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desert metropolis of phoenix arizona 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 doctor james white director of alpha and 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 doctor 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 morning good afternoon whatever time it is hey next week it's going to change isn't it yep next week it's uh...
well it's not going to change for us it's going to be the same time for us different time for you all i guess i don't know and you know what don't care but hey you know you can figure it out you're the ones who play with your clocks i figure you can figure out how to set it then you can figure out what time other things are didn't they lose yesterday no they won yesterday the redskins won yesterday who'd they beat you have no idea oh okay doesn't matter all that matters is last night truth and justice prevailed and the giants defeated the cowboys that was the only important important thing that happened uh...
uh... yes indeed it's good to be back uh... for at least a few programs will be here tuesday and thursday this week will be here tuesday of next week and then the big conference the big debates the cruise and everything uh...
kicks off and uh... let me tell you it's been it is uh... that we are in the middle of crunch time halfway through the thought there is to be a little more to have been done by now but uh...
of course uh... we could go yesterday was a non show and uh...
let me mention for those who are coming to the conference or maybe have sort of thinking about it but maybe uh...
uh... indianapolis beat washington so the skins lost uh... so all well uh...
okay uh... hey i'm just i'm just mention that some guy across the window as a redskins had on the put it on right as the program started and i i'm not a fair weather fan even good times and bad times i'm i'm a fan but that if if you said they won then you'd be in denial you know that's right i'll say you'd be a fan that's in a family what do you think a fair weather fair a consistent fan is you know it's it's like you know the browns the the browns the dog pound always went no matter how bad the problems were you know i don't think there is such a fan like that the cardinals because after eighteen years why do you think i live in phoenix and i'm wearing a washington redskins let me tell you know that there is a cardinals as i grew up being a fan of this team and the cardinals moved to town and i can't watch him anymore so that's like i have a hard time even keeping track of their scores and what what happens in their games is well you know got to watch the cardinals uh...
yeah and and i think if they continue playing with a plane that's gonna stop at that the local stations are going to want to carry that anyways and again they have to i think i don't know if they have to because it's network national uh...
who knows who cares all i know is uh... is whenever you play the cardinals you never have to give up hope no matter how far behind you are that's a fact that's right they could be up seventy two to nothing and they will find a way to lose a game i mean you know there's a lot of other sports you could watch if you just wanted to watch a guy get chased around uh...
a grassy field all day long you know and uh... doesn't matter how good of a quarterback you are if you play for the cardinals you better run like Fran Tarkin in PAL because you're going to get chased oh man i'll tell you that bears game was uh...
but i thought it was really nice the cardinals to let the raiders win i mean the raiders have really been taking a lot of heat they're supposed to be these nasty guys and they hadn't won any so the cardinals just felt bad for them let them win so anyway why in the world did you say it was grace it was grace they've got nothing to lose so why not help somebody else out i mean come on you might as well you know i don't think i don't think they should have on the field a high school team on sunday so they would have gotten whacked but anyhow that's neither here nor there i was trying to mention uh...
that uh... next week at the conference if you plan on going to the conference uh...
i was talking about this and then he throws his redskins hat on i don't know why he's doing a redskins hat on uh...
and he had this grin on his face like it meant something i'm not going to put this hat on because they lost again anyway uh...
at the conference what we're going to do is uh... on thursday night uh...
when uh... we we had had an open invitation to eric and canter who to my knowledge never even bothered to respond uh...
to that invitation uh... but uh... on thursday evening we uh...
will be uh... tom askell and myself will uh...
we will do the presentations that we would have done that i'm not gonna say it's identical we're not gonna limit ourselves to uh...
exact amount of the same exact amount of time and things like that but there were certain issues that both of us would love to have had the opportunity of enunciating uh...
to the students and i've had at least one guy i can think of who has has said it wouldn't matter it wouldn't matter how you treat it wouldn't matter how unfair it was wouldn't matter how if you were mocked or anything you still should have gone uh...
so i guess he he thinks that you should uh... like go to peter ruckman's uh... april fool's day presentations and stuff like that and just put your position out there to be mocked and ridiculed and when you start to make a point they can turn off your mic and ha ha ha and throw stuff at you i don't know uh...
but anyway uh... you know you know what happened with the debate we're not going to go back over that that's uh... that's a done deal and the documentation's out there and and you can think what you want about it but we're going to do the presentations that we would have done and to talk about the things we would have talked about answer the objections that eric canner and emir canner in fact i'm going to try to track down the emir canner sermon from the thomas road baptist church uh...
maybe i can have some clips on that on my tablet we can hook it into the uh... sound system and uh...
you know use it that way and uh... play the play the clips and respond to the things that are said the the charges of hyper calvinism and and uh...
things like that on the thursday evening and then of course i'd like to do is then make the mp3s of that available uh...
