DocsofGraceStLouis.mp4

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One of the pieces of technology that we have now is that by sometime tomorrow morning, hopefully
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Lord willing, this evening's presentation should be on YouTube, and hence be visible to people literally all around the world.
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I started doing YouTube just under two years ago, January. January will be exactly two years.
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And during that time we've had about 1 .8 million video views.
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I have over 420 videos up there now. And the amazing thing is that we are able to reach people that we just otherwise could never reach.
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For example, in Indonesia, places like that where I post the debates I've been doing with Muslims.
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It's just amazing where technology allows us to go now. And of course, even tomorrow people will be able to sort of join with us here.
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So things have changed a good bit in ten years. I've changed a good bit in ten years.
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I don't think I was completely clean shaven on the top when I came here the first time. I'd have to ask
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Van about that. But that has become an absolute necessity. And Van and I were talking about how things have changed from the time we had first been here.
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He's been here quite some time now. I was just thinking we just celebrated 35 years of my fellow elder at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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35 years in one church. Van's been here 25 years. I've been at PRVC for 20 years. That's a real blessing to have had that kind of an opportunity for all that time.
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We tried this year. Oh, by the way, I should mention, you mentioned I'm going on a cruise this weekend.
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When someone gives you and your wife a free cruise, you try to make that happen. I've never paid for one.
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This will be my 13th or 14th. But I'm always working on them. I'll be working on this one too.
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Not in the sense of teaching, which I normally am doing on them. But I haven't written anything other than the blog, which in and of itself is a lot, for quite some time.
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And I need to get some writing projects done. So Lord willing, over this next week, and this assisting me as well,
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I finally would like to get some writing projects taken care of. Because there's lots of things I want to be writing only so many hours a day.
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So that's what we'll be doing. So I do thank you. I'm going to miss being here on a Sunday morning. It's going to be the first time
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I think I've not preached on a Sunday morning. And I feel badly about that. But I appreciate your allowing me to do that.
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And my wife does too. She works full time for U .S. Airways. And so getting a chance for her to get away is a good thing as well.
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So thank you for that. But anyway, we tried to arrange to do what
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I seemingly do a lot. And that is we tried to arrange for a debate.
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And we tried to look for folks who would engage in a debate. And some of the brethren here can inform you that it is a whole lot harder.
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Thank you, sir. I will try not to baptize the whole bit. The cup this big, it would be a full immersion.
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I did that at the Presbyterian Church. They gave me this big cup of water. And I just moved my foot once and it just all over the place.
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And I just could not resist making a few baptismal jokes. But anyway, they found it funny.
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You can too. It's all right. But it is not easy to get people to do debates.
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There's lots of folks today who will ravage the Christian faith. Lots of folks who want to get on television and radio and tell us about how backwards we are.
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How silly it is to believe that the Bible is the Word of God and things like that. But when it actually comes to getting them to defend their position in a meaningful fashion in a scholarly debate, not as easy to do as you might think.
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Last year I was here. And you remember I was talking a lot about a fellow named
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Bart Ehrman. And that's because only a matter of less than two months later
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I debated Dr. Ehrman in Tampa, Florida. Was it Tampa, Florida? It was somewhere in Florida. All of Florida looks the same to me.
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That's the problem with Florida. There aren't any mountains to be able to say, oh, that's Tampa, that's Miami, whatever. Somewhere down there in Florida.
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And how many of you have seen that debate with Bart Ehrman? When you see him on the evening news or NPR or wherever else it is, then you might want to get a hold of that debate.
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It was on the viability of the text in the Testament. But we were discussing that and the amount of work that goes into arranging those things and the amount of money that goes into arranging those things is pretty impressive.
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So we'd still like to someday arrange a debate. I mean, I would think, especially here in St.
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Louis, St. Charles, these areas, that especially a debate with certain individuals who deny the doctrine of the
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Trinity would be a wonderful thing. And I've been open to do that for many years now. Maybe that will work out.
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I would like to see that happen. The next best thing to do is what I do on my webcast.
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And that is I let the other side speak for itself. I take a lot of time to download their materials, present their materials, and then respond to them.
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Now, it would be nice for them to have a chance to then go back and forth. But that seems to be the real problem is that many people want to have a monologue on these issues, not a dialogue on these issues.
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A number of years ago, and I won't be using any of these clips, but I did a debate, I believe it was in 2001 in Los Angeles, with a fellow by the name of George Bryson.
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And Mr. Bryson is pretty high up in the Calvary Chapel movement, the world's largest non -denominational denomination.
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And if you know anything about Calvary Chapel, you know we're not a denomination. And he and I debated these issues at the
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Anaheim Vineyard in Los Angeles. And since then,
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Mr. Bryson has often said that he would be willing to debate again. However, he wants to have input as to how the debate is put together.
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Well, that's fine. I mean, if you want to have a discussion about whether you have 20 -minute opening statements or 25 -minute opening statements, or whether you have the audience questions before the closing statement, sure, no problem.
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What he means by have some input is he doesn't want cross -examination. He doesn't want there to be any place where I ask him specific questions that he has to answer.
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And there's a reason for that. I learned a long time ago that the debate does not take place in the opening statements.
