If You Could Ask Leighton Flowers One Question (Part 2 of my interview with LF of Soteriology101)

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March 2, 2023

The is Part 2 of our episode of Conversations with a Calvinist where Keith welcomes Leighton Flowers of Soteriology101. This time they discuss a series of questions which Keith collected from a group of Calvinists at the recent Shadows to Substance conference hosted by Covenant Reformed Baptist Church. Conversations with a Calvinist is the podcast ministry of Pastor Keith Foskey. If you want to learn more about Pastor Keith and his ministry at Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, FL, visit www.SGFCjax.org. For older episodes of Conversations with a Calvinist, visit CalvinistPodcast.com To get the audio version of the podcast through Spotify, Apple, or other platforms, visit https://anchor.fm/medford-foskey Follow Pastor Keith on Twitter @YourCalvinist Email questions about the program to [email protected]

00:00: Hey guys, welcome to part two of my interview with Leighton Flowers.
00:04: If you haven't seen the first one, please go back to Conversations with a Calvinist, calvinispodcast.com and watch the first interview.
00:10: I believe you'll get a lot out of it, but we're going to start our second interview with Leighton Flowers right now.
00:35: Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.
00:37: My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist and I am welcoming again into the studio, my new friend, Leighton Flowers.
00:45: Leighton, thank you for being a part of the conversation today.
00:49: Hey, it's my honor, Keith.
00:50: Thanks for having me on.
00:51: Absolutely.
00:51: Absolutely.
00:52: And any, any of you who do not know who Leighton Flowers is, that probably means you're not a Calvinist because everybody who's a Calvinist knows who this guy is.
01:00: He is one of the most outspoken critics of Calvinism and he has a website called Soteriology 101, where he critiques those things which Calvinists teach and believe, and a lot of people would probably wonder, well, why would you have him on the program if he doesn't believe like you do? And one of the things we try to do on this program is talk to people that we don't always agree with, especially people that we may have more common ground with than we assume going into the conversation.
01:30: And last hour, we spent over an hour talking with one another and we did find a lot of common ground on many things and heard a lot of things from Leighton that were encouraging in regard to his willingness to work with Calvinists, have people in his life that are Calvinist friends and things that disagree with him, and yet still be able to do so in a brotherly and godly and Christ-honoring way.
01:52: So I was thankful to get to hear that from him, thankful to get to know him better, and so I'm bringing him back onto the show today.
02:01: And what we're going to be doing is a little interesting.
02:04: Recently, I was invited to be at the From Shadows to Substance conference, where I had my booth set up and I got an opportunity to interview every one of the speakers who was at the conference.
02:19: And each one of the speakers, I asked three questions.
02:22: And one of the questions that I asked was, if you could sit down with Leighton Flowers and ask him one question, what would you ask him? And I have compiled those answers, well actually those questions, because it was their answer to my question, but their questions into a series of questions.
02:44: And Leighton is going to spend the next hour or so answering those questions.
02:49: And I may give him some feedback.
02:51: I may dig a little deeper, probe a little further, but I'm going to try to let each of the questions stand on its own, at least give him the opportunity to answer them the way a provisionist would.
03:02: And I do want to also say this about the gentleman who gave me those questions.
03:07: I'm very thankful that they were sitting down with me and willing to do that.
03:11: And I want to say that none of them knew I was going to ask them this.
03:15: So please be gracious if you say, well, that guy, I didn't think that was a great question or whatever.
03:20: These guys were on the spot.
03:23: They had just been asked this question.
03:25: So please keep in mind that all of them had just got done preaching a sermon, except for Tim.
03:32: He's the only one, he was an audience member who got to be a part of it.
03:35: But all the rest of them had just got done preaching.
03:37: Their minds were still probably on their sermons and now they're doing a 20 minute interview with me.
03:41: And so just be gracious.
03:44: I do think there are some great questions and I do think it's going to lead into some good conversation with Leighton and I.
03:49: But just sort of just prefacing it all with that, these are wonderful brothers and men that I love and respect.
03:56: And I'm thankful that they're participating in today's show.
04:00: Also, one of the things that I do, Leighton, and I mentioned this to you before the broadcast and we didn't do it on the last show, is something called Craziest Things This Week is when I have a guest on the program and I show them a video that I think is a little weird and they have to respond to it.
04:20: Now this one, I did tell Leighton, this one's kind of poking fun at the other side, so he's graciously and he's been very funny, willing to take a little jabs here and there and me too.
04:33: And so this is a video that I came across, not this week, but I have come across it many times and I've had many people send it to me.
04:39: You may know what it is, but this was a song that was sung in an independent Baptist church and I'll just let you hear it.
04:48: We don't have to hear the whole thing, but I'm gonna let you hear the first part of it and I want you to tell me your initial thoughts as a provisionist.
04:59: Our God is so great and He is so gracious that He gives us freedom to make our own choices and then we become responsible for those choices.
05:10: This next song gives us God's perspective on the freedom that He gives us.
05:20: I set the boundaries of the ocean vast, carved out the mountains from the distant past, molded a man from the miry clay, breathed in him life, but he went astray.
05:49: I hold the waters in my mighty hand, spread out the heavens with a single span, make all creation tremble at my voice, but my own sons come to me by choice.
06:16: I own the cattle on a thousand hills, I write the music for the whippoorwick, control the planets with their rods and rails, but give you freedom to use your own will.
06:40: All right, I won't make you listen to the whole song and again, I only bring it up.
06:46: I've got a new intro song for my podcast.
06:49: Man, that's awesome.
06:50: I will say this.
06:51: I think that those are lovely young people.
06:54: I think that they're probably very sincere and I wasn't intending to make, I think they have beautiful voices, so this is not intended to make fun of them, but it's the content of the song.
07:05: Provisionists and Arminians are often accused of making an idol of free will.
07:10: What do you think of the song? Do you think that's fair? Yeah, I mean, hokey, a lot of that, like Christian music and Christian movies are oftentimes seen as very hokey and embarrassing.
07:22: And so you always have that kind of that cringe factor with regard to stuff like that, especially if it's old, you know, that looks like the, maybe the seventies or eighties or something.
07:30: And so you've got a lot of that, especially in those days, Christians are getting better at producing material out there.
07:36: That's not so cringeworthy, but yeah, I'm sure we could find that on both theological side of the theological aisle.
07:42: But at the same time, yeah, that's kind of cringeworthy.
07:45: Okay.
07:46: And again, I just thought it was funny and I wanted to get your response.
07:51: All right.
07:52: Well, there's those kinds of videos.
07:53: There's, there was one that's called a God's little puppet and it's this woman from the 1980s holding a puppet, you know, and she's, you know, so people were memeing that as the new, the new thing for Calvinism, you know, God's little puppet, things like that.
08:06: So yeah, both sides have those kinds of fun memes that we can, you know, joke with each other about for sure.
08:12: Nice.
08:12: Nice.
08:13: All right.
08:13: Well, we're going to go into the video now and this is, like I said, I think there's five or six questions I'm going to get, I'm going to give you the mic to answer, but there, there may be a few times where I simply ask you to explain something further or maybe feel free to push back or ask questions.
08:29: I'm, I'm open to that.
08:30: Sure.
08:31: And so each one's name will be on the screen for those who are watching.
08:35: And if you're listening, you'll just hear their voices and here we go.
08:47: Does he really, or is, is there the thought that believing in the doctrines of grace is a, an impediment to evangelism? All right.
09:04: So that's the first question.
09:05: Is believing the doctrines of grace, in your estimation, is that an impediment to evangelism? Well, for those that are listening who are not familiar with the term doctrines of grace, that's oftentimes used by Calvinist to refer to the Tulip Systematic or specifically what Calvinism is.
09:23: Because obviously we have doctrines of grace too, just, just to be clear on that.
09:27: But do I think that Calvinist, do I think that Calvinist, or I believe in Calvinism impedes the proclamation of the gospel? It doesn't unless it does.
09:39: That's the way I would answer that question.
09:41: For Keith, I don't think it has.
09:43: It didn't impede my being a missionary and sharing the gospel when I, when I held to it.
09:49: And I, and I've talked about in our last episode, how I know many good evangelists who happen to hold to Calvinistic theology, including good, good apologists that we have, you know, come to our programs who are, who are Calvinistic, but also very good apologist.
10:03: And so just because one happens to believe in Calvinistic sociology doesn't necessarily mean they are anti-evangelistic or bad at evangelism or that it impedes their evangelistic effort.
10:16: However, what I would say, you know, if I were to be more polemic on this side of the aisle, that there can be people who use Calvinism as an excuse for not sharing their faith.
