Diaa Mohamed

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. You know, I'm not too sure why it is the minute right as the music starts, strange things that happen in channel or I see things on the internet that are very odd.

For example, as the music started, I looked over at Twitter and one of the people I follow on Twitter is

American professional cyclist, TJ Vangardron. And TJ just tweeted, remember that ticket

I told you guys about ended up costing $369. Now, why would a professional cyclist get ticketed for $369?

For 74 in a 55 zone, I cannot conceive of what it would be like on the back of a bicycle at 74 miles per hour.

I cannot begin to conceive that. I hit my all time high speed on I -17 southbound out of into Black Canyon City.

You know, the five mile hill, those who know Arizona know five mile hill out of, what is up at the top?

What's the rest of it? Sunset point, sunset point down into my all time high speed was 48 miles an hour.

That's not much. Most people are in the 50s. I just figure, you know, after a certain speed,

I know how many times I've had flats, you know, and I just like my skin where it is.

You know, the idea of sliding down pavement at 50, 60 miles per hour just does not appeal to me.

The thrill is gone at that point. So, so last, I don't know, back in December, I hit 40, 46 .4

out near, was that Apache Lake? Is that anywhere out somewhere around there?

And so I cannot even begin to imagine 74 miles an hour. Right at the same time, as I'm looking at that,

I look into the chat channel and did I just see Squirrel saying that he had been abducted by an alien?

I think that's what he said. And he's a pastor. And that's a scary thing that he's thinks he's been abducted by an alien.

So, but we won't mention anything more about that. Anyways, welcome to the Dividing Line.

A special Thursday morning edition, reason being that I am teaching five hours a night right now for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

And if now is the time, I can't say that I'm teaching what I'm doing five hours a night.

I'm not teaching for Golden Gate. I'm living at Golden Gate. That is, and I, you know, good old

Keith, my, my, my lovely dentist. Yes.

Well, he's, he's very good. I'm not sure that lovely was a proper term, but I was thinking British.

I was listening to Justin Brierley this morning and it's just, just a term lovely comes into mind whenever I listened to Justin Brierley, you know, actually he had

Michael Brown on and I was, it was the Christmas Eve program. I'm sort of catching up. I've sort of, I, I'll be honest,

I fell behind with all the William Lane Craig stuff because I'm not a William Lane Craig fan. So it was just sort of like just overload on William Lane Craig there for a while.

But they had Michael Brown on debating an atheist on Messianic prophecies on Christmas Eve. I thought that was really cool.

So that's, that's where, that's where I came from. Uh, anyhow, what was I talking about? I have, I have no earthly idea, but I'm teaching five hours a night right now and, and so we've got five to 10, uh, tonight and five to 10 tomorrow night yet.

And a really neat thing going on tomorrow night that hopefully I'll tell you about next week. If it works, because it's all dependent upon technology, which may not work, uh, we'll find out.

But, uh, it's been a great class and great students. And like I said, uh, my, my dentist Keith is taking the class and last night about nine o 'clock, man, you could tell the man had been working all day and now he was working all night.

Uh, he was looking tired. Everybody was looking pretty tired at that point. And me too.

I got it, you know, stuff, you know, the brains just start turning to goo, uh, you know, about eight 30 at night and it takes a lot of work to stay focused for these, uh,

January intensive courses. But anyways, two more nights of that. And then I just,

I just, what I need to do is I should find some place

I can go to like that class where there's almost no interruptions. You know, my cell phone's turned off and everything else.

That's the only way I can get any progress in this book done because it's just, it just isn't happening. And I'm very, uh, frustrated with that.

But, um, anyhow, uh, the class has been, been going great on the way out there. Uh, I've been listening to Catholic answers live, uh, because they're on while I'm driving out there.

It's a fairly decent drive out to Scottsdale. And uh, Scott Hahn was on a couple of days ago talking about the new evangelization.

And it's so sad to hear these people call up and you know, I've, I've come home to Rome and now

I'm trying to convert my family and how do I deal with, and it's, it's so simplistic. I mean, these people who have, who have bought into Romanism who say, well,

I was a Protestant once the, the questions that they ask demonstrate they never ever had a clue what it was.

They supposedly believe it is so easy to convert the truly non -Protestant

Protestants. I mean, if you're a Protestant today and the only reason you're not a Roman Catholic is because you think the

Pope looks funny in a silly hat, um, you're easy to convert. You're really easy to convert, uh, no two ways about it.

And I, I just listening to these folks just, just makes me want to pull, well, if I had hair to pull it out, uh, because they, they, they clearly have no commitment to or understanding of justification or sola scriptura, any of these things.

And so it's no wonder they're then given very, very shallow, uh, arguments to use with their families, which unfortunately may be highly effective, who knows?

Um, but it's, it's frustrating. And this one guy called up and, uh,

Han's answer to him was so shallow. And I know what

Han's background is, and I know that he could have given a much better response. Maybe, maybe he's just gotten lazy with it, you know, and it's just like, well, most of the people call up are asking shallow questions, shall give shallow answers.

Maybe, maybe that's what's happening. I don't know. But it was offensive to me to listen to it. Um, uh, just the, the glib way that, uh, most of the

Catholic answers folks talk. And then it, then it hit me, wow, well, that sort of is reflected in the

Catholic answers forums. We are constantly criticizing the Catholic answers forums, these lay people who give these shallow arguments and, and are just willing to believe anything as long as it's, uh, against a

Protestant who speaks out against Rome. Uh, but they're just, they're just mimicking the people that are their heroes that they listen to on the, uh, on the radio all the time.

It's, uh, it's a sad thing, but, um, it's been interesting to, uh, to listen to that. I almost, I actually did download, but I left it on my, my

Mac, which didn't bring it with me cause I'm only here for a little brief period of time today. But I did download that Han thing and I almost played the clip.

And then of course, uh, Tim Staples comes on. Oh, oh, oh, oh, that reminds me. I didn't tell you guys this and now

I'm going to tell everybody all at the same time, but evidently they, this rock disappeared and they've got a new magazine.

There's just Catholic answers magazine. I guess they're calling it. I thought this rock was at least a interesting title, uh, anyhow, but, uh,

Tim Staples now remember Tim, remember Tim? No, I never debated him on purgatory.

Tim Staples, Tim, one of the foremost, uh, biblical scholars in the Roman Catholic world. Tim Staples.

Yes. Yes. That, that fellow, uh, director of apologetics for Catholic answers, which

I found interesting because Jimmy Akin was there long before Tim Staples was. So I find that interesting, but, uh, be it as it may, uh, yes, the

Tim Staples that we debated almost two years ago now here on the dividing line on first Corinthians chapter three and the subject of purgatory.

And that's the very debate that most Roman Catholics don't even know existed because Catholic answers has ignored it.

Even though of course, part of the pre debate arrangements was that, um, that they would have the ability to make this available.

And we certainly let them know where the MP three was to make available. And they had made available

Tim Staples debate, uh, with, um, uh, Steve Gregg member they, and they talk, call it a debate and it was just a radio program and stuff like that.

Uh, they love to make that stuff available. And after the debate, when

I tried to get hold of Tim and talk with him some more about maybe doing some future topics and things like that, and it got real quiet and I wasn't exactly,

I, I just getting anything back to me. Finally, I got a note back from the, he's been really, really busy with lots and lots of emails.

Well, yeah. As if I don't understand that. And at the same time,

I hear him on Catholic answers live saying that now he's going to be doing a lot more debates in the future, looking for looking to line up debates.

Well, Tim, we're, we're here, man. You know? I mean, sure. I have to schedule it a ways out.

I mean, all of 2012 is already filled up for me, but, uh, but for something on radio or something like that,

Hey, I could find, I can find the time we can, we can do that. Well, one of the things they're doing in the new

Catholic answers magazine that I found out about, and I, I can remember exactly where I was on the two or two loop when

I heard this. Um, or is that the, is that the one I want? No, it's a two or two right around there, right after the mini stack is, uh, they are doing written debates and he says, this is the first time they've ever done this.

They're allowing non Roman Catholics to write for the magazine in this, in the form of a debate.

And the current edition, I think we might want to pick it up. In fact, the current edition of the magazine, there is a debate on one saved, always saved between Tim Staples and Mike gender.

And I'm sitting here going, wow, I need to, I need to write to Tim cause he must not have my email address.

Cause I haven't gotten any invitations, uh, to engage Tim on, on the papacy, uh, to, yeah.

You mean cherry picking? You think so? You think, you think he might, you might, you think he might be doing that? No, come on.

You're such a skeptic, man. I tell you, it must be where I get all my meanness from is you, huh?

You know, you and Russian women and stuff like that. I got that from him.

It's his fault. It's all his fault. We have evidence of this. Anyway, um, there are so many topics

I would, I would love to do a written debate on does Ciccara to many at Luke one 28 mean full of grace, uh, you know, all these things that Tim has made claims of, you know,

I still have a recording of him back in the 19 early 1990s, middle 1990s saying that every single church father that ever commented on Matthew chapter 16 agreed with Rome on it.

I think that would just be awesome. Um, we, there are so many topics that we could do and we could go into depth on his claims about the subjunctive that he made on the

Bible answer man programs we did together and, and there's just so many things we could do. And I'm hoping

I'm checking my, my spam filter, you know, to just to make sure that for some reason his invitations to, uh, to get involved just haven't gotten lost someplace cause

I would just be wonderful. Don't you think I'd be wonderful. You think there's just a small bit of sarcasm in my voice right now?

Just, just a teeny tiny, do we have the sarcasm filter on? We, maybe you guys could debate whether or not we've ever edited any of the video.

Oh, we could do that too. Uh, except, uh, he hasn't, he's not, he's smart enough, uh, unlike certain people in this

Catholic answer forums, uh, not to make libelous and foolish accusations without evidence and then just try to ignore that they ever made them.

Uh, he's not, he's not like that. So, um, uh, anyway, so, uh, it'll be interesting to see what debates come up, but just for the few

Roman Catholics in the audience who might be interested, we stand ready. Uh, um, and we'll see if we'll see if that, if that happens, cause

I think there should be some great topics we could go into real depth on, uh, that I, especially biblical topics.

I'd love to go into depth on with, with Tim Staples, but given the response to the last debate we did, nothing there.

Oh yeah. Hey Tim, 877 -753 -3341. Anyone from Catholic Answers Live who wants to get past my spam filter 877 -753 -3341, even though we're probably not going to be taking any calls today.

If you call, uh, we'll put you on, we'll put a guardian on, who seems to have lost the number after a few years now.

And, uh, though we've had, we've had the same number all this time, haven't we? We've pretty much had the same number since we moved into these studios, right?

Oh yeah. And that was in these studios. I specifically remember that. So yeah, guardian Ignatius, uh, he of the

Catholic Answers forums that has lied about us and said that we, we edit, uh, the, uh, the debates that we do, especially with, uh, with Mitch Pacwa, uh, which

Mitch Pacwa of course would never make a silly, stupid, false, lying accusation like that. But, uh,

Ignatius does. Ignatius, if you'd like to call in, we would love to hear your evidence of this. We really, really would like to see that.

And hey, you know, if Scott Butler would like to call in and explain why after all these years, he still continues to suppress the videotapes of the first two debates we did with Mitch Pacwa, um, holding them hostage for $5 ,000.

Um, you know, maybe he'd like to explain that too. So there is, uh, there is all of that.

All right. Uh, I want to try to get through the, uh, Dia Mohammed, uh,

Samuel Green debate because I have a presentation done by a

Muslim out of, uh, Riyadh. I think it's Riyadh. Uh, I'll have to check again. I'll have to look at my email, but he's in Saudi Arabia right now.

And I told him that once we got to it, I'd let him know so we could listen. And then he seemed to show an interest in actually participating in the program.

Obviously we might have to play with some timeframes to try to sync up with Saudi Arabia, which, uh, is on the other side of the planet, but we'll, uh, we'll try to work something like that out and, uh, see if we can't make, uh, make that work as well.

So I want to get to that as well. And, uh, maybe we might also throw in a little bit more on the James McCarthy sermon today without investing three minutes in the

Radio Free Geneva theme in the process. And then, uh, Lord willing next week, back to our regular schedule.

Uh, I've got a couple of weeks. I've got the rest of the time in January. I think I'm here and then I don't leave again until February, but thankfully until March, they're all just weekend type things, which shouldn't impact the dividing line schedule too much.

And, um, look forward to being with you for all of that. So let's, uh, let's get back to it here.

And, uh, for those of you, oh, and by the way, uh, thanks to, let me scroll back down here and see if I can, uh, can find this.

Um, thanks to whoever it was who suggested to me, here it is.

Chris Lowen's, uh, Chris Lowen's on Twitter suggested a program to me that has allowed me to, and I knew there were programs that did this, but the ones

I had seen were extremely complicated to install. And I just went to start editing stuff in the

Mac, in Apple, whatever. I don't, I don't go there, but, uh, put me onto a program that installed very easily.

And now I can only, I can use one keyboard and one mouse for all four screens.

And, uh, that will, that will really simplify things for me a lot. I have to spin this thing like, ah,

I get all the way across all this, uh, real estate to get back where I was on the other side. Yes, sir. Is that Chris Lowen's or is that Chris L.

Owens or in Twitter speak, it could be Chris Lowen's. It could be any of those things.

Uh, it could be, it could, yeah, it could be any of those things. I have no earthly idea. However, he does not claim to have been born in Istanbul.

So that's, uh, that's something going for him right off the bat. Actually during, during we, we take a break to eat something during these five hours, you know, uh, you know, we all,

I bring my, you know, sandwich or whatever it is. And, uh, I played a portion of my video with, uh,

Esam on the, um, uh, the many fake Arabic chisms of, uh, Ergen Kanner, uh, during the, during the break.

And, uh, that was, that was our entertainment for, uh, for that one. That was, that was fun. Okay. Anyways, let's finally get back to the

Diya Mohammed debate. And, uh, he is talking about how the Quran has never, ever changed.

Well, you're not going to come up with, uh, two different, uh,

Qurans Diya, uh, but you are going to come up with textual variants. You are going to see, uh, the evidence of the tradition of Ibn Masud in, for example, the

Foggs Palimpsest manuscript, uh, the London man, uh, the Paris manuscript likewise shows evidence of, uh, issues that existed in the early days.

Uh, the Tafsir literature, which I don't think you've read likewise seems to, um, provide that kind of information as well.

So it's, it's there. And that is part and parcel of any, the transmission of any written text over time, but there are a special, uh, a special, there's an, a special area of study when it comes to the

Quran that is in its infancy. Uh, New Testament manuscript studies are far more advanced than Quranic studies at this point.

And there are a number of reasons for that. Uh, but the general availability of New Testament manuscripts in comparison to, and, and information about New Testament manuscripts and collations of New Testament manuscripts and, and digital photography of New Testament manuscripts is far beyond the state that currently exists, uh, in the study of the

Quran. But of course, if you accept the traditional story of the Uthmanian revision under the third caliph, um, that introduces all sorts of issues.

And then you have Ibn Masud and Ubaid bin Khab, and you have the, the companions that gather around Ibn Masud at Kufa and then in the midst of all this, and I think this is extremely important, is the fact that this controversy is taking place at the exact same time as the origins of the

Sunni Shia split, and that that was about the issue of, uh, succession and that some of the variants seem to be relevant to that.

All of that is extremely important. And when you have Uthman, who is representing one side of things in control of the text, that raises huge, massive issues about the reliability of the resultant text that he produces.

Now you may say, well, we have a really, really, really, really good idea of exactly what Uthman had. And you're right, you do. But because of the revision, which could never have happened with the

New Testament, because the way in which it was transmitted, it raises all sorts of very important issues in regards to reliability of the text of the

Qur 'an, despite the fact that it is the youngest of, uh, comparison of the

Qur 'an in the New Testament, Qur 'an in the Old Testament, it's by far the youngest, least lengthy period of time during which it is transmitted in a handwritten form, uh, should be, must be the most accurately transmitted in the sense that it had such a minimal period of time of transmission by hand and was state sponsored.

So you should have the smallest number of variants, no question about it. But the big, the main issue for anyone who really thinks through this subject, and if you've been listening to what we're saying in response to Bart Ehrman, you've understood this as well.

The big issue is, could the text have been fundamentally altered prior to the earliest manuscripts that we have?

And in light of, of Sahih al -Bukhari 6519 and 510, there's just no way around that, outside of the discovery of something that the

Hadith says did not exist. And that would be, well, okay, I'll take that back. Unless you could find

Hafsah's manuscript, if you could find a manuscript that was produced under Abu Bakr and then was given to Umar and then to Umar's daughter

Hafsah, which was then asked for by Uthman. And according to Sahih al -Bukhari, he gave it back to her, or at least promised to give it back to her, whether or not he did or didn't, who knows.

But, uh, I suppose you could find Hafsah's manuscript. That would be, that would be great. But the chances of that are extremely small.

And, uh, so we, we press on. It's out there. And I can say with certainty because the book says it with certainty.

And the author of the book is divine, God Almighty. Again, coming back to the identity of Jesus, who

Jesus is, following Jesus, we Muslims humbly say that we're more

Christian than the Christian and Jewish than the Jew, because we follow Jesus more than the Christian does. Now, of course, this is an interesting presentation.

We follow, we follow Jesus more than the Christian does. Well, what do they mean by that?

They certainly don't mean they follow everything that Jesus says in the New Testament because they reject the textual accuracy of almost everything.

Well, they do reject the textual accuracy of everything that contradicts what comes in the Quran. So you're, you're left with the minimal element of discussion that's found in the text of the

Quran concerning Jesus. 25 ayah that mentioned him by name, some more that mentioned him by reference, less than a hundred grand total and very little information, almost nothing historical about Jesus.

And that becomes the lens through which everything in the New Testament must be read. And to say that you're going to follow that Jesus, and that makes, and you're, that means you follow him more.

It, well, obviously it doesn't make any sense. It does not follow from the reality.

Jesus says, don't eat the pig. You all eat the pig. Jesus never said, don't eat the pig.

Um, where do you think he said that? Where's the reference to that in your book or in any other book? It's not there.

Uh, instead you have in the earliest gospel, according to standard views today of Mark and priority, which

Muslim apologists seem to love to embrace. Instead you have Jesus in Mark making all meats clean.

He says, it's not what goes into a man that defiles him, it's what comes out. He made all meats clean.

That's the early, there you have something that clearly comes even, even from the perspective of Bart Ehrman.

He puts Mark somewhere in the late sixties, right? That's what about, uh, 20 times closer than the

Quran. And so you, where, where does he get this stuff?

I mean, he didn't even bring a Bible to this debate. As far as I can tell, he's doing it all off the top of his head.

And unfortunately his memory is not like Shabir Ali. You know, when Shabir does stuff off the top of his head, he's normally right.

He's got a good memory. Uh, but, um, not, uh, not Diya Mohammed. Jesus said, circumcise.

You don't practice that anymore. Uh, exactly. Where did Jesus say that? Oh, well he said, uh, you know, uh, keep the law and whoever breaks the law, okay, that's, that's quite true.

He did say that. So the question then becomes who then follows

Jesus in their teaching. In other words, is, is it just Jesus or did

Jesus have disciples? Now, as a Muslim, Diya can't argue this point because the

Quran says that God would make the faithful followers of Jesus victorious until the day of judgment.

So you've got to tell me who they were. You can't, you can't get around. You can't do the real popular thing, at least not consistently of just say, well, it was just all

Paul. It was just all Paul at that's what Diya Mohammed says too. But, but wait a minute. If Paul corrupted

Jesus' teachings, then the Quran is wrong in its promise.

So which is it going to be? Because if Paul didn't corrupt, I love this. If Paul didn't corrupt the teachings of Jesus, then the

Quran is wrong. Because it contradicts what Paul said about Jesus. If he did, then the Quran is wrong because the Quran promised that the followers of Jesus would be victorious until the day of judgment.

So which one are you going to go for? So he's British because Paul came and said, you can eat the pig now.

Your master's telling you don't, uh, don't even touch his carcass for it's unclean to you.

He's emphatic in it. You didn't just mention it. He's emphatic. Don't go near it. You'll eat it.

Muslims, we don't go near it. Because Jesus said so, because Allah confirms it. Don't eat the pig. Uh, still would love to know what the reference is here, you know?

Uh, but you know what? And I am absolutely certain that Dio Muhammad thinks that somewhere in the

New Testament, it says, don't eat the pig. Just like he thinks John 5, 7 is the only verse on the trinity has been taken out.

The man just doesn't know what he's talking about. He just, there, it's just a level of ignorance that is very, very common in having to deal with it.

Yes, sir. But don't we draw that from the vision Peter had? Well, don't call unclean that which

God has cleansed. That's part of it. That, but that was more, Jesus had already, now of course,

Mark wouldn't be written by the time that Peter has his vision, but if you're talking about specific references to Jesus's words, so you, you go to the

Gospels and in the Gospels in Mark, you have the specific text where it is said, saying this,

Jesus made all meats clean. So he, he suspended by his own authority, those elements of the dietary, uh, law.

It's, it's just right there. There just isn't any place where Jesus said, don't eat the pig. It's just not there.

Uh, he's I'm, but I'm sure he thinks it is. I'm sure he thinks it's somewhere and, and it's us that are missing it.

Again, following what Jesus himself is saying, he says, and, and again, when he says, uh, the,

I am, when, when, when, when God almighty said to Moses, I say, when Moses went to the mountain and he said, who should

I tell? What should I tell the people who sent me? And he says, I am what I am. And the word is, uh, he, yeah, he, yeah,

I am what I am. Don't worry about who don't worry about the, the, the, I am what I tell him.

I am what I am. So when Jesus says before Abraham, I am in the knowledge of God, we all are.

Now, now catch this, uh, cause this is actually not an unusual argument. It's, it's a very poor argument, but it's not an unusual argument.

And it's not just the Muslims who will, who will use this argument either. But the idea that was just made is well, in the eternal knowledge of God, Jesus existed, but then again, so did we all.

And so Jesus wasn't saying anything special, which of course is exactly why the, the soldiers fell over when

Jesus said that and exactly why the Jews pick up stones to stone Jesus when he said that was cause

Jesus was saying nothing remarkable at all. Makes, makes perfect sense to me.

Uh, but again, Dio Muhammad is not looking to, uh, actually interpret these texts in their context or in their original languages, even though he just gave a close approximation of the

Hebrew of Exodus 3 .14. Uh, he should take the time to look at the

Greek Septuagint rendering of it and how that comes into the minor prophets and how that comes into the New Testament. And, and, um, you know, just a few, just a few weeks ago, we demonstrated,

I think on this program, uh, how deeply you can go into this particular subject and, and demonstrate that the,

I am sayings are most definitely purposeful on John's part and exactly what it is they communicate to us.

I am, is not a term used for God. I am, you have taken a term that a word that God said, the script

I am and made it into the name of God. So when Jesus says, does it sound familiar? Remember my debate just a few weeks ago with, uh,

Patrick novice on this very subject, that's not the name of God. And then you, we went into Isaiah and other places where, uh, ago,

I, me is used not only as a name, we provide citations from scholars on the subject, but even repeated twice to identify

Yahweh in opposition to false gods. But again, deal Muhammad just doesn't even know this information exists.

And unfortunately has chosen to ignore all efforts that I've made to contact him. So my gut feeling is, and I hope

I'm wrong about this. I really, really hope I'm wrong about this, but I doubt he'll ever listen to these programs.

I just get the feeling, uh, listening to him speaking that he's happy with what he believes and, and he's just going to keep repeating it, whether it's truth or not, it's another issue.

And I hope I'm wrong about that. I really, really would love to hear from him and say, you know, I've just been really busy and I'm going to listen.

And I would like to see that happen if it, for no other reason than when he speaks in the subject in the future, he can be a little bit more accurate.

And, and which means he'd be talking much more about Muslim things and Christian things because his knowledge of Christian things is, um, is highly inadequate.

Before Abraham was, uh, I am, he said, well, he said, I am. And, and the God of Moses said,

I am. So it must be one of the same thing. That's stretching pretty far. You know, I was talking to a friend once,

I was talking to a friend once about, you know, Islam, Christianity, and, you know, he was talking about the divinity of Christ, except Christ as Lord.

And I said to him, imagine, it's pretty scary imagination, but we're dead. And a day of resurrection came and we all get questioned, right?

We all agree. So there will be coming, there will come a time when we need to answer to our Lord. And if in fact,

Jesus is Lord. And he says to me, why did you not worship me? Why did you not take me as your Lord?

I have an answer. You never told me to. Now we could agree and get into details, but he said this, and we twisted and I am, and, and the father of begotten.

Look, if my salvation depends on things that I have to stretch and change, and that's, that can't be right.

Allah is clear in the Quran. Stretch and change, which means the truth of those things is outside of Dio Muhammad's purview of study and discussion.

And so we're, we are stretching and changing things when the reality is, uh, that he's just not familiar with, uh, the subject and the, the information as it needs to be presented.

So we're, we're stretching and changing things. Yeah. It's, it's a whole lot easier, Mr. Muhammad to just not go in depth into the scriptures and just go with what people have told you to believe.

But that's not the same thing as, uh, honestly dealing with the text. Let you let him alone.

Well, there is no God, but God almighty. And I mean, I want to emphasize that Allah is not the Muslim God. Christian Arabs have that use word

Allah. There is no God, but God, there is no respect to any Muslim. There is no questioning who

God is the theory behind God. But you're asking me to, or you're having us to say, believing in Jesus, that he was

Lord and savior. He never said he was Lord. He never said for him to be worshiped. He never said he was

Lord. That's is that the second time we've heard that one, because I'm pretty certain we've already refuted that one.

You call me Lord and thus I am. And over and over again, people referred to him using that term.

He doesn't rebuke them for it. And so he never says he was Lord. And yet all of his followers called him

Lord. And, and he accepted that title. Uh, and that's what the gospels revealed to us.

And then he is worshiped in specifically religious context, not just context. We can sort of try to get around that and go, well, you know, maybe this person didn't really know and you know, stuff like that.

You know, no, there are specifically religious context. You think of the blind man in John chapter nine and Jesus reveals himself to him and he worships him.

And do you really think that's just some sort of, of appropriate human reverence after his revelation?

I am the son of man. I am the son of God, whichever term you want to use there. Uh, I don't think so. So he is worshiped after his resurrection, he is worshiped.

So it's just, you're listening to the effect of studying someone else's religion by only listening to what your side says.

And folks, Christians do this all the time. We do it all the time. And to some extent it cannot be completely, uh, avoided because none of us, myself included, can make comments on every religion on the planet solely from firsthand sources.

You just can't do it. No one could possibly even read everything they'd need to read in a lifetime.

To be able to comment on all religious perspectives, it just can't be done. I mean, there's just too much.

So all of us have to, in a sense, do that. But the problem is Dio Muhammad is

A, speaking in a public sense in a debate. And B, he's not saying, well, in my limited study of secondary sources, primarily from the

Muslim side, this is what I understand. That would have been nice, but that's not what you get.

Instead you get these broad sweeping, no such thing and it cannot happen and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

And it just ends up sounding really tinny. And it ends up sounding like a lot of the stuff that I see being said about Islam that bothers me because it's so clearly derived from secondary sources and they're not reliable secondary sources.

It's ambiguous. He never, you know, coming from the word, from the mouth of Jesus in the three, in the three and a half years that he walked in his ministry, he never said that he is

God or worship him. There, and what you're hearing there is coming directly, straight, completely lock, stock and barrel.

From Akhmed Didat, he just, he's just accepting whatever Akhmed Didat has to say as being the final word in all things.

And the danger of doing that is Akhmed Didat was not a reliable person.

He said the complete opposite. His father's greater than him. He said, don't call me good. He didn't, doesn't know the last day.

Okay. We've responded to all of these. He's becoming somewhat repetitive. We're going to get toward the end of it here where they get into the interaction where there's some more interesting.

Over and over and over and over again, he shows us that he's a man and he's not part of the, the, the, the, the, uh, the

Trinity. Now the Douglass quite as he said, the Trinity has been taken out because it's not in the most ancient manuscripts.

So who's writing the, I mean, who's writing the Bible is the Bible, the God of word, the word of God, or is it, is it dependent on, and I'll say this all with respect.

It's not, it's not, but you're taking ancient manuscripts and you're taking, you're putting out.

So all the ones that worshiped God as three gods before they'll realize it wasn't there. Mr. Muhammad, um, how do you know that the

Quran you have today is accurate? Don't you have, don't you go back to ancient manuscripts?

Why, why, why is it that, that people refer to the top copy manuscript? And they refer to the

London manuscript and the Paris manuscript and, and to the, uh, why was there such excitement only a few decades ago, uh, when the

Yemeni manuscripts from Saana were, were discovered?

Why was there such excitement? If, if, if those things are irrelevant and if you find variation and change in those, why isn't that important to you?

I would think that a truth loving Muslim would be extremely interested in, in understanding why the

Fogg's Palimpsest manuscript reads the way that it does, why there is clear evidence of editing in it.

It's the same message, but, but why is there a difference? Why did the early

Tafsir literature make so many references to variations in reading, especially in reference to Abdullah ibn

Masud and Ubay ibn Kab? Why? It would seem to me that you would want to understand that and that there's a, there's a sort of a surface level, uh, cavalier nature in your attitude toward truth, if you just ignore those things and at the same time, then criticize the

New Testament based upon ignorance. Um, and just, and again, not even knowing which verse we're talking about and the fact that it is not a part of the

Greek text until, well, longer after the birth of Christ, then the

Quran has existed since it was revealed. I know you believe the

Quran has eternally existed, but we're talking 1400 years. Who died and the ones who've come after the

Quran says that they came, the, the, the, uh, the, the Old Testament and the

New Testament. We believe that it came down. I don't have to have the book in itself. We believe, but it was corrupted.

The Bible says so in the preface, as I mentioned, the new international, the Bible was corrupted because the preface in international version says that we need to fix some of the translational errors in the

King James as if the Bible existed in the English language all along. I mean, this is just such a, a basic category error that, that it's, um, it's somewhat difficult to listen to over and over.

This is a King James version has defects that are so many and so serious as to call for a revision.

So I'll give it back to the, uh, the, uh, the doctor. And he will take the Q and A's now. So I can call upon Sammy for a five minute rebuttal.

All right. Uh, we'll, we'll skip past, uh, Samuel there, even though I'm sure he did a fine job and in fact,

I know he did a fine job and, uh, after his, uh, let's get to the, the, the

Q and a part here. It's famous for giving life back to the dead. And it's something

I didn't quit. I did. I didn't mention, but I'll quickly mention if you read the Bible, Jesus never gave life back to the dead. He never gave life back to the dead when he came back.

And the sister of Lazarus came and said, master, master, if you would hear, you would have saved him. Lazarus is dead.

And he said, so I take me to where he was buried. And he, and she took him. And then Jesus fell on his knees and fell to his face.

Take another. He fell to his face, had a Muslim spray. All right, face down.

And he said, and he supplicated and he looked up and he put his hands on his supplicated. He said, now, by the way, um, that's nowhere in John 11.

There's nothing about Jesus falling on his face in the resurrection of Lazarus. The only place where, where Jesus falls, his face to the ground is in the garden of Gethsemane.

Uh, but again, it's, it's a Ahmed D dot, uh, standard

Islamic argument that Jesus would have even adopted the, the, um, bodily positions of Muslims in his prayers.

And I've had other Muslims, other Muslims realize that's really stretching it. You just, you can't prove it. And of course, when we look to information that we can obtain concerning Jewish prayer practices in the days of Jesus, that doesn't follow now, a person of course, can pray in all sorts of positions, lying down, bowing, hands raised toward the heaven, eyes lifted up to heaven.

I mean, that's much more common in Jesus's, uh, experience than, uh, head bowed to the ground.

But again, it's just that idea of, well, the marks of prostration, especially important to Muslims, et cetera, et cetera.

He said, Oh my Lord, I know thou hear me. I know those always hear me, what I'm doing.

This is what Jesus is saying in the Bible, but I'm doing this so that people around me know that you have sent me.

So it doesn't look like Jesus is doing the work he put on a show. And this is what Jesus is saying. He's put on a show so that people around him may know that you have, he, that God has sent him and he just is asking you again.

And he said, and then Jesus stood up and he said, let us come out. It doesn't say that he brought life back to the dead. He supplicated to God almighty.

Well, of course the assumption there is that the action of Jesus is merely a secondary thing or that, or that for Jesus to give life to the dead, he must do so separately from the father as a separate

God. And of course we don't believe in separate gods. We don't believe in any of those things. So the presuppositions that Mr.

Muhammad brings to the interpretation of the New Testament truly blind him to the actual beauty of the

New Testament and the things related there too. So we'll continue with that. I want to step away from that for just a moment so that we can sort of shift topics.

It's a regular size program today. Sorry about that, Ralph, but just, just sort of the way, just sort of the way it is.

Got a, got a lot of stuff going on today and trying to cram it all into one day. The, the, the nights are just, are just way too short, but I want to do a shift gears and continue some of the review that we've been doing as part of the

Radio Free Geneva. But like I said, we only have about 14 minutes left in the program. So taking up three minutes of that just with Radio Free Geneva theme seems like somewhat of a inappropriate use of time.

So we're gonna go back to the sermon preached on Calvinism by Brother James G. McCarthy.

We've been looking at some of the texts that he's been raising and looking at. By the way, just, just for sake of completeness,

I did want to mention, I had mentioned an ayah in the Quran. I didn't give you the reference. I was referring to, to Surah 355, where now

I will, I will read this without the added material that the

Sahih International translation provides. When Allah said, O Jesus, indeed,

I will take you and raise you to myself and purify you from those who disbelieve and make you and make those who follow you superior to those who disbelieve until the day of resurrection.

Then to me is your return and I will judge between you concerning that in which you used to differ. Now, the

Arabic of this text refers rather obviously to the death of Jesus.

If it wasn't for Surah 4, 157, no one would question that. But the important thing is, it says, and purify you from those who disbelieve and make those who follow you superior to those who disbelieve until the day of resurrection.

Now, to try to get around this, the Sahih International has inserted an entire phrase. It's almost like the New World Translation at this point.

Oh, we don't like what that says. So let's insert something. So they've changed it to, and make those who follow you in submission to Allah alone superior to those who disbelieve.

So in other words, they change it to where it becomes a prophecy of making the Muslims superior to the

Christians. But that's not what it said. And you can't find that, it's nowhere in the Arabic. It's referring to the followers of Jesus and it specifically says, make those who follow you superior to those who disbelieve until the day of resurrection.

That's what it says. You've got to deal with it and mistranslating it or adding entire phrases that bring in other things just isn't the way to do it.

All right. On to the sermon by James G. McCarthy. That, through holy living?

It can't be talking of eternal salvation. You're justified by faith.

Okay. Now, to bring it back up to speed here, my apologies for just throwing that at you, but it helps me to remember we're in the

World War II, to be honest with you. We're talking here about 1

Thessalonians 2, verse 13. And at the last portion of the sermon,

McCarthy was basically saying, this isn't talking about salvation because we're not, we're not, we're justified by faith.

We're not justified by what we do. And as if that's what

Paul is referring to in this text, which of course he is not referring to in this text at all.

Specifically when it says, I'm sorry, did I say 1 Thessalonians? I meant 2

Thessalonians, duh. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Boy, I'd always give thanks to you, to God for you, brothers beloved by the

Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.

And we were commenting as the music was coming up last time at the amazing assertion that this has nothing to do with salvation.

That due to the context, which is interpreted in a dispensational eschatological fashion by James McCarthy, that this isn't talking about salvation itself, even though these are all of Paul's salvation words, and that there is nothing whatsoever contradictory about God's having chosen us from the beginning for salvation by sanctification of the

Spirit. Is there any salvation apart from the sanctifying work of the

Spirit? Of course not. Of course not. And what is pistei ale theos, if it is not faith in the truth?

And the continuation then is in verse 15, is the fact that he's talking about the gospel, stand firm and hold fast.

And what does he use steiketei and krataita in like 1 Corinthians 15? It's about holding fast to the gospel.

And that's exactly how the gospel has been communicated to the Thessalonians by word of mouth, that is by his preached word, and by epistolae, letter from us.

And I had just had enough time to sort of sneak in, how does he deal with the Roman Catholic misuse, 2

Thessalonians 2 .15, if he doesn't see that it's the gospel, it's the context here? But he can't because of his opposition to Calvinism.

Theology matters big time in all sorts of different ways, as we see right there.

So we continue on. But in bad times, and we're already in bad times, the way we're going to be delivered through these bad times and the delusions that are already coming upon the earth is through holy living, sanctification, and by faith in the truth, sticking close to God's word, because God has already determined in advance that when we are not going through the tribulations, he's going to preserve us from that.

We're not going to fall into the delusion of the end times and of the Antichrist. It's not talking about who's saved and who's not at all.

The word salvation is used in scripture in a variety of ways. Paul was saved from the sea and the shipwreck, delivered.

So the way you get around the clarity of 2 Thessalonians 2 .13 is by expanding the term salvation, soterion, and recognizing, oh, it's used in many ways.

Well, it is, but that doesn't address how it's being used here. And if you can say that Paul can use all these terms, selected, sanctification of the spirit, belief in the truth, and all that, but that has nothing to do with who's saved, not saved.

I suggest that here is glaring evidence of tradition being used to override the clarity of the text of scripture itself.

Very, very clear. Remember, he's the one who said not a one of the texts that we use, not one of them in context actually supports

Calvinism. Well, we've seen so far in Ephesians 1 and now in 2 Thessalonians 2, that's not true.

All it means, we are going to be delivered through sanctification of faith through the truth, while the other believers are going to receive a diluting influence.

Now, I propose to you, if you start looking at verses in context, you're going to find there isn't a single verse that teaches what the five -point

Calvinists say they teach. They've got great proof text, but once you put them back in context, they disappear.

Now, in their defense, I want to say something else. There are a lot of very difficult verses that we dodge, that we don't face up to.

OK, let's take a look at one of those, John 6, 44. Now, here,

I love that. That's my introduction. You want a verse that Armenians, OK, synergists, dodge and everything else.

It's not just John 6, 44. It's John 6, 35 through 45, at least. Because John 6, 44, if you just jump to that, then you're going to miss the incredible assertions of 37 to 39.

But still, I'm going to be very interested in how we deal with John 6, 44.

The Lord Jesus said, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

Now, don't dodge that verse. Yeah, don't. That's also heavily used by Calvinists.

It is. No one could come to Christ unless the Father draws him. No one has the ability to come to Christ.

But let's do what Brother McCarthy says we need to do. We need to put it in context. And Jesus has already introduced us to the concept of God giving a particular people to Jesus, and as a result of their being given, they come to Christ.

Not that God foresees they're going to come to Christ, and therefore he gives them to Jesus, and then they come to Christ, which is a really silly circle of misreason.

But the giving of the Father precedes and determines the resulting action of the people who come to Jesus.

And Jesus has also said he's come down out of heaven not to do his own will, but the him who sent him. What's that will? That of all that have been given him, he lose nothing but raise it up on the last day.

Jesus' task from the Father to fulfill the will of the Father is to be a perfect Savior.

He has to have the capacity and power to fulfill that will. And so that's what's come before.

And the people grumble about this, and they don't like this. And they reject who Jesus is saying, and the centrality of his person to salvation itself.

Jesus says, stop grumbling amongst yourselves. No one has the capacity or ability to come to me unless the

Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. I'll raise him on the last day is the same group as 637 to 39, the ones given to him by the

Father. So who is drawn to the Son? Those who've been given to him by the Father. And who is saved of that group?

Everyone. Of all he's given me, I lose none of them. So who's drawn? Well, if it's every single person on the planet, then every single person will be raised up on the last day and saved by Jesus, because that's what he says.

And to be raised up on the last day is to be given eternal life. There's no question about that in the context.

Just follow it through. We've done this a million times before. Follow it through, and you'll see that being raised up on the last day is to be receiving eternal life.

So when the Father draws someone to the Son, who does he draw? He draws those he's given to the

Son. And only those he's given to the Son, because this is explaining the unbelief of the Jews.

Remember, go back to verse 35. You've seen me, and yet you are not believing. Why? Because there's certain people the

Father gives to the Son, and they're the ones who come to me. So what are you saying? If you just follow it through, there it is.

Let's see if James McCarthy sees that. Please don't quote

John 3, 16 and say, you know, that John 3, 16 says anyone can believe. So those two cancel out.

We're back to zero. I mean, you can't do that with Scripture. John 3, 16 says what it says, and this verse says what it says.

OK, and there's other verses like that. If you just go over a few verses earlier, verse 37 and 637, all that the

Father gives me shall come to me and the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out.

What percentage of the people whom the Father draws will come to Christ and be saved? All 100 percent.

You say, well, Jim, you're really confusing me. We're back to Calvinism again. You can't come unless the Father draws you.

And if he draws you, you will come. And if you come, he will receive and you're safe. OK, what are you talking about?

I just thought I thought you're not a Calvinist. Now you are a Calvinist. Well, I'm just saying this. There's some verses here we really got to face.

OK, now the Lord also said, you know, now if I be lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. So we got all men will be drawn to Christ over here and we got the

Father will draw. Those two cancel and we're back to zero again. No, no, no, no, we're not. And notice we've we've left

John 6 now. We've jumped six chapters down the road into a completely different context of the

Greeks coming to Jesus. And what does Jesus do when the Greeks come to him? He does not reveal himself to them.

He hides himself from them. And so it's real common to jump there and he's at least saying, no, we can't just we can't just we've got to deal with all of it, but let's see how he does it.

You can't do that with Scripture. OK, the verses say what they mean and they mean what they say.

And you can quote me, you know, all the anyone can believe verses in the world, you're still going to have to deal with John 6, 44.

We're going to be honest. And I don't think we have been honest in our circles. I don't think we've been honest.

And so we've created this vacuum of confusion because we haven't faced up these hard verses.

And I'll tell you this, somebody wants to fill that vacuum and that's some Calvinists who got some really good arguments and it's create a lot of confusion.

So what you have to do is you also have to collect those verses, which in context and the context here is salvation.

Which say some pretty hard things. Now, we're almost out of time. I want to give you a way that you can reconcile these two now.

I just realized looking at the clock, if I even start this, we're not going to we're not going to even be able to get through it.

No, unfortunately, the trip out to Scottsdale doth loom large and much must be done.

So how do you get around this? How do you explain John 6?

This is called a teaser. How do you join us next time on the

Dividing Line to find out how it is you can deal with John 6 and yet still be a synergist?

That's that's how to get you to tune back in Tuesday. We'll definitely pick that one up next

Tuesday. How's how's that sound? So put it on your calendars next

Tuesday, the 17th. We'll get back together at our normal time and we'll probably go for a jumbo just so that people feel like we still do that once in a blue moon.

But we'll continue on with that next time around. Thanks for listening to the Dividing Line. We'll see you next time. God bless.

I believe we're standing at the crossroads, let this moment slip away, we must contend for the faith our fathers fought for, we need a new reformation today.

It's a sign of the times, the truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm, won't you lift up your voice, are you tired of faith, religion, it's time to make some noise.

I'm no Wittenberg, I'm no Wittenberg, I stand up for the truth and won't you live for the

Lord, cause we're pounding on, pounding on Wittenberg. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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