September 16, 2003

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.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

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

James White. And good morning, my name is

James White and it is good to be with you live this morning. And I would like to make a special announcement right off of the bat.

We recognize, of course, that there have been problems for a number of weeks now with StraightGate .com.

We've mentioned that we do not control that. We know that Stephen Luker is struggling with the folks who control that server to try to get them to do the right thing.

And he's still working on that and I'm certain that eventually that will be taken care of. However, till then, a number of you are wondering and some of you, unfortunately, are complaining regarding the fact that I can't listen to the

Dividing Line archives for free. Well, you know, the easiest thing to do is just download the

MP3. It's only like a buck or something like that and then you can do that. But the folks who make it available, the folks, that's sort of a folksy way of putting it, the individual who makes it possible for you to listen live has begun to temporarily archive the programs and they are available.

Don't ask me how in the world you get a URL like this, but at http://godcan .redirectme

.net. Now, I don't know, honestly, if the capitals in that are relevant because God Can Redirect and Me are all capitalized.

Net is not. I don't know. I didn't try it. But they are available for you there, forward slash, backslash, whatever.

You know what it is, http://godcan .redirectme

.net. And you can listen to, I think the last three have been posted there, so you can listen to those there and go from there.

So I want to let everybody know that, that those are available so that people will stop causing, the capitals are not relevant.

Good. People will stop making Steven Luker's email box explode, whining and complaining and all the rest of that stuff.

But yes, we know. And eventually it will be taken care of and so on and so forth. So just to let you know, those are available there, 877 -753 -3341.

I have one sound clip to play today for you. And then a web article that we can look at or start looking at, all depends on what the phone lines do this morning.

I think this week's schedule will be the same as last week's. Please make a note of the earlier start,

Thursday night, an hour earlier. And then I'm headed out of town.

I'll be in Austin, Texas this weekend at Dayspring Bible Church on Saturday and Sunday morning.

Killeen Bible Church, Sunday night. And I will be speaking on a response to New Perspectivism.

Basically what I'll be doing on Saturday at Dayspring Bible is dealing with the doctrine of justification and especially explaining what the

New Perspective on Paul is as it is really entering into churches via the medium of N .T.

Wright's writings and those who are promoting his writings and especially focusing primarily upon his,

I believe it's 1998, 1997 publication,

What St. Paul Really Said. This is really the source through which much of the, much of this is moving into churches and it's concerning many folks and so we're going to spend some time coming to understand what he's saying first of all and then giving a response to it, especially an exegetical response because that's really where the issue is.

N .T. Wright is a wonderful writer but he's a, I would call him a theologizer. He cites passages and he'll make arguments about passages.

That's not exegesis. It's not the same thing. He's certainly a tremendously gifted scholar but I think that his conclusions and his concepts are dangerous and they're dangerous to the proclamation of the gospel and so we'll be discussing that at Dayspring Bible Church and then be ministering there in the morning.

It's, I think, their 25th anniversary and so I'll be challenging them in regards to the continuation of their their ministry there and then as I mentioned

Killeen Bible Church that evening as well. So that'll be this weekend in Austin.

The weekend after that in Globe, Arizona. The folks from Alpha Omega Ministries are going to be presenting an all -day seminar up there on Roman Catholicism, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormonism and we'll be doing some some role -playing and things like that up there during the day there and then the weekend after that those of you up in Utah, University of Utah, Friday night.

I believe it's October 3rd at the University of Utah seven o 'clock I believe

I'll be debating gerrymatitics on the subject of the perpetual virginity of Mary, specifically the thesis, did

Mary have other children after Jesus was born and that will be an interesting debate.

We've discussed that a number of times on the program before. I head to Sao Paulo, Brazil the next day.

Pastors conference with more than a thousand people in attendance. I'll be speaking there about I think about eight times over five days something like that.

Flying back and then heading up to Minneapolis, Twin Cities Bible Church the first, the second, no it's the third.

Which weekend in October is it? I don't know. It's 17th, 18th, that weekend somewhere around in there in October.

I'll be up at Twin Cities Bible Church in the Minneapolis area going home. That's where I was born and so I'll be up there and also visiting with friends up at Bethany House Publishers too.

So lots and lots and lots of stuff coming. Obviously the whole week I'm in Sao Paulo. We're not exactly going to be doing the dividing line long distance.

So I will leave that up to the great voice in the other room as to what he wants to do during the course that week.

You either have to endure all of the gripes and complaints or you put on a best of or or you bring

Warren in and he sings Elvis or you know something like that. Something that would make everyone really happy. Something along those lines.

