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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.
Well, despite the best efforts of everybody and their uncle, here we are. We've been gone for a while. Yes, we have gotten all of your complaints. They come fast and furious whenever we don't do a dividing line for a while.
But, you know, it's really hard to do on a cell phone. It's really hard to do while you're speaking at a church at the very same time. It's hard to do during lunch, after speaking on a Saturday morning at a church.
So sometimes it just doesn't happen. But today is a Monday, a pretty unusual time for a dividing line. But hey, we can do it when we want to. So that's what we're doing right now. And it's good to be back here in Phoenix, Arizona.
I was in Long Island when it was frigid back there. One night it was minus 23 wind chill where we were on Long Island. And for an Arizona boy, that's quite the interesting experience. Actually, I just didn't find it to be that bad.
I mean, obviously, the thing I hated the most was all the clothes you have to wear. You have to pile all this stuff on. And when you get where you're going, you've got to take it off and you've got to put it back on.
That's a pain. It is nice to live in Phoenix where you don't have to do that kind of stuff very often at all. So great ministry back there. Had the opportunity of working with Steve Camp both the major weekends I was back there on Long Island.
I spoke at New Hyde Park Baptist Church on the atonement. And then we took a break. And then Steve sang and then spoke on the subject of postmodernism and Christian music. And that was very challenging, very good.
And then the next weekend, he went with us to the Tuscarora Conference Center for the Hope Reform Baptist Church Youth Retreat that I've been doing for four years now. I feel very sorry for those folks that have been there for four years.
I keep telling them that they need to find someone else who is actually a good speaker to do that. But for some reason, they like me and they keep actually, I think they just like my family. And they just put up with me.
But anyways, Steve Camp came along this time and did music for us there. And then the Sunday night, we came back to Hope Reform Baptist Church. We did something I've always wanted to do. It was really enjoyable.
And that was we did a worship service. And basically, what we did is after Steve got things going, I would give a five to seven I doubt I went much longer than an eight-minute discussion of the topic of his next song.
And I picked out the songs, too, which was really fun. And so I got to pick out my favorites. He Covers Me, Living in Laodicea, Stranger to Holiness. And then I used those titles and the substance of the song as the basis of a biblical discussion of issues regarding that particular subject.
And then once I gave the introduction, then he'd sing the song. And it was really, really enjoyable. That was a lot of fun. And so really appreciated the opportunities of ministry that we had back there on Long Island.
Heading back out there in May, for those of you who are wondering. Looking at hopefully, Lord willing, the debate will be on May 29th. It will not be with the gentleman who had said he would do it. He asked around and begged out of the debate.
That frequently happens when people ask other folks who have debated me without listening to the debates themselves, sadly. But we're still looking. And so that will be coming up on the 29th. Then last weekend, last Saturday, I was in Omaha at the Omaha Bible Church.
Pat Avendroth is the pastor up there. And great guys. We did a breakfast thing in the morning. And actually, Omaha, it got up to 51 degrees that day. It was like 27 at night. And it was like summertime after having been on Long Island.
It wasn't bad at all. So I had a great time up there. Hopefully get a chance to go back up there. And heading to San Antonio. Let me move the cool edit thing out of the way here. I think I leave the 19th.
I know that the meetings, the 20th, 21st, and 22nd, then I preach the 23rd at the church. So the 20th, 21st, and 22nd, evenings on the 20th and 21st, and then a couple of sessions on the 22nd, doing a response to Chosen But Free.
You might go, didn't you do like a book length response? Yeah. It's called The Potter's Freedom. But the issue hasn't gone away. Those books are still running about, as is Dave Hunt's book. And so it's nice to be able to have a chance to do that live and take questions and so on and so forth.
That will be coming up in San Antonio, Texas, the great nation of Texas, coming up next week, in fact. But that will allow us this coming Saturday to do another dividing line for those of you who are simply addicted or simply haven't found any better things to listen to on the web, which I'm not really sure.
Hey, also, I'm going to miss the opening. I'm sort of bummed about this. But the 21st of February, maybe I can catch a real Texas, Russian. Did that sound like a Russian accent? It almost sounded like Sergeant Schultz there, didn't it?
The 21st of February, I believe, is the opening for a film. And I normally don't talk about films, but I am really, really looking forward to this one. Gods and Generals. Now, some of you have Gettysburg, the epic film Gettysburg that came out, what was that, 91, 92?
I know it had to have been before 93, because it was in, I believe, September of 1993 that I got to go back to Pennsylvania. I lived for six years in Harrisburg when I was very young. And my mother would take me out of school and we would go to Gettysburg.
But when you're that young, you just simply can't appreciate the battlefield and what happened there and the whole Civil War, or as some folks in our channel like to put it, the War of Northern Aggression.
You can't really understand all the issues and everything when you're that young. And I had the opportunity of going to Gettysburg in September of 93 and walking those battlefields alone. And it was just an awesome thing.
And I had seen the film by that time, and so it had to have been before then. Well, this is the prequel. I've read the Shara trilogy, Gods and Generals, Killer Angels, and The Last Measure. I forget what the last one was.
Anyways, I received from Fuller Seminary, believe it or not, a study guide for taking a church group to see Gods and Generals, which is the story of the first two years of the war, focused primarily on Bull Run.
Let's see here. There were three battles, I think, probably Fredericksburg, I would assume, and Chancellorsville. Yeah, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. And I was really impressed. It's a short little thing.
Not the movie, the thing that was sent out here. It's only about ten pages long. The movie is three hours and 25 minutes, so it ain't short. But there was just some awesome stuff here, especially focused upon General Stonewall Jackson, Thomas Jackson.
There's pictures in here. For example, the scene before Thomas Jackson goes off to war. He and his beloved wife Anna gather near the fireplace looking for strength and comfort. They turn to the Bible and read 2 Corinthians 5.
If our earthly house were dissolved, we have a building made by God eternally in the heavens, not built by human hands. Jackson prays, Almighty God, grant that if it be Thy will, avert the threatening danger and bring us peace.
Keep my love in Thy care. Bring us all at last the joy of Thy eternal kingdom. These are, I'm assuming, things that appear within the text of the film itself. And then there's a picture of Jackson in his battle uniform, sitting against a fence, contemplative.
And another prayer is provided. And here's the prayer. Dear Lord, this is Your day. You have admonished us to keep it holy. If it is Your will that we fight this day, then Your will be done. I ask Your protection over Anna, Your faithful servant, my loving wife.
I ask You to shine Your face upon her on her 30th birthday. Dear Lord, You have called me to this place and this hour far from my home and my loved ones. I am ready, Lord. Your will be done. It is Your sword I will wield into battle.
It is Your banner I will raise against those who will desecrate our land. If it is my time to come, then I will come with all the joy in my heart. Amen. The thing that amazes me is this film would not have been created without $56 million from Ted Turner.
I'm surprised he didn't get rid of all this stuff. But then, after the Confederate victory at the Battle of Bull Run. After the Confederate victory, General Jackson surveyed the field, finding hundreds of Confederate soldiers dead.
A soldier asked, General, how is it you can keep so serene and stay so utterly insensible with a storm of shells and bullets raining about your head? Listen to Jackson's reply. Captain Smith, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed.
God has fixed the time for my death. I don't concern myself with that. But to be always ready whenever it should overtake me. That is how all men should live. Then all men would be equally brave. Wow.
Yes, I know Turner has a cameo appearance in it. He's a Confederate general, which makes sense. Because I found out just this week that he was in Gettysburg as well. He led his men over the fence and was immediately shot dead.
He lifts his sword. Come on, boys. Boom. And he's gone. And I'm going to watch for that next time because I didn't really recognize him in Gettysburg the first time. But anyways, I'm really looking forward to it.
I'm not going to get to see it on opening night. I have a feeling that I'm going to be speaking to three other people on that Thursday night because everybody's going to go, hmm, listen to James White talk about Calvinism or go see Gods and Generals.
Oh, that's an easy one. And that'll be all there is to that. So anyways, looking forward to that film, and I hope all the rest of you do as well. It looks like it's going to be really, really, really cool.
Well, what do we have on the program today? Well, I have some sound clips. And I'm going to start off with we are going to take your phone calls if you'd like to be involved today, though I have four sound clips and normally I have 16 or 20.
So obviously it's not as much as I would normally have, but they are at least interesting for you to listen to today, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341. If you would like to be a part of the program today, we'll be going to 4 o 'clock Mountain Standard Time.
It's a couple minutes short, about two minutes short. But I have to go to teach a class. Oh, that reminds me. I knew there was something else I wanted to mention. For those of you in the Arizona area, and I say all of Arizona because I have at least one student taking the class I'm teaching for Golden Gate right now from Tucson, so Flagstaff isn't that much farther.
Right now, a little late for this class, I'm teaching a really neat class right now. We're covering Islam, Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, and the Watchtower Society. I haven't started a complete rebellion yet, but my students are having to read the Koran, whole sections of the LDS Scriptures, sections of the Catholic Catechism, and works by the Watchtower Society.
I believe in the use of original sources. That's a very good thing. But I have no idea what that accent was, and if that Kevin guy says something about it on the channel, kick him out. Anyways, next semester, the next two semesters, I'm going to get to teach two classes that have, I am really jazzed about them.
These are going to be cool. Hence, if you are in the area, the classes only meet once a week, so you might be able to make it if you're in the Arizona area, or if you're a really rich person, you own an aircraft, if you're in Southern California, New Mexico, whatever.
Starting late August, I will be teaching a class on the formation of the New Testament canon, and the early transmission of the New Testament text. So, canon and text. Half the semester we'll be looking at the issues of the formation of the canon, the Muratorian Fragment, Hippo, Carthage, the Apocrypha, the whole nine yards.
It will be really, really cool. Then, we will be looking at New Testament textual criticism, the families, and doing textual criticism, examining variants. I just love doing that kind of thing. So that will be through Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.
You can take the classes as auditors. The cost of auditing is going up, but it's still relatively cheap. It's probably about the same as taking a class at a local community college or something like that to audit.
Something like that. So that will be in the fall. Then, next spring, a year from now, Lord willing, obviously, we do not boast about tomorrow, but the schedule is that a year from now, I'll be teaching a really cool class on patristic theology.
The theology of the early church from the end of the Apostolic Age up until Augustine. Well, that is going to be so much fun. Sitting around with Lightfoot's edition of the Apostolic Fathers and reading through Clement and Ignatius and just having a grand old time for a whole semester on patristic theology and talk about doing stuff that I like to do.
I just sometimes pinch myself and go, you're really getting to do this, aren't you? It's a lot of fun. So, anyways, those of you in the Arizona area, keep those things in mind. You might find it somewhat useful to you to be involved in those classes.
I see folks in the channel making plans to move. I don't know that you really want to move over something like that, but I really do enjoy the opportunity that I have teaching there. A great bunch of students at Golden Gates Arizona campus.
Right now, we're watching back in, let me see, two hours and two and a half hours from now, approximately we'll be starting to finish up the debate that I did with Hamza Abdul-Malik. We've been watching that in class, and so we'll be going into the cross-examination period.
And I really need to stop reading the channel. And talking about Islam and understanding Islamic apologetics and all sorts of neat, fun stuff like that. So, good stuff to be involved in. I wanted to make that announcement for those of you who are in the Arizona area.
The channel's very lively during the daytime. Maybe it's on Saturday afternoons, everyone's taking a nap or something. It's not nearly as strange as it is. I will only enroll when you teach a chess class using only patristic pieces.
That's good. That's strange. Yeah, sure. Rich says we should do these on weekdays. Not a bad idea. Now that you think about it, I wouldn't mind having Saturdays free, wouldn't you? Why have we been doing it on Saturdays?
It's all your fault. But I'll do one a week, and you do one a week. How's that sound? You can discuss PHP programming like you were this morning in channel. Boring all of us into a complete and total coma.
Anyways, I hear you clearing your throat out there. The door's still open. The door has to be open or the fumes will kill me. If I sound a little strange, it's because of the fumes. I take absolutely positively no responsibility for anything I say today because of the fumes.
I'll tell you, I'm starting to get almost charismatic in my theology with the fumes going the way they're going right now. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, Catholic Answers. Yes, Catholic Answers is still on the air.
I find it, I don't know, interesting to go on their website every once in a while and note the $5 .5 million budget, something around there, I forget, and all the places it goes and all the things they do, and their huge staff and all the rest of that stuff.
And then I sit there and go, you know, not a single one of those people will ever do a public debate against us. Isn't that strange? I wonder why that is. Well, anyways, I downloaded a couple of the most recent programs, and really, I was working hard on Saturday.
We thought we were going to do the program on Saturday. I was working hard trying to find something to respond to, and it took quite a while. I have two calls here. Carl Keating was doing open phones, and the only two calls that I found interesting was the first one on Purgatory, and then a second one that was on R .C. Sproul, which I said, oh, cool, this will be fun to respond to.
And I played the first one on Purgatory. First of all, you may not have listened, for example, to the debate with Father Peter Stravinskas. I would highly recommend it to you. We have it in MP3 format, et cetera, et cetera.
And I would really, really recommend that you get the opportunity to grab that and to show the video to your church, or if you're not going to do that, at least listen to the MP3. But what's interesting to me is you would think that, let's say, let's reverse the story just a little bit.
Let's say Eric Svensson, who most of you know, let's say Eric Svensson did a debate with Scott Hahn, okay? And let's say they were debating, let's go ahead with something foundational like Sola Scriptura.
Now, if Scott Hahn just cleaned Eric's clock, just had answers for everything, presented arguments that were not a part of the standard responses in Protestant works, et cetera, et cetera, what would happen?
I'm not saying that has ever happened or ever would in any way, shape, or form. I'm just putting a hypothetical out here. What would happen? Well, I would listen to that debate. I would hear about it.
I'd hear about the questions. I would take the time to get the debate, listen to the debate, and then I'd have a choice. If I'm an honest individual, if I believe that what I believe is true, then in my future presentations on the subject of Sola Scriptura, I am going to have to take into consideration what was found in that debate, and I'm going to have to deal with the arguments that were presented.
And if I just ignore it, especially if I listen to it, and I go, you know what? I don't have any answers to that. So I'm not going to address it. But I keep talking about Sola Scriptura as if it's true, then I have no integrity, and I really don't believe it's true, or I'd come up with a response to it.
Now, doesn't that make sense? Obviously, if you're an apologist and a rebuttal has been offered to your position, if you just keep repeating what you said before, then you really don't have the truth, do you?
Well, I really think that any fair-minded person, and I've had Roman Catholics who could not be described as being in any way, shape, or form unbiased. I've had Roman Catholics describe my debate with Peter Stravinsky as a massacre.
I don't understand how anyone can believe that he won that debate. He wasn't prepared. He didn't know anything about Protestant arguments against the position. It was obvious I knew far more about what he said about Purgatory than he did.
So answers have been given to the most common presentations concerning the issue of Purgatory. I may have said the apocrypha once, I'm not sure, but the debate was on Purgatory. Well, how come Catholic apologists just keep repeating the same surface-level stuff that has been refuted for, well, of course, we say it's been refuted for years now.
It's been refuted for a lot longer than that, obviously. But it has been refuted, even within the lifetime of these individuals, over and over again. That's exactly what we get in this phone call. So let's go ahead and listen to the phone call, stop and start it, and make some comments.
We'll be coming up on a break here quickly, but let's at least get it started so that you can hear what's going on there. And Mr. and Monsieur Pierce, if you can make sure that the computer is ready to go, because here we go.
...outside of heaven or hell that, you know, would Purgatory in itself, because from what I've, is that Purgatory is a cleansing period. Before people are, souls are allowed to go into heaven. Correct.
And in the Old Testament, or before Christ, in this 1246 that you mentioned, what would have been the purpose of praying for those souls or praying for them to be released?
Oops, I did that all wrong, and I hope I don't crash this down here. Okay, let's go back to it. Now, before Carl responds to that, it's a good question. The man's asking a good question, he's not being argumentative or anything like that, which would never work when you're calling into a program anyways.
I learned that a long time ago. 2 Maccabees is, of course, a passage that comes up over and over again. And as I pointed out in the Stravinskis debate, if you read 2 Maccabees, it could not possibly be relevant to Purgatory outside of making a very long stretch and saying, well, what at least this shows is that the Jews prayed for the dead.
The problem is that from a Roman Catholic perspective, the people in 2 Maccabees for whom they were praying could not be in Purgatory. Why? Because the people that are discussed in 2 Maccabees chapter 12 were idolaters.
They had been killed by God because they had gone to battle carrying idols under their clothing. They were idolaters. They had committed a mortal sin. And see, the problem is, all of this is anachronistic.
Trying to read modern Roman Catholic dogma back into this whole period is simply ridiculous. But that's what Rome has done, and so they're stuck with it. And as we've pointed out, if you're going to say that this passage is relevant, then what's the only honest way to do it?
The only honest way to do it is to say, well, these were idolaters, and then come up with some explanation of that. Okay, they were idolaters. Then explain how it is that these individuals are in any way, shape, or form relevant to Purgatory, or praying for them is in any way, shape, or form relevant to Purgatory.
You're going to have to deal with that. In none of this does Keating address the fact that they were, in fact, idolaters. He just simply lets that slide. So let's listen to his response.
What this is demonstrating is that the Jews, in a period of time not too long before our Lord's time, already had come to the realization that prayer could be of assistance to those who had gone on. Because the passage says, it's a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they might be loosed from their sins.
Not that they might be forgiven from their sins, but they might be loosed from what we Catholics call the temporal punishment. You know, that they might be cleansed, as you put it, and perfected. So what we're seeing in 2 Maccabees is what we almost might call an inchoate understanding or appreciation of that.
I would turn to the end of the New Testament.
Now let me stop him right there. An inchoate, an understood understanding. But again, if you're going to go that far, then you have to deal with the issue of their idolatry. Nothing is dealt with there.
Well, I'm up against a time constraint here. Let's go ahead and take our break. Be right back, 877 -753 -3341.
We'll be right back. Save your soul from death. It's all works righteousness, you know. It's your grace...
The history of the Christian church pivots on the doctrine of justification by faith. Once the core of the Reformation, the church today often ignores or misunderstands this foundational doctrine. In his book, The God Who Justifies, theologian James White calls believers to a fresh appreciation of, understanding of, and dedication to the great doctrine of justification, and then provides an exegesis of the key scripture texts on this theme.
Justification is the heart of the gospel. In today's culture where tolerance is the new absolute, James White proclaims with passion the truth and centrality of the doctrine of justification by faith.
Dr. J. Adams says, I lost sleep over this book. I simply couldn't put it down. James White writes the way an exegetically and theologically oriented pastor appreciates. This is no book for casual reading.
There is solid meat throughout. An outstanding contribution in every sense of the words. The God Who Justifies by Dr. James White. Get your copy today at AOMN .org. More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals are working together.
They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils. They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements. And many Evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the Roman Catholic Church appealing.
This newfound rapport has caused many Evangelical leaders and lay people to question the age old disagreements that have divided Protestants and Catholics. Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language?
James White's book, The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition and scripture. The papacy, the mass, purgatorian indulgences, and Marian doctrine. James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the Christian life and the heart of the gospel itself that cannot be ignored.
Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at AOMN .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.
We're back again. I did a program on WMCA. In fact, I got to do the program live in studio on WMCA with Steve Camp on the phone when I was there on Long Island. Chris Harkinson called me and told me that they turned my microphone up faster than I thought they did.
There's this program, this really radical Arminian program on the station called Jesus is Seeking You. They had a commercial for it right before we came back and I didn't realize they turned my mic up.
So you can listen on the tape, listen to Jesus is Seeking You and you can hear me in the background going, oh brother, I haven't heard it yet. I remember doing it but they had me deceived into thinking I was actually turning my microphone on and I wasn't.
So I was making all sorts of interesting comments about the various strange stuff they had on the floor. I don't know that I'm going to be doing that program again in the future, Michelle. I'm not really sure.
It was hilarious. I just have to keep that in mind, especially when you don't have control over the microphone as I do not here. We were listening to Carl Keating responding to a question on the subject of Purgatory.
By the way, if you'd like to get involved in the program today, 877 -753 -3341. We have about 54 minutes left in the program today. Let's continue listening to Keating's response.
Understanding or appreciation of that. I would turn to the end of the New Testament in Revelation 20 that talks about nothing unclean entering heaven. The Catholic understands that even if you or I die in the state of grace, unless we're really saintly here on earth, probably we will die with our sins forgiven in the state of grace, but with some residual affection for sin.
Well, there you go. That was the issue, of course, in the debate with Stravinskis. And that's where he stumbled. I mean, that is the Catholic teaching, but that ran smack up against the doctrine of justification.
Now, again, you would think that there would be some response to that, at least tying into the response some meaningful rebuttal of the best position being enunciated against the argument. You don't. You just get the same old thing over and over again.
I mean, we all have that now in abundance, and hopefully we won't have much of it by the time we go. Another way to say that might be we need to completely love God. Exactly, and there's some of us, even those of us who are in the state of grace, who love something other than God.
At least slightly. To some extent, right. And yet, if we're to take that image of nothing unclean shall enter heaven, a person dying in that state and bound for heaven isn't really 100 clean. There's some part left that needs to be worked on.
Now, remember, Carl Keating is one who, in his book, he talks about the fact that the reason that a person goes to heaven is because of the fact that their soul is intrinsically pleasing to God. That's the whole issue in justification.
That's the whole thing concerning the topic of justification and whether it is an infused righteousness or whether it is an issue of the forensic declaration. And here you see how that ends up coming out.
And that's what we Catholics think of as purgatory. Call it a place or process. It doesn't make much difference. The point is there's some getting ready, getting the final spit and polish before you go to heaven.
Now, those who don't need that would be those who die in the maximum degree of sanctity where there's really no self-love or self-interest left.
Maximum degree of sanctity. Well, may I suggest that it is only the maximum degree of sanctity that will ever stand before the judgment throne of God. That's why you have to have the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to you.
That's why this new perspectivism is so dangerous. It denies the imputation of that. Very sad that those who used to stand for these truths would have nothing to say to this man in answer to what he's saying right now.
All of their attention is to God on the deathbed. Those folks will go straight to heaven because there's nothing left to clean. They're already polished up. Most of us, frankly, if we look sincerely at our soul, say, well, we think we have, in fairness, a good chance to persevere and die in a state of grace and go to heaven.
But frankly...
Did you catch that? A good chance. There's Roman Catholic perseverance. There's Roman Catholic assurance. We've got a good chance to die in a state of grace. We go to Mass enough and, you know, a good chance.
What a vast difference between man-centered religion and the gospel of Christ.
You know, I'm no St. John of the Cross. I'm no St. Paul. I'm no St. Anthony. I'm way below them. And even if I die in a state of grace, you know, I need to get cleaned up before I go in that big door.
Way below them. Well, then you don't have a chance.
Because they didn't have a chance. They were unworthy. And I'm obviously not even referring to the Catholic saints. I'm referring to the apostles. What did the Apostle Paul say in Philippians? I don't want to have a righteousness of my own.
I want to have only the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Jesus Christ.
And that's, in a crude kind of way, what we mean by the process of the purgatorial cleansing. So I hope that helps.
Well, it does help. It helps to recognize the vast difference between biblical theology and theology based upon a recognition of the truth of what the gospel is and what Roman Catholicism teaches. It most definitely helps.
So this next call, it's coming toward the end of the hour. I almost turned it off before we got here because I was just figuring, there's not going to be anything in here. But this fellow calls up, and evidently, and this is interesting because I've had a lot of people tell me, I've had a lot of evangelicals tell me, I'd like you to be on my radio program.
I did a radio program. I did the issues at Sutter last night. We were supposed to do two hours. The second hour, just the wheels fell off and the phone lines went nuts, and we didn't do it. But I did the first hour, the national program on the homosexuality issue.
And I've been on many radio programs, and many times evangelicals will tell me, well, you know, we've got a lot of Catholic listeners. And I've always wondered about that, I suppose, especially in places where you don't have EWTN or anything around.
That might be an issue. But we have a lot of Catholic listeners. Well, here, obviously, is someone listening to R .C. Sproul's Renewing Your Mind as a Roman Catholic. And it's fascinating to hear how they hear us, what they think it is we are saying.
Now, the problem is I certainly do not have time to go looking through, or go listening, I guess, through old editions of Renewing Your Mind to try to find the exact comment that R .C. made here. I suppose I could find out.
But listen to this phone call. It's quite interesting.
He could hang his hat on her. Is he just making that up out of old cloth? Have you ever heard him say that? R .C. Sproul is a...
Okay, I got back. I'm sorry. I'm not sure why that started right there. I must have miscreated the wave. Anyways, for those of you who are not computer experts or computer geeks, I was not referring to doing something in the stands of a football stadium.
It's a file format. But anyways, what he had stated was he had heard R .C. Sproul make the statement that the book of Hebrews had been slow in... It was probably due to R .C.'s recent book on knowing the Bible, and that the book of Hebrews had been slow in being accepted because there were passages in it that, if misinterpreted, could indicate apostasy.
I've never heard him say that. I don't know what he was saying. I don't know what his specific assertion was, but it's still interesting to hear the reaction to it in this call.
He could hang his hat on her. Is he just making that up out of old cloth?
Have you ever heard him say that? R .C. Sproul is an evangelical Protestant scholar, rather well-known, frankly rather biased against the Catholic Church. He may be referring to Hebrews 10, verses 26 and 27.
Let me stop right there for a second. Biased against the Catholic Church. Would it be fair to say that Carl Keating is biased against the Protestant Church? For some reason that's never mentioned. If you say anything against Rome, if you're actually a meaningful historical Protestant, if you believe something, then you're biased against the Catholic Church.
You know, the Catholics rightfully complain at the way they are treated by the media. And you know what? There's no doubt that the media is biased in talking about anything. They're biased against the Catholic Church.
I agree. The problem is Catholic apologists themselves seemingly have taken the lesson book from the media in how they are constantly biased in the sense of complaining, well, you know, he's biased against the Catholic Church.
Why don't you just say he's a Protestant scholar, he's a believing Protestant scholar, and leave it at that? Say he's not ecumenical. That would be true. He wouldn't want you to call him ecumenical in the first place.
Just don't understand that kind of thinking.
Let's go back to it. And he may be referring to Hebrews 10 verses 26 and 27, which in one translation goes like this. If we go on sinning willfully when once the full knowledge of the truth has been granted to us, we have no further sacrifice for sin to look forward to, nothing but a terrible expectation of judgment, a fire that will eagerly consume the rebellious.
Or maybe Hebrews 6 verses 4 and 5. We can do nothing for those who have received once for all their enlightenment, who have tasted the heavenly gift, partaken of the Holy Spirit, known to God's word of comfort and the powers that belong to future life, and then fallen away.
Well, these two passages clearly talk about Christians who can fall away and be damned, you know, damned themselves. Now, I don't know to what extent Dr. Sproul was being serious that because the book of Hebrews was disputed in the sense of whether it should belong in the New Testament, and that's true it was at one point, whether that was because of these verses.
That's not the story I ever heard. The story I heard had to do with unclarity about who the actual writer was. Was it St. Paul or somebody else?
At that point, at least on that particular fact, I would agree. The only thing that I've heard of in regards to the issue of Hebrews is, of course, the issue of authorship, connection with the apostles, the content from the Old Testament, issues along those lines.
Again, I didn't have time to go back. Maybe someone could call. Maybe you heard the program. Maybe you heard the Renewing Your Mind program where R .C. talked about this, and you could clarify that. Please feel free to call.
877 -753 -3341. But anyways, at least at that point, obviously I do not agree with the rather simplistic interpretation that was just offered by Carl Keating. I did address both Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 in the context of the book of Hebrews in some sermons on that subject coming up two years ago this summer.
Those sermons are still on the prbc .org website. You go to the second page of sermons, and you'll see them there, Hebrews 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Four sermons. We did one chapter in an overview fashion, but I dealt with those issues.
But at least at that point, my understanding, questions about candidacy did have to do with that. And things like that.
I think this is something being retrojected into history by a Protestant interpretation. But the dispute about whether Hebrews should be in the canon occurred in the first couple centuries. It didn't occur after 1517 in the Protestant Reformation.
It was already a done deal by them. So the Protestant interpretation that you can't lose your salvation, that wouldn't have come up. So I hope he was just talking tongue-in-cheek. If he was being serious, that's not a very good sign for a scholar.
I took him as being serious. Okay. Well, then that may be some residual demonstration of his basic anti-Catholic prejudice. Did you catch that?
Listen again to... Again, this one is sort of illustrated for me more of a mindset type thing than anything else.
Listen to what he says again. Demonstration of his basic anti-Catholic prejudice. You know, trying to retroject into history his own senses about the Catholic understanding.
Retroject into history. What does Rome do constantly in her eisegesis of passages like John 6 or Matthew 16 or Luke 22 or John 21? It is constant insertion, anachronistically, of ahistorical concepts.
It is... I don't know. It's amazing to listen to that. I mean, it is the very essence of what Rome does, and yet Mr. Keating is talking about it as if somehow it's very, very strange. Well, anyways. I really can't talk much about what Sproul said, because like I said, I don't know what he was saying.
But it is interesting. Well, obviously just an artifact of his anti-Catholic stuff. We, of course, don't have any of that, because we are the church and we are unbiased and all the rest of that stuff.
Well, fascinating. Well, let's completely shift gears here. Or at least we'll shift gears here. I wish it was completely. I've been listening to some of the sermons, talks, arguments, discussions, lectures, whatever terminology you want to use, from the 2003 edition of the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church Conference.
Those of you who have been keeping up with stuff know that the 2002 conference engendered a tremendous amount of controversy in light of the presentations that were made and questions concerning what was being said.
I have said on this program before that as I see it, first of all, this is an inter-Presbyterian issue. It starts with certain assumptions concerning the nature of the covenant that I, as a Reformed Baptist, utterly reject.
I think the issue here goes back to Hebrews 8, the nature of the covenant. What is the nature of the covenant in Christ's blood? And a mono-covenantal emphasis on the part, especially of the Auburn Avenue folks, so much so that some of the speakers there will not even refer to Old Covenant and New Covenant, but to a new administration of a One Covenant concept, taking the covenant of grace and absolutely destroying any distinctions that exist between the time of Israel and the New Covenant, not even using biblical language at that time, which it's interesting, one of the common assertions that is being made is that, someone trying to hold me on the intercom, maybe someone else could let them know why I can't respond to the intercom right now, and really just destroying all those distinctions that really have historically been held to anyways.
I've said many times that what I see the Auburn Avenue folks doing, this is Wilson, Wilkins, Schlissel, and Berich, the four speakers. To my understanding, Norman Shepard was invited, and that very much troubles me, because of his views of justification, but is a paradigm shift.
As I see it, and this has been confirmed by what has been said since then, and I just realized I didn't queue up the, oh, drat, I'm not going to be able to play it for you. I had it queued up Saturday, can't queue it up now, but it was an answer given by Wilson to a question, one of the very first questions in the question and answer section this year, in which he pretty much said exactly what I had interpreted it to mean, and that was in essence that they believe that where historic reform theology has gone wrong, is trying to look through the lens of the eternal decrees of God.
As he put it, your eyeball isn't big enough, you can't look through that lens, it's beyond us, we can't see those issues, and therefore what we need to do to live our lives pastorally, is to look through the lens of the covenant, and to view election through the lens of the covenant, and that's where I see this shift in emphasis.
Historic Presbyterians, I think, have emphasized the eternal decrees, the decree of election, and the doctrines of grace, in such a way that that really became the guiding principle, and these folks are emphasizing the covenant over those things, and hence can end up coming up with a completely different interpretation of John 15, Hebrews 10, all the apostasy passages, they will view baptism in a different fashion, it's a completely different perspective, as far as how it ends up fleshing itself out, they actually are teaching about class election, Jesus is the elect one, Ephesians 1 as being class election rather than individual election, as I think could be fairly clearly demonstrated to be the historic, at least reform view of that, and I'll be honest with you, I don't know how they end up defending the five points of Calvinism, given the interpretation they give of those passages, where would you go to defend those other things, I don't know, but anyways, in listening to these particular sermons, I was climbing Squaw Peak and listening to a sermon given by Steve Schlissel, and I have met him in the past, in fact his church and another church got together in a joint get-together, where I spoke to their churches together a couple of years ago in Brooklyn, and so we've met, it's not like we're buds or something, but we've met, and I was listening to his presentation, to be honest with you, it sounded to me like he didn't really want to be there, in the sense that they basically were representing what they had presented the year before, but only so that it could be responded to, and I could tell there was a sense of annoyance on his part in having to do that, and he had five points, which I found somewhat ironic, and I had disagreements in regards to his emphasis on probably all of them, but at one point, I really, the wheels fell off from my perspective, and I want to play for you something that he said, and then we'll probably go ahead and play it, let you digest it, take our break, and then come back and I will comment about it, so let's listen to what Steve Schlissel had to say.
Now, the third matter, the second one was the unity of the word, the first was that God is what we have in the Bible, God himself, not a set of propositions, the second was that the word is one, this is our possession, the Old and New Testaments constitute one book, and what we've been calling scholastic reform thought builds nearly entirely not on the Bible as a whole, but on two letters.
Now, this may be offensive, and I know that it would be denied, but I'm sorry, that's just the case, and you just read everything, and you'll see that I'm not making this up, and I'm not lying. It goes back to Galatians and Romans, and these two letters are said to be containing articles upon which the true church stands or falls, hui and hagwash.
If those letters had never been written, we'd still have the word of God that saves. But the letters were written into a particular context, they were highly charged polemical treatises that were meant to put out a fire or to prevent a fire at particular locations, and yet when these books are read by modern reformers, especially, and by Lutherans, inexplicably these polemical pastoral and historical circumstances are simply ignored.
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...not on the Bible as a whole, but on two letters. Now, this may be offensive, and I know that it would be denied, but I'm sorry, that's just the case. And you just read everything, and you'll see that I'm not making this up, and I'm not lying.
It goes back to Galatians and Romans. And these two letters are said to be containing articles upon which the true church stands or falls. Hooey and Hogwash.
Well, Hooey and Hogwash. Seems to me that Pastor Schlissel, in making those statements, has just said that the collective understanding of the entirety of Protestant theology from the beginning, and certainly Reformed theology, Hooey and Hogwash in understanding the centrality of the message of justification.
Now, he's already said in his talk that justification by faith is nothing more than the inclusion of the Gentiles in the covenant. And that is why, by the way, the Auburn folks are very sensitive to being charged with the promotion of New Perspectivism.
And Douglas Wilson has put a short and not overly strident appendix in his book, Reformed is Not Enough, saying that he has problems with New Perspectivism. Okay, fine, that's nice. However, it is very easy to understand why the charge of New Perspectivism was lodged against statements like that.
The conclusion that Pastor Schlissel comes to regarding the nature of justification is the conclusions of N .T. Wright. Now, he says later in this talk, I didn't listen to N .T. Wright, I mean, I haven't read N .T. Wright, and so on and so forth.
Fine, came to the same conclusions. And hence, that's why the assertion is being made. Now, I see a very strong distinction in at least the directions being taken by these two groups. New Perspectivism is based on liberal scholarship.
It has as its foundation perspectives that are not conservative at all, and Auburnism does not. The emphasis is different, but in this instance, the conclusion ends up being very much similar, and for Schlissel, very much the same.
Now, if you heard someone making that statement that Schlissel makes, when he says, well, it all goes back to Romans and Galatians, and the article is the standing and falling church. Well, okay. Isn't it true that the majority of discussion comes from Romans and Galatians?
Yep, quite true. Is that wrong? Of course not. And that's why I just go, what is he thinking? That's like objecting to the statement, to the self-evident fact, that when I was in college, the majority of my knowledge of cardiac function and the function of the human heart came from my textbooks on anatomy and physiology, rather than coming from my textbooks on Greek, Old Testament prophets, history, and government.
Well, duh! You go to the sources that directly address the issue. And Romans and Galatians, yes, Galatians had a very specific application to a specific situation. But is someone actually going to suggest that what was said in those books does not have application to the entire concept of how we're made right with God?
It seems he's saying so. I'm not the one who said hooey and hogwash. That's not me speaking. Hooey and hogwash. Yeah, there you go. Hooey and hogwash. Hooey and hogwash. I'm not the one that said it. You go to where the text addresses the subject.
And Romans is obviously, it's amazing to me that he would put Romans and Galatians in the exact same category because Romans was not written to a specific situation as Galatians was. It is the gospel according to Paul.
It is much broader than a particular fire he wanted to put out. Where is this coming from? This is simply silly. And there should have been, you know, you can hear silence afterwards. I mean, you didn't hear anybody say amen after this.
Hooey and hogwash. Hear that silence? Yeah, it's because everybody was in shock, at least I hope so. There should have been someone who stood up and said, Brother Schlissel, you are wrong. Don't you understand that you go to the passages that specifically address an issue?
And since Romans and Galatians contains the majority of the discussion, that's why that exists, that case is so? Is there something wrong with a large portion of the defense of the deity of Christ being found in John and Colossians, simply because that's where the issue is being addressed?
I cannot even begin to understand that. But let's put it very, very clear, very, very plainly here. Pastor Schlissel does not like the idea that justification by faith is an article of the standing or falling church.
He doesn't like what Luther had to say about that, and I guess he wouldn't have joined with Luther at the Reformation in pursuing it as he did. I don't know. But certainly, at the very, very least, we can recognize that such statements are not only unguarded, but they're just simply unwarranted.
I mean, this is someone saying, go ahead and hit me again. This is someone saying, hey, I don't care what the rest of you think. In fact, I'm going to make you even more angry. He even says he's going to anger some of you.
Now, this may be offensive, and I know that it would be denied, but I'm sorry, that's just the case.
That's in your face. Yes, it is offensive, I do deny it, but it isn't the case, and there's no way that Steve Schlissel could ever defend it in a meaningful, scholarly way. So I just don't understand this kind of thinking.
It just makes no sense, and it's very, very troubling that that would be coming out. And I have another clip here, and to be honest with you, since I made it on Saturday, I don't remember what it is. We will all find out together.
He has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in Heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation, because I belong to Him.
Not when I belong to Him, or if I belong to Him, or if I have a good or bad or mediocre experience, but I do belong to Him, and because I belong to Him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.
Here we go. I wondered why I made this. One of the things that is so troubling to me and to many others in listening to the Auburn Avenue individuals, and again, they'll say, well, there's not just one.
They'll all get different emphases. Fine. I can guarantee you one thing. I wouldn't be speaking there. I'm not going to be speaking someplace where Norman Shepard is speaking, except to debate him. If they're all banding together and presenting this stuff, fine.
But what I'm hearing in more than one of the speakers, and I heard in Schlissel, here he's going after the Ordo Salutis, and he's saying, look, for covenant children, the Ordo Salutis is ridiculous. They're already Christ's.
They're already His. We should not be seeking a conversion experience from them. They're already in the covenant. And see, that's where my Presbyterian friends that I've always talked to about this, we may disagree, but at least one thing I've been able to say up until now is that the ones that I knew and I had communion with called their children to repentance and faith in Christ.
What I'm hearing is, you don't do that. That's not the norm for covenant children. You look back to your baptism. And that's why all this stuff about baptism and regeneration has come up. That's what we're talking about in this quote.
Let's listen to the whole thing. He has set me free from the tearing of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation because I belong to Him.
Not when I belong to Him or if I belong to Him or if I have a good or bad or mediocre experience, but I do belong to Him and because I belong to Him, Christ by His Holy Spirit assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.
The foundation of our faith is the whole Word of God, the whole history of God's dealings, the whole story including James. A man is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. This is also what Paul taught when he said, if I have a faith that passes the most rigorous presbytery examination but have not love, it's worthless.
This is what he said when he said in Galatians, the only thing that counts is faith working by love.
Well, I want to be as generous as I can be. I have close friends involved in this movement and all of us have benefited from people like Douglas Wilson, but that last section starting with the quotation of James 2 through Galatians 5 could be played on EWTN without anyone noticing anything at all.
I have heard the exact same language utilized by Scott Hahn and Robert St. Genes and all the other Roman Catholic apologists without any explanation in the exact same context. Now, Steve Schlissel talks about how he doesn't agree with Romanism.
Fine, then how would you respond to them? I didn't hear him giving any context to James 2. I didn't hear him explaining James 2 in any type of meaningful way. He just simply quoted it and then he quotes from Galatians.
Did not the Council of Trent emphasize that very passage and talk about faith working by love as the means for inserting their entire sacramental system? Is Reformed theology so broken from their perspective that they will try to deal with a small number of people over here with this kind of teaching while opening the door to the billion Roman Catholics to feel content in their way of salvation?
Have we lost our priorities here? It certainly seems so. Now, I wasn't there and some of the folks that gave responses were not exactly the folks that I would want to be giving responses. I think that these questions need to be asked and unfortunately what I've been observing lately anyways is I just saw this week an individual ask a series of questions that I'll admit I don't know that I really understood the whole intention of all of the questions that were asked but they seemed fair anyways and Schlissel's response to him was I don't recognize what book of the Bible these were taken from.
That was the only response he got. I don't see, right now it's all emotions. It's all charges and counter charges and back and forth. I don't hear a lot of meaningful interaction. I've tried to get into some of that with some of the folks even on our own channel that are seemingly enamored with this kind of thing and I don't get a lot of response.
I want to know what the difference is between myself and let's assume for the sake of argument though some people might want to argue the point let's assume for the sake of argument I am a Christian that I have been born again that I am in Christ Jesus as one of his people.
What's the difference between myself and a child baptized at the font? I know what the historic difference is from a Presbyterian perspective but what I'm hearing Schlissel and Wilson and Wilkins and Barich saying I don't know how to answer that.
It's not being answered the same way it's been answered by my Presbyterian friends before. That much I'm certain of. And if I can get an answer to that then we can start talking about the nature of the atonement what it means to be in Christ and of course I think it all goes back to missing what the new covenant is in the first place.
From the least to the greatest of them they all know me. It is a better covenant. It is better in the same way that Christ's sacrifice is better than the sacrifice of bulls. And that's not just quantity.
That's quality. So I see that as an issue but man when I hear this kind of citation it really makes me concerned.
The foundation of our faith is the whole word of God the whole history of God's dealings the whole story including James. A man is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. This is also what Paul taught when he said if I have a faith that passes the most rigorous presbytery examination but have not love it's worthless.
I want to stop right there also. I have heard participants in the Auburn Avenue conference complaining bitterly about how the whole movement is being treated by those that they say are stuck in confessionalism that they are emphasizing theology above scripture etc. etc.
However it sounds to me that these folks don't have any problem whatsoever given it but they don't like taking it. I mean let's face it folks I've done a lot of public speaking and if I were in a Roman Catholic setting I know how I could put certain little statements in that would raise the emotional level and temperature.
Why in the world do you have to say what Steve Schlissel says here?
If I have a faith that passes the most rigorous presbytery examination but have not love.
It's worthless. The most rigorous presbytery examination? Is that what Paul said? Of course not. But one thing I've noticed is that over and over and over again in these talks there are these little digs these little shots.
Does that help? No. Can I understand it? Sure I can understand it. But if you're going to keep throwing these things out are you really overly shocked and surprised when people shoot it right back at you?
I don't understand that. I don't know. So anyways those are the two quotes. I was going to play you the section from Wilson where he in essence verifies exactly how I interpreted these issues and that is that they see as one of the major errors in what they would call creedalistic reform theology is the viewing of the covenant through the lens of election rather than viewing elections through the lens of the covenant.
From their perspective the only way that we can pastorally interact with our congregations is to do so through the lens of the covenant. And they take what is a presupposition in their theology and that is that baptism joins you to the covenant they then I think make a biblical argument that if you're in the covenant these are the things that are yours.
That's one of my problems with the Presbyterian position as a whole is that I would agree if you're in the new covenant then you are in Christ. And what is his is yours. Since it's the blood in his covenant of the covenant of his blood you are in him.
You are regenerated. All those things I agree. The problem is Presbyterians haven't agreed and so now when these Presbyterians or at least Pedobaptists in general they're not all Presbyterians make the same statement without the qualifications that the emphasis upon personal election has brought well all of a sudden it sounds very different.
And it does sound very different. Let's face it. But basically what they're saying is look what you do when you find yourself in a church where you've got a bunch of individuals who don't have any spiritual life they're bored they just want you to entertain them is well you can't you know historic theology has said well they just must not be elect.
And so there's nothing much you can do about it. What they're saying is no election isn't the issue. If they've been baptized then they're Christians and therefore you call them to faithfulness to their covenant obligations and hence when people want assurance you point them to their baptism.
And of course immediately any Reformed person goes you get assurance from your baptism? But there are all sorts of people who were baptized who then would have false assurance would they not? And then you add into this the fact that then now what they're saying is well all this stuff John 15 that was the covenant and the vine the branches there that's the covenant and so you're in the covenant and you're cut off from the covenant and all these apostasy passages are proving that you can be in the covenant well the problem is if you understand the covenant and the blood of Christ as something that is as liable to failure as the old or at least liable to failure as the old maybe not as since Wilson has argued that well there's more regenerate people in the covenant that's nice.
But once you make it that well you gotta live with it. That's the problem. At least from my perspective. I say that apostate is never in the covenant of the blood of Christ because Hebrews chapter 10 verses 10 through 14 says that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ perfects for all time those for whom it is made.
And I don't understand how I mean I've even heard language like well Christ bore the reprobate sin in a covenantal sense but not a salvific sense. The covenant isn't salvific? Yikes! Think about it. I just throw my hands up in the air and go wow I don't and that's about the point in time when people say well you know that's why you're a reformed baptist you just don't understand these things.
Well maybe but I don't know. Well anyhow that pretty much does it for the dividing line today. No one of course no one called in today and I was just left to talk all by myself and it's sort of sad but I just try to try to press on Wonky could have called in today after he after he well after that he could have called in.
He didn't. Everybody was saying well we can't call in because we're at work and on Saturdays they can't call in because they're not at work.
And you know stuff like that. Let me tell you if I was in a back...
Alright go ahead and turn that back up. We gotta play that one again. Soundbaptist .wave. Soundbaptist .wave. They've heard half of it. Y 'all need to hear some of the sounds that are played in the.
In the channel. So let's listen to it. Let me tell you if I wasn't a Baptist I would be ashamed. I just turned my sound request off so you don't have to worry about that anymore.
Uh. How many sounds do we have right now? I have lost well. Uh. Mine isn't even relevant anymore since certain people who remain nameless continue to get new sound files and do not send them to me or post them on our MyFamily site.
Uh but currently mine anyways has 2 ,915 sound files. About 3 ,000 sound files between Waves and MIDI files. And they're probably up to about 3 ,500 the way certain people continue to grab sound files but do not provide them to the channel manager.
And again they will remain nameless like JS and Micah. But anyways that's what goes on during the channel when we're on the air and those of you who don't see it. You really ought to join the channel.
Click on our website. Go to the channel ThingyMabobby and you all you all will get to enjoy the great experiences that we have there with one another. Anyways that's pretty much going to do it for me today.
I'm not hearing anything from Monsieur Pierce over there as to whether. Thank you! There we go. I love that sound. That means it's time to go teach. And my students who are listening. I hope you're ready for some fun today because we finish up the Malik debate.
But anyways we will lord willing be back Saturday afternoon or who knows maybe some other day. We're free. We're not under law but under grace. We can do this whenever we want. We'll talk to you later.
Bye! Or the dividing line.