October 16, 2003

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. Here is

James White. And good afternoon, welcome to the dividing line. I have no idea if I'm on right now or not because the headphones are either making my ears bleed or I can't hear anything at all.

But we're going to try it anyways. We're going to just keep on going here and just sort of trust that it's getting out to all of you boys and girls in Radioland.

You know, it's not really Radioland, is it? We sort of call it a radio broadcast, but it's not a radio broadcast because we're not paying anybody hundreds and hundreds and thousands of dollars to do this.

And they must not like that. They probably want to control everything. I would imagine it is a webcast and I imagine someday someone will try to control this as well.

I imagine there are folks already working on doing that, even as we speak. And something tells me that they will say it's politically incorrect to talk about the things we talk about, so we can't do it anymore.

I don't know if you've noticed all the anti -Christian stuff going on in the media, but I'll tell you, if you're a

Christian, you can't be in politics, you can't be in the military. I think they just, you know, let's face it, it reminds me of years and years and years ago.

And I do mean years ago. I did a radio program with Tom Likas.

Some of you who listen in California know who Tom Likas is. At the time, Tom Likas was in Phoenix.

And he was, he's sort of a shock jock type guy, you know, and he loved to get topics going here in Phoenix too, but he hadn't gotten anywhere near what he does in Los Angeles, obviously.

Of course, you can get a lot of, you can do a lot of things in Los Angeles. But anyway, he would do the, he'd have people on just to be outrageous.

And he had this guy on from the American Atheists. Now, let's put it this way. The American Atheists eventually disassociated themselves from this guy, and when you realize how absolutely radical the

American Atheists are, to disassociate from this guy because he was too radical means this guy was radical.

I mean, I remember when the American Atheists had their convention over in Scottsdale years and years ago. Again, I keep talking about how long ago this was.

And we had people from the resort where it was taking place in Scottsdale come out and talk to us and inform us that the night before, they're very glad that we were out there because the night before, the

American Atheists were in the hallways at 2 or 3 o 'clock in the morning and they had dressed someone up like Jesus.

And all the Atheists would chase him through the hallways of the resort, throwing things at him and hitting him and doing things like that.

Yeah, these folks have got some major league spiritual problems. But anyways, that's pretty radical.

And then they've got this guy named Brian Lynch, they eventually disassociated themselves from him. And I had heard him on the air.

He was so nasty. He was on with a local pastor and he was just ripping and shredding.

And so they asked me if I'd be on with him. And I certainly felt that his arguments were extremely poor and easily refuted.

So I said, sure, we'll do that. And I came to the studio.

And what I hadn't been told was he was going to be in town because he had been on the phone before. This little teeny guy,

I mean, 98 pounds soaking wet, comes into the studio. And as long as the microphone wasn't on, he was just sweetness and light and very, very reserved.

And, my, you have a nice studio here. And then as soon as the microphone came on, it was like the demons came out, you know.

I mean, we're talking multiple personality disorder here. It was weird. And he was the same frothing, drooling type person that he was before.

And then as soon as the microphones would turn off, my, you have nice weather in Phoenix.

It was really one of the strangest experiences of my life. Anyway, in the midst of all that, at one point he did make the statement, everybody's getting an old dividing line.

Oh, great. That's wonderful. No one's listening to the new dividing line. Anyway, in the midst of all of his comments, he made the statement that, you know,

I was saying, so what you want is you don't want us, you don't want Christians to have any freedom to even mention

God in the public place or in the culture, anything like that. And he said, if you guys want to do your religion, then go ahead and do your religion.

But you need to do your religion out on an island somewhere. Just we don't want you in our society anymore.

And that's that, you know, that sounded really very, very strange back then in the 1980s.

It really was very radical back in the 1980s. But it's not nearly as radical anymore, is it?

It's an amazing thing. 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

If you would like to join the program today, I would invite you to do so. Those of you who heard last

Tuesday's program know that we didn't get any phone calls because we were discussing the debate in Salt Lake City with Jerry Matitix.

And we went over a number of clips, played a number of things. And we are working on, for some reason,

I heard back from Eric Svensson, he said he'd be available either Tuesday or Thursday of next week, and we'll go as long as we need to each one of those.

We can go past the hour if we need to. Well, I guess Thursday night we probably couldn't, but maybe

Tuesday. In any case, when I responded to Eric's email, it bounced.

So I've tried resending it, and I haven't, in other words, I don't have anything new to report to you.

We haven't actually scheduled which of the two days we are going to be doing the program on, and I haven't heard back from Mr.

Matitix either. He travels a lot, and so he may not even be around.

I don't know. But we will eventually get around to scheduling the program with Mr.

