S5E13 Calvinism vs The Standard of Truth Podcast

Summary

Standard of Truth Podcast: Season 5, Episode 13 – Calvinism vs The Standard of Truth

Hosts: Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat & Dr. Richard Leduc
Release Date: March 27, 2025

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Introduction

In Season 5, Episode 13 of the Standard of Truth podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc delve into a critical examination of Calvinist theology in contrast with teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). The episode titled "Calvinism vs The Standard of Truth" tackles theological differences, addresses listener emails, and engages in spirited discussions surrounding doctrines of salvation and divine justice.

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Light-hearted Banter and Listener Engagement (00:00 – 06:00)

The episode begins with the hosts engaging in friendly banter about their participation in a March Madness bracket challenge. Dr. Dirkmaat humorously laments his failed bracket picks, while Dr. Leduc shares his excitement about the podcast's archaeological endeavors related to LDS history. This segment establishes a relaxed and personable atmosphere, making listeners feel welcomed and engaged.

Notable Quote:
Dr. Dirkmaat (01:16): "I don't know, but if 46 years are a pretty good track record, I...My bracket is shattered and I got everyone wrong and it's all garbage."

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Listener Emails: Building Faith and Overcoming Doubts (06:00 – 18:49)

The hosts transition to addressing listener emails, showcasing the podcast's impact on its audience.

1. Sarah's Email (07:30 – 09:57):
   Sarah expresses her astonishment and challenges arising from her newfound 'fame' due to being mentioned on the podcast. The hosts humorously respond, highlighting the supportive community fostered by the podcast.

2. Mark's Testimonial (10:35 – 15:06):
   Mark shares his journey from battling anti-Mormon sentiments to rediscovering his testimony through the podcast. Dr. Dirkmaat offers heartfelt appreciation, emphasizing the podcast’s role in strengthening faith amidst external challenges.

Notable Quote:
Mark (12:06): "After several episodes I became more interested since I love history and studying the original sources. Your podcast does a good job of going over the sources and explaining situations in their appropriate historical context."

3. Sandy's Encouragement (15:06 – 18:49):
   Sandy discusses her struggles as a widow seeking deeper understanding of the Doctrine and Covenants. She praises the podcast for its ability to bring spirit and humor into her daily commutes, underscoring the transformative power of thoughtful discourse on faith.

Notable Quote:
Sandy (17:30): "When I listen to the Standard of Truth podcast, I feel the spirit every time. That draws me back for more and more."

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Main Topic: Calvinism vs LDS Theology (18:49 – 63:05)

The core of the episode focuses on contrasting Calvinist theology with LDS teachings, sparked by plays from Calvinist clips and Dr. Dirkmaat’s impassioned responses.

Analysis of Pastor John MacArthur’s Calvinist Clips (20:22 – 63:05)

Dr. Leduc introduces clips by Pastor John MacArthur, a prominent Calvinist theologian, raising questions about divine justice and the nature of salvation. The hosts critically analyze MacArthur's positions, arguing against the Calvinist interpretation of God's sovereignty and the inevitability of damnation.

Key Discussion Points:

1. Calvinist Doctrine on Salvation and Damnation:

   • Immutable Nature of God: Calvinists assert that God's nature is unchangeable, and His will dictates the salvation or damnation of souls.
   • Predestination: The belief that God has predestined certain individuals for salvation, irrespective of their actions.

2. LDS Perspective on Universal Salvation:

   • Atonement of Jesus Christ: Emphasizes the all-encompassing atonement, providing a path for universal salvation.
   • Agency and Eternal Progression: Humans possess agency to choose salvation, and through eternal progression, all eligible souls can attain exaltation.

3. Critique of Calvinist Responses:

   • Insufficient Address of Suffering: Dr. Dirkmaat argues that Calvinist explanations fail to adequately address the vast and innocent suffering in the world.
   • Logical Inconsistencies: The hosts highlight perceived contradictions within Calvinist theology, such as the selective interpretation of scripture and the rigid application of divine sovereignty.

Notable Quotes:

Dr. Dirkmaat (25:53):
"The question comes up a lot. If God is a God of love and mercy and compassion, and he knows people are going to go to hell, why does he continue to create them?"

Dr. Leduc (47:36):
"You're assigning God and are so easily dismissing everyone that has ever existed between 80% to 95% of the world's population that you aren't for one second pondering or thinking the person who's asking the question is struggling through this."

Dr. Dirkmaat (62:45):
"You have to follow that. Brigham Young goes on... 'The Lord has bestowed for the express purpose of preparing the portion of this people all that will receive the first principles pertaining to the law of the celestial kingdom.'"

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Brigham Young’s Universalist Teachings (63:05 – 86:34)

The discussion deepens as Dr. Dirkmaat contrasts Calvinist views with Brigham Young’s universalist doctrine. He highlights Young’s belief in universal salvation, where almost all souls, regardless of their earthly faith or actions, will attain a place in the celestial kingdom.

Highlights:

• Universal Redemption:
  Brigham Young preached that the atonement of Jesus Christ is so powerful that it can save everyone, except a minimal number of "sons of perdition."

• Contrast with Calvinism:
  While Calvinism predicates on predestination and limited atonement, LDS theology emphasizes inclusivity and the potential for all to be redeemed.

• Impact of LDS Teachings:
  The hosts argue that LDS teachings provide a more compassionate and just framework for understanding salvation, addressing the eternal suffering posited by Calvinist theology.

Notable Quote:
Dr. Dirkmaat (74:30):
"So in this sense, what he's teaching is the type of belief that you have is even in and of itself a work, because I have a belief. It has to be the right kind of belief."

Dr. Dirkmaat (86:34):
"Brigham Young goes on... 'All of the inhabitants of the earth will be saved in kingdoms somewhere. So, why you have to give the intellectual honesty and the courage of their convictions.'"

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Conclusion: Embracing LDS Doctrine Over Calvinist Theology (86:34 – End)

In wrapping up the episode, Dr. Dirkmaat and Dr. Leduc reaffirm the strength and inclusivity of LDS doctrines in contrast to Calvinist theology. They emphasize the LDS belief in a loving and just God who desires the salvation of all souls, offering a more hopeful and comprehensible understanding of divine justice and eternal progression.

Final Thoughts:

• Importance of Understanding LDS Teachings:
  The hosts encourage listeners to deeply engage with LDS scriptures and teachings to fully grasp the church’s perspective on salvation and divine love.

• Encouragement to Seek Truth:
  They urge listeners to continue seeking truth through original sources and to rely on faith and spiritual guidance to navigate theological doubts.

Notable Quote:
Dr. Dirkmaat (86:40):
"I know we've been very long and you stopped listening sometime around when we were talking about the picks for the March Madness. If you are struggling in your faith before you take a step outside of it, before you say, nope, this must not be true, look at the answers that the restored gospel provides that simply do not exist in Christianity."

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Key Takeaways

• Calvinism vs. LDS Theology:
  The episode critically examines Calvinist doctrines of predestination and limited atonement, juxtaposing them with LDS beliefs in universal salvation and eternal progression.

• LDS Emphasis on Universal Redemption:
  Highlighting Brigham Young’s teachings, the hosts advocate for a more inclusive and merciful view of salvation, countering the Calvinist assertion of inevitable damnation for the majority.

