The Totalitarianism of the Secular Left; a Good Call on the Atonement

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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01:03

Well, greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. I've had all of two minutes off from just having done the

01:10

Janet Mefford Show on the subject of justification, and I had no earthly idea that that's what the subject was until we got started.

01:20

And so that was one of those be ready in season and out of season situations,

01:27

I guess. But nice conversation with Janet got to emphasize the centrality of the gospel, and I hope that that was of benefit to people.

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I don't know how I missed this. I think it just simply demonstrates that, well, other than my own fallibility, ignorance, so on and so forth, all of which are very true of me,

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I think it also illustrates the amount of data, just the wave of facts that comes at us every single day is just too much for anybody to keep up with.

02:10

But interestingly enough, twice, once in two days in a row, once while I was reading a fairly lengthy book, which basically blames the

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Reformation for most of modern problems. And then the next day in one of my

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RSS feeds, I got hit with the exact same thing. And I was writing as normal when I heard the first.

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I said, man, I get when I get back, I've got to look at this quote up because how could I have missed that? Wow. And then the next day, even before I get

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I'd forgotten sometimes happens the next day. Evidently, the Lord wanted me to know about this because, boom, it's in the middle of an

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RSS article, a feed of my RSS feeds that I read. And I went, there it is.

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Voila. Here's here's what it is. It is the the words of Justice Kennedy.

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In the 1992 Planned Parenthood versus Casey decision, I remember that.

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I remember I remember talking about it. And who knows, maybe I even read these words back then.

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Possibility, possibility. But and maybe it just. You know,

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I think for a lot of us, especially at my age. This is just going so fast.

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And it's so it's so unlike what our experience was as young people.

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That that it's it's hard for us to really imagine that that that our society could be changing so rapidly, could be degenerating so rapidly.

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That that things just don't we just don't interpret things as quickly as we need to. Here are the words.

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In that Planned Parenthood versus Casey decision from 1992, the infamous line authored by Justice Kennedy that the core of liberty is, quote, the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning of the universe and of the mystery of human life.

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End quote. That's what liberty is, according to majority opinion.

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So enshrined in the law is that liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning of the universe and of the mystery of human life.

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This article goes on to say, as many have pointed out and as McIntyre well understood, this sweet mystery of life principle, as Justice Scalia scornfully characterized it, kicks the supporting struts out from under the rule of law and makes it impossible to resolve rival moral visions except by imposition of power.

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End quote. Quite true. Quite true. And what this leads to is what

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Dr. Moeller has been talking about recently. He's been talking about this, this erotic liberty, erotic freedom that is now trumping everything else.

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And this is autonomous self -definition.

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I get to define who I am. Not God, not my society.

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I get to define who I am. So I may have the physical body of a male.

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I may even have sired children. But if I decide that I am an it, not even a female, if I decide

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I'm an it, it is my autonomous self -definition.

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It is my right to define my own concept of existence, of meaning, of the mystery of human life.

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I have ultimate authority. That's what has led to this.

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And for those of us who still live in the real world, absurdity of transgenderism and Facebook offering you, what was the total?

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48 different options that you could have on Facebook for your gender or things like this.

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And yeah, I didn't, yeah, I didn't look either. Whatever, you know, that's what has led to all of this.

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That's what has led to the absurdity of redefining marriage outside of the created, natural, normal, good, just, lovely,

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God -ordained gender binary of male and female. That's, this is what the very essence of it is.

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And so there you have it enshrined in law. And people say that the same man is the swing vote on whether the profaning of marriage is going to take place.

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So much for that. Of course, I do not and will never believe that nine people gathered in a room can redefine marriage.

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But as we have learned over the past few weeks, we could lose our ability, our freedoms, our livelihood, and that the, what used to be considered radicals who now run this nation are so ignorant of the nature of liberty.

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So ignorant of ethics and morality that they are totalitarians and they will use the entire force of law to impose their ways of thought upon others.

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That's where we are. And people who said this only a few years, Oh, you're right.

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You guys, you're all, you're just trying to sell some books. I don't have any books to sell on this subject. Okay. I haven't written anything on it.

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This is, this is what we are seeing around us. You all saw the, the insanity about the

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Indiana law and the resultant changing of the law that's made it worse than before it was passed.

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You, you saw it. You saw it. You saw governors of states saying, we're not going to have anything to do with Indiana whose own state has the same law.

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The, the level of hypocrisy and moral, moral moronism was off the charge.

