Road Trip DL from Baton Rouge

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:02

My name is

00:33

James Wayne, coming to you live from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where it's raining outside.

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I guess that happens in Baton Rouge once in a while. Actually they said they've been really dry here for a while, so they're actually happy to see the rain.

00:47

I am just giving thanks to the folks at First Baptist Church.

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Brian Gunter is the pastor there, where I will be speaking this evening, and I need to let folks know where that is, because it's amazing how many people show up at stuff because they heard about it on the dividing line.

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So if you happen to be in the area, First Baptist Church is at 29401, 29401

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South Frost Road in Livingston, Louisiana, 29401 South Frost Road, Livingston, Louisiana, 630 tonight and tomorrow night.

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I'm going to be doing my Reliability of Scripture tonight and my

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King James discussion tomorrow night. We had thought about switching those around, reason being a lot of churches still have, down south especially, have

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Wednesday night services. And so we wanted folks, look, if you are a

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King James advocate and you've heard all sorts of terrible, horrible things about me, why don't you come out and see if I really do have horns on me.

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I've got no place to hide them, but why don't you come out and listen and consider what is said.

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And so we thought about reversing it, but honestly it just did not make any logical sense to do so, because I would have had to have been repeating so much stuff.

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This way I can talk about where the Bible came from, history of the text, and then make application to the subject of translation, because honestly really the key

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King James issues are what I'll be talking about tonight. They are the history of the text, how the text has been transmitted to us, it hasn't been transmitted to us in the way that most

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King James only advocates would pretend, as if there has always been the good text and the bad text, and the

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Antioch versus Alexandria and all that stuff. It's just not true, it's just not how it happened in history.

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And in fact, the vast majority of the textual history of the Bible took place when the

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English language did not exist. So, we'll be doing reliability this evening, and of course, that's relevant to everything, absolutely everything.

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I mean, think about, we've already done the debate report between myself and Dr.

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Coles on gay Christianity. What was sort of a given in that context, that we, that Paul actually wrote the word arsenequoita at 1

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Corinthians chapter 6, verses 9 through 11, and the way that many people think, we have no idea what

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Paul wrote, that the transmission of the text is so unreliable that who knows what words he wrote.

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Well, no, we do know what word he wrote there. There really isn't any question about it, but how do we know that?

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What was the method that God used to communicate these divine truths and to preserve?

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There's a beautiful methodology that God has used to preserve his word.

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And the more I study it, the more in love I fall with the Bible. And so,

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I'll be talking about that tonight at First Baptist Church, 29401

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South Frost Road in Livingston, Louisiana. Same presentation I've given for 20 years, but it gets updated as things go along.

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And so, if you're in the area, please come by as we talk about these things.

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I think I showed this. We did the dividing line live from G3.

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And by the way, Rich did a lot of work to make that happen. A lot of people don't see that stuff behind the scenes, but our booth at G3 was right in the corner.

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I don't know which directions were which there, but we were right in the corner of the display area where everybody had their booths and stuff.

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We need to get a larger booth next year. And we were right next to an area where you could get those little personal pizzas.

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You could have some food there. And there was actually a curtained off area for speakers to go to be able to eat back there.

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Not that there was any food back there, but you could get some of that kind of stuff and then go eat. And so, there was a stage and then one of the big, huge...

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I don't know how many of those they had. I didn't count. I would have had plenty of time to count, but I didn't.

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These big, huge screens. And they were showing the conference on those screens.

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And Virgil Walker came up with the idea, and I think he ran it by Josh Weiss, who said, yeah, do it. We set up to do the dividing line live on that stage.

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So, as soon as Phil Johnson was done, we started the dividing line and the crowd just grew.

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We ended up having at least 400 people. A lot of people just standing around the outside listening in. And I was just reminiscing about debates, 40 years of ministry, stuff like that.

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So, I think I showed this. If I didn't, I'm going to show it again and cause many people to covet.

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But that's what advertising is. But, yes,

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I know I'm on air. The on -air thing started flashing at me up there. I'm not sure why. Anyhow, excuse me.

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I caught a whiff of my vibe. So, no, exactly.

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Oh, that leather. Oh, my goodness. Some of you will recognize this.

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This is the Johnny Cash. Now, I hadn't really seen this developing.

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There was probably a story. I'm not sure. I haven't asked Jeffrey how he came to do this. But this is a

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Bible all in black. So, you have the five solas. There's a pretty cross on the front.

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Even what I asked him to put on the front, which is Reformed Biblicist.