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It does not take place in the rebuttals. The debate takes place in the cross -examination. Remember what it says in Proverbs 18?
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A man seems to be right in his case until his neighbor comes along and examines him.
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That's when the wheels fall off. That's when you contest for the consistency of the position is in the course of cross -examination.
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Mr. Bryson doesn't want to do that part. And I call that doing debating. So that's why we haven't had any debates since then.
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And so you can see on the screen what I've done is
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I've gotten hold of some of the better -known individuals who would seek to respond to Reformed theology.
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And I have grabbed their presentations. And that way we will use them as somewhat of a springboard to at least be able to say, well, the subjects that I was addressing are the subjects that the individuals that seemingly garner the largest audiences as they speak on these subjects, it's the very same objections that they are making.
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And so I want to be sort of interactionary, if that is a term.
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I want to relate with these. And also with you as well. I want it to be a little bit more of a classroom -type situation.
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I don't have, like I would on Islam or something like that. There's just so much information
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I want to get to. I want to be able to just, in essence, go over here and say, okay, someone has a particular question.
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All right, let's bring up Bible works. Let's go to a specific section.
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Let's look at it. Let's exegete this text, whatever it might be, and really dig into these things.
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I would imagine many of you here already would agree with me on many of these issues.
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And that's fine if you've heard me discuss them before. But there might be folks here that are struggling with these issues.
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You haven't really thought them all through. And as such, I want that to be of use to you as well.
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Now, let me just begin with a current illustration as to why these things, I think, are very, very important.
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And this has a wider application. How many of you have read the
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Manhattan Declaration? Okay. How many of you have at least heard about the
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Manhattan Declaration? I guess that's the majority. If you are sitting there going,
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I live in a lead mine. By choice. Okay, there you go.
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Just don't eat the chips of paintings. The Manhattan Declaration came out about two weeks ago or so.
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And it was drafted by Charles Colson, Timothy George, and a particular
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Roman Catholic figure. The Manhattan Declaration, in essence, deals with three areas.
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It deals with the subject of life, which would include the subject of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, assisted suicide, issues of the culture of death versus a culture of life.
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It deals with the issue of marriage and human sexuality. In particular, of course, the issue of the nature of marriage, the fact that it is a divine institution.
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It is not subject to redefinition based upon, shall we say, any type of legislative action or referendum or anything else.
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Since it's a divine institution, God determines the form of marriage, not someone else. And the last thing that it deals with is it deals with the subject of religious liberty.
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And in essence, it says that nations have a responsibility to safeguard the free expression of religious belief.
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That no one should be forced or coerced into a particular kind of religious observance.
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And at the same time, no one's rights to openly and publicly express a religious viewpoint should be suppressed or abridged.
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And obviously, that's the one they're focusing on. So much so as to say that were any nation, including our own, to seek to suppress such religious statements, that it would be our duty as Christians to engage in civil disobedience.
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Citing the example of Peter, when they were told not to preach the gospel, that whether we should obey you or obey
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God, that example came up. Many, many things in the document that are noteworthy.
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I believe all of us, more than ever before, more than any other time in the ten years that I've been coming here for certain, we have to be thinking about these things.
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There are things happening in our world today at a frightening speed. Especially given, it seems like there's an acceleration.
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It's sort of like as you're going down a hill, you go faster and faster and faster. And as the brakes, in essence, have come off, what's going on with genetic manipulation, what's going on with experimentation upon embryos and things like that is truly the stuff of science fiction.
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But it's not science fiction anymore, it's truly happening. And a culture with our level of technological advancement that has thrown off the restraint that comes from having a
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Christian worldview. A culture that is now soaked in secularism, that views us as nothing more than the random acts of the universe, the random manipulation of DNA.
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Why shouldn't we keep playing with DNA if nature's been doing it and we've now learned how to do it? Why not? There's no creator, there's no right or wrong, there's no moral foundation upon which to say otherwise.
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These are things we all should be thinking about and for that reason, the Manhattan Declaration is worthy of your reading.
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However, I have not signed it and I have explained why. Last Sunday at my own church,
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I spent the entire morning service on that particular subject. You can see that on my blog, on YouTube in fact.
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And in fact, as I left, my cohort in crime there at the ministry,
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Rich Pierce, had just finished syncing up the high quality audio with the video and we will be making that available for you.
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But the reason that I have not signed it has to do with the issue of the gospel.
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They only invited Trinitarians to be involved in the Manhattan Declaration. There were no
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Jews, no Muslims, no Mormons. It was only Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants.
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And while they did not attempt to make an ecumenical statement, they did say that it is our duty to proclaim the gospel in its fullness in the body of this particular declaration.
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I agree that it is, but the problem is that those three groups do not have the same gospel.
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And that is my concern. It is one thing to say religious people as a whole stand together.
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I mean, look at what the Mormons went through with Proposition 8 in California. We can look at that and say it is terrible that there have been
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Mormon store owners and restaurant owners who have been targeted for having supported
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Proposition 8. I can say that is a terrible thing and I stand with them against that kind of activity without saying we as Christians hold hands and saying this is a
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Christian response. I can be thankful that a Mormon stands for heterosexual marriage, which is the only marriage there is.
