More LDS Role Playing with Callers and Debate Announcement

This is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us. Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Outreach to Mormons and the Upcoming Debate on Free Agency

And welcome to The Dividing Line. Today, we continue our preparations for our outreach work amongst the Mormons in Salt Lake City and Mesa. And so I am going to, right off the bat, invite all of you who were just dying to have the opportunity last week to call in and participate in the program to call in now and let us know of your interest in role-playing with Elder Han.

Elder Han is with us again. Very kindly has agreed to be with us again to to talk about the subject of Mormonism with those of you who would like to talk with him. So if you want to get online, 866 -854 -6763, a number of you in the chat channel, for example, had expressed your deep disappointment at not having had an opportunity to have spoken with Elder Han.

Maybe there are some things you wanted to share with him. And so in light of that, he's been so kind to return and to give us the opportunity of of talking with him again. So 866 -854 -6763. Don't let anything get in the way, whether it to be, you know, nervousness.

There's no reason to be nervous. Whether it be an alleged physical infirmity, don't let that get in the way either. 866 -854 -6763 and you can participate in the program today. A couple things before we get started with that, however, and of course depending on whether anyone actually actually calls in.

A couple things. Mark your calendars. Mark your calendars for March 30th and 31st. Those are the days when we will be in Salt Lake City at the General Conference of the Mormon Church on the 31st. That's our regular outreach.

Our outreach to the LDS people there at the General Conference. But the night before, just this week, plans were finalized to have a formal debate on the subject of free agency. Free agency.

Now.

We will be debating. I will be debating. This debate is sponsored by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City. And I will be debating a gentleman by the name of Richard Hopkins. Richard Hopkins has written a couple of books.

Biblical Mormonism, Responding to Evangelical Criticism of LDS Theology is a book that I have spoken of before on the air. I have said very clearly that that book demonstrates that when it was written anyways, Mr. Hopkins had no concept of what the Christian doctrine of the Trinity or the Gospel was, even though he was responding to it.

And I said that directly to him on his own radio program in Salt Lake City a couple of years ago when I was up there. But Mr. Hopkins has agreed to debate the subject of free agency. Now free agency in Mormonism is similar but not identical to the concept of free will in standard Arminianism or in Roman Catholicism.

And so there is a a little bit of a difference in this case because the fact that in Mormonism free agency is considerably more fundamental. Fundamental to the consistency of the system, fundamental to their definition of God, etc. etc.

It is truly definitional of LDS theology to have that particular doctrine and to defend that particular doctrine. And Mormons simply are amazed that anyone would in any way shape or form question the concept of free agency.

I will be presenting, of course, the biblical perspective, and my challenge will be twofold. Obviously, to present the biblical doctrine of man requires at least some presentation of the biblical doctrine of God.

And so Elder Hahn will be with us in just a moment. So I have to present the biblical doctrine of God and the biblical doctrine of man in a very short period of time. And I just hope the Lord will bless that effort.

And that'll be on Friday night, March 30th. So those of you who are in the Salt Lake City area, you will be able to attend that debate. I don't have, I should have, but I don't have right now the information as to location and time.

You can look up the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City. I can guarantee you there's only one of them. And contact the pastor there, Jason. Maybe someone in the chat room might be able to give me a phone number.

Hint, hint, hint, hint, since we do have at least one person that I know of in the Salt Lake City area who is a part of that church. So maybe they would be kind enough to provide us with a phone number here in a moment.

But anyways, you can contact that church for details. But if obviously you're not able to make it to Salt Lake City, Utah, you could be praying for us as we undertake that. The other thing that I wanted to mention just briefly in passing, I think we were, I personally was rightly reminded of some of my duties that I think I sometimes avoid simply for various and sundry reasons.

But by a good friend of the ministry who pointed out the fact that we simply don't discuss an issue on this program. We don't discuss it on the radio program when we were on the radio. We don't really talk about it much on the website and all the things that we do.

But that is the fact that this is a ministry that is supported by individuals and churches. And I'm not raising this issue because there's some sort of a financial problem or anything like that. I just want to explain briefly to folks that we are supported by individuals.

