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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.
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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.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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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
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Good evening fellow womb -doomers. I just saw that scroll by in the channel,
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I thought that was great, womb -doomers. I hadn't seen that one before, but I know where it came from. We all know where it came from, womb -doomers, that's a good one, welcome to The Dividing Line.
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Oh, boy, I tell you, you know, the people that complain about Angel's cartoons, his angelic responses, evidently do not listen, yeah,
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I need to find whatever that thing is and mute it, there it goes, boop, there it went, evidently do not listen to The Dividing Line very often, because we always have fun on the program, well, almost always, and therefore the cartoons fit in absolutely perfectly with that.
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And if you have not seen the front page, you really need to go see it, after Angel sent that to me.
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To make a long story short, my system ended up saving a file on top of a file, I didn't have his corrected version of it, so I had to call him on the phone, and it was the first time we'd ever talked, and he about choked on a piece of chicken when
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I told him who I was. And so, we had a great discussion, and I tell you, those cartoons,
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I've got a low -tech blog, let's face it, folks, I don't have comments, I don't have all the shadowy thingies, you know, and the super -fine fonts, and all the rest of that stuff that other people have, but I have
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Angel's cartoons, and nobody else has them, so that's just all there is to it, and that makes it cool.
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So, gotta catch the blog and the current cartoon in regards to the
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Dave Hunt -Charles Haddon -Spurgeon dispute. I think Spurgeon finally won this one, and we can all thank
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Angel Contreras for that. I wanted to play some clips on the program today.
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Obviously, I think it would be best for this conversation to be ongoing with both sides at the same time, but we get a lot of folks, let's face it, the
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Bible Ants Man broadcast and our webcast reaches a lot of the same people. We're involved in apologetics, we're involved in dealing with a lot of the same issues, so therefore, the fact that Calvinism and the sovereignty of God, and the purpose of God in creation, and all those things come up, and have been coming up very regularly ever since the debate took place, which, by the way,
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I had not listened to. I had not listened to the Bible Ants Man broadcast of the debates.
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I listened to days two and three when they were re -aired. I had just come back from the trip, and there wasn't a whole lot of me left, and so I was looking for a clip that I'm going to play here in a moment, and I ended up hearing sections from both, well, actually from all three hours, and it is interesting to hear it after having experienced it.
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It was especially in light of a phone call that I'm going to play here that many people heard and many people asked me to comment on in regards to the debate itself, and so since I'm the one being mentioned, and people are asking about me,
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I think it's perfectly fair for me to get a chance to respond to what's being said on a national level, especially when it's talking about me individually.
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The first thing I'm going to play, and I'm going to need to stop and start this because it's nine minutes and 21 seconds long.
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That's a major section of the hour's broadcast, because you only get about 42 minutes of air time, maybe 45 minutes of air time after you do the beginning, and the ending, and the commercials, and all the rest of that stuff.
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So that's a good chunk, about 20 % of a program, was dedicated to this one call, and many people heard the call.
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It was a call from a fellow whose brother goes to Southern Evangelical Seminary. Remember that I've said many times before,
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I truly, honestly believe that Dr. Norman Geisler's appendix in the second edition, not the second printing, the second edition of Chosen but Free in response to the
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Potter's Freedom was primarily written by undergraduate students at SES. So this guy's brother goes there, and so he was talking about the whole
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Bible Answer Man thing. Some of the statements that were made in the course of answering this question left many of us simply breathless and amazed at what was being said.
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And also a number of assertions were made that I go, wait a minute, we addressed that in the program, and I would think if we're going to go back to that point, that my point should have been refuted somewhere along the line.
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If it's not refuted, then why are we going back to this? Things like that. So we're going to play this call, this segment of the program, and we'll just stop and start it and go on from there.
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That's the lovely thing about a digital file, is you don't have to worry about things like that. How did people do this? Before you had everything in MP3 or WAV format,
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I've never quite figured that out. But anyway, let's go ahead and start. I think this was three days ago.
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Was it three days ago? Was it Friday? I think this was, yeah, this was Friday. I think it was Friday. We had this call on the
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Bible Answer Man broadcast. I was talking to Daniel in Palm Beach, Florida. Hi, Daniel.
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How you doing, Hank? Nice to talk to you. Nice to talk to you. Hi. Okay, my question has to do with the debate that you had on your show a couple of weeks ago with James White and Bryson.
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Yes. Okay. My brother, just to give you a quick question, my brother goes to Southern Evangelical Seminary with Norman Geisler.
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Yes. So obviously, you know, I called him because James White apparently is countering or trying to counter
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Norman Geisler a lot. So I called my brother up and asked him questions about the debate. My question is this.
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I am having problems now because even though it's mentioned that it's an in -house debate, it is a hard topic to discuss because I think that both are hitting each other saying, you can't have the right gospel believed in one way and you can't have the right gospel believed in the other way.
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Now James White made points, Bryson made points, but one of the points that my brother told me and he said basically that five -point
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Calvinism is repugnant to God. Now that is exactly what Norman Geisler says.
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We need to understand that, and some of you are new to the program and maybe you haven't gone back into the archives.
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It's amazing. I just got an email from someone who was asking a question about an article, actually the answer was fully explained in an article right on our website.
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There is a search function on the website, folks. Try the search function first.
