The Painfully Obvious Veneration of Saints Debate Part 4

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Yusuf Estes on the Deen Show: Part 5

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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

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

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White call now. It's 602 973 460 to or toll -free across the

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United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 And now with today's topic here is

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James White Hey, good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line not taking a phone calls today not because we're immediately jumping right back into the debate, but because the title of Today's program is the

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Supreme Court the law of God Barack Obama the West Wing pagan superstitions about the dead and Patrick Madrid and Those are all one topic

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I Am actually going to perform a magic trick today on the air. I'm gonna tie all those things together

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It will be worth your time I think to stick around to see if I can manage to do so the

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Supreme Court law of God Barack Obama The West Wing pagan superstitions about the dead and Patrick Madrid a man who raped an eight -year -old relative

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While she was sorting Girl Scout cookies in her garage So savagely she required extensive surgery to repair the physical damage done to her will be housed fed clothed and given medical care for the rest of his life at the expense the people of Louisiana and Against their expressed and voted wishes

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Thanks to the ideologues of the Supreme Court who believe themselves divinely invested with the power to legislate from the bench

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Their perverted sense of justice comes from the collapse of the culture which drives them They live amongst two people who no longer believe there is a creator and that man is a creation of that Personal creator since man is but an animal the chance resolved the toss of the cosmic dice

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Morality is a relative thing changing with the whims of the uncreated human being

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When you put men and women into a system that was built upon the reality of a divine creator and a view of man

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That has not only been abandoned, but spitefully so the result will be absurdity after Absurdity, which is what we are seeing with regularity in our day

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Now we could spend some time discussing the arrogance the federal government enforcing the citizens of Louisiana to endure the likes of child rapists

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So as to have to care for them house them clothe them etc for decades on end at the personal cost of each citizen

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We could talk about the absurdity of the danger still faced by the citizens that state do the possibility of escape of such?

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violent and disgusting pedophiles But my focus today is different than that Instead I wish to connect this together with the discussion of the overarching subject of the law of God and it is connected together with a speech given by Barack Obama in June of 2006

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I believe that recently was criticized by evangelical leaders such as James Dobson and His specific comments were as follows.

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I read from Barack Obama's website And even if we did have only Christians in our midst if we expelled every non -christian from the

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United States of America Who's Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?

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Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy should we go with Leviticus? Which suggests slavery is okay, and that eating shellfish is abomination

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How about Deuteronomy which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith or Should we just stick to the

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Sermon on the Mount a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application

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So before we get carried away. Let's read our Bibles folks haven't been reading their Bibles and of the quotation

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Now just a few comments on Barack Obama's comments There is a vast difference between James Dobson's Christianity and Al Sharpton's Christianity But is that because the

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Bible is unclear in and of itself or is it possible? that some people have a more biblical view of the faith and others have a

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Less biblical view of the faith and is it not possible that you can actually get to a point where your view is so un

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Biblical that it's not even Christianity any longer One might ask that question, but of course one might also ask the question of exactly.

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What is Barack Obama referring to? I looked through Leviticus today and Interestingly enough there are two places in the book of Leviticus where the

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Hebrew term to a VA appears To a VA is the word for abomination and There are two times that to a

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VA appears in Leviticus chapter 18 verse 22 You shall not lie with a male as one lies the female it is

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To a VA and Leviticus 20 13 if there is a man who lies the male as those who lie with a woman both of them

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Have committed a detestable act They shall surely be put to death their blood guiltiness is upon them those

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Ironically are the only two places were to a VA Appears Leviticus. I think what he was referring to was the term unclean which is not the same as to a

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VA and Certainly Leviticus 11 defines the dietary uses of these things and maybe that's what he's referring to But as soon as I heard these words,

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I hearkened back I Hearkened back to and I did not watch this television program.

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I Had no interest in it whatsoever to be perfectly honest with you, but I had read the transcripts of an episode of the

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West Wing and I had read them as we were working as I recall on my book on homosexuality that I co -wrote with Jeff Neal and Some of you will recall this particular episode the arguments put forward by The president in what you're going to listen to right now are found all over the internet any slight

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Google search Will provide to you Repetition after repetition after repetition of these arguments and they sound hauntingly

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Like what we just heard from Barack Obama where he presents the Bible as a mishmash of things

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He doesn't seem to understand that that we need to look at God's law seriously We need to recognize the various elements of it taken in its own context

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No, you can just sort of grab this grab that and so I not surprisingly found on YouTube The recording of this particular section.

