Psalm 36:4

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line today, this is going to be an eclectic edition of the

Dividing Line. Again, I've created a bookmarks folder in Chrome for all the stuff

I run into in my RSS feeds. I go, I'd like to talk about that on the Dividing Line, and so it actually makes it much easier.

Why didn't I think about doing that before? I don't know. Getting old, getting slow. But by the way, if you're on Twitter and you want to follow just a hilarious, clean, good feed,

ChurchCurmudgeon, C -H -R -C -H Curmudgeon is just great. This is the last one

I just came across. Worship team practiced tonight. They'll be working on new arrangements of old hymns so the seniors can hate them too.

I just, almost as funny as I just ran an errand and I was listening to Hugh Hewitt and he was cackling about the fact that Ann Romney, poor woman, was on The View.

anybody other than Barack Obama who's on the view I just I just feel so sorry for them because it's just like a black hole of intellect it's just it's just I mean

I mean whoopie Goldberg is as far removed from Guinan in reality as any actor actress has ever been from someone that she's played and anyways so here's

Goldberg talking to and Romney who is a Mormon and she goes now you know if you become the first lady and you have to meet with these families and their boys are coming back in a in body bags and now

I believe your religion doesn't allow you to fight right I'm just like oh yeah

Mormons Quakers yeah same thing can't really it's just that we can't keep all you religious folks that yeah

Amish yes the Amish the Amish Mormons in Utah and Idaho anyways it was it's just whoopie

Goldberg what a what a fascinating lady anyhow last night

I am going to make a public confession here knowing that my fellow elder never listens to anything on the web so that's okay but that you know how you'll be listening to a sermon and you'll be following along and you'll be reading your

Bible in my case reading my iPad and you're you're going along and you're reading something and you you encounter something and you start thinking about it and that's pretty much the last you hear just off goes the the attention span and you're you're off on a on a rabbit trail and you just sort of you sort of forget stuff well that's what happened to me last evening what had happened we have a tradition at our at our church that on Wednesday evenings the pastor works through the

Psalter and so he starts off with Psalm 1 and it is to get some 119 we break it down on the basis of the letters of the

Hebrew alphabet and so you don't just do all someone 1901 you do it over wow like a third of the year a little bit more than a third of your actually anyway so last week he did some 37 but everybody realized that he had only done some 35 before so he had skipped some 36 and all my years there because you get down 150 and then you start back with one so I don't know

I've been there since 1989 and so I'm not sure how many times we have gone through the

Psalter but we've gone through the Psalter many times first time I can remember this happening so I went back and did

Psalm 36 last evening and the Psalm starts out it's very difficult in the Hebrew very very difficult in the

Hebrew lots of discussions in the commentaries about what's going on but basically it's a discussion of the wicked and in the

English version at verse 3 you have the words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit he has ceased to be wise and to do good he plans wickedness upon his bed he sets himself on a path that is not good he does not despise evil and what happened was as I was looking at that and I I sort of stopped and I looked at those three little words rah lo yamas and I started thinking about it in fact

I looked back at it and I started thinking about the description of the evil person the words of his mouth are trouble and deceit

I thought about Jesus' description that out of the heart out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and the inward treasures of the heart and this is perfectly in line with the psalmist here the words of his mouth are trouble and deceit so the righteous man the words of his mouth should be harmony and truthfulness there should be the natural speaking of the person who is created in the image of God should not result in in trouble should not be deceptive the words of his mouth are wickedness and to see the new american standard and that shouldn't be the case a person who is upright but then notice this phraseology he has ceased to be wise and to do good so in other words we were created to to be wise and to do good and that should be our natural state but we have fallen into wickedness and as a result the

Bible can and this is hard for us in the West to grab hold of and it's something we need to work at but the reality is there is no neutrality

I've talked about many many times the myth of neutrality and epistemology there's a myth of neutrality ethically as well ethically and morally you are you are called to be wise and good and if you're not being wise and good that's sin he plans wickedness upon his bed it's it's a it's you know often ask ask folks what do you think about in your you know in your daydreaming when your mind wanders what is your mind wander to he plans wickedness upon his bed it is it is a part of his life he sets himself on a path that is not good he makes that decision

