April 21, 2005

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The Dividing Line. Desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona.
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This is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.
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Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the
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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr.
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White, call now at 602 -973 -4602. Or toll -free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon.
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Getting ready for a debate tomorrow after, well tomorrow evening, I guess. Is it 7? I don't know when it is.
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I hope it's 7 because my flight gets in. Well, I'm not checking bags and I'm not checking bags specifically so we can get over to the school where this is going to be held.
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I'm hoping I have an idea of the kind of, it's in a business college kind of techie type room with the overhead projectors and stuff.
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I hope I have an idea what it's going to look like. At least I hope so anyways. But we're going to get over there.
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We need to get set up. We're going to try to go ahead and videotape the thing. I don't know if it's going to work out.
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We're asking a friend of ours that's going to be driving a distance to get there to help out a little bit.
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And I hope that that happens. But not knowing the location and stuff, who knows?
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We're going to be flying by the seat of our pants, in essence, as we have in so many of the times. Obviously, it'll be recorded, you know, audio recorded.
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But we want, it would be nice to be able to video record it as well.
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And that would then require the PowerPoints that I'm busily working on, even the last moment here.
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And this really is the last moment since the flight's at 9 .45 in the morning. Working on the last moment here.
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And they're coming together. I'm starting to like what I'm seeing and starting to see the flow. And grand total,
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I've got 35 minutes for the PowerPoints. I mean, a 20 minute and a 15 minute. That's not a lot of time.
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So I really need, the trick here, since I've not done this before, I've not used, well,
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I'll take that back. One time on Long Island at Ed Morris Church, North Shore Baptist Church, I did a debate with a
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Church of Christ minister on election predestination. I just love when folks say, you're afraid to debate me on election predestination.
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If I'm not debating somebody, it's probably because they've already shot their credibility right out the window and there's no sense doing it.
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This fellow was a very good speaker. And he insisted on using multimedia.
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And we had just gotten our very first digital projector. So I said, okay, fine. If he insists on using some sort of multimedia, great, fine, wonderful.
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I'll put together a thing. So I put all this effort into this presentation. And that's now my notes.
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I mean, the printout from PowerPoint will be my notes for my presentation tomorrow evening as well.
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Anyway, we get there and the guy goes, oh, I'm not going to do it. I'm just going to go ahead and speak.
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I'm not using overhead or anything like that. So I'm left sort of looking like the geek. But I said, you know what?
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I've put so much effort into this. This is what I've got. That's what I'm going to do. And so I did. He just went right down the front row.
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And he's literally leaning over. The front row was empty. And he's literally leaning over that pew into the second row preaching.
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You know, a good church Christ preacher. Really, how would you put it?
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Spitting on the next three rows, I would say. He really went for it.
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Anyhow, I'm not sure how this is going to work. But what
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I need to do this evening while I'm getting all packed up and moving my email over to my laptop and all this stuff.
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What I really need to do is I need to time these things.
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Because that's the trick. It's one thing when you're just speaking.
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I've learned over the years how to fit into my time frame.
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I can watch that clock and see how much time I've got. I can speed up, slow down, cut out on the fly.
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That's just something you learn to do. That's why a lot of folks don't do this kind of thing because they can't do that. That's just not something.
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I think my days in radio helped me do that. But that's different when you have slides.
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Because it's a little bit difficult on the fly to skip past slides or do that kind of thing.
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How long is it going to take to really handle this particular slide? How long does it take to read it?
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Things like that. It's going to be challenging. But obviously, if we do videotape it, then we're going to have to ask to get hold of the
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PowerPoint that Dr. Wilkins will be presenting. And give my PowerPoints to him so that they can do what they want with it and we can do what we want with it and make it available and so on and so forth.
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It'll be a very, very interesting debate. I probably,
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I think, depending on the phone calls today at 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341, depending on those, might get into some of these things.
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All I was going to do was to mention, just sort of in passing, something that I emphasized at the very beginning of the debate.
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And that is, I'm a little concerned, especially, did you see on the blog, the little thing about Bob Ross?
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Everybody, whenever I say anything about Bob Ross, they think we're talking about the painter with the fro who died a few years ago.
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And you still see him on public broadcasting, putting his little trees in. I love watching that, by the way.
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It's not like I have time to, but if it happens to be on and I'm doing something else like eating or something like that,
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I'll definitely watch it because I think it's great to watch. I can't do that. I make a lousy stick figure,
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OK? There's just nothing there. And so to watch this guy create this gorgeous landscape or whatever in 30 minutes is really,
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I enjoy it. But that's not the Bob Ross we're talking about here, OK? He is not channeling in criticisms of me on the doctrine of regeneration from beyond.