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Yes, my Bible says Reformed Biblicist right there. It's all in black.

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The page edges are in black. The ribbons are in black. It's the man in black,

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Johnny Cash. So, it's the Johnny Cash edition. And this is the new.

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And the guys doing the LSV, they know what to do. They are cranking out the versions.

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Not versions. Editions. Printings. So, this is the new giant print.

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And I am thankful for giant print. I really am. It's beautiful.

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And it's actually readable to me. And it is the LSV giant print.

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Johnny Cash. From Jeffrey Rice. Post -Tenebus Luxe Bible rebinding.

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I love it. It's beautiful. I will be using it for years and years to come.

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That will be my preaching Bible. Because I can read it. Without having to use my

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Jim Kirk's. And I use that phrase. I do want to mention this.

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In my sermon at G3, I used that phrase about my

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Jim Kirk's. And I wondered if anybody was going to catch it. And a number of people came up to me and said they had.

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If you are familiar with the Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan. Not the second series

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Star Trek. Which was an interesting movie too. But the original cast, Wrath of Khan. When the

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Enterprise has been damaged, Kirk is having to look something up. And he has to get reading glasses out.

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And I've always thought, look, if McCoy can give a lady a pill.

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And she regrows a liver or something. Or a kidney or something. You haven't fixed presbyopia?

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What's that? I mean, we're close to doing it. You can actually get eye drops now that help you with this type of stuff.

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But anyway, he puts these things on. And it's all about aging, getting older, and maturing. So I can read my

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Johnny Cash LSB giant print. With Reformed Biblicist on the front. Without my

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Jim Kirk's. So beautiful Bible. You can get them from Post Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding.

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They ain't cheap. They ain't cheap. Nope. That's not a cheap Bible. But it will last you a lifetime.

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And it's beautiful. So I got that. So anybody on social media knows that G3 took place last weekend.

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And, of course, I came there straight from the debate. I had a number of people come up to me and say they had listened to the debate while they were driving to G3 and stuff like that.

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And had very positive comments to make. I think a lot of people are realizing, having listened to that debate, that this particular issue is significantly more pressing and complicated than most people thought.

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And that's just true. I've said the church has been behind the ball, behind the curve, on this subject for 20 years.

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And there's sort of an inertia. We're just getting up to speed is tough. And the development of positions, the movement of positions, the movement of people from one position to another position, it makes it difficult to know who's on what side and who's saying what.

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And it's challenging. But there are a lot of people that said, a couple of people, especially people

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I respect, had said, we're awful glad that James was doing that debate.

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Well, I can think of a number of other people that could do it just as well. But I appreciate the kind words.

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So I had to hotfoot it from Mannheim, Pennsylvania, where I preached in the morning and then

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I had to go to get to Atlanta. Partly, and I give thanks to Chris Arnzen for this,

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Chris had caught me. I was talking with him and I kept saying Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, about the brief conference.

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And he's like, it's not Thursday, it's Wednesday. And so I looked at the reservations I had made and I would have missed the pre -conference.

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I would have been coming in on Wednesday afternoon, a little bit after I was supposed to be there. So I had to redo my reservations and that meant changing everything and having to drive farther and faster and something like that.

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Well, faster, farther. And so anyway, I got in on Tuesday evening.

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I stayed at Praise Mill Baptist Church, Josh Bice's church, and then drove in because for the first year, and she couldn't do this in the past, normally because she was working.

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My wife worked full -time for years and years and years for three different airlines and they kept merging.

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And she was never a flight attendant. She never flew. She was always in reservations and then in management reservations and then moved over to baggage toward the end of her career.

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And then lost her job thanks to COVID. American Airlines fired 40 ,000 people because of COVID, which actually was just simply a big cost -saving thing for them.

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They just fired all the people that were getting close to retirement that didn't want to pay those high salaries. So anyway,

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I wanted Kelly to come to G3.

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We've been married for 41 years and lots of people wondered, who is this woman that has been able to put up with James White for four decades?

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And because I don't talk a lot about her, especially if she was working for American Airlines, that's not exactly un -woke, but any major corporation is woke these days.

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And so we worked it out and she flew in on Wednesday.

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She caught, I don't know, about half of the Q &A in the pre -conference when she got there.

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And so I stayed at the hotel there, at the thing with her until Saturday when she flew out and I drove back to Praise Mill and then left from Praise Mill on Sunday.

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And it was just so wonderful to get to have her there. And I could tell at first she wasn't exactly sure what to do.

