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desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded

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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 welcome to The Dividing Line on this

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Tuesday afternoon. My name is James White and we are going to be talking about a number of things today.

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We have a lot of things to talk about, numerous various sundry issues.

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I still not hearing my computer. I'm asking for it to be turned up, but it is not there. We're trying to bring it up.

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Read my book. Ah, there it is. Yes. Read my book. Read my book. I heard that over and over again during the course, the

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Bible Answer Man debate. Read my book. Yes. And it was in the context of the fact that I had challenged the folks that were debating me, and it was more than one, to answer some particular biblical passages.

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For example, I have yet to hear an answer to Genesis 50, Acts 4, Isaiah 10, and hence I would say

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I continue to hold the biblical ground. Read my book. Read my book. Genesis 50,

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Isaiah 10, and Acts 4. Well, as you know, if you've been looking at the blog, you know that I have now gotten hold of the book.

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And so we're going to be commenting on what did George Bryson say about Genesis 50,

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Isaiah 10, and Acts chapter 4. We're going to find out. But first things first, we have many things to talk about today.

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First and foremost, I wanted to note that we have some folks that are very much involved with the ministry.

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And specifically, Mike Porter's wife, Shannon, is expecting a baby. In fact, the baby was due a few days ago.

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My wife was instructing Mr. Porter, who we call the gobbler, to make sure to have the baby today, because today would allow, today's the third of February in 2004.

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So it would be 2 -3 -4. And so evidently, that may end up happening,

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I'm not sure. Because we got word today that Shannon fell, and she has broken her arm very badly.

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And in fact, they're going to have to have surgery on her arm. And of course, since she's already past due, they don't want to do surgery in that situation.

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So they may be inducing labor. And so right after the program's over, I'm going to be heading down to the hospital. So if you'd pray for Mike and Shannon Porter, this is their first child.

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This is not the way a new mom wants to start off with a broken arm and her first baby, all at the same time.

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But of course, 20 years down the road, it will be the stuff of constant discussion and hopefully happy memories.

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But right now, of course, we need to pray for her, because she must be in a lot of pain. And so I cannot imagine what it would be like to have a baby and have your arm broken at the same time.

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That just seems like way too much. So pray for Mike and Shannon Porter.

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And I'll be heading down that direction as soon as the program is over. So first things first.

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Secondly, lots of stuff going on. If you saw the blog, we have some material there about Dave Hunt.

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Dave has been, I think, falling off into something like open theism or something.

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I don't know. If you look at the blog today, he's made yet another basic biblical error.

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Comes from not being able to deal with biblical passages in their original languages.

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And so he ended up making statements like he makes in his current newsletter. And that's on the blog.

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If you want to take a look at the main page, aomin .org. Of course, in the process, he's taking shots at other folks, and that just sort of happens.

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Well, obviously, I have much more to say about Mr. Hunt and the issue of the book coming out in just a matter of weeks.

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The book, Debating Calvinism, my debate between myself and Mr. Hunt. Even though Amazon .com

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seems to think only Mr. Hunt wrote it. I'm not sure how you write a debate book by yourself, but hey, that's sort of how it works. Passion movie.

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Mel Gibson and the Passion Movie. I tracked down a segment of the EWTN interview that I did not have.

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This was not included on the DVD. And this is getting more important as we look at the sources of the film.

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The film's coming up in just a matter of weeks now. Oh, by the way, John Piper's book is out.

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I've ordered mine. Haven't gotten it yet. The first five chapters are available in PDF format at,

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I believe it's the Passion Book. I put the URL on my blog a while back. Passion -book .com

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or thepassion -book .com, something along those lines. But you can take a look at it there.

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I was very excited that within one or two pages of the beginning, Acts chapter 4, verses 27 to 28 were being cited.

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That may mean that George Bryson and his friends don't want to distribute that book, but, you know, it's there.

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But one of the key sources for the film is a book by a

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Roman Catholic visionary who's on her way to sainthood. Gibson carries a relic from her in his pocket.

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She wrote a book called The Dolores Passion of Christ that allegedly gives the visions that she was given, which explains what

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Mary's role in the crucifixion was.

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And people have noted in watching the film that there's all this stuff about Mary, what Mary was doing. Well, where'd that come from?

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Well, it came from this book. And in the EWTN discussion of this subject, which didn't get on the

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DVD, he talks about this. Let's listen to what he had to say. Where did it originate? Where did it originate?

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What was the moment when you said, I want to do this story? 10 years ago, right? Roughly. Probably more like 12 or 13 years ago,

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I think it was. Was there an incident? One moment? I became acquainted with certain books and things.

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I started reading them. And I actually managed to like purchase a library for a dollar a book. Nobody else wanted these things.

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So I'm like, wow, I've got a huge library. And I found a place to put them and stuff. And I was reaching up for a book one day.

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And I pulled it out and the cover caught on the book next to it and the book next to it fell out. And that was that Emmerich book.

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Right. Dolores Pasha. And I started looking at that going, oh, that's interesting. Wow. Hey, wow. Wow. This is answering a lot of questions

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I've been asking. And it was at that point I was like, you know what, that's my life. You know, that kind of stuff.

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It's like starting to look into things that I had a knowledge of, but really hadn't explored as fully as I should have.

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So I began to look at them. Read all the Gospels. Read the New Testament. Read the Old Testament. You know, and just started to go through all that and explore that.