I often look at people who are walking along the road and and you can tell they're they're just there they're addicted to drugs and their body is emaciated and you you think about when did they start down that path and in our society and who's to blame because the one thing that no one will ever ever think about is it was that person is actually responsible for having started down that path

I mean if it's somebody who was walking along the road doing was right and got ambushed and shot up with drugs and okay but how a percentage of people is that very very small he sets himself on a path that is not good but then you have those last three little words he does not despise evil now the

ESV says reject and despise reject are both valid translations of the root of the

Hebrew term but I thought about that he does not despise evil that's sin to not despise evil is sin to not reject evil it's sin there is no neutrality that it is fundamental in our society today that as long as you don't promote something you can be neutral about it but when it comes to what's right and what's wrong to good and evil there is no neutrality and it is sinful to not despise evil that means it is good to despise evil and so how dark must our world be that we have so many people who will call that which is evil good and good evil the fundamental assumptions

I think this is why a lot when we have people who come into our churches we never well

I'm sorry I try to avoid if we do not challenge the secular worldview that has been crammed into their minds and their experience all week long and that sadly many of us as believers voluntarily expose ourselves to because it's enjoyable we don't we don't follow the admonition of the psalmist

I have set no worthless thing before my eyes how often do we even think about the value of what it is that we're looking at I mean in light of being a

Christian do we sit down and go okay there's this television program on and what am

I going to get out of it I'm going to be spending a precious portion of my lifetime on this what can

I get from it what what benefit can I get eternally from that so our people come in they've not been thinking that way they've been given six days worth with a possible brief one -hour respite on Wednesday night if you have a

Wednesday prayer service but they've just been inundated with this world way of thinking and then they come into the service and we wonder sometimes why the

Word of God doesn't seem to connect with them when the Word of God is assuming things that their worldview assumes the opposite of the the psalmist doesn't explain that last phrase he does not despise evil but there's a lot there and there's a lot of people they would go well

I that's a pretty strong term that just despise I think yeah you know I were supposed to be loving aren't we

I mean seriously do you really think we should just spy is something would

Jesus do that yeah yeah sure would so it just struck me that even in these small little phrases sometimes we just skip right over there are real indications of just how foundational a godly way of thinking and thought and behavior really is and we must despise evil we cannot we cannot call a truce with evil we cannot stop using the term evil though is it almost ever used anymore in our society not in any biblical way that's for sure but we can't call a truce that's it's sinful to call a truce and let's let's not do it now next thing a little behind on this but we had the radio free

Geneva to do on Tuesday and further evidence this is from the

Guardian over in the United Kingdom the gospel of Jesus wife a very modern fake and Andrew Brown reports on some evidence that now again

I you have not heard me say oh it's clearly a fake there is there are huge questions about this there always have been one of the very first issues that came up was where does come from and Karen King won't tell us so when you don't have the provenance of me and you don't have it because the dealer won't tell you that's a real question and there are a bunch of other things have been pointed out there's there's far too many lines on the side that the pictures are shown the backside as far fewer lines that's one of the telltale signs of of a later fake but here someone is pointed out that you know now that people are realizing that what's written here is is based upon quotes in the gospel of Thomas that are available online and what they discovered is there's a difference between a printed edition of PDF version of this one particular text and there's a typo in the online version and the typo shows up in this text now immediately

I go okay that sounds you put this all together it's a cumulative case this sounds very very very damning but if it's a typo that could have been made in the ancient world that doesn't necessarily close the close the deal shall we say there's a tremendous amount of information on this particular fragment that probably isn't ever going to show up in much of the mainstream media after the initial splash of this obviously hyped the gospel of Jesus's wife as if there is such a thing there isn't such a thing but and I said this in the beginning keep this in mind it would not surprise me in the least if someday we did find a genuine document simply ancient

Gnostic text talking about Jesus's wife by the fourth century the

Gnostics were weird were out there on the loony fringe and so it wouldn't shock me it wouldn't surprise me and my concern of course here is that most people look at is going well if there's just one piece of fragment from 400 years one piece of a fragment of papyrus 400 years after Jesus and said he had a wife that he must have a wife