I don't know. But starting off for today. Well you know the State Fair starts right about that time so maybe we could do something you know broadcast the

State Fair. You mean broadcast from the State Fair? Yeah well or just you know go take a microphone over there.

Oh okay. Sound effects from the State Fair. That would be very exciting. I think if you walked around and asked people theological questions.

Hey there you go. That ought to get me a punch in the nose. Oh no no no. Just ask questions.

Yes but you know me. Well you wouldn't have to respond to the responses.

You just simply ask questions and people go you're kidding. People actually believe things like that and it'd be very interesting.

So anyway 877 -753 -3341.

I was listening to Catholic Answers live. I was listening to a live call -in tough tough questions program and I didn't really hear a lot of tough questions actually.

But at least one of the questions allowed for me to use it here to illustrate something.

We haven't responded to the folks over at Catholic Answers for a few months and it is interesting to me and I don't know if it was interesting to everybody else but do you remember the last dividing line?

I think it was the last dividing line. Or was the one before that? I don't know.

We have a regular listener an LDS fellow by the name of Pierre and it was fascinating.

It was the one before that. Yeah so it was a week ago today then. It was fascinating to hear an

LDS person defending Dave Hunt's position. Did anyone else catch that? That's what caught me was that the

LDS person would say Dave Hunt was right in regards to the issues of human autonomy and things like that.

And of course that is true. That's the perspective. That's the issue in regards to the difference between monergism and synergism.

I mean synergism is the very hallmark of human religion.

It's what you know you could get Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Roman Catholics and Arminians all together and on that issue they would agree.

Now they disagree on the details of how it all works out but they'd all agree that we are wrong about that particular issue and I thought it was fascinating.

And so as I was listening to Jimmy Akin and interestingly enough if please do not ever get upset with me if I slip and refer to James Akin the way

I've always referred James Akin because I was listening to this program today he slipped and called himself

James Akin before he then corrected himself to Jimmy Akin. So if I figure if he can slip and call himself

James Akin then no one should ever get upset at me if I end up doing the same thing because I've just always referred to him as James Akin and it's hard to hard to switch over time and obviously is even hard for him.

Then again he probably doesn't use his own name a whole lot in talking about himself in the third person unless he has suffered some disease of that fellow who ran for president and always referred to himself in the third person too.

But anyway so I was listening to this and I found the response this one caller very interesting because if you'll just sort of step back from the details if you'll step back from from the way we normally listen to these these particular discussions where we're our minds sort of running ahead and how would

I respond to this and what about that and there's a fact here that needs to be addressed and sometimes we we miss the overall stuff because we are listening very very closely.

If you will listen to what is said here you will hear just how tremendously man -centered focused upon human accomplishment and human activity

I mean the whole concept of the sovereignty of God and the freedom of God the power of God completely lost in this discussion that takes place on Catholic Answers within the past month let's just we've got to have the computer up and we'll be ready to rock and roll here and listen to Catholic Answers.

Now as a Christian but not a Catholic obviously Catholics have traditions and I'll say rituals

I'm not sure if that I don't mean that to be pejorative. That's fine, rituals we have them. Things that other

Christians do not observe and do not see as a requirement and so if I go as I do on occasion to a

Catholic service with a friend or at a funeral and I'm not permitted to take mass or to participate in that I'm obviously it's because the

Catholics have certain rules that I don't apply to myself. What then do

Catholics think happen to non -Catholic Christians? Do we not go to heaven? It depends.

God wants everyone to be part of the fullness of the faith that he gave to mankind and that's found in the

Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is the original Christian Church and you know our bishops today are descended by lines as we talked in earlier in the program of ordination directly from the

Apostles so God wants everyone to receive the fullness of the graces that he has to offer and the fullness of the truth that he's offered mankind and that's found in the

Catholic Church. If someone were to know that and then to know that God wills this and that's where the fullness of grace and truth is found and to then refuse to accept it on God's terms well then that would be a problem that that person would not be accepting salvation on God's terms and so that person would not go to heaven.

Now you notice something there I'm going to replay a section of that but but that I don't know that's sort of how politicians answer a question

I mean at least I'll give Mr. Akin this much credit at this point there are a lot of Roman Catholics today that don't even they're not not even that conservative in the sense that you know everybody's going to heaven they've there is a functional universalism in existence amongst many

Roman Catholics today that's that's obvious but what notice the phraseology if you know that that Rome contains the fullness of the gospel and all the rest of stuff and I and I go well what do you mean know that I mean

I know Rome claims that I don't believe it for a second I knowingly reject that because it's unbiblical unhistorical etc etc but do where do

I fall there I mean I'll never forget when I did a radio program in fact this was this would have been about 1993 1994 now coming up on right about 10 years ago and I sort of date that by where my office was at that time and I remember where I wrote a certain book

