Chuck Smith/Calvary Chapel Comments

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is 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. It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five. Three three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James white.

Birthday Banter and Listener Mail

And good morning. Welcome to the dividing line on a Tuesday morning and we are joined by the aged one. The ancient one. You're a lot older than I am aren't you. I mean just just long much older than I am.

I still have my hair. Well, yeah, but it's a different color than used to be. Oh just in a few places.

Just in a few place here in a little bit of denial. I met with an old friend the other day and In fact, he's your age boy, I tell you what talk about the snow on the roof. Mm-hmm. You know you first thing you look to me he goes.

Wow, that's not supposed to happen that way. Uh-huh.

But you're not quite to the next really bad birthday. That's that and is that next year? That'll be next year next year. Okay, we need to make a note that next year. Oh, we we do something real special for.

Well, I can still hear us. I Mean. I mean signing happy birthday isn't nearly as fun as the singing part. So anyway, but Awful glad to have you here today.

My old job before I came to work here for that. Mm-hmm. They had a gal in the secretarial pool that had turned 50 and the all the gals pooled their money together to take her to lunch.

And.

So they had everybody in the company come out front and wait for this these women to come out and when we got out front There was this great big hearse. And they had they had taped black balloons all over.

All over the fence and everything. And then when when they came out The driver gets out of the hearse and he's dressed as a mortician grim reaper. It's like whoa. That's hey, you know the secular world.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess.

Don't do that. I was thinking about maybe run over to Walmart and picking up some Geritol or something. Oh, thank you.

I think they still make Geritol. I don't think so. I don't know. They may I you haven't looked recently.

You might want to think about starting. Well, anyway, yeah, there we go. It's a special special day there. Okay, anyway, but I've got a long ways to go till till I'm there so I'm. Actually, it's gonna be here for now.

Anyhow, eight seven seven seven five three, three, three, four. One is the phone number and I am appreciative of the the notes that I have gotten. I.

Obviously.

Touched a cord. I guess that's the term you should use. I obviously address something a lot of people Have wanted me to address. I don't even remember actually getting any email saying you really should do this.

But there are a lot of folks who have gone through a lot. Because of the fact that they came to know the Lord in a context of the non-denominational denomination and they are taught to trust the Word of God read the Word of God to have a high view of the Word of God and then they start doing that and they start living that out consistently and the results are inevitable and That is that they start seeing that the Word of God teaches certain things and when they start Talking about these things they run smack-dab into the role of tradition.

Yes tradition even in Non-denominational denominations and so when I went over the Chuck Smith Stewart and a guy named Brian I didn't put the names here on the screen in front of me. Discussing Reformed issues and doing so in a very shallow way.

In a very simplistic way. I think that's what really bothered me about it. I don't have problems with Arminians arguing their position the problem that we see over and over and over again is that instead of knowingly responding to the best the other side has to offer they knowingly limit themselves to the least the other side has to offer and And call that good enough and You know in certain.

What you see that in politics? You see people doing that in politics all the time, but this should not be an issue where we use the world's standards we're talking here about the very glory of God and salvation and so obviously I Really struck a chord with a lot of folks.

When when we address that particular issue and I wanted just once again. I I did this very briefly, but this last Little statement that was made by I think it was the Brian of the group In that first clip that I played us.

It's just it's less than 30 seconds. I played it last time, but I just wanted to add a little something to it. Jesus said it right there.

You know I've often said about Calvinism guys. Calvinism is Christianity without Jesus because they leave Jesus at the equation. They just take certain statements of Paul, and then of course and read their own.

Theology into it so there is. It sounds to me like a little bit of hyper red letterism there. There's also. And you've you've maybe you haven't but I certainly have and I think most people have had this experience.

You try to start addressing Scriptural foundations for believing That God is sovereign in the matter of salvation, and what do you hear? Oh? That that's in Paul and And as Peter said there are things difficult to understand in Paul.

See why can't you just get it from Jesus? And I've told the story before but there we always have new listeners. Many many moons ago back when I had lots of hair, too. And was skinny after getting married.

I had that stayed that way for a while not forever, but stayed that way for a while and.

I.

