Dreams of Jesus

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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. On a Thursday afternoon working on an article for Credo Magazine on the subject of purgatory, almost done,
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I've only got, actually I've only got about 700 words space left and I'm not sure, it may go a little bit long, but anyway, need to get that finished, it's taken longer than I expected it to.
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I've noticed that I'm a little fuzzy brain still from the trip, it's only been a week and I think it was the working on the book, working, working, working, working, working and then jump on a plane and go over there and debate, debate, debate and maybe when
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I was 30, that doesn't work so well when you're pushing 50, it takes a little while to feel like you're human again to be perfectly honest with you.
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And then, and then I've got distractions during the program, look at Squirrel DL tries to distract Doc by juggling chainsaws in channel.
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I mean, that is, that is truly distracting. When someone up there in the, where it's snowing, it's snowing, or it was snowing anyways, up there in Montana and places like that, where I'm going to be going in, uh, what is that?
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Is that May? Is it May of next year? I think I'm going May of next year. Someone was suggesting I should debate
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Chris Rosebaugh and I said, wouldn't it be better if Chris and I like debated somebody else?
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I just think that would be better and they're gonna try to work something like that out, but I'll be perfectly honest with you.
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Yes, it's in May. I'll be perfectly honest with you. The chances that the folks up there are going to Reformation Montana are gonna be able to actually find anybody who would actually debate me and debate us on that subject.
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Very, very small. Very, very small. It is not easy to find meaningful debate opponents.
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It really isn't. And so I, good, good providence to you.
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Good providence to you. The chances are, in my experience, especially liberal clergymen who are very brave behind a keyboard posting stuff for, uh, you know, newspapers and the like, uh, generally don't want to actually defend themselves in, uh, in meaningful public debate.
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So I really sort of doubt that that's going to happen. And yes, uh, pirate Christian radio man is mysterious.
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Uh, that's why we couldn't, someone suggests we should debate baptism.
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And I've debated infant baptism against Presbyterians because I understand what
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Presbyterians believe about infant baptism, but with Lutherans, I'm not sure what
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Lutherans mean. I don't know what they, what they believe about infant baptism with the Lutherans. Uh, and you know, whenever you debate a
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Lutheran, eventually they're just gonna look at you and go, but it's a mystery and you just give up there. So anyway, that's probably why it'd be better for the two of us to debate somebody else.
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So that'll be May of next year. You can start making your travel plans now, uh, to visit the sunny, beautiful, uh,
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I'm not sure where it is in Montana. Montana is a big place. I mean, it could be, it doesn't really matter where it is because you're gonna have to get there.
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It's just so few people, uh, up there anyway. Um, it's the wide open, the wide open spaces big time.
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So we will, uh, Squirrel says that Obama will be looking for a gig by May.
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So maybe we can have a debate with, uh, with him. That's a possibility, I guess. Anyways, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.
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Like I said, I was, uh, I'm working on an article on purgatory. It is interesting.
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It's, it's a, it's a sad commentary. I guess every generation has this. Helena, Montana, the capital.
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Yes. The capital, which probably has fewer people than one of the suburbs around here has in it.
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But, uh, it's, uh, oh yeah. Yeah. No, no, it's always about anyway. Uh, I think every generation has this type of thing happen, but one of the books that I chose to use is sort of a,
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I don't know, a launching off point for this article that I'm writing on purgatory is
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Jerry Wall's new book on purgatory. And it's interesting that Jerry Walls is one of the coauthors of Why I'm Not a
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Calvinist. And I do see a direct relationship between the kind of Arminian Wesleyan evangelicalism that Walls would represent, who is an anti -Calvinist.
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And this idea of a non -satisfactory purgatory.
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When I say non -satisfactory, he rejects the idea that, that purgatory, that the sufferings of purgatory would need to be satisfactory in the sense of forgiveness of sins.
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They'd have to be only in reference to sanctification, which of course is, means you have to reject what
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Rome is actually dogmatically defined in purgatory. But, you know, there are people who are always looking for this type of thing.
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And it makes sense from a Wesleyan Arminian perspective.
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It doesn't make any sense if you have a particular atonement, the atonement is the purpose of God in Jesus Christ, et cetera, et cetera.
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There's a purpose of God in the election of a particular people. There's just no place for purgatory at that point.
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You don't find any sound reform men going, you know, I think we need a doctrine of purgatory. You know, maybe not have had in the past, but it's a good thing to think about.
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And it doesn't work that way. And it comes from other sources.
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And I think that is something that is useful to us. Not going to make any comments on what took place last night, other than to say, again, as Al Mohler has put it, that's not debate.
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That's political theater. It is, I don't know,
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I recognize the benefit, for example, of what took place last night.
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And if you're listening on the podcast at a later point, last night was the first of the 2012 presidential debates.
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This was between Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Hussein Obama. And there was benefit because, you know, one thing
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I've said many, many times, I have often said debates are one of the few places where you can finally hear both sides face to face addressing the same issue.
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Well, at least you're supposed to. If you want to just totally derail a debate, then you just go off and do your own thing and no one can really control you.
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And that has happened in some of the debates that I've had. It just sort of demonstrates what's really going on with people.
