June 1, 2004

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World, from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
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The Dividing Line. 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. And welcome to The Dividing Line on this Tuesday morning.
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It is June 1st, 2004, is flying by and it's been, what, three weeks, something like that.
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It's been a while since we were last here live, or in any other form, actually.
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And lots of stuff has happened since then, so we're going to be catching you up on that today, because that's what we do around here on The Dividing Line.
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The normal cast of utter nutcases are sitting in channel with their various and sundry or irrelevant comments.
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The peanut gallery is full, and so the crowd has gathered and all is well.
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And I can tell it's getting close to summer, because as I look at my little weather bug doohickey whopper down there in the system tray, it is red, which means it has three digits in it.
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Only a hundred. I remember last August at 11 o 'clock in the morning, I've seen like 112 and disgusting things like that.
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And it's coming, I know, unless that movie's right, we're going to freeze to death, which I really don't think we're in a lot of danger of here in Phoenix, personally.
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But anyway, it's already warm outside. Today was the first morning,
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I went out in the morning, and it's like already hot. And it's like, yep, here it comes. It had always been a little bit, you know, there's still been a little cool air and it's gone.
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So we won't see the cool air again until the middle of November. So we've got about five and a half months of this to look forward to.
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Anyway, got back from Long Island yesterday morning, and that always makes for a very long trip.
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It's always, those of you who don't do a lot of flying, it's much faster to go from the west to the east than it is from the east to the west.
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That's due to the prevailing winds, of course. And so it's a long flight, and I got stuck in about the worst seat
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I could get stuck in, actually. No, it wasn't a middle seat between two football players.
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That would probably be worse, come to think of it. Though at least that would have held me up straight. But you know those exit rows where there's not a, in the
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Airbus 319, where there's not a window right next to the door? So it's just two seats, and then there's an open space.
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Now that has more legroom, but if you're stuck in the middle one, where do you put your head to try to sleep, since it doesn't lean back?
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And every time I start to fall asleep, because I only got a couple hours of sleep the night before, every time I start to fall asleep, my head would fall forward, and then of course you wake up jerking your head, and you look like an idiot, and everybody chuckles at you and stuff like that.
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So it was a long flight back. But anyways, we got back. And as some of you know, it was a, if you've been following the blog at all, it was a two -part trip to Long Island.
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And what I mean by that is, hey, I messed up. You know, I make lots of mistakes, and I messed up.
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But we scheduled the debate for the 20th of May, and once Chris Arnzen back there on Long Island talks to the folks at the
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Huntington Townhouse, and you put your date in, your date is in. That's it. That's when you're going to have it.
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And I recall last, I think it was January, yeah, it was last January, when I was on Long Island, I was driving along the
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Northern Parkway. Those of you in the New York area, you know where that is. When all of a sudden it hit me, oh no, when does my son graduate from high school?
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I mean, I knew it was going to be in May. I graduated from high school in June. Have you noticed how it keeps getting earlier, and pretty soon people are going to be graduating in like February.
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I mean, it just doesn't make any sense anymore. But anyway, and so I got on the phone, made some phone calls, discovered my son graduates from high school on the 21st.
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The debate's on the 20th, and he graduates the next night. Okay, now those debates go late.
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They always go late. They don't go as late as they used to, thankfully, now that we have Bill Shishko moderating the debates.
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They get done at 11 o 'clock, right on the nose. But then you talk with folks, and you got to pack everything up, and by the time you get out of there, you're looking at after midnight, and then we go get something to eat because you're famished by then, and normally get back to the hotel 1 .30,
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2 a .m. in the morning. Well, here's the problem. I have to catch the 7 a .m.
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flight out of JFK to get back for the graduation, and so that ended up being an adventure
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I'll get to in a moment, but so it was a two -part trip. And so there was the first week, which included the debate, and then there was,
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I was home for the debate, graduation weekend, went back for the past five or six days and was ministering there on Long Island.
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Now we're back, and I go back in two and a half weeks, which has been scheduled for a long time.
