Covid Tyranny, then 1 Cor 10:13, John 12:32

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:32

And greetings. Welcome to The Dividing Line. We're in the big studio today. That means we're going to be going to the big board eventually and looking at college football playoffs.

00:41

No, we're not. That's what they use it for. We use it for something significantly more important than that.

00:46

And I think that's all done anyways until next year, at least from what I heard last. I actually, believe it or not,

00:53

I actually tuned in. That's such an irrelevant phrase anymore, tuned in.

00:58

No one tunes in. I remember tuning in. Are you old enough to remember tuning in where you actually had to turn the dial, turn the antenna, sometimes stand there and hold the antenna.

01:10

Oh, perfect. OK, I can't let go of it now. We don't tune in anything anymore. You just bring it up on your browser or whatever.

01:18

And it was, I guess, toward the sometime in the second quarter, it was boring.

01:24

It was it was big guys running and other big guys for two yards, one yard punt, two yards, one yard, kick a field goal, whatever it was.

01:34

I heard the fourth quarter got interesting. But anyway, but congratulations, I guess, to all of our good friends over in Georgia.

01:42

There you go. Georgia. So anyway, how to get into that.

01:48

I mean, there's that's that was pretty unusual. I generally eschew any sports any longer, at least outside of cycling anyways.

01:56

But here we are. Oh, OK. When when the doggy texts you,

02:06

John Cooper just texted me. So I just got to make sure, you know, because you never know when, you know, when

02:12

John has a question. I'm Skillet's official theologian, so I'm on it fast.

02:18

And that's what I get paid the big bucks for in T -shirts. So anyway, welcome to the program today.

02:27

I think part of the reason I'm feeling a little bit scattered is I've got less than two weeks now until we pull out.

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And I've got just an amazing amount of stuff to do between now and then some challenging stuff, funerals and preaching this week.

02:49

And then, you know, the RV life is thinking about what food you're going to have and clothing and what weather situations you may or may not encounter.

03:00

Getting your tires all ready to go and make sure you got chains and and all that kind of stuff.

03:05

And and then you also have to go, what did I do with the spray lubricant for the hitch for the fifth wheel?

03:13

Where did I put that thing? You know, that kind of thing. That's that's my life right now. But just so everybody is aware, because people always complain when they go, well,

03:24

I didn't know you're going to be in Houston. We will be, but that'll be the third weekend we'll be in Houston and going to be debating

03:37

Tim Stratton on that Friday evening, I believe it is. And then speaking in Houston on that Sunday, just in the morning.

03:46

And but. More immediately, the last weekend in January, going to be in St.

03:53

Charles, as always, Covenant Grace Church, as we have been for many, many years, had been every first weekend.

04:02

December had to cancel out this year, but only moved it back just really a matter of weeks, basically less than less than two months.

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And so to our friends there in Missouri, I look forward to seeing you at that time. And then the weekend after that will be in Conway, Arkansas.

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We'll be teaching at Grace Bible Theological Seminary, speaking that Sunday as well.

04:26

And then heading for, like I said, Houston via Tyler and hopefully haven't gotten all this nailed down yet due to health issues with other folks.

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But hopefully going to be down with the troublemaker in Texas on the way to Houston.

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And so we'll be putting up a list of I'll be speaking in Springfield, Illinois, on the way to St.

04:57

Charles. And so, yeah, we're going to be doing dividing lines from the Mobile Command Center yet once again.

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And I've got to remember to make sure I've got all that stuff, too. That's that's the challenge of now.

05:11

And when you leave, it's because you get to your first stop and go, oh, man,

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I know right where I left that. And it's just just how life is. But so that's probably why

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I'm feeling a little bit scattered with all of that stuff going on. And I've got two major projects to be working on while I'm on the road as well.

05:36

And so I got to make sure I got all that stuff with me. And so, yeah, it'll be it'll be fun.

05:41

So your prayers appreciate your support appreciated as we go back on the road. And thanks to President Biden.

05:51

It's going to be more costly, obviously. I thought it was bad enough last year when we would pull into various gas stations and fill up that nice big tank that feeds that nice big

06:07

V8. But it's going to cost more now. And so the travel fund awaits your beneficence.

06:16

If you want to see us. Well, get me out of town. Just I sort of wonder if the travel fund is not normally just funded by people with apology at this.

06:26

Go farther and longer away. Bye. Be great. Anyway.

06:32

All right. So I just happened to notice before, you know, we are we are, by the way, we are on Odyssey right now.

06:38

OK, good. Just just just checking. Reason being for obvious things.

06:48

I just saw that the

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Pope Francis on Monday called for widespread vaccination in all countries and suggested the global coronavirus response was being complicated by baseless information or poorly documented facts.

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Countries have widely used vaccines. The pope noted have countries that have widely used vaccines.

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The pope noted have seen a reduction in severe cases. And so here we see that Pope Francis is one of the many global elites pushing lies down our throats.

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And hey, he believes his own church's history as far as his own office.

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So why not? They're just about as bad as far as the amount of truthfulness in their claims.

07:40

But it really does seem in Quebec, they just announced today they are going to start fining people who do not get vaccinated.

07:51

So it's going to cost you money to resist the how many how many just in the past week?

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How many elite athletes, mainly footballers, footballers in the rest of the world are soccer players for you yanks in America?

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How many elite footballers have you seen thrashing on the ground or dead? The numbers are climbing and climbing and climbing.

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And elite athletes know these things. And that's why they're like, no, no, I'm not going to do this to myself.

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They they know. But the the realities are crashing through.

08:35

Even I can hear that. You can't hear that. You need some help. I thought you could use that for the the outside.