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But anyway, so it was useful on that level. It was useful on that level.
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But it wasn't a formal debate. I mean, you don't have the even time.
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You don't have. In fact, I think I saw something that said that the president got like five or six minutes more than Mitt Romney did.
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And you've got, you know, the moderators are almost guard carrying communists.
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But anyway, and then you've got the spin and all the rest of the stuff that goes with it. So it's not like it's a formal debate on that level.
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But it certainly was political theater. No, no two ways about that. And on that level, it's certainly for people who care.
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And there are many people. Look, there are many people on both sides don't care what the outcome of these things are.
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There are certain people that will not vote for Barack Obama for nothing. And there are certain people who will not vote for Mitt Romney for nothing.
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And the idea that they're going to be rationally compelled by the arguments of the other side is just just silly.
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It's just as silly as thinking that there are people, you know, that I can walk into a debate and get those young guys at Twin Holm Baptist Church in London sitting down front yelling
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Allahu Akbar to listen to what I'm saying about the transmission of the New Testament text.
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I can't. I can show them respect by knowing what they believe. I can challenge them.
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I can say, you need to think about what you're doing and how you're reacting. And so I can do all that stuff. But they're not going to listen.
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I have to say, and I know it. So I'm there for a very different group. And in the same way,
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I think these political theater debates, likewise, will, you know, have a certain audience.
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And the better you know that audience, the more effective you're going to be. And so what's that?
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Can I move that to the political line? I don't know. Anyways, what I want to do on the program today is, having already gone through 10 minutes, is, well,
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I'll start taking phone calls in a little while. I see that there are already some calling in, and we'll take others if you wish.
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But Gregory down there is saying kids might want to call back because I'm not going to go to calls immediately.
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And I imagine he's probably paying through the nose for that call. So he might want to give us a call back because I won't be taking calls right away.
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But we will. But first, I wanted to get back, actually, to something
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I had been doing before I headed to London. I wanted to finish before I got to London, and I did not. And that was reviewing
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Paul Williams' comments on the debate that he had with, if I recall, the gentleman's name was
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Chris Green. And we're getting toward the end of his opening presentation. And I've been going through his comments, not pretending that Paul Williams could care less what
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I have to say. But it is interesting. I will say one thing. I never thought of Paul Williams the whole time
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I was in England. I just, in fact, even at the debates,
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I didn't even think to look. But I have absolutely zero evidence whatsoever that I didn't expect him.
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I would have been very surprised. Had I seen him there, obviously, he's had somewhat of a change of heart as to the benefits of public debate on these issues and clearly does not have any interest in accurately representing
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Christianity, or at least the Christianity he allegedly was a part of, but we all know was not a part of in any true sense.
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But anyways, so I never really thought of Paul Williams while I was there and did not have the pleasure of encountering him in any of the debates that we did.
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But I did want to continue to respond. We have provided, I think, a rather full response.
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We've been looking at the texts as he has been raising them. We've been looking at his mishandling of the text, the shallow nature of it, and just the bad arguments.
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I mean, when you again, at least on this trip, of course, there weren't any debates that would have brought this up, but at least on this trip,
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I didn't have to hear a Muslim saying, oh, well, Jesus can't be God because he didn't know who touched him when he was going to heal
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Jairus's daughter. He had to turn around and say, who touched me? I was ignorant, and that means he wasn't God. At least
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I'm thankful to say we didn't have to hear that one. And my hope remains that maybe we'll finally communicate it to our
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Muslim friends with MDI and IERA and any of the other Islamic apologetics,
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Dawah organizations, that that's not a good argument. You're not reading the text real well.
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You need to do a little more in -depth study because that's a really bad argument.
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And it's just one of the most simplistic errors I think I've ever heard. And every time you use it, you're just shooting your credibility in the foot or the leg.
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Well, actually, the head, actually. I'm thinking of it. So anyways, I want to get back to Paul Williams for a while, and then we'll start taking phone calls.
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You might want to get on board about half past, something like that. We'll see how it goes.
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But let's get back to Paul Williams. And we should be getting close to the end of his opening statement here.
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It is worth noting that even he clearly stated that God alone possesses immortality.
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I'll quote here. God, who is the blessed and only sovereign, the king of kings, the lord of lords.
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It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light whom no one has ever seen or can see.
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Well, and of course, we do believe that. If that is meant to mean, well, and that excludes
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Jesus, it again ignores the reality of the Incarnation and, of course, the possible antecedents to the discussion.
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But again, Muslims just are so stuck on Unitarianism that they can't really interact with Trinitarians very well.
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Because if you will, but think about what we're saying, it's like saying when Jesus said there's only one true
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God. Well, of course, that's what we believe. We are monotheists. And so when God becomes man, does he become an atheist?
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Does he start talking about other gods? Again, just the assumption of Unitarianism really vitiates the argumentation that many of these gentlemen present.
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But I can understand that with an Adnan Rashid. He's never been a Christian. He doesn't understand
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Christian theology. But Paul Williams, you know,
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I think this is what bothers some people to hear someone who claims to have once been a Christian. Now, we know the man was never regenerate.
