July 28, 2005

Around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded

Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. And good afternoon. Welcome to the Thursday afternoon edition of The Dividing Line.

Good to be with you. We were wondering a little bit whether we were going to make it or not because we were having some server hiccups there, but we got everything fixed.

Many thanks again to Pete. You're going to hear a little noise in the background. That's because a member of the folks from Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is sweating it out in our workroom, getting the insulation put back up.

Man, I'll tell you, insulation makes a big difference. You take the insulation out of a room in Phoenix and it gets a little bit toasty in there.

So this morning, Big George was out there and got all the tile up.

I think the tile just jumped off the floor and ran away when it saw George coming personally. You may have seen a picture of George on the blog, on the

Dividing Line page. He's a big boy. He is also the official keeper of notes in the

Sunday school class I teach, the adult Bible study class. You're not supposed to say Sunday school anymore.

It's very retro, I guess. Anyway, we've got more folks coming over to continue trying to put that room back together again after our little disaster last week.

So if you hear some pounding and tapping and so on and so forth, that's what it is. And you know what?

It really doesn't matter because there could be all sorts of other noises that would be considerably more distracting than that.

I have two things and then we will be taking your phone calls today.

Two items. The first is, well,

I have some more clips to play from Dr.

Davis, but we're not doing the radio free Geneva, no commercials to go 10 minutes later, no phone calls type situation.

But I may go ahead and throw in some more of that. But I also have something that's very,

I think, educational. And I was going to blog it and I thought, you know what?

It would be a whole lot easier just simply to address this on the dividing line and not do all the typing it would take and so on and so forth.

It is very, very educational, though. It's educational on two levels. I'm referring to the posts that have appeared on the

Envoy web forum in the not in response to my exegetical responses to Art Sippo, because to respond to something means you're actually dealing with what

I said. And if there's anything that the folks on Envoy don't do, it is actually respond accurately, fairly and honestly with what someone says about them, especially when you take the time to do what

I did. I sat down with something that Art Sippo has on the

Catholic legate website. And so I'd assume that if it's there and it's linked there and it's on the menus, that it's something that has been put out there for examination and allegedly to present the truth.

And so I took the time over the course of about a week. I wrote seven blog articles that together comprise an exegetical response to Art Sippo.

And what I did starting about, I don't know, halfway through a little bit more than that is I would provide a contrast between his comments on the text and my own from a published work,

The Potter's Freedom. I also provided commentary from John Calvin. And I thought that was very educational in the sense of comparing and contrasting the, in my opinion, very shallow, superficial, just over the top of the text commentary from Art Sippo that he shows no willingness or ability to engage the actual text itself.

He doesn't seem to be able to do any type of meaningful exegesis. He likes to say that I'm the same boat he's in as an uneducated layman with no graduate degrees.

He doesn't like my doctoral work, even though it was in apologetics and produced books that have been used in Bible study,

Bible colleges all across the United States. And in fact, my committee is the meanest committee you can get.

It's the people on the other side. They don't tend to like what you have to say. But for some reason, he also completely dismisses

Fuller Theological Seminary as if Fuller just doesn't exist, as well as 10 years of teaching experience on the graduate level at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

So anyways, he just conveniently forgets these little facts and the fact that I've taught

Greek and Hebrew, Greek exegesis, Hebrew exegesis for a number of years. And so I engaged him on that level.

And in fact, it was funny. There's another person that posts on the Envoy web form called

Crimson Catholic, and he just is very practiced at missing the point.

He quoted what I said about the fact that Dr. Sippo, to my knowledge, has never studied Greek or Hebrew, has never taught

Greek or Hebrew or exegesis or hermeneutics or anything along those lines, any of the relevant courses that would be required.

And which I have done. And he responds by saying that I'm philosophically ignorant.

Let's say it's true. Let's say that I haven't taught Christian philosophy, religion on the graduate level at Golden Gate Seminary since 1997.

Let's say I didn't do that. Let's just wipe the record out there and just dismiss that.

My responses to Art Sippo in the title says an exegetical response.

And it's been fascinating to me to note that, in essence, the Roman Catholics on the Envoy web board have abandoned even the pretext of attempting to engage in exegesis.

And isn't it interesting that Bill Rutland didn't want to do that either? And remember, Bill Rutland very clearly had been in contact with both

Patrick Madrid and Art Sippo prior to our debate. And when I tried to get him to deal with the text of scripture, remember what happened?

We've played the sections. We have the clips on the website you can look at. He did everything in his power to avoid having to get into that material.

A Roman Catholic in channel just said, and I won't identify who it is for his own sake, but you do realize you are arguing with morons, right?

Well, you know, I don't know if that's the case. Let's put it this way.

Let me just sort of address the Roman Catholic channel. When there are Protestants who call themselves apologists who make really lousy arguments, do

I point out their really lousy arguments or because they're Protestants, do I give them a pass? May I mention

Dave Hunt, for example? You know, Dave Hunt speaks against Roman Catholicism.

He says true things, I think, about Roman Catholicism. He also says things that are unbalanced because of the way he does quote unquote research.

