Back to Jerry Vines' Match Book for the Straw Man

desert metropolis of phoenix arizona is the dividing line the apostle peter commanded christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence our host is doctor james white director of alpha omega ministries and an elder at the phoenix reformed baptist church this is a live program and we invite your participation if you'd like to talk with doctor white call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the united states it's one eight seven seven seven five three three three four one and now with today's topic here is james white and good morning welcome to the dividing line on a tuesday morning last dividing line for about uh...

twelve days or so i guess maybe well actually two weeks from today so good uh...

good two weeks off here uh... sorry about that huh yeah it's going to be a while so uh...

anyway uh... i was happy reformation day to you and uh...

i was looking at the blogs i was looking at my blog role this morning and uh...

my rss reader and all the reformed blogs had justification by faith martin luther reformation day the five solos blah blah and i got to my own catholic ones that it was pumpkin carving and application uh...

and i get uh... uh... uh... yep i would uh... i would say that uh...

yes that's uh... that's uh... fitting fitting uh... thing there anyway i uh... last week had uh...

started looking at emir canners sermon at uh... thomas roe baptist church and i and i then decided that then we decided that thursday night this thursday evening at uh...

the conference in orlando uh... tom askew and i are going to be basically doing the presentations we would have used uh...

in in lynchburg and uh... then we're going to be discussing uh...

how we would have responded to various things the canada senate so i've put together a bunch of clips for those you complaining about the distortion go over the other feet will will fix it someday but right now it's not working so go to the feet but one about thank you very much this will serve as an out there uh...

because he was in the archive you have no idea what that's about but we've got to be is going to one of them isn't working right for some reason we don't know why and everybody's is willing to do it there's a major may it work and there's a lot of boom pop you know just going to be dead and you know just to skip over and i can ascending major the world's like an end so uh...

anyway uh... what was i trying to say oh yes i so we're gonna be doing that on uh...

on thursday night and so keep doing that right now uh...

because then those of you who listen to this uh... then are going to here the same thing twice so i don't want to do that so i'm gonna go back to the jerry vines uh...

issue the jerry vines presentation and then uh... you know if we have enough demand for it or there's no interest of for it uh...

couple weeks now we can uh... we can finish with the emir canister there wasn't really that much there i mean uh...

you know it it's it's the same all same on at least doctor vines is is a little more organized you know uh...

there must be some clock you know what it must i bet you it's a little bit like when you go to metropolitan tabernacle when you're at times for about search now let me too let me explain i mean that uh...

the the the at the metropolitan tabernacle you really are encouraged to uh...

stay within your time frame okay now i'm i'm good at that and anybody who's had me at a conference knows i'm the guy the tries to get you back on track you know somebody else to go way over and so i'll cram my stuff together and i'll do anything i can to try to get a conference back on its time schedule i'm not the guy blown the time schedule off the map that's i'd just i don't think that's fair to anybody else so uh...

you know when you're told forty minutes you have forty minutes okay i understand that something tells me because of the television stuff and things like that there's some big mean nasty looking clock somewhere down front because we know something if you listen to both the canner uh...

sermons the one from back in the game this year and now the email can or what did you notice something it's it's almost like you took a uh...

like adobe addition or one these programs to use to edit sound on your computer and you you squished the last five minutes so it sounds like it's a little bit of the size of the chipmunk you know type of thing and and it's just are sounding like your voice is going up and you're talking about the president and that's almost like what they're doing not maybe again it's just simply the way you're supposed to do things where you just build to a crescendo and you're yelling and screaming right at the end and then you go silent for a second and everybody stops and listens and then you make your big point because he's a whosoever kind of god or you know whatever whatever is coming maybe that's just simply a technique or something i don't know or you're you're watching that last minute going down to the last few seconds and boom there you are so uh...

i don't know which one it is but that's sort of how both of both of them did dr vines sermon is a little more organized you can actually follow it a little bit better than you you could in your canner sermon which i it was very difficult to follow it up and uh...

so look at that and uh... then of course uh... the reason aren't any more dividing lines is were heading out i'm heading out tomorrow morning uh...

tomorrow evening will be having uh... dinner at uh... the orlando mcdonald's he he he he uh...

you know command it wasn't aware of that uh... yet but uh... no i'm i'm sure will probably not be though now i know i'm making a connection mcdonald's and i flew into orlando for the each yes meeting in nineteen ninety eight uh...