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We know that it was not a true faith. But still, here is a man who attended
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Christian church. You should at least have the knowledge to recognize that the argumentation you're presenting is not actually directed at the best that Christianity has to offer.
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And who would ever want to specifically direct your argumentation to the worst that the other side has to offer?
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I mean, sometimes you have to deal with that. But that's not the situation here. This is a debate against Chris Green.
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This is against someone who is, well, interestingly enough, no more of a scholar than I am from his perspective.
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Remember, of course, Paul Williams took some shots along those lines. But why shoot for the lowest common denominator?
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Don't. I'll never understand that. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. 1
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Timothy 6 .15. Immortal means God does not die.
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Therefore, anyone who believes that Jesus died cannot believe that Jesus is God. Now, this is just,
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I think, I think pretty much everybody in the audience can fully understand how that is absolutely fallacious argumentation.
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We do not believe that, first of all, you have to define what death means.
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And then you have to define who we're talking about. Are we saying that Jesus, as God, ceased to exist?
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No. We are saying that Jesus, as the God -man, if he's going to be man, then he must be able to die.
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You see? So it ignores the reality of the Incarnation. Clearly, either Paul Williams never understood the
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Incarnation, which is most probable. Which is most probable. I mean, let's at least give him the benefit of the doubt here that the man's ignorant and not just dishonest.
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I mean, dishonesty is a possibility. But let's try to go for the less aggressive thing.
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And he, like, sadly, many evangelicals, do not and did not understand the
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Incarnation. That's why, hey, you know, it's that season of the year coming up again. It is my favorite season of the year because I am absolutely convinced of the intimate connection that exists between the
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Incarnation and the offering of Atonement. The Incarnation, and no,
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I'm not becoming an Eastern Orthodox person, but they do have an appropriate emphasis.
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They're very strongly Trinitarian. They have appropriate emphasis upon the glory of the
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Incarnation. And every year, I am once again, you have the opportunity to reflect upon the
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Incarnation of Jesus Christ. And to think, I hope and pray that I, I just don't think it's possible that I could ever spend so much time considering this and so much study and preach so many sermons on the subject because I try to come up with something new each year in reflecting upon this.
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I just don't believe that I could ever cease to be just amazed as a child at the idea of the
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Creator of this vast universe entering into His own creation.
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It is just amazing. And to recognize that He does so out of love, that He does so out of seeking glory of the
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Triune God, and yet that allows Him to express His love for His creation.
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It's just, it's just absolutely amazing. But sadly, it is something that for a lot of people who call themselves
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Christians, the Incarnation is little more than, you know, a Christmas play.
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Oh wow, Jesus was sort of special. The idea of Incarnation and the real meaning of the concept is lost on many, clearly, clearly was lost on Paul Williams because that kind of argumentation he just gave is just, it's just not even, again, it's not even close.
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It's either based upon ignorance or he's just simply doing what he knows will convince the base, get the base to like his argumentation, but not actually have any meaningful impact upon anyone else outside of that narrow base of his supporters.
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Such a belief would contradict what Paul says here. Furthermore, to say that God died is a blasphemy against God.
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Who would run the world if God died? I guess he wasn't a Trinitarian either. Again, false assumption of what death means, means non -existence, which is not even the
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Muslim view, let alone the Christian view, and he knows that. Secondly, he knows the Father didn't die. He knows the
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Spirit didn't die. And so why even raise these kinds of things? Why, why, this is embarrassing.
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I mean, I know that our Muslim friends listen. I know that some of you who listen, some of you
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Muslims who listen, like Itaz Ahmed, you don't, you're not listening for truth's sake.
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You're a dishonest man. You're only listening to try to find something to put into a video that you can twist and turn because you know you cannot actually engage in what
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I'm saying. So you're a dishonest, they're dishonest people. But then they're honest people.
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And I know you're listening. And I just have to ask you the question, why, why this kind of embarrassing dawah? This is embarrassing dawah.
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Here's, here's a guy who many of you look to as, you know, just right up there at the top.
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This is embarrassing. I mean, you know where else I heard this very same question.
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I didn't queue this up because it's been a while since I listened to it. But that's the exact same question that a child asked about, uh, how did he say how old he was?
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Somewhere between 10 and 12 that a child asked at the debate with Adnan Rashid and Jay Smith at Trinity College in Dublin.
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And you could tell it was a child's voice, you know, and, and basically asked, well, you know, who was Ryan Universe when
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Jesus died? Now I can understand why a child would ask that question. They don't understand.
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This is Paul Williams. This is a man who claims to have been studying theology as a Christian. And the young people at my church could answer this.
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If they've been listening during catechism class. Well, it's not the father who died. It's not the, it's not the spirit who died.
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And it wasn't the son in his deity who died. And death doesn't mean non -existence anyways. So what's the argument?
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And yet, here's another, here's very practical thing here, folks. Very practical thing.
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Just because it's really bad dawah doesn't mean that you're not going to hear it very often.
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And when you hear it, you still have to be prepared to give a patient response because you may not know the person you're talking to.
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You don't know what their background is. They may have been in dialogue with really ignorant Christians that have confused them with their answers.
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You don't know. That's not the case with Paul Williams. I mean, we can hold him to the highest standards.