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It was like a, it was like a cartoon and yet it was happening.

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And Oh, sure. There were lots of folks who were commenting on it going, this is ridiculous. This is overreaction. This is stupid.

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But look what the final result was. Um, you know, we had had a

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RFRA pass here in Arizona and the Republican governor was too chicken to sign it because she saw exactly what was going to happen.

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And you know, you don't have people who will stand up for what's right anymore because you can't define what's right anymore.

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Add in the fact that the NFL, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. With pulling the Superbowl.

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So we're going to, again, it comes back to, we're going to take everything you have unless you capitulate. Oh yeah.

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Most definitely total totalitarianism, no Liberty, uh, no equality, uh, you know, no tolerance, no tolerance for anything but our way of thought.

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These people don't care when you point out that they are glowing hypocrites because they do not have a worldview in which hypocrisy has any meaning.

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They are absolutely autonomous. Now, all of this, um, and I think,

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I think we'll open up the phones today. Uh, eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one, eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one.

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I mean, I've got lots of things to get to, but we'll open up the phone, see, see what happens. Um, all of this to get to two items.

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One, we, we want to look at, um, the Bruni article, the

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Frank Bruni article. Um, and it's very similar to, uh, something that Haseem, son of Ramallah, king of graphics, uh, linked to me on Facebook, I think yesterday or day before yesterday.

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And he called it, uh, the, this generation's, uh, West wing. And what it was, it really isn't this generation's

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West wing. It was an episode of the good wife. Now I'm going to demonstrate once again.

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Um, I see very little television. Um, I only,

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I only catch, you know, my, my DVR only records certain things.

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I mean, I have a general cycling thing. If it's, if it's got the word cycling in the title, it will record that.

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And, uh, so I can get to watch the various, uh, grand tours and things like that when they're available anyway, but I have never seen the good wife.

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I don't know what it's about. It's some legal thing, I guess, because everybody I saw were attorneys or something.

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I don't know. Um, but they had an episode and evidently this high powered liberal attorney woman was involved in the, a law firm's decision as to whether they would or would not fund the appeal of a wedding planner from, if I recall,

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Idaho, uh, who had declined to plan a gay wedding.

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Now, the only way I could get the audio for this was to watch the whole stinking thing online.

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And so, well, I was skipping past, there were like three different storylines going on. They just go from one to one to one.

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And in reality, it wasn't like the West wing because the

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West wing one was one sided in your face, slap you upside the face. The other side was not the, the conservative

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Christian side was shown to be a bunch of, uh, you know, you know, people who stutter and, and can't, and there's drool, you know, that was, that was all you had in the

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West wing. That's not what this was. Um, they allowed both sides to be heard. It was interesting.

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They, they, I mean, you can tell where they came down on it, but they allowed both sides to be heard and they made arguments both directions and they ended up doing the emotional thing, um, rather than the law thing.

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And I, maybe it's, it's, it's intention was to demonstrate that, that the law really has to be based upon emotion and feeling.

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I don't know. But when I went through all of the discussion and, you know, grab the, the video and then

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I turned it in MP3, cause I'm not even going to try to show video of this because we'll get flagged for it no matter what we say.

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Um, you know how that works. Um, when I, when

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I boiled it all down to what I could actually respond to in a meaningful fashion, grand total of a minute and 57 seconds out of probably 17 minutes of screen time,

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I would say, because most of it was just dialogue and stuff that really, uh, couldn't grab hold of something, really respond to it.

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But there was enough to, to look at. And so I have it queued up here.

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And so let's start off. I have it broken up into about four or five sections here and, uh, we'll just, we'll just dive into it here and, uh, and respond to it.

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I guess it would help if I had the right program selected. So if a Christian walks into the cake shop and orders a cake that says

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God sends gays to hell, does the baker have to write that on the wedding cake, even if she doesn't approve of it? No, because you find it offensive.

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No, because the baker is not objecting to a religion, but a point of view, a hateful one at that.

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But the purchaser finds it essential to his or her faith. I mean, isn't the Christian a protected class with the same protection as gays?

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And she just sort of has no answer. Um, now they even showed, uh, a baker with a wedding cake and in black icing had been put, uh,

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God will send all gays to hell on it. Okay. Uh, so every time they came up with a, a scenario, they would act it out.

