Arminian Presuppositions: Hosted by Caldwell Apologetics

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The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone. Salvation any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty

God is hanging over our heads. They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the father, where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Greetings, everyone. It's Rick Caldwell with Caldwell Apologetics.

It's been some time. I know, I know, I know many of you are like, what happened to this guy? Is he still doing live streams on his channel?

Many of you may not be aware of this, but I was actually dealing with some health issues and had

COVID, and then that led to something else, and I'm still dealing with some things now, and I'm requesting your prayers.

In fact, if anyone has any prayer requests, we're going to take some of those and bring those up towards the end of our discussion, and I'll try to be sure to flag those.

But we have a special live stream today. It's good to come back to do lives and actually do it, not alone, but with some guests.

So we're going to be talking about Armenian presuppositions today, and I'm not alone in this journey.

In fact, I'm going to bring my friends in, and I'm going to give them an opportunity to introduce themselves.

All right. We got the trio here together. So with me, we have

Tim and Harrelson, and we're going to have a fun time, hopefully, and glorify the

Lord in the process and have a wonderful conversation about this topic. But before we get started, I would be remiss if I don't open the floor to these two brothers in the

Lord and give them an opportunity to introduce themselves. In fact, let's go ahead. Tim, you go ahead, and let's start with you.

Share with the audience about who you are. Yeah, I'm Tim Mullett.

I graduated from the Master's College in Santa Clarita, California, and then I went on to get an

MDiv with Biblical Counseling Emphasis at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. My co -host,

Harrison, is, we both do a podcast called the Bible Bast podcast, and we've started that maybe at the beginning of the year in January, and we've been doing it ever since.

And so maybe I'll just let him fill you in a little bit more of the information as far as that goes. Yeah. Yeah.

So like Tim said, we started a podcast back around, yeah, right at the beginning of the year, basically in January.

And really the whole point of the podcast is sort of the tagline is, you know, answering the questions you're not allowed to ask, equipping the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

And so on the show, we frequently break what a lot of people affectionately refer to as the 11th commandment, right?

Which is thou shalt be nice. Right. And so what's ended up happening is because, because that's become, you know, sort of a, a rule that you're supposed to follow and never break what's happened is there's a lot of topics that you're just not allowed to really talk, talk about clearly on.

Right. And so, so our whole, our whole, our desire is to be able to speak on those various topics in a way that's clear, but that's also helpful for, for Christians, especially and I think that's really important, especially in a, in a time, where there really does seem to be a lack of strong leadership in the evangelical world in general, at least when it comes to those who hold, you know, the majority sway.

Right. And so, so that's our desire. We want to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

I don't know if Tim mentioned this, but, but he's the pastor, one of the pastors at our church and then

I'm the worship leader. I went to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and I got my undergrad degree there in pastoral ministry and I actually just graduated back in,

I guess, April. So. Yeah. The inspiration, I'll just say one more thing real quick.

The inspiration for our podcast is just that, you know, if you wade into controversial territory, if you go into sacred cow territory, inevitably you're going to be accused of trying to Bible bash someone.

So we thought we would just go with it and just accept it as a term of endearment.

So we're the Bible bash podcast. All right. I did not realize that I have pastor here.

No, that's, that's why, that's why it's good to do the introductions is you'll never know what you're going to find out.

And, uh, you know, I had, uh, just a little, um, quick, quick note here is I actually had my pastor, uh, church

I attend in Woodstock Georgia faith community church. Uh, I actually had a pastor

Shane Coyier on you about a month, maybe two months ago talking about relevant issues.

So I love to get pastors on here. I didn't realize you went to faith. Yeah. My, uh,

I know Shane, I've, I've had lunch with them several times. I used to live in Woodstock and my brother went to his seminary, the expository seminary.

So I'm very familiar with the church. They have good biblical counseling, uh, um, program over there and I really appreciate what they're doing.

Yeah. You know, uh, Joel Teague. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. He's the one that's over the biblical counseling.

Wow. That's right. Man, it's a small world we're in. So I'm learning something new every day. Every time I mentioned

Shane's name, like I know him, I know Shane. Uh, so let's, let's get into the topic.

Gentlemen, we're talking about a controversial. I see.

I came back to do lives and I'm over here dealing with a controversial talk. You picked the right people to do it with.

That was like, I got the right people. Right. We are talking about our minion presuppositions and reason why

I want to deal with presuppositions and not deal with our minion conclusions is that oftentimes we are arguing about our conclusions, but never deal with the foundations on which we derive our conclusions.

So I want to back that train up, you know, on that, on the track, right.

And deal with the foundations that drive the conclusions that people have in different theological systems.

Right. So that's why I want to, instead of saying let's deal with our minion conclusions,

I wanted to deal with our minion presuppositions. One thing I want to say is that we all have presuppositions presuppositions.

If I was going to define it and, and I welcome these two gentlemen to jump in are like our foundational beliefs that govern everything that we hold dear.

So there are, there are non -negotiables, right? And so everyone has presuppositions. Christians have presuppositions.

Unbelievers have presuppositions. The issue is, do our presuppositions conform with the truth?

That's, that's the issue at the end of the day. We all have presuppositions, but are we willing to test those presuppositions against the word of God?

Right. Anything you, any comments from any of you on that? Yeah. Most people just assume that when they're approaching the scripture, that they're approaching it from just a, you know, blank starting point.

They're not aware of all the beliefs that they hold prior to even coming to the scripture. And so the more that we can make those come to light, the more that we can shine a light on those different views that we have, the more that we begin to,

I think, even realize that how many, how many beliefs that we're reading into the scripture and we need to try to make a good faith effort to conform all those things to what the

Bible actually says are going to truly be biblical. Yeah. I think you bring up a good point too, in the sense that oftentimes in these conversations we're talking about conclusions, right?

Well, presuppositions are typically, I mean, they're typically they're those things that you feel like you don't even have to mention because they're so baked into the way that you think.

And so I do think it is, it is a good practice to, I mean, inwardly to think about your own presuppositions.

Where am I at? How do they compare to the truth? But then oftentimes in conversations, especially on topics like this or, or, or things that are very polarized, other things that are very polarizing, like abortion, for example, you know, we can, we can talk all day about, you know, why, why abortion is actually murder and, and people who don't view that the same way as us, they're never going to hear that because ultimately they have a totally different presupposition that you have to address in order to get them to, you know, hopefully come to the conclusion that it is murder.

So, so I do think it is really, really vital that we we focus on presuppositions because without that foundational work, then yeah, we're just going to be ships in the night.

Yeah. Passing one another and, and, and talking past one another. Right. So let's deal with the elephant in the room, right?

We're going to start with our first presupposition, Armenian presupposition, and that's the one of freedom of choice, freedom of choice and free will are synonymous.

And so I'll, here's, here's the statement, here's the presupposition here. And, and I, and feel free, these, these are my notes here, but feel free to, you know, this is why we're doing a collab here.

Feel free to redefine it, add to it. That's why I have you guys here.

I have the pastors here. I have the, those who have been seminary trained here to, to help me out.

So, so the proper position or the presupposition here as presented is choice and free will are synonymous.

If a person acts freely and voluntarily, he must have quote unquote free will.

Okay. So, and I think it's important that we define free will, right?

Because I hear people say, for example, free will is in the Bible. You know, go to the Old Testament, talking about free will offerings.

So free will is clearly in the Bible. So I, I, does, does any one of you want to, you know, as far as the

Armenian position, do we try to get a working definition or some thoughts behind what they mean by free will?

Yeah. I mean, I, I, you know, full disclosure, I grew up Armenian, essentially. So I grew up believing in free will.

We were very anti -Calvinistic growing up. So, you know, this is something that was my position growing up and it was an assumption that was basically underneath the surface.

It was unchallenged in certain ways. There's just assumed to be irrefutably true that we have free will. But then the kind of free will that we were talking about wasn't, you know, just the ability to make choices.

It wasn't something along those lines, the kind of free will that we were talking about was a pretty extreme view of human freedom in that, you know, we, we believed essentially that in order to be free, our will essentially had to be free from outside control.