the only dinner i got uh... you know the man doesn't wanna go mcdonald's the only dinner i got uh...

i asked uh... the folks are picking up at the airport to run me through the drive -thru at mcdonald's that's i don't know why it is that this year orlando airport mcdonald's are just sort of forever welded in my brain for for some odd reason but uh...

anyhow so we're gonna be there and of course conference starts on thursday uh... all day friday and of course the debate is friday night saturday we're off into the uh...

into the sunset on uh... on the holland american uh... holland america vietnam and uh...

so it's gonna be uh... it's gonna be it's gonna be fun to be a lot of work got a lot of i've got a lot of work yet to do uh...

i'm gonna be working on the plane american is indeed sleeping for me are we are we seated near each other do you have you have you noticed you have no idea i could buy call the wifey and have that taken care of and make sure that we're not how uh...

in fact i don't know i'm not sure if i want to go on this but this this flight if you're going to be working on it uh...

working on it on top i'm not gonna be working on that i don't work on it uh... thanks a lot push the right button i'm multitasking so anyways uh...

no i think we should get a real mechanic on the plane we need to uh... you need to be very nice to me today because i can without telling you uh...

call my wifey and put you in the middle seat between two nfl linebackers who haven't bathed in a week uh...

that would be uh... uh... aren't those middle seats fun though on and they're just they're just enjoyed anyways so we're heading out and it's uh...

obviously a friday night's going to be going to be wild uh... there's just no two ways about it's how do you debate with a non a person who believes in a non theistic god how do you do that i'd you know uh...

the pride and have to start a pretty basic point at that point to try to explain all that so let's i continue on anyways uh...

uh... eight seven seven seven five three three four on his phone number but anyways we're gonna start with the jerry vines uh...

sermon picking it back up this was i believe october eight if i'm recalling correctly now and uh...

uh... this was a sunday night sermon i'd believe at uh... first baptist church of woodstock in the georgia and uh...

this is that jerry vines former president of the southern baptist convention talking about uh...

well remember the series was uh... liberalism calvinists charismatics and drunkards uh...

uh... something tells me we're going to hear some single sermons but all four points together that great dangers facing the southern baptist convention liberals calvinists charismatics and drunkards uh...

i don't know there's a something sort of odd about us and sixty nineteen days issued the canons of dork and in those canons they give the five basic tenets of calvinism and from them we now draw our famous acrostic tula t -u -l -i -t total depravity t unconditional election u limited atonement l irresistible grace i perseverance of the saints p this came to be known as reformed theology the doctrines of grace by the way there is evidence in the writings of calvin that calvin himself did not subscribe to all of the five points of calvinism now wonder who we've been reading maybe we've been reading some guys learn some hunts and maybe we're actually only talking about one controversy in regards to his consistency in regards to limited atonement but there is no question of any of the others so why don't we just be straightforward and say well there are people argue that calvin didn't believe in limited atonement it wasn't the argument of his age it wasn't the issue of his age you can quote him in favor of it you can quote him saying things that don't seem consistent with it at all and there you go but what does that supposed to mean i don't know but evidently they consider it to be a uh...

uh... and and arguments of uh... weight now you will hear both sides of the issue quoting it calvin because there is on clarity uh...

at this point and i've honestly never heard uh... eric in canner according to happen i've i've seen some bad quotes of calvin that that are misrepresenting what he's saying it but i've never seen uh...

i'd why would this folks on the phone call anyways now in the seventeenth century the westminster confession was basically built upon the canons of dort from which our presbyterian friends draw their basic doctrine of reformed and covenant theology then we trace into the baptist movement a number of confessions there are the london confession the philadelphia confession the new hampshire confession and these uh...

statements of faith bear close resemblance to many of the five points although there is no clear -cut evidence that that that just in their confessions of faith ever truly subscribe to everything that the five points of calvinism would teach i'm sorry but you gotta remember i go to a church where when you take the hymnal out it's a trinity hymnal and in the back is the sixteen eighty nine london baptist confession of faith and i'm sorry but uh...

you you you you're seriously trying to suggest that's not a five point calvinist document uh...

i'm sorry but that that's just that's just not even that that that's not even close it's you you have to be preaching this to someone who's just not gonna check you out on this point and uh...

