June 8, 2004

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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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. At least he was honest.
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I noted on my blog I was going to begin the program today with an example of what it is that secularists and leftists in our culture and nation really do think.
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They just tend to try to avoid really saying anything about it, because they recognize it's hypocritical.
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But this is what they truly do think, and I really appreciate Dr. Al Mohler including this information.
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I love the way he started. It was so politically incorrect, because people would say, oh that's mean, but you know he's exactly right.
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Let me play a clip from Al Mohler's radio program. I think this is really good.
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You know, if there ever is a classic example of a man who's been raised above his intellectual pay scale, it is
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Bill Maher. And in this case you had a man who was a comedian who is now being presented to the public as someone who is a serious commentator on the news.
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And on Larry King Live on Wednesday night, he spoke his mind about something I think you'll find very, very interesting. And folks, if you're not outraged by this,
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I don't think you're capable of outrage. Listen carefully. Bill Maher on Larry King Live on Wednesday night.
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You know, you said something about you have to respect people's beliefs. I know that's what we always hear. We have to respect.
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I'm sorry, I don't. I don't. I don't respect religion. I don't respect superstitious thinking, which is what religion is.
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I don't respect childish thinking, which is what religion is. We talked about this before, about this whole gay issue wouldn't even be an issue, except it says it in the
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Bible, the Bible, that book that has people live to be 900 years old and says the world is, you know, 6000 years old and that there are people who lived in a whale and, you know, that infallible work of genius.
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And slavery is OK and you should stone a guy to death if he works on Sunday. That's the book that says, sorry, no queers.
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So I'm sorry. I don't respect people who believe in religion. I was religious when I was a kid.
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We all had dumb stuff drilled into our head. But it doesn't mean when you get to be an adult, you can't drill it out.
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Yes, indeed. Well, thank you very much, Bill Maher. I've only a few times seen his his program when it was on.
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And we've got some odd web user in the channel today. And maybe it's
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Bill Maher for all I know. And, you know, it was it was a waste of time in the sense that as far as actually, you know, is who can yell loudest and how many people can you, you know, all cram together into one place and put three people on one person and not let the one person get anything said.
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That seemed to be the the issue with with Bill Maher. But, you know, really, that's that's how many leaders in our society actually think that's where it comes across very clearly in in their actions.
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But they try to avoid actually saying that out loud, because to do so would be to admit that they haven't honestly examined any of the information.
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There's no evidence that that there is any meaningful, you know, interaction with apologetic materials or anything of the kind there.
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And it's really not a matter of, you know, from a Christian perspective, that's a spiritual issue, a very clear spiritual issue.
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It's interesting. Someone in channel just said, if Christians would stop trying to impose the Bible on people, then people stop attacking the
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Bible. Yes, if God would stop being God and telling us how we're supposed to live, then then we wouldn't be mad at him because we're in rebellion against him.
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That, of course, is what the real issue there is. So interesting. Maybe somebody was doing a a scan for Bill Marr quotes and came across the blog or something like that.
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I'm not really certain how that happened, but very, very interesting that that kind of assertion would be made and done so openly.
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But hey, at least most of us have known that that was that was what was in the heart all along.
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Now, someone pointed out, I think Sam from New Jersey pointed out that Friday, the
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Gary Machuda was on Catholic Answers Live, and I didn't listen to the whole thing.
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But Sam pointed out that there is one funny statement and I couldn't help but but play it.
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And right at the beginning, introducing Gary, the the host told a little bit, oh, it's interesting.
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I don't I don't know this is on here. In fact, I well, let me see if let's go ahead and play this for a second.
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Let's see if it's there to James McCarthy. Yeah, OK. It is. He's mentioning a new book that Gary Machuda has put out, which is a response to a
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McCarthy's book on Roman Catholicism. Notice again, the the double standard.
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I mentioned this on the blog recently, the the assertions people make, well, you know, you're an anti -Catholic because you'd you say
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I'm not a Christian. And of course, what they mean by that when they say I'm a Christian, all they mean by that has been validly baptized.
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Nothing more than that. They don't mean what I mean when I say Christian. And so it's an unfair comparison.
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But the constant double standard in Roman Catholic writings and Roman Catholic apologists and apologetics, anything from the other side that responds to Rome is anti -Catholic.
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But if Gary Machuda writes a book in response to McCarthy, is it an anti -Protestant book?
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Is it an anti -Baptist book? Of course not. So just listen to this little clip at the beginning from Catholic Answers Live.
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To James McCarthy's anti -Catholic book, The Gospel According to Rome. Gary has been debate.
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He's done debates in the past, including a recent one with James White on the Deuterocanonical books.
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And Gary, so great to have you with us on Catholic Answers Live today. Thanks for joining us. Now, I'm going to pick it up right there, but I thought in reading
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Steve Ray's blog and a couple other folks that this was Gary Machuda's first debate. At least that was my recollection.