Meaning like we couldn't be decisively influenced in any way. So, you know, our will had to be free even from the influence of God in that way.

So it, you know, our will was essentially like a, you know, a compound around herself that God couldn't come into.

And that's essentially what we understood free, like true free, free will to mean that, you know, that my will couldn't be decisively influenced one way or another.

So I had to have the power of contrary choice. I had to be able to do, you know, both A and not

A in any given moral interaction that I was going to have. And so, you know, that, that basic presupposition, you know, in my own life, that was a presupposition that led me to essentially to agnosticism and close to atheism really, because, you know,

I understood that if, you know, it could be, I could just tell you a little bit about me.

I mean, I, you know, there's a sense in which if I understood that God was limited very severely because he couldn't change wills, you know, so, you know, you just try to pray a simple prayer, like,

Lord, save this person. And then you have to stop and you have to say, well, you can't really, they have to choose that their own free will to believe.

So then, then you try to modify the prayer, you know, to where you say, well, Lord send someone to go preach the gospel to them.

But then you say, well, wait a minute, you can't do that because they have to be able to go of their own free choice.

And then it's like, well, Lord help them to believe. I don't even know what to pray anymore.

You know? And so for me, for me, this belief in libertarian free will ultimately led me to not pray anymore because I realized that God was, could, he was, he was handicapped.

He couldn't do anything anyways. And then that, you know, ultimately led me to agnosticism close to atheism because of that basic belief that was underneath the surface that I really need to conform to scripture.

Yeah. And, and I think kind of piggybacking off of that for me personally, you know, once I became a

Christian as I, I had sort of quasi grown up in church and I wasn't a

Christian until a little bit later on in life, like right after college. Not, not my, not when

I went to new Orleans, I attended a different university a few years before that and I ended up dropping out.

Once I dropped out, I became a Christian and really started when that was when I started taking, studying the

Bible a lot, a lot more serious. And one of the things for me that I really struggled with I, I started out as an

Arminian, you know, I believe that we all had free will that we could, you know, choose to reject

God's offer. You know, I didn't really even have a category for the time or at the time for any sort of like, you know, called or predestined chosen.

I didn't have any sort of category for that. We are all the same, you know, we all equally have the ability to accept or reject the offer of the gospel.

But then one of the issues that I kept running into and ultimately I think what made me change my view on thing on salvation in general was just,

I mean, as you read the Bible, you see over and over and over again, all of the ways in which

God works through people and he doesn't work through people in an indirect way.

I mean, I mean, the Bible even talks about God working, working in the hearts of men.

Like, right. He, he hardens Pharaoh's heart, for example. That's not, that's not, I always had a hard time maintaining the category of free will that is totally untouchable by God.

And still reading passages like that and trying to maintain both at the same time.

I had no way to really harmonize those two things. And ultimately after, you know, spending a few years really working through it, ultimately

I just decided I needed to abandon my view of free will the way that I, you know, the way that I had defined it and just accept the fact that God actually can work in our hearts in a very specific way.

And he can not, I don't know that override is really the word that I want to use, but I'll just use that for now.

Override, right. And he can do whatever he wants with us. So ultimately for me,

I just trying to read the Bible, eventually I was forced to just abandon my view of free will.

Okay. And you said reading the Bible, you were forced, I want to dig in because you know, that's a segue to a wonderful question.

What in the Bible, like you say you're reading the Bible and I hear this all the time from people like, well, it wasn't that you guys read the

Bible, it's that you read some other theologian and that is what kind of tipped you over the edge.

But I heard you said you read the Bible. So I want to know, I'm going to act like an outsider, right? I know what

I read. Okay. But what did you read Harrison? What was it? What was the tipping point for you?

Or maybe there were multiple tipping points in scripture that you might want to bring up that may be worth presenting.

Yeah. Well, I think the, the clear, probably the most concise place to go in scripture is the obviously

Romans nine. I mean, I had read Romans nine plenty of times, but like I said,

I just never really taken my study of the Bible very serious up to that point. And by the time that I had gotten to Romans nine and was really,

I was adamant about like, I need to understand what this chapter is talking about. I was, I was basically just left with, yeah, no choice in terms of my understanding of free will.

I mean, you can look at Romans chapter nine and I mean, there's just, I mean, there's multiple examples of God, of God, you know, working through people, however he pleases.

Right. So, you know, he chooses, he chooses the nation of Israel, right? He he loves

Jacob, but he hates Esau. Right. He uses fair. He uses Pharaoh for his glory.

Right. And so he's doing all of the work in these things. There's no, there's no mention of, of them doing anything, anything.

In fact, Paul even talks about it's before, before they did anything and in the case of Jacob and Esau.

And so by the time I got to that chapter, I think that's probably the most, you know, that's not to say,

I think a lot of times people have take up issue when you go to places like Romans nine, because it's kind of just like, well, of course you're going to go to Romans nine.

That's like, that's like your favorite chapter in the Bible. That's not necessarily true. The reality is,

I think you can read through the Bible from start to finish and you get the same ideas throughout consistently, this idea of like God choosing us as opposed to us choosing him.

Right. But I think Romans nine is probably it's the reason Romans nine is helpful is because it's, it's a fairly concise passage to look at that really does explain a lot of the different features of the, of the belief in Calvinism.

Yeah. For me, it was, it's definitely one of those things where, I mean, there's so many passages in the

Bible that speak to God and violating people's will. If you want to put it in that way, changing their will.

I mean, it's just all over the place. It's just, you can't even read the Bible without seeing it over and over and over again.

It's not the kind of thing that you make up. I mean, you know, like the King's heart is like a stream of water in the hand of the

Lord. He turns it wherever he will. I don't know what to do with that. If I, if I have to maintain that and also a belief in libertarian free will that God like cannot influence my will.

I don't, I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with the opening, you know, the gospel of John who says, you know, as many as he believed in him, you know, who were born not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man or of God, but of God, you know,

I don't know what to do with that kind of language. I don't know what to do with passages like you find in Daniel where Daniel gives,

God gives Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, wisdom and favor in the sight of the

Babylonians. I don't know how you give people, you know, wisdom and favor, and compassion and all that.

I don't know how you do that kind of thing if you have a God who can't step in and influence the will one way or another.

I mean, you can think about like you who were dead in your trespasses of sin. He made you alive, that kind of language.

But I think for me, like I'm reading all these passages, but my, my will stubbornly wanted to hold on to this idea of free will.

But, you know, I went through like a thought experiment for me that it, you know,

I'm looking at all these passages. I made a big list of them. I had like a hundred passages on this, this that I didn't know what to do with that I was fighting.

But then I just thought to myself, I was like, you know, every Christian has the category when we die, when we die and we go to heaven,

God is going to so decisively influence our will to such a degree that we're never going to sin again.

So every Christian believes that, like that's our hope and we're not going to be robots. We're not going to be autonomous. We're not going to be mindless.

Like we're going to get to heaven. And for some reason he's going to change our nature into such a comprehensive degree that we're not going to be able to, we're not even going to desire to sin again and we're not going to be able to sin again.

So we have that category. And then we also have a category after we become a Christian that God began a good work in us and he's progressively conforming us to his image.

He does, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us and whatever he's doing, he's influenced our will.

Most people believe that even Armenians believe that God's doing something there, you know, but then what, like if, but then what you have to ask is why is there some huge hangup?

Like why is it that he can decisively change your will completely after you die or, you know, or when he comes back and that he can maybe has a process of doing that when you're alive still.

Right. But then, but he can't do that the moment of salvation or before. Why can't he do, who's to say, right?

And then if you just say, well, obviously I'm not a robot when I die. And obviously

I'm not a robot during the sanctification process. It must just be that this presupposition is bad. It's bad.

And then I can just let all those passages speak. You know, I can just, I can go with them. I don't have to fight them anymore. And so that for me, that was like the tipping point where I'm just like,

I don't know why I'm fighting pre -salvation when I have a category for post -salvation and post -death.

Like what am I doing? Yeah. I think one of the things, let me share a little bit that kind of helped me is

I had to step back and not deal with the human response element. I think when we start there, we're starting in the wrong place.