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It was, uh, it was, it was interesting. I did find the response of the attorney here extremely inconsistent, uh, because it seems so incredibly arbitrary to say, no, the gay

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Baker would not have to do that because the gay Baker is objecting to a position rather than a religion.

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And it's a position of hate. Hmm. So what, what did we just get from that?

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Um, that the Christian religion is a religion of hate because it's not the

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Christian religion says that God will send nice little grandmommies to hell because they're sinners.

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Um, there's all sorts of things are identified that God will liars, perjurers.

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We want to use legal stuff. Um, go to hell, drunk drunkards go to hell.

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Uh, adulterers go to hell. Fornicators go to hell, rapists, murderers. They go to hell and you can't get around Romans one,

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Romans three, all of the vice lists. First Corinthian six and homosexuality is just one of many things.

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And so that's hate speech from this perspective, that's hate speech. And given the absolute degradation of the, what, what is the best way to destroy a nation?

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Give them unrighteous judges, unrighteous judges. And given that you, the, the judicial branch of the

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United States government is now filled with thorough secularists who hate the

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Christian worldview. There is going to be no way in a very short period of time to avoid being convicted of hate speech.

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If you simply preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, because to the secularists that is hate.

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Now it's the most loving thing you can do for someone. It is irrational, absolutely irrational, uh, for, for anyone to argue otherwise, but they're not, they don't care about rationality.

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Rationality is only relevant in a Christian worldview. In the secular worldview, you are autonomous.

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You get to determine what's right and wrong. What's fizzing in your brain. The electrical impulses in your brain are autonomous.

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And if you're a hypocrite, liar, it doesn't matter. You get to define your own reality. That's what

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Justice Kennedy said. And so there you have that.

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But then it, it, it continued on. It doesn't mean I have to agree with it, but you have to follow the law.

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Now, now let me give you the context here. We've changed scenes and now they're doing a, a mock trial, um, with the actual wedding planner on the stand being examined by this super attorney or something, whoever she is.

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Like I said, don't watch it. It doesn't mean I have to agree with it, but you have to follow the law. I'm not stopping anyone from getting married.

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I just don't want to be the one to plan their wedding. That's all. I'm helping two people seal their commitment to one another before the world and before God.

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I can't do that if I don't believe in it. Now that is a perfectly sound argument.

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And it is one of the things that has been being emphasized. And that is that we're not talking about selling someone, uh, you know, a bottle of water here.

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And we're not talking about anyone saying, um, and well, if, if you want to get into issues of libertarianism and, and, and the law and all the rest of that stuff, fine.

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There, there is, there is a room for that whole discussion and probably needs to be had.

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But in this narrow context, what is being emphasized is you're not just talking about providing some kind of a, of a service that you advertise to everybody.

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You're talking about engaging in the actual event itself.

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You are participating in it and thereby are saying that it's a good thing.

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This is something that is positive. This is something that I want to invest in, that I want to use my skills to promote.

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And just as the photographers in New Mexico, you know, this is where the wall started falling down is the photographer using their skills and their talents in promoting the goodness of what they're engaged in.

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Well, it's obvious they are because even to this point, though, this, I don't know that it would be legal anymore.

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Uh, to this point, um, I don't know that you would have grounds anymore if you're a photographer to decline, uh, photographing a nudist wedding, um, or, uh, well,

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I don't even want to get into other things that we could use as examples, but the point is that most people who still have some common sense in ethics and morality, which is now a minority, which means it's not really common sense anymore.

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It's now uncommon sense, um, would recognize that in no meaningfully free society, could you be forced to expose yourself to that and to utilize your skills in the recording of it and the promotion of it?

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The same thing of a wedding planner, a person, uh, you know, creating a wedding cake and, uh, and that kind of thing.

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That's, that's the situation. And that's what the woman is saying is, I don't believe this is a wedding.

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This is not. Now, of course, the problem is, as we've pointed out, that even as the last few cases, as the

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DOMA case and so on and so forth went before the Supreme court, we can no longer raise the reality of the immorality of homosexuality.

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It's it, that means it's over with it's over with a society that cannot has, has said, this is morally good.

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Prove it to me. Show me the virtue. Well, uh, there are people

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I've seen in movies and they're very nice people and they're there. They have strong emotions.

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That's not what creates a virtue. That's not that is, that has never been what makes something virtuous is that there's someone who's nice and has strong emotions and might cry at the drop of a hat.

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If you offend their, their feelings, that's not what makes something virtuous, but our society no longer cares what you don't have to make a positive case anymore.

