Gene Kim, Steven Anderson, TRTrads—and a Word to My Fellow Reformed Believers on the Supernatural
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Had some fun with a new video from Gene Kim, played a new RFG intro, looked a little at Steven Anderson and the TRTrads, delving into issues of textual criticism, the transmission of the text, etc. Then for the last 20 minutes or so transitioned into an important discussion about the supernatural and the life of the Bible-believing, sola scriptura confessing Christian in light of the amazing events in the life of my fellow pastor at Apologia Church, Jeff Durbin. Just over 90 minutes today. Visit the store at
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- 00:34
- And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line, my name is James White, don't have anything on the screen to look at, but we are here with a lot of stuff to talk about today, and we want to start with the important stuff.
- 00:46
- You know, I give a lot of people reason to live.
- 00:54
- I just do. I mean, for a lot of people, if they couldn't get up each and every day and prove that I'm an idiot, they would have absolutely nothing to do, and would just be miserable.
- 01:10
- So that may be why the Lord put me on Earth, is just to make a lot of people feel a whole lot better about themselves.
- 01:17
- One of those people is Gene Kim. Now, Gene Kim is the type of guy that tempts you to think that he's actually a secret agent for the
- 01:32
- Babylon Bee. You really do. But remember, remember last, well, it was early this year.
- 01:40
- Early this year, it was when I was in the Netherlands. I think that was, what,
- 01:47
- April? Somewhere around there. Anyway, Gene Kim, a clip came out where he is preaching at this
- 02:00
- IFB church, and he is running around, and he's doing his thing, and that's the one where he was saying that someday, you know, every new bow, and that I would have to come, and I would have to bow down and apologize to Gail Ripplinger, and Peter Ruckman, and remember that?
- 02:24
- And the preacher, what was that guy's name? Anyways, he's standing there, and he's got his
- 02:30
- Bible, and he's doing this thing, because Kim's on fire. See, he's on fire. So you're fanning the flames, see.
- 02:38
- Yeah, yeah, and then Kim comes up to the camera and goes like this, and it's just pretty wild stuff.
- 02:46
- Anyways, so Gene Kim has a, I think it's a PhD in chemistry, but then he went to Ruckman's school, and all you gotta do is say
- 02:55
- Ruckman's school, and that's pretty much the end of that, but so I and the other pastors at Apologia, we have this little means of communicating with one another, because I'm not at the offices during the week.
- 03:15
- They get to talk all the time, and I don't, so that's sort of how we keep in touch with things, and so here comes this link, and it's from Jeff, and Jeff's like, go to six minutes in, just watch, and here
- 03:33
- I click on this link, and it's Dr. Gene Kim talking about how the evil logic of Calvinism actually sounds like it makes sense.
- 03:44
- And the scary part is, if you listen to enough of this, he understands what we're saying. It doesn't have any meaningful response to it, but he does understand it.
- 03:53
- Sometimes these guys are scary. They really, really are. Anyway, there's this one section, and so because we have a new version of the
- 04:08
- Radio Free Geneva theme, you need a background. You got to understand where this came from.
- 04:14
- So I'm going to play you the section that we've actually edited down and inserted into the
- 04:22
- Radio Free Geneva theme, and this will give you the background, okay? So here's
- 04:27
- Dr. Gene Kim. Did we test this? Are we good? You don't know?
- 04:32
- Oh, okay. All right. Don't go. Don't go. I don't know. Don't go. Yeah, don't go.
- 04:38
- I don't know. I'm about to hit play. What are you doing? I don't know. We'll find out when you hit play. That's good.
- 04:43
- I just... Yeah. Anyway, okay. So here's Gene Kim.
- 04:49
- I don't even know how to describe it. Let's just go. A person is born of God because of his acts of righteousness, but see, are you saying then that he had to do his acts of righteousness first to be born of God?
- 05:02
- No. No. What that means is, see, you're born of God first. That's why you do acts of righteousness.
- 05:08
- That's the same thing right here, see? Because you're born of God, that's why you believed on Jesus Christ for salvation.
- 05:14
- That's what the author John meant. We got to understand his mindset, and people don't read the context.
- 05:20
- So when you read the context, and you use proper exegesis, and with this eisegesis, and then if you take lessons from Judas White and Jeff Durbin, and Apologia Studios, and you know
- 05:33
- Greek and Hebrew, and you understand the historical timeline of the author's mentality, and every time the author
- 05:40
- John mentioned about born of God, it shows in this kind of sequential format and...
- 05:49
- Okay, let's look at other passages. First John chapter three. There you go.
- 06:05
- I think that was the apologetic. I think it was the apologetic. I think that's about the depth that they can go to.
- 06:12
- But yeah, so you've got Judas White and Jeff Durbin, and at least it said
- 06:21
- Apologia Studios. At least, you know, it didn't make up something about that. But then you learn
- 06:28
- Greek and Hebrew. Don't want to do that. But... And then...
- 06:34
- Yeah, that's Gene Kim. So anyways, that's the background for our insertion for the new edition of Radio Free Geneva.
- 06:52
- So I just thought, hey, we're not doing Radio Free Geneva today. But it doesn't mean we can't listen to it.
- 06:59
- So you wouldn't happen to have the graphic of the Geneva wall, would you?
- 07:08
- Because I can play it. I've got it queued up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's just...
- 07:15
- I got it. I got it over here, man. I'm ready. I'm way ahead of you. So I'm ready for you.
- 07:20
- All right. All right. Here we go. The new updated edition of the Radio Free Geneva theme.
- 07:39
- You constantly hear people that are Calvinist harp on this. God's offering! God's offering!
- 07:44
- God's offering! God's offering! They just keep repeating it. And they repeat it so much, you start to think it's a biblical tree.
- 07:58
- Jesus stands outside the tomb of Lazarus. He says, Lazarus, come out! And Lazarus said, I can't.
- 08:04
- I'm dead. That's not what he did. Lazarus came out. Do you mean to tell me a dead person can respond to the command of Christ?
- 08:18
- And then you take lessons from Judas White and Jeff Durbin. It shows in this kind of sequential format and...
- 08:33
- Do you really believe that it parallels the method of exegesis that we utilize to demonstrate those other things?
- 08:40
- Um, no. Some new
- 08:46
- Calvinists, even pastors, very openly smoke pipes and cigars just as they drink beer and wine.
- 09:03
- Even Jesus cannot override your unbelief. You're quoting a verse like that to him.
- 09:17
- You know what it would sound like if he were listening to it? It wouldn't make any sense to him.
- 09:24
- A self -righteous, legalistic, deceived jerk. And you need to realize that he's gone from predeterminism.
- 09:37
- Now he's speaking of some kind of middle knowledge that God now has to...
- 09:42
- I deny and categorically deny middle knowledge. Don't beg the question that would demand me to force you to embrace it.
- 09:55
- You're not always talking about necessarily God choosing something for no apparent reason, but you're choosing that meat because it's a favorable meat.
- 10:02
- There's a reason to have the choice of that meat. And now, from our underground bunker deep beneath the faculty cafeteria at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, safe from all those moderate
- 10:19
- Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are
- 10:25
- Radio Free Geneva! Broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to save for his own eternal glory.
- 10:34
- Man, there are some classics in there. You know, the sad thing is we've been doing this for so long now that we have to keep updating them because you can't put the
- 10:44
- Ergen -Kanner ones in there anymore because no one has an earthly idea of what in the world it's about. We're just that old.