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I've been invited to speak by the American Bible Society at their celebration of the 400th anniversary of the translation of the
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King James Version, which, of course, began in 1604 and was completed in 1611, took seven years, which
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I'm sure someone finds to be numerologically interesting or relevant or something, but anyway,
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I go back in two and a half weeks for some more ministry back there. No debates or anything like that, but be that as it may.
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And so I started off going over to New Jersey to Calvary Evangelical Free Church, Hat Trick and Channel arranged this, and we had a men's breakfast fellowship in the morning.
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And here you got guys coming out early in the morning, and I'm doing a presentation on the Trinity, and I didn't think
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I lost anybody. No one fell off their chairs asleep or anything like that. So I guess
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I survived and managed to get the information across in that context.
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It was very easy to get over there, not so easy to get back. Whatever you do, don't try to cross the
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George Washington Bridge a couple hours before a Yankee game. It's just, there's just nothing like trying to get into New York.
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If you don't live in a place like that, you just can't understand what an hour in traffic, and no one's really, you know, upset about it.
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You know, I mean, it's just sort of like, yeah, this is, it's a bridge. And not only that, they make you pay money to do it.
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Fourteen bucks in tolls back and forth to New Jersey and back again. And the amazing thing is they pay you to get out of New Jersey, which
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I just don't understand at all. I mean, I would think that they would pay you to get out, but that's not the way it works.
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So we do not have toll roads here in Arizona because we would shoot anyone who would try to put toll roads in, but they don't have to worry about that back there because they don't have the
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Second Amendment in east of the Mississippi River. So anyway, then the next day
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I spoke at the Massapequa Church of God. Jim Capo is the pastor there, and I've spoken there six, seven times now.
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I think I spoke on the passion of the Christ in the morning and then the evening to judge or not to judge
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Matthew chapter seven, verses one through two. And actually, I think I went through four or something like that, but spoke on those subjects, had a great time with those folks.
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They're wonderful folks. And then the next two Wednesday nights, the Wednesday night before the debate and the Wednesday night after the debate, one at Calvary Baptist Church in Medford and then the other at Edmores Church, North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside, Queens.
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I spoke on the same sex marriage controversy, same subject.
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Interesting how the two presentations differed from one another, different, different contexts, different audiences and things like that, but spoke on the issue of homosexual marriage and how that is an oxymoron and what the scriptures say about that.
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And both both churches sort of wondered, have you ever had anybody like show up and cause problems when you were addressing things like this?
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And and I said, no, I actually haven't. And still haven't to this point. So we didn't have any problems.
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The Barry Lynn debate haven't had any problems so far. That's because I'm just so such a minor person that no one really cares.
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But I would imagine if we started attracting some some interest, that kind of thing would happen, but didn't didn't happen.
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And we had an excellent, excellent time with both of those churches.
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I always love going to North Shore because Edmore is just a tremendous guy. And I stayed with Ed the second year
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I went out to Long Island. And so I have stories. I have
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I have fond memories of Puglio's Italian restaurants down near Chinatown in Manhattan, and I will never, ever forget those things.
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It's just I'm sorry. I it was very funny. But anyway, then, of course, a
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Thursday night, May 20th, we had the great debate. And what do we say about the great debate?
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I commented on it briefly on the blog, both right after the debate and also again,
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I think day before yesterday, I commented about the spin machine that has that has fired up.
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We'll talk about the spin machine. The debate went very well. It was, again, run very well by Bill Shishko.
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We started fairly close to on time, not quite, but fairly close to on time. We had a good group of folks there, not quite as many as past debates, but we sort of expected that because of the topic.
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We knew there were a lot of folks that just go. I mean, let's face it. If we did a Marian topic, which
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I'd like to do again in the future, because that was the first one we did and we didn't really cover it that well because we did four topics in one debate.
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And I would like to do the Marian dogmas as a whole in the in the debate series there on Long Island.
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And hopefully we'll be able to arrange that. Hopefully with someone I haven't debated the topic with before anyway.
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And so if we had a Marian topic, we would have had probably another 50 percent more people than we had there.
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And the crowd was was calm and collected. There wasn't at least
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I did not notice the little fan group down front that had been there the year before, sort of cheering on my opponent then and making various sundry comments to me.
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So it was very calm and collected from that perspective. And it wasn't just Gary Michuda who was there.