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If there's been enough movies that present it in a positive way, then it's a positive thing. And you then combine that with a secular worldview, uh, of autonomy.

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And if someone says, I, this, this is just how I am, then that makes it good because they define their reality.

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And therefore it's good. Now I know they're schizophrenic because you can still watch, um, law and order special victims unit, which replays constantly during the day, which is the only reason

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I see it. Um, during in the break room, everyone's while it's on, um, they will still just use the most derogatory language of pedophiles.

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Just all, you know, if they get, they get shot or beat up or whatever, it doesn't matter.

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It's pedophile doesn't matter. Those days will change. And there will be a day when those actors are going to have to come back and just apologize because the world's schizophrenic on this.

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They have no reason to be offended at pedophiles. None. They have no reason to be offended at any sexual deviancy because there is no sexual deviancy.

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If it, if, if, if in here you bubble a certain way that makes it good.

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That's what a virtue is. That's all. That's all this society has left. That's all it has left. And so, yeah,

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I know it's schizophrenic, but there you go. That's, that's what you're up against. Then you have the primary argument.

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Here's, here was the primary argument. I'm gonna play the whole thing. Then cut it in half. We'll hang and cut it in half because, well, this is, this is what we're dealing with.

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Even when we even have the opportunity of having discussion, which is rare enough anymore.

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Miss Stahl, how many times did Jesus condemn homosexuality?

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Objection. Relevance. She's claiming religion is the basis of her refusal, counselor.

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I failed to see how the specifics of that religion could not be relevant. Jesus never condemned homosexuality.

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Then how many times did Jesus condemn divorce? Three times. Four times, if you count Matthew and Mark's count of the same incident.

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Thank you. Uh, so you've never planned a wedding for a couple that had previously been married?

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Um, I haven't asked. I, I guess I have. Well, in fact, you have planned two weddings in the last year alone where one or both of the couple had previously been married.

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That sounds right. So your religious objection is selective at best. Objection. Argumentative.

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No more questions. Wow. That was good, wasn't it? That was good.

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Well, where'd it go off the rails? Well, went off the rails immediately. Uh, how many times did

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Jesus condemn homosexuality? He didn't. Um, now I saw, I saw an article yesterday.

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I, I think I forgot to save it to Evernote. Um, I normally just, uh, throw, uh, throw this type of thing in there just so that it's, it's there when

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I get a chance, uh, to, to look at it. But there was an article in my

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RSS feeds yesterday where someone looked at the text about being cast, better to have millstone hung around their neck and cast into the sea.

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And then the rather odd statement when Jesus talked about, uh, the, the

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Malakoi, the soft ones who are in King's palaces, that is the same term that is used as the passive individual in a homosexual relationship by Paul.

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And so someone was arguing that Jesus might've referred to that.

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Now I'm going to have to take a little closer look at that. Um, I don't know that I would go there, but that issue aside, anyone, and I've said it before,

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I'll say it again. Anyone who makes the argument that Jesus never condemned homosexuality is utterly ignorant of the context and content of Jesus' teaching.

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And it's very difficult for me to take anyone like that seriously. Now we have to because it is, it's become a meme.

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It is a cultural meme. Jesus never said a word about homosexuality.

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Well, if what you mean by that is the term arson, a coy taste does not appear in the gospels attributed to Jesus.

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That's true. But that is such a shallow vacuous irrelevant statement that it again demonstrates that the person making the statement is either ignorant or insincere one of the two.

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Why do I say this? All you have to do is contextualize the statements of Jesus.

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Was there any Jewish authority in the days of Jesus? Let's talk about the schools of Hillel and Shammai, shall we?

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Um, had a lot of differences of opinion. In fact, on the issue of divorce, they had a strong difference of opinion that that people tried to get

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Jesus involved with. That's why that's what that's what the context of Matthew 19 is. You know, can you divorce your wife for any reason at all?

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And that was the Hillel Shammai debate. And they're trying to drag Jesus into that particular debate.

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So they were talking about these things. Is there any evidence anywhere, anywhere that anyone in those schools or any

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Jewish writers, speaker, teacher, rabbi, anything for half a millennium before or after the time of Jesus held any other view?

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Then that Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20 identify homosexuality as a, as toy of abomination before God.

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And it's an ab check, absolute rejection of God's will, an absolute sin, anyone in the

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Jewish community. And the answer of course is no, no, it's unanimous.

