Harold Camping

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. Good morning, welcome to the Dividing Line. On a Tuesday morning, regularly scheduled time, the internet seems to be working.

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My microphone seems to be needing some adjustment there and tighten that thing up a little bit.

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There we go. It's not golden, it's not silver, platinum or anything else, it's just plain black metal. In fact,

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I need to, I probably need to replace this windscreen filter thing, you know? When you think about it, it's probably not really the most sanitary thing on the planet.

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What do you think? Well, it's just you that uses it, so. Well, yeah, but you know. Anyway, as I shouldn't have said that on the air.

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It's not golden, but it's cheap. It's cheap and functional, thankfully today, since we have the internet and it seems to be working.

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And thanks to Randy, we got the server up and running, and we'll just see how long all this lasts, given how long bailing wire and chewing gum can last, and we'll see what happens from there.

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877 -753 -3341. I had started, I start a lot of things and sometimes

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I don't finish them. That's not a good trait. But mainly because I've just got so many things going on, and so much stuff comes up and ends up taking more time than I expected it to and stuff like that.

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As I've said many, many times, I haven't been bored since 1978, at least. That's a good thing. Somebody was telling me that I need to take a vacation, you know, relax.

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I said, could you define this term, relax, for me? I'm not sure what, how does that, how does that work?

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And once they described it, I said, oh, you mean my bike rides? No, because you're working very hard on your bike rides and they're physically exhausting and you're listening to stuff.

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And that's not what we mean. I said, well, that's what I mean. That's, that's, I figure eternity is a long time and I'll have plenty of time to rest during eternity.

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I don't really need to worry about that. Anyway, I started looking at this page called

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Bible Thumpers from this, what was this guy's name? I gave the information before, jhuger .com,

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doesn't even look like this stuff has been updated for like three years, but evidently it is a material that is being used by someone over in Orange County to give to his, his religion students at a community college.

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These are, these are the worst of the worst. I've run into these folks before. I remember Dr. Carter at Glendale Community College and they're all over the place.

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There seems to be one on every, every staff who thinks it's his job to destroy the faith of young Christians.

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Of course, they, they could never debate it out in the real world. But they're, they're the big fish amongst the 18 year olds.

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So it's fun that way. And so we had started looking at some of this material.

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It's your standard atheistic material with an edge to it, as so often is the case in the internet.

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I said I was going to be going through it and I, I did one and I haven't done any more since. And so I want to do a few paragraphs of this and then get back before we take your phone calls at 877 -753 -334.

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Did I, did I put four sevens in there? I'm not, eight sevens, something like that.

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877 -753 -3341. You know, I sit here and I sometimes stare at that number over there because we have the number up on the window.

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And I keep thinking about the fact that you have a 777 and you have a 333 and if you add them up together and then, then

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I also notice that four plus one is the same as the five. And so they're, they're equal to one another and it's, it's really interesting.

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But that just gives you an idea of what goes through your mind. That and my, my really cool jet fighter calendar on the wall.

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I keep looking up at the F -16s for this month. It's rather interesting. Yes. So are you saying that if you add the 777 with the 333, you get 10, 10, 10?

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No. Ooh. It's a, but 333 plus nine and then it's, it's a long story of stuff that just goes through my mind numerically every once in a while.

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So it's, it's sort of fun. But anyways, I'm going to continue on here. And by the way, you know what?

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I just, I just, Micah just said divided by Harold Camping equals insanity and anything divided by Harold Camping equals insanity, but he's the universal insanity divisor.

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But we have not hardly said anything about the fact that we are coming up on one month to go.

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I mean, today's the 5th of the 5th of April, so it's May, it's about a month and a half. So in a few weeks here, we'll be at one month out.

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I haven't said almost anything about this at all, I guess, because you know, once you debate the guy and in the second hour, he just sits there and keeps repeating his mantras and doesn't even respond to you, though he is listening.

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You could tell in his last time when he got the last word, he was listening. But just, just gave up.

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And now, of course, everybody who contacts Family Radio about setting up a debate or interview, well, we just don't, we just haven't had good experiences with that.

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And people who don't want to listen and, you know. So in other words, anybody who challenges, you know, the great cult leader is a terrible, horrible person.

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Somebody sent me, I even had it queued up once to read on the air and never got around to it.