I say what Karen King saying I mean Karen King is not an unbiased scholar by any stretch of the imagination but even she's not saying that and yet that's exactly what the media either wants you to believe or believes themselves or probably both as if these folks don't most of most reporters that know there is there is sharp as whoopie

Goldberg when it comes to the you know the the knowledge of this kind of stuff you know that's why people can remember the interview with with Bart Ehrman you know and all the changes in the test so what do you think the new

Tesla pretty much like we have today all that's boring because they want they want to hear something far more radical than what's actually there so more and more information coming out maybe maybe you know the argument here is that what was what was the statement that was that was made here did it did it did it yeah the but the juice juice is why fragment does it shows pretty clearly that it could not have been composed before the

PDF was available no matter how old the papyrus turns out to be on which it was written so that doesn't make it very ancient and I would make it very very very modern because when did

Al Gore invent the Internet you know I had to I had to say that I hope you did take the time on Twitter I linked to Dr.

Albert Mueller's discussion of a an amazing article in the New Yorker called of babies and beans

Paul Ryan on abortion if you want to see a an unreconstructed and totally non -reflective secularist then read what you have here

Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker responding to the audacious

Paul Ryan who actually says that your faith should influence how you live your life and the reason

I mention this is this man is is so he is a fundamentalist secular he lives in a world where that's that's just all there is that that's all there is and so he with with with shock and dismay he says

Ryan was rejecting secularism itself casually insisting that the

Roman Catholic Andrew Sullivan put it that the usual necessary distinction between politics and religion between state and church cannot and should not exist yeah you just only people that can say anything in our society are secular all there is to it and what is amazing what these people is how utterly non -reflective they are what and I use that term a lot a person who's non -reflective means they never reflect upon their own position they never see their own traditions they never see the influence of the world view upon themselves they they are non -reflective doesn't mean anything about whether you can see them when you're walking down the street at night if you come up behind a car that's not we're talking about they are non -reflective in their worldview they have a worldview and they think everybody else should have the same worldview and they they cannot enter into somebody else's worldview or see that many things they say only make sense within the context of their own worldview and that's what you get in the secular media that's what you get in the elitist media and of course

I look down the nose and anybody would say you know you're not really thinking about that are you're religious you don't know but I found that very amazing around the same time

I told you this would be very collected are you writing any of this down you're writing this down good because I don't remember everything but I'm making this

I've just made a mistake I've been closing the tabs and I'm done I shouldn't have because then I could just gone back and gone I'll stop doing that now in fact in fact what

I'll do is have you seen the recently closed thing in Chrome that is very very useful for people like me who close anything go why did

I what I just doing me somebody who was it

Oh brother Bullock up in Canada I sent me an email and he keeps an eye on Paul Williams blog which

I do not and since Paul Williams doesn't care about what I have to say then

I'm not only but anyway he was just all excited just all excited that dr.

James Tabor professor of Christian origins and ancient Judaism has put out a new book on Paul Paul and Jesus the first off the press advanced copies of my new book

Paul and Jesus arrived today this is James Tabor James Tabor sound familiar anybody I found something like you you you

Discovery Channel uh -huh uh -huh and see

I don't watch Discovery Channel so I wouldn't know that but there's a reason why he's very familiar to me and that was he was one of the big guys in the

Jesus tomb story you're not on I can't hear you yeah I think he lost his tomb he lost his tomb yeah or his mind one of the other ones yes he is as far out on the left fringe as you can get but for Paul Williams he's the best scholar on the planet you go hmm that's good just the number of anti Paul books out there is is never -ending and the inconsistency of Muslims embracing this kind of radical skepticism likewise but we digress because we've documented that one so many times before I think

Paul Williams is doing the history of Christianity section for the upcoming MDI webinar

I just heard about just a few moments ago so in other words everyone taking that is going to get just an amazingly perverse view of Christian history but there's nothing unusual about that either then

Bill Muhlenberg if you don't follow Bill Muhlenberg you should culture watch from down in Australia and had an article on and even more of the tolerance brigade and of course he's talking about the fact that and it's this is true all over the

West now if you work for a university you have no right to dissent from the from from leftist socialism on anything homosexuality gay marriage abortion got no rights in your own private life if you dare to say

I mean the thought police are everywhere and they don't care if you know it is just a fact and this article is from the 17th yesterday evening those a little bit earlier now because this is

Australia so add 17 hours that but anyways it was talking about Angela McCaskill a 23 year veteran of the

University which is what Gallaudet University never heard of it was placed on paid leave as the university investigates her support for traditional marriage it recently came to my attention that dr.

