Scriptural Case for the Deity of Christ/Interaction & a Proposal for the Government to “Study” Islam

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:36

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a Thursday. We have a lot to get to and we're going to jump right into it.

00:43

Not much in the way of chitter -chatter today. Some of you complained about that anyways. First and most important thing,

00:51

Tommy Voeckler is retiring from the Tour de France. I'm crushed.

00:57

Actually, some people were saying, we could find a way of accusing you of something based upon that, because he's a

01:03

Frenchman. He shaves his legs and he wears cotton spandex. Well, two of those three pretty much describe me anyways.

01:12

Tommy Voeckler is a French rider and he was a lot of fun to watch.

01:20

Go back into the early 2000s and some of the breakaways he'd do. He was a racer.

01:27

All it does is remind me we're all getting older. The years are going by and people you saw coming in are now retiring.

01:37

So anyways, that's not what I was talking about though. On Twitter today, at one point

01:44

I made a comment about proclaiming the lordship of Jesus Christ. Paul Williams, a

01:51

Muslim writer who is a former

01:57

Christian, so the technical term for that is apostate, obviously. That's not an insult, that's a fact.

02:03

Just like Bart Ehrman, once made a profession of faith, is not any longer, commented about how this was not

02:14

Paul's view or things like that. I and another

02:20

Christian began to chat with him and I'm starting to wonder, to be very honest with you, remember a couple months ago people were pointing out, hey my name is on a shadow ban list?

02:31

There's a lot of people that I'll send tweets to and they never respond. They're responding to other people, not responding to me. And sometimes

02:38

I just wonder, you know, you go online, they're still there, but it just makes me wonder if some of this stuff just isn't disappearing.

02:50

It's not even worth my time to even bother because these folks don't want anything that I'm saying.

02:57

In fact, a bunch of people have been posting little things that say that if you want to see my clips, if you want to see my tweets, your settings have to be set up because my tweets have been marked as containing sensitive material.

03:12

It could be offensive to people. Well, that's obvious. Obviously it doesn't work for other people though.

03:19

So I'm just really wondering. I don't know. So I shot back.

03:28

Well, shot back. I responded and eventually the subject of Daniel chapter 7 came up.

03:39

And it was, I believe Paul Williams had brought up, so Daniel chapter 7 verse 14 conclusively proves that Jesus is not

03:47

God. And I said, I suppose if you assume Unitarianism as all

03:53

Muslims must by the basis of their own tradition and scriptures, but that's assuming the end of the conclusion, that's assuming the end of the debate as part of the argument, you have to allow all of scripture to speak.

04:11

And really, since we've been talking about Islam, we haven't been talking a lot about the theology of Islam recently, but we've actually just been trying to get around to whether you can even allow a

04:22

Muslim to express their views without automatically going crazy about it.

04:29

But the reality is that as I see it, if you try to step back from all the emotions and things like that, you look at the text of the

04:45

Quran and you ask yourself a question, what did the author of this text believe and understand about the revelation that's found in what is called the

05:00

Christian scriptures, the New Testament? Let's just back up.

05:06

Let's grab the study Quran here. And this isn't my fancy dancing when that's at home.

05:15

I have that wonderfully, nicely leather -bound version at home. But same book, the study

05:21

Quran. And like I said, my biggest disappointment with the study

05:26

Quran is the fact that it's...

05:32

why oh why did they try to make it sound like the

05:37

King James? Well here. Let me...

05:49

On that day, this is Surah 27, I just opened up to it. On that day the trumpet will be blown, and whosoever is in the heavens and on earth will be terrified, save whom

05:59

God wills. And all will come to him in abject humility. And thou seest the mountains that thou dost suppose are solid pass away like clouds, the work of God who perfects all things.

06:17

Why? It's 2017. Nobody speaks like that anymore.

06:25

And even if you try to argue that, well, the thou part, you know, you can differentiate your pronouns.

06:33

Let's not even get into pronouns today, okay? Let's not, please.

06:40

But still, thou seest? Why? I just...

06:46

But there's so many notes, and they're not in Old English, thankfully.

06:53

So many notes and appendices, it's still worth using the study

07:00

Quran. So we look at the study Quran, and we ask ourselves the question, what did the author understand about the content of the

07:10

New Testament? Now, let's just be honest, that's not the first thought across the mind of most of our

07:18

Muslim friends. They are so accustomed to looking backwards at the

07:25

New Testament and the Old Testament with the Quran as the lens through which they are looking at these things, that it's just generally not something that they're thinking about.

