Adrian Rogers on Romans 9 Pt. 1

Did God just predestine some people for hell?

Are we just pawns on the chessboard of fate? No. Absolutely not.

You probably recognize the voice of Adrian Rogers, three -times president of the

Southern Baptist Convention, who recently decided to, in his preaching through the

Book of Romans, to address the subject of Romans 8 and 9. Sort of hard to avoid doing that when you're preaching through the

Book of Romans, of course. But Dr. Rogers is well known for being strongly opposed to the doctrines of grace, and so on his national radio program there have been a number of sermons delivered of late that really epitomize the kind of traditional, and I want to emphasize traditional, theology and Arminian reading of scripture that most of us have to deal with on a fairly regular basis.

And so on this special edition of The Dividing Line this evening, we're going to listen to what

Pastor Rogers has had to say on his program, and provide a response, hopefully in the proper attitude, and hopefully allow you to be able to address these issues more clearly with those with whom you speak in the future.

My name is James White, and we're doing an unusual Dividing Line tonight. We are live casting this evening, and I have so many clips to play.

I don't know that we're going to be able to take phone calls. I'd like to be able to do so. We'll see how quickly we get through these things.

The issue, of course, is important, and many people say, well, that's all you ever talk about. Well, it's not, of course.

We talk about Roman Catholicism, and Mormonism, and King James Only -ism, and many other issues like that. But this issue,

I think, is very important because it illustrates the traditional nature of much of evangelical theology.

And anyone who deals with Roman Catholicism knows that we are frequently dealing with the issue of tradition, the fact that Rome gives to tradition an authority that ends up undercutting the authority of Scripture.

Well, the problem is Protestants have traditions, too. And those individuals who say they have no traditions are the very ones who are the most enslaved to those traditions.

And I'd like to read an email I got today as an illustration of this before we start listening to Pastor Rogers because I think while Pastor Rogers is a tremendous speaker, a tremendous preacher, as we will see, it is the result of this kind of preaching that we'll hear in this email.

I was forwarded an email from an individual who responded on behalf of an evangelical website saying that I was all wrong in my views on John 6.

So I wrote to the individual, and I said, could you give me some specifics? And in the initial response to me, he said,

And I had asked him, well, how do you determine if something is biblical? What about the exegesis of the text?

And he then said, To which

I responded, Could you explain your unusual definition of strawman positions? Could you be specific in giving examples of these strawman positions that I allegedly cling to?

So far in the email I read from you yesterday, and in this one, I have not seen a specific citation or issue raised.

This seems to be the norm in all the responses we have gotten from Dave Hunt's supporters. Lots of vague, undocumented assertions, but when it comes to actually exegeting the text, nothing at all.

And then I later asked him in the same email, he had mentioned, he had said,

And I had responded to that. I had asked him if he could, for example, rehabilitate Mr.

Hunt's failed response to John 635 -45, in light of the exegetical reply provided to him.

I had rejected his accusation of the doctrines of grace being blasphemous heresies, and had pointed out that generally in the debates that we have, we tend to win those debates rather clearly.

And then he kindly offered to send me some books on Arminianism. He says, There are some great books that would help give you a clear understanding of scriptural truth in this area of theology.

I would be happy to compile a list and forward the list to you. I assured him of my familiarity with the various defenses of Arminianism, and I then asked him,

But my rejoinder to you would be, What have you read in response? Have you read The Potter's Freedom or anything by Edwards, Hodge, Warfield, Machen, Turretin, Sproul, Boyce?

Have you ever tested your traditions on these issues? Well, the response I got back was simply frightening.

First of all, I was told, Your response to my last email was the usual rote reply that I receive from Calvinistic philosophers.

Now, I just read you what I sent to him, and how that could be a rote reply at all absolutely boggles the mind.

But listen to this. When a Christian thinks that they need someone to provide actual exegesis of the

Bible for them to have a correct interpretation of it, shows how little understanding they have of the ways of God.

I am sure that there is a place for such biblical exegesis, but the average Christian can easily understand all the doctrines of the historic

Christian faith without any such help, and they have been doing so for the past 2 ,002 years quite successfully.

Well, I guess you'd think something happened 2 ,002 years ago, but I couldn't believe this statement.

Are you actually saying? How can you believe biblical doctrines without exegesis? Here's the next paragraph.

In fact, it is when someone gets into this exegeting and hermeneutical analysis that many times one gets led astray from the true doctrines of Christ and the

Bible. Let me repeat that because some of you are going, Excuse me?

In fact, it is when someone gets into this exegeting and hermeneutical analysis that many times one gets led astray from the true doctrines of Christ and the

Bible. To which I responded, I have rarely read a more amazing statement.

How can you be led astray from the doctrines of the Bible by accurately reading and studying it? How do you even have knowledge of the true doctrines of Christ and the

Bible if not from properly interpreting it in the first place? Do you not see that this is, in fact, a denial of the sufficiency of Scripture itself?

But think about it from this person's perspective. Here's an individual who has received his theology from tradition.

He has not received it from the interpretation of the text of Scripture. And so for him, the study of the text of Scripture, the application of sound principles of hermeneutics, are, in fact, very destructive to what he calls the doctrines of Christ and the

Bible, which is Arminianism in his particular case. You see, once tradition determines what is biblical, rather than exegesis of the text, well, then we understand why doing exegesis of the text would be considered a dangerous thing.

Well, what does that have to do with responding to Adrian Rogers? Well, because while Dr. Rogers is obviously a much more well -spoken individual than the correspondent that I had today, the exegesis that he offers, the interpretation he offers, is very much determined not by the text of Scripture, but by tradition.

And so let's listen to some of the sections. I first heard about these earlier in the week, and someone was talking about his sermon on Romans 9.

And so I downloaded it, and I started listening to it, and I realized, you know what? I'm jumping in at the wrong point here.

If he's going through Romans, and he's now in Romans 9, he's laid the foundation of what he's doing here back in Romans 8, obviously.

And therefore I went back and grabbed those sermons. Actually, Silly Brit did that for me, and grabbed the first two sermons on Romans 8, 28 through 30.

And so most of what we'll be listening to came from that section. I don't even know if we're going to get to Romans 9 much this evening.

But these are so common. And since, obviously, this is a nationally listened -to radio broadcast, hopefully there will be an opportunity for all of us to share these things with individuals in the future.

So let's start listening to the interpretation of Romans 8, beginning in verse 28, offered by Adrian Rogers on his national radio program.

Look at these five words right now. And the very first of these tells us what we can be sure of.

Friend, you can be sure of God's foreknowledge of your salvation.

Look at it in verse 29. For whom he did foreknow. Now, this word foreknowledge is a

Greek word, prognosko. I knew you were waiting a long time to hear that, and I know you're eminently blessed after you've heard that, prognosko.