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I don't think I have it on my system here anymore, but someone had sent an email and somebody else had tried to arrange a debate and they specifically made reference to me and they're declining the debate.

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We felt this was not a good use of Harold Camping's time. We thought that James White was very unkind and mean -spirited and didn't act like a

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Christian. He didn't show any honor for all of the years of Harold Camping's service. And I just wanted to go, excuse me, excuse me.

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This is the man who says God has abandoned the church. The Holy Spirit's not in the church.

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Every single minister on the planet that stands behind a pulpit on Sunday morning, this man says does not even have the guidance.

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The Holy Spirit is outside of God's will. The church is dead. This man is the enemy of the church of Jesus Christ.

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And he wants to be honored for his years of service? I mean, talk about finishing badly.

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Here is the picture of it. It is the poster boy of Harold Camping. But he just wants to, well,

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I'm just saying what God has shown us in the Word. And here you have the exact, this is what it's like to have

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Joseph Smith alive and well in your day. It's just an amazing thing and the people right now, you know,

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I was in Glasgow and I saw the posters up in the train stations for, you know,

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May 21st, 2011, the end is near. And, you know, I've seen some of them that really make me just go, what?

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Save the date. You know, it's a new thing. I didn't know about this. You and I are too old to know about these things.

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But the new thing now is, you know, just not wedding invitations anymore. I've got a daughter who's getting married, so I know these things.

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Now it's a two -step plan. I think a printer came up with this personally, but it's a two -step plan.

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First you send out this thing, and I'll bet you Carla has saved the date stuff in her

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Zazzle thing. I bet you she does. Watch the channel here. I'll bet you she'll say that. But you have to send out this postcard that says, save the date.

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And then you send out the invitations later. So you send the invitations out closer to the actual time.

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You send out a postcard earlier that announces the day of the wedding, but it's not actually the invitation, but the save the date type thing.

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Yep, see, Carla creates save the date stuff all the time. That's what I knew. So does the postcard have a promotional code on it where you can get a discount?

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Discount on what? Well, you know, Best Buy, they'll send you cards, and you get these promo codes, and you put it in, you can get a 10 % off.

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This is about going to a wedding. Well, I wish, because I'd like to charge people to go to the wedding, then

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I don't have to pay for it. But anyway, it doesn't work that way. They're supposed to bring gifts and things like that.

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Have you saved the date? I mean, you know, you're supposed to show up to that thing, too. I don't recall getting a card to tell me to save the date.

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Well, I don't know if they've sent it out yet, but yeah, you just get a card. It doesn't matter.

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And if it has a discount on it, I'll really save the date. Anyways, I saw a

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Herald Camping, May 20. Save the date. Save the date.

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It's the end of the world. This man says millions of people are going to be dying starting that day all across the world.

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And you put, save the date, in nice cursive letters, a little exclamation point. You just want to go, you've got to be kidding me.

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So anyway, those things are not cheap. People are sending money, and I'll bet you anything that Family Radio is flush right now.

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Well, they better save it up, is all I can say, because it ain't going to be flush starting

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May 22. And I wonder if anyone's going to get the idea of filing suit.

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I want my money back for fraud. That ain't going to go anywhere, but I'm sure someone will come up with that idea eventually.

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So it's coming, and the national media has picked up on it. And of course, on May 22, there are going to be cameras outside the doors of Family Radio, and Herald Camping's going to come up with, if he lives that long, he's going to come up with a spiritualized explanation about Jesus having started the process of returning and all the rest of the stuff.

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Because this time, he could always dodge 94, because he put a question mark after the date.

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This time, there's no question marks. This time, it's, this is what the Bible teaches.

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He's repeated this probably, right now, 10 times per day during the, what's his program called again?

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Open Forum, during the Open Forum. Thank you for calling and sharing.

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May we take our next caller, please. He said it over and over and over again. There's just no dodging it.

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So you've got to come up with a Millerite, Jesus entered into his heavenly tabernacle return type spiritualization.

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It's coming. I saw one video where he said he's already started to come, and so he's creating a process type thing.

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There's always a way around it. But everyone remember, when we had our debate,

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I specifically offered, during one of my portions, during one of my sections of the debate, to come on Family Radio, starting

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May 22, and to do a week's worth of programs on how to actually do biblical exegesis. Not numerology, not hunt and peck and pick this and pick that and everything else, but actual exegesis.