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Well, there's there's Mel Gibson himself giving you the the role that that particular book had in his writing of the film and his his beginning of the film, so on and so forth.

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I think that's I think that's important to keep in mind as we consider something else that that came up.

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Oh, George, just hold on a second. We'll get to you in a second. It's you know, I read my book. I've I've gotten

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I've got it now. It's it arrived. We have it. It's OK. Well, we'll get to it a little bit later on.

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But I got a I got a e -mail and it contained an article by John Armstrong on the

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Passion movie. And I was very troubled by again, remembering

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John Armstrong has edited books on Roman Catholicism, one of the best books that Moody put out, had a number of different articles in it.

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I was very troubled by a number of the comments that were made and sources that were cited in this article from John Armstrong, who, of course, has has begun promoting new perspectivism and as a result attacks what he calls foundationalism and and talks about openness to traditions and all the rest of the stuff.

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And one of the paragraphs reads, as I note above, I've read numerous critiques of the Passion of the Christ. These range from the protest.

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The film is anti -Semitic to praises of theologians and priests, the Roman Catholic Church. And there's a parenthesis that says, no, the pope has not formally endorsed the film.

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And yes, Mel Gibson is a devout Christian and a faithful Roman Catholic. Now, the

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John Armstrong I once knew would not have allowed a statement like that to be made without qualifying and explaining it.

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We're talking here about someone who clearly believes in the mass as a perpetuatory sacrifice, purgatory, confession, penances, the entirety of of the

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Roman Catholic system. He's more Catholic than the pope is, as they said, a vacantist. And so obviously, to just simply make the statement is a devout

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Christian and a faithful Roman Catholic would be to really embrace a tremendous amount of movement from where he once was.

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And some of the other citations in here from Roman Catholic priests and things concerning the reflections upon the death of Christ, which is connected to the rosary and various secondary sacramental and liturgical things like that, very, very troubling to see coming from the pen of John Armstrong.

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But it is somewhat indicative of this movement and what it involves and what it ends up breeding in those who buy into it.

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Because certainly one of the points that N .T. Wright himself makes is that if you understand, if you properly understand the doctrine of justification, that it should be a great ecumenical doctrine, that it's meant to bring unity to the church and hence should never be something in which people divide.

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And so new perspectivism breeds into, leads into ecumenism, breeds an attitude of ecumenism.

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And it can partly do so because the fact that it takes away so much of the specificity of the doctrine of justification itself, the imputation, the righteousness of Christ, so on and so forth, it in essence says the divisions between Rome and Protestants were really based upon a medieval misreading of the entire subject to begin with.

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Rome was wrong in what she had said. My headphones are going in and out. Rome was wrong about what she had said.

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And the reformers, therefore, since they're responding to what Rome was saying, were likewise wrong in what they were saying.

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And since we've all been wrong all along, then all we have to do is embrace this perspective and we can hold hands and sort of sing kumbaya and things like that.

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Hopefully all the rest of you are able to hear me all right because my headphones are going in and out. It's very, very, very strange and odd and hopefully not indicative of my microphone about to die as it has in the past or things like that.

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Anyways, I will try to press on despite that particular thing. We have a number of cuts that I'd like to play today because as I mentioned,

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I got hold of The Dark Side of Calvinism.

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I am holding it in my hand. It, as I mentioned on the blog, is a eight and a half by eleven velo bound type of a production here with a black cover.

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Like I said, I saw this from afar and at the top it says a biblically based examination, evaluation, refutation of the reformed doctrine of redemption and reprobation.

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Then underneath The Dark Side of Calvinism, the Calvinist caste system. And on the back, you have stuff from Chuck Smith.

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Doug Wilson is cited, which isn't that ironic. But what he actually is cited from is from a email that was posted on the web concerning a previous book.

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I think it is really questionable, shall we say, to put something that he said about George Bryson on the web that was in reference to his previous book,

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The Five Points of Calvinism, Wade and Found Lying. If you have to put that in the back of your new book, that's, you know,

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I'd be like going back and grabbing old endorsements off the King James Only Controversy. I could have pulled the one from Geisler off and put it on the

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Potter's Freedom. Why not? Hey, anyway, there's some pretty wild stuff in here, as I mentioned.

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But obviously the big question everybody has had all along is so when

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George Bryson kept telling you over and over again that this particular book that you weren't able to see when you were in the studio answers these questions, doesn't answer these questions.

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And here's a couple of places that was said. That's not what Geisler says. Could you share that with me? You're going to have to read the book. That was on John.

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That was that was in, I think, the second or third hour where we were talking about John chapter six.

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And so I'm asking him where Jesus said what he was saying. And we have. That's not what Geisler says.

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Could you share that with me? You're going to have to read the book. I'm going to have to read the book. Well, at least on that one, there was some discussion, a massive discussion, actually, of John chapter six.

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It is tremendously confused, demonstrates that exegesis is not what this system really can can engage in and very, very confusing, disconnected from the text, jumping all over the text.

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You can't you simply can't walk through John six. You can't start verse thirty five and follow

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Jesus along to verse forty five and come to end of conclusions. You've got to read stuff into it.

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And so anyway, at least on this one where he said, you have to read the book for where Jesus said this.

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At least I know what he's talking about now. And he's wrong, completely wrong. But it doesn't really matter.