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I just wanted her to get to here. Because some of you know something happened afterwards and it's all worked out for the best, but you need to understand.

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We're not exactly sure which G3 I started at. My daughter says it's 2014.

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The archives say my first recorded message is in January of 2015. Whenever, I don't know,

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I don't remember. G3 used to meet at Praise Mill and then moved to Convention Center when it got bigger and bigger and bigger.

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And so especially once we were in a situation where now people are setting up booths and some people had booths at Praise Mill, but there's obviously just very limited space.

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We didn't have any of that there, though I certainly made myself available to talk to people in that context too.

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But once there were booths, then Rich decided, well, we need to have a booth there, everybody else's.

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And we made the commitment to meet people. Now I've always done that. I have pictures, for example, after the

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Trent Horn debate, after the Adnan Rashid debate, which were pre -debates at G3, of lines stretching halfway across one of those huge Convention Center rooms where after having debated for three hours,

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I then stood for an hour and a half, two hours, and greeted people afterwards.

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And anybody who's seen my debates knows that's what ends up happening. Afterwards, there's lengthy discussions and pictures and book signings, not

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Bible signings. I don't sign Bibles. I say it to everybody, if you sign my Bible, sorry,

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I didn't write it. It just makes me feel creepy to sign Bibles. I know other people do. It's just a thing.

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Anyway, we made the commitment that Rich and I did, that we were going to meet our supporters at these get -togethers.

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And so for years now, I will spend hours.

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Now you've got to understand something. G3 treats its speakers well. There's a green room.

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There's catered food. And you're talking really nice food. I mean, all sorts of breads and sometimes steak and fried chicken and fish and all this stuff.

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And you can have lunch and dinner in these special rooms. Kelly and I had that first lunch.

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No. Was it the first lunch or first dinner? No, she would have gotten it.

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That would have been the first dinner. So we actually had dinner in that room on Wednesday.

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That was the only time we did it. After that, I would come down in the morning to the booth.

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And my sincere thanks to all the guys, you know who you are, that work so hard to put the booth together and helping people get the shirt.

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I should have put that shirt on. Sorry. I just literally drove back from picking up the truck.

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We had some maintenance done here. I'm very thankful again to Dr. Anyways, I know he's working on his demon, but Pastor Gunter.

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Fellow in his church arranged. I got some bad diesel and she was running a little rough for a while.

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It pretty much almost all cleared up, but I wanted to have that checked. And there was a vibration between 69 and 72 miles per hour.

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So I want to get an alignment done. And they got it all set up for me.

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Get into a GMC dealership. It was great. You come to Louisiana and you discover that people down here are really nice.

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They really are. They work with you in so many different ways. So I just got back just a few minutes ago from picking my truck up.

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And by the way, a member in the church lent me. His 2024

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GMC Denali HD. Which is the high end.

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Current edition of my truck. I've got a 2021 84. And man, why?

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Only has like 2 ,600 miles on it. And it's got every bell and whistle.

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It's, you know, the driving assist stuff. And it's the screen on this thing is two and a half times.

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Two and a half times bigger than the screen I have in mind. It's huge. It's easy on the eyes.

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That's for sure. It's beautiful, beautiful truck. So I had, I had to pick up the pastor, drive to the dealership.

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Let him drive that really nice truck back. Well, I got mine, which is a really nice truck too. And I just got back.

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So we're sort of rushing stuff. Like I said, I've got, I'm speaking in two hours here.

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And so we're sort of running around. And so I didn't have time to do a whole lot of prep. All the guys that did everything, putting the, putting the stuff together.

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And the shirt is really neat shirt. I should have, I want, I was going to have mine sitting here. I forgot.

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I apologize. It will be available for sale. They've made this super neat shirt that has all of my debates.

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Well, all of the last two. I mean, you have to make the shirt sometime. On the back, you know, like those tour shirts that, that bands have.

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Or, you know, the, the rock in America tourism like that. And then you've got all the cities they went to.

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Now this is a small font because there's 180 debates. It's got the,

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I think the topic, the opponent and the date on it. And we,

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I, I don't even know if we sold out of them or not, but we, we were moving a lot of, a lot of product there, shall we say?

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And so we've got, you know, these guys spent all this time to set this up and I come in the morning and when

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I go to G3, if I have to go someplace, I just have to say, sorry, sorry, because people want to stop and take pictures and things like that.

