Radio Free Geneva (Plus a Clementine Request)

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A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.

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I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

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They're following men instead of the word of God. Our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

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At the top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out, he died for all.

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Those who elected were selected. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us low.

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His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.

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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers.

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On earth is not his equal. I think

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I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

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Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing.

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For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever.

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Were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing.

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Ladies and gentlemen, James White is a hyper -Calvinist. Now whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper -Calvinists.

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Just ask who that may be. Christ Jesus, it is he.

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I've said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism.

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It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist. Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism.

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Lord Salvaoth his name. Read my book. From age to age the same.

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And he must win the battle. And now from our underground bunker hidden deep beneath Liberty University where no one would think to look.

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Save from those moderate Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who've read and re -read George Bryson's book.

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We are Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to save to his own eternal glory.

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And welcome to Radio Free Geneva, my name is James White. I'm going to do the best I can today to be with you for the next hour as we continue our examination of Dr.

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Steve Gaines' sermon against divine election. But you will notice that, well let's just say

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I could sing bass parts a little bit better today than normal. Just one of those seasonal things that the wife and I have been passing around unfortunately.

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And it's getting by pretty quickly but it's in that annoying cough sinus stage.

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I just about had it licked and then Saturday I kicked myself into the ditch by doing my first double century.

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I was on the bike from 5 .45 in the morning until 8 .05 in the evening. Of course there were some stops in there obviously.

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But 12 hours and 14 minutes of bike, 201 miles covered and my body is sort of going, yeah let's see what we can do to you about that.

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And so the voice is not going to be exactly what it could have been.

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But just as the Radio Free Geneva music was starting, I love how this works.

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You wait until the very last second and then I get informed about things.

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But we have been given information from Facebook. Now Facebook's Facebook but this is someone who actually works for Family Radio.

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That Harold Camping passed away today at home in Alameda. Well, you know, maybe there was something about 2013 after all, right?

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It is an amazing thing. I being the only person who ever had the opportunity of debating

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Harold Camping on his end times predictions and things like that. And it is sad to me, it really is, the entire fiasco.

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What false teaching does, what ignoring the corrective methods and means of grace that God has provided to us does.

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Here is a man who at one point was telling people to leave their churches. He damaged many, many people's lives and many, many people's faiths.

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He really did. And why? He didn't start out that way. He didn't start out that way.

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And really when you look at it, there were some flaws right at the beginning. And because he wouldn't listen to others, they became hardened.

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And even though it was a slight deviation at first, look how far it took him. Look how far it took him.

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And how many people were damaged in that process.

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It's a sad thing. Sad thing indeed. So Harold Camping passing away, that was 10 hours ago, so that would have been right around midnight.

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So maybe yesterday, I don't know. She works for Family Radio and I don't see any other reports of it.

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I don't see anything either. So we should say this is just a Facebook thing. I hope we're not sending the gentleman off to eternity before his time.

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But someone who's working for Family Radio, you would think, would know something about this and wouldn't report it prematurely.

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So he certainly has been in extremely poor health after the stroke that he had shortly after the failure of his false prophecy.

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Well, there you go. I mean, there's been many times, in fact, when was it? I think it was day four yesterday.

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I happened to... No, it was yesterday. I happened to hit the button on my car radio for Family Radio.

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And very frequently on Sunday mornings, they will have hymn music that's very much like the hymns that we sing at PRBC.

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And there's not very many other places you can hear that. And I was thinking about the fact of what this radio network could have been, could have done.

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And it was just sort of shaking my head when I think about the millions and millions of dollars wasted on people like Benny Hinn and TBN and stuff like that.

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And then you got someone who's a whole lot closer to the truth in many areas.

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And then off into the disrepute that it brought upon the gospel.

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And I was just going, oh, Lord, I'm glad you're in control. And I'm glad that I don't have to understand the reasons for everything, because I don't understand the reasons for a lot of things.

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And I won't see in this life, I don't think, either. So reports are that Harold Camping passed away.

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And that's a... It's all a sad thing. It doesn't matter who it is and what their status was.

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Death is something that was not a part of the original creation. And yet it is very much a part of the creation today.

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So we certainly pray for his family and for all those many who were hurt by Harold Camping, that they would come to understand that Harold's perspectives were not the perspectives of the

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Bible, and that those who lost their faith would come to a true faith. Because I don't believe anyone who has a true faith lost their faith because of Harold Camping.

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All right, this is Radio Free Geneva. And my plan, please notice that, especially this time of year, plans tend to get moved around a bit.

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But my plan is to actually try to get three programs in this week,

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Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So that's the plan. We'll see how it works out.

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We will certainly do our best. I know there's lots of things we can be discussing, including the fact that those of us who have been warning about the slippery slope have been proven right yet once again, and that it wasn't a slippery slope.

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It was pretty much just a straight off cliff. Just 90 degrees straight down.

