A Little About Brewton-Parker; the Athanasian Creed; the Flaming Toilet of Death

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:32

And welcome to The Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon program that's going to be very, very challenging today due to the topics we're going to be dealing with.

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The last two topics are going to take a fair amount of time, not sure how long we will see. But I want to start off just with a note on a less pleasant subject, and that is

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I saw a email that was sent out by Carl Hay, pastor of First Baptist Church, Mt.

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Vernon, Georgia. If you don't know where Mt. Vernon, Georgia is, that is the location of Bruton Parker, hence this would—I don't know if this is

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Eric Cantor's new pastor or not, I have a feeling it probably is. And obviously one of the biggest problems that we have faced in the

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Eric Cantor scandal is the unwillingness of any local church, whether in Lynchburg or Arlington or now

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Mt. Vernon, to do the right thing, to do what a church should do in a situation like this.

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But an email was sent out by Pastor Hay, and we looked up and noticed that Eric Cantor spoke

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Sunday morning, March 2nd, at this church.

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So we tried to find the video, because there's video of everything else, but it says, in process.

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I have a hunch that's going to be a very long process. A very long process.

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But who knows? Who knows? But is Cantor going to have to do the same thing he always does? You know, could you lose that video?

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Could we—you know, they're just so mean to me. I preached on March 2nd, too, and the recordings of those sermons are available online and have been posted, and I don't have to hide them, anything.

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It's a great feeling. It's a good thing to be able to do. Anyway, Pastor Hay says in this email,

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I am fully aware of the accusations made against Dr. Cantor. As a matter of fact, I just recently rotated off the board of trustees for Bruton Parker, but I was part of the board's unanimous decision to select

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Dr. Cantor as president of the college. So here's one of the unanimous folks. Any insight into any of Dr.

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Cantor's past statements is totally unnecessary, and any attempts to change my opinion of Dr. Cantor will not be successful.

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I would request and appreciate you immediately cease to send any further emails regarding Dr. Cantor to this address. My prayer is that the

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Lord would bring an end to any attacks on Dr. Cantor by anyone, anywhere, once and for all.

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Thank you in advance for respecting my request. Carl Hay, Pastor of First Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, Georgia. Do you notice the one thing that's missing?

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Any answers! Because they have none! Oh, I've examined everything.

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Okay, and the answer to all the questions is... I'm not saying.

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I'm not saying. But it's good enough for me. Whatever Dr. Cantor says is good enough for me. But I'm not saying.

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Can't tell you. Can't tell you. And you just... You shake your head and you go...

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Why? How? But that's the way it is. That's the way it is. And that's the mindset of the people who, in the face of...

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Did y 'all see what TurretinFan posted on the blog? I mean, it is... You know, it's a base, and I have a feeling we can then expand from there.

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I'm not sure. I haven't asked him, but I get a feeling that's what he's going to do. As that other stuff comes up, then you start plugging in.

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Plugging in, okay, and he had this twist on this in this place, and this twist on here, and over here he actually said something else, and in this group he says this.

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But there you have such an excellent collation of materials that other people even could take that and start...

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You know, let's plug in the Marine videos. Let's plug in all this stuff. And it will just be an...

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It already is. You know, Pastor Hay knows that he can't answer these questions.

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He knows that there's no responding to this stuff. So why? I don't know. I cannot begin to understand it.

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I don't get it much, but there you go. What can I say? All right. I had announced on Tuesday that my intention today was to ask

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Pastor Jason Walls to be on the program. We are going to talk about the Sean McCraney situation. I am going to address the

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Sean McCraney situation today, but not in the way that I had expected. In this first part,

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I'm going to be addressing Sean directly. What has happened since Tuesday is

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I've listened to... I've had an opportunity to catch him. It's not like I could... It's not like Sean McCraney was the first thing on my mind when

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I was in Kiev, you know? Not the first thing on my mind when I'm trying to get to London or something like that.

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And I wasn't watching YouTube videos and things like that. Man, it is awfully nice, awfully nice to be in the

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United States and have the download speeds that I have at home because they don't have 3G in Ukraine.

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So you sort of get an idea of what I'm referring to. Anyway, I was off bike for almost three weeks.

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I'm trying to desperately get back that level of fitness I had before I left. It's killing me in the process,

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I will assure you, but the riding season is upon us, and I've got a race first week in March or first week in April.

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So I'm working hard, and so I did some big rides, and I did a big ride yesterday.

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And what I did is I took the time to download a number of Sean McCraney's programs, convert them to MP3, of course, and to listen to them as I was riding.

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I specifically listened to the two episodes, 380 and 381, on the subject of God.

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I listened, of course, to the 2014 Inquisition. I had already started that, which came after or before this, before the ones on God, I think.

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Anyway, it's hard to keep track. And then I was directed to one from November of last year called something about the

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Yellow Brick Road. And so I listened to that one, where Sean announced his intention to, you know, why he is opposing the evangelical church in the

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Salt Lake area. And then, also,

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I listened to all of, I think, the last episode posted, where, amazingly,

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Rob Bowman, I say amazingly simply because I know what Rob Bowman believes.

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And he and Sean had, evidently, a five -hour conversation.

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And then Sean has him on the program. And Rob is able to say many of the things that I've wanted to say to Sean, correct him on his misapprehension regarding it in John 1, 1 -3, and just correct a number of things.

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The only thing that I wish Rob had corrected that he didn't, and Sean needs to understand this, is Sean keeps referring to John MacArthur as denying the eternal sonship of Christ when

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John MacArthur no longer holds that position. I wish that that had been pointed out to Sean, that he needs to not be quoting

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John MacArthur on that because he's misrepresenting him. Out of ignorance, I'm sure, but he's misrepresenting him.

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So I listened to all of this. And what I decided I wanted to do was to take one portion and respond to Sean.

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He says he has no problem with people responding to him. Now, he'll say that at one point, and then a little bit later on, you're attacking me, you're attacking me, any disagreements considered to be attacking, but then go ahead and say what you want to say.

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So I'm not sure how that works. But I figured that by going through this section,

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I could do the most positive good in teaching on this subject to a wider audience because there's a lot of application, a lot of application here.

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Specifically, I am referring to the use of the Athanasian Creed.

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And what I'd like to do is I'd like to play for you a segment. This is from Episode 380 on God, Part 1, from Sean McCraney.

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What he does is he reads the Athanasian Creed. He reads it as a part of a story, in essence, of what

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Joseph Smith would have heard as a child. What would he have heard from a preacher standing upon a stump preaching in the early 1800s, basically?

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And so I'm going to pick up from where he finishes reading the

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Athanasian Creed, give you his comments, let you watch them, and then

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I'm going to walk through the Athanasian Creed with you. And I'm going to address myself directly to Sean because I would like to think that he would actually be willing.

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I have no evidence so far that he has actually listened to anything that I've said about him because I thought that when

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I responded to him on Radio Free Geneva, this was before I knew that he was questioning the Trinity or the nature of hell or going after the church and things like that.

