July 12, 2005

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Upcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line. On this Tuesday morning,
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I just got an email, excuse me, just got an email from Carl Keating.
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He sends out his e -letter, and I started looking at it and went, ooh, this is interesting.
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Didn't know about this, hadn't kept up with this, isn't it interesting that Carl would. He mentions the fact, for those of you who don't know,
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Carl Keating is the president, director, grand puba of Catholic Answers in San Diego, and author of Catholicism and Fundamentals of Catholicism, a very sort of out -of -date book now, to be perfectly honest with you.
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But it's still out there. And he worked with Jerry Matitix for a while.
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I don't remember how long Matitix was with Catholic Answers, at least 89. Was in early, was that early 91?
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Yeah, it was early 91 that Matitix left Catholic Answers, and they have truly gone back and forth and smashed each other over the head a number of times over the years.
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And you've got to give Carl credit, Carl is pretty much still saying the same things he said back in the 1980s.
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I don't think that's necessarily good in the sense of I've not seen any development in his apologetic, at least to those outside of Roman Catholicism.
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And again, he does tend to be more interested in internal stuff, movements within Catholicism than he is us folks out here.
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So, hey, you know, that's his thing, that's his thing. Anyway, and Matitix has gone out into the stratosphere someplace, and I was not aware of how far he had gone.
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And so I read this, just went to Jerry's site. And Carl does quote him accurately here.
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And he starts off talking about this debate that's upcoming. And we don't know where it's going to be, which
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I find somewhat humorous. When the announcement was first made that Jerry Matitix was going to be debating
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Robert St. Genes on does the Novus Ordo Mass fulfill our
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Sunday obligation, St. Genes is going to be saying yes, and Matitix is going to be saying no.
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And it's scheduled for October 1st at a yet to be announced location in Southern California.
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And I kept looking, when they get out, you know, I think maybe possibly they might, you know, want to have a location for this, you know, that type of thing.
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But they haven't done that yet. And what comes from this is, interestingly enough,
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Matitix starting March, April, I guess April, he refers to the strong stand
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I've taken in my April talks against the new mass and related issues, that is the new post -1968 ordination rights.
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And it seems that Matitix is now saying that not only is the Novus Ordo Mass, the mass post -Vatican
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II, the order was changed, you know, in the vernacular, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, all these changes of Vatican II, not only is that really bad.
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In fact, Keating says Matitix has called it a monstrosity. But likewise, the revisions to the right of ordination, it seems
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Matitix is saying, renders the ordinations that have been done since 1968 invalid.
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That means there have been no priests ordained since 1968.
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And Keating points out what this means. He goes through, rather interestingly, the relationship of priest to bishop and then bishop to bishop of Rome, pope, and points out that Ratzinger was ordained in 51.
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So that would be valid as a priest. But he was ordained Archbishop of Munich -Freising in 1977, which is post -68, which would mean that he doesn't have a valid ordination to the office of bishop and hence could not be the
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Bishop of Rome. And hence there is no Bishop of Rome. And that's set a vacantism and da -di -di -di -da.
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And he notes that on Matitix's website, you can go to jerrymatitix .org.
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Don't go to jerrymatitix .com because for some reason it locked me out. It was I thought it was I don't know what that is.
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But anyway, he writes, quote, many of you, this is Matitix writing, many of you have inquired about my summer speaking schedule since until today, my website had only listed engagements up through April 16th.
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Here's the scoop. Due to the strong stand I've taken in my April talks against the new mass and related issues, that is the new post -1968 ordination rights, about which
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I'll be writing in my next essay, which I hope to post here next week. Ha, ha, ha, ha. I know
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Jerry Matitix well enough to know that if that appears before December, it'll be a new world record for the speed at which you would get something then.
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Anyways, post here next week. All but one of my 2005 speaking engagements have been canceled.
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All of them, the whole year, including a pilgrimage in France, May 1st, he was going to join the remnant for that, as he had in the previous nine years.
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The Dietrich von Hildebrand Institute in Lake Garda in Italy in June, for which
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I was to deliver several lectures on the doctrinal controversies in the early church and the formation of the New Testament canon, the annual
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St. Benedict Center conference in Fitchburg, Massachusetts in July, which he had spoken for nearly 10 years, as well as all my other summer speaking engagements have been canceled.
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Now, a couple of things this immediately tells me, first of all, whoever he's talking to, this real strong traditionalist community, the super conservative
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Roman Catholic traditionalist Latin mass folks, they've all got each other's cell phone numbers, okay?
