Jerry Walls wicked and profane question about God..part2

pt3;
ANSWER 3. Let us be inlaid with sincerity. If a piece of timber begin to bend, it is because it is not sound. Why do any bend and comply against their conscience, but because their hearts are not sound? Their hearts were not right with him, neither were they steadfast (Psa. 78:37). Sincerity causes stability. When the apostle exhorts to armour, put on the girdle of truth, Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth (Eph. 6:14). The girdle of truth is nothing else but sincerity.


Notice that Watson does not here instruct us to be inflexible and unbending in our personalities. When he speaks of steadfastness and refers to Psalm 78.37 and Ephesians 6.14, he is admonishing those who cut corners when it comes to obeying God and encouraging us to stand strong in the midst of spiritual battle.

Sadly, there are many who are rigid and inflexible in matters of preference, while yielding this way and that in matters of conscience and conviction. Of course, such as conduct themselves that way have it backwards.

When the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 6.14 that we should have our loins girt about with truth, you should try to picture a weightlifter with a weight belt snugly in place, giving him stability when he is lifting. Though combat was then nothing like it is in modern times, in ancient times the warrior would twist and flex his torso as he shielded himself on the left and swung his sword on the right. To prevent injury and to resist fatigue, a leather girdle would be strapped in place to provide stability.

When you are spiritually unstable during times of apostasy, it is because you do not have your loins girt about with truth, truth is not stabilizing you during the conflict. You are like a piece of timber that is beginning to bend under stress. That is not a good thing. Being flexible in your disposition is wonderful. Being flexible in your doctrinal position is a defect.


ANSWER 4. Let us get love to Christ. Love is a holy transport. It fires the affections, steels the courage, and carries a Christian above the love of life, and the fear of death, Many waters cannot quench love (Song of Sol. 8:7). Love made Christ suffer for us. If anyone ask what Christ died of, it may be answered, He died of love. If we love Christ, we will own him in the worst times, and be like that virgin of whom Basil speaks who, not accepting deliverance upon sinful terms, cried out, �Let life and money go; welcome Christ!�


This answer is very challenging. Of course, your love for Christ during times of apostasy is crucial. No wonder Watson was a much loved writer. He has a way with words. Love is a holy transport. It fires affections, steels the courage, and carries a Christian above the love of life, and the fear of death. Does this not explain the courage and the fortitude of martyrs?

As with most Puritans, Watson�s understanding of the Song of Solomon directly links to the Lord Jesus Christ, and shows that the love one has for the Lord Jesus Christ is the strongest motive of all for service, even during times of great apostasy. Notice, also, the evidence of Watson�s prayer life and meditations. �Love made Christ suffer for us. If anyone ask what Christ died of, it may be answered, He died of love.�

Few writers in the last two hundred years would choose to pen such words. Watson lived in a time of persecution, paid a price for his faithfulness to the cause of Christ, and seems to reveal in these words his own motivation for remaining faithful when he could have profited financially by compromising, and endured far less suffering by giving in to persecution. �If we love Christ, we will own him in the worst times, and be like that virgin of whom Basil speaks who, not accepting deliverance upon sinful terms, cried out, �Let life and money go; welcome Christ!�� The Basil he refers to was a fourth century defender of the Christian faith, who himself reported of a young girl who welcomed martyrdom rather than succumb to persecution and turn away from Christ.

 

pt4;
ANSWER 5. If we would keep up the sprightly vigour of grace in evil times, let us harden our hearts against the taunts and reproaches of the wicked. David was the song of the drunkards (Psa. 69:12). A Christian is never the worse for reproach. The stars are not the less glorious though they have ugly names given them, the Bear, the Dragon, etc. Reproaches are but assulae crucis, splinters of the cross. How will he endure the stake, who cannot bear a scoff? Reproaches for Christ are ensigns of honour, badges of adoption (I Pet. 4:14), the high honours of accusations, says Chrysostom. Let Christians bind these as a crown about their head. Better have men reproach you for being good, than have God damn you for being wicked. Be not laughed out of your religion. If a lame man laugh at you for walking upright, will you therefore limp?


Here Watson both acknowledges our hurt feelings, as well as providing encouraging words to deal with the harsh words that are flung at us by our enemies.

Do the jokes and the ridicules at work bother you? Do the hateful looks and the sneers wound you? We are reminded that David was the song of drunkards, Psalm 69.12, and in that same psalm he writes that he bore reproach for God�s sake. Therefore, you are not the first one who has felt the slings and arrows. Besides, Watson correctly points out that we are never the worse for reproach. Therefore, if you ever become a Christian who has derisive songs sung about you, it probably means you are very spiritual indeed.