Matitix. And we have a lot of questions that we would like to ask and a lot of clips we'd like to play and facts we'd like to bring out.

But we'll try to do that. 877 -753 -3341.

Oh, okay. Is that why? Well, great. Well, when you hit respond, you figure that people have their address correct in their response thing, and they never get anything back,

I guess. That's not a... Yep. Yeah, you're right. Look at that. I'm sending it again.

Why isn't it letting me do that? Oh, okay. I remember. You have to hit send again first, don't you? And then we send it out there.

Sorry, folks. That's an important thing. We're scheduling something for the dividing line. It's now been sent out, and it will get there this time.

And maybe, who knows, maybe even during this program, I'll get word back as to whether that's going to take place or not.

I sort of doubt that because we need to have Mr. Matitix involved to be able to do that. So those of you who didn't get a chance to ask any questions, make any responses regarding the

Matitix debate, the comments I made in regards to Brazil, that was really, again, an extremely neat opportunity to have the opportunity to talk to...

Well, when you think about it, if you're talking to a thousand pastors, and let's say half of them, and it was a whole lot more than that.

Let's say half of them take the information that you give them, and they communicate at least some of that to their people.

Maybe not the next Sunday, but over the course of the next number of months or that year for all that matters.

That's a lot of folks that you end up impacting. And one of the comments that was made to me both through translation and some of the pastors said, told me in English, that one of the problems they're having, and this shouldn't surprise us too much, is that down in Brazil, even though there are many, many, many

Roman Catholics and so on and so forth, a lot of the evangelicals...

And for some reason, my headset's just dropped into the... There we go. Someone's playing around over there.

Even though these are evangelical churches, Baptist pastors, so on and so forth, a lot of their people are saying, you know, are the differences really matter between biblical

Christianity... Hello? I just disappeared. My headset's just turned... Oh, there they came back.

Ah, this is fun. The differences between biblical Christianity and Catholicism, does it really matter?

And they were saying that hopefully the information that was shared would help them to be able to help their people to understand what the real issues are.

And I hope that that happens. I apologize. We're having technical difficulties. I don't know what they are, but we're having technical difficulties again, and we'll get them fixed eventually at some point in the future.

So you can add to our technical difficulties.

Feel free to do so at 877 -753 -3341. I would like to hear from you with your questions.

See a couple other things here. A will be in St. Paul.

You know, I keep saying, you know, when you go someplace, it's like in the past, I said I'm going to St.

Louis. Actually, I was going to St. Charles. Well, okay. When you say you're going to Phoenix, you may be going to Tempe, but you use the major name, see?

And when you fly into the Minneapolis airport, that's just, you sort of call it Minneapolis, even though it's the twin cities.

And so you've got Minneapolis, St. Paul. I think Minneapolis is a good bit larger than St. Paul. At least that's my understanding.

But hey, whatever. My understanding is that we are in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was born.

Actually, I wasn't born in Minneapolis. I was born in Robbinsdale. But that's like Tempe is to Phoenix. So it's six one half dozen the other.

But we'll be there this weekend. And on Saturday, I'm going to be doing four sessions.

And they are going to all be on the subject of justification. And I am going to attempt to address at least briefly, if I can, new perspectivism.

But it's not just gonna be on new perspectivism. It's not gonna be like what I did at the Dayspring Chapel in Austin a few weeks ago.

It's going to be more on the subject of justification. But there'll probably be an entire segment on new perspectivism.

I now have a PowerPoint presentation put together of the material that I shared at Dayspring.

And I'll be using that. And I think the information is on our website. So if any of you are up in that area, then you can access that.

And then the next thing that I know of after that is, I think the 7th and 8th of November, Springfield, Illinois.

A bunch of stuff. In fact, I got a, yeah, here it is. I got a real nice, boy, nice flyer.

Colorful flyer and all this stuff that, well, I had a colorful flyer. Where'd the colorful flyer go?

Well, there was a colorful flyer at some point. Not sure where it went. But all about what we're,

I'm gonna be speaking. I certainly need to find that. That would be a good thing to track down. I thought it had been in this nice little thing they sent me.

Oh, well. All this is the receipt and stuff and making sure that I'm getting on the right plane.

And all that kind of stuff. But there was a colorful flyer. So I don't know where it went. And I, like I said,

I need to look at that so I can, like, remember what I'm supposed to. But I'll be talking about King James -only -ism and pride justification and I don't know.

Stuff like that. Yeah, sure there was. There was. Really, there was a colorful flyer in it, man.