If truth is the issue, then shouldn't there be a whole cadre of voices out there condemning the activity of an

Art Sippo? And individuals like that, but I don't see that.

I don't see those people consistently standing up to those types of individuals.

I don't see that happening. It seems to me that as long as it serves mother church, it's okay.

That has been my experience with the people in the Catholic answers forums, the people in the envoy forums. And so unless our

Roman Catholic friend and channel is indicating that only quote unquote morons, that was his term, not mine, engage in writing on those forums, then why don't we see the same kind of consistent response and a calling these people to a higher standard that we practice amongst our own people?

I mean, that's one of the reasons that we're as small as we are and will always be as small as we are, is that I'm not politically correct.

I will say things that I have to say. Give me an example.

I'm, you know, as everybody knows right now, up to my shoulders in John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg books and studying and reading and, you know, my wife will tell you, we'll be driving along and I'll be silent for a long, long time because my mind's a million miles away.

I'm going through questions in my mind. I'm going through all sorts of things and that's what

I'm studying. And so one of the things I did is I had ordered a while back the debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan, which

I listened to months ago, but I ordered it from CRI as a part of a series. And I had totally forgotten that there were two cassette tapes that were supposed to come with it.

And they just arrived, I think, last week. And I need to give a shout out to the guys that do the shipping at CRI.

Those are the types of guys that get everything done, man. You know, the guys down the sweatshop, the guys down in the phone room that answer the phones.

And those are the folks that, you know, just like right here, they're the people who get stuff done.

Those are the people that do the real ministry. And so hi, guys. Great to hear from you all again.

So I got this stuff from them and I was listening to,

I think it was a 1999 program where Hank Hanegraaff is interviewing William Lane Craig after the debate with John Dominic Crossan.

And everybody knows that I have criticized William Lane Craig rather strongly in the past and continue to do so because of his

Mullenism. He is really the chief American promoter of Mullenism today.

Mullenism is primarily dead amongst Roman Catholics, amongst the Jesuits who created it initially.

And so I find Mullenism to be a philosophy without basis in God's word.

It is not authorized by God's word. It came into existence to find a way around God's sovereignty and God's decree.

And I find it reprehensible and disgusting and unbiblical and to be just a bad thing.

And so I have criticized William Lane Craig on that level. And I've also criticized him on the apologetic level. In fact,

I use his debate against a man by the name of Frank Zindler as a contrast between his approach and that of Dr.

Greg Bonson when I teach classes on apologetics. And yes, again, that is actually at a seminary on the graduate level.

So I compare and contrast them. And I do so because what

William Lane Craig says, and this is what came out in his conversation with Hank Hanegraaff, is he was saying, you know, apologists will frequently make far too grand assertions.

I think it's better to make more moderate assertions and be able to establish them to make grand assertions.

Well, OK, that's fine if what we mean by that is, well, anybody with a brain can see the

Bible's Word of God. OK, that's not really the kind of assertion anybody wants to make. But what he was talking about was much more along the lines of his approach.

When he debated Frank Zindler, his thesis was that the preponderance of the evidence points to the greater probability of the existence of a

God than it does toward the atheistic worldview. Now, think about that.

The preponderance of the evidence points to the greater probability of the existence of a

God. Now, if you ever listen to that classic debate that took place 20 years ago, this past,

I think, February it was, I marked the date on the blog, between Greg Bonson and Gordon Stein, you know that Dr.

Bonson didn't argue that way. He argued the way that the apostles did.

The apostles did not say that the greater preponderance of the evidence points to the higher probability that Jesus might have been raised from the dead.

That's not how they argued. They didn't even argue that. It was a fact. It was the way that it is.

It was the foundation of everything else. And Bonson argued that not only would he not even debate the existence of a

God, he said, I'm here to demonstrate the existence of the Christian God and not anybody else.

And that contrast, I think, is very, very important. And I then go into Romans chapter one and discuss issues regarding things from there.

And so I have been critical of William Lane Craig on those levels for quite some time.

Why don't I hear that same kind of, I don't know, consistency from Roman Catholic apologists?

Where is the person standing up and saying, you know what? Arch Sippo is a blight on Catholic apologists and apologetics as a whole.

His behavior is reprehensible. His information is shallow. And, you know, why doesn't

Patrick Madrid say that? Why doesn't Carl Keating say that? Why don't these people clean house is what

I'm saying. And so all of that to just address the questions. Those of you who maybe not don't listen to the program, it's the first time you've listened to it regularly.

We have a live chat channel and people are in the channel listening as I am doing this. And I'm reading some of what they're saying.

I can't follow all of it. And we have a Roman Catholic channel made that comment.

He was saying, yeah, but, you know, the other people, I'm responding to Sippo. I'm there. I'm only going to read one quote from anybody else.

Well, the Crimson Catholic, I, you know, made reference to him.

But the explosion, and it really is that. The explosion of hatred toward reform theology that has resulted from my series again,

I have not seen anything I said other than one quote about our Sippos, about the fact that our

Sippo is a medical doctor. He's not a theologian. He's not trained in that area at all. That's the only quote I've seen from from what

I said. You would think, especially, you know, in my position, if I had made the kind of mistake that he made regarding the

Greek grammar, I would at least have to try to explain what

I was saying. Or if I think I was misunderstood, try to clarify it or just admit, OK, you're right,

I was wrong. There's not even an acknowledgement of the error exists anywhere in what is going on on the envoy boards.

