Response to the Video “Just People,” and More Anti-Calvinist Derangement Syndrome

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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And greetings, welcome to the dividing line on a Tuesday afternoon, yesterday morning

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I was directed to a video that had been posted on Vimeo. And as I finally got around to watching it,

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I was quite amazed because it was focused upon homosexuality at Grand Canyon University.

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Now I should let you know that I am a graduate of Grand Canyon University. I was there from 1981 to 1985.

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I graduated with honors. I had a double major in Bible and biology, a minor in Greek.

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And then in the years after that, I continued to have a pretty close connection to Canyon in that Fuller Seminary's Arizona campus met on the campus of Grand Canyon University at that time.

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Hence, I learned all my Greek. I learned my Hebrew there. And then as soon as I graduated from Fuller, I was asked to teach church history at Grand Canyon.

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And from 19, I believe it was 95 to 97, I was scholar in residence there. That was a position appointed to me by Dr.

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Bill Williams of Grand Canyon University. And then pretty much after that,

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I sort of lost contact with what was going on at Canyon. I know there was some pretty tough times in the years that followed.

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It wasn't long after that that Canyon disassociated from the Southern Baptist Convention. And then something happened a number of years ago where everything turned around and Canyon is growing by leaps and bounds now.

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And in fact, I had the opportunity of doing some guest lecturing there just for one class just a matter of weeks ago, really.

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And so that was the first time I had been on campus in quite some time. And I was glad to get a chance to get back on campus.

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There were certain things that were the same, and there were a lot of things that were not. Let me tell you, a lot of things had changed in the number of years that I had been there.

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But anyway, so I'm a graduate of Grand Canyon University.

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And so when I see a video that is clearly not representative of the position of the school, this is not an official video.

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Obviously, you see Grand Canyon University all over it, but it's a student video. And I know it goes against the stated perspectives and views of the leadership of Grand Canyon University.

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And especially when I see arguments being presented that those of us who have been dealing with the subject of homosexuality for a number of years, who have debated many of the leading proponents of homosexuality, who keep up on the books that are currently being published, such as Matthew Vines and Jim Brownson and those types of works,

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Justin Lee, debated Justin Lee just right around, what, two years ago now, was it?

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Yeah. As someone in that situation, it's very easy for me to recognize propaganda when

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I see it. And that's exactly what this is. This is not a documentary. This is not seeking to present both sides.

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And in the vast majority of instances today, the pro -homosexual side prefers a monologue, not a dialogue.

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They already know that they have the media. And so why provide another opportunity for the other side to engage, especially in a dialogue where you have to answer questions?

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And that's exactly what this was. And so especially because there was one professor who was presented,

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I wanted to especially interact with what that individual said. But I have, I don't know, about 12 clips queued up to play from the video.

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And I want to interact with what is being said. There's nothing new here. The argumentation has been refuted by myself and others many, many times.

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But I doubt that these students know that. And that's an unfortunate thing.

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And it needs to be said that what Grand Canyon is facing here, every single

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Christian college, university, high school, any educational institution whatsoever is facing today and will be facing in an even more virulent sense in the not too distant future, because it is my prediction that unless there is a major change in public policy, and I see no evidence there's going to be that, unless there is a major change in public policy, every institution that in any way takes federal funding, in other words,

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Pell grants, student loans, whatever it might be, not just direct infusion of funds from the government, but that kind of funding of education will not only be forced to accept homosexuality as a as a proper and moral lifestyle, not only will they be forced to celebrate homosexuality, which we already see in California, which we already see in some of the eastern states, but they will be forced to promulgate and promote homosexuality and the good of homosexuality or lose federal funding.

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And I believe that any Christian organization that recognizes we can never do that, we simply cannot give in to that right now should be spending a tremendous amount of their time and effort figuring out how they can change their economic model to be able to survive what's coming.

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That may involve institutions joining together with one another and that type of thing.

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I don't know. I'm not claiming to have the answers, but I am claiming that unless there is a major change in the direction things are going, this is exactly what they're going to be facing.

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And many will end up closing the doors rather than compromising. And many others will compromise, will have to compromise just simply to survive.

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That's what's coming. So with that. And as a graduate of Grand Canyon, as a

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Ray Maven Scholar, in fact, I think I should have grabbed it. I should have grabbed it. Yep, there it is right next to the light switch is my my my

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Grand Canyon. Yeah, go ahead and grab that for me. I forgot to get that right next to the light switch. Yeah, this is one of my favorite little items

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I've got here. There you've got Grand Canyon College, Ray Maven Scholar, me, 1985.

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Oh, there it is. I don't know if they still have Ray Maven Scholars, but there you go.

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And so let's take a look at it. Let's let's respond to what is said from a biblical perspective.

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I realize there are probably people watching the program right now that never watched it before.

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We have engaged in debates on this subject with John Shelby Spong, Bishop John who is the head of the

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Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. I mentioned

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Justin Lee, the head of the Gay Christian Network. We debated two years ago and with a homosexual pastor up in Salt Lake City.

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We engaged as well. We were trying to get Matthew Vines to debate. And right now

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I'm getting very strong and strong sense that Matthew Vines has no interest in debating anymore at all.

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He once said he would, but he just put a book out on God and the gay Christian. And so for years we have been reading and studying the perspective of going back to Boswell, through Skanzonian, Mollenkot and Countryman and Helminiac and all these, this flood, this torrent of books coming out and providing a biblical response to homosexuality for quite some time.

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And so we're very familiar with the argumentation. And in our experience, very rarely are those who promote homosexuality actually interested in hearing the other side.

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Clearly the students in this particular video don't know what the other side is. They give no evidence of knowing what the other side is.

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It would have been nice if there had been another voice, but there isn't. That's why I call it propaganda, not a documentary. And so with that in mind, let's take a look at just people and let's respond to some of the things that are said in this particular documentary, video, whatever we want to call it.

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You see, we have a pretty large population of people who are gay. Unfortunately, a lot of them aren't open about it because they're afraid of losing scholarships.

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They're afraid of the big man coming after them for being who they are.

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I know what I'm saying. For being who they are. This is going to be a constant theme that in the lives of these individuals, there has been a capitulation to the perspective that what you desire is something that can control who you are.

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And this is exactly the issue when it comes to Christians and homosexuality.

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Christians believe we're creating the image of God and that therefore, by the exercise of our will, we can control our desires.

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And if we have a set of desires that are not in accord with God's created design that will, and in fact, deprive us of true happiness and blessedness, that we have the ability to fight against that.

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It doesn't necessarily mean that we'll stop having those desires, but once in our mind and in our spirit, via our will, we recognize what

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God's truth is, then we as human beings are able to control our behavior, that we are not defined by the desires that are ours.

