Radio Free Geneva: Jacob Prasch and the Armenians (OK, Arminians)

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00:13

The mighty fortresses are gone, the forward caravans.

00:23

I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them, they're following men instead of the word of God.

00:30

I'll never meet a misguided fly, a fortress plain barely.

00:39

And I'm going to be the one standing on top of my hands, standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out,

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He died for all those who elected, were selected. For still our ancient foes have seeked to work us full.

01:01

His cross and power are great, and longed with cruel hate.

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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. On earth this

01:15

God is equal. I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves

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Calvinists. For God so loved the world that He gave

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His only begotten Son, that whosoever. Ladies and gentlemen,

01:50

James White is a hyper -Calvinist. Now whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper -Calvinists.

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I said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism.

02:11

It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist. Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism.

02:30

And now, from our underground bunker, deep beneath Bruton Parker College, where no one would think to look, safe from all those moderate

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Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are

02:48

Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for His own eternal glory.

02:57

And greetings, welcome to Radio Free Geneva. I have to sit up so you can see the reason why we're doing

03:06

Radio Free Geneva. If you want to know who to either blame or give credit to, and given he's a

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Calvinist, he's probably accustomed to being blamed for pretty much everything. I was given a gift.

03:20

As you know, I'm traveling. I was up here in Colorado at first, and I went down last week to Santa Fe and to a

03:29

Gospel Life church there in Palos Casafava. I spoke two nights there, and then

03:35

I drove up to Salt Lake City, and we did a dialogue with Alma Allred on Mormonism, and that's already been posted.

03:46

Wanted to do a dialogue with a local imam on Islam and its view of Jesus, but he decided that he didn't want to do that, unfortunately.

03:56

And so it was just a monologue that I did, but I'm still hoping that maybe he'll take a look at what we said, and he'll go, hey, we got treated fairly.

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We missed an opportunity there. Who knows? We'll see. And then, of course, I spoke at Christ Presbyterian, the

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OPC, there, and you are a little too close to the camera to see.

04:25

How's that? Well, I just want to make sure everybody can see. While I was there,

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Jason Wallace gave me this shirt, and I said I would wear it on Radio Free Geneva, and so you'll notice it says

04:39

Bruton Parker College. There, I'll sit up a little bit. Bruton Parker College, or I'm just using this as a cover.

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That's a possibility, too, because it's possible that—

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I don't know how I did that. It's possible that I actually got this in the bookstore, and this whole thing about Jason Wallace is just—who knows?

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But I'll just leave that out there in case the folks at Bruton Parker are looking around underneath buildings for secret entrances.

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Anyway, it just so happened I had that video that I had mentioned before sitting in my system.

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I thought, yeah, this would be good. I've only got one hour today, so it would be good to address this, and we'll see how it goes.

05:37

Then like 20 minutes before the program, Rich tells me about a sermon that he had been linked to in a church where the pastor decided that all the

05:50

Calvinists needed to get out. I was actually listening to portions of it right before it went on, but obviously too close to play it now.

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But I did convert it to a format that I can use, and I'm probably going to throw it on my iPod for my ride tomorrow in the morning, shorter ride tomorrow in the morning, and take a listen to it then.

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I've heard enough to make me do the eye roll thing, but anyway, we'll take a listen to that.

06:19

So that's why we're doing Radio Free Tejima today with the Bruton Parker College— I think they still exist.

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It's sort of sad, but obviously Cantor left that place in a world of hurt. From what everybody tells me, it is just out in the middle of absolutely positively nowhere.

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I certainly don't have anything against Bruton Parker. It's just you get what you pay for.

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You really get what you pay for. Anyway, and it's not that there aren't other things we could be discussing.

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I mean, I sort of figure I addressed some of the issues relevant to Nice a little bit in the monologue that we had on Islam, and that's been posted online, and maybe

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I'll have some comments I want to get back. I just personally have zero interest whatsoever in commenting upon Melania Trump, the 47 ,000 videos that have been posted of every politician ever known to man plagiarizing every other politician known to man.

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I'm just so completely done with both major parties and politicians, and just people who say one thing and do something else that I don't even know what to say.

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So I don't even want to go there. Your Facebook feed is filled with all that stuff right now, so let's talk about something different, shall we?

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Let's go back to something. Oh, by the way, before we jump into this,

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I did listen with great fascination to last Thursday's Dividing Line.

