David Ould Report

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
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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.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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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
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to the Dividing Line on a Wednesday afternoon, a little early today due to the fact that, well, to be perfectly honest with you,
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I have a rehearsal dinner to attend tomorrow evening. That's part of the reason, yes, my youngest is getting married, and yes,
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I am doing the ceremony, and yes, I am nervous about whether dad is going to handle, would you be able to handle that?
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Would I be able to handle that? Well, I have a daughter and I, it's very hard to say, isn't it? I mean, honestly, I mean.
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It does give you the ultimate power of veto, though, doesn't it? No, no, you have no, I have no control in this situation.
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Surely, if you're there, if you're the guy that's saying to them, do you, who gives this woman to me? No, no, no, no. Who gives this woman to me? And I go,
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I don't. It doesn't matter. It's over, go home, mate. Do you have any earthly idea how my life would be over with if I pulled a stunt like that?
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This is true, this is true. Okay, anyway, what? What are you looking at? I've got it aimed at him, right?
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You just got to eat that microphone. Like this? Yes, that's the best way to do it. In studio with me, that voice.
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Now, you see, I get attacked all the time when
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I do my British accent. With good reason, because as I have personally pointed out to you,
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Dick Van Dyke is not the man to model British accents on. Okay, and I don't model Dick Van Dyke anymore.
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I started going to London, and I'm around Roger Brazier, and I'm around these very cultured Brits. Refined.
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Very refined. Oh, yes. And I, you know, I love London. I really do. I mean, I've been spending time, you know, going out street witnessing at Leicester Square, and it's just beautiful.
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It's magical. Oh, it is. It's not so right now, because I don't know if you know this, they're getting ready for the Olympics. That's right.
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And it's just, it's not overly pretty right now. But anyway, but you are a true
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Brit. So I'm not refined like those other guys, is what you're saying? No, well, but see, you live in exile.
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That's true, I do. I do. I do. I'm a strange man in a strange land.
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Yes, yes, well, yes, that's true. In channel, Mike is going Cranmer, Cranmer, Cranmer, he's got a chant going in channel right now.
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Is someone taking a log of that, please? Oh, don't worry. That machine in the other room, that's NA -27, so it sees all things.
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You've got four screens, and I don't have one. No, I only have three screens. Only three. I only have three screens. But in the studio with me is a man that we know as Cranmer, but in real life goes by the name of David Uld.
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Old, Old Uld? Old. Old, okay. And you are from, it's actually technically
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St. Augustine's, isn't it? That's right, yes. Yes, so I actually have an
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Anglican on the air with me. You do. That's right, that's right, and many people in my audience are going, oh, he's lost it.
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He's completely lost it. But actually, if you've listened to me talking, for example, when
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I did those, and I told you about those videos I did at the Midwest Center for Theology.
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That's right. And it finally, like the last one or something like that, I made some comment about the very odd Sydney Anglicans.
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We are odd. We're very strange. Oh, and for example, one of my favorite, one of your favorite debates of mine was one that I did with who?
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Jack Spong. Jack, now notice, it's Jack Spong. So like Jack Sparrow.
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Jack, who's J .C. Ryle? I've never heard of him. Oh, yes, yes. Where's he minister?
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I've not met him before. Yes, indeed. Sydney Anglicans.
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Now, when I went down there in, oh, nine, wasn't it? It was. Eight or nine.
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Somewhere. Once you get to our age, it starts all blurring together anyways, but the
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Sydney part was actually sort of thrown in. It was supposed to be primarily
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Brisbane, and we sort of worked it out, and every place
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I spoke was an Anglican church. That's right. Because if you want good, solid, orthodox, evangelical teaching in Sydney, the very safest place to go is the
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Sydney Anglicans, and you laugh like that's a joke. There are a few Reformed Baptist brethren there going, hey, what about us?
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They're good guys, but across, like, if someone goes to Sydney and they go, I'm going to Sydney, and I don't know where in Sydney I'm going to be, and it's a big, big metropolis, four million people, if they said, where should
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I go to church, without even knowing what suburb they're in, you can pretty well say, go to an
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Anglican church, and you will get good, safe - And that was the first time I ever preached from an elevated pulpit.
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Oh, that was our pulpit. Yes, it was your pulpit. That's right. That's right. Now, the first night wasn't your place. Not at all.
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No. But that was the second night, I think? It was the Wednesday night. So it's maybe the third night. Yeah, I can't remember. But anyways, and people are like, wait a minute, how can the
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Anglicans let you preach? Because everybody here doesn't know about you folks. But just briefly, for example,
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I was just in Anchorage, and one of the
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Anglican churches up there, Episcopalian churches up there, the pastor is very conservative and has sound theology, and you even gave him a shout -out up there, and they would love to try to align themselves.
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There's people, there are churches all over the world trying to align themselves with you guys. Why? Well, let's give you a bit of Radio Free Canterbury, shall we, and tell you what's going on in the
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Anglican communion. So the Anglican communion is currently split. The presenting issue on which we're split, it really is sexual ethics, and particularly homosexual practice, and can practicing homosexuals be ordained ministers and consecrated as bishops, setting aside whether you should consecrate anybody who's a bishop or not.
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But it's really a question about the authority of scripture, and we've been discussing that issue for about a good 20 years.
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It really came to a head eight years ago in 1993 with the consecration of an openly practicing homosexual in America, Jean Robinson, that's right, at which point you then actually, the discussions are moot anymore, you've actually done it, and then we started to really fragment.
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And what's come out of that is a really encouraging movement called the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, also known as GAFCON, named after the
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Global Anglican Future Conference which was held in Jerusalem two or three years ago. And so a lot of the conservative
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Anglicans have got together and said, do you know what, we're done fighting. We're done fighting.
