Why I Have Decided To Reject Calvinism.

hello and welcome to the berean voice i'm randy seaver today i'd like to come to you very apologetically and i'd like to talk to you about the subject why i have decided to reject calvinism and the reason is i've been i've been spending time watching dr leighton flowers on his uh broadcast soteriology 101 and i i've come to understand some things that for for the last 50 years i have just been completely and absolutely wrong about i i was reared in a southern baptist church and during my formative years i was about 16 years of age when my father left the southern baptist convention and became an unaffiliated baptist pastor he never liked the idea of uh independent fundamentalist baptist but he was unaffiliated and you know my i had i had these heroes and the fundamentalist uh movement and i went away to a a fundamentalist school in south carolina and during my freshman year i was introduced to calvinism i was introduced to the doctrines of grace and i was initially very put off by it and i was angry about the whole idea and i began to study and over the next two years i came to an understanding i thought of of um what calvinists believe and i embraced the doctrine and and that's been many many years ago i we're talking about over 50 years now and um i have tried to be faithful to what i believe calvin has taught and i've tried to be faithful to what i believe the bible taught and and and but but i've been listening to dr flowers and shoot every time i listen to him i i get more and more enlightened about what calvinists believe and and from what he's telling me don't believe anything like what i've always been taught or what i've read and i've i've listened i've read extensively in in reformed theology and i graduated my my terminal degree is from westminster theological seminary where i received a thm degree and um man i you know i read ritter boss and vos and i read all those guys and and i've you know i've read carefully the canons of dort and the westminster confession of faith and i really i really believe that's what calvinist believed i don't know i don't know how i could have been so stupid to have to have read those confessions of faith and and believe that these men actually wrote down what they believed in the confessions um i mean they they must have just been a bunch of charlatans who were trying to deceive all of us by writing the things they did and you know and i'm as i'm listening to dr flowers man am i ever confused because here he's a he has a phd he's got a one degree higher than the one i have and um boy he's just got thousands of followers and you know can so many people be wrong and and can he be wrong if all these people are are believing what he's saying and um you know he's just having a powerful impact so you know i've just come to the conclusion that there wasn't a single calvinist in the last 500 years who who understood or 400 and whatever years who really understood what they believed they they they must have really thought they believed something different from what they believed because i mean they wrote all this stuff down in their confessions and and according to what dr flowers is saying they didn't really believe any of this stuff um for example he he tells us that that what calvinists believe when they talk about the sovereignty of god is that that god meticulously causes all of the sin that happens in the world and they'll quote john piper i mean you know if you can quote john piper and if he can quote rc sprole about these things then you know he must be right and and he'll he'll quote piper and and he's convinced and he's convincing me that that man piper believes that when a when a child is molested and and and look i i think dr flowers is right in using that emotionally charged example because you couldn't talk about something that's less emotionally charged and get your point across and so you have to you have to think about the most gruesome thing you can possibly think of and then talk about god ordaining that and god causing that and and he'll convince you if you listen to him without thinking uh he'll convince you that yeah god caused he put the thought into the person's mind he put the desire into the person's mind to molest a child and he caused that child molestation that's what calvinists believe you know they they must have been off out of their gourd when they wrote when they wrote that that when god decreed all that he decreed that doesn't make no does not make him the author of evil he they must have been really confused when they wrote that he doesn't have fellowship with any in sin they must have been really confused when they wrote that god does not violate free will they must have been really confused when they said god uses second causes sometimes causes which are contrary to his decree his declared will to accomplish his purpose they must have really been confused when they wrote those things because what dr flowers is saying that calvinists believe and what these calvinists say calvinists believe are two completely different things in fact in my whole 50 years of being a calvinist i don't think there was ever a time that i ever met a calvinist now there were some hyper calvinist along the way but obviously they didn't believe what calvinists have confessed to believe or they wouldn't be hypergonist but i never met a single calvinist who ever understood with the keen insight that dr flowers has about what calvinists believe contrary to what he's been told many many many times about what calvinists believe but but the keen insight that he has about what calvinists really believe we you know we don't believe what we say we believe we what we really believe is that god meticulously like a puppeteer god meticulously causes everything that comes to pass so that god is indeed the author of sin and he does have fellowship you know god is the one who puts that pride into our into our hearts god is the one who who causes us to to do evil things because we believe god is just a malevolent being who doesn't care anything about holiness or righteousness but but all he cares about is the manifestation of his own glory and that has nothing to do with the manifestation of his holiness so you know again dr flowers must be right because you know he's he's got a phd and he's got all those followers and you know he used to be a calvinist he says if you can believe that um and and so he you know i'm sure he's right in all of those thousands upon thousands upon thousands of calvinists who have lived uh since 16 18 and 19 all of them all of them just were really confused