And welcome to The Dividing Line. I didn't hear anything, so here we go. At least I think it says go. I'm gonna run with it. So yeah, it looks good. All right, welcome to The Dividing Line. What am I doing here? Well, real simple. you may hear some noises in the background, you may hear some voices, you may hear some saws. I have workers at my home today, trying to get something done before the holidays. And so I can't get to the office, but we've subscribed to a service that seemingly works quite well. In fact, I'm going to be throwing a cordless up here and some some visuals up here and in some ways. I think we need to get something like this for the studio, because I think it might be easier when we do that to be able to do that. So we'll see how it works. And of course, we still don't have any control over what happens with the stuff from the office elsewhere. But that's how that goes. See, there's somebody pounding in the room. Play the new RFG song. No, I'm not gonna play the new RFG song. This isn't Radio Free Geneva. So why would you play a Radio Free Geneva song on a non-Radio Free Geneva? We'll get to it eventually, don't worry. All will be well. Lots of stuff to get to today. Lots of strange things happening around the... I shouldn't have Twitter up while this is on. Around the net, many things happening. One, I guess we'll start with the rough stuff first, shall we? Here, let me put this up. I saw this, maybe it was yesterday, the day before yesterday. I don't know. I don't know who Skyla Rose Lesch is. I don't know if that's an actual picture of Skyla Rose Lesch. I tried to do a search on Facebook, couldn't find anything other than just people talking about this. I would like to hope that this isn't true, but I don't have any reason not to think that it is because of the shout your abortion stuff and be proud of your abortion stuff and things like this. Living my best life. And then there's an ultrasound, baby lash number four. Look at the, look at the thing, 11, 4, 18 to 12, 11, 18. Think about what's being said here. Baby, I loved you with all my heart, but you just weren't meant to be with us right now. We're going through a lot. and you deserve all the love in the world. Your brother and sister would have loved you too. It means this woman is a, is a mother. She already knows that there is a life inside her rest, easy baby love. You'll never be forgotten. 11 for 18 to 12, 11, 18 hashtag abortion. I, I don't even know what to say. It because you, you experience a mixture of emotion, utter revulsion, shock, the, the inability to conceive of such evil and yet such decadence self-centeredness. But what I want us to see in this is. the inability to escape the inevitable reality that we are made in the image of God. Everything here screams it. She can't, she cannot avoid speaking as a person made in the image of God. She can't. Baby, I love you with all my heart. Don't even, That is a level of self-deception that is difficult to conceive of. You didn't love that child. You loved yourself. You loved the ease of your life. You loved your best life now, whatever you want to call it, but you are a very self-centered individual. And you put yourself before a child. Now, of course, we could back up here and you have all the issues relating to, uh, You know, is she married? Um, how does she view, how does she view the issue of, uh, sexual morality? Um, even within marriage, what about, what about the very production of, of life? Baby, I love you with all my heart. No, you didn't, but you just weren't meant to be with us right now. And I think about that from a sheet. She's just murdered this child. She's addressing the baby as a human being, not as a clump of cells. I mean, this is the greatest rejection of the Planned Parenthood narrative. I mean, it's stunning. You just weren't meant to be with us right now. Think about that word, meant. Yeah, someone just posted a tweet in the chat channel from, looks like the same person. My 21st birthday is in three months and since I'm not pregnant anymore, that means I can finally drink on my B-day, on my birthday. Yeah, isn't that, yeah. This is what happens when spoiled brats become adults. But notice the language, you just weren't meant to be with us right now think about the word meant and try to put that into any type of worldview that would justify what this woman is done. You can't not without massive inconsistency meant meant requires meaning meant requires well requires a theistic system make any sense. You just weren't meant to be with us right now. We're going through a lot. What does that mean? It's bought a new car. Who knows? And you deserved all the love in the world, but I'm not going to give it to you even though I'm your mother. I'm called to, but I won't do it because I'm too selfish. Yeah. Your brother and sister would have loved you too. Would've, should've, can't now, because I killed you. Rest easy, baby love. You'll never be forgotten. You were forgotten the next day. Everything about this screams lie and depravity and guilt and, oh, lie. But when you look at the 1.6 K responses, and many of them are laugh. Well, this was on, on her living my best life one, laughter, thumbs up, some angry faces, but that'll probably be illegal before long. Just stunning. It, it, it, um, What society could possibly demand blessings from God that is represented by this kind of depraved inhumanity? There are many, well, the vast majority of mammals are significantly more advanced in their care of young than someone like this. This is subhuman. It's subhuman. Stunning. In a Western society that has closed its ears and its mind to the reality of its own nature, its creator, everything that has made this society, has given us all the things, all the best life now stuff that she's celebrating being able to have, all came from a worldview that she detests. I just