Is Calvinism a Cult?

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00:03

Was Andrew the one that helped you get the podcast back up? Yeah, he did get the podcast.

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He didn't help me. He did it don't don't you think you owe him a dinner for that? Welcome to apologetics live we're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the

00:30

Bible meet your hosts from striving for eternity Ministries Andrew Rappaport, dr. Anthony Sylvester and pastor

00:37

Justin Pierce We're live

00:44

Apologetics live here every Thursday night. There's pastor Justin You know, hello pastor

00:52

Justin guess what? What's that? We got someone right over there We got a special guest

00:59

There he is there's a Stockwell in the house That's that's the Mike Stockwell.

01:05

That is you know what that means when when there's a Stockwell in the house. No sushi Well, I was gonna say no food, but yeah

01:15

Yes, well welcome to apologetics live Thursday night we played that intro because we we should have should have

01:24

Mr. Metz like coming in he Wants to join us But I actually

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I did see just before we went live that he's still doing the after show for his radio show It seems like he may have a sinless perfectionist that he's talking with and so on for a while We'll have to check in later with him and see when he comes in So tonight we're gonna deal with a topic that comes from well

01:47

This really does stem from the debate from two weeks ago. You you had a You had something you wanted to read

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I think that we got recently So you got to give me a minute? I guess. Yeah So while you're pulling that up So we're gonna deal with is after we did the debate on Calvinism Calvinism Was Calvinism useless or Calvinism is useless and dangerous was the topic of that?

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that debate Well, we got some interesting reactions and I will say this this is what happens when people debate

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You have one of two choices when when someone exposes what you're what you're saying and They expose it as wrong.

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You have one of two choices. You can Repent and say ah, I was an error.

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Let me correct that or you could do as Mr. Fuentes has done which is to double down and That's what he did.

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So instead of a victim. Yeah, I'm a victim. He was doing that. He played victim status, but now he's gone

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It's not just that he sent thinks Calvinism is useless and dangerous He now says it's a cult and there's been a bunch of people that have been claiming that as well, why don't you read the the

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Hang on I'm kicking somebody out of the chat. Okay, who you kicking out chat and why?

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That that's fun Schmo I came much my old

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Union I Haven't okay. Yeah, he's gone.

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All right. Well, yep Anyway, I actually got it pulled up.

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I can pull it up here in the share screen if you want. There we go

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And here we go. So David David John How would you said

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Ben Trez? Says Calvinist or anti Bible their mind can read words that are not there and fail to read words that are there

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Any in quotes or in parentheses? He says some and apparently they do not know how to read

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I'm sorry. Let me try that again. See I didn't know how to read and apparently they do know how to read

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Can't properly even read English much More than underlying original languages

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That means they twist the Bible to fit their theology. I Guess that's

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Yeah, I can't read that So and then and then we have we have things like this that pop up and we got this one as well

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There's the definition of Calvin and the gospel according to Calvinism This is there what they?

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this is In quotes quote for God's will love the elect that he gave his only begotten

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Son That whosoever was unconditionally elected before the foundation of the world should not perish but have everlasting life

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For God sent his son into the world to condemn the world that the elect through him might be saved

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That's John Calvin 3 16 and 17 Well, at least it did more than one verse, but there's another

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Famous theologian that says twist not scripture unless you'd be like what Satan? Yeah.

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Yeah, so With that, why don't we bring in the slick one?

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There is about time. I wasn't sure you were gonna get in here because I was watching a

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Discussion on your after show with a seems like a sinless perfectionist who would look like you actually had her because because you got her to the point where you asked her if She had ever sinned after She was like, well, yes, and you're like, okay then by your theology you're can you're dead you're damned and then

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Differentiate between different kinds of sins so that doesn't apply to her. Yeah It wasn't a willful

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And then and then I went to Romans 7 where she brought a Roman 7 18 through 25 or Paul sin

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Well, you know you struggle she brought it up I went to it and I said does he sin willfully? Yes, is it is a deliberate sin because he's doing it by his own

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Will she goes? Yes. Well, then you're saying he can't be saved. There's a longer right? You know what? She did

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I said once she answered that she turned her head down to camera I started doing something else wouldn't listen. I go you're out of here

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You know what Jesus unteachable she was obstreperous That's almost like my debater from two weeks ago

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Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You had the same thing going on with your Calvinism stuff He actually kept asking

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Justin. Will you please close in prayer, please close in prayer, please close in prayer and and so Just before we close in prayer

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I'm trying to correct him and explain why you know Like if you're gonna debate you need to know the topic of your debate and he pulls his earbuds out and so someone snapped a picture pastor

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Justin and I both have our heads down because Justin's praying and This guy's just looking at the screen Says amen, we open our eyes.

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He puts his earbuds back in and starts talking It was pretty funny in a sad kind of way. So so streperous twits

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Yeah so what we're gonna do tonight is talk about Calvinism and I know pastor Justin wanted you to come in Matt because You've been kind of dealing with a guy recently.

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Um, yeah Joe That was hounding you about this and we just figured it'd be fun

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So let me start off with some definitions of terms And and I will give now

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Matt has a different definition of a cult on karm .org than I do in my book

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What do we believe so mine's the shorter list? So I will go through mine while Matt looks up his because his has like 19 points.

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He's got 164 points on it And and what you're gonna find is that all his points

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I think fit into Into mine and actually I gotta look that I do have Hold on I do have a new a new definition

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So so I heard I heard this for a definition for cult Matt This was new.

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This was from a secularist Someone that was a in you know, they call it bite control.

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So a cult by this was defined by bite control bite stands for behavior

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Information thought and emotion so it's behavior control information control thought control or emotion control so what they're saying is that basically and and this does fit that a cult is basically all about control and And that's the real goal of it is control and whether they're trying to control your behavior the information

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You have your thoughts your emotions and and I actually thought that that was a pretty good way of of summarizing it

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You know in one thing as far as the the definition that I have in my book. What do we believe?

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There's five elements to a cult First is authoritarianism and authoritarianism is that you have a

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Person or organization that sets themselves up as they are the the ones that have the authority to interpret scriptures

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No one else but them they are the authority if you're not hearing it from them. You don't have the truth

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Second is scripture twisting which usually happens when you get that authority wanting to make the

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Bible say it doesn't say they They twist the scriptures they can't read it in context things like that.

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The the third one is going to be Isolationism and so what they do is they try to isolate you from these from any other group

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Any other way of getting information and the way they'll usually do that is by exclusivism Isn't is that they claim they alone have the truth

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So if you go outside that group you you don't have the truth and that's why they can isolate you

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So you're only hearing the same Thing from the it's basically get you into an echo chamber. So you hear nothing.

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But what? There's a kind of like Democrats in the media, right? They don't hear any what they want to say

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So they they isolate everyone by getting big tech to shut it off The the fifth is harm now harm could be in several ways.

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It could be a physical harm It could be a sexual harm could also be a spiritual harm There there there's some form of harm whether it's emotional

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In a lot of these groups because of the exclusivity that they claim what ends up happening

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Is that? They end up Feeling like they can't leave the group and if anyone tries to leave the group they feel like they've lost something because a lot of these groups will do love bombing that keeps them in there and so what you end up with is

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You end up having people who typically within cults one of the other characteristics of a cult but not definition would be a lack of integrity with language

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They use words. This is sort of with the twisting of scripture, but they use words and give it meanings that it doesn't really have

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So those would be my definition of of a cult And real quick before I go to Matt humble clay is asking if I've been in touch with Sam Simone for a debate

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Humble clay if it was you who contacted me about debating Sam Simone on his view of it was

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Mary I responded and said I don't know what his view is So I don't really have a reason to get in touch with him to debate him until I know what the issue is

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So Matt, what's what's your definition there karma for a cult cult is whatever?

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When you have a group that is like striving for eternity where you're trying to earn your salvation Then that would be cultic.

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That's one definition. So Matt doesn't believe in sanctification. Oh, I believe in sanctification

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I just don't want to strive to gain eternity Just do me a favor read read just help me out.

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Can you? Okay A cult is a group that exercises control over people and has aberrant theology to the point where They can't be saved and that's the basic definition

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If you have secular groups as well, that could be cultic you can have atheistic groups that can be cultic and cult theological perspectives

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I believe that atheism is a theology and that's another topic And all secular movements are but generally generally speaking cults restrict your access to others other information family members, they try and control where you are what you can do and what

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Christian based cults will use scripture, but they will twist scripture like someone I just talked to a half hour ago and bring a bring a

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False understanding of something and then demand adherence to that false thing And if you don't you have temporal or and or eternal punishment

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Those are the kind of things that deal with the cults. Yeah Okay. Now we did before we get into Calvinism as a cult.

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I do have here a question that we got asked and so and and You met this might be something that you would also like to weigh in on but this is basically what the person said

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Send me a message They had sent me an email through the ministry and then contact me on Facebook for clarification

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So Kevin asked this I was the one that suggested about witnessing to a universalist which

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Only believes 80 % of the scripture is God script in Sorry, that's 80 % of scripture is

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God inspired because I get up early in the morning out of time To go to the show live. So he's wanting us to answer the question

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His question was basically, how do you witness to a universalist? He's he's been trying to deal with this with I think it was a relative or a friend sorry friend it says here so I guess what the problem with a universalist and I'm gonna

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I'll let Matt chime in after or Pastor Justin or even we have we have a guest here.

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Mike Stockwell is here with us Matt I don't know if you know Mike, but he's here. You don't see him unless I switch the camera angle.

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I'll switch it there There's Mike Fear God. Oh, what does it say?

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The shirt says nothing else fear God and nothing else. Oh He wants yeah, that's a good verse

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I'm coveting that shirt I think the issue with a universalist and for folks who may not know what a universalist

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It's the idea that everyone goes to heaven There's there's the fact that They want to believe that God and and the way they'll usually word this

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Kevin is you'll hear people say well My god wouldn't send anyone to hell And my response that usually is that's right.

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Your god can't send anybody to hell because your god doesn't exist And and the reality is when when they're doing that all you have to do

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In in dealing with a person like that is just ask one question. Where do you get your information?

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Because they're not getting it from the Bible as you said in your message This person's only believing 80 % of the the

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Bible is inspired by God They're not believing the Bible. And so if they're not believing the Bible, that's not where they're getting their information.

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And So if they're rejecting part of the Bible saying well, that's not really inspired They've set themselves up as the standard of determining and judging what is and what is not

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God's Word Therefore they are the standard No, and so what you could do

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Before you get into that is ask them Whether they believe that what

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Jeremiah said that the heart is deceitfully wicked. Is that inspired by God? Do they believe that do that up front by doing that up front?