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These individuals have come to the conclusion as most people in our society have.

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They have come to the conclusion that our desires determine who we are, not our minds, not our wills, not an external revelation from God, certainly.

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And that's why so much of what is said here is so completely removed from a biblical foundation, having a biblical foundation to it.

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These young students do not seemingly have a biblical worldview when it comes to morality, ethics, sexuality.

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They just don't. Have they been exposed to it? I don't know. But clearly, they have capitulated to a worldly perspective when it comes to this very, very important issue.

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And that indeed is a shame. And this young lady especially clearly carries a very strong animus toward the

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Christian worldview. And she will express that more than once. And I should mention that right toward the end, I think it's in the last clip,

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I have been informed, and I noted this morning in checking my clips, that as the camera panned around the room in what's called the fruit basket there on the campus, that certain symbols and signs were being flashed at the camera, one by this young lady,

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I believe. That to be honest with you, as a almost 52 -year -old man raised in a

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Christian home, I had to be informed of, and then I had to sit there and think a while to figure out what this meant.

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Because it never would have crossed my mind that someone would have thought to make this kind of a symbol. And it's vile, and it's offensive, but it's there, and it's a part of the video.

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And you sort of have to look to see it, thankfully. I won't point it out, but just so you know that it's there.

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And it's completely inappropriate for anyone who calls himself a Christian in light of clear biblical standards to engage in that type of thing.

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But that's what we have. So the first idea is, well, this is just the way they are.

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So a capitulation to a non -Christian worldview that does not have the scripture defining what male is, what female is, what the relationship is, but has the world defining that based upon desires.

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And so with that, we press forward. The lady said, oh, this isn't new to me, honey. She's like, you're probably out of the several dozen that come to me coming out.

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And I was thinking, and this was last year before we had two more dorms. I'm like, wait, there's only maybe around 1 ,000 people on campus.

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And I only know just a couple open gay people are on campus. Who else is hiding?

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Who else is suffering? Almost like we... Now notice, I just briefly stopped that for a moment.

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Who else is suffering? It is part and parcel of the promotion of the gay agenda to utilize a particular format of presenting homosexuality.

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You can go back into the 1970s. There are entire books that were written. This is how we will make homosexuality acceptable.

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After the Ball is one of the most best known ones. This is how we will make homosexuality acceptable in our society.

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And they have followed it perfectly. And obviously, what we're seeing here is the use of victimization.

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We are the victims. We're the ones who victimized. Everyone is picking on us.

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The church is full of big bad meanies. It's the big man, as the earlier lady said. And we're just suffering.

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What will never be mentioned is the tremendous amount of suffering that homosexuality brings in the lives of the people who experience it.

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The broken relationships, the disease, the lack of true family relationships with people that you try to form them with.

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But it's unnatural, so you can't. No discussion whatsoever of that kind of thing.

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That's why I say this is propaganda. It is not meant to actually communicate truth.

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It is meant to change minds, not through the presentation of truth, but through the presentation of only portions of people's stories and not telling the whole story.

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And again, I view this within the context of Grand Canyon University. It's a self -professing

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Christian institution. And therefore, those who are there should at least recognize that on the part of the leadership, that's going to be the context in which things must be taken.

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And certainly when we analyze this video in light of that, we don't find it to do very well as far as video goes.

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Acts like there isn't a gay community at GCU. And it's not to bash the university.

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I think that in general, like Christians, it's easier to pretend that your individuals here, they're here, they're spread out as opposed to an actual community of people in a group of people that are here and that are important and not talking about something still sends a message.

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Now, I obviously have an extreme difficulty and I'm one of the last.

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Isn't that what community should be based upon in a Christian institution? It seems to me that that's the way it should be, but that's not necessarily how it's going.

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I am a student leader and I am focused so hard on building community.

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But when you have a community that is seemingly so divided as I feel

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Christians and homosexuals are, and it's not the university's fault. It's the fault of believers.

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Well, there you go. It's it's the fault of believers. It's not.

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You know, you come to a Christian university that has stated standards of morality and ethics, and you come to a university where there are going there's going to be the word of God and the word of God directly in Leviticus 18 and 20 in the very same holiness code that informs us that we are to honor older people that were to honor our parents were to take care of the poor.

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That very same holiness code that is so often mocked because people don't even bother to read it says that it is an abomination in God's sight for a man to lie with a man as one lies the female.

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And then that same concept is brought right into the New Testament, and it is fundamental to the understanding of why

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Paul says what he does in Romans chapter one, where he talks about nature. And that doesn't just have to do with the length of hair as we've talked so many times talks about nature, driving it from the creation context in Genesis one and two.

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Jesus did the same thing in Matthew chapter 19 and talking about the relationship of male and female.

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You get in first Corinthians chapter six, the clear description. Paul even knows of the active and passive partners in male homosexual sex and identifies them as such.

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It's all there. We know historically there were no Jews in Jesus's day promoting homosexual marriage or anything else like that.

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And you see this consistency. And so you go to a Christian institution and then you blame the institution because you reject what was so plainly taught in the founding documents that give rise to the religious faith that forms the institution.

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That's the institution's fault. No, this is just following that entire concept that has been used by the homosexual lobby.

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We're the victims. You're the persecutors. You're the persecutors. I tell that to the people who are losing their jobs right now for daring to be

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Christians and to have a Christian worldview. The fruit basket.

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Fruit basket. So my boyfriend is very out and open on campus.

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Everybody knows who he is. And so his apartment is like the place where everybody loves to go to to hang out.

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They call it the fruit basket because all the homosexuals love to go there. I guess it's kind of a good name for it because like I said, it's very diverse.

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And I guess fruit, it's just there's a lot of fruit. And we're very sweet and sugary.

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And it's basically just a place where friends hang out. And it happens to be that a lot of them are gay.

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So there you have the discussion of the fruit basket. Obviously, from my perspective, there's everything wrong about this.

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From the world's perspective, we just have to make room for homosexuals to be homosexuals.

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I left Canyon right as the first major dorm buildings were being built.

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When I was at Canyon, I had to fulfill a

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PE requirement. And the only thing it fit because I was already working full time. Alpha Omega had already started and so on and so forth.

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And so I took a golf class. Let me tell you something.

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There still isn't, I don't think, a golf course at GCU. But we played out in this empty field of dirt.

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And whack golf balls around with different irons and stuff like that. And it was pathetic.

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It really was. And I think that's pretty much where they built the first buildings, if I recall correctly.

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Almost everything that's there now that's really cool wasn't there when I was there. So that's just the way it is.

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Anyway, but I think they just started coming in. Either that or they started being built when I was going to Fuller there.

