Radio Free Geneva and Radio Free Damascus

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.

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I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

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They're following men instead of the Word of God. Our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

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And I have kids standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out,

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He died for all. Those who were elected were selected. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe.

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His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.

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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the Reformers.

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I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

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Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing.

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For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever.

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Were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing.

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Ladies and gentlemen, James White is a hyper -Calvinist. Now whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper -Calvinists.

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You ask who that may be, Christ Jesus it is he.

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I've said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism.

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It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist. Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism.

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Lord, swallow his name. Read my book. From age to age the same.

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And he must win the battle. And now from our underground bunker hidden deep beneath Liberty University, where no one would think to look.

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Safe from those mutter Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read

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George Bryson's book. We are Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say to his own eternal glory.

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And welcome to Radio Free Geneva, a 45 -minute version of Radio Free Geneva, followed by another

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Radio Free Damascus today on The Dividing Line, making a total of a jumbo dividing line, or something like that.

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That's how it all works together. You know, over the past 24 hours, 48 hours,

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I've been pretty busy. I've got a book that is way overdue. And there's just so many things getting in the way of my getting it done, unfortunately.

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But I've been making progress over the past 48 hours. I've been spending my time, for example, today,

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I was fighting with Word to get it to properly italicize the transliteration of Arabic words.

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It takes time. If I just wouldn't bother with that stuff, I could probably write it a lot faster.

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But I was fighting with that, and I discovered something today. I discovered something today.

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I took the time to find out exactly how many words there are in the Quran, and then make comparisons with how many words there are in the

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Old Testament and in the Greek New Testament. And did you know that the Quran is 56 % the length of the

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New Testament, and it's 18 % the length of the Old Testament? You know, you've got to do important stuff during the day.

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But we were looking for that information. But anyways, I've been keeping pretty busy and answering emails, things like that.

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During that same time period, during that same time period, a man that I just I don't quite understand.

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Oh, yes. Oh, yes, we must. Spent his time putting together a pitiful little seven minute long jumble of quotations from our last

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Radio Free Geneva. And, you know, it's been a long time since we've heard from old Petey. Good old

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Petey. You know, I had sort of forgotten about Petey a little bit. I mean, I thought about a little bit while I was teaching for Golden Gate back in January.

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And, you know, he had always. And in fact, even in his article today, questions whether I've ever actually done that, which is just like, what color is the sky in your world?

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I mean, it's just he's just so disconnected from reality. It's sort of sort of sad. But anyway, good old

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Petey Lumpkins, who got molerized at the Southern Ave Convention recently and is still still reputed to have a nervous tick as a result.

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Anytime I'm all his name is mentioned or a microphone is anywhere near him. One of the two. Good old

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Petey Lumpkins put up a YouTube video last time I looked at five views. You realize that when we post something on our on our

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YouTube channel, it has five views within five seconds. It's just like it's there.

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Yes, I have to correct you on that because, OK, the five views. Yes. I accidentally hit it twice.

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I did. Micah hit it once and Mark hit it once. OK, that's it. And of course,

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Pete probably hit it once when he posted it. Right. Anyway, he put up a he put up a video and what he does is he takes out my comments.

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They're not in order. They're all chopped up. So it sounds like it's all, you know, remember, we've we have documented

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Petey Lumpkins ability to edit things in the past to make you say the opposite.

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We actually said and things like that. It's just and and then he's he gets pictures of me from the

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Internet. He's got one from years ago when I first tried on a kilt in in in Glasgow.

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It puts a different face on it for some reason. It's not me. Why? I have no earthly idea unless he didn't realize that and somebody else had done.

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I don't I don't know. But I'm just sitting around going, what what kind of a life is it when you spend your time putting something like this together?

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You know, I I look at what I was doing and I was doing some fairly pedestrian things because I'm writing a book.

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Whatever Christian needs to know about Islam. And wasn't this the guy that defended the guy that turned out to have actually grown up in Ohio and he wasn't born in Turkey and all the rest that stuff that he'd actually claimed?

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And yeah, same guy. It's okay. So anyway, evidently what what got me to to get back on on old

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Petey's radar was what we're doing right now. And that is we've been reviewing started reviewing Ronnie Rogers book,

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Reflections of a Disenchanted Calvinist, The Disquieting Realities of Calvinism. And of course, he says, I'm misrepresenting this like that.

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And, you know, as we're going through this, of course, you chop up what I'm saying and don't let the context flow. I guess it's easy to say

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I will say anything you want. But evidently, I was correct because I noted there were a couple of places in this book where Rogers makes the the assertion that I don't know how

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Calvinists could sign the Baptist faith and message because of its statement that God treats all of his creatures in a fatherly way.

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As if that's all it said. And as if that means there can't be such thing as election, it can't be such.

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And my response that was, well, how can a synergist, especially

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Ronnie Rogers viewpoint, sign it when it clearly indicates that regeneration precedes faith as well?

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I wonder how that works. Maybe it's because it's actually meant to be signed by a wide variety of people and not answer all the questions that might be it.

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But I did find it interesting that because I would dare to respond to this and point out that Ronnie Rogers was not a

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Calvinist, I didn't bother going back into the introduction.

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But he himself specifically said, and by the way, just so I can quote that, this is location 588 in the

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I don't know why Kindle hasn't gotten around to actually making pages mean pages yet.

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Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Depends on the book, I guess. It says, it is rather perplexing to see how a

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Calvinist can sign the Baptist faith and message because it says of God, quote, he is fatherly in his attitude toward all men, end quote.

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Now, of course, a Calvinist can understand that in regards to common grace and all sorts of things like that, but that doesn't actually end up getting mentioned, unfortunately.

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It would be helpful if in fact it was mentioned, but it wasn't.

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But anyways, I also noted in my marks some of his

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Molinistic comments and Petey said, hey, never call himself that. Yeah, but if you use that as your means of getting around things, there's lots of folks who propose

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Molinism as the answer to the question of God's knowledge and man's freedom without knowing anything about Molina or the

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Reformation or any of the things related to it. And in fact, in among Southern Baptist circles, people are just starting to repeat this stuff and they don't know anything about Molina, but they grab hold of it and well,

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God knew what men would do and all that kind of stuff. And I noted some of that as well, but it is interesting to note his statement that he is, in fact, a, you know, he was a four point

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Calvinist. He was not a full born Calvinist. And of course, as I said, as I pointed out, almost every four pointer

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I've ever pushed on, their objection was actually not to particular redemption, but to the concept of unconditional election and other things related there too.

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So anyway, we go back to our review in the first portion of the program and we were looking at the concept of real choice used by Pastor Rogers.

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I affirm that God's sovereignty is not minimized because he sovereignly chose to provide a real and real is italicized choice for everyone to accept or reject the gospel.

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This includes deliverance from eternal hell, men's just desert for anyone and everyone who acts in concert with his grace enablement.

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Now, may I stop here and point out what this means? When you say who acts in concert with his grace enablement, let me see the hands in the audience.

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What does that mean? What is the term that we use all the time being described by the phrase everyone who acts in concert with his grace enablement?

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Yes, I see those hands. I see those hands. Yes, you're right. That is the term synergism.

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Yes, synergism, the joining together of two forces, neither of which in and of itself can possibly bring about the actual desired for result.