and get the word out to uh... at all of our friends at liberty university uh... those folks uh...
that uh... are sort of like the uh... uh... the underground resistance during the war in europe and uh...
will put out the secret coded message uh... on the side channel uh... to let them know that uh...
this mp3 a download is available and uh... make it available to uh... students at liberty university so they can at least here what would have been said and uh...
also along with that the fact that uh... uh... their champion there uh... has uh...
has declined numerous uh... challenges debate one -on -one in neutral ground and uh...
i noticed a number of folks uh... have been commenting on the link that i provide on the blog where you can see some scholastic debates and collegiate debate and uh...
you're watching these people look like they're hyperventilating uh... talking three hundred fifty to four hundred words per minute and that's the kind of thing that uh...
that uh... brett o'donnell's teams at liberty are very adept at doing uh...
that is not what you do in theological debate that's not how you communicate uh...
the truth of god that's not how you discuss the word of god exegete the word of god handle word of god you uh...
instead make clear clear presentations where you're attempting to connect with your audience and bring them along so that they can see why you object to the other side and they can see that you are the consistent side that's what both uh...
bill shishko and i attempted to on thursday evening uh... there on long island up in uh...
port jeff and uh... i think that's exactly what took place we're attempting to get hold of the uh...
recordings even as we speak uh... we would very much like to have at least the audio recordings uh...
available and then uh... the the plan then is to take a two different video sources that were made that night and uh...
we have the ability anyway to uh... put them together to edit them together into one uh...
product and then uh... sync up the uh... audio from the uh... church itself with that and uh...
that should uh... provide a real very useful uh... dvd of the debate as well it went uh...
very very well uh... and people have asked me how come you haven't talked about the debate on the blog well i i i let you know that it went well uh...
i don't feel any particular compulsion to go back over any of the particular issues because i until a person has listened uh...
to the debate and can uh... can do actually what bill shishko always suggest people do when he moderates the great debates uh...
every year he has uh... uh... exhorted the the people listening to flowchart the debate to uh...
put down the major points and statements in the answers and flowchart them and that's especially useful for not only following the the arguments but also and this to me is is uh...
if you want my one comment of the debate this is this to me is the debate this to me is the issue that was i think clearly presented the debate and that is in my opening statement i said it is your job as the audience to examine each side uh...
for consistency uh... for for exegetical consistency and argumentational consistency uh...
to see whose position is consistent with itself and most importantly whose position is consistent exegetically with the very same kind of hermeneutical uh...
uh... type of argumentation that we utilize to discuss the resurrection justification the trinity the deity of christ uh...
whatever else it may be those areas where the two sides agree what is the exegetical hermeneutical method that we utilize to come to those conclusions and then does one side use a different hermeneutical method uh...
on the subject of baptism and uh... to me uh... that was uh... that was the debate that was the issue of the debate and uh...
what makes a good debate is that everyone will be able i believe to examine uh...
both sides on that issue because there was nothing personal uh... in the debate there was no uh...
there is nothing to get in the way uh... of you being able to do what you need to do for this debate to give you the answer to that particular question that that's what makes it an excellent debate uh...
as you know there are some debates where the opponent just behaves so uh...
reprehensibly and and so out of in such an out of control fashion that you really can't do that you only hear one side the other side really hasn't engaged the issue that obviously was not the case here and uh...
therefore you are able to uh... to make that those kinds of decisions so we will get that available as quickly as we we possibly can uh...
because you know a lot of folks are going to be uh... very desirous of listening to that particular debate and uh...
once again i i would like to uh... see that debate make the rounds also at certain universities as a demonstration of how uh...
brothers in christ can disagree on uh... important and vital issues and and believe that their disagreement is in in fact itself important to uh...
how the church functions and uh... and things like that and yet do so without any of the uh...
the rancor and nastiness that uh... marks certain other encounters and so uh...
i think that those who are baptists who have never heard a case for infant baptism and there are many most reform baptists have because most reform baptists have had to deal this issue anyway most reform baptists who know their calvinist heritage have had to read calvinist of like that so it's not like we're ignorant of it but on both sides you have presbyterians who who think that all baptists are sort of like you know the fundamentalist baptist down the street that just baptizes cuz uh...
you know because john the baptist of that way and he was the first baptist and uh... they've never never heard a reformed baptist address the issue of of baptism from that perspective and the same on the other side there are baptists that uh...
have no idea how a reformed view of pedo -baptism differs from a lutheran view of pedo -baptism which differs from a roman catholic view of pedo -baptism hey if you if you baptize your children uh...
you're all just thrown into one big camp and and uh... so both sides i think uh... will will go wow hadn't uh...
hadn't uh... ever thought of it that way before and there i think there were a lot of people debate who were also going i've learned something this evening i had never really consider those issues before and uh...
so that's going to be that's going to be great and uh... once again i think we've had the opportunity and i think about last year we've got some we've got some debates just i can't think of anybody else who has uh...