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The institutions of the communion just stymie us at every point and call.
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The big councils, the Archbishop Canterbury himself, we're done. I was about to say, I mean, isn't that really one of the biggest hurdles to get over, is that just, there's this, it's almost like the via media.
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There's an institutional block. And so the FCA, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, have basically gone, do you know what, we're done trying to use those instruments to reform the communion, there's just an unwillingness to discipline the
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Americans and the Canadians and others, we're just going to carry on being Anglican regardless, those crazy
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Americans. We're just going to carry on being Anglican regardless of that.
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So they made a declaration in Jerusalem called the Jerusalem Declaration where they really just affirmed the third nine articles of the church, which is a really solid reformed basis of faith.
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We said, look, we're a creedal church. JC Ryle would have liked that. He would have liked that. Jack Spong, not so much. They affirmed that and said, you know what, we're going to start supporting people who want to do that.
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And really the big news recently has been that a group has formed and established itself within the Church of England itself called the
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Anglican Mission in England. So in the UK? In the Church of England. So the UK split between the Church of England and the
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Church of Wales and the Church in Scotland and in the Church of England they formed something called the
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Anglican Mission in England. And they've basically set a little panel of bishops who are solid and they just ordained three guys.
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Wow. Isn't it? It's almost like doing missions work where you start in a home. Yes. It's like as one church newspaper commentator put it, the tanks have been parked on the lawn of Lambeth Palace.
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But obviously that creates some rather interesting tensions.
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It does create tensions. But the great thing for us in our position is we go, do you know what, we're just being
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Anglican. That's it. We're just, we believe the things I said I believed when I was ordained and we're just going to get on and do that.
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And we're going to consecrate, we're going to ordain people the right way with bishops and with their approval.
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But isn't that weird though to use the old formularies to ordain somebody and yet the words have been changed so much in their meaning that you've got somebody on the other side that wants to ordain homosexuals, but they said the same words you did.
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They do. But let's, how am I going to put this in a polite way? Let me try to be polite and not cynical. They just don't believe the words that they're saying.
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Well, they've redefined them. I mean, it's postmodernism run amok. It really is. They have. But that's always been in one sense a problem in Anglicanism.
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And really where that came in was in the 19th century when the Tractarians, guys like Newman, who eventually had the integrity to go over to Rome, and that was a moment of real integrity for him, guys like him and Pucey.
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But the integrity didn't last through Vatican I, that's the problem with the papal availability.
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You're a personal fight with the Roman Catholics, you've got big enough fish to fry. But that introduced the idea of, he introduced a very famous tract called
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Tract 90 where he re -read the Anglican articles in almost a papist way, and certainly a
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Roman way. And so he introduced the idea of reading stuff not quite the way it really was intended, long before the postmoderns thought that would be a good idea.
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But it fits in. But it fits in. And so, like any other denomination, we've had our troubles in the past and no doubt we will in the future.
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But I think what we're seeing at the moment is that God is honoring just faithfulness and allowing people to be courageous, and he's doing a wonderful thing where he's allowing, particularly
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African nations, who we in the West have the privilege, the honor of evangelizing maybe 200 years ago, he's allowing them to now come and support us.
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They're pretty conservative too, aren't they? Pretty conservative too. But even in Australia, it's not all of the
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Anglicans. That's true. And again, that's a unique product of Australian, well, the constitution of the church and geography.
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So the Australian church was founded when a chaplain came with the first fleet. And the mission societies went to the government and they said, it would be right to send a chaplain.
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Would you fund a chaplain? And the government went, no, they're convicts. They don't need a chaplain. And the mission societies went, no, that might be why they need a chaplain, especially so.
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They may understand grace better than you might think. So the mission societies actually funded the first chaplain and he worked really hard.
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And of course, it's only convinced evangelicals that get on a boat for four months to go to somewhere else.
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You know, liberals don't do that. So off he goes and he preaches, he preaches the gospel out there and then he's replaced by other guys and they're solidly evangelical.
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And so Sydney forms this very evangelical core. And then as other dioceses are established, of course, they're geographically separate.
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Things can just diverge as time passes on. And they do.
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And the diocese in Australia then tend to be quite independent, is not the right word, maybe autonomous.
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And then the general synod can only really do something for the whole church if all the diocese agree.
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So you have this curious situation where officially we're quite conservative as a church.
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But because the individual diocese are so geographically distinct and separate from each other, it takes a lot to get people to talk.
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And autonomous, they end up plowing their own furrows, in a sense.
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And so we're going to come to a point, perhaps in Australia, where one of the diocese itself makes a decision. They've already decided to ordain, to consecrate women as bishops, which has caused a bit of a stink.
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But there probably will come a moment where they make and legislate and put into liturgy something about same sex blessings.
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And then it's going to kick off, my friend. So what makes Sydney so conservative?
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What keeps it that way? Well, humanly speaking, I want to say because they've recognized that getting the theological college right at the center is key.
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So Moore Theological College in Sydney is one of the, I think I can say now, having gone through four years of seminary, is one of the finest undergraduate seminaries in the world.
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And solidly, solidly conservative, got a few things going on, but you know, pretty good. And that just churns out pastors and Bible teachers and lay workers for Sydney.
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And so there's an iteration that goes on there. So humanly speaking, that's what's going on. Being wise about picking your archbishop and your principal of the college.
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Don't ever underestimate the seminaries there. Oh, yeah, of course. As you all know, in various denominations here.
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I also want to go, God has been very kind. There was a moment in the 19th century where we could have slipped into probably
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Anglo -Catholicism. And God was kind and gracious enough to bring us back. And probably the third thing that humanly speaking is going on is that there are a couple of organizations that are working very hard to make sure that we keep it that way.