07:38

And so, the reality that the author of the Quran is significantly more familiar, significantly more familiar with the content and outline of the

07:51

Old Testament, with Jewish stories, than with the New. And in fact, I think you could make...

07:56

Oh yeah, you can make... It'd be very easy to make the argument that the author of the

08:02

Quran was more familiar with the

08:08

Gnostic, non -canonical, non -historical stories about Jesus than with the actual canonical materials themselves.

08:21

I don't think there's any question about that. Just look at what appears in the New Testament, and the very few times...

08:28

I'm sorry, in the Quran, the very few times that anything appears that, you know, the stories of Jesus' childhood, speaking from the cradle, the forming of the birds, these are all from Gnostic or semi -Gnostic sources.

08:47

They're not from the first century. They're not from the actual New Testament. There is not...

08:55

I cannot think of a single text in the

09:00

Quran that would show any familiarity with the argument of the

09:05

Book of Hebrews, the Carmen Christi in Philippians chapter 2, the visions of He who is seated upon the throne and the

09:16

Lamb in Revelation 4 and 5, Colossians chapter 1. Nothing.

09:23

Absolutely nothing. And so, if you just sort of step back from the fray and just ask the question, does this text give me any reason to believe that the author really understood what's found in the

09:42

New Testament? The answer has to be, and can be very honestly said to be absolutely, positively no.

09:50

There's no reason to believe that. So, what I have seen over the years is what you have in the

09:59

Quran and in Islamic theology is a U -turn, because if you...

10:08

from our perspective, it looks like a U -turn. You have the prophetic material of the

10:14

Old Testament. In fact, I haven't downloaded it today, but I guess there was a debate on Isaiah 43 on Michael Brown's show.

10:22

I want to listen to that. Still, one of my favorite programs

10:27

I've ever done was when Michael was my guest, and we spent, what, an hour and a half,

10:33

I think, just working through the original languages of Isaiah 53, which is still available up on Sermon Audio and stuff like that.

10:42

Just look for it. Anyway, what you have is you have the prophecies of the

10:52

Old Testament, the one who is to come, El Gabor, Sar Shalom, Mighty God, the

11:00

Prince of Peace, a son who's given to us, a child born to us, Isaiah 9. You've got the

11:06

Immanuel passages, not just 714, but follow that whole section through in Isaiah.

11:13

We've talked about that before. Pointing forward to this great fulfillment that you have in the

11:19

New Testament. Of course, the Jewish people refused to go with this greater fulfillment than anything that they imagined.

11:29

Well, so did the Muslims. From our perspective, you have this huge revelation and then a

11:35

U -turn back to the old way. I don't think it's a

11:40

U -turn. There's no knowledge of the content of that revelation, the content of the canonical

11:48

Gospels, the testimony to the deity of Christ. The author doesn't even attempt to refute these things.

11:57

What is refuted is clearly based on oral material rather than upon written sources.

12:10

And some might say, well, yeah, it's because Muhammad couldn't read. Well, again, that's a common assertion, but not really certain that it's an overly solid one.

12:22

But still, that means that that only strengthens the argument that when we look at how the

12:29

Quran interacts with either Old and New Testament, it's interacting orally and not on a literary level.

12:37

Whereas when the New Testament interacts with the Old Testament, when the New Testament interacts with the

12:42

Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi 'im, and the Ketuvim, it is strongly literary, which leads to all the discussions about intertextuality, the

12:54

Greek Septuagint, the Hebrew, and we'll get into a little bit of that here in what we're looking at.

12:59

And so this is a major, major issue. And unfortunately, when both sides are lobbying verbal bombs and are far more interested in accusing people of being jihadis and everything like that, you generally don't get into a discussion of this.

13:19

You don't get into any type of discussion of the actual relationship of the

13:25

Quran that the Quran claims itself to possess in Surah 5, Ayat 44 and following.

13:35

This stuff isn't generally part of what people are thinking about or discussing, though it's where the real discussion needs to be focused.

13:45

And so anyway, with that in mind, you listen to Paul Williams' objection, and the objection is, well, this explains why people like Williams will gravitate so easily to anti -Pauline modern scholarship, to the liberal wing of things as far as scholarship is concerned, because liberalism doesn't believe that you should look at all of the

14:23

New Testament. You cut it up into little bits and pieces. Of course, they believe the same thing about the

14:28

Quran, and they won't go there. That's where the inconsistency is. Any Muslim citing liberal sources against the

14:36

New Testament that then isn't open to redaction, criticism, and that type of stuff in regards to the

14:46

Quran, well, I think that's a great inconsistency. But anyway, when we look at Daniel chapter 7, there is clearly a distinction that is drawn here because, well, we'll just back up to verse 13.

