Meme Day on the Dividing Line

And greetings welcome to the dividing line on a Monday we're going with Monday because well, it's gonna be a busy week

Tomorrow actually, I'm going primetime or I guess it's late night I'm gonna be on with the guys over at Apologia Studios, so That sort of messes up tomorrow as far as doing the dividing line so we moved it to today

So that's what's going on there. And this is the last week of the program for a little while I'm not sure if we'll have any opportunity while I'm in The UK and in South Africa, but generally it doesn't work real well

Just because of time differences and things like that. So we'll see how all of that ends up Ends up working out.

There are a number of people Tweeting a tweet. I really wish they'd come up with a different term than that but Tweeting a tweet that a

Royal Dutch Airlines KLM just put out and The caption to the graphic is

It doesn't matter who you click with. Happy pride, Amsterdam And so if you can show the there we go.

It doesn't matter who you click with Well, actually folks when you think about it, it really does

Because there is only one of those situations that will keep you alive in a crash

Okay that's that that really illustrates the abject insanity of Of leftists.

So if your plumber takes that approach, would you hire him? If your plumber? Yeah. Yeah. No No, there's there's no.

Mm -hmm. If your mechanic took that approach and fixing your car There's just you know electrician.

Oh electrician bad very very very very bad, but that's actually what they tweeted and any

Any child can look at that and go but but but it was designed to only work one way and every plane

I get on it's only could be that bottom because the other two don't work and Yeah, that's that's the point.

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Thank you KLM for Illustrating the insanity of the modern world and it's

Abject foolishness We have all sorts of neat stuff to get to but primarily sort of in the form of memes today

I had said on last program that There was this meme that have been posted by one of my

Muslim friends And I Hadn't brought it up.

So I need to go back to where it was here preview. I'm not sure if that's the right one, unfortunately

No, that ain't it Should be that one. There we go I saw this and I thought you know,

I'd like to respond to this because It just it just seems very often

Amongst many of the Muslims online There is a

It's almost like and I don't have it in here I was gonna grab it But it's it's almost like the old

Jehovah's Witness the red Jehovah's Witness you can live forever Book study book and There's the famous black page where The backgrounds black the printing is white so it's a reverse type thing and and They just grossly misrepresent the

Doctrine of the Trinity Whereas a page or two earlier they accurately represented and the purpose was to create confusion now we know why the watchtower is doing this but there there are times especially amongst some of the

Muslims that Clearly do reading just outside of their own tradition that you just really wonder

How can you repeat such confused stuff And this is a good example.

It It says I am God. I Had a son He was also me.

He was a man though. I had him killed. He came back I did it to save you from how

I made you so All right, let's let's say you have someone who

You know, it doesn't have to be a Muslim though a Muslim tweeted this

And notice it says Christian theology summed up question mark All right,

I am God let's at least start from there which means this is a theistic

System at least we're not arguing with well, obviously an atheist might be doing this just merely out of spite or mockery or whatever else it might be but God is personal here.

This is I had a son. Well immediately This is not

Christian theology Because fundamental to Christian theology is the fact that it is

Intrinsic to the nature of the father to be the father the son to be the son the spirit to be a spirit and these are eternal

Relationships. It's not I had a son, you know First of all,

I forgot to turn my phone down secondly It's the same telemarketers and I even the last time they called

I patiently I said, please please please I'm not gonna be buying your stuff

You call every day Would you please take me off your list?

Okay, sir. Just call again There is a special place in the netherworld for people like that They will never be allowed to sleep

Because they will get telemarketing calls every single time they start dozing off. That's gonna be their punishment for eternity

Anyway, sorry about that Yeah So as I was saying before so rudely interrupted by whoever the go green

People are whoever go green is it's a it's a solar thing Once somebody sells your number to them

They will never stop and of course they spoof their their things. You can't block them.

I've tried and It's just not possible. So Whoever those folks are you're bad people and I've thought about getting solar if I can guarantee you the one company

I would never get it from is you just so, you know so Effective marketing there guys.

Well done Anyway, what were we saying? So Moses was in the bulrushes. Yes. Okay, so Yeah Yes, I am

God I had a son so the relationship between father son and spirit is eternal God did not have a son.

The son did not become the son at a point in time. It is fundamental Biblical teaching if you look at John 1 1 if you look at the language that John utilizes in the prologue

He always uses the imperfect aim the imperfect form of I need to describe The Sun the logos prior to the incarnation

Which does not point to a a point in or of origin a time of creation anything along those lines

So immediately I am God. I Had a son

Cannot be Christian theology because it fundamentally misrepresents now It could be a misrepresentation of Christian theology on the part of the author of the

Quran Because the author of the Quran didn't understand what I just explained to you The author of the

Quran did not understand what the middle school students at my church can explain to you

Regarding the relationship of the father and son That's just a fact So I am

God. I had a son. He was also me Further confusion since this seemingly indicates a concept of modalism a refusal to recognize a

Category difference that we all live with every single day. We recognize the difference between being in person we live with that I Would be a horrible person

If I did not observe the distinction between being a person why because I just parked my nice little car outside and It's sitting in the

Sun on blacktop It's it's cooking out there every car in Phoenix unless it's in the shade and we don't have covered parking here unfortunately

Every car that sits outside in the Sun is just cooking It's it's terrible what it does to batteries and rubber and everything else and if I Did not recognize that my car is actually not personal my car has being

If my car runs in another car, there is an inevitable physical reaction that could kill me called potential energy

And when you suddenly stop something it contains a tremendous amount potential energy Bad things happens your cells explode and you die

So it has being if if I hit you with it, you'll you'll know that it has being but it's not personal

If it was personal, it would be terrible. I'd have to go out there I'd be having to try to provide it with shade and giving a drink of water and all sorts of stuff like that But I don't do that You just know that when you buy a car in Phoenix eventually

There's gonna be problems but it's not personal we recognize the distinction between being in person every single day every single week but you cannot interact with this universe without recognizing that distinction and So when we look at the biblical data

We clearly have presented to us in Scripture. The fact there's only one true God So any one

God Yahweh all the other gods are well as as the psalmist said all the gods the people's are idols

But Yahweh made the heavens and the earth and everything. It's in them And so we have one God Yahweh and yet in that same biblical revelation

You have three persons revealed to us. The father is not the son the sons on spirit spirit. It's not the father and They are distinguished from one another they have

Interaction with one another they use personal pronouns of one another all of the oneness Pentecostal modalistic stuff is thoroughly

Outside of biblical orthodoxy and historical orthodoxy and every other kind of orthodoxy so you have one

God three persons and you have the Regular identification on the part of all of the

Apostles Peter Paul Luke What are they doing in their writings?

