Skype Dividing Line from Evergreen, Colorado

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:34

So welcome to the dividing line coming to you via Skype. We hope it'll last we hope it'll work

00:40

We've done it before while I am up here in Evergreen, Colorado Yes, I've been doing this for a few years now

00:52

Maybe it's a reformed Baptist thing, but my fellow elder Don Fry He always goes to the same place for his summer vacation.

00:59

He goes to San Diego does the same thing The exact same amount of time so maybe it's just I don't know maybe we're just weird that way

01:07

I guess but I started coming up here. I Don't know how many years ago now

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Once I got back into shape in 2010 for riding and I started going, you know,

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I want some I want some major challenges And so I started looking at rides up here and and you may wonder well, why is it different in Colorado?

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It's called altitude Let me tell you something if you If you've never tried to work out at 12 ,000 feet of OC level you'll find out fairly quickly what the what the real challenge is and of course just Massively beautiful up here in the mountains and I've been posting some pictures on Facebook and Twitter and things like that But of course if I'm shadow banned in the way season anyways,

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I suppose I guess I've been told that I am but some people seem anyways, but so I'm up here again and I've already mentioned this weekend.

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I'm riding in what's called the triple bypass. That is not a medical procedure Please do not freak out.

02:06

I heard that Please don't freak out about that. I've had people Actually just get completely concerned and contact the ministry and everything else

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The terminal bypass is a bike ride that goes from Evergreen, Colorado to Avon, Colorado It goes over three passes, which is why it's called the triple

02:26

Bypass it's 120 miles ten thousand five hundred feet of climbing The lowest you ever are is seventy five hundred feet above sea level.

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The highest is at the top of Loveland Pass Which is eleven nine ninety.

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I wish it was ten feet higher just so it'd be nice even even number, but I for government work twelve thousand feet above sea level and So you go over?

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Squaw Mountain Juniper Pass Is the first one then Loveland and then veil pass which is only it's a meager ten nine ninety and Into Avon and so people might say why in the world you tell people that it's dangerous now

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There's gonna be five thousand of us and we all look the same We're all wearing cotton spandex and helmets and Oakley sunglasses.

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So you you can't tell any of us apart really so it's probably fairly safe When you have that many thousands of people on the road at the same time

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So that's Saturday and then this year. I'm actually I thought

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I was gonna have to choose between doing the triple And fat past a couple years.

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I've done the double triple where you you ride out stay the night ride back so it's twice that but I'm only doing the single because I'm preaching on Sunday and then

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For the first time the Mount Evans Hill climb Bob Cook Memorial is the very next weekend

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So back -to -back weekends, and that's the one I'm really focused on That's a time trial up to the top of Mount Evans, which is the highest paved road in North America The finish line is at fourteen thousand one hundred and thirty feet above sea level

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And let me tell you something past twelve thousand feet. You start seeing pink elephants in tutus

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Riding bikes right past you making you feel like you're going very slowly It Those last four or five switchbacks up at the top just seem like an absolute eternity

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Let me let me assure you so that's what I'm really focused upon. And so I got up here

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Monday I've had some great rides. I'm posting my relive Videos, which are these it's a really neat app where they take your

04:38

Strava rides and they put them on a topo map satellite topo map and It's really cool,

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I mean it's really boring around Phoenix, you know just sort of going around here there and everywhere but Up here in Colorado, it's looks cool and it's the only time they're really worth watching.

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So Those who follow us on on Facebook will be able to watch those

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That's why we're on Skype and that's gonna limit some of the things that we can do But I'm still gonna try to play some video.

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I'm still gonna try to show some Some graphics we could probably be pressing things just a little bit here to make this work

05:17

But we'll take a we'll take a shot at it Right as we were getting ready to go on air.

05:23

I was noticing on Facebook an individual just fell by the name of Charles Mickelson He's posting on Francis Turreton's Facebook page

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Evidently, he's some kind of wild -eyed It's not even an Arminian. He he denies justification by faith

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I don't know but he he's gone. He's going after Calvinism and it is just Amazing to watch and so what

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I'm gonna try to do here is I'm gonna try to bring up Skype again here and I'm gonna try to show you something here share screen and Why is that bouncing up and down there it goes and Dart so you should be able to see this now,

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I hope anyways But here is a graphic that this Charles Mickelson saved

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It's in the midst of his harangue against Calvin this murderous horrific mean spirited blah blah blah blah blah and you'll notice it says once saved always saved perfect theology if you want to murder your public critics and Of course one of the ancient of ancient medieval portraits of a younger

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Calvin there and I've watched a few people trying to reason with him. There's there's no reasoning with this gentleman.

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I just point out Why bother? Certain people they don't have ears to hear.

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I mean, there's just there's no rational thought going on They've got their position and they're not interested in any counterfact

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I'm interested in fairness and interested in looking at anything in history And have you read about you know?