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I just sort of thought he was your standard evangelical guy and therefore we had certain things that we could agree upon and on the basis of that have a discussion.

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And I don't know, I thought I was pretty nice to him. I thought I was pretty straightforward. I thought

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I was rather brotherly in my comments. And that's why I really wonder if he ever even listened to what

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I said or watched what I said. I don't know. Maybe he didn't. Maybe just someone told him,

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Ah, he attacked you. And he took him wherever they said that at face value.

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I don't know. I don't know, but I'm going to address Sean McCraney and explain the Athanasian Creed and would love to have the opportunity of doing so in person sometime, but we'll see what develops from that.

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So I'm going to play for you here the material. He's read the

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Athanasian Creed and put it on the screen. And then here are his comments flowing from that.

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And because it came from a preacher over the pulpit and because it contains a lot of acceptable truths with just enough incomprehensible mystery, you and I and millions of other

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Christians, billions possibly, have cheered, Amen, brother. Praise be to Jesus.

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I mean the Father. I mean the Holy Spirit. Little Joseph, who possessing an uncanny ability to discern baloney because he was full of it himself and having a working knowledge of the

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Bible that he obtained at a very young age from his parents and adding in the angst that he felt from the division in his own home, he probably wandered home and said to himself,

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I wonder if I can describe God in a more clear and concise manner. And in time and with growing imagination and chutzpah, he does.

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And Mormonism was born. Now the historical record of Joseph Smith's descriptions of God and the gold plates are proven fictional, mythical, absolutely, and this is without question.

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But what about the historical record of this tradition most Christians today readily embrace that we call the

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Trinity? Where did it come from? Is it any more reliable than Smith's first vision concoctions?

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Certainly Trinity smacks much closer to the biblical truth of God, but it's the product of tradition and philosophies of man, which it is why so many believers today readily and mindlessly embrace it and don't understand it.

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They do not understand what the constructs of Trinity is. We are going to open up next week's program with a shocking history of the origins of this

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Christian creed. Once we have exposed it for the garbage that it is, we'll compare it to the fiction

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Smith provided and then try to articulate a simple, easy to understand, biblical description of God.

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Okay, there you go. Expose it for the garbage that it is. Now in the next program, what

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Sean did is he, you know, just reiterated a lot of the, you know, pagan triads.

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The stuff that, you know, if Sean had taken the time to read Dr. Nash's work or anything like that has been thoroughly debunked and refuted many, many times.

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If you watch my debate with Dan Barker, the second one, the don't quote me bro debate, that kind of simplistic, he even quotes from Hislop, that kind of horrible, unhistorical, grossly biased, inaccurate type of stuff.

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That's the kind of material that he has been exposed to by someone somewhere. I don't know what happened, how that happened, but that's what happened.

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And that's where he went with that. This kind of presentation where you read the

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Athanasian Creed, you read it fairly quickly, is very, very common.

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Very, very common. And I'm going to go ahead and start speaking to Sean directly. As soon as I heard you doing this,

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Sean, I could not help but hearken back to how many times, not only have

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I heard Mormons doing this, but Jehovah's Witnesses. I can give you examples of Muslims.

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Very, very common amongst Muslims to do this. And that bothers me a lot because the only reason that's an effective approach is because you're counting on the ignorance of the audience.

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And unfortunately, very frequently, that is to be joined with the ignorance of the speaker. The Athanasian Creed certainly was not produced by Athanasius, or at least we don't think it was.

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I mean, I suppose it's possible, but it's highly doubtful. The Athanasian Creed, it's interesting, you asked

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Rob Bowman, do you think that the creeds are infallible? And I expected

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Rob's, of course Rob said no, but I expected Rob's response to be, no, I'm a Protestant. No Protestant believes creeds to be infallible.

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We believe that any statement of faith, my church has a statement of faith, I think every church has a statement of faith, otherwise you're not telling the world what you believe.

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And to say, well, we just believe the Bible, is not telling the world what you believe. That's not a meaningful response.

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If you want to communicate in this world, if you really love truth, then you've got to be clear about it. That's why you need a confession of faith, you need a statement of faith.

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We have a statement of faith, you want to know what we believe at the Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church, you look at the 1699 London Baptist Confession of Faith, there's a statement of faith.

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It's straightforward, it's clear. It's not a problem. Anyway, we don't believe these things are infallible statements, they're not

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Scripture, they're not equal to Scripture, they're not to be bound to the back of the Bible as if they're to be added to Scripture, they're not theanustos, not

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God -breathed. They are called subordinate standards. They are to be corrected on the basis of Scripture, but we believe, not by some slavish, mindless obedience.

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You seem to think this came from Rome or something. Sean, there was no Roman Catholicism at this time. No one at the

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Council of Nicaea would have understood what Roman Catholic meant. None of them described themselves that way.

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You give Rome a whole lot more credit when you say it already existed all the way back then. It's just ridiculous. It's just ahistorical.

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I mean, you're getting that stuff from Hyslop and people like that, people who could never have survived in a debate with a meaningful historian.

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Your sources are just really, really bad. You're not showing any discernment in the use of sources. And the people who are telling you that are not attacking you, they are your best friends.

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I mean, seriously, Sean. You seem to think that the people who are trying to help you the most are the people who are attacking you the most.

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You've got to recognize that if someone cares about you, they'll tell you the truth, right? I mean, you say that, you say that about others, but you don't seem to see it for yourself.

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It's strange. And it's a problem. But anyways, no, we do not believe that the

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Athanasian Creed is infallible, or that any creeds are infallible. They are always subject to the correction of the

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Word of God. But the Athanasian Creed had a history. And if you just simply read it, completely separate from its history, it's easy to mock it.

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It's easy to make it sound like it's incoherent. But the only people it's incoherent to are the people who are ignorant.

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Now, if that's the people you want to reach, more power to you. But you're the one that says you're concerned about the people, you're concerned about truth.

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So I'm trying to hold you to a consistent standard. And the reality is that if you know the background, if you know something about modalism,

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Sabellianism, Patrapassionism, Dynamic Monarchianism, if you know that as early as the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the

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Eastern Church especially was struggling against forms of modalism, various kinds of forms of modalism.

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They're not all the same. And you have enunciated forms of modalism. I just think you're ignorant of it, that's all.

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You have enunciated that. You seem to think there's only one form of modalism.

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There's all sorts of forms of modalism. But that's part of the background.

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Then you have the Aryan Controversy. That's the next part of the background. And then you have Nestorianism.

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That's the next part of the background. And then you have Eutychianism. That's another part of the background. Apollinarianism.

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That's another part of the background. If you don't know what those backgrounds are, then you don't have any basis for understanding why the

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Creed is emphasizing what it's emphasizing. But it came out of a context. And Sean, if you're sitting there talking to people about Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, Orson Hyde, and the political dynamics of the early church in Utah, reflected in the sermons that we have in the

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Journal of Discourses, specifically in reference to the development of the

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Adam -God Doctrine. If nobody knows anything about Joseph Smith, the

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Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the development of Mormon theology, who Brigham Young was, who Orson Pratt was, who

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Orson Hyde was, what the Journal of Discourses are, what the Temple Ceremonies are, what the evolutionists are saying, they're going to look at you like you're a nut!