They identify Jesus as Yahweh and so You clearly have the foundation of What becomes in formal creedal expression the

Doctrine of the Trinity Which is specifically designed to protect the positive statements of Scripture in Regards to this is what

God has revealed. Therefore. These are the errors out here that we decry because it's going to result in a denial of specific elements of biblical

Revelation and once again the author of the Quran didn't know any of those things gives no evidence of knowing any of those things and gives evidence of actually having badly misunderstood many of those aspects which were

Worth were even if you even if you say it was something developed over time that development was done long before the period of Muhammad so I God I had a son.

He was also me So we have two out of three statements so far in error

Only I am God works I'm sorry

Yeah, well for some reason the picture is not up on the screen anymore. I don't know what happened to it It just disappeared.

But anyway He was a man though Well the son

Voluntarily took on flesh That's what John 1 14 tells us the logos became flesh

Philippians chapter 2 the Carmen Christi the the one who had eternally existed in the form of God made himself notice the use of the

Pronoun there the reflexive front. I made himself of no reputation. This is something he did clearly demonstrating that he is a divine

Person I'm a popular person today and So He was man though Simply and here really is the key issue in regards to The Islamic misuse of this particular meme

He was a man though, that's this is this is the issue this is this is the fundamental theological issue that I debated with Abdullah Kunda in 2011 down in Sydney and that's still one of my favorite debates probably is my favorite

Islamic debate Is the the one with Abdullah Kunda on this very issue because we recognized hey, you know for all the dancing around That we do on other subjects

This is the fundamental issue. This is this is where we differ from the Christian perspective.

God has the perfect, right? power capacity ability since he's the creator of all things to Voluntarily not under compulsion but to voluntarily take upon himself a human nature and He create human nature.

He can create the perfect human nature It was interesting Abdullah's argument was well if it's not

Divine nature, then it's automatically imperfect means God cannot create anything. That's perfect Anything that isn't

God is automatically imperfect. So everything God creates is imperfect. I Think that's a that's an argument that has some very very serious problems to it when you when you think about it

But that's the issue From the Islamic perspective. God cannot enter in his own creation.

Just can't do it And So we do believe and it says when it says he was a man though We truly believe he truly was man

That does not mean that the nature of God changes the being of God changes many many Muslims say well that that's a change in God's being no it is not and you don't have any basis for saying that Because you see you believe that Allah has acted in Bringing creation into existence.

He acted in time There were miracles that took place that you believe actually took place historically the

Mirage and Isra for example Took place in time. It took place in history Was a lot different before those miracles and after no

God God can act in history as he creates without him Himself ontologically changing and the same thing is true here

If Jesus was a demigod if Jesus was 50 % man and 50 %

God To where there is an intermixing of of the of the natures If there wasn't a such thing as the hypostatic

Union, okay, then you then you might have an argument But that's why

Christian theology is what it is is We recognize these things we recognize

The necessity of safeguarding the positive affirmations of Scripture and That's what the creedal statements are is a thought through protective envelope that communicates the positive affirmations of divine scripture over against Well, well in the context of you know, the gospel goes out into the

Greek speaking world And so there's gonna be questions that are asked Etc, etc. And so If There was a mixture between the divine and human so something new came into existence

Well, then yeah, you could you could argue that there has been a change in in God's being we fully recognize that that is an error and that's why we

Repudiate that so he was a man though. He truly was ma 'am. I had him killed

You know, it's interesting in the sense that The death of Christ is the specific result of the divine decree

If we are limiting the speaker here to the father there would be a context in which that is true

Acts chapter 4 makes it very very plain the early church gathers after being persecuted being told not to preach in the name of Jesus and and Part of the fundamental understanding of the early church in that prayer is that what happened to Jesus?

Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Romans and the Jews all of those different motivations were all under the sovereign control of God and Not only do we have a beautiful picture of what's called compatibilism there

Where you you have real acting Individuals in time who are held accountable for their actions

They're they're acting upon different motivations so on so forth, but you see it's perfect harmony with the decree of God But you likewise see that the death of Christ was no accident and I frequently say to anyone who is going out into Into doing work.

In fact, we're gonna be looking at another tweet here in a while From a fellow by the name of Logan Stephen Cain.

He's he's asked For my six for my 16 months. I will be in Kenya bringing the gospel to Muslims What homework do you recommend for that mission?

Well listening to this would help that's first first thing but one of the things that I say to anyone who is wanting to do homework and wanting to do preparation wanting to be a sharp instrument in the master's hand to glorify him and to be used in Spreading the gospel amongst others and in being an instrument of mercy and things like that You need to understand the mindset of the people to whom you're speaking and for the vast majority, especially of Muslims in Kenya there would be this well, let me tell you a story because You know,

I need I need to mention this because I don't I don't think Jeff watches this but my good friend

Jeff Neal He and I go way way way way back Um Jeff went to Uganda.

I don't know remember what year it was. It was quite some time ago and Was it in the 90s?

Yeah, he came back and He I Need to I may have told him this

I'm gonna be at his church at the end of October so maybe I can remember to mention this to him that if he doesn't listen, but He gave such an incredible report on His time in Uganda.