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Bob Ross is the head of Pilgrim Publications. He's a Baptist. He has debated lots of Church of Christ people in those, you know how
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Church of Christ people like to debate. They like to do it for like a week, you know, for like hours and hours on end, every single night for a week.
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You know, I'm not into that kind of debating. And he's done a lot of that stuff. He's the one that, what was it, about a year ago?
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Is this an annual thing? It's just, well, it's April time to attack white again.
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He comes after me. It was around this time because that's when debating Calvinism came out. That's right. Anyway, he came, went after me a year ago and he's gone after me again over the subject of the debate and has made sure that Bob Wilken knows that I'm out to lunch and I don't represent
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Calvinism or the rest of the stuff. Neither does Burkoff or Sproul or people at Banner of Truth.
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And there's a hint there. There's still something there that might be communicated. Anyway, it was funny.
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He evidently doesn't have any idea what Bob Wilken believes.
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And that's what was really amazing to me is that he's talking to Bob Wilken and evidently he's never read his book and doesn't understand what
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Bob Wilken is saying. I put together just a couple of quotes that I'm going to read just to make sure the people who are listening to this debate understand this is not a normal Calvinistic Arminian discussion because Dr.
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Wilken holds a position in the nature of faith that is very, very unusual. And what
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I mean by that is, well, let me just read a couple of quotes here from his book
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Confident in Christ. On page 19, this certainly does sound familiar.
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He says, none of us would ever seek God if left purely to our own initiative, Romans 311.
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But since God is seeking each and every one of us, we are free to respond to the light God gives us.
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Well, that's your standard Arminianism. That's the standard inconsistent
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Arminianism as far as trying to hold things together that can't be held together. And but that's nothing overly unusual about that.
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Page 21, Jesus paid the complete penalty for our sins by his death on the cross.
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It made us savable. And Dr. Wilken put savable in italics there.
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And that should sound familiar to both of those could have been quoted directly out of Norman Geisler, but they weren't.
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And that's because, of course, Geisler taught at Dallas and Dr. Wilken is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary.
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But here's where the differences come in. Here's where the differences come in.
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The gospel simply stated is this. By virtue of his death, burial and resurrection,
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Jesus Christ gives eternal life to anyone who just believes in him for it.
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If you are convinced of this, you have believed the gospel. Whether it seems too simple or not, that is the gospel.
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Though it doesn't, and listen to this, though it doesn't include turning from sins, commitment of life and doing good works, that is the gospel.
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And so what you need to understand is faith within this system, within Dr.
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Wilken's system is intellectual assent to a particular orthodox formulation of the ministry of Christ and what it means to receive eternal life.
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That's it. It has nothing to do with turning from sin. There is no repentance. Repentance is not a part of salvation.
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You do not have to repent to go to heaven. You can remain in your sin. They don't say you should, but that's not the point.
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You can remain in your sin. There is no such thing in Dr. Wilken's viewpoint as false faith.
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Notice what he says on pages 25 and 29. None of us can be sure that our experience of faith will remain intact until we go to be with the
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Lord. Not all believers successfully navigate their way through this life, yet God guarantees all believers eternal life, even those who suffer shipwreck concerning the faith.
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1 Timothy 1 .19 There is no time requirement on saving faith. At the moment of faith, the believer receives eternal life once and for all, whether he dies shortly thereafter or whether he lives for 100 more years.
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Even if a person believes only for a while, he still has eternal life.
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There's the key issue. As long as you believed in the truth, any belief in the truth is saving faith.
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Any belief in the truth is true faith. Now, a
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Mormon who believes in something false does not have eternal life by believing in something false.
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But as long as you believed in the truth, even for a moment, you have eternal life.
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It's your present possession. What you do after that point cannot impact your possession of it.
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And that means you don't have to repent from your sins. You can become an atheist.
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You can become a Buddhist. You can curse Christ. But as long as you believed the right thing about Christ once, you've got your ticket punch going to heaven.
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Now, you can see why the debate's important, because we're addressing this from, really, the only foundation that it can be addressed from.
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And that is, why does God save? What is the purpose of God's salvation?
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What's he doing? Now, the debate is going to be broken into two parts.
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And as you can tell, I'm reaching over here for my stack of the stack, the stack -o stuff, as they say.
