Wide Range of Topics on Today’s Dividing Line

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Greetings, welcome to the

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Divine Line, my name is James White and it is a beautiful day here in Phoenix, Arizona.

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It's been really cool recently. I mean, wow. It almost worries me.

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It's safe enough. We've gotten more rain this month in May than I can...

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I mean, we set a record big time last week. Yeah, usually May is pretty dry around here. Dry and hot, and I think sometime last week we got like almost a full inch in one day and the most had been .15

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up to that time of that day, so I was like, my cacti are happy about it anyways.

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But it's coming. It's coming, it's coming. And you know it's coming. It's coming. And it's going to come with a vengeance. We'll see, we'll see.

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But you don't have to shovel it? No, you just have to stand on it. And you don't have to put on, you know, all these heavy coats.

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This is, no, this is true. Anyway, so many things to get to today. So many that are troubling that I thought it would be good, before we talk about all the troubling stuff, just to remember

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Hebrews chapter 12 verse 3 for consider, and the term there is to ponder, to, you know, it's something we don't do very often to be honest with you, to think upon something for lengthy periods of time, to sort of think about something and look at it from various perspectives and see how it relates to other things.

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We're so very, I don't know, been influenced so much by our society that, for ponder, consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart, or literally so that your soul will not be weakened.

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Lose heart is a sort of an English phrase that we use to render that, but it's literally so that your soul will not be, will not fall down, be weakened.

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And this introduces the section on the discipline that God brings into our lives, but it is good to remember that our

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Lord lived with fewer freedoms that we have, lived under the oppressive

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Roman Empire, and he endured much hostility by sinners against himself.

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It was directed at him, and sometimes we become very timid, we become very, you know, we back away when that timidity is directed toward, when that hostility is directed toward ourselves.

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And yet, we have been given an example, and in light of that, we should not lose heart.

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I'll admit, sometimes just reading the stuff in the morning, maybe that's one of the reasons

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I exercise so much, is that people who, you know, you get those endorphins going, so all the bad news isn't quite as bad, maybe,

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I don't know. Maybe that's what it is, it's hard to say. But there were just so many things, and I thought, you know, look at the word, remind yourself, where do

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I start today? You all heard probably what happened over the weekend,

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has performed same -sex weddings before, performed a same -sex wedding over the weekend.

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Now, I'll be perfectly honest with you, I consider that grossly, grossly disrespectful.

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I consider it an insult. I am offended.

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But they don't care, because insulting people like me is irrelevant to them.

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We need to be insulted from their perspective. But it certainly says to me, why do we bother?

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I mean, you know, I just looked down Justice Elena Kagan's record as dean at Harvard Law School.

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Dean at Harvard Law School. She accelerated and legitimized the GLBT rights concept and law studies at Harvard Law School in the larger community.

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She encouraged Harvard students to get involved in homosexual activist legal work. At a time when she as dean pushed students to engage in public interest law and to get clinical legal experience, the

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Harvard Law School established the LGBT Law Clinic. She recruited former ACLU lawyer

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William Rubenstein to teach queer legal theory, promoted and facilitated the transgender legal agenda during her tenure at Harvard.

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I could go on and on and on. Neither of these people should even be on the court as far as dealing with this subject.

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They're clearly incapable of even considering the arguments.

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I mean, they might as well have just gone to sleep and not bothered listening.

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Because foregone conclusion doesn't matter what the arguments are. Just foregone conclusion. No thought process here.

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The whole reason they're there is to make sure this happens. And it just makes you go, wow, it seems like that experiment in liberty is pretty well done with.

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I certainly feel that way. And then over the weekend,

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I think it was Saturday, I did a big ride. I've signed up for one of these

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Strava things where I've got to climb 6 ,000 meters by the end of the month to celebrate the

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Giro d 'Italia. I didn't have to do it, but I'm doing it. And I was listening.

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What's that? Something just flashed onto the screen. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

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Nothing. Nothing. Thanks. Appreciate that. Just having fun over there, huh?

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You're working. Oh. Oh, good to know that you're working. I'm glad that I'm keeping your interest.

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Uh -huh. Right. I was listening to Michael Brown's new book,

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Surviving the Gay Revolution, which will be out sometime in September, I think.

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I imagine, I haven't asked him, but I would imagine he's sort of, he's got to have it on, have it all written, and then we'll make some changes depending on what happens in June.

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It would be silly to put a book out on that until the, until the court.

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I don't even want, you know, renders, decisions, verdicts, all of that assumes something about justice and stuff like that.

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And I don't even know what to call it, you know, until the ideologues who have hijacked in the cultural revolution, the mechanics of what was once a great governmental system but now is whatever.

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I don't know what to call it, but. Anyway, and he told the story in there and I went, no, can't be.

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I looked it up and it was, it was true. I can't read all of this, sadly, but this is an article that I pulled up from Paula Ticker, New Jersey, Emily Schatz, April of 2013.

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On Monday, March 18th, 2013, the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee held a three -hour hearing on S -2278, a bill to ban minors who experience unwanted same -sex attraction from receiving therapy from licensed counselors.

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Y 'all may recall that two years ago, you know, you had

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California doing it, New Jersey was doing it. Chris Christie signed this bill once it was passed, but basically outlawing conversion therapy.

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So if you are a teenager and you experience same -sex attraction, the state who knows all things and has all power, will step in and say, you can't get any help for that because it's perfectly natural.

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It's a good thing. It's wonderful. The testimony came overwhelmingly from homosexual activists who relied on unsubstantiated emotional and anecdotal arguments to support the bill.

