Pre-Debate/Conference Dividing Line

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Spent most of the program talking about the upcoming debate with Trent Horn, Staff Apologist for Catholic Answers, and how I expect the argumentation to go, etc. Then we went over the upcoming events on the trip, including the dialogue with Dr. Yasir Qadhi in the Memphis area, the Deep South Founders Conference, and my stop in Dallas for the premiere of Unpopular.

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Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. I just, I mean literally, 23 seconds ago, Weather Underground puts up a graphic that says
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January thaw Highs 10 to 20 degrees above average for all of the
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Deep South, Georgia, Tennessee, every place I'm going, 10 to 20 degrees above average.
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And I've got all this warm stuff that I've packed. I was looking yesterday and Atlanta was warmer than here.
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Huh? Yeah. But how much, but how far, I'm gonna have to look when
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I get home. All I know is next week's or the rest of this week is gonna be awesome. Just beautiful weather down there.
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Just like here. Might change, might change, might make it a little bit easier because I'll tell you, packing winter stuff takes up a lot of space.
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So, but I have to, I have to bring at least a couple Coogees. Just, you know, just because people demand it.
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Yeah, that, that line is long, isn't it? Oh, it is. It is. That, that and make sure
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I have plenty of bow ties. Bow ties. If I, if I don't wear, if I, may
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I not tell you the tears, the disappointment that I get when I wear a regular tie when I travel, it's terrible.
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Especially people show up wearing a bow tie. I can understand that. I can also understand tears when you wear Coogees. I tell you, the, the, the, the
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Coogee hatred and the jealousy is, it's, it's hard, it's hard to bear. It's a hatred thing. It's a, it's a blind thing.
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So, as you all can tell, we are getting ready to head out tomorrow. And, unfortunately,
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I'm stuck flying with the disembodied voice that you hear in the background. Who will also be in the background?
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There'll be two rows behind you. If you all, if you all want to meet the disembodied voice and, and discover more about his fascinating life, he will be standing in front of our, now we have, you know, you've been to, you've, you've, you've probably been to conferences and stuff before where they have the really big booth and, and all the rest of this stuff, but they always have this big thing in the background.
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Well, we've had a big thing since 2009? 2010.
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May of 2010. May of, May of 2010. That's right. That's right. We ordered it for the CRI conference. For the
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CRI conference. We debated Robert Price. Unfortunately, it didn't get there in time. So, we haven't...
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It's never been seen in public before. It's been sitting in a room here at the office, set up, for almost six years.
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In fact, what we had made was so old. Yeah, had to make new ones. We, we had, we had to have the fabric thing reprinted and...
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I thought ahead and there will be one display for the debate and a different display for the conference.
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Got it. Got it. Cool. So, we're gonna have a, we're gonna have a booth at G3.
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So, come on by. That's where you'll be able to find me and Rich and if you've got, you know, you'd like to say nice things, want to say nasty things, we're gonna be in St.
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Louis. So, so there, there you go. But we're looking forward to seeing everybody.
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I've already told Kofi that if he will come that I will tie his bowtie for him.
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And... Oh, he's listening. So, I was...
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Kofi, you need to... Tell me, tell me on Twitter, Kofi, what your, what your neck size is.
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In inches, if you can figure that out. You know... Yeah, not centimeters.
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Not metric. No, please, no metric. I don't... I do a lot of metric. Most of my riding distances, running distances,
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I get it. I need, I see the necessity. It is a much better system. It's obvious. It's actually logical. It makes sense.
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But there's still, there's still issues. So, let me know what your, what your neck size is there.
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Um, pre -debate dividing line. What is a pre -debate dividing line?
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Well, I happen to know there's a bunch of you weird people in, in the audience.
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Which is pretty much everybody in the audience. You, you...
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Oh, man, dude. I was... 19 inches.
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That's, you're, you're a big boy. You're a big boy. Um, I'm, I'm gonna tell you,
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I, I had packed, I had packed a tie for you, but I don't have any ties that big.
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I don't have any ties that big. It won't, it won't work. Yeah, yeah, it won't work.
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I'm gonna have to unpack that thing. Um, nope.
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Can't do it. Can't do it. Sorry. So, I hope, I hope you got one. Uh, I just don't have one that's adjustable to 19 inches.
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I'm, I'm sorry. But, anyway, uh, I will tie whatever you bring, and, uh, we'll, we'll get you, we'll get you set up.
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And, um, anyway, uh, now, now, now my, now my phone is, this is this first day that I have those new things installed, and it's making me go, what's going on at my, what's, what's going on at both my front and back door at the same time?
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You know, that's a little bit weird. You know, I've been, uh, getting the same thing. I'm sorry? I've, I've got the same thing and got it two weeks ago, and it's great, but, you know.
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Yeah, but how does, how does, I think what happens is you get, like, a big, big truck that goes by, and it, and it shakes everything, and, uh.
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Or it could be the, of course, it's daylight now, but if it happens at night, it's just the helicopter flying overhead, putting the, the lights down on your, you know.
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Thankfully it hasn't happened recently, but anyways, um, what is a pre -debate?
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What I want to do is I want to talk to you a little bit about my preparation. People always say, well, how do you do debates?
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And, and how do you prepare? And, and, and all the rest of that stuff. I'll talk about a few of the, the practical things.
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For example, uh, here is my debate notebook. Um, my debate pen is charging over there.
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I suppose I can probably reach it. See, it's still plugged in here. Uh, these, this is the
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LiveScribe pen. And, um, if I wanted to, and I may,
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I'm not sure if I will, but I can, uh, connect this to my, um, iPad.
