Bunyan Conference Houston 2008: Session 4A

His way on the last segment of his third missionary journey and he heads down on the home stretch to Jerusalem and he wants to get there before Pentecost.

So he's in a hurry and doesn't stop in Asia Minor to visit the churches, bypasses

Ephesus and calls at the port of Miletus. And from there he sends for the elders of the

Ephesian church to join him there. And I'm sure they sent an advanced man, one of the elders probably, to get there and make sure that the

Apostle Paul was met, that his needs were taken care of and that he didn't say anything that got anybody else in trouble.

Well, that's been my role this week. I went to the port, the airport, and I met

James White and we've been seen to his needs this week. But my biggest role is to make sure he doesn't say anything that gets all of us in trouble.

But seriously, it's been my honor this week to be with him several times.

And I, like many of you here, have heard James White speak, read his books, listened to his debates and have been immensely encouraged by the stand that he continually makes for the truth.

In fact, in one of our conversations in the car this week, we were talking about how comforting and reassuring it is when you're like someone like Dr.

White who goes around and speaks to so many disparate different groups, different venues in this country and other countries.

It's very comforting to be able to just speak the truth. That way you don't have to remember what you said to one group.

You don't have to catalog the things that you said to another group. All you have to do is speak the truth and it's always consistent.

A couple of weeks ago, Brad and Dirk Littlefield and I made a trip to Baptist Church of the

Redeemer, a great Reformed Baptist Church here in Missouri City. And we were there for a farewell ceremony for Dr.

Jim Hamilton. And on the way down there, we were listening to a recording of a sermon by George Whitefield, the great 18th century open -air preacher.

And I want to read to you the first line of that sermon before I ask Dr. White to come. Please pay attention to this because I believe it does bear on tonight's subject.

The title of the sermon was called The Method of Grace by George Whitefield. And here's the first line.

As God can send a nation or people no greater blessing than to give them faithful, sincere, and upright ministers.

So the greatest curse that God can possibly send upon a people in this world is to give them over to blind, unregenerate, carnal, lukewarm, and unskilled guides.

We have been blessed by the truth this week and I trust we will this evening. Dr. James White.

Well it is certainly been my pleasure to be with you over the past number of days.

I would like to extend my thanks especially to the the elders of the Grace Reformed Baptist Church.

I have mentioned to them and I will mention to all of you, especially those of you who are members, that very rarely are things organized as well as the time that I spent with you this particular week.

Part of that is because one of those certain elders who remain nameless is really really good at organizing things and is a really detailed guy.

And in fact he had to be patient with me because he could sort of tell that months and months ago he's sending me these big long emails and it takes forever for me to get back because I had a bunch of stuff going on before then and it was sort of hard to think that far down the road and engage in quite that level of detail.

But we managed to make everything work really well. I can assure you that there are sometimes

I go home rather exhausted and glad to get there because you know details haven't been taken care of and I just haven't felt all that welcome.

That is certainly not the case this time at all. I really appreciate how well

I've been taken care of and I hope that that has been reflected in the ministry of the word as well. I think it does impact the person speaking as to how well they are able to communicate as well.

Now it was in one of those conversations that we came up with the idea for this evening.

It wasn't like the elders hadn't already asked me to speak on just a very sedate non -controversial topic called is

Arminianism heresy? I mean you know that's sort of like pulling the pin on a grenade and chucking it into a loaded room and seeing what happens.

And so as I was you know getting closer and looking at that topic I'm going you know

I could use a little guidance as to exactly how this is playing out in the context of Houston.

And so I wrote to Mike Thompson. I'm like well give me some ideas of you know what the relationship between the various groups there in Houston is like.

I think he could have written a book and I still probably wouldn't have gotten all the ins and outs of everything that goes on.

But I had seen on YouTube a sermon that was delivered

February 3rd of this year at Houston's First Baptist Church by Greg Mott and it was on the subject of Calvinism.

I'd only seen it, I'd only been directed to it about a week or so earlier and I had actually

I think played just a few moments of it on the dividing line. The first few moments that we'll see here.

And so I made reference to that and I said well you know what I do in my

YouTube videos is I play what someone says and I stop and I comment and back and forth. Would you want me to comment on that?