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Anyway, if you go back to the archives on straightgate .com, you'll see that when Chosen but Free first came out, we did nine weeks, a nine -week response to it on our program which at that time was only on Saturdays.
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It was on KPXQ in Phoenix and we also webcasted at that time, but we gave a full response to it, and one of the things that we referenced at that time was the strident language that is used by Dr.
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Geisler, now of course in comparison to Dave Hunt's book, not strident language at all, but you do have the assertion that Calvinism as it's historically been defined, not as Norman Geisler feels he has the right to redefine it, is abhorrent to God, that it is sub -biblical, and there's a whole list of things, and I included them at the beginning of the
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Potter's Freedom in regards to the things that Norman Geisler said, so certainly I have a feeling that's what the students at Southern Evangelical are being taught, is that it's abhorrent to God, it's not that it's just an in -house debate.
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...punctuate to God. So that being said, nothing can be right about five -point
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Calvinism, especially when it has to do with that God, if five -point
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Calvinism is right, that God would be the author of evil. Can you just tell me a little bit about that? I mean, I know... Well, I think that's what we attempted to discuss in that debate, but I think the very fact that we have on two men, both of whom
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I've endorsed over the past, not only endorsed, but I've written endorsements for the book of, one of James White's books.
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That's the King James Only controversy, by the way. So I certainly believe that this is an in -house debate, and I would disagree with Calvinists who draw on the ring so tight that it excludes some non -Calvinists, like Arminians.
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I would also, on the other hand, say the same thing with regards to Arminians or non -Calvinists who want to draw on the ring so tight that they exclude
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Calvinists. I think both are wrong. But doesn't moderate Calvinism kind of contradict itself?
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Well, as far as the debate is concerned, I think it speaks for itself. What does that mean?
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Moderate Calvinism does contradict itself. It's an incoherent system. I mean, it doesn't really exist. As I documented in the book, that in reality, what he calls moderate
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Calvinism isn't moderate Calvinism. It is simply Arminianism that redefines all the terms.
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But that's the only answer you're going to get, is it speaks for itself. In other words, I don't know, go ask a moderate
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Calvinist. That ain't me. However, my point is, in response to your question,
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I do believe that people in both camps are part of the body of Christ, and that's why
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I think, and what we tried to demonstrate on the air, is that this is a collegial debate, an in -house debate among brothers.
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Neither George Bryson nor James White would suggest that the other was not a believer.
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And I think that's the level in which we should conduct this debate.
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Now, is it a serious debate, important debate? Of course. That's why we had it on the air. Do both men feel passionately about their position?
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Of course. Does Norman Geisler believe that James White is wrong? Yes. Does James White believe that Norman Geisler is wrong?
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Yes. So yes, it is a passionate debate, but I think that iron sharpens iron in this case, and that we're not talking about, on the one hand, unbelievers, and on the other hand, believers debating one another.
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This is a debate amongst the brethren.
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Is there a way to know which is the closest to the truth? Yes. I think that you have to test everything in light of Scripture.
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Now let's stop it right there. Now, is there a way to know which one is right? And notice the response, yes, test everything by Scripture.
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Who on the debate was focused upon the text of Scripture?
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Who wanted to exegete passages of the Bible? Who wanted to talk about John 6?
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Who wanted to talk about Romans 8 and 9? Who wanted to talk about Ephesians 1, Genesis 50 -20, and Isaiah 10, and Acts 4, and all those other passages?
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And who wanted to do anything but talk about the subject of the
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Scriptures themselves? That was the constant refrain from everyone that contacted our ministry, was one side went to the
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Bible, one side went to philosophy, and would not touch the Bible with a ten -foot pole. Now, this next section
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I'm probably going to have to play more than once, because this gets a little bit important here. Now, sometimes people will say, look, here's a particular text,
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I haven't had an answer on this text yet. Or something like that. I mean, what you have to do then is go to that text and find out whether you're reading your presuppositions into that text, or whether that text really has anything to say about the issue which you're discussing.
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So there are cases in which texts are mentioned more in debate fashion, as a rhetorician would, than actually looking for an answer.
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Now, that bothered me. The reason that bothered me is that's talking about me.
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And that is talking about the fact that I very frequently raise
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John chapter 6, verses 35 through 45. And I made the comment, and this wasn't on the air,
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I made the comment that I had never heard a reformed, a consistent, reformed exegesis of the text.
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And Hank couldn't believe I would ever make such a statement like that. And George Bryson, likewise, when
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I talked about John 6 at one point during the break, said that many of the verses I bring up are just rabbit trails anyways, and they're irrelevant.
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And so what was just said, and interestingly enough, when I first heard this, and I heard it live,
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I did not catch that part. I don't know if the phone rang, I don't know what.
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But I didn't catch that part. And that is a direct reference to me, that I raise
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John 6 as a rhetorician would, that I'm not seeking the truth of it, and that I have not examined my own presuppositions.
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Now folks, there are only a few passages in scripture that I have examined to the depth that I have
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John chapter 6. I have translated the passage. I have gone through the grammar of the passage, the syntax of the passage.
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I have examined what, you know, a number of times, and I suppose we could do it this week too, but I have had books piled next to me where I've been ready to go through what these various authors have said about John chapter 6, and demonstrate it.
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I've gone through Olson, and Vance, and Corner, and Geisler, and Hunt, and gone through all of these different perspectives, and have demonstrated that on a simple exegetical level, they aren't touching the text.