the same kinds of debates available that we do i mean uh... the the john dominic cross and thing we've we've got to get the marcus borg thing uh...
the cross and borg thing out and uh... it's been over over a year now and uh...
we've just gotta get that stuff put out there those kinds of things are just really unique especially from the perspective that we come at it from and and uh...
so we'll be uh... getting that stuff out there and you'll uh... i think you'll be very blessed by that so uh...
conference coming up and then of course the debate with uh... with john shelby spong to sort of wrap up the pulpit crimes conference which uh...
is is very appropriate on on many levels and uh... then of course continuing with those themes on the uh...
the cruise as well and so uh... uh... taken slight deep breath uh...
after long island uh... but very very short deep breath and then head directly into uh...
the next uh... stretch there and then i'm only home uh... about two weeks before we're going to be in the saint louis actually uh...
uh... saint charles again uh... this time on solo scriptura at covenant grace church families and the folks there for our uh...
almost annual i think it pretty much is an annual uh... trip now to uh...
saint louis first weekend in december uh... and the conference there so that's we've got coming up uh...
right now to be teaching for a golden gate in january on apologetics and also headed out to uh...
new jersey at some point during january it's a third weekend for an apologetics uh...
conference weekend down there and uh... then does in the whole new year starts and it goes by just as fast as two thousand six in fact probably a little bit faster this thursday my plan given that we have uh...
upcoming the uh... uh... reformation sunday celebrations in certain churches i'd may well be taking the opportunity to uh...
on thursday uh... talk a little bit about the background of the reformation of the various uh...
i've always found it fascinating the the uh... movements of god pre -existing the reformation that feed into the reformation uh...
how you have the pre -reformation reformers like uh... wickliffe and horse and uh...
you have uh... really the necessity of the invention of the printing press uh...
so that the uh... uh... the reformation can really take place and have a rasmus a fascinating fellow uh...
who uh... i think uh... is uh... uh... vilified by many and also uh... made a saint by many and and he was mister somewhere in between there a lot of folks don't know much about rasmus and where he was coming from but uh...
anyway uh... uh... might uh... take some time on thursday to uh... go over some of those fascinating historical aspects to go into uh...
the reformation which uh... a few folks not many uh... sadly i think uh... the vast majority of uh...
evangelicals today uh... if you ask them anything about martin luther would say he was a every four a reformer in the nineteen sixties actually and uh...
they wouldn't really have a whole lot of an idea of uh... what uh... the reformation is actually all about and even less passion for the beliefs that were a part thereof so uh...
with all of that said what i'd like to do today is i would like to uh...
uh... didn't know she had said that uh... i would like all by the way see our little cough button here uh...
rich that's the exact same cough button they have at the radio station on long island and that's the only thing they have the same there because everything else we have was created at least four decades after uh...
everything else they have their i'd have uh... i'd i've been in some old i was in some old radio stations when my dad was chief engineer of w h p in harrisburg and uh...
i've been around some old old equipment and it is all things are still using carts and stuff all that places all my goodness it is a technology that works out a whole nine yards man it is absolutely ancient just incredible i i didn't even have a button to to that's a mutant mutiny but uh...
uh... there is one of these other than the big question is remember the one years ago we start out on the cg yeah on the train tracks you're the train tracks outside the window in the train to go by and i was not aware that i don't know if there are no train tracks uh...
outside the there though i'd i was told the story but i forget who it was that uh...
they they finish program on their walking out of the house he said and i guess the gas side i'm on the line to take a look like a dj and which crisco's that is the good so i i was uh...
it well what you have a microphone if you'll model are there you go that's that's our excel anyway it was uh...
we we are blessed with that uh... those things near l e d's and uh...
stuff like that and uh... you know we're We're quite blessed to have all that stuff in there, there's no two ways about it. So anyway, what
I'd like to do today is get back to what I promised I would get to, and that is looking at the
Dr. Vine's sermon. I've already noticed, of course, that in the blogosphere, if you have in any way, shape, or form responded to the sermon at First Baptist Church Woodstock, we could go
Sunday night. that was specifically designed to immunize the church against Reformed theology.
If you have even bothered to say that it misrepresents the subject that it's attempting to address, you're automatically attacking
Dr. Vine's. Now, obviously, if you were to use the same kind of reasoning in reverse, then you would say that Dr.
Vine's was personally attacking every Calvinist by misrepresenting their position.
And I would think there would actually be more reason to say that than the reverse, but be that as it may, it is once again, yet again, another example of the fact that very few people today think in a critical fashion.
What I mean by that is I was told yesterday by a fellow in our chat channel that he had given one of my books,
The Potter's Freedom, to one of his elders, and one of his elders had commented that he felt
I was attacking Norman Geisler. Now, he's not the first person to have said that, but as I mentioned to him,
I've had many people say that, I have not had a single person substantiate that. It's real easy to make the assertion, but then when you say, okay, and could you give me an example of this, could you show me this in the text?
