October 4, 2005

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line this morning, another edition of Radio Free Geneva as we finish examination of Jack Graham's anti -Calvinism sermon, a task, and a task it has been.
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We began last week at this time. You can see some of the reasons why you need to do this on our blog today.
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You will notice a citation of Dave Hunt. I believe I mentioned this and I had to do it rather briefly because I was burning very expensive internet access on the ship when this particular edition of Hunt's newsletter came out.
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But you may recall the article, actually it was a question from a reader and a response from Dave Hunt in regards to his view of the
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Calvinist gospel. And he torturously runs around, you know, does his misrepresentation thing and throws out various red herrings and canards and all the rest of that kind of stuff that Dave Hunt is famous for.
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And then he finishes with this, as I put it, outlandish statement.
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I chuckle only because we have documented that Dave Hunt, you know, the simple fact of the matter is he's now making money off of this kind of false teaching and this misrepresentation and he won't stand behind his words.
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He can't. He knows he can't. And he's hiding and he's cowardly on this issue. That's all there is to it.
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And he knows why. He knows he would lose any debate he did on this. And if you know you're going to lose, then why do you keep saying the things you're saying?
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I don't know. But anyways, but the funny thing is, it's his antinomianism.
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I mean, Dave Hunt's theology is really messed up. It's amazing that he's allowed to teach almost any place at all because his theology is such a mishmash of all sorts of different things.
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And he holds to the Wilkin antinomianism.
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And that's where you get this idea, well, as long as you believed the true gospel before you became a
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Calvinist, then you can't be lost. And if you look on the Bree and Call website now, you'll see that Calvinism is right below.
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Why would Calvinism be below Catholicism? Maybe it's right above it.
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Anyway, you know, they're both heresies. They're both false gospels. And you know, he's joined the
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Crusade. And he's out there repeating, of course, Roman Catholic arguments against Calvinism.
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But he doesn't seem to recognize that. Or if he does, he doesn't care one way or the other. So you can see it right in what he states there.
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You know, John 5, 24, as long as you believe right once, then you can believe a false gospel after that.
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And you'll still be saved. Whether it's Calvinism, I would, how about Catholicism, Dave? How about Mormonism?
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How about any of those things? Amazing stuff. That's why we have to deal with this kind of argumentation, even though, as normal, it is argumentation that is far below anything that's overly meaningful, as far as having any kind of substance to it.
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But it is what's out there. It's sort of like listening to a lot of the political rhetoric these days.
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Most of what you hear was a waste of the breath it took to say it anyways. But we continue on with Jack Graham, for those of you who were not here last week, did not hear the last two programs.
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This was a sermon delivered recently at a 24 ,000 -member Southern Baptist Church.
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I keep forgetting to look up, because I know that these statistics are online, where I could find out how many people actually attend on a regular basis.
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And if I recall correctly, there was some fascinating information. Maybe I can look it up while we're listening here.
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In regards to how many people at this particular church have to be baptized before you get a single person attending regularly.
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It's an outrageous number, and that says a lot about what's going on in various sundry places, shall we say, in evangelicalism.
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We only have about four minutes of the sermon left to listen to, though. So for those of you who've just been itching to defend what
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Dr. Graham has been saying, I understand many people have been dropping emails.
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As I mentioned last week, you was invited to participate in our 2006 debate prior to the cruise in Tampa, and declined very, very quickly.
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And other invitations are going out to other folks. We will see what happens with all of that.
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But anyhow, we continue with this sermon. We are about 18 minutes into it. Let me just back it up here a few seconds, so we get a little bit of context as we roll in here.
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In fact, I'm going to back it up about half a minute, just so we can get some context here as we continue on.
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And we are playing something here. You won't find that, because there isn't.
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No. Listen to Hebrews chapter two in verse nine. That he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man, he tasted death, he died for all.
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Isaiah 53 and verse six says, All we like sheep have gone astray. Every one of us had turned into our own way.
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But the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. No wonder the prophet
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Isaiah would later announce, Ho, everyone who thirsts, come and buy and eat and drink from the water of life.
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There's one final reason I reject this hyper view of grace, and that is the commission to his church.
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First John 4, 4 says Jesus is the savior of the world. Jesus said, Go into all the world.
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A .L .L. There it is again. Go into all the world and preach the gospel. Now, of course, we responded to the beginning of that Hebrews and things like that last week.
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Go into all the world. Well, of course, the quote unquote hyper view of grace called
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Calvinism that he never bothers to even identify. Says exactly that, and in fact, those early missionaries were were
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Calvinists in the modern period anyways, and they go into all the world because they believe that God has his people in all the world.
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And hence, when you preach the gospel in all the world, God will honor the proclamation of that gospel. There is nothing in any way, shape or form that is relevant to the debate itself to emphasize the term all there other than to highlight the fact that he has misused the term all and has not even begun to interact with the meaning of the term where it appears elsewhere in his previous comments.
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That would be about the only reason why he'd repeat it. But obviously, Calvinists believe the command to go to all the standard canard is, of course, that, well, if God has determined who he's going to save, then it doesn't matter what we do.