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I can be thankful that the Mormon does that without saying that the Mormon therefore is embracing a true gospel or worshiping a true
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God. We need to be able to make those types of distinctions. And from my perspective, the only power that has been given to the church to change hearts and minds is the gospel.
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That is the only power that we have. It is not in our numbers.
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I mean, when you consider the New Testament church in the days of Paul numerically, it never would have crossed their mind that numbers could ever be the means by which they would change the world.
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It was a tiny, tiny little group from a forgotten corner of the Roman Empire. That is not where our power comes from.
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The power comes from the only message that has been entrusted to us that can change people from being
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God -haters into God -lovers. That is what the gospel is all about. And when we talk about this subject,
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I'm going to show you some clips here right at the beginning that Mr.
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Hunt is confused about. He thinks that what
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I as a Calvinist or a Reformed theologian is saying is that I'm the only person with the gospel.
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That he is either lost or he's not proclaiming the gospel. We need to recognize right off the top.
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The reason I have over the years been so concerned about this issue is simply a matter of biblical consistency.
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Biblical consistency. I try to apply the exact same standard in this area that I do in the doctrine of the
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Trinity, the crucifixion of Christ, the resurrection, the doctrine of the church, whatever it might be.
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I believe that there is an inherent necessity for us as believers to show respect to God by honoring his word.
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And the way you honor his word is by handling it aright. You don't play with the
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Bible like it's theological play -doh. You do not form it into what makes you feel comfortable.
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You have to apply the same standards no matter what subject you're dealing with from the pages of scripture.
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None of us as parents feel overly respected by our children when we can tell they're specifically twisting our words of instruction to them.
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Well, how can we think God would be honored when we twist his word according to our whims?
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Are we not in essence then forcing our words into his mouth and saying it's the word of God?
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And that's why one of the ten topics we've addressed over the years was the sufficiency of scripture, sola scriptura.
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And why we believe that as Christians we need to recognize we do have our traditions, identify what they are, and bring them to the word of God.
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And never allow our traditions to become something that overrides the plain teaching of the scriptures itself.
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And that is one of the greatest dangers I've seen. And that's one of the greatest dangers with Mr.
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Hunt is when we had our radio, the only debate we ever did, it wasn't a debate,
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I was actually interviewing him on KPXQ radio in Phoenix. At one point while looking at the sixth chapter of John, he gave a response and it was an eisegetical response.
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He was reading in the text something that was just nowhere there. And I said, Dave, that's your tradition speaking.
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And he said something that I've, I even put it in the book, if you've read the radio columnism. He said to me,
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James, I have no traditions. I have no traditions.
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And I've often said since then, a man who thinks he has no traditions is the slave of his traditions because he doesn't even know they're there.
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He cannot examine them in light of God's word. And the danger then becomes those traditions become for him the equivalent of God's word.
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And woe be to you to challenge that man's traditions. He's going to think you're challenging the very word of God.
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And especially when we talk about this subject, people say, well, you know, I hear a lot of debates on this. Not in the sense of formal debates.
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We can't get these folks to debate. But, you know, it happens in every classroom and back halls and churches all over the land.
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I hear all these debates. Does anything ever get accomplished? Well, yes.
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But there has to be a willingness on the part of someone to allow God to be
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God and his word to be his word. And as long as there remains that absolute dogged dedication to tradition,
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I don't care what arguments you present, people are going to find a way around it. And so I think this subject is vitally important because what's going on here is
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I'm trying to be consistent. And when I present the gospel to a
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Muslim, when I present the gospel to a Muslim, you should not be able to listen to my presentation and go, oh, oh, that's different than what he says to Catholics.
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Now, is there going to be a different emphasis? Well, of course there is. If I'm talking to a
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Muslim here and then I talk to a Roman Catholic here, knowing the differences of beliefs, knowing the confusions that are here,
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I'm going to have to address particular issues. But the gospel I present should be absolutely consistent no matter who
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I present it to. It should be the same gospel. And the world should be able to look at us and go, those people are really serious about what they believe because they don't play with it.
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They don't engage in sensationalism just to try to get numbers.
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And is that what the world thinks when they listen to most of what's on quote unquote Christian TV today?
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Or do they see Joel Osteen with 16 ,000 people sitting there? And he's just smiling up a storm.
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But he never talks about God's judgment. He never talks about God's wrath. Oh, God just has a wonderful plan for your life.
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And he wants you to be financially successful and to have pretty white teeth and grow your hair back. And that's not what the gospel's about.
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And the world knows it. The world knows it. They can detect that kind of thing.
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But they should also be able to detect those people who say no. We're not going to take the short cuts.
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We're not going to hide the things that are offensive to people because there are things about the gospel that are offensive to people.
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Especially in our day to day. Let me tell you something. Our post -modern, arrogant, secular, humanist world thinks the idea of a creator
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God who's glorifying himself having entered into his own creation to provide salvation in a bloody sacrifice on the cross of Calvary is about as stupid a thing as you could ever believe.
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Until that heart is changed. Until conviction of sin has been brought into that heart. You're never going to change that heart.