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At least it was at least it was there someplace. But the section that I've played before this part, this was the key.

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I have yet to hear an answer to Genesis 50, Acts four, Isaiah 10. And hence, I would say

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I continue to hold the biblical ground. Read my book. Is there anything about Genesis chapter 50 anywhere in the dark side of Calvinism?

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Well, of course, there is no scriptural index. There's no subject index. There's no index at all.

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There's 16 zillion endnotes, but there is no subject or scripture index.

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And so what do you have to do? You have to look at every single page and look at every single reference.

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Now, some of you know that I got pretty used to doing that. And some other folks helped me out in doing that in regards to Norm Geisler's book.

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When we first started responding to Chosen but Free, the scripture index in the back was extremely useless.

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It was not the kind of scripture index that actually lists everything. And so I or others would have to go through the entirety of the book looking for specific references.

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And so I would buy an Amazon gift certificate, and I would send it off to primarily either

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Mark Ennis, who's in Channel right now, or Captain Wade, who hasn't been in Channel a long time,

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Keith up in Chicago. And they would take the book, and they would just start going up and down and up and down and up and down through the pages, looking for every reference in the book.

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In fact, my copy of the first edition of Chosen but Free still has written in the front the index of particular passages that we need to look at, everything that he said written in the front.

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And that's basically what we had to do with The Dark Side of Calvinism. So I sat down, and now I had mentioned to you in previous programs,

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Wally Bolt, our brilliant Australian astronomer, Hawaiian -Australian astronomer, whatever, had already gone through himself, and he did not find any references.

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He looked specifically for Genesis 50 and Acts 4. I was looking for all three from the clip that I've played for you before, including

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Isaiah chapter 10. And so I started the process. And of course, in the process, I can't help but being reading, since I'm looking at passages as they're going by.

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And I found a bunch of stuff, some of the things we'll talk about, some of the things I've listed on the blog already.

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And so we go through, and we go through the entirety of the text. Is there any reference to Genesis 50?

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No. Wally Bolt was right. Never is Genesis 50 cited or discussed in the entirety of the book.

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Acts chapter 4? Nope. No references to Acts chapter 4. How about Isaiah chapter 10?

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Any references to Isaiah chapter 10? No. Nowhere in the book is there any even recognition of the existence of Isaiah chapter 10 and its witness to compatibilism at all.

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And so what was he meaning? Read my book. I did.

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And it's not there, George. There is no discussion of compatibilism and the passages in your book.

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Read my book. Well, I did, but it didn't answer the question. It just didn't answer the question.

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So we need to put, don't read my book somewhere in there, yes? To explain that particular, you know,

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I just, I just don't, it disappeared. That's not what Jesus says. You're going to have to, you're going to have to read the book. Okay, well, and over and over again, we were told that.

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And of course, during that particular discussion, there were a number of things that we asked of Mr.

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Bryson. As I was looking for those phrases, read my book, I came across a number of others that I just want to play for us today.

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I want to repeat, you know,

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I just need to see here's the, here's the, you know, do you hear the, there's the book in the background.

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Maybe I should have recorded that made the sound effect itself. There's, I'm reading the book. There it is. Not, none of them were, one of the, one of the best parts of the debate.

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And I listened to the second and third hour when I got home because I was listening to him live on the air.

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But I sort of forgotten about it. And as I was listening to stuff, there's some stuff that I just went, man, did that, you know, that really did happen.

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Can't believe that really happened. One was when I, when I would ask Mr. Bryson, how does

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God know the future? How, how does God, I want to remind us once again of, of how this answer was given.

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I believe God knows everything because he's omniscient. This is his very nature to know everything. He knows everything, actually knows everything potential.

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So the question about does God know the future is answered. If God is omniscient, he knows everything, everything that is and could be.

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I'm sorry, but, but doesn't it strike anyone else as strangely as it strikes me?

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That the answer to the question, how does God know the future is he knows the future. He's omniscient.

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He knows the future. That doesn't answer the question. That is a circular response. I know

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God is omniscient. The question is how is God omniscient? Just by nature.

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That was an answer to when I asked that question, that, that was an answer to, uh, uh, the, uh, he said,

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Oh, it was almost like, Oh, I want to answer that. I want to answer that. And so, yeah,

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I, uh, uh, I just, uh, that, that, that was very interesting to me.

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And, uh, I, I found it, uh, somewhat, uh, somewhat humorous. I'm closing some of these, uh, these files here.

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So I don't get confused as to which ones I have, uh, I have read. Um, uh, let's see now this one, uh, well here, let me,

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I'll just play it. Genesis chapter 50, Isaiah chapter 10 and Acts chapter four are passages. I'm going to ask

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George to explain to me during the course of our discussion today. See, I, I announced right up front.

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That's from the first hour. The very first hour I said, look, I am going, here's, here's the passages.

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It's not like there was not time to do some preparation from the very start. I announced Genesis chapter 50,

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Isaiah chapter 10 and Acts chapter four are passages. I'm going to ask George to explain to me during the course of our discussion today.

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And I never did get that explanation. Did I? All I got was read the book, read my book.

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Yeah. Read my book, not just the book, but read my book. My book. Yes. That's what we got. We didn't get anything else, but what we would hear over and over and over again, this was the funny part.

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What we would hear over and over and over again is I would ask a direct question and the response would not be relevant.