And I got a very strong affirmation that's what we wanted to do. I wish that we could arrange you know some of you know that in 2006 we tried to arrange a formal debate where Tom Askle and I were to debate

Eamier and Eric McCann at Liberty University and that got shot down in flames.

And I wish that that kind of thing could take place because honestly my experience with debate is that when you can get the two sides together and you get in the cross -examination that is where the people benefit the most from hearing how the two positions can actually handle interaction with the other.

If you don't have that then you have the one group over here giving their sermons and one group over here giving their sermons and people can remain confused until the two sides will get together and dialogue.

It is very difficult to really hear what the issues are and it has certainly been my experience that I'm willing to engage in those kinds of dialogues.

I've done those debates but the vast majority of those who are the strongest critics of Reformed theology are simply unwilling to engage in any meaningful open discussion of the subject.

They only want a monologue, they do not want a dialogue. And I have become convinced after many years and I have challenged the names are big and the list is long of the people that have been invited to engage in meaningful debate on this subject and you know a lot of people want to say well

I just don't want to get into an argument. Look I'm finally to the point in my life where I can say I've proven that I can do debates that are respectful and biblically based.

There isn't any reason for anybody to say well you know nothing could ever come of that. No that's simply not the case.

I would love to get some of the big names who love to in essence mock

Reformed theology to sit down and to have to go through John 6 verse by verse with me.

The fact of the matter is I truly believe they know they can't do that and that's why they don't do that and that is something that is very very telling.

Now this evening I'm going to be playing about 85 % of this sermon. What I've done is

I have put the clips together and then they fade out and I will stop at that point make commentary and move on.

There are a couple places where I've inserted some biblical texts. I do this without any sense of saying that the man whose work

I'm critiquing here is not a brother. I am not sending this gentleman to the flames of perdition or anything of the kind but I think what he represents is an attitude today that I that should be troubling to us in light of what we've done up to this point.

Why? Well the fact of the matter is when you have an audience as large as the the number of people that were undoubtedly gathered in that building on February 3rd of 2008.

I believe that we as elders those who have been given the privilege of standing before the people of God and opening the word of God have a responsibility to model for the people of God how they are to handle the word of God.

We are to model through the seriousness of our study, through the seriousness of our presentation, through the accuracy of our not only our handling of the word of God but the accuracy that we demonstrate in making commentary on other viewpoints and other positions.

A number of you have had me sign the potter's freedom and though Dr. Geisser has accused me of misrepresenting him if you look at his appendix and actually look at the potter's freedom

I can say without fear of contradiction that the one thing I never did the potter's freedom was misrepresent

Norman Geisser. I documented his position to the hilt. I bought books back into the 1970s going all the way back to his first publications to document exactly what his position was and in fact

I'll just tell you a little inside story here just to illustrate to you how this often happens. In the appendix that I don't believe he wrote

I believe he had undergraduate students write that appears in the second edition of chosen decree he accuses me of purposely misrepresenting him because at one point

I quoted his book and the quotation said these are verses that that teach and then it said limited and I put s -i -c atonement and he says see my book says unlimited atonement here

I'm being misrepresented. In reality what happened was chosen but free is published by my publisher

Bethany House Publishers. How many of you have seen who has the the god who justifies right right down here a number of copies the god who justifies the same editor who edited that that edited chosen but free same editor and so what had happened was while I was working on the podcast freedom

I came to this section and the first printing of chosen but free from Bethany House Publishers it says these verses teach limited atonement but then it introduces a whole section where he gives all of his verses about unlimited atonement and so I called the editor because he's a friend of mine and I said um could you look at this this does not make any sense to me this looks like a typo and he gets the book out

I hear silence on the phone he goes no man uh yeah yeah it's that's this is supposed to be unlimited atonement thanks for that I'll turn it and we'll get it fixed

I'm the one that found the error I turned it into publisher they fixed it in the second printing and when

Dr. Geisler or I believe his grad undergraduate students got around to writing the appendix they used the second printing which was corrected by yours truly and then used that to accuse me of misrepresenting

Dr. Geisler that is the kind of of argumentation in fact amazingly in that appendix over 25 percent of the page references the potter's freedom are wrong they're not used to writing anything