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And so you have grace enablement, but grace enablement cannot save anyone because everybody gets grace enablement.

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And man's acting in concert can't save himself. He needs the grace enablement. So neither one can actually be fully salvific.

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So it has to be a joint effort. This is the very essence of synergism. This is the issue.

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It is the dividing line. It would be a much, I think, more accurate discussion if we always used that kind of language rather than Calvinist, Arminian and all the rest of that stuff.

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Reform, non -reform. Those are not necessarily going to communicate to us the real dividing line when it comes to the doctrine of salvation.

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The issue is the difference between monergism and synergism.

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And here is a statement of synergism. This includes deliverance from eternal hell, men's just desert, for anyone and everyone who acts in concert with his grace enablement and follows

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Christ. The means of this grace enablement include, but are not limited to, and then we started working through this last time, and we actually got down to the discussion of John chapter 12 and John chapter 6.

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And if I recall correctly, we finished up by pointing out, and we had someone in channel this morning that we needed to explain this to, to them as well.

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If you are going to take John 12, 32, which is a completely different context, and again, if you'd like to hear a little bit more exegesis on this, you're listening at a later time, you go to Sermon Audio, go to the

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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church portion of Sermon Audio, look at the Sunday school lessons for June, late

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June, early July of 2012, you will see that I'm dealing with that subject at that particular point.

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But if you're going to ignore the context of John chapter 12, ignore the fact you have Greeks coming to Philip, Philip being a

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Greek name, Jesus never meets with them, he hides himself from them, and yet this is the context, the launching pad from which the discussion then takes place, and Jesus actually talks about judgment coming upon the earth, and God blinding eyes, and all that stuff in John chapter 12.

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But if you're going to ignore the fact that in John 12, 32, you have a different person doing the drawing than you have in John chapter 6.

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That is, in John chapter 12, I will draw. In John chapter 6, the Father will draw.

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Now there is a difference when you have two different persons of the

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Trinity and their roles in salvation. I would hope that Pastor Rogers and those who adopt this synergistic viewpoint would recognize that the

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Father, the Son, and the Spirit take different roles in the doctrine of salvation and in the accomplishment of salvation.

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Certainly it's the Son who dies upon the cross, it's not the Father, it's not the

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Spirit. By means of the Spirit, the drawing takes place, but it is based upon the sovereign decree of the

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Father, and it all is a Trinitarian activity, but there are distinctions that are drawn for us there.

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But beyond that, the drawing is not the same thing. And if it is, as we explained to the fellow who came into channel this morning, if the drawing of John chapter 12 is of every single human being, if you read that into John chapter 6, verse 44, it is of necessity that you become a

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Universalist. And we were explaining that right at the end of the program last time, why that is.

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Why is it that we would say, of necessity, you must be a Universalist? Well, it's rather simple.

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When you look at John 6, verse 44, No one is able to come to me, so no one has the capacity to come, unless the

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Father who sent me draws him. Hapempsasme helkousei autan. Helkousei is the word that Pastor Rogers mentions.

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He says the same Greek word for draw, helkuo, is used in both verses. It is, but it has a different meaning in both, because of the different context in both.

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Unless the Father, the one who sent me, helkousei, draws him.

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Now him is the direct object of the verb. And immediately after autan, and remember, of course, in our modern

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Greek texts, we have a comma following autan. There wouldn't have been in the original writings.

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In fact, there wouldn't have been a space, even, after autan. It just would have been one long line of letters.

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Me helkousei autan kago anasteso autan. Now, there's only two words.

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Now, you could, I guess, say kago is actually kai -ego together, but it's only one word as far as its meaning goes and our understanding of it.

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So, you have two words between autan and another appearance of autan.

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The second autan is the direct object of anasteso. I will raise him. So, you have the

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Father drawing, but you have Jesus raising him up and then eskate hemera, on the last day.

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Now, hopefully I don't have to go through too much of the context to demonstrate that to be raised up by Jesus on the last day is to receive eternal life.

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If you just follow the context of John 6, 37 and onward, you will see that that is the case.

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And so, what the synergist has to do is the synergist has to hypothesize a huge gap.

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We might call it the gap theory, but that probably would be confusing. But they propose a gap theory.

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There's a huge gap between the first autan and the second autan.

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And that is the one who is drawn, the direct object of the hokusai. That's a different group.

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That encompasses a different number of people, a different identity of people than what you have in the second autan.

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And I will raise... Even though kago, the kai element of kago, would not be disjunctive in the

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Greek language, it would be conjunctive. They have to assume it's actually disjunctive.

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And so, unless the Father sent me draws him, and I will raise somebody else.

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I will raise a subgroup. I will raise a subgroup up on the last day.

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And the fellow who visited the chat channel this morning said, well, yeah, it's the one coming. It's the one coming.

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Now, there isn't any one coming in John 6 .44. If you want to see the one coming to me, you have to go back up in the context to John 6 .37.

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All the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out.

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So, you do have tan er kamanam pros eme, the one coming to me. But interestingly enough, as we have pointed out so many times before, that's in the middle of a sentence.

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And we want to be very careful that we do not interpret sentences without looking at all of the sentence.

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And John 6 .37 begins by saying, all that the Father gives to me will come to me.

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All that the Father gives to me. So, the Father is the one who is giving a certain ha, pan ha dudasenmoi.

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All the Father gives me, heksi, will come to me. They will come to me.

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So, what is the ground of the coming? What action comes first? And grammatically, there's no question here.

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In either English or Greek, it is the giving of the Father to the

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Son that results in the coming of the one so given. It is not the coming that determines the giving of the

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Father, which is the synergistic perspective. The synergistic perspective has to turn John 6 .37

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on its head. So, the reality of the text is that the giving of the

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Father results in coming to the Son. And the one coming to me,

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I will never cast out. So, now you have the sovereignty of God in giving a particular people unto the

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Son. And the result of that is, in time, in time, those individuals come to Jesus Christ.

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They are the ones coming to Him. So, what this person in channel did was said, well, yeah, it's the one coming.

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Except the one coming is determined by the giving of the Father. And that's not even in John 6 .44.

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But it is in the context, and it is in the context of anyone who's coming to the

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Son is coming to the Son because they have been given to the Son by the Father. The choice of the

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Father determines our coming to the Son. That is then borne out very clearly in the next few verses.

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Because I have come down out of heaven, not in order to do my will, but the will of the one who sent me.

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And what is the will of the one who sent the Son? This is the will of the one who sent me.

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In order that, This is the will of the one who sent me.

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In order that, of all which He has given to me, group taken as a whole using the singular neuter, of all which

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He has given to me, I lose none of it. The altu would be referring back and again referring to the group.

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But raise it up on the last day. So the Father's will for the

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Son, the Father's will for the Son is that He be a perfect Savior. That He lose none of that which is given to Him.

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That none of it perish. Now again, unless you're a universalist, then the it cannot be every single human being because we know from Scripture that there will be those who perish.

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Even if you're a conditionalist, you believe that. Only the universalist believes that that's not going to happen.

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And so this bears out exactly what was said in verse 37, which really the topic begins in verse 36.

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Jesus is explaining why it is that these individuals are not believing. I said to you that you have seen me and you are not believing.

