April 6, 2004

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From the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
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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.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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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
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Good morning and welcome to The Dividing Line.
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My name is James White and we are live after a weekend in Salt Lake City, well
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I guess you'd call it a weekend in Salt Lake City, and I'm not sure if it's really a weekend, but we were there for the, well, we weren't there for the general conference,
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I cannot hear myself, I am going up, up, up, up, up in the little thing there, and I sound like I'm a million miles away, and very, very, very muddled like this, so I sound like...
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Anyway, we're getting a little better there, but still got a ways to go. See, it's the first day back, now we're getting better, now we've taken out whatever the filtering stuff we had in there.
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I would imagine that probably the sound board went with us to Salt Lake, and so everything's all messed up, and so it takes us a couple programs to get back where it belongs, but that's what we were doing.
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We were up in Salt Lake City and we did two debates, a debate on Friday night, both were at the
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University of Utah, and a few of you found us.
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We were in a venue that was a little difficult to find, and very dark, my recollection of these debates will always be very dark.
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We had some fun trying to get the lights to work. You know you're in the big time when you're standing there with a big long piece of board trying to re -aim lights, and the whole thing just about falls on your head, but because the whole thing is about to fall down, some of the other lights turn on.
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Woo, that's fun. Anyway, we managed to get it all put together, and had two good debates.
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I wouldn't call them the most challenging debates I've ever done, quite honestly.
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The first debate, I appreciated Richard Hopkins being willing anyways, unlike the vast majority of Mormons in Utah, to actually debate an issue.
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It seems there are not a lot of Mormons left that actually believe Mormonism is objectively true in comparison to anything else, and are willing to defend that position.
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He was willing to do so. We were debating temples, whether temple building is consistent with New Testament Christianity.
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The one thing that was very odd, was that at one point in the debate,
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I was listening to my opponent speaking, and I think
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I understood him, and eventually I had to ask the question during cross -examination. He went to Hebrews chapter 10, beginning of verse 19, and I found that interesting.
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I was just finishing up a paper, an article for a journal on Hebrews 8, and also dealt with 10 through 18, so I was certainly familiar with the context.
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But he read the following passage, Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh, and since we have a great high priest, a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
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The way this was being presented was, you see, the apostles and the
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Christians were still gathering in the temple, and so the idea was, they were actually doing temple worship or temple ordinances, and I guess were even entering the holy place in the temple in Jerusalem.
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And I'm like, do you have any idea? Don't you remember what happened to Paul, when it was just rumored that he had brought a non -Jew into the temple, let alone the holy place?
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I mean, wow. So it was interesting. I really don't know if Mormon scholars at BYU would present that, because we can't get
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Mormon scholars at BYU to discuss these issues publicly, and so I don't know. But that was interesting.
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I had an opportunity of presenting the perfection of Christ and his priesthood and things like that.
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And then on Saturday night, we were supposed to be debating the issue of homosexual marriage.
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Does the Bible support homosexual marriage? And my opponent is the head of the
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Metropolitan Community Church, which of course is the homosexual denomination, and he is a self -professed homosexual.
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And we were debating that issue, and unfortunately, he didn't get to the issue of marriage until about two and a half minutes before the end of his opening statement.
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So it really did not focus upon the issue of marriage.
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I sort of hoped that it would, because that's extremely relevant right now. I did spend the first ten minutes of my presentation on the subject of marriage, and hopefully a positive presentation of God's right to define marriage and things like that.
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But since the majority of my opponent's presentation was based upon basically looking at what he called,
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I found it interesting, he called them the clobber passages. Genesis 18,
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Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, and 1
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Timothy 1. The classic passages that deal with the subject of homosexuality.
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And in essence, the argument that was presented was that you can look at these passages, you can look at all of them, you can go to the
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Lord, pray, and the Lord can reveal to you that that's not you. That's not about you, that these passages are only about idolaters, those who are involved in idolatry.
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And as long as you love God, and as long as you're not involved in idolatry, then all those passages have nothing to do with you.
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And so during the cross -examination period, I asked this individual,
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I said, if in your role as leadership of your church, if you had a parishioner come to you, whoa, big change, if you had a parishioner come to you and say, well, you know,
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Pastor, I have been struggling for many years with covetousness.
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Because we had looked at 1 Corinthians 6, and I had focused upon the fact that there is the term covetousness there, and had made sure that we emphasized that everybody in that room is described there in 1
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Corinthians 6, such were some of you. And so I used covetousness as my example,
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I said, you know, Pastor, I've struggled with covetousness my entire life, but you know,
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I went to God, and I prayed, and the
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Lord revealed to me that these passages aren't about me. And in fact, these passages are about someone, now
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I just lost myself, these passages are about someone who is, you know how difficult it is to talk when you're going, whoa, things are changing in your headphones,
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I'm just going to take the headphones off for now, we'll just talk to you all, and later on, we'll figure something out. Anyways, what happens here is that God's revealed to me that this is only about people who are involved in idolatry, and that's not me.
