Have you ever found yourself caught in the crossfire of theological debate, wondering where the truth lies? My name is Darrell McClain, and this episode promises to navigate the tumultuous seas of Christian doctrine, specifically the contentious issue of Jesus' atonement. I'm sparring with Josh Scott's Arminian viewpoints from "Over-Opinionated," countering with a Calvinist perspective that has not only shaped my spiritual journey but has also been a beacon through personal trials and the challenges of fundamentalism.
As we thread through scripture, from John 3:16 to the epistles, we grapple with pivotal concepts such as predestination and free will. The intricacies of Oneness versus Trinitarian beliefs come under our microscope, testing the fabric of faith against the backdrop of American values and cultural lenses. Our discussion isn't just theoretical; it's a vulnerable exploration of how theology intersects with the raw realities of sin, leadership, and the pursuit of biblical literacy.
In the trenches of love, judgment, and hypocrisy, we confront the pain of 'church hurt' and the paradoxes that riddle American Christianity. Prepare to engage with a discourse that not only challenges the intellect but also seeks to bridge divides with empathy and a rekindled commitment to unity. As we wrap up this journey, I extend an olive branch to all, hoping to forge ahead in understanding, regardless of where we stand on the theological spectrum. Join us for this episode, where deep-rooted beliefs are respectfully unwound, and the essence of our faith is put to the test.
Have you ever found yourself caught in the crossfire of theological debate, wondering where the truth lies? My name is Darrell McClain, and this episode promises to navigate the tumultuous seas of Christian doctrine, specifically the contentious issue of Jesus' atonement. I'm sparring with Josh Scott's Arminian viewpoints from "Over-Opinionated," countering with a Calvinist perspective that has not only shaped my spiritual journey but has also been a beacon through personal trials and the challenges of fundamentalism.
As we thread through scripture, from John 3:16 to the epistles, we grapple with pivotal concepts such as predestination and free will. The intricacies of Oneness versus Trinitarian beliefs come under our microscope, testing the fabric of faith against the backdrop of American values and cultural lenses. Our discussion isn't just theoretical; it's a vulnerable exploration of how theology intersects with the raw realities of sin, leadership, and the pursuit of biblical literacy.
In the trenches of love, judgment, and hypocrisy, we confront the pain of 'church hurt' and the paradoxes that riddle American Christianity. Prepare to engage with a discourse that not only challenges the intellect but also seeks to bridge divides with empathy and a rekindled commitment to unity. As we wrap up this journey, I extend an olive branch to all, hoping to forge ahead in understanding, regardless of where we stand on the theological spectrum. Join us for this episode, where deep-rooted beliefs are respectfully unwound, and the essence of our faith is put to the test.
Welcome to the Jerome McLean Show. I'm your host, jerome McLean. Today we're going to be talking about a very serious topic who did Jesus die for? Now, what's when we get into this conversation? It's actually going to be. This variation of it is going to be me replying to our sister show over opinionated with Josh Scott, where he takes the Arminian position that Jesus died for everyone, and by everyone he means the whole world.
Speaker 1:Min Josh decided a few weeks ago that we would have a conversation about the topic of Calvinism, as is defined, versus Arminianism. Josh takes the Arminian position and I take the Calvinist position, and that is still going to happen. He did his show and what it was going to happen is I'm going to review with you his show, give a bit of replies in love about where I think he's right, where I think he's wrong. I'm going to do a show after this one on my perspective of what Calvinism is, why I true, what it teaches, without thinking about what you've heard on this particular show, and then me and Josh will then do a dialogue on the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism and to see where there's middle ground, where there's no middle ground, push and pull. And these are what I would like to say when I approach these topics, secondary biblical issues and not things that I think make someone saved or unsaved. So we're going to get into the episode of over-opinionated number 44. Who did Jesus die for?
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, welcome back to over-opinionated. Today is Tuesday, march 12th 2024. I'll give you a very, very brief political update. Then we'll go into our spiritual episode of very brief, since we have talked. The president gave his state of the Union, which I'm not a big fan of, even if the president is a Republican. They get up there, they come into the capital, they all clap like sails every five seconds a political point is made. They clap like sails and just kind of wish they'd clap when he walked in and clap when he is done with the speech. But now we have to clap and clap and clap. If you watch five minutes of the State of the Union, all you were here is clapping. So there's that.
Speaker 2:We have the response to the State of the Union by the female senator in Alabama which was criticized. Both were criticized the whole night. Joe Biden just screamed, talked about the typical talking points, punched, hit Trump a few times. He did go back and he apologized because there was a girl who was murdered by an illegal immigrant. Her name was Lakin Riley and he called her Lincoln Riley. He called her by her name and he called the man who killed her an illegal, which he was. But he went back and apologized because his party is going farther to the left, he's losing independence, he has to make a more fruit, has to make a more pro-left stance. So he apologized for calling a murderer illegal and then called him an undocumented immigrant. So that's, that's a little bit. That's a very short, brief summary of the political spectrum. I'm not gonna get into politics, they okay, we'll go straight to the scripture and my question today is who did Jesus die for?
Speaker 1:so guys.
Speaker 1:So guys, I'm gonna somewhat just because the nature of what I'm doing and what Josh brought up the same that I'm gonna be somewhat talking about the State of the Union on us on a small episode.
Speaker 1:I agree with Josh that I think these things are fairly useless, especially at this juncture in American politics, because it doesn't matter if anybody from either party makes a decent point, the other party just sits there on their hands and the other side just you know the claps at everything, would you know, when you kind of already know what their views are.
Speaker 1:There were several presidents who actually didn't do this. They would send official letters to Congress and say, yeah, this is the State of the Union and that I think we could kind of go back to that. Or I would like to do it like they do in Britain, where they have question time, where the Britain, the actual head of the country, so the Prime Minister, has to go to, you know, the Parliament and they get to basically have a spirited debate with all the members in there, you know question time type of thing. And I think that would be more healthy for this Republic if the president had to go to the Congress and the Senate and the senators and congressmen get to scream out questions and he has to sit there and be able to be nimble on his feet and answer those questions.
Speaker 2:Of course, everybody would have their prepared you know, speeches written by speech writers but I do think that be better than the State of the Union as it is now practice we have two real conflicting views that Jesus died for everyone in the world after his death, meaning everybody that's alive, or that he died for all kinds of different people throughout the world. One would be the Armenian view, which would be Jesus died for everyone in the world, that from that point on, where he died on, he died throughout everyone, throughout the world. We're not talking about people who were in the past, although if you were Jewish in the faith, you were saved on credit of Christ's death. So if you're Abraham, if you're David, they still were saved on credit of Jesus's death. Okay, and then the issue comes what does the Bible mean when it says, when we go into John 3, 16 and we will, the God so loved the world?
Speaker 2:Calvinist, and I listen, I have friends with other Calvinists there on the claims of Calvinist. That's me. The host of the there on the Queen show great guy I interviewed and I really look up to in some ways, pastor T Foskey down in Florida. He is a Calvinist, jeff Durbin, I like him, not everything, well, I do like almost everything he says. We have a few different approaches. When it comes to stopping abortion is my, my grandpa gripe with him, although I agree with what he is saying. But Jeff Durbin, good man of God, calvinist, dr James White I've learned a lot from him, very smart man, calvinist. I disagree with them a lot and they are smarter than me.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying they're not okay, but I really do think that the natural reading of the Bible and this is me, I don't have a Bible certificate, I don't have a Bible college degree. I've read a lot of the Bible very early on I felt called to the ministry and then I backed away from that for a few different reasons. For some, some mental health, some falling in the sand that I shouldn't add. Some, some occasions I believe God was just saying it's not your time yet. So and this is I give you I'm almost hesitant to do it. It is part of my testimony, so I think I need to share, but I'm giving a precursor. When I shared as part of my testimony I'm not claiming that this is something good that I did, because I'm almost screwed up it was God saying don't do it, this is not smart. And telling me. He making me feel that a few different times before I took it in and said okay, you're right. So this is no way me saying I did something good because it was God saving me from a train wreck, even though on the outside, looking in, it might have looked good. It might have got me quote-unquote brownie points.
Speaker 2:It might have looked good on a Facebook update, but I had the opportunity at one time to at the very least be an assistant pastor at a small, fundamental Baptist church. They were independent, but they were when I say independent, they weren't part of the nomination but they were very fundamental when they were Baptist. My mom ended up going there and she that was her last church. Very good people loved the people. I might have eventually became the head pastor, but they had another guy coming in. It was probably gonna be a head pastor for a while and at the very least, okay, I would have been the assistant pastor of the church. I preached there twice. I love the people a few of them, or my family members, a few couple warrants great people, small church.
Speaker 2:But I had to come to the realization that that was not what God had for me and it's not what God had for the church and there were theological differences between me and and it's not even the gifts of the Holy Spirit. You might think all Josh is crazy cares man and cost. It wasn't even that that might have hit the head. That might have hit eventually. But a lot of people look they're or they're worth former one this Pentecostals. So they weren't. A lot of them weren't that afraid of speaking or praying in tongues. I'm glad they came out of the one, this tradition.
Speaker 2:A lot of my family are one this Pentecostals. Unfortunately, my mom's side of the family is one this Pentecostal. They were and well, a lot of them still are that are living, and my dad's side of the family are Trinitarian Pentecostals that believe in the Trinity. So, and that's a whole one. This Pentecostalism is a whole nother episode that I've got to get into because it is.
Speaker 2:It's very difficult but regardless, that was not the thing that was stopping me. They the biggest thing was they were King James only and at one point in my life I wasn't 100% King James only. I was very close. I'd still read the new King James. I was more of a Texas Receptus only in it only list. If you don't know what that is, it's okay, but it's just a translation of the script. But the oldest manuscripts that we get for the new translations, like the NIV in a NESP, all the newer translations are actually older than what we get from the manuscript that produced the King James Bible within the King James Bible spot. It's great there's one on the desk right now.
Speaker 2:You might say, josh, that's not a big deal, just read the King James Bible when you preach.
Speaker 2:It would have came to head, because that framework of fault is not healthy to have. It's not a King James only church. That doesn't mean they're bad Christians, it doesn't mean they're not safe. But the line of thinking produces over bad line of thinking and you have the super fundamentalist, super see, that's what the Bible says, type of stuff. And yeah, I believe that the Bible says what it says. But when you get so dogmatic and fundamentalism it leads down to some bad things and I think also some scripturally. I think it leads down to some understanding the Bible in a bad line, not the best way. But and you know I struggled with sexual sins too later on that I think God was protecting me from, because I don't know what would have happened if I was a system pastor and fell into some sexual sins. I would have had a step down, or because everything comes a while up and they just had a before me, they had a pastor leave it was. He was just a bad, a bad situation with how he left leave it at that.
Speaker 1:But I am thankful for that church because that church taught my mom the Trinity so very, very complicated topic that Josh is talking about, that I too feel his pain so deeply because, at least in the community that I grew up in, it is very common that the second, a young person, can what? What I say is string intelligent sounding sentences together. People say, oh, you are need to be a preacher, you're going to be a minister, you're going to be a pastor, things of that nature, and it is a very heavy burden to be a under shepherd of souls. And it's not just about what, intellectually, you know to be true, it's not just about apologetics, it is a lot of other things that goes into that and it's described in the. What I would say and even though I don't think it's all encompassing and that's another conversation for another show, but it's described well in Titus and Timothy, the qualifications for elders and overseers is the is the foundational when you are getting into that life.
