Biblical Catholic Apologetics

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

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.

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

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

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

James White. And good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to the last

Dividing Line before the Christmas holiday. We won't be here next Tuesday. I suppose we could, you know, record something and, you know, but nah.

No reason to, this is live webcasting and we're not going to be here.

We're going to be doing what you're supposed to be doing on Christmas Day. Lord willing, I'll be getting ready to partake of yet another scrumptious, yummy Christmas turkey and a

Christmas turkey dressing from my parents. And I have no idea what you're saying, so I can't respond.

A scrumptious yummy, huh? Oh, it's, well, you've had it. I've had it. Is it not scrumptious yummy?

Is not my dad's turkey the best, the best, his dressing? It is delicious. It is absolutely delicious.

Yes, but you can't say it's the best because you're married, so I understand that. So. Well, there is that.

There is that, yes. You've got to be very careful about things like that. So, anyway, so last one up, and so what kind of Christmassy topics do we have today?

Well, we've got some stuff from Catholic Answers, and I've got,

I've got a really fascinating clip from Abu Amr Yusuf Qadi on the role of Muhammad as an intercessor.

How's that? In other words, nothing overly Christmassy, actually.

I mean, I suppose I could have done this, I was. And the phone lines are open at 877 -753 -3341.

What's wrong, Rich? Not into Yusuf Qadi? He's great. He really, no, seriously, he's probably the best

Islamic lecturer I've ever heard. I've been listening to hours of his lectures. I've got one of his books sitting here.

Nice looking book, isn't it? Explanation of a Critical Study of Shirk. How many

Christians do you know that read Yusuf Qadi's work on a

Critical Study of Shirk? Well, I am. I suppose I could have done this tape set that was sent to me.

It's from Calvary Chapel, Pasadena. It's Javier Ruiz is the speaker, and it's

Calvinism Revealing the Rigid Reality of Tulip, the Five Points of Calvinism.

And basically, if you take Dave Hunt, and you take out the experience that Dave Hunt has in speaking, and then you sort of run the information through the telephone game where it's sort of passed around a few times, that's what you got, man.

It is that bad. He was talking about R .C. Spruill today.

I mean, it's really bad when your original sources haven't read Spruill. But by the time you get to the third, fourth, or fifth generation, it gets really bad at that point.

It really is. And I was going to play parts of it, but I honestly felt that people would object to my doing so because, you know,

I mean, what was the terminology that they used when they first started throwing Steve Gregg's name our direction was, we were picking the fruit off the lower branches,

I think was the terminology that people... We were picking the low -hanging fruit. The low -hanging fruit. And we needed to get somebody who was able to dedicate full time to this subject, wasn't off doing foreign missions and all these other things, dividing their time.

We needed a real scholar and theologian to take this issue on. And that's why

I took the time to download the MP3s. And by the way, March 31st, 2008,

Twin Lakes Church, somewhere in Northern California, obviously, we'll need to put together a little page or advertisement.

Hey, maybe we can have Micah, since Micah's up that direction, put that into the rotation of the soon -coming new

AOMN .org. It's right around the corner, folks, right around the corner. The new website looks right there.

I've seen it. It's right there. Honestly, it's just around the corner.

That's our studio audience participation today. Thank you very much. We were supposed to have a studio audience today, but they haven't shown up yet.

So we'll just keep an eye out for them. They'll show up later. But anyway, maybe we can have Micah do that. But March 31st,

Twin Lakes Church up in Northern California, Steve, Greg, and I, and we're talking like four hours here.

And they can video record the whole thing. And so he's talking about doing it on his program afterwards.

I'm not sure what my schedule is right afterwards. I've got to look at that to see if I'm even going to be around to be able to do that.

Maybe we could have him on our program too. Maybe that's how we could break up some of the exegetical stuff. I don't know.

I suppose that wouldn't actually be a bad idea, now that you think about it, is if you did the debate and then we did follow -up afterwards, you could especially do the audience questions that way and do much more of the in -depth exegetical stuff between The Dividing Line and his radio program.

I don't know. We'll figure it out. But for those of you who have been expecting the debate between myself and Steve Gregg, it'll be

March 31st, Twin Lakes Church up in Northern California. Obviously, we'll be putting information up about that.

And you also want to make sure to mark on your calendar that you will be listening to The Dividing Line on, well, look at that,

New Year's Day. Maybe it will be New Year's Day. I don't know. Do we?

I don't know. Is the big, big, big, big, big announcement big enough to come in on New Year's Day or do we have to wait till the 3rd?

Okay. We'll have to think about that. But either the 1st or the 3rd, we're going to have the big, big, big, big, big announcement.

And what's the big announcement about? It's about the next Uber major debate, big, big, big debate that we are arranging and conference and the whole nine yards and there's going to be lots and lots of people involved and it's going to be really cool.

And I'm really excited about it, but we can't tell anything about it yet. So this is called a tease or a teaser.

This is where we get you excited about stuff before we actually tell you what it is. So that's coming up right at the beginning of the year.

We will be making that announcement. So that will be taking place at that time. So make sure to be listening in.

So what I did put together today was earlier,

I guess this would be yesterday. Was this yesterday? Let's see. What's? Yeah, this was yesterday.

