Skype Based DL from Detroit

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to the Dividing Line. They're coming to you via Skype today, so you're probably going to hear a few, what we call, max headroom moments,

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I'm afraid. I am on hotel wireless, which is infamous, in my experience anyways, of not exactly being consistent, shall we say, and always good.

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But we will do our best during the course of the hour today.

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And of course, we invite your participation, especially when I am traveling at 877 -753 -3341.

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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number, we won't be taking Skype calls because, well, I am the

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Skype call, and that's how it works. I just, a few minutes ago, installed Skype for Droid, and so I guess in the future

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I have absolutely no excuses, I can just plug my phone in the car while I'm driving, I suppose, and do programs which might be somewhat dangerous.

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But anyways, I do have a few items to be looking at. I am currently in the greater

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Detroit area, Novi is the area where I am at the moment, and I have been speaking at the

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Berean Baptist Church at their conference, their missions conference over the course of the week.

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I speak again this evening, and then tomorrow evening, and head home on Saturday.

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And it's warm here today, 77 degrees at the end of October in Detroit might have you ready to believe in global warming, however, my understanding is tomorrow the high is supposed to be 50, so it comes 77 to 50, at least in Phoenix, we generally don't have quite that range of temperature shifts quite that quickly, but up here in this part of the country, if you don't like the weather today, just wait a little while, it'll be different, is what everyone always tells me, it gets rather old after a while.

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But anyways, 877 -753 -3341, I did want to start off with something

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I just posted on the blog, and bring this to your attention, you are our listening audience, you are our supporters, and an opportunity has arisen, while I've been up here,

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I recorded some more programs in the Answering Islam series at ABN, it's been a while since I've been on ABN, the

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Aramaic Broadcasting Network, the Satellite Network, they have of course presence on YouTube, and other means of getting their materials out,

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David Wood and Sam Shamoon are doing a regular program for ABN now called

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Jesus or Muhammad, and I was doing a, you know, just recording the,

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I have no idea what the message I just received means, you'll have to expand upon that a little bit,

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I don't understand it, anyways, the, yeah, okay, interruptions, difficult to follow when we're away, and I can't see people through nice glass windows, but anyways,

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I was talking with Dr. Bassem Gordial, the president of ABN, and he said,

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James, he says, what would you, would it be possible for you to come out here to Detroit and do a program for us?

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And I'm like, well, what do you mean? And what he described would be a bi -weekly primetime program, so you're not talking about every night or anything like that, that would involve coming out every other month, so six times a year, coming out to Detroit, recording a live program where we could take calls and do things like that, and I'm sure

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Manu would call in, whatever we were talking about, and, but then record three more programs to be aired over the course of the next two months, and then you come back and do it again.

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Obviously probably the first time around, we need to record some extras just in case, because obviously my travel schedule couldn't be locked into exactly the same time period every two months.

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I know that, for example, probably this June I'm going to be back in Germany doing some teaching there for EBTC and things like that, so initially

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I might have to come out for a day or two and do some extra recording, but to make a long story short, it certainly would seem to be something that would be possible to do.

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I know my way around here pretty well now, having done it a few times. It wouldn't be a huge investment of time, because the first program is live, you record the other ones fairly quickly.

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I would want to have some guests, maybe via Skype and things like that, and you can do some things on television you can't necessarily do on the dividing line, because we don't have the video aspect of things, and then of course these things are then posted on YouTube and become available.

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It's amazing how many people comment on how they listen to the

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YouTube channel and things like that. This is an opportunity, but obviously

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ABN is not a rich group. This is something we would have to be funding.

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They'll make the availability. We need to then step up and do what we need to do from there.

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I estimate for the first year we're looking right at about $5 ,000 in travel costs, rental car, hotel, food, etc.,

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to be able to pull something like this off. I have put a link on the website, and if God's people say yes, that's something we'd like to see, the outreach of the dividing line get bigger and maybe have a new audience, maybe draw some new people to the webcast and vice versa, then you can indicate that support and your being behind us in doing that, and we'll take a look at it.

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I know the folks at ABN are really excited about it if we were able to do it, and we'll see when that will take place and if the

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Lord opens those doors for us. So take a look at the website. I just put that on the blog, and we'll go from there.

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Then I made the mistake, I don't know,

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I made the mistake yesterday morning, I believe it was, of commenting on something that I saw online on Twitter, and the people of Livonia are excited.