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And as I'm taking notes, it'll put the notes directly into my iPad and then can
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OCR it just almost instantaneously. And it does amazingly since I print the
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OCR is pretty good. Um, but, um, I'm hearing something.
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Oh, you know, remember when, back when we demanded, uh, the no -call list, it's dead.
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Uh, anyway, if, if you know, anyone who's going to school, going to high school, college, seminary, anything, man,
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I wish I had had this. Uh, this was invented long after I graduated, but the
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LiveScribe pen, just an incredible invention. I mean, you, you write this as you're writing notes.
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I can go back and tap on a previous part of my notes and it'll play back what was being said because it's recording audio while you're, and it's indexing it to your writing.
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So this is my emergency backup recording device for all my debates. Now, would that be a quality high enough to make available?
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Probably not. But what if I'm in a context where, uh, somehow conveniently the audio gets destroyed, gets deleted.
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I've got a backup. I can prove what was said, what wasn't said, so on and so forth. Great thing to have the
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LiveScribe pen. And of course the LiveScribe pen requires a
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LiveScribe journal, which I've put in a, in a nice leather thing here, but like, uh, let's see, here's, um, yeah, here, here's, uh, notes from my debate with Yusuf Ismail in South Africa, uh, a while back, uh, when things really went
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South, uh, with that. And, uh, let's see, here's a,
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I normally write up at the top, uh, which, which debate it was, what the, what the debate, when the debate was, what date it was, stuff like that.
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Um, forgot to begin the recording, missed my opening statement, stuff like that.
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Uh, but, uh, the Graham Codrington debate, Johannesburg 10 -9, 2015. So I keep them all in one thing.
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I can go back. I have the recordings of them, stuff like that. Uh, obviously didn't have that for the earlier debates.
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Uh, and first debate, August of 1990, we're coming up on 27 years, uh, of, uh, of, of debating almost three, three decades now.
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Uh, things have, things have, uh, have, have do things differently now. Anyway, the debate on Wednesday evening,
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I'll be perfect honest with you. I would much, much, much rather be in the minority than the majority, especially on this subject, dealing with Roman Catholicism.
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Why? 95 % of the people in that room are probably going to be on my side or at least lean my direction.
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And I, I bet you could sell that notebook for a pretty penny.
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Actually, I, I still have the notebook. Uh, I, I was looking at it just this past week, uh, that I had when
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I didn't debate. We never did debate, but when I did the radio program with Dave Hunt and I, the notebook that specifically says where Dave Hunt said, um,
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I don't really know the reformers. And I, I remember it's written out there in that notebook. That's about the only thing in that particular notebook.
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But yeah, I, I've, I've thought about putting that up on eBay and bidding it out or something like that for the, for the ministry.
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It'd be sort of fun. Anyway, um, I would, I am not comfortable being in the majority, um, this
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Wednesday evening. Why? Even though 95 % of the people in the room are gonna be on my side, 95 % of them do not know
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Roman Catholicism very well and have probably never engaged in a conversation with a knowledgeable Roman Catholic apologist.
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And this is, this is one of the problems that, you know, I haven't faced this for a long time. Um, but it was a problem that we encountered a great deal back in the 1990s, especially and the early 2000s when we were engaging in regular debates with Roman Catholic apologists.
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The majority of non -Roman Catholics that are interested in apologetics have not read, uh,
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Catholicism and fundamentalism. They've never listened to a Scott Hahn video on the
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Eucharist. Um, most of their interactions have been with Roman Catholics online and maybe with family members who just, well, look, you know, the average mindset that people have is, well,
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Roman Catholics believe what they believe because the priest tells them to believe it. And, you know, you, you've had a lot of interaction with nominal
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Roman Catholics don't really know what they believe or why they believe it. Uh, just like a lot of the calls that I hear on Catholic Answers Live, uh, talk about objections to Roman Catholicism that were obviously made by non -Roman
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Catholics who aren't serious about their faith, don't really know much about what they believe, no less about what the
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Roman Catholic believes. And so responding to their objections is pretty easy. Um, that goes both, that goes both directions.
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The majority of the people coming into the debate on Wednesday are going to be expecting, um, a rather one -sided conversation.
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And it's not going to be. Uh, Trent Horn is, uh, an intelligent man.
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He's, he's not afraid of these things. He, he does Catholic Answers Live. Uh, he's a public speaker.
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And what that means is you're going to get two, Lord willing, clear presentations that are going to be forcefully made.
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Uh, you're going to have hopefully meaningful interaction. I, I hope, uh, that, uh, cause
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I, I've been, been reading a little bit about what happened, um, over the weekend with the debate between Dr.
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Tony Acosta and Bob St. Genes. And as I had predicted, and as I think is necessary, given the topic,
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Dr. St. Genes had, uh, primarily, uh, moved the topic into Sola Scriptura.
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You can almost always tell when a Roman Catholic is feeling a little uncomfortable when they move the topic into Sola Scriptura.
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Though, when you think about it, it's, it is a natural progression. Almost any topic you're going to debate with Roman Catholic will eventually devolve back to source of authority.
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And since Rome denies Sola Scriptura, uh, the ultimate authority within Roman Catholicism is, of course, the teaching magisterium of the
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Roman Catholic Church as it currently exists. Um, because of that, it, it's sort of, it's rather obvious that it will eventually get back to Sola Scriptura.
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But especially when doing the Marian dogmas, when I debated Dr. St.
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Genes on the bodily assumption, that's what he did then is he went to Acts chapter 15. The church has the right to define these things, therefore the church did.
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I'm not going to try to prove this in the scriptures because the scriptures don't really teach these things, but the church has the right to do it, et cetera, et cetera.
