February 28, 2006

From the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded

Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, 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 Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. Hey, good morning. Welcome to The Dividing Line. Hey, not overly healthy,

James White here, unfortunately. Just hopefully on the far side of that wonderful thing that you get whenever you seal yourself in a metal cylinder for 11, 12 hours.

And of course, everybody likes to take those trips while they're sick and then cough while everybody else.

And that's what happens. And even though we managed to get over there without getting ill, especially since the flight over from Chicago to Heathrow only had about 55 people on a

Boeing 777, that was helpful. On the way back, there were more people on the plane, still comfortable.

But I heard two people coughing. I had surgical masks with me.

I don't care what it looks like next time I'm going to put them on, because this is just not an enjoyable thing to travel.

And then three days after you get back or arrive where you're going, you're in the midst of this.

So anyways, we're going to do the best we can and play lots of other stuff today or take your phone calls or whatever it will take to not put quite as much pressure on me.

I will be clearing my throat a lot because I do not want to cough, because coughing will result in about a five -minute break in the program while I attempt to recover from the resulting muscle spasms that come with it.

So it's just one of those things, the weakness of the flesh. Be that as it may,

I do have a section of a sermon to play.

I played a few portions of this, I don't know, at least about a year or so ago.

And judging from the way people were responding to it while I was playing portions of it during the pre -show, the half hour beforehand where we do the feed just to make sure it's working and so on and so forth, no one seemed to recall it.

Evidently, it hadn't made a real big impression the first time around or it was in the midst of various and sundry other things.

And it was around the same time that I had been playing Dr. Patterson's series of sermons from down in Orleans on Calvinism and just a number of different folks.

It was Dr. Davis's DVD. He is big in the homeschooling movement entitled

Why I'm Not a Five Point Calvinist. And one of the reasons to play this other than just allowing my voice to not have to be doing the entire hour on its own, one of the reasons

I do this is because the debate coming up on April 21st in Sedalia will be that's the one where the high school attempted to find someone to debate the subject of Calvinism.

The students had over the past two years done two debates, had sponsored, put on two debates attended by about 800 people each on the subject of creation evolution.

This year, at the beginning of the year, they chose the Calvinism -Arminianism debate. And so I first heard about this.

I was contacted by them asking if I would debate Norman Geisler in this debate.

And of course, I immediately contacted them and said, let me let me take a wild, wild guess here.

You actually haven't talked to Norman Geisler yet, right? Because I couldn't believe that after all of the opportunities that Norman Geisler has had to engage the subject, that all of a sudden he had decided to change his mind and do so.

And I was told, well, yeah, you're right, we actually haven't talked to him yet.

I mean, that's not to be a problem, is it? And I'm like, well, let me let me start filling in on what's going to happen here.

And you're going to you're going to find a whole spectrum of people who are very, very, very much interested in blasting

Calvinism, but who do not possess the courage of their convictions to actually then engage the subject.

I mean, that's just all there is to it. I said I started listing off the people and it was like, oh, come on.

No, that's not the case. It's like, well, go ahead, take, you know, knock yourself out.

I'll be waiting. And so the. The email started coming back, well,

Dr. Geisler is not not willing to do that, you know, so I'm contacting Dave Hunt, who else would you suggest?

So I started giving lists of people, you know, names of people who have preached against Calvinism, pretty much the entire staff of Liberty University and.

All sorts of all sorts of folks, including Dave Hunt, of course, and of course, Dave Hunt declined and just this is long, long, long list of people who would not who would not debate.

And so they were getting desperate. I mean, they were they were literally getting to the point where they're going to have to give up because it was taking so much time and the school year was grinding along.

And even though it started early, this rejection after rejection, after rejection, after rejection, people who were more than happy to blast

Calvinism in particular venues. But then when it comes to actually facing someone and having to do that in a in an exegetical format, well, that's when everything starts changing.

And so what ended up happening is I had just gotten this this

DVD and I said, well, you know, this guy is a pretty good speaker. He's dependent upon Dave Hunt, which means the information is really going to be bad and it's going to be a straw man view of Calvinism.

And, you know, obviously he doesn't really know the system very well, but. Possibility, I mean, he speaks at various conferences, he he's obviously comfortable doing public speaking and the like, and so let let here he is.

So I got him in touch with excuse me.

I put the cough button down where I could get to it. I got him in touch with with Dr.

Davis and make a long story short, Dr. Davis would not engage the topic.

However. A an attorney in his church said that he would be willing to engage the subject, and so.

There you go, that's who I'm going to be debating on April 21st in Sedalia is a

Christian attorney who is a member of Dr. Davis's church, and that's why

I will thought I would play some portions of Dr. Davis's presentation.

Respond to it and let let my future opponent know that I have done this, so because from my perspective, the the only thing that could make this encounter completely useless is if I have to spend the entirety of my time.

Constantly correcting the regular straw man arguments that are part and parcel of what you find in Dave Hunt's writings.

If I have to spend the whole evening going, well, again, that's that's not what Calvinists believe and no

Calvinists do believe that man has a will and that no God didn't force anybody to do anything. It's not like you've got some innocent person that God is forcing to be evil.

And, you know, all these constant misrepresentations that are part and parcel of this kind of this kind of material, then we're never going to be able to get into the biblical text.

We're never going to be able to actually discuss the issue in any meaningful fashion. And so that is my motivation for doing that.