Had I was invited to lunch with my wife who was working at as a secretary at this Christian. I don't know if those investments thing or Financial planning thing. I forget what the guy it did, but we all went to the same church.

And I was invited to lunch.

Because.

Not only was he not reformed, but he didn't even believe in the perseverance of the Saints and So we had lunch. I was over somewhere on 7th 7th Avenue as I recall and We got ready to start talking about the issue and so he said why do you believe in this eternal security thing and.

And So I said well, you know as as Paul said here in Ephesians chapter 1 I was gonna read Ephesians 1 14 describes the Holy Spirit as the down payment and you know Start laying a foundation for viewing.

This is God's work and things like that and he immediately stopped me and he said look That's Paul. I Want to see it in the red letters if you can't find it in Jesus Then don't even bother showing it to me and I was like Okay, and of course I ended up going to John 6 at that point which makes sense, but That was the attitude.

I And it really involves an implicit.

Reduction of.

The inspired nature of a very large important part of Scripture and That's what I'm hearing there. I mean, it's absurd to say Calvinism is Christianity without Jesus. I mean, we're the ones who are actually saying Jesus actually saves that he doesn't try to save he actually saves and he actually has the capacity that that is His in that union with the father.

It's the father's will that he lose none of those given to him and he actually can save all as he actually can do the will of the father that's Calvinism and that's not what's promoted by Chuck Smith and these leaders of Calvary Chapel, so to say that this is this is Christianity without Jesus is absurd on its face.

But it also seems to me to possibly throw some light on Why it was that in about? 1994 95 somewhere around there I Listened to not the same people as Chuck Smith. But what was that? Was it Hawking? David Hawking got in with him for a while after he had some problems.

And I think Chuck Smith was gonna like take him under his wing and rehabilitate him and stuff like that. Well, I'm next to certain I'd have to ask Algo to be absolutely certain because we all have to ask Algo to be absolutely certain of anything, but um, I Believe it was David Hawking.

I know it's Chuck Smith and I'm 99 sure it was it was David Hawking. I listened to them doing this entire program About this tremendous book they had discovered and The scholarship was just incredible and man.

We've been saying this for a long time, but now we've got the documentation you all need to read this book by this great scholar by a name of GA Ripplinger and The books called New Age Bible versions.

They didn't have a clue that This was Gail Ripplinger because she kept that hidden, but they were Completely taken in by Ripplinger now, I'm sorry. I don't want to sound like the mean person. Everyone always assumes that I am.

But if you can be taken in by Ripplinger's book there is something really wrong with your discernment skills because this stuff is Like I've said many times New Age Bible versions has more errors per page on it than anything I've ever seen produced by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society so It seems to go to the same thing a real lack of in-depth Analysis and does that is that connected to what we see in a Dave Hunt?

Where knowledge of the original languages? Seminary training is put down. Well, then how come Norm Geisler gets along real well in those those areas? Well, because when he talks about this particular subject He gives the exact same surface level responses that he learned back in Bible College or seminary someplace and has never Gone beyond that in the level of the responses that he offers.

You know what? I found and you've played it now, I think three times and I find so offensive in the ignorance of the statements that he made there is that number one. As you've already pointed out John 6 is pivotal it is Foundational to the Calvinistic worldview and secondly you don't have a substitutionary atonement in any other system not really system one anyway, not a consistent one and and They would claim to hold to it.

But the point is Jesus is your substitute if you don't have Jesus You don't have the substitute and that is pivotal core to the Calvinistic system. He takes my place.

Well, it also likewise has a very twisted view of Paul as if Christ is not the very center of Paul's theology as well. I mean on every level that was just one of the most inane statements ever seen I ever heard and I I would call upon whoever that was.

I don't believe it was mr. Stewart. So it must have been the Bryan fellow To retract it and apologize and say you know what that was. That was one of the dumbest things I've ever uttered on the air and we'd like to withdraw that that'd be a wonderful thing.

But I don't really think that they're probably listening to our webcast. But I bet you someone's informed them that we've been talking about though. I think there are ears to the ground. Going going on out there.

So Anyhow, I do want to get back to the Geisler sermon that we have not dealt with for a number of weeks now. It's been I know we were doing this back in June and it keeps getting interrupted and we're only 27 minutes into it.

