John 6:44 post debate interview with Pastor Gabe Hughes

Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the Reform Rookie Podcast. My name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm your

Reform Rookie host, bringing you all things Reformed. The goal of this podcast is to take the deep, rich truths of the

Reformed tradition and help you see the beauty of them and the joy you'll experience in understanding them better.

Understanding these truths will help us better know the God of the Scriptures, help us better glorify God, and help us appreciate his plan of salvation.

And to that we say Semper Reformanda. Well, today I have a special guest, Pastor Gabe Hughes, of When We Understand the

Text. You might know him online when you hear that term, what? Which I really enjoy. And he recently debated or discussed what the expository understanding of John 644 is with Professor Layton Flowers.

And the debate took place on the Gospel Truth YouTube channel with Marlon Wilson. And if you haven't checked it out,

I would highly recommend that you take a look at it. Marlon's doing really good work over there. You'll find debates on a number of theological topics, so check them out.

In fact, he has one coming up with Michael Brown and Gary DeMar, and another one on the perpetual virginity of Mary with Dan Pacwa and Sam Shimon and William Albrecht.

That's certainly going to be a good debate. Well, with that, today I'm doing a post -debate interview with Pastor Gabe Hughes, who is the

Associate Pastor of Discipleship and Education at First Baptist Church in Lyndale, Texas, and the host of WWUT, When We Understand the

Text. Welcome, Pastor Gabe. Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on. Sure.

Please tell the audience a little bit more about you. I'm sure I didn't capture everything about you in that little two -sentence intro.

Yeah, I've lived most of my life in Kansas. Texas is actually the fourth state that I've lived in. So, I grew up in the

South, moved North, made it to the Midwest, where I met my wife. We had four kids there in Kansas.

Just moved down here to Texas at the end of 2020, where I've been at First Baptist Church serving with Tom Buck, and it's a real pleasure to serve with Dr.

Buck. I've learned a lot, even just in the little more than a year that I've been here. We had another child since we've been here, so now we've added a fifth to the flock.

We've got our own basketball team now, working on building that up. So, the

Lord has richly blessed us. I became a pastor when I was in Kansas. This was actually something that my wife knew that I was going to do before I did.

We were dating at the time, not even engaged yet, and she said, I think you're going to be a pastor. And I rolled my eyes at her.

I thought the notion was absolutely ridiculous. But the Lord used this woman to stir that desire in my heart.

I had a passion for the Word of God, just not that desire to want to be committed to one church, pastoring and teaching every single

Sunday. I was a churchman. I went to church regularly. It just wasn't the sort of a thing that I thought

I would ever do. And while I was there in the church where I was planted, God really stirred that desire in me.

So, it was the very same church where we had our wedding reception that I would become the pastor of.

And yeah, it was pretty neat. So, I served there for 10 years before Dr. Buck extended me this invitation to be able to come work with him.

And it's been a real treat here to be at First Baptist Church. Amen. Praise God. Praise God. So, as a first -time guest,

I generally ask all the people who come on, could you share your testimony or journey into Reformed theology?

How did that happen? Were you born Reformed or were you raised in a Reformed church or what type of...

How did that happen? Yeah, born again Reformed. No, not really. So, my dad was very, very committed to the scriptures.

And wherever we went to church when I was growing up, it was where the Bible was being taught, the gospel was being proclaimed, sin was being called out, and righteousness being encouraged.

And so, that was where he would bring his family to church. He was looking for those elements. And it was often

Baptist churches, not always. We ended up in a couple of Mennonite churches. In fact, that's where I was baptized when

I was a teenager. I was in a Mennonite church. That one, of course, is more Anabaptist. But nonetheless, the preachers there were always very solid in calling out sin and calling us to obedience.

So, that was my dad teaching me how to use scripture to interpret scripture.

I learned to read the Bible when I was five. From the age of five to seven, I had read the entire

Bible all the way through. And that was my dad putting it on me. Actually, what he said to me when

I was five was, hey, pick a book of the Bible, and that's where we're going to start reading. Well, I really liked the story of the burning bush.

I loved the parting of the Red Sea and the Ten Commandments. And so, I was like, let's do Exodus. And if I knew

I was going to be reading the whole Bible, I might have picked Jude, you know, something that would put me more toward the end.

But we started in Exodus, went all the way through, and then he brought me back to Genesis was the last book

I read. And so, by the age of seven, I had read all the way through the scriptures. But Reformed theology, honestly, theology proper as we understand it, was not taught in my home at all.

I didn't learn anything about church history, hardly anything. My dad was a fan of Luther, so he would bring up Luther things every once in a while, and he knew some stuff.

I think you could even have a pretty decent church history conversation with him. But as far as, like, teaching his kids that,

I really didn't get a lot of that. Some of the understanding that I had of theology was wrong because what my understanding of Calvinism was is that Calvinism is essentially the argument that you hear somebody like Leighton Flowers make.

It's fatalism. It's that God has already predetermined everybody who's going to be saved and who's not going to be saved, who's going to heaven and who's going to hell.

And so, therefore, there's no need to even evangelize anybody if God has already chosen this. So that's what

I thought Calvinism was. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean, though, that my theology wasn't

Reformed or didn't have that Reformed base because my dad did teach me about the sovereignty of God, and there's really nothing that happens that God did not foreordain.

I was taught to trust in God and knowing that he is always on his throne and nothing is happening outside of his control.

And so, it was actually I became a pastor. I was already a pastor at this time and the first church

I was serving in there in Kansas, and the youth pastor there was a diehard Calvinist.

And in fact, he would play Halo on Xbox and his sign -in name was Killer Calvinist. That's what he went by.

And so, he and I had a conversation about that one time. I remember we were going to Sonic to get some drinks together, and so I just brought that up.

I said, so you're just adamant about calling yourself a Calvinist. And I said, my understanding of Calvinism is this, and just the explanation that I gave, the whole fatalistic view.

And he goes, no, that's not Calvinism. And so, he broke it down for me, and when he got to the end of that,

I said, I believe all of that. That's what the Bible says. That's what my dad raised me on. He goes, good, then you're a

Calvinist. And that was kind of the first kind of eye -opening thing of realizing maybe there's a lot to these theological elements that I've never really studied.

You know, I kind of had that whole no creed but Christ approach to things, you know. And so,

I became really familiar with some of the of the confessions, with catechism, and now

I'm teaching my own kids those things that my parents didn't raise me in. We're very diligent to teach me the scriptures, but just didn't have those summarizing things for me that my kids are receiving now.

And so, that's just kind of a little bit of background on my being raised in the faith.

I became a Christian at a very, very young age, but wasn't baptized until I was a teenager, but had always had in my home the word of God that I was being taught by my father.

So, I'm very, very grateful for the sound doctrine that he raised me in, even though I may not have been familiar with the terminology of all of it.