I stepped back and went up 900 feet in the air and essentially what did God, what was

God's purpose? And when I mean by purpose, his purpose with creation, which has direct correlation with his purpose with redemption, right?

You can't separate the two because he created in order to, or his glory, right?

He did everything for his glory. He is in the enterprise of glorifying himself. Self -glorification permeates the scriptures.

And so even that is even true of salvation. So if you notice throughout the text of scripture, salvation is comprehensive, right?

It's total salvation in that the total man is being dealt with, right?

And ultimately in our glorification, even separated from the presence of sin altogether.

So you read a passage like 1

Peter 2, 24. I always love that passage because it talks about the work of the cross, right?

A redemption, redemption of being met out in the person of Jesus Christ, person of work.

And it says that he, he essentially bore our sins in his body that we might live to righteousness, right?

And you see that in scripture. So it gives me clues and hints that, that God's intent and purpose for salvation is total.

And that when you, and when you also see scriptures like John six verses 36 through 40, where you have this plan of between the father and the son and the son perfectly carrying out the plan, the father, and he would lose none and carrying out the purpose of the father.

And then in that purpose, all that, that all those that he died for would be raised up on the last day.

And that's the, that's the fulfillment of the carrying out that purpose. And you see that throughout scripture.

You see that in Hebrews about how he accomplished Christ eternal redemption. You see all of that in scripture.

So I start with what helped me is starting with what did God purpose, not necessarily what, how do we respond?

And I think so much of the conversation starts with human response and doesn't start with what has

God purposed in salvation, right? We read scripture and I'll be done. I'll be done.

We read scripture like Ephesians chapter one, verse four, I had a lengthy conversation with people that said that has nothing to do with salvation.

That's that has to do with, you know, him, you know, you being presented as holy and blameless.

I said, that has everything to do with salvation to be presented as holy and blameless is the comprehensive nature of salvation.

But when was that plan, right? Before creation, right?

Before the foundation of the world, you have those texts there that you, you have to kind of squirm to, to, to kind of not see what those texts are saying.

And there's the choice as, as was presented before Romans nine, there is the choosing of individuals there in that text, just like you see very similar in Romans, Romans nine and some other places in scripture, but it doesn't, it never precludes human choice.

See, I think this is the, this is the false narrative. It's either it's, it's a, what I call the, um, either or fallacy, either

God, either you're a robot or you have choice. It's an either or fallacy.

No, God frees your will so that you risk, you will respond in the way that God has purposed in the day of his power.

They will be willing. That kind of idea is what you see, uh, presented in the text of scripture.

Uh, but it always starts with God. That's why, uh, one of my, I'll just leave, I'll just leave with this choice is being made, but God working through that choice.

I think some of you, you've already presented, um, several texts, but I, I like John chapter three and there's a lot of places we could go, but like John for me is one that sticks out.

John three beginning at verse 19. It makes, it makes a distinction and the difference is what

God does. That's the difference. Okay. So if you look at, if you look,

I'm going to start at verse 19 says, and this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people love darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

And I think TJ says their deeds were evil. You know, some people like to hear the deeds rather than the works, but same point.

First 20 or everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light.

Less is work should be exposed, but this is the key. Whoever does what is true comes to the light.

So it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

And the whole idea of being carried out in God here is that God is data.

He's the instrumental means by which those works are carried out. And so the difference between those workers of iniquity and those who come to God is

God himself. And you see that in multiple places throughout scripture. So I'll get off the streaming box.

Well, so far, it's so foreign to think that way in general, because you, you know, most, most of the, you know, if you want to just over, over generalize most of the

American church is so man centered fundamentally and everything that it does. And so, you know, most of it, it's a very, you know, foreign thought to even think in a

God centered way at all. And then as you read the Bible, you know, it does. Like one of the things that stood out to me when

I started studying the Bible in a serious way, meaning just reading it over and over and over again, is how God centered the

Bible actually is. And like, you're, you know, you're trained to think, you know, to take the

Bible and take it out of context and then, you know, read all the stories as if they're about you, you know, like somehow

David killing Goliath is about you winning a football game or something like that. And I mean, you're, you're trained to do that, you know, like to, but not, you're not, you're trained to think about the

Bible from a distance that way, as if it's all about you. And then when you approach a theological discussion like this, then what happens is that you just you've been trained to think everything's about you and everything's about you.

And then when you really encounter how God centered God actually is and how God centered he is in salvation itself, it can be a startling and arresting kind of thought because you, you, you really have been trained, you know, from a very early age to think that, that, you know, the entirety of the

Bible is all about you and how, you know, special and unique and wonderful you are. And God just, you know, came to give you self -esteem and all that.

Both of you are familiar with Tom Askell, I would assume, right? Yes. So, I mean, I think he says from time to time, one of the most controversial verses in the

Bible is Genesis 1 .1, in the beginning, God. Right. And then the rest, we have the rest, right? Right.

But that's the point is that this is God, God throughout. And I think to your point, Tim, you see texts where over and over throughout the

Bible, old and new Testament, you hear, I didn't do this for your sake. I did this for my name's sake.

I did this for my name over and over from old Testament to new Testament, the emphasis on God, God's name.

And even what was brought up earlier in Romans nine with Pharaoh, it's about the name, his name being declared throughout the earth.

Right. Even using Pharaoh in that regard. Right. So you see that throughout the text of Scripture.

And then, you know, every story is about how bad humans are. You know, you can't even read through the

Old Testament without realizing that all the good guys are the bad guys, you know, and God's the only one who's consistent and faithful and reliable.

It's a story about him, you know. But it does, you have to have, it doesn't come natural to individuals trained in American megachurch culture to read the

Bible and think in a very God -centered way. Yeah. One thing that I've found in conversations that I've had with, you know, with Arminians, or I guess, you know, sometimes people don't like to be called

Arminians. So they like to be called, you know, I guess like free will Christians or something.

I don't even know if that's the official term or not. But one thing that I found, a question that I found to be pretty helpful oftentimes is to just, you know, sometimes it's easy for them to, because we've been trained up to think oftentimes that the

Bible is sort of like, yes, yes, it's about God, but it's also about us too. Right. That kind of view instead of saying, hey, the

Bible is about God and his glory. Right. And we're certainly we are, we get to be included in that, but then we're not the main characters of the

Bible. Right. One of the things that I like to ask people is, okay, so just let's just stop, you know, debating

Calvinism versus Arminianism for a second. And let me just ask you, so let's just assume for a moment that Calvinism and the doctrines that it represents would bring

God more glory than Arminianism. Would you be willing to accept it then if it brought more glory to God?

Or is your understanding that there is no way that this could ever be true no matter what?

Right. And if people, if people's, if people's response is still to squirm when they think about like, this brings more glory to God than to say we should be able to accept or reject, then then that's where I try to tell you, okay, you you've got an issue.

Then you are now taking your own thoughts and beliefs about what is right and what is wrong and elevating them above scripture and God's purpose, which is his glory, which is his glory.

Right. And that I have I have seen before how that kind of helps people think through, maybe

I maybe I actually am because no one ever no one ever sits down and says, no, yeah,

I actually am just elevating my own desires and my own understanding of right and wrong over what the

Bible says. No one sits down and says that. Right. But then if you can, if you can ask those types of questions and get to the root of what's the motivation behind your understanding in this area of soteriology, then that I've seen that be really helpful for a lot of people.

Yeah, I think you bring something up, Harrison, about the different perspectives, like the one perspective is, is

God's purpose. Remember, I brought this up earlier about what was God's purpose with creation? Was his purpose with creation to ultimately focus on the freedom of the creature?

Or was it to glorify God in creation?

Right. And in creation, when I mean by glorify, I want to unpack that a little bit. I mean, in the demonstration of his attributes.

Right. That how do we know anything about mercy? Well, mercy is a vacuous term. If we didn't have to be mercy, which implies what?

That there was sin in the world, that we need redemption, that redemption was, in fact, applied.

How do we know anything about the justice of God? Like we could we could hear this. But how how would we practically know anything about the justice of God unless it was demonstrated in creation?

Right. And so we see the justice of God on display. The most single example of that is the is the cross.