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This is the guy who is part of the very founding of MDI. This is a guy who's standing out there saying,
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I represent Islam and respond to it. I was a former Christian. I know these things.
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Well, when he doesn't, then you hold him accountable for it. So Paul believed that God does not die.
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Paul also said in the passage that God dwells in unapproachable light, that no one has seen
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God or can see him. Paul knew that many people had seen Jesus. Yet Paul can say that no one has seen
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God because Paul was sure that Jesus is not God. Now, this is absolutely amazing.
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Paul was sure that Jesus is not God. Now, if you're going to make that kind of a statement, first of all, notice where he's quoting from.
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He's quoting from one of the pastoral epistles. Now, if I were to quote from any of the pastoral epistles, what would the likely response be from someone like Paul Williams?
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In fact, I was noticing something on MDI's posting of the
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Sami Zatati debate from a week ago, two weeks ago last night.
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Has it been two weeks? Wow, that's amazing. Two weeks ago last night, we debated Surah 4, verse 157.
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And again, I thank Sami for doing that. I think it'll be a very useful debate. And I'm glad it's out there and looking forward to doing more.
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But the comments on the...
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Now, you know, we don't do comments because you end up with atheists spewing out their profanities and all the rest is garbage.
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And I just don't want that stuff, I just don't want to provide a platform for that kind of foolishness.
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But they have comments open and active. And I noticed that Sami was commenting as well.
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And I don't have it in front of me, so I'm going off the top of my head. But one of the things he said was that all scholars, all scholars recognize that John, the disciple, did not write
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John. All. Now, I'd like to recommend to my
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Muslim friends that you stop using terms like that, because it's too easy to refute.
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I mean, there are just too many commentaries by excellent scholars that defend Yohannin authorship to even start to name them.
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And so the idea of saying all means you're just dismissing everybody who disagrees with you as not being a scholar. And then you just simply ask, and how is your
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Greek, Sami? You know, it just doesn't really do you any good to make that kind.
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That'd be like saying all scholars recognize that the Koran was not written by Muhammad. Well, that's just dumb. That's just a ridiculous statement to make.
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And so it is fascinating, though, that here you've got Paul Williams, who loves that same kind of liberal scholarship.
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They love Bart Ehrman. Does Bart Ehrman think that Paul wrote 1st or 2nd
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Timothy? No, he does not. But now he's quoting from the pastoral epistles to prove that Paul did not believe in the deity of Christ.
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This is the same Paul who, in the pastoral epistles, uses a gravel -sharp instruction to identify
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Jesus as God in Titus 2 .13. This is the same Paul who wrote 1st Corinthians chapter 8, and he takes the words of the
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Shema and applies them to the Father and to the Son. This is the same
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Paul who wrote the Carmen Christi that speaks of the preexistence of Christ and his equality with the
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Father. And so I can't even begin to conceive of how you can take a text and say, well, this is just very, very clear that Paul did not believe that Jesus was
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God. And you just go, no, wait a minute. So I charge in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, so you're making the charge in the presence of God and a mere prophet who was sent only to one people, even though this is being written to Timothy, who is ministering amongst the non -Jews.
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Remember, from the Islamic perspective, Jesus is only the Jewish Messiah. He's not sent to the whole world.
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Paul shouldn't even be writing to these folks, see? But anyways, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. The appearing of our kurios, the tukuriuhemun
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Yesu Christu, our Lord. Not our mere Messiah, not our mere prophet.
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This is the immediate context. That's what you've always got to do with these guys, is read the immediate context. The immediate context will almost always demonstrate that they are not handling the text properly.
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But keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the proper time.
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Which he will bring about who? Now, there are differences of opinion here.
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However, however, if you look at the text in the
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Greek, I'm looking at the UBS 4 here, at least in accordance, and I'm going to look at a paper text here real quick.
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Oh man, that print's small. Hey, this print used to be bigger than this, wasn't it?
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And let's see, did they put this? They did. Okay. The Nessiolam, they do the same thing.
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Beginning at verse 15 of 1 Timothy chapter 6, they go into poetic form.
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And that's the same thing in my accordance here. The verb's most natural antecedent is
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Jesus, which he will bring about at the proper time, he who is the blessed and only sovereign, the king of kings and the
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Lord of lords. Now he's just called Jesus Lord. So he's talking about a different Lord? Who alone possesses immortality and dwells in an unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to him be the honor and internal dominion.
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There is a very strong contextual case that can be made that this is about Jesus.
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And yet you just heard an apostate Christian, who was never a Christian, of course, quote this as evidence that Paul did not believe in the deity of Christ.
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That's what you just heard. It is amazing, but it is an illustration of just how surface level, so surface level, the kind of argumentation these guys present really is.
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It's just very, very surface level, very shallow in its presentation.
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It's only meant, again, to impress the already believing. It's not meant to reach those who don't believe.
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And that's, I think, one of the biggest differences that I see between the vast majority of Islamic dawah and the
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Christian apologetics I seek to model and to engage in is, yes,
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I do want to encourage believers. I do want to do that. There's no question about that. But I want to reach
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Muslims with the gospel, and I want to be used of the Holy Spirit. I want my message, my words to be used, the
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Holy Spirit to cause them to hear the truth. And so I will not engage in this kind of,
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I mean, there are texts that if you want to just rip them out of their context and just quote them half -heartedly out of the
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Quran, you could. But we have a, well, let's be honest with you, a different standard.