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Are you the nut, or are they just ignorant? Yeah, they're just ignorant. But it would be very easy for them to take some of the discussions you've had, where you go in -depth in those things, and make you look very foolish.

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But who would really be making a fool of themselves? Only they, out of their ignorance, would be doing that. So, to sit there and read the

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Athanasian Creed at high speed, without dealing with its backgrounds, without even trying to communicate what it's actually saying to people, that's no more honorable or worthy of emulation than somebody who mocks

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Mormonism without accurately representing it. Which is easy to do.

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It's easy to do. But again, who do you want to reach? And, if as a

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Christian you stand before God, and you claim that Jesus is the way, the truth, and life, then we have a standard that the rest of the world doesn't have.

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And so you have to be truthful. You have to be consistent. That's why I have to check your sources. That's why

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I'm still waiting for you to tell me where you got that date, about 342 -343. He won't tell me that.

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I keep asking him, but he won't tell me that. I think he knows that if he gives me the source,

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I'm going to shred it. Because it's just not true. But I can't refute it if I don't have a source.

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All I have right now is, Sean McCraney says that more Christians killed other Christians between 342 -343 than the

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Roman Empire did in the entire period of persecution. That's absurd! It's absurd on its face!

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But I can't provide you with the overwhelming refutation of it, because I've been given no source other than Sean McCraney, who does not claim to be a historian.

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So, there you go. There you go. I'm still waiting for that. So, anyway.

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Let's look at the Athanasian Creed. And what we'll discover is that the Athanasian Creed makes perfect sense.

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Makes perfect sense. I'm sorry, what? Oh, well, okay.

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The Athanasian Creed. Whoever will be saved, before all things, it is necessary that he hold the

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Catholic faith. Now, I think you think that means Roman Catholic. It didn't at this time. Historically, Roman and Catholic, two different things.

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It's actually an oxymoron. Catholic faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.

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Well, Christianity does seem to say that there's only one way to God.

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And Jesus is the only way. And what it's saying here is you need to have the right

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Jesus. That is a Biblical perspective. It's not popular today, but that is a

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Biblical perspective. False Jesus will never save anybody. The spirit brother of Lucifer will never save anybody.

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Jesus as Michael the Archangel will never save anybody. Jesus is ours to worship, not to edit.

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Number three in the Catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity.

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So, first statement, monotheism. Absolute monotheism. I have offered to send you my book,

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The Forgotten Trinity. I offered to write something funny on the inside cover for you.

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So far, you haven't accepted that invitation. I may send it anyways. If you throw it out, if you burn it, nothing I can do about that, but I want to send it anyways because you haven't read it.

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And you make statements all the time, Sean, that demonstrate that you do not have a solid, meaningful, balanced, broad, deep understanding of what

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Christians have taught about the Trinity. It's just a fact. That's just a fact. You admitted to Rob Bowman.

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You learned a lot from him. Why? Because you didn't know before. Well, good. I hope you continue doing that.

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Some of us are trying. We really are. The first and fundamental foundation of the doctrine of the

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Trinity has nothing whatsoever to do with pagan triads or anything else because it's monotheism.

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See, where you're wrong is the materials you've been reading tell you that Constantine forces in the church.

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That's baloney. And that the church, the bishops at Nicaea were more influenced by Greek pagan triads than by the

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Old Testament. That's also baloney. Have you ever read Athanasius? How much of Athanasius have you read, John? I mean, he was a great defender of the

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Council of Nicaea, the concept of homoousios, that the son is of the same substance as the father. How much have you read of him?

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What do you know about his arguments? I've read a lot of them. And it's exciting because he uses the same argumentation

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I use today when dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses or whoever else it might be. Go back and do some reading,

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John. You just haven't done the reading. And when you do, you'll discover that the greatest influence upon them was

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Scripture. And specifically the assertion, the undeniable assertion, there's only one true

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God. And I know all the texts you do. I was dealing with Mormonism while you were still a Mormon, John.

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I was going to General Conference. If you went to General Conference any time after 1984, you passed me or one of our volunteers.

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We were there. We were never the ones yelling and screaming because we didn't do that. We were dressed nicely.

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Dressed respectfully. If you went in the 80s, we were wearing satin baseball jackets. I wonder if any of those still exist.

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I don't have any left. Do you? Oh man, that's a bummer. Especially the girls ones.

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Those were really pretty. I wish we still had some of them left someplace. Maybe we'll just have to make one just for old time's sake.

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But anyways, we were there. So I know all the texts. And we believe all of them.

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We believe all of them. The doctrine of the Trinity is based upon the fact that there's only one being of God. And yet, the

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Bible reveals that one being of God. That one Yahweh. That name is used of three persons in the

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Bible who are distinct from one another. The Father is

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Yahweh. Isaiah 53, Yahweh lays our sins upon the Messiah. Jesus identified as Yahweh.

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John 12, 41. Hebrews 1, 10 -12. Many other places. The Spirit is the

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Spirit of Yahweh. Spirit of the Lord. Yahweh. One name.

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One divine name. Used of three persons who are clearly distinguished from one another.

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That's why we believe in the doctrine of the Trinity. And so the Athanasian Creed says we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity.

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We do not confound the persons nor divide the substance. So we do not say that the Father is the

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Son. That would be confounding the persons. The Son addresses the

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Father as Father. The Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit. The Spirit testifies to Jesus.

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Differentiation. They're not the same person. Jesus uses personal pronouns of Himself. Father glorify

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Me together with Yourself, which is the glory which I had with You before the world was. That's one divine person speaking to another divine person about Him being in the presence of the

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Father. So He's the Son, by the way. Before creation. That really answers all of your objections right there if you just look carefully at John 17, 5.

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But we do not confound the persons, neither do we divide the substance.

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So Jesus isn't one -third of God. The Father isn't one -third. The Spirit isn't one -third.

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You do not divide the substance. There's only one being of God. The cough thing worked better when we didn't have a camera.

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I have, you may all notice that I have a much more melliferous, melodious,

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Barry White style voice today. And that is what? Whatever.

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And so I've got a cough, and it does make for a great radio voice,

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I'll have to admit. Makes me sound much more authoritative than it ever would before. But that happens when we had a bunch of rain, now it's warm.

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Is it hitting you yet? No, not at all. I was going to say, whatever you do, don't call me donkey, okay?

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Okay, yes. I won't use the British accent on you to call you, hey, donkey!

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Anyways, that's a little inside joke, Sean, don't worry about it. For there is one person of the

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Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. We do not confound the persons, we do not confuse them.

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The Scripture never does. Did you notice, for example, Sean in John 10, 30, I and the Father are one? What's the number of the verb there?

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You often make reference to Greek and Hebrew. I don't think you read Greek and Hebrew. I think you're using tools. But use your tools.

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And look up the verb. It's not singular, it's plural. I and the Father, we are one.

