Moore, Tim Staples on Synergism, Steven Anderson & the RBs, Callers, Thoughts on Growth and Change

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a Tuesday. On Thursday we plan to be back, but coming to you from,

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Lord willing, Evergreen, Colorado will be our location for that program.

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I don't know what we're going to do the week after that, because both Tuesday and Thursday I'm going to be very busy, and Thursday's travel day, so we may only have a

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Friday shot. We'll see what happens next week. It's going to be very busy, hopefully a very useful period of time.

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Huge amount of travel coming up. Just to remind you that we're able to go to the places we're able to go to.

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I will be headed for South Africa. In fact, we need to get that taken care of ASAP. Head to South Africa.

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There are going to be a number of important debates taking place then. We've got Australia this fall, return trip to the

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UK debate with Shabir Ali in Georgia. We've got a lot of stuff coming up this fall, and that means there's going to be a tremendous amount of pressure placed upon the travel fund.

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And so if you'd like to help us get to the places we need to be going to, your help is greatly appreciated.

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All the time I see on Twitter, hey, I just watched your debate with so -and -so in London or whatever else.

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Well, before you saw it and were blessed by it, somebody else made it possible for me to get there.

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And so if you found that debate to be useful, then maybe you could help get us to another debate that someone else in the future will find to be useful.

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So that would be great if you could help us with that. The travel fund you can find at the website, almin .org.

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Over the weekend, some developments in the discussion we had last week in regards to the issue of homosexuality.

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I'm tired of it. You're tired of it. And that's exactly what the other side is counting on, that we are so tired of it that we just give up, that we just simply retreat and abandon everything, leave everything to the hordes, the

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Antifa hordes. I saw a study from Europe that said that 92 % of leftist protesters by study live with their parents.

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And normally when they do end up publishing pictures of the Antifa people, one -on -one, they wouldn't be overly intimidating.

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It's when they're wearing masks and helmets and beating at your head with a cudgel.

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Anyone's dangerous in a situation like that. But one -on -one, not so much. Anyway, yeah,

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I'm tired of it all, too. And it would be one thing if we were all united.

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We were all on the same page. There wasn't division taking place within the body, out of tradition or ignorance or the influx of external traditions and sources.

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But that's not the situation we find ourselves in. And let me just tell you what

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I think's going to happen. This is what I fear is going to happen. I hope it doesn't, but I think it probably will.

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A couple of weeks ago, Rachel Held Evans passed away at a very young age, and she had made a name for herself by her theological journey.

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That's the term that we use now, is I'm taking a theological journey. When you think about what theological means, knowledge of God, there can be a journey in theology where you're deepening your knowledge of God, and you're going more and more by trust and faith into his revelation.

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But that's not what we're talking about. When we talk about this kind of a journey, we're talking about abandoning foundational beliefs that we've had in the past.

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Now, if you have foundational beliefs in your past that need to be abandoned, that's a good thing.

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But really, the best way to test that is, am I abandoning foundational beliefs in such a way that it is increasing my fundamental acceptance and belief in the whole counsel of God found in the scripture and scripture alone?

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Or is my analysis of what I used to believe causing me to lose confidence in the ability of scripture and scripture alone to provide me with the needed light and guidance that I would desire to have as a follower of Christ?

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Unfortunately, when people on the left today about theological journeys, it is, as we've seen with people like Peter Enns, Rachel Held Evans, Jen Hatmaker, it is a journey away from biblical sufficiency, biblical inspiration, biblical inerrancy into a self -made reimagining of God.

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And therefore, that leaves a huge vacuum and a vacuum, nature abhors a vacuum, and therefore it will be filled in our day with a massive influx of cultural stuff.

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And so, I didn't say

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Peter Enns had gone to secularism, I said he has gone on a journey and has abandoned what he once believed and now believes something very different.

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Need to listen carefully. Anyway, hey, if you're gonna ruminate and channel and demonstrate you're not listening to me,

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I'm gonna correct you. Anyway, so this situation with Beth Moore, I am concerned because she has such a large following that if she were to come out and say, you know what?

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Now, there's no question in my mind, and we're gonna look at this in a second, there's no question in my mind that she's already experienced a major paradigm shift over the past three or four years.

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She even gives that time period herself in what she says. Three or four years in regards to the issue of homosexuality.

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But right now, she is well aware of the fact that if she were to follow that to its logical conclusion, that the slamming of doors would be very, very, very loud as yet.

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That may change in the future, and that may be what gives her the freedom to eventually really express where she's coming from now.

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But she would not be the first person to come out and say, you know,

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I've been spending time in prayer, and I really believe Jesus has spoken to me.

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And he says that I am to accept my LGBTQ plus, who knows, depending on what year it is,

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I guess, brothers and sisters, and that this is a move of the

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Holy Spirit of God in our day. And she wouldn't be the first person. There are dozens of books out there saying this very thing.

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And the resultant, given how many of her followers have already demonstrated that they have a very, not only very strong personal attachment to her, but a significantly depreciated view of biblical sufficiency.

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Just think how many pastors, elders, deacons in Southern Baptist churches and like evangelical churches, how many of them would be influenced by wives who would now be saying to them, we need to really think about this because if Beth Moore says we need to accept this, then we need to accept this.

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I think it would have a huge impact. I think it would have a huge impact. And so, when

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I see how she's handling this, she's handling this like a person trying to figure out how she can do that without substantially damaging her ministry and her opportunities of influence.

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That's what it looks like to me. Because the questions she was initially asked were fair questions, she won't answer them.

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And now that it has come out that she has edited a book and removed material from the book specifically on the subject of homosexuality and has stated that she overspoke, she went beyond scripture by a mile.

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Any author whose book has been read by more than a thousand people or 500 people, now

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I better not use numbers again, any author whose book has been read by anyone, how's that?

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Snowflakes. Owes the people who took the time to read their work an explanation when you, without notation and without explanation, in the book itself, change the fundamental argumentation of the book on an important point, especially a point such as homosexuality today that is being used as the primary mechanism of seeking to marginalize and silence the

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Christian church in the United States of America, where you happen to live and where the majority of your followers are.

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Is that really arguable? I can't see how that's arguable. I really, I don't get it. That seems obvious to me.

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But it seemingly isn't for other people.

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In praying God's word, she says in an article from June 6th, July 6th, sorry. When I wrote

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PGW many years ago, I exceeded scripture and singled out same -sex sin as particularly satanic.

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Well, let me remind you, and I transcribed this, but let me remind you, this is actually a photocopy, well not a photocopy, what do you call a graphic, from the book itself, the printed edition.

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She writes, before we proceed to our scripture prayers for overcoming sexual strongholds, we are wise to address another deadly sexual assault of the evil one in our society, homosexuality.

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Now, she didn't say that was the only one, but she identified it as a deadly sexual assault of the evil one in our society,

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Mrs. Moore. Is homosexuality a deadly sexual assault of the evil one in our society?

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Or have you changed your mind on that? Is that a fair question?

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If you delete something from your book and say that I went way beyond scripture, then this is not just a fair question, this is a necessary question.

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If this was excessive, then what isn't? What's the new teaching on this subject?

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That it's just a, not a particularly deadly sexual assault, a sexual assault of the evil one?

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Does the evil one have anything to do with it, or is this now just a natural thing, it's an orientation thing, it just sort of happens?

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I have wonderful news for anyone who has struggled with homosexual sin. Do you now believe that you should not struggle against homosexual sin, or that homosexuality isn't sin?

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God indeed can deliver you and anxiously awaits your full cooperation.