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Instead, what we would get would be, that's the problem with Calvinism. That's how every response that I would say.

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So George, how about this idea of substitutionary atonement? And the response would start, that's the problem with Calvinism.

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And you just go on from there and you know, you just, that's the problem with Calvinism.

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It's always just a problem with Calvinism. And then, and really, if you just read my book, you'd understand what the problem with Calvinism is.

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It's just, I, I, I mean, just, just listen to,

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I got rolling at one point. Okay. Sometimes it happens. You, you've all, those of you who know me, you know that sometimes

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I just get rolling. And this happened at one point. And here's here, this really sort of explains it to each.

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Now it's not, we believe, we believe that we evangelize because God commands us to do so. And he uses means. You said many times,

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God, if God ordains the ends, he ordains the means to the ends. The means to the ends is that we proclaim the gospel.

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And I'm not saying that I experience my union with Christ and my justification from eternity.

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What I am saying, however, is that if substitutionary atonement is true, then the term propitiation means a removal of wrath.

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You decide 1 John 2, 2, which refers to propitiation. If it does not remove wrath, then it's not propitiation.

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If that man goes to hell and Christ has propitiated God's wrath in his place, then God is unjust. It's not an attack on the cross.

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And 1 Timothy 2, 4 through 5, which was cited earlier about God not wanting any to perish and 2

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Peter 3, 9. If you look at both of those in their context, you'll see that in the very next verse,

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Paul says that Jesus Christ intercedes. He is the one mediator between God and men. And so I asked the question, the high priest always had to mediate for those who he offered the sacrifice for.

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If Christ's death was intended to save every individual, then Christ intercedes and mediates for every individual.

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So are we saying that Christ is in heaven right now, interceding before the father in behalf of every person who's already died under the wrath of God and who will be in hell forever?

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The big mistake that Calvinists make, and they should know better on this Hank, is the whole issue of they've turned

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Sola Fidai into Nola Fidai. Has nothing to do with what

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I just got done saying. It's just, let's just right off. And would, would, would he ever be called on the carpet for that?

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No, no, no, no, no, no. We're not. Now he can, he can say whatever he wants to say. really wants to say at that particular point in time.

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And I just, I, well, now, you know, we, we had a discussion a couple of weeks ago.

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We, a number of people had contacted me and I had been listening today that Hank was talking to a guy, remember the guy whose brother goes to Norm Geisler's school and this guy wanted

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Hank to say that we're not in the pale of orthodox, you know, that pale where y 'all slosh about and, and throw, uh, throw water at each other.

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And, um, uh, Hank had made the following statement. Now I wasn't in this debate in any sense.

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I tried to moderate this debate. So, so Hank was not in the debate. Well, I, I, I, I, I had a problem with that.

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And as I re -listened to, as I was listening to the whole thing, uh, looking for these clips of the program today, over and over again,

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I kept hearing just how involved Hank was. And so I put just a couple, just a few representative samples of Hank's non -involvement together, because I was just,

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I'd be sitting there and I was trying to do two or three things at once. I'm trying to listen, keep one ear on it. And I kept stopping going,

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I've forgotten that, but, but wait, and it was just, well, just listen. The, um, despite the accusations of dancing and, uh, and various and sundry other things that I, I, I don't,

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I don't think that that's fair, uh, analogy at all. When we say they had no opportunity,

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Hank, I want to emphasize that we are talking about individuals who not only do not desire any such opportunity.

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But they're created in such a way that they cannot desire. But again, they are created in the image of God and it's their sin and their fallen nature.

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Okay, but what I'm trying to establish here. Love their sin. Just so we understand. Because if I thought it was up to me to try to convince people who were involved in some of these tremendously controlling groups that by their libertarian free will, they were somehow going to choose

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Christ over against the control structure that's around them. And that God would never violate their free will.

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Then I wouldn't even bother going up to Salt Lake City and doing the things that I'm doing. Is that what you would say? Or do you say that it is

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God who changes the heart? God changes the heart. Now, is that what you say?

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Or actually, are you saying this? I mean, over and over again, there was this there was this feeding of George that the answer to the question in the form of the question was so clear.

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Everybody heard it. I mean, I've seen so many. We've gotten so many emails and so many people.

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I just don't understand why there would be any even any question about the subject.

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You know, I don't know. Just left utterly utterly and completely befuddled at that.

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And you can just hear that the the going back and forth. People said in the chat channel it was right.

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People forgot George is even a part of this debate. It was it was something else.

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Well, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number 877 -753 -3341.

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Yeah, I know. Well, I tried, but it's not there. There is no discussion whatsoever.

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Recognition of these passages, just simply a mocking of the idea of God's decree.

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And isn't it interesting? It's exactly what ends up coming out in Dave Hunt's newsletter that was sent out today.

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He's what has happened in the world when you have

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Dave Hunt attacking Rick Warren in the purpose driven life for quoting from the

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Living Bible in Psalm 139, where Psalm 139, verse 16 talks about the fact that God has ordained our days.

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See, Dave Hunt is a King James only. He's not King James only, but he's King James preferred. He doesn't seem to realize that the

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King James blew it in Psalm 139. And therefore, you have a an actuality.

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The Living Bible is more literal than the King James is at that point. And the Bible does say that God has ordained our days, and Dave Hunt disagrees with that.

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I guess Dave Hunt thinks God doesn't know when he's going to die, or it doesn't ordain the day that he's going to die. Boy, all sorts of problems there.

