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Metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded
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Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341 and now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line on a
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Tuesday, Thursday type situation. That is where we are changing the time around because obviously far too many of you were figuring out when to listen.
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We're just just getting you prepared for a few weeks from now when all of you, you sheep, just follow after your leaders and dishonor and disrespect time.
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Sheep or lemmings? Either one, but same activity where you just,
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I mean, you know when you touch that clock, when you grab that clock, you know that what you're doing is a lie because you know that you're not falling backwards or forwards or springing backwards or forwards or whatever it is.
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You know time isn't changing. The sun's getting up at the exact same time in the morning. It's setting. You know that and so here is an example of mass deception, mass cultic hypnosis, except for a few places where sanity continues to prevail because we're better armed than the rest of you.
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Well, it doesn't, is it Illinois that doesn't do it or Indiana? I can't remember which one it is because if it's
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Illinois, they ain't armed at all. Well, the criminals are. It's part of Indiana as I recall.
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It's not all of Indiana. It's a couple of counties in Indiana. Yeah, it's really weird. Yeah, it's very odd, but it could have been
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Illinois because they're not armed at all. Can you imagine half of Arizona being on California time, the other half being on New Mexico time?
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That would be really a mess. That'd be bizarre, but instead we're on our own time. That's right. No, we're right. We are always on time.
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That's right. Mountain standard time. That's right. That's right. We are the only ones who are. When is that?
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When is that? End of October? I think it's the end of October. They keep moving it. I never take notice. Well, we have to because we've got these atomic clocks and if they don't have
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No, no, no, no. We set them so that they function off of Greenwich Mean Time.
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Yeah, but some of them still flop around. Yes, well, the clockmakers are starting to pick up on the fact that Arizona is smarter than everyone else.
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That's right. And they're making their clocks to be able to adapt to our way of doing things. Oh, look at that. As of this year, all of Indiana now goes on and off daylight savings time.
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See? See? More proof of mass deception and the crumbling of Western society.
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877 -753 -3341. I know everybody's going, who cares?
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We don't care. And I understand that. But I know
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Arizona is not destined to succumb. We tried that. It was 1977, I think.
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We actually tried it. And in early July, it would be light at 10 o 'clock at night and it'd be 110 degrees.
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And everyone's like, excuse me, this doesn't make any sense. And so we said, forget it.
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And so, no, we're not going to happen. And if it does,
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I'm going to ignore it anyways. I'm going to be a rebel and say, forget it. So, I got an email while we're screening the 147 ,000 calls that come flooding in whenever we open the phone lines.
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Excuse me while my nose hits the microphone here. I got this, let's see, the 21st, right before we head up to Toronto, the folks at Catholic Answers sent out an email.
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And it was about, well, I'll just read a section. Anti -Catholic hackers wiped out our
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Catholic Answers forums at www .catholic .com. They could do it again if we don't upgrade our security immediately.
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And basically, it's a big, long thing about how they need $110 ,000 to upgrade their security.
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It talks about, you know, they've been hit with DNS stuff and email floods and port scans and IP address spoofing and blah, blah, blah, blah.
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And everybody who knows anything about the Internet knows about all this stuff. I mean, we used to be a thing, a server called
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UnderNet before we went to Starlink IRC. And the reason we went to Starlink IRC is UnderNet was attacked, a
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DNS attack on the UnderNet servers and took them down. Just wiped them out and took quite some time for UnderNet to come back.
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And we never bothered going back because there's a lot of really weird people in the Internet. And Starlink IRC is more family -friendly and so we've stayed there.
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And so we know all about this kind of stuff and there's really nothing unusual here except this stuff about anti -Catholics.
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Because remember, one of my biggest complaints against Jimmy Akin and Catholic Answers is that if you're opposed to them in any way, you're an anti -Catholic.
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I think it's quite honest, I think it's arrogant. I think it's arrogant of Rome to define everybody else's faith by her own.
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Well, we are the one true church and therefore you are anti -Catholic if you oppose us and blah blah blah. And I've tried to point out, you know, when
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I refer to them, I don't refer to them as anti -Baptists. I don't refer to them along those lines.
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You know, I have a couple times when I was trying to make this exact point to point out how inane it is.
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But it just, their response is always, well you're an anti -Catholic because you say we're not
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Christians. And so, you know, so the Mormons say you're anti -Mormon and the
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Catholics say you're anti -Catholic. And I imagine the Muslims think you're anti -Islam and blah blah blah.
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And everybody defines it. Of course, when I refer to them, I refer to them as Roman Catholic apologists.
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They defend the Roman Catholic Church. I'm not going to define them on the basis of my beliefs.
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I'm sitting here seeing how long it'll take for Rich to see the phone ring. We put it in front of you. We're going to have to attach a big old flash and light.
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It's just going to, you know, blind you every time that goes off. Anyway, so it really sounds odd given the fact that they will use the term anti -Catholic of me to refer to hackers as anti -Catholic.
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Folks, if you've learned anything about hackers, and we used to have a guy would come into Starlink IRC and we eventually came to know him as Galxtron.
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And the guy was just nuts. Okay, you know, it probably, you know, some kid, you know, and he's down in the basement and his parents don't know what he's doing.
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And he's obviously very bright because he can spoof various IPs and do various eccentric kinds of attacks and things like that.
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And, you know, just some person with a, you know, computer and some computer knowledge.
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And he wasn't anti -Baptist or something when he would come in and act like he was someone and attack me or whatever, and all this kind of silliness.
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It would just never cross my mind to define him on the basis of my theology or something along those lines.
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It just doesn't make sense. But all of a sudden these people attacking the Catholic Answers Forum are anti -Catholics just like I am.
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See, that helps to create this sort of this paranoia that we see in the Catholic Answers Forums that we saw last week when we had the
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Mickey meltdown. And so notice something that says here, one time hackers clogged their internet capabilities by hitting us with 2 ,000 spam emails per second.
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This came right after we launched our now famous Voters Guide for Serious Catholics just before the 2004 elections.
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Just a coincidence? Not likely. Well, who would be wanting to do that? Protestants?
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Protestant anti -Catholics? Or liberals? Or maybe liberal Catholics? Liberal Catholics or anti -Catholics?
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I guess. I don't know. I mean, just this whole thing about anti -Catholic this and anti -Catholic that is just really silly.
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So you go through this whole email and, you know, it's all about, we've got to have all the security and we need $110 ,000 and the whole thing is, help us defeat the anti -Catholic stuff, you know.
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And when I've complained about this, what they've said is, well, look, we're not anti -Baptist because we say you're a
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Christian, but you're an anti -Catholic because you say that we're not, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I found it sort of interesting that on Jimmy Akin's blog this morning, it wasn't a
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Jimmy Akin article, it was I think Michelle Arnold, but she made reference to something over on Mark Shea's blog and it was about, you know,
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Ratzinger is German and they're saying, you know, is Ratzinger the new Luther, the anti -Luther?
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You know, it's been about 500 years and I guess some
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Roman Catholic had said that most heresies have about 500 years. This was mentioned on Akin's blog and so that would obviously make
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Protestantism a heresy. And then there's a reference to Mark Shea's comment, and I'm reading it right off of his website here, off of his blog.
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It says, it would be like God to put ground zero for return to the faith in the country where so much of the poison came from.
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Well, what's the poison? Well, the poison would be Luther. The poison would be the Reformation. And so on the one hand, well, we're not anti -Catholics because you're
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Christians, but you're poisonous. The double standard that these folks have to live with to keep up the appearance of us versus them, and I sort of feel sorry for conservative
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Roman Catholic apologists because they're living in a tough world right now. Let's give them some, you know, let's give them some credit here.
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They're living in a tough world because, let's face it, they know that most of their leaders are really not where they are.
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And they know that the people that they're having to sort of prop up and say are guided by God and everything else won't do anything about the rank liberalism that is all over Roman Catholic education and all over the
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Roman Catholic system. And they're pretty embarrassed right now by this archbishop that just, man, reading this guy's story was really something else.
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The excommunication, basically, of this archbishop by the fact that he has just set apart
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Malingo, Archbishop Malingo is his name. And it's pretty amazing to read the story about this guy and how the
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Zambia Archbishop, I just gotta read this because,
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I mean, if this was my church I would be just embarrassed out of my mind that this guy was still an archbishop.
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Check this out. A Vatican statement, let me back up here, Pope Benedict XVI has excommunicated a
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Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Malingo two days after he ordained four married men as bishops. A Vatican statement said he had been automatically excommunicated under church law because of his actions.
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By the way, this is right next to a picture of Malingo with a South Korean woman that he married at a
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Mooney wedding. One of the mass Mooney weddings, not
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Mooney, that's Chicago, wrong place. Mooney, you know, Sung Young Moon? Archbishop Malingo, 76, who now lives in the
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US, that's a good place to be if you're the Zambian Archbishop, I think, you know, performed the ordination ceremony in Washington DC on Sunday.
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The Catholic Diocese in Washington immediately declared the installations to be invalid. Correspondents say that Archbishop Malingo has long been a controversial figure in the
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Roman Catholic Church. Why would that be? Because six years ago he married a South Korean woman at a mass wedding in New York organized by the
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Korean -based unification church, the so -called Moonies. He was later persuaded by the
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Vatican to renounce the marriage but has since rejoined his wife. The Zambian preacher was nominated
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Archbishop of Lusaka at age 39, a post he held for 14 years, before a disagreement with the
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Vatican over his activities as a healer and an exorcist. He was recalled to Rome in 1983 but managed to keep his rank of Archbishop.
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How? I have no clue, but anyway, Archbishop Malingo then gained a strong following in a church where he had been stationed near Rome because of his reputation as an exorcist.
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But Catholic officials accused him of promoting African indigenous beliefs by performing mass exorcisms and healing ceremonies.
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Mr. Malingo announced earlier this year that his new mission was to persuade the church to allow priests to marry. Well, there you go.
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And wow, you know, I can say without the slightest bit of doubt or hesitation that Malingo would not have lasted long amongst us
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Reformed Baptists. You know what I mean? He wouldn't have been around for a long period of time.
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So you got to feel sorry for these folks because they've got to try to, you know, defend the Vatican as infallible in matters of faith and morals and all that kind of stuff.
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And, you know, the Pope's infallible when he speaks to faith and morals. An infallible church has never made an error, you know, and you've got to really stand on your head to work with Honorius and stuff like that.
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But then you got this kind of stuff. And it really, you know, makes people go, hmm.
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And they know that they've, they know the liberals are there and they don't do anything about it.
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And in fact, the liberals, you know, end up in high church office. And it's tough. It's tough to be a good, a good
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Catholic apologist, say, because to be an apologist, you've got to actually believe what you believe is true. And you got to be conservative enough to be concerned that other people also believe it to be true.
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And it's tough to be in that situation these days. But evidently
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Archbishop Malingo doesn't have any problem with his, with his apologetics.
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He just, he just, you know, doesn't seem to recognize the difference between the Catholic Church and the Moonies. That's pretty amazing.
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877 -753 -3341. Let's go ahead and talk with Adam real quick.
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Hi, Adam. Hey, Dr. White. What's up? I wanted to thank you for your help last week when
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I was calling about Eastern Orthodoxy. That's not what I want to talk about today, but it was helpful.
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And I wanted to tell you I can empathize with you about what's going on at the Catholic Answers Forums, because I was actually on the
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Catholic Answers Forums a couple years ago. You're not the anti -Catholic hacker, are you?
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No. Okay, just checking, just checking. That's just crazy. I think these folks over there are just paranoid that, you know.
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But anyways, I think I remember talking to you and your channel about how
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I was suspended from there and I didn't figure out why. Oh, yeah. And you told me to write a note to the administrator.
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Right. And I did that, and I copied my note to you. And apparently,
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I got a message back three months after I sent that note.
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And apparently, what they told me is since my nickname, my nick was Martin Luther, I was violating the terms of service by using a name that was not my own.
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Oh, yeah. So, all those folks on the board there, those are their real names, huh?
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Yeah, well, C .C. is on there. C .C. was the saint of the
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Catholic Church. So, Catholic Head, that's his actual name, is
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Catholic Head. Yeah, right. Okay, I believe that. No, as I recall, I don't remember the specifics, but as I recall, about two years ago, about that same time frame,
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I had gotten a note from one of the administrators basically saying that if I had a problem with anything
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I saw personal on the Catholic Answers forums that I should contact this person and let them know.
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And I said, well, I appreciate that. I honestly don't spend a whole lot of time reading these. Generally, I'm directed to particular threads because my name comes up or something like that.
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But my issue is not wanting to censor these people. My issue is just demonstrating that they generally are really into just attacking individuals without ever dealing with substance at all.
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And even last week when we talked with Mickey, when I would ask for examples, we couldn't get examples.
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And then when I dared to say that I Catholics contact me and apologize for her kind of behavior, oh, you say that, but she basically said
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I was lying. And since then, I've had like two more who have contacted me and got to admit that those folks are there.
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But my goodness, my experience in reading those threads is the few voices of reason to pop up and go, you know, probably
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I shouldn't ought to be doing this because it's sort of like hypocritical, just get buried in the avalanche of silliness, which isn't unusual in a lot of computer forums.
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Let's face it. I've never been there. But people in channel have told me that, for example, the
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Yahoo forums, I guess, are just filled with Yahoo's for some odd reason. And, you know, and that there's this voice thing that we do not allow you to mention the name of it on the program or in channel, but you can actually talk to other people on this one thing.
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I guess it's just filled with lots and lots of wackos on that thing, too. So, you know, that having a computer does not give you the first bit of common sense, you know.
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So, you know, who knows all sorts of wacky stuff online? Yes, you most certainly do.
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So but, you know, honestly, I haven't taken the time to go back to the forums. I'm trying to avoid just throwing my hands up in the air and giving up on this project that I'm supposed to be finished with by now.
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And so that I just haven't had time to even bother to go back.
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So I did want to I did want to say one thing, though, and I don't mean this is really too bad to, you know, to be mean or anything like that.
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But the people that I've seen you debate and things like that when
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I'm a biblical languages major, and when
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I read commentaries and things like that, and people quote Catholic scholarship, generally the people that they quote are not the
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James Aikens and the Carl Keatings and folks like that. So I was thinking, you know, maybe part of the reason that you're getting the response that you're getting is because you're not really dealing with the best
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Catholic scholarship. Well, as I've said many times, the best of Catholic scholarship is not apologetically minded.
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The best of Catholic scholarship is is significantly more ecumenical in its orientation and in fact, pluralistic today.
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And that's the point is that I've said many times there is a major gap that exists between mainstream
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Roman Catholic scholarship today and mainstream and historical Roman Catholic apologetics, because the two really don't go hand in hand.
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I mean, Roman Catholic historians as a whole, recognize, for example, the centrality of such things as the donation of Constantine, the pseudo is a
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Dorian decretals in the creation of the entire papal mechanism and hierarchy.
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And with the exposure of those things as frauds, the organization still exists, but the foundation was wiped out a long time ago.
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And so what do you how are you supposed to defend the claims of Vatican one when the history just isn't there to do it?
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You can't. And so you get what you get last week, what you got left. Well, exactly right.
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That's exactly right. But as long as those folks are out there and as long as they're following after the
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Tim Staples, the world who I heard a number of years ago saying that every single early church writer ever found, believe what
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Rome believed about Matthew 16. Now, that's just that's pure fiction. That's ridiculous.
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But but how many people are going to how many Roman Catholic scholars, for example, are going to make commentary about what
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Tim Staples is saying? And yet who's on EWTN and who's on the radio and who's in the forums and who's putting this stuff out?
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But these very people. And so, yeah, that's why the that's why the Catholic, you know, there's in fact, it's really interesting just to examine the the few times they've tried to get some conservative
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Catholic scholars involved. They've not done well. I mean, the hit piece they did on me where they attacked a footnote in an article.
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And even then I was able to cite numerous sources demonstrating the sources they were using are downright laughable.
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It's just it's just sort of I don't know, they have to spend a lot of time and effort and energy keeping this this this aura up that all is well in Rome.
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And the fact matter is it isn't. And, you know, once people get into the church, unless they just stay focused only upon the
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Alphonsus Liguri type Marian piety, let's not look outside of any of this.
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If they actually start looking around the church and start looking around at what's going on, it's not long before they realize that every single argument that may have convinced them to become
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Roman Catholic is actually more valid when used against Roman Catholicism. And so, you know, that's just the way it is.
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And sometimes you do have to. It is difficult for me to keep in mind.
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And I mentioned this on the blog. You've got your your Mitch Pack was out there. And so you there's a level of scholarship that you need to practice in responding to them.
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But for every one of them, there's a dozen art suppose and this lilac fellow who was writing in and some of these other folks that just are just way out on the fringe someplace.
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And so. I don't get it. Why? You know, I have I go to a
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Lutheran school here and I have many wonderful Lutheran friends that we talk about issues and we talk in a calm manner.
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And finally, why do people have to have so much acid in their pens when they when they write? Every group, let's face it, every group has people in it that can be rather acidic and acerbic.
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And in fact, oh, yeah, it's one thing. I mean, let me give an example. I can be very acidic and acerbic to every time
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I've debated someone who defends the murder of unborn children. I have been very acidic, very acerbic.
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I've taken every opportunity that I could have to refute them right, left, upside and downside. And I always will.
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But I have proven repeatedly my capacity to dialogue with people in a fair and respectful manner when they will reciprocate.
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And so it's the people who can never do that are simple, could never do that. There's no way on God's green earth he could ever do that.
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That's just that's just the he lacks the capacity to do so. And there are many others in the same in the same boat.
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And so I think there's times to be extremely straightforward. There are times to be very strong.
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I mean, Paul was very strong at times and other times he was very gentle. You have to have some type of of mature wisdom to know which is which.
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And we try to try to model that. But it's it's not always not always easy to do. But anyway, hey, thanks for your call.
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All right. God bless. Bye bye. All righty. Let's continue on. I've actually got some clips and stuff to play here.
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But since we have more than one caller before we take our break, let's talk to Sean. Hi, Sean.
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Is it Sean or scene? Sean. Sean. All righty. We have a scene McLaughlin out here.
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So he's a weatherman. So what can I say? What can
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I do for you, Sean? Dr. White, last time I called you, I was actually in Colorado. Yes.
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You remember that? I'm sorry, I don't make make make a make an effort to remember the
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Puritan board. OK. Are you
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OK? Oh, I am. Oh, yeah. All right. I had made a couple of remarks concerning a dividing line that you did a couple of weeks ago.
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I don't actually have a computer in front of me at the moment, but. Yes, I made a comment at the end of a short blog article because there were two shots that were taken my way.
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One was about my buddy Rob. Yeah. One was about exclusive psalmody and the other one was about the
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King James only comma, your honey, your stuff. And I found in both instances, instead of it being any type of useful interaction, it was just basically, well, it's obvious he's never read anything worthwhile on this or or that's not how
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I do apologetics. And I personally, if I if I would like to interject there, that wasn't what
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I was trying to indicate at all. And I don't think that my words actually lend themselves to that.
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What I was. I would say I'm more questioned whether you had read substantial work on the subjects of exclusive psalmody or or the rejection of musical instruments from a perspective.
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The only thing I actually assumed was that you hold to the regulative principle, being a reformed Baptist elder. I was more especially concerned by the fact that at the very end of it, it seemed that you needlessly brought our congregation into it and seemed to attack an entire congregation of which you have no knowledge.
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Actually, what I indicated was both people put the same church and I misspelled church or didn't put the same church at the end of their comments.
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And it was after, let's see, using logical fallacies the way Dr. White does is a good lesson on what not to do as an apologist.
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That was the comment from, you know, the fellow's name. I didn't bother putting the name there, Rob, I guess.
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And you had made the comment about the exclusive psalmody stuff.
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And I made the comment, I said, well, I don't think I'm going to be invited to speak there anytime soon, which probably would be the case,
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I would imagine. And I did find it rather odd that one church was producing so many folks that were taking these, what
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I find to be, I don't know, just odd shots when I'm not even participating on the board.
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I don't think that it would be proper for me to do so. So I was like, well, okay, is there something going on in this one congregation where I'm the big baddie?
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I'm, you know, the bad guy? Don't know. No one's ever bothered to contact me and say, hey, you know what?
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We as a group think that you really should stop doing what you're doing or whatever. I don't know.
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But it does seem rather odd that two different, completely different attacks upon me would be coming from the same church.
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That's pretty unusual, isn't it? Isn't it?
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I would say coming from two individuals that happen to be members of the same church and happen to also frequent your posts, frequent the dividing line, read your materials.
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That's not to say every individual in our church reads your materials or our pastor is constantly checking your blog or anything like that.
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Right. Yeah, I just simply point out that for some reason, when someone, and especially,
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I'm not getting back into the Kamiohanian thing, to be honest with you. That wasn't mine. I know. I'm just saying that was at the end of that paragraph where someone has said using logical fallacies the way
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Dr. White does is a good lesson on what not to do as an apologist. Well, first of all, there's no logical fallacies.
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He didn't even read me properly. And secondly, there's just no reason to argue in that fashion, is there?
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I mean, especially since you haven't even begun to prove your point. It just seemed to me that it was the same kind of attitude, which was, well, obviously he doesn't know what he's talking about, without actually engaging anything that I've said on the issue.
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And especially, I think what bothered me about your comment was I said in the phone call that you were responding to,
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I said, now look, I have no interest in getting into these arguments whatsoever. I think it's rather odd that I'm sitting here trying to get ready for the
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Cantor debate. I'm going to be doing a debate with Bill Shishko that's going to demonstrate that we can discuss these issues in a meaningful fashion.
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I've got Spong coming up. I've got all this stuff that I think dealing with homosexuality, defying the doctrines of grace at Thomas Road Baptist Church.
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These things are, I would think, somewhat important. And yet in the midst of all that, I've got these...
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Sometimes Calvinists drive me nuts. We tend to argue about stuff that just doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense at times.
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And I've met, and I'm sure you've met, a number of Calvinists that get a burr under their saddle, and they get their one topic, and my goodness, they are willing to divide as fast as any
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Baptist ever has over that particular issue if someone dares to take a different perspective.
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And it seemed pretty clear to me that when I answered that phone call, I was saying, look, I'm just going to answer this real quickly.
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I'm not going to get into arguments about this. If anybody wants to argue about this, just totally go away because I'm not going to get into it.
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But here's just a few thoughts that I've had on this, this, this, and this, and moved on from there. And so when
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I found two people from the same church basically taking shots at me, and if you say
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I misunderstood your comment, it just came across that way.
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And let's be honest about something about the Puritan board. There are times when Calvinists say things there that you end up with an entire milieu on that board where it just comes across like, well, sure, everybody understands that, don't they?
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And it's like, don't disagree with this perspective, because everybody understands that.
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And it's like, well, no, not necessarily. There's actually room for some disagreement on a couple issues here, you know?
32:39
And so anyways, that's how it goes. I do admit
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I wasn't necessarily addressing all of the people on the board that might happen to disagree with my church's position on the subject of song and worship or agree with the vast majority of reformed people out there, since there are a number of people on the
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Puritan board who do hold the unaccompanied exclusive psalm. And I was more, I guess, preaching to the choir,
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I guess, would be the term if we believe in choirs. But well, the point was, have
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I ever made this program a platform for campaigning against your position on that?
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Certainly not. And so I made a brief comment, obviously. A brief segue from addressing where the questioner was specifically questioned concerning the
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Churches of Christ, or the Campbellites. And you immediately segued into, well, you know, what's funny is a lot of reformed people have held this, too.
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Yeah, talking about music and worship and the different reasons for all of that.
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And I simply gave my own understanding. And I've never made it an issue.
33:55
If a church wants to engage in exclusive psalmody, I taught for a year at a
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Covenanter church in their high school. And they were psalm singers. So what?
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Which one? Just up the street from where our church is, here in Phoenix. Oh, John McGinn's church?
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I don't know who's there right now. There's been a lot of changes. So a little church, a very small church, but taught there for a year.
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And it's like, okay, fine. What I find pretty odd, to be honest with you, and they weren't this way, obviously, because they allowed me to teach there, but is that a lot of folks who adopt these positions end up basically saying, we not only demand the freedom to do this ourselves, but we basically are going to look down on anybody who doesn't.
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And for me, I think that that's a decision that the elders of that church need to make.
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And the idea of sort of, well, we're more in tune with God because of this, that's where I start going, yeah, that becomes odd.
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I would disagree with that. And I would disagree that I bear that kind of opinion.
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My best friend is a Reformed Baptist who's stationed out of Fort Wainwright, Alaska. And sure, we have disagreements, but we still share agreement in the
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Lord, I would say. Well, and that's how I try to respond to folks. But unfortunately, when
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I just, in passing, make reference to something, the assumption is... Can I, in passing, make reference to your reference?
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Except you said, well, it's obvious he hasn't read anything much about this. And it's like, well, how do you know that?
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How do you know? That wasn't what I said. Okay, what did you say? Because I didn't even link to it because I wasn't,
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I was just, what is this? Two paragraphs. As I recall, it was something to the effect of how, although I understand that his program doesn't allow for any kind of in -depth explanation of his position,
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I would question whether he's read any kind of substantial treatment of the subject from a
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Reformed perspective. Okay, all right. I mean, I'm not, honestly,
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Sean, I'm not even going to take the time to go to the Puritan board and look it up because it just, I'm sorry, it just doesn't, it struck me that it was basically, and in fact, the people who commented, likewise, picked up on the, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, no one really knows our position, blah, blah, blah type thing.
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And I have friends who are into exclusive psalmody, so, and we've had people come to our church who came from churches in that background.
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So it isn't a good assumption to just assume when someone gives a brief analysis of something that they've not done more than what they're doing in that situation.
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But anyways, oh, well, someone just, I love having a chat channel up because people can, you know, pop those things up very, very quickly.
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And there it is. And, okay, the caller asked about the rejection of musical instruments by the
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Campbellites and James immediately segued into a castigating of the position, I don't think I castigate anyone, as held by Reformed believers along with exclusive psalmody.
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I understand that his program doesn't provide a lot of time and extensive treatment of the subject, but his response made me question whether he's actually read any substantial treatment of those subjects from a
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Reformed perspective. Okay, there's, there was your specific statement on the 8th of September.
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So I saw the name of the church, and then like two weeks later, I've got someone defending the
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Kamiohonium from the same church, and I mentioned it and went, isn't that weird? Because I've, I've honestly -
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Because the entire congregation, which is what you said at the end of your article, right? Actually what
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I said - The congregation or the entire congregation? I said, is there some quote, and when you disagree with James White, poke him in the eye in passing rule in the
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SRPC of Colorado Springs or something, seems to be endemic to the whole congregation, how odd?
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The whole congregation? Yep, that's what I said. Because two single men in the congregation? You're single men?
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Yes, actually I'm a single guy, Rob's a single guy, and our church has about 120 to 140 people, so I wouldn't say that it's exactly endemic to our congregation if that was in fact what we were doing.
38:29
Good. Well, I'm glad to hear it, because it certainly seemed really odd that two shots would be taken like that, that I just don't think needed to be taken.
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But hey, if that's what, if that's what people want, you know, feel that it's worthwhile to do that, fine, go ahead.
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I just think there's nothing wrong in my pointing it out and going, well that's really weird. So, sorry,
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Sean, I, you know, I didn't castigate anybody either, I just simply mentioned that I take a different perspective.
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So, you know, that's how I read it, and we'll go from there.
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I don't see much. All right, Dr. White. Okay, all right, thanks a lot. All right, bye -bye. Well, anyway,
39:07
I had people on the channel going, all right, enough of that one, we've heard all there is and didn't hear about that. Yeah, that's probably true. Well, hey, like I said, if you can't see the poke him in the eye thing as having some level of humor attached to it at that point, you know, what can
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I say? Such is life. Okay, I would, however, warn anybody that if you've got someone who is into the
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Kama Yohaniam in your congregation, beware, because those folks generally are not going to accept being told to just back off and make that a personal matter between themselves and their own conclusions.
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Almost every single situation I've ever encountered where someone actually defends the Kama Yohaniam, they take it as a crusade and they are willing to split churches over it.
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So just be warned if you have somebody like that in the congregation. Well, in the few minutes that we have left,
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I wanted to play another section. I've had this queued up for like three weeks from Ahmed Ddot and this is in the
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Q &A section at the end of the of the debate.
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And so you might want to again, not much we can do about the Ahmed Ddot quality.
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Just try to I found that the harder I try to understand Ddot, the harder it becomes do so if you just sort of relax a little bit and, you know, catch the context and the flow.
40:36
It it goes a little bit easier. Let's see if we can follow this question. We Muslims, we claim that this is the last testament because it answers all your problems, whether it is palatable or not.
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And I can guarantee you that it will go down well. And I just mentioned the lady who asked this question was really way off the beam.
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I mean, she was into how can you say that that Muhammad is the final prophet? And because I've written an entire book on how
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God speaks to me and all this stuff. And it was like, oh, great, great lead in.
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But anyway, that's that's what he's responding to here. But it answers your problems.
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Now, this is what Jesus Christ had promised. You see, in the Gospel of St. John, Jesus Christ is telling his disciples that I have yet many things to say unto you, but he cannot bear them now.
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Jesus, God has given him guidance to guide humanity to doomsday. But the people that he was addressing, his immediate disciples, they were not fit to receive the message so that I have yet many things to say unto you, but he cannot bear them now.
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How it when he the spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth.
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Now we know what he's talking about here. John 14 and 16, right before the betrayal, that that final point of ministry between the
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Lord and his disciples, which had been understood by Christians long before Islam ever came along to refer to the coming of the
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Holy Spirit and the fact that after Pentecost, then the spirit of God would open their hearts and minds to understand the prophecies of Scripture and and all these other things that we have in the text of the
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New Testament. But remember, just because we take that as a given does not mean, of course, that that's how
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Islam is going to take it. In fact, this past weekend when I was up in Toronto, I gave as an example and I've traveled for years this one connector in my luggage that I always have to take out, put it out in screening because they'd always take my bag over and they'd look for this one connector because it's
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XLR, RCA, things like that. So I can plug right into my into my computer and then into a
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XLR microphone jack, which you normally find in churches. And so I always have to be taking this thing out because they're always looking for it.
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And if I don't put it in a clear plastic bag and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, especially with the restrictions on liquids and all that,
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I just didn't want to bring it. So the one time I don't bring it, I want to play. I decide once I get up there,
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I want to play that section from Badawi when he applied Isaiah 9 -6 to Muhammad.
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And so I end up having to take off my lavalier and hold it down to the speaker of my tablet and play it that way.
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And it's just that obviously you just lose a whole lot of quality that way. You know, what can I say?
43:42
But as I said to them at that time, here is someone approaching the text of our scriptures from a completely different religion.
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And the results can be can be very jarring to us. And that's what happens here.
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Remember, if you haven't been listening before, there are many Muslims who assert that the prophecy of the paraclete, the comforter in John 14 and 16,
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I remember probably the very first thing I ever responded to on our voice messaging system we used to have where you could call up and listen to messages.
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One of the very first things that ever really caught my attention about Islam was this very claim that the
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Gospel of John is actually talking about Muhammad, that the spirit of truth is Muhammad.
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Instead of paraclete, it should be periclutas, which means the exalted one, which they connect with the name
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Muhammad. And obviously that caught my attention because of the claim of textual corruption and things along those lines.
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But the point is, for most Christians, the first time you hear this completely different interpretation, this completely different way of reading a text, your first reaction is, well, that's ridiculous.
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That's stupid. Well, that's not actually a reaction. That's not actually a rebuttal or a response, just a reaction.
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It's just, well, that's silly. Who could ever believe that? Well, you're looking at somebody who does if they're talking to you about it.
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So that's not going to do you any good. That's not sufficient. In fact, that kind of reaction can slow your thinking process.
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And if you haven't thought of this beforehand, you're really probably left going, well, how do I respond to this?
45:42
What's wrong with this argumentation? Now, once you can have some time to start reflecting, you can start mentioning, for example, that the
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Gospel of John is probably the earliest attested of the Gospels in the manuscript tradition.
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You've got P52, which is from John 18. And so it's not way down the road, as so many liberal scholars and Muslims like to say.
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And so we know there's no question that we can establish the text of John 14 and 16 long before Muhammad came along.
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So why would there be any need of anyone to be corrupting this before Muhammad comes along to try to hide a prophecy to Muhammad?
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We can establish the text of the Bible long before the birth of Muhammad. And so you can point those things out.
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And then you can go into the text itself and you can demonstrate that not only is this what John wrote, but that there's so much about the spirit being in you and how the father and the son will make their abode within you,
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John 14, 23, through the presence of the Holy Spirit that has nothing to do whatsoever with Muhammad.
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And you can you can make a very strong case against this application. But if you've never run into something like that before, it can be very difficult to make a quick response along those lines like that.
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And so it's good to hear this stuff, even if, you know, I know there are people listen to this and go,
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I don't like that stuff. I wish I had heard this stuff before my debate with Hamza Abdul -Malik, because now having listened to so much of DDOT, riding out there through the desert of Arizona, I can't think of almost any of the questions that were asked of me in New York at the
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Hamza Abdul -Malik debate that did not come straight from DDOT. Now, I didn't have a problem answering any of the questions, but it would have been nice to have heard them already enunciated.
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That always gives you a nice warm feeling, shall we say, when, you know, when
47:56
I was listening to Shabir Ali making his presentation, I'm sitting there going, yep, I've heard this before, heard this in many different contexts on two different continents and all sorts of variations of it.
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And and that, you know, when you're doing a debate, that's what you want. You want to know where the argument's going before it gets there.
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And that's how you maintain control of a presentation, is you know where your opponent's going before your opponent gets there.
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And so anyway, that would have been very useful.
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And so if one of those people goes, I don't like having listened to that DDOT guy, you probably haven't ran into any
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Muslims yet and tried to share with them. And if you do encounter a Western Muslim who is interested in sharing his faith, the primary source of information, you go and search the
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Internet and probably the most popular person yet, even though he died last year, the most popular person yet in video,
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DVD, in any type of recorded medium. Someone who is really a showman.
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He really was a showman. He would play the audience, not necessarily in an overly honest way, but he would play the audience was on a
49:12
DDOT. And so if you are familiar with his presentations and how he presented things, you're going to hear him in what's being said back to you.
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To use an illustration that you might let's just use two quick illustrations. I mean, when we play
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Tim Staples or Patrick Madrid or Jimmy Akin or these people, you're probably not going to be running into those folks.
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You might, I suppose. But who are you going to be running into? You're going to be running into the folks who are listening to them. Now, that means that the presentation you're going to hear is probably not to be quite as polished, maybe not quite as accurate.
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But if you know where they're getting it from, then you can provide the strongest response possible. Same thing with the
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Mormons. If you if you listen to what the folks at farms are saying, then you're probably going to be able to have an idea where the more missionaries come from when he tries to engage in some type of apologetic defense, the
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Book of Mormon or something along those lines. And so that's why you do these things. And if you're still one of those
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Westerners who hasn't quite gotten the message yet, Islam is out there.
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Islam is a major apologetic concern. You might say, wait a minute. No, it's not. Bombing me is not the same thing as trying to convert me.
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Well, there are all sorts of folks. Get on the Internet, start doing a little looking around.
50:30
There are the converts out there. And given the sick state of post -evangelical
50:35
Christianity in the United States, they're going to make more converts in the future. And part of it's because we don't take any time to consider what is being said by these folks.
50:48
And we've sort of just gone, well, let the missionaries take care of them way out there someplace. Well, they're coming here.
50:53
And yeah, their numbers are still small. But then again, the Mormon numbers were real small not so long ago either.
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And they've grown rather rapidly over time. So that's one of the reasons we do that.
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That wasn't meant as a rebuke or anything. It's just that we do get folks. And I know, let's face it, reformed folks are behind the curve on this one.
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I'm not saying that there haven't been good, solid reformed folks out there. I'm not saying that.
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But in general, my experience has been that trying to get reformed folks excited about doing apologetics in Islam is considerably harder than getting them interested in Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses, especially
51:33
Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is easy to get a Calvinist going about that. Because if you read Calvin, you know what his context was.
51:40
But actually, interestingly enough, Islam was not outside the context of Calvin either back then.
51:46
It's just the Catholics and Protestants were both united in trying to survive getting overrun by the Muslims at that particular point in time.
51:52
And interestingly enough, it was a very military. There was a very strong military element to the religion at that time, too, and the opposition to it.
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So things haven't really changed a whole lot along those lines. But let's let's D dot continue.
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For he shall not speak from himself. But what he shall hear, that shall he speak. And he shall declare unto you the things that are to come.
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He shall glorify me, Jesus. Now, who is this spirit of truth?
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You Muslims claim Muhammad is that spirit of truth, and we are prepared to reason with you.
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I know prejudice is by heart. It's natural. But let us come. Come, let us talk together.
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Let us reason together. Now, I think those would be passages we might want to commit to memory.
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Let us reason, not bomb. Let us not convert reporters at the end of a rifle barrel.
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Let us reason with one another. Let us debate these issues firmly against one another.
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That's what we seek. And the question really is, can those in Islam who likewise seek that kind of dialogue survive in the face of those who would use violence to end dialogue?
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That's really the question. That's a question that Muslims have to face. That's a question any Muslim apologist must face.
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Would he be allowed to continue to ply his trade under Sharia? In a
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Muslim country, would we be able to have the debate that we had at Biola back in May? In Saudi Arabia?
53:49
In Iran? Well, certainly not. But what does this say? What does that tell us about the difference between Islam when
53:57
Islam is in the minority and Islam when it is in the majority? What does that tell us?
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I think it tells us a lot. Now, obviously, this debate took place sometime back in the 80s, as I recall.
54:09
And so there was a different context. It was a pre -911 world. It was a completely different context that you're dealing with there.
54:17
But still, even at that point in time, Didat would know that that debate that they were having in a
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Western culture would not take place in an Islamic nation. It wouldn't take place.
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And what would be the response of the imams in Saudi Arabia or Egypt or in Iran to an
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Islamic apologist who attempted to defend the propriety of engaging in fair, moderated debate that gave to a
54:53
Christian the right to speak openly on an even footing with a
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Muslim? What would be the response? How long would that person last? Becomes the question.
55:09
And a good question it is. Don't worship monkeys.
55:22
Don't worship elephants and snakes. Worship the one and only God that there is. As the Bible says, God is spirit.
55:28
And those that worship him must worship him in truth and in spirit that Jesus is the
55:45
Christ. Now, did you catch that? This book testifies that Jesus is the
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Christ. Now, he's talking about the Quran at that point. And that's true. And yet, Shabir Ali has challenged me to debate him on whether the
56:02
Old Testament prophesies the coming of Christ. Let me ask you a question.
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How could the New Testament believers have demonstrated that Jesus is the
56:19
Mashiach, the Messiah, if the Old Testament doesn't prophesy, doesn't tell us who the
56:28
Christ would be, what the Christ would do, what the nature of the Christ would be, what his ministry.
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If there is no Old Testament evidence concerning Jesus Christ on that level, then how could the early church have demonstrated that Jesus was the
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Messiah? That's the question, one of many questions that I will have for Mr.
56:52
Ali when we have a specific date in place in mind. The first epistle of John, chapter 4, verse 1, it says,
57:00
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
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It continues. The spirit that confesses that Jesus is the Christ is of God.
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This spirit is synonymous with a prophet. Hold on, did you catch that?
57:22
First we have the statement, confesses that Jesus is the Christ is of God. All right.
57:29
Then he makes spirit equal prophet. Well, that's not all right. Now a prophet speaks by a spirit and you can identify a prophet by the spirit that he speaks by.
57:39
All right. And in fact, I don't know that I would spend much time in a debate, even arguing that particular point until he tries to use that as an evidence that this is a human person being spoken of, and hence it would have to be
57:50
Muhammad. That's where the problem is in this application. But don't let something get past you here.
57:58
When John says every spirit that testifies that Jesus is the
58:03
Christ is from God, that's not all he said, is it? He also said what?
58:09
Every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh.
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Now, what does that mean? And how is that relevant to the fulfillment of John 14 and 16 would be extremely important.
58:20
We'll pick up with that on a future edition of The Dividing Line, which should be this Thursday afternoon, four o 'clock mountain standard time.
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Just make your clocks fit the right clock and all will be well. We'll see you then. God bless. James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.