I felt like I had gone. I mean it was so well done. Were you there? Really? Okay.

All right. It was like I had gone there. I mean it was just he's a tremendous communicator and one of the things that he mentioned was talking to a

Muslim individual and And and their their question they're just honest question and these are people that live in extreme

Poverty in comparison to what we have One of the honest questions that the man man had was

How can how can you believe that Allah would allow?

such a beloved prophet as as The reason been Mariam To die in such an ignominious way and This is a real stumbling block for the in the

Muslim mind the way that a prophet dies is extremely important in Muslim thinking and so if Jesus dies a horrific death hung upon a tree

That Indicates a level of disrespect on God's part for that prophet and so they're like we love

Jesus, so we can't believe he died like that and You say you love Jesus and yet you believe that he died in a in a in a horrific fashion and so it is extremely important to Emphasize the

Voluntariness of the death of Christ John chapter 10. No one takes my life from it.

I lay down my own accord Extremely important to be able to emphasize this aspect of things.

It really really really is and So part of that homework part of that preparation

Memorizing those scriptures like that that That emphasized the fact that Jesus does this so when it says

I had him killed Was it the father's will that the son give himself

Upon Calvary's tree. Yes. Was it the son's will? Yes. Was it the spirits will yes Is this not what the the triune

God had determined an eternity past do yes these are all true statements in that sense and It says

I had him killed he came back I guess that's the way of saying He rose from the dead and Little dangerous for the

Muslim to cite that because you can go right into scripture and you can demonstrate that the father Raised the son from the dead the son

Received back his own life The spirit Likewise raised him in the power of God.

So you you have a triune divine action in the resurrection testified all across the text of the

New Testament The idea that 40 Arabic words 700 600 years later can overthrow that testimony all undoubtedly from the first century

Causes a bit of a bit of a problem, but yes, he rose from the dead You all have to have guards

Protecting the tomb of Muhammad because Isis wants to blow it up just like they want to blow up the

Kaaba Again from the from the

Muslim perspective Isis is like The radical reformers They're like Jan of Leiden And I know most

Muslims don't know Jan Leiden was but if you know what happened in Munster If you know about Jan of Leiden's bones hanging in the cathedral for 400 years then you get an idea

But you have to protect Muhammad's tomb Because we know where it is and we know what's in there

We don't have a tomb to protect Because his was empty and You've got to deal with that You've got to deal with that resurrection and and I know the only way you deal with is by saying well

He wasn't crucified in the first place. He was just Rafa who he was taken up, right? well, the problem is as I don't have it in here, but as Your better modern scholars admit

Rafa that is used there in Surah 4 158 is only used of exalting people not lifting them up off of planets that's a that's a

That's a highly questionable interpretation of that particular text in surah 4 158.

So we have an empty tomb and That that says a lot so it says he came back.

Yeah, he was resurrected father son Holy Spirit all involved in that divine action and Then the person who said this want to make sure

I didn't skip over the last part because he knows I'm a Calvinist I Did it to save you from how

I made you? Now other than the first line of the first sentence we've found misrepresentation in every single

Phrase when it's given its a lack of context and and so on and so forth

I did it to save you from how I made you No, I did it to glorify myself in the salvation of individuals

Who were set in their heart and mind to be my enemies. I Did it to demonstrate my own glory my own power.

I Did it to demonstrate? My own wisdom in how

I created this world, that's the biblical statement is that in the salvation of these individuals this whole group of people

It's numerous as the sand of the sea in other words a very large number of people

That God's going to demonstrate his righteousness. You may have heard of the term Theodicy From the us

God and Dickey Oh to justify It's the justification of God in the light of the existence of evil in the universe and the fundamental theodicy according to Christian Scripture is that God is demonstrating his wisdom

And all of his attributes He's demonstrating his power his wrath his might

Romans 9 his mercy his love his justice Ephesians chapter 1 Fundamentally, he's demonstrating the power of his grace in light of his holiness and So it's not see this one of the primary problems with this statement is that it's focused upon the nature of man and And It's ignoring not only the nature of the fall

But in the change that takes place in the fall but it shifts the focus from what it's actually all about and I Can't I can't blame this particular

Muslim for this because probably the vast majority of Christians with whom he's spoken Probably done the exact same thing

In other words rather than having the focus upon who God is and what God is accomplishing there are many

Christians who in their discussion of The whole field of soteriology the purpose of the cross purpose

God end up focusing it upon mankind Rather than upon God's purposes upon what

God is doing so I could understand why there would be a bit of confusion there But it's not a matter of saving us from how he made us

It would be if you're gonna talk about us. It would be saving us from From the fall that our father

Adam brought us the state that he brought us into and I don't see how a

Muslim can argue I know a Muslim rejects original sin, but Only but but not on a presuppositional ground the reason being you have the mythic you have the fitra and so if if if The fitra exists because of the mythic because because Allah rubs

Adam's back and all of his progeny comes out and they stand upon the plane, and they say you are our

Rabb our Lord and Because of that there is this this fitra this this sense census divinity the sense of the divine

We say it's because the image of God different terminology very similar applications if Adam can represent us in that way

So that that mythic has the continuing application to us. I'm not really sure you have a really sound basis for saying well

Allah cannot Hold us accountable for what our representative did even though Adam represented us in The establishment of the mythic.

It's not like we came into existence. We were in Adam So anyway, just something to think about there

I did it to save you from how I made you would not basically other than the first sentence we we were able to demonstrate a

A -contextual whoops at every every single point. So if we go over to this one here,

I Just wanted to quickly mention to Logan Stephen Cain Logan's run 19 on on Twitter For my 16 months.

I'll be in Kenya bringing the gospel of Muslims. What homework do you recommend for that mission? Well Thank you very much for taking the time

Logan to be willing to take that amount of time out of your life.