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And that's exactly what we're seeing in our society. Those who have been pushing for the redefinition of marriage really have been pushing for the destruction of marriage.

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And they are accomplishing their goals. And God will not be mocked.

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And judgment is all around us. It's our job to proclaim that.

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But we'll probably be looking at that on Wednesday. And then another program,

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Lord willing, on Friday. Next week, obviously, is a mess. But we'll see. Maybe a Monday -Friday type thing might work next week.

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We'll see. We'll see. Anyway, Radio Free Geneva is a program, if you have not heard it before, where we examine attacks upon Reformed theology.

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Sometimes they are absurd. Sometimes they are high -end. And almost always they involve some kind of misunderstanding of Reformed theology, primarily due to the traditions that men have that do not allow them to hear what it is we are saying, and hence to respond to it in a meaningful fashion.

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And so we are talking about a sermon that was delivered on September 8th of this year by Dr.

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Steve Gaines at Bellevue Baptist Church. And we have gotten to this point.

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We actually played this part, but it was right toward the end of the program. I'm going to replay it so we can sort of dive into the context.

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One of my reasons for playing this particular sermon is because of the fact that Dr.

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Gaines refuses to allow for the distinction between the revealed will of God and the prescriptive will of God.

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Is that just a way to get around the fact that you have a human philosophy,

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James? No. It is a natural and it is an appropriate and a necessary recognition that when we use a term, the will of God, the will of God is not something that is simplistic.

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That the revelation given to us in Scripture forces us to go beyond simply saying that, well, you know, it was my will on Saturday that I was going to try to finally do something

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I had not ever done in my life and do what's called a double century, 200 miles one day. I had to do it because my wife had done it three times and so I was getting a real inferiority complex going, but it was my will to do that.

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Well, then I could say I willed myself to do it. You know, once the sun went back down, it started getting cold, it's dark outside, stuff is starting to hurt,

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I willed myself to do it. Now, even there in the human level, there's two different levels of will.

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One was just a simple desire, the other was actually making it come into existence.

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There's all sorts of things that could have stopped my will, right? I mean, I may have willed to do it, but there were at least three people on the road on Saturday that tried to kill me in the process.

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Honking at me, and swerving at me, and yelling at me on a loudspeaker that they don't seem to understand. Bicycles have as much right to the road as they have.

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And if you live in Phoenix, by the way, and you have a white pickup truck, and a license number of AYM2055, you're an idiot.

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I just wanted to tell you that. And, of course, I was in... what's that?

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No, I don't think he was listening either. No, I really don't think he probably listens to The Dividing Line. Anyway, they could have ended my will very easily, the way that they were driving, and the way that they don't understand the laws of the land, especially that three -foot rule.

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But anyway, so even human will has multiple aspects to it. Why would we think that God's will is more simplistic than His creatures?

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And so when I talk about the prescriptive will of God, I'm talking about what

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God prescribes. I'm talking about what is enshrined in His law. So when

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God says, Thou shalt not kill, we can say that it is God's will that you should not kill. But even then, immediately, we recognize that in Scripture, God commands

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His people to kill. Does He not? I mean,

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He sends the people of Israel in, and as a judgment upon the sinful people of the land, they are wiped out.

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So there is the prescriptive will, which is represented in Thou shalt not kill,

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Thou shalt not murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, love the Lord your God. All that's the prescriptive will of God.

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And on that level, God's will is certainly not always done.

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Because as long as there is sin, then the prescriptive will of God is not being done.

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So if that's all we had as to the will of God, then

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God's will would just be a static, once for all revealed thing, and there would be nothing personal about it.

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So that's why we talk about the decretive will of God, that represents

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His decree. The will of God forms the very fabric of time. This is intimately related with God's role as our

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Creator. He is the one who made all of time. He Himself is eternal, He is not bound by time in the way that we understand it as creatures.

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And therefore, what God decrees takes place, and that decree includes all the means by which it takes place.

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And it's much deeper, much more beautiful than anything man's mind will ever be able to contemplate in this creation.

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And I think that one of the activities... I remember standing outside the

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Mesa Temple in Salt Lake City. I'm sorry, the Mesa Temple in Salt Lake City, right, wow. Hey, I've got

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Mucinex going, I've got Claritin or whatever that other stuff is going, and I just got an

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Advil going, so I am definitely under the influence now. So what you're saying is, this is your theology.

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And it's your theology on drugs, okay, yeah. And reaching for the next bottle of water.

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I was standing outside the Mesa Temple in Mesa, Arizona, which is why it's called the Mesa Temple, by the way.

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Just so you know, don't want to confuse anybody. And this could get silly very quickly, and I'm talking about something very important.

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And I was talking to a couple of missionaries, and I'll never forget, well,

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I hope I'll never forget, the way my memory's going, I suppose I could, but I'll never forget this one young man.

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And he said to me, we were talking about how he could never become a god, and he said, let me understand something.