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Catholic Answers has a long history of defaulting back. And basically what they did back in the 90s is you would have opening statements and then they would wait until the next section of the debate and they'd start throwing out issues like canonicity, knowing that as the timeframe that you have gets smaller and smaller, it's next to impossible to debate the issue or even define a meaningful position on the canon in literally a matter of seconds.
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Because you eventually get to a point where you really have like 90 second snippets, you can't say anything meaningful on a topic as complex from either direction, at least meaningfully, at least historically on a sense as the canon in 90 seconds.
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It just can't be done. So I hope that it doesn't go that direction.
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I hope that there remains a meaningful focus upon the subject, which I guess I should remind everybody is can a true
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Christian lose their salvation? Now, we want to debate sola scriptura or sola fide, one of the specific
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Reformation doctrines, but Mr. Horton insisted that this was the only topic that he would be willing to debate.
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And so it is a soteriological topic. It's very relevant. So that's what we're doing.
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But as long as Mr. Horn doesn't drool on himself, there could be people you'd be very impressed because they have so little knowledge of the depth or the character of Roman Catholic apologetic argumentation that they're just going to be blown away that anyone would even show up and show a knowledge of the scriptures.
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One of the first debates I did with a Roman Catholic was on this subject. It was a
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Northwest Community Church, December of 1990. And it was with Jerry Matitix, which
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I don't think Catholic Answers would like to remember was at that time the newly hired staff apologist at Catholic Answers along with Patrick Madrid and Carl Keating.
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Oh, it's on Sermon Audio. Yeah, I know. I was listening to it over the weekend. I downloaded it from Sermon Audio. And that's what, you know,
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Jerry was throwing every kind of cheap debating trick there was into that debate.
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Listening to it all these years later was pretty amazing.
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And of course, given where he is now, it's somewhat humorous to look back and hear some of the things that he's saying.
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But they did, you know, Jerry did go for the solo scriptura stuff.
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You know, I once believed like you believe and so on and so forth. I don't think that Trent Horne's a convert.
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I could be wrong. I don't know a lot about him. But I think he might be a cradle
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Catholic. So maybe that won't come up. I'm really not certain. I would like to find out before we get to the debate.
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Anyway, here's what's going to happen. Let me finish this thought, though.
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For a lot of people, this is one of the reasons that some churches don't like to do debates is
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I know that there are going to be false believers who are going to be coming to the
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G3 conference. And they may well be convinced by Mr.
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Horne's arguments. And so when, you know, something that you get used to over the years is one of the arguments that, you know, you always get this from Mormon missionaries because I think they're told to do this.
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When you have a good conversation with a Mormon missionary and really challenge them, they're told at the end to tell you that their conversation with you strengthened their testimony in the
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Book of Mormon. Even though there isn't a single logical or rational reason in the world why that would be the case, that's what they're told.
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Well, there's a good possibility that someone might become a
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Roman Catholic because of this debate. When you expose unregenerate men to false teaching, they can find that to be something that is attractive to them.
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And that's why some people don't even want to engage in debates. And again, it goes back to the issue of that sermon
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I gave a number of years ago, the blessings of apostasy. Look at 1 John 2. Consider the nature of false faith that's going to come up in the debate, by the way.
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There are people who make false professions of faith and none of us are saying, and I'm going to distance myself by a long shot from the anti -lordship, no -repentance, false gospel that is so common out there.
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But that kind of an individual who has a false belief, false faith might be influenced and fully understand that that's a possibility.
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And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The reality is they should be being repelled by the force of the proclamation of the true gospel in the first place if they're actually a hypocrite.
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So I recognize that there is a disadvantage in being in the majority.
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I would much rather be in the minority, no matter what the topic is.
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But I certainly find that to be more useful to have more of the folks
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I'm trying to reach in the audience. Of course, we're recording all of this. It's going to be professionally recorded.
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It's going to be made available. So it's still going to be available to that audience eventually. But I just wanted to mention that.
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What's going to happen in the debate? Well, how do you defend the concept that a true believer in Jesus Christ cannot lose their salvation?
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If you are a synergist, I'm not going to be debating on your side in this situation because I don't believe that any synergist has any meaningful ground whatsoever for believing in the perpetuity of salvation.
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If you believe that your autonomous will cooperates even by some mythical thing called prevenient grace in bringing about salvation, if you're a
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Southern Baptist traditionalist, and by the way, I mentioned Southern Baptist traditionalists in the Sunday morning sermon at PRBC yesterday in preaching on John 10, 16.
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If you're a Southern Baptist traditionalist, if you're an Arminian of any kind, if you're a synergist of any kind,
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I am not going to be approaching this subject in a way that's going to be amenable to any position that you could take because, as I said,
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I don't think you have any consistent way. If you believe you have free autonomous will to enter into relationship with God, then is somehow your free will removed from you once you're in?
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Because if your free will can get you in, your free will can get you out. And unless you're going to say that you become less free once you become a
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Christian, that your autonomous will is no longer autonomous, which all the arguments
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I've ever heard for autonomous will would be refuted by that kind of a perspective, then
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I don't see any basis whatsoever for you to believe in one saved, all is saved or anything like that at all.
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Obviously, I don't like that phrase, one saved, all is saved. There is a way that could be interpreted in an appropriate fashion.
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For the elect, once regeneration takes place, then you are amongst the saved, you are being saved, you will continue to be saved all the way until the consummation of your salvation in glory itself.
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No question about it, but that's not normally how one saved, all is saved is understood. So what's going to happen is,
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I actually hope that maybe Trent will listen and make it a better debate if he hears what
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I'm going to do. Because it was interesting, I didn't remember after 26 years exactly how
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I approached the subject in 1990 with Jerry Matitix, and remember who else was there that evening?
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Scott Hahn. Yep. Because then the next night we had the debate on the papacy at the
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City of the Lord in Tempe. That went way south for the other side.
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It really, really did. I'll just never forget the couple who slammed those metal doors when they left in the middle of it.
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All the Catholics were storming out the second night. They were very, very unhappy. And it wasn't because of my behavior either at all.
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It was because they had lost the debate. I think that was the first time that the Catholic apologists, and the moderator was
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Scott Hahn the second night. I think it was the first time that Catholic apologists had really had to deal with a historical refutation from patristic sources of the
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Petrian claims. Not first time, I mean in Catholic answers experience in the past couple of decades.
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Anyway, so what I'm going to do, I listened to that debate and I sort of chuckled because that's not my outline from 26 years ago, but the primary thrust is the same.
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And that is the only reason that I believe that a truly regenerate person will persevere in the faith is because I believe in the complete power and ability of the
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Son of God to fulfill the will of the Father for him. And that is, as John 639 says, this is the will of the
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Father that of all that he's given me, I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day.
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The only reason to believe, as I believe, is that you believe that Jesus can actually save.
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Not that his death merits grace that is then channeled through sacraments and so on and so forth.
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Not that he tries to save, but the only reason believing this is that you believe that Jesus is actually a powerful
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Savior who is able to save ice panteles. I think it's ice top panteles.
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I'll look. I have it in my notes. The quotation from the book of Hebrews, save either forever or to the uttermost.
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Two different translations, the same phrase. So my argument is going to be the argument for monergism.
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Why is salvation permanent? Because it's perfect. It's perfect because God performs it.
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He performs it to his own glory. He performs it for a specific people, that there are a specific elect people, and they are the only ones who are truly born again.
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They are not the only ones who profess faith. That's why there are warning passages.
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That's why there are false professors. That's why in the New Testament, there are apostates.
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They're all there. No one's arguing that there is apostasy in the New Testament, but not one of the sheep of Christ will be lost.
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That is his promise. And it is as certain as the doctrine of the Trinity itself, because if that is untrue, then you could have disruption in the very
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Godhead itself. If the son could fail to do the will of the father, then all bets are off.
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All bets are off. And so the presentation that I have made, I think we're both going to be using keynote presentations, is focused upon those texts where Jesus specifically promises the perfection of his work as Savior, resulting in the salvation of his elect people.
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Now there's a lot of texts there, and I only have 20 minutes. So you can only cover the key texts, but here's my thinking.
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I do not believe that Rome has a meaningful response to those texts.
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I just don't believe that there is a mechanism whereby a synergistic sacramentalist can engage in a meaningful fashion with Jesus's statements in John 6, in John 10, and then the apostolic application of that truth in Romans chapter 8, the great text speaking of who will bring a charge against God's elect.
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And it's rhetorical. The very form of the text, there's no one that can bring a charge, because God is the one justifying.
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Jesus, the one who died, rather has been raised again, and he is interceding for them. There's no place for the accuser, and you would need an accuser for one of those elect to be lost, but there's no place for one.
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I don't think Rome has an answer to these things, not one that can stand up to cross -examination.
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And so I'm going to focus upon that, and then flowing from that, okay,
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Jesus is a perfect savior, but how does this end up working out in our lives? It works out in the imputation of Christ's righteousness, and hence
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Romans chapter 4. And I'm going to ask the question that I have been asking
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Roman Catholics, and I'm going to ask it of Trent Horne as well. You say, you're telling what you're going to do.
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Yeah. I assume that Trent Horne is a smart man.
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Now, I could be wrong. He could do exactly what Peter Stravinskis did, but I think maybe they've learned their lesson from Peter Stravinskis.
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He may do what Father Stravinskis did. And if you don't know what
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I'm referring to, look up James White, Peter Stravinskis on Google. It's almost the first thing that comes up, which makes him so upset.
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There are little clips available from the cross -examination.
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One of them is the clip of the cross -examination on Purgatory in 1
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Corinthians chapter 3, which it's just one of those memorable moments.
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It really was. What happened very clearly in that debate was when
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Chris Arnzen, who arranged all those great debates, they were called the
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Great Debates. That's why I called it the Great Debate. I wasn't saying all those great debates I did. I can just see somebody doing that.
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They were called the Great Debates. When he contacted Stravinskis, Stravinskis said, well, who would
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I be debating? And he said, James White. And his response was, ha, he's harmless. And so, since he did not take me seriously, he did no preparation.
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He did no research. He didn't read a word I'd ever said, read a word
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I'd ever published on the subject of Purgatory. I, on the other hand, since he edited a magazine called
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The Catholic Answer, I had read everything he had published that I'd get my hands on anyways, that I even knew existed on the subject of Purgatory, had it all on my handspring visor, your gadget, as he referred to it later on, your thingamabob, gizmo, gizmo, gizmo of yours.
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Yeah. And when one side has read everything the other side has said on a subject, and the other side has not bothered to even do research one, it's not difficult to win that debate.
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Not difficult at all. And it was a very lopsided debate. There's no two ways about it.
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Now, I don't think that Trent Horn's going to do that. I think
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Catholic Answers takes this seriously. And so, I would expect that Trent Horn's well aware of the fact that I debated gerrymantics on that subject and has listened to it.
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And I have a number of books out. Potter's Freedom specifically addresses this subject.
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So, I'm going to assume and hope not to be disappointed because I'll tell you,
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I've been disappointed many times. I have been disappointed many, many, many times by debate opponents who
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I expected to be prepared. But look, okay, that's a disappointment, part of life.
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My perspective is be prepared for the best. If you don't get the best, well, you're not going to be quite as challenged as you would have been otherwise.
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But still, it's the best way to honor the truth is to be prepared for the best argument that the other side has to offer.
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So, I don't figure that I am giving anything away to tell you this is what
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I'm going to focus upon because anybody who's read my books or listened to the debates in the past, things like that, already knows that.
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Already well aware of it. Now, I don't know how much experience Trent Horn has dealing with reformed individuals, but I hope he's prepared because that's the direction
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I'm going to be going. So, I'm going to focus in and I'm going to ask the question of Trent Horn.
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I'm going to tell him right now, be ready because, well, it's the same question
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I asked Peter Stravinskas. Remember what I asked? Well, I asked Peter Stravinskas many questions that left him pulling on his clerical collar and wanting to be anywhere else but where he was.
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But, oh, yeah. Oh, man. It got so bad that after the debate,
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I was going over and telling people, calm down, back off, trying to help him out because the sharks were in the water.
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The blood was everywhere and the sharks were like, and yeah, it was bad. Anyway, I asked him the question, who is the blessed man of Romans 4, 7 -8?
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Specifically, verse 8, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute his sin. Who is that? Because in classical
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Roman Catholic theology, there is no blessed man. If you commit a venial sin, it is imputed to you.
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You bear the temporal punishment of that sin. If you commit a mortal sin, it is imputed to you. You lose the grace of justification.
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Now, I say in classical Roman Catholic theology because, like I said, I think a lot of Roman Catholics today are inclusivists and universalists and all sorts of other things.
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But in classical Orthodox Roman Catholic theology, as defined by the
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Roman Catholic Church, and no, I'm not having to drag this big thing along because I already have it on my phone. Actually, I need to double check that because that may have been on my
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Google phone. I may need to do a little Apple store shopping. But anyway, there is no blessed man.
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All sin is imputed, which is why Roman Catholics believe that you can lose your salvation because if you commit a mortal sin, it destroys the grace of justification and you will be lost because that sin is imputed to you.
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Blessed is a man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Why? Because the great exchange, the imputation of my sin to my sin bearer,
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Jesus, the imputation of his righteousness to me, which Rome rejects. They believe in an infusion of righteousness, not an imputation of righteousness.
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So, there is no blessed man. And so, that's the result, not of a man -sided view of salvation, but just the recognition of this is the outworking of the perfection of the work of Christ.
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His righteousness is what makes me right in the sight of God and which is what allows
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God to save his elect people in perfection without violating his justice.
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So, there's my focus. And I say that's the only meaningful ground for a belief in eternal security, for a belief in the perseverance of saints, preservation of saints.
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Whatever terminology you want to use, the reason that salvation does not fail is because the
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Savior does not fail. And that means the Savior has to be able to save by himself, monergistically.
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If you're a synergist, this debate, I'm not representing you because we do not believe the same things.
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And this is where theology matters. And in fact, I don't think you can win a debate with the
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Roman Catholic on this because you already agree with the Roman Catholic on the fundamental issue.
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You're on the wrong side of the Tiber River on this topic if you're a synergist. That's a dividing line that's a very important dividing line.
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Well, what do I expect from Trent Horn? I expect a clear presentation.
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I expect one that is professionally done. I expect a speaker who will not stumble over himself.
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I expect a speaker who will have ready answers in cross -examination, even if they're not necessarily fully responsive to the question.
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There will not be large gaps of silence or anything like that.
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Both Trent and I have spent many hours behind one of these microphones. And though in the context of dividing line,
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I don't have a clock in front of me. I've done network radio. I grew up doing radio. He does network radio.
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That means he's going to – I fully expect him to be perfectly on time, just as I will be perfectly on time, always have been.
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Every debate opponent I've ever had will have to testify by, if they're honest at all, that I've never gone over.
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I've never abused the rules of debate when it comes to time at all. And I don't expect that he will either because he knows what it means to have to take breaks on the
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Immaculate Heart Network. I'm sure they have a hard time clock right in front of him. He knows how to handle callers and get that break in and the whole nine yards.
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So I expect on that level that there will be a perfect equality because we're both trained professionals when it to doing things on time, watching clocks, not being afraid of audiences or any type situation like that.
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I think there's going to be perfect equality on that level. As far as presentation is concerned,
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I expect, my guess is that the presentation will be focused well, it has to go this direction.
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It has to go this direction. We'll be focused upon the descriptive prescriptive texts.
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What does that mean? I've said many, many, many times that when you dialogue really with any synergist, but especially with Roman Catholics, what you have to keep in mind is the difference between prescriptive reading and descriptive reading of the text of Scripture.
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Because of the overall soteriology and teaching of the Roman Catholic Church regarding how a person is saved, when a
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Roman Catholic looks at a text such as, let me give an example, he who endures to the end shall be saved.
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He who endures to the end shall be saved. Now, there's no question that Jesus said these words. We believe everything that Jesus said.
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We accept everything that Jesus said, but everything that Jesus said is a part of the full revelation of Scripture.
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We are not hyper red letterists. And while we recognize that Jesus was
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God incarnate, we likewise recognize that what's found in the book of Romans is inspired by the very same
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Holy Spirit who is just as much God as the Son is, has eternally been just as much
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God. And therefore, the words of Romans chapter four are just as theanoustos as the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John when quoting
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Jesus. And so, in light of that, when we look at that text, if you take them prescriptively, then you understand what is being given to you here is a prescription.
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It is a commandment to perform something so as to gain something.
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So, by your enduring to the end, you bring about your salvation.
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Or let's look at a parable. The parables, I imagine, there'll be a number of parables brought up.
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But the parable of the unforgiving steward who is forgiven a great debt and then goes out and shows unforgiveness to people who owe him much less than he had owed the master.
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You remember the story. And the application being, if you do not forgive, neither will your heavenly
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Father forgive you. So, when you look at that prescriptively, then what you hear is, by my forgiving others, by fulfilling that prescriptive command,
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I bring about my own forgiveness. There are numerous parables, numerous statements.
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You can look at Matthew chapter 25, the judgment. Why do the sheep enter in when the goats do not?
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Well, it's because they did these particular things. So, prescriptive reading of all of these texts.
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Now, what is a descriptive reading? A descriptive reading of these texts is seeing these things as descriptive of what the redeemed or the saved do.
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Not as a prescription as to how to attain to that position, but a description of what they are.
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So, he who endures the end shall be saved. That is descriptive of what true saving faith is.
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A non -saving faith will not endure. A non -saving faith will eventually collapse.
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A non -saving faith will have the wrong object, whatever it might be. The reason that any faith does endure is because it's divine in its origin.
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Saving faith is described as the very gift of God. It's the work of the Holy Spirit within the heart of God's elect people.
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So, it is describing saving faith. Saving faith endures to the end.
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By enduring, it's not gaining salvation. It's not meriting salvation, purchasing salvation, but saving faith will endure.
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One who has been forgiven will forgive. It's not my forgiving that then allows
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God to forgive me, but it's descriptive of the person who has been forgiven will then of necessity be the person who forgives others.
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The description of those who visited those in prison and extended mercy to others over against those who only outwardly made the claim in Matthew chapter 25, again, describing true believers versus false believers.
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I think this is, you know, which one is which answered in two ways.
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A, consistently with the words of Jesus. When Jesus was asked in John chapter 6 in the synagogue
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Capernaum, what must we do that we might work the works of God? Well, if the prescriptive interpretation of just those three examples
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I gave you is true, then Jesus should have started down the road. He should have started down the road of, you must do this, you must do that, you must do this, you must do that.
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But Jesus didn't do that. His answer was, this is the work of God that you believe in the one whom he has sent.
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He doesn't add anything to that. So just to make
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Jesus's own teaching consistent with himself, the only way to take those texts is descriptively.
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But once you bring in the entire teaching of what the gospel is, and especially the texts that I will begin with, because I'm going first,
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I'm the one defending the thesis. When you bring in the clear didactic teaching of the
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Lord Jesus and of the entirety of the New Testament concerning his perfection as Savior and the monergistic nature of salvation, the fact that these are descriptive, the impossibility of the prescriptive reading becomes clear.
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It becomes absolutely undeniable. And so my guess is that Mr.
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Horn will present a prescriptive reading based upon an orthodox
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Roman Catholic. Because see, Roman Catholic apologists tend to be very conservative in their theology.
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Roman Catholic liberals don't have anything to defend, so they don't engage in this type of stuff.
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And so my assumption is that Trent Horn is going to be a conservative
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Roman Catholic. He's going to be traditional, not in the odd sense of that term, but hold a traditional understanding that would go back to the
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Council of Trent and through the popes through the years after that.
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And hence, give those texts and a prescriptive reading of those texts. And so what will we have to do?
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Well, in my rebuttal period, I will end up explaining what
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I just explained to you right now. I will explain the concepts of prescriptive and descriptive reading, and we'll then go through those texts.
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And then I will make the argument that prescriptive perspective cannot explain how
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Jesus can claim to save infallibly and perfectly a specific people.
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Because if they must fulfill certain prescriptions so as to bring about their own salvation,
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Jesus can't make that claim. Because any Orthodox Roman Catholic will admit that there are people who have attained, in their perspective, the state of grace and then lost that state of grace and not been saved, who were once Christians.
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I mean, that's the whole point of his position is they believe that there were people who were once Christians who are no longer
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Christians. Hence, they would have to believe there are people who were once the sheep of Christ who knew him because Jesus says he knows all his sheep, but do not know him any longer.
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And so the rebuttal period will be focused upon that. And then in cross -examination,
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I will be pressing him to give a contextually meaningful interpretation of those primary texts, which
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I do not believe can be offered. He will be pressing me on the prescriptive reading of his text, and I will be repeatedly saying this is descriptive.
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Here is why it must be descriptive. And then
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I would imagine audience questions will be focused upon texts like Hebrews 6, where the synergist, the one denying the permanence of salvation, will be focused upon the beginning of the chapter.
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I'll be pointing out, excuse me, things convinced of better things concerning you, things which accompany salvation.
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And then the rest of the chapter, our hope, which has gone into the holy place, an anchor for the soul, and so on and so forth.
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Actually looking at all of chapter 6 rather than just a few verses of chapter 6. And the standard stuff that you have to end up dealing with.
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And in fact, even though Farshad in Channel has already answered this, there's someone in Channel by the name of Irene asking about Romans 2.
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Maybe Romans 2 will come up. I'm not certain. The reality is that Romans chapter 2 is in the middle, not of the section about how people are saved, but is in the middle of the demonstration of the universal nature of sin and specifically is dealing with Jewish claims that possession of covenant, possession of scripture, possession of privilege from that covenant position made them right before God, which it did not.
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And that's the point. The conclusion of Romans 1 and 2 is
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Romans 3. And that is Paul's own conclusion to his own argument is we have concluded that all are under sin.
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Not that he opened up a possibility of salvation by keeping works in Romans chapter 2, but that he demonstrated that no one can actually do that.
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And it's amazing that this is one of the issues with N .T.
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Wright and some of his disciples. It's amazing that what seems like the absolutely necessary understanding of the hypothetical nature of the arguments of Romans chapter 2, if you just, if there weren't chapter divisions, no one would ever get away with it.
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But if you can isolate Romans chapter 2 and not see that it flows directly into chapter 3 and what
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Paul is saying in chapter 3 is, okay, universal sinfulness, Romans 1, specific application,
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Romans 2, the arguments used there, now conclusion, Romans 3, all are under sin.
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Every mouth is closed. We're all on an even basis. Now we can start talking about justification by faith because everyone's in the same place.
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It's not justification that the Jew is not justified in a different way than the Gentile is.
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This is part of Paul's strong argument. One church, Jew and Gentile, dividing wall broken down.
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I preached upon this yesterday. As Jesus said, other sheep not as fold. I will bring them.
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They will hear my voice. There will be one fold, one shepherd. Can't have two different Christian churches. So probably dealing with a lot of those questions during the
55:44
Q &A period. And then as those of you who are going to be attending know, a breakout session has been scheduled and everyone's whining and complaining because the breakouts,
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I wanted to hear Mrs.
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Butterfield's, is it Rosaria Butterfield? Is that the name? I wanted to hear her breakout and I'm doing a breakout, so I won't get to do it.
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But anyway, we will be doing, have you read
56:20
Richard Gaffin? Yeah, no, I don't know anything about reformed theologians or anything like that at all.
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Never. I don't. Anyway, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be snarky, but of course, yes,
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I'm well aware of all that stuff. I've been doing this a while. Go back, listen to some of the earlier debates.
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We've dealt with a lot of that stuff. Anyway, so I guess
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I could ask the question, have you read my book on justification? It might be fair to respond to that because I dealt with Romans chapter two in that book as well.
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Was there something you wanted to? Oh, we're going to wrap up here pretty quickly. There's my predictions for that.
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Look forward to seeing all of you. But that's not the
57:11
Christians and Muslims, Agreements and Differences. Dr. James White, Dialoguing with Dr.
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Yasir Qadhi. It will be at 7 p .m. and this is in Olive Branch, Mississippi, which is just over the border from Memphis.
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You do need tickets, even though the tickets are free, and there is a banner link on AOMEN .org
57:37
that you can avail yourself of to contact the church. And it will begin at 7 p .m.
57:44
and it's slated for 7 to 10. There's a dialogue and then afterwards there will be some refreshments.
57:49
There will be audience questions, written audience questions as well. I spent about half an hour talking with Dr.
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Qadhi a couple days ago in preparation for this. We may go a little long here, but it'll only be a few minutes.
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I am really looking forward to this. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Yasir Qadhi and I always have.
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And that's cost me because there are certain people who do not believe that as a
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Christian you can have respect for a Muslim. So if you're one of those people, it's sort of like I have tremendous respect for Mitchell Pacwa and there are certain
58:39
Christians that don't believe you can have respect for a Roman Catholic. I have great respect from Alred, but there are certain
58:51
Christians don't believe you can have any respect for a Mormon. And so if you're one of those folks,
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I am not your apologist and you're never going to like me, so stop trying to make me like you because I'm not going to be like that.
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Okay. Dr. Qadhi and I are going to be discussing openly and honestly our differences and our similarities.
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He wants to talk about... He even said, he said, it's weird.
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He said, you and I have far more in common culturally speaking than he has in common with liberal
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Christians. But he can dialogue with the liberal Christians.
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The conservative Christians won't talk to him. And you know how often
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I have been saying, we are the ones, we are the ones who should be opening up those dialogues.
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But so many conservative Christians have fear of Muslims. They're afraid of offending.
01:00:04
They're afraid because they don't know. They're afraid because they get too much of their knowledge of Islam from Fox News, whatever it might be.
01:00:13
And I have been trying to encourage my fellow believers. These are people who want to talk with you.
01:00:20
They're not like the secularists out there that you almost have to trick into talking to you. They want to talk to you. And that's where the communication isn't taking place.
01:00:29
I am really looking forward to this dialogue. I think it could be extremely useful in breaking down some of those barriers.
01:00:38
Because Dr. Kadhi and I, we're going to be honest. And the reality is, from his perspective, my theological conclusions keep me from experiencing the favor of God.
01:00:58
I'm going to hell. And from my perspective, that goes both ways.
01:01:04
So what do we do now? And if you won't admit that, you're never going to get past that.
01:01:12
If we will admit our faiths are loggerheads. The Quran says
01:01:17
I'm wrong. I think the Bible says you're wrong. What are we going to do? If I care for you, then we're going to have to talk about this.
01:01:25
We can't sweep that under the rug. But at the same time, does that mean
01:01:30
I can't be a friendly neighbor to you? Does that mean that you and I cannot be together concerned about the erosion of religious liberty in our land?
01:01:42
Unfortunately, for a lot of folks, yeah, that's exactly what it means. We stop right there.
01:01:50
Once we've delivered that message, we walk away. For a lot of people, that's all they can do. I think we have to go farther than that.
01:01:59
And that's what the dialogue is going to be about. So 24th in Memphis, on that. So again, 7 p .m.,
01:02:05
it is 7145 Malone Road, Olive Branch, Mississippi. If you're going to go, you have to use the links on this website and get a ticket.
01:02:16
The tickets are free, but you have to register. One person, one ticket. It's how they've got it set up.
01:02:24
But it's at, where'd it go here? Grace?
