Greetings Fellow Members of the Body of Christ,
If you have been looking for a compact teaching on the topic of Free Will, here it Is. This is the one to send around; please post it on social media.
In my opinion, Rodney puts together the most exciting first two minutes of any video I've ever done. The music is great—the whole
thing is just kinda mesmerizing—and sets the tone for the rest of the video. The rest of the video? All I can say is, this is an inspired rant. Even in the year 2002 I am so fed up with the teaching of Human Free Will that I can barely contain myself. In fact, I DON'T contain myself. My goal is to take down the enemy, and I come out guns a'blazing, and never run out of ammo.
I am critiquing article by Thomas Talbott, a weirdo philosopher who believes in the salvation of all,
but ALSO believes in human free will. How in the name of our good God can these disparate doctrines enjoy any sort of compatibility? They can't, and they don't. But not to worry, because Talbott is a philosopher, remember, and so he can talk out of both sides of his mouth with impunity. He can say impossible things and then cover the insanity with obfuscating language designed to halt all questioning at the door. He pulls out every philosophical buzz-phrase you can think of so that, in the end,
YOU think YOU'RE the crazy one. No. You're not. Rest assured that Talbott is the true lunatic. He has no idea what he's talking about. He wants to have a free will and doesn't want to have one at the same time. He says God will be all in all, while at the same time insisting that people are free to reject Christ.
It is so maddening to me, and you can tell I'm agitated on the video. But don't worry, because I use the agitation to execute one of the most brilliant defenses of
the sovereignty of God you've ever heard come from my mouth. It's stream-of-consciousness inspiration.
“I gotta expose this!” I say on the video. This was recorded in 2002, and I think it's fantastic that twenty-three years later, I'm still saying the same thing concerning exposure and rebuke. When have I stopped emphasizing exposure and rebuke? Never. The revelation of the value of exposure and rebuke hit me in 1996, and I have been an effective evangelist since then. It's the key to
successfully sharing the truth. "Expose, reubuke, and entreat" (2 Timothy 4:2).
Rodney picks a humdinger of an MZTV to put at the end, a program that is perfectly consistent with the tone of the ZenderTalk. It's MZTV 184 and it's called, ”Is it God or Is It Satan.” I recorded it on June 4, 2019. I really don't have much time to explain it to you now, so please just have a listen. I'm wrestling, as many of us do, with wondering whether events that overshadow our lives are of God or of
Satan. Sometimes it's hard to tell! I never shy away from these tough topics, and that's certainly the case here.
Thank you so much for your love for me and your financial support, especially during this time of my convalescence following my cancer surgery. I am continuing to recover. It was major surgery. I'm taking a pharmaceutical to help with the pain, and this mostly works, but the relief is spotty. The surgery site is still stiff and hard; my skin feels fossilized;
petrified. It's weird and disturbing. And yet all the docs say it's normal. So I keep on keeping on. It's much easier to keep on keeping on when you have an army of loving and caring people behind you, cheerleading for you, appreciating you, always praying for you. I can't thank you enough. And I am also especially thankful, every day, for my wife Maria, who is the best caregiver I can imagine. And she keeps me laughing, too.
Grace, peace and love to you from the edge of the
bottom of the Floridan peninsula,
—Martin