And we'll do that in just a moment. But first, we have a phone caller, so I'll let someone else talk for a few moments and talk with Mike.

Hi, Mike. Hey, James. How you doing? Oh, I'm here. Um, before we get to my question,

I wanted to ask you, you having a debate coming up at Biola? Yes. What time is it at? I honestly don't know.

It's, uh, I would assume around seven ish. I, we've had problems with, uh, with the scheduling.

It had to be moved to May 7th. I have to put something up on the blog about this because they had a, um, something with the pops musical presentation that was already using the gymnasium on Saturday night.

We can't push it any later because that gets into the finals week and people leaving. And, uh, so though it was certainly not my choice to do so,

I didn't see that there was any option, but to, uh, to go with the, uh, the May 7th date,

I would assume six 37 o 'clock. I, I just don't have those, uh, those details yet.

I don't know. But you'll put them up on your blog when you get them. Yeah, I will. Perfect. Now, um, my question is dealing with dealing with Calvinism since you're talking about it.

Um, I finished watching your debate with George Bryson, uh, the DVD that you did.

And I guess my first comment would be that I must give it to George, to Mr. Bryson for having the guts to just debate it.

You know, unlike Dave Hunt and Dr. Geisler. Well, yeah. And then he, uh, even after that, um, did the

Bible Ants Man broadcast. And then we did try to get him to a debate in Salt Lake City in April of this year.

But, um, the only way to do that is we didn't have cross examination anymore. Okay. Um, I noticed that in the debate,

Bryson, um, just kept on, uh, um, talking about, he kept on making comments about, um, how

Calvinism practically, uh, the practical implications of Calvinism from his understanding, uh, um, you know, uh, makes the, the, the call of evangelism and what have you kind of obsolete.

Right. And he kept on making this comment about how about how we would treat the unbeliever or the, uh, the, not the non -elect if you will.

As if we knew who they were. If we knew who he was. Just making, I'm thinking to myself, I'd just tear my hair out if I had to.

Uh, yeah, well, yeah, me too. Well, yeah, but that is, if you've read any of George Bryson's materials, if you read the

Five Points of Calvinism, Wait and Found Wanting, if you read, uh, now the, uh, The Dark Side of Calvinism, uh, that's his fundamental argument is to seek to poison the mind through emotions and saying, well, look, um, if this is true, then, uh, you don't know if you're, uh, if your mother's elect or your sister's elect or your brother's elect.

And, and of course I said, well, actually we don't know who is elect. And the fact of the matter is the only option that you're offering is that God cannot make that determination.

God, God will, is already doing the best he can to save that person. There's no reason for you to be, uh, uh, praying for anyone because if God's already putting out 100 % effort, what good is your praying going to do?

It doesn't make any sense. Right. Um, but generally, and this has been our experience repeatedly over and over again, generally these folks only present these kinds of arguments within the context of a monologue and never, it, they don't work in a dialogue as we saw in that particular debate.

It works well when you've got the microphone and no one's going to be cross -examining you and no one's going to be pointing out the other side.

That's, that's the only way that this type of thing works. But sadly, uh, so many of these organizations, we've heard more than one person as they were preaching, uh, say

I w I would never let a, a Calvinist in this pulpit, I would never, I would never allow a dialogue to take place.

Well, I think that's a, that pretty well says it all personally as to, as to why that is.

And, um, so yeah, it's a, it is highly effective for people who don't know how to think really, really well and, um, haven't been trained to think logically and rationally, and that's a large portion of our society and therefore a large portion of, um, a large portion of the church today, uh, as it comes in, we, we don't hardly, uh, press the issue of a

Christian worldview, the press, the issue of consistency, truth, the fact that we can know what truth is because we have a worldview that provides a foundation for it, a creator who has created consistently, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So, uh, it's, it's certainly a, uh, you know, an advantage to their side at that point, uh, to, uh, uh, you know, as far as the people they want to influence,

I can't, I can't help someone who does not understand what truth is.

I can't help someone in a debate who is coming into that debate with, with a grossly deformed worldview in regards to logic and rationality.

I, there's nothing I can do about someone like that. I can, you know, hope and pray that God will do something for them, but they're not the ones

I'm debating for. I'm debating for the people who want to hear what the word of God has to say. They want to hear a consistent answer.

They want to see someone who honors truth in the way that they debate and the way that they present their, their beliefs.

And, um, that's a pretty small group that I'm debating for. I recognize that, but I think they're the ones that, uh, that, that God would have me to be focused upon.

Now, let me ask you one more question before I get you, get you off here. Um, I'll just talk about, you know, um, foreknowledge and what have you in the philosophical sense that God foresees and they'll choose and all that.

Right. Um, now let me just, let me just mention for those who haven't heard it. He used a very, um, non -standard, non -historical, uh, uh, definition of not only that, but especially of monergism and synergism.

And so I had to waste a fair amount of time just pointing out that he was using terms in a way that no theologian had ever used them in the past.

So, right. Right. Um, even with regards to anyone, Dave Hunt, whoever loses though, the whole issue of foreseeing the future and all that, um, by the, the way they say it, the way that's put out normally, you know,

God foresees their faith. It seems like God doesn't determine the future the way they say it.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, they'll, they'll say that. In fact, we'll, we'll play a clip eventually here from Dr. Davis, where they will say, of course,

God knows the future. Of course, God knows what's going to happen, but it doesn't mean blah, blah, blah. And when you press them as to how they make those things fit, well, you've seen what's happened.