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We have a different standard, and we need to stick with that standard. I know
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I didn't get very far there, but we have at least two folks online, and I know
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Gregory's probably gave us a call back. So we've got three callers there. And how far did
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I get there? Let's see, 45, I got one minute and three seconds. That's, no, one minute and five seconds.
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Wow, that was good. I'll have to work harder to get a little bit farther down the road. But anyway, we will start taking our phone calls after we take a brief break, and we'll be right back.
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The criminal mishandling of God's word may be James White's most provocative book yet. White sets out to examine numerous crimes being committed in pulpits throughout our land every week, as he seeks to leave no stone unturned.
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What has happened to this sacred duty in our day? The charges are as follows. Prostitution, using the gospel for financial gain, pandering to pluralism, cowardice under fire, felonious eisegesis, entertainment without a license, and cross -dressing, ignoring
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Breaking news from the White House and the issue, gay marriage. For a lot of people, you know, the word marriage was something that evokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs.
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I think same -sex couples should be able to get married. The NAACP has passed a resolution endorsing gay marriage as a civil right.
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This comes two weeks after the president announced his support for same -sex marriage. Under the guise of tolerance, our culture today grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.
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Anyone opposing or questioning this today is quickly shouted down, called a bigot, a homophobe, a hate monger, threatened, and accused of discrimination.
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It's become commonplace to see people who take a biblical stand against homosexuality ostracized to the point of losing their job.
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How soon will it be before we will also see people losing their freedom? Now more than ever, Christians need to be equipped to be an approved workman of God, correctly dividing the word of truth, as we are told in 2
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Timothy 2 .15. Dr. James White and Pastor Jeffrey Neal have partnered to bring you their book, The Same -Sex
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Controversy. If you are a Christian, this book is just one of the tools you'll need to be prepared to give a proper defense of the faith in the face of the unrighteous onslaught we face today.
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The authors write for all who want to better understand the Bible's teaching on this subject, explaining and defending the foundational biblical passages that deal with homosexuality, including
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Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and return to God's plan for His people.
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The Same -Sex Controversy, Defending and Clarifying the Bible's Message about Homosexuality. Get your copy today from the bookstore at aomen .org.
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And don't forget to search for other resources like debates and past dividing lines dealing with this very provocative issue.
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And remember, theology matters. And welcome back to The Dividing Line.
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Let me just make one further comment on that text before we go to our phone calls. I didn't finish, really, the commentary that I need to make there.
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Scholars take different views on this. There are some who see the appearance of the term
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God in verse 13 as the antecedent for Dikesi in verse 15.
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And hence, it is God who brings about at the proper time the coming Lord Jesus Christ. And hence, it is
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God who is the blessed, only sovereign King of kings, Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light.
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You'll find that in commentaries as well. However, that still would not be an argument in any way, shape, or form.
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Again, because of the assumption that you have here the very same type of thing you have in John 17, 3, or we saw in the preceding text we were looking at.
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And that is this idea that, well, if the Father is ever spoken of in distinction from the
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Son, and if he's ever spoken of as being the only God or anything like that, then that means the
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Son cannot possibly be God. It is a category error. It is a simple error of thought on the part of those who are seeking to deny the biblical testimony, and certainly to quote the
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Apostle Paul, who so plainly presents the most exalted view of Jesus, and so plainly presents him in language that could never fit in the
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Islamic context on the basis of this text, without even addressing
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Titus 2, 13 or a text like that. Again, it's either based upon abject ignorance or it's dishonest.
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It is simply dishonest. You know, it almost feels like I've responded to that tweet before.
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Someone just tweeted something, and I am almost certain I responded to this. But I'll do it real quick, and then we'll take our phone calls.
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How would you respond to those who say that homosexuals can reproduce through adoption and should have the same rights? That's absurd is how I'd respond to it.
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That's not reproduction. That is taking other people's children.
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That's not reproduction. That's absurd. That's what I would say to that. All right. I'm not sure we're going to get into tongues today, to be perfectly honest with you.
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Well, all right. Let's talk with Roy. Hi, Roy. Hi, James.
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How are you? Doing good. Hi, this is my second call, and I failed to...
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I'm sorry, we don't have any prizes for second callers. In fact, you have to do much better on the second time than you did the first time.
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I was hoping for a Bible with a picture of you praying on it. Okay, that'll actually get you cut off is what it'll get you.
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Okay. No, I want to thank you very much for your work fighting universal redemption and unlimited atonement, and I'm really grateful that I've gotten pulled out of that.
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To me, it's nothing less than another gospel. Well, be careful, Roy. Be careful. Be careful.
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I mean, I understand what you're saying. I appreciate zeal for the truth, but don't make the leap that someone who doesn't understand the ramifications of their confession is therefore believing in a false gospel.
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That is the road to hyper -Calvinism, and you don't want to go down that road. Right. There's plenty of verses that definitely give the impression of it if you don't see the context.