• Listener Impact:
  Through addressing listener emails, the hosts demonstrate the podcast’s role in strengthening faith and offering support to those grappling with theological doubts.

• Call to Deepen Understanding:
  Encouraging listeners to engage with original LDS teachings and scriptures, the hosts emphasize the importance of informed faith over superficial or misinterpreted beliefs.

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Final Quote for Reflection

Dr. Dirkmaat (63:05):
"I believe in the God that's been revealed through prophets and apostles. So I know we've been very long, but... We preach when we inquire who will be saved, the answer is all will be saved, as Jesus said."

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This episode serves as a profound exploration of theological contrasts, inviting listeners to critically assess Calvinist teachings and embrace the LDS perspective on divine justice and universal salvation.

Transcript

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the life and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the church with faith, expertise and humor. Hi. Welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkmont, and I am joined by my friend, Dr. Richard Leduc.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Hello, Garrett. Thanks for having me back. My bracket is shattered. I don't want to talk about it. And now he's saying that.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But you should know.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Lost our house.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We're recording this episode before the tournament actually opens, so. So he doesn't yet know how bad his picks are, but he's about to find out. It's coming and it's coming quick.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I. I don't know, but if 46 years are a pretty good track record, I. My. My bracket is shattered and I got everyone wrong and it's all garbage. So we've had to be here.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We had so many people sign up for the podcast that it was tons of fun. I mean, not for the podcast. No one would sign up for that. Sign up for the podcast bracket in March Madness that just. The names alone were hilarious. Like, like our buddy Clay, you know, the Scapular Stump Thrasher. Someone signed up with bad podcast, worst bracket. Now that that person gets to the heart of who we are. And then, Richard, I feel like a few weeks ago, in a bonus episode, you put out your favorite, but I know already that you would have had this, your favorite, had you seen it. And that is Pahoran's mother in law's subletted apartment.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, my gosh. That's so great. The archeology work that the Standard of podcast is doing is really next level. We found it when we were there several years ago. We're looking into doing more archaeological cruises to get to the bottom of where. Where the sons of Mosiah served their missions.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh, I was. I was more thinking that we would figure out exactly where the throne room was where, you know, Moni's dad fainted. And that's what I was thinking. That's in a future.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, we are. We are. We feel it is a future one. We do feel like we've got a pretty good bead on Abish's visiting teacher, and we feel like we've got a pretty good idea.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But at the time, it was visiting, teaching Back in the day, I'm pretty.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Confident I was a visiting teacher. Yes. We don't know the home teacher. We believe that we have the visiting teacher. We believe we're honed in on that and we're very excited about it. You should also using LIDAR to find it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Someone named their bracket the Leduc Dyslexia Foundation. Now, I feel like someone's coming at you hot there, you know.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, like, like I, like I said before, really coming after my intelligence with that one. But, but that's good. That's the, that's the Michael Scott when they do the roast episode.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Anyway, someone very, you know, very on point for what we're going to talk about today. Someone named theirs Calvinist Hell, which. And what is the second best? Yeah, it's the second best hell. Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, sorry. Yeah, so there's a little bit of a glitch there, but, yeah, my opinion is it's the second best of the worst hells. I believe Catholic Hell, they've had more time to kind of construct it. And I believe Catholic hell is the best of the worst hells, with Calvinist Hell coming in close number two with Mormon hell or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hell being the best of the hells in terms of. From a punishment standpoint, that's the one you want to go to.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. Well, I mean, hopefully all of our listeners are preparing one of the best names that we have in our group. Here is a deep cut to the premium content, the history portion, the American history portion of the history content. I'm how. You're Burgoyne. Now that. That person is a. Is a. We. We need to send officials to their house. That person needs to be checked. What a nerd. For their, their desperate listening of the podcast. They. They certainly, I mean, we. There are so many funny ones like that. I hope that I'm still, you know, that I still have my number one pick. At least there were a lot of references to Dr. Falasis Hurlbut in fact, one of them was Dr. Philastis Hurl Buckets, which I think Molasses robot played basketball. He would be called Philly Buckets. I. He would have to be just like Jimmy Buckets. He'd be philly buckets or doc buckets.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or. Or Dr. P. Possibly as well, you know, like Dr. J. I assume that's. That's. Those are. Those are pretty good. Well, Garrett, so now in this, we've got a little bit of a mailbag here, but I think this episode is going to be a lot of fun. The people cry out for angry Garrett, and I feel that we're going to be able to deliver that here and it should be a lot of fun. We're going to play some clips, some good old fashioned Calvinist clips, and then you'll respond to those in an angry fashion and it'll be a grand old time. So I'm very excited for this. This should be a fun episode. The first email from the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag comes to us from Sarah. I nearly fainted when I heard my email mentioned on your last bonus episode. Since I am now famous, we have to make changes with regard to who goes to the grocery shopping, school, pickup, et cetera. It'll be tough for me to go out in public now without being swarmed by the paparazzo and adoring fans. I've also miraculously gained credibility with my teenagers, which is arguably the most life changing aspect of this new fame. That was a bit of an upset. We don't find that this has ever helped.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, I have to pause right there and say, I mean, I, I, I don't know if, if knowing us makes your teenagers think that we're cool. Oh, that you're cool. Then, then clearly your teenagers must not be cool themselves. So that's the problem. I mean, it's a, we don't carry.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

A lot of shot at our kids. I don't know why that was.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We'll have them listen to this episode and tell them that we think you're cool, Sarah, and we think they're cool for at least pretending that they care about the podcast. It was very nice of them.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, that's, that's the thing. Yeah. I don't know that her kids are nerds as much as that. They're just patronizing and being very nice to her mom. And it's very, very nice. It's very kind. It's very, very kind. Or, or she's just straight up lying, in which case is very kind to us. Either way, someone in this equation is kind. And that person is not you, Garrett. But somebody is.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Somebody's very nice in that equation. Someone in the equation is also lying.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, there's no question that there's lying going on, but lying to spare feelings.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yes. Like what my wife does when I ask her if, if I, if she thinks that I've gained weight and she's like, no, no, you look, you look great. Seriously though, it was kind of, it was fun to know. You got my email. And when we sat down for our Standard of Truth sponsored Anti ChatGPT Family Home Evening lesson tonight. My kids got a kick out of hearing my email was mentioned too. Thanks again for the great content and for the mention. P.S. i'm from Boise, but I also appreciate the correct pronunciation wherever it is found. Yes, us Ada county and Canyon Countiers need to stick together, Sarah. So anyway, we enjoyed your email and the bonus and your follow up was also very funny.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

She probably looks down on you because you're not from Ada County. You're probably. She probably is like, oh, you're one of those people wishing.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, yeah, the Ada Countiers do look through their nose at the Canyon Countiers. There's no question. We from Nampa, Caldwell and unincorporated Canyon County.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, what do you think she thinks of people from Bingham county, for crying out loud?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

My guess is she doesn't. It's the scene, it's the scene from Mad Men when it's like, I feel sad, I feel sorry for you. I feel sad for they get on the elevator or whatever. I feel sad for you, I feel sorry for you. Something along those lines. And he's like, I don't think of you at all. I think that's what Ada county thinks of Bingham County. I've never once I didn't even know you were a county.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You failed that portion of the state county exam when you were in like fifth grade.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