I know there was. I can't find anywhere. Anyway, and then it's off to Florida at the end of November for the

Greg Safford debate, which someday I'll get to listen to, which I haven't had a chance to listen to yet. We are getting really scared about this

DVD stuff, man. I'll tell you. I didn't know that there are all these compatibility issues and stuff like that.

We got sent the DVDs and I can see it. Well, I can actually see the beginning of it. I can't see the end of it.

But I can see it. And if I could read lips, I could figure out what's being said.

But the sound doesn't work. And so I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.

But I have a lot of preparation to be doing between now and then. And as well as the cruise.

And then in middle December, December 16th, scheduled to be on the

Bible Answer Man broadcast with Hank Hanegraaff and George Bryson discussing

Calvinism. I guess I can say that now because it's official and all that stuff.

And if you know how that works, that'll probably be December 16th and 17th. And I would be really surprised if it wasn't three hours.

Because if we did three hours with James Aiken, Tim Staples on the

King James Only controversy, then we'll do three hours on the subject of Calvinism too.

I can guarantee you that. So that'll be an interesting, interesting period of time.

And at the end of December 17th, when I get home, mental breakdown time.

I mean, it's going to be, it's going to have been the longest four months of my life as far as activity goes.

And I think we're just going to sit down and sort of stare off into space and drool for a while at that particular point.

It's going to be, it's been a long period of time. So anyway, 877 -753 -3341.

Now, the fellow who sort of makes our webcasting possible is a very interesting

Canadian. And someone who has the flyer has called.

Well, that's interesting. The fellow who makes this all possible,

Pete up in Canada, gave me a suggestion in regards to how we could sort of get people to call.

And it has to do with a certain song that someone in Channel downloaded,

I don't know, about two years ago. And the story is he downloaded off of this website where people, they give you examples of what people think is good singing.

In other words, it's people submitted this stuff and they're looking for record contracts.

These people actually think that what they're doing is good. And the result, however, generally is that what they're doing is really, really bad.

Very, very bad. And so I think it was David Hughes who downloaded this one song and everybody's passed it around the channel and now we have this song.

And so what the suggestion was, was that what we do is we play the song and I only stop the song once we start getting callers.

This would be considerably worse than having Warren sing Elvis. This is much worse.

Warren would get a record contract if it was between him and this fellow.

And so I'm just going to play just a little section because we do have one caller, but I want more callers, see? And so as soon as the rest of you will call in,

I will stop this and you will be able to avoid any more of it.

In fact, you know what I want to do is I want to bring, the best way to do this, honestly, is to bring it up in Music Match.

Because if I could bring it up in Music Match, I can skip. This man's vocal range is truly astounding.

That's the only way that I could put it. His vocal range is astounding. At one point here toward the end of his song, which

I think he wrote, at least it really feels like he wrote it. At the end of his song, there it is, he hits about seven keys on one note.

And people are begging me in channel not to do this, but I'm sorry, it has to be done.

It really does have to be done. So this is a man by the name of Takahiro.

Okay, here's... No, no, no, we need the bridge here. There we go.

I wish I could work in the record industry. I really do. That would be... I think you may have crashed Kool -Aid. In fact,

I think the server is about to go down, too. He can't take much more of this.

Oh, man, the stuff you get on the web, you know. And you know, we've commented in channel that Takahiro has brought us so much joy and fulfillment.

Almost all of us really feel like we can sing so much better after listening to that.

Oh, it had to be done after the last dividing line. It was so serious and it was so focused and just...

Had to be done. Well, anyway. I've stood in front of a few

Takahiros in a few places

I've heard singing like that, but not very many. Most folks want... Encore! Encore!

There's the tone -deaf section of the audience asking for more Takahiro. Oh, goodness.

All right. Well, we do have a caller. Let's go ahead and... My earphones are still all messed up, so I don't know if I'm gonna be able to hear anybody.

But let's try Jeremy in Atlanta and see what Jeremy has to say. Jeremy, are you there? Dr. Wyatt, I'm here.

I almost hate that I called. That was so... I don't know. You ought to hear the whole thing.

Let me tell you something. I give my hats off to anyone who can actually listen to the whole thing.

And the sad thing is you can honestly really tell that he's pouring his heart and soul into this thing and really thinks that, okay, this is it.

I'm getting my record contract now, man. Anybody who hears this and doesn't love it just doesn't understand music.

You can just tell that's what's going on. And it's so very sad, actually. Well, yeah.

Like I said, I tried to stop it before it even started. There was a call. But, you know... No, no. I almost hate it now.

This is so enjoyable. I almost hate I called. I'm sorry. I could have played that the whole time. Encore!

Hush! I had to do it because the guy who... The reason you're able to listen to us is because of Pete.