Now, you know that Sippo started off by saying, referring to the blog articles, but saying ignorant ravings by an uneducated pundit really require no response.

And so, you know, even my undergraduate work, double major and minor in Greek, just doesn't matter in that kind of situation.

Anyways, I continue on. These prod pundits claim that these verses prove that God has the right to do anything he wants with men and that we have no right to question his motives in their system.

If God wants to make certain men do evil, that is his divine prerogative and his sovereignty is above question. That again,

I in the past may have and I'm not thinking of anything in particular here.

I don't have any examples of this, but since I am not infallible, there are times in my life where I may have misunderstood what someone said to me or the position of a particular religious group or a person

I was debating. But I always try. I mean, I am investing hours and hours of study.

My eyesight is bothering me right now in how hard I'm working to understand, to truly understand what

John Dominic Crossan believes and why. I'm really trying to do that and I do that because the fact, well, let's be honest,

I do it because I love truth. And if you love the truth, then you cannot treat it in a cavalier fashion and you cannot enter into a debate just assuming you know what the other guy believes.

You have to take the time to read what he's saying. I never said anything about Karl Keating until I read his book.

And then I quoted Karl Keating and demonstrated that Karl Keating really continues even to this day to operate on a very shallow level in regards to very shallow fundamentalist apologetics.

And you know what? Karl Keating doesn't even pretend to address anything beyond that.

He doesn't pretend to address what we come up with, in essence. And I think

Karl would recognize the difference. Between myself and a lot of the people that he deals with,

I think he probably would recognize that and say, you know what? I'm not addressing you. I'm addressing a very different genre of individuals.

So I take the time to find out what somebody's talking about. And I try to do so accurately. Art Sippo doesn't do that.

A Calvinist, and I don't know who it is. It may be somebody I know. If it is, they haven't told me that they've done this, that they're the ones doing this.

By using the Nick Wacoon, W -O -K -O -U -N, as I recall. I cut and paste these things, so I don't have it up at the moment.

But started responding to Sippo. And he's done a pretty decent job from what

I've seen. And has kept a pretty level head despite all the stuff being thrown his direction.

And at one point, he asked him, he basically said, you don't really know what you're talking about.

You don't understand Calvinism. You're misrepresenting it over and over again. If you just come to understand it, you might be able to argue more intelligently.

And he says, why should I care? Why in the world should I learn what in the world you believe?

In fact, I have. Let me scroll down here and see if I put that.

Yeah, here it is. This is his response to being said to Wacoon saying to him, you should learn what

Calvinists believe. He says, why should I bother? The Catholic Church is excommunicated. And by the way,

Dr. Sippo, it's called spellcheck. Some of this stuff is only barely in English.

OK, now maybe that's because he's a doctor. And they figured they don't have to write anyway. But you can understand him. So he doesn't have to type anyway.

I understand. But this stuff, if I stumble over it, it's mainly because, you know, like excommunicated.

And it's just apostatized and it's just wild.

I don't know if he just types so fast, just doesn't care enough to prove it or what. I don't know. But anyway, why should

I bother? The Catholic Church has excommunicated Calvin and anathematized his heresies. He was judged by competent ecclesiastical authorities under the superintendence of the

Holy Spirit and condemned. He furthermore willfully apostatized from its form, the

Catholic faith, and created his own ape of the Christian religion in dialectical. It's probably should be opposition to the church founded by Jesus.

He has nothing of value to contribute to my Catholic faith. My only need to know anything about his that should be this man is to condemn him and to prevent people from being seduced into his false religion.

So I don't know what he believed. I've not read him. But I know because the church tells me the church condemns him.

Therefore, I do. Art Sippo is a wonderful example of sola ecclesia inaction.

I don't have to know what you believe. I don't have to accurately represent you. You've been condemned anyway.

So why should I bother? Why should I care? That's that's exactly what what he said.

That's a direct direct quote there. So anyway, going back to the citation.

The odd thing is there will be times when Sippo is is forced to say true things just simply by getting around to actually addressing the issue being raised.

For example, he uses the term compatibilism at some point, but then he says Calvinists don't have a workable form of it. How does he know?

How does he know he does finally try to, for example, at least he didn't do what happened on a certain radio program

I was on a while back. I brought up Isaiah chapter 10 and the clear example of compatibilism that is found in Isaiah chapter 10.

And God's using Assyria as the instrument of his punishment against a wicked people.

And he he brings that up. And at least he tried to deal with it.

I don't think he did overly well, but at least he tried. It's unlike many others. If you're not familiar with the passage, woe to Assyria.

This is Isaiah 10 5. Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger and the staff in whose hands is my indignation.

I send it against a godless nation. That's Israel, by the way, Judah and commission it against the people of my fury to capture booty and to seize plunder and to trample them down like mud in the streets.