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And of course, the standard response is that God has ordained the ends as well as the means. He calls us to do this.
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He uses us. It is our great privilege if we obey him and we honor him. We will do what he says to do in that context and that God uses us in that way.
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And it would be nice if it seems very obvious to me, very, very clear to me that not a single reformed work was even even looked at in the preparation of the sermon.
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This is, as as I've pointed out before, warmed over Dave Hunt and Adrian Rogers. That's all it is, even down to the utilization of phraseology and terminology and the order of things from Hunt.
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And and we saw the same thing with Rogers. And that's all it is. It's just let's borrow this from somebody else.
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Maybe he was seeing some, quote unquote, Calvinism coming into especially the Bible studies that happens when you study the
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Bible. People read John six. They read John 10. They read Romans eight and nine.
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They read Second Timothy chapter one. There's this stuff about predestination election in there. And it's pretty clear about what it's talking about.
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And so maybe he heard about some of this coming into the fellowship there and the tradition defense mechanism kicked in.
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And you go and you get some of Adrian Rogers sermons and you pick up Dave Hunt's book and you use that as the outline and you go out and and do this.
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And that's what ends up happening, sadly. But it's very clear that that there was no thought.
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You know, I wonder what the Calvinists think about this. I wonder I wonder if Calvinists have ever heard these objections before.
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Maybe if I'm really concerned about this, that I'll want to do the best job I can. And so maybe
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I should listen to what somebody else has to say and see how they respond to this and see if they can give a biblical response.
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Well, anyway. If God would only save the elect, if God is going to do it with us or without us, why should we go?
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And there we go. Now, I know the answer would be, well, because he told us to go and we're just keeping his commandment.
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And yet how foolish it would be to go. If in God's purpose and God's plan, everything is already predestined, that's why in 19th century
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England, 18th century England, because this kind of theology is spread throughout the congregation there, there were no mission programs, there was no real evangelism going on.
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Well, we're sorry, Charles Hatton Spurgeon, you were just dismissed and we're sorry that the first people that went out there were that happened to be
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Calvinists. But we just need to rewrite history here. We just need to completely turn history on its head and and blame
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Calvinism for that. Hyper -Calvinism, maybe you could get there. But the problem is, of course, that Jack Graham doesn't know the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism because he doesn't care to get this stuff accurate, to get it right the first time around.
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And so, wow. Again, just just absolutely amazing.
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While there are rare exceptions, and I I acknowledge exceptions to what
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I'm about to say, while there are rare exceptions, in great part, this kind of hyper -theology of Calvinism is the death and it's the missions and evangelism.
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Ah, it snuck out. I just happened to be I popped open the
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Founders blog while we were listening to this. And there is Tom Askell responded to this sermon.
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And there is a direct quotation of this right in front of me. It just sort of happens that it just was right where I was looking.
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And Tom Askell responded, well, I for one would like to know of one exception. I cannot think of a single person in history who has believed what
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Jack Graham has described, who did not also completely reject evangelism missions. But then again, I cannot think of anyone in history who actually believe what
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Jack Graham has described. Just who does he think is an exception? Unless, of course, as seems obvious, he is simply misrepresenting
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Calvinism by constructing a straw man and then destroying it. This kind of display of theological ignorance is very sad.
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Jack Graham titled the sermon The Truth About Grace. At best, this is false advertising.
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This is, by the way, if you'd like to go look at this, this is right at the end of August, August 28th and 31st is
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Tom Askell's response to the same sermon. If you'd like to take a look at it on the Founders Ministries blog, and it would be well worth your taking the time to take a look at it because it would be, you know, just another voice out there saying the same things, except this time in the context of,
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I just saw a picture on this, it's pretty wild, in the context of a written response on the blog and from someone other than just myself here.
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Here's, I think this, yeah, here it is. Okay. I am pretty certain,
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I'm about 95 % certain that these numbers, by the way, are reflecting
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Prestonwood Baptist Church. And if not,
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A, I apologize, but I'm pretty certain that this is Prestonwood and B, it would be very representative of Prestonwood.
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Well, you know what, I'm just looking at this and it's saying 29 ,000, that'd be even larger. So, if you look at the blog entry for August 21st, fascinating thing because this just represents very much the
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Southern Mass Convention Day. Here's a church, they didn't give you the name here, so not so much to protect the innocent, but protect the guilty.
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2001 had 27 ,905 members, 27 ,9. 21 ,555 of them actually lived somewhere nearby.
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They had, that means 21 ,555 resident members, that means, good night, what is that, 8 ,350 non -resident members.
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What's a non -resident member? That's somebody who's on another planet, they've already left, they died and they haven't, you know, haven't faxed in their membership release form from heaven or something.
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982 baptisms, 683 other additions, that's 2001, so you've got, yeah, just passing through.
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So, you've got 21 ,5 resident members, primary worship attendants, 9 ,000, 9 ,035.
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2002, that was 28 ,325, 801 baptisms, 9 ,186 primary worship.