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So, Pastor, I have such peace now, and harmony, and all is wonderful and well, and what would you say to them?
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And I just used his entire argument in presenting it back to him, and it was, the only response we got was, well,
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I'd have to look at what change took place in a person's life, that was the entirety of it.
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And so, I tried to do as much as I could on the subject of marriage, but that wasn't the primary presentation that I was hearing coming from the perspective, so it was juggling and so on and so forth.
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So, we did the best we could. Then, on Saturday, ah, goodness, some of you may know that this is the week before Easter, of course, and that for, well, starting, it would have been 1982, yeah, 1982,
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I was, hmm, I was, was
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I, hmm, I was exactly 20 years of age, oh, I can put my headphones back on now?
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Okay, alright. Someone said that, okay, there we go, I've been informed that he who plays with controls has stopped playing with controls, so I can put the headphones back on now.
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Ah, I was about 20 years old and rode out to the Easter pageant on a
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Kawasaki 440, Easter pageant in the Mormon church, put on the front lawn of the
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Mormon temple at Main and Hobson in Mesa, Arizona, and my young wife came with me, and that started a yearly journey that two years later, we were there every single night, and, ah, we'll be going back out again tonight after 20 some odd years of, more than 20 years of doing this, and, ah, but we may not be going out the rest of the week.
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And the reason that we will not be going out the rest of the week is because the same
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King James only, ah, fundamentalist,
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Baptist, ah, street preachers who have destroyed any meaningful outreach and have blasphemed the gospel, ah, blasphemed the
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Lord in the presence of the LDS people up there, ah, have promised to be in Mesa this week.
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And they had promised this last year, but there were a couple of weeks between the
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Easter pageant and the general conference, and so many of them do not, ah, ah, live in this particular area, and so they weren't able to do so.
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The problem is that the general conference finished Sunday night. They would have been able to travel yesterday, and, ah, hence, we are expecting that they are going to be in Mesa.
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Now, the Mesa City Police Department may take care of these problems for us, and we are certainly hoping so, ah, but the fact of the matter is, when these people end up anywhere nearby,
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I mean, even if they are pushed off, ah, a hundred yards away in the park someplace, ah, it will still make trying to do anything out there simply impossible, because they are so filled with hatred, they are so, they just ooze hatred for the
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Mormon people, ah, they so blaspheme the gospel by their, their, ah, activities and by their attitudes that you just simply, you can't get into conversations, and you can't expect the
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Mormons to differentiate between anyone who is standing outside one of what they consider their presentations and doing these things.
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I want to play a section for you, this is from the April 2003 conference, the folks at FairLDS .org,
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which is rarely fair to me, but, ah, they, ah, put out, they videotaped some of these people.
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This particular guy that I'm going to play the clip from, ah, really was doing his best to try to get me to take a poke at him
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Saturday morning. We, ah, went by the conference, and, ah, we, ah, saw these clowns, and I'm not referring to King James only guys, people dressed as clowns standing next to the preachers, ah, evidently mocking them.
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And so, I wanted to get some pictures of this, I wanted to, ah, keep up on what's going on down there. Well, I should have grabbed a hat or something because I was immediately recognized, ah, and I'll give you some examples of that in, ah, in just a moment, but, ah, this is from the, ah, a year ago.
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This one individual, he's, he's a big fella, sort of short, but, ah, has a big, big mouth.
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He's one of the first ones I ever talked to. I rescued him from a Mormon that was, that was just shredding him, ah, just taking him apart because these men, they're, they're not called to ministry, they don't have any knowledge of the
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Bible, they can't do exegesis, they're, ah, the, the, the Bible describes them as brute beasts in Jude and, and 2
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Peter. And, ah, so, I had, ah, stepped into a conversation with this particular
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LDS person and have been able to, ah, ah, talk to that LDS person and share the, share the gospel with them in a calm manner, ah, after this fellow, you know, sort of fell off the track, but he was doing his best to try to get me to take a poke at him, ah, on Saturday morning.
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This is a videotape, he's standing pretty much exact same place where, ah, he tried to confront me on Saturday and, ah, what he's doing is he's got a
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Book of Mormon on a string. He's tied a string like a leash on a Book of Mormon and he's dragging the
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Book of Mormon around on the ground. This is during the height of the rush period when people are coming out from the conference.
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Ah, so just try to imagine what this would be like if you walk out of your church and there's somebody out front dragging the
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Bible around the ground. Doesn't that just, you know, communicate concern and a, a desire to really enter into meaningful, ah, discussion and dialogue?
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Doesn't that, doesn't that just, you know, really show a tremendous spiritual insight? Yes, indeed. Well, while he's doing this, he's also yelling and screaming, so we need to have the, ah, computer up here, and here is what took place, ah, in April of 2003, ah, at the
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General Conference of the Mormon Church up in Salt Lake City, Utah. Here it is right here.
