Shamsi Ali Debate

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line

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

Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 973 460 to or toll -free across the

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

James white Hey, good morning. Welcome to the dividing line on the Tuesday morning back here in sunny and warm Phoenix, Arizona Everybody else here got to slowly work into it

I just came back from the east and just ran right into the furnace walked out of Sky Harbor Airport went yep, yep, summer finally finally got here took a while, but finally got here and Rode this morning and saw a heart rate.

I had not seen since last year sometime Because it it's a little bit harder riding when the the low in the morning was what 86 87 some like that this morning

I think So it was the old body was having to work a whole lot harder to go.

Not very much faster. I'm afraid so but anyway It's good to be back and not going to be here forever because Immediately you look forward to the next thing and we've got a very busy late summer

Early fall in the sense of August and September August in Australia September both in Santa Fe and Portland and So much much preparation yet to do again many

Thanks to everyone who made the trip so useful not only those who arranged it which is a lot of work in itself the churches that were so very kind to have me in but I Know yesterday as I as I put my life in the hands of that little

GPS device someone purchased from the ministry resource list And it took me a direction to Newark Airport.

I had never been that way before in my life I had had no earthly idea. You could even go that way

But it got me there I got over there very quickly In fact so quickly that I've had a lot of time at the

Newark Airport yesterday But that's that's better than sitting in traffic and hoping you're not gonna miss your your plane.

That's for sure So anyway, that little thing got me all over, New Jersey, especially

I mean, I know my way around Long Island pretty well, but I even learned some some faster routes.

Thanks to it on Long Island So extremely extremely thankful for that now today.

I'm gonna let well actually interestingly enough We have a number of phone calls already

So I guess before I was I was gonna let some of my clips because I have a number of clips here to play sort of make it easy for me, but hey, you know, it's

Never really works out that way. So let's go ahead and talk with Randy in New York City.

Hey Randy Hi, dr. White, I just wanted to say that my wife and I were at the

Exchange slash debate out in Queens and thank you very much for a very enlightening evening

One thing I wanted to mention and maybe as a recommendation for future such dialogues would be air conditioning

Hello air conditioning Yeah Yeah, I wasn't as it could have been but because it really hadn't been hot in New York, but I would have been in considerably better physical shape at the end if we had some add some air conditioning because It got a little bit got a little warm in there.

Yeah, definitely with your suit and your bowtie. You look a little warm Yes, indeed When all the the

Muslims got up to pray Yeah That's a little a little earlier than I think you expected and in the middle of your rebuttal as I recall

Mm -hmm one thing that I definitely would advise for future organizing future debates would be to make it a stipulation that If if the time of prayer comes up through in either speakers presentations or whatever that you simply stop the clock at that point

That's what I said. That's what I should I thought of it later I I said I should have as soon as the the stream started growing even though we'd announced beforehand

And there was gonna be a specific time the imam wasn't leaving You know, yeah the same

Yeah, it just there were certain people. They just don't care What the schedule is they're just gonna go do their prayers and if I'm happen to be talking it doesn't matter

That's exactly what happened in the Homs Abdul Malik debate in 1999. Everybody got up six minutes into my opening statement walked out

You know, yeah, how can they how can they judge what I've said when they didn't hear anything that I said in essence

Yeah, and so I should have as soon as that was happening. I had about four minutes left

I was gonna play that here in a few minutes. I had about four minutes left I should have said, you know what? Let's just go ahead and stop right now

I'll pick up with about five minutes left and on the other side of the prayer time and we'll continue on that's what

I should have done and Just didn't think of it at the time. And yep I think it's something that's it's something that's gonna come up probably and you know all of your yeah,

I probably will especially in the evenings We see it would have worked if we had started on time We started almost half an hour late simply because no way to get there.

I mean, it's you know, the parking was difficult. It's Queens I saw some of the people like Chris Arnson on his phone giving directions at 20 minutes after 7

So when we showed up it was about 10 minutes before 7 and there were maybe 40 people in the church at the time and we thought oh dear, you know, it's not gonna be well attended

You know how that's kind of unfortunate but you know, really by the time it did start it was completely packed house Yeah, really happy.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, we were too We were we were very very pleased and and obviously one of the things

I need to try to get to this week Amongst a billion of other things is I I need to write to Imam Shamsiali and say how about what

I suggested it looks like I might be there one weekend in October and You know, you've got this nice big masjid

I'd be happy to come there and you know, that would sort of give you quote -unquote home -court advantage in in a

Sense, so I'd be happy to do it and I'd like to I'd like to see if we can follow up with that because I think there were so many things

I wanted to get to because it Especially sort of for 157 and things like that.

We could do a whole nother exchange just on The the Muslim Jesus and the

Christian Jesus and the contrasts and things like that that I think would be even more Focused and even better.