Could you give me a page number? Could you give me a paragraph? Could you quote it in context? All of a sudden, the wheels fall off, and you discover very quickly that for many people, simply disagreeing with someone because of their stature is to attack them.
And I think that's probably true with a lot of people themselves. I think maybe
Dr. Geisler believes that I simply attacked him by disagreeing with him, and in fact, documenting errors on his part.
I guess for some people, you don't do that. You simply don't document errors on the part of a
Christian leader. Dr. Vines has been the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and so evidently what that means is once you have obtained that position, that afterwards, you sort of have a special get out of the requirement to accurately represent the topics you're addressing card, and anything you say from that point on, anybody else can still disagree with you, but they can't say that you're actually misrepresenting anything.
And as I mentioned, the last time we were together on a week ago this coming
Thursday, um, actually, we could, well, whatever. It was over a week ago.
Two weeks ago this coming Thursday, when we were last together, the fact is there seems to be a singular template, one template that is sort of floating around.
Even Dr. Vines at the beginning of the sermon says, I'm working from a manuscript tonight, and I've never done that in 50 years of preaching.
Well, why would he have to do that? Well, because there are certain points that he wants to cover, and they're not overly familiar to him.
And when we start listening to them, they're the same old, same old, and they are the same old that are surface level.
They're the same old arguments that have been refuted over and over again, and that any person who wants to honestly address the issue would know this, and hence could not repeat these points without, while repeating them, addressing the responses that have been offered.
But that's not what happens, because if you start doing that, then the people listening to you are going to realize that there's actually two sides to this issue, and evidently that's the one thing that everybody wants to avoid doing.
And so it is disappointing when people who are in positions of religious authority, when they simply go with the flow, go with pre -packaged presentations that are grossly inaccurate, that does not show respect for the people who hold those positions.
You're not showing respect for the pulpit you're standing behind. You're not showing respect for your audience. You must think that there's no one in your audience who has ever examined this issue, so as to recognize that you yourself either haven't, or you're treating it in a cavalier fashion.
I don't understand that mindset. I will never understand that mindset. And if there are others who just go, well, hey, you know, he has the right to have that mindset because he's been the president of Southern Baptist Convention.
Well, please explain that to me. Explain how that works. I'd like to know from a biblical
Christian worldview exactly how it is that having held a particular denominational post releases you from all issues of integrity and accurately handling facts.
I don't understand that. I'd like to hear an explanation of that from those who seem to think that that in fact is how things should be handled.
So it was a fairly lengthy sermon. I don't know how long to get through it. Don't even honestly know, you know, if something else were to all of a sudden come up, we may not.
But it, again, is worthwhile to listen to these things, provide a response. We have a lot of people listening now because of what happened with the non -debate who were not listening before.
And so, yeah, we may be repeating some stuff that we have talked about when we've responded to Dave Hunt, when we responded to Norman Geisler, when we responded to Adrian Rogers, and we've responded to, well, just fill in the blanks.
There's a whole lot of folks that seemingly pass around the same sermon and just deliver it with various levels of skill and sometimes various levels of vitriol.
There's, I don't really think there's any vitriol in Dr. Vine's presentation. That was a refreshing difference.
But the fact of the matter is it is still the same kind of presentation.
So let's take a listen and begin listening to this particular debate.
Now, you're going to have to really pray for me tonight because I'm going to do something I have not done in over 50 years of my ministry.
I'm going to be working tonight off a manuscript, which means
I'm going to be reading a great portion of what I've got to say. And I think you will understand why because of the subject
I am dealing with and the controversies which swirl around this particular theme.
But it's unnatural to me to do this. I like to have eye contact, and so I've been preaching extemporaneously through the years.
You know, preachers are different. Some preach from manuscript. Some preach by letter.
Some preach by notes. I preach by letter. I just read back in letter fly.
That's the kind of way I normally preach. But this is a little bit different tonight.
But I'm going to do my very, very best to handle this in a way that will be helpful and that will assist you in your understanding.
This is the second message in a series of messages I'm building around the theme, Baptist battles.
Our last message was liberalism, a Baptist and his Bible. The message tonight,
Calvinism, a Baptist and his election. On the Sunday night, the 22nd of the month,
I will bring a message entitled Pentecostalism, a Baptist and his gifts.
And then on the first Sunday morning of November, I will speak on the subject of libertinism, a
Baptist and his booze. And so I hope you'll come and we'll hear the rest of these messages.
I brought some graphics for our men today.
And I have a lot of scriptures I'm going to use. And they'll be putting these graphics up, hopefully, as I move along through this particular study this evening.
I was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, as you know, for almost 24 years.