Speaker 1:And even though it was difficult for a Josh to to step down and not accept the full call, I think that it is, at least from this perspective, it was no doubt that God in his work had a plan and a call, as we would say, on Josh's life. That thing I discussed before when I came in contact with them and had a spirited conversations when he worked for me, I could tell that there was something special. Not, he'll, course, will say there's nothing special, but I would say that I would just say that he had, for my observation, a voice that I think needed to be heard and I didn't want him to hide that under a bushel. Now, I didn't know, of course, the full scope and scale of the work that he had already been doing in the local church and things of that nature, but it is very difficult.
Speaker 1:And when he talks about the difference between oneness, pentecostal and, you know, trinitarians, it's a very difficult subject. In Christendom there are a lot of people who are seen, as, I'll just say, very well known Christian pastors who deny the Trinity. It does not come up in their teaching because I think that they know that that would create a wedge, that a lot of the big popular ones. But they don't believe in things like modalism and I personally, for my tradition, I will consider that to be, if not heresy, right rubbing right against it. So so right back, right back to Josh.
Speaker 2:I sit down and I gave her verse for verse for verse why the Trinity was true. I thought I did a good job, I tried my best, but it's just something about her learning in that church that finally got her to accept the Trinity and I'm very thankful. My mom was a safe lady and and we'll get more into oneness versus Trinitarian stuff later. But that's just a little background on me. Okay, I've read a lot of Bible. I read all of it, but I can't, I don't remember all of it. There are some you could quiz me and say look at this book, I I could draw a total blank and well, I don't have all the books in the Bible memorized. I should have, I should, but I know what I'm talking about. If you disagree with me, it's totally fine. Just giving you a little bit of background. But enough about me, let's I want to talk about why Jesus died. I believe Jesus died for everyone, from his death on, throughout the entire world, everyone, every human being.
Speaker 2:Calvinist, who I love, I believe wrong. They say, they that Jesus died for for every. When they say when the Bible says a world, they don't think that means everyone in size, the world. They think that means all types of different people. Jesus is going to say all types of different people, and he is, but I don't think that just means, because he says all types of different people, that that is the quote-unquote world. I think a world means everyone in it. I'm gonna give you a few verses that I think support that. Now, when I give you these verses, a lot of my Calvinist friends they go oh, you're gonna go to John 3, 16 again, he's gonna be this, he's gonna do that. Actually am gonna go John 3 16 again.
Speaker 2:But I understand I'm not picking on my Calvinist brothers and sisters when someone's trying to prove to me Calvinism and some of those, the Romans 9, I'm just like. So I understand. The same way Calvinist feel when an Armenian brings up John 3 16 is the same way an Armenian feels when the Calvinist brings up Romans 9 and there. And we both have to understand that John 3 16 is just as much inspired and is just as much for our soul as Romans 9. And Armenians have to understand that Romans 9 is just as much for our soul and is just as much inspired as John 3 16. So we don't need to dread these verses.
Speaker 2:Someone is it's either one or two. Okay, even the Armenian is right. Armenian meaning that you believe in? Oh man, it's easier for me to explain Calvinism than Armenianism, just for me personally. But Armenians basically believe that God died for everyone to be saved. Man has free will to accept or deny Jesus, but the Holy Spirit still has to extend us the invitation because we, without the Holy Spirit this is, without the Holy Spirit we are totally depraved see.
Speaker 1:Now I'm gonna go ahead and start to interject a bit more here and to say this is where I the fundamental disagreement from Josh is Armenian position and my Calvinist position lines up and Josh just somewhat said it right in the very beginning. To me and this is foundational you heard what Josh said and you may hear more throughout the episode is but the Spirit. The Spirit has to do this, for you to do that. So the Armenian position is the Spirit, as you heard Josh say. I would have to do this. The Spirit has to do that. My initial claim, the foundational claim that I make, is the Spirit is the one initiating the action, and had not the Spirit initiating the action, you would have no action to then respond to. So the debate about who does what, I think somewhat hinges on that very point who picks who first? And I would postulate that it is the Spirit, it is the Father, it is the Son who was doing the picking, not the human right. Back to Josh.
Speaker 2:Calvinist would say that God has elected when he can't select it. But God has elected those from the foundation of the world to be saved and because of the regenerative work, the Holy Spirit, that we are saved that way. It's not a free will choice. God chose for us and please forgive me if I'm butchering it I really want, I really want to do this and get faith, okay, but. But they're saying there are analogies, or if I've heard this analogy, that you're in the water, okay, and someone throws a life raft to you, well, an Armenian view of salvation is that I grabbed the life raft by my shoulder and I get drugged back on the land because I had, I had the wheel to do it. Even though I couldn't throw the life raft myself, I had enough will to do it.
Speaker 2:Okay, the Armenian, the Calvinist position is you had no will whatsoever, you were dead and they got. They dove inside the ocean, put the life raft on you, gave you CPR. Now you're alive in a. In a nutshell, these are very complicated things. So I, honestly, when I said has the.
Speaker 1:So yes, I've heard that analogy before. I think it has a good starting frame. I would say the same analogy like this you are in the water, swimming, and you see no sense of danger whatsoever, you have no ability to even spot danger around you. You swim and you swim and you swim and then the waves start to come and as they start to overtake you, you and you go under, god jumps in to pull you from the abyss of the water. Now, when God is pulling you from the abyss, he is talking to you and he's doing the strokes and you kick your feet, but you were dead in the water, unresponsive, and God was the one watching you and jumped in to save you from drowning. So that the position that you were in the water and somehow looking for God, I think, is not. It is not what the text actually teaches, because the text teaches there is no man that seeks after God, there's no man that does good, and then it goes on to say no, not one, and that's that's a very hard statement, but it's also foundational no, not one.
Speaker 1:When? When the Bible, so when Josh says Calvinists would say you were dead. That is exactly what we would say. We don't just say that you were dead for the for the sake of us saying you were dead. We're saying you were dead because we're using the biblical verse you are dead in trespasses and sin, so that we were going to say what dead person can revive himself, what dead person can bring themselves back to, back to life? You can't. You. Not only can you not bring yourself back to life, you can't beg to be saved. In that moment it takes somebody outside of you which we would say is the spirit that is going to bring you back to life in your blood. I say to you live. So I'm gonna go right back to Josh, that is with the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:Okay, because the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to. But we believe that we have the. We have free will. Okay, free will with inside the Holy Spirit that God gives every man. That this is what I believe. God gives every man an opportunity that here's the gospel to accept or deny him with his free will, but we can't do it without the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit. This is complicated I, this podcast, is not the most equipped to explain these complicated theological issues. If you want a more Calvinist take, I encourage you to listen to people like Keith Fosby, james White, jeff Durbin. If you want a more Armenian take, I encourage you to listen to Mike Winger. He has a huge YouTube channel and he has a website called Biblefingercom.
Speaker 2:I encourage you to listen to Pastor Cliff. He goes out in debates college students I forget his last name. I can't. I can't get it out. Please forgive me, but there there are good thinkers and good brothers on both sides of this debate that both are safe, but I it's still a very important debate and let me tell you why.
Speaker 2:I really do think that the Calvinist view of a limited atonement is dangerous because and I'll go through. There's an acronym called Tulip. I just want to go through that acronym and I agree with a few of the points and disagree with a few of the others total the Pravity, the T into them. I agree with total the Pravity, man, humanity is totally to pray without the Holy Spirit. But my difference between. I do agree totally the Pravity, but I add a caveat to that, that's without the Holy Spirit. I believe the Holy Spirit regenerates our hearts and gives us the opportunity to accept crisis salvation or walk away from there.
Speaker 2:I've seen people, man. I have seen people who heart, who's got stern, they've got stern spirit, they've man, they've cried, they and it's I don't think it's just from themselves an emotional conviction and then walk away from it. Did they actually accept Christ or did they just have an emotional moment? I think. I think maybe some of them accept the Christ, but I think the vast, vast majority of them just had an emotional moment and didn't fully accept the gospel and they walked away. That was God giving them the invitation and they chose to ignore unconditional election. I mean God unconditionally elects people. He said he saves who he will and he damns who he will.
Speaker 2:Calvinist would say that God doesn't predestine people to hell. I I mean, I don't think it makes too much sense that he predestines people to heaven and God does predestine people to heaven. I don't think it makes sense that God predetermines people to heaven and not predetermined to hell and I. There is a difference between predetermined and predestined. We I really do think that the Savior predestined to heaven, but they still had a choice to say it yes, I'll follow Christ, no, I will not.
Speaker 2:Limited the time that's what we're going over now. That limited the time. That means that Jesus died for the limited people on earth, that to attend for them in their sins. So he did not die for the sins of everyone on earth. If you are not part of the quote-unquote elect, if you're not saved, then he didn't die for your sin. If you die and go to hell, he didn't die for your sin. That's where the rubber hits the road.
Speaker 2:I don't think the Bible backs this up. One I ever. I don't think the atonement was limited to only those who are saved. I think Jesus died for everybody in the world that lived from that point of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection to now and until he comes back. Jesus took the sins of the entire world, not some people throughout the world, but everyone who has ever lived, even in the past. I think the sins of him were on him, especially the Old Testament Saints. They had to be. Jesus died for and I'm gonna try to prove that biblically irresistible grace. I don't believe that. Now that might sound very good. You may think I'm and God's grace is irresistible, but I don't think God says look, if my grace you have to take it.
Speaker 1:You have to take this gift of salvation alright, so I'm gonna talk about these two points in short. To say so first, so far I think Josh is doing a good job at explaining the core differences between Calvinists and Arminians. I'm a believer in the tulip total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace preserver to the state also known as the tulip. So when he gets to this question where he says the where the rubber meets the road is limited atonement, that is concrete. That is very true. That is what really grinds people's gears. Now I want to give away too much of what I prepared for the other show, but I will give you a bit.
Speaker 1:This pops up here in the mostly only in the American context. I have traveled the world, had the had the pleasure of not only being in the United States. Limited atonement hits harder here because Americans have no king. So Americans believe in freedom, free will, liberty, my rights are my rights, don't tread on me type of attitude, and they think that they have a choice in everything and an American theological perspective comes to God with the same amount of Americanism involved in it. I, by my own admission, freely make this choice on my own almost anywhere else in the world when, when you encounter Christians, they have the exact opposite viewpoint. They they say no, I any any place. Where they're used to a monarch, where they're used to an autocrat, where they're used to a dictatorship, where they're used to death spots, they have no problem at all thinking that God is in control and has absolute sovereign control over your life, including if he elects you.