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I actually saw two different versions of it One of them gives a wider context So I'll give you a little bit of the context the president on election night has come into a room in the

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White House and He's talking about and I'm not sure why there's a terrible lightning storm outside during this and the scene

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I'm not sure what that added to it is actually rather distracting to me. But anyway, I mean it does rain

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Anyway, he comes in and he's talking about the polls are still open so on so forth, but all of a sudden he sees

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This particular woman and she has not stood up since he entered the room and He is visibly distracted by the fact that she refuses to stand while the president is in the room.

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So that's what he's upset about okay, and Then this conversation ensues now, it was very clear.

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No one had any question when this aired that the fictional lady

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Represented in this scene is meant to represent. Dr. Laura Schlesinger and Dr.

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Laura Schlesinger had said certain things about homosexuality So with that as the background, let's listen to it

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I'm gonna need to remember to stop this because it gets a little salty at the end at least for our webcast certainly not for network

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Broadcast any longer, but we don't want to offend anyone in the audience so I'll try to remember to stop that but Yes, it may here is the president of the

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United States fictionally, of course Talking to the fictional representation of dr.

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Laura Schlesinger Forgive me. Dr. Jacobs.

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Are you an MD a PhD a PhD? Yes, sir Psychology. No, sir.

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Theology. No social work. I have a PhD in English literature I'm asking because on your show people call in for advice and you go by the name.

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Dr. Jacobs on your show and I Didn't know if maybe your listeners were confused by that and assumed you had advanced

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Training in psychology theology or health care. I don't believe they are confused. No, sir.

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Good. I like your show. I Like how you call homosexuality an abomination

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I I don't say homosexuality is an abomination. Mr. President. The Bible does.

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Yes, it does Leviticus 1822 chapter and verse I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here

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I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery a sanctioned in Exodus 21 7 She's a

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Georgetown sophomore speaks fluent Italian always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?

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While thinking about that, can I ask another? My chief of staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the

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Sabbath Exodus 35 to Clearly says he should be put to death.

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Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it? Okay to call the police Here's one that's really important because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town

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Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean Leviticus 11 7 If they promise to wear gloves can the

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Washington Redskins still play football can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother

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John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

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Think about those questions, would you one last thing and the one last thing had nothing to do with the

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Bible? It had to do with something else and her standing up so Personally I would not want to be the writer of those words to answer for them someday

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And of course this is Hollywood. They're not gonna. They're not gonna put a Christian here the brain

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Or someone who can respond and contextualize each one of these things that you know You're not gonna entertain anybody by someone saying excuse me selling

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People into slavery in that day was not near the same thing as selling people into slavery in the 1800s

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Completely different social economic system here. You're talking about in essence the employment system of that time

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I you know I I know it's lots of emotions Attached to that word, but if we could just for a moment try to allow the actual original context to be to be found

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But that's the kind of argument Like I said Google it and you will find that are just just put in pigskin

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Plus homosexuality and I bet you anything you'll find 25 of them in the first couple pages of results from Google or whatever search engine you wish to use and There's a problem with that and that is that most

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Christians today are so ignorant of the Old Testament so canonically challenged Have only 27 books in a

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New Testament and there's only some of those that are read very often that most Christians are left just as silent as The person portrayed in that particular section that we just Listened to and it really sounds to me like Barack Obama has got hold of many of the same writers

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That wrote for the West Wing because it's a very similar Presentation that is found there now.

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What does that have to do with Supreme Court? well it has to do with the fact that there was a day when God's law was honored in this land and Now God's law is mocked in this land in its media in its films and it is mocked as being something that is completely irrelevant to us today and Again, do the ignorance of most

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Christians people get away with it because let's face it. We don't spend almost any time whatsoever thinking about God's law or Learning any mechanisms whereby we can examine the context of the law

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And in fact, I bet I'm talking to a bunch of Christians right now who've never read Leviticus.

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Oh you may have read a verse here verse there, but I I can guarantee you and I'm not just talking about new

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Christians But I can guarantee you there are people within the sound of my voice right now who have been

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Christians for 10 years And you still haven't read the Bible from cover to cover you've read all sorts of other things during that period of time including some mind -bending

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Microsoft manuals, but You've not found the time for the Bible and as a result people get away with this kind of stuff

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So how am I gonna connect all this? over to Patrick Madrid well through an example through some examples that hopefully will be useful and Answer all sorts of questions, maybe raise some others

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I do not claim to have answers to everything in this field, but I just want to give you some examples of this for example

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In the Holiness Code, which is generally the you know, the Book of Leviticus contains generally

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Leviticus 18 through 20 You can expand that or contract it depending exactly what you're you're looking at But you'll notice that both the texts

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I read earlier Leviticus 18 22 and Leviticus 20 13 both in reference to male

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Homosexuality are found within the Holiness Code and it's generally that section

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That's focused upon by individuals say well see you don't do this. You don't do this You don't do this.

