WWUTT 765 Q&A Elect in Danger, Todd White's Gospel, and Transubstantiation?

Support for the Ministry and G3 Conference

Were the elect of God ever really in danger of being destroyed? What is the problem with Todd White's teaching? And if the early church fathers believed in transubstantiation, why don't I believe it? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text, as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt .com.

Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Thank you, Becky, who is not in studio with me this week. She had a pretty rough week, so I went ahead and sent her to bed and said I would fly solo. Say a prayer for her if you would. But if she was sitting next to me, I can bet what question she would ask to start out the episode this week.

She would ask me this question, did you get the giving tab done on our website so that our listeners can go there and donate to help us get to the G3 conference in Atlanta in January so we can have a booth there at the conference?

Did you get that done? And my answer to that question would be, yes, I finally got it finished. So we even brought this to the church at our last business meeting and asked if this would be okay that we could set up a link through our online giving page so that listeners of When We Understand the Text could donate to help us put a booth together for G3.

And the church said, hey, we think it's a great idea. So we got approval. I got that done. And now if you go to our website, www .utt .com, you click on the tab that says give. And right there at the top of that page, it will say on the giving page, it will say donate to help us get to the G3 conference in January or something like that.

So you click on that link and then it brings up our simple give page and you want to click on quick give on the left side or on the giving options. There should be one that says quick give. Click on that and then from the options it gives you on what kind of donation you want to make to the church, you're going to send it specifically to WWUTT.

You'll see all of that. Just follow the instructions that are on there. And the donations are tax deductible because, again, it goes through our church. And we thank you so much for listening, for watching the videos and for wanting to support us being able to have a booth at the G3 conference in January.

Whatever extra we make, if we get above the needed amount to be able to get us to G3, whatever extra comes in will be used for future conferences. So if there's another opportunity for us to attend a conference and be able to have a booth there that we can meet some of our listeners and viewers, then we'll do that.

We'll just continue to add it to the fund that will get us to those conferences so that we can make connections with more people and get the word out about this ministry when we understand the text. And we thank you so much for your support.

We are praying for you and we are grateful for your giving. Next time I get a book done, I do have record of some of the folks that have given very generously to this ministry. And when I get a book finished, I want to send you a book just to say thanks for your support and encouragement of this ministry.

When we understand the text, I'm hoping to get a couple done by the end of this year. And I'm working on both of them right now. Pray for me as I am embarking on those ventures. Before getting to the questions that we have today, I wanted to come back to something that I read yesterday in Nehemiah, chapter 13, toward the end of this book, starting in verse 23, Nehemiah wrote in those days.

Also, I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon and Moab, and half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but only the language of each people.

And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, you shall not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

So even though Nehemiah was upset that they were giving in marriage to pagans, part of the thing that he chastised them for was the fact that they were speaking the languages of these pagan peoples rather than the language of the Hebrews.

The Mormon prophet Joseph Smith claimed that an angel named Moroni appeared to him and gave him the Book of Mormon on these gold plates written in a language called Reformed Egyptian. And the Book of Mormon, in case you're not familiar with it, is the story of two ancient civilizations in North America.

This is from the introduction to the Book of Mormon. Quote, one of these civilizations came from Jerusalem in 600 B .C., which would have been at the time of the exile, and afterwards separated into two nations known as the Nephites and the Lamanites.

The other came much earlier when the Lord confounded the tongues at the Tower of Babel. This group is known as the Jaredites. The Nephites and Jaredites were later destroyed by the Lamanites, who became the ancestors of the American Indians.

The story of the Book of Mormon culminates with the appearance of Jesus Christ in the Americas to preach the gospel to the Nephites. This ministry of Christ took place almost immediately after his death and resurrection in Jerusalem.

And all of these events chronicled in the Book of Mormon, which was, again, according to Joseph Smith, written in the language of Reformed Egyptian. Well, I read this section in Nehemiah again, and I read that from the Book of Mormon to point this out.

The Book of Mormon would not have been written in such a pagan language as Reformed Egyptian by one of God's prophets at that point in history. Each of the prophets of the Book of Mormon would have been written in the language of Egypt.

Egypt was not heralded by the Jewish people as some great nation, nor was their language learned and cherished, whether it was an altered form of the language or not. Now, somebody, a Mormon, perhaps, a Mormon apologist might argue, well, according to this story in Nehemiah 13, it looks like they did learn some of those pagan languages, even though Nehemiah had to punish them for it.