did doctor vines check this out i don't know can't tell you know uh... are we using secondary sources don't know i'm sorry that's just that's just it's just wrong there have been great baptist who were calvinist, william carey, luther rice, the missionaries charles haddon spurgeon for years i read at least one sermon of spurgeon every week and it is possible to quote spurgeon on both sides of the issue wait a minute both sides of what issue you said he was a calvinist so what do you mean that he was inconsistent with himself or are you saying that he was an arminian and a calvinist and he would contradict himself let's be clear as to what we're talking about here there are times you read him and you think well sure enough he's a calvinist and other times you read him and you say well he might be an arminian and that's why you will find in the literature that people quote spurgeon on both sides of the issue just like they do calvin actually what we find is people grossly misrepresenting uh...

spurgeon and ripping his stuff out of context we've caught dave hunt at that numerous times now moving into our southern baptist life our church here is a southern baptist church our pastor doesn't dwell on it any more than i dwelt on it when i was a pastor we just happen to be a baptist church affiliated with southern baptist convention they have absolutely no authority over us we believe in the local autonomy of the church we believe that we answer only to god we believe that the denomination exists for the churches and not the churches for the denomination but southern baptists through the years have had a series of confessions that have been known as the baptist faith and message now get ready for the two source theory again which by the way they've been doing a series of articles on this particular subject on the strange baptist fire website in response to that whole idea and things like that the baptist faith and message was revived in the year 2000 i was on the revision committee that presented this 2000 revision of the baptist faith and message statement there are elements of calvinistic doctrine there of course because there are elements of new testament truth in calvinistic doctrine but it is very very difficult to prove that there has ever been a time in history or today when the majority of southern baptists were what we would call five point calvinists and exactly why would you have to prove that the majority were five point calvinists if the doctrine of theology amongst the leadership of the founding of the denomination were reformed and if it's there and there were other people who weren't okay no one argues that issue but why would you have to when did this majority stuff have you noticed this is happening a lot you're seeing all this stuff well you know 70 % say no and it's sort of like american democracy is now determining new testament theology

Dr. Paige Patterson my friend Dr. Hunt's friend president of southwestern seminary says that there have been two tributaries from which the southern baptist river flowed here's your two source stuff first baptist charleston south carolina the charleston south carolina association stream and the sandy creek north carolina stream charleston was more calvinistic in its emphasis sandy creek was more evangelistic and missions oriented now notice the attempted contrast between calvinism and being evangelistic in these folks minds there is a difference between the two and remember for them evangelism is arminian evangelism for them evangelism is appealing to the free will of man they can't understand the idea of a proclamation like what we see in the testament where you command men everywhere to repent but you are not attempting to grant to them autonomy over god or control over god but that's the mindset that takes place then was the charleston stream though there is interchange on both sides the majority of southern baptists are not five point calvinists lightweight research recently released a poll in which they said only ten percent of southern baptist pastors emphasize or embrace the five points of calvinism for the most part southern baptist pastors and southern baptist people have a mixture of calvinism and arminianism in what they believe that's a nice way of saying they are inconsistent they hold to beliefs that are fundamentally inconsistent with other beliefs that they hold to which is why this issue won't go away because people don't like when they are shown that they are inconsistent they don't like that and therefore the controversy arises but he's right the vast majority of southern baptists are inconsistent in this issue they will believe in eternal security once saved always saved but they have no foundation for that within their soteriology itself in recent years it does seem to me there has been especially among the young an increasing number in the calvinist count several reasons for this i think one thing is a reaction to the shallowness and moral confusion and weak commitment of seeker friendly theology i think another reason is it is a reaction to dead churches maybe i think it's also due to the internet and the availability of the writings of previous generations it is also because many have attended conferences and have listened to very popular and very articulate spokesmen for calvinism others have been influenced by the schools which they have attended that would be a reference to southern seminary and people like john piper, john mccarthur, r .c.

sproul, etc. i had a young man from our first baptist church in jacksonville born and bred, brought up under our ministry there went away to a school, not a southern baptist school by the way earned his phd, became a professor of one of our southern baptist seminaries but moved further and further away in his doctrine from what we believe to the point that he embraced reformed theology is now a professor at a reformed school and if he has not already, has announced his plans to baptize his babies to be sure they are in the covenant well, i guess i'm going to have to send dr.

vines my most recent debate to demonstrate that that's not necessarily always what takes place i have a good pastor friend, i was with him on friday of this week a rural pastor here in the state his son went away to a school and there became influenced by reformed theology left the baptist denomination and he is now a member of a reformed denomination but for the most part, southern baptists do not embrace a five point calvinism now then, let's do a little theological exposition are you with me now?