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The only way that something that was said by Jerry Matitix in April talks that he's giving could immediately result in all the rest of his summertime talks being canceled, is if they all know each other, you know, they're just going around and they're talking to the same group just wherever they live, but it's a very small group and immediately the word spreads and it's, oh no,
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Matitix has truly become a sete vacantis, a sete vacantis, for those of you who don't know, means the chair is empty and so there is no valid Pope.
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And so if the post -1968 ordination stuff does not produce a valid ordination, it's not sacramentally valid, then
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I think Keating's right. The only logical conclusion you can come to is that Ratzinger is not validly the
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Bishop of Rome because he's not validly a bishop. So it would seem that a lot of these very strong traditionalists are very concerned about being seen in such a fashion, being seen as being sete vacantis, as being seen against being against the
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Pope and so on and so forth. So all of his speaking, gone.
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And Keating writes in an email to me, Michael Matt, editor of the Remnant, confirmed that Matitix withdrew from participation, now notice here it says
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Matitix withdrew, Matitix withdrew from participation this year's pilgrimage because he doubted that priests associated with it, including those in the
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Vatican Sanctioned Fraternity of Saint Peter, had been ordained validly.
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So he's saying that Matitix withdrew because Matitix didn't feel that the priests who would be involved with that particular pilgrimage had actually been validly ordained because they had been ordained post 1968.
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So, you know, it is awfully interesting to notice, you know, you think about the 1980s and 1990s, who was out front for Catholic answers and the
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Roman Catholic apologetics community in the 80s and 90s. The first is Jerry Matitix.
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Patrick Madrid did his stuff, but, you know, not quite as up front, you know, but Jerry Matitix, I've mentioned before the picture of him in the in this rock magazine, inside front cover, black and white picture of him in this church.
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You know, I'm the one who took your loved ones from the Catholic Church and yada, yada, yada. And then who is the next big name that came along?
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Roberts and Janice. Big name converts, Westminster Seminary, la, la, la, la, la, la.
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And where are they now? They're off doing their own thing, you know,
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I've seen and I saw this, oh, I forget when I first saw that, but early 90s, at least,
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I remember seeing certain Roman Catholics and their voices were pretty quiet because everybody was so excited about the converts, you know, look at the converts from Westminster Seminary.
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Isn't this wonderful? Saying, in essence, you know, isn't it a little bit odd that these apologists are all converts?
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First of all, hasn't the church normally utilized priests to do this kind of work and so on and so forth?
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And then sort of buried in between stuff. But I do remember people saying this.
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There were people who were criticizing these converts and saying, look, the problem is these folks are still
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Protestants in their thinking. They may say they believe in the
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Pope and they may say they believe in the church, but the fact of the matter is these converts, they're still
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Protestant in thinking because they've come into the church. And what they're basically saying is, look, if you want to get more of folks like me, then this is how you should do it.
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This is the process. This is what got me. And therefore, this is how you'll get everybody else.
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And so they're their own they're, in essence, their own little popes. And isn't that what we see happening here?
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I mean, St. Janice has gone off and done his thing and he's out there doing the, you know, I saw a page on his website recently.
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Somebody sent me a link of a picture of him. And so I think it was on the on some cosmologies, something with a picture of Hawking next to him, you know, so Janice actually believes that he's on Hawking's level.
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They can argue with each other. I don't know. That's what makes me chuckle. But anyway, it's that he's out doing his thing.
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Now, Matta -Tix is doing his his St. Jerome Center thing, which is
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I couldn't. If any of you have listened to any of Jerry's debates in the past,
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I could not help but chuckle at this this paragraph. It says not as large as a small house.
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We still hope to eventually acquire the apartment's four rooms will nevertheless hold the bulk of my library in nearly 50 large bookcases, still leaving room for two sofas, easy chairs, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
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It says during the past four weeks, I've been working around the clock, transporting dozens of bookcases and thousands of books from my home to the new study center, purchasing 22 additional bookcases and assembling them and attending to the hundred and one other details to make the study center fully functional in time to receive our first students the week of July 18th to 22nd.
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I anticipate a steady stream of students the rest of the summer and throughout the fall. Jerry's books are still in boxes.
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I'm sorry, but if you've listened to our debates, almost every debate for a while starting there, what, in the mid 90s?
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Yeah, in the mid 90s, every debate would start off with how all his books are still in boxes. And so he couldn't get to his best material.
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And it was always his way of saying, I'm not as prepared as I should be. So grade me easier than this other guy type of a type of a of a routine that he had.
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And they're still in boxes. And now he's starting his his St. Jerome Center.
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And I really wonder what kind of students are going to come out of that. And are they likewise going to believe that there are no priests?
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And what what happens 20 years from now? I mean, if the last priests were validly ordained in 1968, they're in their 60s now, right?
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I mean, if they were just very young, they're in their 60s now. They're they're they're not going to be lasting 20 more years from now.