I remember when the book came out and if my office was here when the book came out then that means this took place in such a year that's that that tells you when you've been doing this for a while anyway

I remember we did a radio program and right toward the end of the program I don't know if it was a caller brought it up or I brought up I don't recall but but the issue of the anathema came up and of course mr.

matics back when he was the Catholic answers they had their standard answer of the anathema the anathema doesn't mean that we know who's going to hell the church doesn't send anybody to hell you know it just means that you cut off a fellowship of the

Catholic Church and and yada yada yada well after the program came up and it came up the issue of the anathema camp right the end of the programs there really wasn't a lot of time

Jerry called me back on that number called my office just to make sure that I knew that from his perspective not only was

I anathema but that he recognized that historically the anathema meant I do not have eternal life

I am going to hell he wanted to make sure that I understood that and I said yes

Jerry I fully understand that and hopefully you understand I I believe the exact same thing concerning you but that was not a question from my perspective but it was a question this this is a place where he had he had changed his presentation well what we just listened to from Mr.

Akin well you know if you know and then you refuse that then that's a problem now maybe he just misspoke but I'm not sure that that that's the best way of putting that's a problem and then instead of that person will remain under the wrath of God or that person has no forgiveness of sins he will not go to heaven nice little you know you don't get the lollipop at the end you know do not pass go do not collect $200 that kind of a situation no this person's under the wrath of God God's wrath falls upon this individual etc etc so I found that to be

I don't know just the way that it was presented and then to know that God will this and that that's where the fullness of grace and truth is found and to then refuse to accept it on God's terms well then that would be a problem that that person would not be accepting salvation on God's terms and so that person would not go to heaven but if the person is through no fault of his own he's just not aware you know or hasn't seen the evidence he needs to realize that this is what

God wants then God won't hold it against him he'll as long as the person is trying to follow

God's will and trying to follow God's grace as he understands it then in good conscience then

God will let him into heaven anyway well catch all that I hope you're listening there sometimes you

I think people hear the part you heard before in your mind starts wandering and what you just listen to hopefully explains to you the importance of having a biblical anthropology a biblical doctrine of man here you have a

Roman Catholic apologist suggesting that you can have in the the mass of humanity individuals who out of good conscience out of honesty are just simply following what what is best and and God will not hold it against them what is

God holding against them the whole idea of the abiding concept of God's wrath is is missing here and and you know how could it not be that way when you think about it how could it not be when you think about when you realize that in Roman Catholicism God's forgiveness is mediated through these these endless sacraments these things you go through over and over and over again obviously there is no real understanding of the reality of the wrath of God if you really understood the wrath of God you would recognize as Luther recognized that that it is so terrible it is so fierce and so righteous and so holy that these these sin -stained human activities could not be the means by which that wrath is propitiated and so but but you just hear that well you know if you know if you're just sincerely doing your best and and you know you're you're just you just don't know about about the

Vatican and the Pope and you're vaticanically challenged as someone just mentioned in the channel there then

God's not going to hold that against you and he's gonna come on in come on in and here again you know you've got this when you don't have a biblical doctrine of atonement substitution which few

Protestants even have these days it it makes perfect sense

I mean Jesus has just sort of done the you know his his death on the cross is just sort of in some vague generic fashion has has done away with sin and so hey you know you're you're ready it's no wonder that inclusivism and Roman Catholicism are melding together in the vast majority of Catholics experiences and thinking these days to realize that this is what

God wants then God won't hold it against him he'll as long as the person is trying to follow

God's will and trying to follow God's grace as he understands it then in good conscience then

God will let him into heaven anyway because he's trying to do what he thinks he's supposed to do but ultimately

God does want everyone to embrace the fullness of the Christian faith which is found in the Catholic Church but in the

Bible isn't I mean the formula for big for salvation it's so simple it's just you have to confess that Jesus Christ is the

Savior with your mouth and believe it with your heart where did these other requirements come from well they also come from scripture the one of the things you find when you look at for instance the passage that you were alluding to is

Paul is not talking about how to become a Christian Paul is talking to people who are already Christians and for those who are already

Christians yeah you need to continue to profess faith in Jesus you need to confess him before persecutors if you're called upon to do that but that doesn't address the question of how you become a

Christian in the first place how you do that is you get baptized you repent and you get baptized and that's something we see from Jesus his own message he says repent and believe the gospel the kingdom of heaven is near so repentance is part of it we also see that baptism is part of it on the day of Pentecost when people asked what they needed to do

Peter told them to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins similarly in 1st

Peter 321 he tells us point -blank baptism now saves you so yes you do need to believe in your heart and yes you do need to confess with your lips but that's something that you're doing not just at the time you become a

Christian but afterwards and it's people who are already Christians that Paul's addressing when you read about how you become a

Christian it's repent and be baptized now let me just mention briefly just a couple things if you miss the grace of God if you miss the calling of God if you miss the active role of God outside of just simply making our activities a possibility don't worry it wasn't there because that's just when you have a man -centered religion that's that's how things work you just say well you know

God by his grace make these things available then we do this this you work the system synergism it's it's just the way things things are but you you also may have may have caught a little something there that I found interesting and that is mr.