- 10:50
- It's just terrible. But someday we're going to go back and we're going to listen to all of the versions of that song just reminiscing as we're rocking back and forth on the old apologist's front porch place.
- 11:08
- You remember that? I remember that one. Yeah, you bet. He said, yeah, I remember that. Stand on my hands, stand on my feet, stand on a stump.
- 11:22
- But I'm sorry, the ones that still break me up the most are still
- 11:27
- Steve Tassi. And then don't make me force you to believe something you don't believe in.
- 11:38
- Wow. And then, of course, look, you've got to be pretty good to get two mentions in the
- 11:45
- Radio Free Geneva opening and Leighton Flower says two. Now, is that the same exegesis we'd use for other things?
- 12:05
- No. That's a choice meat right there. I don't know who talks about the openly smoking pipes and drinking beer.
- 12:17
- I don't either. But every time I hear that, I don't know why, but what's going through my head and what
- 12:23
- I'm anticipating is these pastors openly smoking pot. That's not what he said.
- 12:30
- That's not what he said. I know that's not what he said, but I don't know why that plugs into my head. We'd have some problems with that.
- 12:42
- So we get mail and I came in today and I got this.
- 12:51
- It's from Fort Wayne, Indiana, but there's no return address. It's just addressed to me at our
- 12:57
- P .O. Box. And so there's no names attached. But it's written in Magic Marker or what do you call those?
- 13:14
- Sharpies. Written in Sharpie. All in the King James Version. I won't make anything of that.
- 13:21
- I could, but I won't. 2 Corinthians 4 .13 KJV.
- 13:27
- We having the same spirit of faith occurring as it is written, I believe and therefore I have spoken. We also believe and therefore speak.
- 13:33
- So there's the introduction. And then we have the Lord Jesus Christ, our
- 13:39
- God, the Father is one Lord. 1 Corinthians 8 .6. That's not what 1
- 13:44
- Corinthians 8 .6 says in the King James Version, but when you're oneness, you see what you want to see.
- 13:52
- So we've got John 4 .23. True worshippers will worship the
- 13:57
- Father. Hebrews 1 .6 brings first begotten of the world. It says that all the angels of God worship him.
- 14:03
- Of course, the fact that Hebrews 1 .6 makes clear distinction between the Father and the Son seems to be lost on this particular individual.
- 14:12
- Especially even here, this is the Father speaking and says that all the angels of God worship him. But again, oneness folks have ways around this because God does the ventriloquism thing.
- 14:22
- Then we have 1 Corinthians 8 .6. One God, the Father, one
- 14:27
- Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, we by him. Clear distinction made between the two, but not in oneness theology. Mark 12 .29,
- 14:38
- Lord our God is one Lord. So assuming Unitarianism, we've talked about this many, many times.
- 14:44
- John 10 .30, I and my Father are one, except it's a plural verb, we are one.
- 14:50
- It doesn't say I am the Father, but I am the Father, we are one. 1 Timothy 2 .5, there is one God, one meter between God and man, the man
- 14:56
- Christ Jesus. Yep, that's true. But that's why there's a distinction between the one
- 15:02
- God, the Father, and the meter between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. It was not the Father who became flesh, of course, it was the
- 15:08
- Son who was sent by the Father. 1 Corinthians 8, again, then of course John 17 .3,
- 15:14
- been over that one a thousand times. Skipping, John 17 .5, where the Father and the Son are clearly distinguished and the
- 15:20
- Son is described as being an eternal divine person, which of course they don't believe.
- 15:26
- 1 John 2 .23, ironically, whoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father, but he that knoweth the
- 15:32
- Son hath the Father also. That's the problem with oneness, you deny the Son. You deny the Son is an eternal divine person, and that's the problem there.
- 15:41
- But notice that these are nicely underlined, have you seen pretty colored underlining and stuff like that? That's how you know what's true, is the underlining and things like that.
- 15:50
- I've gotten lots of stuff like this over the years. Last page, 1 Corinthians 8 .6, again, with double colored underlining this time, because obviously we didn't get it the first time.
- 16:00
- What? No, there's no red letters, but there's red underlining. You've got blue letters and some green letters.
- 16:07
- But we've got 1 Corinthians 8 .6 again, Jude 4, which, based on the
- 16:13
- King James textual variant here. Oh, wait a minute, a heretic using the TR textual variant?
- 16:19
- That must mean something! Well, not necessarily. And then Ephesians 4 or 5, one
- 16:25
- Lord, one faithful. And that's it. So, there you go.
- 16:31
- Like I said, we get mail, and most of the time, Rich doesn't even bother to show it to me.
- 16:40
- He gets to enjoy it all by himself. But we thought we'd share that with you today. I could send that all...
- 16:51
- How about we start sending all that stuff up to Summer? We can let Summer respond to that kind of stuff. Summer and Joy. I'd love to see how
- 16:57
- Summer and Joy would respond to... No, I want to send it over to Steven Anderson. Oh, yeah! We know...
- 17:05
- Yeah, that would be good. So, anyway, let's get on to some serious stuff here.
- 17:14
- We have now... My son -in -law said this intro is going to be 12 minutes long soon.
- 17:22
- Actually, it has not changed in length. It was the same length as last time.
- 17:28
- We just took one out and added one in. But, yes, it could get excessively large if we wanted to allow it to do so.
- 17:37
- So, we've got Gene Kim done. So, where do we want to go to next? What's actually most important?
- 17:49
- I had started doing a series, and I ran out of steam on it. Maybe I'll continue to do it sometime in the future.
- 17:55
- I don't know. It was just repeating the same things over and over again. Steven Anderson decided to post a video yesterday at some point,
- 18:12
- I think in the morning. I've listened to, I think, 4 hours and 15 minutes of, like, 9 hours or something, about halfway through, of the
- 18:23
- Text and Canon Conference from a week before last. Which was held in Atlanta, as Dr.
- 18:29
- Jeffrey Riddle and Robert Trulove are the primary speakers presenting this, the
- 18:37
- TR -only, I'm calling them TR -trads now, the TR -traditionalists, the
- 18:44
- TR -only position that this is the preserved text and actually tried to make the argument that it is the apostolic text even though, it was also admitted we don't have any manuscripts that look exactly like that.
- 19:04
- Actually, we don't have any manuscripts that look exactly like that at all. Because there aren't any. The Text of Septus is an eclectic text.
- 19:14
- It was drawn from a small number, but still multiple manuscripts.
- 19:23
- None of them were concurrent manuscripts containing the entirety of the New Testament. So there were gospel manuscripts and Pauline manuscripts and things like that, but I don't think any of them contained, well certainly, we know they didn't contain everything because we know about the story about the
- 19:35
- Book of Revelation, but anyway, there is no single manuscript that reads identically to the
- 19:42
- TR, but the TR represents one particular stream in what would be called the
- 19:50
- Byzantine manuscripts. And pretty much represents But we are told that there are good reasons why we should adopt without textual critical study.
- 20:10
- And if there is going to be textual critical study, it only needs to be between the printed editions of the TR. But there is no reason to be analyzing manuscripts.
- 20:21
- Not at all. Now one of the things I'm going to do, I've got a trip coming up and I just haven't gotten around to it.
- 20:29
- Some people say, you should work harder. Maybe I should.