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Esmen. So, the point is that even in a text like that, there's a clear differentiation of the

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Father and the Son. Did a debate with the one that's Pentecostal. When was the debate?

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It was 2000 and... 2012? 2012?

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I think it was 2012. It was down in Brisbane, wherever it was. I think it was 2012. Look it up.

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See if many of the arguments I presented are not the very arguments that would be most relevant to you.

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I have that linked on the YouTube site. Good. Look it up. With Roger Perkins.

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But the Godhead, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, and the majesty co -eternal. Again, it's not one -third of the pie.

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The being of God, since it is infinite and eternal, cannot be divided up. Absolutely simple.

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Cannot be turned into parts. But since it is infinite and eternal, it can be shared by three divine persons. My being is limited, cannot be shared by three persons.

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But God's being is infinite, and therefore can be shared by three persons.

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And so that's what the Creed is saying. Such as the Father is, such as the Son, such as the Holy Spirit, the

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Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated. Straightforward.

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The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Spirit incomprehensible. In the sense of being able to be limited by human understanding.

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Beyond the realm of limitation. Limitation based upon what a creature can understand.

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The Father eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Spirit eternal, did not enter into this relationship.

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I'm well aware that you deny the eternal Sonship of Christ. You say

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He was the Logos. But there's real question, Sean, from your own lips, as to whether you believe that the

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Logos was personal. Your misunderstanding of the Greek in John 1 seems to indicate that you have been given false information.

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As I sent an email to you, if you look at the language in John 1, it goes back to Huttos, goes back to Logos.

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The Logos was prostantheon, impersonal relationship with the Father. That's not an impersonal thing.

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That's not an impersonal thing. The Logos is not some impersonal concept here. And that's exactly what the

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Creed is saying here. And yet, they are not three eternals, but one eternal.

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So again, while each is eternal in their personhood, that does not make them three separate gods.

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They are all sharing the one being that is God. Again, biblically revealed by the use of the one name

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Yahweh of each of the divine persons. As also, there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.

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So again, what's the two sides you can fall off of when following this truth?

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You can fall off into polytheism, you fall off into modalism. The Creed is doing everything in its power, and the reason it's as long as it is, is that it's providing illustrations that provide us with the guardrails that keep us from falling off into, well, the very kind of error that you've fallen into.

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By saying, while each one is almighty, there's not three almighties. While each one is incomprehensible, there's not three incomprehensibles.

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You're staying between those guides that are provided to us in Scripture.

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It's the Scripture that teaches there's only one true God. It's the Scripture that identifies each with the name Yahweh. It's the

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Scripture that differentiates between the persons and cannot allow us to confuse them together. It's the Scripture that teaches their equality in their participation in the divine being, in the sense of the identification of each as God.

35:37

So we're just, we're allowing you, you want to say, well, that word's not in Scripture. Sean, if you held yourself to that standard, you would never, ever be able to talk to a

35:49

Mormon. Because I guarantee you, if you just record your next conversation with a

35:54

Mormon and then afterwards go back and honestly ask yourself the question, how many times did I use words that are not found in the

36:01

Bible? There's nothing wrong with using words that are not found in the Bible. The Bible is not meant to be an exhaustive compendium of everything we ever need to say.

36:14

It's different to say that the Scriptures are sufficient to give us what we need to know, but then we need to take what we know from what's revealed in Scripture and express it in many different contexts.

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The danger is, obviously, that we can then garble the message if we have the wrong motivations in seeking to speak to others.

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But the challenge the is to take what we know from divine revelation and express it in response to all the questions that are asked of us from all sorts of different language groups and cultures and perspectives and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

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So your demand that we only use Biblical words, you could never live according to that, and it's irrational.

37:10

Makes no sense. Makes no sense. So the

37:15

Father is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three gods, but one God. That's the point where Muslims really like to say, that's just not possible.

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Yes, it is. As long as you recognize what we're saying is the being of God is unlimited, being of God is eternal, and each person shares fully in that being of God.

37:38

And it makes perfect sense. And again, why do we believe that? Because of some silliness from Egypt or something like that, which isn't even semi -close to being parallel?

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Or because we're looking at Scripture, and Scripture says to us, there's only one God, Yahweh, and that one

37:57

God has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not manifestations, but in the outpouring, the proof of the

38:07

Trinity, Sean, is found between the Testaments. It's found between the

38:12

Testaments. In the Incarnation, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God.

38:19

There's where the Trinity is found. So the New Testament then becomes the record of this revelation.

38:26

They're not trying to prove it, they're living in light of it. Peter was an experiential Trinitarian. He had heard the

38:33

Father speak on the Mount of Transfiguration, he walked with the Son, he was now indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He was an experiential

38:39

Trinitarian, and so what they write is written from the matrix, the context of Trinitarian belief.

38:49

And that's why it's found all through it. So, and yet there are not three Gods, but one

38:54

God. So likewise, the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord. That's a true statement.

39:01

It's not reflective, it's not saying in Biblical usage that the

39:08

Father is normally called Lord. He's not, he's normally called God. The Son is normally called Lord. And the

39:14

Spirit is normally simply called Spirit. But the point is, Lordship, having Lordship over creation.

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And yet there are not three Lords, but one Lord. Just the same with God. For like as we are compelled by the

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Christian verity to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the

39:33

Catholic religion to say that there are three Gods and three Lords. The Father is, now, that's just, again, that's just reiterating what we've already just said.

39:41

The clear differentiation between person and being, that these need to be understood, again, to make sense of the

39:49

Biblical revelation itself. Then, we start talking about what theologians call the opera ad intra, opera ad extra.

39:59

Specifically, how do we differentiate the Father, Son, and Spirit in their relationship to one another? Are we given anything in Scripture that would help us to understand this?

40:09

Well, the Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the

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Father alone, not made or created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeding.

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So here is the opera ad intra, the differentiation that we can make between the divine persons based upon their relationship one to another.

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That is, since the Son is said to be the Son, then the relationship of begettal, never in time, is not the idea that the

40:45

Son came into existence, it is the intimacy and order of relationship that is referred to there.

40:54

In the same way, the Spirit proceeds. Remember in John chapter 14, Jesus says, if I go to the

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Father, we will send the Spirit to you. So you have the

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Spirit proceeding, the Son being begotten, the Father differentiated from the other two on the basis of none of those statements being true of Him.

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So there is one Father, not three Fathers, one Son, not three Sons, one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.

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In this Trinity, none is afore or after another, none is greater or less than another. In their participation in the divine nature, they do take different roles in the economy of salvation.

41:36

So the Son can say, the Father is greater than I am. The Spirit's role is to take from the Son and to glorify the

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Son, etc., etc. But the whole three persons are co -eternal and co -equal. So in all things, as afore said, the unity in Trinity, the

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Trinity unity, is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved must think of the

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Trinity. Now, is that really all that difficult?

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I mean, once you understand the background, what's being fought against there, modalism, what's being fought against there,

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Arianism, is there any reason to mock that?

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Is there any reason to call it garbage? Only if you're ignorant of it, only if you're ignorant of the backgrounds, only if you're wanting to get other people to sort of join along with you.