The first guest on Catholic Answers Live was John Martin Yoni.

I don't know. I'll be honest with you. I'm a little surprised that they have him on. I know we're going to get all sorts of nasty emails, but he just doesn't strike me as being even up to Catholic Answers standard level.

And they throw biblical stuff at him, and I'm like, biblical stuff? Wow. Okay. All right.

Well, okay. So if they're going to put it out there, maybe we can respond to it.

So the first question comes in, happens to be relevant to the subject of at least the next portion of my response to Steve Ray, and that is the text in Revelation chapter 12.

The woman who gives birth to the son who is

Jesus. The early church believed that was the church. Later generations decide to add

Mary to that. Now I love the exegesis quote unquote of many modern

Roman Catholic theologians and apologists. You can just find all sorts of... It's the church, and it's

Mary, and it's this, and it's that, and it's all these things. And this somehow becomes, well, she's in heaven already, so the assumption's taking place, and she has a body, and all this stuff is read into this...

A book that normally Roman Catholics leave to Hal Lindsey. But all of a sudden, they grab hold of this one, and you've got

Revelation chapter 12 being Mary, and all the rest of that stuff. Well, let's listen to the phone call and make some comments as we go along here.

And yes, you are more than welcome to call at 877 -753 -3341 if you have some other subjects you'd like to raise as well.

We've got you in Sugarland, Texas next. Hello there. Hi, John and Jerry. Joe here. I wanted to ask a question about the assumption of Mary.

What is the church teaching on that tradition? I know it's not in the Bible anywhere particularly.

What is the tradition on that? Well, that's not a tradition. That is a dogma.

D -O -G -M -A. It has been defined as an infallible truth. Not merely a tradition. It is an infallible truth.

And remember the words of Jerry Matytix, who informed us that we have just as much of a warrant to believe in the assumption of Mary as we have to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Or let's turn that around. We have as much reason to believe in the resurrection as we have the assumption of Mary. Because both have been vouchsafed by the church.

That is at least a consistent, if not radically bad, epistemology right there.

Okay. Well, a couple different things here. Number one, on the assumption of Mary, if you read, it's paragraph 966 in the

Catechism. It talks about how Mary, and it says, quote, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory.

And some people will say, well, does that mean she died or she didn't die? And there are two main lines of tradition.

Yeah, you know, if the question is whether she died or didn't die, there would be two main answers to that question.

That I have seen. And one is that it was right at the moment of her death that she was assumed body and soul into heaven, that she, you know, it was just boom, she closed her eyes and she's gone.

I've seen another tradition. I got this fascinating book that was written in 1850.

That's ancient. It's called The Virgin Mary. And it contains a lot of things about Mary and Mary's life that are what we would call small t traditions, not doctrines and dogmas, but just things that were taught as this is what happened way back when, kind of filling in the blanks for the very things that eventually create dogma a couple hundred years later.

That's the problem once you deny a sola scriptura, what's in scripture. And one of the traditions that's in this book, again, that you don't really find being taught anywhere in the church these days.

That might be an indication of something. Was that Mary died and she was put in a tomb just like Jesus was and that, you know, they had sent out word that she was on her deathbed.

And so the remaining apostles and any disciples that had known Mary all came back to Jerusalem.

And they must have used cell phones to spread this information around, obviously. One of the apostles,

I don't know. Well, you know what you're to say that they all flew in. Remember, I don't make this stuff up.

Remember that in part that there were indulgences given to people to go visit

Mary's house where the Annunciation took place, which was in Italy. And they honestly believe that the angels had picked the house up from Israel and had flown it to Italy.

And so when you went and visited the house, you got indulgences. I am not making this stuff up.

So don't even look at me that way. You didn't know that, did you? No, you did not know that.

Now, you know that I'm talking to Rich. Everybody else knew that. But anyway, which one? I can't remember which one it was. Didn't make it in time.

And Mary died. They put her in the tomb and sealed the tomb. And the apostle got back three days later.

Three days later. And and said, hey, I have to see her.

I have to see her body. You know, I just have to see her one more time. And so they unsealed the tomb, rolled away the stone, and she wasn't there.

So, you know, it's and this is from 1850. No, this is more ancient than that.

But it's nowhere near being anything that would that would have any meaningful connection to it.

This is about the same time period as Muhammad, guys. OK, now you get the connection that, you know, that that distance of time away.

But here we have it being used on a Catholic apologetics program in 2007. That tradition is that well, after she was put put in the tomb is when she was assumed body and soul and and particularly probably on the third day in imitation of her son and her her her

Lord and her God, Jesus Christ. It was not, you know, an equal thing, but it was in the image.

But it's certainly a parallel thing, just as the Immaculate Conception is a parallel thing.

And the bodily assumption and the perpetual virginity and co -mediatrix and co -redemptrix.

And you start seeing the point. Because she did not ascend of her own power. She was assumed by his power.

So so those are the two main lines of tradition I've seen in terms of her death. Now, if you want to talk about scripture, yes, there is no particular scripture that says

Mary was indeed assumed into heaven. Now, isn't that isn't that odd? Yes, there is no scripture that says this.

Why would you say yes, there is no scripture? That's not even what the guy asked. But there's none that says she wasn't.

Well, there's none that says she didn't play NBA basketball, too. But is that somehow relevant? No, it's not.

And we have examples from the Old Testament and New Testament of people being assumed body and soul into heaven.

And there is another standard form of argumentation. Well, it happened to other folks. So it could happen to Mary does.

I mean, Steve Ray does the same thing. Gerry Matics, they're forced to use this kind of argumentation.

Well, you know, God could do it and it's fitting that he should do it. So he did do it.

And this is dogma. And of course, you could use that to substantiate and the thing, absolutely positively anything, as long as some church that thinks it's got the authority to do it can come along and say it and force people to believe it.

You can substantiate any kind of argumentation utilizing that kind of reasoning.

It's just amazing. So why not, Mary? Plus, we see in Revelation 12, the first few verses talk about this woman who is in heaven and she has a head and feet.

In other words, she has a body. Well, that's awfully good. But she also gave birth to a child and she had child pains.

Now, pains are a part of the curse. Mary wasn't under the curse. Why'd she have pain in giving birth to the child if this is, in fact,

Mary? Well, that's when you get into the all the well, this is just an allegory and blah. Well, that's the part of the church.

But the rest of it's about Mary and and the wonderful, magical form of eisegesis that comes once you have an ultimate authority called

Rome to tell you what you should find the Bible. And she's in heaven. So who is this woman?

If you if you read the rest of Revelation, all the other folks they talk about in heaven, they're talking about the souls of people.

But this woman has a body. Yeah, so the dragon, I'm not sure that's supposed to mean. Did it say Mary? No, but it said the woman who bore the child, who is basically the going to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

So that woman was at the primary level, we could say that that woman is

Mary. Even though that's not what the early church viewed it as, why don't we hear that?

Well, love, is that right, Joe? It did. I heard that story on on one of Mother Angelica's shows.

She was talking about it and that apostle was Thomas Thomas. OK, yeah, he did make it when

Christ first appeared. And he was also not there when Mary died.

Poor guy. Always a day late. Always a day late. He came and doubting Thomas wanted to see the body.

And she wasn't there. So thank you, John. Hey, Joe, before you go, I said Sugarland when

I enter. Poor Thomas. I really feel sorry for Thomas. I mean, Thomas even got blamed. You know, Thomas gets blamed for the

Gospel of Thomas, which, of course, he had nothing to do with. And Thomas gets blamed for being

Jesus's twin brother by the Talbot tomb theorist guys. And poor

Thomas. I mean, you doubt once your reputation is ruined. The rest is Sugarland or Sugarland?

Sugarland. Sugarland. OK, well, I apologize to everyone there in what I'm sure is a beautiful area known as Sugarland, Texas.

Thank you. Thanks, Joe. God bless. Have a blessed Christmas. One phone line open there as we stay in the

Lone Star State. We'll go to Sandra in San Antonio next. Hi there. Hi, my name is

Sandra. I'm calling from San Antonio, Texas. And the question that I had this afternoon is earlier when you were talking about the church and the

Bible and the fact that the church witness was witness to the Bible. When you say the church, is that the

Catholic church that you're referring to? Now, the reason

I continued on to this one is this is the constant practice of Roman Catholic apologists,

Roman Catholic theologians. They simply assume and constantly repeat that the church of those early centuries is in some fashion, which they very rarely want to define very clearly, but is in some fashion the

Church of Rome. And they play fast and loose with the term

Catholic. Now, Catholic, Catahalas, according to the whole, the universal church is a term used very early on, especially when there would be schisms, there would be the

Donatus controversy, the Ovation controversy, all these types of things in the early church.

And the majority would be referred to as Catahalas, according to the whole Catholic church. And so they just assume that because they use that term that they can get away with saying, oh, yes, it was it was a

Catholic church. We all saw this during the massive media explosion that surrounded the death of John Paul II.

And while his health was failing those last few days, you had all these people appearing on Fox News and CNN and they're talking about the 2000 year history of the

Catholic Church and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, these are the same people who love to parrot

John Henry Cardinal Newman and his statement to be to be deep in history is to cease to be

Protestant. Well, you know, it's it's it's real nice to, you know, quote folks like that.

And then, though, I think if you're going to, you might want to be ready to give a meaningful response to why

Newman, for example, opposed the the dogma of the infallibility of the pope. You might want to be prepared to answer for those things, why he had to develop the development hypothesis so as to, in essence, abandon the historical field of battle because he recognized you could not in a meaningful fashion inhabit the historical field of battle and establish such things as the the reign of the papacy in the early centuries when there wasn't even a single bishop in Rome until about one forty one forty five.

They had a plurality of elders there, which is the biblical model anyway. And so if you're going to quote these things, you know, it's it's real easy to to, you know, pop those things off and to to make that kind of a statement.

But the reality is very, very, very different. And I have so many times challenged people on this.

This issue is look, you want to say that the Church of Rome today is the ancient church of history.

OK, define the connection. Is it the same in regards to faith and belief?

Then you should be able to find me people in those very same early centuries of which you speak, who would believe what you believe about the dogmas of the faith.

