September 18, 2003

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

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr.

White, call now 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. Good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line.

My name is James White. We're going to hit the ground running today because we have two very, very, very busy people who are going to join us just briefly here at the beginning of the program.

And I want to make sure that they have the opportunity to say what they need to say and do so in such a way that they can get back to work, basically.

I guess I just know a lot of people who, like me, work all the time, sort of. Anyhow, our first person

I'd like to introduce you to, a few weeks ago, some of you recall I mentioned the fact that there was a new publication coming out.

I wanted to bring it to your attention, Reformed Baptist Theological Review. I gave you the website at www .rbtr

.org, nice and short and easy to remember, rbtr .org.

And so today I was chatting with Richard Barcellos, those who know and love him,

Richard Barcellou, and that's a long story which he probably doesn't have time to get into.

And I mentioned, you know, why don't you tell folks a little bit about it. And so I know that he has places to go and things to do and sports to coach in just a matter of minutes.

So he's been kind enough to join us on the phone. Richard, are you with us? I'm with you. Hi, how are you doing, sir?

I'm doing okay, in a hurry. All right. Hurry to work. There you go. Just briefly, describe for the listeners what you want to do with Reformed Baptist Theological Review.

What's your goal is, basically? Sure. Our goal is to present a confessional

Reformed Baptist Theological Journal to the theological world. We're focusing primarily on pastors, though we hope and trust it will be beneficial for others.

It will come from the perspective of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, or the 1689

Confession. We're going to have, in every issue, various subject matters.

For instance, we'll have one article in each of these areas. Exegetical theology, we'll take a text of scripture and expound it and apply it.

Biblical theology, historical theology, symbolic theology, which is the confession of faith.

Systematic theology, contemporary theology, pastoral theology, practical theology.

Then we're going to have, the last section, we'll deal with book reviews and book notices that are appropriate for our goal.

You're looking at producing something here that would be very similar to maybe some of the theological journals that many of our listeners may have subscribed to at some point in time, and yet it's going to, well, let's be honest, a lot of theological journals today over time succumb to a certain amount of drift, shall we say, towards the left.

So a lot of folks, even if they're not necessarily Reformed Baptists, a conservative Presbyterian would probably find a lot of the articles in there useful, and some may be even challenging.

Yeah, I think very useful. Though our target is Reformed Baptist pastors, that's our primary target.

We do have secondary goals. We do want our ideas, which we think all conservatives, especially

Reformed Christians, are going to applaud and hold to, except some of our more polemic articles.

But, yeah, I think it would be very beneficial. And then, especially for a lot of the types of people that would listen to your program, at least some of them,

I assume, read a book here and there. Oh, yeah. So the book reviews will be very helpful for your listeners as well, but I think they would profit as well from a lot of the content that we're going to present.

Well, excellent. Now, when will the first issue be coming into existence?

We are scheduled to have it out, have the hard copy out, by January 1st, 2004.

If things keep going the way they're going, we might even get it out by December, or even earlier.

All right. And if people want some more information, they can hit www .rbtr .org.

Everything that they would need to know is going to be found there. Subscription information, and I think there's a copy of the

Table of Contents for the first issue, which is coming out January. Our second issue is coming out in, the

Lord willing, July 2004. We're going to come out with two issues a year, and you are going to be writing in that one.

Very interesting article and very important subject. Indeed, yeah. I mentioned that a couple weeks ago, and looking forward very much to that.

Well, I want to let folks know, we always have folks asking, you know, where can we get sound theological resources?

And there's a tremendous need for that kind of thing. So I want to thank you, first of all, for just a lot of work on your part and your church for, you know, backing you up and doing that.

And I just want to let folks know it was there. They can go to www .rbtr .org, get more information, and that'll do it.

Thank you very much for joining us, Richard. Great, James. All right, God bless. Okay, bye -bye. Bye -bye. All right.

I appreciate Pastor Brassellus taking time to... He's a pastor of PRBC, just like I'm an elder at PRBC.

It's just different PRBC. Palmdale Reform Baptist Church, Phoenix Reform Baptist Church. They're not in the same state.

In fact, right now, looking at California politics, I'm sort of glad of that. We need to pray for all of our brothers.

They're stuck in California right now. It's pretty sad.

You can't help but shake your head at some of the stuff going on. All right, that's our first of the...

Today, we have the three busiest men on the dividing line. I'm one of them, I'll admit.

I'm heading to Austin tomorrow morning. I'm going to be in Austin doing stuff. And then, well, I told you all the last one all about all the stuff

I'm doing. And we just had Richard Brassellus on. And now we have a man who really honestly is hoping very, very much that there is no truth whatsoever to the cell phone brain tumor theory.

Because if there is, he's toast, he's history, it's all over with.

And that's because... What would you estimate, Mike? How many hours a day do you spend on the phone anymore?

Well, it would probably be the hip tumor now because I have those little ear pieces that I get insulted for many times.

