Islam and the Jews: a Review, then, 40th Celebration Recap

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:33

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line.

00:35

It is a Tuesday, and the world's different than it was when the weekend started.

00:43

And I don't know exactly how that's all going to play out right now.

00:46

Obviously, many people are paying rather close attention to...

00:50

Well, that's just it.

00:52

To what? What sources of information can almost anyone trust anymore? I mean, I've watched some of the worst videos that have been coming out of Israel.

01:06

And of course, you see the drone footage of what looks like Berlin in 1945, already in Gaza, as Israel strikes back with air power.

01:22

We're sending two carrier groups now to be offshore.

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And of course, I just point out, we are a bankrupt nation.

01:35

We are so many trillions of dollars in debt that it'll never get paid off.

01:42

Isn't it fascinating? I mentioned to some folks, isn't it? War is starting in the Middle East, but we're ready because we have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has been drained to the lowest level it's ever been at since it was set up by the current regime.

02:01

Only 17 days worth of supply.

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Out of all the rest of you, there are so many people that seem to think they have this all figured out.

02:16

I don't think anybody has this figured out.

02:19

None of it adds up.

02:22

I'll be honest, a lot of the stuff that I'm seeing looks staged to me.

02:28

It really does.

02:31

There's just a bunch of stuff that doesn't fit.

02:38

And it doesn't make any sense.

02:41

And people are saying they were warned, and then they're saying we had no idea.

02:46

I don't know.

02:47

I don't know.

02:49

This happens right after the current regime that has taken over the United States.

02:56

Storm elections have consequences.

03:00

Gives Iran $6 billion, violates what we've done all along.

03:06

Oh, and look, they're taking hostages.

03:08

Why would they be encouraged to do that? Who knows? I don't know.

03:14

I think anyone who is claiming to know what's going on and to have all the answers is probably just very foolish.

03:31

And I'm not saying that I'll ever have the answers, to be honest with you.

03:35

It's happening half a world away.

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It's terrible whatever it is.

03:42

I certainly hope those people that were visiting Israel managed to get out.

03:47

I've heard some stories about people getting out through other countries and stuff like that.

03:54

The big takeaway I took from my one visit to Israel in 2018 was how small it is.

04:04

It's tiny.

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And you can get in a car on a three-lane highway and cover most of that country in a very short amount of time.

04:19

So, you know, they don't have much room to maneuver.

04:24

And it is, of course, amazing to sit there and see some of these terrorists carrying our weapons that we donated to them when the regime did its tuck, tail, and run thing in Afghanistan.

04:46

But anyway, all of that said, all of a sudden, people are talking about Islam again.

04:57

We started talking about Islam seriously in late 2005, early 2006, probably late 2005, when I began preparing for my first debate with Shabir Ali at Biola University.

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And we did, for the next five, six years, we did a lot.

05:23

You go back to, you use the transcript function at aomin.org, and you will find a tremendous amount of information on the subject of Islam.

05:43

And the Quran, biblical responses, just all sorts of stuff.

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And we were some of the only people doing that.

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And that, look, that is not, you know, right now, okay, there would be a brief, and I've seen it right after 9-11, and then there would be, you know, a big, what happened on July 7th in London.

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You'll have periods where people are all of a sudden all interested in Islam.

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And I better learn something about this.

06:22

But it fades.

06:25

It's not the kind of thing that really grabs people's attention.

06:30

And certainly one of the things we've tried to do over the years was to communicate to Christians the fact that the main thing that the Muslim world needs are Christians who love them enough to tell them the truth, and to learn what they believe so as to be able to communicate with them.

06:51

Now, of course, that's not to say that every Muslim believes the same thing.

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We know there's Sunnis.

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We know there's Shiites.

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We know there's all sorts of divisions even within those broad categories.

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And obviously, Islam as it exists in majority Muslim contexts is very different than Islam as it exists in the West, where Islam is normally the minority.

07:21

Now, obviously, in Europe and in Dearborn, Michigan, those things change once Islam reaches a certain percentage in the population.

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You come to understand why I've said for a long time, Islam is a religio-political system or a politico-religious system, depending on the number of people it has in a culture.

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When it's a small minority, the emphasis is upon the religion.

07:53

Once it reaches a particular number, so it depends on the country, population, things like that, but once it reaches a certain population level, the emphasis switches from the religion to the political.

08:08

And that has great impact on many, many things.

08:15

So, I started thinking over the past few days about everything we've done on Islam over the years.

08:24

I mean, you can go online and, for example, down in New Orleans a number of years ago, I did a presentation called Islam A to Z over two nights that I know is still out there.

08:41

I think we have it linked on our, if you go to our YouTube page, there's an Islam section, because I've done, it's pretty close to even, but actually a few more debates with Muslims than with Roman Catholics.

08:58

It's very close.

09:01

And so there's lots and lots of material there, but then there's these presentations that I've developed over the years that have been recorded at various churches, and we have those available to look at as well.

09:13

But I wanted to talk a little bit about the trying, it's difficult to get people to understand.

09:30

You see some of the videos that were very difficult to watch.

09:38

These Hamas fighters, these terrorists, desecrating the bodies of soldiers that they had already killed.

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Or one was in his death throes, and they're trying to chop his head off.

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And you look at them, and it's hard not to come to the conclusion they're demonized.

10:01

I mean, the hatred and the anger, all while screaming, Allah Akbar! God be praised in the highest! And it's hard to understand the motivations of these things.

10:21

And again, part of the primary reason for that is the vast majority of Christians in the West have never read the Quran.

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There is, by the way, for those of you that are wondering right now, Come on now, let go of it.

10:39

I have what's called the study Quran.

10:46

Hey, I just realized I could dye the pages of my study Quran now.

10:51

In fact, I've got that very color.

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But, Jeffrey Rice didn't do this.

10:56

I didn't know Jeffrey Rice when I got this.

10:58

So, it has just plain old white pages, and I'm going to keep this out.

11:03

So I remember to grab my stuff, and make this look much nicer than it is currently.

11:11

This is just plain old white paper, so I'm going to make it look nice.

11:15

But I had this one bound, a fellow I just completely lost contact with.

11:22

And anyway, I know it was the same year that I taught at RTS in Charlotte.

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That's one main thing I remember.

11:31

Anyway, this is called the study Quran.

11:34

It draws from a wide variety of Islamic scholarship, but you can get it.

11:39

And it's one of the few, it's the only Quran I've ever seen.

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Where in most places, the notes at the bottom of the page are much larger than the text.

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In other words, it looks like an ESV study Bible, or a Reformation study Bible, or something like that.

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As far as, I mean, there's just notes, notes, notes, notes, notes.

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And, since it does draw from a wide variety, it's not going to be perfectly consistent.

12:07

And it's not going to represent the perspective on Islam that would motivate those Hamas terrorists.

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It's very westernized.

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But it will give you a lot of historical information, if you want to track something like that down.

12:25

So I wanted to give you some quotes, some information today on the program to help you understand what's behind all this.

12:37

Why is there such a detestation of the Jewish people amongst the Jews? Now, we've spent a lot of time before, I want to remind you, I didn't queue it up.

12:54

But, if you listen to the prayers, if you listen to the call to prayer, and the prayers that are taking place in New York City at Times Square, for example.

13:09

I didn't download the video, I should have, of the Muslim preacher man there in New York.

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It would be good to go through what he had to say, and refute all of it.

13:20

And to challenge him to debate, that would be good.

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I'd go that far north, or something like that.

13:28

I'd wear a wig, and drive a rental car.

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Anyway, if you listen to those prayers, you will see, you will hear a certain phrase.

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It's from Surah Al-Fatiha, the opening surah of the Quran.

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And, let me grab it here real quick.

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Oh goodness, I thought it had larger font than this.

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Well, the actual text is actually readable.

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It's the notes that are rough.

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Man, look how many pages there are of notes on Surah Al-Fatiha.

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That's interesting.

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And it's not giving me the text, it's just giving me notes.

14:24

Come on now.

14:25

The pages are a little thin, by the way.

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There it is.

14:29

So here's, that's big enough to read.

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Here's the first surah, it's the opening prayer of the Quran.

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And just a reminder, there are 114 surahs in the Quran.

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They are roughly in order of size.

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With the exception of the first one.

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Then Surah Tabakah, the cow, is longest.

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And then they get shorter and shorter.

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It's not exact, but what that means is if you try to read the Quran, you will never be able to establish historical context.

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Because you're not meant to.

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And in my book, Whatever Christian Needs to Know About the Quran, there is a table, I think it's around page 45, somewhere around there, that gives our best guess as to the order in which these surahs of the Quran were written.

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And that way, if you actually want to read it, and get some help, and this study Quran helps that too.

15:28

Because they want to try to provide a context when they can.

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Sometimes we just don't know.