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And I haven't gotten any responses to that. I haven't gotten any invitations to be ready to come over or hook up a feed to our feed or something like that.

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But we'll see. But once again, what you're going to have is you're going to have these people stand around being interviewed by reporters, and they're going to go, but I believe because the

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Bible says so. And so what's the cumulative effect? What's the final effect of this, of course, is, well, see, anybody who believes the

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Bible is liable to give their savings away to buy posters in the

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Glasgow train stations about some future date, because some old fellow who's an electrical engineer thinks he's got it all figured out.

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So I did want to say one thing. I wasn't planning on doing this, but I did want to say one thing.

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I have heard people saying, now, all of you, all of you campingites, just realize that come, and what's,

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I need to bring up my calendar here real quick. Because if I recall correctly, the 22nd, the 21st, yeah, it's a

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Saturday, so it's a good weekend thing, because there's hardly any news coverage or anything on a

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Sunday. So I've heard a lot of people saying, now, all you campingites, realize the doors of our churches will be wide open to you on the 22nd.

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You feel free to come on back. That sounds really good, but you're not going to hear me saying that.

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You're not going to hear me saying that. And I would suggest that any wise group of elders, you need to be very, very careful about campingites.

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These are people who have shown themselves to have zero discernment, zero. I know there are some simple people who have just been, oh, he seems to know a lot about the

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Bible, and they've just been deceived. I understand that. But a lot of these folks have a long history of thinking they are much wiser than anybody else.

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And I'd put it this way, yeah, once you find out that Harold Camping is a fraud, and he's a false teacher, and his method of interpretation has been wrong all along, and what everybody's been saying about it is true, you are going to have a choice.

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And for many of those campingites, they're going to just adopt some new kind of religious unorthodoxy and stay outside the church, because they have no interest in what's inside the church.

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That is, they don't find Orthodox Christianity to be at all interesting. They're always looking outside the windows.

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They're always looking for something new. But I would say to any of my fellow elders in sound conservative churches, you have somebody show up who hasn't been in church for the past three years or four years or ten years, because Harold Camping had him sitting around a radio.

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This is a person lacking discernment, and you had better keep a close eye on them. There needs to be serious discussion with them about the nature of the church, and there needs to be repentance on their part of having followed after a false prophet.

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And if there isn't, then you don't let them in. You don't bring them into their wolves -in -sheep clothing.

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You better be careful. If there is no repentance, if there is no willingness to say,

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I was completely wrong. Not only was, it's one thing for them to say camping was completely wrong.

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There needs to be personal responsibility for having followed

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Harold Camping over against the united testimony of, well, all of the sound men who continue to teach and preach the

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Word of God today. Well, I don't think there can be any question that on May 22nd, that Harold Camping will be repentant at all, nor will

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Family Radio. And what we can pretty much expect will be end of the world 2 .0,

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version two. Yeah, I don't know how he's going to do it, I don't know how he's going to do it. But they're going to be looking for a way out of having to admit, because there was no admittance to 1994, you know, no repentance there.

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Yeah, I don't know what he's going to do. I mean, I would love to hear that he comes on on the 23rd, because that would be the next open forum, saying,

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I was wrong. Go back to the churches. We are going to be having churches back on Family Radio.

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We were all wrong. I'm resigning. I'll be wonderful. But that would be really unusual for people who have a track record like Harold Camping.

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I'm just honestly wondering that when he finally set the 2011 date, did he even think he'd be around?

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I mean, he's he ain't no spring chicken. So you sort of wonder.

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I don't know. I don't know. But I do say to everyone else who has some type of position in the church, be careful of these folks.

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Be careful, these folks. They can be a little bit scary. Anyway, so that's coming up and be prepared to tell your co -workers why you've always felt that, always believed and always known that Harold Camping was out to lunch and that there have been some of us who have been saying that Harold Camping is out to lunch for a long time.

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I'm glad that YouTube video is up there of the, I think, was it 2001?

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Ten years ago, I was taking him on in regards to his teaching, the church age had ended and you should flee the churches and all the rest of that stuff.

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And I'm really glad that debate took place. As frustrating as it was, I'm really glad it took place because at least be able to somebody said, you know, we took the time, we put out the warning.