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And the only way you're going to get that person to respect you and show respect for your religion is completely changing your religion and taking everything out of it that they find offensive.
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And yet the entire teaching of the New Testament is what? It is by the very offensiveness of the cross that God has chosen to bring his people unto himself.
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It is that offense that crushes that human pride and self -righteousness. So the reason that we discuss these issues is not because we like to debate or like to mock our minions or things like that.
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And there are Calvinists that do that and shame on them. The only reason to discuss this is quite simple.
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To be consistent in our handling of what the scripture says about the gospel.
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And it makes a difference as to how you do ministry. Not just in the church. And it does.
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I know that there are churches that go, oh, I embrace the five points. Folks, if those five points do not impact the worship of your church, then you haven't really gotten the idea yet.
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To be reformed is first and foremost to recognize God as who God is in me for who
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I am. A creature whom God has formed for his purposes.
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And to be in awe at his holiness and the fact that given his holiness, he'd have anything to do with me at all.
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If your heart hasn't been changed, if you haven't recognized that God is really God, he's not the cosmic butler.
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And that you are but a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
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Then all you've done is grab a hold of some theology but you haven't seen how it really impacts the heart and life.
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I would highly suggest to anyone, I don't know if you have any here, but probably,
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I'm not much of a preacher. Let me tell you, I can tell who are good, the people who are good preachers.
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If you want to hear preaching, well it would make my hair stand out if I had any. Pastor Albert Martin, Trinity Baptist Church, he's left there now.
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In fact, I had my first opportunity to preach at Trinity this past June in New Jersey. He wrote a little teeny pamphlet, it's a banner of truth pamphlet,
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I'm not sure if you've seen it, called The Practical Implications of Calvinism. I'd buy 20 of them and put them on the table out back, read it.
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It will rip any shred of arrogance and ego right out of you.
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And sort of bum you out for about three days, it's a good thing. I highly suggest it.
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We're not doing this to mock these gentlemen.
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I've asked to be able to engage both of them in debate, they won't do it.
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When I wrote The Potter's Treatment, how many of you have seen The Potter's Treatment? When I wrote The Potter's Treatment, I bent over backwards to accurately represent
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Norman Geisler. Before I wrote that book, we had had great dinners together. I remember being in Indianapolis at a
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King James only church, I felt really, really loved there. It was this big apologetics thing.
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They let me come even though there were books on the back table identifying me as a Satan -inspired false teacher.
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They had to hide some of my books under tables or sell them to anybody and things like that. But Dr. Geisler was there and he told me after it was over, the reason
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I came was because you were here. We had had what I thought was an amiable relationship.
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When I started writing the book, not only did I honestly seek to accurately represent him, one of the reasons
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I was as strong in what I said was because I have as much respect for the man as I do.
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In other words, I expected much more from Norman Geisler than I expect from Dave Hunt.
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I really do. And that's a sign of respect. As strange as the world may consider that today, that is to me a sign of respect.
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And so, I'm not seeking to mock these gentlemen. When I started writing,
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I wrote to Dr. Geisler. I wrote a nice long letter. I still have all these letters. And I asked him basic questions.
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One of them was, Dr. Geisler, in reading your book, I had sent him my books before his book came out.
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I tried to be of assistance. I sent him God's sovereign grace. I sent him drawn by the Father.
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And I asked him in the letter, I said, Dr. Geisler, for example, why is there no exegesis of John 6 .37
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in the entire view of this book? I mean, how many verses could be more relevant than John 6 .37?
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I'm sure most of you know what the verse is, since we're really close to it here. All that the
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Father gives me will come to me. And the one literally coming, the one who comes to me,
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I will certainly not cast out. I think if you're going to write an entire book about how extreme
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Calvinism is wrong, and it's dangerous, and needs to be refuted, I don't know,
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I think that sort of is relevant. You might want to offer some exegesis of it. Dr.
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Geisler wrote back, I offered an entire exegesis in the book. Now the first edition of Chosen but Free that I had, had a very small little incomplete reference, biblical citation index in the back.
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In fact, what I had to do, literally, was I paid people with Amazon gift certificates.
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There were about four or five people across the United States. What I would do is I would give them an Amazon gift certificate, and I would say, and I did this,
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John 6 .37. And so what that person would do for their Amazon gift certificate is they would take their copy of the book, and they'd start at page one, and then page two, and then page three.
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And they would go through the entire book and create for me an exhaustive list of every page on which that particular verse was cited.
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That's how I created my own exhaustive list to make sure that if I said
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Dr. Geisler didn't deal with this verse, then I had the evidence. I had actually found every reference.
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And so what I did is I wrote to Dr. Geisler. I said, here is every citation of John 6 .37 in Chosen but Free. And I gave everything.
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I think he might have cited the entire verse once. Most of the time it was only a part of the verse. Never in the exegesis.
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Anywhere. And I even opened up the possibility. His book was published by Bethany House.
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That was my publisher. The same people who edited my book, the God who justifies, edited
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Chosen but Free. And so I said, was there material that was in this, that was taken out during the editing process?
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Would that explain it? Because here's everything you said. There's no exegesis here. I got back a postcard.