15:31

Well, what are you going to do with a text like this? I mean, people want to argue all day long about the dating of Daniel and so on and so forth, but however you date it, the reality is it is before Christ.

15:47

The gospel writers all, if it's dealt with at all, all view it as scripture.

15:55

And in what a lot of Muslims like to try to say and a lot of Christians like to try to say, earliest gospel, we don't know what the earliest gospel was.

16:04

It's all theoretical. But in Mark, this text is extremely important at the trial of Jesus.

16:12

Jesus conflates Daniel 7 with Psalm 110 in regards to himself and his own self -identification as the

16:22

Son of Man, Daniel chapter 7, verse 13. And in the

16:28

Greek Septuagint, that's hwios anthropou, the exact same phraseology that is one of Jesus' favorite terms for himself in the

16:38

Synoptic Gospels. And when Jesus uses it in Mark chapter 14 at his trial, the reaction of the

16:50

Jewish leaders is to tear their clothes and speak of blasphemy.

16:55

They know exactly the text that Jesus is applying to himself and say, we don't need any more witnesses.

17:06

Why should we need more witnesses? You've heard the blasphemy for yourself. He's worthy of death. And so you, on one hand, almost have to accuse the

17:15

Jews of having misunderstood Jesus or Jesus was just really bad at communicating what he wanted to communicate in this situation or something.

17:25

But it's obviously Mark's intention to communicate to his reader that Jesus made this application before his crucifixion and that he did not renege upon it.

17:41

This was central to the reasons why he was rejected by the

17:46

Jewish leaders. And isn't it interesting? That's the same issue in the book of John.

17:53

We're always told John is so ahistorical. Maybe these conversations had been going on.

17:59

When you see the language that is used in Daniel 7, clouds of heaven, son of man, given dominion, glory in a kingdom, all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

18:23

And I realize there's a textual variant in the Greek Septuagint, but the primary manuscripts have

18:29

Latru over there, the highest form of worship. This is the very same language, very, very clearly the source of the book of Revelations language terminology that's being used in regards to Jesus there.

18:46

And this is tied in together with Isaiah 9 and the language and the whole nine yards.

18:53

It's very, very clear that the New Testament writers as a group draw upon these very same themes in the identification of Jesus.

19:04

But the point is the son of man is not the ancient of days. And so if you assume

19:11

Unitarianism, if you presuppositionally decide that there can be no greater fulfillment, there can't be, you know, the old covenant exhausts all of it.

19:27

There can be no great revelation of God. There can be nothing of it.

19:32

You have to just ignore all of these even prophetic texts, let alone then all the

19:40

New Testament testimony to the deity of Christ. Then you go, well, see, right there, differentiated.

19:52

And we go, yes, the father and the son are differentiated from one another.

19:59

We always believe that. Oh, but, but, but wait a minute.

20:04

It says right there that this, obviously this one who is presented before the ancient of days has dominion, glory, a kingdom, men of every nation and language serve him.

20:18

You're either going to be pushed into some kind of bi -theism or you're going to have to recognize that the reason the

20:27

Christians have come up with the understanding that they have is because they've been forced to that by the very categories of scripture itself.

20:38

And when people object to the philosophical language has been used in later generations to describe these things, very rarely is that objection actually based upon seriously taking all of what scripture says together and realizing this is the reason why we differentiate between being in person is because you have one

21:04

God Yahweh, but you have differentiation in who is worshiped and you either end up wandering off in this weird netherworld of intermediate beings and demigods and the mythology out there someplace, or you recognize what

21:23

Jesus said, what Jesus did and how he accepted worship and the real thing.

21:30

And remember, remember how Bart Ehrman made a statement in that debate with the Dallas seminary prof a few years ago that just astounded all of us.

21:39

And I said at the time, hey, let's debate that one. This is, this is a given.

21:45

I mean, this is, this is just a clear indication of, of Bart's being an expert in some other field than theology where he said, no, the

21:55

New Testament writers identified Jesus as Yahweh. That would be, that'd be heretical. That would be modalism.

22:01

And it's like, no, it's not modalism at all. It's a recognition that the being of Yahweh is shared by three distinct persons, the father, the son, the

22:14

Holy spirit, one God, three persons. That's what we've believed all along. There's a reason for this. It is the only way to allow all of scripture to speak and only scripture to speak as the source of our beliefs.

22:30

And so when we, we look at a text like this, you, you can see very clearly the presuppositional nature of the assumption of Unitarianism on the part of the

22:51

Muslim or the Jehovah's witness or all the other Unitarians out there that just simply make this as, this is a given.