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There it is. And when the world asks, there you go. So anyways, back to this J. Huger guy,

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I had started response to this and I have a start here. So I'm assuming this is probably where I need to start.

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It's even though it's been like a month and a half. Quote, what's to keep someone from writing whatever they want or altering existing stories to fit their need?

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Then using this passage to prove God wrote it. Today, of course, we could compare with other versions of the Bible. What about hundreds or thousands of years ago?

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Did God correct the mistakes and strike down the blasphemers? Now, this illustrates a massive lack of understanding of the nature of Scripture, the transmission of Scripture and things like that.

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And it's just simply demonstrates a huge amount of confusion on the part of this individual.

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What's to keep someone from writing whatever they want or altering existing stories to fit their need?

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Then using this passage to prove God wrote it. I'm not sure what this passage means.

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I'm not really sure what the objection is. But evidently, the author is basically saying, well, what's to keep someone from writing whatever they want?

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Well, people can write whatever they want. But if you believe that God exists and that God is concerned about his own revelation, then does

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God have the power and capacity, as we see, for example, in Jeremiah's encounters with the false prophets in Jeremiah and things like that?

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Does God have the ability to preserve his word? Obviously, an atheist doesn't believe

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God exists and therefore doesn't believe that God could preserve his word. But I don't really understand the objection.

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Today, of course, we could compare with other versions of the Bible. But what about hundreds of thousands of years ago?

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Now, that sounds like he's just talking about pure alteration of the text. And that is where, of course, these folks fall into a massive trap.

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Because if you have a fundamental alteration of the text, once you find earlier texts, that demonstrates where the alteration was.

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That's why you can't have what the New Agers say or everybody else says, well, you know, the

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Bible used to contain reincarnation, but they took it out of the Council of Constantinople or something like that.

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That kind of alteration would stand out very, very clearly in light of the mechanism by which the scriptures were passed on to us.

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The only exception to that would be in the very, very earliest period where there are no manuscripts, but even that would demonstrate itself in multiple streams of different readings coming out of that early period, which is not what we have.

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So I'm not sure what the objection there is. Did God correct the mistakes and strike down the blasphemers?

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That sounds like Bart Ehrman, you know, Bart Ehrman's theory that if something's inspired, then

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God would not allow any kind of variation to take place in what is being passed along, which is not the mechanism that God used to preserve his word.

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Depending on your answer to the last question, tell me how you feel about the fact that this page was typed by God himself.

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James's name is just on it for legal reasons. By the way, I, your creator, say you're a poop head. The Bible is bogus and you should send

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Reverend James 10 percent of your gross income. Again, remember staying outside the

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American atheists? Remember those folks? You know, atheists may say they don't believe

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God exists, but by their behavior, they demonstrate they know he does and they hate him and they want to rebel against him.

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It's just the way they are. Tell me how you feel about the fact this page was typed by God himself.

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Well, given that this particular individual demonstrates by his language and behavior that he's not holy and he does not have the capacity to create the universe and cannot explain where the universe came from,

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I have absolutely no reason to believe that. And I can guarantee you this is not going to be preserved down through the centuries in any way, shape or form either.

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The Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon and other books are supposedly the word of God. Many other works are supposedly inspired by God.

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God's God -like aliens from Pleiades, etc. Why should I accept your favorite and not one of the others? Now, you need to hear this because there is something worthwhile here, even though this particular individual's objections are rather simplistic.

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Notice the shift of ground. And this is something that's done very, very often. You hear it on CNN all the time.

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You hear it in the media all the time. Notice that last section. Why should

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I accept your favorite? As if your belief that the

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Bible is the word of God is somehow relevant. It's not. It is not just, well, that's your favorite and you're putting it forward.

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So who are you? So they want to shift it to a situation where you are the authority and you have to defend your authority.

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You're not the authority. It is not my belief or disbelief in the word of God has nothing to do with what the word of God is true or not, nor does his belief or disbelief in the

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Bible being the word of God. Objective truth existed before I was born and will exist after I die.

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Same thing with him. And so whether it's my favorite or not is irrelevant.

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And then you have, and this is very, very common from atheists, this idea of let's put them everything on the same playing field.