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There'll be another one tomorrow. I'm assuming everything is at the same time. Oh, I just got a text message,

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I think. I'm getting all sorts of stuff. What really bugs me is on my screen,

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I get two notifications of every Facebook message, and the one has the message, the one that doesn't covers over the other one, so I can't see it.

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So I'm having to use my phone. So same time tomorrow for the

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Dividing Line with Volcab Malone, and they'll be doing more on the history of the

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Black Hebrew Israelite movement. I haven't—6 p .m. Eastern Daylight Time, 3 o 'clock in Phoenix.

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I haven't seen what the result of that has been. I found it fascinating. I had to listen to it twice, to be honest with you, because Volcab had to keep asking his guests, okay, now explain that, now explain that, because there's just so much terminology and all the different groups and the names.

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But I'm starting to get an idea of who's who and stuff like that. So that'll be tomorrow, 3 o 'clock

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Mountain Time, 6 o 'clock Eastern—well, Mountain Standard Time versus Eastern Daylight Time.

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So I'm very thankful for Rich and Volcab making that work, and I'll be—I should be able to—I might be able to listen, actually, tomorrow.

09:50

No, I won't. No, I won't. I'll have to catch it maybe when I'm driving home.

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I head home on Monday. This will be a long, long trip for me. Three weeks is a long, long time for me.

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But it's been great. I've so far climbed, I think, 57 ,000 feet at altitude on a bike.

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That'll clear your head, either that or you die, one of the two. No, I can't post a link to the church where the

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Calvinists said leave, because I don't have that information. Someone on Twitter was asking that. That's one of the things

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I was asking for, was that particular information, which I'll get to before we do another

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Radio Free Geneva, and maybe I'll wear my Bruton Parker shirt for that one, too. Okay, August—it's August 12th, isn't it?

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Let me look here. Yes, August 12th,

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Friday night, August 12th. So, let's see, I get back.

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I leave on the 25th. Yeah, so just a couple weeks after I get back, we will be having the debate in Southern California, the one that was postponed for medical reasons.

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Let's hope that doesn't happen again. August 12th will be the date for that.

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In SoCal, we'll be posting the details and stuff. I'm not sure if Lane has already posted stuff on that or not.

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I'm really not certain. But that will be coming up in the Southern California area on the subject that we'll be talking about today, actually, on the subject of Reformed theology and the

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Calvinism. Sadly, there will probably be another major attack by some type of radicalized

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Islamic group between now and then, or minor attacks, or at least attacks in places that don't get nearly as much news coverage as when they're attacking

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Western areas. But anyway, between now and that time, we will see.

12:03

And don't forget, if you've still been thinking about going to Alaska, we never got

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Michael Fallon to do the Alaska thing. That's a big disappointment for me,

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I must admit. But the cruise will be a whole lot better than Mike doing a commercial about it anyway. So that's coming up in September.

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And don't put that off any longer. It's getting close, and it's going to be a really enjoyable time.

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By the way, you may hear some thunder and a few things in the background. Where I am, there's lots of dark clouds, and the sky is leaking.

12:43

So I guess that's what's happening back in Phoenix, too. At least that's what I've heard. Now, what I'm going to try to do here, and this is going to be a bit of a challenge for Rich, I think, is

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I have to turn on share screen. And I think I'll just wait until I'm ready to play the video.

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Then I'll just go to share screen. And then if Rich can figure out how to get me back, that's great. If not, well, I'll read on my phone what's going on,

13:09

I suppose. I was sent a link. I'm pretty certain this was by Twitter, to a

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Moriel TV Jacob Prosh presentation.

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Now, you know, we always get criticism. If you do anything, you get criticism. Thank you very much.

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An excessive heat watch from Maricopa, Arizona. Great, fun. Anyway, we get criticism whenever we do – well, whenever we do anything.

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And specifically, well, you're attacking the low -hanging fruit. Well, look, you know, you can prioritize people as you wish.

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When it comes to attacks upon Reformed theology, you have the more historic

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Arminian, Wesleyan -style stuff that very frequently takes on a very philosophical bent to it.

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And we certainly address those people many, many times over the years. The Roger Olsons and the people like that.

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But that's generally not the most common type of stuff that you are dealing with.

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And so we very frequently do deal with the most common kind of material that's out there, which, yeah, may not be overly good, but it's the most common.

