Being Saved, Marxists Everywhere, Graeme Codrington vs. John Piper

Supreme Court, Abortion, and National Judgment

Oh, I'm sorry. Let's Google translate that. Good afternoon. It's a, I think it's Tuesday. Is it Monday or Tuesday? It's Tuesday. Thank you very much. Tuesday. All day. Yes. We were here yesterday, weren't we?

Yes. It's hard to keep track anymore. You know, it used to be that you could sort of figure out what day it was by, oh, you know, something happened, you know, meaningful, you know, last Thursday. And so it's been a few days.

Is that now? Oh, it's just like every day. Oh, hey, the Supreme Court, you know, just demonstrated that Roberts is a way left of center type guy. And I mean, I wasn't going to mention, I wasn't going to talk about this.

There's already been a lot of good discussion about this. But I hope you realize, you know, there are four Supreme Court justices where it's just if it has anything to do with abortion, their souls were purchased by Satan for for a lot of money a long time ago.

That's just all there is to it. People thought this was the case to make some progress. This incrementalism, this idea. Let's go a little bit here, a little bit here, a little bit here. The incrementalist case just collapsed big time in this situation because everybody thought, well, we've we don't have Kennedy anymore and we've got two new justices.

And so it was 5 -4 before, it'll be 5 -4 our direction this time. That was what all the calculations or everything else. It went 5 -4 the other direction because Roberts. Now the four leftists, they keep calling them liberals.

I wish they wouldn't. But the four leftists, you know, they're just repeating row. But the thing that's amazing is what Roberts did, because Roberts had been amongst the four that supported the Texas law that was almost identical, not quite, but almost identical to the Louisiana law.

And he had argued that it had been badly argued before. OK, so he he was in the minority before and said the minority had misargued or the majority had misargued. So everybody's like, OK, so here's basically the same case.

Now we've got five. And he said the last one was misargued. So the four put out their statement for the majority. He puts out a concurrent statement because he doesn't agree with the argument. But as chief justice, his biggest thing is precedent.

You must respect the court's precedent. And so even though he'd already said the court blew it last time, he blows it again. All because he's the chief justice. And that's what you have to do to protect the court.

Of course, legacy. I lost all respect, gone. He's just just throw him in with the other four that are mind them zombies when it comes to all of that. So there is only there's really only one justice on the court right now that you can actually trust to think things through in a meaningful worldview perspective.

He's the only one left. And so one out of nine ain't going to get you very far. That's that's just all there is to it. So it's Clarence Thomas, by the way. And we remember remember what Joe Biden did to him.

Oh, no, nobody remembers. I do. I was around back then, but almost nobody else does. I mean, that alone should be enough to disqualify Joe Biden. But that was the Joe Biden who remembered who Joe Biden was.

So I'm not even sure if Joe Biden remembers what he did to Clarence Thomas, to be honest with you. I'm serious. I'm you're terrible. No, I'm absolutely serious. I'm not sure he remembers that the man is not functional.

And that means if you elect him, you're electing people. You don't even know who they are, who will be in control of everything. That's that's all. It's just I've I don't know. Yeah, it's possible. Who knows?

But it it's a mess. It is. If you want judgment, folks, I mean, how could honestly answer me a question here? If we are not experiencing judgment in this nation right now, what would it take for you to think that we are maybe every volcano in America that has, you know, all of a sudden erupting, maybe locusts, blood in the water?

OK, Rich has got some ideas. I wouldn't suggest these things because it is 2020 and it's we're only halfway through. So you never know. I mean, seriously. We are the Senate voted down a bill that would protect babies that were born alive during botched abortions last year.

The Nazis didn't even do that. I mean, the real Nazis, not not the not the YouTube Internet Nazis. I've read enough. I've visited death camps in Germany. I can read the signs. OK, I've been there. I've been in the medical places.