this is tough for me you've got to pray hard for me now, i'm working on this thing i plan to get through about 9 .30,

so help me now i'll get hungrier than that by then let's do a little theological exposition and we're going to talk about the five points of calvinism but before we do, we've got to take a little look now at this tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility because when you read your bible, it seems clear that both are taught in the scriptures now for instance, when you read your bible it seems very very clear that the bible affirms divine sovereignty, that God is sovereign for instance,

God is above all things, Ephesians 4 .6 God is before all things,

Colossians 1 .17 God created all things, John 1 .3

God knows all things, Hebrews 4 .13 all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do

Isaiah 46 .10, declaring the end, God declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times of the things that are not yet done

God can do all things, Luke 1 .37

for with God nothing shall be impossible God is in control of all things,

Daniel 4 .35 and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand are saying to him, what doest thou?

God is in control of all things, that's very clear in the bible now, the big question will be will there be a limitation placed upon the realm

I know he's saying all things, he just read Daniel 4 and Daniel 4 is clear it asserts that God himself is in control in human affairs which involves necessarily human decisions it's going to be there, it's right there, that's what sovereignty means when you start looking at the outflow of sovereignty and the outworking of sovereignty in human affairs not over just about nations and kings but also within the individual life

God has control of the king's heart and not just the king's heart, but since he was the most powerful man everyone below him as well

God turns the heart as he pleases you have God sovereignly acting in human affairs will that be allowed or will we have a philosophical construct not the responsibility of man but the autonomy of man which are not the same thing you can believe that God in his sovereignty holds man responsible for acting upon the desires of his heart without then granting to mankind some form of autonomy without granting to man some form of action where he can become synergistically involved in his own salvation and things like that is that what we're going to hear?

well, that's why you have to stay tuned but now it is possible to push this matter of the sovereignty of God that God is in control of all things to extremes now the philosophers call it determinism now let me stop just a moment if you've said

God is in control of all things how can you be more extreme than God is in control of all things?

what's beyond that? if he's in control of all things the only way to be less extreme than that is to say he is only in control of some things isn't that the connection?

it would seem to be but somehow we now have this all means some type of an assertion being made

I won't go into this too much I minored in philosophy in school which means I know absolutely nothing about it but the philosophers talk about determinism and they have a hard determinism and a soft determinism the hard determinism would say that everything is caused by God if you follow to that extreme if you go to that extreme then where you end up is this is that God is the author of sin and when

God becomes the author of sin that means God was the author of Adam's sin God is the author of your sin and if God causes it and blames us for it it turns

God into a monster am I right? now, not exactly a hopeful start for a discussion of theodicy the relationship of God's sovereign will to man's sin and the grounding of divine foreknowledge or anything else not much of a when you start with your conclusion which rejects any form of compatibilism which rejects any form of divine decree including the evil of man within it when you just throw all that out to start with that's not overly encouraging that there's going to be any kind of helpful discussion going on here at all and if you will not even just honestly say to individuals look, the other side denies that they're making

God the author of sin they have a very full discussion of the relationship of God's will and man's will and the certainty of God's will and how he can hold man accountable for things that are certain in time and they go through all this but you know what?

I just don't want to talk about all that but I'm going to be honest enough and let you know that they've actually put a whole lot of effort into this and they've got a lot of biblical argumentation and really if we're going to work through this we're going to have to look at what happens in Genesis 50 and in Isaiah 10 and Acts 4 and we're going to have to actually deal with this stuff but it's a whole lot easier evidently in this template and like I said last week there's this template there's this just standard sermon here's the things to talk about here's what you say about them and it just seems to be being faxed back and forth between people hey, could

I have the Calvinism sermon this week? you know, type of a thing and it all comes out of primarily

Dave Hunt and a few other sources and as a result it's a mishmash of pretty much worthless stuff and I just don't understand why we don't get folks who will actually interact with our position in a meaningful manner it's extremely frustrating but it also you know, you can't help but go you know, if you can't find folks to do that there might be a reason it might just be that the reason is that they can't and that might, you know be taken as indicative of something right now on the other hand there is this matter of human responsibility when you read the

Bible it seems very clear that man has a will and is responsible to God for how he uses that will now, no one would argue that but since he seems to think that's contrary to what we believe then obviously he's functioning under a straw man understanding of Reformed theology which we see over and over and over and over and over again in the