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The first half, resolve that regeneration precedes faith. That's what I'm defending.
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And the second, resolve that works are an indispensable element of true faith. And he's going to be denying that, going first and denying that.
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And so, we're really getting to the issue. And that is, what is the nature of saving faith? What is it that people believe, what is being said about that particular issue?
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And I'll be providing some quotations that indicate, that demonstrate, and this is one of the major errors of Dr.
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Wilkin and Zane Hodges and others, they think they are promoting Sola Fide. They are not promoting Sola Fide.
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That is not what Sola Fide has ever been. That's not what the Reformers believed it was.
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And for example, in the Formula of Concord, the questions, the negative section 5 of section 3, says we repudiate that faith is such a confidence in the obedience of Christ as can abide and even have a being in that man who is void of true repentance, but contrary to conscience perseveres in sins.
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That's exactly right there, what we're talking about. Someone who is void of true repentance and perseveres in his sins is saved according to this perspective.
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And that's Formula of Concord says no. Heidelberg Catechism, question 87. Can they then not be saved who do not turn to God from their unthankful, impenitent life?
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Answer, by no means. By no means. Can't be done.
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Can't be done. Calvin and the Institutes said, For since pardon and forgiveness are offered by the preaching of the gospel, in order that the sinner delivered from the tyranny of Satan, the yoke of sin, and the miserable bondage of iniquity, may pass into the kingdom of God, it is certain that no man can embrace the grace of the gospel without retaking himself from the errors of his former life into the right path and making it his whole study to practice repentance.
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I think Calvin's views might be something relevant to what sola fide actually means.
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And in fact, I also, since this debate is a part of the B .B. Warfield lecture series,
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I quoted him as well. He wrote in reference to James Chapter 2, obviously a passage that is central in this discussion.
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It'll be part of the second part of the debate. And the attempts on the part of non -lordship writers to deal with James Chapter 2 have been absolutely incredible.
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Their interpretation is unknown in the history of the church. Nobody has ever come up with this way of understanding the thing.
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And there's a reason for that. Obviously, it's directly contradictory to their thesis. And so they have to do something very odd with it.
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But Warfield said in regards to James 2, It was to James that it fell to rebuke the
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Jewish tendency to conceive of the faith, which was pleasing to Jehovah as a mere intellectual acquiescence in his being and claims when imported into the church and made to do duty as the faith of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, the glory, James 2 .1. In short, James is not depreciating faith.
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With him, too, it is faith that is reckoned under righteousness, James 2 .23.
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Though only such a faith as shows itself in works can be so reckoned because a faith which does not come to fruitage in works is dead, non -existent.
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He is rather deepening the idea of faith and insisting that it includes in its very conception something more than an odious intellectual assent.
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End quote. Now, I don't know if there was anybody running around back in Warfield's day saying anything similar to this.
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I don't think that there was. But one thing is for certain, that would be directly relevant to exactly what we're going to be debating.
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So those are some of the issues that we're going to be talking about. And you've now heard some of the presentations that are going to be made.
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We have one caller right now waiting for some more at 877 -753 -3341.
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I did want to play one brief thing here.
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Then we'll start taking some of our calls. I started listening to a tape.
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I've had the tape for ages. I got it... Well, when did I debate Peter Stravinskas? That was, what, 2001, something like that?
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So I've had it for a while. And I started listening to it while I was lifting recently.
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And I cut this beginning part. And I said, man, if you want a wonderful example of what happens when exegesis is completely thrown out in favor of tradition.
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If you want to hear what happens in Roman Catholic theology, here's a man with a licentiate in systematic theology, the equivalent of a
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PhD in systematic theology, master's degree, two master's degrees, two doctorates, lecturing,
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Roman Catholic apologist. You've heard us discuss various passages on this program before, unless you're new to the program today.
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If you are, welcome. But anyway, no, it's not a CD. This is called a tape.
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T -A -P -E. This was from a number of years ago. T -A -P -E.
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Tape. Anyway, here is a fellow talking about really...
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I wasn't listening to the debate, folks. I was listening to a lecture by Peter Stravinskas. I am about to quote.
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I'm watching all these confused people going, oh, what are you talking about? Yeah, it's your debate with Stravinskas.
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It's not a CD, man. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a tape that he put out that has a lecture that you'll hear here in a moment.
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So here's what happens when tradition becomes central, even to someone who...
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Well, here, just listen. You may recall that Julius Caesar told us that all
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Gaul is divided into three parts. And that's the case with our topic today as well.