Sachsenhausen was was the last one that I had seen. Drove by Buchenwald. But so I know something about the Nazis, the real Nazis, not the not the almost everyone talking about Nazis today know nothing, zip zero nada about who they really were.

And they didn't even dream of some of the stuff that we now do regularly. And so you've got that going on. We inject by law, by by judge's decree, we inject eight year old boys with puberty blockers to pretend that they're girls and vice versa.

This is this is the nation. This is the nation that is now celebrating our highest judicial individuals. People in Supreme Court presiding over marriages between two men, two women, eventually be three women, one man, two women, two women, one man throwing orangutan in for the fun of it.

Why not? Doesn't matter anymore. This is where we are as as a people. And you look at who we have running for office and you just go, yeah, there's something there's something in the Bible about unrighteous judges.

There's something in Psalm 82 about how unrighteous judges are. You know, this this this causes an upheaval to the very foundations of the earth. And and you what would it take to convince some of you?

Because some of you are like, oh, no, you're just no, you're just overreacting. We look at what has happened to this nation in the past six months. We the collapse of freedoms and liberty and the fear and the panic, this is not the nation that landed on the moon in 1969.

This is not the nation that did that. What happened? Well, I was just mentioning a number of the reasons. If so, if this isn't judgment, what is could could you tell me what it would look like? The division, the strife, the hatred, the animosity, the the the embrace.

I mean, I was I was looking at pictures of Black Lives Movement gatherings in Austin, Texas. As far as the eye could see. People of every different color doing the communist salute in the United States of America.

How'd that happen? How how if you can get through an education and not realize what communism did in Russia, Eastern Europe, what it's continuing to do in China, what it's continuing to do in in Vietnam, North Korea.

If you don't, you know, when when people talk about the North Koreans putting political enemies and by the way, being a political enemy just means someone who doesn't smile exactly the same way that the divine family wants you to smile in wood chippers.

No one goes, that's impossible. Everybody who knows the system goes, you know, that's yeah, that's how they do it. Or being executed, not by a firing squad, but by an anti-aircraft gun. So you just, you know, there's nothing to be found afterwards.

Yeah, these people killed between 120 and 150 million people in the last century, continuing to do it now. Who knows how many Christians, Uighur Muslims, everybody else in China have just, you know, just disappeared.

That's aside from all the forced abortions, which you can't even talk about that. But communism is not only a failed system, it is a satanic system. It is, it is as anti-human, evil as you can't define the term evil any more clearly than when you're looking at communism.

And here in the United States, all of a sudden, a movement has 60, 70 percent approval rating and they're doing the communist salute. And I'm just sitting here going, sorry, I've been saying it was coming.

I did not, did not see, did not see it happening quite that quickly. So yeah. How'd you get me on to that? I wasn't going to start with that. I was going to start with something. It's your fault. I think you did.

I think you said something. I don't, we're just getting sold. I don't remember what it was. So you get away with it. So anyway, I did want to start with something fun. So after that 10 minute rant, well, it's because I got stuff on my screen to talk about later.

And that's it. I see that. Just a reminder to everyone, if you haven't seen it, I posted it on Facebook. But our friend Chris Arnzen has been hospitalized. He has probably a form of congestive heart failure.

And so he's there in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. If you'll be praying for the doctors and for him, he's too young to be having this kind of thing. But be praying for Chris Arnzen, Iron Sharpens Iron, and obviously be extremely encouraging for him right now.

If there were some gifts coming in to help him during this time, you know. So Iron Sharpens Iron is the radio program. You can look him up and pray for him. And thanks to Mike Gaydosh for getting that news out.

That's how I first heard about it. And then Chris called me. So I was aware of that. Now, I did want to do one sort of fun thing. Fun, I'm not sure that's really the best term to utilize here. Something other than the fact that my nation is collapsing into communism, which will take the entire globe with it, by the way, you do realize, you do realize we have nuclear weapons, right?

You know, do you want Joe Biden with the codes? He won't remember where he put them. I mean, that sounds humorous. And on one level it is. But the fact is, do you really, really want the one nation that has been the counterbalance to the communists that has nuclear weapons to go communist?