What was that?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Eighth grade? I can't remember. Some grade. I had to memorize all the counties.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah. Yes I have. This next email comes to us from Mark. I have been a listener over the past few years and wanted to thank you both for helping me building my testimony. For several years I had started to listen to and study topics from anti Mormon sources and it nearly destroyed my testimony and relationship with the church. I closed myself off from the Spirit and just started going through the motions of attending church, but my heart was not in it. I was attending church to keep the peace with my wife and very few knew about my doubts and disdain. I was starting to develop about the church, church history and the current leadership. My dad referred me to your podcast and at first I did not listen but later decided to try it out. After several episodes I became more interested since I love history and studying the original sources. Your podcast does a good job of going over the sources and explaining situations in their appropriate historical context. Something that the anti Mormon sources do not do well. No they do not. Little by little I have been able to build up my testimony again and have been going back to the temple and am more committed than I have been in years. Thank you for the content you provided or provide and the dedication to proclaiming the truth. And his son is currently serving a mission in Ghana and gave us his missionary email, so we gave him access to the Google Drive. So, Mark, that's a wonderful. That's a wonderful email.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. Mark, first of all, thank you so much for fighting back out, you know, for treasuring your faith enough to continue to work against it. Look, the scourge of antagonistic anti Mormon material is. Is. It is a. A tough thing. And it can. It can put someone into a tailspin. And I am very grateful. It's part of the whole reason why Richard and I created this podcast. And when we created it, I was pretty sure that, A, no one was ever going to listen, which I was right about that. B, that. That even if anyone did listen, they wouldn't be impressed, which I'm probably also right about that. And we thought maybe at least one person might get helped by it. And, you know, when you go around, you give firesides or you speak for the, you know, at church functions, for presenting the history of the church, defending the prophet Joseph Smith, you never know whether or not you're really having an impact. And you have to say to yourself, because, look, a lot of the time you fail. You know, I meet with people all the time who, you know, say that they have questions about church history, but what they really have is a decision that they've already made that they're leaving the church, and they want to validate how right they were in their decision. And so those are tough times. You know, I meet with people and I desperately want people to believe, and I desperately want other people to believe, because the gospel and its truths are what bring me happiness. And so I always, you know, Richard and I, we always joke about, or at least, you know, semi joke about the fact that it's. We're just trying to throw starfish back. You know, we know that we can't help everybody. We know that not everybody will want to listen. We know that we're not everyone's cup of tea. We know all of that. But the podcast is an effort to try to help provide some answers and hopefully to allow the Holy Spirit to touch the hearts of everyone. And I just have to say, you know, kudos to you for being so willing to allow the Holy Spirit to touch your heart, and I am grateful for it. And thank you for sending your son on a mission. I am so grateful for your email, and I'm Grateful for your faith. Thank you.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, I mean, that's even an understated part of that. As he's going through his faith struggles, he's supporting his son on a mission. That's. That speaks a lot to. To his character. Yeah, for sure. This last one comes to us from Sandy. I'm a widow of eight years and find that studying alone is somewhat of a challenge. I read the Book of Mormon perpetually, but my desire as we approach the study of the Doctrine and Covenants this year was to more fully apply myself, to dig deeper and find what exactly Heavenly Father wants me to learn and how this course of study can help me come even closer to my Savior Jesus Christ. In that endeavor, I started looking for additional information to give me added insight into circumstances of these marvelous revelations. Although I love history, I feel like I am in my infancy of knowledge of most other scripture besides the Book of Mormon. I am not here to downgrade any other podcasts. You should though. I mean, Sandy, you really should go for it. You know, they're all deep trash them. Yeah, they're way better. And any other podcasts or teams that lead them. I am simply stating what has become true to me. Although I find great and interesting information with other podcasts, when I listen to the Standard of Truth podcast, I feel the spirit every time. That draws me back for more and more. Please don't change a thing. Don't listen to naysayers. Your humor, banter and light hearted teasing helps our young people and old see that the Gospel is fun, happy, interesting, deeply inspiring and beautiful. I laugh right out loud with you as I commute to work. I work in booking at a jail. I see the worst of humanity. In fact, you cannot imagine what I see. I. What I see, hear and smell in my 12 hour shifts. Well, yeah, I wasn't expecting the smell there, Sandy. And I can only imagine your podcast laced with your humor is what I listen to on my commute home. It pulls me back to gratitude and thankfulness for the atonement of Jesus Christ. Today on my way home, I was listening to season four, episode 40, the essential answers to the Most Important Questions and I was bawling. My father is a convert. He was raised in Belgium as a Roman Catholic. Most of his family in the old country are still Catholic. And I see their beautiful faces as I listen to you speak the truth on this podcast. I called my dad and sent him the link to that show. I know he was led to leave Belgium after the war and join the church in Alberta. And when my Older sister and I were tiny. We were sealed to dad and Mother in the Alberta temple in 1961. Anyway, I know dad will concur with your beautiful testimonies. There have been miracles and great struggles for my dad and his family to come to know the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news, the plan of happiness for heaven, for Heavenly Father's children. Not some, but all. Keep fighting the good fight. Please keep blessing us with your podcast, which brings the spirit to whoever will listen. Never give up. Please don't stop on Doctrine Covenants 16. Ha ha. You know, so, Sandy, that was a very kind and wonderful email. And one of the things, actually. So that episode. So the most popular episode that we've ever done is the martyrdom episodes that Garrett does so well.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