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Then when you get to the point of revealing to them that they're setting themselves up as judge you go back to that verse and say how do you know that your heart didn't deceive you and Now they they're kind of stuck because they already said that that's

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God's Word and they've set themselves up as the judge So that's one way of dealing with a universalist

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Matt Justin you guys have or Mike do you have other way? They deny hell altogether, yeah

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Some do some will say that people will go to hell and suffer for a while then be saved But universalism says that ultimately all people will be saved

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There's some universalists who say that the demonic realm will be saved as well but the problem is in Mark 3 29 and it's that I Do this to give you what the response is to explain what they do and what you know,

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Mark 3 29 Whoever sins against the Holy Spirit has committed an eternal sin. Well, hey, you know, mr.

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Uni. It's an eternal sin So therefore it can't be forgiven Oh Matt, but you don't understand the word eternal

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There is Ionia's and it only means an age. So it's just that age that it's not forgivable in So when

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I go to Matthew 12 32 this blasphemy, the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come

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The two -age model then they'll say no see but it's the age after that that they could be forgiven

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So it doesn't matter what you say. That's what they do So they they submit the scriptures to this one phrase ideology

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Ionia's which is age I owners to an Ionian age of the ages, which is how is translated into the

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English Eternal without end but the problem is that there are verses that in Revelation which shows that God is

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Eternal where it speaks about him forever That there's certain things like he has dominion forever forever and ever and it's

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I owners tone Ionian And so I'll say wait a minute, why is it that God's dominion is forever without a end and yet you say that punishment will be

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Will is temporary when it's the same phraseology that's used and this gets get this exposes their

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Prejudice when they come to the scriptures at this point, that's one of the major things Okay, it makes sense.

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Yep. Was I too slick and quick? You're fine Okay, Justin Did you want to answer that at all?

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Another one you can you can think about is when you when you're talking to an eight Almost said a thesis.

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Sorry Talking to a universalist, you know, it's close. Well when you're talking to a universalist, you might want to consider asking them, you know if they believe that There are judgments that are right, you know, if there are

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Principles of judgment here on earth that are right. Would it be would it be right for for God to judge a child rapist?

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would it be right right for God to judge a serial murderer or You know

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You can go down the list of the most heinous of crimes and ask is it right for God to judge that that one?

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You know and and a lot of a lot of people will concede that it's it's it's right For the worst of the worst, but they're not the worst of the worst and they don't know the worst of the worst so then you have to you have to kind of break it down by asking something along the lines of Well, if it's okay for God who is righteous and holy to judge

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What is wicked then? Why is it that you're trying to set the standard above God? Because God himself has made the standard and he's explained what he will judge

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According to his scripture he's he's explained what he's going to do and and and for us to to try to stand over God as the judge over God of what he can judge that's uh,

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That's pretty close to sin itself. So I would be careful that All right so I see we

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Let's see. We have a a guest in the background. I'll bring him in equipping the saints Uh, hello

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What's your name? Rob Barnhart, you know me andrew. Sorry. I I Didn't see how you don't rub.

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Oh, so you had some good questions. That'd be fun for matt to answer as well Yeah, i'm kind of excited no less so i'm trying to think through uh predestination from calvinism from uh, uh for calvinism and and whether or not the

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Eternal decree is linked with like predestination election and things like this or if they're seen as Separate like you know me like they're they're each of the new doctrines or if you guys see them um as a whole

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Yeah Well god's predestination is of the elect. So god elects he chooses ephesians 1 4

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He chose us he the father chose us Choosing the elect in him christ before the foundation of the world that would be holy and blameless

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So the election is there and when you look at this verse, you'll notice that the election is a choosing

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Which necessitates that god who is all -knowing from eternity? Will elect the group of people for salvation

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That he will give to the sun And a lot of people say that he looks in the future to see what's going to happen.

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That's another topic But when you go to ephesians 1 4 and 5 he chose us

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He chose us the word. There is a klegami He chose us

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God did the choosing upon us Before the foundation of the world before anybody would do anything good or bad that we would be holy and blameless

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Before him in love. He predestined us. We'll get to the decree in a sec In love he predestined us to adoption as sons of jesus christ himself.

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So so election and Predestination are definitely related that god elects and predestines the elect now you asked about the decree, right?

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Yes, sir All right So I believe it or not. I actually was working on my notes on that very thing

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Let me get to it on the decrees of god and I need to go through and do some more research on it

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But I was doing some some stuff and here we go um Come on, where is it?

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I thought it was right there Because there are things that people don't understand what decree means and decree is an expression of god's will

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For direct and indirect effect So he can directly decree something let there be light boom, but he can indirectly decree

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When he lets people sin, but nothing can occur without the decree of god in that sense

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It's the eternal plans of god whereby before the creation of the world He determined to bring about everything that happens.

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I can expand on that if you want I can't but uh This is what is the basics of the decree is

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And there are verses that talk about this. Um And uh, I can go through them.

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I don't want to take too long I don't want to get too far away from your exact question and I think what

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I'll do at this point is Do you see? I'm, sorry Go ahead

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Do you see the um Um You know the the future site

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I forget what is the fort that they uh, not not predestination but for knowledge Is the foreknowledge

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Something connected with from for bakalva this viewpoint something connected with the eternal decree

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Yes But you understand what foreknowledge is Because if you go to romans 8 29 i'll save you the time assume that I know because you taught me so Then you know the foreknowledge does not necessitate looking into the future to see what will happen, right?

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Yeah, and that romans 8 29 those whom he foreknew he also predestined They're the same group

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Yeah, right. Uh Just just not to not to insult you back Feel free to do that because you're teaching other people but always assume that I i'm pretty familiar with these topics.

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I'm pretty well, right? uh Okay, so i'm trying to figure out how calvinists see the eternal decree

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The relationship to foreknowledge and the relationship from there from the predestination And election so you said that election and predestination are connected would you say that they are uh

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I I agree. Would you say foreknowledge and predestination are similarly linked?

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Okay, i'm writing down if you want to know the relation of decree election predestination what else i'm sorry uh right now the the standing question is

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Do you see foreknowledge? As the same thing as predestination No, or or is it something separate?

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It's separate because one thing a prognosco predestination pro riz I mean foreknowledge or to foreknow and pro rizzo, uh predestine.

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They're different And how they're used in scripture and for those who don't know god only knows believers

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Get away from me. I never knew you matthew 7 23. That's the word gnosco When we see god speaking about knowing people it means it's a salvation relationship

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So he says jesus says my sheep hear my voice and I know them All right, and so I give eternal life to them

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And we have to be known by god romans. Uh, excuse me galatians 4 8 So that's what this means about knowing gnosco foreknowledge is pro gnosco.

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It just has the word for In front of it prognosco And foreknowledge by the foreknowledge of god

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Does it mean that god then this is for people who don't know this topic? Does it mean that god looks into the future so to speak?

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And decides or and learns what's going to happen. That's one view and it's heretical Does god know what free will creatures will do in different situations in a foreknowledge sense?

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From the eternal presence of god before the foundation of the world And so in the foreknowledge god just knows what people are going to do in their freedom and it's libertarian free will which is problematic for different reasons, but nevertheless

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Does god know that? Some people say well, that's what god knows what people will do. And so in that There's a relationship between that and a predestination

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That was okay. So so he's there's a relation so that what there's some are saying is that god

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Knows not look into the future, but he knows what the future will will maintain and and will happen in the future

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And those who will be saved And so then he predestines those

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The problem here is that it implies the idea that god's choice is based on a good condition in the person

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That under that condition in that situation god will save that person That god's foreknowledge is that in a particular situation

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That person will choose god That's a problem because it shows partiality

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It means that what is happening is that god is saving somebody Based on the foreknowledge information that he has that they will choose him

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That is a violation of scripture romans 11 uh romans 2 11 and also james 2 2 through 4

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That negates that we can get into that. So that's one of the errors that people say about foreknowledge Rather it makes more sense from the reform perspective to say that foreknowledge is god's knowing the predestined simultaneously

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There's not a temporal condition. He knows this then because of that he bases his actions on that That's more of a hint of a temporal priority

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Nope in reform theology. All of god's knowledge is eternal and he doesn't grow in his knowledge.

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There's an infinite number of Potentialities that could exist and one actuality that he brought into existence

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All knowledge about all potentialities are within his realm because they could only exist if he were to give them existence

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So whatever actuality he brought into existence logically and necessarily He works all things in that actuality after the counsel of his own will ephesians 1 11

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The foreknowledge is not that he will look to see what will happen or what conditions a person will do something and then choose them

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That would be wrong So foreknowledge really is not about knowing ahead of time in that sense

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But him knowing in a saving way the same group of people the ones who are the predestined ones

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Because he's going to predestine them in christ from a federal headship Ephesians 1 4 and that foreknowledge is his saving relationship with them

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Okay saving Relationship foreknowledge saving relationship with the pre ones.

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He also is predestining. They're the same group So he knows the ones he's going to save and then works the salvation out in real time through predestination

28:58

Well, well, I certainly appreciate you. Uh, you go through that Exactly. Uh, if you could take a moment,

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I think I want to let you hit this nail a little harder And in the view of in view of faith,

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I don't Uh, you said romans 2 and another passage. I didn't quit kitchen

29:17

Why in your opinion does that kind of serve as a problem for that view? because What's your name first name rob

29:26

Rob bob or rob rob. Yeah rob. Okay. Rob. Let me ask you a question Is there any good thing in you besides jesus before you're saved?

29:34

Is there any good thing in you? No No, so, uh, let's just say that I come into an assembly and i'm rich Oh, man, everybody knows that guy's so rich.

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Hey, you sit here at the head of the table And i'm famous sit here at the head of the table, right? That's showing prejudice based on a quality

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I possess but you see In a human perspective that's sin.

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That's james 2 2 through 4 Someone comes in and find clothing they have this they have that sit at the head of the table.

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Are you not judging? And so that's condemned by god. He doesn't look at any quality that we have

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So rob, you and I are in the same boat We're sinners by nature completely and totally so what have we got?

30:15

Nothing Nothing, so he is not going to condition his election based on anything in us

30:22

Can I ask you a follow up question real quick? Sure. What what if they pointed to? are

30:31

Having god's image as something good Genesis 1 26. I was just writing actually on that today the image of god the communicable attributes

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And incommunicable we are made in god's image in the sense that god has the attributes that we can participate in He loves we can love he hates we can hate he thinks we can think that's what it means to be made in god's image

30:52

And there's more to it, but that's an oversimplification So we're made in god's image, but sin has affected the image the imagio de would you say it's obscured?

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I don't know. I don't know the right verb is I just say affected Well, I just know that from reading genesis

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I find it interesting that when adam has his second kid it says he's made in adam's image

31:16

Yeah, and that's fine to be something different, you know going on that's fine. It's just the descendancy That's all that's going on there.

31:22

Yeah, but there was no descendancy with adam It was a direct creation and we could say in a very loose sense.