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I'll tell you what, you put a Bible on the ground and I'll...
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Yeah, well, ah, you can tell that that, ah, really, ah, draws men and that, ah, that allows for meaningful dialogue on biblical subjects.
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It shows a lot of respect for the Gospel. Ah, these, these, these folks are just hate mongers. Ah, they're, they're brute beasts, they're hate mongers, there's, there's no reasoning with them.
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If you want an example, ah, the same fellow who didn't know that Gail Ripplinger's name is
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Ripplinger, ah, that, ah, his, was talking about Gail Kiplinger, was out on a, ah, ah, milk crate, ah, preaching this past Saturday in Salt Lake City.
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And we got some examples of his preaching, but he was the first one to recognize me. I would imagine that, ah, you know, he probably would, since he was the one wearing the, ah, bald cap, ah, the, ah, ah, prosthetic device a couple years ago.
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And, ah, anyway, he's standing there, ah, yelling and screaming at the Mormons and, ah, recognized me.
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So he starts yelling and screaming at me, saying they're going to come, ah, preach at our church. See, realize what this, this abusive language, they call that preaching.
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Ah, obviously they don't know what preaching is, they probably don't hear it and don't know what it is. And so they call this preaching.
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And, ah, when people don't like this quote -unquote preaching, ah, then that proves to them that they're spiritual and that they're doing the right thing, see.
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And it's, it's a sad thing. But anyway, ah, he was talking, he's a Ruckmanite. He is a big fan of Peter Ruckman.
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Of course, Peter Ruckman is a racist and, and, ah, is the, ah, the Wacoite out of Pensacola who, ah, you know, sent me, in fact,
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I'm looking over here, a book called Black is Beautiful, ah, which has all sorts of, ah, racist drawings in it and stuff like that.
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And, and this guy is a Ruckmanite. And, ah, so he's yelling and screaming at me about Peter Ruckman. And so he was talking about Peter Ruckman's, ah, letters to me, which we have on our website.
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If you've looked at the website, you know that, that Ruckman, ah, uses off -color language and he would scratch things out in letters and, and write stuff in, in the, in the columns and you can see all this on our website.
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So I, I attempted to ask him, ah, if he also accepts Ruckman, Ruckman's language and these individuals, they cannot, they, they,
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Brute Beasts cannot rationally dialogue with you. They cannot answer a, a meaningful question. And so all they can do is scream at you.
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All they can do is yell at you and they know if they stop and actually try to answer a question that they're, that's it.
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It's all over for them. So this is a video, I'm seeing it on my screen right now. My little, ah, camera, my little
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Canon, ah, SureShot camera, what is this thing here? It's a, um, ah, PowerShot S200 Digital Elf, ah, it's just one of those teeny, tiny little cameras, but it does a good job.
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This is an AVI file. I'm right in front of this guy. He's standing up above me on his milk crate and he's using his hand and a
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Bible to create a sort of a megaphone. He's yelling directly into my face. And so my camera sees almost nothing but his head and his hands as he's yelling here and you can hear me trying to ask him if he supports the language that Ruckman uses.
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This is Saturday morning right outside the temple. Listen, listen to what he has to say. It's the preaching of the word of God. You are a devil.
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Yeah, that's right. And I'm here to reprove, I'm here to reprove and rebuke and exhort you.
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You devil. That's right. Peter S. Ruckman, he put you in his place, didn't you? Didn't you? Didn't you?
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Didn't you? Didn't you? Yeah. Just in case you didn't catch all that. That's the wind, by the way.
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It's very windy up there. Yes, I'm the devil. And so here, here, here.
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It's the preaching of the word of God. You are a devil. Yeah, that's right. And I'm here to reprove,
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I'm here to reprove and rebuke and exhort you. You devil. That's right. Peter S.
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Ruckman, he put you in his place, didn't you? Didn't you? Okay.
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That's the kind of people that are headed our direction. And it's a scourge.
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That's just all there is to it, folks. It is absolutely a scourge. And I showed some of these videos to some folks at church
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Sunday night, and they just stood there staring at these people going, you've got to be kidding.
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People act that way? They think this is godly?
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I said, yep, there you go. So, you know, anyone who knows of the churches that support these people, if you know any of these pastors, try to reason with them.
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Try to explain. Do you have any idea what these quote -unquote street preachers are about?
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It's just absolutely positively amazing. If you dare to reprove them, to point out from scripture what they're really all about, this is what they do.
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They're just hate mongers. It's a horrible thing to observe. Well, anyways, 877 -753 -3341.
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We'll have the, of course, we're in the process of shifting over from videos to DVDs.
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And so the DVD of the
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Barry Lynn debate on homosexuality will be available soon. So you'll want to grab that.
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And then you'll want to watch the ad column, that's the column on the right -hand side of the web page, for the announcement of the availability.