42:28

There's no reason to do that. But then, the

42:33

Creed goes on to talk about the relationship of the divine human and Christ. Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. For the right faith is that we believe and confess our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, is

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God and man. The Theanthropos is one of my favorite terms, the God -man. God of the substance of the

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Father, homoousious, not of a different substance, heteroousious, not of a like substance, homoiousious, but of the substance of the

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Father, begotten before the world, that is, timelessly. And man of substance of his mother, born in the world.

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So he was truly man. He did not simply indwell a shell of a physical body, but he was born of a woman.

43:18

Perfect God and perfect man of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. So 100 % God, 100 % man.

43:25

Now, it's interesting, you don't seem to have a problem with this. I mean, I don't know what your

43:30

Christology is, I can't tell. But the categories that are found here, the unique categories that are found here, are very similar to the unique categories found in the description of the

43:41

Trinity itself. So why you'd have problems with one not the other, that's the question.

43:48

Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead, equal participation in the being of God, and inferior to the

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Father as touching his manhood. He voluntarily humbled himself. He laid aside that equality with God that he had and humbled himself.

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And in Philippians 2, he did so by taking on a human nature.

44:10

So the emptying, the kenosis, is actually by the taking on of human nature. Interestingly enough,

44:16

I actually preached on this subject in Ukraine. And I'm not sure,

44:21

I don't think I linked to that. It might be available, I'll have to look. But just recently addressed this very issue, in translation, in Ukraine, in Russian.

44:32

But have presented this a number of times. Again, normally against modalists, because, Sean, if you just put the emotions aside, much of what you have enunciated is a form of modalism.

44:45

And hence, the arguments in response to you are the standard text that Christians have argued for centuries in response to modalism.

44:55

Equal to the Father is touching his Godhead, and fair to the Father is touching his manhood, who, although he is God and man, he is not two, but one

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Christ. We've always confessed that Jesus, having two natures, is but one person.

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He's not schizophrenic, it's not like you have God over here and man over here, and they talk to each other, and so on and so forth.

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One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God.

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Now we're talking about the hypostatic union, the historianism, the Eutychianism, all the background issues come in at this point. Again, trying to follow the balance.

45:29

One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. Sorry, in the stories. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one

45:38

Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead. There's a question about what the hell means there, making a proclamation of the dead.

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Not going to get into that today. He ascended into heaven, he sits on the right hand of the Father God Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

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At his coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give account of their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, they have done evil into everlasting fire.

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This is the Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved. Obviously I would prefer if there was more discussion of what it means, that judgment is going to be based upon what

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Christ did, but that wasn't the focus of what this was talking about. So, the point is,

46:18

Sean, that this is not Scripture. It's not infallible.

46:25

I could suggest, like I just did, improvements on it, and I would never suggest improvements to Scripture.

46:32

But the reality is, the reason that it's confusing to some people is only because they're unwilling to come to it in its own context.

46:43

Now, Sean, you would demand, and rightfully so, you would ask, let's put it that way, to be interpreted within the context of your own background, your own experience, and that's what

46:58

I'm trying to do. I'm trying to come to you, you say I'm your brother. My brothers do not deny the

47:08

Trinity. But I don't know what you know yet. I don't know if you really understand what it is you're denying.

47:16

You say you're a former Mormon. That's clear. You've been doing everything you can to get people out of the

47:21

Mormon church. As have I. And so I come to you, and I go, alright, here's what he's claiming.

47:31

Then, let me offer biblical truth. And the real question will be, will you listen?

47:44

Will you hear? All I can do is offer. All I can do is pray for you.

47:50

All I can do is try to speak the truth as plainly to you as possible.

47:59

And you'll have to admit, I've been the one who's been very open here to you. I mean, you were the first one to contact me, actually.

48:07

But since then, there's been a, you know, you even told me at one point I'm not going to respond anymore to you. I'm not even going to respond to your emails.

48:14

But you have, and I hope you continue doing that. And I do want to try to talk with you.

48:22

Because you have yet to raise a single objection that I have not heard hundreds of times for years.

48:33

I was responding to this stuff while you were still a Mormon, Sean. So the real question is, do you have the willingness, the humility, to be willing to learn?

48:45

You yourself said, hey, I'm wrong 90 % of the time. Well, this is part of the 90%. I appreciate the fact you don't claim to be infallible.

48:56

I don't either. But on this subject, here's one of the problems that I have with the position you've adopted.

49:05

I don't think you can really define Christianity anymore. Because you can say, well, it's anybody who loves

49:11

Jesus. Who's Jesus? As soon as you say loves Jesus, you have to define what loves Him and who Jesus is.

49:18

Is the Mormon Jesus good enough? Is the spirit brother of Lucifer good enough? One God amongst billions of gods, is that good enough?

49:24

How about Michael Archangel, is that good enough? You know there are warnings of Scripture against false

49:29

Christ. How do you define a false Christ if you don't know who the true Christ is? There have to be parameters,

49:35

Sean. And right now, you're pushing it to borders. In fact, you've transgressed the borders. And that's what we're trying to say.

49:45

Now, have you done so knowingly? I don't know yet. I don't know yet. I haven't been able to get you to talk with me long enough to find out.

49:55

But I'm trying to find out. Need to find out. I care about what goes on in Salt Lake City. I care about the churches up there.

50:03

It's a foreign missions field. And I sense a lot of passion in you.

50:10

But the question is, what's the source of that passion? And for a mature Christian, we subject our passions to the governing work of the

50:21

Holy Spirit of God in His Word. There's all sorts of things that you've said about the church and stuff like that.

50:26

I'm not even getting into that right now. Needs to be gotten into. Need to address it. But not going there right now.

50:33

Not going there right now. Now, I hope that was useful not only to Sean McCraney, but to others as well.

50:42

But Sean, also, in the Yellow Brick Road episode, I think it was 366.

50:48

I'd have to look it up. I don't have it up in front of me right now. Actually, I might be able to find it right here if I just go back to...

50:58

I want to make sure... I want to get my numbers right here so you can look it up yourself. So that there's...

51:05

We're being fair here. 15 more. I scroll down.

51:12

And it is number... It's in November. It's right before November 5.

51:17

There it is. Where'd it go? There it is. 366. Hey! Short -term memory hasn't completely failed me.

51:24

It's great. Episode number 366. Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road.

51:33

When I was listening to this, again, it's funny how

51:39

I connect these things to certain places where I am. I listened to this, and Sean was talking about how they have not been accepted by Evangelical churches in that area, and so on and so forth.

51:58

And so he started listing things that he's questioning in, quote -unquote, Evangelical Christianity. I'm not sure what

52:04

Evangelical Christianity is either anymore. And then he played a video.

52:12

So I heard this before I watched it. But I could tell by listening,

52:22

I could almost see what the video was going to be presenting. What I'm going to present to you will be shocking to some people.

52:32

We play the entire thing for purposes of fair -use criticism. The only way to really engage this short video—it's 13 minutes long, actually— is to give it to Hole.

