September 16, 2004

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Around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded
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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. Well, the stack of stuff is very large today, no two ways about it.
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Not expecting any phone calls from Baghdad today, but that was an incredible way to end the program last time, hearing from Steve in Baghdad.
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Sort of makes it real. Did you notice, did you hear the little bit of delay? It's just like when you watch the news and they're talking, it's the satellite delay thing.
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That was really interesting. But lots of stuff to talk about today. I'm a little on the agitated side, so it'd probably be good to talk about some other things before I re -agitate myself here, in essence.
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So let's go ahead, and we are very privileged to be joined today by someone who normally joins us by phone, but is probably going to talk a whole lot,
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I don't know if he's going to talk a whole lot better or not. In fact, he may not. But sound a whole lot better than normal, because there's no phone involved this time around.
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And that's because our good brother Mike from Florida, who heads up all of our cruise stuff and just works night and day constantly, never sleeps.
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Sort of like Martin Luther, who tried to sleep on the floor in Germany and things like that. Well, except that pretty well ruined
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Martin Luther. But anyways, that's another story. I can hear you. Anyway, Mike O 'Fallon did the wise thing and was going to be coming out here anyways, but when
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Hurricane Ivan was still a little ways away and was knocking on Florida's door, he decided, you know what?
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They do not have hurricanes in Arizona. We generally do not have earthquakes and race riots and tsunamis and hurricanes and things like that.
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It's just really hot. That's about all it is out here. So Mike joins us today, and Mike is sitting in our luxurious studios.
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How do you like those luxurious studios there, Mike? Great. It's fantastic to share a chair here with Rich. I'm not going to touch that one with a ten -foot pole.
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No, there's so many things I could say, but I'm not going to do that. Anyhow, so I guess this is a dangerous thing, but what's up,
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Mike? Well, besides the fact that, yes, I came here to avoid Ivan, and I'm going to make sure that I make it back just in time for Gene.
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Yes! I came over here early to avoid the airport closure, but I'm sure my airport will be closed on the way back and have to spend a night in Vegas or something.
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Isn't the Vegas airport terrible? With asbestos hanging off the ceiling and stuff like that.
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You'd think with a place that you could actually see the strip from where you are in the airport that they would actually spend money to make a nice airport instead of something out of the early 1970s.
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You ought to go to Detroit sometime. They're getting better, at least. Anyway, so...
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Well, Dr. White, we wanted to talk about, first of all, there are still many folks that have been signing up for this year's cruise.
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We just had some folks that jumped on board yesterday, and boy, what a timely topic.
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They're already on the ship? Well, no. Oh, on board. Oh, it's a metaphor. I'm sorry. You didn't nuance that properly.
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I'm sorry. Don't get me started. But, yes, certainly when we had planned this out last year and started talking about what we wanted to do on a cruise, and we said, let's talk about justification.
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That's something that we haven't touched yet. There are now so many things.
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Oh, man. We were thinking, well, there's different aspects, but we might be able to cover it in a day.
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Now we've got seven sessions a day planned now. I think so. Anyway, folks, if you haven't signed up for that and you wanted to,
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I would suggest, the fact is, I'll tell you honestly, on the entire ship right now, if you were planning on going with us but have been delaying or waiting for something else to happen or another shoe to drop or whatever, there are eight cabins left on the entire ship.
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So if you're planning on going with us this year, try to make sure you do that. And also, if you are planning on going to the conference this year, do try to make sure that you get a hotel room, whatever else it may be.
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Anyway, this is going to be a wonderful time. Jim is going to be debating Doug Wilson on Friday night, and then on Saturday, the conference has taken on an element of importance that it just didn't have before.
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And you know what? If Doug Wilson doesn't show up, I have someone else in mind we could probably get. From the
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Phoenix area? No, no. I didn't know. Someone across the street. No, no, no. Oh, okay.
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Oh, you mean someone in the theological realm? Yes. Yes, yes. Okay. Well, I don't know if he'd do it, but anyway.
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Probably send somebody else or a team of people instead. Anyway, let's get off that. But what we wanted to do, folks, is we have now a year ahead of time.
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We want to make sure we give people plenty of warning. A lot of folks have been calling us and saying, if you do choose to go anywhere, that next year, this is where we would like you to go.
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And that place would be Alaska. And we wanted to make an official announcement today. It is now...
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Wait, wait, wait, wait. Make sure I'm... Rich, Rich, make sure that I'm up. Okay, am
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I up? Okay, here we go. A long time ago.
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No, we do want to make sure that we give you folks plenty of notice on this. This is a trip of a lifetime.
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We did this three years ago. And the folks that were with us, they just... That was wonderful.
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Even the people that were with us then want to go back again. Yep. For a lot of the folks who've gone multiple ones, it was our favorite.
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And I'll tell my story that you don't like me to tell about the Alaska trip here in a moment. Oh, okay.