Israel actually. Yet it does not so intend. Now notice that God's bringing Assyria against Israel to destroy

Israel. And we know the Assyrians did this. And God knows what's going to happen.

They're going to capture booty, seize plunder to trample them down like mud in the streets. Folks, let's realize when the

Assyrians came into a nation in full war mode, the results were ugly.

The results were bad. They were bloody. They were brutal. And a lot of folks today want to draw back from any idea of a

God that would do that. There are sadly very few people today who claim to believe the

Bible, who actually, if pressed, would say, yes, I believe that God brought the

Assyrians against Israel and the resultant things that happened were a part of his purpose.

They were a part of his punishment. The vast majority of them will run off and they will deal, they'll try to do the libertarian thing and God isn't really to blame for all this and so on and so forth.

That's what they will do. But notice what verse 7 says. Yet it, Assyria, does not so intend, nor does it plan so in its heart, but rather is its purpose to destroy and to cut off many nations.

So we have one action, Assyria coming against Israel, trampling them in the streets like mud in the streets, but you have two intentions.

God's intention is perfect and holy. Did not his law, did not his covenant say that this is what would happen when you break his law?

When you love your sin and when you continue in that sin and you ignore the people, the prophets that he sends to you and their call of condemnation.

What happens? He brings other nations to bear and he brings punishment to bear.

So God's intention is perfect. However, what's the intention of the heart of the king of Assyria?

To cut off many nations, destroy and cut off many nations. That's what they did. They were a bloodthirsty people. And then you have a citation of Assyria, for it says,

Are not my princes all kings? Is not Cano like Carchemish or Harmoth like Arpad or Samaria like Damascus?

As my hand has reached into the kingdoms of the idols, whose graven images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, shall

I not do to Jerusalem and her images just as I have done to Samaria and her idols? And so here's the boast of the king of Assyria.

And then notice what Isaiah says in verse 12. So it will be that when the Lord has completed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will say,

I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness. Now, someone might say, well, wait a minute.

God was using that haughtiness. Yes, he has the right to do that. God had the right as soon as that first haughty thought entered into the heart of the king of Assyria to destroy him.

Did he not? Could not God bring his wrath instantly against any act of sin and cut that person off?

Every time I ask someone that they go, well, of course. So when God withholds that wrath, but uses the action for his own purposes and greater glory, everybody's like,

I can't do that. And all the objections start. Why?

If God has withheld his rightful wrath in the destruction of the king of Assyria, even one time, what does it matter what he does with that condemned individual after that?

Think about that for so many of the objections. Just just fall by the wayside when you consider that.

I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria. One action.

The arrogance of the king of Assyria was a part of that. Now, are these non -reformed folks of these

Roman Catholics going to say, well, you know, the king of Assyria could have done differently.

And and then God would have had to find found another way of punishing Israel. Is that what they're going to say? I don't know, because I can never, ever, ever get anybody to actually answer these questions.

Have you noticed that? Yes, they end up. Well, John 3, 16 says the world.

Let's run off someplace else. Let's not deal with what the text says here. Verse 13, for he said, by the power of my hand and by my wisdom,

I did this. For I have understanding and I removed the boundaries of the peoples and plundered their treasures like a mighty man.

I brought down their inhabitants. My hand reaches to the riches of the people like a nest. As one gathers abandoned eggs,

I gathered all the earth. And there was not one that flapped its wing or opened its beak or chirped. And so there's the arrogance.

The king of Assyria did not see that he was but the instrument in the hand of God.

And so in verse 15 is the axe to boast itself or the one who chops with it. That's what the king of Assyria is.

He's an axe in the hand of God being used of God for his purpose. But he doesn't see it. And folks, that's what we all are.

Art Sipo doesn't like that art. You can tell Art Sipo hates that truth, hates it with a passion.

Is the axe to boast itself or the one who chops with it? Is the saw to exalt itself or the one who wields it? That would be like a club wielding those who lift it or like a rod lifting him who is not wood.

Therefore, the Lord, the God of hosts, will send a wasting disease among his stout warriors. And under his glory, a fire will be kindled like a burning flame.

And so you have the destruction of the king of Assyria and his armies.

But we need to see the compatibilism here. The king of Assyria was rightfully judged for the arrogance of his heart.

That's what he was. That's who he is. But God used it. And in fact, outside of the extension of grace to the king of Assyria, he cannot change his own spots.

Can a leopard change his spots? Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Is that not what scripture says?

Indeed, it is. We'll continue looking. I just barely started these commentaries. Just barely started.

We'll continue after this break. We'll be right back here on The Dividing Line. This portion of The Dividing Line has been made possible by the

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If God wants to make certain men do evil, that is his D -I -V -N -E prerogative and his sovereignty is above question.

And of course, we recognize that he's not dealing with the actual position of reformed folks.

He even at times will talk about compatibilism between God's sovereign decree and the responsibility of men.

He just doesn't seem to know enough about Calvinism to know that we talk much about that. And we just simply affirm what the scripture says concerning God's decree and his elect.

Another fascinating element of his argument, which I did address in a blog, quote, In fact, St. Paul was a

Pharisaic Jew trained to be a rabbi. His concern was not to defend God's power, but rather man's free will.