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Normally first the MP3s, and then over time the DVDs of the debates that we had in Salt Lake City.
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First on the subject of temples, and also sort of touching the subject of priesthood. You can't discuss the
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Mormon priest temples without discussing Mormon priesthood. And then also we will be looking at making available the debate on, well, sort of homosexuality.
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It was supposed to be homosexual marriage, but it ended up being on homosexuality primarily, which also was recorded this past weekend.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. Also we will go to our first caller here in just a moment.
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But I also mentioned on the blog this morning, I think it was this morning, that though we had publicly invited
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Dr. William Hamblin, professor of history at Brigham Young University. Some of you may recognize the name.
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He is the individual who was on the radio program a number of years ago with Daniel C.
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Peterson. Dr. Peterson, one of the principals in Farms Foundation for Ancient Research in Mormon Studies.
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Dr. Peterson is the one who on a station in California said that he would debate me anytime, anywhere.
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When we actually invited him to do so, he did not even return the phone call. He had his wife return the phone call, and will not do so.
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So he says one thing when he's in public, and another thing when we get right around to it. Dr. Hamblin, likewise, who came with him, we had invited him to debate the issue of temples, because he chose to criticize, and I think very improperly, a little tract that we wrote back for the dedication of the
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Salt Lake Temple when it was rededicated a number of years ago. And some of you saw on the blog going back and forth.
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We wanted to challenge him to do a debate on the subject. He will not debate in front of cameras.
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He said, I don't want you people making money. You're anti -Mormons, dah, dah, dah. So we offered to make the debate available at cost.
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That didn't work either. And so eventually what happened was he said, look,
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I just want to debate this on the Internet. Let's talk about what you said in your tract on the Internet. I said, well,
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I'll tell you what, when we get back from the debates in Salt Lake City, we'll talk about that. Well, while we were sitting in the airport in Salt Lake City, I typed up a proposal as to how to do an
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Internet debate on the subject and posted it. And he responded and basically said, well, what about this, this, this?
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I said, that's fine. We'll do all those things. And he said, you know what? Life's too short. I'm done dealing with you. And that's it.
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So we've tried, you know, we've done everything. I realize these folks have nothing to gain, everything to lose.
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They have nothing to gain by engaging this. They've already got their audience up there in Salt Lake City and the sort of insulated area.
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Got nothing to gain, everything to lose. And so, you know, I understand that. But we've made the invitation. We made the availability.
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And it is simply not something that's going to end up taking place at this particular point in time. So we thought we would mention that.
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And it's there, the information is there on the blog. 877 -753 -3341.
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Let's go ahead and start taking our phone calls. And let's talk with Jim over in California.
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Hi, Jim. Hi, how are you doing? Doing good. I have a gentleman I've been meeting with usually once a week.
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I'm, of course, a 5 -point Calvinist. And he calls himself a reformed Arminian. And judging from what he said, yeah, he read
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Chosen but Free. The only thing he believes in is perseverance of the saints.
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And I asked him, does he have a biblical basis for that? He says he doesn't. He's not too sure.
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So he admits that. Yeah, I just pointed out that in his system, he has no real biblical reason to believe that.
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I said, I do. God has me in his hand, and I can't jump out. No one can take me out. He's never going to let me go.
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Wow. Because he chose me. Yeah. My question for you is, he believes in the elect.
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He believes in John 6 that God draws the elect and all that.
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But he says that, on the other hand, there's a universal sort of lifting up of everybody out of their depravity for a temporary moment where they can accept or decline the offer.
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If they decline, they go back down into their depravity. Kind of interesting.
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And I'm having a little bit of trouble refuting that, because that's not even Arminianism. I don't even know what that is.
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Well, it's not unusual. Many people hold the idea that God, in essence, acts in that fashion, that there is this sort of drawing, this bringing a person to a moral neutral point so that there is an opportunity to make a choice, a choice that they will be held accountable for, and that if that particular choice, if they do not make the right choice, then they are sort of thrown back into the mire from which they have been briefly drawn up to a moral neutral point.
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Of course, the problem is, when you say, I'm having trouble refuting that, you have to remember that one of the problems that I think we sometimes have is that we're not really clear on the nature of sound argumentation and interpretation.
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That is, if he makes this assertion, the weight is upon him to prove the assertion, not upon you to disprove it.
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He's not going to be able to find any particular foundational passage that says that God lifts a person up or draws a person to a particular point so as to have some capacity to overcome total depravity.
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Certainly John 6 says just the opposite. If he's going to use the term draw there in John 6, the problem he has with John 6, verse 44, is that those who are drawn are raised up.
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He's saying you can be drawn without being raised up. There's the standard problem right there in that kind of a theory.
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So you have to ask, okay, so where are you getting this particular assertion?
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Show me from the text. Don't show me a text that you think is consistent with what you believe.
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Show me a text that forces you to believe what you believe, and it's going to force me to believe what you believe.