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So Book of Mormon, despite its utter lack of historicity and all of its anachronisms and changes over time and everything that we, since we live close enough to the time of its origin, that is the late 18, late third decade of the 19th century in upstate

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New York, since we know so much about it, but let's just all put it on the same the same playing field so that you can compare a single authored text filled with historical anachronisms, descriptions of people who never lived, who ran around using coins of gold and silver when the most precious thing in their world at that time was jade and cocoa beans and so on and so forth.

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Put that on the same level as a document that is written over 1500 years by 40 different authors in different languages with these incredible themes that are woven through this text in a way that just defies any kind of human production.

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And just put them all on the same level. That is a very, very common misrepresentation of the issue, and especially in brief interview type things where, you know, you're doing some program on Larry King Live or something,

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I realize that I just dated myself, and there isn't a Larry King Live anymore, but Pierce Morgan Live or whatever they call his program.

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That's the kind of thing that you will put out there. The next sections on biblical inerrancy, we will get to that at another time.

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I did also want to press forward. I do want to take a break today, but I want to invite your calls, too, at 877 -753 -3341.

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I wanted to get back to some of the comments that were made and make sure this isn't up right now because I need to plug in the little, there we go.

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We're professionals here. We just do everything just so smoothly. No one ever knows what we're doing.

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And just seamless, isn't it? Anyway, I had started playing some sections from a debate that took place between Samuel Green and Abdullah Kunda, and I played a few sections and then got busy with other things.

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I want to get back to some of the arguments that Abdullah Kunda was making because I think they are rather interesting and relevant and, in fact, parallel some of the stuff we've heard from other people recently, which is interesting.

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I was listening while riding yesterday. I did a marathon ride yesterday. Well, it wasn't really. Eighty -five is not a marathon, but it was, well, for a lot of people, it would be a marathon, but it wasn't for me.

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I was listening to a debate between William Lane Craig and a scientist by the name of Krauss, and I would love to do videos on this because it would just, the atheists would go nuts if you put this stuff on YouTube.

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I just don't know that I have time to. But it was fascinating listening to Krauss talk about a man, again, like Dawkins, thoroughly trapped in his naturalistic materialism, totally non -reflective.

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And when I say non -reflective, I'm not talking about the problem I have under bright lights. That's not the type of reflection

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I'm talking about. It took Rich a second to get that one. I'm talking about someone who gives no evidence of reflecting upon their own worldview and the foundations of their worldview.

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I mean, this guy, I mean, even William Lane Craig was challenging him on the presuppositions of his worldview.

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He has to. I mean, he's as far of a presuppositionalist as you can come from. But even he recognizes the importance of starting presuppositions.

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And the guy still didn't get it. He just couldn't.

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The level of humanistic arrogance on the part of this fellow is just absolutely amazing to observe.

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It really is. And it is an education in the naturalistic materialist.

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But it's interesting, many of the kinds of arguments that you hear from those folks are Muslim friends pick up on.

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And that's what I've said for a long time. Why is it that Muslims who claim to be supernaturalists seem to be so rationalistic and friendly to argumentation against Christianity that comes from naturalistic materialism when they would never accept the utilization of that same kind of argumentation against themselves?

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I've just not figured that out, but it is interesting. But we were listening to this portion of Abdullah Kunda's presentation, and I wanted to pick up what he was saying right here.

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All powerful. Well, if I can just ask the Christians here in the room to give me a quick show of hands, who thinks through the sacrifice of Jesus, you're guaranteed entry into heaven?

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Okay, so are you going to stand before God on the day of judgment and say, you now need to let me into heaven because I've believed in something?

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So God's going to be forced to let you into heaven? So if God does what he has promised to do and glorifies himself through his own self -sacrifice and the person of his son, and he promises eternal life to all those that he unites to Jesus Christ, then

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God is being forced? That would mean that if God does anything in accordance with his own promises, that he is being forced to do something.

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So if Allah does what Allah promises to do in the Quran, then he's being forced to do that.

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And if you go before Allah and he's and so in other words, a Muslim can go before Allah and Allah says, well, you know, you did this, this, this, you believed in me, you said the

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Shahada, you went on Hajj, you did all of these things. You did not die as a mushrik. And I know, in fact, you died in jihad.

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You gave your life in defense of Islam. And I know what the Quran promises you, but because I can't be forced to do anything,

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I can go ahead and send you to hell and that'll be okay because God can't be forced to do anything.

