Road Trip, Post-Hospital Show From Houston

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:28

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. The rumors of my departure are slightly exaggerated, but only slightly.

00:42

It's good to be with you coming from Houston, back to Houston. I've mentioned on Twitter, not everyone is on Twitter, of course, but that is sort of the primary way

00:56

I communicate with the world out there, especially while traveling. I have had, it's been a challenging trip, you know.

01:06

Just pulled in here in Houston. I guess the world's largest rodeo is taking place just down the road.

01:15

So the RV park that I stay at while I'm here in Houston, it's the closest one to the church.

01:22

Somebody was showing me one that's north, and it might be easier to get to in some context.

01:29

I may look into it. It's a little more expensive, but not that much.

01:35

It's just like a nicer hotel type thing. The park that I'm in here is very full.

01:41

In fact, when I made my reservations, I wondered why I couldn't get a pull -through, because they're so much easier to use.

01:48

I'm in a back -end spot. When I was here three weeks ago, they told me, well, the rodeo is in town, so you're lucky you got what you got.

02:00

So I pull in tonight, and you know, I haven't had to back this unit into anything for quite some time, including our storage spot.

02:09

It's been at the repair place. So I parked real nicely, and I took a picture to send to the family, and I sent it to the family, and I'm looking at the picture on the screen.

02:22

I go, what? And I zoom in. I go, oh no, because the unit's been perfect on this trip.

02:32

It really has been. I haven't had any problems with it. I've been real happy with it. I go running outside, and I had heard a sound about 90 minutes out from getting here.

02:44

I had heard something happen behind me, but I couldn't tell what it was. I couldn't see anything. Nothing fell off or anything.

02:50

Okay, must have been a vehicle behind me or something. I don't know. The roof, the brand new roof, the warranty put the new roof on, ripped in the front, and folded back, and it's all torn up, and I mean right here, right, pretty much right there.

03:11

Up top, it's all torn up, and just like, so yesterday,

03:20

I'm sitting in the ER in Lindale, Texas, and by the way, my sincere thanks to the

03:27

ER staff there, the doctors, the nurses. I was so impressed.

03:32

It was so fast. I mean, they had me getting a CT scan literally within 15 minutes of my walking into that place, and had the results 10 minutes later.

03:45

I mean, you know, they put an IV in me, and they did real good with that.

03:52

Everything was just amazingly good, so I, you know, you hear horror stories, and there are horror stories, but when it's done well, you need to, and I told them that.

04:04

I made sure to tell them, you all are just fantastic. You did a great job.

04:09

So, I'm sitting in an ER yesterday. It's been a tough trip. I think

04:17

I mentioned that I was sitting in the church weeks ago before the purgatory debate, seriously wondering if I was going to physically make it through the day.

04:28

The Lord was good. Gave me the strength to get through it. I didn't cough too much during the debate with Jason Breda, but I knew, you know, things just weren't right.

04:47

Struggled horribly in the Baptist history class. I mean, 9 a .m. to 4 30 every day trying to teach when

04:55

I ended up going to urgent care, ended up getting a shot, antibiotics, but we were only doing,

05:06

I'm getting hit with two things at the same time, bronchitis and a seven millimeter kidney stone with all the attendant things that come with that, which we won't go into on the program.

05:20

And so, the two of them would just sort of take turns and you're treating the one, the other one hits you and then you treat that one and then the other one comes back.

05:30

And so, I was in the ER yesterday, but was thankful that the, at least the

05:38

RV was always working. It's just, and I was this close to pulling the plug on tomorrow night, the debate with Leighton Flowers and Saturday with Dale Tuggy.

05:54

I had packed a bag and taken it with me to the hospital because it seemed logical to do that.

06:04

And if they wanted to do, need to do certain things or there was more to it than I was thinking,

06:12

I realized I might be hospitalized there in Lindale and I'd rather be there because that's where Tom Buck is.

06:18

And so, I knew that Tom wouldn't just leave me sitting there despite the fact that I did not even remember that during the purgatory debate,

06:32

I took a shot at the Dallas Cowboys. And I didn't, honestly, until Tom replayed that part of the video on Twitter and said, so much for having dinner with you tonight.

06:46

We did anyways, he and I in Dallas home. Dallas home's a member of his church.

06:53

And I didn't even remember having done it. And I called him out. I literally looked toward the camera in the back and I said, sorry,

07:01

Tom, sorry, Tom. But I didn't remember having done that, which tells you how I was feeling that night.

07:07

But anyway, yeah, Tom wouldn't have let me, you know, just rot in the hospital alone.

07:13

He probably would have sent somebody else or he would have shown up dressed in all his Cowboys regalia just simply to make me suffer some more in the process.

07:22

But anyway, so yeah, I was, it was not looking good yesterday, but here

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I am in Houston and there's a someplace in the back of my mind that's going, you should have just gone straight home, having dodged the bullet and gotten more antibiotics and shots and stuff.