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Show me the positive presentation so I can see why
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I should believe this. And that's, of course, where stuff falls apart is that the vast majority of folks are not doing exegesis, where they're drawing that meaning out of the text.
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They're doing eisegesis. They're reading it into a text. They're creating it because, well, this will allow me to answer the questions in a way that makes me feel good.
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So I create my system, and then I go and find passages of the Bible. I say, see, it's consistent with this.
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Well, that's not how you interpret even what you and I would write. If someone wrote an e -mail, if you wrote this individual an e -mail, he would not appreciate it if you deal with his e -mail in that fashion.
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He would not appreciate it if you interpreted him in that way and just inserted your thoughts into what he was saying.
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But that's what we're doing with the Bible in this type of a situation. So my response would be, yeah, you can't refute something that hasn't been given a foundation.
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So you ask him, all right, show me the exegetical basis for this semi -drawing that does not result in salvation.
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It can't be John 6. In fact, you need to explain to me John 6, 44, because the drawing there does result in being raised up, and then we can discuss it.
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But you can't refute something that hasn't been given a foundation. That's not a solid argument on his part.
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But unfortunately, in the vast majority of conversations, that's what happens. He believes that John 6 is the drawing of the elect.
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He says there's like another drawing. He doesn't really use the word drawing. But where is it found? Yeah, and I've asked him that, and then what he does is talks about that God won't violate our freedom because he doesn't make robots and what is the nature of love, and he goes in the
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Old Testament about, you know, choose you to stay who you will serve. That's wonderful and nice, but if he's going to tell us that this is what he believes
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God does, if he is, you know, people need to realize if they're going to say this is what God does, you're now speaking for God.
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You're now reflecting upon God's actions and characters, and therefore just simply throwing stuff out for the fun of it is not really a wise thing to do.
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So if he's going to make that statement, then he needs to give you some sort of foundation upon which you can then examine the assertion, and he's not providing that.
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I take him to Ephesians 1, the first part of that chapter, and he says, well, that wasn't written to believers.
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That was written only to apostles because God made a special deal with them, and yet he did choose them before the foundation of the world.
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Oh, so the entire foundation there that then talks about Jews and Gentiles, so it's the
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Jewish and Gentiles of apostles? Is that what he's talking about? Is the Holy Spirit that is the down payment of our redemption,
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Ephesians 1, 14, that's only the apostles? Where does that switch? I mean, obviously this individual is not concerned about consistent exegesis, and there's only so far you can go with that.
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In my experience, until the Holy Spirit of God really impresses upon a person's heart a deep desire to be obedient to his word, well, there's always a way around any truth.
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That's just all there is to it. People call the program all the time, hey, what can
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I say to make this person see this? You can't. I'm telling everybody right now, sorry,
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I can give you the best argumentation I know of, but the simple fact of the matter is that's not what's going to change a person's heart and mind.
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That's the work of the spirits, and all we can do is honor God by accurately handling his word, explaining it to others, and then you've got to leave it to the spirit at that point.
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Alrighty? I appreciate it. Do you have any resources for Hebrews 6 about the partaking of the
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Holy Spirit in that section? I addressed Hebrews chapter 6 in a sermon at the
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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church in the summer of 2001. I did a series on Hebrews 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, and so that would be the one
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I could direct you to immediately. I mean, we could discuss it, but we're a couple minutes past the break already.
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I appreciate it. Take a look there, okay? It's at prbc .org. Okay. Okay, thanks a lot. God bless. God bless.
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Bye -bye. All right, we're filling up the phone lines, and we need to take a quick break, and we'll be taking your calls at 877 -753 -3341.
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We will be right back. There's nothing less to be blessed than trying to save your soul from death.
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It's all works righteousness, you know. Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.
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Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.
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In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the
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Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including
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Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.
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In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for His people.
35:05
The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at aomin .org.
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Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the Word of God, James White, in his book,
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The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt
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Scripture and lead believers away from true Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author
35:31
James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin
35:50
.org. What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free?
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A new cult? Secularism? False prophecy scenarios? No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called
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Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.
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In his book, The Pottish Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but the Pottish Freedom is much more than just a reply.
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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very
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Gospel itself. In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
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Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the Gospel preached by the
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Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Pottish Freedom, a defense of the
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Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin
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.org. Here I stand, never changing my command, on the pure sufficient
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Word of God. And welcome back to The Dividing Line.
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We are almost full up with calls here, so let's get to them as quickly as we can, because the last 20 minutes always go so quickly.
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Let's talk with Carl in California. Hi, Carl. Hi, Dr. White. I read an article by Eileen Pagel on belief .com,
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which probably wasn't wise, but in the article she was talking about, because of the whole Jesus and Paul special, she doesn't believe
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Paul wrote all the books ascribed to him in the New Testament. She only believes he wrote like seven of them.
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And I was just wondering, she didn't go into why she believed that, just this is what most scholars say.