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The postcard said, if you publish, I will respond. No. That was it.
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I tried. I sought to begin some kind of meaningful dialogue. Won't happen.
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We have tried and tried and tried to get these folks to engage.
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Because from my perspective, the single most effective way to help the church work through these issues is to put the two people side by side.
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Put the best representatives you can there. And let them argue. Let them bring forth their best arguments.
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Let it be done respectfully. Let it be done biblically. But let it be done openly. And we just haven't been able to have that happen.
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Now, I'm hopeful. I've announced on my program that Dr. Michael Brown, who is a
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Jewish convert to Christianity. He is a scholar. I actually moderated a debate he did with Rabbi Shochet back in 1995 at Arizona State University.
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Is a former Calvinist. And he recently, on his program, was talking about why he's not a
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Calvinist. And in listening to that, I was very pleased to be able to announce that Dr.
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Brown does not engage in straw man argumentation. Which is unfortunately very predominant in those who attack
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Reformed theology. So, I'm going to be on his program. He's going to be on the dividing line. And hopefully we're going to be able to arrange a debate.
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And I think it will be very useful to have that kind of interaction. But the reason I put these up here is to let them speak.
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And then respond. And sometimes what they say is troubling. It's troubling because it's inaccuracy.
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Now for Mr. Hunt. I really believe that Dave is so convinced of his traditions.
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And yet blind in their existence that he doesn't hear. He does not hear.
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And so you can correct him over and over again. And he will continue to repeat the same things.
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In spite of the correction. Now some people say that's absolutely dishonest. Well, maybe. I just don't think that at his stage of life and teaching.
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That he can even give consideration to the possibility. That what he's been teaching all along is incorrect.
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I just don't think it doesn't compute. It just doesn't compute. For Dr. Geisser.
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Dr. Geisser does not believe that anyone younger than himself can teach him anything. He as much as told me that.
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We were going to the airport once. It was in Indianapolis, St. One. And he said, well, I'm 65 now.
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I can write my systematic theology. I said, oh. 65?
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Yeah. No one can write a systematic theology before they're 65 and have it be worth anything. No one can know enough before they're 65 to write a systematic theology.
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I said, so you wouldn't think, for example, much of Wayne Grutter's. Ugh. Waste of paper.
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And so I'm convinced to this day that Dr. Geisser has never read
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The Power of Freedom. Oh, I know that there's a 13, 14 page appendix in the current edition of Chosen Free responding to The Power of Freedom.
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I am absolutely convinced he didn't read it. His students did. And I have good evidence of that. And I presented that in my response to it in the new edition of The Power of Freedom.
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There is a new edition if you have the older edition. 32 pages longer. But I am absolutely convinced he has never read it.
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And why would he never read it? Because he doesn't believe that I can have anything worthwhile to say. Nothing.
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I'm as old as his children. So there's nothing to be learned from that. I am so thankful that so far the
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Lord has protected me from that. I learn things from people that are younger than me all the time. And I hope the
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Lord keeps me from ever adopting the idea that I can't learn from someone else in that context.
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This results in some scary things. Let me play a... Most of you have heard this. But let me play something for you here.
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When Dave and I first discussed these things, I started off with a question.
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Remember, I was interviewing him. It wasn't supposed to be a debate. He calls it a debate. It wasn't. But I asked him a question about the
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Reformers. I pointed out that it's rather odd that he and I have done many debates against Roman Catholics.
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And we have. I guess they're the same people. Some people have been willing to debate him and won't debate me.
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Carl Keating being one of them. But I said,
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I find it strange that you and I approach this from such completely different perspectives. And I asked him a question about the
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Reformers. Here is what he said. And this has become famous for those of you who listen to The Vying Line.
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It's part of the Radio Free Geneva opening. When he said this on our radio program.
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Well, first of all, James, I'm very eager to the Reformers.
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First of all, James, I'm very eager to the Reformers. I just like to go with what the Bible says.
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I believe that was in July or August. By February of the next year, six months at the outside.
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On his own radio program. Dave Hunt said the following.
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I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves
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Calvinists. Six months.
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And all of a sudden, he's caught up. Now, Dave just might be the fastest reader on the planet.
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Maybe he has just got a mental acumen that makes me look like a mental midget. I don't know, but given so much of what we'll look at from what he's saying, it seems like something strange is going on here.
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I don't know anything about the Reformers, but six months later, I know more about Calvinism than most people call themselves Calvinists.
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And the result is inaccuracies, misrepresentations. And that just shouldn't be.
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Unfortunately, Dave comes from an ecclesiastical background, and there really isn't a whole lot of people who could come up to him and say, it shouldn't be.
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In fact, even in this very presentation that we're going to see here, I can play this portion, but he specifically talks about the fact that he had friends write to him, and I wrote to him, before What Love Is This came out.
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And said, don't write this book. You simply don't know what you're talking about.
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Now, I realize that would be very offensive if you really do believe you know what you're talking about.
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But if you have multiple people from differing backgrounds telling you the same thing, but there's no one who can say that for Dave.
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So, that's one of the problems. So, what is my motivation here then? I want to start with this. What is my motivation?
