August 17, 2004

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World, from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
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The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good morning, good afternoon, whatever it is where you are, welcome to The Dividing Line.
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We are live again today. We will not be live on Thursday, in fact we just won't be here on Thursday because I'm heading back to the
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Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area, in essence, middle to south, middle to southern portion of the state.
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And that will be the first time I've been there in a while. I was there about 1994,
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I think was the last time I was there. And spent six years there, lived six years there,
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Hurricane, was it Agnes, was that the one that came through there? We got hit with a hurricane at one point and it really, well we even got flooded in our house, had this crawl space underneath the house.
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And the Susquehanna River and all that type of stuff. But anyway, that's where I'm going to be, I'm going to be speaking on Friday and Saturday and on Sunday, in fact, we'll be speaking in the morning services as well.
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And in fact, I need to repost the, now that I was just thinking about it, can't keep up with everything you need to keep up with on the blog.
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You know that? I've tried to put some stuff up there. If you go to www .rctr .org,
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resource index and resource blog, that's Jeff Down's site and all the information is there for the 2004
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Apologetics Conference, Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Middletown, Pennsylvania.
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And you can find the information there, my silly looking picture, and I'm going to be addressing just about everything there is to address at some point in time.
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Challenges to justification, the challenges of open theism, in fact, one of my open files here on my system is a
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PowerPoint presentation on that particular subject. And then
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Scripture Alone, by the way, I've been told by Bethany House, they expect, they want the
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Scripture Alone book in bookstores by October 1st. So that means it should be shipping late
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September, and this is August. So we're talking about the possibility of it at least shipping to us in as little as what?
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Maybe 40 days or so? So let's have 40 days of purpose. Never mind,
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I think that I already got taken. But anyway, Scripture Alone, in the first session, 7 -9 p .m.
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on Friday night and on Saturday, a couple different sessions on various subjects,
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Saturday evening, the King James Only presentation, and I'll probably go ahead and use the new presentation that I came up with for the
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American Bible Society, because I put all sorts of neat and fun stuff in that. And then
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I'll be preaching on Philippians chapter 2 at Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church Sunday morning, and Lord willing, getting back here to the
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Phoenix area Sunday evening. So that's coming up this coming weekend, for those of you in the
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Pennsylvania area. And then we're heading off to, believe it or not, the calendar on the website is actually pretty much right.
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It's not from 2002, anything like that. Those of you who've known us for a long time know that the calendar has always been somewhat of a joke.
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But it's not. September 10th through 11th, I'll be up in Toronto, Canada, and at the
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Sola Scriptura Ministries conference up there, again, linked from our website,
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Presenting Truth in a Truthless Age. And then two weeks later, Southwest Founders Conference meeting
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Mansfield, Texas, and who knows where anything is in Texas. Texas is a nation unto itself.
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And then October 15th through 18th, Henderson Hills Baptist Church, Edmond, Oklahoma. October 29th through 31st, in the
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Chicago area, just waiting for all the details on that one. And then the very next weekend, that's going to be a week,
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I'll tell you. November 4th through the 13th, Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean, debate conference and cruise and all the stuff going on with that.
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So, by the way, those of you who were thinking about the folks in California, Tom Askell, who's going to be one of our speakers at the conference, they were smack dab in the middle of Hurricane Charlie, but Tom's home and the church did all right.
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But they did have, of course, members of their church that pretty much lost everything. 145 mile an hour winds can wreak havoc.
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And Michael Fallon went down there yesterday and dropped off some supplies and things like that. And he said it just looked like a massive bomb had gone off and just blew everything away.
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And it is amazing what things look like and how accustomed we become to what things are supposed to look like and how uncomfortable we get when they change.
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I know we had a little bit of a blow here the past few nights. And Sunday night,
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I was coming home from church and came around a corner and there were two big trees right down in the far right lane.
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And no one evidently had known anything about it yet because there weren't any flares, lights. It was a dark area and I was very fortunate to get over in the next lane before I ate the tree.
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And that was probably, what, 60 mile an hour winds at the best. And so double that and add a few more and there would not be many trees here in the
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Phoenix area that would still be upright because we just, trees here just don't go that deep, no two ways at all.
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So anyhow, Tom Askel is doing all right, but of course their church could use assistance in the prayers.
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And a lot of the saints down there, they try to clean up from Charlie. And, you know, it's sort of like complaining a little bit about the heat when you live in Arizona, you know, and the heat's bugging me a lot these days.
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You live in Florida, you live on this big, this little peninsula. And the amazing thing was I was listening to like Michael Fallon and people and they were talking about, well, my house is 14 feet above sea level.
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And in Florida, that's like a mountain. You know, it's like, wow, okay, you know, you live on a sliver of land that juts out into the ocean and, boy, it's just something you expect.
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You know, it's eventually, you know, Tampa was spared this time. It's going to get hit, you know, someday. It's just going to get hit.
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It's just, it has to happen eventually. That's just sort of how mathematics works.
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And you spin enough storms out of the Atlantic and it's eventually going to spin around the back and hit
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Tampa the way that they thought it was going to. So, it is an amazing thing. Anyhow, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number, 877 -753 -3341.