During those 24 years preaching Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night,
I was able to do a series of messages on every book of the Bible, all 66 of the books of the
Bible. I gave the church down there a nine -month period of time when
I announced my retirement before I concluded, to hopefully give the pulpit committee time to find
God's man for the church. And in those months, that is exactly what happened. Dr. Mack Brunson is now the pastor of the church there.
During those nine months as they were coming to a close, my father died in the month of August.
And over the weekend, we had come to do the funeral of my father and to attend to these particular matters.
Just a day or two after I had returned from the death of my father, I received an email from one of the young men in our congregation.
He was one year old when I came there. Now, let me pause this for just a moment.
And once again, what we're going to hear here, I'm not questioning the existence of this email.
I'm not questioning Dr. Vine's response to it. But it does seem to be a regular aspect of this discussion that the person who denies and decries
Reformed theology always points to some kind of a personal hurt or personal experience that helps to substantiate, well, the resultant prejudice.
Now, I have been vilified by Calvinists. I have been attacked by Calvinists.
There are mean Calvinists in the world, just as there are mean Arminians and inconsistent evangelicals.
And there are mean synergists and mean monergists. And I might be able to argue that being a mean monergist is significantly less consistent than being a mean synergist.
But the point is that if you make your decisions about these types of things based upon that kind of argumentation, that kind of experientialism, then you're clearly not engaging in meaningful exegetical study of the text.
You're allowing your personal experiences to impact your viewpoint.
It seems to me, especially since he finishes his sermon on this point, and that's a good, by the way, it's a good sermon technique to tell an engaging story at the beginning, wrap it up at the end.
It gives the audience a feeling of completeness in the presentation. It connects things. It's very, very good as far as pulpiteering is concerned.
But it's not necessarily overly good given the nature of this particular presentation.
I saw him come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I married him and his wife.
Very active young man in our church. It was probably the ugliest, most unkind email
I received in over 50 years of ministry. And in this email, he basically chided me for my failure to preach the whole gospel to the congregation.
And he said to me, why have you not, and I'm paraphrasing, why have you not preached to the people the doctrines of grace?
Why have you not preached limited atonement? Why have you not brought in, and he named a number of outstanding speakers around the country so our people can hear them.
And so, I don't think I ever received in all of my ministry a more hurtful email than that one was.
Now, let me just stop again. Now, obviously, I'm not going to judge an email
I've never seen or the person who sent it. However, there is no question that I have more than once addressed what we in our circles refer to as cage stage
Calvinism. Cage stage Calvinism is that Calvinism that is frequently exhibited by those lacking maturity in the
Reformed faith. They are the ones who have the belief that they must get upon their white horse, and they must draw their sword, and they must gallop at high speed toward the nearest church to attack anyone who would not with them, say
John Calvin three times with a loving tone. And cage stage
Calvinists do more damage than they do good. I understand the zeal that comes with that first recognition of the sovereignty of God and his holiness and my unworthiness, but it is frequently not joined with the resultant sanctification that needs to come with those things that gives one enough maturity to recognize that it was grace that opened your eyes to these things, so it's not going to be your bullishness that's going to open up somebody else's eyes to these things.
That's what we call cage stage Calvinism. Maybe this was a young man who has just been exposed to the doctrines of grace, has recognized their biblical nature, the consistency of it, and maybe has recognized the inconsistency of so much of the preaching since the position held by Dr.
Vines and so many other in his position is an inconsistent one. It is self -contradictory, and a person who comes to believe that you need to be consistent in your theology to honor
God and to honor his word, to find self -contradiction to be something less than honorable. All of those things may be true, but there is a means by which you approach those things.
There is a means by which you speak the truth, and all of us have experienced the cage stage at some point.
Sometimes we need to climb back into it for a little while to calm down, but maybe that's what this email is about.
I don't know. Then again, I have to ask the question, could anyone approach some of these high leaders in the
Southern Baptist Convention? And seriously attempt to dialogue about these things. I haven't seen a whole lot of desire on the part of any of these individuals to dialogue about these things.
I haven't seen anyone giving a whole lot of indication that they are truly desirous of engaging in meaningful conversation on the subject of the doctrines of grace.
And so, how would I have seen people respond?
For example, the fellow in Channel who mentioned the fact that even my own book, where I bent over backwards to remain focused upon the subject and not upon the person
I was reviewing, there have been people who very unfairly and untruthfully have accused me of being mean -spirited and nasty and attacking
Norman Geisel. Well, that's just not true. I know my own heart. The Lord knows my own heart and the Lord knows what was there.
And when I challenge people on the subject, they can't back up what they're stating. And so, is it possible that maybe it's just the idea that here is a young man, and this was functional in the
Geisler situation. There are some folks who, because he says he's been preaching for 50 years, and how could someone who has not preached at all tell me who's been preaching for 50 years that I need to do
X, Y, or Z? So, there's the other element there that needs to be factored in in trying to evaluate fairly these kinds of accusations that are all too frequently a part of the discussion.