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Well, we'll see how excited they are. Anyways, Denny Burke, who is

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Associate Professor for Biblical Studies at Boyce College, which is the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, headed up, of course, by the smartest

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Southern Baptist alive, Dr. Albert Moeller, who's the briefing I listen to every morning. Well, I can't every morning, because he doesn't do it every morning, but it's

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Monday through Friday, and he takes a few months off during the year, and I guess we should allow him to do that, but I really enjoy the briefing, and whenever anybody asks me, what webcasts other than URL would you suggest to people,

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I would actually probably suggest a briefing before my own, because I really enjoy

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Dr. Moeller's commentary, and sometimes it seems to me he gets the news before other people do, so he may have contacts that I'm really not sure of.

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But anyway, excuse me, I guess I do have a little thing here,

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I could mute it, but I'm almost afraid to do that, because I'm not sure it's going to come back on again. But anyhow,

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I was looking at Danny Burke's article, a response to Rachel Held Evans on the

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Today Show, and he embedded the program from the Today Show, and some of you know that Rachel Held Evans' new book has come out,

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A Year of Biblical Womanhood, and I made a comment on Twitter, and it didn't take long before Rachel Held Evans herself responded, because obviously there are people who follow me who follow her, and etc.

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etc. But watching the video clip was simply embarrassing.

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It was embarrassing. And what bothers me about it is Rachel Held Evans calls herself an evangelical, of course anybody can call themselves an evangelical anymore,

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I don't even know what the word means anymore, I'm not even sure that it's a meaningful term, to be perfectly honest with you.

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But as Danny Burke documents, she's really much more in the emergent camp.

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She does call herself a feminist. The whole reason I'm mentioning it right now is because she's going to be on The View on Monday.

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That's what I've been told, I don't watch The View, every once in a while it pops up because some weird thing happens on it, but she's going to be on The View.

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Now I just ask a simple question, why do you think they want her on there? I know why they want her on there, and I think everybody else knows why they want her on there, and that is because of the fact that the position that, what she has done, one of the things she did, for example, was, in essence what she's doing is she's demonstrating by how she lived for a year that thought has to go into the interpretation of what biblical womanhood would mean.

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Well, congratulations. I personally am really sick and tired of these emergent folks who are former fundamentalists who found out that narrow -minded fundamentalism really isn't the way to go, thinking that now the whole world needs to revolve around their great insights into things.

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A lot of us have figured out that narrow -minded fundamentalism is not the way to go, and a lot of us have figured out that simplistic interpretation of the text of the

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Bible is not the way to go. So why in the world write a whole book about how you managed to abuse the text of scripture for an entire year?

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The most obvious one was that during her monthly period, she would live in a tent in the front yard, all based upon the purity laws for the people of Israel in regards to the touching of an impure thing.

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This somehow is supposed to be relevant to being a biblical woman in the modern day.

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Now, if that's some kind of a protest against her having been involved in some type of a cult, okay, but that's not how she's presenting.

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That's not what is being presented. And as Denny Burke points out, what's going on is that her year of biblical womanhood is being used by unbelievers as a mechanism for a mockery of those who truly do seek to live biblical womanhood.

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Now, remember, she is an egalitarian. According to Denny Burke, she has, well, just a couple of the quotes.

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Evans denies the inerrancy of scripture and says that, quote, as a woman, I have been nursing a secret grudge against the

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Apostle Paul for about eight years, end quote. As a young adult, she says, she stopped believing in the, quote,

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Bible's exclusive authority, inerrancy, perspicuity, and internal consistency, end quote. I think that's enough to disqualify you from being evangelical, personally.

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Evans has also pressed the case for inclusivism, the view that says people need not have conscious faith in Jesus in order to be saved, and she rejects exclusivism.

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In a recent post, she defines the gospel without reference to the death and resurrection of Jesus and adopts the reductionism of counter -imperial interpreters who say that the, quote, good news is, quote,

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Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not, end quote. Those of you who have heard my debate with John Dominic Crossan have heard that one more than once.

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She supports gay marriage and she has served communion to practicing homosexuals. Okay. At this point, if all that's true, and there are links to each one of those items, we're not talking about evangelical here at all, and it would be nice if she would just come straight out and say, you know what,

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I was raised as a fundamentalist, I was raised as a conservative evangelical, I've left all that stuff, and this is my mockery of it.

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This is how I've mocked it, is I mocked it for a year by, you know, standing down in front of the, well, there are no city gates anymore, but part of the video shows her standing down next to, you know how in the olden days, and it's still in some cities, they have the, you know, the entrance to the city, they have the sign board with the various, you know, rotary club, and all the rest of that stuff on it.

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And she stood there with a sign saying her husband is great, because Proverbs 31 says that the godly woman's husband will be praised at the city gate.