Right. Where the wrath of God, that the father was poured on the son at full strength.

Right. We see we see the fact that the wages of sin is death, that the justice of God must be paid, must be satisfied.

And and then we think things like the grace of God, all of these things that are on display.

And I think one of the things that's amazing is when you read like Romans, the epistle to the

Romans, we get to chapter 12. It says, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, pointing back to the previous 11 chapters of all the things

God has done through Christ Jesus, that we can just say hallelujah to.

Right. This is how you need to conduct yourself. This is how you need to conform yourself, because that that that evangelical foundation becomes the very motivation of Christian conduct.

We see that kind of preamble and chapter and chapter 12. But mercy, that idea of mercies would be nothing unless there was a demonstration of that mercy.

Right. So it goes back to your point, Harrison, is like, you know, how do we how do we appreciate the glory of God?

If the glory of God is veiled, it's not present. We don't we just hear about it, but it's never on display.

And we understand that God is glorious in his own right. He is he is self sufficient. Right. He is self existent.

But there but for the sake of the creature, he displays his glory. And what's amazing is that when we respond rightly, right, we're actually it's like a boomerang effect going on.

We actually are demonstrating the glory of God and our love for God is also demonstrating

God's glory because it's it's basically demonstrating God's love through the creature.

And so it all leads back to God. All roads ultimately lead back to God, whether in mercy or in judgment and condemnation.

All roads ultimately lead to the glorification of God. That ultimately is a difference.

I think another presupposition that divides, you know, more Calvinistic kind of systems in Armenian systems is that the notion of like, what is

God's chief purpose? And, you know, I've been under Armenian pastors and they would answer that question to be, you know, essentially the redemption of man.

So it's a very man centered view of God's purpose in general. And one of the things that I think faith, you know,

Calvinist or, you know, individuals who are reading the Bible come away with is more, though, that God's chief purpose is to glorify himself.

You know, and then our chief goal is to glorify God to you. That was something that, you know, when you grow up in more of an

Armenian kind of system, you don't necessarily see that. But then when you read the Bible, it's all over the place that this is about God's glory from start to finish.

You know, we exist to the praise of his glorious grace, you know, all that. And it's just when you see it, you see it is everywhere, you know, and it's not that you read it in.

It's just everywhere. God's glory is the main thing and it's all over the place in the Bible.

But that is a big difference between just these two systems in general is one is more man centered fundamentally, even in how it answers those kind of questions too.

And so that's something that, you know, I've it's very explicit in how many

Armenians will speak about this kind of subject. It isn't first and foremost, primarily about the glory of God in their mind.

All right. I'll put a comment up here from Jewel, a longtime follower of the channel.

Before I read more scriptures, my trouble with election was mostly a feeling of insecurity, not denying election altogether, but worrying about not being elect.

Not no one wants to be a vessel of wrath, referring to Romans nine there at the end.

Any comments, gentlemen, on this, on this comment here about election and the security of the believer?

Yeah, a lot of people, I think a lot of people struggle along those lines because they, I mean, whether it's for themselves or it's for loved ones, like in general, where, you know, if election is true, then

God is, you know, divinely passing over some people for salvation or not, you know, extending his salvific grace to everyone equally.

Then the question becomes, you know, well, how do I know if I'm elect for one, like in the first instance, but then, you know, what about my family members who are not elect?

How that doesn't like, and there's nothing I can do or nothing that they can do to make themselves elect.

And so how do you respond to that? You know, isn't that a problem in certain ways? You know, how is it, you know, how does it relate to me?

But then, I mean, the truth of the Bible is if you repent of your sins and believe in the good news, you'll be saved. And, you know,

God doesn't want us to be troubled by that. He doesn't want us to be confused about that.

What we're talking about is like the math behind the scenes, you know, so to speak. But then, you know, anyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord will be saved. And, you know, if you confess your mouth, Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart, God has raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.

So all those things are true. Like the issue is, well, how do you come to do that? Well, you're only going to come to do that by God's work in your own heart, in your own life.

But the promises are there, you know, and God's not trying to confuse you. You know, if you will repent and if you will believe, he will save you.

And if you call upon his name, you will be saved. And the same thing is true for your family members. And the only way that they're going to do that is if you share the gospel with them.

And so, you know, Calvinism isn't something that denies our responsibility. It encourages our responsibility because we know that, you know, if God's at work, you know, he may have many people in this place, so to speak.

And he can save, you know, by many or few. And the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. And all we have to do is just trust in his means, not in our own cleverness, our own tricks, our own tactics.

Or just trust what he says is true and respond in faith and repentance. And, you know, he's a good savior.

Yeah, and I think, too, for the person who's, for the person, sometimes we can kind of get in our own head with these doctrines.

And I think one of the encouraging things to think through is for the person who's sitting there and wondering, you know, worrying for themselves, especially if they haven't necessarily, like, they haven't claimed to be

Christian for a very long time. They've just heard the gospel or they're relatively, you know, new to the faith.

One of the encouraging signs is, you know, ultimately what's happening, hopefully, behind a worry about not being one of the elect and not being one of the predestined.

Ultimately, what's happening there is there's a fear of the Lord, hopefully. And we know that fear of the

Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That's what the Bible tells us. And so for that person, they're still much farther along at right in their understanding than the person who just totally outright rejects

God entirely and shows no fear for his judgment. The person who's worried if they're not elect, they're worried about the judgment.

They know there's judgment. Right. And so I think that's a good sign.

Now, that's not necessarily a guarantee for anyone. I mean, we know that even as Calvinists, I mean, there's still a category for apostates.

Right. And so but I do think that is ultimately an encouraging sign.

And I would encourage people to not. Ultimately, I think it's what Tim said.

Ultimately, we're talking about, like, the math behind the scenes. Right. And so sometimes, like I said, we can kind of get in our own heads with these doctrines and think, you know, try and almost make it like a self -fulfilling prophecy.

Right. So one thing I will add, and then I'll pull up a comment slash question here.

Here is that the warrant of the gospel is not election.

It's repentance and faith. And Tim brought that up earlier. And I think that's such an important thing.

We don't go around preaching election. We're preaching the gospel. That's that's, you know, that the means by which man can be made right with God.

And essentially we're presenting Christ to the center. Right. That's what we're presenting to the center. And it's through Christ.

All the spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. Right. Come to fruition, according to Ephesians 1 3.

So that's who we're presenting. And as Tim even said, it's the promises of God that if you put your full confidence and trust in Christ, he's an all sufficient savior.

He will save to the other most, quoting Hebrews 5 25. Right. 7 25.

Right. That that that that's the that's the that's the issue that we can't walk away from.

I mean, the Hebrew writer was saying, look to Christ, who's the author and perfecter of faith.

That's that's the fundamental issue. Yeah. No one's ever no one's ever saying, hope you're elect.

Yeah. Yeah. It's never. And that's why that's kind of a straw man. Right. When I hear people say, well, how do you know you're elect?

Well, the thing is, we point people to Christ. We send people to Christ, the Savior, the Lord and Savior.

That's who we send send people to. And the thing is, you know, those and here's the thing with Scripture.

Here's the interesting thing I wanted to bring up. There are twin. There are twin truths in Scripture. You see it in Philippians chapter two, verse twelve and thirteen, where it talks about work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

But doesn't end, therefore, it's God who has a work and it will for his good pleasure. So you got both things happening.

You have the imperative to strive right in your sanctification. But you also see that you only can do it if God is working in you.

So you have these two realities and you see that in multiple places in Scripture that these twin truths.

I remember Spurgeon was asked, I think I think I think you guys probably know where I'm going with this. Like, how do you reconcile these these twin truths in Scripture?

He says, I only reconcile enemies, not friends. These are friends, ladies and gentlemen.

The fact that, yes, we are called to be holy, to live a holy life. What we only do that by the power of God, the

Holy Spirit. So I want to bring it up. And here's the thing. Our sanctification is not the basis of our standing with God.

It's the personal work of Christ Jesus. I always want to lead people back to Christ. So that's who we got to remember.

Every every writer of the epistles always points people back to Jesus. Right. And that's the key behind this.