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Instead, you're doing something else with it. That's OK. Rich is even though Rich is between two bright lights, so I can't see him really well.

08:56

He's trying to distract me back there and keep me from staying on one topic. So that's just so you know, we don't have a glass wall between us anymore, but that doesn't change anything.

09:07

The. The facts are overwhelming that. Did you see

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Walensky? I mean, there's so many things yet. Walensky, Walensky admitting that 75 percent of covid deaths in the

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United States have been with people with four or more comorbidities. Now, again, this was nothing new.

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We knew from back in when Italy was getting hit, the first numbers said, wow, it's really dependent upon all sorts of other factors.

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If you have these other factors, then this stuff can be really bad. And when you drop that down to two comorbidities,

09:54

I think it's well over nine. What, 92 percent like that I don't have in front of me, but covid stinks at killing people by itself.

10:05

It just doesn't have that that level of deadliness. And we said that back then and people got kicked off of Twitter and got censored and fired and all the rest of this stuff.

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And now it's Walensky saying what we were saying almost two years ago.

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And now it's well, yeah, that's what the facts are. Well, the facts said that back then, but it didn't fit the narrative.

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And so Walensky's sitting there and she's asked a straight up question.

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And she literally looks in the camera and says, our vaccines are working very well.

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What kind of audacity does it take to say that our vaccines are working very well?

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Well, it's simple. You redefine what a vaccine is. You redefine the word working and you redefine the word.

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Well, that's how you do it. And that's what they've done. Well, vaccines been redefined.

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Just go back and any vaccinated person is a dead end for the virus.

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No, because what we were told, other vaccines, you get the polio vaccine and you don't get polio.

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Right. It's not a respiratory virus. That's why this has been stupid from the beginning. But anyway, so we redefine vaccine.

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And now a vaccine is. Well, we're going to tell everybody that if you've if you've taken our noxious genetic poison, that you won't get whatever you get as badly as you would have gotten it.

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You know, I don't know if you saw it. Did you? I'm not sure that I mentioned it on Twitter.

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But what this reminds me of is the stories that I've heard from Mormons for years and years and years about the temple garments.

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So if you're wearing the temple garments, you're not going to get into an accident. But if you get into an accident, you're not going to be hurt.

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But if you do get hurt, you're not get hurt badly. If you do get hurt badly, you're not going to die. And if you die, you're going to die blessed.

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Same thing. Same thing. If you if you if you get the shot, you're not going to get it.

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But if you do get it, it's not going to be bad. And if it is bad, you're not going to die. But if you do die, well, you know, you're still blessed.

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That's that's what we're doing now, is it? Well, it won't go to the hospital. So much less than one percent of people go to the hospital in the first place.

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So for 99 percent of people, all that's completely irrelevant. But they're working well.

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Our vaccines are working well. No, they're a joke. Omicron blows through them like they're not even there.

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And what's worse is there's there's increasing evidence that when you do the booster thing.

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Not only does that that alleged help crash within 30 days, but within 60 days, you are now more susceptible to Omicron than you were before.

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Huh. Wonder how that's going to work when Israel goes to its fourth booster, which they're planning on doing.

13:28

So Quebec is going to hit you with a fine.

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If you do not take this worthless stuff, our military, you want it.

13:41

You want you want clear evidence that all this is the purging of the military so that you the only people you've got left are the people who will unquestioningly do whatever you say, even if what you say is completely opposed to the

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Constitution United States. I follow a lot of these things and there's there's a lot that's going on, and it's a lot of negative stuff that's going on.

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And there was a case. Well, first of all, you've you've probably heard that because of a previous case, the military has had to report to a certain court as to how many exemptions are granted.

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And the military has come back and said none. And so they're they're having to admit it doesn't matter what the situation is.

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So last week. There was a guy in the Air Force that submitted the papers.

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Fully documented. That the very substance in which the mRNA vaccines are placed for the injection, he is allergic to it.

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He can't take that kind of a vaccine. And they provide the evidence.

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Here's here's his test results. And the Air Force said. Take it or die.

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Or take it and die or you're out. I guess would be the way to do it. Wouldn't give an exemption exemption.

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And this shows this has nothing to do with readiness, sickness, virus.

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The vast majority of the people in the in the armed forces are in no danger from any of this stuff, especially Omicron, which is colds and sniffles.

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This is how to purge out of the military. Anybody who might stand up and say this is wrong.

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All you got left are the people that go. Yes, sir. Where do you want me to shoot, sir? That's it.

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That's all you got left. So all this stuff. So what's Pope Francis doing?

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Hey, you Roman Catholics, your your pope seems to be a leftist ideologue who is easily deceived by by stuff.

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He's repeating mantras right now. That two years from now, everybody will know we're lies.

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And will anybody hold him accountable for it? Well, he's not infallible when giving medical advice.

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Yeah, I know, because he's not infallible about anything ever. Just face it.

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It would not matter what he said. It would not matter if he stood up there and said,

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I proclaim, I solemnly define as the vicar of Christ, that marriage is not just between a man and woman.

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You all would find a way around it. You know, you would. You know, you would. There is absolutely no meaning.

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To the concept of papal infallibility. None. None. And Francis shows it. And if Francis doesn't show it enough for you, just wait till his successor comes along.

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That could be really, really, really interesting. So. So then you then you've got

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Fauci and Senator Paul going at it today. And then you had

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Fauci going after another. I don't know if you saw this, but a Republican senator was going after him.

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And Fauci had a hot mic moment. They had a hot going back and forth.

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And then Fauci. I don't know if he just thought the mic could be turned off or if he didn't mind, but he called the senator a moron and then used our

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Lord's name in vain afterwards as well. That's really common on both sides of the aisle.

