June 30, 2005

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from the 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 good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line. Our regular time on this, the last day of June.
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Can you believe that? The last day of June of 2005, halfway through the entire thing.
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I don't know where it went either and take my advice, the older you get, the faster they go.
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So anyway, 1 -877 -753 -3341, the looniness and craziness out there continues on.
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I'm not referring to Canada and Spain joining the growing ranks of nations to stand up and spit directly in God's eye, in essence, by saying, we don't care that marriage was defined by God and that it is the first institution that he created and established by his own authority.
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We simply don't care about that. Instead, we are going to define it the way we want to define it.
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And they have done so. I'm not talking about that, though that certainly is part of the looniness and the craziness.
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And we certainly have enough looniness and craziness in our own society. I'm referring to the looniness and craziness in the apologetic realm.
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And if you have been following the blog at all and you click on links and you've continued clicking on links, you are probably just as utterly amazed as I am at the complete meltdown on the part of many people regarding,
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I guess this is all just a response to the Rutland debate. We've seen stuff like this in the past, but just never to this level of vitriol.
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I guess that's just going to continue to get worse and worse as the years go by if things don't change,
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I suppose. I don't know. But it is just – maybe it was a fact.
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This year is the first time we've put the video clips up there. And maybe that's why they're just so utterly out of their minds with the ad hominem personal stuff.
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I don't know. Someone just sent me a link to a Wikipedia entry on Dave Armstrong that was more a slam on me.
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It had anything to do with Dave Armstrong. These people seriously think that if you just insult me, you've somehow proven something.
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I don't even begin to understand that kind of thinking. But hey, you know what?
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What can we say? Anyhow, 877 -753 -3341, in the middle of writing a fairly lengthy blog entry here.
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And I last – when was this? This was today's – must have been
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Friday -ish of – no, no, well, let's see, what's the date today?
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It was last week sometime, okay? Last week sometime.
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I got word that there were a number of comments made in the pastors' conference, the preachers' conference that precedes the
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Southern Baptist Convention, a number of comments made by some of these speakers regarding Calvinism. Now, it's been said for a long, long time there are certain people within the
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Southern Baptist Convention who are saying something along the lines of, well, we got rid of liberals, we won that battle, now let's get rid of the
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Calvinists. And I don't know if they can do that. I suppose if you control all the powers of – all the positions of authority and you just want to do that, you can do that.
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It's certainly not going to be through debate, it's certainly not going to be through actually debating the issue and dealing with the facts, but hey, people will do things however they want to do it.
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So, I listened to some of the sermons that were preached as part of the pastors' conference of the
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Southern Baptist Convention. There were two fairly brief discussions, two fairly brief snippets here.
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First, interestingly enough, was Jerry Falwell. And as you know,
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Jerry Falwell has gotten up in years, and in fact, he had some pretty serious health problems, went into cardiac arrest and the whole nine yards.
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And he was asked to speak as part of this group. And in doing so, as you'll see here, he in essence sort of runs through a definition of who and what a real
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Baptist is. And so, I just wanted to listen, it's about –
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I can probably skip forward here a little bit, let me skip forward so we're not listening to the whole section. Let's just listen to a little section of Falwell's sermon here and see what he has to say.
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Liberty University was mentioned a moment ago, and we have a booth in the exhibit hall,
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Aaron Venisar is there, just stop in. All we're trying to do is get all you young people, just all of them, that's all we want.
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And stop by and get some propaganda. Our message, mission, and vision.
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When we define our message, you can say, well, I'm a Baptist, but that really doesn't do it.
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I'm an evangelical, even that might not be adequate. Because there's nothing deader than dead orthodoxy, and I know some
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Baptist churches I wouldn't allow my children to attend. Orthodoxy on ice is just as damaging as liberalism on fire.
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The best verse to describe our churches, the ones that are delivering the right message, is 1
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Corinthians 2, verse 2. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
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We believe five things, basically. No debate here. First, the inspiration and infallibility of scripture.