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So I'm on the council of an organization called the Anglican Church League. And we just see it as our duty to keep thanking
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God for the wonderful grace he's given to Sydney Anglicans and to under him work hard to maintain that as well as we can.
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Now, the relationship of the church and the culture. Yeah. In Australia.
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Actually, according to I was looking at the website here and it said... Which website's that?
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Yours. Oh, our church's website. New to me. David became a Christian whilst... Whilst?
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Whilst... How's whilst spelled? Have I misspelled it? Are you mispronouncing it? We'd say while here.
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Studying in America. That's right. So where were you studying? I was at, and as soon as I say it, it'll make sense to you.
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I was at Champaign -Urbana, University of Illinois. Really? That's right. And I had grown up in one of those really middle of the road, nondescript
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Anglican churches back home. Hadn't really heard the gospel in the sense that you and I would understand it until I was about 17.
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And then not with any clarity. Went off to university in my first year. Did what most...
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Lived a very typical student life in my first year. And then got a chance to go to the States. And won a little scholarship and went to the
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States for a year to study. And while I was at University of Illinois, I met two Christian guys who were in my residence hall.
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And they were clearly very different to all the rest of the guys in my residence hall. And when I actually found out they were born -again
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Christians, it was initially... It was initially a bit of an annoyance for me, really. But they were gracious to me and kind.
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And they said, are you a Christian, David? And I went, yeah, sure I am. I go to church. And they were, again, kind enough not to go, no, you're not.
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They just lived their life in front of me and invited me along to Bible study. And I was a proud man, but not a stupid man.
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And I did understand as those months went by that what I said was Christianity clearly was not... Was not what they had.
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Was not what they had. And being an exchange student, I had a lot of time on my hands. And so one of the things
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I did is I said, I'm just going to find out if this stuff is true or not. And what converted me out there was two things.
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One was having the Bible left by one of the delegates at the InterVarsity Convention, which went on that winter while I was away.
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And secondly was just coming to the realization that it was the life of Paul. It was the change in the life of Paul that actually converted me.
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And I just didn't doubt the basic historical details. He changed on the road to Damascus or somewhere there.
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I read his letters. And I just said to myself, there is nothing that could have convinced this man other than meeting the resurrected
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Christ. You know, the Christians could have jumped him on the road and say, you know, Paul, Saul, we know where your family live.
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We've had enough of this persecution nonsense. And that may have stopped him, but would not have made him the convinced evangelist. When you read his letters, he clearly is.
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And I just came to the conclusion, under God, that the only reasonable explanation was that Jesus was raised, like the
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Bible said. And then I just kind of went, huh, OK, then. Then I better do something about it. So how long were you here in the
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States then? I was here for a year. Oh, just for one year. OK. But you still know something about the culture here.
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A little bit. It's different than Australia. Australia is a much more secular culture.
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And so... Secular, we all are viewing ourselves as. That's saying a lot. You view yourself secular here, and yet there's a phenomenal amount of public
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Christian expression. So the battle is on here, as I see it, on whether that Christian expression can take place in certain formats, in certain loci.
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But Australia is a very different country. It's where you just don't get public religious expression. And so when you do, it gets mocked or ridiculed.
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And on the, you know, you can't get a serious Christian guy. We just managed to get a guy on the
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Refined talk show on AVC, a guy called John Lennox, Professor John Lennox.
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Oh, sure, yeah. Yeah. He was on the Q &A on Monday, just before we left. But that was a rarity.
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They normally get on some wingbat. Oh, yeah. And so we're actually trying to go back into that.
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The counter thing, of course, is that where we're ministering, it's right on Sydney Harbour in Sydney.
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Quite well to do. Quite a lot of middle class people, a lot of whom went to private schools, had chapels, maybe themselves went to church when they were younger.
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And so a lot of them are familiar with Christian things, kind of the language, familiar with Christian culture, church cultures.
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And so a lot of our job is to give them a good experience of church, though, that they can enjoy and engage them again with the
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Lord Jesus Christ from the page of the Bible. And we're having, I don't want to brag, I think that would be wrong, but we're having some success doing that, particularly through wedding ministries as well.
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Couples come to us when they want to get married. We've got a pretty church building. That's what brings them in. But what keeps them, I think, is the wedding. I saw that wedding thing on the website.
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Hey, come get married where we are. But it's really one person at a time type thing.
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Oh, for sure. There are some organizations, again, Sydney organizations mainly.
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So the Centre for Public Christianity has come out of Sydney, and they're working hard to get good, positive, intellectually credible speech about Jesus.
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So they were responsible for getting John Lennox onto Q &A. And so they're trying to do stuff.
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But no, it's not in the public way that it is here. So it's secular in that other sense.
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When it happens, it does happen. Australia is a very understated country. Very informal.
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Very informal. I mean... So I was just calling you James without even thinking. Well, not only that, but I discovered that the one item that I really did not need to have brought with me last time was my tie.
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That's right. And in fact, the first night, what did I wear? A bow tie, probably. I had a bow tie.
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They were probably very polite to you. They were. And then also in Australia, there's a thing called the tall poppy syndrome, where they're cutting off the tall poppy.
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So if someone, I think, gets too big for their boots, you're gone. Ah, I see. You're gone. So, yeah. There's titles, formal.
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I mean, I was expecting at least a few of those uncomfortable collars that you guys wear.
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I didn't even see that. Hey, listen, I've got one of those and it comes out for a funeral. And only if someone wants me to wear robes for weddings and only on really high feast days, so Christmas and Easter for our prayer book, big prayer book services.
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But no, they don't serve their purpose. In that kind of a culture, an anti -authoritarian culture, they're really unhelpful.