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But it gives you an idea that this guy is pretty much what he's been described as. And this is how he he runs stuff.

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But I loved when Paul was pushing him on questioning me or questioning science.

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That was pretty wild. So it continues on.

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And it seems to me that the people, the totalitarians who absolutely want to establish complete and final enslavement of their populations, are realizing, look, if you get

18:18

Omicron, it ain't going to kill you. Just look at the death numbers. They haven't even moved.

18:25

Omicron's not killing people. But it seemingly gives you really robust immunity for all variants.

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And so in a sane world where you did not have evil, tyrannical totalitarians in charge of medicine, big tech, and government, this would be reason for rejoicing.

18:51

This would be great. We'd be like pretty much done with this. This should this should finish it off. This will just become a you know, just like every other flu virus.

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You know, every other flu virus you've ever taken a shot for had a name.

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And there were SARS's and COVID's and everything else. We just didn't try to panic everybody about it.

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But now we have and we have created a permanent underclass of severely damaged people who can no longer think about anything other than their fear of everything.

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And I don't know what that's going to result in, but they vote. And so it could be it could be pretty ugly.

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There's no two ways about it. But this is I think these especially up in Canada, these people are realizing we may lose our chance here.

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We need to get as much power as we possibly can so that if it so if it does get rolled back, we'll still have 10 times more than we ever had before.

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And so, yeah, there you go. That's where we are. And people go,

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I think you should just do theology. OK. We are we are facing that just if you cannot see.

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How all of this is directly related to we look at Canada.

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Canada's totalitarian bent. And C4, you don't know what

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C4 is. You didn't see our program with Joe Boot, but that's going into effect, I think, today.

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This week to where you are not allowed.

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It could very conceivably be that if you were to publicly teach and preach on First Corinthians chapter six.

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That you could get up to five years in prison in Canada. And you know that people are going to be bringing those lawsuits on the basis of that very, very quickly, one way or the other.

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If you can't see that there's a connection there, that it's the same secular forces that are seeking to destroy freedom and liberty.

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On the basis of lies that are promoting the culture of death. On the basis of lies.

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It stuns me how many people just are so naive is to not see this. But that's that's how things are.

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And so there we go. All right. So we're in in the big room so that we can take a look at the big board because we like using that.

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And I did a video with the folks at Accordance last week.

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I've linked to it and five of my books are now in Accordance. They're working on on the others and we'll let you know as as they become available.

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I thought it was really cool that the whatever Christian needs to know about the Quran book links directly over.

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I should have brought that up. I didn't do that. I'll try to remember to do that sometime. Bring up the

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Quran book and and mouse over a Quranic reference and it'll link over to because I forget how many it's about three years ago.

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Accordance came out with some Quran modules with various translations that were linked together.

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The Arabic the whole nine yards. I thought it was great but I thought it was unusual. And in talking to the guys there they did get some pushback but they felt that it was important to have that kind of material available.

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Especially for missionaries in the field. And they're exactly right. They're exactly right. It's amazing how the perspective on dealing with Islam is totally different to the people who are actually doing it in the field than here in the

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United States, which is a sort of sad thing when you think about it. Anyhow, we are.

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I want to look at two passages in regards to the issues related to the will of man and the whole topic of synergism.

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OK. This is somewhat in preparation for and really sort of to help

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Dr. Stratton. We'll be debating on these issues. Is Molanism biblical?

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We'll probably take some time, especially as they get closer to it. We'll take some time to talk about.

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I mean, I can tell you what's going to happen the debate right now. I really can. I really did not expect anything unusual in in that context.

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But one of the key issues does have to do with what the

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Bible teaches about the will of man, the will of God, deadness and sin. I do not believe and I was going to actually respond to an article that Dr.

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Stratton has on his website about a Molanistic model for monergism. But when

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I started challenging him on it, because it just redefined everything. It was it was honestly, with all due respect, as bad as Norman Geisler's redefinition of Calvinism and Arminianism 20 years ago, more than 20 years ago now.

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In his work, he honestly said, I've actually I've actually changed my views on that.

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So I'm like, OK, well, I asked, have you written anything else? He said he hasn't. So I I said, well,

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I'm not going to interact with something, even though I think it was only 2017. So it was not long ago. But if he says he's changed his view.

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Great. I can't really interact with anything else. But one thing

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I do know. Is that within the past month, he and Tyson James have made reference to 1

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Corinthians 10, 13 and to John 12, 32. And so I would like to walk through these texts.

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And, you know, as I'm I don't know, when you zoom in, is the font big enough?

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I'm sort of wondering if it's I don't know why. And maybe the guys at Accordance can help me with this.

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But when I'm in my main window here and I blow it up, I get all this dead space instead of it expanding it out like it does in my

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Old Testament texts. For some reason, these do this massive dead space thing.

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And I'm not there's probably some setting someplace that I'm just not seeing or grabbing or something.

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Maybe somebody will help me out with that. I don't know. Anyhow, 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

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Let's let's take a look at it and see what we can do with it.

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I want to look at it in context. For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed to the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea and all ate the same spiritual food.

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And so we're obviously what we're doing here is Paul is going back.

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And in fact, he's going to lay this out later on. So much of what

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God did with the people of Israel in the Exodus and everything else that happens in what we call the

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Tanakh, the Old Testament. He did so for literally for our edification, for our example.

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And he's going to say that. And so he's taking us back to the Exodus. And recently,

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I I touched on briefly the fact that because right now we're doing at Apologia is

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I'm doing a series on baptism. And so we're looking at every place where baptizo and any related forms are used in the

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New Testament. And there is there is when they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

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And so obviously, that's not a literal utilization of baptizo there.