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Well, it is ironic, but it is 530, which I think, even though I've not been given the indication, means that we're supposed to be taking a break about now.

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And so hopefully we'll be able to do that and take your phone calls at 877 -753 -3341.

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Let's hear what you have to say right after this. A godly man is such a rarity today.

31:13

Read my book. So many stars, strong and true, and quickly fall away.

31:21

Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

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Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

31:34

In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the

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Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including

31:47

Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.

31:57

In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.

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The Same -Sex Controversy, Defending and Clarifying the Bible's Message about Homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at almin .org.

32:16

Millions of petitioners from around the world are employing Pope John Paul II to recognize the Virgin Mary as co -redeemer with Christ, elevating the topic of Roman Catholic views of Mary to national headlines and widespread discussion.

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In his book, Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic.

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He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant, and chosen vessel of God, has become the immaculately conceived bodily assumed queen of heaven, viewed as co -mediator with Christ, and now recognized as co -redeemer by many in the

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Roman Catholic Church. Mary, Another Redeemer is fresh insight into the woman the

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Bible calls blessed among women and an invitation to single -minded devotion to God's truth.

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You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary, Another Redeemer, at almin .org.

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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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

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

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

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

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Read my book. Read my book.

34:39

Welcome back. Hey, having a little fun. Hey, you know, if you can't have a little fun, why in the world are you listening to this thing anyways?

34:48

Uh, well, you know, what can I say? Uh, we, uh, I don't see that, uh,

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I don't see that we have, uh, any, uh, any, any phone and no one has called in today. I just want to keep hearing this type of stuff, but I only had so much of it.

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I mean, I, we can go back and we can, uh, you know, we can look at, uh, at some of the things

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Dave Hunt had to say, but I've already put that on the blogs that, you know, that's, you know, what, what, what can I say? Read my book.

35:15

Yeah, I know. And the problem with Calvinism. So George, uh, exactly how does

35:20

God know the future? Well, the problem with Calvinism is, uh, if, and if we, if we just simply took that particular line away from Mr.

35:29

Bryson, would he ever be able to start a response? That's the question. I don't know that.

35:34

I don't know that he could, I didn't make that was, that was all the cuts I made. That was, that was it. Um, obviously, you know,

35:41

I, uh, I can hear cackling in the other room. Uh, I will mention this as those of you who are just waiting to call in at 877 -753 -3341 do, because I know that, um, that you want to on page, uh, page 31,

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I had to at least, at least, uh, admit, um, this is interesting. Uh, let me back up here a little bit.

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While the caste system of reformed theology transcends the earthly distinctions of humanity, i .e.

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rich, poor, black, white, Jew, Gentile, highly cultured, lowly peasants, et cetera. It is an undeniable feature of Calvinism.

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In fact, the eternal castes of the elect and reprobate necessarily include representatives of all temporal distinctions.

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I'm not sure what a temporal distinction is. That's the problem with Calvinism. Oh, okay. Uh, James White, while focusing on the election side of the election reprobation coin says that, and then he quotes me quote,

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God elects a specific people unto himself without reference to anything they do. That serves you right.

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I don't know how that happened. Uh, honestly, I really, really, how'd that happen? I didn't do that.

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Uh, somebody must've come online and I didn't even, uh, didn't even realize that, uh, yep, yep.

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Thinker came online. Thinkers, thinkers back. Uh, we lost thinker for a while, but anyways,

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God elects a specific people in himself without reference to anything they do. This means the basis of God's choice of the elect is solely within himself.

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His grace, mercy, his will. It is not man's actions, works, or even foreseen faith that draws God's choice.

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God's election is unconditional and final. Now what's interesting is that, um, uh, this same section from, from the

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Potter's freedom, Ephesians one, uh, Dave Hunt quotes, but he uses ellipses to remove the fact, uh, that I'm talking about election here, not reprobation.

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And he, he sort of does the, let's take one quote from one page and one quote from another page.

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And, and, uh, one quote from 50 pages down the road, stick them all together. And, uh, voila, you have your, uh, uh, you have your result in quote and ends up, you know, misrepresenting things there.

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Now, at least he recognizes that I am, he is saying while focusing on the election side of the election reprobation coin says, quote, uh, then he says, after quoting me, he says, this is the bottom page 31 of the dark side of Calvinism.

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While white may or may not appreciate what I am going to say, maybe this is why he didn't give it to me.

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Uh, while white may or may not appreciate what I'm going to say, logically white's view at the very least implies that God reprobates a specific people away from himself without reference to anything they do.

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In fact, although this is hushed up or even denied at least some hypo Calvinist, uh, circles,

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Calvinism maintains an unconditional election to damnation as much as it does an unconditional election to salvation.

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All Calvinists shout about their doctrine of unconditional election. Most however, whisper when talking about unconditional reprobation, if they speak of it at all, they both the former while they're seemingly embarrassed about the latter.

39:16

Well, of course, uh, uh, look up and thinkers attempting to DCC chat with me.

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Uh, someone say hi to thinker for me. Um, then tell her that we're a little bit busy today. Um, anyway, um, and she keeps trying and you have to put her on ignore here unless someone can explain to her that, uh,

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I'm not interested in chatting at the moment. We're a little bit busy, but, um, unconditional reprobation.