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Most of them are going to be gone. So what's the result of that going to be? You know,
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I mean, is is Manateeks attending only a church where the
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Latin mass is done in the old way by an old priest who was validly ordained?
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Could are these older priests who were ordained before 1960, do they need to start ordaining other priests outside of Rome's purview and overview?
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I mean, I I got to you got to admit Keating is right here. There isn't any logical way for Manateeks to remain in the
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Catholic communion, believing what he's what he's believing is I can't be done.
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It just can't be done. So, you know, one of the things that this this raises for me as I'm as I'm thinking about this.
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Is. If you take Syngenis and Manateeks out of the debates we've done, we need to go back and start we need to do a few more debates on some other topics with maybe priests primarily who aren't likely to go off into La La Land someplace somewhere down the down the road, because unfortunately, whether it's whether what they say in the debate, the vast majority of people who criticize my debates or criticize my position,
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I've never even bothered to listen to them. But what happens is, you know, I'll say, well, you know, I had a great debate with Jerry Manateeks in 1993 on the papacy, seven and a half hours.
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Yeah, well, Jerry Manateeks has gone off and become a wacko and they won't even listen to the debate, even if what
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Manateeks was saying is exactly what any other Roman Catholic apologists today would say, even if it was what
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Aiken would say or Keating would say or Madrid would say, because he's gone off the deep end and Syngenis is off with his
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Jewish conspiracy theories and taking on Hawking and doing stuff like that. All the debates done with them, all of a sudden it's like, well, you know, that's not really relevant.
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Then you throw in Staples. And for some reason, people are willing to throw him under the bus and just sort of chuckle a little bit like, well, you know,
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Tim, Tim's Tim and, you know, folks, folks, you know, and they don't really care about that.
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So there's still some some topics there that would need to be addressed in a, you know, in upcoming debates.
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And who knows, maybe that'll happen. But fascinating developments there. It is truly interesting to see what is what is going on in that particular area.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. We have one early caller and I noticed that early callers are normally troublemakers.
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And and I'm pretty certain that this guy is a troublemaker, too, because I think he's
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I think he's called before. And so I've got my finger on the on the drop button and I've got my left hand on the drop button and my right finger on the kick band button.
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So we can we can go both directions at the same time and and cause the sounds of silence to be played in multiple, multiple mediums.
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But so we're going to go ahead and talk to Frank anyways. Hi, Frank. How are you,
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Dr. White? Well, nice to be home. What would you do if we actually, you know, were nice to you or something?
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I wouldn't know what you wouldn't be. I'd be speechless. Yes, yes, you would. Because it's we we have abused you for so long that it is how you understand love now.
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And it's sort of like the dog that has been beaten so many times that it just when you stop beating it, it thinks you're no longer loved.
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So. And apparently we're training Gary and Nick to be the same way.
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Well, Gary wants wants your position. OK, he's he's actively seeking it.
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Nick is just like running into walls. It's just for Nick. I'm starting a whole book called
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Nutty Nick Questions and Nick's Nutty Questions or something like that. It'll do well in the
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UK. It won't go over over here. But well, actually, the problem is in the UK, it won't be funny because we're going, well, we've always wondered about that, too.
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You're ruthless. I am. I realize that. I'm sorry. Anyway, here's my question. Yes, I called in.
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I was actually working in my bookstore and it's hard to believe, but I actually had time to work in my bookstore a couple of weekends ago and a fellow came in and his church is going through the transition from being a single pastor church to being an elder led church.
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And they have a situation where they have a board of elders, loosely speaking, but they don't really have a methodology or really a real understanding of of how church discipline is supposed to work.
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And apparently they have a situation they feel like they need to deal with. And aside from giving me a list of scriptures that they could follow to to guide them in their process, are there any really great books that I could point these folks to to help them establish a very firm system of eldership and discipline in their church?
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Well, see, normally those are two different two different questions. I mean, they're obviously related in the sense of the the practice of discipline requiring the elderships oversight and attention and indeed being primarily their their responsibility at that point.
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But they're they're really sort of two different questions, because it sounds like from what you said, they're already moving that direction.
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Are they moving that direction out of conviction or just sort of this just happens to be the evolution of the of that particular fellowship?
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They're convicted of it. I mean, they have these are folks who really have been working on this project really just before we opened the bookstore, which is two years ago.
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So their church, you know, they really went through a long they used to have deacons and now they have deacons and elders.
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And, you know, the deacons are really the younger men who are who are working in more of a service role. And the older men are working in in making church decisions.
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But they've come to a place where they realize that they need they need some guidance in understanding what what elder rule really means in terms of in terms of guiding the church in ways other than just having a business meeting.