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You think that heaven is going to involve you sitting around on a cloud, strumming a harp for eternity, and you're going to be happy with that?

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Praising God? And I remember looking at this young man, and just my heart was broken, because here is a young man who has no concept of who

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God is, and he thinks he's going to become one. I mean, his thoughts of God are no higher than his shoelaces.

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And when I think of what we're going to be doing in heaven, that's why I don't like all these,

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I died and went to heaven books, and this is what I like stuff, because I think that one of the things we're going to be doing, if we can even begin to understand this, is we will be pondering

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God's great wisdom. And once we start seeing the beautiful interconnectedness of everything that God has done, all of his purposes, how his providence interacted with man, it's not some type of Molinistic, I mean,

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Molinism is the exact opposite of this. It really is. The idea that God just had to deal with the cards he was dealt, and he just had to pick the best universe he could find.

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I mean, it's just the other end of the spectrum of what I'm talking about here. Here you have a sovereign

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God who so interweaves the activities of man, and the will of man, and his own, the creatures that he's made, and the natural order, and the laws of physics, and yet he interweaves through all of this, that great truth just expressed in Romans 8, he works all things for the good of them that love

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God, them that are called according to his purpose. Those beautiful threads of gold and silver and sapphire that put together the tapestry of time.

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I think it will take eternity for us to just ponder. The immensity of God's creation, and yet the complexity.

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This is one of the reasons, I know some of you think I'm a complete and total nut on this level.

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But this is one of the reasons that I'm into fractal art. If you haven't seen it, you don't know what it is, don't worry about it.

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But if you have seen my fractals, if you know what a fractal is, if you know what you're looking at there, then you see why

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I find it so fascinating. It's because of the hyper -complexity of it, and yet the order within the hyper -complexity.

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That's what the connection in my mind is. This, to me, is just a fingerprint of God's absolute sovereignty.

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His absolute capacity and power to go far beyond anything. Modern man becomes just so massively arrogant when we think we are so smart now,

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I can put my arguments against God on an iPad. Wow, I'm so cool.

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We are so far below him. In fact, I would like to suggest, and I haven't even played anything from past games yet,

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I would like to suggest that in many ways the critiques of God's existence and activities being put forth by modern man are absolutely amateur in comparison to what's come in the past.

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And our thoughts of God are frequently far lower than the preceding generations. And one of the main reasons is, first of all, we are dependent upon our technology to do anything, but our technology can never really take us much beyond ourselves.

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And secondly, we have the attention span of a flea. And so, men in the past who spent hours in contemplation and could focus their minds upon the contemplation of the being of God seemingly accomplished a whole lot more than those of us who strain to do five minutes anymore.

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Really do. It has nothing to do with Dr. Gaines, by the way. That's not even on my mind yet.

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So, all I'm talking about here is why it is important. I am concerned, and I will turn to Dr.

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Gaines, I am concerned when we preach to our people in such a way as to keep them in a continual state of immaturity.

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We should be calling our people to a higher level of contemplation of God's truth.

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And that absolutely requires the recognition of the prescriptive will of God and the descriptive, the decretive, the secret will of God, whatever terms you want to use, that will of God that expresses what

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God intends to accomplish in this world. And if you can't see the difference between saying, here's my law, this represents my being, this represents who

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I am and what I am, and this is what I'm accomplishing. If you can't see the difference between those two, then you're going to have a really hard time dealing with the text of Scripture in any depth.

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And my concern is that Dr. Gaines has, by refusing to see this recognition and utilize this recognition, put his people in a position of not really being able to deal with the

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Word of God in its fullness. And that's why I started, we played this last time, it's a brief section, but this is one of the reasons

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I chose to do this particular sermon because of this statement. That's the way God works. God's will is not automatically done.

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God's will is just not always done. You say, wait a minute, what did you mean by that? I mean this, in the

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Greek, God's will is not always done. Some things are done that are not the will of God. Now, if he allowed for the proper distinction here, then what he'd be saying is, there are things that are done that are not according to God's law.

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Which, of course, is a given. But that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is that God created in such a way that men can act autonomously and do things which never entered into God's mind.

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Now, how he squares any of this with his assertion that he's not an open theist, I have to leave to him to explain.

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I honestly don't think that he can explain it. And I doubt he's ever really challenged to do so.

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Because the two don't go together. When God created, if he knew what the result was going to be, then you're left with the yawning chasm of meaninglessness that is forced upon the proponent of simple foreknowledge.

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When he says, yep, God knew it, he permitted it, but he has absolutely, positively no purpose in it.

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So you have this mass of purposeless evil that God brings into existence as the

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Creator. And no matter what Dr. Gaines wants to do, you cannot isolate him.

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If you're going to say... And the other problem, of course, with Dr. Gaines is he doesn't allow for means and ends, those distinctions.