He describes the context and the situation and bears testimony powerfully, and that's the most listened to by a lot. But one of the most popular that we've had recently was that one where we would play. I played clips that Garrett hadn't heard before, and then Garrett would respond to those. And your circumstance with your father's side of the family that is Roman Catholic, back in the old country in Belgium. Part of the reason that I get so. Just so upset, right? I shouldn't. I should be more Christlike in my response, but part of the reason I get so angry by the cavalier nature and the smugness of the salvation of certain Christian sects is that half of my family is Jewish, and I love them with all my heart. And I love the idea of a loving and merciful God that has a plan for all of his children. The other half are Latter Day Saints. And so I guess all of us are going to hell together in that same way. So I don't know why I'm getting so worked up about the Jewish side. I mean, we're all burning, but. Yeah, right. So I guess we're all burning, so it's fine. I guess I'll see my Aunt Priscilla pretty soon. Anyway, so in this episode, what we want to do is we want to play clips. Garrett, do you want to kind of set up a little bit about who the person is that we'll be playing the clips for?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So there are some Instagram Facebook clips that make the rounds. And probably one of the greatest Calvinist theologians in America today is a guy by the name of Pastor John MacArthur. And he is a brilliant guy. I mean, I don't know him. I've listened to dozens of sermons that he's given and these little short reels and clips for making the rounds. And I've had a couple people send them to me. And I just feel like, first of all, Richard likes it when we do these things because he likes it when I'm mad. And so I'm going to try really, really, really hard to be mellow. Just, you know, I'm going to be, you know, I'm going to be, you know, singing, you know, three birds on my doorstep, just as, as softly as I can possibly be calmly as we go through it. But he's responding in question and answer sessions as people ask some of those questions that, you know, that Sandy actually was just talking about in her email that we talked about in that episode. And part of the reason why I want to spend a little bit of time on it is I am convinced that the vast majority of Latter Day Saints who see something wrong with our theology, who struggle with something that the church takes a stance on socially or politically, that's against what they want, who don't understand everything there is to know about Latter Day Saint history, who hear something and it bothers them and they really want an answer. I am convinced that the vast majority of those people do not actually know what most other Christians believe. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Now, I don't want to bad talk Latter Day Saints. I mean, frankly, if we're talking about illiteracy of other religions, you don't have to be a Latter Day Saint for very long to realize literally no one knows anything about what you actually believe. Because every time you ever talk to somebody like, oh, you guys are the ones who believe that, right? No, we don't believe that at all. No, no, you do. You do. I talked to a friend of mine. He said that you do. No, we don't, actually. No, no, you said that. I know you do. I mean, there's a, there's no greater expert on your religion than some dude that you met on an airplane somehow just out of the woodworks, the greatest expert on what you believe. So, but, you know, surveys, you know, the Pew study on religions have demonstrated that in fact, Latter Day Saints have not only the highest biblical literacy among Christian groups, but they also have the highest literacy of other religions in Christian religious groups. So I don't want to bad talk Latter Day Saints and say, well, they're just not studying anything, you know, gol darn it. But I do think that we sometimes think that what we believe is so similar to other Christians that if I just have a problem with Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, you know, all that really matters is Jesus. So I'm just going to step away from the church and I'm just going to believe in Jesus. And that's all that really matters. That's it. And that person, however well intentioned, doesn't realize what it is that Christian theologians actually teach and believe about that Jesus. We use a lot of the same words and I have made fun of this before, right? I mean, you know, our Protestant brothers and sisters use the terms hell and, and they use the terms damn and they use a lot of the same words that we use, but we just don't mean the same things by them. And in a lot of ways that's really front and center. So I really believe that it would be very helpful for people who are doubting their faith if someone listening right now is like, I don't know, I mean, I just, I can't figure out why X happened in the past or I just don't understand Y, or I don't know why, you know, the prophet says this or that. I invite you to take a step back to recognize what it is that the rest of the world, the rest of the Christian world believes, to realize that you have truths that we sometimes don't appreciate how great they are. So Richard's going to play this first clip and if things go according to his plan, I'm going to get angry. And if they go according to my plan, I'm going to come back on sounding like I just woke up from a nap.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Challenge accepted. Here we go.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Ask if God is a loving God and there are people in the world who don't have access to the gospel and never will, why would God continue to allow these people to be created?

[C]

Sure, for his glory. The question comes up a lot. If God is a God of love and mercy and compassion, and he knows people are going to go to hell, why does he continue to create them? Right? That is what's called the. Basically, that's the ultimate problem. That's the ultimate agnostic, atheist problem. We say God is all powerful and all loving. If he's all powerful, why doesn't he save everybody? And if he's all loving, why would he send anyone to hell? The answer to that is simply this. God is who he is and you can't invent him and you can't change him and you can't alter Him. You can either believe in him or not believe in Him. You can't accommodate him to your own thinking. And that means if you don't understand his perfect righteousness and perfect Holiness, the problems with you and not Him. I don't expect to fully understand God because I have a jaded viewpoint. Because of my own fallenness and my own sinfulness, I don't expect to have a full comprehension of an absolutely holy being. God doesn't ask me to be able to reason everything about him in my pygmy mind. But God does ask me to believe in Him. And when he says he is holy and when he says he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, that that is a true expression of God, I don't know how that works together with his sovereign purpose and his sovereign ends. That is the ultimate question. But as I always say, when we have a Q and A in every major doctrine that comes from God and touches us, there's going to be an apparent paradox. For example, if I say, who wrote Romans? You're going to say, Paul wrote Romans. Or somebody might say, well, actually it was the Holy Spirit. Was it all Paul?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yes.

[C]

Was it all the Holy Spirit?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yes.

[C]

