The Big Brains of Brussels

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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

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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. And welcome to The Dividing Line on a Tuesday afternoon, yes.

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Feels like Thursday because we're doing an afternoon, but on a Tuesday afternoon, beautiful day here in Phoenix, Arizona, I think it's what's like 79 degrees or something like that outside.

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This is this is why people move out here and then they leave in April. So that's sort of how it works,

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I guess. Books which portray traditional images of mothers caring for their children or fathers going out to work could be barred from schools under proposals from Brussels.

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Now, why would you care about Brussels? Brussels is the head of the European Union. We're not part of the European Union, but there are many, many people, many, many people indeed, who would like us to be under the control of the folks in Brussels or the folks in the

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U .N. And these are the folks they look to as the enlightened leaders of Western civilization.

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And you need to understand this promotion, the profanation of marriage now voted into law in certain states in the

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United States by popular vote, even though it had been defeated 31 some odd times in a row, which is coming.

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It will be shoved down our proverbial throats by the elitists who have been given leadership in Western countries and in the

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United States specifically, will force this upon us because it's part of a much broader anti -Christian agenda.

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It is a promotion of, well, the culture of death rather than the culture of life.

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Life is that which, the culture of life is that which promotes human life, which comes from the family unit of father and mother committed to one another for life, raising children together, modeling that loving relationship, providing that firm foundation.

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Oh, yes, not perfectly. Even within the Christian home there are imperfections and we are beings who by grace can overcome those things.

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I'm not one of those people that looks back and, you know, you look at your parents, you go, oh, they didn't do this right, they didn't do that right, no, that, no, no.

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Don't have that going on either. But the culture of death doesn't want any of those things.

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And so there is a fundamental overthrow of the proper relationships of man and woman, proper relationships between man and God, man and man, the foundation of law, everything is up for grabs.

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And so books which portray traditional images of mothers caring for their children or fathers going out to work could be barred from schools and proposals from Brussels.

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And of course, these are the very same people who are adamantly opposed to homeschooling because they want to control what your children are taught.

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These people, the left, wants your children because they know, well, they read 1984 and they're just following it.

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Okay. If you haven't read 1984 yet, you need to read 1984. We've been warned.

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But evidently Western civilization is too stupid to recognize what happened only 60 years ago because that's too long ago.

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Ancient history. Can't think that far back. An EU report claims that gender stereotyping in schools influences the perception of the way boys and girls should behave.

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Well, duh. Oh, I'm sorry. That's not in there. And damages women's career opportunities in the future.

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Yeah. Notice women's career opportunities, not men's, but just women's. And of course, career opportunity would not be actually, you know, raising children or being a mother.

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That's not a career. See, that's, that's bad, bad, ooh, bad. Critics said the proposals for study materials to be amended so that men and women are no longer depicted in their traditional roles would mean the withdrawal of children's classics such as Enid Blyton's The Famous Five series.

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Don't know that one. Sorry. And Paddington Bear. Do you know that one? Or Peter Pan. Okay. The document prepared.

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Okay. Ready? Who is it prepared by? The European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality.

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If that doesn't tell you that we're talking about pencil -necked geeks, nothing will.

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Also suggests EU -wide legislation is needed to tackle the way women are depicted in advertising during children's television programs.

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It further complains about the number of women in EU parliaments and floats the idea of fixed quotas on a minimum proportion of female

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MPs. So you have to have a certain number of women in, in parliament.

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That's, that's the idea there. There's the European Union for you folks. And there are many people who look at that and go, oh, if we could just be as enlightened as them.

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And they won the election last week. So just, just be prepared for, for that kind of thing.

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It is ironic that at the very same time you have that coming out of Brussels. Another interesting report that I read about the fact that Brussels has become a criminal sinkhole.

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And you see there's a connection here, folks. There is a connection between having a unbiblical view of man and the degradation of society.

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One of the great advantages and blessings that the

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United States has experienced was the fact that it was birthed out of a

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Christian worldview, primarily. It was not birthed out of a Muslim worldview.

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It was not birthed out of a secularist worldview. And there is a recognition that men are sinners.

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Men are sinners. And that's one of the reasons we have the balance of powers between the various branches of government is that once power becomes concentrated in any one place, what's the old saying?

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Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So recognizing that mankind is not capable of possessing that kind of power, no one person or branch of government is supposed to have all the power.

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They're not supposed to be able to collect the power that has been collecting in the executive branch over the past number of decades, unfortunately.

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And it's allowed to happen because, well, people in our day are more concerned about being safe than they are about having liberties and things like that and looking to the future and the continuation of the nation and stuff like that.

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That's just supposed to be a given. And you don't have to worry about that kind of stuff anymore. But anyway, here is where theology matters again.

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And that is, there were some of those dreaded Calvinists around back then.

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There were. Honestly, we can document it. There really were. And even if they necessarily weren't right there in the middle of things, what they had preached, what they had taught was well known to everyone.

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And there was a general recognition of, well, the depravity of man and the need to rein in the evil of man.

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Now secular humanism doesn't have that. And that's why we see criminals being coddled.

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And evil is now just sickness. Nothing's evil anymore, except maybe

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Christianity. But you can't call anything evil, say, oh, that's sick.

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That's meant to be, I guess, our way of saying evil now. But for very many people, that actually means there is a sickness with that person.

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You find a serial pedophile. You find a serial killer. Oh, they're sick. They're not sick.

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They're evil. Oh, but there must be something wrong with them. Because see, man, it's just so good by nature.

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And so secular humanism doesn't understand these things. And so here you have the very, very center of the secular world in Brussels.

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And it's overrun with criminals. Constant property crime.

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Criminals constantly breaking in. Muggings. Stealing. And, of course, the disarmed citizens are defenseless, even if they don't want to engage in criminal activity themselves.

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They are defenseless themselves. You got to wait for the cop to get there. And frequently the cops are not as well -armed as the criminals anyways.

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So it is truly an amazing thing to see what happens when that kind of thing happens.

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And we see this going on. Brussels. I'm not going to put that one on my list of places to visit any time in the near future in any way, shape, or form.

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Meanwhile, the wonderful United Nations has something called Agenda 21.

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We are in the 21st century. And Agenda 21 is very creepy.

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In fact, I'm going to plug in my other computer here so that we can hear this. Listen to this.

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It's not a good recording. But listen to this really creepy commercial that the

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UN has produced. And just, just, just, I don't know, just listen to it. I cannot handle the sheer number of humans who live here.

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Something has to give. And I believe that it's up to us who have lived a good life to make sure that our children will have the opportunity to live good lives too.

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I have lived a good life. I have lived a good life. I have lived a good life.

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I have lived a good life. That says

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Agenda 21 on the screen at the end as an old person walks away. I have lived a good life.

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Remember Logan's Run? I think Logan's Run is heading our way. Now I think in Logan's Run, what was it 25?

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Yeah, 25. And that's when the, the, the freaky zz -zz -zz -zz. They went in and you disappeared. And yeah,

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I remember that. A lot of people don't remember that, but yeah, the young people are going, well, that's

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Logan's run. That was a 1970s thing, wasn't it? Because I think Farrah Fawcett was in it, so that was a long time ago.

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But the whole idea was a cultural euthanasia. When you got too old, you had made your contribution and there you go.

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And that's what the EU is. That's what the UN is. And wow, you just look at this stuff and you go, oh, so get rid of the old people.

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Well, we've got nothing we can learn from them. And they've given, you know, they've produced their offspring.

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Well, actually producing offspring is not considered to be much of a good thing anymore either, is it? There's a drain on resources.

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Worldview is everything. And man, have we seen a revolution.

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Man, have we seen a revolution. And, you know, most people could not even begin to understand.

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This was Justin Taylor yesterday posted a blog article,

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John Owen's Final Words. And on August 22nd, 1683, at his home in Ealing, a suburb west of London, the great theologian

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John Owen dictated his last surviving letter to his longtime friend, Charles Fleetwood. I'm going to him whom my soul hath loved or rather hath loved me with everlasting love, which is the whole ground of all my consolation.

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The passage is very irksome and wearisome through strong pain of various sorts, which are all issued in an intermitting fever.

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All things were provided to carry me to London today, attending to the advice of my physician, but we were all disappointed by my utter disability to understand the journey.

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I am leaving the ship of the church in a storm. But while the great pilot is in it, the loss of a poor under rower will be inconsiderable.

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Live and pray and hope and wait patiently and do not despair. The promise stands invincible that he will never leave thee nor forsake thee.

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Now, I just noticed some of the things in there. The passage is very irksome and wearisome through strong pain of various sorts, which are all issued in an intermitting fever.

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And I remember my fellow elder speaking to the former elder who was the elder before I became another fellow by the name of Don Cross.

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And he said that Brother Cross said to him, I'm not afraid to die. It's dying that's really the problem.

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It's the process. It's that that is really the issue.

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But it is interesting. They said, I am leaving the ship of the church in a storm. You know,

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I suppose there's very few times when the true church of Christ is sailing upon calm seas.