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But that's what makes the Quran difficult to read.

15:40

So Surah Tawfatihah, the opening, is very short in comparison to what's going to come afterwards.

15:47

But it says, That's one weird thing about this study Quran, is it uses King James English.

16:02

Which, when I first saw it, I'm like, Why? This was done only a few years ago.

16:09

Oh well.

16:17

Not of those who incur wrath, nor of those who are astray.

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And if you'll listen to the prayers, you'll hear, especially in certain prayers, right toward the end of the recitation, Extend it out.

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Those who are led astray.

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That's the last phrase.

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And we have commentary.

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And again, we've gone through all this stuff, but it's been years.

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So if I'm explaining stuff that you already know, forgive me.

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If I'm explaining stuff that you didn't already know, then that'll help you.

17:05

The Hadith, the Ahadith, in Arabic, are the stories and sayings of Muhammad and his companions, collected 250-300 years after the time of Muhammad.

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They are categorized as Hasan, Sahih.

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Sahih means sound.

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Hasan means there's a problem in the narration chain.

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So it's a level of confidence.

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Even all of that, to be honest with you, is somewhat subjective.

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Hadith studies...

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I've spent hours and hours and hours and hours listening to scholars teaching on the science of Hadith.

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And it's just obvious to me that you're dealing with a huge body.

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Sahih al-Bukhari is about seven volumes of Arabic-English.

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Muslim is like eight.

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Jami' al-Tirmidhi, you put it all together in the Sunni Hadith, many, many, many volumes.

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I've read all of Bukhari, all of Muslim, most of Tirmidhi.

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And there are others beyond that.

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And it is not a consistent body of sayings.

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It isn't.

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And so the reason you have different groups within Islam is because people will emphasize certain aspects of this material over against others, while others go the opposite direction.

18:52

And you can do that.

18:54

I've told the story.

18:56

I remember in the years when I was listening to all the Hadith while riding outdoors, 2012, 2013, those big, big...

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I think 2013 is my biggest year.

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I think 10,500 miles, so that's a lot of time on the road.

19:13

I remember where I was.

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I remember I was on Happy Valley Road, westbound, coming up on 83rd Avenue.

19:23

And the sun wasn't up yet.

19:25

So I was already...

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I had left very early that morning.

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And I was listening to the Hadith, and you had these narrations about who is to be killed in battle.

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And I realized, listening to them, and many of them are repetitive, by the way.

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That's one of the reasons I've remembered so many Hadith, is that they would be repeated in different forms over and over and over again.

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So they sort of got crammed into your mind.

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But I remember thinking to myself, even then, what was just said in the past few Hadith that I just heard narrated, it's not consistent.

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It's contradictory to itself.

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And so some people are going to emphasize one aspect of that, some people the other.

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That's why you have these differences.

20:23

But there is Hadith commentary on Surah Al-Fatihah, this one that I just read to you.

20:30

And allegedly, when Moses was asked, who are those who incur wrath, and who are those who are led astray, his consistent response was that those who incur Allah's wrath are the Jews.

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And those who have been led astray are the Christians.

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Now, Surah Al-Fatihah is included in all the daily prayers, and the prayers are done in Arabic.

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That's why we don't hear it.

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But again, every time you hear, you listen now, and you hear that the extension of that one vowel, those who are led astray, that's Christians.

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That is a Muslim praying not to be you.

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That's a Muslim praying not to be you.

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So you can see why, when you seek to witness to the Muslim, why there are big barriers in the way of you being able to do that.

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Because from their perspective, you have been led astray.

21:49

For most of them, they believe you are a mushrik, a person who commits the sin of shirk.

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Shirk is the unforgivable sin in Islam.

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But you need to understand that when we think of an unforgivable sin, we think of a sin that cannot be forgiven in this life.

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When the Muslim thinks of an unforgivable sin, they're talking about after this life.

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Because you can be forgiven of sin after this life.

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Allah can forgive any sin after this life, except the sin of shirk.

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That's what the Quran says.

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And so, most Muslims believe that Christians are mushrikun, that we are idolaters, because we elevate a mere creature, Jesus, to the level of deity.

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So, the other big barriers, by the way, just in passing, other than calling them the shirk, which you're not, because Jesus has eternally been God, almost all Muslims universally now believe the Bible has been corrupted and changed.

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That was not the belief down through the history of Islam, but ever since a book called Itsar al-Haq, The Vindication of the Truth, was published in 1864, became wildly popular.

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That has pretty much moved the entire Islamic world to believing that the Bible has been corrupted in its text.

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And then, the other major stumbling block is Surah 4, verse 157, where in the Quran it is said that Jesus Christ was not crucified.

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So, there's no crucifixion, there's no burial, there's no resurrection, there's no redemption.

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These are all topics that we have spent an extensive amount of time on, down through the years.

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But, all of that to take us back to to help explain the animosity.

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When you read the Quran, you are reading material from different periods of Muhammad's life.

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And when Muhammad is a minority prophet under persecution in Mecca, before he goes to Medina, and the Islamic calendar begins, when he's a minority prophet, there's a whole lot more about religious freedom and things like that, than what you get once he becomes the prophet at the head of an army in Medina, and eventually conquering Mecca.

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So, things change.

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And, initially, he is looking to say to Jews and Christians, hey, we're all in the same group, in the sense that Allah gave the Torah to Moses, he gave the Injil, the Gospel to Jesus, he's given the Quran to Muhammad, it's all one God, and you all have just ignored parts of your scriptures, you've twisted things, Christians have gone into excess in honoring a prophet who should be honored to the point of making him a god, and so you see change over time.

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One of the really interesting aspects of this, is that there is a strange, and it's not completely consistent, there is a strange series of hadith, primarily in Sahih Muslim, and we're not even talking about the Shiites right here, because the Shiites actually have, because of how their movement started, a concept of substitutionary atonement.

26:24

They do have that, that's part of their theology, which is very different than Sunni Muslim, which doesn't, but, in Sahih Muslim, which is Sunni Hadith, there's a section of sayings, that plainly assume some idea, where Allah can place someone else's sins upon somebody else, which most Muslims would say no, but it's there, it's very interesting, so, read you one here, Abu Musa reported that Allah's messenger, may peace be upon him, said, when it will be the day of resurrection, Allah would deliver to every Muslim, a Jew or a Christian, and say, that is your rescue from hellfire.

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Abu Burda, next hadith, Abu Burda reported on the authority of his father, that Allah's apostle, may peace be upon him, said, no Muslim would die, but Allah would admit in his stead, a Jew or a Christian in hellfire.

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Umar bin Abdulaziz took an oath, by one besides whom there is no god but he, thrice, that his father had narrated that to him, from Allah's messenger, may peace be upon him.

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Here's another one, Abu Burda reported, Allah's messenger, may peace be upon him, is saying, there would come people amongst the Muslims on the day of resurrection, with as heavy sins as a mountain, and Allah would forgive them and he would place in their stead, the Jews and the Christians.

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As far as I think, Abu Rab said, I do not know as to who is in doubt, Abu Burda said, I narrated to Umar bin Abdulaziz, whereupon he said, was it your father who narrated to you from Allah's apostle, may peace be upon him, and I said yes.

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Now, I recall doing a online, radio, internet type debate, with Abdullah Kunda, where this subject came up, and Abdullah rejected these hadith, on the basis that they had a single chain of narration.

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Now again, there are Muslims who would hold to one standard, or Muslims hold to another standard, this is a, you can go to Saudi Arabia, you can go to Egypt, you can get master's degrees and doctorates in the study of hadith, and not come to conclusions on any of this stuff.

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But, the point is, here in a wide swath of older Islamic writing, considered to be sound, sahih by many within Islam, is the idea not only of substitution, but the attitude that that creates towards Jews and Christians.

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The assumption is, they're already going to hellfire.

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That's just all there is to it.

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So the Christian goes, so how can they be given the place of somebody else they're already guilty, they're already going to hellfire.

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That doesn't make any sense, at all.

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That's why there's entire chapters on this in whatever Christian needs to know about the Quran.

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One of the last books I wrote, actually.

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I haven't written a book in a long time.

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And there's entire chapters on this, fully documented, if you really want to dig into these things, that's why we took the time to put all that work into these things.

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But, here's one other quotation.

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Allah will ask the angels, though he knows best about them, who are these people? They will reply, they are humble slaves of yours.

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He will say, unload the sins from them, and put the same over the Jews and Christians.

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Then let the humble slaves get into paradise by virtue of my mercy.

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This hadith is sound and mentioned in the Mustradak of Hakeem.

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So, you have that kind of thinking, and the Quran is not consistent because Muhammad went through different stages of his life.

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The Quran is not consistent in its view of Jews and Christians.

31:58

When Muhammad's trying to woo them, it says one thing.

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Once he's given up on doing that, and he's now become the general to head of an army, different things.