Garden of Eden God said to Adam in Genesis 2 .16

of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat listen to that thou mayest freely eat that sounds like free will doesn't it?

okay so we go to a pre -fall situation and say, see?

free will and of course at that point I want to ask this is why we try to get folks to actually debate these issues how did

God know what Adam was going to do as a free creature? this is what the open theists ask if God knows what he's going to do with that free will then it can't truly be free it can't truly be autonomous and that's why they deny to God the knowledge of the future now, as a

Southern Baptist you can't believe that well, I'll take that back as a Southern Baptist you can't believe that and be consistent with the

Baptist faith message supposed to be consistent here and so he's not going to say that God didn't know so how did

God know? and we're once again reduced back to the two views that are prevalent amongst these folks and the truth and that is

God knows because God's decree forms the very fabric of time and the events therein or you have

God passively taking in knowledge of what takes place in time he tossed the cosmic dice it came out a certain way hey, that's good we'll go with it and glorify me as a result but you can't get to ask these questions when all you have are monologues rather than dialogues and what they don't seem to understand is remember what he said earlier there's been a resurgence amongst young people one of the reasons that resurgence amongst young people is that when young people start thinking these things through and they bend their young, fertile minds with all that energy of youth to these things they're finding that their their leaders are not answering these questions that they're giving fallacious shallow, unsatisfying answers to these questions and as long as they keep doing that that kind of resurgence is going to continue they need to recognize they need to come up with they can't keep dodging this stuff this kind of sermon only creates more

Calvinists because it doesn't actually answer the questions after the fall of man the will of man has been damaged

Norman Gosler says after the fall the faculty of will has been effaced but not erased and as we have documented

Norman Gosler is wrong to allege that Calvinists believe that it has been erased he is an error unrepentant error but documented error anyways because Calvinists do not say that the will of man has disappeared but that man's will is enslaved to sin there's a difference it has been limited but not lost man still has a will now there are three wills in the universe if you'll get this this will really help you there are three wills in the universe there is of course

God's will Matthew 6, 10 thy will be done there is the devil's will the devil's got a will 2

Timothy 2, 26 it talks about those who are taken captive at his the devil's will and then there of course is man's will

Revelation 22, 17 whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely now man may exercise his will in harmony with or against God's will does this take away from the sovereignty of God?

of course not listen to this a sovereign God now listen to this a sovereign God can give man any faculty he chooses and he has chosen to give us the ability to choose now again basic, straightforward, synergistic rejection of the

Reformation agreement with Roman Catholicism and its view of man's will as being not enslaved to sin not dead but instead still capable evidently in some way, shape or form hopefully by some operation of prevenient grace at least in a sort of semi -Pelagian fashion to cooperate with grace and to make the proper decision we haven't heard much of any

Biblical discussion as of yet we can still hope of course for all of those passages that talk about man's slavery to sin man's deadness in sin and those passages that make it so painfully obvious that the will of God is of a totally different type than the will of the creature

I mean the very ontological difference between God as God and God as unconditioned by his creation he is not limited by that which he has created he has not been diminished by his creation the fact that he is

God and therefore his will partakes of that divine nature and man's creatureliness and indeed fallen man's relation to Adam and therefore his entering into existence under the wrath of God and in a fallen state it sounded to me like those three wills were being put on a par with one another and yet even from just a simple ontological discussion of the very nature of God and man they could not be and are we then having it suggested to us that what a sovereign

God has done is he has given to his creature an autonomous will equal to his own how do you come up with this kind of stuff from the

Bible in light of the Bible's clear teaching not only on the sovereign freedom of God but then upon the deadness of man the fact that man is incapable of doing all these things the

Bible lists but you don't hear a discussion of those things you don't hear the discussion of man's total depravity and his fallen nature you don't get that part that part just sort of disappears and here you have really the insertion of the fundamental tenant of man's religion and that is the concept of the autonomy of the will without that then all of man's religion that seek to control

God's grace would become really useless and that's why it's so important to man's religions to insert these things in which means ladies and gentlemen you remember old

Flip Wilson and old Flip every time he'd get in trouble he'd say what the devil made me do that but ladies and gentlemen the bottom line the truth of the matter is we are morally responsible for our choices because God is the one who has given us that faculty of choice in his sovereign plan and that is not something that any