That's one of the chief encouragements that I see is when churches and individuals take part in this ministry by supporting the ministry. There are only three churches that support our ministry regularly right now.

And I recall very clearly another church that before it disbanded, it was a very small church in a very difficult area, but they used to send $25 checks. And it was so encouraging to me when they did that.

A lot of folks look at the website. They listen to the program and they go, well, it seems to me that you all must be funded by someone because you never talk about money. You never talk about donations.

You all just must be funded by something and so I don't have to worry about it. In reality, we are not. And it only took me a few moments to sign all of the giving letters from last year. And we obviously could do much more if we had more support.

And so I need to let our regular listeners know that, yeah, we are supported by individuals and not by individuals who have big bucks either. It's generally the folks who don't have the big bucks that support a ministry like this.

We won't use the types of tactics that other people sometimes feel comfortable using to try to use high-pressure sales to raise money and things like that. We just don't believe that that would be proper.

We don't believe that the message that we proclaim would be honored by that. And therefore we simply will not partake in that type of thing. But we simply let people know. And one thing I'd like to ask you to do other than praying about whether you would like to support this ministry.

First and foremost, you must, must, must support your local fellowship before you even consider anything else beyond that. I would not want anyone giving anything to this ministry when they are not supporting their local church.

That is simply wrong. And we don't want that money and would not want anybody to give us those funds unless they are actually involved in supporting their local church first. That is first and foremost in our thinking.

But if you are a member of a church, you're a member of maybe one of the missions boards, $25, $50, $100 a month from a church would mean so much to us because it demonstrates a support on the part of the local church.

And that's who we're really here to serve. And so if you would have an interest in seeing your local church support this work, that would be just a tremendous thing for us, a tremendous thing for as far as providing encouragement to us.

So I just wanted to mention that. We don't mention it very often, but we do need to let folks know that that need does exist. It always exists. The Lord has always met it in wonderful ways. We don't like to talk about it because we want to maintain the highest level of integrity.

We want to be able also to speak the truth. I don't want a huge constituency. This will never be a big ministry. We are not a large ministry. People sometimes think that we have a huge staff running around and other than the fact that I've gained a lot of weight, that's about the only way you can describe this as a huge staff.

But we don't have a huge staff. We have two staff members, a lot of faithful volunteers, and that's it. We'll never be big because I don't want a large constituency. When you have a large constituency, you have to be careful what you say.

And I don't want to have to be careful what I say because sometimes I have to say hard things. And so if that's the kind of ministry that you want to support with the monies that you have available after the support of your local church that you are a part of, then please consider us.

And let me finish with one thing. If you're not a part of a local church, don't send us your money as if you are. If you're not a part of a local church, if you are not faithfully serving the Lord where he has called you to serve, don't think that, well, I'll send my monies to Alpha and Omega and that's something good.

No. You need to obey Hebrews 13, 17. You need to know who has the rule over you. And then once that's taken care of, then if you feel you want to support this, that's fine. But that's really something that we very, very much feel is very, very important.

And yes, donations to this ministry are tax-deductible, those of you asking that particular question. So with that having been said, I think, let me look here. We only have one little blinking red light.

It's supposed to blink. That's okay. I wasn't saying blinking in a bad way there. We only have one person calling. Now, there are some of you, yeah, George in Clearwater, Florida. George will be with you in just a second.

I'm getting Elder Han warmed up over here. Y 'all, y 'all really need to take advantage of the opportunities that you've got here. You really do. So there are some of you in the chat channel right now, and you know, you know I'm talking to you.

I mean, I think it'd be great to hear someone maybe with an accent other than a standard American type accent. Maybe an accent with, you know, from overseas or an accent that's even more difficult to understand because it's from like, you know, South Carolina, Georgia, you know, who knows?

It'd be nice to have some some of those folks on the program today as well. So 866 -854 -6763. You need to share with Elder Han. You may have the exact thing that needs to be said. So keep that in mind.

