The End of an Era - Open Phones

The Dividing Line, an answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line on a

Saturday afternoon, and I'm not sure how many years ago it was now that we began doing

The Dividing Line. Initially, well, of course, we did it back in the 80s on various radio stations here in the

Phoenix area. But then we started up again in the late 90s, somewhere along the lines. And initially,

I believe it was a half hour program. We would frequently record some of those. And then we went live with an hour -long program on Saturday afternoons.

And when we decided to go to the webcast, because 98 % of all of our phone calls were coming through the

Internet, and it was very, very, very, very, very expensive to be on a radio station, we kept doing it at 2 o 'clock on Saturday afternoons.

And to be honest with you, it is a pain. You can't do anything on the weekends with your families.

You can't go anywhere. You can't do anything. It's right in the middle of the day. So you got to rush, do things in the morning, and then rush, do things in the evening.

And the timing just isn't all that good. And to be honest with you, I'm not really sure why we did it the way that we've done it.

But anyways, we started thinking, given how often I'm gone on weekends, you know, we can do this whenever we jolly well want to, right?

And we can. And we have. We've done Thursday evenings. We've done it at the top of the hour at night, or sometimes we'll just start it whenever we want to start it.

And we normally have gone 90 minutes, because that's what you can fit on a cassette tape anyways, at least the cassette tapes that we buy.

And so anyways, we started thinking about, well, since I'm gone a lot on weekends, and when

I do leave, I normally leave like on a Thursday, Friday type situation, gone, Saturday, Sunday, come back.

I'm teaching Monday nights, and I mentioned last week some of the classes that I'll be teaching on Monday evenings for the foreseeable future for Golden Gate Seminary here in Phoenix.

Some really cool classes. If you haven't heard that program, you might want to listen to it. And so I try to get back as early as I can in the week, obviously.

And so what we're going to try to do is go to a new schedule beginning this week.

And ironically, I will be in San Antonio this Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning.

So it's a good time to do this, because I wouldn't be here to do a dividing line next week anyways.

So let's turn all the sounds off. Thank you very much, Balthazar. That's still playing.

Oh, here. STOP. Okay. Now it's safe. Anyways, some op needs to kick.

Whoever started the sound in the middle of my discussion and completely disrupted everything.

Needs to be kicked right out of the channel into another hemisphere, in fact. That's what needs to happen. Anyways, so what we're going to do is on this coming

Tuesday at 11 a .m., Mountain Standard time.

And I'm not going to translate that, because no matter what we do with our schedule, those of you on the

East Coast who think you rule and run things are going to be confused as to when it is.

April 6th, all that changes. And you all play with your clocks. We do not play with our clocks.

And so you just figure it out. And anyways, 11 o 'clock.

And here's what we've decided to do. When you do a 90 -minute program, you put half of your energy into the last 30 minutes.

Now I know that doesn't sound intuitive, but really it is.

You're going really strong for the first hour. That last 30 minutes can get tough, especially if you don't have phone callers.

And so we've decided to actually offer you more per week, when I'm here anyways.

And that is we're going to do two dividing lines per week.

One will be Tuesday mornings at 11 our time, which right now would be 1 p .m.

Eastern. That will become 2 p .m. after April 6th, for those of you who are confused. And then we will do a second when

I'm in town to do it on Thursday evenings at 5 p .m.

Mountain Standard Time. But they will each be one hour in length.

So there will be a total of two hours of the dividing line each week, but I get two days between them.

You can sort of recharge your batteries, new things happen, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So we're going to try this schedule for a while, see how it works. We've put them toward the middle of the week because generally, except for really major trips like I did when

I went to Long Island recently or when I'll be going to Sao Paulo, Brazil in October, then we won't be doing any dividing lines at all because it takes a lot of time.

But generally, I try to limit my trips to a weekend -type thing.

And so hopefully this will cut back on the number of times that I'll be missing.

Now some people are saying, well, the Sorobos have to work during the day. And that was a fairly close imitation of CDS actually.

But let me try it again. Well, some of us have to work during the day.

That's actually not what Australian did. Oh, anyways.

Well, what, what? Sad? Oh, thanks. Thanks, Warren. Oh, by the way,

Warren is going to sing Elvis today since this is the last Saturday dividing line. We have tortured you all with the threat of Warren singing

Elvis. And we're going to do it today just because we're celebrating this last thing.

So anyways, where was

I? I have no idea where I was. Oh, yes. Yes, I know it's during the day. There are regular folks in channel during the day too.

Some people work at night. That's why we have one at 11 o 'clock in the morning and then one at five o 'clock in the evening.

So we didn't put them at the exact same time. So we'll catch different people that way. And, you know, it's interesting, especially radio programs.

Most of the real big ones are on when. When's Rush Limbaugh on? Is he on at choice

A, night or choice B, day? Yes, choice

B, day. So anyways, so CDS now has another question.

Won't the number of calls be greatly diminished since people would be at work? Well, CDS, since you asked that question, how many calls do we get anyway?

I mean, come on, it's Saturday. There is no day during the week other than possibly

Sunday that we could do this when we would get fewer calls than on on Saturday afternoon, people are out there doing things.

That's, you know, our families would like us to be out doing things, too. So I don't know that we will or we won't.

But, you know, it hasn't seemed to influence Rush Limbaugh's callers.

He gets lots of them during the day, during the same time period. And 5 p .m., interestingly enough, on Thursday is right after, at least for our schedule here in Phoenix, right after the

Bible Answer Man broadcast. So I have a feeling that we will do just fine as far as getting phone callers and interaction.

And honestly, there's lots and lots and lots and lots of folks who listen by archive anyways.

And they're just going to be happy that there are going to be two dividing lines and they're going to be divided by two days. And hence, there's going to be a little wider variety of topics discussed and things like that.

And that's just just how it's going to work. So we're going to try it for now, see how it works, see how, see where it goes.

But Dr. Ehrlich, won't the number of people badgering other people to call in be greatly diminished?

Well, maybe they will. What can I say? Yes, well, you know, someone just made a good point.

Rush Limbaugh broadcasts on radio. Ever try using Merc while driving? That is a good point. That is a very, very, very good point.

No two ways about it. So someone kicked the man who asked the question.

Anyways, anyhow, that's what we're going to do. And you know what? There's not anything that all of you people in there stop kicking the poor

British fellow. There you go. Anyways, that's what we're going to do.

So I hope you'll be listening to to the program this Tuesday if you have the opportunity of doing so.

If you don't, it's going to be it's going to be archived anyway.

So, you know, it'll it'll work one way or the other. So don't don't worry yourself about it.

And if you can't catch on Tuesdays and catch on Thursdays and who knows, maybe people on Thursdays will ask about issues from Tuesday and maybe on Tuesday I'll ask about issues from last

Thursday. You know, I don't know. That's that's fine. It'll work one way or the other.

Anyhow, let's move on. And certainly if you would like to comment, in fact, the CBS would like to call in and and whine.

We will allow him to whine on the air. And that way it'll also help me to practice my British accent.

And, you know, that's cool. And if you want to hear what a Cajun sounds like, Amphibio can call in.

And, you know, if he's done with it with his cleaning duties for the for the day, he can he can call in. And and if someone would like to wire

Balthazar, you know, 100 bucks to call from Australia or something like that, that's that's that's fine, too.

Whatever whatever you want to do. That's that's how we'll work it out. And the number is 877 -753 -3341.

877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. I was informed and I should mention on.

Let me look at the little note that I left for myself here. March 13th is a

Tuesday. No, no, no, that's a Thursday. Let me close the program down here.

Yes, it is a Thursday evening, five o 'clock. We're going to have a debate on on the dividing line.

Even the folks in the control studio are not completely aware of this. I don't think a fellow in IRC who goes by the name of Aquinas, who's also gone by other names.

As well, gave me a name of Steven, but to be honest with you, no one that I know of is really certain what his name is.

But anyways, he has been well, he's been a part of apologetics discussions.

He's a Roman Catholic. And interestingly enough, unlike most Roman Catholics with whom we speak, he will make the claim to being a part of the magisterium, a spokesperson for the magisterium.

He says he is a teacher and that he is qualified and authorized by the

Roman Catholic Church to teach dogma and doctrine. And therefore, unlike most

Roman Catholic apologists who will duck and run when you really want to put something down and in writing, they will he will say, no, this is this is what the church teaches.

Now, of course, you can find all sorts of other folks, priests and others who would disagree. But, you know, that's that's the nature of the beast.

Anyways, a number of weeks or months ago now, a discussion took place in the apologetics channel on the subject of the

Apocrypha. And I have a number of pop -ups that I play in IRC that give information concerning, for example, the early church's view of the

Apocryphal books. The mixed bag of views that you have there. Gregory the

Great's statement concerning Maccabees and how it was not canonical and so on and so forth.

All the way up to the time of the Reformation, for that matter. You have a number of, in fact, it's fascinating for those of you who those of you who are into the issue of the textual history of the

New Testament, especially, you know that Erasmus, one of the reasons that he rushed so much.

Most of you know about the situation, the text revelation. Erasmus was under tremendous amount of pressure from John Froben, his printer, to get his work done so he could get it printed.

And they sort of rolled the dice, so to speak. They did not wait for papal approval of the publication of the book.

Instead, they basically tried to schmooze the Pope by dedicating the volume to him. And the reason that he was rushing so much was because Froben was aware that Cardinal Jimenez had already printed what's called the

Competentian Polyglot. But it hadn't been published yet because, let's face it, if Vatican protocol and bureaucracy is slow today, can you imagine what it was in 1515 and 1516?

I mean, at least you can make phone calls, use faxes, and so on and so forth, but you can't do that back in those days.

So it took a long period of time. So Jimenez's work had been printed, it just hadn't been published yet.

It was sitting basically in a storage room someplace. And so what's fascinating is that that particular volume,

Cardinal Jimenez's, which was the first printed, not published, the first printed

Greek New Testament, in its prologue held to Jerome's rejection of the apocryphal books, and the

Pope approved the publication of it. Now remember, this is, you know, it finally comes out, what was it, late 1516, late 1517?

I forget the exact date when Jimenez's was finally put into circulation. It was a superior work to Erasmus's in many senses.

But that particular volume, let's just go ahead with 1517. So you're talking approximately 29 years prior to the decree in 1546 from the

Council of Trent on the nature of the canon. And so it's obvious that scholars are correct, that there were numerous views on the subject of the canon of the

Old Testament, and that there were many, including those at the very highest levels of the

Roman Church, who did not hold to the canon as decreed by the

Council of Trent. Well, some of this discussion took place in Channel, not that last particular section, but just sections of it.

And Mr. Aquinas Steven Person, the own

Catholic apologist, you're just all wrong about that. In fact, I could open up the log from last night, and he was saying, well, so you're backing down,

I would love to have the opportunity of correcting you, correcting your misapprehensions on these things, but you're backing down, you won't debate this, yada yada yada.

Okay, so we're going to have Aquinas on the program. We may have to go long that night, because if we only do an hour, that's really not sufficient time to do a whole lot as far as making meaningful presentations on the subject of the canonicity of the

Apocrypha. But, polyglot, it is an interesting word to say with a

British accent. Anyways, but mark your calendars for the 13th, Lord willing, that's all going to work out for us, and you might be ready with your questions and comments on that particular subject as well.

So that'll be coming up in the not -too -distant future. I think

I mentioned next week I'll be in San Antonio. Those of you who are always looking to go to debates, the next two debates that we have scheduled are

April 4th and 5th, April 4th and 5th at the

University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the U of U.

That's where we had the debate just last October, I believe, on the subject of deification, theosis.

And on Friday night, April 4th, I will be debating R. Dennis Potter, a graduate of Notre Dame.

He is a Mormon who graduated from a

Roman Catholic institution, PhD in philosophy. We will be debating the issue of the role of the

Atonement and the nature of the Atonement as he understands it. And then the next evening, it is a doubleheader, and that's why some of you might think about this, because you've wanted to come to debates, and it's like, man, you know, drive all that way just for one.

Well, we're doing one Friday night and doing another one Saturday night.

So the one Friday night is on Mormonism, in a Mormon area, obviously. And then the next night, when not nearly as many

Mormons could be around, it's the night of General Conference. I'll be debating R. St.

Genes yet once again. Hopefully, this one will turn out a little bit different than the last one on the subject of the

Mass, and specifically, I don't have the specific thesis in front of me, but as I recall, it was along the lines of, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ includes the

Roman Catholic Mass. In other words, the Mass is a part of the atoning work of Christ. So that's what that debate is going to be about.

So you've got two debates in April, and then right now, we are scheduled, and still working out all the details, the

Long Island debate, Great Debate, I think it's 8, isn't it? Isn't this the 8th? I think it's the 8th one.

The Great Debate 8. Actually, that obviously works pretty well. Well, the Great Debate 8 will be on the 29th of May at the

Huntington Townhouse in Huntington, Long Island, and we are currently attempting to get an opponent, a

Roman Catholic opponent, who will debate the issue of the priesthood. Not the current debate over the corruption of the priesthood, but is there such a thing as a sacramental priesthood in the

New Testament? Was it established by Jesus Christ, or is it the creation of men?

And obviously, I believe it is the creation of men. It is not something that the New Testament teaches, hints at, or anything else.

The only priesthood in the New Testament is the high priesthood of Jesus Christ, and then the priesthood of all believers.

It is not a sacramental priesthood in the sense that Rome has defined those terms and utilizes those terms, so on and so forth.

So that's what's coming up in the next couple of months. I don't think,

I may, may, there is a very, I haven't heard back from these folks yet, but maybe in normal Illinois, the last weekend,

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, which is the 25th, 26th, 27th of April, maybe in a normal Illinois area that has not yet been absolutely confirmed and established as of yet.

So just things for you to keep in mind. Things coming up, let you know that we remain very busy here at the ministry.

We keep working. Some of you have asked for a report very quickly. The Dave Hunt Project is back online as far as we are working on it.

I can tell you that the old publisher, Loyal, which published Dave Hunt's book,

What Love Is This?, has been purchased, and the listing of all those books has been purchased by Multnomah, and hence that project is now a

Multnomah project, and it is now ongoing. In fact, they're waiting for me, and I told them,

I said, look, I've always had my stuff in first, but this has been put on hold for so long because of the sale and stuff that I have some other things

I need to do right now, and so I'm going to do that first. I mean, I have to have priorities.

I've got a chapter that I need to really get some work done on this week, even though I'm going to San Antonio. It's due by the end of the month, so I only have two weeks left.

On church governance, I've done the requisite study. Now it's time to put all the stuff on paper, and that's what

I'm working on right now. As soon as that's done, I have one little addition to another chapter to do, and then get the next round with the hunt stuff done, and since each section is getting shorter and shorter, it doesn't make it much easier because you actually have to be even clearer and clearer each time.

You have less words to say it in, but it should be done. We certainly should be able to see this in the not -too -distant future.

It'll be out. I can't say exactly what it's worth it's going to be, but it certainly should be out.

I need to get it done because I have another book due in September on the subject of sola scriptura, finally getting around to writing that popular presentation on that vital and important subject.

A number of folks asking the question one last time very quickly. The new schedule for the dividing line will be

Tuesday mornings 11 a .m. Mountain Time and Mountain Standard Time always, and then

Thursday evenings at 5 p .m. Mountain Standard Time. That will change, of course, for all the rest of you who play with your clocks, but those of you who do not, it will be working that way.

So how are you going to do Thursday's show in Texas?

I'm not going to do Thursday's show. That's why. And what's the latest about the cruise? Cruise is, of course, ongoing.

Still good rates available. I hope those of you who have been thinking about it will take advantage of it.

We are still going to be discussing those issues that are central to the

Christian apologetic to other religions, obviously because the fact that the majority of those on the ship, as far as the crew are concerned, are

Muslim, we are going to be primarily focused upon a positive presentation. But since our groups are never overly huge, we will do personal discussions in private chambers or out on the deck, so on and so forth, when we want to get into more specific areas.

For example, when we discuss what the Quran says about Christ and we discuss the various forms of Hadith and things like that, we will do that in the context of a little more private setting.

We are not going to stick a sign outside of the meeting room that says, you know,

Mohammed's marriage to a six -year -old discussed today by quoting from Islamic Hadith.

That's a good way to get on a boat and never be seen again. So that's our dump.

So anyways, we're still going on with that perspective, but obviously we're going to try to show some level of wisdom as to how we handle those things on the boat itself in that situation.

So looking forward to that opportunity. It's coming up. It's getting closer. We are very excited about some of the folks who are going to be with us, and we would like to have some more of you who have been thinking about it.

It is a wonderful opportunity to get away. I really don't think you could go to most places like Disneyland or whatever those other places are for a week's period of time for anything cheaper than you can get in regards to this particular cruise.

So keep that in mind as well. So that's – is it going to remain a webcast alone or will it be on a radio station?

No, it will not be on a radio station. We do not have the money to be on radio stations. If you want to be on a radio station, you have to have massive funding, and we've found absolutely no one who has the slightest interest in providing us with massive funding.

And we're not going to do the things that you need to do to obtain massive funding, which means massive begging.

And so you either start off with a huge ministry that can absorb the costs of radio, and you still have to –

I don't care who it is. I've seen anybody who has a radio program has to at times talk about money.

They have to talk about you need to give, you need to do this. If we don't hear from you, we're going to kill you off your station, and I'm just not going to do that in any way, shape, or form.

Are Presbyterians allowed on the cruise? Yes. However, if you fall off the side, you will be baptized.

Sorry. Yes. Hey, it was asked in channel.

What can I say? So I assume the radio station paid you very well.

I'll tell you what, Wonky, you start your own radio station and we'll be on it. We've got people who want to advertise now and everything else.

I'll tell you. It's an amazing thing. I'm also told by the powers that be, the high and mighty technical people who sit just across the wall from me, and most of the time, to be honest with you, they're not listening to a word

I say. They're talking to each other. They're doing their own thing, but he's just in there talking.

We don't have to worry about him. I'll never forget the time. I kept writing him this little note. I was sick. I said,

I need water, and I sent it. Nothing happened. So I capitalized, I need water, and I sent it again.

And I just kept repeating it. So the whole screen is filled up with I need water. And finally, some of you may recall,

I just stopped. I took the headphones off and walked to the door, and I eventually got the water.

But anyways, they have fun in there. Normally it's because Warren is singing, and that's just something he likes to do alone generally, and that's probably best for the rest of us.

Anyways, they're telling me that it's time for a break. So if you would like to share some of your memories of Saturday afternoons at the

Dividing Line, 877 -753 -3341, we'll be right back.

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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.

The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning

Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45. Evening services are at 6 .30

p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805

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where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

We have to do something about our commercials, too.

I mean, not only have we simply had the same commercials for forever, but we're not going to have room for all of them.

I mean, we're going to have to, you know, we've only got one break in there because we're only doing an hour. You know, my headset didn't stay...

You know how these cords get all wound up? Ah, much better.

This little entropy taking place there in the universe, don't worry about it, it happens every single day. It's called age. Anyways, I do have a few things to play for you today, some interesting little things.

I was... I really don't... I wish I had time, you know, if we had the big staff of folks just sitting around waiting to do this, that, the other thing.

It would be easier to do this, but one thing I would do is I would have people monitor things like EWTN or Catholic Answers Live or things like that.

And so I just basically this afternoon before the program started,

I scanned the topics on the Catholic Answers Live and they had one with Patrick Madrid talking about scripture and tradition and I knew it wouldn't be too difficult to find some interesting things to talk about there.

And I was right. And again, the main thing that I was struck with was you've got to give

Patrick Madrid credit. He's been saying the exact same thing since I started studying

Roman Catholicism. His arguments against Sola Scriptura are 100 % predictable because they haven't changed.

What concerns me is everything that Pat Madrid says about Sola Scriptura has now been responded to in print since, let's say, over the course of the past, what, 13 years?

Someone on the channel just put Catholic Answers, twice the length, half the thought.

Well, that does sort of fit into what I'm saying right now. For example, someone once sent me a tape.

I forget how long ago this was, about 1996. And someone sent me a tape of a call -in program to St.

Joseph Catholic Radio that Tim Staples was on. This guy called in and he was asking about the white question.

And it was the question that I had asked Jerry Matitix on WMUZ in Boston on the

Janine Graff show in 1993 about how a believing Jew 50 years before Christ would be able to know that Isaiah and 2

Chronicles were Scripture. And so I listened intently to the responses that they offered.

And now when I talk about that question, I offer the responses I've heard. I offer

Patrick Madrid's response because we corresponded on it. I offered what Matitix said that day, which was,

I don't know. I offer all the different responses I've gotten. So I've listened to the attempts to answer the question.

And now when I present it, instead of just throwing it out there and not listening to the replies,

I throw it out there. And I've made it a stronger argument because I listen to what has been said in response.

Well, that's not what these folks do. Because what we're going to hear is, again, the same regurgitation of the same simplistic arguments against Sola Scriptura, the same simplistic arguments that take no consideration whatsoever.

Not only of the great works that had been in print for a hundred years and more. People like Salmon and Good and Whitaker just ignores all that.

It's like they aren't even aware that these books exist or could care less that they do. But even books that have been written since then.

I mean, I've taken on Madrid's perspective in my own written books. And he may not like them.

He may not even respect the responses. But wouldn't his argument be stronger if he would show a familiarity with it?

I would think so. What about the Webster and King books? Can you imagine being a

Roman Catholic apologist today? Someone puts out a 1 ,150 page work on your key issue.

And you don't even refer to it? I know that you can't write a refutation of 1 ,150 pages.

No one's going to publish something like that. That's not the issue. The point is, you'd have to listen to it and upgrade.

Let's use a computer term here. You've got to upgrade your system. You've got to upgrade your replies.

Or you're going to be stuck back in DOS days. And you're not really going to be able to handle things too well.

So that's what I hear going on. And this took place...

Let me see here. This was Wednesday. This was Wednesday's program.

So three days ago, here's what Patrick Madrid is saying. We can verify that from Scripture itself.

For example, if we looked at Luke 1, the very first five verses of Luke's gospel are the place where he tells

Theophilus, this man to whom he seems to have been dedicating the gospel, or at least writing it with him in mind.

And he says that the message that you heard, that you were taught from eyewitnesses, is true and trustworthy.

And now I'm going to set down in an orderly sequence those things that took place in the life of Christ as a way to verify or vouchsafe those oral teachings that you've already received.

And there we see a glimpse of that point where Catholics would say, no, we're not a Bible church in quite the same way that Protestants are.

Because Protestants would say that they go to the Bible and they locate their doctrines and that's what they teach.

They teach what they find in the Bible. The Catholic Church says, yes, we do that. But we also have the added dimension that the

Church was teaching its doctrines prior to Scripture being set down.

And when the Holy Spirit inspired the sacred authors to write the epistles and the gospels of the

New Testament, that that was a way to further confirm and spread more widely the teachings that the

Church was already giving prior to that point. Now listen very carefully to what is said there. I want to take this back here.

Focus in upon this. Obviously, if you go through the material that has been generated in response to Rome over the past number of years, everyone recognizes that during periods of inscripturation, revelation, that the gospel was orally preached, so on and so forth.

We've all pointed out that Rome is wrong to say that there was no Bible. That, of course, is simply an error, obviously.

The Church very clearly utilized the Scriptures that she had, which is called the

Tanakh, the Old Covenant Scriptures, which were hers, and they were absolutely authoritative.

But there has been, of course, further revelation that is given, and Rome likes to try to focus upon, well, when

Scripture was still being written, then you couldn't have Sola Scriptura, and the rest of us go, yeah, was

Scripture still being written? No. Okay, let's talk about today. That's the big issue.

That's the big topic that comes up, of course. Oops. I have that line forwarded to my cell phone there, guys.

That's not going to work. A little technical adjustment here. Oh, stop it.

Hang up there. Star 73?

Okay, I just fixed it. That's another reason we don't go on the radio. Anyways, I forwarded my office phone to my cell phone.

That's how people get hold of me. Anyways, whoever that was, they're going to have to call back.

Anyways, what in the world was I saying? Oh, yeah, Sola Scriptura. We've all talked about that.

Oh, it was the Pope. Great. Wonderful. Finally had our chance for the debate, and we missed it.

I just hung up on the Pope. Yep, there's the private line. It says Vatican right there on my screen. On my really cool little

Motorola phone there, it says Vatican has a little hat on it. Thanks.

Thanks, everyone. If this wasn't your last day. Anyways, oh, he just got off the phone with Saddam.

He's got some information for us. Thought we would be the best way to get this information out to the world.

He got off the phone with Saddam and wants to talk to me. Anyhow, the key issue, of course, comes down to what is

God's source of revelation. One of the things that just drives me nuts is we have pointed out over and over and over and over again that Roman Catholic apologists will deal anachronistically with history.

They will read back into history terms and concepts that simply could never have been understood by the early church fathers.

Now listen again to what is said by Madrid here. Catholic Church says, yes, we do that.

But we also have the added dimension that the church was teaching its doctrines prior to Scripture being set down.

And when the Holy Spirit inspired the sacred authors to write the epistles and the gospels of the

New Testament, that that was a way to further confirm and spread more widely the teachings that the church was already giving prior to that point.

Now, what does that mean if it's true? I agree. The deity of Christ was being taught before John and Colossians put that into written form.

I agree. But you see, what then is smuggled into those words in the mind of the person listening?

You know. If you've talked to Roman Catholic apologists, you know. You see, when they hear the doctrine of the church it's capital

C and therefore the idea that is then communicated by even a statement that at least is technically true is that all the doctrines of the church were being taught.

And you see, that is what is self -evidently untrue. I mean, can you imagine challenging any

Roman Catholic historian, theologian or apologist to demonstrate the peculiar and unique teachings of the

Roman Catholic communion prior to the writing of the New Testament? Well, they might say, well you can't because there's not enough data.

Okay, let's go the first 300 years. The unique teachings of papal infallibility and the whole complex of Marian dogmas which have become so intertwined with the entire piety of modern

Roman Catholicism simply aren't there. It's not possible to read the history of the church in that fashion.

It just doesn't work. And so, I think that's one of the reasons that you constantly hear, and we've talked about this before when you listen to EWTN, you hear this constant reiteration over and over and over again.

These converts and this simplistic, we need the church, we have tradition, the church of 2 ,000 years and you just keep pounding that into people's church of 2 ,000 years or the church of 2 ,000 years.

So when you hear that stuff, then you automatically translate even true statements like this into something that history could never, ever, ever substantiate in any way, shape, or form.

Let me try just one other clip here and then it looks like the calls are coming in. We've got at least two folks online so that's going to work.

Even the cardinals have cheerleaders. Someone just typed to me and it's someone on the other side of the wall, even the cardinals have cheerleaders.

And I don't have the foggiest idea what in the, rah, rah, rah.

So the cardinals stink and so they have cheerleaders and we are the best.

I think they may have broken out the celebratory champagne a little early, before the whole program was over.

Oh, we are the church for 2 ,000 years. Okay. Okay, let's go to this.

There was never this mentality in the early church that scripture alone was the sole sufficient rule of faith for Christians divorced from sacred tradition and the authoritative interpretation of the magisterium.

And that word magisterium, of course, just means the teaching office of the church. Now, did you hear that? Of course!

It's not, well, you know, there are entire books that have been published that dispute this and provide hundreds of citations with full context and with references to Minge and to the

Latin and to the Greek and none of that. It's like, let's make sure no one even knows those things exist, actually.

Instead, it's, well, of course, no one in the early church. Whenever you hear

Roman Catholicism using terms like no one, the universal faith of the church, you know that they're trying to hide something.

It's like when Vatican I talked about the universal faith of the ancient church in regards to Peter and Matthew 16.

Anybody who is even marginally familiar with the writings of the early church fathers knows that it's not a universal thing and, in fact, the majority of interpretations of Matthew 16 do not support the

Roman Catholic position. That has been demonstrated over and over and over again.

So, whenever you hear this universal stuff, the little red flags should go up.

No one ever believed that. That's what I hear all the time. No one ever believed these things until Luther or, if they're really smart, until Wycliffe and Hus or something like that.

It's just repeated as a mantra, hopefully, I guess, repeated often enough that people will accept it as a fact without ever, ever considering it.

So on and so forth. So, just keep that in mind as he's saying this. There was never this mentality in the early church that Scripture alone was the sole sufficient rule of faith for Christians divorced from sacred tradition and the authoritative interpretation of the magisterium.

And that word magisterium, of course, just means the teaching office of the church that Christ spoke about in Matthew chapter 28.

Sure, and wasn't it Augustine who even said I wouldn't believe in the Gospels themselves if the church didn't tell me so?

Yeah, that's a rough translation, but actually that's what he meant. What he was saying was that the authority of the

Gospels was an authority that he readily accepted and assented to. St.

Augustine was certainly a Scripture man, but he was also a man of the church and he was a man of tradition.

And as any good Catholic, as any good Christian, really, should look at Scripture, we should be like Augustine where we embrace it and reverence

Scripture and recognize it as, in its own unique way, the highest form of revelation for the church.

However, the mistake comes when we follow what I believe is a pernicious tradition of men, and we know that traditions of men that nullify the word of God were condemned strongly by Christ in Mark chapter 7 and Matthew chapter 15 because they, in essence, undermine or subvert the meaning of God's Word.

And it really is a tradition of men when we jettison sacred Scripture in favor of tradition alone, as some people do, and the opposite mistake is equally pernicious and that's to jettison tradition and cling to Scripture alone.

That actually violates what St. Paul commanded us in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 where he says, you know,

I urge you to stand fast and hold firm to the teaching you receive from us, whether in written form or orally.

Well, again, tremendous discussions of that passage from Paul have been presented, and from my perspective, if these folks had the truth then they would deal with those presentations.

They would say, and you know, there are those who say we've misunderstood this. Well, let me explain how it is that I can use this passage consistently and yet I still hold to material sufficiency and so on and so forth.

There would be discussions that there aren't. And someone might say, well, but these programs aren't for you.

Okay, fine. I discuss them on this program and not everybody who listens to this program is going to necessarily be focused in upon, you know, why it is

I emphasize everything I emphasize. The fact of the matter is, if you really believe in truth, you can respond to the best arguments your opponents have.

You don't have to respond to the least. It's just reading into early church history as a concept of tradition is so circular.

This has all been pointed out, but for some reason, no one wants to deal with those issues.

As to Augustine, whatever they may adduce and wherever they may quote from, let us rather if we are his sheep, hear the voice of our shepherd.

Therefore, let us search for the church in the sacred canonical scriptures. If you will read the section that Mr.

Usher massacred and took completely out of context, you will discover that it is not supportive of the

Roman Catholic use of it. That has been documented over and over and over again, but again, it just strikes me that for many folks dealing with the issues in that way is not what you want to do.

877 -753 -3341, that's what at least three folks have done. I think our phone lines are all clogged up, so let's first go to New Jersey and talk to Steve.

Steve, are you there? Yes, I am. Good afternoon. How are you doing today? That reference to the Cardinals having cheerleaders, is that a reference to the

Phoenix Cardinals? We don't have Cardinals in Phoenix. There is a refugee

NFL football team that wandered into town and has evidently taken the city fathers hostage and replaced them with clones.

They play football over at ASU, but we do not claim them. If you would like to have another semi -pro football team, we would be glad to pack them up and move them out to you.

Send them back to New Jersey? Anywhere they want to go. I missed you up at Hartford. I was hoping to get up there, but I was ill that week and couldn't make it.

Well, we had fun. My question was regarding church fathers, the value of the church fathers, in the sense that, how do you use them appropriately?

Because they often contradicted each other. Didn't Warfield say that the victory of the Reformation was really the victory of Augustine's Doctrine of Salvation over Augustine's Doctrine of the

Church? Augustine's Doctrine of Grace over Augustine's Doctrine of the Church. That's a very good question.

I think you heard some of the value just now. Yeah, some of the answer was there. It is interesting.

Roman Catholics get very confused when we start citing from the early church fathers. A, because they think the early church fathers have actually bought the line that these were a bunch of Roman Catholics running around and therefore they shouldn't have been saying the things that we quote them saying.

Primarily, it's simply a matter of being honest. I'm not referring to Augustine as a source of religious authority in the sense that, well,

Augustine said this, therefore we should believe this. Some of the reformers did, but they did so mainly to demonstrate that what they were saying was not completely new, that it had existed in the history of the church.

Especially when you deal with religious systems that make authoritative claims based upon alleged testimony from the past, you need to be able to keep them honest.

When Rome claims that papal infallibility is based upon concepts of the papacy that have been the universal understanding of Christians from the beginning, you need to demonstrate that's not the case.

When Mormons say that there were early church fathers that believed like they do, that men could become gods in the way they do, you need to be able to demonstrate that's not the case.

I don't base my positive belief upon, well, this early church father said this.

Sometimes they will have stated things in an excellent fashion on certain topics, and I don't think we have to go about reinventing the wheel each generation.

I certainly think that we can learn from those who have come before us. But they were just men.

The collection of the early fathers' writings that we have from the first few centuries is sort of like getting a listing of what books are currently in your local

Christian bookstore. That's a really mixed bag. Just because someone wrote back then doesn't mean that they really had any particular insight, because I don't know about you,

I happened to walk into a Christian bookstore this last week and I was shocked. You wonder why anyone is buying any of these books.

I went up and down the shelves and I'm looking for anything of substance. It's just psychobabble, prayer of Jabez level silliness.

There wasn't anything in there that was worth even purchasing. It was an amazing experience. There's a lot of stuff that's published by people who call themselves

Christians that isn't worth reading. Some people think that about everything I've written, too. But the point is, just because an early church father wrote something doesn't mean that he knew what in the world he was talking about.

And just because later centuries happened to like what he said also doesn't mean that it's overly worthwhile to us.

We have to show some level of discernment. And it's interesting, Rome does show a level of discernment, but it's a discernment based upon the elevation of her own authority.

That is, she says that when one early church father uses the term

Immaculate of Mary, you can read entire dogmas into that, but you can find entire chapters in books by Augustine directly contrary to their views of authority.

And that's just his views as a private theologian. So it's all based upon whatever ultimate authority they've already established.

And they're not dealing with the early church fathers in a fair way. I think there's great things to learn from them, but I think one of the greatest lessons

I certainly tried to emphasize when teaching through church history at Phoenix Reformed over the past number of years was the main thing we learned from the early church fathers is the importance of Sola Scriptura, because when we see them wandering from that, that's when they end up getting themselves in trouble.

I have to thank you for something. I had given up on a lot of the contemporary

Christian music, and I have picked up a few of your Steve Camp music.

In fact, I was talking to our music director and music minister of music about it and found that he actually even uses some of Steve Camp's stuff.

He's always looking for some worthwhile and theologically correct stuff.

Well, I got to minister with Steve just a few weekends ago, and I'm not sure if you heard the program where I talked about that. It was a lot of fun.

It was very, very enjoyable to get to open the word, talk about the substance of a song, and then have him sing songs like He Covers Me and things like that.

Just wonderful. Have you ever heard of Dave Boyer? Yes, but boy, that sounds like from back when

I was a teenager or something. His brother is our minister of music, and they reformed.

Excellent. Well, wonderful. I think they ought to all get together so we can all get their music and stop having to dig around for it.

In fact, his brother was telling me just too long ago they have discovered someone because his other brother, the older one, they're in their 70s now, is a missionary to France.

They have a letter regarding a copy of an original letter written around the time of Calvin, and it was about five

French men who went and actually studied under Calvin and went back into France as missionaries and were martyred.

Well, that happened to a lot of the reformed folks who went back into France, unfortunately.

Hey, thank you very much for your call, brother. Hopefully we'll hear from you, even with our new schedule in the future. I'll try to, and just remember, there's not just one here.

All right. God bless, brother. All right. We will be taking our other calls here in just a few moments.

First, we have to take our break. That does open up one phone line for you at 877 -753 -3341.

We'll be right back. And such a rarity today so many stars

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... in with a modern perspective of salvation history. That's an insightful way of looking at it.

I think it is his way of speaking, his way of writing that most definitely does attract individuals to his perspective.

And I think that was a good insight there from a British person, though that's truly amazing that a

British person would have that kind of insight. Just a little shot there, someone in the channel who actually has lots of insightful things to say, but we just want to sort of take a little shot at him.

Anyways, I'm going to send a message here to the folks on the other side of the wall, and once they've got it, then we're going to take our other phone callers here and let's talk with...

The Queen of England's on the phone? The Queen of England is on the phone.

Oh, okay. Thanks, Warren. I guess this is what happens when someone's on their last day, huh?

Actually, I think I'm supposed to be talking with Rick, aren't I? Short timer, yeah. Is Rick there?

Hello, Rick. Dr. White. Yes, sir. I was just told that you're the Queen of England. Oh, yeah?

Yeah, that's what they told me. Cool. You've been promoted and you didn't even know.

I didn't feel this exchange operation. Well, they do it fast now.

The laser thing is just almost not even... I think he wants to take a shot at me because I told him

I was phoning to take Umbridge with me. Actually, I think it's the Canadian thing. That's right.

Okay, well, you know, you have a lot of people who speak

French in Canada, and right now, being French is not a real good thing.

Tell me about it. I live in Alberta.

We have more in common with Houston, Texas and Dallas and Denver than we ever do with anything.

Well, could we adopt you all? Could we just adopt you all and get you out of that mess?

I knew you were going to say you all. And I didn't say eight, not one time. Anyways, you think that I have been unfair to our

Lutheran brothers? You have, sir. Because I have said that most Lutherans today are more

Melanchthonian than they are Lutheran, especially in the context in which

I was speaking of the fact that I don't run into a whole lot of monergistic Lutherans anymore.

Oh, boy. There are some. We are confessional, all right?

Yes. Of course, the confessional Lutherans, of course, adhere to the Book of Concord.

Yes. Okay. And it definitely is monergistic. As a matter of fact, I don't know, do you have a

Book of Concord? You must have. Sure, yeah. The final, the solid declaration, right?

Half of what is written in there was to correct the errors of the Philippians, the

Melanchthonian synergies. Well, the problem is, you know, maybe you would redefine what

Lutheranism is today. But again, I do know monergistic

Lutherans. I'm talking to one. Okay. But would you actually put yourself in the majority?

Well, I guess, amongst people who are in the north, theologically alive, you know what

I mean? Well, that's the problem. Of course. You probably just got rid of the ELCA. Of course it is.

I mean, we actually had a survey that went through a Missouri Synod, okay? Well, in Canada, it's called

Lutheran Church Canada. Okay. They actually did a survey on 25 questions, soteriology questions, right?

Right. And 75 % of them were perfect Catholic answers. Oh, of course. Yeah. Oh, and that's exactly what

I was referring to. In fact, I don't want to get real specific here. But I know of some, actually, they're

Missouri Synod Lutherans here in the United States, who are strongly anti -reformed, especially on the issue of the will of man and the issue of monergism versus synergism.

And I could name some names. Yeah. Well, I think that you're exactly right.

I mean, I read your dogmaticians. I don't know whether you read ours. Are you familiar with Francis Pieper?

No, I'm not. Okay. Well, he is to Lutheran dogmatics what old Charles Hodge would be to reform dogmatics, right?

Okay. All right. And when I read him, I mean, he builds a straw man, calls it a

Calvinist, and then burns it. Oh, yeah. And reformed dogmaticians do exactly the same thing.

Oh, I've been seeing a lot right now. I've been seeing a lot of folks taking on Lutheranism on some of the reformed lists.

For some others, it's a completely different reason. Oh, there's lots of history there.

There's no two ways about it. I'm just simply referring to the fact that when it comes to the main issue that I deal with in regards to monergism versus synergism, like I said,

I know a few, and they've been good folks to talk to, but it's not the majority report, not here in the

United States, by those who call themselves Lutherans. There is no question. I mean, you're exactly right.

But what is taught in our seminaries is definitely monergism. Now, our pastors do not spend the time and energy that Calvinist pastors do to explain the doctrines, right?

I mean, most Lutherans are not even familiar with what our confessions are. I mean, it's amazing.

I've introduced the Book of Concord into my church, literally, which is amazing.

I mean, it's sad. It truly is sad. Yeah. Well, that hasn't just happened there.

I mean, there's a tremendous amount of disconnection from what was historically important, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that many in the ministry today believe that that stuff is no longer relevant.

They're put under pressure to experience certain amounts of growth, and they feel the only way to experience the growth is...

Intensive worships and yada, yada. I know. It's sad. But you see, I think that from a classic, a confessional

Lutheran point of view, the difference between us and you is your emphasis on the sovereignty of God, which is absolutely true, right?

And our emphasis is the grace of God, right? And so the Gospel is everything to Lutherans.

I've heard it expressed that way. I don't know that I really agree with that. I mean, I've listened to Wilkins and others express it that way, like in Issues, etc.,

and things like that. I don't know that I would agree that that's the case. There is definitely a different emphasis between us.

I'm not sure that it's necessarily that of grace. But I understand what you're saying, and I'm just simply saying there are a lot of folks who, you know, there's a wide variety of opinions expressed within what is called

Lutheranism. I mean, the ELCA and so on, I mean, they're all Lutheran.

And there are folks who, I look at the liberal Presbyterians, and we're not reformed in the same way.

A few warmers in reformed churches are familiar with reformed theology.

Oh, there's no tways about it. No tways about it. Hey, we've got a full bank of calls. We're going to keep going. And when you all up there want to join up with the

U .S., just let us know. We've got plenty of room in the flag for number 51. I'm in. All right, ma 'am. Thanks a lot for calling.

And I admire you very greatly, sir. Thank you very much for calling. God bless. Okay, bye. All righty.

Let's continue on here. And Johnny, you're going to have to be quick. You're going to have to be fast.

And I'm going to have to be quick and fast in my response, okay? Okay. All right, let's do it. My question is on images and icons.

They're bad. Very bad. Bad, bad. In fact, I'm going to give you the Rain Man answer. Bad. Very, very bad. Very, very bad.

All right. Well, the thing is, I posted on a list, a discussion board, to a

Roman Catholic apologist. I think he's an apologist. But some quotations from certain church fathers, such as Tertullian, like Tantius, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and also

Epiphanius and others, where they speak out against the usage of images.

And I got most of my quotations from a book called Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs.

I don't remember the name of the author, but... Big Brown Thing? I'm sorry? Big Brown Thing? Big Brown Book?

I don't remember. I don't remember for me. Okay. All right. But the point is, the book has everything...

I think it's the first book ever written of that kind, where you just get alphabetically all of the doctrines of how it was understood by the fathers.

And in the book that I quoted from, after looking at it, he said that he had read the book and that the quotes are taken out of context because they were only talking about the pagans and stuff.

With the exception of the quote that I did have from Epiphanius of Salamis, and also he gave a spin to the

Council of Elvira. Well, he said that Epiphanius was a radical, referring to something that Philip Schaff said.

And he said that the Council of Elvira, something along the lines of that over there in Spain, some of the people that were being catechized, they didn't want to use images because they weren't catechized properly, so they didn't want to have images because they didn't want to worship them.

Well, what you're experiencing is exactly what I experienced when I presented similar citations to Patrick Madrid.

You look at the Council of Elvira, you have these plain statements that are made, and again, when you practice sola ecclesia in your reading of the early church fathers, of course, anything that's against your position is going to be out of context.

And what's the context? The context isn't what the early church father himself intended, the context is the teaching of the church.

And so it's very easy to throw, well, that's out of context, that's out of context out there, but did he prove they were out of context when he was talking about the

Council of Elvira? Where do you get this stuff? I mean, I think Patrick Madrid was just pulling that off the top of his head, to be perfectly honest with you.

You again have a situation where if you were to use the exact same level of documentary evidence in regards to anything that they pull out in regards to Mary, every single thing they quote could be made to say the exact opposite in regards to Mary.

There is no consistency in the Roman Catholic reading of patristic sources. That can be extremely frustrating for you to experience, but eventually you just get used to it, you point it out, and you move on from there.

I mean, you say, look, an honest reading demonstrates that there was no monolithic view of these things, that there were many who opposed these things, hence it's not an apostolic tradition, and Rome is wrong.

And you just have to realize, those who will not accept that last line, Rome is wrong, are going to reject what you have to say, but they're not going to be able to do so consistently.

Well, James, let me ask you this question. Very quickly. In church history, in your reading of the early church fathers, which view,

I mean, was it, I guess it's safe to say, the iconoclasts, those who were opposed to the usage of images in the liturgy, were they the majority or the minority?

Well, it depends on where you were. The reason it's an east -west split is because of the presence of Islam after the 7th century.

That's what precipitates much of the split in the middle of the 11th century. And I would say in the primitive period of the church, it was very opposed to the use of images, and then as the church became less and less scripturally focused and more and more socially or nationalistically focused, then it became more and more popular.

So it depends on where and when you're talking about. So you can't, there's no way to come up with, you know, simple answers to majority views without being very specific as to what area you're talking about and what time period you're talking about.

The point is that the Roman Catholic understanding today is not some apostolic thing that can be traced back to the apostles, but is in fact the result of the practice of sola ecclesia.

Okay? Okay. All right. Thanks a lot, man. All right. I'm not sure who is next, but I think it's

Miles in Pennsylvania. Miles, are you there? Yes, I am. Hey, we were just talking about the debate that you saw.

Yes, it was just a pleasure to talk to you, and it was a really neat privilege to be at that debate.

I don't know if you remember what, during the question and answer session, there was a young man who asked a question to you about what translation of the

Bible your sister used. Oh, I remember it well. Well, I haven't noticed.

He worked, I think he's one of Patrick Madrid's... He helped at some of the book tables in the back for various of the

Catholic groups, yes. Yeah. Well, you want to hear the rest of the story? Sure.

Well, after the debate, Warren and the others were working very hard to pack everything up.

It's very hard to pack all the equipment you had up. And someone came in and said, man,

I'm just tired of talking to that guy. I said, who? Well, that guy had asked you the question about what translation your sister would use.

I said, he's still out there? And they said, yeah. So I went out there, and I walked right up to him, and he was rummaging through some boxes on a table, and I walked right up to him.

I mean, we're talking, you know, four inches. And he turned and looked me straight in the face, and I wasn't smiling.

I'll be perfectly honest with you. And I'm a sort of ugly guy, and I'm not real small either.

And so he gets this look on his face, and he says, I really owe you an apology. Wow. And I said, for what?

And he said, well, I shouldn't have brought up...

He says, let's go over here. So we went over, and he said, I shouldn't have brought up the question that I did. And I said,

I would agree with you. I think that was a pretty cheap shot. And he said, yeah, you know, I was wrong. So we started talking, and he started throwing every apologetic argument that he had ever studied at me.

And I was responding to every single one of them. And he became so frustrated that eventually, he threw up his hands, and he said, why am

I standing here trying to debate a professional? And the thing was, I appreciate

A, his apology. B, he didn't have any arguments I hadn't heard before and didn't have easy answers for.

But the thing that bothered me, the third thing that bothered me was probably 45 minutes or more later as we were leaving the townhouse, he was downstairs still arguing with Protestants.

And as I walked by him, his back was turned to me. He was using the exact same arguments that I had just refuted right in front of him, and he had had no response to with the

Protestants he was talking to. Now, I don't know about you, but if I had just had an argument shredded upstairs by someone

I called a professional, I wouldn't then turn around and reuse it downstairs against someone that I figure

I can get away with it on. If he can get a dose of humility or something. You would think so. That bugged me. Yeah. Well, during the break of that debate, as I walked out, and he walked towards the stand,

I heard him complaining you were using the sole scriptural argument. And he goes, why are you using the sole scriptural argument or something like that?

And I'm thinking, you know, yeah, I mean. Well, that's where I'm coming from.

That's where he's coming from. Not only that, but I've debated Patrick Madrid on that subject in 1993. I probably have enough tapes to start lending libraries, which

I have been and my friends have been blessed by. Well, excellent. I just want to also tell you, before I started listening to you,

I was sort of like a three -point in my Calvin, as far as just observing Calvinism. But, you know, listening to you and reading you,

I've been, you know, being swayed to the Reform side so much. Well, good.

I appreciate the kind words. I'm glad the Lord has used my small efforts as hopefully something that's edifying to you.

And hopefully you'll still be able to catch the program, even though we're changing the schedule. Yeah, this is the first time

I get to hear you live. I'm usually working on Saturdays. So this was a... Oh, great. Well, we're moving the schedule to two programs a week, one on Tuesday and one on Thursday.

So maybe you'll be able to find one since they're at different times. So hopefully they'll catch it. Excellent.

See you debate again. Okay. Thanks a lot, Myles. All right. God bless. All right. Real quickly, and yes, someone keeps mentioning the current main page article is on that subject, the sole scriptural.

Let's talk with Chris in Evansville, Indiana. Hi, Chris. Hi, James. How are you doing? Fine. It's finally really a pleasure to get to talk to you.

I just recently heard a question posed to Dave Hunt, and it's a pretty common question.

It's the one people always ask about the guy over in the middle of the jungle somewhere who never gets the opportunity to hear the gospel.

And I was really, even from Dave Hunt's perspective, I was really shocked to hear his answer. Well, let me ask first, what was the context?

How was he asked? Was this on his program? Well, actually, it's on his website.

Oh, okay. In like the title, Contending for the Faith or something like that. Oh, okay. Anyhow, Dave quotes scripture, and I guess

I have a book of Genesis about the judge of the earth, you know, when we not do what's right. And what he ends up saying is that if this person would have responded favorably, if they would have heard the gospel, even though they hadn't heard it, that basically

God would save them from their sin. And I just wondered if you'd find an answer like that surprising, seeing as how

Dave pushes the idea of man's will being free. Now, he said that he'll be judged on the basis of what he would have done if he had heard.

If he had heard, yeah. Wow. You know, it's almost, to me, it was almost a denial of, you know, being an

Adam. Well, it sounds, yeah, I didn't. You know, a person being an Adam and somehow not being guilty.

Well, there's certainly a very deep weakness in Dave Hunt's understanding of federal headship and original sin.

There's no two ways about that. I mean, he argues, when he argues against Calvinism, he argues that there are those who do good, that Paul was not meaning

Romans three to be taken in a universal sense. And I think it just needs to be, you know, honestly said that Dave Hunt is not a theologian.

He has not taken the time to learn from others. And in fact, his tradition and background is such that that's not something that would be something he would think that he would need to do anyways.

And so he frequently will make these statements that we would go, wait a minute, that's inconsistent with, and then, you know, fill in the blanks.

But from his perspective, that's not really the issue anyways. You know, I've heard John MacArthur talk about a lot of evangelicals today having what's called a wider mercy view.

That's called inclusivism. Yes. Yeah. And I guess Dave would almost fit into that category. Well, at that point, he would, except very inconsistently.

Inclusivists, I debated one of the leading inclusivists, John Sanders, back in November. We have that on our website.

Their perspective is that any positive move toward God, not what they would have done had they heard, but any positive move toward God is a faith action.

And that hence that person is going to be saved by that. That's the, you know, the wideness in God's mercy by Pinnock is probably the terminology that you're referring to there.

The problem is that since Dave defends libertarian free will, how could

God know how a person with libertarian free will would react?

I mean, that's taking one concept from the theory of middle knowledge that God knows us so well, that even though we have libertarian free will, he knows how we would act, and then connecting it something over here.

And, you know, Dave's theology is a hodgepodge of all sorts of very, very inconsistent perspectives sort of cobbled together in a very strange perspective that I don't think you would find anyone that really held any of those views prior to Dave Hunt himself.

So it's very interesting. But that is an interesting response, and it doesn't surprise me because whenever I write something in this current book that we're working on,

I really don't know exactly what the response is going to be, and I have been very surprised more than once at what it was.

So that was surprising to me. I've listened to you guys talk back and forth all the way, you know, since last summer, and if this has done anything for me, and I'm a

Calvinist myself, it's just made me understand how closer we must stay to the

Scripture. Oh, yeah. Well, that's true with every conflict that I have had to encounter of late is the necessity of being very, very focused upon Sola Scriptura and practicing that.

So, hey, Chris, thank you very much for your phone call. Thanks for listening. Thanks to everyone who's been listening today, all the phone callers that called in today.

Don't forget the new schedule starting Tuesday, 11 a .m. this week.

The next dividing line, one hour long, will be on. There won't be one Thursday because I'm going to be in San Antonio, but the week after that, we should be able to do both programs.

Tuesday mornings at 11 a .m., Thursday evenings, 5 p .m., Mountain Standard Time.

I'll let you figure it out from there as to what that is. That's what we're going to be doing for a while. Thanks for listening. God bless.