Right. Right. Let me pull up mop ups question.

I didn't screen it, so I don't know what I see what he's going to say here. How do we respond to this idea of a corporate predestination that eliminates the idea that God is choosing individuals.

But providing a process that destines one to Christ, if man chooses to believe.

So individual election, you know, this is very popular, right? This idea of corporate election.

Predestine is the plane. He doesn't predestine the individual to get on. God has a plan. He has a plan.

You hear it. And if you get on the plane, then you're good. So God doesn't actually save anybody individually.

He has a plan. And if you want to be down with God and salvation, get on the plane. That's essentially.

And I know that's kind of a caricature of corporate election. But that's essentially what it is in a nutshell.

Sure. Yeah, I think for me, I mean, I hate to bring it back to Romans nine, but I just have to.

It's your favorite verse, Harrison. It's my favorite. Yes. Favorite chapter in the Bible. It's the only one

I read, basically. No, but I think so.

Probably one of the, I guess, stronger. I don't even necessarily know that I would say stronger because I don't think that really communicates what

I what I think about the argument. But there is an argument against our understanding of Romans nine that would basically say what kind of what you're saying.

Hey, he's he's talking about a corporate type of election. That's why

Paul is bringing up the the Israelites. Right. And I think the the problem

I have with that is just even in that chapter, he mentions individuals. Paul mentions individuals that he's actively choosing and rejecting.

So obviously there's a category in the Bible for, you know, for God choosing individuals over other individuals.

And then he and then he expounds on it later when he talks about, you know, the clay and the potter.

Right. And who can who can object to what the potter wants to do with this clay?

Right. With individual vessels. Right. And so I just I think when you look at that and then you look at the whole of the

Bible in general, I mean, think about Jesus, for example. What does Jesus do? He picks 12 apostles.

Right. He picks 12 individuals. Right. They didn't they didn't. Abraham, an individual.

Right. And so you just so you just see throughout Scripture, God is is totally within his rights to pick individuals.

He does it in every conceivable way you can imagine. So, I mean, he does. I mean, you know, you read through Second John, Second John's written to the elect lady.

So that doesn't that doesn't fit very well with the idea of corporate election. But, you know, like of the twins,

Jacob and Esau, they're both. Yeah. OK. If you want to say they represent groups, they represent groups. Sure.

But they also are individuals. They happen to be individuals, pharaohs, an individual. Right. The 12 apostles, they're individuals.

Now there's I mean, there's I guess the response that people have to that kind of thing is to say, I think Leighton Flowers talks about, well, he only chooses individuals for service or something along those lines.

And that way is not just for salvation. But I mean, I don't know. Second John one elect lady seems like an individual to me.

Unless you want to turn that into a church in some kind of allegorical way.

I'm not that that wouldn't be the direction I would go with it. But, you know, it

I think that there you just read through examples in the Scripture. And, you know, first and foremost,

Abraham, he's an individual, isn't he? He's an individual that he comes to represent a nation. Sure.

But then, like, it does matter whether or not you're a member of the Israelites or if you're a member of the nations.

And I think that, you know, some people really don't think very clearly about the nature of God's wrath as it relates to the whole of the

Old Testament. So you have like a New Testament doctrine of salvation that's really divorced from the entire Bible.

And when you think about like the way that salvation actually worked, you have individuals like that.

Most people throughout the history of the world have had zero access to the gospel whatsoever, like no access to the gospel.

And God decided to take a pagan idolater like Abraham and choose him and provide a way a path of salvation.

So, you know, with the Samaritan Jew debate, Jesus said salvation is of the Jews. Right. And that that is where salvation came from.

Throughout most of the history of the world, he was only providing salvation in a very unique way to a very specific people.

And the vast majority of people who existed were damned. And so it does make it does make a big difference which group that you're a part of.

Right. As far as that goes. And you can't just get him off. You can't just say, well, he's just choosing a plan.

Well, think about the way salvation worked in the Old Covenant. And, you know, if you don't want to talk about the new if you want to play games at the new covenant, think about how it worked in the

Old Covenant. How it worked in the Old Covenant is everyone went to hell except for, you know, select people amongst the

Jews and very few, you know, Gentiles from that point.

I mean, there are examples, but they were the they were the exception, not the rule. And so God obviously has a habit of choosing individuals for salvation.

Abraham being one of the chief that you can think of. Yeah. And I would also add very good stuff here.

I would also add that, you know, for I do a word study where for the word purpose of the in the epistles where God is the subject.

And you will see it's not merely a plan, but how God energetically, effectively accomplishes his purpose is always in view.

So the idea that God creates the plan and it's up for the creature to do, you know,

God did his part. I've even heard this is this. This might sound horrendous, but I even heard it said like this way.

God did his part. It's up to you to do your part. And so the other way they say it is

God is for you. The devil is against you and you have to. Oh, that's even worse. That's ten times worse. God voted for you.

The devil against you. Oh, no, no, no way. This is the deciding vote. That's the way it worked. This is the deciding vote.

Yeah. It's like it's like he's a campaigning, right? It's up for you to decide who wins, right?

No, God. God has purposed specifically a plan and he will carry out his plan.

In fact, see, I think what people what I brought up earlier is that we got to start thinking about what did

God not only plan, but what did he accomplish? You know, as one of the books

I like to read from time to time is Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray. Great book.

And we need to think about what was planned. Yeah, there was a plan. God didn't just create and then, you know, and not have a plan with his creation.

But he also applied that plan in history. Right. When we think of, for example, about Galatians chapter four and the fullness of time, he sent forth his son born a woman born to law.

That's the application of the plan being carried out to fruition. So we don't just see

God with a plan. We see the execution of the plan at every at every stage.

Right. I mean, all right. Ephesians one talks about, you know, he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and blameless before him in love.

You know, having predestined us for adoption of sons. So he's chosen specific people.

OK, a comment here, 1689 Baptist. Rick, I have a family member that professes for 30 years yet they have not have knowledge.

Is this a red flag? God's grace always comes with knowledge in the holy red.

Yeah, we're growing in the race and the knowledge of the Lord. That's the trajectory should be.

And I mean, we should be growing in our understanding. But let's face it, we do live in a kind of a culture that's very anti intellectual where, you know, you let go, you let

God. It's all about being led by the spirit. I'm not trying to put that person in the box.

But there is this kind of idea that to really dig deep and want to know more.

It basically it basically is in violation of what you see. The apostle

Paul pray at the end of Ephesians chapter three. Right. That we would grow in our knowledge.

Right. Of that. Of the Lord. Right. That was the prayer, not just for one group of people, but that was for the entire church that we'd be growing.

And then you also see that in Ephesians chapter four, the very next chapter where, you know, there were blessings given to the body of Christ so that we wouldn't be carried away by every word of doctrine.

Right. So you there is this emphasis in the local church, but then as individual believers that we should be growing in our knowledge of the

Lord. Any comments on that comment? A lot.

A lot of the I think the charismatic part of this anti intellectualism, as you describe it.

And I think charismatic churches kind of taught individuals that basically Bible study is functionally irrelevant because you can just be like Beth Moore and just, you know, basically just hear

God speak to you, you know, personal one on one. And so I think in a lot of ways, there's a lot of people who are looking to like looking to, you know, direct divine revelation, like apart from the

Bible in that way, too. But then, I mean, I think the idea that the idea of of a

Christian that really has no interest in reading the Bible ever and makes no effort to read the

Bible ever, you know, like that, that kind of idea in general should be kind of an oxymoron.

That would be like the, you know, the baby who doesn't long for milk. Right. So if you know the idea of like the

Christian who's just permanently stunted in their faith, not growing at all, not wanting to grow, not going to the

Bible, not going to those words which are life, you know, that should give us great cause.

I mean, Jesus says that many in the last day will say, Lord, Lord, didn't we do all these wonderful things for you?

And he basically says, depart from me, workers of lawlessness. And so there is the kind of individual who is characterized by just a projection of all that God says.

And and, you know, that's characteristic of him. And that should give us concern. You might not be able to tell in every case what you're looking at in particular.

