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Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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

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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

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

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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line on a

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Friday. Yeah, I know, where's the Radio Free Geneva stuff? If I get to the

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Radio Free Geneva stuff a little bit later on, I did mention this on Twitter, then we will fire it up for all of you addicts who love to hear the

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Radio Free Geneva music. I think Rich has it, yep, he's got it queued up and ready to go, and we probably will,

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I don't know, starting in about 20 minutes or so, switch over to Radio Free Geneva. But I'm up here in Boulder, Colorado, I'm speaking at Flatirons Baptist Church, started speaking last evening, had a real good time with the folks.

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And I'm doing my New Testament reliability presentation, yes, pretty much the same one as was posted on YouTube, except I have three sessions to work through it.

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And that means I get to go much more slowly and give all the background and give all my illustrations and tell all my stories.

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And so it's actually rather enjoyable to do it in three sessions rather than one very, very fast session.

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And I have a feeling that for a lot of folks, it's probably a little bit easier to follow, a little bit easier to digest as well.

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And so we'll look forward to meeting with folks. We had one fellow come by and say that this was a drive -by.

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He knew of our material, knew of our ministry, and in fact was a supporter and just happened to be driving by and saw the sign at the church.

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And they had put a sign out front announcing that I was going to be there, and so voila, he pulled in.

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So that was really neat to get to meet folks last night and had a great time there at Flatirons Baptist Church.

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But I'm also in Boulder, Colorado, and yesterday, as you saw on the blog,

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I did a pretty incredible ride, some beautiful, beautiful scenery.

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I'm going to have another opportunity to do a pretty incredible ride tomorrow. But I discovered while searching for radio stations up here that,

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I don't know, I sort of need to say this quietly, but I think there might be some liberals in Boulder.

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I'm not sure, but I think there might be a few more than we have down in Arizona. I'm sort of saying this very quietly, but there is a progressive radio station up here, and let's just say

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I've heard some things you normally don't hear on non -progressive radio.

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You know what I mean? In other words, Sean Hannity, Michael Medved, and Rush Limbaugh, they're up here.

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There's normal radios here, but there's also this other weird stuff. So anyway,

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I was hearing some things, and of course, we've all been enduring the

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Anthony Weiner scandal and his resignation. But I have just been really, really, really troubled by the speed at which our culture � and I'm not just talking about the

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United States, I'm talking about Western culture as a whole � the speed at which our culture is not only disconnecting itself from its moral roots in the

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Christian worldview, but is becoming ever more open in its detestation thereof, its abandonment thereof, and its falling in love with anything that is utterly opposed to godliness.

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I think about what happened in this situation with Anthony Weiner and the nearly three weeks worth of scandal talk and jokes and everything else that were going on, and the inevitability of his resignation, and the propriety thereof, obviously.

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But then I started thinking about and realized, you know, very few people,

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I think, are seeing the reality of what's really going on in our nation.

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We have been hearing recently about stories about parents, books being published, seminars being done, and young children � and I'm going to say this very clearly � who are being abused by their parents by being raised in what is euphemistically called gender confusion, seeking to teach little boys and little girls that they're not really boys or girls, they're whatever they want to be.

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So much so that we now have 10 -year -olds who consider themselves transsexuals to be a different sex than they are.

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We read just a few weeks ago about the Australian judge who gave the okay for transgender surgery for a 10 -year -old, and we look at this and I think most of us don't really know what to even say.

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But the one word that we can't use, we're not allowed to use, is that this is evil.

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But it is evil. It's not insane, it's not sick, it's evil.

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It is direct rebellion against the Creator, and of course it's being committed by those who don't believe there is such a thing as the

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Creator in the first place. It's evil, it's sin, it brings the wrath of God, it will receive the wrath of God in judgment, and in some ways it is the wrath of God.

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Because I was thinking this morning about Romans 1, I was thinking about that phrase that Paul uses when he says, for even their women abandon the natural use.

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The concept of lesbianism in Paul's mind is just so far removed from what is natural for the woman who is a mother, who is a nurturer, who longs for that protection of a man.

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And so there's such a twistedness that Paul can say, for even their women.

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It's one thing for men because of their heightened sexuality, but even their women, in other words there's just such a natural understanding of what things should be, that this just strikes the

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Apostle as even more amazing, and now we're seeing every type of behavior that goes beyond that.

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And I was thinking especially about the fact that there is much discussion now,

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I know my friend Michael Brown discusses this fairly regularly on his talk show, of people telling us, look, you're going to be on the wrong side of history if you don't get with this massive moral change, this massive shifting of the moral landscape.

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You're going to be on the wrong side of history, and people are going to be looking back at you and they're going to look at you the same way we look at people who opposed interracial marriage from 50 years ago.

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And I know there are many people who feel very strongly about that very issue.

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You don't want to be behind the curve, you don't want people looking back at you. But I'll be perfectly honest with you,

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I think there'll, it may not be this nation and it may not be this culture, but God did not make us to profane marriage in the way that marriage is being profaned today.

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And no culture that embraces the profanation of marriage, which will inevitably result in the destruction of marriage.

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And what I mean by that is people, your marriage isn't being impacted by if two men are allowed to marry or two women are allowed to marry, baloney, most certainly is.

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And there is no question about the fact that once that happens, the next thing will be one man and three women, three women and one man.

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And then beyond that, the ladies are going to start marrying their chihuahuas.

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And because we no longer have a definition of what marriage is, and since we're changing on the basis of, well, we have to have equal rights, everyone has to have the equal opportunity.

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Then well, that means that little children can get married and you can marry your dogs and your cats and because marriage no longer has any meaning, it's been destroyed.

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Its foundations are washed away. And no culture will survive this.

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Look at what is going on in the cultures that are embracing this kind of behavior right now. Are they not disappearing?

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You might go, well, I don't see them disappearing. Look at the birth rates. Remember, anything below 2 .1

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and your culture will be gone in a matter of generations. And every culture that's embracing this, it seems to be their death throes.

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Now, this happens just slowly enough that maybe it's difficult for us to see this, but future generations will look back and future generations will ask themselves, was there anyone who was willing to stand up for moral sanity and for the fact that God has spoken and has revealed his will and has told us how we are to live?

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And I am sad that when the world thinks of who is speaking out about all they think about are cults like the people who picket at funerals and churches.

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You see, I think people have bought into the idea that if we speak of wrath and we speak of judgment that we automatically have to become a fire and brimstone preacher from someplace down in Georgia.

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But you know, haven't we learned that we can speak of life and we can speak of that which brings death and that which destroys life?

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Can we not present to the people around us the fact that homosexuality destroys life, that homosexual marriage destroys, can even create life?

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It truly is an amazing thing to see what's going on and I was especially prompted to hold off Radio Free Geneva for a few more minutes because I was thinking about the

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Anthony Weiner situation and his resignation and people going, yeah, he needed to do that. Why did he need to do that?

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I mean, is it really because of the evil that he committed?

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I mean, obviously, I think for most people he had to resign because he was stupid. I mean, to do what he did was just stupid on any level, it was just dumb.

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But was it really immoral? Did anyone really go, oh, he's just married and how could you be doing this?

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No, most of it was, boy, was that dumb. Not that it was immoral, not that it was evil, but I suggested this morning on Twitter that what is being contemplated by the

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New York legislature is far more evil than anything Anthony Weiner did.

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And Anthony Weiner was a leftist, let's be honest with you, a leftist nutcase, but what he did in comparison to what the

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New York legislature is currently considering to do from a biblical perspective was not nearly as evil as what these people are going to do.

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Think about that. If you're not aware of it, great pressure has been put upon the

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House of Representatives in the New York legislature, the New York state legislature, to adopt the profanation of marriage, to redefine marriage so that it no longer is marriage, but is a perversion thereof.

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That's the only way to put it. And great pressure has been put upon these people by Anthony Cuomo and by Mayor Bloomberg, and they're caving, they're collapsing, they're giving in.

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And it looks like it's going to pass. I submit to you that what those people who are promoting it,

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Cuomo, Bloomberg, these individuals, what they're doing from a biblical perspective is significantly more evil than anything

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Anthony Weiner did. Significantly more evil. It is continuous, it is not just stupidity in doing something on Twitter or social media, but it is a settled rejection of God's truth.

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It is a settled, I am going to do this, I am going to, I know that what

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I'm doing stands against God's truth, but I am settled in my rejection of God's truth, and I am going to force this on other people.

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That is more evil, will bring significantly more judgment from God than some guy with a picture phone in his office.

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And so our nation, our culture, has become so morally bankrupt, so without guidance, so without common sense, that we can applaud that a guy resigns from the government, which he should have done, because you do stuff like that, and somebody gets hold of that, they can blackmail you and have you do things for them that could threaten our security and everything else.

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No kidding. But he didn't resign because what he did was evil, he resigned because what he did was stupid.

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And we can't take a look. We cannot even openly say today that what is being considered in a legislative action is evil, but as Christians we have no choice but to identify these things as evil.

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They separate from God, I was, there's some guy on Twitter, let me see if I can bring that back up again, see what it, had something to do with pizza or something,

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I don't remember the guy's name, but he's quite a, there it is, tragic pizza, tragic underscore pizza.

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Clearly one of those types of people, let me see what he says here,

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I'm a part -time preacher, a full -time curmudgeon, unapologetic liberal

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Christian, and a blabbermouth, seriously, I tweet a lot and often cuss, you've been warned, named

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John Harrison. And when I tweeted something about the judgment of God in regards to the profanation of marriage, that's the profaning of marriage, in case you're wondering what that term is, oh, did he come back at me, and I look at these people, and they can't even recognize what evil is.

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They are so perverted in their heresies, they can't even recognize what evil is. Well, what do we do about it?

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Well, just simply running around screaming the word evil isn't going to accomplish anything.

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But we have to be so careful, my friends, we slip into this easy social way of thinking, and instead of recognizing something as evil and responding to it as evil, something that is against God's truth, against God's law, something that is destructive of human personality and human reality and human life, instead of being like the psalmist in Psalm 119 who weeps tears because of the breaking of God's law, we think of these things in so much more of a mundane way, so much more of a mundane way.

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We should be cut to the quick when we see God's law being spat upon and rejected by those in authority, because when

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God puts evil men and women in authority over a nation, that is part of God's judgment upon that nation.

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And what then is the role of the Christian people when in a nation that knows

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God's truth and rejects it? Are we to begin to adopt their ways of thinking, their ways of speaking?

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Are we supposed to become like this liberal Christian and just go with the flow? No. What we are to do is we are to be a prophetic voice.

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The prophets most often were not proclaiming what future events were going to be.

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The prophets most often were proclaiming the future coming of God's judgment upon a people for their rejection of God's truth.

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And we must become a faithful, holy, prophetic people so that when

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God's judgment comes, we won't be carried along by the flow of just trying to hold together the rags of our possessions.

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So in love with the world that we can't say anything. We need to be those who say, we told you so, and here's the solution.

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Repent, believe, turn. This culture will not last.

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It will not last. With all of our technology and all of our gadgets, it will not last.

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It cannot last, because we no longer care about the future. We no longer care about human life.

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We no longer have any belief in a transcendent meaning. We just simply have our lives.

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We don't care about having children. We don't care about the future and laying a foundation for future generations or any of those things.

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So this culture will not last. But when whatever takes its place comes along,

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Lord willing, it'll be because people have seen what the truth is, and they have seen the value of human life, and they will reject this secular humanism and this hatred of God, if God, by His grace, will call them to do so.

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That's the key. And so I really,

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I don't know, the more I see this, and the more I hear the detestation that people have for God's truth, the more

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I feel we need to be warned and be ready to speak out about it. We have opportunities every day to address people about this, but will we count the cost to say it?

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Because that cost is going to become higher and higher and higher. So some thoughts at the beginning of the program today about what's going on around us.

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And with that, I did promise, let's go ahead and start Radio Free Geneva.

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I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

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They're following men instead of the word of God. And I'm going to be the one standing on top of my hands, standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out,

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He died for all. Those who were elected were selected.

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Well, first of all,

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James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. I think

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I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

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But God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever.

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We're not the right man on our side. The man of God's own choosing.

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Ladies and gentlemen, James White is a hyper -Calvinist. Now, whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper -Calvinists.

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You ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he.

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I've said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism.

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It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist. Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism.

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Lord, swallow his name. Read my book. From age to age the same.

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And he must win the battle. And now, from our underground bunker, hidden deep beneath Liberty University, where no one would think to look, save from those mutter

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Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are

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Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say, to his own eternal glory.

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And well, it seems we've been interrupted once again, and we're trying to get... Okay. Hey, there he is.

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Yeah, well, you know, I had a 4G signal, and then I stopped having a 4G signal.

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It just turned off. These little hotspots are nice for getting your email and stuff like that, but what's scary right now is

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I'm on the hotel wireless. I've got the 4G back, so if all of a sudden I disappear, we'll know what to do.

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Go back to 4G for a while. We've got 26 minutes out of it. This is one of the reasons I'm not into the cloud stuff quite yet.

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We really don't have this stuff perfected yet. So anyway, welcome back to Radio Free Geneva.

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We are about 27 minutes and 50 seconds into our study of Ron Armstrong's Sermon on Predestination, the...

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Should we call it the former Sermon on Predestination? Because it has sort of disappeared. It's no longer on the web, but that's okay.

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And we have another sermon for Radio Free Geneva to get to once we get back, and there's actually probably no end of materials if you really wanted to look for them for Radio Free Geneva.

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Now, I'm going to do something here, and you tell me if it's going to make it absolutely impossible, because this is a live program, and I'm sitting in a hotel room in Boulder, Colorado, and I know what the sound's going to sound like when

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I play it normally, but it's getting really warm in here, believe it or not, and I've had the air off so that you could hear me real well.

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I'm going to turn it back on. As long as you can still hear me and understand me, then

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I'll be more comfortable for a while. But if it's really bad, well, I'll just have to sweat. So here we go.

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Leans over, and he turns the air back on. And if I'm still understandable and you're going to be able to hear

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Ron, then we should be okay. So hopefully that will work.

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Okay, let's go back to—I backed up about 10 seconds or so, and let's take a listen to what—this was the important part of the sermon.

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Pastor Armstrong was talking about the evil that men do, and we were challenging what he was saying about that.

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What the Bible teaches is that you have a choice. Look at your notes there. Fill these in quickly.

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Number one, why does this matter? Because your prayers matter. In the Old and New Testament, God was influenced by the prayers of his people.

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The next one there. That's all he says about it. And I'm like, okay, influenced by the prayers of his people.

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What does that mean? Is he promoting an idea that your prayers change God? That God doesn't know what you're going to pray?

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That you can convince God to be better? I'm not really sure what the application is.

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I'm not sure he knows what the application is, but I would like to know. Once again, is Ron Armstrong an open theist?

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Does he believe that there is a reason for everything that happens?

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Now, notice something. If you've listened to all of it up to here, what you're going to discover here is he's going to really be at high speed while he's going to throw some stuff.

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And all of a sudden, he just transitions into an altar call. And I'm going to listen to all the altar call.

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It's not unusual. That's unusual. I normally don't play that. But again, as we're getting into it, listen for any call to repentance, any warning to flee from the wrath to come, any discussion of the nature of sin.

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Keep those things in mind as we listen. Because your choices matter. And number three, because God has offered you the opportunity to choose your future.

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But, you know, decide to choose your future. Is that sort of like one of those pop -up books where you have the different kinds of I remember my kids used to love the

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Animorphs books back in the day. And some of them had alternate endings, you know, go to page such and so.

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Is that what we're talking about? You get a choice. Don't stand back and tell people, oh, man, why does it matter?

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All this stuff is already pre -decided. We call that nihilism. We call it fatalism.

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Nihilism is not the same thing as fatalism. And the

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Reformed perspective is neither on any meaningful basis. Nihilism, no meaning.

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The whole thing, our whole point is that there is meaning in everything that God does, including our lives and the reality of the choices that we make.

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A very, very surface -level perspective from Pastor Armstrong here. We call it determinism. And what it is is a cop -out.

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It's a way of avoiding any responsibility for the decisions that we make. You get a choice.

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So evidently, he's now suggesting that we don't believe that you're responsible for your choices.

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You notice there's no citations from Reformed folks at this point, because, of course, he really couldn't find any from at least anybody he knows they're talking about, because we believe that God holds men accountable for acting upon the desires of their hearts.

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We believe that. And you might say, well, if God's decree included that, then he can't hold him responsible.

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Then you take up your argument with what God did to the Assyrians in Isaiah 10.

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You take your argument to Acts 4 about Pilate and Herod and the Jews and the

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Romans. You take your argument to the brothers of Joseph. Take your argument to the scriptures.

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But don't call yourself a biblical Christian. I just believe the Bible if you won't deal with those texts.

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You get a choice where you want to spend eternity. You get a choice of what kind of life you want to live here.

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You get a choice of whether or not you're going to be a person of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, or whether you're going to be a person of evil, anger, and bitterness.

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You get a choice. So if you're a person of love, it's simply because you chose, not because God's grace changed you.

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Is that right? And if you're a person of bitterness, it's only because you rejected

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God's grace. I mean, don't get me wrong. I have said similar words, not in a rejection of God's sovereignty.

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But our choices are real choices, but they are real choices under God's sovereignty, not in contradiction to God's sovereignty.

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And I've said to many people, look, my experience in life, I find people who choose to be happy and to look forward to the future and to serve

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God. And I find people who choose to be unhappy. And I tell people, you know what?

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It's a whole lot better to choose to be happy and to choose to look forward to the future and to choose to trust God. But none of this has anything to do with whether God has sovereignly ordained all that takes place in time.

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You get a choice of what's going to happen, not everything in your future, but an awful lot of your choices are going to impact your future.

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In fact, simple things like whether or not you're willing to work hard. Most of you have already learned by the age you are, you've learned that working hard pays a dividend and sleeping in doesn't pay very well at all.

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In other words, you've figured that stuff out. You're not eight years old. You figured out that, you know, it'd probably be better to when you go in and apply for a job, probably be better to have that high school diploma than not have that high school diploma.

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You figured that stuff out. You figured out that, you know, maybe going and getting some training at a vocational school or going and finishing your degree or whatever vocation you want.

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You figured out that those things would probably be a help to you. You figured out that your choices have an impact on what happens tomorrow.

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But don't fool yourself. It's the choices you make today that determine what happens tomorrow.

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You've already figured out the causal connection, the proximate cause between what you choose.

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Ah, now we have something about causes, proximal and remote causes.

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Isn't that the first thing is primary and secondary causes? I wonder why he can see that in human life, but will not allow reformed theologians to apply that in regards to God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.

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Very interesting. And what occurs out here. And I believe the Bible supports that idea.

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I believe the Bible supports that idea. That's why it says, for God so loved the world, but whosoever, what?

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Believeth in him. Catch that? Even he recognizes the limitation of that text and still doesn't seem to understand that the whosoever part is simply saying that anyone who believes doesn't answer the question of who will believe.

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It doesn't answer the question of capacity for belief or the biblical teaching that saving faith is a gift of God or any of those things.

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But that's what you deal with so often with those who are opposed to reformed theology. Should not perish, but have everlasting life.

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That God isn't tying a rope to you and saying, come here, come here, come here, while he has tied you to the back wall.

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Which, of course, we saw in our previous examinations, has absolutely nothing to do with the gracious and sovereign

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God calling dead sinners to spiritual life. No, that's a perverted idea of predestination.

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Predestination. It is perverted. Yeah, yes, there are things that are part of God's plan.

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And God has the power. We find that in prophecy that God has to catch that there are things that are part of God's plan, but not everything is part of God's plan.

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That's why I really, even if he's not a an open theist,

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I just really honestly can't see how he can avoid. I certainly don't see how he could mount a defense against open theism.

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That's for sure. Power to work out certain events. But what happens tomorrow? God has allowed a lot of that to be influenced by you.

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So, Ron, you know, now you're talking about earning your way to God. Billy Graham phrased it this way. We are just beggars telling other beggars where to get bread.

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We might not want to grow too prideful of that. All right. We are just people pointing the way to Christ.

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We didn't earn it. We didn't deserve it. All we deserved was separation from God. But in his grace and his love, he invited us into relationship with him.

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Bow your heads for just a minute. And you see that? I didn't I mean,

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I remember listening to this while I was writing, and it was like he's he's rolling along.

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He's rolling along. And all of a sudden, bow your heads. Boom. I mean, I did. I did not even see it coming.

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There was no transition. There was nothing. Just wow. We are we are now into it.

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I have to turn this up because I'm looking at the waveform and it gets real quiet here. But here comes here comes the altar call.

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Next weekend, they said they're going to have water baptism. For those of you who don't understand that, water baptism is something that happens after you make the decision to follow

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Christ. And I am one of those people. And and the truth of the matter is,

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I am a Wesleyan Armenian. I'm someone that believes

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God desires everyone to come into relationship with him. Now, Pastor Ron Baum and others on the staff, they're common

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Calvinists. They believe we get it. I .E. Armenians. Choice and God chooses based on what we choose.

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And so we get along really, really well. Because both of us have a passion for people who come into relationship with Christ.

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Here's what I want to ask you. If you were to go and stand before God tonight, what would he say to you?

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Would he say, well done, good and faithful servant? Or would he say,

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I don't really know you? What would he say? The Bible says if we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart, we can have relationship with him.

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It wasn't decided 10 million years ago or 10 ,000 years ago. It wasn't decided by God all on his own.

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No, it wasn't decided by God all on his own. No, you don't want to have a

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God who makes decisions by himself. I mean, that creation thing. Other than that, I mean, he invited you into relationship with him.

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Now, notice he invites you into relationship with him. Not he commands you to repent.

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Not Act 17. God commands men everywhere to repent. He invites you into relationship.

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Now, see, that's a partial truth. There's a glorious truth that we are invited into relationship with God.

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But that that phrase has no meaning. And in fact, becomes a perversion when it is removed from the reality that first, as the foundation,

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God commands repentance and faith. The invitation to relationship is only for the repentance believing person.

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Once you make that the focus of your call, you're no longer preaching a biblical gospel.

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Your choice matters. And when your choice matters, it's really important to make the right one.

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What's your choice going to be? Is your choice going to be, yeah,

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God, I want a relationship with you. Or is your choice going to be, you know,

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I'm really too busy for that. Or I'm not going to worry about that now. What's your choice going to be?

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Don't worry about people who say you don't have a choice. You do. But that makes that choice all the more important, doesn't it?

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For the last 2 ,000 years, men and women have been teaching and preaching and writing, trying to bring you to this understanding.

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That if we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart, we would be saved. We could have relationship with him.

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So if you stood before God tonight, what would he say? The Bible teaches he'll either say, well done, good and faithful, sir.

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Enter into the joy of the Lord. Or I don't know you.

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Which is he going to say? With every head bowed, no one looking around. I just want to ask you, are you here?

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And you say, Ron, I want to make a commitment. I'm not really sure that I've ever really made a commitment.

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I'm not sure what he would say. But I want to believe in my heart and confess with my mouth that I'm going to invite him to be the

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Lord of my life. If you want to make that commitment today, no one looking around, just between you and God.

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Just slip your hand up and take it down. I'll pray with you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, young lady. Who else? You want to invite him in today?

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Now, think about this for just a moment while we're listening to this. Was that a gospel message? What are these folks responding to?

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Again, faith, repentance. They know anything about the cross. What are they responding to?

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Wait just a moment. You want to invite him in and say, I want to be committed to him. I want to invite him into my heart.

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Anyone else? All right. Slip your hand up and take it down.

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If you're going to invite him in, if you're going to make a commitment to him today, why don't you just stand right where you're at?

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You're going to make a commitment. You raised your hand. Just stand right where you're at. Come on. Don't be shy.

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Now's the time. Just stand right where you're at. You raised your hand. Stand up with me. Thank you. Thank you.

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I appreciate your courage. Thank you. Don't run from it now. If you're inviting him in. What courage?

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I mean, aside from, oh, people are going to look at me. What are these people committing to? Do they understand anything about discipleship?

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They understand anything about repentance? What do they? It's frustrating. Here, let me make it easier.

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Let's all stand together. And now you don't know who's making a choice.

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So reach over and join hands with him. I'm just going to invite you to just silently pray along with me.

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Dear Jesus. I'm going to listen. Come into my heart. Jesus, forgive me of my sin.

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Forgive me. There, there. There, forgive me of my sin. How or why or anything.

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But we got, at least once, there was something about forgiveness. I'm not sure how they could know what their sin is.

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There wasn't any discussion of that. But finally, there was something from the background there.

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Forgive me of my past. Forgive me of my past. I don't want a relationship with you. Jesus, your word says, if I confess my mouth and believe you, believe in my heart, the

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Lord, I can have a relationship with you. I can have a relation. Not I'll be saved from the wrath of God.

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I can have a relationship with you. So Lord, I confess my mouth.

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You went to that cross. You went to that tomb. You came out of that tomb. So I can have a relationship. I confess.

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So the cross and the tomb were so you could have a relationship. Why? Connect the dots.

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There's parts of the truth here. But how could anyone even understand what's being said?

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There was no proclamation here. Truth of your scripture. Jesus, I desire to believe in my heart.

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I desire that you become the leader of my life. Lord, as people invite you in.

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Lord, I pray that you give them the sense of knowing. Jesus, you don't invite us and then abandon us.

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Your word says you stand at the door of our heart and knock. It says something about staying at the door of a heart.

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Really? Is that what Revelation 3 .20 says? Jesus, that you've always desired to come in and be a part of their life. And Lord, there are all kinds of mysteries we don't understand.

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Because on one hand, we know that we have a choice. And on the other hand, you knew what we would choose.

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Jesus, we know that there are things we'll never understand until we come to see you. But Jesus, we know this.

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There were 10 or 15 or 20 or however many there were. Jesus, there are those that want to be in relationship with you.

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Lord, help them to know that you want it too. And you came and laid down your life because you desired that relationship.

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Lord, I pray that you'll be close to them and let them know how very much you love them. And Lord, next weekend,

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I pray that they'll come and be ready to be baptized. Lord, it'll be a time of celebration.

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Lord, of what you're doing in their life. Help them to know that our church loves them. And I'm proud of them.

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And Jesus, they're not on this journey alone. But we're going to learn together. And we're going to study together.

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And we're going to fail together. Jesus, you're going to teach us how to love one another. Lord, we ask these things in your name.

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Amen. Oh, wait a minute. I got to answer questions. All right. Anybody got a question?

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There's something good on TV. I got to go watch. All right. Did you hear that? There's something good on TV.

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I've got to go watch. I don't want to answer your questions. And this subject isn't really worthy of serious questions.

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There's something on TV I need to go watch. That is just offensive. All right.

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You got five minutes. Five minutes. What do you want to know? Why would God create people to go to hell for eternity?

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I don't think he would. I think God is a loving, gracious God. He doesn't create anybody specifically to go to hell for eternity.

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I don't even think that he chooses those who are, and then just leaves the rest on their own. Next question.

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How do you explain Romans 9, 18 through 22 that seems to indicate that God chooses some people for salvation and some for wrath?

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Aha. Oh, well, there's somebody in the audience who knows that what they just heard is not even an attempt to honestly deal with what the text is saying.

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That's what the common Calvinists, that's why they believe that God chooses based on what he knows they're going to choose.

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Now, did you catch that? If you know anything on Romans 9, what does it say?

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Not on the basis of what they had done. Not on the basis of what they had done.

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Not, not, not. And what is Ron Armstrong saying? Well, that's why the common Calvinists, which is his word for Arminians, other

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Arminians believe in foreknowledge. That's why they believe that God chooses based upon what he's foreseen.

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Really? They got that from Romans 9, which says not because of what they did before they were born, et cetera, et cetera.

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Honestly? I mean, I feel sorry for whatever young person asked this question, because if they've read the text, they now realize they're listening to a man who either hasn't or doesn't care enough to actually interact with it.

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That's why they lean that way. Now the Arminian, what they do with that particular scripture is they believe in what's called previant,

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I'm sorry, yeah, previant grace. It's prevenient grace. In other words, the crucifixion, that there was enough grace there to draw everyone into relationship with him.

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Well, that's special. It's not biblical. But what does it have to do with Romans 9?

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Absolutely, positively nothing at all, of course. So Westlands and Arminians, they wrestle with that scripture.

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So do Calvinists. But the truth of the matter is every person, Reformed theologians, every

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Calvinist, every Westland Arminian, every one of us, if we're honest, we have scripture that we have trouble with.

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Trouble with? As in you really can't allow it to say what it said in the original language in the original context?

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Are you suggesting the Bible is that unclear, Mr. Armstrong? Are you really?

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In fact, he's about to call anyone who actually seemingly believes that there is a systematic theology that is discoverable and discernible in the entire text of scripture dishonest.

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At least that's what it sounds like to me. Here's the difference. There are those that are honest and admit their scriptures they have trouble with.

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And then there are those who are dishonest and try and take every scripture and push it into their very carefully calculated structure.

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So if you actually attempt to take all the scripture into the account and you actually think it has a single message, then you're dishonest.

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Well, thank you very much for that. Right. And so no matter what position you take, in fact, the truth of the matter is most doctrines that you're going to encounter are going to have scripture you're going to have trouble fitting in to your perception of that particular doctrine.

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And I think this is the long way of saying I have no clue how to answer Roman Zion because I really don't believe it.

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Armenians are no different. We got scriptures that we're struggling with. What else you got? Is it worth debating with Calvinists or should that be given up as a lost cause?

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I don't like the word debating. Yeah, we can tell. It's okay to discuss things. What you got to be careful with or is the idea is it becoming angry?

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Is it becoming hateful? Is it something that you guys can talk about and disagree about?

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And, you know, still part friends. I told you that every once in a while I golf with a pastor over a forum church.

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He is a great guy, loves the Lord dearly. He and I just disagree on that. Or is it something that when you debate, are you the type of person that gets mad when someone disagrees with you?

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If you are, then you should just pass on that subject. It's more important for you to be loving, gentle and kind than it is for you to be right on this particular issue because a

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Calvinist, someone, a reformed theologian or Armenian, they are all Christ followers. They are all part of the body of Christ.

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What else? If you don't believe that everything goes to God's plan, doesn't that limit

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God's power? I don't think so. I believe that God could control everything.

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God made a choice to give me a choice. In other words, God made a choice to give me a choice.

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In other words, God made a choice to not glorify himself in what was going to take place in time.

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So once again, how would this man defend his flock against the heresy of open theism?

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Or would he even consider it a heresy? I don't know, can't tell. But very clearly, there is no consistency.

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And given what he just said, well, you know, we can't, we've got to be really careful. We can't really know what everything in the

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Bible is about. I mean, you're dishonest if you try to put everything into a system. Well, then why not?

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Why not allow for open theism or a little Pelagianism or a little process theology or something along the way?

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Why not? How can it hurt? I raised two boys, and there were lots of times where I, when we would go out for something simple like ice cream,

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I would say, you can have an ice cream, choose any flavor you want. But now that doesn't mean

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I couldn't have chose for them. I could have said, you are eating vanilla because chocolate is of the devil, all right?

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I could have chosen, but I gave them the choice. Let's never forget that everything we have, every breath we take,

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God's the source of it. If we have choice, it's because God gave it to us. If we have breath, it's because God gave it to us.

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If we have grace, it's because God gave it to us. Let's not make the accusation that someone believes that, well, no, no, no.

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We are usurping God's authority. I deserved nothing from God. Everything that he's given me, he gave out of his love and compassion, not because I deserved it.

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That idea of earning, that's called a Pelagian point of view. And very few people hold to a

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Pelagian point of view. He doesn't even understand Pelagianism at this point. The vast majority of people recognize, no, it's

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God's grace. What else you got? How does one explain instances of God's heartening a particular person's heart?

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This is a good question. You win. Okay. What that verse said, here's what he's talking about.

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You win? Am I understanding this correctly? That basically what he's saying is he's sort of dissing whoever asked this.

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Oh, that's a good question. You win. You know, maybe

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I'm being, I'm not being as generous as I should be, but that was what I got from that. In the

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Old Testament, it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Here's how you explain that.

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If the sun shines down on clay, what happens to it?

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Here we go. We've all heard this one before, but if the sun shines down on clay, then it hardens the clay.

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And without really knowing he's doing this, he is now here going to teach these students that the fundamental difference between themselves and the lost is not the grace of God, which he just got done saying, but it's to be found in you yourself.

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It's because you were more pliable. It's because you respond to light better, not because of the grace of God, which made you to differ, but because there was something in you.

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Because fundamentally, the answer to the question why me and not somebody else is either because you were better or because of God's choice.

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Those are the only two options. And he's already told us which one he takes. It gets harder, doesn't it?

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In other words, as it bakes the water out, it gets hard. As the sun shines down on wax, what happens to it?

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It melts. When it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, that's because God shown his spirit down and what was already there occurred.

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Pharaoh's heart was already hard before God even sent Moses. The scripture makes it plain that Pharaoh was cruel to the

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Israelites even before Moses went there. And so, yeah, God does harden a heart.

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Just him being in that presence makes clay harder. But when God, when you're in God's presence, hopefully you have a heart that's soft and it becomes like wax and it melts in the presence of God.

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Uh -huh. Uh -huh. So your heart is made of wax and so it melts. So it's all up to you.

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Why then does the Bible say that God has to take out a heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh? Why not exegete

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Exodus and say that, you know, before Moses ever saw Pharaoh, God said to Moses, I will harden

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Pharaoh's heart. Is that really giving an answer to the question? What else you got? So God has a plan for each of us, but it's not already made up.

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The, I believe that God, I think God is very similar, you know, and I hate to use this analogy, but how many of you have a friend or someone that you hope something good happens in their life?

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God is very similar to those of us who hope something good happens in someone's life. There you go.

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Hope the very best for their future. I believe God desires good things for his children. But let me ask you this.

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If you became a lawyer or an accountant, would God love you just as much either way?

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I suspect yes. Well, maybe not the lawyer. All right. If you became a lawyer or a truck driver, would

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God love you just as much either way? I think the answer to that is yes. So I believe God does have a will for our lives.

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And what's the will that we would be in relationship with him, that we would grow to look for like him, that we would have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, that we'd have those fruit of the spirit.

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I'm not as convinced as I used to be that God calls certain people to be accountants and God calls certain other people to be truck drivers.

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I'm not sure that. And some people believe that he doesn't. And that's OK. I'm not going to debate the point with you.

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But I believe that God's grace and his love is broad enough that God would love us on several paths that we might choose as long as each path is pleasing.

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There you go. There you go. After that, it was a question about a lame interview, and that was it.

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That was the end of the encounter, mercifully for many of you, also the end of this review.

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Well, once again, one of the main reasons that we played this particular presentation is to recognize, first of all, just the cavalier attitude that many people have about this subject.

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I don't know why you people want it. I really feel sorry for the young people there that it was approached in such a cavalier fashion.

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But at the same time, give these young people credit. Sure, some are going to buy that and they may never be thoroughly instructed in the word of God as a result because they're not going to go to any place because they've been poisoned against the truth.

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And that can have all sorts of negative consequences. And Ron Armstrong has to deal with that. But let's give him some credit.

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I'm sure that some of those young people, especially ones asking those serious questions, had to go, man, that just does not satisfy.

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And those individuals, the Lord will bring his people to his truth in his time.

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And so we have another Radio Free Geneva to do. I'm not sure when we'll do it, but Bob Coy from Calvary Chapel in Fort Lauderdale back in 2007 preached a sermon called

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What's the Point? If you want to look it up, it's for now anyways, it's still listed there. It seems that when we do a

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Radio Free Geneva, for some reason, those things disappear from the web. But you might want to grab it and grab a copy while you can.

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Who knows? But it did have some interesting presentations in it that I had never heard before.

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I'm not sure when we'll get to it, but we will do some more Radio Free Geneva's in the future and respond to these assertions.

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Lord willing, be back in Phoenix on Monday. And so the

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Tuesday DL will probably be at the afternoon time. But we will be doing a dividing line on Tuesday.

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So it might not be, we'll see what my schedule looks like. But looking forward to being back in the desert southwest and we'll talk to you all next time on the dividing line.

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Thanks for listening. God bless. The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at PO Box 37106,

59:43

Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the World Wide Web at aomin .org.

59:48

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