I'd like to continue that we also have some phone calls, but I would like to mention just very briefly. I would love to be able to already have a link on the blog to say help us do this, but One of the difficulties in arranging Some of the debates that we do is that there is a Western way of doing things and there is a non Western way of doing Thanks in the West.

We are very time oriented respond quickly oriented schedule oriented and people that are not from the West aren't that way and So sometimes when you're trying to debate people that are not that way. Getting responses and being able to nail things down is always last-minute Lord willing.

We will get confirmation Hopefully as early as today that on November 7th, I Will be debating Imam Shamsi Ali once again in New York on Jesus in the Quran and the Bible now think with me for just a moment.

That's an excellent topic. That's an excellent topic because on this very program we have gone through every single ayah in the Quran that has the name Isa in it, which is a Improper word for the word Jesus, but that's the Quranic term.

And I have often said that it is simply impossible To love the Jesus of the Quran there isn't enough there to love there's there's no person there the Jesus of the Quran is not a person he's an argument and Remember years ago when we interviewed Peter on this program The man who was saved by simply reading The New Testament in his own language.

He was born the border of Pakistan Afghanistan. You can imagine we know that area now very well. Spending billions and billions of dollars in that area right now. That's where he was born and he simply read What the New Testament taught about Jesus he read about Jesus in the Gospels and that was enough to convert him and so we know that so many of the Muslims who would attend this debate or Would listen to this debate later on YouTube or by mp3 broadcast?

Have not heard about the Jesus of the Bible and So it's tremendous opportunity but I got to get there and We don't have as a regular part of our diminished budget due to the economy Flying money, and so we do have in the shopping cart in fact in the shopping cart.

We have a brand new commercial that rich has been working on very hard for the Dan Barker debate. Dan Barker debate one From the University of Illinois you can go in now not only can you get the very very nicely done DVD that?

Rich has been working on for quite some time now. You know for a long time you get stuff from Alpha Omega Ministries that it's a it's sort of comes in a plain brown wrapper. Plain white wrapper. Yeah, well the other ones are the other ones were tan there was tan and white.

We were really a tenant. Tan was DVD and white was CD and they all had black letters very fancy black. Well.

In other words We've sort of kept the the low-rent look that we adopted back in the days when we first started creating Cassette tapes and we we did them on a ghetto blaster as they were called back then which is probably very politically incorrect now.

But it was a one-to-one. Wasn't it good? I think it went up to double speed didn't it yeah?

Double speed doubles. Take a master stick it on one side stick the other and it would go twice as so a.

C90 only took 45 minutes to make one copy. It was incredible high-end.

Technology. And and I had had a setting on it to where you it went up to the end. And then you had to flip them over.

I don't remember that part. But I do remember exactly what the the thing looked like and it was given to us and then remember we didn't even buy cassette. We used file folders file folder labels off of a off of an NEC 9 pin dot matrix printer and one of the pins.

Okay turn that microphone off, thank you alright, so anyway, we've sort of kept that Low rent view for a while, but rich finally got sick and tired of that and so he's been learning Photoshop and stuff like that, and if you buy the new Dan Barker.

This is the first Dan Barker debate. We're still waiting to get the video from the second one. You will you will see that it's it's it's gorgeous. It's very very nice looking so there is even a nice commercial in the bookstore now.

You can go and watch it. And and there's clips from the from the debate and all the rest of them. Oh and by the way. One of the eight debates from 2008 that has been missing in action for all the time arrived yesterday.

The first one on the crucifixion with Osama Abdullah, and we're supposed to have like three more coming soon. And so hopefully eventually we'll get all those debates from 2008 put together as well, so anyhow.

Not sure how we got there, but in the shopping cart. You will also find two links one for domestic travel one for international travel. And I need to get back to New York. That's just all there is to it, and we need to cover those costs.

There's a hotel and generally I have to drive around myself, so there's a rental car and. So we need your assistance to do that. That'll be early November, so we've only got a month we need to get those tickets as soon as possible and.

Then.