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As if God acting consistently with his own promises and his own nature means he can be forced to do something.

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Sorry, that just doesn't make any sense. So you have a God that's not all powerful because you as a human being are now forcing him to do something.

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That is just honestly, I find that to be a horrifically shallow argument that if we accept

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God's promises and he is consistent in fulfilling his promises.

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Now, of course, no one is going to walk up to God on the judgment day and say, you have to do this because I believed something.

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The reason any Christian enters into the presence of God is because of what

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Jesus Christ did in that person's behalf, not because I believed something.

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The basis of our bold, the exhortation for us to approach the throne of grace with boldness is nothing about us.

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It's everything to do about him. And your God certainly can't be eternal because if he gave up his attributes to become

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Jesus or if the son gave up his godly attributes to become fully man, then he's changed and an eternal being by definition cannot change.

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An eternal being by definition cannot change. Does that mean an eternal being by definition cannot act in time?

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What about the doctrine of abrogation and the concept that, well, it's very clear, for example, you can follow in the

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Koran the development over time of the ban on alcohol. But in between the revelations of those sections of the

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Koran, was God changing? I mean this is supposed to be God speaking, right? Supposed to be representative of this is the highest revelation of God.

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This is God's very speech. So was God changing? When the

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Muslims prayed toward Jerusalem rather than toward the Kaaba and then they changed, did

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Allah change during that time? See, as soon as you start using these kinds of extremely shallow arguments, what you're saying is we as time -bound creatures see

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God doing different things because he acts in time and therefore God must be changing. Now I remember very clearly, and my apologies here once again to certain individuals out in the listening audience,

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I'm not going to name by name this week, who become very upset when I mention this, but I was teaching over the summer, as I've done many times, on the main campus of Mill Valley, of Golden Gate Baptist Seminary in Mill Valley, California.

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And we had a fellow visit the apologetics class and I was going through some material on Christology.

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And during one of the breaks, because either, was this the one year where, if I recall, one year we did it in like one week.

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And so we had to start at like eight thirty, nine o 'clock in the afternoon, we go through like five o 'clock in the afternoon. It was marathon.

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And if you think that's tough on the students, try being the teacher sometime. Not easily done.

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And we had this visitor and he just had a deep objection to the concept of, well, of the two natures of Christ.

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God could not have become flesh. He wasn't a Muslim. As my recollection is, he was not a

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Muslim. I think that he had some other background that caused him that kind of a problem.

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But I remember very clearly sitting down with him at one of the tables in one of the, let's, there's a, my classes have always been on the one side of this long building at the top of the hill.

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I've always been glad they're on the inside of the building, because the outside windows all face out toward the bay.

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And I figured no one would ever listen to anything I had to say when you've got that kind of a, I mean, that is prime real estate.

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Let me tell you something, that is prime real estate there. And I remember sitting down with him for quite some time and going through the

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Carmen Christi, Philippians 2, 5 through 11, to discuss the nature of Christ and his, one person with two natures.

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And that's what you've got right here. God did not cease being God. The Logos not cease being

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Logos. But what happened was taking on a human nature.

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That does not mean that the eternal nature of God ceased being the eternal nature of God.

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God did not cease being all -powerful. He did not cease being omnipresent. This laying aside his attributes of deity as if they cease to exist.

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See, notice the difference between freely suspending certain things so that you can truly become man.

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And this is only the Son, it's not the Father, it's not the Spirit. You know, I listened to, it was shocking.

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I was listening to that debate with Jay Smith and the other fellow I mentioned in the last program. This guy claims to be a former

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Southern Baptist, and at one point he makes the argument, well, if the Trinity is true, then who was running the universe when

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Jesus was dead? And you just, you just, you sit there and you stare at somebody and you go, you were never a

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Christian, were you? I most certainly was. But you have no earthly idea what

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Christians believe, so how could you have truly been a Christian? Because, well, who was running the universe then?

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Well, let's see. Let's point out a few obvious things here. The Father didn't cease to exist, and the

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Spirit didn't cease to exist, and even when you die, you don't cease to exist.

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So the Son didn't cease to exist. So who was running the universe? The very same triune

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God that had always been running the universe. There is absolutely no force to the objection whatsoever, other than to demonstrate the person making it is absolutely ignorant about the subjects they're addressing, which is perfectly fine for someone who doesn't claim to be a former

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Christian. I mean, I fully understand how a Muslim would not understand what we believe, because they've been misled by their leaders and by their own holy book, which doesn't understand what we believe.