07:50

But, you know, I was looking at Twitter just a little while ago. There's, I think there's a couple that's, they're coming for their 20th anniversary for this debate.

07:59

And there's a lot of anticipation, especially for tomorrow night. But which saddens me in a sense, because the far more important topic, honestly, of the two is

08:14

Saturday night and the Trinity, but that's the way it is. So yeah, so here we sit, right up there.

08:25

And we've got someone coming out tomorrow morning to patch it up. And you can do a good job on that.

08:34

I, we had the initial roof problem and I went on,

08:40

I think, two trips. Yeah. Two trips with, with it patched and it did just fine.

08:45

So shouldn't have happened. I'm not sure how this is all going to end up working out, but that's, that's where we are.

08:54

So, hey, I'm here. I'm, I'm alive.

09:01

I would say I'm at about 70, maybe 75 % mornings are rough.

09:13

But the Lord got me through the first three debates and I hope and pray he'll get me through the last two and then keep me safe on the long drive home from Houston to Phoenix.

09:27

And that the roof won't blow off, because I will be driving west and that's generally the winds coming from the west.

09:36

So who knows what kind of weather we could run into, but yeah, here we are. There you go. And I suppose

09:44

Rich would be really happy if I just happened to mention in passing the travel fund link, because that's how you pay to have roofs patched as you're traveling around, is the travel fund takes care of those things.

09:58

So, so there you go. So here we are. Wanted to notice, note a number of things.

10:08

First of all, I've got to, I've got to start with this. Wait a minute, where'd that go?

10:15

Oh, it's a different browser, never mind. Jonathan Burris, thanks a lot, dude.

10:26

Okay, why aren't you going to, oh, picture in picture. Well, it's not, oh, wait a minute, wrong one.

10:36

There we go. Okay. Hopefully this will work. Yeah.

10:45

Okay. Well, Jonathan Burris posted this. This fella is just,

10:57

Tony Hudson, I'm going to, I'm going to tell you, Tony Hudson is just a constant, never ending highlight reel.

11:07

And so he posted this, it's nice and short.

11:14

It's nice and short, but it does explain, it does explain why most of my

11:20

Presbyterian friends don't bother to read what Baptists say about Baptism. And I've complained about that many times.

11:31

And it is true, it is reality. And it's because I think most of my Presbyterian friends think that this is what all

11:42

Baptists believe, and they don't read Reformed Baptists, and they don't, they should go, no, you guys have covenant theologies.

11:49

I mean, you must have covenant understanding. Yeah, we do. So, but, but Tony Hudson decided to address the subject of, um, of Paedo -Baptism.

12:02

So here is, here is the argumentation that Tony Hudson provided on the subject of Paedo -Baptism.

12:12

And I, I hope my Presbyterian friends will speak to me again after I play this.

12:51

Get that leg going there. Well, you know, um, on a certain level, he's, he's right.

13:07

Oh my. Um, that's, that's preaching, man. I'd like to see

13:17

Doug Wilson refute that. There you go. You probably will.

13:22

Uh, I could see, I'd like to see a Doug Wilson response video.

13:29

Um, uh, yeah, there you go.

13:37

False doctrine. Okay. All right. So, uh, a lot of stuff has happened since we last had the opportunity of doing a program, or had the energy to do a program.

13:55

And, um, just saw today that, uh,

14:01

Layton Flowers has a, a new publication coming out, um, um, called

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Drawn by Jesus, I think it was. He did this the last time. He riffs off the titles of my books.

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And so we had, you know, The Potter's Freedom, um, was, for example, the number one theology book in CBD in December of 2000,

14:28

I think. And has done quite well, and is widely read, and gone through multiple, uh, printings, and, um, well, editions.

14:40

And so he came out with, like, uh, The Potter's Promise, something like that.

14:47

And that was right around the time, I think it first came out, Kindle, and I don't know if it was done paper or not.

14:54

But anyway, um, I found that interesting. And so I'm not really stunned that he would respond to a almost booklet, uh, that I published 33 years ago called

15:12

Drawn by the Father. Um, and then it would come out, you know, when we were about to debate the subject, and I just joked on Twitter, uh, it, it was published by 48

15:25

Hours Books, 48 Hour Books, whatever. It's a self -publishing thing.

15:30

And, um, I said it may last for 48 hours, depending on the debate goes tomorrow night.

15:38

Um, so anyway, um, I'm not feeling like I'm missing much.

15:44

I pretty much know where he's going to be going on these things. And I think most people who've listened to both sides know, um, what we're going to be looking at and, and, and things like that.

15:56

And, um, so after, um, it was two weeks ago, two weeks ago, this

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Saturday is when we had the Jason Retta, uh, debate. And I think

16:13

I did do a program after that. I, I don't remember. I mean, that's when things were starting to get really bad.

16:20

And so let me just briefly comment. I, I wanted to state that one of the things that really bothered me about that debate was

16:31

I, I feel like Jason was being, um, used by others, uh, rather than allowing him to have his own position and hence be able to actually interact with it.