01:02:33
Where'd it go? Grace Bible Church, right in front of me. Right. And part of the reason for that is even
01:02:40
Dr. Khadi expressed concern. There are disruptive anti -Muslims in the
01:02:47
South who follow him around. And let me tell you something, to any of you from that perspective of things, that think you're going to disrupt this, we will shut you down instantly.
01:03:00
You are not my friend. You are not on my side. If you try to disrupt this, you will be expelled and we will be the ones that will expel you.
01:03:11
Am I making myself clear? We will not put up with it. It is not
01:03:16
Christian. It is not correct. And that's it.
01:03:21
Period. End of discussion. Then I go on from there to the
01:03:26
Deep South Founders Conference in Laurel, Mississippi. We'll be there for a number of days speaking over the weekend.
01:03:35
And then flying back home, this is two full weeks trip, flying back home.
01:03:42
We have extended my trip by one day. Boy, note to everyone, if you book flights and try to extend them, the airline will rip your lips off, as they did to us.
01:03:56
But there is a movie coming out. And I've been talking about this on Facebook, but we haven't talked about it on the dividing line yet.
01:04:06
Oh, I need the link. I need the link.
01:04:12
Here it is. How quickly can I grab the link? I wonder if...
01:04:21
Here we go. I'm trying to get the trailer.
01:04:36
Is this the... Here it is. Here it is. Let me fire this up. We are powerful.
01:04:44
We can do this. Unpopularwithamovie .com. And I will give you
01:04:56
Safari. I'm going to try to give you Safari.
01:05:01
Why isn't it showing me Safari? I don't know. I really don't like how this thing works anymore.
01:05:07
It used to work so much better. Oh, that's because it's not
01:05:13
Safari. It's Chrome. Still not even showing Chrome. Oh, here we go.
01:05:21
Here we go. Chrome and unpopular. And you got it?
01:05:29
Not yet? Is there a delay? Anyway.
01:05:40
Okay. There is a movie coming out. I think it was February of last year that Emilio and his crew flew out here, set up about 12 feet that direction from where I am right now, used my commentary section as a background, and threw all sorts of questions at me and said, basically, look, we're going to talk about the atonement.
01:06:13
We're going to talk about the means by which God saves. And your answers need to be directed toward millennial college students without any background in scripture.
01:06:25
Okay. They had just come from talking with Paul Washer about what repentance means in the same context.
01:06:36
And then they took what Paul Washer and what I provided and put it together with Emilio providing the bridges and the transitions.
01:06:48
Initially, the idea was for about a 20 minute evangelistic film.
01:06:55
I don't know how long this is. I'm guessing it's probably a little closer to half hour to 40 minutes, but it's specifically meant to be an evangelistic tool that you can direct people to, to give them something to follow up in doing evangelism with people.
01:07:13
So here's the trailer. Yes, I am.
01:07:30
It's saying no sound. Okay, backing off here for a second. Sorry.
01:07:38
Unmute. My sound is saying that for some reason sound is dead.
01:07:48
Um, there. All right.
01:07:54
Had to unplug, replug. Let's try it again. The message of Christianity is controversial.
01:08:04
It runs against everything that's natural to us, and therefore Christianity will always be unpopular.
01:08:12
No religion of man has ever contemplated the idea of doing what
01:08:17
God did in Jesus Christ. The way that he did it, well, it's very unpopular with the world because it's not a way of great showing of power and, and pomp and circumstance.
01:08:30
In fact, from the world's perspective here is a beaten Jewish man upon a tree.
01:08:37
The world has all sorts of different ideas about how we can better ourselves morally, but there really is ultimately only one solution.
01:08:49
The cross is unpopular because it tells us we are wrong. There is no reason for God to become a man to die in the place of men.
01:08:58
If we're all right. What did
01:09:12
Jesus mean when he said repent? So there you go.
01:09:26
Uh, there's the trailer for unpopular the movie. And so on, uh,
01:09:33
January 31st, I was just flying through Dallas. And so what we've done is
01:09:39
I'm going to fly into Dallas. Um, and we are going to that evening, uh, premiere the film.
01:09:48
And then afterwards, I'm going to speak on the sufficiency of the gospel, uh, me and Emilio, uh, there in Dallas.
01:09:56
So if you go to unpopular, the movie .com, you can get the stuff. I just realized my
01:10:01
T -shirt didn't arrive before I left. So I won't have one, but maybe they can get an extra one for me for that night or something like that.
01:10:07
But, um, um, pray that this movie will be used, uh, of the
01:10:12
Lord to, uh, really encourage, uh, the church.
01:10:18
And I just really hope that it's, um, that many people will find a way to provide the link, or maybe,
01:10:26
I don't know how Red Grace is going to handle this, but I would imagine they'll be handing it out maybe on jump drives or DVDs or whatever, uh, in doing street, street preaching and stuff like that.
01:10:38
I really hope that, uh, it'll, it'll function in that way and that'll be on the 30th.
01:10:43
And then on the 31st, I finally get to come home. So, uh, obviously prayers for my health during this period of time,
01:10:53
I'm going to be pressing a lot of flesh. I'm going to be doing a lot of traveling, moving from place to place to place.
01:10:58
And, uh, so it would be, uh, it'd be really great if I still have a voice by the time
01:11:04
I get to, uh, uh, Dallas there as my, as my last stop, which we sort of snuck in toward the end, uh, for the, uh, uh, premiere of Unpopular.
01:11:14
So that's what's coming up. Lots of stuff happening. Your prayers appreciated. We're going to maybe sneak a dividing line in from G3.
01:11:22
We're going to try anyways. We'll see. Uh, but we'll, uh, if not, we'll see you sometime in the future.