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You are not believing. Why are you not believing? Because all the Father gives me will come to me.

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And the one coming to me, I will never cast out. Why will I never cast him out? Because I'm coming out of heaven to do my own, not to do my own will, but the will of the

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Father. And what's the will of the Father? That of all He's given me, I lose none of it, but raise it up on the last day. Now remember, this is the beginning of the very presentation

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Jesus is going to make that's going to result in all of these people, except for the 12, walking away from Him.

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They are not going to be following Him anymore. They are going to be fulfilling the reality of what

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Jesus is saying here. And that is, it's the drawing of the Father that results in someone truly coming to Christ.

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And that just because you see miracles and you eat some food and you like how

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Jesus talks, that's not the same thing as coming to Christ. The one coming is a present tense participle, the one who's always coming.

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He who endures the end shall be saved. He who is always coming to Christ, he is saved. That's a description of the work of the

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Spirit of God in someone's heart. That's not something we can work up. That's one of the dangers of synergism, is it fundamentally underestimates the divine nature of faith that will actually persevere unto the end.

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When you say that faith is something that we can do in and of ourselves, I'm not saying

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God believes for us. I am saying that saving faith is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the regenerate person.

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It takes a new nature to have a faith that will endure to the end.

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And how much damage has been done to the people of God because of teaching that faith is not in fact the work of the

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Holy Spirit? It is something that you can work up within yourself. How much damage has been done?

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So when we look at John 644, the argument that we made to our visitor and channel this morning is, if you're going to be consistent, if you're going to take one meaning of John 12, cram it six chapters earlier into John 6, ignore the flow of the text, then you are stuck with universalism, because there is no basis for differentiating the two autans in John 644, the two hymns, the two direct objects of Helcuse and Anastaso.

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Now it is, I think, a beautiful thing to see, and sometimes we are so focused upon defending this divine truth that we don't stop and just praise

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God for the beauty of this, but do you notice what John 644 is saying? Who is the one who does the action of Helcuse?

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To draw. It is the Father. Who is the one who raises up on the last day?

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The exact same people. It's the Son. The unity of the

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Father and the Son, and then this is the very Gospel of John, which is going to explain to us in chapters 14 -16, how does he accomplish this?

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How does the Father and the Son even make their abode with us? Through the power of the Holy Spirit. Here is the

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Trinitarian Gospel yet once again, and this is why we can rejoice in the certainty of our salvation and in a perfect Savior, because the

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Father, the Son, and the Spirit, they accomplish exactly what they decreed to accomplish in eternity past, and we are trampling on holy ground, my friends, when we seek, because of our traditions, to insert ourselves into that which is the very glorifying mechanism of the

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Holy Trinity and our God. We are truly playing with divine majesty when we do that.

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So that's what we're looking at in John chapter 6 and John chapter 12, and we see once again that the attempt to get around this text simply fails.

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It is not possible. There are many people who try, but it just simply doesn't work.

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We continue on. About 115 passages, this is a quote, condition salvation on believing alone, and about 35 simply on faith.

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Well, I have not run the numbers on that. I can tell you how many words there are in the

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Greek New Testament, but I didn't run the numbers on that one. It's 138 ,162, by the way, in case you're just dying to absolutely know.

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But we certainly do believe that faith is the only thing that God has commanded of us.

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The problem is that people say, well, that means every single person must have the capacity of themselves to do this.

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That does not follow. God's law demanded absolute perfection of obedience from us, and we couldn't do that either.

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And the very nature of saving faith requires, for the intimacy of the union with Christ that we profess to have, for that intimacy to exist, the faith we must have must be born of the

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Spirit of God. For us to truly confess that we have been united with Christ, then the faith that is ours must be born of the

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Spirit of God. And so we do believe that God requires faith of us, but we also believe that unless we are freed from slavery to sin, we will never have the ability, capacity, or even desire to have that kind of faith.

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Now, there's much more to be said about that. This would be a time where I'm tempted to go off into Romans 8 and talk about the reality of the fact that he who is according to the flesh cannot do what's pleasing to God.

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That kind of faith would be pleasing to God. Therefore, we can't be according to the flesh. We have to be according to the Spirit. And what does that mean?

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Well, that's regeneration, and there's just so many things we get into. But at this rate, I will never, ever, ever get very far if we don't press forward.

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I am unfortunately boring some children in the audience I just saw on channel. Someone just said, Dad, turn this off and let's play

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Pokemon. So I do recall those days in my own life, probably, where my...

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What? Oh, many years ago, yes. Oh yeah, yeah.

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He's probably going to be mad at me for mentioning that now, but he admits it. He's gotten far enough away from it now that he admits it.

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Anyway, I also affirm that the permissive will of God is a part of his decretive will that permitted sin to enter the world and for a time continue.

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Okay, I appreciate that.

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I'm not sure what permissive will means. At least we have here decretive will.

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There is a decretive will of God. I've had a lot of Calvinists... I've heard a lot of people criticizing Calvinists, I'm sorry, for having multiple wills in God.

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But here you have... I also affirm that the permissive will of God is a part of his decretive will that permitted sin to enter the world and for a time continue.

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Okay. Holiness is always God's standard. Well, actually, it's his essence and nature.

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And therefore, sin is never God's perfect, immediate, or ultimate desire for his creation or man. Agreed. But within his sovereign decretive will, he has purposefully permitted it.

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I would say yes. And not in the sense that its certainty was not established by that decree.

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His certainty was... The certainty of the existence of sin had to be...

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I mean, think about it. If you affirm that the cross is a certain element of God's decretive will, what logically must flow from that?

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If the central means by which God is going to redeem himself is that self -giving act, then what is necessary for that self -giving act to be meaningful?

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Redemption has to be from something. That does not, again, require

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God to bring something into existence that didn't exist before in the sense of...

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We seem to think of sin as an it or a substance or a thing or a black rock or something like that, like God has to create it or something, rather than recognizing what sin really is in regards to a broken relationship, a lack of holiness, et cetera, et cetera.

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Okay. He commands man to obey, but permits him the freedom to disobey.

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In a general sense, yeah. The choice to disobey

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God's commands results in man suffering the consequences of such choice. Okay. Thus, with regard to salvation,

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God desires that all come to salvation, 2 Peter 3 .9. Well, I'm not sure how we jumped to that.

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Nothing that was said beforehand established any of that. And I know there are many people who interpret 2

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Peter 3 .9 that way, but as we have demonstrated over and over again in our examination of the text, especially in the book

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The Potter's Freedom, there is a much more consistent, accurate interpretation of the text than that which is assumed.

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And in all but, I think, two things I've ever read, it was assumed. And that means, in everything else

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I've ever read by synergists, they just assumed a certain meaning of this text. They didn't bother to interact with what we were saying.

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They didn't bother to interact with the counter -exegesis. They just assumed the text had a particular meaning.

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And since it has been repeated so many times that way, then people just say, oh yeah, that must be what it means.

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But as we have pointed out in 2 Peter 3 .9, if you follow the pronouns, the

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Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, and some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any of who?

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Any of you should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Who is the you? In any other subject, if we were talking about the resurrection, if we were talking about justification, if we were talking about almost anything else in the

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New Testament, it would be an automatic exegetical question to ask, does

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Peter have an audience that he's directly addressing over against others?