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2003, they're at 28 ,837 members, 21 ,987 resident members, almost 22 ,000 resident members, and maybe that's the, what they're counting, maybe this is
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Preston Wood and this is just counting the actual people who are actually somewhere within Texas somewhere.
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774 baptisms and a drop to 8828 primary worship attendants. In 2004, 22 ,189 resident members, 774 baptisms, 667 other additions, and I can guarantee you if they had 666, they would have found somebody somewhere to add in there.
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And the primary worship attendants, 9 ,168 in primary worship attendance.
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So, if you look at 2001 to 2004, you've gone from 9 ,035 to 9 ,168, okay?
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When you add up all the baptisms and additions, 6 ,051 people joined the church from 2001 to 2004.
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The primary worship attendants increased, 6 ,000 additions, the primary worship attendants increased by 133.
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The resident membership increased by only a total of 634 during that period of time.
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But you baptized 6 ,051 people. So, as the blog points out, is this the kind of evangelism they want to propagate in the
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Southern Baptist Convention? The kind that has to baptize five people to increase a church's membership by one resident member four years later, or that has to baptize 25 people to gain one new worshiper four years later?
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Twenty -five to get one. Wow. Amazing.
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Just unbelievable. You know, the
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Southern Baptist Convention indicates there are 16 ,287 ,494 members in Southern Baptist churches.
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Sixteen, let's just make it easy, 16 .3 million
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Southern Baptists, right? How many Southern Baptist churches are there? How many could be found on any one
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Sunday morning in Southern Baptist churches? That's what I'd like to see. That's what
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I'd like to see. If this very large church is any indication, let me do a quick...
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Isn't the calculator on a computer a wonderful thing? You can get to it so quickly.
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Let me figure something out here. If that church is representative, if we have 16 .2
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million times that amount of attendance, we're looking at only five million on any given
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Sunday attending. Five million in primary worship attendance.
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And what portion of them go to Sunday school? What, about? I'm trying to remember when
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I was in a large Southern Baptist church. Well, what, maybe two thirds at best. So you might have 3 .5
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million people getting exposed to the in -depth
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Bible study teaching of Southern Baptist churches. Oh my goodness.
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I think that does help to explain why this kind of sermon could have been preached. I really, really do.
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Wow. Well, anyway, we continue on here. It is.
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Remember when Jesus told a story about a king who had a banquet and he invited all of his friends, those closest to him.
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He invited all the bigwigs of the city to come, sent out the invitation, and then they all began to make excuses and nobody wanted to come.
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Jesus said, then the king said to his servants, go out into the highways and into the hedges, go into the streets and the lanes, go wherever the people are.
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Find the blind, find the lame, find the sick, find the hurting, find the helpless, find the outcasts, go out there where people are and compel them to come in.
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Compel? Compel? They have to come in of their own free will. Right?
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Is that really what the parable is about, Dr. Graham? I thought this had to do with the
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Jews rejecting the message of Christ and now the king is sending...
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Could we have a little context, please? Just a little context, just a small amount somewhere so we can say that we're actually dealing with the
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Bible at all. Invite them in, that my house may be full.
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Was he talking about the church house? No, the heavenly house. And God has commissioned his people because this is the invitation of the gospel, come one, come all.
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And just in case we didn't get it earlier, in the last chapter of the Bible, the last invitation of God's word is given in Revelation chapter 22 and verse 17.
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And I'm going to close with this. Revelation 22 and verse 17, and the spirit and the bride say, come and let him who hears come and let him who thirsts come for...
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All true. Who thirsts? Who has ears to hear? Who will come?
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All that the father gives me will come to me and the one coming to me,
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I will never cast out. No one has the ability to come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I'll raise him up.
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Isn't it the same author, Dr. Graham, who wrote Revelation, who wrote
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John 6? Same guy, right? So maybe we might want to look at what he said before he wrote
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Revelation, possibly, maybe, a little bit of context there.
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Whoever desires, let him take of the water of life. Yes. Whoever desires.
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So does that mean you're going to be walking around in the graveyard, offering the water of life to dead people?
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Dead people don't desire the water of life. The enemies of God do not desire to submit to him.
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The natural man does not receive the things of spirit of God, their foolishness to him. The cross is a scandal on foolishness.
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Hello. Let's read the whole Bible, shall we? Let's allow it to speak to all of this, shall we?
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It's so easy to raise your voice and do the preacher thing.
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But if you're going to do it, at least do it with truth. Whosoever will may come. So we go in Jesus name saying, come one, come all that Jesus loves you, that he died on the cross for you, that he rose again, and that you can have a life that is abundant and a life that is eternal if you will place your faith and trust in Jesus personally.
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Whosoever will may come. Whosoever heareth, shout, shout the sound.
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Spread the blessed tidings all the world around. Tell the joyful news wherever man is found.
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Whosoever will may come. Whosoever will may come. Obviously, assumption evidently being that whosoever somehow has something to do against Calvinism.
