Responding to Dawah is Easy While Waiting for No Call

Just playing my air guitar along with Grey Level there with our opening music. Still love that music.

Thanks, guys. Really appreciate you guys up there in Canada. Supposed to be getting back up there at some point, sometime.

Supposed to be doing a lot of that kind of stuff, I guess. Doing a lot of traveling around. On the Facebook page, my

Facebook page, and in Twitter yesterday, we were talking a little bit about the upcoming trips and our need for your support in getting where we need to be,

South Africa, Ukraine, London, and maybe popping into Scotland, depending.

We'll see what we can work out there. That's just before the end of the year, and then right after in January, we've got the

G3 conference in Georgia, and the week before that, heading to the nice, warm, sunny climes of Norway.

Still wondering how that works in January, but obviously people live there in January.

It's just going to be a little bit cool for those of us in Arizona.

Someone in Twitter is saying that the YouTube link on the blog is inoperative, so I just thought

I would mention that to you. Seemed to work for me, but could be something blocking on their end, for all

I know. You're on it, huh? Okay. I don't know. He's working on it.

Real quickly, we want to have some commentary on the subject that we were addressing yesterday from the

Dawah is Easy folks. There was something, what was the other thing

I was going to mention? Oh yeah, duh. Let's see here. Where is it? All right. Yesterday, we did not have this information, and we have this information now.

The location for the debate in Denver on Tuesday evening,

July 8th. All right? If you're in the Denver area, now, I was just informed there might be about a place, room for a hundred people there, so we'll see.

I mean, we'll see what kind of interest there is, but 6 .30

PM, start time, and it's at the Brown Palace Hotel, Brown Palace Hotel, 321 17th

Street, Denver, Colorado, 800 -321 -2599. I will try to get that over to our master of graphics, and maybe we can put something together.

But the debate on open theism will be at the Brown Palace Hotel on Tuesday, July 8th, myself and Bob Enyart.

6 .30 to 8 .45 PM is the time frame, and if you are in the

Denver area, and you decide not to come out, I will never talk to you again.

I've changed my goatee. No, uh -uh. My trip to Ukraine should include some time in Germany.

Well, you know, I don't know. The trip to Ukraine will include two weeks worth of teaching this time there,

Nick, so you need to, I hope you're up for that. That was brother

Nick in Kiev there, and poor guy, he's going to have to end up translating me for like three solid weeks in one year.

That's enough to age any man, and Nick's getting a little older, you know, Nick, you know.

Now, Nick, I started running while I was out there, and I've kept running. I'm not running as much right now because I've got the big rides coming up, but I've kept running.

And so what was Malish, Malish, is that the name?

I think it was Malish. Malish, the dog, the guard dog, is going to have to be put away very regularly.

One week. Well, I haven't gotten an invitation from them, so you may know where I'll be.

You got to arrange this for the folks at EBTC, man, you know, I mean, that would be a lot of fun.

But yeah, and you'll be teaching in English. Maybe this is new stuff that I didn't know about, who knows?

Well, we will see. We will see. But Nick is informing me of things live here on the air about the trip to Ukraine.

But yeah, Malish misses me. Yes, Malish was the guard dog at the what? You fixed it.

Good. It is fixed. It beeth fixed it. So you fixed something on the blog so that people can now be watching live.

Yes. So it now worketh. It worketh. So, I'm not sure, did you have a

King James only guy call you this morning or something? I don't know what's going on there. That was yesterday, you know me, it's a memory thing,

I'm just now remembering that conversation. So no one's been able to watch up until now? Unless they went to YouTube.

Oh, if they went over to YouTube and, you know, got on our channel, they could watch live, but now they can watch live, live in both places.

Live live. Okay. Whatever you say. They can listen live too.

Anyhow, what I was telling Nick is, you know, Nick, you're not getting any younger. I think you should be planning to run with me because I'm going to run the mornings a lot longer than I did last time.

I'm going to have my shoes, I'm just saying, unless we're snowed in, I, you know,

I'm old enough to be your father, and if I can outrun you, you know, that's not a good thing.

And maybe we can leave Malish off the leash and we can see how fast both of us can run. Okay. So the

Enyart debate, remember, Tuesday the 8th, we'll try to get Micah to put something up. I'm sorry,

Hasim, son of Ramallah, Prince of Graphics, will put something up.

And we're looking forward to that. I believe I did some more study on that this morning on the ride.

Okay. William, by the way, if you're standing by out there, go ahead and if you want to call in this morning, you said you'd have an interest in doing so.

So we'll wait for William to give us a call. And while we're doing that, evidently, some of you, challenge accepted.