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They are not walking through the text. The grammar of the text contradicts what they're saying. So let's put it this way.
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If I have not examined the presuppositions I'm reading into this text, and no one has shown me where I'm doing this, if I have not examined the grammar of this text, if I have not looked at this, then
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I've looked at nothing in the Bible. I haven't looked at the Trinity. I haven't looked at the deity of Christ. I haven't looked at King James only controversy, justification, anything like that at all.
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So I missed it the first time by, let me just replay it one more time. Now sometimes people will say, look, here's a particular text.
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I haven't had an answer on this text yet. Or something like that. I mean, what you have to do then is go to that text and find out whether you're reading your presuppositions into that text or whether that text really has anything to say about the issue which you're discussing.
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Now let me stop it right there. Can we imagine John chapter 6 in which we have discussion of coming to Christ, faith, salvation, resurrection on the last day, the purpose of God in drawing people to Christ, belief and unbelief, that this is not relevant directly to the question of God's sovereignty, man's responsibility, man's deadness and sin.
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The sovereignty of God in the matter of salvation. The relationship of God's decree to man's faith.
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We have the discussion of man's inability in John 6, 44. What more could we need for John 6 to be relevant?
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The reason, the only reason anyone could ever have to say it's irrelevant is because the fact that they don't have an answer for it.
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They haven't done the work. They haven't done the study. It goes against their traditions and therefore it's dismissed.
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That's the only reason I could possibly see this passage is certainly and clearly directly relevant to the issue at hand.
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So there are cases in which texts are mentioned more in debate fashion. Debate fashion.
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What is debate fashion? Obviously if you're debating the issue of the sovereignty of God and you know of a passage and in my debate with George Bryson, George Bryson collapsed on John 6.
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The audience was laughing. Now I wasn't encouraging him to laugh, but his replies were simply incoherent.
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They made no sense. They had nothing to do with the text. Am I not supposed to bring that up?
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What does it mean to bring something up in a debate fashion? Well I think that's defined. As a rhetorician would rather than looking for the answer.
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So evidently if you really feel that you have studied a passage, that you have worked through a passage and you have examined that passage and you have a strong presentation to make on that passage, then evidently you can't present it without looking like you're presenting it in a debate fashion, not looking for an answer.
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What if I already know what the answer is? I have taken the time to listen to what people say about John chapter 6.
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They don't deal with the text. They are eisegeding things into the text. They don't follow the text itself.
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Almost every single one that I know of either flees the text, John 12 or someplace else, or reads
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John chapter 6 backwards. Backwards! Literally going from the end to the beginning to try to read things into it to avoid they will use a hermeneutic in John 6 that they will not use anywhere else in the entirety of scripture.
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That's been my experience and that experience is growing and there may be many subjects in the field of theology that I would never claim expertise on, but you'd have a hard time proving that in John 6.
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That's one area that I've really, shall we say, done my homework in.
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And so, like I said, I missed that as it went by. I must have been distracted by something.
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It happens. But it was very disappointing to me because I knew exactly what was being said.
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I knew exactly what the reference was and that was just very disappointing to me.
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On the other hand, you have to grapple seriously with text. So when texts are brought up, for example, in Matthew 23, 37.
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Now, you have to grapple seriously with text. Alright, why didn't we grapple with Genesis 50?
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Why didn't we grapple with Isaiah 10? Why didn't we grapple with Acts 4? Why didn't we grapple with even
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Romans 9 and actually go into the text itself and listen to the ones that are brought up here?
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Matthew 23, 37. There is an entire chapter in the Potter's Freedom dealing with the big three.
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Matthew 23, 37, 1 Timothy 2, 4, 2 Peter 3, 9. Folks, I don't hear any evidence in what we're about to listen to that the
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Reformed exegesis has even been introduced to the discussion, let alone that it's been grappled with.
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No evidence in Matthew 23, 37, the fact that those who are unwilling are not those
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Jesus was seeking to draw, clearly, right there in the language, listen and see if there is even the acknowledgment of that particular point in what is said.
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Where Jesus says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you.
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How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.
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Now at face value, this seems to suggest that the will is involved. Who said it isn't?
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Who said it isn't? The will is involved, but the will is enslaved. How many times did
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I say that in the program? I don't know. I lost count, but it seems that there you have
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Matthew 23, 37. Should someone have said something along the lines of, now
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Reformed exegetes point out that the ones who are unwilling are the leaders of the children.
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They are specifically differentiated by the Lord Jesus. This is in the context of Matthew chapter 23, which is an extensive and long diatribe documenting the woes and punishment coming upon the
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Pharisees, and hence the contextual reading would be this. But you don't hear that.
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You don't find that. And I see no evidence that that's even a part of the thinking at this point.
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In a libertarian freedom sense, but that's something that has to be grappled with. You have to grapple with that text.
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Or another text like Acts 7 .51, you stiff -necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears, you are just like your fathers.
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You always resist the Holy Spirit. And is that one not addressed in the
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Potter's Freedom? Yes, it is. In fact, I addressed it in the context of saying this, anyone who uses this passage is demonstrating that they do not understand what irresistible grace is all about.
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And they do not understand the Reformed position. The passage is not talking about God seeking to bring resurrection life to one of his elect.