I Think you'll be changed tremendously by that experience You will be changed tremendously by a recognition of what we have here and what we're losing here

You'll discover that You'll you'll fall in love with with the people there and you will miss them tremendously when you when you come back

The Christian people there will undoubtedly Bring you conviction in the sense that it just seems to me that true

Christian believers overseas just they have so often have so little that they have a

Deeper spiritual reality than many people here in the United States do just to warn you ahead of time as I've said for years

Your your greatest Asset will be your ability to clearly communicate all aspects of God's divine truth to everyone so scripture memorization a full understanding

And when I say full understanding of Christian theology, I'm referring to such things not only as Really having a great deal of comfort in understanding the doctrine of the

Trinity the hypostatic Union Atonement all the things that are vitally important To be able to explain how the

Sun did not become the Sun how God did not have a wife And then have a child and all these these types of things which are not the general

Aspects of Christian theology that you're normally dealing with in the United States Those things are vitally vitally important, but there also needs to be a full understanding of what justification is what?

Why we have a proper standing before God in light of the atoning work of Jesus Christ Knowing your own faith is the most important thing knowing it in such a way that you can explain it to others

Without using Christian ease and that's the tough part We are so so dependent within the church we can we can depend upon a common vocabulary, which you will not have there and Here's the so knowing your theology, but here's where What I talked about last week in my refutation of Steve Camp's apologetics of ignorance

It's one thing kids because what I just said is very similar to what Steve said gospel gospel gospel know the gospel, right?

But you're going to Kenya you say you're gonna be dealing with Muslims what that means is you're going to be facing a

Set of barriers created by a pre -existing faith structure and If you love the people to whom you're reaching out

Then you will be the one you won't expect them to be making the extra effort

To understand what you are saying you will take the effort you will make the effort

To be clear in your presentation to them of what you're saying

So you will need to have sufficient knowledge of their faith structure To recognize that if you use certain terms, there's a danger that they will interpret them.

This is especially true It's obviously true in with dealing with Mormons, for example, because they use the exact same terms mean completely different things but because of the nature of Islam and because of the

Quran coming after the Old and New Testaments and Becoming the lens through which the

Muslim looks back at our scriptures and hence Misinterprets our scriptures you have to understand

What they believe so that you can understand how they will Not purposefully not maliciously, but just naturally

Misinterpret words that you might otherwise think are self -evident in their meaning and so by understanding what they believe

About surah 4157 the denial of the cross hence the denial of the resurrection by understanding their denial of original sin the by understanding it's not in the

Quran, but in the in the hadith the very popular hadith of the of the man who killed 99 people and Yet Allah ushers him into paradise because he just simply inquired about repentance

If you if you know what the sirat is the the bridge that the judgments Having enough a mean to be able to see to get across the bridge all the the pictures of judgment within the hadith in Islam These Those hadith stories

Become the lens through which the Quran itself is interpreted and in in some ways those popular hadith stories are

More Functionally important to know than a real good grasp of the

Quran obviously I would strongly suggest for you Getting the the study

Quran Just the Just the appendices and things like that in it are very very useful now realize

That the level of writing and scholarship in here in all probability is going to be significantly more advanced than The the average person you're gonna be talking to you on the street

There's there's a question about that, but that that's an excellent resource to have to be able to as you're reading through the

Quran and Obviously if you have my book on on the subject The chronologically the chart

It's up here toward the beginning Unfortunately it got split across two pages.

It's on pages 52 and 53 and He says he drops it whatever

Christian isn't about to come on Use that instead of just reading straight through because that will help you to get a better sense of What's really going on in the text and sort of follow it along otherwise the

Quran can just seem like an interminable set of disconnected

Statements that just simply don't make a whole lot of sense to you and So if you use that it should help in in coming up with a better a better understanding

Scripture memorization, I wish I had a hundred verse memorization system for Islam as someday

There there are key texts If you if you listen to some of the better Well listen listen to a representative sample of the debates and You'll start picking up some of the key texts, and yeah

There's no question memorizing some texts from the Quran helps really does

I mean? If you don't know surah 4 1 7 You need to and There are key texts if you if you look at my if you look at my

Islam A to Z Presentation I did in New Orleans. I don't know how many years ago. It was now but a lot of the key

Quranic texts in surah 2 3 4 5 6 especially

You need to be you need to understand what shirk is You know there's there's all sorts of things along those lines that would be of great assistance to you as well

But yeah having that kind of information at your fingertips rather than having to look it up or have an unindexed card something like that Memorizing it sounds like you're a young guy young young young folks can memorize things a lot easier than us old folks can

Would be extremely helpful along those lines as well, so I was going to suggest there's actually a

I know where the book is in my library, but There is a collection of hadith

What is that called? I think

I had the word pearls in it I know right where it is in the other room, but there is a a collection of hadith

That are found in both Bukhari and Muslim which gives them sort of a special authority when they're found in both collections reading through something like that rather than the eight volumes of Of Bukhari and nine of Muslim you may not have time for that.

This is just one volume would give you a good representation of the type of material that these folks have heard their entire lives and an

Understanding of that will help you to get through to these folks much much With much more facility than if you're unaware of these things

So there you go, I wanted to respond to that and Pearl of Pearl of great price no not

Pearls of wisdom a selection of hadiths and the Prophet Muhammad Don't don't think it don't think that was now that you know now that I've said all this you know

I'm gonna have to go do We're gonna take a brief break. We'll be just look at the board cube a second

James wants me to Entertain you with a song while he's in looking for a book so Let's see requests

How about how about run to the battle no That's not hmm

Could be a few a few other interesting offerings there while he's in there looking through apparently without any success

Looking through his No, I'm not gonna dance

Apparently he's not having any successes he looks in vain and no before I'm not gonna sing free bird either

Can you guys actually hear him from the other room as he's trying to He surprised me on this otherwise,

I would have had the John Denver album ready Okay, well

I didn't even close the door. This is the only thing I could grab real quick And I know that ain't it well.