And Pete's last nick in channel was Takahiro. So, I mean, he's actually memorized that.

And the scary thing is he can repeat it in channel, typing it out with the same almost unintelligible accent that Takahiro has.

So, it's a very frightening thing. And so, we need to probably remember him because he has problems. So, anyways, I understand you have a certain flyer?

Well, yeah. I got your back on this thing, man. You know, you couldn't find it. And it is a lovely flyer. And I do think on these things,

Bible conference and, you know, I was debating as to whether or not I should make the long drive up there from Atlanta. And when

I saw the flyer, I was like, man, this must be good. The flyer alone looks good. It did look good.

It is around here someplace. I think Rich stole it personally. I think it's in the other room someplace. But yeah,

I guess I was going to ask you, too. Are there no... Do you have any plans to come back to Georgia anytime?

Georgia? Soon. Georgia, Georgia, yes. Well, you know, the only time...

Let's see, when I was there last time... That was just on the way up to New York. That's right.

That's right. A year ago. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I think the person who would be responsible for my coming back to Georgia is actually listening in the chat channel.

Right. And so it's completely up to that particular individual whether I go back to Atlanta or not.

Or folks like you, you know, finding something there in Atlanta. That's true. I could be proactive.

You could be proactive. Now, one of the... He just woke up. One of the problems

I'm going to be facing in the spring... It's not a problem. It's actually a blessing. I just found out this week when

I got back from Brazil that I'm going to be teaching not one but two classes for Golden Gate in the spring semester back to back on Monday nights.

I'm going to be teaching Systematic Theology II, which is normally Soteriology and Ecclesiology, two of my favorite areas, and Development of Patristic Theology through Augustine.

And that's going to be in like a four -hour block on Monday nights. So the problem is getting...

Whatever I do, I need to be back by Monday afternoons. There's going to be some days, I know of at least one, that I'm going to be thousands of miles away

Monday morning and coming back and teaching for four hours on Monday nights. So that's lots of fun.

Well, as far as coming to Atlanta, I mean, I guess you could come, but you'd probably have to just jump right in with the whole purpose -driven hysteria that is sweeping across the

Bible Belt here. I would imagine, yeah. It's really gained, I don't know, a new life,

I guess you could say. And I don't know if you... I know you had a program about it once before I listened. Actually, hate to admit it,

I guess I did go back in the archives and listen to that program. You're not doing... A lot of folks do that.

Okay, no, I did. I enjoyed it. It was a good program on it. But it seems to be sweeping again. And I kind of just wanted to get your take on that.

I understand that God obviously can rule and overrule certain things, but it seems to be...

I don't know. Maybe I'm going to extreme, but it seems to be a dangerous type of teaching as far as some of the theology that's involved with that.

Well, any time... You know, I made a comment in channel yesterday. I think it was

I was considering something someone had said. I forget exactly what the context was. But I made the comment that it seems in much of evangelicalism today, we've gotten to the point where we are so far removed from a biblical worldview and a love of what

Paul described to Timothy as sound doctrine and sound words and being nourished on sound words and the like that we don't even flinch when the very act of worship itself, which is supposed to be what's taking place in the church, when we define that act of worship on the basis of the enemies of God, it almost makes me think of the violation of the temple when the enemies of Israel would come in and they'd carry off the temple articles and things like that, and they'd trample around inside the

Holy of Holies. It seems in a spiritual sense that that's what's going on in the church, is that we've so lost sight of worship and truth and trusting

God to actually save people and so quick to grab hold of isms and movements and stuff like that that in the process we don't even blanch to say, we need to design

God's worship around what will not offend God's enemies. Of course, obviously, for most of those folks, they don't believe really functionally that the lost man is

God's enemy in the first place, since they have a view of God's love that is an ineffectual love of desire.

That is, God would like to have a relationship with everyone, but his love cannot accomplish the creation of such a relationship.

Since that's the view of God's love, then it makes sense that we wouldn't want to talk about people as God's enemies.

It's just a disrupted relationship, and eventually we can sort of patch things together.

No, it's the radical nature of either you're the enemy of God, you're a lover of God, either you love truth or you hate truth, etc.

All of that has simply been thrown out. Well, with the way that it is, at least in these parts,

I guess I could say, if you speak out against it, it seems to be a general consensus for folks that are putting on this 40 days of purpose that kicked off in October in a lot of churches around here.

You seem to be looked at as a party pooper or someone that doesn't care about lost people. Then it's like, well, what's it going to hurt?

You get them in here one way or the other, and they're here, and eventually they'll hear the gospel.