Nick says the challenge is accepted. Good. He's taller than I am.

So a lot longer strides, but you better. I may not be fast, brother, but I just keep on going.

I'm like the ever ready bunny. I just. Steady wins the race, right? Not normally, but it certainly keeps you going.

So anyhow. I guess

I tortured a number of people yesterday by playing that wonderful video at the end of the program.

Okay. Do I really need to say much about that?

Pull it up a second. Let me let me show you. This is right at the beginning of the of the video. Notice what it says at the bottom.

It says, please note that Christians say Jesus is God born again. Christians say

Jesus is 100 % God and 100 % man, which does not make sense. Exclamation point.

All right. So there you have it right at the beginning of the video.

Now, anybody who is going to try to reach out to Muslims now, first of all,

I would I would wish that people who are doing Dawa on the streets in London would have run into so many well -informed

Christians that they would have some understanding. But it is my experience that 98 % of the

Muslims with whom I've had interaction really don't have any interest in knowing what the people of the book actually believe.

That's just my experience. And I would say a large portion of Christians don't really have a whole lot of interest in knowing what

Muslims believe either. So I guess it goes both ways. But you would think that someone but the difference is that Christians who do quote unquote apologetics street ministry, street preaching, things like that, have a real interest in accurately understanding what

Muslims believe. That's that's my experience. And that's why we try to very accurately explain what

Muslims believe to Christians so they can have respectful, meaningful conversations.

It's not my experience with Islamic apologists. The majority of Islamic apologists only want to know enough to be able to rev up the base.

They don't really want to know what we believe to be able to interact with it on a on a real meaningful level.

It's just just my experience. And clearly the Dawa is easy guys fall into that category.

They fall into that category. And so here you have a very common objection.

This is exactly why what you see in that screen capture is exactly why we did the debate that we did with Abdullah Kunda and with Bashir Varnia.

And, you know, if I can ever get Shadid Lewis to answer an email, maybe we'll do something similar this fall back in the

New Jersey area. We're trying to set up a debate with Shadid Lewis, but Shadid Lewis will not answer any of my emails. I've sent three and I keep saying, need to hear back, need to hear back, please reply.

And I'm evidently not very high in the priority list. So anyway, if you're out there,

Shadid or someone who knows Shadid trying to get ahold of you, Shadid need to communicate with you.

So maybe you could respond. Anyway, anybody who does apologetics to Muslims, as soon as you see that that screen capture and that that statement, you you recognize that the person you're talking to really does not understand what we believe.

And you know that your duty, your your task is going to be to challenge and educate all at the same time.

Now, do I really need to mention that what this young man did in starting off by saying something about second century early church fathers is not how to do it?

I mean, OK, let's say he's not trained in doing apologetics. I mean, the whole idea of calling this guy a theologian, really?

Seriously. But this, again, is something that you see on the Dean show all the time. You see it now here on Dawa is easy and and all that kind of stuff.

There's a tendency to exaggerate just a little bit as far as that is concerned.

And so we've got this guy and he's obviously taken a couple of classes, but and he's asked a question about the deity of Christ.

And every spot you start by talking about second century patristic writers.

Now, I'm not saying there isn't anything interesting to be found in second century patristic writers.

There is. Ignatius, early second century, very early second century.

Incredibly deep and high doctrine of the deity of Christ. OK. That works.

But. You've got a guy standing there with a microphone and a camera in your face, and he's already demonstrated he really doesn't understand.

You don't go there. You want to lay a foundation, you want to communicate and you want to communicate in some way this guy can understand.

So do I really need to say that this guy, whoever he was, totally missed the the cues as to how to effectively communicate with someone?

And then secondly, as a result. Let's seriously ask the question.

This guy allegedly starts speaking in tongues. Do you really think the

Holy Spirit of God inspired this young man to start speaking in tongues so that the gospel would be mocked?

I thought. Well, of course, I believe. That the.

Gift of tongues had a specific purpose, at least that's what Paul says it did, and that purpose had to do with the judgment on Israel.

And so, as you all know, I'm a cessationist when it comes to that particular issue. But let's lay that aside for a moment.

Let's say you believe in the continuing validity of the concept of tongues.

You can't possibly argue that that was tongue. Of course, I'm not sure how you could tell the difference between that and what's proclaimed to be tongues on TBN every day.

Wasn't a difference, was there? It's some kind of incomprehensible utterance.

But you're not going to. Would anyone really argue that that was tongues? That was the Holy Spirit. That makes this young man all of a sudden become hyper emotional.