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Fully understandable. But when you claim to be a former Christian and you don't even understand the most basic elements of your former faith, it makes me go, well,

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I'm not so certain about that, you know. So this time he laid aside his attributes.

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They didn't cease to exist. Notice, he voluntarily made himself of no reputation.

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This was actually an act of divine power. So the argument would have to be, God does not possess the capability of, for a temporary period of time, laying aside, for example, the effulgence of his glory.

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Jesus didn't walk down streets glowing so brightly that people were blinded by it. All right? So you'd have to argue, no,

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Allah can't do that. Not possible, beyond his power, beyond his capacity. Now, if you want to argue that, maybe that would be an excellent thing to debate with Abdullah.

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Maybe I'll suggest that. That would actually be, you know, I don't think, have you ever heard a debate?

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Hey, ooh, this is good. I owe Abdullah an email. Abdullah's a nice guy.

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I mean, let me mention this around here. Abdullah Kunda and I are going to be debating again in Sydney coming

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October. I owe him an email. He's been willing to ask me questions. I've been willing to ask him questions.

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He sends me resources and stuff like that. In fact, after this program is over with, he sent me his address, and I need to send him the

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Forgotten Trinity. I've promised to do it, and he sent me his email address, and I've just been... What happens is, once it gets down in the bottom part of my inbox, it's sort of like the black swamp there.

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It's just, there's so much stuff pouring in the top, I never get down to the bottom. I don't have a secretary to do these things for me, folks.

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I'm sorry, but that's just the reality of this. But I need to suggest to Abdullah Kunda that the topic for our debate in Sydney should be the

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Incarnation, and whether it is impossible for God to enter into his own creation.

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That would be an... I've never heard a debate on that, and yet it's absolutely foundational. Every time I've debated a Muslim on the subject of the deity of Christ, it's all come back to that.

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It's a presuppositional rejection of the possibility that God can enter his own creation. That would be good.

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That would be good. I'm going to... That's where I'm going. We're going to go there.

39:40

We're sort of past the break time, aren't we? But you can still do it? Oh, good. It looks like we dumped the feed there for a moment anyways, so let's let everybody get a chance to get back on.

39:52

Let's take a break, then come back and talk to Steve in Maine. We'll be right back. Answering those who claim that only the

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40:36

You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin

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.org. Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

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Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

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42:34

Get your copy in the bookstore at www .aomin .org. And welcome back to the

42:49

Dividing Line. Hopefully the 88 listeners that got dumped in something, not sure what happened, because not everybody got dumped.

42:55

That's just it. But the remnant remained, the faithful. We found a remnant, identified the elect.

43:03

Oh wow, cool. The remnant remained, but hopefully the rest will be able to get their connection back.

43:16

Anyways, let's talk with Steve in Maine. Hi, Steve. Hello, Dr. White.

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Hello. I am having a discussion in a seminary class on Luke regarding the cost of discipleship in chapter 14, and I was just asked the question that, how would we approach somebody who claims to be justified but is showing no evidence of sanctification?

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And I'm trying to answer this to Arminians, largely. The person who asked the question is a

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Calvinist, so they'll be okay with my answer. But what I've seen, or what

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I'm thinking here, is that their theology, doesn't it say that because we have provided the decisive impulse for justification, isn't the corollary of that that we would provide the decisive impulses for sanctification and be making ourselves holy?

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Well, that assumes, unfortunately, that our

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Arminian friends are consistent in their theology, and thankfully for most of them, they're not.

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I mean, Arminianism, taken to its logical conclusion, becomes a form of legalistic

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Pelagianism, and so I am very, very thankful that most of the

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Arminians I know do not take it all the way to its conclusion.

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They don't see that, I mean, how many quote -unquote Arminians, or just standard evangelicals, will adopt naturally the language of particular redemption,

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Jesus Christ died in my place? That's not an Arminian belief, and there really isn't any way to make that work, but they will use that language, and they do so inconsistently.

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And so I'm thankful for those inconsistencies. Now, as to that specific issue, obviously what you believe about what is happening by how, you know, how does justification take place?

