Being Consistently Reformed, Talking With Muslims

Well, greetings. Welcome to the Divine Line. We're back here in Phoenix, Arizona. We're about right at two months, actually. I think it'd be right around the 15th, 16th of October is when I'm heading back out again, if I recall correctly, looking at the calendar.

So, back here in the regular studios. Clearly, Rich has been playing with cameras. They're zoomed out. So, there's all sorts of stuff that you can see that you're not supposed to be normally seeing. But, you know, that's what happens.

When the cat's away, the mice will play. And at least not everything has changed completely, which sometimes happens when I go out of town. So, he's over there talking about stuff. Just a reminder, the raffle for this beautiful, melt-and-forged blade ends Sunday night.

You want this. Midnight Eastern Time. It has to be Eastern Time because that makes it 9 o 'clock our time so that Rich doesn't have to stay up late. That's really the reason for all that. So, this is a beautiful, beautiful blade.

You want this. And Rich wants it really, really bad. So, get your raffle tickets in. Great item there. Thanks very much to the very talented Derek Melton. That is, of course, to help with the travel funds and everything going on along there.

Also, I will remember to link this. You know how I know I'll remember to link this? Because I already typed it into the blog article. So, it'll be hard for me to forget it. Though I could probably still find a way to pull it off.

I keep forgetting to mention that Jason Wallace and AncientPazTV on YouTube has put out a new video on the Filioque Clause in regards to Eastern Orthodoxy. So, there's the lengthy video they did first.

And they did the one that we did the Make Lucaris Great Again hats for. And now, not as long as the first one, but a fairly lengthy video on the Filioque Clause. And again, just lots of history in regards to Eastern Orthodoxy.

There isn't much out there. So, being aware of that, I will try to remember to link to that on the program blog notes today. Okay, it's been interesting to see some of the commentary and discussion that has taken place since, well, a week ago yesterday.

Yeah, a week ago yesterday, Jared Longshore and I had our debate. And it was focused on the biblical evidence. At least, I wanted it to be focused upon the biblical evidence. And it seems like the... Well, let's put it this way.

If you guys want to win this discussion, what you need to do is either demonstrate that the connection that I have asserted, which I can provide lots of more evidence of, and certainly great theologians who've seen the same thing, the connection between Hebrews 7, 8, 9, and 10, that the argument on the New Covenant in chapter 8 is the Old Testament demonstration of the assertions of Hebrews 7.

That Jesus is able to save Aistop, Panteles, to the Edomos, those who draw nigh unto God by him. Why? Because he ever lives to make intercession for them. So, the newness of the New Covenant is then laid out as being forgiveness of sin, universal knowledge of God, and the writing of God's law upon the heart.

And the only way that you can do that is regeneration. Regeneration. So, what needs to be argued from the other side either is that I have misunderstood the relationship between 7, 8, 9, and 10, and the application, or an explanation of why this is not the central passage on this topic.

And I argued in the debate that I really think that my Presbyterian brothers would do well to get out of some of the echo chamber of Reformed theology and take this stuff to the streets. And what I mean by that is do some debates with some Roman Catholics on justification, on the mass.

I debated Roman Catholic a few weeks ago, I'll be debating Roman Catholic two months from now, a little over two months from now, on the mass. And, of course, I've been doing that for a long time. The first debate on the mass was with Mitch Packwood in January of 1991 over in San Diego.

And the reason I say that is that it really seems to me that while we would, I think, right now agree that Reformed folks, folks who are Reformed in their theology would go to the central chapters, 3, 4, and 5 of Romans to demonstrate justification by grace alone through faith alone.

That this is the longest single text that addresses this subject. And that this would have to, therefore, be the central place of argumentation if the debate topic basically is does the Bible teach this?

Now, with Roman Catholicism, you have to first establish the Bible needs to because if you have an ultimate authority outside of the text of Scripture, then you can get it from Pope Francis if you want, I suppose.