And I set up an appointment for him to come in. Almost weekly now, and even tonight, our pastor has told me about a family that came to our church today to visit, coming from a church which has had difficulty with the problem of Calvinism.
One of the former churches I served, a man came there to be the pastor, began to preach the five basic points of Calvinism, bottom line.
The church split right down the middle. He remained in the city and he established another church.
It is a problem which we cannot ignore. Now, once again, church splits.
Well, it seems to be part of this template to allege that Calvinism is the problem here, that Calvinism tries to come in and it's the new movement.
It's the new thing. And of course, the historical fact is that that's not the case. The historical fact amongst the
Southern Baptists is that is not the case. And yet, it is the kind of accusation that you use, along with others, to attempt to paint a movement.
And all of this seems to be not so much. I can't believe that these men actually feel that these sermons would in any way, shape, or form be convincing to someone who's actually begun to study the issue.
In fact, it would seem to me that they'd have to realize that they are abandoning the field of battle because they know they can't win that battle.
It seems to me that these are damage control sermons that are meant to limit who is actually going to be listening to these folks and to create a mindset to where if someone says anything, they would seem to indicate they're going this direction, that there's going to be more and more people in the congregation that are going to be quicker to report these folks to the leaders so you can weed them out faster.
You can get them out of leadership. And if they're no longer in a position of leadership, they're probably going to go someplace else anyway. And so it really does seem to fall into the category of, well, we can't win this battle in the debate format.
We can't win this battle in exegesis. We can't win this battle in writing, at least if we allow the other side to be heard.
And so let's try to inoculate our congregations against this movement by poisoning the well.
Let's try to poison people's minds against Calvinism. Let's try to do it in a nice way, in the sense we'll say that we have lots of good
Calvinist friends and we're not going to just kick them out of the kingdom. But we want to sort of subtly inculcate the idea that Calvinism splits churches and Calvinism is just a side issue and Calvinism is just this and that and the other thing.
And hopefully what that'll do is it'll automatically cause these walls to come up as soon as someone hears, well, that sounds like Calvinism.
That's the end of the conversation. That's the end of dialogue. That's the end of discussion. I know my pastor doesn't believe in that.
I love my pastor. Therefore, that's it. It can't possibly be true. He knows more of this.
He knows more about this stuff than I do. And he knows more about this stuff than you do. And therefore, since he rejects it,
I'm going to reject it. I'm just going to trust him. Now, especially for Baptists, that's a really bad attitude.
We look at the Roman Catholics and go, look at that guy. He just believes whatever his priest tells him.
Well, take priest out and put pastor in and what's the difference? You know, I mean, seriously.
And so that shouldn't be the way things are. But that seems to be what we're hearing here.
Because before even defining the position, we have now had Calvinism has turned this long time church member that I saw him born and I saw him saved and I married him and all the rest of that stuff.
And now he's this nasty Calvinist and it splits churches and it's a problem.
And what other movements are you associating this with? Well, you notice what are the issues he's talking about?
He's talking about liberalism. Now he's talking about Calvinists. Then he's going to talk about the charismatic movement, Pentecostalism.
And he's going to finish up on booze. So liberals, Calvinists, charismatics and alcoholics, you tell me what's what's being communicated in that particular series of discussions.
Which one of these does not belong is the question that we might want to ask in that context.
It is a problem we cannot avoid. It is a problem that we must deal with.
Calvinism is a system of theology which has been debated for 400 years, brings into keen focus the relationship between divine sovereignty, the sovereignty of God and human responsibility, the free will of man.
That when you face the tension of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, here's the problem.
Number one, did God choose us because we chose him? If the answer is yes, then it robs man or it robs
God of his sovereignty. Or did we choose God because he chose us?
If the answer is yes, then it robs us of free will.
Now, again, not only is that overly simplistic, but it's just not accurate.
It's overly simplistic in that what is stop for a moment if you're reformed and let's say, especially if you're in a founders friendly church or in a
Southern Baptist church or in this context of trying to, you know, promote God's truth and live consistent with God's truth, you should hear immediately where that entire presentation went off track and where it went off track was it is defining this entire issue in regards to what human beings do.
It's starting off and I guess consistently and what I mean by that is it is consistent for synergists to be man centered.
A synergist, of course, and I know that the vast majority of my listeners know this, but we get new listeners all the time.
I got to repeat myself. I've got to make sure people understand a synergist is a person who believes that there are two forces, two energies that cooperate together.
They don't have to be equal to one another. It doesn't have to be 50 -50. It can be 95 -5. It can be 99 -1.
But the point is you cannot reach the goal of salvation and the accomplishment of salvation without two forces cooperating together to bring that about.