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We all think the worst storm ever is now, but none of us have sufficient perspective to come to that kind of conclusion.

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We always, you know, and the older we get, the more we're convinced that now is the worst because now we've got a little bit of perspective.

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But even then, it's no matter how long we live, we can't possibly, you know, anyway,

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I am leaving the ship of the church in a storm. But while the great pilot is in it, the loss of a poor under rower will be inconsiderable.

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I really, really, really, really, really appreciate. The attitude that is expressed there, because I've I've heard far too many people.

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Well, two things. I've heard far too many people that really wouldn't care about whether the church was in a storm or not.

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But secondly, I've heard far too many people who did consider that, who did not view themselves as a poor under rower.

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I mean, most of us will never do anything near to what John Owen did for the church and lasting value, et cetera, et cetera.

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But. To view yourself properly, even at the end and to recognize, you know,

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I am but a poor under rower of the church. Very, very, very good.

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This two days later, William Payne, a friend who was overseeing the printing of his latest book, The Glory of Christ, paid him a visit.

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Payne assured Owen that plans were proceeding well for the publication. Owen responded, I'm glad to hear it. But oh, Brother Payne, the long wished for day has come at last in which

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I shall see the glory in another manner than I have ever done or was capable of doing in the world.

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These were Owen's last recorded words. He died that day, August 24th, 1683, exactly 20 years after the great ejection of the

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Puritans. He was he was only 67 years old. That's. We live longer than they did back then.

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And there's a lot of folks just would not there's there's just no way that the vast majority.

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Well, there's no way. Obviously, the secular humanist could understand what

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Owen was saying, but sadly, there's a lot of Christians who likewise would struggle to understand what

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John Owen was saying or see the importance of his of his statements.

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I had a. I had this up, I think, last week, this was October 30th.

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It was about a Maryland Catholic priest, a

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Roman Catholic priest in Maryland, one of the states that will be deciding whether to approve of same sex marriage, November 6th, which I guess it did.

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Did Maryland do that? Yes. OK. Has told his congregation that he will continue to support such unions right after reading out loud a letter from his archbishop urging

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Catholics to vote against gay marriage. Could we not then say that their devotion to and support of each other could be recognized by the church as a valid sacrament of God's unrelenting faithfulness to us just as much as the union of an elderly straight couple?

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Neither will procreate children, but both can be sacraments of God's faithfulness and the living out of their commitments to each other.

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The Reverend Richard T. Lawrence told his congregation at Baltimore's St. Vincent DePaul Catholic Church on Sunday.

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He reflected that his personal position on the issue stands directly against the official stance of the Roman Catholic Church, which he had just reminded his congregation of by reading

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Archbishop William Laurie's letter to the faithful, urging them to support traditional marriage when they go to the ballot boxes on November 6th.

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Now. We need to recognize a couple of things here.

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First of all. You know, from my perspective, this guy should quit.

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I mean, he should just quit. He should he should hand in the keys and hand over his robes or whatever and go get a job someplace.

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But I'm sorry that you have no right being where you are.

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I mean, if you don't believe and I reject Roman Catholicism for the false religion that it is.

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But if you're if you're going to stand around and call yourself Roman Catholic, then at least act like one for crying out loud.

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I mean, you know, all these people who identify as Roman Catholics and yet a majority of them, again.

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What they do, they voted for the pro -gay marriage, pro -abortion candidates, et cetera, et cetera.

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And for all sorts of different reasons, and I've had some people I've had some some people say, well, but, you know, those aren't the only sins.

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Well, the other side has sins, too. You just have to pick between the sins. I don't know of anybody who is, you know, the

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Democratic National Convention was a was an orgy of of worship.

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Of homosexuality, the profaning of marriage and the murder of unborn children, isn't it?

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Wasn't it? I mean, when Albert Mueller can do an entire section in the briefing on it, that means it has been noticed and needs to be commented upon.

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And so people say, well, yeah, but I know some Republicans and they sin in this way. And I asked this one fellow,

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I said, so you're telling me that it was part of the party platform of the

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Republicans? And remember, I'm an independent, so because the Republicans aren't conservative enough for me.

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But so so they what specifically about the platform?

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Institutionalizes anti -Christian teaching and sin. Such as the murder of unborn children, a

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Holocaust in the midst of us. And the utter profaning of marriage and the promotion of the culture of death.

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Could you could you could you name what? Oh, they're racist. Oh, so there's there is a racist platform.

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It was it's just it's just absolutely amazing to me. It really, really is.

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I did see I have played I'm going to do two things here. We give credit where credit's due.

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When people we disagree with say the right things, do the right things, we should we should note it. I have played and criticized in this program a a section by Michael Voris, the vortex.

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He's a Roman Catholic guy, really conservative Roman Catholic. And I saw a.

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His post. Election. Shall we call it an autopsy?

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I guess it's the best way to put any post election thing is autopsy of what what took place. And. At least the guy is a consistent

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Roman Catholic. Now, the funny thing is, I've seen where he's not allowed to speak certain places because he's too conservative.

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Which is another thing that makes me go, look, guys, this unity thing you got, you keep talking about, you ain't got it going too good here because here's a guy, as far as I can tell, at least up till modern times, he's pretty much on with what was being taught.

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And he said. I mean, he just came straight out and said, look, the modernists have taken over our seminaries, the modernists have taken over.

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He named bishops. He named archbishops by name. This guy in Los Angeles and this guy in Chicago and this guy here and this guy there and he named name, which is probably why he's not popular in various places.

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And I I can understand that I'm not popular in various places because I've named names, too.

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So I know how that works. But he just went at it and and said, look, there was wasn't any question here.

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There wasn't. I mean, when you've got archbishops coming straight out and saying you you you must vote to defend this view of marriage, you must vote to defend the lives of the unborn.

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And you've got one of the one of the if we say, you know, the vice presidential candidates were both allegedly

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Roman Catholics. And which one got which one got the

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Catholic vote? Wow. Not the conservative one. Not the not the guy who's actually a Roman Catholic. The guy who clearly isn't.

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I mean, if you can call Joe Biden a Roman Catholic, then I don't understand what Roman Catholicism is. But the fact matter is, why hasn't

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Rome done anything about it? You know, the Roman Catholics want to stand up and say, hey, we're we're fighting that HHS mandate and we're we're going to we're going to go down swinging and all the rest of stuff.

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Hey, guys, clean it up at home first. When you start kicking these bozos out, we'll take you seriously till then.

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You're just blowing smoke and you know it. Don't talk to me about how willing to be persecuted you are.

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You won't clean things up at home. You've got people teaching in your seminaries that are just as liberal, just as whacked out.

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Look at the staff at Notre Dame. Look at the staff at Boston College. Look at this. Look at the people teaching in these places.

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And you don't do nothing about it. In fact, your pope appoints them to biblical to papal biblical commissions.

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Don't talk to me about your unity and you're being willing to suffer when you won't even take the first step in cleaning up your own backyard.

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Don't talk to me about it. Go talk to your own people. Don't talk to me about your unity ain't ain't happening.

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Ain't happening. But at least Michael Morris. He knows what the problem is.

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Problem is, he's stuck in a system that's broken. There's nothing you can do about it. And the funny thing is, they can see this and they can call these people out, but they say they have an infallible authority.

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But that infallible authority sits there and twiddles his thumbs. Excuse me.

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I'm glad I have a little cough button so you don't have to actually hear all that anymore. It's a good thing. The other thing

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I was going to mention. Is I have not often done it, but there have been a few times on this program that I have responded to some rather personal attacks.

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That have come from a fellow by the a blog called the

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Grand Verbalizer. But Rich is like, oh, yeah,

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I just got big. And there's been stuff that I've ignored. There's been stuff that I've just.

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Not even going to. Yeah, Micah says the point of a cough button is so we don't know you cough.

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But now you told us. But the difference is I had to hold it down so long that there was a lot of dead air and people start wondering if they just lost their

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Internet connection, if space aliens are interrupting the satellite stream, you know, all sorts of stuff like that.

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So that's why I had to explain that. And now I've explained it even longer. And it's all because Micah, you know, had to say that.

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But that's because he's from Northern California and we know what Northern California is like. So anyway. So next time

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I do that, I'll just I'll just let it pass. If you hear five minutes of dead air, just assume that I'm coughing up a lung.

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But I'm not going to tell you about it because Micah got on my back. OK. And that's just the way it is.

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So what was I talking about? I don't know. There.

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I didn't tell you. So Tuesday, November 13th, 2012.

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The Grand Verbalizer 19 blogspot dot com. Now, I believe

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Turretinfan had mentioned. That something has happened here and I haven't kept up with it.

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Something has happened in the Grand Verbalizer's theological alignments.

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And I think the banner looks different to me now to Islam and Christianity, a common word, a website that explores

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Christian Muslim polemic and apologetics. I don't I'm not sure that's what it said before, but I could be wrong.

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I could be wrong. I don't know. Anyway, the title is Apologies to Dr. James White and Alpha Omega Ministries.

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And then there is a quote of a text that I have quoted a number of times before from Surah 29, 46, argue not with the people, the scripture, unless it be in a way that is better, save assumption as do wrong and say, we believe in that which has been revealed unto us and revealed to you are

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Allah and your Allah is one and unto him we surrender. And I have quoted that to a number of people, especially as they were getting nasty with me.

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But anyways, I want to take this time to apologize, Dr. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries. I want to say, for the record, that the first time

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I heard of him was when I saw his debate with Hamza Abdul Malik, which was in 1999.

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And that was back when I had hair, not a lot of it, but it was it was thinning, but I still had it. And because I use clips from it and I see that all the time and people go, hey, look, you look different.

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Well, yeah. Coming up on 14 years ago, man, it does not seem that long ago.

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Hamza Abdul Malik was a mentor of mine. This is just my opinion, but I personally have not seen a Muslim lose a debate until that exchange.

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I told Hamza Abdul Malik over the phone that I felt that James White had the upper hand that debate. James White showed poise and confidence.

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Furthermore, he underscored the importance of any one Muslim or Christian understanding the sources of tradition, as well as the languages of those sources.

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By the way. I've said many, many times I don't consider that my first Muslim debate.

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I consider the debate with Shabir Ali at Biola University my first Muslim debate. Hamza Abdul Malik had come to all of my debates on long.

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Well, not all. Well, maybe he did. Come to think of it, maybe by 1999 he had. If you see the first of the

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Great Debate series where we went with Jerry Matitix and then Mitch Pacwa. If you watch the audience questions very frequently,

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Hamza Abdul Malik will come up, stand up and he'll ask a question. And pretty early on, he started saying we should debate as well.

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And I'm like, I don't study Islam. That's not my thing. You know. So when my book on the trinity came out, he said, well, let's debate that.

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And since it was on the subject of my book, well, I still felt a little uncomfortable because I knew that there would be other issues that would be coming up that, you know.

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But that's why I don't consider it my first debate on Islam. It was with a

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Muslim. It was an Islamic debate. But it was not really my first Muslim debate.

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Anyhow, now I am still not in agreement with James Bond on many issues.

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Obviously, I do still believe that there are times when he himself is not consistent or brushes aside sincere critique.

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No, it's possible. Yet as a Muslim, I want to thank him. I think many Muslims need to thank him. People in search of truth need to thank him.

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He has shown that Christians can engage Muslims in debate and apologetic effectively. He has shown where we as Muslims have been inconsistent in our polemic and apologetic.

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If you want my honest opinion, I think that it's quite possible that Dr. James White may be the last great defender of reformed

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Christianity. Well, I'm not sure what that means. Last? No, I'm very thankful there are a number of folks out there.

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And I wouldn't even use that term great defender. I'm just glad to have had an opportunity of doing something.

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I'm not saying this with any sense of hope. I'm saying that because I do not see anyone else of his caliber doing what he does.

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Those who know this website know that it has never been friendly to James White or Alvin Vega Ministries. That's true.

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Yet for those Christians who want to see their faith tradition engage Muslims respectively, they should be supporting him in whatever way they can, regardless of his past blunders and mistakes.

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I'm not sure which those are referred to. Maybe when I misquoted Yasir Qadhi in the debate with Shabir Ali, I'm sure that's probably what

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I'm referring to. I do not claim perfection. Anyways, in the Islamic tradition, it is said that Muslims, the search of knowledge, would travel great distances to sit at the feet of the learned and take knowledge from them.

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There are a number of Hadith that mention that. And then James White is a man and as such, he is subject to the shortcomings of every other fallen creature as per Christian theology.

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That being said, it is simply laziness in a nation like the United States that more reformed Christians do not take knowledge from him.

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That's interesting. I had skipped that one, I guess, when I was scrolling down initially. I like this because knowing the desert of Arizona, if I had such a champion for my faith,

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I would walk barefooted across the state of Arizona to go and learn from him. Yeah, Rich is going, oh man,

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Cholla cactus immediately crosses your mind at that point in time. For what I have said that is truthful in regards to him, may

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Allah accept it and may it be of benefit to the readers. For what I have said that is dishonest and despicable on my behalf,

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I ask Allah to forgive me. And this is where I know something's happened and I don't know what.

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And I ask this of Allah through the messenger, Christ Jesus. That means there's been some change in theology here that I'm not aware of.

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But since we have responded to this gentleman before, I want to say that obviously

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I do not hold, I cannot as a Christian hold grudges when someone asks for forgiveness.

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Forgiveness must be given. And so if there is anything that I can do to be of assistance in this gentleman's examination of our faith, then

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I will certainly be glad to be glad to do so. And very, very, very, very interesting.

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I want to look at, oh, were you, oh,

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OK, I thought you're pointing to the sky or something. What? There's a meteor coming. I don't know. It's a bird.

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It's a plane. It's a bird. Thanks. I want to look at a text of scripture here. I'm not sure how long this is going to take.

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We might have opportunity for one or two calls toward the end. I don't know. But when I start looking at a passage of scripture,

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Richard started laughing. Like, yeah, sure. OK, now, now you see what's happening.

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Whenever I stop talking, even if I don't use the cough button, people on channel are going, cough button. Now they're predicting.

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Now, I know this is only people whose nicks start with an M. I think I'm going to ban, I'm going to send all nicks that start with an

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M to purgatory and let them, let them go from there.

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Anyway, Hebrews chapter six. Hebrews chapter six, not exactly the text that a lot of Reformed folks.

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Would put on their favorite text in the Bible. As soon as I say it, what do you think of?

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For most Reformed folks, it's like verses four through six, and I explain this all the time, and I remember even as a teenager.

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I remember as a teenager. What I think

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I was a, yeah, I was a senior. We had a guy at our church. This was not a

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Reformed church. This was a Southern Baptist church. It was a non -Reformed Southern Baptist church. And we taught the perseverance of the saints anyways, or some form of eternal security there.

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Everybody knew that was the official position of the church. And this high school, small group teacher of mine, one

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Sunday morning, all of a sudden started teaching against this. And I took him on.

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Well, you can imagine by the time I was a high school senior, I was already a little bit on the weird side and, and they got, they left the church.

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I ran into him at a Christian bookstore about six months later, and I said, and what was the first text he threw at me was

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Hebrews chapter six, verses four through six. So this is a text that a lot of people don't like.

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I've preached on this text. I've preached through Hebrews chapter six. And I'm not sure what you're pointing at, but that's

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OK. What? Yeah, interrupt now before I really get into the exegesis. Exactly, because there is a paragraph here that came in email a couple of days ago.

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I haven't told you about it, and I'm just thinking the providence of this. This gentleman has been haunted by Hebrews six, four through six, and was wondering if an apostate feels conviction of the

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Holy Spirit or feels the Spirit when they pray. Because when I was younger, I prayed to Satan to ask him to bless my family.

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But I said, no matter what, I would not deny Christ as son of God who died for my sin. Does it say he prayed to Satan?

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That's what it says. After that, I repented. But now I don't know if I'm forgiven or not.

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And how can I know? Please help. Oh. And so it's like, well, you know, if you're going to go here.

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Well, maybe something I say will be relevant, but that's really not the subject I'm addressing. But I'm looking at the text, so maybe there'll be something that will be relevant to that.

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We know the text. Let's take a look at it. Therefore, leaving the elementary teachings about the

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Messiah, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying out of hands and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

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And this we will do if God permits. For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the

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Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance and say again, crucify themselves the son of God and put him to open shame.

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For ground that drinks the rain, which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it also is also tilled, receives a blessing from God.

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But if yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed and ends up being burned.

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But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.

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Now, I do believe that the illustration in verses seven and eight and the concluding statement in verse nine have to be given a position of normative interpretive value.

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That is, the writer himself gives an illustration of two kinds of earth, just as Jesus did.

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Well, actually, Jesus had multiple kinds of earth. But you know that in the parable of the soils, you had seed that fell on different kinds of soil, but there were only two results.

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You either brought forth crops or you didn't.

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You may have brought forth temporary crops. You may have brought forth crops that didn't last long. But the final analysis was that there was only two kinds of crops or two kinds of responses, and that was either you brought forth fruit or you didn't bring forth fruit.

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Same idea here, same issue here that we have in Hebrews chapter six.

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And then when he then says that, if he yields thorns and thistles, is worthless and close to being cursed and ends up being burned, etc.,

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etc. But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.

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So, the focus has been upon, well, look, it's obvious that what is mentioned in verse four is only about true

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Christians. And so, therefore, true Christians can fall away, which makes me go, then, what are things which accompany salvation?

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Well, but think about these things. The case of those who have been enlightened. Well, Photistentos, they've received light.

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Now, that could refer to a regenerate person receiving the light of Christ. But, of course, the only light anyone ever receives comes from Christ.

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If anyone has any light at all, it comes from God. There is no non -divine light, let's put it that way.

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And they've tasted the heavenly gift. Well, that could be descriptive of a regenerate person.

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There's no question about that. But I also know of many people who have been greatly blessed by being in the company of the redeemed, and they have found great restraint of their evil.

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There's a lot of good things about being around good people. I don't mean good people in the humanistic sense.

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They've been made partakers of the Holy Spirit. Now, you can't just get around that. I mean, but it doesn't say the

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Holy Spirit indwells them or is the first fruits of their redemption or anything like that. I really think, and I'm not going to expand upon here, but I did in the sermon that I delivered on this subject,

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I don't know how long ago now, go through this and I demonstrated that, from my perspective, you have a consistent testimony in the book of Hebrews to the audience that's being addressed.

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The audience, the apologetic is being offered to those members of the

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Christian community who are in danger of going back. And that means you're standing in front of the people that are gathered in worship and you don't know their hearts.

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I cannot look into the hearts of people. You cannot look into the hearts of people. We do our best.

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You know, we just met with a gentleman who's going to be...who is applying for membership at our church.

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We met Sunday night with the elders. We asked him questions. When there were things he said that were worthy of inquiry, we would ask further questions.

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But despite that, neither I nor my fellow elder have, you know, the special ability to see into the man's heart.

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And so, while we will present him for membership, we think the man's a believer. He's made a credible profession of faith.

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That doesn't mean that we will be correct about that. And so, who are these people?

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Well, any person who has been in the church for any period of time at all knows who these folks are. We've...we

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sadly, even as I sit here, I can bring before my mind the faces of some of these folks.

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I remember people. I remember names. People who were a part of my life at a point in time in my

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Christian faith. I can think of some people back from my old church.

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I can think of some people who...I can think of one man who was in a group that I sang in.

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And man, I'm going to tell you something. Singing in that group, I sang in a group called Liberation. Some of you in the Phoenix area will...if

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you ever went to North Phoenix, that name might ring a faint bell. One of the biggest things in my young life was for two years singing in a group called

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Liberation. And if you're really interested, I sang bass. You can tell right now why that would be the case.

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But anyway, and that meant a lot to me. Really, really did.

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And yet, I can think of at least one...no, two. Two people who sang in that group with me, apostates.

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Apostates. And in hindsight, yeah, I could have...yeah, yeah, possibly three.

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And I can think of people in my current church who are not there any longer. And they not only partook of the supper and they observed the ordinance of baptism, but they heard the

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Word of God. They were in Sunday school. They were in the morning service.

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They were in the evening service. They were in the prayer services. And today, they do not follow

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Christ. They were not ignorant of the

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Word of God. They had tasted the good word of God. They had seen people's lives changed.

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They had seen the powers of the age to come. This was not a matter of just some new convert, but someone who, you know, just out of ignorance, you know, just made a surface -level profession of faith.

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No, these were people who were in the congregation. They had given themselves in a way that some new convert does not.

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And yet, they fell away. They fell away. They were ground that drank the rain.

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The rain fell upon it. You see, the rain falls upon good ground and bad ground.

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Rain just falls. Rain is not overly particular in its landing spot.

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And just as the Word of God goes out, just as the seed is scattered indiscriminately, the rain falls indiscriminately, the

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Word is preached indiscriminately, and yet it has different effects when it lands upon different kinds of soil.

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And for some, it brings forth vegetation useful for those whose sake it is also tilled.

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And those are the people that I look out on Sunday morning as I prepare to lead in the pastoral prayer, and I see those individuals and their longstanding in the church, and they've gone through a lot of difficulties.

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And they would never point themselves and say, it was me, it was me. They'd always point away from themselves,

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God's been faithful, God's been faithful, God's grace is sufficient. That's an awesome, awesome testimony.

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And so there are those who have fallen away.

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They were in the congregation, and the rain fell upon them, but the soil was not the soil that brings forth fruit.

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These are not John 15. They did not abide in the branch.

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The life source that keeps any Christian alive was not a part of them. What do they do?

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Now, in this context, in John chapter 6, this act of sin, there's one particular act that is in view here, and I think everybody in the audience knew that.

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Everybody in the audience knew what it was. They went back. They went back.

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And I think it's very clear. Since they again crucified themselves in the Son of God and put Him to open shame, they offered the sacrifice.

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I think this is exactly what John's talking about. When in 1 John, he talks about that sin unto death,

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I think that's what it is. Same thing. It is that act of apostasy that says,

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I am going to offer sacrifice, that means the sacrifice is continued, and that means the sacrifice of Christ was not a sacrifice at all.

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It was the death of a man who was under the judgment of God for his own sin.

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That's what they're saying. Since they again crucified themselves in the

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Son of God and put Him to open shame, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance. Now, there is a lot of question as to what that means.

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It certainly sounds absolutely final to me, and that was my conversation with the guy in the bookstore, even back in senior high school, because he said you could be lost, saved, lost, saved, lost, saved.

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If this is saying anything, it sounds awful final to me. And if it is the same sin as John talks about in 1

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John 5, then it's the sin unto death. Now, why in the world would

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I, at the end of the program here, raise this particular question?

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Why would I be talking about this? What does it mean to have stood before the people of God as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ?

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To have preached the truth, to have spoken the truth, to have presented the gospel in its fullness, to have presented to the people their absolute dependence upon Jesus Christ and His righteousness alone, to have lauded saving faith as the only means, that empty hand of faith, which is the only hand that can grasp the grace of God, to have spoken of the tremendous blessing that is ours, of having the imputed righteousness of Christ, a seamless robe of righteousness, being the blessed man of Romans chapter 4.

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The blessed man to whom the Lord does not impute sin. Having spoken of the finishedness of the sacrifice, the once for allness, the sufficiency of having held the word of God in your hand, so that when you spoke in accordance with it, you could say, thus saith the

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Lord. To have stood in the place of the apostles themselves because the message you preach is apostolic in origin.

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Not because you pretend to some line going back into history, but because you hold that which is theanoustos in your hands and you speak what it says and you believe it is consistent with itself and you present that message.

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What do you say? What do you say about a man who has stood in the midst of God's people in that position, a position of tremendous privilege, a position of tremendous trust?

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Yeah, I'm taking a pretty high view of the ministry here. Not very popular these days. Do forgive me, those of you who think that, you know, let's just show up in our

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Hawaiian shirts and flip flops so we don't need to worry about anything else. What do we say about someone who has stood in the midst of God's people and spoken

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God's truth? And then, for whatever reasons, they vary from person to person, has walked away and denied by profession or denied by apostasy those truths that once graciously flowed from his lips in the presence of God's people, gathered to worship in obedience to his command.

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What do we say about someone like that? And let me become more focused. What do we say about a former

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Presbyterian minister who, with full knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ, having been warned directly of the danger of apostasy, the danger of embracing a false gospel that denies the finished work of Christ, denies us of our proper standing before God, denies the ultimate authority of the

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Scriptures as the Word of God and their normative and sufficient function in the Christian life, having been warned with clarity, still embraces that false gospel?

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What do you say about someone like that? And what do you say when they then begin to seek to cause others to stumble and fall as they have stumbled and fallen?

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When you look at the endless treadmill of sacramental imperfection that is the

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Roman system and know that someone is calling other people to join them on that never -ending treadmill that never gives peace, it never gives satisfaction, and yet they once proclaimed the truth.

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Have they not crucified once again the Son of God and put

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Him to open shame? On the next Dividing Line, Lord willing,

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I'm going to be joined once again by my good brother

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TurretinFan, and we are going to review the recent posting of an interview on the

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Call to Confusion website of former pastor Jason Stellman. And the reason

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I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jason Stellman was warned passionately with clarity that he was going into apostasy is because I looked him in the eye, and I'm the one that did it.

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And he'll tell you I did. I haven't said much about the situation because a conversation took place in my office.

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But now he's talked about it, so we're going to talk about it. And he will tell you, because I asked him.

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I asked him, has anyone else been as passionate in their warning you of the false gospel of the

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Roman Catholic system? And he smiled and said, he had talked to a lot of people, but nobody, evidently, with as much passion anyways, looked him in the eye and said,

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Sir, you are in danger of your soul. Rome's gospel cannot save.

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And so on the next Dividing Line on Thursday, Lord willing, TurretinFan will join me. We'll begin reviewing a number of the statements that Jason Stellman made in that interview.

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Expose them to the light, because as Jason Stellman says, he's looking to do a lot of, in fact, he's already teaching in the

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Roman Catholic Church that he is a part of. So we do here, folks, we give an answer.

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These things are important. We don't do it for fun. We do it because it really matters. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on the

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Dividing Line. God bless. I believe we're standing at the crossroads.

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Let this Romanism flow away. We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for.

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We need a new Reformation day. It's a sign of the times.

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The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm. Won't you lift up your voice?

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Are you tired of plain religion? It's time to make some noise. I'm a wetting bird.

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I'm a wetting bird. I stand up for the truth. Won't you live for the

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Lord? Because we're pounding on, pounding on the wetting bird. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at PO Box 37106,

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Phoenix, Arizona 85069. You can also find us on the World Wide Web at AOMIN .org,

59:37

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.