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You're inconsistent and let's face it if we haven't thought these things through we are and So let's think some of these things through In Leviticus 1928

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We read you shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead Nor make any tattoo mark on yourselves.

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I am the Lord and a parallel passage remember Leviticus and Deuteronomy contain

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Deuteronomy itself the second giving law contain Not so much parallel passages, but it is a little bit

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That there are some elements like synoptic studies You can find restatements of things in in Deuteronomy and in Deuteronomy 14 1 we read you are the sons of Yahweh your

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God You shall not cut yourselves nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead

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You shall not cut yourselves nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead now here's

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You know a law given to the children of Israel and If we're gonna look at it

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We want to ask ourselves some questions for example in Leviticus 1928 you shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourself.

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I am the Lord a couple things immediately come in from basic exegesis and That is especially when looking at The earlier parts of the

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Old Testament You need to be aware and any more anybody with a computer or even back in the olden days of the strong's

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Exhaustive concordance you could determine these things for yourself you look at the words and you try to find out

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What they mean any basic exegesis does this and in Leviticus 1928 we have what's called a hop ox

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Legomena a hop ox legomena now don't be put off when people use a foreign language they should explain it and I'm about to a hop ox legomena simply means something that is mentioned only one time in a text and So you have in Leviticus 1928 a word?

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That is used only one time in the biblical text

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It is a word That is actually also unusual in that it is quad literal instead of tri literal in other words most

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Hebrew words most Semitic words have three words as their root this one has four Kaka is the

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Hebrew word that is translated. Well. We're not sure how to translate it to be honest with you

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It's translated in the New American Standard as make any tattoo marks on yourself

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But quoting from various sundry Very sundry. I did it again. I managed to get that into every single divine line don't

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I various and sundry lexical sources While the exact meaning of kaka is unknown

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It could refer either to making tattoos on the body or to painting the body Paying the body was a pagan practice those preparing to attend a ritual painted

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Their bodies another lexical source says the exact meaning of kaka is unknown It could even be a simple decoration in which case it would probably be used for warding off the spirits of the dead another

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Raises this same issue because the verse refers to something about the dead And that's what brings me to this as an example is we're talking about a debate about what?

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veneration of saints and angels Communication with those who are dead and so I ask myself the question does

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God's law make reference to people doing anything in reference to the dead

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These are the two verses that came up This is all we know about the dead and both of them make reference to cutting yourself for the dead

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Now what could that mean? well There are a couple possibilities

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Some say that it was a means of warding off the departed spirits by changing the appearance to avoid recognition

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In other words we do take the time to look at such search such sources as Anet it's a huge volume for ancient

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Near Eastern texts that give us some of the Religions of the world and this is the very area in my recollection where?

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My fellow seminary students were falling asleep was when we talked about Old Testament backgrounds the religions the people around Israel, etc etc

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But when you read those sources you discover that there was then and you go to pagan lands today

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There is today a great fear of the dead there is a great fear of the curses of the dead and it seems most likely

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That what is being referred to here is some mechanism something that the pagans around Israel would do to change their appearance

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Evidently the dead don't see well. I don't know But to change your appearance so that the dead return they can't get you

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Another possibility is actually to honor the dead To deface oneself to honor the dead, but whatever we do with both passages

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They're all in reference to the same thing. They're all in reference to pagan religious practices and So what do we do with these today?

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Oh, well, there would be some who would look at these and they would say well you just you just apply them straight across you don't consider the context and Of course the problem is we're not really certain what

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Kaakha means but some people say well, you know the traditional translation you just go with that and Therefore this is an abject

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Complete and total ban on anything such as body art I think that is a Romans 14 issue because we don't know what

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Kaakha means But how do we then just say well since we don't know or since People don't practice these pagan religions and this is now irrelevant to us.

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No, that's what I want to try to illustrate here and that is when we examine the context when we recognize the relevance of the religious practices the nations around Israel's best we can then we seek to make an application and The fact the matter is much of man's religion, especially man's magical religion and I know we live in the enlightened age

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But you go back you go to almost anywhere outside the United States and you go back Well, look at the story of Joseph Smith how much magical activity was involved even with Joseph Smith and that wasn't that long ago man's religion has always been focused upon this kind of fear and the various practices those religions were

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Were means that people thought they could use to try to in essence harness God's power and protect themselves all of which questions

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God's sovereignty God's purposes and everything else and in both of these texts

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God says I am Yahweh and lived like is 1928 He says you are the sons of Yahweh your God and Deuteronomy 14 1 in other words

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Serve God and don't worry about the dead honor

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God Follow his law and so the application today would be to avoid any of the practices of either obviously pagan religions and there are

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Christians who live in pagan lands and They are tempted to Syncretize they are tempted to bring in the practices of people around them

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In regards to dead things like that and to compromise so for them direct application What about us are we be above and beyond these things?