February 20th 21st that's the weekend that's going to be the core of my visit to London and once again We're going to be trying to do we want to do revelation TV wanted to Justin Briarley's unbelievable radio program.

Which means we get out to tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of people in that way. I want to do at least two debates while I'm back there on the subject of Islam. And the opportunity has come up, and we haven't this is this is still in the discussion stage.

But the opportunity has come up that sort of on the way there. There is a little place called Toronto Canada. And that's where Shabir Ali is and there's going to be a series of debates on Islam. Right at the time.

I'm going to London. But early enough that if I do some if I do one of the first in the series I'd be able to fly from here to Toronto Lord willing arranged debate with Shabir while I'm there and then fly from Toronto To London probably via one of US Airways hubs on the east coast.

And Sort of expand the things there, but again travel from here to the UK very very thankful that that was taken care of last time someone got me there and back again and a number of someone's and Looks like we're going to need to put that on the blog once again and say Let's get rid of them for a couple weeks again.

Back off over there you recall that we did the the dividing line from over there and things like that so that'll be in February. But obviously those types of tickets need to be purchased well beforehand as well to get the best prices so more opportunities there to do some wonderful wonderful things with large groups of Muslims and others and that's what's coming up.

But I I don't have a link up right now because we haven't gotten the November 7th absolute confirmation. It'll probably be in the same place. We were at before which was very warm back in When we did it which was I think June as I recall.

But in November it shouldn't be warm at all it should be nice and nippy and cool in New York at least I hope so because I survive a debate a whole lot better if I'm not sweating all over myself in the process so That would be coming up in Early November, so I'll be praying toward those ends if you can help us to do those things that would be a great assistance as.

Well.

Church History Sources and the Limits of Patristic Appeals

All right before I get back to The Geisler thing let's go ahead and take some of our phone calls here. They've been waiting patient. How do you wait patiently on the phone anyways? I mean? How would we be able to tell if they're impatient they would hang up?

Oh, okay, also since they're still there, then they're not impatient. So let's head back over and talk to our friend Joe in Dublin. Hello, Joe. Are you doing good?

Good good. It was and the Lord was producing just like normal guys for many. Actually. Oh, yeah, so.

God uses all sorts of all sorts of means and I try to remember that whenever I feel frustrated by some of the things I'm experiencing and some of the argumentation is being presented that I Felt frustrated when chosen but free first came out and yet.

It's probably been one of the most helpful books in getting people to See the truth that has ever come out, so you know I God's in charge, and he's going to be he's going to do exactly what he wants to accomplish so I think that's great so.

Anyway your question about church history.

Yeah, it gave me that book that eventually particularly Amish men in late You know isn't convinced to the doctrines of grace open to this point. We've had many discussions on it and the Baptist Church historian by the name of David Burso Who makes a bow basically in terms of like even it's only really a Gnostic.

Maybe some early church fathers that I could well.

Well as soon as soon as someone pulls the Gnostic card You you you can immediately Tell that they've they've gone beyond the bounds. The the idea that there is some type of Meaningful connection to Gnosticism in in reformed theology is is well.

It's not just slightly shy of absurd. It is absurd so once you once you do that you've really shot your credibility but this is the same argument the Roman Catholics make in regards justification and.

Well, I want I want an early church father to dress this and believe this and so on so forth first and foremost. Even if there wasn't anything there the the only thing for the Bible-believing Protestant that is relevant is what is inspired.

Not what did people afterwards think about what has been inspired? And it is amazing to me that people in light of the clarity of the biblical revelation Would be wandering around and all these unclear areas.

Trying to find light while shutting their eyes so blunt so tightly to the light that is provided by Scripture. These were not the issues of the early church fathers many of the early church fathers like Justin Martyr came out of a Greek philosophical background and so they had a very strong commitment to certain elements that Distinguished them from that.

I was just talking about Justin Martyr recently in regards Dan Barker. And I pointed out that I never found a single citation in the extant writings of Justin Martyr that is unequivocally from Paul. He seemed to have basically Matthew and Luke now.

What would you have? It well upon what basis would you be able to preach? Overly clearly if all you had was Matthew and Luke now I could take you to Matthew 11 27. But let's face it without the the full revelation of Scripture at that point he's far more influenced by Greek philosophy than he is by the entirety of the Revelation found in the New Testament and When when you say prior to Augustine what were the what were the great debates prior to Augustine was it this.