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We believe in all the miracles of the Bible. We believe in the Genesis account of creation.
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We believe in 24 hour days, and we believe in a young earth. We reject all theories of evolution,
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Darwinian and otherwise. We reject theistic and atheistic evolution.
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We believe in the infallibility of scripture. We believe in the deity of Christ. We believe that Jesus Christ is co -equal to God the
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Father, and God the Son, and God the Spirit, and all attributes pertaining to deity.
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We believe that He is the only way to heaven. And when Phil Dunn, he asked me that many, many years ago, before Oprah knocked him off.
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He said, you Baptists believe that the Jews and the Muslims and everybody else, except you guys, is going to hell.
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I said, no, I've never said that. I don't believe that. I believe some Baptists are going to hell. I do believe what
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Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the life. No man cometh unto the
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Father but by me. For a
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TV talk show host dies without Christ, he goes to hell, the deity of Christ.
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We believe in the substitutionary atonement of Christ for all men. We do not believe in particular love or limited atonement.
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We do not believe that some are damned to hell before they're born and others destined to heaven before they're born.
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We believe in whosoever...
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And so on and so forth. So there you have the assertion that to be a
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Baptist, the Baptist message is universal substitutionary atonement and a denial of the doctrine of election.
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Now, does Jerry Falwell know about James Pettigrew Broyce?
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I would assume he does. Does he know the fact that there have been individuals in the
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Southern Baptist Convention from its very beginning who have believed in particular redemption because they recognize what the ramifications are of being a consistent theologian and believing in both universal atonement, that is, that Christ died substitutionarily as we're going to come to substitutionary in a moment, but died for every single individual who has ever lived or ever will live and then adding that concept substitution, a real doctrine of substitution, not just a theoretical doctrine of substitution, but a real doctrine of substitution, you put the two together and the result of the position that he just took would, if you're consistent, have to be universalism.
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It would have to be the salvation of all people. Obviously, he doesn't believe in that and so the result is the substitutionary atonement has to be reduced not to the point, the vital issue of the actual union of the elect with Christ and I know
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I'm still probably six months behind now on finally getting back to a discussion of this issue on the blog someday when
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I stop traveling for a while I might actually be able to do that but the vital issue of the union of the elect with Christ if the elect, and it sounds to me like he just denies that that term exists denies that term is specifically used in scripture just simply doesn't deal with the exegetical necessities regarding the understanding of who the elect are and the specificity of the elect and all the rest of these things but if the elect are united with Christ personally in an intimate union in his death
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Galatians 2 .20 I have been crucified with Christ Dr. Falwell, could the person who will be in hell for eternity say with Paul, I have been crucified with Christ?
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I say no because if you've been crucified with Christ then the penalty of the sin that condemns you has itself been forgiven it has been taken away obviously what they have to do is turn the concept of substitution into something much weaker something much less specific to where Christ's death becomes available for all but it's not specifically salvific it just makes salvation a possibility it makes us savable similar to what
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Norman Geisler said and so on and so forth that seems to be what we're looking at there
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I don't know but obviously it didn't it didn't become the substance of what his comments were but it is interesting and sort of sad to hear someone make the kind of statement that he's making here that to be a
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Baptist means you must believe in a sub -biblical weak doctrine of atonement where you can't really talk about union with Christ and you can't talk about substitution that in reality brings about forgiveness of sins and things like that you just can't do that to be a real
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Baptist you have to believe that every man when he's born has an equal chance in other words, let's just ignore the entirety of the whole discussion of election and God's sovereignty and the whole nine yards let's just forget the whole thing that seemingly is what
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Pastor Falwell was saying but then we had Johnny Hunt you can actually watch these you can go online and boy, they've got a fancy website with lots of servers, big servers, powerful servers you can watch the videos, the streaming videos of all these and Johnny Hunt went at it for about an hour and a half and getting toward the end of his time again, he didn't make a whole lot of comment on it but it seems to almost have been a concerted effort to make sure that individuals would get the message that the leadership that is being represented in the convention today as far as preaching is concerned are not friendly toward the preaching of the doctrines of grace
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I can't imagine that anyone from the Founders Conference could be overly excited either with the tenor of the entire presentation the whole thing when
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I first turned on the video to be honest with you I thought