McCaskill is participate in a legislative initiative that some feel is inappropriate for an individual serving as chief diversity officer however other individuals feel differently so she dared to put her name of course and and how did and how was it that anyone knew that her name was on this because of course just as with Proposition 8 in California homosexuals hate people who do this and so they will therefore spend their own money which they're not using to raise their kids to publish the names of everyone who signed the petition and someone looking through the names there's a real waste of your life found her name and voila yeah the

Washington Blade published the names and addresses of every person who signed the petition an anonymous faculty member who has no life spotted

McCaskill's name in the newspaper and immediately notified authorities heresy heresy in the temple of secularism get the get the pitchforks get the fire up the yeah that's exactly what it is that's exactly what it is these don't tell me for a second these people are taller than the most in tolerant people on the planet amazing hypocrisy amazing the hypocrisy but that's

University millenberg then points out high schools in australia high schools in australia nsw education minister adrian piccoli says the government is committed to stamping out homophobic bullying in schools but his department won't approve teaching material and stamping out heterosexism night you may wonder what is heterosexism heterosexism teachers it comes after was revealed that students at 12 nsw high schools are being taught it is wrong and heterosexist to regard heterosexuality as the norm for relationships the proud schools pilot program implemented in 12 government schools in sydney and the hunter is designed to stamp out homophobia transphobia fear of transsexuals and heterosexism teachers even professional development to learn to identify and stamp out any instances of heterosexist language in the playground such as that so gay but at least at least 10 we didn't do that when

I was on the playground we this is this is back in the 60s but at least 10 liberal

MPs are extremely concerned about the program will complain to education minister adrian piccoli this week only 10 that's what he has heterosexism are you a heterosexist the idea is going to be if you're married and raise your kids like you then you're a heterosexist and that's a bad bad bad people terrible people how far have we gone well how far we gone well you all expected me to talk about this quoting from CBS News yes

I am actually going to quote CBS News this morning at 1112 a .m. undoubtedly eastern time influential pastor

Billy Graham is signaling to evangelical Christians that they shouldn't hesitate to vote for Mitt Romney because of his Mormon religion further cementing

Romney's strong standing with the key Republican voting bloc how do you like how do you like I'm doing this this is

I'm going back to my radio days yes I'm doing very my radio voice here that was a radio guy for a long time you do realize

I'll go back to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association this week removed

Mormonism from its list of religious cults the Charlotte Observer reports Mormons consider themselves

Christians though not all their beliefs aligned with mainstream Christian doctrine the association dropped the label after Romney visited

Graham and his son Franklin Graham who now runs the organization last week in his six decades of ministry billing

Graham has served as a spiritual advisor to several presidents though he's never formally endorsed a presidential candidate

Ken Barron chief of staff of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association told the Observer in a statement we remove the cult information from the website because we do not wish to participate in a theological debate about something has become politicized during this campaign and quote meanwhile the organization today ran a full page ad in the

Wall Street Journal with a direct appeal from Billy Graham to vote for socially conservative politicians as I approach my 94th birthday

I realize this election may be my last Graham says in the ad I believe it is vitally important that we cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel I urge you to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman in a column last month

Franklin Graham wrote so can an evangelical Christian vote for a Mormon my answer is yes for if a biblically faithful evangelical could only vote for a candidate who has was has perfectly aligned theologically he or she would be unable to cast a vote for president on November 6 and quote then he went on to do some other stuff anyway

I can only do that voice for so long it just gets dirt and fan just said

Billy Graham's still alive bots don't keep up with things like that I'm afraid but anyway obviously this is troubling to me because the the reason given here

I find it hard to I find it hard to buy this we removed now the word cult is in parentheses so I'm not sure that's coming from let's leave it out from we remove the information from the website because we not wish to participate in a theological debate about something has become politicized during this campaign so you can remove maybe the gospel from the website if it becomes politicized did you remove the gospel website during Jimmy Carter's campaign that became an issue

I guess not this is a problem yes sir no

I was just just wait for you to finish that thought and chime in it just strikes me as if that was their goal removing it draw drew all the attention they're trying to avoid a far more than far more than and I don't know what the information said and these people not think that the press are now going to go jump into the way back machine online and go grab what they did have there and start talking about the details of it well

I'd like to see in fact maybe there's maybe a geek in channel who's listening could go to the web archive thing and pull up what they did have

I would be interested in seeing what they have I'd like to see what it said yeah they just drew attention to the whole thing now it's going to be jumped on with a laser beam yeah well yes that that doesn't accomplish much but obviously my real concern is that it looks like what you have here is a willingness to stop clearly saying

X is Christian and Y is not

Christian all for political expediency and unfortunately we've seen this far too many times and my concern is that what you've got here are our people that again are are missing

I think what a vote for president is and I know that many of my

Christian friends have expressed this opinion I could never vote for a Mormon well if you're gonna be consistent that means you can never vote for a non -christian because a non -christian just as much of my daughter is a

Mormon is a Mormon just happens to be more honest about his idolatry Barack Obama's idolatry is theology is not

Christian theology do we have to go back and revisit Cone and the black liberation theology that we that we read on the air and shocked everybody about just about four years ago now maybe a little less if you're gonna be consistent then that means you cannot vote for anyone who is not an

Orthodox evangelical Bible -believing Christian he's a member of a cult well isn't everybody who is a non -christian a member of some type of idolatrous religious worship biblically yes so you would be able to vote for anybody for any position if you're gonna be consistent and I think the only consistent people on that are the people who don't vote start a commune in some place and go off and wear

Amish clothes maybe that's who will it would be go word thought the Mormons were in a commune someplace so it seems that what's going on here is a bifurcation of people's thinking why can't we recognize and Micah comes through looks like Sandroid just beat him to it just beat him to it where'd all my stuff go?

there it goes and then Monty comes in let's see which one of these actually brings it up what is a cult yes you got it yes okay thank you

Sandroid and Micah and Ryan and Monty and we have a flood of the exact same

URL and channel and I think that's great I happen to have the best chat channel on the planet with the best ops and best people in it and that there is no question about that but I do want to make mention of something by the way

I I'm gonna I'm actually take 30 seconds of DL time here there is a particular term that some people use for grandfather that has been introduced in my chat channel by certain people who remain nameless it is extremely offensive to me and it will never be used of me and if anyone uses that term in the chat channel

I'm just making this a public announcement your first offense is a 15 -minute ban your second offense is a day ban and your third offense is permanent you will be g -lined and we will never see you again and I am absolutely positively serious about that can you tell

I'm serious about this yes very good okay well there is oh okay there it is some of these groups are

Jehovah's Witnesses Mormons Unification Church Unitarian Spiritist Scientologists and others that's it uh -uh this whole page yeah has been taken off yeah okay so the definition of a cult group which teaches doctrines and beliefs and etc etc the whole page has been removed huh not just taking

Mormons out of the line down below yeah well it would seem that that is directly related to what the meeting between Romney and the

Grahams I think so what's sad for me is that this is an opportunity for learning this this is an opportunity for clarification this is an opportunity for us to remember four years ago we did when

Mitt Romney was running for president then Turretin fan has reposted this in the past couple of weeks he took time to get all the links together and reposted it as a blog article but I went through exactly what

Mormonism teaches on the doctrine of God I wrote a book number of years ago called is the Mormon my brother and for all the nastiness of various Mormons the one thing they have not been able to argue is that I did not handle their sources accurately and fully and completely in the definition of what they teach and the fact is that Mormonism does not have a transcendent creator

