October 14, 2004

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from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded
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Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is
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James White. Well, good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line. You know,
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I was just thinking we should have taken a picture. We should have taken a picture. I had a camera right there.
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We should have taken a picture, because no one's really going to believe what
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I'm about to tell you. Anyways, we should have taken a picture. And if we would have taken a picture, I would have put it on the blog, and it would have been really cool.
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And if we would have taken a picture, I would have put it on the blog, and it would have And what am I talking about? Well, you know, remember that little letter that we posted on the website from my daughter?
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Well, somebody, and I would really like to find out who, somebody got a brilliant idea.
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Just a brilliant idea. They printed a screenshot of the letter.
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They didn't select the text and put it into a Word document. They just printed out, and not even color, a screenshot of Summer's letter.
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And they put it in an envelope, and they put on the front, at least from what
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I've been told, P. Bush. I guess that's for President.
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It just makes me wonder who would ever do something like that. And somehow, and this is evidently what people are trying to figure out, somehow, they left it at the place where President Bush stayed last night here in Phoenix.
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I forget where it was. It was in Scottsdale. And so it was found there.
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And so this morning, somebody who
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I may nameless for his own protection is coming back from Starbucks and notices some people at my house and mentions it to me.
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So I go walking back to my house, and there are two gentlemen with black suits on and a lady with a tan or brown suit on, and they're
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Secret Service agents. They whip out their badges and ask me if I'm me, and I am me.
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And so they go, do you know anything about a letter left at such and such a place?
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And I'm like, duh, no. And so they tell me the story, and I'm like, well,
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I posted it, of course, on the web.
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So that means anybody who has a computer and Internet access and a printer would have access to this.
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And so, no, I don't know anybody who works at wherever it was, whatever the resort was they stayed at. And Summer and I were at a prayer meeting last night.
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And so I mentioned that I had sent it to the President through Washington, you know, the way you're supposed to.
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And they said, could you give us that information? And so I brought them back over to the office here, and they're standing around my office looking at my books, and I'm going, boy,
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I wish I had put some of this stuff over in the corner, right? And I printed out something for them, and right as I'm leaving, someone in channel plays this sound, the whip dot wave sound, and that sort of startled them.
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And one of them was looking at the new Sola Scriptura book while I'm getting the stuff out of the printer.
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And they said, could we talk to Summer? And so I called back over and told my son, wake your sister up because it's fall break.
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They have fall break now in school. I don't remember having fall break. But anyway, they have fall break now.
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And so we go walking over to my house and walk in the family room, basically, and my son's there.
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And I yell down the hallway, Summer, come here, please. And so Summer comes stumbling out, barely awake.
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And when she walks out, I said, welcome to the Secret Service. But she didn't believe me. And so they asked if she knew anybody who worked there, and well, no, and so on and so forth.
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And so after we got all done with all of this, and they left, and I had been sort of talking, chatting with them nicely.
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And it was odd. One of them was wearing Oakleys. So I had
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Oakleys on, and I mentioned that to him, and the other guy didn't have Oakleys on, and so we bothered him. And they looked a little bit bored, actually, because this is a real high -priority case they've been assigned to.
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And so they left. Well, yeah, it was sort of odd.
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I had a Taurus 38 sitting on the table when they walked in. They didn't even give it a second look.
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I was like, eh, whatever. Anyway, so they left, and Summer's standing there, and she goes, so what was that all about?
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And I said, Summer, they were Secret Service agents. No way. I said, yeah, yes way.
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They were federal agents, just left. And she's like, wow. She really hadn't believed me. She was like, no, couldn't be.
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She thought they were hotel employees. And I'm just like, yeah, right.
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So anyway, it was very, very interesting. And so if you did that out there, please don't do that anymore.
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That's really not the way to do it. Trust me, we don't want the President reading that letter as part of a threat notification.
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We've taken care of it. Thank you for your attempt. But that's not how you do it.
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Good night. Anyway, so I spent a few moments.
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Well, it wasn't even a few moments. It was probably 20 minutes or more this morning talking with some. And you know what really was sort of depressing when we got all over with?
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Was all of a sudden I realized they were kids. I mean, compared to me, they were really young.
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And I felt really old because of that. You know, when you get to that point, you start to realize, you know, for a long time everybody was older than you.
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You know, anybody in a position of authority and stuff like that, they're older than you.
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And they're not anymore. And that's depressing. So anyway, so that was our experience this morning with the federal agents at our doorstep.
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And goodness, it was very odd.
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877 -753 -3341, I don't have the normal volume that I have in my headset today. I'm not sure why.
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Maybe I'm going to disappear or something again. I don't know. But it just sort of sounds odd today.
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And 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. A couple of folks have already called that number even before we got started today.
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But before we take any phone calls, I was scanning around through various sundry things on the
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Internet, like you're supposed to do when you're an apologist. And I popped onto a page that some
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LDS folks have up. And I've mentioned this before, and I'm going to mention it again now.