23:00

And so we're going to use that as the lens through which we look at this rather than looking at all of the, the text and saying, well, hmm, only way to put this together is to make certain distinctions.

23:13

And unless we want to have multiple Yahwehs, remember the debate that we had with Anthony Buzzard a number of years ago,

23:22

Michael Brown and I, that means you'd have more than one Yahweh. No, there's only one

23:27

Yahweh. But since you have the father, the son, the spirit differentiated from one another and each identified in this fashion, you've got to, you've got to deal with the reality that is, that is before you.

23:41

And so you have this, this teaching. And so what happened, I tried to basically ask

23:51

Paul Williams. I never got a response. And like I said, he was responding to other people.

23:57

So I just, it could just be that it got late in England. Or you just,

24:04

I just am starting to wonder if half of what I write on Twitter just goes into the

24:11

Bitbucket someplace because of shadow bands and all sorts of stuff like that.

24:17

I just don't know. But I asked

24:23

Paul Williams, I said, so in Psalm 102, 25 to 27, is this not describing

24:34

Yahweh? Well, the lights just went out on one side and we know where the short is.

24:42

So when the whole place burns down, do we know where it was?

24:50

And no, that's great.

24:58

That's lovely. That's, this is exciting. We have this track lighting thing.

25:05

And he's, he's just wiggling, wiggling the track lighting.

25:14

Well, that's only one of them. The other one turned off. So yeah, yeah.

25:19

Turn that back on. Yes, I know. It's all better now.

25:28

How long do you think that's gonna last? Yeah. So, so who installed that?

25:42

Weren't you were talking about Paul Williams just then, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think,

25:52

I think I was. That doesn't change the fact that I was just wondering who, who installed the track lighting.

25:59

And you wonder if the construction they're doing some of the vibration hasn't been what's...

26:07

No, that thought occurred to me. Yeah, yeah. So, but there's also a conspiracy going on that Sam may be banging on the door right now.

26:14

Could be. It's a noise that's being heard. All right. Anyway, it got really dark in here.

26:21

You could see the board cube pretty well, though. See, it did make for interesting illustration of the shadow band concept.

26:29

Yeah, yeah. The lights just boom. If we only had one light on in here, I would sort of look like a very shadowy, shadowy strange figure.

26:38

I look like a strange figure. Folks. Oh, did you do that?

26:49

Oh, great. Now, now, now somebody's playing. Now somebody's playing with the lights.

26:56

Playing with the lights. That's good. You just, you just keep, you, you, you do that.

27:02

I'm just gonna press on. And if it just, there's just a strange person in the darkness talking. That's, that's fine.

27:08

It's fine. Oh, boy. Anyway, what were we talking about? So Moses was in the bulrushes and no, okay.

27:17

So I asked him to tell me in, in Psalm, in the book of Psalms, Psalm 102, is this

27:30

Yahweh that is being described as the unchanging God? Never got an answer. Never got an answer.

27:38

The reason I asked is I simply wanted to point out that there really isn't any question about the fact that the

27:47

New Testament writers, Paul in particular, but Peter did the same thing. John did the same thing.

27:56

Identify Jesus as Yahweh. And you know what

28:03

I'm referring to. I'm referring to the fact that Psalm 102, 25 -27 is a text about the immutability of God.

28:10

It's about Yahweh's unchanging nature. And yet those very words are quoted from the

28:20

Greek Septuagint of the sun in Hebrews chapter one, beginning of verse 10.

28:26

Unless you are a part of Iglesia Ni Cristo, when you can just simply ignore those things and say, no, it's not about the sun.

28:36

It's about somebody else. But it is plainly about the sun.

28:43

And the Unitarians recognize that. You can listen to the rather in -depth discussion that Anthony Buzzard and I had on that very issue on the

28:53

Unbelievable Radio broadcast if you want to get more into depth. But this was the text that's cited in Hebrews 1, 10 and following.

29:03

And you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain.

29:09

They will all become old like a garment, like a mantle. You will roll them up like a garment. They will also be changed, but you are the same, and your years will not come to an end.

29:18

And then the context just flows right on. But to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand, so I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?

29:28

So the citation of Psalm 110, which is the most commonly cited

29:35

Old Testament passage in the New Testament, that citation about the sun is in verse 13.

29:43

The citation in verses 8 and 9 is about the sun. The idea that verses 10, 11, and 12 somehow changed the topic, as was suggested by Joe Ventilacion.

29:56

Most people have forgotten about the INC debate in light of recent events, but that was the big story for a long time.