Akin talks about what you know you need to look at passages of scripture and who's being addressed and I go yeah you know you really do and that's why you need to look at James chapter 2 one of the favorite passages of James Akin and of Roman Catholic apologists in general and go you know what he's he's talking to Christians there and and you know what he's not talking about initial justification he's not talking about how a person is justified is he and they would say well maybe not but then you've got all these you know read justification all the rest of stuff but you know you got to start off with looking at the context don't you and I would

I would obviously I would obviously agree with that particular element of it

I just don't know that it's always applied properly so that's something that you know you have to be sensitive to when you're reading the

New Testament is what is this passage talking about not every passage that deals with salvation deals with how you become a

Christian some deal with how you retain salvation now that you are a how you retain salvation you know they're there that's something that folks should listen to just a little bit and especially folks that are running around today talking you know they're they're they're trying to say they're reformed they're trying to say they're they're they're still believing in justification by faith but they start talking about these these works and they start talking about remaining in the

Covenant by doing this that and the other thing sounds a little familiar there there's there's a reason why it does now that you are a

Christian and that's what's going on there I appreciate that I appreciate that you don't like that go ahead no go ahead no you go ahead no you go ahead don't have the monopoly on baptism

I mean I was baptized in a Methodist Church true and we would honor that as valid but there are other sacraments such as confession which which we read about in John's Gospel where Jesus tells the disciples whoever sends you forgive they're forgiven and whoever sends you retain they're retained that's something that's really not available in the

Methodist Church and further Christ is very clear especially in John's Gospel about willing his followers to be one and even in Matthew for example where he talks about founding his church he says

I will build my church and it's singular not churches plural so he built one church and we can show from the context he's talking about a visible church if you want to read about that look at my website but he's talking about there's one visible church that he founded and it's his and and everyone who wants to be his follower needs to be a part of that and of course that has absolutely positively nothing whatsoever to do with the

Church of Rome unless someone would like to you know it's interesting when you hear these claims what it's just one church we're the original church and then when you start asking and so the original church taught this and the original church taught this and the original church taught this no no no now you need let's talk about acorns and oak trees you know ever ever run into that yeah you know as soon as you start going it's no wait a minute so you're saying the original church was the was

Rome oh yes yes all of our you know direct line ordination bishops hmm so the bishops from which you trace your nation taught what you teach well in sort of in the idea of the acorn and the oak tree and they start doing all this stuff with with that kind of thing and you just go whoa which one is it and then of course is that there's only one church well of course there's only one church no one disagrees with that but the the use of the term here is a well and we are it

I'd say half of at least half of Rome's apologetic is based upon making an assertion and then hoping that the person listening will fill in the non stated assumption in other words well if sola scriptura isn't true then what well then you need another source of authority you need another thing to tell you what the

Bible is and tell you what the Bible says and and they'll never expose

Rome's positive claims the same level of criticism that they will use on other systems or on the scriptures themselves and critiquing but it's sort of it's meant for you to come to the assumption that Rome is the answer to the question without their having to say it and so that's something

I think most folks who have dealt with Roman Catholic apologists have seen that have experienced that themselves in the first century there weren't these other churches yet they all split off later so that's why we don't read about them but it's indicated there's one church he wants his followers to be united we don't read so we do read about Rome where where it is where is the

Pope what do you mean so that's why we don't read about them we don't read about them that doesn't make any sense but it's indicated there's one church he wants his followers to be united and therefore he wants him to be part of that church

I hope that helps it's helpful I appreciate it all right Robert thanks a lot for your phone call your phone call all right so by the way

I just one point of clarification Robert did mention he sometimes has occasion go to Catholic Mass and you don't feel that he can't participate actually there's much he can't participate right right participate in the prayers it's just communion that I'm not able to receive it but I just hope he understands that but yeah he can feel you know part of the assembly and get involved in the prayers and so forth you know there are just the restrictions on communion

Robert well you know I found that interesting that's the end of the cut that I'm gonna be playing

I found that very interesting that what you can be involved with the prayers you can you can be involved in mass well if you've read the material