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I've been asked to help you consider three matters, Mary, the Holy Spirit, and the church.
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Three aspects, really, of unity, though. Perhaps the best way to go about the process would be to consider the three principal
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Marian dogmas. That is, Mary's immaculate conception, her virginal conception of Jesus, and her assumption into heaven.
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All the while attempting to see how these teachings have applications and implications for our understanding of both the church and the
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Holy Spirit. In essence, we'll be examining a multifaceted diamond in the hopes of obtaining a deeper appreciation of Our Lady, who provides us with connections to the third person of the
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Blessed Trinity, and then the Spirit's particular work on behalf of the church.
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Indeed, we find this pattern set right at the foot of the cross. The fourth evangelist tells us that Jesus gave up his spirit, which can be interpreted as poetic language for simply, he died.
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However, it can also be a word play, which includes not only the
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Lord's death, but his communication of his spirit, his Holy Spirit.
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And to whom was that communicated? To the two individuals at the foot of the cross,
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Mary, mother of the church, and the beloved disciple, representing the faithful of every time and place.
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Not surprisingly, the fathers of the church saw in the virgin mother and the virginal disciple the birth of the virginal church.
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Okay, there you go. Just two minutes, just a little, you know, how it all starts.
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And I'm sitting here listening to this, and I'm going, what?
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What? You know, what do you say to something like this? You have the situation,
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John chapter 19, all right? Jesus has been crucified. When Jesus then saw his mother and disciple whom he loved staying nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son.
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Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother. From that hour, the disciple took her into his own household. Now, that two -verse segment, which has a fully understandable meaning in the context the original readers would have understood.
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Here, Jesus is taking care of his mother. He is entrusting her to one of his disciples.
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His brothers, remember, were not believers at this time. They did not believe in Christ until after the resurrection.
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And so, he entrusts his mother to John. But many, many, many generations, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, not during the early patristic period at all, but down the road, as Marian doctrine begins to develop, then this is seen as Jesus, woman, behold your son.
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John becomes the church. And so, Mary is being put in the position of being the mother of the church.
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And when Jesus says to the disciple, behold your mother, this is the command to the church to see
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Mary as our mother and so on and so forth. That's certainly not the meaning of the text as it was written or understood by the original authors.
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There's no evidence for hundreds of years at this particular point in time that that's how it was understood.
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But anyway, where does it say that they believed after the resurrection?
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You're not familiar with like James. Anyway, after this verse 28, knowing that all things had already been accomplished to fulfill the scriptures that I am thirsty.
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And then in verse 30, therefore, when Jesus received the sour wine, he said, it is finished.
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And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Now to give up the spirit is clearly a phrase that has a meaning in the original language.
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And when you look at John in parallel with the other gospels, what does this mean?
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It means he died. He gave up his spirit voluntarily.
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No one takes it from him. He does it himself. Remember Pilate's amazed that he was already dead and so on and so forth.
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But did you hear what Stravinskis said? Now it could mean this, but it could also mean that he gave up his spirit as in communicating the
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Holy Spirit to Mary and John at the foot of the cross.
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And since his topic is Mary, the Holy Spirit and the church, John represents church.
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There's Mary. His spirit is the Holy Spirit. And you're just sitting here going, wow. You know, this could be really appreciated by one other person that I know of on radio and his name's
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Harold Camping. You know what I mean? Like, let's just stick stuff together here.
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And yeah, that's not exegesis. That's not honoring the text.
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Wow. And sadly, people sit there and they go, well, you know, the father said it.
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And if the father says it, in fact, remember what happened after the Stravinskis debate. Michael Fallon was standing back next to our table.
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And there were like these three young Roman Catholic guys. And he's not sure whether they were doing this just so that he would engage them, which he ended up doing.
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But they were saying this fairly loudly. And one of them was going, and I'm doing this just the way that Mike communicated it to me.
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He says, oh, this is a Roman Catholic young fellow saying, oh, when
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Father Stravinskis spoke, you could just feel the truth coming forth from him.
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But when White spoke, you could see the demon circling his head.
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And Mike's like, excuse me, but what debate did you go to?
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And of course, that started the whole thing. And they began talking. But, you know, people listen to that stuff and they go, well, that's priest, that's father.
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And I've mentioned that you watch that video. And I've always recommended to people, you watch the
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Stravinskis debate, not simply listen to it. Because there is a look in my opponent's eye that it's like, how dare you challenge me like that?