No it wasn't it was issues in regards to modalism and Arianism that was the the primary focus of of the of the church's Concerns at that time and so to ask for these types of things is to really from my perspective Abuse church history and abuse the early church fathers and say well They need to have been systematic theologians.

And they need to have been addressing these and and if you can't find I'm talking about this. There's also all sorts of stuff that they were talking about that. We don't find to be overly interesting in our day and there's all sorts of things that they didn't talk about that we'd love to know more about but That just simply wasn't their issue and so while we can Detect for example in some of the earliest materials and Clement of Rome for example.

Even though it's we don't know who wrote Clement of Rome. And it's probably just the elders of the Church of Rome. They would have had Romans 8 and 9 and so it's not overly surprising that we find discussions of the elect.

And God's grace in regards to the salvation of the elect apart from their works and things like that. Coming from a church that received one of the epistles that most clearly presents that but why should I be overly concerned about what?

Say the epistle of Barnabas says. When the epistle of Barnabas is clearly based upon a very sub biblical view of the New Testament Revelation. Why why should that be relevant to me if you happen to place a tremendous amount of weight upon those things fine?

But it's very similar to what I listened to Steve Gregg saying many of the same things I think it probably drawing from the same sources saying oh all the early church fathers Believed in the free will of man, and they didn't believe in the perseverance of saints and so on and so forth.

Well. How much of the New Testament did they possess? Did they actually engage any of the texts that clearly teach these things the answer almost always is no. So why did they hold those positions? Well sometimes we can tell pure ignorance sometimes.

We can't didn't have an interest in it, but that kind of Abuse of church history where well, I'm gonna line up my citations over here, and you line up your citations over there shows an extremely shallow understanding of Any type of meaningful approach to church history which is the same type of shallow approach that we see from Roman Catholics who?

Try to turn your liturge fathers in the Roman Catholics or you know a Anabaptist that tries to turn him into Anabaptist whatever else you have to look at each church father in their own Context and there are certain questions that simply cannot be answered because we don't have enough information.

Why didn't Justin living when he lived have access to more of Paul, or if he did why didn't he rely upon it? We don't know. That's just all there is to it anyone who claims that they do well you better Examine fairly closely why they make that type of claim, so It's it's a I think it's a it's a boomerang type of Argument that someone might try to make at that point that just simply does not treat church history in a fair way at all.

Right that's how we particularly kind of make up and out like he was. That he actually did in Geneva. And you've addressed it yourself before so.

Okay, well, thanks Joe. God bless take care. I got less. Bye. Bye. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one. Let's talk with. Actually it's time to take a break real quick now. We're gonna skip it.

You already turned it off, huh? Skip the break that's that's what it says. Yeah, well fine. That's easy for you to do. You're just sitting in there leaning forward. You know lean on your elbows having a good old time.

You know you're not you're sipping on your coffee. You don't have to worry about how much I'm talking in here. So you can just you know decide to do these things and fine. Okay fine, you know if I'm out of my if I can't even talk by the time this thing's over it doesn't really matter.

It's it's okay. No. I'm gonna go talk to Jose right now. Hi Jose in California. How are you? All right.

Minister's been a real blessing on two months I've been for the past 10 years Chapel background in and We got into a debate with the pastor and I saw how like you talk about him, but I don't know. I'm excited to talk to you.

Tradition brother. It's called tradition. Yeah tradition right. And uh as I was sitting there in this class he was having a he's gonna have a debate on Calvinism and Since I've been studying Calvinism is a hair on choice in the Old Testament.

That's up, but the only question I Answered father draws him to himself and he gives him eternal life, but in the Old Testament out out of that workout I still haven't had a clear workout in the Old Testament like when they chose life and choose this day.

Well.

Very often people will cite texts like that as if somehow The fact that the Old Testament and the New Testament the New Testament says the same thing it's you know today is day of salvation, etc, etc as if the that general call means that there is no specific call or that that means that everyone is equally capable of Making the right decision and you just simply look at the Old Testament you go.