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Consistency in the gospel. It impacts everything. Why did I mention the
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Manhattan Declaration? Because I think it comes back to this. One of the reasons that I, John MacArthur, Alistair Begg, have said,
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I can't sign this, goes back to that issue of what the gospel is and its centrality.
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Now, some people who would actually agree with us on that have signed it, and that raises other issues. But I hope that my reason for not signing the
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Manhattan Declaration comes back to this continued effort to be consistent to the glory of God.
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Not just so I can notch that and say, ooh, I've been consistent there. But to be consistent with the handling of the gospel.
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Now, having spent all that time, I wanted to start off with some of the citations.
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I can't see the number over there, so I just drag it down here and move it back a little bit.
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That's the fun thing about having all these neat gadgets that I've got here now.
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Let's listen to Dave as he starts his objections to Calvinism.
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He's saying this, saying, man, listen to what these Calvinists are saying. This is dangerous.
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Listen to what he's saying. To the phone first. Well, it's been heating up.
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And R .C. Sproul in America, I don't know if he's on the air over here, but he's on the radio every day pushing
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Calvinists. We're beginning to find out that more and more people that we didn't really know were
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Calvinists are Calvinists. They're becoming more aggressive in pushing this doctrine.
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John MacArthur, for example. Many people didn't know that, but if you look at his writings.
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And J .I. Packer. D. James Kennedy, of course, because Presbyterians are
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Calvinists. What began to concern us a bit are some of the claims.
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Let me just quote some of them.
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Calvinism, I'm quoting some Calvinists now. Quote, Calvinism is pure biblical Christianity in its clearest and purest expression.
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Well, if you're not a Calvinist, you're not a Christian. It seems to follow. Does it?
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No. In Dave's world, it's black and white. The idea that I could say, that I could agree with the statement.
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And yet think that a person is a Christian who does not cross all the
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T's and dot all the I's the same way I do. It's not a part of his world view, it is a part of mine.
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And that is, I recognize that, well, to use the old saying that my pastor has used, my fellow elder has used many times.
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God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick. And aren't we glad that he can? There is a real danger on the part of some reformed folks to engage in doctrinal perfectionism.
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To demand that everyone have the same level of insight and understanding that I have.
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And it's easy to understand because we do draw certain lines in the sand, do we not? I doubt there ain't
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Jehovah's Witnesses here going, oh yeah, wow, I like you. I doubt there are any
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Muslims in the audience going, yeah, I love this Calvinism stuff. There are dividing lines, there's no question about that.
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But almost every Armenian I know is an inconsistent one.
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I know many Armenians who will use much of my language and they don't even realize they're borrowing my language and my theology to do it.
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They believe in salvation by grace and faith alone. Are they consistent on that?
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No they're not. Is that why I want to talk to them? Is that why I want to try to help them? Exactly it is.
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But inconsistency, is there anybody here who is absolutely, perfectly convinced that you've got it all figured out now?
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I mean, everything? Because if there is anybody here like that,
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I need to sit down and listen to you. Because I don't.
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So, I can recognize a sub -biblical position being held by a
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Christian without kicking them out of the kingdom. Without saying they're under the wrath of God.
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We have to find a balance. See, I don't get to determine the wrath of God. So on the one hand,
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I think a standard for me is, I have to exercise myself to the greatest extent of my ability to make sure that I'm rightly handling the word of God to His honor and glory alone.
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But that does not give me the right to play the
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Holy Spirit and start kicking other people out of the kingdom that I don't think are working as hard as I am.
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We've got to be very careful. We don't have a real good reputation yet. I know that sometimes we can hear these things and we just go,
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Ah, Dave, come on, think. And it's so easy in frustration to go, well you just must not be a
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Christian. No. I try to avoid the heart -breathing stuff.
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I'm not good at it. I leave that to God. What I say is, Mr. Hunt is wrong on this point,
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Mr. Hunt is wrong on that point. Provide correction. But we need to be very careful that we don't go beyond that to, and since he's wrong about that thing and the other thing, then we just kick him out of the kingdom of heaven.
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I leave that to God. I leave that to God. I think that's very important.
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John Piker, I imagine that name would be known at least to some of you. He writes, quote,
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The doctrines of grace, that is, total, perhaps unconditioned, election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints, are the warp and woof of the biblical gospel cherished by so many saints for centuries.
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So, if Calvinism, the five points of Calvinism are the warp and woof of the biblical gospel, and you don't preach five point
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Calvinism, wouldn't it then follow you're not preaching the gospel? Now it becomes rather serious.
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Well, your own Saint Spurgeon, by the way, most of you don't know, I rarely mention this,
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This is interesting. I'm not sure how many of you knew this, but given
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Dave's brotherly background, this is an interesting point. My mother named me after Charles Spurgeon.
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My name, you know, you're British, my father was British, and you British have sometimes multiple middle names.
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And my father named me David Charles Haddon Spurgeon Hunt. My mother thought
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Spurgeon was a bit too much, and she read the line down. So my name actually is
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David Charles Haddon Hunt. So Spurgeon and I should get along well.
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Spurgeon wrote, I do not ask whether you believe Calvinism. It is possible you may not, but I believe you will before you enter heaven.