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You don't get baptized into an individual in that sense. But you there was a sense in which going down into the into the sea, the cloud, that there was a identification taking place there.

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And they all ate, interestingly enough, the same spiritual food. And so you had the the manna being identified as spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink.

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They're drinking the spiritual rock, which followed them. And the rock was quite Christ. And there's a whole bunch of really interesting background information to get into in regards to the interpretation of that rock from which the water came in amongst the

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Jews and amongst the rabbis and things like that. Paul definitely would identify, especially given the understanding that the the one with whom

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Abraham interacted, that was Jesus. That was the pre -incarnate son.

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The son is the one who has been involved in all these things. It makes sense that then the source of sustenance, the spiritual rock which followed them, the rock was

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Christ. Things like that would be would be directly relevant.

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And so we have that. And I don't know. I'm not sure if I have to keep. I don't think that does that freeze.

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No, I don't think it does. I think I probably could scroll this without taking that down. But then you've got all sorts. Yeah, we'll find out here.

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So nevertheless, nevertheless, with most of them,

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God was not well pleased. Now, it's interesting. This is a term used of the elect.

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Of the elect, God is pleased because of the elect being in Christ.

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And so this would so you have most of them.

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So there were others with whom God was pleased and there were the few that entered into the promised land.

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And they were laid low in the wilderness. Now, these things, here's the text

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I was referring to. Now, these things happened to them. Yeah.

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So you can scroll it, see, like I like I said initially. And then you said afterwards, after I said, now, these things happened as examples for us.

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That we should not crave evil things as they also craved. And so here are our people.

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They are they are exposed to tremendous divine acts right in front of their eyes.

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And yet miracles themselves wane in their impact upon the mind over time.

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And I've seen that. I've seen that my own Christian life.

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I've seen amazing things happen and you figure I'm never going to get over this.

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I'm never going to ever question God's provision again. Two, three years later, it's amazing how how fast our memory goes, shall we say.

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But please notice these are an example to us.

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And so now the application is being made to the Corinthian church, to the

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Christian fellowship in Corinth that needs all the help they can get.

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And so we are not to crave evil things and do not be idolaters as some of them were.

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As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play. And so we know what was going on at that particular point in time.

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Nor let us act immorally. Probably faster than the other way of doing it. Sort of be interesting.

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This would be in TBN. This came up with a new deal for TBN.

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You mark stuff here and then you scroll it real fast. And when it stops scrolling, you look at what it is.

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And this would be the word from the Lord. You see how that would work? And it would appear. You don't like that?

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No? Okay. Rich is doing his best stoic impersonation back there.

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You could not see somebody on TBN doing that? I could see somebody on TBN doing that. I really could. So we should not tell them to do this.

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Don't give them any ideas. Yeah, don't give them any ideas. Okay. And do not be idolaters, as some of them were, as is written, that people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play.

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Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and 23 ,000 fell in one day.

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Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpent. So what's he doing here?

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Well, if we know our Old Testament at all, if we know this is primarily focused upon that earliest period, right after the

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Exodus. But we are having the Old Testament text used as warnings to us.

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Don't do the things these people did, because this is what the result of that was, even though they were eating manna, they had supernatural interventions saving their lives, and yet they engage in idolatry and immorality.

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They tempt the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Then, of course, one of our favorite terms, once again, y 'all are going to know this one.

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Yes. Gungusmu. Gungudzete. That's even good. Gungudzete. That's a good one.

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Do not grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.

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And so all these things happened to them as an example.

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All these things are an example for us.

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And they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

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And so, clearly, we could probably stop there and talk about the end of the ages and what this means and what this has to say about the nature of the church and things like that.

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But that's not why we're looking at this particular text. We're just looking at the context right now.

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So you have that instruction given to us. And, therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall.

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And there were many in the people of Israel. That was their problem.

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They did not even give consideration to proper worship of God. They didn't have changed hearts.

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They didn't have changed hearts. And when you're a preacher preaching to your people, when you're speaking to a gathered crowd, let me give you an example.

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Sunday was a deep time in our fellowship.

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We had one of our precious ladies passed away last week, and she was young and with children.

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And so it was a heavy service. Apology is a very young group.

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We've only had like three deaths since it started. Three deaths of adults.

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Because we have so many ladies having children, had a lot of stillbirths and things like that.

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But as far as adults, not that many. And so when

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Jeff got done speaking, I could see it in his eyes that he realized he hadn't said something to me.

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He just looks over, knows where I'm going to be, and he just sort of gives me the signal.

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And has me come up and do the instructions for the

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Lord's Supper. Normally, the person who preaches does that.

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But if you've got someone who can do it and has done it many times right there, and you just really work through a heavy sermon, why don't you come up,

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Jeff? So when I give those instructions, one of the things we do is we say, the table of the

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Lord is for those who are professing believers, baptized believers in Jesus Christ.

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And we explain, you know, you may have been raised to just simply eat the bread and drink the wine and not really give it any thought.

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But this represents Christ's broken body and his shed blood.

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And if you are not in him, if you have not come to him for the salvation only he can provide, these things don't mean anything to you, and they're not for you.

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You should not partake of them. In fact, you're prohibited from doing so because you're not discerning the

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Lord's body. And so, I don't know everybody that's sitting in front of me.

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I know many of those people, and they're my brothers and sisters in Christ, and so we partake of the supper together.

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But I don't know, I can't look into the hearts and minds of all those people. And so I have to give a warning.