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His descendant is god You know antecedent is god but not in a biological sense, obviously

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So would you agree with the following statement? For knowledge of god is nothing else than god knows all things before they happen

31:44

No Because god knows all things before they happen because he's decreed that that's what will happen you got to think if you have

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A sphere is an infinite number of little lines that come out from the center different directions

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This is god's knowledge about all potential existences, right? Yeah, he picks one If he picks one, he knows everything that's going to happen in there

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Now, let's just say people have free will and they do but what does it mean biblically? Does it mean that god won't know which color shirt they're going to wear today?

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or tomorrow because if he knows and they can't He can't be free Ahead of time.

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That's not what it means people don't understand what that is So in order for the statement to be correct, it would have to involve god's decree

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Nothing can occur unless god has willed it to occur period

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So you'd have to say you'd have to say something like that first and then you can say That statement right there for the foreknowledge of god is nothing else than god knows all things before they happen

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For knowledge is is not causatory And it's not reactionary

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It's simultaneous with the infinite knowledge of god The foreknowledge I believe is the issue of relationship that god has with the saved with the elect

33:05

Okay Because it says those whom he foreknew he also predestined They're the same group romans 8 29.

33:13

That's why I say that Okay so you see For knowledge directly connected to the elect and so you can't say yes to that statement.

33:24

Okay In that sense that's how god uses it in romans 8 29 those whom he foreknew he also predestined

33:31

To become conformed to the image of his son They're the predestined they're the same group

33:37

Right. Okay. So matt you got a question that came up here. Sure Josiah does god decree abortion?

33:44

Yes. Now let's talk about what it means to decree Now, let me ask the person Does god work all things after the counsel of his will?

33:53

The bible says ephesians 1 11 Also, we have obtained an inheritance Having been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will so Does a person's abortion?

34:10

Is it worked after the counsel of god's will the answer has to be yes The death of my son

34:15

Yes, my wife's louise deets and her open heart surgery Yes, the fact that I just found out last week i'm diabetic boy

34:25

Okay Do all this after the decrees of god or the will of god? Of course if anyone denies that you're denying scripture

34:33

So people make a mistake and thinking that if god decrees it he's causing it

34:39

So I have to step sideways here and introduce a concept dealing with causation

34:45

Now the reason i'm going to do this is because this topic and this kind of topic has come up before And theologians through the centuries have discussed this

34:55

And they've raised certain issues and they've come up with certain things to think about It's not i'm making it up.

35:02

It's not someone trying to get out of a difficult thing. This is actual Rational discussion about the revelation of god

35:09

He not we know that god works all things after the counsel of his will we know that god knew adam would sin

35:16

It's not a surprise to god So what we have in levels of causation we have what's called the ultimate then the proximate then the efficient the ultimate cause of adam sinning

35:29

Is god The ultimate cause is god when we say ultimate cause we're not saying that god makes him do it

35:37

What we're saying is that god created the universe and the earth And the garden and put him in that garden

35:43

All right So he's the ultimate cause that god brought the broad scope of things into being the proximate like approximates right next to it the proximate causation would be

35:56

God allows adam and eve in the garden and he allows satan to come in to deceive

36:02

And he knows this right? He knows this He knows that satan through the snake will come in and deceive eve

36:13

God knows this He knows all things present even the open theist would admit to that He knows the condition of the evil one in the heart in the fall.

36:21

He knows this god's not going what's going to happen I hope this what's going to happen. That's not it so he's the proximate cause in that he allowed the

36:32

Circumstances to exist in which the fall could occur So eve sinned first she gave the fruit to adam we'll talk about adam and then he sinned

36:42

Did god cause adam to sin? No Did he bring about the circumstances in which adam could freely sin?

36:52

Yes So adam is what's called the efficient cause of his own sin

36:58

But god is what we would call the ultimate and in this case proximate That your circumstances are arranged so that a sin could occur but god's not forcing anybody to do it so when

37:10

Adam sinned he freely chose to sin No one forced him and he rebelled against god.

37:16

He therefore is his own cause Of his sin and we call this the efficient cause

37:22

So god decrees everything and when we say decree We means that there's stuff that god does ultimately in all things

37:32

And he does it directly and indirectly So he directly

37:37

Decreed that the universe exists the garden is there and he indirectly decreed to his permission because it can't occur

37:44

Unless it god permits it and if he permits it, it's his will And it occurs in the garden.

37:50

So it's what we call this indirect decree that it occurred but as far as efficient causation at the free will person in this sense is the efficient cause of his own sin

38:01

Aren't you talking about the uh, secondary causes from the westminster confession of faith right there?

38:07

Yeah, it's like that secondary causes. I don't read the westminster confession of faith I mean I haven't since I was in seminary Kind of presbyterian are you so let me let me do this a very good one,

38:16

I guess Yeah, and and and you'll just to see, you know, matt, uh, rob's rob is a lutheran.

38:21

So you'd at least feel good You don't see ms Yes, sir. I went to an lcms college.

38:27

You ever heard of rod rosenblatt? Yes, sir. He was my professor I know Okay, i've been listening to you for a long time.

38:35

Yeah, all right Uh, no, no, you're you're a lutheran heretic. It's okay. It's all right.

38:41

We we we put up with you Rob's rob's been in here done a couple debates, uh on on lutheranism, but rob.

38:47

Thanks for coming in I'm just gonna we're gonna move on to some other folks. Okay, did I answer you though? Rod that answers, you know, it does it does help me kind of uh,

38:55

Because I I asked you literally the first statement of our statement on election

39:01

And so that your answer does help me kind of figure out where we might like talk about this issue differently

39:08

Okay, i'm going to show you something really fast before you go. You've heard me talk about colossians 2 14, right?

39:14

Yes, sir Okay, the jesus canceled the certificate of debt the sin debt. Would you agree? Yes Does god's knowledge depend upon what people will do or does it depend upon what he decrees will occur?

39:30

What would you say? What he decrees will occur That's right. So then it can only be as it says that he canceled the sin debt

39:39

Did he cancel for everybody who ever lived? Yes If he canceled for everybody who ever lived then you're accusing god of unrighteousness by saying

39:49

That he will judge people to go to down to eternal damnation But if there is no sin to hold to their account

39:57

Then why would god send him to hell? It is eternal decree where he ordained that the people who would exist and that they would sin by his permissive will

40:08

Are the ones who have their sin imputed to christ from eternity? Yeah, scripture says that uh are are having a blank slate isn't good enough to send to heaven jesus says that unless your righteousness for far

40:22

Superiors the pharisees you will not see heaven If you're less you are relevant to this

40:28

It is though because i'll tell you why faith is necessary to enter heaven So if somebody doesn't have faith, they can still be judged

40:35

I didn't say it wasn't but faith jesus says believe in god believe also in me John 14 1 so it's a command to have faith, right?

40:45

If you don't have faith, it's a sin. Did he bear all of our sin? Well, this is where uh, we did he bear all of our sin

40:53

Yes Then he bore that sin of unbelief too. It's paid for so that sin cannot be held against them

40:59

He said god's decrees work against you when you understand the eternal work of god.

41:05

There is no mistake in god's economy Yeah, but the word of god backs me out. Uh Really then how come you can't answer the question if god eternally decrees

41:16

And the sins were imputed to christ and they're removed and unbelief is a command which god grants that we believe like it's 129

41:23

I agree. Okay, so if he grants it then If jesus canceled the sin that you gotta understand the sin debts canceled at the cross were justified when we believe they're different They're not the same thing.

41:35

I hear you cancel. The sin debt is different than the imputed righteousness of christ Happen at different times lutherans have an answer to this argument.

41:41

I'm, sorry They do I went to a lutheran college It's called the blasphemy of the holy spirit

41:48

That can't be forgiven in this age or the age to come and blasphemy. The holy spirit is saying jesus did his miracles Unrepentant hardened unbelief that that's not what blasphemy.

41:56

The holy spirit is I disagree with you You got we can talk about it, but that's not what it is I think we need to get both you guys come back and we actually should set up a formal debate.

42:04

Yeah Well, just a discussion, I mean he's nice, you know, yeah, actually no then we can you can have an informal debate

42:10

It could be so what is the definition of is calvinism a cult because I would disagree with the

42:16

I would disagree with the premise Yeah, well, I I would a christian cult or non -christian, but I but you guys are not a cult so we'll see and that's why that's why

42:25

I started with the definition of terms right because if you're if you're just I mean if you want to say a cult is a sect of A group of belief if you're going to be that general then yes

42:37

All the christians are a cult, right? Yeah It is important to understand the definition of terms now there were there was a time where people had defined a cult by just a group of people that had a

42:49

Belief system, but we now when we use the word cult we really mean it in a controlling group and so The idea of a cult the way that many

43:00

I think are using it with calvinism does not fit the definition Of a sect of people.

43:06

Otherwise, they're saying that they're a sect because what are they doing? They're saying calvinism is a cult But their position is not when they're saying that it can't be that general

43:16

Definition because they would be fit within that well in order to be a sect wouldn't you have to split off from your your church?

43:23

I mean Some calvinists stay within a church with fellow armenians sometimes But yeah,

43:29

I go to calvary chapel. See yeah, matt goes to calvary chapel. He's in a cult and his Like calvinist so I mean that's actually a good example that i've been using a lot recently matt

43:41

Although you didn't know that but uh is is matt goes to a calvary chapel church Where his pastor and there was a time where once his pastor was on the radio before him

43:50

And no, no, I got him on the radio got him on the radio, but he was there was he was on the hour before you Oh the hour before okay, and he was he was just doing a whole thing against calvinism

44:00

Then matt had found out matt got a caller that calls and goes the guy before you was bashing calvinism and matt's like well

44:06

That was my pastor Now here's the thing that you see with it matt preaches at that pulpit

44:12

Right, I used to Yeah, and it's a thing where there's the respect there even though the guy disagrees with calvinism

44:19

You know and so there is that there is a working we can have with it But in that general sect sect of just saying it's a sect a group of belief that have a belief

44:28

Well, everyone has that every group can be defined as a cult if it's that general And that's why

44:34

I don't think that fits Okay, i'm going to add something and really settle this If he means cult as in non -save that's a problem

44:42

Because there are essential doctrines of the christian faith that are that are actually decreed and or excuse me revealed in scripture

44:48

We can go right to them. Let me show you calvinism doesn't violate any of those Essential doctrines are the deity of christ the physical resurrection justification by faith alone monotheism

44:58

Uh, and the nature of the gospel and that jesus is only way calvinists agree with that Unfortunately, though you got to keep in mind.