Sure, that's great. That's great. A lot of people don't have it that way. They end up going to some aberrant church and have to be taught or discipled into Calvinism as they start going through the

Bible. So, that's great that you had a dad who was sowing into you and had you read the Bible by seven years old.

That's amazing. Praise God for that. Yeah, by the providence of God, I would not have had it any other way.

Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. So, thank you for that. That was great. On to our topic.

John chapter six, centering on verse forty four. Yes, sir. So, a quick rendering of what that verse means.

Go ahead, Pastor Gary. Yeah. So, John 6, 44, as I had read it in the ESV from the debate that I did with Dr.

Flowers, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

So, very plainly, no one being the subject of the sentence can come to Christ.

Now, what do we mean by can come can believe in him? That is the statement that Jesus makes later on in verse sixty five, where he says that are some of you don't believe this is why

I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the father. So, you could even put repentance in there as well.

You cannot repent unless it is granted by God. And we do see that in the scriptures twice and acts where it says

God granted repentance to Israel. He granted repentance to the Gentiles. You have the statement in Second Timothy to twenty five that we must correct opponents with gentleness, for it is

God who grants repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. And they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do as well.

Now, that's a little more cross referencing than I gave in the debate. But just understanding what what coming to Christ entails, what that means.

No one can come unless the father who sent me, Jesus himself being submitted to the will of the father, draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

So what do we mean by draw? The context that I drew draw from in the debate was the

Greek usage of Helco throughout John's gospel. And every time we see that word used, there's always some sort of force or action behind it.

Peter drawing his sword, same word that's used there. Peter dragging the nets. It's Helco.

It's the same word. Now, of course, Dr. Flowers made a reference to John 12, where the son of man will be lifted up and I will draw all men to myself as though to say every single person on earth is going to be drawn to Christ.

We never really got to that argument enough. He kind of left it isolated enough that we weren't able to engage on it.

But even there, if you're looking at the consistent use of the word Helco in John, then you have to come to the conclusion that even that is in the context of what was said about drawing back in John six.

Forty four. So you're reading that in order. You can't go to John 12 and read that version of drawing and then try to bring that back into John six.

You are in a in a in a right read of John through the way that John wrote it.

You get from John six and his usage of the word there to John 12. And so we know that the action is the father that is doing the work on the person before they can come to Christ.

And then Jesus promised, I will raise him up on the last day. And this is a statement that comes up regularly.

You go back to verse thirty seven. All that the father gives me will come to me and those who he gives to me,

I will never cast out those who come to me. I will never cast out for verse 40, for this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the sun and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.

So we have these these constant references to coming to me, believing in me. And and this being our explanation, our understanding of what

Jesus really means there in John six. Forty four. That verse doesn't sit by itself. It's following the flow of thought that John was presenting there in the chapter before we come to it.

Right. So that that was excellent. Thank you. So starting with, let's say, verse thirty seven, when

John says all that the father gives me will come to me, does that not logically mean that people need to be given by the father to Jesus first?

Correct. So we're seeing the work a father is doing, the work that the father in heaven is doing before any man makes any decision,

God has acted. And I got Dr. Flowers to agree with me on that. But of course, the specifics of that statement would be where we disagree.

He would agree that before any man can come to Christ, God has to do a work.

But he might describe it as, well, God sent the sun. So that's the work that God did before anybody can come to him.

He won't take it as far as a person's heart and heart against God actually needs to be regenerated.

A person must be born again before they can have faith in Jesus Christ, which a person by their own will cannot do.

So at some point in time, he has to admit that everyone has not been given by the father to the son.

Correct. Right. And that's that's what I was hoping we would get the chance to draw out. If John 12 became an argument that we could focus on,

I expected him to do that and he didn't. Maybe he knew that I knew that he was going to do. I don't know.

But but to understand where Jesus says, you know, I'll draw all men to myself cannot possibly mean, oh,

I remember where he said this now. It was in his very last speech. So it was in his closing speech where he made a statement of, you know, something that was reflective of Romans one of that God making himself known in all that has been made so that man is without excuse.

That is clearly not what Jesus was meaning in John 12. And so drawing all men to myself does not mean every single person on the planet is going to be drawn to Christ.

It was not done at the time of the disciples and it is not done even at the present day.

You know, in in we in the Southern Baptist circles in which I run, in which Dr. Flowers is also a part of, we'll get those maps sent to us by the

International Missions Board and those maps will have dots on them that will show parts of the world where you have unreached people groups.

And there will be thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, even millions who have not heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So there are people in the world who are dying, having never even heard the name of Jesus Christ or having been given that offering.

So my question to Dr. Flowers, if we would have had the chance to expound on that would have been, do you really think the statement that's being made there in Romans one means that every single person actually has the opportunity to come to Jesus Christ, though they've never even used or heard his name?

And so that's that's clearly not what's being said there, then, when Jesus said, I will draw all men to myself, but rather we're talking about people from all over the world, all kinds of people will be drawn to Christ, not just from the

Jews, but also from the Gentiles. And that's exactly the way John's audience would have understood that reference in John 12.

When all the world is being referenced, it means more than just Jews. Right.

So if we were to take his understanding of a draw in John 644 and import that same meeting into John 12, wouldn't that mean that wouldn't that result in universalism?

Because if all that the father gives to Jesus come to him and they must be drawn, then everybody who's drawn is going to come to believe in Jesus.

Therefore, universalism would be the result. No. Right. If we if we were using consistently the draw in John 644 in the same way that it's used in John 12, then then we would have to say that every single person in the world is affectionately drawn to Christ.

And therefore, the argument would be universalism. So therefore, we have to understand what is meant by world.

Do we mean every single person in the world or does it mean something else? And even going back to John three, where Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus and was saying, just as the son of man was lifted up in the wilderness or the son of man, just as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.

And and he's talking and then going to John three, 16, for God so loved the world. So he's saying that was that happened in Israel.

The son of man is going to be raised up so that the world may come to him, meaning people all over the world, not just for the

Jews, but even for the Gentiles. So that's even the usage of world in John 12. Therefore, we can conclude that it's not a statement of universalism that's being made there in that reference.

Right. Because it was it was Greeks that were coming to the disciples and saying, you know, bring us to Jesus.

So now we have people outside of the the Israelite community now being drawn to Jesus.

Right. Wanting to write to him to see who he is. So in an Israelite mind,

God belonged to them. Correct. Yeah. So that they were the soul, you know, they had the lock.

That's right. No one else can get to him aside from them. So, yeah. And the mindset of an Israelite, it's the whole idea of, hey, when people bless us, they're blessed.

So if there's ever going to be any salvation for the world, it's going to be because they were on the side of Israel.

That was what was going on in the mind of an Israelite. And so Jesus is putting it to them instead that it is by faith in the sun and that statement in verse in chapter twelve, verse thirty two.