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Do not partake of this if you are not in Christ. So, we see that in the

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New Testament. We see over and over in Hebrews, especially, the writer speaking to the congregation, and he will speak about their position in Christ, what

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God has done for them, all these wonderful things, and then he will give warnings. And then the warning will be followed, but we are convinced of better things concerning you.

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Well, why does he do that? Because anybody who's been to church for any period of time at all knows that the longer you're in, the longer the list your own mind can bring up of the people who once did partake, and once were a part of the fellowship, and they aren't anymore.

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And they don't even claim Christ any longer. As soon as I said that, the names in the faces start popping up in front of my mind.

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And so you have to recognize we live in that state today, and so you can speak of God's great promises and fulfillment for the people, and we together partake in the blessings of Christ.

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At the same time, give warning, and if that is not true of you, then beware, turn, repent.

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That's the reality that we face in this life, because seven, eight times it would be really neat if we had glasses we could put on, and all the elect would glow green.

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That would make everything so much easier for us, but it doesn't work that way. Some people claim that ability, but it doesn't work that way.

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So therefore, let the one thinking that he stands take heed, look out, lest you fall.

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That is the context then of 1 Corinthians 10, 13. And notice the context continues, because let's skip over 13 for a second, look at 14.

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Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men, you judge what I say.

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And this is eventually going to take us right into the discussion of the supper and the abuses of the supper, 1

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Corinthians 11, in Corinth. So it's not like 10, 13 is just this excursus that goes, and we're going to take this and we're just going to cut this out and we're going to make it something about something.

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No, the same context is continuing on. Okay. So what do we have here?

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However, that's the next important thing. No temptation has overtaken you, except that is common amongst men.

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So it's almost, it might even be translated, that which is human, that which is human.

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That is, it is consistent for human experience.

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But God is faithful. The emphasis is upon the faithfulness of God, not on the faithfulness of mankind.

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Who will not allow you to be tempted or tested.

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Who will not allow you to be tested. And let's change some of our colors here so we can see that.

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Beyond, above and beyond what you are able, but, how many different colors can we use?

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I don't know. But, together with the temptation, so here's, notice the temptation, connection here, connection there.

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But adversative, together with that temptation, will provide the way of escape that you may be able to bear it.

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And so there's, there's the connection there, between these two here. He will give you that ability.

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So provide the way of escape also that you may be able to bear it.

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So, what is this talking about in context? The people of old faced temptations and they gave in to them.

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Paul says to people in this day, no temptation has overtaken you but what is human, what is common, what is anthroponous, but God is faithful.

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Now, what does this phrase have to do with the rest of it?

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Well, who makes the way of escape available? God does.

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God does. So, there is a clear reality here that in, that whatever we're facing,

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God is sovereign over the situation. That does not even look like an

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S. We're good, we're all well here.

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S -O -V -E -R -E -I -G -N.

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You know, we're going to have to have a little chat after the program today, okay? You and I are going to have a little chat.

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God is sovereign over all of this. God is not taken by surprise by any of what's going on here.

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And he is the one who is faithful. Now, would he be under any moral requirement to make a way of escape?

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Well, no. If it was God's purpose to bring someone in judgment.

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Did he make a way of escape for Pharaoh? Think about that a second before you answer.

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Remember, Exodus 4, before Moses even entered into Egypt to face

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Pharaoh, what did God say? I'm going to harden his heart. Because he had determined to bring judgment upon Egypt.

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There was a vitally important demonstration of his power over the

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Egyptian gods that he wanted to demonstrate. And he did. And he did.

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And his fame was made known. Remember, even when

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Israel went into Canaan, remember when they got to Jericho? Remember what happened then?

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We've heard. We've heard what God did. So he had a purpose in all of that.

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And so he is working his sovereign purpose, and it is a sovereign purpose focused upon the demonstration of his attributes, of who he is.

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Not about us. So the underlying assumption here is the faithfulness of God.

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And that we are going to experience these situations of testing and trying, and God will not put you in a situation where you will be able to say, remember the saying, a lot of people don't catch this part.

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But remember in the Old Testament, Jeremiah, there was a proverb that God did not like.

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Remember? There was a proverb going around where people were saying, the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge.

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And we're all like, well, we're glad we don't have proverbs like that these days. What is that supposed to mean?

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Well, think about it. The fathers have eaten sour grapes, something that's really tart.

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And the result has been their children. The result has been an impact upon their children.

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The idea of the proverb was, there's no reason for us to listen to Jeremiah's preaching to repent, because our fathers are the ones that sinned.

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What we're experiencing is because of them. So there's no reason for us to repent. We're stuck.

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And that was the whole point in Jeremiah was that, no, stop saying that. I'm punishing you for your sin.

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You repent. I'm sending prophets to you. You repent. It's not that God could not do that if he wanted to, but he was telling them, that's not what

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I'm doing. You can repent. Repent. And they love their sin more than they love

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God. What happens when your heart is hard? And if you say, well, then

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God should have changed their heart, then what you're saying is grace is necessary. Grace has to be given.

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Think about what you're really saying when you make that kind of a statement. So, come on.

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Let go of it. There you go. It's getting a little older and it's letting the line through.

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All right. So, what some people have done with this is say, here, here is libertarian freedom.

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This is libertarian freedom, even though it says God's faithful. And even though it's

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God is the one who's doing these things, still it's libertarian freedom because he's going to make a way, you don't have to sin.

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Okay. All right. And so, the overarching idea is this means there is no sovereign decree.

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Someone's playing with the camera again. It's sort of like it's a video game. You can just leave it so that everybody can see what's on the screen and then don't worry about where I am.

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Just leave the screen thing there. So, people take this and they'll go, okay, so what this means is

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I can sin or not sin. And therefore, this is libertarian freedom.