16:44

Um, I think he was being used by others, uh, who were in the audience. Um, and in fact,

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Layton was sitting next to Thompson. And if you've, if you've looked at Thompson's stuff online, let's just put it this way.

17:05

No matter how radical you are, Layton will work with you. Um, you know, he's got

17:12

Warren McGrew on and the things he has said, uh, the things that Thompson has said are really way out there.

17:20

I mean, really, really way out there. Um, and so I, I think one of the, one of the amazing things, uh, about that debate is that now almost, you know, more than 10 days later, you still have people saying, well,

17:42

Layton Flower's actual language was that my asking my opponent to explain why the key text

17:49

I used in my opening, I'm the one defending this position. And while the key text that has been used for hundreds of years in reformed writings on this subject, that, that that's in my published works, even the ones that Layton Flowers rips the titles off of.

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Um, so as to get an audience, um, I asked, you know,

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I, I, I went to the text and I'm like, um, okay. So how do you relate the two halves of this verse?

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It's one sentence in regards to the intercessory work of Christ and his ability to save to the uttermost.

18:47

That is, that's not only a fair question. That's not a gotcha question. That's an absolutely basic foundational.

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If you're going to do a debate, you need to answer this question request. And it's like,

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I don't see any relationship, but I'm well, then what does Hebrew 725 mean? And all you said exegete, and that means spending hours.

19:09

It's, it's, it was so obvious. It was, it's painfully obvious. And Layton called my asking him to explain that text, a parlor trick, a parlor trick.

19:28

Uh, tomorrow night will be interesting. Uh, I hope

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I'm feeling even better than I do tonight. Um, by then

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I can't, I can't guarantee that, but I hope I am, but Lord given me the strength, um, that's not a parlor trick and Layton better be ready.

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You know, he, he, he, he said after the debate that, you know, when I said, Hey, I'm going to be asking the same questions of you.

19:59

Well, you know, you know, asking about Greek and stuff, that's just completely irrelevant and all the rest of that stuff.

20:05

Just like, it's possible that he doesn't understand that his use of an

20:13

English text assumes certain understandings of the underlying original language.

20:19

It's, it's possible. Um, you know, I may have to explain that.

20:27

Um, but you can only do what you can do.

20:34

Uh, so it's been pretty amazing. And then right around that same time,

20:42

I started hearing about an open theism debate, um, that Marlon hosted.

20:49

And I'm, I'm recollecting that Warren McGrew debated

21:01

Matt Slick on the same platform a number of years ago.

21:09

Um, I remember again, the route that I rode on my bike over into Sun City, listening to that encounter.

21:20

Uh, and this time the debate was between Chris Fisher and Matt Slick.

21:30

Now these kinds of online debates can be useful, but I think there is a massive, um, ground for abuse of them.

21:43

I, I, um, I, I, I recall another

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Matt Slick debate on that, on that context, which I criticized on this program because it was just yelling on top of each other.

22:02

And it's their food fights. They're very often food fights. They shouldn't be, but they're very often food fights.

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And this was, this was a food fight. Again, I saw comments, the subject was on, uh, open theism.

22:19

And then I saw that it had been taken down because of the behavior of both sides.

22:29

And that made me all the more curious as to what in the world had taken place.

22:35

And so I was able to download the audio and listen while driving.

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And then I had heard that Chris Fisher, Warren McGrew, and some other of the open theist cadre of people had done a after program.

22:57

And so I, it was like 90 minutes long. And so I downloaded that and listened to that as well.

23:06

And again, it's, it's, it's a subject I've addressed for many years, um, debated

23:13

John Sanders on the subject, uh, at Reformed Theological Seminary. I think that was 2001, somewhere around there, um, getting close to a quarter century ago.

23:27

And then, you know, years later, um, my first encounter with Will Duffy was when he was the assistant to Bob Enyard up in Denver.

23:38

And we had that rather almost called a sudden debate in 2014. There in Denver, I was up there to ride the triple bypass and, and stuff like that.

23:49

And, oh, those are the days I miss those. Um, as I recall, we only had like, maybe was it, was it as much as two months of lead time on that?

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Maybe even been less because I, I just feel like it happened really quick. And, you know,

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Enyard was much more radical than John Sanders in his, in his views.

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And Will Duffy, who I guess did, also did a debate with Matt Slick, I recall was

24:28

Enyard's sort of right -hand man. Enyard's dead. And so I guess he's doing his own thing now.

24:36

Um, Will Duffy that is. I'm sure Enyard is too. Um, anyway, um, and so, you know,

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I'm, I'm obviously interested in, in the subject. I had heard of this

24:49

Chris Fisher guy, but just a little bit, I knew he had a book out. Someone had linked me to it at some point, you know,

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PDF or something like that. And, um, I think I had listened to something and I had just been so turned off by the attitude of just, um, like, oh wow, things getting ugly over there.

