Marty Duren and Big Eva, Vaccine Passports, and then Open Phones

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Started off with a reminder that we are fast approaching (later this week) the 500th anniversary of Luther's appearance at the Diet of Worms, and discussed the significance of that. Then we covered a few topics like Marty Duren's hit-piece on Faultlines by Voddie Baucham and the coming vaccine passports (in light of the volcanic eruption down in the Caribbean), then took phone calls on the Golden Chain in Romans 8, the Old Testament and the Trinity, being faithful in the military under a godless regime, the Roman Catholic concept of limbo, textual criticism in the Old Testament, and finally a nice easy question on the origin of evil. Visit the store at https://doctrineandlife.co/

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00:36
Greetings. Welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. We're going to be taking phone calls today. We haven't done that for a very, very long time.
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In fact, to be honest with you, we're somewhat hesitant on affirming that it will actually work.
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Much has changed around here since last time we had open phones, but we're going to give it a shot.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. I've got a couple of short things to get to first, but if you would like to join us, you can do so at 877 -753 -3341, if anyone remembers how to do that.
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I mean, most of us just don't make a lot of phone calls these days, but there's a phone function on your phone, which is more of a computer than a phone, but you get the idea.
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877 -753 -3341. And of course, apologetics questions primarily, please.
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Sometimes folks call with some really interesting questions that really don't have much to do with the subject of the program, but that's perfectly okay.
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You know, I was sitting here and something reminded me, it just seems like it was yesterday that we were in Germany for the 500th anniversary of the
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Reformation. And one of the things that I mentioned at that time was the fact that we should keep an eye on over the next few years, the developments in the
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Reformation. I was going to talk about some of the important meetings that Luther went to and things like that.
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We didn't. We got involved with other things and it just, you know, went by the wayside.
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And so I was reminded by something that's going on now that the 16th, the 18th of April is the 500th anniversary of the
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Diet of Worms. And the Diet of Worms should be a very important historical item that homeschool kids know about because it's so much fun to say diet of worms.
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But the real smart ones will go, well, it's not because you're eating worms.
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A diet would be our version of a Congress, a congressional meeting, something along those lines.
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It was the various electors of the Holy Roman Empire that would meet together with the emperor and would conduct state business, basically.
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And so the Diet of Worms met in 1521 in Worms, Germany, hence the name.
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There was a second Diet of Worms later on. And of course, Luther was summoned to appear before the emperor.
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He was given a promise of safe conduct. Of course, so had
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Jan Hus been given a promise of safe conduct only about a hundred years earlier. And of course, he even burned the
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Council of Constance. So it was a major event in Luther's life.
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This was just coming up in a few days, hence will be the 500th anniversary of Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders.
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Gott helfe mir. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. And then the kidnapping of Luther and the flight to the
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Wartburg Castle. And then over the next number of months will be the period of time during which
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Luther is translating the New Testament into German.
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That's very, very important. The radical, the Zwickau prophets will come into Wittenberg, and that will have huge ramifications.
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And so I should be better at keeping up with these things, and I apologize that I haven't, because we're going, we're going to be going through 500th anniversary things well for the rest of my life, really.
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I mean, I won't, I won't make it to the 500th anniversary of the final
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Latin release of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, for example.
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But hopefully I'll make it, all depends, to some of the early events in Calvin's life, as far as his conversion and things like that.
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Hopefully make it to Zwingli and things like that. That's going to be coming up, that's coming up right now.
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I mean, we could start doing things like that. So just keep in mind that 500, you know, we sort of, sort of figured, we got the 500th out of the way back in 2017, that's pretty much it.
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But that was just the beginning, and that was an arbitrarily chosen date too. So keep that in mind, homeschool moms and dads, this might be a cool thing to do with the kids, to be looking forward to the next big thing in Luther's life, and Zwingli, and Calvin, and events like that.
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Might be really helpful in learning about church history and things like that. I think that's very, very, very important.
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It is interesting that this morning, my daughter sent me a screenshot where she had been blocked by a fellow by the name of Marty Duren.
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And it was, it was ironic because I don't believe I had, I don't remember ever having had any correspondence with social media, contact with whatever,
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Marty Duren before. I may have. The name was slightly familiar to me.
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I've sort of seen it around. When I saw links to a, he titles it a review, it's a hit piece that he wrote on Fault Lines by Votie Balcom.
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And I did a short Twitter series on how
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Big Eva is going to respond to Votie Balcom. Pretty much same way they respond to Daryl and Virgil.
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Oh, and by the way, by the way, tomorrow they have, Daryl and Virgil have Just Thinking podcast.
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It's going to drop tomorrow and Wednesday. And the major topic was one that I had specifically contacted them about and said, you know,
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I'm going to, I'm going to take the arrows and slings and address this on the dividing line, but it would be really good if you guys did as well.
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And that was the Leaving Loud hashtag with Jamar Tisby and Ali Henny and people like the people from The Witness, formerly
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Ron. But they also have a big announcement that I can't tell you about.
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I mean, that would be terrible of me to tell you something before they tell you something.
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They'd never talk to me again. So they got a big announcement tomorrow. So make sure to grab, you know, it's so, anachronistic to say, tune into.
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Nobody, you have to be, I was literally having lunch a few moments ago and on Fox News, a advertisement came up, basically for old people's phones, you know, the less complicated stuff.
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And it was talking about, you don't have to have been born recently. And they're, they're giving dates of these people, all of whom were five years younger than me.
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And I, it was, it was just like, just, okay, go ahead and shoot me, get it over. I mean, but if you're as old as I am and older, then you know what tuning in meant.
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And there was actually a time when you had to tune, especially the UHF channels.
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You'd literally sit there and you'd get a little clear, a little, Oh, back to that direction.
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Oh, you're that, or you're holding the, the, the antenna. And that's good.
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That's good. Don't let the dog move or, or, or you'd get it just right. And as soon as you took your hand off, it would look terrible again.
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So everybody's like, well, stand there. So yeah. So tune in, download, listen to whatever the
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Just Thinking podcast tomorrow, and you'll get all the news and, and, and stuff like that.
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So anyway, this Marty Duren, so, so Summer's good. Do I know this person?
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Why, why have I been blocked? I don't even, I don't even know. And I said, well, yeah, you know, yesterday
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I did a short thread in response to the hit piece he did on Votie Balkan's book.
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And it's, it, whether it's Votie or Daryl and Virgil or any of our
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Black brothers and sisters who stand up and go, this whole critical race narrative is so anti -biblical.
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It's so outside of New Testament Christianity. It fails the Scythian test so badly that I still want anything to do with it.
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I do not want my skin color to be what identifies me in eternity. I want my relationship to Christ to be that.
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I want to have relationships with whoever in the church, whether they're Asian or Hispanic or Caucasian or South American or whatever.
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I mean, even if they're Australian, that, that, that one's tough. I got to admit the Australian one, that, that's, yeah, anyway, but those, those brothers and sisters just get attacked vociferously, that their families,
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I've, I've, I've read the stories, I've talked to the people and, and heard the stories. It's truly amazing of, of what can happen in those situations.
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But you can, you can tell pretty quickly how, what the attitude is going to be. I mean, this Marty Duren piece was just a, from the start was using every kind of cheap debating trick from the start to poison the well, to try to attack this, this work.
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And that's what you're going to get. And this is, and it doesn't, you might expect better in the church, don't expect better, don't, no.
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You just got to realize you have the exact same fault lines, the exact same divisions in the church that you have outside today.
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And just as you cannot trust anything, did you see, did you see Project Veritas, which is why they keep getting sued by everybody.
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See Project Veritas with the CNN producer guy, technical producer. The, the video that just came out where they're, you know, the guy's admitting, oh yeah, you know, we, we made up the whole thing about Trump's health.
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And, you know, you do certain things to try to make Biden look like he's actually still there, but he really isn't.
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And, and they know, they know all this stuff. There's, there's absolutely positively no reason whatsoever to believe anything that, that the mainstream media has, has to say today.
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And that stuff is, is coming out all over the place. It's, it's amazing.
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Just two other real, so the Marty Duren piece, the hit piece, just, just get used to it.
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It, it may frustrate us all, but get used to recognizing this kind of, you know, back, back in the day, it was called politics of personal destruction.
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Now it's, now it's just simply whatever it takes to press the narrative. That's, that's what you, what you've got to do.
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Michael Brown has an article in the stream, bad news and Supreme Court's ruling on religious liberty, that I think you need to read.
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And it's, it touches on a lot of the same concerns I have. We, we are so desperate for, for positive news in this situation.
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So desperate to, to hope that what seems to be a freight train heading straight for us in the form of judgment from God on Western society for its open, knowing, acknowledged rebellion against Christ.
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Cause that's what it is. Hear me out here for just a second. I'm trying to be brief so we can get to the phone calls, but hear me out.
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When, when I, when I look at what's going on in parliament in London, I've, I've run by parliament many, many, many, many times and literally running, um, may never get to see it again, but I've, I've spent a lot of time in that area of London.
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And I'm so thankful that I did have that chance, whether I ever will do or not again, I had that chance for a number of years.
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When I look at a parliament in, um, in Canada, when I, when I look at, um, what happens in our, in our own government, all around these people are the reminders of the
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Christian foundation upon which their nations were built. Their law, their view that was once held of marriage and man was all based upon the
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Christian understanding of divine revelation. And so when, uh, when a congressman stands in the
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Congress and says the, uh, the there, the will of any God has nothing to do with this
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Congress says, um, there are chiseled in marble, the exact opposite statements within a couple yards of him one way or the other.
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And that's true in, in all of these places. And so we are talking about a willful, knowing, purposeful rejection.
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There can be no neutrality about the claims of Christ. So it's a purposeful rejection of the
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Lordship of Christ in what he's taught in his law, uh, that very justly brings the punishment of, of God.
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And you can be very optimistic about the future and very pessimistic about the immediate future, especially if you know, church history.
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If you know how many times God has brought judgment to bear so that we can look back at and with biblical eyes, see how
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God's truth is verified by how he acts in this world.
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So anyway, looking at the SCOTUS rulings and how close they are, everybody keeps saying it's 6 -3 right now.
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It's not 6 -3, it's 5 -4. Um, and with some questions about some of the five and that's, if, if it was,
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I mean, the, the, the Democrats are seriously thinking about packing the court.
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Um, that's why they're working that direction and they're doing the
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United States what the, what the Democrats did to California. We said this would happen. It's happening.
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It's like, duh. Uh, we see it all around us right now. They're going for one party rule.
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That's, that's, they want to establish that they know they need to do it right now. And so we are so starved for something positive that when something positive, sort of positive comes along, we, we don't realize, wait a minute, it was a 5 -4 ruling on something that was obvious and complete government overreach.
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And it was still only one vote, which means that can, that can change in a heartbeat, in a heartbeat.
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Um, and how, how fast could that change? Well, uh, the cauldron pool is an interesting source of information
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I've been looking to recently. And, um, I follow them on Twitter and they follow me on Twitter.
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Uh, thousands flee volcano, but only the vaccinated allowed to evacuate on cruise ships. So a volcanic eruption on the
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Caribbean island of St. Vincent on Friday has forced thousands of residents to flee their homes. But only those who have had the COVID vaccine will be allowed to evacuate to safety.
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Um, so, uh, Spike Cohen, who was a former vice presidential candidate for the
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Libertarian party put it this way, a volcano exploded yesterday in St. Vincent, a small island in the Caribbean, 16 ,000 people reside in the red zone, and they need to evacuate quickly if they want to survive.
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Authorities are moving to evacuate them, but only those who are vaccinated for COVID. St. Vincent is a poor country, and less than 5 % of the population has been vaccinated, as in most countries, the poorest are the least likely to be vaccinated.
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During the entire pandemic, 10 people there have died of COVID, and the spread has been minimal for months.
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So in order to slow the spread of a virus that has so far killed 10 people, they've essentially sentenced about 15 ,000 poor people to die.
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If you think for a second that vaccine passports won't be used to keep people from fleeing disasters and violence, in addition to preventing them from going to school, look at what they're already doing.
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Well, of course, they're not doing that at our southern border, are they? No. Because it's all politics.
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It has nothing to do with public health, anything like it at all. Anything like it at all.
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If you haven't woken up to realize that yet, you're never going to. You're just,
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I think you should just give your property to the government and ask, show me where you want me to do my slave labor, because you're done.
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You're just already there. So anyway, okay. Why did
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I think there was one other thing, but I guess there wasn't. Okay. All right.
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So when you look through the window and Rich is going, that doesn't mean pause.
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That doesn't mean, give me a second. That means I think we're about to die. Okay. Oh, well, that'll be interesting.
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So let's see here. Who's been on the longest? Actually, all the way down at the bottom. No. Third. According to this, the third one down.
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Okay. All right. So let's talk to Ashley. Hi, Ashley. Hi, James.
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Hi. Wow. This is fun. Well, now's the time for you to ask your question.
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Okay. Here's my question. I have run into a group that takes 1st
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John 3, 4 and says that the Greek behind the word lawless always means the mosaic law.
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Therefore, we should be keeping the mosaic law. Can you please give me your thoughts on that? Okay. Well, notice everyone doing sin also is doing lawlessness, for sin is lawlessness.
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So obviously, the idea that when you say should be doing the mosaic law, what do they mean by the mosaic law?
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This is talking about Jesus appearing to take away sins.
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It's talking about purity, having hope fixed upon him. And while the law reveals to us
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God's unchanging character, his holiness, his uprightness, you still have to recognize that the law contains different kinds of commandments.
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There are specific commands in regards to sacrifices that no one can possibly keep today, and no one does.
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Couldn't be done. Even if someone decided to set up some strange cult in their backyard, they still couldn't do the things that the
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Old Testament law would command in regards to sacrifices and issues like that.
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So the idea is that yes, sin and lawlessness are directly connected to one another.
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And so there is an objective element to sin. There is a revealed will of God that is provided to us in Scripture, and to violate that revealed will of God is sin.
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And there certainly was, at the time of John anyways, these what we would call early
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Gnostics who had all sorts of strange beliefs, but certainly one of the issues that they found extremely problematic was any connection to the
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Old Testament, to Israel. Many of them just rejected all of that as being way too earthly and things like that.
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So notice it's the one doing sin. So this is an ongoing action.
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So this is everyone who—that's why the New American Standard says who practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
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And so this is talking about those people. This is their lifestyle. This is what they do. This is what marks them.
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This is what's different from a true believer and a false believer. A true believer can struggle with sin.
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A true believer can fall into sin. But it's the issue of practicing. It's the issue, is this what marks the person's life?
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Is this what their constant desire is? Is this what they love?
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Rather than does a person fall into sin and then their heart is broken and they repent and they ask for help and they detest their sin and so on and so forth.
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So how do we know what sin is? Well, God has revealed in His Word what sin is.
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And yes, the quote -unquote Mosaic Law, since it represents God's holiness, has all sorts of vitally important guidelines for us as to what sin is.
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And one of the biggest problems I think we're facing today is that since Christians don't believe that, they have very little substantive to say to a society who is embracing the
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LGBTQ plus revolution and hence marginalizing.
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How many Christians have you heard, well, we don't have to worry about Leviticus, what Leviticus says in Leviticus 18 and 20. That's just the
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Mosaic Law. We don't have to worry about that. And others will go so far as to say, well, yeah, and when
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Paul said what he said about these things, he's just following that same law and we've gotten past Paul.
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We don't have to worry about what Paul had to say because the Spirit has revealed new things to us and all the rest of this kind of stuff.
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So we do have an objective revelation from God that tells us what human relationships are appropriate and which ones are not and gives us a foundation and things like that.
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But normally when people say doing the law of Moses, they're talking about holidays and sacrifices and ceremonies, all of which were pointing to Christ and which were either definitional of the people of Israel as a people in a particular place or were types and shadows of Christ that have been done away in his coming and in his sacrifice.
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And so that's always where the challenge is, is people will refuse to recognize where those lines are drawn and that's where the confusion comes from.
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Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Okay. I hope that was helpful. It was. All right. Okay. Thank you.
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All right. Bye -bye. All right. 877 -753 -341.
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And let's talk to Stephen. Hi, Stephen. Hi. Thank you,
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Dr. White. I appreciate you taking my call. I wanted to ask you a quick question about Romans 8, 29 -30.
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Typically, the explanations I've heard from Calvinists and Arminians is they start with the end of the chain with justified and glorified to try to infer who the foreknown and the predestined are.
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But when I was reading probably about a year ago in Romans chapter 11 verses 1 and 2, Paul actually uses that Greek word forenew in reference to specifically
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Israel. And I was wondering if you had ever heard of someone interpreting like the golden chain of redemption starting with Israel.
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This is that same Greek word and Paul only ever uses that twice in the writing. So basically, it would be that Israel is to be foreknew and that God predestined them to be conformed to the image of his son.
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And that the reference to the firstborn among many brothers would be Jesus and then Israel.
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And then those to be predestined, he also called. There's an Old Testament verse that says,
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Israel, I will call you by name, you are mine. And then those to be called, he justified to take away their sin.
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And God did take away Israel's sins through like sacrifices and then the Messiah. And those to be justified, he glorified.
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And in Romans 8 .21, right before this chain, he talks about the glory of being a child of God.
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And there are actually Old Testament references to Israel being God's children. Have you ever heard that golden chain of redemption explained from the perspective of being specifically
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Israel? I'm sure someone's tried it, but it makes such a complete mishmash of the entire book of Romans that I can't imagine someone could pull it off.
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I mean, that turns the entire book of Romans on its head. Romans 9,
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Paul then turns to talk about Israel in 9, 10, 11. He wouldn't be doing that if he'd already been talking about Israel in chapter 8.
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In fact, the whole reason for chapter 9 is, look what God has done in calling the Gentiles and the
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Jews and the Gentiles together. And everything Paul's done up to that point is that Jews and Gentiles together are in one body.
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There isn't a Jewish church and a Gentile church, all the rest of that kind of stuff. He's clearly made justification something that is not something that all of Israel has experienced as yet.
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So someone may have tried because people try to get around it, but it just, it's impossible.
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It turns the book of Romans into chop suey. So when you look at it, you'll notice that what he's saying, he says the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
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He's talking to the Christians at Rome, the vast majority of whom are not Jewish. And so that's not the context whatsoever.
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And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, those who are the called according to his purpose.
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Why would he now change? I'm talking to you Romans, and now I'm going to completely change what
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I'm talking about. And I'm not going to be talking about you anymore and the spirit interceding for us and anything like that.
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I'm going to change to something completely different. And then I'll have to go back to talking about you at the end, because I'm talking about the intercessory work of Christ and the separation from the love of God and all the rest of this type of stuff.
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Then I'll go talk about Israel, but I'll say something completely different than I did during the golden chain. I mean, like I said,
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I suppose someone probably has tried to do so, but all the connections that you created were a contextual that you mentioned.
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For example, he uses a prognosis of Israel. Yeah, he does have Jesus too, but that doesn't mean they have the same subject.
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So I'm not aware of a specific group or religious movement or person that's tried that, but I would say if they did, that the immediate response would be none of that makes a lick of sense.
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It turns Romans into chop suey. I think
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I see what you're saying, but I think our interpretation needs to come from the golden chain rather than to be read into the golden chain.
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Of course. When I'm reading through Romans, his constant theme is that salvation was offered to the
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Jews first and then to the Greeks. He also uses the phrase, those of us that are the first fruits of the spirit, right before leading into that golden chain of redemption.
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But he's not talking to Jews there. He's talking to the church of Rome.
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No, I understand what you're saying, but he actually, towards the end of Romans, he then talks about how some
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Jews have been broken off because of a lack of faith. That's what 9, 10, 11 help us to understand.
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Chapter 9, the whole point of chapter 9 is this is all wonderful stuff,
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Paul, but what about the fact that most Jews don't believe this? And then Paul explains what that's all about, which makes no sense if what he was just talking about was about the
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Jews. The Jews haven't been justified. That's just, that is impossible for Paul.
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Show me anywhere in Paul where the Jews as a people have been justified. Well, I think what he's saying is it's just a general statement about Israel, because then as it leads into Romans chapter 9, he then reminds them that to Israel belong the giving of the law.
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And he even mentions again, to them belong the glory. And leading into the golden chain, he talks about the glory of being a child of God.
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And it gives the general statement of how salvation was offered to the Jews first and to the Greeks, which leads into Romans chapter 9, where he says, you know, to them belong this glory.
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And then in Romans chapter 11, when he's saying that some have been broken off, I think it's actually chapter 10. I'm driving, so I don't have my
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Bible in front of me, but I think it's Romans chapter 10, he says, well, then what happened with Israel? You know, they tried to pursue it by works rather than by faith.
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And then that's what 9, 10, 11... It's reminding us that it's the roots that support the branches, not the branches that support the root.
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Because to Israel, like the elect... But that root is God's purpose.
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And he's broken off that branch because of unbelief. But the point is, the audience that he's addressing is the church at Rome.
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And so when he says, we know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God, that's not the
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Jewish people. But that is the subject of the golden chain. But then he also writes that entire golden chain, not only starting with forenew, which has only ever been used one other time by him in the
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New Testament referring to Israel, but the whole thing... But that's... I'm sorry, you're making major, major exegetical errors.
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Major. I mean, face -plantingly bad. Just because a word is used...
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foreknown is used of Jesus. Does that mean he has to be saved, too? No. I'm saying that Paul himself only uses it twice, and he uses it in the same small area.
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Okay. You're twisting the scriptures, sir. Up to this point, I was just like, well, if someone said this, here's all the errors that would lead to.
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But you're not following that, and you're sticking with it. So let me just be more blunt. You're twisting the scriptures.
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Well, I'm not trying to twist the scriptures. I've just never heard it. It doesn't matter what your intent... no, no, Stephen, Stephen.
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I don't care what your intention is. I'm warning you, you're twisting the scriptures. Stop. Listen to what's being said to you.
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It sounds like you have grabbed hold of something, and you're running with it. And I'm trying to tell you, there's a reason why nobody else is running with you.
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It's because you're missing some basic foundational things. Have you shared these insights with your elders?
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No, I have not. I would suggest you do so. Maybe they could sit down with you and go, well, okay, here's...
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let's talk about the proper way of looking at verbs and nouns and what the direct objects are, because you're assuming certain things, but you're making major errors in the process.
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And I tried to sort of lay out what some of those were. Sure, but I'm just trying to keep in mind that, as Peter describes salvation, he mentions that, you know,
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Paul has written to us about these same things, and that there's things in his writings that are difficult to understand.
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So I'm wondering if it's that... Which the untaught and unstable distort, which means that those who are taught and stable do not distort them.
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But hold on, there's one other parameter to consider from Hebrews. At the end of chapter five, beginning of chapter six, he talks about how the concept of salvation is so simple, it's like milk, and how the
35:42
Hebrew people that they're writing to were supposed to be teachers by now. And he says, we've got to once again lay the foundation of repentance from dead works, faith towards God, the resurrection of the dead, eternal judgment.
35:52
So I feel like there has to be an explanation of salvation, even including this idea of predestination, that is so simple, it's like milk.
36:01
And if we just take, just on a surface level, you're right, I'm not extremely educated on this, I'm an accountant,
36:07
I'm not a pastor or anything, but just from using Blue Letter Bible to try to see how many times these words are used, to see how they're used in context, if it's true that he's starting that chain with Israel, and just giving a general description...
36:20
But it's not true. But that's not true, Stephen, it's not true. Okay. Okay? Okay. Okay, all right, thanks.
36:29
You can only be as straightforward as you can be. Okay, let's talk to Andrew.
36:37
Hi, Andrew. How are you doing, Dr. White? Pretty good. By the way,
36:43
I just want to start by saying there are times I disagree with you, but what you've been saying, especially in the last year, has just been so on point, especially on the issue of critical race theory.
37:00
I thank you that you've been speaking out against the insanity that's going on right now all around us.
37:08
But I want to talk with you about something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, and that is the
37:15
Trinity in the Old Testament. Obviously, I know you wrote your book, you talk about the
37:26
Trinity, obviously, being made clear in the New Testament, we all know that. But the early
37:32
Church did not have a full New Testament until the late 80s, 90s.
37:39
And of course, obviously, it would take a couple more years after that for the whole Church to be able to receive all those books.
37:46
We all have the Old Testament, the Greek Septuagint. So like, there have been,
37:52
I mean, you've talked about this before, the three foundational truths, obviously, everyone believed there was one
37:59
God, everyone believed there was plurality within the Trinity or the
38:04
Godhead. And then of course, there were three persons, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. And I want to take you through a couple of verses to see, because I, because obviously, we both agree that the
38:20
New Testament plainly teaches the Trinity, we both agree on that. But I think there are some
38:26
Old Testament verses that I think are very clear in terms of their nature of Trinitarian.
38:34
Like, for instance, Numbers 6, 24 through 26, you have the triple benediction there.
38:41
Do you view that as a Trinitarian text? Again, the revelation of the
38:48
Trinity takes place in the Incarnation, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament, since the God of the
38:54
Old Testament is the same Triune God, contains, just as it contains images and shadows concerning who
39:03
Christ was going to be, even though the Jewish people did not fully understand the nature of the
39:10
Messiah, that was one of the major problems that Jesus had to deal with during his ministry. In the same way, you can look at Genesis 18 and 19, you can see
39:19
Yahweh walking with Abram by the Oaks of Mamre, Yahweh raining fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah from Yahweh in heaven.
39:29
There's all sorts of things like that. We know from John 12 that the one who's seen on the throne in Isaiah 6 is actually the
39:38
Son. All of that is true, but when someone tries to say, where you have to draw the line is, you have to say,
39:52
God has always been Triune, and therefore, there is revelation in the
39:58
Old Testament that, in light of the Incarnation outpouring the Holy Spirit, we can see, yes, that is consistent with what
40:08
God has revealed Himself. But where I draw the line is when someone says, and that means the
40:13
Jews were Trinitarians because I am unaware of any information that is defensible that would say that the
40:25
Jewish people, as the Jewish people, were Trinitarian, because the revelation hadn't been made yet.
40:32
But the Scriptures... I don't think they believe that either. Just to be clear.
40:38
I'm not sure who the they is. I'm just simply saying, if that's... The Jews. Certainly don't believe that, but if we say that the
40:49
Old Testament revelation of God is specifically Trinitarian, then you have issues with, for example,
40:57
Isaiah 9, because the one who's to come is called
41:02
Everlasting Father. Well, it wasn't a Father who became Incarnate. It was the Son. Father is not, in the
41:08
Old Testament, the same Trinitarian name that it is in the New Testament. And so you have to be really careful about things like that.
41:17
There are plenty of texts that, again, foreshadow this.
41:24
Isaiah 9 does foreshadow the doctrine of the Trinity, and it's consistent with that. And when it calls Jesus Aviad, the
41:30
Father of Eternity, that's a foreshadowing of Colossians 1 and Jesus being the creator of all things.
41:36
But it is just as the other Old Testament prophecies are types and shadows.
41:44
They are seen in their clarity once the Incarnation takes place and the outpouring of the
41:50
Holy Spirit takes place. And then you have the explicit Trinitarian confessions that are found in 1
41:58
Corinthians. And then outside the New Testament, in the earliest writings of the early church, you have the same type of language being used of Jesus is our
42:06
God and things like that. So I think it's important to see that.
42:12
And yes, the early church's Bible was the Greek Septuagint. But remember, there is about 200 years before the compiling of the
42:22
Old Testament canon, after the final minor prophets were written, and there is about the same type of time frame that you have in the
42:29
New Testament as well. So we just have to be fair. We have to be very concerned about being accurate in what we say, especially on historical issues.
42:41
Okay. But just, for instance, Ezekiel 11, 24 -25,
42:49
I'm reading out of the New King James. Then the Spirit took me up and brought me in a vision by the
42:54
Spirit of God in the Old Testament.
43:18
I don't know that I would use it in that way. I mean, again, in looking backwards, it could be consistent.
43:29
But the question is, did it have that meaning at that time and that it would force you to that conclusion?
43:37
That's where you have to be careful. I didn't hear anything in that, wasn't looking at it, but I didn't hear anything in that that would force me to make some type of Trinitarian distinction in that fashion.
43:52
But again, we live in a day where we have the entirety of Revelation, and now we can use that to see these things in the
44:03
Old Testament. But you have to be very, I think you have to be very careful as to exactly how you do that.
44:10
So there are others who would take a stronger stand, but I agree with Warfield and others on that particular subject when it comes to the issue of the
44:20
Old Testament and the Doctrine of the Trinity. All right, Andrew. Okay. Thanks for your call.
44:26
God bless. All right. Oh, we lost somebody.
44:37
Oh, okay. Yeah, because I had responded to something that had been said there.
44:45
I was actually looking forward to talking about it, but I had to go in the order of the callers, and I don't see anything on Twitter about it.
44:53
So, oh well. I'll probably find it after we get off the air. So, Andrew.
45:03
Hi, Andrew. Hi, Dr. Webb. How are you doing? Pretty good. Good. Fantastic. So, really quick question.
45:10
I used to be in the military, and I'm actually relatively happy that I'm no longer into it, considering who my commander -in -chief would be.
45:20
I'm sure you can understand that. But I guess the question is, what would your advice be to soldiers, both in levels of command and those who are relatively low level, given the current state and where things seem to be going in that light?
45:39
Okay. We're having some problems. I'm not sure what's going on there.
45:45
You're really overdriving or something. It's like something's set to cut you off.
45:50
And so, the main part of your question, I'm afraid I didn't get. I understand you're a government employee, but what you're asking me about,
45:59
I just simply wasn't able to interpret it. I'm sorry. Is this better? Yeah. Yeah.
46:04
Sorry about that. What advice would you give to members of the military, both those who are relatively low and those who are in command, given the current status of our leadership, both in the military and on the civilian side?
46:19
Well, I assume you're talking about Christians. Yes. Yeah. Because it really seems like there is an intention on the part of the current leadership to utilize the military in such a way as to use it for anything other than fighting and anything other than actually going after bad guys or things like that.
46:51
And it does seem that the woke folks have taken over at the highest levels of the military.
46:58
And I don't know what the future is going to hold there. I think that this is not only military folks, but people in law enforcement, people in many situations.
47:12
I look at the 200 armed officers that showed up at Grace Life Church in Canada on Sunday to man the barricades to keep those
47:21
Christians from worshiping Christ. And as I said,
47:27
I hope they'll feel conviction in their souls for doing what's wrong in God's sight.
47:33
But the question is going to be, at what point is that fidelity to Caesar being turned into a necessary offering of that pinch of incense?
47:45
If you know what the pinch of incense is, what that means, how Caesar demanded that people would offer that pinch of incense.
47:56
And it was an act of worship. It was an act of idolatry. And the early
48:01
Christians would not do that. Now, it's interesting, Jesus, obviously, in talking to soldiers, didn't say you need to just stop being a soldier and things like that.
48:12
He didn't say that. But when it comes to the point where the government is demanding that Christians, for example, persecute other
48:22
Christians, Christians pursue other Christians, Christians not worship or that you not think in unapproved ways in regards to, for example, well,
48:36
I showed a picture on the Dividing Line last week of a number of alleged women who are actually men, and they're in military uniform.
48:48
And I could very easily see situations where a Christian, it's going to be demanded of a
48:56
Christian that you identify this person as a woman and address this person as a woman. And that's where the individual has to start making the decision, where do
49:08
I draw the line? When am I offering a pinch of incense to Caesar that violates my conscience and violates my fealty to Christ?
49:17
That becomes the issue. And it's amazing that this has happened as quickly as it has, but this has been planned for a long, long time, and it's just now being worked out in a very, very rapid way.
49:32
And so I think Christian soldiers, Christians in the military really, really need to be thinking far deeper than we've ever been challenged to before in regards to the nature of what it means to say that Jesus Christ is
49:50
Lord and that under his Lordship, I can serve my country.
49:56
But what happens when that country becomes dead set upon attacking Jesus Christ and his people?
50:03
That's when things change. And so when a Roman soldier wasn't being commanded to do that, which was evil, well, then you could be a
50:15
Roman soldier. But we know of a number of stories of Roman soldiers, once persecution became empire -wide, who paid the cost and were executed for refusing to do what was commanded of them.
50:33
Have you ever heard the story? I haven't read it in years, so I would slaughter it if I tried to go through it again, but an amazing story about, and it may be mythical,
50:46
I haven't done the close study to see how close it is, but a story of Roman soldiers that were involved in tracking down Christians and executing them, not with the sword, but by forcing them out upon a frozen lake at night to where they would simply die of the cold.
51:09
And when one of the soldiers who had heard preaching before heard them singing together out upon the ice, he tore off his armor and in just his tunic, ran out and joined them to die with them on the ice.
51:29
That kind of act of true conversion is something that makes it down through history.
51:38
We know almost nothing about any of the soldiers who killed Christians, but we do know about the soldiers who refused to do so and then were converted as well.
51:47
So there's a tremendous amount to be thinking about in light of the fact that we see this tremendous shift in the nature of the government and what the government is intent upon doing.
52:08
And that is, many people joined a government that was based upon certain
52:14
Christian principles, and now the government has turned against those
52:20
Christian principles. And so what do we do in that situation?
52:25
When do we offer that pinch of incense? And of course we can't. Though I'll be honest with you,
52:30
I will be absolutely honest with you, and there's going to be some people who can be really angry with me for this, but I was watching an interview and someone else said this.
52:41
And so since I had come to this conclusion a long time ago, I was like, well, okay, there's some smart guys there who've come to the same conclusion that I have a long time ago.
52:48
I think today we would have major big EVA organizations that would argue that the early church got it wrong and that offering a pinch of incense really wouldn't be all that big of a deal.
53:03
That it would be okay to get along, Romans 13, you know, be in submission, that type of thing.
53:11
And the early church, as the early church and Toto said, nope, can't do it.
53:17
And so that's something we have to think about as well. Yeah, when you said that a lot of these people signed up for a, or swore allegiance to the constitution, recognizing the
53:30
Christian worldview that was behind it, but they see where it's going now and there's that obvious conflict in between.
53:36
Yep. Definitely. Definitely. That's a tough situation to be in. No two ways about it. But the change has happened rapidly.
53:43
I mean, it's not that we didn't see some of the signs a decade ago, granted. But I think most, if you're like me, you're like, but it just can't, it can't happen here.
53:54
And I was wrong. I was wrong. Been wrong about a lot of things. That was one I was wrong about.
54:01
Once you change this, once you turn the society into a secular society that does not believe there'll be a day of judgment, you can do anything with them.
54:10
Because ugly bags of mostly water don't know anything about honor. You know what
54:17
I mean? Yeah. And it's truly ironic because I have seen, at least in my experience, a lot of people, when
54:26
I was going through basic and involved in various aspects like that, people were far more inclined to talk about spiritual things in the context of military,
54:36
I guess it's just because of the fact that, A, going to church is a way to get out of doing some cleaning, but also because we all know it's true.
54:46
But the other side of it is that the reality of death is so clear and in front of you in that context.
54:53
Sure. You bet. That's why we had chaplains and things like that. And that's why they had to try to totally corrupt the chaplaincy corps too by inserting
55:03
Wiccans and every type of LGBTQ whatever into the middle of it.
55:09
But that had always been a part of the military was because you're dealing with death much more up closely than anybody else is.
55:18
And yeah, it's true. So lots more to be said about that, Andrew, but hopefully those will be some good ideas.
55:24
I appreciate it, Dr. White. Thanks. All right. God bless. Okay. We'll just do these last three and I've got one long distance call.
55:31
Grace and Pedro, hold on, I'll get to you. We've got a long distance caller and so we want to get all long distance callers.
55:37
Besides that, Catherine is in Alberta, so we do not know if she is about to be dragged off to the gulag anyway.
55:44
So let's get to her before the cops arrive. Hey, hi, Catherine. Hi there.
55:50
So far, no dragging. Good. I'm in Calgary. Okay. Three hours from Edmonton.
55:56
Oh, okay. They said that I was given wrong information. Rich messed me up. It says
56:02
Alberta here. So, you know, there you go. Calgary, Alberta. Okay. There you go.
56:07
How's he supposed to know? We're good friends with Grace Life Church, but we've had lots of police come in and barge in our services, so...
56:14
Did you preach to them? Oh, yeah. No, we let them in and our pastor,
56:19
Pastor Tim Stevens, he's been preaching with them and even actually when they stopped by his house a couple times, because he has four summons to court now, he sat down with one of the officers and was able to explain to him, like, why we're doing what we're doing and the meaning of church and such.
56:37
Unfortunately, he left not understanding, but we keep praying for him. You bet, you bet. What can
56:42
I do for you? My question is on Roman Catholicism. So we were in front of the abortion clinic, you know, fighting for the lives of these unborn children, and there's another group called 40
56:53
Days for Life, and they're a Roman Catholic organization. And one of the Roman Catholics we got into a go to limbo, and I'm just not very familiar with the limbo doctrine.
57:08
I'm hoping for some clarification, please. Well, it's a popular idea, but it's not actually a dogma of the
57:15
Roman Catholic Church. A lot of people struggle to understand the difference between doctrine and dogma.
57:22
Dogma is something that must be defined by, it must be accepted by faith, de fide. Limbo is a theory.
57:30
There have been various people who have taught it, but it's not the specific.
57:38
Basically, if you really press a well -prepared Roman Catholic on that subject, they're going to say, well, we really don't necessarily teach that in an infallible fashion, but it's an idea that unbaptized infants do not go to heaven or to hell, but to an intermediate state that is really neither.
58:04
But again, since it's not a dogma, it's not really defined as to exactly what that kind of existence would be.
58:11
And it's sort of a way to get around, obviously, the problem with the medieval doctrine that developed in regards to baptism was that the whole drive for infant baptism in the early centuries was, once it became established that baptism was the means of regeneration and the means by which you enter into heaven, then you have so many children who die in infancy or even at birth that you want to have that so that they don't go someplace else.
58:48
And they hadn't developed the concept of limbo yet, hadn't developed the concept of purgatory either, so it was heaven or hell.
58:55
And so the limbo idea sort of gives you a way out of having to deal with those particularly troublesome issues of dealing with what happens to an infant who dies at birth or stillbirths or all sorts of issues along those lines.
59:13
But like I said, a solid Roman Catholic theologian's gonna say, well, there's speculation, certain saints have said things like this, but the
59:22
Church has not officially defined this as a dogma that one must believe.
59:28
In a lot of places, it's sort of like something you can believe if you want to, but it's not something that the
59:36
Roman Church has defined really with any level of clarity because it doesn't fall into that category.
59:43
So it is interesting dealing with Roman Catholics outside of abortion clinics because if the way to deal with the issue of abortion is only by the gospel, then there can be no laying down of arms in that situation because if we're just really, really, really, really honest, we have a very different message than what
01:00:09
Roman Catholicism has, and they're well aware of that as well. We've run into folks like that in our neck of the woods, too.
01:00:19
Okay, well, it was the first time I encountered it, but thank you so much. It gives me a little heads -up in how to deal with them in the future, so thank you very much.
01:00:27
All right, thank you. All right, God bless. Bye. Okay, all right, quick, Grace. Hi, Grace.
01:00:33
Hi. Hello. How are you? Good, good. Okay, first off,
01:00:40
I just wanted to say thank you so much for everything that you've done with your ministry.
01:00:46
I have upstairs pretty much every single book you've ever written. My favorite thing to read is your book.
01:00:54
I'm a senior this year, so I'm going to be doing ministry when I get out, and you've just been a huge help in my life, and I cannot thank you enough.
01:01:03
I tell everyone about you because I love you so much. But my question has to do with textual criticism.
01:01:08
I wrote it down just so that I don't stutter because I'm a little nervous, but I'll just say it now.
01:01:14
How do you explain the inconsistency of 2 Kings 24 -8 and 2
01:01:20
Chronicles 36 -9 with the two different accounts of how Jeuchon became king?
01:01:27
I don't know if this is a little—it's not one that you hear too often, but it just says that he became king at 18, and then another one says he became king at 8.
01:01:36
And I've read a few things online, but they haven't been very clear. Yeah, there are probably at least a dozen, maybe even two dozen, places where when you compare the historical books of the
01:01:53
Old Testament, you will either have situations that arise in light of differing ways of counting years of reign that arise from things like what are called succession years, there's some indication that some writers—because we don't know who wrote 1 and 2
01:02:19
Chronicles, 1 and 2 Kings. They're written over a period of time by probably numerous people that were court historians and things like that.
01:02:27
And the nations around Israel would, for example, start their years at different parts of the year, some people in the spring, some people in the fall, some people in the middle of the middle of summer.
01:02:39
Starting on January 1st is actually the weird way of doing things. So normally when you look at C, well, does that mean it took over a year?
01:02:48
No, the year that it fell takes up portions of two of our years because we do calendars in a different way.
01:02:59
It's extremely complex and very confusing, and there are very few people who know numbers in the
01:03:08
Hebrew way, especially Paleo -Hebrew, the ancient form of Hebrew.
01:03:14
They used letters to write out their numbers. And so there are a couple places, for example, where a scribe,
01:03:24
I think could be as small—I'd have to look it up again, I've looked at in the past—but could be as small as a yod, which is a tiny, basically the size of an apostrophe.
01:03:35
So just as you would have the textual variant in Luke chapter 2, as I recall, that we run into every
01:03:47
Christmas season, when you have peace on earth, goodwill toward men,
01:03:54
King James Version, or peace on earth, goodwill toward those with whom God is pleased, the rest of the versions, the difference there is what's called a final form sigma, which in the earliest manuscripts of the
01:04:09
New Testament, which are much younger than these books of the Old Testament, if it was at the end of a line, it would have been a tiny little c, like up at the top of the line, a tiny little c, a very small thing that could easily be missed or something along those lines.
01:04:25
So most of the time when you have especially a decade difference in numbers, it probably has to do with a very small letter that is mistranscribed early, early on.
01:04:42
And the nice thing is we have two different streams of historical documents in the Old Testament.
01:04:48
That is we have the Kings and the Chronicles. And though there is some cross -contamination between the two of them, there are a lot of times where it's sort of cool, you can tell which one still has the original over against the one that's been corrupted by sort of looking at, well, how long are we given other information about when this person died, how old they were?
01:05:11
You know, sometimes there's other information that can be found along those lines that will help us to realize which one is giving us the specific one.
01:05:20
But you're dealing with documents that are talking about events that were coming up on 3000 years ago.
01:05:31
And so a single yod or something like that in a number is hardly a surprising thing at all as far as its transmission goes.
01:05:41
And I didn't have a chance to look those up. I don't know what the Greek Septuagint says. I would imagine there are probably entire articles where people have gone through and said, well, here's all the possibilities.
01:05:54
Here's what the Greek Septuagint says. Here's the Hebrew. And here's what other sources say. And this is our best understanding of what the original is.
01:06:05
But the translation committees tend to want to try to avoid doing that.
01:06:14
And just they've sort of set out, we're going to use this as our final standard.
01:06:20
So we're going to use Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. We're going to bring the Hebrew text in this form. We're going to go with what its editors say, even if that is different than what's found someplace else.
01:06:30
And we'll leave it to you to read the commentaries, you to read the scholarly sources and figure it out.
01:06:36
And I do appreciate that because it really shouldn't be their job to do all of our homework for us.
01:06:42
So that's why they leave it that way. So that you go, okay, here's what that source says.
01:06:48
Now I can go and do deeper study from there. So, okay.
01:06:53
Yep. Yep. Thank you so much. Okay. Well, thanks for calling today. Thanks for waiting so long. No, it's a pleasure for me and a privilege to talk to you.
01:07:02
Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Thanks, Grace. Have a great day. All right. All right.
01:07:09
Last one with a nice, easy, quick question on the origin of evil.
01:07:16
Pedro. Yeah. Appreciate leaving the nice, easy ones for the end.
01:07:21
That's great. Yeah. Exactly. Good that I'm in the back of the line, sir. First of all, love the ministry, love your work.
01:07:29
You've been, you don't know how much you've helped me in my walk. Well, that's, it's all of, all of Grace and I'm glad you're out there.
01:07:38
Of course. Of course. And I won't mince words. I run a channel on YouTube called like CM Podcasts.
01:07:46
I have an interview coming up. I tweeted at you this question, but obviously you're a busy man, so I understand you can get to it.
01:07:52
But I actually, and this is bad. I had three questions actually. And it's concerning the
01:07:59
David Silverman debate you had. Do you remember that? Not quite that old.
01:08:05
Yes, I do remember good old David Silverman. He was, he was the unfortunate replacement for what would have been a much more interesting evening with Christopher Hitchens.
01:08:19
Of course. I actually always, I always wanted you to talk to Christopher Hitchens too.
01:08:25
Was it Frank Turek that got to talk to him and you did it? I don't, well,
01:08:31
Frank Turek also debated the same guy that I did. So maybe that's, because we, we posted a,
01:08:37
I put together a comparison of Frank Turek answering a question from David and me answering the same question from David, from the same guy.
01:08:52
Exactly. It was a different roller coaster, man. I watched that. I was like, oh man.
01:08:58
Yeah. Yeah. That, that was very, very, very useful. But no, we, we had actually signed the contract with Christopher Hitchens.
01:09:07
And I think two weeks later he got his diagnosis of cancer. So it was not meant to be.
01:09:14
That's unfortunate. Yeah. Yeah. But hey. I don't want to waste time.
01:09:19
I, yeah, I shouldn't waste time. I want to get to it. So I, I'm sorry for cutting you off, but I want to ask, there was a moment in the debate where you just mentioned these two concepts and I want you to kind of help me flesh them out.
01:09:31
And it, it, it kind of takes in the three, three steps. You mentioned something called primary movers and then secondary means that's my rank one question that I'd like you to just, you know, kind of explain.
01:09:43
And then number two, you said something about David Silverman said there was three different covenants and you were like, yes, there are three different covenants.
01:09:53
The covenant of grace that was given to Adam, the covenant between Moses and then Jesus, but they're all really flowing into one another, but they act out in different ways.
01:10:03
And then the last one, rank three would be, you, you mentioned God's knowledge flows from his decree.
01:10:12
So yeah, that's in that order. I'm sorry, Rich, if you're back there hearing this, you're probably going to be stuck here for a little bit longer, or you guys can cut it off.
01:10:20
I don't mind, but what were my questions? Could you flesh those things out? Well, I, I don't remember anything about covenants.
01:10:30
I may have briefly mentioned issues relating to, because people have utilized the term covenant to refer to an inordinate number of things, including things that even the
01:10:47
Bible doesn't refer to as covenants, but you've got the Noahic covenant and the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant.
01:10:52
You've got the old covenant, the new covenant, the covenant of grace, covenant of works. Um, you've got the eternal covenant of redemption.
01:10:59
I mean, um, reformed people, especially, uh, love to talk about covenant theology and get deep, deep, deep into the weeds, uh, on, on those particular subjects.
01:11:14
There are certain biblical phrases and uses of the term covenant and then concepts that are covenantal that are vitally important and that are often, um, underrepresented in non -reformed preaching and teaching.
01:11:33
Okay. Um, I will say that sometimes reformed folks will muddy something up by running off into the weeds to talk about covenant theology when there was a simpler answer to be had.
01:11:49
Um, but that's either here or there. Clearly in the
01:11:55
Bible, you have a discussion of the old covenant. You have a covenant that's passing away.
01:12:02
You have the new covenant. So there are discussions about, is the new covenant fully in force?
01:12:08
Is it partially in force? Is it something that grows? These are debates that continue to be had.
01:12:14
Um, I don't think that came up with Silverman, um, in any particularly compelling way.
01:12:22
I, I, I can't imagine he would even know about all that stuff. He was coming with, he had some
01:12:27
Jewish background that he was referring to. Um, no, it was just, it was just 10 seconds.
01:12:33
You're right. You did, you guys didn't go, you didn't go into the weeds. So you did good by not running off.
01:12:39
Yeah. Yeah. I would have lost him and the entire audience in the process. As far as, as primary and secondary movers or causation, that's the standard issue in compatibilism, um, in regards to, uh, something like Genesis 50,
01:12:59
God's will and Joseph's brothers. And so you have, uh,
01:13:05
God's over, and this is, this is also an answer to the third, the third question in regards to God's knowledge and his decrees.
01:13:14
Um, there are people who reject this, but I, I believe very firmly, and I think it's very clearly represented by, uh, the
01:13:23
Westminster Confession of Faith, London Baptist Confession of Faith, that, that God's omniscience, um, if you, if you're familiar with, uh, natural knowledge and free knowledge, and then the creation of a third, what's called middle knowledge, uh, historically theologians had had no problem saying that God's knowledge could be properly divided into God's absolute knowledge of himself and then
01:13:50
God's knowledge of what God himself does. So his decree of, of creation, what he's going to do in creation, everything that's possible in creation, uh, but it's all based upon the exercise of his will.
01:14:05
And so the whole idea of middle knowledge, this idea that God would know what John Smith would do in any given world, even though God hasn't decreed to make
01:14:14
John Smith, uh, doesn't make any sense. It's, it, it, it, it's really a, a, a, a vain attempt to get around what, what scripture is teaching at this point.
01:14:25
But the point of, uh, primary and secondary causation is to deal with the issue of judgment.
01:14:32
And that is that a, a, that Joseph's brothers, for example, wanted to kill him, but God restrained them.
01:14:43
Now what they did was evil, but what they did was part of God's sovereign decree.
01:14:49
That was how God chose to bring all the pictures of Israel, the
01:14:55
Exodus, the Passover, all of those things. That's how God chose to bring it about.
01:15:00
And he, he also chose to save many people alive because Joseph goes down and he knows about the coming famine.
01:15:06
And, and so they store up food and, and all of this stuff. But Joseph had to go down to Egypt in a particular way for Joseph to be
01:15:15
Joseph. And so you have the, the primary causation is
01:15:21
God's sovereign decree, but then you have secondary causation, which is the, the jealousy of the brothers.
01:15:29
Now God restrains that and that's what God judges. He judges their hearts.
01:15:34
He knew it was in their hearts. Um, he did not, he did not force them to have those feelings in their hearts.
01:15:42
These weren't, these weren't innocent, righteous guys that didn't want to do any of this stuff.
01:15:47
And God came along and said, you'll do evil and swacked them over the head or something like that. No, he had to restrain them from doing more evil than they would have done.
01:15:57
Um, but that's the difference between primary and secondary is the interface between the eternal decree of God that forms the very fabric of time.
01:16:05
And then the actions of creatures within time where they are acting upon the desires of their hearts.
01:16:12
And it's that interface that people really struggle with because we can't possibly understand it because we're time -bound creatures and it's, it's where eternity interfaces with time and that's outside of our experience.
01:16:24
I don't remember what the first question was. No, no, you're good. You actually flow through all of them.
01:16:30
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. You flow, you flow through all of them perfectly. Yeah. The interview we have, well,
01:16:36
I have is on a podcast called Politically Provoked and I've been doing my homework and watching some of the other interviews and they have the question to a guest saying, do you believe evil as a result of nature or nurture?
01:16:50
And my shotgun answer is, well, evil as defined as any ungodly or unrighteous act and being more specific, saying it as a result of the corrupted nature of man by sin, sin being any lacking in conformity to or transgression of the lost
01:17:10
God. Right. So that, I don't want to, I don't want the interview to get any more complicated, but I think it's good that I'm doing my homework.
01:17:19
Oh, it will. Yeah, I bet it will. No, it will, especially if you're talking with secularists.
01:17:25
If you're talking with people who are in epistemological limbo, where they still are borrowing from the worldview that they are every day seeking to destroy, it'll come up and it'll come up over and over and over again.
01:17:38
Cause I don't know anything about anything more about it, but if they're a secularist, that's where it's going to be coming from.
01:17:44
I can assure you that. Hey Pedro, I appreciate your phone call today. Thank you, sir. Hey, Rich, we are praying for you.
01:17:51
We will call Dave White through a pen for the treatment he has done upon you. He's looking at me.
01:17:59
I'm not sure he was able to hear it over the speakers. Could you repeat that one last time, slowly?
01:18:06
Rich, the ministry you are conducting right now, we are praying for you to have strength in it under Dave White.
01:18:13
We see the heavy hand. We suffer with you, brother. Oh, man, man.
01:18:19
I shouldn't have had you repeat that one. Thanks a lot, Pedro. I'll see you at the
01:18:25
Gulag, sir. Bye. Yeah. Alrighty then.
01:18:30
So obviously that was his way of trying to pay you off for having put him through with a long question like that right at the end.
01:18:40
If I get in trouble, I'm blaming you.
01:18:45
Okay. All right. All right. There you go. All right. Okay. Well, thank you for all of those calls.
01:18:51
Were you writing any of those down? Oh, good. Good. All right. Because it's so strange.
01:18:58
If we don't write them down during the program, we stop. The theme song ends.
01:19:05
I have to blog it. And we sit here and look at each other and go, do you remember what any of the topics were?
01:19:14
Because there's never any two of them in a row that have almost anything to do with what came before. But anyways, thanks for watching the program today,
01:19:23
Lord Willen. We'll be back on Thursday if we're still on YouTube.