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And it is the kind of stuff they have to have an answer to. And Jacob Prosh certainly has an audience.

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Generally, when we've reviewed him in the past, it's a little bit difficult to do because he's frequently screaming a lot.

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It just seems to be his approach is just to vocalize violently.

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Violent vocalization. I'm not sure how else to put it. He's just really loud. And he just seems like he's yelling at everyone.

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I don't know. He sort of does that in this one, except he's alone in a room.

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And I can tell he has the same video camera that I have because it sort of goes in out of focus a few times. And there's no introduction.

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Nothing. He just dives right into it. Now, the funny thing is, the opening graphic,

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Calvinism versus Arminianism, is correct. The closing graphic, which happens to have the

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Morial TV and God is my teacher, has Calvinism versus Arminianism, which

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I've always found just slightly humorous, given that I happen to know

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Reformed Armenians, which, of course, is different than being an Arminian.

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So and then the YouTube video itself had had an Arminian instead of Arminian.

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So it's always a little bit of a chuckle, especially when the guy making the accusations is just throwing, you know, flaming insults and stuff from left field.

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And it's like, you know, if you're going to be quite that violent in your disagreement, you sort of might want to know what you're actually talking about.

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But a lot of these guys, they made up their minds on this subject decades ago.

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And believe me, I've seen the mindset. You try to talk to some of these folks, and then just this veil goes down.

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They won't even listen to what you're saying. So I'm going to switch over to the share screen thing here and fire this up.

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And what we're going to try to do is interact with it as it's going on. Not sure how it's going to work.

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We had it sort of working beforehand, but I'm just going to do my thing. And if all you end up seeing is a video, then it comes back to me eventually.

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You know, that's part of doing Skype, you know, part of doing it when I'm traveling and doing other stuff.

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So let's share the screen here and start.

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And hopefully you've got that there. And let's let James Jacob Crosh, which is sort of weird when

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I think about it because James and Jacob are the same name. Anyway, let's dive in.

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Okay. Both camps get some of the things right in that both camps say that man has completely fallen because of his sin.

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The problem with Calvinism is that Calvinism says God creates certain people to go to hell and certain people to go to heaven.

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He actually creates people with the intention of torturing them forever. Now, how far might that have been?

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30 seconds, maybe, maybe 30 seconds in. You have the final analysis being given as if it is the undisputed, accurate, appropriate, things like that, conclusion concerning what, quote, unquote,

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Calvinists believe. And if you were just to simply say in the final analysis, did

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God know when he created and it was an act of his will, the entire fabric of time, everything that happens?

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Well, yes, it is. No question about it. Well, then that means and it's like, wait, if you want to collapse down to a simplistic, two dimensional, inaccurate, red herring, straw man conclusion at the very beginning.

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What you think the final end result of these things is, we're never going to get anywhere.

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Let us put it this way. Obviously, Pastor Prosh has no interest whatsoever in communicating to me or to people who would be a part of this audience.

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Because if he did, then he would want to lay down some foundations, demonstrate some consistency in his presentation.

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And that's not what he's doing. It's just you dive in, you give the worst possible conclusion you can.

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And then you don't deal with, you know, he later on is going to say, well, you know, God's omniscient, so he knew.

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So what that would then mean, and this is, you know, I was, we always come back to this, whether they want to address it or not, what that would mean then is you have to answer the question is, is

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God's knowledge of what people would do in time? Is that something he took in when he created?

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Or does it flow from his creative decree? Did he toss the cosmic dice and said, ah,

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I win. How does this work? I mean, I really sort of doubt that Mr.

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Prosh is a Molinist. So is he going with a simple foreknowledge perspective?

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Well, where did God get this knowledge? It's really easy to create a straw man of the other side and light it up within 30 seconds of the start.

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Problem is that if you have to use the match of your own theology, if you have to burn your own theology to start the other one on fire, you're not really going to be left with much at the end.

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And that, unfortunately, is what so often happens in these situations. And these folks don't seem to get the idea that the reason that very often they lose young, bright minded individuals who had maybe grown up within their movement is because this kind of presentation does not take into consideration the best the other side has to offer.

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And yet very often when we address a synergistic perspective, we do address the best the other side has to offer.

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And so when someone hears both sides and they go, well, one side seems to be dealing fairly with stuff and the other side is just throwing these bombastic attacks,

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I wonder why that is. That's a question I think they need to think through a little bit more.

