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In the final session of the 2008 Conference I played the 2/3/08 sermon of Gregg Matte, Houston's First Baptist Church, on Calvinism, and replied.
The last segment of his third missionary journey, and he heads down on the homestretch to Jerusalem, and he wants to get there before Pentecost. So he's in a hurry, he doesn't stop in Asia Minor to visit the churches, he 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 advance 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, a great 18th century open-air preacher. And I wanna 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 has certainly been my pleasure to be with you over the past number of days. I would like to extend my thanks especially to 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 some times I go home rather exhausted and glad to get there because 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 who's 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, that's sort of like pulling the pin on a grenade and checking into a loaded room and seeing what happens. And so as I was 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 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 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 Askell and I were to debate Emir and Ergin Kanner 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 a 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 in 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 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, 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 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 number of people that were undoubtedly gathered in that building on February 3rd, 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 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. Geisler 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 at the Potter's Freedom was misrepresent Norman Geisler.
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 but Free, he accuses me of purposely misrepresenting him because at one point I quoted his book and the quotation said, these are verses that teach, and then it said limited, and I put S-I-C, atonement.
And he says, see, my book says unlimited atonement, and here I'm being misrepresented. In reality, what had happened was Chosen but Free is published by my publisher, Bethany House Publishers. How many of you have seen, who has The God Who Justifies?
Write down here a number of copies of 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 for 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, could you look at this? This does not make any sense to me. This looks like a typo. And he gets the book out, and I hear silence on the phone, and he goes, no, man, yeah, yeah, this is supposed to be unlimited atonement.
Thanks for that, I'll turn it in, we'll get it fixed. I'm the one that found the error. I turned it into the publisher, they fixed it in the second printing, and when Dr. Geisler, or I believe his 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 argumentation. In fact, amazingly, in that appendix, over 25 of all the page references to Potter's Freedom are wrong. Didn't I use the right page? 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 have seen my interaction with Dave Hunt.
Some of you have seen my interaction with George Bryson. I have attempted to get the people who use the loudest voice to criticize Reformed 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, it opens a lot of doors for a ministry. It 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 to the point, not on bookstore shelves, but 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 Scripture, 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, and then all of a sudden, everything changes.
That's when you've encountered someone, that's when 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 know Greg Mott and that the Aggies in the audience are gonna be wincing a number of times this evening, and that's okay, you'll make it through.
I honestly have forgotten all my Aggie jokes that I had once heard, because I never really understood why they were relevant anyways, but now that I'm here, I wish I remembered them, but it could have been very enjoyable, but we will skip that.
So let's, 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 it'll be projected on the screen, hopefully we'll be able to hear it very clearly.
Most important milestone that we can 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 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, 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 gonna 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. 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 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 something that confuses, we really don't need to be all that concerned about it, I think misleads the people, and leads them to think that, well, 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, 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, it's particularly in those that are 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, well, what's the one thing? Let me find this or my 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 gonna 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 for the resurgence, as Pastor Brad will tell you, is the conservatives drummed it in there by his head. The Bible is the inspired word of God. It is God breathed, read it. Well, you know what, what do you do?
There are these texts like Romans nine and John six and John 10 and John 17, Ephesians one. And 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 one evening at that large Southern Baptist church, I read through Romans nine in a systematic theology class, a Christian doctrines class on a Wednesday night. And one night my experience was that a person got up and walked out in offense because I read Romans nine.
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've read Romans nine 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 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 gonna do that, then you're preaching had better represent, you know, basically what's there from the text too.
And very often 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 spinoff of the cartoon called Calvin and Hobbes.
That's what they thought it was. They weren't real sure what it was, but they had 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 believe it, and 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 and find a wife and find a husband.
It didn't make that big of a difference. And that's probably how the four groups that we would have even here today.
Well, I think there are a few of you here today who would probably give testimony that becoming a senior and needing to get a job did not mean you stop thinking about theology. You don't quite fit into those particular categories.
I'm sure that, you know, I, a friend of mine actually developed this term. He called it cage-stage Calvinism. And I've met a lot of cage-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 The Sovereignty of God, trying to save the world from dreaded Arminianism.
And that cage-stage Calvinist would be better served in a cage before he hurts himself and everybody else. That's why we call it cage-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 cage-stage Calvinists. If you're still a Calvinist and you've grown 10 years from now, I'll be impressed. But the cage-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.
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 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, does not bode well for the accuracy of what's gonna be presented.
Number one, two ground rules. Number one, there are godly intelligent people that I call friend and brother on both sides of this issue. There are godly intelligent people on both sides of this issue.
I call them friend, I call them 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 gonna come up with the answer in College Station, Texas.
Why not? Is there something, is that an anti-joke? 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 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 in College Station? 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 in 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 wed it 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 believed this, that, and 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 that it's not.
And so to say, well, there's godly men on both sides of this issue. Okay, I will certainly agree that there are people who have disagreed with Calvinism, who have lived 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 it 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, well, there's 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, and I call people friends.
What? I'm glad he calls people friends who are reformed. That doesn't change the reality of the issues. And once again, I just want to make sure that if anyone's here from College Station, Texas, you can know the truth of God in College Station, Texas.
You don't have to move. You don't have to go someplace else. The truth of God is true wherever it is, even in College Station, Texas. It's just not gonna 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 dying on a 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, what does it mean, test of fellowship? I can have fellowship with Greg Mott on many issues, but 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. He would have to very honestly say, yeah, I reject most of it, at least as of 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'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, 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 to you that it changes worship. It changes 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, but what you mean by that is, 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 me. I appreciate that, but that again just shows that the issues go far beyond, I think, the level that Dr. Mott 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.
Well,.
If you've read much church history, you know that you're sort of scratching your head at that point going, well, actually, the Protestant Reformation generally is marked as starting in 1517 with Martin Luther.
And John Calvin, we're not exactly sure the date of his conversion, but 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.
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. And so again, it seems very clear 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. Vance's work, The Other Side of Calvinism, and Bryson's The Dark Side of Calvinism. I can't help whenever I hear that.
I go, ah. You know, it just, you know, unbelievable. And, of course, What Love Is This, which we like to call What Research Is This? You know, 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 gonna be 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. I think he demonstrated why the rest of them don't. But most of these folks who write this stuff, and there's no serious interaction with Reformed theology at all. It's just a straw man, caricature type, burn it and say, you know, avoid those terrible Calvinists.
So the church history part there isn't overly correct. There's no interaction between Calvin and Arminius, of course, and the dates weren't quite right either. But we were within the right century, which is better, unfortunately,.
Than most evangelicals normally would do. These two guys, that's John Calvin, the long beard. He's kind of this easy, tough 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, and that's real hard to be, 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. And Calvin and Arminius were not as Calvinistic and Arminianism as they are today. Their followers in the next generation took it and systematized it.
Now, I confess, I'm not really certain what he's talking about at this point. 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 I don't really think that it's overly descriptive of the background and the conversation led to Synod of Dort and so on and so forth.
We should have had you bring your thing in from the wall. You could show the Synod of Dort and stuff like that. But you listen to that and you go, there's one thing we can agree with there, and that is second generations, after a particular movement begins or a writer is there, do tend to systematize.
That makes sense. The first generation doesn't address every question. There are questions raised after Calvin dies or even after Arminius dies, and there is a systemization, but I have no idea what he means by five forms of Arminianism or three forms of Calvinism.
Maybe one of the books he read makes reference to certain perspectives developed by Reformed theologians, and certainly there are differences amongst Reformed theologians, turrets and indifferences in the Westminster Confession, faith in the Westminster Assembly, and they disagreed over issues.
I have no idea what he's referring to at that point, but I don't think it really has anything to do with the fundamental issues that are being presented at this point in time, but the point that he's gonna make is they try to force you to be one or the other, and of course, Norman Geisler tried to create this category of extreme Calvinism so that he could be a Calvinist, but he's just not an extreme Calvinist, which of course would pretty much make most of the followers of Arminius Calvinists, and that sort of makes the whole discussion rather irrelevant.
So the desire here most of the time is for people to go, I don't wanna be extreme on anything. No one wants to be called an extremist, right? You know, we talk about Islamic extremists. Well, you don't wanna be a Christian extremist.
It's you wanna 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 in 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 thing.
Again, neither is standing before you today. Well, at the end, he's gonna call himself a 2 .5-point Calvinist, and yet to do so, he's gonna have to redefine total depravity, redefine unconditional election, and come up with a view of perseverance and saints no reformed person would ever hold.
He's a zero-point Calvinist. He's an Arminian. But there seems to be a natural revulsion to that term, and so I don't wanna know. I can go with about 2 .5 points. And this doesn't make any sense to have to redefine terms.
Just be straightforward. He isn't reformed on any of these points whatsoever. And I think the fear is, well, once you take a stand, now you gotta somehow defend it, and you don't wanna be doing that because you've got vacation Bible school this week, and that's far more important anyways, and that's really the thought process.
That goes into a lot of this. It says this, a great quote that I love. It is in Gord Olson's Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism. It says this, the Bible gives us a theology which is more human than Calvinism and more divine than Arminianism and more Christian than either of them.
Well, I have pointed out that Beyond Calvinism is a really bad book as well, and again, when you find books that bend over backwards to redefine the position that they are critiquing and then engage in some really outrageous exegesis to try to create a middle road, be warned.
You have once again encountered someone's traditions, and they are defending those traditions, and that's what Olson's book does.
But people try to point you in one direction or the other. There's this T-shirt I saw. I wish I had this T-shirt to show you, though. I wish that I had it. Oh, hey, there it was. In God's sovereignty, he allowed me to have the free will to ask for the T-shirt that came.
Amazing. Drop it from heaven. It says this on the T-shirt, the front. Calvinism, this shirt chose me. On the back, chose this shirt. People try to put you in one of the two camps. They want you to be one way or the other.
They can't handle sometimes, if it's in their immediate view of it, of saying, you know what? Here's some things that are right here.
Here's some things that are right here. Now, someone last evening had that shirt on, and I had thought for sure he had had that made up just for the sermon, but I guess it's a real shirt that you can buy someplace.
And I guess that shirt is an attempt to sort of recapitulate an illustration that I had heard as a young man that my dad had shared with me that was popular at Moody Bible Institute, and that was it was like a gate in a wall, and the gate is inscribed on the outside, who's whoever will may come, and when you walk through the gate and turn around and look at it, it says, you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
Similar type of concept, I would imagine, as far as the experience of salvation. I'm not sure, but I must confess that my church is not big enough for anyone to hide in the roof to drop T-shirts on me to make illustrations, and I'm not really certain anybody else would wanna be up there right now, so I'm not gonna have anything dropping out of the roof today.
They missed, too, which I know is,.
I'm sure that was providential. We are called first to be Christians, not to be Calvinists, not to be Arminians, not to even be Baptists, but to be Christians first. It is Jesus Christ that saves our soul, not a denomination and not a person.
If the initials JC draw your mind to John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ, you've gone too far.
I really get bugged by that one. I have heard it so many times. I've heard it from Bryson and Hunt, and it seems to be sort of part of the Arminian template to say that people get so wrapped up with John Calvin.
I'm not wrapped up with John Calvin. It's sad that people think, well, you're, and he's gonna get into this right now, that you're following after a man. I'm not following him. In fact, it really demonstrates an ignorance of church history to think that, well, John Calvin, you're all about John Calvin.
No, you know what? Calvin systematized this at the time of the Reformation over against the prevailing errors of Roman Catholicism, and as such, I'm very thankful for his work, and the institutes are an incredible monument to Christian thinking, and certainly he was one of the most intelligent Christians that ever lived, and great use of the church and all those things, but this issue long preceded him.
You can go back to Augustine Pelagius, and you're gonna have all the major outlines of this stuff being dealt with, and have we all forgotten Gottschalk? Yeah, most of us have, and have we all forgotten Wycliffe and Busse, and the fact that there was a long tradition of this, the Augustinians had been debating this kind of stuff for a long, long time, to try to just pin all of this on Calvin is, I think, really a ruse.
You notice he didn't say anything about, and if the initials J-A, I guess that just doesn't fit with Jesus or something there, but it's clearly sort of a part of a template to try to, in essence, demonize the use of the term Calvinism, well, you're following a man.
It's a description of an understanding of the word of God, and I know there are people who don't like those. Well, you know, you don't wanna be of Apollos. Well, what's going on in Corinth, as you'll see here in a minute, is not the same thing.
They were creating parties not based upon differences of an understanding of theology, but who was a greater person, and who was associated with a greater minister of the gospel or something like that.
I'll be perfectly honest with you. I think that happens a whole lot more in Southern Baptist circles with the big names in the big seminaries, and it has nothing to do with theological descriptions of historic theological positions that deeply impact the worship and life of the church.
Corinthians chapter three, verse three. You are still worldly, for there is jealousy quarreling among you. Are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For one says, I follow Paul, or I follow John, and another says, I follow Apollos, or I follow Jacob, Calvinism, Arminianism.
Are you not mere men? What, after all, is Apollos, and what is Paul? Only servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord has assigned each to his task.
I'm sorry, I just consider that a complete misuse of the text in this context. You know, someone develops a party spirit, and they're just doing this for the sake of division, that's one thing, but we're talking about theological descriptions of important issues as to whether God is absolutely free in salvation, and Jesus Christ is a perfect Savior that never fails, modern Judaism, over against a synergistic concept where Jesus Christ tries to be a perfect Savior, but he fails over and over again because he hasn't been given the right and authority to actually accomplish what the Father would have him do.
I think those are important issues. That's not a matter of Apollos received this or anything else, and I think that belittles the real situation.
Let me define a couple words. The word elect is believers in Christ. The word elect is believers in Christ. It is a biblical word, it is a true word. Everyone believes, on either side of the argument or the debate, everyone believes that the elect are those who will be in heaven.
The question is, well, who has the opportunity to become the elect?
Now, again, I am left a little befuddled by this kind of presentation, because if there's been any serious study of the topic, you know that that is not nearly a sufficient definition to even get close to the meaning of the word.
To say the elect are believers, doesn't the very term elect, in any language, contain something about choosing? And so to say this is just believers who'll be in heaven, and are they given a chance to believe, is to miss the whole point of the actual word itself.
Give you just one illustration from the text itself. I love to ask Arminians, when I get a chance to actually ask them questions, 2 Timothy 2 .10, the Apostle Paul, in passing, says, therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, those who are chosen, is another translation that you'll find in, I think, the New American Standard at that point, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
Well, wait a minute. If the elect are believers, they've already obtained salvation, haven't they? The elect are the ones for which Paul says he endures everything, shipwreck, and beating, and the fighting in and out of the various cities he goes to, and the people who stand against him and oppose his message, and he says, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
What motivated that man? To get up in the morning and to continue on. Can you imagine how he felt the day after being stoned? I mean, I went shooting with the brother yesterday morning, and I was shooting an op six, and I'm doing okay today, but if you punched me in the shoulder right now, I wouldn't appreciate it, because I put 40 rounds through it, and I'm sort of feeling it.
Can you imagine what Paul felt like after being stoned? Every part of his body felt a whole lot worse than that, and yet he got up and he kept going. What motivated him? What motivated the first missionaries, who, by the way, were Calvinists?
What motivates those who today have to work in lands like India and Pakistan, where you see one convert in 10 years? What motivates them? I hope and pray it's the same motivation I have had. We went to Salt Lake City, and we witnessed to people, and we passed out tracks, and we had people out there, and I'll never forget this vision.
Not a vision like that, but what I saw. Don't worry, don't worry, it's okay. There wasn't any caffeine in my drink. I'm not getting parasitic on you, but I'll never forget, we were at the south gate of the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City.
This was back before they built the meeting house across the street, and you could cover everybody going in and out of only three gates, so the small number of people, you can cover everybody, and it was fairly early in the morning.
It was a fairly quiet time at that point in time, and I saw my son. He hadn't had his growth spurt yet, so he was still a little bit, and he and I were both wearing Rush Limbaugh ties. Remember Rush Limbaugh ties?
And in fact, before you mock Rush Limbaugh ties, I forgot to tell you this story this morning. Before you mock Rush Limbaugh ties, that same day, my son and I were standing next to each other, and we saw a man coming, and the one thing about Rush Limbaugh ties, you see the Rush Limbaugh tie long before you see anything else, and I saw a man walking in a suit toward the south gate, and I could tell he had a Rush Limbaugh tie on.
I couldn't even tell you which one it was, and he saw us because he saw I had a Rush Limbaugh tie on, and my son had a little 14-inch clip-on with Rush Limbaugh ties on, and so by the time I could make out facial features, he's smiling, and we're smiling, and because of that, he took a track.