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There's, there's no question about it. It's a fact. And so you have to keep that in mind in then looking at Jesus's statements regarding the law and the fact that he's not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law.

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And if anyone teaches anyone else to not observe the least of those laws, their least in the kingdom of heaven, there is absolutely nothing in the words of Jesus that would give anyone any reason to believe that his understanding of the condemnation of homosexuality, bestiality, incest, anything there in the holiness code has somehow changed.

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There's just, there's just nothing there. And so Jesus's affirmation of the holiness and goodness of God's law, which is found repetitively in the new

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Testament would itself address this issue. The problem is the vast majority of Christians don't have a high enough view of God's moral law or a knowledge of God's moral law.

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So as to even answer the question that was asked in a relevant fashion, that's the problem. That's the problem.

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Most people don't even know where in Leviticus those texts are found, don't know anything about the context of those texts, and hence fall into the, oh, you're wearing polyester arguments type stuff, which is why we've addressed that kind of stuff over and over and over and over again.

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And so we have to understand that Jesus, his entire positive teaching, you see, if I was on the stand, did

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Jesus ever condemn homosexuality? Yes, ma 'am, with every word he spoke. Now, what's the only possible comeback to that?

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What do you mean by that? Now, a smart attorney is not going to, doesn't want me to explain that.

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So a smart attorney is going to say something along the lines of, well, where did Jesus ever use the term homosexuality?

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And you're going to have to say, that term is not found in the gospels. And they're going to move on hoping that if there's a jury or a judge, that they're not smart enough to catch what was just said.

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That's where they're going to go. But if you can, in any possible way, in any context, yeah, there's the article, by the way.

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Dort found it. It's on, yeah, I remember it was on Patheos, which is almost enough to make you never click on anything.

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But it's, yeah, it's a Scott McKnight article, which was interesting because McKnight is not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination.

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But it's a Scott McKnight article did Jesus talk about homosexuality dated

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April 6th on Patheos under Jesus' Creed. So if you want to take a look at it, it is interesting that he talks about Matthew 11, 7 and Mark 9, 42 and following.

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And yeah, there's the Matthew 11, 7 one. As John's disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John, what did you go out in the wilderness to see?

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A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes and Molokois?

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No, those who wear fine clothes are in king's palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

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Maybe, I mean, Molokois is the term that's used by Paul, but I don't know.

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He says the term Molokois could mean soft, fine, or it could be a subtle piece of ridicule, dandy. But it most often means the receptive partner in male same -sex relations as in 1

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Corinthians 6, 9. There you go. So that is interesting.

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Who knows? But anyway, if we're even given the opportunity, the time frame to speak about what

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Jesus actually said, that's when you go to Matthew chapter 19 and you say, well, Jesus affirmed the holiness and accuracy and continuing abiding validity of the law of God, including what is in the holiness code.

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And he did so positively in Matthew chapter 19. That's what you want to try to do.

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You want to try to make some kind, get some kind of a testimony in there if you possibly can. I realized that in,

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I didn't say dork found it. I said dork found it. Did I not say dork found it? I said dork found it.

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But some people in their own minds change things, you know? And so now, you know, the term, yeah, now there you go.

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There you go. Shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't have done that. I said dork. I didn't say, anyway.

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All right. What are we talking about here? Okay. But then notice the, where did my, there it is.

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Notice the next part of the argument. A good argument. Let's bring the cursor back over here.

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Let's listen to what it said again, because it's been so long, you might have forgotten.

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She's claiming religion is the basis of her refusal, counselor. I failed to see how the specifics of that religion could not be relevant.

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Jesus never condemned homosexuality. And how many times did Jesus condemn divorce? Three times.

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Four times. If you count Matthew and Mark's account of the same incident. Thank you. Thank you.

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So you've never planned a wedding for a couple that had previously been married? Now, most people would just go, case closed.

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Case closed. Great argument. It just misses one really foundational, fundamental thing.

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Divorce can be forgiven. First of all, it's not the unforgivable sin. I realize there are some people that think that it is the unforgivable sin, but leave me that off to the side.

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What is divorce? Divorce is a fundamental breaking of the covenant relationship of marriage.

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When Jesus condemned it, the only, the only, the only possible context of his words.

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And in fact, the very words he uses in Matthew 19 and Mark make this very clear.

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It was only men and women. It was only heterosexual. There is nothing in those, those contexts.

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Because today, what are we dealing with today? Already, what are we having? Gay divorce. In fact, the numbers are, those marriages don't last anywhere near as well as heterosexual marriages, because they're not marriages.

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That's the point. But, A, to even raise the issue is to demonstrate that Jesus' teaching on marriage was heterosexual.

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Point A. But, let's even put that off to the side for a moment. Something even more basic.

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Divorce is a sinful violation of the covenant of marriage.

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But it can only be entered into by people who entered into the covenant of marriage first.

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So, it's a rejection of that, of the binding nature of that covenant.

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That is different. That is fundamentally different than demanding that we redefine the nature of marriage itself, and hence profane

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God's right to determine the very character of the covenant itself.

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The person who is engaging in divorce is, in fact, violating that covenant, but is not saying to God, I reject your authority to define the covenant.

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Instead, I'm breaking that covenant. The person promoting the profaning of marriage is saying,

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I reject God's authority to define it in the first place. I demand my own authority to define what it is, and that is the fundamental difference.

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To ask a wedding planner, now, should a wedding planner have the freedom to not use his or her talents in a wedding involving someone who has already violated that?

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You better believe it. From a Christian perspective, yeah. I mean, there are

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Christians who feel bound by the authority of the Word of God. I have to view it this way.

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And so, from their perspective, they should be able to say no, but not on the same grounds as what this argument is making.

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And that is, the grounds of the profaning of marriage is a rejection of God's right to define what marriage is in the first place.

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They are saying, I get to define it, and the next step is going to be polyamory, mixed polyamorous marriages, two women, three men, whatever.

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We know, we know it's coming. We've, oh, no, no, no, no, but it's all falling apart.

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We all see it, and it's happening very, very quickly. And within a matter of years, you're going to have this.

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There's no question about it. We used to think it would be, you know, a matter of decades. Now, once, once, once gravity takes hold, terminal velocity already reached, terminal velocity has already been reached.

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No question about it. So, there's the issue. And then, of course, toward the end, you had to have the emotional.

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You know, that's, that's how the producers let you know where they're really coming from. Even though they let those mean, terrible conservatives talk and make their arguments, and even said that's a good argument once or twice, we know where they actually come down.

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Because there was a twist to this thing. The attorney who is going to be taking the case, his nephew is gay.

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And so, this woman gets him to stand in as one of the people in the trial, and this causes, oh, he's just, he's just so angry, you do this, and blah, blah, blah.

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But he gets the last word when he is examined on the stand, and of course, what is it?

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It is a completely uncontested appeal for gay

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Christianity. Here it is. Nothing further. I hear something further. Why doesn't anyone ever ask me what

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I believe? You take it for granted I'm not a Christian, but I am. I believe in God too.

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So there you go. You throw the emotional spin in there. And that's, that's, that's the tribute to Matthew Vines right there.

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There's, there's the Matthew Vines tribute right there. Is, I'm a,

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I'm a gay Christian. I believe in God. Well, you may believe in God, but you don't believe that God has spoken.

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And of course, there's no cross examination. There's no, you know, it's just thrown out there as the emotional, gotcha, there toward the end.

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So I don't know if they just completely changed their production schedule or if this just happened to coincide, and it had already been shot weeks before.

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I don't know. But to have it come out the week of the Indiana stuff is pretty, pretty amazing that that's, that that's the case.

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So there you go. Wanted to, I wanted to deal with that. Very quickly.

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Let me, because we need, need, need to get to James here on the phones, 877 -753 -3341.

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There was an article published four days ago in the New York Times by Frank Bruni, who himself is a self -professed homosexual.

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That, Dr. Moeller mentioned, I believe, yesterday morning, maybe this morning, maybe both.

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I don't remember. He's mentioned it. Take the time to read it and to recognize that our religious freedoms will soon be gone and our discipleship will cost as much.

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Because Frank Bruni speaks as the voice of homosexuality and the totalitarian left.

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He speaks of our being forced to bow to the wisdom of the world.

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Just a couple sections from it, if you didn't see it. The drama in Indiana last week and the larger debate over so -called religious freedom.

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It's now just so -called. So -called religious freedom laws in other states portray homosexuality and devout

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Christianity as forces in fierce collision. They're not. Remember, this is a homosexual, not a theologian.

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But you see, in our society today, being a theologian is now detrimental to being able to speak to what the Bible says.

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If you're a free -thinking totalitarian homosexual, right, they're not, at least not in several prominent denominations, which have come to a new understanding, at least he's honest to admit this, a new understanding of what the

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Bible does and doesn't decree of what people can and cannot divine in regard to God's will.

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See, the apostates who revise the Bible, who ignore its message, they are the willing pawns of those who will use this to silence the proclamation of the

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And homosexuality and Christianity don't have to be in conflict in any church anywhere. That many

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Christians regard them as incompatible is understandable, an example not so much of hatred's pull as of tradition's sway.

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Beliefs ossified over centuries aren't easily shaken. So you see, if you believe the

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Bible does not teach us that homosexuality is a virtue, then that's an ossified tradition.

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But in the end, the continued view of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals as sinners is a decision.

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It's a choice. Homosexuality isn't. If we dare say it's a decision or choice, oh my goodness.

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But now they've put the shoe on the other foot. It's been a complete 180, hasn't it?

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It's been a complete 180. It prioritizes scattered passages of ancient texts over all that has been learned since.

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Now, if that is not an utter blasphemous attack upon the nature of scripture, then you don't seem to understand what's going on in the world today.

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Here you have a homosexual in the pages of New York Times saying the

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Bible is just an ancient, it's just, its ethics and morality is nothing more than scattered passages of ancient texts.

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And if you make the decision, you make the choice to believe that over all that has been learned since, as if, as if all that has been learned makes homosexuality a good thing, a positive thing.

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You see, there's not even a debate anymore about the morality. There's not even a debate anymore.

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It's just the way people are made, that's all there is to it. That's not true, but you can't even argue it anymore.

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It's just, we moved on from that. Oh, no, no, no, no. Back to the handoff. Oh, that's, that's, that's, all genetic.

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Unless, of course, they find a gay gene, they can fix it. Oh, then everything's gonna change, but they haven't.

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Map the whole genome, you know. As if, it prioritizes scattered passages of ancient texts over all that has been learned since, as if time had stood still, as if the advances of science and knowledge meant nothing.

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It disregards the degree to which all writings reflect the biases and blind spots of their authors, cultures, and eras.

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In other words, the Bible is not the Word of God. We're starting with that. Gotta start there.

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It's not the Word of God. It ignores the extent to which interpretation is subjective and debatable.

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There is no consistent teaching of the Word of God. Can't be, don't go there. This man doesn't know a lick about the

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Bible. We all know that. We all know that. He could never defend this against someone who's knowledgeable, but that's why he doesn't put himself in the position of doing so.

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And it elevates unthinking obeisance above intelligent observance.

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Unthinking. Above the evidence in front of you, because to look honestly at gay, lesbian, and bisexual people is to see that we're the same magnificent riddles as everyone else, no more or less flawed, no more or less dignified.

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This isn't argumentation. This is preaching. Anti -Christian preaching.

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This anti -Christian bigotry. You need to understand that. But it's acceptable today. Our debate about religious freedom should include a conversation about freeing religions and religious people from prejudices that they needn't cling to and can indeed jettison, much as they've jettisoned other aspects of their faith's history, rightly, here it is folks, bowing to the enlightenments of modernity.

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Listen to the voice of the totalitarian secularist who will be happy to use the power of government to force you to think as he thinks and to celebrate his sexuality.

50:36

There it is. Man, there's a reason why we, why we looked at it.

50:43

There is a reason. Let's uh, let's go to the phones and let's talk to James in North Carolina.

50:57

Hi, James. Hi, Dr. White. I appreciate you taking my call. Yes, sir. I got a question for you.

51:04

It doesn't really have anything to do with what you've been discussing, but my question has to do with the atonement.

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I've read a lot of what you've written and seen various debates with Dr. Brown. And I've read

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John Owen's works as well. And I may be missing something, but I was trying to locate in the

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Old Testament in Leviticus where it actually says that the high priest prays for those that the atonement was intended for, because I know

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Dr. Brown and his debate with you that I heard a while back, he was trying to imply that it was for the whole nation of Israel.

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But clearly, I mean, I understand the verses in Hebrews 7 and Hebrews chapter 9 that shows us that Christ is making intercession for those whom he died for, but I was trying to find the parallel passage in Leviticus.

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And I don't know if I'm just overlooking something or if you might be able to help me with that. Well, in my debate with Michael, what

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I pointed out is even if you argue as he did, that the atonement was for the entire nation of Israel, what that still demonstrates is that it was a limited or particular atonement because it wasn't for the

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Egyptians. It wasn't for the Babylonians. It wasn't for the whole world. It was limited to the people of Israel.

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And then my argument was that it is simply understood in the condemnation of the unfaithfulness of Israel found primarily in the prophets, but it's also understood,

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I think, in the giving of the law that everything that is found in God's provision for forgiveness is for those who have faith in Yahweh.

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If you do not have faith in Yahweh, none of what has been provided in the sacrificial system is for that individual.

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And so is there a biblical teaching on the subject of the relationship between the unregenerate covenant sign bearers in the old covenant and the regenerate covenant sign bearers?

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And I think there is. It's called the lima, the remnant. We have those faithful individuals who we would identify as having been regenerated by the spirit of God who engage in the worship of God in such a fashion that is pleasing to him.

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So, for example, when you have you have Anna and Simeon as examples of these

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Old Testament saints, even at the time of the coming of the Messiah, even though there was obviously great degradation in the priesthood, in the offering of the sacrifices, we have the money changers in the temple, all this stuff going on, that was going on long before the days of Jesus.

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But even in the midst of that degraded worship where we would say that those who were seeking to make money in these sacrifices, these obviously are not people who are pleasing to God, and these sacrifices do not avail for them because they are not of faith.

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And yet, standing next to them in the temple are the remnant, are those who continue to believe in Yahweh.

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And why do they believe in Yahweh? Well, because, as Ezekiel said, the wind, you know, blows and it raises up those in the valley of the dry bones, and God takes out the heart of stone and gives the heart of flesh.

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So, you have this discussion of the remnant that then

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Paul takes in Romans chapter 11, and he makes application of that as evidence of the fact that God has always had his elect people, even in those time periods of great apostasy.

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And so, my argument with Michael that I did not get to develop is that the entirety of the sacrificial system, which was to point forward to Jesus Christ, and so you've got

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Leviticus chapter 16, and you've got the offerings on the day of, actually, it's

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Yom Kippurim, the day of atonement, not just atonement, but takes as a given, and in fact, the constant message of the prophets to the nation of Israel is based upon this, that I am not pleased with these sacrifices by the mere fact of sacrifices if you don't have a heart of faith, if you don't have a heart of repentance.

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These things are a stench in my nostrils, and in fact, when you continue to bring them and then you leave the temple and you treat your wife unfaithfully and you go and worship at another altar, these are absolute profanations of everything that I've provided to you in the sacrificial system.

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And so, my whole point was that when you say that the high priest is representing those who draw near, it is a given that in the old covenant you had a mixed covenant.

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You had those who were regenerate and those who were not regenerate, and that you could not properly say that that offering was actually meant to bring forgiveness to the unfaithful

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Israelite who does not have a heart of faith and repentance toward Yahweh. And that then is what's brought through in the language in Hebrews chapter 7, for those who draw near to worship by means of him.

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The person who drew near but not to worship God, that sacrifice was not for them, and it was in fact an abomination in God's sight when they would bring those animals and so on and so forth.

57:29

So, I was a little surprised that he argued that point. Maybe he just didn't understand the point that I was making because I would have a hard time thinking that Michael Brown would disagree when

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I make the statement that from beginning to end, the testimony of the old covenant scriptures is that the sacrificial system and the worship in the temple was grounded upon first and foremost an acknowledgement that there are those who would have faith in Yahweh and that it's only for them.

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I can't imagine he would disagree with that. So, he maybe just did not understand what my point was.

58:08

I obviously try to be somewhat willing to consider that possibility, especially with Michael.

58:16

Right. Okay. Well, I definitely appreciate that. Real quick, Isaiah 10, is that the best passage for God's sovereignty and man's responsibility?

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I mean, I know there's other passages that show... Well, if you mean compatibilism, it is one of three.

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I use three. Genesis 50 -20, Isaiah 10, Acts 4. Because in all three of them,

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I think the combined testimony is really what gives you your best shot there. Okay?

58:46

Okay. All right. Thanks, James. I appreciate it. I thank you for your phone call. All right. God bless. All right. That fit perfectly into our time frames.

58:53

Two hours for me done. Only one hour on the dividing line, but you can listen to the other on the

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Janet Mefford show that I did earlier. But we'll be back again, Lord willing, on Thursday. I don't know what's going to happen next week because I will be in Spain doing a debate with a

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Jesuit on the propriety of the Reformation in church history. It should be interesting. You all will get to see it because they post it on YouTube.