September 8, 2005

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Casting 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. And welcome to The Dividing Line. Just got information that the
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MP3s and CDs of the debate with John Dominic Crossan on the historical liability of the
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Gospels have been posted on our website. We can't post CDs on a website, as you probably know, but you can now order the
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CDs if you are MP3 challenged. And if you are not MP3 challenged, you will be able to order them even as we speak.
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And so you can go to aomin .org, which is the only way you can be listening to us right now anyway, and download the
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MP3s of the debate and let the fun begin. And that also means, of course, that we are making some progress toward having the
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DVDs available as well. They aren't available yet, but we will, of course, be letting everybody know when they are available.
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And just keep an eye on the right -hand side of the blog, the ad column there. You will see when they are listed, and they will become available at that time.
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Well, it was an odd situation to be in the beauties of Alaska, and yet because of the wonders of satellite, to be able to watch
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CNN, which they didn't have Fox, so all you got was the leftist spin on everything from CNN.
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But anyway, to watch what was going on in New Orleans and all along the
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Gulf Coast. I mean, I saw one flyover shot that just looked like a tornado, and it may have been.
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The problem was the tornado was 10 miles wide. It was just absolutely unbelievable.
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I mean, just matchsticks. Everything turned to matchsticks. The power of the storm was truly incredible.
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And so it was very odd to be out there and to see the contrast between those two things.
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But it has truly been extremely troubling to me once again.
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And we shouldn't be surprised this. I was extremely troubled after 9 -11 and have remained that way.
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And so I'm hardly in a position to be surprised that our society has shown absolutely no progress toward having a biblical understanding of the wrath of God and the judgment of God.
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I spent some time on Sunday afternoon on the ship speaking about this during our worship time.
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And the fact of the matter is most of us and I'm I'm saying most of us, us listening right now, the
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Christians, as I mean, I know there are very few non -Christians who tune into this webcast. That's for certain.
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We don't think in a biblical fashion. And in fact, to be honest with you, we tend to be embarrassed.
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By what the Bible says. Not only about the wrath of God, because, you know, that we can get away on that one because we can talk about the wrath of God in the context of spiritual things and and things like that, but we we really, let's face it, are embarrassed.
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By what the Bible teaches about God's control over the natural realm. We have allowed naturalism and humanism, naturalist materialism to so infect us that that we have actually learned to change our vocabulary, to change our language so that we don't have to speak like the
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Bible speaks. We really have. You know, the
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Bible says in Psalm one thirty five seven, he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth, who makes lightnings, the rain, who brings forth the wind from his treasuries.
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And what we've done is we've learned to look at that and we've learned to go, well, that's just parable.
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That's just poetry. That's a pre -scientific culture using nature and talking about nature in such a fashion.
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As to we don't need to worry about that now, what we do is we look at that and we look at the poetry and we derive from that poetry something that would would help us to, you know, something we can fit into our our modern setting.
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But it doesn't really mean that he does that. All that stuff about him controlling the waves and nature and droughts and floods and all that stuff, let's face it, there's just not a lot of Christians anymore who believe that functionally.
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But isn't it interesting, Psalm 135, that's verse seven, verse eight says, he smote the firstborn of Egypt, both a man and beast.
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He sent signs and wonders in your midst, O Egypt, upon Pharaoh and all his servants. He smote many nations and slew mighty kings.
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Then Sihon, king of the Amorites and Og, king of Bashan, all the kingdoms of Canaan. What's that all about? That's about history.
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That's about real people who actually lived and you can go and and you can for for many of these people, you can go and find.
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Materials, you can find their names carved in rocks because they actually lived, it took place in history.
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How do you keep those two? How can you divide those two? We do functionally, don't we? We seem to do so.
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And so when something happens, I was sent, in fact, someone in channel right now sent me this in the mail.
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It's from Deroy Murdoch. Scripps Howard News Service. Writing from New York or else appeared in the
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East Valley Tribune on the 5th of September of this year. When Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineau, Bonko, but they really typeset that oddly
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Babineau takes up an entire line. Why did they do that? Anyways, requested a day of prayer amid Hurricane Katrina's devastation.
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I wondered why bother? Other than as a palliative for the thousands in distress, this exercise struck me as futile.
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I do not believe anyone heard those prayers nor answered them if he did. God, in my opinion, is not living up to his advertising in a year that has witnessed the aftermath of the
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South Asian tsunami, approximately 225 ,000 deaths. Katerina, 118 confirmed dead and rising and Wednesday's Baghdad Bridge stampede, some 953
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Shiite religious pilgrims dead. It has become impossible to reconcile current events with the notion of omnipotent, omniscient, magnanimous deity.