You know who it was? Senator Orrin Hatch. Wow. And he was wearing a Limbaugh tie, and so were we, and that's how we got a track on, so don't mock my Rush Limbaugh ties. But this was earlier that morning, and I remember this man walks by me, and I realize he's moving pretty quick, and so I turn around because I know Josh is right around that area, and I see that he has stopped in front of Josh, and he's towering over the kid, and he takes a track from him, and immediately he does the wrist flip to see where it's from, sees it's not from the LDS Church, and he did this before I could have gotten to him because the parental instinct sticks in.
He takes it, he tears it in half, grabs my son's little white shirt, opens the pocket, and stuffs the track in his shirt, and then pats it and walks past him into the conference, and I sort of stood there, and I looked at Josh, and he was just like, he had never had anything like that happen, and I just walked up to him, and I said, well, son, that'll probably make the rest of the day easier.
You've gotten your first rejection over. The nervousness is over. Well, we had a little discussion because a lot of people didn't like us being there, and a lot of people said mean things about us, and people would spit on tracks and throw tracks on the ground and all the rest of this stuff, and I explained to him, son, everything we do is to God's glory, and these tracks, they go out for salvation, and they also go out for judgment, and there are gonna be people who someday are gonna have to answer for what they did with that track and what they did to those who tried to tell the truth, but son, we may not see it today, but down the course of time, we're gonna hear about people who were saved because of what we did here today, and I have, just two weeks ago, someone directed me to a, I'd never heard this fella, he never contacted us, they directed us to an online recording of a fellow who was talking about how he'd come to know Christ, and he was a foreign worker, and he said, well, there were these people from Alpha Omega Ministries outside, and they were passing out these tracks, and I decided to prove them wrong, and I took their tracks, and I went to the library, discovered every single thing they said, and that track was absolutely accurate in its citation of the original sources, and that's what started me on the road out of Mormonism.
I'd never heard of him, had no idea, and so, you endure all things for the sake of the elect. I don't know who the elect are. I wish, I've said many times, I wish I could put on special glasses that would make the elect glow green, and that I'd only have to pass out tracks to certain people.
I wouldn't have to worry about the reprobate, that would be wonderful, but we are not given that knowledge, but it did not change the fact that in Paul's mind, he endured all things for the sake of the elect, knowing that he was an instrument in God's hand in bringing those elect people to salvation in Christ, and that motivation is gone in Arminian theology.
It's not there. You no longer have an elect that God uses you to draw to himself, and he's gonna do so powerfully and without fail, because let me tell you something, from the world's perspective, going up to Salt Lake City like we did for 18 years, and the only reason we're not doing it now, King James only radicals showed up as signs and ruined the entire opportunity.
They were so noxious, so nasty, they'd stand there, not only would they go after us, but they'd stand there, and this is what they think is preaching. It shouldn't be Mormon, it should be moron! That's what they think is preaching, and they destroyed that opportunity.
Mormons have tried for 18 years, the King James only Baptists did it in about three sessions. They managed to get rid of us because the whole atmosphere was poisoned, but what we did, from the world's perspective, for 18 years, was foolishness, because these are the hardest people in the world to win if salvation is a matter of me convincing a sinner to get right with God.
But if you believe that God has a select people amongst the Mormons who need to hear the gospel, that wasn't the silliest thing in the world to do at all, was it? In fact, it gives you great confidence.
You don't have to shave off the rough corners of the gospel. You don't have to try to convince people to do something. You proclaim God's truth, and hallelujah, you can allow the Holy Spirit of God to make that word come alive in people's hearts, and isn't that wonderful?
That's where the issue lies. I'm just gonna stay up here. We must need to do some more on this text. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Uh, doom, there we go. Atonement is the payment of Christ for our sins. So, as we move through this, this is coming from the Calvinism thought in the Protestant Reformation, so often you'll hear it called the Reformed theology.
Those are a few words to just define for you. Now, you're listening to guys packed with stuff, so you're gonna have to write down everything, but if you're taking notes, you're gonna have to go all the way around, all to the other side, start writing on your husband's jacket if you need to, whatever you need to do.