39:43

Is that really what we believe? Uh, this really goes to the heart of, of one of the, the most, um, one of the deepest misunderstandings of enemies of the reformed faith and what they really, what they really hold to.

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They really do think that sin is irrelevant here because of the fact that we emphasize that election has nothing to do with our performance or anything found within us.

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They think that there is this equal ultimacy. This even came out of the Bible answer man program and therefore they, they want to create this direct connection between the two so that the damnation of individuals is seen as not related to anything in themselves.

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We can talk about sin and things like that, but you even heard it in what, uh, Hank Hanegraaff was saying to me, well, they were made that made the way they were made that way.

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There's nothing they can do about that. Uh, so on and so forth. Right? The problem, of course, is that the whole issue of grace and mercy, the foundation of election is something that, and this, this came out in guys in my response to Geisler's book to remember his, the story, uh, about, um, uh, the, the, the kids swimming in the lake.

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Some of you who haven't read, uh, the Potter's freedom or chosen but free, you may not be familiar with this, but, uh,

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Geisler's example of this in essence was the, the, uh, the kids swimming in the pond that the farmer has put up a sign that says, do not swim here.

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And he says, basically what, uh, what Christians are saying, or what Calvinists are saying is that the farmer comes along and these three boys are in the, his pond.

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Now they're not, they're not supposed to be there. They're sinning, but they start to drown and the

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Calvinist God only reaches in and rescues one of the three. That's his idea.

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Now, of course he's, he's trivialized sin and so on and so forth. I remember when I responded to that, I said, no, the proper example would be that you have a sovereign

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King and you have rebels who have broken into the

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King's castle and they are raping and pillaging and burning and they're attacking the

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King's family and they're destroying the King's property. And the King comes back to his castle and he, uh, sees what these people are doing.

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And he sends people to, to tell them, look, the castle's burning down.

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You, you must come out, but they don't want to. They don't want to come out. Uh, putting thinker on ignore now.

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Uh, they don't want to come out. Uh, they love what they're doing. They love the fact that the castle is going to burn down around them and kill them in the process.

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And so what the King does, he sends his son in and his son powerfully saves some of these rebels who are spitting in the

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King's face and destroying the King's castle. The illustrations that people try to use completely miss that particular element of what

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God does. The not only undeservedness of grace, but the power of grace and the love of rebellion on the part of those who receive this grace.

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And this grace must by nature change them. That's why it can't be based on anything in themselves. Because if it is, uh, then these rebel sinners would first have to change themselves.

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And, uh, so they, they, they miss that element of it. And they miss the fact that election is based upon grace.

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Damnation is based upon justice. And they don't see the difference between those two things and to make them equally ultimate with one another is unbiblical.

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The Bible doesn't say that. Well, logically it must be. No, our system is exegetical.

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It is based upon the text of scripture. And as we see in these kinds of arguments, there was,

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Oh man, look through this book. There is, there is absolutely, uh, almost no, uh, there, there isn't any exegesis in this book.

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There is one attempt and it is interesting. Uh, there's one attempt at least, uh, and this is, this is strange because, uh,

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Bryson demonstrates, he looked at what I said about Matthew 23, 37. So he does try to attempt to respond to that, but there's numerous other places where if he was going to say what he was saying, he'd have to respond to the objections raised by my own book, which he's shown familiarity with, but he doesn't even attempt to do so.

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So, um, interesting stuff you can see on the blog where I've posted some of the things on John 6.

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Uh, there's more stuff that's in there that, uh, that we need to, uh, respond to eventually or over time. And maybe as people get the book or if they can't get the book,

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I mean, it's not like there's a lot of them being published at the moment. Um, people call in and talk about this thing.

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So let's, let's go ahead and start taking our, uh, our phone calls and, uh, let's go ahead and, uh, uh, start with, um, let's start with Eric.

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If we can go that direction, uh, Mr. Aleman person, Eric, uh, both of our callers that we have right now are in California.

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That's, I mean, that means these are going to be strange questions, but let's, let's, let's go ahead and talk about, uh, talk with Eric in Orange, California.

45:34

Hi, Eric. Hi, Dr. White. How you doing? Good. Um, I'm involved with a guy's group and they, um, we're thinking of going through a book, uh, it's called

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Meditative Prayer by a guy named Richard Peace. He's a teacher of the classes at Fuller and he, um,

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I'm not sure if you've ever heard of, uh, Richard Foster. Yes. Richard Foster. The other person

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I don't know about Richard Foster I've heard about. Yeah. And then, um, it's the, uh, the book seems okay.

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Um, just some of the styles of prayer they had in there just seems sort of questionable. I wonder if you read my book.

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What book? That was just George. He wants you to read his book. Oh, the, um,

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I'm not familiar with the book. I'm sorry. I've not seen it. I couldn't comment upon it. Um, obviously

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I, I, I, I went to Fuller and that was a long time ago. And even then I would have been, uh, described as the token fundamentalist.

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So, you know, it's really hard to say. Have you heard anything, um, regarding like meditative prayer or anything called a

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Lectio Divina? No. No. Okay. It's just, it's, um, it seemed like really subjective, like sort of taking verses out of context and meditating on them regardless of the context.

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That's probably not a good thing to do. Uh, but, uh, I, I, I'm, I'm unfortunately not in a position to be able to, uh, uh, to be of assistance to you at that point, as far as the book goes,

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I, I'm afraid I just simply would have to say in a blanket way that, um, you would have to look very, very carefully and closely, uh, at anything coming out of Fuller Seminary these days.