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I've got to get to the booth. Then the line forms. And for a while on Thursday, Jeff Durbin was there because the

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EAN booth was kitty corner from ours. And we had the place almost locked up.

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Between our two lines, you could hardly get around. And people for days would line up.

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There were, there were, I don't know how many hands I shook. I didn't take, I didn't count.

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I don't know how many pictures I took. I don't know how many books I signed. But we spent hours and hours and hours to the point where my right leg would start getting numb.

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A couple of times, I sat down in a chair. People had to kneel down next to me to take pictures because I was just, I was out.

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And then eventually, I am over 60 years old, guys. I got to use the restroom. And so what we do is we'd have, normally we'd have

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Chris Wisenant. And this is, this is what servanthood is. He'd go stand at the back of the line.

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And then when someone got behind him and said, sorry, we need to close this line down. Dr. White needs to go.

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I'm not sure he said he needs to go in that context, but he'll be taking a break or he's got to go do something else, whatever it was, because I did have other things to do.

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I had to, I recorded a webcast with Way of the

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Master. And I recorded something for G3. So I had places I had to go at certain times to record things.

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And then of course I was speaking, you know, you'd have to go to behind where they mic you up and put the microphones on you.

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And so you have to be there a certain time so you can be ready to go out and all that kind of stuff. And then you'd have the

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Q &A things in the afternoon too. So I spent a huge amount of time, even after we did the dividing line, which was after five o 'clock,

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I did another hour of greeting people. If I shook any less than 1200 hands,

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I'd be shocked during that time period. And that also meant that we didn't take advantage of the really neat food that they offered.

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So our guys would go get Chick -fil -A in the, in the big honking tent outside.

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And we'd go over that spot over there and sit down and eat. Even then people would come in there.

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They'd go behind the curtain, drag us down while eating, to take a picture or ask me to sign a book or whatever else it might be.

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That's not, that's going a little bit too far. The only thing worse than that is asking me to do that in the bathroom.

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But there were simply times that you have to say, I need to take a break. I need to go someplace else.

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But we have just made the commitment from the beginning to, to be G3 is when we meet people, we are there primarily to meet people.

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And I do the best I can, as far as the amount of time I invest in, in doing that kind of stuff.

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So we did have a situation. And like I said, it turned out well, someone felt

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I was rude because they came up after we had shut the line down and said, you know, sorry, can't ask questions.

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Got to, got to go. And everywhere that I went that happened everywhere that I went that, that type of thing took place.

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And so in fact, I want to, I want to pull something up here and show you something.

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We had a situation where someone complained about that. It really hurt me at the time because I honestly believe

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I spent, I, every year I spend more time in the area where the booths are meeting people and making myself accessible to any other plenary speaker.

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I don't think there's anybody that does that more than I do. So to sort of be slandered that you shouldn't be a conference speaker because you're being rude to people.

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It, it, it, it bit, it, it really bit hard. And so we had, you know,

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I explained all that. And it took a couple of days, but the gentleman apologized and Hey, we're

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Christians. We, we have to extend forgiveness to one another, and it's all turned out well.

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And people thanked him for being, for apologizing and stuff like that.

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So it ended up working, working out. That's something we've just done every, every year and when that opportunity comes up.

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So Kelly and I were walking through the bookstore.

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I think on might've actually, might've even been

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Saturday morning. Anyways, we're walking through the bookstore and there's some sections of seats set up in there.

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It's shorter to go through the bookstore to get back to the hotel. And I noticed,

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I, I could hear one of the adults saying this young girl, they saw us coming.

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They recognized me. And it was sort of like, there's Dr. White.

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And, and so I could tell you sort of encouraging her to do something. And so we, we went ahead and stopped.

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And the volume is low. I have no idea how to control it.

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Oh, that, Oh, I didn't, I didn't hit the, I didn't hit the presets. Yeah, it is low.

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And well, everybody's turning their speakers up. I don't know what to do about that.

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And if I do something about it now audio, audio sorry, don't know what to do about that here.

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I just turned it up a little bit. I think here, I turned it off. I don't know that we can do about now we're we're a half an hour in.

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So we'll maybe we can fix something later.

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I don't know. But make a long story short. I, we stopped and this young lady, she she opened up a notebook and she tore this out and gave it to me.

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And so here's now there's no name or anything on it. So I don't, I don't know who this was, but I wanted to show this.

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That's the G3 pulpit. And that's exactly what it looked like. And we had it's really nice blue background. If you've seen any of the video.

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And so there's, there's me preaching. I'm assuming that's my bow tie or something there.