Calvinist would ever disagree with however what the Calvinist would disagree with is that means that man's capacity to choose is therefore outside of grace free and morally neutral it isn't what do you do with Jesus' statement that no one is able to come to me unless the father who sent me draws him what do you do with Paul's statement that those who are according to the flesh cannot do what is pleasing before God they cannot subject themselves to the law of God what do you do with those statements what do you do with the prophets with Jeremiah's discussion of the sinfulness of the heart and the leopard spots an evil man cannot change these things this is just simply what happens when you bring philosophy in and then quote a few texts to support your philosophical underpinnings and you don't try to make a fully biblical theology so ladies and gentlemen when we sin who makes us sin we make ourselves sin does this give man the final say no

God sets up the rules we just operate within the rules which the sovereign God has set up this does not mean you can save yourself you just simply freely receive what

God has offered act 1631 believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved now

I'm sorry but there is no relevant connection between what was just being discussed in act 1631 at least not to someone who has some dim idea of what's actually being discussed here the leap there was massive how in the world did we get there we only got there by ignoring all the passages

I mean I was going to stop and if you haven't looked at these passages go back and do a search in a dividing line for where we have taken the time to work through the words of Genesis 50 -20 where Joseph in talking to his brothers recognizes their sin and yet in recognizing their sin and all the things they did to him and the deception of their father and selling him into slavery and the lies that went on for years and years and years said you meant this for evil

God meant it for good in parallel in the Hebrew language you cannot separate those two phrases from one another their intention was evil but in the very same act

God intended those actions and you can't escape the fact that God intended

Joseph to go to Egypt in the way that Joseph went to Egypt that was

God's intention now were those actions sinful yes, deal with it deal with it it's right there on the page either rip it out and stop believing it or deal with it

God intended Joseph to go to Egypt in the way he went to Egypt to go through the things he went through for a purpose the reason that Joseph could become the man that he was was because of what he went through it's because of the suffering and the fact that he suffered evil at the hands of even his closest family members that was

God's intention to save many people alive that day that was

God's purpose that was God's intention that's what compatibilism is that is

God's intention in that action though it was a sinful action was pure and holy

God has the right to use condemned sinners and his creatures as he sees fit and he saw fit to send

Joseph to Egypt in the way he did and his motivations are pure and he cannot be charged with evil yet at the same time that is no excuse for his brothers these were not innocent men standing there going oh, we want to embrace our brother

Joseph no, God had to restrain them from killing him he restrains their evil uses that element of the expression of their evil that he allows for his glory and for his purpose does not bring his wrath upon them instantly and yet we whine and complain oh,

God can't do that God used those brothers and those brothers were guilty of sin they would have been guilty of worse sin had he not restrained them how's that for your quote unquote free will but he still used them for his purposes and his glory get over it it's right there in the text read it for yourself and believe it it's right there and that's just one of them you can go back to Abimelech you can go to Isaiah chapter 10 read

Isaiah chapter 10 and tell me you don't see compatibilism with God using

Assyria to punish his own people to fulfill his covenant promises made back in Deuteronomy 28 the blessings and the curses and he brings his people against his the

Assyrians against his people and then he judges the Assyrians for what they just did and you go, that's not fair if God brought them down well, again these are not innocent people these are not people that are wanting to oh, we want to do the right thing we don't want to go against anybody the

Assyrians, for crying out loud they were bloodthirsty he uses them to punish his people but because they do so out of the pride of their own hearts and their own lives and they're haughty and exalted in their own hearts and in their own thinking

God then judges them one action the punishment of Israel by Assyria the invasion by Assyria of Israel the destruction, the rape and the evil that took place

God had said if my people behave in this fashion this is what's going to happen to them he justly brings judgment upon them but then because of the attitudes of the heart of those who engage in this activity

God judges them and if you don't see it in the

Old Testament in all those passages please explain to me how you understand the prayer of the early church the prayer of that those individuals and I love it that this is so far before the development of any quote unquote higher theology this is the primitive church gathered in prayer after persecution comes against them

Acts chapter 4 verse 27 for truly in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant

Jesus whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur that's in your

Bible if you claim to be a Christian you believe that's God speaking deal with it don't ignore it don't put it off to the side don't say there must be an answer for this and my pastor will tell me someday that's called being a papist the pope will tell me about it someday my priest will tell me about it someday no we rejected that on this reformation day a long time ago

God has given you his word and he's not going to accept your excuses well

I just don't like dealing with this stuff it's too challenging you're saying the spirit of God has revealed in his word things that he shouldn't have revealed no that's not the truth