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There are some cultures where it's useful. If I'm going hospital visiting, I'll very often put my dog collar on and you'll be amazed the doors that open up.
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Oh, sure. Sure. Now, we're going to dive into a Radio Free Geneva here in a few minutes, but heading your direction in a matter, literally a matter of weeks,
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October, going to be heading down there and sort of doing a repeat in the sense of Sydney, Brisbane.
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Yes, you are. But this time, the focus is primarily on Sydney. So what are we going to be doing down there?
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Well, we're going to fly you in and then actually give you a night's rest, which I think would be sensible. Before making me drool on a pulpit somewhere, that's good.
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And then you are kind enough to agree to come and do a weekend away for our church. So you're going to come away with us and talk about apologetics, which we're very excited about.
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But is that going to be the church? No, it's going to be at a little conference center run by Anglican Youth Works on the water.
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Very nice. Oh, no. Are there seagulls around? Well, no.
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You can explain that in your own time. Oh, I have. I have gone around the world now explaining that Finding Nemo was actually a historical documentary.
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Absolutely. Oh, it is. Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike. We ate fish and chips on Sydney Harbour and got dive bombed by seagulls.
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They were aggressives. Oh, no, it's not. When you have to sit there with your legs up, kicking at them to keep them away from your fish and chips.
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So anyway. Weekend away. And then we're hoping, we're just finalizing a public debate with Abdullah Kunde, who
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I know is an often time caller into your show and a prominent Islamic apologist in Sydney.
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So we're just finalizing that. I can't say anything more because we're just trying to get the details arranged and maybe get a big organization.
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And then we've got you off doing some filming with another organization. And then we're getting you to Moore Theological College as well to speak to the students there.
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Which I did last time. Which you did last time. And they're very keen to have you back. And then we're going to fly you up to Bris Vegas.
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Bris Vegas? Bris Vegas. Is that what it's called there? That's what the people from Sydney call it. Really? Why is that?
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I think because it's all like flashy and nice up there and sunny. Okay. And sunny. Well, it was warmer. That's true.
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It was definitely warmer. Yeah, a couple of hours flight north. And I think that they're looking after your schedule there. So you probably know better than I do.
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Well, yeah, I know that I know that I'm going to be doing a retreat for the same church
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I was at last time. But the big thing up in Brisbane is going to be the debate with Roger Perkins.
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That's right. Yeah. On Juandis Pentecostalism. Well, not on Juandis Pentecostalism, but on the Doctrine of the
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Trinity and specifically the existence of the Son of God prior to the incarnation as a divine person.
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And that's why yesterday morning I was actually this morning riding along listening to Roger Perkins debating a
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Church of Christ guy. And what we're going to be doing, in fact, on The Dividing Line between now and October is
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I'm going to be reviewing some of the debates that Abdullah Kunda has done with Samuel Green.
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Oh, yeah. And also Roger Perkins debates. So we're going to be doing a lot of debate review between now and October, which should be useful to both of my opponents because I'm laying out.
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I mean, no one should ever go into a debate going, I didn't know you believe that. I mean,
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I make it as simple as can possibly be. So, yeah, but that's what we're gonna be doing on The Dividing Line.
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So that last time I was there in August, wasn't
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I? That's right. Was it August? I think it was August. So October is going to be warmer.
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So it's gonna be the springtime. Springtime, yeah. Okay. Yeah, still no ties though. Oh, no.
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Well, you know, I just, I don't know. I'm a Reformed Baptist. We don't even know how to.
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We start stammering behind a pulpit if we don't have a tie on, even though I don't think I wore a tie when
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I spoke. You didn't. You wore a very nice waistcoat. That's right. That's right. A waistcoat, which we call a vest here.
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But yes, yes, yes, I did. You may call it a vest. It is actually a waistcoat.
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Okay, all right, whatever you say. When I was in London a few weeks ago,
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I don't know if you, a few weeks ago, October, February, I was on a, I did a television program like the second night
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I was there. And the host wore this satin white vest and they call it a waistcoat.
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They do. It was blindingly bad. That's not good for television. Oh, it was horrible.
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I could not believe they let him do that. It was just, it was terrible. So anyways, so it'll be springtime there.
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So I'll have to keep that in mind. And I need to remember that there's no weight restriction on how much your carry -ons weigh coming into Australia.
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Is that right? But there is coming out of Australia. They nailed you on that one. They did. They did.
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I'm going to have to, I had to repack stuff. And oh, it was, it was, getting out was, was no fun at all.
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And especially when you're looking forward to spending how many hours on a 747 or whatever it is.
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Oh, we came over on the new A380 and it was about 14 marvelous, fun -filled hours.
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Oh yes. Oh yes. It's wonderful. Well, I flew an A380 out to Sydney, but it was a 747 out of Brisbane.
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Out of Brisbane. It's not, not the same thing. So slumming it from there. Yeah. Yeah. So, well,
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David, you have called, in fact, I think the last, the last time you called, did we discuss the Ashes or something like that?
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Quite possibly. Do you mean the Ashes where we beat Australia in the most prestigious sporting event of all time?
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And yet you live in... That's right. But I'm a British citizen. They don't give me citizenship.
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Oh. And I took great delight in taking my whole family on the last day of the Ashes at Sydney Cricket Ground to watch
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Australia lose to England. So, so why is it that you're starting to sound more and more like one of them?
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Yeah, this has happened. This has happened twice now. I've come here and someone says, oh, you're from Australia. And a little bit of me inside has died.
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I think after eight years in, in, in a beautiful country of Australia, I'm kind of just picking up the accent slightly. Have you, now, have you been back to the
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UK? Only in our first year. And actually this is the first, we're going on an around the world trip. And this is the first time
28:05
I've been in maybe seven years. Really? Yeah. And you know what they're going to say to you once they hear it? They're going to say I sound like I'm Australian.