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Well, that's certainly not how I would put it, but God indeed can deliver you. So, do you believe,

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Beth Moore, that God can deliver someone from homosexual sin, or do you believe there are certain people who are constitutively homosexual, and that this is only for people who may be orientation -wise, not oriented, but orientation -wise, heterosexual, but fall into homosexual sin?

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Believe me, I've read enough books on this, there are people who take every single possible option on various of these things.

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But do you really, really believe that God indeed can deliver you?

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Because that is a very unpopular position. I mean, you would not be invited to revoice if you actually hold out the idea.

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I mean, if you listen to Greg Johnson at the PCA two weeks ago, he said, I've talked to all the leading leaders, don't know of anyone who's ever heard of it.

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So, do not let Satan shame you into not seeking forgiveness, fullness, and complete restoration in Jesus Christ.

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How is that overreaching scripture? We need to know.

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I actually know some people who could probably tell me exactly how many copies of this book have sold.

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There are some people who have that kind of inside information. And I would say, since you indicated yourself that it continues to be used, it's sold tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of copies, right?

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And if you're saying that this is overreaching scripture, you need to explain why.

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And is it overreaching scripture to say that you should not, this says you should seek forgiveness, fullness, and complete restoration in Jesus Christ.

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Yes or no? How is that an overreaching scripture? You said,

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I know complete transformation is possible, not only because God's word says so, but because I have witnessed it with my own eyes.

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Now, you say, I know plenty of believers who have been set free from homosexuality.

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Yes or no? Were you telling the truth or were you not? And if you said that God's word says so, does it no longer say so?

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Were you wrong in saying that it says so? I cannot believe the number of people who are going, you can't ask these questions.

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You're just being me. You're just attacking poor Beth. Is there no possibility for meaningful truth -based discussion in our society or in the church anymore?

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I get it in the church. I mean, I get it in the society. Critical theory, the intersectionality, the degradation of our society has created an entire generation of snowflakes, the generation of perpetual outrage.

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I will be offended by whatever you say. It doesn't matter what your intentions are. It is now, everything's a macroaggression.

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We've gotten past the microaggression stuff now. So, I get how in the society you can't have this conversation, but my goodness, if in the church, someone that people watch by the thousands can publish a book used in churches and then remove this stuff and go,

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I'm not answering any questions about that. And then their followers go, you terrible mean people, you're picking on little

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Beth. That's how churches die, folks.

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That's how churches die. And so she said in an article, like I said, published on the sixth, as the years passed,

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I increasingly winced at what I'd conveyed about the basic rule of thumb and authorship is that it is better not to go back and edit an old book, but rather let it just phase out and simply don't make the same mistake in the future.

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What was the mistake? Given the words, identify the mistakes that we know.

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The problem was because PGW is a handbook and not a regular nonfiction book, it didn't phase out in the same way.

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I've had many years to test the fruit of what I wrote and have seen over and over again that numerous readers who had gone to this chapter with their struggles came to my words and proceeded no further.

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My words had kept them from God's words. That to me is a pretty serious stumbling block. We need to know why.

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It is not in any way, shape or form an attack or anything else.

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It is simple truthfulness.

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It's speaking the truth, speaking the truth. Now, you know, and as soon as this came out, she's like, well,

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I'm going to take some time off from Twitter because everyone's just so mean and nasty. And it's, you know, immediately pulled the martyr card and it's like, no,

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I'm sorry. That's not going to work. That's not going to work. This is not going to go away. As long as Mrs.

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Moore wants to continue to speak and to tell the rest of us a message from God, as she keeps saying, well, then we've got a message for her.

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You need to answer these questions. Dr. Moeller's right.

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We cannot hide anywhere. And this is a serious subject.

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And running from social media and leaving people behind to blast away at anyone even asking the question is not how it needs to be handled.

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It's not how it needs to be handled at all. Now, next real quick, well, real quick, ha ha ha.

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I was sent a link to a Tim Staples presentation.

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The sound on this stinks. It was recorded on a phone in a high school gym,

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I think. So it just echoes horribly. It starts right in the middle of comments.

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I don't know where it was. I don't know when it was. Fairly recently, I think. It's relevant because, first of all, he attempts to address

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Calvinism, you would think, after all these decades. Because, you know, I remember

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I was listening to Tim Staples' cassette tapes on an old

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Walkman in my bicycling jersey. I remember very clearly listening to a

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Tim Staples cassette out on Beardsley Road. Beardsley Road doesn't exist anymore.

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It's now a freeway. It's the 101. So, I mean, this was back in the mid, it was in the 90s, early 90s, somewhere around there.

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Anyway, and back then, I kept catching him just, you know,

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Tim would just be so emotional and so excited that he'd say silly things like, every church father believed what we believed about Matthew 16, 18.

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Well, that's just baloney. But he was sort of a new convert.

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And, you know, you just sort of expected this kind of stuff. He's got gray just like I do now.

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You would think by now he'd know better. You listen to this, and this guy sounds like an

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Assemblies of God preacher because that's where he came from. So, it deals with Calvinism, deals with the death of Christ, but I also want you to listen to something else.

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I want you to hear the utilization of the Catholic catechism and papal documents as he teaches.

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And keep in mind, this is in the day of Francis. In other words, he's going to quote this pope who said this and that pope that said that, and this is over in the universal

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Catholic catechism. Why not quote Francis? Because he says something different.

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That's why. So, this is a wonderful illustration of how

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Roman Catholicism can pretend to cite Bible verses, and you'll be very interested in what Bible verses he cites.

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The very same Bible verses that our semi -Pelagian and Synergist friends cite in the very same context.

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They're not just swimming in the middle of the Tiber. They agree with Rome against us on fundamental foundational issues.

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But, plainly and evidently, the ultimate authority is not

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Scripture, and Scripture is interpreted solely in the light of this external tradition, which is made up of, well, whatever

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Tim Staples decides it's made up of. The funny thing is, they want to say, oh, Sola Scriptura, it's you and the

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Bible, and you're your own pope. Hey, all you've done is expanded the number of books to quote from.

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It's exactly what I said to Mitch Pacwa. At the end of our debate on Sola Scriptura, in 1999,

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I think it was, or 2000, somewhere over there in San Diego, my closing statement, I go over there, and I get out all these books, and the

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Cans and Decrees of the Council of Trent, and Vatican II, and the Commentary, and I stack up this whole thing of Roman Catholic books and say, what we're being told is that because you've got this, you can have a better, safer understanding of Romans chapter 5, than if all you have is the

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Bible. But the reality is, that's not the case. It adds confusion. It does not clarify anything.

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And Tim Staples is his own pope. He gets to quote from this pope because it agrees with what he says.

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He's not quoting much from Francis, is he? No, he can't, because Francis doesn't believe the things that other popes believed.

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He believes different things. And so you get to pick and choose. You've just got a whole lot more to pick and choose from.

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It's how it works. It's how it works. Now, I'm not going to play him at any elevated speed, because that would be non -understandable, especially when he starts preaching, which is what he's doing.

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So let's listen to little Tim Staples here. And I'm sad to say, we were working on a debate with Tim, and then he backed out, said, nope, we're not going to do it.

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And we weren't given a reason why. It's the way it goes, but we tried.

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And we're going to try to, you know, get somebody else to do something. But, you know, it happens.

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Happens a lot. It would be helpful if this was actually plugged in.

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Let's try that again. And you will immediately go, ugh. But you can't understand it. You just have to listen.

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Man, that sounds a whole lot worse now than it did before.

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And, wow, it just sounds horrible in my thing. But, so, he became sin for us.