So, it would be hard to argue that there are not key central texts for all of the most important of our Christian doctrines. So monotheism, the trial of the false gods, Isaiah 40 -48, also God's omniscience, eternality.

Likewise, that section. And the key Christological texts, John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, Philippians 2, John 17, John 10, there are these lengthy discussions, the relationship of the Father and the Son, things like that.

And so, this is how we do these things, and when we look at the Old Testament and we see its usage in the New Testament. For example, Genesis 15 said its utilization by the Apostle Paul has to become normative for us.

It's central to his argument on justification in Romans 3, 4, and 5. And when Jews seek to dispute that, there are Jewish apologists that seek to dispute what Paul said there, what do they do? They attack the New Testament usage.

When there are Old Testament texts we use in the Deity of Christ, Unitarians, they attack the New Testament usage. This is why I say if you get out of that context and try to take some of this stuff to the street, then you start seeing how important this really is.

And so, I was sent a comment, Toby Sumter, who I'll see in a couple months as well, maybe, who knows, made a comment on Twitter, and basically what he did is he, our Presbyterian brothers have to defend the concept that the New Covenant is a mixed covenant that does not provide forgiveness of sins, regeneration, and the law written upon the heart to all who are in the New Covenant.

So as I said in the debate, they start with a theory of apostasy and define the New Covenant on the basis of the theory of apostasy. And I say if we are consistent, we start with the fuller, more central doctrine that is the nature of the New Covenant, the work of Christ, and build your doctrine of apostasy based upon those central affirmations.

And so I find it backwards to do it this way, and yet Toby had said, well, the New Covenant is only regented persons, but as Jerry pointed out, the phrase, from the least of them to the greatest is used elsewhere in Jeremiah to mean pervasive and not exhaustive.

Well, as I said, now the other two references, well, it's not identical language, but even the one in Jeremiah 6, is a completely different context. But aside from that, the issue is, is that how the writer of the Hebrews is interpreting it?

And so Tim Bushong, the famous Tim Bushong, of Radio Free Geneva fame, not that we have ever done a Radio Free Geneva about him, he's the one that does the Radio Free Geneva music, which means that he, my parents would not have liked him, because my parents thought that John Denver was too rockish.

Okay, so that gives you an idea of what my upbringing was like. But Tim Bushong, who has served in the CREC in the past, he's had connections there, so he knows, he knows these guys, loves these guys, but doesn't agree with these guys on this subject, responded, he said, here's the problem, the hermeneutic that returns to Jeremiah's original intention is inconsistent.

Example, in Romans 9, Paul quotes Malachi 1 -2, Jacob I love, but Esau I hated, specifically referring to the nations of Israel and Edom. However, in Romans, Paul is speaking of an individual's election to salvation, God's purpose of election might continue because of him who calls, and all of us covenantal reformed folks rejoice.

That's apostolic interpretation, where the apostle, writing inspired words, takes the Old Testament and casts it in light of its new covenant application. The author of Hebrews says the exact same thing, building upon the perfection of the work of Christ, and the perfection of that work for all in union with Christ, he quotes Jeremiah 31 in light of its new covenant application.

I believe that when it comes to this particular subject, the Pado folks don't allow the same apostolic latitude, especially here in Hebrews 8. And that's, I certainly agree with that, and I want to remind folks that when you look at the utilization, when you look at the argumentation provided in Hebrews 8, this idea that, well, these things in Jeremiah 31 are pervasive, whereas they were not pervasive under the old covenant.

So that's the newness. The newness is more. It's a more-ness. There are more people who have the law written upon their heart. There are more people who have their sins forgiven. There are more people who truly know the Lord.

But you still have the people who don't. And therefore, we're going to build our doctrine of apostasy, and we're going to say, there it is, there's the apostate, so on and so forth. But when the nature of that covenant is laid out in Hebrews chapter 8, which as Art has said, it's not like the covenant that I made before.