10:27: There can be people who say because everything's been predestined or because God has elected certain people for salvation, it really doesn't matter how involved I am.
10:35: And therefore I, I become less responsible or less, you know, active in evangelism.
10:46: And, and I think Keith and John Piper and MacArthur would all speak out against that kind of behavior, that you should actually not carry out your, your belief to that extreme, but that we should be, I think Calvinists would argue that we should be the means that God has created us to be, to proclaim his truth so that the elect would be saved.
11:05: And so I'm actually thankful for what may seem like a logical inconsistency for the, for some Calvinists to be active in sharing their faith and, and, and trying to persuade others to believe the truthfulness of it.
11:17: But I, but I also understand why some people have that question or why some people might think that Calvinism could lead to less, less evangelistic fervor and it can, if it's taken to see.
11:29: I understand.
11:30: And just to, I want to add a thought that I, I did a video and it's been a while back now and it was the title of the video is called Calvinism is not fatalism.
11:41: And the reason why I did that video was because I had posted a, I had posted a picture of a, of a, of a 90 year old man being, being baptized.
11:50: And it said that the caption in the picture was that his wife had prayed with him, prayed for him for 60 years and she finally saw him come to faith at 90.
12:00: And I said, what a wonderful testimony to God honoring the prayers of this woman.
12:05: And somebody came out and said, from my side, not from the provisionist side, somebody from my side said, her prayers didn't have anything to do with it.
12:16: God had predestined him from the foundation of the world.
12:18: And Keith, you don't need to support that type of thinking that her prayers in any way, move the heart of God.
12:25: And I, and I, I just, I took to make a video about it.
12:28: I said that brother, you, you fallen into fatalism and I would, I would, I would classify, classify myself as a compatibilist.
12:35: I know, you know, the difference, not everybody understands the distinction between those two.
12:38: You have libertarianism, which is the full, full freedom of the will.
12:43: And that's something you and I've never talked about, but I would imagine that would be some way in which you would define your position as more of a libertarian position.
12:50: And then of course the fatalist would say that man's choices make no difference and compatibilists try to bring that together and, and, and make a balance there.
13:00: And again, I know you disagree on some of what I'm saying, but, but, but ultimately I do think that there is a danger in becoming fatalistic.
13:07: And I preach against that all the time.
13:10: I think it's very dangerous.
13:13: So, all right, brother, well, you ready to go to the next question then? Absolutely.
13:16: All right.
13:17: Well, let's bring them up.
13:19: Yeah.
13:19: The question I would ask is, does he pray to God to change hearts? And if so, why? All right.
13:28: Do you, do you pray that God would change hearts? Yeah, I'm not praying that God would effectually change the heart of his elect, which would be the Calvinistic premise.
13:37: I believe God woos.
13:40: He provokes the hearts of men as Paul talks about in Romans 10 and 11.
13:46: Paul prays for the hardened Israelite that he has talked about being cut off in their unbelief, but he still prays for them.
13:52: And it talks about God holding out his hands to them all day long, longing to gather them like a mother hen gathers the chicks under her wings.
13:59: And so of course I would pray for them.
14:02: And of course, you know, I would always push back and say, well, why would you pray? If you know, if you think everything's destined beforehand, like the, like the statement you just made earlier, is it seems to me to be more of a problem to be praying on the Calvinistic side than it would be on our side, because we believe, you know, prayer does change things, that it's not a fixed future in the sense of, you know, the number of elect people being fixed in the eternity past.
14:26: And therefore, when I'm praying for somebody, I'm praying that God influences not only that person by provoking their wills, but also helps me to speak clearly and to bring, you know, opportunity for me to, to preach and to teach.
14:40: And so, you know, my, I have my earthly father, you know, my name, my dad's name's Chuck, and he used to be a part of Southern Baptist world as well.
14:48: And he helped start C at the Pole and he has a lot of influence in Southern Baptist world.
14:52: And so I might go to my dad and say, hey, dad, can you help me influence or can you help me, you know, get this thing done from these, these folks over here in, in Texas Baptist world? Because you have more influence than I do, or because you have better connections with them than I do.
15:10: Well, it doesn't mean that I think my, my, my father is effectually chart controlling their wills or any new thing.
15:17: It's saying I'm asking God, God to do something that I can't do myself or that I need help doing in the same way that I might ask my earthly father to help me with greater influence that he may have or more wisdom that he may have.
15:31: And so just because we don't believe God's effectually changing the hearts of the lives of people to cause them to believe through effectual means doesn't mean we wouldn't ask for God's guidance and help and influence in winning the lost.
15:44: Okay.
15:44: Now you did say something that I want to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I want to do a soft pushback because I do have a question on something that you said.
15:52: You, you, and I want to make sure I'm, I'm clearly hearing you.
15:54: Did you say that the number that of the, who will be saved is not fixed? No, it's not fixed by God's eternal decree.
16:03: Um, in other words, it's decided by the individual free libertarian freedom, uh, choice of the person, whether as to whether they believe or not.
16:11: So it's not fixed in eternity passed by the divine decree.
16:15: But does God know for certain in his omniscience what that number is? And, and again, I'm just, I just want to make sure I understand where you're coming from.
16:24: Yes.
16:25: Yes.
16:25: We have no problem with God knowing what a libertarian free choice is, but he doesn't, he's not the cause of that choice.
16:33: And so therefore it's not fixed based upon his eternal decree.
16:36: It it's, it's, it's known for certain, but it's not necessitated.
16:40: And that's, that's where William Lane Craig and other philosophers get into the difference between the modal fallacy of certainty versus necessity.
16:46: But that's a long, another rabbit trail you can go down with regard to how, uh, the, the problem of omniscience where you get into Molinism as one possible answer, open theists, give another possible answer.
16:57: Um, you know, the dynamic perspective as well as the eternal now perspective of, of CS Lewis, um, there's, there's all kinds of philosophical ways you deal with omniscience and a quote unquote determinism, uh, and how that plays itself out, which we have several broadcasts about if, if you're interested in kind of, kind of going down that rabbit trail with me.
17:18: Sure.
17:18: Well, I do one because you did recently do a video that was highly controversial where you said that, um, you believe that we, that the Southern Baptist should not have, uh, pushed out the open theists with.
17:34: And again, is that you, you weren't saying that yourself are an open theist.
17:39: No, no, I, I, I've not affirmed Molinism or open theism.
17:45: The, what I have in my book, the Potter's promise is quotes from CS Lewis.
17:49: That takes more of an eternal now perspective.
17:51: I am, I am, um, that God, God knows all things because he is omnipresent.
17:57: He is present at all places at all times.
17:59: So he knows all things because he is the, I am not because he's determined all things he's, he's not because he's decreed it to come to pass and therefore it's coming to pass as a sovereign decree, but instead he knows it because he's God.
18:12: He's, he's, uh, out in some people talk about outside of time or above time.
18:17: Um, and there's all kinds of philosophical ways to explain that.
18:21: And one of the things I've said on my broadcast is I'm not a philosopher by trade and therefore, you know, I'll appeal to the William Lane Craig's of the world with regard to Molinism, uh, as a possible solution to that quandary, uh, are appealed to the Boethius model of the sixth century with which is more of the eternal now perspective.
18:40: Um, or, um, you know, we've even interviewed and talked to the, those who hold to more dynamic perspective, though.
18:46: I disagree with their philosophical conclusions.
18:49: A lot of what they say sounds a lot like what guys on the, the determinist side say, as well as the, those in the Molinist perspective, I think it's a philosophical answer to a, a, an issue.
19:01: The Bible doesn't specifically address.
19:03: Um, and therefore I wouldn't cast them out of the kingdom any more than I would cast them out of my church.
19:08: Gotcha.
19:09: Gotcha.
19:09: Okay.
19:10: Um, the, the, the next, I, I, I'm afraid I would go way too far if we began.
19:17: Yeah.
19:17: And again, that wasn't my intention was to start to start, start going too far down that road, but that, that, that may be happy.
19:23: Yeah.
19:23: Pushing however you want to.
19:24: I'm used to it.
19:25: So that may be something that we could do another time.
19:28: Just, uh, and not, not really.
19:30: Cause you just, you were just honest and said, you know, you're not a philosopher, you're leaning on William Lane Craig and men like that.
19:35: And I appreciate you saying that.
19:36: And, and my, um, I guess one of the areas that I would, would, would, would maybe ask would be is, is anything determined by God, if you, if you say that man has libertarian and you would, so you would not, you would not deny that the cross of Christ was determined by God and that the events that, you know, that, that prophesied by Isaiah and all those things were going to happen.
19:59: Absolutely.
20:00: Yeah.
20:00: And that's sometimes a misnomer that some people think that because we, we reject determinism, um, that we reject the concept and idea that God determines anything or, or that we think that free will is some kind of a superpower that thwarts the purposes and plans of God or something extreme like that.
20:15: And that's just not the case.
20:17: Um, we, we have a very high view of providence as did, you know, I, you know, you read, if you read Jacob as Arminius and his writings, he had a very high view of God's providence and in the way in which God works is sovereign working within the world.
20:31: Uh, and so some people I think have a misconception of what we actually teach and believe with regard to God's providence and how he works in our world.
20:40: Fair enough.
20:40: Awesome.
20:41: Thank you.
20:41: All right.
20:42: Well, we're going to move on to the third question.
20:44: This is Mr.
20:44: John Crawford, who just got finished preaching, uh, the, the story of the Ark.
20:50: We were looking at how Old Testament types point to Christ.
20:53: So this is, he's going to ask you a question from Genesis chapter six.
20:57: Um, hold on.
20:58: Where's the video? There we go.
21:05: Okay.
21:06: In all honesty, I would just ask him, what do you, I got Genesis six on the mind.
21:10: Uh, what does he do with the intent of man's heart being only evil continually? And how does that relate with the doctrine of total gravity? Um, that would be the question that comes to mind.
21:20: All right.
21:21: So he's asking you a specific text now, and I'm sure this is a text that comes up a lot with you.
21:27: So, uh, what about the text where it says that the, the intent of man's heart was only evil continually? Well, he is talking about Genesis six, verse five.
21:37: The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of their, the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.
21:44: So the Lord was sorry, or he was grieved that he had made mankind on the earth.
21:48: Uh, and he was grieving his heart.
21:50: And then the Lord said, I will wipe out all of mankind who I've created from the face of the land and mankind is animals as well, crawling things, the birds of the sky.
21:57: And then he goes on to talk about, um, Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
22:02: So, uh, there's at least one exception, if not Noah and his family, uh, as far as the, uh, the intent of wickedness of all mankind, it seems to me that this is about the nature of this generation of humans, that they were wicked and they'd become this way.
22:19: Not that they were born by decree to be this way, but that they had become this way.
22:23: Now you could say that the reason Noah, uh, was righteous was because God elected him before he was born and somehow effectually caused him to be a believer.
22:32: Um, and he and his family, uh, but then that brings up the issue as to why God just wouldn't do that with more people versus being grieved in his heart and wiping them off the face of the earth.
22:43: Why not just elect more of them? Maybe pick 10% of the people of that day and do the same thing to them as you did to Noah.
22:49: Um, so it seems like that the natural reading of the text is that this generation of people had gone astray and despite his patience towards them, despite that he sends Noah to preach to them for over a hundred years, calling them to repentance.
23:02: Um, that, but the, in other words, they're, they're freely going against the things of God.
23:07: Not, they're not doing so by decree or they're not doing so because of the nature they were born with, that they couldn't have helped it.
23:14: Um, they had every opportunity to believe and to repent and come to God just as Noah and his family did.
23:19: And, and so that I would put the blame squarely upon them and their own libertarian free choice to rebel against the things of God versus saying they were decreed to do that or they were born that way and they really couldn't help it.
23:31: It was just their natural desire from birth.
23:34: Um, I would put the blame back on them for their behavior, not on the decree or upon their innate nature from birth.
23:42: Okay.
23:42: So do you not believe then that man has any limitations in his nature because of the sin of Adam? Do you not believe that we have any inherent, uh, sin nature? No, I'm fine.
23:53: Talking about our limitations and our corruption, uh, we're an entity with God, hostility, all those kinds of things.
24:00: But all those things are things that grow over the course of time.
24:05: If someone continues to rebel against the things of God, that they can become defiled in their thinking and eventually given over.
24:12: If their minds and their hearts become darkened, they're not born that way from birth.
24:18: They can become that way with their choice to rebel, which is why the Bible warns that, you know, when you hear the voice of God, do not harden your hearts.
24:26: Because if you do harden your hearts, your conscience can become seared and you can become more and more callous to the point where you're given over to that rebellion.
24:36: So you disagree with Voti, uh, and me, I guess, who has said that, you know, cause I have six kids, that they are indeed a viper in a diaper.
24:44: Do you, do you not, not necessarily hold to that view? No, I, I think they're image bearers of God, uh, created in his image, uh, and created to be, uh, ones who have a relationship with God and that he has created them to be, uh, uh, have right relationship with him and that he's, uh, has good, good in mind for them and a desire to have relationship with them.
25:07: Uh, and that if they choose to go at, uh, the wrong way and become vipers and diapers, so to speak, if they choose to reject, once they reach an age of accountability, um, if they choose to go that direction, then they, you know, will deserve what they get because of their unwillingness to receive the truth.
25:24: So as to be saved.
25:26: Um, and so, yeah, I, I mean, I understand the, the tongue in cheek kind of overstatement, sometimes hyperbole of, of how sinful we are, but I, I think sometimes that's in reaction to a very, uh, a very secularized humanistic approach to the Christianity that's talking about, we're all basically good.
25:45: And everybody's just, you know, everybody's a good people and we're all good people.
25:49: And sometimes Christianity has a tendency to pendulum swing so far away from that, that we adopt what I call this kind of this worm theology that we, it's almost like this, uh, competition to how bad we can make mankind in, you know, talk about how bad horrible mankind are as an opposition to the humanist of our secular society.
26:08: Uh, I get that.
26:09: I was there too for a long time, but I think we can overstate our case to the point where we devalue human life and, and we devalue what God has really created us to be and what he's created us for.
26:21: Um, and we also, I think remove in some instances, the blameworthiness of the sinner by saying that they're this way from birth basically is saying that they didn't have real choice in the matter.
26:33: They just, they just became this way because they innately were born like this.
26:37: Um, and, and I think that removes the blameworthiness of the center instead of by saying, Hey, you have responsibility for where you are.
26:44: You're not, you're not this because you were born this way.
26:46: You're this because you made bad choices and you could have done otherwise.
26:50: You could have repented earlier.
26:51: You could have turned from your evil direction and your evil ways.
26:56: But the fact that you didn't is your fault.
26:58: I don't put that onto God.
26:59: I don't think that that's because of a lack of God's revelation or lack of his grace or lack of Jesus's atonement for you.
27:05: I'm not giving you any of those excuses.
27:07: If you're in your, if you're in that predicament, you made your bed, you need to lie in it because of your own choices to reject the free offer of the gospel.
27:15: Sure.
27:15: But you would also agree that like when Isaiah saw the Lord and saw him in his holiness, he identified himself as being so far removed from God's holiness that he, the most righteous man in all of Israel, pronounced a word of judgment upon himself and declared himself to be a man of unclean lips who lived among a people of unclean lips.
27:36: He, he saw himself the most, I would have to say the, probably the most righteous practically speaking man in all of Israel recognized even his sin nature as being so far removed from the holiness of God.
27:49: Is that just something that he chose or is that not something that's inherent in his makeup when the scripture says that we are by nature, children of wrath? Well, again, I don't have any problem with the concept of being by nature, children of wrath.
28:02: My point of contention with Calvinists is saying that they can't recognize that fact and confess it, humbly confess it in light of the law and the gospel, which is what the T of Tula ultimately says.
28:14: And so I have no problem with talking about men having a hostility towards God being an enmity with God.
28:22: But that's why he sends a message of reconciliation.
28:24: He sends it to enemies so as to call them to reconciliation.
28:27: And it's our responsibility as enemies to humbly confess our enmity, humbly confess our hostility.
28:33: Just like a married couple, even in the secular world, can be hostile towards each other, but one of them eventually humble themselves, confess their wrongdoing and they are reconciled in the same way.
28:43: We can be hostile to the things of God.
28:46: We can have enmity in our heart towards him, but we're responsible to humble ourselves, confess that fact and trust in him, which I believe anyone can and should do.
28:55: And it seems to me the Calvinist says you're born unable to do that unless you were picked before you were born and somehow effectually caused to do that.
29:04: And I think that removes human blameworthiness because it ultimately gives them a good excuse to say, I was born unable to be reconciled even when God called me to reconciliation because my enmity was such that I couldn't even confess it.
29:17: I couldn't humble myself and confess it because he didn't regenerate me.
29:20: He didn't send Jesus to die for me.
29:22: And I don't think the Bible ever teaches those categories.
29:25: Okay.
29:26: All right, fair enough.
29:27: I'm going to go on to the next question now.
29:29: We're going to go, because I do want to try to get through all of these and I know how I am and how you are.
29:34: We'll get talking and we won't.
29:36: I'm a long-winded, I'm a long-winded sucker.
29:38: So I could go forever if you don't cut me off.
29:41: I am a Baptist preacher for sure.
29:44: So let me bring it back up here and let's see.
29:49: I want to have you.
29:50: Okay, there we go.
29:51: All right.
29:51: So this is Michael Schultz.
29:53: A wonderful, all these guys are wonderful preachers.
29:55: This guy had a wonderful message and he's going to ask you one that we sort of answered on the last program because it has to do with evangelism, but I'll let you answer it here too.
30:05: So here we go.
30:06: If I'm standing in the doorway with a person that I'm trying to evangelize to, and they tell me that they want to become a Christian right now, how do you do that? How do you proceed? Do we say a sinner's prayer? Do we read some passages and do the Roman's Road? Do I hand them an invitation to my church? What's the next step? The person says, I want to become a Christian.
30:29: What do you do right then and there? You know? Yeah, I think of the Philippian jailer, you know, what must I do to be saved? Believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
30:39: You and your household will be saved.
30:41: So yeah, we did cover that in the last episode.
30:43: We talked about different tools of personal evangelism.
30:48: I would probably take them to Romans 6 23 and go through the one verse of evangelism.
30:53: Talk about the rages of their sin is death.
30:55: Talk about what you have to be saved from before you talk about the free gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
31:00: What does it mean to confess Christ as Lord of your life to follow him? And so yeah, and instead of the sinner's prayer, I might call it the publican prayer out of Luke 18, who cries out, God have mercy on me, a sinner.
31:13: And so I would focus upon first the, you know, the belief in Christ for salvation and then call them to confession of sins.
31:22: I think much of what I would do would be very similar to what you as a Southern Baptist preacher would do or probably what Michael would do as well.
31:31: Yeah.
31:32: Oh, and to be clear, our church isn't part of the SBC.
31:35: So I am, I went to, I went to a seminary that was a Southern, I went to Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary, which is a Southern Baptist seminary.
31:42: So I feel like I am part of the family, even though I'm not in a Southern Baptist church.
31:47: But I do have a quick question as a follow-up, because we didn't talk about this in the last program and I don't want to, I again, don't want to get into a rabbit trail too far, but because I don't know the answer, I want to ask very simply, do you hold to and teach penal substitutionary atonement? You know, it's funny, I was actually talking to Dan Wallace about that on the back porch of the Airbnb where we were staying for this evangelism conference.
32:16: And we were talking about William Lane Craig's work on substitutionary atonement, you know, penal substitutionary atonement and appreciating his work.
32:26: I listened to his series about that and I agree with his findings with regard to those issues, which by the way, it's not, for me, it's not the Christ, it's not Christmas Victor versus penal substitutionary atonement.
32:39: There's, I think what Dr.
32:40: Craig argues that I would agree with is that there are aspects of truth within all of the different theories.
32:45: And so it's not an either or concept.
32:47: I think there are true aspects of every one of those views.
32:51: I think sometimes people, you know, go off track when they try to say it has to be just this view and they kind of throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak, and get rid of all the other views because they have something unfavorable they feel about how it, you know, what conclusions might be drawn from it.
33:12: I don't know if that answers your question, but sure.
33:14: No, I, well, did you see the monster God debate with Brian Zahn? I did not.
33:21: No.
33:21: Okay.
33:22: Brian Zahn debated Michael Brown.
33:24: Obviously two men that are in way different camps than me, but they were debating the subject of penal substitution.
33:31: And Brian said he believed that if you believe in penal substitution, that makes God a monster.
33:36: And because God is willing to punish an innocent party to forgive your sins, and therefore God should just be willing to forgive you without having to extract any punishment from Christ, and Christ did not go to the cross to receive the punishment that we deserve, but instead Christ went to the cross as a example of love and loving his enemies who were willing to kill him.
34:00: And that, again, I hope I'm presenting Brian's position right.
34:03: I wouldn't want to misrepresent him.
34:05: As I said in the last program, I try to be fair.
34:07: And I do think that's his position is that Christ's cross work was not one that was satisfying God's wrath, but rather that it was demonstrating God's love.
34:19: And that's the, you know, his distinction.
34:22: I wouldn't say either or, I'd say, you know, a little bit of both ends.
34:25: Sure, sure.
34:25: I don't, I don't, yeah, I don't deny that it was demonstrating God's love for sure, but I thought Michael Brown really took him to task on the Hebrew going back to the Old Testament, showing, you know, substitution in the priesthood and how the animals were used as, you know, substitutes for the people and all those things.
34:40: I mean, just in a personal opinion, if anybody's interested in that subject, I would point you to that debate.
34:44: And I would say where I would, where I would disagree with Michael Brown on a thousand things on that.
34:49: I think he nailed it to the wall.
34:51: So, so I have to listen to that, you know, I'd have to hear Brian out.
34:55: I mean, I don't want to speak out of turn because I didn't sure.
34:58: Yeah.
34:58: Study up on that particular point to know, you know, what, what their particular views are or why they hold to them.
35:04: I'd need to study it further.
35:06: Absolutely.
35:06: Absolutely.
35:06: And that's fair.
35:07: All right, let's move on to, to our video.
35:11: And this is Haps Addison.
35:12: He is from California.
35:14: He asked this question really quick.
35:15: So I'm gonna try to clip it and make sure I get it right.
35:18: I just ask him one thing.
35:21: Did, is the only way to Christ, is the only way to Christ is if the Father draws him to him.
35:28: It's just yes or no.
35:30: Okay.
35:30: That's all I want to know.
35:31: Does the Father have to draw us? Yeah.
35:32: Yeah.
35:33: That's all I want to know.
35:33: Just yes or no.
35:35: All right.
35:36: So that's the, that's the classic John 6, 44, 65 passage question of the Father drawing to the Son.
35:44: And I know your answer because I've heard you, but other people haven't.
35:47: So go ahead and, and take it away.
35:50: I'd say yes.
35:51: Yes, obviously.
35:52: Yes.
35:52: You need to be drawn by the Father.
35:55: The question, the point of contention is not whether you need to be drawn.
35:58: The point of contention is who does he draw and by what means? How will they believe in one whom they've not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? You, you, you, you, there are inabilities within the text, even from a provisionist perspective.
36:10: And the inability is to believe in somebody you don't know or you haven't heard about.
36:14: You, you have to hear in order to believe.
36:17: And so you can't go to a party you haven't been invited to, you know, I guess, technically you could, but you'd have to know about the party, obviously.
36:24: I crash a party.
36:24: I've done it.
36:25: But yeah, but, but, you know, you, you understand what I'm saying is that you need, you need the invitation.
36:31: You need, you need to be wooed.
36:33: You need to be brought to him.
36:35: Now, obviously we, we disagree as to what the drawing entails, um, and who it's for and those kinds of things.
36:42: But so oftentimes, uh, you'll hear me say over and over again, what is the point of contention? Because sometimes when I talk to Calvinists, they think a point of contention is something that it's not like they'll think that, well, we don't believe that God draws or that we don't believe that.
36:57: And that's not our point of contention.
36:59: It's, it's more of what are the means by which God draws and is he drawing effectually or is he drawing in a sufficient manner that's able to be resisted? Is he like John 12, 32 says that when I'm lifted up, I'll draw all men to myself.
37:13: What does that mean? Who is that encompassing? What are all those things? Those that gets into the points of contention with regard to this debate.
37:20: If, if one understands the categories rightly, would you, would it be your position? And again, I'm pushing back just a little.
37:28: Would it be your position that God's desire is the same for all men to be saved? Every single man who's ever lived.
37:38: I think his desire is for all to believe so as to be saved is as a better, more precise way of putting it.
37:45: Yeah.
37:45: I wasn't trying to misrepresent.
37:48: The reason I say that is because some people take it to say, well, if he desires all to be saved, it means that he desires all to be saved regardless of whether they believe or not.
37:58: And that's not what we would say.
37:59: We would say, no, he desires for all believers to be saved and he desires for everyone to believe.
38:05: And so it's just a nuance that helps to clarify sometimes again, what some people try to make a point of contention.
38:11: That's not really a point of contention.
38:13: Yes.
38:13: He desires for all to be saved because he desires all to come to faith in his son.
38:19: Do you, do you then believe that all men have the opportunity to be saved? Yes.
38:25: Yes, absolutely.
38:27: I think this is exactly the point that Paul is answering in Romans one is, you know, when you talk about the Gentile in that, in that day and age, you're talking about the unevangelized, you're talking about the people who don't know that the law and the gospel, they don't know all the truth because the revelation was brought to the Jews.
38:44: Uh, and so in his mind, when he's talking about the, uh, the Gentile world, the world of, uh, the non Jew out there, he's, he's saying they're without excuse because that which can be known of God was made clear to them.
38:58: It was understandable.
39:00: And therefore they're held to account for what they do with the revelation in the light of God's word.
39:05: And it seems to me through the study of scripture, that if you're faithful with a little, um, that he will bring you more light, more revelation.
39:13: Uh, and I think there are examples of, in matter of fact, in ironically, I play a clip from a sermon by John MacArthur back in the 1980s, uh, back when he was a lot more dispensationalist and a lot less Calvinist.
39:24: Uh, but at the same time, uh, he, he actually makes my point for me by talking about a missionary, uh, who went to a far, uh, reaching country and there was a young man there who didn't know the gospel, but believed, uh, in the light and revelation that he'd been given.
39:41: Um, and, uh, God was faithful to bring more, more light, more revelation.
39:45: Now there's some mystery involved with that because obviously we don't know how that may happen with every individual and every single, uh, you know, far reaches the corners of the earth, as they say.
39:56: Um, but I do believe God is faithful and he will justly hold people accountable to the light and the revelation they've been given.
40:04: So, and again, I know this wasn't supposed to be a debate and I promise I did.
40:09: You're not hurt.
40:10: You don't need to apologize, Keith.
40:11: Okay.
40:12: Come on, fire away.
40:14: I, um, I, I just thinking in my mind, because I know how I answer this question and it may be different than the way you answer this question, but the question is always the same.
40:26: And that is, what do you do with the native who never gets visited by the missionary, who only has the light that Romans one says that he has, which is that he has the, the, the wrath of God has revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth for what can be done about God is plain to them for God has shown it to them.
40:44: You know, we know that passage is what you just quoted, but where we would probably differ is I would say there's enough, there's enough revelation for him to be condemned, but not to be saved.
40:55: Are you saying a man could be saved by general revelation? Revelation doesn't save anybody.
41:00: Even, even special revelation doesn't save anybody.
41:03: Revelation reveals, a revelation reveals truth.
41:06: I agree.
41:06: And so one is, one is saved by grace through faith in the light, the revelation they've been given.
41:13: So Rahab, who's a harlot, a Gentile harlot, doesn't know New Testament theology for sure.
41:21: He doesn't probably even know how to read if she's a harlot from a pagan country.
41:25: She, she has a very mustard seed size kind of faith in the God of Israel and is willingly hides the spies and, and she makes the hall of faith in Hebrews chapter 11 because she puts her own life at risk for the sake of the God of Israel.
41:42: In other words, she, she demonstrates faith even though it's not based upon a lot of knowledge or a lot of education, but God shows her mercy, God shows her grace.
41:53: And so it's God's prerogative as to who he wants to show grace and mercy to.
41:57: I think it's, if he wants to show grace to an aborted baby, I think God, it's God's prerogative to do that.
42:02: Even though he, an aborted baby doesn't know and have cognitive ability to understand and articulate the gospel.
42:09: In the same way, people in the Old Testament times, or maybe even somebody in a tribe in the middle of New Guinea, may not have the full light and revelation, but I think that's where we say God can have mercy on whom he wants to have mercy.
42:22: It's God's prerogative.
42:24: Now, I believe the New Testament teaches that God will bring the light and revelation of his son, of Christ, to those who, you know, he wants to bring into right relationship that he wants to save.
42:36: And so there are differing, there are differing perspectives here.
42:39: There's restrictivist, inclusivist, not to be confused with pluralist, by the way, where they're all paths lead to heaven kind of thing.
42:46: Don't confuse those things.
42:48: But even among Christians, on both Calvinist and the non-Calvinistic side, if you want to go watch that video, I've got a video out that I have actually Calvinist exclusivist, there's Calvinist inclusivist, there are Calvinist restrictivist and non-Calvinist restrictivist.
43:03: They're both sides of the aisle with regard to how all that works and encourage people to go study that if they want to go down that fun rabbit trail, how that, you know, how that we answer that question, because it is a question often raised.
43:16: And this is just from my perspective.
43:18: This is one of the areas that I do talk about in regard to election.
43:22: I say, it seems to me that when we do look at the history of Scripture, and you sort of just said this, that there are times where it seems like God gives more light to different people.
43:32: I mean, we can't say that God gave the same revelation to the Amorites as he did the Israelites.
43:37: We can't say he gave the same revelation to the Canaanites that he gave to Abraham.
43:41: And in that, I see a form of God's choosing and God's elective work.
43:47: Now, I know you would disagree with that, but I'm saying that's looking at it from the perspective of means, what God is doing.
43:54: It's not just that, okay, he chooses to regenerate that guy and that's what happens, but it's all of these things that are part of it.
44:01: I was born into the family I was born into, I believe, by God's decree.
44:05: I believe that my mother and my father got divorced when I was six, and I hate that that happened, and I cried every day for a year that when my mom and my dad got a divorce, and then I met my stepmom and she took me to the church that I currently pastor.
44:19: I've been in the same church since I was seven years old, and I don't count that as simple accidents, but I see the hand of God working that out in my life, and I'm no Joseph, so please don't think I'm about to compare myself to Joseph, but at the end of Joseph's life, when he could look back and he'd say what you meant for evil, God meant for good, I know that my parents' divorce was a bad thing, but God used that for good in bringing my salvation, and now the salvation of my mother and my father and all these other things.
44:49: I guess that's, again, not to start a war, but I think that there is election even in those things.
44:59: Yeah, and that's where you get to some of the philosophical discussions about why God would do what he does, and some speculate as to if somebody would believe and God would know it, and it's kind of the Molinistic argument, and therefore God would bring more light, more revelation to those he knows would believe the light and revelation, and again, that's all speculative because the Bible didn't come out and specifically answer that question for us, and so both sides have their starting points, and if you start with sovereign decree, Calvinistic sociology, then you're probably going to come to a different answer than I might start with when I start with libertarian free will and human responsibility with regard to your choices in regard to the light and revelation, and the sufficiency of the light and revelation, and what it entails, and so we're going to come to different philosophical it's going to unpack differently based upon your philosophical starting point, and so you can debate that, people do debate it, and we've had people on the podcast going through different ways to understand it, and both have their proof text that they like to appeal to, that they think best supports their perspective, and so, you know, I just encourage people to really get to know the other side before they draw their conclusions, though, because in my experience, there are way too many people who accuse the other side of believing things that they don't really believe or saying things they don't really say, and sometimes what you're trying to do is you're trying to say, well, by logical implication, it seems that your view would be this, and the person may say, no, no, no, I don't believe that that logically entails this, and so sometimes I'm accused, for example, a lot of misrepresenting Calvinists because I might be talking about a logical entailment of their claims, and I realize, hey, I know, you know, you don't believe this, but what I'm saying is that it seems to logically entail that if you claim this is true, then this seems to be, it has to be true that this is the case, for example, the blameworthiness of the sinner, like I was talking about earlier, I know that you believe that sinners are blameworthy, I know that you think they're responsible for rejecting the gospel, what I'm saying, though, is if T is true, they're born unable to willingly accept the gospel, it seems to me that seems to be a logical entailment to remove their blameworthiness, and again, I know you disagree with that, but that's the underpinning of why we have these kinds of discussions and try to understand each other's perspective.
47:36: Yeah, absolutely.
47:37: I have a, I have to get to the next question, but Tom Askell has a really good help where he talks about the difference between hyper-Calvinists and Arminianists, both making the same issue of responsibility, where the Arminian, I know you're not Arminian, but I'm just saying what he would say is the Arminian would say because we're responsible, we must be able, and the hyper-Calvinist would say because we're not able, we're not responsible, and the tension is that we are fully responsible and yet not able, and that's why grace is necessary.
48:08: That would be the response, is because we are unable, grace has to be effective in us.
48:16: So, all right, so here is our, getting close to the end here, let me pull this back up, and...
48:23: Okay.
48:24: Why, when you were dead in your first federal head, Adam, were you able to ask, were you able to approach the throne of the living God, Jesus Christ, without being made alive first? I would ask...
48:37: All right, so that one is actually sort of a theological, probably fire brand, because he's assuming that you would believe that Adam is our federal head, so is that...
48:52: Yeah, I'm fine with Adam being a federal head, representing us in the garden, that's not a problem for me, but I don't believe that you can approach the throne room of God as a dead man.
49:04: That's why he incarnates, I mean, to be dead is positional, you're cast outside the garden, you, when you eat of this, you'll surely die, I mean, you're going to be cast out of the garden, you're outside of fellowship, like the prodigal son was said to be dead, he's in the far country, doesn't mean he literally can't respond, or that he can't walk and make choices and come to his senses and return home in humility, it means that he's positionally distant from God due to his rebellion, just like the body is separated from the soul at death, we are separated from our God, our maker, when we sin, and so sin separates us from fellowship with God, so what's the solution to that? Well, incarnation, he comes to us, you know, there's the curtain dividing us from the throne room of God, so he comes to where we are, because we can't go to where he is, he comes to where we are, and he brings us the good news, he brings us the gospel, and therefore we're held responsible to the truth that we are brought incarnationally, through the means that he has brought through the scriptures, through the blood of Christ, he's brought the truth, the light of reconciliation, it's an appeal that he makes to all men, be reconciled to God, and you're able to respond to that appeal, that's our position, and so once you respond in faith, then you're made alive, so as to approach the throne room, but we don't believe you approach the throne room apart from faith and being made alive, we just we have a different order salutis, and that we don't believe regeneration precedes faith, we believe that faith precedes regeneration, in other words, we believe so as to be made alive, or raised through faith, not that we're raised unto faith, or that we're made alive so as to believe.
50:41: Gotcha, and I knew that, and that's one of the things that I do when I'm talking about the distinction between classic Calvinism and those who would not hold to classic Calvinism, it is the order salutis, and it's the logical priority, not necessarily the priority in time, but the logical priority of regeneration and faith, where we would say regeneration is the producer of faith, and you would say, because I want to say it correctly, you would say faith results in regeneration? Correct.
51:13: Okay, and I think that's a good line, right? Like if you know where you stand on that line, you sort of know where you're going to fall, and not that every Calvinist believes the same way, but at least you know where that...
51:25: And I remember you talking about that on your show one time, you talked about that not all Calvinists believe regeneration precedes faith, but that there is a grace that opens the heart, and there is a...
51:34: Well, even like Dan Wallace I talked to, he's Calvinistic, and he was talking about how he doesn't believe in pre-faith regeneration.
51:40: He believes in effectual calling, but he said that he wouldn't call it regeneration, and I think Chris Date made a similar point in one of our discussions.
51:48: And a matter of fact, there was a...
51:50: At the ETS that I went to, ETS, the Evangelical Theological Society, one of the breakout sessions was done by a Calvinist scholar who talks about, you know, pre-Dort, before Dort, none of the Reformers talked about pre-faith regeneration, that they use different vernacular.
52:06: It wasn't until after Dort that you see that development of that particular line of the doctrine.
52:12: Now, in principle, it's the same concept.
52:14: It just...
52:15: Regeneration wasn't the verbiage that was used to describe that.
52:19: And so a lot of people don't...
52:20: Not even realizing that that's relatively a new vernacular or a way of understanding, even from a Reform perspective.
52:28: And that's just one of the reasons there's so many accusations of misrepresentation, because which form of Reformed, you know, Calvinistic sociology are you critiquing here? Because, you know, if I talk to this guy, he doesn't like to say regeneration precedes faith, but if I talk to this guy, he does.
52:45: And so sometimes I have to...
52:46: You have to take the time to find out which kind of Calvinist you're talking to before you bring a critique.
52:51: Yeah.
52:51: And again, boy, we need to do this again, because that's a whole other conversation, right? Because some Calvinists would argue that regeneration didn't exist prior to the New Covenant, that regeneration is a New Covenant promise, and therefore how did the Old Testament saints become believers, and therefore then they have to debate whether or not, well, does regeneration accompany an indwelling of the Spirit? And if the indwelling of the Spirit is the promise of the New Covenant, then did you get regenerated without being indwelled? And so I understand this is not a ubiquitous position, where everybody is the same.
53:25: It's not so cut and dry as social media tries to make it so, just cut and dry.
53:29: And this is one of the things that even like Frank Turek, who's an apologist friend of mine, who happens to believe like I do, theologically, but he's like, how do you do a podcast just on this issue? Don't you run out of topics? I said, no, brother, you don't have any.
53:45: There's so many different trails of things you can talk about.
53:48: And I mean, just those five points alone, there's like 60 points underneath every one of the five points, all of which can take months upon months of unpacking each nuance and each point for sure.
54:01: Absolutely.
54:02: All right.
54:02: Well, let's see if we can't finish this up.
54:03: We've got, this is Tim Kearly.
54:05: Now, Tim was not a speaker.
54:07: Tim though, was a very wonderful brother who sat down with me and I got to interview him as one of the audience members, but he had a thoughtful question and I thought it would be nice to include his question in this conversation.
54:20: So we'll, and I'm going to try to keep my comments to a minimum because we really do got to start moving towards wrapping this up.
54:27: No problem.
54:27: I'll try to keep it short too.
54:29: Okay.
54:30: Kim, did God plan for, for Paul to be an apostle while he was in his mother's womb? If he says yes, then who else is set apart from their mother's womb? And so my.
54:49: Yeah, oftentimes, you know, David, Paul, other apostles or prophets of old are spoken of as being set apart.
54:58: And we don't, we don't deny omniscience.
55:01: And so this is another point that sometimes is disputed, that sometimes people just assume that omniscience equals determinism, that because God knows it, therefore he must have determined it.
55:12: But even Paul speaks about how he did not disobey, disobey the godly vision and that, that, you know, proof that God sets aside his messengers, his prophets, his apostles, and sets them apart and calls them out isn't proof that God somehow effectually causes certain people to believe their message.
55:34: And I think the best illustration of this is maybe like Jonah, because Jonah was obviously set apart to be a missionary to the Ninevites.
55:43: God chose him for that purpose.
55:45: Now, he obviously didn't choose Jonah because he was a great person to choose because Jonah was rebellious.
55:50: And so God uses external means to convince the will of Jonah to go to Nineveh by using the storm and the big fish.
55:57: But that doesn't prove that God therefore uses some kind of internal irresistible means to cause certain Ninevites believe his message when he arrives, it's just simply acknowledgement that God will accomplish his purpose of bringing his message to the world.
56:13: Even when sometimes the messengers, people of Israel are disobedient and unfaithful, God's still faithful to make his promises and his truth made known.
56:21: And so yes, the road to Damascus experience, though, I would have loved to have an experience like that.
56:27: I didn't, and I don't think most Christians have a road to Damascus kind of experience, nor are we writing a majority of the New Testament either.
56:34: And so sometimes we would like to read ourselves into the hero narrative, like I'm like Paul.
56:40: But I think that the reason that Paul and other prophets of old were set apart and magnified as being set apart is as their role in God's purpose of bringing his plan of redemption through them.
56:58: And sometimes when we read ourselves into their narratives or into their stories, I think we're kind of being a little bit, and I'm not saying this of Tim or anybody else, sometimes we can read ourselves into the story.
57:08: Like I'm David and I am Paul and I am this person, when in reality, those people are special.
57:13: I wasn't chosen to be a prophet.
57:17: I wasn't chosen to be an apostle.
57:18: And sometimes those passages are specifically talking about apostolic authority and not a sociology.
57:24: So what you're saying, Leighton, is that they are choice meats? I knew you would get in there.
57:32: I was hoping you would.
57:34: Yeah, you said we talked about it.
57:37: You did want to explain that.
57:38: So since we're here, what's the choice meats thing, man? What's that about? Well, you know, this is the Twitter clips I was talking about before where people pull a clip out of context.
57:49: And what I was trying to say, which I obviously didn't say very clear because people mistook it.
57:53: But what I was trying to say is that just because you use the word choice, it doesn't mean the Calvinistic sense of the word choice, that choice can be used in various ways.
58:02: Just like somebody could be throughout history, you know, you might say Job was a righteous man.
58:07: He was a choice man.
58:09: He was a good man.
58:10: Well, I thought the Bible says no one's righteous, no, not one.
58:13: How could Job be choice? How could he be good? Well, he's not choice or good or righteous based upon his own righteousness, but based upon the righteousness of the one in whom he trusts.
58:24: And so Jeremiah refers to the people as choice figs, for example, or good figs.
58:28: Well, not good because they obeyed the law perfectly.
58:31: They're good or their choice because they believe in the choice one.
58:36: They believe in the righteousness of another.
58:39: And so we can be called choice, not because God chose us unconditionally before we were ever born to be effectually saved, like the Calvinistic rendering of the word choice, but we can be choice insofar as we believe in and we trust in the one who is choice, the righteous one who is Christ.
58:53: That's what I meant by that.
58:55: I understand the clip doesn't spell that out, but you had to listen to the whole two-hour video to understand where I was coming from, and I understand some people aren't going to take the time to go do that.
59:04: But in all fairness, I think people should be careful to represent their opponents rightly and hear them out, understand where they're coming from.
59:14: And then once somebody explains what they meant by it, don't just double down and say, no, you really meant this when you didn't say it.
59:20: That just shows a lack of maturity in my estimation.
59:23: Yeah.
59:23: And I think, you know, we ought to be able to have fun.
59:26: And that's why if anybody thought that was a cheap shot, I even asked Layton before we started, if I could ask that.
59:31: I know you've been talking about even provisionist perspective, Drew and Eric over there, they call their listeners choice meats because we've just kind of adopted the label because it's just funny.
59:41: No offense was taken whatsoever.
59:43: And a few weeks ago you posted, actually while I was at the conference, you posted a video from Dr.
59:48: White where it was a guy pulling a camper and it was being pulled by another thing being pulled.
59:53: It was this most jalopie-looking thing.
59:57: And you said, here's Dr.
59:58: White off to another conference.
59:59: And I thought that was hilarious.
01:00:00: I think he probably did too.
01:00:02: I don't know if he said anything to you, but I just thought that, that was a, that was a fun, yeah.
01:00:07: He had posted a meme about me that said something kind of derogatory.
01:00:11: That was funny.
01:00:11: And so I put that up there as a response to it.
01:00:14: Just kind of being funny back, you know, kind of, we take shots at each other that way.
01:00:17: And some people took it really seriously.
01:00:18: Like they really offended that I would say that or whatever.
01:00:21: I was, it was obviously, I mean, nobody thinks that's really.
01:00:24: And I even said something like Rich is driving the first one or something like that.
01:00:28: Yeah.
01:00:28: Nobody thinks Rich is driving the car.
01:00:30: That's pulling the trailer.
01:00:31: That's pulling the jalopy.
01:00:32: That's pulling the, you know, the camper.
01:00:34: It's just, we're having fun.
01:00:36: Just, just like the, you know, the one string banjo stuff.
01:00:40: I mean, we have fun with it.
01:00:42: People need to lighten up a little bit when it comes to these things, in my opinion, but amen.
01:00:46: And I, Hey, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to clip that part out and that'll be what goes.
01:00:50: I hope people need to lighten up.
01:00:54: All right.
01:00:54: So this is the last one and this one is a little bit of a long question and it's a little personal because this is a friend of yours, or at least he says he's, he knows you.
01:01:04: This is Andrew Rappaport, who many people know is an evangelist and apologist.
01:01:10: And he is asking about why you choose to continue to do what you're doing.
01:01:16: And so I'm going to let him be the voice here and this will, this will take us out of these questions.
01:01:21: This is the last one.
01:01:22: Question.
01:01:22: I would ask him is one that I asked him privately.
01:01:24: So I don't have any problem saying this publicly is, you know, with so many people that address him as misrepresenting Calvinism, he doesn't correct it.
01:01:34: And so my question is, are you willing to give up the platform you have as an anti-Calvinist to find grace with other brothers? Because that's the issue I have with, I, and I, he's a guy I love.
01:01:48: It's not, you know, he, he, he disagrees with me.
01:01:50: We were open about it and we could, we could disagree and we would send like, you know, Marco Polo's back and forth.
01:01:56: But I just, I feel that he got a big platform being the anti-Calvinist and that's overshadowed what he's really good at, which is evangelism.
01:02:04: And I, I personally believe if he stopped with the anti-Calvinism, he'd probably have a much bigger platform talking evangelism.
01:02:13: And, and my question would be, why doesn't he do that? And that's the question I had asked him.
01:02:18: All right, brother.
01:02:19: That's his question.
01:02:21: I'll let you take it away.
01:02:22: Well, it's kind of two parts.
01:02:23: First, he talks about the misrepresentation.
01:02:24: I've already addressed that a little bit.
01:02:26: That sometimes you're accused of misrepresenting because there's different forms of Calvinism.
01:02:31: And you're, you may be addressing a particular form of it.
01:02:34: And, and, and another, another Calvinist feels like you're only talking to the superlapsarians.
01:02:39: And what about the infralapsarians over here? You're only, you're not addressing the Amaraldians.
01:02:43: You're only addressing the five pointers and all these kinds of things.
01:02:46: And so sometimes it's that, sometimes it's the logical implications of a claim.
01:02:51: Sometimes you're not putting things as palatably as they would like it put, all kinds of accusations.
01:02:56: And we've addressed those.
01:02:58: And a matter of fact, I think I've gone much further in my efforts to represent Calvinists than Calvinists have gone in, in representing us for what we actually say and believe.
01:03:08: And, and I, in other words, I would hold my efforts up to John MacArthur and R.C.
01:03:13: Sproul and, and John Piper and all the leading Calvinists out there.
01:03:17: I think I've gone much further in trying to represent them the best I know how.
01:03:23: Now, as far as platforms are concerned, I, I haven't, I don't do any less amount of evangelistic work than I did before.
01:03:29: In fact, I probably do more in my studies and my, I mean, my, my presentations and work with Texas Baptist than I did even before I started the podcast.
01:03:38: So it's not an either or it's, it's more of this is something I've done on the side.
01:03:42: The fact that it became popular and has provided a platform for me to talk about what I believe is God's love and provision for all people.
01:03:49: I can't help that.
01:03:51: I have nothing to do with how popular a particular work that I do is.
01:03:55: And so calling me to stop doing this thing over here that's popular so that I can become more popular about this thing over here doesn't seem to be, you know, it doesn't have any merit as far as I can tell.
01:04:07: I use this over here that I'm doing sociology to point people to what I do in my evangelism work and our apologetics work, but it's individual's choice as to whether they want to come and listen to me on that platform and let, you know, have me come and talk about evangelism or do those kinds of things or teaching or training on apologetics.
01:04:27: You know, if, if Calvinist want to start inviting me to their, you know, their, their events, like I have Calvinist at ours, then I'm welcome to come.
01:04:35: I mean, I'll be glad to come and come train and do an evangelism at some of your Calvinistic conferences.
01:04:40: But I don't see that happening because, because it doesn't seem to go.
01:04:44: It seems to be one way and not the other and not, no, that's, that's not true of you, Keith.
01:04:48: But it seems to be more that way that when the Calvinist does the together for the gospel kinds of conferences, when they do their conferences, every single platform speaker is a, at least a three to five point Calvinist, if not a full fledged Calvinist, they're known for their Calvinism, the Vodibachans of the world.
01:05:05: That that's, they, they, they have their stages covered with Calvinists.
01:05:09: Our side doesn't typically do that.
01:05:11: Our side of the aisle typically has a little bit more open door to having Calvinist on our platforms and not making it a, an issue that we're dividing over.
01:05:22: And again, you're an exception to that, obviously, cause I'm on your show right now.
01:05:26: And so I would just challenge maybe some of the Calvinist that are watching like Andrew to be more open to having guys like Layton Flowers teach at your conferences.
01:05:35: And guess what? I'm not going to embarrass you and come in there and start ranting against Calvinism.
01:05:40: If you invite me to come and talk about evangelism, just like, I don't think a Calvinist like Greg Kokel is going to come to one of our unapologetic conferences and have a session on how you, you know, you know, five ways to become a five point Calvinist today, because that's not what he's being invited to speak on.
01:05:55: So I hope that answers that question.
01:05:58: It does.
01:05:58: And it reminds me of something Michael Brown said when he was here.
01:06:01: He and James White came to Jacksonville to debate with two opponents on the subject of homosexuality.
01:06:08: I was there at the debate and it was really neat to see the two of them with all their differences to join forces and sort of go after a real issue.
01:06:20: But Michael Brown said this in a pre-conference talk.
01:06:24: He said, I can invite James White to my church to preach, but James White's church wouldn't invite me to his church to preach.
01:06:33: And that's sort of what you, that's sort of what you just said.
01:06:36: And that is an interesting just dichotomy there.
01:06:40: And again, I may get some heat for even mentioning that, but, you know, it is a real sense of distinction where there, you know, you would, you would, you would agree.
01:06:50: There's an open, more of an open door.
01:06:52: Yeah.
01:06:52: And I can understand not, you know, maybe not latent flowers because I do have a podcast dedicated to that issue.
01:07:00: And so I understand maybe not me, but there are a lot of provisionistic leaning apologists and preachers and teachers out there that are still being overlooked or not invited to, to the, to the platforms of a lot of these leading Calvinistic conferences.
01:07:17: And it's because, I mean, let's just be honest.
01:07:20: I mean, the founders ministry and Together for the Gospel, it's really together for Calvinism.
01:07:25: It is Together for their particular brand of what the gospel teaches.
01:07:31: And I understand it.
01:07:32: I was a Calvinist, so I get it.
01:07:33: I mean, you have a particular view that this is, this is the true understanding of God's word and how it should be explained.
01:07:40: And I don't want people coming in and, and, you know, muddying the waters or, or, you know, going off teaching, you know, some theology that we don't hold to because you want more doctrinal fidelity.
01:07:51: I get it.
01:07:52: But at the same time, it's just a fact of the matter.
01:07:55: That those on our side of the aisle, so to speak, the more provisionist or whosoever will types are more willing to, and open to actually platforming and having people who disagree with us, you know, work with us.
01:08:09: And, and so both of us are saying we're unified and we're all willing to work together, but only one side seems to be doing it practically with the exception, obviously present company accepted because I'm on your podcast right now.
01:08:21: But I think both sides could be better at that.
01:08:24: Good deal.
01:08:25: Good deal.
01:08:25: Well, I, uh, there was one, there was one speaker that I didn't get a question from, and that was Dr.
01:08:30: White, because you and him have already debated.
01:08:32: I didn't feel like it was important to ask him.
01:08:35: What would he ask you? Cause he's already asked you a bunch of questions, but there was one person at the conference that didn't get to ask a question and that was me.
01:08:41: So I'm going to finalize today's podcast with, if I were, uh, if I were sitting in the seat opposite myself and I asked myself self, which I do.
01:08:52: Oh, and by the way, let me, let me take a step back.
01:08:54: You, you talked about things that make you popular and you can't control that.
01:08:58: The only reason why most people know who I am is because I dress up like a Presbyterian and talk about superior theology.
01:09:03: So I get it.
01:09:04: You can't really control.
01:09:05: I've been preaching for six, 16 years and, and, and, and, and people know me as the guy who pretends to be Doug Wilson or whatever, you know, that's so I get it, you can't always control what people know about you, but I do hope that that does point people to the gospel.
01:09:20: That's my goal.
01:09:22: Is it to have a ministry focus and, and, and to put out the preaching of the gospel and to point people, use that as a, as a funnel to point people to that.
01:09:30: So, well, here's my question and I did write it down.
01:09:32: So I'm going to, I'm going to make sure I say this right.
01:09:35: And I want you to know that this is not an argument and I know it can be used against me, this same argument could be used back against me.
01:09:43: So, so understand that, um, this is not a proof question.
01:09:47: It's more of an opinion question.
01:09:49: Sure.
01:09:49: If you believe that Calvinism is wrong and bad and opposed to scripture, and those are things that you do, you believe, you at least believe it's opposed to scripture.
01:09:59: Um, why is it that so many godly and studious men, men that we both would agree would be godly men, men, like you've already said, R.C.
01:10:08: Sproul, but I've even, I've even even go back into the past and say men like Charles, uh, Spurgeon and George Whitefield.
01:10:15: Why would they, why would they believe this if it was so opposed, so obviously opposed to scripture as you seem to indicate? Free will.
01:10:26: I mean, it's, I mean, I mean, that's the answer.
01:10:30: I mean, either that or God decreed for his own children to have false beliefs and understanding.
01:10:35: And so the fact that we have free will is demonstrated in our various opinions, even as Christians.
01:10:40: Uh, and so I can read a passage and I can come to the wrong conclusion, maybe based upon my upbringing, maybe a fault, faulty presuppositions that I'm bringing to the text, my own sin nature and my misunderstanding of original languages can lead me to false conclusions.
01:10:56: Same with R.C.
01:10:57: Sproul or anybody else, because obviously, you know, John MacArthur and R.C.
01:11:01: Sproul disagree over baptism.
01:11:03: And so both of them might maybe reformed in their sociology, but hold to different views of baptism.
01:11:09: So it got ordained for one of them to have a misunderstanding of baptism and not the other.
01:11:14: And this is where I think free will fits so perfectly because it really does demonstrate that, that mankind has been given by God, the ability to deliberate and make choices and thus will be held responsible.
01:11:26: So if I make an error doctrinally, um, I'm, I'm accountable to God for those errors doctrinally, because it's, it's, I can't say God decreed for me to believe this.
01:11:36: I can't say God determined for me to believe this.
01:11:38: If I came to the false belief or false understanding, it's because I freely chose to, to believe a teaching that is not in align with scripture.
01:11:47: And, and that, that's where I think that's where I often push back on Calvinist is to say, you might want to be careful of being really dogmatic in your stance, because if you're wrong, just consider the implications of it.
01:11:59: Consider the fact that you might be choosing by your own free choice, your own responsibility, choosing to promote a doctrine that's not necessarily being taught in scripture.
01:12:10: Um, and of course that, that would be the more polemical way to answer, but, but I would also just, just once again, say that even though we come to different conclusions, theologically, we can hold to the, the, the main points of regarding Christ as the son of the living God regarding the gospel, uh, regarding, uh, what, what, what it means to be a Christian, what it means to follow Christ.
01:12:38: Have a lot of the same opinions about the social issues in our country right now and our disagreements with that.
01:12:45: Um, and we can unite over those issues without making our theological differences and, you know, uh, interpretive differences over Romans nine, for example, or Ephesians one or John 3, 16, or first Peter three, nine, uh, or second Peter three, nine and first Timothy two, four.
01:13:02: And these passages that are often kind of lobbed at each other, uh, over these theological differences, we, we can unite on the essentials of the faith, um, and lighten up as we've talked about, uh, here and, and be able to laugh at ourselves a little bit and recognize, yeah, because God is sovereign, um, the things that we do and the things, the choices that we make, guess what? They're not going to thwart his overall plan and purpose that his, his will is going to be accomplished, uh, in this world.
01:13:31: Um, and we don't want to obviously distract from that.
01:13:34: We don't want to cause division at the same time.
01:13:37: Um, we, we can choose to show respect and love for each other, even when we disagree.
01:13:42: Sure.
01:13:43: Absolutely.
01:13:44: And, and that's the, that's the point.
01:13:46: I was really, I'm glad that you pointed out at least that, that you're not by saying that you believe these men are wrong on these things, and obviously you do, and obviously I would believe that you were wrong on some things you're not saying John MacArthur, R.C.
01:13:59: Sproul are lost heretics or things like that.
01:14:02: You, you, cause, cause, and I didn't bring the pictures in and a friend of mine made a funny picture and I'll try to, I'll try to throw it in when I do the editing, but he made the funny picture of, um, Captain America and it was your face, it was your face on Captain America saying, so you did a heresy.
01:14:18: Right.
01:14:18: And so I think, I think on my side, especially, and I'll, I'll admit to this and I'll take some heat for it, but I'll take it.
01:14:27: I think on my side, especially we throw the word heresy around very easily.
01:14:32: And oftentimes very unfairly.
01:14:34: Are there heresies out there? Yes.
01:14:36: I mean, they're, you know, they come to our door on Saturday knocking, trying to give us an awake magazine.
01:14:40: There are heretics out there and we have to be careful.
01:14:43: But, um, but I think that we ought to be as charitable as we can for as long as we can with, uh, with those who proclaim the, the, the, the Lord of glory and, uh, call people to faith and repentance and trust in him for salvation.
01:14:58: Absolutely.
01:14:59: Amen.
01:15:00: All right, brother.
01:15:01: So thank you for, uh, again, coming on the show.
01:15:03: Thank you for being very gracious in your response to me.
01:15:06: And I hope at some point we can do something like this again, uh, and, uh, and keep this line of communication going.
01:15:13: Absolutely.
01:15:14: Anytime brother.
01:15:15: All right.
01:15:15: Thank you, Leighton, very much.
01:15:17: And I want to thank you again, a listener for being with us for now two episodes of conversation with the Calvinist with my guest Leighton Flowers.
01:15:24: And I want to remind you, if you are liking this episode and you want to see more, you can go to our, uh, page.
01:15:32: It's calvinistpodcast.com.
01:15:34: That takes you right to our YouTube page.
01:15:35: And you'll notice that I talk about a lot of things that don't have anything to do with Calvinism.
01:15:38: So even if you're not a Calvinist, you may find some value in much of what is on that page, including humorous short videos that I do, which poke fun at all the different denominations.
01:15:49: I want to mention also that I'm part of the truth and love network.
01:15:51: And there are several other great podcasters like, uh, Claude Ramsey, the happy Calvinist and Robin, uh, many of the other guys, Dan, who are wonderful guys who have podcasts, and I would encourage you to go and check them out.
01:16:02: You can find us on Facebook at conversations with the Calvinist.
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01:16:09: I want to thank you again for listening to conversations with the Calvinist.
01:16:12: My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.
01:16:15: May God bless you.