Roman Catholic apologetics materials by the way eight seven seven seven five three thirty three forty one eight seven seven seven five three three three four one if you read the materials you know that one of the arguments is frequently used you go to John 6 and you deal with Jesus words there and Jesus says unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in yourself and I've had

Roman Catholics say see it's absolutely necessary to partake of the mass because you know here it is well how would you be involved

I thought prayer was worship so you can be involved in worship but you can't be involved in the very means of having eternal life that it all is supposed to be pointing to in this you know

I don't that part doesn't make sense and of course you know you transport this back just a couple hundreds of years ago and and my how things have changed they would love for you to have shown up as a non -catholic so they then could have turned you over to secular authorities and shoved you in prison and then and then tied you to a stake and you go oh that's terrible that's what happened that's just a fact of history doesn't doesn't you know well well

Protestants killed the people to yeah I know they did but the point remains how what what does this change mean it is a change that's not denied that it was a change change this this is this not theological is this not relevant to the teaching concerning the nature of the church and separated brethren and all the rest that stuff obviously it is but I can't hardly ever get anybody to actually discuss it and anyway

I understand by the way normally we take our break at this point in time and you know maybe

I should start some pretty music in the background so that would everybody will feel like where we're supposed to be but I guess we haven't quite fixed the things that need to be fixed as yet so that we can take the nice pretty thing but there is if you've been on our our website you've seen over on the right hand side right underneath the mp3 shopping cart the announcement of the debate with Greg Stafford is

Jesus God or a God and evangelical versus Jehovah's Witness debate Friday December 5th 2003

Tampa Florida and click here for tickets and information the the place where we are having the debate it's not a church for example so we are having to purchase the space so there are costs involved so there have to be tickets

I wish that we were you know a big well -funded ministry so that wouldn't have to be the case but we aren't and so you have to sell tickets and not only that we'd have to sell tickets or at least make tickets available for free even if there wasn't a cost you know why because there is a very limited seating we can only afford to rent so much space and so I'm not exactly sure what the seating limitation is but you're going to need a ticket and if you're planning on attending you want to go to the website you will want to go to Tampa debate that html .org

and you're going to want to look at the information there Hyatt Regency Tampa Bay to 11

North Tampa Street the date time Michael Fallon's contact numbers are available there as well admission is $13 in advance 15 at the door if you are a part of the cruise you will not have to pay for that you will not have to purchase tickets the tickets will be available made available to you but if you're planning on going but you're not going on the cruise then you need to have the tickets and there is a link for you to click here and order your tickets online you need to do that and since seating is limited do not put that off if you want to be there live obviously we are going to be audio and videotaping this encounter because it's a very important I can tell you right now that most of the discussion is not going to be if I'm predicting correctly so much on specific passages of scripture as my presentation

I would like it to be but more upon the objection that to even discuss such things as persons or being or things like that you're having to import unbiblical categories into biblical passages so on and so forth

Mr. Stafford has enunciated a form of you know the ism and of course we've always said that Jehovah's Witnesses dance with you know the ism the idea of a major God with lesser gods beneath him rather than pure historic biblical monotheism and I think some people are going to be a little bit surprised that we are going to have to deal with I'm going to have to present a biblical defense of absolute ontological monotheism but I'm going to have to and I've done that with Mormons in the past but I'm going to have to do so in this in this presentation as well so I guarantee you one thing you will have not seen a more intensely disputed debate than this one

Mr. Stafford is going to be very well prepared he's an excellent speaker it's not going to be like some of the debates that I've had

I can think of some debates Salt Lake City where to borrow to borrow

Rush Limbaugh's famous lines I could have engaged that debate with half my brain tied behind my back and it wouldn't have been much of a challenge that's not going to be the case here

Mr. Stafford is not going to sit back and go wow never thought that before I'm not going to up there doing cross -examination going so what do you think about John 644 and then there's silence you hear crickets in the background you hear your arteries hardening and then you hear someone say

I don't know that's not going to happen I can guarantee you that in fact when you once you sit down and this thing starts and we begin the presentations it will be non -stop and not only will the two participants be exhausted by the time this thing's over mentally and physically exhausted but the audience unless you like bring a crossword puzzle and turn your mind off your brain off and if you're or unless you just completely you can care less about the issue of of the deity of Christ then you're going to be exhausted to you are you are really if you're really into it that's going to be a big night so that's coming up on December 5th

Friday December 5th 2003 Hyatt Regency in Tampa Bay pray for that debate pray for me

I have got so much stuff between now and then it is not even funny just just more than I can even begin to attempt to explain to you so I'm going to be my back is definitely against the wall so we could use your prayers and just pray that nothing will get in way the way of the debate either there's a certain issue that just just pray the

Lord will make everything work out so that everything comes together and everything takes place in fact

I understand that Sam in Chicago wants to ask about the debate so we might as well go ahead and bring

Sam on and is this is this is this Sam Sam the man well some debate whether I'm the man but Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam if you got out of hand

I need to put him in his place well you know big Sam could do that so any anyway so As I understand it,

I will be taking the affirmative, so I've taken the The the tougher of the two roles

And so I'm going to have the opportunity of first presenting my case and so I have a feeling though, the only way that Mr.