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That's not what the text is talking about. No one says that people do not resist the
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Holy Spirit. The issue is when the Holy Spirit comes to bring resurrection life, is the
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Holy Spirit dependent upon the will of the creature? That's a completely different issue. But it is my experience, again, that this debate, when it is done in a monologue, the other side just won't listen.
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I mean, that's the primary issue of the cartoon on our blog right now, is people who attack the doctrines of grace do so out of willful ignorance.
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I don't want to hear what you're saying. I have my tradition. My tradition filters out what you're saying.
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And so I'm going to interpret you in my way. And hence you have something similar to the cartoon previous to that with Dan Corner with the straw man in the back.
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And the straw man's getting all beat up. And that's what happens in these situations as well. For Luke 7 30, but the
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Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves because they had not been baptized by John.
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Now what does that mean? This goes back to Psalm 82. Who are these people?
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They're supposed to be the religious leaders. God sends a prophet. What is God's will? When God sends a prophet calling for repentance, he calls men everywhere to repent.
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Does that mean that it was God's sovereign will that they be drawn to Christ and believe and become saved and be regenerated?
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That's a huge leap. But again, as long as you won't listen to what the reform position is, then you can think that these passages and I'm dealing with these,
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I've already spent more time dealing with these favorite passages of Arminians on this program than we spent in dealing with Genesis 50,
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Isaiah 10 and Acts 4 from the other side on three hours to Bible Answer Man broadcasts.
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That's that. And that's not how it should be, is it? Or Jonah 2 8. Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
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Now, these are texts that let me. Jonah 2 8.
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Well, you know, I guess since since folks take the time, you know,
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New American Starens is those regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness. Hmm. I've seen this one someplace before, and I'm not going to say exactly where I saw it, but I saw it on a website of some of some
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Lutheran folks that I know. That's where I saw that before. And I don't know what the translation is.
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Maybe somebody can look it up. But you know, we don't need to. We don't need to use unusual translations.
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That doesn't that doesn't work to legitimately. We need to wrestle with. Yeah, we need to wrestle with those. I just did.
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Now, can we get back to Genesis 50 and Acts 4 and John 6 and and things like that?
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The same thing is true when you read, let's say, Romans chapter nine. Romans chapter nine seems to very clearly indicate that people have an opportunity to choose.
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Now, since since a lot of folks heard that and then they went, huh, what could someone turn the radio up?
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I just thought I heard something that didn't make much sense there since since someone let's let's let's repeat that one just just one more time.
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So we we hear what's really being said. Chapter nine. Romans chapter nine seems to very clearly indicate that people have an opportunity to choose if you read it in its entirety, particularly the last part of the chapter.
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Hmm. Hmm. Well, you know, those of you who've read
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The Potter's Freedom know that that I express some level of of amazement when
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I was dealing with Norman Geisler's book, because he went to Romans both in reference to John 6, 44 and Romans nine,
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I believe I'm thinking up top my head here. So I believe it was verse 16, which reads,
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So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
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It's literally, therefore, it is not of the willing one, neither of the running one, but of the mercying
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God. That's the literal rendering of the Greek. And so you get the the parallel of the of the the the verbal actions there, the participles that are used.
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I expressed a certain level of amazement that when Norman Geisler addressed these, he could actually turn both
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John 6, 44 and Romans 9, 16, say, See, we clearly here have the free will of man.
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And I look at these passages that so plainly present the free will of God. And I honestly have to ask myself the question, how can someone look at a passage like this and turn the free will of God into the free will of the creature?
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Give the prerogatives of the potter to the pots.
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I don't understand it. I confess it is beyond my comprehension.
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But when you read passages like Romans 9, that talks about Jacob and Esau, and I know we're going to turn these into nations when you go back to Genesis and so on and so forth.
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No one has ever been able to, and that's why I did manage to get this in, thankfully. I would like to hear, if there's someone out there listening today, and you think you have, and I've met a few, there's a guy,
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Johnny DZZZ in PalTalk. I mean, PalTalk, if you want to find the greatest concentration of theological ignorance in the planet in one place,
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PalTalk's where you go, okay? And there's a guy in PalTalk, and we're talking, his stuff on Romans 9 is the greatest example of eisegesis you'll ever see.
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I've heard some people who've tried, I'm talking about serious people who actually know something about the Bible, know something about its backgrounds,
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I've never seen a serious scholarly response to Piper. Piper's work is so thorough.
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It's so clear. And I managed to get that mentioned in the subject, in the
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Bible Answer Man debate. And still, the words are so clear.
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So then it does not depend on the willing one. Even if you wanted to do nations, are you talking about a singular here that's a nation?
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It's not on the one willing, or on the one running, the one trying. But on the
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God -mercying. And you see, it's so easy to slip into this humanistic mindset where everything in the
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Gospel is God trying, and man allowing God to succeed, that we don't see that these verbs have
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God as their subject. God's the one who is mercying. See, we don't have that verb in English.
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We should. But on God who has mercy, that almost sounds, well, God does have mercy. No. This is a verb.
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That's why we need to know. This is a participle, and it's in direct parallel to willing and running.
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It's not this, neither is it this, but it's this. It is the
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God who mercies. Are we to say that mercying? Is somehow ineffective without the will of man?
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That is 100 A degrees opposite the teaching of Romans 9 .16. Directly opposite.
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100%. Well, I'm not, I haven't even finished this clip, and yeah,
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I'm doing all right today. Let's skip it. We don't, you know,
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I'm sorry AOMN that we won't have your sterling voice on some of those ads, but we'll get it in there.