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The most dramatic story came from Brielle Goldani, a man living as a woman in Tom's River, New Jersey.

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Oh joy, I've spoken there many times. Goldani claimed that as a teenager in 1997, his church in New Jersey sent him to a conversion therapy camp in Ohio called

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True Directions, run by an Assemblies of God church. There Goldani says he was forced to engage in sexual activity, to heterosexual soft -core pornography, flirt with members of the opposite sex, and submit to electroshock therapy and chemical

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IV injections in order to restore heterosexual inclinations. International Healing Foundation Director Christopher Doyle, who testified in opposition to the bill, said afterwards,

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I was shocked and horrified to hear about such abuse. As a former homosexual and practitioner of sexual orientation change effort therapy,

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I had never heard of such inhumane treatment except from anti -ex -gay activists who often claim that SOCE employs such barbaric methods.

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Investigation revealed Goldani's story was fabricated. The Ohio Council of Assembly of God Churches denied the camp ever existed.

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The Ohio Secretary of State and Attorney General's Office confirmed this. No ethics complaints were ever filed to indicate the existence of such a camp.

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SOCE practitioners in Ohio had never heard of it. The current pastor of Goldani's former church said no one from his church would have been complicit with such a scheme.

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Instead, Goldani's testimony was virtually identical to a 1999 movie called

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I'm a Cheerleader, where the abuse he described occurs at a camp called

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True Directions. New Jersey Family First Director of Government Affairs Greg Quinlan said, everyone is entitled to think as he chooses about the merits of SOCE, but people should be able to form those opinions based on facts, not movies.

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The New Jersey Legislature has been taken for a ride by activists desperate to force their agenda, whose desperation displays their fear of having a real conversation.

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S. 2278 is an unconstitutional bill that violates minors' autonomy, parents' rights, professionals' judgment, and individuals' consciences, and is a serious matter for everyone's freedom when cynical mockeries like this are allowed to influence policy.

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Regrettably, Committee Chairman Joseph Vitale did not seem overly concerned, while Senator Vitale may not care that a key witness lied, the parents, teenagers, and professionals this bill will affect deserve a truthful hearing.

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The Legislature should not suffer such an insult or permit illegitimate testimony to determine binding votes.

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The right thing for Senator Vitale to do would be to call another hearing and bind witnesses under oath.

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Well, that didn't happen. Evidently, this transgender activist wasn't under oath, and that's probably why charges weren't brought, but testified on the basis of a movie.

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And nobody caught it. Now, I wouldn't have caught it. I don't see movies, like, I'm a cheerleader, so I wouldn't have known.

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So, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kagan, this kind of stuff, it's hard to even know where to start.

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It's hard to even know how to respond to just the lies and the dishonesty.

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And you've got to understand, people like this transgendered liar, lying is this person's life.

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I mean, they have to lie to themselves every single day to pretend that they are something that they're not.

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It's not second nature, it's primary nature. And it's so central to their self -identification of who they are that, you know, how could you ever trust what they have to say?

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And this defines them. You and I, we don't get up in the morning thinking about these things. We have other things to be thinking about, you know?

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I'm thinking about collecting really good resources for the future homeschooling of my granddaughter, you know?

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I want to get her some of the videos I saw recently on creation and stuff like that while you can still do that before they throw you in jail for believing things like that.

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And I'm thinking about, you know, there's this real cool little general store up the top of Mount Lemmon.

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You can see I got a new Mount Lemmon shirt. And what size t -shirts do you get Clementine when

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I stop at the general store in Mount Lemmon? Because she really likes the Snoopy one I got her last year, but it's getting too small.

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It's amazing. They just keep, you keep shoveling the food in and it's, it seems to be a natural process.

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Something like that. Yeah. Actually, it sounds like God's created order to me. Yeah. Well, it might be that. It might be that. Yeah. Um, you know, that's the stuff we're thinking about.

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We're thinking about, uh, serious things and life things. And they're thinking about every single day that suppression of the knowledge, it just, it consumes them.

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And they're willing to do anything. They're willing to do anything. And unfortunately, you know, what can

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I say? Yeah. I will go ahead and open up the phones today. 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341.

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There is a phone ringing there. I guess it is along the same, uh, the same line.

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And one of the books, well, the book that I got all the way through on a, um, study ride yesterday,

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I mentioned on Facebook, I drove down to a Mount Lemmon in Tucson and, and, uh, spent a little over three hours breathing very hard at, um, on average about 8 ,300 feet

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I'd say is somewhere around that above sea level. And, um, 74 % of the oxygen that you have at sea level, that's,

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I found a place online. I can just put the altitude, figure out what the average, average amount of oxygen is there.

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Anyways, uh, so it was a long drive down, long drive back. I, I started into a, a, a class on, uh, the history of the

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Roman empire and, and, uh, actually got, I'm not sure how far into a book that I, Facebook advertising is fairly, fairly effective.

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I bought this book cause I, there's some, um, World War II in pictures or history saying a thing or something on Facebook and, um, uh, they're, uh, they're advertising this book about one of the last battles of World War II is after Hitler was dead, there were still some diehard

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German units that didn't want to give up. And so it's a, it's a, it's a, uh, story about that, not all exciting so far, but maybe it's building up to something.

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I don't know. But the, the book I got all the way through was, uh, Mark Ochtemeyer's book, the

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Bible's yes to same sex marriage. And, uh,

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I suppose on, on one level, I, there's, there's nothing

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I can do about having to read these books. I don't want to be in a situation where someone says, well, if you read such and so, well, well, if you'd read that, you know, but there is absolutely positively nothing new, nothing new.