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And I do recall a discussion of rules and regulations as to what could and could not go on in those particular rooms.

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And something tells me that those rules and regulations still exist. And so what you have here is, oh, we're just getting together and having a good old time.

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Well, you know, if someone talked about this in a heterosexual context,

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I think people would be climbing the walls. But once again, because this is homosexuality, this has become the new in thing.

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This has become the protected thing. And so you're not allowed to think that way. But any type of thing like this going on in the dorms,

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I mean, there were dorms back then. They just weren't those nice buildings they were showing then. And you had dorm monitors and you had pretty strict rules as to what could and could not go on.

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So as I said, one of the methodologies of gaining sympathy for a form of sexual deviancy is to create the idea of persecution.

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And there are obviously individuals. I was disappointed with some, certainly not all, but some of the comments that were put out on Facebook when

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I mentioned yesterday that I'll be reviewing this. There's always the necessity to remind people to respond in grace to anything.

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There is always the necessity to recognize that unless it was for the grace of God, there go

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I. We always must address any issue as individuals who are debtors to grace.

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Finding that proper balance, because what we have here are people who are literally trying to change the faith.

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As I've said so many times, this is a gospel issue. This is an issue that goes right to the heart of the cross, whether we can even define what sin is and why there is a need for a savior.

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This is important stuff. And it's very easy for people to, as a result of that, err on the other side.

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And to be less than gracious in everything that they say. But we have to recognize that certain individuals try to make it look like, well, you know, life's just really tough for me.

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And I'll be perfectly honest with you, what's said here, and I'm not gonna play all of it, but in some ways is a part of the feminization of America today.

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For example, the big thing I'm bullying over the past couple of years. Guess what? That's been around for a long time.

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And it doesn't have anything to do with whether you're gay or not. I was bullied in high school. You were the smart kid.

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You weren't the fighter. You weren't the big kid. I got stuffed into a trash can headfirst.

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And I had to learn how to maybe take a different route to get to class if there were certain people, individuals in the way.

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And you know what? It made me grow up, made me mature, made me think, made me recognize what the world was really like.

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And I have said more than once, I see a tremendous amount of immaturity amongst homosexuals.

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The world does not revolve around us as individuals. That is just simply something you have to learn as you grow up.

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And unfortunately, as I listen to homosexuals speaking, very often it sounds like they are demanding the world needs to revolve around me, my desires, and my experience.

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And the world doesn't work that way. And Christians, especially, should be the first ones to recognize that we cannot demand that the world revolve around us.

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We are servants. We are to be used according to Christ's desire. And if we are to be used up and if our personal desires are not to be fulfilled, well, that's up to him.

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That is up to him. So here's this next section. Let's take a look at what it says.

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I was going to class one day and I was running late and it was about like I think 10, 10 in the morning. I walk out of my room and I start to head to the front door to walk out into the hallway and I see this paper on the floor that was folded up.

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I bent over and I picked it up and then I opened up the note and to my surprise, I saw this really rude, it was a pretty vulgar note.

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It pretty much said, I don't remember like word for word, but it pretty much said like all fags go to hell and you're going to hell because you're a fag.

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This then gets expanded out. He talks about how he is afraid to leave that day and so on and so forth.

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There is no excuse for anonymous notes threatening anybody about anything. It goes both directions obviously today, but I still wonder at the result that this is going to, that this, this then brings in the video.

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What do I mean? Well, this becomes the foundation for then basically saying, well, this is, you know, this is what

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Christians are all about. This is what Christians are all about. Notice. And that it was probably from a

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Christian because it noted that he was going to go to hell. It was probably from a

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Christian because he noted he was about to go to hell. So we know it was true. This is really represents what

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Christianity is all about, right? No, no, it, it doesn't.

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And it, again, is just simply part of the, of the entire persona that is being presented here in this, in this material.

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And it is a, it is a shame. It really is a shame. So we, we, we press forward in our review.

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It makes me heartbroken that we say that we're about unconditional love, except for this one thing. Like we say that we are, oh yeah, we want to listen and bring people in.

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Well, unless you change your attractions and you don't do it in, you know, like I said, in this timeline, if you don't fit in my nice little box.

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Now let's, let's, let's catch that. This again is an argument against the normative presentation of sexual ethics on the part of scripture, unless you fit into my little box.

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You mean the box that God prescribes in scripture in a

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Christian institution? You notice also the utilization of the phraseology about God's love.

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God's love means this unconditional love means anything goes.

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Now, here is a great example of where the squishy, inaccurate, emotionally based, non -reformed even jellyfish ism has gutted so many churches and so many evangelicals from being able to respond to this fundamental attempt to redefine the

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Christian faith. That's what we're, that's what we're hearing. Unconditional love means what? Unconditional love means unconditional acceptance of anything, including those activities that are directly opposed to biblical revelation, directly opposed to biblical revelation.

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That's what, is that, is that, you know, this may be exactly what this young lady thinks unconditional love is, that God loves you unconditionally.

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Where does the Bible say that? God loves, but what does God love? What does God's love result in?

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God's love results in redemption. God's love results in his providing a way to remove us from our sin.

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God's love results in the cross. So when you talk about unconditional love, it's not unconditional acceptance.

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The biblical message is plain. In fact, let me, let me,

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I hadn't planned on doing this, but let me just go to it very quickly. Let me, let me remind folks of a very, very, very important text.

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When you want to talk about the grace of God and unconditional love, remember Titus 2, 2, 2, 11, for the grace of God has appeared, bring salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age.

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What does saving grace teach us? If it's saving grace, it teaches.

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If it's saving grace, it teaches. If it's not saving grace, then it teaches us nothing.

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This comment shows that this young lady doesn't realize that saving grace, God's true unconditional love teaches us.

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And what does it teach us? To deny ungodliness. That's what homosexuality is. And worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age.

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That's the Christian. That's allowing the New Testament to speak for itself. And you must cut the

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New Testament up into little shreds and make it a self -contradictory document to get around the clarity of the message that we have.

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God's going to heal you or fix you or whatever, whatever language people want to use. Um, it's like they can't live in the tension of not knowing all the answers.

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Or that the answer that is given by scripture does not fulfill the wants and desires of this young lady and this group of people.

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It's not a matter of not having the answer. I'm not saying the answers are simple. But the answers are there.

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And one of the fundamental things we're gonna see, and we're gonna see this when we get to Michael Hageman's comments.

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Michael Hageman is an adjunct professor teaching a music appreciation class.

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Thankfully, he's not teaching theology, even though he's presented here as a theologian, because he has a PhD from Princeton University.

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And his thesis was on Galatians. But thankfully, he's not teaching theology.

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But the fundamental assertion that you're going to see is scriptural insufficiency.