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But that's me preaching that morning on Friday morning. So I guess it would have been on Friday.

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Maybe we're leaving. Yeah. I don't remember, but anyhow, you get, you get given that kind of stuff.

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And, and that's pretty, that's pretty special to, to get things like that.

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And so I took a picture of that and wanted to be able to keep that. So that's, that's exciting.

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That's that's that's neat to get a chance to do that and see things like that. So I wanted to show that to everybody real quickly.

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I, I showed on the dividing line last time, the time of possession graphic that someone at GBTS had created.

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I was just disappointed to discover that they, that they actually had not measured the time.

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So it was an estimate. So I had hoped that they'd actually measured the amount of time that I had talked and everybody else talked.

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And they were saying I talked twice as much as anybody else did as all of them put together to, but I, I think

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I'm assuming that the sessions will be made available eventually.

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I know they weren't live stream. I know that Owen Strand has taken a tremendous amount of heat for his comments in the pre -conference in regards to Stephen Wolf.

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I lack the interest to have to do all the digging through tweets and tweet threads and Facebook stuff and everything else.

30:24

I have encountered kinism. Of course I encountered kinism decades ago.

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But I have encountered it recently from people who would generally fall into what is this vague undefined

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Christian nationalism stuff going on. Though I think the vast majority of that is found amongst the hyper charismatic general

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Flynn type of stuff that's going on, you know, that big old tour they were doing and stuff that has zero theological formulation to it and all that kind of stuff.

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But the Q and A was when the friendly debate was supposed to take place.

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And I was, I was the only post -millennialist up there. And you could see how a lot of the differences did come back down to, you know, what your eschatology is.

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And that's just, that's just the way it was. So anyway,

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I thought that went really well for GBTS and the Q and A at the end really helped tie some things up.

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And then on Thursday I wasn't speaking. I thought it was gonna be pretty much just a greeting people day.

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And I had misread stuff. I actually had two things to record that day and was late for one of them. And so you'll be seeing some of that stuff once it, once it comes out.

32:08

And then on Friday morning was my plenary session and I spoke from Isaiah 41.

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We may have time to look at that here in a second and made a, made a technical mistake at the start.

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They were going to clip the headset.

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I didn't bring my own headset. I could have, and I think they would have let me use it. I just sort of assumed they wouldn't, but I think they would have.

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The sound guy listens to apology radio. So yeah, I think he would have let me do that. But it was bothering me during the whole thing.

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It kept slipping. And the wire would start going down. It would start pulling the microphone up. That's a, that's a pain.

32:54

That's not, that's not a problem you have with lavaliers. But everybody wants you to wear the

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Britney Spears microphones these days. So you sort of have to deal with it. But I focused on Isaiah 41, 21, the sovereignty of God in time.

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And once again, even though dealing with that from the Hebrew text directly,

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I tried to make it very pastoral. And a lot of people who talked to me about the sermon later that that's what they said.

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They, they were very appreciative for the practical application of the deeper theology that was, that was found there.

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And then that afternoon we had a Q and a session, but to be honest with you, it was just way too big.

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Pretty much everybody was up there. Steve Lawson, Paul Washer joined us.

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Eventually Vodie Balcom. I think they were like, eventually there were like 10 people up there.

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And that's just so diluted as far as the number of people that were there. But for a while,

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I was wondering if I was going to say anything at all. And Josh Vice commented to me personally later that they set a new record in that during the

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Q and a, it was like 27 minutes in before I said anything at all. And it's true.

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Eventually Virgil asked me a question. But, and of course it was the

34:27

Christian nationalism thing. I'm like, come on guys. Cause someone had, had in the pre -conference that identified me with that term.

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And I was like, no, wait a minute. I have talked about my reservations here a number of times.

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Anyway, so I didn't really say much there. And, but I do want to say one thing

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I should have queued it up, should have queued it up. I was going to queue it up and I apologize that I didn't.

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Let me see if just, you know, it's live radio and well, it's not radio.

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Why do you even call it radio? I thought somebody had put that on YouTube.

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Evidently not because it's not, it's not coming up.

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Huh? I saw it on Twitter. I know I saw it on Twitter. So that, that bothers me that it's, that's well, maybe

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YouTube isn't the first thing that they're going for. But I had seen a maybe

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Josh posted it. There's the sovereignty of God, lots of stuff there.

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The cessationist conference coming up. I'm sure that's gonna, here we go.

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Let me see if I can, if I can pull this up.