My little children like to come up and yank it, you know? Well, isn't it scary when you see someone walking along and they have one, especially the wireless one they've come out now.

It looks like a homeless person walking along, talking to themselves. He's lost it,

I tell you. He's dressed well. That's right, that's right. It takes me a while. I've really had to start looking.

Is that guy crazy or is he on a cell phone? I can't really tell. Well, I'd say, well, especially today,

I think I've spent a good... Starting at about 10 till 8 this morning. I was in control about 15 minutes ago, straight on the phone with many of you that are listening right now.

That's right. I told to listen to. In fact, John Mark was in channel a little while ago.

Let me see here. And of course, actually it says he's away from the keyboard at the moment. But he came in and announced, hey,

I finished paying for the cruise. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so they're definitely...

We've got Wally Baltz out in Hawaii now. He's in channel right now.

Did Wally Baltz get my message? I hope. I haven't the foggiest, but he might be able to call me in channel here.

But you got to remember in channel, there's about 30 second lag after what you say here. And then they hear it and then they respond to it.

And it's a really weird thing. And that's sort of how it works. But anyway, we have some news for folks as far as availability is concerned and things like that.

Unfortunately, Warren Smith is no longer available. Hey, hey. Oh, you mean the cruise? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Yes.

Quiet. Quiet. No, no, no. That's...

Yeah, it was a sad day for Warren Smith Manor. Waiting for their defense trial. Okay. All right.

Do you want me to hit the dump button there? Dump him for that. We may have to.

Ah, Warren will never hear about it. Anyway, so we have some availability for the cruise.

Tell folks, you know, because we had some folks who wanted to go and then there was a wait list and various other things.

What's the situation? Well, right now, we had about 14 folks that have dropped off our lift.

And we did have almost 100 cabins total taken for this cruise this year.

But as we have been going along and getting people to finalize their payments and so forth, we've had about 14 folks that just aren't going to be able to make it with us that had put down deposits before.

So we do have those cabins available and we do have people that were on wait lists being able to go on.

But we are going to have some cabins, ranging from Category M, which is about the cheapest level of cabin, all the way up to the highest level of Category A or B.

And if you take a look on the Alpha Omega website, on the right side of the home page, you can scroll down just a tad and you will see there an area that you can click to go to for the cruise page.

And that will outline all the prices and so forth that we have. I think you can see from that that these prices on our wait list and so forth are just unbelievable.

And there's no way you can go anywhere for a vacation, get seven days of all you can eat, all you're drinking, not alcohol of course, except for the

Presbyterians, etc., for this kind of money. It's just impossible to achieve it.

Not to mention just outstanding apologetics. Dr. White and maybe some not so outstanding apologetics from the rest of our staff.

Teaching that is just unbelievable that we're going to be having. And we're going to be in the Eastern Caribbean on a beautiful ship called the

Zandam, which you have been on before. Yes, I have. I was on the sister ship, the

Volendam. So I won't get lost, so you won't have to worry about running into foreign

Baptist apologists wondering about the ship lost. There's one promenade level where it kind of goes to a staircase and you expect to keep on going.

But yeah, it is an absolutely beautiful boat. It's so very tastefully done.

The food is excellent. The gym is fantastic. It's an excellent gym to throw around a weight and so forth.

And even the lowest category cabin, James, maybe you could talk a little bit about this, is even a very nice spacious cabin.

Yes, yes it is. Easy to get around bathroom. Bigger than some other people have on their cruises, yes.

Yes, absolutely. And James is an expert on the lowest category cabins. Yeah, I'm going to be experiencing both ends of the spectrum as far as the

Volendam -Zandam class of ships is concerned. And yeah, I was just above the boiler room a few weeks ago.

And it was a beautiful cabin. I happened to be right near a staircase and elevators, so you could get anywhere you wanted to go very, very quickly.

And again, I had plenty of room to be working and writing and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

So yeah, there's no bad cabins on a Holland America Zandam class ship.

And the staff treats you wonderfully. The food is wonderful. It's all great.

But the neat thing is going to be, not only that you can be able to get away to a beautiful area, and by the way, for those who are worried, and this is something that worries some folks, this is one of the main things that's been expressed to me, is, well, you know,

I've never been on a cruise before, and I don't know if I'm going to get seasick. I've been on four cruises now, and the

Volendam, which is the sister ship of the Zandam, was the smoothest sailing ship

I've ever been on. I mean, as you know, you've been on 16 zillion of these things. You develop what are called sea legs, and when you get off the ship, if you lean up against anything that isn't moving, you still feel waves for a couple days afterwards.

I barely had any of that after I got off the Volendam, because there had just been so little movement whatsoever when

I was on the ship. So for those folks that are really, really worried about that kind of thing, of all the ships

I've been on, this was the smoothest riding one I've ever been on. Well, not only do we have that great cruise, and I was tongue -in -cheek earlier, by the way, but with great apologetics, phenomenal presentations by Dr.