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It's not about you. I'm not sure what that's about. Anyway. But we wanted to tell you, long, long time, plenty of time ahead of time, we are going to be doing this from September the 9th through the 16th, 2005.
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It will be out of Seattle. And we wanted to let you know about it, that this is already up on the website.
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We put it up 30 minutes ago, fresh with a page that gives you a full tour of the ship that we'll be on, all the information about the destinations that we're going to, just about everything you'd want to know on the trip.
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More than we've ever provided before. Absolutely. All sorts of interactive things on the site and so forth.
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But we have picked, and this was actually Dr. White who picked this ship. I did. This is the
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Celebrity Summit. And this is the number one rated luxury cruise line and ship in the world by Condé Nast Travel.
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This ship is absolutely glorious, especially when we talk about things about food, accommodations, et cetera.
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It's just fantastic. And certainly a notch above any other cruise line that you can go on.
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And we had taken Celebrity last time. We were on the Mercury, which was one of the two ships we were looking at taking.
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And we just found the staff. The staffing was great.
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We had a great time with the rooms. And we had somebody who helped us do stuff. And it just really, really went well.
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They treated us so well. We have a dedicated group coordinator. The room that we actually will be having our sessions, our theological sessions in, all the chairs in this theater have a desktop that will fold out and come on top of you there for your writing.
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And he has a digital screen. Dr. White has a digital screen he can hook up into in back of him. It's just fantastic.
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So this is a great trip. If you've never been to Alaska before, and if you're in your mind imagining how beautiful it can be, believe me, it's ten times better.
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And especially the time of year that we're going, going out of Seattle. And the price that is available there on the website includes our bus transportation from Seattle to Vancouver.
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It's about a three -hour bus ride. It's beautiful through the mountains and so forth. It also includes your bus ride from the hotel to the airport to the hotel and so forth, and then back to the airport.
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So we want to try to take care of you the whole way, so there's nothing that you really have to worry about.
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You're really in Dr. White's hands. Now, we need to mention, someone's asking in the channel what is the topic.
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One of the things that I sort of emphasized when we were first talking about this was just that day
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I was just, as I frequently am these days, sort of tired of controversy.
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So what are we going to be talking about? Well, what Dr. White told me then that we were going to be talking about.
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That's me, by the way. We're sort of talking to each other, okay? Let's not do the, who is the presidential candidate?
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I always refer to himself in the third person. Yes. Well, what James had decided a few weeks ago, which he has, you know, it's at his liberty to change, is a passion for purity, glorifying
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God as saints. And the topics will be including hating sin, loving holiness, resisting the pressure of the world, living in a holy fashion.
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Christ is creating a holy people, zealots for good deeds, and keeping our worship pure. That will be the focus of this year's cruise.
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There will also be, of course, we have now gotten in the tradition of holding a conference ahead of time. There will be a conference the day before as well in Seattle.
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And we haven't yet determined that topic, but that will be thrown in. But no debates. No. No.
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Okay, not that I'm doing. Okay. Sorry. That was part of it right there.
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Well, Colin Smith is. Oh, Colin Smith is going to debate an Aussie on the proper.
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That's the proper. Now we say it right. Now we say it right. It's going to be the, yeah, okay. Well, actually, it's going to be a good forum for us to have a lot of folks.
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CES is based out there as well. Right. To have an excellent conference the day before. Folks, all that's going to be included in your price.
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Something you don't want to miss. The opportunity to be with Dr. White and be under his teaching for an entire week. Also, Steve Camp will be going with us again this year, which is always fun.
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Campy, campy, campy. Yes, sir. Just fantastic worship. Great fellowship. Incredible food.
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Great ship. Great place to be. You don't want to miss it. The food was awesome. I remember seeing the whales.
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It was just the inside passage was just incredible. The glacier, of course.
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Just all of it. Oh, and Juneau and Mendenhall Glacier. Oh, that's right. You didn't get off the show. I'm sorry.
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Yes, however, I will now tell my story about our last trip to Alaska. Because, you see, the
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Mercury is a beautiful ship. And there was this place out front that was the darkest place on the ship.
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And I heard all about, I heard some of the staff people saying that tonight, after dinner, was going to be the best night for the possibility of seeing the
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Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis. And so, while everyone else, I mean, we're talking everyone else on the ship.
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Because I was alone. Absolutely. Thanks for calling. Positively alone on the front of the ship in the best place to be watching for 45 minutes.
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I watched the Aurora Borealis.
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And it was absolutely, positively glorious.
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It was just incredible. I mean, it was truly a religious experience bar none.
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Thanks for calling me, bud. And I couldn't leave to go call people who were at the show or sleeping somewhere.
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Because when did I know it was going to end? I didn't know. And so, it was just one of the greatest experiences of my life to be out there.
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And it was just beautiful. And, of course, we can't promise that, obviously, even though it's around the same time of the year as we did that cruise before.
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But it was just absolutely, positively awesome. It just changed my life.
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Well, I'm glad you had that experience. In fact, who was it that told me? Who was it that told me about, oh, wait a minute.
