Fred Phelps

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line
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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
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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.
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If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll -free across the
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United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five Three three three four one and now with today's topic.
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Here is James White And good morning, welcome to the dividing line just a quick announcement two quick Announcements right off the top before I forget them as I probably will if I don't do them right now because I get sidetracked and It happens did you know that in in less than six weeks
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I'll be closer to 50 than to 40 Yeah, I know you've been there for a while so I Know and you still like running, right?
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Yeah, well we haven't really told too many people out there about chasing criminals around property
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I Yes, we won't go into that today anyway Now see I told you I'd get sidetracked now
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I gotta remember what I was talking about in an hour now that you all have played with your clocks You know this clock thing just drives me nuts.
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I have so many of these atomic clocks and Half of them do not have little button.
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You can press the kills daylight savings time So you got to sit there and here I am Phoenix playing with clocks because they pick up the new time thing and they're stuck on daylight savings time and they
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Change an hour and you're wondering what time it is as you're wandering around the house going well, which one's right? I don't know.
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You know, I mean, I've got atomic watches atomic clocks because I like having the accurate time That's that's sort of cool, you know, but oh well
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Such as life Now that there is an hour between the end of this program and iron sharpens iron
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Then at three o 'clock Eastern, this would be standard time now So that's now we're two hours off the west coast and one hour ahead of the left coast
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At least for a while. It's about eight months four months or so, isn't it? That may be five five months.
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So about seven months five months now Anyway, all that silliness aside the government telling us what to do and dishonoring time and all that stuff
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I will be on iron sharpens iron in an hour after this program two hours from now basically and We will be reviewing the
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Shabir Ali debate, so If you've got not gotten enough, you'll be able to get it again obviously,
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I'd like to put it within the context of the fact that in New York, especially you do have more of a mixture and You do have more opportunities of a witness
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I think in in New York with Muslims and you might in Phoenix or something like that But we'll be doing that iron sharpens iron then
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Thursday evening, I believe it is eight o 'clock Eastern Time We are going to be doing a debate.
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This was not one that I went looking for it went looking for me I was contacted by a
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I'm not sure if it's actually a radio station or if it is more of a webcasting situation, but To do a debate on baptism this
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Thursday evening with Greg Strawbridge Who's well known in that area? He's the editor interestingly enough.
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Anyways, he's the editor of the book that was Held up at the beginning of the baptism debate last year as being sold by the
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Presbyterian side on on the subject of baptism and so I'm not even sure how long it's going.
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I'm not sure if it's an hour or two hours or I need to be looking at those things sort of snuck up on me but we'll be doing that and as far as we can tell we think we will be able to webcast it and Live so you can listen in live
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We it'll be done this will be the first time we've ever done anything like this they use
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Skype as their method of choice and then record it off of Skype, well, we'll be using
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Skype and And Rich started sitting in front of the equipment yesterday going
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Alright. No, what if I did this and then I plugged that in over there
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And I pretty much knew that we were gonna end up being able to do it when I started hearing. Oh Started hearing the
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Tim Taylor action Yes, yes, yes, yes, that's how it works and Why did you say no calls?
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Well, they'll be no calls during that program. Oh Call say it would be good eight seven seven seven five three three three four one
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But no, we will not be taking calls during the debate. It'll be just Greg Strawbridge and myself.
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So Anyway, that'll be Thursday night and speaking of calls There's first one coming in.
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That'll be Thursday night. I believe it's eight o 'clock Eastern Standard Time, which would be six o 'clock my time,
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I believe and If something changes on that, I'll throw it up on the blog and we'll figure it out from there
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So you might want to keep those mind that's oh and on the blog I'm sure most of you have seen this most of the folks who listen to the webcast live do follow the blog on the blog you will find a
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A Link to the Gary DeMar show that aired this weekend
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I think I'm about 20 stations across the United States and it included an interview with myself and my daughter's summer during the first half hour about her
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Experiences with certain professors who don't like Christianity and I thought it went very well and then the second half hour
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Gary talked to me about the debates we've been doing with the Muslim apologists Specifically the
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Shabbir Ali because they are also making that available. So That link is on The website and so there's another hours worth of listening for algo to undergo and to memorize
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So that three years from now we will be able to ask algo When did
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I say, you know Four words in a row and he'll be able to go. Well, that was 47 minutes and 24 seconds into the
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Gary DeMar show that aired over the first weekend of November in and Everybody will once again move as far away from him as possible because he's so very scary.
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So anyway That that is what's going on there. So we go back
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To the discussion that we were having on the program last time and like I said
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Open phones today if you'd like to call in eight seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three three three four one
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Be glad to take your calls. Don't necessarily I know last time I just sat here and talked real fast for an hour, but Don't necessarily want to do that today
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If there are some other issues that you would like to to bring up that would be fine eight seven seven seven five three three three four one
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And in fact, let me talk about something before I go back to the shibari debate because there's some things
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I do want to say in fact, I I Last time we were on I was talking about I'll get the stuff up on Luke 22
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I'll get it up, you know this afternoon or something like that and it went up about 15 minutes ago.
