Federal Vision on Auburn Avenue in 2002

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 at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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

James White. And good morning to you. It is indeed morning.

Only 11 o 'clock here in the Phoenix area and this is the first time we have done

Dividing Line at this time of the morning on a weekday and so I would like to possibly get some of your assistance today if at all possible.

We'd like to know who is out there, who has the opportunity of listening and calling in and so we would invite your participation today at 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341.

Obviously one of the questions that comes across our mind is what kind of participation by phone we can possibly expect during the course of a program on a weekday.

And so possibly those of you who would have access to a phone who might be able to let us know that you have an opportunity to call in, you could participate.

We won't necessarily force you to get on the air but maybe a few of you could give us a ring, just let us know, yeah, you know, if you were talking about something that I want to make a comment on,

I could give you a call at this time of the day and yeah, why not?

Besides that, you know, Rich has had his coffee, he's awake now and he wants to be able to pick up those phones and do his best radio man voice and say, good morning, this is

Dividing Line. And you can tell I haven't done much talking yet today.

In fact, other than helping out my sick wife who has the flu today,

I haven't been doing much talking at all. I've been trying to get to that morning rush of email, put out all the fires that erupt over the evenings and actually

I was just sitting here scanning old, old pictures. And when I say old pictures, man,

I'm going to tell you, I've got some pictures here of the night that I asked my wife to marry me.

This was December 5th, man, look at that swag lamp in the corner, whoa, December 5th, 1981.

You would not believe the amount of hair on this now completely bald head of mine.

And look at those glasses, you can install windshield wipers on those babies.

They're huge, man. And I'm not talking about my wife here, by the way, I'm talking about me.

Oh, my goodness. And there's a, remember swag lamps over in the corner, it's one of those, how do you describe those things?

You know, I had the chunks of like orange glass, you know, it was really chunky like thing and, oh, man,

I'm going to tell you, these are, I'm scanning these things while I'm doing, as I'm getting them, I'm putting in my palm tungsten tea, thank you very much.

Uh -oh, the wife just joined the channel, hope she's not listening. That's funny.

Anyways, I even have a picture here of a singing group I was in back in high school.

It's a group called Liberation. This is back from 19, this would have been early 81 or 80,

I forget which it is, I don't know. But, man, I once did have a 28, 30 inch waist and lots and lots of hair and, oh, it's a reminder that time definitely, definitely passes by.

So, anyways, good morning. Welcome to I Hate Your Dumb Tungsten Tea.

Ah, boy, jealousy is alive and well even in the early morning hours, that's very funny.

Anyways, my tungsten tea, by the way, is sitting in its recharging cradle, I've moved it over right next to my keyboard where the color pictures are scrolling through using splash clock.

So, there's a clock there, it tells what time it is and all my pretty pictures are just going past and it's very pretty and I have pictures of my family and all sorts of beautiful stuff and so it's great.

Anyways, welcome to the program today. I don't know what, I shouldn't admit this, but to be honest with you, yes,

I was the bass man, Theophilus, I sang down there in the bottom and can't sing nearly as well now as I did then.

Anyways, excuse me, I'm not sure,

I guess I shouldn't admit that until I went in the channel this morning and looked at the topic line,

I had completely forgotten that it was Tuesday and that we were going to be doing this today.

And already the inmates in the channel are saying the things that they shouldn't be saying.

So, anyways, 877 -753 -3341, I probably should mention,

I was trying to load but I couldn't get to listen to them in time, I was trying to load just one clip

I was thinking about playing for you and I don't know, I want to sit here and look through something to find it, I might, so it depends on other things, but I must mention something as well.

If you do have some questions you wanted to ask today, some issues you wanted to raise, maybe some things we said last

Saturday you wanted to comment on, we did get a lot of calls right toward the end of the program. Do keep one thing in mind, this is not a 90 -minute program, this is a 60 -minute program.

We have 54 minutes left and hence, if you decide to wait like most folks normally do to the last half hour of the program, there won't be a last half hour of the program.

So, you will want to get your calls in much earlier than you normally do or you would not be able to get into the program at all today because today is 60 minutes and then

Thursday evening when I'm in town on a Thursday evening, we will be doing 60 minutes as well.

However, I did want to remind you if you were unaware of this, coming up on the 13th of March, that's a

Thursday night, three full weeks from this coming

Thursday evening. Wait a minute, I'm looking at the wrong thing here. I've got a program open on top of my calendar and that doesn't help any.

So that's a one and two, I was right, three full weeks from this coming Thursday evening, we will be doing a debate in the channel and it will be on the subject of the

Apocrypha. A participant in IRC who goes by the nick

Aquinas, says his name is Steven but that's the second name he's given me so I don't really know what his name is but anyways, we are going to be debating the issue of the canonicity of the

Apocrypha or the lack thereof and therefore you might want to put that on your calendar. That one will probably go long, we're not going to limit that just to an hour.