And the response to that would be this. They didn't learn those pagan languages until after the exile. It was those nations that they had been exiled to, and they learned those pagan languages and then brought them back to Jerusalem.

And Nehemiah told them not to, that they had to speak Hebrew. The Israelites that came to North America, according to the Book of Mormon, came at the very start of the exile. They were never exiled into those other nations.

They came here to North America right at the beginning in 600 B .C. So they would not have gone into those other nations, learned those other languages, and thus written the Book of Mormon into Reformed Egyptian.

That's actually a point that I make in a book that I wrote entitled 40 Mormon Beliefs and What the Bible Says. You can still get that first edition through the website www .utt .com. I'm actually revising it, though, so it's got some more expounded information in it.

There's a Q &A at the end and instructions on how you can evangelize to a Mormon. So bear with me as I get that put up on Amazon. I never had a digital version of that book available that you could read on your Kindle.

But with this new updated version and as I upload it to Amazon, you will be able to download a Kindle version of that. So as I get that done, again, that's another one of those projects I'm hoping to get done by the end of the year.

The Elect, Eternal Danger, and God's Decree

All right. Now let's get to the questions that we've received from listeners. The email address that you can send your questions to is whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. This first question comes from John, and we've received John's emails before.

I can't remember if I've ever read a question from him before, though. He says, Dear Pastor Gabe and Becky, Greetings and salutations. I pray that you guys are doing well and are encouraged in the godly work that you do.

In all the times that I have written, I don't know that I have said exactly how great it is to have a podcast like this, especially for me out on the road all week. Well, thank you so much, John. I just want to thank you again for your ministry, and I am looking forward to seeing you guys at the upcoming G3 conference.

I definitely plan to stop by your booth. I was listening to Wednesday's podcast from Titus 3, 3 through 7, and in your opening, you said that we Christians, before we were saved, were just like the rest of the sinful world, living in our lusts and on our way to destruction.

Then, when you read the verses, they describe Christians before they were saved in all of their sinful ways, but the verses never mention that we were on the way to destruction. Please forgive me if it sounds like I'm being nitpicky, but this begs a legitimate question.

Are the pre-saved elect ever in eternal danger? The Bible is explicit that the lost are truly on their way to eternal destruction. It is also logical to know that the elect, before they are actually saved, are, well, unsaved.

But, are they, or we, truly in any eternal danger before our election is made sure? I'm thinking of passages like John 6, 37. Ephesians 1, 4 through 5, about the saints, says that they were chosen before the foundation of the world and in love.

They were predestined for adoption. According to that reading, at least from God's point of view, His elect, from before the foundation of the world, were never in any eternal danger. I also promise you that I'm not trying to go for any cheap grace or easy-believism.

This is what happens when a mind as active as mine is alone in a semi-truck for four and a half days a week. I start thinking about things, all kinds of things. I legitimately would love to know your thoughts on this.

God bless you, your family, church, and ministry. I pray for you guys daily. Sincerely, John. Well, John, when I made that claim that before we come to Christ, we were just like the rest of the world and headed for destruction, I was thinking less of what we read in Titus 3, 3 and more about what we read in Ephesians 2, 1 through 3.

So since you drew from Ephesians 1, let me read Ephesians 2. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

So in our nature, we were worthy of the wrath of God. The Holy Spirit, according to Titus 3, 5, has given us a new nature. Our heart has been regenerated. The Holy Spirit has been poured into us by the goodness and mercy of Christ our Savior.

So now instead of having a nature that is rebellious against God, we have a nature that desires God and wants to please Him in all that we do. We can worship God now in such a way that is pleasing unto the Lord, where previously we couldn't do anything pleasing unto God because we were in our nature rebellious against the Lord.

As we read in Romans 3, no one seeks for God. No one does good. No one does righteousness. It is only by God's goodness that He transforms us from the object of His wrath into the object of His love and affection, adopted sons and daughters through Jesus Christ.

Now when you consider the ultimate picture, the grand scheme of things, everything that God has declared from beginning to end, are the elect ever really in danger of eternal destruction? Technically, no, but that doesn't mean that we were not in a state that was worthy of that destruction because we're following along with the rest of the world.