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Which, of course, actually has much more to do with the fact that the city gate is where the elders met, and therefore a godly woman reflects well upon her husband, and that would be reflected in his position in the society, but again, it's this absurd, literalistic, ridiculous interpretation that the emergents go, hey, you actually have to interpret the

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Bible, so let's start reinterpreting everything. And that's what they do, they don't know where the line is between throwing everything out and recognizing that yes, scripture needs to be interpreted in the light of scripture, yes, there is this thing called context, etc.,

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etc., etc. And so, whether she intends this or not, she's being used as a pawn, as a tool, and you go on The View, let me tell you something,

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Whoopi Goldberg is not looking to accurately represent biblical womanhood, okay?

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That's not her intentions. And I would love to see

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Rachel Held Evans give a clear presentation of the gospel on The View, but I just sort of wonder if that's what's going to be happening.

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And I just basically opined that it should be nice if godly women were responding to her, and I know that many of you are.

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You're just not getting the same amount of attention, obviously. And some folks on Twitter said, well,

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I have, and I have, and I understand that. But it does seem that there is a, with this book coming out, there's going to be a period of time here where, especially those of you who are, in fact, godly women who seek to live a godly life in light of scriptural principles, that you may have some opportunities.

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Let's call them opportunities, not challenges, but opportunities to bring correction to the absurd nature of Rachel Held Evans' activities of living in a tent in her front yard, making a mockery of biblical principles, and explaining to others, well, you know, actually, this is where she's wrong about that.

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This is what the purity laws had to do with in the Old Testament, but here's how we make application today, and here's how we can honor

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God's law today, etc., etc. You'll have the opportunity of doing that. And so, you know, let's look at it in a positive light,

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I suppose, and pray for Rachel Held Evans and her husband, who, likewise, has a certain responsibility here for maybe teaching his wife.

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But it doesn't look like that's going to be happening. But anyways, as I said, Denny Burke, on his blog, had a very interesting article on that.

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Before we take a phone call here, someone on Twitter, likewise, directed me to an inside higher education article called

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A Big Tent Society, and it says, more and more scholars in the United States are researching the

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Quran, but they lack a scholarly organization, and some say they need to travel to Britain for an appropriate scholarly meeting.

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This scenario might change in the next few years. On Tuesday, the Society of Biblical Literature, SBL, an organization devoted to the critical study of the

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Bible, well, that's one way of putting it, announced that it had received a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to explore the formation of a

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Society for Quranic Studies. The goal of the three -year $140 ,000 project is to set up a society that could provide support to scholars of the

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Quran beyond the institutions they work for, with the goal of encouraging more collaborative research, holding conferences, publishing a journal, and offering other kinds of professional support, such as career development.

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Now, I really wonder if SBL, maybe SBL could like, you know, go to the

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Saudis and get a whole lot more than $140 ,000, but something tells me that that would come with some strings attached as to what conclusions you could come to.

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I will be interested in seeing what SBL comes up with. I mean, SBL is, I mean, there are some really, really, really weird groups in SBL, and I don't think

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I could survive attending an SBL meeting, I would just blow up,

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I'd explode, something like that. But it could be interesting. Certainly the

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Corpus Quranicum project is, maybe this could help that, I don't know. It would be nice to see a critical edition of the

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Quran produced eventually that would, you know, give us that kind of information, but we'll see whether that will happen or not.

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But it could be very, very interesting. So, anyways, 877 -753 -3341,

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I do have another article to look at, but we'll save that, because right now

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I only have information of one caller, and obviously it's helpful to me when

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I'm on the road and we try to sneak a dividing line in. There were some people complaining

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Tuesday that there was no dividing line, but there wasn't much I could do about that.

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I was in the ABN studios at the normal time of the dividing line, recording programs for ABN on, you know, basically gospel programs, defense of the scriptures, all related to something in regard to what's certainly hopefully useful to folks beyond that.

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So we decided today we could sneak one in here, and we're doing that.

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So 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number if you would like to get in touch, but let's go ahead and go to our first phone call and hope that this works.

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Let's talk with Chris in Orlando. Hi, Chris. How you doing, Dr. White? Doing pretty good.

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Just want to say thank you very much for all the work you do and for the dividing line and everything.

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I've been extremely blessed by your work. Very quickly, I want to say that when I first started listening to you,

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I was a very committed Arminian, but today I'm Reformed, and through having listened to all your

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Radio Free Geneva's, I couldn't stand listening to you talk about it in the beginning, and after a while I started thinking about it.