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I had tuned into TBN and I said, what is this? it looked like TBN I don't know how else to put it the entirety of that kind of worship service has been adopted lock, stock and barrel the whole thing the band and the choir and the praise team if you had just popped that video up on the screen didn't tell somebody where it came from it really appeared to me like I had just tuned
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TBN on except I didn't see anybody with poofy hair or people sitting answering phones in the audience type of a situation turned it on and watched all of that I can't imagine that the folks in the
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Founders Conference in watching this were overly impressed or encouraged by that particular experience getting toward the end of Johnny Hunt his sermon he made the following comments by the way, aren't you grateful that there's hope listen to me carefully there's hope for everyone in Jesus everyone not a select group everyone someone says pastor, you believe you're the elect
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I sure am and everybody that gets in is the elect and he's elected all of us I believe everyone can be saved anyone can come to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior someone says
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I don't think you ought to preach like that I just hope nobody gets saved that's not supposed to I'm serious, we better get away from that and get back to the book and invite everyone to come to Christ just preach and invite everybody tell everyone again, it almost seems a little bit unfair at one point to even respond to someone who obviously is speaking off the cuff and isn't going into detail and is speaking primarily emotionally and not from a biblical or theological standpoint but I thought that's what preaching was supposed to be accurate in its theology and careful in its theology because you are speaking for God in God's place there and speaking
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His word that was Johnny Hunt again, just simply yelling we need to get away from this stuff well where are you going to get away to?
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just not going to preach out of Ephesians not going to preach out of Romans, not going to preach out of John not going to preach out of 2
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Timothy is that how you get away from it? by getting to the book? I mean it sounds sadly like these folks have made up their mind and have accepted these grossly surface level non -biblical, incomprehensible definitions of election and they won't allow discussion they won't allow debate they won't allow any type of dialogue they're not going to respond meaningfully to Jesus they're just going to throw it out there and I guess they figure the louder they scream the more people get on their side that's what determines truth now
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I don't know Johnny Hunt maybe he just hasn't a clue what the biblical doctrine of election is and he's never bothered to look at it how many people have we listened to now?
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we listened to Herb Rivas and we listened to the fellow in St. Louis and we've caught them using bad sources and engaging in plagiarism and just absolutely positively grossly mishandling the subject and as we listened to Adrian Rogers again, just over and over again misrepresenting and so it seems that the only way they can make progress is to shout down the other side and I'll be perfectly honest with you this is a political statement but this is just how
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I see it that seems to be how the left works in our land you look at the political debate in our land you don't have a discussion of what the constitution actually meant you just have shrill screaming and when someone starts screaming you just want to shut them up you'll satiate them that seems to be the direction that people are going here if you just say it loud enough that's enough to make it all work and so you don't hear exegetical studies that demonstrate that God's elected all of us really?
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well if he's elected all of us and that seems to be what both are saying if he's elected all of us then what was
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Paul talking about in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 when he says for Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom but we preach
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Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles but unto them that are called both
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Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God but everybody's called so Paul that makes no sense aren't all those
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Jews to whom it's a stumbling block all those Greeks, those Gentiles to whom it is foolishness
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Paul you just said that it's foolishness and a stumbling block but now you say to both
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Jews and Greeks who are called, that's everybody Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God well of course it absolutely positively makes a mess out of the entirety of scripture
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Paul talks about those who are perishing verse 18 the word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness but unto us who are being saved well there's a difference there isn't there between those who are perishing and those who are being saved and Paul explains that in the context of the elect he says in Romans chapter 8 who will bring a charge against God's elect well if the elect's everybody then no one can bring a charge against the elect and so universalism and again it just makes absolute mincemeat out of the text of the
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New Testament and while that may be more than enough for a lot of folks who really aren't overly concerned about such issues as consistency they're not really overly concerned about such issues as what the
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Bible is actually saying and things like that it may be enough for them it can never ever ever be enough for the person who seriously wants to obey the entirety of the word of God and so you take that course and you may win you may drive out of the
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Southern Baptist Convention anyone who would dare to believe what so many of the founders themselves believed and wrote and taught and preached you may succeed if you control all the political machinery then you may succeed but what's that going to leave you with?