What do you have against that? That's the sentiment that I hear a lot of times. Well, that unfortunately is the mindset that I'm certainly hearing from folks.

When you get all these different churches cooperating and doing this one thing, you're looked on as being really out of step with the times if you aren't willing to just go along and say, you know, well, okay,

I may have a few problems with this, but we'll just, you know, for the sake of unity, we'll all go along, and all will be well, and so on and so forth.

Yeah, I know exactly where you're coming from. Yeah, I don't know that that would be the best topic to address if I come to Georgia.

It might result in my never getting to go to Georgia again, but it is a sad issue.

Now, before I forget, though, you did say you had the flyer, right? Oh, I do. I'm looking at the flyer, the colorful white, yellow, and blue flyer, which actually got your picture in black and white.

Yeah! They could have done that in color, though. Yeah, that's strange, isn't it? And what am I talking about?

On the schedule? Yeah. Well, Friday, November the 7th, you know, registration, that's at 9 a .m.

or 8 .30 a .m., but you're doing justification, including an evaluation of the new perspective from 9 to 10.

Cool. And then from 10 to 10 .30 is refreshments and book table open, of course. Donuts, yay! 10 .30

to 11 .30 is Defense of the Trinity, why is it important? And then 11 .30

a .m. to 12 .30 p .m., lunch, which is provided, I might say, by the, you know, looks like they're going to provide lunch for us, free lunch.

So that looks good. And then from 12 .30 to... Well, you know what's going to happen then? I tell folks this, and they look at me like, that didn't really happen.

I once went someplace, and I'm not going to say where it was, because I don't want to embarrass anybody, but I went to speak somewhere once.

It was a school, and they said, we'll provide you with lunch after you speak.

And so I spoke in a chapel type situation. And then we went to lunch, and I walk into this lunchroom, and there's all the tables, and then there's one table up front facing all the rest of them.

And that's where I was supposed to sit. And so I'm given my food, along with everybody else, and then

I'm supposed to sit there and face everybody else while they ask me questions, while I try to eat. So yeah, when the lunch is provided thing, that means

I'll be fasting. So just so you know, because... Actually, you're okay here, because they do lunch from 11 .30

to 12 .30, and then from 12 .30 to 1 .30, Q &A session with Dr. James White, and then...

That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. No, you don't get two hours of Q &A.

There you go. That night, 7 to 8 .30 p .m. on Friday night, King James Version only controversy.

So there's a big break in the afternoon then? Yeah, there's a long break from like 1 .30 to 7 p .m. for people to...

I don't know. My wife is from near that area. That's why we're thinking about coming up there too. And she says there's things to do.

That must be where they schedule my nap time. I'm getting old. I need a nap during the day now.

Thank you. Saturday, there's nothing during the day Saturday. So people have all day

Saturday. And then at 7 p .m. to 8 .30 p .m. on Saturday, there really is a difference, a comparison of Calvinistic and Arminian theology.

That's a lot of great... That's why I was going to come, because it's a cornucopia of topics. Yeah, yeah.

And I'm sure I'm speaking Sunday at the church too. It's Sunday at church. Boy, are you. 9 to 10 .30

a .m. is biblical sufficiency. And then there's a break. Then at 10 .45 to 11 .30, biblical sufficiency part two.

And then at 5 .30 p .m., we have none other than biblical sufficiency part three. Wow. It's a full meal there.

Full menu. Well, I need to find that thing all over again.

Yeah, I probably got that in an email someplace. I was just sort of looking for it. And that was... I appreciate the information. Well, look forward to seeing you.

And God bless. And I really appreciate your ministry. I don't always get to call as much as I'd like, but we're listening out here in Georgia.

Okay. Well, thank you very much. You bet. All right. Bye -bye. 877 -753.

Are we taking a break today? I don't know. I hear somebody talking on the phone out there, so I don't even know if I'm taking a break.

I'm going to start playing Talk a Hero again until I start getting some attention here.

That's just all there is to it. Oh, goodness.

Break. We are taking a break. Well, good. I'm very glad that we're taking a break. That's a good thing to do.

And I won't even play Talk a Hero. We'll be right back. A godly man is such a rarity today.

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This portion of The Dividing Line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.

The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.

The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45.

Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7.

The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.

You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE. If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org,

where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

had been seen and that the volume was up on my computer. You'd hear it playing right now, but it's not playing right now, unfortunately.

So that, you know. I sent this to Steve Camp.

I really did. And his response was something along the lines of, what was it?

Something like, we really need to get that guy on CD. Something like that, if I recall correctly.

Yeah, it was great. Oh, man.

I'll never forget the first time I heard that. Again, I'll never forget a lot of tragedies in my life.