- 20:36
- But I'm overseas next week and I have,
- 20:41
- I preached last Sunday, Sunday before that. I'm preaching again this coming Sunday. By the way, an interesting subject.
- 20:50
- Jeff asked me to, actually the last two sermons, Jeff has sort of given me a subject. And the first was, they're both out of Matthew chapter 24 because Jeff only has
- 21:03
- Matthew 24 in his Bible. But, no, I've looked. The rest of it's there. We just can't find it. But the first one was the elect.
- 21:12
- So we talked about what calling an election was. I wanted everybody at Apologia to be able to say, yeah, we've looked at all those references and that's what we did.
- 21:20
- That's not, believe me, I would fail most homiletics classes the way that I preach things like that.
- 21:26
- But a lot of people liked it. And then, this next Sunday, you have that brief statement from Jesus that I'm telling you before it comes to pass.
- 21:37
- And so I will be tying that into John 13, 19 when
- 21:43
- Jesus tells the disciples, I'm telling you before it comes to pass and when it does come to pass, no one believe and understand that I am
- 21:49
- He. Quoting from Isaiah 43, 10, it's one of the I Am sayings. And basically, the sovereignty of God over human affairs, we'll look at Psalm 33, things like that on this coming
- 22:00
- Sunday. But the point is, next Wednesday evening, the 13th,
- 22:06
- I will be debating Shabir Ali in Atlanta at Georgia Tech. Trini and Tawhid, but I'm not going to let it be just a standard old
- 22:16
- Trini and Tawhid presentation. We're going to be a little more straightforward on this one.
- 22:22
- Because we've done this, this will be our third or fourth time. So, I'm going to switch things up.
- 22:29
- So Shabir, don't expect the regular presentation. So I've got a few things going on.
- 22:36
- Just a few things. Just a couple things. I'm not talking about writing projects and keeping up with what's being published on CBGM and everything else
- 22:47
- I should. But what I want to get to is I want to put together a list maybe of five, maybe of seven.
- 22:56
- I need to find a numerologically significant number of absolute indisputable errors in the textus receptus.
- 23:08
- Because they're there. They're there. And there are people, if you can look at these texts that are plain, clear, documentable errors in the
- 23:28
- TR and say, yeah, but God inspired that, then you are in the
- 23:37
- King James only off the reservation camp.
- 23:42
- You just are. There are people who, for example,
- 23:48
- Dr. Maurice Robinson, Byzantine text would never take that position.
- 23:55
- He has openly said, here are the errors in the TR. This is where the TR needs to be edited.
- 24:01
- Now, he would say it needs to be edited so that it more accurately represents the best of the Byzantine manuscripts.
- 24:06
- But you see, the problem is Maurice Robinson is a textual critic and this position denies even the godliness of engaging in textual criticism even though its text came from people doing text criticism.
- 24:20
- That's the incoherency of it. That's why it can never defend itself. Because it accepts when you read
- 24:29
- Erasmus. And the more I read of Erasmus, the more resources become available to provide that, the more you read of Erasmus, the more you recognize that's where this guy's coming from.
- 24:44
- There was a reason why he was called the Prince of the Humanists. And when you recognize the reality of where the text came from, how it came into existence, then you immediately recognize the incoherence of then turning around and saying, well, now that we have it, and we got it from this source, get rid of the source.
- 25:20
- We have it. We like it. It's unchanging. And so we're going to stop here.
- 25:33
- Anyone skeptic, Mormon, Muslim, who is well -read in this area will be able to demonstrate the incoherence and the self -contradiction and the inconsistency of this perspective.
- 25:51
- And by the way, I, so, let me just put this this way.
- 25:57
- So, I put together a very short, what was it, three paragraphs, long paragraphs, but three long paragraphs on Facebook where I talked about a couple aspects of what
- 26:11
- I had been listening to in the Text and Canon conference. And one of, you know, one of the things
- 26:21
- I pointed out is it seems that my name is He Who Shall Not Be Named.
- 26:29
- So, for those of you with certain reading predilections, that makes me
- 26:35
- Voldemort. But I was referred to numerous times, and I could tell it was me.
- 26:42
- When you talk about someone waving their 1550 Stephanus around, right there, yep, and there ain't nobody else doing that.
- 26:50
- I know, I have personal knowledge of one other person who owns a 1550
- 26:56
- Stephanus, and he's never addressed any of this. So, you ain't talking about him. So, I'm the internet,
- 27:01
- I'm the popular internet apologist and stuff like that, but they won't mention me by name. Which, of course, is,
- 27:08
- I name them by name so you can go and read what they have to say. You can check the sources.
- 27:15
- That's why I'll play what they're saying. I've got some things queued up here. I'll play what they're saying.
- 27:22
- I will quote their articles. But, when you start doing the he who shall not be named, that way you can build a lot of straw men.
- 27:36
- And there were a lot of straw men. My understanding of the papyri completely misrepresented.
- 27:45
- Completely misrepresented. Utterly. Could never have come up with a single sentence
- 27:51
- I've ever written in context that says what Dr. Riddle said
- 27:56
- I was saying. Not once. Not once. I've been really stunned because I did directly interact with Dr.
- 28:03
- Riddle recently quoting from some of his materials. His response was really bad.
- 28:10
- I mean, he really struggles to stick with what somebody else is saying and accurately represent them. I don't know why. Some people just struggle with that kind of thing.
- 28:18
- But, total straw man. Just, not even close to what I've actually said. Or, never even mentioned why the papyri actually are as important as they are.
- 28:28
- How they ground the unseals in the centuries before them.
- 28:34
- They provide that bridge back into that time period that is so vitally important in the defense of the text.
- 28:43
- And here's what I said. And this is what people have been coming after me in this video from Steven Anderson.
- 28:50
- I have said, and I will repeat, and so far, because these folks don't even try to respond to what
- 28:57
- I actually said. And by the way, the facts that I gave in that Facebook article, no one's even touched them.
- 29:03
- Just, like they're not even there. And I've seen, by the way, some of you who think that you're in Facebook groups where you're hidden away,
- 29:14
- I have friends. I see the stuff you're saying. It gets sent to me. The vile, nasty stuff from my fellow
- 29:24
- Calvinists. Insulting. Absolutely insulting. Mean.
- 29:30
- Spirited. You know who you are. You know what you're saying. Because I do too. And whether I know it or not, it doesn't matter because guys,
- 29:39
- God knows. God knows. That's all there, that all has to be said.
- 29:45
- God knows. But I know too. And I have the screenshots. And I'm not going to put them on the screen today.
- 29:53
- Maybe give you some time to repent. But I know what you're saying. I know the accusations of lying and disqualification and ego and selling books and all the rest of the of the nastiness that my dear, beloved,
- 30:11
- Reformed brothers are doing on a regular basis. But you know what?
- 30:16
- I can smile about it. I can smile about it because last night Jeff went on Facebook told the story about Augustin Gideon and in less than 12 hours we raised the funds to pay for the adoption that's going to take place.
- 30:39
- Well, the birth is scheduled. Births happen when the baby wants it to.
- 30:44
- But the birth is supposed to be December 4th. And it's covered now.
- 30:50
- We've got that covered. There's some baby needs things that I posted a link from Summer on that.
- 30:56
- But you know what? That is so much more important than your petty bickering in little Facebook closed groups that I just don't care.
- 31:05
- I feel for you I really do feel sorry for you because if that's what you're spending your life doing man
- 31:11
- I'm doing I'm having a whole lot more fun than you are and thinking about saving babies and stuff like that I'll let you guys have your fun and it's not going to bother me at all.
- 31:27
- It really doesn't. There would have been a day. That day has long passed. So anyways, I know what y 'all are saying.
- 31:33
- And so what the focus has been I just can't believe the ego of this man.
- 31:41
- He is so prideful and nasty. Because I said what? I said you folks don't take this stuff into the marketplace of ideas.
- 31:52
- What did I mean by that? What did I give as illustrations? I specifically said show me the links to the debates you have done with Bart Ehrman.
- 32:05
- Have you debated Bart Ehrman? I would love to see one of you guys try to take this stuff up against Bart Ehrman. That would be interesting.
- 32:12
- It would be sad. It would be bad. But he would shred you badly because you couldn't defend your presuppositions.
- 32:24
- But where are your debates against the Bart Ehrmans of the world?
- 32:30
- Where are your debates against Islamic apologists who study our textual critical sources?
- 32:39
- Because there are those that do. Where are your debates? They aren't there because you don't do it.
- 32:49
- It's a simple statement of fact. There's nothing arrogant about that. It's a fact.
- 32:55
- You don't go into mosques and defend the textual integrity of the New Testament. If you do, show me the show me the links.
- 33:06
- Oh, you're just being arrogant. I'm telling you a fact. What you're presenting requires the acceptance of a theological system first.
- 33:17
- The problem is you say you derive that from Scripture. Now, the reality is it's not, that's not as circular, quite as circular as it sounds because, listen folks, the biblical doctrine of Scripture is not at all meaningfully impacted.
- 33:39
- Whether you use the TR or the Tyndale House or the
- 33:44
- UBS or the NA28, it's not. It is not.
- 33:51
- In fact, I think when I do the errors in the TR program, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go, you know, there are only, if there are 15 texts that come up in the illustration of the difference between the
- 34:16
- TR and the modern text, if there are 15, I would be stunned.
- 34:25
- Because once you start listening to the conversations and you start reading and stuff like that, it's always the same things.
- 34:31
- It's the Kamiohonium. It's the Prick of Adultery. It's the Long Grinding of Mark. It's the
- 34:37
- Bloody Sweat. It's Father Forgive Them For They Know Not What They Do. It's John 5 -4.
- 34:46
- The Angels Stirring the Waters. It's not the stuff in Revelation.
- 34:57
- Because the vast majority of folks recognize that the TR and Revelation has serious, serious problems.
- 35:04
- Yeah, so if you can get to 15, I'd be surprised. None of those in any way, shape, or form impact the
- 35:13
- Trinity, Deity of Christ, Resurrection, Doctrine of Justification, nothing. And certainly do not, at all, impact the biblical doctrine of Scripture at all.
- 35:32
- So I have just simply made the blanket statement that has only been when all you can do is ridicule it by going ad hominem without refuting it by going factual, you're making my point for me.
- 35:51
- I cannot utilize the forms of argumentation that the
- 35:57
- TR guys are using because I debate people who use the same kind of argumentation in defense of false scripture.
- 36:07
- Now, I was going to try to queue this up, did not have time to, couldn't find it fast enough, trying to find stuff in sound files is a long process, it can be very difficult.
- 36:20
- Three weeks, a month ago now, I did a debate with Abdullah Hamimi in Melbourne, downtown
- 36:29
- Melbourne, Australia. And we discussed the
- 36:36
- Bible and the Quran and their textual transmission. I've done that numerous times in different forums.
- 36:45
- One of the arguments he used that was also used by Zulfiqar Ali Shah at Duke University well over a decade ago, maybe longer than that, was that the
- 37:00
- Muslim doesn't even really have to engage in much in the way of textual criticism because we know that the
- 37:12
- Quran was immediately memorized by thousands of people. And so, if there had been any change, variation, in the recitation, thousands of people would be going, wait, wait, wait, wait, that's not what it says.
- 37:29
- So, Zulfiqar Ali Shah presented that to me in the debate at Duke. Abdullah Hamimi repeated it.
- 37:36
- I've looked into this, those hadith and those historical sources that come through some of the other channels, not necessarily the hadith collections, but later historians, they are very late.
- 37:56
- They do not come, there is no evidence of their, in fact, there's counter -evidence.
- 38:03
- I tried to bring this up to Abdullah, I'm not sure he understood why I was raising it. I talked about the work of Muqatil and how
- 38:11
- Muqatil did not follow the conventions of using proper isnad chains and things like that, which means they hadn't developed yet.
- 38:24
- So, but that didn't, it was during cross -examination,
- 38:29
- I couldn't really develop it any farther than that, but it's an important area. Anyway, so, you have this assertion from Muslims that one of the evidences of the preservation, inspiration, and final authority of the
- 38:48
- Quranic text is the fact that it has been memorized and hence could not be changed.
- 38:55
- So I'm listening to the Text and Canon conference and one of the speakers,
- 39:02
- I believe it was Dr. Riddle, was reading from one of the classical
- 39:10
- Reformed writers, mainly from the period of Reformed Orthodoxy in the early to mid -17th century, where you had more of the development of Reformed theology and defense thereof against, especially against the
- 39:23
- Counter -Reformation, which begins at the Council of Trent and that really gets going with the
- 39:29
- Jesuits. And what was one of the arguments that was presented by one of my
- 39:36
- Reformed forefathers? That, in the early period, the scriptures were so widely known and so widely memorized that if there had been any variation in their promulgation and copying, that it would have been immediately recognized because they were so well known that it could not have been changed.
- 40:01
- So, what do you do in that situation? Now, don't get me wrong, that could be true and the
- 40:11
- Muslim perspective could be wrong, but how do two people who are arguing from the same premise about a different inspired work get anywhere if they're starting at the same assumption that you need to simply accept what
- 40:34
- I say and the other guy says, no, you need to simply accept what I say?
- 40:40
- And the reality is both the Quran and the New Testament exist in history. And the, for me anyways, the key here is the
- 40:53
- New Testament pre -exists the Quran. And since the Quran addresses the
- 40:59
- Al -Kitab and the Al -Anjeel the people of the gospel the people of the book and the people of the gospel, that is the historical grounding that allows you to have a starting place in examining the claims of Quranic inspiration, consistency, preservation over time.
- 41:21
- Because the Quran makes reference to our scriptures and represents what we believe.
- 41:27
- If it is inaccurate in that, you can no longer begin with the presupposition of its inspiration.
- 41:39
- So, the point is these men do not, again,
- 41:44
- I am willing to stand corrected. If you all want to show me, because I've missed them, maybe
- 41:50
- I could learn something. I would like to see the debates that you've done with Muslim apologists
- 41:58
- Bart Ehrman people like that on this subject where you defended your perspective.
- 42:05
- I'd like to see it. If they do not exist, then my assertion is you could not bring those to the table and successfully defend them.
- 42:16
- And, I have no reason I have no evidence before me to think that you even know what those arguments are from the other side.
- 42:26
- I have no reason to believe that Robert Trulove or Jeffrey Riddle have ever spent any time whatsoever reading the
- 42:36
- Christian Al -Kindi reading Sahih al -Bukhari I doubt they have the two sets there we go right there sound effects are highly trained okay these are museum quality reproductions of two of the oldest neither are complete but we have the
- 43:19
- London and the French France Paris early manuscripts of the
- 43:27
- Quran I have no reason to believe that either gentleman has any first hand knowledge of any of the variants any of the physical characteristics or arguments put forth by numerous
- 43:46
- Islamic scholars on the subject that does not invalidate their argument but it does substantiate my assertion so my question is how come my assertion cannot be heard by any of these individuals how come there's we've got
- 44:04
- Steven Anderson here in a second actually willing to mock me and you know it's funny
- 44:12
- Steven Anderson detests Gene Kim mocks Gene Kim but both Gene Kim and Steven Anderson cannot quote me without going into some sort of weird voice it's weird but that's that's life in in the fast lane but I made a factual statement that I can back up why is it that so far
- 44:44
- I have not seen a single person from this perspective actually engage what
- 44:50
- I said rather than just simply mock me and go after a straw man because what
- 44:59
- I've heard is what do you mean we'll take this we're pastors we preach all the time we go witnessing all the time that has nothing to do with what
- 45:06
- I said no logical person reading me in context knowing what
- 45:12
- I'm talking about knowing what I do looking at the examples I've given would think that preaching the
- 45:21
- King James version of the Bible in your King James church is what
- 45:27
- I had in mind yeah I I know you do that I I am aware of that so maybe
- 45:34
- I had something else in mind maybe I was talking about actually debating these topics with Muslims and atheists and skeptics
- 45:43
- John Dominic Crossan John Shelby Spong we can go down the line here people that I've engaged
- 45:50
- I don't have any evidence that they have so oh that's just so arrogant it's a fact it's not arrogant
- 45:58
- I'm not saying I am so great what I'm saying is that Christian scholarship um
- 46:06
- I didn't I didn't bring it well actually it hasn't arrived yet but it's supposed to arrive at home pretty soon but I have the the printouts of the new book on myths and mistakes um in modern textual criticism and I've started in on it and I'm hoping to have you know at least one of the editors on the program sometime in the future
- 46:28
- I keep saying that but he's local so I'd like to like to make that work out but the things that they say the foundational issues that you know they they're correcting a lot of the mistakes that I've been harping on it's sort of nice they're the next generation one of the editors is the age of my son
- 46:49
- I've been harping on this stuff for a long time we can go back in the archives a long long ways and I was and people will testify and I love
- 47:03
- Dan Wallace Dan Wallace is vitally important great but I was straightforward
- 47:11
- I reviewed his debate as I have each debate that he's done with with Bart Ehrman and I said when it first came out so within within a few weeks maybe two weeks at most of when it came out
- 47:24
- I said Dan that's not fair you don't this is this is the first century mark thing it turned out to be third century mark but I said you don't do that in a debate you you don't bring something up like that that has not yet been vetted that's not fair in a debate and I was consistent
- 47:45
- I criticized Jay Smith for doing the same thing to Shabir Ali he brought up something had not yet been published had not yet been vetted and that's not fair that is that is not how you do debates
- 48:00
- I've been consistent sorry I know it's really boring someone will tell you
- 48:06
- I've sort of been that way for a long time just sort of just sort of who I am but that's all
- 48:13
- I did and the response has been you're arrogant and you're mean -spirited and you're nasty and it's just like no what
- 48:21
- I'm saying is your system cannot survive out in the real world you cloak it in all this wonderful confessional sounding language but the reality is it doesn't work it doesn't work out in the real world and you haven't taken it out in the real world
- 48:41
- I'm not talking about preaching I'm not talking about going out on a street corner and witnessing somebody with a King James Version of the
- 48:47
- Bible that's not what I'm talking about so why even bother with that I don't know I don't know but let's take a look at what
- 48:53
- Steven Anderson has to say and we'll go from there here we go
- 49:00
- Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faith Forward Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona so a bunch of Reformed Baptists who use the
- 49:08
- King James Bible and believe in the traditional Greek and Hebrew text of the Bible just recently put on a conference in Atlanta, Georgia called the
- 49:16
- Text and Canon Conference where they just completely demolished the modern versions and just completely demolished the critical text and just chewed it up and spat it out you know,
- 49:27
- I'm not really sure that I get the distinct feeling that this is not the this is not the commendation they were looking for and that the good old
- 49:43
- Steven Anderson just spit it up and chewed it up just demolished it yeah,
- 49:50
- I think they know they didn't do that and so, yeah and so a lot of Reformed Baptists are actually waking up and realizing that the modern versions are a fraud because typically
- 50:02
- Reformed Baptists use the ESV but lately a lot of them are actually waking up tossing the
- 50:10
- ESV and getting a King James Bible which is great but anyway so James White is pulling out all of his same old tired arguments to try to counter this thing and one of the things if I could ever get a response to my arguments then maybe they could get tired but they don't get tired if they haven't been refuted and it's normally just really crickets either that or just straw men how many verses have
- 50:41
- I presented where there's the one guy the Texas Receptus guy but like it's pretty obvious for him as long as it's in the
- 50:52
- TR absolute truth and he'll do anything use any standards to defend the
- 50:59
- TR but at least he's consistent at that point that's what the other guys are really doing they just won't go quite to the same length that he does he said that he said over and over again and he said basically that those who are
- 51:10
- Texas Receptus only those who are using the King James Bible they can't quote give a defense in the public square none of them have even attempted to you know be able to defend the
- 51:22
- New Testament in the public square yes that's always how I speak I talk about the public square yes that's what
- 51:30
- I do just like Gene Kim but I don't go blah at the end they can't defend it in the public
- 51:37
- I'm now British I'm N .T. Wright here it's wonderful engage the public arena or whatever this weird language that he uses is this weird language that he that he uses it's called
- 51:53
- English and it's actually talking about the reality that there are other perspectives out there and see this is this is where the the fundamentalist mindset kicks in and that's where part of the mockery comes from too is because the fundamentalist mindset cannot acknowledge the need to know what is coming against the
- 52:23
- Christian faith so you can respond to it in a meaningful fashion the fundamentalist says oh no no no we don't we should not even be exposed to that that's dangerous so on and so forth that's the fundamentalist and so if I say it is important for us to be consistent in our argumentation if I say we our arguments have to be coherent that we need to recognize that if we're using the same fundamental foundational argument in regards to supremacy of our scriptures that the other guy is using for his then this is going to be a problem and we need to know where the where the connection points are to history to be able to refute his argument whereas we maintain ours and for these for these folks that's irrelevant just tell them they're going to hell that's all that's all
- 53:13
- Steven Anderson does he doesn't have to worry about stuff like that they're just all going to hell just tell them to repent simple enough that's that's the that's fundamentalism and he's saying you know that they can't do apologetics or whatever well you know let me just explain consistent apologetics yes that's exactly what
- 53:33
- I'm saying if the system is incoherent then you cannot do consistent apologetics
- 53:38
- I think we honor God when we do consistent apologetics silly me something to you 99 % of people in this world are not scholars and here's what the
- 53:51
- Bible says in Mark chapter 12 about Jesus it says the common people heard him gladly and guess what and yet there are difficult things in Paul's writings that the untaught and unstable distort too right and amongst the mature we speak that which is fundamentalists and categories just don't seem to see how those those fit those who preach and teach the
- 54:18
- King James Bible are constantly engaging the public in a real way it's called evangelizing it's called door -to -door soul winning so there you go so was that what
- 54:29
- I was talking about no no I was not saying anything about evangelizing even though this man doesn't believe in repentance or the
- 54:37
- Lordship of Jesus Christ and hence cannot evangelize as Jesus and the apostles did and has a very shallow and ineffective gospel that really doesn't work but be it as it may that's not what
- 54:52
- I was talking about and this is just an illustration of what I am talking about why respond like this because he's not the only one that did this there are other people here locally did the exact same thing we we preach the gospel all the time that's not what
- 55:09
- I'm saying why can't you guys respond to what I actually said may
- 55:15
- I submit it's because there is no response to what I actually said because you haven't done it why don't you just submit it yeah you're right it's a it's a fairly new new movement and you know we just haven't gotten it all figured out yet how's that I mean does that really hurt
- 55:28
- I don't know okay let's oops sorry take that down there you go let me get this back up here and oh this is the right one okay let me play you a segment and then
- 55:47
- I want to finish on something positive let me play you a segment I believe this is
- 55:54
- Robert Trulove and I want to interact with what is said here there's so much
- 56:00
- I mean if I were to drop this into Audio Notetaker yeah but I'm going overseas so there are things to do but maybe at some point let's just listen in here are the three examples nor can the arguments used by our opponents prove it not the history of the adulterous
- 56:23
- John 8 1 through 11 for although it is lacking in the Syriac version it is found in all the
- 56:29
- Greek manuscripts not 1 John 5 7 for although some formerly called it into question in heretics now do yet all the
- 56:38
- Greek copies have it now I don't know if you caught that he's quoting from Turretin now
- 56:45
- Turretin said a couple things about this he said something differently in his commentary on the pastoral epistles but we'll just go with this um what was just said that all the
- 56:58
- Greek copies have it is manifestly untrue it's man Turretin was wrong okay now if if Turretin had had this and hence all the information down there at the bottom of the page um then we would go what's going on but you must remember this is absolutely modern it is absolutely modern
- 57:36
- I won't wave it around here um but if I picked up the 1550 Stephanus down there
- 57:41
- I could show you pages that have notations in the margins about a small number of manuscripts that have variant readings it's the beginning one small little step toward what we have here and even
- 58:01
- Dr. Riddle Dr. Riddle said the exact same thing I have said many many times this volume is astonishing the amount of information contained in this one little volume specifically in Estee Holland much more so in the
- 58:15
- UBS the number of variants noted and the the brevity of the sigla that's why you can go back in the archives of this program and I forget how long that program was but we did about two and a half hour program a number of years ago where we went through and taught you how to use this because it is amazing the amount of information in this one tiny little volume relatively tiny little volume even he admitted that that's a brand new thing in the history of the church what
- 58:50
- CSNTM is doing right now the center for the study of New Testament manuscripts the digitizing of the texts massively important what
- 58:57
- Munster has been doing for decades massively important but also massively modern there was no catalog of Greek New Testament manuscripts in Turreton's day nobody had a clue how many manuscripts of first John existed what they read where they were housed no one had any idea and so we can forgive
- 59:23
- Turreton who was not a textual critical scholar there weren't very many running around there wasn't that much to study but we can forgive him for being completely in error in what he said all the
- 59:37
- Greek texts have actually none of them do not not before the 14th century and then they start coming in from Latin and then you end up with Monfortianus 1520 or so but no the
- 59:53
- Greek copies do not contain the Kamiohanium that's just the reality so he was in error so what do you do with that well his point is that that if if these three
- 01:00:08
- Longer Ending and Mark Per Commedia Adulteria and Kamiohanium Kamiohanium if these three are different than the text has been quote unquote adulterated and that's all he's trying to prove but that's not where he stops so I want you to listen because you immediately catch anyone who has access to this or on your phone if you've got
- 01:00:36
- Logos if you've got Accordance if you've got Olive Tree those are the three that I'm familiar with and all of them have
- 01:00:42
- S. Allen text UBS text it's all there if you have them you have access to information because people for hundreds of years now have been working very very very very very hard to give that information but we stand on the shoulders of giants so we shouldn't make that kind of error any longer but listen to where we go from here with Robert Tree Love As Sixtus Sinensis acknowledges quote they have been the words of never doubted truth and contained in all the great copies from the very times of the apostles not
- 01:01:20
- Mark 16 which may have been Now again that statement is utterly fallacious the man whoever wrote it might have believed it but it's utterly fallacious you cannot substantiate that assertion or could you think about how you could try to substantiate that and you'll see the danger zone that we're heading into here in several copies in the time of Jerome as he asserts but now it incurs in all even in the
- 01:01:52
- Syriac version and is clearly necessary to complete the history of the resurrection of Christ it's very interesting you know when now by the way
- 01:02:05
- I actually stopped did you hear the laughter when he emphasized the term heretics in regards to don't don't miss the reality if you listen carefully to the conference once you get all these guys together they start feeding off each other and that's why
- 01:02:24
- I become the popular internet apologist who shall not be named and you get the the amens and the you know they start revving each other up that's that happens it's happened it happened in places where I've gone to it happens when
- 01:02:40
- I've had people point out to me oh you're not you're you're you're coming up with a novel view of what they believed and I'm like well let's look at examples of what they said these would be corruptions the text would be corrupt if this was true here are the examples they're the ones we talk about today and so far what
- 01:02:59
- I've got when I mention this particular reading from Churiton is people will sidestep the whole thing and start questioning the critical remarks the reasons he believed they're authentic in other words because he was completely wrong but is sort of relevant and I'm like look my point wasn't that you know what did he mean by all the copies of 1st
- 01:03:18
- John had the Kama Yohaneim I mean we know there's some issues there right but the point isn't his critical argument there the point is what he's asserting corruption looks like yeah because he he is a 17th century witness to what the
- 01:03:35
- Protestants viewed as true textual mutilation now of course one more time
- 01:03:43
- I'd have to say this every five minutes if we are reviewing this but a tremendous amount of time was invested
- 01:03:51
- I would say wasted in establishing how Protestants looked at the
- 01:03:57
- New Testament in the 17th century what was never established is that they knew of anything else in other words because they did not have the information we have today did not have access to a tenth of the manuscripts a hundredth of the manuscripts that we have today therefore they did not know that there was a text of the first millennium versus a text of the second millennium so they were not making a choice they did not have their textus receptus in one hand and the
- 01:04:36
- Nessiol in the other hand going mm -mm -mm they didn't have it they did not have it and every time that they try to make it look like they were making a critical informed choice between them they are anachronistically abusing them this is so certain that they'll never debate it because they can't they can't it's just an absolute reality it's one of the many many huge gaping holes in the system yeah and those are the three texty sides same text we argue about today that's because there are so few texts to argue about I hope you understand given that there are so few texts that we are actually discussing what does that tell you?
- 01:05:29
- that tells you about the purity of the transmission of the text over time and that's vitally important it is as a side note interesting when he talks about all the
- 01:05:42
- Greek copies having 1 John 5 -7 listen either he was lying yep why even use that language?
- 01:05:52
- why even use that language? see I respect Turretin I respect him so much that I disagree with him on baptism see
- 01:06:01
- I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and he said you just need to be nicer and I said you need to understand something
- 01:06:15
- I show respect for someone by accurately representing them even while refuting them if I wanted to be mean to somebody if I wanted to show disrespect for somebody then
- 01:06:29
- I will twist and distort their position but I can't do that as a servant of Christ and so what this generation considers to be meanness and harshness is what every generation before us recognized was placing truth and service to its promulgation before the emotions of men we are now living in a day where men's emotions are considered to be more important than God's truth and I simply have made the decision
- 01:07:08
- I have to trust the spirit of God to work in the hearts and minds not only of the loss
- 01:07:16
- I'm trying to reach but I am I have to function on the basis of the spirit of God working in the hearts of my fellow believers they may not be fellow believers
- 01:07:29
- I don't know I can't see into their hearts but they make the profession so I'm going to treat them that way and so if you're a
- 01:07:36
- Christian I hold you to a higher standard and I have been attacked for that over and over and over again as if I should somehow hold you to a lower standard no
- 01:07:48
- I won't I can't it's not possible the point is my what is this
- 01:07:55
- I never read the book about love languages I never read it
- 01:08:00
- I heard about it my love language is consistency okay if you are consistent man you've got my respect if you are inconsistent you're going to have to earn it consistency you cannot define the word truth without using categories of consistency it's just not possible but anyway
- 01:08:27
- Francis Churchill was lying or when he says as Sixtus Sinensis acknowledges they have been the words of never doubted truth and contained in all the great copies from the very times of the apostles that his comment is just in relation to what
- 01:08:44
- Sixtus had written or which would make Sixtus the one who was the erroneous source of information
- 01:08:52
- I would assume but now listen to where we go here comes the danger zone he had manuscripts we don't have he had copies of 1
- 01:09:00
- John that we don't have today and from his witness at his particular place in history and the manuscripts which would have been more than one by the way he words this all of the copies had the reading in it now think about think about what was just said think about what was just said he had manuscripts we don't have today and all of them contain the
- 01:09:28
- Kamiahanium what does that do to the entire field of textual criticism again, once again
- 01:09:38
- I simply keep pointing out to people they will use one set of arguments to establish a
- 01:09:46
- TR at one point that they would never allow to use to overthrow the TR at another point because there are readings in the
- 01:09:54
- Vulgate that are not in the TR why not accept them if you use the same arguments that are used to accept the insertion in Acts chapter 8 or the
- 01:10:05
- Kamiahanium or other Vulgate type readings if you use those arguments to defend the
- 01:10:15
- TR then you are being a hypocrite if you reject those readings in other parts of the
- 01:10:23
- TR which would require you to change the TR you use different standards to produce different verses which is why
- 01:10:32
- I have said the fundamental fatal flaw of this movement is there is no methodology they can propose that given the current textual material would produce the
- 01:10:41
- TR can't be done so what are you hearing here think about this for a second there may have been other manuscripts they are also doing this with Revelation chapter 16 and Beza he had an ancient manuscript that had this reading where is it?
- 01:11:03
- it's been lost and it didn't leave a single trace in history did it not a single copy of it made no one else saw it don't you see what this means?
- 01:11:19
- the entire manuscript tradition is worthless if entire sections can simply disappear by losing one manuscript we don't know what the
- 01:11:30
- New Testament originally read and that's basically what they are trying to get us to believe and that way you give up on doing the historical thing and just go well we gotta have something so here it is and I won't tell you why
- 01:11:45
- I can't tell you why but here it is which is indefensible because if you can do that why can't they do that hmm
- 01:12:06
- Book of Mormon oh no historical basis same thing no it's not yes it is you have abandoned any historical field of reality and the
- 01:12:22
- Christian faith took place in history the huge difference between the
- 01:12:30
- Christian faith and all the pagan religions of the day in the years when
- 01:12:39
- Caesar Augustus you got Tiberius you got this governor over here it happened in history not long ago and far away that's what myths are about the
- 01:12:57
- Christian faith took place in history that's a reality you abandon that you abandon that this is dangerous well there may have been some manuscripts back then maybe there were some manuscripts that once had stuff about egalitarianism in them too why not maybe there are some non -trinitarian manuscripts maybe there are some manuscripts where Jesus didn't rise from the dead hey let's just make anything up indefensible and dangerous and I look forward to the day some of these men will go yeah we sort of lost it we sort of lost it yeah
- 01:13:45
- Jeff I know but I don't know I didn't want to say that on the air but speaking of Jeff I do want to finish with something positive and totally shifting gears here totally shifting gears
- 01:14:01
- I don't know if Jeff's Facebook video has been converted and uploaded to YouTube or not and if it is then
- 01:14:12
- I can let people see it but he sort of filled people in on this situation and I will be very very brief because you can look it up if you want to track it down but I wasn't able to be at all of ReformCon and the
- 01:14:32
- Saturday events were specifically about end abortion now and I happened to be watching live when
- 01:14:43
- Jeff was to be preaching and I don't know why a lot of Facebook live stuff just hiccups for me all the time but I know
- 01:14:57
- Jeff well enough that I could tell he was really emotionally wrapped up in what was going on I hadn't seen the previous speakers so I just assumed at the time man there must have been some barn burners before this and so there's something that's come before this or I don't know but I really wasn't sure but I mean he couldn't speak he prayed, there was long gaps of silence and I just didn't know what was going on I just thought to myself it's probably good that I'm preaching tomorrow because obviously this is taking a lot out of him and I'm glad that I'm scheduled to be doing the preaching for tomorrow so eventually
- 01:15:46
- I got filled in and he's filled in pretty much everybody else now on what took place and what
- 01:15:54
- I wanted to do is I wanted to talk a little bit about experiencing the supernatural as Calvinists half the
- 01:16:03
- Calvinists just fainted what? what? been hanging around Michael Brown again running, yes pulling hair out, yes that's exactly what's going on I've talked on the program a number of times
- 01:16:21
- I don't think that you can walk with the Lord in any meaningful sense of that term for a very long period of time until you experience supernatural events obviously the fact that the
- 01:16:41
- Lord can sustain you is a supernatural event regeneration is a supernatural event forgiving someone who has hurt you deeply is a supernatural event these are all actions and works of the
- 01:16:54
- Spirit of God but and it may be one of the problems in our modern day is that we use supernatural event of something that strikes you as miraculous or outside the normal purview of regular human life,
- 01:17:13
- I suppose you could argue that if you drive a car more than 20 miles across the valley in Phoenix, Arizona and get where you're going, that's a supernatural event, there's so many things that could have killed you 47 times on the way but generally, especially we
- 01:17:32
- Reformed folks we have seen supernaturalism which we have to confess if you believe in the resurrection of Christ you believe in supernaturalism we we've seen it abused so many times we have seen you know it was
- 01:17:56
- Paula White same one that's in the White House Paula White, years ago
- 01:18:02
- I remember, I don't know why but I turned on channel 21 I'm sorry, did
- 01:18:07
- I say that? sorry I shouldn't have said that, it's channel between 20 and 22 and she was talking about I think it was
- 01:18:19
- Psalm 69 and you were supposed to call in and give 69 dollars and you're going to have a miracle and all the rest is kind of rot and we've seen this and so we run the other direction we see
- 01:18:37
- Kenneth Copeland staying there in his plane trying to explain the unexplainable and we see the pictures of the mansions and we're just like none of that stuff's going on at the same time
- 01:18:57