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I had never met Mr. Michuda before. He is a very large man, about six foot eight. And so we had to keep tilting the cameras back and forth with the two of us would speak because I'm not six foot eight.
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And so he was he was very nice. We didn't really we just shook hands, said hello.
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We didn't talk about anything at all. But, you know, it was a very straightforward debate as far as that goes.
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And nothing again, nothing, no major fireworks in comparison to some years.
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We didn't have some of the tension, for example, was in the
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Stravinskis debate and things like that. It was very straightforward. And as I've thought back over the debate,
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I could have done significantly better in the cross examination. There I've thought of two areas that they were there in my notes.
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And for some reason, I just normally I put a circle next to something that I want to catch during the cross ex.
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And for some odd reason this year, I don't know why, as we were talking about the cross examination period,
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I only thought there was one of it. It didn't catch my thinking that we were going to do 12 minutes, 12 minutes, 12 minutes, 12 minutes, actually supposed to be 15, 15, 15, 15.
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But we cut it back to to make the debate and at the right time. And so when the second period started,
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I was like, I've already used all the ones I was going to use. And so I was going to go back over them.
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And for some reason, I don't know why, old, dumb, stupid, whatever I am, I just didn't think of two areas that I really should have focused in on better than I did.
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One was the fact that I mentioned the the existence of what's called the glossa ordinaria, which is a the medieval commentary on scripture, almost an interlinear type running commentary on scripture, sort of the ancient version of the
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NIV study Bible, I guess we might put it that way. And I don't know what the most popular study
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Bible is today. I know when I was a young person, there was really only one. And that was the the
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Schofield study Bible. And I had one. And it's maybe the
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NIV study Bible would be the best example today of a very popular, widely read commentary, running commentary on the scriptures.
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Well, the glossa ordinaria, that's what it is. And the glossa ordinaria before each of the apocryphal books said
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Tobit is not in the canon. Maccabees is not in the canon. Now, how the most popular commentary.
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And it's not like there were it's not like you had 50 or 60 or 70 of them running around. It was basically the only one.
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And it was used in all the centers of theological learning, not just for a few years, but for centuries on end.
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The glossa ordinaria says these books are not canonical. Now, the assumption of Mr.
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Machuda's presentation from the beginning was, in essence, he assumed his own position and contented himself with attacking the information that would demonstrate that his position is not the unanimous voice of history.
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And he was very well prepared to do that. He was very well prepared to try to cast doubt, for example, on basically all
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Jewish literature as far as, well, if it comes from after a certain point in time that it's been corrupted by this.
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And when I asked him to prove that, he wasn't able to do so. But that was the substance of the argumentation.
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And but to actually prove the point, to actually prove that these books were canonical,
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I pointed out that whether he sees or not, and given his current comments on the subject, he does not.
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He's functioning, again, on the basis of sola ecclesia. Now, he has said since then, well, look,
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I made a presentation as a Protestant. I never claimed the authority of the church. But if the authority of the church determines what you can and cannot see in the historical material, you're still functioning under the ultimate authority of the church.
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If that is the key epistemological element of your worldview, you can't say that you somehow are escaping from it just because you don't quote it as your final authority.
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It's still there, whether you recognize that it's there or not. And so I didn't push the glossa ordinaria.
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I should have. I should have asked about it. And I also should have asked in light of his assertion that in Hebrews 11, you have an inspired usage of the
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Apocrypha, which let's say it is a reference to stories in the Apocrypha. That doesn't mean it's a citation of the scripture because of the fact that we have references to non -inspired extra canonical books elsewhere in the
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Bible. We have Paul quoting from pagan philosophers. We have Jude quoting from the assumption of Moses, from Enoch and making reference to the assumption of Moses, which
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Rome does not accept as inspired scripture. And so if in point of fact, his position is consistent, then he would have to believe those books were canonical as well.
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I didn't ask. I did not ask that question. I don't know why I didn't ask that question. I made the point very clearly in my rebuttal and in my closing statement, but for some reason it didn't end up in cross
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X. That doesn't mean the cross X wasn't clear because everyone I've talked to who comment on the debate, they all said cross examination was very clear that my opponent really struggled in cross examination.