got to close that window because it's just. Wow. I'm a week late on this, but. From Virginia, a Virginia high school teacher, you probably saw about a week ago. Who refused to refer to a transgender student as a boy has been fired. News outlets report that the West Point school board voted unanimously, so there's no one left in the school board with a scintilla of morality, ethics, or grasp of reality. Voted unanimously Thursday to dismiss French teacher Peter Vlaming, age 47, after a four-hour hearing that drew an overflow crowd. The school system said in a statement that Vlaming was fired for insubordination. Over the summer, the ninth grade student's family informed the school system of the student's gender transition to male. The student wasn't involved in Thursday's hearing. Now, there are some of us who live in the real world that recognize there is no such thing as gender transition. That young woman's body still carries the exact same chromosomes as before that cannot be changed as yet and if it could be that would be well let's just say right now that's completely outside realm of possibility and even the wildest human genetic engineering and so the reality is that this is a female who wants to pretend to be a male. And I don't see any difference here in someone coming into school and I want to be treated as a lion, as an orangutan, as a horse. Anybody who does that, we go, you need help. Well if you decide you're a different gender than what you actually are, you need help too. Unfortunately that help is no longer available because of the fact that this insanity has infected the elites of the culture who then control the educational system and now we've got the insanity that we are dealing with. Witnesses describe a slip-up when the student was about to run into a wall And Vlaming told others to stop her. How do you run into a wall? When discussing the incident with administrators, Vlaming made it clear he would not use male pronouns, a stance that led to his suspension referral for disciplinary action. I can't think of a worse way to treat a child than what was happening, said West Point High Principal Jonathan Hochman, who testified that he told Laming to use male pronouns in accordance with the student's wishes. Oh, yeah, that's the worst thing could ever happen, Mr. Principal. The educational system's gone, folks. Hello? These are the people in charge. The inmates are running the asylum. Vlaming told superiors that his Christian faith prevented him from using male pronouns with a student. Vlaming said he had the student in class the year before, when the student identified as female. So don't you realize what this means? See, right now, well, we only take it seriously when it lasts for, well, how long? Well, it needs to at least last for, you know, a year. Why not six months? Why not six days? Why not six minutes? I mean, this is so insane. It's a fundamental denial of reality. Blaming attorney Sean Voiles says his client offered to use the student's name and to avoid feminine pronouns, but Voiles said the school was unwilling to accept the compromise. That discrimination then leads to creating a hostile learning environment. How about for the teacher? How about for the rest of the students who actually are not nuts? Hostile learning environment. That's what the entirety of the school is now for anyone who actually cares about truth. And the student had expressed that the parent had expressed that said West Point public school superintendent, Laura Abel. They felt disrespected. It's here. I don't know how many times it has to happen to people. I guess once it happens to you, we have said over and over, this could be the dividing line that gets us gone. I mean, I don't know a lot about this, but I've received some emails from some folks that were involved with a Facebook group called Popcorn Theology. I think it was Popcorn Theology. And I think if I recall correctly, they talked about movies. I don't know. I wasn't a part of it, but they got closed down a couple weeks ago and they can never find out why. And if I'm reading what I was sent correctly. The only way they could appeal was from within the group, but since they locked the group down, locked everybody out, no one could. So it's done. There's no way to appeal, you know, on Facebook, you know, Google is the essence of what the communist block wanted to be, but couldn't be because they, they were a little bit early. They just didn't have the technology to be able to pull it off. Now the technology exists, and that's what you have with Facebook and Google, are these low-level ideologues with all the power in the world that can just simply enforce their will upon everyone. Again, I cannot help but to think of the Stasi prison in East Germany. When I went through there, they talked about the, you know, the main thing they wanted was not to imprison people, but to break people, to get people to say what the state wanted them to say. So it's like, it's 1984. I haven't worn my shirt yet, but I did buy one of those shirts you can get on Facebook. with the Venn diagram on the front, where it's got 1984 and Brave New World, and when they intersect, it says, you are here. Yeah, that's where we are. 1984, Brave New World, it's right there. People seen it coming, didn't stop it. And the next generation seems to go, oh, this is cool. Of course, I've never read any great literature to know any better, but this is cool. Um, yeah. So I wonder what, uh, Mr. Blaney is going to do now that he can't teach a French because France is isn't necessarily on the top of everybody's tourism list right now. You know what I mean? Um, what's going on in France, what's going on in Germany, what's going on in the UK. Um, big things going on. And the sad thing is vast majority of even my Christian friends have no idea what's going on in any of those places. I've heard