Speaker 1:So what happens is we get into these philosophical ideas, or theological or apologetical ideas, where we try to describe things without fully understanding the fact that what we are trying to do is explain the divine with a limited human reasoning. You know the verse in the Bible that says my ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts, and it talks about another verse, talks about the difference in the depth and the knowledge oh the vastness you know, of the knowledge of God, and we try to take our human, feeble reasoning and somehow make it transcendent. And when we spot apparent paradoxes, we try to line them up to be concrete. And that is impossible when you deal with a God who is in three persons. So the simple question when it comes to limited atonement versus complete atonement is if you were to say that God, jesus Christ, for God, so love the world. He gave his only begotten son, and who's really him, will not perish and have everlasting life. If you were to say that that verse means God died for all people and all sins are covered, you would still run right into the fact of if all everybody was atoned for, why is anyone in hell? Now you could, you'll say well, they're in hell because they didn't believe unbelief is a sin, a sin that you have just told me that was atoned for. So you, even while saying you don't believe in limited atonement, obviously believe in limited atonement because you think the atoning work of God is trumped by the free will of humans. So you so, you. So you either believe in limited atonement one way or the other.
Speaker 1:I would say the Calvinist position is just more in the reasoning of how atoning works. If there are people in hell, then clearly they were not elect, because nobody who was elect is in hell. And why aren't they in hell? Because Jesus's blood was sufficient to atone for their sins. That's, that's the crux of this whole thing. I believe that Jesus's blood was sufficient to atone from the people that he, in eternity past, willed for his blood to atone for, not that his blood would atone for people who had decided in their temporal lives that God or Jesus could atone for them. That that is so. I think Josh is doing a very good job here. Back to him, where he explains irresistible grace, the Calvinist position and why he has some problems with it perseverance of the saints.
Speaker 2:I agree with like 75% of it. I'm sure James White and a lot of others would say that I'm being a biblically inconsistent by saying that, because a lot of them would say it's all or nothing. I think you have the free will to walk away, but as long as you're in Christ, your salvation is secure. I've actually come on election security. Your salvation is secure as long as you are blind and Christ. A sin will not pick you out of salvation.
Speaker 2:I think he's on something there who drift away from God and turn from him. But if you fall in sin, you have not lost your salvation, and that's why I'm not a holiness. But that is a different topic for a different day. We're already 30 minutes in. I'm so sorry, god, this will be a long episode. Okay, let's get to it.
Speaker 2:I just want to give you a little bit of background for not everyone that doesn't know these. Okay, I'm actually gonna read a couple different verses. We're gonna go to Romans, chapter 2, verses 9 through 10. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew and then for the Gentile, but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does, who does good, first for the Jew, then the Gentile, for God shows no favoritism now. So this isn't the strongest verse, but I want to make the case for a moment now.
Speaker 2:A lot of cavernous would point out and say well, this is talking about God not seeing a difference anymore between Jews and Gentiles, that salvation can be for Gentiles just as well as Jews. I agree with that. I definitely agree with that take. But also I think this shows that God does not show favoritism and I think we, if God does show favoritism doesn't show favoritism, then I don't think limited atonement makes too much sense, because limited atonement would be God saying I favorit those that I have died for, but not for those I have not. So I mean that, once again, that's not the strongest verse, but I do think that makes sense though if God only died for the saved, he is showing favoritism to them, and I don't. I don't think that's what he's saying there.
Speaker 2:Okay, we'll go to Hebrews, chapter 2. But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while now, crowned with glory and honor, because he suffered death so that grace, so that the grace of God, he might taste death for Everyone. And once again, when we get into the everyone comments it's it's very hard for me to prove To a Calvinist that when God means everyone, he means everyone In the world, not just everyone that he had died for. Because the Calvinist World, be they really just see that God. When God died for a world, when God died for everyone, that doesn't mean in the literal sense, of every human being in the world, although I think that that is what the text means and it's very hard for me not to show that, but I really do think everybody would mean everybody in the world. I think that's the natural reading of the text, and let me take you to First.
Speaker 2:This is a second chapter of Hebrews, and let's just read, and I will start first one. We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what have we heard, so that we do not drift away, for since the message spoken through angels was blinding and Every violation and disobedience received, it's just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so greatest salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to these things by signs, wonders and Various miracles, by the gifts the Holy Spirit Descributed according to his will. It is not the angels that he has subjected the world to come, but which we are speaking, but there is a place where someone has testified what is mankind? That you are mindful of them, a son of man, that you care for him. You may them a little lower than the angels, you crown them with glory and honor and you put everything under their feet. And putting everything under their feet, god left nothing that is subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them, but we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a while, now crowned with glory and honor, because he suffered death so that, by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone and bringing many sons and daughters to glory. It was fitting to God for him and Throughout, everything it get exists should make the pioneer of salvation Perfect throughout. Why he suffered. But the one who makes people holy and those who are a holy are the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. And Yet we see this. We see a perfect thing.
Speaker 2:I, I, is it our median see that Jesus died for the world? Calvinist could see well, look, he's talking about the church. Okay, but before you become part of the church, you have to accept Christ's Lord and Savior. And he was able to do that. And I mean I, really. I do feel like when he says everyone, does he mean? Does he mean everyone in the church or does he mean everyone? I think that means everyone.
Speaker 2:This is first John, one for you to One for your second verse my dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is deep Atoning sacrifices for our sins, and not only ours, but also for the sins of the whole world. I think this is a very strong verse Because he is saying if we follow the sin, jesus Christ is our advocate. He's talking about the church, okay. He's talking about us struggling with our sin nature. That's what John's talking about in the first epistle. And then he goes on to say he is the atoning Sacrifice. So, okay, we're talking about atonement, atoning sacrifice for our sins, not only for ours, so not only for the church, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Speaker 2:And that's when I Think the Calvary, this interpretation of the world, starts to break down, because we have st John writing about. We have st John writing about the church, and then he goes on to specify even further than the church. Let's read it one more time. We have this is the first of this is John's letter the epistle John 1st John, verse 1 through 2 my dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and Not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world. I Think that verse is pretty clear that Jesus died for everyone in the entire world, not just those that are saved.
Speaker 1:See, now that is. Look, I would just say, go back to the point that I made. I wanted him to be able to speak Along for him so you could hear some of the flavor of the verses that he was gonna Deliver, and I'm gonna get back to him. But I'm just gonna say I Think that that's the point that I'm trying to make, is the point that he just made. If that verse is to be true, and he atoned for the whole world and there is anybody not in heaven, we have a problem. We have a massive theological problem. If he atoned for the whole world, then anybody in the world is not in heaven. You know, everybody in the world is not in heaven. Do we have a problem?
Speaker 2:and let's go. This is second Corinthians, chapter 5, verses 14 through 15, and I'm worried about it Now, for Christ's love compels us because we are conceived that One died for all and therefore all died and he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him, who died for them, who was raised again. Now Calvinist can counter this and say this is talking about the church and are you really saying that all Will live again? No, I'm saying that. I'm saying what he's applying there is that he did die for all and that they may live Again. And yeah, maybe that was not the strongest of verses, but I do think that he died for all, and let's keep going down the list. If that one's not the strongest one, that's fine. I really think the first epistle of John is very strong. We did Romans, let's see. This one is very strong.
Speaker 2:Let's go to first Timothy, chapter 2, and we'll start with verse one. I Urge you, then, first of all, that petitions, prayer, interceding and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all those in authority that may live peacefully in quiet lives and all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God, our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and Come to a knowledge of truth, for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper and amen. The only objection I hear from Calvinist when it comes to this is we'll see, he's talking about praying for our kings and praying for the governor and affordings. So that means that he's talking about different types of people in different lands.
Speaker 2:I Don't know, I don't know how that's the natural reading of the text. I'm not a biblical scholar, I don't read in Greek, greek and Hebrew, but you can run this through the blue letter Bible app or the blue letter app and See Wanted saying. But I mean, I just think this is pretty clear. This is good and pleases God, our Savior, who wants all people to be Saved and come to a knowledge of truth. If he wants all people to be saved, then he would die for all people. It wouldn't make any sense for him not to die For all people and this is kind of so.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about two points. First off, just just, josh has done a very good job it presenting both sides this conversation. I can tell one that he is being generous To the other side of the argument and I could tell that he cares. It has a love in his heart to make sure that what he's saying is true, and I can also tell that he did a lot of studying on this topic.
Speaker 1:And that is just so. Just a hand clap for Josh for being gracious, for studying and showing himself approved and also bringing some passion to this topic. So thank Josh for for this episode. I think this is very good, very good. What I would say To the verse that Josh started off with was this practical application, and there's a reason why I'm letting Josh lay out his Verses and I haven't given a lot of it. Yes, it is more to do with the episode that I plan to do, where I plan to lay out my Doctrinal repositions. I do have a few verses that I'm going to go through about seven or eight and but I wanted you to be able to, in fairness, be able to hear him more than you heard of me, but for me to be able to reply To some of the things. So, first off, when he says that he is Commanded are telling you to pray, I want you to think about this from a very practical application.
Speaker 1:If you pray, how do you pray when you pray for somebody? Let me use this example. Do you pray to God and say look, god, you stay out of the way. He, it needs to be all up to him. He, I want him to be saved. I want them to be healed. I want them to be glorified, sanctified and Preserve, at the end, justified, and they need to do that with their own reasoning. Capacities is. Is that the way anybody Approaches the throne of God? No, when you pray, you are asking for the spirit to intervene on someone else's behalf. You have said this is out of my hands and I'm leaving it up to the spirit. That is an admission that it is not up to you, it is not up to human volition, it is not up to free will, it is up to the spirit.
Speaker 1:The verses are the practical application that I would like to think about. Was you go to Jesus Christ himself when he's confronted are with the, with the conversation in the text, by what we have in the text, as the rich, young ruler, as some people say to be Nicodemus in another text, and they say what must I do to be saved? He does not say to them Say this prayer, live out the law, do this and do that. He says the spirit is like a wind and it touches whom it touches. Now, this is what Jesus himself said about salvation in the spirit is like a wind and it touches who touches.
Speaker 1:What do you do to tell the wind to go anywhere? What control do you, then your free will have over the wind? What do you and your free will have over a hurricane? None, you, you, you have no ability whatsoever to direct the wind to go Anywhere. The wind touches who is going to touch, and it passes who it is going to pass. And and I would say, when you Pray to God For the soul of anyone, you are admitting that you are a Closet Calvinist, because you are praying that the spirit takes away somebody's free will and intervenes on their behalf. Back to Josh Scott.
Speaker 2:Because if he wanted everyone to be saved, why wouldn't he provide everyone a chance? It's salvation that hears the gospel message.
Speaker 1:I Would just reply to that. Simply, if he wanted everyone to be saved, everyone would be saved and I think he does.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make logical sense. If God wants everyone to be saved, then he would die for everyone.
Speaker 1:I Agree with Josh. It does not make logical sense because God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit is not bound by human logic and human reasoning and human objectives and human self-esteem. Just because we decide to close our hearts and minds to a part of God's attributes in no way closes the mind and the mouth and the spirit and the nature of God.
Speaker 2:Does it make sense? Would it make sense that God wants everyone to be saved, go to heaven, but he wouldn't die for everybody? I think it makes more sense to me that he gave them a free will choice in the matter. I Think that's. I really do think that's a big verse and I have a couple more. We'll go to Peter. I know Calvinist. He fostered me this one off the bat and actually he kind of gave it to me when I was interviewing him, because this is not the verse that I get, the first Timothy verses, the verse I go to when it comes to debunking limited Atonement, and obviously it's why I consider the bunking of a limit of them. A Calvinist wouldn't Think that. And I'm trying listen, I'm trying to say this with love. I Love my Calvinist brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2:I disagree with you vividly about this topic. I think Jesus died for everyone you, if you don't, that's okay, let's talk about me. I Just don't want you to think I'm being disrespectful because I don't want to be disrespectful. Okay, so go to first Peter, chapter 3, verses 9. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promises, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. For this is this is going down to verse 18, for Christ also so verbal suffered once for sins, the righteousness of the Unrighteousness, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the spirit. That that one's a little bit hard to read. Just Follow along with your Bible when I'm going through this. This is verse 18, for Christ also suffered once for sin, the righteous for the unrighteous, come on. So he suffered for the righteous and the unrighteous. That's why it's getting it one more time. For Christ suffered once for sin, the righteous for the unrighteous, common to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but was made alive in the spirit. I Don't know how you can read that and say he was, he didn't die for everyone, when it says he, he suffered once for sins of the righteous and the unrighteous. So I really think this is saying he died for everyone. I really, if you have a counterpoint to that, you know right me, but I'm not trying to be disrespectful to my Calvinist brothers and sisters in the Lord. But I don't know how you can read that and still believe in women in the tone or the Peter, chapter 3, verse 9, the Lord is is Not slow in keeping his promises. That some understand slowness. It might seem slow to us, but it's not slow to God. That's basically why that first birth means Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, with everyone to come to repentance. I Mean, and once again the thing they talk about is theirs, when he's talking about the church and I Don't know, I just don't see that. Maybe I'm reading that a context of him correct me. I Mean, I don't think.
Speaker 2:I know I'm not reading first Timothy. I have a content, so just says what it says. I've read it in the. I've went to the blue letter, bob. Well, I'm obviously it's not the same as me reading Greek. It's a great tool. I've read it verse for verse and it is what it is in the book and the NIV. It's about the same. And now James White heard me say that I would probably be trembling in my blue boots and Brotherly love, because that man can read anything. He's a scholar.
Speaker 2:But I don't know how to read first Timothy to the previous verse. I just read, and be a Calvinist I don't, and I'm sure the Calvinist think the same thing when they read Romans 9 and other verses, and we will. We are gonna read Romans 9. We are gonna read runs now a little bit and I'm gonna give you my interpretation of it. All right, we're gonna go to John three.
Speaker 2:This is John 3, 15, crew 18. That everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believe if in him show not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into world to condemn the world, but to save the world for them. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in him stands condemned Already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only son.
Speaker 2:It's really hard when, when you come from my perspective as an Armenian, to look at this verse and Come to a Calvinist viewpoint, to come to a limited time with viewpoint, the way I think they see this is is whoever, who so ever. That would be who's who ever God chooses about Greek terms. I Think the more natural reading is who so ever Believes me in one who will be. I think that's the more natural reading facts. I think I really do think it's more natural reading text, for God so loved the world, but he gave his only begotten son that whoever believe if in him show, not perish but have eternal life. I, I Really think God loves the world. I think God loves everyone. I Think God loves the most vile person on the planet. And then when we go to Romans, 9 people say see, god doesn't move these song. Well, we're gonna get into that but so I Agree with Josh.
Speaker 1:I do believe that in the general sense, god loves the world. I think that a problem that happens a lot of times is when. So this Romans 9 thing that Josh keeps alluding to Is the verse the Calvinists always pick up when they want to debate Arminians, and if you hear me turning the pages, that is because I am actually in the Bible right now. So the verse that our minions pick up when they kind of think they have Calvinists on the ropes would be the verse John 3, 16, the Very beautiful verse, one of the linchpins of our salvation. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son to the world to judge the world, but the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not judged. He who does not believe in him has been judged already Because he has not believed in the name, the son of the only begotten God. This is the judgment that the light has come into the world, and Men love the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil, for everyone who does evil Hates the light and does not comes to light for fear that his deeds will be exposed, but he who practices truth and comes to the light so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.
Speaker 1:So what I think happens, unfortunately, is Calvinists will read that verse and say it seems like it's saying, oh, but it can't really mean all. I don't really think that you need to do that. I don't think you need to do that because if you go a bit up from John 3, 16 and Goes to, let's say, john 3, now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus and said to him rabbi, I know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these things and signs that you do unless God is with him. How does Nicodemus know anything about God Jesus, if Jesus was not with him? That's the first point. Jesus is there showing the signs and wonders. So in order for Nicodemus to even see God as he manifests himself through Jesus, christ had to be doing something first. That's the first point. Nicodemus sin says to him how can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he? So Nicodemus Makes the fundamental point that it happens. Before you get to John 3 16, you need to read John 3 through 4 and also go all the way down to verse 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, when you and I can continue for you you know.
Speaker 1:So how can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter to his mother's room and be born again, can he? Jesus answered. He answered Verily, verily or truly. Truly. I say to you, unless One is born of the water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into. The kingdom is of God. That which is born of the flesh is the flesh and that which is born of the spirit is the spirit. Do not be amazed that I said this to you. You must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the spirit. So Jesus affirms that the spirit Is in control, not the human, not the man, the spirit. So uh.
Speaker 1:I I think that, um, you know, john 3, 16 is a verse that we all know, and I think it's um Something that we all should treasure, we should all Hold dear into our heart, we should be thankful, but I don't think we should use that verse to say that man can and just whatever he wants to choose to be saved or not to be saved. Let me get back to, uh, josh, but um Pastor keyfosky.
Speaker 2:I listened to his podcast About this god love everyone and I was pleasantly surprised. And I mean no disrespect to pastor kief, because he's a great man of god, he's hilarious, he's very funny and but he does believe that god loves everyone. A lot of Calvin is dumb, so, and I don't want to be misrepresenting him, but you know and listen to that podcast this guy love everyone. I was a little hesitant because I'm the vast majority, countless Don't believe that, but I I don't know how you can read John 3, 16 and say god does not love everyone in the world. I think it's in black and white. I think it's very clever. I will make some distinctions, though that I think people get wrong about that somewhere and they are valid criticism criticisms from Calvinist, although you don't have to be a Calvinist to make this criticism.
Speaker 2:Love Does not mean approval. A lot of people will say, well, god loves me, he does, but he hates your sin. Love does not mean approval. We see this in this verse God came down and died on the cross because he didn't approve of anything. You did Nothing. You were a horrible, wretched, disgusting sinner. And that's just on Sunday morning. God hates your sin. God hates your sin. God hates your line. God hates your Blutney and I say that is a wait man. God hates your homosexuality. God hates the abortion you did. God hates all of your sin. God, god hates it all. He loves you. He loves you and he died for you. And if you accept him as lord and savior, no matter what Church tradition you come out of, you accept him as lord and savior, in your opinion or since, he'll forgive you. And if it's a legitimate conversion, he'll forgive you. He will. I don't care If you've had four abortions.
Speaker 2:If you've killed four of them born babies he could still forgive you and he does still love you, even though what he did was disgusting and I'm not gonna fence it with words because it's politically inappropriate. If you've had four abortions, if you've paid for four abortions, if you push the woman to get four abortions, you are disgusting and you're a sinner and I some left this things into this. It's freaking out. Okay, let's go to outside the womb. If you kill Four born babies outside of the womb, right after they were born perfectly healthy, even if they're not, you're disgusting. You're just as disgusting if you do it before, before they're born. Disgusting, okay, but God still loves you. God will still forgive you if you legitimately Repent with the heart of sorrow, say God, I'm a sinner, forgive me, god. Forgive David from murder, god forgive.
Speaker 2:Moses from murder. God forgive Paul from murder. God loves murderers and he hates murder. God loves sinners and he hates sin. I'm gonna read this one more time, just so.
Speaker 2:It sits in John 15 through 18 that everyone who believes may have a sin. Everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For God so loved the world, he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world. For him, whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned Already because they have not believed in and the name of God's woman will be gotten. So and that's the gospel. Those, those verses. Right, there is the gospel. God loves you, he died for you. He hates your sin. Repent, that doesn't matter what disgusting sins you have done, and guess what? You're still going to struggle with sin after you get saved. I struggle with sin. I struggle with a plenty of sins, but I'm not proud of them. I don't make them my identity and I don't say God made me this way.
Speaker 1:Now this is something that I um have a have a bit of a struggle with here. Now I have a struggle with it because Now this does not have anything to do with anything that josh just specifically said in and of himself. It is because of what the text say in the views that I have about total depravity. If the text says, in sin, your mother bore you, I take the text to mean exactly what it says in sin, your mother bore you. If you are guilty Of sins and sinfulness because you have the sin stain of your father Adam, I take that to mean that you have the sin state of your father Adam. If the text says no man doeth good, I believe the text when it says no man doeth good. If the text say no man seeketh after God, I take the text to mean what it says no man seeks after God. If the text double qualifies and affirms that by saying no, not one, I take the text to mean no, not one.
Speaker 1:That does not mean that you or me are as bad as we absolutely could be, believe it or not. I have killed and I have raped and I have murdered the exact amount of people that I wanted to kill and rape and murder Zero people. So I am not as depraved as I could be. I would say that is not because I in and of myself am good. I would say that is what you would call cheap grace. The sun shines on the jest and the unjust alike.
Speaker 1:And because of the culture that I was raised in, a Judeo-Christian belief system, I was taught you should not steal, you should not kill, you should not bear false witness, which means you should not lie. Now, whether I was a Christian or not, I would still have those values affirmed every single day in my secular life. Because if I killed, even a secular, god-hating government is going to punish me for it. If I stole, even a secular, god-hating government who values property is going to arrest me for it. Okay, if I lied, even a secular government is going to say I am not trustworthy.
Speaker 1:So the very nature of the way that people are is not because they are inherently good. It is because they have inherited the cheap grace of the laws of God being ridden on so many hearts that even in a secular society, everybody knows you shouldn't steal things, you shouldn't rape, you shouldn't kill, you shouldn't pillage, and when those things do happen, you know what happens, especially in historical context. We act just like every other sinner in this country. We hide our sinfulness, we gloss over it, we don't want to talk about it, we want to be very short about the wrongs we have done, while hyper-focusing on the things other people do. I have some other stuff I want to get into. We're nearing the culmination here, so I'm going to let Josh get back to his stuff. I'm a sinner.
Speaker 2:I'm never a sinner. I say God, I'm a sinner. Have mercy on my soul. I love you, forgive me.
Speaker 2:And if you tuned in last week, you will remember I try my best not to sin because I'm afraid of hell. I try my best not to sin because I love my Father. And if you struggle with sin, if that is your attitude toward it, try not to sin because you love your Father. You're in a good mindset, and that applies to Armenian Calvinists, no matter what branch of Christianity you come from. That is the gospel. That's the gospel Jesus died for you, that he loved you, that if you repent and put your faith in him, then try to live a holy life. You know you're going to make mistakes. Yesterday. When you sin, god is going to be there to pick you up again. Let's go back.
Speaker 2:This is where we get the same person that wrote this in John. The same person that wrote the gospel of John wrote John 15 through 18, wrote this in his letter in the Epistle of John my dear children, I write you this, to you, so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father. So if you mess up, this is the same John, okay, same writer. If you mess up, you still have an advocate. That advocate is Jesus. You still have a Savior.
Speaker 2:If you mess up, it's not over. You don't have to give up. He's going to hold you. He's going to not let you go. You don't got to worry about slipping up and losing your salvation.
Speaker 2:I don't care if you're an Armenian or if you're a Calvinist. You don't got to be afraid that if you commit a sin, even if it's horrific that you lost your salvation, now you do need to check yourself. You can't say I'm going to send God the grace of my increase. You can't go and hurt someone. I'm not saying that because there are some sins I don't think you would do. If you're safe, you're not going to murder someone if you're saved.
Speaker 2:It's a lie that all sins are the same. That's not true. But guess what? There are brothers and sisters in the Lord and people have had conservatives hate when I say this. There are brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ that struggle with the sin of homosexuality, but they love Jesus and they're repentant of their sin. They lost, they like the same sex, they like the same gender, but God still loves them. And if you guess what If they go on their phone and they look something up the spats and they say, god forgive me, they have conviction. I still think they're saved. What they're doing is wrong, okay, but it's just as wrong for someone that's heterosexual that struggles with lust. A straight person struggles with lust to go with pornography and it is someone who struggles with homosexuality just as wrong, but one more comfortable for one than the other. God forgive us for the way we have treated people to struggle with homosexuality. God forgive us because they're good brothers and sisters and Christ.
Speaker 2:They don't identify with the LGBTQ. They don't allow them to call themselves gay. Some of them might say they're gay, attracted because the world is, but they're struggling and they're looking for an answer and they're seeing one side that has a false love, false acceptance. Everything he does, okay, it's not really love. And do they say one side that calls them a disgusting abomination? Maybe it's not them themselves. To them, that's well, maybe it's. They have an abomination. Okay, listen, I, I, I. In the same way, there's categories I would probably be fitted in as an abomination. We call them that strong word In homosexuality is an abomination. God loves them and he died for them and they can be saved and they can go to heaven and they can struggle with that sin and I think a lot of them will struggle with it to the day they die.
Speaker 2:Why do I believe that, because there are men of God right now that struggle with lust and pornography and this, and that Some of them married, some of them went off and they are still. They love God. Their heart breaks and they are sorrowful and they love God, but God's still there. They still have an advocate. It's not over for them. It's not over for them. So why?
Speaker 2:What gives us the right to look at our homosexual brothers and sisters? Well, the people that struggle with homosexuality, what gives us the right to say they are less Christian than you and me when they're trying, when they love God? They don't have a boyfriend, they don't have a girlfriend, they struggle with lust, they struggle falling into pornography and temptation? What gives us the right of straight Christians to do the same, to say they're not real Christians? Now, if they were waving the gay flag around and saying my sins, okay, then yeah, we have the right to do that. But if they're saying I love God and I'm struggling, don't you dare talk bad about him, don't you dare. You better have a heart of love for them, just because they sin a little bit differently than you, and it's still the same type of sin. It's still sexual sin. I'm very passionate about this because I think there's a lot of people that have struggled with homosexuality to turn away from God, even though they love them Even well, even though they're struggling with it and they want to be with him. They look at the church. They don't see that love about there.
Speaker 1:I think this is true. I was talking to a friend of mine who's not gay, but he is a Catholic, and he was talking about the concept that so many people actually turn themselves away from anything that have to do with any type of religion, spirituality, the way you want to define it because of this term that they have called church hurt, and this is you went to church at some point in time, you were struggling with something and you had a horrific experience with somebody who was there who claimed to be carrying the mantle of Jesus and you decided to never go back. Or you were in church and you were violated by somebody there who claimed to be carrying the mantle of Jesus and you decided to not go back. I have a certain amount and I can attest to this, not probably a certain amount of prejudice when it comes to people who step foot in the Roman Catholic Church, because when I was growing up in Florida, the only thing I knew about the Catholic Church was that they were a bunch of people who had got caught in a child pedophile scandal. That's all I knew and that's all I needed to know.
Speaker 1:I knew that when they had been confronted by that, that they had done stuff like transfer priests so they would avoid the law. I knew about Cardinal Bernard Law, you know, in how he had been transferred and then eventually arrested, then exonerated. You know all this stuff and I kept thinking, you know, these people condemn this one thing and then they do something that nobody wants to be accused of, which is the rape and torture of little children. It wasn't just a onesies and a twosies, it was a massive scandal. And it wasn't just about the scandal, it was the cover up after the scandal. And then the knee-jerk reaction to that was and these people think they get to tell me or anybody else how to reach God? No, indeed, you have betrayed your charge in the rape and torture of innocent children, and a lot of people will hear things like that and say no, no, no.
Speaker 1:It seems like you guys are really good at pointing out improprieties and sins of other people and sweeping under the rug your own behavior, your own failings your own hypocrisy and I think, yeah, the Bible has a verse where it says and this is the reason the Gentiles blaspheme, and I think that is what we will end up being judged by. I had a debate when I was in Bahrain with someone about why American Christians cling to certain depravities and I said it's because the culture accepts certain depravities, and we accept this one over here and this one over here and we condemn that one over there in order to hide the thing that we have accepted to be the norm, and we know exactly what those things are. There were people who founded this country on religious freedom and somehow thought owning people was okay. You know, the Bible just didn't say clear or not whether you could do one or the other, and so that's what they did. In the text where you read I'm sorry, thou shall not steal People thought it was okay to go to another land that wasn't theirs and steal human beings and bring them back to a land that wasn't theirs and steal the land and murder and pillage, and then the whole while say that they're Christians.
Speaker 1:That is the level of hypocrisy that can come under that mantle of. I'm going to focus on you and not focus on me and I. This is the divide and debate that we have in larger Christendom about what's more important the doctrinal purity Do I get these things correct or charity? Is it more important that I try to treat people? And that will always be a bit of a rub. A bit of a rub. We're coming towards the end of this thing. We're going to get back into it.
Speaker 2:Man, I hope the God has ever been like that. And listen, I'm sure there's over sins that I have that I have condemned more than I should have. It's the pride when they put rainbow flames and everything, when they say it's okay, when they say that they're okay with their sin. That's the problem. It's not when they're struggling with it. All right, let's continue. And if you have me, I am clicking a lot because you can hear my mouse clicking. I'm recording the podcast on my laptop, but I also have my notes on my laptop and I have my Bible. I use the U-version Bible app because it's very useful. I use it on my phone, use it on my laptop. I read my Bible more on my cell phone than I do my paper Bible. I know, I know baby boomers relax, it's still God's word and I still have paper bibles. It's okay. But yeah, it's funny, I did not have.
Speaker 2:Everyone in my school had a smartphone before they graduated. I think almost all of them. Maybe not by the time I was in eighth grade, but by the time I was in tenth grade I think everyone had a smartphone except me. I had a flip phone and there came a point I think is even my junior year. I could have had a smartphone, but I don't want it Because I see how people use these things. So I still put my little flip phone. I still got on my tablet when I got home, I still got on Twitter and everything. And I don't know how my life would have been different with a cell phone in high school. I might have gotten more trouble. I didn't get in a lot of trouble in high school hardly none but it might have not been a great thing, and especially when it comes to a lot of the sex thing. Unfortunately, there's a lot of girls seeing pictures of the guys, which is the dumbest thing ever and I told them all the time and it's not like I was a friend before long girls. But when I preached a little message to the FCA meeting, I was like don't do this Well. Honestly promise that. Don't do it. They're dirty dogs and they're going to share it to the whole school. Don't do it Well. But teenage girls are dumb, teenage boys are dumb and you give them a smartphone smarter than they are. And this is back when it was like iPhone 4, iphone 5. Way back in the old days of 2013 and 2014. All the way back 9 and 10 years ago, because I'm old and I graduated high school almost 10 years ago, in 2015. I'm old, I just turned 28 years old. I'm an old man and I would be getting rid of this first of security, but Nikki Haley wants to start the 150.
Speaker 2:Let's go back to the first John. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is a towing sacrifice for our sins, not only for ours, but also for those of the sins of the whole world. So he's talking to the church. He says but God didn't die for just us, he died for the whole world. That's the same. I mean, it took me a while to get there. It's the same guy who wrote John 15 through 18, wrote 1, john, 1, john 1 and 2. Same guy.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we're going to actually go to Romans 9. And I'm going to give you some of my thoughts, and this is just as much as God's Word is everything else I just read. We're actually going to read the whole chapter. This is going to be a long episode. Paul's English of Israel.
Speaker 2:I speak the truth and cause. I am not lying. My conscious confirms it through the Holy Spirit. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off in Christ, for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to such a there's, the divine glory, the covenant, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises there's, and their heartbreakers. And from them. I pronounce that word wrong. Go back and read it. It's a verse 5. And from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised Amen. God's sovereign choice, and listen before we get into this. I believe God is a 100% sovereign. I don't think free will gets rid of God's sovereignty. I think God is sovereign enough to allow free will and to allow humans to do as they please and regenerate their heart and put into accepted nonion. I think God has that ability and can be just as sovereign.
Speaker 1:So I always found that point to be funny I have free will, the boss demands it. I mean, either either God is sovereign over everything or man is sovereign over everything. And when you talk about God, sovereignty up until a point Okay, so we really got to nail this thing down. What does sovereignty mean? Oh, okay, god is sovereignty over everything, right up until salvation. And what ways? It is God sovereign. God, then, god's not sovereignty, the human image, the human becomes the one that is dictating. You know what? I'm sorry, god doesn't actually decide who's going to be saved. Human is just decide who's going to be saved, and I think that really, you know, nails this very good. And there was a later theologian by the name of Dr R C Sprough who said to say that God's sovereignty is limited by man's freedom is to make man sovereign, sovereign over God. And I think R C Sprough hit that one on the nail.
Speaker 2:The Calvinist will be. My world be. God is just a sovereign, as they are, as there will be in the Calvinist verse six, it is. It is not, though, god's world has failed, for not all who are descendants from Israel are Israel, nor because they are his descendants, they are all Abraham's children. On the contrary, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be recognized. In other words, it is not the children of my physical descendants who are God's children, but it is the children of promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring, for this was the promise was started. At the appointed time, I will return and Sarah will have the son. Not only that, but Rebecca's children will conceive at the same time by our father, isaac.
Speaker 2:I just want to make clarification. This is a big reason why I don't think that just because you're Jewish, to your child is Abraham. I think Christians are the true children of Abraham and that God is choosing who Abraham's children are, and it's by the faith, it's not by God. They might be his physical descendants, but God is saying I don't care exactly what your physical descendants is. I care about your faith and me. Therefore, I'm going to make the sovereign choice to make you the children of Abraham and the true promise of Israel, part of Israel, spiritual Israel. Now, does that mean that Jewish people today don't have any more promises? No, not at all. I still think God has promises to ethnic Israel, and it does get complicated, and if you disagree with me on that, that's fine. I understand that if you get complicated first time, for this was how the promise was started. At the appointed time I will return and Sarah will have a son.
