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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 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 a 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 and maybe a few of you could give us a ring. Just let us know. Yeah, you know if you were talking about something that was that I want to make a comment on I could I could give you a call 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 the dividing line and You can tell I haven't done much talking yet today in fact other than Helping out my 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 over the evenings and Actually, I was just sitting here scanning Old old pictures and when I say old pictures man.
I'm gonna tell you These 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 on this now completely bald head of mine and look at those glasses they 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 sweat member swag lamps over in the corner. It's it's one of those. How do you describe those things? You know, I had the the chunks of like orange glass, you know. It was really chunky like thing and and oh man, I'm gonna tell you these are I'm scanning these things what I'm doing is I'm getting them.
I'm putting in my palm tungsten tea. Thank you very much. Oh, oh the wife just joined the channel. Hope she's not listening. That's funny anyways. Even have a picture here of 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 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. Boy jealousy is alive and well, even even in the early morning hours. That's 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 are just You know going past and it's very pretty and I have pictures of my family and all sorts of beautiful stuff. And so it's it's great.
Anyways, welcome to the program today. I don't know what I Shouldn't admit this. But to be honestly 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 them anyways.
Excuse me, I'm not sure what I guess I shouldn't admit that until I went into channel this morning and looked at the 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 the the inmates in the in the channel are are saying the things that they shouldn't be saying so anyways, eight seven seven seven five three three three forty one. I Probably should mention I was trying to load but I couldn't get to listen to him 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 sort of depends on on other things. But I must 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 you will want to you'll 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.
One.
Two one two one two full weeks from it's a two four three or four 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'll 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 gonna limit that just to an hour. That'll 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 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 you know have discussions and so on and so forth at that point.
Maybe that will work out. I don't know anyways, so that's coming up on the 13th those 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 know it's okay they can they can call me back at another time and They 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 a Thursday morning at some time in the morning Thursday evening Friday evening I believe twice on Saturday 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 of the falling off the radar screen and in a sense Chosen but free is definitely look looking better these days.
That 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 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 At another church, and I don't 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 Saturday.
That's true, but on Sunday morning I'm preaching at the at free grace Baptist Church, and so maybe Mr.. MD H and channel can tell us where exactly we're going to be before I Managed to get to the proper attachment in the sub directory under you Dora.
So I can let you know exactly where that is because I do know that we have folks. Have folks there. Let's see here. It's not the itinerary one.
D.
Dada D. Did he do hmm? Ah there we go? Let's see if this has it has it on it, or if this is one the funny one 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 sure we did some day we're gonna have to hire somebody who actually put their calendar on the website 3002 Village Parkway.
That's probably why it's called Village Parkway Baptist Church, in fact, in San Antonio. Well, 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 stinkin' slowest thing I've ever... Yep, Village Parkway Baptist Church. That's what it says.
November 20... 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 then some other folks who said I wanted to, but I'm not gonna 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 that 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. So what Dr. Geisler said, using that as the 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.
It 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 that stuff. And he was excited about this.
And so far we have one person in Bowling Green, Kentucky. 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, I, like I said, I was going to possibly play a, a cut here. So maybe I'm just gonna have to play with this thing and you'll get to hear what it's like. Cause see, we started, we started, Fipsters handing out violins.
We started the music half an hour before the program. And that's also how I listened to my cuts and stuff. So I tried, but I didn't hear it. And it didn't get that 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, 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, that's fine. This is a section from the 2002 edition of the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church conference that has caused so much, so much difficulty and so much controversy.
This is a little bit more from Steve Schlissel. And I, I found this section very interesting, if this is the proper section, for a number of reasons. First of all, from a Baptist perspective, um, we get mentioned in here, as I recall, uh, but also some, some other perspectives.
So let's 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 you 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, uh, to deal with that. But, uh, I wanted to play this little section here and see, uh, make some comments about, uh, 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 prove themselves unbelieving and unworthy, God and grafted people from all nations, you were once foreigners to the covenants of the promise, but now as God, 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 clap trap 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 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. Then we see at the harvest at the Pentecost.
We'll stop it there. Two things very quickly, and I'm going to look at another section here. Two things quickly. First of all, again, 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.
Part of it is, I keep hearing folks saying, well, those folks aren't being treated fairly. They're not being given a hearing. Did I hear terms like this unbelieving scholasticism? That's what he's reacting at as being described.
Claptrap was 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 aimed 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.
What's being said is, you don't look at things like that. You look to your baptism. You look to your baptism as the promise of God's grace in your life. At the same time, we're being told these folks affirm all the five points of Calvinism.
Baptism is what unites you to the death of Christ. Remember, these folks are also paedo-baptists. Therefore, they distribute baptism to all of their children, which would necessitate that all of their children are united with Christ.
Hence, they're in the atonement. I don't see how the idea of particular redemption and all that it means fits in with all this. These are all the questions. A number of them, not all of them. This guy isn't, but Douglas Wilson's a paedo-communist as well.
He goes off on that particular tangent. Schlissel isn't. They're not saying the exact same thing in the exact same words, but it certainly sounded like that was an interesting assertion. Here's another section.
I'm still looking for the exact phrase. I wanted to find it and see if I can.
Track it down. In the Beck den, in the base den, 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.
Therefore, when the church gets together, it's a presbytery meeting or it's a classist meeting, and it 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 that Talmud deals with is two men come into a court, and they're both holding a 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 and 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 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 and said, does anybody know the Ten Commandments?
There were about 10, 12 people there, not a soul knew them. So then the next question, and 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 address 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've 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. It took me a while, I confess, it 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 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 reprobates and will never experience spiritual life, and I will call my children to repentance, I will present the gospel to them, 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 cannot 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. 8777, it's abomination to Mr. Schlissel, that's for sure. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. We've had some folks calling, have some callers online, invite you to participate as well.
We'll be right back right after this break.
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 Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but The Potter's 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, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the Potter's Freedom is 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. 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.
And welcome 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 uh it's uh it's Tuesday and uh someone's not here.
So why don't you call and 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 uh you know those of you who've called in and and uh you know you've uh everybody calls in and I need to talk to Dr. White and uh just give it up.
Okay it ain't gonna work. Um you know unless you have the super secret decoder ring password you cannot get past uh my firewall it doesn't work so so he's the one ends up talking to all you folks. Um uh he knows everything there is to know about Johnny and uh and a few other folks.
Uh he gets to talk to folks for long periods of time. So anyways uh we do have I think we have do we we have uh uh we have uh our one of the few uh few Christians in New Jersey online. Uh well now they have two hours a week to get through to you.
Yes that's true. But hey uh they you know it's funny. Don't don't people act differently when other people are listening. Isn't that interesting. I mean uh you would think that the phone lines would burn up but uh that's not quite not quite the same way.
Let's uh let's go back to uh the the snowy snowy land of of New Jersey where I understand it was still snowing even this morning. Uh much of the white frozen precipitation on the ground and uh let me check uh oh look at the little weather bug down in my system tray it says that even before noon it's 66 degrees here.
Um 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 take your mobile phone outside and say that to me with a fake face a little earlier.
We um got a little bit of snow about 28 inches here 28 inches of snow and uh fortunately I have a um eight horsepower snow blower with a with a 26 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 uh the rock lawns of Sun City. Uh seriously I I I haven't seen a motorized one but I 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.
Uh in in Sun City. It's really funny. Anyway sir what can we do for you on this this fine weekday.
I have a couple of things. One of them I was. I was curious how you got the platters to sing.
From Martin Luther um well uh it's called the karaoke shop and uh and uh of course that what you're referring to is the fact that at the end of the program last week or on Saturday I I told folks in the channel stay online don't don't disconnect and I I replayed uh the the classic uh works of uh uh actually the specific name on the tape is party hardy marty luther and the protesters uh singing uh the the great reformer and you don't own me.
And where did he get that. Oh well actually quite seriously he got the uh the music just down your local karaoke shop uh that's where you go to get uh you know backup tracks when you go and do karaoke songs and so he just went and got those and he was snow.
Interestingly enough he was snowed one night that I was uh speaking at the sass at bible baptist church on the solas of the reformation. He was snowed in at home so instead of coming to hear me uh speak on that subject uh he wrote those uh two songs and performed them at the Tuscarora youth retreat that we had a few days later and they were such huge hits that um he then went into where he works at a radio station and uh closed the door on the production studio and recorded those uh 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 but 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 uh uh you know some some folks uh oh that's that that's not that that's offensive and it's like you know have you ever ever what it read envoy magazine.
I mean this rock magazine. They they're very good at using humor and uh this is the exact same same type of thing. So anyways I've been known to read the door occasionally. 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.
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 uh about you're going to speak about how to deal with the misrepresentations of the reform position on on calvinism for example.
And uh just related experience that I had recently where someone friend of mine was so upset and got rather annoyed with me and just kept uh saying you know the the select few the select few. And and it became very emotional.
I guess one of these one of the answers to your question or to the issues you're going to 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 and let the scriptures speak for themselves.
Yes. Yes. And it becomes emotional and again on tradition and 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 you can only make general comments because each individual situation is different. But what I encounter very very frequently uh 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 um it would be pretty easy to uh you know to pursue the subject and to be able to have a good communication have good communication take place so on and 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 so I keep harping on it because no one listens anyways. But um 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 uh that type of individual uh 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 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 uh raising those emotions and and and really creating a tremendous uh uh job for ourselves so sort of like a you know if uh well use an illustration that that you would know about right now and everybody in the east coast is uh when a snow plow goes down the road the uh the plow is never just straightforward.
It's never at at right angles to the snow. Is it. No 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 snow plow 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 it can continue making progress. Great. Well in my driveway now there you go. So that's right they snow you in that way uh.
But uh the same thing is true here if we don't deal with what's creating the emotional uh backlash uh and just keep plowing forward. I've watched this happen uh with uh with the um we call them the cage stage calvinists.
And uh the cage stage calvinist is the person who's who's new to the doctrines of grace. They're all excited uh they've they've seen the you know they 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 rc scroll books to everybody in your church um 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 the these uh you know basically they're going straight at it with the snow plow and they're going to create a nice big mountain that'll eventually fall over on top of them and they wonder what happened.
Uh 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. Um some of the simple ways you can do that is is i i frequently will use john 6 rather than say romans 9 or romans 8.
Uh not because there's there's more authority in john 6 but because i have found a lot of these folks uh are are more likely to listen uh to the words of initially there's almost an anti paul concept for some folks.
Well there's difficult things in paul you know uh but if it's in john and well that is where john 3 is and john 6 isn't far from john 3 and uh am i compromising anything there. No jesus certainly didn't compromise anything in john 6.
I'm just trying to to deal with the person where they are and uh and avoid any unnecessary um encumberments to their coming to understand uh these truths. And uh the other thing is look if it 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 uh accomplish this this this is something that there has to be uh there has to be patience involved in and 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 uh of getting older i guess but um uh 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 and just just shred him and i'm like well because i i didn't feel it was necessary to do so i i think it's uh uh 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 uh take the reins and uh and do these things on my own and uh uh that that takes a while uh once you've gotten out of the cage stage uh to to learn that you know sometimes it's it's best to um just let some growth and maturity take place.
And uh 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 anyways.
So you know i i speak the truth and i let uh i let that truth minister to to god's people and and there's there's a great confidence in that there's a great uh relief you don't have to feel so tremendously um you know i don't know what it'd be like to be and think that i have to force everybody to believe this out of the other thing.
I'd i i certainly would not enjoy the ministry much. That's for sure. So you know those are just some of the things um on a 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 uh think that um they can get away with the the gross misrepresentation of others that uh are part and parcel of almost all the works i've ever encountered on this subject uh what's really behind it.
I i think uh aside from the power of tradition i think it's a tremendous amount of lack of respect. Um most 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. Um 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 uh function as an elder in a church uh 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 where that type of reformation is taking place pray for those that are seeking to have uh men's traditions brought under the uh the tutelage of god's word.
Because i'm going to tell you something um that is is extremely difficult. It takes tremendous amount of patience a tremendous amount of strength. Uh it's hard stuff. No two ways.
About it 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 um predominantly reformed as far as the people there it does create pretensions from time to time.
Oh i i'm we have folks in channel that uh.
That have experienced that very thing within that context so i well know.
You know it's it's it's good to be able to to to be able to have a place though where you can. We 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 uh it's not a matter of uh you know compromising the truth or saying well you know uh you go your way we'll go ours uh that that is. That's one of those difficult issues to try to deal with.
It really is so. Anyways thank you sir. You try to stay safe there. Don't don't get on the roads until they get a little better looking whether for the storm i.
Wouldn't have been able to call today so well there you go. This is not usually the opportune time all righty. Sir 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 uh you know i'm sure they're there. The lord will the lord will break out a reformation there. All right.
Thanks man you take care all right. God bless. Bye-bye. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number today. I'm not sure from uh the uh other side of the wall here of uh did we get a grand total of of two calls.
We have one person in kentucky listening one person in uh in uh new jersey listening. Wow wow. But you know you must feel really uh really alone over there. I'm i'm very very very sorry i i i'd call if i could um i've got a cell phone here.
I could call uh i could call it i could call into my cell phone now. That might sound pretty weird wouldn't it. But i won't do that uh we have a uh a um uh producer of the show imposter producer of the show alert in in the channel uh one of the users uh thinks that he is now in charge of the show and uh needs to needs to be uh properly uh disciplined for trying to take over uh the program.
Anyone in the channel can see who that is. So we just need to take uh take care of that. Oh yes uh mr mr tim did forget to call today. You do have time yet to get into him. Um and don't cross a o men when no one has called him today gets up early in the morning gets the gets the coffee going and he only gets uh only gets two calls.
I mean that's uh okay 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 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 i actually just will have just enough time to now a lot of folks uh have are wondering where they can get good original source information on islam.
And uh thanks to uh sam shamoon over at answering islam .org. Excellent website. By the way those of you who uh are looking for resources on the web that would be a that would be a perfect perfect place to go answering islam .org.
I believe there's a dash between answering and islam. Answering islam .org excellent um excellent resource. He uh gave me some uh 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 quran. And then you need to have the hadith. Now there are different collections of the hadith and if you buy them uh oh we have a physician in missouri first time able to listen live.
Yay that means the poor guy works on saturdays we were too. That's why we stopped doing it. Uh that's that's the whole idea. Um if you buy the collections of the hadith some of them are like nine volumes long and five volumes long and you know 60 for this set and 45 for that set and and so on so forth.
Uh but the um uh obviously the easier way to do it uh 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 quran in a number of different translations fully searchable as well as the arabic uh so on and so forth. And um also then the major collections of hadith and these are fully searchable and uh that is extremely useful.
For example i just i i had read a hadith somewhere about what isa jesus was going to do when he returned to the earth and i remembered just a couple of words of it. Pick out the one word that was i assumed to 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 uh is that he will break the cross.
Break the cross uh destroy the pigs and destroy the poll tax um and so break the cross. The cross is considered uh a a 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 i would say that uh that would be consistent with the biblical perspective um that if jesus has not risen from the dead uh that we make god a liar. And if we if jesus was not the son of god and we are saying that god crucified his sons so as to bring us redemption that would be a tremendous slight uh upon the character of god.
There's no two ways about it the the cross is a scandal. The cross is is very much um a uh a stumbling block and it is here as well to these individuals and uh so we uh we need to keep that in mind uh when we look at that but i just i just threw the uh through the topic into uh into the program and boom there it was.
There's videos and all sorts of stuff. It's what i was looking for it it you know when you're when you're studying a a new area and i've actually been studying it for a long time but not with the intensity of roman catholicism or is or mormonism or something like that.
But uh there's just all sorts of stuff. In fact they sent me a catalog here and uh you can get greeting cards and you know all sorts of wild and crazy things. Oh look at this new arrivals and uh there's a lot of stuff here it it reminds me a little bit of um a catalog i get for eastern orthodoxy the way it's laid out and stuff like that.
But there is just uh you know audios and videos and you know here's ahmed d dot audio a discussion on the bible christianity and islam in geneva. Uh was christ crucified the quran or the bible and you'll note crucifixion fact or fiction uh dialogue with christians is the bible god's word debate number one debate number two uh 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 the little uh headdress thing on and it's called let's pray and it's an islamic muppet uh the muslim muppets right here that's that's cool.
But you'll notice a lot of this stuff is uh is very much uh what it is apologetic. It is very much a part of um uh no this isn't answering islam .org. I'm sorry uh the muppet jihad. Yes the muppet jihad.
Look out here come the muppets um i'm looking if you're interested this is islamicbookstore .com islamicbookstore .com uh i'm looking at the printed catalog right now but all sorts of ddot stuff and and it's very much of it is most of it is is very apologetic and uh so we need to start developing our apologetic much more fully and that's why answeringislam .org exists and uh and we're looking at it.
In fact here's the the aleem 6 .0. Uh 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 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 and i know there are others of you listening in the channel and uh no show on thursday i will be in san antonio. Those of you in texas. I hope i'll see you then.
And we'll see you next week here on the dividing line. God.
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