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No and in no way are we above or beyond these things? We of course are to be very careful to honor

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God Recognize his sovereignty and to in no way Fear is the curse is the dead or if we take it as honoring the dead

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We need to allow God to be God and since he does not give us the means to communicate with these people

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Then we need to follow what he has to say and People say well that doesn't have anything to do with us today.

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You better believe it does because that's what makes the connection Directly to these things now.

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Let me make a couple other comments Moral precepts related to clear positive revelations such as the revelation of marriage and sexuality and hence against homosexuality abide in the law

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Items such as food laws the mixing of fibers the planting of more than one kind of seed in a field

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You heard that in the West Wing clip Concerns about pagan religious beliefs and their resultant practices must be examined in their context and their relationship to the purposes of God in setting

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Israel apart examined first as Greg Bonson rightly said much more work needs to be done on the study and Application of God's law and how it applies today and of course

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Differences of opinion exists is to the extent of that application as well

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We certainly cannot say that anyone has overdone this field it is certainly not the subject of a great deal of Conferences and discussions and things along those lines

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It is not my intention to answer all those questions today Even if I pretended to have all the answers, which

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I do not but this I know God's Word says God's throne is founded on justice and I for one would have a hard time even being a theist

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If I did not believe that in the end justice is going to be done. I Do not believe

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God revealed his law just to keep an unruly bunch of Semitic folks in the desert in line It seems to me that Jesus view of God's law was not less than Moses's It was more than Moses's because he saw himself as its fulfillment

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And if Jesus's death is to make me holy and he who is holy must needs love what is holy

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God's law reveals to me what that is what holiness is I am blessed to have the opportunity to cultivate cultivate a heart of wisdom

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So as to make application of God's revelation an ever -changing environment where men in general show great disrespect and hatred of God's law

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Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and sin is reproached to any people.

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Those are both biblical phrases Christians who do not express God's lordship over his creation through a realization of the importance of his law are not doing anybody any favors and It is no wonder our culture has a low view of God's law

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When those who profess to follow him have such a low view themselves We may get very upset when the

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Supreme Court demonstrates. It has no moral compass any longer But when Christians have no moral compass as well, well as the

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Bible says judgment needs to begin with the house of God Being able to recognize the difference between ceremonial law moral law and how to make application today is

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Vital in responding to the mishmash throw it all together and forget all about context type of argumentation provided by secularists

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Such as the West Wing clip that we listened to or the Obama speech But to now connect to our examination the veneration of Saints debate

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It is not only the secularists who horribly mangle God's law in the debate with Patrick Madrid We have seen a whole new means of getting around biblical prohibitions introduced

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While Patrick has attempted to make it sound as if there has been some kind of deep faithful Consistent examination of these plethora of texts that preclude the very activities

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He is defending the fact is the church did no such thing

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Instead a new context is offered for these texts that preclude the worship of veneration of images statutes, etc

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And that is the church's tradition This has come up over and over again as we have been listening

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Rome's definition is the final authority in each instance. Not the original context not the original words so the church

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Has magically discerned that the Israelites had a particular bent to a particular form of idolatry at a particular place in time

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Ignore the fact that this continued all the way through the destruction of Jerusalem many centuries later There was a particular need to prohibit the veneration of statues back then but hey who does that today?

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Anybody here doing that today? No, no, no This mishandling of God's law does not involve a serious honest evaluation of the words used

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Their relationship to other terms ancient context around Israel and the entire testimony of God's Word No, this approach treats the text as a secondary source secondary to the church sola

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Ecclesium There are overarching connected biblical revelations about God's nature

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God's worship the nature of man's life that go far far beyond the mere Context of their original revelation the law the purity of his worship is surely a consistent revelation from beginning to end

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That has been my point in this debate a point that I hope has been again communicated with clarity but today tying together rather wide range of things and Hopefully to once again make you understand that you know,

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I I listen to the news. I hear what's going on and When you're a Christian you respond to these things from a

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Christian worldview. We must be constantly cultivating a consistent

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Christian worldview and so I listened to Obama and I Thought about all these things and how they come together and how they relate and that's why

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I want to spend some time before We get back to the debate today discussing these things so with that I have

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Likewise misled you on one point. I said on and I thought this was the case. I Said on my blog

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That we were at the closing statements. We're not this was a long debate It was yeah, three and a half hours.