Break out in gibberish and then walk away from the Muslims that are going, we win.

Now, don't get me wrong, the. The victorious claims, the

Muslim, that's not the issue. I mean, I've been in situations with people from all sorts of different religious backgrounds where the level of conversation dipped below the pearls before swine level.

And that's pretty low for me. I mean, there's only one thing that if you want to stop a conversation with me, it's pretty easy to do if you know how to do it.

But generally, if a person hasn't become abusive or profane, stuff like that, it takes a while to get down to that level because I want to err on the side of grace.

But there are times when it gets below that level and it's like it's time to walk away. And if the person just won't stop talking, then they will normally do the same.

And you may have answered their question 47 ,000 times and they're just not interested in listening to you.

OK, I understand how it happens, but that's not what's going on here, at least not from what we saw. And I guess the full version of this is online.

So, all right. No, I'm not going to invest 45 minutes in listening to that personally.

Unless somebody tells me I absolutely have to and then I will. But anyway, is anyone really going to argue that the spirit of God was behind that sudden utilization of some alleged gift?

Seriously? Resulting in someone's... That actually short -circuited the presentation of the gospel.

So, how could anyone argue that the spirit of God was the one that did that?

The spirit of God inspired this particular experience and felt that this was the right time.

I mean, there was no testimony to the Muslims there other than you're running away, you can't answer the question. Now, I know it was happening.

Here's this young guy, he's getting challenged. I've seen it a thousand times before. But don't blame that on the

Holy Spirit of God. There is another faux tongues experience right there.

Don't blame that on the spirit of God. And yet there could be a lot of people who watch that and go, oh, yeah, that's how to do it.

That's how you respond to it. So, you'll notice, let's just play a couple of things here.

Again, William, wherever you are out there, you said you're going to call in.

So, feel free to do that. Let's hope he's not functioning on a college summertime time, which means sleeping in, right?

I wouldn't know because I was married and working and things were different back in the old, old...

In fact, today's my 32nd wedding anniversary. You didn't? Yes, congratulations. Thank you. I'm not sure what you're congratulating.

32 years? Yeah. In this day and age? She's the one to put up with me, so.

Well, there is that. Yeah, so you should be saying congratulations for my sympathy or something.

I've mentioned how much you were graced many times before. Well, especially when you were president of the

Bachelor to the Rapture Club. Yeah, well, I gave that. Because you kept saying that, from your perspective,

God had had mercy on me because he knew that I couldn't... You couldn't handle it. Couldn't handle it. No way. No.

No. Couldn't handle it. No. So, I was 19. She was 18. Yep, yep.

That's a whole lot earlier than people do it these days. And that means

I've got a grandchild and still have my sights here.

So, that's pretty cool. But yeah, 32 years these days is pretty... Well, even

Summer used to say... Summer used to say she would go to work and she'd talk to her co -workers.

And my wife would go in and they're, Who's that? Is that your sister or something? No, no, that's actually my mom. That's your mom?

Really? Wow. And then the conversation would come up. And so, how long are your parents?

Oh, 30 years. 30 years? And the sad thing is they just...

Most of those people just didn't know anybody. They've been married. And that's a shame. That's an absolute cry in shame.

But then again, I'm a man and she's a woman.

And so, that's another good thing anymore. Because it ain't gonna be long.

It is not gonna be long. Maybe even June of next year. Because that seems to be when the

Supreme Court decisions come down. Maybe even June of next year. It'll be forced.

Well, when we say forced upon us, it will be made the law of the land. But woe to the land whose law is immoral.

That's not gonna mean it's over with. Did the abortion debate end with Roe v. Wade? No.

For most people, it only began with Roe v. Wade. And if anything, my hope and prayer is that once we hit bottom and you've got polygamy and you've got everything, people will look at that and go, look at the results.

Now, that will require the work of the Spirit of God. Yeah, that's crossed my mind a number of times.

Just like, come on, people. Can you not look around and see what's happened to our society? They will look back at the society in the 50s and they mock it.

Oh, they do. They do. They do. That's not to say that everyone was sinless in the 50s, but there's this mindset that we're always the smartest folks and we aren't.

This revolution has not been to our benefit by any stretch. Not by any stretch. I try to tell young people that all the time.

I apologize. My generation has stolen the best of life from you.

Not only indebted you to your eyeballs, well, anyway, but I've stolen the best of life from you because I'm awfully thankful that I've been married for 32 years to the same woman.

And I'm not saying that I'm some ex... Don't go expecting some book on marriage from me.

Ain't gonna happen. She's a patient woman and a blessing.