This is interesting. It's called the sealed nectar It looks like this it's same same publisher, but oh

I know I couldn't find it switch switch cameras. It's right there

In the wrong room I told you What?

What does it say? pearls and corals Arabic English a collection of agreed -upon ahadith from al -bukhari and Muslim volumes 1 & 2 there you go

I know I knew it looked like that. I just thought it was I just didn't realize

I had it in here Okay, there you go pearls and corals there you go we've never done that before but There we just did

I'm going to drink a little lemonade here As we press on Carla says we can hear him

Taking a brief break on the dividing line rich will sing Oh good good, okay, we press on we press on Where did

I put that? Did he did he did he did I I had a article that I wanted to respond to Oh Okay Good but some

Zawadi Yesterday 9 20 p .m Christian apologists such as James R.

White, that'd be me constantly try to argue that Muslims are not consistent when they critique Christianity Well, that's because I think in the vast majority of situations

A different standard is used by Muslims to Well, let's put this way

Besam and Besam and I have debated you can see our debate from Trinity Chapel In Wandsworth in London from a number of years ago on whether the

Quran misrepresents the doctrine of the Trinity, especially surah 5 the Psalms a nice guy and But obviously we're on opposite sides.

And so we have to disagree with one another and we try to do so without expression of hatred

Personally, I think that's a mechanism not only showing respect for that person But but first and foremost, it's a mechanism for showing respect for the truth.

I think when you throw Personal animosity into a discussion of these issues.

You're actually disrespecting the truth. So that's neither here nor there at the moment But Besam says

I've done this and I do I I really do believe that there is an important issue of consistency on both sides obviously

Because as my Muslim friends know I've gotten into a lot of trouble by calling my own Christian compatriots to consistency in the standards they used to critique

Islam and So I have to be consistent myself. Um, I do agree that there are many such

Muslims as I'm sure Dr. White would admit the same could be said vice versa. Exactly However, sometimes it appears.

Dr. White demands consistency from Muslims when it's not his place to do so let alone even in his favor to Hmm the best example is when debating the historicity of the preservation of a religious scripture or religious tradition story if a

Muslim If a Muslim were to consistently apply the stringent hadith Historical method in his discussions with the

Christian the discussion would end pretty quickly Christians like dr. White are perfectly comfortable believing that a certain book is divinely inspired even without knowing who authored it now let's just stop right there a lot of Vast majority of Christians have no earthly idea what this is about none whatsoever

Let me just use this as an example. We're just talking about this pearls and corals

Alulu Wal Marjan, Alulu Wal Marjan, I guess that's pearls and corals So Lulu is pearls, okay anyway a a

Collection of agreed -upon ahadith from al -bukhari and Muslim now, what does that mean?

Why is this relevant? the two most authoritative

Collections of We call it the hadith literature. The plural of hadith is ahadith, which is why it calls ahadith

So ahadith just more than one a hadith is a singular. I normally define it as a

Statement or action of Muhammad and his companions You know, you could argue with that but it's fairly close and The hadith literature becomes the very

Lifeblood and source of the entire Muslim narrative it becomes the

Mechanism by which the Quran is interpreted the various schools of jurisprudence all drawing from the hadith Sharia is a is a distillation

That is fundamentally founded upon the hadith and so obviously the fact that the

Shiites have their hadith and the Sunnis have their hadith and They are not the same hadith collections and they're very different.

In fact, very very different Very very important so the hadith are not

Technically inspired in the sense that the Quran has eternally existed as a

Well, it's eternally existed as divine revelation. It's it's eternal. It's uncreated. So the

Quran is Fundamentally different than anything else really The hadith is is not on the level of the

Quran But it is interesting to me that without the hadith you couldn't make heads or tails out of the Quran Even though the

Quran only folks would undoubtedly disagree with about them. Anyway When it says a collection of agreed -upon a hadith from al -bukhari and Muslim what they mean by that is

These two experts in hadith now remember these men are working centuries after Muhammad centuries after Muhammad and they are examining a huge body of Oral and at that point in time written

Statements and actions that are being attributed to Muhammad and his companions The vast majority of which they discover are untrue

That they cannot trace back the rules of Hadith study are extremely complex

You can do entire master's degrees in hadith studies I've been mocked over the past couple of months by my critics because I Admitted in public to actually

Studying this. Yes. I actually listened to Yasir Qadhi's lectures and he's not the only one

I listened to on this by the way But I listened to Yasir Qadhi's lectures on How you classify the hadith and upon what basis

You've heard of these you've heard of sahih Muslim Sahih al -bukhari what sahih means sound in other words the the result of the examinations of the

Scholars is that these are sound hadith they can be traced back to Muhammad and to his companions

But then there are other kinds there's Hassan there's different levels of these hadith

Depending upon this complicated set of rules and here's the problem

Bassam those rules did not come from Muhammad. They did not come from the companions

They are not inspired as you know, there's tremendous disagreements. I've had debates with Muslims I'm not sure where Bassam stands on this but but I I remember

There's been a number of times when I've raised particular hadith narratives in my debates and some of my modern

Muslim friends would accept Their classification as sahih and some would not for example

When doing a debate on ABN years ago with Abdullah Kunda Abdullah's view of the hadith is different than others in that a

Hadith and I'm not explaining this to you Bassam. I know you know this you've got to understand I'm trying to keep everybody on the same page here

And And I hope you at least appreciate I'm trying to explain this accurately even if I get something wrong once in a while, but There are certain narrations in the hadith that can only be traced back to one person and These are called ahad one, you know ahad in in Hebrew one

Yahweh is one ahad these ahad hadith Abdullah did not accept them it was interesting that they were primarily in Muslim and they were about how

Allah would place the sins of Muslims upon Christians and Jews and he said but those are all ahad. I don't accept them and Some Muslims Yasir Qadhi did not have a problem with ahad narrations

But I was listening to somebody who what just just last week. I was listening to Forget whether it was a

Muslim book or a Muslim lecture at the moment, but that particular individual did have problems with It only being found in one person those ahad chains these chains are called isnad chains and If you've read if you read through any of these

I'm not sure here. Yeah most of the most of the modern

Versions Will give a very very very very abbreviated. It's not chain.

So it always say like like narrated Abu Musa narrated Aisha Aisha is huge source of the hadith narrations, of course

Narrated Jabir bin Abdullah, but these are just the original The the the isnad chains are normally much much much longer than that in the full critical editions

Which are almost always only in in Arabic and so the idea is that these great scholars

Such as Imam Muslim Imam Bukhari They created these mechanisms and they examined these hadith and When you look at the rules the rules have to do with with people's memories people's characters

Because there isn't any historical chain It's somebody hundreds of years later saying

I heard this person say this person said that this person said that this person said that this person said Tracing it all the way back and going well now we have to look at each person that chain and how good was their memory and and from a

Modern perspective I Appreciate The effort that goes into that but It is it's it's purely anachronistic

To take what developed hundreds of years after Muhammad and force it backwards

Even past Muhammad because it doesn't there's no way you can trace this to Muhammad his companions

No way not a meaningful way and it certainly did not exist in any part of early

Christian history So what you're doing is you're anachronistically taking a system that developed to try to make sense out of all these competing and the vast majority of which falsely

Attesting to have been the words of Muhammad stuff and then push it back upon us as if we needed to use those standards

Now there is a fascinating I I think one of the the best examples of this that that I would sort of throw back to to Bassam Mook mccottle even

Suleyman mccottle even Suleyman I used to have him sitting right there and Don't don't you don't need to he's gone.

So he's I used to be sitting there and Then remember I I boxed him up and sent him to somebody who get more use out of him because it was all

Arabic and I'm still hoping to hear some more from the fellow that I sent that to because mccottle even

Suleyman Multi -volume set Arabic writings as you know

Bassam. He's looked down upon by the majority of modern Muslims, in fact, if you look at his entry in Wikipedia It's very biased in in that perspective

But I think mccottle is one of the most important early sources.

Why? Because he wrote before this system developed before it developed

Now afterwards looking back anachronistically. Oh, we can't we can't trust anything mccottle said

He's just a storyteller because he didn't he didn't use this nowadays. Why didn't he because it hadn't developed yet the whole system hadn't developed yet and So I think you get much more honest reporting and on on a on a historical value sense

Mccottle is even more important because of that but it developed over time. So it's it's grossly anachronistic

To take something it developed to try to make sense out of this mass of majority false reporting so as to create the body of the hadith that you have to today, which

I still consider to be an Extremely inconsistent set of statements huge number of statements obviously, but very highly inconsistent

But to take that and to go well, you don't even know who wrote Hebrews as if we need to The strange thing is you really have to come to conclusion that you don't have any idea

What Jesus ever said except maybe in John 14 and 16? because Jesus Plainly did not function on the basis of your system

Look at his citations of Old Testament texts He doesn't he doesn't use is not chains

He doesn't say it was said that about the only it's not chain you can come up with Which I think causes you more problems you want to go with is when he said

David by the Holy Spirit said There's your is not chain The divine the human in the inspired words of the

Psalter There's there's the only it's not a chain you're gonna get so Jesus didn't use your standard. Why should

I and If someone put put the shoe on the other foot Bassam, this is this is here's here's the inconsistency thing if someone comes along 600 years after After Muhammad, well, let's say let's say 600 years after Bukhari and Muslim and And comes up with a new system that they didn't use

Do they have the right to therefore say well, you didn't use my modern system Therefore all that hadith stuff can just now be thrown out.

That's basically what you're trying to say you I just I suggest to you that There is it is it is a

Necessary aspect of The system that you've been given given the nature of the

Quran That you have to be anachronistic in your approach to Christianity You can't you can't

I did not raise my chair height I'm just sitting forward. So I did not the chair won't go any higher or the or the things wouldn't fit underneath the desk

So you are in error on that subject? Um There was one other we'll do real quick here.

I Realize we've got an hour, but we don't really care about what time it is also from Basam Zawadi Basam may not want to have me as his friend on Facebook anymore because you know

I could be doing Ijaz stuff, but right now Ijaz's stuff is only about how horrible

Every person who votes for Arsenal supports Arsenal in football is that's that's that's pretty much it so Basam is the only one putting out stuff

I could put in the dividing line because I'm You know, I just it's it's football We call that soccer over here

But I I get I get the logical argument that the game where you actually can only touch the ball with your foot

It's probably better to call that football. I'm not sure what soccer actually means in that context. So there you go

So so but I may I may go on to I may go on to Facebook here pretty soon and find out I've been I've been

Unfriended blocked You know, what's the funny thing is? there is a 90 % chance of me getting blocked by Christians on Facebook greater than by Muslims on Facebook There's just there's just no no tways about it and no

I don't think Basam's gonna block me on Facebook Anyways, this was from August 5th

What is it with Christians who have a problem with the promise of carnal pleasures in paradise

Last I checked they were struggling with their lust for women and temptations for otherworldly pleasures

What exactly is their moral objection against God promising a paradise for his faithful believers in which they would be able to legitimately and morally?

Fulfill their desires as a motivation to stay away from what is prohibited in this life so How do you respond to that?

How do you respond to that I remember

What debate was that I forget who Shabir was debating but Shabir was debating a

Christian and He basically brought this very thing up and he oh

That's nice You can't you can't actually zoom it out far enough to well To see where eventually that nice Papyri picture is supposed to be hung back up after you let it drop to the floor and haven't put it back up by not

Putting a nail in the wall right, I Don't think you'll be able to get that far out.

But anyway Shabir basically in the midst of this debate said

Why why do you have a problem with God rewarding his faithful servants with Beautiful wives

And that this is why we are to live within The parameters that he is given now

Because in the future and That's sort of when I stopped and went because in the future you're gonna get to violate those parameters

Yeah I mean, let me try to explain why we do have a problem with this idea

It's not there's something dirty or wrong about sex God designed male and female.