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OK. All right. Well, you see, the the function of the eldership is a little bit is significantly more than than just, you know, discipline.
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There's in fact, you would hope, of course, that discipline would be a minor element of of the practice, though.
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That's when, shall we say, the rubber meets the road. That's when you really find out whether people really do believe in having a plurality of elders, really do believe that this is something that's important to the health of the church and and so on and so forth.
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So there's a there's a wide variety there. Obviously, you know, that there's a small book that's that I contributed to that at least would give my perspective.
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It sounds like they're already past that point, though, as you as you see in channel right now. Deo Valente mentioned
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Strauch's Biblical Eldership is a much deeper study. There was this
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Reformed Baptist work. The name is just missing me at the moment that likewise goes into the functioning of elders.
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You're seeing in channel a number of folks because we have a number of elders in channel that are mentioning various and sundry works that are are available there.
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But really the the interface with discipline, the whole issue of church discipline, and I'm not sure what the nature of this this situation is.
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They were real forthcoming. I couldn't give you more detail. Yeah. You know, if it's if it's a sin issue, which it normally well, it's always a sin issue.
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But if it is a personal sin issue that is separate from a theological issue or a heresy issue, you know, that that's one thing.
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If it's the if it is the issue of heresy, then you have to have these new elders pulling together with the quote unquote pastor slash elder type of a situation as far as taking a stand on stuff that the problem with new situations where you're just newly moving into that is it's it's hard to know where an elder is in a short period of time as far as their their their theological strength and depth goes.
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And the problem is frequently you'll get folks who just don't see the importance of maintaining doctrinal purity in the church and and the danger to the sheep of someone who is is actually seeking to draw people away after themselves.
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And so that can be difficult in that transitionary period. You know, I I've I've not been in a church that was transitioning.
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And so there's some some areas I feel a little bit less than than able to address from experience simply because I've not been there.
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I've either you know, I went from non -reformed in Toto straight to a reformed church that had been reformed for quite some time.
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And so there was a the things that we as elders have to deal with. Because everybody in the church knows who the elders are, what they stand for, what their function is.
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And we're all on the same page. And being in a situation where people aren't all on the same page is extremely difficult.
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And when I travel and speak at, for example, founders conferences where you'll very frequently encounter individuals who as a young pastor, they're trying to bring sound theology into into the church.
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And yet there is such incredible resistance. And I can't I've lost count of how many times
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I've talked to some some young man who was who was, you know, trying to do what was right before God.
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And now he finds himself working at the local Walmart because that's all he can do because he you know, they just up and and kicked him out.
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And that's all there is to it. That's that's how they did things. And so that transitionary process can be very, very, very trying.
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Very, very difficult in a church. And I honestly, I give all the credit in the world to people who survive it because I haven't gone through it.
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And I don't know if I actually could survive that, to be honest with you. I mean, obviously, God can give the grace when you need it and not before or after.
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But I don't know how I would, in fact, be able to survive something like that. It would be extremely, extremely difficult.
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And, you know, I I should mention and I'm thinking about the fact that we have folks sitting in channel going, yeah, well, if you all weren't
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Baptists, you wouldn't have that problem. But let's let's face it, our our
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Presbyterian brothers have the other end of the spectrum, and that is they can they can get stuck with the they may not have the situation where you've got a bunch of Arminian deacons who think they actually own the church, right, kicking anybody out who raises the specter of Calvinism.
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But just to demonstrate that there are problems all over, the the session can become very comfortable with a dead orthodoxy as well, that that makes it next to impossible for a minister to very boldly and powerfully preach the gospel to and from a
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Reformed Baptist perspective, that overarching structure, which which someone would say, see, that's what keeps from happening.
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What you're just talking about, you know, the young man gets kicked out. He's working at Walmart. Yeah. But when that overarching structure goes wrong, then you have the ability to promote heresy from the top down.
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Right. And there's a whole area of discussion there. So, you know, there's it's sad that most folks look at church polity and how we do things is pretty much just a matter of tradition and not a matter of something where there needs to be conviction.
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But you've got a number of references there in channel while we were speaking. Everybody else is going, well, what were they?
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Well, you got to be in channel to know what they are. That's sort of the Gnostic element. Why not?
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We're accused of being Gnostics anyways. Why not just go ahead and say, there's there's a, you know, OK, can I can I get one other question since I'm here?
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You know, this whole this whole gerrymantics thing isn't isn't what he's proffering here, a kind of donatism.
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I mean, I threw that in channel, but is that true? Yeah. And let me explain what what donatism is, because most people are thinking that gerrymantics eats donuts right now.