God's word says listen to the people in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant

Jesus, whom you anointed look at who's there, Herod there's an evil guy

Pontius Pilate, there's a spineless guy along with the Gentiles, those are the Romans and the peoples of Israel that's all the scribes and the

Pharisees and the Sadducees that's a mixed group with all sorts of different agendas and desires and yet what they did and they did different things, didn't they?

the role that each one of them took in the crucifixion was quite different I mean some of those

Roman soldiers Jesus was just someone to beat up on they didn't know anything about his teaching, they didn't care they weren't like the scribes and the

Pharisees who had heard his teaching and had the word of God firmly applied to them and they had become hardened in their hatred

Herod just wanted to see some magic tricks Pontius Pilate was a chicken all had different motivations all were coming from different perspectives but what did the early church pray?

to do whatever your hand and your what?

your purpose your hand, your purpose predestined to occur that's vital stuff you've got to deal with it you've got to deal with what it says you can't just pass over it you can't just ignore it you can't just simply say alright

I'll think about this some other time not if you're going to accept what Dr. Vines is saying you have to test what he's saying and I would like to think that he at least would ask you to test what he is saying

I don't know how he'd respond to those texts I don't know how he'd respond I don't know every time we've reviewed these these high end leaders the

Southern Baptist Convention, preaching against Calvinism I've seen no evidence that they've been faced with these things I've seen no evidence that they've seriously struggled with these things if they have they certainly aren't bothering to give us the answers they've come to but they're there those texts deserve a greater hearing and a greater respect than to simply be dismissed in a cavalier fashion free will so there they are, there's attention alright now then let's go into the matter of these tulips let's tiptoe through the tulip for just a few minutes ok so there is where he's going to begin with the tulips we have a phone call,

I'm going to stop it there just in case we don't get back to it because it'll be an easy starting place because we've already heard total depravity at least in its reformed understanding misrepresented and then denied so it will be interesting to see where he goes from there with that so let's take a quick phone call here, let's go down to Roger, hi

Roger how are you doing? oh good thanks just wanted to say thanks for your work here

I've been listening in and it's real good enjoy it my question had to do with compatibilism and how you're saying that God was judging the

Assyrians for their hardness of heart and I just wanted to know where those attitudes came from well you're talking about the

Assyrians? well I'll sit here and keep waving real wide here to help the board up anyway sorry it's hard to answer the phone while you're waving where did they come from as in they outside of the

Assyrians heart or what? you're saying that God used them and put that hardness in their hearts or did they harden their own hearts well

I mean with all things God predestines all things I'm kind of the question of well

God uses the people but then you said God judges them well listen to what the text itself says woe to Assyria the rod of my anger and the staff in whose hands is my indignation

I send it against a godless nation and commission it against the people of my fury to capture booty and deceased plunder and to trample them down like mud in the streets yet it does not so intend nor does it plan so in it's heart but rather it is it's purpose to destroy and to cut off many nations for it says are not my princes all kings is not

Carcomish or Hamath like Arpad or Samaria like Damascus as my hand has reached the kingdoms of the idols whose graven images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria shall

I not do Jerusalem in her images just as I have done Samaria in her idols so it will be that when the Lord has completed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem he will say

I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness for he has said by my power by the power of my hand and by my wisdom

I did this for I have understanding and I removed the boundaries of the peoples and plundered their treasures and like a mighty man

I brought down their inhabitants and my hand reached the riches of the people like a nest and as one gathers abandoned eggs

I gathered all the earth and there is not one that flapped it's wing or opened it's beak or chirped and then

God asks a question of the Assyrian king is the axe to boast itself over the one who chops with it is the saw to exalt itself over the one who wields it that would be like a club wielding those who lift it or like a rod lifting him who is not wood therefore the

Lord God of hosts will send a wasting disease among his stout warriors etc etc so the desires of the

Assyrian heart were arrogant they were sinful and because they flowed from that heart

God punishes those desires where did they come from they came from an evil heart okay where did the evil heart come from their fallen sons of Adam so that happened outside of God that God had no sovereignty there's nothing that happens outside of God there's nothing that happens outside of God but you have to recognize the difference between the idea these are innocent men who have these pure loving hearts for God and he rips out these pure loving innocent hearts and inserts sinful thoughts instead

God has had to be restraining the evil of these men's hearts all along I just want to go back to the original thing where God ordains and decrees all things and turns men's hearts now doesn't what you're saying now kind of semi contradict what you were saying earlier where God is the author of what men do