45:05

These guys have been in an echo chamber a long time And they they would say because of the idea of god that you guys have that that would be why you guys

45:16

Let's talk about that. Let's see who has a more biblical view of god. Hold on So this is the reason rob that the first thing

45:23

I wanted to do coming in and and i'm gonna We have a couple people backstage. I'm, sorry. I'm, sorry. I just wanted to you know

45:30

Yep I thank you for coming in and i'm gonna just put you backstage um, and matt, of course takes takes my thunder exactly where I was going and just tries to flick his way in and answering

45:41

The chance. Hey, I am slicker than you Uh only once when it came to buying meals, which is explains the uh, the intro that you didn't hear

45:51

So so here's the thing When we look at the definition, they can't have this broad definition

45:57

What what a lot of these guys are saying is you see the the anti -calvinists they're saying calvinists are are a cult

46:03

What they're meaning by that as we heard in the debate two two weeks ago Is the claim that well it is you're not saved and and and my opponent actually claimed that he claimed

46:15

I was not saved based on my beliefs in calvinism That's ridiculous when you get to that point and and folks there are there are people that Believe what's called high calvinism and what they would say is if you don't believe in calvinism

46:30

You're not saved meaning you have to believe the doctrines Not the meaning of calvinism that we'd explain when we share the gospel right

46:39

But the the idea that you have to actually Understand and believe calvinism to be saved. I would put that at the same extreme

46:46

When you're calling and this is what matt ended up saying is when you're when you call someone unsaved based on on secondary doctrines

46:55

Then that is where what you're saying is they're a cult meaning that you're you're damning them

47:01

But that that is a definition of cult that we don't have that's a definition of heresy

47:07

And heresy is a false teaching now. You have two types of heresy. You have damnable heresy

47:13

And that would be where you're where uh believing in a false teaching that that is like denying the deity of christ

47:19

That's a damnable heresy, right? If you deny the deity of christ, you have a false teaching that damns you to hell.

47:25

That's different than than a a false teaching um You know pick one, uh, you know infant baptism.

47:34

That's a false teaching Yeah, I affirm it but he does but it's okay And we got the presbytery right but like, you know, that would be somewhere matt and I would disagree on infant baptism

47:44

But I don't say think more That's not saved over there Charismatic is that doesn't mean that matt's not saved over those issues

47:52

That matt would think I have a false teaching. I think he is a false teaching but we can still Believe that each other's saved and have have a relationship now romans romans 14

48:04

Do not pass judgment on your brother on debatable issues Yeah So I had a debate on monday night unlimited atonement with a christian pastor and we prayed together before the debate

48:17

And I was praising him during that debate. He's a good guy this and that and I would go out and witness with him

48:23

And that's it. We have more in common Than we have apart. In fact, can I bring something up? I want to ask your guys opinion on something uh

48:32

Because i've had some experiences lately that have been rather disturbing. I was on discord and I gave the gospel and uh christians attacked

48:41

You did? Yeah, I heard you talking. Well, somebody sent me a link to your your live discussion.

48:47

You talked about it Yeah, I got attacked by christians Those who follow christ they say and it was a dogpile vicious attack on my calvinism

48:56

Because how could I dare do that? If i'm a calvinist give the gospel And it really disturbed me.

49:03

I haven't been on uh discord. I probably won't ever go. I don't want to go back on I I one guy wants to discuss justification by faith with me

49:09

I might go back for that reason and talk about it probably on monday, but it was such a disturbing thing

49:15

Now the reason i'm I preambled that is because of what jesus says in matthew 24 The last days all these various things are going to happen and he says this in verse 12

49:25

Because lawlessness is increased most people's love will grow cold

49:32

And because of what happened, you know a couple three weeks ago in this verse I'm having to re -examine my own issue of love what it means to love my brothers and sisters in christ

49:41

And to focus on what we have in common the death bell resurrection of jesus It's far far far far more important that we focus on that than limited atonement eternal security things like that Correct, and I was wondering what do you guys think after having said all that most people's love grow cold

49:57

Do you think that includes the christians? Well, you end up seeing in revelation that Christ will say the church loses its first love

50:07

I think that I think that there is a case that you know, I think If you read anything basically any book from jerry bridges,

50:15

I mean any book Yeah, it's basically the same thing I mean he you could sum up every single book of jerry bridges in one thing preach the gospel to yourself because that's really that's like what every one of his books is about because what he's getting to is the fact that we tend to forget from where we came

50:36

And and because of that I think that we end up Not valuing

50:43

As much what christ did for us with with years of of unfortunately like with i'm saying years of maturity, but it actually

50:51

I guess Is that really maturity? Are we losing the maturity in a sense? right Uh, but I I think there's there's a point that could be made there.

50:59

Yes Yeah, okay. I think you also have to consider that you have a theological level of isolation

51:05

Uh, you know, we go to seminary we have our friends we have our groups and you know

51:12

The the idea of this is a cult or this is a false teaching or that is something that's aberrant

51:18

It gets ingrained in our minds. So we look at somebody like a presbyterian or a lutheran or or anything

51:24

That's not us, you know a baptist, you know anything It's not us and they're the ones that are wrong and they're the enemy and instead of saying

51:31

Right when I noticed I noticed this happened when um Uh, and it wasn't paul washer's fault, but i'm going to say well paul washer came to the deeper conference when he came in, you know, he was like, you know lightning and thunder he came in and it was just It was amazing, you know, just listening to him and whatnot and and it was like there was this instant divide if you are

51:55

You know possibly armenian Then oh, you know, you can't be that smart you gotta listen to paul washer, you know

52:01

Oh, he's a great, you know reformed brother and he's this that and the other and and there was this division within friends of mine um that it went to to the point where You know, oh, we're not gonna go out and share the gospel with you

52:14

Well, what was the deeper conference all about? You know, what was it all about? It wasn't about let's get, you know, doctrinally divided

52:20

It was about how do we get deeper into the word of god studying the word of god? Together and going out and proclaiming the gospel and encouraging christians to go out and do it and and that almost stopped that almost stopped put the brakes on it because now you have this doctrinal divide and everybody's worrying about all this and arguing over it rather than Hey, let me get together with my presbyterian brother and whatever and go share the gospel, you know

52:44

Let me let me use this as a as a way of illustrating that Matt slick and I we've debated and this is matt and i've debated each other more than anyone else um

52:54

And a lot of different topics because we have a lot of areas We disagree because of our backgrounds and our way of approaching scripture interpreting it

53:01

Uh, but it was interesting matt and I were on an apologetics cruise And we did a debate on covenant theology versus That was fun

53:11

You know, one of the people said they noticed what what matt and I were both doing was

53:16

I was answering Against the strawman arguments that my side would have against a covenant theologian

53:23

He was doing the same thing with the way covenant theologians would make strawman arguments against dispensation We were both defending each other's side from the point of those that would be on our side, but make false arguments and the thing was is that We sat there and someone ended up saying they noticed that and they said why is it?

53:42

You guys have so many different areas you disagree with and yet You guys get along so well and and matt had a really good answer

53:51

His answer was because andrew and I both know we're wrong in our theology somewhere. We don't know

53:56

If we did we would change it, but where we both approach our theology knowing we could that were wrong in areas

54:03

And therefore we're not prideful about the fact that i'm right You're wrong. If you disagree with me, you must be wrong because I must be right

54:10

I think that was really insightful because it really does answer the question. Why is it that we can I mean?

54:16

We've debated infant baptism. We've uh, we've debated baptism several times Um, we've debated covenant theology and dispensational several times gifts several times.

54:26

We've done we've done several of these different debates Why is it we can get along? Why can we be such good friends?

54:32

It's very simple because we're not prideful about our theology I mean, I recognize square

54:39

Heaven You know union square union square. Yeah What about And we've gone out we've we've done open air union square together.

54:49

We've done open air the jersey boardwalk or something like that, right? Yep. Yeah No, I mean

54:54

I just think about you know, like, you know, mike stockwell, you know, our brother's here with us and whatnot You know, nobody agrees with him, but we all love him and and he's here with us

55:04

Who is this guy? Maybe I won't like him. No, no, you won't like nobody likes him. We will put up with him

55:09

He he won't even come over the house anymore You know, we got food waiting for him and it's all rotten now because he won't come over Obviously I I provide better food than you do

55:19

I guess so it's Salmon, it's the smoked salmon. I just take the invite

55:26

You come over anytime Oh so so You know, let me because we got a couple people backstage and I know some that'll probably take a little bit may take a little bit longer

55:38

Um, let me do this before we get to some of the folks I want to do something really quick because We the importance in the discussion.

55:45

Is calvinism a cult? We we start with definitions of terms. So if you're going to take the definition that I gave

55:52

Then you have to show how calvinism controls people And I don't think that's what they mean when they say calvinism is a cult when they're saying calvinism a cult

56:01

I think what they mean is it's a damnable heresy So it's it's a wrong

56:07

Definitely a wrong term to use in in the in just off the out of the gate um

56:13

Now when they say that it's a false teaching You you have to support that with scripture.

56:19

And here's the thing. I ended up finding I find that most people In fact, if anyone who saw the debate two weeks ago, you saw my opponent who could when asked

56:30

I asked him five points and I asked him all five points without using labels. What happened? My opponent believes in calvinism

56:38

He is a calvinist by the meaning of the terminology, but then the second round of cross -examination

56:45

I asked him to define total depravity Unconditional election limited and he couldn't define any of them correctly.

56:51

Now that means he's fighting a straw man argument, but here's the thing if Somebody has a misdefinition of calvinism and then says that it's wrong

57:01

Or it's a cult or it's even damnable heresy the problem you have

57:07

Is that they're not fighting against what the real definition is now granted a lot of people have a wide range of views of of calvinism

57:16

Okay, you you have some that are extremes You heard matt talking earlier with the decrees and some people hear that and say you believe in determinism

57:26

If you believe that then you really need to listen carefully Because he explained the differences there and and I want you to note something

57:33

I was going to point out but matt Matt actually did it for me is when you listened to him explain the decrees earlier

57:40

What did he focus on? attributes and nature perfections of god Who is and this is the mistake many people make when they're trying to define calvinism

57:51

Is they they are creating a god that doesn't exist a god that's bound by time or knowledge

57:58

Okay, the reality is like as matt explained It is not that god causes us to believe something because he decrees something

58:08

Or I should I use believe but it caused us to use the example of sin yeah, so Just because we do something doesn't mean that god decrees it but doesn't cause it

58:21

Okay. Now that's a distinction that some people don't want to Listen to because they want to attack calvinism

58:28

I understand that but you have to be fair with what it actually says So one of the the key verses that I I brought up in the debate two weeks ago matt brought it up earlier as philippians 129.

58:38

Why? Because it's very clear that it says that god granted for christ's sake two things

58:45

Not only that you believe but also that you suffer for for christ for his sake for christ's sake so god

58:52

Grants or as my opponent read out of king james. He gives belief and suffering

58:58

Now some of that suffering is things we choose that becomes an issue now. We're choosing that that's not

59:05

As as matt said god decrees it doesn't cause it. So there is that there was a question earlier that I saw about did god uh cause um judas to To betray him.

59:16

Well, he decreed it but judas judas chose to do that Now you this is this may be an a difficult thing for us

59:24

But we have to understand that god is omniscient. He knows all things.

59:30

He didn't learn a single thing god Never learned learning something takes observation.

59:38

That's how we do things we learn we get knowledge through learning God didn't have knowledge through learning.