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So I was wondering, where did the scholars get that, and point me towards some resources where I could kind of refute that argumentation and say, no, he really wrote all of them.
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Well, it's very common for scholars, even in conservative seminaries today, to believe that there are pseudo -Pauline epistles in the
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New Testament, normally 2 Timothy and Titus are listed in there. There are questions about others, depending on the quote -unquote scholar you're talking to.
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That is unfortunately very, very common, and many seminaries, except for a very, very small number of the most conservative, allow that to be taught, and it is considered a standard perspective.
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Obviously I reject that, and what you have to do is, you have to challenge the basis upon which these argumentations are made.
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You can see, for example, in various of the conservative commentaries, interaction in almost all of them, right at the beginning, regarding authorship and a discussion of authorship.
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Almost any commentary written in the past 100 years is going to have to engage that subject, simply because it is so common for there to be the assertion that these are non -Pauline.
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Of course, that gets into a lot of technical argumentation, and I couldn't give you a single book that just simply seeks to defend the
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Pauline authorship of everything, of all 13, or if you include Hebrews or whatever. But that's normally taken care of on an individual commentary -by -commentary basis, and unfortunately the vast majority of commentaries that you would obtain today, that are written within the past 30 or 40 years, would probably be accepting of that perspective, or at least would take the perspective, well, we're going to look at Colossians as if it's
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Scripture, in the sense that the Church has accepted it, but we're not going to be looking at it as if it's necessarily written by Paul or something along those lines.
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There's nothing unusual, sadly, from a quote -unquote scholarly perspective about that assertion, and the vast majority of even conservative scholars have given in on those issues, and just simply don't even fight on those issues anymore, and that's one of the reasons you have the kind of apologetic difficulties that are arising in answering these things, is because once you've given in on those issues, then really the proverbial camel has stuck its nose under the flap, and now that the whole camel's moving in, there's not much you can do about it.
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So, like I said, you need to look at conservative commentaries that deal with those things.
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I'm thinking of Hendrickson's discussion, for example, on the authorship of Ephesians and Colossians in his commentary.
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Meaningful conservative commentaries will address those issues on an epistle -by -epistle basis, but that's how you have to deal with it as well, on each epistle.
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Okay, thank you. All right, let's talk with Jeff in Seattle, Washington.
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It seems to be Left Coast Tuesday on the dividing line.
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So far we've had two California and now Washington as well, so hopefully we're still broadcasting on the other side of the
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Mississippi River, but let's talk with Jeff. Hi, Jeff. Hi, Dr. White. How are you, sir? Not too bad.
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Being in Seattle, Left Coast, is a full meaning out here. It's a very, very, very liberal area.
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Oh, I know. I just wanted to make a couple of comments. I read some of your connections online to the
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TCE fellow. Yes, uh -huh. And the interaction there. And one comment
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I wanted to make was, I guess, the desire to not see his behavior associated with, say, like a new
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St. Andrews College, whereas I see people sort of looking at what he's saying and almost treating him like he's the spokesman, which he's not.
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And from that point of view, then, you get disparaging comments towards that college, and I have people and friends
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I know who go there, and it was built out of the idea of many parents and families trying to get their kids out of the public school system and provide better education for them.
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And so, you know, I just have a desire to not see that school be, you know, connected in a way or slandered because of some particular person's behavior as far as it would be like, you know, judging
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Westminster Seminary based on Roberts and Janice's behavior or something. And so, yeah.
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Yeah, I don't know exactly what is going on at New St.
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Andrews. I know that's a couple things. First of all, I'm not sure if people heard what you're referring to, but you're referring to a couple of blog entries in regards to a man by the name of Timothy Enlow, who used to be a regular on our chat channel.
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He had written one article that we had posted on our website. He was involved with some other ministries. And over the past year or so, there's been a lot of going back and forth over the past couple of weeks.
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There have been a number of things written by Mr. Enlow that, in essence, it's hard for me to avoid coming to the conclusion that I personally am responsible for almost every element of social decay in the
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Western culture, in fact, for many decades before I was even born.
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And it's an amazing thing to observe. And the problem is, of course, that much of what
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I hear and the rhetoric of what I hear, I can't determine how representative this is of what kind of teaching he's receiving theologically in his church or his classes.
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I do recognize in reading some of the material from some of the authors up there, whether it be
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Douglas Wilson in some of his writings or certainly Dr. Lightheart in some of his,
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I'm hearing many of the same at least overarching concepts. Thankfully, I have not yet heard the same kind of personal application and the constant degradation of Baptists as Anabaptists and pretty much the same kind of rhetoric that was very common at the time of the
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Reformation and that led to a rather long Baptist martyrology in numerous nations, unfortunately.
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I would like to know just how his writings are viewed by those who would have oversight over him.
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There was a suggestion, a very wise suggestion, made in a discussion that took place on a different web board.
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I've got this linked on the blog. A minister suggested that possibly
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Mr. Enloe could use pastoral oversight in what he's writing and that was rejected out of hand.