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I'm looking forward to the day when the Mormons finally produce a, even make a meaningful attempt at producing an exegetical commentary on the
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New Testament. You know, they've been doing everything they possibly can to make themselves a niche in scholarship.
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The problem is that their starting point in regards to the nature of God is just so far removed from Biblical Christianity and from the worldview of the writers of Scripture that whenever you read their attempts to really engage the text theologically, it just, they just can't.
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I mean, there is a complete disjunction between the attempts of Mormons to do so and what you'd see, for example, by Jehovah's Witnesses.
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You know, the Witnesses don't have the Book of Mormon, Dr. Conrad Price, and the Book of Abraham and stuff like that running around.
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And so they can at least make a show of it and try to engage the text.
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But Mormons just can't do it. The result is just extremely unconvincing and disjointed.
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And so there is an ask the apologist question that I was looking at.
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And the question that is asked is, what is the LDS view on grace, works, and salvation? If LDS really believes that salvation requires works, how can one explain verses in the
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Bible that state that salvation only comes by grace and not by works? How can one explain Moroni 10 .32?
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Many claim that this is wrong as the grace of Christ is sufficient for us and we cannot do anything to merit salvation ourselves, etc.
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Well, the question is at least relevant. It's at least placed, you know, phrased so that it's representing what a
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Mormon would generally encounter in evangelical websites and things like that. The answer is written by Michael Fordham.
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And it is absolutely just amazing. If you go to the fairlds .org
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website and you just go to the bottom. In fact, let me back up the screen here.
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If you go to the bottom, just scroll down to August 31st under the
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What's New on the FAIR website, you'll find the article that I'm referring to.
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And if you'll take a look at it, you will see that it's not only almost purely
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Pelagian. It doesn't even attempt to synthesize some of the stuff that Robinson and others have been doing within Mormonism and some of the stuff that's appearing within that realm of LDS belief.
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But it is so disjointed. And in fact, it seems that one place, one section, involves doing a word search for the word only in an
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English translation. As if somehow this is relevant to faith alone. There's clearly no understanding on the part of the writer what faith alone means or what the foundation of Sola Fide is.
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There's no way that a Mormon can seemingly really even enter into an understanding of sovereign grace and things like that because they worship an anthropomorphic god or a theomorphic man, as one
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Mormon I know likes to put it. And the just throwing out
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James 2 .17 or James 2 .14 and not even trying to show any kind of interaction with anything that's been written from a meaningful perspective on these subjects just leaves you sort of breathless if you're used to dealing with meaningful apologetic material anyways.
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And it's just another example of just how far Mormonism is from Biblical Christianity and even as they definitely show tremendous use of technology to get their message out and things like that.
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Mormons tend to be geeks. Word Perfect used to be written up there in Utah, wasn't it?
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Things like that. Even despite that, they have yet to deal with the reality that they cannot produce a meaningful commentary on Scripture that is going to really get anywhere.
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And I think they're almost afraid to do so because they know that. They recognize that the sources that they're going to have to draw from are so diverse and so self -contradictory the result is just it's not going to get them the kind of scholarly kudos that they want to get.
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And that's why they deal with stuff like the Dead Sea Scrolls and historical things like that to try to get their foot in the door and mainstream things.
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But you've yet to see this exegetical commentary on Romans. The only one
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I've seen is on Romans chapter 1 and it was simply laughable. I mean, it was really bad.
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Very, very, very bad. Just not even in the ballpark. And that's just because the system you're dealing with.
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So it was interesting to take a look at that and so on and so forth and then meet with Secret Service agents.
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Still, it was just one of those things. If we had just taken a picture. I mean, I bet they would have done that.
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I bet if we had been thinking, Summer could have gotten a picture with those three Secret Service agents. I bet they would have done that.
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As the main channel says, the president's on line one. Yeah, right. 877 -753 -3341.
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We could have a little discussion about the proper way of doing debates. But, hey, that's politics.
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And what was – I guess I will make a comment about this.
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The debate last night, which I didn't see because I was at a prayer meeting, and I'm much better off for it. But, of course, you can listen to stuff and read transcripts and things like that.
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And I did catch just a little bit of it on the way down and then bits and pieces of it later.
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But some of the discussion concerning gay marriage, listening to not only – and, of course, the cheap shots at the
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Cheneys and things like that. It is just an ugly, ugly affair. I, for one, despite the fact that I feel very, very strongly about this election and feel very, very strongly that basically as I see this election, voting for one of the two candidates means that the slide off of the cliff stays in slow motion and voting for the other candidate means that we simply leap immediately, as in on January 22nd, into the abyss.
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That's sort of how I see it. So listening to all of this stuff,
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I do feel very strongly about it. But I'm looking forward to it being over. I am really, really, really looking forward to this being over.
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I am so sick of the communications wing of the
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Democratic Party, known as the mainstream media, and their inability to report anything without that twist and that turn.
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I just – I'm sick of the whole thing and want to move on.