Well, they're marching in our streets. And I've seen a number of articles recently. And this follows through with something I've said in the past. You do not need 51 to change a nation. The Muslims say you need 11%.

It's a minority number that can change a nation and intimidate everybody else. And that's exactly what's going on right now. Look at the people getting bounced off of. I mean, we're working on getting ready for how we're going to do this program in completely different ways than we're doing it right now.

It's so convenient for you right now to watch it on YouTube. We will not be there for long. We will not be on Facebook, Twitter for long. There's going to have to be other ways to do things. That's why, by the way, make sure you've bookmarked AOMin .org.

Do you remember something called RSS feeds? Do you remember RSS feeds? That was the beginning of the blogosphere. And I had a reader and you picked what RSS feeds you had put in there. And when stuff came across, it would notify you.

We're going to have to go back to that. We got away from it because there was all this freedom for people to use social media and stuff like that. That will be taken away from us. It's happening right now.

They are banning people right now, left, right and center. You just don't necessarily see it unless they've got enough people for other people to risk going, hey, this guy just got kicked out and it's just because he won't go with the narrative.

People getting fired left, right and center for saying stuff that is so middle of the road, vanilla, that it's astonishing. Yes. Yes. So. I don't like the straight on shot. You need the side shot. I need to go over here.

I'll do this. Well, that actually helps a little bit, but it's still a bit of an up close and it's sort of look like the mug shot thing. Okay. Does that make you feel better? A little bit. Okay. Anyway, I'm not going to do that.

Yeah, go for it. So I use Feedly.

Yeah, I used to. It's still around. There is, by the way, in the new design, I deliberately put an RSS link up there. So if you have Feedly or need to go get an easy RSS reader that actually works and you can organize, it's actually pretty nice now.

Get Feedly, organize it and go click on that RSS link. If it doesn't work on the click, you can just copy it and drop it into Feedly and you're going to start getting our feed, everything. From the blog.

From the blog. Yeah. So. There may be other stuff coming. Yeah, we can't talk about that right now. Oh, okay. But there may be other stuff coming. There may be others. Well, I think you're right. I think it's not a matter of maybe.

I think it will be. It's just a matter of time and us trying to fend that time off as long as possible and try to come up with ways in which to do that. But in the meantime, we need to be prepared and we're working on doing that.

Gotcha. So.

Yeah, I think a lot of us are going to be going back to those ways once regular social media is closed off to us because it's happening right now. It's happening. Um, and so, yeah. All right. So let's do something that we spend another six minutes there.

1 Corinthians 1:18 and What “Being Saved” Means

Uh, I saw this clip. This, this, uh, this fellow went, when he first started showing up on, on YouTube and on Twitter with people posting clips from him, I said at the time, is this guy for real? Is this, is this really happening?

Or is this somebody who's just purposely trying to mock independent fundamentalist Baptist King James only folks, because it was just such a caricature. Just so classically, I don't care. I'm uneducated.

I'm proud that I'm uneducated. I don't want to be educated. Um, I'm just going to say the dumbest things in the world and then say, bless God and, and go from there. Well, everything that I've heard about rager pastor rager, um, everybody has said, Hey, I've gone by, this is where they meet.

Um, you know, and there's like six people there, but, um, yeah, it's real. And, and he really believes this stuff. So there was a, uh, a clip yesterday that I saw where he's sitting there going, I don't need to know anything about this, that, and then he goes, I don't need to do anything about the hyperstatic union.

Uh, it's hypostatic union, but, um, uh, and, and you're just like, you don't even know how to respond to stuff like that. But this clip I wanted to, to deal with because I remember from my youth, I've, I've been in contexts where this was an argument against modern translations that I heard from people.

And it's important that all of us be able to correct this kind of misapprehension. It's kind of misunderstanding. It's one thing to watch this guy doing it because he's literally going to throw a Bible across the room, but it's an NIV.

So for him, it doesn't matter. Uh, he's going to throw a Bible across the room, but it's why he throws it across the room and says it's straight out of the pit of hell, uh, that I wanted to talk a little bit about before we get into some other uber serious stuff.

So, uh, here is, uh, Pastor Rager, very well named, uh, prophetically clearly, um, addressing the issue of first Corinthians chapter one, verse 18. So here we, here we go.

All right. So let's also, uh, see what the new international version has to say about these texts. Ironically, Matthew seven 14, the new international version gets that right. But let's go ahead and see what it said.

The new international version says in first Corinthians one 18 for the message of the cross is foolishness to those which are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Those of us who are being saved, are you saved or you're not?

Was this thing written by a person in the middle of a sinner's prayer? It was in the process of accepting Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior being saved straight out of hell.

So you get such an interesting look on your face when I write stuff like that. Um, yeah, so this is the theatrics, uh, that, that take place regularly, uh, in, uh, Rager's, um, church. If you, if that's terminology, it will use the independent Baptist church that always has different backgrounds.

So I think they move from place to place, maybe different hotels, venues and stuff like that. But Hey, uh, that's fine. Um, but that's the kind of stuff you get yet. The NIV being thrown across the, the way, uh, because of how the NIV, uh, rendered first Corinthians chapter one, verse 18.

Um, so if we, if we look at first Corinthians chapter one, verse 18, and I know we've, we've dealt with this before. So, um, bear with us as we deal with it again. Not everyone, uh, catches every program and, um, but, um, the new American standard Bible currently reads for the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us, we're being saved is the power of God.

I think that's identical, uh, to the NIV. So I guess, um, that should be thrown across the room as well. Uh, the problem is that is a perfectly accurate translation of the Greek, which obviously, uh, brother Rager would have no idea of, and would not think that as all that relevant.

Um, and he'd probably throw the Greek across the room as well. Uh, because first Corinthians one 18 says the word, the logos of the cross, Stauru, twice men, Apolumenois to those who are perishing. Now this is a participial form.

Um, uh, to, to perish is a concept found. In fact, the substantival participial form is, is used by Paul elsewhere. Those who are perishing is his description of the non-elect. They are perishing. They're in the process of perishing.

They do not have true life. They're there where they will, will end up is destruction. And so the word of the cross is to those that are perishing, Moria foolishness, foolishness. Then notice twice men, Apolumenois.

Now, if you know the language, you know, men day, men day is a standard grammatical form, but on the one hand, and then on the other hand, in essence. So you have one thing, the word of the cross, the message of the cross to indeed those that are perishing foolishness, but to those that are being saved.

So it's a men noise us to us are being saved. Do not mess. They, you asked him. It is the power of God. So one message to those that are perishing foolishness to those that are being saved, us who are being saved power of God.

So does the message change? No, it is how that message is received and interpreted. And so to those who are perishing, it is foolishness. Those that are being saved power of God. Now you're going to go down later and he's going to say now to Jews, stumbling block to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called by God.

So this is about election. This is about predestination. Rager doesn't believe in any of that stuff. So he wouldn't be aware of that type of thing. But the point is that you have twice Apolumenois and you have twice.

So it's a men noise. So there is clearly and plainly an intended parallel in the original language itself. It's the King James that missed it. It's the King James that did not translate this with the clarity that the modern translations render it.

So perishing is descriptive of the non-elect in this life. They are separated from the life of God and they are perishing. So the message of the cross is to them foolishness. But to us who are being saved.

So here in Rager's theology, in an independent fundamentalist Baptist theology, there is a overarching definition of sozo. Sozo means to save. It can also mean to heal, to deliver. It has a identifiable but fairly wide what's called semantic domain as far as its meaning is concerned.

And so in the fundamentalist mindset, you are saved at a point in time basically when you walk an aisle. You walk an aisle, you say the sinner's prayer, boom, saved. And they struggle with the Pauline reality of the now and the not yet.

The fact that in Paul's theology, we're adopted, but we're awaiting adoption. We're seated in heavenly places, but we're still walking on this earth. We've been freed from sin, but we still struggle with sin.

There's the now and the not yet. This is the reality of where we are now. They don't really get that. The idea of having an ordo salutis, the order of salvation, which is not just a temporal order. It can have temporal aspects to it, time-based aspects to it.

It's more of a logical order where you differentiate between regeneration, adoption, forgiveness, justification, sanctification, the aspects of sanctification. You simply have to deal with, in the New Testament, that different New Testament writers use that term sanctification in different ways.

You have to allow passages to speak for themselves. And that's one of the other problems with fundamentalist interpretation is that fundamentalists, not all of them, but many fundamentalists believe that in the priority of first appearance.

So in other words, when you encounter a term for the first time in the Bible, what it means there, they think needs to be read into every other text that comes after that. The result is abject confusion, but there are people who believe that.

This is the first time we've run into it. Now, it doesn't work. John uses words differently than Paul does and Mark differently, and obviously the Old Testament uses things differently, and so it creates a mishmash, but they operate on that basis.

And so, you put that kind of mindset together and you get this discombobulated, disjointed theology where you can't even start doing serious exegesis because if Rager was trying to do any kind of serious exegesis of 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18, he would have to go, well, this is a standard Greek formulation, mende, you have the same participial forms being used, both are substantival, in the same case, and so they're being plainly put in parallel to one another, and so you'd either have to, if you want to avoid the uh, descriptive participial element that is found in being saved, then you have to come up with some way of those that perish, or those that are perished and those that are saved.

That would be the only way to meaningfully try to maintain the parallel, or to recognize that perishing right now, because Paul's talking about, I go out and preach the gospel, people hear the message of the gospel, the message of the gospel is to them that are perishing, foolishness, but to we who are being saved, it is the power of God.

And so it's talking about now, in this life, the reaction that people have to the message of the cross is dependent upon their spiritual nature. And he's going to say, that's dependent upon the electing grace of God.

That's what 1 Corinthians chapter 1 is going to be all about, as you follow through later on. But the point is, the accurate translation that represents the underlying concepts in the original language is the one that says, those who are perishing, those who are being saved.

But his theology is, you're just saved. You're not being saved. There is no ongoing reality. That is why these guys don't understand why Paul writes to the church at Rome and says, I want to come evangelize you.

Well, they're already Christians. Why do they need to be evangelized? Because you only evangelize the lost, you see, because it's all just a point action thing. They don't realize that point action thing initiates all sorts of other things, which are part of the overarching concept of salvation.

But they have a very simplified view that just simply does not correlate in any meaningful fashion to the text itself. So what do you do when you encounter an accurate translation of the text? You check it across the room during your sermon.

That's what you do. But since I have encountered believers who have been confused by this, who have heard somebody saying this thing, I felt it was important to address it. Once again, we have addressed it many times in the past, but to address it one more time so that you would be aware of it.

So thank you to Pastor Rager for bringing this issue up so that we can, you know, someone is at my front door. I love finding out these things, you know, while I'm sitting at the program. What? Oh, really?

Well, I hear you. I get you. Um, okay, let's switch over. I have two more important areas to deal with here. I hope she doesn't mind. I'm going to be recording with my daughter and Joy on Sheologians on Friday, and so I hope you'll be watching for those programs.

I feel like I've got a lot to live up to there, you know? I mean, you know, they get a lot of people on the program, and I'm just sort of dead now, you know? Nothing exciting about that. But what we're going to be talking about is extremely important and is extremely relevant, and so be watching for that.

But Summer also tweeted a while back a Brett Weinstein, and now you know who Brett Weinstein is, you know, the Cedarville stuff and all the stuff that took place at the university and all that kind of stuff.

Here's what Brett Weinstein said. He said, this is simple. Black Lives Matter is an excellent motto implying Black lives are undervalued and we must correct that. True. That motto has become a front for critical race theory, which is a lethal, anti-American, anti-Black fiction that threatens all.

We must oppose it. So that's a single tweet, and you got to give credit where credit is due. When you can get that much clarity into one tweet, pretty good. That's pretty good. Of course, you focus on the word matters like a laser beam, folks.

We have an opportunity to present the very gospel we were just talking about in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Do you believe Black lives matter? What do you think the word matters means? What? What do you think the word matters means?

You're saying Black lives matter. What does matters mean? Because see, I believe that Black lives matter because Black lives are created by God, who defines what matters. And if you don't know what matters to God, then you're just babbling.

You're not actually saying anything meaningful. And in fact, if you're saying the government can determine what lives matter and that what matters comes from the government, man, that is dangerous and deadly.

That killed 150 million people just last century. Did you know that? But you see, I can say Black lives matter and Asian lives matter and white lives matter and Hispanic lives matter and fill in all the other colors of the rainbow because I have a reason for understanding the word matter.

I have a creator and that creator has revealed himself. And in fact, he's revealed himself in such a way that I can say lives matter because Jesus, the incarnate son of God, gave his life and that makes my life matter.

See, we cannot, we dare not miss this opportunity. And that's what our culture needs to hear. That's what the church needs to hear. The sad thing is in the church right now, we have people blathering the Black lives matter stuff and they've lost the foundation of the matters part.

They're ashamed of the gospel, which defines why Black lives matter. Why do Black lives matter? Because Jesus gave his life so they would matter. How many people have you heard talking about that way?

A small minority. I'm not the only one, but a small minority. It's a powerful message. And we just need to pray for boldness to be saying it right now because yeah, that could get you beat up in our culture for daring to even try to make it a meaningful statement.

Which reminded me of the Lecrae situation last week. Did you see that some more information has come out that Lecrae has commented about what happened when Kathy tried to shine his sneakers, which really does not work.

I'm sure those sneakers were probably a whole lot more expensive than anything I could afford, but white privilege. But do you remember I commented on this? And what's interesting to me is that when Lecrae commented on what Lecrae said, Lecrae talked about the same thing I mentioned.

It wasn't just an embarrassed ha ha ha ha. It was empty, virtue signaling, let's shine somebody's shoes thing. And when he does it for a couple seconds, which didn't shine anything, and goes back to sit down, Lecrae said something.

And most people just let it pass, didn't say anything. I focused in on it. Lecrae said, now how about some Chick-fil-A stock? Lecrae understands. Lecrae understands reparations. Lecrae understands redistribution of wealth.

Now, it's only Chick-fil-A stock wealth. It's not Beyonce, Jay-Z wealth, or Oprah, or Michael Jordan, or King James, or anybody else. No, no, no. They get to keep what they got, more than I do. But I would be being asked, even though I can show you the pictures, here's where my ancestors came after the Civil War.

Doesn't matter. This is socialism. This is redistribution of wealth. It's communism, really. Socialism is just communism without guns. But he said it. He's bought the narrative, lock, stock, and barrel.

And he meant it. He meant it. Show me. What he was saying was, that's nice, but until you pay up, it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't accomplish anything. That's what he was saying. That's where it's coming from.

It's... Isn't it the 6th this year? I think November 6th is the election. That's what you're going to get November 7th. If you... If God just completes the judgment of 2020, the Great Fall, and hands the reins of government directly into the leftists, you've got the Equality Act, you're going to get reparations, your freedoms, your liberties, gone.

What?

So election day for the leftists is the 6th. For the rest of us, it's the 3rd. November 3rd, really? Yes. It works for you? Yeah, okay, fine, whatever.

That's what's coming. Just... And when I see these pictures, when I see a Marxist organization rallying everyone under 40 and a lot of people above, I just go, wow, you know, you take over the educational system of a nation, and that works.

Very effective. Very effective. There's just something super fitting about seeing 20 ,000 people in a field doing this with their arms up like this in the Communist salute, and they're all masked. They're all submitting.

It's like, yeah, wowsers. Didn't... You couldn't write this. You could... Well, I guess some people did. I haven't seen it yet, the V for Vendetta movie. I've got to cue that up because I've been told it's eerily, eerily accurate.

So yeah, there you go. I just found it fascinating. And then, did I have... No. I've only got 20 minutes left anyways. Well, as if I care about what the clock says. Yeah, that's enough for now. I'm sure we'll have plenty of things to be looking at along those lines on...

You just encounter so much stuff these days, just so much in the church, absurdly anti-biblical stuff when it comes to this whole issue that it's hard to say. I... A friend of mine, I'm gonna... I mean, you're gonna look him up.

I just don't want to necessarily... I didn't ask him if I could do this, but it's public, so he wouldn't care, I don't think. I know him well enough, I don't think he would care. But a friend of mine in South Africa, posted a quote.

I guess Piper has a book out. I mean... I obviously write books differently. I mean, Michael Brown's put a book out about coronavirus, and all the rest of this stuff. I just sort of do it this way these days, but rather than written word, that may change in the future.

But here's a quote from Piper, Coronavirus and Christ. Coronavirus and Christ. Quote. The coronavirus was sent by God. This is not a season for sentimental views of God. It is a bitter season. And God ordained it.

God governs it. He will end it. No part of it is outside his sway. Life and death are in his hand. End quote. Now... Let me just say right there, that... I don't... I can't give you numbers, but I would think in the United States, amongst all those who call themselves Christians, less than one half of one percent would believe what John Piper said.

Amongst evangelicals, less than five percent would believe that. Amongst people who go to historically reformed churches, small minority viewpoint. Amongst people who call themselves Calvinists, I'm not sure it's a majority view.

Because it puts it straight out there. It just says it. God ordained it. If you have some other view, you have got a sentimental view of God that is not a biblical view of God. God ordained it. God governs it.

He will end it at his time. No part of it's outside his sway. Life and death are in his hand. If you don't believe that, please stop calling yourself a Calvinist. Okay? Don't call yourself Reformed. Do not call yourself a Calvinist.

And in fact, when I think of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, they all would have looked at all of us and gone, what is disputable about that? I mean, I cannot think of any of the Reformers that would have struggled with that at all.

They all live with the plague coming and going from their cities. If you went off to the university, if you sent your kids off to university, there was about... I'm just running numbers in my mind. It's really funny.

My wife recently had to take retirement thanks to the panic of 2020. And so she's got extra time on her hands. And she discovered my, the Great Courses Plus login on the television. Because you can watch the...

I subscribe to the Great Courses Plus and so you can just pick classes and just watch them and stuff like that. And I had listened on my bike about a year and a half, two years ago to this entire class.

I don't know how she found it. Maybe it just popped up because I had done it before or something. I don't know. She's almost done with an entire class. On the Black Plague. I walk out in the front room and there she is.

Just, I mean, the last section, I took a nap because I got up at 2 .10 this morning and did a ride out in the dark, which is fun. But I took a nap, I get up and she's in the other room and she's finishing up the section.

And I remember the section because I remember what I was when I heard it before about the persecution of Jews. As a result of the Black Death. And so here she's... I should have known this because last December for Christmas up in Las Vegas when the kids were up there, on the way up, on the way back, we listened to a Great Courses Plus class on the history of Egypt and she loved it.

So something tells me she's gonna be getting more use out of that stuff than I am. Anyway, now that you know more than you need to know, I'm trying to sort of run the numbers in light of all the books and classes that I've done on the Great Mortality, which we call today the Black Death.

I wonder how many people, if I were to ask, how many people know when the Black Death struck Europe? Just wonder how many of them. 1347 to 1351. But then it kept coming back and it was still coming back at the time of the Reformation.