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Scriptural insufficiency. The Bible's not enough. It can't address these things. They didn't know. They didn't know back then.

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We've seen this with Matthew Vines. We see this even with Brownson, sadly. Um, this has become the central aspect of the argument of the pro -homosexual

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Christian movement today is that they just didn't know.

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Evidently, the spirit of God didn't know. Jesus, God in human flesh, didn't know. The Holy Spirit didn't know.

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The reality is they didn't. And because they knew, then you're really stuck with, well, yeah, the

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Bible doesn't affirm any of these things. In fact, it denies the righteousness of these actions. But again, what has this young lady heard?

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I'd like to know what kind of churches they're involved in. Do they go to churches where there's any discussion of this at all?

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We've got a number of Kenyon students at our church now. Glad to have them. They've heard this stuff already.

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Um, yeah. I think it's so dumb that we get so caught up in it because I think I'll start this by saying that.

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Now notice, I think it's so dumb. Now, this young man is going to give us a, a lesson in theology, but young men of this age need to have mentors and people they can look up to that can instruct them in theology.

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And unfortunately, there's no evidence that he's had that happen. Thank God is so much less concerned about, uh, homosexual or heterosexual or pansexual, whatever sexual you want to be.

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Thank God. So less concerned with that rather than just getting to know the actual people and being relationships with them.

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Then that sound wonderful today. God isn't concerned about, he just wants to have relationship with you.

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What's defining that? What's defining those words, not scripture, not spirit of God.

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Um, instead, um, that's the world speak. That's the world's desires being projected onto God rather than going to the word of God and going, what does the scripture say about who

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God is? And now I'm going to make application myself because what is very plain is that God is extremely concerned about his glory being reflected in those people who call him

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God and worship him. That's how he's glorified. And he's glorified when we recognize his holiness and seek to walk in holiness ourselves.

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That's not what we just heard. What we just heard is defining God on the basis of us rather than reverse.

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And that's a real problem. That's a real problem because unfortunately, in a lot of churches where you have, quote unquote, youth ministry led by people who really aren't prepared to be doing that.

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And these people need to be around mature believers to see how they live their lives and learn from them.

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But in a lot of those places, that's not challenged. Nothing's challenged. And so people can get away with this and think that's, oh yeah, that's how

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Christians think. Shouldn't be. The versions of the

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Bible and translations and the different rights and wrongs, you have to get the basics down first.

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And the biggest basic of it all is that Jesus loves you so much. And that's anyone that is. You know what?

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What's Paul really talking? He's probably heard that kind of stuff before. But before you can get there, you have to have the hermeneutic of love.

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And that's a man defined love. Not the love that exists between the divine persons, the

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Trinity. Not the love that glorifies God. Not the love that's exemplified in the self -giving of the sun and the cross.

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No, no, no, no, no, no. It's all about God really wants to be in relationship with you because you are the center of all things.

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We're really reaping what we have sown in the horrific non -theology that we have allowed to be presented under the guise of bringing more people into the church.

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We're reaping what we've sown. And you hear it right there. And it's a sad thing.

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It's a sad thing to see. It's not just a one blank thing. It's not just right set in stone like it was written over thousands of years ago with many interpretations and a culture totally different from our own.

38:02

So there you go. Standard homosexual. Well, you know, the Bible's thousands of years old and it's culture different than our own and it's not really written in stone.

38:12

And it's the agnostic perspective being presented under the guise of Christianity.

38:23

All those things are true in the sense that it was written in a different culture than ours. But if we believe that it is the inspired word of God while we recognize how the culture was relevant to its writing, you mean the spirit of God can't transcend culture?

38:40

While we recognize that it's written in antiquity and hence must learn the original languages and things like that, are you saying that we can't know what arsonokoites means?

38:54

That we can't look at Hebrew and understand the meanings of toevah and things like that?

39:02

There's a lot that can be smuggled in with this kind of thinking, this kind of language, and much that is smuggled in.

39:12

And it's not ever proven. It's just alleged. That's why I really think that most of the time all we get is monologues, not dialogues.

39:25

Next clip is the clip that convinced me that I needed to respond to this material.

39:34

And this is Mike Hageman. Notice the description that is given there,

39:39

Doctor of Philosophy and Theological Studies. Now, the identification that was given to the students was about their relationship to their majors, their relationship to the university.

39:53

And so when I saw this, it naturally communicated to me the idea that he was involved in the

39:59

College of Christian Studies or something like that. And so I was somewhat relieved, to be honest, to discover that his only connection is teaching a music appreciation class.

40:12

I'm trying to remember. I think I had to take an art appreciation class. I would rather have taken a music appreciation class, to be honest with you.

40:21

And is not, therefore, teaching the theology classes, we would hope.

40:29

But here you have a man who has the exact same academic credentials as Bart Ehrman.

40:37

And in both instances, the result of going to Princeton has been utter confusion. Not a clarification, unfortunately.

40:46

Let's listen to what Dr. Hageman has to say. I teach biblical languages. I deal with biblical texts every day.

40:53

So that's why I thought, okay, this is somebody who's teaching a canyon in that area, because that's what he's saying.

41:00

I deal with these things every single day. Well, not a canyon. Maybe someplace else. I don't know.

41:07

I only got the name last evening, as I recall. So I'm somebody who has to wrestle with those biblical texts that appear to not be affirming.

41:18

So appear to not be affirming? When I first heard that,

41:26

I'm sort of like, wait, is that like saying thou shalt not kill appears to not affirm murder?

41:34

Yeah. Just a matter of not affirming. This is condemning with great clarity.

41:41

Especially those letters. The letters of Paul are some of the most difficult. The Old Testament, for some

41:47

Christians, are easier to distance themselves from, because they are such ancient texts. Unless, of course, you have

41:56

Jesus's view of the Old Testament. Unless, of course, you remember

42:01

Matthew recording for us the exchange between Jesus and the

42:07

Sadducees, where Jesus quotes from the Pentateuch, and he applies these words.

42:15

And in his words, what does he say? Have you not read what God spoke to you saying?

42:23

The very written words of God from over a thousand years earlier, Jesus holds the living men of his day accountable to those words as if God had spoken them to them individually.

42:36

Wow. You take that view, and you're not going to be able to get yourself away from Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20.

42:45

You're not going to be able to get yourself away from that. Now, I understand he's right for a lot of evangelicals, because how many times those who are used to watching this program, those who have listened to me speak before, you know that I say all the time that most

43:04

Christians are canonically challenged. They don't really have 66 books in their

43:10

Bible. They've got 27, and not really all of them. So for those kinds of evangelicals, especially those that are into hyper red letterism, where if it's written in the red letters, it's especially inspired.