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He's talking about Calvin here, okay? And he taught that Jesus became repugnant to God, if you're having trouble understanding it.

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As the Catechism says in paragraph 602, did not become reprobate. Christ did not become reprobate, paragraph 602.

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Now, the problem here is that they use the term reprobate in a completely different way that we do. And yet he's talking about Calvin.

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And so he's going to say Calvin said this about, for example, he says, Christ became reprobate. Calvin never said that.

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But they use reprobate in a different fashion, a different way, which creates a straw man when it's applied to Reformed Theology.

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He was not reprobated by the way John Calvin taught, he was reprobated for us, and so he basically went to hell, experienced hell, for everyone he would redeem.

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By the way, that would have to mean he doesn't redeem everyone. John Calvin taught he didn't die for everybody, because if he went and took your reprobation for you...

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You see, hear that? Take your reprobation for you. Not Reformed Language, he was never

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Reformed, so when he tries to represent Reformed Theology, even though some of the rest of us can represent other viewpoints by using their language, that's never been something that Tim's been very good at.

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In hell, that means your reprobation's gone, you're going to heaven whether you like it or not, amen?

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So you're going to heaven whether you like it or not. A very common misrepresentation, straw man representation.

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Obviously, the Reformed perspective is that in the life of the elect, there is regeneration, there is a new creature, a person loves

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Christ, a person clings to Christ, it is the nature of the reborn individual to cling to Christ, to have faith and repentance toward Christ, to desire what is pleasing in his sight, etc.,

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etc., etc. They don't want to... Tim, again, struggles with the accuracy of representation very frequently.

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So he could not have died and been reprobated for those who were going to go to hell, because if that's true, then there would be double reprobation.

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Christ's reprobation would not be sufficient to save souls. So John Calvin says

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Jesus did not die for everyone. So interesting perspective, because at least he's making it very clear, yeah, the death of Christ is not sufficient in and of itself.

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He's going to say that. It's a door opener, in the words of some of our traditionalist friends, it provides provision, it doesn't save.

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Vitally important, but not enough in and of itself. This is definitely part of the

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Reformation dividing line, yep, there's no question about it, but it needs to be heard. And sometimes hearing

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Roman Catholics saying what the Armenians are saying helps you to understand what the issues were at the time of the

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Reformation. He's going to get into Martin Luther and the bondage of the will here a little bit later on, which likewise will help us to understand that.

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So, got two out of the three of the verses that we included in the chapter in the

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Potter's Freedom almost 24 years ago now, and I can guarantee you that he has never read the response to that and has no interest in reading the response to that at all.

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But very same verses that I could show you every kind of a traditionalist, semi -Pelagian,

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Armenian, you name them, all agree, all read the verses in the same way, and all ignore the counter exegesis.

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Just simply throw them out there as a group without ever looking at the context, without ever dealing with who the identity of anyone being referred to is, without looking at the context.

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It's almost sound like instead of saying Peter, he said Corinthians, but the citation was the

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Peter passage. But, you know, it's not normal to hear like Roman Catholic priests going,

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Amen? Amen? But yeah, that's old

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Tim. What this Calvinist theology does is, and how many of you have heard that?

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And you know what, by the way, just so nobody's confused here, I should point out, the catechism points out that when scripture says he became sin, very closely related to our

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Lord's, one of his seven last things on the cross, when he says, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, right?

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Calvinists will say, the Father turned his back on the Son. You ever heard that? Turned his back on the

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Son. Well, this is one Calvinist that has attempted to clarify that misuse of that text more than once, and has pointed out that there simply isn't any biblical basis for that perspective, and has tried to correct that more than once.

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But, I'm sure he's heard people, you know, make that kind of a, we've even got one song that mentions it, otherwise beautiful song, but that one line.

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The catechism tells us. He was not repugnant to God. He is the beloved

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Son, in whom the Father is well pleased, and that never ceased. But he became, the catechism says, so identified with us, in our humanity, that he, in the place of us, could say,

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My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? He experienced the pain of 100 million abortions.

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He experienced the pain of every rape. In fact, the catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph 478.

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Notice what you've got here. It's the catechism says here. This Pope said that there. And instead of, if you're going to deal with this text, if you don't go to Psalm 22, you've completely ignored what its actual context and applied meaning is.

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He's still getting what our preachers get when they go that direction with that text.

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He's still getting the same emotional type stuff. He's not dealing with it exegetically, but he's doing it through the citation of catechisms and popes and stuff like that.

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Which footnotes Galatians chapter 2 verse 20 says that Christ knew and loved each one of us.

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Now, here's a pretty important point that I've made more than once. Galatians 2 .20.

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That is an important text. Christ died for me.

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I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. But once you join that with a universal atonement perspective, as you have in Rome, that can be said by every person in hell today.

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And whoever will be, they will be able to say Christ died for me and he failed.

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He intended to save me and he failed. They will rejoice in that for eternity if that were true.

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I don't think that it is, but Rome's universal concept is right out there.

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It is blatant and it's exactly what the other side says when we have debates with them.

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So they are united together on the other side of the Tiber River from us on this issue.

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Hearing this pope said in this document, well, why not

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Pope Francis? What does this tell you?

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What does this say about the Roman Catholic attack on solo scriptura?

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If you get to pick and choose which popes you're going to quote from, I mean, that's picking and choosing which verses you're going to quote from in the

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Bible for us. You have to do that because that body of documents that you call tradition is a contradictory mess.

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So you have to pick and choose. We illustrated this back in the 90s in the debates with Jerry Matitix.

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He would quote this early church father and that early church father, and he didn't know what to do. Initially, when

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I came along, he started quoting church fathers too, some of whom he had already quoted. Until he finally said, well, but that isn't part of tradition.

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Who gets to say what tradition is? Well, we do. Oh, sola ecclesia, the church alone.

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I mean, that's what you've got. And no matter how hard you try to avoid sola ecclesia, you're still stuck with it.

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But here you've got an individual and he's got this whole mass of documents to quote from, and he can string together all he wants to string together.

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Doesn't change the fact that he's being, he's picking and choosing as he's going along.

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That Christ knew and loved each one of us from his mama's womb, did you know that? Because he had to be a different vision from the moment of his conception.

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Oh, don't get me started on that one. How many of you have ever heard the myth before that Jesus died for all humanity?

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Raise your hand. That's a myth. Jesus did not die for humanity.

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He didn't die for an abstraction. He died for you, my brother, for you.

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And that's why the catechism quotes Galatians chapter two, verse 20. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live yet not

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I live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the son of God who gave himself for me, not humanity.

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You ever heard that? What's your name, brother? See what happens when, again, you promote, you don't have a decree of God.

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You don't have sovereign grace. You do not have election, but you have universal atonement.

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And so now you have everybody quoting Galatians 2 .20 as if its foundational truths are true for every single human being, whether you're in Christ or out.

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You just usually discover it. If you happen to choose Jesus, then you discover that that's the way it's always been.

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But it's true of everybody. That's what's going on here. Michael.

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Michael? You're Michael. No, you're Michael. What's your name?

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Tom? Tom. You ever heard this? If you were the only person on this earth, Jesus would die for you, right?

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No, the fact is he did die for you as if you were the only person. Amen? Each and every one of us.

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Now, what Cowan did is he says,

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Christ did it all on the cross. I mean, if you ever heard of this, right? It is foolish. Now here's, you need to listen to this if you, if you can hear it.

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Here is a Roman Catholic. Hearing and mocking the idea of the sufficiency of the finished work of Christ.