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It is said, for example, that those from the people of the book, which in places in the Quran, refers to both Jews and Christians, that those who do not believe are the worst of mankind.

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Well, what do you mean those who do not believe? Do not believe their own scriptures, or do not believe the claims of Muhammad.

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Again, the Quran so often has no context, has insufficient context to be able to come to any kind of meaningful conclusion about these things.

32:55

But, obviously, Hamas leadership, when you had the Taliban and things like that, these groups will take these individual texts and they don't care about what kind of system of theology and law developed over centuries within Islam.

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They're not concerned about that.

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They want to go back to the original sources and interpret them as they basically see fit.

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That's why many people basically argue that the moderate Muslims are the Roman Catholics with their body of tradition, and the radical Muslims are like the Anabaptists of the Reformation.

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Just throw it all out.

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Start from scratch, basically.

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It's much more complicated than that, and there are a lot of disconnects, but that's how people argue those types of things.

34:15

There's a basis there for animosity toward Jews and Christians.

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And, of course, over the years, that has just grown and grown and grown.

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Especially over the past 150 years, and especially since the founding of Israel in 1948.

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And that animosity now, you look at what the PLL used to produce, and Hamas has took them all out.

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They just took their place there in Gaza.

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Their favorite hadith is one that, when you look at hadith, there are what are called mutawatir hadith.

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Mutawatir hadith are universally accepted.

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In other words, they're generally hadith that are found in all the major, they're repeated in all the major collections.

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They'll be in Bukhari, they'll be in Muslim, they'll be in Jamia Termini.

35:34

That's not to say that there are not, I remember reading a book a number of years ago now, there are western Muslim scholars who, the book that I read was basically making the point, unless we can break with these hadith and question the validity of this stuff that was gathered 250, 300 years after Muhammad, we will never be able to see Islam make progress.

36:10

So, obviously, these are only people who live in the West.

36:12

They wouldn't last long in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, they live in London, places like that.

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Or the United States, it doesn't matter.

36:25

Because they recognize that there are things that are said even in these universally accepted hadith that just force Islam into a constantly regressive perspective.

36:39

One of those, I remember specifically being addressed in that book, I'd have to look up the title, I don't remember the title of the book, it's in my Kindle collection, I could track it down.

36:51

But one of the hadith was the Mutawattir, universally accepted hadith, that Muhammad said that there are those who do the works of the people of heaven, Jannah.

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Their entire lives.

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Until what is written of them overtakes them and they go into the hellfire.

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So, there are people who do good works their entire lives, but that doesn't matter.

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It's what is written of them.

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It is the decree, Qadr, that is, that will determine it.

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Because from an Islamic perspective, whether you're going to heaven or hell is determined for you 40 days after you're conceived.

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That's just, that's all there is to it.

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Nothing you can do about it.

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It's fatalistic.

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So, you do good works your entire life until what is written for you overcomes you, go to hellfire.

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And then it says there are those who do the deeds of hellfire their entire life until what is written for them overcomes them and they go to paradise.

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So, unlike Christianity where God's election is intended to create a holy people who are conformed to the image of Christ, here it's like, yeah, you can live your entire life doing right things and still end up in hellfire and there ain't nothing you can do about it.

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And you really can't know one way or the other.

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That's why jihad is so attractive to people.

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Because the only promise you have in the Quran is that if you die in the state of jihad, you get your ticket punched to paradise.

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That's the only way to know for certain.

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And I've used that illustration many, many times to explain what happened at the Glasgow airport, for example.

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Two national health system physicians were the ones that drove a vehicle filled with gasoline into the doorway of the airport and set it on fire.

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They thought it was going to explode and douse everybody and burn everybody and the only people that died were them.

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They died slowly and agonizingly.

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But the point is, the promise to them was, this is how you know you will go to paradise.

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Only way to know.

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Because they don't have a mediator.

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They don't have an atonement.

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These are important things.

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There are Muslims in the world that recognize that these hadiths and things like that are troubling, at the very least.

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But they are a very, very small minority.

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And these radical groups when you say radical they're much more representative of what Muhammad was doing in Muhammad's day than what develops hundreds of years later.

40:10

You have to understand history to realize for an Islamic culture to even come into existence there had to be some reigning in of the spirit of jihad.

40:30

Or you just wouldn't be able to have an Islamic culture.

40:34

There's another hadith I wanted to...oh wait a minute.

40:39

Skipped over something.

40:40

So this is the favorite hadith that is...remember most Muslims spend no time in the Quran at all.

40:51

Our interaction with scripture and their interaction with the Quran are very, very different.

40:57

Very, very different.

41:01

And so what most Muslims understand of their faith they are taught on Fridays in the mosque where again the sermons that are delivered are normally based upon interpretations from the hadith not exegesis of the original language of the Quran or something like that.

41:28

Pretty much every Muslim knows the hadith I'm going to read for you now.

41:36

You can check these out for yourself by the way.

41:39

I happened to discover over the past day there are some new websites available that make things a lot easier than they used to be.

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I struggled starting in 2006 trying to track down computer programs with decent databases and searching and stuff like that I had the Aleem database or the CD-ROM for a while and stuff like that.

42:06

And I've had various programs, some of which don't even work anymore on a Mac.

42:10

They've just not been supported.

42:14

But I found sunah.com and it has a pretty much fully searchable English database of the Sunni hadith.

42:29

And I'm like, wow when did this come online? This one is from Bukhari it's in Jamiat Termini, it's in Muslim I have a volume in my library, I didn't grab it but I have a volume in my library that gives you all the hadith that are in both Muslim and Bukhari.

42:53

Because they have a special authority.

42:57

Here's what it says again, the vast majority of Muslims in the world know this one.

43:03

Allah's Apostle said, the hour will not be established, so end of time will not come, until you fight with the Jews.

43:13

And the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.

43:26

Various versions of this with slight moderations and order of words or things like that but all pretty much the same thing.

43:36

The end will not come until there is a great war against the Jews.

43:41

And Allah will be so much on the side of the Muslims that the rocks themselves will cry out, O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind him, kill him.

43:51

So almost every single person that you will talk to who is a Muslim knows this.

43:59

The question is, do they really believe that Allah said that? And what kind of impact does that have upon them? That's Sahih al-Bukhari 2926 Book 56, Hadith 139, Volume 4 Book 52, Hadith 177.

44:18

The problem is and this is a problem I had in writing the book there is no one decided upon universal way of citing the Hadith literature.

44:38

Tracking stuff down can be problematic to put it mildly.

44:45

But anyway, let me read one other Hadith to you that I think is very very interesting.

44:55

I'll go ahead and read this one.

44:56

I could narrate it in general one way or the other but this is actually coming from my book, which I have in accordance by the way.

45:06

You can get that on Kindle, you can get it on Accordance.

45:09

I think it might be in Logos too, I'm not sure.

45:12

I'd have to double check.

45:14

Narrated Abu Huraira Some cooked meat was brought to Allah's Apostle and the meat of a forearm was presented to him as he used to like it.

45:25

He ate a morsel of it and said, I will be the chief of all the people on the day of resurrection.

45:31

Do you know the reason for it? Allah will gather all the human beings of early generations as well as late generation on one plane so that the announcer will be able to make them all hear his voice and the watcher will be able to see all of them.

45:48

The sun will come so close to the people that they will suffer such distress and trouble as they will not be able to bear or stand.

45:55

Then the people will say, don't you see to what state you have reached? Won't you look for someone who can intercede for you with your Lord? Some people will say to some others, go to Adam.

46:07

So they will go to Adam and say to him, you are the father of mankind.

46:11

Allah created you with his own hand and breathed into you of his spirit, meaning the spirit which he created for you and ordered the angels to prostrate before you.

46:20

So please intercede for us with your Lord.

46:23

Don't you see in what state we are? Don't you see what condition we have reached? Adam will say, today my Lord has become angry as he has never become before, nor will ever become hereafter.

46:35

He forbade me to eat of the fruit of the tree, but I disobeyed him.

46:39

Myself.

46:40

Myself.

46:41

Myself.

46:42

I have more need of intercession.

46:44

Go to someone else.

46:45

Go to Noah.

46:46

So they will go to Noah and say to him, oh Noah, you are the first of Allah's messengers to the people of the earth, and Allah has named you a thankful slave.

46:54

Please intercede for us with your Lord.

46:56

Don't you see in what state we are in? He will say, today my Lord has become angry as he has never become, nor will ever become hereafter.

47:03

I had in the world the right to make one definitely accepted invocation, and I made it against my nation.

47:10

Myself.

47:11

Myself.

47:11

Myself.

47:12

Go to someone else.

47:13

Go to Abraham.

47:15

They will go to Abraham and say, oh Abraham, you are Allah's apostle and his Khalil from among the people of the earth.