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And therefore, there is no decree that actually fixes what takes place in time.

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That's the argument. But is that what is being said? The idea is if you are ever in a situation where you're experiencing temptation to do that which is evil, realize that God has not put you in that situation to where you can have an excuse and saying, well, there wasn't anything else

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I could do. I just had to do evil. Now, I'm not talking about really difficult, you know, those ridiculous stuff you come up with an ethics class where you, you know, do you tell the

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Nazis about the Jews hiding under the kitchen table or do you lie? I'm not talking about that type of stuff.

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Talking about the fact that if you're a follower of God, you have the promise that he is faithful and that whatever situation you put in, you will not be tempted above that which you are able, but will with the temptation that he brought you into this situation.

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He is sovereign over what takes place in time, but will with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it.

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And that's why we have all this examples in the Old Testament to think back on and go, oh, wow, you know,

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God bless the people. And then they rose up and played and get engaged in idolatry and better use that and wisely not do these things.

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God will make a way for me to not have to follow in their footsteps because what happened was not good for many of them in, well, they all died in the wilderness anyways.

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Well, not all, but the vast majority with whom God was not pleased. So is, do we, since the context, you know, remains the same here.

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Do we just take this out and here is an excursus on libertarian freedom? No, it is in the context of warning people not to engage in idolatry and all the rest of these things.

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This is very similar to the Jeremiah thing. Stop saying that. Do not come up with the idea that there are temptations that would overtake you that are not common to man and you're stuck in it and you're just going to have to go with the evil.

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No, God is going to always make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. None of this has anything to do with the reality that, and this is, again,

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I can't help someone who doesn't believe this to see it, but the sovereignty of God over what takes place in time is a sovereignty that creates a reality that is focused upon the demonstration of His glory.

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Justice is always done in it. And yet we are properly held accountable for all the things that we do for acting upon the desires of our hearts.

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And it is a real and true realm in which

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God's glory is being demonstrated. And God's glory would not be demonstrated in just puppets running around.

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So whatever you do, you have to accept the reality there is the eternal realm and there is the created temporal realm and everything the scripture says about both is true.

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And since you're in here, your temptation is to take what you see in here and extrapolate it out and make it true elsewhere.

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And I'm not even talking about ad extra, ad intera right now, by the way. I'm talking about the difference between the temporal realm and the eternal realm.

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Don't get your controversies mixed up while we're at it. But on a very practical level, even in dealing with temptation, at the foundation of all of it is the faithfulness of God.

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God's faithful. God, even in the midst of your experience, God is faithful.

53:51

That is, I think, vitally important. Okay. So, now here's the tricky part because I even told my friend over there at Accordance that I could use a larger entry screen there.

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There we go. Real quickly here, I'll try not to spend quite as much time because I didn't do,

54:18

I don't have quite as much, well, I do have context to do. Anyways, we'll do the best we can. All right.

54:25

John 12. The context of this one real quick is that when we looked at John 6, what's the most common way around John 6?

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Well, okay, that's maybe not a fair way to say it. What is the most common methodology that those who want to say

54:53

John 6 is not about God's free sovereignty and election? How do they get around that?

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Generally, they do so by a rather, in my experience, simplistic appeal to John 12.

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Jesus says, no one can come to me unless the Father sent me to draw us in. They stop there, stop in the middle of a sentence, and then they jump to John 12 .32,

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and they say, and God draws everybody to Jesus, therefore, there's no divine election in John 6.

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That's generally how it works. But is that what John 12 is about? Well, let's do the context thing again.

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John 12 .20. Now, do realize where John 12 is. What's John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17?

55:50

Five chapters all in one short period of time, and it's the personal ministry of Jesus to his disciples, finishing with his high priestly prayer, which

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I think was still ministering to his disciples in many ways, because he wants them to hear this.

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This is the end of Jesus' public ministry. And so here at the end of Jesus' public ministry, now there were certain

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Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast. Please notice there were

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Greeks, non -Jews, among those who got to worship the feast.

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These, therefore, came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and began to ask him, saying,

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Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Now, everybody knows, you've heard this a thousand times before, why'd they go up to Philip?

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Because it's a Greek name. And so he's probably a good Greek speaker.

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Maybe they heard someone say, Hey, Philip, come here. And so they go to, oh, he's one of the disciples.

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Philip came and told Andrew. Andrew and Philip came, and they told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying,

57:00

The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Now, what have we had over and over again in John?

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My hour is not yet. Woman, my hour is not yet. And no one can lay hands on him because his hour is not yet.

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The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Now, isn't it interesting? Non -Jews seek

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Jesus out, and his answer is, the hour has come. Very plainly, every aspect of Jesus' ministry was the result of the sovereign decree of God.

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It could not have happened at a different time, in a different place. This was, as Jesus himself said, it is necessary that I go to Jerusalem.

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It is necessary that I be handed over to the authorities and beaten and killed and buried and rise again the third day.

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This was God's certain plan. This was how he was going to glorify himself.

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The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

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He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. Given what

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Jesus is about to do, you can see the deep relevance of these things. If anyone serves me, let him follow me, and where I am there shall my servant also be.

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If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. Now, I am going past stuff that I'm severely tempted to stop and deal with, especially

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I was struck in preparation for this, that last phrase, if anyone serves me, the

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Father will honor him. That is, I will be absolutely honest,

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I don't know that I've ever heard a sermon on that. And you would think that you would have heard many.