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And the reality is, it's true. He does. He refers to his fellow believers in the second person, but he also refers to others, to them.

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For example, 2 Peter 3 .3, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.

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They will say, where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.

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For they deliberately overlooked this fact. Why does he say they? If what 2

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Peter 3 .9 really means is that God desires the salvation of every single human being, that means

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He desires the salvation of every single scoffer. And so it should say, but is patient toward all, not toward you, not wishing that any of the scoffers and any of anybody should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

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That's what it should say, but it doesn't. And so the text itself makes a distinction, and it's explaining why the parousia, the coming of Christ, has been delayed.

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Why hasn't it taken place as yet? Well, God is gathering in His elect people, and not one of them are going to repent.

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And if that long suffering had not lasted for almost 2 ,000 years now, you would not have been gathered in either.

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So to just blithely state, ah, see, what Peter's actually saying is there is no such thing as a decree of election, there is no elect people, is to completely ignore even what he himself said in his own book.

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Which, it's always a bad thing when you just ignore what a guy says in his own book. But 2

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Peter, this second epistle, what does he say at the beginning of the epistle?

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He says, Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, those who obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our

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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Who's that? Who obtains, lakousen is the term, faith.

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Is that the scoffers? Lakousen comes from lankano, which means to receive.

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Sometimes to cast lots. But it means to receive something. And so, what is it they've received?

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Pistis, faith. By the righteousness of our

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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. A Granville Sharp construction identifying Jesus as both God and Savior, by the way.

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So that's who the you is. That's who he's writing to. It's those who've received faith.

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Another reference to faith as the sovereign gift of God, the work of the Holy Spirit.

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So we continue on. Accordingly, he enables man to be able to be saved.

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Catch that, folks. Catch that. Listen to that. That is the language of synergism.

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Where do you ever find that language in the New Testament? I was just showing you how you can go directly into the original language of the

39:58

New Testament and what you hear is reformed. To those who've received faith.

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John 6. All the Father gives me, etc. It's all right there. Where do you ever hear,

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Accordingly, he enables man to be able to be saved. Is that all then?

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Was the Amorite High Priest enabled to be saved? Was this grace enablement something that simply brought the

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Amorite High Priest to a moral neutral point so that he was no longer a slave of sin?

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When did that happen? And why would God do that? Why would he provide this grace enablement without providing the message of salvation?

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Without providing the gospel itself? Let's skip the

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Old Testament pre -Christ question. Go to the New Testament period.

41:08

There were still many people for many centuries, even to this day in some remote parts of the world, that live and die without ever having heard of Jesus Christ.

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Were they given this grace enablement? If not, why not? If not, how does that fit with your interpretation of John 12 .32?

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If they were, then why wouldn't God then provide the other needed element, and that is the proclamation of the gospel?

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These are just questions that have to be asked. These are things that we have to consider.

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So this idea of synergism and salvation as a possibility, a theoretical possibility, he enables man to be able to be saved.

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Remember Norman Geisler, whose 80th birthday is coming up in like three days. Happy birthday,

42:11

Norm. You're still wrong on this, and you're still completely wrong to be covering for Ergen Kanner, but happy birthday.

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And a number of other things. But remember what

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Norman Geisler says, the death of Christ saves no one. It makes men savable.

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That's a completely different way of looking at the effectiveness of the sacrifice of Christ, is it not?

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To say it makes something possible, and to say it actually accomplishes something infallibly, those are not the same things.

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Those are not the same things. So, he enables man to be able to be saved, and thereby permits him to freely choose to believe the gospel or to reject his grace and to love and die in his sins.

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I'm assuming that's love his sins and die in his sins. Well, is that the language of the

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New Testament? Is that what Jesus said in John chapter 8? He who sins is a slave of sin?

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Did Jesus say, he who freely chooses to be a slave will be a slave? There's no language of slavery here.

43:39

And yet that's the biblical terminology, that's Jesus' words. It seems that our synergistic friends, and there is a wide variety of them, from Romanism all the way across the spectrum of compromised

43:51

Protestants, our synergistic friends do not like the language that the

43:58

Bible itself uses to describe man's state in sin. They certainly don't like the term dead, because they always want to argue, as Pastor Rogers will later on, that that's an inappropriate term, in the sense that it doesn't really mean dead, because man is active in his rebellion, which of course we believe.

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But deadness and slavery just strike them as being a little bit too radical.

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Just a little bit too radical. But that's the language of the

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New Testament. That's what God says. Without question, God's permissive will does not preclude him from ever intervening in the decision -making process of man, if his purposes so require.

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Well, that sounds like he's allowing for God to interfere with the free will of man.

44:58

And if it's God's purpose to save all men, why doesn't he interfere with the free will of men and save all men?

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That's why real defenders of autonomy would not say this.

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They would not accept the idea that God would ever interfere with the autonomous actions of man.

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Nah, never do it. Never do it. But he allows it to happen, and so if he allows it to happen, then the question is, if it's

45:30

God's will to save all, and he can, in fact, suspend the autonomy of man to accomplish his own purpose and his purpose is to save all men, then why doesn't he save all men?

45:44

And now you're back to saying, well, he has a purpose. Well, what's that purpose? That purpose must include the salvation of some and not the salvation of others, which is the very thing they're trying to avoid.

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Without question, God's permissible will does not preclude him from ever intervening in the decision -making process of man, if his purposes so require.

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However, neither does it necessitate that it be done in order to maintain sovereignty, as long as he sovereignly chose to act in a particular way.

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I'm not certain I follow that. There's probably something more back there, but I'm not certain

46:22

I follow that. Well, let's continue on. I further affirm that God's full character and or attributes, not just his sovereignty or justice, are to be considered when speaking of him and his plans.

46:35

Well, of course. That's a good idea. This includes his infinity, mercy, compassion, love, grace, and power, which he possesses perfectly and infinitely.

46:47

Well, I don't think anyone would argue with that. God is the sum of perfection.

46:53

Louis Sperry Schaeffer notes, considering this balance, he is free to dispose of his creation as he will, but his will is wholly guided by the true and benevolent features of his person.

47:02

The attributes of God form an interwoven, interdependent communion of facts and forces which harmonize in the person of God.

47:08

An omission or sliding of any of these or any disproportionate emphasis upon any one of them cannot lead but lead to a fundamental error of immeasurable magnitude.

47:17

Going back to Pastor Rogers. Moreover, I affirm that all of God's attributes are more accurately reflected by accepting the truths of Scripture, which declare that salvation is provided and genuinely italicized, offered to everyone by God, and everyone can, by grace through faith, receive salvation, rather than by accepting the teaching of Calvinism that God only actually offers salvation to some because only that particular some can actually believe.

47:49

Those are the ones he monergistically causes to believe by changing their nature against their will.

47:57

So now we really start getting into it. So, if man is a slave to sin, then there can be no genuine offer, which, of course, is unbiblical.

48:09

But that's the argument that's being made, is that man has to be autonomously free.

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He cannot be the slave of sin. He cannot be dead in sin. He has to have the ability outside of a divine decree of election to be able to believe.

48:33

So faith has to be within the purview of the human creature.