And so a synergist could be someone who is 50 -50, someone who does put a huge amount of human works and activity into the accomplishment of salvation, or it can be someone who simply limits it to a very small amount, but still
God cannot save anyone outside of their free will cooperation.
And what you're listening to, the man you're listening to, Dr. Fiennes, is a synergist. Eric Cantor is a synergist.
Adrian Rogers is a synergist. Norman Geisler is a synergist. Roman Catholicism is synergistic by definition.
And these individuals, these movements and groups, present this concept of God's grace being necessary.
They're not Pelagians. Pelagius taught that you could be saved outside of God's grace, that God's grace is not necessary unto salvation and obedience.
And so you could, every man was a new Adam. They're not Pelagians because they'll all say grace is absolutely necessary, but they're not monergists because they will not confess that grace is sufficient.
And that is the great controversy. But it's almost never, ever defined that way by a synergist.
Now, it's not that they can argue with the accuracy of the statement. It's just they avoid ever getting into a position where they have to actually answer direct questions to where they'd have to affirm that what
I just said was true. And so there is the argument between monergism and synergism.
And what was just presented to you was not so much monergism versus synergism.
I mean, the first one, God's sovereignty, it got close, but it was still based in our choosing of God and why we do that rather than looking at this issue in a theocentric fashion, that is, is salvation of God?
Is God the one who saves and does he save in a monergistic fashion or whether saying salvation is a mixture of God and man?
God's part is absolutely necessary, but in of itself insufficient outside of the action of the rebel sinner.
Now, it would be wonderful if I could find some folks on this side that would define it that way and then defend it that way.
We could have a great debate and a great discussion and get into the word of God and so on and so forth. But it does seem that at times it's next to impossible to find folks that are willing to really engage it on that level.
This is a dilemma. This is a problem which has puzzled the mind of man through the centuries.
Not only theologians, but also philosophers. It has been the subject of countless late night bull sessions in colleges.
I remember one night we had a bull session and we were talking about how to reconcile the sovereignty of God and the free will of man.
Would you believe that night that I actually resolved it and solved the problem? I've forgotten exactly how
I did it, but I had it right that night. I'm not going to solve it for you tonight.
I want to give two statements to begin with. Number one, I am not going to attack individuals in this message.
I have many friends and many sincere Christians who are Calvinists. I'm not dealing with personalities or individuals.
I'm dealing with the theology of Calvinism. Number two, what I'm going to say to you tonight is not exhaustive.
Now, let me stop right there and respond to both. He does say that he's going to be dealing with the theology of Calvinism.
If I say I'm going to be dealing with the theology of Roman Catholicism, I feel a very strong necessity to be very accurate in the representation of what
Roman Catholicism says. If I say I'm going to be dealing with the theology of Mormonism, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or Islam, or whatever,
I need to do my best. I don't have to be infallible. I may make a mistake.
If I make a mistake, I need to admit I made a mistake. But I have to do the best that I can do to accurately represent what the other side is saying.
And I'd like to submit that there is absolutely, positively, no reason why anyone, given more than 24 hours of notice and preparation, should not be able to accurately represent the
Calvinistic position. And to do so, not from secondary sources. Not from Dave Hunt.
Not from Norman Geisler. But to do so from original sources. And yet, that's not what we get.
All right? And so, he himself, specifically. He himself, specifically, has said
I'm going to be dealing with the theology of Calvinism. So, when we point out this isn't what we believe.
When we point out, for example, the constant drumbeat of trying to make double predestination equal to predestination to life, the exact parallel to predestination unto death.
Which it is not. But that's what everybody keeps doing. That's what everybody keeps repeating.
He's not dealing with the theology of Calvinism. He's dealing with a straw man. And when we criticize that, we have a ground for criticizing that.
Because it's his own claim to be dealing with the theology of Calvinism.
Secondly, of course, it cannot be exhaustive. It would be nice to hear someone try a little fuller response than a single sermon.
But that's understandable. However, if you're not going to be exhaustive, you still have to be accurate.
Now, I'm going to tell you, it's a whole lot harder to be accurate when you have a very limited amount of time.
That's what debates are all about. But the fact of the matter is, that just means you have to work the harder.
I will not deal with every scripture which is used on both sides of the issue, nor will
I address every logical argument, pro or con. Understandable.
However, hopefully you will at least attempt to deal with the primary texts that are utilized.
And if you try to deal with the primary texts, you will at least do so in such a way that demonstrates that you have listened to the other side.
And that even if you disagree, your conclusions take into consideration the best arguments that the other side has to present.
Speaking to a church congregation, I'm speaking to a group of people tonight among whom are people of all levels of spiritual growth and maturity.
And what I'm really trying to do at the request of our pastor is to lay this matter before you so that you will understand and that you will have some grasp of what we're talking about when we deal with the matter of Calvinism.