That will probably go a little longer than an hour as well it should because it's a fairly complex subject. There's a lot of information to be addressed and so that will be on the show and then who knows maybe what we could do is sort of fit it together with the

IRC channel and if there's more discussion that people want to have take place afterwards maybe

Mr. Aquinas, Pat, Steve person would be willing to stay in channel and we can have discussions and so on and so forth at that point.

Maybe that will work out. I don't know. Anyways, that's coming up on the 13th of March. Those of you in San Antonio, I head your direction

Lord willing, Thursday morning, I knew that was going to happen especially since folks aren't aware that I'm on the air right now and therefore they don't, you know, it's okay, they can call me back at another time and we get a lot of calls during this particular hour and you have to remember to turn that thing off.

Anyways, I'll be heading your way Thursday morning at sometime in the morning,

Thursday evening, Friday evening, I believe twice on Saturday and then Sunday morning we will be discussing

Dr. Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free and some folks sort of feel like Chosen but Free has fallen off the radar screen and in a sense

Chosen but Free is definitely looking better these days. That by comparison to the other books that have come out since then, shall we say, specifically in regards to Dave Hunt's book,

I'll be at the, well, I'm not sure where I'm going to be. I'm being brought in by Free Grace Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas but there's three or four churches that are getting together and I don't believe that we're actually going to be meeting at that particular church.

I think we're going to be meeting at another church and I don't know what that church is.

I was sent, actually, a flyer so let's see how fast, the flyers

I have only have, yeah, Thursday through Saturday, that's true, but on Sunday morning I'm preaching at Free Grace Baptist Church and so maybe

Mr. MDH and Channel can tell us where exactly we're going to be before I manage to get to the proper attachment in the sub -directory under Eudora so I can let you know exactly where that is because I do know that we have folks there.

Let's see here, it's not the itinerary one, ah, there we go, let's see if this has it on it or if this is one of the funny ones,

Village Parkway Baptist Church, thank you Mr. MDH person and we had some emails wanting to know where you'll be, yeah,

I'm sure we did. Someday we're going to have to hire somebody who actually puts a calendar on the website, 3002

Village Parkway, that's probably why it's called Village Parkway Baptist Church, in fact, in San Antonio, that's fun, you try to open up Word 2000, it takes like 15 minutes on a 1 .7

gigahertz processing machine, it takes, you know, I'm still sitting here waiting for it, there we go, boy,

I'll tell you, that's got to be the stinking slowest thing I've ever, yep, Village Parkway Baptist Church, that's what it says,

November 20th, or November, somebody had the wrong date in there, anyways, that's where we're going to be, so those of you in the

San Antonio area, if you would like to attend that, please feel free to do so,

I'd be glad to meet you, I've already had some folks who have said, hey, gonna try to catch you there, and there's some other folks who said,

I wanted to, but I'm not going to be able to do so, February 20th is 7 to 9 p .m.,

the 21st is 7 to 9 p .m., the 22nd is 9 a .m. to noon, so that's a fair amount of time, but obviously what

I'm going to do is I'm going to have a presentation, I'm going to be discussing, chosen but free, I'm going to be going over some of the things that Dr.

Geisler has to say, and I'll tell you right now, if you're interested, I'm going to be starting with a discussion, not so much of the issue of predestination election, and the doctrines of grace, and things like that, but specifically with the issue of the fact that Dr.

Geisler's book misrepresents, not only myself, in its response to me, but also misrepresents

John Owen, and John Piper, and basically with a little bit of discussion, why is it that the materials produced against the reform position are so universally bad in their misrepresentation of the subject they're addressing, why can't you just simply represent the topic properly, and deal with it from that perspective, that's really what the first session is going to be about, and sort of more about how we interact with those who have the tradition of Arminianism as their overriding concern, and then

Friday and Saturday go into more of the presentation dealing with John VI, and how to present these things, what

Dr. Geisler said, using that as a platform, but it's going to be more of a positive presentation of the doctrines of grace, that's what we're going to be looking at.

I would imagine, I guess, some places I go they don't actually record things, but in the vast majority of places recordings are made, and so if you'd be interested in getting those,

I would imagine you'd be able to get them from either Village Parkway Baptist Church, or some of the other churches that are involved with the thing that's going on in San Antonio.

So that's coming up this week, I in fact need to get some work done today on those

PowerPoint presentations, because all I have are quotes right now, and you know what it takes to put quotes into PowerPoint, takes a little bit of work.

We have someone in Bowling Green, Kentucky is listening, got a call from Kentucky, they're awake in Kentucky, that's a good thing, down there in the heartland of America.

So good to have you folks listening in today, but those are the only folks who are listening today.

We have one person in Bowling Green, Kentucky, who's listening, no one else loves us enough, or cares for Rich enough to give him a call at a toll -free number,

I mean 877 -753 -3341, I mean, you know, there's Rich, he's sitting over there, he hasn't shaved yet, you know the poor guy, you know, up early in the morning getting ready for all this stuff, and he was excited about this, and so far we have one person in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and we thank that person, we thank that person from the bottom of our hearts, because if it weren't for those few people out there, we just, we would be talking to ourselves, we truly would be.

Well anyways, like I said, I was going to possibly play a cut here, so maybe

I'm just going to have to play with this thing, and you'll get to hear what it's like, cause see we started, we started,

Fipster's handing out violins, we started the music half an hour before the program, and that's also how

I listen to my cuts and stuff, so I tried, but I didn't hear it, and it didn't get done in time.

So I think I have the right section here, I don't know, we're going to take a shot at it.

This is a section that I was going to play on Saturday, but all the calls started coming in, and that's great, that's fine.

This is a section from the 2002 edition of the

Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church Conference that has caused so much difficulty and so much controversy.

This is a little bit more from Steve Schlissel, and I found this section very interesting, if this is the proper section, for a number of reasons.

First of all, from a Baptist perspective, we get mentioned in here, as I recall, but also from some other perspectives, so I'm just going to go ahead and let it run for a couple of minutes here, catch some comments while you folks are calling in, and those of you who are calling in, just let us know that you're listening, hey, if you've got a question or something, make sure to let

Rich know, we would be glad to deal with that, but I wanted to play this little section here and see, make some comments about what is said.

How many times does God have to tell us how much we mean to Him, how much He loves us, and yet we spurn

His love, and we despise His overtures. We don't believe them. We teach our children to doubt.

We teach our congregations to doubt. We are the people of the living God. How common it is to see every possible people group talking of their pride, so that we have black pride, white pride,

Polish pride, gay pride, every kind of pride on the map, except Christians being the ones who are entitled to be proud, not because of any righteousness in themselves, but because God has reached down out of heaven and taken them to be

His own. You know, in the Passover ritual, God said, I want you to do this in remembrance of Me.

I want you to do this in remembrance of what I did for you. I birthed you. I came down from heaven and delivered you from bondage in a way that's irrefutable.

And I gave you a special status as above all nations to be My nation in whom

I would dwell. And now when this people proved themselves unbelieving and unworthy,

God engrafted people from all nations. You were once foreigners to the covenants of the promise, but now

God has put you in so that these promises and this history is yours, but even more because Christ came for you, not just to deliver you from Egypt, but to deliver you from the power of sin and the power of Satan and from the power of death.

He's delivered you from every foe and every enemy and put you securely to be His own and to guard you on every side.

He's given you great and precious promises that you ought to believe and to cherish and to love.

And yet we read this claptrap about assurance and how many different new words are necessary in a vocabulary to believe it.

Why is it so hard to believe? Yes, in a sense, we could say, could it be true and can it be that I should gain?

But the answer to the question is, yes, it can be. Yes, God has said so. And that's all the assurance we need is that God said it.

Your identity is to be the people of God. God has called you to be his own.

I will rescue you, he told Paul, from your own people and from the Gentiles. I'm sending you to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God so that they may receive forgiveness of sins in a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light. Don't you see how simple it is?

This is who you are. You are children of light. Live that way. What is so hard about this?

I just can't understand. I can't go back to this old scholastic, unbelieving way of reading the

Bible, parsing it to death so that we miss the sentences. Here it is.

You are God's children. Live like God's children. How simple can it be?

Have pride in whom God has called you to be. Your identity is that you are the people of God.

And every pastor here has to address his people to inculcate this consciousness, to develop it, to nurture it, to feed it, to make it grow stronger, not weaker.

You are the people of the atonement. No one else is the people of God except those who are in Christ.

Just wanted to catch that. Make sure you heard that. We are the people of the what? The atonement. Just wanted to catch that because remember, how do you enter into this?

This is a big emphasis that's being made. You enter into this by baptism. And one of the big questions a lot of us are asking is, are you saying that baptism places you into the atonement of Christ?

That's been one of the big issues I've been focusing on. I'm not getting really good answers to. Let's listen to just a few more seconds of this because there's a specific quotation

I was looking for. No one else has an atonement except those who are in Christ.

This was the glory of the people Israel. They had that amazing calendar to testify of what they were in God so that each year when the pagan nations were running after some recycling program, when they would when they would try to do imitative and sympathetic magic to make the earth blossom,

God would remind them, I am the one who gives life. I am the author of life and I gave you life.

When we see at the harvest at the Pentecost, we'll stop it there. The two things very quickly and I'm going to look at another another section here.

Two things quickly. First of all, again, a lot of a lot of this whole issue hasn't really been dealt with.

There's a lot of firing going on, but not a lot of discussion. And and part of it is, you know,

I keep hearing folks saying, well, you know, those folks aren't being treated fairly. They're not being given a hearing.

Did I hear terms like this this unbelieving scholasticism? That's how what he's reacting at is being described.

Claptrap was another another term, this claptrap about assurance. If you're not familiar with what we're talking about here, a lot of this whole argument and this discussion is is aimed at the at the

Puritans and their assertion that you look for fruit, you look for lives that show evidence of the work of the spirit within them.

And what's being said is, no, you don't look at things like that. You look to your baptism. You look to your baptism as the the promise of God's grace in your life and and so on and so forth.

And so it you know, the same time we're being told these folks affirm all the five points of Calvinism.

Well, OK, so baptism is what unites you to the death of Christ. And remember, these folks are also

Pato Baptist, therefore they distribute baptism to all of their children, which would necessitate that all their children are united with Christ and hence they're in the atonement.

And so I don't see how the idea of particular redemption and all that it means fits in with all this.

And these are all the these are all the questions and a number of them, not all of them. This guy isn't.

But Douglas Wilson's a Pato Communionist as well. And he sort of goes off on that particular tangent. Schlissel isn't.

So, you know, they're not saying the exact same thing in the exact same words, but certainly sound like that was an interesting, interesting assertion.

Here's another another section. I want to try to I'm still looking for the exact phrase I want to find you to see if I can track it in the back bin, in the base bin, as some pronounce it in the

House of Judgment, where the Jews resolve their difficulties because they believe it's shameful to bring their cases before pagan courts.

Now, there are problems and I can spend a good deal of time telling you about the difficulties that they have. But overall, their conception of keeping the matter of justice among the covenant people is something that puts us to shame because we have made this dichotomy between we identify the covenant and the covenant people as the church.

And we mean by that the ecclesiastical institution. And therefore, when the church gets together, it's a presbytery meeting or it's a classes meeting.

And it's only handles church business. It doesn't handle covenant community business. And so that's taken care of outside.

In other venues, and the reason that that is so is because we have only become expert or adept at confessional issues that deal with narrow concerns and not about life issues that deal with how does a man one of the first things the

Talmud deals with is two men come into a bed, into a court, and they're both holding the cloak and each one says it is mine.

And then it deals with how do you resolve this case? And each one case after another is brought forth, we'll just reject that all say it's traditionalism, but it's not merely traditionalism.

It's an effort to apply the word and the word of God is found in the laws of God and has worked out in history as so that they're living among the covenant people.

In our day, our people don't even know the Ten Commandments. We think we know the gospel because we've reduced it to four spiritual laws, but we don't know the

Ten Commandments. We did a Bible study not long ago on Wall Street, and there were several people from prudential securities and other places coming to this

Bible study, and we just took on a lark one day, said anybody know the Ten Commandments? There were about 10, 12 people there, not a soul knew them.

So then the next question, these are all professing Christians, by the way, anybody know where to find them?

Well, one person got it to the right testament, you know, where they were some, I think that same person had an inkling they were in Exodus, didn't know that they were repeated in Deuteronomy.

But this is the state of affairs because of our concern with our own personal salvation based upon a view that God really doesn't want to save anyone and that he's playing games and that if it's not by works which we have done, it's by a kind of faith which we can't identify.

And we're always like, you know, you see this, no offense, but this is especially prevalent in southern

Presbyterians for some reason who are essentially Baptists who don't refrain from sprinkling their babies.

They think like Baptists, they dress their children as Baptists, they don't believe their children are saved by the grace of God.

They believe they're waiting for a decision, some sort of cogent, confessible experience of personal regeneration and transition from death to life because they believe their children are born in death.

They bought into the Baptistic way of thinking. And it is just an abomination.

Does this mean there's no legitimacy to spiritual experience? Of course there is. Why should it be once? Why should it just be twice?

It may not be at all. It may be a hundred times. There's growth and development. There are crises in people's lives.

There's always the seeking to greater conformity to the entire word of God. But we don't base it on some.

Did you catch that? I finally found it there. Oh, it took me a while. I confess, took me a while.

But there you just heard the only way I can hear this. The only way

I can understand that is that you are not to believe that you and this is you know,

I've known this for a long time. I mean, I have wonderful Presbyterian friends and we've talked about this and the ones that I can that we can minister together are the ones who say, look,

I recognize that my child is is born spiritually dead.

And I do not believe that my baptism of that child changes their heart.

And I know that there are children who are baptized in the church who are reprobate and will never experience spiritual life.

And I will call my children to repentance. I will present the gospel to them. I will

I will pray that God will melt their hearts and will make them servants of his.

Those Presbyterians we join hands and we minister together.

But that's what he was just saying is completely wrong. That's what he was just saying is wrong.

Baptism joins them to Christ, gives them the grace of Christ, and we just simply need to teach them to live like Christians.

That's the fundamental issue. That is baptismal regeneration. And that is that is

I can not see how that is even slightly consistent with a belief in personal election and predestination.

I cannot see it. I do not understand it. It makes no sense to me at all.

Eight, seven, seven, seven. It's abomination to Mr. Schlissel, that's for sure. Eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, thirty, three, forty one is the phone number.

We've had folks calling, have some callers online, invite you to participate as well. We'll be right back right after this break.

That's all righteousness, you know, answering those who claim that only the

King James version is the word of God. James White, in his book, The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true

Christian faith in a readable and responsible style. Author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.

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

.org. What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen but Free, A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?

No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.

In his book, The Pottish Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but the Pottish Freedom is much more than just a reply.

It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself.

In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme

Calvinism. He defines what the Reformed faith actually is and concludes that the gospel preached by the

Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Pottish Freedom, a defense of the

Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free, you'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin

.org. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.

The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.

The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45.

Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00.

The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.

You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE. If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org

where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

Back to the

Tuesday morning, 11 a .m. Someday I'm going to forget about this thing and I'm not going to be around and Rich is going to get to do it on his own.

He's going to get to solo someday and he's going to come on and say, well, it's

Tuesday and someone's not here, so why don't you call and talk about stuff?

And I'll go, mm -hmm, mm -hmm, mm -hmm. Actually, Rich does all the talking on the phone here, so those of you who've called in and everybody calls in and I need to talk to Dr.

White and just give it up, okay? It ain't going to work. Unless you have the super secret decoder ring password, you cannot get past my firewall.

It doesn't work, so he's the one that ends up talking to all you folks. He knows everything there is to know about Johnny and a few other folks.

He gets to talk to folks for long periods of time. So anyways, we do have, I think we have, do we?

We have one of the few Christians in New Jersey online. Well, now they have two hours a week to get through to you.

Yes, that's true. But hey, you know what's funny? Don't people act differently when other people are listening?

Isn't that interesting? I mean, you would think that the phone lines would burn up, but that's not quite the same way.

Let's go back to the snowy, snowy land of New Jersey, where I understand it was still snowing even this morning, much of the white frozen precipitation on the ground.

And let me check. Oh, look at the little weather bug down in my system tray. It says that even before noon, it's 66 degrees here.

Oh, my, my, my. Hi, Steve. How are you, Dr. White? I'm warm and comfortable.

How about you? I'm warm and comfortable, too. Well, you're inside, though. Take your mobile phone outside and say that to me with a big face.

I was outside a little earlier. We got a little bit of snow, about 28 inches here. Twenty eight inches of snow.

And fortunately, I have a eight horsepower snow blower with a twenty six inch auger on it, and it just sort of eats it up.

Oh, well, yeah, that you know, those sell real well out here, too. I see them.

I see them painted gold and retired on the the rock lawns of Sun City. Seriously, I haven't seen a motorized one, but I remember when we first moved out here, we drive to Sun City and there would be these snow shovels and they've been painted gold and retired put on it.

And they're out in the middle of a rock lawn in Sun City. It's really funny. Anyway, sir, what can we do for you on this fine weekday?

I have a couple of things. One of them, I was curious how you got the platters to sing backup for Martin Luther. Well, it's called the karaoke shop.

And and of course, what you're referring to is the fact that at the end of the program last week or on Saturday, I told folks in the channel, stay online, don't don't disconnect.

And I replayed the the classic works of actually the specific name on the tape is party, hearty,

Marty Luther and the protesters singing the great reformer. And you don't own me.

And well, actually, quite seriously, he got the the music just down your local karaoke shop.

That's where you go to get, you know, backup tracks when you go and do karaoke songs.

And so he just went and got those. And he was interestingly enough, he was snowed in one night that I was speaking at the

Bible Baptist Church on the solos of the Reformation. He was snowed in at home. So instead of coming to hear me speak on that subject, he wrote those two songs and performed them at the

Tuscarora Youth Retreat that we had a few days later. And they were such huge hits that he then went into where he works at a radio station and closed the door on the production studio and recorded those rather professionally.

And I played them for Steve Camp a couple of weeks ago. And he said, we've got to get that on CD.

We've got to get those things out to folks. So who knows, maybe you'll hear it in your your top 10

Christian countdown. And then again, probably not. But probably, probably not. I'd love to get a copy of it.

There are a lot of bootleg copies running around. I'm sure there are. Yeah, it is.

It is classic humor. And, you know, some some folks. Oh, that's that's not that that's offensive.

And it's like, you know, have you ever ever read Envoy magazine? I mean, this rock magazine, they they're very good at using humor.

And this is the exact same same type of thing. So anyway, I've been known to read the door. Well, there you go.

I mean, that was once classic. It's gotten a little I don't know if it's quite as good as it once was. But yeah, a good example of it.

Question for you. Yes, sir. Actually, not a question, but a comment and get you to respond. You were mentioned earlier on about you're going to speak about how to deal with the misrepresentations of the reform position on on Calvinism, for example.

And just relate an experience that I had recently where someone friend of mine was so upset and got rather annoyed with me and just kept saying, you know, the select few, the select few.

And it became very emotional. I guess one of these one of the answers to your question or to the issues you can deal with that is that it becomes emotional.

And a lot of the reactions to it are just emotional reactions. And people refuse to.

Try to go to the scriptures and let the scriptures speak for themselves. Yes, yes.

And it becomes emotional. And again, on tradition and on the traditional ways of understanding things, and we're we're we're hitting a cultural barrier as well.

Oh, yeah. Well, there's there are many things that we are dealing with when when we try to raise this issue.

I I mean, it really obviously you can only make general comments because each individual situation is different.

But what I encounter very, very frequently is within within the context of trying to share this with individuals who who claim to believe that the

Bible is the word of God. They claim to believe that they are under its authority. They claim that all of their beliefs must be subject to the authority of scripture.

You would think that in that context, it would be pretty easy to, you know, to pursue the subject and to be able to have a good communication, have good communication, take place on so forth.

Unfortunately, what I find in that situation is that's when you discover the power of tradition.

And this is something that I harp on, but a lot of folks don't. And so I keep harping on it because no one listens anyways.

But we really have our traditions. And the person who thinks he doesn't have traditions is the person under the most control of his traditions because he can't examine them.

He can't hold them up to to the light of scripture. And hence that type of individual, when you start challenging the tradition in their mind, and this is where we need to recognize where the emotions are coming from in their mind, you are questioning either their personal faith or you're questioning the word of God itself.

Because once the equation, my tradition equals the word of God, my interpretations are the word of God.

And they wouldn't want you know, they haven't thought about it that way. Most of them have never been challenged one way or the other.

They haven't really considered it that way. But but that's what's functionally is taking place in their mind.

So we need to recognize that, in essence, by by pushing ahead without addressing the issue of ultimate authorities, without addressing the issue of the role of tradition, the more and more we push, all we're going to be doing is repeatedly raising those emotions and and and really creating a tremendous job for ourselves, sort of like, you know, if well, use an illustration that that you would know about right now.

And everybody in the East Coast is when a snowplow goes down the road. The the plow is never just straightforward.

It's never at at right angles to the snow, is it? They put it at an angle. Why? Because if you don't, you just create a bigger and bigger and bigger mountain of snow in front of you until even the biggest snowplow is going to bog down.

It can't get anywhere. It puts it at an angle so that once it moves the snow, it's moving it in a particular direction off the side so we can continue making progress.

Great. Well, my driveway. There you go. So that's right. They snow you in that way.

Uh, but the same thing is true here. If we don't deal with what's creating the emotional backlash and just keep plowing forward,

I've watched this happen with with the we call them the cage stage

Calvinists. And the cage stage Calvinist is the person who's who's new to the doctrines of grace.

They're all excited. They've they've seen the you know, they recognize the glory of God and the holiness of God.

And and this is very exciting to them and all these neat and wonderful things. And that's that's great. But they don't have the wisdom yet to know that you just then don't go running out and start, you know, handing out copies of R .C.

Sproul books to everybody in your church because there's going to be a backlash and then just beating people over the head with Romans chapter nine until they bleed.

You know, that's that's generally not a good thing. And so the cage stage Calvinist, this doesn't have the wisdom yet to know how to effectively share these things and to remove these.

You know, basically, they're going straight at it with the snowplow and they're going to create a nice big mountain that will eventually fall over on top of them.

And they wonder what happened. Wisdom causes you to turn that plow at an angle and start dealing with issues and get those issues out of the way so that you can, you know, pat down the emotions and then move forward from there.

Some of the simple ways you can do that is is I I frequently we use John six rather than, say,

Romans nine or Romans eight, not because there's there's more authority in John six, but because I have found that a lot of these folks are are more likely to listen to the words of Jesus.

Initially, there's almost an anti Paul concept for some folks. Well, there's difficult things in Paul, you know, but if it's in John and well, that is where John three is and John six isn't far from John three.

And am I compromising anything there? No, Jesus certainly didn't compromise anything in John six. I'm just trying to to deal with the person where they are and and avoid any unnecessary encumbrance to their coming to understand these truths.

And the other thing is, look, if it's not up to you and I, I mean, we can be that's exactly right.

We are grossly inconsistent when we think that somehow we have to accomplish this.

This this is something that there has to be. There has to be patience involved in.

And it's not just in this area. There are a lot of areas where I have discovered. And it's it's a function of growth.

It's a function of of getting older, I guess. But there are a lot of a lot of times that people sort of look at me and they go, well, you know, that guy said such and such to you.

And I know you don't believe that. And I know that you've said to me such and such. And so why didn't you say, oh, no, you're wrong about that and just just shred him?

And I'm like, well, because I didn't feel it was necessary to do so. I think that's this person shows evidence of being obedient to God, loving

God's word, and I can trust God to lead his people. I don't I no longer think that I have to somehow take the reins and and do these things on my own.

And that that takes a while once you've gotten out of the cage stage to to learn that, you know, sometimes it's it's best to just let some growth and maturity take place.

And and, you know, when folks come to a conclusion, they think anyways on their own.

It's frequently much more of a firm conclusion than if they are sort of dragged there kicking and screaming anyway. So, you know,

I speak the truth and I let I let that truth minister to to God's people.

And there's there's a great confidence in that. There's a great relief. You don't have to feel so tremendously, you know,

I don't know what it'd be like to be in Armenia and think that I have to force everybody to believe this or the other thing. I'd I'd certainly would not enjoy the ministry much.

That's for sure. So, you know, those are just some of the things on a basic level. Now, when

I'm going to be talking in San Antonio, I'm going to be speaking more about, you know, from a scholarly perspective. Why why is it that these folks think that they can get away with the gross misrepresentation of others that are part and parcel of almost all the works

I've ever encountered on this subject? What's really behind it? I think aside from the power of tradition,

I think it's a tremendous amount of lack of respect. Most of these folks do not have enough respect for those who are reformed to even take time to read their materials.

They've they've come to a conclusion in their younger years that they missed it on such and such a point. They're not going to reconsider that.

They're not going to consider that ever again. Therefore, they just move on from there. And it's it's a lack of respect issue, in my opinion.

So that's one of the things we'll be talking about. Well, this is, you know, which is the approach that I usually take, too.

I don't try to force it. You can't. No, you can't force it. And you've got to wait and be patient on God's time, which is something we have to constantly apply to all aspects of our life, all aspects of our lives.

But you know who it's really hard on is the pastor of the church that is in the process of reforming.

And that is is most definitely I'll be perfectly honest with you. I am very thankful that I am in a church that is self -consciously, openly and maturely reformed because I don't know that I could function as an elder in a church that was in the process of reformation because it is hard work.

It is tremendously hard work. And if you know of a church where that type of reformation is taking place, pray for those that are seeking to have men's traditions brought under the tutelage of God's word, because I'm going to tell you something that is is extremely difficult.

It takes a tremendous amount of patience, a tremendous amount of strength. It's hard stuff. No, no, it's something that we're going through.

In a sense, not quite the same way, but we're going through that in our own church. In fact, we have a new senior pastor coming.

And all he comes with, one of his references is John Piper. Oh, well, that's that's a very positive thing there.

And it's an evangelical free church, which really doesn't take a position one way or the other. So you get a mix, although the church is predominantly reformed as far as the people there.

It does create pretension from time to time when the issues come up. Oh, I'm we have folks in channel that that have experienced that very thing within that context.

So I well know, you know, it's it's good to be able to. To to to be able to have a place, though, where you can.

We do have some dialogue on this at times, and that's really, really healthy. It is healthy if the dialogue is is handled in such a way that it's not a matter of, you know, compromising the truth or saying, well, you know, you go your way, we'll go ours.

That that is that's one of those difficult issues to try to deal with. It really is. So anyway, thank you, sir.

You try to stay safe there. Don't don't get on the roads until they get a little better looking. Well, for the storm,

I wouldn't have been able to call today. Well, there you go. And this is not usually the opportune time. All right.

Thank you so much. Find another Christian in New Jersey. I'll introduce please. You know, I was in I was in New Jersey recently.

And it was really, really hard to find them. But, you know, I'm sure they're there. The Lord, the

Lord will break out a reformation there. All right. Thanks, man. You take care.

All right. God bless. Bye bye. Eight seven seven seven five three. Thirty three. Forty one is the phone number today.

I'm not sure from the other side of the wall here. Do we get a grand total of two calls?

We have one person in Kentucky listening, one person in in New Jersey listening.

Wow. Well, but, you know, you must feel really, really alone over there. I'm very, very, very sorry.

I I'd call if I could. I've got a cell phone here. I could call. I call it.

I could call into my cell phone. That might sound pretty weird with it, but I won't do that. We have a a a producer of the show, an imposter producer of the show alert in in the channel.

One of the users thinks that he is now in charge of the show and needs to needs to be properly disciplined for trying to take over the program.

Anyone in the channel can see who that is. So we just need to take take care of that.

Oh, yes. Mr. Mr. Tim did forget to call today. You do have time yet to get into him and don't cross a man when no one has called him today.

Gets up early in the morning, gets the gets the coffee going and he only gets only gets two calls.

I mean, that's OK. There's I know that there's a few people in channel who are listening, but you all won't call.

You won't you won't even take time to call a toll free number and and and talk to Rich.

I mean, it's just. You know, you wonder how we're ever going to survive, you know, when people won't do that, but so anyways, by the way.

I did want to mention this, and I actually just will have just enough time to now. A lot of folks have are wondering where they can get good original source information on Islam.

And thanks to Sam Shamoon over at answering

Islam dot org. Excellent website, by the way. Those of you who are looking for resources on the

Web, that would be a that would be a perfect, perfect place to go. Answering Islam dot org.

I believe there is a dash between answering and Islam answering Islam dot org.

Excellent, excellent resource. He gave me some some resources.

I was looking for the Hadith. Now, you may wonder what what is that? A basic original source library, of course, involves a couple of different translations of the

Koran, and then you need to have the Hadith. Now, there are different collections of the

Hadith, and if you buy them. Oh, we have a physician in Missouri, first time able to listen live.

Yeah, that means the poor guy works on Saturdays. We were, too.

That's why we stopped doing it. That's that's the whole idea. If you buy the collections, the

Hadith, some of them are like nine volumes long and five volumes long and, you know, 60 dollars for this set and forty five dollars for that set and and so on and so forth.

But. The obviously the easier way to do it is to get all that stuff on disk.

And so I was sent off to a resource where I could define we we purchased and I have now installed the

Aleem, which identifies itself as the world's most useful Islamic software.

But basically what this has given me is the Koran in a number of different translations, fully searchable, as well as the

Arabic, so on and so forth. And also then the major collections of Hadith and these are fully searchable and that is extremely useful.

For example, I just I had read a Hadith somewhere about what

Isa, Jesus, was going to do when he returned to the earth. And I remember just a couple of the words of it.

Pick out the one word that was I assume would be the most unusual, did a search on it, and the second or third reference

I looked at, boom, was it. And if you're interested, by the way, one of the repeated assertions made about what

Jesus will do when he returns, you might want to hear this. According to Islam, what Jesus will do when he returns is that he will break the cross.

Break the cross, destroy the pigs and destroy the poll tax. And so break the cross.

The cross is considered a horrible blasphemy upon Allah's character.

And you know what? If the cross isn't what we believe it to be, they would be right.

In fact, I would say that that would be consistent with the biblical perspective that if Jesus has not risen from the dead, that we make

God a liar. And if Jesus was not the son of God, and we are saying that God crucified his son so as to bring us redemption, that would be a tremendous slight upon the character of God.

There's no two ways about it. The cross is a scandal. The cross is very much a stumbling block.

And it is here as well to these individuals. And so we need to keep that in mind.

When we look at that. But I just threw the topic into the program and boom, there it was.

There's videos and all sorts of stuff. It's what I was looking for. You know, when you're studying a new area, and I've actually been studying it for a long time, but not with the intensity of Roman Catholicism or Mormonism or something like that.

But there's just all sorts of stuff. In fact, they sent me a catalog here. And you can get greeting cards and all sorts of wild and crazy things.

Oh, look at this. New arrivals. And there's a lot of stuff here. It reminds me a little bit of a catalog

I get for Eastern Orthodoxy, the way it's laid out and stuff like that. But there is just, you know, audios and videos.

And, you know, here's Ahmed Ddot audio. A discussion on the Bible, Christianity and Islam in Geneva.

Was Christ crucified? The Quran or the Bible? And you'll note crucifixion, fact or fiction.

Dialogue with Christians. Is the Bible God's word? Debate number one, debate number two. You'll notice something about what's there.

A lot of it. Whoa, cool. An Islamic Muppet. I'm serious.

Here's an Islamic Muppet. He's got the little headdress thing on.

And it's called Let's Pray. And it's an Islamic Muppet. The Muslim Muppets right here.

That's cool. But you'll notice a lot of this stuff is very much what?

It is apologetic. It is very much a part of... No, this isn't answeringislam .org,

I'm sorry. The Muppet Jihad. The Muppet Jihad, look out.

Here come the Muppets. I'm looking, if you're interested, this is islamicbookstore .com.

islamicbookstore .com. I'm looking at the printed catalog right now. But all sorts of DDOT stuff.

And it's very much of it, most of it is very apologetic. And so we need to start developing our apologetic much more fully.

And that's why answeringislam .org exists. And we're looking at it. In fact, here's the

Aleem 6 .0. Wow, they have it listed for a whole lot more in the catalog than I got for online.

But anyways, that's the information that's out there. If you've been looking for something like that, you want to do some study, there's some original sources for you.

It works real well. I've been looking at it myself. Well, hey, thank you very much for joining us on this first Tuesday morning at 11 a .m.

Dividing Line. Thank you who called in. You've made Rich's Day, the four or five of you that did. And I know there are others of you listening in the channel.

And no show on Thursday. I will be in San Antonio. Those of you in Texas, I hope