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Go, man, go. Go, man. Hey, maybe next week we'll have, next time we'll have an advertisement for debating
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Calvinism five points, two views. How's that, huh? Maybe I could mention that coming up soon. Maybe I could.
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It could happen. It could. Well, one thing we are going to do, I'm going to let people know now, I'm going to sort of just sort of throw it out there so people know it's coming.
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Don't buy the book from Amazon. Get it from us. You know why you want to, you know why you want to pre -order the book from us?
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The reason you want to do it is if you order it pre -order, you will get it signed.
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You will get, I will sign all of the pre -orders. I did that with the God who justifies, and we're going to do this one too.
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Once the books come in, once we're ready to ship them out, we have a big old signing party, and I sit there and, you know, massage my arm every once in a while and just sign and sign and sign and sign, and so don't get it from Amazon because if you get it from Amazon, I ain't signing it, okay?
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That's just all there is to it. So the spot would go something like this, yes, you too can get a hand -signed copy.
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That you can then sell on eBay for $59 .95. Did you see that? Did I send you that link?
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They're selling an old 1990 version of God's Sovereign Grace, signed by the author, $59 .95.
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I'm just like, oh, please. That is so dumb. Did anybody bid on it? That's the question. I don't know.
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I haven't gone back to look to see if they just gave up on it and used it to line the birdcage or just what. Anyway, I'm sorry.
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Can I? Please continue now. Yes, well, Balthazar just asked, Dr. O, can you sign mine,
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Dave Hunt? Yes, Balthazar, if you'd like me to sign it, Dave Hunt, I can do that.
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It'll look pretty much like my signature, but I can go ahead and do that. All right, let us continue on. I lost where I was here in the clip.
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Let me see if I picked this up at the right spot. If you read it with a theological presupposition, you may come up with a different answer.
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Or if you don't understand that Paul is quoting certain Old Testament passages... Ah, boy, did you catch that?
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If you don't understand that Paul is quoting certain Old Testament passages... Now, remember, more than once,
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Hank was trying to get George Bryson to go into the Old Testament passages and go to Jeremiah 18 and say, see, see, actually what the potter and the clay is is that the potter is under the control of what the clay does because if they would repent, then he wouldn't do with them what he said he was going to do with them and stuff like that.
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Now, again, folks, I taught exegesis of Exodus a couple of years ago.
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He is not in channel right now, at least I don't think he is, but there is a fellow who comes in channel and he works with one of my students from Golden Gate.
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I taught, it was a second year Hebrew class on the exegesis of Exodus a few years ago.
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Exodus 33 is the background. That is the key element that Paul is drawing from in the
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Romans 9 passage. You dig into Exodus 33 and you're not going to come up with some man -centered stuff.
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You're not going to do it. I've done that. And so to even suggest that I haven't, again, leaves me as amazed as the stuff on John 6 did.
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There is rich stuff there. There truly is, but you can go to Piper.
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You can read it. It's all there. It's very, very clear. You go to the Old Testament passages and the presuppositions are being read into these by those who seek to find a way around the clarity of God's revelation here.
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With a different answer, or if you don't understand that Paul is quoting certain Old Testament passages, you may not come up with a good answer.
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But I think the point here is that this debate is causing us to wrestle with the text and wrestle with the presuppositions.
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Well, I wish that it was. And it is. Let me take that back. It is doing exactly that.
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I am so thankful. I am very thankful for the Bible Answer Man broadcast of the debate between myself and George Bryson.
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Do I feel that it was two against one? Obviously. Everybody who heard saw that.
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Do I feel that it would have been nice if George Bryson had been forced to answer a question once in a blue moon?
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You better believe it. Do I wish there had been maybe someone with considerably more background in the subject to address it than George Bryson?
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Yep, that would have made it even better. Because you wouldn't have wasted all the time on all these extraneous things.
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But am I thankful? Oh, you better believe it. Because it is causing people to wrestle with these things.
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And that's exactly right. That's what the Bryson debate last year did. That's what the Potter's Freedom has done. I hope and pray that's what debating
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Calvinism 5 .2 views does. Most definitely. It makes people work through these things.
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But sometimes people come up with answers to these things and they're not actually listening to what the issues are. And so yes, there are a lot of Calvinists that say,
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I don't agree with Calvin. I don't agree with him in the strong sense of determinism.
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In fact, you have R .C. Sproul who gives us a very interesting discussion.
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Now this is where he goes back into where he started the program. Now I don't know why you would ever start a program here.
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But we started with this quote from Calvin. And then quoting Sproul. And Sproul was simply making a point that I have made.
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And it's a point that I made in the Potter's Freedom. And that is when you talk about predestination and election.
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In fact, it's something that Dave Hunt has misrepresented me on. And I've documented in our upcoming book. When I was talking about Ephesians chapter 1,
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I talked about the fact that it is by his grace, his mercy, and his power that he predestines unto salvation.
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That is a different basis and a different process than those who will end up under his wrath.
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Now I'm not one of those who tries to say, well there's no relationship between the positive decree and the negative decree.
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But they are not. The term he uses is equal ultimacy. They are not equal ultimacy in that sense.
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They have different sources. They have different basis. Mercy is not justice. They are not the same thing. We do distinguish between them.