47:23

So please intercede for us with your Lord.

47:25

Don't you see in what state we are? He will say to them, my Lord has today become angry as he has never become before, nor will ever become hereafter.

47:33

I told three lies.

47:35

Abu Halyan, the sub-narrator, mentioned them in the Hadith.

47:38

Myself.

47:39

Myself.

47:39

Myself.

47:40

Go to someone else.

47:41

Go to Moses.

47:42

The people will then go to Moses and say, oh Moses, you are Allah's apostle and Allah gave you superiority above the others with this message and with his direct talk to you.

47:53

Please intercede for us with your Lord.

47:55

Don't you see in what state we are? Moses will say, my Lord has today become angry as he has never become before, nor will ever become thereafter.

48:02

I killed a person whom I had not been ordered to kill.

48:06

Myself.

48:06

Myself.

48:07

Myself.

48:07

Go to someone else.

48:08

Go to Jesus.

48:11

They will go to Jesus and say, oh Jesus, you are Allah's apostle and his word which he sent to Mary and a superior soul created by him and you talk to the people while still young in the cradle.

48:21

Story in the Quran, by the way.

48:24

Please intercede.

48:25

By the way, and it came from a Gnostic gospel.

48:29

That's a lengthy discussion in the book.

48:35

Please intercede for us with your Lord.

48:38

Don't you see in what state we are? Jesus will say, my Lord has today become angry as he has never become before, nor ever will become thereafter.

48:46

Jesus will not mention any sin, but will say Myself.

48:49

Myself.

48:50

Myself.

48:50

Go to someone else.

48:51

Go to Muhammad.

48:54

So they will come to me and say, oh Muhammad, you are Allah's apostle and the last of the prophets.

48:59

Allah forgave your early and late sins.

49:02

Please intercede for us to your Lord.

49:04

Don't you see in what state we are? The prophet added, then I will go beneath Allah's throne and fall in prostration before my Lord and then Allah will guide me to such praises and glorification to him as he has never guided anybody else before me.

49:20

Then it will be said, oh Muhammad, raise your head, ask and it will be granted.

49:24

Intercede.

49:26

It, your intercession, will be accepted.

49:27

So I'll raise my head and say, my followers, oh my Lord, my followers, oh my Lord.

49:32

It will be said, oh Muhammad, let those of your followers who have no accounts enter through such a gate of the gates of paradise as lies on the right and they will share the other gates of the people.

49:46

The prophet further said, by him in whose hand my soul is, the distance between every two gate posts of paradise is like the distance between Mecca and Busra in Sham.

50:00

There's another version of it, which toward the end has this.

50:06

Then I shall intercede and he will set me a limit as to the number of people.

50:10

So I shall admit them into paradise.

50:12

Then I shall return to him and when I see my Lord, I shall bow down as before.

50:16

Then I shall intercede and he will set me a limit as to the number of people.

50:19

So I shall admit them into paradise.

50:22

Then I shall return for a third time, then a fourth, and I shall say there remains in hellfire only those whom the Quran has confined and who must be there for eternity.

50:31

There shall come out of the hellfire he who has said there is no God but Allah and who has in his heart goodness weighing a barley corn.

50:40

Then there shall come out of hellfire he who has said there is no God but Allah and who has in his heart goodness weighing a grain of wheat.

50:49

Then there shall come out of the hellfire he who has said there is no God but Allah and who has in his heart goodness weighing an atom.

50:57

Now, what's that last one all about? Well, the point is that in that version, Muhammad doesn't deliver all the Muslims at once, but he keeps having to come back and there's gradations.

51:11

But what's the key? Everyone comes out of hellfire who has said la ilaha illallah, there is no God but Allah worthy of worship.

51:22

So anybody who has said the shahada will be delivered from hellfire even though they were in hellfire.

51:29

There's almost a purgatorial concept that is found in these hadith where there is a punishment for a period of time, but eventual deliverance into paradise through the intercession of Muhammad.

51:47

And you will note that Jesus is included Abraham, Moses, etc.

51:57

But there is no understanding on Muhammad's part of atonement, the purpose of the atonement, mechanism of the atonement, nothing like that at all.

52:11

It's just not found there.

52:13

So these are the kind of stories, the hadith, that are narrated on they're narrated and commented on and I've said when people have asked, well at G3 when I was on Way of the Master and then immediately afterwards, interestingly enough, when I was interviewed by G3 they'll always do these videos, they'll use them in the course of the year.

52:47

Both times the subject came up of witnessing to Muslims and I said in both contexts, I said one of the most effective ways I have found to open the door to talk to Muslims has been to narrate hadith.

53:04

Have you heard the story? And then I narrate one of the most popular hadith and they are amazed to encounter a Christian that has read their own materials well enough to be able to discuss those types of things with them.

53:18

You purchase for yourself the opportunity to then make application.

53:23

I mean, think about that last hadith.

53:27

There's a lot you can talk about there from a Christian perspective that takes you straight into the gospel.

53:35

That's very, very, very important.

53:39

Okay, so I have queued up a portion of a debate with a Muslim not that I did, someone else was doing fairly short.

53:57

It's one of those...

53:59

I find it so childish, but it's all over YouTube.

54:07

Muslim destroys Christian in 37 seconds.

54:12

Which means here's an a-context-less short little clip that I can produce very easily that makes it look like my side won a debate.

54:25

That's done to me all the time.

54:26

This person destroys James White.

54:28

And then people do it with me.

54:29

James White destroys this person.

54:32

All that kind of stuff to me is exceptionally childish, but the clip I thought was well worth looking at, and I didn't know how long those comments I just made would go.

54:49

Obviously they went for a long time.

54:52

I wanted to since it is, and I see there's an amazing amount of discussion going on in Twitter right now about a simple comment that I made.

55:04

It's just truly amazing and very concerning to me.

55:11

I made an observation.

55:13

There are some things that are more important than other things.

55:19

For the Christian, the ultimate goal is to seek godliness.

55:30

I understand in a world of effeminate men and a hatred of masculinity and all the rest of that stuff, I get it, but there's always people that will lose balance on both sides.

55:51

It's like when you're in a tug of war.

55:54

When you're in a tug of war, you can't be balanced.

55:57

It's the nature of the competition.

56:02

I see people just losing it.

56:10

It's a little bit honestly what it reminds me of is an amazing film called 300.

56:20

The story of Leonidas and the 300 Spartans at the gates with the Persians and all that kind of stuff.

56:29

It's a very masculine movie.

56:32

Lots of men with airbrushed bodies and stuff like that.

56:45

The idea was to be a man in Sparta, you had to take a little boy and throw him out in the wilds.

56:55

You had to be able to kill a wolf and all the rest of this kind of fun stuff.

57:01

I get how people start getting...

57:07

drink some alcohol and have some stogies and stuff like that.

57:12

Nothing wrong with those things in and of themselves, but it has nothing to do at all with godliness.

57:23

You can have all the testosterone flowing through your veins you want, but if it doesn't turn you into a servant for your family, it's not worth anything.

57:38

I'm just really concerned.

57:39

I haven't taken the time during the program, I've sort of been busy.

57:43

I glanced over at some of the stuff that I've seen and I'm just sort of like okay, well, we'll have to have some comments about that a little bit later on.

57:58

On Saturday, in this very room in fact, I'm looking up at my calendar by the door and I noticed when I sat down, I was sort of getting ready, that there was a pencil that had been clipped to the calendar because we had everything open here.

58:19

So we had the offices open and had all this stuff on.

58:25

The lights were on and everything, so people could see the studio and they could see the other big studio.

58:31

I caught some people in the various studios taking pictures and pretending that they were doing dividing lines and things like that.

58:38

That was sort of funny.

58:41

I come in and there's this pencil hanging from my calendar and then I noticed that the first week has been marked off.

58:51

I hadn't noticed there was something written at the bottom, so Rich came in and he takes the pencil off and goes, well, look.

58:58

There it says, Clementine crossed off the something.

59:04

I can't read the rest of it.

59:06

Previous week or something like that.

59:08

So my granddaughter, one of my granddaughters had been in and I think they all sat in the chair and were pretending.

59:17

I think at one point I saw Cadence pretending that she was running the board and Clementine was in here being me and stuff like that.

59:28

So we had our big 40th anniversary celebration on Saturday from 11 o'clock for me until about 3 o'clock.

59:37

It was supposed to be 2 o'clock, but it was about 3 o'clock before I left.

59:43

We had a bunch of folks showed up.

59:47

Carolina's Mexican Food catered for us.

59:50

By the way, they give me food to take with me in my RV when I travel.

59:55

They have wonderful machaca beef burros that freeze up real nice and then you nuke them and thaw them out and then stick them in an air fryer and it's just like being there for the real thing.

01:00:09

It's a great little meal to have when you pull in after five hours on the road.