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And once I accepted the doctrine of total depravity, I was pretty much stuck after that.

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So I just want to thank you for everything that you're doing, and I pray for you and pray for your ministry and you continue to do the work that you do.

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Well, thank you very much. We appreciate the prayers and the kind comments about Radio Free Geneva.

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Well, no, I love Radio Free Geneva now, trust me. But I was an Arminian back then, and just didn't think that it was really a necessary topic, but now

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I do see the importance of it. But to my question actually has to do with Reformed theology, and some questions that have arised since I've come to accept the doctrines of grace, and some of my

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Arminian friends, they would bring certain stories, especially from the

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Old Testament, like such as Saul or Solomon, where God clearly makes reference or makes state what he desires for a particular person, and then this person doesn't follow the commands of God or whatnot, and then it seems that God changes his mind or alters what he desires or plans.

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And you can see it with Solomon and Saul. And I kind of understand a little bit the difference between the prescriptive will and the sovereign decree, but I was hoping that maybe you can elaborate a little bit on that for me so I can maybe get a better understanding of that.

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And also understanding, I remember listening to your debate with Dr. Michael Brown, when he spoke about the emotions that God would express when certain people wouldn't go the direction that he desired, and maybe if you could elaborate on that,

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I'd greatly appreciate it. Yeah, you know, we have entered into some of this in some of those programs in the sense that many of the objections that people voice to the sovereignty of God are based primarily upon looking at God's interaction with his people in time.

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And as a result, they, in essence, come up with a contradiction in their minds because they're listening to God's expression of his holiness, his expression of his desire that his people would live in a holy manner.

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And yet, because there is sin and there is a need for redemption, that, well, this must mean that there is no sovereign decree and that God doesn't always get what he wants.

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And it amazes me on one level that people continue to do that because there's just so much in the

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Scriptures, Old and New Testament, that makes just such a wide -ranging claim.

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So you look at the tracing, for example, of the genealogy of the Messiah, and I don't think anyone would argue that one of the primary themes of biblical revelation is that the cross is the center point of history, the

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Messiah and the coming of the Messiah, the means by which he could come, the people through whom he comes is part and parcel of God's intention.

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I mean, the idea that the Messiah would come, but God was just sort of lucky that it worked out, that he could come when he did, just makes me go, really?

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Do you really think that's what the Old Testament writers were saying? And yet, that's what you really have to conclude if you're going to go with what certain people say on this subject.

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And again, just as when I talk about the deity of Christ and we tell people, look, challenge the other side to give you a consistent doctrine of who

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Christ is, if they reject the deity of Christ, in the same way, if you're going to reject the sovereign decree of God, his sovereignty over all human affairs, then give me a consistent view of God that will explain how

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God behaves and how God has behaved in these situations. And I just don't think anybody can. They normally just say, well, it's a mystery or something along those lines.

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But think about the genealogy. Think about the sin that was involved in the genealogy of Jesus.

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You have prostitution. You've got

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Rahab. You've got sin involved in all the families.

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None of those situations are exactly the way that the prescriptive will of God would have had it to be.

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And so, yet, that genealogy, I would think most

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Christians would really struggle with making the statement that, well, you know, that's just how

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God worked it out. And he didn't want it to be that way. He wanted the Messiah to come from a perfectly pure line where nobody ever sinned.

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Well, what do you mean by that? What is that exactly supposed to mean?

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And it ends up really, I think, diminishing the fact that what you have in the

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Old Testament, in the Tanakh, is this living interaction of God with his people.

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And people think that the sovereignty of God means this cold, philosophical, eternal decree.

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You know, God could just go and go on vacation in the Bahamas for a while if he wants to and the decrees stuff out.

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And they don't realize that the sovereign decree of God involves his providence, that is, that he has decreed his own personal interaction, so much so that it even involves the incarnation itself.

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And it is so rich and it's so deep that maybe part of the problem is that people, especially folks that are new to Reformed theology, we call them the cage stagers, you know, they've just been taken with, they've read all of Pink Sovereignty of God and they're just out there, you know, banging the doors and telling people all about this type of stuff.

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But there is a need to go deep into considering everything that the sovereignty of God actually means.

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And it includes God's own personal interaction with his people, so much so that, you know,

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I think Michael is very right that we do need to consider the fact that, especially when

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God speaks to his people, that he expresses, and again we need to be careful that we don't limit this merely to human experience, but that when he talks about the sinfulness of the people and he talks about his calling to the people, he doesn't do so in dry philosophical terms.

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He talks about longing and he talks about, you know, all these types of emotions, in the divine sense anyways, that are part and parcel of the prophetic call.

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And the divine decree does not get rid of those things, but the divine decree does give a context in which those things can be understood appropriately in light of all of Scripture.

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And my concern is that when, certainly when I was in seminary, and I did not go to a conservative seminary, and certainly it wasn't friendly toward a

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Reformed theology, what would happen is you would have portions of the biblical narrative and biblical revelation emphasized and then other portions just simply dismissed.

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And when you would raise that question and say, well, but what about this? You'd be looked at like the crazed fundamentalist in the corner, because you actually thought that there needed to be a harmonization of these things.

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And really, you know, I've said it many times before, but here's another illustration, and it connects in with what

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I was just talking about in regards to Rachel Held Evans. One of the really troubling things that Denny Burke said was that she's rejected the perspicuity and consistency of Scripture.

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I've often said Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura, that really is the dividing line. When you start looking at what divides

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Orthodox Christianity from everything else that might pretend to be it or is a subcategory of it but does not rise to that level, it all comes down to the view of Scripture and to whether you believe that Scripture alone is sufficient, whether you believe all of Scripture is

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God -breathed. And what that implies, likewise, is whether you believe that there is a consistent message that can be traced through Scripture, not on some simplistic surface level that everyone wants to demand, but the real beauty of the consistency of Scripture is found in the themes that are interwoven from Genesis all the way to Revelation.

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And they appear in different colors and hues and in different ways at different parts in the

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Bible because the Bible is made up of so many different kinds of literature. And themes that are in Genesis then appear in the

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Psalter in a different way. And it really is a beautiful thing that simplistic reading of Scripture is not going to bring out to someone.

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But the sovereignty of God, certainly from Genesis to Revelation, I just don't see how you can make heads or tails out of what is stated about God's purposes and God's actions without seeing that.

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And so it doesn't mean that we have to get rid of the exhortations that we find in the prophets and the expression of God's desire for the repentance of His people and calling out to His people day and night through the prophets or all the rest of those things.

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But it does give us a consistent matrix in which to interpret those things so that there remains one message and one message we can deliver to the world.

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And I think one of the things that people are missing today is that when they try to do this emergent type stuff or this

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Arminian type stuff, it ends up resulting in a message that is muddled to the world.

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And that is, of course, of great concern to me and should be of great concern to many others as well.

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Okay, so, really quickly, and thank you for your comments, but really quickly, where exactly, like, if I was in a quick conversation, where exactly would you suggest that I, you know, to respond to, like, for instance, the situation with Saul or Solomon, just, you know, where would you suggest that I zero in on to try to get my point across?

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Do you understand what I'm saying? Well, if what you're saying is that God established these people in a particular position and offered to them promises and then they did not follow through, well, that's no different whatsoever than the fact that you have

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Deuteronomy 28 and 29 and the blessings and cursings that are a part of the

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Old Covenant itself. I mean, there's this beautiful section of promised blessings to an obedient Israel, then you have a whole section of what's going to happen if you don't do this.

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And everything that happens after that is an illustration of the reality of those things, even though God remains incredibly merciful and he doesn't bring the judgment immediately, he sends prophets, all the rest of that stuff.

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But with both Saul and Solomon, you have a situation where God gives gifts, he gives gracious opportunities, but when individuals do not join to those gifts a consistent faith, those gifts can be taken away and those positions can be taken away.

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The interesting part is you look at David and David's in the same situation and yet God says,

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I will not remove the covenant that I've made with David because he's chosen to trace the line through David to the

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Messiah himself. So you don't have that with Solomon or Saul in that sense, but you do have the sovereignty of God and the determination of how he's going to trace that line.

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So if the argument's being made that, well, what we have here is a violation of God's sovereignty, then

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I would simply ask why do you consider that to be a violation of God's sovereignty unless you have the idea that God's sovereignty does not include the redemptive drama that is the entirety of the

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Old Testament and all the examples that he gives us of the fact that we cannot accept

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God's free, gracious gifts and then turn around and abuse them as if there is no call to holiness.

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So I'm not sure if that's what your friends are suggesting, but it normally is a foundational issue like that.

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Yes, it runs along those lines, but I do appreciate it. You helped me out a lot and I'll probably run this back again on podcast tomorrow and listen to it to get a better understanding of what you're saying.

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But you did really help me out a lot. I really appreciate it, Dr. White. Okay, thank you very much for your call. All right,

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God bless you. All right, God bless. Bye bye. 877 -753 -3341.

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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number if you would like to call in and assist us with the program today because that in essence is what you are doing when

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I'm on the road. Having folks on the phone is of assistance and I realize that it also is a little bit odd that we are on at the time that we're on, but I'm speaking this evening.

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So I have to fit things in the schedule. We had a pastor's luncheon just a little while ago.

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Now we're doing this and then I'll head back to the church. In fact, the next two evenings I will be addressing, even though it is a missions conference, what

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I'm doing in essence is saying, well, we have a missions field right on our front doorstep.

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We have a missions field in our schools. We have a missions field in our society. And in light of the tremendously positive response we got to my

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Matthew Vines material, to my response to Dan Savage and things like that,

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I'm going to go through the text. I only have 45 minutes, so I got to move pretty quickly, but go through the text in the

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Scriptures on homosexuality this evening and then on the subject of marriage tomorrow evening.

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And then we'll go from there. We do have a question in channel.

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It says, why do you love Kindle even when it is evil? I love

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Kindle because I have an entire library with me here and I didn't have to drag it all the way over here, which

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I would have been very, very difficult to drag the number of books I have with me on my Kindle in my luggage because books are very, very heavy.

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And so there is that advantage to that. So we'll go from there.

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We do have one phone call. Before we get to that phone call, let me at least finish up the one other item that I had.

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I feel sorry for this fellow. Senate candidate Richard Murdoch in Missouri, I believe, is smack dab in the middle of the crosshairs of the left.

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But did you notice that the left let something slip in the most recent issue with Richard Murdoch?

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And what they let slip was that they have a theology. Now, they'll never defend that theology, but they do have a theology.

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Evidently, in a recent debate, Murdoch said,

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I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God.

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And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that is something that God intended to happen.

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Now, that probably isn't the most fortunate way of expressing things.

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But I'll guarantee you one thing. You can go online and see the testimonies of a number of people who are the product of rape.

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And they're very thankful to be alive today. They are very thankful that their mother did not punish them for the sin of their father.

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And life is a blessing even when it comes into existence in the context of sin.

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And so, theologically, Mr. Murdoch, though he's not expressing himself in a way that would be politically correct within our society, is certainly speaking a truth.

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I myself am sick and tired of people being unwilling to make the statement that to murder an unborn child for the sin of its father is wrong.

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It's still a child. And to say, well, you're forcing that woman.

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Look, no. The rapist did that. The evil is on the rapist.

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It is not the problem of the child. And it all goes back to, is that a human being or not?

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And it's only in the worldview that human beings have no intrinsic value.

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That human life has no more intrinsic value than the life of a cat or a dog or an amoeba. And that we are, well, because it's going to start off life in a bad way, that's just going to be a bad thing.

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This is a mechanistic view of life that Christians should reject out of hand.

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But, anyway. Okay, Indiana. All right. Indiana, not Missouri. Whatever. Somewhere in the middle part of the state there.

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It's kind of there. Here's what is interesting, though. You have a guy,

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I guess, named Donnelly. Who is Donnelly? Oh, is that the guy he's running against?

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Anyways. The God I believe in and the God I know most Hoosiers believe in does not intend for rape to happen ever.

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What Mr. Murdoch said is shocking and it is stunning that he would be so disrespectful to survivors of rape.

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Now, first of all, is there on the left just simply a complete incapacity to understand the original context of any statement at all?

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I mean, watching the presidential debates, this seems to, you know, I know people on the right have this happen, too.

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But it seems to be a real problem for leftists. That's not what he intended.

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I know that's not what he intended. And you know that's not what he intended. But evidently, as long as you're scoring political points and you're on the left, you get away with it.

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But evidently, Mr. Donnelly does not believe in a God who could ever have an intention in rape.

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So that means he believes in a God who started this universe. And maybe

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Mr. Donnelly is an open theist. Maybe he doesn't believe that God knew there was going to be any rape. He just made it possible for it to happen.

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Well, that's a brilliant thing to do. I'm going to create people who could end up raping each other.

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But I don't know if it's going to happen. It might happen, but I won't have any purpose for it. Yeah. Then worship him.

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All right. Great. Perfect. Perfect. Or he knew it was going to happen but didn't have any purpose for it.

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But evidently, there is an orthodox theology for the left that came out in that.

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And I found that to be an amazing thing that it came out in those words.

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But it looks like we're getting some calls. And the little clock on my computer is moving on there.

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So we will need to get to folks here. Let me scroll back here. And let's see if we can get hold of Matt.

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Hello, Matt. Hello, Dr. Watt. How are you? Doing good. How are you? I'm doing great.

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I just had a quick question for you about a reprobation. Recently, I read

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A .W. Pink's book on the sovereignty of God. I heard you talk about that just a minute ago. And from my understanding, reprobation has always been something that God is more passive in.

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Because human beings, we're depraved. We're totally depraved. God has to do nothing for us to stay in our sin and go to hell.

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But I thought that I might have understood Pink to be saying that God is more active in reprobation.

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And to be quite honest with you, I'm not sure that I understood that. Could you just speak to that a little bit?

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Just help me to understand this a little bit better. That's all. That's really my question.

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Yeah. Well, there are, depending on how staunch a person is or how strong a person is in regards to double and single predestination, in essence, the decree of reprobation would simply be the fact that there is an active decision on God's part, not that brings about rebellion on the part of man or something along those lines, but that in recognizing in double predestination that there is a positive extension of the grace of God that creates the elect, that there is likewise, if you simply say that's all

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God does. All God does is he positively decrees the elect.

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And the rest are just simply passed over. That's not really telling the whole story, because God still positively decrees the existence of these individuals.

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He knows, not because he's looked down the corridors of time, but as a result of that positive decree, that these individuals are going to fulfill a position like Judas fulfilled that is a part positively of what

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God is accomplishing in this world. So the Assyrians, when they're brought against Jerusalem, they are positively fulfilling

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God's purpose in punishing the people of God in accordance with Deuteronomy 28 and 29.

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They are positively involved in that. And as a result, it's difficult to say that there's no positive element to that ultimate choice when clearly there is.

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It's just what does that involve? Well, it doesn't involve the necessary extension of grace, mercy, any type of power of God to change hearts.

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If there is any positive extension of power, it actually is in limiting the range of rebellion that they can express.

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So, for example, the Assyrians are only allowed to do a certain amount.

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For example, if the Assyrians had actually wanted to completely wipe out the northern tribes,

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God would not have allowed that. So there is a positive expression of God's power in the limitation of the expression of the evil of the

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Assyrians, even when using them to punish Israel. If Nebuchadnezzar had wanted to destroy the people during the

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Babylonian captivity, then there would have been, and may have been.

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We don't know because the expression of a limitation, we never see that. When God controls evil, when

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God does not allow evil to take place, we don't get to see that because, well, it didn't take place.

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And all we see is what takes place in time. So, in essence, what you have then is a statement that there is, reprobation is not merely a, well, since I didn't choose this person, they just fall into this category.

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There is still a purpose that God has for the existence of the evil person.

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And that purpose actually extends into our own sanctification. We recognize, for example, the persecution of the people of God down through the centuries has been a part of the mechanism by which

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God has conformed them to the image of Christ. And so, are we going to say there's no purpose in these individuals?

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There's no purpose in their rebellion and their acting out their hatred for the gospel, etc.,

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etc.? No, there is even a purpose there. And I think that's where you really find the essence of the concept of reprobation, is that even in the positive decree of God, there is a positive purpose, even for those who have been chosen for that.

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The text off the top of my head in 1 Peter is escaping me at the moment.

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I apologize for that. But there is a text that refers to specifically those who have been set apart for doing these things and for God's purposes in that way.

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And, let's see, well, no, it's not the one in 1

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Peter 3. But, anyways, there are some texts that make reference to those people, and it talks about to which they themselves had been, not so much decreed, but had been set to engage in these types of things.

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So there is a discussion of that, I think, as I recall, in the Potter's Freedom as well. Okay, I'll have to look back.

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So when you say that when you speak of God's positive and reprobation, you're speaking more to the purpose of those who are the non -elect.

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I can understand that. That helps me a lot. Okay, all right. Thank you very much.

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All right, thank you. Bye -bye. And let's quickly get over to Daniel in Milwaukee.

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Hi, Daniel. Hi, Dr. White. How are you doing? I just had a quick question. I've been a Reformed Baptist for a couple of years now, and I was wondering, in light of Scripture, using the regulative principle, how do you decide what hymns are appropriate to use during the service?

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Well, that's interesting. You know,

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I think that the elders in the congregation are accountable for determining what is appropriate within that congregation in the worship of God.

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You have the issue of the question of exclusive psalmody, and so you have those who feel that are so concerned about the content of what is sung in the worship service that they want to limit it to that which is inspired, and hence to the hymns of the ancient people of God.

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I am not a holder to exclusive psalmody. I think that psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, in Paul's language,

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I've heard every possible interpretation, and I just can't follow that it has the meaning that it often is assigned in that way.

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But be that as it may, at the same time, in our congregation, there is a limitation to hymns that are theologically and spiritually correct and that would allow the people, as the people of God, to sing them together.