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But even though I tried to explain that, it's almost like, well no, you don't really explain it properly. And I'm going to continue hammering away on this point.
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This point where he does believe that the ruin of the wicked is not only foreseen by the
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Lord, but also ordained by his counsel and his will, which of course is what Calvin taught, but points out that reprobation cannot be seen with equal ultimacy with respect to election.
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I doubt that Calvin would have used the exact same term if it had been asked in that same way. He says hyper -Calvinism is equal ultimacy, which is based on the concept of symmetry, complete balance between election and reprobation.
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So in his view, he's saying, look, this is not true. Okay, that's nice.
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But I don't see how it's really relevant, to be perfectly honest with you. I don't see the issue here. I'm not a hyper -Calvinist, even though there was almost a suggestion made of that at the beginning of the first hour.
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Hyper -Calvinists do not believe in the necessity of preaching the gospel, the duty to preach the gospel, in offering the gospel to all people.
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They don't believe in that kind of thing. And generally hyper -Calvinists, if they're consistent, will eventually draw a line around themselves.
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It gets so small that the only people who can stand it is them, and that's only on one foot. So if you'd like to see an example of that, see
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Mark Carpenter. But that's really not the issue here, and I don't see the relevance to answering the question.
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Now notice what's about to come here. There is not equal ultimacy. There is not symmetry.
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God is not responsible for the damned to the same degree as he is for salvation.
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Those who say that God actively wills the salvation of the saved and the damnation of the lost to the same degree are anti - or even sub -Calvinists.
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So you have this debate amongst Calvinists. Some say, well, that's nonsense.
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That's just rhetoric and so forth. But he's trying to make a case here. He's saying that God is not responsible to the same degree for the damnation of the reprobate as he is for the election of those who are before the foundations of the world.
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Now can you hear the poor guy called in going, but he has no idea what this is all about.
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And I really wasn't overly certain myself, but you can just sort of hear in the background there tuning a radio in or doing something.
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I don't know what he was doing. Determined to be those who will be saved. So again, it's important to recognize that there are all kinds of modifying positions.
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We may look at them logically and scratch our head and say, this seems like rhetoric to me. It doesn't make any sense to me.
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But it causes you to think, and I think that's the important thing. Okay. Great. Thank you very much.
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You're welcome. And again, I can't emphasize strongly enough, and this is what we tried to emphasize by having two men of God in the studio who could deal with one another respectfully.
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Now I wasn't in this debate in any sense. I tried to moderate this debate. Keep it on point.
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Okay. Did y 'all catch that?
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Let me play that again. What was really interesting here to watch is not only that this was a passionate debate, but it was carried on in a collegial fashion, and there was never even the hint by one...
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Oops. I went right past it. Do forgive me. You're looking at a waveform. What can I say? Great. Thank you very much.
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You're welcome. And again, I can't emphasize strongly enough, and this is what we tried to emphasize by having two men of God in the studio who could deal with one another respectfully.
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Now I wasn't in this debate in any sense. I tried to moderate this debate. Keep it on point.
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What can I say? I listened to the debate again. Like I said,
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I was looking for a clip. I'll play here in a moment. There were so many times, not only when it was...
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In fact, someone made the comment when that first aired in channel. I even forgot
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Bryson was in the studio, because so many times it was back and forth between you and Hank, and it was.
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It was very clear. And there are so many examples. I thought about doing this, but you know what? Anyone who's heard this is all...
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And I'm watching the channel right now. People are sitting around going, Oh, come on. You've got to be kidding me. How many times did
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Hank answer my point in the form of a question to Bryson to set him up, giving him the answer, giving him the direction he wanted to go?
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It was repetitive. And I mean, I can honestly say that if you were to ask, and we got,
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I think, at least one indication of this. If you were to ask the people who were on George's side, if Hank was neutral in this, just honestly, without the emotions, they'd all go, no, of course not.
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I mean, he's talking about this every day. I'm going to play a clip later on where he says,
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Christian theism agrees with his perspective over against ours on free will. And I mean, I guess we have to leave the opportunity open that Hank actually believes.
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I had nothing to do with it. I was not doing anything at all. But if that's the case, then wow.
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Then there's, you know, what can you say? It was so clear. Not only on the air, it was clear to me sitting in the studio.
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It never crossed my mind that some would say, oh, no, it was completely fair. Just, you know, I was never involved.
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Who could deal with one another respectfully. Now, I wasn't in this debate in any sense.
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I tried to moderate this debate, keep it on point. But what was really interesting here to watch is not only that this was a passionate debate, but it was carried on in a collegial fashion, and there was never even the hint by one or the other debaters that the other one was not a
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Christian. And I think this is a good model of how we should engage in this topic.
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We should do this with gentleness and with respect. And I think in the debate, it's important to learn to listen and listen to what the best arguments are and then respond to them.
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Now, I've had a lifetime of having to do that growing up in a Calvinist home. Okay, well, then we go back to the
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Calvinist home stuff. That was a long discussion and hopefully a useful discussion in regards to that.
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Now, just yesterday, and there was even a call today. I mean, this is becoming almost daily. And when you do the webcast immediately after the program, it's so hard to discuss it.
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This was yesterday. And you'll see the relevance. So Christian theism acknowledges that God created the potential for evil because God created humans with freedom of choice.
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Notice, now we have Christian theism itself being defined as having this concept of libertarianism in it.