- I've told of some of my own experiences with supernatural events they were almost always associated with witnessing encounters with defense of the faith there have been times that the
- 01:19:15
- Lord brought things to mind in the midst of a debate that at any other point in my life
- 01:19:22
- I would not have been able to have put those things together and express them in the way that I did, things like that but then impressions talk to this person about such and such a subject turns out that's the only subject he would have talked to me about that happened but that has not resulted in my constantly seeking after quote unquote supernatural experiences we are given more than sufficient guidance as to how we are to live a life that is pleasing to our
- 01:20:01
- Father in Scripture and so what has been, you know, one person wrote a book a little off the beam but the normal Christian life and the normal Christian life is not a life that is marked by constant visitation of angels and divine voices coming from heaven and miraculous displays of nature but there are times and I would say first and foremost times when we are seeking with all our hearts to serve
- 01:20:50
- Christ in a self -sacrificial way we are striving to be consistent with our own profession we are seeking to be pure and holy in His sight we are seeking to do what
- 01:21:06
- He's commanded us to do in His Word there are times when amazing things happen and as Reformed people we have to recognize that is not a contradiction of sola scriptura, it is not a contradiction of the sufficiency of Scripture, it is not a contradiction of what we believe many of those who came before us have testified of the powerful grace of God that sustained them, of Reformed forefathers who suffered greatly under persecution and torture and they were supernaturally upheld in those situations and we have in Scripture the supernatural deliverance of believers from unbelievers and we have the same thing going on down through history but what you don't see are people chasing after these things turning them into the normative and,
- 01:22:09
- I would argue making them up to try and then use that as a means of trying to get other people to believe, that's a fundamental lack of faith in God's Spirit to be able to bring regeneration, conviction communicate truth, so on and so forth so Jeff gave some details about what was going on that day and to make a very long story short there was a lot of praying going on and praying changes people, not
- 01:22:46
- God praying changes people, not God God doesn't have to be made any better than He already is just so you know there were people praying and one of the prayers was that the father of a as yet born not yet born child so this baby already has a name and we're already properly referring to this child just waiting for his arrival with what would be called the best case scenario spina bifida given the location that it's at in the spine this is the best case scenario highly functioning prognosis apologia has been saying for a long time, we'll adopt your baby and prayer was going on that the father of this child would be convicted that this is to be his child and that's what was going on with Jeff there was a meeting
- 01:23:57
- Sunday night after the service of families about this baby the baby had been brought the situation had been brought to the church only had until Thursday before the state would get involved and we just have some awesome people in our fellowship, we really do and here are these families going we're going to do something, who's going to do it?
- 01:24:26
- and some of these families, some of the ladies are pregnant with little babies of their own some of them already have 4, 5, 6 kids and they're saying, if we need to I won't go into details because I'll leave it for Jeff to get to watch it look it up on Facebook, like I said
- 01:24:44
- I hope it's put on YouTube the
- 01:24:50
- Lord moved in an amazing fashion to give clear guidance to Jeff and Candy and to their family that they are to adopt this child to the point of what the child's name was to be in an amazing fashion that's not the 28th book of the
- 01:25:21
- New Testament this isn't revelation knowledge in that sense but it is
- 01:25:28
- God's spirit working amongst God's people when they're praying and when they're doing what they desire to do to glorify
- 01:25:37
- Christ not to provide themselves with a new car or anything else but simply to honor
- 01:25:44
- Christ to make His name known, to make His glory known present His kingdom to the world and as I heard, as Jeff filled me on it before he did the video and stuff like that and he told me at one point so I asked the
- 01:26:00
- Lord and I said oh, doing the Gideon thing I see and he says yeah Jeff threw a few things out there
- 01:26:09
- Lord if you really want me to go this direction clear this barrier clear that barrier and the
- 01:26:17
- Lord would do it within an hour it was an amazing divine supernatural orchestration and so they couldn't ignore it they were obedient said alright, we're going to do it so they started the ball rolling isn't it sad folks that our tax dollars and I know all about the
- 01:26:47
- Hyde Amendment you and I know it's baloney our tax dollars are used to make killing babies cheap but adopting babies is ridiculously expensive it should be the opposite it should be the exact opposite it's disgusting but when
- 01:27:08
- Jeff put up the video last night linked to a well linked to Apologia's site fundraiser only got a month to do this to fully fund the adoption and so some of you saw
- 01:27:28
- I hit all my social media feeds put it out there in less than 12 hours in less than 12 hours that adoption was funded and that's just an astonishing thing it's there are so many good believers out there that watch this program that watch
- 01:27:56
- Apologia that support us both and you responded and little
- 01:28:06
- Augustin is going to have a home obviously all of us praying for his delivery it's not going to be easy it's going to be complicated, there are obviously complications with the
- 01:28:16
- Spina Bifida it's going to be time in the hospital all that kind of stuff please, please, please pray for all of that but the whole reason
- 01:28:29
- I raised this other than to thank all of you who gave and my daughter linked to a baby registry type thingy, you know, where you get baby stuff, because they haven't had little babies well, they have, grandchildren but there's stuff that's going to be needed, especially for a special needs child, and so if you look up Sheologians, look up you'll have the link there
- 01:28:54
- I reposted it on my Facebook feed too, anyway but the point is this if we believe as Reformed people, and there are people who don't even believe
- 01:29:12
- I'm Reformed, so I'm worried about them, not even going to go there if we believe as people who believe the book and believe that God is
- 01:29:21
- King over His creation, how's that? maybe if people don't want me using the term Reformed, I just won't but God is
- 01:29:29
- King over His creation and He does His creation as He sees fit, to His honor
- 01:29:35
- His own honor, His own glory, not ever to us people who believe that, believe in predestination and election, believe in the
- 01:29:44
- God -centeredness of the gospel and the sufficiency of scripture should not be known as people who are so deaf and dumb to the
- 01:29:56
- Spirit of God that they could never see when God is moving to bring about something for His own glory we joke about the chosen frozen the
- 01:30:10
- Babylon Bee puts up an article about how the motion -sensing lights in the
- 01:30:15
- Presbyterian church go out during worship um we should not we who profess that only by the
- 01:30:30
- Spirit of God could we ever have experienced regeneration and have been brought to spiritual life should not then leave
- 01:30:40
- Him at that point in our experience the balance is found once again in recognizing that the
- 01:30:52
- Spirit constantly drives us to what He Himself has given us in the
- 01:30:57
- Word Jeff wasn't asking for the 28th book of the
- 01:31:04
- New Testament not talking about revelation knowledge that now everyone else is bound by but at the same time our
- 01:31:14
- God is active and powerful in this world and if our hearts are tuned to seeking only
- 01:31:23
- His glory it is amazing what God can do with obedient people it's beautiful I'm honored to be a part of it but we should never fear we should never fear the third person of the
- 01:31:41
- Trinity and sometimes we do and we shouldn't we really shouldn't ok just missed 90 minutes just you know all of you know how focused
- 01:31:59
- I am on being on time but I went over a little bit oh well no one told me
- 01:32:04
- I had to stop right then maybe I just go on to two hours and that way no one could accuse me of anything but I won't yeah well what can
- 01:32:12
- I say alright guys thank you very much for listening to the program today
- 01:32:17
- I think it's Tuesday so that means we got to one more I don't know what next week is going to look like I fly
- 01:32:27
- Tuesday so I don't know what Rich is threatening to completely and forever get rid of our entire
- 01:32:42
- Presbyterian audience I'm not behind it man I'm just I'm I'm not doing it love my