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Mike, wasn't it you that told me that that was a possibility for that night? Yeah. Oh, and where were you at that time?
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Well, considering I had to get up before everybody else. Mike, where were you at that time? I was sleeping. You were sleeping.
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So you wanted me to call you and wake you up while you were sleeping. Is that what you're saying? I would have been up there in hours. I would have been up there so quick.
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That's one thing that I definitely want to see. And hopefully we will get the opportunity to see that this year.
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And, folks, you know, if this is something that you want to do, we're giving you a year ahead of time to think about this. That's plenty of time to plan and to kind of get things together.
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Something you don't want to miss, there are special savings for folks that have cruised with us before.
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And that's if you sign up before November 1st and you are a past cruiser with Alpha and Omega, then there's $20 off per person for signing up ahead of time.
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Okay, cool. So why don't you go ahead and throw that in. Excellent. Thank you for having me on.
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Oh, and how do they get to our page? Oh, you go to www .aomin .org.
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Oh, so it's already on ours. It's on our page. Oh, see, I thought it was they'd have to go to Sovereign Cruises. No, we are already linked up and ready to go.
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You can take the virtual tour. It's just gorgeous. So do that if you can. And this is
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Unical Man signing off. See you later, Unical Man. Someday. Be careful. I'll tell the story about where you got your name, so that would be really bad.
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Well, I appreciate that. And I'm definitely looking forward to the – it's just beautiful.
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I remember at one point when we were going through the Inside Passage, there was a – and actually, I've been up there twice.
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I actually took the Vindom or Volendom. What was that on the Volendom? I think it was
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Volendom. Anyways, I took the same route about a year later.
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And there's a period of time when you are in a fairly narrow passage and everything is just so green on both sides of you.
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It is just – it is hard to describe how – especially if you live in, like,
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Arizona. Oh, good grief. Talk about being like you're on a completely different planet.
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Just totally different. I noticed as we were flying in last time, I landed last week, and I looked out the window.
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It was daytime, and it's like, wow, it's brown out there. Where'd all the green stuff go?
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So, anyway, that's what was going on there. A couple things. I am not going to be commenting today on the ciphered situation, and I am, as you can see, slowly working on my response.
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And we'll continue posting that. The behind -the -scenes chatter and e -mails and things like that, and education for this apologist,
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I can guarantee you that. Sometimes encouraging. Sometimes just shatteringly discouraging.
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But you know what? God wasn't taken by surprise by any of this, just because I was.
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And, obviously, hopefully a little bit down the road, when
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I can – when some of this has passed and there's some conclusions to some things,
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I will share some further thoughts that have been prompted by this whole thing.
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But just this incredible situation. The reason
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I sort of came running in eight minutes before the program started, unlike Laura Ingram, who comes in five minutes after the program starts, but the reason
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I almost totally spaced this was I went home, and I went home to talk to my daughter.
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Now, my daughter has been in Christian schools since sixth grade, and for a number of reasons.
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She's in a regular school this year. One of the main reasons is she wanted to be able to share her faith.
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She wanted to be able to do what I did. I went through that school system, and I defended my faith, and I had opportunity –
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I was class valedictorian, so I had opportunity of giving witness to my faith in my valedictorian speech.
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And I was known as Billy Graham White in my high school because I carried a Bible around with me, and so on and so forth.
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And so she's actually been enjoying the school, has been able to meet lots of folks, has met about the only
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Christian on the staff already. And to make a long story short, she told me when – sometimes we'll just go to lunch together at late lunch after I pick her up from school, and we went to our favorite
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Mexican restaurant and just talked. As a parent, I find it to be very neat to talk with my kids, especially now that they're 18 and 15, and it's just so neat to talk with little adults that have come up in your own house.
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So what a concept. And she was telling me about an assignment that she had gotten in her
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AP English class, Advanced Placement English class, to write a letter to President Bush.
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And the first thing I remember of it was she mentioned to me that the teacher had said, now, the key here is in your presentation.
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You are to be passionate in your presentation. In fact, you are to hit the podium at least three times in your presentation.
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If you don't, then you are – you're not going to get full credit for the assignment.
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And I thought that was interesting. And so then she started telling me about the subject. And they had like a gay marriage, pro or against, gun control, pro or against, stem cell research, pro or against.
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And Summer chose to write her letter to President Bush on the subject of stem cell research.
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And I thought that was interesting. It would have been a whole lot easier to do, honestly, to do gun control because she would have had a lot more information available to her immediately.
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But she didn't. She went for that subject and partly because she likes to learn about new things.
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That's just the way she is. And so she wrote out her rough draft.
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And the reason I could see all this is because, unfortunately, our home printer is on the fritz.
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And so I would have to pull – she'd have to tell me what she needed printed. I'd have to pull it through the network and print it out over here.
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And so I was seeing this stuff as it was going on. And so right before I went to Canada last week,
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I printed out the final draft of this letter to President Bush, and she presented it on Friday.