Uh, when I was on the Bible and span broadcast, I tried and tried and tried, uh, to get, uh, both

George Bryson and Hank Hanegraaff to answer the question. All right. If you affirm exhaustive foreknowledge, then please explain in light of that, your objections to Calvinism on these levels.

If, if you're going to object to, to the belief in the sovereignty of God, the decrees of God, et cetera, et cetera, then please, if God created knowing what the result of his creation was going to be, what is the advantage from your perspective of saying

God had no purpose in any of that? And, and anyone who's heard it, I'm not sure if you've had an opportunity to hear it, but anyone who's heard it knows

I got no answers. I, I kept going to, to the text of scripture. I went to Genesis 50.

I went to Isaiah 10. I went to, uh, acts four. And, uh, I was the only person on the

Bible and span broadcast really using the Bible in that particular situation. Everybody else was using the same kind of, uh, argumentation.

So again, that's one of the reasons I pursue these debates is because while there are going to be those who are very ensconced in their tradition, who, no matter what

I say are going to continue to believe what they're believing, there are others, and I've had many who've contacted me having listened to Bible Answer on broadcast who are very angry at me when they heard that program, they're angry at Hank, uh, because Hank was representing their position.

They're like, well, wait a minute. Why can't you refute this stuff? Why aren't you going to the Bible to refute this stuff? Um, and that began a, a, a journey on their part that resulted in their embracing reformed theology.

So. Oh, sorry about that.

Um, I actually don't feel that bad. Just the voice isn't working overly well. Um, so that's why

I want to see these things take place. I, I actually am holding back today on some really big news.

About a future debate. I'm, I'm, I'm really holding back cause I want to be able to give everything all at once, but, uh, there, there could be something coming in the pretty near future, like before June -ish,

I would say. Um, that, uh, is going to get a lot of attention.

Let's put it that way. So just thought I'd mention that. I'm just making sure, make sure it's in Southern California. That'd be nice.

Uh, no. In fact, I'm going to give one, I give one hint because people, people in my chat channel already know what it is, but, um,

I'll give one hint. It would be, um, it would be in Virginia. Oh, that should be enough to tell everybody actually what's possibly going to be going to be happening.

But, uh, anyways, but, uh, anyhow, uh, I appreciate your call brother. Thank you.

877 -753 -3341. I, uh, I'll leave it at that. All you gotta do is, is think about, um, think about what's in Virginia and what cities are in Virginia.

And, uh, you can, you can figure it out from there, I think, but I don't have, not everything's completely in place yet, so that's, uh, that's, that's why

I'm not, uh, not saying anything more about that. 877 -753 -3341.

Don't let the fact that all of a sudden I disappear. Uh, I've got a cough button here. And when

I, uh, when I cough, I try to use it. Um, but sometimes

I'd right now, you don't necessarily see it coming. You know, you don't, don't feel it coming. It just, uh, sneaks up on you and wah.

And, um, so I'll do my best to get around it. I feel okay. Well, okay.

I don't feel okay, but I feel better than I did yesterday. How's that? I'm just trying to look at it on the, on the bright side. Uh, let's, uh, go up to a cliff in Salt Lake city.

Hi cliff. Hi, Dr. White. How are you? Well, everybody keeps asking me that and not, not overly well, but we're, uh, we're surviving at least, uh, and this means

I can't, uh, can't communicate anything to you via the, uh, the internet. So that's a, that's a good thing. All right.

Well, what I have in front of me is your King James only book, which I know with interest is, uh, um, endorsed heartily by Norm Geisler.

Oh yeah. That was before, uh, the Potter's freedom. So I've said, I've said many times that, uh,

I would like to believe in light of the subject matter that, uh, he would still endorse that book, uh, despite differences in reformed theology.

But, uh, you know, that's a whole nother issue. Well, one, I'm calling specifically, I love the book and I think it, uh, is very informative of how the new

Testament came together, but I would like to know if you can recommend something for me that would help me in, in layman's terms to understand how the

Hebrew scriptures, uh, reached the point they did say book just before the

Septuagint translation took place. That's a much more difficult, uh, thing to answer because you said on layman's terms and, and honestly, the only, about the only thing in my library that's, um, specifically on that subject is a rather technical work on old

Testament textual criticism, which is very, uh, deeply involved in, uh, also in the discussion of the

Greek Septuagint and things like that. And it tends to require a fair amount of both historical and, um, uh, uh, original language information.

It's, it's a completely different process than with the new Testament, uh, especially given the huge amount of time that we're talking about here.

Whereas in the new Testament, we're only talking about, uh, maybe, uh, anywhere from 40 to 70 years, uh, as far as the, uh, the amount of time over which it's written, you're looking at, at a thousand years for, for the old

Testament. And so you have, um, portions of the old

Testament or the, um, the Tanakh that are well -established as scripture before the writing of other scripture.

And though you only have a little bit of that, you do have, for example, a Paul recognizing Luke's writings, um, or at least the, the inclusion in Luke's gospel of a statement from the

Lord Jesus. Anyways, you, you have just a little bit of that there you clearly have in the Psalter and in the, in the prophets, a recognition of the

Pentateuch and, and the law and so on and so forth. So not only do you have those canonical issues where you have a much longer period of, of development and you have a certain segments that have been established for, for a long, long time while others are still being written.