It is interesting. We have some somebody in the chat room, Papal Man, who is wants to argue about Roman Catholicism, and that's not the subject for me today. That's for sure. And maybe if Mr. Papal Man wants to hang around and discuss it later on, well, I won't be able to do it then either, but some other time I'll be able to chat with that particular individual and so on and so forth.

But anyhow, I'm not sure how Papal Man found out about us, but maybe Papal Man would like to go listen to the debates that Mr. Mattox and I did on the subject of the papacy and see if he'd like to deal with those subjects.

Directly, 866 -854 -6763. I hope that after Elder Han gets done talking with George that all will be well. Now, let's go ahead and, oh, I forgot something. Hold on a second, George. We'll be right with you.

I have set up another filter to fulfill requests for a new presentation. What we're going to do is, I'm not sure exactly when we're going to start this, but I'm going to let you know about it each week so that people can be grabbing it, so people aren't going to be grabbing stuff, you know, going, okay, what slide are we on, and trying to catch up once I get around to actually presenting this.

But a number of years ago, and it's ironic, I hope, I'm sure George can hear me, that I originally created the King James Only presentation that I'm going to talk about today. I am offering now in PowerPoint to present at Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida.

That's what's ironic, since George is calling from Clearwater, Florida. And so I am making that presentation available using the same methodology that we used in providing the eternal law of progression presentation as well.

So here's how you do it. People are going, why don't you just post this someplace, we can FTP it or whatever. Basically, because, and let me warn you up ahead of time, this presentation is significantly larger than the eternal law of progression presentation.

This baby is 3 .9 megs, so if you've got Hotmail or something like that that cannot pull in a file of that size, then there's really not much I can do about it, because archiving it really doesn't make any sense, to be perfectly honest with you.

3 .9 megabytes in size. It is a PowerPoint presentation. It comes with the connection to the URL where you can download the free PowerPoint viewer if you wish. I created this, as I said, for a presentation back in Clearwater.

I've used it over and over and over again. A lot of folks have found it to be very useful. It's going to take us a number of weeks to work through it. It would basically provide you with a brief introduction to the art and science of textual criticism, the history of the English text of the Bible, the Textus Receptus, variations, the whole nine yards.

And really, the only way to meaningfully address all those things is to have this information right in front of you. I've presented this just recently to Simon Escobedo's Greek class. I've presented it in various churches, numerous contexts.

And if you would like to get this presentation, here's how you do it. You drop an email to na27 at aomin .org. Now, that's the same as before. That's my personal email address, na27 at aomin .org. Then, in the subject line, you type AV1611.

AV1611.

Now, it can be all one word, or you can put a space between the V and the 1611. It doesn't matter.

AV1611.

Go ahead and capitalize the AV. I think my filter will handle it one way or the other. But AV1611. That's all you put in the subject line. You don't have to put anything in the note, because I generally am not going to be responding to that anyways.

But AV1611 is what you need to put in the subject line. That will come into my system. I only pull for mail about every 10 minutes. So, let's say you send it one minute after I've pulled for mail. It's going to be almost 10 minutes before I get it.

And then, it's going to queue it to go out the next time I get mail. So, there's almost always a 20-minute swing there. Now, I'm noticing that some folks in the channel are waiting for me to get to the Mormonism part.

Well, I've got some announcements to make. We'll get there in a second. So, be that as it may, if you'd like the King James only presentation, then what you need to do is go to NA27 .aomin .org, put in the subject line AV1611.

Be prepared for a 3 .9 megabyte file, and it will be sent to you. So, that's how we will handle that particular situation. All righty. I still only see one line blinking. Someone who will remain nameless suggested that possibly I could get you all to call in by saying, if after I get done after George and Elder Hahn talk, I'm just going to sit here and start reading from the Book of Mormon, unless you call in.

So, keep that in mind. That would definitely, I think, fill up the phone lines pretty quickly. So, with that in mind, let's go ahead and go all the way across the United States to George in Clearwater, Florida.

Hi, George.

Dr. White, how are you doing?

I'm doing pretty well. Have we met?

No, we have not met. But I want to tell you that I've kind of stumbled onto your website like about a month ago.

Oh, okay.

And I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to you debate the Gale Ripplingers and the Dave Hunts. I mean, I've really enjoyed that. You know, before I go to bed, I put...