White and staff, you know, we're going to have good praise time and so forth.

It's just going to be great fellowship as well as the cruise. Right. I think that we've made some just great friendships, and not only that, but there have been a lot of single people that have come on board with us and have met their future wife or husband on our cruises.

Yep. So, I mean, certainly this is just a wonderful time for good, strong Christians that are concerned about the deeper things of the faith to get together and to bond in that friendship and be sharpened, and there's no better way that I can think of that you could spend time in fellowship.

Now, also along with that, we have the debate the night before. Yes. And where Dr.

White will be debating Greg Stafford. And even if you are not going with us on the cruise, and if you are on the cruise, by the way, you will not have to pay to get into that debate.

You can get in free. Also, you will have the opportunity, if you get there early enough, to dine with Rich Pierce.

And he will order his entrees in his famous announcer voice, too. That is bogus, man.

There's a hearty right around the corner. Are we going to set up sort of a rotational thing where each section of the group gets to sit with Rich, each night a different group, so they can get to hear that?

Yeah. And you're going to be talking to my wife, too. In all seriousness, we are going to have a great time beforehand where Dr.

White will be debating Greg Stafford, who is a Jehovah's Witness apologist, or I guess more specifically an

Arian apologist, on the deity of Christ. Is Jesus God or a

God? Right. That would be the subject. Yeah, we spent a lot of time talking about it. Actually, on the last one, you'll be very happy to know

I brought up the page, went through everything, even had Sam Shamoon from Chicago call in and mention that he was so excited that he was probably not going to be able to sleep between now and December.

Really? That's a really bad thing, actually, for Sam not to sleep. Especially he's good at being his roommate for the entire

December. The kind of snoring that will be going on. That's right. But consider this, though.

You can almost look at this as Alfred Omega's yearly conference, in a sense. If you were planning on saving up your money and going to Ligonier's or something like that, don't waste your time.

And we won't even have Doug Wilson speaking. Oh! Oh! So we're going to have

Dr. White and certainly some other fine speakers there. A great time of worship.

So seven days straight of this, you can't beat the price. I guarantee you. If we do this again next year, folks, those of you that are saying, oh, wait until next year, you guys are never going to see prices like this again.

Nope, nope, nope. Not going to happen. You can just automatically assume, even if we held a cruise line up, at gunpoint, you'd be talking double the price for almost anything next time around.

Okay, Homeland Security was just alerted to that. Is there anybody else we could get you in trouble with?

Yeah, you've pretty much managed most of the religious groups. The reason your phone's ringing is that's all the people cancelling.

Well, I got a call from somebody named St. Janet asking if you could come on the cruise. Because I can't find anybody to bait with hoping somebody would come on the cruise.

Well, anyway. But anyway, if you folks are interested on going with us, because as you can see, we're already started here.

We certainly have a great time and we don't even need alcohol to do this. Please give me a call and my phone will be ringing all night.

And honestly, if you could just leave a message if you don't get me live at 727 -452 -6453 or at 727 -789 -9196.

If you are listening to this in an archived discussion at 3 o 'clock in the morning, please do not call me either. Wait until the light hours.

You did get... What's the latest you've gotten a call now? Two nights ago, I had one at about 2 a .m.

And wasn't it from back here somewhere? No, it was from the east. They would have known what time it was. No, it was actually from somebody in your time zone.

Oh, okay. There you go. So about 11 o 'clock at night. Just remember, I'm in Tampa, not Phoenix. And you can't end the message.

It's still 11 o 'clock at night! Good night! Oh, you had no idea what you were getting yourself in for when you came up with this one.

It's all going to be worth it when we're on the boat, honey. We're just going to have a good time and relax and have fun and laugh and joke.

I had a chance to talk to Pastor Dave King. Right. What a great guy.

Oh, man. We're going to have lots of fun. I'm afraid we're going to get kicked off the boat. I'm afraid the staff is going to come to us the second day having too much fun.

Please, no more about whatever you're... Oh, can you imagine? The word gets out what we're talking about. No kidding, yeah.

We'll be talking about Islam, folks. Oh, my. Our staff is Islamic. We're going to be doing it in a positive way.

Yeah, exactly. So we can understand our brothers. Oh, yeah. So anyway, folks, we hope to hear from you and love to have you along with us.

Give me a call, if you can, before Monday, September 22nd. We'll make sure that we try to get you on the crew.

All right. Mike, thank you so much for all the work you do and for all the religious groups that you offended in the past five minutes.

I can't say that I've ever taught you that, because I can't do it that quickly. I'm a little bit slower at it, but you've learned to do that very well.

What did the Calvinist say when he fell down the stairs? So thankful that that's over with? Yeah, thank

God that's over with. Yep, okay. Anyone else? You want to do the

Arminians now? I mean, anyway. Okay, man. Thank you a lot. All right, brother.