But 877 -753 -3341. Let's try to get serious here for a second.

I'm going to get complaints, by the way. I'm going to get complaints. I'm going to have complaints coming in all week about, you know, well, you know, we listened to this and you were just really silly that time.

I'm going to get complaints. It's going to happen. You just watch. I'm going to, it's going to happen.

Let's go back to, what is it with New Jersey? This is, I mean, it's nice and stuff, but I guess it's because I kept saying they're only, you know, we were talking to the only

Christian in New Jersey and stuff like that. And I didn't mean that, but I think a lot of folks have taken it personally.

So now we've got Jim in New Jersey. Hi, Jim. Hey, Dr. Way. Yes, I am a Christian and a

Calvinist in New Jersey. Wow. Yeah, there are a few of us. Just a couple, huh?

Just a couple, yeah. We have actually one big bastion of reformed theology, one church that's packed out all the time, at least where I am in the metropolitan area.

I mean, the services are just packed because it's so sparse. Yeah. Oh, well, yeah. Solid teaching. Yeah, I'd imagine.

Yeah, I've been there. I mean, I've spoken to a couple of different churches in New Jersey, but the northern part isn't nearly as pretty as the southern part, though.

Yeah. Yeah, so anyway. And the churches had you back? No, actually, they haven't.

No, most churches, once I'm there once, that's it. They're just, you know, normal Illinois.

They're different. And the folks on Long Island just don't get it because they keep having me back, too. But most every place else,

I come once, and that's about it. We burn all the bridges, and that's about it. So you had a question about Romans 311.

Yeah, let me just set it up real quick. A friend of mine invited me to the same church that hosts

Dr. Geisler when he comes out here to New Jersey. Ah, is that a Calvary Chapel? Excuse me?

Is it a Calvary Chapel? No, it's the Hawthorne Gospel Church. Yes, yes, I played the section from there.

Right. Yeah, okay. Well, they have this Bible class thing they do. And so a friend of mine invited me.

They're doing a whole class on Chosen but Free. I've heard about that. Yeah, it was probably me telling you guys in the chat room.

And I've been going every week, and I am the lone Calvinist in a room of about 25 or so.

And I marched right in with Chosen but Free and the Potter's Freedom. And I put them both right down.

I put Potter's Freedom right down on top of Chosen but Free. And it's basically a dialogue back and forth between me and the teacher.

And everybody's, they can't believe what's going on. The question

I have is, the Geisler book really isn't referenced all that much. The teacher is using a book called

Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism by a guy named Dr. Gordon Olson.

Yep, yep. Have you seen this book at all? Yeah, in fact, I'm looking here.

Where did I put it? I got it this week, in fact. And looking around, looking around.

It's a hardback, but it wasn't overly expensive. It's in all the bookstores out here.

Here it is, here it is, here it is. It's in all the Christian bookstores out here. I don't, you know, the author's from New Jersey.

Oh, well, that explains a lot right there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, G. Gordon Olson.

And, you know, I opened it up and I was going to do a review on it on the program once I got around to it, but I'm just very, very busy.

I immediately saw a number of references to Vance's work.

Me too, yeah. And Vance's work is, I'm sorry, it's just, it's horrible. I mean, it's the main source that Hunt used.

And it simply doesn't show any familiarity whatsoever with meaningful exegetical material.

I mean, there's like a paragraph and a half on all of John 6 in Vance's book, and yet 700 pages or more long.

And then I saw a lot of stuff on, it's basically presenting the, you know, the

Norm Geisler perspective, the stuff about, well, the hardening, you know, Pharaoh hardened his heart first.

It doesn't deal with excess foreknowledge stuff. And stuff about foreknowledge based on foreknowledge, all the rest of that kind of stuff.

So I don't know why it's called a mediate. You know, it's sort of like the same question

I'd have in regards to moderate Calvinism. Why not just embrace the names that have been used?

I mean, if you don't like the term Arminian, explain why and go from there. So, you know, but I haven't had a chance to look at, normally when

I look at a book like this, what I want to do is I want to sit down and I want to go through all the references.

Like there's, it looks like there's three pages here on John chapter 6, 239 to 242. Yeah, wait till you read those.

You know, and I want to work through this and, you know, look at the attempts at exegesis and so on and so forth.

And that way you can, you know, work through it. What, why do you say that?

I read the John chapter 6. That was the first thing I flipped to because I wanted to see, that's one of the most powerful passages of sovereign grace.