Now, did you notice we somehow managed to define atonement in one sentence? And then, we're amazed at how deep we're getting? Someone has not read John Owen's The Death of Death and the Death of Christ.
What do you think? I don't think so, and if you haven't read it, I'd encourage you to do so. The sad thing is, for the vast majority of people in Southern Baptist churches, that's about as deep as atonement goes.
And I've said it before, one of the great failures of evangelical churches is that their doctrine of the cross is nothing but sticky sentimentality. There's nothing about the wrath of God, there's nothing about the punishment of sin, there's nothing really about substitution.
You hear anybody who uses the phrase, God, Jesus died for me, that's Calvinism. They may think it isn't, but that came straight out of Calvinism. Arminians reject that because they recognize, well, if Jesus died for everybody, then everybody's gonna get saved.
Even the historical Arminians understood that. It's only modern evangelicals who just refuse to recognize that they stand in the flow of church history. And may I suggest something to you, that's arrogance.
It is grossly arrogant for modern evangelicals to figure that what great Christian men and women of the past believed, fought, and wrote is utterly irrelevant to us, that is arrogance. And it results in a very shallow understanding of these issues.
Harsh words, but let's face it. The book of Hebrews goes into depth on this subject, and it's not just the price that Jesus paid for our sins. I mean, if that's all it was, the book of Hebrews, is about 12 chapters longer than it needs to be.
There is more there. What is this about the substitute? What is this about intercession? What is this about the high priest? What is this about appearing in the presence of the Father in our place? What about all that?
In my estimation, what you're doing when you present this stuff in this context is you can't avoid communicating to the people in the pew, that stuff just doesn't really matter. That's just for the super Christians.
Why don't we just leave that to the theologians? And that's what the process of reformation tried to get rid of. If the God by His Spirit has given this to us, we might want to value what He's given to us and have His priorities in these things.
Let's get into it and see.
Let's just start out with T. T stands for total depravity, total depravity. And the question here is, is man unable or unwilling to come to God?
Now, is that what T is about? No. And if Greg Mott had had any lengthy discussion or maybe 60-second discussion with a reformed person where he was listening to what they were saying, he would know that the reformed person says that's the wrong question.
Not only is it the wrong question, but it's skipping the whole foundational element of it too. But even that's the wrong question because what does the reformed person say? The lost person, the unregenerate person, the person who's dead in their sin is both unwilling and unable.
It's not an either or. Every unregenerate person is unwilling to come to Christ because their nature is corrupt. They're the enemy of God. They're a slave of sin. They're suppressing the knowledge of God.
And the Bible says they cannot. Udunatai, they lack the capacity to do what is pleasing before God. Romans chapter eight, verses five and following. As Jesus said, no man has the ability. Udunatai is not able to come to me unless the father who sent me draws him.
There is a fundamental incapacity that results in the unwillingness. They have a will, but the will is enslaved as Jesus said in John eight to men who had ostensibly believed in him. If you continue my word, then you're my disciples indeed.
You shall know the truth and what? The truth shall set you free. And as soon as he said that, they became deeply offended because the natural man loves one thing and it's his own sovereignty. They became offended by the end of the chapter.
They're picking up stones to stone Jesus even though they allegedly believed in him. And Jesus in response to them says, when they said, we've never been enslaved to anyone. Talk about self-deception.
These are the Jews under the heel of Rome. We've never been enslaved to anyone. Yeah, right. And in that context, Jesus says, he who commits sin is the slave of sin. Now slaves cannot just simply will themselves to freedom, but that is the illustration that Jesus used of our servitude to sin.
So man is both unwilling and unable, but he is so because of his relationship to Adam, the fallen Adam, the spiritual death that comes and the slavery that is ours to sin. There is so much. I mean, how do you preach through Jeremiah and not see this over and over again?
The desperate wickedness of the heart of man. But all of that is just rushed away. And really, I don't think you should start with the T. As I argue in my book, God's Sovereign Grace, I think you need to start with the sovereignty of God.
Do you even have a sovereign God? Do you have a consistent view of God? Do you believe God knows the future? The open theists don't think God knows the future. And I would suggest to you, the open theists are the only consistent Arminians.
An open theist is a consistent Arminian, denied to God knowledge of the future. Because if you believe God truly does know the future, then I have to ask you the question, how? How does he? When he created, did he know everything was gonna happen?