Speaker 2:Not only that, but Rebecca's children were conceived at the same time by her father. Before the twins were born, it had done anything good or bad In order that God's purpose in election might stand. Not by works, but by new calls, she was told. The older will serve the younger, just as it was written. Jacob I have loved, but he saw my parents Pause, pause, right there. Okay, a lot of Calvinists will use that to see. God hates people. God doesn't love everyone. That's why John 3.16 can't be about God loving everyone in the world, meaning the entire world. Let me try to counter that. I don't think God hates the same way they are saying.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go to Genesis 36. Israel and Jacob is a picture we have Jacob being the chosen Israel and then Esau not being chosen even though he is a descendant of Isaac. God is not choosing Esau to usher in the Messiah. God is not choosing Esau to usher in the Kingdom of Israel. In that sense I think God quote unquote hated Esau, but he chose Jacob, he loved Jacob. He showed a sovereign choice to use Jacob to usher in the Messiah, to usher in his chosen nation and not Esau. We also see later on in the Bible God blessing Esau, the whole chapter of Genesis 36, which would be after everything happened with Esau and Jacob. The story of Isaac was almost blind, or was blind pretty close to it. Jacob tricked Isaac into blessing him ahead of Esau. But we see all of the descendants of Esau still recorded in the Bible and he has descendants, ended up ruling Eden. For a while they were the kings of Eden. So I still think God loved. God still loved, he saw. He still blessed me saw.
Speaker 2:But what was it say? God hated he saw because he chose. I will give you one more example of why it says God hated he saw. But I don't think that means he straight up hated them in the sense.
Speaker 2:Today I also heard someone say well, god is nuanced. I personally have always been under the conviction but I'm starting to think of something else now that God can both hate and love you at the same time. I was given the analogy that If you have two children and you, you would you love both children, but one of the children killed the other. He would still love him even though he killed your, your child, your over child, but it would be conflicting. You have Confliction there. You could even say you hate him for doing that. I do. Does your hate Trump your love? Most of time that answer would be no, but there would be a collection there. I come to the idea that he hates a part of these songs. Okay, he hates the sin nature of he saw. He hates one he saw was representing versus Jake. That's a little bit different, but he himself loves he saw.
Speaker 1:I'm moving to a Bible verse now so Remember earlier when I said, when it comes to John 3, 16 and Romans 9, that Calvinists and Arminians Do the exact same thing. They'll look at the word the are Calvinists, like all, and they'll say, well, it says all and it says World, but it doesn't really mean world and it doesn't really mean all. And so when I here my Arminian Brothers and sisters, they'll say, well, it says hate, but it doesn't mean hate, it means dislike or it means you know whatever. And so I just tell them the problem with that interpretation, when it comes to this specific verse, romans 9, and it's talking about hate, the problem with the whole well, it's a, it's a, it's about what they were going to do, etc. The problem with that is it explains that away. It pre Understands the argument that people are gonna make and it already talks about that. So, and you actually get to it and it actually says Abraham, descendants to Isaac, your descendants will be named. This is not the children of the flesh, who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants, for this is the word of promise. At the same time, I will come and Sarah, so have a son. Not only this, but there was Rebecca, only, which he has conceived twins by one man, our father, abraham. Now this is the part that we get to that they have to think about. When it talks about what somebody did, it, the very beginning of that says For the twins not yet being born and had not done anything Good or bad, so that kills the Free will, or he didn't like what he was gonna do. Because it says they haven't done anything. They haven't done any good, they haven't done any bad. So what's the problem? It says so that God's promise, according to his choice, would stand, not because of works, but because of him. Who calls so, who calls God? It was said to her the older Shall serve the younger, just as it is written. Jacob, I loved, but he saw I hate it.
Speaker 1:Now here's the objection. Paul, through the spirit, already sees the objection. What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? So that's the crux of it. If everything was your will, paul would have never had to make the objection of wait a minute, you're gonna say that this is not fair. You're gonna you're gonna say that that God is unjust.
Speaker 1:And so Paul never tries to explain this away. He just says may it never be. For he says to Moses I Will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it does not depend on the man who wills, nor the man who runs, but God who shows Mercy. So that's the, that's the answer. It's not about your will. So you can even say, it is not about man's free will, our man's Grinding to the end or showing grit to the end is about God who shows Mercy. It is about God who says I will have mercy On whom I decide to have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I decide to have passion, a compassion.
Speaker 1:And then it goes on to say For the scripture says to the Pharaoh for this very purpose, I raised you up to demonstrate my power. Who did the raising? God? I raise you up to demonstrate my power and that you, that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth. So then he has mercy on whom he desires and he Hardens whom he desires. You will then say to me then why does he still find fault For who can resist his will? So that is your irresistible grace, right there, even the apostle hall. In his defense and his reasoning he's saying people are gonna say who can resist the will of God? Now, it's interesting that in biblical times there was no doubt that God's will was irresistible. But now that's a debate in.
Speaker 1:This verse is so good as why Calvinists cling to it? Because it shows God sovereignty, god's for knowledge, god's election, god's will, god's irresistible grace, all that is in here. And then it says he goes on who show, resist his will? So listen to this reasoning. On the contrary, who are you? Oh man, we are just back to God. Show the thing molded, say to the molder.
Speaker 1:Why did you make me like this? Will it or does it not the Potter have a right over the clay to make the same lump, one vessel for honorable use and another for Common use? What have got all the willing to demonstrate his wrath and make his power known and do a much patience? The vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon the vessels of mercy which he prepared beforehand for glory, even us, to whom also called, not among the Jews, but also from among the Gentiles. So he then says I will call those who are not my people, my people and them who and her, who have not been beloved, beloved, and it shall be that in that place where it was said to them you are not my people, there they shall be called sons of the living God. So you, you get this Very, very clear in this verse that you know and, and, and I don't I think that's like I say what but Calvinist, go to it as their, their linchpin. And In speaking to this, I'm going to go to a chapter before that, not Romans 9.
Speaker 1:We're gonna go to Romans 8 and it says Something very, very interesting. So listen to this. I'm gonna read this verse that I'm gonna start off in 26, and I want you to hear Up a very specific part, and that is going to be when I get to verse 30. So, in the same way, the spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should. But the spirit himself intercedes for us With the groanings too deep for words, and he who searches the heart knows that the mind of the spirit is because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose and this is the verse that I like the most In Romans actually not Romans 9 for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, so that they may be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom he predestined, he also called, and these whom he called, he also justified, and these whom he Justified, he also glorified, where was men's free will in that he foreknew, he predestined, he conformed, he justified? So it is. It is when you get to these types of statements I say I, I know, did the thinking of this, because when it happens, you, you feel like you had something to do with it.
Speaker 1:I would go to the person, just the personal testimony of the actual person who is writing this Epistle. It is Paul, who had been known as Saul because he used to be a Thesedious Jew who went around persecuting Christians, killed people. And Paul was on the Damascus Road when he was struck with blindness and he had an experience. And the spirit said Paul, why, I saw, why does thou Pursuit me in that personal testimony? Was Paul looking for Jesus? Was Paul looking for the spirit? No, paul was Killing people. He was on the road to kill more people. And the spirit Did the work. Paul had no choice.
Speaker 2:Also think that the part of it speaking in a hyperbole. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go make a reference, I'm gonna make a number reference back to the New Testament. All right, we're gonna get into Back in the New Testament. These are the words of Jesus. This is Luke, chapter 14, and starting at verse 25, large crowds were traveling with Jesus and then turned to them. He said If anyone comes to me and does not hate, does not hate father and mother or wife, children, brothers and sisters, yes, even their own life Such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. So he's saying If you want to be my disciple, you have to hate your father, mother, your wife and your children, your brothers and your sisters, even your own life. I've actually heard a Very arrogant atheist, the Vader, said well, that's, that's why, that's one reason why he hates Christianity, because if you want to love Jesus, you have to hate your father, your mother or your wife, your brother and your sisters. Okay, this Jesus really say mean this Jesus really mean you have to hate your brother? This he means you really have to hate your father, your mother, your wife, your children, your sisters. He's making a point that you have to love me so much that it looks like you hate other people. He's using hyperbolic language. Okay, let's go back. You can go back to Romans 9 and put in just as it is written Jacob I've loved, but he's all I hate. Okay, it's, it's making, I Think, god. What I was saying is I love Jacob so much, it looks like a hate. He's on the. God doesn't hate. He saw God writes about. He saw descendants and and Jesus talks about. If you want to be his disciple, you have to hate your family. Jesus doesn't want you to actually hate your family. He wants you to love him so much. It looks like you hate your family. Okay, there's a difference.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna continue rooms down a little bit. This is it's very hard to cover because I'm covering Just a bit of topic here. No, sir, verse 14. What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all, for he says to Moses I will have mercy on him, I will have mercy, I will have compassion on him. I have compassion. It does not therefore depend on human desire, effort, but on God's mercy, for scripture says to Farad I raise you up For this very purpose, that I might discipline my power and you and that my name might be, and All right, let's go, I will have mercy on him. I'll have mercy. Yeah, it's true, he will have mercy on you as mercy, but I think he gives that mercy to everyone, as I've illustrated. He gives that opportunity for mercy for everyone and God is just for doing that.
Speaker 1:We can't say well, god, you're not forgiving him or him, or him Well you gave everyone the opportunity.
Speaker 2:If you turn him down, why would he give you compassion? Why would he give you mercy? I don't think this is God saying you're going to get mercy, you're getting him, you're getting mercy, you're getting him. I don't think that. And then we look at Pharaoh. There is a concept of God will harden your heart and people say, well, if God hardens your heart, does that not mean the Calvinism is true? I don't think so. I Think this is God using a judicial card in meaning God is Injudgment, condemning Pharaoh to his own heart. God does keep us from sending more than we already do.
Speaker 2:It's crazy to think about Earlier on with a different Pharaoh. Abraham lied. I think it was fair. Or, if it's only work for Pharaoh, he lied and told, told them his wife was his sister because he is very attractive. And God stopped Pharaoh, or one of the men to work for Pharaoh, from sleeping with Abraham's wife. He gave him a dream and says don't do this, this is a great evil. So God prevented the evil from happening out of his divine mercy. I do think God can hold your heart.
Speaker 2:Also, you go back to Romans one. This is in the same context as let's go back to where I was one which talks about God giving them up to their own desires when it come to the Senate bonus and trial. And we'll go back to Romans one real quick and read that. Romans, chapter one, and God's wrath against sinful humanity, starting at verse peteen. I was reading the head, I was reading the title, which is not part of Bible, it's just a help. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the Godlessness and wickedness of the people, who suppresses the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, god's visible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen and being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorify him as God nor gave thanks to him. But their thanking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claim to be wise, they became his fools and exchange the glory for the immortal God For images made to look like a mortal human being in birds and animals. Therefore, god gave them over and their sinful desires of lust of their of their heart to sexual impurity and of the dangers of their bodies were born and they exchanged the truth for God for a lot and worshiped the services Serves, created things for over the Creator. Go back and read that.
Speaker 2:I know I missed a few words up. The Bible didn't say lust, it said sexual impurity and perfection. In my brain came to lust, the word. But I think that's a big picture. This is written in the same context as the world one. In the original letter there was not chapters and versions and this was just a big letter.