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Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought for certain I had read various reviews and said, hey, and not only that, but hey, it was his first public debate.
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So that's great. So I don't understand what's being said here. You know, debates and including this one almost made it sound like he had done a number of debates.
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I don't know. So great to have you with us on Catholic Answers Live today. Thanks for joining us. Well, thanks,
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Gary. It's good to be here. I suppose you've seen it all when it comes to practical apologetics. Must have had your successes and also taken your lumps a little bit.
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Give our folks a little bit of a background about your involvement in apologetics. Oh, well, you were mentioning the crash and burn stories.
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And my whole apologetic career is nothing but one giant crash and burn story. But I'm not sure that's how
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I'd start off. The program first time around my mind,
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I'd like you to buy my book. However, my entire apologetic career has been nothing but crashing. Something tells me that he'd probably want to take that one back somewhere along the line.
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I was so that was funny. But anyway, we will have more from Catholic Answers Live because I have a bunch of clips to play today from a program that aired last month with Tim Staples talking about Mary.
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And I was mentioning in. Yes, coach, that's that's great.
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I was mentioning in channel last night as I was listening to it, man, you know, I know where he's gotten all this stuff.
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And in fact, he's stealing this from other people. And all this stuff has been refuted over and over again.
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And then I came I came up with my conclusion. I somehow I came to understand what
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Tim Staples is all about. Tim Staples is a cheerleader. He's a cheerleader. I mean, he's always.
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Well, I remember, in fact, I have a you know, I don't. Oh, I didn't I didn't save that one.
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Well, I won't get to it today anyways. But if we do, I can I might be able to bring it up during the break or something like that. He was talking about when we were on Bible Answer Man together.
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How well it went and stuff like that. And, you know, I'll never forget when we were on Bible Answer Man together, especially the second time he looked like he was about to come out of his chair and attack me.
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I mean, he was just so excitable and and as you listen to him, that's what he's like.
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He's just all over the place. And he's a cheerleader. And then as I hear him repeating stuff that just has absolutely positively no scholarly redemptive element to it at all.
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That's right. That's give me a C. Give. Well, and I think I have good reason for that.
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Think about it. At the debate we had in 1996, we're during the cross exit, not cross exit.
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The question answer. No, it's audience question, period. There's all these people lined up. And what happens is, is all of a sudden there's there's a brief break in what people are saying.
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And one of his, quote unquote, students screams out the
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Eucharist and the whole place. You know, I'm just sitting here going, excuse me.
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You know, what am I supposed to go? Predestination. You know, I mean, my folks aren't going to do this.
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Yeah, we do need to. Well, we've got it someplace. We need to get that clip. It's in there somewhere. In fact, isn't that one's available in real audio.
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So it wouldn't be difficult to track down. It was it was really funny.
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Anyway, yesterday I was I was listening to to Christian radio and.
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I was listening to a phone call that that came in from and I'm going to I'm going to instead of using my electronic text here, there's one, you know, you'd think that, you know, every time
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I reach for a book there, I do that. And it still hasn't nicked the wood yet. I'm amazed that you all know that I do this sitting at my at my desk.
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We're going to take a picture of this sometime. Well, no, we're not going to because I have to clean it. But sitting here at my desk and I just have a
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I just have a microphone that is on an arm that we roll down. And I'm sitting here looking at my screen and laughing at the people in channel.
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And so that's that's how we do it. I've got a keyboard in front of me. So I just picked it up and see the keyboard's keyless, keyless keyboard, wireless, wireless keyboard.
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And there's my palm pilot down there and my laptop over there anyway. So that's how we do things.
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So I just grabbed the Bible here. I was listening to Christian radio and I was listening to the Bible Answer Man broadcast. And a guy called in and I immediately turned up the volume on my super fancy radio shack, $9 .99
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AM FM battery radio sitting over there and real fancy stuff we got here.
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And I was very interested at the passage that the man was was citing, and it was
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John 847. As soon as I heard that, I went, hmm, this could be interesting. Because John 847, of course, says he who is of God hears the words of God.
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For this reason, you do not hear them because you are not of God.
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And so I thought, hmm, I wonder where this is going to go.
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And it went there a lot faster than I expected it to get there, actually. And really, if you back it up, if you if you go back in the context, there is a continuation of.
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A very important concept that comes in from John chapter six here in John chapter eight, and again, you have the give and take type situation you had in John six, the
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Jews in the synagogue, Capernaum. And yet you have the claim on the part of the
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Jews, Abraham is our father. And this is verse thirty nine.
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Jesus said to them, if you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which
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I heard from God, this Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father.
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They said to him, we were not born of fornication. We have one father, God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me.
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For I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on my own initiative, but he sent me.
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Isn't it interesting that if just in passing, verse forty two says, if God were your father, you would love me.
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In other words, if that saving relationship exists, if there is that power of God, proper relationship between the creature and God.
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Man's love will have the proper object. Think about what that means.
