March 29, 2005

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Casting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And today is another edition of Radio Free Geneva.
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We continue our response and refutation of the sermon,
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The Five Points of Calvinism Exposed and Exploded by Dr. Danny O 'Guinn of Tower Grove Baptist Church in St.
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Louis. I did not realize the last time we fired up Radio Free Geneva that Danny O 'Guinn was
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Dr. O 'Guinn. Someone posted the URL to the church. I had looked for it during the night before, could not find it.
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Someone needs to work on their meta tags. But it was posted during the course of the program.
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And so as I looked at it after the program, I saw that it was Dr. O 'Guinn. No disrespect intended, since I did not know that during the course of the program.
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But we are about 27 minutes into the program. I'm actually going to back up just a little bit, not the program, into the sermon itself and get a running start at our next section.
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You may recall we were just getting ready to go into the subject of limited atonement. And right before that, though, we got a fairly decent idea of exactly where Dr.
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O 'Guinn is coming from. Let's back it up just a little bit and take a running start here listening to the sermon from Pastor O 'Guinn on Calvinism.
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Well, do those people who are elect have to hear the word of God in order to be saved? They said, yes, they have to hear it.
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I said, there's a condition. It can't be unconditioned. What? I asked him another question.
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I mean, I just, I have fun with Calvinism. I mean, it's a pet peeve. All right? I could dance up here for a little bit.
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All right? Now, as you can tell, Dr. O 'Guinn was getting just a little bit on the animated side.
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That does happen. Unfortunately, we're talking about unconditional election. As we pointed out last time,
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Dr. O 'Guinn does not seem to understand what unconditional election is, despite the fact that he had earlier said that it was an unconditional election.
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He said that he had spent nearly a year studying the subject. He wanted to become a
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Calvinist, but God told him he couldn't, and the Bible didn't teach it. One would think that in reading on Calvinism for that period of time, he would at least understand what unconditional election is, that he would be able to understand that unconditional election means that God chooses the elect, not based upon what they do.
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There are no conditions that they fulfill which results in their election. You notice the argument he's making now is that if God chooses to save in a certain fashion, that is, through the preaching of the word, if he uses any means, if he uses the gift of faith, saving faith, repentance, all these things, that means that there are conditions, as if that's somehow contradictory to the fact that he chooses individuals, not based upon what they do, but upon his own will.
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You can see that there is no connection between the two, and I would assume anyone with two graduate degrees from a seminary would be able to follow that reasoning.
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But for some reason, as we have seen so many times in our responses to so many different people, when it comes to this particular subject, there is no willingness to engage the same mental faculties that are used in almost any other subject, because of the issue of tradition.
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Here comes the tradition, and the tradition is very clearly seen in how this sermon unfolds.
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I have a ball with it. I asked him, I said, now, these elect that you say they're not, but that you say are elect, do they have to repent?
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I said, you know, Jesus said, except you repent, you shall likewise repent. But this unconditional election, those who are elect, do they have to repent?
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Oh, yes, they have to repent. I said, there's another condition. And of course, that would only be true if what we were saying is that God chose them on the basis of their fulfilling the condition of repentance, which, of course, is not what we're saying.
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None of those many books, the 50 volumes in his library said that.
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But for some odd reason, when it comes to this particular subject of honestly representing the opposition, we don't get any honest representation.
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It's not unconditional, and they can't do anything with that, okay?
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That is the way it is with all man -made doctrines. You say, Brother Danny, would you let a Calvinist come in here and explain their view?
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No. I expose Mormonism. I'm not going to call a Mormon in here. Let him explain their view.
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I expose Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm not going to let a Jehovah's Witness come in here. I'm going to preach the truth from the
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Bible, keeping the word of God, okay? I'm not going to let a Calvinist preach in this pulpit.
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Well, there you have a real recognition on Dr.
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Gwynne's part of the history of Calvinism among Southern Baptists.
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That would mean he wouldn't want Dr. Boyce, the founder of Southern Seminary, to preach from his pulpit, and he doesn't want any explanation.
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It is a given fact, from his perspective, that Calvinism is wrong. That's why he can misrepresent it.
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That's why he can attack a straw man. That's why he can be less than truthful in his presentations, because he's not going to let any conversation take place.
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There's not going to be any interaction on something like this. That's how so many people deal with this particular issue, is just shut it down.
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Don't let anybody say anything. Scare your people half to death if someone does start talking about something called
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Calvinism, and make them run for the hills, and that way you never have to really deal with the fact that you haven't dealt biblically, or logically, rationally, with the position that you're attacking.
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That's the game plan, the M .O. Dr. O 'Gwinn is not alone. In fact, as we're going to see when he misrepresents
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Spurgeon, he's just following others here. There's nothing new here. He's just repeating what others have said.
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This has been done many times before him, and sadly, it'll be done many times after him as well.
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All right? It's false. Unconditional election makes
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God more than a monster and man less than a robot. Well, and again, a very, very deep alliteration and sermon outlined there, but since nothing of unconditional election has actually been dealt with, it's very difficult to take this seriously.
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In fact, I know there are people on channel that wonder why we're even doing this, and let me once again point out that individuals like Dr.
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O 'Gwinn, and before we responded to Herb Revis, and when we have been responding to Paige Patterson, and to Adrian Rogers, and to many of these individuals,
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Charles Stanley, and their misrepresentations of the issue, we are dealing with the fact that these folks exercise their influence to attempt to keep
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Reformed theology from being known by others. And if you believe this is important, if you believe that what the
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Bible says here, to be consistent in the proclamation of the gospel, to be consistent in your apologetic methodology, that these are issues that must be understood and dealt with, to deal with questions concerning theodicy, the origin and purpose of evil, to be able to handle all these things, these are subjects that must be addressed.