59:44

He just knows all things He's eternal Now I would say that means he's he's outside of time but works within time so everything would be an eternal now to god meaning that to god

59:57

He's everything is happening at the same eternal second He's he has a complete knowledge of everything therefore most of the people have a difficulty with when it comes to these teachings are the fact of Cause and effect of how does god decree something without causing something?

01:00:17

How can he know something? Before it happens in time Without forcing it to happen

01:00:24

And that gets down to the question of the attributes of god And that's why if you listen to what matt said earlier, he went through that Now, let me we got a couple people backstage.

01:00:33

I'm just going to bring in john just because well john likes to to put up Um, let me let me remove the banner here john likes to just come in with with names for each show

01:00:43

So that that's how he he makes sure that we bring him in this week. He is the calvinist So i'm not

01:00:53

Good show Matt we got someone worse backstage. We got someone waiting for you backstage.

01:00:59

Yeah No, john's a good guy, he's a good guy Uh, you know, uh, let me just say this uh as far as the calvinism being a cult and all that I I go to a a um a church that is mostly just a

01:01:23

Community church, that's all it is, you know, and matt you've been there before too. And so oh, yeah um good church good people good people and all that kind of stuff, but you know, there were a few people within that church that are

01:01:35

Completely anti -calvinist they are just bring me back up and But you know what?

01:01:44

Because because of what matt has has taught many times over and over and over was

01:01:52

Know the difference between your essentials and know the difference between your non -essentials in the faith once you do that You're able to approach them with a much more loving way

01:02:03

And to be able to say hey brother, you know, this is something that's just adiaphora

01:02:09

It's just it's nothing. This is not a big deal. You know, it's not like you're denying the the deity of christ um so What another thing too that I that i've always noticed was that Non -calvinists will always try

01:02:27

To do everything they can to make man Gooder If that's if that's a way of saying it where Basically, they don't understand what total depravity really does mean and they they

01:02:47

They want to continue Convincing themselves. I I think anyways that Uh, man is basically essentially good

01:02:57

And that you know there needs to be a Better understanding of of our sinful nature and what does that entail?

01:03:06

I I don't know about that john I think I think what it really comes down to is the way I explain is the difference between what we experience

01:03:13

And what we know theologically so experientially We chose god theologically god chose us, right?

01:03:20

And so what you have is people that focus a lot on what they experienced

01:03:26

And they think that is what validates it they know what they had happened to them And what they mean by that is

01:03:32

I know that I had a time that I hated god and then I chose to repent And and so their focus is on it's their experience that is interpreting

01:03:42

So is you I know you've taken my course at the striving fraternity academy on hermeneutics, right?

01:03:48

And so what do I always talk throughout that there's two ways of interpreting scripture by rules Or by experience, right?

01:03:55

So what do you have by experience people go? Well, this is what I experienced So now i'm going to look at scripture and say well, this is my experience.

01:04:01

It matches with scripture Okay, that's different Right then by saying okay

01:04:07

This is the rules how we interpret and i'm going to use those same rules every time and I think that's the struggle that people

01:04:12

Have I mean that was a struggle we saw two weeks ago with mr Fuentes where you know when it was convenient form

01:04:18

He wants to look at context when it isn't doesn't match up with what he wants the bible to say

01:04:23

Well, then then it's a standalone verse and we can we can ignore all the context That's the behavior you end up seeing

01:04:30

I think right, right Yeah, so I wrote something on the little side chat and I was going to ask you guys would this be accurate?

01:04:39

Theologian i'm quoting this a theologian sometimes say that god is not the author author of sin

01:04:45

The author of a book not only writes it but he recommends what is in it a publisher

01:04:53

Distributes a book but does not necessarily agree with it we may say in That in relation to sin god is like a publisher not an author um

01:05:07

What do you guys think of that? I mean as far as I don't know that it's perfect in the sense because having a

01:05:15

Published so i've done a book self -published and and one through a publisher and I can I could say this

01:05:20

Um, the problem with a publisher is they do control content Right. So even though I was the author they edit it even even against my wishes they edit it um, and so you do have that where You know, you can have a case where though you may be the author

01:05:37

They control the content so it may not be a perfect analogy, okay That was uh, actually from jonathan, uh, john frame from uh, systematic theology so, um

01:05:48

He taught matt so Being matt's professor.

01:05:54

He must be wrong. Well, john. Thanks for coming in. I want to move on uh, because we are getting I think we have a couple people that may take a little bit more time and I see this a gentleman mark who keeps trying

01:06:04

To connect in I I don't know if he might need to give permission to his browser um

01:06:10

And so just tell him how to do that though Yeah, so when you when you come into streamyard what you want to do is you come in And your browser is going to ask you for permission the upper left url area

01:06:24

Usually it's uh, and and it'll ask you for permission to use your microphone and camera

01:06:30

So you want to allow that if you've if you've said no to that Um, you may need to go into a private window and try it that way uh, or you may need to i'm not sure in each browser depending what browser you have what the instructions would be so you

01:06:43

Might have to go and do a quick duck duck go search on how to allow camera and microphone in a in that browser or go to your settings and just allow them or Refresh the page a lot of times that'll come in and ask but yeah, yeah, uh, and I'll also say uh,

01:06:58

Drew, I know you're you sent you're saying you sent me a picture on messenger. I'm not seeing it Um, I know you want to send it to him

01:07:06

Okay. Yeah, i'll take care of it in the background. I want to read something to you real quick. It's from edward hopkins from 1887

01:07:14

Um, he wrote this he says I sought the lord and afterward I knew He moved my soul to seek him seeking me

01:07:22

It was not that I found oh savior true. No, I was found of thee

01:07:28

Thou didst reach forth thy hand and mine in fold I walked and sank not on the storm vexed sea

01:07:36

Twas not so much that I looked to thee uh thee to hold

01:07:43

Uh, yes thou dear lord on me I find I walk I love but you but oh the whole of love

01:07:52

Is but my answer lord to thee For thou wert long beforehand with my soul

01:08:00

Amaze always uh thou lovest me and the idea there is while this man acknowledges that he

01:08:09

Was saved he reached out to god. He cried out to god He later came to understand that it was god who reached him first Correct, and you know, one of the best analogies that I like to ask people

01:08:21

Do you believe in god apart from god exposing himself to you in any way? In other words, somebody gave you a gospel track

01:08:27

Uh somebody somebody, uh, you have a bible in your hand You studied the scripture in some way.

01:08:33

Did god send send the knowledge of himself to you? Yeah, and if that's the case, then you can't claim your own

01:08:41

Inherent knowledge on your own. Oh, I did it my way. You know, you can't do that Yeah, well, let me do this before we go

01:08:47

We have at least two people backstage that are going to take the i'm going to try to get to one to the bottom Of the hour then one, uh will pick up at the bottom of the hour

01:08:55

So now would be a good time for us to just take a quick commercial break And let you know that this show is sponsored by my pillow

01:09:01

And if you want now, I know matt has himself on my pillow matt. Do you like your my pillow? Yes And uh, so Now what matt may not have matt.

01:09:13

Have you tried the mattress topper? I have it. I love it Yeah, that that is I absolutely love my mattress topper for my pillow that that's great

01:09:22

So if you guys want you you're running out of ideas for christmas gifts for that hard to get person

01:09:28

My pillow is always a great gift because everyone always needs a pillow So if you wanted to get yourself either a pillow the mattress topper, they have they have robes.

01:09:36

They got slippers I'm wearing a my my pillow or actually called my slippers right now. They are very comfortable uh

01:09:43

Enjoy them thoroughly and I usually would go through like a pair of slippers a year because I just I don't know what it is

01:09:48

I must be hard on my slippers. Either that or i'm just too cheap and I always get the director feet Yeah So I I guess i'm hard on my slippers

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I just buy the real cheap ones But I love these from my pillow if you go to mypillow .com And use the promo code sfe that stands for striving for eternity use promo code sfe when you go to mypillow .com

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That's 800 -873 -0176 That gets you the discounts to use and that also lets them know that you uh,

01:10:26

Found out about them through striving for eternity and that uh keeps them sponsoring the show keeping us

01:10:32

Doing some of these things that we're doing now with that. I I want to bring uh, I want to bring cole in But I saw he walked away from he's just came back up I have something for you.

01:10:44

Okay, this for everybody is ret vanita, um drew drew is the proud daddy of this brand new handsome young man and Here I thought he was sending us some picture about calvinism.

01:11:01

He's just a proud daddy wanting to brag, huh? Yeah, he was a little worried there. He was he was

01:11:07

He was a little worried there for a few days, you know kind of blood sugar issues and whatnot But he's he's at home now and we just want to say congratulations

01:11:15

Uh for everybody doesn't know drew he's got his own podcast. What's the name of that podcast again? Well, it depends on the week whether he's on it, but it's matter of theology

01:11:24

But he's kind of like on and off he comes on says i'm gonna go off because i'm gonna do some other things

01:11:30

And then he's back on so you never know but matter of theology is pretty good. I'm gonna bring cole in Cole welcome to the show

01:11:40

Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can Awesome. I'm on my phone. I didn't know if this would work on the phone, but it does

01:11:47

Justin something. Hey, justin, you see that you see how mad is on the lower, right? Watch this

01:11:54

I just I could switch them around. So there you go. How'd you do that?

01:11:59

You just click on the person, right? Yeah, so all right, that doesn't mean you should go doing it justin because you you'll

01:12:06

I know now that I showed you mess it up Yeah, so cole. How are you tonight? What questions do you have?

01:12:12

I saw you making some comments, uh in the chat Oh, yeah. Um I'm doing pretty good.

01:12:19

I'm still binging the the content catching the new stuff and whatnot.

01:12:25

Um I got hooked up with somebody and uh, some biblical counseling not christian counseling square quotes

01:12:32

I went through that once before or a couple sessions. That wasn't fun. But anyway No, I yeah, it was really interesting to hearing you guys talk with what he was saying about um the uh god's judgment on sin and whether or not it's

01:12:49

For all sin or just a select few on sin and I what came to mind was double jeopardy

01:12:55

Right, you can't judge. You can't judge something twice and right I mean right so There's that and I think another way

01:13:08

I may and correct me if i'm wrong on this this is I I was having this conversation with my pastor and the the topic of um

01:13:17

What's the there's a theory out there because there's all these really crazy crackpot. Uh world views and some people have a uh, simulation theory but really simulation theory in a way kind of works with what we're talking about because what we're talking about is

01:13:33

Say again One of them is syllopsism, but go ahead yeah, well like in the best way to put it and I think of it like because i'm a i'm a techie a gamer geek whatever and I think of it like this where Um, you know the developers go out of their way they use words right world was created by the word

01:13:54

Right to spawn everything into creation. We spawn is the word that we use in developing and in video games in particular

01:14:02

It's like we don't you know, but people when they go and they sit down they play a game They go through and they interact with the characters.

01:14:09

They're not complaining about whether or not there's good guys and bad guys They're just going through it because it's expected, right?