48:38

Saving faith has to be within the purview of the human creature without the extension, not just of an enablement of grace, but a saving grace that frees from slavery to sin, that raises the spiritual life, that changes the nature of a

48:55

God -hater. The idea that you have a heart of stone, but that heart of stone has to have the ability to will itself to become a heart of flesh.

49:05

That's what's being said. That's what's being said. But then, throughout this book,

49:13

Pastor Rogers is going to accuse us of engaging in Calvinistic double -talk. The reality is there is a very clear, and I believe we will be able to demonstrate unquestionably, synergistic double -talk.

49:25

It's a traditional double -talk. It is a Southern Baptist double -talk. And we will be able to demonstrate it.

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A number of times, especially, it becomes most clear when Pastor Rogers is actually attempting to accuse us of it.

49:42

So, notice here. Rather than by accepting the teaching of Calvinism, that God only actually offers salvation to some.

49:52

May I correct that? God guarantees, by the

49:58

Triune Sovereign Decree, to save a particular elect people, He guarantees salvation.

50:04

This is a completely different issue than the general call of the Gospel that goes out to all people.

50:12

And the assertion here is, well, if man is enslaved to sin, then God is under obligation to free every man.

50:20

God has to bring every man to a moral neutral point, or they cannot be held accountable.

50:28

It all goes back to, we don't like this idea of spiritual death. We don't like the fallen Adam. If it's going to be a quote -unquote genuine offer, if it's going to be an actual offer, then there has to be this moral neutral point to which everyone is brought.

50:46

That's what's being said. So, the teaching of Calvinism, that God only actually offers salvation to some, and I stop and go, well, how do you know that?

50:57

Where does the offer of salvation come from? God uses His people as the means, the proclamation of the

51:03

Gospel. We are not given the identity of the elect. We are called to be obedient to Christ and to proclaim the

51:11

Gospel to every creature. We are not given the identity of the elect.

51:17

One of the terrible errors of Hyper -Calvinism, and those who falsely accuse me of this are liars, and they know it, but one of the terrible errors of Hyper -Calvinism is the

51:30

Hyper -Calvinist actually thinks that you can look for signs of regeneration before proclaiming the

51:37

Gospel. But we aren't given that ability. We aren't given the identity of the elect.

51:44

We're not given the ability to look into people's hearts. And so we are to proclaim the Gospel, we are to call all creatures to repentance.

51:52

All men everywhere are to be called to repentance. We just allow the

52:00

Spirit of God to be the one that makes that come alive in the hearts of His elect.

52:08

In fact, we get ourselves into trouble, as the current state of evangelicalism in the

52:13

United States clearly indicates. We get ourselves into trouble when we decide that we're going to help the

52:18

Holy Spirit out with that, and we're going to use various methodologies and emotional appeals and 32 choruses of Just As I Am and everything else to try to convince

52:29

God to be a little bit better than He really is. And hence we fill the church with driftwood, with unregenerate people, who then end up splitting the church and demeaning the church's worship and so on and so forth.

52:43

The teaching of Calvinism, that God only actually offers salvation to some because only that particular some can actually believe.

52:50

No, only that particular some will be raised to spiritual life and given the gift of saving faith.

52:55

Those are the ones He monergistically causes to believe, actually

53:02

He monergistically raises them to spiritual life, resulting in their faith, by changing their nature against their will.

53:10

Now this is throughout the book, changing their nature against their will. It's sad to me.

53:17

Maybe somebody did, I don't know. I don't know who talked with Pastor Rogers and tried to reason with him.

53:26

You know, you remember I tried to convince Dave Hunt many years ago because Dave and I had once been on a friendly basis, that he really needed to rethink writing this book because he didn't understand what he was denying and he was going to damage himself and his ministry, and he did.

53:45

He did, very clearly. I don't know who met with Pastor Rogers. I don't know if he had any truly

53:52

Reformed friends. Not a bunch of four -pointers that weren't really four -pointers. They were actually one -pointers, but I just like to use the

53:58

Calvinistic name. Someone who really actually understood the relationship of not just the five points, but all of Reformed theology to the concept of the glory of God.

54:08

I don't know if anyone said to him, you know, this kind of language, this kind of language of changing their nature against their will, seemingly indicates that you really don't understand what it is we're saying.

54:28

Either that, or you've got a problem with the radical nature of regeneration. But have you noticed this is very common amongst anti -Reformed writers?

54:43

Remember Norm Geisler? It's been a few years now. But Norm liked to, in essence, mock the radical nature of regeneration by saying, well

54:57

Calvinists believe that God has to rewire you. He's got to rewire you like you're a robot.

55:06

Change your wiring. And I just sit back and go, man, you know, it seems that the pictures that the

55:16

Bible presents to us are much more radical than that. I see the picture of a valley of dry bones, and the

55:31

Spirit of God blows across these dry bones, and sinews and muscle and flesh appear, and these who had died stand up, and yet then it still takes the

55:46

Spirit of God to come into them, the Spirit of Life to come in to make them alive. They could not save themselves.

55:52

Their nature had to be changed and changed radically, and none of this came from within themselves.

55:59

There was nothing in the valley of dry bones that could contribute to life.

56:08

It had to come from outside. And in the same context, you have the heart of stone, and the promise of God, I will take out your heart of stone,

56:23

I'll give you a heart of flesh. And when

56:28

I see this kind of changing their nature against their will, I just want to go, thank you,

56:34

God, that you did that. What heart of stone has ever willed to become a heart of flesh?

56:44

You see, synergists don't understand the power of sin and the power of slavery to death.

56:57

They don't understand. They can't really preach this, because their theology doesn't allow for it.

57:06

Because they stand upon a foundation of saying that hearts of stone can actually will to become hearts of flesh.

57:20

And that's why they don't like Lazarus. That's not what Lazarus was. He was spiritually dead.

57:25

He was physically dead, not spiritually dead. And the Bible says those who are spiritually dead, they're actually active because they're suppressing the knowledge of God.

57:31

Yes, they are. But don't you think that the scriptural writers understood that as well?

57:39

They still use that analogy of death. It's right there.

57:48

It's clear. And yet you have this, he monergistically causes to believe by changing their nature against their will.

57:57

What an amazing description of what it is that we believe

58:04

God has done in arresting us in our wild rebellion against him, our suppression of the knowledge of God, we who are created in the image of God, and yet we're doing everything we could to efface that image.

58:19

And yet God, in his grace and his mercy, stopped us in our tracks, changed our natures, removed us from the slavery to sin, raised us to spiritual life, made us new creatures in Christ, so that it is natural for this newly created creature to cling to Jesus Christ and to him alone, all to his honor and glory.

58:38

And yet that becomes boiled down to those are the ones he monergistically causes to believe by changing their nature against their will.

58:49

See, he who phrases the question wins the debate, it seems. Which may be why we can never get these folks to actually debate the issue.

58:59

Because it takes that kind of an amazing, such poor expression, description.

59:11

That's what they depend upon to actually communicate their points. Well, we will pick up at that particular point in time with Calvinism teaches that regeneration is monergistic,

59:23

God alone, and man has no part in it. We'll pick up with that the next time on Radio Free Geneva.

59:29

We're going to take a break and come back with Radio Free Damascus. We'll be right back.

59:44

Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the word of God. James White, in his book,

59:49

The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true

59:57

Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.