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By the way, I was on KGOV this morning, which is up in Oregon, southern
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Oregon. And what had happened was I had gotten this email last week and Dave Hunt had been on this program talking about the book,
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Debating Calvinism. And I may have misread the email, okay, but it seemed that the person in the email was saying that if you listened to that program, you would not have known that this was a book that had two authors.
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And I hadn't, no one had contacted me. In fact, since the book came out,
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I had not done a single radio program on the entirety of the book.
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And that's pretty unusual. Generally, the publishers have someone who sends out press kits to all these
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Christian talk show hosts and, you know, you as an author make yourself available and you fit it into your schedule and you try to work around these radio programs.
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And I've done hundreds of these programs. I mean, when Bethany House put out Letters to a Mormon Elder originally,
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I think I did a minimum of 90 programs in the first few months just on Letters to a Mormon Elder.
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That's how aggressive they were in promoting the book.
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And so, I've done gazillions of these programs and you can tell when the person doing the interview has read the book and when the person doing the interview hasn't a clue what the book is about.
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I mean, I've done some programs before where it was really sad. It was just, oh man.
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But anyway, so I get this email and basically this person's asking me, do you turn these down?
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And I'm like, no, I haven't been offered any of them. And so I contacted Multnomah and I'm like, are y 'all promoting this book but I just don't get to be a part of it?
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Or what's the story here? And basically, I was told, wow, I guess there are two authors here.
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And so they're going back to all the stations the day's been on saying, oh, by the way, there's two sides of this and if you'd like to have the other side.
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And so this morning, I was on KGOV and of course, I did get the opportunity and it was only 30 minutes long and I talked really, really, really, really, really fast.
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Much faster than I normally talk on this program. And I got lots of stuff in there in a short period of time.
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And there were good questions that were asked. They were right on the subject. They're right on the topic and they did represent what
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Dave Hunt would say and what he did say in the book. And so that was good. But I did get to mention that I'm willing to come on with Dave Hunt.
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I want to debate Dave Hunt. I believe a debate would be an extremely useful, the videotape of debate, the
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DVDs of a debate along with that book would be wonderfully useful. And I've said that for a long, long time.
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It's been on the blog forever and a day. And there are articles out there and Dave Hunt well knows that I am more than happy to debate him if he would be willing to do so.
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But he's not willing to do so. And so, you know, the host, a fellow by the name of Perry, was saying,
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I'll talk to Dave. We'll get you both on. And I'm like, yeah, okay, well, good luck. All the best to you.
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I would like to see that happen, but I just don't get a feeling that's how it's going to work.
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But that's okay. Let's, I hope he's very successful. I hope he's very persuasive.
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I'd like to see that happen. But the interesting, the hunt for Dave Hunt, yes, very good.
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I like that. Anyway, what was really interesting was at one point it was mentioned that there were going to be some pastors, local pastors, who were going to come on after me to comment on what
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I said. And that they were sitting in a car in the parking lot listening to the program.
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And I didn't want to waste time discussing that. But I'm sort of like, well, you know,
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I'd be happy to stay around if you'd like. You know, I mean, why do you have to have pastors come in to comment afterwards?
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You know, I mean, I mean, I'll stay around and talk with them or, you know, whatever. So I requested a tape and they're going to send me a tape of the second section that I didn't get to hear where the folks responded.
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And if they're not Reformed pastors, I can pretty much guarantee you that we probably heard something about 2
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Peter 3, 9, 1 Timothy 2, 4, Matthew 23, 37, but we'll find out. So hopefully the tapes will be sent.
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And I wonder if there were any local Reformed pastors invited in to respond to Dave Hunt.
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Hmm, that would be interesting. I don't know, folks. I confess to a certain level of frustration because, you know,
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I thought, you know, you would think anyway that these issues would be issues where there would be such a willingness.
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Since we're talking about the gospel and we're talking about the glory of the gospel and the meaning of the cross and the effect of the cross, you would think that this would be stuff that would really be something that would be openly discussed and so willingly embraced.
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And unfortunately, it just doesn't seem the way it is in the vast majority of instances. And I just hear people repeatedly saying, yeah, well, 2
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Peter 3, 9 says, and so you exegete 2 Peter 3, 9. And do you get a response?
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Do you get a refutation? Do you get something textually based? Well, I don't find that compelling.
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So 2 Peter 3, 9 says, and it that's just the that's as far as it can go.
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You know, it's that's because it's philosophically driven and not exegetically driven. And well, we've covered all that before.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. You can get involved in the program today.
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And this is the third time that we've had this caller, I believe. And and so I'm hopefully going to get the name right, even though it's always been provided to me before.
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I think it's Jamin in South Dakota up there. Hi, how you doing? Good. Good. I just got a couple of questions again.
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OK. It's kind of concerning with depravity. And what
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I've been reading in this book as well. How can well, man is unable to which book are we referring?
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Well, the Olsen one. Oh, but before I get to that, a man cannot choose a contrary to his nature.