01:14:15

Everything is there for a purpose Yet for some reason in life people want to do that very thing with god and they'll

01:14:23

I mean not that people don't complain about video games because trust me when I go into the comment section or in Different places like on discord i'm on discord

01:14:30

But I like discord people get mad when when they're when their favorite games come out and then they're not the way they want

01:14:36

People get mad at the developers, but it's like that's that guy's artwork It's his creation to do with as he pleases

01:14:42

And we understand that in our little bubbles, but when it comes to something that is

01:14:49

You know some we would have to answer to people get all heard about it um

01:14:54

But yeah, that was that was what I thought I really didn't have too many questions I just want to say hey and you know, thanks for doing what you're doing here because okay

01:15:03

But if I had a question or something I would have popped it in there Okay. All right. I'll put you backstage uh and and Um, there's one more person that I see backstage.

01:15:13

I don't want to say his name yet uh, because He was on camera and i'm wait.

01:15:19

I'll wait I'll wait for him to come back on camera. Okay, so he is here. I just want to make sure so matt Prepare yourselves because you're going to have to speak to the doctor doctor

01:15:34

Ed. Oh, man Hey, how are you man doing?

01:15:39

All right, brother. How are you? Did you know that ed is now a doctor? Did you know that? I know now he's rubbing it in he's uppity now.

01:15:46

He has more degrees in the thermometer So yeah uppity yet still crippled

01:15:54

So, uh folks that may not know ed is ed is a A good friend of both matt's and mine.

01:16:00

We've gotten to know him over the years. Uh, Would it be would it be right? You think matt wicked smart would that be a fair?

01:16:07

Uh, I I'd do the smart part off and just go with the first part Yeah I'm a row.

01:16:15

I'm a rolling testament to total depravity. Yes I thought that was uh, andrew.

01:16:21

Oh, sorry. Okay. Let's see, but i'm not rolling I walk so so okay. There you go Let me tell I I gotta tell this story.

01:16:28

That is my favorite story with with ed. Okay, matt You're just gonna have to picture this. We're we're in new york

01:16:35

Ed has a a headset on with with wireless speakers Okay, so he's got a microphone

01:16:42

He is in in this little area where there's like a circle where you could sit and he's in the center In his wheelchair and he's preaching the gospel and there's this big guy that's getting angry

01:16:54

And he doesn't know who's preaching. He's looking around and I I was actually I was on the phone at the at that moment

01:17:01

Uh, and i'm like talking to someone and this guy's getting angry and I say finally turns looks at the speaker and he screams

01:17:09

Whoever you are if you don't shut up i'm gonna punch you in the face And ed just looks he's looking at the guy and he goes you're gonna hit a handicapped guy

01:17:19

And the guy just suddenly turns looks right in the center and looks at the Ed in his wheelchair with the headset on and just starts making a b -line for him

01:17:28

I'm, like i'm on the phone going I gotta go click I hung up and I was I was actually talking to one of paul washer's pastors and i'm just like I gotta go and hung up on him

01:17:37

And I go right up and i'm like trying to cut this guy off And I couldn't get there in time

01:17:43

And the guy walks right up to to ed and i'm like right behind him and he gives ed a fist bump

01:17:48

And goes keep up the good work man and walks on And i'm just sitting there like what so it gets done preaching like ed.

01:17:56

What in the world was that he goes Man crippled people can get away with anything Uh, yep the guy went from you to saying keep up the good work

01:18:08

Yep so point in case if Anybody wants to be a really effective open -air preacher just sit in a wheelchair

01:18:17

There you go Justin peters does it all the time. Yeah, that's right. It's totally different Oh, yeah, totally different.

01:18:25

He doesn't have all the cuteness factor that I that I did So Hey, um just to let you guys know

01:18:35

Before we all get ourselves canceled. Um, I I did come here with a uh

01:18:41

With a point to make in regards to the topic. Um I I think that Calvinism in and of itself is not a cult.

01:18:52

I mean i'm not one but I do think that there are Um professing churches that Hold to the doctrines of grace on paper

01:19:05

But they have cult -like or cultish tendencies Um andrew you and I Have spoken of a particular church in iowa quite a bit

01:19:16

Yes So so like that would be an example of a

01:19:21

Of a professing congregation and pastor that would adhere to and And even talk about the doctrines of grace from their pulpit

01:19:32

But their other practices cancel out all the good that could come of that Does that make sense?

01:19:40

Yes so Yeah, so it's not always they might agree

01:19:46

They might even agree with our position and we might still say that they're a cult Because it's not

01:19:53

So I want to be clear with this. It's not necessarily the teaching that makes someone a cult It's some it's the behavior so You might have a teaching that's orthodox in most ways

01:20:06

But then you have this behavior where you control people And you have certain teachings that you use to control those people that would then make you into the definition of a cult right, if you think if you think along the lines of you know,

01:20:19

I believe in total depravity, but It's obvious look at matt slick. He's just depraved.

01:20:24

He's just saying that i'm not playing around I'm being serious and and i'm talking about look at him. I'm so much better than him

01:20:30

What it's saying is i'm inconsistent I don't understand the actual teaching And I inconsistently apply it

01:20:37

I look at myself even within the congregation. I'm better than my own congregation I can I need to lord over them

01:20:43

I need to stand over them. Yeah, you're right. I mean it can happen in any group, you know i've seen it in armenian and calvinist, so Everything between I mean look i've had plenty of people that have said armenians are are not saved

01:20:56

They're a cult and i've seen plenty of but you know, i've seen plenty of armenians say that about calvinists as well

01:21:01

So in both groups you have the same pride issue Now matt doesn't have that issue because he's very proud of his humility.

01:21:08

He says it on the radio often extremely He's very humble i'm going to i'm growing in my pride about my humility daily

01:21:15

Yeah, wonderful. I have to beat him to his line before he already stole mine earlier. So what?

01:21:21

You you stole I was making a point earlier and you jumped in interrupted me and then said exactly what I was planning on saying so it's

01:21:29

I figured I might as well take your line quickly before you get a chance I'm proud of my humility bill mckeever is what he taught me that would

01:21:36

Oh, yeah, we had bill mckeever on last week That's what he said, you know, i'm the most humble here because i'm not even on the picture until now

01:21:47

There you go pictures and now you're not humble but I can control that Oh, he's humble again

01:21:58

Okay, so I I I will put this thing up here because this was pretty funny from melissa She says quote justin peters does it all the time unquote made me spit my t across the room

01:22:08

So see that ed you have that you have the ability to make someone spit their t across the room I i'm glad i'm glad So so justin and I have an understanding that bar surpasses most other human beings.

01:22:24

So there you go Yeah, well you you both have the same You know, both of you have cerebral palsy um

01:22:32

Which which you know now I think matt, you know, I I think actually just um ed you're the one that told me this but I think when you used to call matt's program

01:22:42

Early on before he knew who you were and really got to know you And because your cerebral palsy it affects your speech

01:22:48

And he used to think you were drunk and I remember you telling me that he actually asked you on the air once And you had to explain that he had cerebral palsy and that he felt really bad

01:23:00

It wasn't on his radio show. It was an old pal talk. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay.

01:23:05

Okay Well, we get a lot of wackos there and he came on and I was I was a little confused because he was Smart and he's getting it and yet he had this speech problem.

01:23:14

I thought it might be drunk. I just asked He goes don't answer me pause. I went. Oh, okay No big deal.

01:23:20

I still like him yeah, but of course I give him a hard time all the time about it now because Yes, I met

01:23:28

I met matt before I started my m dip Which was in 2013

01:23:35

We've known each other for a while What's that? I said we've known each other too long

01:23:42

Yeah, just imagine till the end of eternity then Oh, it's gonna be wonderful to all of us together

01:23:50

Yeah, but by then matt's gonna have his his all this theology, right and he's gonna have everything. That's right I will by then

01:23:56

I will have it. I will be dispensational. It'll be okay It'll be great. Let me let me do this dispensation of eternity, right?

01:24:04

melissa lex, uh who is from uh Thoroughly equipped podcast. That's one of the podcasts at the christian podcast me

01:24:11

Uh, if you want to go just go to christianpodcastme .org Uh go into shows and you'll find her show, but she asks a question here matt

01:24:19

And no one else wants that this to be answered. Uh, did anyone talk about the claim that calvinism is a form of gnosticism?

01:24:27

I keep having To address this on facebook. So let me first define gnosticism Uh, and and how people are trying to make this correlation and then i'll put this out to you guys as well the gnosticism

01:24:41

Is a first century teaching that basically the teaching was they had those that were gnostics had an enlightenment

01:24:48

They had a greater knowledge than other people They one of the things they would teach is that anything physical was bad, but anything spiritual was good

01:24:58

Um, so that allowed them to do some things like sleep with prostitutes as long as they didn't give their body as long as they

01:25:04

Didn't give their spirit over to it um, so you'd see them have some beliefs like that now what we end up seeing with that is

01:25:12

Uh, there is the idea of this higher knowledge that they had now some people claim

01:25:19

That calvinism is similar to that in the sense that we claim we have a higher knowledge than what the bible says um, and that somehow

01:25:28

Uh, this is a form of gnosticism Gnosticism in simple is a pride

01:25:35

It's it's the pride no different than any other group that I know something you don't know And I feel i'm more superior and if you don't understand it, you just don't know what

01:25:46

I know I'll give some examples in in several different areas. So you realize i'm not picking in one specific group

01:25:52

I did I was a moderator for a debate on charismatic gifts the person who supported the position that the charismatic gifts continued said

01:26:02

If you don't believe in the gifts, you can't understand the bible That would be the same thinking that some people would say with calvinism

01:26:12

You you'll see I remember talking to a pastor Who uh said that if I didn't understand if I didn't believe in the king james bible and that alone uh to Interpret that would even interpret the greek or hebrew if I didn't accept that then

01:26:28

I couldn't read the bible. I couldn't understand the bible You end up seeing it in a lot of other areas other than just calvinism or arminianism and I would say

01:26:37

There there's some arminians that you can make the same claim that they would say that they have

01:26:43

If you watch the debate two weeks ago You see a guy who says that he gets to decide when context matters or doesn't matter when reading the scripture

01:26:51

He's going to decide with if there's verses that he claims are standalone. You don't have to read the context around him

01:26:57

Well, we're not understanding the bible because we're not understanding it the way he's reading it

01:27:02

And I want to just point out that this idea is in All of us this idea of we we have a pride issue and all of us are susceptible to that and so When people say this and I think layton flowers is the one that's been been making that claim

01:27:19

And and i'm saying this is somewhat matt and I both know layton. He's he's a nice guy We disagree with him theologically.

