A Slightly Abbreviated DL Today: So How DO You Define the Reformation?

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Well greetings and welcome to the dividing line we're gonna be a little short today. I don't mean like that Probably about eight minutes short something like that Might as well go ahead and share the story here

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There's a bunch of you in the audience. You're not necessarily the biggest social media folks, but Your regular listeners and supporters and things like that Aging comes at you slowly, you know and well, and then and then things can happen fast, but certain things happen slowly and I Came to realization recently that the main word that I was saying to my dear wife of more than 42 years

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Was what? what and And so we started having a debate as to whether she's become a mumbler

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Or I Need hearing aids And you know,

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I never went the first Musical concert

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I ever went to Was after Kelly and I were married And it was

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Barry Manilow. Okay, so we're not It's so You know,

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I mean I had been to a couple skillet concerts now, but I always had your hearing protection

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So I just wasn't one of those people, you know, I expect my son, you know to be deaf by like next year

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Well, he's gonna be 40 in two years So I expect by then I'm gonna have to show him how to use hearing aids and everything else

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But no I So I I made an appointment and My GP my regular doctor guy who

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I haven't seen for years and years. But anyway They have an audiologist that comes in on Tuesdays every other week and You know as I look back like when

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I had the debate with Alex Dorado, which I really enjoyed Alex a great guy I was struggling and I just chalked it up to Normally the all the speakers are aimed that direction they don't remember to have a fold back heading toward us and So when the other guy's talking he's projecting that direction and you know

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There have been lots of times even when I was in my 30s that it was hard to hear what the other guy was saying

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So I just didn't really Think about too much. So I had my hearing test this morning and I have moderate hearing loss

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And it's right in the range where The human voice where the distinctive sounds the human voice are to be found and so we

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I Contacted Health insurance which who don't like me for some reason this year since I've had four

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Surgeries this year four times out like a light for surgeries and My deductible has been completely paid off, but they don't it's

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I guess the way we'd put it given How I'm treated now on social media is I don't have boomer insurance

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And they don't cover hearing aids. So it's all out of pocket. It's it's not cheap and but I'm like,

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I'm I've got a debate coming up and in fact,

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I just Because I've always been doing this off top my head But and I said

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I forwarded this to you, right? Okay, you got it. All right Oh drat, oh

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Okay, I'm sorry. I want to read this to you. I want to read you the specific thesis statement

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And this is I'm looking forward to this But to connect about was just saying

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I need to be able to hear what Because I mean that is something that And you know what,

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I'm just I'm just sitting here thinking one of one of the first The only time I ever spoke to John Gerstner Because of Jerry matics his conversion as if this was 90

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Wow Probably 91 Yeah, so it's probably about 33 years ago one of the reasons he really wanted to Respond to Jerry and stuff and then and I was having a really hard time talking to him on the phone his hearing was really bad and He eventually said, you know what he said as much as I would love to Debate him.

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I just can't hear I Can't I just I don't I can't do it anymore

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And so I'm just thinking about that going that was a third of a century ago

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That was the third of a century So anyway all of that to say that The kind audiologist lady that I met with this morning

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She normally leaves from the office in 54 minutes But she's gonna stay around And it's not that far of a drive from here over there and so we're gonna wrap up a little early just so I can shoot over there and She's gonna get me fitted and we'll get these things ordered

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I don't know how long it's gonna take but hopefully have them in time for the trip to mobile and a new part of life, so I'm just gonna be getting up in the morning and putting my my my click reading

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Glasses around my neck putting my hair My my favorite movies gonna be up You know and because that that guy he was still he was ready to go even much older than me but Anyways, so yeah there we

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There we are So, yeah Wow so much.

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Oh, so here's the thesis. Here is the thesis statement I'm really looking forward to this and I want to Thank Tom Riello Who is the former ordained

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PCA minister Now a Roman Catholic Who were

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I'm gonna be debating and This is the reason this is the resolution he provided I Never would have even suggested this

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But this is the resolution he provided be it resolved the true worship of God is

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Nothing less than the self -offering of Christ Which is only offered in the

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Catholic liturgy I I Appreciate a

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Roman Catholic that actually Believes what Roman Catholicism teaches it's much easier

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To that the issues are much more clearly delineated in that context then

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Dealing with Pope Francis and Dealing with the vast majority of people that Boston College or something like that that are just Out there in in left -field someplace even though Rome never gets rid of those people

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Almost never gets rid of those people Well, let's put this way Francis is much faster to get rid of conservatives than he is those people

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But yeah, there's the true worship of God is nothing less than the self -offering of Christ, which is only offered in the

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Catholic liturgy So I'm looking forward to that and I just sent the graphics for the debate to Rich So we'll be putting those up on the website up on the app.

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I'll hopefully this evening Get them up on the social media and stuff like that.

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So those of you in the mobile area, this will be the weekend The last weekend in October So I'll be leaving like the 15th 16th something like that of October we'll pick up the

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RV and Start heading across lots of interesting roads including

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Louisiana If you've ever driven the roads in Louisiana, you know, everybody in Louisiana sitting there going.

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Yep. Yep. Yep, we know We know we know what's exactly talking about Yeah, it's uh

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There's a reason why we just spent I'm not sure how many hundreds of dollars Having the bearings repacked on the

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RV because I have to drive through places like, New Mexico and Louisiana and the

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Southern Missouri and There are some some great places that you have to drive, but you know, it's interesting.

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I think It was at Alabama There's a north -south route that I've taken when I come back from Atlanta It takes me down toward Louisiana and as one of the smoothest highways

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It's like no. Okay. I'll take I'll take what I can take when I can take it All right, so that's what so we're gonna get done a little bit earlier.

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Maybe we'll see Prayers for that trip and And That's where that's where we are there so I'm just moving stuff around here

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And Wow, what where do I even start? Let me start here because the main thing on my mind there is a

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Debate challenge out there. I I don't know where all this is coming from but over the past few days

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You all know from last week That The issue of Crusader ism came up and it's not that this is brand new

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It's been what six seven eight months Since you started seeing all this

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I started seeing all these Crusader images and You know,

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I I knew of a couple of the books that had come out over the past six seven years mainly because ideal dealt more when

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I was traveling overseas than I have recently with Islam and so I'm interacting with a lot of the material in that area and So I was aware of that stuff, but that was before all the

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Christian nationalism stuff This is a form of Crusader ism connected to Christian nationalism and so talked about it in the last program and You know,

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I've made some comments since then and So all of a sudden

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The guys up at Canon Want me to have a dialogue with Raymond Ibrahim on The Crusades and I'm like about what?

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But what I mean, I don't know his theology at all. I can't really tell what it is

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I don't know the man never met him. I don't know what his theology is and My theology is well known and In fact, one of the things

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I'm getting a lot of criticism for Is That I'm Right where I was 30 years ago with you know, there was some exceptions

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I mean actually have an eschatology now, and I'm not a I'm not a pan millennialist

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It'll all pan out in the end Like some people within 30 feet of me

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But But as far as sovereignty of God Trinity scriptural sufficiency inerrancy all that stuff

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I'm I'm a stick in the mud because I've never been given a reason not to be basically and I've whenever I've used the term reformed.

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I've always done it because I was convinced that That That is the teaching of Scripture not not because This council said or that council said or this that or the other thing my favorite theologian over here my favorite deal

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You know every favorite theologian I've ever had I've had disagreements with at one point or another

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No problem, no worries, but anyway So I'm like, what are we supposed to be talking about?

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And I've also asked and that's sort of where things sit right now What's the time frame? because Man, the feeling

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I got was they're actually gonna have him up in Moscow and And I couldn't be there

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I don't I can't sneak a Entire trip up to Idaho and back into this fall because once I head for Mobile I've only got like two and a half weeks between that trip and The trip to St.

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Charles in early December and prior so What's the time frame?

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What are we talking about? The main thing is What would be the what would the discussion be about? Because everything that I've said not sure

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I've said lots of feel I've said lots of historical things About the

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Crusades there is a context in which they took place and There is a context amongst

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You know the Pope was Up against the wall shall we say there was division the calling of the first crusade helped to unite

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Europe and to solidify his position and The papacy had just come out of the pornocracy in the preceding centuries and there's all sorts of stuff going on in in medieval

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Europe at that particular point in time and The same thing was going on amongst the

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Muslims. There was the the Muslim Caliphate was splintered and fractured and Sunnis and Shias and In fact, the only reason the first crusade was able to take

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Jerusalem was because of the division of The Muslim forces they were not united if they had been united we saw what happened the third crusade because of that so There's a lot so yeah, you know the fact that and this is by the way something that comes up in the a lot of the conversations

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The fact that the Pope Had to demonize

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Muslims The reason I had to do that is because the Muslims were not at that point in time a threat to Europe they weren't

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They weren't invading they weren't trying to they weren't they were divided they were fighting each other that is a regular aspect of Islamic experience

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I've said that for a long time that One of the reasons I'm not one of the people running around going there The Muslims are gonna take over as soon as the

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Muslims get a certain level of power. You know what they do They turn on each other They turn each other that history is filled with it

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And so anyway So I do talk about historical things

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That are that are relevant, but my entire concern has been theological It's been based upon the

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Falsehood of the claims of the Bishop of Rome It's been faced it's been based upon the falsehood that the

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Bishop of Rome can offer salvation to anyone He's not in control of that.

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There are no keys to control God's grace There's no such thing as an indulgence

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None of this stuff is Biblical and then of course the heartbreaking thing for me and man has this been

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Confirmation of my worst nightmares The attitude that I have seen amongst young Christian men

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Toward Muslims as a whole has just been

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Heartbreaking it's no wonder we're making no impact Amongst Muslims as far as Seriously evangelizing them.

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Oh Sure, I believe me. I know I know a lot of the people that are but they're not a part of this stuff

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They're not they're not They're not Lionizing the Crusades they they're not

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So so my question to the guys care. What's What will you discussing so in the midst of all of that?

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Comes to Stephen Wolfe stuff now Stephen Wolfe wrote the book published by Canon Press and I am thankful that at least up to this point in time

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All this stuff is still available for people to check out on their own I Have objected to Stephen Wolfe's position from the time the book came out

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And my objections have become more pointed but from the beginning from the first Conversation that Doug Wilson and I had on the first sweater -vest dialogue.

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What has been my concern? What have I what have I consistently said from the start? sacralism the violation of the sphere sovereignty family church state

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That's what that was the quote -unquote problem with Christendom 1 .0. It created nominalism

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It created people who were hardened to the gospel because they had been offered salvation in other ways and It created

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The burning of Miguel Cervantes in Geneva and I've defended

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I've defended Calvin against the egregiously stupid versions of that but I've never said that it was right that that would happen and so the

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I've said and I have to is ask the folks who? Went to Germany with me in 2017

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And I shocked them and our tour guides the first night in Berlin I Said look,

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I know That a lot of people are gonna be studying would would never have extended the right hand of fellowship to us they would have they would have minimally exiled us from their cities and maximally would have burned us or drowned us and everybody was like Huh, what and then their what was not because of hearing loss

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It was shock really and So that the whole trip

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I had to undo a lot of bad

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Christian history That created a cartoon version of the Reformers the

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Reformers were coming out of a sacral system it took generations Until that sacral ism was broken down but that's a good thing that it was and So, you know

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Doug and I had conversation Doug has Doug has even said a blog of a blog in In Christendom as I understand it

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James White would not have to worry about being drowned Okay Why on what on what foundation let me just give you a couple of tweets from the past couple of days

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James White and Douglas Wilson are apostate liars Who deny the murder of Christ by the

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Jews and backstab our forefathers? Under Christian nationalism

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They will be silenced for their false witness and blasphemy Do you think what he means by that is that we'll have our

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Twitter privileges suspended? maybe Yeah, you know under Christian nationalism

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They will be silenced for their false witness and blasphemy hmm

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Another guy today Said to me productive comment everything you disagree with is lunacy your generation caused the mess the world is in today, there is this whole and and there are people we know that one of the strategies of the left is to divide a people a divided people are easily conquered and This nation is completely divided

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Gia said a house device has against itself cannot stand. It's not going to we are falling.

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There's no question about it What's happening in Aurora, Chicago? Mexico is now going to give free bus rides to anybody who wants to invade our country

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And our current leaders will invite them in and give them your tax dollars and give them more money than you have that's that's

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We are in we are watching the self suicide of the United States It's all there is to it and so We have all this stuff we and and another guy again red avatar blue eyes

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Based is actually short for based on the Holy Scriptures. I'm not sure if that is but okay a

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Guy asked so killing Jews is based you have to have meant that in response from the context of White's post

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Because I was talking about how Peter the Hermit 20 ,000 people before the first crusade start marching toward Jerusalem They get wiped out by the

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Turks because they're idiots, but along the way what are they doing? They're massacring Jews they're massacring

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Jews and When I posted that I did not see a single person

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Who said? What a tragedy What a horrible Blight upon the gospel, but I saw plenty of these young Christian nationalist guys with red avatars and blue eyes saying quote

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Executing wicked pagans is well within the bounds of a Christian Prince's jurisdiction

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Executing wicked pagans is well within the bounds of a Christian Prince's just jurisdiction.

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I don't know about the rest of you I I wasn't I Wasn't hearing people Uh talking about Christian princes and things like that, but I know that Stephen Wolfe's book does so Stephen Wolfe pops onto Twitter.

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Uh, I don't think I've had a single positive uplifting exchange with Stephen Wolfe not once and So we are not exactly best buds by any stretch of the imagination.

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And so He Says on Twitter that he would

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Gladly in a public debate now, what was funny was Here's what he said

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James I'd love to have a discussion with you on whether oh, no, that's that's different one. Did he did he did he because these couple things

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Where to go there James I would love to I would love to defend

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The Reformation before a live audience informal debate against you James I would love to defend the

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Reformation before a live audience informal debate against you So here is my response

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And by the way, so so he's the one Who is placing this in the idea that I'm attacking

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Reformation. He's the defender of the Reformation so he is presenting himself as the defender of the

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Reformation Okay, keep that in mind with my response because all sorts of ears show arrogant

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He's the one Presenting himself as the defender of Reformation now someone's gonna come up and say

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I'm gonna defend the Reformation I think I have the right to say Show us your receipts.

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How long have you been doing this? How long have you been doing this because I've been doing it for a long time it doesn't make me right but I Think I have the ground to say

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I've been defending reformed theology From the time that he was probably about eight years old

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Right doesn't make me right But that's the truth. Here's what I said. What exactly are you intent upon defending sir?

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To mystic categories of theology. He's a Thomas the confusion of state and church.

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He's a sacralist Execution of heretics What exactly do you think you would be defending when you defend the

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Reformation because this is the issue You see all the people who popped off with all the arrogant comments.

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Just even hear what I was talking about. That's What happens on social media these days?

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I Said what exactly do you think you would be defending when you defend the Reformation? And could you send me links to your debates with Roman Catholics where you defended the

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Reformation? Or is the first defense of the Reformation you can make against me?

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What debates have you done? I Said I have missed those Please send me your debates defending the kingly freedom of God in salvation election and predestination

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Also, I'm sure you have many defending solo scriptura solo fide solo gratia. Yes, I would like to see them and Surely you have defended the once -for -allness of the

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Atonement against Rome's apologists for the mass In fact, I'll be debating a former Presbyterian minister on that very top in just a matter of weeks

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I look forward to seeing your work on that topic as well. Now, why would I do that? Oh because you're arrogant and because you're old and you're making people feel bad.

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No That's not why and if that's what you thought you're not a deep thinker

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You're just you're just you're not even listening. You're not thinking about what's going on And that probably means you're very easily swayed by emotional stuff rather than Serious stuff serious thought and that means probably five years from now.

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You're gonna have a completely different set of beliefs than you have today Because you're not grounded not based

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Whatever term that actually is supposed to be referring to Why to ask those questions real simple what defines the

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Reformation? What defines the Reformation again? Ain't the first time

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I've had this debate either Not the first time we've talked about these things it's the first time in a context like this with someone pushing something called

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Christian nationalism and Christian princes and sacralism and natural law and who opposes post -millennial ism theonomy presuppositional ism and Says all of them are inconsistent with the

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Reformation. Why? How are you defying the Reformation what defines?

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the Reformation And I would say to you The Reformation should be defined as it if it's to have relevance today

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It should be defined. It's doctrine of God. It's doctrine of God's sovereign kingly decree divine election and predestination everything that the solos mean so Justification the imputed righteousness of Christ faith alone grace alone

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Christ alone if you want to throw in all of the debates on Mary and the

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Saints and intercession and all the things that go along with that Especially sola scriptura

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Done that one a few time the sufficiency of Scripture directly related

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But that's directly related to Thomistic stuff natural theology

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A rejection of presuppositional ism all those go hand in hand So the point is

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That and I haven't gotten any responses to this yet. The point is how do you define the

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Reformation? What are you gonna be defending? Are you going to be defending? The sacral list

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Orientation of the Reformers I Admit that and admit that it was an error. Oh See, I win.

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Okay good. Are you gonna drown me now? You know gonna gonna do gonna take me to Zurich and give me my third baptism

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How about throwing me in the in the in the prison at the castle? You know, these are all things we've talked about many many many times before and they're all based on sickle ism

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They're all based in sickle. Are you gonna do what Luther did? Are you gonna do as wingly did?

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Are you can actually defend those things as good and proper things? So so I guess the idea would then be yes, and the fact that they're their

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Followers moved away from that is why we have where we are today. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts

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That's the idea see that made room for secularism no, I didn't if Obeying Christ commands in Scripture and abandoning

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Centuries and centuries a millennia of man -made human tradition Means you're actually abandoning the

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Reformation then it's time to abandon the Reformation That's not what it means, of course, but if that's where you're standing and that's what you need to do

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What this is illustrate yet again and may I'll tell you the past four years What have we come to understand?

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That there is a vast chasm between Being reformed because you're a biblicist and being reformed because you're a traditional vast difference.

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I Have defended Reformed theology on what defines the

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Reformation Biblically because I can't defend Sacralism to mystic categories natural law categories

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All that kind of stuff biblically Because it it's opposed to the

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Bible's teaching about man's fallen state and you know All the errors that Thomas made along those lines, which you know, he was the inheritor of all these traditions

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And so he was stuck with him. So there you go But I'm a biblicist And you know what

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When it all comes flying apart in Western culture, which it's going to It's happening fast

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It's happening real fast when all comes flying apart and We can't have these debates and conversations anymore because we're no longer allowed to communicate with one another

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Or the grid just won't you know, we don't have enough electricity When that all happens

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The people who are convinced that what we believe has been revealed by God in his unchanging word and I believe

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Christ's sheep hear his voice and They love his voice and they will die

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Rather than deny his voice the people whose foundation is grounded in the scriptures as The final source of authority

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Will be the ones who will Endure and Who will be there to start rebuilding and the ones whose theology and Foundation has been the traditions of men

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Won't won't So that's one of the glorious things when you teach people

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How to study the Word of God why to believe in the Word of God and what the Word of God teaches You've accomplished your task.

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You can die happy You can trust the Spirit of God to take that and to apply it.

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That's that's my joy. That's You know my body ain't doing what doing doing the same stuff it was doing ten years ago and so when it decides just up and quit on me of You know as you're laying there

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Those last breaths. What are you gonna be thinking? What have you done in your life?

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that will last and I say If you ground people in the scriptures the way that Jesus Believed the scriptures if you teach them and you give them the tools to defend

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Jesus his own view of the scriptures You've done more for people than you could Doing anything up That will have the longest lasting impact

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That's what we're trying to do So real quick, but I'm not even sure oh

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Hold on a second. Oh Richard Brassell us has decided to jump into it.

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I Didn't know about that Huh, okay bringing it up here real quick Troublemaker in North Phoenix, it doesn't want to pop up.

37:38

Okay, that's great He said the Reformation the debate hasn't even been agreed upon duh

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Why ask these questions here just explained it also whether he has done Public debates on this or other issues shouldn't be a game -stopper and the fact that you you have doesn't necessarily entail anything well

37:56

Richard Brother love you, I still know where you've gone over the past number of years

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And I just explained I mean everything you said in there. I just explained are we having net problems?

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Okay, that's what I thought we were We're recording. So we'll get it posted up there.

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Sorry about that folks So that's why

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I wouldn't pull up is we've just lost that's happening a lot down here That concerns me in doing any type of debates or things like that because we're just Yeah, we need to we need to get that fixed but Richard I've answered everything you said there

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How do you define the Reformation what's it about? And I would have thought brother you would have seen that but You've changed you've changed a lot and that's saddening to me.

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Um, you know what? What I was gonna do is

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I was going to Play 80

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Robles he did for by the way, brother when you

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When you record videos like this If you if you hold the phone down like this

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It makes your nose look like you're Jimmy Durante Okay, I just just out of love

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You don't You don't want to put it Your angles all wrong, bro

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It's all wrong But he he recorded Four thoughts on the crusade stuff.

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And so I put them all into one file And what I was gonna do is

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I was going to Live play them and respond to them. We're back

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The problem is I've only got about 10 minutes So, um, sorry about the we're having net issues down here

40:06

We may we may have to Bring Starlink over and stick up the roof. It's just it works man.

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That's just it And we know exactly what size drill bit to use to put drill through the wall

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We just we just drilled a hole in our RV to use Starlink. But anyways, well, we didn't do it we had the we had the

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Professionals to do it. So we say so My concern is if I start

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I'm gonna have to continue it on and And I just don't know if that's the way to do it.

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So how about I I just keep it queued up here and We just plan on doing another program

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To catch all that stuff. I'm trying to remember my I've got some other things going on this week and try to remember

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What they are Yeah, I've got a Okay on Thursday.

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I'm doing David Wheaton show from 12 to 1 and so we'll do the program after that and I will

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Play I will live I will listen for the first time To what ad

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Robles says And will live respond to it And we'll do that on Thursday.

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I'm not going to try to Cram it in here part of me part of my thinking here is if this

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Audiologist that I met with this morning is kind enough to Stick around to wait for me and she had even said that her son has a

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Like a football game or a soccer game or something this afternoon and I'm like, okay make me feel even more guilty so I'm gonna

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I'm gonna wrap things up here and Head over there so she can get out on on time and and I just I don't know why

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I was raised that way I'm early for dental appointments Boomers yeah, it's boomers, but boomers were just a fact.

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I've been told that's white supremacy Yeah, being on time is white supremacy. Oh, I've not seen that.

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Oh Yes, that's what that was last two years ago. There was this big thing that listed signs of white supremacy and Insisting on being on time like to work and stuff like that.

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That's that's white supremacy. I just thought it was not getting fired I thought it was just not being mean and nasty other people that's why you hold doors and do things like that and say sir and ma 'am and Stuff that you don't do anymore

42:53

It was called common courtesy at one point. Yeah, so anyway, sorry about the glitch on the the thing there, but we will

43:03

Soldier on with that on Thursday and Pray for us pray for the upcoming debate and we'll see you next time on the dividing line.