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As opposed to the teaching of Jesus, which said hell was a place prepared for Satan and his angels.

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Well, Jesus did say that hell is a place prepared for Satan and his angels. But the assumption that's being made there is that if God uses hell to send the image bearer of God who hates him to a place of eternal separation, that that somehow is in violation of what

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God's original intention would be. What he's really suggesting is that God created a place called hell and then later on he had to change his plans to send people there.

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So he had one intention, but he had to change his intentions because of what man did. He wasn't omniscient to know that.

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You see, that's the problem. The synergist, the reason you have open theism, the reason you have

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Mullenism, you have these man -made systems that were not derived from scripture, but are derived from trying to avoid the conclusions of what scripture is actually teaching.

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The reason you have them is because there is no coherent response at this point. And Mr.

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Prosh begins with the, you know, down here somewhere with the results. He doesn't deal with the foundational issues of who is

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God, what is creation, what's God's relationship to creation, what is God's purpose, what did the triune

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God desire to accomplish in this creation. These things, again, once you can get someone to sit down and really think these things through and say, okay, let's recognize that God's truth is a coherent whole.

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That's when people start finding out, hey, there's only one side that really seems to be working through these issues in the appropriate fashion.

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So, therefore, meanings of certain statements in scripture, their belief.

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For instance, the scripture tells us something about Jesus. Being put forth by the other side.

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And so you would expect maybe some of the passages where God specifically states that he does whatever he pleases that he has created in such a fashion as to bring about his his own glorification.

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Maybe look at Ephesians 1 or some of the statements in the Psalter, Isaiah, or I don't know, maybe even let

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Nebuchadnezzar speak. And I guess you'd have to critique what he said, because here you have a pagan king in Daniel chapter 4 that has a pretty strongly reformed understanding of God's sovereignty in his relationship with the world.

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Maybe you might want to walk through Psalm 33, not skipping over the verses that actually teach stuff you don't like.

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And, you know, something along these lines. But that's generally not what you get.

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You don't start with the foundational issues. You go to either emotional texts or to texts that will allow you to make assertions without actually dealing very deeply with what the other side is actually saying.

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It tells us, chapter 2 of 1 Timothy, verse 3, this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our

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Savior, who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

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Now, everyone who has read The Potter's Freedom, listened to Radio Free Geneva down through the years.

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Well, your first response is, as soon as you heard the reference was, ah, I want the big three. And you would think that given the reality that there have been fair, careful, non -screaming responses to the big three,

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Matthew 23, 37, 2 Peter 3, 9, and 1 Timothy 2, for literally, well, since the time of the

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Reformation anyways, centuries, but even before then, you would think that at the very least, even if you're trying to be brief, you're trying to be concise.

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When you know what the other side says about a text you're using, there is a way to present it where you, even in your positive presentation, can provide a rebuttal to the misuse of the text.

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So, if I'm quoting from James chapter 2, if I'm quoting

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James 2 .20 or 2 .24 or something like that, there are ways of presenting those texts where, yeah, you have to invest a little more time in how you present it, but you don't have to expand it out completely, but you can at least show that you are aware of the objections to your position.

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And certainly one of the things that I have learned over the years, when I listen to someone, as I'm watching

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Jacob Prosh here, I am struck by the reality that I don't think he has read much

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Reformed literature. And I don't think that he has ever had allowed to be pressed upon him the

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Reformed response to any of these texts. So, for example, my hope would be that if you're a regular listener of this program, that the

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Big Three would not ever be a challenge for you. Because we've gone over them so many times before.

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And for each one of them, if you can have enough time to meaningfully interact with them, and I think this is a subject that requires time, it's important enough to be taken beyond the

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Twitter level of theological dialogue, that you would be very quick to point out the context of 1

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Timothy 2, that you would be able to point out that at the beginning of this chapter,

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Paul exhorts Timothy to have prayers made for all kinds of men. And he uses categories of men, he doesn't use individuals.

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He says kings and those who are in authority, these are kinds, these are categories of individuals.

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And so the context has already introduced. It's the natural, fair reading.

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The very same kind of hermeneutics and exegesis we would use to defend the deity of Christ, the resurrection.

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We're following a context, and you have kinds of men being discussed. Prayers to be made for all kinds of men, including those in authority.

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And why would he even have to say that? Well, because the authorities were persecuting Christian believers, obviously.