01:27:26

I disagree with how he goes about interpreting scripture, but the point being is we can go along and the the the fact is that When we look at this we have to recognize that some people don't have a check on their pride

01:27:40

And that allows them to think like they have a superior thinking they're enlightened and everyone else is wrong

01:27:46

If you don't agree with them, i'll just say go back to what I quoted from matt slick earlier

01:27:53

When we had that debate, why is it matt and I can disagree on so many things and still get along so well

01:27:58

Because as matt said we both know that we're wrong in our theology somewhere. We just don't know where And we could joke about the fact that we both think we're right and the other's wrong we joke about that But we both are not going to Exclude one another

01:28:13

So so that would be my answer to the is calvinism like gnosticism. I'll open up to you guys

01:28:19

Uh how you want to answer? matt

01:28:24

Justin, let's go for it brother. Oh Yeah, the important thing is christ crucified. That's what we preach colossians.

01:28:30

I mean first corinthians 1 23 I believe it is we preach christ and him crucified Paul taught predestination

01:28:36

Paul taught election. That's where we get our stuff is from that and uh But the goal is to preach christ and him crucified

01:28:43

It's the power the gospel is the power of god of salvation for everyone who would believe for the jew first the gentile second Romans 1 16.

01:28:50

So we're to preach the gospel. So when When for example when we're at union square, uh, andrew and I were open air preaching

01:28:56

Uh, I don't know four years ago five years ago, whatever it was Um, we just took terms, huh? More than that.

01:29:02

It's probably like seven years ago. Oh, wow But we just took turns, you know He preached for a while then i'd preach for a while and we both preached the same thing

01:29:10

You need to believe you need to trust in christ Uh, jesus died in the cross rose from the dead. We preach christ and him crucified the only thing

01:29:17

I won't say Since I became reformed when i'm preaching and teaching about that is to say christ loves you or specifically because Bible says he he hates a sinner and so I have a little trouble with that But I I say

01:29:32

I won't say he died for you that's what I say, but I won't say He won't die for you. I say he died for sinners

01:29:38

And I move on that's all that's the only difference Well, let me melissa, uh as the follow -up here.

01:29:44

Um Now just scrolled off the page. It's not gnostic. We don't have a we have knowledge that's derived out of scripture

01:29:50

Not essential not some gnostic idea that you don't have outside of scripture That's why whenever I debate this stuff i'm teaching i'm going the bible says this here the bible says this here

01:30:00

Let's go to here. Let's go to here. That's what I do And did I say one thing in regards to the question there?

01:30:07

Yeah, go ahead to the one that just Uh to the one that you asked about So I would argue

01:30:17

That the whole point of the protestant reformation was to go back to the

01:30:24

Simple teaching teaching of scripture as our final authority in life and practice and with with gnosticism this idea of secret higher knowledge,

01:30:37

I think you find that in medieval catholicism in the doctrines of Purgatory and and you know

01:30:49

When a coin in the coffer clings a soul from purgatory springs

01:30:55

Like that in and of itself is higher knowledge yeah, and just the mirroring of of free masonry to uh the old

01:31:09

Catholicism, I think you can make some parallels there Well, you can make the masons have their own masonic bible

01:31:18

That uh so I would argue that calvinism is the antithesis of gnosticism the cause of the reformational teaching of sola scriptura

01:31:31

Amen. Yeah, you know if you think uh, one thing i'll just say real quick is You have you know, people say that calvinism is anti -gospel anti -christo and anti -bible

01:31:42

They don't read the bible in context and things like that Um, you know you you have people say that you know calvinism is is is gnostic and and you know,

01:31:51

I saw here that you had someone saying asking about the um, you know, uh going augustine going back to Manichaeanism Yeah, I was gonna yeah.

01:32:00

Yeah. So so what you have to do is think about What is gnosticism and it's and it's uh best terms

01:32:07

It's secret knowledge outside of god's given revealed word Okay.

01:32:13

Now do we have secret knowledge in the sense that god gave us the word? Yes, but it's a word that was given to all men for every person to be able to read

01:32:21

And come to know god and study his word So it's not secret in the sense that that that no one has it but the straw man here is

01:32:29

Oh, you are a gnostic because you know something that's not in scripture No, we don't we don't look to Andrew's book, you know, what what do we believe or what do they believe and say?

01:32:41

Oh, that's the divine truth That nobody else has and we have extra biblical truth. We have the

01:32:46

Inspired inerrant infallible word of god That's not a gnostic, uh issue it just because we come to an understanding a scriptural and biblical understanding of what augustine john calvin paul the apostle jesus and john james and all the others wrote

01:33:05

You know if we go back we look at calvinism and if you study it you look at the history of calvinism

01:33:12

They don't they didn't just look at it and say oh john calvin. Okay, we're done You know, they went back and said what does scripture state?

01:33:18

You know as as ed said just a minute ago sola scriptura. What does the scripture state? as as adverse to What do the roman catholic?

01:33:29

and pelagian armenian Uh roman catholic state and that's where that came from So just just so everybody has an equal playing field there, you know this stuff

01:33:39

You had the reformers And the anabaptist who came away from and walked away from the roman catholics.

01:33:47

You had the roman catholics who? Who had a a a friendship with the armenian pelagian?

01:33:56

Side as well. So you have to be careful when you start throwing around gnostic and in terms like that Well sometimes there are terms around because that just eliminates some things.

01:34:05

Let me ed you were going to say something Yeah, and even the segue into something else

01:34:11

I saw into the chat like the whole uh, monogamous debate between uh, yeah, we

01:34:19

Met up maybe next week. We might I I said in the private chat that we might have to that's a that's a bigger discussion

01:34:25

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you don't have to go watch it because I didn't even watch it yet I I would argue that monogamous and the teachings of uh, luis de molina

01:34:36

Is very gnostic Yeah, I would I would actually argue and I guess yeah, maybe we'll do this as a topic for next week is is the the white uh the debate on that, uh,

01:34:49

William a credit and james white I would argue this and i've talked over this over with matt and and I know he he agrees that you know

01:34:55

A lot of what molinism is trying to do is to try to argue that calvinism is determinism They want to get away from from determinism

01:35:02

And so what do they do? They they have a system focused on free will to the extent that what they they actually do is back right up into determinism

01:35:12

I had um a debate here Oh, and I forget matt that his name he was a friend of yours.

01:35:18

You introduced me to him But we had a debate some time ago on here on molinism and I asked the guy can

01:35:25

We choose anything once so molinism is this idea that god knows everything we would choose based on our free will

01:35:32

Looking at all the options of all the worlds that could exist He chooses one that gives him the most glory, but we have but we have the will it's our free will

01:35:41

But I asked once god chooses something. Can we do anything other than what?

01:35:46

We we would have chosen in that world and he goes no And I said then god determined it. I mean, that's the ultimate determinism

01:35:53

Let me try to get gonna ask you that I was I was I was just about to ask you that I was going to say if what you're saying is right there in the question part

01:36:03

Doesn't that mean that? If if god looked down and saw what you would do Doesn't that mean that?

01:36:10

Did god determined it based on what you were going to do and therefore you you don't have that free will I mean? God's willing to permit it to occur.

01:36:17

He's deciding that he wants to permit that very thing to occur Yeah, I was I was just about to ask you that andrew that that's that's amazing so um, so let me let me

01:36:27

I want to try to because we have like 20 minutes left I want to wrap up some of the stuff that we have here. So melissa

01:36:34

Ends up asking and and melissa You should just come in here so that we can you know You could talk to matt and you know, then matt could find out more about your sorry

01:36:43

Uh your podcast thoroughly equipped because he would like your podcast So i'll plug it right now

01:36:49

Thoroughly equipped is a a podcast for women's bible studies matt um

01:36:55

Well, here's the thing when we first heard that I read the thing went Women's bible studies are usually bad

01:37:02

And so I was like this is probably not one that we're going to accept and then we started listening and realized. Oh, no She's criticizing

01:37:09

All of the women's bible studies and giving biblical answers to what what are in these studies and reviewing some books

01:37:15

So really good stuff that she puts out good praise god So she says, uh, somehow claiming augustine got the teachings from gnostic background and so that's what she was saying.

01:37:26

Well, we we have example of it because um Josiah here who doesn't seem to like calvinism much is saying gnostics were big on special election

01:37:35

Augustine had to jump back through the roots of gnosticism to bring his theology into the church to argue uh against uh uh plagian uh

01:37:49

What this is what he has argued now, here's the thing. Um, so so let's let's see notice

01:37:56

What matt did? Notice what I did two weeks ago When when people make the claim will we believe this stuff because we get it from john calvin

01:38:06

I read calvin's institutes Uh 30 years ago. I don't remember much of it now.

01:38:12

I've used his commentaries once in a while I don't base anything on calvin.

01:38:17

I don't worship calvin. I don't you know So you get it from august? I got a lot of stuff from augustine

01:38:23

I've read some of his stuff too, but I don't actually look at that. What was I doing in the debate? What was matt doing when he had discussion quoting scripture bible when when we say that we believe that god grants belief

01:38:36

We believe that because that's exactly what philippians 129 says Now and like I said in the debate, you know in they're saying about election well, okay

01:38:46

Well, where do we get the idea of election? We brought that up with with in ephesians um

01:38:53

Brought up the so, you know ephesians Where it says that we are elect before the foundation of time now, is that augustine?

01:39:03

Putting that into the scripture. No that that's paul putting that into scripture by the inspiration of the holy spirit

01:39:09

I had a guy A sinless perfectionist who told me that I am

01:39:14

I believe in heresy That i'm a calvinist and I said what exactly makes me a calvinist

01:39:20

He read my doctrinal statement and it said that we are elect before the foundation of time

01:39:27

I said well, that's ephesians 1 4 If that makes me a calvinist then paul and in fact god must be a calvinist

01:39:36

You see that's that's the whole thing Is what we end up seeing is that we're we're getting it from scripture

01:39:43

The issue is the arminian or non -calvinist because they're not always arminian are going to say they get it from scripture, too

01:39:51

The issue is how do you handle the scriptures? Okay How do you come to the conclusion?

01:39:57

We cannot look at one side of the argument and ignore the other You didn't see matt ignore choices people make right

01:40:05

But that doesn't mean that god didn't decree it right. There's he made that distinction there This is the thing

01:40:11

I the way I explained it the way I explained it in the debate And I think this seems to really help a lot of people in this area and this discussion

01:40:20

I believe that when we look at who wrote ephesians We would say paul But really?

01:40:27

Okay. Well, we would say god Well who wrote ephesians Well, it is a doctrine in inspiration that we look at known as super intending that god works through the human author

01:40:37

So that even though he wrote of his own choices, he wrote exactly as god intended it to be So what you see is that paul writes different than moses writes different than peter writes different than john

01:40:47

They all have their own style. They have personal things. They're going to ask they're going to write down and and so What we what we end up seeing there is we have

01:40:58

With that god working through the humans so that god gets a hundred percent of the credit

01:41:03

He's the one doing it and yet people are choosing what they're choosing. Well, we see that in inspiration How about sanctification do we do good works?