I honestly and I made this point when I reviewed it honestly had the last time

I'd seen that bad of argumentation in that many pages was when I had read new age bible versions by Gail Ripley that's how bad that appendix is that's why

I'm convinced he did not write it and I can give you other reasons why I believe he did not write it but we won't go into that right now some of you see my interaction with Dave Hunt some of you see my interaction with George Bryson I attempted to get the people who use the loudest voice to criticize reform theology to engage the subject it is next to impossible to get them to do so they want a monologue not a dialogue and so we are forced to give a response like this in this type of a context now let me just make one more comment before we begin it would be a lot easier for my ministry if I was not reformed in my understanding of God's sovereignty

I was a member of a large Southern Baptist church and when you're a member of a large

Southern Baptist church opens a lot of doors for a ministry opens a lot of doors for support it opens a lot of doors for places you can go and make presentations and so on and so forth and let me guarantee you when the

Potter's Freedom showed up on bookstore shelves or more a lot more to the point not on bookstore shelves but on at CBD and Amazon and so on and so forth when that book came out doors slammed in my face there are national radio programs

I used to be on regularly I haven't been on for 10 years now well more like eight years now and it's a shame but that's what happens when you take a stand on issues like this but I am

I have to be reformed because as an apologist the exegetical method the hermeneutics that I use to defend the

Trinity to defend the deity of Christ the person of the Holy Spirit the resurrection the inspiration of the hermeneutics that I use to defend those things forced me to be reformed

I have to adopt a completely different kind of interpretation of the

Bible to avoid its plain assertion of the sovereignty of God and salvation it is amazing to me to listen to people who can on one subject present such an in -depth and consistent interpretation of scripture that when they come to this one subject to those biblical passages that touch upon the will of man all of a sudden their entire hermeneutical method changes and that is the sign of tradition the sign of tradition is when someone will be consistent in the way that they interpret the scriptures until one point then all of a sudden everything changes that's what you've encountered that's what you've encountered the part of someone's life where their tradition is superior to their commitment to the text of scripture

I am forced to believe these things on the same grounds that I'm forced to believe in the doctrine of the

Trinity I'm using the same exegetical methodology and so these issues are very important as we will see as we listen so I've had a number of you say that you you know

Greg Mott and uh that uh the Aggies in the audience are going to be wincing a number of times this evening and uh uh that's okay you'll you'll make it through uh

I honestly have forgotten all my Aggie jokes uh that I once heard because I never really understood why they're irrelevant anyways but now that I'm here

I wish I remembered them but it could have been very enjoyable but uh we will we will skip that so let's um

I'm starting right from the beginning because one of the most amazing statements was made within the first 30 seconds of this presentation so uh it'll be projected on the screen hopefully we'll be able to hear it very clearly the most important milestone that we could have well salvation is something that awes us and doctrine is something that confuses us salvation is something that awes us and doctrine is something that confuses us there's uh there's the first statement and that's what

I played on the dividing line salvation is something that awes us and doctrine is something that confuses us now on one level

I understand what he's trying to say but it frightens me because how can you define the word salvation what is salvation is it not the doctrine of salvation it most assuredly is and so this whole idea and in fact the entire sermon in essence presented the idea that this is one area that honestly it really isn't at the heart of anything what you believe about this it really doesn't matter and it's sort of up to a church to sort of decide well we're just going to sort of go this way but you know no one really knows because we've been arguing about this for 500 years well actually it's been a lot longer than that uh his grasp of church history is not overly strong at that point but it's sort of like you know this is just something that that young people like to argue about and once you get mature you just don't worry about it anymore that's the idea that is being presented salvation awes us because we delve into its depth and we can never plumb the depth of the wisdom of God that has been revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ and to say doctrine confuses us is to remove this subject from the subject of salvation itself that somehow what you believe about this well it just doesn't really matter that much and yet what was the first written debate of the reformation the first written debate of the reformation was between Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus and what was it on the freedom or the bondage of the will and in that debate

Luther identified that subject as the hinge upon which the entire reformation turned and so to say well it's just it's just something that confuses us we really don't need to be all that concerned about it uh

I think this leads the people and leads them to think that well you know we really don't have to invest a lot of time and effort in this particular subject and of course if you try to cover it in one very brief sermon like this which includes sermon illustrations like dropping t -shirts from the rafters and ropes from the rafters at the same time uh to be honest with you that's not enough time to do a decent introduction let alone to pretend that you've actually covered the subject and yet for many people that's about as deep as they want to go which may reflect much more about the people in the pew than it does about the person in front of them because as a former college minister

I've encountered this many times this isn't a new topic for me this is a very old topic for me

I've heard this many many times what about this what about that I think the resurgence that has come around is particularly in those that of the younger generations it's because life is so gray there's no absolutes in a postmodern world everything is changing and everything is gray everything is a little bit wielded together melded together and well what's the truth on that what's the this on that so they want to be able to find what's the one thing let me find this or about that well

I don't necessarily disagree with the fact that amongst young people there is a desire to know what the truth is the question is does the bible reveal what the truth is with enough clarity for us to be able to say and in essence

I think the answer he's going to be giving is no it doesn't I agree that young people want to have clear answers but I don't think that's the reason for the resurgence it's not just amongst young people

I think the reason amongst the the reason for the resurgence as pastor brad would tell you is the conservatives drumming in there by his head the bible is the inspired word of god it is god breathed read it well you know what when you do there are these texts like romans 9 and john 6 and john 10 and john 17 ephesians 1 and you read you read the apostle paul going

I endure all things for the sake of the elect and you start going you know this there seems to be a theme somewhere in here

I remember I remember one evening at that large southern baptist church I read through romans 9 in a systematic theology class a christian doctrines class on a wednesday night and I had one one night my experience was a person got up and walked out in offense because I read romans 9

I hadn't commented on it yet but I remember another fellow talking to me after class one night after I did go through it and after I presented the sovereignty of god and I'll never forget his words to me he said you know

I haven't read romans 9 before and I remember thinking to myself that sounds like predestination but I know we don't believe that so it must be something else

I'll get to it eventually and I think that's the mindset of a lot of christians they hear us saying read the bible read the bible be in the bible and if you're going to do that then you're preaching had better represent you know basically what's there from the text too and very often it's uh it does not it's a college ministry

I would see students come to A &M Texas A &M where I was and their freshman year they kind of maybe heard of Calvinism they maybe once or twice heard but they thought it was a spin -off of the cartoon called

Calvin and Hobbes that's what they thought it was they weren't real sure what it was but they heard of it then their sophomore year they read a book on it then their junior year they're an expert on it they want to take anybody to their view at this point they're ready to tell you what their view is and why they did it how you need to come on either side of the argument and then their senior year they didn't care anymore because they had to get a job find a wife and find a husband it didn't make a bigger difference and that's probably how the four groups that we would have even here today well um

I think there are a few here you hear today who would probably give testimony that becoming a senior and needing to get a job did not mean you stopped thinking about theology uh you you uh don't quite fit into those particular categories um

I'm sure that you know I a friend of mine actually developed this term he called it caged stage

Calvinism and I've met a lot of caged stage Calvinists that's that person who just got done reading

Arthur Pink's The Sovereignty of God and is now carrying a box of them around under his arms and is chasing everyone down that's ever been in any church with them and beating them over the head repeatedly with uh uh with the sovereignty of God trying to save the world from dreaded

Arminianism and that caged stage Calvinist would be better served in a cage before he hurts himself and everybody else in the process that's why we call it caged stage

Calvinism and you need to have some maturity little growing up seeing that this belief actually impacts all of life

I'm not really impressed by caged stage Calvinists if you're still a Calvinist and you've grown 10 years from now

I'll be impressed but uh the caged stage part you know anybody can get really excited about something but I've seen too many people then wander off into something else to get overly excited about that kind of thing uh

I understand he may have encountered some people like that and who got real excited about something and then moved on to something else but to limit uh the discussion in that way given the fact that once we get into his presentation of it and it's not overly accurate and it does not show any meaningful familiarity to any serious reformed theology at all uh it does not bode well for the accuracy of what's going to be uh what's going to be presented well number one two ground rules number one there are godly intelligent people that I call friend and brother on both sides of this issue issue there are godly intelligent people on both sides of this issue

I call him friend I call him brother I know a lot of people that believe differently than I believe and that's great that's okay

I would tell students I'd say look anything that's been thought about for 500 years you're not going to come up with the answer in college station

Texas why not uh is there is there something is that an angry joke um you know when

I first heard that I was like so the truth of god on whether salvation is something in which he perfectly saves to his own glory or tries to save and fails repeatedly is a truth that is that is beyond being able to be discovered in college station

Texas what you don't have the word of god in college station Texas Aggies can't read the word of god but what's the problem

I don't understand it I mean I know what he's saying he's saying well there's been arguments and it closed from the first part and I understand to say well there are godly intelligent people there may be but that does not mean that one side is that both sides are right or that there is somehow both sides are wrong and there's immediate position

I've heard that used as an excuse to avoid dealing with this issue over and over and over well there's godly people on both sides you can be a godly person and still wedded to your tradition and when people say well look at this great guy he did great work in the trinity and he wasn't reformed well

I don't know until I look at a person's writings whether they ever seriously interacted with this particular issue let's face it it hasn't always been the issue down through church history and so it's really easy to say well here you know the early church fathers they believe this that everything yeah but were they actually thinking about this was this the central issue they were studying and if it wasn't is their testimony really overly relevant to this

I would suggest to you it's not and so to say well there's godly men of all sides this issue okay

I will certainly agree that there are people who have disagreed with Calvinism who have godly lives and have been used of the

Lord no question about that does that make the issue somehow less important no why not because when you listen to what most of those today that we would say you know the

Lord used this individual he used them in their inconsistency my fellow elder has a statement

I'm sure he didn't make it up but I first heard from him God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick in other words thankfully

God uses imperfect people like me to his honor and to his glory and that doesn't mean that because he uses me in one area that everything

I say in every other area is necessarily true and so this idea that was godly men on both sides that's not the point the point is what does the word of God say and who is giving place to their tradition and in so doing making void the word of God that has to be the question that should be the issue not well you know there's been nice people on both sides

I call people friends what I'm glad he calls people friends or reform that doesn't change the reality of the issues and once again

I just want to make sure that anyone's here from College Station Texas you can know the truth of God in College Station Texas you don't have to move uh you don't have to you know go someplace else the truth of God is true wherever it is even in College Station Texas this is not going to happen there's a reason people have been fighting about it for so long and studying about it for so long and writing about it for so long so that's our first ground rule there's godly intelligent people on both sides there secondly our second ground rule this is not a test of fellowship this is not a test of fellowship this isn't the virgin birth this isn't the resurrection of Jesus this isn't

Jesus died on the cross it isn't the deity of Christ it's not the inerrancy of the word it's not any test of fellowship well many people would like to ask you know what does it mean test of fellowship um

I can have fellowship with Greg Mott on many issues but could

I could he seriously allow me to minister from the pulpit there on a regular basis could he minister regularly in my church on a regular basis you see in essence we recognize that there are different levels of fellowship and in our church we have a confession of faith and to become a member of our church the elders meet with you and they ask do you have any issues with the confession of faith and it's the

London Baptist Confession of 1689 um he would have to very honestly say yeah

I reject most of it at least as what it says about salvation and Greg Mott could not be a member of my church he certainly couldn't be an elder there he wouldn't be allowed to teach that doesn't mean that I that I'm saying the man's not a

Christian but the fact of the matter is it seems that in his mind and in the mind of most uh coming from the same mindset this is just a little issue out here that has no impact upon how the church exists and how the gospel is proclaimed and you and I know that's not the case you and I know that proclaiming a gospel of a sovereign god proclaiming a gospel that is a command and then an invitation is different than preaching a gospel that is never a command and is only an invitation there is authority behind a command but when you make man in essence the sovereign of salvation that changes everything it changes how the gospel is presented it changes what the end of the gospel is

I would suggest you that changes worship it changes the the function of the church how the church is formed it impacts everything and so to say well it's not a test of fellowship what you mean by that is we don't we don't say that all the calvinists are non -christians