about what they believed because they stated things that dr flowers is now telling us just aren't true um and you know in addition to that i've seen dr flowers talk about the fact that calvinists don't believe that that um there is any provision made for any sinner and that that if centers according to the calvinist if the center goes to hell's because god didn't make any provision for him and i want to talk in our next video about uh what's wrong with limited atonement and we'll we'll get into that a little bit um but um you know you read people like um a.a hodge for an example i'd like for you to look up what he wrote it's in his um outlines of theology and it's under the extent of the of the death of christ this is what he wrote the design of christ's death being to secure salvation of the salvation of his own on people incidentally to the accomplish of that accomplishment of that end it comprehends the offer of that salvation freely and honestly to all men on the condition of their faith no man is lost for the want of an atonement or because there is any other barrier in the way of his salvation than his most free and wicked will and this man claimed to be a calvinist believe it or not this is what he thought calvinist believed but dr flowers tells us that calvary's believed there is no provision made for the non-elect and if they go to hell it's just because jesus didn't die for them and they don't believe because god has determinatively caused them to be lost and man if that's what calvinists believe then count me out you know i i really thought i understood what calvinist believed i i really thought that when when they said in the second head of doctrine of the canons of dort this is the initial statement of calvinism this is what you know they should have known what what quit calvinists believed since they were claiming to be calvinist and yet they wrote listen to what they wrote that how confused can you be they they wrote the death of the son of god is the only and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for sin and is of infinite worth and value abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world and yet dr flowers must be he must be right he's got that phd and i guess he didn't study greek or anything like that because he doesn't seem to know it and he doesn't really know a lot of other stuff but he got the phd and so we got to believe that he's right and he's got all those followers and can so many people and so many people really be wrong and so when he tells us that calvinists don't believe that the work of christ is sufficient to save every sinner who will ever believe the gospel then we have to believe what he says and and the only ones who believe there's an abundant and completely valuable sacrifice made for sinners the only one the only ones that believe that or the are the provisionalist that his group and so we just you know we're just if you're a calvinist you're just really confused because you know some of you people have stated these things that you believe and i guess you really think that's what calvinists believe but dr flowers is right shoot who are we to disagree um and then you know he i heard him today he he's saying that calling us don't believe in free will um we we just believe people are robots and um that you know god doesn't can't leave us to our own decisions um it's like you know you put food in front of a child and you can force them to eat it or you can just leave the leave it to them to them to eat it or not eat it and that's the way god does things he doesn't force people like the calvinists believe he forces people against their wills um because you know we don't we're just robots we're we're puppets and and so you know that's what calvinists believe you know god pulls the strings and we jerk and we do what god causes us to do by his meticulous determinism and there are no free choices according to calvinist you know i know what colonists have written over the years and i know they really think that when sinners come to christ they do so freely and willingly and embrace christ as he is offered in the gospel i know that's what the confession says but you know can dr flowers really be wrong if he's got that phd and all those followers you know think about that so so i i have to confess that even though i thought i was a calvinist because i believe these other things that calvinists teach and have taught for centuries now um you know i if god dr flowers is right i i guess i'm just not a calvinist and so we're going to talk next time about about what's wrong with limited atonement because you know we we really need to get that straight so i hope i hope you'll reconsider if you've thought you're a calvinist all this time um just listen to dr flowers and he'll get you straight because he knows better than what calvinists know about what calvinists believe you know he's got that phd and so he must be right and um so you you know you need to pay attention to dr flowers uh because he you've got all those followers and you know thousands and thousands of people can't be wrong so uh i just wanted to confess that that um you know i've been wrong for the last 50 years and i'm i'm going to become a provisionalist because you know i just don't like to think about god causing wicked people to to rape and molest little children that really doesn't seem like god to me and i don't like to think about god um forcing people against their will you know he's he's going to drag him kicking and screaming according to the calvinist into into heaven whether they want to be saved or not and i guess you know if they if they want to be saved they can't be saved unless god has chosen them and so you know i i guess dr flowers must be right so you know just you know i hope i haven't disappointed any of you some of you you know appreciated my ministry but listen you know dr flowers he's got to be right uh in spite of the fact that you know i've never ever met another calvinist or uh who who believed what he says confidence believed but he got the phd so isn't that cool for any of you who are so gullible that you believe anything i just said for the last 15 or 20 minutes please don't believe anything i said because i didn't mean a word of it i i think that dr flowers is a dangerous man who is leading thousands and thousands of people astray with his heresy but it was fun to make fun of him well i hope you've enjoyed this may god richly bless you

Channel: The Berean Voice

Views: 7,498

Keywords: Leighton Flowers

Id: 4TJQD35QZiU

Length: 16min 48sec (1008 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 30 2020