Understanding Grace, Responsibility, and Faith in Ministry

"And even though it's true, that in terms of descendancy, David was from the descendant of a Moabitess, but, she was not a practicing Moabitess. She was one who embraced the religion of God. And so I think that that gives her a pass as far as that prohibition, because I think the implied elliptical understanding is that somebody who is a practicing Moabite cannot come into the presence of the Assembly of God." [00:01:19]

"Well, again, I think with a spirit of humility and patience and long suffering, recognizing that these people are in authority over you. Yet at the same time, we know that we are to respond and obey all who are in the situations of authority over us unless, they command us to do something God forbids or forbids us from doing something that God commands." [00:02:28]

"Surely, you have evidences of Jesus and Paul using language that today, we might even regard as being intemperate. That's one of the reasons why down through the ages, Christians weren't all that hesitant to use some very fierce language as you saw in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century on both sides of the debate. But at the same time, we have provisions in teaching of Scripture - but first of all, I'm not Jesus and I'm not the Apostle Paul, that I don't speak with the absolute authority that they do." [00:04:00]

"Now, often, double predestination is expressed in what we call a synergistic fashion, or a fashion that is called positive-positive decrees. In this respect, double predestination would mean that God positively decrees and determines in advance those whom He will save, namely the elect. And, in the same method, He decrees the damnation of the sinner, and just as on the one hand, He creates positively saving faith in the hearts of the elect in an equally determinist fashion creates fresh evil in the hearts of the reprobate to make sure they don't come to belief." [00:11:28]

"Reformed theology does teach that double predestined in so far as not everybody will be saved. And so it's double or nothing, really. You can't have single predestination and just ignore the non-elect, unless you're a Universalist. But the distinction is this, we have what we call a positive negative decree or an asymmetrical view of election." [00:12:29]

"However, what I think the point of the Pentateuch is, is that the sin of the fathers has consequences long after the father dies, to the second, third, and fourth generations. If I live a reprobate life and godless life, the chances are that the repercussions of my sin will impact dramatically my children and grandchildren, so that sin has a long lasting impact. And I think that's the point of the generational consequence issue." [00:26:43]

"Augustine wrote many years ago that the church is a corpus permixtum - that is a mixed body that includes both wheat and the tares. And the tares grow along with the wheat, and we can't read the hearts of people. Now, I don't think that it's appropriate to preach every Sunday on evangelism and talking about trying to call people to salvation every single time. Because the purpose of church and the sermon primarily, is to develop the growth of people who have already made a profession of faith." [00:14:42]

"And so I think we have to make that aware to our congregations, even though they've made a profession of faith. I warn my people all the time that a profession of faith never saved anybody. It's the possession of faith that you have to have. And remember that Judgment Day is coming and you will be judged by whether or not you have genuine faith or not." [00:16:15]

"Now, God, if there is sin in this world, and there's a devil in this world, you know absolutely that God ordained that there be a devil, and that God ordained that human beings would sin. That's not the same thing as saying that God sinned. You might say, “Well God, that was a bad thing that you did for creating the devil or a bad thing that you did to having creatures that would sin against you.” Now, we’re never allowed to call good evil or evil good." [00:30:04]

"And so my concern is to be as accurate and as powerful as I can be in proclaiming the Word of God, and calling people to respond. But I don't call them to respond by marching down an aisle because again, I see it everywhere that people think that they are saved simply because they made a profession. We all who are saved should make professions (don't misunderstand me), but just making the profession doesn't mean you have the possession." [00:36:49]

"God gives me the grace to anything of obedience that I do, and then He goes ahead and adds a reward to it. Which I don't deserve, I don't have any claim on. But nevertheless, He does hold that out, that at the last judgment, there will be various degrees of blessing and punishment." [00:32:32]

"And so, I mean there are those who will take the view that divorce is never okay according to Scripture. I think they neglect the exceptive clause that Matthew gives and Jesus' teaching on the question. But also, there are those who want to have a very easy path to divorce, no fault divorce – and you can divorce for just about any reason that you want. And so, we have a crisis with the sanctity of marriage in our culture and in our church today, where very few people are really trying to understand what God teaches about marriage." [00:20:05]