But there are a lot of people who basically they just got their fire insurance. They think they're good and now they've moved on, you know, and so that's all they want.

Yeah, I think, you know, God says in the Old Testament, my people perish for a lack of knowledge.

Right. And so so how do we, you know, as Christians, we're supposed to pursue righteousness.

We're supposed to pursue honoring God. The problem is, if we don't know what he said is righteous, if we don't know what he has said honors him, then there's no way that we're ever going to be able to pursue those things.

And I think, you know, you brought up, you know, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Right. Part of part of working out your salvation with fear and trembling is examining yourself to see if you demonstrate the fruits of the spirit.

Now, if you're a if you're a if you've been a Christian for, you know, two months, don't expect to, you know, be able to look back and see just necessarily a night and day shift in every aspect of your life.

That's certainly possible. But if you're, you know, 30 years down the road and you're like and you can look at your life and you're honest with yourself and you don't see,

I mean, a massive change at that point, 30 years, massive change from where you started to where you are now, then

I would certainly at the very least consider that a red a red flag for sure.

All right. Very good. How are we doing on time? We're hour in, but I'm also respectful of your time.

Can we do another 30 minutes or you guys want to wind down? It's up to you. Another 30 is fine. Yeah, that's good.

All right. So we we spent a lot of time on the free will side.

We didn't get very far. Which is important. I mean, there's a lot of emphasis on that.

Let's talk about this one. You know, since we're having a lot of fun here. Let's talk about people are born innocent.

OK, how about we deal with that presupposition, right? Does that sound good? So let me give you more detail.

Some of those some of these who press the free will doctrine seem to believe, along with the

Pelagians, sinners do not have Adam's guilt imputed or even his nature transmitted to them.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's one of those things where it is related to the whole idea of libertarian freedom in general.

And so part of what's like if you start with that assumption of like that, you know, that there is this idea of free will and that it does affect every other area of their thinking, too.

So I can that way. Sin is just simply a volitional act of the will. And so they don't have a category for like the federal headship of Adam or Adam's, you know, guilt is like they don't have a category for original guilt.

In other words, that Adam's sin was basically imputed to the entire human race.

We enter into the world fundamentally, like not only inheriting his guilt, but then inheriting a nature that orients itself to sin.

And so, you know, for many people under that kind of system, essentially the first time you sin is when you make a volitional act, so to speak.

And so it's almost as if every individual is just reliving out the fall, so to speak.

So they don't really have a doctrine of the fall in that way. But where do you want to go with that?

Yeah, I mean, I think you're hitting the nail on the head because what we talked about free will and this particular topic, it goes hand in hand.

Because, you know, if you don't if you have an unbiblical view of the nature of man, nature of sin, as far as what state is man in?

You know, when I read a passage like Ephesians 2, 3, that says you were by nature children of wrath.

Right. You were you were by nature. And then some people say, well, by nature means you were in an environment that cultivated bad behavior.

So it was inevitable. But it's nothing innate in the individual and the creature. And so that's what

I would that's the dividing line for me is to say, no, that is innate in the creature.

And that's why we need a savior, because we are we are slaves, right? Slaves to sin. I think one of the greatest treatise when

I think about scripture is when you when we read through Romans chapter six. Right.

I think Romans chapter six. I mean, go from the beginning of that chapter all the way to the end of the chapter.

Even though you can even go start through chapter seven. But the idea of what it means to be a slave to this master.

And the idea is that if you're a slave to that master, you do what that master says. Now, here's the interesting thing, because you see this this idea.

Even Jesus talks about it in John. Right. That John said those who are are sinners.

You're if you practice sin, you are a slave of sin. You're you're a slave. You're obeying your master and your master is the flesh.

Right. So this kind of idea between the flesh and this new ram, the ram of the spirit.

Right. That through the gospel. Right. That through Christ Jesus in this newness of life, this new status that we have.

But here's the idea. Here's the problem. If you are a slave of sin, you're only going to obey that master.

And so what you have in the Armenian view, essentially, is the slave of sin doing something contrary to their nature.

And you need to be freed from the bondage of sin. In fact, the whole freedom language is so replete throughout the scriptures.

Why do we need to be freed from anything if we can volitionally act in such a way to get the results that's needed?

Right. No, because we're in bondage to sin. All of mankind is in bondage to sin and that bondage.

Yeah, I hear some I hear some people describe bondage almost like being physically chained. I'm sure you've heard that analogy before.

You're chained down. But it's actually a willing bondage. You you love your sin.

It's not like you're like the lock is on the inside of the prison.

Right. Instead of being on the outside of the door. Right. It's on the inside that that slave loves his sin.

And so that's why it's necessary that our our our wheels are free.

Right. That we're freed from this bondage of sin. And I love it says when the if the sun sets you free, you are free in deed.

So all this the theme and language of freedom that's so replete that that kind of militates against the idea that I can kind of do this on my own.

Right. Right. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard changes? Oh, there we go. You custom to doing evil, learn to do good.

But, you know, yeah, I think the. Like the issue is that there really is like under that kind of system in general, there is a rejection of the doctrine of total depravity, too.

So it that they don't. Armenians don't believe that we're born with a fundamental problem, that we need help from the outside, that our will is fundamentally in bondage to sin.

You know, as Martin Luther is arguing and Bible's arguing and everything else. But, yeah,

I think ultimately that that sort of viewpoint is kind of going back to that whole man centered view of the

Bible. Right. This idea that we don't start out sinful. We just become sinful along the way.

Right now. Now, maybe they they say that that's even very early on. We become sinful, but it's still fundamentally trying to raise man up to a better position than what he is actually in.

I mean, you know, Romans 512 says, therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin.

And in this way, death came to all people because all sinned. Right. We're all sinful. And the good the good thing about Calvinism is that really it it takes things to the extreme in the best way possible.

Right. So Calvinism and in my understanding of it, glorifies God in the most extreme way possible because it gives him all of the credit for everything.

Right. And it gives us none of the credit for any of it. And in the same way, you know, it it also helps us understand that it helps us understand just how sinful we are.

Right. Just how evil and wicked we are. Right. And so so, you know, you think about free will like,

OK, all right. Sure. You want to you want to have free will, then then great. But your free will chooses sin every single time.

Because the reality is you love you love your sin. Right. Yeah, that's how my experience. I mean, that's the thing.

The Bible rings true not not only because God says it, but it rings true to your experience. I mean, my experience before becoming a

Christian was I couldn't will myself to want to read my Bible. I couldn't will myself to want to pray.

I couldn't will myself to want to follow God. I mean, I how do you will your how do you will yourself to put faith in God?

I mean, you can't. I mean, I was running as fast fast from God as I could. And then one day, all of a sudden,

I want to. Like, how does that happen? You know, how does that happen apart from like a divine miracle?

And it doesn't. You know, I so I mean, that was my experience. I'm just running as fast far away, you know, far from God as I can.

And all of a sudden, one day I want to serve him. I don't know how to make sense of that other than I had a will that was chained in bondage to sin.

And, you know, I was a slave to sin. And then one day God turned me around, you know. So, yeah, as he said,

I was dead in my trespasses. He made me alive. That's the only way to make sense of my experience is since we're all about narratives and experience nowadays.

Right. Tim, what you brought up, you know, because you say it's experience. I always like to bring it back to the text of Scripture, because we see and first Corinthians want to say, is it first Corinthians?

Yeah, I think it's first Corinthians. There's a lot of. Yeah. First Corinthians chapter one, verse nine, it says

God is faithful. So it all hinges on him, what he does, his faithfulness and carrying out what he has planned in purpose.

And this is why I always go back, you know, for those that and this is another topic. Those who deny the idea of the security of the believer, the preservation of the saints is like really what you're ultimately doing is impugning

God. Right. Because it is his just like we talked about earlier, his his attributes are on display and him glorifying himself even through the redemption of sinners.

So let me finish this verse. It says God is faithful by whom you were called.

There's that word kaleo again, that word that doesn't mean the general call of the gospel, but the effectual calling.

Right. God energetically working to your to your point, Tim, into what fellowship of his son,

Jesus Christ, our Lord. So you were called energetically drawn into fellowship with Jesus Christ.

But what hinges is the faithfulness of God to carry it out, to have a salvation that is that's not just planned, but actually come to fruition in the salvation of sinners.

Right. Sinners like me and you. Right. That that we we're we're the fruits of God's plan being carried out in time in redemptive history.

And so I think that's so important. The other thing is, is that you brought up something about, yeah, you're hearing the gospel and there's nothing happening.

Right. I mean, I think we all attested at some point you you hear the gospel preached and it's like, what's the difference?

The difference is what God does. That doesn't. And when I sometimes when

I when I say that people have a visceral reaction to that. So you don't believe that the gospels of is that is the power of God unto salvation.

I said you got to finish the statement to all who believe. It says nothing about the person who doesn't believe.

Romans chapter one says the same thing that a first Corinthians chapter one says is the power of God unto salvation for those who do what?

Believe all the believing ones possible prostitute. That's what it's talking about, the believing ones.

So, yes, we don't deny that God uses means in that gospel. We don't deny Romans 10, but the difference is not me being wise or me being as smart.

I'm talking about first choice me, man. Like I was late. Yeah. Go ahead. As Leighton Flowers says, it's all about you being a choice meet.

Right. That's that's what he likes to say. Yeah. Choice meets. I don't I don't find that anywhere in Scripture.

But, hey, he likes to roll with that. So, you know, it's not and we can't use things like let me drop

Layton Flowers. Can't use the prodigal son. Tom, he's dead. My son was dead. Now he's alive.

That completely look completely distorts the purpose of that parable and those that preceded it.

Right. There was a point that Christ was trying to make. And his point was about the nature of the father to receive sinners.

Right. Unlike those self -righteous Pharisees and scribes. Right. He's making a juxtaposition between those two.

And so we got to be careful how we use parables. That's a that's a topic for a different day.

All right. I know that Harrison said he had some may have some

Internet issues, so I know he'll click the link and come back. No problem. If he's able to get back on.

Let me see. There are a few comments here we might be able to respond to. Let's see.

That's something else again here. He says so many times free will.

Believers criticize me for believing a God that will allow innocent children to go to hell.

My only response is no one knows the faith, their faith, but God. Any thoughts on that comment?

I hear this a lot. You know, a lot of times people will tug your emotional strings when you start talking about things like.

Original sin, total depravity, this thing about babies that gets brought up quite a bit.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, people, you know, deal with that in different ways. So there's an age of accountability kind of discussion that that is had along those lines.

And and, you know, there's I guess the Baptist view view is like typically the age of accountability kind of discussion.

Presbyterians have kind of like the elect, not elect infant kind of discussion. But then part of, you know, leaving that aside, you know, whether or not the

Bible teaches something like elect or not elect infants. Or, I mean, he certainly did in Jacob Esau case.

But but I mean, leaving that aspect aside, I mean, the greater problem is the idea of God sending people to hell in general.

It's not really about, you know, leave children off the table. Like you have adults, too, that the issue is the problem with hell, that God would send individuals to hell.

Who, you know, many of which who haven't received an offer of the gospel in their life.

And that's like fundamentally, that's the issue. And you really do have to look at that issue in the eye and say, do

I believe in the kind of God who whose holiness is so great and and who did create a hell?

And so ultimately, it is a question about hell in general. I think more more than you have to make your peace with that doctrine, period.

But you have anything you want to add to that? No, I, you know, I think what we have to do,

I mean, I've kind of what I go where where the Bible is. The Bible doesn't is not definitive saying this is going to happen with children.

Right. I mean, people will go to David, the death of his child and try to make something out of that. But here's the thing.

What we what we ultimately see in Scripture, and I think we can even start with Adam, his sin, his rebellion at the very beginning of Genesis.

God is more merciful than we could ever think or imagine. So whatever God decides to do, he's within his divine right.

I think part of what people are trying to do is somehow smuggling some level of injustice about what

God does. God has divine right over the clay. Right. And so whether you're a baby or an adult, right, at the end of his life,

God has the divine right. And whatever God does is just in good. In fact,

Psalmist says that God is good and does good. So we we can't ever put ourselves as being in a position of judge when it comes to the actions of God.

And I think a lot of a lot of what I hear when I hear people talk about babies and other things like that, or it's not fair that somebody didn't hear the gospel.

And what's going to happen is it's an attempt to try to say, God, there's something not quite right with God.

And that's the same lie you see in Genesis chapter three with Satan talking to Eve, something

God's just not right. I know he provided all this stuff for you, but he's holding back. He's holding back.

And it's the same lie of Satan, I think. And I know that may be strong language, but I believe that wholeheartedly is that that's what's ultimately being smuggled in, is that God, you know, we believe what what scripture says, right.

James one that that God, he's the father lights and every good and perfect gift comes from him.

And there and there's no variation of shifting shadow contrasted to sin. Right. Where does sin come from?

It comes from within us. It's birth within us and leads to death. God doesn't tempt us to sin. Right.

You're carried away because of your own lust, your own desire. So there's a there is a distinction being made there between the righteousness and holiness of God and sinfulness of man.

Well, I think we do that clearly. We underestimate, you know, how sinful we actually are, you know, and I can't even go a few minutes without sinning in some way, you know, and it really is the case that, you know, you think that you would be so different, you know, how could the

Jews put Jesus to death? But I mean, if you were there, you would have done it, too. And you know that you would have done it, too, because just look at how many times, you know, what his word says and you violate it anyways.

And, you know, if you have any kind of sensitivity about the nature of your heart, you realize that God is like an all good, all benevolent being who's never done you anything wrong.

And yet you've spent most of your life in one way or another, you know, basically telling him that you don't care about what he says and you'd rather do it your own way.

And even as a Christian, I mean, you're being progressively conformed into his image, but you still sin. You still sin on a daily basis, whether in thought or deed or, you know, attitude or, you know, action.

We have a big problem and God is so merciful to us. And like the issue is the real issue is not like how could

God send people to hell? The issue is how could he save anyone? That's the real question.

Like if you understand really how bad we are. Yeah. And really, oh, man. And this is what

I basically took word for word what I was explaining to a young man yesterday when he was trying to say it was unfair.

People didn't get the opportunity to be saved. There are millions of people all throughout time, you know, that have never heard the gospel, right?

And that gets back to one of the presuppositions we haven't gotten to. You romanticize them too, though.

I mean, those people that haven't been saved, they're the ones sacrificing other people, ripping their hearts out and eating them.

And, you know, so, I mean, like we like it's not as if there's just these wonderful people out there who are just, you know, innocent, you know, never done anything wrong in their life kind of people.

I mean, just look at where our society is going right now and you'll see evidence of total depravity everywhere your eyes can see.

Like we've given ourself over to insanity. And we're a country that's been influenced by a lot of the gospel.

I can think about how bad things actually get when you when you reject all that. And like there isn't this just innocent, you know, noble, you know, person out there that.

So we're just dramatically underestimating the reality of the damaging effects of sin in the world.

Now, speaking of total depravity, this is an apropos comment here. I don't know if you were aware of the live stream that K -Dub had earlier this evening, but it was something else.

I was checking it out. I don't know if you know who Joe Luman is. I haven't heard of him.

Okay. You're not missing anything, my friend. So K -Dub had she calls herself a theologian, a

Christian. She was on the channel and she denies what the scriptures actually teach.

It's amazing. And even thinks it's oppressive to tell people they need Jesus. Right. A form of totalitarianism.

Right. Colonialism. It was an interesting conversation. I give

K -Dub a lot of credit for having that conversation because it was pretty stressful and pretty tense.

But he's here. He left that comment. That's what he's saying. Saw total depravity face to face tonight. And I do want to say this about total depravity is that sometimes people

I know K -Dub doesn't think this, but we've talked about this before one on one. There seems to be this caricature of total depravity.

That doesn't mean as sinful as you can be. That's not total depravity. In fact, total depravity, you will find total depravity within even within the corridors of religion.

Moralism. There's total depravity. Right. Because anything that does not set itself to glorify

God is sin. Right. Anything that is not directed to our our creator is sinful.

It's direct. Anything directed to the even if it appears from the standpoint of man to be altruistic, to be noble.

Mother Teresa. That's the wrong way of judging it. That's the wrong way of judging what's going on.

Yeah. Yeah. Total depravity doesn't mean that everyone is as bad as Hitler. There we go. But that every aspect of every aspect of our being, our mind, our emotions, our affections, totally.

I would even say like the person, I think one of the single examples, like think about Matthew 7.

You know, we often think about where it says, you know, you know, you will know them by their fruits. And you get towards Matthew 7, 21 and following and talk about Lord, Lord did not do all these things.

So even this idea of self -righteousness is a is a demonstration of total depravity that I can merit.

Anything is a demonstration of that as well, I think, at some level. So it works.

Anything where it works its way out, where you have the wrong, you have the wrong law, the wrong, like the law of God, the word of God, the wrong motivation.

Right. The love of God and the wrong ends to the glory of God. Any action that we do falls within that umbrella of total depravity, even from the vantage point of man may look perfectly

OK. Sure. I think the more that God removes his restraining hand, you know, on our society, the more, though, that we'll see how how bad we can how total, you know, how how bad the depravity can actually get for sure.

Yeah. So we're going to be winding down. I mean, we we could have got going more into the we cover two.

We cover two of the twelve. I thought the list of twelve was somewhat optimistic. But yeah,

I told you, you know, I have an outline that way. I knew we were going to be good because we had a lot of things we could have talked about.

We got one free will and choice. And we talked about original sin and the sin nature of man.

So we covered some things that are highly contested and debated often. Right. And so I think we covered some of the ground.

That's right. So we got a few more comments. I'm going to just check these out.

Nicholas here. Nicholas has a he's a he's a content producer as well. Nicholas, you know, Nicholas Proclaimer of Messiah.

You familiar with him? I am not. I have to look him up at least. I think he has two channels. I think one, he's putting more emphasis on the other one.

He's not. Excellent live, brothers. I got to go. Shalom. It's always Shalom with Nicholas.

That's how I know it's really him because he always says Shalom. OK. Let's see.

What does he say? Put pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Up that holy mountain.

So you must be talking about, you know, us making the choice to choose

God without God giving us that, you know, giving us faith and repentance. So that I think, you know, that's what

I often hear off that way. We can choose. We can choose God. Well, careful, careful now, careful now.

And just because you can make choices doesn't mean you're choosing the right choice.

The ultimate right choice. Right. We will we ultimately choose to do as people without the spirit of God is sin.

That's what we ultimately choose to do. Right. Without God. So it's like a like a lion.

You know, you can put vegetables in front of them. And, you know, he can he can theoretically choose to eat those vegetables if he wanted to.

But then his nature won't allow him to. You know, it's that kind of thing. Like obviously, you know, if we wanted to trust in Jesus, I can mean it's it's an option on the table, but our nature won't allow us to go that way.

Yeah. So we're going to go ahead. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know what happened to Harold. Oh, he was here the whole time.

I'm back. No, it's OK. It's OK. I only I only just got back.

I only just got back. I just got back. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're good. You're good. I'm relieved.

I'm so relieved. I'm looked down like, oh, man, I hope he hasn't been waiting. Just in time to just say goodbye. Yeah. Hey, look, that's what

I try to do. I try to wait till the end and then swoop in and take all the credit. So that's right.

Doing it with style, Harrison. Doing it with style. So we I think this has been a wonderful live stream.

You know, we covered about two to two to twelve topics, but it was well worth the time. Right. I mean, digging in and having this wonderful discussion, even answered a few questions.

If there are any prayer requests, please leave those in the chat. There were a few earlier.

But if you have any prayer requests, feel free to leave those. And any closing remarks, gentlemen, before we wind this down?

Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think my closing remark would just be a lot of times people can really recoil when it comes to Calvinism.

When they when they hear it, they kind of they just they they want to. I mean, just reject it, basically, because it sounds really it sounds bad for some reason.

And what I what I encourage people to do is is just look at it for what it is.

And I said this earlier, but I think it bears repeating. Calvinism really does.

It takes a lot of things to their extremes. Right. So it glorifies

God to the extreme and it it communicates just how sinful we are to the extreme.

But it also it also communicates just how merciful and loving God is to the extreme.

Because when you understand how glorious God is, when you understand how powerful he is, when you understand how sinful we are.

And then you understand that in spite of all of those things, the fact that we actually bring literally nothing to the table.

There's nothing that we have that God requires. When you understand all of those things and then know that in spite of all of that, he sent his son to die in our place.

And not only did he send his son, but I mean, all three persons of the Trinity are working for salvation. It's not only the son.

Now, the son does, I mean, a crucial, crucial part of it. But when you understand all of those things,

I think that really it helps you understand just how much God does care for us and does love us and and how much mercy he's showing to us.

And so that's what I always try to point people to in these kinds of conversations. Don't think about it like, hey,

I'm being violated. My free will is being violated. This doesn't sound right.

It feels weird. Just understand that this is really helping us understand how glorious God is, how merciful he is and how sinful we are.

Yeah, I mean, I know for me, my own personal experience, the more

I embraced a libertarian view of human freedom, the more it led me to despair because I realized that there's really no point in praying because prayer doesn't do anything.

It's not going to matter because everything is ultimately up to me and it's up to my decisions.

It's up to my choices. But then the problem was that, you know, I I couldn't get myself to want to follow

God. I couldn't get myself to want to read the Bible. I couldn't get myself to pray. And I looked at the harsh realities of the world around me and I just saw that people are like we're just we're the same, you know, like, you know, apart from God, God's grace.

We're not like we just commit the same kind of sins, you know, that are painful and frustrating over and over and over again.

You know, me against others, others against me, and there's just no answer to be found in my will.

You know, and I read, I think, Jerry Bridges book, Trusting God. You know, he has a quote that if there's like one event that can happen in this is a butchering of the quote throughout the history of the world.

Apart from God's sovereign plan, you can't trust him. And, you know, I live that out. I live that out that if God wasn't sovereign,

I couldn't trust him. And there's no point in even following a God that I couldn't trust who was impotent.

You know, so for me, it was just a great source of comfort just to read the Bible and realize that God is sovereign and he's in control.

And he he's a powerful God who can change lives. And he changed my life. You know, he fundamentally changed my life and turned me around.

And I can't take any credit for that. You know, I was a scoundrel. And all of a sudden I want to read the Bible a lot and, you know, be one of those guys that everyone calls a legalist and everything else.

Like, I don't have any answer. Why did that happen? It's to the praise of his glorious grace. It's because he's sovereign.

And at some point he wanted to save me. And I can't take any credit for that.

But then that gives you confidence to know that no matter, you know, your loved one could be deep, you know, in sin.

And that's nothing to God. If God wants to save me, he can. And you just pray for him that he will, you know, because he can do abundantly more than we can ask or think.

And he's not limited by, you know, our wills. Amen. Double amen for both

Harrison and Tim's comments. And as we close here, gentlemen, how can they find you online?

We have several people here still hanging out with us after an hour and 30 minutes. How can they find you online?

Yeah, you can just go and search on YouTube for the Bible Bash podcast and that'll take you to our channel.

We also put out an audio version of the podcast. And so just search the

Bible Bash podcast and it should pull up on, you know, Spotify, Apple podcasts, pretty much anywhere that you would find where you listen to podcasts.

Or you can also look us up on Facebook or either a podcast on Bible Bash podcast or us as individuals on that and friend us there.

Yeah. All right. Very good. It was a pleasure having this wonderful conversation with both of you.

For those who are still here, stay tuned for this coming Thursday when I start the

Identifying False Teachers series. So looking forward to starting that this coming Thursday at 6 p .m.

Eastern Standard Time or Eastern Time. Sometimes I forget. I know Eastern Daylight Time, Eastern Time to say that ET.

That will be taking place and starting commencing this coming Thursday.

So everyone, once again, thank you for spending time with us as we talk theology.

Everyone, enjoy your evening. Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, we all in the glory of God.

Amen. Amen. Amen. This has been another episode of Bible Bashed.

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Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.