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The Almighty appears to be either an unaware, powerless and or misanthropic absentee landlord or no one whatsoever.
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Would an all powerful God stand by helplessly as Katrina sliced into America's belly like a
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Florida sized circular saw? Would an all knowing God shrug while Katrina crafted something akin to a watery
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Hieronymus Bosch painting? Would an all loving God reply, whatever is Katrina spread destruction inland from the sea like Sherman's march in reverse?
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The question, why would God permit such anguish is nothing new, but the predictable reply of believers and listen to this, folks, listen to this.
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The predictable reply of believers is inadequate as ever. God gives us free will to choose between good and evil.
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They say you see why theology is important.
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So why not flatten fast and loose Las Vegas rather than the Gulf Coast, essentially the Bible belt with beach blankets?
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Why not chase an earthlings by giving Bernard Evers, Charles Manson and Kim Jong Il simultaneous coronaries rather than whacking a retired double amputee not seen since she and her wheelchair vanished as 140 mile per hour winds lashed
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New Orleans? How do you respond, folks? The guy's right in the sense that probably the
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Christianity he's encountered. Is so afraid of theology, so unwilling to say what the
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Bible says that. How can he respond any differently? Libertarianism and free will ism really doesn't have many answers at this point.
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Does it? Oh, believe me, I know people don't like the answers the Bible gives.
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They don't like they don't like Romans chapter one. Did you notice that this particular individual?
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Don't have any problem, Bernard Evers, Charles Manson, King Kim Jong Il. God can
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God kill them right now. Well, Mr. Mr. Murdoch. You're no less guilty than they are.
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Not before a holy God, you're not. So are you saying that that that double amputee was also sinless?
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Or is that double amputee, if an unbeliever, has that person not been extended life undeserved?
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Did God take a vacation? Did God know where Katrina was going and what
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Katrina was going to do? All these folks who run off to libertarianism and and open theism and stuff, they're just afraid of what it means.
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I mean, at least an open theist is being consistent. They've gotten rid of an omniscient
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God. God had no control over this. God, there wasn't anything God could do.
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He's he's as surprised as everybody else. He he's right now probably rethinking his his creative efforts as to why he put us in a in an atmosphere where this kind of thing could happen.
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I'm not even commenting about the uttering complete insane people who are actually blaming people like the president for creating hurricanes.
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I'm sorry, but that kind of person has completely lost all levels of rationality.
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Ignoring that. Then. Did God know?
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You're stuck with one of two two possibilities here. If God knew, when did he come to know it?
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Does he just have a little bit better weather predicting software than we've developed so far? And and so after Katrina went over Florida, he he went, oh, oh, no.
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Look, oh, man, we've got problems. When did he know? Christian theologians down to the centuries have affirmed the complete foreknowledge of God.
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Not using that term in the verbal sense, but the idea that God knows what is going to take place in the future.
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And he knows perfectly. What does that mean?
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Well. There's two views, and you know what? Remember the the
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Bible Answering Broadcast coming up two years ago this December? And remember how
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I tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to get everybody on the program to deal with Genesis 50 and Isaiah 10 and Acts four?
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Because they specifically and clearly present to us. The sovereignty of God over human events.
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Where you have sinful actions on the part of man and and pure actions, the part of God in the same action.
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Remember, remember that you see, we don't argue about these things because they are just simply fun to argue about and you want to win a debate.
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That's not that's not the reason in any way, shape or form. We defend these truths and we're concerned about these truths because they have meaning.
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They have application. And here's. Here's where they apply.
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When did God know? If you are one of those folks who wants to sit back and say,
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I just don't know about this Calvinism stuff, you know, I just that's that's not what the preacher who preached to me believed, let me ask you a question when
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God created this world. If you believe that he knew what was going to take place in time, then he knew this was going to take place.
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He knew Katrina was going to happen. Now, you can come up with one of two ways of understanding this, then.
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You can try to find some free will explanation, which makes no sense to me at all. But if you go that direction, then you have to believe that God's knowledge of this event was passive.
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It was taken in. It was not a part of a decree. There are so many people that just run screaming from the idea that God has a purpose in this world, that he's accomplishing something.
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And so there's no decree for these folks. If there's no decree, then there is no purpose for the events that take place in time.
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God passively creates. He he rolls the cosmic dice. He passively takes in knowledge of what takes place.
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And he goes, hey, look, I get to win at the end. Worship me. But there's no purpose for what takes place.
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A tsunami wipes out. Hundreds of thousands of people, Katrina kills thousands, maybe we don't know yet impacts all of us.
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No purpose. Don't talk to me about wrath. Don't talk to me about punishment.
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You can't do it in that system. Because you have no purpose for those things. But if you have a decree.
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I see many people, I just I can't believe in a God that would do things like that. So you believe you want to believe in a God that would create roll the cosmic dice, allow for all sorts of purposeless evil.
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And somehow that's better than believing God has a purpose in what he does.
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And then, in fact, yes, indeed, not just a purpose to bless, but a purpose to punish sin.
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There is this passage in Romans one about the wrath of God being revealed all the time.
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And, folks, we're not just talking about hurricanes here. I had a. Had a heart to heart with my daughter yesterday and.
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She was telling me about the current generation. And how I don't understand them.
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And she's probably right. How they talk, how they act, how they behave, how they think.
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And I at one point said, my goodness, if what you're telling me is true, we're doomed. And she just shook her head and said, yeah, no kidding.
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That's no less the judgment of God upon a sinful nation than Katrina is. We just we just try to close our eyes to that kind of stuff.
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Sing a happy song. Whistle a joyful tune. Don't worry, be happy.
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God's judgment is all around us if we will, but open our eyes to see it. If we will allow our eyes to be biblically informed.
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The sins of this nation. Are piled to the heavens, no nation before has had the blessings this nation has had.
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Never no nation before this nation has had the same accessibility to God's truth.
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The material blessings. The blessings of peace and prosperity for generation after generation.
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No, no, no nation before us has had so much access to know what
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God's truth is. And yet corruption exists at every level.
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No man's word is his bond. Sexual depravity of every form is everywhere.
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Everywhere, the legislature of one of the largest states in the union just passed same sex marriage.
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It's going to be vetoed, thankfully, but it'll go through eventually. We all know these folks do not give up. Even the very first institution that God himself ever established among mankind, the people of this nation are willing to pervert it.
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We murder unborn children to fulfill our sexual lusts and avoid the results of that activity.
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We steal, we're dishonest, we hate parents. Remember, those are listed right along with murder.
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When Paul starts talking about sin, we have no excuses.
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And yet we sit around saying, God bless America, God bless America, God bless America. And eventually it has to be just like what happened when the people of Israel kept crying out, the temple, the temple.
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I'm going to destroy the temple. Quit talking about the temple. Your sacrifices disgust me.
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This nation deserves the wrath of God.
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Every nation does. And so why on earth am
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I seeing people constantly and they're all acting in the same way? Oh.
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Oh, you owe me this and you owe me that.
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I don't hear anybody saying, let's call for repentance, let's call for national repentance. Let's don't you see people?
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God has revealed his law and we are constantly trampling on it by the way we behave.
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And this is what happens. You don't hear that because, well. If you weren't preaching it the weekend before Katrina in your church, you're not going to be preaching it the weekend afterwards.
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Know what I mean? If it's not a settled part of what you believe on a regular basis, it's not going to be a part of how you respond when the judgment comes.
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Is it? No, it's not. What we see in the world around us is the law of God being applied, the law of God.
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The God is built into his creation and he's he's put it into our consciences. We know.
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If we were really to sit back and think about it, that God is just to bring judgment, but boy, you're not to be on the air very long to talk about that.
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Right. Certainly not. Now, does that mean that the
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Gulf Coast was more sinful than Las Vegas? No, no.
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I've said many times San Francisco's just slide off into the ocean if we were going to be doing it on that basis. Not saying that that I mean, certainly we've all noticed the
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Southern Decadence Parade and and the events at Mardi Gras and stuff like that. And, you know, I have some friends down in New Orleans.
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I said, you know, that's not our city. That that's that's what the media picks up. But that's really not what our our people are like.
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OK, but the fact of the matter is. Sodom and Gomorrah may have had, you know, some nice folks in at some point, but they weren't there at the end, were they?
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The city itself suffered. Even Lot's wife received punishment and eventually the godly have to do something one way or the other.
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God's judgment will come. And when God's judgment comes, if there's anything we've learned from that, you know, the thirty nine books that most people don't really read anymore, the thirty nine books that don't really inform us as to how
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God actually acts in this world, stuff like that. That first part of the book that just gives it extra weight, you know, but we don't really look at a whole lot.
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That's that part of the book. That first part of the book tells us about the fact that when
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God brings judgment, when the
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Babylonians or the Assyrians came into some Israelite or Judean town.
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As they were sweeping through murdering everything in the way, they didn't stop and say, are you a godly
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Israelite or an ungodly Israelite? Did you did you worship false gods or did you not? No, everybody suffered together.
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Everybody suffered together and though a remnant was saved, they weren't saved in comfort, no, and so it has concerned me greatly that there is such a hesitation on the part of so many to say, yes, this is an example of the wrath of God and unless we all repent, we shall all likewise perish.
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Oh, that's just so old school. You're so far behind the times. Well, what other message do you have?
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Why are you ashamed of what Jesus said? I don't get it. You know, we always pray for our nation.
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And since I normally lead the pastoral prayers when I'm at the services at Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church, anybody from there or who has listened to those sermons knows.
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That I have often prayed along the lines of Lord, we we know that our nation is deserving of your wrath and that you would be just and righteous to bring that wrath to bear.
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And in fact, we know that you are. But we pray for mercy in the form of repentance.
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Not just hold withhold your wrath until our generation gets past and then you can wail on our children and our grandchildren, that's not what we're saying, but the blessing we ask from God is repentance.
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But we also know that repentance normally comes in the form of judgment.
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It's judgment that brings repentance. That's how God normally does it. But, you know, what really, truly concerns me is.
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Some of the scariest, scariest stuff I see in the Bible is when you get the book of Revelation and.
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Plagues are coming upon people. God's wrath, I mean, the form of the judgment.
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Is so clearly supernatural. So clearly supernatural.
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And yet what do men do? Do they repent? If you want, if you want perfect, a perfect illustration of the doctrine of total depravity, look at what happens when these plagues come upon men and then you have this commentary.
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Yet, despite all this, they did not repent, they did not repent.
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Instead, they called upon the mountains to to fall upon them and to hide them from the wrath of God, but they would not repent.
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That's what happens when God's spirit is not active in the heart of man. That's what happens when man is left to himself.
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That demonstrates the utter foolishness of Arminianism. Oh, if God will just blast them enough, they'll repent, no, until until he takes out the heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh, they're going to act like people who have hearts of stone.
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And so people can look at our nation and they can see the abortion clinics and they can see the strip clubs and they can see the people who are willing to marry homosexuals.
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They can look at all of that. And when judgment comes, when destruction on an incredible scale comes, do they see
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God's hand or are they like are they like Mr. Murdoch, who evidently doesn't even begin to understand the concept of sin and the holiness of God?
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People don't see it. That's part of the judgment isn't isn't part of judgment, the taking away of sight, taking away of hearing, let him who has ears to hear, eyes to see the final stages of judgment are the removal of even the recognition of the judgment.
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So an amazing thing, it's a frightening thing. So when you hear people talking about this subject over the course of the next number of weeks, you hear people reaching out, you know, we've been doing our part.
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We've been trying to help folks. We you know, I appreciate a comment that was made by somebody. They're a little bit amazed at how many
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Christians are giving to non non churches. You know, you give to a church and you're giving to somebody who's got boots on the ground.
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They know who's who. Well, we reach out, we try to help, but we don't do it by saying, oh, what a purposeless tragedy.
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No, you have a message. God punishes sin.
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You can't get away with this constant spitting in God's face.
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He's not going to allow it. And eventually, remember, God is not mocked and all the way, you know,
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I think Mr. Murdoch was mocking God. What do you think? What do you think?
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Sounds like to me. Well, that's that's not the easiest way to get the program started.
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I know, see, for many people, you'd say, see, you just destroyed your entire program because, you know, you've been.
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You haven't even been nice to your listeners because, see, if I wanted to.
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If I wanted to. Make it easy on you. If I wanted to pander to you because I was going to have a spot about, you know, giving us money or something, it really helps when you don't do a bunch of that stuff, because then you can say what you need to say.
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But if I was going to do that, then I would have presented this in such a way as to give you an out.
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But I didn't. I, you know, we all are facing judgment here. They filled up your gas tank recently.
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Oh, real judgment. Yeah. Well, you know, when it starts impacting what you can do and where you can go and what your food costs and and, you know, there's tough times ahead.
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There's tough times ahead where our priority is going to be. So, yeah, this is uncomfortable for everybody.
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I if I had been trying to pander this stuff, then I would have found a way to let you all out of that. And we could have been just been talking about everybody out there, see everybody out there.
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But that's really not how you do it. So eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one.
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We're going to take a break. And I don't know why anyone would want to call in right now, but that's the phone number if you're a brave and daring soul.
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Eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one. We'll be right back to read what is
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Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book Chosen But Free, a new cult, secularism, false prophecy scenarios.
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No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient and morally repugnant.
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In his book, The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but the body's freedom is much more than just a reply.
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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself.
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In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
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Calvinism, defines what the reform faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture.
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The Potter's Freedom, a defense of the Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the reformed theology section of our bookstore at AOMN .org.
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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.
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The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the
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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning
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Bible study begins at 930 a .m. and the worship service is at 1045. Evening services are at 630 p .m.
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on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805
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North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE.
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If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at PRBC .org,
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where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.
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Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.
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Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.
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In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the
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Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including
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Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.
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In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.
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The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at AOMIN .org.
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Yes, two dividing lines in a row, two days in a row, but of course that was due to the fact that I got in early on Tuesday from the debate and the cruise and if you've just tuned in to the program since the beginning,
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I would like to remind you all that the MP3s of the debate on the historicity of the
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Gospels, specifically in regards to the claims of the Jesus Seminar and Dr.
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John Dominic Crossan, recorded a weekend before last in Seattle, are now available at AOMIN .org
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and you can order the CDs as well if you don't do the MP3 download thing.
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And as well, the DVDs will be coming in the not too distant future.
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We certainly hope that obviously is a little bit more challenging a topic to address.
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About a week away or so, we'll see how all of that goes. I am going to be posting a blog article coming up, well hopefully later today or this evening, maybe tomorrow morning,
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I don't know. But I finally got hold of the book review written on the Roman Catholic Controversy.
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This is a 1996 book and it was just reviewed by Dr. Geisler's Christian Apologetics journal.
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And it was reviewed by Ralph McKenzie and Ralph McKenzie was Dr. Geisler's co -author on his book on Catholicism, which may be why my book got reviewed nine years after it came out.
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There might be other reasons, like the power of freedom. But Ralph McKenzie and I have spoken a number of times.
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I remember speaking to him in 1995, in fact before my book came out, at the
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CBA convention about their book and about my feelings about their utilization of Jimmy Akin as someone to basically run their materials by.
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And the viewpoint taken by the book on a number of issues regarding debates that I had done, so on and so forth.
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And one of the things that was mentioned was the fact that this is one of the saddest, to me, saddest paragraphs in the review.
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It's the second paragraph. John H. Armstrong, who is director of Reformation Revival Ministries and has spoken at a number of conferences, including
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Promise Keepers, writes the foreword. I'm not sure exactly what that had to do with anything. But anyways, Armstrong has informed me that his opinion of the
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Catholic Church has changed and that he would not write now what he did then. Due to interaction with evangelical scholars, including
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Harold O .J. Brown, Timothy George, Thomas Oden, and John Woodbridge, he now views the Catholic Church as a true church, albeit one with serious errors.
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In other words, evidently, the Gospel is no longer the key issue there. And it's interesting when, simply reviewing my book, at one point, when
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I talk about the essentials of the Gospel, McKenzie says, Concerning justification, White states that Christ's perfect righteousness is imputed, credited to the believer on the basis of faith.
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Evangelicals do understand justification to be imputed, put to our account. However, as Alistair McGrath points out, this concept was a
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Protestant one and unknown by Augustine and the Church Fathers prior to the Reformation. Sound familiar?
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Of course, mine was a biblical presentation, and McKenzie doesn't interact with that, but truly amazing thing to read this stuff.
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I'm going to be writing a response, but one of the things he concludes, basically, and we've got a bunch of lines lit up, but I only have one on my screen, so I'm looking here.
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Okay, he concludes by saying something along the lines of,
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James White is a dedicated Christian. I believe he would be more effective if he would avoid having food fights with triumphalistic tridentine
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Catholic apologists. Well, Mr. McKenzie, those are the folks that are stealing people out of your church while you're not looking.
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And I was pondering that particular statement. I went home, and I looked through my mail, and I had received a fundraising letter from the
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Coming Home Network. Right now, we're helping almost 440
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Protestant clergy who are on their journey to Rome. Please read this important letter and consider helping us help more
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Protestant clergy convert to the Catholic faith. You may be their only hope.
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What would Mr. McKenzie say to that? What would he think about these
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Roman Catholics who are so intent upon converting Protestant clergymen?
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Why would you do that if Rome is a true church, but just has some serious error?
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I'll quote some from that letter in the blog article when I get around to getting it finished and getting it up.
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You just don't know where the lines are anymore sometimes, you know? You just you just don't know.
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Well, lots of phone calls, and some are on topic, some are not. We have one here.
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I'm not going in order here. I'm going on the order of of the topic itself. And we'll try to get to everybody.
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We've got a few minutes left here. Let's talk with Scott up in Washington again. Hi, Scott. Hey, James.
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Good to talk to you again. Yes, sir. Hey, kind of off topic for just a sec. I suppose then since Finn Augustine has never heard of Alistair McGrath, I guess since he's never known that concept, he must not exist.
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That would be somewhat temporally anachronistic in reality, but I hear your point.
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And of course, you know, I find that kind of simplistic statement to be not helpful.
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I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about his simplistic statement to be really not helpful whatsoever, especially in light of the fact that I was presenting a biblical presentation of justification there, which he would say he would agree with, but that's where these folks really start getting very mushy as to what is the ultimate authority, and that's why you have to end up going back to sola scriptura and things like that.
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And that's where we run into our quote -unquote reformed Catholics who are running around sowing confusion and things like that.
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But anyways, yes, your original point. My original point. I attend a
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Bible study. We actually meet every Thursday night, so we'll be meeting tonight in a few hours. And last week, we started talking about the hurricane, and two of my other friends who go there are solidly reformed.
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And another guy, I haven't quite pegged him, but I think he's pretty much just either doesn't know or pretty much an
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Arminian. And one of my other reformed friends and I said that, you know, we believe that the hurricane was ordained by God and that it was his purpose, you know, in his judgment against sin.
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And, you know, the thing that amazed me about his response was that, well, what about all of the innocent people that were hurt?
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What about all the churches that lost their buildings? And I said, well, doesn't judgment start with the people of God?
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So I think if I'm not going to sit here and blame the homosexual community in New Orleans first, I'm going to blame the church in New Orleans first.
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Well, you know, like I said, you know, I don't know about blaming the church in New Orleans.
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I think every church, you know, has reason to examine itself. We all need to be constantly reforming, but the fact of the matter is this nation as a whole, we close our eyes.
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We simply do not pay attention because it's so pervasive around us to the sin.
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I mean, when you look at the even the description of Lot, when it says he was a righteous man, it says his soul was tortured by the unrighteousness of the people around him.
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Let's face it. We've found ways of hiding ourselves from the unrighteousness that is all around us.
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There are no innocent people. When it talks about innocent people, no, there are no innocent people. That's why since so many evangelicals have become, in essence,
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Pelagians, where there's no original sin, now you've got innocent people and stuff like that. You see again the importance of sound theology in those particular contexts.
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That's where we have to be very, very careful about that. So, yeah, it all comes back to whether you believe everything the
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Bible teaches about God's purposes and his judgment upon sin or whether you don't. Since we don't concern ourselves with theology, we don't have a leg to stand on in answering questions.
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We have to go with worldly responses. As that article I read from the obvious non -believer, our worldly responses really sound very hollow.
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They really sound very hollow completely. They're inconsistent. It's about free will, you know.
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Oh, please give me a break. Anyway. Yeah, and I totally agree with you, and I wasn't trying to blame that church in particular.
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I'm just saying that when we see these tragedies of the people of God, we should be introspective first before we start blaming the finger over at the pagan.
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We should look at ourselves. Well, but at the same time, we also should be the ones who see it. I think one of the ways in which judgment in general, when it comes upon the world, the first people who should recognize it for what it is are the people that are carrying around the book that describes it.
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And we're the very ones that are running away from that. We're the very ones that are embarrassed by that. We won't identify it for what it is.
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And so we should be the ones, the judgment beginning with us, we should be the ones who see it, but we're the ones who are avoiding it.
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It sounds like you're getting blown away by the wind. That's just a little bit of a breeze, but I'm outside.
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Anyways, we've got lots of callers, sir. Thank you very much for your thoughts. Okay, you're right on. Thanks a lot.
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All right. 877 -753 -3341. I'm going to try to get everybody here.
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So everybody just be patient. Let's talk with Eddie. Hi, Eddie. Hello, James. How you doing, sir? All right.
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Scott touched on my first question. Okay. And thinking of Jonah.
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I remember Jonah. And he was on a ship. Yes. And trouble came upon the ship because of his disobedience.
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Right. And so I kind of wonder if because of the church's disobedience, if trouble comes upon our land and when the church repents, then things quiet down.
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What do you think? Well, the one thing we need to be careful of, some of our eschatologies do start coming into play here.
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And we need to properly recognize the difference between an Old Testament theocracy and the
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United States. We are not an Old Testament theocracy. There is a difference there. But what we see in the
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Old Testament is that God does bring judgment upon the nations around Israel for their violation of God's law, not for their violation of ceremonial law or even covenantal law in the sense of the specific covenant between Israel and God.
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But their injustices, their murders, their greed, the things that are written upon the conscience, written upon the heart, he brings judgment upon them for that.
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And so when we talk about judgment upon the church, certainly in one event, you can have judgment upon a sinful nation that also involves judgment upon the church itself.
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But sometimes they take very different forms. And sometimes judgment upon a culture will give the church opportunity to be the church, to speak clearly, to speak openly.
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And if we don't do that, then we see judgment coming upon the church in another form, in persecution, for example, rather than in the sense of a natural type of event.
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So I'm not saying that we should not recognize the differences between these things and the different applications that God can make from the exact same the exact same act of judgment and how he makes all that work.
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The Christian response to judgment is to be repentance and to be the proclamation of that.
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That certainly is what our duty is in proclaiming that. If we shrink back from that, then further judgment comes upon us, but it may be in a very different form.
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All right. One other thing. Yes, sir. Especially like in the 19th century, our national leaders would call for either a day of fasting and repentance or a humbling of ourselves.
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And I was just wondering why there would be that then, and today there's that's absent.
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There has been a tremendous denigration of the cultural level of our society in that in that period of time, let's say at the time of warfare in the middle 1800s, the middle of the 19th century, you do see on both sides of that conflict a calling upon God for repentance in light of judgment.
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And that was natural because speaking of the Bible was natural in our society.
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It was respected in our society. It doesn't mean it was necessarily believed by everyone in our society, but it was at that time still respected in that way.
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No one would dream to treat the Christian faith the way it is treated with regularity in Hollywood today.
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And so there's just been a tremendous downgrade since that period of time. And now the best way to make sure that you'll never be elected is to acknowledge those things that'll give clear ammunition to your enemies.
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And it'll be something you'll have to work over. You have to get over that to be successful, so on and so forth.
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And so it's just been a tremendous change in our society since that time. And that now reflects itself in the fact that so many today have no idea what
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God's law clearly states and says, even though it's written upon the heart, they see around them no clear testimony to it.
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And eventually the freedoms that we enjoy to do what we're doing right now will be very, very much,
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I think, under attack in the not -too -distant future. There are many people who would love to see us kept from doing the things we're doing right now.
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But it's just a tremendous downgrade in that period of time. All righty. All right. Well, thank you for your time.
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Thank you for calling. God bless. Okay. Bye. Bye -bye. All right, let's now head north of the border just a little bit with a completely different subject a little bit and talk with Jill.
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Hi, Jill. How you doing? Hi, Dr. White. How are you doing today? Doing pretty good. I am sorry to change your subject.
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That's all right. Something came up and I wanted to get a smart guy's opinion of it. Well, I'm sorry.
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Rich is busy right now with the programs. You're stuck with me. Sounds good to me.
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Okay. I wanted to know what you think about sprinkling baptism. Sprinkling baptism.
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Well, my first question with that would be baptism of whom?
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Because for me the more important issue is the why of baptism, what baptism represents, what its purpose is, than the arguments about mode.
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Now, personally, I think that the mode issue is, you know, if you want to debate that issue,
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I think I'm on pretty safe ground there. The best that someone can do is to try to come up with an exception and turn the exception into the rule.
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What I mean by... What if we talk about me? Well, what I mean by that is, let me explain what
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I meant by that and then we'll see how it applies to you. That is, you can find the unusual use of the term baptizo to refer to something that would be related to sprinkling.
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But the normative use of the term is to immerse and very clearly in the uses where you see baptism taking place, if a debate were to be held on that subject, the
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Baptist certainly has the broad basis upon which to stand at that point in regards to what the means of baptism is to be and how it is to be practiced.
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I believe that you can make a very good case that the normative use of the term refers to immersion in water and coming up out of that water.
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And I think that that has significance as to what it represents in regards to death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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More importantly than that to me is what it represents, that it's not the means of justification, it's not the means of the application, for example, the blood of Christ, and what it is it is said to be representing, who you are baptizing and why they're being baptized is the first point.
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And then the second part of that discussion is the subject of how it is to be done.
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I'd recommend Beasley Murray's rather major work on baptism at that point for some of those things.
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So when you say, how about you, what do you mean by that? Well, I was sprinkled baptized. As an infant or as an adult?
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No, I was 14, which I don't know which side of the infant -adult side you would put that on.
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No, I would definitely put that on the adult side. Yeah, I did too. I knew what
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I was doing. I knew I had faith in Christ. I knew he was my Savior, and I attended a
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Mennonite church at the time, and that's the way they did it. Okay. But I question now myself, 13 years later, is it,
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I want to use the word valid. Yeah, and of course I struggle just a tad bit with the term valid because valid sounds to me like an argument that I have to fight against all the time in the sense of valid in the sense of communicating some type of grace, etc, etc.
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What I would say at that point is, the way you put it, I'm not sure that you are not a part of that church any longer.
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No, I am not. Okay. The church that you're in accepted you on the basis of that baptism?
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We haven't become members yet, so I'm not sure. Okay. We just moved recently and just recently started attending a different denomination.
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Okay. All right. For reasons of conviction or reasons of there's the other denomination isn't around anymore to attend?
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No, no, because full honesty, we got tired of their wishy -washy -ness.
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Okay. I am, I don't consider myself a extremely learned person, but it took me just one time opening up my
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Bible to realize that homosexuality was wrong, and I kind of got irritated that it took them three years and 18 committees to think about it, and I just, we got tired of that.
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I fully understand. I wanted a church that stated it fully biblically, that had no questions, that didn't have to think about it.
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Right. I agree with you a thousand percent. The best way to deal with this particular situation is, of course, within the context of what your church is going to,
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I think you need to be accountable to a local body that teaches the word of God. I think you need to have elders who are, who have, you know,
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Hebrews 13, 17 tells us to be in subjection to those who have the leadership over us, and so they need to be there, and so when you consider that issue and being a part of that church, then they are going to talk to you about the issue of baptism and what they consider to be a sufficient or valid quote -unquote form of baptism for their church and for their purposes.
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That generally is not going to involve, it certainly would not involve, from my church's perspective, a questioning of a person's salvation or their relationship with Christ.
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Instead, it would normally have to do with what a person understood about what baptism represented when they were baptized and basically asking them what their understanding of what the issue is about, and so the elders of the church undoubtedly will be speaking with you concerning that particular issue.
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The, obviously, if a person believes that the form of the baptism is extremely important in what it represents, then there's going to be either the request for or the offering of a baptism in a different form that would be consistent with the church that you're looking at being a part of, and I haven't asked what that is, but I would assume it's got to be fairly conservative if it's taken a strong stand, a proper strong stand on the subject of homosexuality.
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It's the Alliance Church here in Canada. Okay, so you know, I honestly don't know next to anything about them, but certain churches that take a view of baptism, that view baptism as sort of an ex -operato sacramentalism, in the sense of it having some sort of a sacramental efficacy, hesitate tremendously to ask you to be baptized, quote -unquote, again, or to be baptized in a way that they would consider to be more appropriate, and hence that they would accept a wide variety of things.
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It is only those who view baptism as an expression of one's faith and that the form of it is part of that expression that you would have an issue being raised in regards to the proper means of baptism and a request that you be baptized in the way that they would, and I don't know anything about that church.
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I'm sorry. I've only been to Canada a couple times, so I don't know what their view of baptism is, and so I don't know how to address that, but the most important thing is, as long as you are not trusting in that event as if that was the means by which
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God saved you, as long as your faith and trust is in Christ and in Christ alone, then certainly
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I see no reason, unless you are joining a church where that becomes an issue, for you to be investing a whole lot of time in it and a whole lot of concern about it.
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If you join a Baptist church that says, we want to have unity on these things, and here's what we believe it represents, and you didn't have the opportunity of expressing your testimony of faith by baptism, that's a different issue.
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But again, I don't know where the Alliance Church is on that, so I'm confessing my ignorance at that particular point.
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And we're quite new in the Alliance Church, so I'm not sure either. I'm sure that I can talk to the elders. That's right.
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I'm sure they'll be more than happy to talk to you. Yeah, I'm sure they'll be more than happy to talk to you about it, and it worked out just perfectly, because the music's now starting, and I appreciate your phone call.
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Thank you so much. Thank you. Have an awesome day. Thank you. God bless. Thank you. Hey, Allen, do you turn lights off?
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What? Oh, man. Allen, do you turn lights off? No. No, you do not turn lights off. Okay.
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Yeah, thank you very much for your contribution to the program today. Ah, that's what you get for dimming the lights at the end of the debate.
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Hey, thanks for being with us. We'll be with you again Tuesday morning on The Dividing Line. God bless. ...been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
59:43
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59:48
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59:54
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