01:00:17

We had that in the room next door.

01:00:20

We rent facilities from a church.

01:00:23

They only last year really completely renovated that room, which made it much more amenable to this kind of thing and weddings and stuff like that.

01:00:35

I had stayed out of all this stuff.

01:00:39

I was supposed to stay out of all this stuff.

01:00:43

Not that I didn't know who was doing things.

01:00:48

There were a bunch of folks who did the...

01:00:51

It's always the same thing.

01:00:52

You have certain people who just take the bull by the horns and they get stuff done.

01:00:59

The Roods and the Wyebrews conspired to get a bunch of stuff accomplished.

01:01:10

I didn't know who was going to be here.

01:01:12

It's a Saturday.

01:01:13

People have got things going on.

01:01:15

There were lots of folks that wanted to be here but couldn't.

01:01:20

Jeff Durbin was supposed to speak but he and his wife have found themselves in a very unexpected situation of seeking to adopt twin girls that weren't supposed to arrive for another six weeks, eight weeks.

01:01:38

But were born extremely premature and are in a NICU in Wisconsin.

01:01:46

That's where they were and they're going to have to be flying back and forth.

01:01:49

It's very complicated.

01:01:51

Wisconsin's adoption laws are just draconian.

01:01:58

All adoption laws are absurdly complicated.

01:02:05

It should be more difficult to get an abortion than to adopt a child.

01:02:09

That's obvious.

01:02:17

I didn't know who was going to be here.

01:02:21

I knew that Eddie Dalkor was flying in.

01:02:23

I had been told that.

01:02:26

So the gripper was going to be here.

01:02:29

Basically what happened is starting about 10.50 or so, I'm just over here in my office and people are starting to come in and I'm greeting folks and eventually my grandkids get here and people are wandering around and looking at the books and checking out Betsy the Black Bear that I took up in Wasilla, Alaska many years ago now, who lives in the back of my commentary section.

01:03:02

Just checking stuff out.

01:03:06

InWalk's D.L.

01:03:06

Culliver and I hadn't seen D.L.

01:03:10

in a while.

01:03:11

It had been years and years really since I'd seen D.L.

01:03:20

We first met at a backwards social at North Phoenix Baptist Church many, many, many, many years ago.

01:03:30

His dad owned a car dealership.

01:03:32

He was general manager basically.

01:03:35

His dad didn't like me so he had to do this on the sly.

01:03:39

The only way that my family had transportation for a long time was that D.L.

01:03:46

made that possible.

01:03:48

Something called a dollar lease or putting me in touch with his used car guys and basically saying, whatever we've got in it.

01:03:59

Nothing more than that.

01:04:02

That's how we survived for a long, long time during those lean, lean, lean years of the 80s and 90s.

01:04:13

He and I were talking and he happens to be the individual who got me into cycling.

01:04:19

He hasn't cycled in a long time.

01:04:22

I continue on.

01:04:23

Though we're both older.

01:04:30

We stood there.

01:04:32

The funny thing was his sons, his adult sons had found me and had started following me and then found out about the connection with their dad.

01:04:47

I found that rather fascinating that they hadn't known that.

01:04:53

It's not like D.L.

01:04:54

had told them about me.

01:04:55

They found me on their own.

01:04:58

That was cool.

01:04:58

We're standing there and we're talking.

01:05:02

I think he had just said something along the lines of I'm taking up all your time.

01:05:11

There's other people who want to talk to you or something like that.

01:05:14

I remember seeing Clementine coming toward me and then my daughter and I have a video here that I'm going to put up that Nicoletta took.

01:05:30

I'm glad she has this.

01:05:35

I can go full screen.

01:05:38

That's the wrong one.

01:05:40

You're not the video.

01:05:43

I think I have the right.

01:05:46

Let me double check the sound here.

01:05:49

Yes.

01:05:53

Here's the video that I saw later obviously since I'm the one being surprised here.

01:06:00

My daughter who you'll see right at the beginning here and my son Josh they cooperated together in pulling this off because I had no earthly idea that this could possibly happen.

01:06:17

Here's something that happened.

01:06:24

Summer's taking me.

01:06:25

Go, go, go.

01:06:37

There's where Rich is sitting right now.

01:06:41

There's Rich's chair and that's what Rich can see.

01:06:45

That's the open door to the studio here.

01:06:49

By the way, I want to thank the brother and I hope he sees this.

01:06:55

See that beautiful picture.

01:06:57

We don't have a light on it yet.

01:06:59

I need to contact that brother because I know it's a very expensive picture and he spent a lot of money to have it shipped out to us but he specifically told me there's a specific kind of light that makes this thing just pop and I need to find out what it is and we'll put it on it.

01:07:18

It's a beautiful picture of the Milky Way behind an observatory there.

01:07:22

It's one of only like 900 of them or something like that.

01:07:25

It's a famous photographer.

01:07:27

That's right outside the door right there is where I am right now.

01:07:32

We press forward here.

01:07:43

There's my wife.

01:07:45

There's my son.

01:07:48

Cadence.

01:07:49

My granddaughter.

01:07:51

Marianne.

01:07:52

Hi Marianne.

01:07:55

There's D.L.

01:07:55

facing us right there.

01:08:18

He's so surprised.

01:08:19

Yes, it worked.

01:08:36

So for those of you who don't know that's John and Corey Cooper of Skillet.

01:08:43

Summer and Josh had worked with them.

01:08:48

They had performed the night before in Sacramento and they worked it out to where they flew in from Sacramento, stayed the night and then Josh went and picked them up and brought them to the celebration and so John spoke at the celebration about our rather unusual friendship and the positive influence we've had for him and they got to meet everybody and do all sorts of fun stuff like that.

01:09:31

Summer had told me at one point a couple weeks ago that she had worked out a great surprise, but that was it.

01:09:41

I often ask John because we talk a lot, I often ask him, where are y'all right now? But I hadn't asked him anything for a few days and he would have come up with some excuse anyways, I'm sure.

01:09:58

You have the microphone up, I suppose that means something? Well, he did.

01:10:09

He did greet you as he was walking by there.

01:10:15

And later on here's a shot of us after lunch sitting over and chatting after everything was wrapped up and then they flew home that night and got to be in their own church for the first time in a while that next morning.

01:10:38

Here were these were little Bundt cakes.

01:10:46

It's more like a Bundt cupcake.

01:10:49

But they were delicious.

01:10:53

White chocolate, red velvet, and regular chocolate and they were not exactly health food.

01:11:01

Not exactly health food.

01:11:04

But yeah, they were great.

01:11:08

Oh, well, I did put that on Twitter but yes, we have, and these are actually John Wybrew's koojis that I actually have given to him.

01:11:25

But there's Calvin in his kooji and then there's Luther has his own kooji as well.

01:11:32

And I think both of them would have liked their koojis.

01:11:36

Either that or they would have burned me at the stake.

01:11:38

One of the two.

01:11:39

Rich is going burn at the stake.

01:11:43

Thank you very much.

01:11:44

Appreciate that there, Rich.

01:11:46

Very kind of you.

01:11:48

Anyway, they would have burned the koojis at the stake.

01:11:53

If you want to really start getting because I'm going up to high altitude this weekend.

01:12:03

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

01:12:06

So I'm breaking the koojis out.

01:12:08

The high is only going to be 59 and it's going to be down the low 40s.

01:12:13

So yeah, I'll be breaking the koojis out for the weekend.

01:12:18

It'll be great.

01:12:19

But I just want to thank everyone.

01:12:22

I mean, so much work goes into these things.

01:12:26

I know that contacting people, inviting people.

01:12:31

I know folks wanted to be able to come.

01:12:33

There were two different dear friends, pastors in the Texas and Oklahoma area that really wanted to be there, but then they just looked at what flights cost anymore and hotel rooms and the Biden economy.

01:12:49

It's great.

01:12:51

And just weren't able to make it.

01:12:53

But those that were able to be here, it was just a tremendously.

01:12:59

And I didn't bring it with me.

01:13:00

But I think you have it.

01:13:02

You have yours.

01:13:04

They did put together, as I had requested, a book of testimonials.

01:13:14

I guess we did put together the email address and stuff and that's how we got those.

01:13:19

And I have not read them yet.

01:13:21

What I'm doing is I'm reading about one a day.

01:13:24

And it's so thick that it will take quite some time to work through it.

01:13:30

This doesn't have to be like Christmas, where it's one and done.

01:13:34

Christmas isn't supposed to be that way.

01:13:36

Christmas is supposed to be a 12 day long celebration.

01:13:39

Isn't it fascinating that modern people cannot remain focused on one topic for almost any period of time at all? Christmas is supposed to be 12 days long.

01:13:56

It's supposed to go from December 25th to January 6th.

01:13:59

And that covers the best possibilities for the date of Jesus' birth, by the way, as you're going through.