God the two eternal things in Mormonism are matter and intelligences one might argue possibly that some element or principle of the law is eternal as well but that's another issue

God has not eternally been God God a manner of the same species where the same species is

God and therefore there is such a fundamental and foundational difference between all the great monotheistic religions

Judaism Christianity and Islam and Mormonism that to even put Mormonism in the same camp is to fundamentally abuse the study of world religions in any meaningful context yes

I know they use all of our language that's what's so confusing but I've said it many times in this program

I've said it I said it this past weekend in Delaware as I was teaching I've said it pretty much everywhere

I'm speaking on Mormonism I'll say it again in Detroit next week because I'll be in Detroit starting on Sunday at the brain

Baptist Church there if you look at a religion on the basis of what defines it its view of God the origin of the universe the relationship of God to creation then it can not be denied on any logical or rational level that Islam is considerably closer to Christianity then

Mormonism ever could be because Islam and Christianity say there is a transcendent creator

God that is eternally existed and that everything exists depends upon him

Mormonism denies that denies monotheism and believes there is an unlimited number of gods so all the all the language similarity that exists beyond that point is not relevant to the definition of the terms that's why you can have terms like eternal life in Christianity becomes eternal lives in Mormonism and it's related to the ability of the exalted man and his wife after the resurrection to have eternal offspring to sire spirit children who will inhabit physical bodies on the planet will then worship them as gods that's not what eternal life means the

Bible that's not what eternal life means in Christianity and so same words completely different lexicon salvation salvation by grace well you see in Mormonism you have salvation universal salvation which is the same as resurrection but then you have individual salvation that's exaltation to God and that's not by grace alone so the same words very different meanings

Mormonism as as far removed from Christianity as it could possibly be but unfortunately you don't have a whole lot of discussion of that because obviously for many people well we can have that discussion later well we've already had a discussion or more frighteningly to me well we shouldn't have that discussion for the sake of some kind of unity all because we don't seem to recognize what we're doing in an election is not voting for a pastor

I think there should be a time where Mormonism is true nature is clearly seen you want things that has bugged me you know the things that has really bugged me did you notice this

I did you catch the the last debate he did

I there's one thing around you said that should have caught your attention mainly because I had heard it and in fact a molar had repeated it and I even tweeted to molar and that's not terminology they use but they're using it now and clearly the

Romney campaign has chosen to do this because his closing statement I'm talking about what he described his role in the church as pastor pastor have you ever have you ever in all the years you and I have gone to Salt Lake City in Mesa heard a

Mormon refer to a bishop as a pastor it isn't the first time I've heard him say that in this season he's he's trying to make his role as even

Angelo as he possibly can come up with so we're gonna take the bishop word and throw it out and go grab the pastor and I cannot imagine that there were not a number of Mormons gone he was a what that's not there that's not there is speaking that the temple ceremony what's the pastor would they call him oh yeah the hireling of yeah hiring

Satan yeah well the older Mormons are going yeah yeah the younger

Mormons haven't got that stuff they they did they didn't they didn't go the endowment ceremony pre 1994 was 94 wasn't it

I think it was 94 when that was much more explicitly stated but that really bugged me use your term you were a bishop did you were not a pastor and you know that clearly obviously they did a poll somewhere and saying

I was a bishop sounds way too much like a bishop in the Catholic Church I bet you that's primarily what it is focus group stuff focus group yep yep how's that how's that play mm -hmm yep

I think that's probably what it was and that bugs me that just look

Mitt Romney is a temple Mormon he knows every bit of Mormon theology

I guarantee you he knows the teachings of the LDS Church that Jesus was begotten by an immortal father the whole nine yards including the definition of the word pastor of course in those oh yeah he went back to he went to the temple ceremony when the pastor was mocked and shown to be a hireling of Satan you bet you bet he did he was pre 1994 yeah someone channel just said he calls himself pastor because he doesn't get a warm welcome when he calls himself a

Melchizedek priest that's true I have the Melchizedek priesthood and none of the rest of you people do unless you're part of my church yeah that wouldn't that wouldn't fly real well but that is the teaching of the

