Joshua Lim

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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 morning, welcome to The Dividing Line. On a Tuesday morning, just a program note.

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This coming Thursday is going to be a busy, busy, busy day. At 1 o 'clock my time, 4 o 'clock

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Eastern time, I will be on with Janet Mefford for an hour to discuss the same -sex controversy.

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The book that I wrote, in fact, this request came through Bethany House Publishers, which I haven't had that happen in a long time.

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So we'll have an hour -long interview on the subject of the same -sex controversy, which we can't keep in stock right now either, which is a good thing.

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But anyways, that'll be at 1 o 'clock. So 4 o 'clock Eastern, then at 5 o 'clock Eastern, 2 o 'clock our time, we will transition directly into the special Dividing Line with Michael Brown.

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Dr. Michael Brown will be joining me. We will be discussing his, well, he has contributed to a book that was supposed to be out a long time ago, as in,

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I think, late last year, actually. But it finally did come out on Isaiah chapter 53.

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I have mentioned to you that I wanted to have him on to discuss this. I wanted to do this first because that book came out first.

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Next week, week after, whenever it fits in his schedule and ours, we're going to have him back on again to discuss his new book,

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The Real Kosher Jesus, which he wrote very, very quickly, far quicker than I've written my book.

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But of course, it's a little bit different situation there. In response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's book,

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Kosher Jesus, which creates a completely fictional story about how

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Jesus was actually a revolutionary that tried to overthrow Rome and all the rest of this stuff. And it's just, anyway.

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But I was listening to some of Kosher Jesus, The Real Kosher Jesus, this morning on a short ride.

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We'll do some more tomorrow as well, and hopefully we'll have it all done so we can have a meeting and have a conversation. But be that as it may,

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Thursday then, and I don't know if the interview with Janet Mefford will be live or not.

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In other words, I don't know if you'll be able to listen or if it'll just be recorded and played at another point. I don't know. But that'll be at four o 'clock

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Eastern and five o 'clock Eastern, right into the special dividing line with Michael Brown joining us via Skype, which is the only way that anyone can join us right now.

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Because I should make note that our entire phone system, which started, for a while, for a while, for some odd reason, as I noted, the problems with the phone system.

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Someone who will remain nameless actually had the audacity to suggest that maybe the problem was because I use

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Macs, and it had nothing to do with the Macintosh product whatsoever.

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It had to do with the fact that the phone system was dying. And it has now died.

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And I think the phone system's starting to have a little, or the soundboard now, right? Soundboard's having a problem? I have to cut out my microphone as I talk about this?

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Yeah, I understand that. I can understand that. Anyway, so it's in for repairs.

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And by the way, those are not inexpensive repairs. If anyone actually enjoys this program and likes having phone calls, you might want to keep that in mind.

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But anyway, that's the only way that we're going to have any callers over the next few weeks will be if we do it via Skype.

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And thankfully, Michael Brown is up to speed on that. And so he will be joining us by Skype.

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So that'll be this Thursday. Today's program divided into three portions. First portion,

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I'm going to be addressing some of the issues raised by a young man by the name of Joshua Lim and his conversion story to Romanism that was posted on the

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Call to Confusion website. And that is what I call it, because that's what they call you, too, is confusion, not to certainty.

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It's a Ponzi scheme where you undercut the perspicuity of Scripture and its ability to actually communicate

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God's truth so that by default you fall into the hands of Rome, which can tell you absolutely positively nothing with any certainty at all.

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It's a anyway, so I'll be talking about that in this first half hour. Then in the two more half hours after that one, and I'll just decide which one

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I'm doing at what time, we will be looking at the comments by one

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Harry Knox in regards to the debate he had with Michael Brown on homosexuality. And the other half hour, we will return to Abdullah Kunduz's comments, especially on the subject of their debate in regards to the deity of Christ.

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And what's going to be really interesting in the section we get into today is the issue of the exegesis of the

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Koran and how you do exegesis of the Koran. And can you do exegesis of the

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Koran? Is there an objective meaning to Surah 5?

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Does Surah Ta Ma 'idah actually have an objective meaning? Did it have an objective meaning when it was first given?

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Is that objective meaning found in the words that are communicated to us? Or did it not?

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And that's, I think, an important issue to be raised. And we will be getting into that today in that section.

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So three things to address in a jumbo -sized dividing line today. And hopefully in the midst of all of that, you will find something that will be of benefit to you.

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But I must admit that once again, you consider the topics we're covering today.

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And we are not out there trying to get a large portion of the audience that would be listening to materials on the internet today, talking about Islam, Roman Catholic converts and epistemology, and a 2008 debate on homosexuality.

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That one, I suppose, at least has some cultural cred right now, but that's how we're going to do it.

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Now, as I noted, if you're not familiar with the website, there's a website called

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Call to Communion. I call it Call to Confusion because I think it's a much better description, because they're really not calling us to communion.

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That's just it. The communion is not with God. The communion is with Rome, and hence an acceptance of Rome's outrageous authority claims.

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And so it again is false advertising, I think, to call it Call to Communion.

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It's called to apostasy and therefore communion with Rome.

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And I do not approach these things in a politically correct manner. I do not approach them in an ecumenical manner.

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I am convinced that Rome has no gospel and it can give no one any peace. I do not believe that the

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Pope is the vicar of Christ, and I believe it is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit of God to call him the vicar of Christ, because that is a title that only is to be given to the

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Holy Spirit of God. And I do not believe that any Roman Catholic priest has any biblical or spiritual authority over anyone, because if you are ordained and in your ordination you are called an alter

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Christus, this again is a blasphemy and it is a thorough overthrow of biblical teaching in regards to the gospel, the offices of the church, the authority of Scripture, and so on and so forth.

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So I do not approach this as an ecumenical person, and you will find many, many individuals out there that will be much more willing to talk about, well, you know, there's lots of different traditions, and there's this, that, and the other thing.

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And I don't believe that the Apostle Paul would have engaged in a discussion of the teachings of the

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Judaizers in Galatia in the context of, well, you know, there are many different traditions. And we have our apostolic tradition, but they have their tradition.

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No, I don't think he would have done that. And I tweeted something yesterday that got,

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I don't know, it may have been the most often retweeted tweet I have ever tweeted.

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That's just, I wish I'd come up with a different name for that because it just sort of demeans what you're saying.

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But it is an interesting way of communicating with people. And yesterday I was just,

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I was thinking about, and this is a completely different subject, but I was thinking about what some young emergent evangelical had said about all this person's gay friends and how we need to be friends with this group and friends with that group.

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And in the midst of all that, I could not help but think of James chapter four.

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And I tweeted out a reference and I said, you know, folks need to, the young people today need to listen to what

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James says here. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?

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Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Now that kind of black and white thinking is not popular today in a world where, especially in the realm of religion, there is no room left for the idea that there is actually truth.

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And so you can't have right and wrong, you can't have the world versus God.

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There's it's got to be just a mass of swirling gray. And as a result, that kind of perspective is just unknown to so many today.

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So I say the same thing here. I say the same thing here.

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I am not politically correct when I talk about Roman Catholicism. And I know that the

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Roman Catholics are co -belligerents in cultural issues. And I know the Roman Catholics are suing the federal government over abortion mandates and birth control mandates and all the rest of that stuff.

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I will not apologize for saying that fellowship for the believer is defined by the common possession of the

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Spirit of God brought about by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I will not apologize for that.

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Those with whom I have true fellowship are those who, with me, bow the knee to Jesus Christ in the confession of the finishedness of His work, the fact that there is nothing

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I can do to add to His work, who believe that it is faith in Him alone that saves, that do not try to add to the work of Christ, that do not diminish the work of Christ through the blasphemy of transubstantiation, the perpetuatory sacrifice of the mass.

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I will not apologize for that. And I feel very sad for the large number of people today who are just simply spiritually and apologetically compromised by their unwillingness to openly say

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Roman Catholicism presents a false gospel. Now, going back to the issue here, there is, as I said, a young man by the name of Joshua Lim, he just graduated from Westminster in Escondido, and his conversion story to Roman Catholicism has been posted.

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They like to post things like this because, you know, Rome's biggest sell is not a positive presentation of her actual theology.

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Rome doesn't sell itself by talking about purgatory and by talking about the fact that you have to go to mass 10 or 20 ,000 times in your life and still die impure and that kind of stuff.

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You're not going to find The Call to Confusion guys, Brian Cross and the others, trying to convert people to Roman Catholicism by presenting the bodily assumption of Mary and its ancient historical roots, which, of course, doesn't have any.

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Their approach is to inculcate a lack of trust in the scriptures by pointing to the current situation in Protestant churches, but never pointing to the current situation in Roman Catholic churches.

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You know, the big scandal going on in Italy right now about the stuff that's leaked out from the Vatican and just how much infighting and pettiness and everything there is, the highest levels, which is nothing.

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It's like, oh, really? So things are the same in Rome as they've always been. You know, anybody who knows history knows all about the pornography and the avenue and papacy and all the rest of that stuff.

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And Joshua Limbaugh knows about those things, too. But for some reason, those things get a pass.

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It's if there's confusion amongst Protestants and the reasons for that need to be addressed.

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But if there's confusion amongst Protestants, well, that means you need to embrace

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Mother Church. But if there's confusion amongst Roman Catholics, well, that's just further evidence that Mother Church has survived for 2 ,000 years.

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The standards are just absolutely no fairness there.

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By the way, I just looked over and someone just tweeted me. There are a lot of things I don't agree with the

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R .C. Church about, but there are Trinitarians. Give them credit for that. The Jews worshipped

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Yahweh, and yet if they reject the Son, they're not worshipping the right God. And the

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Apostle Paul said that in their rejection, they're rejecting God's purposes to them. Sir, the

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Judaizers in Galatia, there's no evidence from the Apostle Paul that they rejected the deity of Christ.

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And he still said they were anathema. Sir, think with clarity. Think with clarity.

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Why are you looking for the least common denominator, Christianity? Well, at least I got that right. Well, the

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Mormons love their families. At least I got that right. It's still paganism. I don't understand this modern mindset.

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Well, at least we got that in common. Take that to the New Testament and ask yourself a question.

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Is that how the Apostles functioned? And the answer is no. I'm also told that Janet Mefford will be live.

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Well, I know she will be, but that evidently means that the interview will be live as well and that people will be able to listen.

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Good. OK, that's great. OK, I'm never going to get through this at this rate because I now have 14 minutes.

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I just have to turn Twitter and the channel and everything off or I'll never get to any of this or just look over here because I have the

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Joshua Lim stuff over on this monitor and the other stuff's four monitors over. So maybe that'll help me be more focused.

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Anyway, just a couple of quotes from the Joshua Lim article that I wanted to address and I'm going to have to address them fairly quickly.

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But I think it's important to consider these things. We're not afraid of these. I think one of the reasons, honestly, that these guys have success is because the vast majority of Protestants are not familiar with Roman Catholic conversion stories other than the fact that for years and years and years, the vast majority of those conversions have been out of Rome Catholicism and into Protestant churches.

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And so when they hear about someone going the other direction, they're like, oh, they must have had a real good reason.

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Not necessarily. Folks, false religion is attractive to people who are not believers.

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Now, I don't know Joshua Lim's spiritual state. I don't know if this is one phase amongst many phases.

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I don't know. I'm just dealing with what he says. But you should not be surprised when you see people embracing false religion.

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False religion. Look, people, either you have regenerate people who are satisfied with the truth.

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They find a deep spirit born satisfaction with the truth, or you have people who are unregenerate and you're going to have some that are apathetic.

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You have some who don't have any spiritual interest whatsoever. That's what happens in secularism. But then you have people who have interest in spiritual things.

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But if they're not regenerate, they're always going to be looking for something that's going to salve their conscience or something like that.

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And so keeping that in mind, it should not surprise us at all when we see conversions.

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People move from one view to another view and they do it all the time. So Joshua mentions,

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Joshua is very enamored with philosophy. And I have seen that that is a very common element in many people who drift off and end up on the far side of the

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Tiber River. Very enamored with philosophy. And he talks about reading

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Barth, Karl Barth. And I'm just so thankful that I was completely inoculated against having any interest whatsoever in Karl Barth by going to Fuller Theological Seminary.

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Where he was force fed to me. And, you know, it's like eating one particular food, forced to be eating the same food for three years and you don't like it.

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When that three years is over, you ain't gonna ever bother with it again. Anyways, though Barth vehemently denounced

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Catholicism, I still found a certain Catholic tendency and ecumenical spirit, if you will, throughout his work. Well, yeah, he's German and yeah,

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I can understand that. I also began to read the Bible in this way rather than interpret the text in such a way as to accommodate a certain notion of justification sola fide.

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Joshua, if I could address you directly, I'm sure someone will direct you to my comments. If you had to try to read the

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Bible that way, you weren't reading it right in the first place. You don't read the

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Bible to accommodate a particular perspective. You read the Bible to hear God speaking.

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And you read the Bible with a conviction that as the

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Word of God, as Jesus described it, as the very utterance is the Holy Spirit, that since the

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Spirit is the Spirit of truth, there is a consistent message. Whether, you know, and that I just immediately separated myself from a large portion of biblical commentators today who operate on the very assumption of the exact opposite of that.

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But you do not, if you were trying to interpret the text in such a way so as to accommodate a certain notion of justification sola fide, then

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I would submit to you that you were not properly instructed in exegesis and in a proper view of Scripture to begin with.

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He says, I tried to understand how other traditions understood Scripture, and I often found these competing interpretations to be, in their own right, very compelling.

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Not exactly what that means without an example, you know, I would like to know. So Rome's interpretation of the

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Marian passages, which involve reading into the text entire mountains of theology that no one can seriously suggest was actually a part of the original beliefs of the apostolic writers.

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Is that what you have in mind? Just one of many, many examples

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I could give. A little bit later on, the via media that Reformed churches and their confessions only have a ministerial authority does not solve anything since it is unclear what this even means, as is only more evident in controversies in PNR, Protestant Reformed denominations, that ceaselessly result in more and more denominational splits.

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In other words, one can consistently use Luther's Here I Stand speech in order to avoid church discipline, and it would be hypocritical for any

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Protestant denomination to condemn one who appeals to his own conscience and Scripture. Now, this is directly out of the

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Called Confusion handbook, and you need to understand how this is functioning. You set up a straw man, and that is that Scripture teaches us that there is to exist a singular body that is infallible in all of its pronouncements and that will produce absolute unity.

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So there is no schism whatsoever, and that's God's intention all down through history.

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Now, given the fact that that didn't even exist during the apostolic period, given that there were divisions and false teachers at that time, given that when you read, for example, 1

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John, it's very clear that 1 John, that the apostle, is representing what seems to be even a minority group at that particular point in time, that there have been people who had gone out, as Paul describes them, super apostles.

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And, but, okay, I'm ruining my whole point here, but you start with the assumption that there is supposed to be, that this particular situation is supposed to exist, and then you look at today's

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Protestant church and go, well, that's not it, so there must be something better, there must be something more. If the church has to go through periods of time where, in a particular culture, there is great confusion and there is not clarity of expression of the gospel because God's judgment falls upon a particular culture, well, then we need to find something else.

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Scripture's not enough. It's not working. It's a pragmatic perspective. Now, of course, the thing that just breaks my heart and at the same time makes me shake my head, is that Rome offers absolutely, positively no answer to the very questions they raise.

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How can you go to the Roman Magisterium and think that you have somehow solved any of these issues?

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This ministerial authority that Rome has, why is it that the vast majority of heretics who still call themselves

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Roman Catholics are never excommunicated? Where's the ministerial authority?

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Where's the ministerial authority providing the kind of clear direction in theological belief that is not to be found anywhere in Roman Catholic teaching today?

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You can go to Boston College and read almost anything from those particular people, and yet they're still allowed to be teachers in Roman Catholic institutions.

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I'm sorry, but where are the inspired commentaries from this magisterium that is allegedly infallible to tell us what the scriptures say?

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They're not there. Some people say seven verses have been interpreted, other people say none at all.

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Rome's had 2 ,000 years. You think they're a little bit behind? I'm behind in writing a book for Bethany House, but I'm not that far behind.

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I mean, seriously. Oh, but the Pope's infallible. And yet whenever we debate the subject of papal infallibility, what happens?

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You cannot disprove papal infallibility, because no matter what he says, it's subject to correction later on, and if it needs to be corrected later on, then it wasn't infallible when it was said.

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So Honorius can teach as the Bishop of Rome heresy, and for 400 years, his successors can have to condemn him with the anathema upon becoming the

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Bishop of Rome, but all that means is he wasn't infallible when he said that.

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So no one at the time can ever know whether what a Pope says is infallible, because it might be changed later on.

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So, I mean, Rome does not offer you anything, and when she does offer infallible definitions, it's about stuff like the bodily assumption of Mary and the

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Immaculate Conception, which are foreign, utterly foreign, to the scriptures and tradition, both.

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There you go. There you go. So it's just amazing that, well, you know, there's no authority in what those

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Protestant churches do, and you just start new denominations. Well, we look at Rome today and go, well, you may not call those denominations, but I can talk to 10 different Roman Catholics and get 14 different views, and Rome doesn't do anything about it, and I can talk to 10 different Roman Catholic priests, 10 different Roman Catholic bishops, and get all sorts of different views, and you know that.

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Oh, yeah, well, we know we have problems. Well, why don't you apply the same standard there? And they won't.

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They won't. There is also this horrible idea that everyone's use of Scripture is equal to everyone else's use of Scripture.

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Well, it's just your interpretation of Scripture. That is such an insult to the

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Spirit of God and to the clarity of Scripture. It is an insult for people to say, well, that's just your interpretation.

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Are you telling me—and I'm talking about people who continue to call themselves Christians here. I understand why the atheists and Muslims and stuff like that do it.

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But if you call yourself a Christian and you can talk about, well, it's just your interpretation versus somebody else's interpretation—you get this from the emergent folks all the time.

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Do you have any idea how insulting that is to the

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Spirit of God? Do you really think that's how Jesus viewed Scripture? So when

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Jesus ended every argument with, it stands written, thus saith the

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Scriptures, the proper response from his opponents would have been, that's just your interpretation.

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No. You see the not -so -subtle, absolute undercutting of the inspired nature of Scripture and the fact that there is a knowable divine revelation in the

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Scriptures. That is part and parcel of Rome's attack upon the

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Scriptures. Oh, my goodness. I'm out of time for this? I haven't even read all these.

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I'm pressing on. I got to at least finish this. If I have to only do two topics today,

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I guess I'll be stuck only doing two topics today. Well, we'll see. Sorry. I've been talking really fast, as you can tell, so it's not like I've been not trying to get all this stuff in here.

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Next thing I outlined. Rather, if one small group of Christians could claim to have the truth the exclusion of some or many others, and if this boiled down to an arbitrary construct of a man or a man's or a group of men's imaginings, i .e.,

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their interpretation of Scripture, then I could no longer believe that any Christian domination had the truth. Well, that's actually a fairly decent description of Rome, and it's focused upon one man as the

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Bishop of Rome over against even the earlier understanding where someone who sits upon the

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Cathedra Petri, that was all the bishops, not just the one. But again, this idea of a man's or a group of men's imaginings, i .e.,

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their interpretation of Scripture. Now, we all can see a beautiful modern example of a single man abusing

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Scripture, and his name was Harold Camping. But do you really think that Harold Camping is a good example for a

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Roman Catholic to use? Do you really think that was exegesis? When Peter said,

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Untaught and unstable men distort the writings of Paul, don't you think that what that necessarily means is there can be taught and stable men who don't?

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Evidently, from the call to confusion perspective, no, what that means is that you need

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Rome. By the way, the fellow on Twitter now says,

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Well, what I meant was, with the Catholics, you can start with the Trinity and then explain why their works -based theology is wrong.

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Maybe. The primary issue in dealing with Roman Catholics is the perspicuity and authority of Scripture, which they're going to deny.

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Anyway, if all men are, as Luther and Calvin interpret Scripture to say, hopelessly corrupt and depraved, how can

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I trust anyone? Well, you shouldn't.

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Not for spiritual insight, other than those who are indwelt by the

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Holy Spirit of God. Why should I trust what Martin Luther says the Bible teaches or what John Calvin says the

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Bible teaches or any of the Reformed confessions that matter? Well, here again, fundamental misunderstanding on Joshua's part.

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You test what any one of them said by the revelation of Scripture. And again, are you going to really tell me,

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Well, there is no revelation of Scripture. It's just a blot test, you know, we all just look at it and we just feel.

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No, there are words. They have meaning. And if you approach them, interpret them, not like many modern interpreters, but you actually don't begin with a rejection of the worldview of the authors.

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And you don't begin with a rejection of the necessity of consistently interpreting these words.

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It's amazing. They do communicate something, don't they? Yeah, they do.

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Is it not the height of naivete, even hypocrisy, to believe that everyone is totally depraved and yet continue to trust that any human interpretation of Scripture is somehow guaranteed by the

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Holy Spirit? Wow, here again, here is the, I call it

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Romanist agnosticism that is inculcated by the call to confusion people.

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Joshua, are you actually going to get more certainty by adding in all of the varied and contradictory interpretations that Rome will provide you without you even being able to tell which one's infallible?

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All the traditions? I mean, by you having to sift through and figure out what is and what is not tradition, because there is no absolute revelation from Rome as to what elements of the patristic tradition are sacred tradition and what are not.

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I mean, you've got to try to figure out the contradictory statements of popes and councils and bishops. And you get to choose which of the modern

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Roman Catholic theologians you're going to follow, but they're not infallible. And you can't go to the

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Bishop of Rome, because even once the Bishop of Rome says something, then his words are put in print and now they have to be interpreted by fallible human beings.

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It's a Ponzi scheme, Joshua. The authority that you're looking for ain't there, because what you're looking for has never been promised to you by God.

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The Spirit of God has given you the Scriptures. And if your heart is not content in the revelation that's found therein, you will never find contentment anywhere else.

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I go on. The inextricable link between philosophy and theology became evident to me. One cannot have a pure theology, just as one cannot simply believe the

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Bible without simultaneously interpreting it. Philosophy will always be there, whether one acknowledges it or not. And those who claim to have no philosophy and distinction from their theology must necessarily elicit a certain sense of suspicion, much like the suspicion aroused by fundamentalists who claim simply to be reading the

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Bible. Here comes the issue once again. And for those who are philosophically minded, they want to put philosophy prior to God speaking.

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Rather than judging philosophy by God speaking, they want to say that man's epistemology, man's knowledge, man's ordering of factual evidence precedes divine revelation.

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I really don't think that Adam, when God started speaking to him in the garden, said, excuse me, Lord, I need to test your claims by the philosophical and epistemological assumptions that I've developed here in the first few days in the

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Garden of Eden. And I say to you, whenever you encounter someone who puts philosophy, whatever form it might be, as if there's any infallible word there, as if Rome has answered any of those, look at all the different philosophical perspectives that are given credence within Roman Catholicism, and that Rome has never been able to answer the questions between the

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Thomas and the Dominicans and all the different differences that are out there. They're all valid.

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So much for Rome's infallible ability to answer questions like that.

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But she can infallibly define things like the Immaculate Conception based upon Gnostic myths from the second century.

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But you run into anybody who thinks you start with philosophy and then you judge God, and then you go to the

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Word. There's no foundation there. No foundation there. Last two, real quick.

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Liturgically, there are, at least in Southern California, very few parishes that celebrate Mass the way Catholics should.

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Excuse me, Joshua, you're a convert. How do you know? You're a newly minted follower of Rome.

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And yet you're acting like a Protestant. How do you know how Catholics are supposed to do it? Who are you to tell a priest who's ordained as an alter

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Christus, who is doing some goofy, wild, emergent, let's have some

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Native Americans in to do a nature chant thing as part of Mass stuff.

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And yeah, I find that all of that, and it happens in Los Angeles, for example. I find all of that to just be a clear example of just how far from the truth

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Rome is and all the liberal Protestant denominations that do the same kind of thing. I find all of that to be clear evidence.

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But who are you to say? You're not a cardinal. You're not a bishop. You don't get to do that.

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You're still being a Protestant. There are numerous liberal Catholics who don't submit to the magisterium to the light of Protestants.

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The list seems endless. How do you know what submission to the magisterium is? How do you judge that? I mean,

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Gerry Manitics would say that even Rome's not doing that. And Robertson Jennis would say that there's lots of people in the hierarchy that are teaching utter falsehoods.

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Who do we follow? All those divisions.

37:48

You see, Joshua, you have made a fallible decision to follow an infallible authority, and the infallibility of that authority can never be greater than the fallibility of your decision to follow it.

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There you go. But none of this, he says, is actually new for the Church. Things have always been so.

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These issues have not moved me from the conviction of the Catholic Church as the true Church. On the contrary, they have only increased my faith that this must be the true

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Church. So that's almost—when did I first start hearing that kind of line?

38:24

I first started hearing that kind of line. When I would talk with Mormon missionaries, absolutely overwhelm them with biblical facts, and the only response they could offer was, well, you've increased my testimony.

38:39

And that's what Roman Catholics do. Yeah, I know those Borgia popes, and I know about the Avignon papacy, and I know about the pornocracy, but that just proves this must be

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Christ's Church. Really? So when Protestants have divisions, that proves they're not, but when

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Rome has them, that proves it is. Okay, all right. That is the very essence of the honeymoon.

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You know, what I mean by the honeymoon is, you know, the new convert, Rome can do no wrong.

39:19

But eventually, that wears out, and that feeling wears off, and thankfully

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I've talked to more than one person. Once the feeling wears off and you find out what it's really like inside the walls of the city, you start trying to find the gate to get back to the

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Tiber, and we will certainly pray that that will be the case for many. All right, we're going to take a brief break and head on over to the next topic, which

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I'll decide which one will it be during the break. We'll see you then. Or we'll see you after this beautiful musical interlude, or we'll start the dividing line all over again.

40:33

The criminal mishandling of God's word may be James White's most provocative book yet. White sets out to examine numerous crimes being committed in pulpits throughout our land every week as he seeks to leave no stone unturned.

40:45

Based firmly upon the bedrock of scripture, one crime after another is laid bare for all to see.

40:51

The pulpit is to be a place where God speaks from his word. What has happened to this sacred duty in our day?

40:57

The charges are as follows. Prostitution, using the gospel for financial gain, pandering to pluralism, cowardice under fire, felonious eisegesis, entertainment without a license, and cross -dressing, ignoring

41:11

God's ordinance regarding the roles of men and women. Is a pulpit crime occurring in your town? Get Pulpit Crimes in the bookstore at aomen .org.

41:28

What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book Chosen But Free, A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?

41:37

No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.

41:49

In his book, The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler. But The Potter's Freedom is much more than just a reply.

41:56

It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself.

42:03

In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme

42:11

Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the

42:16

Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Potter's Freedom, a defense of the

42:21

Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at aomen .org.

42:35

Welcome back. This is not a new program. Rich is trying to start multiple editions of The Dividing Line in there.

42:44

And the wheels on the bus are falling off, falling off. All right.

42:52

Well, in 2008, a debate took place between Michael Brown and a man by the name of Harry Knox.

42:58

And at the time, Harry Knox was a part of the Human Rights Campaign, which is, to me, an incredibly offensively named organization.

43:08

Human rights are very important. Human rights are violated all around the world, in Africa especially.

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Tribal massacres and Christians being imprisoned for their faith. Those are human rights.

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Human Rights Campaign is a pro -homosexual organization, and that's not a human right. That is something completely different in its very nature.

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And yet they want to grab hold of what's good, the defense of human rights, and pervert that to their own purposes.

43:40

And that just is extremely offensive and should be offensive to anyone who thinks the clarity. But I was just looking online, and there is an

43:49

Integrity press release. And it says, Harry Knox appointed president and CEO of the

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Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. And this was only April 30th, so this was less than a month ago.

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Integrity is proud to announce that our interim executive director, Harry Knox, has been appointed president and CEO of the

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Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. So Harry Knox is not only a leader in the push for homosexual rights and the like, but he also is a promoter of the murder of unborn children as well, which is a horrible blight.

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I posted a link this morning to some testimony before Congress by a former abortionist of the mechanisms of abortion.

44:42

And again, I simply ask the question, will the judge of all the earth hold this nation sinless in light of this?

44:48

And the reality is that he will not. And so that's another issue. But anyway, the debate took place in 2008, and I wanted to begin responding to Harry Knox's presentation because it differs not in its purely emotional element, which is almost always what you have presented to you by homosexuals.

45:15

It's very rarely an intellectual or logically based, biblically based, anything like that.

45:22

It is going to be much more based upon experience, emotion, and seeking to cloud the mind with, well, you're hurting me and this type of a situation, rather than dealing with the actual issues that you are attempting to raise.

45:40

And I do not, when I respond to someone else's debate, I'm not saying they didn't do a good job in the debate.

45:47

I'm just recognizing I get to have more time than they almost always have.

45:53

I mean, in this situation, if I recall correctly, you had 20 minute opening statements and five minute responses.

45:59

You have one quarter of the time to respond. Obviously, entire swaths of what the other person said will be left without response in a situation like that.

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But the arguments that Harry Knox gave, now I played some of this, I played a few moments of this in the five hour response that I did just a couple weeks ago.

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And I gave the contrast that time in Romans chapter one. So when we get to that, that'll be familiar to you.

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But I want to respond to more of that because, again, there has just been an incredibly positive, very, very positive response to the posting of the materials that we have thus far on the subject of homosexuality.

46:53

Very clearly, this is the subject that is going to come up as we seek to engage our culture and seek to be salt and light in a darkened world.

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So obviously, there's a real desire for information about the claims that are made by men like Harry Knox and by others and their argumentation and what we've addressed, you know, the

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Dan Savage type stuff. That's one kind. And then, you know, we look for five hours at another.

47:29

Well, here's going to be some new twists and turns. And so it's good to address these things.

47:35

And so we're going to jump into Harry Knox's opening statement in this debate and respond to it just as we have in the past.

47:44

Valentine's Day to be with us, to come and to interact with me and with Dr. Brown. And he and I both considered a great gift.

47:51

So thank you very much. You have come, I suspect, for the same reason

47:56

I have, because the stakes are very high. We are in the midst of a conversation in the church and in the larger society about who we lesbian and gay people are, what

48:08

God thinks of us, and whether or not we should be safe and embraced and respected in our congregations and in our secular communities.

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Now, you have to learn. I wish that this was being taught in our in our schools.

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It needs to be taught by homeschoolers. It needs to be taught in Christian schools. It's not being taught in secular schools.

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But listen to how a speaker frames the issue.

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We know what the issue actually is. The issue is a Christian response to homosexuality.

48:52

Is there a Christian position? What do the scriptures say? But what you just heard is framing the conversation in a completely different way.

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And it's meant to frame the conversation dishonestly in a way that cannot allow anyone to disagree with the fundamental assertions of one side.

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If you disagree with me, you don't want me to be safe. If you disagree with me, you don't want me to be respected.

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And all you have to do is just flip it over to some other moral stance or action in our society and see if it fits there.

49:39

So if you speak out against the horrific plague of amphetamine usage and cocaine usage, how would you like it if someone who is defending that kind of behavior, that kind of activity, saying these things, these drugs should be readily available?

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How would you like it if they started off with a debate on that? This is a debate about whether I should be respected in my community and so on and so forth.

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No, that would very clearly indicate to you that the person who is making these presentations is not concerned about the truthfulness of the issue and is not concerned about really addressing the issue in a meaningful fashion.

50:39

They are simply trying to win the debate with cheap debating tricks by cheapening the discussion and by utilizing emotional appeals.

50:52

So you just have to recognize these things and know how to respond to them when they come up.

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Perhaps you have come because you care passionately about the condition of my mortal soul or the soul of another person.

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Maybe you've come because, like me, you have been singled out for violence because of who you are.

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Perhaps, like me, you have been denied the right to work because you are lesbian or gay. Now, it's interesting.

51:23

I've never heard a promoter of homosexuality note the violence that is predominant in the gay community, one toward another, in gay marriages.

51:41

I never hear them talking about the video we've all seen of Christians having to be herded with police protection out of portions of San Francisco because the homosexuals were throwing rocks and bottles at them and threatening to kill them.

51:58

I don't hear them talking about that. And to say that, well, it's all one -sided is to misrepresent the reality of the situation.

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That's why I asked, when all these people talk about their monogamous relationships, whenever I hear—and he's going to do the same thing, he's going to talk about his partner of 28 years—does that mean that there is an implicit condemnation of the 99 percent—talk about 99 percent, here we go, maybe we can get the

52:41

Occupy Wall Street folks excited about this 99 and 1 percent issue—but the 99 percent of homosexuals who do not have monogamous relationships and the 90 percent who don't want monogamous relationships?

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Maybe? Possibly? Maybe, like me, you love someone so much you have taken on all the responsibilities of making a family with him or her, and yet you have not been given the basic protections and benefits available to your married neighbors.

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Okay, once again, the redefinition of marriage, the redefinition of family, it is made an assumption, it is simply put out there as something that is good, something that has already happened, so that you can say you're on the wrong side of history, you know, this is already a done deal.

53:38

That's how you make people throw their hands up in the air and say, well, I just give up, is you just do it often enough, you keep talking in that way, and people just accept it as a given.

53:51

Some of you have come because you have seen the injustices perpetrated against your gay and lesbian sisters and brothers, heard the injustice blamed on the

54:00

God you love, and had a difficult time reconciling what you know of God's unconditional love and boundless grace with the hatred and vitriol you see directed at your neighbors in God's name.

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Now, it'd be nice if we had some examples. I read just a few weeks ago about a lesbian couple, and I think it was in Colorado, I could be wrong about that, but I think it was in Colorado, that were arrested last week for falsifying a police report about, they actually painted on their own garage door something about dying or, you know, something about gays and so on.

54:48

So they found out that they had done it themselves, simply to help promote the idea that they were the victims of this type of thing.

54:56

And that, unfortunately, has happened more than once. Now, I am not for a second denying that there are people who will take any excuse to engage in violence.

55:08

That happens all the time. I doubt very much that what happened on an overpass in Florida a few days ago had anything to do with homosexuality or really anything else than drug use and probably demonic possession.

55:27

I'm sorry if someone else is eating someone else's face and they continue doing so even after being shot. I think it's time we actually consider that, you know, remember

55:37

Legion, you know? Even Christians have become,

55:43

I think, very naturalistic and materialistic in their perspectives of things, and we need to look at things like that.

55:49

But anyway, I think it's important to note these things and to note that violence can go more than one direction.

55:58

And you have wondered what it is doing to your own soul to be aligned with such unkindness and outright violence.

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Because the stakes are so high, our discussion tonight requires two things that are often contradictory.

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Utmost civility and care for each other in word and deed, and absolute honesty.

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May God help us confront our own sinful natures and those of others with both honesty and grace.

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Sounds wonderful. How do you define what a sinful nature is? How do you find what sin is?

56:37

What you're going to hear is a very good speaker, again, both Matthew Vines—by the way,

56:42

I was just looking at the website there, oh, great person of power under latest apologetic articles, the gay

56:51

Christianity refuted thing. There's a nice, large typographical error right there that we might want to fix. Anyway, very good speakers.

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And as soon—and remember, I played this and we're going to hear it again—as soon as you bring the Word of God to bear, well, we don't want to make an idol out of the

57:09

Bible. And so on the one side, you get, you know, until there's—remember

57:18

Proverbs 18, the first one to present his case? Sounds like he's got it right until someone else comes along and cross -examines him, and, yeah, then everything changes.

57:31

I have spent my adult life begging my mostly Christian neighbors to stop killing me with kindness.

57:38

For the most noble of reasons, a desire to call me to holiness, my neighbors have denied me the right to work, looked the other way when

57:48

I was a victim of hate crimes, denied me and my partner the protections and benefits of marriage, sought to silence—

57:54

Now, see how you throw in with all these other assertions, and whether they're true assertions or not,

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I don't know. I don't know what his personal experience is.

58:09

But could I point something out to all of us? Being a victim of a crime does not give you

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Uber rights over everyone else. Have you noticed how, well, the family of a victim automatically has super rights, and they're called to testify?

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And I've always wondered why? It's the same thing with Hollywood stars.

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Well, I played someone in the military, so I'm appearing before Congress to testify about X, Y, or Z.

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Why? Why did that—why does that give you expertise? I don't get it.

58:50

I don't understand it. But what you do is you throw in the midst of all this, denying to me rights.

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And, again, the pedophile says, you're denying to me rights.

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The—I'm sorry, the person into intergenerational love. We need to use the right terminology. The polygamist, you're denying me rights.

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The person who wants to engage in incest, you're denying me rights. The person who wants to marry his dog, you're denying me rights.

59:31

If it's an invalid argument for them, why is it an invalid argument for the homosexual?

59:37

Oh, you're comparing us to disgusting things. If you use their arguments, then you're making the comparison yourself.

59:48

It's not a matter of denial of rights. The only logical and truthful way to address this issue is to admit you seek the radical redefinition of marriage.

01:00:02

Don't lie to people and say that we are denying you rights, when the reality is you are trying to redefine marriage.

01:00:11

It is dishonest. It's dishonest to argue in that fashion.

01:00:19

But it's oh, so common. Once my voice in the church and heaped ridicule and shame on my family, no matter their motivations, they have proven that they are not my friends.

01:00:32

So, if you are convinced and convicted by Scripture that homosexuality, for example, precludes a person from fulfilling the biblical requirements of an elder in the church, then you are bringing shame on someone and you just need to have guilt laden upon you.

01:01:01

Guilt transference is the key apologetic methodology of the homosexual movement.

01:01:10

And aside from its effectiveness, I think that there is a reason why it is so common and prevalent within the homosexual movement.

01:01:27

Because the Scriptures tell us that these individuals are suppressing the knowledge of God.

01:01:34

And that in this particular form of behavior, there is one of the clearest examples of the exchanging of the truth of God for the lie.

01:01:47

And I think that many of these individuals spend their every waking moment seeking to transfer that guilt onto others.

01:01:58

That's why these folks never give up. They are up early in the morning and stay up till late at night, absolutely focused upon this kind of activity.

01:02:15

And we don't want to do that. We don't want to be thinking about this. But it happens anyways.

01:02:24

You cannot deny my basic human rights and expect me to consider you to have my best interests.

01:02:30

Basic human rights means, in their mind, you must abandon your

01:02:37

Christian moral and ethical principles or you are denying my human rights.

01:02:42

Now that is radical. That's irrational. It should be identified as such.

01:02:49

But in the mainstream media, in Western culture today, that is now accepted.

01:02:57

That is now simply accepted. You can't even begin to challenge it. We have to challenge it, but we won't be given much time to do so.

01:03:07

It's at heart. The stakes are much too high. Those who have sought to punish and oppress me have used the most powerful tool

01:03:15

I know. Those who have sought to punish and oppress me. You see,

01:03:21

I mean, this is purposeful, folks. This is not just, wow, you know, I don't think he was really intending to, you know, just have this guilt explosion all over.

01:03:34

No, he does. This has been practiced. This is absolutely purposeful in its entirety.

01:03:46

And for most Christians who are not accustomed to engaging in cultural discourse, shall we say, can really take you back because you're automatically on the defensive.

01:04:04

If you will not challenge the constant presuppositions that underlie all of this, you'll always be on the defensive.

01:04:14

...is a weapon against me. They have perverted the Holy Bible, the powerful standard of justice for even the most marginalized among us, the very touchstone of grace that offers hope and reconciliation.

01:04:29

So, Harry Knox's perspective is that if you take the view that I did, that I defended in five hours in Matthew Vine's response, well, it was only four hours because I played all of his comments.

01:04:43

So anyway, but if you understand Romans chapter one to say what

01:04:48

Romans chapter one says, if you look at the Levitical law and you see how that the consistency, not only with what came before in Genesis 18 and 19, but what comes afterwards and comes into the

01:05:01

New Testament, if you see all of that, then you're perverting the scriptures. Now that's a pretty major accusation.

01:05:09

And it would require a tremendous amount of biblical argumentation to substantiate this.

01:05:16

And the one thing you are not going to get from Harry Knox is biblical argumentation.

01:05:24

And let's think back now. Barry Lynn. Can I borrow that Bible from you?

01:05:32

Let me look at that passage. It's been years since I looked at it. John Shelby Spong.

01:05:40

Well, let me tell you a story that my grandfather told me. You know, yeah, no.

01:05:48

At least Matthew Vines tried. You know, that's one of the reasons I wanted to respond to it.

01:05:55

But no, you're not going to get anything along those lines. Now, I don't want to startle our great board operator here.

01:06:04

He looks startled now. But you think we could actually take a break here and not start a new dividing line in the process?

01:06:18

Because I said between each half hour, and this is the second one. And we're, yeah, this would be the time to do it, sort of.

01:06:26

So I'm just sort of, I'm actually sort of entertained to see what's going to pop up in my head, in my headset here.

01:06:34

Please stand by. And when we come back, I hope Abdullah Kunda is not angry with me that we're going to go from Harry Knox to Abdullah Kunda.

01:06:42

Sorry, Abdullah. Didn't mean to do that. But like I said, three different topics on the program today.

01:06:49

When we come back, we'll be continuing with Abdullah's comments now in the cross -examination period.

01:06:56

Hey, it's gray level. Yay, that's the transition music. There we go. We'll be right back. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the

01:07:18

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.

01:07:26

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

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

01:07:39

Bible study begins at 930 a .m. and the worship service is at 1045. Evening services are at 630 p .m.

01:07:47

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

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North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -grace.

01:08:01

If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org,

01:08:08

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

01:08:15

Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

01:08:21

Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

01:08:28

In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the

01:08:33

Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including

01:08:41

Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.

01:08:51

In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for His people.

01:09:01

The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at aomin .org.

01:09:15

And welcome back to The Dividing Line. I went a little bit long on the first one, but so we're sort of having to cut things and, but we're making it work.

01:09:25

So, covered a lot of different topics, but I wanted to get back to the cross -examination period between Abdullah Kunda.

01:09:33

And, you know, did I misspell Jason Zabala's last name? Because I've seen it with a

01:09:39

W at the end. Maybe he's listening. Maybe he'll let me know. I've seen it with an O, and I've seen it with an

01:09:44

O -W, and I only put an O, and I don't want to misspell it. I don't want to be disrespectful or something.

01:09:49

But anyway, the cross -examination period, we'll be hearing more from both sides, obviously.

01:09:57

But I especially wanted to address some of the issues that, well, actually, I'm sorry, this is the rebuttal period. So the cross -examination is yet coming up.

01:10:03

So I apologize for that. But I want to get to his comments and at least sort of start into some important material here, because right at the beginning, if I recall correctly, because I was listening to this debate again on my right on Saturday, if I recall correctly, this is where the issue of Surah 5 came up, because the

01:10:25

Catholic debater had raised the issue of Surah 5. And look,

01:10:30

Surah 5 raises an important point. And I'm starting to get the idea that this is a really, really good point for our side, because as I listen to my

01:10:43

Muslim responders, Bassam Zawadi and now Abdullah Kunda, I'm going to tell you honestly, guys, your responses are not very clear and they're not very compelling.

01:10:57

When we talk about exegeting a text, I think we need to talk about this before we even play this. When we talk about exegeting a text, what are we talking about?

01:11:04

We're not talking about looking at what Ibn Kathir said or al -Qurtabi said or any of the

01:11:16

Tafsir literature or what later generations. We're not looking at any of that stuff. When we talk about exegeting a text, initially, and those things may be very interesting, and I'm trying to do that in writing my book on the

01:11:29

Quran, and I try to bring all that in. I understand that. And it is important to look at how a text has been understood by various groups over time.

01:11:38

But here's the problem. When John chapter 5 was written,

01:11:48

John chapter 5 had a particular meaning. When the

01:11:53

Apostle John wrote those words, he wrote them in a context to communicate a particular meaning.

01:11:59

Exegesis is the practice, the studied practice, the informed practice, and the art of seeking to allow an ancient writer to speak within his own context.

01:12:19

Now, I would expect that on some level,

01:12:26

Muslims would agree with me on that. That, yes, there was a meaning that when

01:12:31

Muhammad recited Surat al -Maidah, whenever that was, we don't know the exact date, that it had a meaning at that time.

01:12:47

And that the people who heard it, I mean, there's lots of stories in the Hadith, in in the

01:12:53

Hadith literature, of people who heard just a few ayah of the

01:12:59

Quran recited, and they were converted by it. This is the very word. Well, how'd they know that?

01:13:05

Was it just some subjective feeling? Or was there some kind of real content to that?

01:13:17

That's the question. And so if there is a real meaning to the text, how do we determine what it is?

01:13:30

And Abdullah's going to say, well, the Quran interprets the Quran. He's going to say, for example, that the

01:13:35

Quran is very clear in teaching that the scriptures, the Christian scriptures have been corrupted, and there's different views of that amongst the early interpreters.

01:13:43

But he's going to say, that's a foundational thing. And so you have to interpret Surat al -Maidah in light of that.

01:13:49

So what he'd have to be able to demonstrate is that the corruption of the

01:13:55

Christian scriptures was already so clear in the minds of his listeners when

01:14:00

Surat al -Maidah was given, that they would have interpreted Surat al -Maidah in this way. But there's a problem here.

01:14:06

And that is that, well, words have meaning. And if you're not familiar with Surat al -Maidah,

01:14:11

Surah 5, let me read it for you here, a portion of it. So you have the background to what we're going to listen to in the last few minutes of the program here.

01:14:21

This has been, for me, one of the fastest 90 minutes I've ever had on this program. This is weird. It's gone so quickly.

01:14:28

It feels like a half hour has gone by, not an hour. Anyway, Surah 5, 44. Indeed, we sent down the

01:14:34

Torah, in which was guidance and light, the prophets who submitted to Allah, judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the scripture of Allah.

01:14:44

And they were witnesses thereto. So do not fear the people, but fear me. And do not exchange my verses for a small price.

01:14:50

And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed, then it is those who are the disbelievers. And we ordain for them therein a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth, and for wounds is legal retribution.

01:15:04

By the way, that's in the Torah. That's the lex talionis. It's in the Torah. But whoever gives up his right as charity, it is an expiation for him.

01:15:14

And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed, then it is those who are the wrongdoers. And so what is the

01:15:20

Torah under review here? Clearly, it is what we view as the Old Testament, or at least the five books of Moses.

01:15:29

And we sent, verse 46, ayah 46, and we sent following in their footsteps Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the

01:15:39

Torah. So Jesus confirms what came before. Well, he certainly did that.

01:15:45

And if we look at how Jesus did that, he didn't just confirm what was in the Torah, he confirmed everything that was in the Old Testament.

01:15:52

He said it was God's very speaking. Did Muhammad know that? I don't think he did. Did Muhammad know the full extent of the

01:15:58

Torah? I don't think he did. You'd have to prove that he did. And what evidence would you give is an interesting question.

01:16:04

Anyways, we sent following in their footsteps Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the Torah. And we gave him the

01:16:11

Injil, the Gospel, in which was guidance and light, a description that is found of that which comes from God as revelation, in which was guidance and light, and confirming that which preceded it of the

01:16:25

Torah as guidance and instruction for the righteous. Now, there is, in my mind, clear confusion in the

01:16:34

Quran as to exactly what the Injil is. And again, we have no evidence that the entirety of the

01:16:43

Gospels had been translated into Arabic at this point in time. So, I know the

01:16:49

Muslim assumes a certain character of the Quran, but in a debate you can't just assume that, especially when you're in a debate with a

01:16:59

Christian, and you're denying, I mean, I do not think Abdullah would accept my mere assertion of the consistent inspiration of the

01:17:07

New Testament and simply accept that as a given fact. But he seems to believe that, at least

01:17:15

Muslims tend to operate on the idea, that you need to assume that for the

01:17:23

Quran. So, we gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light, and confirming that which preceded it of the

01:17:29

Torah as guidance and instruction for the righteous. Now, verse 47, I think, got pretty badly misrepresented in this conversation.

01:17:44

Let the people of the Gospel, the Al -Injil, the people of the

01:17:51

Gospel, judge by what Allah has revealed therein.

01:17:58

Now, for some reason, Abdullah is going to make the claim, and I haven't seen him in to back this claim up, but he's going to claim that what this verse actually says is to look at the book.

01:18:15

It doesn't say anything about the book. It says the Al -Injil, the

01:18:20

Gospel, judge by what Allah has revealed therein. What does Fihi refer to in Arabic?

01:18:30

What's the antecedent? What is the antecedent of therein?

01:18:36

Fihi in Arabic, it's the Gospel. It's the

01:18:42

Gospel. So, let the people of the Gospel judge. Now, there's a consistent argument here.

01:18:50

The Jews were to judge by what was in the Torah. The Christians are to judge by what's in the Gospel. Now, there is a question as to what is being judged.

01:19:03

And I found Abdullah's response to this very interesting. It would seem to me that you could make an argument, and there are some of the interpretations in the earlier writers go this direction, you could make an argument that what's being said is that the

01:19:19

Jews should judge by their scriptures amongst themselves, and the Christians should judge amongst themselves by their scriptures.

01:19:28

But it would seem that what's being said here is you should be judging what Allah has revealed now through the current prophet.

01:19:36

And that's what Abdullah seemed to accept as what was being said. And the whole reason that this issue, this text is being raised by us on this side is that it seems that we're being told that we no longer have the

01:19:56

Injil. And if we don't have the

01:20:02

Injil today, then they didn't have it in Muhammad's day. How do I know that? Because we know without any shadow of a doubt what the scriptures looked like in the days of Muhammad.

01:20:13

The scriptures as in both Old and New Testament. We have entire complete codices of the entirety of the

01:20:24

Old and New Testaments that predate the time of Muhammad.

01:20:30

So we know what they possessed. In fact, may I suggest something to you?

01:20:36

We know what they possessed better than Muhammad did. Because Muhammad did not have access to these things in their original languages or even in Arabic translation.

01:20:49

And yes, what I'm saying to you is I see strong evidence of the ignorance of the historical person

01:20:57

Muhammad coming through in the pages of the Quran. Now you can just simply assume it's impossible.

01:21:06

You know, it's like the debate that took place and I didn't get to hear the debate.

01:21:12

Unfortunately, last night, I'm going to have to find this online where David Wood debated on the existence of Muhammad.

01:21:23

But when a debate took place with two Salafi Muslims on the existence of Muhammad, all they could say is, well, the

01:21:30

Quran says he existed. So he existed. Okay, that's called circular reasoning.

01:21:38

Quran says it. Therefore, that's it. Um, I think it's important to point out the real strong possibility that the conflict we see between the teaching of the

01:21:51

Quran and the Christian scriptures comes from the fact that the author of the Quran was ignorant of the scriptures.

01:21:59

And the only way you can get around that is, well, there's nothing of Muhammad in the Quran. Well, Allah knew what was in the scriptures.

01:22:06

So you can't accuse him of not knowing. So that's an important point.

01:22:13

Let the people of the gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein, and whoever does not judge by what

01:22:19

Allah has revealed, then it is those who are defiantly disobedient. Three times now, if you will not judge by Torah, and if you will not judge by gospel, you are disobedient.

01:22:29

Well, I don't want to be disobedient. And when I judge by those things, I have to reject Muhammad. It's not a simplistic argument.

01:22:37

It's simply listening to what the text says, because the very next ayah then says, and revealed to you,

01:22:44

O Muhammad, the book and truth, confirming that which preceded of it, of the scripture, and as a criterion, a muhaiman over it.

01:22:51

So you have Moses, Torah, Jesus, gospel. And then what's the last step?

01:22:59

Muhammad Quran. Well, that raises all sorts of questions.

01:23:06

And it really, by making that chain, which the Quran itself makes, if you're saying the first two have been corrupted, why hasn't the third?

01:23:17

Well, there are promises it won't be. There's promises in my Bible it won't be either. So what? Just looking for that consistent

01:23:25

Islamic apologist. So with that in mind, now you have the background, we go to, in the last few moments here,

01:23:34

Abdullah's comments in his rebuttal. Thank you very much, and thank you, Jason, for your openness and frankness, and also thank you to the non -Muslim audience.

01:23:43

I mean, the reality is I did just draw an analogy between your scripture and works of English fiction, and I heard not even a gasp.

01:23:51

So I appreciate that very much. I'll just start with the way that I'm sort of understanding part of...

01:23:57

Yeah, I have to admit, Abdullah, if I were to liken the Quran to Harry Potter, do you think

01:24:04

I might get a little bit more of a reaction than you did from the Christians? I have a feeling that I would.

01:24:12

Jason's argument is that he sort of started by saying, well, the Quran tells

01:24:17

Christians to look to the Bible because it's true, and therefore the Bible says that Jesus is

01:24:23

God, ergo Jesus must be God. I'm sorry,

01:24:29

Abdullah, that wasn't really what he said. I think your opponent pretty much said what

01:24:37

I just got done saying, but he had to do it in a lot briefer expanse.

01:24:44

But I think that he pretty much agreed with what I just said, and that is Surah 5, 47 implies that we as Christians...

01:24:54

It commands the Al -Alanjeel to judge by what Allah has revealed therein, and therefore we must possess it.

01:25:06

And when we look at it, we know what they had at that time, what they had at that time clearly testifies to the deity of Christ.

01:25:13

If we judge by that, therefore the Quran's understanding is in error. But it's not just a, well, believe the

01:25:20

Bible, and therefore Jesus is God. It's a little bit more to it than that, because it's saying, look, the

01:25:29

Quran itself seems to believe that the gospel had been preserved to that point in time.

01:25:37

And I don't want to be an unbeliever in not judging thereby when I'm commanded to do so. According to what our own scripture says.

01:25:45

I'll come back to that point, but the simple reality is that it's just a basic misunderstanding of Quranic exegesis.

01:25:55

I want to rather go through a couple of Jason's points in order. I was very interested to see that he used the

01:26:03

Nicene Creed as the basis for referring to the understanding of Jesus and his divinity.

01:26:11

And then, in contrast, quoted the Quran for us. Well, I don't think that these are really equal.

01:26:18

And it shows to me a problem that exists in Christianity. See, if you want to quote something that's comparable to the

01:26:23

Quran, I mean, for sure, you would assume that you would go to the Bible, right? And it's very interesting that Jason sort of followed that idea on by saying that the earliest followers of Jesus held this idea, and that there's evidence of that.

01:26:38

Well, I would ask, where is the evidence for the Chalcedonian Creed existing in, or anything similar to it, existing in the first century?

01:26:48

That's called the New Testament. And, in fact, Abdullah is going to make an argument here, and the response is going to be offered to him, well, you've got

01:27:00

Meletus Sardis, you've got Ignatius, Ignatius is right at the beginning of the second century, right after the apostles, within decades of the writing of the

01:27:10

New Testament, so on and so forth. But we don't have first century Christian documents.

01:27:16

Some people argue that the first epistle of Clement, it's literally an epistle from the

01:27:23

Church of Rome, the Church of Corinth, might be as early as A .D. 95. That's probably the only extra canonical, extra

01:27:35

New Testament writing that we have from the first century. The first century witness is the

01:27:42

New Testament books. So, again, is there a consistency here in demanding only first century documents when, okay, how much do we know about Muhammad from the first century documents of the

01:27:57

Islamic period? Could you even prove the existence of Muhammad? I mean, that's the whole argument that's coming up from there.

01:28:03

And so you're going to use the same standards. And I would argue that the best foundation for a

01:28:10

Chalcedonian understanding of, well, they crucified the Lord of Glory, is going to be found in the

01:28:16

New Testament scriptures themselves. I hope you keep all that background stuff that I gave you in mind, because it's probably going to be a week till we get back to this, unfortunately.

01:28:26

And I apologize for that. But I did the best I could to cram it all in there. I think everyone's going to be very pleased on Thursday to have as my guest

01:28:36

Michael Brown. We are going to be looking at Isaiah 53 in Hebrew. We're going to just walk through the text, deal with all the objections.

01:28:43

I'd like to challenge Abdullah Kund to listen to that, too, because I think you'll find it to be very, very interesting. That's this coming

01:28:48

Thursday. We'll see you then. God bless. The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

01:29:47

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