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That would certainly give us some idea of what level of agreement or disagreement exists with the rhetoric and the positions that are being promoted there.
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But certainly in regards to the centrality of medievalism and the necessity of understanding the concepts of medieval
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Christianity, that has been an element of what we've seen in the writing coming out of there for quite some time.
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So I am very interested in knowing what kind of support or rejection would there be of what this individual is saying.
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He's not on staff and therefore cannot be considered to be an official representative in any way, shape or form.
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But I would assume by now, and maybe you could do this, someone would have referred me to someone else involved with the school who in essence responds to this stuff and says, look, this is way off beam, this is imbalanced, this is improper, whatever it is.
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I haven't seen that. All I've seen has been people patting him on the back. I've seen a gentleman
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I identify as Alexander the Coppersmith, a man who seemingly lives just simply to try to cause any kind of discomfort to me he possibly can.
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He's posted on there, Patrick Madrid is posted on there. I don't see anybody responding to these things from NSA and saying, hey, this guy has gone off the deep end.
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So maybe they're not aware of it. I don't know. I just don't know. But he's not an official representative, and I would like to know what the official response, those kinds of assertions are.
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But I don't know. I'm not hearing. And honestly, I would think you would find that he's not. There's chances are that they don't.
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Most people that I know who go to that school probably have no idea that this blog even exists. And it's something where,
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I mean, I think debate on the issues of, you know, baptism or federal vision or things like that I think are very good and productive things.
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But the way he's doing it versus the way I typically know people from that college and know people who teach there is completely different.
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And I can't imagine any of them, you know, supporting the way he does this or treating people like that as far as, you know, if you're going to debate something, most people
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I know from that school do it civilly and don't slander Baptists or whatever issue you're going to have.
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Yeah, and that was brought out in the discussion on the other web board was, you know, the CRE has this relationship with Baptists, and therefore, you know, this is an odd thing.
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And it's going to be more difficult to find out now because that blog has disappeared as of today. So I guess it's somewhat of a moot point now.
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But, hey, I appreciate the phone call. We've got three more calls we need to get to, and I appreciate your insight on that,
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Jeff. And you all, you know, stand for the truth out there in Seattle, Washington, as best you can and duck the rotten fruit when it's thrown at you.
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I'm sorry? I will do my best. Okay, thanks a lot. All right, God bless. 877 -753 -3341.
48:39
Let's talk with Eric in Sacramento, also in California, the very epicenter of the silliness of California, Sacramento.
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Hi, Eric. Hi, how are you doing, Dr. White? Doing all right. All right, my question has to do with the difference between the
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Reformed Presbyterian definition of baptism, such as the Westminster Confession talking about sacrament as opposed to ordinance in the
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Baptist Confession. Well, basically, you know, the fundamental difference as to the definition is one of the reasons that Baptists generally do not use the term sacrament is because that term communicates some idea of something that causes something to happen.
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We use the term, we do use the term, many Reformed Baptists use the term means of grace in the sense that it's something that God has ordained to be of assistance in our lives.
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And a lot of folks would say, eh, there can be a connection there between that and sacrament that really becomes a semantic issue.
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But historically, if you're familiar with the discussion of sacraments in the church, there is the difference between ex opera operante and ex opera operato sacramentalism.
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And the idea that ex opera operante sacramentalism is that the person who is performing the sacrament, their state of grace, whether they are truly saved or not, is relevant to the effectiveness of the sacrament.
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Ex opera operato basically means that anybody, as long as they do the sacrament in the proper way, can perform the sacrament, that the efficacy of the sacrament is in the action itself.
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Well, Reformed Baptists have a problem with the idea of God's grace ever being presented in such a way where it is controlled by the actions of human beings.
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God's grace is always free. And while he may provide to us the ordinances to encourage us and to strengthen us, the idea that merely the action of the ordinance automatically, quote, unquote, accomplishes something, is one of the main reasons that the terminology would be different.
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Of course, there is also the difference in the viewpoint as to whom the ordinance is to be administered and the reasons why it is to be administered.
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And that gets into the whole issue of credo -baptism, pedo -baptism, nature of the new covenant, covenant signs.
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And in some contexts now, it gets into pedo -communion and all the rest of that kind of stuff. Okay, well, thank you.
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Also, I had a real quick question. Have you heard of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Sacramento? I can't say that I have, no.
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Okay, I just was curious. I'm sorry, but no, I've only been up to Sacramento once.
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Well, you know, I knew there was a church up there, but I can't remember the name. I'm terrible with names.
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I apologize. All right, thank you, sir, for calling. Thank you. All right, God bless. I think we might get them all in today.
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Let's talk. What is this California thing? Is it like the phone lines down from east of the
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Mississippi? Mark in Fremont, California. Hi, Mark. Hi.