30:04

Mr. Ventilacion's attempted way around this text is just utterly untenable.

30:13

It simply does not work. It is a gross violation of the context.

30:18

The subject has not changed. What I wanted to ask Mr. Williams was, how do you explain this?

30:26

How do you explain that the New Testament writers are willing to take these texts that are specifically and only about the person of Yahweh in the

30:39

Old Testament? I saw something going on in his discussion with the other

30:47

Christian about Solomon and things like that.

30:54

That's one of the reasons I like using this particular text. Have you ever seen...

31:01

I wonder if I... I bet I do. I bet it's in there someplace. Do I take the time to grab it?

31:08

No. Have you ever seen those wheels, these graphics where you have these things going out?

31:16

On the one side, God is this, God is this, God is this. On this side, Jesus is Jesus, Jesus is Jesus. And you just follow it across, and it's making these connections between God and Jesus.

31:25

Well, some of those connections are valid, but many of them are subject to refutation by bright

31:40

Unitarian attackers or defenders of Unitarianism, however you want to look at it.

31:49

Because you might say, God is king, Jesus is king.

31:58

Yeah, but there have been other kings who weren't God. So the attribute that is predicated of Jesus needs to be an attribute that is unique to God for it to be a strong proof text in of itself.

32:17

That's why Psalm 102, 25 -27 is so useful and important, because the attribute that is said to be of the

32:28

Son is what? Immutability. Eternality. He does not change.

32:36

This is an amazing statement to make, but it's what the writer to the Hebrews does and makes this application to Jesus.

32:44

So, given the strong evidence, and there is very strong evidence, of the early date of the book of Hebrews itself.

32:56

It's very clear to me that if you follow the argument of the book of Hebrews, there are a number of clues that are dropped in the process that tell us that the dating of the book is pre -70.

33:17

There's just so many. It just seems very, very clear. The sacrifices are still being offered in the temple.

33:27

There's still something to go back to. The whole book and its purpose would not make any sense at all if the temple had been destroyed at that point in time.

33:38

The great temptation that is addressed is the temptation to go back to the old ways.

33:50

I'm starting to look like Walter Martin here. Don't you remember what Walter Martin used to do? He'd sit back and put his feet up on the table, sipping on a

34:04

Coke or whatever it is, and talking to folks on the phone. Putting this camera over it.

34:16

I need to have a control of this stuff in here from now on. So that I can control the guy who's flipping lights on and off.

34:26

What was in that lunch? A little caffeine in the Coke or something like that, maybe? Oh, and some coffee.

34:34

Well, there you go. The children are at the keyboard today.

34:42

Anyway, what was I saying? Walter Martin. I was just turning this direction and I was making a point, but someone has just completely jumped the track on me.

34:56

I don't remember where in the world I was. This particular text is extremely strong because it speaks of specifically an attribute of God that no king has.

35:12

Nothing is said about Solomon in this way. I'm not saying those other parallels do not have validity.

35:19

But very often the validity is found more in arguing the context and the application than just simply in the idea, well,

35:27

God's king, Jesus is king, Solomon's king, therefore they're all God. No, that's not going to make any sense. This one is extremely strong, the one in John chapter 12, likewise.

35:37

Very, very strong due to the contextual argumentation of the apostles. And so you have to deal with the reality that the

35:46

New Testament writers were willing to describe Jesus in this way. And that is what lies at the heart of Christian belief in the

35:55

Trinity. Can someone really tell me, very honestly, that you can read this book fairly and go, the author of this book understood what

36:15

I just said about Jesus being Yahweh and the basis of it?

36:23

No. So if you make this your ultimate authority and then read through it backwards at the

36:31

Old and New Testament, that's going to filter out 98 % of the

36:37

New Testament revelation by making this the ultimate authority. And that's the problem.

36:45

That's the problem. So there you go. I wish

36:50

I could tell you what the response from Paul Williams would be to that, but I can't even tell you whether he saw the tweets.

37:01

I don't know. I don't know. Another reason why we must be very, very, very familiar with the text of the

37:14

New Testament. Now, we move on from there. I saw this. When was this posted? The 13th.

37:21

So yeah, about a week ago. And given what's happened recently,

37:29

I will confess that I was, you know, even now

37:38

I'm going, do I really want to address this? You know, it'd be nice to have a little peace and quiet for a few days, but I guess that just isn't going to happen.

37:50

It's a political article, House to Vote on Controversial Study of Islam. Dateline, July 13th.

38:01

The House is set to vote Friday. And I don't know what happened. Maybe somebody can tell me what happened about this.