47:11

Yeah. Yeah. That's just all there is to it. Do you have any, uh, books on prayer that you would recommend or? Uh, well, the, depends on what kind of, uh, of group you're, you're talking about.

47:24

Um, there's a tremendous amount of stuff on prayer from the Puritans that is really, really good, but because of the way it's written, a lot of folks today would have a hard time with it.

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But there, I mean, you know, reading just Jonathan Edwards sermon, uh, hypocrites deficient in the duty of prayer is enough to, uh, bring so much conviction to you that you, you may never do a study again.

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So, uh, I mean, there's, there's just stuff like that out there. And, uh, so the, the, the Puritans would have a tremendous amount of great stuff.

47:59

Uh, there, there are, are Puritan prayers in the book of the Valley of Vision. That's a, to give you the samples of lots of things you could look at, um, that might be older, but probably better as a result.

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Okay. Okay. Thanks for taking my call. Alrighty. God bless. 877 -753 -3341.

48:16

Possibly Eric had not heard, uh, the program, but, uh, Aaron in California, I'm sure has.

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And so, Aaron, uh, I only have one suggestion for you. Read my book. Yeah, that's an understatement.

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Um, have you read my book? Uh, which one? Uh, the Potter's Freedom. Uh, no. Read my book.

48:39

Uh, I would, uh, I don't think you've mentioned the, the trophy comment from Hank.

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That's the problem with Calvinism. Are you still doing that to me? Uh, have you forgotten about the trophy comment from Hank?

48:53

Trophy comment? Yeah. The trophy comment that takes the cake for being the most, uh, blatant lead -in and, uh, absolute hostile way, uh, to distract from your position.

49:05

After you gave the review of, uh, of, of John Six was now Bryson, don't you, isn't that the point you believe it deals with faith and not determinism?

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Well, there are a couple of them. I mean, there were a number of statements that, uh, that were directly respond in response to that.

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And, and obviously the, the one that made me, made me chuckle. And in fact, as I was listening, uh, because the recording

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I was listening to, uh, came off satellite. So it is, it's as clean as a whistle. I mean, it's really, really, really high, uh, high quality.

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And it, and at one point I, I, uh, I was about to lead into the

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Lazarus comment and I wanted to be, I wanted to be fair.

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I wanted to be, uh, you know, uh, I, I, you know, I was just trying to be, to say now, you know,

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Hank, I know you take a different perspective here. And I said, I, I said, I know you feel differently about this and you may recall the response to us.

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It's not a matter of feelings. It's a matter of facts. Yeah, that was just really mean. I pointed that one out too, but.

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And I was, I was just sort of like, excuse me, I removed the spirit from my back here. I was just trying to be nice here.

50:18

Come on. You know, he's the client, he's the client, uh, debating you, um, well, there's been no challenge, uh, that that's not really something that Hank does.

50:30

I mean, I, I personally feel that it would have been a lot clearer, uh, if it had just been

50:36

Hank and I. That is completely inappropriate for a moderate to say something like that. That's, uh. Well, you know,

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I wouldn't have minded at all if, if it had been put in this, in the, in the perspective of, and you know what, obviously

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I have adopted the position of libertarian free will. I've, I've gone to print in defense of it.

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And so George and I, you know, uh, we're going to be basically saying the same thing and, uh, we're going to have a good conversation here.

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I'm sure that, that James will be able to hold his own. So let's go ahead and, and debate this. That would have been fine with me that, that, that I wouldn't have had any problem with that.

51:07

They, there could have been three people in there. It would not have bothered me as long as I was given an equal amount of, of time to do so.

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And we would have identified who was who, as far as the debate was concerned. So that wouldn't have bothered me. But, but, uh, and when you're one of the debaters and you can, you get to control what questions are being asked and answered, that's when it gets a little bit, uh, difficult to deal with.

51:28

But I just thought that the, that's about space, not determinants. That's like, well, engines are about cars, not mechanics.

51:34

That was just so, I don't know how you would recover any kind of position from something that, that destructive, but, uh, but what do you admit?

51:42

You got to admit every time that that happened, though. I mean, I even played the one, uh, well, you, you certainly believe

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God changed the heart. And then what was, what was George's response? Yeah, he does, but it doesn't mean you're regenerated.

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And in fact, God can change your heart and you can still be a God hater. And it's, it's like, you know what, Hank, that's not exactly what you thought he was going to say, is it, you know?

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And, uh, so it didn't end up really working out that way anyways, especially when, uh, right at the beginning, uh, well, wouldn't you agree, uh,

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George with, uh, R .C. Sproul, uh, that what James has said is a hyper -Calvinism. And I appreciated at least the fact that George said, no, uh, actually what

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James White's representing is what R .C. Sproul says and what John MacArthur says and what John Piper says and, and mainline

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Calvinistic teaching, which he calls hypo -Calvinist because he says we're somewhat afraid of what, uh, Calvin himself said.

52:30

But, um, anyways, it didn't work out. Let me move on to that really quickly. That's when I want to talk about the

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Frankenstein example. He at one point said, um, if I create a Frankenstein monster,

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I'm responsible for what that Frankenstein monster does. Now, a little mechanical sequencing we do here.

