Is God or Man Sovereign?: Silencing the Devil with R.C. Sproul and John Gerstner 

Two men who loved each other imperfectly on earth are now enjoying perfected love in the presence of the Savior they faithfully served. How blessed we are to learn from them.

It's amazing, John and R.C.'s tone, tempo and explanation style are borderline identical. It's so interesting how much was was absorbed by R.C. throughout his learning from John.

This is excellent. I love learning from these two men.

I missed them both. blessed to meet them in my lifetime.

Brilliant! I had to do a "fist pump" at 17:03-04: "I choose to do the will of God because God has given me that "predominate attraction." It is not of my will or ability although NOW in Christ it is my will (in the midst of the struggle).

I pray that humanity would listen to this words of God and the debate amen

Amen and Amen. Glorious teaching by these two preachers. I pray that all who listen to this teaching would accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour of their lives.

Absolutely excellent. These are two men I'm looking forward to meeting!

Thank you for these two giants of the faith. This video shows the passion, love, respect, and tremendous gifts these men had which God used to bring so many to Christ. It also brought to mind one question; Am I using the gifts God has blessed me with for the expansion of His kingdom here on earth?

It's amazing to see how much of Dr Gerstner's mannerisms and speaking traits RC picked up from him. They talk very similarly. This talk was extraordinarily eye opening for me and I learned a lot and have a better understanding of my beliefs about this difficult subject. Thanks for the upload!

Majestic truth only God can do. Psalm 107:1. Oh give thanks unto the Lord for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever. Psalm 107:8. Oh that man would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

Two real men of God who will never compromise.. Two men who actually knew the Bible and would never twist it because they weren’t cowards and they could care less what the world thought of them. Too many spineless coward pastors today taking people to hell with them.

Thank you for sharing these...Im really enjoying them

I only hope to be a quarter that sharp minded at his age!

Sproul was Grestners closest student. Sproul even emulated his teacher in so many ways which led to his own massive success in theology. Grestner passed the torch.

how both of those dearly beloved brothers are missed, what a cause for rejoicing in the lives they lived for the glory of God and now they present see our Savior in His glory!!

Spectacular.

All questions are answered thoroughly.

Awesome! Thank you so much

WOW THAT WAS AWESOME PRAISE THE LORD JESUS

Love both of these Godly men

Wow mind blown. Absolutely brilliant.

Amazing

Great teachers

God has One timeline He has Delclared from the end to the beginning... those whom He has chosen He also predestinated to conform to His liking... to do His will, not our own! We don't have free will- we do what we were always going to do... preprogrammed to react- and engage however we were supposed to...we don't even own our own thoughts...because our own thoughts are influenced by EVERYTHING around us- our experiences- our life- our conversations with others shapes our very own thoughts!

It’s time to reconcile “The parable of the tares”…(Matt 13:37-43). It’s interesting how they make their points by invalidation of the other. This is drama. And foolishness! Gods ways are beyond us knowing. What is just, what is merciful, what is righteous can not and will not be defined by the hearts of men. Choice? Free will? Predestination? Sovereignty? Election? Have you not studied The Book of Job? Choice is Gods alone. (Proverbs 16:9) It is written…🙏🔑✌️

John 15, 16. You did not choose me. I chose you.... ordained....

Dr. Gerstner is so intelligent! Wow!

I've seen the utter danger of overemphasizing one from another. The sovereignty and the free will of man should be properly defined.

It is in Genesis, man has dominion over what he does. Thank God.

Word.

Oh how we could use these two here now, but the LORD knows best.

What Gerstner doesn't realize is that our inability to not do anything we don't want, is precisely why there is no free will. lol

I miss these guys

Verbal excellence at it's finest and even more so, 2 men who deeply love God.

This is pretty funny, especially the part at 7:08 , "I had no choice but to choose" that doesn't sound like free will at all, hahaha except this is what people believe

Varones del Señor. ❤

Awesome. The teacher is better than the student...!

Once, in order to convey the necessity of new birth from above, the preacher asked "did you conceive and birth yourself?" Of course not we agree. In other words, we played no part in our natural birth. The preacher continues to build the point: "In the same way we play no role in our spiritual birth; "it is God who puts the seed of new life into your soul". "it is by grace that you have been saved, and this is not of yourself". In other words, in both accounts, the point is we are not the cause and not responsible. And yet, to convey another theological point, human responsibility for sin, we affirm we are born with a sinful nature, via a birth which we have previously agreed we're not responsible for, yet we are responsible for the nature inherited from that birth. It is your fault said Dr Gerstner (20.40). Is it possible to reconcile what seems ireconsiable?

I'm far from being intelligent here. But, just spit balling here: The Holy Spirit in you helps or guides you through every decision ever thought up in your life. Now if you don't have the Holy Spirit in you, then those choices you make are still yours to make good or bad. The Holy Spirit in me will guide me through the correct choices and that to me is more than enough for me of saying it is my free will, cause it's HIS will I be free...!

Good

My take on the matter is that God has ordained and therefore knows what I will do with my free will. I don't. I will choose whatever, based on the circumstances in my frame of reference, which constitutes my free will as it relates to myself. The two concepts can co-exist on the basis that I am free to choose and whatever I chose will manifest as having been God's will and according to His predestination.

Free Will is nothing but an illusion. The real question is, how can man be responsible for his actions given God is sovereign? One picks his heresy as he attempts to harmonize those ideas. Some may claim God is unfair, but he is never unjust.

Can You answer the question at 11:12, without hearing Brother Gerstner?)

It's as if they read parts of this straight out of Jonathan Edwards's book, "Freedom of the Will."

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G is right! What about Jonah? God decreed he go to Nineveh and preach , he didn't so God punished him so he would learn obedience. But still had free will to refuse.

Who’s on first?

If you go to JCGSOVEREIGN on RU-vid, and watch one or both PowerPoint videos, "From Slavery to Freedom" &/or "Jesus is the only way" It explains this in a way to grasp.

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Good lesson.

Patently a false dilemma.

I like J MacArthur position on this. He basically says the bible teaches both free will and election, clearly it does. And then he says let the bible teach both! He goe s on to say that he can not reconcile the 2 so leave it be. Furthermore. He says that in every major biblical doctrine there is an apparent paradox/ for example. who wrote Romans? Did Paul write a little then the HS write a little? No, it was fully Paul and fully the HS. BUT how can that be? It is because only God knows how it all comes together. What can't be true is that I had no choice. I have a choice. Jesus said while weeping over Jerusalem "I would have gathered you like a hen gathers her chicks BUT YOU WOULD NOT! In Rev the door that we would open when he knocks. The bible teaches both and only God knows how it all plays out. There is election clearly nd there is free will clearly. What matters is that we come to him leave all the other stuff to him. Let others spend there precious time debating a doctrine that gets no answers except as the bible declares it.

The arrogance of thinking you have free will. God will NOT share HIS GLORY with another. He did not owe man anything. None seek after God!!

I think this type of debate is a waste of time. I don't care for conflicts. I love R C Sproul's preaching and teaching .

If there be any sovereignty it is jealously harboured and held tightly by the Catholic Church. Its leader, the Pope, is said to be the spokesman or watchman of God on earth- in the matter of doctrine. Yet nowhere in scripture do we find God appointing any person or descendants of such to head any religious organisation.

This Free Will thing does not need a 30-minute debate to sort it out. God created time he exists outside of time, he sees the first from the last and all Points in between, sees every decision every person will ever make before they make it. The fact that he has knowledge that transcends time in no way influences our free will.

The definition of sovereign is that God makes the rules and he, according to instantiated, clear text, created mankind with the ability to follow his will or RUN CONTRARY TO IT from Genesis to Revelation. Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5, 32:35- God SAYS the Jews did something (sacrificed their children to Molech) and it NEVER EVEN ENTERED HIS MIND. God's breathed out words also say in James 1:13 that he tempts NO ONE, in verse 14 that we are tempted when drawn away by our own desires and enticed, etc. Romans 1 instantiated that people can be given over to depravity when Calvinism teaches one is already depraved totally, Calvinism contradicting God's breathed words. Calvinism depends on their definition of Sovereign and Miticulous Determinism for their false teachings. Their 9-not 5 points called Tulip are refuted from Genesis to Revelation in plain text and clear language. Regeneration before hearing, let alone believing, the message about Jesus anointed (Xpistos- transliterated -Christ meaning Anointed in English) is a clearly FALSE Gospel.

This still sounds insane and contradictory to me

I sin when I don't want to. Romans 7 24 25.

Biblical principles are seen from Eden to eternity, God gave Eve and Adam a choice between obedience and life, and disobedience and death, both destinies were chosen by God, the Tree of Life was in the midst of the Garden, accessible and available if the obeyed the will of God in the word of God, that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was also accessible and available, but if they decided to disobey the will of God in the word of God they would automatically decide the destiny that God had decided which was death, so God is in sovereign control of each destiny having predestined both life and death, but men and angels can decide which of these two destinies that God has decided, Now the last book of the bible, Revelation chapter 22v14, blessed are they who do His commandments that they may have the right to the Tree of Life, but if anyone hers the eternal words of this book and adds to them God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book, and if anyone takes away from the eternal words of this book God will take away his part out of the book of life, or out of the tree of life to equate with Eden, So the eternal destiny of the Christian is determined by God, in v14, Blessed are those who do what God wills in His commands, which is do not add to or take from His revealed will in His word, to do so, is to fulfill the fate that God has foreordained, for them and likewise not to add to or take from His revealed will in His word, is to have fulfilled in them the blessedness of obeying God's will in God's word

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🔴🔴 Abimelech took Sarah and God made him return her back to Abraham Many times people choose a specific word to speak and at the moment something else chimes out according to God’s decree which the person had no prior knowledge or reason to utter the words

Surely, Sproul is not a mathetmaician. And with any mathematician his try to mock the definition of parallels will not work. Good for him, there are not so many of them around, otherwise their laughter about his stupidity would ring in his ears.

What calvinists don‘t understand is the fact that God decided in his sovereignty to create us with free will and the fact that we have the ability to choose between life and death has nothing to do with God‘s sovereignty…!

I would have loved being in this debate! , Because I did not choose to be born, nor did I choose my nationality, sex, or mental abilities.....as far as I know, neither will I choose the day I die or manner of my demise.

If "No free will to choose" were true then the Judgment Seat of Christ and the Great White Throne Judgment (which haven't happened yet) would be a joke. Why have them? Think on these things:. how could souls be judged and held responsible if their actions had been predestined with no free will? That would be such a cruel and unjust God. Predestination makes God a Machiavellian: the end justifies the means, no matter how devious or unjust

Then why couldn't someone choose Christ to avoid damnation? You can choose taking an exam even though you don't want to, to avoid failing, yet you say we cannot choose Christ to avoid perishing. 🤔

RU-vid babylon is alive and well by David Assherick

To me it’s rather simple….God is fully sovereign but when he made man, He (God) chose to limit His sovereignty when He gave man the first spoken and written promises to distinguish Himself from all other god’s who man create who are “capricious”. Therefore God sovereignly created man with freewill to choose in receiving or rejecting His promises because it declares that “whatsoever a man soweth he shall also reap” good or bad. In this God does not violate His main attribute of Love over a fallen creation who is given the opportunity to redeem themselves to their creator.

Both of these guys act like they are hard of hearing, lol

I choose to sin in Adam? I don't remember that. I am to blame for being born a viper and not walking upright? If Adam will be in heaven, so must his family, because we are in him when he was saved? Speaking for all suffering people: I chose freely to get cancer? No! God did. I choose to be bitten by a venomous spider? I choose to lose my house in an earthquake? I chose freely to loose my child? No God did. In his sovereignty. If I had a choice, the outcomes would certainly be very different. No one would willingly choose to suffer, but God chose that we all do. He chose our nature. He chose to plant that terrible tree in the garden fully knowing what will happen. He created Lucifer with his proud nature fully knowing what he will do. I don't think these 2 gentlemen seriously addresses the issue...

If s man puts a gun on me and tells me to give him my wallet and I give it to him, that is his will not mine my will would be to have him leave me alone and keep my wallet. Coerced will is not free will That is just plain common sense. Free will is doing what you desire to do just because you desire to do it. In the description above, the man might as well have just taken my hand, put it in my pocket, and taken out the wallet that. There is no difference in the result. The robber gets what his free will wants, not me. Common sense arguments please.

For the first time that I’ve ever seen, RC seems on the back foot in this and I’m not sure why he continually gives in to the opponent’s points. I’m like “this is the guy that’s written volumes and spoken countless lectures on God’s Sovereignty??” My apologies, but Dr James White would’ve EATEN GERSTNER’S LUNCH. RC keeps giving in to every point the guy makes!?!

Man invented god, so man is sovereign - whatever that means.

This sounds idiotic.

The funniest debate I ever heard... they must have been born comedians hahaha... read their books but never thought they can be this funny... there are 5 non-reformed theologians that did not like them... others just doesn't understand a word they said.

Man is free in a sense meaning he makes choises but man is not free from God. You can not come unless God calls you acording to the bibel. I always say you are as free as a fish in aquarium.