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I may know what a future sermon I'm going to be doing will be about. If anyone serves me, the

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Father will honor him. Now my soul has become troubled, and what shall

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I say? Father saved me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour. Now, again, if it wasn't already coming right up at an hour,

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I would probably want to stop here and discuss how my soul has become troubled, quotation from the

01:00:00

Old Testament, by the way, and what shall I say? Father saved me from this hour, but for this purpose

01:00:07

I came to this hour. The great mystery of the

01:00:13

God -man, the hypostatic union, very good reason to not be a neo -Apollinarian, by the way.

01:00:26

You have here the recognition of the Father's sovereignty, the hour has come, for this purpose

01:00:33

I came to this hour, but shall I say Father saved me from this hour?

01:00:40

And the greatest response, Father, glorify thy name.

01:00:52

When you can't, you know, Jesus does know the future, but as the God -man, he knows what that's going to involve for him.

01:00:59

You know, people say, my Muslim friends get all, you know, why was Jesus so afraid of death?

01:01:04

He wasn't afraid of death. He was afraid of becoming sin. When you are the eternal, sinless son of God, and you are contemplating taking the very wrath of the

01:01:19

Father, yes, the wrath of the Father, some people got all upset about that. Who was it that went after? Josh Bice?

01:01:24

I think he went after Josh Bice last year about that. And then one friend of mine on Twitter has been posting quote after quote after quote after quote from all sorts of Puritans and Reformers talking about the wrath of the

01:01:37

Father. Anyway, you're about to bear the wrath of the Father on behalf of your people.

01:01:45

That is what he's referring to here. No craven fear of death or something like that.

01:01:51

Father, glorify thy name. There came, therefore, a voice out of heaven. I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.

01:01:58

And so you have inter -Trinitarian communication taking place right here.

01:02:03

Father, glorify thy name. I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.

01:02:09

That would be incredibly encouraging. The multitude, therefore, who stood it by and heard it were saying that it had thundered.

01:02:16

Others were saying an angel has spoken to him. So it was audible. Jesus answered and said, this voice has not come for my sake, but for your sakes.

01:02:26

Now judgment is upon this world. Now the ruler shall be cast out.

01:02:33

Jesus knows what the result of his actions will be.

01:02:39

And then we come to our text. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.

01:02:49

But he was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which he was to die.

01:02:58

So the first thing we see, just simply in the context, is what does lifted up mean?

01:03:06

What does lifted up mean? Because unfortunately, I've actually heard sermons from folks that didn't quite get that part.

01:03:20

And talked about lifting up Jesus. If we lift up Jesus, we proclaim him.

01:03:25

And that's not what he's talking about. That's not what he's talking about. If I be lifted up from the earth, he was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which he was to die.

01:03:39

He was going to be crucified. He was going to be lifted up from the earth on that Roman cross.

01:03:46

Most people get that part. So, if I be lifted up from the earth,

01:03:54

Pontos, I will draw all. Helcuso, same term used in John 6.

01:04:02

It's the same term used in John 6. I will draw all unto me.

01:04:08

Now there is no specific term men, but you can translate it that way if you want to.

01:04:16

I will draw Pontos pros emalton, unto myself.

01:04:25

So, are we to take this verse and an interpretation of this verse and read it six chapters backward into John 6?

01:04:44

Shouldn't we just, even before we get to any of the interpretation, shouldn't it just be sort of obvious that you can't expect the people in the synagogue at Capernaum to be privy to this which takes place later and then read that in as the mechanism of interpretation?

01:05:07

That's called eisegesis. That's going six chapters down the road and saying, ah.

01:05:13

Now, I'm not saying that the use of a term later on cannot shed light, but it can't be the interpretive grid through which something six chapters earlier must be forced.

01:05:25

That's the first thing. But here's the most important thing. What's the context here?

01:05:34

The context is still the Jews that have come seeking Jesus.

01:05:39

Twelve verses earlier, the Jews have come seeking Jesus and as a result, Jesus says, my hour has come. Jesus never meets with them.

01:05:46

If he did, we're not told. But Jesus doesn't meet with them. And this is going to end up talking about judgment and the blinding of eyes as we continue on into the beginning of chapter 13.

01:06:08

But the big, big, big, big question, the real issue here, obviously, has to be, what do we do with Pantas?

01:06:20

All what? I suppose that is the only one positive thing about the extra space is that you can write stuff in it.

01:06:32

So maybe we should just take that as a gift, I suppose. All what? Is it all men individually?

01:06:49

Or is it all kinds of men?

01:06:55

Now, I would simply suggest to you that any

01:07:01

Jew reading this text in the first century, it's amazing how many people go, well,

01:07:13

I've got a Jewish friend and he reads it this way. And it's like, in the 21st century?

01:07:19

Okay, that's really not all that relevant. Really, in fact, not relevant at all. A Jewish person in the first century who starts reading at chapter 12 and sees that Greeks are coming to speak to Jesus already knows what's being talked about here.

01:07:40

Already gets it. Because they already think in the Jew -Gentile dichotomy.

01:07:48

They already get that. That's their experience. That's their worldview. And so there are two ways of understanding

01:07:57

Pantas. You can either view it.

01:08:05

And I wonder if this would... It does. Now, the question is, can

01:08:11

I go back? Verse 32. Okay, that's interesting.

01:08:21

I'm just looking at the textual. I noticed there's a textual variant mark right there. And instead of Pantas, the other reading is

01:08:29

Panta in P66, the original hand of Sinaiticus. Also in Beze and in some of the

01:08:34

Latin. So it would impact only... It wouldn't have that much of an impact at all.

01:08:43

So hopefully when I do this... Oh, yeah, I like that. Goes right back to the way it's supposed to be.

01:08:48

Good. All right. So the natural reading,

01:08:54

I will draw who to myself. I will draw all kinds of men,

01:09:02

Jews and Gentiles. You've got Gentiles coming to Jesus. That's the context. If you're going to try to say no, it means all men individually.