I'm glad that he doesn't do that I know people who do believe it uh I appreciate that but that again just shows that the issues go far beyond I think the level uh that uh has uh has looked at in that now the history behind this it was during the protestant reformation time that was about 1531 is when that happened and in this time there was a man named john calvin and there was a man named jacob arminius if you've read much church history um you you know that you're sort of scratching your head at that point going well actually the the protestant reformation generally is marked as starting in 1517 with martin luther and john calvin uh we're not exactly sure the date of his conversion it's probably somewhere around 1531 1532 somewhere in that time frame he's a second generation reformer but the problem is jacob arminius was four years old when calvin died uh and so I don't think that the elderly statesman calvin was sitting around having lengthy theological discussions with the four -year -old jacob arminius um and and so again you're you're it seems very clear that uh that our speaker here is going on second and third hand information and the fact of the matter is there's some really bad books out there on this subject

I mean just bad uh vance's uh work uh the other side of calvinism and bryson's the dark side of calvinism

I can't help whenever I hear that oh it's just unbelievable and uh of course what love is this which we like to call what research is this you know there's just there's just so much really really really bad stuff out there that unfortunately is uncritically picked up by people

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people just mouthing what they've read from these books he's been quoting from olson's horrible little book on this subject and these are the same people who at least you know in written form at least dave hunt did something george bryson at least did debate uh

I think he demonstrated why the rest of them don't but uh most of these folks who write this stuff and there there's no serious interaction with with reform theology at all it's just a straw man caricature type burn it and and say you know avoid those terrible comments so the church history part there isn't overly correct there's no interaction between calvin and arminius of course uh and the dates weren't quite right either but we were within the right century which is better unfortunately than most evangelicals normally these two guys that's john calvin the long beard he's kind of this easy top guy on the left and then the big collar guy that's jacob arminius okay these two guys began to talk about theology they began to lay out their theology now people will try to make you fight about calvinism or arminianism they make you be one or the other that's real hard to beat because there's actually three different types of calvinism and five different forms of arminianism and so you end up with all these different things in calvin and arminius were not as calvinistic in arminianism as they are today their followers in the next generation took it in systematizing now i confess i'm not really certain what he's talking about this point um they started talking about theology well yeah i guess that's what was going on in the reformation is there was some talking about theology but um i don't really think that it's overly descriptive of of the uh the background and the conversation led to synod of dort and so on and so forth uh we should have had you bring your your uh thing in from the wall you could show the synod of dort and stuff like that uh but uh you you listen to that and you go there's one thing we can agree with there uh and that is uh second generations after a particular movement begins or writer is there do tend to systematize that makes sense the first generation doesn't address every question uh there are questions raised after calvin dies or or even after arminius dies and there is a systemization but i have no idea what he means by five forms of arminianism the three forms of calvinism uh maybe one of the books he read you know makes a reference to uh certain uh perspectives developed by reformed theologians and certainly there are differences uh amongst reformed theologians you know turrets and indifferences in the westminster confession of faith and the westminster assembly and they disagreed over issues i i have no idea what he's referring to with that one but i don't think it really has anything to do with the fundamental issues uh that are being presented at this point in time but the point that he's going to make is they try to force you to be one of the other and of course uh norman geisler tried to create this category of extreme calvinism so he could be a calvinist but he's just not an extreme calvinist which of course would pretty much make uh most of the followers of arminius calvinists and that sort makes the whole discussion rather irrelevant so the the the desire here uh most of the time is for people to go i don't want to be extreme on anything no one wants to be called an extremist right you know we talk about islamic extremists well you don't want to be a christian extremist is you want to be in the middle well the problem is if the issue is either x and not x being in the middle really isn't a rational place it is an inconsistent place and over and over again as i've taught over the years i've told my students look i'm not telling you to believe what i believe i'm telling you to be consistent in what you believe and it may be very uncomfortable for you to examine your theology for consistency but i think god is honored when we do so i don't believe god is honored by muddled thinking and if he's given us his word should we not apply our best to the understanding of his word should there be anything else in this life that we give our best to other than his word itself that's a question i would ask of any christian so people will try to point you on one direction or another you either gotta be a calvinist or you gotta be an arminian well neither is standing before you here today to be able to go one way or the other is not the right again neither is standing before you today well he's at the end he's gonna call himself a 2 .5