52:46

That's the only fair way to do it. And obviously it's had an impact upon Sean, because he presented it to his people, and clearly it has something to do with his views on eternal punishment and hell and things like that now.

53:01

But this particular video is tremendously well done.

53:14

It's similar to the NUMA videos. It comes from a similar background, clearly.

53:21

What you need to understand— I saw someone in Twitter— yeah, here it is.

53:27

I'm not going to mention a name, but hold on,

53:34

I didn't even go there. You need folks to understand how powerful the effect of a video like this is, because it is emotive.

53:50

It is primarily aimed at dealing with the emotions. And the people in our churches are coming from a society where they have been taught that this is how they think.

54:08

Emotion is all important. And so I'm going to play this video for you.

54:17

I want you to watch it. I want you to listen to it. And then

54:22

I'm going to interact with it afterwards. And well, let's just take a look at it and see what you think.

55:29

Why should you fear God? Is it because His love, compassion, and mercy will come to an end?

55:38

Is it because He might just say one day, Enough is enough. I just can't take anymore. And now

55:44

I'm going to have to torture you endlessly just to show how good and righteous I am.

55:54

Is that why we should fear God? When my firstborn son,

56:08

Jonathan, was three or four years old, a man came over to our house to fix the furnace.

56:16

My son did everything with me, so the three of us went down in the basement to look at the furnace.

56:24

I remember Jonathan was sitting next to me holding my hand as the repairman pulled the grill off the furnace and started checking the white hot flames that heated the house.

56:33

I was occupied with questions about heating units and service calls. When I felt this tug on my shirt,

56:40

I looked down to see my son in obvious distress. My little boy looked up at me, pointing at the furnace, and he said,

56:48

What's that? I said, Well, buddy, those are the flames that heat the water so we can have hot water in our house.

56:57

Well, that actually wasn't true. It was the furnace, not the water heater, but without thinking. That's what

57:10

I said. Over the next few days, we noticed that John, who had been doing very well in the potty training department, started to have accidents, you know, wetting his pants, pooing in his shorts, and then one night he wouldn't take a bath.

57:28

When I asked him why, he said, Well, daddy, the flames have come up and burned me. It took me a while to figure out what he was talking about.

57:35

I said, Oh, no, John, that's not the way it works. But it was too late. Jonathan was imprisoned in a lie.

57:42

My terror had imprisoned him in a lie, and believing the lie, he would hide in shame and hide his shame, a pair of soiled

57:51

Superman underwear. I'd go looking for him.

57:59

Jonathan, buddy, where are you? John, what are you doing?

58:06

Where are you? Finally, my wife and I sat down and we had a conversation, and we issued judgment.

58:20

That night, when I could tell that Jonathan was loaded and needed to go, I went and grabbed him by the hand, and I pulled him, kicking and screaming, down the hall to the bathroom, and yes,

58:31

I held him, I held him, I held him to the flaming toilet of death. Few times in my life have

58:43

I witnessed such expressions of abject horror, and yet I held him,

58:51

I held him there to the toilet of terror until the deed was done. You know,

59:00

God can teach you things in the strangest places. As I held my son to that burning ring of fire, feeling such incredible compassion and frustration and hope all at once,

59:13

I felt like God kind of whispered in my heart, Hey Peter, now do you get it?

59:20

Now do you understand just a little of what it's like to be your daddy? You know, scripture says

59:28

God disciplines those whom he loves, so he will literally hold us to the fire.

59:34

Scripture also says that he is a consuming fire. He is love.

59:40

He is fire. His love is the fire. In the words of the great theologian

59:48

Carl Barth, he will burn us right down to faith. Scripture says our faith is tested like gold, gold that's refined by fire.

59:59

As I held John to that toilet, the fear was very real. But you see, he was imprisoned in a lie.

01:00:08

The lie was his own personal hell, so I held John to that toilet because I loved him.

01:00:16

For John, however, my love felt like fire. Fire that burned the hell right out of him.

01:00:22

Fire that burned the lie right out of him. Well, imagine.

01:00:33

Imagine if during that time, before faith conquered the flaming toilet of death, while my son was hiding from me here in the closet, imagine if someone came along and gave him some counsel.

01:00:48

John? John? John? John, why don't you come out of the closet?

01:00:59

Come out here, and I'll tell you a story about why you should fear your daddy. Now, Jonathan, you should fear your daddy because he's not going to let you live in your own filth.

01:01:15

As long as you keep pooing your pants, your daddy's going to find you, and he's going to hold you down to the toilet.

01:01:20

Now, there's nothing you can do to escape his discipline or hide from his judgment. If you're, say, 60 years old and living in a cave in Alaska somewhere, but still pooing your pants, your 87 -year -old father's going to hunt you down, find a toilet, and hold you to it.

01:01:38

Fear him because he loves you, and his steadfast love, it's not going to stop.

01:01:46

Okay, champ? Good. Well, that would be a bit weird, but it would be accurate.

01:01:58

But now, imagine if somebody else came along and gave my son this counsel. Now, John, you should fear your daddy because one day, his love's going to end.

01:02:21

Now, you'll say you're sorry, but it'll be too late. He'll have no more patience for you.

01:02:28

And then he'll have to torture and torment you forever. Indeed, even as we speak, your father has other children, except he keeps these ones in the basement near the flames, burning and torturing them until they die.

01:02:46

But then he resurrects them and brings them back to torture them again and again and again.

01:02:55

It's like a living death, and it's going to go on forever and ever and ever, and there's nothing you can do about it.

01:03:04

His wrath endures because his mercy has come to an end. So fear your daddy because one day, his love's going to stop.

01:03:16

Okay, champ? Great. Now, go back into the closet and wait for your daddy to find you, okay?

01:03:37

If someone said that to my son, I can't think of anything more damaging to him or anything more abhorrent to me.

01:03:46

I mean, my son might stop pooing his pants, but he wouldn't trust me. He wouldn't love me.

01:03:53

He'd honor me with his lips, but his heart would be far, far, far from me.

01:04:00

But, you know, stuff like that is what we religious leaders have often said to our folks about God, our

01:04:06

Heavenly Father. And I understand it. If I want people to do what I say in order to get their acts together, that's the easiest thing to preach.

01:04:14

Listen, you need to do what I tell you, or God's patience may run out. He'll fry you, and this will be your last chance.

01:04:24

But what does that say about God? And do you remember who inspired the most wrath in Jesus?

01:04:30

In the Old Testament, through the prophet, God calls to Israel, saying, You honor me with your lips, but your heart is far from me.

01:04:39

So should we fear God? Well, yeah, but not because His love comes to an end.

01:04:44

In fact, it's just the opposite. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end.

01:04:52

The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. That line is repeated something like 84 times in Scripture, and it's the

01:05:00

Apostle John that reveals God is love. So is there an eternal fire?

01:05:08

A fire that never comes to an end? Yeah. God is eternal fire. God never comes to an end.

01:05:15

And God is love. And yes, there is an outer darkness. There is a place where men and women weep and gnash their teeth.