28:11
Yeah. Uh -huh. I know. That's, that's really rough. I'm just going to tell them to shut up. I'm going to suck it up. Hey, can
28:16
I ask one more favor? Oh, sure. Actually, actually, Rich, we'll go ahead and we'll, we'll, we'll dive right into it. Don't even worry. The Radio Free Geneva intro is so long.
28:23
Anyways, that's, that's fine. My daughter asked me at the mall today if I've ever been on television. And I had to say to her sadly, no.
28:29
Would she be disappointed? She said no. But I see a webcam there. That's the next best thing. Am I, am I on that? No, you're not. You're not. You'd have to come over here.
28:36
First come around and give you a wave. Oh, you could do that. I'll do it right now. And then I'll, then I'll go. We'll, we'll, we'll microphone. Hang on. Wait. I'm going around.
28:42
Well, yeah, see, see, we can share the, share the microphone. I'll share the microphone. See, there you go. See, there. Harris, I'm on the
28:47
TV. I'm on the TV. It's hard to get
28:53
Christians on TV in Australia, I guess. Sensible ones. So you get the, as you said, you get the nutburgers, but you don't get the, uh.
29:02
We, we've got this problem in, in Australia that there's a, an organization called the Australian Christian Lobby who, who speak out about everything.
29:10
And their strapline is, I think something, something like values for Australia. And it just makes you want to go, no, no, because values is being good, which is, my friends say it with me, the opposite of the gospel.
29:26
Oh, I see. Okay. Like the first time we had, I watched Veggie Tales with my kids and they went, they went Sunday morning values,
29:32
Saturday morning fun. And I went, no, that's not the gospel. Values.
29:38
Aha. Well, I missed all that while I was down there. You all kept me pretty busy. I didn't, I didn't see much in the way of a television.
29:44
That's okay. Down there, which I probably wasn't. It's all American junk anyway. Oh yeah. We probably exported to you anyways.
29:49
Well, thank you for coming in and, and I'm sorry that it's 147 degrees outside. That's okay.
29:55
Thank you so much for having me. Have we, have I not told you so many times? You warned me. It's a little bit hot here.
30:01
And right now it's not bad. It's not too bad, is it? I actually want to buy an egg just for the sake of trying to fry it on the footpath.
30:08
We had 118 a couple of weeks ago, so it's only, it's only like 107 today. Only 107.
30:13
Yeah. So it's 11 degrees cooler. Positively balmy outside, isn't it? It is a little, it is a little warm here, but thank you very, very much for coming in.
30:22
And we're going to dive right into Radio Free Geneva. I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow
30:38
John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them. They're following men instead of the word of God.
31:17
Well, first of all,
31:23
James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. On earth is not his equal.
31:32
I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.
31:45
But God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever.
31:52
We're not the right man on our side. The man of God's own choosing.
32:01
Ladies and gentlemen, James White is a hyper -Calvinist. Now, whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper -Calvinists.
32:09
You ask who that may be? Christ Jesus it is he.
32:16
I said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism.
32:22
It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist. Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism.
32:34
Read my book. From age to age the same, and he must win the battle.
32:52
And now, from our underground bunker hidden deep beneath Liberty University, where no one would think to look, save from those moderate
33:01
Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are
33:07
Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say to his own eternal glory.
33:15
And here we go. We need to press on in our review of Bob Coy's sermon on Calvinism.
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We haven't been getting very far, especially if we keep playing things like the Calvinists don't believe in any of the solas that we...
33:29
I bet you David didn't get to hear that one. You were traveling. You didn't get to hear it.
33:35
No, but no, no, we're not playing it. We're not going to put everybody through that once again. But we need to press on with Bob Coy's discussion of Reformed theology, picking up right where we left off last time.
33:46
Let's dive right in. For this end, we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust the living
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God, who is the Savior of all men, all men. 1 John 2 and 2.
33:58
Okay, that's where we had... I had actually backed it up just a little bit there so that we could take a look at...
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I'm assuming that that was 1 Timothy 4 .10. And specifically, so as to point out, yeah, who is the
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Savior of all people, ESV. And for some reason, this last phrase, malista pistone, didn't get quoted there.
34:29
And that is specifically, or especially, of those who believe. And I was going to...
34:34
Let me just back that up. Make sure I didn't miss anything. Okay, let's make sure we got it here.
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For this end, we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust the living God, who is the Savior of all men, all men.
34:51
Yep. 1 John 2 and 2. And he himself is the propitiation of our sins. Yeah, we'll get to 1
34:56
John 2 in a second. That's definitely 1 Timothy 4 .10. Just so strange to stop at that point.
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I'm not making an accusation. That Bob is trying to hide something or that he's trying to, you know...
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I don't get the feeling in any way, shape, or form that this man is in any way, shape, or form deceptive.
35:23
Maybe what he was quoting from doesn't quote that last phrase. I just do not know. But for those of you who have the
35:30
Potter's Freedom, I'm not going to go over this too deeply. Starting on page 365 of the new edition—there is no page 365 in the old edition—I have a discussion that goes for about six pages here on 1
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Timothy 4 .10, which includes lengthy citations from George W.
35:55
Knight III and one of the best commentaries in the pastoral epistles you'll ever find, and his citation and discussion of that.
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I believe I also have Robert Mounce in here. And I also—yeah, yeah,
36:09
William Mounce. I'm sorry, Robert Mounce, duh. William Mounce is in here. And then I also have, very interestingly enough, the citation from Marshall and Towner.
36:18
I, Howard Marshall, is no reformed exegete in any way, shape, or form. And his specific statement is,
36:28
These problems disappear if we accept the other possible translation to be precisely, namely, I mean, all is thus limited here to believers.