And I wanted to see what he did with that. The reason I called was actually his take on Romans 3 .11,

which is what the teacher and I are going back and forth now on. And he, you know, somebody raised their hand and asked him, what about those who seek

God? You know, the Bible says there are no God -seekers. And he said, no, the word should be translated, there are no diligent

God -seekers. And if you have the book, it's on page 102, actually. It's in my hand so I can turn to it fairly quickly here.

Because it's the verb in there that's translated seek, it's a stronger verb that should be translated diligent.

So I asked the teacher, I said, all right, so you're saying there's casual God -seekers and there's diligent God -seekers.

So you're saying there's casual ones? It doesn't make sense to me. But I've been doing the work trying to figure out about this work.

So no one customarily and diligently seeks God is the assertion.

I just read that. That's his own translation. He just basically parroted back this information, you know.

And I went, I checked the verses and I went through there and I asked him, I said, there's no other

Bible translation that I've ever seen that has ever translated Romans 3 .11 that way. Why?

And, you know, there's no response. But in all these other instances, it has a more diligent, you know, sincere seeking.

And he's saying, well, you see, people seek God, but they don't do it in such a way that they're doing it every day as a way of life.

That's all Paul is saying. So in the context of demonstrating the universal sinfulness of man, what he's saying is people don't seek

God every day, but is the whole point that they seek him enough that we don't need sovereign grace, that they have the ability to seek if they choose to seek?

Correct. And if you look over on the next page, you'll see all words in black with the word seek underlined about 50 times.

And he's saying, see, you know, the Calvinists, they hold on to this one verse and they don't look at the other 50 that say men have the ability to seek.

Well, as if the, well, the problem with that, of course, is it assumes that the general call demands a general ability.

That's very common in Geisler. It's very common, it's much more common in Hunt than it is in Geisler, actually.

But the idea being that if there is a, you know, it's like saying the general call, repent and believe means that repentance and belief cannot possibly be gifts of God's grace that have to be granted to someone in light of their slavery to sin.

And I want to ask such folks, well, what do you do about slavery to sin? And they generally just run back off to these and say, well, if God commands everybody to do this, then everybody must have this capacity.

As if, you know, it's like putting the speed sign next to the side of the road means that no one will ever get drunk.

It doesn't follow, but that's the argumentation that they're constantly using. Now, it is interesting.

It is a present active participle. Of course, so is the word before that, understands.

So would he likewise say that there are some people who sort of understand? That they have true knowledge of God?

I'm just wondering what the argumentation here is. I mean, there's nothing in Paul's use here.

Okay, let's say search diligently. Okay, isn't that what it means in all those other places where seek is used?

I don't, I'm still not seeing what the point is, unless the whole idea is, well, if it was just Zetao, then the

Calvinists would be right. But since it's ex Zetao, that that means the Calvinists are wrong, that there are those who

Zetao God, they seek God, but they're just not ex Zetao, and it's sort of like a threshold that you have to somehow reach.

Is that the idea that he's communicating? I mean, I don't know if you can answer that question or not. I'm just trying to understand where he's coming from.

He's just basically almost read back this complete section. And I'm scratching my head over because I can't figure out, all right, if the verb is intensified, and Paul is choosing this verb to show that people aren't on a daily basis living their life in such a way that they're seeking

God with all their heart, and that's all he's trying to say. But the opposite of that would be, well, there's some casual people that they kind of care about God a little bit, and they look for him every once in a while,

I'm assuming. But my question is, why in Romans 3 .11,

I don't know Greek. You know, I have the tools, I study, I do the best I can with trying to understand these things.

In Romans 3 .11, when Paul uses that word, and then that same word is used in Acts, in Hebrews, in 1

Peter, when you look them up, you can see that there is an intensity to the verb, but yet it's left out of Romans 3 .11.

I'm just curious, why is it not translated with the intense, you know, diligent or...

Well, it's used in Luke 11 .50, where it speaks of the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world shall be maybe charged against this generation.

That's a really different range of its semantic meaning.

And the same thing in Luke 11 .51. So that's, Luke's language is a little bit different.

Luke's vocabulary is more Attic Greek than Koine. And so, you know, but then you've got in Acts 15 .17,

which is a citation from the Septuagint. So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, which

I find interesting. That you have the exact same seeking there, but it's of who?

Those who are called by my name in Acts 15 .17. Interesting interpretation there.

Hebrews 11 .6, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

Now there, that's New American Standard. As the King James says, diligently seek him. That phrase crosses my mind that some translation has diligently seek him.

But that would cause a problem if that's the understanding you have here. Because if you're going to read that into Hebrews 11 .6,

you've got the exact same point. If no one does this, and that is the accomplishment level, then you're right back to the point where we started in Romans 3 .11.