01:05:24

It's that place in which people who do not yet know Jesus hide from God, who is love.

01:05:30

And that place is called hell. And yes, there is judgment, but God's judgment is

01:05:37

His love. We can't hide from God's love forever. John is 24 now.

01:05:45

I want you to know that perfect love or pretty good love has cast out fear. I mean,

01:05:51

John will sit on the toilet for hours without fear. I haven't actually asked him, and he may have blocked the incident out of his mind, but I'm pretty sure that he's grateful that he no longer wears diapers.

01:06:07

See, back then, he was imprisoned in dirty diapers. He was imprisoned in fear.

01:06:14

And so, I wanted John to fear only me, so that he would fear nothing else.

01:06:21

And then, fearing me, he would see that he has nothing to fear. I would die for John.

01:06:29

And I hope you know that your Heavenly Father has died for you. Jesus is

01:06:35

God in the flesh, the Word of Love in flesh. He is wisdom.

01:06:42

Scripture says, fear is the beginning of wisdom. But wisdom came, suffered, and died so that fearing him, you would see that you have nothing to fear.

01:06:53

Perfect love casts out fear. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, but love is the end.

01:07:10

Alright, there you go. The flaming toilet of death. And I was amazed there were only like 700 some odd views of this on YouTube, which shocked me.

01:07:28

Maybe I will inadvertently and unwittingly cause it to go viral. I don't know.

01:07:34

But Sean McCraney played that as part of his program in number 366.

01:07:42

And so I heard it. And I need to track it down, because as soon as I heard it, I said,

01:07:48

I need to respond to that. Now, I do not want to become the apologist for hell, to be known in such ways, but I have engaged in some discussion of that subject on Unbelievable, and some here on the program.

01:08:08

That particular presentation, you know, if you're a calloused, hardened

01:08:19

Calvinist, you may just chuckle at these things, but you need to realize that that kind of a presentation, that emotive, emotionally based presentation, has a tremendous power.

01:08:37

And the result of that is that very few people will listen to it in a critical manner.

01:08:46

They're not critically examining what is being said and what is being assumed in what is being said.

01:08:56

The film began, as you may recall, with a misrepresentation of why we should fear

01:09:02

God. We will come back to that as we work through the film.

01:09:09

Immediately it keys on its primary presupposition, and that is that the loving kindness, the grace, the love of God must be undifferentiated.

01:09:21

Oh, I know they didn't say that. But mature people, adults, listen to things, and they think through what is actually being said.

01:09:36

That's one of the great tragedies of modern education, is that that's no longer being taught.

01:09:42

We're being taught what to think, not how to think. And I have said on this program over and over and over again, you have to examine the presuppositions of what is being said.

01:09:53

The first thing you have to do to be a good debater is to hear the presuppositions of the person that you're debating.

01:10:01

From this perspective of this film, there can be no redemptive love. All love must be equal to all people.

01:10:10

So the promise of God's loving kindness, and that very term, loving kindness, is even better translated as covenant faithfulness.

01:10:24

The promise of God's loving kindness being never -ending, found in the Old Testament, is made to extend to all as a family.

01:10:37

So as wonderful as the covenant faithfulness of God is, it is just that. It is covenant faithfulness, and the film does not and will not seek to argue or establish that that covenant is universal, but that is what is being said.

01:10:49

The only end result of this film is universalism. Because in its presentations, very clearly, everybody is the child of God.

01:11:02

God is everyone's Heavenly Father. And as common as that viewpoint is amongst people, it is not a

01:11:10

Biblical viewpoint at all. Secondly, the use of familial images, the

01:11:16

Father -Son images, it is massively powerful. Massively powerful. And what does it communicate?

01:11:22

That God is the Father of whom? Sadly, it does not bother to say, other than implying it means everybody.

01:11:29

The Biblical reality that one must become a child of God, and that by nature we are children of wrath, sons of disobedience, haters of God, that part is far too easily washed to the back of the mind by the waves of emotion engendered by the music, the story, and the images.

01:11:51

And do not delude yourself, that is the exact intention of what is being done here.

01:12:01

We are told at one point by the narrator, he is love, he is fire, his love is the fire.

01:12:10

Quote, end quote. Followed by a quotation from the great theologian Karl Barth. Again, it sounds wonderful.

01:12:19

You put the right, you've already got people into a reflective mood, you've got the right music going on, sounds wonderful.

01:12:26

But what on earth does it mean? He is love, he is fire, his love is the fire.

01:12:34

Really? What does that mean? How can it have the same meaning for the elect as it has for those who face

01:12:43

God's judgment? Well, now you're forcing biblical parameters on such a wonderful story and what we have in so many churches today is,

01:12:53

I like the story better than the biblical parameters. The film doesn't address that.

01:13:01

The film doesn't allow for that. Again, I have the hunch that the makers of the film are probably universalists, minimum, absolute minimal inclusivists.

01:13:15

Probably universalists. Then the fellow shows up and talks to the little boy.

01:13:28

Fear God because he loves you and because he loves you he will discipline you always. He will never give up.

01:13:35

He'll chase you to the cave in Alaska and force you to sit on the toilet.

01:13:43

It's really rather hard to avoid the implications here of universalism. He will never give up.

01:13:49

Love wins, remember? Love wins. Or fear

01:13:55

God because he'll torture you forever and ever. Once again, very clearly, the confusion of human categories, a sinful, fallible human father with the father of light, pure, holy, whose law is a representation of his holy being and therefore there needs to be atonement for the breaking of that law, etc.

01:14:21

That doesn't show up in the film. That's not there. Remember what the guy said to the little boy?

01:14:32

He said, you'll say you're sorry but it will be too late.

01:14:39

He'll have no more patience with you. Really? Repentance is something that the judged will do.

01:14:48

They'll ask for forgiveness. Really? Again, no they won't.

01:14:54

Remember the book of Revelation? The plagues come upon mankind and what do they do? They repent?

01:15:00

No, they call upon the rocks to fall upon them because they will not repent. That's the point.

01:15:08

That's the whole point here. The authors don't really believe what the Bible says about the nature of man.

01:15:19

His wraths endure because his mercies will end. Folks, theology matters.

01:15:27

Here's where it matters. I know some of you

01:15:33

Calvinists are sitting there going, my church should never be impacted by something like this.

01:15:38

Don't fool yourself. Don't fool yourself. We need to teach and preach the whole counsel of God and make sure our people understand and can look at this thing and not depend upon me to take it apart, but themselves.

01:15:58

Not just get a gut feeling it's wrong, but to go wait a minute, wait a minute. You're not being biblical here.

01:16:06

You don't have the right view of man. The Bible says that's not what men are going to do. They're not going to say they're sorry.

01:16:12

They're going to stay in their rebellion and the weeping and gnashing of teeth is not self pity. It's hatred of God and their inability to do anything about it.

01:16:27

His wraths endure because his mercies will end. The promise of his mercy is to his elect people and his mercies never end to them.

01:16:40

But you see you turn the message of the Bible into a mishmash of self contradiction when you don't recognize the overarching picture of God's purpose and that's why this kind of stuff is absolutely dynamite to our minions.

01:17:01

The synergist has no defense against this because the synergist has already capitulated on the key issues that would provide a biblical defense against this.

01:17:14

See, theology matters. It matters pastorally too. It matters pastorally.

01:17:22

Of course, the real reason for fearing God never was mentioned. The whole thing never really dealt with why we should fear

01:17:33

God. Fearing God because he is God, your creator, your maker, the one who gives you every breath of your mouth, every beat of your heart because it is natural to fear one's creator in awe and adoration and yes, fear of his judgment didn't show up because once you reduce

01:18:06

God's fatherliness, which is a covenant relationship with his people, once you reduce

01:18:13

God down to that level, those categories just don't fit anymore. You can't give a biblical answer to the question once you've reduced

01:18:21

God in this way. Once you've reduced God. We found who produced this?

01:18:31

Somebody in channel said that they threw a link up and if you click into it, there is where we meet and their main church is in Denver and then they do evening services out in Evergreen.

01:18:43

Isn't that where you start that race? I thought so. That's interesting.

01:18:49

What's really interesting is the website, although it has some of the stuff we just saw, it also says they affirm the

01:18:55

Athanasian and Nicene creeds. Well, that makes sense. Interesting.

01:19:07

Of course, I am reminded of Matthew 10, 28. Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.

01:19:19

I wonder how that fits in. Because that's talking about God.

01:19:25

And when Jesus taught it, he said, rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

01:19:31

That wasn't Satan, by the way. Some people misinterpret that. There is something appropriate about fearing

01:19:39

God in his holiness and his justice. And it says we can't hide from God's love forever.

01:19:46

That seems to me to be unquestionable universalism there.

01:19:54

That seems to be love wins. That seems to be fundamentally there's going to be a reconciliation.

01:20:02

There's going to be salvation. And of course, a number of you caught, and I caught it too, given what was just said, your heavenly father has died for you.

01:20:16

Well, not quite. There was a little Trinitarian confusion there toward the end. Your heavenly father has given his son.

01:20:28

But then, of course, the question becomes for whom? And that is another issue, which, interestingly enough,

01:20:36

I addressed Sunday evening. So this is the sanctuary.

01:20:46

Well, there's some

01:20:51

Bonhoeffer stuff going on there. A nicely made website.

01:20:58

But how did we all discover that this was where this was from? I wonder. Ah, see, a theology of relentless love.

01:21:07

There you go. Introduction, articles, books. I wonder what I'm going to see when

01:21:12

I click on books. Apocalypse Now, Waking to Reality, the soundtrack for all time,

01:21:21

The Prince, the Dragon, and the Bride. Dance Lessons for Zombies, The Sermon on the

01:21:27

Mount. Okay. All right. All righty then.

01:21:38

I don't see how we figured out this is where it came from.

01:21:49

Peter, Peter Hyatt, there you go. Pastoral team, Peter Hyatt, that's the guy in the film. That's how we figured it out.

01:21:54

I'm not sure how anybody did that. I'm still impressed that someone tracked that down. Maybe it's just they found it on YouTube and followed some of the links or something and found it there.

01:22:03

I don't know. I don't know. But Peter Hyatt, that's And there's

01:22:09

Johnny. There's Johnny Hyatt. He's on the pastoral team too, and he was a little kid.

01:22:15

Of course, he's older now. And he sort of has a look on his face like, man,

01:22:22

Dad, did you really have to tell that story? That's what I'm sure my son would do if I told that particular story.

01:22:29

So there you go. So The Sanctuary. I don't know anything more about it. Sorry. I simply heard the video and went into episode 366 from Sean McCraney.

01:22:47

Watched it. Saw the end. It said the flaming toilet of death.

01:22:53

Searched for the flaming toilet of death. Poof, it came up. And I felt it was absolutely necessary to respond to it and to once again tell all...

01:23:08

Again, if you're a Calvinist sitting here going, just a bunch of emotional...

01:23:15

Okay. I get it. But you got to understand where people are coming from in our society today.

01:23:22

They're surrounded by this. And to be pastorally sensitive and apologetically sensitive, we need to recognize that our people are influenced by this, and so we have to be positively on the other side passionately explaining to them why they must allow scriptural revelation to rule over their passions.

01:23:52

They need to be passionate about ruling their passions. And to think through the argument.

01:24:00

To see the unstated presuppositions. The unstated part of the argument.

01:24:06

And the reason it's unstated is because it's indefensible. And folks know it.

01:24:12

That's why they don't state it. That's why when

01:24:19

Rob Bell shows up on Unbelievable and someone asks him meaningful questions that are never really addressed in the

01:24:30

NUMA videos, he becomes unhinged. Because he's always known those questions are there, but he's just not put himself in the position of actually having to really respond to them.

01:24:47

And having open Q &As at these churches are still not going to get hit with this stuff.

01:24:55

So keep that in mind. So back to Sean.

01:25:04

Sean, you showed this stuff to your people. I haven't heard you...

01:25:09

There's my response. There's my response to that video.

01:25:15

And I know that there are a bunch of folks that would look at me and go, that heartless guy.

01:25:26

How can you not just be... How can you not just find that video to be just so overwhelming?

01:25:34

Well, it's your priorities. I'm actually not a heartless guy. I know that I probably should go ahead and try to promote that perspective and make me a better debater or something.

01:25:49

But the problem is there are videos out now of Weekend Before Last sitting in Kiev, Ukraine, teaching about how to deal with loss and death and grieving and the cycle of grieving and the upward spiral and the downward spiral and all sorts of stuff like that.

01:26:17

And so, unfortunately, there is evidence out there that I actually have a heart. And that's really why

01:26:23

I look at the flaming toilet of death and I get a little passionately upset at it.

01:26:31

Because I recognize the only way to really deal with these subjects and to deal with the big issues in life is not in this kind of emotional fashion, but to lay a foundation that can actually survive the real trials of life.

01:26:51

That's why I said to everyone there in Russia, Ukraine. It was in Russian. Yeah, I know.

01:26:57

It could end up being Russia, yeah. That's why I said to everybody there. It's a whole lot easier to prepare people for this than to try to repair people after the loss has happened.

01:27:14

It's a whole lot easier. A whole lot easier. So there you go, folks. One of the more challenging dividing lines we've done because walking through the

01:27:22

Athanasian Creed, got to provide the background. Easy to mock. Not as easy to really explain.

01:27:29

And secondly, interacting with a video like that that has so much gotcha on the emotions, there's just going to be some folks that didn't hear a word

01:27:41

I had to say because their emotions were in control. Real quick. Yeah, I wanted to correct what I said about the website. They embraced the

01:27:47

Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. Athanasian is not mentioned. Alright, well folks, thanks for listening to Dividing Line today.

01:27:57

We should be back on Tuesday. Will it be the regular schedule? I don't know.

01:28:04

I have no way of knowing. It all depends. But we let you know. Let you know on Twitter and things like that and on the blog.