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. Of course, as you pointed out, this was in the context of following the

Greeks who had come to Jesus and had come to Philip, first of all, and said, hey, we want to see

Jesus. And then once that happens, that's when Jesus says now must now is the time. Now is when the son of man will be lifted up.

And I'm going to draw people from everywhere, all tongues, tribes, nations on earth, as we see depicted in the book of Revelation.

That's what's meant by by all men or all the world. Amen. You know, as I've poured over this scripture, you know, through the years, obviously this is a strong verse that supports, you know, the

Calvinistic thought. I also thought in an Israelite's mind, knowing that marriages were prearranged back then, it was usually the father giving the bride, the daughter to a man.

And I thought this is a beautiful picture of God giving his people over to his son, you know, a prearrange, a betrothal of us to Jesus, who

Jesus is going to be the perfect groom and he's going to die on behalf of the bride he loves.

And then the spirit draws them, you know, to, you know, to the wedding supper of the lamb, preparing them, you know, making them fit for heaven.

So I see it as a beautiful love story. And I always thought the giving of us to Jesus was kind of like a betrothal.

Absolutely. And that wedding language is used in the Gospel of John. Even when Jesus says to his disciples in the upper room,

I go to prepare a place for you, that that's wedding language that he's talking about there. I'm going to prepare the place where I'm going to bring the bride.

And as my as our senior pastor, Tom Buck, had said just this past Sunday, he was teaching from Ephesians chapter one and and speaking there about how we are the inheritance that the father gives to the son and that the father is not planning a wedding day on which he will not have a bride to give to his son.

He didn't send out wedding invitations like, well, I sure hope a bride shows up to this thing.

He's not going to be planning a wedding where he does not have a bride for the son. If the father has promised this to the son, he will fulfill it.

And he already knows exactly who he is giving to the son as the bride, of course, his church.

Right. And, you know, that was one of the things that I wanted to talk. And it's later down in my notes because Leighton likens it to a wedding banquet.

Right. So he puts up on the screen on one of his PowerPoint slides and I'll put it up in the video when I when

I edit it, he puts no man can come to me unless the father sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. And his illustration is no man can come to the son's wedding banquet unless the father invites or enables him and he the man who comes will have a great feast.

Right. Yeah. And then he reinterprets it in, you know, through Calvinist eyes.

And he says, this is the way it would sound from a Calvinist. No man can come to the son's wedding banquet unless the father compels him.

And he the man who who is compelled to come will have a great feast. And right away, my ears perk up and I'm thinking there's a scripture in the

Gospels in Luke where he says, and the master said to the servant, go out into the highways and hedges and compel people to come in.

Right. That the house may be filled. Yeah. I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. So the very thing he says

Calvinist think is the very thing the scripture said. That's right. That's right. Yes, it just it kind of kind of surprised me that he didn't know about that verse.

Well, I tried to get him off of the script that he was on or, you know, his own framework that he's trying to impose upon the text.

And that was really in the first rebuttal that we did. Well, the first rebuttal that I had where I was asking questions of Dr.

Flowers. So getting away from his narrative and just asking him plainly from the text and saying, why was it that they could not believe in Jesus?

And he said, because the father didn't draw them. And I mean, really, that was devastating. It was like you don't realize that you gave up your whole case there where you're trying to argue from John 12 that the reason why they didn't believe in Jesus is because of this judicial hardening.

And yet when I'm just asking you straight from the text, why did they not believe? Because it was not granted to them by the father.

Then you you can't help but draw the answer from the text that the text actually gives us.

Right, exactly. That's it. That's a great point. Now, another thing is, is there a principle in the

Old Testament where God brings people to himself? Yeah, are you talking like Exodus 36 or are we talking about an effectual drawing?

Is that. Well, yeah, I put a couple I came up with a couple of verses. It says in Exodus 19, you you yourselves, meaning the

Israelites, have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles wings and brought you to myself.

Right, right. So of all the all the nations on. I mean, that's that's really the narrative of the

Old Testament of all the nations that are on earth. God chooses Israel and says in the book of Deuteronomy, you know, it's not because you were great.

It's not because you were the most in number. It's because of God's faithfulness to himself and the promise that he made to Abraham.

He was going to be faithful to the covenant that he made. And so the descendants of Abraham become that nation that he calls to himself.

No other nation on earth gets called only Israel. And he says, you are the nation that I have chosen, where I am going to put my name.

Right. You only have I chosen. Yes. You only. Right. You only. Right. And then in Psalm 65, he says, blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwelling your courts.

You know, so he has his this language again, he's you know, it's a blessing of the people and it's God's grace that brings them close to him.

So again, you know, from our understanding, it's the natural inclination of the human heart is to suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

And there is none who seek after God. If God didn't seek after us, we would never come to him.

We would never, you know, desire him had he not did did a work in our heart first.

Amen. Praise God. Right. Exactly. Praise God. So maybe you could talk about because I know he was harping on a little bit of the mysteriousness of the order.

Yeah. And, you know, we understand it's the order, order, salute, order, salute is the order of salvation.

Right. So maybe you can touch on that a little bit to help the listeners understand why

God has to do something first. Yeah, that was I was kind of curious after the debate was over,

I was wondering what is Leighton going to pull out of this debate first? What is he going to think was his linchpin that he won the debate on?

And it's interesting that he went to the very first question that he asked of me about, you know, the drawing being the the regeneration essentially, like understanding that that's regeneration and then framing it in such a way as to, well, no one can have life unless they have faith in Christ.

So how does a person have life before they have faith in Jesus Christ? And and then he he dug on me for having said that it's really mysterious.

Well, what I was trying to convey there is that as far as the human experience is concerned, we don't really know the order in which all of the and this is what becomes so debatable about the concept of regeneration.

Like as far as our experience is concerned, which came first, the chicken or the egg? You know, and that's why that's kind of why we argue about that, which is why we have to go to the scripture, because it's not based on our experience.

It's based on what the word of God says. And so and as you and I have been talking, there's a work that is done by the father before it's anything that we have done.

I mentioned this as being mystery because who knows what it is that the spirit does and how he works.

You know, I've even explained this with regards to just the doctrine of justification. So we've been justified before God in the heavenly registry by faith in Jesus Christ.

Our sins have been canceled. The sin debt is canceled because of Christ's death on the cross for us and our faith in Jesus Christ.

What does that look like in the heavenly realms? I mean, were there file drawers where our sins were being kept and somebody pulled them out and lit them on fire?

You know, so the how these things get applied to us is divinely mysterious.

And it's wonderful to behold and consider. You know, I've I've heard James White say that we will spend all eternity pondering the mystery of that and still never come to the end of it.

The amazing work that God does because of his grace toward us. And so that was that was what

I was getting toward. And yet he made fun of that concept. He was like, well, if it's mysterious, then how can we even really know?