38:10

The House is set to vote Friday on a controversial GOP proposal identifying, quote,

38:15

Islamic religious doctrines, concepts, or schools of thought, end quote, that could be used by terrorist groups, something opponents say is unconstitutional and will lead to the targeting of Muslims.

38:29

The amendment drafted by conservative Republican Trent Franks, Republican of Arizona. I know Trent. Haven't spoken to him in years, but he was elected years and years and years ago as a member of the same church

38:43

I was in. That's how long ago it was, because I've been gone for a long time. The amendment drafted by conservative

38:50

Republican Trent Franks also calls for the Pentagon to identify Islamic leaders who preach peaceful beliefs versus those who espouse extremist views.

39:02

The proposal has drawn heavy criticism from Muslim lawmakers serving in Congress, Muslim interest groups, and the

39:08

American Civil Liberties Union, who say the proposal would unfairly target Muslims. I would therefore trust the

39:14

Trump administration to conduct the analysis. Quote, if you have an amendment that says we're going to study one religion and only one, we're going to look at their leaders and put them on a list, only them, and you're going to talk about what's orthodox practice and what's unorthodox, then you are putting extra scrutiny on that religion, said

39:34

Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat, Minnesota, who is a Muslim. Ellison, who met with Franks to try to persuade him to withdraw the proposal, you are abridging the free exercise of religion.

39:45

This is the wrong way to do what he's trying to do. Franks defended his idea during an interview Thursday evening.

39:51

Right now, there is a certain spectrum within the Islamist world that is at the root of the ideological impulse for terrorism,

39:58

Franks said. Ironically, Muslims are the prime targets of these groups. That's true.

40:04

To suggest this is anti -Muslim is a fallacy, and I think that anyone who really understands it knows that.

40:11

Well, I'd really like to know if anyone knows what came of this, because I was traveling at the time,

40:23

I was up in Colorado, so I don't know what came of this.

40:31

I fully understand the desire to, you know, we live in a day where people expect the government to take care of us, from the cradle to the grave.

40:46

And when something goes wrong, it's the government's fault. What's the government going to do about this? This is a,

40:52

I think the tipping point has been reached in being able to continue to maintain a meaningful founder's view of government.

41:03

When the large majority of people in the

41:09

United States now think that it's the government's responsibility to somehow anticipate.

41:17

Okay, someone in channel is saying that according to at least one source, this was defeated, so it did not pass.

41:27

That's just one piece of information I got one line in the chat channel. Here's my problem.

41:39

A, I do not think this is the government's business. I do not believe in pre -crime. If you've not watched that movie, you don't know what that means.

41:49

But the idea of somehow identifying people before they do something.

41:57

Now that, you know, when we have these kinds of terrorist attacks, why didn't we see this person coming? Well, because you can't.

42:04

You can't look into people's hearts. You can't look into the future. And so, you know, when people say, well, we should be doing a better job of doing this.

42:13

No, we should be doing a better job of defending ourselves when evil people decide to do evil things.

42:19

But the idea of somehow engaging in predictive interdiction in the sense of knowing what's going to happen in the future.

42:31

Well, that's that's scary stuff. So what's happened?

42:41

What happened to my thinking is goes along these lines. Right now, the

42:50

Republicans control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

42:58

Will that still be true in 2018? I don't know.

43:05

And neither do you. What about 2020?

43:11

How about all about 2024? Let's say just for giggles that the

43:19

Republicans maintain control all the way to 2024. I don't think that's overly likely, but let's say that happened.

43:30

Eventually, eventually, folks. The Obama situation is going to happen again.

43:40

And you're going to have the people on the left in control of the White House and the

43:45

Senate and the House of Representatives. Yeah, it's going to happen. Look, look at the millennial generation.

43:52

It's going to happen. And what happens then?

43:58

Because if you do this now, if you do something like this in this context.

44:08

What if you grant to the federal government this kind of authority to look at Islam and go, we're going to identify this theology as a peaceful theology.

44:23

And we're going to identify this theology as a violent theology. Now, think about leftists today.

44:29

I was listening. Oh, what's the Dennis Prager? I happen to have

44:35

Dennis Prager on in the car as I was driving in. And this woman called in and she said, my middle school son keeps coming home and he's angry.

44:52

Now, this is the language she used. I'm just reporting what she said. She says he's angry with the trannies because he keeps getting in trouble because each day they want to be addressed with different pronouns and nobody can keep them straight.

45:10

But the school says you've got to do it. And so he's angry with them because it's such a royal pain to try to be going, to try to not offend this special, special, special group that has rights unlike all the rest of us.

45:30

And I'm listening to this going, well, yeah, we know, we knew this was coming.