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And if someone had read a single book on the subject, they would have understood that it has nothing to do with Calvinism because it's not a matter of all the ones believing or whosoever, as if that means, well, there's no election.
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It is who will come, who's going to do these things, who knows of their hunger, who knows their thirst, who knows their need.
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Dead enemies of God or those who have been quickened and enlightened by the spirit of God.
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That's the question, of course. And if you've been waiting for an in -depth interaction with that from Dr.
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Graham, you're not going to get that in this particular sermon because there's only like two minutes left. Whosoever will may come, send the proclamation over veil and hill.
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It is a loving father who calls the wanderer home. Whosoever will may come.
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And that is why at Prestonwood, we are always giving the invitation and inviting people, saying whosoever will may come, saying come to the
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Savior, the spirit and the bride says come, drink of the water of life.
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Yes, the grace of God has appeared to all, and yes, the grace of God has appeared to you.
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I don't know how many times you can miss cite Titus chapter two in one sermon, but it's a new record.
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We should sit down and count them. How many times? How many times can you miss cite a passage in one sermon?
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This one may set the record. I don't know. It is the grace that saves, brings salvation, not make salvation a possibility, brings its saving grace.
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That's why it teaches us to deny ungodliness. But we just keep getting it massacred that way over and over and over again.
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So with heads bowed and eyes closed, I want to invite you to receive this grace of Jesus Christ, to trust in his salvation by praying a prayer like this.
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You're not here by accident. You're not here by chance. Well, they're not. Well, back up the truck.
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See, as soon as you start, that's just. So they're not there by accident.
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So God sovereignly overrode their will to get them there. Is that is that what he did?
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I know for most people today, oh, you're being picky, you don't need to be consistent.
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You don't need to worry about whether what you're saying now is consistent with what you said before.
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And you know what? That's just not true. You don't honor
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God by being inconsistent. You don't honor God by saying yes and no at the same time about the same thing.
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That's not how you do it. I'm not going to no reason to listen to the rest of the invitation.
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We've all heard that one many, many times before. So eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one.
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We haven't you know, if you'd like to if you'd like to defend this, if you'd like to say, hey,
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I think it's great that you have to baptize 25 people to get one person attending. That's what we all need to be doing that.
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And I think that Calvinism is the reason for all sorts of terrible, horrible, nasty things.
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I agree with Dave Hunt. I agree with Jack Graham. I agree with all these people that are out there ranting and raving away against Calvinism.
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And I agree that they shouldn't debate this issue. They should not actually debate this issue. They should just simply engage in these monologues.
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And it doesn't matter if they accurately represent what they're saying. They just that's that's their right. That's they need to do. If you'd like to defend that.
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I'm not really up there. There's a phone that there's a line, whether that's someone going to defend that or not,
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I don't know. Eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one. We're going to actually take a break this week while the phone lines explode.
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And then we're right back. It's all righteousness.
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A brave caller at the moment. I know that he's not. I don't think he's going to be seeking to defend that.
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But hey, you know what? The phone lines are available. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.
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Let's go ahead and talk with Chris in Indiana. Hi, Chris. Hi, James. How are you doing? Fine. It's been a while since I've spoke to you, and it's always a pleasure to get to speak to you.
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I just wanted to say on your web site, that I went ahead and threw the
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Calvinist scadfly letter to Dave Hunt and ask him, and I'm sure
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I probably won't get a response, but I ask him if even if a person confesses Jesus as Lord and he understands that Christ died for his sins and they receive him as Savior and believe in the physical resurrection and it's called on Christ to save him.
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If though, if even believing all that, if he still thinks that somehow
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God chose him beforehand and that he irresistibly drew him to himself, that somehow he's going to end up in the lake of fire.
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And you know what? I really ask him, and this sounds sarcastic and I guess maybe in a way it's meant to be, but I ask him, what love is this,
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Dave? You know, because I mean, isn't that really what he's, you know, his whole problem has been with the idea of Calvinism?
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And, you know, he's really going too far. And, you know, I told him, you know, I used to enjoy getting the
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Berean Call newsletter. He always used to have some interesting stuff to say. And but anymore,
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I mean, it's causing me this whole thing, his personal animosity is causing me to lose respect for him.
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Well, yeah, I mean, it is clearly personal. It's become a crusade, unfortunately.
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And there is a shrillness to it that sadly is very, very obvious.
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And this is a good illustration, Chris, of why people have to be involved in sound local
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New Testament churches, because there really isn't anyone that I know of. Who can go to Dave Hunt and say,
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Dave, dude, you've completely missed the boat here. You need to back off and you need to re -evaluate what you're saying.
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There isn't anyone who can do that. That's and that's not the way it's supposed to work. And by the way, if this gives you an indication, we should have been and I certainly was and I've mentioned this many, many years ago, but we should have been looking very carefully, especially at the uses of quotations by Dave Hunt in all of his material.
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For example, the Godmakers materials that he was involved with, I had two years ago publicly repudiate that kind of material because it was inaccurate in its representation of the
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LDS. The problem is there are a lot of folks who go, well, who cares if he's misrepresenting the
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Mormons, if he's getting most of it right? And now, you know, and that's why
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I could never recommend any of his stuff on Roman Catholicism, because he did the same thing. Roman Catholic apologists do not respect
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Dave Hunt on that level because he does the same thing with quotations and citations. And so now we see it being done against us.
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And it's like, oh, wait, wait, wait. Well, this is nothing new. Dave sees on a piece of paper, in a book, on a page what his tradition and what his position allows him to see and nothing more.
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And that's been the case from the very start. And so, you know, at least some of us have been consistent in saying, wait a minute, this stuff is, whoa, careful.
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And in fact, the last time I was in, well, it wasn't the last time I was in St. Louis, but the last time that he and I spoke at the same gathering, let's put it that way,
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I think it was one of the last two times. Anyways, he spoke on some stuff going on at Willow Creek.
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Well, OK, there's lots of stuff at Willow Creek that you can you can criticize. But afterwards, I had people come up who had traveled there from Willow Creek and they said, no, no, wait a minute.
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We were there when what he was just talking about took place. And what he didn't say was this, this and this.
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And so it's like, yep, yep, yep, yep. There's there's some real consistency here, sadly, on Mr.
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Hunt's part in being a bad researcher in the sense of allowing his traditions to determine what he's going to see on a page and what he won't.
36:07
And for Dave, of course, he says he has no traditions and therefore it's not really overly relevant.
36:13
But that's what happens when you think you don't have any traditions and they in fact have you under their complete and total control.
36:19
You know, that's too bad. I wanted to mention one other thing that I found quite interesting, especially since it only happened like a couple of days after I first heard you speak of this man,
36:29
Jack Graham, on The Dividing Line. I happen to be watching a program on television.
36:35
Unfortunately, it's on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Did you just did you wait a minute?
36:41
Did you just accidentally hit that button or? You know, my wife gets mad at me for even turning it on because she says all
36:49
I want to do is pick it apart. There you go. I told her, I said, well, you know, there's an awful lot to pick apart. But I try to watch what
36:54
I think is sound and good. Anyway, there was a program on Life Outreach International.
37:00
James Robison, yes, yes, a preacher for a long time and who actually I've always thought kind of highly of.
37:06
He's done a lot of good mission work overseas and and usually he's been pretty sound. But nevertheless, evidently down in Dallas just here recently, there was something called a global day of prayer at a very large arena down there.
37:21
And they have small arenas in Dallas. No, I don't think so. But this man,
37:27
Jack Graham, was among some other people at Tony Evans, Rick Warren and and James Robison were all there and they all spoke.
37:35
And believe it or not, all these preachers were there speaking about being unified and how the body of Christ needed to come together and we need to break down denominational walls and such.
37:46
And Jack Graham was a man that was calling for this. And, you know, I heard this, but I just listened to this slamming of reformed theology on your broadcast on the dividing line.
37:57
And I thought, now, wait a minute, you know, would we fit in here holding to what we believe after just hearing what he preached at his own church at this call for unity?
38:06
And, you know, it really just goes to show you that truth gets sacrificed oftentimes for this call to unity.
38:14
And after hearing this on the dividing line, you know, this anti -Calvinism by Dr.
38:20
Graham, I don't think that we would would fit in at all. And, you know, it's funny. James Robison came on after he showed some of the clips and he said, now, you know, he says, if you want to take your pet peeve and use it to bludgeon somebody like a theological club, he said, we will not support you.
38:37
And I thought, you know, there's something missing here. Not everybody's hearing what's being said.
38:42
And, you know, you can't listen to every sermon everywhere. I understand that. But you ought to at least know what people believe.
38:48
At least some have some knowledge of that. Yeah, especially if you're going to stand in front of thousands of people and say that what they believe is wrong, it would be somewhat helpful if you have an idea of what it is they're saying.
38:59
But, you know, this unity call, you know, it always gets to certain people.
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You know, all you got to do is quote from John chapter 17. And yet when you read John chapter 17, you know,
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Jesus does speak about his followers being one, even as he is in the father and the father is in he.
39:19
And there is this supernatural unity that exists amongst the people of God, which I would point out, I believe does exist.
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It's not just something that's future, but it in fact goes to Paul's teaching that we've all been baptized into one body.
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We all partake of one spirit. But the other emphasis of John 17 is normally left out.
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And that is sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. This idea of truth being definitional of what of the only kind of truth that Christians can be unified upon.
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And what happens when you try to create a unity like this is you have to go for you remember back in junior high and high school, we learned about the least common denominator.
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What is what's what's the the one thing that we all can agree on? And ecumenism in general, and normally people think of ecumenism as only with Roman Catholicism, but it's really not.
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It's much broader than that. And the ecumenical spirit automatically breeds a disrespect for any distrust of dogmatic clarity and doctrinal certainty.
40:26
Now, that's normally because the people they're arguing against can very clearly. There's no one has ever, ever said that there is no one who is unloving, that there is no one who has used doctrinal formulations as a club to beat somebody else over the head with.
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I mean, that does take place. All of us have experienced that in one way or another.
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But that doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater. It doesn't mean you disrespect truth. And you can't claim to be accurately representing
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John chapter 17 if you don't allow both of those emphases to be there because you end up creating a unity that mutes the gospel.
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And I remember sitting in the control room with Hank Hanegraaff and Tim Staples many years ago.
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This is 1996 now, nine years ago when we did this program.
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And I forget if it was two or three hours the first time that Staples and I were on. And toward the end of the hour, there was some,
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I guess I would call it lack of clarity as to the relationship we should have with Roman Catholicism. And I tried to illustrate this by saying to Tim, now,
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Tim, let's say you and I were standing outside an abortion clinic and someone came walking up to us as we are together protesting the great crime in our nation of the murder of unborn children.
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And they said to both of us at the same time, what must I do to be saved? Would you agree with me,
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Tim, that we would respond to that question in fundamentally contradictory ways?
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And at least, thankfully, he was willing to say, yes, we would. We would answer that differently.
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So the gospel message that we're proclaiming is a different message, and that becomes what determines the level of, quote unquote, unity we can have in regards to anything else.
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And that's what seems to be being lost today is amongst evangelicals who are supposed to be resisting the encroachment of skepticism and higher liberal views of scripture that results in you not having any idea what the gospel is.
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Still, you have this postmodernistic, I'm willing to let you define the gospel the way you want to define the gospel and et cetera, et cetera.
42:53
So it doesn't matter whether it's the liberals or it's evangelicals, the number of the group of people within what's called evangelicalism.
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And I swore off I was going to stop using that because if what happened after the Pope's death is any indication of what evangelicalism is, we can just pack it in.
43:10
But within allegedly conservative, quote unquote, biblical Christianity, the number of people who actually believe that the
43:17
Bible is clear enough to explain to us what the gospel is so we can proclaim with power and who accept everything the
43:27
Bible has to say about that, which includes the things that offends a natural man in regards to the sovereignty of God, is a very small number today.
43:36
It is a small number in comparison to those who either don't believe the Bible is clear enough to do it, or they may believe the
43:43
Bible is clear enough, but they've been infected by this post -modernistic spirit that says, you know, we need to allow for all this variation and all these different perspectives and you're on your path and I'm on my path, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
43:55
And so that's what we're facing. And it's very easy to become discouraged in the midst of that.
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But it's far better to recognize that God has called us for such time as this and we need to need to press on.
44:09
James, thanks. Thanks so much for standing on the rock. And, you know,
44:15
I know that I'm sure a man of your caliber gets frustrated often with people that don't have the knowledge and do misrepresent things, say things that aren't true, aren't historical, and misrepresent especially what we, as you know, believing in Reformed soteriology, believe.
44:36
I'm thankful for you. OK, thank you very much. I appreciate those encouraging words. And God bless you out there in Indiana.
44:44
And we will be, I think, I was out in Chicago and I know I'm heading back that direction.
44:49
I think, by the way, I'm sorry I dropped in there, going to be in somewhere near Kansas City in April, late
44:59
April, for a debate on Calvinism. Did I mention this? I apologize if I didn't. Remember, where'd it go?
45:07
This is where special effects would come in. Remember the five points of Calvinism, Dr. Davis? Why do not believe in five points of Calvinism?
45:14
I'm looking for the thingamabobby here, but I actually cleaned my desk, which is a somewhat surprising thing. Oh, I think that's it right here.
45:22
Oh, no, that's an empty one. All DVD cases look the same from the side. Anyway, Dr.
45:29
Davis, we played some sections of his sermon, whereas, as I point out, here's a guy who can actually preach and speak.
45:37
And he's he's going after, you know, using
45:42
Dave Hunt's materials. He was the first one we did. And in fact, that just reminded me, I just realized these folks wrote me a wrote me an email.
45:48
And I think I completely spaced responding to it. If you write me emails, by the way, and I don't respond to it like within and you know that I'm around and I don't respond to it within like a week or so, you're going to need to send it again, because this this is how email works when you don't have people who answer your emails for you.
46:10
And at that, I don't even see the vast majority of let's let's put it that way. These are the ones who these are the ones that actually get into my email box.
46:19
If it comes in with a bunch of other ones of other emails, some of which need to be responded to.
46:29
It will get blown away. It will get scrolled back. I'm sitting here scrolling back right now going, oh,
46:35
I want to say something to him. Oh, there's that one there. And didn't get OK, here it is. Nine thirty.
46:40
So what's today? Ten four. So I'm about five days behind on this one. So I'm just going to hit respond right there.
46:46
And that way I will get to it today. If you don't hear from me at that point, you need to resend it. Now, if you send stuff through the website, that does not mean it's going to get to me.
46:56
That does not mean it's going to end up in my email box. Thankfully, the guy on the other side of the wall looks through that stuff.
47:03
And yeah, thanks. And those who have my personal email address, please do not put it on your blogs.