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I was thinking now, wait a minute. Um, even when God gave you free will, he knew what you would choose, but you freely chose it.

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So now technically, if Frankenstein made the Frankenstein monster, took this thing called free will and knew what was going to do, if he put in the monster, it would go around and kill people.

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Now, Frank, the Frankenstein, Frankenstein doctor could go put it in the Frankenstein monster. It would go around and kill everyone.

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But because it's this magical thing called free will, even though we knew what it was going to do, and he's the one who initiated it, placed it in there, knew, put it in the monster, gave him the capability, he's not responsible for it.

53:23

Uh, I, I'm, it's just like, you know, if you take these magic free will bullets, you can shoot people with them and be responsible for it.

53:31

It just boils down to that. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe that example has been covered before, but, um, I would say if they try and use that Frankenstein monster, that's what

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I'm going to bring up if someone tries to do that. But you see what you, what you've missed is if you would just understand that Frankenstein, the monster was the one who caused the divorce of Sonny and Cher.

53:51

Read my book. Well, and that's, that's the whole point, isn't it?

53:57

I mean, uh, when, when people keep saying, well, well, no, you know, God, God knew that they were going to do this and, and, uh,

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God, but, but there was no decree. Uh, so God knows it's going to happen. So the future is fixed outside of God's sovereign decree.

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And they just don't, I just don't know if they just haven't thought about it. They haven't been challenged on it, but they don't, don't want to realize that if you're going to say that, then you have to answer the question.

54:21

Well, then what did form the very fabric of time? If it's not God, it was something else.

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It's outside of God and it's not under his control. So what does that mean in regards to, you know, all the rest of this?

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Remember the verbatim, verbatim quote, uh, yes, God did create people, does, did create people to send them to hell, but no, he didn't create people to send them to hell.

54:41

Um, I guess God's just a bad designer and we're going to be punished for that. No, you're just, you don't, you just don't understand.

54:49

And you know what? That's the problem with cameras. There it is. So there you go. Hey, thanks for calling.

54:55

Thank you, doctor. See you later. Bye. I only got a couple of seconds here and I'm looking at this, I'm looking at this topic.

55:01

It's like, Oh yeah, good. Do this one in 90 seconds, but Hey, we might as well, uh, try it.

55:06

Uh, let's talk with Chris in Pittsburgh. Hi Chris. Hello. It's going to be a real quick one. Yeah.

55:12

Okay. Uh, this shouldn't take long. Um, basically I'm asking you to confirm or deny something somebody else told me.

55:20

And that was, uh, whether or, um, that, uh, super lapsarianism and infralapsarianism have absolutely, have absolutely nothing to do with the point in time at which the, uh, decrees occurred.

55:34

Is that correct? Uh, well, you know, I could answer that in one of two ways. I could simply go or I could say, actually, obviously the entire supra lapsarian infralapsarian argument is in regards to logical order, not temporal priority, logical order, not something taking place in time.

55:54

Both sides would agree. We're in essence here trying to categorize or follow, uh, or determine, uh, the logical order of, of concepts in God's sovereign decree, which

56:07

I think is, we could rightly say we really cannot do dogmatically. I'm just not sure that's clear in scripture.

56:13

Uh, well, yeah, the point is that, that, uh, the idea of, of temporality, of placing a point in time, uh, in history, uh, that's not a part of the historic discussion.

56:25

Maybe somebody on a website someplace thinks it is, but, uh, the historic discussion recognizing that this is an eternal decree and it's outside the realm of time is not trying to say, uh, that there is, there is a temporal order.

56:39

It's a logical order. And now the problem is that when we think of a logical order, since we are time bound beings, we automatically associate, um, the, uh, the, the time element with it.

56:51

But, but at least as, as theologians were discussing it, uh, in the heyday of theology, in essence, they, they, they separated that out.

56:59

And we're not trying to say that first he decided this and then he decided this. And then there was a couple of days in between and decided this.

57:05

That's not a, that's actually not a part of the historic discussion at all. It's not. Okay. Okay. Well, thanks for clarifying that.

57:12

Okay. Thanks a lot, Chris. Thanks for listening today. And thanks for calling 877 -753 -3341.

57:18

Write that one down because on Thursday morning at 11 a .m. Mountain standard time,

57:24

Lord willing, uh, we will be back to, um, take your phone calls and to discuss these things.

57:31

Uh, you know, some people might say, well, you know, I just, I just don't think you handled that, uh, that subject in a, in a meaningfully serious way.

57:40

Well, you know what? When, uh, when someone, when I try over and over and over and over again to get someone to deal with a biblical passage and anyone who listened to the

57:53

BAM debate knows I kept bringing them up and I kept bringing them up. Sound like a broken record because we just, it was like, we will not deal with the text of scripture.

58:03

And they say to me, read the book. And I finally get hold of it. And what happens? There's nothing there.

58:09

Well, you can either just get all mad about it or you can address it like we addressed it today.

58:15

We made our point. Hopefully everybody got it. And we're going to continue that discussion and all the other things going on out there in the world of apologetics on Thursday morning,

58:24

Lord willing 11 a .m. Mountain standard time. Thanks for listening. Make sure to pray for Shannon Porter tonight.

58:31

God bless. See you on Thursday. Brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

59:35

If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -0318 or write us at P .O.

59:40

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the worldwide web at AOMIN .org

59:48

that's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.