That's why I'm trying to find out how he would answer that. Maybe you'll have to ask him and get back to that. Because if you're going to read ex aeteo in the way that he's doing it, then

Romans 11 .6 also places that same high, everyday type situation, this diligently seeking for those who want to please

God. And then it's found in Hebrews 12 .17, where he was seeking repentance with tears, and 1

Peter 1 .10, where as the salvation of prophets who prophesied the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries.

And that's actually an aorist form that's used there along with ex aero nao.

So that's actually a little bit difficult. But I think the reason is, if you look at Romans 3 .11,

you have, there is none who understands. And this is a, the form that's used for understands is a nominative, masculine, singular participle.

The same thing is true for who seeks for God. Nominative, singular, masculine participle.

Then, in the next sentence, or next verse, you have, all have turned aside.

Interestingly enough, that particular term is likewise a strengthened form.

It's eclino, to turn away, to turn aside. Now, does that mean there are some who haven't turned aside as much as, as they, there are some who haven't turned too far aside?

I mean, as soon as you start looking at each word and go, well, because it's a strengthened form, because as a preposition in front of it, in its lexical form, that means it has some special meaning.

So does that mean that there are some who have turned aside an acceptable amount in comparison to those who've turned aside too much?

What's an acceptable amount of turning aside from the law of God? That kind of thing. That I don't understand. But I would say that the reason that it's translated the way it's translated is because it's in parallel with ha -suneon, the one understanding, and that the term simply means to seek or to search.

And if you want to say, search diligently, that's fine too. There is no such person. This whole idea that, well, there are

God -seekers, but they're just not diligent enough. To pull that out of Romans 3 .11

is, I don't know, it just leaves me going, wow. Okay, so all those, the commands to seek on the next page mean that everyone has that ability outside of grace, and there are some who seek enough.

Where does grace come into all this? I mean, I don't want to be disrespectful to this individual, but are they aware of what's called

Pelagianism and semi -Pelagianism? Are they? I brought that up. I brought that up. And you're still welcome in the class.

It's an amazing thing. They haven't put the big guys outside the door. The teacher and I have been having very long email exchanges back and forth because I don't want to continually interrupt his class.

So we're going back and forth, and almost every week I would ask him in the email, have you read

The Other Side? Have you read The Potter's Freedom? Have you read John Piper's book on Romans 9?

And never got a response. Never got a response. And this has been going on now for a month. And I finally wore him down.

He ordered The Potter's Freedom three days ago. I think what pushed him over the edge was he did

Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, and he read back Geisler's quote about how

R .C. Sproul is wrong. And when you look at the Greek, you see the thing with the feminine and what they say to her, too.

And then I scanned in your page from the book on the exegesis, and I said, look, if you would have read this stuff, you would have seen

The Other Side rather than just doing what you want to do. So it's been quite a challenge.

And he wants to meet with me now, so we're going to, I think, talk outside of the class on these things.

One last thing I'll let you go. This guy, Gordon Olson, this book, he is local to New Jersey.

And it would be great to try to set up some sort of debate with you and him when you come out to Long Island.

Yeah. Yeah, that might be a possibility. I'll talk with Chris Arnzen about it and see if that would be a possibility to work something like that out, depending on when we schedule things this year on Long Island and what my teaching schedule is going to allow me to do.

I'm really going to be very tightly constrained there as far as how much traveling

I'm going to be able to do in the spring until the end of that semester. I think the semester, though, ends in mid -May. So probably that last two weeks of May is going to be the only opportunity we have again.

And we're still trying to arrange the Roman Catholic apologist for the great debate.

So that's the first thing we have to get. And then when you line up other debates, you have to try to fit that into their schedules.

And it can be pretty challenging. It really can be. But we'll definitely keep that as a possibility.

We're always looking for those opportunities. And he may not be a person who wants to really get into doing a lot of debating.

Someone in channel right now is saying that he's actually a Pelagian. Olson is. So I can't say one way or the other.

I haven't had a chance to look at it enough to find out. Oh, OK. Yes, Olson is a moral government guy, a .k

.a. Finney. So I'm assuming they're talking about his view of the atonement rather than substitutionary atonement, which would make sense.

Have you looked at any of the atonement passages in there? Not yet. Well, look at him.

Get to work. I need research here. It's a big book. I need help. I can't get to all of it.

Hey, thanks for calling today all the way from back in New Jersey. All right. God bless. All right, folks.

Thanks for putting up with the zaniness today. But hey, we got some good calls in there and some good discussion.

Hopefully that was beneficial to you. Be up in Minneapolis this weekend. Lord willing, back in time for the dividing line on Tuesday morning.

We'll see you then. God bless. That's AOMIN .org

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