47:09
Thank you very much. That would start a blog war. And then it would also create other issues that you might not really enjoy.
47:20
Like what I just did, which is in the channel. And you aren't seeing that if you're not there. So it doesn't really matter. Anyways, there is going to be a debate.
47:29
Remember what happened was I mentioned when Davis was on that I had given his name, the folks back at the high school that was trying to arrange the debate.
47:38
They had done creationism for two years. They wanted to Calvinism, Arminianism. And I said that the folks are putting this together. A fellow by the name of Tim Hutchinson could write a book about all of the stuff that he went through trying to find an
47:50
Arminian who would actually defend Arminianism. And he contacted all the all these people that are so brave and they stand behind their pulpits.
47:58
It's going to be a monologue and they will not do it. And what eventually happened was the last guy that he contacts,
48:08
Dr. Davis. Dr. Davis won't do it. And I thought he'd be great. He's a great speaker. He speaks, I would think in a debate format, he'd do real well because he speaks quickly.
48:16
He speaks clearly. I mean that in a complimentary fashion. I thought he'd be great, but he won't.
48:24
But there's an attorney in his church that will. So we tried
48:30
Tim LaHaye and we tried Geisler and we tried Hunt and we tried all these people.
48:36
Ergin Kainer, Liberty University, you know, supposed to be a really wonderful, neat guy, great speaker, but rips on Calvinism, but won't interact on it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
48:45
Tried all these people. And finally, we got an attorney at this church and we're going to be debating Calvinism.
48:51
I think it's April 22nd, if I recall correctly. In is it was it Sedalia? I'll.
48:58
Mm hmm. Yep, Sedalia, Sedalia.
49:03
And actually, it's April 21st, 7 p .m. It's Friday. And so those of you in that area, that's going to be coming up.
49:12
I know April of next year sounds like a long, long time from now, but actually it's amazing how it is.
49:18
OK, let's talk with Andy in Delaware. Hi, Andy. Hi, Dr.
49:24
White. Yes, sir. It's a real pleasure to talk to you. I got hooked up on you with a
49:29
King James only controversy book. I was suffering at the old church I was at, but you set me free.
49:37
Hey, there you go. I mean, it's really. I've had a lot of people say that it's been been amazing books been out since ninety five now.
49:44
So it's a decade old. So, yeah, I've never even really owned the King James Bible. And also I'm at a church where you better find one quick.
49:51
Yeah. And as an aside, and I finally got my
49:56
NIV back, I started reading John six. I think I might have heard you talk about it. It was just like a hammer hitting, you know, like speaking to me so much more.
50:03
So I really appreciate the. Well, that's great. Great defense you gave on that. Yes, sir. Question I had.
50:11
After listening, I've been listening to you for a long time now, and I kind of came across the passage in Revelation 20 versus 11 through 15, where they talk about.
50:21
The great white throne judgment and then the books being opened and the book of life, and I guess
50:27
I never really thought about it, but. You know, I think most Christians would probably think those books are open now and being filled with what we're doing and the book of life isn't still being written, but from a reformed perspective, would it be well true that before time and things that the whole books were written in the whole book of life was written?
50:53
Yeah, there's one of the many, many things on my to do list is a rather full study of the terms of the of the books, because there's a bunch of them appear in scripture.
51:05
And to try to create a single theology of the books, shall we say, would be somewhat challenging and quite useful as well.
51:14
As far as Revelation 20 goes, the thing to remember here is that there are two sets or shall we say one set and then a single book, which are open.
51:25
The dead are judged, but was written in the books according to what they had done. So those books are are are a recording of the deeds of individuals upon which they are judged.
51:38
And notice that what the result of that is verse 15. And if anyone's name was not found in the book of life, he is thrown in the lake of fire.
51:47
So possibly part of the judgment of the sets of books or that is the the the volumes that record the events of mankind, obviously books being used somewhat poetically there.
51:58
I mean, I don't necessarily mean it's going to be a binding on it. That's like what we have or something like that. This is a recording of of our actions, our deeds, our thoughts, so on, so forth.
52:06
And and if anyone's name they're judged by those things. But if anyone's name is not found in the book of life, he's still in the lake of fire.
52:13
So everyone who's judged by that does not obtain salvation by that.
52:19
The only means of salvation is having one's name written in the book of life. And it becomes a question of how do you have your name written in the book of life?
52:27
Now, could there be an element there of the judgment that Jesus talks about where he says it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for Chorazin and Bethsaida?
52:37
Is that part of the judgment out of the books that is for the severity of judgment?
52:44
That's a good question. I'm not a thousand percent certain on all of that. I'm not sure that John's trying to communicate all of that.
52:51
But what's very clear is the only one that is indicative of whether the person is actually going to enter into eternal life is that is that book of life and the actions of individuals.
53:06
And I would also, by the way, I know that there are people who disagree with this, but I don't believe that believers themselves,
53:11
I don't believe the elect, are a part of this process. I know it says that they had the great and small, but they've already entered into judgment.