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I mean, we're just, we're just, we're, we're, we're being flooded, absolutely flooded by a tsunami of these books that there, that nothing new in them at all.

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You start off with some, you know, you pulled the heart strings and you tell stories like this lie, uh, makes really wonder at times, um, but you tell these stories and, and you get the emotions going and what, but you know,

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I, I just, I just couldn't believe that this would be God's will. And so I started thinking about this and I started thinking about what

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Jesus would do and you, you build up this whole narrative thing. And then what I'm starting to see really regularly now is you do that and you don't get to the key texts in the

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Bible until after you've already completely determined the issue. I mean, you've, you've come to all your conclusions, you've, you've, you've the whole nine yards and then you get to Leviticus or you get to, and then it's so easy to find a way around every single one.

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So simple. It's just, and this is a

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PC USA minister. And unless I missed it, it,

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I was distracted at one point while the notes, cause all the notes were there. There weren't very many notes. It's not a deep book, not a, not a deep book.

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Um, and yeah, I, I saw, I saw that mentioned in channel and I, I almost said to you anything but that.

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Uh, I have no idea what, what that's all about. I'm not even sure. I want to know what that's all about.

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Um, anyway, um, once you

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PC USA minister, a PC USA minister and not one reference, like I said, there was one little time during the notes,

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I forgot to mention that the notes are at the end of the book. So sometimes listening to notes is not overly exciting.

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I did not hear a single reference to Robert Gagnon's work, single one, uh,

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Matthew Vines. Oh yeah. Yeah. You bet. James Brownson. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Uh, Robert Gagnon. It's just like, it's just like the other side.

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Isn't even there. Does not exist. There is no dialogue. There's no refutation. And it's just like, really seriously, um, this is, this is supposed to be taken seriously.

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Yep. It's supposed to be taken seriously. Just as the book that, uh, I mentioned to you last year from the, um, vineyard pastor up in Michigan and how the church down in Southern California, that big evangelical church that collapsed on the subject a couple of weeks ago, they mentioned they read that book together.

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They, it was part of their journey. Oh, I really wish

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I didn't have to read those books. I really do, but, uh, there, there will come a day when

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I'm just going to say, forget it. I've, I've, that's enough. Enough. They're only, you can only read, you can only read so much that kind of stuff.

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There's, it eventually is just too corrosive, just, just too corrosive.

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Really is. Oh, before I go to the phone calls, um, two things.

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Please remember to pray for the debate, uh, this Saturday 4 30.

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Um, let me see here. Uh, did it, did it, did he did it, that as my beautiful singing voice there while I bring up the, uh, specifics,

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I'm not, uh, 20, 4 30, 2 0 4 3 0 yellow brick road,

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Walnut, California, 4 30 PM. I'll be debating Sheikh Mustafa Umar, Jesus prophet and slash or God.

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I'm not, you know, I'm not, now that I'm looking at that, Hmm, I, he's both it's and not, or, but he wouldn't say, or you would just say only prophet, whatever.

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I think we all know what the subject is, but as always, the issue is the, uh, the fact that the

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Quran does not have a category for the real Jesus. The, the

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Quranic Jesus is merely a prophet, only a prophet.

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Um, but the author of the Quran doesn't seem to understand.

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May not have ever been exposed to a meaningful presentation of the fullness of who

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Jesus really was from the, uh, from the text of the new Testament. So anyways,

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I'm, I'm really, I've been told there's a possibility of, of doing a number of these with a, with a number of different moms over time.

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And if so, I really, you know, I, I really enjoyed the encounter with Muhammad Musli in California.

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I'd like to have more encounters with Imam Musli. Um, I, I, I want to get to know, uh,

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Sheikh Mustafa Umar. He's only a few years older than my son, actually. Um, um, sounds starting to feel, um, but I think

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I can still take him on a bike though. That's, that's, that's, that's my only advantage, but I want to get to know him.

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I want the, the issues to be clear, but I do when, when, when people finish listening to that debate,

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I want them to not only understand both sides more clearly, but to have a foundation for more conversation to take place amongst the people in the audience and the future.

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I, I, I, I fully reject the idea that there needs to be a nuclear war with blood on the floor or you haven't done your duty.

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And so just in passing, I'll, I'll mention that I, I posted a Facebook article briefly over the weekend, um, in response to a criticism of doing debates with Muslims.

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Um, it was said by someone on Facebook that, um, uh, that Paul never would have done these things.

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I'm not sure what he was doing in the synagogues with the Jews, but he certainly wasn't debating Muslims cause they weren't around yet.

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But the arguments against Jesus as Messiah and son of God, pretty much the same.

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Well, the Muslims may not like this, but they pretty much argue like Jews do.

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Um, Islam is really a return back. It's, it's, it's an unwillingness to go with what the revelation of God and the incarnation it's, it's going back, uh, to where the

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Jews were. And so their arguments made the arguments made the issues we're dealing with are the same issues. And that's why it's not overly surprising to find

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Muslims borrowing the arguments of, uh, many Jewish apologists and things like that.

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So, um, you, you do have clear evidence that the apostle

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Paul did these things, but evidently the suggestion was, um, that I don't present the gospel in my debates.

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Now what's what made me chuckle a little bit about that aside from the fact that the person making the argument,

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I don't think has listened to almost any of my debates on Islam at all. Um, is that, what am

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I very often criticized for, for presenting the gospel in my debates?

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That's, I mean, there are a lot of people say, ah, you know, you, you, you do too much preaching. Well, you know,

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I, I try to, um, honor the debate by sticking with the topic, but I do manage to find a way, uh, almost always to make a pretty clear appeal to the

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Muslims in the audience. And I do so along with the assurance of my respect for them and my love for them.