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So anyway, I listened, listened to the debate and was pretty amazed.

25:22

Um, obviously Matt is willing to get into situations that I don't think are worthwhile.

25:31

I have a different standard. Um, it's not that I haven't gotten into some slugfest with some people, um, that I didn't realize were going to be as immature or nasty or shallow or whatever.

25:47

Um, so yeah, I've had a few back and forths with, uh, with folks, but especially the older I get, the less

25:57

I have any interest in anything like that at all. I got nothing to prove. I've taken on all comers on all sorts of different topics on far wider ranges than these guys would ever even dream of doing.

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Um, well Matt does a real wide range of things too, don't get me wrong. I was thinking about the open theists.

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They, you know, they tend to be one string banjos. So, um,

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I, I just don't, I want to create quality material that will have usefulness.

26:31

You know, the Romans 9 debate from 2015 is still useful. Lord willing, tomorrow night will be useful as well to people.

26:39

Um, really looking forward to the Unitarianism debate, uh, having long -term value and not entertainment value.

26:52

Uh, I was just stunned. Um, this

26:57

Chris Fisher guy, uh, turned his opening statement into a, into a drinking game, literally.

27:07

And he then, the, the after show really exposed,

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I don't think they realize just how much their motivations were exposed.

27:23

When you, when you get people together afterwards, the real motivations come out and they did.

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And this was personal. This was, uh, meant to get Matt slick.

27:36

Um, the arrogance, childishness, immaturity, and utter disqualification to ever be addressed as a serious commentary on theology, commentator on theology ever again came out so clearly for everybody that was on that after show, everybody, including

27:55

Warren McGriff, um, just vile, absolutely vile stuff.

28:03

And it seemed real obvious to me. I've seen, it's been reposted a number of times, a tweet, um, where family issues for Matt slick were raised.

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And, um, allegedly this was posted by this Chris Fisher guy and he did make commentary, um, on that after show about having secret weapons ready to go if he needed to use them.

28:39

And I think that's what he was referring to. I really do. Um, I have to be very careful.

28:48

No person who would raise those issues and use them publicly has a soul.

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The term vile, disgusting scum is the nicest

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I can come up with for anyone who would even think about doing and commenting on something like that.

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There is no reason for any Orthodox Christian to ever have anything to do with any of those people.

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Who would joke and laugh about such things. Never, never. There's, you've got to have a standard and that's just simple adulthood, having a soul, being a human.

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Um, you, you know, no, there's no defense of it. You know what Warren McGriff said about, uh, reformed parents and their children.

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So that was vile. This is even lower than that. And so I was, but what's fascinating, um,

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I may, uh, take the time when, you know, maybe on the trip home, once this weekend's over, we'll see.

30:06

There were a couple of interesting textual things. Um, I found,

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I find Chris Fisher's argumentation childish, incoherent, disconnected, um, filled with just an astonishing amount of arrogance and stuff that he clearly does not understand.

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Um, and I, I just, he, he literally made reference to a text, the textual variant in 1

30:37

John 2 .20. And it's, it's in the form of pass, pass, upon.

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Um, and the context is so plainly, you have an anointing.

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And even if, even if you take the, the reading of the Byzantine texts, even if you take that, it's, it's not a claim of omniscience for humans.

31:00

It's the result of the anointing that reveals to the believers who the antichrists are and who isn't.

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And yet he tries to say, well, see, if you're going to say this means God has all knowledge, that means humans have all knowledge.

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And I, I, I, I was sitting here listening to this going, there's someone who takes this seriously.

31:26

I, I guess people who aren't in solid churches never hear solid teaching.

31:34

Okay. I guess you could deceive folks like that, but, so it'd be really fascinating to, to maybe, you know, walk through a couple of those texts because he's always going, well, you know, you know, this is how anyone who uses normal language, and I'm not using philosophy.

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He doesn't even realize the presuppositional nature of the assumptions that he's making. And it was really interesting.

31:59

So, so we might look at some of that stuff. We'll see what comes up on the way, on the way home. But what

32:05

I really found fascinating was that on the after show, the, the real focus, you know, they'll, they'll talk about classical theism.

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And that's the first thing that struck me was over here, we've got all these people claiming that unless you are a

32:35

Thomas Aquinas devotee, that you're compromising classical theism and all the rest of this stuff, when in reality, the arguments are over slight differences in emphasis and stuff like that.

32:50

And the open theists who coined the phrase to demonstrate what they are against, they're out there shooting at everybody.

33:03

And I just really wonder, to be honest, how many of the devotees of the new classical theism stuff and all the organizations and books are being put out and all the rest of the stuff.

33:21

I wonder how many of them would survive any kind of meaningful encounter with not these types of people that just throw anything in the kitchen sink out, but with a

33:34

John Sanders or even Enyart, even though like I said, he, he was pretty radical too.

33:43

I really wonder how many of them would have almost anything to say. Because you can quote creeds and theologians all you want, and these guys are going to turn around and say, well, that's not what the

34:02

Bible says. And here's what the Bible says. See, there's the biblicism. There's a real reason right there. And it's not biblicism.

34:10

It's not biblicism. That's not what they're doing. They can make the claim all they want, but they are engaging in such, they take a few narratival texts and they overthrow, you know,

34:27

God saying, my ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. The God I heard

34:33

Chris Fischer describing is Chris Fischer. That was the conclusion

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I came to, listening to the debate, even before listening to After Show. Chris Fischer is his own God. He's made

34:45

God in his own image. It's backwards. It really is. God makes the exact same kinds of judgment errors and adjustments of course, and everything else that Chris Fischer does.

35:01

It's really the elevation of man to that status.

35:07

And so it was just the exegesis that he was claiming to do was just utterly incoherent.

35:24

And so anyway, that was the outcome from the debate along with, and it did not surprise me at all, when

35:38

Matt tried to bring up, well, how could the sins of God's people be placed upon Jesus if God didn't even know we were going to exist?

35:47

So the nature of atonement, plainly Fischer doesn't have even a slightly biblical understanding of the doctrine of atonement, intercession, the high priest, and hence it was obvious to me he doesn't believe in penal substitution or atonement.

36:08

Well, that came out like anything. In the After Show, the real focus was on Calvinism.

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Their attacks on quote -unquote classical theism is just an expression of their detestation of Reformed theology.

36:24

And all these thousands of theories of atonement, as if there were really thousands of theories of atonement, there's not.

36:32

But, well, recapitulation, ransom to Satan, all that kind of stuff, moral government, all that kind of thing.

36:40

And so I've tried to explain to people that there is a real hatred of the concept of penal substitutionary atonement.

36:52

And a lot of people, you know, they're involved in good churches, and they're just focused on living a good

36:59

Christian life, and their pastors preach through the scriptures, and so that's all they're exposed to.

37:07

And they're just, there's debate, what do you mean? How could people deny this?

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But they do. And Fisher actually tried repeatedly to parallel, well,

37:23

American soldiers died in World War II for my freedoms, with the concept of the atoning work of Christ in behalf of his people.

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And I think part of Matt's problem was he was just, he was like, that's just heresy.

37:44

That's just dumb. And it is. And sometimes you encounter something, and it's just so disconnected.

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I mean, you really think that's what Peter is talking, you really think that's what Hebrews is talking about? The high priest, the atonement, all that stuff is the same thing as American soldiers dying for my freedoms.

38:12

The category errors there are innumerable, just innumerable.

38:20

But it's sometimes hard in a debate to just overcome your stunning, you're just stunned that someone could have such a, could be sitting there talking about how they're giving the biblical view when it's just like, they're on another planet.

38:37

What color is the sky in your world, is what you want to ask in that. And so that came out in the after show.

38:44

Oh yeah, penal substitution, that's all they can operate in. They just assume their theology, blah, blah, blah.

38:49

Of course they're assuming their theology, they just don't even realize it. But the attack on penal substitutionary atonement, total depravity, penal substitutionary atonement, everything in the gospel.

39:02

And so what was fascinating at one point, and I think this is helpful to consider, is they were talking about Matt Slick and trying to get him off his, everything was trying to get him off his game, and I plan to do this, and I plan to do that, and I was going to do my opening this way because I'm going to,

39:23

I know he's going to do this. And it's just, again, I don't do debates with people like this because that's not why

39:29

I do debates. This is for entertainment, this is to get his group all excited and all the rest of the stuff.

39:38

It's just kid stuff. And if it was just kid stuff, this is children playing with divine truths and they will be held accountable.

39:48

They will answer, no question about it. But that's their, yeah,

39:55

I did this. And you could just see he was almost breaking his shoulders, patting himself on the back and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

40:05

But eventually, at some point, there was a discussion of, some people had said, well,

40:14

I didn't even think you should do it. They were saying to Chris Fisher, I didn't think you should do this. But it turned out all right anyways, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

40:23

And somewhere along those lines, there was a lot of discussion about how, you know,

40:30

I just don't like Matt Slick. He's just a vile person and he's not an honest character.

40:37

And it's like Mr. Pot, Mr. Kettle's on line one. And all this stuff was being said.

40:48

And then it was said, I don't believe that Matt Slick is a

40:55

Christian. They were actually talking about Matt and then

41:01

Marlon because it was on Marlon's YouTube channel. And they were saying, you know,

41:07

I think Marlon's a Christian. I think Marlon's a Christian. I think he's a nice guy. You know, I don't like some of the things that were said or did or things like that.

41:18

But, you know, I think he's a Christian. Of course, there were people in the after thing that were saying, that basically were saying, well, there's all sorts of people in heaven, including

41:27

Mormons. So evidently you can believe God is the only man living on the planet. That's cool. There are connections with open theism.

41:35

There really, really are, between Mormonism and their totally man -centered anthropology.

41:44

They don't have a theology. I mean, God is an exalted man.

41:52

There is no ontological. God, men and angels are on the same ontological spectrum. It's just a matter of progression.

41:58

So there is no creator God in Mormon theology.

42:04

So I guess it makes sense. Well, they're going to make it too because you don't have to worry about that worshiping the one true

42:13

God thing. So, but then what was said was, yeah, I think Marlon's a Christian, but I don't think

42:22

Matt Slick is because Matt Slick hates the biblical God. He hates open theism.

42:31

And open theism presents the biblical God. God is open is Chris Fisher's website.

42:37

God is open. That's the one true God. And so if you identify what he believes is heresy, then you're not a

42:44

Christian. And so both sides are saying the exact same thing.

42:51

Both sides are saying what you believe about God disqualifies you from being a worshiper of the one true

42:59

God. So at least that was made clear because I would agree. I would agree.

43:07

There is no way that what was being said from the other side is anywhere within the realm of a saving faith in the one true

43:26

God who has revealed himself in scripture. And in fact, during the debate, it was very clear

43:32

Matt raised issues that demonstrated that Chris Fisher isn't even close to an orthodox

43:39

Christology. Nowhere near an orthodox Christology in regards to Christ.

43:45

My name came up. I just realized my name came up at one point because it seems it's very clear

43:54

Fisher denies the hypostatic union. He would evidently be some kind of Eutychian.

44:03

I doubt that he knows what that means, but he would be some type of Eutychian who thinks that the word became flesh means that the flesh was divine.

44:19

So there's a mixture, which is what Eutychians theorized prior to the

44:28

Council of Chalcedon as well. Who knows? I mean, every time

44:33

Matt tried to push for some kind of systematic consistency, you'd get this,

44:43

I don't do philosophy, blah, blah, blah, blah stuff. And that was the excuse for having stuff all over the map.

44:52

So I don't know, but like I said, Matt did push on that issue and the responses were extremely sub -orthodox and contradictory to any meaningful understanding of the relationship of the divine.

45:10

I mean, the idea that Christ's human nature, I mean, you'd have to theorize that you can divinize something that's been created.

45:22

The sun, as the sun is eternal, the human flesh that you took on was not eternal, so it can't be quote -unquote divine.

45:34

It just seems rather obvious, but that was the kind of response that was given.

45:42

So that was fascinating as well. But yeah, a lot came out. A lot came out in that hearts were revealed and I said on Twitter, it reminds me a little bit of Jurassic Park.

46:00

Remember that one guy? Just because we can do something doesn't mean that we should do something.

46:07

And just because we can get people together online and have them yell and scream doesn't mean that we should.

46:18

I think that there are standards that we should observe simply out of respect for the subjects that we're addressing.

46:33

And there are numerous active internet people who demonstrate pretty much every day that they should not be engaged, that they will simply not only muddy the waters, but they will mock the truth and no one's going to be edified by, no matter how clearly they may be refuted, it doesn't matter.

47:18

The mud wrestling to get there will keep anybody from really seeing what's important.

47:27

And so I can certainly foresee times in the future when almost any meaningful debate will have to take place within an electronic context.

47:42

Unless something happens, the people in charge in the

47:48

West want to end our freedom to travel and to associate and to engage in these types of things that we're going to be doing this weekend here in Houston.

47:58

And so while we have the opportunity, that's why I'm pushing myself to do it. But even with that,

48:08

I still think there needs to be a higher level of standards exercised.

48:16

And there are just people who have proven repeatedly that that's not something that would be appropriate to engage that person or those types of people in certain groups and things like that.

48:33

So yeah, that was my conclusion from all of that.

48:39

Let me see real quickly here. We did Tony Hudson and did

48:46

I pop up anything else in here? Yeah, like I said,

48:51

I already mentioned Leighton saying asking someone to exegete on the spot is a parlor trick and not an appropriate debate question.

49:03

I'll be asking you to do that tomorrow night. And it is not a parlor trick. It is what's necessary to engage in scholarly debate on the text of the scripture.

49:13

The more appropriate question is to ask how their exegesis supports the position they are presenting. Again, I was the one presenting the position.

49:21

He made the assertion that the key element of my presentation on that text,

49:29

I don't see it. That means you need to explain what the text is.

49:35

That's just a given. So I don't think there was anything there. Let me just Oh, oh, oh,

49:43

I knew, wow, I almost forgot. Good, and I've got just enough time to do it and wrap this up in an hour.

49:52

I'm surprised I've lasted this long, to be honest with you. But hey, it's gonna be longer tomorrow night.

49:58

So gotta, gotta, gotta be ready for it. One of my students at GBTS, and by the way,

50:09

I did want to, I want to thank the folks at the

50:15

VMA Seminary in Jacksonville that I had to bail on yesterday. I spoke in the morning.

50:21

I was supposed to speak at two o 'clock in the afternoon. I had to get to the ER, and I'm so sorry. I apologize sincerely.

50:28

I hate doing that, but there just wasn't anything I could do about it. I would not have made it through the afternoon session.

50:35

I would not have made it. I don't know that I could have said anything meaningful. So my apologies to them.

50:40

My apologies to the students at GBTS for that class. I did my best, but my sincere thanks.

50:50

Jeff Johnson is gold, just solid gold.

50:57

He really is. You need to understand the president of GBTS is a, he's doing what he's doing for all the right reasons.

51:07

He's a humble man. He's a hard -working man, and he's a great brother in the

51:12

Lord. And Regina, who just finished three years of being, of running the seminary, let's just be honest, everybody knew that if you needed to talk to Miss Regina, if you were going to get something done, everybody knows that.

51:32

She's going to be missed. We may be doomed, but just so thankful for all that she's done over the past few years.

51:40

And I'm just going to tell you something. Look, Owen Strand just avoided me the whole weekend, so if he was around,

51:46

I didn't know it. Maybe he knew I had the plague, and so he just kept his distance. I don't know, but I never saw him.

51:55

Jeff Moore. Jeff Moore is one of the main, there are two

52:05

Jeffs, three Jeffs, if you include Jeff Johnson, the three Jeffs in my life that make me so thankful that the next generation is coming.

52:17

And if I pass from the stage soon,

52:25

I can do so with confidence that Christ is building his church and that he has put people in place.

52:32

Jeff Moore is one of the nicest, brilliant, insightful, helpful scholars, and GBTS is so blessed to have him.

52:51

Looking forward to great things from that young man, and he was a great encouragement to me, even in my illness last weekend.

53:01

So I wanted to thank all those folks for everything they did. One of my students passed on to me, he is in a

53:08

Facebook group. This is well before Facebook crashed. I guess it's back up,

53:13

I don't know. I loved that Elon Musk tweeted, just thought I'd mention, our servers are working just fine.

53:22

Oh, ouch. Kick them while they're down. But he's in a

53:27

Facebook group with Ergon Kanner. Ergon Kanner.

53:36

And his name's Dalton, and he said to Ergon, guy who lied about a bunch of his own life details to sell a book now lies about what

53:48

Calvinists believe. When you get about the lifestyle of lying, Ergon, well, that's a good question.

53:56

That's a good question. There are a lot of people watching this program who have no idea who Ergon Kanner was.

54:02

When I ask, when I ask audiences, when I ask graduates, I had a student who was a graduate of Liberty.

54:10

Do you know who Ergon Kanner was? You know, I heard the name, but no, he was, he really wasn't discussed at Liberty.

54:17

I'm just like, uh, if you go on YouTube, search for Ergon Kanner, James White.

54:30

There's a lot still there. And the two, there's a, there's a two hour presentation

54:37

I did at Tom Buck's church in Lindale, summarizing the case against Ergon Kanner, providing all the documentation.

54:47

And then there's a video I did with my Arabic tutor, Issam Atallah, on the subject of Ergon Kanner's claims to speak

54:59

Arabic. Issam is, was born in Syria.

55:05

He's a native Arabic speaker. And we played clip after clip after clip of Ergon Kanner pretending to speak

55:12

Arabic. And then he'd give his translation. I turned to Issam, did you understand any of that?

55:18

How would you say what he said he said? And then he'd give us the actual Arabic. We documented the fact that Ergon Kanner's life was an entire fabric of lies.

55:36

He claimed to have been born in Istanbul and trained in, in jihad and all the rest of this stuff.

55:43

And he was actually born in Sweden and raised in Ohio. And all these stories he had told were just pure lies.

55:52

They were just made up. And so here's what Ergon Mehmet Kanner responded.

56:01

Please continue. You do understand that I have been a college president and a dean since attacked by the calvislamic folks.

56:13

Vetted repeatedly and cleared every single time.

56:19

In fact, I preach conferences not in spite of your spurious attacks, but because of them and the books written by my brother and I continue to sell.

56:27

Wouldn't you think if my testimony was fake, my brothers would be as well. Yep. Good job,

56:35

Ergon. Throw, throw your brother under the bus. He managed to avoid most of the splatter from your self -destruction.

56:44

But, um, the man remains utterly self -deceived.

56:52

When the wheels started coming off and the documentation started coming out, Norman Geisler defended him.

57:00

He's still got buddies in the SBC who defend him. But eventually Liberty got rid of him.

57:07

And then the next school he got rid of him. Went to, got rid of him. And the third school he almost destroyed before they got rid of him.

57:14

And there were scandals at each one. At each one. So to sit here and say, vetted repeatedly and cleared every single time, is the most astonishing self -deception

57:30

I think I've ever seen. And it all goes back to a

57:36

January day in 2010. I was on my way to London.

57:43

The whole reason that I engaged in the Cantor controversy is because Ergon Cantor pretended to do what

57:49

I actually did. So I had to. He, as I was getting ready to get on a plane to fly to London, a

57:57

Muslim contacted me and said, did you know that Ergon Cantor claims to have debated Shabir Ali? And I said,

58:03

I'd have to, I'd have to see that. And so by the time I got to London, he had sent me the links to the audio of Ergon Cantor claiming to have debated

58:15

Shabir Ali. Well, I know Shabir Ali. I've debated Shabir Ali. You can go online and watch,

58:20

I think the seven debates that he and I have done on three different continents.

58:27

We've debated in the United States, in Canada, in, did we debate in London?

58:35

Maybe not. We, oh, we debated in Australia.

58:41

That's right. That's right. So Australia, United States, Canada, and South Africa. That's, that's, that's where the various debates took place.

58:50

So I've debated Shabir Ali. So I have his email address. And so I wrote to him and he wrote back fairly quickly in January of 2010 and said,

59:03

I've never even met Ergon Cantor. I've never debated him, never met him. And so I wrote

59:10

Ergon Cantor, January, 2010. And I said, here are the links.

59:17

I know Shabir Ali. And at this point in time, we had no idea.

59:24

All we knew is Ergon Cantor was an arrogant, outrageous critic of Calvinism.

59:31

We had tried to set up a debate at Liberty University. Two weeks out, they sank it.

59:37

And we now, we've, we learned years later, the Southern Baptist leader who made the call to make sure that debate, it was going to be

59:46

Tom Askell and I versus the Cantor brothers, a well -known Southern Baptist leader who isn't a

59:52

Southern Baptist leader anymore, that'll give you a hint, scuttled that debate. Because he knew,

59:59

I'm sure he knew that Cantor's story was a lie. And he was afraid that if that debate took place, that would come out.

01:00:09

And so he scuttled it. That was 2006. So four years had passed and I had not given him much thought. So it had not even crossed my mind that his whole story was a fraud, that it was all made up.

01:00:26

And so when I hear being claimed, I've debated Shabir Ali, and Shabir Ali says, never even met the man.

01:00:34

I write to him and say, could you please explain this? When he got that email, he had a decision.

01:00:42

And I think that was the most fateful day of his life because his life since then has not been good.

01:00:49

It's been a disaster. And it was because he decided to double down.

01:00:57

He had that opportunity at that, at that point that he opened my email, he had the opportunity to go, jigs up.

01:01:09

I need to do the right thing. I need to ask for forgiveness.

01:01:17

And I, I need to stop what I've been doing. And he chose the opposite.

01:01:25

And he's still there to this day. So it's been, yeah, over 14 years has now passed and he is as unrepentant and adamant in his self -deception as 14 years ago.

01:01:47

It's, it's an amazing thing to consider and to look at. It really is.

01:01:54

So anyway, there you go. So tomorrow night, if you watched the

01:02:03

Trent Horn debates, the church will be live streaming again. They've said they've got the audio issues dealt with.

01:02:12

And so it should be very clear, should be straightforward. So what we'll try to put a link up somewhere of let people know how they can watch the debate live.

01:02:29

I have a feeling there's gonna be more people trying to watch this one live. They were even commenting on this debate in the comm box on the

01:02:38

Chris Fisher, Warren McGrew after party stuff on YouTube.

01:02:45

So there's gonna be a lot of people tuning in for that one. And then

01:02:50

Saturday, not Friday, but Saturday night, Dale Tuggy is Jesus Yahweh, Unitarianism.

01:02:57

Like I said, I think that's actually more important as a long -term valuable thing.

01:03:08

And then I head home. And so your prayers and support needed for the debates and for the trip home.

01:03:16

And I really hope, I really hope that by this

01:03:23

Friday, we will be able to announce two more debates in the soon future, before May.

01:03:37

Important, key debates, fascinating. We have been struggling to get this scheduled.

01:03:46

The delays have been completely on the other side, completely on the other side. And I'm literally to the point where if we get put off again,

01:04:02

I'm to the point of going, look, this isn't gonna work. We've tried and tried and tried for months and months and months.

01:04:08

We'll be as patient as possibly can be. If you can't make up your mind, forget it.

01:04:17

I hope they happen, but it's getting to the point where, look, if this particular person can't respond in a timely fashion after all this time, then that means there's gonna be all sorts of problems.

01:04:34

Once he agrees to it, how do you know that there's not gonna be all sorts of problems down the line that make it so it won't work?

01:04:45

So we'll see. We'll find out. But my patience is just about gone for good reason.

01:04:54

So anyways, really glad we had the opportunity of doing this and letting you know we're still alive.

01:05:03

As it stands right now, my hope is to do something on Friday if I'm not overly tired or haven't, you know, taken a turn for the worse or not in the hospital.

01:05:18

Else it might be the roof doesn't cave in. I don't know.

01:05:24

It could prove to be interesting, but we will do our best along those lines.

01:05:29

And I, again, very much appreciate you're watching the program, and we will see you the next time on The Dividing Line.