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So that's what we're going to do. We're going to move on. Not discussed at 877 -753 -3341. Now that is the number that Steve called back in Zarepath, New Jersey.
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Hi, Steve. How are you? How are you doing, James? Doing all right. I've got a question regarding justification.
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You and everybody else. I know. I'm at a Christian school. I'm calling. I'm actually 20 minutes late for class right now.
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I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, it's all good, bro. But my teachers, a lot of my teachers are saying justification is not an essential issue.
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They also say that to deal with the Catholics like the Judaizers is not scriptural because the
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Judaizers were a group that passed away, and they're no longer here. So to apply that to Catholics is completely wrong, and we don't know how
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God would deal with them, which basically is, I would say, liberalism. But how would you deal with that? Well, Steve, even if you don't want to give the name of the school, what is the background of these teachers?
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Because I know of lots of folks who are saying that kind of thing today, but they come from a number of different backgrounds.
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Well, I'm not Wesleyan. It's a Wesleyan college. Their official statements affirm justification by faith alone, but a lot of the teachers will affirm it.
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But they'll say it's not essential, and we want to be open to other views, which I would say is compromise.
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I mean, this is personal issues, but my family is Roman Catholic, and they'll say, well, we just need to love everybody, and to me it's not acting in the highest degree of love, love for God and love for man by compromising the
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Gospel. Yeah, well, you're in a tough spot there, and you're in a spot that a lot of Christians find themselves in today, in an institution that very clearly is compromised, given what you've said.
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And unfortunately, they are finding more and more encouragement in being compromised, even amongst people who call themselves
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Reformed today, because there are many who are saying that not only is justification not definitional of the
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Gospel itself, but that what we've believed about justification is incorrect and is actually much more than we can believe in.
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And there are those, I'm thinking of one particularly pernicious Presbyterian scholar, who believes that the application of the
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Book of Galatians to Roman Catholicism is to miss what the whole issue is all about.
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In brief answer to your question, the fact of the matter is that the
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Judaizers, A, as a group, are still around in certain forms.
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There are some real problems with certain forms of Messianic Judaism and things like that. But leaving that aside, the issue is, in the
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Reformation, Calvin and Luther and others saw in the Book of Galatians an attitude regarding the relationship of faith and works that Paul is addressing.
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He is addressing those who would say faith in Christ is important, faith in Christ is something that we have engaged in, but it is not enough in and of itself because it has to be exercised within this context, and they wanted to add to that faith the act of circumcision, the entrance into the
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Old Covenant situation. And Paul says, no, that is going to end up creating two different Christianities.
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You are going to have your Jewish Christianity and your Gentile Christianity, and that is not to be. There is only one body,
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Jews and Gentiles together, and the one body that is the Church. And by adding that extra thing, you are in essence saying that faith is not enough and Christ is not enough, and you are going back to the walking down the road of worthiness in the law.
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And so the question is, does Rome's gospel do the same thing that the
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Judaizers did? And I would say to you, it most certainly does, and in fact it goes far beyond anything the
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Judaizers ever dreamed of doing. And as such, because of that, it does apply to the
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Roman Catholic situation because they have gone beyond what those people did that Paul is dealing with in the book of Galatians.
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And so it does apply to that. And the issue with your professors would be, if justification is not definitional of the gospel, then what is the gospel?
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How can you define the gospel in such a way that you can deal with such things as indulgences or purgatory or issues like that without addressing the issue of how a person is made right before God?
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And without hearing the specifics of how they would answer that, I can't get too much more specific myself, but you are definitely going to find yourself, if you are in a context like that where they are willing to basically dismiss justification as being definitional of the gospel, that is definitely a compromised institution and you are going to experience a lot of, shall we say, frustration if you want to keep trying to speak the truth within that context.
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Yeah, I actually have a meeting, me and my buddy, with the president of this school, but it hasn't been received well at all.
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We try to do it in a gentle, loving way, but a way that is firm, and we keep getting answers like, we want to be loving, we want to be spirit -led, and all basically things that compromise
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God's truth. But one teacher in particular was saying, yes, Paul did affirm that this is a false gospel, but we're not
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Paul, we're not an apostle, so we don't have that authority. And that argument,
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I don't even know how you answer that. It's ridiculous. I don't know how you... Yeah, well, if it takes apostolic authority to read the apostolic writings, then why do we have scripture anyways?
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Unfortunately, a lot of folks take student responses in a difficult fashion, and that's a shame.
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But again, without knowing exactly what the situation is, it's hard for me to comment on it. But it really would be...
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It's going to be difficult for you within that context, because I rarely see people within that realm changing their viewpoints and adopting a more conservative stance.
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Yeah, definitely. All righty. Thanks so much, James. Okay, thanks a lot. God bless.
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Take care. You too. All righty. We've got a call all the way from Australia here.
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So I hope you don't mind if we jump down to that one, because that's probably rather costly, and talk with Paul.
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Hi, Paul. Hello? Hello? Paul? Or is this
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Peter? You got me there? Yes, sir. Hello? Yes, sir. You're on.