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Right. I mean, you know, a man with a sinful nature will not choose anything spiritually good. Well, Jesus did say that he who commits sin is a slave of sin.
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Right. But then doesn't the reverse follow that that that nature is is crucified when the believers is regenerated.
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And upon what basis does any man then sin with a new nature? Well, remember, the scripture tells us that there is still abiding sin within us.
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And when you say crucified, that means it's control over us is broken. But until we stand in the presence of God, completely sanctified and perfected, the
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Christian experiences that conflict between the old and the new throughout his life.
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And that's that's one of the areas where you have some who developed a perfectionistic theology that in essence says, no, you know, we can be perfect in this life in the sense of experiencing perfection of sanctification prior to death and the obliteration of the old nature.
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And there's just too much clear teaching of scripture concerning if any man sins, we have an advocate with the
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Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous and and so on, so forth. So the the issue is is not a black and white.
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Well, if you were a slave in the sense of, you know, all you had was the the evil desires of the heart.
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But now that's all gone. That's perfect sanctification. And now, therefore, you'll never sin. And and here's why.
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So and so that's just just too much scriptural indication that that's that's not the case.
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Then how does the Holy Spirit dwell where there is sin in the man? That's due to the perfect righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to us and is our present possession.
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And that's one of the one of the issues that's up for grabs in the in the debate right now about those who who deny the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to us.
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The answer has has been the past that we we are clothed in that alien righteousness.
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And that's why, as Paul says in Romans five, one, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ. And it is it is Christ's work within us that that makes it possible for the
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Holy Spirit to to dwell within that which is not yet fully perfected and sanctified.
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But the normal answer as to how that is, has been based upon the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.
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Now you have people saying, well, no, we went too far with that. And that's that detracts from Christ.
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I don't know how that can detract from Christ. But that's one of the many questions I don't get any answers to.
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And I ask these things and people say, oh, you're just attacking people. Well, I'm just trying to ask some questions here. Why in the world do you say that?
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But anyhow, that's neither here nor there. That that alien righteousness and the perfection of that righteousness then becomes the foundation upon which the spirit of God works within us and continues to conform us the image of Christ.
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So it's not a righteousness that is our own. It's it has to be the perfect righteousness of Christ. All right.
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On page 110 of Gordon Alton's book, he says, I've also argued that the tripartite nature of man implies that the human spirit, the
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God conscious part of man, became inoperative in the unregenerate man. That spiritual death means separation from God, Ephesians 4, 18, not the total destruction of the spirit.
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This is also a basis for God's bill of sinners. What he's basically saying, and I think you've already read the book, but he's saying that spiritual deadness does not necessarily imply spiritual inability.
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Well, first, I'm not I don't hold to the tripartite view. I hold to a bipartite view.
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So I would disagree with him on that. And secondly, no one believes that the spiritual nature of man.
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Well, at least no one who's reformed believes that the spiritual nature of man is destroyed.
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The issue is capacity and ability. That's one of the misrepresentations of Dave Hunt and even amazingly enough, shockingly enough,
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Norman Geisler, that reformed people believe that the the will has been destroyed or the image of God has been utterly erased.
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And removed. So none of those things are true. The issue when we come to ability or inability really is a biblical issue, because the
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Bible continuously uses the term inability and not ability. It's amazing how people avoid that rather simple fact.
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And so I would not even begin to agree that that is a proper representation of what you just read, because it assumes the reformed person is is promoting somehow the connection of inability to the radical destruction of that element of man's nature that would give him that ability.
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No, the the the you know, I can be a a quadriplegic in one of two ways.
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I can have my arms, my legs cut off, or I can have no ability to use my arms, my legs due to a spinal cord injury.
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So I can have the those elements intact that before the fall were capable of doing
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X, Y or Z and after regeneration are doing capable of doing X, Y and Z. But that doesn't mean that I can use them in a fallen state.
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All right. One last question. Yes, sir. In the apologetic task, I mean, when you're presenting somebody on the reformed theology, what do you say when people kind of say like, like after you've said, you know, that that Jesus saved, you know, and doesn't just make it a potential salvation when they say, well, no, he really didn't, because they're not saved yet.
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I mean, it hasn't been applied yet. The Holy Spirit hasn't applied yet. Right. I mean, what is
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I mean, what do you what do you say to well, he really didn't save yet? Well, such a person is confusing categories very, very badly.
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When I say that Christ is a perfect savior and he actually saves, I am not saying that he only saved the people who lived up until that point in time.
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It is very clear and very obvious in light of the doctrine of the union of the elect with Christ and in Ephesians, chapter two, the the fact that the apostle can look at all of the elect joined with Christ and can view their salvation as a past tense reality.
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From God's perspective, it is absolutely certain there is no question about that. And so since it is
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God's intention to create a people through the ages in the church who are zealous for good deeds, peculiar people in Christ, Jesus, so on and so forth, then it's rather painfully obvious that that has to be something that transcends time and that our union with Christ is something that transcends time as well.
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And that we then experience and we see this in the New Testament. I mean, there were people being saved who were coming to know
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Christ in the New Testament who were not alive at the time of the crucifixion.
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Young people who were coming to know Christ at the time who were not even alive at the time of crucifixion. So that had already begun, even what we see in the
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New Testament. So the person is confusing the reality of the fact that this has to be applied in my experience because I'm a temporal being.
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I don't have conscious recollection of my union with Christ at the time of the cross. I mean, I didn't exist at that time.
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So obviously there has to be a temporal application of the certainty of that union with Christ that was accomplished in the past.
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What they're confusing that with is their viewpoint, which is that Christ, and again, you'd have to ask the specific person, but evidently some would be saying that some were united with Christ and he's going to fail to save them or that he is attempting to save everyone who was united with him, that all of mankind was united with Christ in his death.
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I suppose that would be the only consistent way of having universal substitutionary atonement. So all of mankind is united with Christ in his death, and it's
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Christ's intention to save those individuals, the Father's decree to save those individuals, the
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Spirit tries to save those individuals, and in all of those things, it's not a matter of application, it's a matter of failure of application.
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The application is attempted, but it fails because of the lack of human cooperation with it.
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Those are two completely different things. The fact that God tries and fails, that's one problem.
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The fact that we as temporal creatures have to experience in our own experience the application of what has been certainly won for us in Christ, that's a completely different issue.
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To put them on the same plane is just simply to confuse categories. All right, well, thanks. Talk to you later.
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Okay, thank you, sir. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341.
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Yes, it was just mentioned on the channel, John Murray's Redemption Accomplished and Applied. There's a lot of, and this really touches on some of the stuff we've been talking about on the blog.
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There are many people today who do not believe that the scriptures are clear enough in their teaching to produce what is called an ordo salutis, an order of salvation.
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They do not believe, and in fact, what they're really actively promoting is that we have gone too far.
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We have systematized beyond the level of what the scriptures actually allow us to systematize.
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And we have, you know, you've got to take this kind of argument seriously in light of our own use of this argument against others.
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In essence, what they are accusing us of is elevating certain traditions to the level of dogma or doctrine, and that we have not followed sola scriptura in the creation of this ordo salutis.
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And there are all sorts of different takes on this. That's one of the things I've been sharing with some of the brothers in the ministry, some of the folks at church.
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Brother John Sampson came by our church Sunday night, and afterwards we were chatting for a while.
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And I've just been very, very open in sharing with anyone in the ministry, people at the church, some of my, quite honestly, misgivings and concerns about the upcoming debate, simply in the way that it could go as far as topic goes.
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And my concern that, unfortunately, a large number,
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I would estimate 85 % of the people walking into that debate are going to hear a debate on a subject other than what they expect it to be on.
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In other words, I know many people, even people in our chat channel, people I'm looking at right now in the chat channel, who think that the federal vision movement, of which
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Douglas Wilson is a representative, and there are numerous viewpoints within the federal vision movement, that the federal vision movement is identical to New Perspectivism.
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It isn't. It comes from a much more conservative perspective. It has a much more conservative doctrine of scripture.
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Douglas Wilson has criticized elements of the New Perspective, certainly not as strongly as I would, and there are places where New Perspectivism and federal visionism touch and come up with similar conclusions.
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I mean, when I hear Steve Schlissel, and I've played this on the dividing line in the past, and when
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I hear Steve Schlissel saying, look, all justification is that Jews and Gentiles are together in one covenant, that's
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N .T. Wright. But N .T. Wright got there from a completely different road than Steve Schlissel did, and I honestly don't know how
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Schlissel fleshes out that assertion, but I don't think that's what
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Douglas Wilson is saying. So I see conflicts there. And my problem, my concern is, is that when your audience walks in with all sorts of wrong ideas about what this debate is going to be about, the fault of that is never the audience's.
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My experience in 53 some odd moderated public debates, my experience now is that if there is any confusion, no matter how hard you tried, it is your fault.
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And so I confess to being somewhat concerned about this particular issue, because I don't know if there's anything
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I can do to, you know, even in the period of time that I have during the debate, surely
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I cannot do so, and there's not much I can do beforehand other than maybe addressing it on the dividing line a little bit more regularly.
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But the fact of the matter is, there's going to be a lot of folks who are going to be very confused by what we're saying, because they bring the wrong presuppositions with them to the debate.
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And they're thinking we're going to be talking about X, Y, and Z. Now I can tell you right now what
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Doug Wilson's going to say. Doug Wilson's going to say Roman Catholics are heretics. He's going to say we need to fight them to the last ditch.
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He's going to say that we need to grab them by their baptism and call them to faithfulness, to the covenantal baptism that they've received in the name of the
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's where the problem lies for me, because I don't believe that any action, whether it's baptism or the
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Lord's Supper or anything else you want to put together, any action that is not taken within the context of the truth of the
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Gospel is not a Christian action. And that's where we disagree. Because as far as I understand what he's saying, and I've listened to him,
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I have his books sitting here next to me. I have one of the newest books that Covenant Media Foundation just put out,
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Backbone of the Bible, Covenants in Contemporary Perspective, edited by P. Andrew Sandlin, forwarded by John Freeman.