But then you also have a very different means of transmission of the text over time while Christians wanted the

New Testament documents to be distributed all across the

Roman world in a, in a very, very quick period of time. Uh, well, it, the, the papyri manuscripts give evidence of the fact that when a, a believer would be traveling in another, in another city and would encounter, for example, apostolic writings in the church there when he came to worship that they did not have in his church, that he would be allowed if it was his desire to do so to, to copy that and to take it with him back to his church.

And so you've got a willingness for even non -professionals, um, especially under the period of time where you have, uh, where you have, um, uh, persecution going on, uh, you, you have a willingness for those, those scriptures to be copied and distributed very freely.

That's not the case with the Old Testament scriptures, at least initially in the sense that they are primarily under the, uh, under the control and for the, the utilization of the

Jewish people as a, as a nation and as a religio -ethnic group.

And, uh, so, uh, that, that changes the dynamics of the transmission of the text over time, and then you then have to deal with, um, uh, the reality of translations and of course the biggest thing for me, and this is an area that I, I, there's lots of areas like this, there's lots of scholarly areas that I really wish

I had the time to delve far more into depth, uh, in, in particular areas, when you're an apologist and you deal with as wide a variety of things as I do, you always feel, um, uh, a, a desire to, to go more in depth in certain areas, and you always feel like you're just, you're just not able to, to do that because of time, but the

Septuagint, the, the use of the Septuagint by the New Testament writers, very, very vital.

That's a big issue today in translation, too, as to what resources you utilize in the translation of the

Old Testament and the various weight, the weights that you give to the Septuagint over against the Hebrew text and blah, blah, blah.

Didn't the Masoretic text, uh, correct from a Jewish standpoint, correct some things in the

Septuagint? Yes, yes. Yeah, there's, yeah, I mentioned a few weeks ago on the program that, uh, for example, in, uh,

Psalm 110, uh, the Masoretic text, which you can primarily, uh, locate, you know, 500 to 900 years after the time of Christ, as far as its genesis and organization and coming into its, its final form is, is clearly influenced by the conflict between, uh, the, uh, the

Christian church and, and the, the Jewish congregation. And so you have, uh, issues in regards to vowel pointing and things like that, that, uh, that come in there.

So yeah, there's, there's, while the Septuagint had been used by the Jews, it was very quickly abandoned once it became, in essence, a

Christianized text. Can we say then in general, the Torah, the first five books, uh, there was some reference to the fact that they existed early, but then

Ezra and Nehemiah would have changed things from just going from oral tradition more to written?

Well, you definitely, yeah, uh, the, the, remember the, um, the, uh, the chronological order of the writing of the books, certainly the, the order of the canon is not, is not representative of those things in general, there are some, but, but obviously the historical books span larger periods of time.

And we don't have the same kind of specificity in regards to authorship and dating of many of the

Old Testament books that we have, of course, for the new, I remember almost chuckling, if it hadn't been sad at the fact that, uh, one man that I knew who converted, uh, from Christianity to agnosticism, in essence, one of the things that he found compelling in the arguments of, uh, uh, uh, this is where you, you shouldn't use your brain when you're, uh, when you're sick, uh, the, uh,

Thomas Paine, uh, who I found just laughable in his argumentation was that, uh, they're, they're anonymous

Old Testament books. And he found that to be a compelling argument. I'm like, who, who didn't already know that? But I guess that just wasn't the way it was.

We don't have quite the same kind of level of specificity on those things as to be able to know exactly what, uh, uh, would be available in any one area.

The interesting thing is however, that someone like Ezra, uh, since you do have a centralization of the religion at that time, probably would have access to everything that the people of God over the centuries had viewed to be the word of God.

It wouldn't be a situation where you had the same kind of canonical discussions that took place in the new

Testament, where someone in Rome had the books that they're familiar with, but someone in Alexandria, uh, they had the books they're familiar with.

And when revelation arrives, everybody scratches their head and goes, eh, what? Uh, you know, the, the, the geographical, uh, issue wouldn't be the same in, uh, in the development of the

Old Testament canon and the manuscripts, the Old Testament that you have in the New Testament. So it is a completely different field.

And like I said, there is a, there are books in Old Testament, Old Testament textual criticism, but they are not, let's put it this way.

They're not a fun read. Uh, you, you really got to want to, to dig through them. They aren't, they aren't, I at least tried to make the

King James only controversy understandable and readable. Um, not much effort has been put into making these things understandable and readable.

Let's put it that way. Well, the reason that it's important, especially where I live here in Salt Lake City is the idea of, uh, the

Book of Mormon and that being, uh, authentic and we can prove it here, here and here. And they, they, they rightly can point to us and say, show me how the

Bible was put together. Well, yeah, except there's a vast difference, uh, when you compare the

Tanakh to the Book of Mormon in the sense that, um, as we know, there were various and sundry criticisms of the, of the

Old Testament, especially historically in regards to the peoples that it made reference to. And as more and more archeological research has been undertaken, you know, the

Hittite nations and, and these other nations that, uh, 150, 200 years ago, there was no evidence of their existence.

Now they're able to find these things. The problem, the problem is if you're familiar with the work of farms and, uh, people like Daniel C.