Mormon Church and obviously if Mitt Romney wins the election we're gonna have lots of opportunities over the next four years to clarify it just doesn't seem to me that even a lot of the conservative commentators

I was reading today his more his Mormonism has just not an issue for the vast majority of people any longer well

I've heard Roman Catholic commentators right and left oh they're just as Christian as we are yeah amazing amazing amazing it's it's it yeah it's it's it's amazing stuff so there's the

Billy Graham group getting rid of that then still got a few minutes here left on on the program there seems to be a real kerfuffle going on at King's College in New York and has to do with Dinesh D'Souza now

Dinesh D'Souza is a very bright man and I had the opportunity while flying was it to or from you can't remember them

I think it's flying back from the UK to watch 2016 there's mp4 posted online some ways and so I'd seen it and Dinesh D'Souza is a bright guy he's a well -educated guy he does some good stuff but if you've listened to this program for any period of time at all then you know that even before he became president of King's College about what two and a half years ago approximately somewhere around there somewhere in 2010 maybe just right at two years ago

I had played debates that Dinesh D'Souza did with Christopher Hitchens and if you recall

I was consistent we do do that consistency thing around here as much as possible and I remember at least one of those debates and this is this is so funny because I keep telling people when

I listen to stuff I remember where I am while I'm writing and I remember what kind of day it was and where I was on the

Arizona Canal listening to the debate between Dinesh D'Souza and Christopher Hitchens going oh would

I love to have a chance to debate this guy not Dinesh D'Souza I wouldn't mind debating him either but I'm not sure on what anyway

I was very clear in criticizing Dinesh D'Souza more than I was

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Hitchens was just being Christopher Hitchens he was being exactly who you'd expect him to be but at the time

Dinesh D'Souza identified himself as a Roman Catholic and at the time his responses were just far removed far removed from anything that could be described as as biblical on on any level

I mean they were inclusivistic almost universalistic sub biblical non gospel oriented responses they were from a shallow

Roman Catholic perspective basically without a whole lot of Romanism in it and so I and in fact one of the debates took place at King's College I remember making a comment if I recall about the color of the liquid in Christopher Hitchens paper or plastic cup on the

King's College thing wonder if that was stuff that's normally allowed on the campus of King's College especially given how much

Christopher seemed to relax during the course of the debate that seemed to indicate that it was it was not coca -cola but anyways um so when when

I heard that he had been called to be president of King's College which my understanding is run by campus crusade

I'm like uh I but the stories that I've seen is that his wife

Dixie had been you know moving him toward evangelicalism and hey

I want to see I'd be good I never heard him say anything that said you know

I've actually come to understand the gospel I've repudiated the gospel of Rome I've come there's instead it's this yeah let's just all get along this this well it's the same

CS Lewis mere Christianity stuff and I don't mean really following CS Lewis but the application of that today that Beckwith and others have talked about you know

I'm not really an apologist I'm just sort of a mere Christianity guy which means let's all just agree on the

Trinity let's all agree on the cross took place resurrection took place but outside of that there's nothing really we really know we can't define the gospel and defining it divides us and it just gets ugly well lo and behold there are a number of articles out over the past couple days on the subject of the next is stepping down from King's College and the allegation of an affair now it looks like it's a bunch of politics and I've read this is his response on the

Fox News website to the article in the world magazine and it looks like this is a definitely has the best of this one it looks like Marvin Lasky and some of the folks at world had it out for the

Sousa and they're smearing him and that doesn't look good that's now he is getting divorced and it does look like he's already found somebody else who's much younger than himself

I doesn't look good allegations are made here about being at some and it's interesting there at some apologetics conference and what was really interesting including

Eric Metaxas and Josh McDowell which again raised all sorts of issues for me

I mean if it can be an apologetic conference don't you also need to be on the same page of the gospel or do you what are you defending in fact the very term apologetics the only time it appears in the

Bible when Peter says we are to be ready to give an answer of the hope that's within us the context is the gospel this just seems really weird to me that that many people you know would would think you can do apologetics but when it comes the gospel you have to go well you know bunch was up here were not the same page anyways it seems the truth is sort of in between the original accusations and and what's going on here and there's more stuff coming out it's sad to me obviously you hate to see a twenty -year marriage breaking up but especially in this context and with that type of thing going on but that's not my focus my focus has always been

I think we have here a clear example of what happens when evangelicals see a bright intelligent individual and we lose our priorities because we think it's more important to get bright intelligent people to say nice things about us and to join us and to fight on our side that it is to be clear about the demands of the gospel

I'm not talking you know I mean we saw on the radio free

Geneva on Tuesday there you there you see the absolute worst example of a false gospel the gospel has no impact upon life and and all the rest of stuff that's that's that's just sheer gross heresy but it's almost like that has so infected so many people that it's like well you know the nation says he says the right things and he signed an allegedly and ostensibly orthodox statement to become president of King's College but I've never seen what that statement actually is and whether it has anything overly clear to say about the gospel itself well last few years

I think we've seen that a number of people have signed certain things along the way that you can sit back and go did you actually really believe what you sign there yeah yeah no questions about it it just seems that what you've got here is what happens when you abandon the gospel as the core of your of your message the core of of your beliefs the core of what you communicating to the world and this mere

Christianity stuff when I say mere Christian I mean that movement that exists today where people say we can find sufficient unity in simply talking about the

Trinity the deity of Christ the cross and the resurrection now we can't really tell you what what happened to the cross we can't say why the cross was necessary we can tell you has something to a forgiveness of sins but we beyond that it just becomes too muddled too divisive so we're all just let's just all say that we can get together and talk about good you know morality and and stuff like that and the existence of God and and we can defend marriage that's okay that sort of falls in this this realm we can talk about natural law and that kind of thing which the

Romanists love to do but one of our major differences between being reformed and Romans but anyways but we just can't get into that gospel stuff because that divides and we need to stand together because well they won't say it this directly but we need to stand together because you know it's a vote thing and how you influence culture is by vote now if you have the right to vote then

I say vote and vote to do what you can to keep the gospel free

I want to have to I want to continue doing this as long as Lord gives me breath

I don't want to have to do it hiding in the woods someplace and then pick up my equipment run because the authorities are chasing me and I don't want to have to go to prison for doing this so I will vote for those that I feel will will at the very least slow the rate of cultural decay if not turn around but the number of people you get together to vote is not the power of God in the salvation and when you allow someone like to nest to Sousa to slide into I mean he's spoken at the

Grand Canyon just within past year sometime to slide in the evangelical circles what are you saying about evangelicalism as a whole what is the evangel what is supposed to define evangelicalism that's why

I don't know that the word has any meaning anymore I'll be honest with you when Roger Olson's an evangelical when non -trinitarians are an evangelical

I it just it just amazes me it really really amazing well last thing right is the musics could be coming up here in a second to someone just ask me if I listen to the unbelievable radio broadcast no

I haven't had chance to it's on my iPod I I know that they've added a funny thing is

Justin's been getting to the very top because you'd think I would be most interested in Joe was witnesses Mormonism Roman Catholicism have listened to him just haven't had the time to and you know so maybe

I'll get it got opportunity because I've I'm seeing some stuff Dave Robertson had the idea to bring in a

Baptist talk about baptism in a later show oh yes well that sounds like it might be might be a doable thing

I'll have to drop just in a note and say I think we might be able to do a lot we've done it a few times

I can I can grab my my English accent we can go for it immediately all right thanks listen to the dividing line today next week not looking good just not looking good it certainly can't do it in the evenings because I'm preaching each evening we'll see if we can sneak something in on a

Tuesday maybe I'm just I'm just not sure I I think I might have Tuesday afternoon open so we might be able to work something out if we can we'll go for it if not be back week after that thanks for listening

I believe standing at the crossroads let this moment flow away we must contend for the faith above us fought for we need a new

Reformation day it's a sign of the times truth is being trampled in and do it bear it down won't you lift up your voice are you tired of plain religion it's time to make some noise

I'm your witness I'm your witness

I'm your witness I stand up for the truth won't you live for the Lord cause we're pounding on pounding on The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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