01:09:12

And then read that backwards into John chapter 6. Hopefully we're starting to see just how bad an exegetical mess this is.

01:09:20

But if you're going to try to come up with all men individually here, then you've got to find something in this context right here that breaks the connection between the

01:09:36

Gentiles coming, the Greeks coming, and that dichotomy of all kinds of men, Jews and Gentiles.

01:09:41

You have to find something, and there just isn't anything there. But that's what you'd have to do.

01:09:47

But there's another reason why I, when

01:09:53

I hear people use this text, I just go, have you thought about what it is you're saying?

01:10:03

You're saying that the cross of Christ draws all men?

01:10:14

Have you thought about that? Have you been online recently? Have you seen the vile things that unbelievers will say about Christ and about His cross?

01:10:30

Have you seen how in so many areas in our culture today, especially in areas where sexual freedom is being pursued, have you seen how the cross of Christ is viewed by those people?

01:10:47

What is the preaching of the cross? What is that to the vast majority of people?

01:10:53

It's death, stench of death, according to Paul. It's foolishness to them.

01:10:59

It's repulsive to them. It drives them away. Draw them to myself?

01:11:09

If this isn't election, and this isn't what we have in 1

01:11:17

Corinthians 1 and 2, where the preaching of the cross is them that are perishing, it's foolishness.

01:11:28

To the Greeks, moronos. To the

01:11:34

Jews, stumbling block. But to those who are what? Called. Whether Jews or Greeks.

01:11:42

Christ, the power of God, Christ, the wisdom of God. If that's not election, what is it? Once you recognize that, and you see how

01:11:52

Cuso, and if you've been reading the Gospel of John, and you already read John 6, you've already seen what that means.

01:12:01

This is the effective action of the Father, drawing his people unto the Son. The Son raises them up on the last day.

01:12:09

And so here, they're being drawn to me as a result of his sacrificial death.

01:12:21

That's the consistent way of reading it. So what can motivate

01:12:29

Christians to go to a chapter, six chapters down the road, come up with an unusual interpretation, and then read it backwards into John 6?

01:12:48

The defense of the ostensible, free agency, free will, sovereignty, autonomy of man.

01:12:58

That's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. But the text doesn't require it.

01:13:04

In fact, the natural way of reading John 12. And if we continued on, if we continued on,

01:13:13

I just want to point something out to you here. If we continue on, we get some pretty amazing stuff here.

01:13:24

Walking in the light. But though he had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke,

01:13:33

Lord, who has believed, I report unto whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed. That's Isaiah 6. And what's

01:13:39

Isaiah 6? What has God commissioned Isaiah to do in Isaiah 6? Proclaim the message, and I'm going to make their hearts fat, and their eyes blind.

01:13:50

So Isaiah goes, how long, oh Lord? It's judgment. He has blinded their eyes, he hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, receive with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them.

01:14:01

These things Isaiah said, because he saw his glory, and he spoke of him. This is the text that identifies Jesus as Yahweh, because that's from Isaiah chapter 6.

01:14:09

And who did he see? He saw Yahweh sitting upon his throne. And so this is judgment.

01:14:17

This is judgment, that is found in this text.

01:14:22

And it's a righteous judgment, primarily against the people of Israel, being spoken of here.

01:14:30

And it was those Greeks coming, that prompts all this discussion. That's the context.

01:14:36

That's the context. I've said many times, because we divide the

01:14:42

Bible up into verses, you want to know, one thing you can do in 2022, yeah, we've already gotten started, but one of the greatest benefits, one of the greatest things you can do, is to learn the flow of argument, of the books of the

01:15:03

Bible. And especially key books, like John and Romans and Philippians, and so on and so forth, but know what the flow of the argument is, so that you can recognize, how very often, there is shallow proof texting going on.

01:15:21

Now sure, we all quote a verse, but, and I've been doing this, for a long time now, all you got to do, you want proof of this?

01:15:31

Go back to the 100 verse memorization system, for dealing with Mormons.

01:15:37

I don't even remember what year it was, I wrote that, but it was a very, very long time ago, mid 80s, I was already around when you came around, wasn't it?

01:15:46

Yeah, yeah. And what was, what made that, what has made that so useful for people?

01:15:54

It wasn't just, memorize these verses, it was, this is the context of the verse, and this is the context, that the

01:16:03

Mormon, is going to bring to this verse, and this is how you need to correct that. It's vitally important, it doesn't matter who you're talking to, even talking to fellow believers, who've been given a tradition, that does not accurately represent, what's found in the text, you still have to know what the context is, and that helps a lot, when you're someplace like John chapter 12, so there you go.

01:16:30

All right, that's what we've got for you today, on the program, you can see why we could not put the program, on certain other, places, because the first,

01:16:42

I don't know, 20 minutes, half hour, whatever, was that we were talking about, no, no, it just, big brother wouldn't have liked it, we need, let's keep, let's keep legal on our side, let's have a nation of laws, not a nation of men, that would be a very, very good thing.

01:17:03

All right, thanks for watching the program, I don't exactly know, what the situation,

01:17:09

I'm pretty certain, we should be here, on Thursday, I'll probably be dressed, more nicely than I am now, because we will have a, memorial service and funeral, that evening, but I think, we'll probably press forward, with the regular schedule on Thursday, maybe do something earlier in the day,

01:17:29

I don't know, we'll figure it out, but pray for preparations, the upcoming trip, that trip by the way, just comes in, a day or two, under a month, in length, so pray for my wife, as well, and her patience, indeed as well, thanks for watching, we'll see you next time,