Peterson and, and, uh, the people who are, uh, speaking out in defense of the Book of Mormon, you know what the trend there is, and that is the ever shrinking

Book of Mormon geography. Uh, that is instead of what, I don't know, if, if you've read as much

Joseph Smith as I have, it seems painfully obvious to me that Joseph Smith intended the story of the

Book of Mormon to be placed in a very wide, uh, all of North America type situation.

I mean, the very idea that, that, uh, all of this took place in an essence, a 40 square mile area hidden somewhere in Mesoamerica, and yet these golden plates ended up on the

Hill Cumorah is, is to me, a implicit recognition of the fact that the

Book of Mormon is not a historical document. I mean, I mean, that's, that's all there is to it. But as you know, there was even controversy now as to where the

Hill Cumorah is, it could be, you know? Oh yeah. I mean, I mean, come on. I mean, once you've got to have angels, you know, uh, doing a

FedEx delivery on golden plates, you got a problem, you know, let's face it. But the point is, and not everybody knows what we're talking about.

The point is in that in modern Mormon apologetics writings, the tendency is to keep squishing the area where the

Book of Mormon took place smaller and smaller and smaller so as to be able to explain the lack of physical evidence.

Because let's face it, the Book of Mormon talks about a lot of physical evidence. If you've got horses and you've got chariots and you've got swords and you've got limbnaz and shimnaz and they're made of gold and silver, that's the kind of enduring artifact that we can trace back everywhere else in the world, in other cultures for thousands and thousands of years.

None of that stuff exists in Mesoamerica. So that's what we're talking about. Correct. But the point is, it's an inspiration to me.

And you even mentioned in your King James only controversy that there's a very, I believe I'm correct in saying this,

I'm paraphrasing you. There are very few Christians who really understand how the New Testament came together. Oh, yeah.

And in the same sense, there's even a greater amount of us that would be unaware of the steps taken to bring the

Old Testament together. So it just seems incumbent upon us if we really want to be intelligent in our approach to this, that it's worthwhile looking into and it shouldn't just be for the academic...

Well, that's true. And I think that's true on every level. It's not just apologetics to Mormonism, but we live in a anti -Christian society.

And I just got back from the UK where you can't even talk about religious things in the media the way we can here.

They look at us as if this is Beulah land. This is the promised land because we're soaked in religion over here and it's such a secular society there.

So we do need to know these things. Of course, the one thing, and I don't know where you need to take a break, but the one thing that is different in regards to the

Old Testament and the New Testament is we do have the, on a theological level, in dialogue with Mormons anyways, on a theological level, we do have the words of Lord Jesus establishing the authority, consistency, inspiration of the

Old Testament. At least at that point, they have to agree. Clearly, Jesus has an agreed upon Old Testament text that he's citing from in the debates with his opponents at that time.

So if we, at least to the Mormons, they believe Jesus Christ is a

God at the very least, the Son of Elohim, Jehovah, then he has established the

Old Testament authority in his utilization of it in the New Testament.

And well, for that matter, I guess it would have to follow the 1769 Blaney revision of the

King James Version, the Book of Mormon. But that's a whole other issue that we can't get into right now. But at least on that level there, you would have that.

All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341.

We're going to take a break. Be right back. Do your best and nothing less to be a soul from death.

It's all the Trinity is a basic teaching of the

Christian faith. It defines God's essence and describes how he relates to us. James White's book,

The Forgotten Trinity, is a concise, understandable explanation of what the Trinity is and why it matters. It refutes cultic distortions of God, as well as showing how a grasp of the significant teaching leads to renewed worship and deeper understanding of what it means to be a

Christian. And amid today's emphasis on the renewing work of the Holy Spirit, the Forgotten Trinity is a balanced look at all three persons of the

Trinity. Dr. John MacArthur, senior pastor of Grace Community Church says, James White's lucid presentation will help lay person and pastor alike.

Highly recommended. You can order the Forgotten Trinity by going to our website at aomen .org.

More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and evangelicals are working together. They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils.

They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements, and many evangelicals are finding the history, tradition and grandeur of the

Roman Catholic Church appealing. This newfound rapport has caused many evangelical leaders and lay people to question the age old disagreements that have divided

Protestants and Catholics. Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language? James White's book,

The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition and scripture, the papacy, the mass, purgatory and indulgences, and Marian doctrine.

James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the Christian life and the heart of the gospel itself that cannot be ignored.

Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at aomen .org.

Welcome back to the

Dividing Line. What's left of the host of the Dividing Line anyway, fighting on here.

Let's go ahead. We've got plenty of calls today, thankfully. Let's go ahead and talk to Michael.

Hi, Michael. How are you doing? I'm doing very well. And I appreciate you're not asking me how I'm doing because I don't have to explain it again.

Okay. Well, last Thursday, you solicited feedback to the exchange between you and Eric and Kanner.

Right. So I have about five or six observations. I hope you can bear with me. Okay. First one is, when it says we reject them,

Christ died for the world. He did not die just for a boys club who believe they and their children are on the inside.

Yeah. I shall always stand for the only world and whosoever. That is biblical exposition.

That is biblical exegesis. That is church history. Obviously, he's getting his distorted view of Calvinism from somewhere.

Yeah. And I'm not sure what his sources are, but to be honest with you, given his references to Dr.

Dave Hunt, despite being correct on that many times, my assumption would be his primary sources are chosen, but free.

What love is this? And then obviously, and this has been pointed out to me by many people and something

I had pointed out myself, and that is, as a former

Muslim, my assumption would be that he has accepted a false view of what reformed theology is.

That sounds like a rather distorted view of a hyper covenantal view that he's really trying to present there.

And he's connected that with Islamic fatalism and puts the two of them together.

So it's a it's a hodgepodge mixture of things. And I would like to think that there would be a willingness to listen to the other side, to let the other side define their own terms and parameters and things like that.

That's what scholars do. They listen to the other side, let them define their terms and then approach it from there. But yeah,

I think you're right. There's definitely a need to identify what the sources are. But I haven't been able to track down enough information where Dr.

Kainer is addressing this issue outside of rather brief comments. And I'm a little bit hesitant to make a whole lot of commentary just based on that.

And then one of the other thoughts that I had was when he said, you know, this is biblical exegesis. One of the things

I'm constantly harping on at the church that I go to is that Bible reading is not

Bible study. What do you mean? Well, just because you read the

Bible, you know, you need to, you know, it's very helpful to have, you know, study tools where you can go into the original language.

Right. And that's that's one thing that's lacking from his response. Exactly. Well, I've not seen any serious exegetical presentation on any subject whatsoever in the blog entries and the like.

No, I haven't. Right. And then also he confuses your confidence with arrogance. That's one thing that I that I picked up.

Well, you know, the ironic thing is people who've seen that have sent me quotes from both of the

Kainer's websites that basically said the difference between confidence and arrogance is arrogance points to the person and confidence points to the

Lord. And I I have a hard time with the with the arrogance charge when

I when I look at when I look at certain people's websites and I go, you know, it seems like someone's claiming to without fail, without fear, without flinching, address these things.

And then when you actually want to do so, that's kind of response you get. You know, that that that seems a little bit odd to me.

But like I said, there are there are things developing in the future. We'll we'll see what they we'll see what they are.

OK. It was almost like from his part, you know, going through the introduction of his website, it's almost like an appeal to the brute force or to intimidation.

Yeah. You know, like like, you know, like I like Mr. T, you know, I pity the fool who challenges me.

You know, don't make me bust you up, Shane. Well, unfortunately, we do like look like twin brothers, so I'm not sure exactly how that would turn out.

So and then and then another thought that I had was that he technically he did respond to you.

But however, he didn't answer you. Like, for example, if I was to say, James, would you mind telling me what is the mailing address for Alpha and Omega Ministries?

And then you say, well, it's already listed in last year's phone book. Right. And I said, well, James, would you please tell me right now over the phone, what is the mailing address for Alpha and Omega Ministries?

And you say, well, the phone company and I already answered you. You just didn't like the answer. Yeah. And in Proverbs nine, eight, it reads, do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you.

Reprove a wise man and he will love you. Yeah, I remember that, you know, it was it was

Greg Bonson who quoted that section from what is it, Proverbs 24, I think, just off the top of my head, where you have two statements about responding to the fool and one says do it and the other says don't do it.

And both have different different responses and different reactions. In other words, there are times and there are ways in which you have to respond and there are times in ways in which you don't.

And it is it is determining that issue that that is that is difficult and requires a certain level of of maturity and introspection.

I have written to Dr. Kainer in material that hasn't been posted, and I have done so in such a fashion as to seek to.

Appeal to him as a brother in Christ, seek to appeal to him to engage these subjects in a in a

Christian manner with me for the benefit of the people of God. And we are not yet to a point of saying that that's not going to happen.

There is a possibility that will. OK, and just lastly, on that topic of maturity, one of the things that was written, he said,

I must go. It is amazing how many elect one finds when going door to door. Yeah, I thought that was kind of childish.

That's like if you were to tell Shabir Ali, you know, well, got to go. I need to go blow up a Starbucks. Yeah, well,

I hadn't really thought of it along those lines, of course. Maybe that's too extreme. Yeah, well, you know, of course, from my perspective, my response to that was why even use that terminology?

I mean, that's biblical terminology. Paul said he endured all things for the sake of the elect. That's got to have some meaning to it.

And a a facile, simplistic reduction of the term to people who choose themselves just isn't going to work.

So why not discuss that? Why not? Why not go beyond that? That's that's what I I'm calling for people to do.

And like I said, it may yet happen. OK, I think maybe your argumentation might have been too overwhelming for him.

It wasn't even hardly argumentation. I was simply honestly the vast majority of that particular conversation took place on one day while I'm sitting on a on Roger Brazier's couch in his living room.

It was just, you know, once he starts listing his points that that's what made the

Potter's Freedom so easy to to write was once these folks start putting their inconsistencies to to paper or in this case to electronic text, pointing out inconsistencies is not something that's extremely difficult to do.

And so, you know, that's just basically what I was doing there.

But anyway, thanks for your call. OK. All right. God bless. Bye bye. All right.

Well, some good calls. And if you haven't been getting some of the hints I've been dropping today, you're not listening really well, but that's

OK. That's OK. Like I said, we don't have the final details we can give you. But I am appreciative of the next caller because this way

I don't have to talk quite so much myself. And since I don't know what's going on about everything in the world, it's best to have somebody else answer the phone and talk to Michael Fallon.

Hi, Mike. Hey, James. I want to ask how you're doing. I appreciate it. You were pretty much in the same boat just a few days ago.

So, yeah, I've been trying to get myself ready to sing and to talk and all that sort of thing. So I'll say

I hadn't talked this much since I really started coughing bad a couple days ago. And man alive,

I may have actually helped out. I mean, I've been hitting this cough button. Hopefully people haven't noticed too much and I'm feeling better already.

I haven't cleared the old pipes out. So it's painful as all get out. But, hey, that's life.

Can I imagine you make it that much worse just living in the desert? Well, where it hasn't rained for 132 days.

Yeah, we have a shot at it today, but it has just never been this dry. It's just I don't think you would like it right now at all.

It'd be very I don't know how anybody sings in this to be perfectly honest with you. But I bet Richard's grass is still green, isn't it?

No. Oh, it's not. Oh, no, no. It's sorry. No, I mentioned that. My pool is.

But his grass isn't. But we have some interesting announcements. Yes, yes.

We need to get to that before the end of the program, don't we? Yeah. And folks, I know that there's been a lot of clamoring for a debate with somebody from Liberty, Thomas Road or anything.

But unfortunately, we're not able to do the debate, which is is Tinky Winky a homosexual?

Oh, yes, yes. Fortunately, I know that Dr. White, you believe that Tinky Winky is one of the elect. I've actually never made any public comments on Tinky Winky at all.

Weren't you willing to defend that or no? No, I'm sorry. I know that's no. Well, we believe that Tinky Winky sexuality is intact.

Okay, good. Well, anyway, you know, there's a lot of people have no idea what you're talking about. Well, okay, so we'll move on.

Yes, that's good. Anyway, so the the debate that we do have coming up here, folks, in November is homosexuality compatible with authentic biblical

Christianity with the Dr. Wright, Reverend John Shelby Spong. This is going to be an event that I know so many have been looking forward to.

I know a lot of folks in the past had stated, you know, if there was somebody I wanted, James White, to have a chance to debate, it would be

Spong, because Mr. Spong certainly being a member of the Jesus Seminar, as well being a very outspoken and public figure, very representing the liberal point of the extremely liberal point of view of what is still being known as Christianity.

And I don't know if it quite crosses that line anymore. But someone certainly has been on with Hank Hanegraaff, someone who has been on with several other folks.

He's been on with Michael Horton and and, of course, is on has been on O 'Reilly Factor, as well as all sorts of different programs, you know, with his with his usual thing and so forth.

And his and his caller. Yes. I mean, I mean, these folks. And that was what surprised me about the

Barry Lynn debate years ago, is that it never would have crossed my mind the man was an ordained minister because he didn't present himself that way.

John Shelby Spong does. He he's in his clerical collar. He's he's he's really pushing for what he calls a new

Christianity. The Christian must change or die. So this is the the face of that movement. Well, and he was the former bishop,

I guess, of the Episcopalian Church. Retired Bishop Newark. Yeah. Yeah. So this is someone who comes with a lot of clout.

He has a great number of followers, which should make this debate very interesting. It should be.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, not only that, but one thing I've mentioned, Mike, both of us have written books on the subject.

And unlike unlike Barry Lynn, I really would be very surprised if John Shelby Spong did not avail himself of my written material.

It was clear that Barry Lynn had not. But I would be very surprised if he did not read my book.

And therefore, what you've got is two people addressing the subject who are very familiar with the arguments of the other side.

And that always makes the best of it. Absolutely. Well, this is going to be a fantastic debate, folks. If you haven't had the opportunity to look on the website at AOMEN .org

and see the the ad there to the right side, this is going to be in combination, of course, with the 2006

Alpha and Omega Conference that we are now turning into a yearly event, which is going to be held actually in Walt Disney World, not in the theme park.

We're not going to have it outside of Space Mountain, but it's going to be actually in a hotel, which is on the

Disney property, which is the Hotel Royal Plaza. And the the advertiser that we've had so far, folks, is that if you want to make it in to town and provide a great vacation for you and your family or whatever the case may be, as well as to attend the conference and debate, you could look at the

Hotel Royal Plaza and receive the conference and debate for free. It would cost you nothing by just staying at the hotel.

We've got a great rate. This hotel usually is in the mid -200s. I think we're down around 120 or so, so you're able to book into the hotel, have yourself be able to get to the debate and conference for free.

And the conference, we have men such as, of course, Dr. White, Phil Johnson, David King, Tom Askell, Burt Parsons, who is the editor of Table Talk Magazine, the associate pastor at R .C.

Sproul Church, and, of course, the always verbose, Steve Camp. Yes, the always what?

The always verbose. Always verbose. I had not heard that one before. Always ready with an answer.

Ah, yes, I'm sure that's what you meant. Yes, I will. I will have to, next time

I talk with Brother Camp, have to talk to him about that. But it's... Especially, especially given the fact that, as I've publicly admitted, both you and Steve did defeat me roundly in our little challenge last year, and so I bow down to both of you as the loser.

Well, considering that you can still bow, and we can't. I haven't seen my shoes now in three months. But anyway, that being said, folks,

I know that a lot of you had taken a look at the website. We had a February 28 deadline for early savings.

And this call was for the purposes of telling you that we have been able to talk to the hotel, as well as our providers, and to extend that early savings date to March the 31st.

So if you were looking to get in on that, as well as if you were looking at the Pulpit Crimes Cruise, which this year is shaping up to be a real great event.

We're going to have Phil Johnson, David King, Steve Camp, of course, Dr. White on board. Hopefully feeling better than I do now.

Hopefully feeling better. Yes, indeed. And this is going to be surrounding the topics of Pulpit Crimes, and I know some of the topics that we're going to be addressing, both on land and then on the sea, are topics such as laying down the law, the

Bible's teaching on the nature of preaching, prostitution, using the gospel for financial gain, cowardice under fire, which is timely, entertainment without a license, cross -dressing, ignoring

God's ordinance regarding the roles of men and women in the church. So a lot of these issues are going to both be on land, addressed in the conference, and then on the ship, we're going to continue on with the conference topics.

And I tell you, if you've never been on a cruise with us before, that's a time where we really get a chance to get close.

And we have times where we can talk, we can have open debate and disagreement on topics, and we can have a conversation.

We can talk about some things and so forth. Our late -night theology talks have always been popular.

We have topics such as Thelonious Eisegesis, Pulpit Fiction, of course, the main one, Tradition Trafficking, Impersonating a

Preacher, all sorts of topics like this that we're going to be able to have a chance to address with Phil, Dr.

White, David King, and with Steve Camp. So folks, if you haven't had the opportunity to look at the website to see what maybe you could do with your family or with, let's say, a great opportunity for you and your wife to get away, or if you're a pastor and you want to get away for a week, this is the place to go.

I know we have a lot of conferences this next couple of weeks, Shepherds and Ligoniers and some others that are going on.

We have one in Louisville together for the Gospel, and those are all great. Those are fantastic. I'm going to a couple of them myself.

But if you're looking for a time of rest, relaxation, as well as just great fellowship and edification, make sure you're with us.

Every year we poll the folks that we have with us, and I'm telling you, what we usually have is nothing but either 10 out of 10s or 9 out of 10s when we have our surveys come back to us.

Yeah, it would be a nice thing if you wanted to send your pastor someplace.

Of course, you'd want to make sure that you were not, since the topic is pulpit crimes, that the connection there was not meant to be corrective.

That would be the only thing you'd want to make sure you did there. But it would be a really nice... I've talked to a lot of folks about the fact that when you first contacted me years and years ago now, was that 99, 98, whenever it was?

Yeah, it was 98, actually. 98. And I told my wife, I said, this guy's contacted me from Florida, and if I'll come speak at this conference, we'll get this four -day, three -night cruise.

And my wife's response was, well, we're going on that cruise, whether I have to speak or not.

So I just wasn't raised with a cruising mentality.

When I was in the UK, people were saying, that's just something we don't do here. We just don't even think about it.

And so I've met folks, they sort of go, eh, whatever, cruising, so what?

And once we went on the cruise and realized, first of all, just I don't know if you remember,

I think it was that one or the next year, you and I were going around the little jogging track on the top of the ship while we were at sea.

Oh, boy. And as we were going into the wind, we were barely able to make any forward progress whatsoever and then go in the other direction.

I was just hoping I wasn't wearing enough loose clothing to completely fly off the ship. But you could see forever, the air was just so incredibly clean and the food.

And it was just wonderful. And a lot of folks will take retreats and things like that, where they'll go up in the mountains and stuff, and that's pretty, but you only get to see one set of scenery when you do that, and you can't necessarily guarantee much in the way of clean air in that type situation.

This is a moving retreat location, basically. It makes perfect sense.

And when you figure it out as far as the cost goes on a daily basis, it's an incredible bargain.

It really is. You know, sometimes people just look at the overall cost and go, I don't know. But divide it out over the period of time and it beats anything else all over the place to be able to do both the study and the theological context, things like that, as well as the opportunity of relaxation and blowing the, in our case here in Phoenix, blowing the dust out of your lungs in the process.

Well, and I would challenge folks to do this as well. You know, outside of a lot of the other cruises that my company sponsors and so forth,

I would say take a look at some of the other ministries that are out there that have cruises and take a look at the pricing, and I would challenge you to find any other type of ministry cruise that has as low a price as Alpha and Omega does.

And that's something that James always wants me to do, is we want to try to keep the price as low as possible to try to make sure that folks that, you know, maybe you're not the richest person in the world or you're in your mid -30s or late 20s and you're just married, that you can afford to go with us and have this fabulous time for a week.

I mean, our prices are even lower than what you can get on Travelocity right now. Well, not only that, but rich people don't like me.

So that's another reason why we have to do this. I don't want people on the cruise that, you know, are going to be slapping me around and insulting me left and right.

So we have to keep it low so that the people who like me can be on the cruise. Otherwise, you know, I'm going to be the loneliest man on the ship.

So that's not a good thing. So being silly there, folks, don't worry about it. Actually, I don't know very many rich people one way or the other, so I'm not sure whether they like me or not.

But I appreciate your letting us know about that. Obviously, I will do my best over the course of the next month to let people know that this is the month to make their make their plans and make their reservations and to join us on the cruise.

I know that there's something about November that seems like it's so far away, but it's not.

It's right around the corner. And given all I've got going on between now and then, it's going to run me over like a steamroller.

So it's heading at us fast. So I appreciate it, Mike. All right. Thanks a lot. God bless. Bye bye. I also appreciate the fact that I needed him to make that kind of announcement.

Just simply to save my voice. But Lord willing, and the healing process continues,

Thursday evening, we'll be able to get back to Dr. Davis and listen to more of that.

And Bart Ehrman and Ahmed Ddotts and your phone calls all here on The Dividing Line. See you then.

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.

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

World Wide Web at AOMIN .org. 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.