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But what she could do, he's a real skinny guy and all would be well. But yeah, the the
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Donna, it is a form, as far as I can see, at least historically, there would be some connection to the
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Donatist controversy at this point, because it sounds like the objections are very similar. That is, the
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Donatists were saying ordination was not proper because these individuals were trotters.
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They had given up the scriptures and their persecution during the Roman persecution. And and therefore they they cannot validly ordain someone.
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And it seems that Jerry's argumentation is that the but the one difference here would be it seems his argumentation is that the
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Vatican and the bishops gather thousands of bishops gathered together somehow got it so wrong that the result is such a perversion of what the truth is that it's no longer a valid ordination.
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So they're both arguing along the same lines, except that you could almost make much more of a case for the
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Donatist, you know, in the sense you're only talking about an individual or something like that who has committed a material act of apostasy.
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He's saying basically the entire church did it and the entire church is missing it. And who's
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Jerry to say, well, that's just it. Jerry's I'm sorry, but so many of these
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Protestant converts to Roman Catholicism, they just they don't imbibe that that fealty to the to the existing hierarchy overly well.
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And they they I think it's the criticism is right. A lot of them just become their own popes and they go their own way.
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And voila. So anyways, we should pitch in and get him a funny hat. Well, you know,
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I he wouldn't be able to keep track of it very long. So we shouldn't invest a lot of money in it. So it end up in a box someplace that he wouldn't find for many years.
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So. All right, man. Thanks for calling. Thanks, Doc. Eight seven seven seven five three thirty three forty one.
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We're going to take our break and be right back. Do your best and nothing less to be blessed, try to save your soul from death.
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It's all works righteousness, you know, and I mean, is the
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Bible true? Never before in history has the authority and inspiration of the
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Holy Scriptures been so viciously attacked by those outside the pale of orthodoxy and within the walls of traditional evangelicalism itself.
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Join us August 27th, 2005, at the Sea -Tac Marriott for an historic debate between evangelical
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They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils. They're joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements, and many evangelicals are finding the history, tradition and grandeur of the
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The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition in Scripture, the papacy, the mass, purgatory and indulgences and Marian doctrine.
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That always comes back so loud. My ears are ringing now.
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Thank you. What's this? Someone calling? I can't tell. I can't hear it anymore. 877 -753 -3341.
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We're going to go back to playing some clips here and go back to we're going to finish off Adrian Rogers someday.
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So that's that's what I'm going to I'm going to do here. I have all these there's this neat little program called Sticky Note. It's it's really cool program.
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In fact, we use it now to send notes back and forth across the network and stuff. But I have all these little sticky notes on my on my computer telling me like where I am.
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I started this one Sunday, March 6th, and it tells me Rogers 1748, et cetera, et cetera.
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So I remember because I'd never remember where in the world we're going to start 1745. So we'll get three seconds of context going back to Adrian Rogers.
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I believe this is a college Bible study on the on the subject of hyper Calvinism, which we have learned already is just simply five point
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Calvinism. But we're in the middle of of that presentation. So let's pick back up with it even now.
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We reject that with every bit of my being that there's a child born in this city any time, any day where God says there is no opportunity, none whatsoever.
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There's only certain ones that are unconditionally elected. But Jesus said I would have, but he would not.
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Now, we're going to tighten the focus a little bit more here. Now, let me just we sort of got into the middle of that one there.
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That was after Matthew 23. We didn't hear anything about the fact that the you would not was was not the people who were who just wanted to gather.
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No attempt to make Matthew 23 soteriological, no attempt to deal with Matthew 23. And the fact that it's dealing with the issue of the condemnation of the religious leaders, none of that.
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It's just simply thrown out there. And in essence, as it frequently functions, especially when you're talking to younger people, hey, if the man up there in the pulpit says this, then he's done that study.
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And therefore, I can trust him on that. You know, I understand that. And you know what?
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That's not bad in and of itself because he is supposed to have done the study.
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It just seems on this one topic, there are so many who are not willing to actually do the study and to accurately represent the situation.
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I'm sure that Adrian Rogers thinks he's doing what's best for his people. But we see now why when you are training for the ministry, when you are when you are preparing for the ministry, part and parcel of what needs to be in there is the constant reminding the constant emphasis upon the fact that you can never cease learning.
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You can never stop. Don't stop examining your traditions. Don't stop going into the world.
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And I realize in so many of these churches that become so big, they become so huge that we force these men to be nothing more than CEOs.
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And so their theology and their theological development stops. Stops way back there, and it never moves forward from there.
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And we see the result, and it ends up then impacting the next generation, the next generation, so on, so forth.
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The third thing, and that is limited atonement. The idea that Jesus only died for some people.