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He did everything so you don't have to do anything. And see, they hear that.

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They are so attuned in their semi -Pelagianism to the necessity of their actions and the insufficiency, the mere providing of grace, and hence the need of the sacramental system within Roman Catholicism, that they, he is not, does not blush to hear say, we have to do this, and we have to do that, and the death of Christ is not sufficient of itself, and we've got, and they don't, now, you know, has

41:11

Tim just never listened? Because I sure explained it to him more than once, because we not only did the two public debates, but we were on Bible Answerman broadcast as well, and we did the debate here on Purgatory.

41:24

I've explained it to him repeatedly that our wills are involved because we are redeemed persons, but he, from their perspective, since redemption and the relationship with God is something that is gained and lost, you can, instead of that union being based upon the electing grace of God, they certainly don't have any concept of Christ in John chapter 6, losing none of those that are entrusted to him, all the rest of that kind of stuff, since they have this very different understanding of what the

42:05

Christian life and relationship to God is, something that can end and be started and end and be started and so on and so forth, since that's their perspective, the idea of being dead in sin, raised to life, and then brought through the work, the sanctifying work of the

42:29

Holy Spirit, the application of the truth of God over time, to an ever greater understanding of who he is and to greater holiness, growing in the grace and knowledge of the

42:39

Lord Jesus Christ, so on and so forth. That growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is your addition. It's necessary on your part.

42:46

Rather than being the result of what he does, it's necessary on your part. It's what you add.

42:54

And again, I've said it many, many times when we listen to the anti -lordship people, when we listen to the people who once saved, always saved, got your ticket punched, going to heaven, the only way to be balanced in dealing with the

43:11

New Testament text is from the Reformed perspective. And listening to a Roman Catholic saying what many non -Roman

43:19

Catholics say helps you, I think, to see where the inconsistent non -Roman

43:27

Catholics miss the boat. And if you hear Tim Staples saying what you normally say,

43:35

I would think about that, especially if you're not a Roman Catholic. Not whether they like it or not, that's misrepresentation, the hell and reprobation thing, misrepresentation, but if you mean he became a curse for us and because the elect are united to him, his death is perfect in their place, he has obtained eternal redemption, entered into the holy place, all those things, those biblical teachings, most definitely.

44:24

Nothing for us to do for what? There's nothing you can do if you're spiritually dead.

44:30

There's nothing I need to add to the finished work of Christ, but the biblical teaching is that it is

44:37

God's purpose for the elect to be conformed to the image of Christ. It is God's purpose that we should walk in good works, not to gain something from God, but to glorify

44:47

God. God ordains the ends and the means, and the ends includes the creation of a special people who are redeemed by his blood, who then become his body, and who live his life out in this world through his spirit.

45:05

So, the misrepresentation normally, and again, given the circles that he says he was in, the

45:13

Baptist church, Assemblies of God, etc., etc., he wasn't all that stable even before he became Roman Catholic, but given the background that he's described for himself, would that balanced, reformed understanding have been a part of his experience?

45:30

Probably not. Does that excuse him after all these years of not knowing? Not at all.

45:36

It's been explained to him many, many times. Have you ever heard that, right? The sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ.

45:43

We Catholics are called Pelagians. We're called whacked out because we say you've got to do good works to get to heaven, amen?

45:50

And yes, we do. And yes, we do. You forgot the actual description. Semi -Pelagian.

45:56

That's the actual description that needs to be thrown in there, but he's straightforward.

46:01

And yes, we do. If you've reached the age of accountability, you better... Whatever in the world that is,

46:07

I'd like to see that particular verse. ...you better start working, amen? All right? But the point is...

46:13

You better start working. You better start working if you've reached the age of accountability. You better start working.

46:19

That's what Tim Disstables just said. That, you know, you can call that grace all you want. That ain't grace. All right?

46:25

But the point is, amen? Hear me now. That idea, it is finished.

46:32

He did it all, so I don't have to do anything. Leads to all sorts of interesting conclusions.

46:42

And by the way, Mark Luther had a different take on this. He did not believe in double predestination.

46:47

He did not believe in penal substitutionary atonement the same way Calvin did. But Luther taught this interesting thing in his greatest work called

46:56

The Bondage of the Will, that the will in man is entirely passive. Now hear me. We've come a long way in our dialogue, at least within...

47:03

Now, this is interesting because there are a lot of different interpretations of Luther, obviously, and modern

47:12

Lutheranism is more Melanchthonian than it is Lutheran, but Luther was not a consistent, systematic theologian.

47:19

He was more of a theologian of the heart than the head, brilliant as he was. But what's interesting is he has to deal with the document that was signed with the liberal

47:28

Lutherans. He calls them evangelical Lutherans, because that's the but the reality is these are the left, left, left

47:38

Lutherans, not the conservative Lutherans. I would think he would want to bring that out, but he doesn't.

47:46

I'm not really sure why. At least with the evangelical Lutherans, we've come a long way.

47:54

It's funny because with the evangelicals, you know, the document we signed with the Protestants, or at least some of our theologians,

47:59

I'm Protestant on justification. Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out, you know, there was an inherent flaw in the document in that the

48:09

Lutherans kept holding on to their idea that the will of man is entirely passive, but in the same document, they acknowledged that man's totally involved.

48:18

Well, okay, I'm not going to defend Lutherans, but isn't it interesting it's

48:24

Ratzinger? Yeah, it's Cardinal Ratzinger now, because again, he's in this weird situation where you have two living popes who clearly do not believe the same things.

48:36

I have to wonder if that's one of the reasons why there's not quite as many debates going on right now.

48:43

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, no, no choice about it, no choice about it. And Martin Luther says, if God gets on our back and rides us, he'll ride us to heaven.

48:54

If the devil gets on our back and rides us, he'll ride us to hell. But the donkey or the horse has no choice in who rides him.

49:06

Entirely passive. Are y 'all with me here? That's funny. I did a search on bondage of the will, and neither donkey nor horse is ever used in anything even remotely like that.

49:21

Not even close. So I don't know what in the world he's talking about. There's all sorts of stuff running around through the internet that allegedly

49:27

Martin Luther said. But that one, I would love to know what in the world he was referring to.

49:36

On Luther's Twitter page, is that where he got it from? Yeah, okay. Well, at least you got one thing right there.

49:53

That was exactly what Martin Luther said. Glad we got that one.

49:59

Just a few more. You want to see how bad analogies can be?

50:13

We already know some people who make really bad analogies. Really bad analogies.

50:19

And Arby's has made a lot of money off the fact that there are certain people who make really bad analogies.

50:25

But Tim Staples makes really bad analogies too. And here's a bad

50:31

Tim Staples analogy. People are bobbing in the water.

50:40

Y 'all with me? Hello? Hey! All right, just checking. Folks are bobbing out in the water.

50:47

John Calvin taught double predestination. God wills to save those few that Christ was reprobated for.

50:55

Amen. And that God wills to save the others. He wills their damnation.

51:01

That's called double predestination. Catechism of the Catholic Church condemns this in paragraph 1037, where the catechism says,

51:09

God predestines no one for. In order to go to hell, there is a necessity, the commission of a mortal sin, a willful, knowing, deliberate turning away from God.

51:24

Paragraph 1037 in the catechism. But hear me now. Double predestination.

51:30

God goes out to those folks that are bobbing in the water, and he dunks some of them. Holds them under until they drown.

51:39

So that's double predestination, is you've got the people in the

51:44

Titanic, and they're in the water, and then God dunks them until they drown. That's what double predestination is.

51:53

Yeah, nothing about the wrath of God against sin, nothing about rebels.