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And that seems to be the case each and every year. I mean, let's look back over the cross examination last year, even with Mitch Pacwa and the stuff about the heavenly elders.
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Look at look at Stravinskis and the cross examination there, especially on Augustine and things like that.
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Goodness, you know, that's that's really where it takes place. The debates with Barry Lynn and things like that.
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It was cross examination that really shows what's going on in a debate.
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And it did again. I just feel that instead of revisiting some of the areas that I did in the second part, if I had hit those two, it would have been would have been better for me.
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But as it may, I thought it went very well. Like I said, Mr. Matured was very well prepared.
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I did not know this, but I understand it was the first debate that he's done. And so, you know, got to give the man kudos is my 53rd public moderated debate.
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And so I think it'll be very useful. Haven't heard of a a projection as to when that's going to be available.
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As far as MP3s and Thursday, Thursday of of this week is the projected two days from now.
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So we'll probably be able to confirm that or deny that on on Thursday when we do two dividing lines in one week.
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What a concept is that? Wow. It's up to one hundred and two now. Look at that. It's a wonderful. Great.
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So anyway, we had this week for DVDs and MP3s and CDs. Yes. OK.
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Why is this all Thursday and channel? I thought you were getting back to me really, really fast. So maybe you're referring to somebody else.
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OK. Anyway, so that'll be available. And then, like I said, how do you describe how
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I got home? We went out eight afterwards to twenty five a .m.
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I get dropped off at John F. Kennedy Airport. Rich and Warren, who did the the videotaping, had a rental car.
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So they had to drop it off. Rich was rich, was not looking good.
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OK, the red eye, the red eye did something to him and he was not looking good.
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OK, and so they were going to try to their flight was later in the day, but they were going to as rich ever looked good, but I'm boomed that my sounds on I'd play that.
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But anyway, so they're going to on the day of flight, you can up you can change the flight to an earlier flight without cost.
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And so they're going to try to stand by on my flight. So we get there at excuse me,
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I do have a cough button, but I just started laughing because I saw Rich kick Mike O 'Fallon out of channel at that particular point in time.
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O 'Fallon should learn to pick his pick his arguments with someone other than someone who has ops.
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But anyway, I get there to twenty five rich and Warren drop off the car and I'm walking up to the you know, we're just going to sit there basically, you know, find a seat and sit there.
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The terminal is closed. Terminal seven where our flights come up, it's closed. So this security guy comes out, says we don't open again till four thirty five, something like that.
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And I'm like, really, this guy go to Terminal four or Terminal four.
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So I got all this all this luggage and the guys got equipment. Thankfully, I call them saying go straight there.
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And so I got dragging across the street and onto a train and over to Terminal four.
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And we finally get there all together. And let me tell you something, the seats in Terminal four were designed by they were designed.
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They're bad to put it. They're just specifically designed so you cannot rest there or almost it's like how dare you want to rest here is the idea behind it.
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So we sat there and and talked and didn't really sleep. And finally, we get back over to Terminal seven when it opens up, we get in line.
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We're like, we're still the second people in line. Someone got there for us. Don't ask me how. And we look over, actually,
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Rich walked by one of the one of the screens and said, our flights canceled. And I'm like, oh, no, because I've got it.
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My son's graduation's that night. And so I called the eight hundred number, finally get it. And they confirmed, yep, it's canceled.
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And I'm not going to get home today. And I'm like, you know, they're going to get home, the guys get home because they have tickets on a later flight that isn't canceled.
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And about 10 minutes later, they uncanceled the flight and canceled a later one. And so we we got on.
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In fact, Warren and I do not even remember takeoff. We do not. It was it was gone.
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And I remember a movie starting. But the next thing I knew, the movie was already done and it was at least two hour movie.
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So I was gone. I was I hope I wasn't snoring too loudly and bothering the people around me.
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But I was a historical novelty at that point. And we got back in time.
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And those of you who follow the blog saw some of the pictures. And congratulations, Josh. You know, now.
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Get a good job, you know, 18, get a good job. All right, good, very good time.
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So anyway, we made it back in time and and all all worked out and Rich recovered a few days later after about 22 hours of sleep or something like that.