36:38

In the state of Louisiana, a few years back, it's a bill that was placed out for, you know, consideration that a great deal of support and it was on the full abolition of abortion.

36:52

And just before the vote, 70 pro -life organizations wrote a letter, including the national right to life that actually stood in opposition to the bill that would protect every life in the state.

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So guess what happened to the bill? It failed. That's the pro -life establishment.

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So I reject that type of thing. I stand for the full abolition of abortion. I think if we as the church would stand up and speak up and be clear about that and educate our church about that, we would see this cause advance across the nation.

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Yeah. Did you catch that? That must've been, that must've been what

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Josh heard too, because he mentioned to me, and I know that Jeff and Luke are going to be playing that full answer on Apology Radio this week as well.

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But Josh Weiss has stood with us in our work in Georgia with End Abortion Now in seeking the abolition of abortion.

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And he told me that there had been people coming up to him asking him, they said, it didn't seem like the other speakers supported you in what you said, but Josh heard what

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I just heard. And that is hearing me say, amen at the end of his answer.

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I could have jumped in and said something further. I just, again, when you have that many people in a

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Q and A, it just didn't seem appropriate to do so. But he knew that I was supportive of him in that because everything that Josh said there,

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I heard Jeff Durbin say from the pulpit at Apologia when he reported on what happened in regards to the

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Louisiana bill and, you know, Jeff's been doing battle with pro -life establishment for a long, long time because they do not believe the mother has any moral culpability before God.

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So in other words, the pro -life establishment has adopted the position that this isn't a gospel issue.

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There's no sin involved with the mother. So the gospel isn't the answer to the issue. It's only politics.

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See what happens when you go that direction. So it was great to hear that.

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That was exciting. I was excited that that happened during the Q and A. There wasn't all that much else during the

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Q and A that was all that exciting, that particular one. And so the one other thing

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I did want to say before I sort of finish up that thing over the past number of years,

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I've had a number of military guys who have come up to me. This has been going on for years and years.

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I've had so many guys who were deployed. We had a, we had a Navy SEAL there at G3 going back to Iraq and to the original invasion and stuff like it.

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So it's been a long time. This program has meant a lot and continues to mean a lot to military men and women, even as they're deployed.

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And I've had a lot of people come up to me and tell me about that. And it's always meant the world to me, but it seems like I had,

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I had a man again, came up in the line, waited in the line, came up in line at the booth and gave me this coin, this, you know, put on the full armor of God.

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It's, it's, I don't fully understand how these work, but they're coins given to people.

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It's not the first one I've been given. And so they clearly have special sentimental meaning to the military guys.

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I had one fellow within the past year and I still have them with me. Gave me a pair of dog tags, his dog tags.

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And it was always within the context of how much this program meant to them while deployed sort of a lifeline while away from their, their local churches and things like that.

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And so I wanted to mention that and be thankful for this kind of thing.

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I really do appreciate it. And you know, it means a lot to know that the ministry has been helpful like that.

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And so there you go. Okay. A couple of things real quick here.

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In November. Yes. John Cooper's new book,

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Wimpy, Weak, and Woke. How Truth Can Save America from Utopian Destruction.

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John Landrum Cooper, John Cooper of Skillet, Wimpy, Weak, and Woke. And I've written a little something for that particular book.

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And that comes out the 14th of November. He'll be on the dividing line the 16th of November to talk about the book, just like we had him on to talk about his first book when it came out.

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And so you're going to enjoy that. He names names. If you watch Cooper stuff, his webcast, you know that that he does name names, but he does so graciously.

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And yet, you know, I think with a good level of wisdom as well. So keep an eye out for that.

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Just wanted to mention. I just wanted to mention this. This this appeared yesterday or the day before yesterday.

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Good old Cody Liebold again. My son and you can see his son there is not overly elderly.

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He's probably older than that picture. My son already knows more about epistemology than John Frame, James White, Scott Oliphant, Greg Bonson or Cornelius Van Till ever knew.

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Shame on them for their culpable ignorance in making Jesus out to be a fairy tale. Now, I did respond to that.

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And my response was, first of all, I'm honored to be mentioned with John Frame, Scott Oliphant, Greg Bonson and Cornelius Van Till, all of whom have done far more for the kingdom in their life than certain other people have bothered to do themselves.

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But the idea that. We as a group and our culpable ignorance make

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Jesus out to be a fairy tale is just it's just a demonstration of how these Christian intellectuals have completely lost any sense of balance whatsoever.