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you stand up there and say we believe in the Bible we just don't believe in all of it we believe in the scriptures we just won't let you preach all of it and we won't talk with anyone who says otherwise that's really not going to get you anywhere is it?
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if you'd like to defend that or obviously given the incredible statements appearing out in the blog world if you'd like to accept an invitation that had been earlier given to people who are just posting every kind of cavil concerning me 877 -753 -3341 even saw it right before the program started
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John 6 JMJ you may not be a former Roman Catholic JMJ stands for Joseph Mary Jesus the
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Holy Family John 6 JMJ who is very liberal with his insults and his various attacks has put up a blogspot under my name
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James R. White and that's so that people can make comments on what
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I say on my blog because they're all jumping up and down can you imagine the amount of time it would take
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I would have to hire two people who did nothing but sit there all day long and hit refresh, refresh, refresh and not only these kinds of Roman Catholics whose only argument these are inquisitional
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Roman Catholics this is Rome as she was back when her best apologetic was a stake in a prison that was her best way of defending herself was to imprison her her prison heretics and burn the stake and that's the same mindset here just attack, attack, attack use whatever standards, hypocrisy, double standards just go after people, it doesn't matter if there's not a shred of truth to it not only these folks but there's all sorts of folks from all sorts of other perspectives who likewise don't like me who would be landing on that as well and it would be an absolute war zone and there's plenty, plenty of places for war zones in the internet today without turning aleman .org
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into such a place and this is going to sound like an insult but it's true unlike most of my detractors
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I happen to be very busy they seem to have all the time in the world but I'm teaching and I'm writing and I have book contracts and I have places to travel around the
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United States and in fact around the world and it takes time to do those things and I don't live on web boards and so anyways they think that it's a sign of weakness that I don't have comments
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I think it's just a sign of sanity personally and so this fella has put my name on something and you see stuff like that you see the unbelievable behavior of people like on Amazon where anything
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I write it doesn't matter I could write something on a completely separate topic and you would find
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Roman Catholics and others posting things on that just simply to try to slam me
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I mean that's just how these people operate and I guess what that does it makes them feel better about the fact that they know they could never call in here they know they couldn't do any better than anybody else has done and that bothers them so much that this is sort of their psychological means of getting around their own inability to defend their position is to just attack folks and it's a sad thing to watch but that's what's going on we'll come back with some
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Adrian Rogers or your phone calls at 877 -753 -3341 we'll be right back
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The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming
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Lord's Day The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30am and the worship service is at 10 .45
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Evening services are at 6 .30pm on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7
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The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th
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Street in Phoenix You can call for further information at 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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Is the Bible true? Never before in history has the authority and inspiration of the
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Holy Scriptures been so viciously attacked by those outside the pale of orthodoxy and within the walls of traditional evangelicalism itself
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Join us August 27, 2005 at the Sea -Tac Marriott for an historic debate between evangelical
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Christian apologist Dr. James R. White and world -renowned Jesus Seminar co -founder and Bible skeptic
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Dr. John Dominic Crossan as they debate a topic which every Christian should be concerned about Is the
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Bible true? Seating and tickets are limited so call today 877 -753 -3341 or visit aomin .org
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to reserve your seat today That's 877 -753 -3341 to be a part of this historic event that will illuminate the fault lines of faith between conservative and liberal
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Christians alike 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
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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
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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
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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
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Get your copy in the bookstore at aomin .org This is
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Steve Camp singing and Steve has joined the blogosphere I blogged his blog
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Is that blogspotting? I guess I spotted his blog so I blogspotted the blog
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I wonder how many verbs have been added to the English language that way of late
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I spied his blog He told me about his blog I was going to write him a letter yesterday
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I was going to fire him off an email He keeps sending out all these articles It looks like a blog
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But it's not a blog There's no RSS feed It would be a whole lot easier if we could do that Someone said the link doesn't work
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Oh, different link? I'm confused. What link doesn't work? The link that I gave to Steve?
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I'm lost. Don't worry about me It's the one he gave me It just so happens that the very next day
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Steve got a blog He just wrote to me during the program What's this
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RSS stuff? Don't worry about it You're on Blogger It's built in I've already added his feed to my
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Sage Reader It worked just fine Everything worked fine
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Take a look at Steve Camp's blog You will be happy that you did
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Or maybe you won't Steve has a way of stepping on a few people's toes
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Anyways, you'll remember that we were listening to Adrian Rogers' college
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Bible study I mentioned whenever we had the last buying line which I think would have been a week ago today
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That Adrian Rogers is not feeling well He did speak Someone said you shouldn't play this anymore
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My response to that is It's not personal
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What he said is about theology What he said is about the gospel It's not about Adrian Rogers It's not about Johnny Hunt It's not about Jerry Falwell It's about what gospel we're going to be proclaiming and how we're going to proclaim it
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If my intentions were to in some way, shape or form cause Adrian Rogers harm then yeah, you'd have a point there
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But that's not my intention I would love to sit down with Adrian Rogers over an open Bible, over an open
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Greek text and say, let's talk Explain to me what Jesus is saying in John 6
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Let's walk through this together Let's listen to what the Savior says in John 10 and John 17
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Let's go through Ephesians 1 and Romans 8 and 9 Let's talk about these things Let me correct some of the misapprehensions you have here concerning Reformed theology
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That would be wonderful That would be great, but I'm not in a position to get to do that because I'm basically nobody and so we talk here
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So anyway, we were about 11 minutes in and that means we have about 3 minutes left of really bad audio
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Oh by the way ye of the controls on the other side of the wall
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Someone, when I said today I was mentioning in channel that we couldn't really do the dividing line because it's a two man job
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They said, oh, so in other words Rich, you should call him Roz And I said
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If I call him Roz, then I'm an uptight psychiatrist But No Well, we could make
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Zeke Mad Dog and that would work, actually Zeke could fill that role pretty well
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And you could be Roz and I'd be Frazier and all would be well, but we won't
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We're not any of those people Thank you very much, appreciate that Anyhow, so for the next 3 minutes
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Bad audio Listen carefully, turn it up, whatever but please don't whine about it and then it's going to clear up, it's going to get better What could a dead man do?
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No, a dead man can hear A dead man can know God, a dead man can resist the truth
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I didn't say say, but when they knew God, they glorified him not as God A dead man can resist truth
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In fact, a dead man must resist truth and that's the only capacity a dead man has, spiritually is to resist the truth
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That's really the issue there They know who God is, they are without excuse
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You must believe first in order to be saved The Bible makes that so clear
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Okay, you must believe first to be saved Do you mean by saved, regenerated?
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Or do you mean by saved, justified? Do you mean by saved, what? I mean, there's no question about certain elements of the
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Ordo Salutis But does Dr. Rogers give any evidence in anything
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I have ever heard him preach of being familiar with the discussion of faith being described as a gift of God 1
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John 5 .1, the Ordo is found there, Philippians 1 .29 Does he give any evidence of any of that?
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I do not hear any evidence that he has truly interacted with those materials in a meaningful fashion
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Romans 5 .1, therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God Exactly right
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No one, including Reformed theologians would even begin to question what he just said but the assumption that Rogers is making is that justification is the same thing as either all of salvation or identical to regeneration
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Does that mean that justification is identical to adoption? Or is he actually wanting to argue that all of this is completely simultaneous and you cannot make any distinction logically or basically cannot have any
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Ordo Salutis order of salvation whatsoever I mean, I know believing in an Ordo Salutis today is extremely unpopular because that's a proposition and we want to make sure that the gospel in Christian theology is as muddled and as much a simple matter of personal preference and tradition as it possibly can be that seems to be the big thing but I don't think that Adrian Rogers wants to go that direction
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John 1 .12, as many as received him to them gave him the power to become the son of God even to them that believe on his name
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So, I believe that man is to praise I don't believe that any man can come to God except God enable him to come
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I don't believe that we seek God, God seeks us Okay, wonderful enables him to come,
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John 6 .65 No man seeks God, Romans 3 .11 Alright, let's follow that through What does
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John 6 say in 65 and 44 are not all of those who are drawn all of those who are enabled, all of those who are taught by the
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Father and hear from the Father are they not all coming to Christ isn't the order
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God's work first resulting in our coming to Christ yet he just said the opposite of that by making faith prior to all of salvation and specifically in regards to regeneration though he didn't use that terminology that was the point that was being addressed there this is just skirting the issue it's not addressing the issue directly it's just skirting around it and allowing two contradictory propositions to stand side by side
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I don't believe that we could have faith unless God gave it to us and when does he give it to us, does he give it to all men if he doesn't give it to all men, then you have the elect being given faith, yes?
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Is that what follows? I don't believe that we could repent unless God granted us repentance same question but I reject with all of the unction, function and emotion of my soul that a man is regenerated before I believe ok, well, then at this point if I were to stand before the congregation at the
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Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church and say I reject all of the unction and function of my soul proposition
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X I am then going to not only explain why
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I am going to give biblical foundation and if I'm addressing what someone believes and in fact what someone is trying to get someone in my congregation to believe and they give biblical arguments for that particular position
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I am going to refute the arguments and I'm going to refute the best of the arguments that they have not the worst, the best is that what we have happening in response?
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well, I'll leave that to you to judge that's just totally contrary to scripture now, you can't come unless the
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Lord draws you that's very clear I've based my whole ministry on that that's the reason why before I preach
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I get on my knees I mean, I have a place where I kneel every Sunday and I say, oh God, open hearts, open understandings because Jesus said in John chapter 12, verse 32 no man can come unto me except the
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Father which hath sent me, draw him actually, that's John 6, verse 44
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John 12, verse 32 is if I be lifted up I'll draw a man unto myself and normally, isn't that ironic that that's 12 minutes and 32 minutes into this clip
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John 12, verse 32 at 12, verse 32 that just sort of struck me as odd anyway, aside from just the wrong citation there which anyone can do, everybody does that, no big deal how do you fit these two statements together?
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that's the question that you wish you could ask but unfortunately you can't because you're just listening to an audiophile but you know he does draw me how many does he draw, just the elect?
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John 1, verse 9, Christ is that light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world so there you go,
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I think what he was trying I think the reason 12, 32 came into his mind is because of that concept of drawing, draws all men so the light is equal to the drawing where does
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John make that assertion? where does John make that assertion? He doesn't he doesn't even put it in the same context if you've listened to our discussions of John 6 in the past you know you just have a massive problem here in trying to deal with this text
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John chapter 6 in any type of consistent way because if you're going to talk about being drawn the one who is drawn is raised up by Jesus Christ this idea of drawing every man, this is equal simply to the light of Christ simply has no basis he's the light that lights every man every person has that light alright, now let's move to the second thing we'll go through these and let you ask some questions but it's my turn right now alright, we're talking about total depravity man is totally depraved but he can hear
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God even if he's a raw pagan like Romans 1 alright, now let's think a little bit about therefore
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I reject the hyper -Calvinist view of total depravity and he rejects the
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Calvinistic view of total depravity because as we saw when we began this Dr.
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Rogers ignores all the historical discussion of what hyper -Calvinism is and he identifies 5 point
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Calvinism which is just simply Calvinism as hyper -Calvinism, ignoring what the actual issues are creating greater confusion
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I also reject the hyper -Calvinist view of unconditional election now, when
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God gives us salvation there are no strings attached God doesn't say
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I'll save you if you will perform certain good works or whatever it comes out of the grace of God it is to the praise of the glory of His grace sometimes people talk about sovereign grace like they just discovered the term sovereign grace friend,
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God is sovereign and we're saved by grace anybody who doesn't believe that has been baptized 7 times in ignorance we are saved by the sovereign grace of God but never, never interpret never interpret unconditional election unconditional election is the fact that if we have faith that is something that we do for salvation that's playing with words that is really ridiculous
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God puts no condition, but there's always a condition from humans from our viewpoint and that condition is faith that condition is faith, you've got to believe so, the human condition is the there's just no consistency here it's so frustrating to try to deal with someone who's trying to walk that line and won't utilize terminology in a meaningful fashion at this point and is, in essence, affirming two contradictory things at the same time, going back and forth between the two, it's frustrating again,
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John 1 .12, he came unto his own, and his own received him not but as many as received him to them gave he the power to become the sons of God if I were to give you these keys and say you can have the car that goes with them
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I'm not doing it it would be nice if you read the rest of it who were born not of the will of man and stuff like that, that would sort of help but if I did, and I say no condition, it's just a gift unconditional, you'd still have to receive it if you didn't receive it, it would do you no good at all man does have a condition in order to be saved,
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Acts 16 .31 believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved now if you say that only certain people are left and only certain people therefore can be saved you take all the whosoever's in the
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Bible and make them a lot of mumbo jumbo and again, how many times have we heard the tradition of men and that's what it is, the tradition of men that when you see whosoever, and very frequently that is just simply all the ones doing action
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X all the ones believing in John chapter 3 the whosoever's, the human tradition read into from another language the original text, so that the idea is this is a term that defies definition there can be no elect there can be no specificity in God's purpose etc.
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etc. etc. we've heard this many many times, and we know that if these folks would step up to the plate and they would debate this, for example
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I'd love to see a debate done on the subject of whosoever and all that type of stuff, that would be wonderful but unfortunately that very rarely happens, at least with people who are in leadership positions here and I think it's because they really think they dismiss this theology, they think it's divisive but anyway, you turn all the whosoever's into mumbo jumbo, no, let's even use the whosoever the question is, who will do so?
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does the bible tell us who will and who will not believe? does the bible address the issues of what the preaching of the cross is to those who are perishing?
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yes it does does the bible address the capacities and incapacities for what the natural man can and cannot understand?
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can and cannot appraise? does the bible address faith and repentance as gifts?
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why would they have to be gifts if that's within the capacity of every person? these are all really,
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I'm sorry, they're obvious things, this is not rocket science here and yet the tradition is so strong that it overrides it the bible is full of whosoever will turn with me to Matthew chapter 23 for just a moment here we go,
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Matthew chapter 23 we've gone here before, let's see what happens this is the story of Jesus on his way to Jerusalem and he's going to Jerusalem, the crowds are there and they're casting their palm branches and their garments in front of him and they're saying hail him, hail him and soon they're going to be saying nail him they're going to be crucifying him and Jesus knows what is about to transpire and Jesus begins to weep great salty tears and notice something that's not what
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Matthew says and in fact Matthew places, Matthew 23, 37 in the context of the denunciation of the
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Jewish leadership, the scribes and the pharisees and the woes placed upon them obviously from my perspective
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I go, why can't you leave it in the context in which Matthew himself presented it why?
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because this is a traditional defense not a biblical defense they are not the same thing, you may assume your position is biblical but if you are unwilling to even listen to what somebody else says against your position then you don't know whether it is or isn't because you haven't worked through the issues you haven't actually exegeted the text itself
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Jesus, I'm in the wrong chapter here Jesus begins to lament over Jerusalem and this is what he says in verse 37 let's see, that's not right yes it is, look at that oh here it is, yeah 37 oh
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Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the prophets and stoneth them which are sent unto thee how often would
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I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings and ye would not now friend, if they could not rather than they would not this is the biggest charade in history
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Jesus is weeping salty tears and he said
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I would but you would not that's not unconditional election why is this soteriological in the first place
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Dr. Rogers Jesus distinguishes between the people who would not and those that he sought to gather that is the people of Jerusalem those under the rulership of the
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Jewish leaders and why do you think that even means anything about salvation itself it's just an assumption on your part and why do you in the midst of the denunciation of the
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Jewish leaders take a passage that continues that denunciation and apply it to the doctrine of salvation refusing to differentiate between regeneration or justification all these things why would you do that when you don't do that with justification and you don't do that when you're exegeting other things it's because even someone who can have such a clear view and such an excellent ability to communicate as Dr.
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Adrian Rogers can be enslaved to his own traditions that's what you've got going on here that's not an exegesis of Matthew chapter 23 that doesn't take into account its role in the denunciation of the scribes and pharisees it's but a tradition the idea that a child is born into this world in the city of Memphis today having done either good or evil what?
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ok, I can understand the idea of not having done good or evil in the sense of Romans 9 and the twins but, you know,
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Jacob and Esau but let's keep something in mind any child that is born today is a child of Adam and any child that is born today possesses original sin a sin nature that's why they die at times, in fact
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Romans 5, you know so I know it's coming here and that's not a real good foundation to put it on and that child does not have one half of one chance to go to heaven one half of one chance to go to heaven where does the
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Bible say the holy God owes any man one half of one chance at grace when you start talking chances then what you're doing and you just can't avoid doing it but once you start talking chances what you're saying is grace is something
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God owes to us that every person is owed a chance at grace and I say to you that's not biblical the fallen sons and daughters of Adam are rightly under God's condemnation and he owes a chance to none that's why
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Arminianism cannot maintain a consistent doctrine of grace I'm not saying that Adrian Rogers doesn't preach grace what
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I'm saying is Adrian Rogers because of his unwillingness to examine his own tradition violates the only foundation upon which his doctrine of grace could be based resulting in inconsistency in the proclamation that child is going to hell because that child does not want to be elect no that's not why that child is going to hell that's not even close to accurate and it's when people say things like this that I just want to shake them and say why would you speak like why can't any of these people accurately represent the position they're denying why can't you do that that's one of the things that's absolutely very frustrating in listening to this stuff that's going on on the web boards right now constantly saying
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I misrepresent Roman Catholicism why can't the Roman Catholic apologists I mean debating prove that I was the one accurately representing the
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Catholic Catechism in our last debate because if you honor truth then you're going to accurately represent what the other side says even if they don't return the favor
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I mean this is not a grounds for us to misrepresent the other side
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I mean I'm playing their own comments it's not like I can edit this and change it somehow and insert other words in I'm letting them speak for themselves that's how you do it
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I totally reject that with every bit of my being and I would too if that's what
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I believe but that's not what I believe and that's not what Calvinists believe and therefore what we have is
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Adrian Rogers rejecting a straw man rather than actually interacting with the teachings of Reformed Theology itself and then you wonder why there's a prejudice and you wonder why you as a person who holds these beliefs need to be prepared to give an explanation and it's because when you're dealing with folks who have been given lies they've been given misrepresentations whether purposeful or not maybe it's just the continuation of a tradition whatever it might be you have to be sensitive in listening to what they're saying to seeing where they have been given inaccurate information so that you can correct that information well as far as I can tell
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I believe I'm not going anywhere next week and that means we should have the full schedule
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Tuesday and Thursday of the dividing line so we look forward to talking to you then and continue our discussion of Adrian Rogers the word of God, whatever comes up, thanks for listening,
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God bless P .O.
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