Yes, he did. Well, then how did he know that? Did he just simply throw the cosmic dice and it came up and, hey, I win, praise me. Is that how it happened? He creates, then looks, and passively takes an information and goes, oh, cool, I'll keep this one because I win in the end.
And then we glorify him because he's the creator of all things, including time and all the events in time, which means everything in time has a purpose. There is no purposeless evil whatsoever. If you don't believe that, then that means you believe God created purposeless evil.
Has no reason for it, but for some reason he's decided to do it, and well, it's just all free will or something. They should start there, but most of the time they don't. And most of the time Christians go through a large portion of life or all their life in many churches without ever being challenged to take what you believe about God and what you believe about the Bible, what you believe about salvation, what you believe about the church and bring them close enough to each other to see if they're consistent.
We pigeonhole things. And when you actually start pushing on people, they end up being grossly inconsistent with themselves. And again, I say to you, does that honor God? If our young people, if you who are parents, if your young people treated your commands as parents, the way we treat God's words, would you be honored by the way that they don't obey you or obey you inconsistently?
Of course not.
And yet this is what we do. That fork in the road will separate everything else. Because if you believe that man is unable to take any sort of step towards God, then man's responsibility and man's response to the cross will not be as important.
What do you mean it will not be as important?
It will be absolutely consistent. What does the Bible say in man's response to the cross is apart from regeneration? It's consistently the stench of death in their nostrils. The cross repels man unless God acts first.
To the presentation of the gospel. But they will react very consistently. That's the issue. And I don't see any evidence in the commentary that is offered here that Greg Mott is even aware that that is the issue.
And most Southern Baptists have no idea, have never even been challenged to think about what it means for man to be the enemy of God, to suppress, katakonsu, hold down the knowledge of God, Romans 1. What does that mean?
Why do they do that? Why are there these incredible statements about the fact that man cannot do what is pleasing to God's sight? Man cannot submit himself to the law of God. Sounds to me like he's saying, well, yes, man can.
Well, if God says repent, I can do that. The Bible says you're a slave to sin. Something has to constitutionally change within yourself.
If man is unwilling then when you go that track, which is my track, it has been our church's track for decades. If that track of man's response is important to the cross,.
And of course we believe man's response is important to the cross. In every way, shape and form it's important. But the point is the Bible tells us what the natural man is gonna do. Does he understand the things of spirit of God?
Of course not. Something else has to happen. And all those texts, you're not gonna hear any of them read. The only texts you get read are the classic isolated Arminian texts, not once. Do you see anything in this sermon that gives any indication of any knowledge beyond that most surface level of an Arminian presentation?
Unable, unwilling. John chapter six, wait, let me move up a little spot here. John chapter five, verse 39 and 40 says this. Where's he gone, John says this? It talks about this and it says, in John chapter five, verse 39 and 40, just listen.
It says you diligently study the scriptures because you think by them you possess eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me. Verse 40, yet you refuse to come to me that there's unwillingness.
There is an unwillingness. And specifically in a more literal translation, you are not willing to come to me in order that you might have life. That's what the text says. How can you say that? Some of them might be, but Jesus makes it a very blanket statement.
You are unwilling. No question about it, but you see the mindset here is, well, us Calvinists don't believe man has a will. Oh, yes we do. But the will can only do, can only act upon that which is presented to it by the nature.
And the nature is that of the enemy of God, the fallen sinner who is a slave to sin. So there is no question that man wills, but because of the slavery of sin, until there's regeneration, that will and what it does is very, very well known and evil.
The image of God, we've been made in the image of God so that we could have a will, have free agency, that we could step forward and say, you know what, I want to take this step. Yes, we are made in the image of God,.
But all of this continues to ignore the reality of all of these texts that I've already mentioned that tell us that the person who commits sin is the slave of sin. Now those texts may not be the most popular ones to preach on, but again, if you're going to stand and say this is what the word of God says, I think those texts where Paul talks about proclaiming the whole counsel of God and that I am free of the guilt of the blood of any man.
Because I presented to you the whole counsel of God should echo in our ears. It's very easy to cherry pick the text and to look for comfortable texts, but you have to look at all of what the Bible has to say.