01:14:06

But we can't.

01:14:10

We lose focus.

01:14:12

And so I'm figuring, hey, okay, so we had our 40th anniversary celebration, but that 40th year lasts for a while.

01:14:21

So why rush it? So I'm going to be reading those over time.

01:14:28

But when I did get a chance to speak, they actually let me speak.

01:14:32

What an amazing thing.

01:14:35

John Cooper spoke and Summer spoke.

01:14:41

And she got to the end of her notes on her phone and said, yeah, at this point I had to take care of a baby, and so I never finished my notes.

01:14:49

So, and then she sort of goes solo after that.

01:14:54

But I told a story, and those of you on Twitter saw this.

01:15:03

When I was on Apology Radio last week, someone watching Apology Radio wrote in and asked if their story could be forwarded to me.

01:15:19

Which, again, I find extremely fitting given the nature of this particular story.

01:15:27

And so they did forward it over to me.

01:15:31

And it was from a woman, a sister now in the faith, and she said that in 1985 she had attended the General Conference of the Mormon Church Salt Lake City.

01:15:45

That's the first year that we started going up to the General Conference.

01:15:51

And so it would have been a small number of us.

01:15:55

I don't know which tracks we would have had.

01:15:57

I think, if I recall correctly, I think that first trip that Mike and I and Dave Warner took, I think that was October of 84.

01:16:22

So 85 would have been when we first started doing, really organizing things for the trip up.

01:16:33

Anyway, she tells me that she made a great show of taking a track from me and throwing it in the trash.

01:16:42

Now believe me, maybe in 85 that would have been something I would have noticed by the time we got done doing that.

01:16:54

We had seen so many tracks thrown in the trash that way that it really didn't have much of an impact.

01:17:00

We called them fallen warriors.

01:17:03

But in 1985 I tried to give her a track and she threw it out.

01:17:12

29 years later.

01:17:17

2014.

01:17:19

So 29 years later.

01:17:23

Alpha and Omega Ministries.

01:17:26

Paul G Radio.

01:17:28

Used by the Lord to bring her and her family out of Mormonism.

01:17:33

29 years after we first had contact.

01:17:38

After there was a rejection.

01:17:40

And here's the key, here's the key kids.

01:17:44

We were still preaching the same message 29 years later.

01:17:50

And not only did we then help with them because I don't even remember when I wrote the thing on the website about how to get your name removed from the roles of the LDS Church.

01:18:06

They get their name off the roles of the LDS Church and then, so they're listening to me, to Jeff.

01:18:17

Then 2020 strikes.

01:18:20

And it is astonishing to me how many people I have now met.

01:18:25

G3.

01:18:27

Amarillo, Texas.

01:18:29

All the places I stop and go.

01:18:32

This little webcast.

01:18:35

Apologia Radio.

01:18:36

The sermons from Apologia.

01:18:38

Both Jeff and I.

01:18:43

Lifeline.

01:18:45

For many people.

01:18:47

Made a huge impact.

01:18:49

Made a huge impact.

01:18:53

So I told that story.

01:18:56

And I can already tell the testimonials have a number of stories like that.

01:19:03

And it was the long term that mattered.

01:19:08

It was the consistency over time that mattered.

01:19:13

And believe you me, when we first started going up there We started off, we had a slideshow.

01:19:26

The slideshow is 15 minutes long or something like that so I can't go through all of it.

01:19:33

We were kids.

01:19:36

Yeah, go ahead and put it down in the corner there.

01:19:39

This was the first slide, the slideshow.

01:19:42

Yeah, that's me.

01:19:44

And yeah, that's my wife.

01:19:45

And she's still just as pretty as she was then.

01:19:48

I'm the one that's done all the aging and lost all the hair.

01:19:51

So I got a beard.

01:19:53

But that was December 5th, 1981.

01:19:58

Everyone had big glasses back then, so stop with the mockery.

01:20:04

Have you ever seen a prouder look on someone's face? I'm going, I got her.

01:20:11

I got her.

01:20:12

Because not 15 minutes before this I was down on one knee saying, will you marry me? And she said yes.

01:20:25

And I'm just like, well, there you go.

01:20:29

Check out the swag lamp in the corner, man.

01:20:31

I love it.

01:20:31

See, that's that crushed glass stuff, you know? And remember, this is 1981, so that's my parents' front room.

01:20:40

Yeah, my parents' front room up north of Bell Road.

01:20:45

But then, here's the next one.

01:20:50

Okay, so again, still have the hair.

01:20:56

Nothing has started to disappear here.

01:20:59

Let me tell you what's going on here.

01:21:02

That's Mike Beliveau.

01:21:04

Mike was able to be there on Saturday.

01:21:07

That was great to have him there.

01:21:10

His hair is gone, my hair is gone.

01:21:14

So, we're looking back at old artifacts here.

01:21:18

But we are in the second bedroom of a tiny little apartment down off Camelback.

01:21:30

And we are...

01:21:33

You know, the more I've thought about it, because you said no one made phone machines back then that had two microphones.

01:21:39

Alan Willis did that.

01:21:41

Alan Willis built a splitter for us.

01:21:43

We have two microphones there.

01:21:45

You can see it's plugged into the thing there.

01:21:51

And on Sunday nights, after church, we would come over and it would be me, Mike, Benny Diaz, Mark McFall, of the four I just mentioned, two are gone.

01:22:06

Two are not with us anymore.

01:22:08

Mark McFall died a number of years ago.

01:22:11

It's too bad we don't have any pictures of Mark.

01:22:13

He was very important early on.

01:22:16

But I would write up these scripts and we would record messages on these phone answering machines.

01:22:23

And we had 2662 LDS, 2662 JWS, and eventually had 2662 RCC.

01:22:33

Eventually, remember we got that program.

01:22:37

And you know, thinking back, I think it was a pretty advanced program for its day.

01:22:42

What was that called? Some Voice something.

01:22:45

But eventually we found a program that would allow us to record these and you'd call one number and then choose which mailbox you wanted to listen to.

01:22:59

But this is at the beginning we have 2662 LDS.

01:23:04

I don't know if we even have the 2662 JWS yet.

01:23:06

We started with the Mormon one.

01:23:10

And man did the missionaries call this thing.

01:23:16

Because I could hear it going on and off in our tiny little apartment.

01:23:21

And so I knew we were getting a lot of people.

01:23:25

And in fact that was how we made the contact with those two missionaries that you and I met and met with.

01:23:37

One of the most amazing things I've ever had happen in a witnessing situation.

01:23:43

Rich and I are sitting on this couch, which was barely a couch.

01:23:47

It was like a man eating thing.

01:23:48

You could barely get out of it.

01:23:49

It was so rickety, just worn out.

01:23:55

And this is a missionary apartment so there's nothing in it.

01:23:58

They have two folding chairs and this beat up couch.

01:24:02

But we met with, no you can leave it up.

01:24:05

Because I'm going to go to another one.

01:24:07

We met with these two missionaries and I had been talking to this guy on the phone.

01:24:14

And I finished answering his questions.

01:24:17

And it gets quiet.

01:24:19

And I said, well I'll never forget.

01:24:25

He's got his name badge right here.

01:24:29

This is what he did.

01:24:30

And you were there so you can testify.

01:24:32

He reaches down, grabs his name badge and flips it over his back across the room.

01:24:38

He went home the next week.

01:24:40

He didn't finish his mission.

01:24:44

And it was through that phone thing that that contact initially was made.

01:24:51

Don't forget while you're at it, there were times when they're leaving messages for you in response you pick up the phone.

01:24:59

They were not expecting that.

01:25:01

Yes.

01:25:02

I think that's what happened with him.

01:25:07

Yeah, you're right.

01:25:09

I mentioned this to Mike and he laughed because he remembered it too.

01:25:16

When I saw this picture come up One night I had written, you can see I printed out on the computer, because I think the computer comes up here in a second I printed out on the computer the script.

01:25:36

We were going to have a conversation back and forth between Mike and I.

01:25:42

And one of the names on the script was Wilford Woodruff.

01:25:48

Wilford Woodruff was one of the early apostles of the Mormon church and fairly important.

01:25:56

Well, that night Mike could not handle the name Wilford Woodruff.

01:26:04

It always came out Wilford Woodruff.

01:26:08

It was like an Elmer Fudd thing.

01:26:13

We tried, but you know what happens it's sort of like watching a blooper from Carol Burnett.

01:26:18

Like the elephant story.

01:26:23

I don't know.

01:26:24

I'm not sure if we gave up or not.

01:26:27

I think we eventually got through it.

01:26:30

But it was just one of those things that sticks with you that we tried and we tried and we tried.

01:26:37

And see from the world's perspective I mean look at this.

01:26:39

We're poor as church mice.

01:26:42

We got nothing.

01:26:44

The reason we're living in this apartment is because it costs like $245 a month was the rent in that day.

01:26:54

And most people would say, you're wasting your time.

01:26:58

This was the foundation of where we are now.

01:27:02

You have to be faithful here when you got nothing.

01:27:08

And that's why there aren't many ministries that have lasted for 40 years because it's here.

01:27:13

People want to skip this part.

01:27:17

Because behind Mike is a kitty litter pan for our cat who sometimes would come in and do his business while we're doing our business.

01:27:26

This was where my children were born.

01:27:30

We had to clear some of this stuff out and put a bassinet in this room when Josh was born.

01:27:38

I've told the story about the 2am diaper explosion.

01:27:41

That's the room.

01:27:43

That's the walls I had to clean up at 2am in the morning.

01:27:48

That's where I had the 64 Dodge Dart.

01:27:57

So here's...

01:27:58

I don't remember the name of the fellow that's right under my chin.

01:28:06

I think you're right.

01:28:09

All we gotta do is put our brains together and we might actually remember almost everybody.

01:28:14

Just so you remember, Tom contacted us during COVID and his employer was demanding that he in order to excuse him from the COVID shot, that he go through and show his entire religious history.

01:28:34

And I sent a letter on his behalf that he had been working with us during those years.

01:28:40

Wow.

01:28:41

Cool.

01:28:42

I did not know that.

01:28:44

Look at the vehicles.

01:28:46

It's like watching old movies.

01:28:52

This is probably 1983-ish.

01:28:59

Well, it's one of the early, early times out in Mesa.

01:29:05

Because I graduated Canyon in 85, so we started...

01:29:11

It was 83 that I think Kelly and I rode out there for that first time and met Wally Tope out there.

01:29:19

So 84 was the first year we had printed tracks that my dad had printed at North Phoenix Baptist Church.

01:29:27

I recognize the watch.

01:29:29

That's the watch that my parents gave me for my graduation in high school.

01:29:34

Anyway, there I am with my thick glasses, and there's Mike Beliveau on the left.

01:29:43

And like I said, me and Kelly, Mike and Linda, we were the people who formed Alpha Omega 40 years ago.

01:29:51

Facing me is Benny Diaz.

01:29:54

And Benny, I think I met in the Mormonism class at North Phoenix, which is also where I met Rich.

01:30:01

No, I met Rich in the Christian Doctrines class in North Phoenix, wearing his maroon members-only jacket, which I think he wore for the next 20 years.

01:30:12

But Benny was a former Roman Catholic.

01:30:17

And if you have benefited from all the debates that we've done, debates coming up with Trent Horn and the books and everything else, you can be thankful to the Lord for that man right there, Benny Diaz.

01:30:36

Because Benny was like a squeaky wheel.

01:30:43

He just kept saying, you know, what you're saying about the Mormons is also true about the Roman Catholics.

01:30:52

And he really pushed me in that direction.

01:31:01

In fact, Benny was the one that was with me the night at the non-Trinitarian church, which is still down on baseline, that I met Alberto Rivera, the former Roman Catholic priest that did all the Jack Chick stuff.

01:31:19

And because I was carrying a New American Standard Bible, he told me I was going to hell.

01:31:22

Because it didn't have 1 John 5, 7 in it.

01:31:24

Benny was with me that night.

01:31:26

And Benny became a good acquaintance of Simon Escobedo.

01:31:31

And Simon sent me the audio, I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, of the dividing line you were onto.

01:31:42

I was teaching systematic theology for Golden Gate in Tucson.

01:31:48

And Rick Stamp called in, the Jehovah's Witness.

01:31:52

And I got done teaching the class down there, heard the program on the radio all the way down in Tucson, and called in on a very early cell phone that should not have maintained connection for nearly as long as it did, and ended up having that little mini-debate.

01:32:10

And Benny and Simon were a part of that too.

01:32:15

But just look at the age.

01:32:17

There we are pulling stuff out, and that is the 64 Dodge Dart.

01:32:23

I can tell by the lights.

01:32:26

And I think, yeah, I'd finally gotten it painted.

01:32:29

That was an Earl Scheib paint job.

01:32:31

Man, that was rough.

01:32:33

I mean, they didn't get rid of the previous paint or anything.

01:32:36

It's just spray it on and send you out the door for like $100.

01:32:42

But that was my 64 Dodge Dart that we're pulling.

01:32:46

Notice the tools in the back.

01:32:48

At the time, you had to repair it along the road.

01:32:51

But notice the sign back here? Where are we? That's an Arby's sign.

01:32:57

Yep, that's the Arby's parking lot.

01:32:59

The temple's right over here.

01:33:02

We killed Arby's.

01:33:03

Yeah, they eventually bought Arby's out and killed it, because they didn't want us over there doing our thing.

01:33:09

I probably weigh about 145 pounds there.

01:33:14

That's like my right leg now.

01:33:16

There's the Dodge Dart.

01:33:22

That's a few years later.

01:33:25

Mike and I again.

01:33:26

I'm not witnessing to him.

01:33:28

But see that watch? I still have it.

01:33:30

It's deader than the doornail.

01:33:32

But I still have it.

01:33:33

That's the watch my parents gave me for my high school graduation.

01:33:37

And I've shaved the beard.

01:33:38

I've just got the stache going on that one.

01:33:44

Here's preparing people for going out, reading the tracks and stuff like that.

01:33:49

There's Alan Willis.

01:33:51

Oh, look who's there! I didn't even reckon it.

01:33:53

Dave Brown.

01:33:54

Dave Brown's there.

01:33:55

Oh my.

01:33:57

So yeah, Alan is sitting to my left.

01:34:01

He worked at North Phoenix Baptist Church.

01:34:03

I may see Alan in December.

01:34:05

He comes to St.

01:34:07

Charles.

01:34:08

He's probably been there about three or four times.

01:34:10

He lives back in that area.

01:34:12

But now we had Alpha Domega Ministry shirts! Woohoo! I don't know whose house this was at.

01:34:20

But we know what's going on here.

01:34:23

I'm roleplaying.

01:34:24

Mike's trying to hand me a track.

01:34:27

We're roleplaying.

01:34:28

Telling people what they can expect as they're passing out tracks in Mesa or Salt Lake or whatever we were preparing for there.

01:34:40

KHEP! And I remember this kid.

01:34:43

He was an atheist.

01:34:45

He was a local atheist.

01:34:48

Might have been.

01:34:50

Might have been.

01:34:52

Yeah, Jim Lippard.

01:34:53

Yeah, I think you're right.

01:34:55

We had a debate there at 1280 AM in the studio.

01:35:04

I have no earthly idea.

01:35:08

I have no earthly idea.

01:35:11

Let me tell you something, folks.

01:35:13

I could go through the whole thing.

01:35:14

I just want to get to the computer, then we'll sign off.

01:35:18

You have to understand that before the internet, the only way you could communicate with people was with a newsletter.

01:35:29

Now what we're doing right here, we are stamping the back of tracks with the 2662 LDS phone number.

01:35:40

I think that's what we're doing at this point in time.

01:35:44

But it just reminded me of the huge amount of work the dividing line once was.

01:35:51

Because that was also the name of our newsletter.

01:35:54

Folding, stapling, addressing, bundling, bulk mail stuff.

01:35:58

Oh my goodness.

01:36:00

The amount of work that would go into sending out a newsletter was astonishing.

01:36:07

Alan Willis, again, doing the work with me there.

01:36:12

This is years later, because now I'm in my weightlifting mic over there on the left.

01:36:17

Me and Larry.

01:36:19

Yeah, they've even got the big building up at that point there.

01:36:26

So it's not a chronological order thing going on here right now.

01:36:31

But I just wanted to get to the...

01:36:39

I do not.

01:36:45

Okay.

01:36:45

Yeah.

01:36:46

Well, I assume so.

01:36:47

He was recording all of us.

01:36:50

And the King James Only guys.

01:36:51

Oh, look at that.

01:36:53

Right behind us.

01:36:55

That didn't help anything.

01:36:57

So this would have been toward the end of our time up there, because they made everything.

01:37:01

So I'm pretty sure that was the year that what's-his-name-god-hates-everybody came up, showed up.

01:37:11

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

01:37:13

And you confronted him.

01:37:14

Yes, I did.

01:37:15

I think you're right.

01:37:17

And of course, the fellow behind me there passed away about six months ago.

01:37:21

Not even six months ago.

01:37:25

There you are, talking to some folks outside the meeting hall.

01:37:29

Love that track.

01:37:30

Love that buddy pack there.

01:37:32

Oh, yeah.

01:37:35

Who is that? It's Alan again.

01:37:40

And all the chips, which would be very stale by now.

01:37:44

Mike.

01:37:45

And our...

01:37:45

I remember the year we did those jackets, man.

01:37:48

Oh, man, that was awesome.

01:37:50

The satin baseball jackets in all the different colors.

01:37:53

We looked so cool.

01:37:55

They saw us coming, and then we held signs outside Kingdom Halls in the past.

01:38:04

And it could get tiring in the afternoon.

01:38:07

Uh-oh.

01:38:08

Somebody snuck in and got a picture of the tabernacle.

01:38:13

But see those jackets? They were nice.

01:38:16

They were really good looking.

01:38:18

I'm not sure why that picture was taken, but there it goes.

01:38:23

But I thought for sure, it's supposed to come up here soon, I hope.

01:38:26

There's the Alpha Omega Ministries logo.

01:38:28

I just wanted to get to the again, training with Alan in the background there.

01:38:35

I wanted to get to the computer.

01:38:38

It should be coming up, yeah.

01:38:41

There's the temple.

01:38:42

Man, look at those cars.

01:38:46

Looks like a Harry Callahan thing.

01:38:48

So there's my wife, Kelly.

01:38:50

And there's Mike's wife, Linda.

01:38:52

And there's Benny.

01:38:54

So that almost gets everybody in there.

01:38:59

This was back in the 80s, big hair era.

01:39:05

But doing the training thing again.

01:39:08

People asking questions.

01:39:11

Is that Dave? Oh, too late.

01:39:16

Right there.

01:39:18

I think that is.

01:39:20

That's Dave Warner.

01:39:21

So that's the poor fellow.

01:39:25

Don't ever do this.

01:39:28

We gave him all his training.

01:39:30

The first trip up there.

01:39:31

It was Mike and I and him.

01:39:33

We drove through the night.

01:39:36

We drove up Friday night.

01:39:39

Went to the Tanner's house.

01:39:41

Showered.

01:39:42

Changed.

01:39:43

Passed out tracks all day.

01:39:45

He wasn't ready for that.

01:39:46

He was backed up against the gate with Mormons feeding on him.

01:39:52

And I went in there and he stayed with me the rest of the time.

01:39:55

And I'm glad to see this because that might mean that he actually went with us again.

01:39:59

But that's not how you do it to anybody.

01:40:02

And then we drove home that night.

01:40:03

You want insanity? How young were we? Yes.

01:40:09

Sneak in here real quick.

01:40:11

I'll keep going here until I find the computer.

01:40:13

All right.

01:40:14

You keep going.

01:40:15

I'm going to sneak in here while I do this.

01:40:17

I've told you this story before about Dave.

01:40:19

I knew Dave before I knew you.

01:40:22

And I met Dave about two weeks to a week before you went on that trip.

01:40:29

Or I met with him.

01:40:31

There was a McDonald's at 16th Street in Camelback.

01:40:34

He was working grill in the evenings there.

01:40:37

And I had just moved into that area.

01:40:40

I'm going to church.

01:40:41

Same church we're going to at North Hanks Baptist.

01:40:44

And Dave comes out.

01:40:45

He recognizes me.

01:40:46

He sees me sitting there.

01:40:47

I'm reading my Bible.

01:40:48

It's the evening.

01:40:49

And he starts telling me about this missions trip that he's about to go on and asking me if I want to go with him.

01:40:56

That was like a week before that trip.

01:41:00

And you didn't go with him? I didn't.

01:41:02

I'm like, whoa.

01:41:02

I don't think so.

01:41:07

You realize fast forward two or three years and next thing you know I'm part of Alpha Omega Mysteries.

01:41:16

That's true.

01:41:17

That's true.

01:41:18

There's D.L.

01:41:19

and Barry.

01:41:20

There it is.

01:41:21

Let me back it up here.

01:41:25

Oh, I had injured my back.

01:41:29

I actually had a cane.

01:41:31

I remember I destroyed it.

01:41:33

But over here, here's D.L.

01:41:35

Culliver and Barry Ladin right outside the that would be the South Gate of the Mormon Temple.

01:41:47

Looks like it started during the rush period after lunch.

01:41:50

You can see a line back here of folks forming to get in and stuff.

01:41:54

But, of course, D.L.

01:41:56

and I were talking about the fact that one of these trips was when his wife went into labor while we were up there.

01:42:01

And that next day, we're hot-footing it.

01:42:04

I mean, we're bending the speed limit badly and he still didn't make it back in time.

01:42:12

Yes, I remember us eating at taco time that time.

01:42:16

Last one here.

01:42:17

Sorry, folks.

01:42:17

We'll wrap it up at this.

01:42:19

Here's what I wanted to get to.

01:42:23

I have told the story on this program so many times about our first computer.

01:42:34

This was before your time.

01:42:38

Mike and I got this and it was one of the most frightening things I had ever done.

01:42:45

It cost $3,000.

01:42:49

Which we had to sign our lives away as far as taking out a loan to get it.

01:42:57

Because we didn't have $3,000.

01:42:59

Look at the size that'd be.

01:43:01

That is a compact portable.

01:43:04

The keyboard folds up and snaps in.

01:43:07

You can see the little snap thing on the side.

01:43:10

And it's the size of a Singer sewing machine.

01:43:12

And the weight of a Singer sewing machine.

01:43:15

It has a 6-inch green screen.

01:43:18

And two 5.25-inch floppy drives.

01:43:22

360K floppy drives.

01:43:23

So double-side floppies.

01:43:25

It had 640K of RAM.

01:43:29

Which Bill Gates told us no one would ever need more than that.

01:43:32

But I cannot tell you how many of some of the most important papers, tracts, were written on that.

01:43:48

It didn't have a hard drive yet.

01:43:51

We replaced that with a 8088 that had a 20MB hard drive.

01:43:56

We never figured we'd be able to fill up a 20MB hard drive.

01:44:04

That one? I don't remember what that one had RAM-wise.

01:44:10

But the word processor.

01:44:13

There were no Bible programs at this time.

01:44:15

The word processor that I used was called WordStar.

01:44:20

And you would format stuff by putting dot commands in the margin.

01:44:27

This is a while back.

01:44:29

And I still think I have that little 6-inch green screen burned in the retinas of my eyes, given how massive amount of time that I spent staring at that screen and writing so much of my early Trinitarian stuff on Protodacos and all that kind of stuff.

01:44:51

That's what I did on it.

01:44:52

And the printer for that time was an NEC 24 pin dot matrix.

01:44:58

No, 9 pin.

01:44:59

18.

01:45:02

18 pins.

01:45:05

Yeah, yeah.

01:45:06

We did have some.

01:45:08

But we used that thing until it fell apart.

01:45:12

Because we couldn't afford anything else at all.

01:45:15

And that's in that back room.

01:45:17

The same room where we were recording earlier.

01:45:22

But yeah, for everybody who's always heard my stories about our first compact portable, there it is.

01:45:32

$3,000 when we bought that thing.

01:45:36

And we used it and the Lord blessed it.

01:45:40

If you've appreciated, for example, the Ego I Me on a Who material in The Forgotten Trinity, that's what it was written on.

01:45:54

That long ago.

01:45:55

That long ago it was written on that.

01:45:59

There you go.

01:46:00

There you go.

01:46:02

Little trip down memory lane.

01:46:04

We were showing that during lunch on Saturday.

01:46:08

And even now, as Rich and I were discussing, we're like, oh, wait a minute.

01:46:16

Who was the older fellow that you mentioned earlier? Garland Meadows.

01:46:23

Yeah.

01:46:24

I had seen the picture.

01:46:26

And you were talking.

01:46:29

You put yourself over Garland Meadows just now.

01:46:32

I just thought you might want to know that.

01:46:34

But I saw him and I said, I know that fellow.

01:46:37

And you were like, oh, look, it's Garland Meadows.

01:46:40

Like, oh, yeah, that's right.

01:46:42

Garland Meadows.

01:46:42

Wow.

01:46:44

It is amazing.

01:46:46

I imagine if we could get together with Mike and Alan and look through all those old pictures, we'd probably come up with all the names of everybody.

01:46:55

Oh, that's that person.

01:46:56

That's that person.

01:46:58

We better do that quickly, though.

01:47:03

Maybe Alan will catch this one and he'll give us some more names as we're looking at these things.

01:47:09

I'll just make sure to copy this onto my system and bring it with me.

01:47:13

So if he is there, I can show it to him and maybe he can give us some more insight into some of the people that were there.

01:47:19

So anyway.

01:47:20

All right.

01:47:21

There you go.

01:47:22

A little trip down memory lane for the past 45 minutes.

01:47:24

I hope that's OK.

01:47:26

You got to see a lot of the pictures that we were looking at during the 40th anniversary celebration.

01:47:32

So maybe that sort of brings you along with it all.

01:47:35

Again, thanks for all the notes, all the support, everybody who did everything on Saturday.

01:47:40

You're much appreciated.

01:47:42

We will see you next time on The Dividing Line.

01:47:45

God bless.