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when when the plague struck Strasbourg when Calvin was ministering to the French refugees in Strasbourg and how he risked his life to minister to the people

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I don't care That's irrelevant it doesn't fit their means so we're not we're not gonna We're not even gonna think about anything like that.

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And have you read any of his letters? Have you have you seen just how he had a pastoral?

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No, no, no, don't care. It doesn't fit my no I I hate reform theology. Therefore. I hate

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Calvin and I'm just not gonna you know, I'm just not gonna listen I think as I was driving up here.

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It's a fairly lengthy trip. Let me do it one day One day well, I finished

07:55

I listened to all of and may I highly recommend everyone Martin Luther's little book the freedom of the

08:02

Christian man Or Christian Liberty, it depends on how it's translated from the German how it comes across But let me change.

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I'm sorry Yeah, turn off the screen app, yeah, well, you know, this isn't the fastest way of doing things but Stop sharing screen.

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There we go But we'll go back to that later on. I'll show you some other things a little bit later on.

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But um, anyway, I Was listening to the Freedom of Christian it was a wonderful wonderful little introduction to the

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Christian faith and I was thinking as I was listening to it, you know, this is the younger

08:45

Luther. This is the Luther of 1520 And You know a different Luther than 1540 in some in some ways

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You know before the final break before verms and I was also I also spent some time listening to some of his table talk while I was driving and I was

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I was struck once again By the fact that there are so many people that will never even never even give

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Luther a shot They'll never even because well, I have differences with Luther I disagree with Luther on baptism or I disagree with Luther on on the mode of the

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Lord's Supper or the meeting of the Lord's Supper and and Just just never have any willingness to even

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Think about any other perspective than they're very very very very very narrow view and hence, they'll never learn anything from another perspective and and eventually as far as I can see such people become extremely stunted and They doesn't seem to be any growth in depth of their own

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Perspective because eventually, you know, if you won't if you won't Listen to what somebody else has to say you pretty much figure you've got it all figured out and Where do you go from there?

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What's what's what more is there to learn I guess and I see that a lot these days.

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It's it's almost it's almost like it's a knee -jerk reaction to the people that have no concept of divine revelation have no concept of Scripture as a sure word from God and for a lot of people if scriptures are sure word from God Then that means that I should never have to rethink anything.

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I should never have to grow I should never I've just got all figured out and I I'm happy for those of you that do the rest of us

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Probably, you know need to continue to work through things because there seems to be a whole lot more there than than meets the eye

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But anyway, I was just noticing this gentleman's just the only way to describe his harangues against reformed theology and I just Honestly, it doesn't make me angry makes me sad.

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It makes me very very sad because a lot of what I was thinking about on the drive up and in Thinking about you know, we've spent a while.

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So we've done the dividing line a lot of what I have been Pondering has been thinking about the the history of How we've gotten to where we are today

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I think most of us would agree that the vast majority of the interactions that we see online for example are

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Anything but edifying for almost anybody involved There are a lot of people who just simply don't even want to don't even want to touch it.

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It's it's toxic that's a fairly decent term to describe a lot of the interactions that we see on on On Facebook on Twitter.

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Yeah, we use those things to communicate with one another I get a lot of good leads for information and things like that from from that that means but at the same time, you know, you have to take the good with the bad and if we were to Give it a grade to the level of rationality

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Rationality logic fairness kindness gentleness Respectfulness that goes into what happens on social media.

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I think it's a d -minus on its best day and an absolute

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F Every every other day if they still if you still use that kind of grading system, maybe that's no longer illegal.

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I don't know might make people feel bad or something, but It's it's just it's just a tragedy and I I feel for this fellow who's just railing away

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Because if he's a believer someday he's gonna run into John Calvin and it's be a lengthy apology,

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I think You know, but I realized from his perspective he doesn't think that's gonna happen

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Never never gonna happen. But there you go How did we get here? And I just saw a little thing go

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I wonder if I yep, I I froze up Let's see here

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I don't Video down keep talking

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All right, well, that's a shame

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See here video your videos turn off Your videos turned on Let's see.

13:56

Hey, there we go So I guess you turn it off turn it on something like that. Maybe it comes back anyway

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Which direction I want to go here do I want to give another example first? Yeah, let's give the other example first and then go into some scriptural stuff.

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How's that sound? Last week

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Michael Brown posted an article Discussing the controversy that had developed over the past number of weeks.

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Oh, and by the way, I Forgot to ask but rich if you could post and channel the

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URL to that Audio that you posted this morning. It was only like a minute long or something like that I'd appreciate that Because I wanted to I wanted to play that as well as an example along these lines but when when

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Michael Posted it a Twitter handle by the name of truth defenders

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Responded normally in a way that would just result me in blocking someone but The first thing that caught my eye was well, that's interesting because Bob Maury about Maury's minister was a truth when it was truth defenders or faith defenders.

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So it's faith defenders and Unfortunately the language that was used Sounded a lot like Maury Remember Bob Maury is the nuke the

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Kaaba guy I Have examples of his language online that I Quite seriously cannot even use on the vine.

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I couldn't read it for you on the dividing line and it's it's a sad thing again that that someone would do this as a person who calls himself a

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Christian minister Let me bring this up and make sure to stop it.

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There we go There we go. All right. Thank you I'll play that in a second. Anyway The the the language it was used talked about filthy

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Muslims at one point he said to To Michael Brown. He said well

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James White would spend more time to fame the gospel rather than defending those filthy Muslims and So I started looking around for who this person was and I put a call

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I said hey You know what? I'd like to know who this is. And the only reason I wanted to know that it's real simple

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Churches will go online looking for someone locally who might be able to help a local pastor in providing meaningful information to their people concerning Islam especially if they'd like to actually seek to equip their people to Present the gospel message to Muslims.

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Let's say there's a mosque opening or something like that and they said, you know I don't think our people are really ready to do that.

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And my concern was very simple what if someone stumbles across this thinks this is a a

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Christian ministry that is specifically Intended to do that very thing and you bring somebody in who in almost every tweet uses terms like dogs filthy just this this level of vitriol and Visceral anger and hatred

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That could just be a disaster and From a from a simple ministerial perspective people need to be made aware of the fact

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That there are people who claim to be Christians and claim to be quote -unquote reaching out to Muslims But they are doing so in hatred

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Now what they do is they say I just love Jesus so much that I hate false doctrine Well, that's nice, but as we're gonna see biblically

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That's not an option for you. You're not an apostle. You're not a prophet You have certain commands that have been given to you from Scripture and the reality is if you seek to Pretend that you are reaching out to individuals and yet you have hatred in your heart toward them

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Guess what? They will be able to tell that They will be able to see that and you know again people are saying

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Oh whites becoming soft whites been like this for a long long time actually and I remember we've told this story before I remember very clearly

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The first year that we did the full -on outreach at the

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Mesa Easter pageant in Mesa, Arizona to the Mormons we were gathered the last night in the what used to be the

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Arby's parking lot before Arby's disappeared and We were sort of reviewing the week's events and A police officer walked up to us.

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I remember he was wearing those nighttime yellow glasses type things, you know make things easier to see at night and And he says who's in charge and I'm like, oh boy that we had gotten through this whole week and He said to all of us he said, you know,

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I've been watching you all this entire week and I wanted to thank you for The way in which you engaged in what you did this week.

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You were respectful and I was really impressed with with how you did things.

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So this was the 1980s Okay, there wasn't any Twitter. There wasn't any Facebook But we never referred to filthy

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Mormons I've always told for example Every person

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I've ever trained to deal with Mormons will tell you this I've always told everybody you don't refer to Joe Smith It's Joseph Smith You pay but he was a false prophet.

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Yes. He was But your goal here is to reach the Mormon person without putting any more barriers

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Between the truth of the gospel and where they are then already exist And if you just want to get all up in their grill

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Then go someplace else. You ain't working with us because you've got the wrong motivations.

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You've got the wrong reason for being there And so there's nothing new here For us to say that you need to be respectful

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You need to be you need look there's a huge danger That we are going to insert ourselves

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We're gonna let our anger our pride our arrogance, especially in apologetics

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Look, I've seen it for years people who just want to pull their theological sword and slice and dice people and they think the more

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Blood they have on the sword and the more guts laying on the ground the better. They've glorified

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God Well, I'm sorry. That's not how the New Testament presents how we are to approach this issue

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We as redeemed sinners reach out to other people hoping they will become redeemed sinners

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That changes everything That's just all there is to it so I Have a video here

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And I I want to play just a section of it because we started doing some looking around we found out Who this truth defenders guy is this

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Lewis Lionheart is the name that he uses and as you can probably guess That's not his real name. I know what his real name is.

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I have no interest in hurting the man I'd like to see the man if he's a Christian He is a

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Christian in deep rebellion and deep spiritual decline if he's not he needs to get sick,

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I can't really tell to be perfectly honest with you and Lo and behold, he's someone that I know

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He's someone I've met and what's what surprises me is it was just a few years ago that I did a debate in Southern, California with a

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Muslim imam and he took me to the airport afterwards and Could he not see in that debate the

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Attitude that I express toward that imam was was he not aware of the fact that Afterwards After that debate we went out and had dinner and continued the conversation then in hopes of Establishing a relationship was he not aware of that?

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Did he not notice I never referred to them as filthy Muslims because that's not how I think of them.

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I Mean sometimes I really have to wonder if I've just been so dull in Thinking that everybody else had the same motivations that I did that we were all on the same page when clearly we were not

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Clearly we were not So Here's um, let me go over to it here.

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Here's a little bit of a video and This is a video

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That it was provided by this by truth defenders, it's online And it's a obviously it picks up in the middle somewhere and Given that you can find other video that you know

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Basically, you stand out there and you he has a projection system It'll say Islam with the universal negation symbol over it.

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And this is not someone who is trying To open doors of communication, okay, it's pretty obvious that The intention here is to create animosity to create division to create anger and Look, we've seen this

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We've seen people that minister to Mormons this way and Jehovah's Witnesses this way and atheists this way

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And they all interpret the idea that hey if as long as people are getting angry then we must be doing something, right?

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and The Bible tells us that while the world may hate us it shouldn't hate us because we do stupid things

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It shouldn't hate us because we do sinful things okay, so watch this little bit of a clip and Then we'll comment on it.

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So there is that and there is that and here we go Lady Muhammad was a paedophile.

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He was a liar But it's not okay to insult that filthy paedophile

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Muhammad who molested a nine -year -old little girl by the name of Aisha He was in his 50s.

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She was nine years old Okay, let me bring back the screen here.

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I wish it was easier to do this, but there we go So what do you see there this is being presented on a program as a

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Demonstration of this man's bravery how brave he is to get a right cross from a

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Muslim lady you notice the other Muslim lady was trying to hold her back and was trying to drag her away and We don't know what happened before this don't know what kind of situation it was

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The fact of matter is it's exactly what this man wanted. It's exactly what he wanted and I'm not excusing her taking a swing at him

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But she was goaded into doing it and She's a

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Muslim I Have certain standards for how I expect a Muslim to behave.

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I have different standards For how a

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Christian should behave and So when you think about that Here's here's here's what

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I when I watch that video. Here's what I'm thinking How is anyone ever going to have an opportunity to?

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Reach out to that woman again From a believing Christian perspective if you're going to be out in this in the in the in the public places then

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You should be seeking to Put away all the barriers you possibly can between that person in the gospel not erect barriers

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But that's what this man was doing. And that's why I want to warn Against this kind of behavior and to say to the

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Muslims who watch this program from a biblical Christian perspective that is absolutely positively sinful

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It is wrong to approach The witnessing situation the testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ in such a way as to seek to inflame

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That kind of reaction and get that kind of reaction that's not bravery that's foolishness and I rebuke it and anyone should rebuke that kind of Behavior, there's other videos online.

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You can go watch them. It's the same kind of thing. It's in fact, we found someone in our chat channel pulled up an article going back to 2006 with this individual

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Again out in the same area this time with Robert Maury and The presentations all the same it's not a the thing is that's so sad to me is that These individuals think that getting people angry is the same thing as witnessing to the gospel and It takes a lot of hard work

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Actually to lay some meaningful foundation for helping Muslims to understand what the real issues are and That's been that's been my statement about the the use of the

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Aisha incident all along That's a dead end. If you if you have not established a relationship with the

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Muslim if you have not demonstrated your willingness to be able to respect that individual

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You're never gonna be able to get to talk about that. I think there's a place for talking about Aisha I think there's a place for talking about the elevation of Muhammad to being the best of all creatures and the the great example and and you can go so many different directions in there because if Jesus was a prophet and you can compare

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Jesus and Muhammad and you can demonstrate that That Muhammad knew very little about Jesus and you go in depth and go into surah 3 there's so many places you can go but you can only go there if you show respect and If you if you get the opportunity of doing so by being serious this this kind of thing is easy

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It's easy. It takes absolutely positively No Meaningful intellectual effort.

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It doesn't take any patience. It doesn't take anything. It's easy to get people angry with you It's a lot harder

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To raise serious issues in a thoughtful fashion and avoid the landmines of the

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Emotional problems that are going to get in the way So Is that different for us?

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Are we somehow doing something? We've never done before no we we definitely have been doing this all along and What we've seen over the past number of weeks has been a division

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Sorting out of the motivations that people have seen in the activities that taking place now, how did we get here?

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Well, it's interesting I Let's talk a little bit of history for a second

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Many many years ago. I remember doing a seminar probably about 1990 In the

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Bible study room at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church on the fundamentals fundamentalism and I Went through the history of Why the and I don't

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I'm not at home so if I was doing this at home, I'd pull out the the set of books and show the the fundamentals books and things like that and Would talk about a little about the history of the rise of of liberalism the seminaries that have been taken over you're familiar with the founding of Westminster and and you know

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Every Presbyterian denomination is the split off from every other Presbyterian denomination Every Baptist nomination is split off some other

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Baptist nomination and and the tendency historically has always been toward liberalism

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And so you end up having people that have to split away because you can't go with the leftward movement of these denominations and especially seminaries and things like that and the fundamentals themselves outside of sort of one

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You could interpret one as somewhat eschatological. I mean certainly the physical return of Jesus Christ is one thing

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That very quickly became associated with a particular means of interpreting that But basically the fundamentals was a defense of supernaturalism the idea of divine revelation the incarnation the virgin birth the deity of Christ the the cross the resurrection the coming of Christ and and basically it was saying hey, this is

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There is no such thing as Christianity without this and that was an absolutely necessary Thing to do and it's it remains necessary in every single generation because there is always going to be apostasy okay,

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I just showed myself. I'm not a post -millennialist there, but You know, I'm I'm a pessimistic.

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I'm a linealist. I guess you could call me but as I read second Timothy men are gonna continue getting worse and worse and deceiving and being deceived and and So every generation has to reaffirm the fundamental foundational elements of the faith

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All of that is true. And on that level I would be a fundamentalist but I'll be perfectly honest with you.

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There's a vast difference between the brilliant men that framed the fundamentals and a modern fundamentalist mindset and The problem here,

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I guess is we just haven't you know, maybe I just am not smart enough to come up with new

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Terminology to try to make the appropriate distinctions here, but when

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I speak of a fundamentalist mindset What happened fairly quickly?

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after the publishing of the fundamentals is There was a drawing back

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From interaction with The rest of the world on the part of many fundamentalists and What eventually developed was a mindset?

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That saw it as weakness For you to even read or expose yourself

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To the thoughts of people that look differently than you or thought differently than you a narrowness

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Developed there was not a part of the original fundamentalist

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Movement in the sense of what what prompted it what caused it and That narrowness

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Over time can become Incredibly toxic incredibly toxic

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I was actually criticized for posting a quotation from Aristotle Who is simply saying what

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I had said in other words in the past couple of weeks? And that is the quotation

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Aristotle was the educated an educated mind has nothing to fear from entertaining thoughts that does not embrace and That's just another way of stating that a person who has confidence in their worldview who has

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Stability who is well, just think of Colossians 1 and 2. What's the description? They're rooted grounded in him built up That's the the picture of the mind and the the mindset and the worldview of a mature

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Christian such a person who is grounded in Christ is not going to be

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Afraid of thinking through what someone else believes But a fundamentalist is afraid of those things is afraid of the fundamentalist mindset is afraid of exposure

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And when you think about it, there's a there's a fundamental lack of confidence in the power of the gospel and in that perspective

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There really is Well, you know we send our kids off to university and they all become they all become atheists

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So we need to make sure that they will ever even hear any of that stuff and what's because they weren't grounded when they went

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That's because what they're getting in their church is so narrow and so shallow That they go off and all of a sudden they're exposed to things

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They've never even thought of before and now they're being exposed to these things in a context of unbelief and voila

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They're they're totally unprepared voila, they're totally unprepared to do for dealing with it and So this

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Fundamentalist mindset, you know, we see it's in a lot of the King James only movement Sadly, there are reformed people who?

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Are still very fundamentalistic in their mindset very very fundamentalistic and What eventually developed within fundamentalism was this idea of separationism and So you separate yourself from anyone who doesn't look like you act like you talk like you or believe exactly

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Like you and I mean, you know many of these groups exactly like me

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Look like me sing the same songs have the same order of worship all the way down the line

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I've told the story about speaking at a church once it was sort of scary And pulled the thing out of the rack and When it went through the churches

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What the church's statement of faith was? It was very clear from their perspective all the way down to a particular form of Eschatology and I'm not just talking pre or post.

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I'm not Or The major schools I'm talking about a specific group within you know one particular perspective

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Very very very very very very narrow and so what becomes areas of disagreement you can't have disagreement about those in fact, you're not even allowed to read somebody who would disagree and That breeds a mindset that becomes extremely toxic and and very very likely

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To strike out in fear and anger and ignorance whenever anybody

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Tries to say well, you know, there's there's more than one way of looking at that, you know You know

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When you say well I have friends from all the major eschatological

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Orthodox eschatological perspectives How could you?

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Well Because Maybe that area is a little bit more complex than you think it is and have you ever read?

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No, I would never read that. Well, have you ever read? No, I've never read that Okay, and when you when you considered a badge of honor that no

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I am absolutely ignorant of every other perspective, but my own when when you consider that to be something to be proud of and that this this shows

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I'm godly that I Have no earthly idea what these other groups believe it's it becomes ugly and divisive and and As I said toxic and I'm afraid we've seen a lot of that Recently.

40:26

Well, we I guess you didn't see it for a long time. I've just seen a lot of it recent I've just seen a lot of people Who even though quote -unquote reformed in the sense of five points?

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That's never been enough to be actually reformed by the way, but as it may Are still very very fundamentalistic in their mindset.

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And so if you if you Well, yeah, I've said

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I've said more than once when I went to fuller and did my first master's degree

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I Didn't have Let me think I may have had one professor for one class that was as conservative as I was just one

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Everybody else was either a little bit to my left or way to a whole spectrum off to my left

41:12

Man that's been good for me I mean, you know I think about taking on the Jesus seminar and people man

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I've been prepared to do that because it's like if been there done that got the t -shirt I've had to read all these commentaries.

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I mean so many apologists. No No idea at all how to deal with liberalism because they've never really been exposed to it.

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Well Been there done that got the t -shirt so but I also Thankfully learned that people who don't agree with me might still have some very valid insights.

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I Have to I have to examine what's said by anybody by anybody

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No matter how conservative I be But You can have people where you go

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I fundamentally disagree with this person's view of scripture, for example but while they had an incredible insight the

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Lord's Prayer there and so I can take the gems and I can leave aside the dross and I'm just so glad that I got to do that But evidently that made me a freak that is only now becoming known to be a freak or something.

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I guess I don't know But maybe that's where the process started

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I don't know, but it just seems to me rather Biblically obvious that there are commandments given to us in Scripture as to how we are to engage with other people and Let me just make one statement on this subject and I want to look at some text

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When it comes to this idea of separationism That I I cannot have anything to do with someone who is not absolutely in lockstep with me

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Let's let's put let's put this way If I believe that I'm if I if I accept someone's profession of faith

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If I say I believe this person this person has confessed faith in Jesus Christ I believe

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Jesus Christ was God in human flesh that they died rose again. He's coming again

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If that person claims to be a Christian then What is my responsibility?

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Toward that individual and if I say oh, yes, it's just I'm not saying those people aren't necessarily

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Christians Well, okay. So if you're accepting their profession of faith Then you need to treat them like Christians I Know way too many people even people who call themselves reformed who have a deep separationist fundamentalist mindset at this point and The idea is somehow they live in two different worlds on the one hand.

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They'll say oh, I'm not saying this person isn't a Christian but then on the other hand they will treat them as if they are not a

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Christian and They will say no, I cannot accept that this that this teaching could

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I will not associate with this person I believe I will be with them forever in heaven, but I'm not here on earth

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Now I'm not saying don't get me wrong. There are appropriate Fellowship and ecclesiastical distinctions in other words it's an appropriate thing for a church to say this is where we stand and so I don't

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I don't think it would be right for me to be an elder in a Presbyterian Church and I don't think it would be proper to have a

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Presbyterian as an elder in my church, but man, let me tell you something I'm far closer to the vast majority of my president conservative

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Presbyterian brothers that I am to any liberal in any denomination at all The They're Christians.

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We have fellowship in the gospel We can have a distinction when it comes to the the fellowship in the local church so we can have specific beliefs

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Them the concept of the covenant and baptism and and so on and so forth but this idea of That many people have they don't seem to realize what they're doing is for example, some people will add their view of The spiritual gifts to the gospel

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There are people who do that It's unquestionable. Just listen to them Someone who disagrees them and that's something the person needs to get saved if that person needs to repent get saved

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And it's like do you really want to add your understanding of that issue to the gospel itself?

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Do you really want to go there? That's scary, but there's a lot of people that will do it

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What that's that's the fundamentalist mindset because instead of recognizing that there are core beliefs that cannot be

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It cannot be violated cannot be compromised. And then you have Concurrent rings around that of things that are very important and things are lessons

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So the Adi Afra the things that do not define the faith Basically the fundamentalist mindset doesn't make that distinction.

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Everything defines the faith. So if you're different for me at all, you're lost You decide you're Christian and the resultant way of treating people is

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Is that it really really is? Well, I keep saying we're gonna go to a

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Text of Scripture here, and I would like to remind us of Right here.

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Let's start with one. We know and I've already mentioned to you before but let's let's

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Mention it again because it is so important. Yes. It is the the classicus locus of the

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Whole concept of apologetics, but first Peter chapter 3 sanctify verse 15 sanctify

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Christ as It's literally Yahweh. I'm not gonna go back through my whole sermon on this I've done it on the program many many times before but Take a time to look at it the fundamental emphasis here is the commandment is to set apart set apart the

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Messiah as Yahweh in your hearts quotation from the book of Isaiah and it's specifically about Yahweh.

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It's about Yahweh God and so it is a demonstration of recognition of the incarnation who the

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Christ actually is And so you're treating him as holy you are Recognizing who it was that came in flesh in your hearts.

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And so it's a daily thing Recognizing whose servants you are who he was his authority.

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He's the creator He's the one who's made you and so if you treat him as holy This is gonna change all of the priorities of your heart

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It's gonna change everything about who you are and how you respond to things and only when you do that Then are you in a position to being always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you

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To give an account for the hope that is in you and what what people have missed for many many many many many years

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I think in the apologetics community is We've sort of skipped over the who asks you to give an account

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We're out We're not we're not asking. We're not getting people to ask us We're out beating people over the head and What this text is really about is if you're obeying the commandment that is found there

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Then the result is that's going to change your life and your attitudes and your response to tragedy and difficulty and things like that and As a result people are going to come to you and ask you for a reason for the hope that's within you and as a result

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You need to always be ready to give to prosopology on to give that defense for that Hope that's within you

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But if you are not sanctifying Christ Lord in your hearts if you're not obeying that first command

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You've got no reason to be doing any the rest of it, but then notice the rest of it yet with gentleness and Reverence Peter knows that he has to provide this information

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He uses a lot but but with Prout a toss kai fabu with gentleness

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With meekness, he knows the human heart. He knows how easy it is

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For us to utilize these situations as an opportunity for Self promotion or for the expression of Inappropriate attitudes and so on and so forth, so When you give that defense if you are not giving it with gentleness and reverence, does that mean that every single time?

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You're gonna be milquetoast that every single in situation. No, of course. No, I Remember, let me give you an illustration.

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I was Unlike the vast majority of my critics who seem to know so much about this

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I was in a mosque in South Africa doing the audience questions after a debate and In this particular instance, there was a microphone setup, which is always a little bit dangerous and this gentleman comes forward and what

50:58

I found very strange and somewhat unusual was he was wearing an FBI hat and In South Africa, it's like, um, okay and So Go back here.

51:13

And so he he comes up and he Sort of asks a rather cheeky question and it was asked in a cheeky fashion and I chose to respond in a equally cheeky way basically

51:34

He wanted to sort of throw a jab my direction and I threw one right back at him and He smiled he was obviously

51:46

That was the appropriate response to him was to Punch back not in a mean -spirited fashion there was no hatred, but I sort of bopped him on the nose for having tried to bop me on the nose and If I recall correctly

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I may have even pulled the Greek card on him, which you Need to be careful how often you do that but I think

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I did in that situation and so There there it went.

52:20

Well the next night Was another debate. This was at the University of Johannesburg and I've told the story and Especially in light of the video

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I played earlier There was a young lady dressed very similarly to those young Muslim women in That video, but she was much younger 13 14 years old maybe something like that And I've told the story about how she wanted to ask a question and we weren't taking questions

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We just didn't have enough time to do it in that particular debate. So she came up to me afterwards and Just how my heart broke

53:00

She was such a beautiful young lady and she had tears in her eyes and she was saying do not say three

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And even though I had addressed all of that in in the debate, you know It was just it just broke my heart to see this young lady who believes so strongly in what she believes and yet has been led astray because The author of the

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Quran didn't understand what we were saying either and so you see this promulgation of error and So She was trying to talk to me while some other

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Muslims Sort of figured she was done or just think they were really showing her a lot of respect and so they started jumping in over her and While I'm trying to stop them all of a sudden this strong voice behind me tells them all

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To shut up and let the girl talk and I turn around guess who it was yeah, it was the

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Muslim guy in the FBI had and he had my back and He is behind me and he is holding the other people in check

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And keeping the situation calm So does it mean gentleness and reverence means that there can never be a strong exchange?

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No, but it certainly means that the attitude that I go into that situation with is

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One of meekness. I'm a redeemed sinner Reverence for God reverence for his truth and reverence for the people that I'm seeking to reach and I simply do not believe for a second

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That if you can with regularity and I I took the time I Not gonna do it now because we're running out of time but I took the time to grab a bunch of other screen captures from truth defenders and just from the past few days and dogs

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Garbage filth. It's just it's just it's just the regular way that this person speaks and I don't see that as being a possibility

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For a follower of Jesus Christ in light of what is said and then it continues on and keep a good

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Conscience. So in the thing in which you are slandered Those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.

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I'm sorry But when you call people all those types of names, that's not good behavior in Christ, you know, what fills your heart

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You may want it. Oh, no, I'm just doing it for love of God, but you know, it fills your heart you know, what's filling your heart at that point and It is it is tragedy, there's another

55:49

There's another reference I want to get to real quick here There are many of them we could look at but let me just mention.

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I'm not gonna bring it up. I'll just read to you Just just the wisdom of the book of James But the wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle reasonable full of mercy and good fruits unwavering without hypocrisy

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Just ask yourself when you engage in almost any argumentation on Online does that does that describe your attitude?

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You can only control yourself you can't control others and You know what?

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You might just have to walk away from things and yes, you might get mocked What's more important what's more important Titus Was told to remind them to malign no one to be peaceable gentle showing every consideration for all men

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Those are pretty strong words that I think we need to we need to consider There's so many passages of Scripture we could look at but one one other quick thing before we wrap up only have

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An hour tonight, but in the what happens? that illustrates that lies have a never -ending life no matter how

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Badly, they are lies and how badly they've been Demonstrated to be lies Yeah, it's it's sad that so many

57:26

Christians are willing to believe whatever they read online as long as it's negative even if it's being written by a secular person about Christians and So earlier today

57:40

We were sent a little clip from someone I Don't have the

57:46

I don't have the details as to who this is. Maybe someone could pop that up in the channel

57:52

Because I I don't have that in front of me right now but this is a minute and two seconds, but remember the

58:03

American thinker hit piece Where you know, I contacted the author and said do you normally not contact the people that you're talking about?

58:12

Well, maybe I should have did you did you do any research debates books? They have that don't need to your own that guy, you know that deep level of journalistic excellence

58:23

That was provided by American thinker that that then would not publish Michael Brown's article even even when he cut it down to half the length of what the original thing was

58:36

Yeah, those folks You know, I used to read stuff on American thinker, well,

58:42

I obviously don't anymore Reverend John a Decker Dekker An outreach of the

58:51

Cub Hill Bible Presbyterian Church now, we'll have to ask our resident expert in channel the the soon -to -be

59:00

Presbyterian seminary student book Bible Presbyterian Church that sounds them they're independent

59:12

How do you have an independent Presbyterian Church, I've never quite figured that part out that there seems to be a definitional issue there with the independent

59:21

Presbyterian Church, but anyway so we've got Reverend John a

59:26

Decker of the Cub Hill Bible Presbyterian Church and so Here's here's what he what he had to say.

59:36

It's only an only a minute long This is Pastor David Willis of the

59:41

Cub Hill Bible Presbyterian Church for the moment truth in order to be as fair and balanced as I can

59:46

I must report the facts on all sides even when it's inconvenient and embarrassing to do so The quote from a recent article by James Simpson from American thinker many evangelical

59:55

Christians are becoming useful idiots for Islamism He lists James White a well -known conservative

01:00:01

Christian evangelist as partnering with Muslim Imam Dr Nasir cotton to educate

01:00:06

Americans on why Islam as well in the religion This does nothing but dilute and weaken the

01:00:11

Christian message many Muslim apologists like the political left in our man Aggressively try to inflame and provoke division here and always divided conquer

01:00:20

Sharia law threatens to undermine our Constitution and terrorism is an existential threat to all of us

01:00:26

Christians and Muslims alike Simpson says we're facing a multi -front aggressive effort to disarm emasculate and delegitimize our nation

01:00:34

Don't get no argument from me I'm just saying some ill -informed Christians are willing to help bring that about this pastor

01:00:40

Dave will show the truth now ill -informed What was described in the article that this gentleman accepts as gospel truth never happened

01:00:53

Anyone who's watched it knows it never happened anyone who listened to it knows that we refuted exactly that misrepresentation

01:01:02

Isn't it sad that ministers will just simply accept these

01:01:10

Falsehoods and repeat them over and over and over again without checking for themselves

01:01:17

It's it's a sad thing to observe, but it does It does it does happen.

01:01:24

So there you go. It's it Continues on and and we'll we'll continue on so not sure when we'll get together again

01:01:34

Hopefully early next week. This seemed to have worked out fairly. Well, I've got some interesting articles that I want to to get to Oh Don't start the music.

01:01:45

Just just one other thing really quickly. Someone sent me the thing about Vatican note on reformed churches signing of the justification on Declaration on justification.

01:01:59

Let me just make sure everybody understands. We'll maybe spend a little more time on this just because it says reform

01:02:05

Don't mean it's reformed. Okay, let's remember there are some extremely liberal denominations

01:02:11

That have abandoned anything that could even come close to being descriptive of reformed theology

01:02:19

Robert Schuller was quote -unquote reformed and so that Statement on justification has only been signed by the most liberal of Lutherans the most liberal of quote -unquote reformed churches

01:02:37

And so a lot of people are like well reform means they're a real Calvinist and that no There are some very very very very liberal

01:02:46

Reformed denominations, they're all in decline. All we've all liberal denominations are there's a reason for that But some people were really freaked out about that, but we've got some other interesting

01:03:00

Articles to get to and some textual critical stuff to do I'm just I'm a little leery of trying to do too much with the screen sharing thing

01:03:09

But if it worked out it was fairly clear then may we'll take a shot at it and see what we can work out

01:03:14

Next year from up here in gorgeous and much cooler than Phoenix, even though everybody up here is going

01:03:24

Like that's our low I'm sitting going. Yeah, this is cool. And but up here in beautiful,

01:03:30

Colorado and We'll treat see if we can't work something out next week unless I fall off a mountain and then that probably isn't gonna happen

01:03:38

But Lord willing that that won't happen. So thanks for watching We'll catch you next week Lord willing here on the dividing line.