But the reality is that there are a lot of people in the younger generation that aren't ever going to experience, they're not going to get to experience what

I've experienced in that way. And that's a cry in shame. Anyway, what in the world are we talking about? Oh, I want to play a portion of this.

Hopefully you've got the computer. Listen as we get started here.

Tangent alert. Yeah, believe me, we went a long ways, but partially because I honestly really expected a phone call.

I expect a phone call, right? I mean, he called in yesterday and you said he was as... He very excited, wanted to get on right away.

He just had to talk to you and I told him, look, 10 sharp, be on the phone at 10 sharp. Well, and he's like, Arizona time.

I'm like, yes, Arizona time, 10 sharp. Okay. So what's the probability that at 11, the phone's going to ring right as we're wrapping this up?

Well, you know, we have a latitude that a lot of people don't expect. No, no, no, no.

No, I don't today. I've got packing to do and stuff like that. What is this about my... This is the second thing

I've seen in channel about my goatee being wider than usual. No, it's not. I got nothing.

I mean, I grew... My wife asked me to grow the whole thing out wider, but that was like four months ago.

So I don't know what this is. Maybe it's a camera angle or the lights or something. Well, I did move cameras around. I did open up the light.

You keep messing with stuff. Yeah, well, I'm the guy that, you know, the Superbowl keeps messing with the color on the

TV to get it just right. And everybody finally yells at me and says sit down. So I just have to mess with it.

I just noticed that little something you're doing. Okay, all right. I got it. The what?

The little something you've been doing. Don't worry. Oh, okay. You finally saw it. Yeah, well, it took me a little while.

All right. Now you're starting to get it. I get it. But the question is, will anybody else get it? I don't know. One person on our channel saw it.

Oh, did they? Yeah. Okay. All right. Cool. Anyways, we're making the podcast people feel unhappy now.

So let's listen to... Even Figgy thinks it's wider. No, it's not. I don't understand that.

Dr. Oakley's guide to a long and happy marriage. Find a woman who will put up with you for many years. The end. Yeah. That's pretty much.

That's pretty much. Yeah. Yep. All right. There you go. All right. Let's listen to this.

Clearly well knowledgeable. And while you were sitting on the camera, you said you're a student of theology?

Yes. So you're a student of religion? Religious studies and theology. Religious studies and studies. Religious studies and theology.

A theologian, that's brilliant. So nice to have an expert. Does he really think that this young guy is an expert?

I mean, really? Honestly? Come on. What if we went out and did the same thing?

And we found some young student at the local mosque and presented him as an imam.

As a sheikh of Islam. And then look,

I can throw questions. And any Muslim in the audience who's watching my debates knows.

I know enough about Islam that I can throw all sorts of tough questions at an uneducated young Muslim and make him look silly.

What does that accomplish? Uh, that's that's sort of what, you know, is this dawah is easy or dawah can be made to look silly.

Because, well, anyway. To talk with, for a change. For a change.

I sensed a little bit of sarcasm in the man's voice at that particular point in time. And your name is

Daniel, okay. And you preach the message as well of Jesus, of the message of the gospel. You're a preacher?

I'm an evangelizer. Evangelizing means to give dawah, to spread the message. Now, it's interesting for those of you who are not familiar with this.

And I'm assuming that most people are. But we have new listeners and viewers all the time.

I do want to understand dawah. When it says dawah is easy, dawah is calling to Islam.

And there are different stages of dawah. Um, what is interesting is that dawah.

Encompasses concepts and activities that in.

In Christianity, we tend to inappropriately separate. So I actually sort of like the terminology.

Because dawah includes apologetics. But we would say dawah is evangelism and apologetics together.

Obviously, I see apologetics as the sort of the flip side. The reverse side of evangelism.

They're intimately connected. You can't have one without the other. You're not really doing apologetics. If you're not calling to the gospel and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

But in Islam, you don't really differentiate. There is a calling to submission to Allah and to his prophet.

And a recognition that there is a need to answer objections in the process.

And so, like I said, there's different levels of dawah. For most Muslims, there is the giving of the witness in public like this.

Up to a certain point. And jihad does actually become a part of dawah later on down the road.

So that comes into, and we unfortunately see that a lot in the world today.

What I'd like to ask you is that, Daniel, do you believe Jesus is God? Or do you believe

Jesus was somebody sent by God? There you have the key question, which just got too small to see.

Do you believe Jesus is God? Or do you believe Jesus was someone sent by God?

Whenever you're engaging in conversation with a Muslim, you have to hear what they're saying and be ready to ask questions.

Now, they've asked a question of us. How would you respond to that?

