August 3, 2004

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From the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
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The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. I have the foggiest idea what that topic is. We keep saying I have one,
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I don't normally. And I was thinking today, I always say, good afternoon, this is James White, but if you're listening, first of all, you already heard the first part and that said that.
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And secondly, you would have had to have been like looking through the archives or listening live and that means you're already in that anyway.
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So it's sort of a waste of space and time. Well, not really space, well, server space,
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I guess. But anyway, there's really no reason to say that because you already knew that. 877 -753 -3341.
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Someone in the channel just said they missed The Dividing Line last week. That's almost inexcusable, especially since Thursday night we had
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Steve Camp with us and that's always a lot of fun. And then we had
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Frank with us and that's always fun, too, because we, you know,
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I feel sorry for Frank. Frank has a tough, tough job out there in the in the retailing industry and things like that.
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And and he gets abused a lot in channel, especially by certain people from south, the Mason -Dixon.
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And so he called in and if you didn't listen, then, you know, you're going to have to you're going to have to grab it on on the archive at AOMIN .org.
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That's A -O -M -I -N .org, which is probably how you're listening to this anyways. That's just how it works.
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But anyhow, 877 -753 -33, you know, there's three threes.
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That's sort of Trinitarian. We should send that out. We should send our number off to Gail Ripplinger and have her analyze it and see what it adds up to.
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OK, OK, I've got this fixed now. You can have it fixed. And now with no particular topic in particular, here's
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James White. You know, that deserves to get something over here.
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The list work that you make, do you think they have that on like a like cart or something like that, a sound or something like that, because that would be really annoying.
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No, you really have to go after it there. All right. OK, man, you really have to do that.
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That's not just something you can do just a little bit to sort of straighten the page out. You've really got to go after it. That's something else. But he is the professional.
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I am but a a geeky theologian type guy somewhere in an undisclosed location with no particular time with no particular topic.
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We were playing Star Trek music before we got started. That's how no particular topic stuff we have.
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Yeah, we need the stack of stuff. I have a stack of stuff in front of me, but it's really not relevant. I don't think you really would be concerned about most of the stuff that I have in front of me at the moment.
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Some interesting books around here, things like that. But we still have that. I still have that famous, famous Catholic convert sitting around with the former former
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Baptist rapper that he was. He went to our church. We rap all the time at our church.
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Yeah, I'm going to miss that, too. You know, go on cruise.
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Listen to the rapper. Go on. What do I do? I don't. It's really a hard decision to make.
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It really is very difficult. We're listening to the theme, a suite of songs from the
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Trouble with Tribbles. And the scary thing is that there were people in Charlotte knew exactly what that was.
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And then somebody told me about someone they went to school with who had memory memories. That's good.
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Memorized the dialogue of all, like, 78 episodes of the original Star Trek. Now that. That's frightening, that that's in fact,
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I think that is probably sick and probably should be that person needed help and probably did not get any help because we don't see that portion of our society.
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I think I should let John Kerry know about this. We can start a new health care crisis, the health care crisis that has been prompted by people memorizing all of Star Trek.
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I'll bet you, you know, I asked the guy in channel. I said, did you lose? Have you kept in touch with him? He said, no,
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I lost track of them after school. I think I know where he went. I just realized where he went. He's working in Las Vegas as a
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Ferengi. I ran into him because I'm absolutely positively serious about this while we're waiting for all the calls to come flooding in.
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We went up to the Star Trek experience once, me and my family, my wife, my two kids. And they were much younger then.
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And we went to the to Cork's Cafe where you go through the ride thing.
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It's one of those virtual reality ride type things. It was really neat. You get on the bridge of the Enterprise D. And and that was really cool.
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And and ready for a break. I forgot that he who is in control of the board is not a
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Star Trek guy, but I'm going to finish my story anyways. And so, you know, after you get out of this thing, they, of course, dump you right out in the middle of Cork's Cafe.
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So they're hoping that by then you'll be hungry and you'll sit down and pay outrageous amounts of money.
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And I do mean outrageous amounts of money. I mean, for the family of four. Well, I guess it wasn't too bad as 65 bucks or something like that for four of us.
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That's about 12 bucks, not 12 times for 48. No, you the tip and all that stuff.
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But anyway, and it was a lot of fun. I mean, your burgers came in the shape of the start of the end of the
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Federation thing. And and all the all the foods were named after Federation stuff and Star Trek stuff.
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But what was really funny was they had people in full dress. And we're talking they had
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Ferengi and Klingons walking around the restaurant. And I'm not talking about just walking around, sort of waving and being stupid.
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They were not only in complete makeup, just like they just walk up the set, the set of Star Trek authentic stuff.
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And we're not talking about the original Klingons here. We're talking about the later ones with all the all the stuff.
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And but they're in character, completely in character. And so the first the
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Ferengi come by and this one Ferengi offers to buy my wife. He offered to buy my wife and I tried to bargain with him, but he wouldn't move.
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And so I wouldn't do it. And OK, I will finish the story. Then we'll move on to important things.
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But then the Klingons came by and oh, that was fun. I mean, they the guy had a glass of blood wine, you know, and he was talking about how he liked it just a little bit coagulated.
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And I mean, these guys, we asked him about the first time they ate gach and he goes into this whole long story about it biting all the way down.
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And I mean, they knew everything. They were completely in character. They knew this stuff.
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And that's why I say this guy from the university must have been must have gone to Las Vegas, gone to work there.
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I have just been given permission to change the topic as long as I use my British accent. It is great, but I'm just going to finish this story and we'll take the calls.
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OK, just just stop whining about it. There's there's three or four people that find this interesting. And this one
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Ferengi walked up to me, so I thought I'd be cute. And I threw a question out at him and I said, so what's the thirty ninth law of acquisition?
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And if you watched Deep Space Nine, you know about the Ferengi and the laws of acquisition, all the rest of the stuff.
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And he gives me this odd look and he says, he says, well, there's some confusion about that.
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There are various Terran books. That's us human people that list the 38th law as such and so in the thirty ninth law is such and so.
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And then there are some that listed the other way. And I'm sort of like, oh, boy, that was smooth. I mean, you don't know the answer.
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So you make it sound, you know. And I was I was pretty impressed by that. That was that was pretty good.
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But as we're leaving much poorer than when we came in, I run into him in the hallway over next to the places where you can buy all sorts of Star Trek memorabilia and things like that.
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And he said and he remembers me. And he he takes me and he says, let me show you some like,
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OK, he's going to keep this show up. He takes me over to the book rack and he pulls these two books off and he opens them up.
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I mean, it didn't even have to look for him to look in the index or something, opens them up and shows them to me. And there are two different lists of the laws of acquisition identical except for.
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Thirty eight and thirty nine. He knew it, he had him, he had memorized them, but knew that there were two conflicting lists and I just happened to pick the one place where there was a difference.
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And he knew it. So that's why I say I think the guy who went to university with the guy and memorized all the stuff from the original.
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I think he's I think that was him. I think that was the fringy. I really do. And I'm not sure if he's the one who tried to buy my wife or not.
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But like I said, I did. I did not. He wouldn't he wouldn't go high enough. So I didn't do that.
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So, OK, oh, goodness, it is lined up on a blog somewhere.
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What do you bet? What do you bet? Someone will blog about, you know, it doesn't matter what
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I do, they'll find a place. You know, if you if you call someone by their last name, if I you know, if I'm not happy with someone,
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I'm not going to call him by their first name like we're buddy, buddy, especially when they're busily slashing my face with razors or something.
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And then they'll they'll get on me about that. And it just doesn't matter. They'll they'll find a way of finding some way to do it.
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Eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one. What's the fringy equivalent of a King James only advocate?
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I don't know. All right. Let's you know what? I forgot to open a window, Mr. A. I am in type person because I was
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I was talking about Star Trek and things like that. So I know that we have a call and I know that I know that it's on Mormonism.
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So who am I with whom do I speak? Hello. Hello, Eric.
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Hello, Eric. Can you hear me? I can hear you now. Hey, I quick question. Maybe a quick question.
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I thought two more of the missionaries the other day having a conversation with them. How did you stop them?
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Well, they were walking through the neighborhood and I didn't trip them up. Well, I was going to say, well, the funniest things
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I've ever seen in my life is when I was I had that for a little while. I had this yellow Nissan pickup truck and it's it's transmission went out in about three months.
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But anyways, I had this pickup truck and I had put behind the front seat my tracks and my
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Bible and stuff like that because it wasn't the King cab or something. And you know how trucks are. It's not a lot of place planning. And I saw these two more missionaries riding down the road up around Shea and Tatum on their on their bikes.
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And so I hung a Huey. I pulled in front of them and and I pulled over the side of the road and I got out as they rode by.
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I said, hey, guys, wait a second. And so you just got to picture this. We're on a sort of lonely road. They pull about 10 feet in front of me.
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They stop. They're still on their bikes, but they've they've stopped. They're looking back at me. And I'm pulling the seat down in my truck and I'm reaching behind the seat in my truck for something.
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And when I pop out of the cab with my Bible and tracks, they look like they're they're as white as sheets.
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And they're expecting that I'm pulling a 12 gauge like that and I'm just about to make the martyrs.
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And you know what? That conversation was very short. It was it really didn't go anywhere. So I was just wondering if maybe you would use the same type of really bad tactic or if you just stopped them and were nice to them.
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I know, but I might remember that. So anyway, I felt sorry for those guys.
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I didn't realize what I was doing until it was all over with. Oh, boy. They have some stories to tell. Yes, they do.
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So you were talking with the missionaries. They during the conversation, I was trying to make a point. They were talking about their burning bosom and feeling that what they believe is right.
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And I was trying to make a point about all the other religious people following pagan religions.
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And they have these feelings. And I could not is just frustrating as can be. I even took it and talking about Zeus and Apollos.
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And I said, what about these people that used to worship Zeus and Apollos? And they felt like they were right. And I couldn't get them to accept or admit that there was any other false religion in the world.
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It was just I couldn't do it. So I started it. I was trying to take them to scripture. And the one guy said, look, we don't discuss verses because everyone has their own version and everyone thinks are different things.
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My question is, have you written in that, you know, Mormons pretty well? Have you written or do you know of a book, a step by step, simple, you know,
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ABC type book on how to talk to Mormons specifically,
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I suppose, missionaries? Yeah. Well, would you say that's even a waste of time? No, no, it's not. No, it's not a waste of time.
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The book's called Letters to a Mormon Elder. And and we still have it available through the ministry. And it's available online as well.
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And it starts off with exactly what you're talking about, the Mormon testimony and and how to get them to step on to objective ground, if at all possible.
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But it is interesting. You know, I wrote that book in 1990. And here we are almost a decade and a half later now, 14 years specifically,
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I wrote over the summer of 90. So that while I had encountered some missionaries like that at that time, the vast majority had not yet become that utterly subjective and wishy washy as far as their thinking is concerned.
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And hence, you could you could quote some materials to them, even from their own prophets and apostles.
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Certainly, obviously, Mormonism up until the last couple of generations did not believe like they believed.
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They did believe there was such thing as false religion. Pretty much everybody else was in it. And you could you could get them.
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You could still talk to missionaries who really, really believed what they believed was true and that what
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I believed was demonstrably not true. And it's a whole lot easier to deal with someone in that situation than it is to deal with someone like who you were talking about.
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But you the only way you really could go with someone who who would actually go to the point of saying we will not discuss verses, even when you could say, well, you know,
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I'll use your translation if you'd like to, you know, so on and so forth. A couple of things you could do.
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A, you could say, so are you saying that no one can really know what the Bible says? If that's the case, then why did
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Brigham Young say receive the truth no matter who presents it to you? Take up the Bible and compare it with the religion of Latter -day
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Saints and see if it will stand the test. Drill Discourses, Volume 16, page 46. Why would he invite us to take up the
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Bible and compare with what you're saying if I can't look at the Bible and know what it actually is saying so that I can compare it with what you're saying?
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You you seem to have a different view than Brigham Young did would be one one direction to go.
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But the fact of the matter is the the Mormon scriptures just don't simply present that kind of worldview.
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I mean, in the Doctrine and Covenants, you have a section about refuting those who who disagree with Mormonism and God would make their shame manifest.
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And you can't do that without engaging them in some form of dialogue and discussion.
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And so that's really much more a modern problem that that you face in dealing with with LDS people today.
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And to be honest with you, I think it's also one of the reasons why the numbers on Mormonism are going down and not in the sense of, you know,
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Mormonism isn't shrinking. But the the massive growth numbers aren't there anymore.
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Instead, what you have is what would be called natural growth. You have the children of Mormons being baptized in the
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Mormon church. But you don't see this this huge growth that you had during the late 80s and into the into the middle and late 90s.
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That has really changed. And I think that part of it really does have to do with, you know, something that I think some politicians need to learn.
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And that is when you when you start trying to go just for the middle of the road, when you when you start going for only the undecideds, you don't excite your base anymore.
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And that's what's going on in Mormonism as well. You don't have, you know, when you're when you're basically saying, well, your religion is good for you, my religion is good for me.
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That doesn't really excite anybody. I mean, that's just that's not an overly attractive way of presenting things.
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And so I think that may be related to what's what's going on there. I think it's there's a multiple number of reasons, obviously, as to what's going on as far as growth goes,
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Mormonism. But, yeah, it's it is important, I think, to try to reason with such a person and bring them to a point where they are forced to deal with the fact that God has revealed his truth.
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And Mormons have always had a subjective foundation for dealing with truth, but it's become much more pronounced over the past number of years.
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And and we're encountering more and more. It's but it would be pretty rare to run into missionaries who wouldn't even look at a passage of the
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Bible. The old saying used to be, well, we don't Bible bash. That's the terminology that they that they use.
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We don't Bible bash. But the very idea of even looking at text of scripture as if it was just a complete waste of time, that that really is more of a of a modern type of situation.
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And really, at that point, you're you're you have to approach them as you would pretty much almost any pagan who has been convinced that God has not spoken with clarity in in the word of God.
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And so, you know, with a Mormon, one really profitable direction is to go, well, you believe in the
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Holy Spirit, right? Well, of course. Do you believe that the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth? And he describes the spirit of truth in the
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Gospel of John. Well, yes, he describes the spirit of truth. So the Holy Spirit will not testify of that, which is untrue.
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Well, yeah. OK, so now we now we can define truth. Can we not? Is there is the will the
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Holy Spirit testify to you that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but testify to me that Joseph Smith was not a prophet?
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Well, no, I guess I guess he couldn't do that because Joseph, whether Joseph Smith was or was not a prophet, is a is a fact that exists.
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It's a true or false statement. And it was true or false for you and I were born. And so what
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I feel about or you feel about doesn't change whether it's true or false. Right. And then, you know, move on from there.
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So there are different directions that you can go and try to get into a gospel presentation with that point.
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But it does require establishing that we can know what the truth is. I think I'll download this for an
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APEG and just play it off my iPod. I'm going to come up. Hey, we want to listen to something.
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And can I ask you a quick question on the sovereignty of God and love? Sure. What is listening to our friend
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Hank Hanegraaff? I've heard him. I'm confused over here. He he if I understand correctly,
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I've heard him multiple times talking about that. God doesn't. Love that is force is not love.
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And God doesn't want to take people kicking and screaming into heaven. So that vein. Well, I've never in that I just don't understand his thinking because I've never known a true believer who is kicking and screaming, saying,
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I can't believe God made me a Christian. I don't want to be number one. And what is the offense to the folks in the other camp about the idea that God would give someone faith and love without them?
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Particularly if he's true, without them wanting it when after they receive it, they love it and they want it.
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I don't I mean, what is driving that? Well, the answer to the to the second question, what is driving that is a philosophical commitment to libertarian free will.
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It is a term that in years past Hank did not use, but it is a term that now is is determinative of his of his philosophy and hence of his theology, which is built upon that philosophy and libertarian free will requires certain elements to exist.
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It is ironic. I mentioned, I think last week I played a cut from the
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Bible answer, man, where the accusation of ISIS and John six is being made, so on and so forth.
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And in the process, I don't know if I remember to mention that that was toward the beginning of the show.
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You've got libertarian freedom. So then toward the end of the show, a guy calls in and he was going through a tragedy in his life.
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And it was ironic that that Hank defaulted back to his own upbringing within the reformed camp in answering and talking about God's purpose and and no meaningless suffering.
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I'm sorry, those two positions don't happen to go together. You can't fit them together. They one comes from a completely different perspective than the other.
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But very frequently, our prayers and especially how we respond to tragedy are significantly better than our state of theology.
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And that's that's the case in that situation as well. So what drives it and what is is offensive to the libertarian is the is their commitment to that that centrality of free will.
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If I am dependent upon God making me alive. If I am dependent upon God for resurrection to spiritual life, then
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I, as an individual, cannot hold to libertarianism.
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And so it's offensive to me when I hear someone saying that. And so you have the misrepresentations. Those are caricatures.
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When you talk about someone being dragged, kicking and screaming into heaven, that that is that is a complete caricature of of the reformed position.
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And yet those kinds of caricatures are very common and you'll hear them repeated very often.
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I mean, all you got to do is I can start down the list here with Adrian Rogers and Johnny Hunt and pretty much a number of the major leaders in the
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Southern Baptist Convention, for example, use that very same terminology all the time. And it sounds good and it illustrates your libertarianism, but it doesn't actually represent what reformed people believe, because none of us believe that anyone is dragged, kicking and screaming into heaven.
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What we do believe is in something called spiritual resurrection. And it's it's so odd for me to listen.
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And just when I say odd, it's just I wish I could could try to get through this kind of thinking.
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But all the time when people call in, they're talking about witnessing situations and trying to be faithful and trying to, you know, hang on and keep sharing with someone.
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Hank will talk about, well, you know, it's God that changes the heart. Well, wait a minute. How why isn't that offensive?
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Why isn't that the very same thing as kicking and screaming into heaven and everything else? If God has to change the heart, the very center of man, then doesn't that tell us something about man's need beforehand that he doesn't have this this libertarian freedom?
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And and and if does God change everyone's heart? Does God only change certain person's hearts when
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God changes the heart? Will that sometimes fail and sometimes succeed? That was what we were trying to get into the very last hour of the debate that we had on the
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Bible answer, man. And we didn't, unfortunately, get very far because a ran out of time and be
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George Bryson was taking a very different position than Hank was on it, because I was trying to point this out.
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I was trying to point out Hank's own usage of that that phrase. God has to change the heart. And and George goes, well, well, of course he does.
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And I said, so everyone whose heart is changed is going to come to Christ. Well, no, no, no. And that's where they ended up splitting company.
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But that didn't really come out very clearly. I could tell in the studio that was the case. But I was trying to bring that out.
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But we we sort of ran out of time and it went off in another another direction anyway. So did
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I answer both your questions? Yeah, you did. It's just frustrating. It's I I don't know, just seem to have even an anger.
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That's maybe a little strong, say, anger. No, no. Believe me, I've been I've been on the receiving end of it. It's anger.
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Yeah, I was very frustrated with that debate. I was hoping when you hung up that you stood them both down and rebuked them.
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Oh, well, what did I couldn't believe you guys did this? No, I didn't.
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They it was very obvious, as I mentioned in the in the discussion of it afterwards.
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It was how do I how do I put it? It was a sad experience for me.
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And I had seen how those experiences, how those encounters went at least a dozen times before I had done the
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Bible answer, man. And I had never seen anyone treated in that same fashion. And so it had been fairly intense during the breaks.
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And it was very obvious to me that, you know, there was a particular perspective that was going to be promoted. It didn't work, but it was very obvious to me.
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And, you know, what can I do in that type of situation? I'm not going to make a fool of myself. I'm just going to try to stick to the issues.
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And that's exactly what happened when the caller started calling in. The truth came out. I mean, you know, you had a caller call in and ask about John six.
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And one side was able to go directly to the text and let the text speak for itself. And the other side,
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I mean, just, you know, went off on on on a tangent someplace and and left everybody going, hey, wow, one side keeps touching the
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Bible and one side doesn't. And we're actually going to be making that debate available.
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We'll be purchasing them from CRI and then making them available to folks who'd like to have them.
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So anyway, don't just tell people not to listen to it before they go to sleep. Just get them all agitated.
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Yeah, brother. All right. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. All right. Thanks a lot, Eric. Bye bye. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number.
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And if you would like to talk about more theological issues, then you can give that number a call.
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If you don't call during the upcoming break, that means that is that is the the audience's way of saying to me that you want to hear more about my
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Star Trek recollections in a British accent. Oh, what's that ailment?
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We're going off the air. Power failure. I didn't say power failure. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one.
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We're going to take a break and we'll be back right after this. To be blessed, try to save your soul from death.
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It's all works right at the heart of the controversy between Roman Catholic and Reformation theology is the nature of justification itself.
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It is a debate not merely about how or when or by what means a person is justified, but about the very meaning of justification and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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What's a debate reserved for Roman Catholics and the reformers? The doctrine of justification is now being challenged from within the walls of reformed evangelicalism itself.
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Join Alpha and Omega Ministries as we embark on our first national conference and confront this very issue.
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Justification, the heart of the gospel. With pastor and co -author of Holy Scripture, our pillar and foundation of truth,
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David King, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Founders Conference, Tom Askel, New Testament Research Ministries founder and author of Evangelical Answers, Eric Svensson, the founder of the
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Spurgeon Archives and president of Grace to You, Philip Johnson, nationally renowned reformed
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Christian artist Steve Camp and the founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries and author, Dr. James White.
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Join us at the Los Angeles, California LAX Sheraton Ballroom on November 6th, 2004, beginning at 845 a .m.
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Seating is limited, so order your tickets now at AOMIN .org. That's www .AOMIN .org.
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Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the word of God, James White, in his book,
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The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
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Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .AOMIN
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.org. Convictions once held and died for among Bible -believing Protestants are now being reconsidered with the advent of the recent
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Auburn Avenue Movement. Is there currently a common basis for dialogue between Roman Catholics and Protestants?
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Were the signers of ECT correct in their ecumenical efforts and all of the reformed scholars who opposed them in error?
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Does Trinitarian Baptism make one a member of the New Covenant? Are Roman Catholics our brothers and sisters in Christ?
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Join us in Los Angeles, California on November 5th, 2004, for a full three hours of moderated debate between Dr.
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James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Douglas Wilson of the Auburn Avenue Movement and New St.
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Andrews College, as these topics are debated between two of the most respected representatives of the opposing viewpoints.
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Additional information and tickets can be ordered at AOMIN .org. That's www .AOMIN .org.
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And welcome back to the Dividing Line. My name is James White and we're taking your phone calls.
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We had a number of suggestions during the break for topics in the second half, including one fellow in Louisiana who had a, how about a
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John Teshien version of John Denver's Lost Tapes written by Manilow, sung by you as you imitate
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Captain Kirk in Britain. And as I thought about what it would be like to try to do that,
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I realized that it was far, far beyond my abilities. And so I'm sorry, but that is a request
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I would be able to fulfill. And I would sort of like to hear a tape of someone fulfilling that request.
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It would be rather odd. Let's go ahead and talk with Frank in San Jose.
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Hi, Frank. Hi, Dr. White. How are you? Good. How are you doing? And I just want to make sure everybody knows you are not the
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Frank who called last week. No, this is actually my first time listening to your program live. I listened to a number of your programs on the archive, but first time calling in.
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But it's much worse live, isn't it? No. See, Frank, last week was a bookstore owner.
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And so I just don't want anybody getting mad at you, you know, like you're a bookstore owner and being upset that you're selling
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T .D. Jakes or something. I work at a bookstore that sells T .D. Jakes, so I try to hide those books behind a good one.
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That's sort of hard to do when you have to put on the end caps or on the top 10 bestseller thing.
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And it's terrible. But anyway, what can we do for you, Frank? Hi, so I was in one of your debates.
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I listen to debates all the time on the Internet, and I was in a debate you did a number of years ago on justification with Mitch Pacwa.
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And I think you got a chance to answer one of the things he said about Matthew 18, about the parable of the forgiven death, where he said, you know, where one of the servants is forgiven by his master and he doesn't forgive someone.
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So the master, like, throws him in jail. And so Mitch Pacwa was trying to show that your justification basically depends upon upon your actions.
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How would you how would you answer in referring to that parable? Well, obviously, in dealing with any parable, the issue is the context of what is being communicated.
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And Jesus is not communicating there anything about the nature of justification.
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And with all these parables, it's sort of like the you know, in Matthew 25, did you the ones who enter into his glory and into his presence are the ones who visited the sick and and did all these things.
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And so we mean that by doing those things, we obtain our justification or the whole thing goes back to the same same thing
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I've mentioned many times before. And that is when we look at passages like this, are we talking about something that is prescriptive, like you write a prescription for someone as to what to go do?
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It's a prescription as to how one becomes right with God by doing X, Y or Z. And then you have the descriptive understanding.
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And that is this is a description of someone who is right with God. This is this is what a person who is right with God does.
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This is how they behave. This is how they act. And so when Jesus is talking about forgiveness and the great forgiveness that the king gives to the individual, well, what's what's the result in the individual?
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Does he does he show any evidence of of true thankfulness? Does he show any evidence of even understanding the extent of the forgiveness has been extended to him?
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No. And so Jesus's conclusion for that from that is not to mention justification.
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It's not to mention, therefore, you can be in the New Covenant and come under the curses of the New Covenant or anything like that.
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His his conclusion to to the issue is, if you don't forgive others, you yourself, you're not to be forgiven.
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So is that a prescription? Is that how if I just go around being a Gandhi forgiving everybody? Is that how
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I is that how I'm going to gain forgiveness? Is that what Paul taught? Is that what James taught? Is that what John taught? Is that what the people who knew
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Jesus taught? No, it's not. But if I have been forgiven, then we go to Colossians.
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And what does Paul tell me? Well, I'm to I'm to forgive my brother in light of the recognition that I myself have been forgiven.
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My understanding of my being forgiven then becomes the ground and source of my forgiving. And that's one of the biggest problems, just on a very basic, leaving the theological realm for a moment, the uber theological realm, the high level theological realm and entering into where theology interfaces with life.
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It's very difficult for people, especially in personal relationships within the church, within marriage, within families, to forgive when they themselves are not forgiven, when they themselves do not understand what it means to truly be forgiven.
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And I saw that as a as a hospital chaplain over and over and over again, especially with people who were grieving, who could not forgive because they had no knowledge of the gospel or anything like that.
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And it was a terrible thing to observe. And so that's how if you can't really get into that in a debate.
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But if I had the time to respond to it, I would have just discussed the prescriptive descriptive issue that comes up when you're dealing with any passage in the gospels, any parables, anything like that.
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And would have said, well, here again, we have the difference between a man centered religion, a God centered religion, a religion that says, if you do these things, you will live, which is what the law said.
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And then the faith of Jesus Christ, where he did those things and he did those things perfectly and he gave his life for his people and all honor and glory goes to him and not any part of it to me.
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So that's what I would have tried to have have gotten to. But very, very rarely do you get an opportunity of doing all of that in the course of a debate.
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All right, well, thanks for answering my question, Dr. Roy. OK, one more question. Sure. When's the when's the latest we can we can buy the tickets online for the debate in Los Angeles?
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Oh, I don't know. Maybe Mr. Mr. Person on the other side of the wall, if he's listening, will will let me know.
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I haven't a clue what the last weekend is that we can buy tickets online. I'm waiting for the silence to be broken by the voice of of someone.
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And OK, I see October 31st, I believe. All right. I just saw that in the channel.
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So that must be it. Thanks a lot. We're looking forward to seeing you down there. We have a group of about 15 of us coming from from Biola.
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We'll be there watching you. Excellent. So then I got a seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four.
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I've got two questions here and I don't know how to answer the one on one of them. I don't understand. The other one's going to take the rest of the show.
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So let's go ahead and and try to answer Johnny's question here.
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Hi, Johnny. How are you? I was fine until I read your question. Well, I used to like you,
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Johnny. Well, OK, the question that I have. I'm sending all the
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Mormons I know to your house, Johnny. All right. I'm putting your address in those. Please visit me. I want to join the church things.
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I'm sending in dozens of them. All right. Make sure you get the name spelled. OK, Zorro. OK. Yeah, that'll be is
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Zorro here. He wants to become a Mormon. And you could just put Don Diego de la
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Vega. There you go. OK, whatever. OK, here's the thing. My question has an eschatological background, but it's not an eschatological question.
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I got to be careful with that. Yeah, yeah, you do. OK, but could I explain a little bit? It's probably not going to do any good for me, but go ahead.
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All right. OK, in in full preterism, the idea that all prophecy has been fulfilled.
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OK, they have asserted that the atonement of Christ, following the old covenant typology.
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Was not finished until Christ, or well, let me put it this way. The John Noe, of course, in this book,
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Beyond the End Times, says that Christ's atonement was not finished until he came back in 70
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AD, of course, according to them. And this fits the typology, because they say that under the old covenant, they say that the the atonement was not finished until the priest had come out of the temple to signal that the sacrifice had been accepted.
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Now, after I've not, I had not studied the doctrine of the atonement as thoroughly as as you have.
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And I didn't know as much about it when I first read that in Noe as I do now. And I decided to look at to some resources, ask some theologians about this.
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And I consulted the exposition on the book of Hebrews by Arthur Pink and on one of the pages.
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And I mentioned this to you in channel, but you haven't really read Pink. But the point is that he mentions in one page that the atonement was not completed until the priest went into the
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Holy of Holies to sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat and so forth. And that that's when the atonement was completed.
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And then, of course, the priest came out to signal that the sacrifice has been accepted. However, in the in the same book, about 30 pages later, he
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I guess he gives me the implication that the atonement was finished outside on the altar. And basically what
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I want to know, because I do believe that the full preterists are completely wrong in saying that the atonement wasn't finished under the old covenant, let's not talk about the new for a second.
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Under the old covenant, it was not finished until the priest came out. What I want to know is when when was God's wrath appeased?
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When when was it OK? The sacrifice has been accepted. Now we just got to let the people know.
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I mean, was it on the altar outside or was it in the Holy of Holies when he sprinkled the blood? Well, the
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Bible doesn't say that's that's the problem with the question is you're asking a temporal question that begs a number of different a number of different questions.
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And I think that's what's coming out in in what Pink said. And that is a the the atoning sacrifice itself obviously is completed upon the cross of Calvary in regards to Christ.
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But the act of atonement included in the
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Old Testament law, the work of the high priest in presenting the blood in the
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Holy of Holies upon the altar. And so I think if I recall correctly, you said that at one point he was talking about the the the priest bringing the blood in and sprinkling it upon the altar.
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That's where the covering takes place, because that's where the blood covered the mercy seat. And that's what you have.
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Actually, what I said was that he sacrifices it on the altar, if I understand it correctly, and that when he went into the Holy of Holies, he sprinkles it on the mercy seat and so forth.
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Right. And that's where the the term Kaffir comes from. Yom Kippur, the day of covering or atonement.
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And so you have the sacrifice and you have the presentation in the Holy of Holies. And the the asking of the when question doesn't really leave room for the fact that the high priest was under the the necessity of presenting that finished sacrifice there upon the altar.
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Under the old covenant, it was yearly and under the new covenant, it is once for all a finished and completed thing.
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And so you have to to allow the biblical text to define for itself.
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The atoning sacrifice is one time. There is only one giving of life.
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There is only one cross. It is the the focal point of history. And then we have this work of Christ as our intercessor, as our as our mediator.
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And it's not a a different work as if you could have the one without the other.
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You could not have intermediate. You could not have mediation. You could not have an intercession without the the cross.
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And you could not have the cross without then the mediation and the intercession.
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It's not two separate works that you can differentiate from one another and pull them apart and say, this is this over here.
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This is there. You can you can recognize their their differences in the sense of of, you know, the writer of Hebrews says we have one who appears in the presence of the father in our place and that we can then experience that in our lives.
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But you can't cut them apart and say this over here does this and this over here does that as the perfect high priest and sacrifice.
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Then there are certain things that Christ of necessity as the perfect high priest is going to do.
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And one of the things he is of necessity going to do is he's going to present himself as the lamb standing as if slain.
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And that's where the that's unfortunately where I think that I would suggest to you this is where the real weakness in that hyper preteristic argument is, is it does not see it sort of follows along some common errors of not seeing the betterness of the
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New Covenant. That's we've got a better mediator, better promises, better guarantee, so on and so forth, because in the
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New Covenant, Christ fulfills and expands what's seen in the old in the sense that you have him as both the sacrifice and the high priest and you have this concept of of he who died living forevermore.
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And so the old covenant types are just insufficient to to picture the fullness of what you have in Christ and that's where they're missing the boat is is they're attempting to take just the types the shadows and force the greater reality of the
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New Covenant into that that's that shadow box rather than seeing that the shadows are pointing to a much greater reality and that greater reality can transcend that.
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And the same thing is true in regards to you know some might say well you know it sounds like you have two different works here or you've got two different things going on here but the absolute certitude that the perfect high priest who is the
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God man would his sacrifice to be accepted and that he would forever live to make intercession for those that are given to him those here if we've lost everybody everybody who isn't really concerned about this stuff is has wandered off someplace tune in here for just a moment because I think this is an important point when you realize who we're talking about in Christ as our perfect high priest and you remember the incarnation and the deity of Christ and who we're talking about here here's how all of theology ties together here's why you can't just you know jettison the deity of Christ here's why you can't be a oneness person and have the sun as a created being in Bethlehem and it's actually the father in the sun this whole atonement thing doesn't work for oneness folks remember last week everybody
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Phillips Craig and Dean oneness theology does it really matter folks try to figure out what
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Johnny and I are talking about about the sun as a divine person as the perfect sacrifice standing as a slain the presence of the father if you don't believe that the second person in Trinity has eternally been
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God it doesn't work it makes no sense it's it's it's totally torn apart at this point that's where that's why some of us you know end up having people getting really mad at us because we push issues like the doctrine of Trinity you can't understand what
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Hebrews is saying you can't understand about Christ standing before the father as the lamb that is slain see it in Revelations in Hebrews and the intercessory work if you don't see that the
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Sun is an eternal person it doesn't work so it all comes together so it sounds to me like you're a your hyper predators folks are missing the boat because they're trying to force the
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New Covenant into Old Covenant parameters that are not big enough to hold all of it and secondly the issue of of when well you can understand it
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Abraham was called the friend of God long before the actual act took place in time that would give
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God the grounds of righteousness by which to do that and yet because of its certainty in the future
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Romans 3 tells us God overlooked those those times of sin in light of the fact that the demonstration of his righteousness in Christ was absolutely certain and so the the whole issue is a matter of perspective are you are you asking you know when is wrath appeased temporally in regards to whom in regards to Israel the
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Israel of God no the just the nation of Israel I believe I mean see but again see
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I wouldn't even go there because as I've said they've they've completely missed the boat in trying to force the
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New Covenant reality into smaller Old Covenant categories so I don't know how to answer that the high priest was supposed to do what the high priest was supposed to do the covering of the mercy seat was central to the propitiation of wrath and so I would not believe that it would be when the high priest would come out even if you're going to argue those things
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I think it would be in the offering of the blood on the on the altar but again irrelevant to the
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New Covenant reality completely irrelevant wrong categories wrong argument these folks the hyper preterists couldn't couldn't put an argument in the proper in the proper context their life depended on okay well if I can add one thing on one thing
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I've noticed is that and I believe I mentioned this to you online is that a theologian
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Bob Moore for example says that one of the things that the priest could not do was intercede for the people unless his work was finished of atonement and one of the things
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I see in in the full preterist arena is the idea that Christ is interceding in the in in the inter advental period when his atonement isn't finished and I think it creates a serious problem for them in that area
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I I don't I don't doubt it but you know the the problem is once you start with all of the false assumptions and and the the the whole hyper preteristic system there's there's no end to the arguments once once you start there
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I just the Hebrews and Romans wasn't meant to be read in that light that's like that's like granting some of the starting assumptions of Mormonism and trying to read the
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Bible doesn't work it's there's no end to it and if you're trying to find a way you know the magic bullet for for a hyper preterist it's magical for hyper preterist is the
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Holy Spirit of God convicting them of of their errors that I have come to a conclusion after after many years of fighting it that there are simply some arguments that you can't defeat because they start on the wrong basis they're going the wrong direction they're moving farther and farther away from truth and there's nothing you can do about it there's nothing you there you can't there you you cannot come up with a with a silver bullet for every argument that someone's going to present because they start on the wrong premises you start the wrong place hey then you're just gonna wander off from there there's there's nothing you can do about it if you if you're constantly looking for the silver bullet argument it's not out there and and you'll become very frustrated looking for it well
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I was and I'll keep that in mind I was speaking to an ordained minister not too long ago and he told me a different thing but it seems that you would not want to use this kind of language in regards to the old covenant where um where he was basically stating that in he sees the old covenant as being uh begun at the altar and then finished in the holy of holies but I guess you you feel that the uh
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I guess it may be off on that because of the trying to split it up or well I still see it's relevant to to anything about us today it's it's it's it's saying well if this is how it was in the old covenant this is the way it is for Christ I disagree uh
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Christ how where in the old covenant do you have a high priest who is the victim where do you have a resurrected victim where do you have a lamb standing as a slain it's not there it can't be there because that's part of the uniqueness of Christ so by trying to take those old covenant uh paradigms and force the entirety of the new covenant into it it's like it's like going you know
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Paul says in Romans 5 the gift is not like the that's that's one of the errors that Jehovah's Witnesses make when they've got the picture of Jesus standing on the scales with Adam and they say see it's got to be a corresponding ransom it has to be exact one -to -one correspondence no it does not the gift that comes through Christ is greater than what was lost in Adam and so to try to take the the the shadows and the and the the pictures this the earthly tabernacle and say the heavenly tabernacle can't be any different than this it can't be any greater it can't be more glorious you you end up destroying the old the whole thing and the writer of Hebrews doesn't do that he only brings certain elements of that tabernacle into play he doesn't say it's an absolute everything we've got here on on earth encompasses the entirety actually he says just the opposite these are just shadows these are just pictures they're taking the pictures and shadows and saying this is a one -to -one correspondence and it doesn't work that's just all there is to it so it's it's irrelevant to AD 70 it's irrelevant to the sacrifice of Christ it's just simply irrelevant the
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New Testament writers had no concept of it and these folks are just off doing their own thing and and drawing away followers after them and Paul warned us about him a long time ago and you just uh you know eventually you just get really really tired of dealing with folks like that all right all right thank you very much okay thanks for coming all right god bless bye -bye uh real quickly let's run off to uh
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Steve in New Jersey real quick hi Steve hi Dr. White how are you doing all right good you mentioned before about um the response to reform position being one of anger it can be yeah i i've i've experienced some of that um usually i find my way of thinking there are two things one is a lack of understanding of what reform theology is and and also how much of that do you think is really the the the result of post -modern man and the way post -modern man tends to argue these days we're in a soundbite type of environment look at the political campaign how nasty they've gotten well and how surface level they've gotten there's there's not a whole lot of thought going on in in most that stuff but i i think what what you hear the the post -modernism you hear in that particular debate is when is when people say no look you know you're you're you're basically saying i have to be a theologian or i have to know greek and hebrew uh once you get past just you know one or two definitions one or two facts about the language or something else all of a sudden you get these screams about well you're saying i have to be a theologian you're saying i have to know hebrew you're saying i have to be a seminary trained person so on and so forth um and that's simply not the case that's not what we're saying but they their experience within evangelicalism is such that basically in most churches what you get is a uh in essence a a warmed over version of the four spiritual laws with nice stories and music each sunday and people find encountering anything beyond that to be somewhat strange and unusual and hence easy to dismiss and so i encounter that all the time people saying oh well you know you can't really you can't really believe that because it's it's not simple enough for a child well my children got it uh my children got it but you know we we had to train them and we had to have catechism books and we had to talk about things and explain stuff and we had to deal with the doctrine of the trinity too and for some odd reason they don't seem to connection there hello yeah yeah okay um look i i've i've encountered people that even excuse me of not even having new testament theology that's not new testament it's not yep oh yeah i know i know i know sir well anyhow you had a question about star trek as well well actually i was calling to to uh to to avoid any more stuff oh oh okay i see i see well you know that caller uh took care of it yeah it took care of it very very good i was a little late in getting the call took care of it big time and i have to almost wonder if aomin wasn't involved in that in some way because i could tell uh that he really was down on the uh on the star trek theme uh at the beginning of the program today i could tell that was uh just not his thing the problem is he grew up in a city that didn't really have like television and so he probably didn't see it and things like that so so anyways hey thanks for uh calling steve i hope i get out of my office in one piece today all right talk to you later god bless you take care all right bye bye all right thursday evening four o 'clock my time that's seven o 'clock for those of you on the east coast and eventually here in a couple months that'll all change again and you all get all confused and it'll still be four o 'clock for me but for now anyways seven o 'clock uh seven p .m
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eastern daylight time the dividing line and taking your phone calls and probably not talking about star trek at all i bet you will not mention it once on thursday evening but we did today and hey that's okay we'll talk to you then god bless bye bye been brought to you by alpha and omega ministries if you'd like to contact us call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at p .o
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box 37106 phoenix arizona 85069 you can also find us on the world wide web at aomin .org
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that's a o m i n dot o r g where you'll find a complete listing of james white's books tapes debates and tracks join us again this thursday afternoon at 4 p .m