It's a beautiful thing. It's a proper thing But it's also something that was specifically designed to reflect something about maleness and femaleness and Jesus taught

That from the beginning it was one man one woman We have serious differences serious differences which again go back to proving to me anyways that The author of the

Quran really did not know the New Testament at all Serious differences when it comes to the issue of divorce

The nature of marriage I've seen Muslims defending divorce as a good thing and God says he hates it.

It happens. It's not the unforgivable sin. This is a fallen world it does happen and There's life after divorce, but the point is that the nature of that monogamous

Relationship is used in the New Testament as a picture of the relationship of Christ and his church And it's used as a relationship of God and his people in the

Old Testament as well But when we talk about the afterlife

There is a a huge difference between Muslims and Christians at this point there really is

When you when you look at the influences in the development of the

Islamic concept when you look at Muhammad visiting the various levels of heaven, for example, or The incredibly vivid pictures of Hell and its punishments the fire primarily again in the

Hadith but also in the Quran not quite as colorful as what you end up with in the

Hadith, but Still far more Clarity than you than you

I mean you you don't get that level stuff to get to Dante in Christian history but It's extremely physical in its in its focus

Both paradise as well as the fire in Christianity You may have noticed

Bassam that there have been these books recently and people like myself I don't

I Haven't spent a lot of time on it, but it's not it's not because I Disagreed with the people are critiquing it.

I just didn't figure I needed to join in on it But all these I went to heaven and this is what looked like stuff. I reject all of it

This is this is a form of Short -circuiting the biblical

Standard of Revelation, it's it's New Revelation is what it is. It's the 28th book of the New Testament type thing

The scriptures tell us that I Is not seen there is nor is ear heard nor is it entered into the heart of man the things that God's prepared for them to love him the nature of Our Relationship with God we are only given

Slight glimpses when we see for example the perfection of worship of God in Revelation 4 and 5

Um Just just brief snippets because I'll be honest with you because I'm from the

Christian perspective a truly biblical Christians perspective The difference between us is that yours is an extremely?

Physically oriented it's a continuation of our physical existence here on the earth and The focus, you know when people

Jehovah's Witnesses, for example Jehovah's Witnesses want to argue all the time about a paradise heaven a paradise earth and 144 ,000 a great crowd and all the rest of this type of stuff and when they ask me where is heaven and they're thinking of a

Physical location. Oh my response to them is my response to them is wherever Jesus is. That's where heaven is for me

Because for the Christian its union with Christ it is perfection of worship it is

Absorption not in the destruction of the individual as you have in a lot of Eastern religions, you know absorption into one

So you cease to being an individual? No, but it is it is a focus upon Worship That cannot exist in this fallen state on the level that it will exist then

No longer encumbered not by physical body we believe in a physical resurrection resurrection, but it's it is an incorruptible body and The incorruptible body's focus is not upon carnal pleasures

The body now functions to Give us the platform in which we can engage in the truest worship of God in In his fullness.

In other words, we will know him as he is. We will see him as he is and And so the idea that I'm going to be spending my time with a

Harem of Busty women Fulfilling my physical desires

Rather than being focused Upon the worship of the

God who loved me and redeemed me is just the complete opposite of the fulfillment of Christian eschatology

Which is not about me. I think I think you know when Bassam when people

When people ask me, you know, what's what's what's the reason for all of this? I mean, maybe

I can sum it up in this we'll try to wrap things up I've probably been going too long and you're probably bored too, but when

I when I When people say we know why why is all of this Let me

Try to explain it here Ephesians 1 3 Blessed be the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the one who blessed us With every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ to see heavenly blessings

In in the heavenly places in Christ, it's being in him united with him We've already received these blessings, but they're spiritual they're they're not they're not physical

In fact, God basically calls his people to deny themselves take up their cross and follow him

Just as he chose us in him and that choosing is is specific I know there's a lot of Christians to try to get around that but there's no way to in the original language

Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we might be holy and blameless before him in love

So it's it's holiness, it's blamelessness not not fulfillment of fleshly desires

It's holiness and blamelessness before him in love having predestined us unto adoption

Through Jesus Christ unto himself and that's where we completely disconnect because the idea of adoption

The idea of being in the family of God even when we were once his enemies now, we're made his sons

Far too intimate for For the vast majority of okay that some of the

Sufis might but you're not a Sufi to my knowledge in any way The vast majority of Sunni Muslims this idea of adoption far too intimate far far too intimate

Unto adoption through Jesus Christ unto himself according to his kind purpose and will and Here it is the psalm to the praise of his glorious grace, which he graced us in the beloved one, so there when people say what's it all about the the highest answer that I I can offer is

To the praise of his glorious grace and that's what we're gonna be doing.

That's what eternity is going to be filled with is The timeless and I don't know what our existence is gonna

I don't know how we're gonna be really related to time I don't know how we're gonna relate to time And I think it's one of the reasons we you know

Again, all these books are just ridiculous because they're all based upon our language is time -based language. That's the only way we can think

Are we gonna experience time in the same way then as we do now, I don't know I Don't know. Is there a fallenness in our experience of time?

I don't know. All I know is God's glorious grace is going to be praised for eternity and We are gonna be fulfilled in that and I don't see how the fulfillment of sexual desire which is directly connected with procreation on earth and the survival of the species is

Connected with that. I honestly I see the Christian vision as a significantly higher vision

Than merely the fulfillment of what Adam would like to have been doing with Eve in the garden

I Think we have much more we have to have much more of a psalm because God and the person of his son has entered into his own creation

So there has to be more and there is and there is and again the psalm

With all due respect to you and yours I'm reading the Quran again new translation.