How would you respond to that particular question? Now, he's going to say, appropriately, both.

But if you don't explain how both can be true, then the

Muslim mind is already, and again, the

Muslim mind. It's like talking about the Christian mind, right? But there is a real high level of consistency on this point amongst the vast majority of Muslims with whom you're going to have conversation.

What I'm saying is, if you listen to this program on a regular basis, you better be one of the people that if you find out your cabbie is a

Muslim, you feel prepared to answer these questions and to engage with them.

That's what I want. I mean, I would feel terrible if there are people who listen to this program regularly and you know everything there is to know about Calvinism, but you're too scared to talk to a

Muslim. It means I'm wasting my time and yours. So, in this situation,

I'm trying to be very practical here, very practical. In this situation, you must understand that for the majority of Muslims, there is an attitude that basically says, you're a coffer, you're an unbeliever,

K -A -F -I -R. Not that. You're a coffer, you're an unbeliever.

And you really don't have anything to explain to the Muslim. The Muslim doesn't need to learn anything more about what you believe.

And they're not really interested in learning more about what you believe. And they think that they have a higher authority as to what you believe than you are.

And that's the Quran. Here's one of the major problems. The author of the Quran didn't know what we believe.

There are fundamental misunderstandings on the part of the author of the Quran in regards to the

Christian faith. Okay. How do you get past that? Especially with a microphone and a camera in your face?

Well, you're going to have to respectfully learn how to answer questions while asking questions.

And this is a skill that honestly does take practice.

And not everyone is equally capable of engaging in this kind of conversation.

I fully understand that. And I realize that there are certain

Muslims that some of you might have more opportunity to reach than I will.

And vice versa. But maintaining control of a conversation normally requires a person who's willing to interrupt someone else, who understands pacing, knows when to start speaking when someone else is speaking at the point where the other person is more probably going to stop and not necessarily feel offended by that.

There are certain skill sets that you develop over time along these lines.

And you have to be able to multitask. You have to have a goal in mind. This interviewer has a goal in mind.

He didn't go into this interview to find out what this guy believed. He already thinks he fully understands what this guy believes.

And it's his intention to demonstrate that what this guy believes is incoherent, inconsistent, and indefensible.

That's his entire purpose. And if Daniel here, I guess that was his name, isn't aware of that, then he's being naive, going right into it.

But anyway, the attitude, to see the,

I'm easily interrupted today, there is someone in channel just had Jehovah's Witnesses at my door and they knew who

James White was. That doesn't surprise me. I just remember the Mormon missionaries who we met with one time and the guy looks at you and says, you actually exist?

We always thought you were a legend. I'll never forget when they passed my picture around amongst the missionaries.

And I was at somebody's apartment waiting for the missionaries to show up. And I was looking out the window, second floor, and they rode by on their bikes, looked up and kept going.

Rode to the local Circle K, called the guy up and said, we'll talk to you, but not if he's there. So that's interesting.

Anyway, see the cameras right there and the chat channels right there. So it's a look, squirrel type thing for me.

Sorry. Shiny, blinky, funny thing. Yeah, shiny, blinky thing. It's the way we are today.

It's just sort of, so anyway. The vast majority of Muslims have the idea that they already know what you believe and why it's wrong.

And so trying to control a conversation while asking questions is not easy.

Because once you ask a question, you got to shut up. You've now really handed the microphone back to the other person.

And so it's actually the same skill set that you have to use in a, I actually listened to my debate with Dr.

Sanders this morning on my ride. It had been a while. And you know that there is the objection in a court of law about a leading question, where you're basically giving the information that you want the person to say.

Okay. But when you're doing cross -examination, there is a skill set involved in being able to pursue a particular path while asking questions.

And that's a skill set that we have to develop, especially in this type of a context.

You want to show respect for the person. You want to show love for the person. But your overarching purpose is always to love

God and respect the gospel more than anything else. That's not an excuse to be boorish, but that is a priority to keep in mind.

And so he's, right now, the Muslim's in control. And he thinks he knows exactly where he wants to go.

I would love to have these guys walk up to me on the street. That'd be very enjoyable. Because once this, like this question, do you believe

Jesus is God or do you believe Jesus was someone sent by God? I would say, well, the question assumes a false dichotomy.

And I would see by the response whether I'd have an opportunity to, for example, give reference to the misunderstandings of who

Jesus was found in the Quran. I mean, if I wanted to go there immediately,

I would say, man, that sounds as bad as the misrepresentation of what the people of the book believe that's found in Surah 5, verse 116.

Now, you know, as soon as you give a Quranic reference, you've got their attention.