How can a Calvinist say that regeneration precedes faith? If Gabe's answer is going to be, well, the work of the spirit is mysterious.

Well, the answer that I gave to him is the answer Jesus gave in John chapter three, where he's talking to Nicodemus about the work of the

Holy Spirit, about being born again. You must be born of water in the spirit before you can enter the kingdom of God.

He says in in John three, seven, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. That's that's mystery right there.

How does the spirit work in us? This effectualness that we go from being hardened against God and rebellious to now we love

God and we desire him and we want to live for him. That's a work the spirit does. It's it's so deep and so incredible that we just can't fathom it.

Yet we know he does it because it's what the Bible says. Right. And a lot of times when

I'm when I'm when I'm thinking of somebody who confesses Jesus as Lord, they don't confess

Jesus as Lord in order to become a Christian. They confess Jesus as Lord because they're a Christian already.

Right. In the same way, when a baby is birthed, he doesn't take his first breath in order to live.

He takes his first breath because he's alive. That's right. Very good. Very good point. The first thing that we do when the spirit illuminates us and regenerates us, when somebody presents the gospel, we confess

Jesus as Lord. Right. Because we understand that the things our heart is is antagonistic to the things of the law.

Romans chapter eight. Right. The heart will not the man in the flesh will not submit to the

Lord. Yes. To the Lord God. Nor can he do so. Yeah, indeed. He cannot. Right. Right. So my question is, on Layton's position, how does a man in the flesh confess

Jesus as Lord when he can't do that? In fact, there's other scriptures that say you can only confess

Jesus as Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Right. That you are you in the flesh or are you in the spirit?

I don't see a middle ground. That would be a good question for Dr. Flowers. Yeah, right. He probably is going to hear this and do it.

It'll be two hours long. Yes, he's pretty good with this stuff. All right.

So let's see. Could you care that you want to talk a little bit more about the judicial hardening, like how that didn't shouldn't have applied in John chapter six or should it have?

Well, there was certainly a hardening that came upon Israel, but it's just not the context of the conversation that Jesus is having with those who are present.

And like I said before, we're not even told there that this audience was exclusively

Jewish. Now, in verse fifty two, it says that the Jews then disputed among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that the audience that was there was exclusively Jewish. The statement that he says there that no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him is not you.

Jews cannot come to me unless the father draws them. And then I will raise them up on the last day, although it certainly would have applied.

So that statement would have applied to the Jews, but it also applies to anybody. Why does anyone not come to Christ?

Because it has not been granted to them by the father. So there's certainly an understanding there of the

Jewish people having been hardened against God. But we could not say it was a total hardening. You could not say that all of the

Jewish people were hardened against God. He's got 12 disciples following him around. Of course, one of those being a demon, which which

Jesus says at the end of John six in reference to reference to Judas.

But there are there were people that believed even Nicodemus we see over the course of the

Gospel of John doesn't believe that Jesus is is the son of God.

He knows that he has to have been sent by God, maybe as a great prophet, because as he says to Jesus, no one can do these works unless the father's with him.

And then progressively, you see, over the course of John, he becomes a believer even there at the tomb where Jesus was being prepared and buried.

So he became a follower of Jesus toward the end, where previously John presents Nicodemus as somebody who's in darkness.

He eventually comes to follow the son of God. Right. Amen. Amen. And it seems to me and this is the way

I took it. There would be Jews in the audience who could or would believe in Jesus, but they couldn't because God's judicially hardening that even though they may have wanted to come to Jesus, they couldn't until Jesus was lifted up on the cross, which would mean the very thing that he would be upset with Calvinists about, that God stops people from coming to Jesus, right, is the very position that he's taking.

It sounds like that to me. That was one of the things that I said to him in the debate when I expressed to him that I'm confused by your position on this, because if you're going to say that they're judicially hardened, then you're saying they have no free will.

There's there's no will that they have now to decide to follow Jesus. Well, we've seen the miracles, so we have no choice but to believe in him.

Oh, but we can't. I want to, but I can't because I've been judicially hardened. Yeah. So the very thing that he criticizes

Calvinists for is the very position that he takes. Right. And then he goes on to say, all those who do what's right and learn from the father come to Jesus.

Right. Yeah. So where he was like, like where he was kind of inverting verses forty five and forty four, is that so in verse forty five,

Jesus says it is written in I'm sorry. It is written in the prophets, my eyes wouldn't focus, it is written in the prophets and they will all be taught by God.

Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. So he's kind of inverting that passage as though we have to read that one first before we can understand.

No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. But we we don't know who the son is unless it is granted by the father that we know who the son is and therefore turn from our sin to follow

Jesus Christ. All of that being a work of God that is done in our hearts. Amen. In fact, I looked up a verse that came to mind.

I didn't know where it was. It's first John two twenty nine. It says, if you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been past tense born of him.

So if somebody is learning from the father and practicing righteousness, it's because he's been born of God.

Right. Absolutely. Right. So so is constant coming back to Cornelius. He loves that example from Acts 10, comes back to it all the time.

But yeah, Cornelius is not a God fearing man unless God has done that work in his heart to bring him into the fear of God.

Right. Amen. Amen. Amen. Leighton will go on to say that man's not born this way.

We we freely choose to reject God and Jesus and become calloused and hardened, according to him.

So I think from from his perspective, does he hold to original sin? Does he hold to the fact that man cannot come to God apart from something that God does?

No. In fact, you're I think we're seeing I'm speaking speculative, speculative, speculatively here, of course.

But I think we're seeing a digression in Leighton Flowers that is becoming more and more Pelagian. He he there was just a video that I saw today where he said that we don't believe in prevenient grace.

Even an Arminian believes in prevenient grace, that God has extended a grace to the person by which they come to faith in Jesus Christ before they come to faith.

So even an Arminian would agree with that. Well, how do you get more liberal than an Arminian? You go into semi Pelagian ism and Pelagian ism.

So that's that's really where Dr. Flowers is. And, you know, surely you've heard the the joking about his analogy to choice meats where where God is choosing the choicest meat.

Right. That's what he means by choice or choosing. So he's picking the best meat.

Well, that's a person that was already in a good condition before God chose him. And that you're arguing

Pelagian ism at that point. The past he gave it appeals to my flesh. I don't know about you. It makes me feel really good about myself.

Unfortunately, that's not what the scripture tells. That's not right. We go by it's it's a nice, fluffy analogy.

But what does the Bible say? Right. Look at me. I'm choice meat. Terrific. So he would go on to say that Jesus rebukes the wicked leaders and says you don't believe because you're not my sheep.

Well, a Calvinist says you don't believe because you're not elect. Right. That's that's what he would say.

Right. Right. So maybe we can take a look at, you know, John 10, you know, versus 14, 15, 26 and and on, because that's that's what he's he's talking about when

Jesus is talking about his sheep. And let's see what what John actually says about that.