It's not the first time that we have seen someone take a passage of scripture here, specifically

Romans chapter 9, where you have the objector saying, how can

God still find fault for who resists his will? And Paul's response is, who are you, oh man, to answer back to God?

The thing formed, let's say, the one who formed it. Why'd you make me like this, will it? Talk about it.

Romans 9, this clear passage of, it's not of the man who wills and so on and so forth. And what does Art Sippel come up with?

That's about free will. Paul's defending free will. And remember, Norman Geisler did the same thing with John 6, 44.

No man has the ability to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I'll raise him up in the last day. See, Jesus is teaching free will.

And you look at that, and you just want to run headlong into a wall. It would feel better than dealing with this incredible, massive chunk of tradition that these people are looking through.

You just don't know what to do when someone's calling black, white, and white, black.

What, how much more clearly does the text have to speak? Absolutely incredible.

Then, Art Sippel really does take the role of the objector in Romans 9. He really takes the exact role of the position of the person who is objecting to Paul's teaching.

Listen to this. First of all, oh, that's first of all. We must remember that man is not just a thing like a piece of clay.

We are persons made in the image and likeness of God. Consequently, it would not be moral for God to merely use us to make a point or to show his power.

Now, think about that. Think about that. God could never merely use us.

Well, first of all, how about God using condemned sinners? And in the demonstration of their condemnation and their punishment and their wrath, because remember, he destroyed

Pharaoh in the waters. In the way that he brings his condemnation and his wrath to bear, he glorifies himself and makes his name known.

How about that? I don't see that fitting into Sippel's theology here.

The God who would use human, the God who would use human being, probably should be plural beings, like a potter uses clay, could not claim any moral justification for it and would not be the

God of the Bible. Really? That kind of God would be more like the pagan gods of Greece and Rome.

The analogy, listen to this, the analogy of the potter and the clay, therefore, limps badly and can only be taken so far.

Well, please excuse the Holy Spirit for having inspired it. We are indeed creatures and God can plan a destiny for us, but we are not mere objects to be disposed of with impunity.

The fact that Christ died for us proves this. Now, again, completely and totally ignoring the sinfulness of man, completely and totally ignoring the wrath of God, ignoring all of that, which is endemic in Roman Catholic theology, unfortunately.

That's what happens when you have a system of libertarianism and sacramentalism and put the two together. You have this kind of rhetoric that completely misses the point, but that's what's being produced.

How can God blame us for sinful acts that he has inexorably ordained that we do? If I cannot do otherwise, then

I am not responsible for them. This is not a challenge to God's sovereignty, it is offense of God's goodness. Okay, how about Acts 4 .28?

How about Isaiah chapter 10? How about Genesis 50 .20? How about Romans chapter 9?

How about dealing with these texts? Are you saying, you know, that sounds to me like a bald argumentation for libertarianism.

If there is any divine decree that determines man's actions in time, throw it out.

There can be no responsibility. And are you all noticing something here?

I mean, aside from just the inherent nastiness of the sypoisms, which is just the way he speaks, that's just his nature.

But have you noticed something else about the arguments? Yeah, a bunch of you have.

If I hadn't told you this is Art Sypo, could this have been Dave Hunt? Of course it could.

Could this have been Dr. Davis? Herb Rivas? Adrian Rogers?

You bet, could have been any one of them. Could have been any one of them. And people get angry with me when

I point out the fact that the

Reformation was about a view of man's will and a view of God's grace.

And a whole bunch of people today agree with Rome against the reformers who call themselves

Protestants. And they get all upset. Oh, you're throwing us all together. I make careful distinction between Armenian and Roman Catholic on many issues, on the issue of sacraments and things like that.

I know the differences. But the point is, when it comes down to whether it's God who saves or it's

God who is limited to cooperating with man to bring about man's salvation, which is why he tries to save everybody but fails.

The fact of the matter is, the early generations of those who had to deal with Arminianism said it well.

They saw that Arminianism was simply popeless Catholicism. It was an implicit abandonment of the principles of the

Reformation regarding grace and the nature of man under a philosophical guise.

That's all it was. And it still is. It's just become much less robust in its philosophy, for that matter.

That's all it is. And when you hear, I hope, and this has come up in other contexts, but I hope that if you're an

Arminian, and I don't know why in the world an Arminian would be listening today, but once in a while it happens. If you're an

Arminian and you hear what this man's saying and you realize this man is a staunch

Roman Catholic, I hope it bothers you to realize that you are standing on the exact same ground.

The exact same ground. I'm not making the argument, well, since Rome's wrong, then you're wrong too. What I'm saying is, you all have the same view here.

How do you differentiate yourself? How do you respond to these things? You're not going to be able to present a meaningful doctrine of grace once you make that grace subservient to the will of man for its success.

Sorry, it just doesn't work. You can try, but it ain't going to happen. Continuing with Sippo, first of all, that is exactly what

Calvinists do. They will tell you that men are totally depraved and that virtually everything we do is a sin. Well, obviously, even the scriptures tell us the unregenerate man, the man who is in rebellion against God, cannot do anything that is pleasing to God because they are in rebellion against him.