And I put you to sleep faster than anything else did.

No, actually, you keep me up the whole time, man. My wife's kind of angry that I found your website. But other than that, it's been a blessing in my life.

Well, that's great. Well, you know, it's funny. I was in Clearwater in October and spoke a number of places there. And then in the previous, I think it was July, we were out there. Some really good friends of mine, Mike and Saul Fallon, are out there in Clearwater.

And in fact, I was out there while it was still really hot and muggy. Oh, it was... You guys know what humidity is in a way that we desert dwellers do not have the foggiest concept of. I guarantee you that.

So it's a beautiful area. And I'm not sure when I'll be out there again. But if I know the O 'Fallons, they'll have me out there before long. And hopefully we can get a chance to meet each other then.

Oh, that'd be terrific.

Yeah, it's a nice area. OK, so are you ready to talk to Elder Han?

I am ready.

All righty. Well, Elder Han, are you... OK, OK. All right. I'm going to turn the microphone over to Elder Han and he can talk. Go ahead, Elder Han. Well, thank you very much, George. Thank you for calling from...

Where was it? Oh, Clearwater, Florida. That's a long ways. I've never been there, but that's a very, very pretty area. Now, George, if you're listening to this program, then you must... From what I heard you saying to James, you must believe in similar things to what he believes in about God, there being, you know, one God, one God, the Trinity type stuff?

Yes.

You do. So go ahead.

Yeah, basically, I am a United Methodist youth pastor, but I happen to be Reformed.

Well, for some reason, Dr. White just gave me a really strange look when you said that.

Well, United Methodists aren't supposed to be Reformed, but I am. I kept losing arguments with my roommate in college, and I kind of swapped over to the other side.

Ah, I see. But that issue aside, would you say that it's important, from your perspective, to believe that there's only one true God?

Oh, definitely.

Now, you know that we believe there's only one true God for this planet, but we believe that we ourselves can become gods in accordance with the promise that Jesus gave us in John 10 -34, when he said, Ye are gods.

Do you believe you can become a god?

I certainly do not.

You don't. Well, then what do you think Jesus meant when he said, Be ye perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect, in Matthew 5 -48?

Okay, I can tell you that I believe Jesus kind of set the standard extremely high to show us that we needed a Savior in our lives. And basically, the only way we can fulfill that is by accepting Christ as our Savior, and in so doing, all the good works He performed here on Earth become our works.

And when God looks at us, He sees us as being perfect.

So the perfection there isn't becoming like Jesus? Doesn't it say that when we see Him, we will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is? I think that's somewhere in 1 John or something along those lines?

Right, and I would probably apply that towards when we're in Heaven.

Right, well, I don't believe—.

When our life is past.

Right, I don't believe we become gods until we get into Heaven, though. So we believe that we are joint heirs with Christ, and therefore everything that He has, we also will receive when we die and go to Heaven.

So if He—do you believe Jesus is deity?

I sure do.

So if we have everything He has, how can we not be deity?

Well, you know, I would ask you, so you believe that when you get to Heaven, then you become a god?

Right, uh-huh, that's—.

First of all, I want to appreciate—I appreciate your honesty talking to me right now. I spoke with a couple of Mormon elders, and getting them to answer questions like that was like pulling teeth. They would just kind of dance around it.

And I'm glad that you're just coming straight out and saying that.

Well, you know, it's—you know, James here, of course, has written some books on this, and so it's—the reason that I wanted to make myself available this way is because he has directly addressed this and says that this is one of the chief areas where, in his opinion, Mormonism and Christianity are completely at odds with one another.

And I just want to understand why people would hear the words that Jesus said about gods in John 10, 34, and being perfect, and Paul's teaching that we're joiners with Christ, and so on and so forth, and how they cannot see that this is talking about being everything that Jesus is, and that means becoming gods.

Okay, well, let's back up a little bit. John 10, 34, when he says he or gods, I would ask, you know, who is he addressing there in that context?

Well, in that particular context, as I understand it, he says, is it not written in your law? So my understanding is that he's quoting from a psalm, I believe it's Psalm 82, and he's saying, look, even in the Old Testament there's this recognition of these gods that exist, and in fact Psalm 82 talks about a council of the gods.

And so why are you about to stone me, Jesus is saying, for calling myself the Son of God when, in point of fact, your own scriptures make reference to a multiplicity of gods?

Well, do you have a Bible right there in front of you?

Yeah, sure.

Okay, I want to point out two verses to you, and it's all laid out in John 10. It's the same context. Basically, John 10, 11.

Okay, I am the Good Shepherd, the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

And then I'd kind of just kind of jump down to 25 and 26 and read those for me.

Jesus answers them, I told you and you do not believe the works that I do in my Father's name, these testify of me, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep.

Okay, real quick there, Jesus is saying, I lay down my life for the sheep, I'm the Good Shepherd, you follow that argument there, and these are the same people he's talking to in 1034, right?

Right, mm-hmm.

And there he's telling them that, hey, I didn't die for you, you're not of the Father, you don't believe because you're not my sheep. So obviously if he's using God there in that sense in the way that you're portraying it, I would say that it's not in a positive light at all, it's probably in a negative light.

Hmm, so he's saying, let me see if I follow what you're saying, so when he says God there, he's using it in a negative light. You mean, so are you saying that he's applying this passage to them and saying that they are the gods of the old, of the citations of Psalm 82?

Yeah, I believe the citation in Psalm 82 is referring to judges, people that ruled over Israel, and not necessarily, I don't think it would be the word God in the sense that we imply deity. I would say it would probably be the word God in the sense that we imply ruler.

Well, I'd have to look into that. I've heard someone say that before. It sounds to me like, you know, God just means God, but I'd have to look into that some. But, well, let me just ask you, do you really think that that kind of, I mean, I believe in Jesus, and I believe he's the Son of God, and I believe that he died on the cross, and I believe that he rose again the third day, and I believe he's coming again.

In light of all that, do you really feel that the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter-day Saints, which believes all that, is not Christian simply because we disagree on something as difficult to understand as whether the word God in John 1034 is about judges or true deities?

You know, I would say, but I can tell you from the scriptures, I've always seen the Bible portrayed real clear, there's really only one God. And the way that you guys are presenting it, it's sounding like there's more than one God, and in the Old Testament, you know, that kind of talk would get you stoned.

Well, you know, I've read the Old Testament, and I think that when the Old Testament talks about one God, it's talking about one God for the nation of Israel. I think that as man has grown and matured and learned more and more, I mean, those Israelites thought that this was the only world that existed.

Now we know that there are literally billions and billions of worlds. And don't you think that, you know, you and I could Bible bash all day long about, you know, what this verse says and that verse says, but one of the main differences between us is that we don't just have the Bible—we believe the Bible is the Word of God, as far as translated correctly—but we also have the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and we have a living prophet.

So because we have this, I know from your perspective it's actually additions, but from our perspective you have much less than we have. And since we take all of it together, just as you take the Bible all together, you know, we come to a very, very, very different conclusion.

Don't you think it's possible that God could continue speaking even after the period.

Of the Bible? Well, let's continue speaking after he gave us his perfect Word. Right. I mean, why.

Would he need to continue speaking? Well, what about speaking to the people here upon this continent? I mean, the people on this continent didn't have his Word until the 15th century, at the earliest, the very few who may have encountered some of the initial Spaniards.

We think that God had love for those folks as well. What's that? Oh, I'm being told that we're going to have to take a break, so you and I will be able to continue our discussion on the other side. I'll finish answering that question when we come back from this break, and you folks on the other side of the wall, you do whatever you have to do.

Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the Word of God, James White, in his book, The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true Christian faith.

In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the 1611. You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin .org.

So, if we insist that the principle of Sola Scriptura has resulted in over 25 ,000 denominations, we should in turn insist that the principle of scripture plus an infallible interpreter has resulted in an even greater number of religious cults.

Pastor Rob Zins addresses the evangelical romance with Rome.

There was not a Roman Catholic Church in the first five centuries. There was, to be sure, a Catholic Church, but this is the universal designation of the body of Christ. It is not Romanism.