Because how many Christians do they walk up to in the street that have any idea?

Now, you've got to be careful because some might just it's just like with Jehovah's Witnesses.

When you, you've got to be so, so careful as to how much you say to one of Jehovah's Witnesses in revealing how much you know about the

Watchtower Society. It's a real fine, you've really, it's a spiritual thing, basically.

Because on one side, there's a real advantage to being able to speak their own language.

I've studied what you believe, you know, so they're not always sort of pedantically trying to explain things to you.

But then there's on the other side, oh, this person's an apostate, this person has been exposed to apostate literature, etc.

I need to stay away from them. It's a balancing act. And only by talking to people can you find out where that balancing act really is, including with the

Muslim. And so you could go sort of full burners and say, well, your question assumes a false dichotomy that seems to indicate to me that you don't understand what we believe.

And that would, it seems to come from someplace like Surah 5, 116. Now you've got the opportunity of asking, could we look at that?

Do you have a Quran with you? Could we look at what Surah 5, 116 says? And then I'll answer your question.

Because now you've sort of taken over the conversation. Now, if I didn't want to go that fast, if I didn't feel like that was going to extend the witnessing opportunity, because that's what

I want to do, if I can. I mean, if in my mind, as I'm standing there and I'm going, you know, we were going to be,

I'm just going to lunch here. I can grab something light. I got plenty of time here. Let's extend this out as far as we can.

It's not like I'm walking to do the unbelievable program in London or something like that, which

I walk there a lot, actually. That's how you get everywhere in London until you get to the tube anyways.

If that was my mindset was extend the conversation, you don't extend the conversation by getting out the 50 cal immediately.

But you do want to take control of the conversation and start moving it toward an opportunity of, well, you have to think ahead of time.

This is something you have to make a commitment to be ahead of time. And that is, what do I want this person to walk away from this encounter with?

This is true. I don't care who you're talking to. You're talking to a Mormon. You're talking to Jehovah's witness, atheist, secularist, whatever.

If you go into that conversation without a goal, you're going to wander all over the place.

And you're going to get done and sort of feel like, I don't know what I really accomplished there. You need to early on ask the

Lord, give me the goal that I need to have in this situation. What do I want this person to understand when we walk away?

Because in the vast majority of situations, it's not like, well, I want this person to get saved here in the next five minutes.

Well, that would be wonderful, but that's probably not how this is going to happen.

And so what do you want them to understand? And so if I didn't want to go for the immediately go to Sura 5 approach, do you believe

Jesus is God or do you believe Jesus was someone sent by God? My response would be something along these lines.

Well, if you understand what Christians believe and you understand what the

New Testament reveals, it reveals that the one who was sent by God, and Jesus said he was sent by the

Father specifically, not just by God. He specifically said, the

Father sent me. It also teaches that he had eternally been with the

Father and that he and the Father send the Holy Spirit.

Now, why have I emphasized using the term Father here? Because I'm already attempting to address a misunderstanding in the

Muslim mind without doing it in an offensive fashion. It needs to be addressed because you've got to understand the

Muslim, the Jehovah's Witness, assume Unitarianism.

They don't prove it, they assume it. And so Jesus can't, that's why this whole key question is considered to be a key question because it's based upon the assumption of Unitarianism.

Jesus can't be God and then send himself. Now, what's the assumption in the words

I just gave? Unitarianism. The term God, once we look in the

New Testament, we have the Fathers described as God and the Sons described as God and the Spirits described as God and these persons are differentiated from one another.

And so they're not functioning on the basis of a meaningful knowledge of the New Testament. And the vast majority today, obviously, are functioning upon the idea that the

New Testament is a corrupted document in the first place, filled with self -contradiction. And as a result, very few of them know it very well at all.

They might pick up, you know, this verse here, that verse there, drag them into the context, they're lost. It's been my experience, they're lost.

They have no earthly idea. So the question assumes

Unitarianism. So that would be another way to go. It'd be, well, you know, you're using the term

God there in two different ways from the Christian perspective. That's going to require them to have some kind of response like, what do you mean?

Which opens up the opportunity for you to say, well, Jesus is deity.

He is identified as God in numerous places, such as John 1 .1 and John 20 .28

and Romans 9 .5 and Titus 2 .13 and 2 Peter 1 .1. Now you've opened the door to go back to every one of them, as long as they're not challenged.

But then I would add, while he's deity, he's differentiated from the father.

And it was the father who sent the son. And then I'd ask a question like, let me see if you're confused here.

Who is Yahweh to you? Now you can use Jehovah if you want.

