April 29, 2004

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The world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
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The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.
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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
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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr.
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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. I love that song. It's so cool. I'm never going to tell the story that Steve told about on the air though.
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I got to leave that to Steve. There's some things you just don't do and that's one of the things you don't do. Welcome to The Dividing Line.
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My name is James White. It is 4 p .m. and the only place where it matters what time it really is on a
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Thursday afternoon. And you are there and I am here and the phone lines are open, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.
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Tex Presby and Channel just went off to get a Dr. Pepper, which I just, I'm sorry, for those of you who love
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Dr. Pepper, I'm just like, why don't you just drink, you know, medicine or something. It's the same thing.
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But then he comes back and says, saddle up your horses. And I thought for a second as I saw it scrolling by, he was talking about that country song where you get something for your men and beer for your horses or something.
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I don't think that that would be a good thing to do though. I don't think horses probably really handle that kind of thing too well.
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Yeah, we've got all the interesting folks in Channel as normal and a few others.
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We have 48 in Channel at the moment and sometimes that gets much bigger, especially if we announce we're going to do something really wild and crazy.
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Then we get lots of folks in Channel. But otherwise, it's just the normal list of suspects and they are there.
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Oh, there's an alert on Weather Bug. Let's see what it is. I bet you it's a, yes, it's a wind advisory in effect until 5 p .m.,
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Mountain Standard time this evening. Only one more hour of wind according to the National Weather Service.
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Then it's going to be perfectly calm at that point. It's one of those days where you can go outside and...
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And do you think it's a coincidence that that's right about the time the dividing line started? I think not.
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Oh, wind. Oh, ha ha, ha ha. Rich, remember what
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Rush says. Leave the humor to the professionals. Okay. It's really embarrassing when other people try to do those things.
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Please remember that the wind advisory has been up since last night and they just keep sending it out.
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So it has been wind. It's one of those kind of days you open your mouth outside and you get crunch, crunch, crunch afterwards. It's...
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In Arizona, what happens in a valley like this is you just get all this dust in the air and so the whole sky sort of like starts to glow.
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And the wind, the light, instead of, you know, when the air is really clear, the light's very plainly coming from one particular direction.
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But now the light's coming from all over the sky because there's so much dust and stuff, you know. And it just makes things...
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It's a weird thing. It's odd to see. Anyway, 877 -753 -3341.
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Looking at the blog, there's some interesting things on the front page at the moment.
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Just notice that... I don't know why it is, but Mozilla Firebird, Firefox, whatever they call this thing.
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Firefox. There it is. We have to be very careful with the term Fox and channel because we have someone who's writing something and is very sensitive, in fact, overly sensitive to that particular term and we have to be very, very careful about how we do things.
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But anyway, Firefox messes up at the bottom of our page. It doesn't...
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You have to refresh it. When you refresh it, it does everything fine. It's just really odd. Anyway, there is an entry from the 25th, just a few days ago, on the new
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Vatican document that was released by the Vatican, of course. And it really is focused upon the issue of the sacraments.
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Did I link? I didn't link to it. I should have linked to it. That's what's nice about Mozilla Firefox, is
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I go to RCC links and there is the link and I click the button and that knocks us right off the air.
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Poof, it's gone. And you know, this tan, blah background on the
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Vatican webpage has got to go. I mean, they've just got to start getting some good looking stuff here because this is just bad.
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But anyway, if you scroll up to the top of this thing, you can find it on the Vatican webpage, which for those of you who don't know, is www .vatican
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.va and Redemptionis Sacramentum.
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It is an instructional work broken into eight major sections with a conclusion.
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All sorts of interesting stuff in here. In the most holy Eucharist, Mother Church with steadfast faith acknowledges the sacrament of redemption, joyfully takes it to herself, celebrates it and reviews it in adoration, proclaiming the death of Jesus Christ and confessing his resurrection until he comes in glory to hand over as unconquered
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Lord and ruler, eternal priest and king of the universe, a kingdom of truth and life to the immense majesty of the Almighty Father is how it begins.
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And it's primarily focused upon the Eucharist and that is the sacrifice of the
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Mass, if you're not familiar with Roman Catholic theology and teaching. The Church's doctrine regarding the most holy
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Eucharist, in which the whole spiritual wealth of the Church is contained, namely Christ, our Paschal Lamb, the
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Eucharist, which is the source and summit of the whole Christian life and which lies as a causative force behind the very origins of the
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Church, has been expounded with thoughtful care and with great authority over the course of the centuries in the writings of the
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Councils and the Supreme Pontiffs. Most recently, in fact, the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, in the encyclical letter
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Ecclesia de Eucharistia, set forth afresh certain elements of great importance on this subject in view of the ecclesial circumstances of our times.
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And it basically goes through, and again, this is something I addressed a number of weeks ago,
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I fully support the right of Rome to define her own theology, and in fact, given that this is somewhat related to the fact that there are those in Rome saying, look, if a
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Roman Catholic constantly rejects, by their actions in their lives, the teachings of the
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Church, then it is the responsibility of the Church not to allow them to come to the sacraments.
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And they have every right to do that. If you, for a second, say they don't have the right to do that, then in essence, what you're saying is government or somebody else has the right to tell churches how they are to believe and how they are to practice, and you just don't do that.
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And I wish that there were more people in the United States who would stand up and at least believe what they believe.
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You know, it's a lot easier. It is really a lot easier to talk to somebody who actually believes firmly than to someone who is so wrapped up in postmodernism that's, well, you know, you have your view and I have my view and you have your truth and I have my truth.
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And those folks are next to impossible to deal with, to talk to. It's extremely frustrating to try to deal with someone who has such a completely messed up view of truth.
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So I wish there were more Roman Catholic bishops who would have the guts to stand up and say, you know what, this is what we believe and this is why we believe it.
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And if you don't believe it, then we're not going to give you the sacraments and you're not going to be called Roman Catholic and we're going to send you your way.
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At least I can be consistent there because I can guarantee you if there is someone in our church who came along and said, you know what,
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I like what the Roman Catholics are saying about the mass. I think it's a good thing to believe that we can, you know, that this is an ongoing sacrifice.
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There's the one time sacrifice, but then it's actually a representation of that one sacrifice and all the rest of this stuff.
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I can guarantee you the elders would attempt to deal with such a person, but then eventually such a person would be dismissed if they remained obstinate in their heresy and they would no longer be a part of the fellowship of our church.
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I can guarantee you that. So anyway, this contains instructions to local priests and so on and so forth regarding not only the theology of the mass, but also in regards to such things as who is to be given to and how and so on and so forth.
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I quoted two of the sections from this particular instruction on the website and it really does, again, indicate to us the fact that Rome's doctrine on these issues has not changed and that the issues have not gone away and that the fact of the matter is unfortunately there are many who have, in essence, given up the battle just because they are so enamored with the
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Rome's, the attraction of Rome's liturgy and all the rest of the stuff. But I quoted sections 129 and 134.
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If you're looking at the document itself, you want to look at them. And it says the celebration of the Eucharist and the sacrifice of the mass is truly the origin and end of the worship given to the
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Eucharist outside the mass. Furthermore, the sacred species are reserved after mass, principally so the faithful who cannot be present at mass above all the sick and those advanced in age may be united by sacramental communion to Christ and his sacrifice, which is offered in the mass.
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In addition, this reservation also permits the practice of adoring this great sacrament and offering it, please notice that that's what it says, offering it the worship due to God.
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Accordingly, forms of adoration that are not only private, but also public and communitarian in nature, as established or approved by the church herself, must be greatly promoted.
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So what we're talking about here, the reservation of consecrated hosts in the monstrance that depicts the ciborium, the individuals who,
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I'm saying individuals, I just saw someone kicked out of the channel, it's like, hmm, what happened there? The places where these consecrated hosts are kept for the purpose of worship, for the purpose of worship.
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And that's what it says. In addition, this reservation, this placing the consecrated hosts in a tabernacle, in a monstrance, this reservation also permits the practice of adoring this great sacrament and offering it the worship due to God.
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And so I'll never forget years and years ago when I was studying to write my very first book,
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The Fatal Flaw. I don't know why, who was I waiting for? I was waiting for somebody.
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I remember I was sitting in the parking lot, remember exactly which parking lot it was. And for some reason I was not going to have,
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I wasn't going to leave there for a while. I was waiting for somebody to come out. I don't know why. But anyway,
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I remember sitting there reading one of the first books I purchased from a
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Roman Catholic perspective, explaining Roman Catholic theology from a Catholic priest. And I remember reading the section all about how through the
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Eucharistic offering, through transubstantiation, the reservation of the of the consecrated hosts, that was the way in which we can visit with Jesus and that people should should plan to visit with Jesus regularly.
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But this is how Jesus is with the church, is in the form of the consecrated host.
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And hence, that's why there is to be the the the worship given to this this consecrated host that is given to God, because because of transubstantiation, this host has become the body, soul, blood and divinity of of Jesus Christ.
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And so that I never just forget this right toward the end of a chapter.
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Many people like to go and visit with Jesus daily. And I I'm just I just remember sitting there staring at the page going, visit with Jesus daily.
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Hmm. I thought that's what prayer and reading the Bible by the Holy Spirit was.
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I didn't know that I needed to get into a car and drive over to a church and find a monstrance tabernacle, ciborium that had consecrated hosts in it.
