March 10, 2005

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 welcome to The Dividing Line on this Thursday afternoon back here in Phoenix, Arizona.

I woke up this morning in St. Louis. It was a little bit cool in St. Louis this morning. I think it was down in the 20s somewhere with a pretty nice breeze.

You get a 24 degree temperature with about a 20 mile an hour wind. And it's, I'll keep you awake.

It's, what is it here, 85 degrees. 85 big degrees just brought up the radar here.

And guess what? Nothing there. Nothing there at all. Just wide open. 85, it was 87 earlier.

85 degrees according to my little thingamabobby down there. And so that tells me that the summer is coming, unfortunately.

And I'm not really looking forward to that around here to be perfectly honest with you. But we are back at the

Midwest Founders Conference in St. Louis. In actually

First Southern Baptist Church, St. Peter's, as I recall, is the name.

And the folks were very, very kind to me. I spoke three times.

I spoke Tuesday evening and then yesterday at around 11ish and then last evening at 630.

After the first session on Tuesday, I did an extensive Q &A session.

And it went for quite some time. I was, I don't know, maybe it's just because I'm getting older or something.

I don't know. When I travel, boy, I'll tell you, preaching for a full hour and then doing Q &A afterwards after flying.

And St. Louis isn't all that bad. It's only two and a half, three hours. But, boy, I hope. All I know is

I know they didn't record it. They didn't record that evening, that Q &A session.

So that's probably best, actually, when you think about it. But we had some great conversations with folks, great people there.

You know, the Founders Conference, I've spoken at, I think, three of them so far. Yeah, three of them.

One in Lynchburg, one in the Dallas area, and this one. And it always makes me very humbled, first of all.

There are so many people that listen to this program. I could not believe when I asked. It was a good group.

They said this was the largest group they ever had. And I asked how many people were familiar with the website or listened to the

Dividing Line. And I was just shocked at how many people did. I'll just never get used to that.

And really what was really interesting, and I might as well make this announcement while we're doing it. It's really rather providential.

A number of people talked to me, and there was at least two, three people this trip.

And I know there's been people on the channel, and I've talked to people elsewhere who have embraced the doctrines of grace and all the things that come with that.

What I mean by that is, you know, the change in how you view God, how you view yourself, how you view the church, how you view all of those things.

They did so, and the process started with the Bible Answer Man broadcast in December of 2003.

And the debate between myself and George Bryson, and at least between myself and George Bryson.

And that started the process. Now, it wasn't so much, interestingly enough, the people I've talked to, it wasn't so much just listening to that debate.

But what it was, was that they were bothered by what

I said. And they were expecting a refutation of what

I was saying, and they didn't get the refutation. And so that prompted them to want to find out what the refutation was.

And so they end up going and getting Geisler's book, but they know that I've written a response to Geisler's book.

And so they read Geisler's book, and then they read The Potter's Freedom. And I can't tell you how many people

I've talked to, especially folks that were in, few still are, but many aren't, in Calvary Chapels.

Who read Geisler's book, and they heard, they said, you know, I've heard Geisler on the

Bible Answer Man, I've heard White on the Bible Answer Man. And they say a lot of the same things about Mormonism and stuff like that, but man, they're obviously at complete loggerheads on this.

So I need to read both of them. And so I am very, very, very happy to invite anyone to read

Chosen But Free and The Potter's Freedom together. That's great. You feel free to do so, and I would encourage folks to do so.

And we've encouraged folks to do that, read them both, check them all out. And they've done so, and end up at Founders Conferences.

And the same thing with this, with the Bible Answer Man broadcast. They listen to that and they go, man, why isn't there, why isn't rebuttal being offered?

Why isn't the text being touched here? So the announcement is, just last night, after I spoke,

I was talking with folks, and man, I've just been talking for two days. And I was talking with some folks, and they're asking, could

I, you know, could I hear the Bible Answer Man broadcast? Because they heard other people talking about, yeah, it was the first time I'd heard about you, da -da -da -da -da.

And I knew that there had been some discussion about our carrying it, but I didn't know what the status of that was.

So I was like, you know, I think they're on the web someplace, but I, you know, I just, we've thought about carrying them, but I've not heard anything about it.

It's been a long time, so I don't think we are, and I just didn't know. So I get back, and here we have an entire supply now of the

CDs of the Bible Answer Man broadcast from, it was

December 16th, 17th, and 18th, if I'm recalling correctly, 2003, the rather famous Read My Book debate, where when

I brought up John Chapter 6, and I tried, you know, I tried to present what it was saying and walk through it,

Mr. Bryson's response was, well, you know, read my book. And once his book, we finally got his book, many weeks later, obviously there wasn't anything about John Chapter 6 in it, as far as providing any type of exegetical response.

Ironically, that was the same thing that happened with Norman Geisler, because when I was writing The Potter's Freedom, I wrote to Dr.

Geisler, and I asked, you know, it would seem to me that if you're going to be disagreeing with what you call extreme

Calvinism, that at least one of the passages that would really, really, really require an extensive response would be

John 6, 37 and following. But there isn't any discussion of John 6, 37 in your book.

I mean, it's quoted a couple of times, like half of a verse. There's no exegesis of it. And when

Dr. Geisler wrote back to me, he said, I fully exegeted John Chapter 6 in the book. And so, some of you may recall, in fact, some people in the channel helped with this.

The first edition of Chosen But Free had no scripture index. Well, okay, I'll take that back. It had a scripture index.

It had a useless scripture index. It had an incomplete scripture index. And I would actually buy a gift certificate online to a book service, and I would send it to somebody in channel to basically pay them to sit down with the book.

I knew who had the book. Sit down with the book and carefully scan every single page, and then send me a complete scripture index of any appearance of that particular passage in the entirety of the book.

So I could make sure, even though I had read the book very thoroughly myself, I could make sure I was missing nothing.

If I was saying, Dr. Geisler says X, Y, or Z about this passage, I wanted to know every single place where he touched it.

And so that's what we did. I had people helping me in channel do that. And so I quoted in my letter that I wrote back to Dr.

Geisler. This was before The Power of Freedom came out. I quoted every single reference to that passage in total in the book and said, there's no exegesis here.

This is all that you said, and I want to interact with you on this, but there's nothing for me to interact with.

And the only thing I got back was a postcard that said, if you publish, I will respond. That was all I got back.

And so the same thing happened in that situation. Well, where is it?

Well, it's actually not there anywhere. It's not there. George Bryson, read my book.

There's nothing in your book to read about this. You just can't find that kind of stuff on John chapter 6.

So I am being told by the powers that be, that's interesting, that we are going to be offering a bundle, and it will involve for 45 big smackers, $45, you get the

Amazing Grace DVD. That's over four hours. You get Debating Calvinism, the book, and you'll be getting the three

CRI programs. That's three CDs. So the Amazing Grace DVD, Debating Calvinism, the book, and the three

CRI CDs, the three programs, because it's one program per hour for $45.

That's $10 over the current prices, and our current prices are discounted on all those things we can discount.

There are some things you can't discount. You're just not allowed to do it. But anyways, that's going to be up on the site,

I imagine. We'll put it on the front page somewhere just to make sure that people can find that. But if you've been looking for it, you'll be able to track it down and listen.

Yeah, $10 savings, okay, under our current prices. You know, I think most folks know what that means.

So anyways, that will be up there. Take a look at it. And we've had a lot of people who have – well, you said over.

But it says savings over communicates to people that they're saving money.

We're not pulling a Benny Hinn here, okay? They've got it all figured out. Don't worry.

I was watching, by the way. I was given, very thankfully, from Mr.

Gadelman. Kirk Gadelman gave me the DVDs of the Benny Hinn expose that I missed on Dateline.

But he also had the Canadian one, and he gave them to me. He was at the Founders Conference as well. I don't know if I should have said that, but he was.

And he gave me those DVDs, and I watched them on my computer this morning as I was waiting for the flight out of St.

Louis. And, oh, my goodness. This time they had financial documentation concerning this guy.

And they have been doing a, quote -unquote, crusade. These crusades bring in – it sounded like an average of like $350 ,000 to half a million dollars per crusade, which is just – oh, great.

Which is just great. And they were flying back from,

I think, it wasn't Switzerland. It was somewhere in Scandinavia. And they had layovers in Milan and London.

Excuse me, but Milan is not exactly between where you were and where you're going. That's not really a layover. And they stayed in the most expensive, largest hotel suite in all of Europe.

And it cost – what was it? $10 ,800 per night. I think it was $10 ,800 per night.

He was tipping people $1 ,000. And it's like, wow. It reminds me of the time, again, in St.

Louis when I was having dinner with Dave Hunt a number of years ago. His book had just come out. And I was sitting right next to him.

And we were talking about Benny Hinn. The whole group was talking about Benny Hinn and the wacky things that Benny Hinn says. And the fact that this man is such a glowing charlatan, that anybody who would open their wallet to that man is a complete fool.

I'm sorry. That's the only way to put it. The man's so out there that if you can't tell that that guy is a charlatan, then you have the discernment of a shoelace.

Okay? That's just all there is to it. The guy is completely so out there, it's not even funny.

And so we were talking about that. We were talking about one of his wacky teachings. You know what's funny?

Let me just mention this. He was teaching wacky stuff doctrinally before he got into all the money stuff.

Isn't it interesting how that went? People don't care about the doctrinal stuff. And so now they've been giving money to a guy who's spending all his time and money.

You know, his suits that have the ministry logo embroidered in 24 karat gold thread and all the rest of this wonderful fun stuff.

But the bad doctrine came first. And people don't care about that. So now you've got all the rest of the bad stuff along with it.

But anyway, he was... I don't even like talking about Benny Hinn.

That stuff just drives me nuts. I just got distracted by something on the channel. I guess

Coach came in. And Coach has a little baby. A little baby was just born,

I guess, just a couple days ago. And so we all need to pray for Coach because Coach will not be sleeping for quite some time.

And sleep deprivation is a pretty... It's God's way of getting us back.

It really is. And it's preparing us for when they become teenagers and they're out driving around on their own or something like that.

And then we get sleep deprivation again. That's sort of how it works. But anyway, the

DVDs were fascinating. I enjoyed... Oh, I'm sorry. So I was sitting next to Dave Hunt.

And everybody's talking about this stuff. And finally Dave just said...

And honestly, he just said, I just don't understand how anyone can believe that man.

And I leaned over to him. And I think he's the only one that heard me say it. I leaned over to him and said, It's total depravity,

Dave. And he started to laugh and then realized what I had said and stopped laughing. Because he had just come out with What Love Is This.

And I hadn't actually read all the neat, fun, wonderful stuff he was going to say about me at that particular point in time.

So just one of those wonderful little things that happens in life. 877 -753 -3341.

There's much more I can say about the conference. Oh, I will be... How do I handle this?

I just got, right before the program, I got the email to the fella who's making available the

CDs of the conference. But I got the feeling that he's not got a huge production facility type situation.

So I think what I should do is I should write to him and sort of warn him before I... Do you have a

URL that I could send people to? Do you really want this many emails? And sort of check it out with him first.

Because the messages were on important subjects. It was on the sufficiency of Scripture. And I had been asked to speak about that before they ever heard the book.

So it wasn't, well, you've written a book on the sufficiency of Scripture. Why don't you come do your normal thing? And I did not do my normal thing.

None of the sermons I delivered, none of the three sermons I delivered over the past couple of days, had

I done anything like them really before. Well, maybe last night a little bit out of Acts 20.

But especially the first night. And then yesterday morning on the parable of the soils.

Very, very different. I really felt constrained to go a different direction and to address pastors.

And very new stuff. New for me anyways.

It's not new stuff. It's old stuff. So it might be useful, especially if you know someone who,

I don't know, is struggling a little bit with the sufficiency of Scripture and things like that in the ministry.

It might be something you might want to get hold of. So I will put that information on the blog. But I want to sort of talk with the guy first and find out about it.

So let's take a couple of our phone calls. I've got to, once again, I have Brother Patterson queued up, ready to go.

But haven't gotten around to actually doing so. And, unfortunately, the man across the way needs to start providing me with line numbers.

Because you just say somebody has a question on something, there's multiple lines blinking.

How am I supposed to know which one's which? I can just sort of go eeny, meeny, miny, moe. And I've got to start doing that, putting a little line number there, so we know what in the world we're talking about.

Let's go all the way down to the land that has an area called

Oakland, right? That's what you call it down there, Oakland, right, Peter? Hello, Peter.

Oakland? Oakland, yes. We call it Auckland. That's New Zealand.

Oh, is that New Zealand? Well, that's funny. Don't they call it

Oakland, though, instead of Auckland? Oakland. See, it sounds like the reason

I said that is a fellow went down that direction, and they kept talking about this place called Oakland, and it totally confused him because he was going, how do you people know about California?

Because he had seen the words spelled out, but he had no idea.

Oakland, that's where the A's play. And it's one of those cultural misconnection stuff.

So, anyways, what's up down there? Oh, look, you know, I was just listening to last

Monday's program, and a lot of stuff I've been getting and problems

I've had in our own church, as I've probably shared with you before, down here in Sydney, where we've sort of left the church

I was going to for 20 years and started up a new church in a small town. Yeah, we've been growing there, and we've been trying to carry on as a church, and running a church in a biblical way.

Right. And I think that's a problem within a lot of the churches. You've got that perspective on church government, and I think that it's got a lot to do with Harold Camping, and even the

Jehovah's Witnesses, and those sorts of people. When they started off, they said, like the Mormons, God has revealed to me that there isn't a real church anymore.

It's sort of disappeared. It's the same message, isn't it? As far as, yes, on the level of the apostasy, yeah, that is the same thing

Joseph Smith was saying. Yeah, I think you'll find that the problem is that the wrong church government in the first place, not a biblical church government, is responsible for a lot of this, because people are left out.

As you've mentioned before, people coming out of college have got a big bill they've got to pay, and they don't want to upset anybody, and so they don't teach the truth.

They get out there and teach what people want to hear, like their itching ears. And so there's no word of God.

There's no real teaching. There's no spiritual growth for people in the churches. It's a dead place, and they're run by one person up the top, and there's no use of the spiritual gifts to the people, like there would have been in Spurgeon's Church, where you've had everybody doing a job.

And I think that, what do you reckon, that's the reason why these people are dropping out. There's also a thing I've got on the internet called,

Out of Church Christians. And it's worrying, because it's actually about New Zealand. But it's happening all over the

Western world, where people are leaving churches. These are people, like you said last week, that are active members of churches, involved in a lot of stuff.

There are people that are actually driving forces behind the church from within the congregation. Actually getting fed up with it.

They're not getting anything at their church. They're not getting any real Christian fellowship. They turn around and talk to people about the sermon, and everyone says, look,

I've got to go somewhere, or, you know, I'm sorry, I don't, you know, I'll only talk about the weather or the football or something.

They don't discuss spiritual things. Yeah. Well, you know, I spoke with a number of folks this past weekend at the

Founders Conference, and one of the issues that came up was what happens when you are in a church situation, and you have the wrong kind of government.

It is ironic, though. I think Harold Camping believes in the right form of government, at least he used to as far as a plurality of elders, but obviously he doesn't believe that.

Well, no kidding, but he doesn't believe that anymore. I mean, what good is that? But one of the things that they were discussing was the fact that trying to bring

Reformation and a more biblical perspective on the gospel to a church that does not have a biblical form of church government is extremely difficult, because what you end up having in, for example, a lot of, especially

Southern Baptist churches, but Baptist churches in general, is you have what are called deacon boards. Now, everybody's heard of them, but where in the world did you get that?

And these deacons, they don't have the qualifications of an elder in the scriptures, but they are put in a position of being de facto elders, and they hold to their traditions with a tenacity that is just beyond all measure, and even if the pastor, quote -unquote, the pastor ends up being a hireling, the pastor ends up being a person who serves at the pleasure of this deacon board, in essence, and if you don't want...

He'll be fired if he teaches anything other than what they want. Exactly. He'll be looking for a new job. And so it's a very, very, very common theme that you run into over and over and over again, and it's very discouraging to the people that are involved with it and are attempting to bring about some type of biblical reformation and revival.

And so, yeah, it all comes together, and I've addressed this before.

It's hard to get people overly excited concerning the issue of church government, but when you think about it, we're talking about...

Isn't Christ the one who should order his own church? Shouldn't we care about that? Not just that.

I think there's only one way the church is going to function, and that's if Christ is the head of the church. And if we don't have that, and these other people have got all this ammunition to throw around, like Harold Campion and the

Jehovah's Witnesses, and their people will listen because they say, yeah, what they're saying is partly right. Partly right, yeah.

They can get away with all sorts of garbage after that, because people say, oh, this guy obviously understands.

He has his followers, and he makes a connection with them, and those folks...

As I pointed out out of Acts chapter 20, it says, these people who arise up from amongst you do not spare the flock, and that means heresy is not a victimless crime, and the sheep that are carved out of the flock are destroyed in the process.

It is an ugly thing to see these people who, for example, have followed after Harold Campion when that stuff all falls apart, and there's nothing left there.

What are they going to do? Where are they going to go? What's left for them? I'm wondering about that.

It says that Satan will be an angel of light to deceive the whole world, even the elect, if it were possible.

Does that mean that these people aren't of the elect, that they're being deceived by these false teachers?

Well, you know, especially in a situation like this, that's one of the issues I mentioned last week, is that one of the hardest things to deal with for the

Church down through the ages has been how to deal with someone who does get carried away but comes back.

Those who never come back, well, okay, that's not as much of a problem. That's where the Roman Catholic Confession came from, isn't it?

Well, early on, the Novation Schisms and things like that, the view of sacramentalism that was a part of it, all the rest of that stuff.

But how do you deal with that? What do you do with someone who, say, is in leadership position in your fellowship right now, they go off after Harold Campion, camping stuff fizzles out eventually, and they come back.

How do you handle that situation, all of the counseling and everything else that you're dealing with?

And how long can a person remain in that kind of an environment, expressing hatred toward Christ's Church and Christ's people and things like that?

Those are very difficult issues. Do you really think it's a situation that's going to come up?

There's no question. People that leave don't generally come back. I think that in this situation, honestly,

I think in this situation, what you're going to have happen is when the camping movement collapses, certainly some of these people may indeed end up out in non -island as far as that goes.

It's sort of like the more than a million Jehovah's Witnesses who became Witnesses and then since 1974 they just disappeared.

They became nothing. They're religiously burned out. Okay, there will be some of those.

Have any of them come to your church? I'm sorry? Have any of those burned -out Jehovah's Witnesses or burned -out charismatics come to your church?

Yeah, a few, but the majority, unfortunately, the polls show, the studies have shown that the vast majority of those who became a part of, for example,

Jehovah's Witnesses because of the idea of the end of the world coming right around the corner, end up being burned out.

They end up no place. I think it's going to be a little bit different with this movement of camping people because while it is tied into end times stuff, it's a theological thing.

These people are theologically interested. Whether that means they're of the elect or not, I don't know, but they certainly are going to be a pastoral issue because I think eventually there's going to be a number of them that are going to be coming back and we're going to have to be dealing with how we deal, how we handle someone who is a part of the

Herald Camping stuff. They obviously have to be very carefully handled. You don't just say, hey, welcome back.

You want your Sunday school class back? I mean, sadly... The very way that that guy in last

Monday's bit you played of his show that was talking about the fasting and how that was the gospel message is absolutely ridiculous.

But anybody that can take that sort of teaching and just accept it, you've got to have problems with that person's ability to discern.

They've got no discernment. Well, discernment is lacking all across our land and in this world.

You've got to go through with saying, before you can teach a class, you've got to learn something yourself.

Oh, no question about it. No question about it. They have to be rehabilitated in a basic teaching position to teach them how to teach, how to discern.

No question about that at all. I agree a thousand percent. That is what is required. And unfortunately, in so many churches, you're just so desperate to find anyone who's willing to do anything that the discernment level is not normally overly high in that situation.

Hey, Peter, got to go to my break. Thanks a lot for your... In your church, you've got a little bit more teaching, and the people do learn to discern a bit more.

But in a lot of churches, it's just not happening. I fully understand. Hey, brother, press on for the

Lord down there. Thanks for calling. Thanks for your call today. God bless to you. And we will be taking our second call right after our break here at the bottom of the hour, and then either your phone calls, or we'll move on from there to the continuation of our examination of Paige Patterson's sermon.

We'll be right back. Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Alaska, the unspoiled land of nature and immensity. Both in its realities and its possibilities,

Alaska can stir our hearts and minds like no other place on earth. Join us this summer for the 2005

Alpha Omega Ministries Alaskan Cruise as we cruise the inside passage to the great land of Alaska with Dr.

James White and Christian recording artist Steve Camp as they explore the great doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

For our guests, the journey north is an odyssey of glorious landscapes and majestic wildlife, as we sail on the luxury five -star

Sun Princess by towering glaciers into some of the most remarkable points on earth. All this, and at prices beginning at $624 per person, plus port taxes and fees, half the price of other offerings to Alaska with other groups.

Contact us today at aomin .org or at 877 -SOV -CRUISE.

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.

In his book, Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic.

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

Roman Catholic Church. Mary, Another Redeemer is fresh insight into the woman the

Bible calls blessed among women and an invitation to single -minded devotion to God's truth.

You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary, Another Redeemer, at aomin .org.

This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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.

The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.

The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45.

Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00.

The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.

You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE. If you are unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org

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

Oh, it's the Pilgrims! I could hear

Rich through the wall going, Whoa! What did you do there, Nelly? Progress!

Oh, that was progress, huh? You know, when you move the thing down very slowly, it's called a fade.

That's funny. Yeah, it's a fade. In fact, now your entire microphone sounds really bad.

Yeah, I don't know what's causing that. Aren't you in control of all this stuff? I gotta go now. Bye. It's good to be on the bleeding edge of technology.

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, we had a...

I flew southwest and the guy on the way out had a train whistle he played over the speaker system, the pilot did, and he'd play it all aboard for St.

Louis. And then when we landed this afternoon, or this morning, actually, one of the cabin stewards, flight attendants,

I grew up there as stewardesses, but anyway, one of the flight attendants got on and sang the

Barney song. We love you, you love us.

It sure was faster than a bus. We hope you liked our hospitality. Marry one of us and you fly for free.

And I asked someone that I happen to know that works for another airline, why can't you guys be funny?

And she didn't really have an answer for that, so there really wasn't anything I could do about that. 877 -753 -3341.

Oh, man. Just watching stuff on the channel here. Let's go to California.

Hello, Aaron. Hello. Howdy. Can you hear me okay? Yes, sir. Hi, I've got a few questions relevant to the apologetic interaction we have with our opponents, and the first one

I don't even think would be necessary if our opponents were a little bit more attentive. It concerns John 316 and basically just our opponents using whosoever.

I wouldn't bring it up except it gets brought up so often. And there's something you once said about the word whosoever that it is not in the

Greek. It's just those who believe, or those two. Well, I explained because one very nice opponent of mine only listened to a certain portion of what

I said there and decided to try to use that to rip into me, which

I've noticed he seems to have disappeared for a while, and I don't know if he's just recharging his batteries or just what.

But what I said was that there is no stand -alone word that means whosoever, that the whosoever comes from a certain construction in the language, and it is simply saying all the ones doing something, hence whoever is doing this action.

So it's all the ones believing, and to read into that the concept of whosoever as in there is no particularity is the exact opposite of what the text says.

The text is particular. It is only the ones believing who have eternal life, and it is limiting in its context.

And so to read it that way is to read it the exact opposite way of what the text is actually saying.

So yeah, that's what I expressed. I'm not saying that it's a mistranslation. I'm not saying that it's just a word we are supplying.

It's coming from the construction itself. When you put pos with the participle, that is how it is sometimes rendered in English.

It can be rendered as also all the ones doing X, Y, or Z. I have a bit of an assertion, well, in the form of a question.

Even in just the English, whosoever, I mean I've looked it up with dictionaries. It's probably not the best way to do it.

But whosoever is, I've looked, and just can mean whatever or anybody type of term.

Whosoever is a term that usually has a qualifier with it. Whosoever believes excludes the whosoever does not believe, right?

Right. Well, what they seem to do is they seem to split the whosoever. So whosoever believes is a category of people.

What I've seen people do is they split the whosoever from the believe. They just look at the whosoever, and well, even if there was a

Greek word for whosoever, whosoever believes still isolates the thing, and they still cannot just use the word whosoever.

It's like whosoever, oh, that can mean anybody. Right. Let's go over here. Oh, there's believe. So anybody can believe apparently.

Well, it doesn't say that. No. It's a descriptive term, right? Right. And in fact, when you listen to some very popular preachers who are speaking on this subject within the context of John 3 .16

or whatever else it is, what you hear them do is you hear them say, so that whosoever believeth in him.

And if you're going to actually emphasize something in such a way as to seriously deal with it, what you'd have to do is say, so that whosoever believes in him.

But that's not what they're doing. They're not following the text at that point. This is a classic example of eisegesis, reading into the text, a concept that is not contained within the original words, the original context of the writing, but it certainly preaches.

And when you've heard somebody do that long enough, and when you've heard someone who's done that, and that person happens to be the greatest spiritual authority in your life, maybe the only real spiritual authority you've ever known, it can be very frightening to consider the possibility that at that point they are, shall we say, someone entrapped in their own tradition and are not accurately representing the text.

It's kind of sad that, you know, I wouldn't expect, I would expect something like this from people just getting into this, but it's absolutely disturbing when

I hear, you know, spiritual preachers and elders that have, that they claim have had experience with Calvinism and have studied this for a while, and this still comes up.

Is anyone paying attention to us? No, there's a reason for that. I've commented on that myself.

You look at Norman Geisler. It is very clear to me that he developed his understanding of why he does not believe in Calvinism, probably back in seminary, and I have seen no evidence from his written works that he has ever been seriously challenged or just taken the time himself to seriously think through the conclusions he came to then.

Instead, you go into a defensive mode, and you're just constantly defending the position that you adopted a long, long time ago, and that seems to be the case with a large number of these folks.

Certainly, Dave Hunt has a long history of having rejected Calvinism.

It's just only recently he's gotten really, you know, gone off the end about it, but he's always rejected it, and I don't see any evidence.

I mean, Hunt's an excellent example, because we have the radio debate that he and I did where he said he'd never read any of the

Reformers, so it's really easy to take what he said there compared to what he's saying today, now that he claims to know more about Calvinism than 90 % of the

Calvinists do, and is he making any better arguments today than he did then? The answer really is no.

He isn't. So, no, they're not listening. That's the whole point.

They have their position, and I've seen it happen in talking with lots of folks before.

When you encounter the authority of tradition, as soon as you bring forth the Word of God in light of that, this dull look comes.

It's like you could have just spoken that in Swahili. They wouldn't have even noticed that you did it in Swahili because they're not listening to what you're saying.

And you can try to find other ways of communicating. You can try to vary the examples you're using.

You can try to vary the text you're approaching. You can try to say, you know, this is important because of X, Y, or Z, but in the final analysis, you can't force anyone to listen seriously to what you're saying.

You can't force anyone to be serious in examining the text of Scripture. It can't be done.

As frustrating as it might be to hear people repeat the same old tired, worn out, refuted 14 ,000 times before assertions, that's just all there is to it.

What's really disturbing is when I recently decided to ask some of the people I've been talking

Calvinism with for upwards of 200 hours. Some people have only given a few dozen hours. But I asked them after, because they come from different religions,

I tell them, you know, if you ask me, do I know what you believe, I can tell you, and I go right down, Jehovah Witness, Michael, or the

Archangels, Jesus, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I ask them, I've talked to you with this, like, for a very long time.

Can you tell me what I believe? Can you tell me what Calvinism is? And almost no one I've ever talked to about this can actually answer that.

And that is disturbing. Well, it's disturbing, but it is certainly, it's expected simply because of the fact that that attitude of what drives certain people to be consistent in their beliefs is, again, something that is both unusual in a lot of evangelicalism,

A. B, I think it's a spiritual issue. I think people need to understand that God is not glorified by mushy thinking.

I'll give you an example. When I first started beginning, back in my first or second year of seminary, to adopt the proper terminology to express myself on these issues, let's put it that way,

I was speaking to a fellow student in seminary with me about these things, and he very honestly, nice guy,

I mean, honestly a very nice guy, a big heart for the Lord, no question about it, but he honestly said to me once, he said, the main problem

I have with Reformed theology and Calvinism and the whole argument is the fact that I don't think you can have that level of certainty.

I think God has not given us that level of revelation to where we can be certain about these things, and I think we lose all the mystery.

Now, you've probably heard a number of people say that, but this was someone that I knew very well, and he was basically saying, that's why

I don't like it, it's too clean, it's too consistent, there's not enough quote -unquote mystery in it.

Now, of course, I think that's an unbiblical definition, the term mystery, but that's another issue. For him, that was an argument against Calvinism, was that it was consistent.

And for myself, obviously the opposite is the case, the idea of holding to purposeful inconsistency,

I cannot see how that is in any way, shape, or form glorifying to God, and it really ends up destroying all revelation and certainty of knowledge of the

Gospel and the doctrine of the Trinity and everything else, really, when you start thinking about it. I mean, you realize the inconsistencies with the

Arminian tradition are what the atheists and people with atheist talk shows and stuff like the

Infidel Guide say, that's what they go after, and they rip them to shreds. I mean, inconsistencies are strange. I remember,

I've forgotten the man's name because it's been over 20 years now, but there was an author for Prometheus books, and I've probably got the book around here if I just dig to the library far enough, there was an author for Prometheus books, and Prometheus, a large atheist publisher, and he wrote a book, this would have been about 86 or so, right around 20 years ago, and I was on with him once or twice on the

Tom Likas show, when Tom Likas was still here in the Phoenix area before he went over to LA and became a notorious shock jock, and one of the things that was fascinating about this guy is he wasn't a formerly religious person, and he was really sort of just a fairly scholarly guy, and the thesis of his book was that it's obvious beyond question that the authors of the

Bible believed what most modern evangelicals don't, and that was that God created all things, and he created time, and he chooses whom he's going to be merciful to.

In other words, he said, I just look at the Bible, and the Bible teaches what these

Calvinists talk about, so why are all these other people running around, what are they embarrassed about?

Why not deal with it? And it was interesting, because when I came on with him, I believed that, and so he was like, hey, you know, this is great,

I'm actually going to talk to someone who actually believes the Bible. He could respect me, he couldn't respect the person who was throwing all this spin at the scriptures, because he saw it, he didn't believe it, but he could at least respect me for being willing to defend what the

Bible actually said. So it was interesting to be on with him, because he's just coming from an atheist perspective, and saying, how can you argue this?

It's all through the Bible, from beginning to end. You know, he'd go through the Old Testament and all that stuff, and it was interesting.

So yeah, there's no question that having sound theology is the foundation of doing sound apologetics as well.

And I would encourage folks to do what

I've done in some of my apologetics classes, and that is, if you really want to see, you know, some people say, you know, this stuff just doesn't matter, you know, we're all on the same side saying the same thing.

Well, alright, let me ask you to take the time to listen to the

Bonson -Stein debate, and how Greg Bonson debated Gordon Stein on the subject of the existence of God, and how he answered questions, because Gordon Stein asked him personal questions about his belief in God, and Greg Bonson gave wonderful responses to that.

But he also gave a devastating philosophical critique of the position that Gordon Stein had, but it was one based upon the necessity of who the

Christian God was in Scripture. Compare that with the pretty nice production that's on VHS and DVD of the debate between William Lane Craig and Frank Zindler.

Now, Frank Zindler is somebody I know. I had encountered him back in the 80s. He's a geologist, he's an atheist, he pretends to have a lot of knowledge of the text of Scripture.

Back in those days, we actually had a newsletter that we produced many, many, many moons ago, and there are some letters going back and forth on textual critical issues between myself and Frank Zindler.

So they're back in the archives someplace. Someday we're going to have to drag all those things out, scan them, and post them on the website, just simply for historical reasons.

But anyway, Zindler, not much of a challenge for William Lane Craig, okay? Not really much of a challenge for anyone, to be perfectly honest with you.

But during the audience questioning, some people threw some questions at Craig, and it was fascinating, because, again,

William Lane Craig, brilliant man, brilliant scholar, but he's a Mullinist. He believes in middle knowledge. He is an

Arminian in his soteriology. And if you want to see where that theology deeply impacts apologetics, you're going to see it by comparing those two debates, and the fact that in the one, you have a person proclaiming that it is absolutely necessary that the

Christian God exists, that he exists without question, over against the argumentation of William Lane Craig, who says that the preponderance of the evidence points to the greater probability of the existence of God.

Now, folks, those are not the same statements. Saying that the preponderance of the evidence points to the greater probability of the existence of God is not how the apostles proclaimed the resurrection.

They did not say, we've got a 55 % probability rating on the resurrection here.

This is good. That's not what they did. That's not the apostolic proclamation.

And yet, that's what you're reduced to if your systematic theology is so minimized and so unbiblical and derived from philosophical considerations rather than exegetical considerations that it just can't support any larger edifice than that.

And it really does make a difference. Anyhow, it is interesting to compare and contrast those two perspectives.

Thank you, Doc. Thanks for calling. Bye -bye. There you go.

Thank you. I just didn't want to have the cut thing that I got last time. I imagine you can do that better than I can because you can pot it down before you do the thing.

Well, how many weeks now have I had this screen up in front of me with the

Patterson Sermon at the exact same point the entire time? It has not moved.

We got, what, two minutes that one time? Got through about two minutes and it's been sitting here since before I reinstalled

Windows because I'm not exactly sure where we ended. I was going to start at 16 minutes. It was somewhere around 16 minutes.

Something like that. And it's been sitting here consistently ever since then.

I was, however, I should mention this, I was given some tapes while I was at the

Founders Conference. And there's one of them especially that I want to listen to and if it's what

I think it is we might be MP3ing that baby and queuing her up for next week's dividing line if it's what

I think it is. I don't know. I'm really not sure. What I'm going to do here is

I'm going to see if I can get just a minute or two of this sermon in so at least I know where we ended this time before we run out of time to program today and see if we can gain something from that.

Once saved, always saved. It guarantees that once a man is born again, he will never ever, ever forfeit that salvation.

Let's see if that's true. Beginning in verse 31. And let's see what happens in Romans 8.

What shall we say then to these things? If God be for us who can be against us?

Now immediately I can tell that it's going to be very, very difficult to start and stop this because right at this point we're going into the issue of the golden chain.

Some of you might remember back to what was it? I think it was three summers ago this summer when there was a sermon on Romans 9 that had been broadcast shall we say on national radio and it wasn't

Paige Patterson and we took the time to respond to it and it was very useful to allow it to do it slowly enough to hear where people would correctly interpret the text and at the same time hear when all of a sudden the exegetical methodology they used to correctly interpret the text regarding for example justification this was, yes, it was

Adrian Rogers when he talked about, when Adrian Rogers talked about justification it was great!

It was wonderful! It was fantastic! But the same exegetical methodology then was not applied once it ran into tradition.

And that is such a valuable thing to see and to avoid, obviously.

I think it's a horrible thing when we mistreat God's word that way, but it's something that happens all the time. So something tells me we're not going to get too far here because the music's coming up in two minutes, but let's get as far as we can.

If God elects us, who's going to cast the negative vote? He who also did not spare his own son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Okay, now this is actually right after the Golden Chain, but immediately you're all, at least, well if you're a regular listener to this program, you're going now you've got to comment on that!

If you've wrestled with that text and you know that he says, who gave himself for us how shall he not with him freely give us all things?

Now we've already heard in months past certain assertions about the extent of the atonement in this sermon.

And so if the giving here is sacrificial, which it clearly is and the us is everybody then how do you explain freely give with him us all things?

How do you do that? I mean, you'd have to say, yes, God has given to every unregenerate individual all the blessings all the spiritual blessings in heavenly places that he gives to the elect they just don't choose to exercise them, they just don't choose to appropriate them.

I guess that would be the only way you could have to address that, but talk about bringing something in from outside the text.

Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? Anybody going to bring a charge against God's elect?

Okay, but doesn't that phrase right there identify who the us is?

Who is the us for whom the son was given? Who is the us to whom all things have been given with him?

It is God's elect. Is that not clearly what is being said?

It certainly sounds like it is to me and it's very important, again, just on an exegetical level and if you could have give and take if it wasn't just one side talking at the other side and the other side talking back and that's why at least

I play what they say, you know? I get as close to having an actual conversation as I can get but it's still not a conversation because at this point you would say, wait, could you please explain in your system how it is that Paul can speak this way?

But unfortunately we don't get a lot of those conversations. So, anyway we will continue on with that at some point in time.

We've got 43 seconds. 16 minutes and 43 seconds. Someone write that down. I'm going to write it down myself.

We've got 43. At this rate we will finish in the year 2011. But we'll get there.

Go back and string them all together. Thanks for listening to The Dividing Line today. God bless. Brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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