45:36

That's, this is what, but it's, it's really happening. This, this absolute insanity is happening.

45:41

Now think for a second. As soon as those people are back in charge, what are they going to do with the authority that's been granted them?

45:54

The precedent that's been given to them? By saying the government gets to examine this one religion and go, this, this is government approved teaching.

46:05

And this is government disapproved teaching. Look at California.

46:13

Look at Massachusetts. Look at me plunged into the dark. What's going to, what's going to happen?

46:21

Um, they're going to use that exact level of authority against us.

46:32

And every pastor, every Christian leader is going to be put into a situation where we need to examine your teachings regarding gender.

46:47

We need to examine your teachings regarding marriage. We need to examine your teachings.

46:52

If you hear a scream, it's because Rich is inserting metal objects into the track lighting.

47:01

And if I all of a sudden jump up, it's because I'm, I'm having to remember how to do CPR. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, there we go.

47:09

Is that, is that one? Hopefully that's one of those. Uh, okay. Okay.

47:15

So if, if you just stand there, uh, with the screw in the, the screwdriver in the thing, uh, that will result in, uh, the light staying on.

47:26

But I have a feeling you have a hard time, uh, doing that. So now nothing's working at all.

47:34

Um, it's flashing. It came back on.

47:40

One of them did. We'll just, we'll just go with the one where you're, it's not going to look as pretty as you'd like.

47:49

But we'll just, we'll just go with the one. The other one doesn't, you can't turn that one on remotely. Remember?

47:56

Anyway, trying to get back to the point here. Um, some, a professional would not be distracted by these things, but I don't pretend.

48:07

Um, anyway, uh, someone in jail says, is there a lamp that could be brought into the studio from doc's office?

48:17

Just put over there, aim it at me. Uh, that's okay. We, we, we can live, uh, without that one, that one light on.

48:24

We can live without most of the lights on to be perfectly honest with you. I don't really understand why we need to see me all that well anyways.

48:32

Um, this authority is going to be used against us.

48:38

It's already being used against us. I, I just really honestly don't like big government.

48:50

Because I'm seeing what big government is doing in Western culture. Once you kick

48:56

God out and kick the restraints of the Christian world out of Western culture,

49:03

Western culture becomes a frightening petri dish for the growth of totalitarianism and secularism.

49:10

A secular totalitarianism. And as I said in the last program,

49:17

I am significantly more concerned on a worldview culture level about totalitarian secularism than I am about Islam.

49:32

Um, on an individual basis, you look at individual acts of terrorism.

49:41

Obviously at that point you have to factor in ISIS and, and groups like that.

49:48

You have to. If you live in London, you can't, you know, I'm going to be going to London again soon with your help.

49:56

Um, when, when you see people getting mowed down by vehicles, um, you know,

50:06

I went running across that same bridge, you all know just one week to the day from when that attack took place back in, what was that?

50:13

March, April, somewhere in there. And, uh, so on an individual level, as far as individual acts, you have to keep those things in mind.

50:28

Obviously, there's no question about that. But I'm talking about on a cultural level, I'm talking about a global level.

50:37

And by far, the greater threat is from secular totalitarianism, because the secularists, they cannot brook any dissent whatsoever.

50:53

They, you cannot think differently from them. That's how they operate.

50:58

This is what we're seeing from the left today in our land and in our culture. And once they have this kind of authority, they will use it.

51:10

And so you might say, oh, but it would be so nice to know. Well, who's going to get to judge?

51:17

I mean, seriously, do you want the government to be making theological determinations?

51:25

They're starting to do that anyways. And we all go, no, you, you, you people have no earthly idea what you're babbling about.

51:34

If you think the government is bad, a lot of the things the government does, start letting them get into theology.

51:40

Anybody's theology. The sad thing is, it seems to me, there are some Christians that go, well, it's

51:45

Islam, it's Muslim theology, who cares? Who cares if they're ignorant? Who cares if they make mistakes?

51:51

Who cares if they can't tell one group from another group? Did you all see the mess that got made when we went into Iraq and places like that?

51:59

Because we didn't know how people would react, and we didn't understand the

52:04

Islamic worldview and the difference between the worldview over there and the worldview over here, and the fact we're still paying for all of that, and you want those same people who had no earthly idea what these people believed, now doing the studies over here?

52:22

Not only does that show an utter lack of concern for somebody else's beliefs, which

52:27

I've evidently discovered, sort of uncovered, is an epidemic amongst

52:33

Christians. Hey, doesn't matter. Don't misrepresent Christian beliefs, but you can misrepresent everybody else's beliefs.