I prefer. Who is Yahweh to you? This is a good approach with a lot of Muslims because there's very little discussion of the divine name from the

Old Testament, the Tetragrammaton, Yod -Heh -Wow -Heh. There's very little discussion of that amongst

Muslims. And unless they've run into a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses, they're not going to have a lot of ready -made answers.

And again, no matter who you're talking to, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, whatever, you want to go into areas of discussion that are beyond the normal conversations these people have been having over and over and over.

That's why I say when the Jehovah's Witnesses come to your door, don't talk about John 1 .1. They can respond to John 1 .1

in a comatose state. I've said it thousands of times. You don't want to go to where they expect you to go.

You want to try as best you can to raise your questions using terminology and language that will actually cause them to listen to what you're saying and to think and to remember.

That's really important. And so, I would ask, who do you believe

Jehovah is? Who do you believe Yahweh is? Now, again, they assume

Unitarianism and of course, they understand the

Shahada, the very profession of faith, to be an absolute profession of Unitarianism.

That there is not only one God, but that there is only one person that shares the being of God.

And so, that is just a given for them. And so, the general response is going to be something along the lines of, well,

Jehovah would be Allah, would be who you would call

God the Father. See, there is the Unitarianism coming out. And you would say, ah, see, well, there's where your question doesn't make any sense.

Because the New Testament identifies the Father as Yahweh and the Son as Yahweh and the

Spirit is Yahweh. Can I show you where Jesus identified as Yahweh? Now, right now, let me ask you something.

I'm going to step on some toes here. Sorry, but I do it for your own good. I do it out of love.

Do you really feel confident that you could demonstrate to this man standing on that street corner, if you ever get a chance to go to London or if he happens to come over to wherever you live, do you really feel confident that you could demonstrate to him that Jesus is identified as Yahweh in the

New Testament? Oh, we've talked about it many times. Sure. Remember the debate we had, what was it, about 2011,

I think, with the Unitarian? 2011, 2012, somewhere around there. It ended up prompting the three -hour, three -and -a -half -hour

Christology thing that we did and all that kind of stuff. The information is out there. Forgotten Trinity, the whole chapter.

But you were walking to an appointment someplace. You were walking to lunch. You don't necessarily have your notes with you.

Do you feel confident you can do that? I hope you do. You say, oh, come on,

James, we don't live your life. I live a regular life. Yeah, but don't you think the

Lord would be glorified in your being prepared to do that? Don't you think your readiness, conviction, willingness to be used, confidence would be much greater?

I hope you'd be ready to say to that Muslim, could

I show you? Most people know the two primary texts

I use along these lines. It's interesting. I'm, again, disappointed

William didn't call in today, but I was going to use this as an example if we had our conversation, which we'll have to have some other time,

I guess. But I normally will either go to Psalm 102, 25 to 27, and then demonstrate the utilization of those words of the

Son in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 10 through 12. Or we'll look at John chapter 12, verses 39 through 41, and then make the application given that that citation from Isaiah 6, whose glory was it that was seen, so on and so forth.

But are you ready? And believe me, if you could actually spend just a few moments talking with this gentleman and showing him from the scriptures that Jesus identified as Jehovah, he's not heard that.

That's not what he's accustomed to. And you have completely taken control of the conversation.

So there's just a hope. And again, I emphasize this. This has sort of been the teaching session with James program, but I emphasize this all the time.

I don't care if you're talking to a Muslim or a secularist.

Now there's a lot of secular Muslims. You have to think presuppositionally.

You have to hear the question and recognize what the false assumptions in the question are.

Bring that up on the screen again. When you see a question like this, do you believe

Jesus is notice they've they've bolded is God or do you believe

Jesus was someone sent by God bold of scent as well.

The first function of your mind needs to be to analyze the question and to be able to recognize where the false assumption has been made.

It's just, I don't care who you're talking to. This is a fundamental skill set to be able to communicate effectively and to maintain control of conversations.

People who went out with us years ago to the Easter pageant and the temple would often ask, how, how come you control the conversations you're in?

And, and mine just, just go all over the place. And the response to that is,

I think presuppositionally, I hear the objection. I have a goal that I'm pursuing and I craft my response to the problem in the question in light of where I'm trying to go with this particular individual.

It's not always easy to do, but it is, it is necessary.

It's important to do it. All right, let's, let's listen to a little bit more here. You're a preacher, you're well knowledgeable, you're a theologian, student of theology.

So what is the position? Is he God or did God send him? Um, well,

I have to ask you, do you want me to answer that, um, theologically? And when

I say theologically, do you want me to present, um, this evidence from the Old Testament and the

New Testament or the old? Dude, we're not impressed. Um, too much time in the classroom, not enough time in the street.