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It takes patience and reading the context carefully, so I do agree with you on that.
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But I do want to thank you for that. My question today is still there?
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Yes. Okay. This is an amazing thing. Chuck Smith denies the doctrine of the future resurrection of the dead, the physical resurrection of the believer, and I'm astonished at that.
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He believes, I don't know if you're aware of it, that the First Resurrection is a process that began at the resurrection of Christ, and that every believer, when he dies, that is his point of resurrection.
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And so he gets a new body. So he's redefined resurrection. He says he believes in resurrection.
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And even more scary is he says that Jesus got a new body with, this is what he said, with similarities and dissimilarities to the present body.
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And so my question today is, can you tell me,
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I think I want to focus on his denial of his doctrine of the resurrection and denying that.
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Is there historical, in history, is there some historical root to the denial of the resurrection, the physicality of the resurrection?
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Well, I have absolutely no knowledge of Chuck Smith's view on the subject. You're telling me that I've never heard that.
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I would think that if Chuck Smith denied the future resurrection of believers, that that would be on the front page of almost every website
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I've ever heard of, and I've never heard anyone say that. So I will give you the soundbites.
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I'll send them to you. Well, I'd rather have something in print, because soundbites, especially from someone who's getting older and takes lots of phone calls and things like that,
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I don't necessarily think that's the best way. I would need something in print. Sure, that was my reaction.
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People can search it for themselves. They do Chuck Smith resurrection in Google, they'll find out. But this is what astonishes me, that nobody's saying anything about it.
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But getting back to my question, is there some historical, like is it a Gnostic heresy, the denial of the resurrection, or is there some root in this denial of the bodily resurrection?
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Well, even what you said, it sounded like you were saying that he thinks that the resurrection is individually accomplished at the death of each believer, and they're reunited with a glorified body.
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So that would not be a, quote, denial of the resurrection. It would be a denial of the biblical order of resurrection,
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Christ the firstfruits and those that is coming, etc., etc. But that's not a denial of physical resurrection.
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A denial of physical resurrection would be there is no physical body in the eternal state, that we're just some type of spiritual entity that does not have a physical body.
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And yeah, all the Gnostics were dualists. That's why the Greeks mocked
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Paul when he was on Mars Hill in the Areopagus, because he used the term anastasis, and that means that which died coming to life again.
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He used a gyro and resurrection and used all the terms that would specifically refer to that which died coming to life again.
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So the Greeks certainly would reject that, and the Gnostics, being dualists, likewise would reject that.
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And there have been various cult groups and sects down through the ages that likewise have, in essence, seen the physical body as something that is dispensable.
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But I'm not familiar with a particular group that has taught that the individual's resurrection takes place at the point of death.
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It'd be sort of tough to do since the body would still be put into the ground or something. But anyway, so I'm not familiar with any groups that have done that.
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But again, I don't know anything about what
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Chuck Smith's teaching on that subject is. Yeah, because in the Scripture, there's very little verse that says, you know, to wit the redemption of the body,
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I believe just as the Scriptures went to great pains to reinforce the physicality of the resurrection of Christ, I'm sure that you would say that—agree that somebody that would say that that kind of resurrection of Christ would be a denial of the
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Christian faith, right? That Christ got a new body, you know, his physical body stayed in the ground, and then he got a new body, that's a denial of—
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Well, yeah, sure, that's not resurrection, that's a little bit closer to Jehovah's Witnesses and stuff, but—
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Yeah, it's amazing, because I heard in one sermon, he said that it was a
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Hindu belief that the soul goes on, and then that you get—that the body is replaced, and then in the same sermon, he talked about that very doctrine that I told you about that—
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Well, Roy, I'd have to, again, send me the links to that, or not—actually,
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I had, you know, page numbers in a book would be the— Audio sermons, audio sermons in context, so it's not something—the whole sermon,
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I'll give it to you. All right, all right. Hey, Roy, thanks a lot, I appreciate it. We need to keep moving here.
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And, oh, we lost Gregory, probably too long to get to him, I'm sorry. But let's talk to Alan.
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Hi, Alan. Hey, James. Good friend of mine and your favorite stalker,
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Algo, says hi. I don't know, Algo isn't a stalker, he's more of a search engine, so—
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And he has to sort of stalk me to maintain his usefulness as a search engine, so that's sort of how that works.
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I was there when he first got started on you. Oh, my, my, okay. You know, and I've known him a long time, and he got me hooked on you, too.
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Uh -huh, okay. I listen to one of your debates at least, you know, twice a week. I'm sorry, because I don't do that, so that's not a good thing.
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But anyways, what can we do for you? Okay, I have a question, and I just don't know the answer to it.
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I'm reading a book on the Chronicles of the Popes, and it's not written from a
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Catholic source or a Protestant source, it's actually kind of just a plain historical source. And one of the things
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I'm noticing is, I mean, going way, way back, I mean, to like the 7th century, is the
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Antipopes. Right. And it's just—I'm just noticing Antipope after Antipope, and it's getting like, you know, it's almost like two dozen, you know?
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And I mean, I'm just like in the Great Schism alone, I'm looking at the page right now, which was, you know, 1378 to 1417.