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Think about what that means, especially in regards to the theory of libertarianism. Think about what it means regarding the nature of love.
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The fact that the greatest commandment is love the Lord your God with our heart, soul, mind and strength. How can you command something like that?
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Unless we have sometimes an unbiblical definition of love. But anyway,
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Jesus says, if God were your father, you would love me. That also, of course, has a lot to do with pluralism.
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The idea that, oh, well, you know, the Muslim loves God. But the
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Muslim does not love the true Jesus Christ, does he? The Buddhist loves God, but the
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Buddhist does not love Jesus Christ. Hmm, Jesus was extremely politically incorrect.
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He keeps putting us in these difficult positions. Bill Maher would not like it. For I proceeded forth and have come from God.
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See, the Jews certainly believe Jesus was a prophet. They probably would have accepted him as a messiah if he'd been willing to edit himself down to fit their parameters.
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But Jesus says in talking about loving him. For I proceeded forth and have come from God.
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For I have not even come on my own initiative, but he sent me. Perfect union between the father and the son. But then look at verse 43.
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Why do you not understand what I am saying? Now, stop right there. What do most people say?
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What do most people say in answer to that question? Why do you not understand what I am saying?
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Why do people understand what Jesus is saying? Well, it's our fault. We haven't explained it clearly enough and we're not using the proper methodology.
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We're singing hymns and we shouldn't sing hymns. The greatest way to grow your church is to stop singing hymns and sing praise choruses and have latte bars out in the foyer and you got to stop wearing suits and ties and start wearing
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Hawaiian shirts and, and, and, and, and, right? That's why they don't understand what
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Jesus is saying is they just haven't heard and we haven't, you know, it's our fault. We haven't done enough explaining, et cetera, et cetera, right?
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Or if you get right down to it, well, they choose not to. And it's true there, there is truth in stating that they choose not to.
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But why do they choose not to? Well, the Lord Jesus put it fairly clearly.
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It is because you cannot hear my word. You cannot.
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Word of inability, incapacity, lacks the ability, the power to hear his word.
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Now, of course, they were hearing physically. They weren't physically deaf. But obviously we're talking about hearing with understanding.
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And they lacked that power. They lacked that capacity. Why did they lack that capacity?
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Well, some people say, well, they lacked that capacity because they chose not to have it. They chose not to have the ability to hear.
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But Jesus' explanation is you are of your father, the devil, and you want, you desire to do the desires of your father.
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You see, there's this thing called enslavement to sin. There's this thing called depravity.
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There's this thing called slavery, spiritual death. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.
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He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
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Hmm, acting in accordance with one's nature sounds like, well, what reformed folks talk about when they talk about compatibilism, doesn't it?
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And he's saying the reason that they cannot hear is because they are acting like their father.
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And they too are enslaved. And they too are acting in accordance with their nature. Verse 45, but because I speak the truth, you do not believe me.
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Well, why would that be? I mean, if libertarianism is true, verse 45 makes no sense.
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It would have to be, but because I speak the truth, some of you choose not to believe me, but some of you choose to do so.
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That's not what it says. Because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. Why? Because they are of their father, the devil, and he does not stand the truth.
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There is no truth in him. And they're acting in accordance with their nature. Which one of you convicts me of sin?
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If I speak truth, why do you not believe me? That's not a rhetorical question, because that's the context of verse 47.
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The context of verse 47 is, if I speak truth, why do you not believe me?
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How to answer question? Verse 47, he who is of God, he who belongs to God, hears the words of God.
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Same hearing that he denies they have the capacity for verse 43.
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For this reason, you do not hear them. As the end of verse 47 say, because you exercised your libertarian free will, so that you do not do so.
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No, it doesn't say that, does it? For this reason, you do not hear them, because you are not of God.
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There is a pre -existing issue, just as there was in John 6, 44.
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And notice, this has never been popular. Never been popular. You know why it's never been popular?
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Look at verse 48. The Jews answered and said to him, Do we not say rightly that you are a
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Samaritan and have a demon? Let's go ad hominem, you're a
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Samaritan and you have a demon. Amazing, isn't it?
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Well, there's John 8, 47. And so, I hear this call come in and let's listen to what was said.
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Jesus talks about that the reason why the Pharisees didn't listen or hear his words is because they were not from God.
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So, he almost seems to predicate they're not listening by not having some sort of origination in the
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Father. As if they had originated from him, they would listen. And so,
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I was interested in knowing what your take is on how that applies to those who believe in the words of Christ.
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Yeah, well, here Jesus is talking to Jewish people and those Jewish people are claiming to belong to God, to be right with God, right?
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But then their actions, the very actions that they manifest, demonstrate that they can't, in fact, be of God.
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Their actions demonstrate that they're in league with the devil. So, Jesus is exposing their sinfulness.