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And I've read it since then, and it's a humdinger. It's a bell ringer, and it is very straightforward, and it is very forcefully argued.
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And so I came home from Canada on Sunday, and Sunday afternoon over lunch, she filled me in on what happened.
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She received a standing ovation from her class, even from the people who wrote against her position.
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She received a standing ovation. My daughter is a little actress, and she can speak, and she can do things like that.
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And she got a standing ovation, however, not from the teacher. And she noticed that, even though the teacher applauded for the pro -gay marriage letter, not for summers.
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And so as the class was leaving, they were to put their letters in envelopes to be sent to President Bush.
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But the teacher said, Summer, don't steal your envelope. And could you stay after?
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And so as the class is leaving, Summer says, is there something wrong? And in front of other students, she said,
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I don't think he wrote that. And so a number of the other people in the class were upset by that, and of course
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Summer was as well. And so the teacher said, I want to see the documentation you used. No one else, and by the way, hers was three times longer than many others in the class.
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And I want to see the documentation you used. So she was upset the whole day, of course, to be accused of this.
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And so I said, well, you know what? We'll provide it. So we went through.
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She printed out 10 pages of material and took it on Monday.
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And she turned it in and didn't – teacher really didn't say anything. She said, you owe me something.
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Summer gave it to her, didn't say any more. Tuesday comes along, no comments.
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So yesterday she asks and she says, am I going to get credit for my letter?
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Will you get credit for what you wrote? I haven't looked at it yet, but you'll get credit for what you wrote. So last night
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I wrote a letter. And I pointed out that I had taken
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Summer's letter as soon as the allegation of plagiarism had been made. And I had –
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I'm a teacher, and so I know how to look for stuff like this. I took a number of – half a dozen of the unique phrases in Summer's letter, and I hit
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WebCrawler with them. And if you know anything about WebCrawler .com, it searches Google and Yahoo and a number of other different search engines.
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And I – nothing came back. There was nothing whatsoever on the web that had this material in it.
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It was unique. And so I wrote a note. I wrote a letter and sent it with Summer this morning.
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And I said, maybe it might be helpful to you to understand some of the background. Summer has expressed to me that, especially at the beginning of the year when students were filling stuff out, she was shocked at the fact that she is in a very small minority.
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And that very small minority are students that have two parents, two parents they're actually living with that are actually their parents.
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The vast majority of her classmates are living with either one parent, no parent, or their parents are someplace else or things like that.
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And to have actually both of your birth parents married and living with them is a very small minority.
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And so I explained to the teacher that my wife and I have been married for 22 years. Summer joined us in celebrating my parents' 50th wedding anniversary just last summer.
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And I said, my daughter also takes after me a good deal. And I am an author.
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I have written or contributed to more than 20 books, numerous articles in journals, chapters, and so on and so forth.
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I've been a professor for quite some time. I gave her my background in those things.
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And my daughter has been a part. She's been on those cruises, for example. In fact,
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Mike will tell you that just on our last cruise, there was one evening where there was a discussion of kids in church and pulling kids out and having kids church and things like that.
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And one of the pastors on the cruise, and this is going to sound like I'm patting myself on the back, but I'm just giving this as background information.
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And I was very, very proud of this and very, very pleased, very, very thankful to the Lord. But one of the pastors on the cruise,
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Summer wasn't there at that time. She had left early. This was one of the theology talks late at night, but Josh was still there, my 18 -year -old son.
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And one of the pastors on the cruise had said, it's very evident that at Dr. White's church, they do not separate the kids from the adults because you can engage his children in adult conversations and they can talk to you as adults.
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And it's true. We don't do that. We've never had children's church. Our children interact with all of the adults, and hence they know what it is to be a mature adult
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Christian and how to speak like one and act like one. And so I sent this letter in and she gave it to the teacher in the fourth hour.
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Over lunch, this evidently was read not overly well, but I did ask, by the way, in the letter, what other students had likewise had this examination made of their material, and if any other students had had their letters not sent to President Bush.
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And so Summer comes home. I went home just before the program started, well, about 40 minutes before the program started, and Summer shows me her letter.
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No credit. She's completely failed the assignment. And the reason being that this was all someone else's opinion.
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All someone else's opinion. And she admitted that no one else had had their letters looked at.
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And so one of the reasons I was running in late is that I was on the phone, of course, with the administration of the school setting up an appointment for Monday.
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And I was also talking with Summer about what it is to take up your cross and to face this kind of situation, because obviously she's not the only one facing this kind of thing in our lands today.
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It's pretty obvious to me why this is going on, and obviously I would love to ask the administration to look at the other letters and compare them with Summer's, and they would see what's really going on.
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The issue here was what she said and how she said it. And so we have some political correctness going on here, but we all face that.
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The society as a whole places that pressure upon us, and so that's what we were dealing with.
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And so it's going to be interesting, and as I said to her, we will do everything in our power,
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I believe as Christians, that when we are given the freedoms to do what we can to bring about righteousness, that we do it, that we vote, that we get involved in that way.
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But when it comes down to the point where the administration can say, you know what, we're going to back her up.
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Well, you know what, justice will be done. Justice will be done, maybe not in our lives, but justice will be done.
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And that's why the psalmist talks so much about the fact that God's throne is based upon justice. And justice will be done, if not in this life, in eternity.
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But God will be justified, and his actions will be vindicated. And our job is to do what's right before God, and if there are times when this type of thing happens, then, well, we do what we can to right those things, but if we are unable to do so, then we accept that from God's hand, and knowing that we serve a risen
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Savior. And I talked a little bit about what happens to people who believe in Christ in Muslim lands today, and in comparison to that, well, this is small fries.
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But, well, you know, we all get to learn these things. 877 -753 -3341. We do have a phone call, and I have some clips to play from our good old friend and radio false teacher,
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Harold Camping. So we will be getting to your phone calls and to good old Harold, but first we need to take a break, and we'll be right back.
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877 -753 -3341. We'll be right back right after this. Convictions once held and died for among Bible -believing
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Protestants are now being reconsidered with the advent of the recent Auburn Avenue Movement. Is there currently a common basis for dialogue between Roman Catholics and Protestants?
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Were the signers of ECT correct in their ecumenical efforts and all of the Reformed scholars who opposed them in error?
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Does Trinitarian Baptism make one a member of the New Covenant? Are Roman Catholics our brothers and sisters in Christ?
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Join us in Los Angeles, California on November 5, 2004 for a full three hours of moderated debate between Dr.
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James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Douglas Wilson of the Auburn Avenue Movement and New St.
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Andrews College as these topics are debated between two of the most respected representatives of the opposing viewpoints.
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Additional information and tickets can be ordered at aomin .org. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the
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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.
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The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.
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The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.
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The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45.
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Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7.
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The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.
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You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE. If you are unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org
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where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.
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At the heart of the controversy between Roman Catholic and Reformation theology is the nature of justification itself.
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It is a debate not merely about how or when or by what means a person is justified, but about the very meaning of justification and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Once a debate reserved for Roman Catholics and the Reformers, the doctrine of justification is now being challenged from within the walls of Reformed Evangelicalism itself.
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Join Alpha and Omega Ministries as we embark on our first national conference and confront this very issue, justification, the heart of the gospel, with pastor and co -author of Holy Scripture, the ground and pillar of our faith,
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David King, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Founders Conference, Tom Askell, New Testament Research Ministries founder and author of Evangelical Answers, Eric Svensson, the founder of the
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Spurgeon Archive and executive director of Grace to You, Philip Johnson, nationally renowned
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Reformed Christian artist, Steve Camp, and the founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries and author, Dr.
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James White. Join us at the Los Angeles, California LAX Sheraton Ballroom on November 6, 2004, beginning at 8 .45
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a .m. Seating is limited, so order your tickets now at aomin .org. That's www .aomin
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.org. Talk to Joseph about immediate theology.
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Hi, Joseph. Hi, how are you doing, Dr. White? I'm here. Okay. Well, I'm out at Liberty University, and anyway,
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I've been talking with one of my professors, and one day he just totally misrepresented
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Reformed theology, and so I went to his office afterwards and talked with him about it, and he gave me a book by Seigler and Olson.
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Seigler and Olson. Right, right. And it turns out, like, in subsequent classes, like, he pretty much just quotes everything out of this book, and, you know, he said today he talked about the part about Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, and how that the relative pronoun toto is uterus, and peistes is faith is feminine, and all that, and so he was like, yeah, it kind of undermines, you know, some people's theologies, doesn't it?
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You know, and I mean, we have a couple, like, Reformed people in the class, but I was just wondering, like, what is a rebuttal to that?
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Well, I addressed that in The Potter's Freedom, and... Oh, it's in there? Oh, yes, oh, yes, because that's very similar to what
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Norman Geisler said, and in The Potter's Freedom I point out that there's actually nothing in the preceding phrase that is neuter, and no one says that the only antecedent of toto is faith.
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Why would toto be neuter? Well, because toto, as a neuter demonstrative, is very frequently used to refer to the entire preceding phrase, and so there's nothing in the preceding phrase that can be said to be of ourselves.
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It's all the gift of God, which would include the grace, the salvation, and the faith. There would be no way on the basis of the grammar to distinguish between them, because there's nothing that's neuter in the preceding phrase.
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It's wrapping up the entirety of the phrase. So it is very, very common for these folks, who generally don't spend a whole lot of time listening to what the other side is saying, to take that as the easy way out, and to misrepresent the
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Reformed perspective by saying, oh, well, see, they think that faith is the only, and they'll even quote
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Calvin. This is what Geisler did. He quoted Calvin, who likewise said that it's wrong to think that faith is the only antecedent.
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He wasn't denying that faith is a gift of God. He clearly taught it, but he likewise was fair enough in the text of Scripture to handle it aright, and knowing that when you handle it aright, it will be consistent with itself.
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And so the point is that faith is described as a gift of God, not just in that place, not just in Philippians 1 .29
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and many others, but that nothing that is a part of salvation, whether it's grace, whether it's salvation, whether it's a faith, none of that comes from ourselves.
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It is a gift of God. It is not of works that any man should boast. It is by Him that we are in Christ Jesus, and that's why anyone who boasts, boasts in the
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Lord. So that's one of the problems I have with Olson's book. Once in a while he'll say something correct. Like, for example, he rightly recognizes that going to John 12 .32
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to get around John 6 is a bad maneuver, that that's improper. But in so many of the places,
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Beyond Calvinism, Arminianism by C. Gordon Olson is very much like Geisler's book in the sense that it is a defense of Arminianism.
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It is not immediate theology. It's not in between. It's just an inconsistent form of Arminianism. That's really all it is.
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Unfortunately, similar to Geisler's book, it has a flavor of alleged scholarship in it in the sense that he'll use
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Greek, and he'll talk about the Greek here. Well, everybody talks about Greek. No big deal. The question is, can you handle it accurately?
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Can you handle it consistently? Can you apply the same rules of hermeneutics to John 6 that you do to John 12, that you do to 2
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Peter 3, or whatever? When you start really digging into this, and I went through,
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I forget when it was, sometime over the past year, I went through his discussions on John 6 and issues like that and pointed out the problems of what was being said.
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But again, I can understand how someone who doesn't have an exegetical background could look at what is said here and go,
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Ooh, that sounds pretty good. But in reality, if you demythologize the simple use of lexical sources and things like that and look for consistency, you discover that he's not consistent.
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And I need to track down which program that was. It seems to have been, in my recollection, somewhere around March or so.
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I'm not really certain, but I did go through that on the dividing line not too long ago. Okay, because I checked on the website.
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The reason I did not find it in The Father's Freedom, it's a good reason, is because I gave my copy to my pastor. Well, that means, but you need to buy multiple copies.
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Well, I did, actually. Do you only carry one tract around with you? No, you carry more than one tract.
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Well, I have some good news from Liberty. They are teaching, for church government, they're teaching plurality of elders.
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Really? Consistently, yeah. And actually, the professor said that Paige Patterson, at the last,
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I don't know, big meeting or something, recognized that that was the more biblical model, and that he had been wrong and that he couldn't really go back and change all the stuff he'd done, but that all the new church plants in the
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Southern Baptist Convention are following that model. Wow, that's a pretty radical departure, because the monolithic presidential form of church government where you have the one all -powerful potentate at the head there is pretty deeply written into the fabric of the
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Southern Baptist Convention down south, anyways. And it really is different to have a truly functioning plurality of elders.
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That takes some real commitment on the part of the people who are doing it, and commitment on the part of the people who are in a church like that, because the people in the church have to believe that that's the biblical form as well.
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And the reason I say that is, if they don't believe it is, they can put a tremendous amount of pressure upon the elders and create an unhealthy competition that can turn the plurality of elders into a horrible competition between individuals.
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They can play people off against each other, and that's one of the reasons that we have prayed for many, many years at our church,
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Lord, continue to bless us with peace, because sin can cause people to start division, and they will aim...
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Look at what Paul said to the elders, plural, in Acts chapter 20. Those men will arise from amongst yourselves.
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He says, look to yourselves. They are very often the object of the attacks of the enemy against the church.
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And so it's one thing to say, you know what, we're going to change over to this, but change is very, very difficult, and it needs to be based upon conviction, a deep, abiding conviction that this is the biblical way that we're to do things.
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And so to honor Christ and to honor his church, we're going to do this.
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So I'm glad to hear that, but I also know that there is a tendency in human relationships for a leader role to come up to where you lord over other people, and you really have to have a strong commitment.
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And if I'm not mistaken, is there anything in the
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Baptist faith and message that even addresses that? I'm not sure. I mean, the last revision was, what, several years ago, where they made the revision regarding,
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I think... Open theism. Right, right, right. But otherwise,
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I don't know that that addresses that. I haven't checked recently at all. Well, thanks to the use of high -speed
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Internet, I am opening it up here. And let's see.
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The Lord's Day. The kingdom. Last things. Religion. Liberty. The family. Peace and war. Stewardship.
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Evangelism. Missions. Oh, there we go. The church. Here we go. Wow, it's less than a paragraph.
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Well, it's one paragraph. That sounds like Congregationalism.
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In such a congregation, each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons.
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Okay. As long as the pastor is... It says pastor is plural. So you can at least read that as elders.
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While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by scripture.
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The New Testament also speaks of the church as the body of Christ, which includes all the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
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Well, okay. As with so many things, you could certainly fit that in there and say that you're working with that properly in the sense of pastors and deacons, elders being a parallel term for that.
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And it uses plurals. It does not use pastor and deacons, which is what most
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Southern Baptist churches are. It does say pastors and deacons, and so you can certainly say, see, it's right there.
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But you know what? The same thing is true when you click on salvation. If you want to see
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Southern Baptist eyes get wide, do this. Read in the section on regeneration. Regeneration or the new birth is a work of God's grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus.
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It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in Lord Jesus Christ.
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Now, if the phrase to which has any meaning in the
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English language, does this not mean that regeneration precedes repentance and faith according to the
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Baptist faith and message? Yeah, I pointed that out to my elder. I said, even the Baptist faith and message shows that, you know.
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But he was kind of surprised, I guess. But I was surprised to read that. I read that last spring, and I was very surprised to read that.
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Well, you see, that reflects the fact that the Southern Baptist Convention was once Calvinistic in its soteriology.
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Now, that's not consistent because notice it says, by which believers. Now, that's, you know, how does that work?
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I mean, if you really wanted to try to push for a super consistency there, you'd have a hard time with it.
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But it is reflective of the fact that when you read James Boyce, you read those original
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Southern Baptists. They were reformed in their soteriology. There's no question about it. So, anyway, well,
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God bless you back there, Joseph. Are we going to be seeing you in November? I am. It's going to be a getaway for me.
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A refuge for me to hang around with you all. So, yeah, I'll definitely be there. All righty, man. God bless.
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Thanks. Bye -bye. I don't see any other calls there, so that means that I get to do the one thing.
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Okay. Real quickly, since we only have about ten minutes left in the program, I won't be able to get to all this, but last night
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I made the mistake on the way to church of turning the radio on again, and guess who I heard? Yes, I heard
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Harold Camping. And the callers, at least, were interesting. In fact, I missed a caller that I heard when
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I was recording this today off the Internet that really went after Camping. He really did try to go after Camping.
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Man, Camping is unflappable. I mean, this guy is absolutely beyond correction. He's completely beyond any type of dialogue.
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He is infallible. He is absolutely, positively infallible in his own mind. He says he's not, but you listen to him dealing with people, and it is just horrible.
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I want to play some sections here. This is actually four minutes long. A caller called in and asked about his teaching about leaving the church and fleeing from the church, and maybe
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I can get the first two in and just respond to them quickly. If I recall correctly, this is one of the shortest explanations
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I've heard, which for Harold Camping is pretty amazing, of why you're to flee the churches.
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And it's based upon the issue of Matthew 24, verse 15.
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Let's take a listen to it. I have another question. Now, you talk about the church age.
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Yes. Where does it say that in the Bible? Well, it says it in many, many places.
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In Matthew 24, verse 15. And the whole chapter is dealing with the great tribulation.
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In verse 21, it says, There will be great tribulations such as this world has never known, nor ever shall know.
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And then in connection with that, in verse 15, it says, When you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.
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Now tell me, where is the holy place in the world?
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This is talking about something that has to be right near the end of time. Because in verse 29, it says,
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Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not shine.
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And it goes on to talk about the return of Christ. And so it's not something, it's not talking about something that happened a long time ago.
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It's something that is happening right near the end of time. And where is the only holy place in the world?
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The only holy place is where the Bible is. And throughout the church age, who was the custodian?
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Who was given the assignment of being the caretaker of the Bible? And teaching the
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Bible and publishing the Bible all over the world? The local congregations.
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And so they are the holy place. And it says, when you see the abomination of desolation.
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Now the abomination has to do with satanic activity. And when we go to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2,
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God speaks of a time right near the end, where Satan, called the man of sin there, will take his seat, which is a figure of speech, he is ruling in the temple.
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And the temple, like Jerusalem or Judea, was a name that God assigned the local congregations, because during the days of Israel, the external representation of the kingdom of God was
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Israel, or Jerusalem, or Judea, or the temple. They were all externally representing the kingdom of God, because they were the custodians of the
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Bible. Once we get into the church age, the Jews no longer figured in any way,
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Jerusalem doesn't figure in any way, Judea literally, as a land, doesn't figure in any way with the gospel.
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But yet God talks about Judea, and Jerusalem, and the temple, and so on.
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And so we know the only place that externally represents the kingdom of God are the local congregations, just like the holy place is talking about the congregations.
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And so he says in Matthew 24 verse 15, when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the local congregations, that is in the holy place, let those who are in Judea, that is those who are in the local congregations, which typify externally the kingdom of God, let them flee to the mountains.
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And when we search the Bible, we know the only mountains that could be in view is Christ himself, as we read in Psalm 121,
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To the hills or to the mountains I will lift up mine eyes, from whence cometh my help.
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Alright, there you have it. Now, notice, it's just,
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I'm just going to replay one little section here. Desolation, standing in the local congregations, that is in the holy place.
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Standing in the local congregations. Now, a couple of years ago I wrote a book called Dangerous Airwaves, where I went through, and this is not even one of the arguments he was using at the time, there is no passage of scripture that Harold Campion cannot use to make whatever point he wants to make.
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The man is one of the most clear examples of why we all need to understand how to do hermeneutics, how to do exegesis.
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You notice the redefinition of the holy place as the local churches, based upon what?
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Is that what the apostles would have thought as they walked out of the temple? They know what the holy place is.
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There is only one thing that would have crossed their mind when talking about the holy place. There is only one thing that would have crossed their mind about the abomination of desolation.
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These are all terms that had meanings in the context, but at one point, Campion says, well, now Jerusalem, Judea, these are the local churches, and we know this because, well, they don't have anything to do with the church age.
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They don't have anything to do with the church age. In other words, we come to 2004, and remember,
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I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, he's now set 2011 as his new date. He put false prophecy in 1994, now he's got a new false prophecy for 2011.
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But we come to 2004, and it needs to be relevant to American Christians in North America today, and so we know that he could not, when he talks about Jerusalem and Judea, he's not really talking about Jerusalem and Judea.
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It has to have some relevance to North America today, and so it can't be those things. He must be referring to something else, and that's why the boat is the church, or anything, anything in the entirety of the
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Bible, no matter what its original meaning was, is the church. And so as long as it's sinking, destroyed, get out of it, whatever, you can apply it to the church, and that's why everybody has to flee the church.
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Now, what becomes really amazing is what he then says. Let me just try to sneak this one in before the program gets over with.
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Thank you for calling. Oh, yeah. Yes? Hello? I'm sorry, go ahead.
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Camping and go where? When we leave the local congregation, where are we going? We go to Christ.
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Now listen, the caller's asking, where do we go? If we're leaving the local congregation, where do we go?
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What an amazing thing to be telling people to leave Christ Church, but listen to Harold Camping's response, and listen to what he says about the
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Holy Spirit, folks. If you think this is just some old man who's gone off to the deep end and it's no big deal, listen to what he says.
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In other words, our trust is no longer in any sense in our local congregation.
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As if it ever was. Our trust can only be in the Bible. That's where it should have been anyway all the time, can only be in the
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Bible, and we're safe and secure in Christ. We continue to be ambassadors of Christ in this world.
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But we are no longer under the authority or under the spiritual care of a local congregation.
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God is finished with that particular methodology of getting the gospel out into the world.
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And again, let me encourage you, if you are interested in this subject, please send for a free copy.
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It must be in the next cut. Here, let's get to it here. Now, Camping, do you believe that the ones that are still in the church are the terrorists?
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Well, I can't make a judgment of anybody, and I'm sure that there are those in local congregations who haven't even heard that the
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Bible teaches that there comes a time when they have to come out. And there may be some of those there.
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But I do know this, that to be in a local congregation today is a very, very dangerous place.
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Because, first of all, the Bible is very clear. The Holy Spirit is no longer in the midst there.
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That is, regardless of how well the preacher may be preaching or faithful to the
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Bible, no one is going to have become saved because of it, because the
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Holy Spirit is not there to apply the word to their hearts. There you go.
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And I know, back when I was writing the book, we played this on the dividing line, but there it is.
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The Holy Spirit has abandoned the church. The Holy Spirit is no longer in the church, no longer in the body of Christ, and there's no longer any salvation there, and that's why it's dangerous.
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What an incredible, incredible thing to have to carry before God. When this false teacher, this man, and you know,
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I know there are people back on Long Island that have talked to me before. They came to know Christ through listening to family radio years and years and years ago.
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And they have that attachment, which automatically forms in that situation. I understand that.
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God can use a crooked stick to draw a straight line. But I'm going to tell you something.
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This man is a false teacher. He is one of those false teachers. He is perfectly described in Acts chapter 20 as one of those who speaks perverse things, who is drawing disciples off after himself, not sparing the flock.
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That is a perfect description of Harold Camping. And he will bear the judgment for so doing.
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If you hear anybody who's listening to family radio, if you hear someone who mentions listening to family radio, I just love the music.
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Warn them. Warn them. The man is a false teacher.
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He is a false prophet. He is a perverter of the Word of God. Warn them for not only their spiritual well -good.
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He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Warn them for the church's good.
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Because let me tell you something. I know churches where these people have left. They've left from positions of leadership, and they have hurt the fellowship and the ministry of the church and the proclamation of the gospel.
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So warn them. Harold Camping is a false teacher. Oh, but he teaches the doctrines of grace.
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No, actually, he doesn't even do that right. This man's a false teacher. Be warned.
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Flee from him. Not from the church. It's Harold Camping we need to be fleeing from. Well, thanks for listening to Dividing Line today.
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Lord willing, we'll be back with you again next Tuesday morning, 11 o 'clock my time. And I guess still until the end of October, it'll be 2 p .m.
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Eastern Daylight Time. And then it's going to get all messy again. But, hey, we'll see you then. God bless. Thanks for listening.
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Has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602, or write us at P .O.
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Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the
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World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.