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What is the grounds upon which it takes place? What's the nature of saving faith? All those things come first, not only in the

45:36

Ordo Salutis, but in any logical discussion of salvation, and it's those previous issues that will determine what you believe about sanctification, the role of the will in sanctification, the necessity of sanctification, the nature of sanctification, the expression of sanctification, all those things will come from what's come before.

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That's why when—what was that guy's name? Let me see if Rich remembers, or anybody in the channel remembers.

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There was this—he gave me the Skull and Crossbones Award for Dangerous Theology.

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He tried to set up that debate with me on the radio station St. Louis, and—what?

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Dan Korner. Dan Korner. When Dan Korner tried to corner me to get me to debate only eternal security, which

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I don't even know that I would believe in eternal security. I believe in the perseverance of the saints. But he tried to get me to sign a contract saying that as I would defend that fifth point of Calvinism, I would never mention the first four, which is absolutely absurd.

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And it's the same thing trying to discuss the nature of sanctification without first addressing all of the things that lead to a discussion of sanctification.

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So the inconsistencies in the Arminian camp lead to all sorts of different understandings of what sanctification is.

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You will have those realms of Arminian evangelicalism where there is no sanctification.

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It's once saved, always saved, got your ticket punched. Sanctification is a corollary that is merely an add -on.

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It's only for super -Christians, the non -lordship, the Robert Wilkins, Zayn Hodges heresy that is still out there in such a great amount.

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And all the way to perfect sanctification, a second work of grace where the sin nature is completely eradicated.

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And all of it goes back to, you know, the same foundational principles but with, you know, making a left turn or a right turn at one particular point in the system.

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And so I'm not sure how you can respond. The only way you can respond to an

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Arminian in a discussion like that is to say, well, I get to sanctification very differently.

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And because I see the gospel primarily as something that God is doing to glorify himself, and that my sanctification is a fulfillment of the purpose of God in glorifying himself, specifically

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Titus chapter 2, Christ is redeeming for himself particular people, zealous for good deeds, and that the triune

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God is glorified in my being conformed to the image of Christ, then this is a process that is a part of God's own glorification.

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That there is a reason why I should be sanctified. There is a reason why I... I'm sorry?

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I'm sorry? Hello? Hello? Hello? What's going on?

48:48

He's still there? Okay, he can't hear me. So go ahead and pot him down, and I'll finish the response,

48:56

I guess, because... Sorry about that, Steve. I hope you can pick the rest of it up on the podcast.

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But I don't know what happened there. We're still feeding and everything?

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Oh, everything's gone. Phones too? Probably Cox, huh? Yay! Thank you,

49:18

Cox Communications. We really need to be talking to these folks. But I'm going to finish up the answer, because we're almost out of time in the program anyways.

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We'll just record this and post it up there. I apologize, we have been having problems with our internet service provider, which is

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Cox Communications, and we can tell they're doing something in this area, but they just won't tell us what it is they're doing.

49:44

So we have these outages, and we just don't know when they're going to be. And so this is what happens, and we've lost everything.

49:52

We've lost our net, we've lost our phones, everything. So we're just going to finish this up, and I apologize, Steve. But Steve, you're exactly correct on this issue, and that is that how you get to the issue of sanctification, the foundation upon which it takes place, will make all the difference in the world.

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It makes difference in the world as to whether it's necessary, the why we should even desire it, the holiness of God, how we meet that holiness only in the sacrifice of Christ, union with Christ, all those things are all connected together.

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And I think it's extremely important that you approach it from that perspective, and that's the only way you can deal with your

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Armenian friends. So be that as it may, I apologize to everyone for our technical issues, but it does make it difficult to do the program as well.

50:47

We will be, obviously, getting on the phone with folks and saying, look, we need to go beyond the level we've been talking to them, get to some higher -ups and say, look, we know you're doing stuff in this area, we just need to know when it's going to be.

50:58

Because, you know, just shutting off phones and little things just doesn't work. So thanks for listening to The Dividing Line today.

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We're just going to go ahead and wrap things up here, and thank you very much for listening in, for Steve for calling in, and Lord willing, and we can get a hold of somebody on a manager level.

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We'll be back Thursday, and we'll see you then. Thanks a lot. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

52:51

If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or at P .O. Box 37106,

52:57

Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the World Wide Web at aomin .org,

53:02

that's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, or you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.