53:18
They've already been judged, John chapter five, in Jesus Christ. And this I see as as a different judgment than what we would associate with the believers judgment in regards to the seat of Christ and so on and so forth.
53:33
So so it's not that it's not the dead in Christ being judged. No, I don't know who are not in the book of life anyway.
53:41
Right. Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, that's that's how I'd understand that. Now, there are other questions as to what it means to have one's name written, how it's written in the book of life or what is this blotting out stuff?
53:53
That's one of the things is one of the main reasons that I've got that on the on the list. Unfortunately, the longer the list gets, the more depressed
54:02
I get that I'll never get around to any of it. Yeah, I guess with the book of life, though, with reform perspective, basically the names that are in there were put in there before the foundations of the earth.
54:16
Yeah. Yeah, I would I would agree that that would be the understanding if we are looking at that as being exactly with and equal to the number of the elect over against any other perspective that might be offered.
54:28
That's I'm not even familiar with all all the perspectives that have been offered as to the nature of the book of life.
54:33
And, you know, is it based just on confession and so on and so forth? But it doesn't sound like that. It is it would sound to me like there would be a direct connection between the two, at least in Revelation chapter 20.
54:42
So great. All right, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you. God bless. Bye bye. Let's sneak one last one in here and talk with with Brother John.
54:51
Hello, Brother John. Hello, Brother James. How are you doing today? Very good. Thank you. Hey, you know, I'm getting ready to go back to go back to the
54:59
UK in February. February, the worst time possible. Well, I know that, but I'm looking forward to it.
55:05
It's going to be nice and cold and I'm looking forward. I can bring all my leather jackets and I've got I got a
55:10
McGregor tartan scarf that I wear. Yes, yes.
55:16
Won't that be nice? Oh, you'll need it. I will, especially when I go up north.
55:21
I'm going to go into Inverness and Glasgow, Bonny Scotland, Bonny Scotland. I what can
55:26
I do for you, sir? Very quick question. I was talking about reformed stuff as normal.
55:32
You were taking the ship in that direction was Geneva. And this lady asked me a question.
55:39
She actually wrote it down about Mark chapter three and Mark chapter six. And I thought it'd be one that would be easy for you.
55:47
It's Mark three five. Jesus was looking around at those Pharisees who were having their usual issues and he looked around at them in anger.
55:57
And it says grieved at their hardness of heart. Right. That was the first quotation.
56:03
The second one was from Mark six, where he wandered in verse six. He wandered out there and belief marveled.
56:10
Yes. Yeah. Marveled or wandered. And the question was, look, he seems surprised here.
56:17
Why? If Calvinism is true, why would Jesus be wandering at the unbelief and the lack of response to what he was saying, what he was doing?
56:29
Well, you know, in both situations, I I really appreciate the fact that you're dealing with these particular individuals who it's a little bit like the unpardonable sin.
56:43
There's a there's a particular context in which you're dealing with the unpardonable sin, and that is with people who possess the word of God and in fact had access to the word of God on a level that other people did not in any way, shape or form have.
56:59
And this is the same situation here. You I think that the sinless son of God would be very much like the psalmist in Psalm 119 when it says that the psalmist cried rivers of tears when he saw how people dealt with and trampled underfoot the law of God.
57:19
And I know that that I have to pray that I don't become jaded when dealing with people like like the sermon today and and with things like that, people who should know so much better than they do.
57:30
And yet, because of their tradition or in the in the case of of people involved with cults, scholars involved with cults who have access to the word of God, and yet they continue to believe things that are just completely foreign to the word of God or someone like, well, someone like John Dominic Crossan knows so much, so, so brilliant, so erudite, and yet comes to the conclusions that he comes to in each one of these situations.
57:58
I'm not being inconsistent with my Calvinism to to simply be amazed at how someone can possess this.
58:06
And the words are there. Yeah, I know. OK, there needs to be the work of the spirit there.
58:11
But still, you look at these people and you look at these Jews and and how they're responding to Jesus and and he's grieved and he's amazed at their unbelief, even in the face of so much.
58:25
I mean, the incarnate son of God himself, it if you stop doing that, you're no longer human.
58:31
And Jesus is fully God and fully man. And he still weeps, even though he knows that God's purpose is being fulfilled.
58:38
And if and if we the the the objection seems to be, well, if you really believe this, then you can see
58:45
God's eternal purposes. And that should change how you interact with time. No, I can't see God's eternal purposes.
58:51
I have to. I'm limited to what I can see in time. And when I see people's unbelief, thank
58:56
God it still bothers me, even though I may know the reasons for it. It still bothers me. And when it stops bothering me, that's when
59:02
I start down the road to hyper Calvinism. And I want to go there. Yeah, very good. All righty, brother. Thank you very much.
59:08
All right. I'm telling you. All right. God bless. Bye bye. I love when
59:15
John calls in and love when you listen. Thank you very much for listening to The Dividing Line today. No radio free
59:21
Geneva unless I run across something really, really, really bad between now and Thursday. We're talking about other stuff and we'll be talking to you then
59:27
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