Isn't that what Romans 8 says, for example, those who are quarreling the flesh cannot please God? Is it not possible for them to do so?

They will also insist that God ordains all things, that's Ephesians 1 .11, not merely permits them, that's quite true, so that God plans the sins that men commit, then irrevocably decrees that we commit them.

Well, if what he means by that is that God uses even the sins of men, like Acts 4 .28

tells us, yes, God uses even the sins of men. And then he holds us accountable for acting on the basis of what we love and doing what our hearts desire.

Yep, no question about it. That's right. Now, let's see Dr. Sipo actually touch the text of scripture more than just simply lightly floating over it.

Let's hear about Isaiah 10. Let's hear about Acts 4. He does, by the way,

I mentioned that. He did talk about Isaiah 10.

Here's what he said. Here, God used the evil proclivities of the king of Assyria to chastise

Jerusalem for its sins. Now, does that mean God was, this is me talking now, does that mean God looked around for someone who was evil enough to use?

Does that mean that God had not planned to use Assyria from eternity past? I really wonder how they come up with a consistent doctrine of the sovereignty of God here in God's relationship to time.

I don't know. Then he planned to punish the Assyrian king for doing evil. Exactly.

God did not make the king evil. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean that the king was morally neutral and all we're affirming here is that God didn't put a gun to his head and say, here, you become evil, become bad.

Of course not. The king was already evil. God was already having to restrain the evil of the king.

All he did was just took his hand off, directed his evil. He didn't have to make him evil.

He was already evil. He's a fallen son of Adam for crying out loud. Isaiah clearly states in verse 7 that the king is acting out of his own base motives that are not those of God.

Of course, God's perspective is perfect. God's intentions are perfect and the man's are not.

They're sinful. Duh. That's called compatibilism. God used the king's free will.

Wow, where'd that come from? To punish Israel and then punish the king for his wickedness. In everything, God's actions were morally justified in punishing wicked men for their willful evil deeds.

Exactly true. If you just hadn't stuck free will in there someplace, you would have been very biblical.

Excellent example of compatibilism. Well, there's so much more here, but we've got three callers. Let me just get to one thing here and then we'll try to get to our callers.

In a big font, I mean, he took the time to make it real big, OK? Here's what he said to another

Roman Catholic. Why do you think I have been hammering at these people as hard as I have? This is the filth, he's talking about Calvinism, that the defamation let loose into the world.

So it has been from the 16th century, and so it shall be until the last of these blasphemers is extirpated from the face of the earth.

I hope this gives you an appreciation for how far from historic Christianity the prot religions have strayed and why

I am honor bound to oppose them to the bitter end. Now, there's a man. There's a man who gives you a good glimpse of what an inquisitor was like.

Art Sipo would have been a great inquisitor. He would have been one of those guys that turned, you know, the thing on the rack.

For the good of your soul, of course, and in service to Mother Church. You better believe it.

You want to see what a modern, the modern inquisition looks like? Take a look at, take a look at Art Sipo.

And now the Calvinoid tries to get us to buy his spiel about Goid, which asks us to believe the same thing.

Can you say demonic deception? I'm just simply quoting the man directly.

I could have read so much more today, but we are running out of time here and I've got to remember where in the world

I need to go here. So let's try to knock some of these off fairly quickly. We've only got about 10 minutes left.

Let's talk with Scott in Kirkland, Washington. Hi, Scott. Hi, James.

How you doing? How you doing? Doing good. Great. I'm doing well. I just had a kind of a pastoral question,

I guess, a little bit. I have a friend who, he was going to a charismatic church and then we started talking about the

Doctrine of Grace and basically he's come to believe them intellectually. If you ask what the

Bible teaches, he's very clear. He believes it, but he's just having a real hard time kind of emotionally with the idea of unconditional election, kind of asking, when he looks at his family and people that aren't saved and he doesn't know that they're not elect, but he says in the case that they aren't, why is it that he would want them to be saved and God wouldn't?

And you can explain it to him and he kind of gets it. He's like, yeah, that makes sense intellectually, but he's having a hard time with kind of the way that he feels about it.

Yeah, well, you know, two things could happen there as far as I see it.

I have met people who have come to love God's truth over time, even though at first it was so opposed to elements of, shall we say, unsanctified thought and tradition in their minds that they continued to resist it.

So I call them the unwilling Calvinist, shall we say, who at least is subject to the word of God and as such asks that God would reveal his glory in his truth and allow us to see the consistency of his glory in his goodness and in his wrath in both.

But there's also others that I know who have become quote unquote intellectually convinced, but because their heart is not in it and they don't see the glory of God in it, it eventually leads them to an abandonment of a high view of the inspiration of scripture so that they can escape what they find to be so reprehensible to their mind.

Jonathan Edwards, in talking about how we can even see that we are regenerate, the test that we can apply to ourselves, one of the tests that he asks is, do we love those aspects of God's nature that are most reprehensible to the natural man?