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I mean, there's, you know, just in that span alone, there's four Antipopes.
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And I'm trying to think, well, which one's the Pope? Right. I mean, who decides what's an Antipope and a
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Pope? I mean, I don't know where that Catholic source is, you know? Well, yeah.
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And the real question is, who knew at the time, is, for me, is the most important question.
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Was there any way—in fact, there was a fellow who became
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Roman Catholic recently, and he came to my office and talked to me, and he was a Presbyterian minister, and his whole argument was, a few years after John died, if you came to the churches that he founded, how would you know which one was the true
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Church? That was the big thing that caused him to become Roman Catholic. Now, Rome can't answer that question either, but that was the big thing that caused him to become a
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Roman Catholic. And the problem is, that system has no way of answering the question during, for example, the
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Babylonian captivity of the Church, the Avignon Papacy, before the papal schism was healed by the
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Council of Pisa, and then—well, actually, the Council of Pisa made it worse. But anyways, before conciliar authority stepped in and got rid of two of the three popes and reconsolidated the papacy, which one was the true
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Pope? And when you look at lists of popes and antipopes—and this also happens, there's schisms in the early
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Church, in the earlier centuries as well, but especially during that period, during the Pornocracy in the 10th century and stuff like that—you'll find these popes and antipopes.
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Well, who gets to decide that? Well, later history does. But no one at the time knew. And that's the whole problem with the system, is that when
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John Paul II died, during that process, about every Roman Catholic apologist on the planet got to go on Fox News and get his 3 minutes and 14 seconds worth of fame, and they all said the same thing, the 2 ,000 -year -old
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Church, the unbroken chain of tradition, and la -la -la -la -la. And it's just, from a historical viewpoint, it's just laughable.
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It just doesn't work. And when you look at these lists of, well, this man was an antipope, how do you know that?
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Later generations look back and go, well, we'll trace the line through these guys. So when there's two people claiming the throne, we'll take what looks to us to be the more orthodox of the two or something, and so that makes this other guy an antipope.
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Well, at the time, how would you have known that? You wouldn't have known that. That's the whole point. And so that's where it comes from, is this insatiable desire to have this single line of apostolic succession through the
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Bishop of Rome or, for a while, Avignon. But it's a historical anachronism.
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It is looking at history through the lens of the dogma that developed over time that was based primarily upon historical sources that were fraudulent, and we now know those historical sources were fraudulent, and yet this entire structure still stands, floating in midair, with no foundation left, and it's called the
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Roman Catholic Papacy. And once you've made your commitment to the supremacy of that organization and that concept, then you do whatever you have to do with history.
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And that's what we're seeing in modern Roman Catholic apologetics. So when you talk about popes and antipopes, that's where it comes from, is
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Rome's insatiable insistence in saying there's only been one line. And so when we find out that there were two or three, well, we've got to identify some as antipopes and some as popes.
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That's where it comes from. One more question, if I could just ask you, because you kind of brought it up, and I was thinking of it over the phone, because it's directly related to this.
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I would rather you think about it in your mind and then say it over the phone. Okay. How does
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Vatican I, then, square with the conciliar movement of, say, the Council of Constance, which opposed three popes?
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Yeah. Well, you know, if you had wanted to ask that question... This is funny. Vatican I could never have happened in the age of Twitter.
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I just realized that. Vatican I could never have happened in the age of Twitter. And why do
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I say that? Because the papacy controlled what could and could not be printed in Rome at that time.
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And people who wanted to ask that exact question... I mean,
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John Henry Cardinal Newman, prior to Vatican I, raised the very same issue.
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Excuse me, historically, wasn't the papacy rescued by conciliar authority?
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And then it didn't take very long for the papacy to then sort of, you know, put that under the rug.
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But, you know, historians know this, and it sort of raises a problem for this idea of this just one infallible line, and all the rest of that stuff.
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But that wasn't allowed to be discussed. That's why I say it couldn't happen in the age of Twitter, ere that all the cardinals would have to have their cell phones taken away.
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I guess that might be one way of making it work, I suppose. But that's the very question that, interestingly,
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Newman had to reverse himself on once the infallible church had spoken.
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And there's a book in my library. It's a purplish -pinkish book.
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I'm... isn't it weird how you remember things like that? Called, What Will Cardinal Newman Do Now?
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I think is what the question was. And it was just a contemporary documenting what he had said prior to Vatican I.
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And now that Vatican I's spoken, what you gonna do now? And well, what he did, he fell in line. Either he stopped talking in toto about it, or he just fell in line with the infallible church has spoken.
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I guess I was just one fallible historian, and now I've been told otherwise. The problem was there wasn't any meaningful debate over those very issues.
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And so they remain valid issues, but only if you're a person of... that actually thinks that the claims of the
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Roman papacy, since they're historical in nature, should actually square with history a little bit.
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Yeah, well, it's just mind -blowing today when I deal with some diehard Roman Catholics. I mean, just look at it.
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It's just a plain fact of history that the Council of Constance covered the three popes. And all of a sudden,
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I mean... No, but the same council then burned Jan Hus. But anyways, that's just a little side note to history. All right, well, thank you,
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James, for answering my question, and you're a big hero of mine. All right. Thanks, Alan. God bless you. Okay, bye. Bye -bye. That's a good question, and we gotta keep asking it.
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But, you know, look. I've seen too many people who just so completely sold themselves to the papacy that it's like,
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I will not even entertain that. And I saw the exact same attitude about the Quran amongst my
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Muslim friends in London. Won't even entertain it! There you go. Let's talk with Jared in San Diego.
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Jared, how's the weight loss going? How's the weight loss going? Sorry. I don't understand the question, sir.
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You know, Subway, you know, Jared, you know. Oh, Jared! Jared! Oh, come on!
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I'm not the first one to have asked you that. Oh, yeah, you're not. You're not. No, sir. I think that's probably all a big hoax.
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But, you know, I eat at Subway, and I'm not losing any weight, so... That surprised me.
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Got me off course. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You expected more of me, and I apologize. I was trying to be all professional, and I have my words all written down here.
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If you're professional, why are you calling this program? Come on, really. I'm an underground professional,
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I guess. Anyway, thanks for taking my call. I have a question about...
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I'm hearing a lot about Muslims having dreams about Jesus. They're having these dreams in Iraq and Iran, and they're seeing
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Jesus. He's in white robes, and he says, go talk to the local missionaries, if there are any missionaries there. And I know you debate
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Muslims, and you've been debating them, and you just got back from London, and you're interacting with them. Have you come across any of that yourself?
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And what is your opinion of that? A lot of times, the Acts 2 .17 is thrown out there in the last days.
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You're going to see dreams. I'm going to pour out my spirit. There's going to be dreams and visions. That's kind of thrown out there to justify that.
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So I'm just kind of trying to wrap my mind around that biblically. And figure out what's going on with that.
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And what do I think of that? Yeah, of course, the Acts 2 passage, Peter's actually applying that to that day. So I'm not, you know...
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That's what I was going to ask you. Does that fulfill the Pentecost, or is that a partial fulfillment? Well, he certainly makes the application.
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Well, we've been in the last days since Pentecost. That's a description of that.
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But anyways, there's a friend of mine that you would want to talk to, or at least listen to, if you want to hear the testimony of a
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Christian who experienced that. And his name is Dr. Nabeel Qureshi.
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And Nabeel has done a number of debates with Muslims as well. And it is his testimony that he had an encounter via a dream in regards to Jesus.
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And I've talked with him about that. And what
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I said to him, he agreed with. And so I don't have any problem pointing that out.
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I do not have any problem... What did you say to him? Well, here, yeah, this is... I'll summarize it.
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I do not have any problem with the idea of Jesus personally revealing himself to someone in their salvation experience, because Paul didn't.
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That's how Paul was converted, for crying out loud. And it wasn't a dream, but it was... It's not impossible. It was a personal intervention on Jesus' part.
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Now, that's not the normative way, even in the days of the apostles. But it was a way that it could happen, especially when there wasn't someone right there that could be used to bring the message to him.
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But what I said to Nabeel was, look, I don't doubt for a second that if God wishes to bring about a revival amongst the
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Muslim people by revealing himself to them in this way, that he can do that.
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My concern is that what they are drawn to will be biblical in its content and orientation.
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In other words, what I'd like to do is give it enough time to be able to test the fruit and to see if it results in orthodox confessions of faith in Christ, or whether it results in cults and everything else.
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And he fully agreed with that. He fully agreed that any dream or anything like that has to be tested by the unchanging standard of Scripture.
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And so as long as it is merely a means, the same... I mean, Philip in the
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Ethiopian eunuch. It's not normative for God to do the Star Trek thing and beam people around.
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But it can happen if God wants to do it. And certainly we are looking at an extreme situation in the
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Muslim world. But the fact of the matter is, as far as I know, and I couldn't give you names, but I'm pretty certain that some of these people who have said that they were brought out of their complacency of Islam and searched out someone to tell them about Jesus, have become martyrs for the name of Christ.
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And so I'm really hesitant to go, that can't be good there.
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I think the key is that dreams do not replace Scripture.
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Dreams do not override Scripture. But if those dreams are bringing them to believe in Scripture and to search the
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Scriptures, that's a different thing. And if that's what God's doing amongst the Muslims, well, then again,
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I say give it time. See what happens over time. What if the dream leads into an
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Armenian missionary? Well, you know what? The Lord, as my fellow elder often says, the
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Lord can draw a straight line with a crooked stick. So that's always something to keep in mind. Well, there you go.
58:59
Are you speaking in San Diego anytime soon? I've not received any invitations to, so no.
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I might have a dream tonight, so I'll call you tomorrow. Well, if you can arrange the invitation. San Diego's a nice place to go, but I'm not sure that the
59:12
California state government would like to have me around all that much anyways. But anyways, Jared, thanks for calling.
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We are out of time on the program today. And thanks for everybody who called in. Sorry, Gregory down in St.
59:24
Kitts, we didn't get to you and the text there. But I'm not 100 % certain what 1 Corinthians 14 is about anyways.
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It would take me a long, long time to go through all the possibilities. So what can I say? Lord willing, we'll be back next
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Tuesday here on The Dividing Line. Pray for us. We'll see you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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