51:59

If you really wanted, you know, we've dealt with a lot of really bad analogies.

52:05

Remember in The Potter's Freedom, we dealt with Norm Geisler's bad analogy of the kids in the swimming hole.

52:12

And we tried to correct it to show what is actually presented. If you wanted a decent analogy to the

52:20

Titanic, it would be God comes along, and well, you know, even at this point, it depends on what you want to illustrate.

52:32

Because on the one hand, if you want to illustrate the deadness of man and sin, then you would have everybody goes in the water.

52:44

They didn't last long in the water because the water is frigid. You'd only last a few minutes before you'd succumb to the cold and you'd die.

52:51

So they've all become shark food, or well, actually the shark's probably pretty cold too. Anyway, you're dead, and then

52:58

God comes along and raises up and takes out of the water those whom he chooses and brings them back to life.

53:06

That would be illustration of the deadness part. If you want to illustrate the rebellion of man, then what you'd do is you'd have a lifeboat coming along, and you have have

53:19

God reaching out to grab people, and they're fighting him because they don't want to get into the lifeboat.

53:25

Now, he's going to say here later on, and I've run out of time for this segment, but he's going to say later on, our teaching is

53:31

God gives rope to everybody, but it's up to you whether you pull yourself in. That's his view. That's his view.

53:38

The reality is if God throws a a rope to anyone that involves submission to God and repentance of sin, outside of a changed nature, they're going to swim as hard as they can in the direction until they freeze to death and die.

53:55

That's the biblical teaching, but as you could hear from listening to Tim Staples, the biblical teaching part doesn't really matter.

54:03

It's what the catechism says. It's what this pope said, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

54:08

So again, I apologize for the quality of the sound. I was going to take some time to try to run that through a filter type thing, get rid of some of the echo, but I didn't have time to do that.

54:19

And I'm still running short on time here as it is because I do want to at least try to get...

54:28

Let's see if we can get three calls. What do you think?

54:33

Just three, three calls. We're going to open up the phones.

54:38

I've got one more topic to address. I'll try to keep it brief, but then we'll do three calls.

54:45

877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

54:52

Three calls. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number if you want to get into the program today.

55:01

And if you don't, we'll wrap up. But a few...

55:08

What? Oh, yeah, up pops an

55:15

Adobe thing. 877 -753 -3341.

55:22

A few days ago... Well, actually, maybe a few weeks ago now, I was sent a picture.

55:31

I forget who sent it, but I was sent a picture, and I was asked, what do you think about this?

55:36

And I said, well, it was a picture of Steven Anderson in Cyprus. And he said, well, look who he's with.

55:44

And I didn't... You know, different context, whatever it might be. Well, he said, he's with one of the

55:51

Reformed Baptist pastors from Agros Church out in the valley, out where you live.

55:58

And I was like, and that says they're evangelizing. I'm like, that's not possible.

56:04

How could someone from a Reformed Baptist church be evangelizing with Steven Anderson? That doesn't make it as a church.

56:10

I know, because I've mentioned these guys before and responded to them. I know that they've gotten into the

56:17

TR -only stuff, and I actually met with them, I don't know, a number of months ago now, at a little

56:23

Mexican place, Cafe Rio in Tempe, and talked a little bit about it, had a nice conversation.

56:31

It wasn't anything aggressive or anything like that. And I was like, nah, they've got to know what

56:37

Steven Anderson is all about as far as the gospel goes. And so I sort of dismissed it.

56:43

I was like, nah, that's probably, you know, I doubt that. But I did grab the picture and I sent it to them through Twitter, which is how the

56:53

DM and Twitter, which is how we had arranged to get together for dinner too.

57:00

And so I didn't get a response. And about a week later I said, hey, did this come through?

57:06

No response. I found that a little strange, but okay, whatever. So today someone comes into the chat channel and says, you're going to be talking about this?

57:19

And I'm like, talking about what? The fact that the Agros Church guys,

57:24

Reformed Baptists, are doing a video with Steven Anderson. And I'm like, huh?

57:31

What? And so I won't take time to play it.

57:37

You can find it online. But there is a video from both sides.

57:45

One is Steven Anderson explaining why he went to Cyprus with a

57:51

Reformed Baptist pastor. And then one from the Agros Church guys explaining why they're doing anything with Steven Anderson.

57:59

Both of them are absolutely surreal. I mean, my first, the first, okay, let me make sure that, you know, my shaking my head, you've got to be kidding me moment is to recognize how many times

58:18

I've heard, and this is what ended the conversation that we had here at my office.

58:25

If you, any of you have watched, and I know they have watched my conversation with Steven Anderson, what ended it was when he started getting into this anti -lordship, if you preach repentance, false gospel, nobody's saved who preaches repentance.

58:44

And the number of videos out there of Steven Anderson promoting that repentance -less gospel are legion.

58:56

How do you evangelize with someone who denies the absolute necessity of repentance as a, as the, as a constitutive part of the gospel itself?

59:12

Repent and believe. He doesn't say that. What, I didn't cue it up, but Chris from Dallas ran into him in a park less than six months ago, maybe less than three months ago.

59:27

I think I played part of the video. And the whole issue of, of what repentance meant, they even were looking at the

59:38

Greek term, came up. How do you evangelize? They, both of them claimed that they led, well, one said 24, that said 25, 24, 25 people to Christ on Cyprus.

59:51

Oh, and the agorist guy said with the TR only. There's this, I'll talk about in a second, but there's this almost gnostic view of Greek developing among certain people.

01:00:01

Sonny Hernandez has been bitten by this bug too, as if somehow using a Greek text. I don't know.

01:00:08

Anyway. And I just, I, and I asked, I, I wrote to him today on Twitter.

01:00:16

They didn't answer. And I said, help me out here. I serious question.

01:00:22

Did you wait till Steven Anderson wandered away to mention repentance? How do you, as a confessional reformed

01:00:31

Baptist preach the gospel without repentance?

01:00:38

Because if Steven Anderson is standing right here and you say, repent and believe he's going to say,

01:00:44

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's going to stop you. That means you weren't preaching repentance, which means you ain't no reformed

01:00:52

Baptist and you ain't confessional by the taboo. What, what? So I asked that question, didn't get an answer.

01:01:02

So for me, the first thing that struck me is this is a, this is about the gospel. But what's scary is if you listen to the

01:01:10

Agorist church guys, this is about Greek. And this is about how you pronounce

01:01:15

Greek and pronouncing Greek with modern Greek pronunciation, rather than harassing it.

01:01:22

These guys are actually saying, we hope this will go into the seminaries and we'll change the seminaries and stuff like this.

01:01:28

I'm just going, really? The pronunciation? I mean,

01:01:34

I suppose if you guys are just really big into wanting to go to Greece and reach modern

01:01:41

Greek speaking people, then that's relevant, but it ain't relevant to anybody else.

01:01:49

What metanoia means doesn't matter how you pronounce it. Guys, Agorist church guys, the man you're evangelizing with doesn't believe homosexuals can be saved.

01:02:02

I wonder if you ran into any of them there at Cyprus. He doesn't believe they can be saved. First Corinthians 6 .11

01:02:09

says, and such were some of you. There's no textual variant. The Texas Receptus says eta.

01:02:15

However you want to pronounce it doesn't mean a hill of beans. What it means is such were some of you.

01:02:25

And the only explanation I've heard from people, from the King James only side, is they don't believe that arsenikoites actually means homosexual there.