Was it 100% Paul? Yes. Was it 100% the Holy Spirit? Yes. That's impossible. It can't be 200% of something. If I ask you, who lives your Christian life? If you say, I do, you're taking too much credit. If you say God does, you're not taking enough responsibility. I wouldn't blame it on God and I wouldn't take credit for it. You have the same dilemma in everything. If you ask, is Jesus God or is he man? The answer is yes. Fully God, fully man, or truly God? Truly man? You have that apparent paradox because you have the infinite God and His infinite perfections coming down to such a small, small mind, putting the Eternal One in a tiny little package. God finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked. God weeps through the eyes of Jeremiah over the death of the wicked. God's heart is broken. Jesus stood over the city of Jerusalem and wept. The prophets say, why will you die? Why will you die? Jesus says the same thing. Why will you not believe in me? Why do you reject me? So you don't want to turn God into some imaginary fatalistic being. You want to take the full revelation of his nature from the word of God. He is the God revealed in Scripture.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh, boy. You started with boy. If there is something that. That. If that gets me worked up, it is. I mean, so I'd like to point out, first of all that the person asking the question is so certain of what a problematic point this is, that they actually. They turned the question into a passive statement. I don't know if you noticed that. Yeah, that he, he said, why does God allow spirits to be created that are going to go to hell? But, you know, Dr. MacArthur, of course, is. He doesn't let that slide. No, no. God creates. This is not like a factory that God, like, you know what, there's too much of the candy coming out of the conveyor belt, and I'm going to start eating it, you know, like, like the classic clip. And so the guy's trying to soften it. You know, why does God allow people to be created? And I think this is because the person asking the question sees people burning in hell as a negative. Right? And so they start asking the question the same way they ask the broader question, a question that's much more commonly asked. And in fact, even among Christian theologians, the question that's much more commonly asked is, why do bad things happen? Why does evil exist? And so he actually asked that question the same way that he would ask a question about why does evil exist? Why does God allow evil? But the problem with why does God allow evil? Is that most Christian theologians will very handily sweep away the idea that evil exists and God allowing it because of our fallen natures. And we have agency. This is even what Latter Day Saints will say. Latter Day Saints will say, well, in a world where people have agency, then they have the freedom to do horrible things to one another. And so you can't say that someone has freedom and at the same time that there's only going to be good things that happen, at least not in a fallen mortal world. And so we kind of get around the problem of evil, at least temporarily. We try to get around it just by saying agency, agency, agency. And, and that works for some things, but it actually doesn't work on the biggest thing. You know, there was a, a Christian pastor and, and historian of the New Testament, Bart Ehrman, who in his early career was quite the Bible believer. And even though he was studying, you know, early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament and things like that, and ultimately he decided that he was agnostic and he stepped away from Christianity. And of course, all of his friends said, well, it's because you got all that there book learning, and once you started reading them Greek manuscripts, of course you lost your testimony. So that was, that was, that's what people said to him. What he said was, I already knew about all the variances in the Greek manuscripts in the New Testament. He's the one who's, who's famous for saying that there are more among all the existing Greek manuscripts we have, you know, quote unquote, original manuscripts of the New Testament. There are more variations in between those manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament. So when someone's like, no, I read it from the original. No, you didn't, because there is no original. What you mean is I read it from a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, and then say copy about 100 more times and then that copy doesn't actually agree with the next latest copy that was discovered. I mean, so. But he said that wasn't the reason why he lost his faith. He lost his faith because there was just so much injustice in the world. It was just overwhelming. Children starving, people dying of disease, abject poverty. And, you know, you think about your own lives here in the United States, we all have some pretty rough things, whether it's family difficulties, jobs, worry about how am I going to pay the rent, you know, how am I going to pay to fix the car? I didn't get into the school I wanted, My girlfriend dumped me. You know, why am I on a mission? In any other mission but the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That is the biggest faith crisis that exists right now. Why, why is there any other mission?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But there's all kinds of reasons why. We all feel suffering, too. And yet, for those of us in the Western world, in Canada and the United States, I mean, probably all of us are in the top 1% of wealth in the world. It doesn't take a whole lot. It's like 32 grand a year to be in the top 1% of wealth in the entire world. You know, and so it's. Those are the problems we all have in first world nations. And they are real and they are difficult, and I am not discounting them. But look at just how much suffering there is in the world. Millions of people will die this year for the lack of proper medical treatment. Millions, millions will die for the lack of access to clean water, to food that is healthy. It's a stunning thing. And as he traced his arguments for why he lost his faith, he focused a great deal on that, on the fact that there is just so much suffering that he eventually came to the conclusion, look, God obviously isn't who, you know what, he's not an atheist. He says he's an agnostic. God obviously isn't who we say he is, or it wouldn't be as terrible as it is either. He doesn't have the power to fix these Things, in which case he's not the omnipotent God that we always said that he was. Or he can fix them, and he just doesn't. And it's pretty hard to understand why he doesn't. Now, of course, part of the problem is both Dr. MacArthur and Dr. Airman are coming from faith traditions in which central to those things is the belief in ex nihilo creation. Meaning, in the beginning, there was nothing but God. There was just God. And God, for his own will and pleasure, for his own glory, created everything out of nothing. Which leads to the dilemma. God knows everything. God controls everything. God could have created a world in which there wasn't horrific suffering and death, and God did not. And so Christians struggle with this. They struggle with it because no matter what you say, even if you say, no, no, all suffering comes from agency. First of all, all suffering doesn't. When a baby is born with an inoperable brain tumor, what's the agency there, right? The reality is agency is a way to blame a lot of things in this world, but it actually does not cover some of the most inexplicable, innocent suffering that exists. And the part of his book that I felt was so lacking was he almost, in passing reference the fact that even after all the suffering in this world, you know, many people are going to burn in hell for eternity. And I felt like in his book, Bart, you buried the lead. Because however much suffering we go through in this world, and some of us are going to suffer in ways that are. That are indescribable, it is nothing compared to what Christians believe suffering in hell is. It's not even close. It's not even close. And it's not for 20 years or 40 years or 80 years. It's forever. There is not even a way to quantify it. Trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years. That soul is going to writhe in agony forever. And I thought, boy, if we're. If we're trying to ask questions about why things don't make sense, why don't we start with the one that is the longest lasting, right? It's kind of like, you know, you come home and your house is on fire and the kids haven't taken the trash out. Now, you can be mad at both things, right? As a dad, you're, you know, you round the kids up and you're like, kids, I specifically told you when I left to take the trash out, and you didn't take it out. And now the garbage man's already come as your house is burning down to embers behind you. Like. Yeah, it's a pretty rough thing. And by the way, I have, I shouldn't even share this because people already have such a low opinion of me that I feel like that I'll be coursing ever, ever lower if that's the case. But I have an unnatural terror of not getting the trash out to the curb. Oh, what's wrong with me?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, I think that that's a pretty, I mean that's a pretty common thing. That's, that's why in Taiwan, by the way, Taiwan does it right? With their, with their trash pickup. Where in the United States ice cream trucks play music so that you know that they're, you know, I can go get ice cream. In Taiwan, the garbage trucks play music like their ice cream trucks do. Give you a notice and a heads up to go bring your trash out. How beautiful is that by the way?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So when you had Taiwanese exchange students.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yes.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

If an ice cream truck were to drive by and you ran outside with money, they would think you're going to go eat trash.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

They'd be very confused. Yes. My wife loves to sign up to have. I'll come home from work and there'll be four Taiwanese exchange students there and I'll be like, well, wonderful.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

How's it going?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

How's it going?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

No, like I, I have an unnatural fear. Like now only like three times in my entire marriage have we not gotten the trash out on time.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's pretty good.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And twice it was because the guy came like at 4am you know what I mean? Because, because here's my other problem. I live in Spanish Fork. There's a reason why there's windmills that have been placed at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon and it's not because they don't move. Every single morning in Spanish Fork is ridiculously windy. Every morning. You wake up every morning and it's. When it's, it's this canyon wind coming down. Now the, the, the bright side of that is we have no mosquitoes where I live now. I know that lower Spanish Fork, the Spanish Fork down by the river, they, they got all kinds of mosquitoes. They got, it's like every mosquito that used to live here lives there. But up here near the mouth of the canyon, you almost never see a mosquito because every day they are destroyed by the winds that course through. So if you put your trash out the night before, 11 times out of 10 it is going to be knocked over by the wind and the trash is going to go flying everywhere. And so I can't put the trash out early because that's what people say. Oh, you just got pour out night before. Just got put out night before. Well, no, because then it will be in everyone's yard. Now that doesn't mean that everyone waits until the morning to put it out because I have a lot of other people's trash. The best part about the Amazon revolution is I'm well aware of whose trash is in my yard every trash morning, because it says right there on the box, oh, looks like the so and so's put their trash out a little early because here it is in my flower bed because it's super windy and everybody knows if you put it out, it's going to get blown over.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, that's very nice. So it's like. Oh, the Thompsons are expecting.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, it's exactly what it's like. Like, I didn't know that the Jeffersons were as big of fans of, you know, Popeye's Chicken as I now know. You know, I mean, it's, it's. There's a lot of things that you get there. You know, it's. There's some cool, some cool things you can learn. Anyway, the whole point is focusing on the suffering of this life only when Christian theology teaches that the next life is forever. Now, you can't, you can't fathom forever. I was listening to someone the other day trying to explain forever. Let's say you walked all the way around the world and every time you got all the way back around to, to the Rock of Gibraltar there in Spain, you took a teaspoon and you took one teaspoon out of the ocean and dumped it out and then walked around the world again after you did that, until there was no water left in the ocean, it wouldn't even be one second of your eternal suffering in hell, right? So once you've emptied the ocean with teaspoons, you haven't even begun to start suffering. That's a very vivid imagination.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It is. It almost seems like the description is equal to the punishment having the empty.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Real hell is walking around the world with your teaspoon.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Could a guy not get a tablespoon? Could I get a cup? My God.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know that they've seen a bucket, you know, I mean, where's the bucket? But the point is, those things are almost things we can't even fathom. I mean, it would literally take billions of years. And the point that they're trying to make is billions of years doesn't even put a point to how long you're going to suffer. And so for me, the world suffering is a big deal. But this guy asking the question, and I guess, you know, the dander goes up a little bit by the triteness of the response. And I know that Dr. MacArthur is not attempting to be tried.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But it is pretty trite when that person says, which is, you know what? God is all powerful. He does not have to create people because again, they don't exist. There is no premortal life. In all of other Christianity, only Latter Day Saints believe in premortal existence. So God doesn't have to create these spirits out of nothing, and he certainly doesn't have to make them immortal in their nature. So why is he still doing it? And the response? For his glory. Okay, well that's, that's a nice catch. All there. And then he goes on to say, look, who are you to question God? You don't know anything about God. God is who God says he is. And I think my, my strongest rebuttal of that is actually, you've decided who God is.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That was the thing that was the most. That was the thing that was the most aggravating for me. You're the one that is reading these now. You are so certain the way you're reading them is the most, is the only correct way to interpret it. But you are assigning God and are so easily dismissing everyone that has ever existed between 95, between 80% to 95% of the world's population that you aren't for one second pondering or thinking the person who's asking the question is struggling through this. But you are so confident and certain in your particular version of who God is as to send everyone to the fires of hell.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, and it's not because, like, no, no, you have to go by what the word says. Well, there are lots of passages in the Word that, that suggest you might not be right about this. I mean, you could, you could jump to Romans 11:32, right? And look, Calvinist Christians love Romans. They, they talk about Romans all day long. You know, they, they, they, they like Paul are citizens of Rome. Romans has some of their favorite passages in it. And, and yet why does one passage hold sway over another? If you go to Romans 11, verse 32, For God hath concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon them all. All right, well, wait a minute. So, so if God can have mercy upon them all, doesn't that suggest that everyone could be saved? Or, you know, I don't even have to dig into Romans, go to John 1, right. Or actually go to. Go to. Go to John 3:16. And that's one of the most well known scriptures that exists. You know, you see it at every football game that for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Whosoever believeth in him. Now I'll tell you exactly how a Calvinist will dismiss this. They will say, yes, but God is the one who decides whether or not someone is a believer by giving them the gift of faith. And so the way you should read that is whosoever, meaning anyone who ends up believing is going to have everlasting life. But it doesn't mean everybody. But God so loved the world. Right, so God so loved the world that he had his son die for almost nobody. It seems like you're missing the first part. In fact, I've always thought it's odd that when people read John 3:16, they don't read the context of it. Verse 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. When Moses raised the staff for the flying serpents, what was the deciding factor in whether or not someone was saved? Whether or not they looked up. Right, but everyone could have looked up.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

They were all there.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

At least they all had the ability to look up. So even the analogy that the Lord is using does not sound like he's saying, yeah, there's only be like six people that are saved. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. So if you're a Calvinist theologian, you have to read that verse as saying, well, he doesn't mean like the whole world, he just means like, like six people and my brother that are going to be saved. He, he doesn't mean everybody. And, and, and this, this theology, I, I mean it makes sense. Look, Calvinist theology, as I've often said, it makes sense mathematically because if God is all powerful, then God obviously can create a plan where everyone is saved, since God created everyone out of nothing and created the world out of Nothing. And what Dr. MacArthur is saying here is the very fact that God doesn't save everyone demonstrates God's will. God doesn't want to save everyone, or he would. And who are you to question God? And then he kind of got into the Kind of razzle dazzle of, you know, contradiction saying, you know, it's just like, how could Jesus be fully man and fully God? I actually don't think it's anything like that. Me not fully understanding the nature of Christ is not the same thing as dealing with a very stark reality in Dr. MacArthur's world. God created this world out of nothing, knowing that almost no one would be saved knowing it. In fact, as far as Calvinist theologians are concerned, willing it, you can't hide behind Arminianism and the, well, you know, we, if Adam and Eve just didn't like fruit so much, you know, oh gosh darn them. I guess because of that so many of us are all going to burn in hell because God is the one who put the tree there. God knew when he put it there that it would be the condemnation to the entire human family. And I have to say that the part of early, a part of Christian theology that makes no sense whatsoever is why, why would God give Adam and Eve a commandment not to eat the fruit? Why would he put the fruit there in the first place if God knew already that they were going to eat? And God all God also got to decide, by the way, what the, what the grounds of punishment for eating that fruit was. God didn't have to make it the condemnation of the entire human family. He could have just said, sorry, Adam and Eve, you're out of the pool, it's over. You know, I saw you trying to chicken fight, now blew the whistle twice, you are out. He could have done that. Instead God decided before he ever even created the world that nope, Adam and Eve are going to like them some fruit and billions upon billions upon billions of people are going to burn in hell because of it. And when you say to yourself, well, that just doesn't seem right. I mean, it doesn't seem just that God would create people out of nothing, knowing that they would burn in hell, knowing that they would never even hear the word Jesus in their life. The response from people like Dr. MacArthur is who are you to question the goodness of God? And so Calvinism, like I said, is like math. Is everyone going to be saved? No. Is God all powerful? Yes. Does that mean everything that happens is God's will because God can either prevent it or cause it? Yes. So it must be God's will that not everyone is saved. The problem is that they are missing aspects of our heavenly Father and Jesus through the apostasy. They don't have Moses, you know, 139, that this is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. A Calvinist theologian will tell you people have to be condemned to hell in order for God's glory to be supreme. Now they won't explain why, because if God is truly omnipotent, then no, he doesn't have to condemn people to hell to bring him glory. He doesn't have to demonstrate his justice by having everyone roast in hell for billions of years forever. He doesn't. Because if God's truly omnipotent, God can just snap his fingers and you understand God's justice. So even that cop out to me is such a cop out. Oh, we can't invent God in our own image. I submit to you, you are inventing God because you've blocked off the possibility that maybe those scriptures that seem contradictory are contradictory for a reason. Maybe there is more light and truth to be had out there. Maybe you don't have to believe in a God who created everyone out of nothing just so they could suffer horribly in this temporal life and then eternally in the next life. Maybe instead of God's glory being condemning people to hell, God's glory is that he brings to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. I know we shouldn't have spent as much time on that one, but we.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Did well so there. We had six clips and we're out of time.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

No, well, we can do one more. We can do one more.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Okay, all right, all right, we'll try one more.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

One more.

[C]

To the billions of non Christian denomination I'm talking about the Jewish, the, the Buddhists, the profuses, Mormons and so forth that truly believe in their faith, that lived a very good life according to their faith. My question is, is their salvation a heaven for them or are they all condemned to hell? Yeah, that's a very good question. What's your name?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Charlie.

[C]

Hi Charlie. That's a very good question, Charlie. The answer to that from the word of God is they will all perish in hell because there is only one way to go to heaven. There is no salvation in any other name than the name of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, you will die in your sins to the Jewish leaders because you believe not on me. Because you believe not on me. John 3:16 so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes on him shall not perish. There is only one heaven and there is only one way into heaven and that is through faith in Christ. It is the only hope. That is why we are told to go to the Ends of the earth preach the gospel to every creature. So all who perish without the knowledge of Christ die in their sins and go everlastingly to hell. Now, the degree of punishment in hell will vary. But what makes it vary is not the goodness of the person. Because no person is good before God. No person, only God, is good. Jesus said that no person is good. No person is good enough to earn heaven. The only difference in hell will be that the people who heard about Jesus Christ and rejected him will have a greater punishment than the people who didn't hear about him. They will all be punished. But those who knew about Christ and didn't receive Christ will have the greater punishment. That's Hebrews. How much sorer or greater will be the punishment on those who trampled underfoot. The blood of the covenant accounted the work of Christ as it were. An unholy thing rejected Christ. Now, the other thing to say is this, that even if you believe in Christ, even if you believe in Christ as God and Christ dying on the cross, and Christ being raised from the dead, and Christ being Lord, and all of those things that may not be enough to get you into heaven either. Because in Matthew 7 it says, Many will say to me, lord, Lord, we did this in your name and that in your name. And he'll say, depart from me. I never knew you. So you can know about Christ, and you can know that he lived a holy life and born of a virgin, and that he died on the cross and he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven and reigns and is returning and now go to heaven. But here's the key. You must trust Christ for your salvation alone and reject any works of your own as having any contribution to your salvation. Doesn't matter how many times you went to church. Doesn't matter how many humanly good deeds you did. Doesn't matter how many times you took the Mass, for example, in a Catholic situation. Doesn't matter how many times you went to confession. It doesn't matter how bad you felt about the sins that you did. It doesn't matter how many rosaries you said. It doesn't matter Any. Any of those things. None of those things individually and all of those things collectively cannot save a person. A person will be saved by faith in Christ alone, recognizing that in my flesh dwells no good thing. By the deeds of the law will no flesh be justified. You can't earn your way in by being good. You can only receive salvation when you know you're not good enough and you cry out to be forgiven of your sin by the sheer grace of God, based upon the death and the provision of Christ on the cross. Okay.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

All right. So now I told Richard I was going to be very brief on this, and then I listened to it. And so I apologize that we are now in the fourth hour of this single episode as I could.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We only got through one and a half clips. Even that one we had to clip a little short.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, boy. I mean, again, the question is, what about these people? And he specifically mentions Mormons. Right? And of course, the unequivocal is that they're all going to hell. This is kind of related to our first question. All of these people who think that they're believing the right way, well, they don't. They're all going to hell. And he makes a particular mention of the fact that, well, it doesn't matter if you say you believe in Jesus. If you don't believe in Jesus the way I think you should believe in Jesus, you go to hell. Now, of course he thinks the way you think you believe in Jesus is the Protestant reformed theology way. But, you know, there are a billion Catholics who think that they're thinking about Jesus the way that the Bible says they're supposed to think about Jesus. And there's a billion Catholics who think that when Jesus said that you have to be baptized, that he actually meant it. And to Dr. MacArthur, no, he couldn't have actually meant it because you can't do anything. Salvation can only be by faith. You can see in a microcosm here what sparks the conflict of the Protestant Reformation, where. Where Protestants aren't just saying, hey, you guys are wrong about that whole transubstantiation thing where you think the body and the blood of Christ literally becomes part of the host during the Lord's Supper. No, they're saying, many of them, you're actually not even saved because you can say you believe in Jesus, but if you believe in a Jesus that says that you have to be baptized, well, then you believe in the wrong Jesus, and therefore you don't have a true faith, and so therefore you're not saved. And the funny part about this extension of who's all going to burn in hell, which is, of course, anyone who's not a Christian. But, you know, he's extending this out to even other Christians, right? How do you know that that other person is not saved? Well, you know it because they don't believe the right things about Jesus. So. So in. In this sense, what he's teaching is the type of belief that you have is even in and of itself a work, because I have a belief. It has to be the right kind of belief. Now, he, of course, would say, well, if you were truly saved by the real Jesus, the real Jesus would put the right kind of belief into your mind, because God is sovereign. God is giving you that faith. And so if you don't have the faith in the right kind of Jesus, and what I mean by that is my Jesus, then you clearly aren't actually saved because you don't have real faith. But you should. And you'll hear Christian theologians say things like this, that you should be able to determine whether or not anyone is going to heaven or hell immediately when they die simply by asking this question. Did Bill, maybe Bill the adulterer, we don't know. Did Bill have faith in Jesus when he died? If the answer is yes, then he's going to go to heaven. If the answer is no, then he's going to go to hell. And it actually doesn't matter why he doesn't believe or why he does believe. But this is taking it a step further. You can say that you have faith in Jesus, but if you don't believe the right things about him, then you actually don't have faith in the right Jesus, even if you're saying his name. And therefore you also are going to go to hell. Now, I don't need to explain to our listeners how categorically opposite that is from what we believe. I had a listener recently write in and say, oh, I just really struggle with Brigham Young. I struggle with what he taught and what he said and what he did. And my first thought is, I think that's because you've been reading about Brigham Young, but you haven't read Brigham Young. You, you. Oh, yeah, you've read, you've read a couple sound bites and a couple clips that someone told you what they were and where to find them and what you should think about them. But you haven't read him. You haven't sat down and read his journals. You haven't sat down and read his sermons, you've read only a few minuscule parts of what someone told you to read. And to contrast that, what we just heard, that not only are all of those other people going to hell, and they're certainly going to hell, even if they haven't heard the gospel, it doesn't matter. They're all going to hell, and Mormons are going to hell and at least implies that Catholics are also going to hell. Basically, everyone's going to hell. That's not What God taught in the Restoration, Brigham Young taught in a sermon. I can say that it is a source of much comfort and consolation and gratification to behold the goodness and the long suffering, the kindness and the parental feeling that our Father and our God has in preparing a way and providing a means to save the children of men. Not you and I alone, not the Latter Day Saints alone, not those who've had the privilege of the first principles of the Gospel alone, but to save all. A universal salvation, a universal redemption. Now, I don't want any of you to conclude that I've become a universalist as you understand it. You know, the Universalist Church was a big deal in the 19th century. I mean, I'm sure people were canceling their subscriptions to Brigham Young's newsletter, right and left as he said this. But. But this is a pretty powerful sermon in the sense that, remember, it's downplayed a great deal in Christianity today just how many people burn in hell because they realize that's not exactly a. A way to put people in seats. And one thing you have to give to Calvinist theologians is they don't care. Well, I don't really want to hear that. And welcome to not. I don't care. I don't care what you want to hear. This is what the Bible says. And if it says that everyone's going to burn in hell, everyone's going to burn in hell, and you got to be okay with it. So you have to give them that intellectual honesty and the courage of their convictions. But in the 19th century, essentially every convert to the church would have come out of a faith tradition where they were taught that everyone's going to hell and that even most Christians are going to hell. Now, some would be Methodist, so some would come from that Arminian tradition that God desperately wanted to save everybody, but still the same number of people are going to hell. Most of the world has not ever been Christian. Most of the world was not and is not Christian. Ergo, most of the world is going to writhe in the agonies of hell forever. And God created them out of nothing. Knowing that, by the way. So you contrast that to what Brigham Young is saying. The doctrine, universalist doctrine is true in part, like the doctrines of all the Christian world, they have truth. As it was said here yesterday, someone who spoke and said that when he was a Methodist, he enjoyed the spirit of the Lord. There is no doubt of it. There are hundreds before me, and probably all to a greater or lesser degree before they heard the gospel of salvation. That we preach when we inquire who will be saved, the answer is all will be saved, as Jesus said, speaking to his twelve apostles, except the Son of perdition. If you inquire, how, where will they be saved? How in shall they be saved? In a very few words I can tell you they will be saved through the atonement of Jesus Christ and according to their good works, according to the law that is given to them. Will they. Will the heathen nations be saved? The heathens are people who do not believe. The definition of heathen is someone who doesn't believe in Jesus. Will the heathens be saved? Yes. Those that have died without the law, will they be saved? Those who've never heard the name of the Savior, will they be saved? Yes. Latter Day Saints who will readily be accused by fellow Christians of not fully accepting the atonement of Jesus Christ, of not fully embracing the work of Jesus and putting our faith in him for salvation. It is Latter Day Saints who are saying the atonement is so great and so glorious that it's you who diminish it. I'm not using the razzle dazzle of trying to, to parse out words to explain how Jesus isn't actually going to save people. We believe in an atonement that is so powerful that Christ's suffering is so great that what he lays on the altar is so incredible that everyone will eventually be saved from hellfire. Everyone outside of the sons of perdition who choose to, to keep suffering, they choose Satan forever. They go away knowing that everlasting punishment. But as President Oaks said, those are exceptions too few to mention. Almost no one even has