52:39

That's fine, as long as it promotes some type of political thing. But like I said, it's not going to stay there.

52:46

Who really believes that it'll stop there? That they're just going to look at the

52:52

Muslims, they're not going to look at anybody else? No, no, no. When those leftists get voted back into office, they're not going to use this kind of authority to be coming after Christians, not like what already happened in Houston.

53:05

No, that's not going to ever happen again. The naivete is shocking. Of course it is.

53:12

Of course it is. And we'll have nobody to blame but ourselves. They'll be following precedent that was established by alleged conservatives.

53:21

So, you know, I get the idea. Well, it sure would be nice to know which leaders are promoting peaceful beliefs.

53:31

The world does not consider the proclamation of the Lordship of Christ to be a peaceful thing.

53:39

Have you noticed that? You proclaim that Jesus Christ is

53:45

Lord, that every single human being is subject to His authority, is to bow the knee to Him.

53:55

And they get a little upset. They get a little angry about things like that. And so that wouldn't be—look at the story that just came out today.

54:08

Michael Brown posted one. It's about this guy named

54:17

Gil, the Colorado businessman that has put like $440 million into promoting homosexuality, transgenderism, so on and so forth.

54:31

He wants to punish Christian conservatives because from his perspective, we're evil.

54:37

We are evil. This is a man who has been given over. I mean, this is Paretican. This is

54:43

Romans 1. And he's put his money where his mouth is. Do you really think these people are going to sit idly by while we get to proclaim the

54:57

Lordship of Christ over every area of human life, including sexuality, marriage, things like that?

55:02

No. From their perspective, total warfare. They've been given over.

55:09

And the more authority that is granted to the United States government on—

55:14

You might say right now, I don't mind if they do that. Just remember, if you take that attitude now, and then they're coming after you and your pastor and your church six, eight, ten years from now, who are you going to complain to?

55:33

Because you said, oh, that's fine. That's fine. As long as it's somebody else. As long as it's somebody else,

55:39

I don't— I really don't care if they get the Muslims right one way or the other. They're all just a bunch of jihadis anyways.

55:44

They're all just doing taqiyya. That's certainly been the attitude we've seen from many people today. But when they take the exact—

55:53

Peaceful. Well, you see, how often do you hear people saying, if you allow Christians to teach what they teach, then you are hurting

56:02

LGBT youth. You are causing suicides. You're causing this.

56:08

You're causing that. They never want to look at the lifestyle as being the root of these types of things.

56:13

No, no, no. And that's being accepted. And once it gets accepted and is being accepted within the legal community that produces the judges, then what's going to happen?

56:28

They'll be coming right after us using the exact same type of materials.

56:35

And so when I saw this, I was like, oh, hmm. This is dangerous, dangerous stuff.

56:44

Somebody on Twitter asks, can you please cover the topic of harmonization and inerrancy? You mean like for the 47 ,000th time?

56:52

We've covered the harmonization of Scripture and the subject of inerrancy many, many, many, many times before on numerous broadcasts of The Dividing Line.

57:03

Maybe didn't use that specific terminology, but we have. And certainly addressed the subject in Scripture alone as well.

57:12

So there's some thoughts on some of the things going on today. Some biblical material and then some cultural stuff.

57:20

I almost talked about something really controversial.

57:28

Like, we never do that. I mean, we are just so milquetoast around here. We just tiptoe around everything.

57:39

That is my reputation, I have to admit, is to never get involved in anything controversial.

57:46

But there is stuff going on, and I'll be honest with you. I'll be honest with you.

57:53

I sit here and go, yeah, it sort of needs to be addressed, but I think we could just wait a little while before we just get the next, you know, why don't we do something really easy for a while, like talk about black

58:08

Hebrew Israelites or something. Let's go find some black

58:14

Hebrew Israelite videos to review just to keep it simple and sane for a while, you know?

58:23

Yeah, I know, I'll still end up talking about it and getting myself in trouble.

58:30

But tattoos and beer, no, that one wouldn't be tough. Like, big deal on that one these days.

58:40

No, I'm talking about really touching one of the third rails, shall we say, of modern evangelicalism today.

58:48

But we'll see. I'm not really set up to be doing that right now. So as we close up, pray for travel arrangements and things like that.

59:00

And if you can support us in getting to England, we're trying to work some stuff out there.

59:06

And in South Africa, lots of stuff to be done really quickly. September, the

59:11

Reformation tour. October, going to be in Dallas twice. Got a lot.

59:18

This year is going to go by so quickly. It'll be the fastest year of my life, to be sure. So pray for us.