43:27

That's one thing. But if you want to be truly accurate in your handling the

43:33

Word of God, you're not going to go there. But the New Testament, we have much more present to us. So we have when

43:40

Paul, how I have to wrestle with that is to say, Paul is writing at a time when he has a certain perspective.

43:48

He grows up in a Jewish world in which homosexuality doesn't fit. And really, these people don't even know, they don't even understand a term like homosexuality, or an understanding of orientation.

44:01

I mean, I ended up myself writing my doctoral thesis and dissertation on Paul. But still, we're...

44:07

And by the way, if that was on Galatians, that wouldn't have had anything to do with this. It wouldn't have had anything to do with this at all.

44:12

But what you just heard is a scholar saying what Matthew Vines said in his book.

44:20

Scripture is not sufficient to answer this. The people that day didn't know. They were ignorant.

44:26

Now, we can argue that point. And I think there's plenty of evidence that Paul growing up in Tarsus of Cilicia, a major Roman city, would have observed a tremendous amount of sexual behavior, including homosexuality, and would have known that men would burn in lust for other men.

44:50

But the idea is, well, they didn't know about people who wanted to have monogamous, lifelong relationships.

44:58

I mean, they didn't exist back then. This is, again, what I want to ask Matthew Vines, what I want to ask

45:03

Jim Brownson, what I want to ask all these other individuals promoting homosexuality today who want to claim to be

45:11

Christians. If Jesus was the God -man, he didn't know about these people? He made them!

45:17

Colossians 1? He didn't know they existed? Why didn't he ever say anything about them?

45:23

Paul the Apostle. I guess he just really wasn't writing inspired scripture. It really wasn't

45:29

Theodonystos, was it? I don't know how these folks can maintain a meaningfully high view of the inspiration of scripture, when what they're, in essence, saying is, we can't really look to what the

45:38

Bible says about homosexuality because, well, they just didn't know what we know now. We've outgrown it.

45:44

We've outgrown it. That's what they're saying. A deep and profound experience of being loved by God for who

46:13

I am. So there you go. There is the hermeneutic of love. God's love trumps everything.

46:19

Don't worry about what Paul said in Romans 1. Don't worry about how he utilizes Romans 1 as a very illustration of the suppression of the knowledge of God, idolatry, the twisting, the creator -creation relationship.

46:30

No, no, no, you just go to the love of God. Except Paul is taking us to the love of God in Romans 1.

46:37

And to understand the love of God, we've got to start with sin. And we've got to understand what sin is. And it's alienation from God.

46:42

And this is part and parcel of that. So you can never really get to the biblical love of God if you've used the love of God to get rid of God's revelation of how he's expressed his love in the cross.

46:55

And that's what this hermeneutic of love is all about. It's not a hermeneutic of love at all. It's not even a hermeneutic.

47:03

Where is there anywhere where it says in the scriptures that God's love for you is so all -consuming, he just doesn't care?

47:12

Instead, the Bible says God's love caused him to act. And he acted in the cross.

47:18

He acted in the incarnation. Those comments are absolutely indefensible from a biblical perspective.

47:26

Now, I don't know if anyone's challenged him on those things. I don't know if anyone's taken him aside and said, what are you talking about here?

47:32

Have you ever considered this? Have you ever considered? I don't know. But we need to recognize that the words are a complete resignation of the authority of scripture to define things for us and an acceptance of a completely foreign authority all under the guise of Christianity.

47:52

That's not Christianity. And it's not loving to allow someone to go on thinking it's

47:59

Christianity, because it's not. And yet that's what the world says. Could it be loving?

48:04

You're being mean now. No. I don't think that it's loving as an instructor, as a teacher, as a person who's taught at Grand Canyon University in the past to allow your students to give wrong answers and go,

48:24

OK, if that makes you feel good. That's not loving. And especially when we're talking about something absolutely and completely destroy your life.

48:35

That's not loving. But how many times have I said, well, the key issues is the fact that scriptural love is focused upon honoring

48:44

God first and foremost. And the world's love can't even begin to understand that, cannot even begin to understand that.

48:52

Two more clips. Two more clips. I have felt more love and acceptance from the gay community than I have from most

49:01

Christians. So to say that a gay student couldn't embody Christ and be viewed as Christlike from a resident is ridiculous.

49:12

OK, so once again, is that a biblical definition of love and acceptance?

49:17

What does it mean to experience acceptance? Acceptance of what? There is a demand here, especially on this young lady's part.

49:26

There is a demand here that God change his standards to match hers.

49:33

She will not change her standards to match his. That's the essence of human religion, isn't it?

49:40

But it's the direct denial of the Christian faith. And so when you talk about I have received more acceptance, do you want

49:51

God to accept you in your sin? Then why was there a cross?

49:58

Why was there a bloody cross? Why was there a tomb?

50:06

This is a gospel issue, my friends. It's a gospel issue. It goes to the very heart of the

50:12

Christian faith. And when homosexuals use the language of our day, the language of the world, to say you need to change fundamentally the core message of the

50:25

Christian faith. We should not be amongst people going, yeah, maybe we should consider that.

50:33

We should be such a loving people that we love God and his truth and these young people enough to stand up and say no.

50:41

Because this lifestyle is destructive. Does not bring life. It's not going to bring life to her.

50:49

Does not create life. It cannot create life. And it will separate someone such as her from the actual gospel that requires us to repent and to confess our sins.

51:03

And what does Hamalageo mean? To speak the same thing. They're saying, I won't speak what God has said in his word.

51:09

I will not confess. Well, there can be no repentance. There can be no true saving faith in that context.

51:16

When we say to God, I will not accept what you say. Sin is.

51:22

This is a gospel issue. A vitally important gospel issue. One last clip. I actually just met a friend a couple of weeks ago that goes to a

51:29

Christian university in California and you can be gay. And he says, majority of them are gay.

51:34

There's so many gay leaders and they're making a change on campus. Everybody loves it. Nobody cares. I just hope to one point that being gay is just not that.

51:42

Oh, you're gay. We need to label you the gays and straights. It just be people. We're just people.

51:50

We're just people. We're just people. And by the way, that was the clip. I'm not going to replay it, but you can see for yourself.

51:59

We're just people. Well, of course you're just people. Sinners, just like all the rest of us.

52:04

What does that have to do with anything? We're all just people. The question is, do you believe that you were made by God and that God gets to define what is true, honest, just, and right for each and every one of us?

52:24

Homosexuality involves a man falling in love with a mirror.

52:31

It is in essence, narcissistic. Same thing for a woman.

52:39

It destroys life. It cannot produce life. And you will not experience the blessing of God upon acting out those desires.