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At one point, he misquoted. He took about two or three different portions from different people and crammed them all together and said,
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Peter said it. And never said anything, even nowhere in scripture was that citation found.
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All right, wrong attribution is to the person. It was even that a compilation of statements.
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And so I stopped him and I said, where, you know, he's asking me a question, but I'm like, and where's that?
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I mean, I'd like to look at the biblical passage. You know, that's sort of important for me. He was so visibly angry.
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Oh, you're playing a game. I'm not playing the game. You're asking me a question based upon an alleged scriptural citation that doesn't exist.
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How can I play a game? And he, you could just tell no one ever, ever says, excuse me, but where'd you get that?
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The same thing happened when he misquoted Augustine. You know, I'm sure that in his long correspondence with Jimmy Swaggart, cause he brought him up.
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Jimmy Swaggart had never pointed out to him that sermon 131 does not say what many
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Roman Catholic apologists seem to think it says. And so I'm sure that was the first time that he had ever run into that.
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But the fact of the matter is, if you're going to say it in a debate, then expect to have to back it up.
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You know, I mean, what else can I say? That's just sort of how it works. That's where you gotta go.
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So it was fascinating to listen to this. Most of the people just sit in the crowd and they listen.
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And because he's a priest and because he's a scholar, he doesn't get challenged. And I don't know that he would ever do a debate again.
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I actually, at one point, and I would hope that he would say this. Actually, at one point after the debate was over, even after his purgatory response, pay me now, pay me later,
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I saw some guy, and I'm not sure who it was. If it was the one guy, then
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I'm always going after him. But somebody was going after him.
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They were getting loud. I walked across the dais, the platform you're on.
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And I stepped over and I basically told the guy, shut up.
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I said, knock it off. Calm down. We're not gonna put up with this. There's no reason to do that.
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And so I would at least hope that he would mention that.
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877 -753 -3341. We've got two callers online. We'll be going to Steve as soon as we get back from our break.
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877 -753 -3341. We'll be right back. 877 -753 -3341.
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In his book, Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic.
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He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant, and chosen vessel of God has become the immaculately conceived, bodily assumed queen of heaven, viewed as co -mediator with Christ and now recognized as co -redeemer by many in the
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Bible calls blessed among women and an invitation to single -minded devotion to God's truth.
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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.
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The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.
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The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m and the worship service is at 10 .45.
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Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7.
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The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.
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You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE. If you're unable to attend you can still participate with your computer and real audio at PRBC .org
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visit the baseball hall of fame which is right up the road from me i didn't know they allowed that in new york anymore i mean down there in manhattan you know you got all those liberals right well we it's kind of separate from us you know we we keep them the south and they leave us alone up in the north could you sort of cut them out uh you know because i think if you cut them out new york would actually be a pretty cool state don't you think oh absolutely absolutely we're definitely a little more conservative up here we're not real proud of our senators up here yeah yeah anyway anyway i my question is kind of in two parts um i don't know if you've ever heard of a steve craig he hosts a radio program called the narrow path yes yes i have uh -huh and he also did a um a commentary on the four views of revelation which i thought was pretty good but anyway i was on his website and i was listening to a couple of his um his tapes or mp3s whatever they are um calvinist challenge calvinist challenges answered and um he didn't really answer him as far as i was concerned but he made um a couple of points that i wanted to just get your uh your view on concerning um ephesians chapter uh two verse one where it says um and you he made alive who were dead in trespass and sin and also in colossians 2 13 he stated the um the term dead there could refer to the fact that we are under a uh a death sentence when we are in in our trespasses and in our sin and it doesn't mean that we're uh we're dead now and um i guess the second part of the question would be how um he referenced to romans 6 2 where it says how shall we who died to sin live any longer in