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We do not, in our congregation, have special music in the sense of one person.

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Having been in a megachurch and seeing the horrors that could come from that,

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I'm not saying that that's wrong. I'm just saying that in our congregation, that is not something that we do.

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I think that the elders need to be united on that, and there does need to be concern over the orthodoxy of what is being expressed and how it is being expressed.

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And I think that the music that's chosen needs to be chosen in such a way as to allow the congregation to sing together.

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But at the same time, I do not in any way, shape, or form join in any type of condemnation of a body of elders that together recognize, for example, musical abilities on the part of people within the congregation and allow them to express those things.

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But I do think there needs to be a concern that is communicated to everybody that what we do when we sing is a reflection of seeking to glorify

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God and therefore accuracy in the representation of His person and being is extremely important at that point in time, and that the real issue is not the beat.

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The real issue is not what a certain group in the church wants to have, because, well, that's how we've always done things.

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It really needs to be focused. I think much more upon what it leads us to in its content and things like that.

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But you're talking to a Reformed Baptist that, at the same time, can really appreciate the fact that while most of the hymns we sing were all written in the 16th, 17th, and 1800s,

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I don't think that that's the limitation.

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I think that though there's a lot of really silly stuff being written today, there's also some really good stuff being written today as well.

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I personally would not have any problem in some of the more modern stuff being available as well, as long, again, as it is theologically accurate.

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I think the elders are the ones who should be making that kind of determination, not a quote -unquote music minister unless that music minister is, in fact, actually an elder and is able to teach and to preach.

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Okay. All right. Thank you, Dr. White. Okay. Thank you, Daniel. Grace and peace. Thank you.

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God bless. Bye -bye. Talk about something to get me in all sorts of trouble.

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Because I'm probably a little bit past the middle amongst

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Reformed Baptists on that particular one because there is some modern stuff.

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I mean, I wouldn't have any problem teaching my congregation a couple of Keith Green songs.

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There is a Redeemer. I mean, just incredible, beautiful. If you want, go back in the archives.

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I mean, it's obviously played at least once every month and a half or so now on the Wayback Machine, but I think one of the more interesting dividing lines we ever did was when

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I had Steve Camp on on the 20th anniversary or close to the 20th anniversary of the death of Keith Green, and we had a good discussion about things like that and especially a good discussion about Keith Green and his music and stuff like that.

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Just important in my life anyways as a young person growing up listening to Keith Green and then being around when he passed away.

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But not Steve Green, Keith Green. Steve Green is still around.

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Don't put Steve Green in the ground yet. I think he's still doing just fine actually.

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So it doesn't look like a – well, actually I didn't look here because I didn't scroll, but it looks like we have exhausted our phone calls and I've exhausted my materials.

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So you know what? I'm not just going to sit here for another two minutes or something like that just to fill up time.

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I will remind you I've posted a blog article. Opportunity has arisen for us to – and I suggested the title of The Dividing Line because it makes sense and besides I'm not smart enough to remember multiple titles.

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So I used to say The Dividing Line. It just flows from the tongue so easily. So there is an opportunity for us to have a video version, the televised version, a primetime once -in -a -while live call -in so we would – especially because this is on a satellite network, we could get calls from outside the

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United States. Obviously, we have the opportunity of reaching many

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Muslims with this, but we would not only be addressing those issues, though we would normally tie most things we are talking to into that particular subject.

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But we have this opportunity, but it's outside the budget of the ministry, and so it's going to be up to you folks.

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If there is a strong response, then let's – I will contact

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ABN and say, let's do it, and they're excited about the possibility. If there isn't a strong response, then we'll take that as indication that maybe that's too much to bite off and we'll go from there.

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But we've put the link on the blog, and so if you want to be a part of that and say, yes,

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I'd like to see you take that opportunity, yes, we'd like to see you flying into the Detroit airport six times a year, then please let us know, and we'll go from there.

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So with that, I will give A .O. Min the cue, and we'll wrap things up on the dividing line today.

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Thanks for listening. Lord willing, as far as I know, I am in studio next week at the regular times, so we'll see you then.

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Thanks for listening. God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless.

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God bless. God bless.

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God bless. God bless. I believe we're standing at the crossroads.

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Let this moment of suffering wait. We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for.

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We need a new Reformation day. It's a sign of the times.

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The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm. Won't you lift up your voice?

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Are you tired of plain religion? It's time to make some noise. Hallelujah.

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Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I stand up for the truth.

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Won't you lift up the Lord? Because we're pounding, pounding on Wittenberg.

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The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

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Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

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World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.