something about people in yellow vests rioting in Paris, but I don't know. And there's something that something's been broken in the UK. Break it. Break what? I don't know. I don't get it. And as a result, we don't see the massive cultural shift taking place, the destruction of nation states as a result of open borders and George Soros and all the rest of this kind of stuff that's behind a lot of what we've got going on here. His money's everywhere. The man is absolutely part of God's judgment upon Western society. Even the way he's gotten his money is a judgment upon Western society. And as a result, we don't see the European Union for the draconian, dictatorial, anti-Christian entity that it is and what it wants to do. It's trying to make an example of the United Kingdom in leaving the Union by just trying to destroy it economically. Don't miss the fact that that's exactly what they're seeing. What's happening in Germany as a result of having thrown the borders open and just come on in, open borders. Yeah, that's worked out well. And now in France, in France, the thing that triggered this, one of the things that triggered this, was new taxes on fossil fuels to stop global warming, as if France has almost anything at all to do with global warming. But it primarily impacts the poorer people outside of the major cities that do not have public transportation. You're talking seven bucks a gallon for gas. for those people out there. And they're the ones, the farmers and stuff like that, they have to use this fuel to try to make a living. They're not the elites in the cities who have all the trains and all the rest of that stuff and all the tax money from the people who are actually working elsewhere to be able to do what they're doing. And so that's what's caused this. People had enough and they are lashing back. But it shows this fundamental divide between the cities and the elites and the secularists who have no connection with what's really going on in the world. They don't know what, you know, they don't care where their food comes from. They wouldn't be able to get their food if they tried. But they're all concerned about global warming and all the mythology associated with that. And they finally said, other people said, that's enough. And that's not the only reason it's happening. But Europe is in desperate straits. And folks, there's lots of nuclear weapons in Europe. There's lots of nuclear weapons in Russia. In the former Soviet states, lots of nuclear weapons, lots of fissionable material. I don't know how we've gotten as far as we've gotten without a mushroom cloud appearing over some city somewhere, if not in the United States, someplace else. Well, I do know how. God has kept his hand of restraint for his own purposes. Is he under any obligation to maintain that hand of restraint? I know of none. I know of none. Almost every one, I think Poland might be an exception, I could be wrong, but as far as I know, every one of these European states murders babies just like the United States does. Just as callously as that one we were just looking at. So what can we say? Again, if I sat around just watching the news, I would be a basket case. Because if you can put two and two together and sort of go, hmm, connect that to that, ooh, this is bad, I would be a basket case. I really, really would be. It would be bad. I'm going to play one sec. I have to play one section. Like, can we lay aside the uber super heavy stuff for just just a moment. You know, I, I was raised Well, a long time ago. Next Monday is my birthday. I entered into my 57th year. That means I turned 56, in case you don't count years. In case you're one of the people who thought that 2000 was not really the beginning of the millennium at all, because you can't do the one thing. There were a lot of people like that. Anyway, so I, And inching closer, well, it's not inching, it's running at full speed, uh, toward the big six Oh, and the beginning of my seventh decade, uh, of life. And that means I was raised in a different time. There's been a lot of change and it's been accelerating a lot. And so those of us from those, uh, time periods are feeling more and more and more disconnected. from the world around us, because it is just changing at a pace that is hard to conceive of. And so when I say I was raised as a fundamentalist, when I use that term, it didn't have quite the number of negative connotations that it does for most people today, and even for me today. In fact, there was a time around 1999 or so, I did a seminar on why I am a fundamentalist. And what I was doing was I was focusing upon what the fundamentals were, the historical work that was a reaction, a response to the rise of modernism. And it was basically you know, a reaffirmation of the central aspects of the faith. It did have a particular eschatological bent to it, but you know, inspiration of scripture, high view of scripture, supernaturalism, all the things that historic liberalism pretty much ignored and rejected. It was not In its origins, an anti-intellectual, anti-scholarship, anti-meaningful biblical studies, anti-knowing what's going on in the world around you, interacting with other perspectives, it wasn't any of those things. But decades pass, time passes. And what we have seen take place over time is a isolationist type of movement, an isolationist situation that has developed to where there is a fundamental fear, I think, that marks fundamentalism today. It is a fear to be exposed to any thoughts other than those that are within a very, very, very narrow spectrum. And this is why when you listen to the worst fundamentalists today, they cannot help but just grossly misrepresent everybody that they attack, because they don't understand what those people actually believe. They won't take the time to seriously read And if they do read something, or if they listen to a video, they're doing it with such thick filters that they're only looking for things they can attack. They're not looking to understand. Because they're not really looking to convert you. they're not looking to have meaningful interaction with you. This is a very fear-based, and when you're fear-based, then what you're going to do is you're just going to do the flamethrower type stuff. And that's what you have with the Steven Andersons in the world, is you just have this fear-based, fear-mongering, that's how they control their congregations is instilling fear in them and all the rest of that kind of stuff. And so, modern day fundamentalism, the independent fundamentalist Baptist, King James only, separatist, this, that, and the other thing type, you know, you end up with 47 descriptors. This kind of a movement cannot engage the other side in any meaningful fashion, because they don't do meaningful study of anybody else's perspective. And they become a character of themselves. And as has Steven Anderson, I mean, that's just, and that's what he wants. For some reason, evidently, myself and Jeff Durbin have drawn their attention And they seem to be very intense. Maybe we're making inroads, maybe they know how, because I've had a lot of people tell me, yeah, you know, I used to be part of that. And then I read your book on this, or I watched this video that Jeff did over there. And, you know, and then I started seeing, you know, so maybe that's what's causing it. You know, I don't, put notches in my, in my, uh, in my gun, uh, for stuff like that. I mean, keep track of that kind of thing. I'm just thankful. And someone says, Hey, your ministry has been very helpful in getting me out of this movement or that movement or whatever else it might be. Great. Wonderful. I don't sit there and go, ah, I got that group again. I don't have time to think, think along those lines. So, uh, yesterday, a, Video was posted my complaint. I don't have a key though a video is posted And I I'm pretty certain that I have put the fact I know that I have put up on The website well the website on Facebook and on Twitter and Announcement that next Thursday That would be the 20th of December at 4 p.m. our time, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Pastor Jason Robinson, who of Mountain Baptist Church, I believe in West Virginia, who is the one who posted the video, Talmudism Heresy of Jeff Durbin and James Light. I don't know what possessed me. I don't know why I thought of doing this, but as I was listening to Robinson's laughable attack, I mean, again, knows nothing about Reformed theology, knows nothing about Reformed exegesis, doesn't provide any meaningful criticism. And it's filled with childish, nasty language and stuff like that. Obviously, no desire to actually reach out to us, to use our language, to communicate with us in any way. No, none of that. That's one of the marks of fundamentalism. Their apologetics is only meant to win a battle for their side, and it's not meant to actually tell anyone in the movement that they need to be not in that movement. So this would be to convince a Calvinist they shouldn't be a Calvinist. Anyway, but the thought crossed my mind and I looked up the church and I found the contact information and I wrote to the church and I said, because I figured this would be useful. The best way that I know to compare and contrast two different perspectives, such as this, especially when both sides are basically saying the other is completely offline. Of course, they're saying we're false teachers, false prophets, not Christians, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know what their spiritual state is, but I know that they are not accurately handling the word of God. That's for certain. Is to challenge someone to present their interpretation of a particular text at the same time you do, let you interact, and my experience has been that really, that's really effective. Remember when I debated Tim Staples on 1 Corinthians chapter 3? How about, how about remember in 2001 when I did the cross-examination of Dr. Peter Stravinskas on 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and Rome's use of that text to defend purgatory? Remember that? Wheels absolutely fell off Ostravinskis. I mean, to this day, he has not recovered from that cross-examination. He just didn't know the text. He couldn't deal with meaningful questions about the text. I don't think Tim Staples could either. He's certainly far better at blustering than Stravinskis was, but I thought the cross-examination on the basis of 1 Corinthians 3, again, elucidated the text very clearly, made it clear what it was about. And it's always better than just simply having one side post their videos, and the other side post their videos, and then there's a response video, and then a response video. There may be some utilization to some of that, some usefulness to some of that. But it's far better to have the two sides at the same time. So you can see directly, same amount of time, same time constraints, in the same situation. So you can see which side has to bring in extraneous traditions and beliefs. Because especially people in the independent fundamentalist Baptist, KJVO only movement, are so deeply entrenched in their traditions, they don't even see them. They just, the grave danger of their perspective is that they identify their traditions as the very Word of God itself. They don't know they have traditions, they reject they have traditions, they do have traditions, and because they can't examine those traditions and base them in scripture, then those traditions actually become scripture. And if you attack their traditions, you're attacking the Bible. You'll hear that type of language in them all the time. And so I wrote to the pastor and I said, I'd like to invite you on the dividing line to do a timed, absolutely equal time, timed dialogue on Romans chapter eight, verses 28 through 34. So that includes the Golden Chain of Redemption, includes the Statement of Romans 828, and it also includes what I think is the impossible-to-get-around, plain, clear teaching that is found beginning at verse 31 of the law court situation and who exactly it is that Christ has died for. Particular Redemption is, I believe, clearly a topic. And so I wrote, and to be honest with you, not expecting a positive response. And it did not take a whole lot of time before I got a positive response saying, here's what my working hours are during the week. So I need to do it at a time other than that. And that presentation is on Sermon Audio. I have no idea how long that was put up there, so I don't know what you're referring to. Sorry. The chat thing is sort of out of my line of sight, so it's hard to see. I should probably have it down here. Anyway, so we worked it out. And so each of us is going to have 15 minutes to present an exegesis of that text. That's tough enough as it is. I mean, that's such a deep, deep text. But at the same time, by having it fairly short, you sort of help to cut out some of the filibusterings that can sometimes take place in something like this. So you have 15 minutes to present your exegesis of that text. And then the other guy has 15 minutes. Then each of us will have 15 minutes to ask the other one questions concerning their position. And then we have five minutes closing statement. It's only 70 minutes long, hour and 10 minutes, we'll be done. So that will be next Thursday. So almost, almost exactly a week from right now. No, let's say, no, yesterday, sorry, today's Friday. When is track of the day? So six days from almost exactly right now. Um, and, uh, so. I hope you put that down on your, on your calendar, be with us live when we, uh, we do that. Uh, might be doing a program before it sort of leading up to it. I'm not sure. I was talking with okay, I was talking to Jeff about doing that. Because he and I are he especially for some reason. I think it's primarily because Steven Anderson went after him at that conference thing. And there are a bunch of guys that just are trying to be the next Steven Anderson. Like there's a lot of room for that. We just need lots of Steven Andersons. Would be fitting these days, wouldn't it? Oh, historic fundamentalism, yeah. It is on Sermon Audio, yeah. Rich says he can't handle that much 2G in the studio. Yeah, we could definitely make sure that Jeff wears a Coogee. We could double the Coogee element to the program. That would be awesome. And there's nothing you can do about it. So there you go. Anyway, so that's coming up. But that was one video. Anderson came out with his own video. And this may be what Jeff and I take the time to respond to, but I just had to show you just this one section of this. Just to illustrate, you notice how my face just got really dark? That's because the primary light being provided In fact, I need to put that back up because now it looks like I just descended into darkness. See how much brighter that is? That's Accordance. I'm going to keep Accordance up over there so that you can still see me. Is this Dr. White's house? Yes, this is Dr. White's house. This is my, what would you call it, family room? The kitchen's right over there. The other room's the living room. Anyways, that's my granddaughter Clementine right there. Um, up on the wall, that was, uh, some really cute little pictures of taking her when she was like two and a half or something like that. She was, she's always been a really very photogenic child. That one of those pictures is like model level. Really nice. But anyway, uh, a video I saw today from Steven Anderson, though, he doesn't speak in it. So I think it's from this church. Jeff Durbin's thinly veiled works salvation. Now, if you if you remember back when I did the non debate two and a half hour interview, two hours 20 minutes interview with Steven Anderson. I wrapped it up when it started getting really weird. I did not realize when he came over that he was a cheap grace, anti-lordship, anybody who believes the historic reformed understanding of the relationship of faith and works, who actually believes in sola fide as it was defined by the reforms, that those people are all heretics. Once he started promoting that stuff, I was like, yeah, we're done. He likes to attack anyone that has a biblically balanced soteriology. That is, that recognizes the beautiful balance that is found in Ephesians chapter 2. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, but as a gift of God, not of works I have mentioned above. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in. If you'll just listen to verse 10. For we are His workmanship created in or by Christ Jesus. So there's no ground for human boasting there. Jeff and I would both believe firmly. That we are His workmanship, that God is the one who saves. The divine election is absolutely true. We cannot save ourselves. We're enemies of God. We're dead in our sins. We're running the opposite direction. And He is the one who has not just simply made a way of salvation possible, but has actually accomplished it in and through Jesus Christ. His Holy Spirit is powerful to bring about the salvation of God's elect. And at His time, in His way, He caused us to be born again. He raised us to spiritual life. It's all of God. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. What? Unto. Not by. But unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in. God is in charge of all of it, the initial salvation, as well as the walking in sanctification that demonstrates the work of the Spirit within you. He doesn't save us to just simply leave us sitting there in our sin. He saves us to conform us to the image of Christ. One of the main problems with the IFBs, and I remember this from my youth, you know, once I got into Greek, I started realizing, honestly, it was one of the first things that made me really uncomfortable in my education about my own background was that I knew that there were a lot of debates over the translation of the present participle of sozo in the New Testament. What do I mean by that? Well, Paul likes to compare and contrast those who are perishing with those who are being saved. And the problem is that for some people, and it would include these types of IFBs, for some people There is no category of being saved. You either are or you're not. They find any kind of a recognition of a process to be of great concern. Because IFVs don't do categories well. Categories require you to think clearly and to hold things in contrast and to weigh things and give certain weight to certain things and not as much weight to other things. That's just sort of how it works. They don't do that kind of thing. And so you're either saved or you're not saved. There is no being saved. And because of that, the distinction in the various aspects of salvation is lost on them. And you see this a lot in the anti-Columns too. So for example, even Dave Hunt, he would conflate categories. So you've got regeneration, You have forgiveness, you have adoption, you have sanctification, you've got obviously justification, glorification, all these things that historically we have recognized down through history that are a necessary element of understanding the multifaceted nature of the work of God in what is broadly called salvation. But there are elements that must be distinguished from one another. We know that if you do not distinguish justification and sanctification, you end up with the error of Rome. That's what Rome does. That's where Rome's problems are, is conflating justification and sanctification. And so, just as Rome has that problem, the IFVs have that problem. They don't want to be associated with Rome by any stretch of the imagination, but they have the same problem. They will not make the necessary category distinctions and keep things clear in their speech and in their minds. And so, there is a sense in which a person is either not saved or is completely saved. But there is another sense that we must allow for inscription, where we are being saved, and that it is a process. And it's not a process based on what we do, it's just simply recognition that God has an intention, the salvation of his people, which is to conform them to the image of Christ. And so, unless we demand, and this is another fundamentalist problem, there are fundamentalists who would say what you do is you come up with one meaning for everywhere in the bible and you enforce that on every single text the result is insanity but that's what you get um that's the problem and so saved can't be distinguished from regeneration and forgiveness and justification and sanctification no that's just You just put all together. And this leads to all sorts of problems, all sorts of problems. And so when folks who have this, it cripples their ability to interpret. Their traditions. limit them and cripple their ability to hear the categories of scripture itself and to take all of scriptural teaching and hold it in harmony with itself. To harmonize it. You end up making your traditions here, this is it, and everything else just ends up getting flattened down and there you go. And so This is what is taking place as this video from Anderson attempts to attack Jeff. Jeff did a video on the relationship of faith and works because we deal with people who need to get a biblical understanding of exactly what the relationship of faith and works is. It's a common question. We get it all the time. You have to be able to work through James chapter 2. You have to be able to explain James chapter 2. I've preached on it how many times. And if you're afraid of James chapter 2, don't tell me you really believe the Bible. Don't tell me you really believe the Bible. I understand. Hey, it gets misused by cultists all the time. So what? It's still scripture. It's still given by the Holy Spirit of God. It's still necessary. You should love it. And if it's used by a false teacher all the time, then you better learn how to respond to it. Either that or just don't deal with that particular range of false cults and isms and so on and so forth. So Jeff did a presentation, I don't know where it was, I'm sort of looking at a freeze frame of it up here, on the relationship of faith and works. You know, Jeff and I are not the same person. And Jeff has different views than I do, like in eschatology, but I don't know that it's that huge of a difference, but we do. And that's okay. But when it comes to stuff like this, listening to him and listening to me, you're hearing the same stuff. You've got to have that kind of unity to be able to work with people in ministry. And that's one of the reasons that I am very comfortable being under his leadership at Apologia. And he's comfortable having me there to provide backup and do anything else that I can to be of assistance to the church. So his explanation is exactly what I would say. So I just want you to see this one little clip. And like I said, the software's pretty neat, I think. Of course, I'm not seeing it, but Rich told me it's great. But let's take a look at this little clip here and how they respond, and then we'll go from there. So here's the clip. And that faith doesn't understand the gospel. Oh, I missed it. Sorry. Bingo. That's what I want, right there. Catch that screenshot. He has just said, if your church does not recognize and understand the relationship of faith and works, and that good works are a natural result of the work of the Spirit of God, that church doesn't have the gospel. And notice the screenshot. That's not what Romans 4 or 5 says. As we saw on the last Dividing Room, when we went through another IFB video, these folks think that merely quoting a scripture, without executing it, without giving it in context, without any concern about how it fits into the argument, just throw it out there and you can simply trust You can simply trust that the prejudice of your, um, the prejudice of your audience. Um, oh, okay. Sound not coming through. Started over. It was on my end. Fixed. So I'm glad that Rich is saying it wasn't the software. It was rewind, try it again. All right, all right, all right, all right. We can make this happen. It's not overly difficult to do. All right, pretty much right here. And we will try it again. And here we go. It always has works. If it is truly saving faith, it will produce works because it's a divine faith given by God that's real. If a church doesn't have a statement, a belief, that says that true faith is always accompanied by works, then that faith doesn't understand the gospel. Let's see what the Bible says. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. Okay, so it goes into a... Only 2, 8 through 9, by the way. Not 2, 8 through 10, which would completely and utterly destroy their point. But what I wanted to focus upon was putting that up there and saying, that's not what Romans 4, 5 says. Really? Isn't it interesting that we addressed this just recently on the program, but let's take a look at it again. There's someone in chat trying to talk to me, as if I can both do the program and chat at the same time. It's sort of difficult to do, but anyway, let's take a look at Romans chapter 4, verse 5, and let's get the context, shall we? Here is, according to Bible software, Romans chapter 4, what then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to flesh, has found? Unless you take the NC Wright reading of that where it gets really weird. Having established in the preceding section, Romans chapter 3, the concept of justification, the freeness of the... And by the way, when I say we did this in the program, I just realized this was... I covered this in the Solas presentation at Grace Life Prior in Prior, Oklahoma last week. So we linked to those particular presentations if you want to go back through them and follow this particular section, which was on Sola Fide. Anyway, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has reason to boast, but not pros theon, before God, for what do the scriptures say, and then he has a citation in Genesis 15, 6, Abraham believed in God, and it was credited, or reckoned to him, for righteousness, or as righteousness. Please notice what's being discussed here. What's being discussed is justification. Not regeneration. Not sanctification. Not adoption. Justification. The IFVs don't make a distinction. So they can't talk about the difference between justification and sanctification. Hence they can't really critique Roman Catholicism other than just rail at it and scream at it and yell at it and stuff like that. And so, because they won't let the context determine that, they end up making the kinds of mistakes that they do, and as a result, falsely attacking Jeff, who makes the proper distinctions, who recognizes what is being said, and can tell that there's one conversation going on in Romans chapter 4, and there's another conversation going on later on in Romans chapter 6. Where you do have the discussion of these things, or even Romans chapter 7 into Romans chapter 8, the fundamentalist mindset cannot follow careful lines of thinking and thought, and therefore ends up conflating things and creating problems, and hence attacking someone who's speaking the truth. So does Romans 4-5 contradict what Jeff was saying? No. Let's notice something. And I, again, pointed this out probably a little bit more fully if you want to watch the Grace Life prior presentations. I'll try to remember when I write this up to put the link to it because there's a playlist for all the solos. But when you, in fact, you know what? Oh, this could, I wonder if I change this, hmm, I better not do that. I could blow everything up. If you look at these, these two verses. But to the working one, and to my Greek students right now, who are trudging through, almost done, just finished chapter 31 in Milo's series, there's not much farther to go. We just did Partisans. Substantival Partisans. Here's the Substantival Partisans. To the working one. To the working one. But then notice verse 5. To de me ergatza meno. To de ergatza meno. What's the difference? The word may. So, verse 5 is the direct negation of verse 4. You've put in the particle may to the one not working. to the one working. So this is a contrast, this is a 180 degree contrast between these two positions. So, to the working one, the wage, it's not the reward, it's the wage, it's what's earned, the sas. And by the way, all through verse four, these are the standard Greek terms that would be used of business, of debt, all these things, very, very straightforward, very, very standard. to the one working the wage is not reckoned or credited kata kare literally according to grace or as a favor something that is free as a gift but kata afaileman so notice kata kata it's not according to the categories of grace but according to the categories of debt so if if you are if you're trying to do something to receive something from god then what you get is what you're owed. You're doing something to put God in a position of debtorship to you. That's what ergadzameno implies. But to the not working one. But, this is de being used as the adversative, but on the other side, piscuante, believing upon the one justifying the ungodly. So this is the God who justifies, the God who credits down here in verse six, the God who credits, imputes righteousness apart from works. Here is the one not working, but believing upon the one who's justifying the ungodly. This is why Joseph Smith, not understanding this, changed this in his own