01:00:11

You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin

01:00:20

.org. The Trinity is a basic teaching of the Christian faith. It defines God's essence and describes how he relates to us.

01:00:27

James White's book, The Forgotten Trinity, is a concise, understandable explanation of what the Trinity is and why it matters.

01:00:33

It refutes cultic distortions of God, as well as showing how a grasp of this significant teaching leads to renewed worship and deeper understanding of what it means to be a

01:00:42

Christian. And amid today's emphasis on the renewing work of the Holy Spirit, The Forgotten Trinity is a balanced look at all three persons of the

01:00:49

Trinity. Dr. John MacArthur, Senior Pastor of Grace Community Church, says, James White's lucid presentation will help layperson and pastor alike.

01:00:58

Highly recommended. You can order The Forgotten Trinity by going to our website at www .aomin .org.

01:01:47

And about this business of every knee shall bow.

01:01:58

The question, Paul, well look, Paul, what about this business here now? It says here that every knee shall bow to God. And you're saying here to the

01:02:05

Philippians that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. So Paul assures us, he says, look, don't get upset.

01:02:12

That was just something for them. Now just fool around with those Philippians. Because Jesus said it in so many ways that he's not

01:02:28

God. You just want to stick it to him no matter what. I said, you're not reading your

01:02:42

Bible. You don't read your Bible properly. You know, God has got sons by the tons in the

01:02:49

Bible. By the tons. You know tons, the old measurement of weighing things. Coming to you live from our underground bunker deep beneath the madrasa where Ergen Kanner was trained in jihad and Arabic somewhere in Turkey or Beirut or Cairo or Ohio.

01:03:14

Anyway, this is Radio Free Damascus. Ah yes, it is very interesting to watch people on channel during the

01:03:23

Radio Free Damascus intro music. Shortly, just a few hours after the last

01:03:31

Radio Free Damascus, and I am not suggesting there is a connection, though it is awfully odd.

01:03:38

July 18th on Paul Belal Williams blog says,

01:03:46

Salam all, I have decided to move on from the Muslim debate initiative. I have fulfilled some of my own personal goals and now want to do other things in life.

01:03:53

Paul Williams. My understanding is he was at least co -founder of MDI.

01:04:01

And it is just very interesting that you say that was

01:04:07

July 18th and your last program was July 17th. Remember, this is England. So there is a big gap between the time there.

01:04:15

Within about 24 hours or so of our beginning or at least making mention of starting to review this particular debate, all of a sudden

01:04:24

Paul Williams is no longer with MDI. Now does that mean he is not going to be doing debates anymore? I don't know because since then he has posted videos,

01:04:35

Can we trust John? Can we trust Matthew? Can we trust the Apostle Paul?

01:04:41

And I haven't had a chance to look at those. It would be interesting to look at those. But it does make it make me wonder if Paul Williams is going to be willing to actually engage some of the things that he said in this particular debate.

01:04:59

Come September, we will we will see. But before then, we really need to finish up.

01:05:05

Finally, the interaction that took place a number of years ago, a number of months ago.

01:05:16

In the land down under, we have been listening to a debate featuring

01:05:21

Abdullah Kunda. And we finally get, finally, after all this time and thinking we were about there, get to the cross examination.

01:05:29

And this is where the issue really of Surah 5 gets handled and a few other things. We need to work through this.

01:05:35

And then I haven't decided yet whether I'll go back to Sami Zaatari at that point or go ahead and delve into the

01:05:42

Paul Williams stuff. Probably to the Paul Williams stuff because it's a little more common. Well, I'll take that back.

01:05:48

It's not that it's a little more common. It's not. Actually what Sami Zaatari says is a little more common. But the

01:05:54

Paul Williams material requires someone to be very familiar with things like, well, sources like E .P.

01:06:03

Sanders and Jimmy Dunn and things like that. And that's something that I think we can help folks out with and engage those subjects.

01:06:12

And so we'll probably go that direction. But we need to finish up, finally, listening to this interaction.

01:06:18

And this is, I think, it becomes very important. So listen very carefully to the cross examination period.

01:06:26

Thank you. Now we have a 10 -minute cross examination of a bullet by Jason.

01:06:35

Okay. Well, let's get to perhaps what's our biggest disagreement. Well, okay.

01:06:42

First of all, I hope you believe I did not do this intentionally. I did my best to understand correctly.

01:06:48

But, nonetheless, obviously think that I have misunderstood what the Qur 'an says about the Injil. Could you please clarify and tell us what, in your opinion,

01:06:58

Surah Al -Maidah, is that the answer correctly? Yeah. Says about the Injil. So that's one verse of many.

01:07:06

I guess the first thing that people need to understand about the Qur 'an, if they haven't read it before, they're not familiar with it, is that the Qur 'an is not in chronological order.

01:07:14

We wouldn't be able to sort of subtitle chapters of the Qur 'an and say, this is where God is talking about X or Y, as we find in some very nice printings of the

01:07:24

Judeo -Christian scriptures. So when we have roughly five, six statements in the

01:07:31

Qur 'an that refer to the Judeo -Christian scriptures, we have to appreciate that the

01:07:37

Qur 'an explains itself. So we combine the statements into one teaching.

01:07:44

Now, the statements are not contradictory. That's the critical thing to understand. And I gave the example of...

01:07:51

Now, just note, just once again, what is the functional presupposition of Abdullah Kunduz' understanding of proper interpretation of the

01:08:00

Qur 'an? If you ever interpret the Qur 'an to contradict itself, you're misinterpreting it. What do

01:08:06

Muslims do with the Bible? Constantly. They interpret it to contradict itself. So, you know, you can assume that, but what's your basis for using one standard for the

01:08:21

Qur 'an and another for the Bible? Well, yours has been corrupted. My scripture says yours has been corrupted, therefore

01:08:26

I can do whatever I want. That seems to be the mindset. And yet when we harmonize...

01:08:33

And let me just point out something. I would say that when you're looking within the writings of an author, you're going to look for more consistency within the writings of an author than between different authors.

01:08:53

Different authors will use different languages. Maybe one author may emphasize one meaning of a word while another author another meaning of the word.

01:09:01

And we have multiple authors in the New Testament and in the Bible as a whole. Allegedly you only have one author in the

01:09:06

Qur 'an. And yet we can clearly see where different surahs have different emphases in regards to certain meanings, telling of stories, etc.

01:09:18

So, it really is an area that unfortunately is rarely touched upon.

01:09:26

To challenge the Muslim to be consistent at this point, and to recognize the need to do more than just simply say, well, there can only be one interpretation.

01:09:38

It's the interpretation that makes everything consistent. Okay. As long as you allow us to do the same thing,

01:09:45

I guess we can go back and forth on that. But I think we need to go a little bit deeper than that.

01:09:51

And the problem is, when I look at Paul, for example, and I look at a statement in, say,

01:10:00

Galatians versus 2 Timothy, I can determine,

01:10:07

I think very reasonably and properly, the difference in the context between those books.

01:10:15

One is a very emotional epistle written to an entire region where there has been a great apostasy in regards to the central aspects of the

01:10:24

Gospel. The other is a personal letter written to a close confidant. I know what the contexts are, and I know how that's going to impact the vocabulary and the argumentation.

01:10:37

The Qur 'an doesn't provide us with that level of contextual information. Almost never.

01:10:45

Almost never. That's something to keep in mind, I think, when considering this.

01:10:52

So, it's just interesting that Abdullah starts off with that. It's just a given. We won't grant you that given.

01:11:00

Most of my presentation has been based upon saying that, well, John, you know, if the other

01:11:08

Gospels had known of the I Am sayings, they would have had to have included them. So I'm going to interpret these books as being contradictory to one another.

01:11:17

Though I'm then going to turn around when you ask me about what my book says. Well, you've got to start with everything's non -contradictory.

01:11:24

Everything's harmonious. The story of the Pharaoh of Moses, which is often quoted.

01:11:30

Another one that's often quoted as an example of a contradiction in the Qur 'an is where the Qur 'an refers to the creation occurring in six days in one account, and it then refers to a portion of creation taking four days, another portion of creation taking two days, and another portion taking two days.

01:11:47

Now, the point is we say, well, the base teaching is clear. The creation was six days.

01:11:54

We don't interpret that in the young earth creationist understanding, by the way. And again, that's from the

01:12:01

Qur 'an, because there's a statement... You know, I've had Muslims contradict that, but again, there's probably different perspectives. There's a statement which says that a day for your

01:12:07

Lord is 50 ,000 years or more of your reckoning. So the point is we have a base teaching, and we then have supplementary verses which complement and explain it.

01:12:20

And so when we have the base teaching with regards to the Christian scriptures, the Judeo -Christian scriptures, which is that they are corrupted, and that's referred to in multiple verses, there's verses that...

01:12:33

And, of course, there are early Tafsir literature that interprets those in a completely different way. They refer to the understanding being corrupted, and then there's a single verse that refers to the written text being corrupted.

01:12:44

That's the base teaching. And then from there we have supplementary teachings. So the supplementary teachings are that the

01:12:50

Qur 'an has come to affirm what truth is contained within them, and that Christians or Jews could then read what they still have to then be able to recognize what is the truth, basically.

01:13:04

So, you know, when we have the majority of Mark's gospel... Now, he just said Christians would still be able to read what they had to be able to determine what the truth is.

01:13:11

You have to have enough of the gospel left to be able to recognize truth. Just said that because that is the assertion that we are to judge by what is contained in the gospel.

01:13:25

Let the people of the gospel, the al 'al -anjeel, judge by what Allah has revealed therein.

01:13:32

The therein is the gospel. So there has to be enough of the gospel there for us to be able to judge.

01:13:39

And I think he just said that there was enough there, I guess. Hard to say. ...gospel, which I'm sure you would agree presents a very human

01:13:47

Jesus. We would say that, well, that's affirmed by the Qur 'an. Now, one of the things

01:13:53

I'm going to do, I'm not going to do it right now, but we're going to do this, and in fact, what

01:13:59

I'm thinking about doing, because I have four... I have two Sundays coming up in August where I will be preaching at the

01:14:08

Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church. What I'm thinking about doing, especially in light of that's only a month before going over to Europe, what

01:14:17

I'm thinking about doing is looking at Mark and looking at the

01:14:24

Synoptic Gospels as a whole and asking the question, does Mark present what...

01:14:30

because our Muslim friends just repeat this as if it's a given. It is not a given.

01:14:37

And it's easily demonstrated not to be a given. Well, Mark just presents a very human Jesus, as in opposition to John or even

01:14:45

Matthew or Luke or whatever. That's not true. That's a very shallow, simplistic, inaccurate reading of Mark.

01:14:51

And yes, there are many people with Ph .D .s at the end of their names who engage in very shallow, simplistic, inaccurate readings of Mark.

01:14:59

They do. In most of, quote -unquote, religious studies, whether Christian or non -Christian in the

01:15:07

United States, most people just simply accept what a Bart Ehrman or somebody else says without any critical analysis at all.

01:15:15

Just the way it is. Just the way it is. So I'm thinking about maybe for at least one of those

01:15:21

Sundays, or maybe all of it, looking at Mark's testimony to the person of Jesus. And I'll let you know right now,

01:15:32

I'm looking at some of Simon Gathericall's excellent work in his recovering the preexistent

01:15:37

Christ. No, the preexistent Christ, just recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

01:15:46

And even though, remember, Paul Williams told us that no scholars actually do that kind of stuff, but he's obviously not familiar with Simon Gathericall or Paul Williams or Dirk Junkind or people like that, even over in his own backyard.

01:16:01

I guess they don't exist there or something, I don't know. Ergo is true. And so that's sort of what's happening.

01:16:07

Okay. If in fact the Gospels that the Christians have contain so much corruption, how could we in fact read them?

01:16:18

Because, okay, again, perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but it does seem at least to me that the

01:16:26

Koran is saying to read what you have in your scriptures and affirm the truth of what we are saying.

01:16:34

How could we expect it to do that if in fact the scriptures we have contain all this corruption?

01:16:40

Now, I think what would have really helped here would have been to have taken the time on the part of both debaters to have actually opened the text and read it.

01:16:54

Because the text is different than what ends up coming out, unfortunately.

01:17:00

And so you have let the people of the Gospel judge by what

01:17:06

Allah has revealed therein. That's the thing about reading it. I mean, you'd have to do that. That's a given.

01:17:13

But the people of the Gospel are to judge by what Allah has revealed therein, and whoever does not judge by what

01:17:19

Allah has revealed, so there's revelation in the Gospel, then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient.

01:17:28

So that's what it says. There's no question about it, at least from the

01:17:34

Muslim perspective there can't be any question about it. That's a good question. Maybe I didn't emphasize it clearly enough. The Qur 'an doesn't even say to read what's between your hands.

01:17:44

That's... yes. The idea of between the hands, binyaday, is used elsewhere, but not in the specific text that should be under discussion, which is

01:18:00

Surah 547. This comes before that, when it says, and we sent, following their footsteps,

01:18:10

Jesus the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the

01:18:15

Torah, and we gave him the Gospel. So the between the hands element is in that phrase which came before him.

01:18:25

But that's talking about the Torah. It's not talking about... The people of the

01:18:30

Gospel are not directed here to say, it doesn't say, oh people of the

01:18:36

Gospel, read what is between your hands. It says, let the people of the

01:18:41

Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. That's a different thing. And it doesn't make any sense, and that's what

01:18:51

Jason is getting to here, if this has been so wildly corrupted, it doesn't make any sense.

01:19:00

I just realized I went too long in the first portion, didn't I? It took you a second.

01:19:09

I don't know what you're doing there, talking into nothing there, but I went for a full hour, and I did.

01:19:15

I apologize. I just now looked at the clock and said, what? What? I apologize.

01:19:22

So we did one hour of Radio Free Geneva, and we'll do 30 minutes of Radio Free Damascus. I apologize for that.

01:19:27

But anyway, that happens. No one? You could have gone on a break, and stuff like that.

01:19:36

You were on a roll. I didn't want to throw you off your stride. Okay. All right. All right. Well, it's live webcasting, folks.

01:19:44

That's how it works. Anyhow, that's what the text says. So we might still be able to get through what he says here in the next 10 minutes.