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And I think that's what bothers a lot of people. I think there are a lot of people that if they're just honest, they just don't like Muslims.

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They just don't like them. And if they're honest, the only thing they're praying for is protection from them.

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They're not praying that God would use them to break through the falsehood that keeps

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Muslims from hearing the truth about Jesus, who they say they love, but who they don't really know.

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I think a lot of people, there's, there's a lot of Islamophobia and you say, oh,

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I can't believe you use that word. Well, I've seen some people that are that way. I mean, there are people that if you even try to suggest that there might be real

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Muslims that do not want to kill you, oh, they're not real

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Muslims and you're a sympathizer and you know, they just go nuts. I'd say it's

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Islamophobia. Yeah. There's a lot of Christophobia out there too, and there's a lot of Christophobia on this part of Muslims if we're just honest ourselves.

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But, um, I will, uh, I will right here and now, uh, confess to, um, to everyone in this audience and you know, this video feed is just the source of, of so many memes, uh, that it's, that it's not even funny.

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Um, I mean, you could find my face in any position as long as you just download the video and just work at it long enough.

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It's just, just the way video works, eyes closed, eyes open mouth, you know, you can do anything you want.

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It's, it's, oh, it's all sorts of stuff. But I want to make a confession here and now, um, before everyone and, um, that is for the sake of Jesus Christ, I love the

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Muslim people. Sorry. Some of you, you know, are very upset about that, but, um,

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I do not do debates with Muslims to embarrass them. I do not do debates with Muslims, um, so that I can stand at the end with my theological sword raised in the air.

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Look what I did. Look what I can do. Um, I try to balance the reality that for the sake of Christ at his command,

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I am commanded to love and to proclaim and to defend.

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Holding them in balance isn't easy. There are times I have to be very straightforward in refuting falsehood.

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Um, I, I think of the time in the mosque in LaNasia, the first time I debated in the mosque in LaNasia, there was a fellow who came up and asked a question.

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He was wearing an FBI cap in South Africa. Can you imagine a baseball cap said

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FBI in South Africa? You didn't know about that? Yeah. Well, I'm not sure what it means in South Africa, but I know what it means here anyway.

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And he, he was a little, I'm not sure what term to use, aggressive.

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And I just had full freedom at that point in the debate to be perfectly aggressive right back at him.

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And it was exactly what he needed. It was exactly, I answered in the exact way that he needed me to answer.

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I mean, I went toe to toe with him and I said, you don't know what you're talking about. And here's why. I did it with a smile.

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I had already established the fact that I respected the Muslims enough, well enough to know what they believe. That I'm not operating on a

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Fox News level understanding of Islamic theology. In fact, a lot of those people in that audience knew

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I probably knew the Quran better than they do. Certainly know the Hadith better than most of them do.

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And so I could go toe to toe with him. And the next night he was at another debate

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I did. And standing behind me, somebody started getting, and he shut them down.

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The Muslim shut them down and said, hey, hey, cool that. And they did. So, the point is, if you're going to fault me for the

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Muslim, well, this fellow actually faulted me for the Muslims not having killed me yet. Well, okay.

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I think my life is in the Lord's hands. That's up to the Lord. They didn't manage to kill

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Paul, remember? He was there for three years in Ephesus and somehow he managed to survive all that, supernaturally.

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But that, you know, it just didn't make any sense to me. But I did,

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I had forgotten that I had created a video a couple years ago, just showing some of the gospel presentations that I've done in Islamic context.

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I could make a much longer one now, because I directed people to about 40, what was it, about 42 minutes, 41, 45 or something like that, into the debate inside the

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Masjid this time in Erasmus. And just listen. Listen to what

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I'm saying. Watch as the camera pans the audience. You see it's, you know, 80%, 85 %

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Muslim seated right there on the floor. And I'm talking about my unworthiness and I'm talking about the imputed righteousness of Christ and sin and whole nine yards.

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I mean, they're hearing stuff they've never heard before. And if I adopted my critics attitude, they never would have heard it either, because he will never get invited to go there.

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Never. Not gonna happen. Not gonna happen. So you tell me.

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You tell me. Just something to think about. So pray for the debate this coming

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Saturday, May 23rd, 4 .30 p .m. I will be flying over.

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So pray for traveling mercies. You know, I don't need to be getting there late and having to rush in and all the rest of that type of stuff.

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You know how it is. But I especially figure from here to L .A., there are so many flights that if one gets canceled, you'll get there eventually.

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So we hope. And then very early the next morning, I'm coming back and it's going to be a long day at church. We've got a lot of stuff going on at church that day.

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So it's going to be going to be interesting. There was something else. I'll skip it.

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We've got got to get the phone calls. But let's start off with Andrew.

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Hi, Andrew. How are you doing, Dr. White? Good. Good. First off,

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I'm not trying to toot my own horn here. But I was I was the guy who put that YouTube thing together.

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And just first off, just so everybody can get off my case, is it right that I put that up?

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I'm not sure. What are you talking about? YouTube thing? What? The playlist, because you said you want everybody to be downloading y 'all's.

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Oh, oh, oh, I remember some some. I remember some issue about this from a couple of weeks ago.

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I don't know why anybody was criticized. There was any criticism or anything.

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I don't know. That's fine with me. I don't care. OK, good. Just wanted it to come from the horse's mouth on air.

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But OK, my thing says it's really two questions, but they.

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First off, you correct me if I'm wrong. You have a biology BA. I majored in biology.

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I made the mistake of taking my BA in Bible rather than BS in biology.