01:41:12

Well, you might say yes, but really no we don't it's only because of what god does through us that we can do good works

01:41:18

So it's the same doctrine of super intending there god works through us So the very choices we make are exactly as god intended them to be

01:41:26

Therefore that doctrine is there I take that same doctrine and apply it to regeneration That god can work through us.

01:41:33

So even though we think we're making the choice Yes, we're making a choice But it's only because god intended that to be so god gets a hundred percent of the credit we get none

01:41:43

Just like in scripture just like in sanctification And I think that really resolves the issues that people see when it comes to the these things

01:41:52

And this is why you can have romans chapter 9 and romans chapter 10 right next to each other and so I the the one

01:42:01

Encouragement I want to try to give with this as we discuss is calvinism a cult, you know

01:42:06

We we get this a lot from some folks My my issue would be this Just consider

01:42:12

I mean consider what you know what matt we we mentioned matt said earlier You know just consider that all of us every one of us is wrong in our theology somewhere

01:42:21

We don't know where and we we shouldn't be so prideful and arrogant about our theology In fact, someone might say that calvinism is gnosticism and they don't recognize their own pride in their own theology

01:42:33

So that we have to be mindful of that Okay, that that's one thing The other thing we have to do is realize that that we got to look at This and not have a closed mind to it.

01:42:46

We have to examine how someone else is making their argument One of the things you saw two weeks ago in the debate

01:42:52

The on calvinism calvinism is useless and dangerous. My opponent was not listening to what

01:42:58

I was saying He had a monologue He wanted to he had conclusions And he was rambling on if you want to see examples that just listen to matt slick live five days a week

01:43:08

And there's usually one caller a day That is like that that just starts today

01:43:14

Yeah But that was the after show. Yeah. Yeah So what what it is you get people like that nate

01:43:21

They're not listening and you can explain it to your blue in the face But they're not going to listen because they don't want to hear we don't want to be that kind of person

01:43:32

Yeah, how would you guys I think this would be a good question to do a whole episode on How would you guys encourage people?

01:43:42

To be better listeners. What are some practices in which one could huh? What yeah, well don't be like matt

01:43:52

Yeah He wasn't listening what is true it's true don't be like me

01:43:59

No, but but I mean that would be I mean seriously pay attention. I mean, you know, I mentioned this in the post debate

01:44:05

What did you see me doing during the debate? My head was down taking notes I mean i've seen matt

01:44:11

Prepare for debates. I've seen him when you know, we've we've gone to a debate where it's an in -person debate And matt is sitting there with pen and paper same thing taking notes on what's being said

01:44:23

Okay My opponent wasn't doing that because he didn't he didn't take the time First thing is you got to realize that your opponent may have a good point.

01:44:31

He may actually be right And if you if you don't accept that Then you're just closed -minded.

01:44:37

The other thing is pay attention to what they're actually saying not what you think they're saying I I've had so many times and matt i'll mention a name.

01:44:46

You'll love this name heidi carrico Hey, yeah Just to get the reaction this

01:44:54

About 10 or 11 years ago was telling me what I believe And i'm like, but I don't believe that she goes.

01:45:01

Yes, you do. I'm like go read my doctrinal statement It's been out there for years online. She goes you're hiding your real beliefs right

01:45:08

Ha ha It's like you can't reason with a person like that Okay, and so there is a point you just walk away

01:45:15

But the thing to do is for each of us is to recognize that you know, we we can be taught

01:45:22

I could be taught even by a guy like matt slick Okay so That just shows you're totally depraved

01:45:31

So Another thing one another go ahead. Okay. Another thing you can do, uh thinking about learning how to be a better listener is when

01:45:41

Somebody asks a question or makes a statement To show that you're engaging and to make sure that you understand the question

01:45:48

Uh andrew did this and actually this is why I stepped into the debate a few weeks ago

01:45:54

Uh several times because I wanted to stop the debate and make sure the question was understood So I restated the question

01:46:00

I restated it so that could be answered. Um, so i'll give an example, uh matt

01:46:06

You talked about solipsism and a little while ago and I remember you saying that Solipsism was was a was a biblical truth that everybody needs to hold to is is that right?

01:46:17

Is that what I heard you say? And then you give him time to answer he's gonna say

01:46:23

Absolutely, not. I did not say that. Okay, but my point is is to show that i'm listening

01:46:30

I'm repeating back what he says and if i'm wrong Give him the opportunity give her the opportunity to say wait

01:46:36

That's what I said. That's not what I said. And and so that way Because it look when you have people come in.

01:46:43

I want to debate But they don't want to deal honestly with what your actual argument is or your discussion is

01:46:49

They don't want to hear why you believe what you believe They're being disrespectful. They're dishonoring god.

01:46:54

They're dishonoring you. They're not worth the time, you know, uh, james white said it to that Fuentes guy you why would anybody want to debate you?

01:47:03

He proved that he's he's right. Uh, he proved that that Fuentes should never be debated because he doesn't respect the person he's debating or so when you respect somebody you want them to answer

01:47:15

So now i'm going to ask again matt slick. I believe brother you said something about solipsism

01:47:20

And I may have misunderstood. I thought you said this. Could you please explain it? That's the way to do it.

01:47:25

Yep Yeah, you're asking me a real question or you're that's just an example, no,

01:47:33

I'm good. I'm good. I just I just threw it out there Yeah as an example, so I think what we could do next week, uh, you know, well,

01:47:41

I I think it would be good to do uh the molinism debate uh between james white, uh, because matt

01:47:50

I think you said you wanted to touch on some things with that too, uh, which Basic, uh, it's just james at a better job because he focused on scripture with craig focused on philosophy

01:48:01

Yeah, but see that's a big topic to also Unpack because they get into it. Yeah, there's a lot there because when people do apologetics that that's how a lot of people argue um you know so, uh mark is asking, um a question and from my

01:48:19

From the debate two weeks ago What can you say about ra's claims? That there are standalone verses and he can still explain a text without the context

01:48:30

Which is contrary to the claims of his colleagues that context is the enemy of calvinism

01:48:36

I I actually find that to be really interesting That all of his colleagues are saying that the context is the enemy of calvinism and in the debate

01:48:43

Uh re fuentes had to ignore the context Um of the passages and had to argue that they're standalone verses because the context didn't support what he was saying

01:48:54

I would argue that the context as was proven in the debate Was the death nail for ra fuentes apologetics?

01:49:03

because what you ended up seeing is that He could not handle a verse in context

01:49:10

Because because it undermined what he was I mean, even when we pulled philippians 129 What you ended up seeing is he cut it in the middle of a verse so it's not just standalone verses.

01:49:19

It's standalone words He wanted to say that god has given us Christ's sake and stop there

01:49:26

He was saying that there's a hard stop and I was like no What what is what's the rest of it say and he didn't want to finish reading it Right.

01:49:32

That's what you end up having. So so no context was the death nail for for ra fuentes now

01:49:37

I'm, not saying to those that hold You know to Non -calvinist views right now notice the difference with what

01:49:44

I did just there Okay, i'm not grouping everybody who disagrees with calvinism into the argument that one person made

01:49:54

And in fact mark by your by the question you asked you recognize his colleagues are arguing for context, which he was not so one of the things that folks that were in his camp that are arguing that we're

01:50:08

Those of us are calvinists are cult. What are they doing? They're throwing everybody into one group And that's the thing that you want to be careful of Uh ed with what you said what we should you know, how can we learn from this?

01:50:20

We got to be careful not to throw everybody into a group Not to claim just because someone else says this and and that this came out two weeks ago in the debate

01:50:28

Was I said something and he's like well, this is what calvinists believe I said. Well, you're not you're debating me

01:50:34

You should have taken the time to understand what I believe because that's what I say in debates Yeah, exactly.

01:50:40

If you know if it was it's like I was just saying I want to know what you know, andrew and matt and you know, whoever i'm talking to what do you believe?

01:50:49

I I want to know why you believe it Because I mean I want everybody to face the fact that you're going to stand before god

01:50:57

And when you stand before god, how did you treat your brother in christ? You know, how did you treat them?

01:51:03

Did you respect them or did you? Mistreat them and dishonor them. Were you were you?

01:51:09

Giving a character of yourself that is unbecoming of christianity Because what i've seen on facebook, this is why

01:51:16

I got off facebook, you know as is just character that's not becoming a becoming of christians and it's just I think it's it's it's reprehensible when people say, you know, uh, uh, well you don't believe exactly as I believe

01:51:30

You're not a christian or you're this or you're that that's awful Yeah So, you know, that's the thing that we want to we want to be careful with.

01:51:39

Uh, so I guess we'll do um Next week, we'll we'll we'll go through the uh, the james white debate with uh, craig

01:51:50

Look at the idea of molinism. I think it's good to to examine what they believe why

01:51:56

I think that they get into some problems um You know So let me just see.

01:52:03

Uh Because I see pastor armand uh saying ar doesn't find uh doesn't want to find any common ground with you pastor andrew because then

01:52:13

He would have to go out of his script and and that's another point of what people do I said this to to one of the pastors out.

01:52:20

There's You know, the guy I was debating preferred a monologue over a dialogue and that becomes a problem

01:52:27

You know, so let me put up. Um, oh we just lost that and you wanted your kids to say hi to matt

01:52:34

So you'll have yeah, see now you messed it all up So some of the things some comments we did get kt says i'm so thankful for andrew and justin and anthony apologetics live

01:52:43

And the chat here linda had said i'm born again saved 1975

01:52:49

But was a hundred percent free will believer until watching american gospel and finding justin peters and you andrew rapport when the lockdown started in 2020 so, uh, we we we thank you for that Uh, and that's that's what we're trying to do here is show you kind of not just doing apologetics

01:53:06

But showing you how to do apologetics Um, I hope this has been helpful. Um, there's matt

01:53:13

Um, you're trying to just keep them out, you know, so Uh, I hope this has been helpful for you guys

01:53:18

So we'll be on next week. We will we will be with plan is to be here next week, but not on the 30th

01:53:24

Uh, we'll probably take the 30th off and so, uh We'll see maybe matt will join us next week as well

01:53:31

And uh, we can we can continue the the debate on monism and talk about that So, uh, and that it deals with more issues because it deals with the issue of evil um who has better argument for it, so Uh with that go check out karm .org

01:53:46

You'll see, uh, also if you want check out matt's radio program. Matt's like live They are on the christian podcast community as well

01:53:55

I don't know that I mentioned it last week, but they are a new A new host a new show on the christian podcast community

01:54:02

And so that might be something you want to go check out go to christianpodcastcommunity .org

01:54:08

And you can check out. Um the different, uh the different Episodes matt has matt slick live.

01:54:17

It is out there. And so if you if you check that out, um You're going to get daily

01:54:23

Uh five days a week, I should say some good good comments. Um, occasionally occasionally, uh, you'll get some entertaining shall we stay with question with obstreperous guys, uh people yeah, as you say

01:54:38

You get to learn what obstreperous twit means And so we have a comment that mike stockwell didn't say have much for mike good night