All right. God bless. Bye -bye. Oh, boy. I can just hear the phones ringing now.

What did you say about... Oh, please don't take anything more seriously than you need to take them.

877 -753 -3341 is the phone number, folks. 877 -753 -3341

I've had a lot of folks who've said over the past number of months, oh, man, I wish I could. It's going to be sold out before I can say, well, here's one last opportunity.

So take advantage of it. We'd love to have you there. We're going to have a real nice big group. We're going to be talking about the central tenets of the faith, those areas of theology related to the

Trinity, the deity of Christ, at least the atonement, the accuracy of Scripture in light of the accusations of Islam that it has been corrupted, all that kind of stuff.

And I'm going to do everything I can, Lord willing, my health allowing me to, to get a chance to, you know, spend some time with everybody.

Obviously, with 150 or more people, that's not going to be overly easy to do.

But I definitely want to have the opportunity of doing that. And there's going to be some neat folks on this cruise that we haven't even mentioned that you're probably going to want to get a chance to say hello to as well.

So there's the opportunity. I want to thank both Michael Fallon. Like I said, the man works tirelessly in putting these together.

They would not happen. Believe me, they would not happen were it not for Mike and Saul Fallon and the folks back there in Florida who

I think are probably breathing a sigh of relief that Isabella missed them. They're probably getting a little tired of getting hit by those things.

But when you live on a peninsula that juts out into the ocean, you know, that's what happens. And also

Richard Braselos for letting us know about the Reformed Baptist Theological Review. Just in case you forgot, www .rbtr

.org. The phone lines are open for your questions and comments on the dividing line today. Get in while you can before they just absolutely completely fill up.

I'll confess, this one's going to be a little tough for me unless we get callers.

And the reason's real simple. I'm writing right now the notes, the opening presentation for the debate against geriatrics on the subject of did

Mary have other children or, as you probably would recognize that, that is a discussion of the issue of the

Roman Catholic doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary. That debate will be taking place

October 3rd, 7pm, Orson Spencer Hall, I believe is the name of the place where it will be, on the campus of the

University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. I hope we can find that place again.

We sort of wandered around last time. In fact, have we taken care of issues like where we're staying and what we're driving and stuff like that?

I have heard nothing about that. That's something that someone else got to take care of because I'm just going to sort of show up and do my thing because the next day

I fly off to Sao Paulo, Brazil. So, we will be staying nearby.

Well, that makes sense. Excuse me. Anyhow, I'm working on the notes for that and it's really hard to sort of try to break away from the ride a moped.

Yeah, great. Well, at least if it's a moped it falls over, we can pick it up. Some folks on channel understand that.

Other folks will not. It's hard to break out of that because when you're writing an opening presentation, you have approximately well, in this case,

I'll have 25 minutes. So, what you're doing is you're attempting to distill the strongest argument for your position into that period of time and you're attempting, and here's the important part, you're attempting to present it in such a way that you're also making the strongest case against the other position all at the same time.

And so, you're really having to Hi, Tim. You're really having to make decisions concerning the weight of the argumentation.

You're also making decisions concerning, well, what do I want to present initially? What do

I want to only mention in passing and then develop during cross -examination if at all possible?

You know, you can have you go into a debate with a particular idea of where you're going to be going it doesn't necessarily end up working out that way.

You can try as best you can, but obviously each debate is is its own creature and you know, sometimes your opponent sort of throws you a curve and generally, either in the approach they take or in their unwillingness to affirm something they've affirmed before.

That's about the only curve you can really end up getting is something along those lines or if they just simply try to change the whole topic themselves.

That has happened, unfortunately, many times. But I don't think it's going to happen this time. I've debated geromantic in this subject before it was a part of four debates all done at once and that is available from Alpha Omega Mysteries it's on our

MP3 site and it's available only in audio tape well, I'll take that back. It is available in video

It was the first of the great debates on Long Island and the sound sunk. Let's just face it it was the sound was done what's called off -air or with a microphone that's just catching the room sounds which is just the worst possible way of doing it.

Unfortunately, that's how it ended up happening. But it is available but it was very short and then most of you know that just a few weeks ago, we were blessed to have

Eric Stenson with us. We discussed his debate with geromantics on this subject and I went through a number of the issues there and pointed out various sundry things.

I certainly know what Mr. Matitix has said in the past and it is somewhat ironic if the

Roman Catholic position makes a different presentation than it has in the past, especially if Rome's theology allegedly does not change and Mr.

Matitix being a traditionalist might come up with some new arguments but you know

I don't think so. I have a feeling we pretty much know where he's going to be going and what kind of responses he's going to be giving and that may make things even better.

We can sort of get past the stuff that normally gets in the way in essence and really focus on things.

So that's what I'm writing. That's what's on the screen right in front of me right now. I've already gotten through.