Stafford could really explain his arguments is that he has to develop his position to some point.

And once he does so, then I can force further development beyond that.

Obviously as you know Sam, Mr. Stafford and his colleagues and associates,

I think one of whom I unfortunately had to kick out of the chat channel a few weeks ago because we've run into him before and he was being dishonest with us, but you know the basic e -pologists out there, the electronic

Jehovah's Witness apologists. One of the main approaches that they use involves a tremendous amount of writing and language that is very difficult to transfer that into a debate situation.

And so I could be wrong. There may be deep development of particular passages.

There may be some deep exegesis of some key statements, but I would probably assume that instead of that happening, there will be in both presentations all sorts of references to various and sundry passages.

And then the key issues could be in the cross -examination, the foundational issues that give rise to the system of hermeneutics that both sides have used.

And so it's going to be very demanding for the people in the audience. It's going to be hard for the people, let's put it this way, the people there are going to want to get the videotape or the

DVD. I would imagine Mr. Stafford will probably put out a DVD and review it more than once because it's not going to be the type of thing that you can grab in a very short period of time.

Now, you have so much to accomplish. What is the time allotted to each speaker? You know,

I'd have to go back and look. I do have that information someplace.

I'm honestly not certain right now exactly what it is. Unfortunately, again, and this is the case wherever you are, you only have a certain amount of time.

And so I would assume that the debate is probably formatted pretty much the same as the debates on Long Island to where they fit within right up to a three -hour time period.

All right. Well, if anyone can do it, Dr. White, it's you, by the grace of God. Well, we're going to do our best and we're going to, you know,

I hope it's very useful to folks. And I'll be very interested to see where people come from because Tampa is not exactly centrally located as far as the continental

United States is concerned. And, in fact, Stafford will be coming from farther away than I will be. And so at least

I – well, actually, is that – am I wrong about that? I think he's in San Diego. Okay, yeah. So he'll be coming from a little bit farther away than I will.

So it's a long ways away for all of us, but it'll be interesting to see because I know we've got folks that will be coming from California.

Yeah, we'll be coming from Chicago and we'll be bathing you in prayer. I appreciate it, sir. You're a soldier of the Lord. Keep up the great work.

Thank you, Sam. Take care. All right. Thank you. 23341.

Don't forget, if you want to be there, the link is on our website, aomin .org. You need to take a look at it and order your tickets.

By the way, one other thing, just especially since we have weird people who listen to this program, and I mean that in a nice way, it's sort of like the people in our chat channel.

They're all weird too. Some are more weird than others. And one of the weird folks in our channel who wears plaid most of the time has twice now,

I think this is the second time, has put together a reprint of a very important book.

Some of you may recall back in March, I think, of this year, I did a presentation on the issue of the

Apocrypha. And it was supposed to be a debate, but the person who was going to be debating me didn't show.

And one of the books that I referenced a number of times was a book by Roger Beckwith titled

The Old Testament Can and the New Testament Church. And he has to have a certain number of them.

It's out of print. It's just not available. And so to make it available, he has had a certain small number reprinted.

I believe he has 15 copies left. Now, obviously, when you do a small printing of a book, you don't get a good price on it.

I mean, when the book was originally in print, hardback version, it probably cost new, it may have been $25 or $30,

I don't know. But the reprinted edition, and this is one of the best books available on the subject.

A lot of folks have trouble tracking it down anywhere. He has them for $50. Now, you can buy all sorts of,

I've had to buy many, many, many books for well over $50. If you've ever been to a seminary or Bible college, you know that that's not all that outrageous.

Any college textbook is going to cost you that much or more these days. And so those are available, and I'm not sure exactly how he would like to make those available to you.

You can certainly come into our chat channel and ask about it, and we can tell you who it is that's making them available.

Or I suppose you could drop us a line at the ministry, and we could forward that to him.

And since I know he's in channel right now, but I don't know if he's listening, maybe he'll let me know that I can give you the email address where you can contact him.