36:36
That is cited from him. I'll direct you to that for a fuller reading, but I just don't get the feeling that Bob Coy's sources that he's utilizing—I hope
36:50
I'm wrong—that he's simply utilizing something like George Bryson's materials.
36:57
But let's just be honest. My experience is, with the non -denominational denomination, that—and you know, as I'm sitting here thinking about this, this sort of fits in with the ecclesiology of the non -denominational denomination.
37:15
And I'm going to go ahead and make an application here. I wasn't planning on doing this, but given what's called the
37:24
Moses model amongst the Calvary Chapel churches, once the particular leadership of the
37:31
Calvary Chapel churches embraces a particular model or a particular author, that ends up having a big effect, an out -of -proportion impact upon the churches that are smaller, the smaller
37:46
Calvary Chapel churches, and across the denomination, because whether you want to call it a denomination or not, it is a denomination, quite obviously.
37:54
And some people are going, what's the Moses model? I had never heard of the Moses model, either, until last year.
38:01
And the Moses model is—anybody in the Calvary Chapel leadership knows the Moses model is.
38:07
It comes down from the top, and the senior pastor of a large
38:13
Calvary Chapel is like Moses, and he talks with God, and then he's the one through whom things go to everybody else.
38:19
Yeah, believe it or not, I had no idea of that, either. But that's the model that is used in Calvary Chapels.
38:27
And it's interesting, there is a big discussion going on right now across the internet about what happened at Sovereign Grace Ministries.
38:37
And the fact that one of the gentlemen involved there identifies himself as an apostle, and that there's a very unbiblical ecclesiology that is in play there that has led to all of this, well, you're not humble enough, well, you're not humble enough, well,
38:57
I don't think you're humble enough stuff that's going on in that situation. And ecclesiology is actually a rather important thing.
39:05
That's why I wrote the chapter I did on that subject. And that's why after the dividing line,
39:12
David Old and I are going to have an ecclesiology debate over spaghetti. No, we're not going to do that.
39:17
We could, but we're not going to do that. He just hung himself in the other room.
39:23
OK, so it is interesting that the fact that Calvary Chapel folks use such a narrow range of information, it's either that or they do know what we believe and misrepresent it.
39:37
I just can't go there. There might be some like that, but I don't think that's Bob Coy's situation in any way, shape, or form.
39:45
It narrows the range of information they look at because of the ecclesiology.
39:51
I see a connection between the two, but I'm never going to finish this thing if I don't keep going. 1 John 2 .2 is the next one he's going to be citing, and we've gone over that one over and over and over again as well.
40:02
And I think, actually, now that I think about that, I did 2 Peter 2 .1, I did 1 John 2 .2 in the original edition of the
40:09
Potter's Freedom as well. But of course, we view the text as referring to all kinds of men, and the
40:15
Jesus Christ is a propitiation for—I'm awful glad that he's all kinds of men, including convicts in Australia, which is a good thing.
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And not only for ours also, but also for the whole world! Now, is that the whole world he elects, or the whole world?
40:30
See, once again, but is that a propitiation? Have you noticed, when folks quote texts like this, and they are intent upon attacking the doctrine of election, that they will emphasize words that they think mean every single human being.
40:49
Now, they almost never then back up and talk about how there can be any delimitation, for example, in regards to people before Christ or things like that, or the fact that there have been entire generations of peoples in places in the world that have passed away where there's no
41:05
Christian missionary there, went to them, etc., etc. They don't get into that. But you can have a huge, massive, theological term, this 800 -pound gorilla in the room, like, propitiation, and they just go glossing right over it.
41:25
Don't even ask the question, what does propitiation mean? Because if you're going to interpret 1
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John 2 in this way, then you have to come up with a meaning of propitiation that is conditional.
41:41
It is hypothetical. It's maybe if this is added to it.
41:47
And it's like they never even noticed that. Would that be the case if they were defending the deity of Christ? No. I mean, there are
41:56
Calvary Chapel folks that do a great job defending the deity of Christ. But when they defend the deity of Christ, they actually look at these words and see the importance of recognizing these words.
42:06
But when it comes to this one area, wow, you can really see how traditions impact people. You've got to look at the scripture and you have to say, well, wait a second.
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Is it possible that God would actually make an opportunity available to some and not to all? Make an opportunity available.
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Did you catch that? Make an opportunity available to some, but not to all. Now, what does that take us back to?
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Is the proclamation of the lordship of Christ and the forgiveness of sins something that can be reduced to make an opportunity available?
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How can anyone interpret make an opportunity available in the context of the enmity of sinners against a holy
42:47
God? See, theology matters. Where you start matters.
42:52
If you don't start with the holiness of God, if you don't start with a sovereign God, if you don't start with man as a rebel sinner against God, then it's real easy to reduce things down to, well, you know, it's a making available of opportunities.
43:06
Is that really what it is? If in fact some are chosen to be saved and others are chosen not to be saved, then what you end up with now.
43:13
Notice the implicit equation there of, once again, not seeing that one involves an extension of grace to an enemy of God, a changing of the heart, whereas the other is, of course, bringing of justice against an enemy of God.
43:31
They're not the same thing. It's not equal ultimacy, and yet that is always a part, and that seems to me, in my opinion, is primarily spread through the non -denominational denomination through the influence of George Bryson.
43:48
Listen carefully. What you end up is what I abhor, and that's called double predestination.
43:55
I believe... Did you catch that? Something that I abhor. I abhor.
44:00
Now, the gloves come off at this point. It's something that I abhor, double predestination.
44:07
Now, what is that? It's going to be equal ultimacy. It's going to be the statement that, well,
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I'll let him define it. I believe that there are people predestined to be saved, but I reject wholeheartedly predestined to be damned.