And so while I think there can be a period of time where a person, as they are first coming to understand these things, struggles with those things and can't really confess a passion about it,

I don't see that as being something that is normative in the long run. And in fact,

I would be concerned about someone who, years after coming to understand what the

Bible says about these things, continues to say, yeah, I know the Bible says it, but I really don't like it. That just to me, that shouts major problems.

That shouts, look out, look out. There's something missing here. There's some foundational issues that are not being addressed.

And so I would be concerned if that is something that's continued on for a long period of time.

Well, and we've talked about that a little bit, and he knows that the fact that he doesn't like it is just his flesh, and it's just, it's not right.

And he knows that it's sin, and he confesses it as sin and prays that God would change his heart too. So yeah, well, hopefully if he's in a good church where there are godly elders and men who can model for him how that works and how that works itself out in daily life, that would help out a lot.

I think it's one of the reasons why God in his wisdom placed us within the context of the fellowship of the faith so we can have those people that we can look up to and they can help us in that way.

Okay. Okay. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. God bless. Bye -bye. Bye -bye. Let's talk to Tom in Florida.

Hi, Tom. Hey, James. This is the guy that sends you the net. Bible by God. I hope you're enjoying it.

Hey, very much so. Even though it still opens to John 8, that makes it special. Hey, I got a question for you.

In Romans chapter 10, try to basically understand not the people that are caught up in tradition as much as those who vehemently oppose and just outright attack the doctrines of grace.

And in Romans chapter 10, verses 11 to 13, it talks about everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame, no distinction between Jew and Greek, the same

Lord is Lord of all, the store and riches on who call him. For everyone who calls the name of the Lord will be saved, a quote, obviously, from Joel 2 .32.

And when you read that in that text, it clearly is Joel referring to the sovereignty of the

Lord being over, obviously, sovereign of all things. Tying that with chapter 9 of Romans, saying that God is sovereign over salvation.

One of the things I have a hard time with are those who just absolutely outright attack the doctrines of grace and deny the very

Lord that Romans 10 .13 says we have to call upon to be saved. Yeah, well, it really depends on the nature of the attack.

I mean, I understand exactly what you're talking about. We cannot help but wonder. It truly grieves me very much to see, well, for example, on the last program,

I played the end of the rather infamous Adrian Rogers hyper -Calvinism study.

And it grieves me to listen to Dr. Rogers, in essence, mocking the miracle of regeneration in the sovereignty of God.

That grieves me tremendously. Now, do I really think that has he had the opportunity to understand these things?

Oh, no question. But does that mean that he's taken that opportunity? And can I go so far as to make application as to the state of his soul?

Well, no, I can't do that. But it certainly grieves me. And it certainly is something I would have to, if someone were to say something like that in my presence,

I don't care who they are. I would have to say something to them concerning my concern over what they just did and that could create quite a stink,

I would imagine, but I can't see how else I could do it. There's obviously in this life,

I don't know that either you and I are going to be able to distinguish between a person who is attacking

God's truth regarding his freedom and salvation out of ignorant tradition that simply has not yet been addressed by the

Holy Spirit of God. I cannot tell the Holy Spirit of God how quickly he is to sanctify someone as far as progressive sanctification is concerned, as far as they're coming to understand elements of God's truth.

At the same time, I can't tell the difference between that person and the person who's attacking that because they hate it, because they're not regenerate.

They're a religious fraud. I can't necessarily tell what the difference between those two is in this life.

I think that there's a point at which the spectrum of those two may well overlap.

I think that certainly you're going to see more balance in the part of the regenerate individuals in the sense that, well, for example, when

I reviewed Roger's materials when he was preaching on Romans 9 a couple years ago,

I pointed out that when he addressed in the Golden Chain of Redemption the history of justification, he did it wonderfully.

And he told the truth about what justification was. And he told the biblical truth about what justification was.

Now, is that consistent with what he says about predestination election? No, it's not. Does he realize that?

Evidently not. But that would be what might be missing in the spectrum of the unregenerate religious people who likewise demonstrate their hatred.

I mean, you know, I read these Roman Catholics and one of the most common things I hear from Roman Catholics when

I discuss the subject is I would never, ever, ever worship a God like that.

And I always say to them, I know that's my point. You're exactly right. You wouldn't.

And in fact, you can't unless God changes your heart. And you don't get to choose what kind of God actually needs to be worshipped.

He is the one who reveals himself. And we are duty bound to worship the one who made us.

So... I've heard those same comments, though, from some of these same preachers that they could never worship

God like that. And I guess that's what's disconcerting. But... Yeah, I know. Yeah. You say it's worthy then that we should or it warranted,

I should say, that we should at least warn them that, you know, they're actually denying the very

Lord. Well, obviously... Yeah, well, when you say denying the

Lord, you know, that's very loaded. That's good enough to get you a bloody nose in a lot of places down south,

I think. I didn't mean it to that degree. I understand. But my statement to someone, if I were to have the opportunity, if I were to run into Adrian Rogers someplace,

I travel enough. I'll be in Georgia next weekend. I, you know, who knows? You know, the Atlanta airport's a big airport,

OK? And lots and lots of people go through it. Maybe I would end up sitting next to him on the train or something like that. If I were to talk to someone like that,

I would probably look at them. Well, I'll give you... Man, that's not a good parallel. I was talking about someone else

I'm going to have to talk to about something. But I would probably, if we were to have the opportunity of speaking, say, you know, when you describe...