Now we do not know that ultimate decree, that's God's hidden will that He has declared from before the foundation of the world. We don't know it. We only know how God has worked in space and time and those things have been given to us in the scriptures.

We can even see what God is going to do in the future when you consider books like Revelation and what ultimately is coming to fulfillment through the person and work of Christ and how he is going to judge the nations, how he is ultimately going to destroy Satan and cast him into fire for all of eternity.

So we can even see into the future, but we're only able to see what God has allowed us to see through his revealed will as given to his prophets and apostles. So yes, in the ultimate sense, is God's elect ever really in danger of destruction?

No. Does that mean that we were never walking in a way of destruction? No. We were just as much sinners as the rest of the world, as it says here in Ephesians 2. And if God had not intervened in that course of things, then we certainly would have gone to our destruction.

By his providence, he's working all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. That of course is Romans 8, 28, very popular verse. When you go on from there into verse 29, we read that those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he, Christ, might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Because again, ultimately this is about the glorification of Christ. This is all to his glory. Remember Titus 2, 14, that Jesus Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, who are zealous for his good works.

And even what we read there in Ephesians 1, 4, and 5, which you referenced, John, that even as God chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

So even in Romans chapter 8, we read about God having predestined us for the purpose of glorifying Christ. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he, Christ, might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Going on to verse 30, and those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified. So we see here that God has decreed from before the foundation of the world, even the glorification of those whom he has elected for salvation.

So our glorification has even already been decreed by God. There's nothing that we can do to reverse that or thwart that will that God has established, and amen for that. So our salvation has come about by God's decreed will, which he brings to fulfillment to the glory of his son, Jesus Christ.

It's beautiful. You're not responsible for your salvation. You don't keep yourself saved. You don't glorify yourself. We praise God, and we thank him for his goodness that he has shown to us through his son, Christ.

I think it's beautiful to think about these things so long as it doesn't take us in a direction of thinking that we have no responsibility because, again, we don't know the decree from one end of time to the next.

As it says in the book of Ecclesiastes, God has placed eternity in our hearts, but we cannot fathom what he has done from beginning to end. So we still have a responsibility in the here and now to listen to God's word and to turn from sin and to obey it.

John, I think you're wise in your question to say that you're not arguing for any kind of cheap grace or easy believism, but just pondering the mysteries of God and how in his eternal divine nature he has established these things, and he will bring them to his fulfillment or to their fulfillment, rather, because he is good, not because we did anything, but according to his own mercy.

Todd White's Gospel and False Teaching

Thank you for your question. I hope I gave you some more things to think about while you're driving in your truck. And John, I hope to see you at G3 in January. Okay, this next question comes from Monica.

I did not catch where Monica was from. She says, Pastor Gabe, I just finished watching Todd White's latest teaching. She didn't give me a link to that teaching. Somehow in my search, I came across your website that calls him a false teacher.

I am an avid listener of Todd White. I'm not emailing you to contradict or argue. I'm seeking truth. There are only a few things that Todd White says that I don't agree with, but I have listened with my Bible open and I've never encountered any great core doctrinal errors.

He teaches salvation through Jesus, righteousness, sanctification, justification. Where is the error? I have never accepted someone's teaching unless I can verify its accuracy, not only in Scripture, but also with the witness of the Holy Spirit in me.

Can you please explain? Thank you and God bless. Well, I appreciate, Monica, that you are willing to see where Todd is wrong, because usually the emails that I get, whether it's about something I've said about Todd White in a video or something I said in my blog, usually the emails that I get are just straight up calling me names because I've said something about their hero, Todd White.

So I've watched dozens of hours of Todd White videos, whether he's doing his little street healing thing where he's not actually healing anyone, he's delivering a sermon, or he's just talking to the camera about Jesus.

And not once have I ever heard Todd White share the gospel. So Monica, you say that you've heard him talk about Jesus, righteousness, sanctification, and justification. Let me ask you this. Are you sure you heard what you think you heard?

There's something that I've referred to as madcap theology, where a teacher knows just enough Christianese to sound legitimate, but they never actually define their terms, and there's massive holes in their doctrine.

Or they may even say something true, but then they turn around and say something false that actually contradicts the true statement that they've made. So a sound Christian might hear a false teacher use a word like justification, and if that teacher never defines it, what the doctrinally sound Christian does is they fill in the blank with their own biblically orthodox understanding of what they know to be justification.

So they think they heard that teacher speak truth about justification, but the reality is that the teacher never actually said anything doctrinally sound at all. Let me give you Todd White in his own voice explaining how he shares the gospel.

And I'm sorry about the Chris Tomlin song that's playing in the background. I couldn't do anything about that, but here's Todd White.

How do I describe the gospel to a non-Christian, or how would I encounter somebody? For me, a lot of times I start with my testimony, because I was lost and now I'm found. I was blind and now I see. So I describe my blindness to sight.

I describe my lost to found. Because no matter who you're in front of, they can't dispute your testimony. There's nobody that can. So it's not just a story, it's a testimony. And testimony means do it again, God.

So when you describe that, it actually impregnates the atmosphere for that same thing to happen again.

So there's never a formula. Very kindly, let me offer three points in response to this. First of all, what we just heard is a bunch of spiritual nonsense. White is actually not saying anything there at all.

I once was lost and now I'm found. I once was blind and now I see. What does that even mean? Now, this is where Mad Gab theology comes in, because you hear him say that and you go, well, yeah, I know what that means.

Those are lyrics from Amazing Grace. That's a beautiful song. Praise the Lord every time I sing it. Right. Because you're approaching this from your doctrinally sound perspective. But White is not defining his terms here.

So what does that mean to him? Remember, he's answering the question, how do I share the gospel with an unbeliever? What difference does it make to an unbeliever whether you were lost and found? What does that even mean?

So White is not defining his terms here. He also doesn't define what the gospel is. It's funny that he attempts to define the word testimony and his explanation of the word testimony was actually very incorrect, but he doesn't bother to define the gospel, which alone has the power to save souls from death for everyone who believes.

Understanding I once was lost and now I'm found, that doesn't save anybody. But knowing the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to save. Romans 1 16 says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

And what is the gospel? It is the good news that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, according to the scriptures, that he rose again from the grave, according to the scriptures, and all who turn from sin and believe in him will not perish under the wrath of God for their sinful rebellion against him.

But instead, they will be forgiven their sins and they will have eternal life. That's the message of the gospel. And sometimes to share that message, you have to point out to a person how they've sinned against God and that they need a savior.

Or what difference does the gospel make to them? They have to know that they have sinned and rebelled against a holy God and what they deserve for that is wrath and destruction and coming to terms with their sin, coming to realize that they've rebelled against God.

They would mourn over their sin and they would realize they need a savior. And then the gospel becomes good news to them. There are plenty of people in this world. The gospel is not good news to them.

They don't care for that news at all. Good news to them is the ability to do the sin that I want to do and have the passions that I want to have. But they don't want to turn from that sin and worship Christ because they don't realize what they have done against God and what they deserve for that.

So you show a person their sin and then they come to an understanding of needing a savior and then you can give them the good news of the gospel. I've never heard Todd White do that ever. I've never heard him do that.

And so what we're hearing him do here in this short 30 second clip is just a bunch of spiritual gobbledygook. So that's my first point. My first point is that is just a bunch of spiritual nonsense. Secondly, White makes the gospel into something subjective rather than objective truth.

The statement he made was no matter who you're in front of, they can't dispute your testimony. So according to White, the gospel is your testimony, which no one can dispute. No, the gospel is not about you.

The gospel is the good news of what Christ has done, not what you have done. And whoever believes in Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life. When you share the gospel, you go to the scriptures.

That doesn't mean you have to quote chapter and verse, but you say the gospel according to what the Bible says it is, not according to what kind of feeling or transformation you have had in your life.

Now, you can make that a part of what you're sharing with the individual. You can say, hey, I was once just like you. I was a sinner walking in this world. I was headed for destruction. I was under the wrath of God.

But God, by his grace and mercy, didn't leave me in that course in which if I died and stood before God in judgment, I was going to be destroyed. He did not leave me in that course, but he sent his son and he sent someone to share the gospel with me so that I would hear the good news of Jesus Christ and I would turn from sin and I would believe in him.

You can make that part of your sharing the gospel, but your testimony is not the gospel and your testimony doesn't have a saving power over anybody. It's just simply what's happened to you. But it's not a reference to something objective.

You go to objective truth in the Bible when you're sharing the gospel of Christ with somebody else. White doesn't do that. Third thing, third point to what we just heard, describing your testimony doesn't impregnate the atmosphere for the same thing to happen again.

So when you share the gospel with someone, they may repent and believe in Jesus because of a work the Holy Spirit does in their heart, which is what we've read in Titus chapter three, verses three through seven.

But it's not because you impregnated the atmosphere with your personal story. It's ironic that he says at the end of that clip, there's never a formula to it when that's exactly what he's described, a formula to sharing what he believes the gospel to be.

You just share your testimony. That's the formula, according to White. But it is not what Christ has told us to do. We don't go forth with our words. We go forth with his word. Matthew 28, the great commission that he gave to his disciples, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Now, therefore, go into all nations baptizing in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always to the very end of the age.

Now, Monica, let me give you the benefit of the doubt. And and let's say you have heard a sermon that I haven't heard Todd White give in which you heard a sound presentation of the gospel. I would still say the man is a liar, a false teacher and a charlatan.

And you should have nothing to do with him. Why would I say that? Because even if he teaches soundly, he still has that street magic healing thing that he does where he has a person sit down and he he says, oh, the Holy Spirit is telling me that something's wrong with you.

Your back is uneven as your back out. Well, yeah, I have back pains or whatever. So he has them sit down and he pulls their feet out and he starts praying over one leg. He says, well, the reason why your your back hurts is because one leg is longer than the other one.

See, and he'll hold the feet up and he's got one leg out a little bit more than the other one. And they're kind of uneven by like half an inch or something. So then he starts praying and pulling one leg out to even it with the other one.

He's literally pulling their leg. And he knows exactly what he's doing is nothing but a con. He knows this. He's been taught this technique and he uses it because even if white does actually share the gospel, which, again, I've never heard him do.

But even if he does share the gospel, he thinks the gospel needs help. The gospel is not enough to convince somebody to believe. So I've got to do this little street magic trick to con a person into believing it.

The apostle Paul said in Second Corinthians four, two says we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

This is Paul saying the gospel doesn't need our help. We are obedient to God to preach the gospel as he has said it is to be preached. And we don't practice any of these deceitful schemes or cunning methods in order to get a person to believe it.

As I've heard Paul Washer say, what you win them with is what you win them to. If you win them with lies, you're going to win them to lies. It's very it's it's as simple as that. And so Todd White is a charlatan.

He is a false teacher. He is disqualified. And I fear for the man if he does not repent, the day of judgment will not go well for him. We need to remember the words of James three, one. Not many of you should aspire to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that teachers will be judged with greater strictness.

So I hope that gives a little bit more clarification, Monica, to why I find Todd White to be such a problem and why it has been important to me to make the videos that I have made warning about him and even those things that I've said in certain blogs about him.

Transubstantiation, John 6, and the Early Church Fathers

All right. Final question here that I have for today. This is also from John, but it's not from the first John that I read from first John. This is a different John. So this is second John. He says regarding your disagreement with the doctrine of transubstantiation, does the fact that the church fathers believed in transubstantiation have any weight on your opinion of the matter?

So just to refresh your memory about the doctrine of transubstantiation, this is the idea, the Roman Catholic idea that when the priest prays for the Eucharist, for the wafer that represents the body of Christ and for the cup that represents his blood, when the priest consecrates those things, they literally become the actual flesh of Jesus Christ in the wafer and his literal actual blood in the cup.

Now, now, this is absolute nonsense, even outside of a theological explanation for this, that the priest is uttering magic words that transform these things into a different substance from being bread and wine into being the actual flesh of Christ and the actual blood of Christ.

Here's from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is section 1376. The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring, because Christ, our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread.

It has always been the conviction of the Church of God. His Holy Council now declares again that by the consecration of the bread and wine, there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ, our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood.

This change, the Holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation. Now, in their explanation of what's happening there with the bread and with the cup is much greater detail than what we're given even in John 6.

And this is where they take this rationalization from. John 6, where Jesus says to the people that in order to enter the kingdom of God, you must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood. So I'm going to start in John 6, verse 32.

Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

And they said to him, sir, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

All that the father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. That was a verse that the first John referenced earlier. That's John 6, 37. All that the father gives me will come to me.

And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. Verse 38 now. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. So the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the father except he who is from God. He has seen the father.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh. The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

That's a very important question. And I'm going to come back to that here in just a moment. So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.