You see a new new translation. What was it called? It's sort of a I'd be interested in your take on it

But it's what the Quran made easy and there's a lot of sort of the Living Bible type type thing

It's almost like halal ikan but for the Quran all sorts of interpretation

Insert into it. But hey, it's it's an interesting take but I'm reading it again and I see The psalm the author of the

Quran never read these words Didn't know what they were about had no earthly idea of the depth of Christian theology

Just didn't if you think if you think he did show me Show me

I just I just don't see it. I just don't see it and I'm not trying to be obtuse I'm just trying to be honest.

I see no evidence of it whatsoever. So well, there you go folks I hope you didn't mind sort of listening in on a

Sort of a conversation we're having there I know on I Know on Thursday, I'll be honest with with folks

The stuff that's going on in our world right now The speed at which we are losing our freedom of religion and expression and the

Liberty to even have these types of conversations is Astounding it's absolutely astounding the totalitarians are on the march and What we're seeing just today there was that internal thing, did you see the thing from Google?

There's a guy in Google from from you and I's perspective. This guy is a raving liberal, but because he was simply trying to say hey

A lot of what we're doing is just so extreme that it's going to damage Google They are going after him.

Like I don't know what and then on the way in Not Hugh Hewitt Dennis Prager, did you catch any of that Dennis Prager has been asked to conduct the

Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra There are people in the orchestra boycotting

Because he's a bigot homophobe These are totalitarians they can not coexist with people who think any differently than they do it is frightening

What is coming? These people are you cannot reason with them? You can not reason with them and They will use the power of the state

I I am becoming more and more of a absolute necessary libertarian

Because the power of the state in the world of technology controlled by leftist totalitarians makes anything that the people that made up the

Stasi prison in East German East Germany ever thought of look like child's play and It's coming it's coming and on Sunday morning

I Preached a sermon and I specifically addressed the

Millennials in Our congregation and immediately I had people and I was this sort of disappointed me some of them

Immediately had people on on Twitter. Oh pick it on the Millennials again. No, I wasn't

I was speaking to the Millennials about the fact that they live in a context where their people that their their cohorts

Their friends the people in their age group around them are exercising tremendous

Influence upon them to Reject abandon redefine the

Christian worldview and I used as the story what we talked about last week about the

Portland Transgender man that gives birth. It wasn't a transgender man. It was a woman only women give birth and a society

That is so disrespectful to nature to reality to language to logic to any type of ethical

Morality whatsoever will not last very long and I took as my text

Paul's description The end times difficult times will come men will be and then he uses the term

Lovers of self. It's one one phrase fill out toy Lovers of self and this whole transgender stuff all all of it.

It is self Love and that's what the Millennials have been taught is a good thing.

It's not a good thing It's not a good thing and that's what the sermon was about It's on sermon audio

I posted it on Facebook and Twitter I suppose I could throw it up on the Maybe if I can remember

I'll throw it into the blog post here as well But I had a number of Millennials Come up to me after that sermon and say man,

I needed to hear that need to hear more of that Um, so I'd like to get that out there for folks maybe if you listen to it you find it to be useful

You can share it with folks as well. That was Sunday morning sermons on sermon audio at PRBC But I'll try to link it to the thing, but we have got a lot to talk about in those areas as well.

Oh, oh Did you put something up I forwarded you the

I sent you Zucker's email have we put that up anywhere yet?

It's on your plate for today Haven't done it yet. Well, that's that's afterwards

Well, I'll just go ahead and give the information now, too Everybody's been asking

The debate with Zucker Hussein on the crucifixion and I've told Zucker straight up. I'm gonna tell you right now

Yes, we will talk about the historical stuff have talked about the historical stuff in light of sir for 157 fine

But I am also going to be emphasizing something that is not found in a lot of Christian Presentations on this and the that is the absolute necessity of the crucifixion to make sense of God's justice in this world

Okay so we're gonna talk about the crucifixion and Zucker sent me the

Information we'll get it up today 15th of August 6 30 p .m. I don't even know how to say this

Edg baston, how do you how do you pronounce that edge baston and edg baston palace hotel?

And baston palace hotel 198 dash 200

Hagley Road Edg baston Birmingham b16 9 9

PQ so 19 198 dash 200 Hagley Road Edge baston, maybe there's not

I think there'd be another e Birmingham B 1 6 9

P Q says it's an 8 -minute drive from the Library of Birmingham so 15th of August Zucker Hussein Zucker and I debated in the

East London Mosque on Whether Muhammad's prophesied in the Bible about a week after the attack on the

Benghazi consulate so if you remember that particular debate and so He attended the

Discussion I had with Abdullah Al -Andalusi at Kensington Temple the last time I was in London and He was up in the the balcony in Kensington is you know, just right there.

I mean, it's a nice it's great venue I love I love Kensington Temple and so during one of the breaks he sort of leaning over the rail saying

When you come into Birmingham and when we had done that debate a bunch of the guys we the the lift was out

That's called an elevator here in the United States. It's easier to say lift I don't know why we don't say it

The lift wasn't working so we had to go up and down four flights of stairs to get to the To the room and these young Muslim guys are walking with me as we're going down the stairs going you got to come to Birmingham got to come to Birmingham.

I said, well, I'd love to come to Birmingham. So going to South Africa coming back to London afterwards, but it's like I Contact Zucker and I say look if you can work something out

I'll leave early enough and we'll sneak this in. We'll We'll we'll make this happen and he said

I'll see what I can do And so I thank him because it's short notice for him as well as for me but we've put together a location and So it's 6 30 p .m.

15th of August. That's next Tuesday night So that's

Yeah a week from week from tomorrow night At the

Edgbaston Palace hotel 198 200 Hagley Road Edgbaston Birmingham B169 PQ is the location and the time for people who've been asking about that.

So There you go Hopefully that will be and of course

I need to get in touch with Zucker about recording Because that sort of needs to be

Needs to be done as well. There's no reason to invest all that time if we're not gonna let everybody that can

Participate as far as watch it at a later time. So so there you go folks Enjoyed doing the program today