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Let me tell you something. We're going to go ahead and take our break. I want to talk a little bit about John Freeman's forward to this, because it was just wrong.
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That's just all there is to it. It was wrong. And it's bad stuff.
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But anyway, I know what Doug Wilson believes. And I also know,
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I'm going to be straightforward with this, there are people outside the federal vision movement that have misrepresented
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Douglas Wilson. There's no question about that. So my job is so multi -pointed that it's daunting.
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There's no two ways about it. It's going to be a tremendous challenge. I'm taking it very seriously, but it's going to be a tremendous challenge.
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We're going to take our break. Our phone lines are wide open at 877 -753 -3341.
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We'll be right back. At the heart of the controversy between Roman Catholic and Reformation theology is the nature of justification itself.
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It is a debate not merely about how or when or by what means a person is justified, but about the very meaning of justification and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Once a debate reserved for Roman Catholics and the Reformers, the doctrine of justification is now being challenged from within the walls of Reformed evangelicalism itself.
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Join Alpha and Omega Ministries as we embark on our first national conference and confront this very issue.
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Justification, the heart of the gospel. With pastor and co -author of Holy Scripture, the ground and pillar of our faith,
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David King. The president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Founders Conference, Tom Askell.
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New Testament Research Ministries founder and author of Evangelical Answers, Eric Svensson.
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The founder of the Spurgeon Archive and executive director of Grace to You, Philip Johnson. Nationally renowned
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Reformed Christian artist, Steve Camp. And the founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries and author, Dr.
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James White. Join us at the Los Angeles, California LAX Sheraton Ballroom on November 6, 2004, beginning at 845 a .m.
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Seating is limited, so order your tickets now at aomin .org. That's w -w -w -dot -a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g.
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Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the Word of God, James White, in his book,
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The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt
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Scripture and lead believers away from true Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author
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James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at w -w -w -dot -a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g.
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Convictions once held and died for among Bible -believing Protestants are now being reconsidered with the advent of the recent
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Auburn Avenue Movement. Is there currently a common basis for dialogue between Roman Catholics and Protestants?
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Were the signers of ECT correct in their ecumenical efforts and all of the Reformed scholars who opposed them in error?
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Does Trinitarian Baptism make one a member of the New Covenant? Are Roman Catholics our brothers and sisters in Christ?
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Join us in Los Angeles, California on November 5, 2004 for a full three hours of moderated debate between Dr.
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James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Douglas Wilson of the Auburn Avenue Movement and New St.
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Andrews College as these topics are debated between two of the most respected representatives of the opposing viewpoints.
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Additional information and tickets can be ordered at aomin .org. That's w -w -w -dot -a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g.
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We understand all the ones for all delivered faith on the table.
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And welcome back to Dividing Line. We're taking your phone calls live today discussing lots of important stuff.
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We have a number of callers who've already called in today. Let's start off with Len in Knoxville, Tennessee.
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Hi, Len. Hey, James. I don't get your program here yet, but I'll follow you through other means,
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I guess. Oh, you can, because we're only on the web. So as long as the Internet has arrived in Knoxville, then...
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Oh, I didn't even know that. We aren't on any radio stations because that costs lots and lots and lots of money.
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All right. My question is on open theism. And I probably have a few questions, depending on how many you'll let me, but they're all related.
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One of the main critiques they start off with is that against, you know, the viewpoint that is other than theirs that is conservative evangelicalism is that Western theology has been corrupted by Greek philosophy via Augustine, and that was passed on to the
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Reformers. And I get the distinct impression that one of the things they're worried about, even though they critique that the problem is a strong position on immutability and so forth, but it seems that Augustine and the
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Reformers share predestination as a doctrine they share. And so I'm wondering how do you answer that the
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Greek philosophy has been passed on to the Reformers via Augustine, seeing that the
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Reformers did read quite a bit of Augustine, but I've never been able to establish the connection in a strong way between the
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Reformers and Augustine. Well, there's no question of the connection of the Reformers with Augustine and deeply drinking at the well of Augustine.
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The problem is, in reality... I'll explain why I said that in just a moment. The problem is, you know, the
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Greek philosophy argument is always a two -edged sword, as has been pointed out in all of the books that have responded to open theism.
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In reality, you can demonstrate the existence of elements of Greek philosophical thought in any theological system, including very clearly that of Clark Pinnock and the open theists as well.
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The question is, does that mean that every element of Greek philosophy is wrong?
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Well, if the Greeks were wrong about everything, then who's really saying that? And of course, the real issue is the only weight that that kind of an argument would have is if you cannot go to Scripture and find clear affirmation of the perfection of God and the immutability of God.
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And so, when I debated John Sanders on this subject, that's why I really emphasized the biblical, exegetical presentation of God's perfect knowledge of the future, the existence of prophecy, and those passages where he himself speaks of his unchanging nature.
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Ironically, one of the responses that I got at one point was, that's a really good question. You Calvinists have had hundreds of years to work out your theology.
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We open theists are still working on ours. It's difficult, especially with people like Pinnock, to overly take seriously the accusation of an undue let's put it this way, what term do
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I want to use, an undue influence of Greek philosophy that is not representative of biblical theological teaching, didactic teaching from Scripture, when in point of fact you look at his theology and the post -mortem evangelization and open theism and inclusivism and all this stuff that he has embraced, where is that coming from?
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It's certainly not coming from the text of Scripture. It's coming from his philosophical presuppositions. It's amazing to me that that type of argument is presented with the regularity that it is.
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But I just basically, when someone presents that, say, if you're saying that there were some
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Greek philosophers who believed in the immutability of God, there's no question of that.
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The question is, is that a true or a false belief and is it consistent with biblical teaching or is it not consistent with biblical teaching?
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Let's go into the Bible and find out. And that's where I find a lot of folks just aren't willing to go with me, as I do in many other areas too.
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Couldn't you also say that the Platonism that Augustine sort of bought into via Plotinus, that as far as being an unbeliever that he got a lot of things right,
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I guess that would sort of fall under their critique if we're uncritically accepting that.
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But it seems to me that he was a pretty smart cat, along with some people like Aristotle, maybe, and Gandhi on his view on non -violent whatever.
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Well, it does seem odd that someone like Clark Pinnock would be using this kind of argument in light of the fact that he would have to see those very things and he would not just simply throw out every non -Christian philosopher as having gotten everything wrong.
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You can't get everything wrong. I mean, come on. You'd have to put out a tremendous effort to get everything wrong.
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Even Mormon theology stumbles upon the truth every once in a while, even though it starts at the wrong place.
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And so the question becomes, is this just simply a rhetorical device to attempt to get your foot in the door and get a hearing for an odd view of theology?
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Or is there some serious, are you really saying that the only foundation for the immutability of God in his being is
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Greek philosophy, and that there is no evidence when we look at the tremendous doxologies of Paul or the theology of Isaiah, there's no evidence that any biblical author would have ever even considered such a thing.
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That just doesn't follow. And so, yeah, there's no question that you can look at those types of things in that perspective.
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One other quick thing. It seems like they present their position as being new and novel, and that the
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Reformed position is, and Lutherans along with them, are somehow the majority position, or the established position.
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And it's my feeling that the Reformed position is a small, small enclave in evangelicalism, and I don't know if it was ever a majority position, even all the way back to the time of the
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Reformation. Certainly there before, if you want to trace it, Guston, as some sort of pre -Reformed person.
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See, the problem with that is, first of all, they're not new elements of their theology.
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They've been around Sicilianism and things like that for a long time. Though I'm not saying they're all Sicilians, because he had all sorts of other problems too.
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The problem with any of the historical comments like that, where we try to say, well, here's some relative numbers, or something like that, is it's all dependent upon not only what time period you're looking at, but when we say
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Reformed theology, what do we mean by that? What's the... Excuse me while I turn my...
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open my phone here, and let my lovely caller realize that, of course, it is between 11 and 12, and I am on the dividing line right now.
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And anyhow, we're so professional around here, we make sure to turn our phones off at all times. What I was attempting to say is, it also is dependent upon where you are.
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Are we talking about Holland? Are we talking about England? It's a geographical issue, it's a historical issue, so it's hard to say about those things.
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I don't know how super, super, super small we are as far as Reformed theology goes today.
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It was interesting, as I mentioned earlier, that even in Christian radio, you'd have to have pastors on to respond to me, but not to Dave Hunt or something like that.
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That strikes me as a little bit odd. So, you know, I don't really know where we stand.
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There certainly is a rich intellectual tradition. I think that's the pressure that they feel. Yeah, I think so too.
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So what are you doing in Knoxville, Tennessee? I work for a
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Christian book warehouse. Before that, I taught at a Christian high school.
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I taught apologetics and church history. I'm in an internet debate right now with one of my friends from grad school. We went to Wheaton together.
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He's gone to Princeton since then, so I've been a little bit out of touch and trying to brush up on some things.
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We're talking about open view theism. Just for your personal amusement or whatever, one of our favorite professors was
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Timothy Phillips there at Wheaton before he died. The person that he warned us about the most, both in terms of his open view theism and also his mild religious pluralism was
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Clark Penick. Although he wasn't mean -spirited about it, he definitely saw him as a dangerous person.
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I sort of carry that legacy on while my friend Dan, who we're best friends and roommates, is kind of imbibed on it.
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So we're having an internet debate with some friends. Wow. Have you heard my debate with John Sanders? I have, but I've got both of them.
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I gave him a copy, but I'm intentionally staying away from it so I stay a little bit more original and I don't use some arguments he's maybe already heard or at least he'll accuse me of stealing from someone verbatim.
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I see. If you're familiar with the website, you'll find the link to the dividing lines so you can listen live with everybody else because that's the only way anybody listens live.
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It's on the web. So hit aomin .org and that information will be there for you. I appreciate your ministry greatly.
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I've probably been following you here and there ever since I heard you on the Bible Answer Man debating some Catholics. That was a while back.
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I appreciate your ministry. Thanks a lot, Len. God bless you. 877 -753 -3341.