It's not like. We all have continuation and discontinuation, continuity and discontinuity. The question is, how much? But in contrast to that old covenant that was a mixed covenant, this is a covenant that will make the house of Israel, after those days, says Yahweh, I will put my laws into their minds and upon their hearts I will write them.

And immediately they say, well, there were people who, I mean, look at whoever wrote the 119th Psalm, and wow, there's someone who loves God's law. And the idea, the overriding argument is that, yeah, there were some.

There's just going to be a whole lot more now. But the only way to make that work that way and to make that connection, as long as you have it all mixed, is to say that there will be those in the covenant in his blood.

Remember, that's the key. That's what I was trying to emphasize, is that if this is an argument amongst Reformed people, that amongst Reformed people, the covenant in his blood involves union with Christ.

That's what particular redemption is about. That's what quote-unquote limited atonement is about. That's what union of the elect with Christ is about in his blood. And so the natural way to follow from Hebrews 7, the perfection of Christ's work, he ever lives to make intercession for them.

He saves them completely. Is to then see that chapter 8 is the biblical foundation for the assertion that has been made about the supremacy of the new covenant priest. The new covenant high priest, the Melchizedek priest.

He is able to save the uttermost. The result of that work is the new covenant, and in that new covenant, I will put my laws into their minds, and upon their hearts, I will write them. You're not in the new covenant if you do not have God's laws in your mind, and written upon your heart.

You're not in the new covenant. I will be their God, they shall be my people. Personal relationship. They shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, everyone his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all will know me.

That was a part of, again, the old covenant. Know the Lord. All these other gods out there, know the Lord. Know Yahweh. No, they will all know me from the least of the greatest of them. Now they're saying, well, but you know, that doesn't mean, that means there's more knowledge, but it doesn't mean it's exhausted.

It doesn't mean everyone. But just think about it. Verse 12 of chapter 8 starts with a Hati clause. For, because, I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. Can that be said of an apostate?

Again, if we were discussing almost any other subject, the standard exegetical process that Reformed people use for justification, resurrection, predestination and election, deity of Christ, we'd all be making the exact same arguments until we come here.

Until we come here. And we, you have Reformed guys going, I will be merciful to some of their iniquities. And I'll remember, but I will remember some of their sins. And you're going, why? Where is this coming from?

There is, there is a source outside the exegesis of the text here. You're not going to 9, you're not going to fulfillment 9 and 10. The obtaining of eternal redemption, the intercessory work of Christ, the perfection of those for whom that one sacrifice has been made in chapter 10.

You're not going there. You're going someplace else. And I truly, and I did at least get a chance to say this in the debate, I truly honestly believe that this is a situation. I said then, I love reading the institutes.

There's the set, the one over there I have that, you know, I've taught through it and all marked up and all the rest of this stuff. But you get to some sections of book four and things change. Things change.

And you got to remember something. John Calvin, you know, I've, I've told people if you, if you haven't heard my, the two programs I did with summer and joy on sheologians back in 2019 on the subject of the Munster rebellion, you really need to, I've said over and over again, it is the wildest, craziest story in all of church history.

It really, really is. And I emphasize to people when I tell them the story, I muddled my way through it back when I was sicker than the dog at grace Bible theological seminary just a few months ago. And I got sick on that trip, but I did tell the story of Munster.

And I tell people it's vitally important to recognize the impact that this event had. You might say, what does this have to do with Hebrews eight? Well, let me explain. People argue about when Calvin was specifically converted, what year between what events there's, only a few fragments of information that give us some of the chronology, but he was a young man and the Munster rebellion took place very, very early on in his experience contemporaneously, or very early on after his conversion.

And you need to understand all of Europe. Some of the, obviously some of the story was blown up and exaggerated and stuff like that, but you didn't really have to exaggerate much at all in that story.

And so there was next to no meaningful debate discussion. If you're an Anabaptist, if you did not practice pedo Baptist, they didn't use terms like credo Baptist back then. If you're an Anabaptist, you would either be executed, imprisoned, kicked out of town.

But what, what didn't happen is you didn't have someone like John Calvin, listening to your reasoning and your argumentation. And since most Anabaptists only lived a few years, it's not like they had a whole lot of time to develop their theology.

So the point is that when Calvin develops his covenantal pedo Baptist argumentation, which again was in that century, a theological novum, people hadn't believed this before. This is not how, what they believed infant baptism was about.

I forgot something to drink brother Rich. I'm going to need a cup of water or something. I was going to get that before the program started. I forgot it. When, when he's developing this stuff, he's not developing it with any type of back and forth, any type of pushback from the side, from someone that you'd actually think is a, is a Christian, for example.

And so for a long time, reformed theology did not even have to deal with it. It was all they were dealing with was Rome's perspective of things. They weren't dealing with anyone who was pushing to reform the understanding of baptism, the reasons for baptism, things like that.

Thank you. So the, the reformation movement in this area needed to continue. It needed to continue. It didn't happen at the time of the reformation. Just like, you know, people, people will point to Calvin and Luther on the perpetual Virginia, Mary as if, see, they've thoroughly studied this and came to the conclusion it was true.

No, they didn't. It wasn't even the issue. Wasn't the issue of the day. And the next generation had to then take up many of the topics that simply weren't central to the time period of the reformation.

And when they did, they rightfully rejected it for the fiction that it is. So same thing. So if, if we're going to, if we're going to recognize that the process of reformation had to continue, then couldn't this understanding of covenantal baptism, likewise be something that needs to be examined biblically.

And therefore you can't grab hold of these traditions and allow them to go, Hey, well, yeah, it says I'll be merciful. They're iniquities, but that's only, that's not everybody in covenant. I mean, it's talking about the new covenant, but we can't go there because of our preexisting traditions.

That's what the reformation was about. That's so if, if you want to, if you want to deal with that argumentation, you've got to, you've got to, you've got to provide more than, well, it's, it's, it's, it's really big.

It's pervasive. It's great. That's not his argument. Writing a law upon the heart means the heart's been changed. Everyone in the new covenant heart is changed. Now, one of the comment, I've seen a bunch of folks and, and they're like, well, I've seen reformed Baptist saying, yo, yo, what he said about Hebrews.

So that's great, but we need to address this. And, but we need to address that. Here's, here's the problem. You know, if, if, if you want to do debates like that, great.

Do them, do them.

But here's what I have seen over and over and over and over and over again, is you, you get into debate. And if the scripture is not the central ordering foundation, then you end up with one side saying that such and such a reformed giant really said this, well, nobody said this over here yet, but over here in a footnote, this person said this about what that person said.

And, and that's all you ever get. You just get a bunch of people tossing names back and forth. And some of you think that's really cool. Get out and do something with your theology, people, because you'll discover that we're a small group and you can quote all your Witsiuses and Owenses and Turretinses all you want.

The vast majority of people out there have no idea who those folks were. They're not going to look them up. And you're not going to get anywhere with it. So if I'm going to do a debate on the subject and I don't know, I don't, I cannot possibly see why I would do any more debates on this.

I've debated a non -Pedo-communist, Bill Shishko. I've debated a Pedo-communist who actually doesn't believe Doug Wilson was a Pedo-communist. Greg Strawbridge, actually debated him twice. Twice once was on the radio and then once in person before he passed away.

So we've done two major public debates in person. I've done this debate with Jared. I've done 13 sermons at Apologia. What more needs to be said? I just don't know what else there is to add to the topic.

But there you go. Important stuff. I personally think that's really important stuff. And so to my Pedo-Baptist brothers, as much as you don't like it, one of us is being more consistently reformed. And I honestly believe that you are allowing a tradition which came from medieval Catholic Europe was continued by Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli for different reasons, but for primarily political reasons, established within reformed tradition without any dealing with any of the arguments that we're making.

Because anybody who would have made those arguments would have been exiled, imprisoned, or killed. Especially thanks to Munster. So I get the historical part of it. I really, really do. But that doesn't change the necessity of trying to be consistent.

And I'll say to you, a lot of you have read my book, The God Who Justifies, and you appreciated its biblicism. What's different between The God Who Justifies and most books on justification? It's focused on the text.

It's not focused on 47 ,000 footnotes in N .T. Wright. And some of you just go, you just can't do that! Well, you know what? Every single person tells me, you just can't do that. I've never seen you on the street.

I've never seen you debating Catholics. I've never seen you debating atheists. I've never seen you debating Muslims. I've never seen you debating anybody. You're in your little ivory tower, and sure, it doesn't work there, but I don't want in your ivory tower.

Get out of your ivory tower, and start doing something. And you'll go, oh, wow, that doesn't really work, does it? So I really think that the approach that I took, The God Who Justifies, is the same approach I'm taking to Hebrews 7, 8, 9, and 10 on this issue of defying the New Covenant.

It's the same thing. Same approach. So, there you go. I saw, I got to admit, like I said, I've got surgery tomorrow morning, and so there's all these people that have to call you, and they go through stuff, and verify information, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I thought I had already gone through, you know, the long telephone call about what drugs you're taking, and this, that, and everything else. And so I get this voice text, and you really need to call today, so I call.

I'm talking to this nice lady, and it's a different part of the hospital. You know, who knows? It's so complicated. And then we start talking, and I forget how it came up. We started talking about what's going on in the world right now.

And at one point, they said, I'm certain this is probably being recorded. I don't want to get you in trouble. She said, oh, I don't care. It's like, this whole world's gone crazy. Can you believe what people are doing?

Oh, oh, oh, I remember what it was. She said, do you identify as a male or a female? And I couldn't hide it. I said, ma 'am, I live in the real world that God created, and there's only males, and there's only females, and I'm a male.

And she just said, I know. They just added that question in there. I hate asking it. It's so stupid. And I'm like, I would really think that minimally the medical world would recognize the utter insanity of this whole thing.

She does. Thank goodness. But obviously the people in charge, she has to ask the question, do you identify as male or female?

Yes. So it wasn't me in the hospital back in March, but someone related to me was in, and I was in the room. This nurse comes in, starts asking a bunch of questions, and it's funny because the nurse says, now this medication that you're on, and you'll get a hint as to who I'm talking about here, we can't give it to men.

So we've got to make sure that we apply this right. It's like, oh, so suddenly it matters. Okay, all right, whatever. Oh, it does.

It does. And every person with an iota of common sense knows that it does. But we live in a day where common sense has blown the coop. And so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, where was I going here? There it is.

Okay, I could show this, but I could put it up, but it's just a guy talking to another guy on a campus. And the Christian guy looks really familiar to me. I'm sorry that the name's just not coming through to me.

Maybe somebody will pop up a name for me on Twitter. When you recognize who this is. But it's a conversation. I'm getting all sorts of... Yeah, it's not you. Yeah, no. Yeah, no. Mike wants a free plug for the movies.

Michael Fallon. Yeah, Michael Fallon's in that new video that just came out. I haven't seen it yet. But let's put it this way. I hope I'm not laid up long enough from this surgery to have time to watch it, to be honest with you.

I mean, seriously, it's a hernia, okay? I've had it for four years. I've ignored it. That's why I stopped running. Ever tried running with a hernia? It's not fun. So I was just going to ignore it. I was not going to...

It happened right as COVID started. And I'm just like, I'm not going through that. And look, the whole reason we're doing it now, I've already paid my deductible. I've had so many surgeries. Had to pay so much money out of pocket.

We've paid our deductible. So why not get it done now? Maybe I can start losing some weight again. I don't know. Sort of genetic stuff. But anyway, so back in 93 when I had double hernias done, the old, old, old school, old, old school guy that did this.

I mean, he was older than dirt. And this new guy I'm going to have doing is going to be using the robot thing, you know, and all that stuff and whatever. Supposed to be much less invasive, which is great.

Oh, what? You're looking at this? He was looking. Folks, he was... That's old school, baby. He was looking at this. Rich found the... Can you believe... Man! Is that bedside manner or is that bedside manner?

I'm going to tell you. I'm sitting here talking about going under the knife and he's looking for that thing. Wow! Somebody needs to save that clip. Next time anybody walks up to me and says, you need to be nice and rich, I'm just going to pull the knife out.

Yeah, there you go. That thing is very sharp. Derek likes to send them out like razors. He truly, truly does. There's no two ways about it. What was I talking about? I have no idea. The old, old, old school guy that did my stuff.

When we were having some... I had some appointment before the surgery. He told me, he said, you young guys, because I was 29, 30 years old. He said, you young guys, you get a lot of pain with this. And it's going to take you a few days to recover.

He says, but I have guys, I got retired guys coming from Sun City and I'll do the procedure in the morning and they're playing golf in the afternoon. He says, it just does not impact older guys the way that does younger guys.

And of course, now it's significantly less invasive. I mean, they were literally cutting you open back then. Now they've got these little sticking stuff inside you and things like that. So I'm really hoping, honestly, I'm really hoping that...

In fact, if things go really, really, really well, I'm hoping for a Saturday bike ride. I really, really am. Indoors, obviously, but I'm hoping. We'll see. So I may not have a whole lot of lying around time, please, to be watching it.

But yeah, beneath sheep's clothing. Oh, okay, yeah, he... You got two? Yeah. Beneath sheep's clothing. So I looked at the trailer and it's... We need to start... We need to stop calling the Democrats, Democrats.

Start calling them what they are, Marxists. They're Marxists. They're communists. And Tim Walz is one of the worst of them. You know, Kamala Harris is just a ditz. I mean, she and Biden were just the perfect sock puppets for whoever's running this country.

It's not them. It's not American. I can guarantee you, China knows who it is. Russia knows who it is. Iran knows who it is. And I think China knows who it is because it's probably someone from China. They're running this show.

Have you noticed that Biden was beamed to another planet after the coup? I mean, literally. We're living in the... There's been a coup. This has never happened in American history, but it happens every day in communist countries.

I mean, it's just how things are done. And so that's what we're looking at. That's what we are facing. And this new video, which I believe you can... If I recall correctly, I looked at the website last night, Beneath Sheep's Clothing.

Look it up. Google it, Beneath Sheep's Clothing. It's how communism functioned in Russia, under the Soviets, and how it's infiltrated the United States, and how we literally have communists running for President and Vice President of the United States.

Kamala Harris just, as I understand it, made comments within the past 24 hours talking about establishing governmental food pricing controls. And again, the young people in this country have been so...

They're not educated. They know nothing about history. They know nothing about history. They don't know our history. They don't know anybody's history. And so they don't understand that this has been tried over and over and over again.

And in fact, when it was tried in Jamaica, it led to starvation, degradation of life, because once the government says you can't charge any more than this, why should anybody grow food? Why should they provide it?

And so everything goes into short supply. People are starving. And guess who suggested this to the Jamaican government? Dr. Harris. Kamala... Not Harris. Yeah, is it Harris? It is Harris. Her father was a Marxist economic advisor to the government of Jamaica.

And now she wants to do that in the United States. Everything the communists have tried has always failed. But it's always brought death along with it. And so if you're a culture that's in love with death...

Now, I'm not in love with death. I don't want to see death for them. I don't want to see death for my grandchildren or my great-grandchildren. But they love death. And therefore, a deep deception. They refuse to love the truth, they'll be caused to love a lie.

And they love lies. And the thing that's driving me nuts is to see people who claim to be Christians. David French. What a buffoon. What a buffoon. Smart guy, but a buffoon. You can be both, by the way.

These days, there's a lot of them. So anyways, look up the film. Get a hold of it. I think you can buy a ticket and that gives you access to the video or something like that. I'm not sure. Look it up.

Were you going to say something? Well, I was going to chime in here. You were talking about... Oh, you got your camera back, huh? Yes, I got my camera back.

It came back in the RV. Where'd that camera... Has that camera been? It's been out on the road. But, you know, we talk about Biden just suddenly being disappeared. I mean, he showed up on the stage today and you can tell nothing's changed.

He's still just deer in the headlights. But I look at what they did here and I was reminded... I just keep thinking about... I think his first name was Leonid Brezhnev. And you and I are old enough to remember what happened with Brezhnev.

He was, for the most part, the Soviet premier through the Cold War. And... I think it was toward the end of the 70s, somewhere in there, suddenly he just kind of dropped out of sight. Nobody saw him in public.

And the rumor was that he was ill and he wasn't in good health. But the Soviets... Oh, Premier Brezhnev, he's fine. Everything's wonderful. He's fine. And then suddenly... The Politburo meets. The single-party system of the Soviet Union.

The Politburo meets. And wasn't it Yuri Andropov?

Yeah, I think he was the next one.

Suddenly, Yuri Andropov's in charge. And poor Brezhnev. And... He just got disappeared. And... I just see so many shades of the same kind of ways of doing things here. Yeah, it's... We're in the middle of it.

It's... I never ever thought it'd be possible. We fought it. Men have died fighting its expansion and progress, but here we are. And... Kids don't know it. They're not educated anymore. They're taught what to think, not how to think.

And so... Okay. So, I want to get to this. Like I said, there's lots of stuff we could be talking about in that area, and it just gets frustrating, but I was sent this video. It's a conversation between a Christian and a Muslim.

And as I was saying, I recognize the Christian, but I'm not putting two and two together. I don't know who it is, so maybe somebody on Twitter will remind me. It's fascinating. I just hope that I can make it work right, because if I hit pause and then hit play again, it goes back to the beginning.

So if I click somewhere else, it will restart where it started before, I hope. It worked before. We'll find out if it's going to work this time. So, it's only five minutes long, but there's lots of stuff to comment on.

And it's been a long, long time since we have... I mean, 20 years ago, 18 years ago, we would spend entire dividing lines on Islam. Because that's when I was doing my fundamental research and study and learning and preparing for the debate with Shabir Ali that we did in May of 2006.

It led to all those other debates. Overseas primarily. A few here in the United States, but overseas primarily. Now we see what's happening in the UK. I have said I don't know how many times Islam is a religio-political system and the emphasis depends upon the population in a country.

When they're a small group, the emphasis is upon the religion. When they pass a certain percentage, the emphasis moves to the political. And the suppression of all other speech. Right now, I do not believe that I would have the freedom to do the debates in the United Kingdom.

I did, only six or eight years ago. I don't believe I would. They are putting people in prison for 18 months to two years for blasphemy crimes against Allah. I mean, that's where the UK is going. It's the end of the West.

France too. Alright, but these are theological discussions, thankfully. And I want to reiterate that we as believers must be prepared and I believe we must pray to have the opportunity to speak the truth to Muslims.

Now, this young Muslim man says he's a former Christian. And so, he's well read. A lot of Muslims you talk to are not nearly as prepared as he was. And so, once again, I say to everybody, if you're a Christian, how do you respond to this kind of stuff?

Would you be prepared? And I'll say again, the reason that so many evangelicals are utterly ineffective in reaching Muslims is because they're afraid. They know they don't know it. They know they don't know their stuff.

They know that they're going to be asked questions that they can't answer. So, I'm not going to push to finish this necessarily, but I do want to cover it and I think it's important. So, let's like I said, I'm not going to play the video like it's just a fine looking young Muslim man talking to an older Christian fellow.

It's obviously, well, those college campus type situations. But making it big enough to play and then making sure it continues to play is what I'm concerned about. So, I'd rather have the audio working than mess with all the rest of it.