01:02:35

Well, they actually identified, believe it or not, these guys actually said that they think that Steven Anderson is the greatest

01:02:40

Greek scholar they've ever encountered. Okay. Then how does he get away with saying homosexuals can't be saved in light of first Corinthians 6 .11?

01:02:53

It's a past tense guys. So such were some of you.

01:02:59

No textual variant. TR says the same thing. Who cares how you pronounce it? It's irrelevant. It's irrelevant.

01:03:06

How can you evangelize with someone like that? What's also surreal is that there's got to be a pushback from the

01:03:22

King James only guys. Because Anderson's going way past where they've ever been now.

01:03:33

I mean, he has said more than once that once the

01:03:40

Greek and the English disagree, you go with the English. It's the King James. Agros guys, are you going there now too?

01:03:48

That's not a TR only position. I mean, the

01:03:55

NIFBs. I mean, just go back to December of last year, this man and his

01:04:06

NIFB guys were going to be putting out a video called what? It was calling

01:04:14

Calvinism a satanic delusion. And now he's evangelizing with a

01:04:20

Calvinist. What's going on there? What's this?

01:04:25

Well, all this sudden emphasis upon Greek rather than the King James version of the

01:04:31

Bible. So I don't see how either one of these two groups, you know, maybe they're trying to get together in the middle.

01:04:39

I don't know. But you're just left going, well, what is going on here from either side?

01:04:50

It's almost incomprehensible, almost incomprehensible. And then the

01:04:56

Agros guys actually likened this situation to Doug Wilson and Christopher Hitchens.

01:05:07

And I'm like, Wilson's evangelizing Hitchens. He's the lost guy.

01:05:13

Which of these two is evangelizing whom? I mean, I can understand Steven Anderson thinking he needs to evangelize you because you are false prophets because you believe repentance is necessary.

01:05:24

And I can see you trying to evangelize him, but it ain't a Christopher Hitchens, Douglas Wilson situation, not by a long shot.

01:05:31

And it ain't a situation of me and Mike Brown either. I mean, categorically, it just does not make a lick of sense, a lick of sense.

01:05:42

So I've got a suggestion. I've got a suggestion that's going to surprise a lot of folks here.

01:05:51

But if you're just, obviously you were already doing stuff with Steven Anderson when we got together and you didn't, not to my recollection, do

01:06:01

I remember you talking anything about it. So maybe you just didn't want to tell me about it because you knew what my response would be. So don't listen to me.

01:06:08

You obviously aren't. That's fine. You used to, you don't anymore. Okay. You guys need some older people involved.

01:06:19

You've got your chain, you're swinging all over the place. Talk to some of the folks in your own camp who have some stability, some experience.

01:06:36

I'm not going to volunteer anybody, but you know, I've got someone in mind. I'll be happy to direct you that direction, but this is, this is not good.

01:06:46

This is, this is, this doesn't make any sense from any perspective at all. It really doesn't.

01:06:53

All right. We've got three calls. I've got to get through them because I got to get finished. We have two calls.

01:07:01

Okay. Who's no caller? Oh, so we have two calls.

01:07:07

Okay. All right. Well, okay. Whatever. All right. We have two calls.

01:07:13

Let's talk to Blake in San Diego. Hi, Blake. Hi, Dr. White. Good to call again.

01:07:20

That was Blake from San Diego from the last episode on Dividing Line from Southern California.

01:07:28

So it's good to talk with you again. So I have a question about apologetics.

01:07:36

So I know you've done apologetics for a long time, and I'll make this short, is that I basically had a debate with someone and she was more like, it was scripture and then positive thinking, but I was more of, as your position was, sola scriptura, and of course

01:07:56

I got heated. I got very, very heated. So my question is from all this is that how do you, because you've done apologetics for years, and that's why

01:08:07

I have tremendous amount of respect for you. And my question is, how do you keep your cool under pressure when you do apologetics?

01:08:21

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by under pressure. I mean, if you mean, is there a a trick to being able to deal with someone who is hyper -emotional or irrational?

01:08:39

The answer is no, there isn't. From my perspective, what

01:08:46

I will attempt to do is I will attempt to reason with someone. I will try to find out if there is a willingness on their part to even hear what it is that I'm saying.

01:08:59

And if there is not a willingness expressed, if I cannot get this person to allow me to get a word in edgewise, if they use profanity, if they're just want to yell and scream, like unfortunately happens a lot these days,

01:09:16

I'm not going to pursue the conversation. I'm not going to escalate in my own emotions.

01:09:24

I just, I feel sorry for someone like that. But I also, you know, it's not like their insults or anything else mean anything to me, because if you're not a rational person, your disagreement with me is no more relevant to me than when my cat disagrees with me.

01:09:44

Because the difference between a human and a cat should be our ability to reason. If you're not reasoning, then you know what, when

01:09:51

I tell my cat, it's not time for your treats yet. They may not like it, but I don't get upset about it.

01:09:57

And if someone yells and screams and everything else, this is sort of like, uh, what can

01:10:03

I say? Um, it, it doesn't bother me. Um, so if they're willing to talk, then

01:10:11

I can function with them as an individual made in the image of God. And I can begin to attempt to appeal to that and to, uh, if the, you know, are they a religious person, a non -religious person?

01:10:26

You said that they were using some sort of scriptural type of thing. Obviously at that point,

01:10:32

I would want to press them as to why they would think scripture would be relevant. Do they believe God has spoken?

01:10:37

Because if God has spoken, then there needs to be certain consistencies in what he has said. I'm going to try to find some way of reasoning with that person, uh, to bring them to a position of, um, examining the presuppositions that they have that are keeping them from hearing what the word of God has to say.

01:10:57

But a lot of Christians get frustrated because there are certain people, the spirit of God is not working in their lives.

01:11:06

There is, there is no opening of the eyes, no opening of the ears.

01:11:12

And in that situation, you are pounding your head against a stone wall and some people will last longer than others.

01:11:21

And I've seen situations where I have gone much longer with somebody than a friend of mine would have.

01:11:27

And then in a slightly different situation, they've gone a lot farther than I would have. There has to be a sensitivity to the spirit of God.

01:11:35

We're all made differently. The point is, uh, that eventually you do have to make a decision as to how much longer you're going to invest when you just run into a stone wall.

01:11:50

And, um, you know, that's, that's just what you have to deal with.

01:11:56

And some people say, no, no, no, you just, you just keep going until they stop it. No, uh,

01:12:02

I don't think Jesus did that. I don't think the apostles did that. Um, but again, whether you're reformed or not will have an impact on how you understand this, because, uh, if you think that it's up to you to sort of be the

01:12:17

Holy Spirit for this person, that's different than if you are seeking to speak in a way that's honoring to God and in a way that the

01:12:25

Holy Spirit can use. And then there is no reaction to that. There is no reason to be, uh, trying to come up with some new and innovative way to, to get around that.

01:12:37

Uh, there are simply times when, you know, I've told the stories on the program many times of witnessing situations and encounters we've had with Mormons and others where that person walked off and I have no earthy idea whatever happened to them.

01:12:52

And in some of those situations, I have no evidence whatsoever of an opened ear, anything else.

01:12:58

Doesn't mean I wasted my time. Doesn't, doesn't mean that the track they tore up and threw away was wasted. God is glorified when this truth is proclaimed.

01:13:07

So, uh, but at the same time, we have to be wise because I think God's truth can be profaned when we just in, in a unwise manner, uh, just continue to, uh, try to ram it home in a situation where it's become quite evident that the spirit of God isn't working.

01:13:23

So, you know, keeping your cool. Yeah. God's watching and I also realize other people are watching, so it's not about me.