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And That because I'm I'm lazy. No, it's because it took a very long time because once I got into it
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I Realized I Can't just throw this stuff out there and not give a context.
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There's some really interesting stuff here I want to be able to provide something. You're just not going to get someplace else.
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So you'll see a graphic for example of Scrivener's transcription of Codex Bezet Cantabrigiensis and you have a discussion of the of the variant that's there and and sacrificial language in the
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Establishment of the Lord's Supper and all the rest of these things pointing to the cross and you know pretty full discussions pretty lengthy article
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And it took some time to put it all together and to make sure you're crossing your T's and dotting your eyes And that was posted only a little while ago and you will see
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At least right now There is a an attempt on my part to incorporate some
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Arabic for the term shirk As I am learning the language and beginning to read portions of the
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Quran I want to be able to share this information and you hear
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Arabic words a lot anymore you for example if we're talking about Shabir Ali's the head of the Dawah Center was
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Dawah mean well Invitation summoning and it's literally the first step of jihad believe it or not you you cannot engage in Physical jihad against a nation of people until you've invited them to submit to to Islam first and so Most people a little bit uncomfortable with the recognition, but it makes sense that apologetics and the presentation of Islamic faith is technically the first step of jihad and it has to be done before the physical element of jihad can take place and so You know that's it's an
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Arabic term and and shirk is an Arabic term So I need to be able to display this and so what we're struggling with right now is
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Getting Arabic Unicode fonts to to work on the blog Because the
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Greek and the Hebrew we use right now if you go down to the bottom of the blog There's some some fonts to install for you to be able to see these things from Bible works
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But there is at least I know of at least one Arabic font looks fine.
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It's standard Arabic font. That's comes in Windows so and it's supposed to be Unicode, but we're not able to get this crazy thing to work for some odd reason yet, but Ian just displayed
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Arabic on his blog and that's first time he's blogged So but Anything to help
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Ian blog, you know I had to work hard to come up with something that would actually cause him to blog but it did work
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So we're working on that so hopefully maybe toward the end of the day the term shirk will actually appear in Arabic on the blog rather than the
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Semi -colon, I think it's semi -colon RA or something. I forget what it was
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Which is currently there, but we'll we'll get it to we'll get it to work Yeah, see
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Keith Keith knows a bunch of Arabic terms there in channel right there. Takia Fatwa shirk dawah dimitude
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And then of course blue goes gesundheit You're not in the channel you just missed part of the program that's just all there is to it
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We have some professional comedians in there some of whom who some of whom moonlight as dentists
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In fact what's worse is I'll be seeing him Thursday morning, so I That's not gonna be a good thing so anyways before you take our first call
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I Did want to make some comment. I was gonna I was gonna blog about this and I had oh, man
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It's just so so disgusting but over the past week or so we've all been hearing about the the 11 million dollar judgment against Fred Phelps and the
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The cult in Kansas. It's only way to describe it. It's a cult. I have people
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I've I realized get new listeners all the time. I have encountered Fred Phelps before I will never forget my my one encounter with with Fred Phelps and they
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He and his his cult had shown up at at the general conference the Mormon Church assault like say this was after the new
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Meeting house it opened and so they were I guess they heard that Mel white and his folks were gonna be showing up And so they decided to make the trip up to a
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Salt Lake City, and of course that was just another way of you know Absolutely turning everything into lunacy Out there there their signs are disgusting
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They they violate every possible kind of scriptural admonition regarding What we should be setting our minds on and how we should behave and the fruits of the spirit and everything else
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But Phelps was standing there, and I walked up to him And I started off by mentioning to him that I had just recently debated
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Barry Lynn on the subject of homosexuality Well that got his attention I mean here's somebody who has stood up against Barry Lynn and Barry Lynn's tried to sue us to suppress the tapes of the debate and and Hey, you know it's someone someone on our side, and then all
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I did honestly all I did As he made some kind of comment, oh, that's that's good.
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You know that's interesting and all I did is this said, but you know The scriptures tell us to speak the truth in love and as soon as I said that I could tell it was a
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Predetermined signal to his followers most of whom were in his family to Rally around him is he yells you're a god -hater and here comes all these people they get between me and him and just Start screaming at me just start
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Irrational not not a brainwave happening in the entire group just Just just yelling and screaming.
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You're a god -hater All the rest of stuff just shuts it down instantly. I mean it.