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I want to give you a verse right now that just it gives the hyper -Calvinist fits. Now, once again, if you haven't heard this before,
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Dr. Rogers confuses hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism. And he had just simply used the same term for both.
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It is not a hyper -Calvinistic doctrine to believe in particular redemption, that Jesus Christ died substitutionarily in the place of the elect so that his death is actually propitious, propitiatory in regards to their sins, et cetera, et cetera.
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If you're expecting to hear any new insights from Dr. Rogers as to how you can believe that Jesus died for you, that being a reformed doctrine, and then reject the foundation of it, you're not going to get that.
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But that's probably not surprising you at all. I want you to turn to 1 John, chapter 2 with me for just a moment.
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Back toward the back of the Bible. I'm using a Bible, it's a brand new Bible. The reason why the pages are stuck together here.
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A brief illustration of why. Whenever I get a new Bible that I sit down and maybe put on a movie
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I like to watch or something, I separate all of the pages because you don't want to be teaching a
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Bible study and the verse you want to get to, you have to rip the pages open to get to it because the tendency on the part of the people watching or something is,
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I haven't been there for a little while, has he? I wonder about that. All right. 1 John, chapter 2, verses 1 and 2.
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My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the
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Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He's talking about the Lord Jesus who pleads our case before the
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Father. And now notice verse two, and he is the propitiation for our sins.
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Now, that's a big word, but it simply means he is the satisfaction for our sins.
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That is, the Lord Jesus is the one who paid our sin debt and satisfied the righteous demands of the law.
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He is the propitiation. Now, let me stop right there. I agree with that. That was well said.
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That's exactly what propitiation means. It wasn't anything about the wrath of God there, but that's minor.
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I agree. So what does that mean?
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If you believe, if you believe in propitiatory sacrifice and you're now going to, instead of seeing
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John talking about us and the whole world as all of the children of God spread abroad, every tribe, tongue, people, and nation,
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John chapter 11, all the children of God scattered abroad, run into one, unless, you know, he's not going to let
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John define the scope of the atonement here in John's own language. We know where he's going.
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We've been to 1 John 2, 2 a million times before. But aren't there young? I mean,
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I know when I talk to college groups, there are these these young minds that, you know, just haven't been worn down over time.
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They they ask lots of consistency questions. And aren't there people sitting there taking the definition of propitiation?
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And then they're going to hear it applied to everybody. And the result would be that the sin debt for everyone has, in fact, been paid.
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And so the question answer time should be, OK, what's the basis upon which anyone therefore is condemned?
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Right. That would have to be what follows. For our sins.
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Now, watch this. And not for ours only, but also for the sins.
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What's the rest of that say? For the whole world, I believe that Jesus died for the whole world.
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I can't help but believe that. There's no other way to say what black print means on white paper.
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You know what? What what will a hyper Calvinist say about this verse? Well, he'll say, oh, the whole world of the elect.
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No, no, I wouldn't even attempt to and again, hyper Calvinist. Ha ha ha.
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I wouldn't even attempt to put that. I just defined it the way John defined it. Every tribe, tongue, people and nation.
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Yes, those who are joined with Christ, why not? Why not go?
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To those passages of the Bible that are specifically about the issue of the scope, intention and result of the atonement.
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Why not go there? Well, someone could very rightly say, look, this is a college
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Bible study. You're covering a big topic. Don't expect them to go in depth. Well, has he ever?
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Do any of these folks ever or or when you ask these questions within these large churches, are you not then referred to this very kind of extremely.
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Narrow, shallow, brief. Stay away from this stuff, it's bad for you, causes church splits and it makes you not be evangelical anymore type of presentation, isn't this the type of tape that would be handed to someone in the vast majority of those churches?
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It is. You're not handed, you know, what do you be handed the hand of Dave Hunt's book, the hand of Norman Geisler's book.
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Isn't isn't that what they'll present to you, they generally are handing out the scholarly
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Arminian stuff because very often it's not real high in its view of scripture and and very often it ends up denying various elements of their own inconsistent theology.
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And so this is the type of stuff that is presented. And you put a little codicil down there, you write something in that's not there.
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Well, the whole world of the elect, well, he's not talking about the elect when he says the world, by the way, any any text taken out of its context is a pretext.
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That's for certain. No one disagrees with that. So why don't you go to the texts,
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Dr. Rogers, that actually address these issues rather than these side things?
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You know that. All right. Now, what kind of a world is he talking about? We'll go down to verse 16 for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the father, but of the world.
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He's not. Now, wait a minute. Whoa. Time out. Now, this one surprised me a little bit because this is below Adrian Rogers.
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OK, I've heard him preach some great sermons. I've heard him do some some good work with the text.
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And to jump 14 verses down and assume. That Cosmos is going to have the exact same meaning, it's just below someone of his position.