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Now, we choose to love, to hate, to do good or to do evil.
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And the record of history bears eloquent testimony to the fact that humans of their own free will have actualized the reality of evil through their choices.
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Which, of course, Calvinists would agree that men freely do all those things. They just do so in accord with the sovereign decree of God so that those evils which they actualize actually have purpose and end up resulting in the glory of God.
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So here God creates Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve have a choice.
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Oh, by the way, this is a caller from a lady, a poor lady who's talking to an atheist. And interestingly enough, the call today was a guy who calls himself a
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Christian but he's starting to question things. And so you see how this is very important. And it does impact how your theodicy impacts how you answer questions concerning the purposes of God and creation.
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They can obey God or they can live by the dictates of their own will.
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They can choose to act or they can choose to act otherwise. Adam has choice.
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He only knows their destination. Ah, here we go. Here's where she asks the question, yeah, but what if they have free will and stuff like that?
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Well, the fact that... Let me back it up here so you can hear her full statement. Adam has choice. He only knows their destination.
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If he knows that... Well, the fact that... Look, the fact that I know that Sonny and Cher were divorced 40 years ago or however many years that was, does that mean that I caused that?
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The fact that I know that that happened? Okay. Okay? Okay? Sonny and Cher.
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As soon as I heard that, I went, oh my goodness. The reason I did that is because this is also from the
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Bible Answer Man broadcast when we were doing the debate. Listen to this. Let me just touch on this one more time with you,
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James White. Let's say, for example, by way of illustration, I know as a human being that Sonny and Cher were divorced 40 years ago.
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The fact that I know that doesn't presuppose in any way that I caused that. However... So you can know something without being the cause.
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On a human level, however, God is knowing what you're going to do in the future. But the fact that he knows does not necessitate that he causes, does it?
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But the question is, how does God know what is going to happen in the future?
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There's only two ways of answering that. Either he knows because it is a part of his decree in which exists the compatibilist freedom of man.
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I mean, Edwards wrote the greatest tome on the freedom of the will in the sense of the compatibilist freedom.
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So he certainly believed in that. He either knows because it's a part of his decree and hence the end glorifies him.
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All things are the glory of his grace. Or, and this is what I've been asking before, when did God come to know what
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I was going to do? If he's known from all eternity, then when he created, if there's no plan that gives order to time, why is
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God glorified for what happened? If he just created and he is not the one who created the ends as well as the beginning, if he is not the one who accomplished his purpose in time, as he keeps saying he's doing in Isaiah and other places, then why is he not glorified?
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But why would he be glorified if he just simply created and he goes, oh, look, I won at the end. Could it have been otherwise?
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Could we, if we truly have libertarian freedom, could we do something else? How does God know what a libertarian free creature, a creature who is not under a decree of God, how does
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God know what he is going to do in time? I can answer that question. How does he know? God doesn't know everything because he decrees it.
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God knows everything because by nature he is all -knowing. You know,
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I controlled myself during the program, but, you know, what can you say?
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I can answer that. God knows all things because he is omniscient. Okay, folks, try that in a systematic theology class sometime.
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It doesn't work because you just argued in a circle. Knowing all things and omniscient are the same thing.
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And so, you know, that's like saying, why is George Bush the chief executive?
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I know, because he's president. You know, it's just, ah, it's enough.
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So it had come up in the Bible Answer Man debate, and I had pointed out, wait a minute, you're making an analogy between human knowledge of the past and God's knowledge of the future.
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You're saying that they exist in the same way, that they're the same kind of knowledge.
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That means it's passive. That means if you're going to follow this argumentation, then
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God took in knowledge of what was going to happen in the future in the same way we take in knowledge of what took place in the past.
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Do you really want to follow that to its logical conclusion? I hope not, because that leads us right back to some form of process theology or open theism or something that doesn't answer the question.
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And so here came the Sonny and Sherry. I've never heard, I've honestly never heard a worse example of dealing with God's knowledge than saying, and today the same question came up, not 25 minutes before we started this webcast, so about an hour and 10 minutes ago.
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The exact same thing came up, and I almost, I really got the feeling that he was going to use the
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Sonny and Sherry thing again. But instead, I think he remembered he used it the day before, so he changed his whole perspective and used a different example.
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And he used the example, well, if you know that the United States captured Saddam Hussein, does that mean you caused it?
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And it was funny, right as we were starting the program, I forget who it was in channel, I'm sure someone will take, I think it was
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John Mark, but if it wasn't, I'm sorry. Don't have time to look back. Someone said something along the lines of, Hey James, just because you know which
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BAM clips you're going to play today doesn't mean you caused them to be played. Which was exactly right.
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That was the point. It's amazing you can say that there's a category error in John 11, and then make such a clear category error here in comparing our knowledge of the past with God's knowledge of all time.
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I just, well, anyway, so we go back to the call yesterday. Adam has choice.
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He knows their destination. Well, the fact that, look, the fact that I know that Sonny and Sher were divorced 40 years ago, or however many years that was, does that mean that I caused that?
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The fact that I know that that happened? Okay. You see what I'm saying? Now God knows not only the past, but he knows the future.
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The fact that he knows what's going to happen in the future does not mean that God fatalistically determines what's going to happen in the future.
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I see what you're saying. Okay. Here's the big thing.
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Okay, if anyone recognizes that lady's voice, could you please have her call the dividing line?