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And so, exhortation needs to be made that we're even to pray for those, and this is something we need to hear today, certainly.

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We are to pray for those who have the rulership over us. Now, that meant you were praying for pagan people.

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And as far as I can tell, that's about all the people we get to pray for these days, too, who have leadership over us.

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And so, but the point is, you have kinds of people. And then you have the statement made.

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And, obviously, the question is, is the statement being made that God desires the salvation of every single human being, or that God desires the salvation of all kinds of human beings, including, amazingly enough, those in governmental authority, those who have rulership over us.

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Now remember, I'm not making this up. It's the text that uses the phrase of kinds of people.

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And then the context continues on, because it says that Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and men.

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And see, this is where, you know, I hope if you're Reformed, you're not just sitting around just waiting for someone to, you know, oh,

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I'm just waiting for them to make a mistake, and then I can get them. No, but when you have opportunities like this, when someone who's listened to this, and they say, well, what about that text of 1

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Timothy? Well, you know, I'm glad you mentioned that. Let's take a look at it. And then you can talk about kinds of men.

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You can talk about what are we talking about? God desires the salvation of every single individual human being.

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So you're telling me that God had the same level of desire to save the soldier in Pharaoh's army that ended up underneath the

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Red Sea as he did the Israelite that he delivered? Is that what you're really suggesting?

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And then you've got the opportunity in this context to move directly into a tremendous presentation that will allow you, yes, to actually present particular redemption.

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Yeah, that the terrible, horrible L. And I believe personally that a biblical presentation of the actual work of Christ in atonement, you know, we talked about this in the last program.

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We went through Hebrews 7. It is so strong. It resonates. It resonates with the heart of the redeemed believer to hear the exaltation of their

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Savior and His abilities rather than man's abilities to limit his abilities, which is really what you have on the other side.

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And so when, you know, I would go directly to this text and say, well, notice it says that there's only one mediator between God and man, the man

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Christ Jesus. Ever thought about what that means? Do you really believe that Jesus is interceding for people who are already under God's punishment today?

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Or do you believe that Jesus is interceding today for people who will never be saved?

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Do you really have, do you really think that it was Paul's idea? That this is what the gospel is, that, that God the

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Father wants to save everybody. And Jesus died to save everybody.

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And the spirit comes to save everybody. But the entire effort and desire and work of the trying

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God is all dependent upon the all powerful will of man as to whether he is going to accomplish his desires.

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Is that really what you're going to say? Or even worse, are you going to suggest that there is division within the

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Godhead? That the Son died to save everybody, but the Father doesn't will to save everybody?

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I would hope that would not be the case because what is the, what is the nature of this mediation? And if you've, if you've spent some time reading good reformed literature,

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I've tried to provide a couple chapters in the Potter's Freedom. We talked about a little bit last week in Hebrews 7, but Hebrews 7, 8, 9, 10, they're all, it's all right there.

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It's just this incredible presentation. The reality is that that intercessory work of the

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Son of God is part of his high priestly work. And the high priest offered the sacrifice and then he went into the holy place and he sprinkled the mercy seat with the blood of that sacrifice.

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And the audience for which that sacrifice was made and the intercession are the same.

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And so either you're going to say that the sacrifice was intended to save, and that means save everybody, every person exists.

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And that means that Jesus is interceding, even for those who in the omniscience of God, from whatever perspective you take, even from the open theist, if they're, if they're dead, they're dead,

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God knows now, are never going to be saved. So Jesus is interceding for people that will never be saved.

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To what end? For what purpose? What is, what is the, what is the act of intercession?

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You see, from, from a biblical perspective, we have the promise that we have an anchor that goes within the veil.

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In other words, if you're united with Christ, if the elect of God united with him, then he has already entered into the heavenly places.

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And if you're united with him, then that's why Paul can say in Ephesians chapter two, we've already been seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

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And so there's perfect harmony, perfect consistency here. But if you're coming from proscious perspective, coming from the synergistic perspective, what is accomplished by, by the intermediation of Jesus for both those who will be saved and those who will not?

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What is it accomplished? Seriously, what is it accomplished? If he's interceding for those who will not be saved, then he fails in his intercession, if that's his desire.

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And if he's only interceding based upon foreknowledge, then his intercession is based upon knowledge of man's actions.

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So that's, why bother? You already know they're going to be saved. The inconsistency, the incoherence of the synergistic system is startling at times, but that's what you've got.