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Therefore, those people who are influenced by these influential people, and they are kept from hearing the truth of what the
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Bible says, these individuals are being kept from maturity.
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They're being kept from knowing the truth about these issues, and the result is they are apologetically weakened, etc.
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etc. So, we have to address these things. And we're the ones who are accurately representing us by playing their own comments, by inviting them.
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I mean, if Dr. O 'Gwinn, or Herb Revis, or Adrian Rogers, or Paige Parison, would like to come on this program and respond to what has been said, we would be happy to have them, be glad to have them.
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I mean, I'm the one sitting here who, when doing radio programs on a book that I've written with Multnomah Publishers, co -authored in a debate forum against Dave Hunt, I'm the guy that has to come on after Dave Hunt, not when
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Dave Hunt's on. Dave Hunt won't come on with me to respond to these issues. I would,
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Norman Geisler, welcome to be on the program. We have shown ourselves more than ready to engage these issues, but it is the other side that, you just heard it,
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I don't want no Calvinist preaching behind this pulpit. I'm not going to let them explain their position.
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Well, why not? You certainly recognize, and at least Paige Patterson is honest, and direct, and recognizing that, and he well knows the influence of a
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James Boyce, and the other Reformed writers, and the fact that there are Reformed Southern Baptists, there are
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Southern Baptists who believe what was taught, and they're still there, and they're not going anywhere, and seemingly the only way that they can deal with them is they know they can't defeat them in debate.
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They can't meet them on the basis of the text of Scripture. You can only preach this kind of sermon against them, and hope to create enough prejudice to drive them away.
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That's the extent of the argumentation that's being offered. That's right. The third point, listen to this, is limited atonement.
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Now, you know why I had you to read 1 John chapter 2? Go back to 1 John chapter 2 for just a moment, okay?
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You know why I had you to read 1 John chapter 2 and verse 2 just a few minutes ago? Because this is so close to what
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I'm talking about. Now, limited atonement, you see, total depravity, I mentioned that. Unconditional election, that's false.
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That's a three dollar bill. Now, the third point is limited atonement, and they've taken the flower, the tulip, and formed a lacrosse stick.
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The first letter in tulip is T, total depravity, and the second letter in tulip is
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U, unconditional election. The third letter in the tulip is L. They've taken a beautiful flower and made it ugly, but the third letter,
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L, stands for limited atonement. Now, you know why I called all your attention to the words, all, and that Christ died for all, and 1
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John chapter 2 and verse 2, and he is the perpetuation for our sins, listen to this, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the what, the whole what, the whole world.
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Now, obviously, and we will be pointing this out very frequently as we do the various Radio Free Geneva responses to the worst of the worst, obviously, from my perspective, if an individual has done the kind of study that inevitably those who preach these kinds of sermons claim they have done, then they would, if they were really confident of their position, if they were, if they were confident that they could bring a
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Calvinist in and demonstrate from Scripture that that Calvinist is wrong on the basis of Scripture, then they would tell the audience how it is that Calvinists respond, not just in some shallow way, but they would actually present a meaningful argument against their position, and then answer it.
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But, of course, they never do that. They never go through the responses, and for many, you're constantly faced with this choice.
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This person is either very ignorant or dishonest, one of the two.
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I mean, their own claims put themselves in that position. They've claimed to do all the study. They've claimed to have all these resources.
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They've claimed to do all this reading, but they give absolutely no evidence whatsoever that they've done any of it.
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So either they're misleading us in saying they've done all the study, or they're then misrepresenting what they actually did study.
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What other choices are there? I don't know what they are. Obviously, so many of these people will read what they're reading with massive blinders on, these massive glasses of tradition that keep them from maybe seeing what they're reading.
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I don't know, but the fact of the matter is, if you can't accurately represent what someone's saying, if you can't, for example, here, go into what
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Reformed people have said about 1 John 2, 2, and the discussion of what world means, and all the different meanings of world, and John, if you won't even take the time to realize, you know,
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I might have some people sitting in front of me that have studied the word propitiation, and they know it means a taking away of wrath, and they understand how it's very much connected to the concept of substitution, and they might be thinking, well, wait a minute, if Christ has truly propitiated the wrath of God against the sins of the world, and that means every single individual, then upon what basis will the wrath of God ever come against those individuals, if they were united with Christ?
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And that's one of the reasons that, believe it or not, some people are wondering if I ever will, there's a series, and those of you listening to this years down the road, this is sort of relevant to you, but there's a series
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I need to get to, when the Lord gives me the time to do so, on the blog, in getting back to the subject of the union of the elect with Christ in his death.
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Is that a reality, or does it only become a reality in toto, at the point of saving faith?
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Were the non -elect joined with Christ, so that it can be said that Christ propitiated the wrath of God on their behalf?
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I do not believe that that is a coherent, or consistent, or biblical position, and yet there are many who hold to that position, but at least discuss it.
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We're not even to the point here, we're not even to the point of dealing with those who at least try to talk about the extent of the atonement, and the issue of propitiation, what it means, things like that.
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This is just simply being thrown out there, this is just thrown out there with enough emotion to hope that people aren't going to think about what's actually being said.
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And I find that to be very, to be honest with you, very disrespectful of the audience, to in essence be banking upon the fact that my audience is not going to check me out, they're not going to think about this, they're not going to challenge this, they're just going to believe me because I'm yelling louder than I normally do.
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I don't find that to be respectful to the audience in any way, shape, or form. You know why I called that to your attention a few minutes ago?
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The third point in the five points of Calvinism teaches limited atonement, and they say that Christ did not die for the sins of the world, and if you'll study them, some of you may have a reference
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Bible, you'll find this in, or that verse, they'll say, they'll use when explaining that, they'll say the word world is a generic term.
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How sweet. How sweet. Well, that kind of sarcastic response is not a response.