And by the way, callers, we're going a few minutes longer. So just hold on. When you describe the tremendously merciful and gracious and effective and powerful act of the sovereign

God in glorifying himself in the regeneration of his elect as God zapping people, and you do so in such a way that is dismissive and mocking.

Dr. Rogers, I just don't see any seriousness in your comments regarding the doctrines of grace and those who hold those doctrines who can present such a compelling biblical argument that I don't get the feeling you have ever actually sat down and considered in any type of extended way.

Now, might he dismiss me? Of course, he probably wouldn't have the foggiest idea who in the world I am. But I would have to tender that warning as to a brother.

I would be much rather... I would much rather be found in the judgment to have identified someone who was a brother who wasn't and treated them in that way than to have treated a brother as an unbeliever.

I need grace. You need grace. We all need grace along those lines.

So I think that it's better to err on that side than on the other side.

You know, most people don't even think I have a kind body, a bone in my body. So they're probably shocked that I would say anything like that.

But I really do try to... I tried for the longest time.

And I still... You've never heard me say Dave Hunt's an unbeliever. I've never said that.

But I have said that, my goodness, his utter disregard for truth is extremely disconcerting.

And it's not just once. It is a repeated pattern over time that is very disconcerting.

But still, you're not going to see me run around doing that kind of thing because, sadly, that ends up distracting people.

Well, the same grace that opens our eyes to salvation is the same grace that opens our eyes to this truth as well. Well, it is.

And we can't tell God exactly when he's going to make that happen. So that's all I have.

OK, thanks a lot. All right, God bless. Let's try to sneak one more in here because he called first, actually.

Let's go to line three and I've got to scroll way back here. Joey, sorry it took so long to get to you.

No problem. Thanks for taking my call. No problem. Actually, I had a question. This is totally off the subject.

I apologize. But it's about Unitarianism. And a group of my... I'm actually a member at the

Riverside Reformed Baptist Church and we actually went out and started witnessing at a festival and I ran into a

Unitarian. And I've already read the Forgotten Trinity, which I enjoyed a lot. And I really think it was a blessing.

But there was one scripture that this Unitarian brought to me and I'm looking at it.

And what it is, it's Luke 135. And I'm not really sure if he's using this scripture to differentiate between the

Father and the Son. But he did say something on the lines of, for this purpose,

Christ was created. So I think he was more... His point was the fact that Christ was created. And I just didn't...

I don't really know how to look at this. I was wondering if you had a comment on this. Well, I'm not really sure what a

Unitarian is thinking here outside of the... Luke 135 says, the angel answered and said to her, the

Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the Holy Child will be called the

Son of God. Now, it almost sounds to me as if what he's saying is, this is when the

Son of God comes into existence. Right. Yeah. But obviously, the biblical teaching is this is when the

Son of God took human flesh. Not that the Son of God has eternally had human flesh, but as Paul puts it in John 1 .1,

the Logos sarx agenita became flesh at a point in time.

So I would... The only other thing that I've heard some people use, I don't know why

Unitarian would use this. Well, maybe, maybe, is that the

Holy Spirit is the one who overshadows Mary. And yet the child that is brought about as a result of that divine action is called the

Son of God. So in other words, maybe what he's trying to say is, here is an identification of the

Holy Spirit and the Father as the same divine person, maybe, because that would be a Unitarian thing.

And maybe that that Holy Spirit is entering into Mary and becomes the child.

And therefore, the Father, Son and Spirit are all one person. I feel exactly the way you do.

I mean, I don't really know how to tell you. When you brought this out, I was just kind of like, I don't know if you just threw it out to distract me or something, but I was just kind of like,

I don't really see what you have to defend your position. Yeah, I would have to hear how he's making application, but clearly when you allow the text to stand within Scripture, the differentiation of the

Holy Spirit, the Son and the Father is so clear throughout Scripture that you, you know, if he's a

Unitarian who is a subordinationist, so that the Spirit and the Son are not deity, okay, that would be one thing.

But if he's a Unitarian in the sense of like oneness, I mean, there's all sorts of forms of Unitarianism that end up having different forms.

Without knowing which one he is, I don't know. I'm not really sure. He was actually more my age. He was around 25 years old.

He just may be confused. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's pretty much it. There's another one that he brought, but I can't think of it right now.

I know you're right out of time right now. Actually, it went a little long just for you. I really appreciate that.

All righty. Thanks for calling. All right. Take it easy. All right. All righty. Well, thanks for listening to Dividing Line today.

Lord willing, we will be back again Tuesday morning. Well, it's afternoon for you on the

East Coast who think you determine what the time for everything is. Anyways, 2 p .m. Eastern Daylight Time, 11 a .m.

Pacific Daylight Time. And for those of us who do not play with time, it will be 11 a .m. Mountain Standard Time.

For the Dividing Line, thanks for listening. God bless. See you then. For the