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Let's talk with Paul. How you doing, Paul? Hi, Dr. White. How you doing? Good. Very good.
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I wanted to call and thank you. I met you at PFO a couple years ago. I was one of three guys that came from Willow Creek.
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Oh, yeah. So that was only last summer, wasn't it? No. It was 2002. Really? Oh, oh, oh.
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Dave Hunt was speaking the same thing. Yeah. You were hovering over Dave's table. Yes. That was April when his book had come out.
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Exactly. I was actually at that table trying to defend Willow Creek against some of the claims that he made in his profession.
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I see. Okay. Anyways, you really challenged me. I just thank you so much for kind of gently prodding me to investigate some of the problems with secret churches and especially to check out
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Reformed Theology. Yeah. I remember our conversations down front afterwards. I remember that. Yeah, that's right.
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Anyways, Willow Creek, I don't know if you know, just had T .D. Jakes speaking. I heard callers calling,
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I believe, the Bible Ants Man broadcast about, if I recall correctly, it may have been where I heard about that.
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That's correct. But I've not seen specifics concerning what he addressed or what the context was in which he spoke.
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Maybe you can give us some information on that. Yeah. What they do is they have an annual leadership conference and they typically don't present a
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Christian leader. In fact, Bill Clinton spoke there several years ago. Yeah. And they always try to defend whoever the controversial person is by saying, oh no, we're just trying to draw on their leadership skills.
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Well, from my understanding, I was there Saturday when I found out and he spoke on Friday. But everybody that was involved in that said, oh no, he was introduced as a
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Christian minister and we saw what a great, powerful speaker he was and all the human attributes that go along with that.
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Unfortunately, I read your Forgotten Trinity book and I've been following the dividing line and, in fact, just listened to the
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Simon Escobedo's two -part interview with Eddie. Right. And I just listened to that like two weeks ago and then your
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Steve Camp interview. So I was all prepared to explain to all these fellows why this was a big problem.
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And what was your response? They all agreed that if what
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I was saying was true and I gave them numerous websites including the dividing line and men's homepage and so we'll just see what happens there.
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Well, it does concern me greatly. You know, it would be one thing if we lived in a day where evangelicals were extremely aware of theological issues and aware of the doctrines of the
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Trinity and they wouldn't be likely to be confused. And if you were clear about why you were bringing somebody in, so on and so forth,
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I suppose, you know, even though I don't see it as the function of a local church to begin with, that would be one thing.
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But that's not the context in which we live. In fact, if anything, the people at that kind of church are going to be significantly more open to deception in those areas because of the fact of the diminishment of specific theological teaching within the ministry of the church to begin with.
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And so, to bring someone like that in, you know, this brings us back to the issue of PC &D and the fact that I'm still hearing of various of these churches who are talking to it seems
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Randy Phillips is the main person in PC &D that does theology and I'm hearing over and over again these folks can agree to our statements of faith and so we've let them sing and over and over again
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I've also heard them saying they could have sued you for the article you wrote but they chose to be forgiving as if accurately identifying modalistic theology is something that you can sue somebody over.
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But the same thing is going on there. They're preying on ignorance and sadly seemingly getting away with it and that's the same thing in this situation.
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Actually this audience was I believe 40 ,000 pastors and church leaders. Yeehaw! Globally.
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Amazing. Well thanks for letting us know about that and thanks for being ready to give an answer and I hope you know, obviously my desire is that when we do address this issue, when you do speak to these folks we don't do so with any of our self in the way but our true desire is to see
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God's truth honored and within the church his truth should be our first and foremost concern but so often we are much more concerned about personalities and things like that than we are the truth of God.
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It's an amazing thing but hey good to hear from you again brother and keep up the good work. God bless.
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Thanks for calling. 877 -753 -3341 We have folks who listen live.
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Jeff Downs is out there. I'm going to be at his church this weekend. The call we just had before was talking about philosophy and I just received this huge, well not huge,
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I mean it's only 5k but there's link after link after link and all these references. Hellenistic or Hebrew?
49:53
Open theism, reformed theological method by Michael Horton. Found in Beyond the Bounds, Open Theism. I was going to mention all the articles in that particular book and there are other books, a number of books critiquing open theism that go into the issue of the relationship of Greek philosophy to open theistic arguments.
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Mormon theism, the traditional concept of God and Greek philosophy, a critical analysis. Jets, volume 44, number 4.
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Jeff Downs' website which I gave earlier is just a treasure trove of links and articles and just all sorts of stuff like that.
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Make sure to put it into your blog list if you have such a thing and when you're looking for articles and resources and things like that, there's the guy that's going to give you all sorts of that information.
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So write that down and be ready to go for it.
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It's linked on the blog page. I need to put that back up again this week for those of you especially in that area, but if you didn't write it down before, it's www .rctr
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.org www .rctr .org I love four letter things. rctr .org is like A -O.
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Actually, A -O means five. He can count too!
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www .rctr .org www .rctr .org www .rctr .org www .rctr .org is the address there. Hey, don't worry about me.
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I will be feeling better eventually as the day progresses.
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The more blood gets into the brain eventually. Let's take one more call real quickly here toward the end of the program and talk with Karen up in the beautiful state of Colorado.
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Hello, Karen. Well, hello, Dr. White. I hear that you all have a drought, but you're being flooded during the drought, right?
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No, not us. It's the Colorado Springs and the Eastern Plains. Oh, okay. No, not us.
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We get a lot of weather that just moves through here, but we get very little moisture.
51:58
Oh, bummer. All right. What can I do for you? Well, I want to let you know that I'm Carrie's mom. Oh, okay.
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And so you will notice like I am not on her level. So this is a big stretch for me to call you.
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All right. Okay. I just listened to Dr. John McCarty's message,
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God is the Master of Circumstances, yesterday, which was just so mind -expanding for me.
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The whole idea of the greatness of God and His all -powerful nature is somewhat probably in conflict with the way that I have come into Christianity about 40 years ago and all that I've been taught.
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So this is really a new thing for me. I've read some of John Piper, which has just really been awe -inspiring about the chief end of man is to give him glory.
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And this is... Can you give me a little bit of just advice on where to go to seek a little bit more knowledge without, like, some of the books are just absolutely too heavy for me.
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Yeah. You know, R .C. Sproul has written two books that I would really highly recommend to you.
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And I'd recommend that you read them in the reverse order that I read them in. And I would get his book,
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The Holiness of God, and I read that in one sitting. I could not put it down. I picked it up late one evening, probably 9 o 'clock, and I just refused to go to bed.
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I could not put it down. It was so good along those lines. And so I would get
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The Holiness of God, and then I would also get Chosen by God by R .C.
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Sproul. Those two, and I'd read Holiness first, then Chosen by God. I read them in the reverse order and later wished
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I hadn't. Those are going to be... He writes on a very communicative level.
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He'll address some difficult issues, but he will do so in such a way that he's specifically seeking to communicate to the widest possible audience.
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And so I would go with them. Then there's a book that my wife and I read devotionally through when we were first married by Arthur Pink called
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Gleanings in the Godhead. And it's broken down into short sections, almost devotional length sections instead of big, long chapters and things like that.
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And it's all reflections on the sovereignty of God and the power of God and the awesomeness of God.
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You'd probably find that one. Moody Press had put that one out. I think it's still in print from Moody Press.
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I haven't looked for it for a while, but that would be something that would be really good to look at. And there's also a book that I would imagine someone else can help you track it down if it's difficult on the internet, because sometimes some of these books are a little bit tricky to track down.
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But just simply on a devotional level, the book called The Valley of Vision, it's prayers of great
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Puritan saints of the past. Their prayers are just really good as well.
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Very insightful along those lines. So that would get you started.
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And then once you've sort of gotten your feet wet with that, then I'm sure that your daughter could get lots of recommendations from us in Channel.
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She counts you as a very valued friend. Well, you know, I was very appreciative of the fact that she changed her nick to one that I could understand in Channel.
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Because when she first came in, I thought she was a guy. So it just didn't fit right.
56:07
So now it fits just perfectly. We've got a little family going there. And when someone's been gone for a while, we start wondering where in the world they went.
56:16
And it's an odd, odd thing when you think about it. You sound kind of eccentric.
56:23
Oh, thank you. I'm sure that I'm not the first person that told you that. No, no, no.
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In fact, I just saw your picture and I thought, yeah, he looks like a prop. Well, I'm not sure which picture it was, but hopefully it was the one with the tie and not the one on the motorcycle.
56:43
That's right, it was the one with the tie. There you go. You don't want to see the one on the motorcycle. That would sort of scare you, but it's okay.
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Well, thanks for calling, Karen. Well, thank you, and I look forward to being in touch with you again. All right, God bless.
56:57
Bye -bye. Yes. Yes, the term eccentric has been used more than once, especially when
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I begin doing British accents. Oh, man.
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I'll tell you. It is true, you know. The channel is sort of a...
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Yeah, definitely not the one with those things, either. Yes, Karen is quite right. She doesn't need to see that picture.
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The channel is somewhat of a family, and it's an odd group of people.
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No two ways about it, but it's the best I can come up with. I definitely attract some very interesting people.
57:37
No two ways about it. And it is odd to watch it, because I'm watching it right now, and it's always about 30 seconds after what you all are hearing live.
57:49
And as soon as they start hearing me doing my accent or something like that, you start hearing this, this flood of people going across, going,
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No, don't do that! And they all mock me. They're supposed to be my friends, too. It's a sad thing, what
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I put up with on that channel. Hey, like I said, no class Thursday night.
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No Dividing Line Thursday night. I will be flying to Pennsylvania on Thursday. So, Lord willing, we'll be back together again a week from today on the
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Dividing Line. 11 a .m. Mountain Standard time. 2 p .m. Eastern Daylight time.
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Ah, that daylight stuff. Anyway, we'll see you again on Dividing Line next week. God bless. Brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
59:34
If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.
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Box 37106 Phoenix, Arizona 85069 You can also find us on the
59:45
World Wide Web at AOMIN .org That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G Where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.