52:52

As I've said many times before, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, after describing homosexuality and many other sins says, and such were some of you.

53:03

It uses the past tense there, not the present tense. It does not say, and such are some of you. What we're being asked to believe by Matthew Vines and by Jim Brownson and by this video is that Paul got the tense, the verb wrong.

53:21

That when he addressed the Christians, he was saying such are, not the case.

53:29

The reality is that the Christian message is that even though you can experience these types of desires,

53:38

Christ can change. And he has, and he continues to do so.

53:44

That is why the single thing that drives the quote unquote homosexual community absolutely mad is when you talk about someone who's no longer homo.

53:56

They have it as an absolute dogma. Once gay, always gay.

54:02

Well, there are even secular scientific studies, few as they can be these days because of the political correctness within the academy.

54:11

But there are even scientific studies that have demonstrated that the number of people who identify as homosexual at 25 is lower at 35.

54:21

How'd that happen? If it's not something that, if it's something that's absolutely immutable, how can that happen?

54:31

There's the video, my friends. And I hope and pray that now that it has been made open a few things.

54:40

First of all, I hope and pray that these students will encounter a response from faculty members and other students that is biblically appropriate.

54:59

That means the response must be uncompromising. It must be biblical.

55:05

It must honor Jesus Christ. It can never be couched in hatred.

55:15

It can never be couched in retribution, anything like that at all.

55:23

The truly believing community at Grand Canyon should be praying for these students, reaching out to these students, not in a sense of compromise, but seeking to engage them, to communicate to them truthfully what the word of God actually says on these matters.

55:43

If anyone takes the response that we've offered as grounds for mistreating these students, then you have completely misunderstood why we do this.

55:55

What have I said all the way through this? This is a gospel issue. These young students need to know what the gospel truly is.

56:05

The gospel calls us to faith and repentance. It doesn't allow us to tell

56:10

God what we will or will not believe. We're going for a jumbo today there, big guy, so you can take that music right back down.

56:19

That looked like a good time to stop, but it is actually a good time to... I didn't know that.

56:25

That's okay. That is the end of our response to the video, but we have another half an hour left, actually, because, look, folks,

56:34

I realize there is so much going on in the world. Thursday, the dividing line will be very early, 10 a .m.,

56:47

10 a .m. I'm going out of town Thursday afternoon, so we can do this at 10 a .m.,

56:54

right? You said? Sure. We've got to talk about Iraq.

57:00

I was going to say, I'm usually here. Oh, ouch. All right.

57:11

Okay. For that, we've got to talk about Iraq.

57:17

We've got to talk about ISIS. We've got to talk about what's going on there and the relationship between...

57:27

I'm just going to call my moderate Muslim friends out. Guys, you are really disappointing me.

57:38

I should absolutely see the internet full of well -argued articles demonstrating that what's going on in Syria and Iraq and Kenya, al -Shabaab, and all these people is thoroughly un -Islamic, but I'm not seeing that.

57:59

I'm not seeing that. So we need to talk about that. There's a lot of stuff going on in the world that we need to... We need to talk to Dallas Cowboys, so you can tell he's really a problem.

58:12

And pointed me to the fact that this article, which is just...

58:18

It is written by a person experiencing anti -Calvinist derangement syndrome, had just been reposted at a certain blog site.

58:32

And what might that blog site be? SBC Today. SBC Today.

58:40

The semi -Pelagian... We're really desperate. We see that Reform Theology is winning in the seminaries, and so we're going to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, what's under the kitchen sink, what you never would have thought to put in the kitchen sink, out there and see what's going to stick.

59:04

The Hankins group, the Southwestern group, the

59:11

Poinsettia group. Now this guy,

59:19

Mr. Zach Hunt, I was shocked that the

59:26

SBC Today guys would post something from this guy. He is a Rob Bell, Rachel Held Evans emergent fan.

59:37

He is about as conservative as nobody who's left in the

59:43

Southern Baptist Convention. Evidently, this is the enemy of my enemy is my friend idea.

59:53

And that's why I say throw anything out there, see what sticks. But this is grossly inconsistent for people who consider themselves to be the students of the conservative resurgence to be posting something from somebody who even attacks justification by faith in it.

01:00:13

Guys, did you read it? Seriously, I mean, honestly, did you read it?

01:00:21

I was amazed, absolutely amazed. Well, I'm not going to read the whole thing.

01:00:29

Obviously, it's rather long. I just want to get to a few things. We only have a certain amount of time to do it, but I just had to.

01:00:36

Again, this was posted on SBC Today this morning. He's writing a letter to John Calvin, and he's talking about the

01:00:46

Institutes of Christian Religion that he read them at Yale University. I'm sure it was very honestly dealt with at Yale University that.

01:00:55

If you haven't gotten the clue yet, the Ivy League schools, those big old, they are really apostate.

01:01:04

I mean, Yale is the center of pro homosexuality in that area.

01:01:10

Okay, the idea that real education is going on there anymore is absurd.

01:01:18

It's all one side. You're being taught what to think, not how to think. That's what's going on there.

01:01:26

So he's talking about reading the institutes, and he says, so can I be totally honest with you,

01:01:31

John? You crushed my hope for reconciliation. I found your theology to be every bit as appalling and maybe even more so than your followers.

01:01:38

To be blunt as a Christian, I don't even recognize your God, and I have no clue what the good news is in the institute that some people are saved no matter what.

01:01:46

I guess that's good for them, but you're clear that God also creates people for eternal damnation. Now, what we're going to get here is your standard, grossly imbalanced.

01:01:59

I don't care what he was actually talking about. I'm going to throw everything out there drivel that liberals, a lot of Wesleyans, a lot of strong Armenians like to throw out there.

01:02:12

It's drivel. It could never stand up in a debate where you actually had time to read the sources.

01:02:21

It's dishonest. It's dishonest, and anybody who owns the institutes.

01:02:27

In fact, where's my nice black one of the institutes? It's way over there, and I can't reach it because I'm wearing headphones.

01:02:43

Musical interlude. Okay, here it is.

01:02:49

Let me put them back on here. It's very high tech. What am I supposed to be hearing?

01:02:55

I was hearing myself. Yes, well, it's sometimes I play things. This was a set of the institutes

01:03:00

I had bound years and years and years ago when I was teaching through them. Yeah, okay, you can see all the purple and stuff there.

01:03:09

Obviously, now today, I brought up some of the quotes, and I have them in Logos, but the institutes are not the

01:03:18

Bible for Calvinists, but anyone who hasn't read them really doesn't have much of a reason to be criticizing

01:03:26

John Calvin. Now, he says he did, and he quotes from them. Problem is when we look up the quotes and look at the context, we go, what's wrong with you, dude?

01:03:34

You went to Yale, and you can't read in context? It was tough to read this.

01:03:40

For example, by predestination, we mean the eternal decree of God by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man.

01:03:50

All are not created in equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life. Others to eternal damnation, and accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or to death.

01:04:00

That's one of the favorite quotes of who? George Bryson, of course. And when you throw something like that out there without a context, and he says, oh,

01:04:11

I know you're going to say, yeah, I am going to say that you did that, and you did it for a purpose and for a reason. Those of us who've actually studied the institutes know that.

01:04:20

When you throw it out there in that way, you are ignoring, for example, the fact that in at least the 1559

01:04:26

Latin edition, Calvin moved this entire discussion later in the institutes, and he now placed it right after the longest chapter in the institutes, which was on, oh, what was that again?

01:04:38

Oh, yeah, prayer. Forgot about that part, huh? But yeah, that's what predestination does mean.

01:04:46

Yeah, and I know you don't like that. Question is, is it biblical? And it is. Now, it's the summary statement.

01:04:53

There's all sorts of stuff that goes into it, and he deals with all that. But most of these people know they can get away with saying anything about Calvin, because the people they're writing to are going to be so bigoted and so biased, they're not going to check it out for themselves anyway.

01:05:06

And you also say God, notice, check this one. You also say that God tricks some of those same people he dooms to hell into thinking he loves them by, quote, instilling into their minds such a sense of his goodness as can be felt without the spirit of adoption, end quote, simply so he, quote, better convince them, end quote, 3 .2

01:05:27

.11. John, what kind of perverse and manipulative God would do that? Wow, that sounds terrible.

01:05:33

That sounds horrible. I'm going to read the section, if you don't mind. Actually, Calvin is doing something that most of his critics are chickened to do.

01:05:45

To actually deal with a tough question. To deal with what you have to actually deal with in this life and deal with in the church.

01:05:55

So here's what he was actually talking about. I am aware it seems unaccountable to some how faith is attributed to the reprobate, seeing that it is declared by Paul to be one of the fruits of election, and yet the difficulty is easily solved.

01:06:08

For though none are enlightened into faith and truly feel the efficacy of the gospel, with the exception of those who are foreordained to salvation, yet experience shows that the reprobate are sometimes affected in a way so similar to the elect that even in their own judgment, there is no difference between them.

01:06:24

Now, I stop for just a moment. If you've ever served in the church, you know this to be true.

01:06:32

I've been an elder for a number of years in the church. I've seen people walk away, leave, go out.

01:06:41

I've preached sermon, the blessing of apostasy. They went out from us, so it might be demonstrated they're not truly of us.

01:06:47

You've got to deal with these realities. Anyone who's been in the church for any period of time, right now as you're listening to me speaking, you're thinking of people that used to be there.

01:06:58

And in your heart, in your mind, you thought, man, that person is as much of a Christian as I could ever hope to be. And now they're not there, right?

01:07:06

So Calvin's actually dealing with that. He's actually dealing with it. Hence, it is not strange that by the apostle, a taste of heavenly gifts and by Christ himself, a temporary faith is ascribed to them.

01:07:18

Not that they truly perceive the power of spiritual grace and the sure light of faith, but the Lord, the better to convict them, which

01:07:24

I imagine is what he was quoting. It said convince, at least in the article, the better to convict them and leave them without excuse instills into their minds such a sense of his goodness as can be felt without the spirit of adoption.

01:07:38

And that's the section he doesn't like. He's talking here about apostates. He's talking here about people who trample underfoot the blood of the blood, the son of God.

01:07:45

Aren't there enough warnings in Hebrews to tell us what the result of this is and how playing with God and his grace is a horrific thing?

01:07:57

Do you have a problem with that, Zach? Do you have a problem with God punishing people who sin against greater light than others?

01:08:06

Evidently you do. Should it be objected that believers have no stronger testimony to assure them of their adoption?

01:08:14

I answered that though there is a great resemblance and affinity between the elect of God and those who are impressed for a time with a fading faith, the elect alone have that full assurance which is extolled by Paul and by which they are enabled to cry,

01:08:26

Abba, Father. Therefore, as God regenerates the elect only forever by incorruptible seed, as the seed of life once sown in their hearts never perishes, so he effectually seals in them the grace of his adoption that it may be sure and steadfast.

01:08:41

But in this, there is nothing to prevent an inferior operation of the spirit from taking its course in the reprobate. Meanwhile, believers are taught to examine themselves carefully and humbly lest carnal security creep in and take the place of assurance of faith.

01:08:54

We may add that the reprobate never have any other than a confused sense of grace laying hold of the shadow rather than the substance because the spirit properly seals the forgiveness of sins in the elect only, applying it by special faith to their use.

01:09:09

Still, it is correctly said that the reprobate believe God to be propitious to them in as much as they accept the gift of reconciliation, though confusedly and without due discernment.

01:09:18

Not that they are partakers of the same faith or regeneration of the children of God, but because under a covering of hypocrisy, they seem to have a principle of faith in common with them.

01:09:27

Nor do I even deny that God illumines their minds to this extent that they recognize his grace, but that conviction he distinguishes from the peculiar testimony which he gives to his elect in this respect, that the reprobate never attained the full result or to fruition.

01:09:44

When he shows himself propitious to them, it is not as if he had truly rescued them from death and taken them under his protection.

01:09:52

He only gives them a manifestation of his present mercy. In the elect alone, he implants the living root of faith so that they persevere even to the end.

01:10:01

Thus, we dispose of the objection that if God truly displays his grace, it must endure forever. There is nothing inconsistent in this with the fact of his enlightening some with a present sense of grace, which afterwards proves evanescent.

01:10:14

I think what you've got right there is his understanding of Hebrews chapter 6. What you've got right there is his understanding of Hebrews chapter 10.

01:10:23

What you've got there is his understanding of Hebrews chapter 3. Are those texts not in the scriptures,

01:10:29

Zach? They are. And that's exactly what he was dealing with. And dealing with rather fully and dealing with pastorally.

01:10:38

And you turn it into a reason to say, your God's a monster. Zach, you experience anti -Calvinist derangement syndrome, which allows you to take words that were carefully crafted, thought through over many years.

01:10:54

Yes, he wrote the institutes at an incredibly young age, but this is the 1559. And he's worked through all these things.

01:11:02

And he's made changes. And he's made changes in order and things like that.

01:11:09

You take that and you accuse him of being evil, but it gets worse, much worse.

01:11:16

For according to you, God ordains every single horrific act of evil that has or ever will occur. And that, of course, becomes his basis.

01:11:24

And I'm skipping over his numerous quotations. In other words, if a child is raped, a family murdered in their sleep, or an entire population of people sent off to gas chambers, that wasn't just the act of evil men.

01:11:33

It was the will of God. Once again, this is something that every single

01:11:41

Bible believer has to deal with. Now, Zach just skips it. He just dumps it.

01:11:47

He doesn't have to worry about systematic theology, but everybody else has to, at least wants to be an honest description.

01:11:55

And we all know there are various ways this is dealt with. As a Calvinist. Oh, really?

01:12:03

SBC Today has removed the post. Has there been an apology posted there?

01:12:17

All I know is a few minutes ago, Lane dropped in the channel. Well, can we really trust Lane? That's why

01:12:23

I did put according to Lane on the post. Yeah, I know, I know. There is an element of, but anyway.

01:12:31

Bring it up. A number of people have tried to hit the post. And it's no longer there. 404ing, but he says it's still over on American Jesus.

01:12:41

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still, Zach ain't going to pull it. Okay, does somebody have a screenshot that tells us who of the contributors?

01:12:55

And maybe my troublemaker guy is listening. I don't know. There were some posts earlier about, it's still in the cache here.

01:13:04

Here, I've got it right here. Let me repost it for you. There's the cache.

01:13:13

You might hit that. Yeah, it doesn't.

01:13:21

This says it was published today, 402 AM. And then click here, but I don't see who posted it.

01:13:32

I would be interested in seeing who posted it. But there it is. I'm going to keep the cache. I'm going to save this page should someone have a problem with that.

01:13:40

But I don't see who posted it. So we can't say who bothered to put this up.

01:13:49

But there you go. Well, I've got to give them, I've at least got to give them credit for taking it down.

01:13:55

It would have been nice if you'd put something up and said, oops, this really does not reflect properly upon, well, how much discernment we have as to the sources we use.

01:14:09

Oh, my. Okay. Well, we're going to continue responding here, at least for the next eight and a half minutes or so to Zach anyways.

01:14:25

Now, once again, the words are, in other words, if a child is raped, a family murdered in their sleep, or an entire population of people sent off to gas chambers, that wasn't just the act of evil men.

01:14:36

It was the will of God. So in your theology, Zach, did, are you an open theist?

01:14:44

I'll bet you'd be really friendly toward that. Let's say you're an open theist for a moment.

01:14:52

You say that our God is not worthy of worship. If you're an open theist, I say yours isn't worthy of worship.

01:14:59

Why? Because your God created a universe in which all of these things could happen, and he knew they could happen, but when he didn't really expect them to happen, but when they did, he's shocked.

01:15:15

And that's the God you're going to worship. You want to worship a God who goes, oh, you worship

01:15:22

God facepalm. Yes, God facepalm. Where he goes, oh, no,

01:15:29

I didn't. Oh, I knew this could happen, but I really, oh,

01:15:35

I didn't. I didn't think it would, but now it has, and you all need to join my team so we can do the best we can to fix it.

01:15:48

There's one answer. God didn't know. He knew the possibility, so he actually created a universe where the possibility was there, but he didn't know whether it was going to happen or not.

01:16:02

In fact, he's pretty shocked. So let's say you're not an open theist, Zach.

01:16:09

Let's say you're just a simple foreknowledge guy. God just foreknows what's going to happen, but he doesn't decree.

01:16:18

So we should worship God because he came to know at some point in time that these things would happen, but he didn't decree that they would happen.

01:16:28

So he tossed the cosmic dice, and we should worship him because it's all going to come out at the end, and he's going to win, but all this stuff, he didn't intend any of that.

01:16:42

So all these things you mentioned, he didn't have any problem putting those two together and recognizing that in the very same thing that were sinful,

01:16:53

God had a good purpose, and he didn't have to have an absolute knowledge.

01:16:59

He could look back and see, all right, I see now what the purpose is, but even if you don't know what the purpose is, you still believe that, don't you?

01:17:10

Or else, well, Isaiah 10, or else, cross Acts chapter 4,

01:17:18

God ordained and predestined the very cross itself, the greatest sinful act upon mankind that mankind's ever done, the murder of the sinless son of God, God predestined.

01:17:39

Different purposes, Herod, Pilate, the Jews, the Romans, all under the absolute sovereignty of God.

01:17:47

The Bible teaches, I accept it. I think it's compelling, and I'm glad that my

01:17:53

God did not create a universe where there's any evil that has no purpose, because I can think of all sorts of terrible, horrible evil.

01:18:02

I've worked as a hospital chaplain, I've seen it, and if I thought that God had wound this world up, and he was an open theist, didn't know what was going to happen, so we stumbled into it, or God just came to realize it was going to happen, simple foreknowledge, or some other thing out there somewhere is determining the truth of counterfactuals that limit what

01:18:26

God can do, and so he's just doing the best he can with the cards he's been dealt. Any of those things were the case, I would have a real hard time with worship.

01:18:37

How can you worship a God like this? Because I recognize how little, how small is the amount of knowledge

01:18:49

I have, and it's only by grace I've come to recognize the foolishness of being a creature standing up on my hind legs and saying,

01:19:00

I'm going to judge the eternal, based upon this much information,

01:19:08

I'm going to judge the eternal. I'm still tempted to do it every time

01:19:16

I experience tragedy and difficulty in my life, but I truly believe it's the work of the

01:19:22

Spirit of God that restrains that madness with me. Fortunately, in Zach's article,

01:19:34

God didn't restrain him. He let him express the fullness of the foolishness of the creature that dares to say,

01:19:47

I will never worship a God like that. How many people have told me that? I remember when a

01:19:54

Roman Catholic lady told me that years and years ago. Looked across the table at her,

01:20:00

I just introduced her to Romans 9. That's what it says right there, that I'd never worship a

01:20:08

God like that. My response to her was, I know. Outside of the grace of God, none of us have.

01:20:20

So I may continue on because there's a whole lot more here. A lot more to look at. But it's all in the same thing.

01:20:29

It's all pretty much in the same area. But I think it might be worthwhile. So I'm probably going to mark where I am here and start here.

01:20:38

How's that? Mark where I am here. And it might be worth it in Radio Free Geneva or something like that to continue on.

01:20:45

But I want to respond to it because it's been posted. It was posted. The internet never forgets.

01:20:51

At SBC Today, demonstrating that the enemy of my enemy is my cousin's friend.

01:21:00

What is that again? Anti -Calvinist Derangement Syndrome.

01:21:06

It is unfortunately alive and well in the Southern Baptist Convention and at SBC Today. And that's a shame.

01:21:12

Thanks for watching The Dividing Line today. Remember, special time on Thursday, 10 a .m.

01:21:19

That'd be 1 p .m. For those of you stuck on that Eastern Daylight Savings Time silliness.