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I don't know how much more Clearly you would you would have to define the term cult
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Than for it to apply to Fred Phelps and his and his gang and so I'm telling you
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These folks there is absolutely no question that Christians should should denounce these people separate themselves from these people as much as possible say these people are clearly imbalanced
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They can they can talk about how evil Homosexuality is all day long and while there's the statement is true a person who is ignoring
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The clear biblical mandates as to how we are to proclaim the truth and how we are to act personally toward others
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Is not a person who truly believes what they're saying they do they are not adorning the gospel of Christ It is not a matter of compromising with our society in any way shape or form it's a simple matter of recognizing that if you act the way they act you are getting yourself in Front of the message and you're putting yourself out there and you're the one who thinks you're all that important and all the rest of stuff and and And there should be no problem and everybody's saying these people are as far outside the folds
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They could possibly be it's a cult. No question about it But having said all that Here's the problem
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Anybody who's sitting around going yeah, all right whoo -hoo nailed those suckers ha ha ha ha 11 million bucks
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Needs to recognize that Just as we detest what these people are doing and just as we detest their methodologies in there and everything else if I say that God is bringing judgment against this nation, which he most assuredly is and we can see it all around us and we can see the evil of of our society and All the rest these things has not now a precedent been set
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To where the very same precedent can be used to shut us down I mean,
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I guess he's got a bunch of lawyers in the family and that's how they can probably afford things but here's the problem is that unfortunately that sets a precedent to where the
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Abuse of such authority and power can then be used against anyone who says anything's sin at all
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Now wouldn't it be a whole lot more easy if these people weren't such jerks and just put it in people's faces
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Yeah, but the fact remains It shouldn't be illegal to be a jerk
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The the punishment these people should get is that they should be shunned by everybody And that they should have nobody to talk to in essence and and and mainly experience shame
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For being for being rejected by those who do know the scriptures and believe the scriptures
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But to do what has happened and to have a jury say you people are a bunch of jerks fork over 11 million bucks
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Listen, you know take some time. I made a I'm not sure if it's a big mistake or not, but I I informed
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Rich of a local radio station that is way out on the left beam We didn't even know they were there
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But I happened to find them a few weeks ago and I told him about him and so every once in a while he tunes this this group in and comes in going
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They were they were saying are you talking about pull out your hair America Man I'll tell you there are some
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I mean, wow They are really out there and they look they're most of their listeners
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Would love to see me thrown in in the in jail they'd love to see us shut down not for any other reason than we dare to think that what we believe is true and Those folks are out there and once these precedences are set precedents are set a little multiple plurals are
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They're gonna be used. That's We'd you know, so as much as as I absolutely deplore
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Fred Phelps the man is not my brother in Christ. He doesn't know the gospel He can say true things, but if you say them with hatred in your heart the way he does
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Just just reject them out of hand. But the fact the matter is what was done was not the way that that it should be done and So we are stuck going, huh, you know
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I certainly understand what these people wanted to do These people are just just hate -filled people and we don't like hate -filled people but the fact is a lot of people think that everything the gospel says is hate and So once you cross that line, what are you gonna do?
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Where is it? Where's it go? So well, this is interesting. I just this I haven't verified this but this just popped into channel
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Fred Phelps believe or not was a civil rights attorney in the 60s who successfully defended NFL great Gail Sayers Who was arrested during a protest march against the segregationist college?
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That's interesting that coming from the found of all knowledge The host himself of iron sharpens iron
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Chris Arnzen and channel. So yeah The 60s were a while back. I only remember a certain portion of them myself.
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So So there you go, I mean it is such a shame and I personally, you know, the amazing thing is here
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I think Fred Phelps is a part of the wrath of God Fred Phelps's people part of the wrath of God when
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God lifts his hands and allow cults like this To do what Fred Phelps does and to mock the truth by his behavior
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That in and of itself is a part of the wrath of God the very people who scream and yell about the wrath of God Are themselves a manifestation of the wrath of God against our society?
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well, you'll recall that he and his group showed up the year before the King James only
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Signed people that was that the year before cuz I was just a year before right around the same time I mean we we never did prove it
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But our suspicion at the time was that the local remember the local King James only church there in Salt Lake City had brought him in and that this was in relation to the rumor that Mel white
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Mel white and his group was going to come and protest the church now what I found
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Amazing and I think we still have pictures of this up on our website was these pictures of Homosexual church
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I cleaned it up a little bit the signs that I used we're pointing at the
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Mormon tabernacle or the Mormon Conference Center and Just blew my mind to to see that because of all the things you could say about the
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Mormon Church, that's not one of them well You're gonna have the same percentage.
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You're gonna have any place else. I mean and there are studies that throwing 19 year old single guys together
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Missions is not a good thing either in that context But but and we had had act up show up right
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Queer nation and all protesting against all protesting against the LDS Church, but it's not like Mormonism saying.
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Oh, yeah, this is great This is fine. This is wonderful that that's obviously not the case the the interesting thing. I found though is
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I think that and this is my opinion of what occurred Was that they brought
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Phelps in for that event and it's so disrupted things that they weren't gonna invite him back
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Obviously, he's got bigger fish to fry in other places You know, whatever wherever a TV camera was and no
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TV cameras picked him up there. Really? I didn't know that. No, no Remember this is
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KSL at the events up there totally pans everything going on out in the street
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It's been my observation But I think once all the police started showing up,
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I think they were finally finally forced to have yeah yeah, but the the following year was when they started bringing in this other group and They brought them back in every year.
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I mean these folks come and stay at the homes Yeah, I don't think they even have anything to do bring him in anymore that they just want to be there
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Yeah, and if they ever stopped showing up the first time we showed up they'd show up again. Yes. All right followers do it so it's again like you're saying the guy's judgment bringing confusion bringing all kinds of things to to I Don't know roadblock the gospel because you know you go from being able to have
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Decent conversations with people being able to pass out a track smile at somebody look him in the eye and at least there's a pleasant
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Interaction there that you're hoping that tract is gonna go home with somebody to you know
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Mom grabbing the kids and holding them close and everybody looking down at the ground As they cross the street, and that's poison the whole thing
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When people ask why why don't you people go up to Salt Lake anymore? Well, that's why folks the
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Mormons couldn't stop us, but the the King James only fundamentalist certainly certainly did eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number and that is the number that Our good old friend
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Jeff called hi Jeff. How you doing? I'm glad I'm a friend Well and a graduate friend to congratulations
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You must be thinking a different job. Oh, I'm sorry They don't call in often enough that you should remember me so I why do
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I just I'm trying to read the thing over here It's a different screen these days. Oh well my my wife's expecting in December There's something to to give congratulations over.
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I apologize that yes, you are in In Pennsylvania you went the other Jeff moved and has gone to seminary and was just talking about having gotten his his
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Diploma, and I got that an email and blah blah blah blah anyways I'm lucky. I'm lucky to show up on the right day these days
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For the dividing line, that's what we just said daylight savings. Oh, yeah that Well like I said, you know that didn't that didn't impact me than all the time
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I'm wasting running around fixing my clocks which have gone the wrong direction. Thanks to all the rest of you folks so anyway
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I'm sorry. Sorry to both Jeff's so congratulations to the other Jeff and congratulations to you now
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You're gonna make sure to get the baby born before January 1st That has been discussed back in March or yeah,
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I think I think we need to do like Marathon whatever you need to do before December 31st because let me tell you the child tax credit really helps
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It really really does I I said I've been telling people for a while after the health of the baby prior to January 1st
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Yep, yep, especially after you get to pay all the medical bills. Oh, there's so much fun anyway
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If we just lived in Canada, I would all be free Yeah, yeah, we'll see you in like 10 months
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You just deliver that baby home bring it about 10 months everything and you'd be just fine, okay I had a couple quick things.
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I was wondering if you heard the white horse in this week with Roberts to Jenna I did not I heard about it, but I was a little surprised that That they had some
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Jenna's on Um, maybe it's because some Jenna's was a part of the group back in what was it 93?
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I think that did the debates over in LA, but some Genesis Orthodox credentials are very much under question right now.
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And so I don't really know Exactly why they would go with with him in that context.
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Was that mentioned or discussed? No, oh great it is if they were mentioned that they met him at They became friends with him at a particular debate in the 90s
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But they did not say which debate they but and Michael Horton just asked him a lot of questions didn't really yeah,
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I did I saw commentary on it in channel and Basically, the commentary was should it be nice if someone would actually say no that's wrong
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And here's why rather than just question question question question type type of situation Yeah, they went from that and they didn't have a follow -up with you know, like a roundtable follow -up, right and when
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I another radio show did that once or they were interviewing a rabbi and I think it's like well if you don't have like a debriefing that that can
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I You know that creates a lot of question in people's minds without You know providing follow -up.
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I don't think that's a good thing. Although Horton did ask good questions. Good Good.
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And the other quick thing was I heard that the new
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Christian Research Journal has a Calvinist and non -Calvinist
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I Guess the non -Calvinist wants to argue that Calvinism makes
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God the author of evil And I think it's more in the along lines of for ordination
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Yeah, it's I think isn't that the current issue? I believe that's a current issue and I guess more of my questions since I haven't read the article and I don't get the magazine anymore,
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I was kind of curious when did that for ordination become a Calvinism doctrine
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I thought that was kind of more general broader orthodoxy
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Yeah, well it was but with the influx of Molinism and the the popularizing of at least the the
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Foundations of that if not the the terminology by people like William Lane Craig I think there's a generation of folks who are have a pretty soft view of God's eternality and the relationship between God and time and things like that so that It's no longer really just part and parcel of the of the
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Orthodox perspective. There's much obviously clearly I'm part of many people much more willingness to Brook such concepts as open theism and things like that and still allow these people to remain within the broader
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Evangelical camp, I mean if Clark Pinnock can be described as a as an evangelical
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You know, what does the term mean anymore? It's one of the reasons I find the term to be so Well, yeah, that's the thing is if you if you have creation and foreknowledge, you're pretty much in the same boat, aren't you?
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Well, no, see that's just it using their presuppositions if you if you if you have creation and foreknowledge, you're you
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Haven't you know the outcome that's going to happen. Yeah, but remember Within what was what was the answer to that provided by the non -Calvinist in my appearance in December of?
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2003 on the Bible answer man on that subject The argument that is presented more than once is well
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You may know Why you may know that Sonny and Cher divorced
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But that doesn't but your knowledge did not Cause it to happen right and so Evidently the idea is there is an analogy between our knowledge of the past and God's knowledge of the future
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The problem of course with that from I think any perspective is that my knowledge of the past is purely passive And hence
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I could not have had anything to do with that But when you have foreknowledge knowledge before it comes to pass
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You're either saying that that time and everything in time when God created it was completely outside of his control
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He just rolled the cosmic dice and it happened and he takes in passive knowledge of what happened And he just happens to have won at the end
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Which is which to me is just frightening in its implications and and and everything else
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It would also seem to completely lock God out of time I mean he becomes a passive observer of the events of time and it not not active in the sense of Having a decree that involves his actions in time itself
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I mean if he just simply rolls the dice and goes Oh, this is what I have passive knowledge of what free free people are gonna do
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He can't change that And so he's he's in essence locked out of time. So But so much of theology today
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Doesn't start first with the doctrine of God and then move from there to the doctrine of creation
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And the and events in creation and that which is created and things like that reflecting
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Postmodernism and and the focus upon man it starts with man and then creates a doctrine of God That is fitting to its doctrine of man.
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And I think that's one of the major differences between the two perspectives.
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So You know when you say when you seriously promote the idea that well
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You're knowing that Sonny and Cher divorced didn't cause it and that has something to do with God knowing what's going to happen in the future, but that doesn't mean that he had anything to do with its causation or In creation did not set up the conditions whereby it took place or anything else
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Very scary very scary. I don't think it's it's defensible in any way, but very scary Alright, well,
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I need to get back to the seminary. Okay Well, you keep working toward that You need to work toward where you will be able to Accept the congratulations that I offered the wrong person about the graduate about the about the diploma.
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So you get back to work there All right. Well, good. Good luck winning the Super Bowl or whatever you're doing. Okay. Thanks a lot
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It's seven seven seven five three three three four one I think that's you know,
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I I think it's a very valid thing to point out that You know if you're gonna
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I most people have given up on systematic theology. Anyways, let's face it There is a there's a whole broad spectrum of people who go you know what
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I like mystery and theology I like Contradiction in theology, you know,
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I was listening to R. C. Sproul speaking in Hawaii and He was talking about how in seminary
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He encountered the same stuff that I did and and that is you know people standing up there as professors and going
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You know embracing Of course term that they used when
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I was in seminary was the tensions of the text Which was just a really fancy way of saying
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I'm going to believe that the Bible contradicts itself And I'm gonna try to pretend that I can
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I can make something out of the contradictions That's you know and that that the higher the higher form of revelation is
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Is that which embraces the contradiction of the text and blah blah blah blah? and as R.
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C. Said I even as a seminary student realized that if if You're saying that something can be
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X and on X at the same time that you really don't have anything meaningful to say to me It didn't make any sense.
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But that's what was really popular at the time and it unfortunately still remains that way and so People don't mind having a theology of the of man that's contradictory to the theology of God It's kind of the theology of the gospel.
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That's kind of their theology of the church and Somewhere is a badge of honor.
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I remember one guy in seminary We both went to the same church and we were sitting around at a church function one night.
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We're both in the same seminary And one of the things he said me was James you just you just want you you want things to be too logical and consistent and That was that whole you know
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Embrace contradiction thing that was it was going on. So the result is
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Is a mess. Well, someone just asked a channel. Do you see a difference between contradiction and paradox? So well, what's paradox?
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Every time I hear someone bring that up when they boil it down ends up being a nice fancy word for contradiction and They'll say well, you know the
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Trinity is a paradox. No, it's not. Well, how's the Trinity a paradox? Well the freedom of man and the freedom of God there a paradox exactly how oh
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They just aren't exactly how You want to flesh that out? And well, they're just things that will never fully understand.
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Oh, no nope, that's Paul seemed understand it scripture seemed to explain it.
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So what exactly you know, I'm not saying that there are not high revealed truths that take
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Christian maturity to fully understand and to and to apply and things like that, but I'm sorry, don't don't see how that works.
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So anyway so we've talked about Phelps we've taken a phone call and Probably would be good to get to at least a couple of things that should barely said
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So that I don't have to necessarily type all these things out there is a
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Okay, here's a question. Is there a is there a place for some mystery? What's a mystery? Mystery and scripture is that which was hidden from preceding generations, but it has been revealed in Jesus Christ.
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So what's a mystery? Again anything that is that is being used to say well
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I'm going to embrace contradiction and I'm going to place scripture at odds with scripture. I don't see any reason for that The idea of mystery in the sense that well is
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God just simply a big man. It's all been explained No, I'm not saying the Bible explains everything. I've said many many many many times that as as Calvin said
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God is the one who sets the limitations to our knowledge Based upon what he reveals in Scripture and when
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God says I'm not going to reveal anything more on this then God doesn't have to reveal anything more on that and that's where Humility comes in play and we have to stop
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We don't go beyond where God has spoken and when people go beyond where God has spoken They create all that's when they really start creating paradoxes and antinomies and all the rest of these things because They end up contradicting themselves horribly, but when
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God has spoken I believe that God speaks with clarity and that he he doesn't contradict himself and so What can
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I say? So anyway, I do need to get back to some of the things that Shabir Ali said here and one of the things that we encountered here of The dead
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So you're saying that by definition mystery is that which God hasn't revealed No, I actually said the opposite of that that Biblically the term mystery is that which
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God had not revealed the past generations But has now revealed in Jesus Christ if you want to use a term unbiblically to refer to Things outside the limits of God's revelation.
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Okay fine, but that's not a biblical use the term mystery at that point So anyway in his response
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Shabir Ali Said quote during the debate I mentioned that in the gospel of Luke and in the preaching the original disciples of Jesus in the
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Acts of the Apostles in the Bible we can see it the forgiveness of sins is not dependent on the death of Jesus on the cross in response
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James now cites the preaching of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles such a response would have been adequate if I had said that Nowhere in the
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Acts of the Apostles such a doctrine can be found to contradict me James has to find one of the original disciples in the
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Acts of the Apostles preaching this That he could only find Paul preaching this serves to confirm what I've been saying all along about the difference between Paul and the original
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Apostles and so here is this again the idea Without a shred of foundation in saying the original apostles
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Which would be the ones who originated for example the creedal statement of first Corinthians 15 Which people which scholars clearly recognize is not
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Pauline in origination and preceded him long time in the Christian movement That the original apostles did not believe that Jesus died on the cross
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For our sins now why they didn't write books about this or things like that is one of the big differences big problems
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But to say that you can't go to Acts and find one of the original apostles. How about Peter how about the day of Pentecost?
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Acts chapter 2 men of Israel listen to these words Jesus the Nazarene a man attested you by God with miracles and wonders and Signs which
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God performed through him in your midst just as you yourselves know this man Delivered over the term to give up and the form of sacrifice
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Delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God Not by mistake
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But it was God's intention you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death
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Now excuse me, but Shabir did Peter believe that that Jesus had been nailed to the cross and put to death
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By the predetermined plan of God yes or no He's one of the original Disciples isn't he or is this just simply?
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Luke Influenced by the corrupt Paul Corrupting the words of Peter. I mean there's always way around this once it once you've you've you've decided that your ultimate authority is my
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Theory about the New Testament. There's always way around these things so But God raised him up again
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Putting an end to the agony of death notice the relationship between the crucifixion Resurrection and the putting the end of the agony of death
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Since it was impossible for him to be held in its power for David says of him Then you have quotations of Old Testament texts
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I'd be very interested in seeing if if he believes that the Old Testament text here actually
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Is being properly used because he is frequently accused the New Testament writers of misusing the
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Old Testament text for David says of him I saw the Lord always in my presence for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken therefore my heart
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Was glad my tongue exalted moreover my flesh also will live in hope because you will not abandon my soul to Hades Nor allow your
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Holy One to undergo decay you have made known to me the ways of life You'll make me full of gladness with your presence
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Brethren I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to This day and so because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath
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To see one of his descendants on his throne He looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the
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Christ the Messiah that how he was neither abandoned to Hades Nor did his flesh suffer decay this
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Jesus God raised up again to which we are all Witnesses and so you have the crucifixion the resurrection the destruction of death all connected to the fulfillment of the
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Messiah and The crucifixion taking place therefore having been exalted the right hand of God and having received the father promised the
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Holy Spirit He has poured forth this which you both see in here for was not David who ascended to heaven
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But he himself says the Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both
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Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you did What to whom you?
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crucified Not crucified and he survived crucified was dead buried and Resurrected notice the connection of resurrected with crucified here a resurrected would not have any meaning if you didn't die first So Shabir's use of crucified all
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I was crucified just didn't die Again nine nine point nine nine nine percent of everybody the
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Romans crucified did die And I would challenge Shabir to show us an example
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In fact, it would need to be lots of examples of people that the Romans failed to execute by crucifixion
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We do know there are some people there are a few references in history to people who were taken down off of crosses
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Because the Romans allowed it someone of influence comes along sees a servant of theirs or something intercedes on their behalf
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They're taking down from the cross and in the majority of those instances. They still die So we need to have people who are taken down with the
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Romans saying this person is dead and After they've been chucked in a shallow grave.
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They take themselves out and somehow survive their wounds That's what we need to that's what we need to come up with so Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both
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Lord and Christ is Jesus whom you crucified Now when they heard this they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the process puzzles
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Brethren, what shall we do? And what does Peter say? Repent and each of you be baptized in name of Jesus Christ the forgiveness of your sins and you'll receive the gift of the
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Holy Spirit for the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off as Many as the
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Lord our God will call to himself and so sins repentance
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Why would the proclamation of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus then lead directly into the men saying
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What shall we do and the Apostles response is repent? How is it that they can repent?
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How is it that they can receive the forgiveness of sins? Because it is through the name of Jesus Christ because there is a promise and that promise is for you and your children the
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Jews And for all who are far off the Gentiles For how many of each one of those groups as many as the
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Lord our God will call to himself There is the elect of God Jews and Gentiles the promises for them the reception of the
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Holy Spirit always connected with Baptism and all of that reflecting the fact that those who are baptized
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In so doing are confessing that their sins have been forgiven in only one way and that is in and through Jesus Christ and with many other words, he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them saying be saved from this perverse
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Generation, so the very first sermon in the Acts of the Apostles Presents to us the entire complex of concepts that come together
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That is the gospel of Jesus Christ the death burial resurrection and that through him forgiveness of sins is
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Proclaimed and that faith in Christ will bring you that forgiveness of sins so There you have the fulfillment of that It's very similar to Shabir complaining that well ransom and sacrifice are different concepts
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Again, how do you define these things? What's the basis of defining these things? I tried to point
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Shabir to the only meaningful basis you can have for defining these things And that is what is the language that the
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New Testament writers are using Where do you find the suffering servant? Where do you find
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Psalm 22? Where do you find Isaiah 53? What is the background of the language that is being used to define this terminology?
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It's found in the Old Testament and is there somehow some basis For asserting that ransom language is not sacrificial language is the ransom language always found within sacrificial concepts
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Yes, so the so you can't just simply well, they're different things prove it Prove it. I mean if the
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New Testament Taken as the New Testament clearly makes this the case that we are talking about the sacrificial death of Christ here
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Then just throwing it out and saying well are different things is not an argument Just saying well,
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I'm going to assume the New Testament's contradictory to itself. I'm going to assume That I can just take it apart and ignore the parts
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I don't like and if there's anything contradicts me I can just dismiss it and and And put together a jigsaw puzzle.
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It's upside down and backwards and say ah, that's your New Testament. There's what's real message As I pointed out in the blog article that I just posted
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There is there is no end of where you can take these things The blog article that just just appeared on the blog
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Hopefully will be of assistance to folks Hopefully it'll be useful to you what I've attempted to do there was provide you with the information as I mentioned on the last dividing line regarding Luke chapter 22 and In essence his argument there
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Quoting again from Shabir Ali did Jesus really say do this in remembrance of me?
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These words are attributed to Jesus in the Bible in Luke's Gospel 22 19 b through 20 Do this in remembrance of me in this way?
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We learn GS Institute the regular observance of the Eucharist the use of bread to symbolize the eating of Jesus flesh and wine to symbolize
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Drinking was blood I point out in the debate these words are missing from some very important early manuscripts and for this reason many scholars deemed a later
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Edition hence this cannot be taken as a reliable proof that Jesus said these words James seems to have forgotten what the point was
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On the DL he asserts that I reject these words simply because they disagree with Quranic teaching He then uses this as a starting point to launch an attack in the
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Prophet Muhammad But I think it is important that we do not become sidetracked these problems exist apart from Muhammad in the
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Quran if I reject the words in the basis that they disagree with Islam on what Basis too many Christian scholars reject them and what basis were they removed in 1952 edition the right standard version of the
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Bible well First of all Shabir never said anything about Witnesses about manuscripts.
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I would have caught that I did go back Algo sent me the his mp3 recording of the debate and I listened to the comments around 58 minutes into his recording and As I had remembered
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He simply said certain scholars do not believe that these were later edition
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He did not say What his writing says that is I point out in the debate these words are missing from some very important early manuscripts
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That's that's not what he said At least not in the section I listened to if he if he says he brought up more than once then
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I'd like to know where it was brought up at another point I Admitted last week that in the course of a debate when you're trying to write things down that have been said so you can respond to them
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Sometimes the next point that is made you might not hear all of it And I admitted it was quite possible that I did not hear him mentioning something about manuscripts
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I am a human being I can only write so fast and hear so many things and do so much multitasking at the right time
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But I only remember this being stated once and I have heard that part of the debate and there was nothing about a manuscript
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Issue there. There was nothing about a textual variant because believe me People who know me know that if I was sitting there, and I heard someone say
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There's textual variant there my hand would have automatically without me even I had to think about it been on my
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Nessie Allen text And I would have been opening it up to look at the textual variant And while still trying with one ear to listen
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Examining textual variant so that in the Three seconds you have between the time the other guy gets done and you get to get up and start talking
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I could at least try to provide some kind of Response on that level, but the recording that I have heard of the presentation of that statement
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Did not make any reference whatsoever, so I didn't forget what the point was
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Shabir may have been thinking that he said something about the textual variant But he didn't at least not at 58 minutes in if he wants to say well
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I brought up at a later point and and so we discussed it more than one time fine We'll we'll take a look at that point, but in what
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I have heard at 58 minutes in I think algo says he's listened to the whole thing and that that was the only time it came up, but maybe
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We can you know double check all those things But the point is my response was based upon the mere statement
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And this is what I heard on the recording that scholars believe this to be a later edition generally when
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Shabir makes that statement He's talking about some type of textual emendation. He's talking about some type of redaction criticism
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He's talking about you know well there were five different versions of this gospel and blah blah blah blah, and these are all
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Theoretical there is no there is no manuscript evidence to substantiate any of these things somehow if there if there were these stages
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Those manuscripts never got copied. They never got distributed. No one ever saw these things. It's all hypothetical based upon one particular scholars
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Coming up with well. You know here's my theory about what was going on in the early church And so here's how
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I fit the textual data into my theory etc. Etc now Having said all of that.
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I then took the time to provide you with the information concerning the subject of The textual variant, but before that I likewise included a discussion in the blog article of the fact that I Really really feel that so much of the discussion of the of the early church and manuscript variants things like that has such a grossly unrealistic view of the early church
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What I mean by that is Especially Shabir Ali's view where you have Paul coming along and taking everything over and creating a
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Jesus who never existed Creating all sorts of events in life Jesus that never took place and Somehow even though there are eyewitnesses who for decades are actively involved in the church
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And who are traveling about and their message has to be consistent with the others message
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And there's this core apostolic teaching all of that gets thrown out in these wild Redactional theories that say that people could come along and just completely change everything about the the teaching of Jesus You really have to have an extremely low view of the original
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Apostles or turn them into fictions of someone's imagination to come up with this kind of theory and It's it's all very radical and and does not you know you don't have to come up with any solid hard evidence of any of this stuff
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You can just throw these theories out and as long as you went to the right school all of a sudden It's now scholarship.
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That's an amazing thing that we really didn't deal with in earlier generations But think for a moment what things were really like before there was a
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New Testament You had these eyewitnesses people knew who the eyewitnesses were Sometimes only within the community because they would know under persecution these people would be particularly of interest to those who wish to destroy
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Christianity whether that being the Jews to the Romans and They would go about and they would be preaching their message and Teaching their message and then people would say well
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You know I heard eyewitness X say this and I heard eyewitness Y say the same thing but I heard them say it at different times in a different places and So if someone else comes along ten years later
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Named Paul and starts telling all sorts of stories that no one's ever heard of before about things that Jesus did in fact
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Completely contradicting what has already been taught by the Apostles wouldn't they be going X gives me where'd you get that and somehow the theory is that Paul succeeded in all this and not only that he succeeded in creating a religion based upon this idea of crucifixion which everybody in the world found to be extremely repellent and He created an entire religion out of what was a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks And and this somehow is is is how
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Christianity ends up becoming created. It's it's an amazing thing to think about but The point is especially at this
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Juncture we're talking about the Eucharist, and I know a lot of process goes But it's a perfectly good
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Greek word, and it is used in the New Testament the giving of thanks he broke the bread and he blessed it he gave thanks
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Eucharist Oh and The the founding of the Lord's Supper call it what you will
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This was very much a part of the early church and so the idea that that Paul somehow is the one who
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Establishes this and establishes the utilization of the phraseology do this in remembrance of me
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Is very very difficult to to fit into any meaningful context the early church at all it really takes a tremendous flight of fancy And a very very low view of the original apostles who just stand by helplessly going oh, well, okay, whatever you say, you know
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Again completely different than the kind of almost perfect memory That has to be ascribed to the followers of Muhammad for the the
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Quran to come into existence Total contradiction total inconsistency you you you just have to just throw your hands up and say well, whatever
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I guess you just accept Muhammad as a prophet and go from there type of a type of argumentation But anyway,
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I then provided the fact that The the only there's only one major Greek manuscript that does not contain these words codex busy
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Contra virgin sis. I provided you a scan from Scrivener's transcription of that translation of the text itself
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And demonstrated that it seems pretty obvious to me that That there is a problem in in D here not with all the manuscripts that pre -exist
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D Of course of Shabir's perspective if this is just Paul making these things up then it doesn't really matter the manuscript evidence doesn't matter
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It's all in a theoretical realm anyway Because this is all prior to this would be in the very writing of Luke itself
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How how even codex D came into existence is a good question because that's later than your other manuscripts
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Where'd that come from? Was that due to some original follower of Jesus hacking up one of Paul's manuscripts? I mean, it all becomes pure fiction
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I mean once you make your fictional theories the ground of your historical study, it all becomes fiction there's no way to really come up with any kind of meaningful way of Honestly dealing with these things and so I provided that information provided the parallel passages demonstrate that the sacrificial language
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This text is in both Matthew and Mark And that the idea that well the first person ever say these words is
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Paul no, the first the earliest source we have as far as If you're going to put
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Paul before the Gospels date wise is found in Paul, but where'd he get it from? And I point out that he gets it from his
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Instruction from Peter and the original apostles themselves the attempt to create this massive division just simply
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Doesn't work yet. Once again, we provide that information on the blog for you. So thank you for listening to dividing line today
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We will remember and in one hour We'll be doing iron sharpens iron and then Thursday evening after the dividing line an hour after we get done with the dividing line
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We'll be doing the baptism debate as well. So a lot of stuff going on this week. Thanks for listening. God bless
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