44:23
Now, that, again, is coming straight out of George Bryson, and at least
44:29
George knows better. I mean, whether it ever gets through to George or not is another issue, but George does know better, because I've explained it to him, explained it to him on something called the
44:43
Bible Answer Man broadcast, which was 2003, December of 2003.
44:52
Wow, coming up on eight years ago now. And we make that entire discussion available, MP3 and the whole nine yards now, available through Alpha Omega Ministries.
45:02
Anyways, he knows better, but I don't know that many of these folks do know better.
45:08
When you try to explain to them this, you get this look on the face, like, look,
45:14
I'm not going there, I'm not going to engage with you at this point. Maybe it's partly how we present it, but still, they still seem to listen.
45:23
And yet that's what Calvin himself believed. Oh, listen to Calvin's quote. It's interesting when
45:29
I put it to you in his own words, we read. And I'm almost 99 % certain he's reading directly out of the dark side of Calvinism.
45:41
See, I've got it right here. See, there's the dark side. David's screaming, the dark side of Calvinism, the
45:49
Calvinist caste system. I bet you if I looked for the quote in here, if there was an index that could actually tell you where to find anything in here.
46:00
That this would be found. Clearly, scripture proves that God, by his eternal and immutable counsel, determined once and for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction.
46:19
Now, what is that referring to? Is that equal ultimacy? Well, if you define equal ultimacy as God's will determines all things, and just in a bland way like that, and forget the means, forget the fact that God makes it very plain that he glorifies himself by the means that he accomplishes his decree, then you can even everything out and say, it's just a, you're in, you're out, you're in, you're out.
46:49
But is there anyone who could even seriously read Calvin at that point and think that that's what
46:55
Calvin's saying? Now, I realize most of these guys do not expect their audience to be reading
47:01
Calvin. And so they don't have to worry about that kind of thing. And most of them have never read
47:07
Calvin for themselves. If they did read Calvin, they'd probably be just a little bit bothered by the fact that, for example, the whole section on predestination election in the final 1559 last week,
47:18
Latin edition of the Institutes, comes right after the longest section of the
47:24
Institutes. And I like to ask, I love to ask these guys, because remember, we've got the phones open.
47:31
If Bob Coy would like to call in, he's the only person we'll let in right now. Or we can certainly let
47:36
Brother Jack from the Calvinists Don't Believe Any of the Five Solas, he can call in too.
47:41
But I'd love to ask him, what is, in fact, the longest section of the
47:50
Institutes? And what's it on? And it's right before the section on predestination. Hey, the phones, the phones are still working.
47:57
No, no. OK, thank you very much. What's the longest section of the
48:03
Institutes? And I bet you, I bet you some people in the other room know.
48:08
Yes, maybe. Ah, see, see, Jamie knew. The rookie, the rookie knew. The longest section is on prayer.
48:15
And that's the section right before the section on predestination. And they might read that and go, well, why would
48:21
Calvin ever talk about prayer if you believe in a Calvinist God? There's no reason to pray, right? See, they just, they're not really dealing with Calvin as Calvin, let alone
48:31
Calvinism as Calvinism. That's double predestination. I don't buy that. I think everyone who's predestined to be saved is.
48:39
And the other side, I believe they have a choice to also be predestined to be saved.
48:44
They have a choice to be predestined to be saved. This is where, once again, there's this, there's this, people today are willing to ignore what has been argued about for centuries.
49:04
And the vocabulary that's been developed to help do that in a meaningful way. This is where, let's be honest, this is where a lot of the
49:12
Catholic, the Roman Catholic criticism of surface level evangelicalism is right.
49:20
And that is, well, you people think you can just reinvent the wheel all the time. That every generation just has to come up with everything fresh.
49:27
And this is the kind of stuff they're talking about. When modern people are willing to basically say,
49:32
I don't really care what people have come up with about this in the past.
49:37
I don't care that there have been entire tomes written on this subject. We're just going to do it for ourselves.
49:44
You know, there's a real arrogance to that. I would sort of think that, well, you know,
49:50
Christians have been around for 2000 years, and they might've actually come up with some thoughts that would be helpful to me at this point.
49:58
And in fact, they did. That doesn't mean we have to elevate them to some high status of next inspiration.
50:06
But at the same time, this is the other extreme on the other end. Bob, still very, very confusing.
50:12
Well, maybe this will clarify at the next point, of course, being irresistible grace. And before I go to that, I forgot to finish commenting on that.
50:20
I believe they can choose to be predestined. So what is predestination? What is predestination from Bob Coy's perspective?
50:29
Is it an eternal act of God? Is it something that flows out of the nature of God? Is it something where he accomplishes his purposes?
50:35
Or is it something that's very much based upon our actions and God's response to us at that point?
50:42
Very clearly, it is. And the question would be, as the definition defines it, there's a special inward call that God extends only the left, which is never resisted.
50:52
Now, listen, this was one of the more frustrating elements of this sermon,
50:59
I will admit. And I've mentioned it before. Bob Coy does not understand what we mean by regeneration.
51:06
He does not understand what we mean by the new life in Christ, by having a heart of stone taken out, given a heart of flesh, by the wind blowing across the valley of the dry bones.
51:14
None of that stuff. And it's frustrating because I played, when we first started this, his claim.
51:21
I've read all the Reformed books. It's the second largest portion of my library after the stuff on eschatology. And I've read all that stuff.
51:28
Well, if you've read all that stuff, then why don't you know what we believe about regeneration? That doesn't, it's very, very, very frustrating.
51:35
So it's never resisted. Why? Because we're dead in sin. And I have said over and over again, you can immediately detect when someone really doesn't understand what we mean by irresistible grace.