01:19:52

But it says that the Qur 'an is the protector, the witness of them. And so what it's saying is, use the

01:19:57

Qur 'an as a yardstick. Well, I suppose if you jump down to the next verse and read into Muhammad, something a little bit more than I think you could establish in classical usage of that particular term, okay, but still, the actual command has not yet been dealt with.

01:20:18

So anything that's affirmed by the Qur 'an is true. Anything which is refuted by the Qur 'an is false.

01:20:23

And then anything which is mutual we consider to be possible speculative,

01:20:30

I guess. Now, that's exactly what Shabir Ali said in a clip that I play from our cross -examination of 2006.

01:20:38

I play it over and over again. But what does that...

01:20:44

That's not an answer to how, in Muhammad's day, the

01:20:50

Al 'al Injil could judge. Judge what? What are they to judge?

01:20:57

And when it says, judge by what Allah has revealed therein, there is revelation from Allah in the

01:21:07

Gospel. It is backwards to go, yeah, well, move down to the next verse and what you do is you need to anachronistically look backwards.

01:21:21

And so you use the Qur 'an as the muhaiman, it becomes a lens through which you read the

01:21:27

New Testament and what's affirmed in there, even though it's only 56 % the length of the New Testament, what's affirmed in there, which is almost nothing but monotheism, a form of monotheism,

01:21:39

Unitarian monotheism, that's what you judge by. But what are we to be judging by?

01:21:46

I guess the only way we could... I'm trying to find ways that you could interpret the

01:21:54

Qur 'an to make it work. I guess what you could say is, well, what the

01:22:00

Christians are being told is that they are to judge only in their own community by what is consistent with what has now been revealed by Muhammad, even though when these words were spoken, everything hadn't even been revealed yet.

01:22:18

Do you see a problem with that? I certainly see a problem with that. And the problem is coming from assuming the very thing that Abdullah assumes, and that is the

01:22:29

Qur 'an is consistent with itself, and that the author actually knew what was in the Injil. There is no evidence that the author of the

01:22:37

Qur 'an understood what was in the Injil. Nothing. Nada. And if you guys want to start making an impact, if you want to do more than just excite your own base, if you want to actually show a love for truth, and start impacting people outside of just your base, and I'm not just talking about confused

01:23:01

Christians, I'm talking about people who really do know their faith, then what you need to demonstrate is that your book actually, actually, accurately shows a knowledge of what it addresses all the time.

01:23:13

And that is the content of the Torah and the Injil. I've read enough of the Qur 'an. I've read the

01:23:19

Qur 'an enough times to know. You can't do it. That's the problem. Okay.

01:23:25

So, when, I mean, when he says judge what's within him, what do you think he's asking us to judge?

01:23:32

Do you think he's, in fact, asking us to judge his claims of revelation? Well, do you think that the

01:23:40

Qur 'an is asking us to judge to see whether it's correct or not? As in, to judge if the

01:23:47

Qur 'an is correct? Yes. Well, that's certainly one interpretation that's taken. Another interpretation that's taken is that it's, well,

01:23:57

I guess ultimately the end game is to emphasise the Qur 'an, to realise that the Qur 'an is true. Now, that is interesting to me, because it would seem to me that the direction that modern

01:24:14

Islamic apologists would want to go here is actually to say, no, the judging is only intercommunal within the people of the

01:24:22

Gospel and has nothing to do with judging whether the Qur 'an is true or not. But the problem is,

01:24:31

Surah 5 presents a series of ayats here that are all arguing the same thing.

01:24:38

God gave Moses the Torah, then he sent Jesus confirming it was in the

01:24:43

Torah, and then he gave him the Gospel, and now he sent Muhammad confirming what was of the revelation of the preceding two.

01:24:53

He's the final revelation. So you've got this connection. And the whole point is to argue for the prophethood of Muhammad.

01:25:03

So I guess that's why they can't go that direction, but that would really be the only way to get around it, because if this is true, and the judging that we're supposed to do is to judge the truthfulness of the

01:25:13

Qur 'an, well, when we judge by what's in the Gospel, the

01:25:18

Qur 'an's not true. And if the actual argument is, well, yeah, you're supposed to judge whether the

01:25:23

Qur 'an's true, but you need to do that by making the Qur 'an the lens through which you read the

01:25:29

Gospel, that's talk about double talk. That has no meaning. Judge as to whether the

01:25:36

Qur 'an is true, but remember, the Qur 'an is the judge of what's in the New Testament. So judge by the Gospel, but you can't judge by the

01:25:42

Gospel, because you have to judge the Gospel by what's in the Qur 'an. It's an impossibility. It does not make the least bit of sense.

01:25:51

So if the first words of Surah 547 are nonsensical, impossible for anyone to fulfill, how can this be the word of God?

01:26:02

If these are the words that, if Muhammad recited these words to the angel Jibril, to the

01:26:08

Allah and Jill in his day, if they had no meaning, if they had no way of doing it, how can it be meaningful?

01:26:13

How can that be the word of God? But sort of the mechanism which is applied here is to take the

01:26:19

Qur 'an, what it says about Jesus, for example, to then read what you have between your hands, what that says about Jesus, and to then basically then decide for yourself.

01:26:30

And see, that's the big thing about the Qur 'an. The Qur 'an says, and it was a verse that I put up that I didn't read out, that don't be like those who follow blindly and jump upon scripture as if they are deaf and blind.

01:26:47

And the point of that is that we don't believe in blind following.

01:26:53

For us, it's all about assessing truth, assessing evidence. And if we want to make a claim, particularly one that's as important as our eternal salvation, we need to support that with some degree of evidence.

01:27:07

So I guess what the Qur 'an is ultimately asking the Christian to do is look at what the Qur 'an says about what you already believe, then look at what your scriptures say, and then make a decision for yourself.

01:27:23

Well, I don't know. I've heard Abdullah speak a number of times now, and he just did not seem all that confident about what he was saying there.

01:27:30

And I don't see how that works. If what we are to judge is the truthfulness of the

01:27:35

Qur 'an, then the Qur 'an cannot become the criterion over the

01:27:40

Gospel, because then the Gospel has no ability to judge the truthfulness of the Qur 'an. It makes no sense.

01:27:47

It does not follow. And that's why I continue looking for a meaningful response from the leading

01:27:55

Islamic apologists as to what this text is actually trying to say.

01:28:01

And we continue. Thank you very much for listening to The Dividing Line today. Lord willing, we'll be back.

01:28:07

Regular schedule next week. But hey, we've got so much to do. When I'm here, you all have noticed we're normally doing a little bit more than one hour.

01:28:15

We did an hour and a half today, two hours on Tuesday. We'll keep pressing on because there's so much we need to get to.

01:28:22

We want to try to help you to be better prepared to be a witness. The Lord Jesus Christ.

01:28:27

Do that this weekend. We'll see you next week. God bless. I believe we're standing at the crossroads

01:28:39

Let this moment slip away We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for We need a new

01:28:47

Reformation day It's the sign of the times

01:28:52

The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm Won't you lift up your voice

01:28:59

Are you tired of plain religion It's time to make some noise Poundin' on Wittenberg Poundin' on Wittenberg Poundin' on Wittenberg Stand up for the truth

01:29:12

Won't you live for the Lord Poundin' on Poundin' on Wittenberg AOMIN .org