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Okay. It's Peter, actually. Someone told me it was Paul, so we'll go with Peter. Peter, Paul, and they're both apostles,
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I guess. Not a very good line. Yes, sir. Look, I was listening to the dividing line, the last call you had with Jonathan or John from the
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Reformed Baptists with Pentecostal leanings. I think he would say charismatic leanings, yes.
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Charismatic, sorry. Yes, yes. And I was reading Chapter 10 in your book on Scripture alone, about the fellow that wanted to buy the leather
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Bible. Okay. He felt led by the Spirit. Yes, yes, yes. I know what you're referring to.
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And he was quoting the passage in 1 Corinthians 14, about one prophet at a time speaking.
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Do you remember? Yes, I wrote the book. I didn't find that actual passage in your book, not in the scriptural references anyway.
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No, the caller was referring to another issue in light of that.
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Yes, yes. And he was writing that scripture. Now, in our church, we would interpret the, and I don't know how you agree with this or not, but we interpret those prophets as being people that preach the word.
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Anybody that gets into the pulpit and preaches, we would consider a prophet in that sense, like the way we have ministers every
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Sunday. And when we're being good Bereans, we check our scriptures to see what they were saying was correct or not.
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Uh -huh. And that's all I say about the person standing up and saying, you know, that's not right.
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Of course, you know, we're only human beings. We hopefully preach the word of God and in truth, but sometimes people make mistakes.
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And I've heard a lot of things from pulpit, especially off the soundbite internet, that I disagree with strongly and I'd have to get up and say something about it.
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Yeah, the point of citing it was that whatever was going on in 1
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Corinthians 14 doesn't seem to line up directly with what we see in other passages where you have
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Timothy exhorting and teaching and things like that. And so my point had been that whatever is going on there, it results in the edification and encouragement of the saints and not in the sense of receiving new revelation or something along those lines.
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Yeah, and I'd agree with you completely there. He also referred back to Acts chapter 2, but I find even there that the people were speaking in other tongues and everything, but all they were doing, they weren't revealing anything new.
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They were just talking about the wonderful works of God in their own language.
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Yeah, in their own language. Talking of the children of Israel out of Egypt and things like that.
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Okay, even on the day of Pentecost. So these people that stand up and say they had a vision of God last night and came to their bed and told them that they should do such and such.
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The example you have in chapter 10 of your book is really good, how he says that in the
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Greek, will is not there. We're supposed to be like Christ actually today. And the person you use in the chapter there says to him, yeah, but the
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Greek actually is in a futuristic tense. But it is, will is there. And how many people actually look at those sort of things when these preachers say they have a message from God today?
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And it's very much like the Pentecostals and the Charismatics do. Yeah, I didn't see... And how many people challenge them about it and say, well, look, that's what it really does say in the scriptures.
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Yeah, well, I didn't see anybody in the television program I was watching get up and say, excuse me, but that's not what it says.
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And if they did, they didn't make it onto the videotapes. Yeah, I think they've got some strong men at the door.
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I don't know, they sort of grab them and move them outside and say, you don't belong here, son. Yes, I think that is what would happen.
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Well, how in the world did my book get to Australia? How did it get to Australia that quickly? Well, I clicked onto your site.
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I've been listing the dividing line now for a couple of years. And I bought all your books that I didn't have before.
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And when you brought out the last one on church government, I felt that was very relevant.
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But for some reason, I didn't get it when it was published, actually because there were four other writers, or three other writers, and I didn't...
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I thought, am I only buying a third of a book here, or something like that? When Scripts for a
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Loan came out, I thought, that's an essential book to have. And I'm going to get it with your signature in it for once.
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So it's already got there. So I sent in an order for that. And I happened to be sending out the other books as well, as well as all your little pamphlets, which
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I found very helpful too. Well, good. Excellent. Well, we do have a few friends down there in Australia.
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Well, we're trying to develop the Reformed Baptist Church in a small country town just out from Sydney, in the 100
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Ks or so. Just out from Sydney? We started off from almost nobody. And we're following the 1689
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Confession and that sort of thing. I've started preaching from Genesis, Chapter 1.
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I've been going for about three years now. I'm up to Chapter 6 now, in a Puritan style.
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Yeah, that is the Puritan style, yes. Yeah, and we've been growing steadily.
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And not only that, but we don't have any arguments or problems with Arminians or anything like that, because everybody hears the same gospel every week, as you do with Pastor Fry.
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And so any of those sort of problems that come up, people either get upset and leave, or they discuss things with you, go through the
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Scriptures and show them. And we'd much rather do that than start off with a church for a thousand people where they don't know what they believe and the doctrine that gets taught every week varies from one side to the other.
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There's just so many churches like that today around here. We decided to start out in a small way and build on solid foundations.
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And the Lord's blessing us in that way. And your work and your books have been very helpful in answering a lot of questions with different people.
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That's wonderful. We've had problems with... Well, Peter, we'll have to... Someday when we get down there, we'll have to stop by and preach for you.
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Listen, mate, if you come over here, you'd be more than welcome. But I really would be thinking, you know, like, we're too small.
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But we'll try and organize it with, say, one of our sister churches in Sydney where they've got the room to hold a group of people who would like to come and hear you speak.
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Well, I know in March of... A debate. Indeed, in March of... Well, you do have a
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Roman Catholic apologist down there in Australia that'd like to debate. So that would be interesting.
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But March of 2006, I'm supposed to be going to Singapore. And so, who knows?
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Maybe we can make a tour out of it, eh, mate? Well... Oh, by the way, it's
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Aussie, not A -U -S -I -E. Aussie? As it's written, it's O -Z -I -E.
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Aussie. Aussie. Not Aussie. Oh, well, they're talking about it in Channel right now, in fact.
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Yeah, well, I'll see if I can get something organized down here. And perhaps you can come out and have a look at the little tiny church.
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There you go. Well, I go to a little tiny church. Well, we're talking about, you know, like 10 and 20 people.
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Yeah, well, there are a couple Sunday nights. We might get down to 30 ourselves. So, all righty, sir.
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Thank you very much for calling, and God bless you down there. Well, it's been a privilege talking to you, James. Hey, great talking to you. Keep up the good work.
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All right, thank you, sir. God bless. Bye -bye. It's good to hear from Down Under.
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And, you know, John Samson's wife is Australian. So, you know, it's a good thing.
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I just can't figure out the difference between British and Australian, you know? I just lost everybody on both sides of the poem there.
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All right. Are we going to take a break? Do you have an announcement?
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You know, you told me, Paul, and it's Peter. You know, I mean, just what are we supposed to do here anyways, huh?
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I actually meant Fred. You meant Fred. That's good. So, multitasking is not something that we excel at?
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You are one of the very few people that I know that can do things the way you do them, and multitask and deal with things that way.
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But I do want to remind people one more time, this will be the break, and this is all we'll throw at you.
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The conference, the debate, if you're planning on staying at the Sheraton, you need to get tickets by 5 p .m.
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tomorrow afternoon Pacific Daylight Time. After that, one minute after 5
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Pacific Daylight Time, the Sheraton will get to charge you whatever price they want to. And so I suggest you get those locked down and get your reservations in now.
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Also, as of 1 a .m. Eastern Time, not 1 a .m.,
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midnight Eastern Time, on the 16th day after tomorrow, the next phase of pricing for tickets, if you're living in the
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Southern California area and you're not planning on getting a room at the Sheraton and you want to get tickets and you've got a group coming or anything like that, the next and final phase of pricing for pre -ticket purchases are going to go up.
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So the prices on the tickets are going to go up on the 16th as well. So if you're going to get tickets, especially if you've got groups, get those tickets now, get your reservations at the
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Sheraton, get yourself locked in for some decent pricing because they're about to go up, and the highest prices will be at the door, which will be the final phase of pricing.
35:12
But that's it from here. All righty, sir. As if anyone really follows the time thing because people don't even know when the program's on.
35:23
Okay, well, get them now. Get your tickets now. Get your tickets now. Don't wait. That was the simple one. Call today.
35:29
Call today. Don't delay. Am I really certain that Jamin is online or is this
35:35
Fred? No, it's Jamin. It is Jamin? It's Jamin for sure. Okay. All right. I'll trust you. I don't know why.
35:42
And guess what? It's 435 now, and that's like five minutes after some people think we're supposed to start this program.
35:52
Okay. Let's take our next phone caller at 877 -753 -3341, and let's talk to Jamin.
36:01
Hello, Jamin. You mean Fred? Yeah. Okay, Fred. How are you doing? Good accent, by the way.
36:07
I know. Well, James, I was just... Don't encourage it.
36:17
No worries, mate. Go ahead. I was just sitting down treating myself to some milk and cookies, you know, the way teenagers do.
36:25
Yeah. And... Well, you know, once you turn 25, it's going to start going... That's when you can finally put on a little, you know, muscle and a little something on your frame.
36:36
Until then, you can just eat anything, and it just goes... It's just gone. So... Okay.
36:41
I'll work on that. But anyway, I was reading... You know that book by...
36:48
What is it? Olsen? Yes. Yes, indeed. I'm treading through it. I'm halfway through, and...
36:55
Yeah, that's what I said. But he quoted John 525, and...
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I mean, this is after he quoted, you know, all the big Reformed names on...
37:08
This is having to do with Order Salutis. His argument, of course, is that faith precedes regeneration.
37:15
And he just kind of hurdles himself into the most difficult situation, and then tries to exegete himself out of that, as you would call it, wet paper bag.
37:24
Okay. He said, I was just thinking, if Lazarus was to respond to Christ's call,
37:39
I mean, assuming he heard it, he had to be alive. But yet, that call actually brought him to life.
37:45
Did Lazarus even hear Jesus, and what does it deal with John 525? Well, two things about John chapter 5.
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There's two aspects in view. There is both the eschatological aspect in the resurrection, and there is also then the application in the current time concerning the power of the
38:06
Son of God to raise someone to life. And the point is, it is the act of the Son of God that raises them to life, not that the
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Son of God makes that a possibility, something that's available to them, if they will, in essence, allow him to do so through the action of faith.
38:24
I mean, it's really a misapplication to even try to go there in the first place, if what he's trying to say is, well, since it says here, the dead will hear, the problem is, it says, we'll hear the voice of the
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Son of God, and those who hear will live. Well, okay, doesn't that then teach particularity?
38:47
Will all the dead hear, and will all the dead then live? Where is the whole act of faith in here?
38:53
Where is those who hear and understand and reject? I mean, all of that is being read into it, if he's trying to pull it into this context, which isn't the context you're supposed to be looking at anyways.
39:05
The whole point is that the Son of God has life within himself, and that he gives it to those whom he wills, and that it is his voice that results in their living, not anything that they do in and of themselves, or law -keeping, or any of the rest of that stuff.
39:19
So to even try to really bring it in and say, ah, we have here unregenerate men.
39:25
Well, unregenerate men can't hear. What's the term that Jesus continuously uses?
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He who has ears, let him hear. Oh, well, what is who hears? Those in John 6 heard, but they didn't hear.
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The whole thing is ignoring the very double entendres that John loves to use in regards to seeing but not seeing, hearing but not hearing, the voice, all these are terms that John loves to use.
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And if anything, the passage would argue the opposite, because it's clearly hearing the voice results in living.
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And who do we know is going to have eternal life according to Jesus? Those who are given to him by the
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Father, he raises them up at that last day, they have eternal life. I mean, if you're going to be consistent, the only thing that is found in this passage is hearing the voice of the
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Son of God resulting in having eternal life. Where is the free will of man here to where you can hear but choose not to believe, and hence not live?
40:28
It's not there. So it is interesting that that book, even though it's not published by a meaningful publisher in the sense of it has wide distribution, that I hear about it a lot, mainly because I think the reason that it gets the hearing that it does is because of the fact that in our society, people like to quote -unquote avoid the extremes.
40:56
And so as a result, they find immediate theology to be something that's extremely, you know...
41:08
Inconsistent. Well, no, immediate theology is something that's attractive to them because it's not on the extreme.
41:13
Oh yeah, right, right. You know, we have someone who comes to the channel who is constantly looking for a means to hold two contradictory positions together, in essence, and you can't do it.
41:27
And so... So, I mean, okay, I understand that.
41:32
But would you say that, maybe this isn't a proper analogy, but Lazarus in the tomb, did he respond to God's call as in he heard the words and then...
41:45
No, we're not told, and I don't think it's relevant because it's not trying to give us an order there. The point is,
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Jesus Christ called Lazarus forth, and he has the authority over death to do so.
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And if he has the authority over physical death, then he has the authority over spiritual death as well.
42:05
It would be utterly ridiculous to think that Jesus has the authority to banish physical death as he does with Lazarus, but does not have the authority to banish spiritual death.
42:18
All the other questions we can come up with about hearing and the Ordo and things like that just are not addressed by John 11, and it would be a misapplication of the text to push it to that point because we aren't told.
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We are told, however, that Lazarus was dead, and Jesus raised him from the dead by the sovereign exercise of his power, and the very idea that Jesus could have tried to call
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Lazarus forth and failed because of man's free will is just absolutely ridiculous.
42:51
It has no place in the text whatsoever. Do you find any of the word studies in that book useful?
42:59
I mean, you know it better than I do, but it seems just like what Gordon does is he kind of asks all the big questions and then just buries the reader in this
43:11
Greek... I mean, you know, I'm not very experienced in that kind of stuff, but it seems like that's what he's trying to do.
43:19
You know, it's like five pages of word study, and then like a paragraph of just this tradition, like Dave Hunt style, you know.
43:25
If a word study does not immediately clarify the issue, if it is not directly related to the topic being discussed, then it is probably there simply to provide a person with a basis of saying, hey, look what
43:47
I can do. I've taken these classes. And if it doesn't immediately apply to what's being said and shed light upon the exegesis of the text, it's probably just simply filling space.
43:59
And I don't know the author so as to discuss his motivations, but I have seen numerous situations where someone will utilize that kind of word study as a cover for not really dealing with the issue in a proper fashion.
44:23
Well, actually, a Bible teacher of mine talked to Gore Nelson on the phone about something, and he is the kind that are in this inductive camp, you know.
44:37
It's really, I don't know, hardcore inductive exegesis, and I'm just kind of befuddled about the priorities of this.
44:45
I mean, because that's emphasized throughout the entire book, you know. It's like, well, you have all of these guys rolling in pink and all these guys saying this, but that's not inductive data, so we'll just kind of toss that out.
44:58
Yeah, that's real nice. It doesn't really end up actually addressing the issue, and the results are always the same.
45:04
You have an inconsistent system being presented as if it is the be -all and end -all of all things and a lot of misrepresentation, and it just doesn't actually accomplish anything because there is no way of creating this middle ground that is self -consistent.
45:23
Call your system what you will and say, well, you need to use this methodology to come to your conclusion.
45:29
Everybody does that. If you can't end up explaining consistently the result of your studies, then your studies were pretty much a waste of time.
45:41
Yeah, right, yeah. Okay, well, that's all I have for now. Okay, thank you, sir.
45:46
See you later, mate. Thanks for calling. God bless. Bye. Just saw in our chat channel that one of our sort of new regulars, but an engineer fellow, a bright guy who often has some humorous things to say in channel, has been coughing really badly, couldn't get out of bed, and his son just mentioned in channel that they're actually sending an ambulance to take him to the
46:11
ER, and so we'd like to wish him the best and obviously pray for God's grace in that situation and that the doctors would be given wisdom to know what's going on and to provide some relief, especially for the pain.
46:32
And we'll obviously be watching to see if we get any new information concerning what's going on there, but if the computer is still on there in the home, then
46:46
I hope they're hearing this and know that we will be praying for him and his family and for the doctors that the
46:54
God of all comfort will be indeed comforting in that situation as well.
46:59
So just saw that scrolling by on the screen, and so if the computer is still playing, hopefully you can hear that.
47:08
If not, you can listen on the archive because we will trust that he will be back with us and will be feeling better.
47:14
I've been in that situation a couple of times for some reason back when, well, I'll be honest, it was before I started working out.
47:21
I wasted my 20s, wasted in the sense of did not keep myself physically fit.
47:26
When you're in your 20s, you think you're never going to have to worry about things like that. And so getting toward the end of my 20s, especially around this time of year or in about more like about four or five weeks from now,
47:39
I would always come down with some sort of bronchitis that would frequently turn into pneumonia. And I remember sometimes coughing so badly that the pain in my back especially would just be debilitating.
47:57
And earlier we had been told that he was coughing very, very badly and couldn't even get out of bed.
48:05
And I think that's probably where it's coming from, the coughing resulting in back spasms and things like that.
48:10
At least we hope that's all it is. And so anyway, it was not until I started working out, until I started riding a bike, lifting weights, doing things like that, that that stopped, that I didn't have that any longer.
48:24
And so I do know what that's like, and they can.
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Thankfully, we live in a wonderful place where we can get medical help and assistance and things like that.
48:36
So we will definitely pray for he and his family as they go through this difficult time.
48:44
Now we have a special guest on the dividing line. There's only a few times when we have an opportunity to have folks on the program who come from such an unusual, unusual place and can bring such an insight to us.
49:04
And to set the mood for bringing this person online, we need to have a little bit of music in the background.
49:12
And so we will bring on Eddie from Louisiana.
49:31
Hi! Hey! Hey!
49:43
Oh man, that's great. Hey, you know, did you start dancing across the room in your
49:49
Nutria slippers? I did. I was eating a piece of jerky when I was put on hold, actually.
49:56
So good to talk with you. I have a question about Mormon apologetics.
50:03
You have a serious question we brought you on like that? Yeah. Oh man, I'll tell you.
50:10
I'm a living dichotomy, what can I say? Well, being a black janitor and also being white at the same time, it's quite a dichotomy, yes.
50:21
No one has any idea what we're talking about here, but that's okay. That's right, it's a melanin issue. Actually, you know, we don't have many – well, let's just put it this way.
50:33
My experience has been that I don't have many opportunities to speak to Mormons at all, okay? Okay.
50:40
Louisiana and New Orleans area is pretty much Roman Catholic land, so I call it mini -Vatican for the most part, and that's usually what
50:48
I run into. And I consider that I know fairly well how to handle that, being that I was in the
50:55
Roman Catholic faith for 18 years and have studied and continue to study that. But I don't really know much at all about Mormonism except for what
51:05
I've read here and there, okay? I've not engaged them one -to -one, ever.
51:11
I did hire a secretary at one point, and she was a Mormon going to Brigham Young University, and she seemed to agree with a lot of the things that I said, which kind of was strange, you know?
51:24
She says, oh yeah, I believe that, I believe this. So my question is just simply this.
51:32
It's kind of a two -fold question. One is, if I was to run into a
51:39
Mormon, and I see them every now and then with the white shirts and the ties on the bikes with the helmets and whatnot.
51:46
If I were to engage them, I do believe that I can't be ignorant.
51:52
I know the Scripture well enough to present the Gospel, obviously. But I also know at the same point that I don't know their faith well enough, if that makes sense?
52:02
Oh, it does. Yeah, it does. So I don't want to ruin my opportunity by showing to them clearly from the get -go that I don't know anything about them, because I believe there is a respect situation involved.
52:14
But what advice would you have on someone like me, as far as if I were to see them?
52:23
Because sometimes I feel like, well, why should my ignorance stop me from still proclaiming the
52:28
Gospel to them? I don't have to know everything about them in order to talk to them. And secondly, the second thing would be this.
52:35
Given that, what resources should I be reaching that could get me up to speed?
52:41
Well, Letters to a Mormon Elder, we still have a few copies left, was written specifically to answer those questions, because it is written in a form to help you to understand the language barrier that exists, that you recognized when you spoke to the secretary and said, it sounds like she agrees with what
53:02
I was saying. Actually, she agreed with her version of what you were saying. And that's why I think we did one or two dividing lines.
53:11
They're on Straightgate, where I went over this diagram that I've developed, which
53:18
I could certainly send to you and I think is actually on the site somewhere, which
53:24
I call my universal translator, going back to Star Trek days. You may recall in the old
53:30
Star Trek series, they had this thing, it looked like a salt shaker, that they tried to use to, in essence, get over the fact that whenever you'd run into an alien race, they spoke
53:41
English. And that didn't sound real good. And so they had to try to explain how it is that aliens all speak in the
53:49
English language. And so they had a universal translator. Well, that's what we need when we talk to Mormons, because they use the same words we use, but they use a completely different lexicon to define those words.
54:01
And so it really is a major language barrier that has to be overcome.
54:07
And so what I do, in fact, I'll be doing this weekend in Edmond, Oklahoma, in fact, will be trying to communicate what that universal translator is, so that you don't have to learn everything there is to know about Mormonism, but if you understand the central aspects of what it is they believe, then you can listen to their language and translate it into yours, and more importantly, as you speak to them, translate your concepts and the truth into words that they can understand.
54:41
And that is the important part of being able to communicate with them. And that's what I did in Letters to a Mormon Elder, is in the form of letters,
54:49
I explain what they believe, what I believe, and what the difference between those things really is and how to communicate that.
54:57
And so that's available in printed version. It's also available on the web for those people who can actually read things on the web.
55:06
But that would be what I would suggest to you as far as the written material, and then getting hold of the dividing lines we did, or you could get hold of the
55:18
MP3s of the last Founders Conference thing that I did in Dallas, because I did the
55:24
Mormonism presentation there. That I did really, really, really fast, but it would be a shorter, maybe an hour and five minutes versus two dividing lines.
55:33
That way you can also look at the presentation, the little
55:38
PowerPoint thing that I've got, and follow along as you listen, and that will really give you a starting point to talk with the missionaries and things like that.
55:49
That's not going to necessarily put you instead to go jump onto the
55:55
Fair LDS website and take on everything there or something like that, but it gives you what you need in the context of what you're looking at.
56:05
And someone's just mentioning to me there's a How to Witness the Mormons, number 42, on our website that has a
56:12
CD presentation as well, which is probably another recording of my going through the same materials.
56:20
Well, that's a great help. I think I promote in my church as well and myself,
56:27
I do what I call lifestyle evangelism, which by that I mean there's certain folks that sort of set up the situation to witness the folks, and then there's just living your life.
56:38
I mean, you see someone, you go to the store, you're engaging people in your normal activity. And I know you'll find it hard to believe, but since I'm a gregarious individual, and one who...
56:50
Yeah, but when you're cleaning out all those offices at night, who do you run into? Just the security guards, right? Trash cans and dumpsters and stuff.
56:58
You know, it's nothing for me, given who I am, to engage folks rather easily. And so I'm the kind of person that will stand at Walmart, look at the tabloids and magazine covers, and I can witness through that, because there's always nonsense that's anti -biblical.
57:14
And I will say, hey, what do you think about that, and see if they're willing to talk about it. So that's what
57:20
I do, and I don't expect everyone to do it. I firmly believe that everyone has their own niche.
57:25
All the Walmarts are now posting pictures of you. Be warned, this man is proselytizing our customers.
57:33
Right, don't stand in line with this guy. But, you know, I readily admit, though, my ignorance of Mormonism, and quite frankly, in the same vein of honesty, when
57:45
I do read some of the material, it's sort of strange. I fully understand the spiritual mind, but I read the stuff, and I say, how can someone believe planetary,
57:56
Star Trek -type gold tablets, Planet Golob, all this stuff? I think to myself, wait a minute.
58:02
Now, let me just ask you this, because I know we're at the end here. Yeah, right at the end. Does the average Mormon really believe that, or is it a lot like when you talk with Roman Catholics, that you have to really find out what they believe?
58:14
And the majority of the most modern Catholics that I deal with, they don't believe all the papal things. You have to find out who you're dealing with.
58:21
Actually, there would be much more consistency in their beliefs than there would be amongst Roman Catholics, but less consistency today than there was 20 years ago.
58:29
So it's broadening out, but yes, that is central to their belief system, and most of them would believe it if they know enough to know about it.
58:38
So, hey, look at that information, folks. We'll be back next Tuesday evening instead of morning, because I'm going to be out of town.
58:46
We'll talk to you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
59:34
If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602, or write us at P .O.
59:39
Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the
59:45
World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.