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And they're not interested in trying to regain it. I mean,

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I know what the argument is, and it's it's an absurd argument, but it's the only argument they have.

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If you don't bow to the centrality of. Human sense experience and the kind of epistemology that does not begin with divine revelation, then all of the evidence for Jesus and, of course, any presupposition will present evidence for Jesus.

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What we won't do is grant to the rebellious, sinful man his autonomy to determine the validity of that evidence.

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But. I know what the argument is, and it's just so wildly absurd.

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But there are there are people who just guess what? There are people who lose their minds when they oppose reformed theology, and there are people who lose their minds and they they oppose what would be a reformed epistemology.

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And so, yeah, I sort of hoped over the years that there would be some growth and maturity balance amongst that group of young men, but it's not happening.

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It only seems to be a doubling down, which is a sad thing to see. But they're they're out there doing their thing.

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So in the last 15 minutes we've got, I wanted to.

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Oh, one dimension, because a lot of people at the conference didn't realize this. I know

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I've mentioned it, but. In February, we're doing five debates on one trip and for a while it looked like it was only before, but it's back to five because the debate with Leighton Flowers has been contracted.

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It will be March 7th, which I believe is a Thursday. So there'll be a day between the debate with Leighton Flowers on John 6 and the debate with Dale Tuggy on Is Jesus Yahweh?

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Couldn't possibly have two more separated topics, but that's how it's going to work out.

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So March 7th for that, March 9th, I believe, is the debate with Dale Tuggy. So a lot of people are really excited about that because.

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A number of the people who came up and greeted me during the conference at the booth mentioned the

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Leighton Flowers debate that that was important and they're becoming reformed and things like that.

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The nail in the coffin and stuff like that. And so then I told him on March 7th, we're debating again. They were just really excited.

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There was almost nobody who actually knew that that was going to be happening. So I was like, have we not announced that?

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We actually sort of need to put together a graphic, I think, for that entire trip, because that that needs to be something that people are praying about, because just physically surviving the distance, the driving,

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I'm going to be teaching at GBTS a full weekend. It's going to be a long trip with five debates, conference, class teaching.

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Yeah, that could be that could be a challenge. So we probably need to put together a graphic just so people can pray for that.

48:10

But I didn't want to necessarily talk about this too much before G3.

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But when I was when I was asked to to speak at G3 and it was on the sovereignty of God, I asked to be able to address the issue of the sovereignty of God in time.

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And I want to do so in light of a particular text that I've not seen a lot of focus upon.

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I've not heard a lot of people discussing it. I, I have mentioned it many times when

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I when I speak on the subject of the sovereignty of God, it's it's one of my central texts.

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I think one of the reasons that may not be as often addressed is that if you are taught in Old Testament theology and history in a modern context with the theory and stuff like that.

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The tendency is to look at poetic

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Hebrew, whether it's in the Psalter or what you have here in Isaiah as almost deuterocanonical on a lower canonical level.

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I mean, honestly, you go to most mainline seminaries and sadly, far too many.

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They're sponsored by fairly conservative denominations. And you will deeply imbibe the idea that the

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Old Testament is a self -contradictory, disparate, disconnected, badly edited work of material, that it's the idea of trying to derive serious theology from it.

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You shouldn't even try to do it. And obviously,

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I don't hold that view because Jesus didn't hold that view and none of the apostles held that view.

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And when you look at how they use the Old Testament, they certainly did not in any way denigrate poetic material.

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Just look at Psalm 22, look at Psalm 2, Psalm 110. They're all poetic. They're all poetry.

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And yet the New Testament sees them as absolutely central. So when

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I look at Isaiah 41, it says, bring near your case,

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Yahweh says, bring forward your mighty arguments, the King of Jacob says. Let them bring it forth and declare to us what is going to take place.

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As for the former events, declare what they were, that we may establish our heart on them and know their outcome.

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Cause us to hear what is coming. Declare the things that are to come afterward, that we may know that you are gods.

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Indeed, do good or evil. We may anxiously look about us and fear together. Behold, you are nothing and your work is non -existent.

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He who chooses you is an abomination. So I focused on 4120, that they may see and know and establish and gain insight as well.

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The hand of Yahweh has done this. The Holy one of Israel has created 4120 through 24. And the central element of the sermon was in verse 22.

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As for the former events, declare what they were, that we may, and the LSB says, establish our heart on them.

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It's the idea of contemplation. It's the idea of being able to examine something and come to conclusions, come to understanding, that we may establish our heart of them and know their outcome.