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They claim to belong to God, but if they were really right with God, then they would have certainly embraced
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God's Son. So, now, if you're dealing with people who are not Christians, then, who hear the word for the first time and they say, that makes sense to me,
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I feel like that's truth. Does that mean that they really belong to God or even hearing the word?
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Well, they demonstrate that they belong to God if they repent of their sins and receive
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Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of their life. Now, if you look at this from a macro perspective, what happens?
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Now, let me just stop right there. Note, up to this point, the preceding context, especially verse 46, which gives you,
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I mean, when you're looking at a verse that is an answer to a question, the question is sort of important to understanding the verse that's the answer, but that hasn't come out.
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The issue of the fact that Jesus himself has said, you are doing the will of your
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Father, this is what your Father's like, that there is no truth in him, he acts according to his nature, you're acting according to your nature, none of that stuff is there.
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And no discussion of that. And it's interesting, we have some sort of a, I don't know whether it's a
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Roman Catholic or an atheist or whatever it is in channel, that just said amen to all the stuff that we just demonstrated was missing the context.
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The context hasn't been addressed yet. But I was wondering, where is this going to go? Well, here's where it goes.
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In the being, God creates man with the potential for evil, and as a result of that, that evil is actualized by Adam and Eve, and humanity plunges into a life of constant sin, terminated by death.
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The rest of the Bible is God's redemptive plan, culminating in new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.
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Now, the bridge between God and humanity is bridged by the work of Jesus Christ.
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We are in disfellowship with God. Now, if we respond to God's message, certainly the message of God's Son, and we turn from our sinfulness and we embrace the
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Savior, then we will become right with God. But if we are like these
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Jewish people that John is talking about, who claim to be right with God, but are trying to be right with God through their own prescription, then we are really not of God.
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That's interesting, except that's not what Jesus said in verses 44 and following, because he said they were doing the desires of their father.
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Now, I know it's tough for a libertarian to handle, because that's not libertarianism. To say that someone is doing the desires of somebody else is to deny the fundamental aspect of libertarianism.
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But that's what Jesus said. He explains their viewpoint, their actions, their blindness, and their sinfulness on the basis of their spiritual deadness, and their slavery to sin, and their slavery to Satan.
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But that hasn't come out. Instead, we have, you know, and I don't want to get into the potentiality stuff. We've been over that a million times before.
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I'm not talking about Sonny and Sheridan, and I'm not playing any of their music either. But let's continue on. We are claiming something that is not correct.
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We're trying to do it our own way, where Jesus comes into this milieu, and he says,
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I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. So they didn't belong to God because they had already rejected him, not because they had been predetermined to be reprobates.
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Now, where did that come from? They had chosen to reject him, not because they've been predetermined to be reprobates.
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In other words, you know, we can't dare to allow for the idea of a sovereign decree here.
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And even though the passage in verse 43 talks about human inability, and even though it specifically keeps talking about, you know, doing the will of your father, and here in verse 47, then, the same thing.
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Inability and the consistency of acting according to nature, and all that compatibilism.
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It's right there on this very surface of the text, but we've got to make sure to maintain libertarianism.
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That's going to come out a little bit more. Well, when I read, like, 1 John 4, 6, where he says, we know that we are of God, and we know the spirit of error and the spirit of truth from this, that those who are of God listen to us.
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That is to say, John and, I guess, fellow Christians of that time, or maybe John and whatever apostles may have remained over from the first century.
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And then, Jesus says, those who have heard from the Father and learned, come to me, as if it was a prerequisite to first learn from the
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Father, and hear from the Father, and then after hearing and learning from the Father, they come to Christ. So, how does that work?
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Well, now, let's make sure we see what's being said here. That's John 6, 45. And John 6, 45 follows right after John 6, 44.
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And meaningful systems of hermeneutics do recognize the flow of thought.
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And obviously, interpreting verse 45, and then reading its meaning back into 44, or previous verses, when you have to interpret a text backwards, you have here clear evidence of what
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I call traditional interference. Traditional interference, that's where your traditions get in the way of your exegesis.
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When you have to change your hermeneutic, when you have to change your method of interpretation, so as to continue to hold a position, that might be a clear indication that in reality, your traditions have determined that position, not the exegesis of the text of Scripture.
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And so, John 6, 45, very frequently people will isolate it, read it in a way that is consistent with their libertarianism, and then try to fit it back into the text.
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John 6, 45 is explaining the nature of the drawing of 6, 44. The drawing that the father does involves teaching.
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We learn from the father. He is the teacher, and we effectively learn from him.
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It's not, he's up there teaching, and it's sort of like those situations where you have students,
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I remember very well when I had to take those classes in high school that were required classes, like government, and U .S.
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history, and things like that. And the stoners in the back of the room were asleep, or they were, you know, on another planet, or whatever, while the teacher was speaking.
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That seems to be the idea people want to force into John 6, 45. God throws it out there. If we take them up on learning, great, that's wonderful, but other than that, you know, it's just, that's not what
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John 6, 45 is saying. John 6, 45, it's the father who is teaching, and that teaching is effective, and that is descriptive of the drawing itself, and that drawing results in all who are drawn being raised up in the last day.
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That drawing involves knowledge. That drawing involves the work of the Holy Spirit in making us a new creature in Christ, and all those things are involved with regeneration.
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And so it's all right there, and that's where we've just left John 8, and jumped back to two chapters, in essence,
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John 6, 45. Well, just as you have said, you have correctly said. The point here, though, is that we are not predeterminately reprobated by God in some artificial sense.
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Artificial sense? How about a sovereign sense of all of us are deserving of sin, and God, in his sovereign mercy, chooses and elects some to mercy.
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How about that? We become reprobate. We are reprobate because we're not responding to the
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Holy Spirit that loses. So, reprobation is a human action, not a divine action, and it's based upon the rejection of the work of the
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Holy Spirit. Now, there's no question anyone who is, in fact, an enemy of God will reject the
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Holy Spirit. In fact, I love when folks who are libertarians will cite from Acts 8,
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Acts 7 and 8, and especially, you're always resisting the Holy Spirit. See, you can resist the
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Holy Spirit, as if that has to do with salvation. Well, doesn't it say you're always resisting the
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Spirit? If that was in regards to salvation, then none of these people would ever get saved, right? I've never figured that one out either, but anyhow.
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We do not respond. So, here's what we have in the whole big scheme of things.
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We do not respond. Not what is said in John 8, cannot hear.
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Notice the difference. Do not is human realm, my will, in control.
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And again, make sure you hear me correctly. There is no question that the enslaved will will reject that conviction of the
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Holy Spirit and the teaching of Christ and the teaching of the Word of God and all the rest of that stuff. No question about it.
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But, the question is, do they do so in a libertarian fashion to where they could do one thing, could do the other, or do they do so because, as Jesus said in John 8, they're doing the will of their
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Father, and there is no truth in Him, and they're acting according to their nature. We have a genuine God of love and justice.
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We don't have a full orb concept of love until we see a God of love and a
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God of justice. Must maintain not only the love of God, but the justice of God. Remember, full orbed in this context means, based upon libertarianism, the assumption being you cannot have love without libertarianism.
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We must also maintain the sovereignty of God and genuine human responsibility.
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I .e. libertarianism, rejecting the view of, well, all Reformed theologians in regards to compatibilism without actually addressing any of the passages that teach compatibilism, like Genesis 50 and Acts 4 and things like that.
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Therefore, if these Jews who demonstrate that they are not from God would only listen to God and receive the message that He is wooing them with in that very milieu...
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Now catch that! I almost feel like replaying it. If they would just listen! Didn't John 8, 43 say,
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The reason you do not hear is because... What? It is because you cannot hear.
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Why do you not understand? Because you cannot hear my words. If you were of God, you would hear.
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But what we're hearing here is, if you would just hear, you could be of God. You see, it's 180 degrees backwards.
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Then they could receive that message. They're not receiving the message because they would not.
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Not because they could not. See that? They're not receiving the message because they would not.
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Not because they could not. No, they could not. And that's why they would not. That's what Jesus says.
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I mean, it's a direct statement. Direct statement of Scripture. It is because you cannot hear my word,
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John 8, 43. And we're just told, No, they would not. Not they could not.
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Direct contradiction to the direct statement of the text. And that's not even brought into the issue.
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The idea that they have circumstantial freedom is not necessitated by that passage.
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Even though verse 44 says, Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature.
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For he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. You're doing what your father's doing.
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He speaks according to his nature. You're acting according to your nature. Sounds like compatibilism.
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How do you get libertarianism out of that? Where do you get libertarianism out of John 8, 44?
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I don't know. But I think we'll find out in this last little section. What is necessitated by the whole of Scripture is that they have libertarian freedom.
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The freedom to act or the freedom to act otherwise. We want to go back to the phone lines. Did you catch that?
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What is necessitated? Necessitated.
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Let me play it again. Is necessitated by the whole of Scripture. Necessitated by the whole of Scripture.
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Now, that seems to me to explain why it is that you can take a passage that uses terms of inability, presents compatibilism, says cannot, turn it on its head to the point where it becomes can but will not.
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How can you do that? You can do that by traditional interference.
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You can do that by having a tradition, libertarianism, the glue of all of man's religions, outside of supernatural
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Christianity, that is. The glue of man's religions, libertarianism, becomes the lens through which you view all of the things.
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Now, everyone who's read The Potter's Freedom is sitting there going, wow, that's chosen but free.
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That's Norman Geisler. And it is. No question about it. No question about it. And here you have it being presented directly, right out of the text.
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And what caught me about this particular call was we can go right to the text.
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I mean, John 8 is so clear. It's so compelling. We can go right to it and see the effect.
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Now, it is interesting to me to note that later on in the same call,
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Hank used to talk about there's not a maverick molecule in the universe.
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God is sovereign over all things. Doesn't say it anymore. Not in that.
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I've not heard the maverick molecule quote in at least a year and a half now. I haven't heard it.
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Doesn't mean it hasn't been there. But to my knowledge, I haven't heard it.
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But what we do still hear is God must change the heart.
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God must change the heart. If the heart is the very seat, the very center of man's being, and God changes it, you can't be a libertarian.
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How can you be a libertarian and say God must change the heart? A libertarian would have to say man must choose to allow
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God to change his heart. The heart that is to be changed must choose to be allowed to be changed. That's true libertarianism.
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If we're going to be consistent, if we're going to make this the lens through which the entirety of the
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Bible must be viewed, then I would suggest that we need to go all the way.
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Let's go all the way and let's be consistent. You can't use terminology like the changing of the heart if you're a libertarian.
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It just doesn't work. Well, anyway, that's an interesting one.
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We skipped our break because I'm not going to get very far here. I wanted to get to Tim Staples today. We only got less than about 20 minutes right now.
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I wanted to get to a few of them anyway. Tim Staples was talking about Mary. One of the debates that I'm looking forward to sometime in the future,
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I would very much like to do a debate with Tim Staples on Mary. As we listen to some of this, you'll be able to see why.
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Right at the beginning of the program, God is the father of assault. No, web user, for some odd reason, maybe you might want to go back to John chapter 8, and you'll see there that Jesus said to the
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Jews that their father was the devil. If you're meaning father in the sense of creator, then
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God created us all, yes, but not in the sense of relationship.
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So, anyway, back to Tim Staples. I'm just interacting a bit too much with the channel here.
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Tim Staples, right at the beginning, he makes a statement. This isn't even about Mary, but I just wanted you to hear this because it's absolutely, positively amazing.
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We have the answers because we have the Magisterium of the Church. For me, becoming
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Catholic has made the Scriptures come to life for me. I have learned so much about the
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Scriptures. I mean, I could quote half the New Testament before I became Catholic, but I didn't know the Scriptures until I became
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Catholic, and now it has just opened a door. It's like a whole new world for me. Wow.
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A guy did call in later in the program, and he said, you know, my experience is the opposite of that.
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I was Catholic, and I became a
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Protestant, and it was the first time I ever bought a Bible and carried it with me and opened it and learned anything. And Tim did not have much of a response to that.
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But it was fascinating to listen to what was just said there.
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Especially, we have the answers because we have the Magisterium. Tim, exactly how many verses has the
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Magisterium infallibly interpreted for you? Not many.
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And which Magisterium are we talking about? Magisterium 400 years ago?
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Can we know what they believed back then? Why is that different than today? Why is inclusivism becoming so much the magisterial understanding?
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What if inclusivism becomes the magisterial understanding when it is self -evident on any basis of truth whatsoever that that was not the view of Trent?
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That was not the view even of the papal syllabus of errors in the 19th century. What about that?
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Don't know. Well, anyway, no, Tim, the Magisterium hasn't given you that. And amazing, he could quote half the
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New Testament as a Protestant. I've debated the man a couple times, and, you know,
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I, I, boy, that's, that's, that's hard to buy into.
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I'm a Catholic. I came into the church in 2000. I was raised Methodist, and I accept that Mary had no other children when
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I accepted the rest of the dogmas of Catholicism. But I was raised to believe that she did have other children.
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And while I'm not doubting that she remained a virgin, I'm wondering why it's so important to our belief.
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I've never understood. That is a great question. In, in my CD series that was mentioned earlier,
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By the way, that CD series is nine CDs. Yeah, we're gonna track it down eventually.
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Nine CDs. Yes, I would like to listen to Tim Staples talk about Mary on nine
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CDs in a row while riding my bicycle out into the desert never to be seen again.
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I have a section on this, and I think it's, it's crucial for us to understand for several reasons.
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First, if we don't understand Mary as perpetual virgin, then
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I would question whether we understand the truth about the nature of consecrated life, consecration in general.
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And let me explain what I mean. When, when Mary asked the question in Luke chapter one, beginning there in verse 26 when the angel comes down to Mary to announce to her that she is to be the mother of, of the
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Messiah, the son of God, whose kingdom will have no end. Mary asked the question, how shall this be? Because I know not man.
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The response of the angel is the power of the most high will come upon you.
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Episkiazos in Greek there, the same language used in the
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Septuagint when the Ark of the Covenant was consecrated and the power of the Holy Spirit overshadowed the
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Ark. Now, I want to stop it right there because those of you might recall last
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September, October, and November, we did a debate on the perpetual virginity of Mary in Salt Lake City against Jerry Matytix.
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And before the debate, I talked a lot about the subject and I shared with you the fact that many, many years ago, this was probably about 1995, 96,
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I remember getting hold of a tape by Jerry Matytix in which he went through the parallels between Luke and the
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Septuagint. And he went through it. One thing's for certain, Jerry is a more convincing speaker and certainly is far more scholarly, as far as at least his ability to use scholarly language, than Tim Staples.
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And he can pronounce Greek much more efficiently as well. And I remember sitting there listening to his running through at warp speed, for the
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Trekkies in the audience, this particular presentation he had that he obviously had given over and over and over again.
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And just going, wow, man, that sounds good. And then
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I sat down with my Septuagint and I started looking stuff up and started discovering that everything he was saying was baloney.
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The words that he said were there in the text, weren't there in the text.
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For example, episkiadzo. Episkiadzo, the closest you can come to this, is the non -emphatic form.
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Skiadzo. And about the closest you can come is Numbers 9 .18.
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At the command of the Lord, the sons of Israel would set out, and at the command of the Lord, they would camp. As long as the cloud settled over the tabernacle, they remained camped.
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So we're talking about the cloud by night, pillar of fire by day, and the cloud would, was what was guiding the people of Israel.
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And it would settle over the tabernacle. It's not talking about the ark here. That's the closest you're going to get.
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It's just not there. So why does Gerry Matitick's and then
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Tim Staples say this? Because Tim Staples got it from Gerry Matitick.
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That's why. He's just repeating the same errors that Gerry Matitick's presented.
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And I'm sure that Tim was just as impressed by what
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Gerry said as anyone else. And therefore, he just goes, wow,
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I'm going to write that down. I'm going to stop the tape and write this stuff down. And I'm going to, you know, take a look at this, and I'm going to use this.
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And it's found Luke 1 .35, the Holy Spirit, the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And if you have
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BibleWorks 6 .0, you can just simply choose the verb there. And you can go down to search on lemma in BLM.
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That's in the Septuagint. You search on that, and you discover Exodus 40 .35.
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Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And everything else in the
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Psalms and Proverbs. That's it. That's all of them. Hmm.
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So I looked for schiazzo, and I came up with the ones that I've already read to you. So somebody took somebody else's tape and went, woo, this sounds great.
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Let's throw it out there like we know what we're talking about. Just not correct.
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It doesn't actually fly. And in fact, you could make the argument.
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And once again, can you imagine Tim Staples responding to a
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Jehovah's Witness and allowing the Jehovah's Witness to utilize that kind of exegesis?
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Well, maybe he would. I don't know. The ark was consecrated, became a holy thing, consecrated unto
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God. Now, in the Old Testament, I did an extensive study on this. You can look at anything or any person that's consecrated for God.
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From the high priest to the temple itself, the ark of the covenant, even the clothing that the priest wears.
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When it is consecrated, it's consecrated to God for a purpose and can never be used in any other way ever again.
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When we understand that language of consecration, Mary was consecrated as the spouse of the
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Holy Spirit. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up the truck there. Did you see that?
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Uh, this is this is how this kind of and again, you hear the speed with which he's speaking.
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And, you know, consecration only used God. And therefore, if Mary's consecrated, then that means that she can, you know, only only bear the
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Messiah. And there's all these these conclusions that he wants you to grab.
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And he wants you to hold on to that. When you think about he's not actually defending. He's not actually giving you any meaningful basis for believing that.
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But he's just throwing them out there. And now all of a sudden out of left field comes.
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This is spousal language about being married to the Holy Spirit. What? Where did that come from?
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Perpetual virginity simply makes sense. In fact, Saint Jerome and his epistle against Thelvidius in the fourth century on this very issue.
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Saint Jerome. You're just parroting Saint Jerome. I mean,
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I don't understand. Jerome was supposed to be wrong about the Apocrypha, at least according to Gary Machuda in our debate.
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And all these 52 ecclesiastical writers down to the time of the Reformation, including
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Cardinal Cajetan and Cardinal Jimenez and Gregory the Great. They were all just parroting Jerome.
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But now that we talk about Mary, all of a sudden Jerome's views become normative.
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Well, that's odd. Says that I'm going to give a little interpolation here. But Saint Jerome basically says
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Saint Joseph knew full well who he was living with. I mean, he is living with the woman who is consecrated into God, the new covenant arc, the spouse of the
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Holy Spirit. Saint Joseph touches her. He's a dead man. Put it in blunt terms.
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To catch all those phrases, the spouse, the new covenant arc. Every single one of these statements, these arguments, if you will take it and you will examine it and say,
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OK, where do you get this in divine scripture? You can easily demonstrate is fully susceptible to the most basic refutation.
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But when you just keep stringing them together, just keep stringing together, just keep throwing them together, just keep using them over and over and over and over again.
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That's how you overcome the Marian objections. But that's not how truth is taught, is it?
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That's how you brainwash people. That's how the Moonies do it. That's not how truth is presented.
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That's how deception is promulgated. See, I believe that if we miss this on Mary as perpetual virgin, we miss the whole idea of consecration.
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And then we add on top of that, the reality that Mary is, I mean, we're talking spousal language here.
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The power of the most high, this consecrated life that Mary had with the Holy Spirit is more than just any old consecration, but it's nuptial language as well here in Luke chapter one.
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Nuptial language. Wow! Are you hearing that?
52:54
Sometimes these apologists will be a little bit more careful than many Roman Catholics to avoid some of the language that immediately makes anyone who knows the
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Bible go, uh, excuse me? Uh, you mean married to the
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Holy Spirit? Uh, you know, we'd go, I, you know, sounds like something the apostles might have wanted to have mentioned somewhere along the line, but, uh, some odd reason they chose not to.
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Uh, wow! Incredible, incredible admission there. You would understand that there is no way that Saint Joseph could have conjugal relations with her.
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Saint Joseph was called to be her earthly protector. Yeah, we can't find diddly in scripture that says this, but we believe in sola ecclesia anyway.
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And so we're going to assume these things and then stretch scripture and, and get rid of the brothers and sisters and turn them into cousins and things like that.
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And, and well, you know how this works. Does that help Dana? That, that helps very much that I, I understand now.
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Thank you very much. You're welcome. Appreciate the call. That's the end of those calls that hurts, you know? Oh yeah, wow.
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That's great. And you just want to go, oh man, I wish I could say something to that lady and say that, well, anyway.
54:27
Hi there. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. What's your question for Tim Staples? Well, I was, uh,
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Tim, I was reading, uh, I don't have the article right in front of me. The article you wrote about Mary, uh,
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Mary Saint or sinner, I believe it was called. Yes. And it was kind of a fictitious dialogue between, uh, an apologist and a guy named
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Homer. Yes. And you referred to, uh, the original, uh, language word that, that meant full of grace.
54:51
Right. I think it was past a perfect tense. It was a perfect passive participle.
54:59
Yeah. Okay. Folks get ready. Uh, warning, warning, Greek language attack coming up the
55:05
Greek language. Those of you who love the Greek language, it is about to be shredded. It is about to be abused and misused.
55:12
Turn down your radio. If you are squeamish about the destruction of the Greek language.
55:18
Yeah. Yes. Um, and I was, I just wanted some clarification that you could on, uh, specifically more what that, what that is about.
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And, uh, when Homer responded with another type of passage that had the same tense, I didn't fully understand why, uh, why the
55:34
Mary's, uh, perpetual virginity was, was why, why it only applied to her and not the passage
55:40
Homer referred to. That's a great question. Um, there are other verses of Scripture that you'll find, you know,
55:47
Saint Stephen is referred to as full of grace. Um, but you don't find the perspic passive participle used there.
55:56
K Kari Tomine. And I guess the most important thing to remember here is this perfect tense in Greek has a sense of it's a, there is a completed past action.
56:09
Okay. Put on the brakes or that we're almost out of time. We're rushing here. Um, as soon as you start running into this stuff.
56:18
Again, go back, uh, to, um, last year we had
56:25
Eric Svensson on. We discussed this. Remember when we had Jerry Manatek on? Um, Eric Svensson's book, who is my mother goes through this.
56:33
I discussed it in the Roman Catholic controversy. Discussed it in Mary Another Redeemer. We've done a number of debates on this.
56:40
Uh, the, you can always tell when you're dealing with someone who doesn't really know the language, the, who could never sit down the text and actually go someplace other than the key passages that they always deal with.
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Like, uh, Luke 1 28 or if you're talking with Jehovah's Witnesses, John 1 1 or Granville Sharp Constructions.
57:04
Let's go over to a section in, in the, in the moral sections of the
57:10
New Testament. They're talking about marriage or something that aren't your favorite places and they could never translate it.
57:16
They could never discuss it. They can never deal with anything there because they don't actually read the language. You can always tell because they isolate words from phrases.
57:27
They don't recognize, for example, and we're not going to get to finish this. I'm going to need to make a note to myself and go ahead.
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Stop. Stop. Thank you very much. Uh, I'm going to need to make a note, pick up with number three from Mr.
57:39
Staples on the next dividing line and finish those up because he's going to go on.
57:44
He's going to go to Ephesians chapter two and he's going to talk about the, the participle there, but he will never ever mentioned that the participle there is in a paraphrastic construction because he probably doesn't know it.
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And he probably doesn't realize that a participle, a perfect participle in a paraphrastic construction obviously has to be looked at differently than a participle standing on its own, especially a participle being used in a greeting as it is in Luke chapter one.
58:17
Instead, we've got, well, the perfect means this. Well, yeah, basically, but then it has all sorts of other meanings when you combine it and you put it in phrases.
58:28
This is called syntax and syntax is a more advanced study than basic grammar, which you can get by putting your, your cursor on something on a
58:37
Bible program. Okay. So that's the problem. We will pick up with Tim Staples Thursday afternoon, four o 'clock here on the dividing line.
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Hope you'll be here. Hope I'll be here. God bless. See you then. We need a new reformation day.