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How are you doing? I'm doing good. Thank you. I have a few quick questions. Tomorrow, I'm having a debate with a
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Jehovah's Witness. And because this guy, his name is
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Mike, he came to my house, and he brought up how the definite article is in John 1 .1.
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But I'm going to show him in their kingdom in linear how the definite article is in John 20 .28
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where Thomas, you know, said to Jesus, My Lord and my God. But, I mean, what's the best way to,
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I guess, to challenge him and make him think about the duty of Christ because his mind is locked in the watchtower?
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Right. Well, realize, especially in California, many of the
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Jehovah's Witnesses have been exposed to the apologetic writings of Greg Stafford, the man that I debated on that subject back in December.
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And hence, the problem in trying to argue about articles or non -articles in John 1 .1
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is you can spend an hour quoting, dueling scholars and basically never get anywhere, unfortunately.
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I mean, you're perfectly right about John 20 .28, but people will even say at that point that Thomas was addressing
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God the Father at that point in an exclamation of praise and so on and so forth.
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But even someone like Mr. Stafford would say, Oh no, I don't have any problem with calling Jesus God.
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The point is he's a different kind of God than God the Father. So I have found the demonstration of the fact that Jesus Christ identified as Jehovah as being the most important way of communicating to a
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Jehovah's Witness because it gets past the God, a God, big
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God, little God type situation. If Jesus identified as Jehovah in the way that only
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Jehovah could be identified, it gets past all that stuff. And that's why in the debate with Mr.
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Stafford we looked at Hebrews 1, John 12, and I really do not believe that the responses offered by Mr.
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Stafford can withstand scrutiny. I don't believe that the responses offered when he says,
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Well, John 12 isn't about Jehovah, it's about the Messiah, it's Isaiah 53. No, the writer,
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John himself utilizes the Greek Septuagint at Isaiah 6 .1, which is about Jehovah.
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Either he wasn't aware of that, though it's in my book, or he just doesn't have an answer for it.
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I don't know which. But those passages that identify... And I wouldn't multiply the number of them massively simply because it's sort of like when you're talking to a
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Mormon and you're talking about Joseph Smith. I think one of the mistakes that people make when they're trying to demonstrate false prophecies regarding Joseph Smith is they end up trying to present so many that what happens is once you present one that's not as strong as your others, they'll always focus upon that one as if the successful defense of that one means all the others aren't valid.
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It's the same thing with the passages on the deity of Christ, identification of Christ as Jehovah.
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Stick with the ones that are the strongest and don't try to multiply the number of them because once you go to one that has a possibility of question in it, they'll focus upon that and use that as the excuse to ignore all the other ones.
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So I think that's just simply a real practical tip at that point is to focus upon those things.
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Okay? Okay. You had more than one question? Yeah, well the other thing was that because I was going to point out how in Isaiah, Jehovah says that every knee will...
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where he says that every knee will bend to me and acknowledge me as God and I was going to bring the 1950
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New World Translation that has cross -references from Philippians 2 -9 -10 how
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Jesus' every knee will bend and how it cross -references that. I was going to show him...
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Well, and you can do that whether the cross -reference I think
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I don't have it in front of me right now but I would assume that in Philippians 2 there's going to be a cross -reference back to that Isaiah passage anyway one way or the other so you don't even have to use the 1950 edition to do that but the point is that that's another one of those key passages where the
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New Testament writer utilizes a passage that was originally about Jehovah and applies it to Christ in a unique fashion but just be prepared that once you get into that area they're going to be saying, well, there's relative worship and all the rest of that stuff
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I mean, I don't know who you're talking to I don't know if this individual has been exposed to that kind of stuff or if they're just your regular
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Jehovah's Witness and hence may go, wow, I never really thought about that before et cetera, et cetera
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I have no way of knowing but if they have been exposed to that kind of apologetic you're going to need to be prepared for it
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Okay All right, well, thank you for calling God bless, bye -bye
57:32
Well, we appreciate the entire left coast listening to the program today
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I'll probably be able to let you know Thursday evening 4 o 'clock, the next dividing line
57:45
What takes place... Yeah, it is tonight, isn't it? What takes place tonight whether we're going to have the opportunity of sharing the gospel with folks distributing tracts as we have for many years there in Mesa or if the scourge continues and it's not so much a scourge on us certainly it is not enjoyable to try to deal with people who cannot reason but the scourge is upon the
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Mormons the scourge is upon those who have heard the gospel in the past and have been helped by it so we'll let you know what happens
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Thursday evening at 4 o 'clock be praying that God would be merciful and in essence reign these people in because their activities are truly damaging to the gospel of Jesus Christ so we'll let you know
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Thursday evening, 4 o 'clock see you then, God bless We need a new
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Reformation day Brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -0318 or write us at P .O.
59:40
Box 37106 Phoenix, Arizona 85069 You can also find us on the
59:46
World Wide Web at AOMIN .org That's A -O -M -I -N .O -R -G where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracts