Jeff Durbin on Ohio and Equal Protection, Muhammad Hijab's Opening Presentation

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00:34

Well, greetings and welcome to the Divine Line. My name is James White. We're going to jump right to a special guest who is joining us via the

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Chinese method of talking to people, unfortunately. We got to find another way to do that. Stop giving the

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Chinese all our business. But anyway, given what's going on in Ohio and a recent, the fact that, on Twitter, the question that Brian Gunter asked the head of the

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ERLC has sort of gone viral as well, I thought I'd see if if my fellow pastor

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What's his name? Oh, yeah, Jeff Durbin. Haven't seen him for a while. No, if he might be able to join us. And I just thought

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I'd mention, I wanted to start off, Jeff, by reminding you that on Sunday, when

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Luke and I are in charge of the service, we did the service, we did the

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Lord's Supper, we did baptisms, and we were done by 550 p .m.

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And I think the week before, we did not have baptisms, and we got done, what, about 630?

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Something like that? And what was it? What would be the only difference between those two weeks, do you think, maybe, possibly?

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Well, first of all, I'll say that, I want to remind you what I said to you in our elder thread, is that,

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A, there are no prizes, and B, I just, I, you know, the difference is,

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I guess I just have just a very high concern for teaching and teaching well, you know?

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Right, right, right. Not everyone shares that concern. It's okay. Clearly, James, the man has more to say than you do.

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Yeah, if you say so. I just wonder how much of what I said everyone remembered.

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And by the way, I happened to have an entire pew full of Navy SEALs when

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I was preaching. I know, I know. Yeah, I was definitely jealous of that. Yeah, yeah. I felt very safe.

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Very, very safe indeed. I understand that. Yep, yep. Anyway, Jeff is not in town right now.

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In fact, I will be, will you be back for Sunday? Probably not.

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Okay. Yeah, things are up and down right now with the twins that I'm adopting. So, yeah, it's,

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I'm not, I only got a one -way ticket, and I'm coming back. I can come back at any time, but it's just a matter of making sure things are well here right now, and it's difficult.

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Right, so since it's really related, now is, do you still have the

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Facebook thing up? Can people still help with what's going on? Yeah, actually, yes.

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I'm going to post it again on my Facebook page today as well for the adoption fund. Yeah. Okay, all right. So, without going into 10 ,000 details, but just very briefly,

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I mean, a lot of people know about it, but a lot of people don't. What, it's really hard to do this briefly, isn't it?

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But let's see, let's see if you can do something briefly. Yeah, I'll try to do it fast.

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So, basically, this is like the last adoption we had with August. Totally surprised us, weren't planning for it, weren't looking for it.

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Just a woman came to me and asked me to adopt her child and really wouldn't take no for an answer kind of a thing.

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And I think five, I don't even know what, I feel like I don't even know what time is right now.

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I think it was about five weeks ago, we discovered that it was twins. And then one week later, they were born premature, 29 weeks.

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And that creates a lot of difficulties that I'm just not allowed to talk about right now. Unfortunately, I'd love to and ask for prayer for, but it's basically been me and Candy going back and forth across the country, taking turns to be here and just drive back and forth between two hospitals, because they're actually in two different hospitals.

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So, I'm on the other side of the country, literally just every day driving between the two hospitals right now to be with the girls.

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And yeah, just please pray for it, because it was a big surprise to us, weren't expecting it. And yeah, it's been a crazy last five weeks.

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Yeah. And how many grandchildren do you have? Five. Uh -huh. Okay. Well, we're tied up there.

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That's interesting. There you go. Five grandchildren. And now with adopting these girls, seven children.

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So, seven children and five grandchildren, which I never, ever would have thought. No, no. And of course,

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Candy. Yeah. Okay. Challenges everywhere. So, be looking to Jeff's Facebook page if you'd like to help with the situation that they are dealing with.

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But the reason I just wanted to have you on, and I don't want to spend a whole lot of time, obviously there's something very, very important going on in Ohio today with the

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Proposition 1 or whatever they're calling this thing. It is, it's really, it seems to me to be a major focused pushback after the overturn of Roe.

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I mean, it's like, let's go to the one state that frequently determines who's going to be president.

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And let's put down a stake here and try to stop this as quickly as possible, as far as any kind of nationwide movement in light of the overturning of Roe.

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How important is this from your perspective? Well, I think it's indicative of a lot of things.

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First and foremost, one of the things we were arguing before the overturning of Roe v. Wade was that Roe v.

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Wade was not law. And we were arguing that our constitution is clear that Congress creates law in our nation.

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Roe v. Wade is a court opinion. Court opinions are important. We're thankful for a good, just court.

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It's not that it's irrelevant, but it wasn't law. What needed to happen is states that had criminal penalties for abortion needed to update their own state legislation to be compatible with the opinion of Roe, but essentially it's a court opinion.

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And court opinions have historically been resisted by states resisting the Supreme Court's court opinions in history.

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The Supreme Court's not the Supreme being. And so like, for example, the famous case of Dred Scott, historically it was a big moment where the

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Supreme Court argued that Black people were not persons, they were property and needed to be returned to their owners.

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That was an opinion of the Supreme Court. And there were Northern states that told the Supreme Court to pound sand, and we will not listen to your court opinion, and that's not law.

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So we were arguing before the reversal of Roe v. Wade that the states needed to, as lesser magistrates, resist any higher magistrate or anybody that would pervert justice for the preborn.

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So our bills of equal protection before Roe's overturning also added a line that it would essentially resist any higher court opinion that would conflict with the state's legislation of equal protection for all humans from fertilization.

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So what happened was, is when Roe went away, it exposed a lot in a lot of different states in terms of where there were gaps, different states had different laws regarding abortion.

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So you had states that had trigger laws like Louisiana, where when

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Roe was overturned, there was pro -life legislation put in where there'd be a trigger law that would essentially close down abortion mills.

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Now, I want to just say this is very, very, very important here. It did not end abortion in Louisiana.

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Abortions are actually rising in Louisiana with no abortion mills. Roe v. Wade's reversal did not ban abortion in any state.

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It made it difficult in some states to have abortion clinics, but abortion pills and DIY abortions are still legal and they're actually on the rise.

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And so when the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, we're thankful to God that it's reversed and it's over with.

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But what they did was actually, according to a Christian worldview, sinful. They didn't declare it to be murder.

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They didn't stand for the life of the preborn. They just basically washed their hands of it and they handed it back to the states and said, you decide if you want to kill them.

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And so what happens is it goes back to the states, which is where it should have been in the first place, the states standing for the rights of the preborn.

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And so you have this chaotic situation across the country. We've got some states that had trigger laws that essentially closed down abortion mills, but didn't ban abortion.

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And you have some states that actually like New York or California that have such loose abortion laws and just freedom to abort.

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It didn't do much at all. And so it puts us in a unique situation right now where the states have to fight this fight for the sake of the preborn and establishing justice for them.

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The challenge is, and I know that people hear me saying this over and over again, the pro -life industry and the pro -life establishment really has no desire and they would want equal protection for all humans from fertilization.

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They believe that a woman who murders her child willfully and unjustly in the womb is herself a victim and never to be criminalized and never to be punished.

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And so the real challenge here is that the pro -life establishment cannot resist and overcome the onslaught of stuff that's coming against them.

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Ohio is going to be the indication of that. So Ohio had a ballot measure put in.

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People worked for a ballot measure where in Ohio you have a unique situation where with a ballot measure and a vote on the ballot measure, you can actually change the state of Ohio's constitution.

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And so what this ballot measure is, is actually just the revelation of what the pro -aborts want, period.

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And it's essentially unlimited abortion at any stage through pregnancy, all the way up to quote, viability.

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But it's interesting, viability is to be determined by the physician. So in other words, the abortion doctor can just determine whether he thinks the baby is viable at nine months.

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And there's even language in the ballot measure that says, even if there's viability, if the physician determines that for the life or health of the mother, that it's best to abort the child, he can go ahead and do it.

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So what's health in that case? Is it mental health? Is this going to bother her? Is it going to keep her up at night?

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That's not good for her. Let's go ahead and kill the baby. So essentially what the ballot measure is, is a full on display of what they want anyways.

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And that's to be able to kill children in the womb at any stage. And that's on the ballot measure.

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So they're going full on for their worldview and their commitments with courage. The polls close tonight in Ohio at 7 .30

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PM. I have friends on the ground right now, Operation Save America and others in Ohio right now that are working the ground, have been working with pastors and churches going across the entire state to try to get the word out and get people to come out to vote.

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But Jason Storms, who's on the ground right now in Ohio, said that it looks like it's going to be very, very close.

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And he unfortunately thinks that there's a good chance that the ballot measure is going to go through and the constitution will be updated in Ohio.

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And here's what I meant by the challenge that the pro -life industry's doctrine and worldview presents to something like this.

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The pro -aborts are just showing you their hand. They're saying, this is what we want. We want to kill babies at will at any stage.

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And that's what this ballot measure represents. Now, what we have the option to do, because of how we argue consistently from a

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Christian worldview and just consistently, period, in terms of rationality and reason, with all biology screaming that you're human from fertilization, we've been arguing for equal protection for all humans from fertilization, meaning the laws that protect my life outside of the womb are to protect their lives inside the womb.

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It's a simple bill. It's just definitional human life, all worthy to be given equal protection from fertilization.

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Because we've been arguing that, we can still work with legislative moves in the state of Ohio where we put legislation in that says equal protection for all humans from fertilization.

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And what would happen is, and this is what I've been told from our constitutional attorney, is that bill would pass and then it would probably be immediately sued.

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We'd be joined with a lawsuit immediately and we'd have to fight in court. But because our position is equal protection, what we'd be arguing is that, no, the

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United States Constitution argues for equal protection for all persons in this nation.

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It's the Ohio State Constitution that is conflicting with that. So we'd be able to still have that court battle, given our position of abolition and equal protection.

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But here's the interesting reveal, the big reveal. Because the pro -life establishment argues inconsistently, they argue in opposition to the

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Christian gospel and the Christian worldview by saying that she's not guilty for killing her child, she doesn't need

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Jesus, she doesn't need forgiveness for that sin, and she's a victim herself who needs to be protected to have abortions with no punishment.

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Because they argue for partiality and they argue these bills like heartbeat bills, you can kill these kids but not these kids.

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Because that's their position, they really are in a jam. Because if this ballot measure goes through, then really they have to throw their hands up and say, we don't have any options, we don't argue for equal protection, we argue for partiality, we argue for six -week bans, 10 -week bans, 15 -week bans.

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And they really have to say, well, I guess we lose and we can't really restrict abortion in the state of Ohio.

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Because they're so inconsistent, they wouldn't even be able to overcome, in reality, the ballot measure coming against them.

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So if this ballot measure goes through and it becomes part of the state constitution, the only way to overcome it is by arguing for the equal protection of all humans from fertilization, not just because that's consistent and glorifying to God and honoring to God, but that it's actually consistent with the

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United States constitution, which could overthrow Ohio's attempt to subvert the national constitution.

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And so I know that's a lot to throw out right now, but essentially the battle right now is at the state level for lesser magistrates to establish justice for the pre -born.

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We have right now working bills that we've put in with legislators with end abortion now, and working with our friends who have gotten bills into other states.

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We have potentially 18 states next session of bills of equal protection and abolition going in.

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So it's going to be a lot of work, but that's where the battle is actually at. Okay, so let's tie this together with what happened last year at the

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SPC, where our friend Brian got to ask the only question of the head of the

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ERLC, Brent Leatherwood. He got to ask him a really straightforward question in regards to, you know, and the response, of course, was so political, it was astonishing to me.

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It really, really was. It was sad. And my understanding is this is actually going to be in an upcoming documentary?

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Yes. Yeah, so we are dropping a documentary expose. Right now the plan is

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Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. We really need people to help us to share this mini -documentary that shows you the core issue.

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And part of that, yes, that interaction between Leatherwood and Pastor Brian Gunter is in this documentary to expose the fact that the heart of the issue, the literal center of the issue right now in terms of why is abortion still legal?

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And how come the pro -life establishment can't overcome it? It's really, in reality, it's not an issue.

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It's not really the issue of arguing for running every play or, you know, accepting a bill of partiality for the moment and then still pushing further.

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Like Dr. Albert Moeller recently argued that at the end of one of his briefings. And I want to say, as much as I love and honor and respect

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Dr. Moeller, and he's a much sharper man, truly, than I think I'll ever be in terms of intellect and how he knows the

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Word of God, I highly respect him. I don't think Dr. Moeller and others like him understand the heart of the issue, the real issue.

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And this is what Brian was talking about with Leatherwood, is that the pro -life establishment does not believe that a woman should ever, under any circumstance, be seen as guilty or punishable by law for willingly taking the life of her child in the womb.

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They reject equal protection. When we were in Louisiana, we had a bill that passed the hearing and went to the floor for a vote.

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We had all the votes that we needed to pass that bill. That bill was subverted and ultimately killed by Senator Mike Johnson, who is now the

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Speaker of the House, which we're also releasing something on that in about a week. The inside information about that, it was killed by Louisiana Right to Life.

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It was killed by National Right to Life. It was killed by over 70 of the largest pro -life organizations in the nation.

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On the day of our vote, they put out a letter, and this is what we were asking God for. So it's painful to see, but it's also an answer to prayer for us.

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We needed them to put their name on the line and say out loud what they have been saying behind doors for the longest time, and that is that they do not ever want abortion to be a crime for a mother who murders her child.

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They do not believe in equal protection. And so, again, the debates over methodology in terms of, well, can we work with, say, a six -week bill or a heartbeat bill or a 15 -week bill and just sort of chunk away at this, people have to understand if you get to the very end of that, like Dr.

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Mueller said, he said, we'll accept the little win and say we still want it to be completely done.

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Well, he's thinking like a Christian. He's thinking with the Bible. He's thinking with a Christian worldview.

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And what he doesn't seem to understand, and many like him don't seem to understand, is that the pro -life industry never, never wants for a woman to be punished for murdering her child in the womb.

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They want no penalties. They want her to be able to deal with impunity and immunity. I'm not telling tales out of the schoolyard.

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This is not conspiracy theory. This is out of their own mouths. This is with their own signatures. This is with them killing our bills that would have abolished it by making sure those legislators had that in their hands the day of the vote.

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They proudly and loudly say they do not want equal protection for all humans in the womb if it would ever mean that a woman would ever be seen as guilty or as not a victim or punishable in any way.

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So really, in reality, the heart of this entire conflict right now is not so much really the dispute over whether you can have quote -unquote incrementalism as a methodology.

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That discussion is very important. I think that Scripture speaks very clearly about that in terms of unequal weights and measures and partiality as a sin before God.

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I think that's an important discussion to have, but it actually distracts us from the main issue, and that's that the pro -life establishment is not working to abolish abortion.

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Like, for example, and I'll just say this as quickly as I can, in Louisiana, they literally worked to make sure that it was clear that as a legislature, they do not want the woman to be punished for taking the life of her child.

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So trigger law goes into effect, abortion mills are wiped out in Louisiana, and abortions are on the rise.

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How does that happen if we've overcome abortion in Louisiana and we've banned it? Well, it can't be overcome or actually ever banned in Louisiana without equal protection, because women are permitted, with the satisfaction of the pro -life establishment legally, to kill their children in their womb willingly without punishment because they're just victims.

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And so we're in a really important moment because all of this is being exposed now.

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The great inconsistencies are being exposed now. Now we already know what the pro -aborts believe.

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They're clear, and they're showing you with their ballot measure what they actually really want. They want unlimited abortions at any time, at any stage in the pregnancy, and they're going for it with courage.

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But the challenge is, is we've had so much compromise and inconsistency in the pro -life movement for decades that people are scrambling, going, well, what do we actually do?

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And the answer is equal protection. That is God -honoring, it is biblical, it is consistent, and it's the only way you're going to be able to overcome this is actually working from a

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Christian worldview and working consistently with equal protection. So that's kind of where we're at.

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So come January, I know this last January I actually preached at least three of the weeks, maybe four,

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I don't remember. It was a lot because that's when a lot of these bills are introduced, and that's when you're traveling all over the place testifying and working on these things.

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So I'm just trying to figure out how you're going to learn to bi -locate this coming

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January. I don't know how that works. I know, I know. And by the way,

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I didn't know until I looked up here, I can see you. Can you see me? Yeah, I can't see you right now, no.

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Okay, good. That's probably best. But the way the light is...

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Can you see though how white this is getting? I was about to say, you are really working on catching up with me very, very quickly, and I have 16 years on you, so...

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I know, and I'm getting so much gray and white here, and I can name most of these.

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Yeah, I could name them too. I could tell you the incident, I could tell you the person.

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Yeah, believe me, we can't do that. Well, hey, can

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I... I want to just add one more thing, James. It's important because the discussion with Leatherwood is key, and anybody can go take a look at this.

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There's plenty available right now on YouTube. Pastor Brian first challenged him in Anaheim, I believe.

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So I was there for that. He challenged him in Anaheim, and it was interesting because if you guys...

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Actually, no, hold on. We have something up. If you look at Apologia Studios, look up Brent Leatherwood and Apologia Studios, you should see the 20 -minute thing we did on it where we actually played the clip and everything else and had everyone interact with it.

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Leatherwood is sort of part of the old guard of the pro -life establishment. I know he loves the

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Lord, and I praise God for him that he believes the gospel, loves the Lord, so I don't want to in any way take down his dignity.

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But he's part of the old guard that operates based upon a doctrinal position and a system they've adopted where they have protected the woman throughout

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Roe v. Wade by saying she's a victim, she is not guilty for killing her child, which means, of course, she's robbed of the hope of the gospel.

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There's no call to repentance to her from them. She's just as much a victim as the child.

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Well, he's the old guard that really has adopted that doctrinal position, and it's really important to recognize that,

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A, that doctrinal position militates against what Scripture says in terms of her guilt and the only way she can receive forgiveness, but it also militates against the whole history of the

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Christian church. From the Didache on, you can see that the Christian church has always defined abortion as murder, and I mean,

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I'll be honest, there's even some instances where it's like they might have went a little too far with like,

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I mean, they would even say things like, you're not allowed to come back to worship for 10 years, and they keep even an unrepentant woman, sorry, a repentant woman away from the table if she had had an abortion.

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The church has seen it as murder. She's guilty. She needs Christ. Brent Leatherwood's position is not only unbiblical and inconsistent, but it's also against the whole history of the

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Christian church in terms of how the church has defined it, which is interesting to note, and it also demonstrates that the position he holds as the old guard is, well, let me put it this way.

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He could not answer a direct question from Pastor Brian on, is it really your position that a mother who willfully takes the life of her child in the womb is never guilty before God and should never be punished?

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He did something very, very, and you use the word political.

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I'll say, because it's such a serious situation, and again, I don't want to take down his dignity, slimy, and what

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I mean by that, it's such an important issue, and the ERLC signs on the dotted line to kill our bill in Louisiana and any other bill that we put forward to abolish abortion.

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He said that it's not his position or the position of the pro -life establishment that they want to put mothers behind bars, and everyone hears that and goes, oh, that sounds so, yeah, who would want to put a mother behind bars?

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And everyone even applauded to that. Not everyone, but a lot of people applauded to it. What's interesting is that Brent Leatherwood didn't finish the sentence.

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The subject under discussion is a mother who murders her child in the womb. Now, if he'd have finished the sentence, everyone there as a

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Christian would have gone, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. If he would have said it's not the position of the pro -life movement or his position that they want to put mothers who murder their children behind bars, everybody would have raised an eyebrow and gone, wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense.

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That's not consistent. That's not Christian. But that's, in reality, how they protect it is they protect it with emotion, and they want to appeal to your emotions about the mother who does this and say, well, she's a victim.

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We just need to educate her. And what's interesting is this key issue is that the people who argue that this woman is a victim and she doesn't know what she's doing,

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I wonder if they've ever spent time outside of an abortion clinic because they are bragging about their abortions.

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They are laughing about their abortions. They talk about abortion porn. They talk about,

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I've killed five of my kids and I'm not going to ever stop. And so this whole portrait that the pro -life establishment paints of this mother who just doesn't know what she's up to, she doesn't know what's going on, it just doesn't work.

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And Leatherwood couldn't answer the question consistently there. And I think he manipulated the audience with his position.

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But then he was challenged again by Pastor Brian. And when he was challenged again, he didn't even bother answering the question.

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He just went off and just changed the subject and went different directions because his position cannot sustain a critical examination of the position because on the one hand, he wants to operate as a

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Christian standing on the word of God. On the other hand, he's adopted a doctrinal commitment from the establishment that just does not work together with that.

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So in other words, they'll say every human life should be seen as worthy of love.

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It should be protected. All of life is sacred. You are human from the moment of fertilization.

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That's what they say. But then you say, okay, great. So we need to protect all humans equally from fertilization if that's the case.

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And then they go, well, kind of, except for the mother. We do not want her to ever be punished for her executing the child.

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And then that's where you see the wheels come off. So again, all of the discussion that happens around, quote unquote, incrementalism,

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I would just call it bills of partiality. All of the discussion really skirts the main issue.

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The heartbeat of it is that they do not want equal protection for all humans from fertilization.

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And this ballot measure in Ohio is going to really reveal that because if it goes through, the pro life establishment has no ability to argue about it with the doctrinal position that they have held for decades.

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They cannot overcome it. You can overcome it with a consistent Christian position.

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You can overcome it. All right. Well, Jeff, are you driving or are you parked?

31:08

I am parked. Okay. All right. I was trying to look behind you there to see if anything was moving.

31:15

No, no, no. I'm definitely parked. I had considered driving and just putting you down here, but I didn't think that that would look very good.

31:23

Yeah. And the sound's not good. The sound's not good at all. No, no. And this way we get the new white beard a whole lot better.

31:32

It's great. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm going to tell you. You know what?

31:38

It's funny because you've been obviously alerting me to the whiteness of my beard as much as you possibly can.

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But I really believe over the last five weeks, it's gotten more white. Yeah.

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I'm afraid you are exactly right about that. I was wondering if maybe it was just snowing. But yeah, no,

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I guess not. No, this is just trials, tribulations, and wisdom just pouring out of my chin.

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Okay. Yeah. I'll try to claim that for mine too, but I'm not really sure Kelly's buying that.

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I believe that's true. I believe that's true. I'm not sure Kelly buys that though, so we'll have to let that one slide.

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Well, somebody gave me some encouragement. They were like, Pastor Jeff, that's just so much wisdom falls out of your mouth regularly.

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I was like, I like that. All right, man.

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Please drive carefully and safely. And I'm sure you'll all be covering all this on Apology Radio when you get back, the

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Ohio stuff and all the rest of that stuff. And it's only a few weeks until that documentary drops too.

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So I'm sure there'll be a lot more going on. I'll let everyone know just to be on the lookout. And we really do need everyone's help. We really need this information to get in front of pastors, because the truth is many pastors across the country, when

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I talk to them, they didn't know this. They didn't know, oh, they don't think she needs forgiveness.

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Oh, they don't ever want to have her criminalized. So we need pastors to get informed about this so they can inform their congregations.

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That's one of the most important things for us to overcome right now, because we have 18 states perspectively right now with bills of equal protection, and every single one of them is going to fail if we do not get the church to rise up and be consistent about this.

33:27

And so we need pastors to know and churches to know. So the idea right now, I just talked to the team, is not this

33:33

Friday, but next Friday, we're going to drop the expose on what Mike Johnson did to kill our bill in Louisiana.

33:41

And then the Black Friday, we're going to drop the documentary that explains the fatal flaw, what's the main issue, and that should be the day after Thanksgiving.

33:50

All right. We will obviously let people know about that as well. Please drive carefully, and we will see you when you get back.

33:57

Thanks for your time. Thanks, brother. All right. God bless. Thank you. Bye -bye. Bye -bye. All right.

34:03

Well, I appreciate Jeff taking the time to do that. You can tell he's quite passionate about it, and I have been making comments about his beard, because it's becoming wow.

34:18

Yeah. And again, you can go to his Facebook page, look him up on Facebook if you'd like to help with the amazing costs of adopting two preemie girls that were just literally dropped on them out of nowhere.

34:32

And being out of state, it's tough. And it's a tough state to adopt in, too. So just keep all those things in mind.

34:40

And so for everybody who goes, well, you need to put your money where your mouth is. Well, I've told you the whole story about his other adopted son that was going to have spinal bifida and the miracle that took place there.

34:59

And yeah, Jeff puts his money where his mouth is. I've said to a number of people recently, he's not only burning the candle at both ends, he's using a blowtorch to do it.

35:09

I guess we should say flamethrower, since that's the big thing right now in no quarter November. He's using a flamethrower to do it.

35:16

So I'm not sure. I do what I can, but I'm only one person.

35:22

So definitely praying for Jeff and his wife, Candy. So just a few comments, and then we're going to be completely shifting gears.

35:33

You know, when you think about Ohio, you think about farms and rolling hills and agriculture, and you think about conservatives, except for, of course, the big cities.

35:47

Once you get into places like Cincinnati, then everything is bright blue and leftist and anti -American and everything else.

35:59

But what we're seeing, what we need to understand, what we need to be praying toward, is we are seeing the results of generations of public indoctrination, not education any longer.

36:25

We don't have an educational system, we have an indoctrinating system. The NEA and all of its associated unions and organizations has one purpose, and that is to produce a hive mind.

36:49

And what you do not have any longer in the educational system, and since you don't have it in homes either, is moral and ethical formation.

37:04

You can't, from a secular worldview, the only moral and ethical formation that can be provided is that which is mandated by the state, the god of the system.

37:17

And so when you talk to the younger generation today, this is what you hear.

37:24

You don't hear any kind of formed morality or ethical system.

37:33

They think moral and ethics, morality and ethics, is what you feel. Morality and ethics requires you to have a foundation.

37:45

We use the term worldview today, but a foundation and a set of principles to make application, not only to yourself but to others.

37:59

The secular worldview, all you have is yourself, your emotions, your feelings, there isn't any objective truth, there is no foundation to be relevant to other people, there can't be anything that's binding upon anyone else, and no society can survive this.

38:18

A society that succumbs to this becomes, is taken over by tyranny.

38:24

It has to, just simply to continue to function on the most basic level. Liberty, freedom, all those things go out the window once the state gets what it wants, and that is ultimate control and tyranny over its people.

38:42

And so we should not be surprised. I will be surprised if this thing doesn't pass.

38:49

I hope and pray that there is a turnout. I hope and pray that the culture of death is held at bay slightly for a little while, that's all it would be.

39:04

But if it passes, it's simply a demonstration. Because when you think about it, it is...

39:16

I'm so old I remember Kate Smith singing God Bless America, okay?

39:23

Most of these people have never heard of Kate Smith, and they've never heard God Bless America. But we honestly have to recognize that we cannot ask

39:36

God to bless a nation that will do as a whole what

39:43

Ohio is planning to do as a specific state. There is something called blood guiltiness in scripture.

39:50

Look it up sometime. The law says a lot about it, and it's about nations.

39:56

It's not just individuals. Yes, an individual can have blood guiltiness, but when an individual in a city, or in a community, or in a nation brought blood guiltiness upon the people, they had to deal with it.

40:13

And the blood guiltiness that this nation is already guilty of is astonishing.

40:22

So we see what's happening, and you just look at these young people.

40:30

You see the people that attacked... where were they? I forget where it was.

40:39

I think it was here in the United States. The Stop Oil people, you know, I mean, it's the cult.

40:47

These people, you cannot reason with them. They have been lied to. They think the world's about to end, and they're blaming the most efficient, cheap, safe sources of energy that have made it possible to have hospitals and drugs, and increase our length of life, and decrease human suffering.

41:11

They don't care about any of that stuff. They want to get rid of all of it. They want to go back to the stone age, basically. You'll notice that the look in their eyes is pretty much the same look you get from most

41:25

Jehovah's Witnesses coming to your door when you start criticizing the Watchtower Society. It just doesn't compute.

41:30

They have been completely brainwashed. Their emotions have been used against them.

41:38

This is becoming the norm, not the exception, and they're the next generation that will be voting.

41:49

Unless God does something, and normally that involves judgment, national catastrophe, cultural collapse, that's how these things change.

42:04

That's how these paradigms change. Unless God works a miracle that avoids that kind of collapse, that's what's heading our direction.

42:20

And faithfulness on our part is being clear in pointing to the light, in being salt, preservative, and light pointing to the truth.

42:33

We do that in our families, we do that in our churches, in our communities, in our neighborhoods. If we're given a broader voice, we do it in that context, and that's what we're called to do.

42:46

We pray for Ohio tonight, but I have to say to Ohioans, you have to think through, and Ohio would just be doing what

43:00

California has done, New York, these basically communist states already, but this is

43:10

Ohio. This is coming to my state.

43:15

I could see somebody doing that here. We have utterly compromised leadership here in the state of Arizona.

43:23

I live in Maricopa County. I don't believe my vote counts for Diddley. I'll be honest with you,

43:30

I just don't. It's corrupt. It's corrupt from top to bottom. So I get it.

43:38

But this is coming for us, for all of us, and there is justice if God brings judgment upon these things, and he will bring judgment upon these things.

43:51

He cannot. That great day will expose all of this. It truly, truly will.

43:58

But I say to Ohioans, you need to look to the people who are literally seeking to enshrine in your state's constitution, again, yet another extended middle finger aimed toward heaven.

44:13

We love death. Come to Ohio, we love death. That's what we're talking about here.

44:19

That's what we're talking about here. So I want to have Jeff on. Jeff knows this stuff backwards and forwards, and I'm so thankful for him.

44:34

I was going to tell you a story. There's lots of stories I can tell, and they're good stories.

44:43

But we'll hold off on that for now. All right. I need to shift gears big time.

44:51

We've done 45 minutes. We'll probably do another 45 minutes. We'll probably do an hour and a half today. I don't know what your schedule is, but we're probably going to need to sneak another one in this week if I'm going to get done what

45:01

I need to get done. Jared Longshore responded, so I need to do a response there.

45:07

We need to finish up the Radio Free Geneva. We can do it remotely. If you're at home or something, that's fine.

45:14

It'll all work out. I'm preaching Sunday as well at Apologia.

45:22

I will be preaching, and I'm not ready yet. I'll be preaching on Thanksgiving. And you might say, oh, that's cheap.

45:30

Actually, Thanksgiving is one of the central

45:35

Christian traits that I'm very thankful the

45:42

United States has a day of Thanksgiving. It's sad that it was once very clear who was being thanked and for what, but I'm thankful that we have it.

45:59

Thanksgiving is central to contentment, and we live in a society that is designed to make you not content at any point in your life.

46:17

It's an embarrassment of riches as far as material is concerned. It's not difficult to track stuff down, but how do you organize it in a way to make it really communicable to everybody?

46:28

Hopefully, that'll be helpful to folks. I've got lots going on this week, so your prayers are appreciated.

46:37

The thing I want to do the rest of our time I remember when this debate first came out,

46:49

Muhammad Hijab and David Wood. I made comments at the time, and I don't know why it popped back up on my radar screen or why it all of a sudden appeared in my feed, but I thought, you know, this would be really useful right now.

47:19

Before the program started, I on Twitter said that Steve Camp's a jerk.

47:31

Okay, I said it straight up, and it was because some other guy had responded to what

47:39

I put on Twitter about what subjects I was going to be covering, and he says, hey, have you heard about that thing in Israel?

47:45

Why don't you talk about that? I have briefly, but what

47:52

I said was, I don't think anybody knows what's going on in Israel. From the time it started,

47:58

I'm like, this does not make any sense. A lot of the coverage seems staged.

48:07

Netanyahu was in a lot of trouble and probably would not be prime minister today, head of a wartime cabinet, if this had not happened.

48:17

There's a lot of questions that I have that have not been answered at all. But what we did do is, for example,

48:26

I preached an entire sermon on reaching out to both Jews and Muslims in such a way as to...

48:36

that is our answer is changed hearts. That's the only way to end this animosity.

48:42

It's not political, it's not military, it's not technological. It's changed hearts.

48:49

And so Steve responded to this guy who was saying, why aren't you talking about Israel?

48:55

As if I'm supposed to throw on a MAGA hat and say, let's go bomb ourselves some

49:00

Arabs, you know, let's do a Archie Bunker thing. That's how Archie would have put it.

49:09

And Steve said, yeah, James will... he responded to that guy, well, James will never say anything that would put him in a bad light with all his

49:19

Muslim friends. And I'm like, you know, you're such a jerk,

49:25

Steve. You could no more teach people how to reach Muslims than a man the moon.

49:30

You don't have a clue what you're talking about. You really don't. And so to pop off on stuff like that, it's just like, get back to what you're supposed to be doing.

49:44

And that's not watching Fox News and wearing your MAGA hat. So I had already made the decision.

49:54

Here we are in this situation. I started, I was doing a ride inside, and I listened to the opening statement.

50:04

I thought, you know, the opening statement of Mohammadi Job. Actually, I listened to both. But I listened to Mohammadi Job's opening statement, and I'm like, this is the kind of rhetoric that you're going to hear if you try to present the gospel to a

50:27

Muslim on the street in New York City or wherever else you might be. And I can just hear people getting ready to tune out because they're like, well,

50:35

I'm just not going to run into him here. Well, that's not the case. The Muslim population in the

50:44

United States is growing. And honestly, what we need are

50:52

Christians everywhere praying for the opportunity to be used. And if you don't prepare ahead of time, then you're going to find yourself in a situation going, man,

51:04

I wish I hadn't tuned out to that episode of The Dividing Line or something along those lines, because we're trying.

51:11

It may not be the most popular thing in the world to do, but we're trying to help to prepare you.

51:19

And so I thought, you know, we can accomplish two things.

51:25

First of all, I can help Christians to be better prepared.

51:32

The vast majority of Christians, unless you've listened to some of my debates in the past with Muslims, have never heard presentations.

51:42

Muhammad Hijab is a good speaker. He's aggressive.

51:48

A lot of those involved in what's called dawah, Islamic apologetics in English -speaking countries, tend to be a little bit on the aggressive side.

52:02

You know, if you listen to the first debate I did with Adnan Rashid in London, many moons ago now, you'll find a very aggressive

52:11

Adnan there. That was before we got to know each other. And the last debates have been significantly less heated.

52:21

Still sharp, but not heated. As a result, I don't know

52:26

Muhammad Hijab. I would like to... I've actually written to him because I gathered from what we're going to listen to that he had come to the

52:38

United States. You see, you know, when I was traveling to London two or three times a year, which

52:43

I did for years, then that opened up the possibility. And I know, for example, I was talking to a group in late 2019, early 2020 about something

52:57

I was supposed to be doing in London, and I'd mentioned Muhammad Hijab as a person I would like to arrange a debate with.

53:03

Of course, you know what happened then. That all came to a screeching halt. But I wrote,

53:11

I said, are you coming to the United States sometime in 2024? If it's possible,

53:16

I'd like to try to find a way to travel there. I don't fly, but if we knew months ahead of time, then

53:24

I can arrange to get there, driving there, depending on where it is.

53:30

I mean, if it's New York City or something, I really wouldn't be interested. But maybe he could travel outside of that realm if that's what he was planning on doing.

53:40

But anyway, I'd like to have the opportunity to sit down, have dinner, have lunch, get to know the man.

53:49

That always helps in debates, as far as I'm concerned. Can't always do it, but it would be something that would be something

53:56

I would be desirous of doing. And so,

54:02

I will let him know that I'm doing this response so he can listen to it, and hopefully it'll be helpful to all of you as well to be prepared to respond to these kinds of things.

54:16

Now, what I did forget to do, unfortunately, is

54:21

I forgot to cue this up. So, I'm going to do my best to...

54:28

Actually, it looks like it's right at the beginning. So, we'll just jump into it.

54:35

No, I do not have my audio set, but I do now.

54:41

But we should have tested that beforehand. So, here we go again, folks.

54:47

All right, let's dive into this. That is on your end.

55:13

That's on your end. Let me switch over here. Perfectly.

55:21

It's perfectly fine here. What? We are having some audio difficulties, and Rich thought it was the speakers.

55:33

No, that's on your end. Okay. So, let's try something here.

56:01

And you have to tell me whether it'll work. Keep the microphone on, and...

56:30

First thing we're asked to do when we're engaging with Christian people is to come to common terms. Okay.

56:36

So, just for everybody to know, my voice may sound a little bit differently. I've just put the...

56:42

This isn't the best way to do it, but I've just put my microphone down near the speaker of the

56:48

MacBook Pro, turned the volume up, and we're gonna... Rich says it's fully understandable on his side.

56:54

So, we should be good. I may sound a little bit different, but that's all right. So, that's how we will do it.

57:01

We worship none but Allah subhanahu wa ta 'ala, and that's something we really need to think about. We need to think about the common grounds that we have with Christians.

57:08

There's lots in common. We believe in Jesus Christ. We believe in the Messiah. We believe in Him.

57:14

We love the Messiah. We believe Jesus. Okay. First point I want to make.

57:21

I will try to be somewhat succinct, because I could expand upon all these things.

57:26

But I think we really need to honestly say we do not teach people the same things about who

57:37

Jesus is. And I would challenge Muhammad that the

57:45

Jesus of the Quran cannot be the object of love, because he is a disembodied, ahistorical voice speaking from nowhere.

58:04

As you know, there is only one time where Jesus speaks in the

58:11

Quran from a physical location. It's from his cradle. That's actually borrowed from an unbiblical source, a

58:21

Gnostic -tinged source. It's not historical. The author of the

58:27

Quran did not understand that and thought that it was a part of the revelation, which it wasn't.

58:35

But that's the only time that Jesus speaks from a physical location, and it's mythological.

58:42

Other than that, the reference either when Jesus speaks, it's just Surah 5, in answer to Allah.

58:51

But even especially in Surah 5, it's clearly based upon the false idea that Christians, the

59:04

Trinity, is Allah, Mary, and Jesus. And so, and believe me,

59:11

I know all the, I've read numerous scholarly articles from the

59:17

Muslim side and from Orientalist sides on Surah 5, verse 116. I'm just not going into all that right now, because we'd never get anywhere.

59:25

I think the obvious and clear meaning of Surah 5, verse 116,

59:32

I think that's the only place in the Quran where the author gives us an understanding of what he thinks the

59:40

Say Not Three is. It's the only place you have three. And it would make sense, he would understand it that way.

59:48

But the point is, how can you love a Jesus who has no existence?

59:55

Love him for what? Love him for making clay birds come alive?

01:00:04

Have you ever read the actual story that's stolen from, again, semi -Gnostic gospel, ahistorical?

01:00:12

But have you ever, the Jesus of the Gnostic Gospels is not an attractive individual, by any stretch of the imagination.

01:00:24

So, how, when you say we teach people to love Jesus, I think you need,

01:00:30

I'm sure you do understand that that is a very, very, very different thing. That when we talk about love for Christ, Sunday night,

01:00:43

I gave what's called the benediction at the end of our service. We, I had preached on the

01:00:50

I Am sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of John, where he identifies himself using the divine name from Isaiah 43 .10.

01:00:59

And then we had had the Lord's Supper, where we celebrate and remember the cost of our redemption, his broken body and shed blood, which the

01:01:10

Quran denies, Surah 4 .1 .7. Then we had had baptism, where a number of people were baptized into the name of the

01:01:21

Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And then we had sung the doxology, praise to the

01:01:29

Trinity. And then I had given the benediction from Paul's second letter to the

01:01:37

Corinthians, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the

01:01:44

Holy Spirit be with you all. So, here we are, 2 ,000 years later, rejoicing together in the grace of the

01:01:57

Lord Jesus Christ. And yet, grace is ascribed to the

01:02:02

Father. The one who brings grace is the Spirit. It's called the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. You've got the love of God.

01:02:08

You've got the love of Jesus Christ. The interchangeability of the apostolic language, once again, demonstrating that all the writers of the

01:02:18

New Testament are Trinitarians. That's why they write and speak the way they do. They are experiential

01:02:23

Trinitarians. So, I just think it's important. It's a common statement of those engaged in Dawah that we are the second largest religion that teaches people to love

01:02:36

Jesus, but there is a fundamental difference as to what we're talking about when we're talking about loving

01:02:42

Jesus. Loving a mere Rasul is not the same thing as loving the one who gave himself for you, loving the one who created you, loving the one who has eternally existed as the

01:03:00

Son of God. There's a different meaning of love there.

01:03:06

Believe that he was born from the Virgin Mary. There's a whole chapter in the Qur 'an dedicated to that. That's true, but again, that surah contains what

01:03:23

I would call adulterated material. Adulterated in the sense of the author is drawing from sources that were not representative of Jesus and his apostles, but of a completely different religious system called

01:03:41

Gnosticism. And it's pretty clear to me the author of the Qur 'an did not understand the worldview issues inherent within Gnosticism, or in some ways adopted some of those himself, even though they're completely inconsistent with Christianity, Judaism, and that raises the whole problem of the chain in surah 5.

01:04:08

Allah gives the Torah to Moses, he gives the Injeel to Jesus, and he confirms what's in the hand of the

01:04:17

Torah, and then the Qur 'an to Muhammad. But if you break that chain, that issue in surah 5 goes up as well, so it's relevant.

01:04:30

Of course, the elephant in the room, or the difference of opinion, is in the fact that we as Muslims do not believe that Jesus was divine.

01:04:40

Now, I should have mentioned, I apologize, I should have mentioned that the subject, evidently, of the debate, yes, this is, by the way,

01:04:52

I'm looking at the screen right now, is in Jamaica, New York, so yeah. And of course, this was, wow, five years ago now.

01:05:01

Wow, almost today, fairly close, I hadn't noticed that. It is the seventh today?

01:05:07

Okay, all right, well, that's interesting. My how time flies when

01:05:13

COVID destroys the world. The subject, the thesis, is a topic that I've done numerous times, and the same thing happens here, as happens every time

01:05:28

I've done the subject. And that is, it's supposed to be Trinity and Tawhid, it always ends up being only

01:05:35

Trinity. In other words, there is precious little positive presentation on the subject of Tawhid.

01:05:45

Now, if you are not someone who has listened to our presentations on Islam, listened to debates we've done,

01:05:55

I need to define my terms. Tawhid to Islam is what

01:06:02

Trinity is to Christianity. That is, Tawhid is the central affirmation.

01:06:11

And Muhammad will, Muhammad Hijab will identify

01:06:16

Tawhid as monotheism. What needs to be emphasized is its

01:06:24

Unitarian monotheism. It's not just monotheism as in, there are not many gods, but it is monotheism as in, a law, a law begetteth not, nor is he begotten.

01:06:41

From Surah 112. So there is a specific polemical element to the assertion of Tawhid, which involves

01:06:56

Unitarianism. There is only one person represented in the being of Allah.

01:07:04

Unitarianism. Because the reality is, and many Muslims will dispute this, but many others recognize it, the reality is we are monotheists.

01:07:14

We believe there is only one true God who has eternally existed as God, the creator of all things.

01:07:21

And we simply believe that that one being of God is shared by three divine persons.

01:07:27

Not one third of God, but fully shared by three divine persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

01:07:34

And so it's the difference between Trinitarianism and Unitarianism, not between polytheism and monotheism.

01:07:43

Now, if you want to make an argument that there is something in monotheism that absolutely necessitates

01:07:51

Unitarianism, feel free to try. I think you'll struggle a little bit, and I think Muslims struggle a little bit on this, and I won't get into this right now, but because of, at least in Sunni Islam, the belief has developed over time that the

01:08:08

Quran is co -equal with Allah, yet is uncreated.

01:08:15

It's not another deity, but this gets into a lot of issues regarding how you interpret

01:08:24

Hadith and the development of Islamic theology over time, which most

01:08:30

Muslims don't have any knowledge about, just like most Christians have very little knowledge of the development of theology, discussions in the second century about modalism and issues like that.

01:08:42

That will come up, and that's one of the reasons I want to cover this, that will come up in Muhammad Hijab's assertions in this debate.

01:09:16

That's the beginning of Surah 112, by the way. Okay, that's obviously not what it does say.

01:09:34

It does not say divided. I'm not sure, honestly, what the fascination with the

01:09:43

Athanasian Creed is, because the Athanasian Creed does not come out of any particular council or anything like that.

01:09:49

It develops separately over time. Athanasius may or may not have had anything to do with it. It's certainly consistent with Athanasius' teaching over the many decades where he was defending

01:10:00

Nicene Orthodoxy, but I would think it would be better to use something more standardized, such as the

01:10:09

Nicene symbol or something like that. The Trinity is not difficult to define, there is within the one true and eternal

01:10:17

God, three divine persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, co -equal, co -eternal with one another.

01:10:24

It's not all that hard. I hope it isn't, because the

01:10:31

Athanasian Creed is a really long run -on sentence that you can make sound silly.

01:10:39

I've seen a lot of people use it that way, and that would, I think, be an inappropriate way of approaching things.

01:10:46

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is

01:10:52

God. But there are not three gods, but one God. It goes. So, being and person are two separate things, and that is forced upon us by the testimony of Scripture.

01:11:07

Scripture teaches us that there is one God, Yahweh, the

01:11:12

Maker and Creator of all things. I've never really understood, I'll be honest with you, just in passing, why my

01:11:18

Muslim friends do not think more about that divine name.

01:11:25

I think it's because, clearly, the author of the Quran didn't know it. By the time of Muhammad, the

01:11:37

Jewish tradition had become very firmly established not to utilize the divine name.

01:11:42

You had Adonai, Hashem, things like that. But maybe he just had never heard a

01:11:49

Jewish person using it. Maybe that's why there's really no reference to it. But I would highly recommend to my

01:11:57

Muslim friends that they take some time to look at Yahweh, Jehovah, as it's found in a lot of English versions.

01:12:07

A lot of English writings, I guess I should say, not necessarily versions. And look at the use of that name and how it's applied.

01:12:20

And I think you might find some very interesting things. I only know of one

01:12:27

Muslim that I've debated who actually took the time to read my book on the Trinity, and that made for a very good debate on the

01:12:34

Trinity. And if I were to ever debate Muhammad Hijab, one of the things that I would encourage him to do is...

01:12:48

the rich cam just became the slanted rich cam. Sorry.

01:12:54

It didn't completely fall off the window, thankfully. But yeah, it sort of startled both of us when

01:13:03

I did that. Anyway, I would encourage him to read my book,

01:13:08

The Forgotten Trinity, and especially the chapter on the identification of Jesus as Yahweh.

01:13:14

I'm going to be doing a debate with a Unitarian in March of next year,

01:13:19

Lord willing, defending that assertion that Jesus is identified as Yahweh.

01:13:28

Not to the exclusion of the Father and the Spirit, but together with the Father and the

01:13:33

Spirit, one being shared by three persons. And this is not something where someone came up with this and now we're searching for philosophical terms to use.

01:13:44

It is what Scripture reveals to us. And so the function of philosophical terminology is to explain philosophical questions.

01:13:57

If we simply limit ourselves to scriptural evidence, then it's pretty easy to give answers.

01:14:05

But when people go outside of that and want to know, what about this? What about that? That's why you end up using language that goes beyond scriptural language.

01:14:13

Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty, and the Holy Spirit is Almighty. But there are not three

01:14:18

Almighties, there's one Almighty. This is what the Athanasian Creed says. Now to be honest with you,

01:14:24

I've heard David Wood speak before, and I've noticed that there are three common fallacies that he falls into quite often.

01:14:32

One of them is a fallacy called the tukokui fallacy, which is an appeal to hypocrisy. Another one is a straw man.

01:14:39

And a third one is the red herring. These three fallacies are employed by him quite often.

01:14:46

And he talks about Islam extensively, as you guys may know, in a negative way.

01:14:52

Salam Initiative has put up a database of all of the major misconceptions against Islam being answered, and this can be seen in the link below.

01:15:02

Okay. You know, I have a vague recollection of having commented at least this far in the debate in the past.

01:15:11

So I apologize. Again, it's been years, and we haven't done a lot, so it's still useful to do.

01:15:22

But this is something I would object to. This is debating for people who aren't in the room.

01:15:33

There isn't a link for them to click. I just think it's not appropriate to do this kind of thing.

01:15:44

And I have been consistent when Christian debaters have done the same thing in debating

01:15:52

Muslims. When Jay Smith debated Shabir Ali, I chided

01:16:00

Jay for doing something similar. So I have been consistent at this point. I just don't think it's appropriate.

01:16:08

I don't think in a formal debate, if this was being judged by debate rules in a university setting, and those debates are normally a joke, but that would not even be allowed at all.

01:16:20

But I do think there needs to be some... I'm very strong on emphasizing the fact that you're there to debate for the audience that comes.

01:16:29

Yeah, it's being recorded, but I think it's not respectful to utilize something like that.

01:16:37

I also want to give credit to one team member who has made a website called

01:16:44

Many Prophets, One Message, which can also be seen in the link below. You can see more information about that.

01:16:51

Now to cut straight into it, the question now is this. The question is, when we look at the

01:17:00

Old Testament, do we find this idea of the Nicene Trinity?

01:17:06

Because the Nicene Trinity is very specific. After the Constantinople Creed in 381, the idea that the

01:17:14

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three co -equal, co -eternal, independent beings.

01:17:21

Remember those words. Okay, again, that's not what we're talking about.

01:17:33

We're talking about persons who can be distinguished from one another by their actions, their roles in salvation, etc.

01:17:42

But it's not independent beings by any stretch of the

01:17:57

I don't have any problem with going to 381. I mean, that really is the version of the

01:18:03

Nicene Creed that is generally known by people today. But to ask, can this be found in the

01:18:13

Old Testament, I think, misses a point. Now I know that there are Christians who actually assert that the

01:18:23

Old Testament Jews were Trinitarians. I am not one of those people. I do not believe they're

01:18:29

Trinitarians. But the Hebrew Scriptures do plainly contain texts that, in light of New Testament fulfillment, are

01:18:49

Trinitarian in nature. So there are references clearly to the fact that the one to whom the child will be born, the son that will be given, is called

01:19:00

El Gabor. He's called the Prince of Peace, Mighty God.

01:19:07

He's called Aviad, Everlasting Father. It doesn't make him the father. It means he's the father of eternity, the creator of all things.

01:19:14

It's fulfilled in Colossians 1. So there are important, you know, in Zechariah 12 and places like this, you have important revelation that I would have to, again, assert the writer of the

01:19:31

Quran did not know anything about, did not have access to. There are important texts like that that are either cited in New Testament or in light of New Testament teaching, we can look back and see these things.

01:19:46

But I have often used this illustration. And again, there are a minority of folks who disagree with me.

01:19:56

I think the large majority of Christian scholarship would agree with me on this issue.

01:20:03

Where is the Trinity revealed? Well, it's right there.

01:20:11

See the gutter right there? This is Malachi. This is Matthew. So this is where the

01:20:19

Trinity is revealed. And what I mean by that is, it's revealed in history. That gutter represents 400 years, but it also represents the incarnation, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his ascension to heaven, his enthronement in heaven at the right hand of the

01:20:42

Father, and the Father and the Son sending the Holy Spirit. And then you get the first words of Matthew.

01:20:51

So all of that happens right there. And so the revelation of the

01:20:58

Trinity is a historical thing. The chief evidence of the doctrine of the

01:21:03

Trinity is found in the incarnation, life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, and the outpouring of the

01:21:11

Holy Spirit. And that is why the New Testament writers can utilize

01:21:21

Trinitarian language without stopping and going, oh, let me explain this new thing to you.

01:21:27

Because it's not a new thing to them. That's why that benediction that I gave, you can find a number of them, and they will use

01:21:41

Father, Son, and Spirit together in such a way that if the Son and the Spirit are creatures, it would be completely blasphemous.

01:21:52

But it's not because the author knows his audience understands what he's saying, too, because they've experienced the reality of the doctrine of the

01:22:01

Trinity. So it's asking for something that we're really not even claiming.

01:22:11

God has revealed himself over time. It is called progressive revelation.

01:22:18

I don't know that you can really argue from the Muslim perspective on this, because I would say that an honest person reading the

01:22:26

Quran would have to recognize that the Quran assumes its audience has access to this.

01:22:37

The Quran assumes that at least what the author thought was in this, and the author was wrong about a lot of things, but the

01:22:46

Quran assumes a background and hence does not repeat these things over and over again.

01:22:53

I have in the past, I may have to do it again in light of what's happening right now, but back in...

01:23:02

I was writing whatever Christian needs to know about the Quran, and one of the illustrations

01:23:10

I used of the differences in stories in the

01:23:17

Quran... The Quran will tell the same story multiple times, and one of the stories it tells multiple times is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

01:23:26

Muslims will look at the synoptic Gospels and say, look, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they don't agree word for word, and so this is a contradiction.

01:23:35

This is evolution. I mean, this is Shabir Ali's big thing, right? Always has been. And so I pointed out that when the

01:23:45

Quran tells the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, it does it in multiple different ways, using different languages, different terms, different order of events, different emphasis.

01:23:58

In other words, it's just like the synoptic Gospels telling the same story. If you're going to say, well, it's okay for the

01:24:04

Quran to do that because it's all the same story. You can just harmonize them together. I go, fine.

01:24:10

So no more picking on the synoptic Gospels, right? Because you just agreed that that's okay to do.

01:24:19

But the Muslim can't actually go there because when

01:24:25

I'm talking about the synoptic Gospels, I'm saying that, for example, in one of the most, in the one that I've addressed many times, in fact,

01:24:38

I did at the G3 conference years and years and years ago, when Jesus heals the child of the centurion, young ruler, anyway, and the woman's healed in the way, you know, that story.

01:24:58

That's not the point. The issue is that Mark gives much more detail than Matthew does.

01:25:06

Matthew telescopes stuff together. And this happens a lot.

01:25:11

So there is authorial intent involved. But how do you do that with the

01:25:18

Quran if there is not so much as a fingerprint of man in the Quran? It is all, the idea is that on Laylatul Qadr, the night of power during the month of Ramadan, the

01:25:33

Quran is revealed to the angel Jibreel, who then over time reveals it to Muhammad.

01:25:44

How can you have authorial intent if it's been written on the heavenly tablet for eternity?

01:25:51

You can't have that. So I'm really not sure how

01:25:56

Muhammad Ijab would deal with that, but I think it's an important aspect to keep in mind.

01:26:04

Co -equal, co -eternal, independent persons of the one being of God.

01:26:11

Okay, so he corrected himself there, but there was some confusion earlier, and we can understand that.

01:26:20

This is the understanding of the Trinity. Now having said that, guys, when you look at the

01:26:25

Old Testament, do we see this? Because when we look at the Old Testament, we find the Shema, chapter 6, verse 4.

01:26:35

Okay, so you're using the Jewish, but unfortunately, you end up missing something really important.

01:26:52

And that is, if you look at the Greek translation of the

01:26:58

Shema from Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, you will see that Paul utilizes that language in 1

01:27:07

Corinthians chapter 8 as a creed for Christians, but it includes Jesus. In fact, that term kurios is used for Yahweh, and that's applied to Jesus.

01:27:23

If you want an explanation of that, see my debate with Shabir Ali in South Africa, where we talked about the earliest,

01:27:35

I think, did the earliest Christians believe in the deity of Christ? I think that may have been the topic.

01:27:40

I remember what the room looked like. But I put up on the screen the

01:27:48

Greek text of Deuteronomy 6, 4, and then 1 Corinthians 8, and I point out the parallels and the fact that Paul is clearly pulling from that language to define the

01:28:01

Christian understanding of who God is. Now, let me just mention this, and I'm pretty much out of time.

01:28:19

I'm sorry, I've only gotten three minutes and 50 seconds in. It doesn't look like he's using notes, so maybe it's just memorized, and that's why it's not quite as accurate.

01:28:33

But here, Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one,

01:28:39

Echad. Using Elohim, Yahweh, Echad, these are all terms that end up in 1

01:28:50

Corinthians 8. But Elohim is used to the Father, and Yahweh is used to the

01:28:56

Son. And those are the standard Trinitarian terms. In other words, in the New Testament, generally, the

01:29:03

Father is called God. Generally, the Son is called Lord. But that's reflecting

01:29:10

Yahweh, his covenant name. There are places where that's switched, so it's

01:29:17

Yahweh that places our sins upon the Messiah, as the Father. And then the numerous places where the

01:29:24

Son is identified as Yahweh, in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 10 through 12, or Philippians chapter 2, or John 12, 41, whatever it might be.

01:29:32

And so, there's a reason why we have to be accurate about these things, because it is central to what forced the

01:29:45

Christian church to codify what it did. It's not that these things, and this is going to come up later, uh,

01:29:54

Mohamed Hijab is going to say, nobody for the first 300 years of Christian history believed these things.

01:30:00

Well, we'll point people out to you that did. I teach church history, that's my thing. But it's missing, it's assuming something that should not be assumed.

01:30:13

Nicaea did not invent something. Nicaea was responding to a denial of something that I can show you all the way back in the earliest sources.

01:30:22

I can show it to you in the New Testament, but in the earliest sources outside the New Testament, especially in Ignatius, for example, but elsewhere.

01:30:34

And so, that's why these things are important, and that's why, unfortunately, very often in debate, the speed of the discussion is going so fast that you can't go back over these things.

01:30:50

And that's why I like being able to do it a little bit more slowly. So, hopefully, next time, we will have the demons exercised from the sound system on the other side of the glass there.

01:31:03

And I don't think, I'll be honest with you, I don't think it's your speakers. So, Ctrl -Alt -Delete solves all things?

01:31:20

No? No, in this circumstance, remember I, and when we were testing... You sound fine now.

01:31:25

I had the problem over here. Yeah. All right. I powered the computer down, I can power everything down, power it back up, problem's gone.

01:31:34

We didn't do it over there. Windows.

01:31:42

It's all Windows over there. I may point out that that is a Mac there. Yeah, but you've got the problems over there.

01:31:51

This is all before the computer gets involved in all this stuff. I'll explain this more on Twitter later.

01:32:01

He can't do anything about that. Anyway, all right.

01:32:08

Sorry about that. Thanks for listening to the program. Broad range of topics, but what

01:32:14

I'm going to try to do as best I can. If I can't do this, please forgive me. We will be doing at least one more program.

01:32:21

I want to try to do two. While I continue with that, I need to respond to Jared Longshore, because honestly,

01:32:30

I'm not sure that Jared's going to sleep much until I do. He seems a little bit nervous about...

01:32:37

Oh, wait till after Thanksgiving? Do it once I get on the road?

01:32:44

I'm sorry, Jared. Rich is trying to make me a mean person, and you know that I'm not.

01:32:50

I'm just a teddy bear. Anyway, we need to respond to Jared Longshore.

01:32:58

I want to continue this, and we need to continue the Radio Free Geneva. I've got some new Radio Free Geneva stuff to add to it once we get through the section on John 6.

01:33:07

There's been some stuff that's popped up. Yes, sir. You have... Oh, you pulled the...

01:33:15

Oh, Rich is now going to try to do something. He's not going to cooperate.