it so how are we able to sin if we are dead to sin yet how can we not choose christ if we're you know dead in our trespass and sin did i make that clear uh yeah i i think um you know as clear as you can make uh desperate attempts to get around the obvious teaching of scripture anyways uh uh the answer the first one's rather simple uh the opposite of being dead in sin is being made alive with christ um and that's not being put under a life sentence um it the the analogies used are resurrection being born again being given life all those things the opposite of death and when you're simply put under a a sentence a a condemnation that does not result in the inabilities that are are predicated of the natural man um and that's what they're really trying to get around is the fact that the scriptures teach these inabilities the inability of man to believe outside of of god's grace the inability to to do anything that is pleasing before god so on so forth to establish a libertarian position to establish the the center of of their religion they have to get rid of these inabilities and so they have to get rid of the idea that we're actually dead in our trespasses and sins that that is a state of corruption and separation from the life of god but the opposite of it even there in ephesians 2 you were this but god made you alive with christ well you can't fit the idea of well no you weren't really dead you were just under a death sentence someday you would die no in the day that you eat of it you shall die that was a spiritual death that was what results in the rebellious nature of man so on so forth that's a completely different uh discussion in romans 6 where he's talking about no longer having dominion over us our death to sin is in our union with christ in his death upon the cross and so the power of sin the dominion of sin over the believer has been broken but as long as we live in this fallen body until the redemption is finished and completed then there is that presence of sin there is that the the downward drag of the decaying body and the world in which we live that results in the battle that is described through throughout scripture and that is a part of the christian life and so one is describing our state which is what requires the necessity of spiritual resurrection the other is discussing the fact that the power of sin has been broken through our union with christ in his death two completely different areas of discussion that's why paul does not confuse them and the only way that someone can confuse them as this gentleman has is by assuming that words that are used in ephesians 2 are going to be used in the same way in romans 6 and that's a common uh exegetical error it is it is uh i i've noted that and i was talking about the debate coming up i was noting uh that dr wilkin makes that kind of uh of mistake in regards to defining faith and especially in regards to defining repentance and at one point was talking about the parable of the soils for example and was saying well here in this writer it says that the the seed sprang up and another writer uses that over here to mean this and therefore well it's one thing to go to another writer and say this is how this other writer used this particular term it's another thing to just automatically assume that every writer is going to use every term the same way i i don't know how many people i was sort of taught as a young person somewhat of a bad way to do bible studies and that is i you know get out strong's concordance and just follow a term through scripture start with the first place it appears and the first place defines what it's going to mean thereafter no that's not true i'm sorry that results in in any end of confusion different writers use different terms in different ways it is the immediate context that determines that first and foremost which is why you will hear in the discussions we've had with people who've called in to debate this particular issue when we get into for example john chapter 6 they're always wanting to run someplace else and very often they'll eventually say well you know john 6 isn't the only passage of the bible you've got to interpret john 6 by his other passages and you're like wait a minute you have to what other what other passage name of passage well luke chapter 12 okay don't you have to do the very same thing of luke chapter 12 that i'm challenging you to do with john chapter 6 don't you have to interpret it in its immediate context first and foremost to know what it's saying you can't just assume that you know these things and so anyway that's that's a common exegetical error in trying to make you know the desperate attempt in essence to to rescue libertarianism and it just it just doesn't work he does give numerous scriptures where the where the word death or dead is in it both in the in the old testament and in the new testament and he tries to make the point that that dead doesn't always mean inability to do something and that it is used in different ways of course it is no one's arguing otherwise however when it is contrasted with spiritual life when it's contrasted with resurrection when it is when we are told no man is able to do x y and z no man can do this no man can hear no man can come a man has to be enabled to do these things these are when the phrase u dunatai not able appears over and over and over again we're not making something we're not reading something into spiritual death to read through romans chapter 3 verses 10 and following and go wow there is no fear of god before their eyes this is what fills their hearts this is how they act this is the way they are and this is a description of of man and that's why we need to have god's grace that's why we need to have a sovereign god no one it's a misrepresentation to argue that we are saying that every single time the word dead appears that it means spiritually dead and incapable of belief no one has ever said that so proving that means nothing it means nothing at all the only time chasing a term throughout scripture is relevant is when someone makes the opposite claim and that is when arminians say all means all and that's all all means when you can demonstrate that all many times means something else well then you've just disproven the thesis if my thesis was dead means dead in every single place it's ever used in scripture and that's all dead means then it's easy to disprove that but that's not the thesis and so if you're trying to disprove something no one's ever said that might mean that you're not really dealing with what their position is anyways all righty well thank you very much okay thanks for calling and get yourself a nice conservative in there in the senate sometime okay we're trying all right thanks a lot god bless bye -bye bye -bye 877 -753 -3341 let's go all the way across the pacific and talk with peter in australia hi again peter hi how are you doing good uh having a few trouble with the arminians still are we um well just uh just in regards to um you know i've heard of i've not i think i may have listened to some of what he was referring to i i don't know there's there is no end of stuff out there that's uh that's for certain so anyways what can we do for you well that's what you get for being a reformed baptist you see oh okay why is that oh look i was uh i used to listen to sermons on sermon audio all the time in sermonaudio .com