Certainly. So let's start in verse seven. So John 10, I'm going to start reading in verse seven. Truly, I say to you,

I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not listen to them.

I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and fleas and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd.

I know my own and my own know me just as the father knows me. And I know the father.

And I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also.

And they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

For this reason, the father loves me because I lay down my life that I might take it.

I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge

I received from my father. So that's that paragraph of him explaining there about his sheep.

You know, even previously, when you go back to John 8, so as we're talking expositionally and reading this kind of in order here.

So Jesus had said to them in John 8, 42, if God were your father, you would love me.

For I came from God and I am here. I am not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what

I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe in me.

So then later on in John 10, where he says, why do you not believe in me? It's because you're not among my sheep.

That follows the same flow of thought that he had been. He had been in back in John 6, in John 8, and now even in John 10.

Right. In fact, one verse I wanted you to go one more one verse further. Verse 47 says whoever is of God, he is the words of God.

Right. Correct. The reason you do not hear me is that you are not of God. Sorry. Sorry for not going that next verse.

But yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. Yeah. So think about it.

If they're learning from the father and coming to Jesus, they're of God.

In order to hear those words, they must be of God already. Right. You cannot hear and understand these things if you're a

Pharisee. Right. If your father is the devil, you need to be of God. You need. This is, I think, why Jesus over and over says he who has ears, let him hear.

I mean, everybody who was in the crowd had physical ears. Sure. They just didn't. They just didn't have spiritual ears, which, again, we would look at it and say

God is the one who grants repentance. God is the one who grants belief. God is the one who grants us to hear his words left to ourselves.

We're going to we're going to suppress those words. We're going to reject those words because we love our sin.

Yeah, absolutely. So in First Corinthians chapter one verse, sorry,

I'm in second Corinthians, First Corinthians chapter one, where we read there about the work of God so that we may boast in God and not in ourselves.

It says in verse 30, because of him you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the

Lord so that there is no part of this that we can say we did this work. And it's interesting that somebody like Dr.

Flowers, not just him, but others that I've heard make similar argument. They will say, well, I don't boast. It wasn't my work.

It was all of God's work. You say that on the tail end of it, but on the head of it, you are trying to claim

God did not even give me grace. There was no prevenient grace. There was nothing like this on the front end.

It was all my idea. And I came to God and then I entered into the fold.

And it wasn't until I came into the fold. Now I'm getting all these blessings of God. So you are congratulating yourself for something that you did.

I had this bright idea. And now I'm a follower of God because I thought it was I thought it was the best bet.

I thought it was the best deal. Right. And going along with that, you know, again, most people go to John 3, 16, for God so loved the world.

And, you know, what comes to my mind is if God loves every single person in the world the same way and not everybody responds in the same way, but there are people who end up loving

God. It's not God's love for them that saves them. It's their love for God that saves them.

They're flipping the order of it. Right. God set his love on the Israelites.

But if God loves the world in the same exact way for everyone, why did

God have to set his love on the Israelites alone? Right. It's that special covenant, the marital love that we were talking about in the patrol process.

Yeah, certainly. And it's John who says that we love because God first loved us and gave his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

So it is not of us. It is all of God. Amen. Hey, I found something interesting in Deuteronomy 29, if you could flip there.

Sure. Do you have Lagos? No, I don't. I actually don't use Lagos. I get asked that a lot, but no, but I have, you know, like Bible Hub and things like that will still go to find the

Greek and things just not without a massive database on my computer. Right. So let me read this and tell me for some reason

I'm thinking this really has application with John chapter six. It's a tieback.

So in Deuteronomy 29, starting in verse one, it says that Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, you have seen all that the

Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land.

The great trials that your eyes saw, the signs and those great wonders. But to this day, the

Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. I have led you 40 years in the wilderness.

Your clothes have not worn out and your sandals have not worn off your feet. You have not eaten bread.

You have not drunk wine or strong drink that you may know that I am the Lord, your God. Right here,

Jesus, they're seeing the miracles that he's performing, right? Right. He's feeding me.

He's multiplying the loaves and the fishes. They have eaten the bread. Ah, yeah.

Right. In the desert, Moses. So now he's showing them even if they eat the bread, even if the true manna from heaven is standing before him, before them, if he does, if the

Lord does not give them eyes to a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. They're never going to recognize it.

Right. Absolutely. Yeah. You even think of the context of the Israelites there in Deuteronomy 29. So this is the generation whose parents had died in the wilderness because they grumbled against the

Lord. The the only ones from that generation who would get to see the promised land were Joshua and Caleb. Everybody else would would die.

It was, you know, what was it? Those who were 20 and under in the census and then those that were even born during the 40 years that were wandering in the wilderness, they would be the generation that would get to see the promised land.

But the way you have this, as Moses is addressing this people here in Deuteronomy 29, these are not good people.

So it's not because your parents were wicked, but you're good. So you get to see the promised land. Even earlier in Deuteronomy, Moses says, don't say to yourself, well, we get this great land because of something that we did.

No, it's because of the wickedness of the Canaanites that God is driving them out before you, not because you did anything great.

So even when we read the Old Testament, we have this tendency of of seeing like the Egyptians wearing the black hats and the

Israelites are wearing the white hats and they're they're they're being persecuted and oppressed by the bad guys until a new sheriff rides in.

And that's Moses. And he cleans the whole thing up. But the Israelites were not good guys. Even they worship false gods while they were in Egypt.

We see them do that again when they get brought out into the wilderness. They're still worshiping those false gods. It is never about our merit or what we have done.

It is because of the grace of God, as it was in Israel. So it is today. Anybody who knows

Christ, who can hear and understand the word that reveals him, it is all by the grace of God that we have come to this so that no one may boast.

It is it is the work of God that we will praise him for forever in eternity. Amen. So about salvation is of the

Lord. Jonah two nine. Amen. So, you know, in talking now that we're kind of like in the

Old Testament a little bit, he was he asked you a question. I don't remember exactly what it was, but he was trying to get your take on how the

Old Testament saints were born again. And you had said this is not part of the debate like it was outside of.

Yeah, it's not part of John six. Right. Right. Exactly. But maybe now we can we can discuss it a little bit.

It's it's my understanding that the Old Testament saints were born of the spirit of God the same way they are in the

New Testament. Yeah, it's always been by grace through faith. So so it's only by the grace of God, by faith in God that anybody has ever been born again.

I'm hesitant to use that phrasing, though, with regard to the Old Testament, because there is an indwelling of the

Holy Spirit we're blessed with now that wasn't in the Old Testament time. The the spirit, of course, was with a person.

But now there is you know, there is a different way that we are in Christ, that as Christ had not yet been revealed, these mysteries had not yet been unfolded until his coming at the beginning of the

New Testament. So which is why Jesus using this phrase with Nicodemus, I'm a little more hesitant to use it with with regard to the

Old Testament, not to say that it would be wrong just as long as it's used in the right context, because even with the statement that Jesus makes with Nicodemus, you must be born again and saying unless one is born of water in the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That's a reference to Ezekiel. He's using the language that God gave to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 36.