So who knows? We'll see what what happens. That's certainly what I would like to do Yeah, definitely if you're able to do another one in October, we'd certainly travel out for that as well now that we're in New York You know, it's it's somewhere that you actually visit from time to time

So it's a good opportunity for and and you know for anyone who like me has spent years listening to the debates on mp3

But it's never actually attended one if you know If you're in the area or tactical points that and there's going to be a talk or debate of this kind go

There's so much more engaging when you're there seeing the presentations, you know seeing the reactions of people even beyond I imagine what's recorded on film

I mean it's and just being in the audience and hearing kind of you know, what they're you know, I mean commentary might be

Did you hear did you hear much did you hear much commentary? There was a little on the left of us

But it was actually some fellow Christians there and my wife at one point asked them to pay attention When the

Imam was speaking and so she was like, you know, maybe you should actually, you know, listen a little more to what he's saying Well, I know that's

I know that I found on YouTube even before I got my clip up someone had put a

Clip up from their video phone and they were not were you on quote -unquote my side of the room in other words

Okay, so yeah about six rows back or so Okay All right That seemed to be as I would listen to the audience response

It seemed to be there were Christians were primarily in that area. And Yeah, yeah, yeah and then beyond that was primarily

Muslim and so this fellow was over in the left side About halfway back and that's where most of the people who got up initially to go pray were so he was saying that the commentary

There was quite interesting After after the Imam particularly made points that they thought were very strong There was usually, you know shouts of something from that corner of the room and I guess make out what it was

They don't think it was One person will start it and then they will respond

Allah Hu Akbar Allah Hu Akbar. Yeah three times Yeah, they did that many times. Yeah, the amens on the

Christian side were considerably quieter And not as forceful, but as they grew louder those shouts through the evening

I could see a number of the Christians in the front left kind of looking over the shoulders Maybe a little a little concerned maybe but maybe a little wondering because they couldn't

I couldn't make out quite what they were saying I thought that might be it Yeah, well, thank you very much for a very good evening

We didn't say we didn't stay after to have you sign my forgotten Trinity book. I saw you swamped with people Oh, yes, we we should have that was something we need to work on is is

The the access was a little excessive. I mean I was literally at some points Feeling people touching me from the rear and stuff like that and I'm like, no,

I don't like this No, no. No, I'd like to be able to find a wall here so I can see who's coming and I mean seriously

I've got a lot of equipment sitting on that table and it's very difficult to try to you know, make sure that You know a modem doesn't disappear or a computer doesn't disappear and stuff like that Little bit out of control there for a while and then one last thing before I leave and this would have been a good question to ask the mom if I'd had the

Mind and a pencil and paper and that was I myself have been interested in reading an English translation of the

Quran, right? Um, so what would be the translation that I should read? I mean, that would have been a great question to ask him, but I figure

I'll ask you since I don't have from the bill yeah, well there are There are problems with any one of them.

You're gonna run across The Saudis really crank out many thousands of copies of the

Yusuf Ali translation And when I was at the ASU mosque out here with my class last year

I happened to sort of look over the Quran's that they had in a Bookshelf type thing and almost all of them were the

Yusuf Ali translation that that's normally what I use because that's sort of the predominant But you've got Piktal you've got a sod you've got a number of Islamic translations as well as non -islamic translations, obviously

Yeah, non -islamic translations. They're gonna look at You know with a with a real grain of salt, even though that's part of the double standard is though They'll quote the quote -unquote

Christian liberals, but you know, they won't even listen to you if you're quoting from a quote a non Islamic translation of the

Quran. Yeah, the use of Ali would be a pretty yeah yeah, well and you can get and you can get that with with Study notes in it

Well, not so much study notes was sort of commentary notes that at least help give you some background of the surahs and if you're gonna Read the

Quran Then go on my blog and find The chart that I put up if you just blog cut on or cried blog the word chronological

I think that's gonna pull it up for you fastest I've put a chart on my blog that gives probably the best guess estimate of the

Chronological order of the surahs because if you read the Quran Starting with surah al -fateha and then moving forward one two, three four

You're it's very confusing because the Quran is ordered in the length of the surahs

Not when they were written and so you're bouncing back and forth back and forth between periods of Muhammad's life

And so it's a little bit easier to read it in the chronological order than it is any other

Great. Okay. Okay. Well, thanks ready get on. Okay. Thank you. Randy. All right. God bless Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one.

Let's go up to Seattle and talk to Robert. Hi Robert Good Thank you, you've been to you know, the study of the scriptures that you've been a

Great benefit to me. I want to start off. I just think thank you. Well, thank you very much with that being said

At the church I was going to there was Youth, you know a youth

Church, you know church event and I heard the speaker use room Excuse me, Revelations 3 chapter 3 verse 20 as an open call to salvation and My first thought you know to the church in Laodicea but I wanted to get your input on you know, is that indeed an open call to salvation and Yeah Okay, yeah, well, yeah revelation 320 is is commonly used in that way and in fact, it's sort of the basis of The the picture that you have of people, you know of Jesus standing outside this knobless door and and this is how

Jesus is knocking to come in and so on so forth. But as you have rightly pointed out this

This is in fact a part of Jesus exhortation to the Laodicean church and so it starts off in verse 15

Where it says I know your deeds that you are neither hot nor cold I wish that you were cold or hot so because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot

I will spit you out of my mouth Because you say I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing and you do not know that you are wretched and Miserable and poor and blind and naked

I advise you to buy for me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and that the shame of your nakedness will not be

Revealed and I salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see those whom I love I reprove and discipline therefore be zealous and repent

Behold, I stand the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens door I will come into him and I will dine with him and he with me he who overcomes

I will grant to him to sit With me on my throne so as as I also overcame and sat down my father in his throne he who has an ear

Let him hear what the Spirit says the churches and so this is Clearly in the in the context of the

Lord rebuking the Laodicean Church. It's very interesting I don't have the tapes of it. I wish I did I spoke at a

Bible conference back in the It was a long time ago. It was down in Rio Rico Arizona which is like 17 miles north of the of the border and I spoke on this particular particular church

Dr. Zuber was speaking and I was speaking on the letters to the churches and I had Laodicea and I went through and I wish

I still had my notes and stuff because I really enjoyed the the study and So I went through and when it talked about gold white garments

And the I salve these were all things Laodicea was was famous for so this was these were things that they would be familiar

With that they thought they possessed but in reality they they did not possess these things and so this is the context it is of reproving and disciplining believers and That is the context of standing at the door and knocking

And coming in and dining with him and he with me and so it's just a tradition honestly that people have that They've heard this used that way and and many people interpret verses without reference to their context and then when you dare mention it

They assume that you're challenging You know if they've always heard it that way then they assume that you're challenging the

Word of God itself or something like that It's it's it's a little bit difficult to deal with That one verse, you know without reading before or after a lot of people do that I mean, let's let's face it.

Most most preaching is done that way today. It really is. I mean if we're honest Well, you got to be very careful how you do that you don't you don't want to do it

During the during the discussion unless there is something being promoted that is just really ungodly.

It's heretical something like that It's far better to you know, maybe find a time to meet for lunch and and say, you know, brother

I don't I don't want you to take this in the wrong way But I I do feel it's important that we go the Word of God and I just want to ask you

You know, could we read this letter to lay out of sins? Could we see what's actually going on here? and have you ever thought that the the use that you're making of this really is is a misuse of it and Most of the time they've never even never even had it presented to them

And you're right. I mean, I've believed you know for quite some time that yeah There's a time and place to do that kind of thing

I know, you know One thing I've heard you say you always got to do it with grace and and and gentleness and to do those kind of things

But he is the kind of individual that I would respond, you know may not be the way

I would hope to but he appears He has an open ear Yeah, yeah, you never know.

Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much for calling Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one.

The lines are hopping today. Let's talk with Jeff in Philadelphia. Hi Jeff All right, dr. White. How you been doing good good

You know, I had to call you because I saw from your blog postings on Your visit to the

Westminster Cemetery. You mean Princeton in Princeton? Yes, right Princeton Cemetery I don't know if they have a cemetery

Cemetery I used to visit there all the time. I think it's run by the mainline

Church that cemetery is now on the end You know,

I the thing I wanted to comment on it was just kind of really interesting. I always found about that cemetery, especially

Was that Jonathan Edwards's grave is very? let's say

It subdued yes, and did you notice the little monument to Aaron Burr right next to it?

Yes well, I just always found that really interesting was that the You know the disgraced politician has this

This big ornate monument right next to it and Jonathan Edwards who is one of the leading intellectuals of North America?

Has just like a little you know On his grave is just 1703 to 1758

Actually, it's it's it's pretty standard for that time period but it's it's it's all in Latin There's this big long inscription line that no one can read anymore.

So From the weather, yeah weathered away, but the interesting thing was though is you know that monument to Aaron Burr?

You know is a relatively recent phenomenon It just in terms of like what people today care about yeah, yeah

Well what I might the question I kept having during my visit was, you know, right?

Within literally a few yards of Edwards There are new headstones from the 70s through the current time and I just I just have to ask this question.

How do you rate? to get in that particular part of the Princeton Cemetery, I mean is run by the

I Guess the old church that the Presbyterian Church That Edward used to preach from.

Mm -hmm. I know I would hazard a guess if you went to that church today It would not be on quite the same.

No, probably no Well, that's that's why I made the comments that I did that I'm not sure which was the seminary which was the cemetery between Princeton the two

Princetons well, I you know before I guess, you know is very much intertwined and Where he's positioned is all where all the presidents were almost.

Yeah. Well, yeah, that is I guess Well, I'm I saw some all the presidents kind of for that era, right, right

And also, I think you know Grover Cleveland is there right? Mm -hmm the president of United States, but yeah, right.

Yeah the whole shebang It's a good Americanized a statement there the whole shebang.

Yeah The whole whole shebang, so but anyway, yeah, so that's just my oddball phone call for today

I didn't really have much to say but I Yeah, I just thought really interesting that you decided to go.

Yeah. Well, I Wanted to get to see it and to be honest with you. I Wanted to see

Edwards, you know, I'd been to Northampton I'd seen Brainerd's grave and things like that But the real attraction for me for the

Princeton Seminary cemetery Was BB Warfield, right? That's where I wanted to go.

So and I did see that and I got that picture up So anyways, Jeff, thanks for your call. All right. All right.

God bless. Bye. Bye all right, let's Blow out the lines. Let's go ahead and talk with Bob in Chicago.

Hi, Bob Yes, sir Sharpens iron radio show when you were on there asking about the any book on is the chronic commentary or I'm sorry chronic contextual

Criticism. Mm -hmm. I found I found something on the web. I'm entering Islam site. Jamal Quran By John Gilchrist, right?

Well, yeah, you know Gilchrist's work is you know, some of the foremost in in the field.

It's it's a little bit You know, he's Yeah, I mean there's they there's all sorts of excellent resources on answering

Islam my only concern always is that You know, you can find all sorts of stuff published today

In resources from Prometheus books and things like that. We just have to be very very careful and that is we

We know that the other side is Going to engage in using differing standards in The scholarship that they use to attack the

New Testament defend the Quran We can't do that in reverse just because they're doing it. In other words, there's there's a lot of material out there by modern orientalists that are exceptionally liberal in their worldview and it is reflected in their work on the

Quran and So we just need to be careful. It's very easy for Christians to grab hold of anything

As long as it would seem to have something to do with Responding to the Quran or something along those lines and we need to just make sure that it's solid that it's that it's not a the same kind of Conclusion that is being drawn by people about the

New Testament or about the Old Testament things like that. We just need to make sure That we're using the same the same standards in in our examination of these things

That's the one thing I'd keep telling my colleagues in the field is is you know A scholar will come out with a paper on on the the

Quran or something like that and I'll say okay But is he assuming the non -existence of divine revelation is the foundation of the argument because that's what so much of the commentary on The New Testament amongst unbelieving scholars is all about and we need to be careful about things like that so I learned in seminary to Appreciate what the

Liberals have to say get hold of facts and then strain out the the other stuff that is not does not necessarily follow as a conclusion and I would say

Anybody you read you have to examine the conclusions and see if they follow from the facts that have been presented that's always the key is to You know,

I don't care who it is You have to be you have to examine things in a particular fashion and and make sure that there's a there's a consistency there

On your website, I noticed that the amount of you a prayer duel challenge you I was wondering if Oh, yeah

What I'm trying to remember what that was was to pray to God to Whoever is right.

What was the context of that was the hold your Bible up in the air He'll hold his Quran up in the air. And yes, you'll pray that if you're if you're lying

Then may you be cursed and he'll do the same. I just had this picture of like, you know, Clint Eastwood and like Yeah Having already heard the argument that That there can't be text of variance in the

Quran because then you couldn't sing it, right? You know, I was fully refuted at that point.

So yeah That was yeah, that was pretty good Okay Okay, yeah, all righty

Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one real quickly Let me get this story in and then after the break

I we can get some of the clips But I had one of the weirdest Experiences of my speaking career

Sunday evening I it was my the 12th out of 12 speaking engagements and I was at Hope Reform Baptist Church out in Medford on Long Island couldn't find the place at first because they moved since I was there last and and Then when

I asked him, when did you move? They said five years ago. So you're kidding me It's been five years since I was here last while it was probably

November of that time. So anyway I'm watching someone walking by the cars outside right now.

So I'm just I'm just making sure they're they're okay. All right good We are very security conscious around here anyway, so I had this

I Made a presentation on the subject of Islam and Got done and normally what happens is while I'm trying to put my stuff away people want to talk and I feel a little bit

Badly that I I normally just have to keep putting stuff away or I'll never get out of there well,

I'm trying to talk to people so talking to folks and I Turned to this

One lady. She's sort of the last one left. I don't recognize. I know a lot of the folks that hope but there's some new folks there's been five years that you hope there'd be some new folks there and She is an interesting looking lady.

She's a little dark and She's not smiling at all and she just stares directly into the pupils of your eyes, okay, and She goes

I would like to know why you failed to tell everyone that there were many Christians who believed exactly about Jesus like the

Muslims do today Called the Gnostics nice go well because the

Gnostics weren't Christians, that's why what do you mean? well, they have like a different God and we're like the biggest enemy of the

Christian faith in the first hundred years and then she just Stares and I'm doing that to rich right now and We'd have dead air and you all would probably turn things off if I stared

Silently as long as she did she would literally literally just go and her eyes weren't moving around my face or anything

They were boring into the pupils of my eyes. And at one point I felt like saying I can do this, too but I didn't because I was wondering what in the world's going on here and She'd just be silent and then she'd say something like Gnosticism brought personal responsibility to the world

And I said what and She said because Gnosticism taught us to recognize that we are creators of our own reality

Just like God and I said well actually, ma 'am

So obviously since she wasn't Barbara Boxer, she didn't object to me calling her ma 'am But I said well actually ma 'am you are not a creator.

You are the created being Who has broken the law of your

God and his wrath abides upon you and I just launched into the gospel and I just kept staring right at her too and I'd get done and she just there'd be 15 seconds

Count out 15 seconds. Sometimes 15 seconds of just silence finally, she threw out something about Jesus can't be this can't be the

Davidic Messiah because he's not the son of David because the genealogy to something and I'm like, oh, yeah,

I'm gonna sit here and Try to go through all the different viewpoints that have been put out there by by various scholars you know the the two views viewpoint that it's

Joseph's and One's Joseph and one's Mary's and and then the other viewpoints put out there by Carson others

Don't think that's going to happen And so finally I suggested to her the lengthy discussion by Carson the lengthy discussion by Bach in their commentaries and I said, you know, you could easily get them.

You can remember the name da Carson well, I might but she never ever cracked a smile never it was just this

Strange experience that you could just tell there were a couple times I honestly thought that what was gonna happen at the end of one of these 15 seconds of silence was a right cross

I mean that because you could tell she did not like what I was saying to her at all and so I was

I was like You know, I the conversation concluded I turned to somebody else to finish putting some stuff away and I turned back to look to see where just she was gone and when

I talked to the pastor, he had no earthly idea who this this one was that was one of the oddest conversations

I've ever had after a speaking engagement and so Who knows?

It was well at one point I even said I said something about and I referred to her as a Gnostic Why do you think

I'm a Gnostic? Well because you're promoting the Gnostics. I sort of figured the two went together You know, I said, oh it was it was it was quite the interesting encounter.

It really was So anyways, we're gonna take our break and then we'll be right back Bible works 8 is here full of innovative and essential tools users will have a hundred and ninety plus Bible translations 35 original language text and morphology databases 29 lexical grammatical references and an abundance of additional resources pastors

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The history of the Christian Church pivots on the doctrine of justification by faith Once the core of the

Reformation the church today often ignores or misunderstands this foundational doctrine in his book the

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Hello, everyone. This is Rich Pierce In a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program

The need for a no -nonsense presentation of the gospel has never been greater I am convinced that a great many go to church every

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Thank you And there's our pagan music rejoiner

And I was John Tash, but it still sounds, you know Remember I was Anyway, all right.

Let's I want to play some sections of the debate. Here is here is the I want to get to the rebuttal period so I'm not sure if we're gonna have time to play all this fact

I really won't but here's a here's a little section from Shams Yali that I want to Sort of go back and forth with a little bit

When the Holy Quran witness to itself as the Word of God The authors of the Holy Bible are mostly or almost all of them are not known

Now about the Holy Quran what that says? Nothing less than that. I like a Zikra or in other words a half moon

Muhammad. We indeed sent down the book to you There are many many verses you can check for chapter number four or one or five chapter number six five

Fifty -five Even Muhammad is mentioned mentioned in the

Holy Quran Muhammad did not speak out of his desires when I am But his revelation given by God, so we

The Almighty God Muhammad did not have any intervention at all

Now, of course, I had pointed out that you know, I I have a problem with that It strikes me that If Muhammad has nothing to do with this, this is the quandary that you are in as a

Muslim Explain to me the Zainab incident as it somehow ends up in the

Quran from eternity past Now I suppose all you can say was well You know

God knew it was gonna happen and therefore he and he you know Wrote all this long before it ever happened so that it would come down at the right time and and things like that.

But I Think I have fairly noted the various sources in Ibn Kathir and other commentators on the subject of what happened with Zainab bin jash and Zayed bin

Muhammad bin Muhammad And It just strikes me that there's some real problems with the story and you know

I have to do is I'm gonna have to have one of our uber -duber special guests on to do just do a an entire program on the

Zainab situation because there's a lot to go over and I happen to happen to have a friend up in Chicago who has written a

Lengthy paper on the subject that might be good to go over But it just strikes me as extremely difficult to see how this could somehow be

An eternal revelation. It's much more like what you see in the Doctrine and Covenants of The Mormon faith where Joseph Smith encounters a particular situation

Well section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants very similar I mean there's some real amazing parallels there between how the section 132 the

Doctrine Covenants comes down and Gives the the Mormons this law of polygamy and How all of a sudden

Muhammad is freed to marry the divorced wife of his son and how in the process?

Adoption basically is destroyed in Islam All because of this beautiful woman

That's that Muhammad Wants to marry it strikes me as just a little bit odd and then to use that as the basis

Ignoring that to then go after the fact that there are a majority of books of the

Bible That do not claim a particular authorship human authorship Well, that's not something that's unknown

It's it's not like something this is Christians Christians don't know this and they don't they don't talk about this or it's it's not a

Found in any of their Bibles or anything like that Again shows,

I think the difference in approach between the two sides as you as you address these issues Do you hear that someone's cell phone is going off I don't think it's possible any longer honestly to have a public

Encounter in a with a large audience without being interrupted by cell phones. It happened in the Wilkins or the

Hitchens Craig debate There it happened here. It's just like I just it's just it's now a part of Our culture and you just can't you can't stop

Why So here's you know standard stuff that has been has

I mean any meaningful biblical commentary has a discussion on the death of Moses and And I addressed also in fact what

I'm gonna do to make it easier is as I'm just gonna go ahead and Play the rebuttal up into the point where it fell apart and like we said to the previous caller

I should have just stopped as soon as people started getting up and said, okay if you're leaving I'll pick up at this point

When we get back and I didn't and that was that was something I should done But let's go ahead and at least play this rebuttal period

I have some other stuff to play to if we don't get to it today We won't but here's the here's my rebuttal to Shams.

Yeah Please numbers of things to respond to here

I would simply point out None of the issues that I raised with the early text of the Quran had anything to do in point of fact

With mere pronunciation differences. They were awesome differences They were reading differences in the text of the

Quran hence. They're really not just matters of pronunciation There also was a discussion of how

Quran's printed in different places all read the same that's comparing apples and oranges When you talk about different versions of the

Bible, for example, if you were to compare the pictols

Translation of the Quran with Yusuf Ali's translation of Quran with Assad's Translation of the Quran that would be a relevant comparison to the various versions of the

Bible that are found by the way The RSV is in no way shape or form anywhere near the most popular translation that is available today

The vast majority of notes in the RSV are exceptionally liberal and not overly relevant

Christians I never said that Christians were misled by the KJV. My book is not against the

KJV It's against those who make the KJV the only Bible including making the English translation superior to the

Greek and Hebrew originals Then we had a discussion of how most of the authors the Bible are unknown.

Well, that's quite true The Bible nowhere says that you have to know who the author is for God to give revelation

We believe revelation comes very differently than Muslims do this also connects with the last statement about How the

Bible is very honest about the sinfulness of men that God used in the past Yes, the Bible is very honest in discussing those things

That's because that's how we as humans live And the Bible is very straightforward and open about our sin and our need of a savior now this before because this is the recording

I ripped the mp3 from the video of my little Casio camera and The two brothers to reform

Baptist brothers from Trinity in Montville We're running the camera for me and they're sitting right up next to it. So you can hear them going.

Mm -hmm. Amen Mm -hmm And I'd mentioned that to him because I Said you do realize that a lot of people could be listening to this because either that or they were there right above the streaming

PC as well because the two are right next to each other I mean again, the sound quality was amazing because there is a big old

PV speaker about 10 feet away aimed right at us That's why this thing that turned out as well as it did

It'll be interesting to hear what the actual microphone audio Sounds like cuz like I said, this was without a doubt the most videotaped debate

I've ever seen I Had it there were two cameras from a professional

Jonathan Weingarten got it a brother from grace got it That's five from our side and there had to have been ten from the

Islamic side So there are videotapes of this thing Everywhere and I'm looking forward to seeing some

Come through him and that is not anywhere taught in the scriptures Revelation comes from God men spoke from God as they're carried along by the

Holy Spirit It's not their personal holiness that guarantees the truthfulness of the Word of God. It is the

Spirit of God himself It is interesting that it was pointed out that most of the Old Testament books.

We don't know who wrote them That is quite true. And yet in Sahih al -Bukhari, we were told that when the Torah was brought in before Muhammad He by the way, that is

Ibn Kathir I had the whole page on my desktop and then I had gotten another reference where Muhammad was talking about go to Abdullah Ibn Masud So if you want to learn the

Quran, that's in Sahih al -Bukhari volume 6 And so when I said Bukhari, I should have said

Ibn Kathir It's never challenged because everybody knows the story it is not a questioned story

But it's in Ibn Kathir not Sahih al -Bukhari Once again demonstrating that when you're talking at a million miles an hour, you can sometimes get the wrong reference

So they're just like later on in his rebuttal. He's going to challenge me to explain Leviticus 12 15

Look up Leviticus 12 15. You'll see it's very difficult to to explain

Leviticus 12 15 because Leviticus 12 ends at verse 9 He removed himself from the pillow upon which he was seated, had the

Torah placed upon the pillow And what did he say in Sahih al -Bukhari? You Muslims know. He said

I believe all that is in this Torah Now we know exactly what the Torah read in the 7th century

Just as we know exactly what the New Testament, the Injil was in the 7th century as well And it is exactly what we have today

And so if that is going to be a problem, then you have to ask yourself the question How did Muhammad say

I believe what is in this Torah when you are saying that because we don't know who the authors are somehow It is non -authoritative

It was mentioned that we have Moses's death Mentioned in the appendix.

That is quite true The idea is that well, even though Jesus himself

Identified these as the words of Jesus and I would assume you would believe that Jesus as a Rasul would not be an error in his statements about this

He specifically said Moses wrote these things for you. He did these things for you It does not follow that after his death someone else cannot compile these things and even record his death and have that to be inspired scripture

Again, there's no objection to be found there. I think it's a very narrow view of scripture to go that direction

We had a citation of Mark chapter 12 Israel Yahweh is our

God Yahweh is one. Ahad, the very same term that is found in surah 112, ayah 3

Before that it is said that he is Ahad, he is one. We believe that God is one.

The Doctrine of the Trinity begins with absolute monotheism We believe God is one

It is a misrepresentation of the Doctrine of the Trinity to say that we divide the nature of God up into three separate gods

That's why I raised the issue Does the Quran show an accurate knowledge of what the Doctrine of the Trinity is?

It was well known at that time. I can demonstrate that beyond all question So if the

Quran is speaking of the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity, it should do so accurately in that context

We were asked about what's the difference between 40 ,000 and 4 ,000 stalls It's the exact same difference as I showed you in surah 3, 158

Between whether Allah gathers people or does not gather people to himself. One letter in Hebrew Remember Hebrew is a language that used letters to represent numbers

And so that would be one small difference in the text. We do not say, we do not claim

That there are not human beings that were involved in the transmission of the text My point has always been there were with the

Quran as well And remember if you have textual variance in the Quran that has only been around since 632 at the earliest

And you were looking at the Old Testament, which was at that point that particular section would at least be

At least 700 years before Christ. You're looking at 1 ,300 year difference of 1 ,300 years being passed on by hand and once again

Since the Lord Jesus himself quoted from the Old Testament and demonstrated was the very words of God Should we not take his word as final in this?

He certainly believed that those things were the case We also had a question about well, who is the mother of such -and -such a person?

We need to recognize that in the ancient world Genealogies were constructed to make a point. If you compare the genealogy of Jesus and Matthew and Luke you'll find numerous differences

Why? Because each writer is seeking to make a point and it was not considered improper For example to refer to a grandfather or even a grand uncle in a person's genealogy

There are numerous excellent works that have been written on the the numbers of the Hebrews King and Hebrew kings the genealogies in the

Old Testament and these things can be demonstrated to be harmonious with one another if you will allow the text to speak for themselves now we have the regular

Assertion which the Quran itself makes made concerning just show us one one

Surah that is like unto the Quran It simply cannot be done and I think some of the statements about Linguistic miracles and things like that may have been being referred to there, but it really wasn't brought out

I'd like to read you just one short surah of the of the Quran and then compare it

With a section from the Bible. This is surah 105 And here's what it says.

Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the people of the elephants? Did he not bring their plans and not and he sent against them swarms of birds which smoked them with stones of baked clay

And made them like straw eaten up by cattle There is the entire surah now

Let me compare that with one of the hymns of the early church of the Christians The Carmen Christian Philippians chapter 2 verses 5 to 11 have this attitude in yourselves

Which was also in Christ Jesus who although he existed in the very form of God Did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped or held on to but he made himself of no

Reputation taking on the form of a servant being made in the likeness of men and he became obedient Even obedient the point of death on the cross

Therefore also God highly exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name that the name of Jesus every knee should bow

And every tongue to confess all the glory of God the Father I would say to you that since we look at things in a subjective fashion that we might well demonstrate that that is significantly more superior

What we have So here is where everybody was just popping up everybody just starts starts walking out and Just just leaves and of course it completely throws me off Because you're trying to talk to people as people walking right towards you

You know so on so forth it was it was a little bit of a problem right there Last thing

I want to get in here real quick And I don't think I'm gonna get certainly I could get it in in the time We have left, but I'll get a portion of it in there was a

Q &A session after my presentation on the sovereignty of God At the sovereignty of God conference and since we've been talking about Geisler's sermon and things like that which

I had queued up again today I just wanted to play this section from from the Q &A because they're asking a lot of the same questions that well we get calls here on the dividing line about and This is available on sermon audio if you search for bread of life fellowship and the sovereignty of God conference the

Q &A sessions are available The regular sessions are owned by a CE so you should be able to get them from the

Alliance of confessing evangelicals But the Q &A sessions are available on sermon audio, but I just want to play just one brief segment of it

Just for your edification Connection between the preaching of the sovereignty of God in the promotional as well as the promotion of Arminianism and the

Decided lack of reference. I don't think that anyone could really argue that there is not a direct connection between a recognition that God in his sovereignty can determine what is pleasing in his worship and what is not and a denial of God's sovereignty and the idea that We determine what is pleasing in worship and what is not

It is so clear that in our forefathers So many of our forefathers there was a recognition of God's right to determine what worship was to be

But it is in the degradation of that view of God's sovereignty

God's kingly rulership I mean, especially paradigms of kingship and rulership are so difficult for especially

Americans to really embrace We kicked him out didn't we we got rid of the king? And and whether we like it or not, we bring those attitudes into the church and into our view of Scripture but the scriptures are very plain that this kingly right of God to determine what is pleasing to him and how he used to be worshiped is lost within well,

I Don't know that where he got it from. But again, my fellow elder Don Frye who Is far better preacher than I am

I can assure you I do not consider myself a preacher at all Pastor Frye is a wonderful preacher and he has said many many times what we win them with is what we win them to The methodology that we use to win them is what we are winning them, too

We can't do the Ponzi scheme and use one methodology to get them in and think that somehow

We are going to then switch the game and call them to a higher level if you're going to use a gospel presentation

That makes man their servant honors their sovereignty

Presents God as one who is just hoping they'll do the right thing Who needs them?

Not that they need him but who needs that if you win them with that How can you then change the goal afterwards and expect them to embrace the high view of what scripture talks about?

Worship and godliness and holiness and everything else What we're seeing in the church the entertainment church

Is a direct result of the entertainment gospel. It's the message that we're preaching and I as an apologist which is my my primary calling in the sense of what

I do I see this in the way that we defend the faith when when

I debate an atheist I debated Dan Barker at the University of Illinois a couple months ago and When I defend the faith and proclaim the existence of God against an atheist

I compare what I say against someone like a William Lane Craig Who is an

Arminian Molinus? Middle knowledge the Jesuit theory when dr. Craig debates an atheist.

He says the preponderance of the evidence Points to the greater probability of the existence of a

God That's his goal. And if he can establish that he thinks he's won the debate

You know that in the classic debate in 1985 Greg Bonson versus Gordon Stein What was the apostolic argument repeated by dr.

Bonson without the Christian God you can't even explain why you're here this evening The Christian God is a necessity an absolute ground of all being

Not just merely the greater probability of the existence of a God It all goes back to what is the message that you're preaching your theology determines them

So your worship your apologetics the organization of the church how you do evangelism how you how you do grief counseling?

Everything goes back to these fundamental and foundational things Here's one must one be either

Calvinist or Arminian Only if you want to answer the great questions of what the gospel is and what man's

Responsibility is and whether Jesus Christ is a perfect Savior or he's the Savior who tries but often fails only if you want to answer the question as to whether the

Holy Spirit can actually bring spiritual life or can only try to bring spiritual Life when we as dead persons let him

I've never figured that one out all of these or even answering and here Here I go with one that is really unpopular or even answering the question is

Jesus Christ a perfect Savior in his atoning work and his work as high priest

Now let's face it in most churches the whole Concept of priesthood and Jesus's role as priesthood in the priesthood as high priest

Who cares? Who cares? But the reality is when you really start digging deeply into the text of the

New Testament one of the greatest Possessions you can ever pass on to your people is for them to know that every moment of every day

No matter what they're going through no matter what the world is doing to them They have an intercessor in the presence of the

Father that from the Sovereignty of God conference

Q &A session after the opening presentation that I made on the sovereignty of God Like I said

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals has that particular the recordings of the the actual presentations and Then the

Q &A came afterwards the Q &A is available on sermon audio I suppose if you search on my name bread of life fellowship,

Haldon, New Jersey Sovereignty of God conference something like that. We'll we'll bring up those Q &A sessions.

Thanks for listening to the vinyl line today Regular time on Thursday nothing getting in the way this time around so we'll see you then.

Thanks for listening. God bless The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries

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