Now, as I indicated to you last week, our final authority is the
Bible. That's why liberalism is such a very, very important issue.
Because we believe that the Bible is the final authority for all faith and practice.
The Reformers called it sola scriptura, scripture alone.
For us, the Bible is beneath us, providing the foundation for our faith.
It is around us, providing boundaries for our faith. It is within us, informing and growing our faith.
It is above us, guiding our faith. What we are after is a biblical theology.
What we want to know is, what does the Bible have to say about these issues?
No disagreements with anything there. That's exactly what we hope to be able to hear.
Now, you're going to have to really pray for me tonight because I'm going to do something I have not done in over 50 years.
That was the non -pause button. That was instead the restart the whole thing button.
And that's a bad, bad thing. This is a dilemma. This is a problem which has puzzled the mind of man.
I'm not going to solve it for you tonight. Every logical argument, pro or con.
As I indicated to you last week, our final authority is the
Bible. That's why liberalism is such a very, very important issue because we believe that for us, the
Bible is beneath us, providing the foundation for our faith. Sorry about this. The first thing
I'm going to do is just briefly give you some historical introduction. I'm going to share with you just...
I always get scary when the historical introduction starts because the historical introduction so often ends up coming from sources like Dave Hunt or something.
And it just, you get... In a brief, very survey, cursory fashion, an overview of the historical roots of Calvinism.
Some would call it reformed theology. Others would refer to it as the doctrines of grace.
John Calvin was a theologian of 16th century Reformation.
When we think about the Reformation, we think in particular about Martin Luther. Martin Luther's primary emphasis was upon justification by faith alone.
That we are declared righteous by our faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Calvin's emphasis was on the sovereignty of God.
Both Luther and Calvin drew heavily upon Augustine, the first real
Roman Catholic. Boom, boom. First clear indication that somebody's using what love is this.
That's where you... That's where this is coming from for most people today is...
Let's shoot the Augustine stuff out there. Let's ignore what he said on grace.
Let's focus on what he said about the church. Even though it would be the materials on grace and his anti -plagian writings that Calvin would be citing from.
It would be the Catholics reciting from his anti -donatist writings. But let's not worry about any of that because certainly
Dave Hunt didn't bother to worry about any of that either. Augustine was responding to Pelagius in much of his writing.
Pelagius who believed that you could, through good works, earn or merit your salvation.
And in contrast to that, Augustine set forth the Bible truth that we are not saved by our works.
Notice the contradiction. Why bother saying this part, which was true, when you just said the other part about Roman Catholicism?
Why throw out the well -poisoning statement from Hunt when you're then going to make this statement, which is what, of course,
Calvin would have been citing? I just don't understand that.
And honestly, if these folks would have more dialogue and discussion with people who could challenge them on these things, maybe they wouldn't do this kind of thing.
But they insulate themselves. My experience is that the leaders are very insulated.
As soon as you raise this issue, the walls come up, the doors close. You're mean, you're nasty, you're trying to divide us, you're trying to get us off track, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
For by grace are you saved through faith, and that out of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
So Calvin built on this and he developed a systematic theology, which he together in his volumes, the institutes of the
Christian religion. His student, Theodora Beza, Theodore Beza, carried some of the doctrines and the theology of Calvin further than Calvin himself did.
Another Calvinist. Did you hear that? Did you hear in the background? Let me let me just roll it back here just a second.
You might want to crank it up just a little bit here. But I'm sort of wondering why anybody yells out, that's right, to a historical discussion.
Theology of Calvin further than Calvin himself did. That's right.
Another Calvinist, a man named Jacobus Arminius, who was a pastor and professor of theology and a
Calvinist, responded to some of the extremes to which
Calvin's theology went. For instance, Arminius said,
God is not the author of sin, as some Calvinism would teach.
Arminius also said, God has not predestined some to go to hell, as some forms of Calvinism would teach.
Such as? His followers in 1610 issued the
Remonstrance, which was five points. And among those five points, he answered some of the extremes, but also he argued that it would be possible to lose your salvation.
And so now today, when you hear the word Arminianism, you immediately identify it with the idea that Arminianism teaches that you can lose your salvation.
Now, in response to the Remonstrance, the followers of Calvin's theology called the center of Dort in the
Netherlands. Now, again, I don't want to be mean here, but do you get the feeling that this is not exactly home turf for Dr.
Vines? I just, you know, get the strong feeling that this is reading from somebody else's stuff.
You know, this just doesn't seem to really be clicking here.
And unfortunately, it also means that we're out of time on the program today.
And so we're gonna have to pick up at 1155 .870 in the file.
But like I said, I don't know that we're going to be doing this necessarily on the next portion of the
Dividing Line, because I want to address Reformation Sunday. But then again, maybe we will.
We'll see what happens on Thursday afternoon when we gather again for the
Dividing Line. See you then. God bless. Brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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