I will sprinkle clean water on you and put my spirit within you. I will take out your heart of stone.

I will give you a heart of flesh. I will cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

And so this this cleansing, this renewal thing that happens, that God talks about even through the prophet

Ezekiel, is a foreshadowing of something that Christ would do with the spirit, which Jesus shows he is the fulfillment of as he uses that exact same language with Nicodemus.

And we know that what he was referencing was something Old Testament, because he says to Nicodemus, are you not the teacher of Israel?

And yet you don't understand these things. So so it would be within that context that we would understand bringing that born again concept into the

Old Testament and then and then seeing what it was that that we should understand through that lens.

Right. Because I think it's John seven or so where I said the spirit had not yet been poured out.

Right, right. So there is a difference in the manifestation of the spirit in the new covenant than in the old covenant.

Yet every single person who believed and was born again in the old covenant was, like you said, by grace, through faith, it wasn't something that they did themselves.

It was the work of God in their heart, not something they manufactured themselves. Right. And that's exactly the you know, that's the illustration that or the example, rather, that Paul uses in Romans four.

When was Abraham justified? Was it was was it when he was circumcised? No, it was before circumcision.

He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, not just salvation, but even the righteousness of God imputed to Abraham because he believed

God. So it's always been by the grace of God, through faith, Ephesians to eight, whether you're talking about in the old covenant or in the new.

Right. And that's that's something that we we really need to to understand because it's not anything in and of ourselves from beginning from Genesis to Revelation.

It's nothing in us that we do nothing to the cross. We bring simply to the cross.

Yeah. Great song. Yeah. And so when when Dr. Flowers was asking me that question, you know,

I still responded to him and I said, it's a work that God does before a person comes to faith.

But I'm not going to go down that trail of arguing Old Testament because that's that's not where we are.

We're in John six. And that was that there was kind of a part of a commitment that I was trying to discipline my mind toward even before we got to the debate, knowing he's going to want to wander into all these other topics and I'm not going to go there.

We're sticking with what John six says. So unless he's drawing a clear line from now, John six says this.

So what about in the Old Testament? Unless he's drawing a clear delineation there, I wasn't going to run down all the different trails he was hacking at.

Right. Another thing he talked about was that that term help you draw what he talked about before.

He says it means to enable or invite. And he says that both people on both sides agree that it could mean enable or invite.

Is that true? I didn't have a problem with that explanation, because if you're using the word enable, you're saying that you weren't able before.

So now if you've been enabled to come to the sun, it's because God has given you ability that you previously did not have.

So if we're going to use that word, fine. I don't I don't think that you're trying to avoid it. In fact, I think you're you're entering into my territory.

You're not trying to draw me into yours, because what was it that the person could not do before that they can do now that God has given them the ability to do?

Right, exactly, to believe and to be drawn. Exactly, exactly. So now there was in fact, he talked about the word draw in in in Nehemiah, and I think he missed he misused it.

Am I correct? Yeah, I don't even to tell you the truth. Even after the debate, I didn't try to go back and go now.

What was he talking about there with I wasn't trying to dig that up. So if you've got something in front of you, I'd be

I'd be interested to see. I was I had put, you know, part of his PowerPoint. And it was great because he puts the

PowerPoints up and you read and follow along the argument. I think that's great. I, you know, I love PowerPoint myself. But, you know, he put in Nehemiah nine thirty in the

Septuagint says you have been drawn. You have drawn them for many years and testified against them by your spirit.

You have by the hand of your prophets and they had they have not listened. Yes. Right. So he was trying to make the connection that God can draw people, but they can still resist.

They won't listen. Sure, sure. But we still have to understand in a proper exposition discipline, we still have to understand how

John's using the word Nehemiah's usage of the word is not going to tell us the context of John six forty four.

What are the verses saying around it? You know, another another word that I I like to use to kind of explain this a little bit further is the word all, because a common saying that you hear attached to that word is all means all.

And that's all all means. Have you ever heard anybody say that before? All the time. All the time.

That's right. All the time. And my my rebuttal to that is all always has a context.

So you can only understand the word all in the context in which it's used. It's and that's the way it is with any word.

This is the way we treat the human language. We don't just stick a word up there and go, well, this word always means that you have to look at the context, look at the word bat.

Are we talking about a flying mammal or are you talking about something? You swing at a baseball, you know. So the context is always going to give us the definition, the understanding of the word

Nehemiah does not help us understand what Helco means in John six forty four.

You have to look at the context in which John uses it. Absolutely. Absolutely. So aside from these questions and the things we're discussing, was there anything in the debate that you wish that you had to say you wish that you said or maybe you wish you said differently?

There are two things that I wish I had done a little bit better. And let me say first, this was my first debate in 20 years.

I did. I did debate a lot when I was in college. It was none. None of it was theological unless I was arguing creation versus evolution or atheism versus theism with my friends.

You know, it's something like that. But in college, I was part of the debate team when we went out on a debate weekend.

We could we could end up doing eight debates between a Friday and Saturday. So it was always a busy weekend.

I did. I did dozens and dozens of debates in the first two years of college. So I've had plenty of experience doing it.

We've even we even did several debates in front of the student body. And it might have been the sort of a thing like where there was an election going on, could have been a local election, could have been a national election.

And then one of us would take the position of one candidate and the other person would take the position of the other candidate.

And we may not even necessarily share the views of that candidate, but we had to know the views and then debate with one another.

And we would do that before the student body. So I had plenty of experience doing that, but had not again, had not done a debate in two decades.

I was I was honored that Marlon, being the one to contact me, said, hey, we want to do a debate on John six.

He presented the resolution different, though, in the very beginning. I won't say what it was. I just didn't agree.

I didn't want to debate that. First of all, I didn't think there was really a debate there because because really all we're trying to prove is that does

John six forty four agree with Calvinism or not? And if I can just establish, well, I mean,

John six forty four doesn't refute Calvinism. Then if if, you know, if that's the conclusion of the debate, then

I don't really understand what we accomplished with the debate. So I turned down the first couple of resolutions that were presented to me.

And then I finally said, can we do a debate on just just an exposition of John six and then narrowing it down?

Our focus, of course, is going to zero in on John six forty four. And both parties agreed to that. Dr. Flowers and I both agreed that would be a good presentation.

They let me set up, you know, here's here's what the times are going to be. 15 minute opening comment, five minute cross

X. And I probably would have done longer times. But because I hadn't done a debate in 20 years, that was

I was like, let's keep it short. So I don't have to. I know because I know

I'm going to be rusty coming into this. So I know where my faults were. I knew where my faults were when we got done with the debate.

And and just in my mind, I'm just kind of going, yeah, I wish I would have done this better. You know, something like that.

I went back. I've only watched the cross examinations. I've not watched like my opening presentation on John six.

I didn't go back and watch any of that. I haven't had the time, first of all, to even watch the whole debate.

But but just kind of getting, you know, the questions, the back and forth that we had, the questions Dr. Flowers asked of me, things that I said of him.

And then I kind of reflected on the closing arguments as well. That's kind of been the extent of what I've gone back to. So two two things that I would have done differently since that was your question.

Number one, I would have stuck with the disciplines to expository preaching that I presented in the very beginning and that Dr.

Flowers didn't hold to. So, for example, in my first rebuttal. So we had the opening speech.

Then Dr. Flowers opening speech cross examinations between the two. And then Dr. Flowers has a rebuttal.

And then I had I had a rebuttal in my rebuttal. I wish I would have just focused on exposition.

So why did I do exposition? And Dr. Flowers did not. Why is my discipline concerning John six, giving us the right understanding of John six, 44, but what

Dr. Flowers is doing, jumping all over the place and grabbing references from everywhere? Why is that not the way that we come to understand

John six? And so I wish I had stuck with that, you know, even even expounding upon a grammatical historical hermeneutic.

So we we use this understanding of exploring the grammar. We understand the history of things that are going on at this particular time.

And that's that's helping us to know what the original author was saying to the original audience.

Now, Dr. Flowers was kind of working backwards. And you heard some of the explanation that he gave regarding exposition.

He said, when you pick up a commentary, you've got pages and pages of notes from that person writing the commentary before you even get to the text.

That's not the way we read a text. Even with expository preaching, that's not the way we do it. We we look at the text first.

And any time I prepare for a sermon, I will sit there with my Bible open and I will read it over and over and over again.

And I will put different emphasis on the words that I may understand what's being said. So coming back to John six, forty four again, no one can come to me unless the father sent me draws him.

No one can come to me, you know, and I'll just do that over and over again until until it makes sense.

This is what John is trying to say here. That's the discipline that we use. We're looking at the text.

We're preaching or teaching. Now, in my in my first rebuttal with Dr. Flowers, I had said to him, why is what you did not the discipline of exposition?

And I said expositional preaching or teaching. But he just he responded with, well,

I wasn't preaching. I'm doing a debate. Well, I said two words there. I said preaching and teaching.

But somehow, you know, and I mean, part of that could have been the delay. You could tell when you're watching the debate that we we were both experiencing a little bit of a delay in the in the feed, you know.

So so I can't I can't dog on him too much for that because maybe he didn't hear it because of the delay.

I don't know. But but there were yeah, there were two parts to that. It's not just preaching. It's also teaching.

But even in what it was that he presented, that was not exposition. So my game plan with being committed to the resolution that we had agreed on were would would have been to stick with the disciplines of exposition and explain this is what we mean by that with with expository teaching.

It's understanding what the original author was saying to the original audience, drawing a line from there to Christ in the cross and then drawing a line from there to our present day application.

How does this now to apply to us today? But we can't know that unless we know first what the author was meaning to the audience.

So that would have been number one, sticking with sticking with those disciplines, being more committed to some of that expository preaching element.

I think that was really my that would have been my strongest argument. If I if I had fleshed that out more,

I think it was a strong argument. But just just to flesh it out even more, when I asked him the question, he obviously became very irritated.

And he said, you know, why? Why? Let's not argue about the technical side of all of this.

Let's get to the points that I raised. Of course, that's the debate he wants to have. He wants to set the terms of the debate.

He doesn't want to have to argue about exposition. But that's really, really important. If we're not coming to an expository understanding of John 644, then we don't understand

John 644. So so, yeah, establishing that sticking with that. The second thing that I wish

I would have done better in the debate is in the closing speech, I would have summarized the points that Layton dropped.

So I'm really I'm bringing down a tally list and going, OK, here's the things that he did that that he did not fulfill, according to what

I established at the beginning of the debate, that this is going to be a matter of consistency is what we're reading here in John six.

And the way that I treat John six, is this the way that we read any text or do we do it the way that Dr.

Flowers is doing it? And so then establishing the things that he did not do over the course of that debate. Number one, he did not understand expository preaching or expository teaching.

Number two, he did not understand who the audience was. Dr. Flowers kept trying to say that the audience in John six is

Jews. The audience is not Jews, even if that's who Jesus is talking to. That's not

John's audience. And that that's a very poor understanding of exposition if that's the way that Dr.

Flowers is doing it. If he's looking at Jesus talking to the Jews, no, this is John speaking to his audience and he's telling us something that Jesus said to this particular audience.

What does John want us to know? Why is he telling us this? And so that's that's the expository discipline of understanding the author being

John and the original audience that he's writing to, that his audience may read this and understand not not, you know, hey, chapter six is for Jews.

Chapter seven is for Gentiles. You know, we wouldn't we wouldn't do it that way. We would understand if you're a

Gentile, don't read until 10 or even until 12 until yeah, 10, where he says there are others that I must gather to myself in chapter 12.

Now, must the son of man be lifted up? Apparently, it doesn't matter to Gentiles until we get to that. So that would be the second thing.

He didn't understand who the audience was. Number three, he didn't understand what a parable is. Now, that might seem to be nitpicking because he kept referring to John six as a parable.

So it might sound like I'm just being nitpicky, like like you're just using the wrong word there. But that's important.

If he doesn't understand the text, then how do you trust what it is that Dr. Flowers is telling you about John six?

If he doesn't even understand what a parable is, a man with a theology degree, there is no excuse for him referring to John six as a parable.

Now, he contended with me when I raised that argument and saying, well, you referred to it as a parable in your podcast.

I really don't think I did. If he's referring to the last episode that I did on the teaching that I did on John six,

I did go to Matthew chapter 13. But the thing that I was highlighting in Matthew 13 was not that Jesus was using parable language in Matthew 13 and he's using parable language in John six.

That wasn't the connection that I made. What I said there was Jesus said to his disciples, to you, it has been given to understand the secrets of the kingdom.

But to them, it has not been given. And that's why he spoke to them in parables.

So again, we come back to that. It's been granted to you by the father to believe, but to them, it is it has not been granted.

So that was the connection I was making there. But I never at any point referred to John six as a parable, even if I did.

If I ever said John six is a parable, Dr. Flowers would still be wrong for referring to John six as a parable.

It's just I also would have been wrong in my podcast. So the funny thing with a parable is that it's a short story designed to emphasize one point, right?

So if John six is a parable, how, if you read that parable, would you get out of it that Jesus is intentionally hardening people's hearts so that they don't believe it?

Yeah, precisely. So there's there's clearly one point we're supposed to draw from this text. If this is a parable and it must be that no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws it.

So then the fourth point that he dropped is that he did not understand that these people whom

Jesus was addressing never came to him because it was not granted by the father.