But if you've been looking for a copy of Roger Beckwith's The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, it's a very scholarly work, very in -depth work on the issue of the, well, it's not so much the issue of the

Apocrypha, but it contains a tremendous amount of information regarding how the Jews and Christians viewed the issue of the canonicity of the

Old Testament. And so there are about 15 copies left available, and so I just wanted to let folks know about that.

He needs to make them go away. He doesn't need 15 copies. He has his own now.

And lots of other folks have been able to get hold of that because he goes through the effort of having that done.

So he's got about 15 copies left, and this is probably, yes, you can give my email to folks. Okay. And so I will then ask the obvious question, and what email address would you like to have given to those who would like to get hold of you?

And I am now doing the proverbial stretching until there it is.

Okay. If you would like, there's only 15 of them, so if you would like to get hold of Roger Beckwith's work,

The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, you can contact E. Nielsen, E -N -I -E -L -S -E -N, at mah -online .com.

E. Nielsen, N -I -E -L -S -E -N, at mah -online .com. And that way you can get your copy and work it out, and he'll be a happy camper, and Mrs.

E. Nielsen will be a happy camper too, which is the main reason that I did that, because I fear Mrs. E.

Nielsen very much. She's a nurse, and just don't cross her.

It's not worth it. Anyway, I wanted to get into, and will hardly have time to,

I don't see any other phone calls on the screen, so I wanted to get into an article that appeared a number of months ago.

Actually, I don't even know when it was originally posted. Maybe there's a date down here. Nope, nope,

I don't see a date for the posting anywhere. I suppose you could look at the code or something like that and figure it out from there.

But John Gee is a LDS scholar and apologist.

I understand his primary field of expertise is Egyptology. In fact,

I remember I've corresponded once or twice with Dr. Gee, and both times it's been a very distasteful experience.

I have not found him to be a very kind person to correspond with.

In fact, he's one of those folks that for some reason, when he wants to insult you, he will write an email to somebody else in which he insults you and then cc it to you, which

I find absolutely juvenile personally. I don't understand that kind of thinking, but that's what's happened.

For example, once, I'm not sure how long ago this was, but one of my, and this is the screen name, my

AOL screen name that's in my book, so it's not like it's a secret. Whenever I use it, whenever I go online using it,

I get all sorts of AOL instant messages and everybody wanting to ask questions and all the rest of the stuff. Orthopodeo is a

Greek verb that means to walk in accordance with a rule, to walk straight, to walk without variation.

There's some discussion as to where the emphasis lies in the verb, but it's used in Galatians when

Paul says that Peter and the others were not walking straight in accordance with the truth of the gospel. And so I get this email from John Gee, and it wasn't even written to me.

It was written to somebody else, but it was cc'd to me. And it just contains this little insult like he probably doesn't even realize that that form does not appear in the

New Testament. Well, I used the lexical form, the first person singular form.

I didn't use the inflected form as it appeared in Galatians because I was talking about it as a motto, as a creed.

I want to walk straight in accordance to the truth of the gospel. And so that's the kind of person that at least

I've experienced him to be. Now, obviously, to his friends, he may be just marvelous and wonderful, and he may come over and shovel the snow out of your driveway, if he lives in such a place where you have that kind of stuff that falls out of the sky.

I wouldn't know. I live in Phoenix. But anyway, I don't know. But my experience has been rather negative.

And an article was pointed out to me, I think, by someone in the chat channel. In fact,

I find a lot of these articles because of folks in the chat channel. And it's called,

The Corruption of Scripture in the Second Century. And it is, again, a wonderful example,

I think, of the vast difference that exists between those who love the word of God, obey the word of God, hear

God speaking in his words, and those who have to, in one way, shape, or form, denigrate, downplay, subjugate

Scripture to some external authority. Which, of course, is exactly what takes place when we are talking about Mormonism, and in a more subtle fashion, when we're talking about Roman Catholicism.

And, of course, Mormonism's attacks on Scripture are considerably more open and vitriolic than many of the other groups are.

And if you were to read this article, it's posted to the fairlds .org website. And, of course, it contains lies about me and personal attacks.

And that's common. There's nothing new about that when you can't deal with arguments, you just attack people and you lie about them.

But, be that as it may, I found it very interesting because it does attempt to touch upon the issues of...

In fact, I was just realizing, we actually looked at this on the air, did we not, just very briefly, about...

how long ago was that? It was right here on the Dividing Line. Tired of Utah called in. Mike called in and gave this reference.

And we talked a little bit about it online. I just remembered that's how we ran into it. It was right here on the Dividing Line. As if everybody listening right now listens to every single possible one, you wouldn't probably know that.

But, it's an excellent example of the kind of rhetoric that is used to attempt to undercut the authority of Scripture.

And I want to spend some time looking at it and giving responses to it because it is, as I said, an excellent example of the means by which this can take place.

It starts off quoting from First Nephi and the stuff about many plain and precious things.

Plain and precious truths have been removed from the Scriptures. And the article breaks down into the assertion that because of citations from the early writings of the second century, the first assertion is that the

Scriptures in possession of people such as Ignatius or Clement when he wrote to the

Church of Corinth, that the text of the Scriptures which they had was substantially different than the text of Scripture which we have today.

And this is a very effective argument for those who have not read Clement. I mean, let's face it. I would estimate that 99 .85

% of all Protestants, well, let's even wipe that out, of all conservative evangelicals have never read

Clement's epistle to the Church of Corinth. And of course, as I've said many times, Roman Catholicism, that is a traditional name.

There's no name attached. It's just simply a letter from the elders of the Church of Rome to the

Church at Corinth. But there are a number of citations in the letter that make people go, wow,

I didn't know that. Well, that's because no one ever discusses these things. When was the last time you've ever heard a discussion of any patristic writings in almost any sermon in almost any conservative evangelical church?

It doesn't happen. So you're automatically utilizing resources. And have we not seen this?

Have we not seen the twisting of these resources, these writings, in Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic apologetics, in Jehovah's Witness apologetics?

It seems that, especially since there is such a wide variety of opinion expressed in those documents, that they are just the perfect place to go and pull it out and say, see, they said this.

So, and then here's this unexpressed conclusion, since they said this, then you should give this a certain level of credence.

Well, why? Why? I mean, people don't think through what value and weight any of these particular writings should be given.

And so, that's the first presentation. There's this stuff from Clement of Alexandria and so on and so forth.

And we don't have some of these books anymore and some of the things they say just aren't there anymore. Then we have accusations of corruption.

And I found it strange that one of the things cited here, especially since it's well known, that Marcion hacked up the canon and hacked up texts like Luke and things like that because of his forms of Gnosticism.

But I found it very strange that John Gee would cite 2 Peter 3, verses 15 through 16.

Because there, Peter talking about things written, Paul's writing in his epistles, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest or distort, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.

It strikes me as strange that that would be presented in such a way as if it had something to do with the written form.

And then you have this whole section. Farms scholars are really into this secret nature, this alleged secret nature of ancient

Christianity. The most sacred teachings of Jesus were not committed to writing, but reserved for a close few.

Indicative of this are the 53 parables of Jesus preserved in the Gospels, of which only 3 have interpretations. All the interpretations being given behind closed doors to a chosen few, those so privileged to receive this hidden treasure of knowledge, prized most highly, but shared it with few, if any, others.

All meant to draw a parallel, in case you're wondering why Mormons would do this, to the concept of the temple. And the fact that there are things that you can discuss only in the temple.

Well, if you know what things are discussed only in the temple, you would recognize very, very quickly it has absolutely, positively nothing to do with the

Gospel truths anyways. But that's the attempt. And then Clement of Alexandria talking about the

Capuchrations and all the rest of that kind of stuff. That's very well known to folks,

Tertullian's discussions. Then methods of corruption. You have Rufinus and Rufinus' changing of origin.

Somehow that's relevant to how the scriptures would be done. And then motivations for manipulating the text.

And then finally the manuscript evidence. That's where a cheap shot is taken at me, a lie is posted, and so on and so forth. But the attempt to downgrade the actual evidence for the

New Testament. All of this, interestingly enough, showing a tremendous amount of hypocrisy in regards to the text of the

Book of Mormon, which we have tremendous amounts of information about its corruption. But this is how it all breaks down.

And since we've run out of time for the program today, I will make note to point out why it is fundamentally that this argumentation collapses on each one of these major points when we join with the

Dividing Line on Thursday. And remember, please make a note of this, Thursday evening, we normally start at 5 o 'clock.

Our time here in Arizona, we're starting at 4 for the foreseeable future. So that's 7 o 'clock

Eastern Standard Time. Right now it's still 4 o 'clock in the Pacific Standard, I'm sorry,

Pacific Daylight Time. But at the end of October, that will change over to 3 o 'clock at that particular period of time, which also puts us into direct competition, unfortunately, with the

Bible Answer Man broadcast. So we're working on coming up with some other way of doing this.

Maybe we'll have to go to two morning programs, I don't know. But we'll work out something somewhere along the lines.

Thanks for listening today. Thanks, Sam, for listening out there. And for everybody else, do pray for those debates and all the writing and ministry that's going on.

We appreciate your support of Alpha and Omega Ministries and the Dividing Line and hope that what we do here makes your day one in which you can be a better servant of our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We'll see you Thursday afternoon. God bless. AOMIN .org