December 30, 2004

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. Now on the same occasion, there were some present who reported to him about the

Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And Jesus said to them, do you suppose that these

Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

Or do you suppose that those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?

I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

Luke chapter 13 is not one of the most popular sections of the Gospel stories.

It's not appearing in a lot of the postmodern books that are so popular these days that like to present

Jesus as this very warm, touchy, feely type religious teacher.

But there is something to be said for listening to what the Lord had to say. And it is interesting to note that we have two different events that are mentioned here.

One, an event where evidently, don't know why, but Pilate engages in some executions of some sort, some repression of something.

And we have here Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. That sounds pretty bad.

This was something that men did. This was an evil action. Either it was evil on the part of the

Galileans, maybe they were leading a rebellion or something, I don't know. Or evil on the part of Pilate, we certainly know that Pilate was not a godly man.

But then notice the parallel. The parallel is to something that we would call a tragedy, an accident.

Verse 4, Do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?

A tower had fallen in Siloam. Maybe it was being constructed, maybe it was being put together,

I don't know. But again, we have the collapse of a tower.

And eighteen people died. Now we hear about construction accidents and building collapses around the world fairly regularly.

And yet, the only way to understand what Jesus is saying here is that there's a parallel between these two events.

And it has something to do with God. Because the conclusion in verse 3 about the

Galileans and in verse 5 about the tower in Siloam is, I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

Repentance brings what? It brings mercy. It brings forgiveness. It brings the suspension of judgment.

Look at what happened with Jonah and Nineveh. And so, evidently, these two different events, one through the instrumentality of man, the other,

I suppose you could say man's instrumental in the sense of the building of the tower, but why it fell, we don't know necessarily.

And so, it would seem random when a tower falls. It would seem from our perspective that who it falls on is random, and yet Jesus doesn't view it in that way, does he?

There is something about repentance and perishing that is a part of the way

Jesus views events in this world. We've been getting a lot of folks contacting us and asking about what has taken place in Asia, a massive earthquake, 8 .9,

9 .0 on the Richter scale, the resultant tsunami. We've all undoubtedly had the opportunity by now to watch the videos that are coming out and they are amazing.

I watched one, you can just see this huge black thing on the horizon and you see this water just rising at an incredible rate of speed with a huge power.

It's not like one of those huge waves you see in Hawaii, that's what you sort of think they'd look like, but in reality it's just this massive wall of water.

And the death toll is not finished climbing at all. Some today, there's one report

I saw today, some people are talking about 400 ,000 in one place. I guess it's one place that was heavily damaged by the earthquake first, then the tsunami comes.

I mean, talk about utter destruction. We've all seen it.

And as the rescue efforts and cleanup efforts and international aid goes on, we start thinking about God.

And unfortunately, I mentioned to the folks on the channel before the program started, I'm going to be putting myself in the very small minority, undoubtedly some of my lovely friends out there will, months down the road, refer to this discussion and remove it from its context and turn me into some nasty, terrible, horrible, child -eating, hyper -Calvinist something.

That's just how certain people are. What about, how are we to think of these things?

Obviously, the vast majority of Christians, those who call themselves

Christians around the world, would be very, very, very uncomfortable to say that God had anything to do with this.

I mean, they'll be very, very quick to say that we should pray for the people in Asia. What does that mean?

Is that just something that makes us feel better? If God had nothing to do with this to begin with, then why, if he's powerless over these types of things, then why pray for the people in Asia now?

I mean, I guess we should have been praying for them before, but then that really wouldn't have done anything then either, right? The idea of God's providence is very, very mushy in most evangelicals' minds, isn't it?

There are times that we want to think that God has a lot of control, and then there are other times we don't want to think

God has a lot of control, and there's just a lot of inconsistency, and it results in a lot of confusion.

Let's face it. There's a lot of confusion out there. A lot of folks have been asking, well, what does

James think? Stuff like this, first and foremost, you should speak to your elders, and they'll address these things.

I'm always very, very sensitive about stepping in places I shouldn't step in, but at the same time,

I do address the issue of Reformed theology, the issue of God's sovereignty in this world, and so there is relevance here.

A couple things, a couple of foundational truths that I seek to honor in facing these things.

I know it's real easy. I can just hear someone sitting out there saying, when I get done with all this, it's real easy for you to say, sitting in your nice, comfortable office, and there's no natural disasters going on where you live.

That's probably true, but at least on this subject, while I'm not in Asia, and I've never been involved in something that's just this massive loss of life like this,

I did spend time as a hospital chaplain. I have watched people die, slowly or quickly.

I've done a lot of grief counseling. I've written a little book on the subject. I'm not completely out of touch with that.

I don't live in an ivory tower. And so, what are some of the things that I would suggest we keep in mind?

Well, first of all, this does remind me a lot of when I first started doing that work in the hospital, because all the books that I would get basically counseled me to protect

God from blame, to remove God so far that, you know,

God had nothing to do with this. He will be here now for you to pick up the pieces, but for some reason, he wasn't there when this tragedy struck in the first place.

God is sovereign over all events, including those related to nature. When he created, he did so for a purpose.

All events in time are part of the fabric of that purpose. Earthquakes, floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, everything else we tend to view as merely natural disasters, and especially we in the

West, and especially if you're taught in our public educational system over the past 100 years, it has been drilled into your mind these are natural events, because we are learning more and more about the mechanisms by which they work and they're just natural, it's just the way things are.

We are taught to stop at that point, once we see a mechanism, then that's all we need to do. We don't need to worry about where the mechanism came from, or what its purposes are, or who controls it.

And so, earthquakes, floods, fires, the hurricanes in Florida, everything we tend to view as merely natural disasters, are in fact under God's control, and they take place not in contradiction, but in service of his final goal, his final purpose.

I think this is the direct teaching of scripture in numerous places, but it is not only directly said that God is in control of all these things, over and over again, the psalmist testifies to this, and the prophets testify to this, and they refer to these things, but it's necessitated by other scriptural teachings as well.

For example, we are told that God has appointed the limitations of our lives, despite what open theists say to the opposite of that, and God could not determine the time of our death, let alone the time of our birth, if he was not sovereign over time itself.

If such natural disasters as what took place in Asia could kill one of his people prior to his appointed time, then

God could never make any kind of promise about fulfilling his word at all. We use the example of Cyrus, the king, prophesied to let the people go, and of course naturalistic philosophers and naturalistic semi -theologians would dismiss

Isaiah 45 as being post -fulfillment and therefore not prophetic, but if you don't start as a naturalist, you have this prophecy about a man by name doing something, well what if a natural disaster could come along?

What if a tower in Babylon falls and crushes Cyrus before he lets the people of God go?

God's prophecies become unfound, they become lies, and we have no reason to believe anything he has to say if he is not in control of what takes place in time.

And so not only does the scripture say that these things are under his control, but we see from other teachings of scripture they must be as well.

Secondly, God is holy and man is sinful. God is holy and man is sinful, and I honestly think a large portion, a very large portion of our problems regarding the gospel, regarding societal issues, regarding the purpose of the church, just so much would simply vanish, disappear if we were to actually get that straight, if we actually believe it.

God is holy, man is sinful. The seriousness man gives to God's holiness is a fraction of what it should be and must be biblically.

And man's constant tendency is to downplay his own sinfulness. There are so few

Christians in the best churches who take seriously the repulsiveness of sin and the guilt of sin.

We are all in the same boat there. We're all together on this one. Man downplays his sinfulness.

And even though it's fascinating, when I will talk to folks, I will say, do you believe that God has the right to bring his judgment to bear on any given sinner at any given time?

They will say yes, but they don't really mean that. Because when God then does that, and especially, folks, when he does it to a lot of folks at once, as in last week, just a few days ago, four days ago now, when he brings his judgment to bear, when his wrath, and there's another word, when his wrath is displayed, in reality a person who recognizes the necessity of saying, yes,

God could do that. In fact, when man commits a sin, God could destroy that, he could bring his wrath to bear justly at any point, at any time.

They may say that, and they may know biblically they have to say that. We have example after example of it in scripture.

But when it comes to actually seeing that happen, most folks really don't believe it.

They really don't believe that God has that right. They don't extend to him that right and that freedom.

They just don't. Thirdly, God's wrath is displayed against sin not just at the final judgment, but every day.

Every day. It is an ongoing demonstration. And we're not comfortable with that either.

It's one thing to put wrath way down there at the end someplace, and judgment, and that's down there.

We don't have to worry about that right now. The problem is Romans 1 says that God's wrath is being revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness.

It's going on each day. And we try to push it out of our mind, but it's happening.

There is no way to read with any meaningfulness the text of the

Bible and not come to the conclusion that God has wrath against sin.

It's there, it's clear, and you have to just basically start ripping the heart out of the

Christian worldview to get rid of it. God's wrath is just, it's proper, and it's necessary.

If what God has revealed about his holiness, if what God has revealed about his law and punishment is true, then

God's wrath is just, it's proper, and it's necessary. It cannot simply be dismissed.

Not only that, God's people should affirm his wrath. We do not have the right to pick and choose what elements of God's character we will and will not affirm.

And just because it's not popular, even in evangelical circles, quote unquote, to affirm the wrath of God, we don't have the right to edit him to fit our parameters.

God's people should affirm his wrath and should seek his glory, whether that comes to the expression of his grace, and everybody's, oh, grace, yes.

Love grace, mercy's wonderful, and it is. But you see, grace has to be free or it's no longer grace.

It has to be something that God extends on the basis of his desire to do so, or he becomes a robot.

He becomes this great Amway plan, see, where you've got all the circles and the lines, and you push the right buttons and grace comes through.

That's one of the problems I have with this ex -opera operato sacramentalism. God's turned into a big

Amway diagram. Grace must be free. So we should seek his glory, whether that comes to the expression of his grace, or when he so chooses, through the expression of his wrath.

And that's what we're uncomfortable with. We only want a gracious God. We only want a God who, we want a universalistic

God. He's just going to save everybody. Somebody was quoting, I think, I should be very careful here, but somebody was quoting in channel, and I'm pretty certain they were quoting from the

PCUSA main webpage. And I'm going to have to check this out, so I'm just telling you right now,

I saw this in channel, I haven't checked out myself, so don't jump all over me, okay? But, one of the statements that was made, and this was just last night, was,

God will save the most people possible. And I said, wow, that's almost identical to what

Norman Geisler said in Chosen but Free, actually. But this idea is that God is under some compulsion.

We want a universalistic God. We want a God, sadly, most people would like to have a

God who's giving his best and failing, rather than a

God who is free in the display of his grace or his wrath. Ever thought about that?

That's what's, that's central to the whole Calvinist -Arminian thing. The Arminian simply wants a

God who tries and tries and tries and tries, but fails, rather than a

God who actually accomplishes his will, but must be honored for either showing his grace or his wrath, as he so chooses.

Fourthly, man's problem is quite simply he does not take God's holiness seriously. He doesn't believe that we're truly worthy of death, worthy of destruction, worthy of being wiped off the face of the planet in a moment, in the fury of God's holiness.

Join this, the idea of individualism that is inherent in American and much of Western thinking, which denies the idea of federalism.

It denies the idea that we see in Romans chapter five of the relationship and the connection to Adam and sin and all death that comes through, all that.

Very few evangelicals actually believe in original sin anymore. They don't believe. If you were to, if you could put him in a room and you could make him feel like no one's ever going to know, while they're answering this survey, what they actually said, and if you were to tell them the story of Achan, and you were to tell them the story of what happened to him and the fact that it wasn't just Achan who then is executed, but his wife and his kids and his doggie and his camel and his goldfish, and you were to ask them, was that right and just, 95 % minimally of those who call themselves evangelicals would go, no, no, no,

I can't believe that God would ever do that. That's what they'd say. You know it. You know it's true.

Because of that, it's no wonder that in our heart of hearts, we really do not believe

God is right to ever let his wrath break forth. And so when it happens, when it happens, we're like, why would

God let this happen? Is there any question why

God would let this happen? Were there any innocent people killed?

Now careful there, careful, think for a second, think biblically, folks, think biblically.

See, we tend to confuse those terms, we tend to use those terms in improper ways.

There is no innocent person. We use it in the sense of not having necessarily broken one of man's laws.

We're talking here about God. Were there any sinless people who died in this great massive disaster?

The answer is, no, there weren't. But there were little kids.

You see, the problem here, the problem here is so many of those who call themselves believers today define what it means to be a loving

Christian in terms of being sentimental.

How many times have people listened to what I am saying about the gospel?

And I will say, look, folks, if we love people, we will tell them when they've been given a false gospel in a false

Christ. And people go, that's not loving. That's not loving. You'll cause the, you might hurt their feelings.

You might offend them. That's not loving. No, it is loving. It's just not sentimentalism.

And people today are defining Christian love as nothing but man -centered sentimentalism.

And I reject it. I reject it. I would be a lot more popular if I embraced it.

But I reject it. I have to. You do not show love for God by replacing

His truth with an edited version simply because you are so sentimentalistic that you refuse to speak the truth to those who may not like to hear it.

When God's wrath breaks forth, now sit tight here.

Listen to what I'm saying. Don't, don't misquote me here while I know certain people will, nothing

I can do about certain people, but I'll, you know, let God handle that. Examples of God's wrath when

He lets it break forth, and we're willing to look at the world the way Jesus looked at the world, the way

He looked at the world in Luke chapter 13. If we want to follow His example, examples of God's wrath are gifts of grace.

Gifts of grace, you terrible, horrible, now think, think with me for a moment.

The Bible says it is better to spend a day in the house of mourning than in the house of feasting.

Why? Why? Why is it better?

Remember what Moses said, Psalm 90, for the mountains were born, or you gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are

God. You turn man back into dust and say, return, O children of men, for a thousand years in your sight like yesterday when it passes or as a watch in the night, you have swept them away like a flood.

They fall asleep in the morning. They are like grass which sprouts anew in the morning, it flourishes and sprouts anew toward evening, it fades and withers away, for we have been consumed by your anger and by your wrath.

We have been dismayed. You have placed our iniquities before you, our secret sin in the light of your presence, for all our days have declined in your fury.

We have finished our years like a sigh, so the days of our life, they contain 70 years or if due to strength, 80 years, yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for soon it is gone and we fly away.

Who understands the power of your anger and your fury according to the fear that is due you?

Now listen to this, folks, and see if this is descriptive of Christians today. So teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom.

How important is it to any one of us to present to God a heart of wisdom?

We're coming toward the end of the year. We're coming toward the end of the year and everybody makes their

New Year's resolutions and we resolve to cut back on the carbs, yeah, right.

And we resolve to do more, we resolve to do better in our spiritual lives, be more disciplined and those are all wonderful things.

But let's be honest, where in all of that would be,

I want to present to God each day a heart of wisdom?

Where would that be? How do we present? Godly wisdom, godly wisdom.

How much do we really want that? See, the fact of the matter is, if we really want that,

God has given us so many means to obtain it. But it involves daily discipline.

It involves the discipline of our mind, our thoughts, and our tongue, the way we speak.

The abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom.

You see, that's what

I mean when I say, examples of God's wrath are gifts of grace.

Because you see, when you spend the day in the house of mourning and you see the result of death, you cannot help but contemplate your own mortality and you are changed.

Nothing in my life has ever changed me any more than those years

I spent as a hospital chaplain. When you see death, when you sit by the bed of someone half your age who is being consumed by cancer, you can't take life and all the blessings of life for granted anymore.

And as we look around the world, and in a way that, you know, previous generations, you'd only think about this just a few, really, centuries ago, we wouldn't have even known about this yet, would we?

I mean, until telegraphs came around, we wouldn't even know that this had happened, let alone be able to sit.

I mean, I sit here at my own desk, and I can click on these videos, and I can watch this incredible event taking place as if I was there.

It's amazing. And yet, when we look at this, we need to look at these things from a truly

Christian worldview. And I hope what you're hearing me also saying is, do you see why it is that I do invest the time

I invest in dealing with theology? Because, you see, your theological foundation will determine how you respond to these things.

They determined how I had to respond in the hospital. They determined how I had to engage in grief counseling.

I could not go into that hospital, I could not go into that death room and say,

God had nothing to do with this, and then turn around and say, but God has a wonderful plan for your life.

That's a lie. The two are contradictory, are they not? How can you tell someone,

God's going to be there for you now, and God's going to help you pick up the pieces, when in point of fact, what you're saying is, but he didn't care enough to be watching in the first place.

On December 25th, did God know about the massive forces building way deep underneath the ocean?

You bet he did. Now, if you're an open theist, you'd have to believe, and this is just again, why anyone would want to embrace this,

I do not know. But if you're an open theist, my, my, what a, can you imagine what

God was doing as he saw those forces building up? Because remember, the open theists, at least so far, they still want to believe that God has exhaustive knowledge of current events.

So God knew that the forces under that ocean were going to come, that they're going to go soon.

And he must have been wringing his hands because he had to have known. I mean, any decent scientist would know you get a 9 .0

going on underneath the ocean and the result is a huge tsunami.

That's how water works. Did you know, by the way, that the water at the beaches was first sucked out before the wall came back in?

Did you know that? That was the only warning anybody had, was all of a sudden the water at the beach disappears. Water level drops and then here comes this wall.

By then it's too late. I mean, unless you've got a car and you've got a straight road, it's too late. Didn't God know and he must have been just wringing his hands going, what am

I going to do? When this goes, all these people, what am

I going to do? And I feel like saying to that God, well, maybe you should have thought of that before you created this world.

That's what drives me absolutely crazy when people say, oh, I just can't believe,

I want to believe in a God that actually planned these things, has a purpose in it.

Well, the only other option is you have a God who created, knowing these things could happen, but had no purpose in it.

You have purposeless evil. And all to defend the great free will of the creature, we're willing to sacrifice

God's entire glory and his entire freedom over that. You see, theology matters.

It matters. It's important. God did not spend

December 25th wringing his hands. This was not something that caught him by surprise.

This was a part of his purpose. You go, oh, but there could be half a million people by the time this is,

I mean, some people are actually talking about 400 ,000 in one area. If that's the case, you're going to have half a million people.

Yep. Half a million people. Gives some meaning to all of Pharaoh's army, doesn't it?

Gives some meaning to the firstborn in Egypt, doesn't it? Gives some meaning to all the

Canaanites, men, women, men, women, and children, doesn't it? Yeah, it does.

Those aren't just numbers anymore. This really does give us all an opportunity to consider how we think about what takes place in this world and whether we have the priorities that God has.

I've addressed this in talking about Romans chapter 9 before. Romans 9 talks about Pharaoh being lifted up and there was a purpose why he was, why he was put in the position where he was and even when it would have been to his own benefit to let the people go,

God hardened his heart. God made him angry. God had a purpose and if Pharaoh at the first plague had gone, oh, wow, you know, boy, you know,

I think economically and just simply for my own personal benefit, it'd be best to let these people go.

Well, see, God's purpose in doing all this was to despoil the gods of Egypt. He had a reason and there were ten plagues that he wanted to bring on Egypt and it wasn't up to Pharaoh to determine whether it was going to be one plague or ten plagues.

I'm sorry, but Pharaoh did not have a libertarian free will in this situation because if he did, then

God was limited to how many Pharaoh decided to allow to come. But that's obviously not the point of Romans 9 or Exodus 3, 4, 5 and following.

God had a purpose. He raised Pharaoh up and what was the purpose? That his name might be proclaimed throughout all the earth.

Now, see, we are so accustomed because we live in the glory of the proclamation of the gospel, we are accustomed to thinking of that solely in terms of grace and even when we see judgment, we see grace, do we not?

Were there not those who were saved? Is not the fact that God doesn't just let the whole planet shake apart?

Would we not deserve that? Certainly we would if any one of us outside of Christ takes another breath or has another heartbeat, enjoys the beauty of God's world and his blessings for another day.

Is that not a continued extension of mercy and grace? It is. But we're so accustomed to the proclamation of his name being in grace that we don't see that that's a two -sided coin.

If all we ever saw was grace, how would we know what grace was? If there is no punishment, how would we know what deliverance from punishment would be?

We wouldn't. And that's why the word of God says

God's wrath is being displayed daily. Do you see it?

Oh, but James, that's so unpopular. You are going against so much, so much of what is on television and the radio and in the books at the

Christian bookstore. Don't you realize you are marginalizing yourself? No, I'm not marginalizing myself.

I'm already marginalized. I don't have to worry about that.

If you believe God's truth about almost anything anymore, you're going to be marginalized as far as evangelicalism is concerned.

But aside from its lack of popularity, can you show me where biblically it's wrong? Can you show me where we have a

God who creates a world that can just randomly go nuts?

And he has no purpose in it. Volcanoes.

Earthquakes. Wasn't it last year, right around this time, that there was the big huge earthquake in Turkey?

Flattened entire buildings, just took people out of existence just like that? Is that the

God that we have that for some reason, you know, even he was amazed this year.

Oh, these hurricanes just right at Florida. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Is that the

God of the Bible? Is that the God that we worship?

I'd like to see where all these people who are dismissing God's sovereignty and dismissing

God's active role in this world. I'd like to see where they get this, not from, well, you know, if we tell people that they might be scandalized.

Some of you know, that's actually a, not even a translated Greek term.

It's a transliterated Greek term. And that the gospel is called a scandalon.

Something that causes somebody to stumble. It has to cause people to stumble because until you end up on your knees, you're not going to be ready to hear the gospel.

I'd just like to know, where do you get it in the scriptures that God isn't in control of these things? Where do you get it from the

Bible that God is sitting back and he saw it coming. He saw it coming, but you know what, for some reason there's just nothing he can do about it or nothing he chose not to do.

However you deal with it, you either have to make God ignorant or you have to say he has a purpose.

Okay? You've got to deal with this somehow.

The flimsy free will stuff that is being thrown around out there doesn't provide a meaningful answer.

It really doesn't. So you see the importance of putting this all together.

Of believing everything that God has to say. Well, I've been going on for about 41 minutes now.

It's been fairly heavy today. Given that this is the last dividing line of the year, you might have thought this was going to be a nice, lighthearted, maybe have some fun on the dividing line today.

I'm sorry. But the fact of the matter is that we're all faced with this.

It's on the news all the time and we need to think about it from a Christian perspective. But I'm not seeing a lot of that.

Instead, most of what I'm seeing is either the left -leaning, liberal, let's get

God out of the way, let's excuse him, let's make sure he has no blame here at all, as if God's up big enough to handle the pots clamoring for answers.

Or then you've got the conspiracy theorist, see earthquakes are increasing, rapture is right around the corner type stuff, let's sell some more books type situation.

But the one thing you're not hearing a whole lot of, well, let's put it this way, you're not going to hear a whole lot of this in the media, is letting

God be God, and giving God his due, and letting

God run his world the way that he intends to run this world to his honor and to his glory.

So there are my thoughts. Did about 43 minutes on the subject. We had had someone actually,

I had had an email forwarded to me asking if we were going to address this, and I will now have to answer that email and say we did, and hope this person can download real audio and listen to the dividing line today.

But a little heavy, I understand, but I think it's important to go ahead and address it.

By the way, I would also ask for your prayers for a good friend of this ministry,

Pastor Richard Braselis. I had talked with Rich last week, and knew he was not feeling real well, but he's been getting worse and worse actually.

And so we saw, I haven't seen him for about five days in channel, he comes into channel once in a while and says hi to everybody, and haven't seen him for a while.

And so I was starting to wonder, I thought maybe, you know, it is the holidays, people go out of town and things like that, and there have been other folks we haven't seen, but I was concerned and just saw today an announcement that he's laid up and in a lot of pain, and so we'd want to pray for him.

He is involved with the Reformed Baptist Theological Review, Reformed Baptist Academic Press, etc.,

etc., and is very, very useful to the

Kingdom of God, and is a good man. I got to see him again when we were out in Los Angeles at the debate, he was there for the debate, and so if you would pray for him and for his recovery, and that he would be back with us and back ministering in his church, he is an elder, and so I just wanted to make sure to mention that, and let him know that our thoughts are with him, and that we're praying that God will use this time in his sanctification.

I know that he himself would be praying toward that end as well, but we will pray that God will lift him up and be gracious to him as well.

877 -753 -3341, not a whole lot of time left in the program today. Let me just mention that I've started,

I've got a number of threads going on the blog right now. Most of you have noticed the blog explosion.

That's going to slow down a little bit, because, oh, oh, let me, before I do it run out of time, last week at the end of the program,

I said something that confused a number of you, because we were running out of time, the music, I couldn't hear the music, it was technical stuff, but anyway, what

I was trying to say was, next week and the week after, I am teaching a

Jan Term class for Golden Gate Seminary on apologetics, so the class is in the afternoon, and because it's in the afternoon, then

I will not be able to do the Thursday afternoon dividing lines a week from today or two weeks from today.

So, to keep up with them, we'll do them in the mornings at the regular time of 11 o 'clock that we do on Tuesday.

So, for the next two weeks, just remember, the dividing line will be at 11 o 'clock for both

Tuesday and Thursday, and then once the Jan Term class is over, then we can go back to that. The next big interruptions

I can see coming, as far as the program goes, is I will be going to England, and in fact,

I have some information I can post, England and Scotland in March, and I'm really looking forward to that, though I've been told that where I'm going in Scotland, I will need a translator, and I don't know why

I would need that. I understand everything. So, anyways, obviously...

That will be so they can understand you, not the other way around. Excuse me, but would you leave the humor to the professionals, please?

Thank you. Rush Limbaugh tries to tell people that, but people just don't listen, and it's dangerous.

Just like using power tools can be dangerous. We need to leave the humor to the professionals, and that would be very good.

Anyway, and then coming up in May, about two full weeks,

I'll be in Italy, speaking on election and evangelism there, which I've been told is a very unusual series of topics to have, and so obviously that will cut into our dividing line time as well, but that is yet in the future.

I'm very excited about that. Somebody just said, and if Doc uses that accent, the

Scots will need a translator. My point exactly. I keep trying to tell you, you know?

Osho and Channel is now encouraging you, Rich, and that should be enough to tell you, you went down the wrong trail.

Okay? All right? Just keep that. Will you wear a kilt? You know, I've been told that one of the places

I'm going in Scotland is right at the border of the Scottish Highlands, and so I was joking this morning in Channel that I should rent a kilt, go to the

Hertz rent a kilt counter, and rent a kilt and have a picture taken with the

Scottish Highlands in the background, and believe me, it's tempting.

For those of you who don't know, I'm Scottish. I didn't come from Scotland, but when you have two sets of great grandparents that got off the boat from Scotland, and then you've got

Scottish blood on your mother's side, and then a lot of it on your father's side, and that's your major ethnic background is

Scottish, Scotsman, and you get a chance to go back to the homeland, you know?

Yeah, there is a temptation to do that. Yes. Hertz, the rent -a -kilt people.

So we might do that. I don't know. That would be very, very enjoyable, but I can't talk about something else about next year, but there's another project that I'm really, really, really, really hoping will work out as well, and if that happens, then 2005 is going to definitely be a banner year.

Not so much debates right now. You know, last year was not big on debates.

We slowed down a lot because especially we weren't doing the two debates in two days routine every six months in Salt Lake, but we also, you know, we had two major debates last year, and right now planning on anyways two major debates this year as well, and that's not as many as we've been doing for a while, but, you know, that may pick up.

It all depends, but this project would be, I'm really excited about it.

Obviously, you can tell it hasn't been okay as far as whatever publisher I'm talking about, which I won't mention right now, but I'm hoping that that's going to work out, and there are all sorts of things

I would like to be working on. It's just a matter of having enough time to get it all done and keep up with the dividing line, and obviously for me,

I believe blogging is not just something that's enjoyable to do. It's a means of communication, a means of ministry, and so we do that on a regular basis.

Yes, the Long Island debate is still on. We don't have a date for it as yet. We're working on that right now to try to work that together with a trip up to Massachusetts to the

People's Democratic Republic of Massachusetts. If I can get through the border, I'm not sure that I can.

I am a member of the NRA, so I'm not sure if I'm allowed there, but if I need a passport, you know, just what it is, but we're planning on trying to put it all together so that I can do the debate, go up to Massachusetts, do my thing there, and the problem is it may end up having to be either before or right after the

Italy trip, and, man, that could really, really, really get very, very intense, be gone for way, way, way too long a period of time.

I am not Dave Hunt on many levels, but one thing Dave Hunt is able to do is to travel like forever and, you know, months at a time being away from home.

I can't do that. That's just not—your kilt will blend right in in Massachusetts.

Yeah, no kidding. Believe me, a certain

Smith & Wesson is not legal in Massachusetts. I'm certain of that part, too. So I'm just watching the channel here and all these odd people that are making comments to us as we go by.

But anyhow, that's what's coming up there. So we're looking at probably two debates again this year, and right now

I would be surprised if I had a book come out this year. I just realized this. And that's pretty unusual.

I can't think of a year recently I haven't had at least one book come out. Now, there's possibly one book that I contributed to that might come out this year, so that might sort of break that, sort of ruin that.

But as far as a singly authored book, I know I'm going to be working on them, but there's none that have been submitted that's in the editing process or something like that.

So it's possible that 2005 I might not have a new book come out.

But I've got three in various mainly early stages, two of which are contracted and one of which isn't.

So there will be articles. I'm writing articles. I've got a number of articles due for various and sundry publications, so it's not like I'm just sitting around doing nothing, but it just so happens that in the publishing realm of things,

I may not have one come out this year, or if I do, it will be really, really late in the year, again, all depending on how certain things go.

So that's what we're looking at at 2005. We're going to be busy, busy, busy, busy, but sometimes that busyness, you don't see the results of that for a fairly lengthy period of time.

So that's just sort of how it is. I think you all understand that, and so that's how we'll do it.

So anyhow, that's what we're looking forward to in the next number of months. I cannot believe this year has gone by.

It was undoubtedly, without question, the shortest year of my life.

I mean, as I look back over 2004, it seems like the debate with Greg Stafford was very, very...

You know what? I just realized by looking at the channel, we have three debates. We have three debates next year. I completely spaced that we have a debate in April against Bob Wilkin on the lordship issue and faith and synergism and all the rest of that stuff.

So minimally, Lord willing, three. So that's in Oklahoma City. OKC, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

And so I've spaced that one. Hello. How did

I miss that? I don't know how I missed that. I don't know about that. I don't know if you're going to need to videotape that or not.

We probably need to get you in touch with the people that are in charge of the debate, huh, and find out whether they're going to be doing that or you're going to need to do that or what.

I'm talking to the disembodied voice who's just typing to me instead of talking to me because that's just how we do things here.

And we're very professional because Rush Limbaugh does that. Does he not talk to the... And sometimes what you can do is you can hear the voice in the headset so you can sort of hear what's being said, but most of the time you can't.

And if I could hear Rich's voice in my headset that loudly, I would be screaming anyways.

And we don't do that. Do we even have the ability to do that? Can you actually talk to me in my headset without going over the air?

I'm not sure if you can do that. I can just see somebody sitting in their side going, hmm, how would we do that?

If I all of a sudden disappear, you'll know why. Because Rich decided to, well, let me try this, and all of a sudden...

Yeah, I don't dare push buttons right now. Bad thing? Yeah, it would be, well, it probably would be a bad thing.

It might improve something. I think we have the ability to do that. I don't know what's going on with this microphone.

It's cutting in and out. This is the microphone you used to have that fried the old soundboard, so maybe you should get rid of it.

You know, that's a possibility. It could be the phantom power source shorting or something. Bad things, man. Bad things. We don't want to go down that road.

Nope, nope, all right. But if we had to, I think I could set it up. You think you could? Yeah. That'd be very, very, very distracting.

Oh, yeah. That'd be worse than the room. Because, I mean, the room can be distracting, but I can take my eyes off the room and forget about it eventually.

But when I hear people talking in headphones, you can tell. That is, when you're real professional, you can hear them talking in headphones and keep talking like you're not actually listening to them, but you can listen to someone and talk at the same time.

That is a very, very difficult trick to do. Anyways, why are we talking about this? I don't know. Mainly because I spent the first 44 minutes on a very heavy topic, and the music is about to start, and we're about to finish the last dividing line.

Stretch. Yes. And we're about to finish the last dividing line of 2004, and I was simply saying, it's been quite an incredible year.

And that's really about all there is to say about that. Hey, is

Mr. Snurdly over the house? That was deep, man. That was very deep. Well, it was a fast, wasn't it a fast year?

It was an incredibly fast year. I'm going to miss it. Well, anyways.

Thanks for listening to the dividing line and all of 2004, and it is our intention to be here next week.

Remember, 11 o 'clock, both Tuesday and Thursday, next week, because I start teaching next,

I think Monday or Tuesday, something like that. But anyways, that's what we'll be doing. Thanks for listening. God bless. See you next year.

Brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.