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i'm familiar with it anyway they keep sending me emails the other day they sent me an email about a sermon and it's called do i really want to be called a reformed baptist yeah and i i just deleted the um uh the the email they sent me of course as i usually do to keep my emails clear and i i went to have it have a read of this sermon and it was ridiculous now i did the wrong thing because when i went to sermon audio later on to listen to it or to give you a reference for it uh they they pulled it they put it in their their email to advertise it and to promote it and when i go there to see that you know who it is that's written this sermon or wrote or spoken it they've actually pulled it from the site is that bad hmm that's interesting i i get the same emails in fact evidently i've used two different email addresses to sign up to listen to something in the past that for example sermon audio is where the original auburn avenue presbyterian church conference things were available and so i must have used two different addresses because i get two different copies within about an hour or so of each other all the time but i didn't see that one that one flew by me well no i just sort of just sort of struck my attention now i've i've uh downloaded all of study flippable stuff to you know go through it carefully hear what he's got to say because it makes it you know good listening while you're i'm listening to what you're saying about the auburn avenue people and their understanding because it's pretty hard to understand how people can actually promote that sort of thing well yeah go ahead i don't know who it is exactly it was barnes or branson or someone like that and he wasn't speaking from a church it was from um some uh group that's uh apparently teaching people or something you know of him are you talking about greg bonson it could be i'm not not sure i couldn't find him listed on the sermon audio um name of people there because i thought that's who it was and he hasn't got his name on the sermon which is in pdf format huh that's why i should send it to you yeah i i'd be interested in seeing it i might be able to identify it i really don't know i don't recall ever hearing anything uh by greg bonson on that subject i know that he was certainly open to fellowship with reform baptists in the sense that while he um at least when i knew him was a part of the orthodox presbyterian church and he certainly uh he was greg bonson was he um i remember attending a lecture he gave out in mesa arizona 1994 late 94 as i recall was the year before his death and they mentioned that there was going to be a debate there at the church in june of 1995 that i was going to be participating in on the subject of pedo -baptism it's one of the debates that we have on the on the website and i remember when dr bonson got out to speak that he he made reference to that and he made reference to the fact that he knew which side was going to win and obviously it wasn't my side he was referring to so he was a good presbyterian uh good presbyterian theonomist and so on and so forth but he didn't have any problem um in for example at one point in 1991 he was scheduled to debate jerry matitix in um uh nebraska omaha nebraska and an opportunity came up for him to debate a homosexual the same weekend he had written a book on homosexuality so he called me and and basically asked me to take his place and and i did two debates against medics in omaha in 91 as a result so you don't do that if you if you don't feel that there's any basis of fellowship or so on so forth in that type of situation so i was on an ordination uh one of a group of elders who ordained and greg's father was one of the others so they even allowed for the differences from that perspective too so you know i would be a little surprised that was him i've seen all sorts of things like that though i know it sounds like a recent thing it might be fun or something um i just really it could be recent if it's if it's monson say what you think i don't know who it is actually you know it's someone like that i can't remember the name exactly i'm really disappointed that i deleted it from my thing and i don't have it on the history or anything well yeah you might go for the service here and they've deleted it off uh sterling audio well copy down the um the text of it okay well go ahead and some of the criticism he gives you all right well go ahead and hold on a second hold on a second um we got another caller go ahead and send it to me first or at least in c c and what you might want to do is look through it find a what would look like a unique phrase and google it you'd probably find out that it's actually uh available uh well i did google it uh put the title in and googled it and it went to stern audio but then when i said went there it said it couldn't be found okay uh i've got that folder i've got someone uh uh uh no that's that's our own uh richard brosell is there it's not that one uh yeah i don't see it on there uh on you know there's the points of reform baptist things like that but that's all rich brosell us so i just the question is the title of them is do i really want to be called a reform baptist and he he basically says that the reform baptist title is a magnet for people that um a calvinist nomad our calvin our calvinist what nomad nomads yeah you know they can't they find things wrong with all the other churches oh i see and they're looking for the perfect church he says that's what they've the reform baptist attract oh i see because these people come asking questions about whether they're super lapsarian and you know do the women wear head coverings and all sorts of little questions he says and his his church has got a really good system for getting rid of these people interesting well i sent it over to me i'd like to take a look at it and um if it's interesting enough might even make a comment on it i'm going to try to uh ah there it is there it is someone uh someone just pulled it up uh on uh sermonaudio .com