quote-unquote translation. He could not translate any of this, so it shouldn't be called a translation. He says, the God who does not justify, because he could not understand how God could justify the ungodly, because Joseph Smith never understood the Gospel, didn't understand grace in any way, shape, or form. So, not working, but believing upon the One who justifies the ungodly, His faith, hapistus autu, the faith of the believing One, not the working One, is credited as righteousness. So, the context of Romans 4-5 has nothing to do with living the Christian life. It has nothing to do with the results of the work of the Holy Spirit within us. It's not a contradiction to Ephesians 2.10, which says that we have been created by Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. That's why they didn't even quote that. I mean, that is just right next to dishonest. How you can try to refute what Jeff said by quoting Ephesians 2.89 and skipping verse 10. I don't know. Hey, it's possible that the tradition was so thick in these people's thinking that they don't even see that next verse, or they don't even consider what it might possibly mean. But it's astonishing, it really is. So what is verse 5 talking about? It's talking about justification. And that justification is by faith. and that that faith is reckoned as righteousness. Jeff believes all of those things. He just believes the rest of the Book of Romans and the rest of the Book of Ephesians and everything else that comes along with that, which tells us that that same faith, his faith is reckoned as righteousness, that faith is a gift of God. And since it is a gift of God, it is imparted by the Spirit of God. And let me just give you one passage just to tie this all together. I'm not sure how that happened. Titus 2.11, "...for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men..." Remember, I was pointing out the problems of this with him, not him, Jeff, but Anderson himself. "...instructing us to deny ungodliness and world desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age." The grace of God that brings salvation is a grace that instructs us. It is a training grace, a disciplining grace, an instructing grace. It does not leave us so that we love ungodliness and worldly desires and do not know how to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present day. You can't make Hezbollah tales out of the New Testament if you do not see this balance. If you do not see the balance of Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10, we mentioned it before, but quickly, why does it keep doing that? I don't know if it's just the way I'm sitting here or just what. For we are His poiema, His workmanship, created, not creating ourselves, but being created, I would say by the instrumental concept here, in the dative, by Christ Jesus, unto ergoes agathoes, good works. And it is those ergoes agathoes which God prepared beforehand in order that we might and it's it's literally to walk her hotel but that's the standard terminology to live it's it's what we're to live in it's to be descriptive of how we live to walk live in them what's the antecedent about toys ergo is other toys good works good works how do you deal with that and isn't amazing that they quote Ephesians 2, 8 to 9, and skip to 10, which is the utter reputation of their position. That's what you've got. That's what you have when you have tradition that overrides exegesis. And you just follow that tradition rather than the exegesis. So I'm hoping, in this time of year, I'm hoping, but so many things can come up, you know, Jeff's pastoring a church and stuff goes on and I might have stuff come up. I don't know, but we're going to try to get to it. Look, it would just be fun for the two of us to do it, uh, and, uh, take apart a bunch of these clips. It's not difficult to do. Uh, it really isn't, but, uh, it's very, um, Very, very... Most people say that when we get into text like this, you put the Greek text up there and you walk through it, and you've got a clear position you're responding to, you accurately represent it because you played it. You've let them say it for themselves. That's where they really learn a lot. And so we want people to get to learn. So that's what we are going to try to do. We'll see if we can make it work out. If not, We'll see what happens. But anyway, so with that, I want five minutes over because we need to go back and replay that. But strange stuff going on in the world today. Very strange. So I appreciate your watching the program today. I hope it was useful to you, even with a different background. It's not quite as high a quality camera as the cameras we have. But that's OK. The information is the same, and we're able to put up biblical text and deal with things as well. So I am out of town on Monday and Tuesday of next week. So right now, slight possibility of a late program on Wednesday. If not, then maybe a big humongous program on Thursday, which would include the 70-minute interaction with Pastor Robinson on Romans chapter 8. We'll see. We'll see. And then, of course, next week is the holidays, Tuesday. I think Christmas is Tuesday. Maybe get to do something later in the week. I don't know. But then I'm teaching at code about to see a lot of seminary the 3rd through the 5th. And so I have to leave on the 2nd and so that that whole week is gone. I think I'm back 1 week and then G3 comes that I'm going to hopefully going to be in Russia and then Germany and all the rest of January is gone. Uh, yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Um, that's, it's good to have something to do and places to go and things to do and saints to edify. It's a good thing. So anyways, hopefully this has been useful to you. Hopefully at some point next week, we'll be back together with you with something that will be also equally useful to you. Thanks for watching.