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It was debate We had a rebuttal period about a fairly lengthy of according to this

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What is that that that that it looks like about an eight minute rebuttal period

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Before we actually get to the closing statements. So we have some more to go here. So let's dive back into it and We will be beginning with Patrick Madrid's rebuttal after the cross -examination period

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Well first I want to thank all of you for your patience this has been a I Think a very interesting evening and I want to bring us back to the points that were made at the very beginning

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Because perhaps we've gotten a little astray on some things that are not necessarily germane to the subject tonight.

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I laid out for you the Catholic model for why we Venerate why we ask the veneration ask the intercession of the

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Saints and why we venerate images of them I'd like to pause for just a minute on the question of images

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Because I think a lot of times people especially people in this room perhaps have the misconception that when

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Catholics reverence an icon Whether it's a crucifix. I have one here I thought it would be wise to bring an icon so that we could see what we're talking about here tonight

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Now for those who have not seen this You still haven't

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It was right here, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is it it was right here that Back around this time period now brother

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Pierce brother Pierce likes Gadgets just like I do and in 1999 in San Diego We had set up the videotape recording so that I know that Rich was very proud of the fact

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That he could say that Mitch Pacquiao walked out of that church that night remember this

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With not only the master tapes of the debate But with I'm sorry

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With what the titles already included He walked out of it that night now that is very ambitious That's very very ambitious, and there's one little problem

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Your equipment really has to work perfectly To have that work and rich wasn't there that night, and it wasn't

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Warren's fault who was there that night But what happened at this point in the debate

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My understanding is the character generator through which the video signal is traveling

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Fritzed out overheated who knows what happened to it. You know you have to set all this stuff up in a rush

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You know maybe somebody stepped on a power line someplace. Maybe there's a power There's a million things go wrong the character generator turned off which turns off The recording of the video as well

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Then what's worse is he gets on the phone calls rich. This is Warren and says ah

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And When he reboots the thing It defaults back to the last job

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It was doing and guess what the last job the character generator had done was

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It was editing the Barry Lynn Homosexuality debate videos yes indeed

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So the first thing that happens when the video comes up there's nothing more I could do about this because it's it's going back to its default settings is

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Right across his face while he's holding this crucifix thing says Homosexuality And so we had some problems and And Honestly, this is one of the first things across my mind too about this debate was thinking back to the technical issues

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It really I wasn't really able to focus on this stuff because the first thing that happens as soon as the debate is over is

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Warren is telling me I Need to talk to you. We had problems, and then Warren has to go and sit down with Patrick and say here's what happened and There's always the oh you people are doing the same thing

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Catholic answers. Did you which just isn't the case at all? Thankfully I can't tell that from the audio

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It's the audio the audio must have been recording from someplace else or something I'm not because I don't hear any no when when

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I set these things up. I have redundancy Yeah, and so we had audio redundancy in there plus the character generator doesn't handle the audio.

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Okay, okay? It only handles the video okay, so We had the the video board and the sounds going through the video board and then the sounds going directly into the recording at that point

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From the video board, but the video so the videotape still getting the audio, but it's just one right all right

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So what happened was when he explained this to me over the phone? I'm like okay reach over the back the character generator and unplug it.

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He's like what? unplug it and When he plugged it back in I I told him

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I said it's gonna come back, and it's gonna You know It's a

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Wild stuff up there, let's see what happens and when he told me what it was doing I told him

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I say okay There's there's a little s video plug on the back of the character generator.

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Okay unplug that same plug on the the video mixer and plug that thing from the character generator in the video mixer, and that's

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How we overcame it I see okay, so and we're doing this all on the fly live while Patrick is speaking

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And we're just sweating bullets I'm trying to remember this whole thing is about to just go boom.

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Yeah. Yeah, everything's just gonna stop. Yeah I'm trying to remember now if I Didn't look over there and could tell just by looking at Warren that something was going wrong

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That might have been distracting too. I don't remember now. Oh he was freaked. Oh, yeah, well. Yeah, no no

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He was afterwards too, there's no two ways about it, but anyway, we we got through it, but if you look at the videos today, there is a still of Patrick's standing there with a crucifix

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Now you're thinking of Patrick's version. That's what he did with his right right He took a picture of himself with a stand there with a crucifix and then freeze -framed that through okay

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What I did was when it when the glitch happened To the point where we bounced back and got the live picture

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I took a freeze -frame of the live picture when we came back and then Rolled that all the way through so we basically have video difficulties underneath in the title

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I haven't even seen it so I don't and and then Patrick just stands there. You know kind of frozen But for about 60 90 seconds, and then we're back, but you know it's it's

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The fact that it happened at that particular point Because you don't in our video. You don't see him standing with a crucifix right now.

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I guess okay well anyways I Guess according to someone in channel

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William Albrecht is actually accused me of dishonesty over this issue But I would expect that from someone like William, but anyway, so that's what's going on here is is

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Patrick is is Has brought this huge, and I'm not talking about a crucifix you wear on your neck this thing was about 18 inches tall

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I would assume and That's that's what's going on at this point. This is a crucifix of our crucified

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Lord In 1st Corinthians chapter 1 st. Paul says he wants to know nothing except for Christ crucified

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He doesn't want the cross to be emptied of its power He wants to preach Christ crucified and in the early years of the church after the persecution of the

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Romans ended it became very common For the plain crosses to have affixed to them the corpus the body of our

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Lord Jesus Christ Not to be an idol Not to be worshipped as a piece of wood or a piece of marble

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But to remind us of the power of the cross and what Jesus did for us on the cross

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Now I think it's safe to say that this icon here is something that at the very least is deserving of respect

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Let me just mention something in passing. I I felt this was bogus on many many many levels, but Especially on the level the fact this debate is about veneration of saints and angels not of Jesus Christ if he had

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Well the video that I've had on my blog if he had whoever that was it fell off the cart and crashed he got decapitated

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On the video video on my blog up there. That'd be completely different, but he's using the one connection

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He knows he can use because a Christian is gonna have that immediate connection to Jesus But they're not gonna have the saints and angels

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I remember one that what church was that that I think it's the one over action 27th over here very close to us here

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I think there's a huge icon of Michael up on the wall there People would respond st.

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Simon and Jude in it. Yeah, I think it is yeah, and People would respond differently to that than they would even to the crucifix

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Which of course is objectionable because from our perspective the whole point is my whole objection of wait a minute I'm gonna say that my response anyway, so I'll I'll let myself say it because then

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I won't be saying it twice How many of you Protestants would care to see this icon just thrown around the room?

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How many of you Protestants would want to see an image of Jesus shown some sort of disrespect?

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I'll go a little further which of you Protestants would be willing to come forward and stomp on this

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If it doesn't have some Connection with the heavenly realities that we can't see with our eyes

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Then you should have no trouble coming up and stomping on it But the fact is you know in your hearts, and I know you know in your hearts that this depiction of the

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Lord Jesus Christ is not something for us to worship, but to remind us of the power of What he did for us on the cross and when you see

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Catholics Reverencing an icon such as this or an icon of the Virgin Mary. We are not worshiping those icons

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That is idolatry You also in your homes Catholics and Protestants alike have pictures of your family members

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Pictures of people you love here. I am far away from my home. I live outside of Columbus, Ohio I'm 600 miles from my home

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And I have a picture of my wife and my children with me Now if you were to happen to perfectly need some really heartstring music here because I'm sorry that this is so Blatantly an attempt to engage the emotions rather than the mind that when he gets to the kissing the picture of his family thing

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I Was just sitting there going you really have got to be kidding I mean again

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It's you know who do you want to think who do you want to think you won the debate if?

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You're willing to narrow it down to just a portion of your audience. Okay fine great, but Finding this convincing find this compelling while see me standing out in the hallway during an intermission and Because I miss my wife and family you might see me kiss the picture of my family

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Would you recoil in horror in disbelief and say my gosh? He loves

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Kodak paper look at the guy How sad no you wouldn't say that at all you would instinctively know that the love the the honor in a sense that I'm Showing to this piece of Kodak paper has nothing to do with the paper or the ink it is

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Directed to the people that the pit that the picture represents. This is true of crucifixes.

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This is true of statues I'm looking through the window my daughter's here

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Would have had her on what we'll do something a little bit later on since she's now part of the blog Weren't you there?

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I thought cuz I'm you were 10. You're you're 10 No you know no you would have been this was 2002 so you're 13, and you weren't listening

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Do you remember anything when you were 13 or is that that just sort of a big blank from yeah? It's been for most teenagers is yeah

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But she's I'm looking at the expression on her face going. I can't believe someone made this argument in public.

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Yeah, that's Rich was doing the same thing true of any icon and the key to our debate tonight my friends is the the word intention if you intend to fall down and bow before anything and Worship it in place of God you are committing the sin of idolatry if you fall down before a

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Great person as we read about in first Chronicles chapter 29 when the people bowed down and did obeisance and reverence

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To God and the king we are told the people were not worshipping the king

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But they did a good thing in bowing down and worshipping God and in the same act

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Giving homage to the king and it was religious homage When Catholics do this my friends we are not worshipping idols

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We are venerating the memory of real people in heaven who are indeed at rest

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But as we pointed out early, you know when you think about it that would only have relevance to people you knew

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It wouldn't have relevance to people who died centuries before you came along with it. I Was his family

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Would you be you know how your your wallet will often come with those fake pictures in it of the you know

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The model family stuff. What if you saw somebody kissing one of those pictures now, that's when Earlier Jesus tells us that they are put in charge of many things

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One of those many things is to pray for us And I think if you were to ask the

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Saints in heaven if there were a way that we could ask them Now where'd that come from? I didn't I missed the reference.

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What was that's what they're put in charge of again Just assuming that like the the 24 elders are

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Saints in it We're not told that but we're just assuming I think what you'd find is that for them.

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That is not work They love us Far more than they could have loved us when they were here on earth because as Hebrews 12 says they're perfected in righteousness

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James 5 says that the prayer of a righteous person is very powerful Now you may pray for me and I may pray for you and to whatever extent we have a certain

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Righteousness and we're not talking about justification right now To the extent that we have that standing before God our prayers can be powerful

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But those in heaven are perfected in righteousness and their prayers James 5 says are

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Powerful because that statement is not restricted only to those here on earth the prayers of any

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Christian it's not restricted to those here on earth, so It could refer to the people on Mars and it could refer to to the

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Enterprise someday And I mean when you hear this, it's not restricted thing Here's again the difference between do we derive our theology from the

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Bible or do we say? Well, the Bible doesn't say I can't And when it comes to God's worship

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When it comes to God's worship What does the Bible tell us God has said about these things does he limit the realm of our worship

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To that which he commands us to do or does he say ah, whatever? Ask Aaron's sons all about that are pleasing to God and they are powerful now we talked earlier about this issue of Idolatry and I want to bring out a few other points this word intention is very important because Catholics who intend to worship anything other than the one true

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God should be rebuked and I would praise Jim if he rebuked a Catholic for worshiping a statue

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Because Jim would be right the Catholic would be wrong But similarly we have icons that even

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Protestants themselves would recognize as worthy of respect It's not it's an irony that actually

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I picked this book up because I wanted to read it But now I realize it was sitting in my briefcase. It has a perfect bearing on tonight's discussion

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The book she said yes Have any of you read this book? It's about a young lady named

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Cassie Bernal. She was one of the high school students in Columbine again, it

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There is a temptation on my part to go you know when you're having to try to pull this level of emotion out of folks and Create this level of emotion.

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Maybe you don't think the debates going all that Well when you have to try to get you know, let's let's talk about Columbine now

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She was shot In the act of saying that she believed in God She was a martyr

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So here we have these these animals standing there shooting kids and they come up to this young girl

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And they say do you believe in God and she says yes, I believe in God BAM Now her face is depicted on the cover of this book

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Which of you Would show this image of this young girl disrespect and isn't it not more?

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Human, isn't it? Not more natural for us to show a martyr the respect for the victory that she is one

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Or an image of the Virgin Mary or the image of st Stephen st Augustine tells us in his in the passages that we didn't have time to read tonight about how not only was the practice of venerating and Asking for the intercession of st.

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Stephen very common in his time But he also tells us that st Stephen would never want to be worshipped in place of God never want to be shown

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The kind of honor and worship that is proper to God alone. This is what we have to remember that the

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Catholic Church whether Jim likes it or not makes a distinction. Of course.

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I know they make a distinction I deny the validity of the distinction that's been the issue from the start and Will be the issue at the end in the

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Catholic Church. We recognize that there is Reverence due to the friends of God the martyrs the

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Saints That is proper. That is biblical There is idolatry on the other side and the

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Catholic Church has always forbidden idolatry So whether Jim likes it or not, there is a distinction there is a development in the understanding of these terms

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There is a development based upon what? Remember, I need to go back to this and I'm you know,

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I've done this each time But to help you remember this was just week before last on Catholic answers.

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This is Patrick Madrid and I recommend it Primarily because it shows so painfully obviously how

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Really unbiblical the arguments were that were raised against the Catholic Church's teaching

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I mean there were many Bible verses cited but they were in no way coherent or cohesive in terms of Any type of meaningful argument against the communion of Saints and that shows it very very clearly.

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So very very clearly Unbiblical painfully obviously just remind you that this is this is what's what's going on here this is the the context of what we're dealing with and that I Let you may folks be the judge whether that is in fact the case or not sadly

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I lost my spot here, but we'll see if we carry it up idolatry on the other side Catholic Church has always forbidden idolatry.

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So whether Jim likes it or not, there is a distinction there is a development in the understanding of these terms and I can assure you that neither

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I nor any Catholic. I know any Catholic in this room worships statues. Thank you

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Of course what I like or don't like it's irrelevant this evening. I don't matter

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It's what God's Word says and what he has said about his worship that does matter

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Rome makes the distinction the whole point is the distinction is contrary to what

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God has said in his Word This icon was shown to us

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And no one want to come up here and smash it. We were told All right We were told is because you know in your hearts what it represents

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What is most offensive to me? about this representation Is not the wood

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Not necessarily what it looks like I'll be perfectly honest with you. You know what offends me about that It's because in Roman Catholicism That's not a finished act.

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It is a repeated act. Oh, I know we've debated the one time We you know representation all the rest that stuff if it doesn't perfect you.

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It's not the cross of Christ That's what offends me and I know that in my heart and if you're a

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Roman Catholic, you need to understand That's why it offends me You may not agree

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But I can give you a very biblical basis and reason for it we were told that The key tonight is intention

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I Want you to listen very carefully, especially in the closing statements. I'd like to raise some scriptural passages about that but The Context of Latria and Dulia is what determines whether it's idolatry or not when a soldier bows before when a

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Roman soldier bows for a centurion That would not be in a religious context folks

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If I took out of my wallet the pictures of my family I don't need debt tonight because most of them are here for the first time in seven years

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And I'm glad to have them here if I took those pictures out of my wallet and I showed them to you or I kissed them

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Not a religious context when you are in the church in that quiet place

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Lighting those candles on your knees praying for grace and merit it doesn't get any more religious than that and That is the context that determines the meaning of the word

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When we build a statue of Lee or grant or someone else like that Everyone recognizes that there's a different context

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But the whole problem is that's a religious context right there and That is the very use of the words that I have shown you and no effort has been made to refute this

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Showed you from passage after passage after passage Worship and serve worship and serve

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Latria and Dulia Latria and Dulia every single one is religious That is the issue this evening

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We were told in the seven points Christ Church is Christ's body it is Secondly Christ has only one body he does

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The death does not divide us in the sense of splitting us under the body of Christ. That's true But it does put us in a different place and it changes our relationship with others

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I wanted to get to this across examination, but do you pray to people in purgatory? Why not aren't they in the body of Christ if they're in purgatory that means they are part of the body of Christ Aren't they you see they're in some different place and don't you treat them differently than Saints in heaven?

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Well, of course you do so you recognize there's a distinction So when you say well death does not divide us

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The relationship remains but it's of a different type That's why they're described as being asleep.

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That doesn't mean they're unconscious but to us There is a distinction that's made that's why the

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Bible recognizes that yes those who've died Moses was alive to God But he's dead to us

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Don't try to use Moses as credit card a Change has taken place

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Therefore the rest of the argumentation Christians are united in charity We imitate the

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Saints well biblically every single believer in Jesus Christ is the same this whole idea that there's

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Super irrigation and merits and all the rest of the Treasury of merit all the rest of stuff completely and utterly unbiblical concepts and Therefore to say we are able to invoke the intercession of the

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Saints Does not follow from what came before and As we saw in the cross examination, we do not see

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That kind of activity being promoted by the Apostles at all

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So the seven points that have been presented to us do not give us a foundation for ignoring the fact

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That the lottery of duly distinction upon which this entire argument is based

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Collapses when examined on the basis of Scripture may I point something out to my knowledge? There was no one the second

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Nicene Council who ever addressed the meaning of Hebrew terms

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Translation of them what the Bible says In fact as I mentioned before the excellent records as far as I can tell do not even mention the presentation of any biblical counter argumentation and So fundamentally folks, what do we have this evening?

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Well, I think we've already seen it Why is veneration of Saints angels and images consistent with the

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Bible because Rome says so if Rome says so well That's it. The assertion has been made.

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Well Matthew 18 that means Rome's infallible. No, it doesn't There's nothing about Rome in Matthew 18 you here's you here's me has nothing to do with the bishop of the church in Rome at All that's an assumption that has all sorts of historical problems with it

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And if you'd like to see the various debates have been done now We did the papacy against father Mitchell Packwood go look at the videotapes

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I did a Jerry Matt it took seven hours up in Denver in 1993 go look at the videotapes

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There's all sorts of reason to question all of that But that's the fundamental reason it's been given the church says so we assume that the church

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That existed in the time of the second Nicene Council is the same as the same as the church at the time of the first Nicene Council and before that the assumption is

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That modern Roman Catholicism is the faith of the ancient church Problem is there wasn't anyone the

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Nicene Council that believed what you believe today Dogmatically about many issues

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From purgatory and indulgences to the Marian dogmas and the papacy and everything else

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So why should we grant the assumption that this is the same church? This is an argument

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Fundamentally in the final analysis from authority. We're right believe us Jesus taught us whenever someone comes to us and says we're right

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He says go to what God has said and find out We are following Christ's example to do so.

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Thank you We will continue finally with the actual closing statements on the next edition of the dividing line.

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Thanks for listening Hope the introduction Connecting it to things going on in our world today

59:05

Was of assistance and use to you will continue with this kind of programming next time in the dividing line.

59:12

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