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I am persuaded that as God may have washed your hearts, he will wash your brains before you enter heaven.
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John Gerstner says, we believe, with the great Baptist preacher
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon, that Calvinism is just another name for Christianity.
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Let me just give you some other quotes. I mean, I think your level of concern would rise a bit.
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Another Calvinist says, this teaching was held to be the truth by the apostles. Another Calvinist says,
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Christ taught the doctrines which have come to be known as the five points of Calvinism.
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Now, why is that so shocking? Well, because for Dave, this is obviously an unbiblical position.
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Okay, I understand that. But if you just enter into what the Reformed person is trying to say, you're trying to say, look,
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I believe this because it's biblical. I believe it because it's consistent with all the biblical revelation. Therefore, while I recognize the terminology wasn't used before Calvin, obviously, why would
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I believe something that wasn't consistent with what the apostles taught? Wouldn't I want to change my beliefs then?
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Doesn't Dave believe that what he believes is what the apostles taught? Well, of course he does.
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But for many of these folks, they see Calvinism, did you hear his comments, as some new thing. They're becoming aggressive.
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Well, that's because Dave doesn't have much of a view of church history. He doesn't realize that this debate has been ongoing.
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And really, in a sense, every single generation has to work through these issues.
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The only generations that don't are those who say, well, our parents did it and we don't care. And that normally leads to institutionalized
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Christianity, which becomes dead Christianity, i .e. Europe. And that's not a good thing.
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Having these arguments and disagreements is a sign of life, not of death. When these things stop happening, then you've got a problem.
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And unfortunately, that's what we, like I said, see in many places in Europe. Another one says, well, this is a man named
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Kant, a well -known Calvinist. God's plan of salvation revealed in the scriptures consists of what is popularly known as the five points of Calvinism.
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Lorraine Bettner, one of the great apologists against the Roman Catholic Church, says, quote,
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The great advantage of the Reformed faith is that in the framework... Oops, sorry about that.
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I guess if I click on one, it stops. ...teaches concerning the way of salvation. Another one says, quote,
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B .B. Warfield, one of the classics, says, All of these bother
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Dave to know it. Because in his perspective, we're talking about an unbiblical position, an unbiblical belief that is being foisted upon people.
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And as such, is something that is new, in essence.
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The new kid on the block. Let's go over to Dr. Geisler here for a moment. Because I am thankful that Dr.
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Geisler took the time in the beginning of this presentation, it looks like it was in a rather large
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Calvary Chapel type church or something along those lines, to at least make sure that we understood that this debate is, as he's going to say here, an intramural debate.
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Inside of the Protestant faith, there were differences of opinion on this very issue.
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And I want to say tonight that with all due respect, this is an intramural debate.
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People on both sides are good and godly people. People on both sides believe all of the fundamentals of the faith, the virgin birth, and the deity of Christ, and the substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection, the second coming.
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I'm going to stop that just for a moment. Aside from the fact that the audio does not sync with the video, which is not my fault.
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I had nothing to do with it. What terminology did you just use? Substitutionary atonement.
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Now, to anyone, this is not an arguable point. This is a simple fact of history.
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Substitutionary atonement is Reformed theology. The Arminians specifically rejected substitutionary atonement.
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They have a completely different understanding of atonement. It's not a penal substitutionary concept, because they recognize that if Christ actually substitutes for anyone, then that person would, of necessity, have to be saved.
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They recognize that. And so, you have so many today who will, in ignorance of history, use terminology, fill it with a particular meaning, and not recognize that in so doing, they are, in essence, contradicting their own assertions on that particular subject.
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Now, when we get to the atonement, that's probably the most emotional of the discussions.
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But probably the clearest, biblically speaking, if you just would get into the text, which almost never happens, unfortunately.
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But that kind of terminology. But there's also a danger. I appreciate what he's saying. But there's a danger
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I've encountered many times. We live in a postmodern age where people are suspicious of dogma.
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They're suspicious of truth. And they're suspicious of anyone who will say, this is the truth.
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And as a result, what frequently happens is you hear people say, well look,
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I'm not going to worry about this stuff. Because there have been godly men on both sides.
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And what is it they're actually saying, without saying? What they're saying is, there really isn't an answer.
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The scriptures are not clear enough to answer this question. And that frightens me.
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Because once you've bought that, then how many other important theological truths of scripture are you going to say, well you know what?
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Arius had his arguments. Sibelius had his arguments. Athanasius had his arguments.
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Who's to really know? And you end up losing confidence that there is a divine truth that can be known.
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The scriptures are sufficient to address these things. And so while I appreciate what's being said, unfortunately what it can communicate in the postmodern context is, these issues cannot actually be resolved.
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And if the difference between God creating for the very purpose of glorifying himself in the redemption, the perfect redemption of a particular people, that's one side.
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If we can't tell the difference between that and the idea of a God who creates, and then tries to save as many as he can, but he's restricted by the freedoms of his creatures, and whatever theological system you want to develop, whether it's
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Molinism and Middle Knowledge, or whatever you can come up with, if you can't tell the difference between those two massively different visions of what
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God is doing, if the Bible's not clear enough to distinguish between them, then really what can it be clear enough to distinguish between?
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How much use can you really get at it? That's my concern. That we don't go there.
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And I don't think Norm's trying to say that, but a lot of people do go there. People on both sides of this issue believe all of those alones.
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Salvation by grace alone, and faith alone, through Christ alone, based on the
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Bible alone. But it is an important topic because it does bear on several very important doctrines that the
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Bible teaches, and so I'd like to share with you, and he's exactly right about that.
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It does bear upon those exact doctrines.
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Now, let me bring Norm down here, and let's, you know,
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I was going to, let me just summarize this and skip over it, because I was going to show it, but I don't want to,
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I don't want to go there right now. Dave spent some time talking about the shocking
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Roman Catholic connection, where he actually makes the assertion that Calvinism is a sort of a
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Jesuit plot, shall we say. It all goes back to the first super -Catholic
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Augustine. Well, again, this is what happens when you become an expert in six months.
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Quite serious, I'm sorry, but one of the things that's really concerned me about, especially
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Mr. Hunt's writings, is his willingness to use not only genetic fallacies, but to absolutely ravage
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Christians of the past, based upon his modern standards. All I can say to Dave is,
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I hope history is kinder to you than you have been to many people in history. I had the opportunity, starting as soon as I got out of seminary, to teach church history.
57:47
The first class I taught at Grand Canyon University was church history. I loved surprising the students who came in there waiting, just knowing they were going to get bored out of their skulls, and exciting them about the relationship that they have to the saints of the past.
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Church history is a fantastic thing. You've heard the saying over and over again, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
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Well, there's a lot of truth to that, especially amongst Christians. We keep doing the same stupid things.
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But because church history, for the vast majority of American Christians, goes back to Billy Graham.
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That's ancient church history. And he's still kicking for that for crying out loud. We really have no idea of our connection with the movements and the people of the past.
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And I think we're greatly impoverished because of that. I think we really are. I know you can get him out.
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And you see the churches with all these saints, and people praying in front of the saints, and all the rest of that stuff. Okay, that's the wrong sign.
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But there's things that we can't learn, things we can know. And he goes after Augustine. He says, he was the first Roman Catholic.
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And I just chuckle at that. Not only would he have not, Augustine might have known what that meant. I know what he's doing.
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He's going after the fact that in Augustine's, there were two great controversies that Augustine engaged in in his life.
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The first is called the Donatist controversy, which was an ecclesiastical controversy. The nature of the church.
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The nature of the sacraments. What makes the church a church? And then, of course, the Plagian controversy.
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What is the nature of grace and salvation? Donatist controversy came first. Years later, the
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Plagian controversy. And what he's doing is he's focusing on the Donatist controversy. And, without going into any more depth than this,
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I just remember, I believe it was also B .B. Warfield, who said, The Reformation, inwardly considered, was nothing more than the victory of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the church.
01:00:06
The Reformation, inwardly considered, was nothing more than the victory of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the church.
01:00:15
And what that means is, he recognized, and we all need to recognize, Augustine contradicted himself. I mean, if you wrote as many letters as he did, you would too.
01:00:25
But he developed one theory to defend his position in regards to the church that did eventually give rise to the medieval
01:00:35
Catholic system of the church. But his doctrine of grace was a different thing.
01:00:42
But for Dave Hunt, you don't get to go there. That doesn't matter.
01:00:49
And so, since he was the first Roman Catholic, well then, since Calvin quoted him over 400 times, then that means this all comes from Roman Catholicism.
01:00:58
Well, that's quite simply, on a logical level, muddled thinking. But, unfortunately, it is very common.
01:01:10
Now, both of these gentlemen in their presentations went through the five points.
01:01:18
I've said this before, but many of you weren't here when I said it. Even if you were, you don't remember it anyway, so I'm going to say it again.
01:01:25
It'll sound new. That's not enough. Five points is not enough.
01:01:33
Those five points are based upon the sovereignty of God, for example. God's absolute kingship.
01:01:40
His ability to rule and reign. Not only in heaven, where people go, well, you can do what you want up there.
01:01:47
But also here on earth. Last evening at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, I had the
01:01:53
Wednesday evening service. And so I spoke out of the 33rd Psalm. And in that 33rd
01:02:00
Psalm, you have the assertion that the people make plans.
01:02:08
They devise things. And God frustrates them all. His plans are established forever and ever.
01:02:17
Complete contradiction between the two. Man says, I'm going to do this. God says, no. But when
01:02:23
God says, I'm going to do this, man can say no all at once. God's going to do it. That is the biblical view of God's rulership.
01:02:31
And that becomes a foundation for so much else. Because when you look around, you look at what's happening in this world right now.
01:02:36
You look at Iran. And you look at her nuclear program.
01:02:42
And you look at what's going on in Afghanistan. And you look at the march of secularism across Europe.
01:02:50
And now through the very halls of our own government. And the temptation is to say,
01:03:00
God's lost control. Every generation has that temptation. Every generation sees its day as the worst day.
01:03:11
And I try to maintain some kind of objectivity at that point. But the reality is, either you believe that God has a purpose and he's accomplishing it.