01:13:33

And if they disrespect me, big deal. It's, um, um, you know,

01:13:39

I've, I've said this and again, I'll get in trouble for this too. I could get in trouble with everything else. Um, but, uh, for me, when someone insults me, lies about me, slanders me, whatever else it might be, if that person,

01:13:54

I, if I don't know that person and I have no reason to believe that person has any foundation for their statements at all, it's, it's, it's hot air.

01:14:03

It's, it's meaningless. Why should I care? The only time that something hurts is when

01:14:08

I know that someone's actually done something in their life and they actually have some knowledge of who I am.

01:14:13

Then it's purposeful slander. Um, uh, or it's something I need to listen to and be corrected by, but you've got to, you know, there, we live in a day where we have bought into the idea that everyone has an equal and must be demanded right to be heard.

01:14:32

And I grew up, thankfully, and my parents and my grandparents grew up in a day where you earned your right to be heard by consistency, by discipline, by, uh, being a mature individual.

01:14:47

Uh, and it was only the children that demanded, uh, that you listen to what I have to say and you listen to it right now.

01:14:54

I don't believe that. And that puts me outside the realm of things today. And you're an elitist and all that. No, I think if you look around the conversation going on in our society, you see that it's, um, we'd be doing a lot better if, uh, if we didn't hold to some of the presuppositions we hold to today.

01:15:10

So yeah, I learned in that first debate with Jerry Matitix in August of 1990, uh, the more upset my opponent gets, the calmer

01:15:21

I get. It's just the way I'm built, just the way God made me. And that's not the case for a lot of people.

01:15:27

Uh, but for me, uh, Rich just pointed at himself. Um, but for me,

01:15:32

I figure if you're losing, you're cool. I'm winning. So, hey, uh,

01:15:39

I'll just let you, I'll just, I'll just give you more and more, uh, rope to tie yourself up in. And, uh, there, there we go from there.

01:15:46

So, all righty. Yeah. Thank you so much.

01:15:51

And just really quickly, um, it's like I said before, and I'll say it again. It's like, you're one of the only theologians today that just makes so much sense, but, uh,

01:16:02

I won't take too much of your time. And, uh, and thank you for answering the question and enjoy the, uh, enjoy the nice weather over there in San Diego, but I probably pay a whole lot less for gas than you do.

01:16:16

All right. We'll see it. God bless. Bye -bye. San Diego is a wonderful place, but I would not want to live there.

01:16:23

Um, all right, last call. Let's talk to Jonathan Fortworth. Hi, Jonathan. Hi, Jonathan.

01:16:29

I mean, hi, Dr. White. Thanks for having me on your program. You're talking to yourself. Sorry, a bit nervous. Sorry, a bit nervous.

01:16:36

Uh, so I had a question about, uh, first Corinthians 14 and the spiritual gifts. I've been trying to work my way through the spiritual gifts doctrinally, and I can't, and I know you believe the gifts have ceased, but I can't get, but...

01:16:49

Well, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me define that because that's, uh, okay.

01:16:55

There's different kinds of cessationism. The gifts have not ceased. The apostolic sign gifts had a particular purpose and a particular time.

01:17:05

And when that purpose, which is announced with the establishment of those gifts is fulfilled, then they cease because of their function.

01:17:15

But there are all sorts of spiritual gifts and there will always be spiritual gifts for the entirety, uh, of the time of the church.

01:17:23

And so there are extreme cessationists who do believe that all spiritual gifts have ceased.

01:17:30

Um, I, I don't know how anyone could possibly defend that. Um, the church needs, uh, the gifts that the spirit gives in teaching and encouragement and discernment and in all those things.

01:17:45

And I don't see that those were limited solely to the apostles, but there were specific miraculous sign gifts that were given during the apostolic period that established the church.

01:17:57

Once that church is established then, and, and by the way, also were a sign of judgment upon the people of Israel.

01:18:05

And that's one of the key issues in regards to the meaning of, uh, tongues in first Corinthians is speaking by the, the mouth of these foreigners, a strange tongue was meant as a sign to Israel that judgment had come up, was coming upon her.

01:18:23

Um, and with the destruction of the temple in, in, uh, in Jerusalem in AD 70, there would be no further purpose for that.

01:18:32

Uh, and so I do think that that is, that is relevant, but we've got to be real careful because it's way too easy for a continuationist, um, to argue, uh, against a overstated cessationist position.

01:18:47

And that's normally what happens. Uh, that's normally, and we don't get anywhere because of it. So, so does that help?

01:18:55

Go ahead. Well, I was more thinking about like the specific sign gifts like, um, prophecy and tongues.

01:19:00

And so I was wondering what you thought of Paul's instructions for the order in the church in first Corinthians 14, especially verse 39, so my brothers earnestly desire to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues.

01:19:13

I mean, where in the scripture would you, would you say that that it moved from that not being relevant? Where is that exegetically?

01:19:20

Okay, so like I said, uh, this is before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Tongues exist at that time.

01:19:26

They're a part of the establishment of the church as a sign against, uh, Israel that judgment is coming.

01:19:31

Judgment came in AD 70. So at that point in time, there wouldn't be any further need for, for that to be, uh, occurring.

01:19:41

So, um, that's how I would understand it. I mean, this is written what 51 to 55, somewhere around there.

01:19:50

Uh, and so you've got another 15 years or so before, uh, Jerusalem falls. And, um, at that point,

01:19:58

I, I don't see the content, the need for continuation of the gift, uh, because the judgment that it was prophesying has now taken place.

01:20:08

So, so is that part of Corinthians relevant for the church today in any way, or what can we learn from that?

01:20:16

Are, are, are any of the sections of scripture that talk about what the apostles did and how they did it in the early church relevant today?

01:20:22

We don't have apostles. The apostles lived at that time. Well, we can learn from them.

01:20:27

We can imitate them, but we can't do what they did and we cannot, we, we dare not reestablish their offices.

01:20:35

There are some people have tried that it has never worked well. Um, so, uh, when you say, well, is it worth anything?

01:20:43

That's sort of like looking at the old Testament and looking at the theocratic state of Israel and looking at the, uh, temple or the gifts that were offered and saying, well, is this relevant at all today?

01:20:53

Well, in the sense that you can, you, you can, they were examples for us. Uh, yeah, but, uh, you know, history, the new

01:21:03

Testament reveals history to us and some of that history is now past.

01:21:11

And so we then learn from that and make application to the situation we find ourselves in, uh, just as we do with the old

01:21:20

Testament. So, okay. Okay. All righty.

01:21:25

I appreciate you answering my call. Okay. Thank you very much for your call. I appreciate it very much. All right. All right. God bless.

01:21:31

Thank you for your ministry. Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye -bye. Um, just real quickly, um,

01:21:38

I get to sing in my ear. Um, that call does bring up, um, one other thing that I'll mention quickly, uh, just, just sort of to finish things off.

01:21:52

Uh, I, I was thinking in regards to the Steven Anderson, Agros Church thing.

01:22:01

Um, what about change in theology?

01:22:10

Um, I know, for example, um, that there, in talking with the

01:22:16

Agros guys, there's been change, um, rapid change. And is that ever warranted?

01:22:27

Well, obviously, um, in talking with former

01:22:32

IFBs and NIFBs, there was a change in their theology when they came to start to understand the traditions that they had been taught and what

01:22:41

Reformed theology taught and, and things like that. But how many times on this very program have you heard me say to someone, they've called in, they've become

01:22:54

Reformed, their church isn't. How many times have you heard me counsel them?

