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.

Why This Response Matters for Romans 8 and 9

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 to quote, I have read Dave Hunt's new book, What Love Is This? And on the overall, I found it to be a very sound biblical presentation. 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, I did read your review of the book and thought the arguments you presented were just the usual strawman positions that have long been refuted over the many centuries by the plain reading of Scripture.

To which I responded, excuse me, but since my review documented numerous errors on Mr. Hunt's part, including the gross misrepresentation of Spurgeon, the mistranslation of Acts 13 -48, agreeing with the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses, miscitations of lexicons, etc., how could any of these be strawman arguments, since they involved very specific errors on Mr. Hunt's part that were not made many centuries ago?

Even Dave isn't that old. How can the demonstration of the mistranslation of a paraphrastic construction be a strawman, since I quoted Mr. Hunt directly? 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, I would ascertain that all five points of Calvinism are false from a strictly biblical perspective.

I find it incredulous that so many people who claim to hold to a solo scriptura position actually expect people to believe doctrines that are non-abstanta scriptura, though the scriptures say the contrary.

The blasphemous heresies of Augustine and Calvin are a deadly cancer that must be excised from the church. 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 received 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 think something happened 2 ,002 years ago, but I couldn't believe this statement. And are you actually saying, how can you believe biblical doctrines without exegesis? But this was the next, 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 to be 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 Britt 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 chapter 8, beginning in verse 28, offered by Adrian Rogers on his national radio program.

Foreknowledge, Predestination, and the Golden Chain of Redemption

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 is 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 will 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, 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 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 then 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, at 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. There's everything that's about, 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 you can, 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 say, you make the scriptures say the exact opposite of what they are intending to say.

And you see, that first person I talked, I mentioned, you don't need to worry about that exegesis and hermeneutical stuff, because that'll get you away from true doctrine. No, it'll get you away from your traditions.

It'll 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 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. Men are just doing their thing. 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. 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 happened, 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, once you embrace this kind of perspective, in essence, what you're saying is that God looked down the quarters 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 and redeeming of 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 using the wrong, we're not using the biblical definition of the 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, 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, 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.

There's nothing less to me than to save your soul from death, but it's all worth it.

Predestination to Christlikeness and the Big Three Prooftexts

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. 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? Well, stop going to number 14, would you? Go to this one. 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. It just says all. That's not exegesis. All what? And when we look at 1 Timothy 2 .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, etc., etc., etc., etc.?

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 .4, that's only one of them. And as you can probably imagine, we get to 2 Peter 3 .9. But this is a short one because.

This is all he says. 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?

Well, so 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 bring and 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 center. How often I want to, what?

Gather you together. The way a hen gathers a chick's under 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.

Pastor Rogers.

There 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 and that same group that's saying, hail him, will 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 I'd gather thee, even as a hen does 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, let me, let me play this section.

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

Gathered thee. That's not what it says, is it, folks? No, that's, 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 of you think looked up Matthew 23, 37? I would imagine probably not a whole lot. You're probably right. And that's, 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, not what's really there, but only what we want to see. That's why you deal with exegesis. That's why you have, folks, let's call it this.