow. And I would like to hear that. But, you know, I would, if someone would say, well, glory, yeah, it's glorious because it opens God's mouth.

In other words, when we choose what we are and are not going to preach about, we are in essence editing God. But if we, in a disciplined fashion, really seek to handle the entirety of God's word, it's glorious because we are hearing everything that God would have for us.

And that's why, you know, people listen to what I mentioned here on the program a couple weeks ago. I was just blown away when my fellow elder, Don Fry, chose, first of all, chose to preach on Sunday evenings to the Book of Numbers.

That's the first thing that was amazing. But then when he preached on the section in Numbers that has the priestly methodology where if a husband questions his wife's fidelity, he actually preached a whole sermon on that and really made it, he really made it work, not by just leaving the text, but by demonstrating how it was relevant and so on and so forth.

And I thought about that, and I thought about how rare that is in these days. And, you know, people find that odd, strange, weird, and that's why, you know, let's face it, there's a lot of bigger churches than mine.

I'm sure a lot of folks would sort of mock our little congregation because, see, you must not be doing something right.

That's what you usually get. That's usually the comment.

That's right, except that your average Southern Baptist pastor is at a church between 18 months and 30 months. And Don Fry has been at Phoenix Performed Baptist Church for 33 years. Now, you look at that, and I'm still thinking about the memorial service yesterday, and you look at it from the eternal perspective, and that sort of changes the viewpoint just a little bit.

I would say so. I would say so.

And, you know, the thing being, as far as the sermon that Dr. Piper had given, it almost kind of reminds me of Dr. Askell's Founders Journal. The fall edition had a good essay on the preaching on the doctrine of election.

And I was just really jazzed by that because, you know, like I said, I'm somewhat of a newbie to the doctrines of grace. And that really touched me because, like I said, all those years in the Assemblies of God, that was simply a subject that was completely absent.

Right. Well, obviously, you know, the important balance to maintain there is when you go for ten years without it, it's really easy to go for two years on nothing but that. And that's what you have to avoid.

We call it cage-stage Calvinism, where we take the new Calvinist and stick him in a cage so he doesn't hurt himself or anybody else. And I'm not sure who came up with that. I know Sky Man on our channel, a Presbyterian pastor in Georgia, was the one who first used that, and I thought it was a good description.