the ability to become a son of predition. And those people who do are people who know Jesus perfectly. And knowing him perfectly, having the heavens opened would, if they could, crucify him again. Now, it's hard to believe anyone could be that person. They essentially say, I wish I had never chosen my first estate. I wish I'd never chosen to follow Jesus in the premortal life, knowing him perfectly. So. So yeah, of course there's, there's that, but it's, I'm going to take President Oaks at his word when he says those are exceptions too few to mention. So we'll, we'll follow that. Brigham Young goes on. The Lord has bestowed for the express purpose of preparing the portion of this people all that will receive the first principles pertaining to the law of the celestial kingdom. And if you and I preserve it inviolate within ourselves, and we live according to it, we will be Prepared to enjoy the blessings of the celestial kingdom. Will any more? Yes, thousands, millions of the inhabitants of the earth that would receive and abide the law that we preach if they had the privilege of being saved. When the Lord shall bring against Zion and the watchman see eye to eye in Zion and established the Savior will come upon Zion and he will save all the sons and daughters of Adam that are capable of being saved. Is this not a pleasing thing? Is this not glorifying? Is this not a soul consoling feeling and an influence upon the mind of every intelligent being? While we look abroad and we contemplate all of our former teachings that we'd received, we had a faith that a very few was going to be saved in any kingdom, but they were to come to damnation. Not so. All of the inhabitants of the earth will be saved in kingdoms somewhere. As Jesus said, In my Father's house are many mansions. Were it not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you those that receive and abide A law of celestial law. I've committed to this highest of all the celestial, terrestrial and terrestrial. Spoken of how many more? It's not for me to say. I do not know. But there are innumerable kingdoms is what he's saying to me. It's a great source of joy, is it not? He goes on to say he references Joseph Smith's vision which talks about this. My testimony is that the vision is the greatest vision that I ever knew delivered to any of the children of men. It incorporates more in a few pages than any other revelation I have any knowledge of. This is the gospel of salvation. This is our testimony. So says Joseph and Sydney. The heavens were open. The Lord showed to them the inhabitants of the earth would be saved. The Methodists saved. Yes, he goes on. He talks specifically about how some elders would say that John Wesley was weltering in hell. Did the elders ever preach a doctrine like this in public? Yes, that all the reformers and the best men that had ever lived from the days of the apostle till now, until Joseph Smith received the priesthood of himself were damned. I don't think you would hear such a doctrine from any man. Now he goes on to say that he sent forth into the world his light and truth, and those that receive it will be saved in the celestial kingdom. And those that don't receive it through ignorance, tradition, superstition and the precepts of their fathers, they will get a good and glorious kingdom, and they will enjoy and receive more than ever entered into the heart of man, unless he had a revelation. My heart is comforted. I think you can tell a lot about a person by how desperately they want other people to be saved. You want an insight into Brigham Young's personality? It is how desperately he wants everyone to not burn in hell to how comforting it is to him to know that everyone essentially, with few exceptions, is going to go to a kingdom of glory in the next life. That to me tastes good. It tastes a lot better than to believe that through some kind of contradiction I couldn't possibly understand in my little mind, an all powerful God created a world for a purpose we don't understand. Created all of us out of nothing, for a purpose we don't understand. Put us on this earth with a tree of good, of knowledge, of good and evil, for a purpose we don't understand. Knowing that we would all fall, had us all fall, had the world become this cesspool of suffering, of murder and violence and, and starvation and sickness and death, which he could stop at any moment, but won't stop. And then, by the way, you're loving your, your parting gift if you happen to make it out of this horrible mortality is writhing in the agonies of hell forever. And the fact that that doesn't appear just to me is just because I'm such a sinner. I don't understand the ways of God. Or maybe there was a purpose to the creation and there was a purpose to the fall. And that all of us chose to come here knowing that it would be terrible, but also knowing that it was the only way that we could progress to become like our Heavenly Father. The only way. Meaning apparently there were some things that had to happen for us to become like our Heavenly Father, including immortal life. And we all chose it. And because we all chose it, we already all chose Jesus, even though we don't remember that we did. Everyone's going to eventually go to a kingdom of glory outside of those few sons of perdition. And it is the greatest doctrine that exists. I always find it stunning that people will say things like, you Mormons think that only Mormons can go to heaven. And literally it's the exact opposite. In fact, Dr. John MacArthur would be condemning me to hell right now for believing in the wrong Jesus by saying that Jesus's atonement is so infinite, it's so all encompassing, it is so great that it saves people who never even heard his name. It saves people who never thought about Jesus. It saves everyone from hellfire. Now, in order to obtain the celestial kingdom, there are other further ordinances and actions that everyone has to do, but that everyone has an opportunity for it. How can anyone reject this gospel of inclusive salvation for a gospel that says God created everyone out of nothing to writhe in the agonies of hell forever? Why? For his glory? Well, if God is truly all powerful, then he can create glory for himself without having billions of his creations suffer for eternity. I don't believe in that God. I believe in the God that's been revealed through prophets and apostles. So I know we've been very long and you stopped listening sometime around when we were talking about the picks for the March Madness. If you are struggling in your faith before you take a step outside of it, before you say, nope, this must not be true, look at the answers that the rest that the restored gospel provides that simply do not exist in Christianity. Outside of this gospel, you want to believe in a God who loves everyone and shows it, Good luck. Because outside of the church, what you'll find is people saying that God loves everyone, but he has a very funny way of showing it by creating them, knowing that they'll writhe in the agonies of hell forever. And sure they'll say, well, that's your own fault because you're a sinner. Yeah, except it's not my own fault because God created me knowing I would be a sinner and made me immortal anyway. Why? Well, thankfully, we have modern prophets and apostles. Look, I respect our Christian brothers. I am grateful for the fact that our Christian brothers and sisters bring people to Jesus, that they do many acts of charity, that they point people to the word of God, that they bring people from paganism to Christianity. I am so grateful for it. At the same time, I hope you all treasure, treasure the revelations that God has given to modern prophets because it transforms everything. Don't casually give it away because someone on a podcast somewhere else had some things that you really need to think about, or because your uncle or your friend or someone that you love says, if only you knew the things that I know, then you wouldn't believe. This gospel is so special to me because I, like Brigham Young, desperately want everyone to be saved. Desperately. I desperately want to believe that the mercy of God is such that the atonement is so all encompassing that. That it saves everyone. So thank you so much for listening. And we'll probably never do this again because we went too long, right, Richard?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, yeah. We went way over, but I think people will really enjoy it. You did a great job, Garrett.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

He says that now, but the second I hit stop recording, it's going to be what he's going to swear a stream as long as his arm about this podcast. But thank you so much for listening. Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmont and Dr. Richard Leduc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.