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Now this is in the context of the trial of false gods. Bring near your case, bring forward your strong arguments.

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He's letting the false gods present their case in the court of law. And the challenge then he gives to these idols is, tell us what happened in the past and why it happened.

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Again, modern theology doesn't think that these passages are sufficient to even address topics like this.

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You need to, let's go find Aristotle. He can help us with stuff like this. That's not how

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Jesus and the apostles viewed scripture. That's not how I view scripture. And I say, if God is going to challenge the false gods in the court of law to demonstrate their true deity, while he is actually demonstrating that he is the only true

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God, then his challenges must be taken very, very seriously. And he says he can tell us what happened in the past and why it happened.

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That means there is no purposeless evil. That means

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God is sovereign. That means there is a divine decree that forms the very fabric of time because what has happened in the past had a purpose and God knows what it is and he can reveal what it is if he wants to.

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He doesn't always do that, but he can because it has a purpose and someday will to his great glory, the praise of his glorious grace.

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That's what Ephesians one's about. And so there's just so many theological ramifications of this.

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But it's also so vitally important. Pastoral.

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Within the context of the critical care unit at the deathbed.

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This is this is where the sovereignty of God, this is this is the foundation of a

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Romans 828. The New Testament just doesn't come along.

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And without God ever having even suggested these things, just come up with something brand new in regards to God's sovereignty.

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When when God says he works all things after the counsel of his will, that's not some, wow, no one ever thought of that before.

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It's all through the Psalms. It's all through the Proverbs. It's all through Isaiah. It's all through Jeremiah. It's it's all through the the the prophets and Psalms and the entire all the writings there.

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But we often miss it. And so here's here's foundation and you get a brighter light, you get greater expression in the

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New Testament. But it's there. And so when we say that there is a purpose in all things, when we say that God is accomplishing his purpose in this world, we have a biblical foundation.

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Upon which to to make that claim. And it's found right here in God challenging the false gods do what only he can do.

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Only God can tell you with perfect accuracy what happened in the past, but more so.

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Why? Why did it happen? And that's in the context of tell us what's going to happen in the future, because that's the that's the oft repeated drumbeat challenge of the false gods.

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Tell us what's going to happen in the future. Because they can't. Why can't they? Because they're not sovereign over time.

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They're not working out a decree. But here's the one place, not the only place, but a clear place where, while that's true in the future, it's also true in the past.

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It's also a reality in the past that God's decree gives meaning to all of these things.

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And so I emphasize that. And then I also emphasize the danger of idolatry.

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The one who chooses you is an abomination. He who doesn't say that the idols are an abomination.

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It that's pretty clearly taught elsewhere. But. He who chooses you.

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The one who chooses these mute, dumb idols that cannot answer these questions, cannot tell anybody what's coming, cannot tell anybody what happened the past or why the one who chooses you, the idolater is himself.

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Toeva, an abomination, which obviously means that Toeva has a range of meanings and a range of applications, which is relevant to the fact that there are those who try to say.

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That when Toeva is used in Leviticus of homosexuality, that, well, it's really no worse than.

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You know, eating shellfish. No, it's it's bad. It's bad.

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And he who chooses you is Toeva in Isaiah 41. Is a announcement of judgment upon idolaters and idolatry.

58:53

It really is. So I, I think last year, if I recall correctly, it was.

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About two months after G3, when they all appeared on YouTube, they're available on the app, they want to get the app.

59:09

Fully understandable, but it was about two months, I think. May have been like six weeks, but before those sermons dropped and and they're all available now.

59:20

So I hope if you're interested in going more in depth in that discussion,

59:27

Isaiah 41, that you'll look that up later on. I did have my my

59:33

Johnny Cash up there, but I use that for the context.

59:38

I meant made reference to like Isaiah 44 and stuff like that. The context, but once I got into Isaiah 41,

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I was focused on that beautiful Hebrew text that, again, Jeffrey Rice did for me.

59:51

So I had to Jeffrey Rice rebinds there. I was using I posted a picture on Twitter of the two of them together and wonderful, wonderful tools, beautiful.

01:00:01

But I did not one stop to sniff them, which is probably probably a good thing.

01:00:08

Probably a good thing that I did not. So, all right. We are moving out of here.

01:00:16

And we again, 630 tonight. Reliability of Scripture. First Baptist Church gave the address before.

01:00:23

We will see you sometime on the way back. Depends on connectivity, stuff like that.