51:48
When they run off to Acts chapter seven, when they come up with the easy way of saying, well, people resist the spirit of God all the time.
51:57
But we're talking about the specific work of the spirit of God in bringing regeneration into the life of his elect people.
52:06
That's a specific thing. And when you find folks that just simply will not even allow for that, will not, well, that's what we're going to hear here.
52:15
And again, I emphasize this fact. If he's the one who's calling you and choosing you, you're called and chosen basically, whether you like it or not, because you can't resist the grace of God.
52:22
Now, where do we come up with that kind of thinking? Well, where does Bob Coy come up with the kind of thinking? That's what we believe.
52:29
Because this is this unwilling Christian thing that has no concept of a changed heart.
52:37
The fact that we are, we are re we are created in the image of Christ so that we long for him and we love him.
52:42
That none of that even crosses the his mind at this.
52:47
All right. All the father gives me will come to me. John six and thirty seven. I've told the story before, but I'll tell it again.
52:58
When I was writing The Potter's Freedom, I wrote to Norm Geisler. And one of the things I said to him, I said, Dr. Geisler, it seems very strange, an entire book that goes against what you call extreme
53:08
Calvinism, that there would be no exegesis of John six, thirty seven to forty five. And he wrote back,
53:14
I executed the entire thing, executed all of it. And so I took the time because some of you may remember the original edition of Chosen but Free.
53:24
I might have an original edition hiding in here someplace. The original edition of Chosen but Free did not have a scripture.
53:31
Well, OK, it had a scripture index, but it was not an exhaustive scripture index. And so back then I would pay people with Amazon gift certificates to sit there and go through each page, go through each page and send me a listing of scripture references.
53:50
I didn't pay anybody to do that one. I did it myself. Went through the entire book and I sent him a listing.
53:56
Every page that quoted anything from John six, thirty seven to forty four. If I recall correctly,
54:02
I could be wrong about this. It's coming up on 11 years now, actually over 11 years now.
54:09
But my recollection is John six, thirty seven was never even quoted in full in the book, let alone was there any exegesis of it.
54:20
And when I sent that letter back, the response I got was a postcard that said, if you publish,
54:25
I will respond. And that was it. So here you have the same type of thing. Here you have a little snippet of John six, thirty seven.
54:35
How can anyone in the audience even begin to really follow the argument of that text by quoting just a little snippet?
54:44
All that the father gives me will come to me and the one coming to me, I will never cast out. But even then, okay, at least you've got all thirty seven.
54:51
How about the fact that what comes before this? Is it is just saying you've seen me, but you are not believing it's talking about one who have rowed boats across the lake to come hear him are unbelievers.
55:07
And then it's going to continue the argument straight through the rest of the chapter, at least through verse forty five.
55:17
I mean, again, if this was a sermon on the deity of Christ or the resurrection or something like that, is this what you'd hear in a
55:24
Calvary chapel? And I think folks in Calvary Chapel have to ask themselves a question.
55:30
Why is it? That on this one topic, we get this kind of preaching. All the father gives me coming.
55:37
In other words, if God said you are his, then you're his and you're going to come to him because you're going to come to him. End of sentence, done deal.
55:45
And that is the foundation of and the one coming to me, I will not cast out.
55:52
Now, there are a lot of people in Calvary Chapel that believe that. But it's based upon this very text and what it means.
55:59
All that the father gives me will come to me. The father's giving determines our coming.
56:06
Oh, it'd be wonderful to hear Bob Coy actually interact with the with the simple question. And the simple question is, which act comes first, the giving of the father or the coming?
56:16
Because he's just said that he believes that people are given a choice to be predestined. So from his perspective, it's the all that the father sees coming to me.
56:28
He gives the son or something like that. It's it's not what Jesus has in John 6, 13 and 48.
56:34
Now, when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life, belief certainly sounds like it, doesn't it?
56:44
Well, let's see the. This is, again, what was so frustrating about this.
56:49
He quotes John 6, 37. Sounds like it says this. He quotes Acts 13, 48. At least he does not try to give us a
56:56
Hebrew original of Acts chapter 13. That's a good thing. And some of you are going, a
57:02
Hebrew original? Yeah, that's what Dave Hunt did. Remember, you know, what love is this? When he put his own edition of it out after his publisher wouldn't keep putting it out, he put his own edition out.
57:12
And it's it's the Hebrew original. The scholars who have seen the Hebrew original of Acts chapter 13 says it means this.
57:20
And it comes up with the same understanding as Jehovah's Witnesses in the New World Translation. But, of course, there is no Hebrew original.
57:25
And they drove derived that from a cultic website, a Yahwist website someplace. And, you know,
57:32
I haven't you know what we need to do. We need to buy the current edition of love is this.
57:38
But love is this because I have where is it there? Yeah, there's here's my here's my nice hardbound edition of what love is.
57:47
It's not signed, unfortunately. And how big are the letters in that?
57:53
No, it's not too big. No, no, it's it's actually typeset very, very nicely. But this one is dated.
58:01
We're running out of time the program here. Anyways, we need to get a new one, because remember what they told us after we discovered that they had quoted a cult in here?
58:11
Well, we're going to change it in the next edition. I think we need to buy a new edition about love is this and find out if after five, six, seven years, however long it's been, that actually took place.
58:22
I think that might be something we need to do. Well, I didn't get very how far did I get?
58:27
I got four minutes and 32 seconds farther. Yeah, great. But I've only got 30 minutes left to go.
58:35
So who knows? Maybe next time we'll get almost there.
58:42
Anyways, thanks for listening. Thanks, Dave, for being on the program today. We'll see you next time on The Dividing Line. Tuesday, next week, regular time.
58:48
See you. God bless. It's a sign of the times.