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And so you throw a verse out, one of the big three. And the reality is, if you're on a plane, if you're on a bus, if you're waiting at the gate to get on the plane, which can sometimes take forever in a day, whatever the context might be in your neighborhood, think about, when you hear someone calling one of the big three, your response should never be, oh, here we go again.

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Your response should always be, ah, this is a perfect opportunity not only to answer this text, but then to use it to positively be able to present.

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Because how many of these folks have ever heard a true, heartfelt presentation of the perfection of the work of Christ?

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I mean, take the opportunity. Really, take the opportunity. Okay, let's go back here. He says, oh no, that's not right.

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He doesn't desire all men to be saved. He creates some. No, that's not what we say.

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We say that he desires all kinds of men to be saved. That's the context of the verse.

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And then we could go to Revelation chapter five and prove that because he has made men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation to be king and priesthood of God, because he purchased them with his own blood, by his own sacrifice.

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Consistent, clear. You don't have to bring in straw men and say that God just wants to torture people for eternity because I don't remember that particular verse.

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I don't remember that even in the Westminster Confession of Faith or in the London Baptist Confession of Faith or anything else because obviously it's meant to, that is a phrase that is meant to stop thought.

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It is meant to stultify thinking. And we shouldn't do that in reverse.

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You know, I'm taking his position apart point by point fairly. I don't need to do all the rest of that kind of stuff.

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No, again, it'd be nice if you were quoting somebody. All kinds of men is what the context is about.

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And then the focus is upon who specifically does Jesus intercede for.

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But you see, when you won't deal with the best the other side has to say, you're normally tilting at windmills anyway. Now God being omniscient certainly knows the future.

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He knows who will be saved and who will not. Uh -oh.

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Uh -oh. Looks like I got lost. There we go.

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Are we back? Are we here? No. My camera has turned off.

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And... Yes, it has. Oh, but you can still hear me? I can still hear you. I can still hear you.

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But your video feed stopped. How's that? We'll switch to this here until you get...

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There we go. You're back. Hi. I have no earthy idea what happened there. Maybe the desktop thing timed out or something.

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Oh, so I'm going to have to go back to it here and share screen.

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And start. Well, next time I'll know what to do. But thank you for that.

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That was the first glitch we had. Let's go back to what was being said there, which

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I sort of forgot anyways. Oops. But it's his desire to save all.

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What Calvinism is, is philosophical Islam masquerading as Christianity.

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Calvinism is Islam pretending to be Christianity. Yeah, really?

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Okay. I would love to hear an actual serious attempt.

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He's actually going to say that Calvin was influenced by the Muslims. I've read a lot about Calvin.

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It's pretty obvious to me. Luther knew much more about Islam than Calvin did.

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That was not something that Calvin had a great deal of interest in. And Luther had a

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Quran. Yeah, we lost you. Oh. Great.

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So you got nothing there, huh? Okay. Why does it keep turning that off?

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Well, there you go. I'm not sure why it's doing that all of a sudden, but I guess

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I'll have to keep an eye on it while we go back to me. Luther had much more influence from Islam, not in the sense of his theology, but knowledge of it than Calvin ever did.

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What you've got here is the irresponsible statements of Norman Geisler and others that confuses the

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Islamic concept of Qadr with the Christian concept of the sovereignty of God.

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Now, the strongest forms of Qadr certainly affirm that Allah wills everything that takes place in time.

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There are forms of Islamic theology that have a very strong form of predestination in it.

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But as I've said many, many times before, unless you're just looking to use that as something to beat people over the head with, if you seriously ask the question, what are the differences?

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Are there definitional differences between Qadr and the

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Christian concept? It's painfully obvious that there are.

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And what is it? Well, in Islamic theology, Allah is utterly transcendent. The idea of Allah joining a people to himself in the

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Christian concept of the elect joined to Jesus Christ, the whole idea of the incarnation, God's entrance into his own creation, the idea of the divine person of the

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Holy Spirit, not an angel, not Jibreel, but the actual divine spirit indwelling people in the intimate communion of Romans 8, for example, where the spirit intercedes for us with words that cannot be uttered.

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Utterly foreign, completely foreign to classical historic Islamic theology, the only difference being the

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Sufis that develop later, who have a much more spiritualistic interpretation, but because of that tend to be far away from any historical concept of Qadr either, because it becomes much more, well,

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I can't get into Sufism right now, even if I wouldn't claim to be an expert on it, but it is a fascinating area.