Well, what I'll do here after I finish the main outline is I'll read it. I'll see where it comes as far as time goes and that gives me some idea.

It is interesting. I don't know why. I guess I was laughing too much. I don't know why this is but every time in a debate in the past when

I've had a written presentation for the opening I never have it for other parts really. I mean

I'll have questions written out that I want to get to in the order I want to get to them. I rarely get to all those either. But every time in the past I've had a written opening and I have timed it.

And I always shoot for about 30 seconds less than the amount of time that I have because normally when you want to get up you want to say, you know, thank you for being here, just a few little things like that and just in case you lose your place or whatever.

I always end up having to cut something out. And in fact I would say when you're sitting outside of the debate, outside of the context of a public situation, what

I'm really going to start doing now is shooting for 90 seconds less. The worst situation was when

I had an opening presentation for the debate against Dr. Sanders on the subject of open theism at Reformed Theological Seminary.

I had to cut out almost the entire last page. I was so far off as far as just reading it and obviously

I try to read it in a speaking voice. I try to read it as I would be presenting it. But still once you're up there, once you are standing in front of everybody

I don't know what it is. I don't know if you go into a time warp or just what it is. But you read, you speak more slowly and so you can't get as much material out.

So once I get done with this section, I'll go back. I will read it again attempting to do so in a natural voice, in a voice as if I was speaking to an audience.

And then that will give me an idea okay, what can I expand? What other points can I put in? How do you do this?

Obviously in a two and a half hour debate which is what we're looking at, we're not going to deal with everything.

We can't. But you want to present your strongest arguments. You want to present them in the way that will be quite simply the most illuminating for the audience in how the other side responds to it.

So you want to present your material in a way that's rememberable.

It's memorable. It's something that the audience is going to go, well, he made this point, he made this point, he made this point, and um you know, the other side never really addressed this.

The other side never really addressed that. In fact, what you really want to do is you want to, in essence, anticipate the other person's argument and answer his arguments before he can make them.

If you can anticipate where he's going anticipate, and in this case, we're dealing with dogma.

It's not like he can rearrange the entire concept of the perpetual virginity of Mary. If he tries,

I've got all sorts of statements that he himself made in previous debates. He can't really go anywhere. I can't go anywhere either.

I mean, I've already made my position very clearly known here. And so, this may be, you know,

Jerry and I have debated Sola Scriptura three times, and the third debate was the best. Why?

Well, because in the first two, in the first one, I mean, he had no idea where I was coming from, and he was assuming

I was just going to be sort of a backwoods, ignorant fundamentalist type person, and there was all sorts of misrepresentations and it was lousy in comparison to the later debates.

No two ways about it. The second debate was marred by the fact that Jerry actually got up, and I don't know if this is still available, but I think it is.

This is the 1992 debate in Omaha, and he got up and he identified Vinnie Lewis as the greatest

Catholic apologist of our day. And all you have to do is listen to a few

Vinnie Lewis tapes and we have I think we have the MP3 of my radio debate with Vinnie Lewis available, and when you listen to it, you just are left gasping that Jerry Matitix stood before an audience and said that Vinnie Lewis is the best.

He even himself said he is not as prepared, he is not as able as Vinnie Lewis, and Vinnie Lewis is just well, if you've never listened to him, he's the

Peter Ruckman of Roman Catholic apologists. How's that? That might give some of you, at least if you're familiar with Peter Ruckman and Ruckmanism, an idea of who we're talking about here.

So that one was sort of marred by that. And so the third one and the third one was one of the few places few debates where Jerry started off with the

David and Goliath I am so completely unprepared I don't even know what day of the week it is, I'm living on one coke, wrote all my notes on a yellow pad on my way here stuff and that was because I had faxed him and said please don't do that I haven't faxed him this time and I probably need to do that,

I probably need to drop him a note and say please let's skip all that stuff, you've done it over and over and over again, let's not do that and so the third one was the best, it was the best in the sense and I judge debates,

I'm not looking for easy debates if I'm going to invest this kind of time,

I want my opponent to actually present a challenge and so I'm hoping that Mr.

Mattox will give it his best shot but of course I think he's defending a hopelessly lost case to begin with and so how do you defend a hopelessly lost case?

Well generally by obfuscation generally by you know trying to throw dust and sand and we noted a number of those dust and sand throwing techniques when he was debating

Eric Stenson so what's my job then? My job in my opening presentation is to try to sort of in a debate format in essence spray down the ground and get it wet so there's no dust and sand to grab in other words, focus very clearly in the opening presentation on exactly what needs to be accomplished in the debate and anticipating his presentations, cut through that stuff as much as I can

I can't control what he's going to say he could get up there and he can talk about how the incarnation's unique and therefore

Mary's unique and he can present all sorts of utterly invalid parallels and everything else.