Okay. Um, nothing wrong. I mean,

I can't sit here in this seat having spent as many hours as we have talking about Old Testament prophecies, um,

New Testament fulfillments, deity of Christ, theology, early church history.

And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that at all, but you've got to prioritize. There's a unbeliever stand in front of you with all sorts of misunderstandings and a camera in your face.

Now is not the time. I was going to say before you ran that clip, what you were talking about, about people, and I've been one to stand there and marvel at how you are able to answer and keep control of those conversations.

And I realized a long time ago, there's something where you're a little rare here, and maybe it is the way

I was brought up, and I find you're able to tune into listening to that other person, and there's that multitasking factor

I'm just not geared for. It's hard for me to listen that closely while at the same time knowing, okay, this is where I want to come back and address that directly.

And I think that's what I see here is a guy who's stunned by the question.

He didn't really listen to the question, and he's trying to come up with some kind of a response, and this is what we get.

Yeah, and I will also throw in that some of the blame for this ends up on the

Muslim who has obviously inappropriately tried to elevate this guy and put a bunch of pressure on him.

Well, it's not an honest exchange. This guy is deliberately trapping him, and he's building up the case to do the trap.

Just bring it. Well, and unfortunately, this fellow fell into it far too easily.

But no, I recognize debate's not for everybody, and street witnessing isn't for everybody.

And if it's just not within your capacity to listen and talk at the same time with someone on that level, then you want to engage more in natural conversations over the back fence with neighbors, things like that.

I understand that. But if you're going to be in this situation, that's how you control the conversation is you got to hear,

I got to have your directions, what goal you have. We continue on.

Testament or the New Testament. Okay, and what I would say to you is this, Daniel, would you like me to present this historically as well?

Okay, if I said to you, for example, if I saw... Okay, obviously, Daniel just finished church history and wants to show off that.

I'm sorry. I hope he's a brother in the Lord and he's learned from this situation.

But that's not how... I'm not really certain about the response he gets here.

Or somebody and I said to you, is this a man? And if you asked me...

Okay, now, it's hard to read the bottom line there because it wasn't edited real well.

The Dawa brother asked him what he believes in. Whatever the evidence he gives, it should show

Jesus to be the same in nature. And I don't know if that's the end of what was there.

I assume it is or something. I don't know. But the same in nature to whom?

What's the assumption here? Unitarianism is going to be there. Just got to see that. But I guess they're providing this as sort of like a little training thing themselves, which

I understand. Is this a man standing here or is it something else? And I said to you, would you like me to answer this theologically or from the

Quran or from the Hadith or from the old message or the new message or historically? It doesn't make sense.

I mean, a man is a man. You know what I mean? For example, if I said to you, is it day or night at the moment? And you said to me, should

I answer theologically or historically? Is it a day or night or is it a man or a woman?

Simple question, is he a man or not? That's the point. Is Jesus a man? Yes. Jesus is not a man.

Okay. Immediately heresy from someone who will then speak in tongues later on.

There's obviously a fundamental level of misunderstanding on Daniel's part that you know,

I've said before, I used to do this real quickly, run out of time. I used to role play before YouTube made it impossible for me to role play.

And I remember going into this junior high school class at a church once. And I had the youth minister spouting modalism within 30 seconds.

Just that easy, just that easy. Now you've got Daniel denying the reality of the incarnation.

Why? Because he was presented with an inappropriate question that assumed, and this is something

Christians do all the time. They allow the person attacking the faith to define the terms and end up being backed into a corner that they didn't need to be defending in the first place.

They didn't need to be defending in the first place. So anyway, I was only gonna make a few comments on that because we had been promised phone call today, but who was it on Twitter that said to me, yeah, it was, yeah,

Stephen. Stephen on exegesis had said, you haven't had much success with people actually calling in when they say they will.

Okay, I am going to blame all of this on Stephen on Twitter. He has looks like a

Detroit Lions thing for his, and that sells you everything right there, maybe.

But you can all blame this on Stephen who jinxed the whole thing because about an hour ago, he said you haven't had much success with people actually calling in when they say they will.

So that's why it all fell apart is how it was. Hey, thanks for, now here's the situation.

Did you talk to John? When's he coming in? Tuesday at 10. And Thursday at three next week,

Tuesday, 10, Thursday, three, John Sampson in the big chair, the big man, it's going to be great.

Who knows, maybe I'll call in or something because I won't be traveling to wherever it was I was traveling to last time. So thanks for listening to The Value Line.