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Anyway, it is the personal nature of God's interaction that makes the two concepts completely disconnected from one another, because Qadr becomes fatalism.

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Qadr becomes Inshallah, Inshallah, if God wills.

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Now, he's actually going to confuse Inshallah, which is just a statement, if God wills, with Qadr.

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Don't get the feeling he's ever read any books on the subject, listening to discussions. You just throw it out there, and if you say it loud enough,

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I guess the people you want to talk to are going to believe you. But there is that element within historic

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Islam of Inshallah, if God wills, I can't impact, and, of course, the

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Hadith that is narrated and is a very strong Hadith regarding the fact that there are those who do the deeds of the people of Paradise their entire lives until their hands breath from entering in, and then what is written of them overcomes them, and they go into Hellfire.

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And there are those who do the deeds of the people of Fire their entire lives until their hands breath from entering in, and then what is written for them overcomes them, and they enter into Paradise.

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So the idea that 40 days after conception, an angel comes along, writes for you, male, female, successful, unsuccessful,

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Heaven or Hell. That's just the way it is. The Christian concept of God's sovereignty includes all those things, but it's a part of the fabric of God's entire interaction with his universe, and that's what's completely missing in Islam, and the biggest demonstration of that is the

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Incarnation. That's just absolutely central. And so you can do the

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Norman Geisler, Jacob Prosh, throw this thing out. All it shows is an abysmal ignorance of both

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Reformed theology and Islamic theology, both all at the same time. It's amazing how you can do that and shoot your credibility twice at the same time.

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All right, let's try this again, and maybe I'll have to let him go farther because it keeps wanting to bail out on me here, but here we go.

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In Islam, it is called Inshallah. Everything that happens is

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God's perfect will. Inshallah. Inshallah. That's cute. Talzin, we make

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Christianity. Yeah, so there you go. I already demonstrated that that's not even close.

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Obviously, if you're going to make that kind of argument, it would require some serious citations, forerunners in Calvin's thought, the sources he drew from, the people he cited, things like that.

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That's what would be required of you, but this isn't serious scholarship. This isn't serious commentary.

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It's red meat for your followers, so you just throw it out there, and some people are going to accept it.

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Those who know better won't. Among other problems makes God the reformed theology, which is based on…

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Now, this gets really weird because I'll be honest with you. I couldn't really figure out what he was saying.

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I don't get the feeling he's ever read Calvin or any of Calvin's interpreters or anything like that, so it gets really weird.

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I'm not really sure how to respond to weird stuff that gets way out there, but I'll make some comments anyways.

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Real Calvinism is not based on something you may have heard, Beza's tulip. That came from the remonstrance of Dort, not from Calvin, from one of his followers called

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Beza in Dort in Holland, the so -called tulip. The basis of Calvin's theology was…

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Did you get the feeling he thinks that that's where Beza was? I don't know.

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It's just sad. If you're going to make videos and throw them out there and say it's all evil and these people have no idea what they're talking about and all the rest of it,

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I don't know. I don't know where I get the idea you might want to read some books, something.

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It would be helpful generally, I think. Covenant theology, where Calvin claimed two covenants, one with…

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So Calvin never talks about the old and new covenants. But what about the covenant of grace?

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Anybody who knows Calvin is sitting here going, what is this guy talking about? But again, this kind of thing demonstrates they're not trying to communicate with us.

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They probably don't even think that we would ever even look at that. Someone on Twitter just said,

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Muslims pray to God and so do Calvinists. Therefore, yeah, it's that kind of thought.

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Muslims breathe air and so do Calvinists. Don't really think through the rest of that. Okay, all right, good.

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Focus on the old or the

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Gospels and make a new covenant at the Last Supper. No, it's the covenant with Adam and the covenant with Abraham.

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Really? So Calvin never talked about the new covenant and he never went into those texts in Hebrews. Really? Is that what you're suggesting?

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It's sort of hard to respond to this outside of just going, well, could we open our copies of the

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Institutes to book threes and just start diving in because it's flat earth apologetics is what it is.

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Of course, when you ask a Calvinist where does it say this, they can't show you because it doesn't. Calvin was a 16th century humanist.

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He was a man who ruled the theocratic police state in Geneva, doing very much the same kind of things that the

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Mutawa, the religious police in Saudi Arabia do today or that the Taliban did in Afghanistan.