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I should have. Oh, OK. They called up like three days before graduation and said, you can either have your

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BA or your BS. And one of the one of the decisions in my life I have rude the most was they gave me no.

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I mean, it's literally which one do you want? No time to think about it all. And I took the

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BA and I shouldn't have. I should have taken the BS. But anyways, I finished all the work for it. So, yeah.

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OK, cool. Well, then, OK, considering that you're both a extremely theologically minded and you do know the science behind this, at least on some level.

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Yeah. What how should we view people? I mean, there's the whole LGBT controversy that's going on right now.

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However, there is one group that I think should be addressed properly. And I think you may be qualified to answer this.

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The I, the intersex people who have genetic defects to the point where they cannot properly be considered male or female definitively, like the

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Methodism and all the other issues of that. So coming from. About biology and somebody who is both theologically minded, how would you feel that we should be addressing those people who really fit into neither category?

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Well, let's let's recognize that we're talking about an incredibly small number of people.

37:45

I mean, of course, I mean, percentage wise, this this really doesn't have anything to do with LGBT because they just they're so few.

37:54

It is such a rare disorder that they're often held up as well. OK, yeah.

38:01

And that's and that's the problem. If you can take what is universally recognized as a in many cases, severe genetic disorder, very often it has has great impact upon the health of such individuals and is is frequently associated with other defects that that impact their overall health and longevity and everything else.

38:29

If you can take that and make that normative. If you can take something like that and say we should let a 45 year old guy with male anatomy into the woman's bathroom so that we're all really nice people, you've lost you've lost your mind morally and ethically and everything else.

38:47

It's absurd. But laying that aside, obviously, if you have an individual who has genetic disorders of any kind, the church has always sought to extend ministry to such people.

39:02

You you have blind people, you have deaf people, you have people who can't walk, you have people who have all sorts of things that fundamentally impact their ability to function in a normative way.

39:16

And the church has always viewed such people and in such a way as those require the extension of mercy and grace.

39:25

And obviously, the best way to handle that is within a Christian family so that that Christian family is going to be in a

39:34

Christian church. And there can be, especially during formative years, that kind of spiritual guidance to where you have numbers of people who observing the situation, knowing what the situation is intimately, can determine the best course of action for someone like that so they're not left alone.

39:59

I mean, every situation is going to be different depending upon the manifestation of the genetic symptoms and so on and so forth.

40:05

And but in any situation, I would say that from a

40:11

Christian perspective, the desire is going to be to determine for that individual what would be the best genetic

40:20

I'm the best gender fit and not come up with the idea of, well, let's just come up with something new just to satisfy our being new.

40:32

In years past, the idea would be, well, is there would it be better if we functioned as a male or functioned as a female?

40:42

And it was accepted that those would be the appropriate norms just simply to allow the person to have the best opportunity of a full life and of function within society and even function within the church.

40:56

The idea was never, well, everybody else has to change for the tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny minority.

41:03

The idea was what's the best way to fit in and hence to experience the fullness that life would have to offer.

41:11

So there's no cookie cutter answer to that. I mean, I've, at least to my knowledge, never met a person who actually had that.

41:21

I mean, I've read about it in my genetics books in college, but I've never actually encountered anybody in that situation.

41:29

But I can see, especially today, outside of a Christian context and a

41:35

Christian worldview, my, that would be a very, very, very difficult, very difficult situation to face.

41:43

Exactly. That's why I asked. Outside of having that kind of support system.

41:49

And if your parents didn't have a Christian worldview or had a worldview that would allow it to be just a throw everything up in the air and figure something out, man, that would be very difficult.

42:01

Right. Right. The other question is still in the same arena, but a little bit different.

42:06

You said at the beginning of your response to Dr. Gussie that you said that the free grace theology has thrown open the doors for the

42:19

LGBT movement. Am I correct in that? Well, I forget what it was he said, but certainly a person who does not hold to the concept of the necessity of repentance and faith is going to be fundamentally hamstrung in seeking to respond to the apologetic that is being presented by David Gussie and that viewpoint.

42:51

Because if you don't have submission to Lordship of Christ, if all you have is a content, less repentance, less faith, then there's no reason to be submitted to the

43:05

Lordship of Christ and hence to his divine commands in regards to gender role or marriage or anything else.

43:12

So, yeah, I mean, that movement isn't that. That movement has certainly,

43:18

I think, gutted a portion of evangelicalism in its ethics and its morality.

43:24

Most definitely. Definitely. Well, previous to my being saved and coming to the Reformed faith,

43:29

I was involved in that, and definitely I've seen my old church, even among my family, and talking about these issues and say, yeah, obviously it's wrong, but these people are still

43:38

Christians, so I can at least personally say that, yeah, you're right, it's been gutted. That being said, I mean,

43:44

I've seen that Bob Wilkins debate more times than I care to mention, but anybody who looked at that knows that that was a debate basically arguing with a wall.

43:56

That was a man who simply couldn't get off his narrative, and it was, to be honest, pathetic on his end.

44:02

Would you ever be willing to debate anybody else from that perspective? For example, Lance Blatham, Dwight, Charles Ryrie, Zane Hodges, Charles Stanley, Tony Evans, or anything like that?

44:16

It's interesting that you put Evans in that viewpoint. I don't know much about Evans, but when

44:22

I hear that name, I think liberal. Am I wrong about that? He's not so much liberal as he is, well, it ultimately comes down to his theology.

44:36

When it comes to his belief on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his belief on the inerrancy of the

44:42

Bible, he would say yes, but because of his so shallow, shallow, shallow view of what the

44:49

Gospel does for a person practically, that he says, okay, basically we need to turn to all these very secular means to help people grow, like psychology and things of that sort.