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I mean, there's there's no there's no connection here about the world of the elect. No, he's not talking about the world of the elect.
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And he's not talking about the same world that he did in verse two, either. He's talking about that system of things.
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I mean, think about what's being said here. He's not talking about the world of the elect. Yeah. And he says anyone who loves this world, love the father's not in.
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So you're not supposed to love the lost. That would be the only logical conclusion here, if you're going to try to push these things as far as Adrian Rogers is pushing him.
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But it just just falls apart at this point. The wheels fell off. Talking about an ungodly world and he's saying that Jesus died for that ungodly world now can't even begin to make the connection to say that Jesus died for the system that is opposed to to God and that you're not to love and Jesus died out of love for that world.
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I mean, come on, that that this is one of the worst elements of it. I mean, from an exegetical standpoint, it's not even not even slightly accurate.
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And he's not talking about Jesus dying for the elect only. He says he is the propitiation for our sin.
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But not for ours only, not just for the chosen frozen, he is.
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He is the propitiation for the whole world, which then means and, you know, you just, you know, it's frustrating to hear this type of thing, but you also got to realize.
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You have to trust that that in God's time. Anybody listening to this, if it's
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God's intention to to grow them in the faith, they're going to think about that and go, hmm, that really doesn't fit really well, does it?
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We need to think about this. We need to do something, you know, and the Lord leads them to a fuller understanding and they get out of that tradition and and then they get in big trouble, basically.
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Now, I could not. I could not pick up my Bible and read it if there were no other verse, no other verse in the
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Bible, but this one, I could not be a hypercalvinist, I could not be a five point calvinist.
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Let me put it that way. Let me get that. Now, was that an indication? Is that an indication that he does recognize?
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The difference between the two, if he does, then why not be more careful? You know,
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I mean, what is wrong with using theological terminology with at least an emoticum of accuracy, at least while teaching, you know,
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I suppose, stand around the street corner and do what you want, but I don't know. Give you another verse. Turn to 2
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Peter, chapter two and verse one. And Peter here is talking about apostates.
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And if you know anything about apostates, you know, they own their road to hell. They deny the
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Lord. And look, if you will, in 2 Peter, chapter two, verse one. But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you who privily or privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the
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Lord that what? Bought the Lord that bought them, they were bought with the precious blood of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. There you go. See, once again, immediately at this point, if I were in his shoes and I knew.
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That every time that particular Greek verb was used redemptively, the price was mentioned.
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If I knew that the term Lord, there was not courios, it was despotis. If I knew what the context was, then
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I would feel this crushing weight of responsibility upon me. To explain, because this does cross my mind all the time when
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I'm it's one of the reasons that I'm not as as fluid a speaker as I could be, if I was not an apologist.
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I could be a better preacher and speaker. What do I mean by that? When I would make it, when
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I make a comment like that, the apologist part of my mind is always.
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Cognizant of the fact that there might be someone in front of me, especially when I'm traveling, speaking, I don't know, I don't know who the you know, the audience is,
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I don't know what they necessarily or their their theology is at all times.
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And there's almost always one of those annoying little microphones attached to my my lapel or my shirt or my tie or whatever.
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And who knows where this is going to go? I was speaking at church down in Texas a number of years ago.
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I did a presentation on on Chosen but Free. And someone mentioned a couple of days ago that there were these sermons from me.
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There was this discussion from me on sermonaudio .com. And I said, well, I don't have any at sermonaudio .com.
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So I went and looked. Lo and behold, there it was. And I start list. I download one. I'm start listening to it and listen to it. I said, oh, yeah,
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I remember that. I don't remember where it was in Texas, but it was in Texas. And I was talking about this particular subject of Chosen but Free.
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And and yeah, I'd never heard them again. So I never know where what
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I'm saying is going to go. And of course, if you follow the blog at all, you know that I have an entire.
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Cadre of people from all sorts of different theological backgrounds that live for nothing but to twist every word that I speak out of its original context and use it as a bat to beat me over the head with.
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So I keep that in the back of my mind. And so if I know that a position that I'm criticizing has, in fact, spent a fair amount of time in developing its position and in providing a rather strong biblical argument in regards to something, it's very difficult for me to just touch on that and then go blowing by it because someone's going to come up to me afterwards and say, what about this?
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Someone's going to listen to that years later and say, what about that? And and so it's difficult for me to be very smooth flowing and just just sort of move on the way that you probably should, because I have that apologist in the back of my mind that's going, well, here's the objection here.
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And and what you should be doing is presenting this in such a fashion as to at least acknowledge the other viewpoints and and so on and so forth.
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And so when I hear someone doing this and just so easily knowing the extensive discussions and you sometimes wondered, does this person know about the extensive discussions that have taken place in regards to these particular subjects?
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And then just sort of throw it out there like, you know, here's you know, I've I have taken the time to look at despotism and I've looked at the
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Old Testament backgrounds and I've looked at our grounds and I've looked at it and I've come to this conclusion. I I'm sorry,
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I don't get the feeling. That's. That he has, you know, maybe
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I'm wrong. I would like to be proven wrong, I'd like to to think that I'm wrong, but I just don't get the feeling that all of that work has really gone through yet their heritage, bringing in damnable heresies.
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Going to hell. But bought with the precious blood of Lord Jesus Christ, how could a person therefore believe in a limited atonement?
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What's the first verse you probably learned, John 3, 16, for God so loved the elect.
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Oh, but now I would like to stop right there. OK, rhetorical device can't be taken overly seriously.
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But didn't he just get done saying that world meant the evil world that no one's supposed to love?
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So God loves the world. But if you love the world, love the father's out of him. Now, I know that John uses cosmos in at least a dozen different ways.
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I know that. Any serious person who's done New Testament studies knows that shouldn't
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Adrian Rogers know that? Hasn't he read that in the in the in the preparation for all the sermons that he's delivered?
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So why doesn't it have an impact here in a college Bible study talking to college kids or do college kids deserve a less high standard of accuracy in teaching?
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That may be part of the problem. Maybe that's the issue. I don't know. But certainly this kind of rhetoric that just assumes one meaning for cosmos and then 30 seconds later, one minute later, we've forgotten about all that.
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Makes no sense. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that if the elect would believe on him.
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Hey, folks. Again, plain English for God.
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So love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever.
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Believe on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
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Now, again, our regular listeners know probably if you've listened to this program with any regularity for the past two years,
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I don't even have to comment. You know how to respond to every single aspect of this.
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You've heard so many people, whosoever, whosoever, reading into a
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Greek construction. And you know what? They print Greek on with black letters on a white page, too.
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And the black letters and white page there don't have anything about a denial of election and saying all the believing ones.
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So, again, for a man who can preach on other subjects and go into depth and deal with the language to be so facile, so shallow, so lacking in concern to accurately represent this, it just doesn't make any sense.
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Why is it that this is the one tradition that Baptists, that all of us, all of us non -reformed
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Baptists, many Southern Baptists, just figure, hey, this is the one I don't have to worry about.
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This is the one I can just I can, you know, and every other aspect of my theology,
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I will demand, you know, biblical basis. But this in this one area, it doesn't matter.
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Don't have don't do not have to test my traditions here at all. No, I don't believe in a limited atonement.
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I'll tell you why. Well, we're in Second Peter. Go to Second Peter, chapter three and verse nine. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness.
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Now, do you know something that we can at least get a we can at least get some education from this presentation?
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Because very clearly presentation, the presentation is is very poor as far as showing any familiarity with the issues and really dealing with them.
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It's very representational, but it's very poor. But here we can we can see something
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I think is important as we wrap up the program today. I have said many times people will talk about how their four point
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Calvinists and I know there are some real four point Calvinists. They actually know what the issues are. They're true
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Amaraldians. And OK, but I hear so many use that term.
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And frequently. When you push, they end up being like one point
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Calvinists. And when I hear someone say they're a four point Calvinist.
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Most often. In my experience. In reality.
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Their objections to that one point in 99 percent of time, they say are four point Calvinist, this is the one issue they don't agree with.
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Now, vast majority of the time, their arguments against particular redemption are actually arguments against unconditional election, which they say they believe.
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Are you noticing what verses he's going to here? If you're going to second
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Peter three, nine, what's the computer three nine normally cited as a argument against not particular redemption.
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And if you listen to what he's saying. His his his argument against particular redemption is actually an argument against unconditional election, not particular redemption at all.
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And so when you are talking with people and you you hear them and you hear what their objections are, listen to what the substance actually is.
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And you'll discover that in the vast majority of instances, what the person really finds offensive.
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Is the freedom of God to elect undeserving. God hating sinners to salvation, that's what they don't like.
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And that's what we see right there. Well, we're 23 minutes and 13 seconds in. I'll make sure to change my sticky notes so we can keep track of that.
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Thursday evening, 5 p .m. Pacific Daylight Times, is that 5 p .m.?
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No, 4 p .m. Pacific Daylight Time, 7 p .m. Eastern Daylight Time. How long is daylight time got to go?
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I don't know. It's hot out here. So who cares? We'll see Thursday evening. God bless. We need to be brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.
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Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the
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World Wide Web at AOMIN .org. That's A -O -M -I -N -DOT -O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks.