March 31, 2006

Alpha & Omega Ministries iconAlpha & Omega Ministries

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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. Good afternoon and welcome to The Dividing Line.
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Yes, it is live today, sort of. It sounds weird.
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Doesn't it sound weird to you too? Yeah, you got an echo in there for sure. Do I really? How can I have an echo in here? I'm in the padded cell.
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Boy, I don't know. I don't know where that's coming from. Echo, echo. Yeah, it's sort of a thump, thump.
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Is it coming off my screen? Let's see. No, it might be bouncing off the window. It's just a tiny bit of one, but it's certainly not anything like it was before.
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And some of that is the room I'm in here you're picking up right now. Testing, testing, testing. Now I'm facing a different direction.
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Does that sound any different? Oh, that's much better. Is it really? Yeah. Oh, great. Well, I can't see the computer over here. Oh, great. Well, you did say that today's program might actually have a little echo in it.
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It's going to be odd. Yes. So let's just hope that the microphone stands stay clamped onto the table.
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Oh, I hadn't even noticed that. Now I tell you that in setting up the studio today, or this week, one thing that I chose not to use in our new facilities here is, well, baling wire, duct tape, and chewing gum.
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I didn't use that here. So there's no, the change in theme is no longer flying by the seat of our pants with our hair on fire.
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I don't appreciate the hair comment, personally. It's well, you know, anyway. We're gone with that anyway. Gray hair burns more slowly than regular hair does, too.
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That's all gone. Did you know I can't see you? Yeah, you told me that. You keep telling me that.
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Well, we'll get blinds up there. I can see your mouth, though. That's the scary part. We'll get blinds up there. Seriously. I wanted to put a picture of the studio up, and I took a picture with my cell phone.
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It still hasn't arrived in my email box. Oh, my. Isn't that fun? Yeah. That's great. Yeah. But you know right now, seeing you in there, you know who you remind me of?
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Who? Howard Stern. Oh, that's great. Thanks a lot. Yeah. Definitely the reflection is distorting things a great deal.
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But I was going to say, no more bailing wire, no more duct tape, no more chewing gum. Everybody says you're louder than I am. Is that purposeful?
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That shouldn't be. Well, that's me. A gigawatt said that you're louder than I am. Of course,
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I'm a little tighter on the microphone here if I come back here. Not really. I mean, I can get down like this. Yeah. And then you're louder that way.
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That's true. But that's okay. I tend to eat the mic. That's my style. But now the new theme is based on the description of the studio is now
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Dr. White's padded cell. Padded cell. So we have now found Dr. White's padded cell is, so when he has something to say on the dividing line, he goes into his padded cell and rants.
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I sure hope these are not asbestos ceiling tiles. No, no, no. They're not. Pretty well surrounded by them at the moment.
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Yeah. They got rid of that stuff a long, long, long time ago.
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That's good. All right. Well, actually, we left that part open over there. That might be part of it too. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah.
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Well. And of course, there are no knobs on the door yet. Yeah. Well, you know, we've got it braced shut and eventually we'll get you some air conditioning in there.
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I hope by the time the hour is over, you aren't cooking like that. I was going to say, yeah, the air conditioning would be very good sometime before summer.
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Because I'm cooking over here. I don't know about you. No, I'm not. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, I've got a lot more equipment on my side.
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This is true. All I've got is a Gettner and my computer, which is on batteries at the moment anyway.
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So. Well, hey, you know, here we are in our new offices and we are just barely got things together.
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In fact, I must admit, I would like to thank whoever's wireless I'm currently using.
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Whoever's on that Belkin unit somewhere in the vicinity of where the offices are, which
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I'm not going to say where they are. In the vicinity of our semi -secret location. Yes. The vicinity of our semi -secret location.
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I appreciate the use of your wireless. It seems to be quite, quite solid. We've got
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I've got a wireless adapter 10 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet that direction. And we can't it won't talk to me.
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No DHCP service at the moment. So, well, we'll get that fixed eventually, hopefully. But here we are on the dividing line.
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Yes, it is. Oh, be quiet. I'm still man. Besides, it should be unicle man.
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What are you what are you trying to do? We are we are here and we are alive. I was just looking around.
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OK. Back of the truck. I wanted to do some more of the Dr. Davis sermon today.
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And oh, there's Mutato. Mutato just came in. He missed his entire half hour preview. He was he was the pre -feed.
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We had Milo Hudson Bueller from WWW .Farmboymusic .com did all of our preceding music there.
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And we very much appreciate that. Oops. I guess when it's on battery, it wants to turn itself off on tomorrow, which is probably not a bad thing when you're when you're on batteries.
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But anyhow, I want to do some more of the Davis program today. But I was unable to do so mainly because the fact that I'm an idiot.
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And when I saved the file, I spent all this time putting together all those wonderful clips, all that stuff.
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And there's this little box when you save a file that says save non audio information.
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And it has to be checked when you save it or all that work that you did, all that work that you did just goes into the ether and it went into the ether.
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It's gone. And so I loaded it on this on this machine, which doesn't have
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Adobe Audition on it, which is what we use. And I didn't have time to put anything together.
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So I've got it, but I'm not really I mean, I've got it. I can play something. But anyway, very sad, very, very, very sad.
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That's where it all went. Also, I guess Milo missed my entire promo for his website. That's great.
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See, I give a guy free advertising and he just now tunes in and missed all that.
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Milo, I'm sorry, but we did our best for you. Today's pre -feed information has been brought to you by Milo Hotzenbuehler at www .farmboymusic
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.com. Thank you very much. Do you charge for that? I mean, you could you could make some extra bucks doing, you know, commercials and stuff.
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No, I don't charge. I you know, although I should get the we should get that we should get our our spots updated.
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And that would be good. What was the last time we updated our feed? Years ago. Somewhere in there.
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Oh, good. We're still advertising some Syngenis debate you did. I think so. I think you're right. Yeah, I was selling tickets to it.
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Syngenis who? I'm not I'm not talking about the recording. We're still selling tickets to it. Great. Wonderful.
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Wonderful. Lovely. You can tell we've got a real focus there, don't we? Hey, did the phones work?
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The phones work. Does does the phone number work? The phone number works. 877 -753 -3341.
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You know, I better write that down someplace because it's no longer on my it's no longer on my desk.
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Now everybody knows the tricks of the trade. If you've ever been in a radio station, you know that all that stuff is sitting right there because no one wants to be able to no one wants to have to memorize all that stuff.
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But yeah, well, hey, 877 -753 -3341. This is the first time that we've been on the air since the announcement of the debate
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October 16th at the new Thomas Road Baptist Church.
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October 16th, 7 p .m., I don't know it's going to end yet because I'm really asking for more time than has currently been suggested, because I think we need more time to really do the subject justice.
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But most of you will remember that when I was in the United Kingdom recently, shortly after returning,
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I posted on my blog a file that contained the email correspondence
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I had had with Dr. Ergin Kanner. Now, I've I imagine it's probably sort of a mixture between Kanner and Kanner and Connor all put together.
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It's Turkish and everyone informed me after discussing it for the first time on the air that there is a little mention on his on his website about how to pronounce it.
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So we'll go with Kanner for now and and work with it from there. But anyways, Dr. Ergin Kanner of Liberty University on the subject
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Calvinism. And I had tried and tried and tried to get him to interact with me and had invited him to debate more than once in the past.
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And he had turned down each opportunity after I posted that. Evidently, if if there is a if there is any level of writing to him like we received, then he got a lot of emails from a lot of people.
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And not too long after posting that, we received an email that basically said and I started to mention this briefly on the air.
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I said, well, you know, we're working on stuff, et cetera, et cetera. And this is what was going on.
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I got an email that basically said, well, both
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Paige Patterson at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Jerry Falwell at Liberty University, which is now associated with the
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Southern Baptist Convention, as I understand, have signed off on having a debate at either location.
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Now, since I was said to me, since you have requested a neutral location, this might be a problem.
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I had never requested a neutral location. In fact, I had said more than once that I would I would go into into the classroom and debate these issues directly if that was the opportunity that would be given to me.
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And so I in thinking of the two locations, one Fort Worth and one Lynchburg, I felt that going to Liberty would be the best of the two locations.
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And so I was immediately great. Let's do it. And it seemed to me, at least the initial email, that this was something that would probably be done as early as April, as early as next month.
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That really was the thought that I had in the language that was being used.
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So immediately I'm like, well, let's let's get on the date. Let's let's start talking about it. Let's you know, let's let's jump on this.
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And of course, it also asked me to for it to be a two on two debate. It would be both of the
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Cantor brothers, Amir and Ergun. And, you know,
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I personally prefer one on one debates. I think they're less diluted in the sense of that's diluted,
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D -I -L -U, in case anyone wants to misquote me. And I think it's easier just easier for the audience to follow because you only have two people and, you know, they're going to be using the same terms and things like that.
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But they want to have two on two. And so, of course, the first the first person that came across my mind was
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Dr. Tom Askell, the head of the Founders Ministries. Tom has spoken a number of our conferences.
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He'll be speaking for us again, Lord willing, I believe in Orlando as well. Obviously, the conversation that had started all this had taken place on his blog with Dr.
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Cantor. So I got hold of him. And and so this was all ongoing in essence.
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And Tom agreed to do so. And and then we just didn't hear anything for a while. I knew that that Ergun Cantor had gone to Israel and make a long story short.
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It became fairly obvious that it wasn't going to be April. In fact, it wasn't going to be this term. I felt like there was a rush initially, but ended up over looking at the fall and trying to get the schedules of four people as well as the schedules of facilities put together is very, very, very, very difficult.
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I mean, I had to open up a library or a calendar program and I had to put one
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Dr. Dr. Cantor's schedule in and I had to put Dr. Askell's schedule in and put my schedule in.
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And there were exactly two days in the entire month where just for those three.
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And of course, my concern was that once Ergun Cantor got back, that that would be that those two days would be out for him.
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Well, it turned out that actually it did turn out to work for him. And so that's why we are going to be doing this on the 16th of October.
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And so the all sorts of other issues have not yet been decided. I have posted on our website, on my blog, some of the discussion that I have included in my, shall we say, in my emails.
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I've tried to do only those aspects of the conversation that would help people understand what my concerns are as far as the debate.
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We need to have good moderation. There needs to be a focused thesis statement. There needs to be good cross -examination and you need to have enough time to do all that.
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Now, that has been my expressed desire from the beginning. Can I absolutely guarantee that all that's going to take place?
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No, I can't. We're, in essence, the visiting team here and we are looking at having an opportunity to speak to a very, very large audience of individuals.
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And it is our intention. I think I can speak for Dr. Askew at this point. It is our intention to speak in a fashion that will be befitting the subject, no matter what the reaction of our debate partners are, no matter what the reaction of the audience is.
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I have expressed many times, for example, that my desire in writing the book, debating
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Calvinism with Dave Hunt was quite similar. That is, even though I really didn't have any control over Dave Hunt's rhetorical flourishes, shall we say,
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I could, by demonstrating a completely different way of approaching the subject, hopefully provide a real strong contrast between the two sides.
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One that is focused upon biblical truth. One that is focused upon honoring the Word of God. One that's focused upon honoring the readers, etc.,
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etc. And so, that was, you know, that's what
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I want to have happen here. You know, I've heard all sorts of things. I've heard people saying that everything's going to be great and wonderful.
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And, of course, our desire is to have this audio and videotaped. And, of course, we're going to be at the
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New Thomas Road Baptist Church, which would have all of the television facilities available, so on and so forth.
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It would be great, honestly, if we don't have to drag a bunch of stuff along, as far as videotaping goes.
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I think it would be great to at least try to live webcast it.
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I think that would be well worth it. I think we'd probably bog down any server that we tried, to be honest with you. I just don't think we would have access to a server powerful enough to handle that, because I'm already hearing about people coming from a long, long distance.
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I just don't know that the place is going to be able to seat enough people that we'll be able to watch this debate.
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But it would be worth making the attempt, and certainly that's something we can discuss. But maybe that's something you'd like to talk about.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. And the phone lines are working. We sort of need to test them out today.
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877 -753 -3341 if you'd like to talk about that upcoming debate. I mentioned on the blog as well that,
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I'm not sure what we're going to call it, the period of the time of ministry.
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I don't know what we're going to come up with. But starting, I'll probably be leaving, I believe, about the 19th of September to go, interestingly enough, to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.
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I'll be speaking at a apologetics conference there. From that point until we get back from the cruise toward the middle of November.
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So, the end of September, all of October, and the first half of November is going to be, without a doubt, the most intense period of ministry in my life.
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Because I go from Phoenix to Fort Worth. I fly from Fort Worth to Toronto.
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I'll be speaking that weekend in Toronto. I had tried to arrange a debate after that weekend on a
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Monday. With Shabir Ali, because that's where he lives.
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And was informed that starting the 24th, I believe, of September is the month of Ramadan.
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And therefore, could we debate before then? Well, I won't be in Toronto before that. I'll be flying up there on the 21st, speaking on the 22nd.
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And if it starts on the 23rd, that's pretty much out as far as that goes. But I want to be able to at least do a presentation.
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And I've talked to the folks up in Toronto. They're starting to work on this. A presentation on the Monday following on the deity of Christ.
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Defending the deity of Christ against Islamic denials up there in the Toronto area, which should be very interesting.
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Then we fly back from Toronto. And then the next thing, go to Lynchburg.
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That'll be on a Monday. Monday evening, the 16th, for the debate against the canners on Calvinism at the
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New Thomas Robbaps Church. And then I go from there to Long Island, where on the 19th,
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I will be debating Pastor Bill Shishko on the subject of baptism. So 16th to the 19th.
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And that will be a very interesting debate. Hopefully, a debate that'll be a blessing to many people.
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I preach that weekend. And then come back and have,
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I think, about 10 days at the most,
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I would say, at home prior to flying to Orlando. And then we have the
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Pulpit Crimes Conference. And the debate with John Shelby Spong.
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Followed almost immediately, thereby, the cruise. And I'm just thinking about all this.
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Obviously, it's going to be an incredibly intense period. And the first thought that crosses my mind is not only the preparation for each of these debates, because I think most of you who listen to this program know
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I take the debates very seriously. I do not want to take any of them lightly. And I do attempt to do a tremendous amount of debate.
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So as to, you know, I just think that's how you show honor to the subjects you're addressing, to the people that you're debating, so on and so forth.
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You need to know what you're talking about. It takes time to prepare. I've been preparing for all of these debates for quite some time already, to be perfectly honest with you.
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But it still takes a lot of time. And aside from all that, the thing that really strikes me now as I am a middle -aged man rather than a young man, as I once was, is what if I get sick in the middle of that?
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I mean, I came down with something this week that, let's just say it's not something
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I can mention on the air, but it wasn't any fun. And there's no way on Wednesday that I could have engaged in a debate.
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It's just not possible. You know, I've debated while sick before, but there are some sicknesses you can get that's just not possible.
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You're laid out, you're flat on your back. You couldn't stand up if you tried. So, I'm not sure what we're going to call this period, but it's going to be a period where we're asking all of our supporters and everyone who is involved with the ministry to definitely be praying for everyone involved with the ministry, because it's going to be a very, very, very stressful time for all of us, not just myself.
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Even though I'm the one doing the debating, there's a lot of support that goes into that. So, we're really looking forward to this fall.
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When you think about when it's all done, then poor Rich gets to put all the videos together. He's looking sort of bewildered out there.
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See, the funny thing is, when I'm in a debate, it takes me three, three and a half hours. It takes you a lot longer to put the video of the debate together than three and three and a half hours.
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So, I realize my work goes beforehand, your work goes afterwards, and that's the sort of how it works.
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That's because of all the outtakes. Oh, the outtakes? What outtakes would those be, Rich? Well, never mind.
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Yeah, I know. I just realized that that's going to be the one clip that is played on every
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King James only, Tex Mars and everything else. They're going to be playing, see the outtakes. See, that's when he gets refuted and he takes it out.
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That's when someone quotes Proverbs 129 to him and he can't answer it. I'm sorry. Anyway, some of you know what that's about.
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It is, you know, guess what? It's starting to get toasty. I had a feeling, yeah. In fact,
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I'm looking at my reflection in the window there and I'm starting to glow real nicely here. The glare is probably going to start bothering you pretty soon off top there.
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No one wants to help us test out the phone lines. 877 -753 -3341.
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Now, of course, it is Friday afternoon and it's after six o 'clock in the east.
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So everybody's eating and this isn't our normal time with the dividing line. So I recognize that's probably an issue.
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But I sort of thought that maybe some folks would want to discuss that particular debate or some of the others that are coming up.
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I'm a little surprised that no one has yet taken advantage of that or they're doing the standard thing where they wait until the last 10 minutes of the program and throw it in from there.
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Now, as we're going on here, I mentioned that I did find a wireless connection. There goes the phone.
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I did find a wireless connection and the battery setting keeps turning off.
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And I was looking around some stuff. A couple of things that I got right before the program.
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Michael Fallon got hold of me and some of you saw on the blog yesterday that he snagged a real special, special, a real special, special, and for the cruise, some real special prices.
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I mean, when you think about it, spending like 70 bucks a day on a cruise liner with all the food and everything else is just absolutely incredible.
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And he also mentioned to me that Don Kistler, now some of you may not recognize the name
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Don Kistler off the top of your head, but Don Kistler is the head of Soledale Gloria Publishers, which is now part of Ligonier Ministries.
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Don Kistler, for example, has spoken at many of the Toledo Theological Conferences.
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I've spoken with him a number of times at various conferences that I've been at. He is definitely going to be with us for the for the cruise.
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And so those of you who are big fans of Soledale Gloria and the work they've done, especially
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Puritans and things like that, you will be able to chase poor
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Don around the ship and ask him every question about the Puritans you ever wanted to ask.
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I didn't. I didn't say that. I didn't. Did I say that? Did that actually go out on the air? Oh, I'm sorry.
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No, seriously. He'll be with us. And that's just another reason why you should be looking at joining us on the cruise, aside from the tremendous price that we offer.
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You might want to do that. We've got two different mics, and neither one of them is ours. Wow, that's amazing.
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That's something. The two folks named Mike have called in.
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And so before I go on with the other thing that I discovered on the blogs before we got started with the program, let's go ahead and talk to our callers.
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And let's see if this, you know, you realize I'm about to press a button. And I've never pressed this button in this room before.
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The window could fall out. My computer could blow up. Rich could be electrocuted.
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There's all sorts of possible things could happen here when I press this button. Or something might happen to Mike in Cape Coral, Florida, too.
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But I don't know what that could... His cell phone might explode. I don't know. But I'm about to hit a button, and we're just going to leave it in Lord's hands as to what happens.
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And there we go. Hello, Mike. Hey, I'm here. Hey, and your phone's not melting or anything like that?
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Great working order. All right. You guys have it totally nailed down over there, I'll tell you. Well, no,
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I actually, from my point of view, not everything is totally nailed down. That's true. Okay, I stand corrected.
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What's up, Mike? At any rate, hey, listen, I just want to tell you I'm really stoked about the debate coming up, hopefully this
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October. Yeah, that's pretty well nailed down now. There would have to be a pretty major league issue that would change the date of the debate for October 16th, if you're talking about the canners at Liberty University.
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Yeah, yeah, that's going to be really exciting. I'm hoping to make that trip, too. Really? Yeah, you're in Cape...
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So you're going to be getting to see two debates in just a matter of weeks, right? Absolutely.
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There you go. I'm looking forward to that. I'm just, you know, hey, look, this stuff doesn't come too often my way, so I have to take advantage of it.
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It's kind of, it's too quiet down here. Well, you know, we've tried. We really have tried. I mean, I'm not sure how many debates
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I've done in Florida now, but I think Florida would like to start taxing me as a halftime resident there or something.
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But no, I'm looking forward to it as well. I don't know how many people are going to show up, but I have a feeling it's going to be a whole lot more than people expect it to be.
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Cool, yeah. Now, I can tell you that we're trying to get hold of a tape of some recent comments that Dr.
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Ergen -Kanner made about the debate. And once we get hold of that, then we'll play them on the air, which might have some impact about how many people are going to be attending, but definitely going to be welcome.
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And since they're not going to be charging admission, then I'm not sure how they're going to control, you know, how many people actually get in.
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I don't know how it's going to work, but we'll see. Yeah, that ought to be quite interesting. Yeah. But hopefully that'll all shake out pretty well.
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Yeah, obviously right now the big thing is we need to get a decent format together. We need to have enough time to address the issues.
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We need a good moderator who will keep things running. Who knows? Maybe Bill Shishko can come down from Long Island.
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Yeah, he's pretty good. Oh, he's very good. Yeah, he is. Yes, he is. He has a good command. Yep. No one crosses
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Bill. And of course, three days later, I'm debating Bill. So most interesting. Isn't it, though? Yeah, it's going to be interesting.
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Irony of ironies. Yep. Well, thanks, Mike. Hey, listen, real quick. Yes, sir. Real quick. My background is that of the
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Armenian tradition. Okay. And I have been studying through the issues. Believe me, I have. And some of the things you have published, obviously, have helped immensely.
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There is one thing I do want to address, however. As a matter of fact, I might have the opportunity coming up here to speak to a pastor of the
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Armenian persuasion on this issue of pre -generating grace or prevenient grace.
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Okay. And I need some more information on this. Now, bear in mind, even from the
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Armenian persuasion, this is something that was you didn't hear much at all from the pulpit about this.
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It was just assumed that the average Joe Patchpocket out there in the congregation somehow understood this to be.
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And of course, until certain, you know, dialogues would come up, then of course, naturally, things would just, you know, be all scrambled.
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And the pastor would kind of look at you like, well, gee, almost like, didn't you know about this type of thing?
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Well, you know, we don't hear much about it. You know, I'm sort of a newbie to a lot of things of Calvinism in general, but it has definitely enriched my understanding and appreciation of the scriptures.
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It definitely has been. It's been a tremendous blessing. It really has. And it's been very challenging in the meantime, which is good.
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And I'm sure I'm driving my family crazy with it. Yes. So at any rate, if you could sort of give me, if you can, just a rough and tumble breakdown of the
31:08
Arminian teaching on pre -regenerating grace, as opposed to basically a
31:14
Calvinistic take on that. How is all that? Well, there's so many different takes on it.
31:21
Prevenient grace is generally used to, not in the way that a
31:26
Calvinist would use the term common grace, but prevenient grace is frequently used, that kind of grace that brings a person to a position where they are then able to make that decision.
31:39
Yeah. Is that Mike's phone line that's cracking up there? Okay. Hopefully you can still hear me,
31:44
Mike. Your phone line's popping real bad and we had to sort of put you on hold so you could hear us.
31:50
But prevenient grace is generally being utilized in the context of that kind of grace, which brings people to a position where they can make that free choice in regards to the person of Christ.
32:05
And that's different from a Reformed perspective because of the fact that we wouldn't see any reason for giving of that kind of grace.
32:16
It was not God's purpose. Now, I will back up just for a moment and point out that Calvin did say, and he is quoted very gleefully by certain people as having said, that there are certain people that in God's judgment, he brings them to make false professions and that he uses them for his purpose.
32:35
We can think of some of the people in the New Testament, Hymenaeus and Philetus and Alexander the Coppersmith and various and sundry of the people who were once in leadership positions in the church that were then taken out of that position and become apostates themselves.
32:48
But outside of special circumstances like that, the idea of a prevenient grace, the question would be prevenient to what?
32:58
That is to bring about salvation itself or just bring about the possibility of salvation? It really only has a major role within a system of synergism where you have a cooperation between the will of man, the will of God, and bringing about salvation.
33:15
And so you won't hear that terminology being used within Reformed circles for that reason because what
33:24
God is attempting to do in the giving of grace is different. I think you're back up now. So that purpose is different between the two.
33:33
Okay, you know, I had first really stumbled across this, believe it or not. I had purchased a Baptist study edition of the
33:40
Bible. Yeah, yeah. W .A. Criswell is the editor. Oh, well, okay. Patterson is the managing editor.
33:46
There you go. Okay. And I first come across this. I'm like, wow, you know, I never. And of course, they have a little annotation from John 644 on this.
33:55
Really? Yeah. And can I read? Yes, please. Okay, sure. Quote, Jesus attributes the initiation of the salvation experience not to man and has cross -referenced
34:04
John 1, 12 and 13, but to the drawing power of God. Human response, verse 37 of John 6, is always dependent upon God's initiative.
34:15
Theologians call it prevenient grace, the grace which provides revelation and conviction and directs a man to repentance and faith.
34:24
It also involves making alive the spiritually dead, obstinate will of man. Cross -referenced
34:30
Ephesians 2 and verse 1. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I know. What's your, what would you say about that?
34:36
Well, no, I would not utilize. I mean, if he's saying that that actually involves regeneration,
34:45
I don't know how in the world they fit that together, Ephesians 2, with an
34:51
Arminian understanding, unless they're saying that they only become alive long enough to make another choice of rejection or something.
34:59
I'd have to see that. I'd love to actually see that if you'd have the time to sort of type that up and maybe send it in through the website and while the comments thing,
35:07
I would very much like to see why, what they're saying and look at the cross -references, because I've not seen that one myself.
35:14
I'll pass it on to you. Okay. Definitely. And one last thing. I also have, are you familiar with Dr. Robert Piccarilli?
35:21
No, name's not ringing any bells. He's one of the professors up at Free Will Baptist Church, sorry,
35:28
Free Will Baptist College, I believe, up in Tennessee. And he has a book out there called
35:34
Grace, Faith, Free Will, and I just got it not too long ago. And just evaluating what he's saying and so forth,
35:41
I said, you know, gee, maybe I can get something a bit more abbreviated. So I called the college and I asked him, I said, hey, look, is there anything that Dr.
35:48
Robert Piccarilli has out there on, like, you know, CD or audio? And back in 01 or 02,
35:57
I believe, or maybe 02 or 03, what have you, he had given a lecture series called the Four Lines Lecture Series on basically contrasting, once again, the systems of salvation between, obviously,
36:08
Carminianism and Calvinism. And I wanted to send you, if you're interested, maybe
36:15
I could probably burn the CD. If you're interested, I'd like to send it to you. And maybe you can just analyze certain parts that you think really stand out in terms of, hey, you know, we could give this really maybe greater attention.
36:28
Yeah. Well, we'll go ahead and take a look at that. Feel free to contact us and to do that.
36:34
Your line's breaking up again, Mike. Sorry about that. Well, it could be. We'll find out here in a moment. It's everybody's line. You know, that's a possibility.
36:41
Yeah, I'd be interested in that, though. I'm not sure how much time I'd have between now and the end of the year to be looking at almost anything else and what
36:48
I've got currently up there. But thank you very much, Mike. And Cape Coral, let's go ahead and talk with Mike in Texas.
36:54
Hi, Mike. Hello. How are you doing? I'm getting over a cold. Oh, OK. That's OK. I mean,
36:59
I'm doing good. I just wanted to call and let you know that, yeah, the phones are working. Good.
37:05
Also, I had a question about the debate coming up. Do you usually plan on covering all the five points of Calvinism or focusing on total depravity, since that seems to be where everyone goes astray from there?
37:21
Well, one of the things that has been said from the start from the other side is that there are to be no caveats as to what can be covered.
37:32
So I have a feeling it's going to be considerably wider than I would like it to be.
37:37
Obviously, I'd like to focus in upon one particular aspect of things so you can go in depth on those things.
37:43
But I'm certainly going to be focusing upon the biblical nature of the teaching.
37:49
And if the other side tries to do the scattergun effect, well, not much
37:54
I can do about that other than to challenge them on each thing as they bring it up when I have the time to do so.
38:00
But I personally like the more in -depth debates where you can go more in -depth into passages in Hebrews on the atonement or things like that.
38:10
But that's very rarely what people want to see debates on. So I've got a debate coming up April 21st in Sedalia, Missouri, which is just going to sort of like the
38:18
George Bryson debate was. And that's on basically who's in charge of salvation type situations.
38:24
So it depends. I mean, I certainly would not be averse to doing a debate on only one point or something like that.
38:33
The only thing that I've said I would be averse to doing is doing a debate on the fifth point without being able to discuss the first four because that lays the foundation for those things.
38:44
The farther you get down the road, it's difficult, for example, to address irresistible grace until you've established both the issues of the total depravity of man and unconditional elections.
38:55
So there is sort of a need to, if you're going to do in -depth debates, maybe do a series of them that would allow you to go a little bit more in -depth on each one of those types of issues.
39:06
But we'll see where this one goes. It's going to be, I think, a little bit more wide ranging than super focused.
39:14
But we'll see what happens. Have you ever asked, I mean, I don't know how often you debate, but have you ever asked an
39:22
Arminian if they realize that, you know, their conclusion that God tries to save, but he actually fails to save man?
39:32
I mean, do they? Oh, very frequently. And they normally find that to be a very odd statement to make because they haven't been asked, haven't been challenged to think through that very issue, that they are presenting a
39:45
Christ who's trying and yet failing. And I frequently raise the issue of, is there a division in the
39:51
Godhead? Is it Christ's trying and the Father isn't and so on and so forth? And generally,
39:57
I just don't get responses. I think if anyone will listen to the debates that we've done, the debates, both formal debates like with George Bryson or the debates that took place in the
40:06
Bible Answer Man broadcast with Hank Hanegraaff and George Bryson, you don't get answers to those types of questions, just like we didn't on the issue of compatibility and Genesis and so on and so forth.
40:18
So, oh yeah, we ask, but you don't always get answers. Okay, and last question.
40:25
How would you respond to someone that says that we were created in the image of God? If God has free will, man has free will, or he granted us, he gave us the ability to choose?
40:37
Well, there's no question that man chooses. The problem is, and there's no question that man has a will.
40:43
The problem is the idea of free will in the sense of autonomy. First of all, when man is created, he's created with a creaturely will and with freedom within the creaturely realm.
40:54
Then we have the thing called sin, and you have the teaching of Scripture that sin enslaves the will.
41:01
He who commits sin is the slave of sin. Jesus himself taught that. The Bible is very clear in its discussion of the foolishness of the heart of man in sin and the fact that that sinful heart is not able to convert itself or to change itself.
41:16
And so the issue is not how was man created. It's amazing how many Arminians want to run back to Adam.
41:22
There are no Adams left. Adam is gone, and we have less than a page worth of information about what
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Adam was like prior to the fall. We all live post -fall, and speculating about what his capacities were or were not is simply futile.
41:38
We have to deal with the fact that the Scriptures are very, very plain in teaching us that man is a fallen creature, and what then are his abilities now?
41:47
Well, those who are according to the flesh cannot do what is pleasing to God, Romans chapter 8, verses 5 through 6. No man is able to come unto me unless the
41:53
Father sent me draws him, John 6, 44. There's all these discussions of the inabilities of man, all traced back directly to the fact that he has fallen.
42:02
So that does not mean that we've lost the imago dei. It's been marred. It has been effaced, but has not been removed.
42:10
And so you have man who is now in slavery to sin. He loves his sin. He's not like these stories that people tell about, you know, the little boys swimming in the pool, and how
42:21
God is so mean if he only saves one. They're not swimming in a pool, and they're about to drown. They are in full -scale rebellion.
42:28
They are burning and pillaging, and yet God still arrests these burning, pillaging rebels, and changes their hearts and minds, and changes them from being
42:37
God -haters to God -lovers. That's the only way to actually biblically and accurately represent the situation, but rarely are they put in a position where they'd have to really answer for that.
42:47
So, you know, that's how I would respond to the person who wants to try to go back to creation, and allowing the rest of Scripture to speak as to the nature of man's fallen nature.
42:57
Okay. All right. Thanks, Mike. Okay. Thank you. God bless, buddy. Bye -bye. Let's talk to Adam.
43:04
Hi, Adam. How are you? Hi, Dr. White. How are you doing? I'm doing okay. I heard you're going to be debating the canners, or the canners, or however you pronounce it.
43:13
Uh -huh. My grandmother gets the Liberty Channel.
43:19
Oh, the Liberty Channel? Yes. I had never heard of the Liberty Channel. It's on Sky Angel Dish, satellite dish stuff, and I get to hear the
43:32
Liberty University's, well, really,
43:37
I can't even say rejection of Calvinism, because it's not just a rejection, it's outright, you know, hatred at times.
43:45
You know, the one thing that I'm seeing, especially in the type of movement, is that they're really starting to move, not necessarily towards an
43:55
Arminian free will version, but they're starting to move towards a Pelagian version of this type of stuff.
44:03
Like, for instance, I've been listening to a lot of, for instance,
44:08
Dave Hunt, and people like that, and it just seems like they're running off.
44:14
The farther they're running from Calvinism, the closer they're coming to Pelagius, and a lot of them don't even realize it.
44:20
No, no, no. I mean, like, for instance, I was dialing with a lady from that, she's a Southern Baptist and so forth, and free will, and she said, well, it would be unfair of God to punish somebody unless they had a free choice.
44:34
And then I said, do you realize you just walked right into Pelagius's wheelhouse? I mean, because once you say that, you have to say, well, man doesn't have a choice to not be a sinner.
44:43
He has to enter this world with original sin. So now it's unfair for God to punish anyone.
44:48
Yeah, but you've got to realize we live in a day where church history is non -existent in the thinking of the vast majority of evangelicals.
44:58
And so when you say, oh, but that's Pelagianism, they just look at you like you've just spoken Swahili or something.
45:03
They have no idea whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. It certainly doesn't have any impact upon them in any way, shape, or form.
45:12
And the vast majority no longer believe in such things as original sin. They don't understand federal theology.
45:19
And it's a cycle because you can say, well, that's because it's not being preached from the pulpit. You need to preach from the pulpit.
45:24
Well, the problem is the vast majority of churches, the only way you can preach from a pulpit for more than about three months is if you preach what the people want to hear.
45:30
So it's a cyclical thing. The seminaries turn out people to do what the churches want them to do and to preach the things the churches want them to preach.
45:43
And it just feeds on itself from there. So yeah, the vast majority of folks you're talking to have been raised in a situation where you can pick and choose your cell phone plan.
45:57
You can pick and choose what color your cell phone is and how many minutes you've got. And it's all up to you to pick and choose what you want.
46:04
And they import that very type of thinking directly into theology. You pick and choose what you want out of the
46:11
Bible. You pick and choose what you want out of worship. Why do you think? You know, I was shocked, Adam, when
46:16
I tuned in the Southern Baptist Preachers Conference that Jerry Falwell was speaking at last summer online.
46:24
They were live webcasting it. And so I tuned in the video feed.
46:30
And man, that must have cost some bucks. But anyways, I turned in the feed. And honestly, and I said this on the program,
46:36
I'm not trying to offend anybody. I thought I'd put the wrong URL in or something and it got in hold of TBN, the
46:43
Trinity Broadcasting Network, because I could not tell any difference. And when I later found out they had a group sitting there that doesn't even know whether the doctrine of the
46:51
Trinity is true or not, but they can make your toes tap and your fingers snap, I was a member of a
46:58
Southern Baptist Church for a long, long time. And I saw these trends starting a little bit, but I had no idea how far they had progressed in that period of time.
47:11
And so when you have that kind of stuff going on and that kind of viewpoint of worship and that kind of viewpoint of preaching, it doesn't surprise me at all that people will go, well,
47:21
I don't care if I'm a plagiarist or not. That's what feels good to me, you know? That's exactly what this person said.
47:27
I said, well, if you're consistent, you have to deny original sin. He said, but I believe in original sin.
47:33
I believe that this is true as well. Yes, and don't ask me to be consistent.
47:38
No, don't ask me to put those things together. Can't do it. Exactly. It doesn't make any sense.
47:44
It doesn't make any sense to me. But I'll tell you one thing that you're going to have to challenge right away. I guarantee you the word hyper -Calvinism is going to come up.
47:51
Of course, of course. And you're going to have to challenge them and say, can you give me any historical documentation that would label this as hyper -Calvinism?
48:00
Oh, I know. I've already demonstrated that Dr. Ergen -Kanner has used that.
48:06
That has become a term that is so fluid, it has no meaning any longer whatsoever.
48:14
As long as you can use it of anything, and if you can use it of anything, it has no meaning. I expect that.
48:21
I would like to really think the best and hope that I'm pushed to have to believe otherwise.
48:30
I'm going to try to believe the best that I can. But you know what? I've been in some pretty tough debates in the past.
48:38
And to be honest with you, when people use misrepresentation, they're just feeding into losing a debate because you can demonstrate the truth for anyone who cares.
48:47
Certainly for someone who just wants to hear somebody railing away, that's one thing. But if someone really cares about the truth, and they're going to actually go home and check these things out, that's a good way to absolutely sink your boat right from the beginning.
48:58
So we'll see what takes place. Hey, I've got another call to get to. Thanks for calling. All right. God bless.
49:03
Bye -bye. All right. We've got one more to get to. Let's go across the border to Toronto.
49:11
And Stephen, hi, Stephen. Hello, Dr. White. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. Well, I wanted to be your first Canadian caller in your new facility, so I decided
49:18
I'd give you a shout. Well, good. I'm heading your direction. Yeah, I know. We were talking in channel the other day.
49:25
Yes. And I'm really looking forward to you coming up. I didn't know you were going to do the
49:31
Islamic thing with a presentation. Now, is that going to be at the same facility? I don't know yet.
49:36
I've asked Heinz and the folks up there to find me a church who would be willing to do that.
49:44
This has been fairly recent, the reason being that, like I said, when I contacted Shabir Ali about doing a debate on that Monday, he indicated to me that that was after the beginning of Ramadan, and therefore that wouldn't be possible.
49:59
So I want to be able to respond, especially to what Ahmed Didat and Jamal Badawi and Shabir Ali have been saying in regards to the deity of Christ.
50:12
And to document the various errors that they have made, because all of them are pretty much dependent upon secondary sources and a lot of misrepresentation of what the doctrine really is.
50:25
And so I want to present a full PowerPoint presentation documenting these various errors from these various apologists.
50:32
And I'd like to do it up there in Toronto, because I know you have a burgeoning Islamic community there.
50:38
And if they show up, great. If they don't, then I would like to be an encouragement to the believers there in that area.
50:44
And then it becomes the believer's responsibility to then communicate that information to everybody else.
50:50
So in fact, you know what I might try to do? I realize I'm putting a bunch of stuff on my plate here.
50:57
But what would be really neat to be able to do would be to take my presentation and make it available to folks so they can take it themselves and they can utilize that sort of multimedia -type presentation for themselves.
51:11
That would be fantastic. I've read some of the Da 'at stuff. Yeah. And I mean, it's...
51:17
Oh, it's horrible. Yeah, it's terrible stuff. And I mean, we have a huge Muslim population.
51:23
I was engaged in Muslim evangelism a number of years ago. And there was, in those days, nearly 80 ,000
51:29
Muslims living in Toronto. And I imagine we're up over 100 ,000 now. Yeah. In fact, there's probably just as many
51:36
Islamic schools as there would be private Christian schools now. Oh, my. With that. When you go down the list, there's a huge variety.
51:45
Anyway, the big reason that I phoned was I wanted to ask a question about John chapter 1. And people in my conversations with non -Calvinists, you know,
51:55
I'm a hyper like the other fellow, were talking about Jesus enlightening every man.
52:04
And John chapter 1 and verse 9. Now, is that enlightening to salvation?
52:11
Or is it just a general enlightening that all men receive in the sense that as spoken of in Romans?
52:20
Yeah. The passage that you're referring to, John chapter 1, verse 10, in talking about the subject of the
52:30
Lord Jesus coming into the world. If you look at the prologue, for those who may not know it off top of the top of their heads, it's talking about him.
52:40
It says that the true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world.
52:46
Now, that's the ESV rendering. Numerous there was the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man.
52:52
So there's the first thing is whenever anyone uses that particular text, I think they need to at least be up front in pointing out that there is some question as to how it should be translated.
53:06
Yeah, I was reading that myself. Yeah. And when you when you try to build a huge case, which some people do on a single verse like that, and it can be translated either as the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man or which enlightens everyone was coming into the world.
53:26
Those are two different things. But beyond that, what is the nature of this of this enlightening?
53:33
Obviously, it's connected with the term FOS, FOS being the term light. And then FOTIDZI is the enlightening.
53:40
So it's a play on words, obviously. And when it says FOTIDZI, lightning,
53:47
Panta, Anthropon, every man, what does that mean? Does that mean that there is a general revelation?
53:53
Does that mean that there is a general graciousness of God that has been shown toward the entire world in the fact that God has been building his church?
54:02
The church has been a blessing to to all of mankind. God's wrath has been, in fact, the parousia, as Peter would explain in 2
54:09
Peter 3 9, has been delayed in that God is building his church and he's drawing his elect into himself.
54:15
Is it these general benefits that come from the incarnation, the work of Christ, so on and so forth? Is that what's being talked about?
54:21
Other people will say that there is sort of like the previous caller, that this is, in essence, prevenient grace and that every man is enlightened in the sense of being brought to almost a moral neutral point.
54:35
Well, the problem with that is that that just simply isn't the case. There's never been a case in history when that was the case at all.
54:42
And so why John would be saying that is is a good question, unless you want to go with every man being what
54:49
John himself then says, every man from tribe, tongue, people, nation, that is that the the blessing of Christ goes to all the world in that sense.
54:57
You know, I suppose you could go that direction. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. I was thinking and like I said, I may be wrong, but that if it's if using the term every man, like every kind of man, every type of man is being enlightened.
55:10
Well, yeah, that's what I was saying right there toward the end is that's another way if you want to look at it in the sense of of any type of spiritual enlightenment, then that would be a way of understanding that would be consistent with John's own limitation of that to those who believe
55:27
John chapter 11 to the children of God who are spread abroad Revelation chapter five, which I've been discussing on the blog a little bit in regards to the extent of the of the atonement.
55:36
But it's very, very clear that however you want to do it, you can't make it a universal statement if you want to make it salvific in light of the clear teachings of Christ.
55:45
He says the Jews, I give my life for my sheep. You are not of my sheep. He makes these kinds of delineations that would make mincemeat out of the
55:53
Gospel of John. If you were to try to read into something like Fotidze enlightens the idea of enlightens unto salvation in the sense of maybe temporarily removing spiritual blindness or something.
56:06
Those are all very imaginative, but they have little to do with what actually is found in the text itself and what the meaning of the text itself would actually be.
56:15
So John chapter three, it talks about that men have loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil, and that's why they refuse to come to the light.
56:24
Now, would that be because I'm thinking that it is an enlightenment to salvation?
56:31
Well, it's possible, but the problem is that we're speaking here very, very generally.
56:38
You're in the prologue here. The focus really needs to be upon the nature of the true light, the identity of Christ.
56:47
That's why I'm a little hesitant. You do have a transition here into discussion about starting at verse 12, receiving him, as many as received him, believe in his name.
57:00
He gave the right to become the children of God who are born, not of blood or the will of flesh or the will of man, but of God. So you do have a soteriological construct that comes a little bit later, but at the point where this is being discussed, you have the true light, and it's transitioning out of the discussion of John.
57:16
He was not the true light, but it came to bear witness of that light, which is the true light, which enlightens everyone who's coming into the world.
57:22
And so it's more focused upon who Christ is and what Christ does by coming into the world, and I think it's a long stretch to leap from Christ coming into the world, meaning that every person, because there were many people in the generation when
57:38
Christ came in this world who never heard of him, obviously, and in fact, knowledge of him only grew relatively slowly over time, over even the known world, and even today there are places where the name of Christ has never been proclaimed.
57:50
The idea that somehow there has been some sort of spiritual light given, and only after coming into the world.
57:58
I guess it didn't happen before Christ came into the world or something. I think that's what vitiates the idea that we're really talking about anything salvific here in a specific way.
58:07
But thank you, sir, for your call today. I'm looking forward to seeing you in September. Yes, thank you. I'll take you out to Switzerland.
58:14
All right. God bless. Bye -bye. All righty. Well, that's, of course, up to the folks who bring me up there as to whether I'm able to do something like that.
58:23
But anyway, thanks for your phone calls. It made the time go a lot quicker. We got through the first one.
58:29
There's more we've got to do. Air conditioning would be cool. Operational network, so I'm not using someone else's wireless would be cool, but we're going to get there.
58:37
Thanks for listening. God bless. We'll see you next week. 4 -6 -0 -2 or write us at P .O.
59:40
Box 3 -7 -1 -0 -6, Phoenix, Arizona, 8 -5 -0 -6 -9. You can also find us on the
59:46
World Wide Web at aomin .org. 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.