Or are you going to tell me that they didn't believe the dogmas you believe? And that's because they hadn't yet been developed.

So they believed a different gospel than you believe. The dogmatic central core elements of their faith is different than your faith.

How that what's the meaningful sense in which this is the same church, then is it say, is it the same in name only?

It's certainly you recognize that in all sorts of elements, it has changed.

I mean, the church that the early century did not have seven sacraments as Rome has today. The concept of the infallibility of the pope was not there.

The doctrine of purgatory wasn't even developed into any meaningful form for hundreds of years.

So so what's what's the nature of this sameness? What's the nature of this alleged unity over time?

That is the question that has to be asked and answered. But so often all you get is just the assumption.

And that's pretty much what we're going to get here. Oh, absolutely. And the Catholic Church, the word Catholic, whether it's all

C or capital C means universal. And you can look at the teachings we've got.

Yes. Capitalization has never really been known to completely affect the meaning of the early church fathers. The writings that, you know, the early church was

Catholic 100 percent. What does that mean? We have writings. Well, of course we do.

So do we. So what? I mean, everybody has everyone possesses these writings. What does that mean?

What is the essence of that assertion? I mean, to make a meaningful argument, unless all you want to do is impress a narrow audience of already believers, if that's all you're trying to do,

OK, then this works. But if on a national radio program, you're actually attempting to make a point in reference to the the essence of why your faith is superior to that of of others who would deny the assertions you're making.

You've got to give us something more. You've got to give us something really to work with. There's really no doubt about that.

I mean, people can dispute it all they want, but you have a lot of folks that say, well,

OK, it was the Catholic Church. But then at the end of the first century, it went into apostasy or when

Constantine came along in the early fourth century, Constantine took over the church and it went into apostasy.

So the Catholic Church was no more. You know, so you have who says that is that some passing reference to that couldn't be a passing reference to to the

Da Vinci Code. I have no idea where he's coming from on that. And by the way, earlier in the program, he had attempted to address some arguments against sola scriptura, and he tried to substantiate the idea of the supremacy of the church to the

Bible. And in the process demonstrated that once again, the straw man argument was put forward that you have two extremes.

It's either you and your Bible alone under a tree without a knowledge of church history, without being taught by anyone else.

That's the Protestant view or that of the church. And so on the day of Pentecost, thousands were joined to the church.

And so since the church is there, that must be the Roman Catholic Church. And so there must have been popes and and prelates and bishops and they were all meeting in Trent or something.

I don't know. But you have the same kind of, you know, really shallow straw man argumentation, which again tells me, who are these people trying to reach?

Who are these people trying to be apologists to? Is it a is it the already convinced who want to remain convinced that is this sort of an inoculation against truth?

Or are they actually trying to seek to convince people who have some knowledge of these things that what they're saying is actually true?

Even non -Catholics who will admit that the early church was indeed the Catholic Church, but then they won't admit that.

Well, it's been the Catholic Church all along through the last 20th century. So but then you have a lot of folks say, no, it wasn't the

Catholic Church at all. What I do is I will pick up some folks, pick up some of the early church fathers, the writings of the church fathers.

They're out there, first century, second century, and see if they aren't Catholic.

That exactly I say, do the exact same thing, do the exact same thing and make sure, however, to define what modern

Rome has defined as dogma. What has she defined as dogma?

If you're going to accept this idea that, well, you know, hey, as long as there's just some similarities, then everything is

OK. And it's the same church. No, let's look at dogma. You find me those people in the first two centuries who believe what you must believe to be a faithful Roman Catholic about Mary.

You show them to me. You bring them to me. Irenaeus didn't. Don't even don't even go there.

I've read him. I know what he says about Mary. And there's no way you can twist him into a person who believes the dogma is about Mary that you believe.

It doesn't exist. They did. Those doctrines are unknown. Nobody during that time period, not even

I mean, the heretics were just starting to dream some of these things up at that point in time. So nobody believed as a dogmatic definition of the church, which you believe about Mary.

Think about that. Do you hear me? Don't just immediately run off to try to find a way around it. Neither did they believe in the supremacy of the bishop of Rome as the infallible leader of the church.

Look at Cyprian in the middle of the third century. Look at what he believed, that all bishops sat upon the cathedral of Petri, that they all sat upon the chair of Peter, not just the bishop in Rome.

Take a look at these things. Consider that no one had ever even used the word transubstantiation at this point, let alone would they have the philosophical baggage required to even make heads or tails out of it.

So if you don't have the papacy. You don't have Mary. You don't have transubstantiation. You don't have celibate priests who are an alter

Christus. You don't have seven sacraments. Excuse me, but how do you say that's the Roman Catholic Church again?

What's the what's the what's the consistency? What's the basis here? That's what I'd like to know. What they write and what they teach.

And you'll see that, indeed, these folks are Catholic. They talk about the bishops and.

Wow, they talk about the bishops. Yes, they did. They don't talk about the bishop of Rome being the head of the church.

And of course, bishop and elder and pastor are used interchangeably in the

New Testament. So no problem there. How does that demonstrate the unique elements that are necessary for the defining of the

Roman Catholic Church? That's the question about receiving Christ in the Eucharist.

Yeah. And you know what Eucharist is? That is a Greek word that means Thanksgiving.

Where do we find that that has to be done by a sacramental priest who is an altar Christos? Where do we find that this involves transubstantiation?

Where do we find this involves the representation of the singular sacrifice of Christ and that it is a perpetuatory sacrifice but can save no one and perfects no one?

Where do you find that in these writings? The Thanksgiving, the Eucharist bread, you know, the bread of the

Eucharist and so forth and so on. They talk about prayers for the dead.

Prayers for the dead, as in for refrigerium, that is for their refreshment, not for their removal from purgatory.

We will continue with John Martignoni and his comments on Catholic Answers and, yes, some other topics right after our break.

The Pilgrim's Progress is not an easy way. It's a journey to the sun, day by day, following Jesus, his walk of grace.

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Thank you. And welcome back to The Dividing Line, the last dividing line before the

Christmas holiday. And I am joined in studio by by a voice that in many ways is primarily remembered by most of our listeners for having said the word

Alaska, Alaska. There it is. Well, I tell you, do you practice that every once in a while or just no, it's especially better after you've had about two hours of sleep the night before.

So you sound just wonderful. And that's about how much sleep you had last night, right? Yeah, we had some great connections coming from Tampa.

We stopped off and saw the beautiful city of Houston, got to see some of their better hotel establishments there.

I think the room that we had that Continental put us up in was about, I think it was, they're renting it at about $15 every hour, but it was wonderful.

Well, you know, it's funny when I flew back from Nashville a couple of weeks ago, I had to fly Southwest and they stopped in San Antonio.

We had the worst turbulence, you know, the up and down turbulence coming into San Antonio of any flight ever, but it was like we were riding a roller coaster.

It was the whoosh, whoosh through those, through those thunderstorms. It was so much fun.

It truly was. It was amazing. But Michael Fallon's with us and we can't really tell you what we'd like to tell you today.

As I said, at the beginning of the program, we have a big announcement to make on January 1st.

And one of the reasons, we don't do this just simply to make people angry with us, but we do this because it's sort of silly to make an announcement and say, and in a few weeks we'll have information for you so you can go to websites.

And you can see his information. You know, the tough thing is, is because we really want to make sure that everybody knows when we're going to make the announcement.

We're not just trying to play some sort of marketing ploy here or whatever. But the whole thing is, is that we do have something that's great that we are lining up right now.

The gentleman that we have spoken to has already agreed in principle to everything. It's just a question of my lawyer getting that contract to him and making sure that we can tie this all up.

But it will be... Mike, you just gave something away. You said him. We had some people guessing

I was going to be debating Paula White. Oh, that would be wonderful. That would give you a chance to get up out from behind your chair and walk around.

Stop preaching, Son of a skunk! I'm sorry. But she could, honestly, we'd have to give her half the amount of time that I do, because she and Jerry Madtix are the only human beings

I know who can talk without breathing. But well, no, she does. But she takes one of those, you know, like every 20 seconds or so.

But the interesting thing is, is if you did debate her, you would know that her message would have been preached two weeks prior by another

Pentecostal. So I guess we can lame him. Views and viewpoints of guests on the dividing line are theirs alone and not necessarily the management.

So anyway, but yes, we we have a big announcement to make. And obviously this is in reference to future conferences, debates and the normally associated activities that go there with and whenever Michael Fallon is around, you sort of have a clue as to what some of those involve.

But we're looking forward to this. And you said that you said a big fella.

So, yeah, it's going to are the Christmas lights bothering you there? The Temu's lights, yes, are bothering me at this point, you know, here sitting in the two

Babylons. It's no, just kidding. I love Christmas, too. No, I think that one of the things that we really have to have tried to do over the past few years is a lot of folks realize that there are a couple of guys that are out there that are very public, not just in any sort of critique of reformed theology, but the authority of scripture.

And that's about all I can say. You just gave a lot away right here, actually. So I better stop right there now.

Well, I think it's important, though, for us to remember that, you know, Alpha and Omega is an apologetics ministry.

I think one of the things that we always want to do is make sure that we are on the cutting edge, would you say, or right on the front of the battle lines to be able to counter most of the arguments that are coming across and not just spend two years writing a book about it and so forth, that James has always done a great job and rich of making sure that these things happen.

So we're just there to help assist, to put them all in place. And as usual, we'll try to keep everything as usual, extremely affordable.

So that's very important to us. And plus we have some other bonuses that are going to be going along with it this year that could be very entertaining for everybody.

Very entertaining indeed. Yes. And it's gotten both of us to actually.

Yes. And got to stop right there. Got to stop. You have too much away, big guy. Come on now. Yeah, well, let's just say that we hope that we're half the men we are right now.

That's right. That's so we don't get embarrassed. But yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. It will be.

And I'm looking forward to making an announcement. Hopefully you'll be able to you'll be around to be able to join me on the phone at least.

Right. Not around here, but you'll be. I thought you were saying, am I around? Yes, I am around and I hope to not be around by then.

But no. Yeah, we will definitely try to make sure that we're on the phone. You know, of course, one of the things that will have to happen is that this person actually contractually agrees outside of just verbally agrees.

And then we'll get going. We'll have a full year, folks, for you to get ready for this again. We want to make sure they have plenty of time.

You know, the thing that always happens, James, is that always we have great folks, especially for some reason.

It seems to be some of our pros people, but I call them pros people, pros people. I'm sorry, pros. Yes. Remember, this is you as in pros.

Apologize. Yes, you're unique. Yes, this is a unique man here. So but no, no. Remember that we will try to give you a year, folks, to prepare for this again.

It's going to be cheap, cheap, cheap. But it's going to be a lot of great things, more than we've ever done before this time around and have a lot of other great ministries joining.

That's true. Yeah, that's that's definitely one of the ways in which this one's a lot different from what we've we've done in the past.

So and that just means all the more work for you, because I mean, I admit, folks,

I I could no more put together one of these things than than I can fly.

I it's not part of my makeup to be able to do this kind of thing.

You got to have folks who like details and think ahead and make plans.

And and that's that's that's why there's that's why there's Michael Fallon.

Right. Well, you know, we're going to have a great time. That's the main thing. And I think with everybody that they've realized at this point is just let all the stress go to me and everybody else have a great time, great ministry and so forth and had some fantastic meetings with some other folks who are going to be joining us this weekend.

And boy, I tell you, it's it's just going to be a lot of fun putting this one together. I'm really looking forward to it. Excellent.

Excellent. But anyway, let's get back to Catholicism. Oh, well, I wouldn't know why you'd be interested in that at all.

There's about five things that came across my mind. I realize it's sort of jammed up there all at once. You know,

I just I didn't know which one to pick. Yes. Well, I was thinking you were going to pick the well, actually, I'm that's what got us together, wasn't it?

That's that's the one of the five. I assumed you were going to the Pope got us together. Well, sort of in the sense of if I hadn't been addressing

Roman Catholicism, I don't know where we would have met, would we? No. Well, actually, it was a number of issues that, you know,

I was really and I'll go back to this. I think when I first was introduced to Alpha and Omega Ministries is that one of the things that that really impressed was impressed upon me was that here

I found one fellow that was not going to characterize Roman Catholicism or built a straw man and then attack that straw man and so forth.

This was a gentleman who was going to at least represent Catholicism for what it is.

And I don't think any of the debate opponents that he's had could ever accuse him of doing otherwise. Well, or or if they do accuse me of doing otherwise, they can't really substantiate.

Let's put it that way. It's not that they haven't. They just have a hard time substantiating. But you were looking for meaningful information in response to the claims of Roman Catholicism and were struggling a little bit in finding real good, solid information.

A lot of what you were finding was pretty, pretty shallow. Well, you either go on the woman rides the beast sort of thing or you would go on to the very liberal ecumenical side of things, which everybody at the time that I had received

Christ and come out of Catholicism, everybody was doing the handholding thing. And, you know, together with Catholics and so forth.

So it was difficult to find someone who was actually balanced and scholarly in their opinions. But that being said, we hope to hear from Mel Gibson's office here soon.

Hope he signs the contract. But thanks, Mike. Anyway, I'll get off your radio show and let's go back to the.

All righty. Well, I appreciate that. And we do appreciate having Mike out here. He has family in the area and doesn't doesn't normally just fly out just simply for a five minute appearance on the dividing line.

But since he was here, we thought we'd let him say hello. And and I'm sorry, but the the rumors concerning Mel Gibson are probably a bit exaggerated at that particular point.

Oh, good grief. All right. Let's go back to someone who definitely is not Mel Gibson, John Martignone on Catholic Answers from yesterday.

The priest in confessions to a priest and so forth and so on. Again, who?

How about how about some how about some references to these celibate sacramental priests in this time period?

Who? Where are they saying what Rome is saying today? Are they using just priestly language?

So you assume that they're talking about priesthood. See, this is what these folks get away with because no one ever challenges them on these things.

And the a number of them just simply will not expose themselves to being challenged on this level.

And then when you do, they'll say, oh, well, you know, here's just one reference here. And they and and they will do what they accuse us of doing.

And that is just proof texting your early fathers. If this was the Catholic Catahalas, according to the whole the

Catholic church, then should it really have to depend upon obscure, unclear, difficult references or should it be very, very clear and compelling?

I think it's obviously the latter. So it's very easy to see the

Catholic church, not just in the Bible, the

New Testament, but in the writings of the fathers who immediately who came immediately after the apostles.

Yeah, I mean, I see I see popes and I see celibate priests, you know, all through the

New Testament. I mean, you know, all sorts of, you know, Luke one twenty eight. All you need is kakara to many.

All you need is just simply one, you know, angelic greeting to Mary. And you've got the entire

Marian dogmas right there. Right. Oh, well, even the folks in the early church never dreamed of any of that.

The disciples of the apostles and the disciples of those disciples, they were all Catholic. OK, OK, just want to just thank you for clearing that up.

I appreciate that. That was not clarification. That was obfuscation.

There was nothing of substance there whatsoever. And that's one of the reasons we challenge these folks.

And, you know, folks today, modern folks today don't know what the situation was 20 years ago when we first started engaging the subject.

They don't know. When I first started studying Roman Catholicism, I started listening to Jerry Madetix and Karl Keating and and Patrick Madrid and Mark Brumley, you know, the the late 80s, early 90s, very, very early 1990

Catholic answers crew. These folks were going around and they were they were debating

Calvary Chapel pastors, you know, former Catholics who whose knowledge of Catholicism is very, very shallow.

And they they were publishing a tract. I wish I still had. I bet I do someplace.

Unfortunately, there's so many boxes that I have to dig through that the amount of dust I'd have to fight. I'm not sure it'd be worth it. But there was a tract that Catholic answers put out that specifically invited people that whenever they would hear a quote unquote anti -Catholic, whenever any

Christian minister would speak against Catholicism in this tract, they challenged the people to challenge those people to a debate, see if they would debate and Catholic answers would debate them.

That is how aggressive they were in those early years. And I remind folks that every time you hear

Patrick Madrid or Catholic answers, these folks talking about how I'm a debate junkie, as if I'm the person that's just just desperate to debate.

The first challenge I received to do a public debate was a phone call from Jerry Matitix in the headquarters of Catholic answers in San Diego.

They arranged the first three debates that we did. They're the ones who challenged me, not vice versa.

My book, The Fatal Flaw, had come out. And as soon as they saw that, ah, let's go get them.

And even then, when Jerry Matitix debated me, he admitted later that he had not actually read

The Fatal Flaw. And in fact, he attributed positions and misunderstandings to me during the course of the debate that clearly are not a part of that text.

And he admitted in phone calls later that that was the case. And he even said that he would apologize publicly for that misrepresentation as well.

So, you know, things have changed a lot over the past 20 years.

And I would like to think actually almost well, our first debate was 1990.

So it's been 17 years, coming up on 18 years. I would like to think that we had a lot to do with the change in perspective of Catholic Answers from being a aggressive, debating organization to where now, well, that's just not what they do.

They are much more careful about the individuals they engage because, well, things haven't gone well for them.

Just look at some of the debates that have taken place over that period of time. So there's some of what happened yesterday on Catholic Answers Live.

Now, very, very quickly, let me shift gears. I don't see any phone calls, so I'm going to shift gears here very quickly.

I did mention, and I was being quite serious, I have been listening a great deal to lectures by Abu Amr Yasser Khadi.

He is a Yale doctoral student. He is he was born of Pakistani parents in Texas.

He is he's he's brilliant. I mean, I have listened to a lot of Islamic presentations.

And let's face it, sometimes it's just not overly exciting. Yasser Khadi is an excellent speaker.

His Arabic is very, very clear when he uses Arabic. His English is very good.

I was just listening to him bemoaning the fact that I was writing a couple of days ago and he says, ours is the only world civilization where we teach our children to read in a language they cannot understand.

He says, could you imagine any Frenchman teaching his children to read French, but they don't teach them what the

French means? We teach people to read Arabic and then we don't tell them what the

Arabic means. This is ridiculous. He talks about using the mind and thinking

I would love if anyone who arranges debates is listening to this, I would love to debate

Yasser Khadi. I think these would be the best debates, because unfortunately, every time I've heard him address

Christianity, he's primarily addressed the Roman Catholic version thereof.

That seems to be primarily what he is familiar with. But Yasser Khadi is great.

So anyway, the reason I want to play this, I'm not even sure if I can get it in here, but what

I am hearing as I'm listening to these things, Islam does have a replacement for Jesus.

Islam does have a replacement for Jesus. Muhammad does take over many of the functions of Jesus.

Here, the function of mediation. Listen to Yasser Khadi. He is speaking to Muslims.

He's teaching a class to Muslims on the subject of Muhammad and specifically here, the concept of intercession by Muhammad.

But going back to our topic now, the fourth evidence we will talk about is they're saying that the shafa 'ah or the intercession is true and that the intercession has been given to the

Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Therefore, I am asking the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam for something that he has been given by Allah.

When I asked the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, this is something that Allah has given him. Now, let me explain what he's saying. He's talking about the concept of intercession, that he says it is true that Muhammad will make intercession.

And he's talking about he's talking about various forms of shirk. He has a lengthy lecture series

I've listened to on analyzing shirk. And that was a lecture series that was the basis of his book,

A Critical Study of Shirk, that I have here in my hand from Al -Hidayah Publishing and Distribution in England.

And he's talking about how various Muslims commit shirk, that is, idolatry. And here, specifically, prayers directly to Muhammad and things like that.

But listen to what he says about Muhammad. Allah has given him the shafa 'ah. Do you deny the shafa 'ah? No, of course not. Therefore, why can't

I ask the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam for shafa 'ah? Shafa 'ah, that is intercession. How do we refute this evidence?

You understand the shafa 'ah, the intercession on the Day of Judgment. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam will intercede on behalf of his ummah on the

Day of Judgment. Therefore, he is saying Allah has given him the shafa 'ah. Why can't I ask him for the shafa 'ah?

He just said that Muhammad will intercede for his ummah, his community, on the day of intercession, on the

Day of Judgment. One of the ways you can refute that is by saying that the

Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is not with us anymore. He has now gone to the life of the barzakh, and that is a separate life.

We don't have a direct contact with him anymore. Now, let me, some people don't understand. So let me explain this.

I may have to come back to this on the next program. This is from his book. This is the hadith, the tradition about Muhammad on the

Day of Judgment. Listen to this. This is very important. I might be able to get this all read before we run out of time. Listen to this. The Prophet stated,

I am the leader of mankind on the Day of Judgment. And do you know how that this is the case? Allah will gather all of mankind from the first of them to the last of them on one plane, and the sun will come close to them so much so that the people will be afflicted with grief and pain and sufferings that they cannot bear.

So some of the people will say to others, do you not see what situation you are in? Do you not see what has occurred?

Why do you not find people who will intercede on your behalf with your Lord? So some of them will say to others, let us go to Adam.

They will go to Adam and say, oh, Adam, you are the father of mankind. Allah created you with his own hands and blew into his spirit and command the angels to prostrate to you, intercede on our behalf with Allah, for do you not see the situation we are in?

So Adam will respond, my Lord has become angry today, an anger that he has never had before, nor will he ever have again.

And he prohibited me from the tree, but I disobeyed him. I am only worried about myself. Myself. Go to someone else besides me.

Go to Noah. So they will go to Noah and say, oh, no, you are the first of the messengers that were sent to earth.

And Allah has described you as a thankful servant. Do you not see the situation we are in? So he will respond.

My Lord has become angry today, an anger that he has never had before, nor will he ever have again. And I had one request that I already used when

I prayed against my people that Allah destroy them. I am only worried about myself. Myself. Go to Abraham.

That is to Abraham. So they will go to Abraham and say, you are and say you are the prophet of Allah and his chosen friend amongst the creation.

Intercede with Allah on our behalf. Do you not see the situation we are in? But Abraham will say, my

Lord has become angry today, an anger that he has never had before, nor will he ever have again. And he will remember the lies that he said and say,

I am only worried about myself. Myself. Go to someone else. Go to Musa. That is to Moses. So they will go to Musa and say, oh,

Musa, you are the messenger of Allah. Allah favored you with his prophethood and his speaking directly to you. Intercede on our behalf with Allah.

Do you not see the situation we are in? But Musa will respond. My Lord has become angry today, an anger that he has never had before, nor will he have ever again.

And verily, I killed a person whom I had not been commanded to kill. I am only worried about myself. Myself.

Go to Isa. That is to Jesus. So they will go to Isa and say, oh, Isa, you are the messenger of Allah.

You spoke to the people while you were still in the cradle. You are the word of Allah that he gave to Miriam and a spirit proceeding from him.

Intercede for us with our Lord. For do you not see the situation we are in? But Isa will respond.

My Lord has become angry today, an anger that he has never had before, nor will he ever have again. And he will not mention any sin, but will say,

I am only worried about myself. Myself. Go to Muhammad. So they will come to me and say, oh,

Muhammad, you are the messenger of Allah and the seal of the prophets. Allah has forgiven all of your sins.

Do you not see the situation we are in? Intercede for us with our Lord. So I will proceed to the throne of Allah and will fall down in prostration in front of my

Lord. Then Allah will inspire me and reveal to me words of praise to him and his glorification, which no one before was ever given.

It will then be said to me, oh, Muhammad, raise your head, ask and you shall be given intercede and your intercession shall be accepted.

And then I read this this same story. The version is found in Al -Bukhari and in Al -Bukhari at the end,

Muhammad is able to deliver the faithful Muslims from Jannah, from from from the fire of hell and deliver them to Jannah into the place of paradise.

And that is how the day of judgment is going to take place. Notice again,

Jesus is just one of the prophets. Now, in this version, it said he will not make mention of any sin.

Why? Because the sinlessness of Jesus. But who does the intercession? Who is the one who has the power?

Yasir Qadhi will talk later about the fact that one of the questions that's asked of him is how does

Muhammad know when dua, when a when a request has been made in his name?

And he says the angels bring it to him. So they're trying to they're trying to maintain monotheism.

They can't have a trinitarianism or binitarianism. But the person of Muhammad takes the place of Jesus in Islamic worship really does so much so that think about it.

I was talking to an Islamic friend of mine. He says in Islamic countries, you will hear people swear all the time.

They will they will use the name of Allah. And it's so customary that people don't even give it a second thought.

But look what happens when a British middle aged school teacher allows her

Muslim students to name a teddy bear Muhammad. There were people gathered outside of her her place of of of imprisonment.

And what did they want to do? They wanted to kill her.

They wanted her life to be over with. Don't tell me that Muhammad doesn't have that place.

Of course, we're many were it is so obvious and is so clear that that is the case.

I'm sort of wondering a little bit about the timing here because we're a little bit behind on things here.

But anyways, I was that's what's called stretching in the world of big league webcasting, which

I don't know if there is a big league of webcasting. Anyway, hey, our studio audience finally arrived right as we're finishing the program.

Hi, Eddie. How are you doing? No applause or anything like that. We need to be professional here.

But thanks for listening to The Dividing Line. We'll be back again, not next Tuesday, but on Thursday of next week.

See you then. God bless. Contend for the.

We need a new reformation day. 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.

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

World Wide Web at AOMIN .org. That's AOMIN .org, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks.