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

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

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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. Good morning, welcome to the Dividing Line back here in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Just a programming note to mention, I will be on the Janet Mefford Show an hour after we finish this, that doesn't mean much as to when it's going to air and it airs at many different times.

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As I discovered, as I was driving all the way over to Santa Fe and then up to Boulder, I would catch various stations and catch partial

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Mefford, all sorts of different Janets at different times and sometimes the same hour repeated on two different stations at a different time and hear the same thing twice and stuff like that.

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So I don't know when it airs where you are, but we'll be discussing Islam this afternoon.

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For those interested, I was given a link to some information as to what

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Family Radio is going to be doing. It's a sad thing. Most of you know that Harold Camping had a stroke and evidently while recovering is not able to re -begin his, to undertake his duties.

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And so what do you do when you have a, well, it's a cult focused on one person and that one person has to become inactive a matter of months before the end of the universe, at least according to what he said.

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Well I happened to tune into Family Radio last night and right after 5 .30

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and lo and behold it was the press conference that he did right after the May 21st stuff.

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And that fits in with what is said here, starting with the Open Forum program tonight, this would have been yesterday.

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And for the next three weeks there will be reruns of the Open Forum segments which Camping hosted after May 21st through June 9th, the evening he suffered his stroke.

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When those programs are completed, there are plans to use that one and a half hours with the following. Half hour will be teaching by Gunther von

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Haringa, Sr., three nights a week, and Tom Evans for the other two nights. There will also be a special half hour of music and the half hour airing of the

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Family Radio Bible Fellowship. After the Ruth study is completed on the family

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Bible study with Harold Camping, we were fortunate to have Chris McCann to give the Bible studies. This should happen sometime in August.

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The other teaching programs Family Radio has in their library that were used for the Lord's Day studies and Echoes programs are all unusable, why?

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Because they centered around the May 21st judgment. As many of you can tell from the old Open Forums that were aired recently going back to programs before May 21st,

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Judgment Day were spoken about, these programs have their own set of problems. This is interesting to me.

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They have their own set of problems with doctrines taught like hell and damnation and when Christ made the payment for sins, etc.

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Why would that be a problem? Did I miss something? Has that been changed? We have learned so much since those days that those programs are seriously outdated.

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It is the same way with most of the past studies given by our guest speakers that we have all enjoyed until now.

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So Family Radio muddles along without its cult leader and there is no second generation to come along.

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I don't know what's going to happen. I predict they'll start selling stations off to try to keep things running and the sad thing is most of these stations will end up secular stations and no longer

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Christian stations and it's just a mess. It's terrible. Now the young lady on our Facebook page has reported, who works there, that a number of employees have already been laid off and they are, as we predicted they would be, in desperate money trouble and in fact that's the only thing left to do.

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Until the board, but see the board has, there is no board. If there was a board, they could say, okay, we are wrong, we repent of years worth of utter foolishness.

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We now want to serve the church. Here is a big network, we want to bring this church in and that church in and start contacting people and bring people on to correct all the errors of Herald Camping.

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They're doomed. That's all there is to it and justly so and that's exactly what's going to happen.

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This looks like a news item. Texas mom who spanked toddler pleads guilty to felony injury to a child charge.

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A Corpus Christi, Texas woman has pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child related to what prosecutors describe as a pretty simple straightforward spanking case with no belts or bruises, just some red marks.

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Gonzales pleaded guilty on Thursday after reaching an agreement with prosecutors. She was sentenced to five years probation, during which time she is required to take parenting classes, follow

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CPS guidelines and make a $50 payment to the Children's Advocacy Center. Before Gonzales was released, listen to this,

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Judge Jose Longoria said to her, quote, you don't spank children today.

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In the old days, maybe we got spanked, but there was a different quarrel. You don't spank children.

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You understand? End quote. Her reply was simply, yes, sir. Gonzales is working with CPS to regain custody of her two -year -old daughter and her other two children.

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The children will remain with their paternal grandmother until the state feels that Gonzales is ready. So evidently, in Texas, you can't spank your children.

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Evidently, the Texas state government thinks it's wiser than God and thinks it's wiser than generations of parents who have recognized that especially what other function does a two -year -old rear end have than to be spanked?

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Folks, the government has gone insane. That's just all there is to it.

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The government's gone insane and thinks that it is in charge of everything, has all power.

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And these, when God's wrath comes upon a nation, he gives us unrighteous judges.

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And here you go. And I wish I had answers as to what to do. I don't.

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I mean, this is just, this is absolutely unbelievable.

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We look at the collapse of our society and we go, dude, what happened?

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No discipline. And when you do discipline a child for doing something wrong, the government steps in and says, oh,

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I'm going to get you. This is Big Brother. This is socialism.

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And I don't know what happened to my nation, but it's gone. That's just all there is to it. I throw up my hands and say,

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I don't know. I think I forgot to look.

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I should have searched on my blog. But I think

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I blogged briefly, much less than I wanted to, about the situation with a man by the name of Father John Carapi.

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I have heard his voice many times on EWTN, and evidently, there's some woman accusing him of something.

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And my recollection is, either I said something on the program or I blogged, one of the two.

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I'd have to look. But anyway, I seem to recall typing something along the lines of,

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I hope this isn't true, because we don't need any kind of, we don't need any sex scandals anywhere.

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Period. End of discussion. But as it may, evidently, it's now the former

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Father Carapi, because he has publicly abandoned the

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Roman Catholic priesthood. Now I don't know. I don't have any information about anything here.

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It's out there. It's being discussed. The reason I brought it up here is,

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I was reading comments by Jimmy Akin on this situation, and this is what struck me.

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He writes, I do not understand how so quickly, after only three months, a man such as Father Carapi, a man who was ordained by the hands of, and now it's

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B .L. Dot, blessed John Paul II, because he has been beatified, a man who was ordained by the hands of blessed

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John Paul II, a man who had put in almost 20 years of service as a priest. Listen to this.

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A man who had been supernaturally conformed to Christ so as to serve in persona

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Christi. That's in the person of Christ. Remember, when a priest is ordained, they are, in their ordination, said to be an alter

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Christus, another Christ. Here is in persona Christi. A man who had been empowered to turn bread and wine into the body and blood of our

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Lord. A man who was empowered, listen to this, to forgive sins and thus italics directly, italics close, save souls from hell, could turn his back on all that without exhausting the avenues of canonical recourse available to him.

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So let me run through that one more time, because I think it's important for us to remember what

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Rome really believes about priests. It's not quite as strongly emphasized anymore, but it's still there.

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A man who was ordained by the hands of blessed John Paul II, a man who had put in almost 20 years of service as a priest, a man who had been supernaturally conformed to Christ so as to serve in persona

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Christi, a man who had been empowered to turn bread and wine into the body and blood of our Lord, a man who was empowered to forgive sins and thus directly save souls from hell, could turn his back on all that without exhausting the avenues of canonical recourse available to him.

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That's what caught my attention, was this concept.

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You know, I have more than once read the words of John O 'Brien, but I think they bear repetition every once in a while, just in case you start wavering and you start thinking that maybe

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Romanism isn't all that bad. You know, maybe we all just ought to get together. I mean, look at,

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I mean, let's think about it. I mean, we might stand side to side against a liberal, godless society that says you can't discipline your children.

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You can't smack a two -year -old on his butt when he misbehaves.

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Oh, no, can't do that. We'll stick CPS on you. We'll stick you in jail. We'll take kids away. And we might stand side to side with Roman Catholics and saying, that's ridiculous.

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Get out of our lives, you people. Haven't you seen you've destroyed enough lives already? But it's real easy to go, oh, well, because we all agree on that, therefore, it can't be all that bad.

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I mean, you know, it just sounds like some doctrinal stuff, you know, and doctrine, it divides, doesn't build up.

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So, listen again. You just heard Jimmy Akin. Now, John O 'Brien. When the priest announces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings

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Christ down from his throne, and places him upon our altar to be offered up again as a victim for the sins of man. It is a power greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of seraphim and cherubim.

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Indeed, it is greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary, while the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time.

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The priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of man, not once, but a thousand times.

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The priest speaks, and lo, Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command.

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Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest, who is thus privileged to act as the ambassador and vicegerent of Christ on earth.

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He continues the essential ministry of Christ. He teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ. He pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ.

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He offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered on Calvary. No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that of Alter Christus, for the priest is and should be another

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Christ. At its heart, there is a fundamental denial of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ to be found in the

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Romanist system. Oh, I have mentioned him a number of times, really?

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Anyway, I do want to take a look at, I've got some things queued up, but we have one call.

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Go ahead and take that call and then take a look at what we have available, queued up and ready to go.

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Let's talk with Dennis. Hi, Dennis. Hey, Dr. White. Thank you very much for taking my call. Yes, sir.

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I had a question about the very important and crucial subject of hell and wondered, with that taken into consideration, how important that subject is.

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How come the Apostle Paul never mentions anything about this place called hell? Oh, but he does, of course.

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I mean, it's obvious. I read the Thessalonian correspondence and he talks about people being cast away from the presence of Christ, suffering punishment, all sorts of stuff.

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Why would you think that that's not hell? Well, he talks about, in 2 Thessalonians, he mentions the phrase rendered in most

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English translations as eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord. Yeah. And that had to do with his second coming.

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That wasn't after the final judgment. He never mentioned the Gehenna. He never mentioned the Lake of Fire. Dennis, do you just want to argue this one or are you actually asking a question?

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I just want to know, because I appreciate when folks are a little bit more upfront with it, because given the response you just gave, you already know what my answer is.

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My answer is, he has the traditions of Jesus. He knows what Jesus taught. So Paul does not have to repeat everything

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Jesus taught. But the Gentiles didn't know. He's ministering to the Gentiles and he's teaching the churches about, he says, the wages of sin is death.

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He says, as in Adam all die, not in Adam all go to hell, or the wages of sin is death.

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But I interpret Paul as part of the New Testament. I don't take him and separate him off so the teachings of Jesus are irrelevant to the teachings of Paul.

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He's building upon that. He's repeating those things. He does not have to then repeat over and over again what is being taught by the

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Lord Jesus, where he used all those terms and he uses languages that is very, very clearly referring to that.

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And Dennis, why weren't you honest and just say, I want to argue about hell with Dr.

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White? Okay. All right. I want to argue with Dr. White. Thanks. I don't. Okay. Let's, sorry,

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I'm not, I'm not interested. You know, if you want to hear me talk about hell, listen to the

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Unbelievable Radio program, listen to my responses to Rob Bell. But I don't understand dishonest people. Sorry. If you want to argue about something, then tell me.

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But, you know, we had somebody in channel earlier today, you know, that was sort of the same type of thing, you know.

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If you're a heretic, just be up front. We put heretics on, you know, it's cool. No worries.

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We'll get to Scott a little bit later on. I wanted to address some of the stuff that I had queued up here.

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I was listening to a very interesting debate that took place on ABN. It may still be up.

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I assume it's still up. It's less than a week ago. So I assume it's still there. David Wood and Sam Shamoon debated two

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Muslims. One was named Abu and the other was a sheikh. And I don't remember what the sheikh's name was.

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I apologize. It was in one of these Skype debates where Sam and David are in studio because it's the

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Jizr Muhammad Marathon, which I didn't get to go to this year. I sort of missed that.

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But it was really interesting. Both were Salafi Muslims, which you need to understand that term.

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It means they understand it as they follow the Prophet and his companions, those first generations.

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Now, you know, there's different levels of this. Sometimes the Salafi and like, you know,

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Wahhabi, the people who follow the interpretations that have come down,

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Ibn Tamiah, as he was interpreted by others and things like that. There's it's sort of fundamentalist

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Islam, in essence. And it was interesting listening to this because it reminded me of my debate with Sheikh Jalal Abu Alrub.

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And how many times he just sort of went off on these various subjects that weren't necessarily what we were talking about at the time.

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Listen to this little section. I'm going to probably keep this queued up and maybe play it on the Janet Mefford show, too, just for the fun of it.

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But I appreciated the honesty. At least this guy's honest. You know, it's straightforward. He didn't say, well,

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I would like to have your opinion on something. No, he wanted to make an argument. He has a position.

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And he stated it. I respect that kind of thing. I don't the, oh,

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I wonder why Paul didn't. I'm sorry. I just don't have the patience for it after a long trip.

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Let's listen to the Sheikh here. And hopefully I've got my volume up where it needs to be.

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Here we go. And that is a big conflict. So it's not going to be, and even himself, going to follow the Sharia.

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So when we said the return of Jesus, we don't say it's going to be sent as a new prophet. Haven't I said that?

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I must tell you something. Frankly, the God you believe in is not the God I believe in.

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Don't waste your time with us. Why? You believe in God came out from the womb of woman.

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I believe in God is supreme, has no beginning, no end. It's nothing like him. He has no father, no son, no daughter, no mother.

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You believe in a prophet came out from a womb of woman, the Virgin Mary. And we believe she's a

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Virgin Mary. And he is really a blessing and holy prophet. And that's it really, the difference between us and you.

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So the ideas of son of God and being crucified is completely false. So my advice to you, embrace

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Islam and stop all this. I pass it to my colleagues. So that sounded very much like Jalal.

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And, but when you listen to that, a Christian, a

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Christian goes, now wait a minute. We do believe in the incarnation, but that wasn't the beginning of God's existence.

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Because notice what he contrasted. But we believe in God who is supreme overall.

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Well, so do we, obviously, we just happen to believe he has the capacity to enter into his own creation. And he did so in the person of his son, who is not begotten by God in the sense of created at a point in time.

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He doesn't have a wife, as the Quran seems to misunderstand the situation. And so you listen to that.

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And that's the standard kind of thought that you have on the part of a

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Salafi Muslim. And it's clear by the, by the presentation, he says, don't even, don't even bother with us.

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Don't even, don't even bother us. That they've never even stepped back long enough to try.

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They don't even have an inkling about trying to understand what it is the

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Christian believes. And hence to provide something other than a, oh, just stop believing this and come to Islam.

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Well, that's not, you know, I mean, I've encountered Christian apologists that, you know, engage on about that level.

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You know, oh, just stop believing this silliness and believe in Jesus type, type of thing. But, but it's not an overly compelling argument when here is a sheikh and he's saying, oh, you're all wrong.

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But you can tell that he doesn't really understand what we believe to begin with. And doesn't seem to show any interest in, in knowing.

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And so I found that very interesting. And of course, during the conversation, there was one side that was constantly citing sources.

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You know, Ibn Kathir and, and citing the Quran and things like that. And the other side wasn't. And it wasn't the

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Muslims were always citing those things. It was, it was David and Sam, of course, that were doing that.

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And it was, it was very interesting to, to listen to that. Like I said, if you go to abnsat .com,

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you should be able to pull it up. I, I don't remember which day it was, but it's, it's also posted on the

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Act 17 website as well. So you can, you can pull it down from there. But I did find those particular comments by, by the sheikh most, most interesting.

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Now, different from the sheikh are the comments of Abdullah Kunda that I have been trying to get to for months now.

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I started playing these and then we did some Radio Free Geneva's and we did some of this. We did the,

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I don't know, did Rob Bell even? Maybe that was even before Rob Bell. I don't remember now. It's terrible.

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And I remember we did get back to it and covered, I think, 15 seconds. So, so I apologize for that, especially since Abdullah is kind enough to, you know, listen to the program once in a while and stuff like that.

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So I wanted to get through some of the comments he made here. So I sort of backed it up a little bit so that I would be able to have some of the, some of the context and probably end up repeating myself in the process.

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But let's listen to at least a few minutes. Let's try to get a few minutes in here. And we lost our caller anyways.

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Just disappeared. So we'll get more time in unless the caller calls back. And so let's, let's listen.

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This was a debate between Samuel Green and Abdullah Kunda. I think I owe both of them emails, or at least

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I know I owe Samuel an email. I'm behind. If anyone is waiting for an email from me, I'm behind.

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I've been traveling. I'm gonna be traveling again next week. I really don't know what kind of, oh, and my camera just died.

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Evidently it was not plugged back in to be recharged. So if we get any interesting phone calls, we're not going to have a video recording of it anyways.

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Just so professional around here. I do not know if there's even going to be a dividing line schedule next week.

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I just don't know. Because I'm going to be in Alaska and I, maybe toward the end of the week,

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I might be someplace with good enough internet to do it.

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I just don't know. What do you, what do you? Alaska. How long ago was that?

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That was years ago. And poor, poor Mike. We were still, we're still making fun of Alaska.

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Yes, that's where I'm going is Alaska. By the way, you know,

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I need to look at something here. Let me, let me, let me bring up. I don't need anything more about that. Let me, let me see if there's something here.

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Herald camping. No, that's extended until June 13th.

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Well, June 13th has passed. That needs to be, we need to, okay, we need to start right.

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We need to have, we need to have, we need to have, we need to have, a, a telethon to raise money to, to buy

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Micah. We just need to, we just need to buy Micah. That's what we need to do.

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That's all there is to it. Cause we need to update, update the banner ads faster than we do. So we just need to buy ourselves a

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Micah. That's, that's, that's how it works. Not sure what the, what the cost of that is, but it's probably more than we can afford.

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Anyway, let's, let's get back to Abdullah Kunda here. And, uh, and his comments from the debate.

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And your God certainly can't be eternal because if he gave up his attributes to become

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Jesus, or, or if the son gave up his godly attributes to become fully man, then he's changed.

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Now I've already commented, but let me just, just, this is, this is part of the objections that Abdullah states to the doctrine of Trinity.

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There he is. He gave up godly attributes to become man, not in the sense of them ceasing to exist, when you say give up, give up the exercise.

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So God cannot give up the exercise of certainly godly attributes. That's, that's something

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Allah cannot do evidently. Or this somehow involves a fundamental change in the nature of God.

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So just, just so we understand there's, there's part of the argument that's being an eternal being by, by definition cannot change because any change will be subject to a specific point in time.

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Now, if you really take that to its fullest extent, then God could not act in time. And I suppose there might be some

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Muslims who say he doesn't, but it makes it a little bit difficult to understand how miracles could possibly take place or anything along those lines.

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From the Christian perspective, God has a sovereign decree. He can act within time without an essential change within his actual nature.

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And you'll have before the being had this change. And then after the being had this change. So your God can't be eternal.

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He can't be all powerful. And he can't be unified. And at the same time, the message is not even understood by the, the key people that were with your

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God when he was here on earth. So in other words, unless there is a now, of course,

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I would point out that Muhammad in light of the doctrine of abrogation grew in his understanding of God's revelation and the teaching of that, so on and so forth from the

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Islamic perspective. But that's just, just sort of how that would fit in there. But the reality is that when you say that the people who were with him did not understand, you mean there is a period of growth and revelation and teaching and then the necessity of the coming of the spirit of God to open their hearts and minds.

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And even after the events of all of Jesus' ministry, you then had the, the necessity of after the crucifixion,

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Jesus opens their minds to understand the scripture. So there has to be just an instant, oh, this is

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God walking amongst us for it to be true. What's the basis of that? What's, what's, what's the basis of that?

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I don't, I'm not sure that it's been stated. There's an unstated assumption being made by Abdullah at this point that I don't think is one that we really want to be able to grab hold of.

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And I'd like to be able to examine it, in other words, to see what it's, what the real basis is.

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Hey, 877 -753 -341, I'm going to continue with some more comments from Abdullah on the other side of the break, but we also invite your phone calls and is

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Skype working? And your Skype call is dividing .line. But if you get a call, please be honest, if you want to argue.

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877 -753 -3341, we'll be right back. What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book,

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Chosen But Free? A New Cult? Secularism? False Prophecy Scenarios? No, Dr.

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Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.

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In his book, The Potters' Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, But The Potters' Freedom is much more than just a reply.

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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself.

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In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme

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Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the

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Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Potters' Freedom, A Defense of the

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Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at aomen .org.

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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.

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The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.

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The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.

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The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45.

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Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7.

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The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.

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You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE. If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org,

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where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

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Pulpit Crimes The criminal mishandling of God's Word may be James White's most provocative book yet.

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White sets out to examine numerous crimes being committed in pulpits throughout our land every week as he seeks to leave no stone unturned.

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Based firmly upon the bedrock of Scripture, one crime after another is laid bare for all to see. The pulpit is to be a place where God speaks from his

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Word. What has happened to this sacred duty in our day? The charges are as follows.

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Prostitution using the gospel for financial gain. Pandering to pluralism. Cowardice under fire.

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Felonious eisegesis. Entertainment without a license. And cross -dressing, ignoring

32:29

God's ordinance regarding the roles of men and women. Is a pulpit crime occurring in your town? Get Pulpit Crimes in the bookstore at aomen .org.

33:00

And correct what was on that commercial spot, because I realize, my goodness, that is really old.

33:06

What commercial spot? The PRBC one. You can listen through Real Audio. Does anybody actually use

33:12

Real Audio? Do they exist? I'm not sure that Real Audio still exists. Yeah. So now we're on sermonaudio .com.

33:19

Yeah, sermonaudio .com. But I'll bet you if you still have Real Audio, you'll find files up on there. Oh, you will.

33:25

Oh, there's no question. In fact, we had somebody at church a couple weeks ago in there saying, have you all stopped recording your sermons?

33:32

Because on the website, it only goes up to 2009. And I'm like, well, you know,

33:37

I sort of figured somebody would put a link up on the website saying our sermons are now available at sermonaudio .com.

33:44

Wanted another volunteer webmaster. Yes. I thought we were switching that over. Didn't certain buzz man put together a template for that?

33:54

I don't know. Yes, he did. I don't know. Well, we need to get it up there is what we need to do.

34:00

Yeah, I just clicked on this link. Pakistan. Christian families forced to flee homes after eight -year -old boy refuses to convert to Islam and hence is accused of blasphemy.

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Ah, Sharia. It is truly beautiful, isn't it? No, not really. It is a sad, sad thing.

34:20

Ten Christian families forced to flee from Chak 68 Arifwala in Khananawal district for fear of the consequences of an accusation of blasphemy.

34:30

A Christian boy of eight years, Ittisham, nicknamed Sonny, went to buy ice in a market and was surrounded and harassed by students of a madrasa, an

34:38

Islamic religious school. They asked him to recite verses from the Quran. Those every Muslim reads, the so -called, ah, see, even the person who wrote this, it's

34:48

Kalima. In short, the statement, there is no God but Allah. They asked him to renounce his religion, convert to Islam. An uncle of Sonny, Dildar Masih, seeing that his nephew was in trouble because the students intervened,

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Sonny explained to him they were bullying him to renounce his religion. Dildar addressed the boys. He rebuked them and told

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Sonny to go home. The boys told the incident of the religious leaders of the madrasa. The latter announced that Dildar Masih had committed blasphemy, making fun of chronic verses, and the loudspeaker of the madrasa urged all to punish the blasphemer to set an example.

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A crowd gathered around Dildar where he was working and attacked him after the incident. Ten families fled from the village.

35:27

That's just so sad. Pakistan's blasphemy law is nothing more than an excuse for Muslims to persecute

35:36

Christians. That's all it is. And may I say something to Muslims that listen? We know I have Muslims that listen.

35:42

If your religion is so weak that you have to have blasphemy laws, then

35:49

I suggest to you that it's not true. Just a thought. Anyways, 877 -753 -3341.

35:59

I guess when I ask that people be honest, it sort of squashes phone calls.

36:09

877 -753 -3341. Dividing dot line via Skype is the number.

36:17

What can I say? It's strange. Oh, I did want to mention before I get back to Abdul here, don't forget the

36:24

Defending the Faith Apologetics Crew is coming up in January 2nd through 8th, going out of Galveston.

36:31

You know, I was down there and I talked to the folks in Houston. They had contacted a

36:37

Muslim and they had contacted an atheist about the possibility of setting up a debate because a lot of folks sort of like to tag team those things, stuff like that.

36:47

After initial conversations, the other sides just disappeared, stopped communicating.

36:55

So we tried to find some local folks down there to do something because obviously

37:00

Galveston is fairly close to Houston and we tried to set something up along those lines and that didn't happen.

37:08

It would have been nice if we were sailing out of South Carolina, we could probably arrange a hell debate.

37:16

But anyway, yeah. Yes, Carla, I know. I am very, very scary and now no one will ever call in again.

37:23

In fact, we could just hang up the phone lines and just never bother with them again.

37:30

That's a possibility. Then get it maybe done. All right, let's continue on with Abdullah's comments here.

37:36

Doesn't give me a whole lot of confidence. Why do

37:42

I say these things? Well, as I said, first of all, the method of salvation is illogical, absolutely illogical.

37:47

How is it logical that somebody should be punished for something that A, they didn't do because we assume that God wasn't part of the whole original sin thing with Adam?

37:57

That B, I should be punished for something that I didn't do because I didn't eat in the garden and that C, it's the punishment of an individual that didn't even commit the sin at all.

38:08

Now, this is interesting. It seems at times that Abdullah approaches

38:15

Christianity as a secularist, but does not address or approach his own religious faith in that way, which strikes me as somewhat inconsistent.

38:32

I mean, if I try to raise consistent arguments against Islam, I don't want to act as if I am a secular humanist and criticize

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Islam for not living up to secular humanist standards when I don't apply secularist humanist standards to Christianity. This doesn't make any sense.

38:49

And so to say, well, it's illogical. God wasn't a part of the sin. Well, of course not.

38:56

But if he wants to demonstrate his love for his people and to demonstrate the whole range of his attributes all the way from holiness through love, through mercy, through grace, then why is it, quote unquote, illogical for him to arrange his own self -glorification in such a way that it involves the incarnation and the cross?

39:26

I mean, God isn't free to do that. God isn't free to have, for example, a mirror of what was coming prophetically seen in Abraham and the offering of Isaac, not

39:43

Ishmael. What does that point forward to? In fact, from an

39:48

Islamic perspective, I have to wonder, given what Abraham did and his willingness to sacrifice his own son, whether you believe that was

39:57

Isaac or Ishmael, depending on what tradition you follow, the historic documentation from documents that long precede the time of Christ, let alone the time of Muhammad, says it was

40:10

Isaac, not Ishmael. But the reality is that, well, how can you understand that Abraham was able and willing to do that?

40:28

Did he not demonstrate more faith, more love for God than anybody else by doing that?

40:35

And yet it becomes a picture. You see, it's a picture. God provided the sacrifice and God himself was willing to do more than even

40:47

Abraham was willing to do. But again, this use of logic, no one has ever said that Christianity is a logical syllogism.

40:58

It's not some type of rationalistic system. It's not irrational, but it accepts the reality of divine revelation.

41:05

So you just have to be consistent in the standards that you're using. Who created the whole system in the first place, but then sets it all back in motion.

41:12

I didn't finish the other two. The argument was, well, why should

41:17

I be held accountable when somebody else is? Well, even in Islam, sin exists and Adam fell and there is a concept of representation there.

41:30

It may not be as clearly defined and laid out as federal headship, but it may be muddled in the

41:36

Quran, but it's still there. And of course, the sacrifice of Christ is voluntary on Christ's part.

41:45

But again, on a logical level, why should I have the righteousness of Christ?

41:51

Well, it's not logical. It is revelational. But God provided a legal, proper,

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God -glorifying, holiness -honoring, justice -intact means by which

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I can have that righteousness because of what Jesus Christ has done on my behalf.

42:15

If you're kind of lost in what I'm saying there, it's because it doesn't make sense. Not only that, but it has...

42:21

Well, it did make sense. I'm sorry, it may not make sense to Abdullah, but it makes perfect sense if you would just ground it in what

42:33

Christians ground it in, as in the historical reality of the Incarnation, the ministry of Christ, and the resultant scriptures that come there from.

42:43

I mean, honestly, what if someone asked, and maybe I'll get an opportunity to ask, but does

42:49

Abdullah Kunda believe that God split the moon for Muhammad? I mean, maybe he's not one of the

42:56

Muslims that interprets that particular passage that way, but I've met many Muslims who believe in all sorts of miracles that Muhammad did, and it would be real easy for me to divorce certain elements of Islamic teaching from their context, divorce it from any kind of supernaturalism, and say, how does this make any sense?

43:17

I mean, if you can't follow that, then it's because it doesn't make any sense. I don't think that's a really useful direction to go.

43:26

It has no precedent in the former holy books now. It has no precedent in the former holy books.

43:32

Yes, it does. I would recommend to Abdullah Kunda the study of a...

43:39

And in fact, if he wants to, I would... I've listened to hours of Abdullah, maybe he'd like to download my sermons on the

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Book of Hebrews, which would make up many hours. They're available on sermonaudio .com,

43:54

and there's an entire book that its central thesis, part of its central thesis, demonstration of the supremacy of Christ, is that Christ is the fulfillment of what the

44:05

Old Testament scriptures or the Tanakh was exactly presenting. And I think you will find that there's a lot of argumentation on that very point that would be very, very useful.

44:19

877 -753 -3341, dividing the line via Skype. And we have had some brave...

44:26

We've had one brave folk, brave person call in, and then we got Arlen. So, well, you know...

44:36

What, was that harsh? Have you seen how we treat him in channel? I mean, he's not at the top of the list.

44:46

And in fact, he's not in channel right now for me to kick, unfortunately, unless he changed his neck, because there's

44:51

Arlington, and Arlington isn't Arlen. Not that he wouldn't have a reason to hide. Oh, that's right.

44:58

I kick him on a regular basis, and he just needs to realize that's part of his calling in life.

45:05

So you know how we arrived at that topic there? Yeah, you mentioned in channel, he wants to talk about annihilationism, and you tried to spell it and couldn't, so you just said it's hell.

45:14

Right? It was more along the lines of it's A -N -H -I... A -N -A -H...

45:21

Oh, just tell him hell. And well, annihilationism may be something we practice on Arlen and channel when it comes back in.

45:31

But first, let's talk with Andrew up in my home state of Minnesota.

45:38

Hello, Andrew. Hi. How are you doing? I'm doing well. How are you? Good. I have a question, and it's a question, and that's all.

45:51

Good, good. All right. So you don't want to argue this point, huh? Okay. Nope, nope, nope, nope.

45:57

Actually, I think I agree with you. I'm just not sure how to deal with something here. Okay. I was reminded of it when

46:04

I heard you talking about the Catholic priest there. From John 20, 23,

46:09

I'm sure you know the verse very well, when Jesus talks to the apostles and says, you know, if you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven.

46:18

If you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld. How would you explain that to somebody?

46:25

Because I look at it and I go, gosh, it actually kind of does seem like it's saying what they say it's saying.

46:33

Well, let's back up a little bit and make sure we have the proper context.

46:38

There's nothing about priests. There's nothing about alter Christus. There's nothing about a priest. There is no concept of a sacramental male celibate priesthood anywhere in the

46:50

New Testament. I've debated that subject and be glad to debate it again in the future. It just isn't there. So what you have to do is you have to say, well, these are the apostles, and the apostles ordained the priests, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

47:00

It's still a long reach, but it's one of the texts that's used. There are a couple of texts, this one in John.

47:09

You also have in the Synoptic Gospels, this teaching on Jesus' part about binding and loosing.

47:17

Whatever you bind will be bound, whatever you loose shall be loosed. And we've addressed it many times, but notice the verse division is a little bit unfortunate here.

47:31

I don't want to get down on Stephanos for where he divided things, but back to verse 21,

47:36

Jesus said to them again, peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.

47:43

So the context is I was sent by the Father. Now you are going to be my representatives, and I am sending you.

47:50

When he had said this, he breathed on them, and remember that the term breathe in the language is related to the concept of spirit, and so he breathed on them and said to them, receive the

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Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven you. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.

48:19

Now this is John's version of what you have elsewhere in the binding and loosing.

48:28

Whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall have been bound in, shall have been loosed in heaven.

48:37

And so what you have there is the reflection on earth of what the heavenly realities are.

48:43

And in both of these, the context is in the sending of the apostles. Now if you think that the primary function of the sending of the apostles was sacramental and priesthoods and stuff like that, then you'll read in that context, but from the

48:56

New Testament, what is the primary thing that the apostles are sent to do? What does Matthew 28, 19 -20 tell us?

49:03

They are going to all the world and preach the gospel, teaching nations and baptizing, and it is a proclamation of the gospel.

49:12

And so why would they need the Holy Spirit? Why is the phrase, receive the

49:19

Holy Spirit, which is yet to come in its fulfillment historically in the coming of the

49:25

Spirit on the day of Pentecost, what's the relationship of the Spirit here to what's being said?

49:32

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.

49:38

Well, how does all this fit together? I think the only way to understand this in light of how it was fulfilled by the apostles, how did these men understand?

49:49

Not how did somebody a thousand years later or even 500 years later, how did the apostles understand

49:58

Jesus's ministry to them in this way? Well, you see on the day of Pentecost, you see all through the book of Acts in the ministry of the church.

50:07

What is it that the Holy Spirit of God enables them and empowers them to do, to be priests, to be popes, to set up sacramental systems?

50:17

No. What do they immediately do when the Holy Spirit comes upon them? They are preaching the gospel and proclaiming to men and women everywhere the means by which one can have the forgiveness of sins.

50:31

And when they are rejected, when not they are rejected, but their message is rejected, what do they say?

50:41

Well, then you remain in your sins. This is the only way of salvation. There is no other way of salvation.

50:47

And therefore, you are bound to your sins. Think about Acts chapter 13. You don't want the good news?

50:55

You reject these things for yourselves? Fine. We're going to the Gentiles. Gentiles rejoice and as many as are ordained to eternal life believe.

51:02

And so it is in the preaching of the gospel that you have the binding and the loosing. For those who by the

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Spirit of God embrace the gospel, they are loosed from their sins, and the proclamation is made to them, you have received forgiveness.

51:19

That which is true in heaven is true on earth. For those who reject it, you are bound to your sins, and the verdict of heaven is repeated.

51:28

You will die in your sins, as Gia said in John 8. So if I might boil this down, what you're saying is basically the misunderstanding comes down to a lack of a broader biblical theology on this whole topic of preaching the gospel and forgiveness of sins.

51:47

Well, it's due to a replacement of the biblical theology that you would derive from looking at how these men acted out their own understanding of it.

51:58

It's the replacement of that biblical theology with a traditional theology that extends outside of the

52:03

New Testament in the form of Roman Catholic tradition or Eastern Orthodox tradition or whatever else it might be.

52:10

I think Anglicans and Lutherans do it too with the confession. Some can.

52:16

I mean, you're going to find wide varieties amongst Anglicans and Lutherans on certain issues as well.

52:22

I've got my good Anglican brothers down in Sydney that are evangelical, and then you've got the woo -woo nutcase guy in England.

52:31

So there's a few places that have quite as wide a variety of perspectives as you find there.

52:38

But anyway, all righty, Andrew. Well, I appreciate that. Okay, thanks, Andrew. Bye. God bless. Bye -bye. All right, so we've got just a few minutes left here to answer

52:47

Arlen. Hi, Arlen. Hi, Dr. White. Hey, you know, I figure since you go to Biola that you're already abused so much that we really can't add much to the burden you're already bearing.

53:02

Perhaps. Perhaps. Do I detect pity in yours?

53:08

No, no. But I do detect an echo in yours. What are you, standing in the middle of a large hallway or something?

53:14

Something like that. Yeah. You're, what, hiding in the bathroom because the students at Biola are chasing you around today?

53:23

Yeah, the devotees of Ergon Kanner. Oh, no, I figured it'd be William Lane Craig there. Well, they're kind of all mixed together.

53:32

Yeah. Did William Lane Craig ever say anything about the

53:38

Ergon Kanner situation? Now, there is a question that had never crossed my mind. I guess he probably just avoided it.

53:46

He spoke here in 2006. No, yeah, that doesn't surprise me. But the question is, will he ever speak there again?

53:54

That will tell you if they know the truth. Talbot professors were using him as an example of what not to do in Christian ministry.

54:02

Oh, okay. Well, there you go. So Talbot professors will not be invited to speak at the

54:07

Arlington Baptist College, which I'm not sure they really would want to go there anyways.

54:12

But it would probably be a quid pro quo thing there. Anyways, you want to be annihilated?

54:19

No. Oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstood your question. I thought you were calling in for annihilation.

54:24

No, A -N -I -H -I -L -A -T -I -O -N, I think. Okay. Okay.

54:32

So my question is, we had a speaker on annihilationism.

54:38

Not a speaker, it was a debate involving annihilationism. And after that debate, I kind of had the perspective that annihilationism is just heresy, yada, yada, yada.

54:47

I was already familiar with it. But I was told in channel afterwards that John Stott seemed to have views that leaned towards it.

54:55

And so... That's my understanding, yes. My question is, with an issue like this, my general perspective was, so this was damnable heresy.

55:04

But in retrospect, I'm thinking, I'm not really sure, which brought up the larger issue of how do we as Christians prevent ourselves from giving a knee -jerk reaction to something that we disagree with strongly without just kind of dismissing people as, oh, they're just believing in damnable heresy?

55:23

Where do we kind of draw a dividing line where we can clearly make a discernment on what really needs to be approached evangelistically and what needs to be approached merely as an internal disagreement?

55:38

Yeah. Well, part of it has to be derived from recognizing the difference between a teaching and a teacher and recognizing that sometimes people adopt certain teachings that we would consider to be unorthodox, not necessarily on the level of a denial of, say, the crucifixion or the deity of Christ or the resurrection or something like that.

56:07

But people may adopt a weakened position where they will say something like, well, it might be this or it might be that, and then eventually move into a position that we certainly would not identify as orthodoxy for all sorts of different reasons.

56:25

What in the world are you doing? It sounds like you're climbing out a window. You're trying to sneak into some building there at Biola.

56:34

Construction. You're doing construction. No, I'm in a construction zone.

56:40

Sorry. You're in a construction zone, but you're not doing construction. Do you have a hard hat on? No. Okay, very good.

56:48

Rich, can you call up the local authorities over there in California? Yeah, it sounds like somebody's shortcutting it across campus.

56:54

It does sound a little bit like that to me, too. Anyway, getting back to my point,

57:01

I think first and foremost we have to differentiate between teachings and individuals.

57:09

It's very, very easy for us to get focused upon a particular person. Oh, you don't want to ever read anything that John Stott ever said.

57:17

Well, the problem is John Stott said a lot of good things, but you need to be aware of the fact that there were weaknesses in John Stott's theology.

57:25

Now, what are all those reasons? I don't necessarily know what all those reasons are, and I don't need to know.

57:33

I can say, well, on certain subjects John Stott had some great insights, but on other subjects he went off the mark.

57:42

And that's probably true on a minor level with pretty much everybody, because none of us have absolute perfection of theological understanding in this life.

57:55

As a teacher makes a differentiation between themselves and others, that helps us to avoid you know, when someone so closely identifies their teaching with themselves, it's hard to make that differentiation.

58:11

But when others are a little bit less focused upon themselves and make that type of differentiation, that helps as well.

58:17

Hey, Arlen, please be careful as you are going through whatever you're going through there. In fact,

58:23

I didn't hear anything after a while. Something may have fallen upon him. I don't know. He's gone. We'll see if he ever shows up in channel again.

58:28

Thanks. Thanks for calling, Arlen. Oh, well, thanks for listening to Vinyline today.

58:34

We'll be back, Lord willing, on Thursday at our regular Thursday afternoon time.

58:40

And then, like I said, next week, who knows? But we'll try. All depends on internet access, but we'll try again next week.

58:47

Talk to you then. God bless. Let this moment of self away.

58:55

We must contend for the faith above us fought for. We need a new Reformation day.

59:04

It's a sign of the times. The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm.

59:11

Won't you lift up your voice? Are you tired of plain religion? It's time to make some noise.

59:17

I stand up for the truth.

59:30

The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

59:40

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

59:46

World Wide Web at AOMIN .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G. Or you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.