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I mean, it is in, in fallacious argumentation, it is in bullying argumentation, it is an authoritative argumentation where you just figure that if you are sarcastic about something, then the people you're trying to keep listening to you are going to sort of follow along with what you're saying, but it's not actual argumentation in any serious form.
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And so, how about dealing with the meaning of the word world in John?
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How about going through 1st John and talking about not loving the world? Does that mean every single individual?
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You said it! Doesn't that, isn't that what it means? Aren't you gonna be consistent? Jesus talks about His elect coming out of the world, and, and He separates them from the world.
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I just, it's just so basic. There's, there's no respect for the
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Word of God in this kind of tradition -based, quote -unquote, preaching.
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Now, keep in mind, I'll go right back. In just a moment, he's gonna start into the Spurgeon quote, and on the blog today,
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I posted a link. It will take you directly to my response to Dave Hunt, and if you want to read along with him, you can right now follow that link off the blog, and you can read, as he's going to read the exact same section of the exact same
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Spurgeon sermon that Dave Hunt misrepresented in What Love Is This?,
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saying that Spurgeon unequivocally denied limited atonement. So, if you want to follow it along, go on over there and, and follow along.
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You'll find it to be very, very interesting. A generic term, and they'll say that it means the world in general.
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It does not mean every individual. I beg to differ. Let me tell you something, dear friends. Had you been the only person in all the world,
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Jesus would have died for you. And when He died on that cross, He died for every individual, from Adam right on down to the last, last person who will ever be born.
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Okay? But, watch this now. Now, that's wonderful, but did you notice there was no scripture there?
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It was just simply assertion. It's, it's bully preaching. There, there's no, there's no attempt to respect either your opponents or your own listeners by providing them with a meaningful foundation upon which to accept what you're saying, other than your simple authority.
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That should bother everybody. That, that, that should bother any
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Baptist, because aren't Baptists committed to this concept of the individual priest or the believer?
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Doesn't that mean you should respect those individuals as, as an elder, as a preacher?
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And this is, by the way, one of those reasons you should have a plurality of elders, because I, I honestly think when you have a plurality of elders, this is not as easy to do.
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Your fellow elders – the fact that they're sitting there listening – I think it holds you to a little higher standard.
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But be that as it may, isn't it showing respect for these individuals who stand, who are sitting in front of you, who are image bearers of, of God, and if you believe that they're believers, then you also believe that they are, they are fellow members, the household of God, that they are believer priests.
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Aren't you going to give them a basis in the word of God, outside of just simply your own claimed, self -professed authority?
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I would think so, but that's not what, what, what takes place. In limited atonement, and, and I've also found this,
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I've asked people, are you a Calvinist? And they say yes, but when I come down to limited atonement, they say, well, I don't agree with that.
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You're not a Calvinist then. That's one of the first things that I've actually agreed with in this sermon so far.
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I would agree that, that you probably shouldn't use that terminology of yourself, at least without, you know, great explanation, if, if you hold a different viewpoint at that point.
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I would agree with that. Calvinists say that one point builds upon the other, and if you don't believe all five points, the whole system is destroyed.
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Destroyed? Well, it ought to be. Amen? That's right. Limited atonement.
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Calvinists teach limited atonement. This is what limited atonement means. Listen carefully. That the precious blood of Jesus Christ, His atonement, is limited only to that so -called elect.
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You know, I, I love when people talk about the so -called elect. What, what happens when he starts reading through 1st and 2nd
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Timothy? He runs into Paul saying, I endure all things for the sake of the elect. What, what if he, what, when he reads through Romans, and, and they're called the called, the elect, the chosen ones.
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What, what does it do in Romans 8? That God has, you know, for the sake of the elect, for, how does he do with that?
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Does, does, do you just hope that the people no longer remember the mocking language that he used in the previous sermon?
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Do you just hope that for most folks, what you said in your last sermon disappears by the time they get to Sunday, Sunday dinner?
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Again, there's, there's no respect for anyone, including the hearers who would agree with him at this particular point in time.
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It just, that's very, very bothersome that this would be the case.
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And of course, when we're talking about particular redemption, limited atonement, we know that Dr.
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Oak Gwynn limits the atonement far more severely and far more importantly than the reformed person does.
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Because we've just heard him say, Jesus died for every single individual. What that means, then, is
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Jesus' death is insufficient to save every single individual.
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There's something more that is needed. Substitution doesn't do it. Substitution may propitiate your sins, but for some odd reason, it doesn't really propitiate your sins.
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So he limits the atonement, he just limits its effect rather than its scope.
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And again, if we were being respectful to the hearers, we would raise these issues, but we're not being respectful to the hearers.
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That God elected before the foundation of the world. I want to read to you,
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I'm going to make a couple... Here we go. I told you earlier, we're about to start the Spurgeon misrepresentation.
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Here it goes. Let's once again point out the tendency on the part of modern writers to ignore the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism.
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Something they like to just pass over without even really mentioning it, but there you have an example of it.
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He said, I know there are some who think it necessary for their system of theology to limit the merit of the blood of Jesus.
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He said, if my theological system needed such limitation,
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I would cast it to the wind. Go boy, go. He says, now listen to this, he says,
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I cannot, he says, I dare not allow the thought to find a lodging in my mind it seems so near akin to blaspheming.
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He said, in Christ's finished work, I see an ocean of merit. He says, my plummet finds no bottom, my eye discerns no shore.
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He said, there must be sufficient efficacy in the blood of Christ to save not only this world, but 10 ,000 worlds had they transgressed the law of God.
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Did you catch that? Did you catch it? If you were following along, you caught it. And it makes me wonder.
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It really makes me wonder. Where's the... I'm moving my microphone along here.
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Where did I put those things? This is a musical interlude here, while I attempt to find my copy of What Love Is This.
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It used to be down there, moved a bunch of books around, and I do not see where I put my original...
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Oh, there it is. Let's see, how far can we... There it is.
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Got it. See, I gotta get the original, because the secondary, the second edition, does not contain the same thing.
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It was very early on here, it's like page 18. There it is. Now see, he skipped that part.
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This is page 18, page 19, in What Love Is This. In Christ's finished work
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I see an ocean of merit, my plummet finds no bottom, my eye discerns no shore. Then there's a dot dot dot dot, probably because he saw this, and that would seem to indicate to me, now
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I just figured this out, that they're both pulling from the exact same source, which is
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Fisk, because Hunt skips this part, and it just goes to, having a divine person for an offering, it is not inconsistent to conceive of limited value, bound and measure are terms inapplicable to divine sacrifice.
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But notice that O 'Gwynn goes, there must be sufficient efficacy in the blood of Christ, dot dot dot, and what does he skip?
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If God had so willed it, to have saved not only all in this world, but all in ten thousand worlds, had they transgressed their maker's law.
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Now isn't it just fascinating? Then we have to say, why did Spurgeon say, if God had so willed it?
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Well we're going to find out, because I'm going to read you what he actually said. He said it because this is a sermon in defense of limited atonement.
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That's why he said it. Now does O 'Gwynn know that? I don't know, I'd have to look, and I've got it somewhere, because I remember writing something about it,
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I'd have to look at Fiske, to see if he included this. Because then we could find out if the dot dot dot came from O 'Gwynn, or came from Fiske.
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All we know is Hunt just took the whole section out because he didn't want to deal with it. Now listen to this, Spurgeon said, he said once that meant infinity into the matter and limit is out of the question.
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He went on to say, he said having a divine person for an offering. Now let me pause right there,
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Spurgeon said having a divine person for an offering. Who do you think he's talking about when he said a divine person?
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Jesus. Ok, now listen to this, Spurgeon said having a divine person for an offering, it is not consistent to conceive of limited value.
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He said bound and measure are terms inapplicable to the divine sacrifice of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Let me tell you something else, you may want to write this down. And there he goes from there.
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Now if you haven't listened, if you don't, if you aren't aware, you know here once again, you have an individual who stands before the people of God in a rather large context, and I think such individuals have a responsibility to be accurate with their information.
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I have sent this information to Dr. O 'Gwen, I have invited him to correct the misapprehensions included in this sermon to his own people.
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I would think you would want your people to know the truth. Because what was just given is a gross misrepresentation of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
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If Dr. O 'Gwen had taken the time to look it up, and it's not difficult to do, this stuff is all on the web, you can track it down easily enough.
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On the very next page of that sermon, this is what we read.
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Blessed be God, his elect on earth are to be counted by millions. Oh, his elect?
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Spurgeon talked about the elect. I'm sorry. Blessed be God, his elect on earth are to be counted by millions,
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I believe, and the days are coming, brighter days than these, when there shall be multitudes upon multitudes brought to know the
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Savior and to rejoice in him. Some persons love the doctrine of universal atonement because they say, it is so beautiful, it is a lovely idea that Christ should have died for all men, it commends itself, they say, to the instincts of humanity, there is something in it full of joy and beauty.
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I admit there is, but beauty may be often associated with falsehood. There is much which
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I might admire in the theory of universal redemption, but I will just show what the supposition necessarily involves.
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If Christ on his cross intended to save every man, then he intended to save those who were lost before he died.
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If the doctrine be true, that he died for all men, then he died for some who were in hell before he came into this world, for doubtless there were even then myriads there who had been cast away because of their sins.
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Once again, if it was Christ's intention to save all men, how deplorably has he been disappointed, for we have his own testimony, that there is a lake which burned with fire and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons who, according to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with his blood.
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That seems to me a conceptual conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those consequences which are said to be associated with the
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Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption."
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End quote. How can you quote Charles Spurgeon from a sermon where he says that and say he denied the
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Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption?
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It's a lie. It's a lie. How can people be so cavalier with the truth and stand before the people of God?
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I don't understand it. We've got somebody on the channel who just doesn't seem to understand this.
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I'm quoting from Spurgeon. That's what Spurgeon said.
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Get a grip here, folks. My goodness. Oh, wow.
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Just, just, just, just, just how can you It is absolutely positively amazing to me.
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Absolutely positively amazing to me. Now, the point is,
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Dr. O 'Gwynn now has this information. Let's give him, let's, you know, despite the fact that he's not willing to dialogue on these things, he's not willing to let a
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Calvinist, he's not willing to accurately represent Calvinism or anything, bending over backwards and saying he simply had
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Fisk's book, he had a mutilated quotation, he, he was very busy, you know, that week and didn't have time to check things out.
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Does he not now have a responsibility to explain to his people that he was wrong, that he, he gave them information that was not slightly in error.
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It wasn't just, you know, a little bit off, you know, just, just, just a slight misapprehension.
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It was 180 degrees the opposite of the reality. Does he not have a, have a responsibility?
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I mean, I faxed that quote that I just read to you to the church. I'm assuming that got to his desk.
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Now I could be wrong about that, but why, why wouldn't it? Does he not have a responsibility to his people?
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I mean, if you had it completely backwards, don't you have to say something about it?
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Shouldn't you have to deal with this? I think so. But I have an odd view of the responsibilities of the person who, who stands before the people of God, that you need to tell the truth.
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And if you're shown that you, you, you were exactly backwards opposite, and this is the substance of his argumentation on this point, by the way, at least it was longer as far as substance went than what we're going to get in the next one.
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You need to listen very carefully because the, the, the refutation of irresistible grace is just so compelling, but so fast.
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It's coming up here in a second, but just, just amazing to me. Go to the, go to the blog, go to that link.