01:23:02

This needs to be done slowly with patience and grace. If you choose to need to leave this church, it needs to be done in such a way that, that you are seeking to do so with, with, with grace and, and maintain relationships and not rupture relationships.

01:23:20

That's the hardest way to do it. It's a whole lot easier just to stomp out the door in anger and then go to another church and just blast another church for being a bunch of godless

01:23:29

Arminians or something like that. That's, that's the easy way. Uh, that's not the proper way. Um, in the same way, there is a need for balance in the

01:23:42

Christian life. How many times have you heard me say this? This is the essence of Christian maturity over time, is the ability to be balanced.

01:23:53

All of us should be growing in the grace and knowledge of Lord Jesus Christ. And that means since we have traditions and blind spots, that means there should be development, purification, and growth in our theological understanding and hence in our theological positions.

01:24:13

That's not the same thing as radical foundational shifts on a regular basis.

01:24:24

There's a huge difference between the two. One is necessary and good. The other is always dangerous and it's never good.

01:24:34

And the problem is people in our day, they just, they're constantly doing the, well,

01:24:41

I just, if, if I change my views at all, then that, that means I need to change everything. No, no, that's not true.

01:24:48

It's, it's, if you go back, listen to the unbelievable radio broadcast I did with the guy in the emergent church,

01:24:54

Brian McLaren. We both came from the same background. We both came out of a strict fundamentalism.

01:25:01

He threw out the baby with the bathwater. I did not. I got to the position where I could recognize traditions and analyze traditions, but I didn't throw out the core.

01:25:15

The emergent church does. So it is perfectly appropriate to grow in your understanding.

01:25:26

For example, personal example, I grew up with one form of eschatology, and most of you have known down through the years, it's the one subject

01:25:40

I just don't want to talk about. You know why? Well, I went to Bible college and I had been very convinced as a young person.

01:25:51

I've told the story before of how I had my tritium watch. This was back in the day, had my tritium watch and I was using it.

01:25:59

Remember the, was it 84 reasons or 88 reasons? 84 reasons.

01:26:06

No. Yeah. 84 reasons why the rap should be in 1984, 88 reasons would be in 88.

01:26:13

I can't remember which one it was. Was it 88? I can't remember which one it was, but this would have been around 78 or 79 in a lock -in at the

01:26:22

Baptist church that I was a member of using my tritium watch to, to read passages out of Matthew 24.

01:26:31

And it would have been 88 because I was talking about the budding of the fig tree.

01:26:38

The budding of the fig tree was Israel. So 40 years after the budding of fig tree, 48, 88.

01:26:43

That's how it worked. That's what it was. It's been so long ago now. It's hard to remember. Anyway, that was the only eschatology

01:26:52

I knew. And in our circles, anyone who had even a slightly deviant form, because if you know dispensational premillennialism, there's different forms of that.

01:27:02

There's pre -rapture and mid -tribulation and post -tribulation rapture theories and, and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

01:27:13

And, and you would look very askance at anybody who would have any variation from you at all on that.

01:27:22

Let alone amillennialists. I didn't even really know what it was. And post -millennialists.

01:27:27

What? Yeah, probably. So once I was faced with other viewpoints and was forced to analyze the hermeneutics,

01:27:45

I came to two conclusions. First, I couldn't substantiate where I had been all that time.

01:27:53

But at the same time, I realized there were few subjects that were more emotional than that.

01:27:59

And I was just sort of like, you know what? I just, I, that is a can of worms. I just do not want to open.

01:28:07

And down through the years, even though I adopted a different perspective, you didn't, you didn't hear me pushing that on anybody.

01:28:16

And the main reason I even tried to read books on the subject. And it was just sort of like, ah, just like chewing on sawdust.

01:28:23

I just didn't want to do it. Well, recently I've been forced to be doing more reading and I was forced into it.

01:28:34

Not, thankfully not by arguments about eschatology.

01:28:42

I don't want to argue eschatology with anybody, but the reality is when you push on your ecclesiology and when you push on your understanding of God's law, and when you have to deal with what we're dealing with in our culture today, when you have to deal with transgenderism, homosexuality, the profaning of marriage, when you have to ask the question, what is the church supposed to be doing?

01:29:08

Do we just simply retreat into our conclaves someplace, go run into the mountains somewhere and try to hide out from all of this?

01:29:16

What do we do? What is, when Jesus said all authority is given to me in heaven and earth, what did that mean?

01:29:25

Was that just a real, a real nice word that says you're going to get a, get out of, get out of jail free card.

01:29:32

And when you die, you're going to get to go to heaven. There's just nothing to do with this, this world. And so it was all of that, that has been forcing me to do a whole lot more reading.

01:29:44

And for the first time, I actually want to read it. I did. I've tried in the past.

01:29:49

I actually want to read it because I see how it relates to everything else. Now, I happen to know that R .C.

01:29:57

Sproul held three different eschatological positions during his ministry, and that did not keep any of us from respecting

01:30:06

R .C. Sproul. Okay, take all that back. It did, some of you. There's somebody out there going, yep, you know what?

01:30:14

I, I understood that he was a historical pre -millennialist and he was non -millennialist and he was post -millennialist.

01:30:20

And I'm going to tell you something, anybody who's all three of those things, I ain't going to listen to a thing you have to say. Okay, fine, whatever.

01:30:26

I don't know why you're listening to me anyways, because by now I should have offended you 47 ,000 times.

01:30:32

What is wrong with you people anyways? What is wrong with you people? That's the world's greatest meme,

01:30:38

R .C. Sproul saying, what is wrong with you people? Anyways, so there are, there have been people who have demonstrated you can think through these things and change your position and grow, and that doesn't, for me, for a second, change the fact that Chosen by God, by R .C.

01:30:56

Sproul, and the Holiness of God, by R .C. Sproul, were used by God mightily in my life.

01:31:03

When I read those books, I didn't care what his eschatology was, and I don't know what his eschatology was right when he wrote that, and it doesn't matter.

01:31:14

That's an example of where there can be growth, there can be further study, there can, and it's worthwhile doing it, but it shouldn't happen like overnight.

01:31:29

We shouldn't be absolutely willing to just jump from one position, another position, another person.

01:31:38

We should not be blown about by every wind of doctrine. Even when a strong wind is blowing against a ship, it takes a while for it to turn, and if we are mature, our ship should be big enough and full enough to take a little while to turn, but it should be able to turn while still continuing the same path, that is, foundations stay the same, we grow in our understanding.

01:32:06

Just some commentaries I've been thinking about in regards to issues like that.

01:32:13

All right, like I said, Lord willing, oh, did you, and by the way, did you catch, oh,

01:32:19

I didn't play it. Oh, drat. Right at the beginning of the Steven Anderson clip, did you start the music? Good.

01:32:25

Right at the beginning of the Steven Anderson clip, he's talking about the video coming out, and what he says, he says,

01:32:31

Lord willing, and I'm just like, wait a minute, he's the guy going, bawk, bawk, somebody's got something, bawk, bawk, and then he says,

01:32:38

Lord willing, what's that? A little bit of a contradiction there. Anyways, Lord willing,

01:32:44

I can say that consistently, Lord willing, Thursday, we will come to you from my home away from home, one of the most beautiful places on the earth,

01:32:53

Evergreen, Colorado, where I will be for a fairly short period of time right now, and then going back up to Colorado the week after that, and yes, pray that I don't get run over by a truck.

01:33:08

I'm going to be doing a lot of riding, and a lot of studying, and a lot of listening, and it's that time of the year, so looking forward to it, but we will see you,