But what it just simply means is to know ahead of time. A prognosko. Our English word prognosis comes from this word.

It means to look out into the future and know what is going to happen. God foreknows everything.

Now, we use the word today, prognosis. A doctor will examine you, and he will tell you what your state of health is going to be.

We call that a prognosis. I heard about a man who went to the doctor. The doctor said,

I've got some very bad news for you. You've got a year to live. And then he handed the man a bill for $5 ,000. The man said,

I can't pay that bill. The doctor said, I'll give you another year. Now, sometimes the doctor's prognosis is not always very accurate because the doctor's prognosis is based upon his training, and it is an educated guess.

God never guesses at anything. God knows the future. God sees the future, the present, and the past all as one.

We don't understand that because we're humans, and we're limited by time and space. God is not.

God is above time and space. So God knows everything. God can't learn anything. God can't forget anything.

God is never surprised. And God saw you accepting Jesus Christ before you ever accepted him, and before this world was swung into space,

God saw you getting saved. Now, you see, God already knows everything's going to happen. Well, there's the assertion.

Of course, we've all heard that exact explanation given before, that when the passage says,

God foreknew, that what it means, of course, is that God, in essence, looks down the corridors of time and sees what we are going to do.

The problem is, Dr. Rogers does not take the time to respond to the refutation of that understanding of prognosco, nor does he give us any basis for accepting his understanding.

First of all, you'll notice that prognosco is a verb, and yet Dr.

Rogers consistently simply switches it with the noun form. Now, that's not something you can do, especially when the person doing the action, that is the subject of the verb, and the object of the verb come into play.

What do I mean? Well, when God foreknows, if Dr. Rogers' interpretation was correct, when

God foreknows, then he would know actions, he would know what someone's doing. His interpretation of the passage very clearly indicated that the idea is that if this is a verb, and he doesn't bother to point out that it is a verb, he just simply says

God has foreknowledge. Well, that's not what the passage says. The passage says God foreknows. In fact, each one of the verbs, to foreknow, to predestine, to call, to justify, to glorify, they're all active verbs.

These are divine things that God does, and there are objects. That is, he's doing this to someone.

The problem is Dr. Rogers and his Arminian friends interpret this verb to mean that God foreknows actions, and yet never, when prognosko is used with God as the subject, are actions the object of the verb.

He doesn't know what we do. He knows us. This isn't talking about having mere static knowledge of future events, and we don't even go into, at this point, how

God would know future events in the first place. I would argue the only consistent way of being able to explain that is through God's decree, through God's creative decree.

But that issue aside, this is not what prognosko means. Now, we have gone into this discussion in God's Sovereign Grace, Potter's Freedom.

I noticed a fairly lengthy discussion of this in Schreiner and Ware's book. God is called still sovereign.

There are a number of references to this. Anyone who actually looks up the actual Greek verb will see that the lexical sources and the commentaries agree on these issues.

And that is specifically that this is something God does, and the object is not actions, it's people.

God has foreloved. He has beforehand been fond of these individuals.

He has chosen to enter into a relationship with these individuals, and as a result, he initiates their salvation, and their salvation is all of God.

His decree of predestination of them unto conformity to the image of Christ is based upon this eternal love that he has set upon them, and the golden chain of redemption, we will see, though Pastor Rogers doesn't see this, is a very consistent chain that from beginning to end has the exact same objects all the way through.

But, as I said, I have 15 cuts, and so we need to deal with all of them as we go along here.

And so God foreknew. God saw you getting saved. Now, you see, God doesn't learn anything.

You can't teach God anything, because God already knows everything. And, you know, there's some people who wonder whether or not they are the elect.

Well, does God just simply choose some people to be saved and other people not to be saved? No. Who are the elect?

Well, listen to 1 Peter 1, verse 2. The Bible says there that we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God.

Let me just help you for a moment. The elect are the whosoever wills. The elect are the whosoever wills.

When a person receives Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior, he is the elect.

Now, a part of our problem is that we think if God already knows who's going to be saved, then it is settled and that we don't have any choice about the matter.

No, God knows the choice that we're going to make, but it is still our choice. Here's where the problem comes. We try to put

God in a box, and you can't put God in a box. You know, Romans 11,

I guess, 24, says, Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Who hath been his counselor?

Do you think that you can understand things as God can understand things? And so here's a box, and we say, Well, God foreknows everything, and therefore we don't have any choice.

Well, if you try to put God in that box, man's free will, man's choice will jump out of that box.

Well, then, on the other hand, if you put God in a box and you say, Well, God doesn't have anything to do with it.

God can't know it ahead of time, and God doesn't have any electing progress. It's all what man does.

Then the sovereignty of God will jump out of that box. You just can't put God in a box. And Jesus said in John chapter 6,

All that the Father hath given me shall come to me, and him that cometh unto me I'll in no wise cast out. Friend, you can be sure that everybody that God knows is going to be saved will be saved, and they're going to come to Jesus, and Jesus will not refuse him but receive him.

Well, again, more, and we will notice that throughout this entire section, the initial error, the misdefinition of prognosco, the unsubstantiated definition of prognosco will then be built upon to say the next thing, and then the next thing, and the next thing all the way through.

And did you notice, he mentions John 6, but he does not even hear what the text says.

This is the danger of allowing your traditions to undercut interpretation.

Because you see, Pastor Rogers has a tradition, and John 6, 37 says,

All that the Father gives me will come to me, but did you notice, he reversed that. In his perspective, by our coming to him, then the

Father gives us the Son. He doesn't even see that grammatically, John 6, 37, that first clause cannot be interpreted in that way.

But that's what happens when you have a tradition. You just start grabbing these things, and you start reading the words in the light of what you think they should say, rather than doing real exegesis.

Now, I think this comes out as well in this next clip. It's real short.

It's right along the same lines. That's a great comfort, that you're not an accident, an incident

God knows ahead of time. That's the reason Jesus said, All that the Father hath given me will come to me. Of course they will.

Because everything that's going to happen eventually will. Everything that's going to happen eventually will. There you go.

Everything that's going to happen, eventually will. But again, there's

John 6, and you hear the very statement of Christ, All that the

Father gives me, so the giving of the Father is first, will come to me. The result of the being given is the coming, but he's already told us, well

God looks in the future, sees we're going to choose him, and as a result chooses us. Totally 180 degree reverse, and yet when you allow tradition to be your exegetical grid, when you allow it to determine what you see and what you do not see in scripture, then the result is, in essence, you make the scriptures say the exact opposite of what they are intending to say.

And you see, that first person I mentioned, you don't need to worry about that exegesis and hermeneutical stuff, because that will get you away from true doctrine.

No, it will get you away from your traditions. It will challenge your traditions. There you go.

There's the issue in regards to that particular subject. We are responding, if you're just now tuning in, to recent sermons by Adrian Rogers on the subject of Romans chapter 8.

We've already found a number of problems, but we need to press on. Some people think that if God foreknows it, then

God makes it happen. No, no, no, no. Let me ask you a question. See if you disagree with this.

Everything that's going to happen eventually will. You disagree with that? You can't disagree with that.

Everything that is going to happen eventually will. I don't care whether it's rape, or praise, or murder, or mayhem, or a picnic, or my scratching my ear.

Everything that's going to happen eventually will. Now, when it happens, does that take

God by surprise? Of course not. Does that mean that because God foreknew that there was going to be blasphemy, or sodomy, or rape that God caused?

Of course not. Everything that's going to happen eventually will, and God can't learn anything. God knows everything.

Agreed? Now, think about what this means. Basically, God knows everything.

However, what he wants to emphasize, and this is the exact same emphasis that Dave Hunt throws forward over and over again in his own book, it almost sounds like Dr.

Rogers may have been reading that book, is that just because God foreknows it doesn't mean that he caused it.

He uses the example of Halley's Comet. Well, the astronomers, they know when Halley's Comet's coming, but the fact that they know it doesn't create

Halley's Comet, does it? Think about what that means. In fact, actually,

I just realized, I think I have that exact statement. Let me play it for you. You are going to make.

Now, the astronomers know when Halley's Comet is going to appear again. I don't, but they do.

Now, do you think because they know when Halley's Comet is going to appear that they cause it to appear? Of course not.

You see, foreknowledge just simply means that. Foreknowledge. Whom God foreknew.

God knows you can be sure that God, ahead of time, saw your salvation.

So there you have the assertion. I knew I had it in here someplace. There was some reason why I had that in my notes. The issue of Halley's Comet.

Think about what this means, though. This is extremely important. If you embrace this perspective, then what you're saying is, well, since God foreknows it, that doesn't mean that it was what?

A part of his decree. Therefore, events in time, according to this perspective, occur for some other reason than God's sovereignty.

So Halley's Comet is just out there. It's just doing its thing. And men are just doing their thing.

And evidently, God foresaw all this when he created. But for some reason, because they don't want to defend the idea of a sovereign decree, and they want to keep man sovereign and autonomous in his will, they will actually go to the point.

I honestly don't think most of them have ever, ever thought this through.

So don't, you know, sometimes Reformed folks, once they get a handle on these things, I've mentioned it before, we call it the cage stage where they get just a tad bit overzealous and lose sight of mercy and kindness on the way.

I don't think most of them ever thought of these things. But the result of their thinking is that God created all these terrible, horrible things happen, but he didn't have any purpose in it.

Because it's not a part of his decree. He knew it was going to happen. When he created, he knew it was going to happen. He knew that this was coming, but he didn't have any purpose for it.

And you see, that's the problem. Once you embrace this kind of perspective, in essence, what you're saying is that God looked down the corridors of time and hallelujah, it all turns out for the good.

It may not have, but it just so happens to. It just so happens that it turned out for the good.

Well, may I ask you something? Why in the world should we honor and praise God because things just happen to turn out okay?

I don't understand that. I mean, if we're going to be honoring and praising God for what he did in redeeming a people in Jesus Christ, in reality, he just basically shot the cosmic dice out there and it turned out the way that it did and he goes, hey,

I like that, let's go with it. And that's it. Why should he be given honor and praise and glory and worship for that?

So if this, and again, we're not using the biblical definition of the verb foreknown here anyways, but even if we import the philosophical idea within the construct that Dr.

Rogers is speaking of here, I don't see, A, how he avoids dealing with the fact that if God's sovereign decree does not determine events in time, that he really has no basis for the praising of God for what he does in time anyways.

And secondly, it destroys all basis for purpose. I mean, why did bad things happen?

You see, we, oh, but you have to say that God purposed that. Yeah, that's why it has a purpose.

Otherwise, it has no purpose at all. Why is that better? Why do people want evil to be purposeless?

To have no end result? Do you really, really, really want there to be no positive good that comes out of any evil?

Is that really what people want? I've never fully understood that and I don't think

I ever will fully understand that. But again, the vast majority of people, they've never been challenged on anything like this.

They've never been challenged on the subject at all. And therefore, that's probably why they come off the direction that they do on that particular subject.

Well, next we have the exact same, again, I honestly think that Dr.

Rogers has been reading Dave Hunt's book because in the next clip we'll play after we take our break, we will hear him talking about predestination not to salvation but only to conformity to Christ's image.

And that is, again, the stuff that is being presented by Dave Hunt.

That's why I think I see a connection here. But anyways, we'll listen to that one after we take our break here on The Dividing Line.

To be blessed Try to save your soul from death It's all works righteousness, you know

Can I manufacture grace To self -deny in some religious place

By weeping hard on your face Or saying prayers to some dead saints, you know

Not to preach good progress Here's the second thing I want you to see.

Not only can you be sure of God's foreknowledge of your salvation, but you can be sure of your predestination to be like Jesus.

Now look at the scripture again. Look at it. For whom he did foreknow, he did also predestinate.

You know what some people think? They think that God predestined some people to go to hell and God predestined some people to go to heaven.

No. He doesn't say anything here about hell or heaven. It says that when God foreknows somebody, he predestines them to be like Jesus.

It's not looking backward to your salvation, it's looking forward to your glorification. When God saw that kid in West Palm Beach giving his heart to Jesus Christ, God said, that one's going to be like Jesus.

I have settled it. I have predetermined it. It is done. He will be like Jesus Christ.

That's God's eternal purpose. That's Romans 8 .28. All things are working together for good, not to make you happy or holy or rich or wealthy or wise, but to make you like Jesus.

You see, God's purpose is that Jesus might be the firstborn among many brethren and you are predestined to be like the

Lord Jesus Christ. So, predestination then is only to be like Jesus.

Okay. Are unsaved people like Jesus? Or are only regenerate people like Jesus?

Well, of course. We recognize that this makes about as much sense as when someone goes to Ephesians chapter 1 and looks at predestination.

Predestined to adoption as sons. It's only to adoption. Well, maybe we need to recognize that only the elect are adopted and only the elect are conformed to the image of Christ, possibly.

Well, of course. To be conformed to the image of Christ, to be made like him, that is the final outcome of all of the work of God in us.

So, it's not proper to say, well, this isn't salvation. This is just to being like Jesus.

No, you can't be like Jesus outside of salvation, can you? Well, of course not.

And we see the piling on of errors. When you start off by confusing verbs and nouns and then you ignore lexical sources and then you use the resultant error to then undercut the next point and then the next point and the next point.

And when you do real exegesis, you're not allowed to do this. You're not allowed to engage in this type of thing.

Now, you would expect though, once you start talking about the subject of predestination, what's an

Arminian going to do? Well, they're going to run off after the big three. Yes, those of you who have read

The Potter's Freedom know that I wrote a chapter called The Big Three. 1 Timothy 2 .4,

2 Peter 3 .9, Matthew 23 .37. You really need to know those the same way you need to know

James 2 .20 or John 10 .34 when dealing with Mormons. They're going to be these passages that just flow out and very rarely will there be any thought as to the context, as to the meaning and notice, well, we're not disappointed here.

What comes after this? Did God just predestine some people?

Stop going to number 14, would you? Go to this one. People are predestined to hell and some people are predestined to heaven.

Well, let me show you, friend, that God doesn't predestine anybody to hell. God doesn't want anybody to go to hell.

God, listen to me, God wants everybody saved. God wants everybody saved.

Let me give you some scripture. 2 Timothy 2, verses 3 and 4.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved.

Now some would say all of the elect, but it doesn't say that, it just says all. And that's all he says.

That's all he says. I mean, that means God wanted Pharaoh to be saved just as much as Moses.

God wanted the Babylonians to be saved just as much as the Israelites. And when he says that's the elect, well, it just says all.

That's not exegesis. All what? And when we look at 1 Timothy 2, verse 4, we realize in the context he's talking about kinds of men.

We go to the next verse, we talk about intercession, we study the passage, we find out what did Paul mean about intercession, who does

Jesus intercede for, are you really saying that Jesus intercedes for all those who are lost, and therefore fails in his work of intercession, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But this doesn't come up. This doesn't come up. And as long as a great Christian leader, an individual who has been three times the president of the

Southern Baptist Convention says it, well, that just must be it. That just must be it.

Now of course, 1 Timothy 2, verse 4, that's only one of them. And as you can probably imagine, we get to 2

Peter 3, verse 9. But this is a short one because this is all he says. Another scripture, 2 Peter 3, verse 9.

The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

That's it. No commentary, nothing about the context, nothing about the discussions that have been offered, the exegesis of the text that demonstrates that 2

Peter is addressed to the elect and that the following, the pronouns indicates that he's talking about why has the parousia been delayed so that all the elect can be gathered.

None of that. Not even an attempt. And what I am discovering, unfortunately, is that when you then try to point these things out, well, that's dangerous.

You just need to let the plain meaning... Folks, what's the plain meaning here? The plain meaning in the real meaning of those words is what the text says when you examine the text.

But you see what I'm discovering is there's a lot of folks who think the plain meaning is what I've always been told.

The plain meaning... Don't confuse me with this grammar stuff. Don't confuse me with this stuff about looking at what words mean and following pronouns and doing stuff like that.

The plain meaning is what my tradition says.

Never confuse your tradition with the plain meaning of the text.

Now, the amazing thing... I am starting to wonder if anyone, when they quote

Matthew 23, verse 37, ever quote it correctly. What do

I mean? Well, if you've listened to the

Dividing Line in the past, you know that we pointed out, for example, that Dave Hunt miscited

Matthew 23, verse 37 in the Berean Call. And I tried to point that out to him, and he's never to this day ever admitted, even though it's in black and white, it's in print, having miscited

Matthew 23, verse 37. And the section he skipped changes the meaning of the verse.

You see, what happens is, people quoted, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, it kills the prophets and stones.

Those were sent here. How often I want to, what? Gather you together. The way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

You would not. See? There's no unconditional election. You would not. But it doesn't say that.

It says, how often I want to gather your children together. But you were unwilling.

I even caught R .C. Sproul misciting it that way. Well, guess what happens when we listen to Pastor Rogers.

In Matthew 23, about verse 37, Jesus is coming down off the

Mount of Olives, about to go up to Jerusalem there on that Palm Sunday, and that crowd is saying,

Hail Him! Hail Him! Hosanna! But He knows that in just a few days, there'll be bloody

Calvary in that same group that's saying, Hail Him! We'll be saying, Nail Him! And Jesus is weeping, convulsing, great salty tears, and He's saying,

Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stonest the prophets that are sent unto thee, how often would

I gather thee, even as a hen doth her chicks beneath her wing, but ye would not.

I would have, but ye wouldn't. Now, folks, I want to submit to you that if He had said,

I would have, but ye couldn't, that whole thing would have been a great charade. Well, here, let me play this section again.

Thou that stonest the prophets that are sent unto thee, how often would I gather thee, even as a hen doth her chicks beneath her wing.

Gathered thee. That's not what it says, is it, folks? No, that's not what it says.

How often would I have gathered your children, not gathered you? I have never heard a national, nationally known

Armenian speaker addressing this passage who has ever once addressed the passage in a meaningful fashion.

Not once. I haven't heard it. And did you notice something? There ain't nothing in Matthew 23, 37 about Jesus weeping, is there?

That's from Luke. But, oh, it sounded good, didn't it? And how many people do you think sat in that church?

I heard somebody say today they have 28 ,500 members on the membership rolls there. Now, of course, that's like a church

I used to be a member of. You had to die three times and provide your death certificate to get off the rolls, but 28 ,500 members.

Televise, national radio program. How many do you think looked up Matthew 23, 37? I would imagine probably not a whole lot.

But you're probably right. And that's the problem. You see, tradition.

Tradition determines what we want the text to say. And so we see exactly what we want to see.

What we want to see. Not what's really there, but only what we want to see.

That's why you deal with exegesis. Folks, let's call it this.

That's why you have the discipline of exegesis.

Doing exegesis in a disciplined fashion allows you to detect your traditions.

Without it, you are a slave to tradition. And you cannot call your theology biblical when you are a slave to tradition.

That's why it's important. That's why it's important. Now, that's a real short one, but you hear the passion.

In fact, you probably can't hear it real clearly, but even before he says no, you can hear in the background a person says,

No! Cries it out from the audience. Fling them into hell! Now, as it's been pointed out, if he created knowing that he was going to fling many into hell, he had this perfect divine foreknowledge, and he created anyways, then what are you saying,

Pastor Rogers? That he did it anyhow, but for no particular purpose? He isn't glorified in their just judgment?

And immediately people are saying, Hey, look, Romans 9. But, of course, he has a way of dealing with that.

And yes, it is the standard way. There's really nothing new here. I realize that. If any of you are hoping to hear some new spin on the

Arminian way of twisting these scriptures, there's nothing new here. He's going to dismiss this middle section of Romans 9 as nations, even though, interestingly enough, when he gets to the section about Pharaoh and stuff, he goes back to persons.

So it doesn't really make a lot of sense, but we immediately think about those very things. But, oh, doesn't that sound...

How many of us know of friends and relatives who just hearing that, the passion of it, would absolutely keep them from ever listening to what we have to say about the actual exegesis of the text?

How many of you have had conversations where you've tried to talk with someone, and every time you would start getting into the text, this glazed look comes over the face, and the response is, look,

I'm just not going to believe this stuff. I'll never worship a God that would create with this purpose in mind.

They'll rather worship a God who created, and it just sort of happened to turn out that way. But, again, they haven't been forced to think about it in that context, and they don't want to be forced to think about it in that context.

That's uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable indeed. This is a great verse. If this was the only verse in the

Bible that proved eternal security, it would be enough. I mean, listen. Do you know what predestined means?

That means it's done, it's settled. I mean, almighty God created us for new, and by His omnipotence, predestined.

Now watch it. Do you think that what has been settled in heaven can be annulled in time, or on earth, or by humans, or by hell?

Some people get the idea, well, you know, you got saved by your free will, you could get lost by your free will.

No. Man, I could have my leg amputated by my free will, but I could have it put back on by my free will.

Now, isn't it amazing to listen to Armenians who are inconsistent Armenians? And, of course, what

I'm referring to is the fact that most Southern Baptists believe in what they call eternal security. They have absolutely, positively, not the first reason to do so.

And did you just hear what happened? This is the same man. We're not playing with the quotes or anything.

You know, I know Rich is getting really good with all that fancy equipment, with the audio and the video and stuff like that, but he hasn't been playing with any of these quotes.

These are exactly what was said in the very same sermon from the stuff we heard before. The very man who has already said that God looks into the future,

He sees that we're going to accept Jesus, and on that basis, He predestines us. That very same individual just started sounding pretty

Reformed, didn't he? He starts talking about how, can men in time undo what's settled from eternity?

Well, why is it settled from eternity? I thought he had already told us it's only settled from eternity because God foresaw it.

But doesn't that mean that what happens in time is what determines what's settled in eternity? So if it was our free will that God foresaw, why can't our free will change in time?

That's the big thing the open theists jump all over. Is, hey, if you actually say

God sees the future, then you can't have this libertarian free will. And the open theists are right. They're right that Arminians are inconsistent with themselves.

Arminians don't have any solid ground to argue with open theists. Once they agree on the fundamentals and agree that the main thing we need to defend is the concept of a libertarian free will.

They don't have any basis of argumentation at that point. But here he's talking about, can we change in time what has been settled from eternity?

But there wasn't anything settled from eternity. As to his free will amputation illustration, if that's to be applied to our having freely chosen to be in Christ, this is a real problem for their position.

I mean, he's right. If by your free will you chose to enter into a relationship with Christ, why can you not, by your free will, choose to leave that?

And I'm not sure that his free will amputation really works. Did you somehow amputate something? Did you, I mean, all these people will talk about, if you don't have free will, then you're just not human.

You're just a drone. You're just a puppet. So your free will can no longer separate you from Christ?

Not only that, but of course, no person by their free will chooses to die to self and embrace

Christ in the first place. So the inconsistency is patent.

Now, I applaud Pastor Rogers. I agree with him a thousand percent.

Christ's work of salvation is perfect. But you see, by holding to this myth of human autonomy, he is constantly putting that perfect work on the wrong foundation.

The foundation of eternal security is what? The perfection of the work of Christ. It's a divine work.

So the inconsistency is absolutely positively patent as you listen to these words.

It is fascinating to hear the switch to Reformed terminology because eternal security, of course, is a

Reformed doctrine and it has no place in a system that promotes the free will of man. You can be sure of.

You can be sure that God has called you to salvation. You know, some people get the idea that God calls some and God doesn't call other people.

No, I won't tell you. Look in this passage of Scripture. The Bible says, For whom He did foreknow, them

He did also predestinate, to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He, God's Son, might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Now, verse 30, Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called.

And whom He called, them He also justified. Now, what is the calling?

How does God call you to be saved? Well, God calls you to be saved through the Gospel. It's the preaching of the

Gospel that is God's call. Let me give you a Scripture to put it down, 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 13 and 14.

But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation.

You say, I thought I chose Him. No, you only chose Him because He chose you. God hath chosen you to salvation.

How did He do it? Watch it. Through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.

The Holy Spirit brought you unto conviction and you believed the truth. Those who are the chosen are those who believe the truth.

Now, listen to it. How did you get to hear the truth? Whereunto He called you by our

Gospel. Paul said, the way you were called is when I preached the Gospel. Now, I'm preaching the

Gospel today. And God is calling you to salvation. And it's such a wonderful calling.

Because, you see, it's not just the preacher preaching, it's the sanctification of the Spirit. I can't open blind eyes.

A man needs more than light to see, he needs sight. And then, of course, the beautiful piano music in the background as we prepare for the 32 stanzas of Just as I Am.

Notice the calling here, the problem here is, of course, he wants to say the calling is to everyone.

Everyone here is being called today to salvation. That's the emphasis upon this calling.

The problem is, the Bible has more than one use, the term calling. This is sort of like when Armenians try to say the

Bible only has one use, the word world. You can find all sorts of different uses of the word world.

And by attempting to, again, not engage in sound, hermeneutical procedures, you end up making the

Bible self -contradictory. The calling is to everyone. Well, the problem is, one thing he's not going to do is say, well, it's only, and remember the golden chain of redemption?

Foreknown, predestined, who is being called? Those who were predestined. Well, he's already said that the only ones who are predestined are those that God saw were going to believe.

So if he was consistent, he would say that God is only calling those that he sees in time are going to be believing in him in the first place.

But he doesn't say that. He turns this calling into the general call, the gospel, and then doesn't follow through because if that's the case, then those whom he called, them he also justified.

He would not say that everyone who is being called even that day in his own church, in the general use of calling, is going to be justified because they have to believe.

So you completely destroy the flow of the text. But Dr. Rogers doesn't mention the flow of the text until he says, and as many as he justified them he glorified.

There he makes connection. Everyone who is justified will be glorified because, see, that fits into his eternal security scheme. But if he were to read that backwards consistently, what would it mean?

Well, it would mean Calvinism and that can't be it. Therefore, tradition overrules, tradition overrules the text of Scripture.

He's quite true. He's quite right to say that God uses the gospel to call his elect. That God uses means.

But that doesn't change the reality of Romans 8 .30 because God has ordained the ends as well as the means.

And so again, we find the consistency of the Reformed position and the inconsistency of the position being espoused.

Well, having mentioned the issue of calling, then what comes under the scrutiny of Dr.

Rogers is the concept of irresistible grace. And of course, well, irresistible grace is the thing that those who hold to autonomous will hate the most and therefore he takes quite some time to go after that.

They have a doctrine that they call irresistible grace. That is, God only chooses some to be saved and then when

God calls an individual, they can't help but come. Oh, yes, they can help but come.

You can refuse the call of God. You can spurn the call of God. That's a dubious privilege. But God gave you a will and God's not going to override your will.

If God overrode your will, you wouldn't be a human being. I could have, God could have no more fellowship with you than I could with that television camera.

No, listen. Stephen said when he preached that message to those just before they stoned him, he said, you stiff -necked and uncircumcised in heart, you do always resist the

Holy Ghost. Now, of course, and I even brought this out just recently as I wrote a section on the book that's going to be co -written, the debate book between myself and Dave Hunt.

As I pointed out, citing Acts 7 .51 demonstrates that you don't either understand irresistible grace or are purposefully misrepresenting irresistible grace.

Irresistible grace is simply referring to the fact that God is the one who raises dead sinners to life.

It's not talking about the fact that sinners every day resist the common grace of God by their sinfulness, or that even

Christians themselves do not live up to the high calling of grace within their lives. It's referring to the work of regeneration, and Stephen was not talking about the work of regeneration and the life of Jewish people in Acts 7 .51.

But here you hear this, well, he'll never violate your will. If he would violate your will, then he couldn't have relationship with you.

He might as well have relationship with that television camera there. In other words, unless you have autonomous free will, then you are an automaton.

You're nothing more than a television camera. Well, of course, the proper analogy given to us in Scripture is that you are a corpse.

You are dead. You need resurrection power. And aren't we thankful that God, for example, you know, it's amazing when you hear these very same people preaching.

They will say something completely different. Soften their hearts, Lord! Excuse me, excuse me, isn't that a violation of their free will?

Change their minds! Wait a minute, the mind sounds, isn't that part of us?

Yeah, I know. Most people's prayers are considerably better in theology than their self -professed positions.

I really wonder what the Apostle Paul would think having been knocked to the ground off of his horse.

That wasn't my free will! Struck blind! Yeah, okay,

I think we get the idea. Well, we're going to continue on and I think we're going to have some time to take some phone calls this evening.

If you would like to get online at 877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341.

Someone told me they were going to get a number of Adrian Rogers fans to listen this evening.

Young men who may want to take issue with what I've had to say. Pick up the phone, dial 877 -753 -3341 and when we come back from this break, we're going to be looking at, well, if you're talking about Irresistible Grace, what you're going to hear, you're going to hear about forced love.

Is that what Irresistible Grace is? No, it's not, but we're going to hear about that after this break. A godly man

Such a rarity today Never changing one command

Of the pure sufficient word Of God here

I stand See, the Holy Spirit can be resisted.

That's the reason the Bible says today if you'll hear His voice, don't harden your heart. God will be calling you today in this message.

But you can say no to Him or you can say yes to Him and God is not going to override your will.

You have the dubious privilege of saying no to Him. Now, He doesn't want you to say no.

He wants you to say yes, but if you don't want Him, He's not going to force Himself upon you. Listen to me.

Forced love is a contradiction in terms. If you don't choose to love

God, it's not love at all. God will woo you. God will incline your heart.

God will open your understanding. But God wants you to love Him and God will not force you to love

Him and there are not enough angels in Heaven or out of Heaven to drag you forward and cause you to confess your faith in Jesus Christ today if you stubbornly say no.

God will incline your heart? What does that mean? Isn't that a violation of free will?

I mean, if you say you want your children to freely love you and yet you say, say you love

Daddy and you hand them, you know, you're having, you have a bag of M &M's in your hand.

You happen to know they love M &M's. Is that a free will confession of love? See, Arminians are just so completely inconsistent with themselves because how can they not be?

Their system is internally and inherently inconsistent and they just can't help but using Biblical language at times that just when you think about it does not fit in any way, shape or form with what they're saying.

Now, if God is incapable of making me a

God lover, then there will be no salvation. And of course, we don't have time in the program today.

In fact, I'm still hoping someone will call 877 -753 -3341. Maybe you'd like to defend what

Adrian Rogers has been saying. Be glad to hear from you. Talk to you today.

But when someone says these things, we don't have time to go back over all the total depravity of man, but obviously the fundamental foundational problem here is that you can think that a

God hater still has enough goodness in his heart and in his soul to make the decision to become a

God lover. What it seems like he's saying there is while still unregenerate, you choose to love

God. You choose to become a God lover. Directly against, of course, what the

Bible says. Romans 8, 7 -8. Those who are according to the flesh cannot do what's pleasing to God.

What's the greatest commandment? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and strength. The Bible says the unregenerate man cannot do what the law demands.

But Adrian Rogers has his traditions. And that's what they are. They are traditions.

Nothing more. And they need to be seen for exactly what they are.

Now, here's another passage of Scripture he uses. Hear it, then you need to tell others.

And let him that is a thirst come. If you're thirsty, just come on. And whosoever will, let him take up the water of life freely.

Now, friend, that's what motivates the great evangelist and people who see churches grow.

The whosoever will. Don't take the whosoever will out of the Bible. And don't just give kind of a false whosoever will.

Say, well, whosoever will may come. Oh, I know they really can't, but let's just tell them they can. No, no, no, no. Whosoever will, let him freely come.

God wants everybody saved. The Lord is not willing that any should perish. And if you drop into hell, God will say, not my will, but yours is being done.

Well, of course, we've heard that one before. But this emphasis, whosoever will, whosoever will, well, you know, it's interesting.

In Revelation 22, 17, he's quoting from there. That's actually Thelon, the one wishing, the one desiring.

And who is the one who's going to be desiring to follow after Christ? The God -hater?

The one Jesus said is unable to come to Christ? We don't hear discussions of those things.

And, of course, we also know that many of the whosoevers that they like to emphasize are actually like whosoever believes, that is, all the ones believing, et cetera, et cetera.

He doesn't deal with passages like that. Just, again, it sounds great, doesn't it? Did you hear that little subtle slam?

Those individuals who are in churches that grow. Then you had the little discussion there.

Now, we do have a caller, so I'm going to go ahead and start wrapping these up here, but only one more play for you anyways.

After this, Dr. Rogers goes to a discussion of justification. Folks? Folks, hear me now, folks.

That's my Tim Staples impersonation. It was an excellent discussion of justification.

It really was. In fact, it was so good that he gave a passionate presentation of the truth of Romans 4 .8.

I have often lamented that Romans 4 .8 is just ignored by most folks.

I emphasized it in The God Who Justifies. Romans 4 .8, God will not impute sin to you.

It was a passionate presentation of truth of Romans 4 .8. It was good. It really was.

Even in the midst of this wonderful presentation of what justification really is, in the

Bible, not once does he address the glaring inconsistency in his own exegesis of Romans 8 .30.

Not once. He does not touch upon the fact that all who are called are also justified.

Never touches on it. It's like it's not even there. It's not even there.

As I mentioned before, the story then goes on from there to all who are justified are glorified. And there he sees the connection, but doesn't see it in these other passages.

Again, in conclusion then, we've got, the phone lines are full. This is great. In conclusion then, beware of tradition.

The only way to detect tradition is to engage in exegesis.

To challenge your understanding. When you read a passage of Scripture, don't just go,

I know what that already says and go on from there. Many of us think we know, for example, what John 10 .30 actually means.

But when you really dig into it, you find there's so much more to it. And that is the way you challenge your traditions.

Now you say, boy, you're really, you're really focusing upon that. Yeah, if I'm going to be consistent in telling the

Roman Catholics to challenge their traditions and to test their traditions by Scripture, then how much more must

I say the same thing to people in my own camp? If I'm going to point one finger out toward them, there's three of them facing back toward me.

So we all need to engage in that kind of examination. 877 -753 -3341.

Have about 20 minutes left on the program and I think we have filled up the phone lines, which is an amazing thing indeed.

So let's go ahead and start off with Clark in Mission Viejo, California.

Clark, you there? Yeah, James. How you doing? I'm doing good, thanks. I just want to thank you real quick for your ministry.

I really appreciate it. It's been very edifying. Well, thank you. I was just wondering, could you speak for a moment to the seriousness of the error that Adrian Rogers is preaching?

Because I've heard so many people just call to God that Calvinists preach a monster and just get so angry at God.

How serious an error in regards to people's personal salvation is there are doctrines like this?

Well, you know, I really try to emphasize the fact that the important thing for us is to focus upon biblical truths, biblical doctrines, and as far as determining someone, individual's salvation, especially from a distance, that we probably need to avoid even investing our time in it.

I mean, in this particular situation, it is, you know, someone might say, oh, certainly he must know the responses to, for example,

Matthew 23 -37. I can't say that he does. I mean, he's the pastor of a very large church.

I would imagine that he's pretty much going with a very surface -level amount of study on this particular subject, probably stuff that he heard back in seminary.

And so there is a difference, I believe, between ignorantly presenting your traditions as if they are exegesis and purposefully doing so.

And I honestly believe that as far as Adrian Rogers is concerned, is the truth available to him?

Could he, if he just simply picked up the phone, have 20 people in his office who would be able to address these things?

You bet. Does he want to? I haven't gotten the feeling that he does. And now, is that dangerous?

Of course it's dangerous because he's misleading people. He's not only misleading the people of his own flock, but people on a national level.

And will he answer for that? Yes. I think we all will answer for anything, that when we stand behind that, we like to call it the sacred desk, that pulpit, and you preach to God's people, and you say this is

God's Word, you better have done your homework. And unfortunately, there's a lot of folks who, again, and this is why

I'm raising the issue, don't test their traditions. But you'll notice, when he talked about justification, and he talked about what justification is, justification by faith alone, through grace alone, the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, the imputation of our sins to Christ, all the rest of that stuff, he was smack dab on.

He was right where he needed to be. And so, you look at something like that and you go, man, can't you see the inconsistency?

Well, if that truly is a gift of God's grace to allow us ourselves to see our own inconsistencies, well, then we just need to pray that God in his grace will show him his, and if he doesn't in this life,

I can guarantee you, he will be a very consistent Calvinist when he gets to heaven. Okay. All right,

Clark? Thanks very much. All right, thanks for calling. God bless. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number as we discuss these issues.

Just in passing, again, no one can possibly accuse me of being soft on the doctrines of grace, of being overly ecumenical, or anything of the kind.

But at the same time, we need to recognize that everybody that I know of, almost everybody that I know of anyways, who understands the doctrines of grace today came to understand them through a process.

And all of us have held to false traditions. It was more the missionaries that made me realize that my position was not consistent.

And a lot of folks just have not been put in a position where they have to think through, or, and of course,

I had to be given a passion to want to be consistent. I mean, we live in a postmodern world.

Consistency in your worldview is not exactly the most important thing from most people's perspectives. And I honestly think that a desire to be consistent, first of all, is glorifying to God, and secondly, it comes from God.

It is a work of grace in the heart. And so, in light of all of that,

I think we need to be slow to wrath and anger. I don't think that it does us any good when we, in essence, give substance to the misrepresentations of Reformed people by making harsh statements about others.

We need to speak the truth. I have spoken the truth today. I've identified Adrian Rogers' statements as false and as based on tradition rather than exegesis.

But I have not attacked the man. And when he did well, when he spoke properly about justification,

I commend him on it and thought it was great. And when he spoke about eternal security, he was right, but he was inconsistently right.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, as someone has once said. Let's continue with our phone callers. Let's talk with Fred back in Columbus, Ohio.

Hi, Fred. Hi, Dr. White. Hey, Fred, how did you know we were even on tonight? Well, I followed some web links.

There you go. Great. In fact, I didn't even know you existed up until about a week ago.

Well, you and 99 .987 % of the rest of humanity. I can tell you that I don't normally make phone calls and haven't done so to any show like this in many, many years.

But I have a Southern Baptist background and I have an interest in Adrian Rogers, him being the, you had mentioned, president and stuff.

Well, don't let me throw you off your pace there, but I teach in the Southern Baptist Seminary.

Well, that's great. I guess, pardon me for being kind of nervous.

Don't worry about it. My question, really, maybe it's not a question, I have come to the conclusion that Adrian is wrong here.

I didn't know that, to be honest with you, that he had felt that way. Never heard him preach on those topics.

But what is the danger, I guess, in me?

Okay, we as Calvinists, we differ with this Arminian viewpoint. I can see how that's affected my life, knowing that it is by God's pure grace.

And so I think there is a freedom in that. And now, say a guy like Adrian Rogers, who is obviously respected, and Dave Hunt, who is obviously respected, what is the danger,

I guess, laying aside that part of their theology that I believe is wrong?

And it's really to their detriment. It really doesn't affect me, other than I don't think they understand it yet.

But say if I read his books and listened to them, because I think I really do like both of them, actually, when they talk on other topics.

And that is, I would not want anyone to listen to me without testing what

I say by Scripture. Because to do so would be, in essence, to go against what I'm saying in the first place. So maybe

I'd find it downright disrespectful if someone did it any other way. But I think we need to listen to anyone that way, read any books in that way.

And then when he does do something like this, for example, launch into this anti -Reformed attack that he did over the past number of sermons that were aired on his program, we need to take those as opportunities.

Opportunities to explain the misrepresentations, because in my experience,

I've never seen a situation where there wasn't a misrepresentation offered, and we saw a number of them even in what we discussed this evening.

But use it as an opportunity, and in a positive way. Not to, quote -unquote, blast

Adrian Rogers, but to say, well, you know, he said this, but have you ever thought about this? And point out those inconsistencies.

Point them out based upon the text of Scripture, and say, well, you know, he didn't give a reference for his statement about people choosing to love

God, but have you ever noticed what Jesus said in John 6, 44? Ever thought about Romans 8, 7 -8? You can take it to the text of Scripture and use it as a positive thing to be able to say, you know, there's some issues here.

And so that's what I try to do, is to take it in that way. I don't get upset about it in the sense of I wasn't sitting there listening to him going, oh, there's just going to be so many people deceived.

Nah, God's still in control. I think that's an inconsistent attitude for Calvinists to have. I mean, it's almost like God was taken by surprise that he was going to preach these sermons.

God knew that was coming, and in fact, God has a purpose in it. So I think we should take the initiative and do the right thing in taking the positive opportunities.

And yeah, when Dr. Rogers, for example, addresses a Christian worldview or abortion or something like that,

I would say there's probably going to be some inconsistencies in there, because obviously if he's got his traditions here and he's not testing them, there may be traditions elsewhere.

But you take the good with the bad, you do it with discernment. Let me just pose this thought to you just for a second.

I was a believer for several years, and then I happened into reading some older stuff because I wanted to get basically back to what was the

Gospel message. I read an interesting book, The Bondage of the

Will, and a lot of the truth there God used to transform my thinking of Him and my salvation.

And it was, you know, a freeing experience.

Oh, believe me, I know what you're talking about. I think the error... I mean, it's not going to affect the

Christians. I believe that we're to evangelize and that the people who will be saved by God, they elect, you know, that's for our blessing.

They're going to be saved. And God has called them out. Maybe there's this feeling that we won't go out.

I know I've heard people say that that kills evangelism. I don't believe that.

No, and we live in refutation of that every time we go up to Salt Lake City and pass out tracts and witness the

Mormons and we're the only ones up there, and the Armenians are hit and miss once in a while but aren't up there regularly at all.

So we honestly try to live in refutation of that. And I would point out, evangelism is more than simply proclaiming the message of God's judgment and salvation to unbelievers.

And that's where I'd say that what we are doing is evangelism within the Church. That is, by proclaiming the whole

Gospel, everything that the New Testament says about the Gospel, within the context of the Church, we are likewise engaging in evangelism ourselves.

And I'm not in any way, shape, or form downplaying the freedom of recognizing who we truly are and who

God truly is. And is Adrian Rogers' teaching going to keep people from that kind of freedom?

Well, not in God's providence, but certainly there are going to be people who, because of hearing those traditions and making them their own traditions, are going to either be delayed in this life and coming to know those things, or maybe delayed until eternity and coming to know those things.

But, again, I think that could be said of a lot of things, a lot of elements of Christian truth, and that's what

I do what I do. That's what I wrote, believe me. Well, I appreciate it. I actually ordered your book from Amazon. In fact,

I got two of them. And I also sent for Geisler's book, too. Well, read

Norm first, and then read my response, and I think you'll find it to be most interesting.

Hey, Fred, I've got one more caller I want to sneak in today. All right, thanks for listening. God bless. Bye. All righty, let's go to our last caller.

You know, some people have just absolutely nothing to do in life, because we have folks in the chat channel that are correcting the percentage that I gave to Fred of the number of people in the world who know me.

And we've got one person who did the math, and it's actually close to 0 .0000007 % might know who

I am. And I really appreciate the correction on that.

That's very, very kind of everyone. Anyways, let's go ahead and talk with Daniel.

And I will not mention where Daniel is, because if that's really true, it's on my screen.

Daniel is probably the only Christian there, and I don't want to endanger him. Hi, Daniel.

Well, my wife is here too, so that's two of us. Well, keep the shades pulled. Okay. Well, I visited

Bellevue Baptist in Memphis last year, which is the church of Adrian Rogers.

And it was, most interesting, 7 ,000 people in the congregation. It's pretty amazing.

Anyways, he, during the sermon, I don't remember much of it, but during the sermon he did say that there's not one molecule that's not under God's control in the whole world, in the whole universe.

And I was just wondering how he might put that together with the free will of man.

Oh, he said very frequently in this sermon, God is sovereign over all things.

Now watch this, watch this, listen here now. Sorry, he just says that a lot. It is very, very common for the popular

Southern Baptist preacher to say God is sovereign over all things. But when you ask, okay, what does that mean and how is that sovereignty worked out in reality?

All of a sudden you discover, well, we really haven't thought that one all the way through.

And again, it's the situation, I've talked in my classes many times about this. Most people pigeonhole their theology.

You've got one little place up here for your theology of God, then you've got another place down here for your theology of the church, theology of the

Bible, theology of salvation. You never bring them close enough to find out if they're consistent with one another.

And so this is a situation where he's got his theology of God up there, God is sovereign, but when you bring that down next to his theology of the will of man, they are self -evidently contradictory, but we're not forced to do that.

Or, when you might approach him and try to, quote -unquote, force him to see that, then you're a troublemaker, you're too focused upon the unimportant things, we just need to win the world for Jesus, et cetera, et cetera.

And that's generally been the reaction that I've gotten when you attempt to, you know, you just can't force people to examine their traditions.

You can warn them, you can do what I've done on this program and say you need to examine your traditions, but you can't give them the desire to do so.

That's something that the Spirit of God does. Well, it was a very interesting experience to be in that church, and I almost sang there, actually.

We were supposed to sing that day, but there was a mix -up, so... Oh! I could have been singing on your program.

Well, I have... I grew up, well, grew up, from my sophomore year on, for about 11 years,

I was in a Southern Baptist church that would be very, very, very, very, very similar to that, in the sense of being a mega church with the television ministry and 20 ,000 people on the rolls and 5 ,000 people in the services and multiple services and the 250 -voice choir and the full orchestra and the whole nine yards.

So I know how it works, and it was this issue that ended up causing me to have to leave that church over time.

So I fully understand what the situation is there. But I thank you very much, sir, for calling from that place that is unmentioned, and God bless you as you do missionary work there.

And we'll promise not to fall into the ocean. There you go. Alrighty. Thanks a lot for calling. God bless. Bye -bye.

All right. Well, that's going to do it for The Dividing Line this evening. One thing's for sure. We've got 42 people in the chat channel, and I think that may crash the entire system.

And the website that we're using, thank you, Pete. Pete, you lovable Canadian, you.

Don't know how in the world you did this, but I think it has worked really, really, really, really well. And, you know, it's

PeteWebb .com. That's right. Very, very well done. Excellent stuff. And thank you to the callers.

Hopefully the discussion this evening has been undertaken in the proper way, that is, with proper respect for God's truth.

And I hope you heard that in my voice as I addressed these issues. And in closing, examine your traditions.

Do exegesis. Do the work. Don't be a lazy Christian. We'll see you next time on The Dividing Line, probably after September 9th sometime.

That's when we'll be back again, but we'll see you then. God bless. We need a new

Reformation day. It's a sign of the times.

The truth is being traveled in. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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