He kept trying to say it was a judicial hardening aspect. When when I had stated from the beginning of my presentation,

Jesus is telling them, this is why you can't believe in me. This is why you don't believe because it's not been granted to you by the father.

And again, even when I was doing the cross examination with Dr. Flowers and I asked him that question outright, he had to answer with exactly what the text says.

He had to say they don't believe because it was not granted by the father. He couldn't say, well, because God is judicially hardened them.

According to what John six tells us, Jesus response to them is that you don't believe because it's not been granted by the father.

So given those four points, he didn't understand expository teaching. He didn't understand who the audience was.

He doesn't understand what a parable was. He didn't understand that these people that Jesus was addressing never came to him because it was not granted to him by the father.

Therefore, number five, Dr. Flowers doesn't understand the text. And so that I wish that when

I, you know, done my closing presentation, I would have been a little bit more finalizing with some of those points.

So those are the two main things that if I could go back and do it again, that would have been how I would have changed things.

That's an excellent summation. And I think I think you're spot on knowing the audience, knowing the type of scripture it is that it's not a parable and just expositing the scripture as you go along without pulling from all these cross references.

Now, cross referencing is good. But when you're trying to understand what an actual text says, you have to stick with the actual text.

You know, so I think you did a great job, Pastor Gabe. I'm looking forward to you doing some more of these. I appreciate it, brother.

Yeah, I I'm just kind of going to live by invitation. I don't

I don't know what I would even want to debate on next. I just you know, if somebody has an idea and they pitch it to me,

I'd be I'd be intrigued by it. I will say that I'm not a huge fan of of the, you know, the video debate.

But I understand, you know, by our limitations, that's about as good as we can do. Like I said, Dr. Flowers and I experienced quite a delay in there.

And that's not Marlon's fault. It's just what we what we had to wrestle with. It's part of the handicap of being able to do this.

It would feel a little bit different if we were doing it live. Even the conversation that I'm having with you here, everything's running very, very smoothly.

It's running way smoother than it did when when I was doing this as the debate.

We had some Internet complications even here in Lindale during that day. I was even kind of concerned. Am I even going to be able to do this?

I couldn't use my higher definition camera. So I look like I'm talking to a two megapixel cell phone, you know, just because the

Internet feed was so bad. And then even with like when Dr. Flowers would talk, his mouth wasn't lining up with his words.

And you look at a person, you look at a person's face when you're talking with one another. That became hugely distracting.

And so with that first rebuttal and he's asking me questions, I was looking at him and I was like, oh,

I shouldn't do this. And I need to just cover the screen or look away or something. It became easier as the debate went on to ignore that.

But at the very beginning, it really was quite distracting. So that's just kind of one of the handicaps of of having to do online debate.

But overall, I enjoyed the experience. I thought Marlon did a great job keeping things snappy.

And I even saw in the comments people saying, hey, Marlon, thanks for putting this together. He kept things moving, you know, even even gave us some breaks in there.

We can kind of recollect ourselves and stuff before we came back in. So I really appreciate it. And like you highlighted there,

I think you said at the very beginning, Marlon's got some other debates that are coming up. Oh, yeah. And so, yeah, if you're if you enjoyed this and you want to see some more,

I highly recommend his channel to you. Absolutely. No, he's doing some great work and I get to watch some really, really good stuff over there.

You know, not everything is up my alley, but I mean, theology is a big, big area. There's so many different things to, you know, to to look at.

And plus, you know, my schedule is a little bit busy, you know, working a full time job and pastoring and doing a reform rookie and that kind of stuff.

Interviewing great guys like you. Hey, I appreciate it. Thank you. Pastor Gabe, I just I want to be respectful of your time.

I appreciate I really appreciate you coming on. Any any final words for for the audience? Well, just kind of the way that I concluded the debate and Dr.

Flowers agreed with everything that I said at the very close in that what we desire the most, even why we would do a debate like this is because we want people to know

Christ. We want you to know who Jesus is. And it's not betraying some sort of reform theology for me to say you've been presented with the gospel.

Repent of your sin and believe in the gospel. Everywhere we find in the Bible where it says that it's man's responsibility to turn from his sin to Jesus Christ.

That's true. And everywhere we find in the Bible that it says that God is sovereignly ordained all things.

That's also true. And it's also our folly. It's it's only our folly that makes us unable to reconcile those two things.

Of course, those things are the ways of God and the way that he is working is divinely mysterious. But we know, according to what scripture says, he is predestined those whom he will bring to salvation.

He is not just predestined the end, but the means to that end. And the means to that end is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So you've heard the gospel. It is now upon you to make this decision to turn from your sin to follow the

Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. And the other conclusion that I made there at the end of that debate is that, you know, you saw two men who disagreed, but we disagreed with one another respectfully.

And that's something else that we as Christians need to be doing more of and better in the public square.

There are certain theological arguments or disagreements we might have. Even if we're talking about a person who's an enemy of the cross, this person is just a straight up heretic.

And we would do debates with them in public. We still must be respectful. Coming back again to the statement that I made back in 2

Timothy 2 25, Paul saying to Timothy that the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

God may perhaps grant repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. And he may escape from a snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

And so we disagree with one another in respectful ways because it's not your ability to shout a person down that's going to bring a person to faith.

As we've been talking about over the course of this, that it is the work of God that brings a person to faith.

So be obedient to the responsibilities that you have. Love one another. Present the gospel without prejudice and know the word of God and be able to present it clearly as well.

Amen. Amen. And I'd like to tell my Calvinist brothers and sisters, if you're going to hold forth the doctrines of grace, you need to be gracious.

Very good. That's right. Exactly. If you're snarky or you're arrogant, it doesn't matter what you're telling them about the truth.

They're going to see it through your eyes. The theology of the mind has to be theology that comes out in action.

That's right. That's right. You hold to the doctrines of grace. Please, please be gracious. The only reason we understand these doctrines on our view is the fact that God's enlightened us and given us eyes to see and ears to hear.

We certainly in no way should be condescending or arrogant towards anybody else who doesn't see it the way we do.

All by his grace. So you did nothing. It is by the grace of God. Amen. Well, Pastor Gabe, thanks so much again.

I really appreciate it. Friends, please check out When We Understand the Text, WWUTT on the

YouTube channel and all the great work that Pastor Gabe does. They're 90 -second videos. You can watch a ton of them.

You can watch them at your lunch break, stuff like that. And it's all excellent stuff. And again, to my listeners, please also check out my website, reformrookie .com,

where you'll find articles, videos, and this podcast. Be sure also to like our videos on YouTube and subscribe to the weekly podcast.

Thanks again for listening. And remember, a life reformed is a life conformed to the Jesus of the Scriptures and to God be the glory.

Semper Firmamanda. Always be reforming. Here we stand. We can do no other. Thanks and God bless.