I can't stop that but I can try at least to prepare the audience for it and make sure that they're watching for it and then in the cross -examination cut through to what's really meaningful and that's what

I'm going to try to do. Now if I recall correctly I should have looked at this I think they only had they have 30 minutes their opening presentation,

I think they did when Eric debated Jerry we have 25 minutes and 25 minutes is long enough in our society, a lot of folks just don't have an attention span that survives much more than 25 minutes of the same voice.

Those of you who listen to this program are unusual and even we break it up at the halfway point, at least we used to and then you know, the computer died a thousand deaths and so we don't do that anymore but that's enough time.

I think we're going to be able to at least, you know, at the end of the end of the evening I think a person who doesn't have a lot of knowledge of the background is going to be able to go, you know what

I understand what the issues are and I have enough information upon which to make a decision concerning this particular subject.

I think they're going to be able to do that and so that's what I'm attempting to do in this particular period of time as I'm writing these things

This is actually rather early for me to be doing this but that's because I'm going to Austin this week I've got something next week.

Obviously I'll be reviewing these things between now and then but get the information down and be able to go from there.

877 -753 -3341 877 -753 -3341 877 -753 -3341

If you would like to talk about any of the things we've talked about so far today Reform Baptist Theological Review Finding good theological resources whatever it might be or if you would like to discuss the issue of the upcoming debates anything along those lines or any other lines for that matter except of course for eschatology because that's not really going to get you anywhere because I'm just not into eschatology whatsoever important field.

I'm sure there's lots of great stuff on it out there but it's just I just can't get into it.

I have a particular view but I just can't get into it. So anyhow 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number

I invite you to join us and to participate in the program today.

I just popped back into the channel actually and lost lost my contact with everybody

There we go. I'm back. Yay! Nice to be back with you all.

There's one person in the channel that would like to talk about his new Oakleys. You know what?

I'd be happy to have you contact me as well because I could demonstrate that you know what

I probably know which pair you have and could compare your

Oakleys with with mine as well. If you'd like to do that, that's fine. We could talk about people who are crazy enough to ride motorcycles or murder cycles as some people like to put.

That's fun. And we could talk about all sorts of things but hey, you know what? We could talk about important things too.

And that's what we're going to do because well I guess we did run out of we did run out of time the last time we were talking and we've got a little more time this week.

Last time this is about, I guess it was a week ago. I don't recall. Maybe, I forget when it was, we were talking with Pierre in well now

Virginia is right now sort of getting blown around the map, isn't it? Pierre, are you under the gun of Isabel?

Yeah, pretty much. Not too bad where I'm at. What kind of, is it lots of rain, lots of wind?

Lots of rain and wind but not quite as bad as some of the people on the coast are getting. So you're a little bit farther inland?

Yeah. Western Fairfax County. Oh, okay. Alright. Well good.

Not a lot of power outages or things in your area? Not here. I've seen a couple of trees blown down on the way in.

But mostly things are intact. So far anyway. Alright, well obviously it must be working.

If A, you can hear the program and B you can get a phone line out. So let's not be too bad at that particular point where you are.

Now if I recall correctly the last time we were talking about Dave Hunt and I've mentioned the irony.

I had been talking about Dave Hunt's comments on, if I recall correctly it was

Romans Chapter 9 We played his comments on that particular section and though you probably don't agree a lot with Dave Hunt on most of the things he says.

Have you ever read for example his materials on other subjects here? I have not.

I mean You know that he co -authored, I think it was God Makers 2? Yeah, I was wondering

I thought I had heard that. I wasn't sure if that was actually true but I heard that he was involved in that.

I mean we're talking someone who's got very strong views on those particular subjects and in fact

I would take issue with the accuracy of some of his writings on that particular subject but you called him to defend what he had to say so it is

I find that interesting in light of the fact that there's a lot of groups that are just very much opposed to the concept of Calvinism and Reformed Theology and here's a confluence and we were discussing what the actual text of Romans Chapter 9 said and at one point you had to raise the other passages, 2nd

Peter 3 .9, 1st Timothy 2 .4, Matthew 23 37 -39 and I honestly don't recall exactly where it was that we finished up but you wanted to respond to the last things that were said

I guess. Yes and actually one of the reasons I'm calling is that you made a comment towards the end about Hebrews Chapter 10 and the atonement and I can't listen to your archive.

I'm not sure whether it's my computer or... No, no it's not your computer. The straightgate .com

is currently down. I can't imagine it's going to stay down forever but if you go to our website we have put up a, well we haven't actually the person making this live broadcast available has put up a temporary archive of I think the last 4 or 5 and we'll just keep adding them until straightgate comes back.

So it's not your computer it is straightgate .com and we know that Steven Luker who runs it knows about it he's working on it.

Hopefully it will come back eventually. I had hoped to review our conversation so I could be a little more clear but anyway you had made some comments about Hebrews Chapter 10 and something about the atonement and I was just sort of intrigued by that I don't know which verses you were talking about.

Yeah well specifically Hebrews Chapter 10 beginning at verse 10 by this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices which can never take away sins but he having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time sat down at the right hand of God waiting for that time onward until his enemies made a footstool for his feet for by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified and I had mentioned that I had written an article on our website it is no longer the main page article but it was for about three months or so this year mainly because I'm just slow at getting main page articles written and it is archived in the either in the

Roman Catholic section or in the Reformed Theology section where I go through this passage rather in depth in response to some comments made by Robert St.

Genes a traditionalist Roman Catholic apologist in light of a debate that we did at the

University of Utah and that would be back in April that's what

I was referring to so Hebrews chapter 10 verses 10 through 14 I think my comment to you was in light of the fact that you would probably hold to a concept of atonement that is universalistic obviously your view of the atonement would also include the concept of Christ's suffering in the garden and so on and so forth but especially the concept of Christ's atonement well

I'll let you express it for yourself but it doesn't perfect those for whom it is made it simply makes the perfection of those for whom it is made a possibility it opens the door for example

Norman Geisler has expressed the idea that as Christ's death does not save anyone it makes them savable would you agree with that?

only in part because as you have already pointed out as a Latter Day Saint we do believe in a kind of universal salvation now apart from Jesus Christ if you read

Nephi chapter sorry 2nd Nephi chapters 2 or 3 I think it is where Lehi makes that point and that is that if there were no atonement then we would all become lost like Satan so that the atonement does in fact benefit all those who receive any degree of salvation so you know the

Lord's atonement is effective in all of our lives including those who inherit the celestial kingdom so that's as I understand the

LDS position the atonement does benefit all benefit all but it does not perfect all no in terms of exaltation that is correct and that would help us to understand 1st

Timothy 4 .10 wherein he says for this we labor and strive because we have fixed our hope on the living

God who is the savior of all men especially of believers why especially believers well they are the ones who go on and do it to the end who go on to receive exaltation they are the ones who are perfected but all the other men who do not receive perfection do benefit from the savior's atonement so even in your use of 1st

Timothy 4 .10 there which is not in a satirologically relevant section but even there you made the additional statement those who endure to the end and so his being savior that saviorhood is theoretical it's hypothetical it makes it available if we will do x, y, or z so how then do you understand that phrase in Hebrews 10 .14

how has by one offering has he perfected for all time anyone if in fact there is something that we need to add to his offering to gain perfection because I think

I just heard you identify perfection as exaltation that would be correct so how has if perfection is exaltation isn't it possible that's not the meaning of the term in Hebrews 10 .14

at all no I think that it means just what it says I think though that what he's talking about is that he's probably speaking predominantly of or actually specifically of the those who are going to inherit exaltation in the kingdom of God and our view of course is that we do the best we can with what we've got and then ultimately all of us need

Christ to complete our salvation and therefore all of us are in fact saved by Christ so it's as Nephi says it is by grace that we are saved after all that which we can do but apart from Christ there would be no perfection so we need

Christ to complete our perfection and I think that's what Paul is talking about but Christ cannot perfect anyone without our assistance without what?

without our assistance without our action without our endurance not that I would word it that way we can't achieve it without Christ but can

Christ accomplish it in any individual's life without their activity well as I understand it all those who die before the age of eight are not held accountable and therefore are saved purely by the grace of God as I understand the teachings of Joseph Smith and his successors and for a ten year old and beyond that's eight year old and beyond well

I was just using a round number for those they have to put forward an effort once they achieve the age of accountability then the

Lord expects them to do what they can within the realm of what they have available to them in terms of knowledge and understanding and opportunities and so if Christ wants to perfect for all time any particular individual he can try he can put forward his greatest effort but if that person refuses to cooperate

Christ is helpless so that would be correct and so what does what then going back to the text and this has always been the issue

Pierre when you call in as we keep going back to the text what does

Hebrews 10 mean when it says by this will we have been sanctified what does that actually mean

I would suggest to you that the terminology of scripture especially sanctification and redemption and perfection obviously from my understanding of the teachings of Joseph Smith the book of Mormon and the later teachings of the general authorities of the

Mormon church I have submitted to you many times that I don't believe that a faithful Mormon a faithful latter day saint if you don't like the term

Mormon there are some that don't anymore for some reason but I don't believe that you can come to the text of Hebrews 10 and allow these terms such as sanctification or perfection to be defined by the text you have an authority beyond the text itself that gets in the way of allowing the text to speak for itself.

We mentioned the difference between exegesis and eisegesis the last time we spoke and since you have an authority that exists outside of the

Bible you end up having to import these categories into the text of scripture and that determines the meaning that is going to be attached to these words so for example by this will we have been sanctified.

Now that's a in the Greek language it's called a periphrastic construction that is a perfect passive participle with a form of I me and it's a very strong assertion how do you deal with that as an

LDS person in light of all this other teaching that you have from another perspective well

I'm not sure that I can explain it in a way that would be satisfactory to you except that I don't see it as a problem as a

Latter Day Saint I think that if we are we endure to the end and in fact we will have been perfected by Christ I think that is my understanding of things

I realize I may not be putting it in a way that will satisfy you well let's not worry about me

I'm just asking or will you go ahead and directly say you know what my belief doesn't come from this text in fact you know you and I have both read

I'm certain a marvelous work and a wonder by LeGrand Richards and did he not make in almost every single chapter of that book the point that Joseph Smith's teachings and Joseph Smith's theology was not in fact derived from the reading of the text of the

Bible oh yeah I wouldn't argue with that point at all so would you then say that Hebrews 10 10 even though it places this sanctification as a completed action it places it in the past it places this perfection in verse 14 likewise as something that Christ accomplishes that that's not really relevant in light of the teachings of Latter Day Saints, the prophets that you believe

God has provided through the LDS church well again as I read this over and over again

I don't see where in any way it is a problem for me.

I realize from your point where it is because I see God as looking down the corridor of time and seeing who is the ones who are to be saved and for them that work has been accomplished he has been successful in doing what he set out to do and so he speaks in past tense something that in fact has not really taken place yet that is to say our perfection we see that in the

Old Testament where many times future events are spoken of almost in the past tense even though they haven't taken place yet but Pierre I understand when

Arminians utilize the God looking down the corridors of time situation but if Elohim is an exalted man who became exalted through the process of time how could

Elohim be able to look down the corridors of time since time exists outside of Elohim and Elohim does not determine the events that take place within time well that may have been true at one point in time that is no longer true now being an exalted being all things are before him and so he is able to see both past, present and future how can

God how can Elohim know the future when Mormonism at its deepest foundation affirms pure libertarianism denies that there is an eternal decree of God that determines events in time how could for example

Elohim know what a future God who has not yet been exalted but will be is going to freely do when that God does not even yet exist as a

God well I don't know the answer to that question but I see where you are coming from you as a

Calvinist feel that God has to have made a decision about everything that is going to happen before it happens and that is how he is able to tell the future because he himself has in essence created the future by making the determination of what is going to happen yes and I am very thankful that you accurately recognize the grounding of God's knowledge in his decree because there are a lot of Protestant evangelicals that don't get that but I don't think that that is necessary I admit

I have no idea how it is that God sees into the future from my perspective as a simple man it is an impossibility but nevertheless

I accept the fact that the scriptures indicate that God is able to know the future and I don't know how but I accept it as a fact but wouldn't you have to limit the knowledge of God's future to this and I don't know whether you utilize the terminology, the more modern terminology of this universe in comparison to other universes but how for example would

Elohim have exhaustive infallible knowledge of the actions of his father who was a

God before him who made it possible for him to become a God how would he have exhaustive knowledge of what his father is going to do in the future and if he did would that not mean that his father's actions in the future are already fixed and that he cannot do anything other than what

Elohim knows he is going to do in other words let me give you an illustration if you are saying that his divine foreknowledge of the future is exhaustive and infallible in other words he can't make mistakes and he sees that his father, whoever that was whatever that God before him was

Joseph Smith did talk about that remember in regards to Revelation 1, 5 and 6 if he has infallible knowledge of what his father is going to do on another planet somewhere out wherever then his father cannot help but do what

Elohim knows he is going to do if he is going to start a new creation if he is going to start a new

Adam and Eve on another planet then his father cannot help but do that, he cannot choose you know what,

I'm not going to do that because then that would falsify what Elohim knew he was going to do, so no matter what you do once you affirm a knowledge of the future, that future becomes fixed and I don't see that as a part of Joseph Smith's teachings and I don't see that as a part of the teachings of the

General Authorities of the LDS Church either and maybe you could point me to some discussions that would say otherwise, but that's not been my experience of the teachings of the

General Authorities of the Mormon Church I understand what you're saying and I admit that it is a dilemma but again we're mere men, we don't understand these things yet, because we can't understand them doesn't make them not so in due time the

Lord will reveal all things unto us, in the meantime he asks us to exercise faith and that's the very reason why he asks us to exercise faith because it's just too complex for us to understand.

But Pierre let me just differentiate how I would understand that, and that is

I don't believe that the faith that God asks us to exercise is a faith in internal self -contradiction

I believe it's a faith in the validity of his promises which he has revealed so I'm not saying that we know everything there is to know, but I'm also saying that it does not result in an internal contradiction to believe what we believe but Pierre, thank you very much keep your head down, keep the water out, thank you for listening even in the midst of a storm,

I hope that conversation was useful to you and useful to everyone who called in and was listening in as well thanks again to Richard Bristell and I think

I'll be back next Tuesday, Lord willing, from Austin those of you in Austin, we'll see you this weekend

God bless, thanks for listening, see you next week .org