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called reform baptist do i really want to be called reform baptist uh 822 2004 fellow by the name of ivan foster sermon id and whole number and so on so forth it sounds like it oh no ivan foster it wouldn't be him oh harold here it is here it is here it is here peter peter peter yo peter whoa peter hello harold e brunson b -r -u -n -s -o -n harold e brunson b -r -u -n -s -o -n b -i -u b -r -u -n -s -o -n but the link has yeah yeah the link has been pulled so anyways hey i need to peter i need to run i need to get one more uh one more caller in okay thanks thanks all for calling me god bless all right all right let's real quick run over to john over in georgia hi john hey thanks for taking my call well squeezing in here quick thanks i listened to your debate with doug wilson um the brothers and sisters yeah roman catholics right and later in the debate you had mentioned that you you had baptized your children and one was 17 and the other was 15 i think my question was did they make professions earlier in life well um don't don't all children um you know quote -unquote make a profession uh you know they were raised in a christian family and when you would ask the question do you love jesus they would say yes and so on so forth but we did not push for them to make a quote -unquote profession in the sense that most baptists do and then try to go for baptism or something we generally don't do that in in our church uh we seek to raise them in the fear and admonition of the lord encourage any desires for understanding the word of god and and living as a as a christian but we also explain for example the fact that they're not partaking of the of the lord's supper because of the fact that they have not yet been baptized and we have a discussion on the level of what it means to make that commitment and the importance of that commitment and uh basically just as in when we joined the church the church waited for us to come to them with our desire to join the church in the same way my children came to me i've always been open for them to talk with me about these things and in each instance we had lengthy conversations concerning their spiritual experience understanding of the gospel uh do they understand the the the sin of their own heart do they understand that christ is the only way of salvation they recognize that this is a a a lifelong commitment to christ it is not just simply something to make dad and mom happy so on and so forth and in listening to their their responses and in understanding their responses and in in hearing elements of of true conviction for sin a detestation of sin a a desire to live for christ that is that is when i uh then took uh their desire to be baptized uh to my fellow elders but only after we had had that kind of of conversation where i had a confidence that this does show an understanding of the gospel and understand um a a an experience of of faith um that isn't going to uh evaporate the first time the hormones kick in uh because that's what we see so often sadly in many situations is young people who uh at age six make mommy and daddy very happy and and uh get baptized and then at age 13 when the hormones kick in they they now want to have nothing to do with church nothing to do with mom and dad and nothing to do with christ and uh so that um so so it being a command and me not making sure they follow that command i should more make them um i guess understand that command themselves and let them come forward well that it really that's what i gather from what you're saying yeah well well our perspective is a a believer is going to desire to do what christ commands them to do when they can understand what that command is and um well you know my thing is if i say hey you know you need to be baptized well then then then they'll say okay well i need to be baptized and then i'll push them into that right or should i just kind of let them observe and well you know you know why don't i get to partake of you know the lord's supper and that kind of stuff and and i may want to imitate that right well but i use those as opportunities of explaining what the issues were i i use those as opportunities of of explaining why we uh uh are not like other churches in in trying to push for that very very early um it's there's a little book and i unfortunately i can't reach it without just stopping talking but um oh well i guess i can just stop talking for a second hold on a second there uh music music okay i found it um there it is we're professionals around here uh forbid them not ted l chrisman uh can you put that maybe somebody top that name in the are you in the channel i'm not looking at it though because i know i'll get messed up okay yeah i'll put it in there it's it's got it's got endorsements from james renahan and sam waldron and uh those are those are big rb names i'll put it in there um here in a moment and that would be a that would be a good little resource to to grab you said that in your church they that they weren't allowed to partake communion unless they're baptized that's true is that just your church is that a reform baptist i've i'm not an expert on how everybody does it but that would be my assumption uh that uh most others guard the table like we do as well so uh that would probably be the case with with all of them yeah i'll put that in the channel thanks for your call okay all right god bless all righty as far as i know lord willing be back tuesday morning shouldn't be anything that gets in the way we'll find out uh pray for the debate tomorrow pray that i get there that's the only the only thing that's got me concerned is i'm having to wait you know i'm i'm cutting it close here folks so pray that i get there uh pray the lord's honor and glorify what takes place thanks for listening we'll see you tuesday morning god bless been brought to you by alpha and omega ministries if you'd like to contact us call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at p .o
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box 37106 phoenix arizona 85069 you can also find us on the worldwide web at aomin .org
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that's a o m i n dot o r g where you'll find a complete listing of james white's books tapes debates and tracks join us again next tuesday morning at 11 a .m