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And I don't remember that in the New Testament either. In fact, that's so far removed from anything that's that's even relevant to the
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New Testament that it's amazing. In fact, at the time I was unaware of the fact that historically that is completely for a thousand years, no one dreamed of this stuff.
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I mean, you don't find the first tabernacles that are designed to allow this very thing, this kind of worship for until after the turn of the millennium, the millennium.
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So what were these people doing for all that time? And, you know, I keep asking Roman Catholics about that.
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I cannot tell you how many times I've asked Roman Catholic apologists and debate. And and why is it that your own materials admit that they didn't start building these tabernacles, these places for reserved hosts to be worshipped and carried about in in in procession and people bow down and worship as God goes by?
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Why doesn't that happen in the first thousand years? Why does it just happen to actually coincide with the beginning of the use of the term transubstantiation in a physical sense?
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Maybe they go together, but don't you think if this was what the church had always believed, that they would have always worshipped the host, that they would have always had a place to to to put it so they could come visit
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Jesus? And I don't get answers. I get all sorts of well, certainly they did that. Well, where is the physical evidence of the construction of these things, these the tabernacle?
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Why don't we find these things? Well, we don't find these things. And so you eventually just go off and start talking about other things.
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But anyway, so there you have the the offering it the worship due to God at section one twenty nine and section one thirty four section one thirty four says the worship of the
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Eucharist outside the sacrifice. The mass is a tribute of inestimable value value in the life of the church.
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Such worship is closely linked to the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Therefore, both public and private devotion to the most holy
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Eucharist, even outside mass should be vigorously promoted for by means of the faithful, give adoration to Christ truly and really present the high priest, the good things to come and redeemer of the whole world.
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It is the responsibility of sacred pastors, even by the witness of their life, to support the practice of Eucharistic worship and especially exposition of the most holy sacrament, as well as prayer of adoration before Christ present under the
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Eucharistic species. Of course, one of the reasons I like to provide this kind of information aside from the fact that most evangelicals never see it is just by listening to the language and recognizing what it means.
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You can go, wow, that is really different that there's a whole fundamental foundational difference in in worldview and viewpoint here.
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And the answer to that is, yes, they're they're most they're most certainly is. And so I made some comments about that.
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And then that led to many other comments over on Jimmy Akin's web blog.
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And then I respond to that. And I really haven't seen there's been any response to that. That's what's on the Web right now.
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And I guess that's what got some folks thinking and had some phone calls going at 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.
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And so I actually need to scroll back here because I hadn't opened my thing up. And did he did he did he did he did he and I there.
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Is that the first one? Which one's first? I can't find your neck in the channel any longer.
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And it was in the channel someplace. And there's too much discussion going on there. And I finally opened up. There it is.
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Mark in Houston. Let's talk with Mark. Hi, Mark. Huh, Jeff in Seattle.
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OK, how about Jeff in Seattle? Hi, Dr. White. Hi, how are you? Not too bad. I had a quick exegesis question for you and then one that's more practical related to talking with Roman Catholics.
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All right. The first question is just on First John five one. Which, in my mind, seems to be such a strong passage supporting
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God's God's acting and dealing with people to bring about faith. In in reading your your book, the way that the
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Potter's freedom in dealing with the the exegesis of the Greek and how the being born of God is a completed action of the past, are you believing when
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I see something like that and I see how it seems to be so clear, one of the first things that I guess pops into my head is, you know, how do people try to get around this then, you know, something that that appears that obvious, is there some, you know, trick in the
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Greek that you can use or something like that, that people avoid that when it seems so clear?
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And if the grammar is that explicit, then. Well, two things. The reason that most people never even address it is because most people have never heard it explained that way.
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And hence they read it and it is like Dave Hunt in his in his book.
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What love is this? He just simply looked at it. He interprets it within the context in which he he is operating.
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And as a result, he just goes, oh, well, you know, this is very clear. Whoever, whoever believes that Jesus Christ, as a result of believing, has been born of God.
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And most people are looking at those particular passages from within their traditional mindset.
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And since the thinking in most evangelical churches is let's not rock the boat, let's just focus on what we all can agree on, da da da da da da, then it hardly ever gets addressed.
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As far as from from the Greek perspective, about the only thing that you could try to pull on 1
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John 5, 1 would be to say, well, it is syntactically possible for the the action of Pistuo and the action of Gegeneitai to be concurrent, to be to be coincidental, to to take place at the same time.
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That is an allowable syntactical understanding of the relationship between the two.
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The problem is, A, it makes no sense in 1 John 5, 1. And secondly, you then would have to apply that to all the other passages like 1
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John 2 29, 1 John 4, 7. And it wouldn't make any sense there either. But it's it's a at least a syntactical possibility.
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And I've actually had folks get down to the point where that's all they were throwing out was, well, it could be this maybe.
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But I just to be honest with you, I've never had. And that's why a couple weeks ago I pulled out order to see what
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I do. There it is. I grabbed the Why I'm Not a Calvinist book. In fact, let me roll back here with the
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I'm sure you can see me doing this. There it is. It was under a towel back there for some reason.
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Let me see. Did the first John 5, 1. Let's see if.
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Oh, drat. No reference to 1 John 5, 1 in the entirety of Why I am
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Not a Calvinist. That's why I buy these books is is I. Well, I have to because everybody's going to call up and say, why haven't you reviewed such and such book yet?
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But the other reason is I want to see what they say about John six. I want to see what they say about Romans nine. I want to see what they say about Ephesians one.
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And basically what I'm discovering after a number of years is they pretty much just retread the same old arguments without any meaningful interaction with with what has been with the holes that have been blown through it.
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It's sort of like when I go shooting, I'll take these targets and they've got really neat targets these days.
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You shoot them and and the whole turns bright yellow where you're where the bullet goes through. So from a long ways off, you can see exactly where you where you hit.
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And so when you go out to the target is take these little patches, these little round sticky things, and you just stick them on top of the holes and and you don't have to replace your target.
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Well, that's sort of what they do with their arguments. It's just we blow holes through them and they just put the little sticky things on them and put another book out.
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And so I don't find exegetical. I've never honestly had a meaningful, fair dialogue on that verse.
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The Armenian, I just I just haven't. As soon as you throw it out there, the ninety nine percent of time, oh, you elitist, you know, do you think that people have to be able to read the
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Greek to understand the gospel? And you're off on all sorts of emotional tangents and you you never actually settle anything.
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And so I can't you know, that's the best I can give you. I wish I could tell you, oh, they've got this really good argument.
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You do you do this. But that's not what I experience. Thank you on with regarding with.
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When you're speaking with Roman Catholics and not necessarily the kind that are particularly wrapped up in their theology, in other words, they're like a lot of evangelicals, they're they're very ecumenical, they're not necessarily very particularly attached to anything in the
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Roman Catholic Church. It might just be that, you know, that that's where they feel comfortable or.
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Right. You know, it's nothing in particular, so it's they're not militant about any particular.
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Dogma or anything like that, but at the same time, they feel, you know, no need to move, obviously.
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Right. Or anything along those lines. So there's nothing really you can you can pick or discuss because it's hardly of importance.
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All right. Now you're talking about a a nominal Catholic who only goes twice a year or you're talking about a
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Catholic who may be a little bit more involved, but really isn't was more and more influenced by postmodernism than they are by the
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Vatican. Probably more of the latter. Somebody who is who is, you know, a consistent.
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Churchgoer expresses their faith, but at the same time is. You know, does not deal with with particular issues or doesn't feel a need to get into that kind of depth of theology like like you run into with with a lot of evangelicals, if you start talking too much in particular.
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So so not not a nominal Catholic, but, you know, definitely somebody who is who is consistent and going, but just not doesn't really care about those particular issues.
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Doesn't feel a need to go anywhere. OK. So you're asking, where do you start? Yeah, kind of.
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Well, you know, in a situation like that, you you start with with with the gospel in the sense that the only real difference that I think you would you would see in your presentation is.
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This individual, you've got to keep in mind the fact that they may be very deeply influenced by the the concepts of merit that are part and parcel of the
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Roman Catholic teaching. And so depending on how conservative the church is, depending on how well they listen, depending on whether their priest is is more of a universalist than he is consistent
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Roman Catholic teaching, they're going to be more or less impacted by that kind of a of a teaching.
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And hence, when you start talking about grace and and things like that, you need to be ever more clear than maybe somebody else exactly what you mean by that, that it's not just simply a force that helps you to do something that we're talking about something here that is that is quite different than that.
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But in essence, you present the gospel and you do so like you do with any other postmodern. And you're going to expect to hear all the standard.
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Hey, you know, we, you know, we we have our beliefs.
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You have your beliefs. We don't pick on you. You don't pick on us type of stuff. And and there's really no difference there.
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I mean, you could sit there and prove to them that they're being inconsistent with their own church. That's probably not really going to accomplish a whole lot.
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You're going to be dealing with them the way you do with almost any postmodern. And that is dealing with their own inconsistency in their own life between saying that there's multiple truths in every other area and the fact they don't live their lives in light of that.
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They don't they don't just decide that their truth is they're going to drive down the left side of the road. Their truth is going to run into reality very, very quickly.
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So they don't live consistently with the worldview that they're operating on. And you have to deal with them pretty much like any other postmodern person that that you that you're dealing with, just with the possibility that given their exposure to the teachings of the church, that those meritorious teachings have indeed impacted their particular perspective.
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All right. Well, I appreciate the suggestion. Thank you very much. Most welcome. Thanks a lot. God bless. Eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, forty one.
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I should have mentioned this right at the top of the hour. Let me mention it before we go into our break. I haven't absolutely nailed this down yet, but I think and I need to make a phone call and double double check on this stuff.
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I think that we are going to be able to have a special guest on Tuesday on the program.
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I need to call him to double check on this, but I remember I'm not sure if it was just last summer.
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Maybe it was the year before. I think it was just last summer. Nope. Actually, it was right now. Anyway, Scott Klusendorf is with Stand to Reason in California.
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He travels about giving talks on how to deal with the abortion issue from a
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Christian perspective. I heard him on the Bible Answer Man broadcast, and I was just so impressed with the with the presentation and had never had any contact, at least directly to my recollection anyway, with Scott until just a few weeks ago when
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I got an email from him and I responded and he was there. And so we went back and forth on how many times one late, late, late when
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I was well after midnight my time. And so I just sort of floated the idea if he would be willing to join us just for a program in essence to help us to know how to effectively address the issue of abortion, given that it's a that time of the year, the election cycle, when we as Christians have an opportunity to address that topic.
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It's a hot topic. I mean, how many just last weekend you had over half a million people gathered in Washington.
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And if you know, it's funny, they say it's not a religious issue.
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And yet, as I was listening to and reading about listening to the clips and reading about the the gathering,
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I heard people talking and just ripping on Christianity and fundamentalism and all the rest of this stuff.
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I guess it's OK for them to do that. But if anybody responds to the separation of church and state, you can't talk about that.
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And so anyway, I asked God if he would be with us possibly a Tuesday morning and possibly just he and I talk for about half an hour and then open up the phone lines and just, in essence, encouraging our audience to to be quick to give an answer for the hope that's within us in regards to that issue, because I believe it is a theological issue.
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It's a moral issue. It's an ethical issue. And anybody who thinks that the founding fathers of this nation intended that we not be able to speak concerning such issues is obviously a revolutionary, an individual who is rewriting history on the level of Stalin, rewriting the history of Russia.
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And therefore, we need to be prepared to give an answer on those issues and to do so effectively.
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And Scott Klusendorf does a great job in helping folks to do that. He had an article in the most recent
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CRI Journal, as I did, on the same subjects of abortion and the pro -life movement.
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So Tuesday, I can't say there's going to, you know, be an absolute, you know, commitment there.
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But hopefully next Tuesday we'll be joined by Scott Klusendorf. So that's what we'll try to do. All right.
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877 -753 -3341. We're going to take our break and be back with Mark. And also,
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I see a Catholic and channeled trying to play around First John 5 -1. We will correct his errors when we return as well.
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Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.
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Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.
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In their book, The Same Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the
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Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including
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Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.
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In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.
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The Same Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at AOMin .org.
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Millions of petitioners from around the world are employing Pope John Paul II to recognize the Virgin Mary as co -redeemer with Christ, elevating the topic of Roman Catholic views of Mary to national headlines and widespread discussion.
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In his book, Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic.
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He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant and chosen vessel of God, has become the immaculately conceived, bodily assumed queen of heaven, viewed as co -mediator with Christ and now recognized as co -redeemer by many in the
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Roman Catholic Church. Mary, Another Redeemer is fresh insight into the woman the
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Bible calls blessed among women and an invitation to single -minded devotion to God's truth.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary, Another Redeemer, at AOMin .org.
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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.
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The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.
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The morning Bible study begins at 930 a .m. and the worship service is at 1045.
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Evening services are at 630 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7.
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The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.
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You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE. 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.
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It's a pilgrims. We try to do catch me singing or something.
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I know what you're doing supposed to have that was supposed to happen. Was it? I could sort of tell because I heard you go up.
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I think some of my bailing wire might have slipped off there. Yeah.
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Okay. All righty. You're just you're just trying to catch a singing. That's what you're trying to do. I know it's you're done. There is a
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Roman Catholic and channel and as a result of the discussion of 1st John 5 1 has skipped down to verses 16 through 17 and has done the standard
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Oh 1st John 5 16 through 17 thing is is about venial and mortal sins.
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And I would like to direct this fellow who was only confirmed just recently in the
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Catholic faith to the commentary the gospel and epistles of John a concise commentary by Raymond E.
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Brown and Raymond Brown is he is the first person who have been president of all three major biblical societies the
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Catholic Biblical Association Society Biblical Literature and the International Society of New Testament Studies from 1972 1978.
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He was the only American in the Roman Pontifical Biblical Commission and appointment Paul Pope Paul the sixth stated according according to 20 scholars outstanding for their learning prudence and Catholic regard for the magisterium of the church and granted to Father Brown after consultation with the
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National Conference of Catholic bishops and in his commentary on 1st John chapter 5 he specifically says the early church soon discovered that private requests were not always granted one praiseworthy object of this
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Christian power of prayer is for brethren who have fallen into sin here however 1st John is cautious for most sins the prayer will be heard but there is a sin so serious that John does not encourage prayer for it evidently the readers letter knew all about this and we are not well informed except that we should avoid identifying sin unto death with mortal sin and a sin not unto death with venial sin probably the sin for 1st
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John was joining the secession which was a form of apostasy a sin elsewhere judged harshly so here you have
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Raymond Brown one of the leading Roman Catholic exegetes saying that the very interpretation offered in channel by Mr.
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Osho is his name or however you want he wants to pronounce it is the one that we should avoid and do not utilize let's go back to our phone calls and talk with Jeff in Jeff in Seattle or did
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I get you know Mark in Houston and all messed up hi mark hey dr. white how you doing
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I'm just thrilled to find out that there's only one mortal sin that leads unto death what's up well
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I just wanted to start out I had a comment I wanted to make about transubstantiation but I wanted to give you kudos too for taking on the subject of the
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Eucharist when I was a Catholic that was my biggest problem with the Catholic Church and coming out of it there wasn't a whole lot of contemporary writing on the issue hmm it's good to see that you're dealing with that yeah a lot of there's not a lot of contemporary evangelical writing on the ordinances the church at all unfortunately let's let's face it so it's not surprising then that there's not a whole lot written in response it's really meaningful and strong to the
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Roman Catholic position and unfortunately it seems to be one of the drawing points of the people that convert over there yes
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I've had an experience with the Eucharist and it's not being addressed yep well meditating on the Eucharist a few weeks back
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I was thinking about the fact that some of your writings you pointed out that the
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Catholic Church says that that's the body blood and divinity of Jesus after the host is consecrated mm -hmm and that that is the same body and blood and divinity of Jesus that was crucified that's accurate yes so in the same mass they're also saying in the
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Apostles Creed that Jesus buried he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven obviously there's an intervening fact there being the resurrection mm -hmm now the body of Christ is an eternal body the same kind of body that Adam had that was going to go to the grave you've got an eternal resurrection body so just looking at that there seems to be a major problem and that they're claiming that during the mass they're going back to the pre -resurrection body of Jesus there and somehow or another going from a
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Jesus who's in a resurrected body sitting at the right hand of a father back to a pre -resurrected body that was crucified well the argumentation
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I've heard especially Scott Hahn in a series that he did on the EWTN or maybe it actually is
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Catholic answers live was to to an essence say that the the body of Christ as as it is found in the
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Eucharist because he is a divine person and is timeless is therefore not bound in in the same way as a fallen body and of course you know when you start dealing with this issue what
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I find to be most useful and again not a lot of folks make reference to this Bill Webster has pointed out that it is very very clear that the single most influential early church writer of the first well
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I'd say 1 ,500 years of church history was a man by the name of Augustine and Augustine's doctrine on this very issue is easily discernible it's not it's not really a matter of argumentation and specifically he makes the point that the church and he uses this term has been deprived of the physical body of Jesus Christ because of the fact that the resurrection is a real resurrection the
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Jesus's physical body has ascended into heaven and is at the right hand of the father and therefore the church is deprived of his physical presence until he returns again now obviously if Augustine held the modern
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Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation and all the piety that is associated with that he would never make statements like that at all and unfortunately the vast majority of people we had a we had a fellow in channel just a couple nights ago and a number of citations were presented to him young fellow young Catholic fellow or was it the fellows in channel right now
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I'm not really sure but anyway it was a fellow in channel right now and the gentleman just simply refused to recognize that you have to listen to everything that Augustine said and when
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Augustine specifically makes the assertion that the church has been deprived the physical body of Christ you can't then run off with some place or oh but but he says something about the body and blood of Christ over here yeah he also talks about symbols and representations you put it all together and you understand what he was saying but we can't put it all together when you're a
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Roman Catholic and you've been told by the church what you're supposed to see in history so yeah I there's back to what you just said that Tom said yeah there seems to be a lot of difficulty with that because if Jesus body was eternal then he couldn't have died and the resurrection would be meaningless and have had no effect on it well if I just play devil's advocate
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I guess the response to that would be would be to say well but Jesus well
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I can just hear someone saying but he has the power to lay down his life and just because he is a timeless individual does not mean he could not die
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I'm not sure that you could necessarily prove the connection you just made there between saying well if he's an eternal person that means he cannot lay down his life voluntarily speaking in senses purely from a physical sense because obviously they're trying to say well it's the blood and divinity of Jesus also but from the standpoint of it being the body which is what they call it the body of Christ if you have a physical body that's now dead it's either not transformed by the resurrection and it's in the same state or it is transformed by the resurrection in which case
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I don't see how you can then go back and say well we are now grasping and I think you had something to you is cited in one of your writings about how the priest is reaching up into the heaven pulling
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Jesus down if you're doing that he's not pulling down the same body that was on the cross right well in a sense of certainly we have to affirm that the the connection that Paul affirms in 1st
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Corinthians 15 but we do so in the language he affirmed and that is the difference between the corruptible and incorruptible and that which is no longer
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Jesus is no longer his physical body is no longer subject to death is the biblical terminology would be used
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I'm not familiar and I could be wrong about this that no question about it but I'm not familiar with a dogmatic definition of the answer to your first question and hence if there's not an absolutely dogmatic way of responding to it or of defining it then there might be some way around the other direction but my my experience has been in talking with folks that when you get to this issue of the nature of the resurrection body and the nature of the body that is represented in the
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Eucharistic sacrifice that the about the deepest you're gonna get is well Christ the timeless person therefore his body can be represented throughout time without a re -sacrificing of the physical body now obviously all of this to me anyway is is so far removed from looking at the the theology of Hebrews or whatever else it might be that it's eventually you throw your hands up in the air but that's probably where the the apologetic response to be offered ok
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I think it's a good point I think I agree with you and I would keep presenting it that way alright thanks a lot mark alright let's go back to the great state of Texas and talk with David hi
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David hello David hello hello you are on the air sir oh hi hi yeah my question is on John's baptism what was the purpose of it and if it was for the remission of sin well
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John's baptism you're talking about John the Baptist I would assume yes sir and his ministry was a preparatory ministry one to prepare the way for the
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Messiah he says that it is a baptism of repentance as far as as are you asking if it had some sort of an an effect or something like that I am not one of those who believes that outside of the work of the
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Holy Spirit in a person's heart that any particular physical activity has any effect as to their spiritual transformation and so I'm not sure if you're asking if it had the same effect as as Christian baptism or whatever it's obvious in Acts chapter 19 that when
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Paul encounters a a group of John's disciples many many years after John's death who did not even know if there was a
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Holy Spirit and they were they he had them baptized and the reason they did so is it was clear that they had never heard the gospel and hence had not experienced
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Christian baptism even in in John's baptism so I'm not sure if that's what you is relevant to your question or not no no
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I mean he called for repentance so if there was any salvation to be had let's say theoretically an individual who's baptized by John and repentance but does not live through the ministry of Christ something along those lines such a person would be saved or not saved in the same basis as someone long before John and that is by their faith or the lack of faith in the promises of God contained in the scriptures concerning God's forgiveness of those who will repent of their sins and cling to him ok alright thanks a lot sir
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God bless and you go across the pond now and talk with Jason in the
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United Kingdom hello Jason hi how are you doing I'm fine it's been a while we haven't seen you in channel
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I'm there tonight oh really yeah well you snuck in on me hello
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I'm in a bit busy oh okay busy with what well with work and preparing for you know
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Sunday school things you know because I think I teach youth well wait a minute you're in you're in the
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United Kingdom yet you still have to work yeah I can I work it I actually work in a school at the moment
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I'm hoping to go into teaching September oh well that's wonderful you know you know it's looking really good to be over there and watch you know right yeah
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I'll see if I can if I can make it I'm not hopefully it would it be at the weekend when you'd be debating or during the week
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I did it's the week before probably the weekend and week before Easter and so I don't know that a debate's gonna take place but I'm supposed to be preaching both in London and in Scotland too so not
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Scotland as well yes yes all over the place so my accent will become permanent right
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I'm not sure if I could make it all the way up to Scotland oh well but London maybe yeah all right well
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I'm not really sure what your questions about but it has me frightened so I'll go ahead and let you ask it yeah you know
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I've heard you address the issue of homosexuality quite a few times
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I watch your debate with with Barry Lynn but I'm not sure if you've addressed the issue of transgendered individuals because it's
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I'm not because it's because that's an issue that on which I'm not you know I'm not really quite so clear on I mean
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I'm quite in full agreement with you know with homosexuality being a sinful lifestyle but but when you have somebody who who you know is physically male or female but believes that they're or feels as though they've been born into the wrong body or something and that's not quite so easy to answer especially as as often the other is a physical cause to that you know with the genetic makeup well well
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I think again that we have to we have to allow the scriptures to provide us with the with the norms here not the the current popular opinion whether that be a popular opinion regarding genetics determining this that or the other thing the idea of being born into the wrong body is in essence a an accusation against God himself that yeah
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I mean I mean that I mean I did ask a pastor about this after I got a conversation with the you know with with a transgendered individual and and he he basically said the same thing but I was wondering whether you know because of the because of the fall you know in the curse that came with that whether you know whether it's not quite so you know so easy to me yeah well remember remember remember
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Jason the fall on the curse likewise result in each one of us having propensities towards sin yeah there's propensities some would have a propensity toward anger some many have a propensity toward that lust others toward covetousness toward drunkenness towards pride and arrogance these are all functions of sin and the experience of mankind and so if for a particular individual there is a fascination with with the opposite sex and wanting to to be the opposite sex that sadly people have decided that in those areas well maybe that means that person was born in the wrong body no they were born in the exact body that God intended them to have now are they may they have to be more diligent in obeying
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God's commands and in focusing upon the biblical truth concerning male and female roles and accepting
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God's providence in their life than someone else in that area sir sure just like someone who maybe struggles with covetousness who is going to have to focus upon learning to be content and to learning to to making contentment as a part of their everyday life but that doesn't mean that that either covetousness or desire to be another gender is any less sinful because both both involve a rejection of God's providence in a person's life and really that's where part of the problem in it's it's a little bit clear in your country right now it is in mind but we're getting there trying to catch up as quickly as we can
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I it seems and that is that once we have gotten rid of the idea that God is our creator and that therefore
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God made us the way that we are for a particular purpose and that he has a purpose in our lives once we get away from that and we're all just simply the random results of a mixture of DNA then there is no way of creating a meaningful ethical system especially for those people who decide to pick and choose what parts of the
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Christian worldview they're going to accept or reject so for a Christian to try to hold the
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Bible and then hold to a postmodern worldly view of the creation of man as merely the random result of DNA molecules no no
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I'm just simply saying it's it's very difficult for it's impossible to do and we see that in denomination after denomination and let's face it that's that that's what you're facing even more so over there in most of the quote -unquote religion of the of the land is is a complete capitulation on the basis of a
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Christian worldview so that that that you know that may make you end up feeling like you're sort of alone in in in how you think about things but that's not necessarily the case and so we have to look at it from a biblical perspective and you know that's that's how
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I'd respond to it okay all right yeah so how far are you from London again oh
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I remember exactly I'm it takes about six hours six hours to drive there
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I thought you were just on a little teeny island well I live up in Grimsby which is on the north northeast quite close to Hull oh yes did you know that our silly
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Brit Colin Smith became a he became a citizen you mentioned that yeah he became a citizen on Tuesday he had to renounce the
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Queen can you believe that oh right yes renounce the Queen you have to announce yes yes you do you have to renounce all powers foreign and domestic and so I had to renounce the
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Queen I don't believe that he does no I think
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I think he's just a yank now so that's but you've lost two so far you know two of your best you lost
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John Sampson pastor Sampson here in Phoenix and now you've lost Colin Smith I it's it's it's a bad thing but it's still got some good ones over there like you right yeah
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I'm actually quite I mean one thing that I'm very thankful for living in this country is that it's the school system is it you know the school system has not gone quite secular and it has over in America I mean and by law we have we know we're supposed to have
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Christian worship in our schools really you know each morning ever is that Anglican Christian content it says which is a little bit vague but it's better than nothing interesting interpret that to your advantage okay all right thank you very much okay all right thanks for calling bye -bye
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I just love when Jason calls in or van
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Vossen channel calls in and I get to I get to do my accent does that mean I have to stop now yep
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Micah says someone stop him stop him I say Sonya's and they're saying I would never renounce the
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Queen you have to it was interesting but it is interesting what they ask you these days and they even asked they even asked him if he would if he had to take up arms to defend the
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United States even if it was against England that was an interesting question I did not know that but anyhow the reason
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I'm not going eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is because we're out of time and we won't have an opportunity to take any more take any more phone calls people are saying
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I do need to go to to London so that I can pick up the real British accent rather than this cross between England Scotland Australia and Dick Van Dyke from from chim chim cherie remember that and what was that was that dust sweeper what was that called
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Mary Poppins Mary Poppins he was a chimney sweep that's right and so that's what they say actually I'm doing is
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Mary Poppins and I really don't appreciate that but anyhow so don't forget next
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Tuesday hopefully I'll obviously I'll blog it once I get it confirmed hopefully we will be having
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Scott Klusendorf on to discuss how we can give a a clear understandable presentation in regards to the humanity of the pre -born child and the issue of abortion which is a a religious and moral issue as well as a a public issue within our society and we'll be taking phone calls and so mark that down if your calendar that is that will be
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Tuesday morning 11 a .m. Pacific Daylight Time which is 2 p .m.
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Eastern Daylight Time Sam I'll do all the conversions for those of you who are time -challenged because you just can't figure out what time is which so anyway next
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Tuesday morning 11 a .m. here on the dividing line have a great
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Lord's Day great weekend we'll see you then God bless we need a new reformation day brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries if you'd like to contact us call us at 602 -973 -0318 or write us at P .O.
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Box 37106 Phoenix Arizona 85069 you can also find us on the world wide web at AOMIN .org