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And so if you're going to use that argument against my side, then you've got to take it on your side too and answer the question, what was

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God's purposes in these things? If he didn't have a purpose, then he is truly an ogre who has brought into existence all this purposeless evil for no reason at all.

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I'm sorry, it just doesn't make any sense to me. Rich young ruler, Mark 10. As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to him, knelt before him, asked him, good teacher, what shall

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I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one's good except God alone. You know the commandments. Don't murder, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, don't defraud, honor your father and mother.

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He said, teacher, I've kept all these things from my youth up. Looking at him, are you ready for this? Jesus felt a love for him.

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How many of you see that on the screen? Only four of you. Would you look on the screen? Jesus felt a love for him.

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If language means anything, he wanted to save him. Now, are you noticing that the rich young ruler story is a very popular story?

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We have to deal with the rich young ruler story all the time. The Muslims raise it to try to say

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Jesus wasn't God because he's disavowing being good, which is a horrible misrepresentation.

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People are asking about my fractal art and channel. I used to have a real nice web shots page, and then web shots sort of went goofy, and I don't have any more.

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But I would imagine if you just search for fractal on the blog, that's going to pull up a lot of them.

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But I'd imagine a lot of those are blank now because they went to that web shots thing. The old ones would be blank, unfortunately.

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I may have to just reestablish. I'm sure there's some, hopefully, semi -free photo hosting website out there.

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There's probably billions of them out there that I could post them on. But I put up, what, about three or four of them, four or five of them over the past couple of weeks.

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Yeah, see, Algo put up a link that people can...

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Good old Algo. The Algo rhythm has arrived. Here we have the use of the

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Rich Young Ruler story, and we have an interesting utilization of the term loved here.

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Evidently, if God loves, God must save. Or at least, in this worldview, try.

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And that is a common perspective. Once again, assuming that, sadly, just as in the previous topic, man seems to have a more complex will than God does, in the same way man seems to have a more complex love than God does, from the

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Arminian perspective. It was interesting, last night I was doing some reading on perichoresis, the interpenetration of the divine persons.

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Sometimes it's also used, Lutherans use it in an odd way, about the attributes of Christ. But anyway, and I just happened to run across, who was it?

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It wasn't Turretin. It was somebody else in the post -Reformation period.

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And they were talking about the two great heresies of their century, and it was the Sassanians and the Arminians.

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And so, it just happened to cross my mind as I was thinking about how Arminians...

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And of course, I'm sure Dr. Gaines would say, I'm not an Arminian, I'm a Biblicist. Well, again, we're using these terms in a historical sense to actually describe positions of theology.

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And here you have the tendency on the part of Arminians, once again, to flatten out the love of God into, if he loves the man, then the love for the rich young ruler is identical to the love that God has for John, or Peter, or anyone else who actually is saved.

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And so this again raises the issue. If that is true, then

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God is doing everything he can to save every single individual, right? So, why do you pray for individuals?

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I'd like to turn this question around. I know you've heard it many times before, if you've listened to The Dividing Line before, and to Radio Free Geneva.

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But if this is one of your first times, I just simply want to ask you a question. Very often, people will raise the question to Calvinists, if you believe

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God's sovereign over our things, why do you pray? And my response is, because God commands us to pray, prayer changes me,

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God uses prayer to change me, and as an obedient follower of Christ, I do what he commands me to do.

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I am not trying to convince God to become better. And if you think you need to convince God to become better, that really says something about what you think about God, doesn't it?

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But the real question is to ask the Arminian. If God is doing everything he can right now, then why are you praying for him?

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Is he going to go into 110 % mode? If person

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X, God has put out a 100 % effort to save person X, and you start praying for person

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X, what's that going to do? God can't do anything more than he's already done. He's done 100%. He's done 100%, hasn't he?

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So that's a question we have to ask. That's a question we have to ask. And so, we don't know whether the rich young ruler was saved or not.

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This might be redemptive love. I mean, there were thousands saved on the day of Pentecost.

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Had any of them heard the teachings of Jesus during his three -year ministry? Quite possible, but we can't say.

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So, I don't know whether the rich young ruler was saved. I cannot affirm that biblically because it says he went away.

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And Jesus said it was more difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

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So, what can I say? I can't affirm it. I can't deny it. I mean,

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I'm pretty certain, for example, that the Gadarean demoniac, after the gospel was preached,

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I'm sure there was a person who was a member of the church and all these other people, but the scriptures simply don't tell us.

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But the idea here is, well, Jesus wanted to save him, but he couldn't.

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Because it's really not up to Jesus. Now, he's never going to put it that way. But you need to understand that the synergistic system, that's what it's saying.

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Oh, Jesus wanted to save him. You can see right there, he was pretty bummed out about it. He really wanted to save him, but it's not up to Jesus.

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Do you hear that? Do you hear that? That's what synergism is, my friends.

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Synergism is, Jesus wants to, but it's not up to Jesus. That's what synergism is.

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They almost never put it that way, but I'd like to see them explain why I'm wrong or why

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I'm misrepresenting them or why I'm being unfair. Because what they're saying is, God's put out 100 % effort.

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I mean, I was sitting in a Southern Baptist church. I remember, I don't know why I was looking that particular direction, but I was sitting in a

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Southern Baptist church, and I remember with such clarity, right where I was in the room when the pastor said, here's the election.

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God voted for you. The devil voted against you. You've got the tie -breaking vote.

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Okay? So, there you go. It's not up to Jesus.

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And I say to you, the biblical message is, it's all up to Jesus. And thank

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God that it is. Because according to John 6, 39, he loses none of those that the Father has given to him.

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He's doing the Father's will perfectly. And he will lose none that have been given to him.

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I think that's a wonderful thing. But Pastor Gaines does not like that idea.

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He is a committed synergist. And he sees the ramifications in some areas, not in others.

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And that's what leads to this conclusion from the rich young ruler. I want you to give it all away.

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And if you do, give it to the poor. You'll have treasure in heaven. Follow me. And the man could have said yes.

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If he could not have said yes, then we have to say to Jesus, you're giving him a false hope. If you have already predestined him to hell, then you're toying with him.

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Now, that's the hard facts. Now, think about what that means. I feel the weight of the objection.

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You're toying with him if you already predestined him to hell. Remember, Pastor Gaines says that he is not an open theist.

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So, is that objection not equally valid to himself? Did Jesus as God not know what this young man's choice was going to be?

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He's not an open theist. God knows the future. Therefore, God knows his assumption seems to be that the rich young ruler was lost.

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Somehow, he has a knowledge I don't have. He seemingly can affirm positively that the rich young ruler was, in fact, eternally lost.

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I don't know. The Bible doesn't say. He wasn't saved at this point, but he was eternally lost.

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So, didn't God know that? If God knows the future, and he knows it perfectly, then any gospel presentation to anyone that God knows is going to be lost would fall under this rubric of toying with the man.

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God knows he's not going to be saved. God sees the future. So, God has decreed his own personal bummedness.

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He's going to be bummed out about this for eternity, evidently. So, he's still playing with him, right?

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Because he knows what the end result is going to be. So, evidently, if God knows the future, then any interaction on God's part in time is just toying around.

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It can't be real from that perspective. Of course, I deny that. The beauty of God's decree is that it involves his personal interaction with his creatures in time called providence.

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And the greatest evidence of that is what a few of us are celebrating this time of year.

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The rest of the world is just trying to keep the economy rolling. But a few of us celebrate this time of year, and that is the

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Incarnation. The Eternal entering into time. That is a truly amazing thing to consider.

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But that decree involves the providential interaction of God with his creatures in time.

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And that means that all of our actions are meaningful because God has entered into time.

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That's what makes our actions meaningful. But Dr. Gaines can't go with me there.

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He can't go with me there because he's already rejected the divine decree that determines everything that happens in time in the first place.

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So, how does he answer his own conundrum? I answer his conundrum by saying it's not a conundrum.

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Jesus, as the Incarnate Son of God, can show love. We don't know whether this man was saved or not saved at some point in time.

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But it doesn't matter. As the perfect man, Jesus shows love for this individual.

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Just as I can show love for individuals, and I don't know whether they're elect or not. My knowledge does not determine the reality of my love.

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I can proclaim the gospel to everyone because I'm commanded to do so. And I want to see my fellow creatures come to know what

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I myself come to know because I'm an undeserving recipient of this grace.

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But how does he answer this question? Because from his perspective, God knows and so he's playing around with him and God created him for no purpose anyways.

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Even if this man goes to hell, God was glorified in this encounter with this young man. And he had a purpose in it.

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But from his perspective, you can't go there. There is no redemptive purpose to the evil and stuff like that because there's no divine decree.

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You can't go there. So what can he do? I don't know.

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I don't know what he can do. Yes, sir? You just made me think of how many thousands and thousands of tracts that we passed out in Mesa and Salt Lake City and some of the abuse that we've endured and the conversations that have gone for hours.

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Why do we do that? Because we hate them? No, we've always told them we come here because we love you.

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We want you to hear the truth. But we have no idea. Oh, yes, of course.

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But the point is, and it's like you think of what we call a tract that's been thrown in the trash or stomped on the ground, a fallen warrior.

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The point is some tracts are for salvation and some tracts are for judgment.

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But the point is we love the gospel and we love these people and want to call out the elect. I just made the mistake of looking at the chat channel.

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Have you looked at the chat channel? Did you see this? What am I supposed to do here?

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I am torn because three minutes ago my daughter posted this in the chat channel.

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Dear Dad, Clementine wants you to discuss the verse in Matthew about how Jesus doesn't know the day or the hour of his return.

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Okay, thanks. Okay, now, first of all,

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Clementine has started saying things like mommy and no and things like that.

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And she's going to be walking any day. She's right there. She's still holding on to stuff.

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But she's going to be walking any day. And as a small infant, as a three -week -old baby,

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I sat on my front porch with her and talked about the hypostatic union to her.

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I did. I also talked about the hydrological cycle. And she was awake.

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So I tried to begin establishing that relationship all the way back then.

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But I'm somewhat skeptical, somewhat skeptical, that she really has quite that much interest in that particular

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Matthean passage. In fact, there is a part of me that is deeply tempted to actually think that maybe, possibly, it's actually my daughter who has encountered a discussion of this, maybe in her church, the lady's

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Bible study, maybe at work, something like that, and might,

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I don't want to be offensive here, but she might actually be using my own granddaughter, my own granddaughter, to try to get a personal explanation of this text right during the middle of the dividing line, in the middle of a radio -free

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Geneva. Do you think that's a possibility? I don't believe it for one second. She would never do such a thing. She would never do such a thing.

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Of course. Then again, thinking back even to when she was that age, she's always sidetracked the entire room or wherever she goes.

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That's true. It's always just come in and it's the summer agenda. Yeah. But do you remember when she had to yell for you outside the house?

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Remember she couldn't get the car out of gear? Remember? Remember? She couldn't get into park.

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Oh, yeah. Yes. That was, yes, yes. I think we're - We're definitely departing -

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Going off track. But what was it? Was it the CD player? No, I think it was the key wasn't, something like that.

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There was something in the way. Yeah, there was something in the way, and fiddle with it, and boom, it's in park, and there you go. Off you go.

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Had to call for Uncle Rich. So what do

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I do? Well, I'm going to have to let the Rich Young ruler hang out here for just a second because on the very, very, very small possibility that Clementine really does want to know about the text.

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Yeah, she's just not catching it. I deny this. Yeah, she's denying. Oh, no, she can't deny this. We have multiple witnesses.

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Sorry, Summer, but that's just the way it is. Yes, well, you're going to go get more coffee.

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Okay, why don't you get more coffee while I try to somehow find a way to work all this together.

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You know what? I might have a way to make this work. I might have a way to do this.

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Actually, you know, recently I saw a discussion of this that included the quote from Jesus.

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Let me see. Looking for it here.

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There it is. I saw a discussion recently that actually did tie these two things together, and I think

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I will try to tie them together as well. Math 2436, but of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven or the sun, but the

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Father alone. I have normally addressed this within the context of Islam, because it is one of the favorite texts.

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Of course, most of my Muslim friends don't know the context that it's in. Notice the preceding words and the words that immediately follow it.

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Heaven and earth will pass away, my words will not pass away. No mere prophet says these things. Direct echo from the description of Yahweh in the

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Old Testament. And verse 37, for the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. Coming of the

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Son of Man, Daniel chapter 7, divine being presented before God, etc.

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He has servants who worship him. So it is bracketed. Secondly, notice where Jesus puts himself.

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No one knows. Actually, that is mankind.

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And then you have the angels in heaven. And then you have Jesus putting himself above mankind and the angels of heaven.

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Nor the Son, but the Father alone. So, what do you have in three verses in a row?

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But language that could never be used of a mere creature, a mere sheliak, a representative of God.

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This is one who is exalted. So, what is the purpose and how do we understand, then, this idea of the day and the hour?

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Well, I think this is where we need to understand the humiliation of Christ and the purpose of the

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Incarnation. And I don't know that anyone in this life can have a full and complete...

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And by the way, this is at least slightly relevant to the rich young ruler, because Jesus' expression for this man shows that he was truly man.

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And that he was not merely a robot. He was truly incarnate. It was appropriate...

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Because, see, whether you're Reformed or not Reformed, Jesus had access to the full knowledge of God in regards to this individual, and yet he loved him.

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Which shows that the Incarnation, Jesus' human nature, was not merely some type of phantasmic thing that had no reality.

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Jesus was truly man. He loved truly as man. And that is why every Reformed person should love the lost and be able to have true passion in the proclamation.

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Even though we recognize the existence of God's divine decree. That does not change the passion that we have for the lost.

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And even if we knew that decree, our love should not be based upon that, but upon the fact that this is a fellow creature.

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This is a fellow creature, and we desire our fellow creature to find what we have found. Remember the men who went out after the angel of death came to the camp, and they went out and found that the army that was camping around Jerusalem was gone?

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When we see what God has done, we want others to know. We want others to find the great bounty we have found.

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So it is connected. If even only through the Incarnation. So, the question becomes, are there certain aspects of the

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Son's divine existence that are veiled or voluntarily laid aside during the

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Incarnation? Well, obviously. When the disciples were walking down a dark road in Jerusalem, they had to carry flames, they had to carry lamps, because Jesus didn't glow in the dark.

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But when He's on the Mount of Transfiguration, He does. And Jesus, as the

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Son, would never need artificial light to see. So clearly, His glory is veiled.

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But are there other aspects that, in the wisdom of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are there other aspects of Jesus' free exercise of His personal prerogatives that He would lay aside during the entirety of the

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Incarnation? And could there be other aspects that are laid aside at particular points of the

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Incarnation? Well, there's obviously been a lot of discussion about this.

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Because we're dealing with an absolutely unique event.

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And hence, an absolutely unique situation in the Incarnation. Clearly, the glory is veiled so that He can undertake the ministry to be the sacrifice for God's people.

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What other aspects are laid aside? Well, there seems to be a proper dependence of the

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Son upon the Spirit during His earthly ministry. And that's so He can be our example.

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What would be the purpose for there being a veiling of certain elements of divine knowledge?

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Because it's very clear, Jesus does have supernatural knowledge. He knows what's in the hearts of men. Here's how

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I understand it. I would say, in light of Jesus' functioning as our example, the dependence that He places

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Himself, the dependence He has upon the Holy Spirit that He places Himself in, in the

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Incarnation, means that there is a veiling of those certain elements that God has chosen not to reveal to men through the

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Holy Spirit. So, in other words, since the Holy Spirit is our source, He's the one who is the revelator,

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He reveals to us, the Holy Spirit limits what is revealed about future events in light of the purposes of the triune

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God. Jesus, placing Himself in dependence upon the Holy Spirit so as to be our example, would then have veiled that which the

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Spirit of God had not either yet revealed or was not going to reveal as a part of the limitation that God has set, this far, no farther.

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God gives a scripture, but we shouldn't stand there wondering what's beyond scripture. So, since the day and the hour is something that is not going to be revealed until it actually takes place, then the reason for veiling that from Jesus would be so that He can be completely dependent upon the

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Holy Spirit and be our example in that way. That's the best understanding that I can give you of that. That's the best understanding

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I can give you of that. And would that be then relevant to the rich young ruler and to his status as to election or non -election?

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I don't know. Because I don't happen to know, Pastor Gaines seems to know, but I don't happen to know what the final result for the rich young ruler was.

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I know that Jesus is able to give me the example of how I am to show love even for one who thinks he has fulfilled all the law and yet is an idolater.

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That means when I see someone who is steeped in deception, I am still called to love them. I saw something last night.

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There was, for some reason, the amount of television I watch is minuscule.

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It really is minuscule. But my wife's not feeling well.

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She happened to have the TV on to something else, and it was on CBS. To watch regular broadcast

50:59

TV is really weird. But I think it was 60 minutes. Yeah, because we were both home sick last night.

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I just did not want to interrupt the service, because the coughing was a lot worse last night than it is today, thankfully.

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They had a rather interesting article on the Copts in Egypt.

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And so I was watching it. And it was really, really interesting, because they had a bishop of a church that had been ravaged by Muslims, burned.

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And they were interviewing him, and he was just emphasizing, we have no right to be angry.

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We must forgive. We must live a life of forgiveness. This is what we have been called to.

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They have seen that that is the power. That is the only power that will change the hearts and minds of Muslims, is to see the love of God and the forgiveness these people offer to them.

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And so I look at what Jesus does to this rich young ruler, and I see him giving me an example. And to try to twist that into, see, there is no divine decree, because God loved this guy, but he would have known, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is to completely miss the point.

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So, there you go. For those of you sitting out there going, well, obviously

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Daddy's little girl has Daddy wrapped around her finger, but she had to use Clementine to do it.

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She had to use Clementine to do it. So I have gotten a little bit better. I saw a tweet from her.

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Oh, okay, here's the tweet. And there's a picture. Did you see the picture?

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You retweeted it? Okay, yeah, good. We need to retweet that with the topic line underneath it.

52:53

The dividing line, fascinating young and old. I'm going to see that little booger next week.

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Actually, this week. No, yes? Yeah, this week. Saturday, I think they're flying in.

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So I'm going to see that little booger then, and I'm looking forward to her pulling the Christmas tree down, or whatever it's going to take.

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But it's good to be Grandpa, and so Grandpa just did that just for, she's listening intently, isn't that great?

53:24

All right. Anyways, that really sort of derailed me here, but I do want to finish playing this section, so I'm going to back up since I took such a long hiatus.

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I want you to give it all away, and if you do, give it to the poor, you'll have treasure in heaven, follow me, and the man could have said yes.

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If he could not have said yes, then we have to say to Jesus, you're giving him a false hope. If you have already predestined him to hell, then you're toying with him.

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Now that's the hard facts. Jesus doesn't toy with people. Jesus gave the man a legitimate option, and the man chose not to receive

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Jesus. And it says he turned away. His face fell. His countenance fell.

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He owned much property. Really, he was owned by much property, but Jesus wanted to save him. He felt a love for him.

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Look, what does it say about Jesus if it wasn't a legitimate offer? If he was just toying with the man?