Okay. Wait a minute. Let me see if I understand what you're saying here because Joshua says choose you this day. That means everybody has free will no one is a slave to sin. All right. So why does God have to reserve for himself a remnant?

Why would in fact how could God reserve for himself a Remnant if in point of fact what they're saying is true because to reserve a remnant would be to violate their free will wouldn't it? How would God reserve a remnant?

Wouldn't it be that the remnant has to reserve itself? I mean, I mean it just it's just so obvious that both the Old and New Testament are saying the same thing. There is a general command. Christians are commanded to call all creatures all men men women and children to repent now.

That's a that's a given. Nobody knows who the elect are. So the call goes out to everyone. Repent and believe turn and believe that's the first message of the gospel that's preached by Jesus. And that is the message of the prophets to the people of Israel as well and to anyone in fact.

Who would hear the message of the one true God of of Israel was to repent of their ways. Turn and live that's that's always the only message we can deliver because we don't limit our proclamation. To the elect because we don't know who the elect are that those those are separate issues and so there isn't any difference between the two you proclaim the gospel you call all men to to repent and to believe and.

Yet at the same time in the Old Testament God hardens the heart of Pharaoh. He hardens the heart of entire nations. They might be destroyed by the Israelites. He hardens the Israelites heart so they might be destroyed themselves.

You have all this stuff where God is clearly acting in such a way that he's not overly concerned about this quote-unquote libertarian free will. The point being that the only people who are going to choose are those who have been the recipients of God's grace.

That's why they're called the remnant back then or that's why Paul in a New Testament can say and do all things the sake of The elect we can sort of see in hindsight who they were but we can't see. In in the present situation we you know, the elect don't glow green and so we proclaim the gospel to everyone so certainly.

Everyone makes a choice. The the Reformed position is not and this is what? Assemblies of God. Calvary Chapel. They all say the same thing. You Calvinist don't think we have a will. No. We most certainly do men always respond to the gospel, but outside of grace.

It's always in a negative way. That's what Paul said in Romans chapter 8 when he says those who are according the flesh. Can not submit themselves to the law of God. They don't have the capacity because they're slaves of sin or as Jesus said in John chapter 8.

Why don't you hear what I'm saying? Because you don't belong to God not the other way around. It's why don't you belong because you didn't choose to know you can't even hear what I'm saying because you don't belong to God.

And so when we talk about people exercising choice, of course, they exercise choice. But until the Spirit of God brings freedom to exercise the right choice. That choice is always going to be negative.

Now. It's not always gonna be the same kind of choice. There are. I mean look at our world today. There's all sorts of folks who choose to rebel against God. Religiously, that is they embrace false religions.

It helps to assuage their conscience or whatever. But then there are others who rebel against God in a secular atheistic fashion. But they're all negative. Responses to God's command to repent and to believe and so they all made a choice.

They look differently, but they're all united in one thing. They're in rebellion against God. It is until God removes that slavery to sin when he does that then you have The work of God in that person's life and and the choice to follow Christ and to repent of sin and so on and so forth but that is dependent upon God freeing them from that slavery to sin that is theirs and so.

There's no difference between the Old and New Testament at that point God's Spirit was needed then God's Spirit is needed now. Man has been the slave of sin since Adam fell and and in the assemblies of God.

There's a lot of people who openly deny the doctrine of original sin. They do not believe that our nature Was impacted by the fall of Adam, which would mean they'd have a real problem with Romans chapter 5.

So That may be behind a lot of what you're hearing.

Okay, so it's the same drawing of the Father on the Old Testament.

You bet spirit of God has been required to open the hearts and minds of any sinner any rebel sinner From the time that Adam and Eve partook of that fruit that is that has been the only way That that anyone has ever been saved.

It's it's not a matter of well in the Old Testament. They had libertarian free will and some people got it, right and then in the New Testament you have to have this This sovereignty of God or something like that.

No. The the the way of salvation by faith requiring the Spirit of God's work in their heart is very clearly The way it always is. Otherwise the Old Testament Saints would be able to boast over New Testament Saints that they were able to do Good things the New Testament Saints couldn't do without the work of the Spirit of God, which makes absolutely no sense either.