Paul Williams' Comments

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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 Thursday in October, where it's starting to act a little bit, a little bit like October, well,

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November, well, December, well, we live in Arizona. But it's cloudy outside.

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I got rained on this one. In fact, I started to try to ride this morning. I had to go back. I was getting rained on so much. It cleared up a little bit later and then

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I rode. But we got we had precipitation. We have clouds and we have wind and some places in the valley.

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It will dip into the 50s tomorrow night, which is exciting. Very exciting. Yes. Fifty nine.

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Come on, it's in the 50s. Fifty. You got to take what you got to get, man. Fifty nine and three quarters.

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That's still below 60. That's all that matters. So anyways, oh,

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LaShawn was just saying a good late afternoon live DL, then the game. I assume she's referring to the vice presidential smackdown.

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I'm sort of worried about that, to be honest with you, because if if Joe Biden manages to get one complete coherent sentence out, he wins.

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I mean, that's how low the expectations are. I mean, as long as he doesn't go, hey, then he wins.

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That's it. Because that's that's about what the level of expectation is. I'm a professional debater, folks.

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I know these things. And when you have a when you have expectation level for for Uncle Joe of the vertical of a credit card, that's just that's bad.

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That's really, really bad. Oh, oh, no. She says the Steelers Titans game. OK, well, she's got her priorities, right?

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Doesn't she? That's funny. Anyway, I would like to remind folks in the

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Delaware area, I will be Saturday evening,

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October 13th, 6 to 9 p .m. I got to keep clicking the previous button here. Delmarva Christian High School Gym, Georgetown, Delaware, free admission.

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Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? And so I will invite you to be with us and then

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I will be preaching the next morning as well. We don't have that on there, but I will be preaching the next morning.

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Just not there. Anyways, I don't know why we don't have on the on the banner ad, but that's

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OK. But that's coming up this week. Next week, we'll be in Livonia, Michigan, and for the whole week and a couple of those days,

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I'm going to be sneaking over to ABN and doing some teaching for the Aramaic Broadcasting Network there.

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And that will be that'll be exciting. And anyway, so that's what's coming up now.

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Very, very interesting article. I love, I love, I love

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Al Mohler and the briefing. If you do not have

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Al Mohler and the briefing as a part of your every morning listening, then

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I you're missing it. You're missing it. You're missing it. If you want to hear a fort about a 14 minute period of sanity during your life, during your day, it is really, really, really worth that kind of thing, that kind of investment.

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And Dr. Mohler mentioned, I believe yesterday morning, a

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Pew Research study that had just come out. Protestants are now 48 percent of the

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American population. In other words, Protestants are longer the majority. Catholic, 22 percent.

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Mormon, 2 percent. Orthodox, I would assume that's Orthodox, Jewish, 1 percent.

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Other faiths, which I would mean, I imagine isn't funny. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, throw them all into one big pile and call them other faiths, 6 percent.

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Don't know, 1 percent. And nuns, the

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N -O -N -E -S, one out of five, 20 percent. Listed at that point.

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Now, one of the things that was brought out that was rather important, today, fueled by young adults, the nuns have leapt from 15 .3

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of US adults in 2007 to 20 percent. Now, that is an amazing, one in three of the nuns are under age 30.

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And unlikely to age into claiming a religion, says Pew Forum Senior Researcher Greg Smith.

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The new study points out that today's Millennials are more unaffiliated than any young generation ever has been when they were younger.

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Now, when I heard this, I understand the initial reaction to this.

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The initial reaction is, well, there you go. There is the secularization of the

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United States. And on one level, this is the open, clear, obvious secularization of the

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United States. And a lot of people would look at that and say, this is a bad thing.

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The younger generation is not even pretending. But the very fact that we say that makes me go, is this really a bad thing or is this just more honesty than we've had in the past?

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Now, I wish that 85 percent of the population of the

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United States of America, in response to polls, would say,

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I bow the knee in repentance and faith to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And if they lived that way, that would be wonderful.

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But this would be a completely different nation, if that were the case. We could not have had the political conventions that we had.

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We could not have had the constant worship of abortion and homosexuality and the perversion of marriage at one of those political conventions that we had, if that were the case, because said political party would not be able to get elected.

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Dog catcher, if 85 percent of the people in the United States. And look, if 49 percent or 48 percent of the population of the

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United States actually said the same thing and did the same thing and lived that way, this would still be a completely different nation.

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We all know that when people say, well, look, look at that 60, 70 percent of the

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American population claims, 72 percent, throw the Mormons in there, claim to be

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Christian. Between Protestants, Catholics and Mormons, almost three quarters.

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You're telling me that this world looks at this nation and sees anything even slightly reflecting that?

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No way. No way. We murder babies at the drop of a hat. We are perverting marriage.

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We exalt every kind of of sexual perversion and sexual license on the planet.

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And if 72 percent of this nation was actually even slightly Christian, that wouldn't happen.

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And so we've all known, if we've thought about it, that all these numbers, all these polls and stuff like that were not reflective of anything that was real, anything that had any reflected reality at all.

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And, you know, years ago, my daughter, we were driving home from church one day and she was talking about the

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Christian school that she went to, and she was talking about how she didn't want to go there anymore. And we said, well, why is this?

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Because I don't know any Christians there. We're like, what? And she started talking about it.

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And it's a problem with Christian schools that very frequently parents will just throw students in there because the public schools have gotten tired of them and they've got the money to do it.

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And one of the things she said was, I prefer my pagans straight up. Thank you. And I agree.

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I think it's easier to evangelize someone who does not make a self -righteous, hypocritical claim to religious faith.

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That's one of the real problems. That's one of the really bad results of the denial of the gospel that is the anti -lordship, you can have faith in Jesus, but you don't have to repent for your sins.

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That's a bunch of works. Did you all see that video before the guy pulled it down this way? Was it yesterday morning or the day before yesterday?

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Yesterday morning, I posted a... I woke up, I got in channel, and Pinkster in channel said,

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I'm watching this video, 10 Reasons Why James White's Going to Hell. That was the first thing I saw in the morning.

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That was great. That was a wonderful way to start the morning. Thank you very much. Get up, and there's someone who's putting an entire thing up about 10

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Reasons Why I'm Going to Hell. Well, if you listen to it, it was just not even... Absurd is not an appropriate term to be used for the mishmash of irrationality and eisegesis and everything else that was the basis of that.

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But evidently, people say it's Brother Jack. I couldn't even find out who it was. I don't know. But if it's

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Brother Jack, then Brother Jack is an anti -lordship guy.

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And there you see what happens. You don't have to repent. That's works. That's James White's teaching. Work, salvation, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

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And that is the issue. When you have that kind of preaching, it's going to produce a church filled with unregenerate people, with driftwood.

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Who will respond to... I can just see the Pew religion researchers going through a neighborhood and knocking on doors.

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And, would you have a few moments to answer some questions? Okay. And there you're standing there, and you haven't been to church in I don't know how long, and you don't ever give a thought to the

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Bible or Jesus or anything else. And you're standing there with a beer in your hands.

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And, you're a Christian? Yeah, I'm a Protestant. Well, that sort of inflates the numbers a little bit, doesn't it?

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But does it really reflect anything? No, it doesn't. And so, when you have...

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And Dr. Moeller made a very excellent observation. He made an observation that this is a good thing.

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That it is a good thing, because all these nuns,

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N -O -N -E -S, very clearly need the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they're not already making a profession in a false gospel.

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And he made the observation, he said, you know, for a long time people have been saying that you can sort of,

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I guess the term would be friendship people into the church. You can get them started on Christianity light, no challenge to their sinfulness, no challenge to their self -will, no call to bow to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

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In other words, the faith that you teach them is not the biblical faith. It's not saving faith.

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It's something less than that. And then over time, they will grow into wanting more.

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That's been the theory. But as Dr. Moeller pointed out, these numbers demonstrate just the opposite.

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That that's not what happens. That they don't grow into wanting more, they grow into wanting less.

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And that's represented by the numbers as we see them. So when

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I see these numbers, I expect them to continue to go down unless there is one of two things.

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Either a sudden rise in hypocrisy in the United States. And, you know, we saw that on September 12, 2011.

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People who hadn't even mentioned the word God outside of profanity for a couple weeks there were saying,

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God bless America. And they might have cleaned up their language a little bit or, you know, just for a little while, just not for long.

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So I suppose we could have a big increase in religious hypocrisy that would change the numbers. But the only thing that can really change numbers is if God changes the hearts of people.

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And that's exactly what this nation and every nation needs.

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And so it's a little bit like the sermon that I preached a few years ago. And then, in fact,

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I will be summarizing and sort of making application to this in Delaware out of 1

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John chapter 2. I titled it, The Blessings of Apostasy.

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And what I meant by that was there is something good, there is something right, there is something proper in making distinctions that clarify the gospel.

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And what the Bible teaches us is that when the gospel is being preached in the church, it's going to have a result and it's going to drive out those religious hypocrites who are playing games.

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And it is necessary that they go out from us. So it might be demonstrated they were not truly of us.

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If they stayed amongst us, that's what causes confusion. Look in our own land.

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How many people outside the Christian church have a really clear idea of what the gospel really is because of all the false gospels and everything else?

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And so when you think even of these numbers, Protestant 48%, that includes

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United Church of Christ, which is an apostate denomination. That includes all the liberals who do not believe in the deity of Christ or the resurrection of Christ or the inspiration of scripture.

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What percentage really does represent believing Christians?

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I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how anybody could actually pursue that particular inquiry, to be honest with you.

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And I don't know what to guess. I really don't. I thank God that there are believers in almost every denomination.

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I mean, there are some where you just go, why on earth would you be there? But, you know, God still has his people,

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I guess. Some are just completely apostate denominations. But the fact of the matter is that only a small percentage of even that 48 % would reflect regenerate believers.

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So when we look at things like this, the natural reaction is, oh, look at that.

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If we just need to get that number back up above 48, that's going to change everything. No, it's not.

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I mean, look at the debate. It is tonight, isn't it? Yeah. Look at the debate tonight. Has anyone, well,

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I know people have. Dr. Moeller even pointed this out. But have you thought about this? What's the religious affiliation of both men?

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They're both Roman Catholics. And yet, could they have a more diverse view of ethical and moral issues?

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No, couldn't. Couldn't have it. So it is fascinating to note that.

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All four of these candidates, presidential and vice presidential candidates, you look at the theological spectrum represented there, and it's about as wide as you can get.

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I mean, we know what Barack Obama has said about the Bible, and we know what his pastor thinks about the

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Bible and what black liberation theology is all about. Someone I saw online,

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I would love to see verification of this, because it's this would fascinate me.

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This would be extremely theologically relevant. But I've not seen any confirmation of it.

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I wish somebody would ask a question. But did you see this article? I saw an article where the writer was alleging, not just simply on some theory, but says that they have sources for this, that the ring that Obama wears.

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You saw this? He got some emails about that. The ring that he wears has the shahada on it.

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Now, that would not shock me, because there is no question whatsoever that at a time in his young life, he said the shahada.

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There's no question about that. And if someone's wondering what the shahada is, that is the confession of faith that makes one a

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Muslim. And it probably just has la ilaha illallah or something like that on it in Arabic, if it's even the case.

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I would be fascinated if that would be the case, because someone taking his liberal perspective would not see that as being what conservatives would take it.

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But yeah, that would be a connection between him and his father and his heritage and all the rest of that stuff.

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It would not in any way, shape, or form say he really is a Muslim.

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No, believe me, the things he's said and done are not things that a Muslim would do. But he was a

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Muslim once, which makes him an apostate Muslim. And there's only one law in the sharia for apostasy from Islam, and it is death.

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And so you've got someone who's gone from that to this wild, crazy, you call it an heirloom, maybe, it's possible, yeah.

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This wild, crazy, yeah, rings from my father. That's Mutado, he came up with that one, that's good.

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Rings from my father, that's good. I only met him once, which is a sad thing, honestly.

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I mean, honestly, folks, we are dealing with the result of broken families in that situation.

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We really are. I mean, on a national level, that one broken family has had massive impact upon each one of us now.

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Don't tell me you live on an island. Don't tell me your changing of marriage isn't going to affect my marriage.

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Here's one situation where one man, who was in essence a functioning polygamist, his abandonment of wife and child, that child ends up President of the

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United States and therefore influencing the moral fabric of this country. Think about that one for just a moment.

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But anyways, the wild form of religious liberalism that Obama embraced, black liberation theology and all things there, together with the liberal

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Roman Catholicism over against the Mormonism that no one is quite 100 % certain exactly how that functions in Mitt Romney's thought process.

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Because I'll be honest with you. I don't think Brigham Young could have been elected governor of Massachusetts.

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Okay? I mean, seriously. And this has nothing to do with Brigham Young's wives.

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Okay? This has nothing. I want to say right now to everyone listening, I am not making any commentary whatsoever about Brigham Young's wives, even though I would encourage you to go online and find the graphics of them.

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But that had nothing to do. I wasn't thinking about that. Really. What do you want to add? You go on.

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I'm trying to work up a disclaimer here for the moment. A disclaimer? Yeah. The views expressed by the

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Director of the Ministry do not necessarily... Well, they have to, don't they? Oh, man. Yes.

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This is First Lady Loretta, and this is First Lady Jamie, and this is First Lady... Oh, brother.

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Anyways. Getting back to the point,

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I don't know how historic

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Mormon theology, which views the Constitution as a divinely inspired document, will that influence...

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I mean, could a believing Mormon nominate to the

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Supreme Court of the United States a justice who was not an originalist? I don't know.

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Good question. It would seem that a Mormon would be significantly more likely to nominate, as consistent with his worldview, an originalist, a person who believes that the

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Constitution should be interpreted in light of what it originally meant. But, hey, there are liberal Mormons. I don't think the

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Romney family is overly well known for being liberal in their theology. But, who knows?

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Who knows? And then you've got a

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Mormon of unknown... I'm not going to say of unknown

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Mormon credibility, because that's not the case. Has he been able to disconnect the

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Mormon worldview from his political worldview? I mean, he almost had to do that in Massachusetts.

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I mean, that is a liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal state. One would wonder when the last time he did his temple baptism...

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You know what? When you've got the kind of money he's got, and you donate the kind of money he donates,

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I bet you he can jet into Salt Lake and do his endowment stuff, and I bet you he gets access...

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I bet you he's never had to go to a temple other than Salt Lake. Because going to Salt Lake is...

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I mean, that's the Cadillac. You sure they didn't just go ahead and give him a pass?

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I mean, hey, you know, you donate enough, we got you covered. No, no, no, no. You can bet that was a temple marriage.

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And you can bet he does his temple work. You bet he does.

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You bet he does. So, Turretson fan, Massachusetts is so left -wing, it flies in circles.

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That's right. And if it gets way out wide, it runs into California, which is also going in a left -hand circle, too, as well as everybody in the

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Northwest. Anyhow, yeah, it's just over the flyover area in between where the rest of us are going, what are those people doing?

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But anyway, so you've got that on the other side, and then you've got Paul Ryan, who, by all accounts, is a believing, conservative, all -the -way -Roman -Catholic -probably -likes -Catholic -answers -and -everything -else type guy.

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And that's quite... And right now, on the

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Supreme Court, Roman Catholics and Jews, not a single Protestant. Roman Catholics and Jews, no

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Protestants. So, this might have some impact upon some who go, well,

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I'm not going to vote for anybody but an Orthodox Christian. Well, you've got nobody to vote for. There ain't nobody there by any stretch of the imagination.

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And that raises the question, how do

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Christians, when they are a small minority, true Christians, true Orthodox, Bible -believing

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Christians, believe the Christian scriptures, they have the same view of the scriptures that Jesus himself had.

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What do you do when you are in a society where you are a teeny -tiny minority, and therefore, and therefore, nobody up for election reflects your perspective?

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What do you do? That's what we have to deal with, folks. That's what we have to deal with.

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Fascinating. Someone on Twitter, I just saw, who is this? This is Bern Roberts just put a

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Twitter pickup of me. He evidently froze the video frame with my mouth wide open and put in a bubble thing,

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I've never met a consistent Muslim apologist. And I'm staying right next to the MDI thing. There's Doug McMaster's head glowing clearly in the foreground.

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I hadn't seen that before, but, no, he must have just snapped that picture.

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I'm going to have to save that one. I'm going to have to find that and save that to my iPhoto collection there.

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That's rather cool. Anyway, just some thoughts that I wanted to, uh -huh, that's interesting.

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Big Lo just posted something about Mitt and Ann were married on March 21st, 1969. Mitt was 22 and Ann was 19.

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First part of their wedding took place in Ann's parents' home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in a civil ceremony officiated by Church Elder Edwin Jones.

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They had around 250 guests, including President Ford, and received congratulations and a wire from President Nixon. Next morning,

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Mitt and Ann flew to Salt Lake City and were sealed for eternity in the Mormon temple. I told ya! I didn't know that.

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Thank you, Big Lo. But does not surprise me, and that is not uncommon, especially for someone in politics.

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You want people to be able to come, but they can't go in the temple. Richard Nixon especially could not go in the temple.

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There you go. Interesting. Flew to Salt Lake City and had the sealing for time and eternity there.

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So anyway, some thoughts. The title to the Pew thing was, As Protestants Decline, Those With No Religion Gain.

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Well, were they really Protestants in the first place is the question. Or is this just simply the

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American secular nation is being more honest than it has been in the past?

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Is that a bad thing? I don't happen to think that is a bad thing. I think it's a bad thing in the sense that anyone who doesn't bow the knee to Christ, obviously, is under the wrath of God.

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But I think it's easier to deal with someone who is open about it than someone who pretends that they actually do bow the knee to Christ, when in fact, they do not.

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So there you go. All right. I have two things queued up. And we have gone through the first half hour.

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And maybe if I can make Rich do some work on the other side of the windows, we can take a quick break.

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I can swig some whatever it is I've got in this thing here. And come back and do a little more with Bart Ehrman and Dan Wallace and Paul Williams and all the rest of that stuff before we get on a plane tomorrow and head for the

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East Coast. See you all in that area tomorrow. Actually, Saturday evening.

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Anyways, we'll be right back. If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at PRBC .org,

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

32:05

Answering those who claim that only the King James version is the word of God. James White, in his book,

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The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt

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Scripture and lead believers away from true Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author

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James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.

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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin

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.org. More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and evangelicals are working together.

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They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils. They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements.

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And many evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the Roman Catholic Church appealing.

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This newfound rapport has caused many evangelical leaders and laypeople to question the age -old disagreements that have divided

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Protestants and Catholics. Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language? James White's book,

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The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition in Scripture, the papacy, the mass, purgatorian indulgences, and Marian doctrine.

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James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the Christian life and the heart of the gospel itself that cannot be ignored.

33:33

Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at www .aomin .org.

33:43

It's not an easy way, it's a journey to the sun, day by day, following Jesus.

33:59

And welcome back to Surviving Christmas. On a Thursday, we're going to be here for our regularly scheduled programs next week.

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It's the week after that. It's going to become somewhat problematic, as I'll be in Livonia.

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I think we might be able to work out the Tuesday, but probably not the Thursday of the week thereafter.

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Unless, of course, something just earth -shattering happens, like Ergin Kanner comes out and repents.

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We will do a special dividing line if Ergin Kanner...

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Has anyone heard anything about Ergin Kanner for months now? I mean, he's just like disappeared off of the radar screen in toto.

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And coming up on this February, three years since that whole thing started. And repentance has yet to take place, unfortunately.

34:53

Anyway, we were at the very end, getting toward the very end of Paul Williams' opening presentation.

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And it's been so long. Let me remind you of something. When he finishes, which he will here in just a matter of moments,

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Chris Green gets up and begins his rebuttal period. And Chris Green said, you know,

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I haven't done very many debates. I don't know if you remember. I don't remember if he said this was the first one he had done or anything like that.

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But he makes a major mistake. The same kind, similar mistake, not the same kind, but similar mistake.

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To what Adnan Rashid did in our debate a couple weeks ago. And that is, you do not turn control of your time over to somebody else.

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Even if you think they're on your side or whatever else it might be. Remember, Adnan's trying to get that guy to quote from Surtu.

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And it didn't really quite work out the way he wanted to. And in fact, gave me an excellent opportunity of actually countering his argument with documentation, which was very, very useful.

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But in this situation, Chris Green actually asks

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Paul Williams a question. Now, I don't like when that happens. Everybody got all over Obama because Obama was looking down during the presidential debate.

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Um, look, when the other guy is speaking, I'm writing. I mean,

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I'm trying to take down. Of course, we're talking about a 20 minute statement here. Unlike a couple minutes where you, you know, if your opponent only has two to three minutes to speak, okay, you can remember the points you need to make.

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When you got a 20 minute statement, you got to start writing this stuff down and so on and so forth. And I really don't like it when people turn to me and address me and expect me to respond to them when they're saying the microphone and I'm not the microphone.

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That's wrong. In a formal debate, that would not be allowed. There aren't that many formal debates these days.

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And so anyway, that's going to happen here. And of course,

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I think Paul Williams used Chris Green's mistake to his full advantage, but we'll get there in just a moment.

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Let's pick back up with where we were with Paul Williams opening statements.

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I would like to make a brief mention of the Apostle Peter's first speech recorded in the book of Acts. He has this to say about Jesus' status before God.

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You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say. Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you as you yourselves know.

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Acts chapter two. Later in the same speech, Peter said, therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both

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Lord and Messiah. Now, is there anything there that a

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Christian finds troubling that is contrary to Christian affirmation of the humanity of Christ, the prophethood of Christ?

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No. But you know that his argument is, he's just a man. He's just been made

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Lord. He's just been made Messiah. Just been made Christ. As if that was

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Peter's, you know, remember this is the same Peter that starts off with that Granville Sharp construction in 2

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Peter 1 .1 and identifies Jesus as God and had identified him as the son of the living

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God in Matthew 16 and so on and so forth. But that's the idea. And again, who's that aimed at? That's aimed primarily at his base, not at Christians.

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But again, this man is allegedly a former Christian. Wouldn't he know that? Now, by the way, one of the reasons

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I know that's exactly what his target is, is because you know something? He made no explanation.

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He just read it and moved on. When someone does that, they're assuming that the way they read it and what it said is going to have a certain meaning.

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They don't have to explain it. And yet for a Christian, you'd have to explain how that somehow is contrary to what we believe.

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Because it wasn't, obviously. But that's the case. Now, here you have the again, the the voice of modern skeptical scholarship and much of scholarship in general that does not allow for the analogy of faith, the analogy of Scripture does not allow for inspiration, which you'd expect in debating

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Bart Ehrman again, coming from the Muslim. It is just as inconsistent and contradictory as it can be.

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Because applying those kinds of presuppositions, those starting points, would mean that you cannot assume the consistency of the

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Quran. You have to look at the various times and frames in Muhammad's life.

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You have to look at the Quran as only reflecting Muhammad's understanding. And if you can make an argument, that's what is great.

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But that's the starting point of that kind of thinking. And that's the starting point of this kind of thinking. Rather than proving that, well, when you enter into John, it's a completely different world.

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Don't worry about that stuff in Matthew 11 that sounds like John. Don't worry about all the stuff you can come up with in Mark that has such a high view of Jesus.

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Let's just simplify stuff to such a point where it's no longer even slightly accurate.

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And if you repeat it enough times, well, people will believe it. There is, of course, no contradiction.

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Because we already pointed out the error in the citation from Mark 3.

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And interestingly enough, he's about to go after Richard Balcombe. But Richard Balcombe, I have played on this program. Also giving that interpretation in Mark chapter 3.

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In the very first chapter of the Gospel according to John, the prophet John the

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Baptist Now, how do you respond to that?

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I mean, it's a really bad argument, but how do you respond to it? The assumption is that you have this clear, high affirmation on John the

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Baptist's part of the Messiahship of Jesus at the very beginning of the Gospel of John.

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But the synoptics have John sending a message to Jesus saying, are you the blessed one or should we be looking for someone else?

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So what do you do with that? The skeptic assumes it's a contradiction.

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Are there other possible explanations? They don't even offer to think about other explanations. Where is

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John? First of all, in the synoptics, does John make a profession of who

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Jesus is? The one whose shoes he's not even worthy to unlatch? Yes, he does.

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Does that come before he sends the messengers? Yes, it does. So what's going on when he sends the messengers?

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John's languishing in prison. John is hearing that Jesus is not doing things that are necessarily what

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John expected the Messiah to do. There were a lot of misapprehensions as to what the

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Messiah was going to do. And John was a man of his age, and he may have imbibed some of those misapprehensions

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If you're sitting in jail and the Messiah is there and you think the

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Messiah is going to have all this political power, maybe the Messiah would free you before you're executed, possibly.

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And this is and how do we know this is the case? Well, Paul Williams isn't going to look at this because Paul Williams isn't trying to handle the text with any accuracy or honesty.

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Honesty. But what's Jesus's response to the messengers that are sent to him by John?

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He goes back to the Old Testament and says, tell them what you see. And then he quotes from the

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Old Testament about what the Messiah was to do. He corrects John's misapprehension about what the

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Messianic mission actually is. And that's how he does it. So that's why we know why

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John does this. It's not a contradiction. A little bit of context, a little bit of honesty with the text.

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But again, so much of what is directed against our faith by people, whether they be atheist or Muslim or Mormon or whoever, it's not based upon wanting to accurately handle the text.

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It's based upon wanting to use the text to promote your own perspective. So even this very brief survey has shown the enormous evolution of the story of Jesus, which occurred in less than two generations after Jesus was taken up by God.

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And of course, we have gone through the entirety of this presentation and utterly obliterated it.

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By doing what? Handling the text correctly, looking at context, looking at the original language, demonstrating the unproven assumptions and presuppositions.

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And I can honestly say that Paul Williams' presentation did not contain the first meaningful argumentation against Christian faith.

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None. We've seen that. Go back and listen. We've seen it rather clearly. Yeah, we don't want to go back to Matthew 11, where Jesus does very much the same thing.

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Now, what we're about to get is a quotation from Richard Balcombe.

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Now, Richard Balcombe is not nearly as conservative as I am, but that's fine. Even this is a misuse of what

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Balcombe's position would be. Now, Balcombe would see John as a theological reflection upon the teachings of Jesus, but not in the sense that it's going to be presented here by Paul Williams.

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It seems hardly likely is not much of an argument in my personal opinion.

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John as a source for information regarding Jesus' life and ministry in any degree comparable to the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

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It is worth noting briefly the reasons why scholars think this. One is a very different picture of Jesus' ministry, both in the order and the significance of events and the location of Jesus' ministry.

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For example, the cleansing of the temple happens at the beginning of Jesus' ministry in John, but occurs towards the end of Jesus' ministry in the synoptic gospel.

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A clear contradiction. A clear contradiction? If the one said there was only one cleansing and it took place this time, and the other said no, it took place this time, that would be a clear contradiction.

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The assumptions that go into that statement are what must be examined. What are the assumptions?

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Well, the assumptions are that John knows of what's in these other gospels, and he's purposely making alterations, and he's moving the timeline around, and there are people who say that.

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But you have to examine the assumptions first. And unfortunately, what happens a lot in our day is because a scholar says it, whatever their background or anything else, then you don't have to worry about their assumptions, because, well, scholars have examined all their assumptions, and the fact is they don't.

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They don't. In fact, a lot of modern scholarship does not encourage the examination of those foundational assumptions that determine the results in much of the examination that is done.

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As if you can come up with a single style for any of the gospels.

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That's why I can keep pointing to the section in Matthew 11 that people call the Gospel of John in the synoptics.

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I mean, it's not difficult to put holes to this kind of very simplified presentation. Now, if, again, you assume contradiction, that sounds like, wow,

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Jesus. But how much of the conversation in John is specifically public teaching over against encounters against opposition and teaching of the disciples?

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I mean, look at John chapter 17. And to say that Jesus does not identify himself as the king in the parabolic literature in the synoptic gospels is just sheer ignorance.

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I mean, how do you even come up with that? If Jesus wasn't talking about himself and just talking about the kingdom, what got the

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Jews all upset with him in the first place? Well, he was talking about himself, obviously, and he was central to much of what he was teaching.

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And he, as proclaimer of the kingdom of heaven, is himself king.

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So creating divisions where none need to be created and ignoring the context as well.

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In the earlier gospels, Jesus did not preach about himself, but God and his kingdom.

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In John, Jesus speaks about himself and his father. Had any of the striking iam plans of John be remembered as spoken by Jesus, how could any gospel writer have ignored them so completely as the synoptic gospels do?

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Now, this is another of the talking points of the MDI guys, because they all repeat it. Uh, if Matthew, Mark, and Luke had known of the

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Agawami statements, then they would have repeated them. Why do you make that statement? Oh, because, well, because they, well, see, to answer that question, you've now got to lay your cards on the table and explain what you think their purpose was in recording what they recorded.

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John clearly has a different purpose, a different audience. So you have to bring in purpose. You have to bring in audience. And they just can't allow that, because all they want to be able to say is, well, they certainly would have repeated it.

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So in other words, what we really think is there should have only been one gospel, and there shouldn't be any differences between them.

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But you can't have different people writing at different times, different audiences for different purposes. So if there's differences, that's just, we won't accept this.

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And the Muslims can get away with it, because they only have allegedly one author, which is one of the reasons

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I spent a lot of time, editors felt maybe a little bit too much time. I probably could have made it a page or two shorter.

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But I spent a fair amount of time in one of the chapters going through parallel passages in the

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Quran. Most Muslims don't even know they're there. But there are, the same phenomenon occurs in the

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Quran, where the Quran tells the same story more than once. For example, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the story of creation, the fall, the conversation between Allah and Iblis.

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And guess what? There are differences between all of them, different words, everything else.

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They've got to harmonize. They've got to look at this. They've got to figure out what's going on. But we're not allowed to do that, even though we have so much more information to go on.

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In other words, what do I mean by that? When I say we have so much more information to go on, what

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I'm saying is we can look at Matthew as a whole and figure out what Matthew's paradigms are, what his audience is, how he does things, how he quotes scripture.

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Then we can contrast that with Mark and who his audience is and what his style is. And we can do the same thing with Luke and then do the same thing with John.

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And we can look at these things historically. And you cannot do any of that comparing

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Surah 7 with Surah 34, Surah 29 or anything else. You can't do it. And of course, the

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Muslim has to assume one author. I can explain differences in language because you're dealing with different authors drawing from an oral tradition and writing to different audiences.

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You can't do that with the Quran. What do you mean a different audience? What do you mean different authors?

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You can't do any of that. You're left with a single author. And so differences in language, much more difficult to explain.

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But they've still got to do it. Just because the vast majority of Muslims don't do it or don't even know it's there, makes no difference.

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Makes no difference. That's a very important aspect to keep in mind. Luke tells us at the beginning that he had investigated everything carefully from the very first.

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But his portrait of Jesus does not contain any of the I am sayings found only in John. As the acclaimed

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New Testament scholar E .T. Saunders concludes. So when we consider the synoptic

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Gospels on the one hand and John's Gospel on the other, it is impossible to think that Jesus spent his short ministry teaching in two such completely different ways, conveying such different contexts.

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And there was simply two traditions, each going back to Jesus, one has to be 50 % of what he said, and the other one, the other 50%.

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Of course, if he is quoting Saunders, and I don't read much of Saunders, I had to read

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Saunders during the New Perspective stuff, but Saunders is not only incredibly boring, a very poor writer as far as that's concerned, but just so completely controlled by that liberal paradigm that I just,

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I don't find much use in it. But if that's what he's saying, that reminds me of how

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Ehrman mocks harmonization of synoptic issues. And this is common amongst liberals.

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That is not what our viewpoint would be. Was it, well, 50 % came down through John, and the other 50 % through the synoptic gospel.

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That's not what we're even suggesting in any way, shape, or form. The idea that these writers can pick and choose what they present, and that the earlier gospels might indeed focus upon what was the essence of the public proclamation of the gospel, while a later gospel might give you more of the inside story, makes perfect sense.

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Nobody's suggesting. I've never heard anybody suggest this, unless it's somebody like Brother Jack or something.

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But if you make that normative and representative of the positions you're responding to, that's a bad thing.

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That's a bad thing. Real quickly, since that's the second time I've seen this in channel, I am going to be at Berean Baptist Church in Livonia, speaking

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Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And since the conference theme is

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Tell All the World, my plans right now, as best I can, I am going to be addressing a large portion of the religious perspectives that we will encounter in the world, including some of my first lectures on the subjects of Hinduism and Buddhism, which

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I have been studying for about a month now, in preparation for teaching these classes.

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And that's what I've been listening to while writing, has been the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and got some interesting stories.

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Ever heard of Ganesh? Little boy with the elephant head. It's interesting stuff. He accidentally got decapitated, so his dad stuck an elephant.

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It's a long story. Very, very long story. Anyhow, see y 'all in Delaware this weekend.

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Be back, Lord willing, next Tuesday. Thanks for listening. God bless. Let this momentous flow away.

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We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for. We need a new Reformation day.

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It's a sign of the times. The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm.

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Won't you lift up your voice? Are you tired of plain religion? It's time to make some noise.

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The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

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Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

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World Wide Web at aomin .org. 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.