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If he was just saying, I'm just offering this. I know you can't do it because you're not the elect. I know that you can't receive it because you're not predestined.

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If that's the case, what does that say about God? What does that say about Jesus? Giving a false hope.

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Giving a false invitation. That's the reality of what we're dealing with. Do you understand how wicked that would be?

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And look at me. Jesus is not wicked. Jesus said, come to me. Come to me. Come to me. Now, that's a very passionate presentation.

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But I just simply have to point out, his own position is refuted by his presentation.

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What he's saying is, it is wicked if God has decreed this man's ultimate fate.

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And I say to you, it is wicked for God to create the man knowing he's going to go to hell and has no purpose in it and can do nothing about it.

55:19

But since you will not embrace open theism, how many times have I said it? Open theism is the only consistent

55:25

Arminianism. It's the only consistent synergism. Because all these questions are just as valid for Dr.

55:32

Gaines as they are for any Calvinist. I know he thinks Calvinism is wicked. That just came out rather clearly. Very plain.

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But the problem is his argument is not answered by his own position. If God knew what this man's fate was, how is it any less wicked for him to quote -unquote, toy with him than otherwise?

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He's not toying with him. That's the whole problem with this argument. God's interaction with his creatures in time is meaningful because God's decree makes it meaningful.

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He has no decree to even go there. I do not find the synergistic understanding, it's fatal flaws, it's unbiblical, obviously, but I don't find it to be consistent.

56:27

And even providing answers to the objections that it itself raises. That's the amazing part about it. And I certainly understand why someone listening to what

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Dr. Gaines just said would go, Wow, I don't want anything to do with that stuff. I don't want anything to do with that stuff.

56:45

Are you ready for verse 5? And he, read those words, he could do no miracle.

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Doesn't say he would do no miracle. It said he could do no miracle.

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That what it says? Guess what it says in the Greek? He could do no miracle. Why? He could do no miracle except he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.

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Here's the problem. He wondered if they're what? They're unbelief. Do you see that faith was the requirement for a miracle?

57:14

And what is faith if it's not choice? Now, I'm not going to have time to unpack this, unfortunately.

57:19

I probably shouldn't have played that. Sorry. We'll start with that one next time. I was going to try to finish all this today, but I spent the first 20 minutes on a sermon, so I apologize for that.

57:30

Again, probably has to do with the voice. But, what about that incident in Nazareth?

57:37

Is God's power limited by man's belief? That's what it just said. And then he identified faith as a choice.

57:45

So unless there's autonomy, God can't work miracles. Think about that one for just a second. Really think through what that says.

57:51

That's amazing. But what is that text about? Did Jesus want to be able to do things that he couldn't do because we didn't provide the faith atmosphere for the power of God to flow?

58:10

By the way, right as we're wrapping up here, I'm going to spend some time on this.

58:15

You know why? Because I've accepted an invitation to go to Malaga, Spain next month, and Michael Brown and I are going to be doing two debates.

58:28

I don't think you heard about this, Rich. You'll get to find out along with everybody else today. We're recording two debates.

58:34

We would like to find someone to debate us so we can join together like we like doing, but alas and lack that hasn't happened so far.

58:44

So what they invited us to do last evening, the first debate we're going to do is on divine healing. Are there divine healers in the church today?

58:51

This is directly relevant. That text is directly relevant. So that fits together with preparation for that.

58:57

You say, why are you doing this in Spain? You could do it in Atlanta or something. Because this is for Revelation TV, so it's going to be broadcast all over Europe.

59:06

Remember the debate I did with Jack Mormon on the King James stuff? That was Revelation TV, but it was in London at that time.

59:11

They've moved to Spain. And so we're going to do this in Spain. So we're going to be flying there.

59:19

I fly there the 22nd of January, I believe. So we're going to do a debate on healing.

59:27

And this last night they asked, the network asked if we would debate

59:33

Calvinism. So I've written back and said, yeah, but if it's just the broad field, 90 minutes,

59:44

I mean, we've already done a debate that was two and a half hours on a focused part, and there's still so much that needs to be said.

59:50

I've sort of asked, maybe could we focus it upon the Atonement or something? Because then it might have at least some relationship to the other debate.

59:57

Because I think the healing and the Atonement, stuff like that, at least it would be somewhat connected. I don't know.

01:00:03

We're sort of talking about that. But first two months of the year, Spain, fly home.

01:00:09

Next month, Kiev, Ukraine. Going to be doing a lot of traveling. So prayers for health, once again, would be a good thing.

01:00:17

So that's coming up. I thought I'd mention that. So we will continue Radio Free Geneva at that point.

01:00:23

Next time around, thank you for listening today. Like I said, probably this week,

01:00:29

Wednesday, Friday. Follow me on Twitter. That's the fastest way to know what's going on. Twitter, Facebook, the blog, etc.

01:00:37

for listening. God bless. Bye.