Speaker 2:So God pardoned Heart and Fairness heart, giving him over to his own sinful. The Bible desires. And he said I will use this. I will use this, the glorify my name. And then he got more people saying that from where he had the prostitute, was fearful Lord and was saved by the Lord Because of what she heard the God of the Jacob did to fairer and the Egyptians as part of it. She knew, she knew. Therefore, god has mercy on who. We want to have mercy.
Speaker 2:R2.
Speaker 2:He wants to harden and God come. God works on you. God works on you, the Holy Spirit, if you turn him away so hardly hard, even if you're saved, I think you can hard your heart sometimes of your stupid rebellion and Stupid falling in the sin. I don't think it down, please, just like. Fine, I will not have mercy on you right now. And what do I mean by the mercy is? I'm not gonna pull you out of this, I'm not gonna stop you from this. I'm gonna give you over your heart and it's gonna hurt. You must fill consequences from it and listen. I think God's done that to me before. It's like current. You think you can do it. I Was your heart be hard. I Won't you be the grace that you need this particular. I've been through realization, through Falling down a flight of metaphorical stairs and, just like God. Then God allowed my heart to be soft, had mercy on me.
Speaker 2:Alright, verse 19. One of you will say to me then why does God still play with? For he is able to, for he was able to resist his will. Well, god uses our heart for our, for his will. But it's us turning away from God and God just saying you be, it's in First only. But who are you, a human being able to talk back to God? We can't talk about the gun. We can't say this, this and this it shall want is formed. Say to the one who formed it.
Speaker 2:Why did you make me like this? Does not the potter have the right to make out of the slump of clay Some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? Just right here, and you think of this, I See more as God wants to use us. Well, let me let me back it up. God would use us for a special purpose, but because of our rebellion, because of our sin, god will, will use us. He will reform us. As a lump of clay, we might be an ass trade instead of a beautiful place. That's how I see it's really healthy. But you still have a purpose and I think I think God has a purpose for saving names and save people and making you oh yes.
Speaker 1:So I'm sorry that I look a lot of because this argument is so old and crisp. You, we're gonna be going and pulling from a lot of the same Verses. I think I said beforehand I read this verse and now Josh is Someone doing the same verse but giving his interpretation of it. So I'm not gonna be labor this point because I've already Said what I thought about the verse before he got to it. But I will say this I have the same application With what he said about the potter and the clay, except I would say the the point of that, when you dig into the fundamentals, is the person who gets to decide what happened is the potter, not the clay.
Speaker 1:So the potter gets to decide if he makes a bowl that people are going to get to eat out of of the clay, he also gets decided to to decide if he's gonna mold it into a toilet seat and Because to him, the potter, all those things serve him in the house. He has used for the thing on the table, he has used for the thing in the bathroom, he has used for the thing in the kitchen. You, as the clay, do not get to look at the potter and say, why am I a plate? I much rather be a bowl. Why am I a bowl? I much rather be Just a lump of clay. I was happy as clay that you you do not get to say I actually like the overall most to come from the bathroom. I'd rather be a toilet. You get molded into Whatever the potter decides to mold you into.
Speaker 1:And that is what this verse is saying. And and and that's the thing that. That's the analogy. That's why. That's why Paul picks the analogy Pot clay, because it's so iron clay. The potter is the one doing all the design. The clay has nothing to do with it and nothing to do with it. Nothing to say, nothing to contribute. The clay is youthful, but it is not contributing anything. Now, when we get into it as humans, oh yeah, we contribute. We contribute in adding in the sins. We are free to choose our own variation of how we would like to tick the spirit off. For today we are. We are free to pick our own Depravity. That's the freedom. And I'm gonna say something towards the end when it gets to this whole free will versus Sovereignty of God and salvation argument about it was just a little something that I want us to think about, we got about nine minutes left of Josh's good commentary on this, and then I'm gonna just throw out some quick verses Would really know Explanation around them and then we're gonna end this, wrap this thing up.
Speaker 2:Listen, if you're safe, you've heard your heart. But you've heard your heart and he heard in it himself. It doesn't mean you're not Unsafe. You've gone down a bad road. You're gonna hit them stairs, like I did, but that's the best purpose for you. It might not be a beautiful base, it might be an extra. Whatever that purpose is, lay the self in their hearts to it and say God may mean to something here.
Speaker 2:The master pond, first 22. What if God, although choosing to show this wrap and make his power known, board with great Patience the object of his wrath prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he Preferred and advanced for glory, even us? And he also called not only from the Jew but also the Gentiles. Question mark verse 25, as he says and who's a? I Call, I call. I will call them my people who are not my people. I will call her my love one who is not my love one. And and the very place where it was said you are not my people, there will be called children of the living God. This goes back to Israel. There are people who are part of ethnic Israel that are not Spiritually say that. I think they're not spiritually. Israel and there are people that are Gentiles, that you will become children of the living God and we go back to the precedence of this.
Speaker 2:Paul is an agony because the Jews have rejected Christ and God is using the hardening of their heart to release the gospel to the world. God is still sovereign in our free will. He knows what we're gonna do and the uses and the lesson. This one I can't go. I can't do it. Whole debate, this podcast might sound like I've been debating with myself. I'm very convicted, my conviction, but I want to give me the Calvin's Point fairly, and if you're Calvinist, I hope you're listening. This and love, I'm not condemning, you're my brother, you're my sister and cross. We just have this agreement on this and to big disagreement. But it's just a disc, all right, let's go to verse 27 Alive the cries out.
Speaker 2:Concerning Israel. Though the number of the Israelites be like Sand bodice, only the remnant won't be safe. So, so ethnic Israel have a lot of people, but only some will be safe, for the Lord will carry out his sentence on our speed and futility. It is just as Elijah said previously Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have become like Gomorrah verse 30, watch. Then shall we say that the Gentiles who do not pursue righteousness have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith. But the people of Israel, who pursued by the law as the way, righteousness, have not obtained your goal. Why not? Because they have pursued it not by faith. But if it works, then stumble over the stumbling. Soon as it is written, I see, sign a stone to call those people to stumble a rock. That will make them fall and the one who believes in him will ever be put to shame. Let's go back. Let's go all the way back, so the very end Of the chapter. You could say that it ends in our, on our many and no. Whoever believes in him will never be put to shame. That's anybody. It's anybody.
Speaker 2:I understand Calvinism very well. I Disagree with it. I love you. You agree with it, if you, if you want to respond to this, right me. Yeah, we have a dialogue. I can't spend the whole show doing that before, but if you disagree with this, that's fine. Let's talk about it in love, realizing that we both serve the same God and we both have the same take.
Speaker 2:I Do have a fundamental disagreement with limited that God only died for some and I think it does have some moral ramifications. So God, god is going to set up a world where People can't go to heaven. It's heard the message of Jesus that he wouldn't work. He would work at my heart but wouldn't work at someone else's heart and I understand that no one was going to go to. And the Calvinist world, you know it was going to go to hell.
Speaker 2:That that Generally saw God. It's a, it's a very dumb, strong man and I fell into it before I learned more about it. That that says we say you can beg God with all your heart but he won't pick you for salvation. No, they don't believe that. If you believe, they believe that you're wrong. Okay, let's give them some credence. They would say you would never do it without this grace. But I really think that God gives his grace to everyone and I think it's a problem I think there at least, at the very least it could be a problem if he doesn't offer that to everyone. He's just going to send someone to hell. The kind of chance and salvation, even with Jesus, is death barrowing resurrection.
Speaker 1:And and look, you hear the sorrow and the fervor and the pleading in Josh's heart, because this is a very difficult subject. This has split churches. This has has caused division and debate. This is a very, very difficult topic. I remember talking to one of my Lutheran brothers about this and they said that both Calvinists and Arminians fallen to the trap of trying to understand the secret things of God and Said that we should have just just rest in the mystery. And I know it's a pejorative Lutheran say everything's a mystery. That's kind of you. You talk to a Lutheran for about five minutes and ask them a question. They'll say well, that's a mistake, mr Mystery, but anyway. And so they think that we get to tether than this conversation, that it makes us try to Get to to to these places. But but I will say this In sincerity just because I cannot reconcile these are pair paradoxes, does not mean that God does not reconcile these Fully. Just because I cannot fathom how you can both love someone and still not save them, does not mean that God has not determined that he understands how you can love someone and not save them just because the human volition likes to be free, and does not mean that I don't understand the fact that your freedom is fettered by the situations that you happen to be in and you are free to.
Speaker 1:Like I said before, you are free to decide. You're going to go and get a car. You cannot will yourself to go and get an Aston Martin that you. That is totally dependent on situations around you. You were free to apply to get into college. You are not free to decide if the college lets you in. You are free to fill out a job application. You are not free to determine if the job hires you. You are free to Apply for LLC. You are not free to decide. If it gets approved, you get. You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So I think there is a certain part of us that understands that we have freedom, but our freedom is fettered by the things around us. You are 100% free to jump off that bridge. You are not free to then decide if you are going to die. You are not free to decide if you're going to be a Quadriplegic. You are not free to then decide on your way down. I no longer want to be jumping off this bridge. Let me ascend to my way back up. So just because we have these human notions of freedom Does not mean we understand the full picture of what God's sovereignty means when it comes to our so-called free will. I challenge people to go to and I'm not a King James only person. I actually like older translations. I've been currently reading from the the new American standard Bible today and I like that version, the new American standard, and.
Speaker 1:But I do have a King James Bible and a Concordia and degree Concordia and it's a couple of commentaries and song. Yeah, it comes with the territory of the things I'm interested in, but what I will say is this is In your heart, you know, there are things that are out of your control and I would say this is one of them, and this is so personal and so sweet that you feel like you should be in control. And the thing is, even though that is the way it feels and that is the way that is natural to the human, I would have to say you cannot get to this by human reasoning, because your reason is falling. You can't get to this by the vibrations of your heart, because the heart is utterly deceitful, above all things. No, man can't understand it. That didn't come from me. That came from the words of Jesus, the Christ, who said that he guard over your heart, for out of it flows the issues of life, you know, and so this is something serious. It does hold very different moral ramifications, but you also have to understand, as it says in the text God's ways are not our ways, god's thoughts are not our thoughts. So just because something Doesn't seem fair to me does not mean that it is not fair to God. Just because something does not seem the equitable and peaceful and loving to me does not mean that the divine Does not see it as peaceful. This is the whole thing that we can think about when we think about other other concepts.
Speaker 1:As a parent to a child, your child may think you know this, this Thing that they want to do is great. The parent has the foreknowledge of having the experience, the time being in the world longer, the wisdom to know that even though something Feels good, even though you think it's good, even though you may be upset about it, that thing is not good for you and the parent is going to step in and and stop the child from calamity when it comes to I could keep stressing this thing a little bit to say this when two consenting adults decide to go off and have a child, the child had no opinion about it. They, they, they. They are here because of decisions made from somebody, by someone else, and that's the fact. And so in this I use that that I say you are Alive because two adults decided that you would be alive. You are alive in Jesus Christ, because the father, the son and the Holy Spirit predestined you before the foundation of the world and and Did.
Speaker 1:The moral ramifications of that is something that we come up with, but God is not bound by what I think is moral. I would never create a world where there was a hell at all, but I cannot deny the gentle Jesus meek and my elk seems to talk about the fiery furnace all the time where they'll be wailing in the National of Teeth. I would not invent a world where people knew how to kill what people knew how to rape, where people knew how to murder their own children. I would not create that world. But this is the world that we're in. So I have no right to look at the world that is being created and say this is not fair. And if this is the world that is, then this means God is X. That is where we have gone vastly too far and we have tried to Do what the Bible says, where it says.
Speaker 1:You thought my thinking was all the more like yours and it is not. It's not, it is not. We totally, josh, read that, that verse about you know, worshipping the creature rather than the Creator. And I think when we start to moralize these texts, we start to worship our own intellectual capacity, our own reasoning, our own Morals, our own emotions, and we try to put God in the judgment seat of our own view of fairness. And that is not how this thing works.
Speaker 1:We are not the judge of God. God is the judge of us. We decided specifically to pick our poison and God decides whether he's going to let us die with the poison that we picked or whether he's going to save some of us. He has not obligated at all to save any of us, so who are we to say he's unfair Because he saves some, would it be better if he saved none, I mean? And so that's just a way that I think about it, and and and I Would just say some, some other stuff that I'm going to say for the episode that I do on this. That's going to be complicated and I'm gonna try to answer some more questions that I think people have on this topic From. You know, it is best of my ability. It's all creation was to suffer.
Speaker 2:I don't think that's what it is. I don't think that's what I think we're gonna make. Second Timothy, first chapter of second Timothy. That passes there. That is your Bible verse of the day. I'm not going to read it again. Go back. I love you guys. I love you guys so much, no matter if I have four listeners, if I have ten listeners of 500 or 20,000 listeners Doesn't matter. If you're in here, if you're listening this right now. You matter to me. Please say a prayer for me and I'm gonna say pray for you. We're in this world together. It doesn't matter. I think you're Calvinist if you're Armenian or if you're Catholic or Orthodox. I have to disagree in this way. But I love you, but serve the same God. Let's have a good heart. Let's try to love each other. I have to. My first Calvinist on that was um he. He didn't mean to be, but he's very hateful. He's very, very hateful and he really did think of God. Predestined people together help. Predetermined them to go to hell.
Speaker 1:That is and that is a. That is a view in some Calvinist circles, the. That is called Double predestination. I do not in any way, shape or form, feel like the Bible teaches that. I cannot find it anywhere in scripture and I think the notion of double predestination is heresy.
Speaker 2:And because of that I rejected all of Calvinism and put that Onto other Calvinists, and that's not fair. It wasn't fair for me to do that and I had somewhat of a resentment for them. God hit me one day and said then you gotta love your Calvinist brothers and sisters. You're dead wrong and you're being sinful to her. And I made a face with the palm of your mouth Like, please, I'm sorry, and If I've ever hurt you and your Calvinist and you're listening to this, I'm sorry. You, my brother and sister, and I love you. We serve the same God, but let's, let's talk about my difficult issues and love, let's talk about them. I hope everyone has a blast last week. I will be back next week and we'll probably talk about we are going to talk about politics or we're gonna talk about history.
Speaker 1:All right, guys. So, as promised, this is gonna be very short. You know, I used to do those long four episodes and I thought this topic was so important that I was gonna make this episode longer, and I also wanted to be fair and kind to my brother and the owner of the sister podcast over paying a bit. Josh Scott and I didn't want to Make a character of what he said. I wanted us to be able to hear what he said and to meet to be able to kind of respond in short and and and and so you could hear the spirit of what he was saying, and I think that was the decent way to do it. So, very short here I have about just about seven Little verses that I'm going to point out.
Speaker 1:In the first one I had already started to go down that that that realm, and so I'm gonna continue down to verse 33. And so what I, when I was telling you earlier, and this is in Romans, when Paul the apostle is Talking, and this is Romans 8, and he says that For those he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. He might be the first born among many brethren more who me chose. He also called, only called. He also justified. Who be justified, also glorified. And Then so I want you to get down to this, which I'm gonna, in verse 33, but, but we should listen to this. What then shall we say to these things If God is for us, who is against us? He who denies for his own son, but deliver him over for all? How will he not also, with him, freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect right? Who will bring a charge against God's elect who? We are no under condemnation, etc. So it's not us, it's not the devil. And so he did that, just saying that God, he has delivered, god is justified, god is called, god's chose. But listen to I'm gonna go on with this and, and this is beautiful, verse 33 who will bring a charge against God's elect?
Speaker 1:God is the one who Justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ? Jesus is the one who died yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Protribulation or distress, our persecution, our famine, our nakedness, our peril, our sword, just as it is written. We are considered sleep sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we are overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I am Convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other Created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ, our Lord. To me, that has almost wholeheartedly said everything Over and over again he chose, he called, he predestined, he justified, he interceded on our behalf, and no one can snatch us out of our hand. No one will separate us, no one, no creature, no principality, no angel that includes me. I Cannot separate you from the love of God. I am a created thing. Lucifer cannot separate you from the love of God, etc. Etc, etc. Nothing.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go from there to Colossians, chapter 3, verse 12. So Colossians, chapter 3, verse 2, says so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other Whoever has a complaint against anyone. Just as the Lord forgave you, so you should also, beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. So, just Like I said. I'm gonna do a lot of explaining in this thing. We're just gonna say let the verse stand for itself, so as those who have been chosen of God, holy Beloved, put on the heart of compassion. So this verse is the Crocs of it.
Speaker 1:That I want you to hear is John 15, 16, so and, and but, but because it's Meaty, I'm gonna start off at verse 12, and this is Jesus Christ saying this this is my commandment to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for slaves do not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard from my father I have made known to you. This is the part that I would, uh, stick to. You did not choose me, but I chose you and I Appointed you that you will go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain, so that what's whatever you ask of the father in the name, he, in my name, he may give to you. That is a very Critical argument from the son of man himself. You did not choose me, I chose you. So the next one I'm gonna go to steal.
Speaker 1:In the same book we're gonna go to John 17, and in this Jesus Christ is giving his high-precely prayer. And in this prayer he says and I'm gonna just go 17 9, when we talk about the whole thing, about the world, versus this mad how we play with those words. Well, in this verse, jesus says in verse 17, chapter 17, verse 9 I Ask on their behalf. I do not ask on my behalf of the world, but of those whom you, you have given me, for they are yours, and all things that are mine are yours and Yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them. I Am no longer in the world, and yet they themselves are in the world. And I come to you, holy father, keep them in your name, the name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we Are one. While I was with them, I was keeping them in your name you have given me, and I guarded them, and not one of them Perished, but the son of perdition to the scripture would be fulfilled. That verse, that the prayer of Jesus, it says so much. It says so much In.
Speaker 1:Jesus says you sent me and I asked on their behalf, not on behalf of the world. That's not what he's talking about. He says I'm asking for them because they are yours. You have given them to me, but all you have given to me I give back to you and I have kept all of them. None of them is perished. I have guarded them.
Speaker 1:He didn't say that they could walk away. He said you gave them to me, they are mine, I kept them in your name. And he said the only one that was let go Was the son of perdition. So the descriptors could be fulfilled. This is the crux of the matter. Jesus kept what God had given him, this, the elect. The only one that fell Was the one that the scriptures Said would fall, the son of perdition, and that was Judas.
Speaker 1:If man has all of free will, my question is Could Judas have chosen not to Sell Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver? And if Judas had not decided to sell Jesus out, what would you? How would you have your salvation? But where would your salvation come from? Would Jesus? We've got to have to look down Further an eternity past and pick someone else to sell Jesus out. You know it's. It's something that I just want us to think about.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go to now acts, and I'm going to Actually I'm gonna hold off on the on the book of Acts, just because there's a lot that I want to talk about when it comes to acts, especially what? When I led, kind of, I've somewhat told you about Saint Paul and his murder of the Saints, and yet you know, and so I want to look at some of the acts, which is the acts of the apostles, is what that Stands for, and I think that when we really dig into Acts, you could see the work of the spirit and know that the man has nothing to do with that. And so I'm gonna go to Ephesians, one chapter one Paul and apostle of Jesus Christ by the Will of God. And was it Paul, as a parcel, is the apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God? We're gonna go to Romans 11 7.
Speaker 1:So Romans 11 7 is this is about Israel and the Catholic away, and it says what then? What Israel is seeking is not obtained, but those who were Chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened. Just as it was written. God gave them a spirit of stupor. So stupidity. God gave them a spirit of stupor I to see not and ears to hear not, down to this very day. And David says let their table become a snare and a trap and a Stumbling block and a Retribution to them, that their eyes be darkened and see not, and been their backs forever. God gave them over to the spirit of stupor, but the people who have been chosen obtained it and the rest were Hardened.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go now to somebody who knew Jesus intimately, the brother of Jesus, who would have been James, and you know James is. The book of James is one of my favorite. James is the brother of Jesus. Some people will say half brother, because he's the son of Joseph and Mary and he obviously was not born of God. So so some people will say the half brother, but for all intent purposes, james is the brother of Jesus.
Speaker 1:And so I'm gonna get to this part where it talks.
Speaker 1:James is talking about the crowd of life that's been promised to those who love him, and he goes on to say this, and I think this part is significant.
Speaker 1:So this is James 17. Do not be deceived, my beloved brother. Every good thing giving and Every perfect gift is from above Coming down for the father, from the father of lights, with whom there is no Variation, are shifting to saddle. It is the exercise of his will. He brought us forth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of first fruits Among his creatures. I would just postulate and say this Every good thing that has been given is a gift from above, and the most beautiful gift that we were given was our Salvation. Our salvation did not come from us. It is a gift that has been given to us from above. And the last verse that I'm going to say is the verse that we all know, the one that spawned the Protestant Reformation, where Martin Luther, the then Catholic Augustinian monk, was wrestling with the Verses in the Bible and saw one and Pluck, so procted pluck plucked at his heartstrings that he became what someone called a wild boar into the Catholic Church.
Speaker 1:And that is why I Am a Protestant and why a lot of us are Protestants. And that is this. It is by grace, through faith, you have been saved, and that not of yourself. It is a gift of God. God less any man would boast. That's the the linchpin of all of this. It is by God's grace that we've been saved. All of it, all of it, is about God's Grace in unmitigated favor Towards a wretched center Like me.
Speaker 2:This has been a very complicated topic.
Speaker 1:Very this subject has been debated for millennium. I would not be able to resolve this on this episode. This is just simply keeping the conversation going. I reached out to Josh a few weeks ago about us having this conversation our Minionism versus Calvinism. We may do other conversations post millennialism versus omnilinism, etc. Etc. As much as capacity that we can have with our female understanding of these topics. I hope that I was as generous and as gracious that my intention was to be and, like I said, I will be posting a Longer a Show or shorter show, but a singular show about this topic, which is my view on the doctrine of election and predestination, and I hope that it will be Edifying for people. As they used to say in the church that I grew up in, let the words in my mouth and the meditation of my heart have been acceptable in my, in your, sight. Yes, thank you for so much for tuning in and I will see you all in the next episode.