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If you're listening to this later on, the, the, it's the blog entry for Tuesday, March 29th, 2005.
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You should be able to find that. And you can just go to the
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Reformed Theology section of the, of the website, and you will find a fairly extensive documentation of Spurgeon's viewpoint on this in opposition to Dave Hunt, and since Dr.
35:56
O 'Gwen decided to make the exact same error that Dave Hunt did, well, you can, you can take a look at it there.
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So, we, we press on. I'll go to those next two thoughts there, so that we're going to close, okay? Let me tell you something else.
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And no Calvinist has been able to give me a correct, a response to this. Okay, no Calvinist, okay?
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I mean, you can tell he's in a lot of dialogue with Calvinists, right? So let, let's see what happens. I say to the
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Calvinists, you believe in limited atonement, that the atonement of Jesus Christ, his death, is limited just to the elect.
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They say yes. Now, now, follow this, folks. This is, here, I mentioned, this is the argument that I actually mentioned last week, and we didn't get to it, because I thought it was coming right up.
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Listen carefully. Here comes the, the irrefutable argument from Dr.
36:45
O 'Gwen that no Calvinist has ever been able to respond to. I said, alright, can we agree that Christ died for sinners?
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You know, Paul said, this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus died for sinners, of whom
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I am chief. Can we agree that Christ died for sinners? Oh, yes, yes, yes, I agree. Christ died for sinners!
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But, you say that his death is limited to the elect. Yes. I said, alright then, listen to this.
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If Christ died for sinners, that's who he died for, and we know that he did. If he died for sinners, but his death is limited just to the elect, then only the elect are sinners.
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And you've got a problem with the whole fall of man in the sin, in the Garden of Eden, and liberals for years, we've been fighting them, liberals for years, have been denying the first 11 chapters of Genesis in order to deny the fall, and dear friends, when you say that it's limited to the elect, you affect the entire fall of man as taught in Genesis, just as the liberals do.
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Um, how do you respond to such incredible illogic, to such basic level lack of understanding of the most simple forms of argumentation?
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In case you didn't catch it, if you wondered how in the world we got to the point where Calvinists, who are always being criticized for their teaching of total depravity, their teaching of the universal sinfulness of man, the fall of man in sin, man's incapacity to do good before God, and was being criticized by Dr.
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O 'Gwynn for that, if you're wondering how we got to where the Calvinists are responsible for somehow attacking
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Genesis and the fall of man, the argument was this. Christ died for the elect,
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Christ died for sinners, therefore only the elect are sinners. Um, there's, there's sort of a, how do you respond to that?
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It is so obvious. It is, Dr. O 'Gwynn, you're sort of assuming something here in your argument that you're not putting into your argument, and that is that when it says
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Christ died for sinners, that that means he died for every single sinner, see?
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If you just sort of bring that out into your argument, then we'd be able to see that it is grossly fallacious, and that if you tried to present that in Logic 101 at your local community college, you would fail
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Logic 101, because your argument is absurd.
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Utterly, completely absurd. If the argument is
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Christ died for every single sinner, and Christ died only for the elect, okay, but you see, that's not the argument, is it?
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No. All the elect are sinners, Christ died for sinners. That doesn't mean that all sinners are of the elect, does it?
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So there's this little point you have to prove to make your argument work, and maybe the reason
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Calvinists just stand there looking at you is because they can't believe you would make such a horrific argument that is so easily refuted on the first examination for logic, because there isn't any in it.
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My goodness. Again, why am I the mean person for thinking that if you're going to stand before the people of God addressing these issues, maybe you should have some, you know, knowledge of these things?
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Does that make me mean to think you should respect the people of God at that level? I don't think so.
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I think it's really a matter of what's most important to you. Is it God's truth? Is it honoring
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God and God's truth? Shouldn't we handle God's truth with some more respect than this is showing?
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I think that we should. That's right. I'll tell you something, dear friends, that's a danger. How many of you here this morning have a
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Schofield? Any of you have heard of a Schofield Bible? How many of you have a Schofield Bible? Okay, if you'll look just inside your
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Bible, your Schofield, you'll find a list of editors, contributing editors. One man is a man by the name of A .C.
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Gableine. And if you look there, you'll find him. And that contributing editor of the Schofield Bible, A .C.
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Gableine, said this. He said, Calvinism is a doctrine that makes atheists.
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In case you can't hear that, because when I first tried listening to this, that didn't come out real well.
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Calvinism is a doctrine which makes atheists. That's what's being said. And you know what?
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At one point, I would agree. Atheists hate the truth about God. They hate the true God. And when faced with the true
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God, which Calvinism faces you with, there's many a man who will say, I remember this
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Roman Catholic woman who came to interview me years and years ago, many, many years ago.
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She had to interview a fundamentalist. And when we got into the subject of salvation,
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I talked about God's freedom and salvation. I remember her saying very emotionally, I would never believe in a
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God like that. There you go. There you go. That's not an argument against God.
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That's an argument against atheism. And if Dr. O 'Gwin's
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Arminianism, and he's going to bring up the, that's named after man stuff. Well, if Dr. O 'Gwin's
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O 'Gwinianism doesn't present to the natural man the truth about God, then what good is it anyways?
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And he draws a connection to Tom Paine, Voltaire, Ingersoll, and all of those world -renowned atheists.
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And he says, now I haven't studied it, I've just read what the man says, but he says it is a teaching that makes atheists.
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Yeah, those men hated Calvinism, just like Dr. O 'Gwin does, strangely. But how is that an argument against Calvinism?
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Doesn't the natural man find the things about foolishness? Doesn't Romans 1 say that the natural man, the one outside of Christ, is suppressing the truth of God?
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So, where's the argument here? I don't know. That's about as deep an argument as the previous one and the one coming up.
