Several years ago, right at the time I became a full-fledged 5 Pointer, one of the very first things I'd ever listened to by Dr. James White was his critique of vehement anti-Calvinist Adrian Roger's sermon on Romans 8. It was immensely helpful to me, and to this day, has been my favorite work from him.

Well, I was lookin' at youtube earlier, and found an "explanation" (i.e. wanna be refutation) of Calvinism by Houston FBC Mega Church's Pastor Greg Mattes. I couldn't stand not being able to be there to correct his ridiculous statements. So anyway, I passed this sermon on to Dr. James White. It would be a great sermon for him to critique, particularly due to Houston FBCs size, etc.

The "sermon" in question is here: http://hfbcpodcast.com/audio/2008/mi...BC_2-03-08.mp3

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
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Troublemaker!

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Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

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Sic 'em!

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Ivan Schoen, Pastor * Maranatha Baptist Church * Poplar Grove, Illinois USA www.maranatha-sbc.org/
"Mankind is divided into two sorts: such as live according to man, and such as live according to God. These we call the two cities...The Heavenly City outshines Rome. There, instead of victory, is truth" — Augustine of Hippo

Mattes 'we're going to be all over the map today'

You said it, Pastor.

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Jonathan Hunt

Preaching Elder
Cheltenham Evangelical Free Church (Confessionally Based)
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom

Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
-- Thomas Elsworth

Well, Dr. Oakley has not responded to my email yet. I hope the email address worked.

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
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Go in the chat channel and give it to him. He's almost always in there, or you could call the Dividing Line and tell him about it. Then both you and Rich would be in the group of "people who've been on the DL." I always want to join that group, but I never have anything intelligent to call in about.

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Andrew DeShazo, Deacon, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Memphis, TN
"All of us stumble in many ways, but if anyone is never at fault in what he says, then he is mature, able to control his whole body."(James 3:2)

I have a long day on call today and I went ahead listened to the sermon out of curiosity. I'm not sure Dr. White would have much new here to work with. The pastor runs through the TULIP acronym and doesn't offer much in the way of exegesis. He quotes verses out of context and does not really give due consideration to the counterarguments.

In the end, he sums up by saying that he is afraid the resurgence of Calvinism is baptist churches will cause a division along the lines of JV and Varsity Christians, with those Calvinists always being the arrogant Varsity squad. He also opines that really what divides us isn't that much at all, kind of a 51% this way or 49% the other way.

He quotes Spurgeon favorably about the inherent tension between predestination and the free offer of the gospel and states that we need to keep both of these in view (which I agree with) but then he totally discounts the sovereignty of God in salvation by rejecting many points of Calvinism.

I have listened to Dr. White debate with Arminians recently such as Steve Gregg. I had looked forward to hearing that because it was billed as an Arminian who could argue substantively and provide Scriptural exegesis. The debate was somewhat of a disappointment . They both ended up talking past each other and Gregg didn't provide much in the way of biblical arguments. He mostly provided emotive arguments based on his feelings that God couldn't be like the way Calvinists describe him.

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Steve Kellam
Ruling Elder
Redeemer ARP Church (Blacksburg, VA)
Husband to Holly and father to Bethany, Susannah, and Charlotte (and one on the way!)
“Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life” -- Jonathan Edwards

Here's the audio for this, made into a video recently:

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
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And Dr. White's responses:

Part 1:


Part 2:

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
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It does seem to confuse him a good bit... funny how he begins by distinguishing salvation from doctrine, as if salvation isn't a doctrine or anything.

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"Peace if possible, truth at all costs." (Martin Luther)

David G. Suggs Jr.
New Covenant, PCA
Anderson, South Carolina

"Doctrine confuses us"....makes me sad to be a Southern Baptist! Please excuse my lack of charity, but that is a very stupid statement.

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Ivan Schoen, Pastor * Maranatha Baptist Church * Poplar Grove, Illinois USA www.maranatha-sbc.org/
"Mankind is divided into two sorts: such as live according to man, and such as live according to God. These we call the two cities...The Heavenly City outshines Rome. There, instead of victory, is truth" — Augustine of Hippo

What had me in stitches the first time I saw this sermon on YouTube was when he made it out to be like Calvin and Arminius were contemporaries. Talk about shoddy preparation.

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
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