Pastor David King, the impact of Romans 117 on Martin Luther. How is one himself to have that righteousness which God requires, yea, demands, and which is utterly indispensable to salvation? It is by faith, and by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we lay hold of the Lord Jesus by faith alone.

And Dr. James White examines the veneration of saints and images.

Do you think if such a person were brought before Moses, having just been caught bowing down before a statue, and lighting candles, and rocking back and forth in prayer, do you think Moses would have accepted the excuse, I wasn't giving Latria, Moses, I was only giving Dulia?

Other topics addressed in this tape series, is there something about Mary? Scripture's sufficiency, the Roman versus Protestant view, canonizing the Apocrypha, an assault on Scripture, Rome's sacraments, an assault on Christ's gospel, and purgatory, an assault on Christ's perfect atonement.

Look for this tape series and many others at AOMIN .org, that's A-O-M-I-N dot O-R-G, the Conference on Rome.

Scripture, Support, and the King James Only Presentation

And welcome back to The Dividing Line, my name is James White, and taking back over the microphone here for just a moment, you know, these transitions can be pretty tricky if you don't really know how to handle things.

I must admit, some folks in the chat room who will remain nameless, I just got a request for the King James Only presentation, and the subject line says, A-V -1611, but that's A-Y-E-V-E-E-S-I-X-T-E-E-N-E-L-E-V-E-N.

Thank you very, very much. I do, of course, appreciate that sad and pathetic attempt at humor. As a famous, famous talk show host says, please leave all attempts at humor to the professionals. Those who attempt to do those things on their own tend to run into some difficulties.

So, we have been having a wonderful conversation between Elder Han and George over in Clearwater, Florida, and that is taking place because George called 866 -854 -6763, 866 -854 -6763. Now, let me just mention in passing, it does seem interesting that right as our program began, someone with the nick Papalman got into the chat room, and normally, of course, I would be talking with Papalman concerning his assertions about the papacy and his denial of sola scriptura, but we've invited Papalman to call in at 866 -854 -6763, and if he'd like to discuss that, that would be fine.

That's okay with me. We'd be willing to do that if you would like to call in and talk to myself on that subject. I think I might have a few things to share with him and may have a few answers to a few questions that he has to present to us, so Papalman, feel free at 866 -854 -6763.

I don't know that you would necessarily want to use on the air the name Papalman. I don't know that I'd want to call you Papalman, but be that as it may, you are more than welcome to call in and we can transition into that if you would like.

It's up to you. You seemed very confident in the things you were saying a few moments ago, and so we all began to suggest that you call in and talk about this particular subject. So, until Papalman decides his choice there, let's turn the microphone back over to Elder Hahn so he can finish up his conversation with George.

Go ahead, Elder Hahn. Well, thank you, thank you very much. George, you still there? I'm right here. Good. You know, what I was just trying to finish up saying there was, you know, we believe that when you take all of Latter-day Revelation and you read it all together, that's when you see the wholeness of it.

I think you can understand my argument. I mean, if you only had, say, certain sections of the Old Testament and certain sections of the New Testament, if you didn't have Romans and you didn't have Galatians and maybe you didn't have Isaiah, someone who didn't have those things would come up with a very different understanding.

Than someone who does, right? Well, Elder Hahn, I would ask you, what Bible did Jesus and his disciples have to use when they spread the gospel of Christianity around the world?

Well, I guess they would have only had the Old Testament, but they would have had all of it.

Exactly. Well, they would have had all of the Old Testament, which would...

A little bit more than half, I think, but yeah, that's all they had at the time. But you got to remember, they spoke the Word of God. They were inspired apostles, so what they preached, that was inspired revelation right then and there.

So, you know, that I think is important to note, too.

Well, you asked a question, you know, what would you, you know, what kind of understanding would you come up with if you only had parts of the Bible and not all of the Bible?

Right, uh-huh.

I would, yeah, I would point you to 2 Timothy 3 .16, and I'll say, given by inspiration of God, God may be complete, would probably carry around with it the same idea of the Book of Mormon.