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At that next point, after limited atonement, is irresistible grace. Well, Acts 7, 51 says, and teaches there, that people have resisted the grace of God, so that's false also.
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Now that took, by the way, 7 seconds. That's it. His response to irresistible grace, 7 seconds, a citation of one passage, a passage that I think, certainly in my works, and I know in many other works,
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Reformed writers point out that to cite that passage to demonstrate you have no clue, once again, what you're talking about.
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Because irresistible grace is not the doctrine that man has never resisted the grace of God.
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That's not the doctrine. And if this man has 50 volumes and spent a year studying these things, there is no excuse why he shouldn't know that.
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The doctrine of irresistible grace is what you see in Ezekiel.
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When the wind blows over the bones and they come to life.
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It's the doctrine of taking out a heart of stone and putting in a heart of flesh.
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It's the doctrine that God raises dead sinners to life by his own divine power without the assistance of the sinner.
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And you seriously think that you refute that by citing one passage that has nothing to do with it in 7 seconds?
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That is respecting the people of God? That's respecting meaningful dialogue?
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No, it is not. It's merely repeating, parroting the traditions of others while standing behind the pulpit, and it's wrong.
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Perseverance of the saints. Now I agree with what they teach there, but I disagree with their title.
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It shouldn't be perseverance of the saints. It should be the preservation of the spirit.
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Because there they talk about eternal security, and we are eternally secure. But dear friends, neither you nor I are eternally secure because of the fact that we persevere.
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We're eternally secure because we're kept by the power of God through faith in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. What glorious inconsistency. What glorious, utter and clear self -contradiction.
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First of all, once again, Dr. O 'Quinn doesn't understand the doctrine he's addressing. At least the
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Calvinistic view of it. Because Calvinists are not saying that it is by my perseverance that I persevere.
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What they're saying is, of course, is that when the Holy Spirit of God works in the life of the elect, then the faith they will have is a divine faith, and it's a faith that will never fail.
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How can he say that when his faith isn't a divine faith? When his faith, anyone can have it.
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There is no consistency here. There is no grounds for believing in the perseverance of the saints when you've denied every meaningful foundation to the doctrine of what has come before.
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Don't they still have their free will? If they have the ability to get into the relationship, why don't they have the ability to get out of the relationship?
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If unconditional election makes us worse than robots, how is this belief not making you a robot in the exact same way?
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Why can't we have some consistency here? Haven't these people ever thought of these things?
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Well, I guess when you shut down all dialogue, you shut down all discussion, maybe they haven't.
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Maybe it is quite possible that Dr. O 'Gwen has never been challenged in the entirety of his training and ministry to realize that what he believes about eternal security or the preservation of the saints by the
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Spirit of God, whatever term he wants to use, is utterly and completely inconsistent with a synergistic
48:08
Arminian doctrine. Maybe he doesn't know that.
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I don't know. I really, really don't know. But there is no consistency.
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That is for certain. Our Lord and our Savior. Now, dear friends, that causes division and it is hindering evangelism and soul winning also if God picked one but didn't pick another.
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If he picked one and didn't pick another, he's a respecter of persons. Let me stop right there.
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It's a common observation, common objection. Election makes God a respecter of persons.
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And we know that God is not a respecter of persons. I submit to you the exact opposite is true. And I suggest to the
49:01
Calvinists in the audience, you need to be prepared to give a strong response to this. Because the fact of the matter is, it is the
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Arminian, the Ogwinian, the Pattersonian, whatever terms you want to use, who believes
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God is a respecter of persons. You see, to be a respecter of persons means that you do something in light of what they themselves do.
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You give respect to their persons because of who they are, what they do, what they possess, something along those lines.
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And so it is the Arminian, it is the non -Calvinist, who says that God is the respecter of persons because he chooses, not unconditionally, but conditionally.
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He looks down the corridors of time. He sees who is going to choose him and chooses them.
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That means he's a respecter of persons. He sees that those who are going to believe, they're somehow better, they're somehow more sensitive, they're somehow more spiritual, but they are better than those who are not, and therefore he treats them on the basis of who they are.
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He's a respecter of persons. Only if you believe in unconditional election, that the choice is solely in the sovereignly, free, gracious will of God, can you say
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God is not a respecter of persons. Because his choice is not based upon anything they do or will do, but solely based in his will.
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And so people throw that out, and they just toss it out there, and it's rarely challenged.
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It needs to be challenged immediately by saying, no, just the opposite is true. You're not using the phrase respecter of persons properly.
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You're redefining it and defining it backwards, which is what Arminianism does with so much of the
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Bible. Romans 2 .11 says we should be respecter of persons. Acts 10 .34 and Proverbs 28 and verse 21.
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Someone said, well, what about that verse where it says, God will be merciful to whom he'll be merciful to, and harden whom he'll harden.
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Ah, you know, I'm looking at this. There's only six minutes left in this sermon, and part of that is an invitation.
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Six minutes left in this sermon, so let's take at least two minutes off the invitation. Four minutes, and just now, just in passing, we're going to hit
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Romans 9? That's going to be pretty brief, isn't it?
51:41
Well, listen to me. Another Calvinist, Dr. Louis Sperry Schaefer, said this. He said, the question today is not who will
51:49
God show mercy to. Dr. Schaefer said that 2 ,000 years ago, on the cross of Calvary, God chose to be merciful to an entire world, the whole world.
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And the question today is who will accept and receive that mercy.
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Think about that. God's mercy, utterly ineffective, empty, and futile, outside of the enablement of the rebel, sinner, the hater of God.
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Calling Schaefer a Calvinist is a little bit odd, but what do you expect after what we saw with Spurgeon?
52:31
But think about it, folks. What's just been said? God was merciful! And, of course,
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I believe in common grace. I believe God has been gracious to every single person who's ever existed, even to the non -elect, because if he were not, then he would destroy them instantly.
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But that's not the point. The point of the assertion being made is, God was merciful, but his mercy is powerless.
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It's powerless. It has no substance until man enables it.
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It's empty. No power, no accomplishment. That's what's being taught.
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They don't want to admit that. I think some of them realize if they were to ever debate these issues, they would come out clearly, and they don't want to come out clearly.
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And so they won't discuss it. You see, the question is not, God's already been merciful.
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He was merciful 2 ,000 years ago. So you see all of the fallacies and the inconsistencies of that teaching.
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So what I say to you as your pastor, Jeremiah 3 .15 says, I'll give you pastors to feed you with knowledge and understanding.
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Then Ephesians chapter 4, Paul said that God put in the church different people, they're evangelist prophets.
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Then he said pastors and teachers. And, dear friends, listen to me this morning.
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You want to talk about Calvinism, you come sit down in my office, and I'll show you. And again, keep in mind,
54:01
I wanted to be a, don't know why, I guess because of my friend. My friend in Arkansas who was a hyper -Calvinist told me here not long, several years ago because I've helped him in a revival center.
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Let me stop here because he's just bouncing all over the place. But he started to say something there.
54:20
He started to say, if you want to talk about Calvinism, come into my office.
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Really? Dr. Gwinn, will you come on the show? Will you discuss this with someone who actually knows
54:36
Calvinism and knows the Bible? I'll be glad to discuss this solely on the basis of Scripture.
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We'll go to every verse you have given us. And we'll go to a bunch of them that you didn't even touch.
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And it's the exegesis of the text of Scripture that will deal with this issue.
55:03
That's what we'll do. He immediately left there, went off to talk about a hyper -Calvinist, back to the old, let me tell you a story about one of these folks things.
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He's come out of that sort of thing. But he told me, he said, Brother Danny, I had a family the other day, and they asked me if they'd pray for their daughter or one of their children to be saved.
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He said, I looked at him and said, No, I'm not going to pray for your daughter to be saved. I said, Why don't you do that?
55:28
He said, Because I told them, I don't know if your daughter is going to be elected. I'm not going to pray. Excuse me?
55:36
If what that person was actually saying was that they were not going to pray that God was going to change his mind, that would be one thing, because then you'd be asking
55:45
God to try to be better than he is, and that's not the case. But we don't know who the elect are, Dr. O 'Gwen. We pray for everybody.
55:51
We preach the gospel to everybody. You pray that God will be merciful to your children. We all do that,
55:57
Dr. O 'Gwen. I'm sorry that you've run into people who are clueless. But something tells me that if you really spent the time that you said you spent, maybe you just had 50 really bad books.
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Could we provide you with 10 good ones? And could you spend the same amount of time dealing with some good ones now?
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I'd be glad to provide them for you, because I don't know where that stuff's coming from, but you're talking to someone who's prayed for his kids.
56:33
He also told me, he said, I can no longer go to my pulpit on Sunday morning. Now, all Calvinists don't go to that extreme, okay?
56:40
But he said, I can no longer go to my pulpit on Sunday morning and quote John 3 .16, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, that he was so believed in him, he should not perish but have everlasting life.
56:50
I said, why? He said, because the Bible says, Jacob, have I loved, and Esau, have
56:55
I hated. Excuse me, excuse me. I really question this.
57:00
I'm sorry. I have never met a Calvinist who would have ever said anything this utterly ridiculous in my entire life.
57:09
I'm sorry, I just haven't. I mean, I suppose there are really, really, really confused people out there, but you've got to be kidding me.
57:18
Are you seriously suggesting that Calvinists can't talk about John 3 .16? The whole point of being
57:28
Reformed is consistency in the interpretation of Scripture. Again, I'm sorry.
57:36
Very difficult to believe that this is true. But I tell my people, God hates somebody. That's mainly crazy.
57:45
But first there where it says, Jacob, have I loved, and Esau, have I hated? He wasn't talking about two individuals.
57:50
There he was talking about the two nations that would come out of the loins of those individuals. Now that he would love Israel, he elected
57:56
Israel, not to salvation, go to heaven or hell, but so that the Christ child could be born through that nation, you see.
58:03
But then he said that he hated Esau. It didn't mean that he hated Esau as an individual. It means that he hated the wicked works that would come from the nation of the
58:12
Edomites that would come from the loins of Esau. But they take it all out of context.
58:18
They arrest the Scriptures, and they've got a false man -made doctrine, which, by the way, bears the name of a man.
58:26
And there are many people. There are many people. Okay, there you go.
58:32
There is the standard, make Romans 9 only about nations. Let's not walk through this.
58:39
Let's just hope that our people will be so easily placated, will be so easily bullied, because, you know, the pastor really says this stuff is bad, so I better not think about it.
58:53
That's what we've got going on here. They'll be so easily bullied and placated, they'll never sit down with it and go,
59:01
Well, you know, if you try to make that fit all the way through the context, it doesn't work.
59:11
Pharaoh wasn't just a nation. It gets very personal. That doesn't seem to follow.
59:17
In fact, Romans 9, 5, and 6, the question he's actually addressing is why is all
59:24
Israel Israel? Why is there this choice even amongst the offspring of Abraham?
59:33
There's so much, but we just hope our people won't look at it. Hope they won't dig into the
59:39
Bible deep enough to find out that we've been just trying to placate them and keep them quiet and docile and happy in their ignorance.
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Southern Baptist life, even in our schools today, who have swallowed that false teaching, book, line, and secret.
59:56
Listen to this. We're going to close. Every person. See, that hinders soul winning, and that causes division that I mentioned.
01:00:05
It causes division. What causes division? The Bible causes division when people insist upon preaching their man -made traditions as if they're
01:00:18
Scripture and will not allow for the Word of God to speak. That's what causes division is refusal to believe and follow
01:00:32
Sola Scriptura. That's what causes division. Every person should be a soul winner, number four, because our position is urging us, number five, because responsibility is pressing us, number six, because the field is calling us, number seven, because Jesus has chosen us.
01:00:47
What has he chosen us to do? To go to heaven or hell? No. John 15, 16 says, I've chosen you that you should go and bring forth fruit.
01:00:56
That's why we're chosen. The choosing there was of the apostles, not of the choosing of John 6.
01:01:07
Let's try some context here. The fruit of a Christian, another Christian, right back to soul winning.
01:01:13
Our salvation experience is compelling us. The nature of the gospel is requiring us. Hell is requesting us.
01:01:19
Heaven is encouraging us. Joy is awaiting us. Wisdom is beckoning us. Time is challenging us.
01:01:26
Conscience is demanding us. And Jesus set the example for us.
01:01:32
And he said, Go ye therefore. He's all nations baptizing them in the name of the
01:01:40
Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
01:01:52
We're going to give a gospel invitation. Jesus died for you.
01:01:58
I don't get who you are. His death is not limited. Oh, come ye, all ye, the people of the world.
01:02:07
You read it over and over and over again throughout the Bible. Call and drink of the water of life freely.
01:02:14
Whosoever will, let him come. Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.
01:02:19
Now listen to this carefully. We're going to give the gospel invitation. Do you know who God elected?
01:02:25
When you read verses in the Bible that says, And as many, Acts 12, 47, 48, as many as were ordained to eternal life, believe.
01:02:36
Do you know what that means? Before the foundation of the world and the council halls of eternity,
01:02:41
God elected. Now listen carefully. He elected that just whosoever would believe on Jesus Christ.
01:02:52
The elect are the whosoever will. Isn't that wonderful? There you have a human tradition.
01:02:59
It's a human tradition that is upside down. It's a human tradition that violates the grammar of the text.
01:03:06
It violates the meaning of the words. It turns John 6 upside down and John 8 upside down. It is as upside down a tradition as you can get, but if you repeat it over and over and over again, and you put it in an emotional context, you can get almost anybody to believe it.
01:03:25
And as long as you preach a tradition with as much passion as you preach the truth, you might keep your people confused if they can't tell the difference.
01:03:35
That's what you just heard. You know who the whosoever wills are? The whosoever wills are the elect.
01:03:41
God said, He just said, whosoever will. Let him come and let him take of the water of life, freedom.
01:03:50
Once a person accepts Christ, from that moment on, he's predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
01:04:01
Now remember, we noted last time that when he went through Romans 8, he cut the golden chain of redemption up.
01:04:11
See, it's only predestination to be conformed to the image of Christ. Let's not worry about the justification, sanctification, glorification part, which is clearly salvation.
01:04:17
We don't want that. We just cut it apart, again, hoping that our listeners know so little about the
01:04:27
Bible that they'll actually believe us. Romans 8, 28, 29, and 30.
01:04:34
If you don't know Christ, He loves you. He died for you. He wants to save you.
01:04:41
And He wants you to come. We're going to ask the pianist, Norman, to come at this time. We're going to ask the minister of music to come.
01:04:48
We're going to give a gospel invitation. I'm going to ask you to stand. I'm going to ask Brother Bob to come.
01:04:53
Stand in front of the communion table. You come this morning, He'll direct you to a counselor who will take the
01:04:59
Word of God and show you right out of the Bible the Word of God, how you can come to know
01:05:04
Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. You come right now as we sing.
01:05:23
Salvation, rededication, church membership. Perhaps I didn't even touch on what
01:05:29
God may be dealing with you about. You step out right now. And you come. And you let
01:05:34
God have His way. Come right now as we sing. The altar.
01:05:54
Do business with God. Well, there you have it.
01:06:13
We had some folks in the channel that wanted to hear how you attempt to make a connection between an almost scripturalist sermon, which it really was, as far as actually dealing with any text in any accurate way, and this concept of the invitation.
01:06:33
And there it is. There it is. One of the worst. It's one of the worst because it's one of the most representative.
01:06:41
That's what's sad about it. It's one of the worst because it's so representative of what is being repeated over and over and over again.
01:07:00
Is it wrong for me to ask folks to please? Let's dialogue.
01:07:07
Let's go to the Word of God. Let's go to John 6. Can we walk through John 6 together?
01:07:13
Can we do it? No, you're a mean -spirited Calvinist. You shouldn't do that.
01:07:19
You're picking on people. I mean, come on. That was a pastor's sermon in his own church.
01:07:25
You never, ever, ever criticize that, see? I submit to you that that attitude has no respect for the people of God, the
01:07:32
Word of God, the truth of God. And as long as we keep that kind of attitude, the church is going to stay in the situation it's in.
01:07:43
If you respect the Word of God, if you respect the truth of God, and if you respect the people of God, you will not allow this kind of quote -unquote preaching to go unchallenged.
01:07:58
It's dishonest. That's all there is to it. And that's why
01:08:04
Radio Free Geneva exists. And that's why we went a little long.
01:08:10
But we did so, so that we could finish it all up. And unfortunately, there's more bad preaching to look at in the future.
01:08:21
But this Thursday on The Dividing Line, we'll be taking your calls. Maybe you've got some questions. We had somebody on the channel that certainly had some questions.
01:08:27
Be glad to go over those this Thursday afternoon at four o 'clock here in the
01:08:32
Mountain Standard time zone. And I know that change is coming. Some people said it already happened.
01:08:38
Some people said it's coming. The time stuff, eh, whatever. We don't play with our clocks here. But we'll see you Thursday afternoon here on The Dividing Line.
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God bless. We've been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.
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Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona 85069. You can also find us on the
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World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.