�The stars are not the less glorious though they have ugly names given them, the Bear, the Dragon, etc. Reproaches are but assulae crucis, splinters of the cross. How will he endure the stake, who cannot bear a scoff? Reproaches for Christ are ensigns of honour, badges of adoption (I Pet. 4:14), the high honours of accusations, says Chrysostom. Let Christians bind these as a crown about their head. Better have men reproach you for being good, than have God damn you for being wicked. Be not laughed out of your religion. If a lame man laugh at you for walking upright, will you therefore limp?�

What encouraging and constructive comments these are. Oh, how I wish someone had said words like these to me as a young Christian. It would not have spared any of the pain of harsh comments and treatments I received, but it would have been a salve to the wounds, a healing ointment to the stabs in the back.

He is right in saying that we should harden our hearts against taunts and reproaches. This whole world is becoming so thin-skinned and sissified that we who love the Lord run the risk of letting little things like harsh words and nasty looks knock us off our trolleys. We need to be more determined than that. Amen? An inscription on the New York City Post Office reads, �Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.� Though it is applied to letter carriers in their determination to deliver the mail against all odds, the Greek historian and traveler, Herodotus, was originally describing the messengers dispatched by the Persian court in ancient times. Whoever the words were written about and later applied to, should they not be an appraisal of our determination to do right no matter what is said against us?


ANSWER 6. If we would keep up the vigour of devotion during a general seizure, let us beg God for confirming grace. Habitual grace may flag; Peter had habitual grace, yet was foiled; he lost a single battle, though not the victory. We need exciting, assisting, corroborating grace; not only grace in us, but grace with us (I Cor. 15:10); auxiliary grace (which is a fresh gale of the Spirit) will carry us undauntedly through the world�s blustering storms. Thus shall we be able to keep up our heroic zeal in corrupt times, and be as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved.


Watson introduces me to some new concepts with this final answer, concepts that I agree with upon reflection, and wholly endorse.

First, consider the concept of habitual grace. This is God�s grace in your life to deal with the routine, with the ordinary, with the expected and anticipated. Generally speaking, this is what you need from God to get by. With habitual grace you will win the war. However, if habitual grace is all you have you may lose important battles.

The battle Peter lost, of course, due to a deficiency in what Watson refers to as confirming grace, was when he severely stumbled and denied the Lord Jesus Christ three times in the early morning hours before our Lord�s crucifixion. What happened? Watson explains Peter�s tragic denials as habitual grace flagging, or habitual grace giving out. What Peter needed during those three times of fright and fatigue and temptation was confirming grace.

So, what do we need during this time of apostasy, when we are not so much set upon suddenly by fear and fatigue and temptation, as was Peter, but by a complete and general decline in spirituality all around us? In times like these �We need exciting, assisting, corroborating grace; not only grace in us, but grace with us (I Cor. 15:10); auxiliary grace (which is a fresh gale of the Spirit) will carry us undauntedly through the world�s blustering storms. Thus shall we be able to keep up our heroic zeal in corrupt times, and be as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved.�

What Watson does not specifically indicate here, but which he and every other Puritan most assuredly would have on his mind, was the means by which exciting, assisting, corroborating grace, auxiliary grace, which is a fresh gale of the Spirit, might be sought and acquired. Sadly, little attention is given these days of the means by which God imparts grace to people. What is misunderstood is that God�s ordinary means of grace is through church services in which His Word is preached, fellowship with other Christians, reading and studying the Bible, praying and serving God, and such activities as those. If you are really pressed hard and feel like you are under the gun, the worst thing you can do is miss church, stop reading your Bible, give up your prayer life, and disassociate from other Christians.

If it is your intent to keep up your heroic zeal in corrupt times, and be like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved . . . you simply must avail yourself of the ordinary means of grace, all the while asking God for the auxiliary grace needed to carry you through the storm.


We do live in times of apostasy. These are, after all, the last days. Therefore, if you would be a consistent Christian, if you would avoid the pitfalls of the kind of sudden temptations and stumbling that Simon Peter endured, you have to be prepared for unforeseen things. To be sure, the means of grace are crucial to establishing a pattern of routine and regular godliness. However, what should you do to combat surprise temptations? What will you do when you are suddenly overwhelmed and stricken in some way with a spiritual malady?

If you need auxiliary grace to supplement your habitual grace, you will not find it by abandoning the ordinary means of grace. You do yourself no good by missing church, avoiding Christians, ignoring your Bible and refusing to pray. If anything, you need the ordinary means of grace all the more at crucial times of stress and testing, during times of discouragement and great tempting.

Yes, we live in times of great apostasy and spiritual decline. Most are spiritually blind and without interest in spiritual things. All the more reason for you to pay attention to the means of grace, so you maintain your interest in spiritual pursuits, so you fan the flames in your own fireplace, waiting for special seasons of refreshing from the Lord.

 

I posted a response Steaver in post 75

 

Definitely a lack of transparency in the Calvinist gospel wherein they typically leave out their systematically perceived bad news out of their message of the Good News. I could go on a serious rant but won't...instead I'll sum it up with:

“If you take part of the truth, and try to make that part of the truth, all of the truth, then that part of the truth becomes an untruth.” ~ Adrian Rogers

He saves that for those who mock and scoff at his gospel, ain't that right Icon? ;)

 

you still have that post on file....I think you secretly study it...but that is okay my friend...
You know I stand by that post and would even expand on it today if you would like.

oh and by the way...is that the same Adrian [strawman] Rogers who got mightily corrected here;



This is the second edition of Radio Free Geneva on Youtube. In this edition, Dr. James White critiques a sermon presented by Dr. Adrian Rogers that gives many of the fallacies and inconsistencies those who do not hold to the Reformed faith usually commit. These errors include believing that the word "foreknow" is a noun, taking out words from Scripture like Matt. 23:37 to defend one's tradition, and thinking that unless a man's will is free, they are robots. This has been touted as very helpful by several people who have heard it because of Dr. White's refutations then explanations. The listener call-in section at around the last half hour or so is helpful, too. There was another part to this that was in a later episode of RFG.

 

better to tell the truth though, then the lie that sinners have the means within them to save themselves, that vaunted"free will Gospel"

 

I found this article by Dr. Bill Mounce...


πᾶς
I have received several questions about the use of "whoever" in the translation of John 3:16, so I thought it would be good to clarify at least one thing.

Correct, the indefinite relative pronoun ὅστις does not occur in John 3:16, but language is not so monolithic that there is only one way to say something. In fact, whenever a commentary argues that if the author had meant to say one thing, he would have said it "this way," you should be suspicious. That's a naive approach to language.

However, we do have an indefinite construction in John 3:16 with the use of πᾶς and an articular imperfective participle (πᾶς ἡ πιστευών) used to indicate a generic, "general utterance" (see Wallace, 615f.). Just do a search for that construction and you can see it is universal in intent.

For example, "But I say to you that whoever looks at (πᾶς ὁ βλέπων) a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt 5:28). Isn't Jesus saying this is a generic statement, true of all who look with the intent of lusting? Of course it is.

Interestingly, v 28 is followed by v 32 that uses another explicitly indefinite contraction. "But I say to you that anyone who divorces (ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ) his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery" (Matt 5:32). ὃς ἄν is explicitly indefinite and general.

The first meaning of πᾶς in BDAG is "pert[aining] to totality with focus on its individual components, each, every; any." The second is "any and every." Sounds indefinite to me.

Contextually, John is asserting a relatively unusual notion that God not only loves those who follow him (John's normal usage) but he actually loves the entire world, hence requiring an indefinite construction. To limit the meaning of the statement to a subgroup of people, "those among you who believe," is to read in a theology not supported by the Greek (and I am Reformed).

In the larger context, it agrees with statements like 1 Tim 2:4 that says God "wishes all people (πάντας ἀνθρώπους) to be saved and to come into a knowledge of the truth."

True, each/every person who believes is a subset of the whole (the "world"), and the gift of eternal life is only for that subset, but to somehow limit God's love to a subset of people runs counter to the Greek, the meaning of πᾶς, the grammar, the immediate context, and the larger context. If you believe in election (as I do), then you understand πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων as referring to the elect, but let's not dismiss the clear meaning of the text and suggest that God does not, in some way, love the world.

Can you translate the verse without "whoever"? Sure, as long as you choose words that are not limiting. "God loved the world so he gave his only Son, that every one who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."


Does John 3:16 Say "Whoever"? | billmounce.com

 

Hey Icon, I appreciate the engagement. But I still do not see a legit answer for why you do not tell your children God may not chose to save them from hell. You are not being clear with them from your answers to my questions....

And you leave out the part that God may have decided long before you were born to leave you condemned to hell, it's not up to you??

We are speaking about children here, not Calvinist.

Not speaking about what Calvinist see, but what we tell our children.

Feeling pretty wonderful!!!

Yes, and do you tell your children how filthy they are and that God may just leave them to hell?

Stay focused on what we tell our children.....

This would be a lie would it not? You do not know if God will draw your child to Him according to Calvinism. Your children may not have been chosen and you should tell them this if you are true to what you believe.

 

steaver,

Steaver..I clearly said I answered them in age appropriate answers....do you understand this? The first time one of your 6 or 7 year old children asked you about ...where did babies come from...did you go into detail and explain all aspects on adult intimacies in marraige and explain the process of all phases of the sexual union? Or..did you answer in a way that they could grasp.

I do not hold back on election or predestination with anyone...

I do not speculate about what God may have decided or not...

I do speak of God electing a multitude before the world was...and they all will come to Jesus when He draws them.

I do not have your distorted view of the doctrines of grace, so I do not have to unwind this yarn you are spinning....

I tell them....we are all sinners....God is going to save a multitude of sinners...but not all. Those who do not trust in Jesus will perish. If they do not trust Jesus they will perish, Mom and Dad cannot save you....If you are going to be saved Jesus will have to do it.
There is no need for your dreadful speculation or whatever way you think to lie to your children as if that was going to change things.

Another thing children are called...is sinners.

I was speaking about both...not either or.

So Steaver...if Judas was your son...would your clever little stories have been strong enough to give him a new heart?

I have conveyed that to them so that they are without excuse.
Of course I do not mischaracterize the situation as you do...
My children were taught that God is holy...there will be no unsaved sinners in heaven.

No..a lie would be you telling your children you know for sure He loves them savingly...before they are saved.

You do not know if God will draw your children period!:Cautious
No where in scripture is there a magic verse saying all children of all believers will be savingly drawn to faith.

I have taught them the truth about election and predestination....If God shows me who He has chosen I will announce it to those on the list.
Until then I will be content to teach the truth of election and predestination.

 

I find two things interesting:

1. You had to borrow an argument from someone else. Given, Bill Mounce is a very good source. But your use of his article tells me you have no chance of arguing these issues on your own. And, it tells me you cannot begin to understand my original argument.

2. You wrongly assume--because of your lack of facility in the language--that Mounces argument answers mine. It doesn't. He is arguing something different, not even engaging on the points that I've brought out.

The Archangel

 

No my Brother, that was not my intent at all. I wasn't using Dr. Mounce as a rebuttal to your wonderful post, but I put in there for you to give your opinion/thought about what he wrote.

I am taking his DVD lessons on 'Greek for the Rest of Us' and am slowly learning Greek.

I was not arguing with you. I was wondering where you think Dr. Mounce was wrong. Sorry that was taken the wrong way. That was truly not my intent.

I offer you my apologies for my faux pas.

 

I am not like @Van and will try to argue the likes of you, @TCassidy, @Greektim , @John of Japan, @McCree and others on here who have studied Greek for years on end. I am not that stupid.

Again, my apology for the confusion that post caused on here.

FYI, I will have your back, not stab you in it. ;) :)

 

IIRC, I watched this a year or so ago. Dr. White dismantled Dr. Rodgers, but did not do so in an unseemly way.

 

I think Dr. Mounce is possibly wrong here, as well. But I am not saying this emphatically.πᾶς does mean 'all', but its usually 'all within a subset' and not 'all w/o distinction', correct?

 

πᾶσιν τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Ῥώμῃ ἀγαπητοῖς θεοῦ, κλητοῖς ἁγίοις: χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ[Romans 1:7]

Wouldn't this mean 'All in Rome, loved by God'? That's how it reads in many translations. So the πᾶσιν would mean 'all', but the surrounding text would tell you what πᾶσιν means, correct?


I am not trying to come across as a Greek scholar already, as I have barely put a dent into my studying of it. But I am trying to grasp it, and Brothers like you and the others I mentioned can be a huge benefit to my studies.

 

Really? Let's stay on topic please...

There is no need to speculate. Calvinism is clear that unless God has chosen you and makes you believe, you will be left for hell. This is the topic, not which specific persons God has chosen. Stay on topic please...

Everyone knows you believe my position is a distorted view of the doctrines of grace and that I believe your position is a distorted view of the doctrines of grace. You didn't score any points...please stay on topic....

Again, we are not debating specualtions. It is a fact that according to Calvinism, a person cannot believe unless God makes them believe.

...and convienently leave out the part that God may not have elected to save you my little one.

...and conveniently leave out the part that you can only trust in Jesus if He chooses you to trust in Him, He may not choose you my little one. Half truths.....

Nope, he would still need to make his own choices.

Your the one who said....."My children were told bible truth...that God has elected a multitude of sinners in His Son. At a point in time they would be drawn by the Spirit to saving faith, and each one will come to Jesus..

Question for you. Do you obey the following or is it not for us today....

"And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." (Deut 6)

 

Brother,

The faux pas was mine! Please forgive my post--it's shortness, it's tone, etc. I got home late, it has been a long week (last full week of teaching), and I simply did not realize I was responding to you.

The tone of my posts should not be affected by the "to whom" of the response, but in my rush to defend, I didn't give the post its due, no matter to whom it was addressed. Your pursuit of all things biblical has been absolutely wonderful to watch, and I'm sorry that I may have, even for a minute, squelched that joyous pursuit.

PLEASE forgive my shortness and lack of kindness--you deserve SO much better.

Blessings in Christ,

The Archangel

 

Well, in fairness, I should have clarified why I posted that article by Dr. Mounce. So I am at least somewhat culpable, too. No worries, my Brother.

 

This is the very reason why, unless you really know the Greek biblcal language, one should not enter into an exchange here, as will be shown to be silly!

 

Where has van been off too?