45:02

So in that sense, he would seem extremely liberal, because his view of regeneration and the power of the

45:08

Holy Spirit over the believer's lives is so low. He wasn't the one that was on Fox News.

45:15

Did he just put a book out on why Jesus died? Was that Tony Evans? I couldn't tell you.

45:23

I don't follow him that closely, but I do know that about him. That may have been the guy I was listening to on Fox News.

45:29

I sort of interpreted him as emergent, personally. Anyways, that's not really what you're asking. I suppose,

45:35

I mean, I don't know, I haven't heard of these folks doing much in the way of debates.

45:41

It might be better to be focused upon something a little bit more exegetical or something, you know,

45:48

James Chapter 2. That'd be fun. That'd be fun to try to get, you know, watch the human contortion machine kick in on James Chapter 2.

45:56

But I suppose, but it's not something I'm looking for. It's not a subject that I really have a lot of focus on.

46:06

Well, I mean, the only reason I would say that is, I mean, at least personally, I would suggest that it's because, at least from my context,

46:12

I come from the biggest, the church I went to when I was young was the biggest pre -great church network in the city of Austin, Go Country Public Church, and I've consistently seen, and that's the response to the homosexual culture, is that yes, they're still saved, you just need to convince them that it's wrong so they can be, you know, super Christians and everything like that.

46:34

Wow. And I can just see very, very, I mean, they'll go, I mean, they'll call them

46:42

Christians, and that's the issue that I see, that I can just, and I'm only 21 years old, but I can very easily see how.

46:54

Yeah. Yeah. Andrew, your connection's breaking up on us and we're only getting about half of what you're saying now, so I'm not sure if it's a cell issue or just what it is, but yeah, it's a possibility.

47:06

I mean, I think it is a gospel issue, and so if someone were to, you know, really, you know,

47:14

I'm just not sure when it would happen right now, but yeah, it's, I'm not closing the door to it.

47:21

I don't know that I'd ever debate Wilkins again, but it's a possibility.

47:27

Hey, Andrew, I gotta get there. Bales, before the time runs out, thank you for your phone call today. Let's talk with Alan.

47:33

Alan, you better make this good. I better make it good? Yep. Okay, well, it's kind of on topic.

47:42

There's been a lot of talk lately about gay wedding cakes.

47:48

There has been for the last couple years. There's no such thing as a gay wedding cake. Well, you know what I'm talking about when a same -sex couple is pretending to, quote -unquote, get married.

47:57

Yes, I know. I go to the baker, and I had an issue,

48:02

I think I told you about a couple years ago, where there was a gay, quote -unquote, wedding card that I refused to sign, but here's my question.

48:11

I saw something recently on Pulpit & Pen about Andy Stanley, and I didn't look too much into it, but I've heard varying different opinions on this, but do you think that it is universally a sin for the

48:27

Christian who is a baker by profession to bake that cake for the mirage, as Doug Wilson likes to call it?

48:37

I would just like to know your thoughts on that. I do not see how a believing

48:48

Christian can... I don't see how a believing Christian can attend a profaning of marriage ceremony.

49:01

If the Christian does not believe that they are in any way using their skills to in any way participate in this event, then

49:16

I guess I can see how they wouldn't care one way or the other. It's difficult for me to see how that is the case, given that this is a part of the celebration, it is a part of the profaning of the marriage ceremony.

49:31

I certainly couldn't. I'm not going to bother to argue with a person that says, hey, it's no different than providing the chairs or working at the electric company that happens to be providing the light for the electricity for the event, either.

49:53

Obviously, I see a difference, and those bakers who have objected consider their actions to reflect their personal beliefs, and that then becomes the issue.

50:12

The question becomes, do we yet have the liberty and freedom in this nation to not be forced to do things that are against our conscience?

50:20

Well, we're already being forced to do things that are against our conscience. We already know that much of the tax money extorted from us on a regular basis is going to go for all sorts of illicit, illegal, immoral things.

50:39

But you're talking here, marriage is clearly something where you are a witness and you are a participant and etc.,

50:48

etc. So, I certainly could never attend, even be a witness at a profaning of marriage ceremony.

50:58

Eventually, I'll have David on, who did the program down in Australia, where the living with the enemy thing, because he did go to the...

51:09

Grammar? Yeah. He did go to the quote -unquote wedding of the two guys that he had in his house and he was in their house, blah, blah, blah.

51:22

I couldn't do it. He was part of the show. Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't do it either. I mean, you know, and I've heard the argument from some

51:30

Christians that have said, well, certainly if it's violating your conscience, yeah, don't go.

51:35

It's a sin. But then others who would say that they can go...

51:41

I heard Todd Friel recently talk about this. He said... He talked about...

51:47

I can't remember the exact address of the scripture. It's in one of John's epistles, might have been 2nd or 3rd

51:54

John, where he talks about giving approval to such things, not letting certain people into your home, because by doing so, you're giving approval to such things.

52:01

And he appealed, I think, to that scripture to say that maybe this is something that the church universally should look at regarding whether it's a sin or not by participating in...

52:14

You know, I mean, it may be a stretch, but... I think it's a stretch because that text is talking about the fact that you had wandering evangelists at that time, traveling evangelists, and by taking them into your home, you were providing them with a place for...

52:31

You'd provide them with food, a place to sleep. You're helping them to spread their message in your area.

52:38

And it's different than today. I mean, you could have a missionary, more a missionary in your house. You're not feeding them.

52:43

You're not providing them with a base of operations. You're actually taking them off the street and witnessing to them.

52:49

So it's a very different context. I don't see how that context would have anything to do with this particular issue.

52:56

But the government may make all of this moot. The totalitarians that want to make us all dress the same, think the same, and everything else.

53:07

There are lots of them out there. Hey, we're running out of time. Appreciate the phone call. Take it easy back there.

53:13

We'll see you. All right. We'll see you. And let's talk with Rich. Hi, Rich. Hey there.

53:20

Thank you for taking my call. Yes, sir. The question I have is a

53:25

Romans 9 question. I know that... Never heard of it. What's Romans 9? Is that a chapter in the

53:31

Bible? I'm not familiar with it. I know you need some Romans 9 questions in your life.

53:39

But it's something I haven't heard your take on. And it's Romans 9, 1 through 3.

53:44

And in light of Moses' statement in Exodus 32, 32, where Moses says that he would be blotted out of the book.

53:57

What is your take on Paul's position when he said that he could wish himself to be a curse separated from Christ?

54:06

Well, he's explaining the statement. He wants everyone to understand that despite the tremendous opposition and hatred that has been shown to him by his fellow countrymen.

54:22

I mean, he's been let down from windows and baskets. And he's had all sorts of false testimony.

54:29

And he's had to live in prison for years on end. And there have been people who've taken oaths that they won't eat until he's dead.

54:37

Must be pretty skinny by now. That kind of stuff. He says, he starts off,

54:44

I'm speaking the truth in Christ. I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart.

54:49

My love for my fellow countrymen is real.

54:57

So much so that if I could give myself in their place, I would.

55:02

And it's interesting that in the debate a few weeks ago, it was said that that makes

55:08

Paul more loving than God. Which, again, demonstrates that someone who would make that argument is functioning on the idea that there cannot be a creative decree of God.

55:20

God cannot have a purpose in what he does or absolute knowledge of future events or anything else.

55:27

Because his own view of deity would collapse on a number of occasions if God actually has exhaustive future foreknowledge.

55:37

Which, again, which is why I say open theism is the only consistent form of Arminianism.

55:44

As long as you admit that God knows the future, that takes him out of the creaturely realm.

55:49

And that kind of argument becomes a canard because we're dealing with someone who is totally unlike us.

55:59

But anyway, you want to say something? Can I be just a little bit more specific then? Because in the past,

56:05

I have read this and I have my own notes on it. So just to be a little bit more specific. In your opinion, do you see

56:12

Paul as being more idiomatic with his language here or literal? Well, I don't,

56:18

Paul doesn't believe that he can be anathema. Exactly, exactly. That's really, that was a conclusion

56:23

I came to as well. So when it was brought up in the debate, I didn't see it as being a parallel at all.

56:32

So I've always read it as being just an idiom because especially several times in Romans 8, 8 .18,

56:39

not to mention how he closes out the chapter of 8. Just talking about how we are conquerors and everything.

56:45

He knows for sure that he cannot be. So the fact where he says, I wish that I could,

56:50

I always read that as being an idiom. Like, I'm so mad I could spit. Yes, I am that mad, but I am not spitting.

56:58

Well, yeah, I mean, you coming anathema, he's not, he's not saying now, you know,

57:06

I'm actually praying that God would separate me from Christ and make me a substitute or something along those lines.

57:12

That's not, he's not saying this is, this is actually possible. He's simply saying my, my,

57:19

I am so sincere in my desire to see my fellow Jews saved that if this were possible,

57:27

I would do it, but not a possibility. It's just, it's just the point being that I really, truly have pain and unceasing grief in my heart when

57:37

I see the hardness of, of my fellow Jews and their unwillingness to hear and their unwillingness to submit.

57:44

And, and, you know, that should be our, that should always be our feeling no matter who we're talking to.

57:52

When we see people rejecting the gospel and the grace of Christ, our hearts should be filled with, with, with the same, the same grief.

58:04

Yeah. That was really it. Okay. I do appreciate it, sir.

58:09

Thank you so much. All right. Thank you very much for your phone call. All right. God bless. Well, we're pretty much out of time.

58:17

So, Matt, we'll get to you next time around. Well, you want to go ahead, go ahead and drag the, go ahead and drag a few more things across the screen while you're at it.

58:27

All right. All right. Well, we'll, we'll go a little long here. All right, Matt. I'm going to tell you something, man.

58:32

I'm starting to get a little hungry. So, you know, you're cutting into my lunch here. So, you know, this better be good.

58:39

That's all I can say. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm sorry. The pressure's on. The pressure's on. Don't, you know, let's...

58:47

Okay. Well, I'm glad the caller before me changed the subject to Romans 9. I was at the debate that she had with Leighton Flowers.

58:55

And I was just, I was in contact with her before and since the debate.

59:00

And one thing that I've seen, you know, after the debate, he's accusing

59:06

Calvinists of being, of eisegesis and of not understanding that he's talking about a different subject, you know, and I think that subject centers around his noble purpose.

59:21

Oh, yeah. That people are being used to carry the message of Christ. And when

59:26

I've talked to him, there's just no answer for where that comes into the text, where it's found in the text, any of that.

59:34

I know he said verse 16 was referring back to verse 6, that it in verse 16, which, you know,

59:42

I looked in the Greek, there is no, there's not a sin, there's not any pronoun that could be referring back to an antecedent in verse 6.

59:50

But then verse 6 was based on verses 4 and 5. And it seems that this noble purpose of carrying a message, it's nowhere in there.

01:00:04

Well, not only that, Matt, I didn't have a chance to ask him because, you know, just the nature of the debate.

01:00:10

But I don't remember the prophets jumping all over Israel for not having fulfilled the noble purpose.

01:00:21

Where is the, where are the prophets saying, why haven't you been sending missionaries to the

01:00:27

Babylonians? Why haven't you been sending missionaries to the Egyptians? I don't remember the prophets getting angry at Israel for this alleged ignoring of the noble purpose.

01:00:41

Now, if you want to say that God has chosen Israel for a noble purpose, that's true.

01:00:50

But what was that noble purpose? It was to bring the Messiah into the world. I mean, they were to be

01:00:57

God's people and to bring the Messiah into the world. And the Messiah has now come and even he talks about the hardening.

01:01:08

It's a weird thing that he uses to come up with an entire new exegetical or hermeneutical, how you're supposed to deal with John, basically.

01:01:17

But now there's been this hardening. But the idea that what

01:01:22

Romans 9 is talking about is some unfulfilled evangelistic calling on the part of the

01:01:30

Jewish people that now they're not going to get to do, though Paul is doing that all over the world.

01:01:38

Yeah, what you do is you create a system outside the text and then you read in the text.

01:01:46

That's what eisegesis is all about. And, you know, I sort of figure when you do a debate, you put your position out there and, you know, there's some place for further discussion,

01:02:04

I suppose. But if you really didn't get it out there well enough during the debate that you have to really be spending a whole lot of time after the debate saying that everybody else misunderstood me.

01:02:17

What can I say? Yeah. My point is that, you know, in our view, everything in verse 4, or at least the majority of verse 4, is said to belong to the elect in chapter 8.

01:02:32

Yeah, adoption, yeah. Children, adoption of sons, glorification, all these eternal material logical promises are said to belong to the elect.

01:02:44

And then verse 6 is saying the word of God hasn't failed because these things don't belong to the children that are of the flesh.

01:02:56

They belong to the children according to promise. Now, be careful. You might get accused of stuff if you say that.

01:03:07

Trust me. It's a whole different area.

01:03:13

But there are those that, you remember that movie that came out last year? What you just said is understood by many people as being why the

01:03:24

Reformation was not completed. You know what I'm talking about, right? No, no.

01:03:30

Oh, the whole thing about quote -unquote replacement theology and all the rest of that stuff and the fulfillment on the part of God's elect or the promises to Israel.

01:03:40

And if you actually view that, then you're pretty much responsible for the Holocaust and everything else.

01:03:46

Oh my goodness. Kind of a logical leap there. Well, logic is not the biggest part of some of those folks, but that's a whole other issue.

01:03:56

Anyway, no, I agree with you. I agree with you completely. And it is good to notice that the terminology that is used in verse 4 has direct parallels to what is described in verse 8 and elsewhere.

01:04:12

Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, which our view flows directly from chapter 8 and his view introduces something that's not found anywhere in the text.

01:04:26

And he insists that the promise being referred to is from Genesis 12 -3, but Genesis 12 -3 is never quoted in Romans 9.

01:04:37

Instead, you've got Genesis 17, 18, and 21, which all deal directly with the rejection of Ishmael and the choosing of Isaac, who didn't even exist.

01:04:50

You know, very personal. I will raise him up, you will name him Isaac. And I'll make an everlasting covenant with him and his descendants.

01:04:59

Whereas, I have no idea where he gets the claim that his view is more personal.

01:05:07

Well, yeah, that's just a rather obvious category error because his argument there is that God is dealing with us as we are, therefore it's more personal.

01:05:19

But again, when you really push him, what he's saying is God chose a plan and a group and then he interacts with individuals who are willing to humble themselves and believe, and so that's where the whole anthropology thing comes in.

01:05:40

He has hearts of stone that are able to willingly become hearts of flesh.

01:05:47

I find that utterly impossible, but it's necessary, it's foundational, and he draws that from considerations from other things.

01:05:54

Well, God said over here, direct exegesis of text. I mean, I'm sorry, when you look at the isogenical hermeneutic that flowers, crushes onto the

01:06:07

Gospel of John to the utter destruction of so many of the promises that Christians have believed in, and maybe he's just more than happy to say, yep,

01:06:20

Christians have been wrong all along, I figured it out. There are folks like that, but when you see a willingness to do that with John, you shouldn't be surprised the same thing is happening in Romans 9.

01:06:30

Oh, yeah. I tried to push him off. Where is any mention of carrying a message?

01:06:39

Where is it in Romans 9? Where is it in the surrounding context? Where is it in the quotes that Paul provides from Genesis and it's nowhere?

01:06:51

And if you can't point to it, that's the key to understanding Romans 9, and it's not stated anywhere in Romans 9 or the context of the quotes that Paul uses in Romans 9, then how is it anything other than exegesis to introduce that to Romans 9 and then say, this explains away everything that seems to be saying what you believe.

01:07:15

Right, right. Well, thanks for being there, Matt. I hope you survived the trip home and that wonderful thunderstorm that we experienced.

01:07:22

Oh, yeah, yeah. I ended up sitting in the truck for a little while waiting on the rain to stop. It was something else.

01:07:28

But anyways, it was great to be there and thanks for your phone call today. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

01:07:34

Bye -bye. All right. Thanks to everybody who called in today. Well, except for Alan. You've got to toss him in prosperity or something just for the fun of it.

01:07:43

Just keep him under control. But Lord willing, we'll see you on Thursday.

01:07:49

Remember the debate. If you know folks down in Southern California, debate 4 .30 this coming

01:07:54

Saturday afternoon and your prayers for that. Appreciate it as well. We'll see you on Thursday.