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So I guess Calvin got that from the Muslims too. So tell me, where did the

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Inquisition get that from? Because actually the laws that were enforced in Geneva had been on the books for a long time.

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They just hadn't been enforced under Rome for a while. Where did

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Rome get all that from? Is Rome doing the same thing? Maybe you could explain that.

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I'm not really sure because it sounds like you're saying that he was getting this from the Muslims because he claimed that his theology came from the

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Muslims. So how about all the others that did the same things in the other

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Swiss cantons? Or Luther. Luther in Germany by 1525, he's persecuting the

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Anabaptists. Did he get that from the Muslims? Trying to deal with church history in a fair way with the

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Jacob Prosh, Dave Hunt spectrum of folks.

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Very, very difficult. Same kind of thing, the Marlowe's police, a cultic camp, a war against all culture.

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Instead of having football games, we're going to have public floggings as entertainment. This is what it was.

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This is what it was. Again, I hope that most people are serious enough to recognize that that was not what

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Geneva was. This idea of attack upon all of culture.

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Anyone who has some idea of what life in Geneva was like, the founding of the academy there.

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You know, one of the sad things is this man travels enough. He should know better if his mind is open.

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There was a almost unending stream of missionaries that came out of the schools of Geneva under Calvin and went directly into Italy to die as martyrs.

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Almost unending stream of people who believe the gospel is so important that they went to a place where they knew that they were going to lose their lives.

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And the educational institutions and movements that sprang out of that had tremendous impact in the

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English -speaking world. Many of the great institutions in the United Kingdom deeply influenced by the reformation and by the establishment of the educational systems and things like that in Geneva.

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This is just, well, they're lies. They're lies based upon ignorance and a lack of concern about truthfulness and being careful.

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And this, unfortunately, is very common in a great deal of anti -reform rhetoric that is out there.

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It all came from Calvinism, see. It all came from the fact that the

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Malleus Maleficarum, the hammer against witches, that had led to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of deaths, centuries before John Calvin was born.

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That had nothing to do with anything, right? That's irrelevant. It's all due to Calvin.

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See, this is why I'm teaching church history right now at PRBC.

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We're posting those on Sermon Audio. This is why it's helpful to have some knowledge of church history because these people have no knowledge of church history.

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Well, let me take that back. I see a lot of parallels between Dave Hunt and Prosh, and I think they did a lot of stuff together.

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They see what they want to see in the historical sources rather than allowing the historical sources to define their own parameters.

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And that's one of the greatest dangers in church history is you pick your facts and you ignore the ones that would militate against your position.

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And this is a great example of it in this type of rhetoric. Therefore, we can take your land, we can enslave you.

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This was the thinking of it. So again, here you're just throwing these accusations based upon what?

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Well, there were people who misused Reformed theology in South Africa.

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Well, there were. Are there people who have misused

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Jacob Prosh's theology in history past? There have been.

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And I, for one, would not use their abuse of synergism as an argument against synergism as a whole or against Jacob Prosh because I have standards of truthfulness and accuracy in argumentation that evidently the synergists aren't as interested in holding to.

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In reaction to this, some Christians had a problem because it made

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God the author of... Okay, I'm about out of time.

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I should have known I would only get halfway through it. But once again, when you have someone raising the issue of author of evil, you have to ask yourself the question, has this person provided to me a meaningful answer from his own perspective first?

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It's one thing to accuse other people. It's one thing to say this system cannot answer these questions.

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But unless you have demonstrated a consistent, coherent position on your own part first, well, that criticism really ends up falling upon deaf ears.

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At least it should, anyway. Maybe we'll continue on with this. You've got a good idea of what it's like.

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Like I said, I want to listen to this sermon that was sent to me, sent to the ministry, I guess, earlier today.

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And who knows, maybe we'll have another Radio Free Geneva once I get back home. I don't know.

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But don't forget, tomorrow afternoon, 6 p .m. Eastern Daylight Time, we'll have

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Vocab Malone back in studio and more on the history of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement.

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And when I get back, I'm sure we'll have to do some sort of discussion. Like I said, I want to address the

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Deuteronomy 28 stuff. So we will continue to build that library of material that will be available to people so as to deal with that particular movement as well.

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Thanks for watching The Dividing Line today. I hope you found it to be useful. And we will see you next time.