51:34
We need to do some emergency apologetic repair to the underlying theological structure.
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Well, just so you have it straight, you can say to your friend, God did not create evil.
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God created the people for evil. That was supposed to say potential, and that's the way it was when
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I replayed it. I didn't cut anything out. It's the potential for evil. Human beings actualized that evil by their free choices.
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Does that make sense to you? It does make sense to me. I'm just not sure if I can really push it out in the right way.
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Okay. I want to be very articulate and clear and spiritual. So is there any expert that you could direct me to or any type of book that explains this thoroughly?
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Yes. Now, what are you expecting here? If you didn't listen to this, what are you expecting to hear at this point?
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I can guarantee it won't be one of mine. Were you thinking George Bryson's book? No. Listen to this.
52:33
One book that is coming out in the near future actually addresses this issue, which is a book that I wrote.
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It's called The Bible Answer Book. But there are other books that are available right now, and we can give you a bibliography of those books, which actually address the same issue, the issue of evil.
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So we can give you a bibliography if you want to hang on, of other books. The Bible Answer Book, though, will be out at the end of this month.
52:59
Well, that's going to be interesting. We're going to have this particular... I wonder if the Sonny and Cher...
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Maybe that's where it came from. Maybe that's why it's been used more than once. The Sonny and Cher example will be out there for all of us to deal with in the future in regards to that issue.
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I don't know. But, well, I'm glad, like I said, that the conversation is ongoing.
53:26
And someone might say, well, doesn't it just make you really frustrated that, I mean, you just have this little teeny tiny webcast and the
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Bible Answer Man is on hundreds of stations and thousands and thousands of people listening. Well, you know what? There might have been a time in my life when that would have bothered me.
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I'm not saying that I rejoice in that. Would I rather see solid biblical theology being given that kind of promotion?
53:58
Well, of course. However, there is also a need to recognize that, you know, from my perspective, the fact that I've gotten to do this for 20 years now, not the dividing line, but Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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Last year was our 20th anniversary. This is our 21st year now.
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This webcast, I mean, you know, we do this on a wing and a prayer.
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By the way, we got our soundboard back today, so that's going to be great. Woo -hoo! But we've got, you know, we're in this tiny little facility and a tiny number of people, and yet we've reached so many folks that I can't complain.
54:39
I can't get all upset about that. I just have to believe that as people listen to that, and as I watch some of the comments on the channel, yeah, some of these crusty
54:48
Calvinists have been sort of hard on Hank today. Then again, maybe I have too. But there's so many people on the channel right now that are going, you know, even back before I knew what the doctrines of grace were, when
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I listened to that stuff, there was something about it that just bothered me. There was something that didn't fit.
55:07
And I started reading the Word of God, and I just keep going back to that statement that I keep saying
55:14
Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, and it's always safe to throw Spurgeon out there because he said everything.
55:20
So you'll probably find something close by. But he said,
55:26
Christ's sheep will hear Christ's voice. And does that mean that some of his sheep may accept less than stellar theology at times?
55:37
Yeah, yeah, they will. But in time, Christ's sheep will hear Christ's voice.
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You can trust that. You can rest in that. You can accept that.
55:51
And that's why I can, you know, I will finish this program, and I will go get a workout.
55:59
There are friends coming over. We're going to be, in 45 minutes, we're going to be pumping iron. And we're going to be talking about neat, fun stuff.
56:07
We'll probably talk about theology, but we'll talk about cartoons and the Dave Hunt situation and everything else.
56:13
And I will enjoy it. And I just sometimes run into folks,
56:21
I run into folks who lose perspective and somehow think that it's up to me.
56:27
It's up to me. I've got to get out there, and I've got to correct Hank Hanegraaff, and I've got to do this, I've got to do that. No. I mean, if you have the opportunity,
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I have the opportunity, so I can, you know, I'll say something. My name keeps getting thrown out there, so why not?
56:42
But you know what? You do what the Lord calls you to do, and if you know that you're doing what the
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Lord's called you to do, there is a quiet confidence, there is a satisfaction that the world can't even touch.
56:57
The world can't give it to you, and the world can't take it away from you. And it's just so exciting to get to meet new people, and they go, you know,
57:06
I read your book, and it just did so much for me, and I see
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God in a different way, I see myself in a different way, I can't look at anything the same anymore, and I just smile, and it's like, hey, it's not me.
57:19
I mean, I'm glad one of my little books was helpful to you, but you know what? That's God's truth, and if I get, if a weight drops on my head, and I'm history tonight, the kingdom goes on, and the truth goes on, and that's just the way it is,
57:36
I ain't indispensable, and neither is anybody else. I'm just tremendously excited to have an opportunity of getting to be used, and man, you know, the impact we've had, and done it on so little, it's just amazing, and so I'm thankful that my writings have gotten out there, you all should be thankful that the only reason you're hearing this, the reason you have the videotapes, and the audiotapes, and the debates, and that we distribute those things, and that I can continue to do this stuff, is not because of me, it's because the guy that sits across the wall, just hit a button over there, and started the music, and so you could probably thank him a whole lot more than me, but hey, the two of us together, we get it done, and we're going to keep doing it, and enjoy ourselves in the process, and so I would recommend that to you as well, thanks for listening today, thank you for supporting the ministry, pray for us, because something tells me with that Dave Hunt book coming out, it's going to get interesting over the next couple weeks,