I'm not trying to get what I'm saying is man's responsibility does not presuppose his free will man's responsibility to God presupposes

God's sovereignty not man's free will when you say that God will punish the

Assyrians for their evil deeds and things God ordained them to do those things to illustrate the fallenness of man so we can learn from that well remove those desires from the providence of God by saying well

God will punish them because they saying that I did that to robbing God's glory God purpose them to do that for our benefit our education well

I would not say that I would say that in this the only thing you can substantiate from this text initially is that he ordained this as the means by which you would punish his people there is a secondary application that because this is recorded in scripture then it becomes for our benefit and so on and so forth but the immediate application within the context of the text itself is the punishment of the people of Israel but the

I don't see where I contradicted myself in recognizing the difference in a primary action and a secondary action or a first mover and a second mover or anything like that where was

I lost where the contradiction was well when you say that God turns men's hearts but he did not turn the

Assyrians hearts to their hardness basically the Assyrians were punished for hardening their own hearts but if God is the primary mover

I mean I don't see the difference between the first and the primary and secondary causes I guess you don't see the difference between well

God causes all things right and turns men's hearts okay but you need to again the difference between the first and second is that he's dealing here with sinners who are already

God haters and he's restraining them from evil so it's not a matter of well who made them

God haters again they're the fallen children of Adam so they are born that way but it's not like they were it's not like they were innocent individuals that God then turned no of course not but I'm saying

I'm trying to get to the point where you know who causes all things right but who causes and who reveals his causation of all things as involving other forces and secondary means

I mean the scripture makes that very clear it is the denial of those secondary means that leads to hyper -Calvinism that leads to men being mere puppets that God just simply programs and turns into robots and that's that's not what we believe oh no of course not

I fully believe man is responsible for what he does not because he is free but because God is sovereign and holds him responsible for what he does

I want to emphasize it's vitally important to recognize that the grounds for God's holding men responsible is

God's choice to do so it is not some external standard of rightness that exists outside of God to which he somehow is accountable or is to be held exactly

I agree but taking back to why these men were the way they are God purposed them to be the way they are and God purposed

Adam to sin well God purposed them to be the way they are because he did not purpose to show mercy or grace to them and so to say that I think people need to understand that that the only way that someone could be anything other than the way the

Assyrians were is if God graciously extends mercy and changes their hearts takes out the heart of stone gives a heart of flesh and God is under no obligation to do that and he in fact did not do that for Egyptians and Babylonians and Assyrians and all sorts of other nations anciently but God ordained them to have their hearts of stone also just as he did not ordain them to show him his grace and he also ordained that those hearts of stone would exist for a certain period of time for his purposes in other words he did not just immediately bring his judgment justly to bear upon their sin and that would be an extension of common grace to them but not salvific grace so I think we're on the same page as far as that goes just concerning that it sounded like that you were removing

God from the process of these people's hardened hearts where God creates all men the way he wants them and uses them according to his own purpose no

I don't think that especially when we use the term hardening especially since that harkens back to the

Exodus story Pharaoh and Romans 9 I think in that situation you have a special case of hardening because of the plagues coming against Pharaoh and you have both

God and Pharaoh hardening his heart though God had told Moses before he ever got to Egypt I am going to harden

Pharaoh's heart and I have a purpose for that and that is I'm going to demonstrate my power in the destruction of the gods of Egypt and so on and so forth so there was no need to harden the

Assyrians hearts any more than they were already hardened it's not like there was a direct parallel there because Pharaoh just simply to escape the boils and the frogs and everything else could have softened his heart against the call to let the people of Israel go just simply to save his own skin and God literally had to keep that from happening because he wasn't done with the plagues yet so that's a little bit different than the

Assyrians who just basically walked over northern Israel and Israel itself because they were such a massive military power they didn't need the same kind of hardening to take place in that context so just because we have a lot of people listening who might confuse those contexts

I wanted to emphasize the difference there hey thanks a lot Roger God bless alright that takes us right to the end of the program today and so that's going to be it until November 14th

November 14th two weeks from today Lord willing we should be back be able to pick up with the

Vines discussion or might have all sorts of interesting things to talk about from the cruise and debate with John Shelby Spong and everything else so Lord willing be back on the 14th pray for us as we're gone as we continue to seek to defend

God's truth and we'll see you on the 14th God bless brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries if you'd like to contact us call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

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