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He managed to to get get over whatever it was that followed him out to New York. So then
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I was home over the weekend, flew back out on Tuesday. And that's why we didn't have a dividing line last week. And as I said,
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Wednesday night spoke at North Shore Baptist Church on the same sex marriage issue. And then Friday night, just last
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Friday night, May 28th, I spoke at a place I've never spoken at before, Christian Federation Ministries, 3065 3rd
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Avenue, Bronx, New York. This is South Bronx, which I was informed while I was there is the poorest congressional district in the
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United States. This is the inner city in the Bronx. And it's an all black church from what
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I could see. And I just had a wonderful time there. We started at 730 and I got done,
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I'd say about 915. And I could tell that I probably hadn't gone as long as they wanted me to. And they passed out notepads.
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I mean, they literally had people go up and down the aisles with notepads in case you hadn't brought anything so you could take notes.
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And they were just so tremendously appreciative that someone had come there and then to address a subject like this, they just ate it up.
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And, you know, it's a lot of fun to talk at churches. It's very encouraging to talk at churches when the people really want to hear what you've got to say.
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They just, I mean, they just ate it up. They were so excited about it. Now, remember, Bronx isn't that far from Brooklyn.
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And what's in Brooklyn? Bethel headquarters, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. So the deity of Christ is just a tad bit relevant, of course, to the subject there in that particular area.
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And so I did a PowerPoint presentation, the deity of Christ, and they just loved it. And they were they were tremendously generous to me.
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And just I'll be going back there again, no two ways about it, because I really, really enjoyed my time with those folks.
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And just pray for them. The pastor there has embraced the doctrines of grace.
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And, you know, that that can cause problems at times. And and it's just it's just a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to get to go down there.
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Then just I feel like saying yesterday, because yesterday was Monday and yesterday sort of just went,
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I spoke at the two main Reformed Baptist churches on Long Island, Hope Reformed Baptist and Grace Reformed Baptist.
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Hope is out in Farmingdale, Farmingville, not Farmingdale, Farmingville are two different places about 20, 30 miles apart.
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And then at Grace in Merrick, I spoke basically on the Apocrypha on Sunday morning, which is sort of hard to do.
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How do you how do you do a sermon on the Apocrypha? What do you do, start in Tobit or something? And it was that was tough.
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But then I had a really tough assignment. And this topic was assigned to me. The text was assigned to me.
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That's not normally how we do it, but that's how we did it this time. The folks at Grace Reformed asked that I speak on James 1, 2 through 4, which is consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that testing your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect work.
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And I tell you, that was a tough one.
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It was very tough because I started off the sermon basically saying it's hard to preach on a on a sermon when you know you haven't been following the advice you're going to be giving very well yourself.
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And part of the reason I've been asked is that the church has been facing some struggles, some difficulties for a number of years now.
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And so it was it was hard. It was tough. But the Lord blessed and had a lot of people come up to me afterwards and comment on how much of a blessing it was for them and that it was very well, excuse me, very relevant to what they were going through.
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And so it went well. And I'll be going back for those of you wondering why in the world would you be going back in only two and a half weeks?
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The reason is that, as I mentioned, the primary reason is that I'm going to be speaking at the
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American Bible Society thing. But first, I'm speaking at Upton Lake Christian Schools graduation on Saturday, June 19th.
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And then on Sunday morning, I'll be out of Grace Gospel Church in Patchogue, Long Island. For those of you on the
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LIA, it's about exit 63 or so. And that'll be on the subject of refuting Islam.
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That'll be twice on Sunday morning, June 20th. And then Sunday evening, I'll be north of there in Farmingville again at Hope Reform Baptist Church.
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What's so new about the New Covenant? That's an important subject. I've mentioned before, I have written a two part article for the
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Reform Baptist Theological Review. People are always asking me about, they want bibliographies from me.
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They say, you know, where can I get good reading material? I've said this once before. Let me say it again.
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If you want good reading material, obviously, I'm biased about this, but I'm just letting you know.
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www .rbtr .org, www .rbtr .org,
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it's a subscription. It is a scholarly journal. And I've written an article.
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It's in two parts. The first part will appear in the next issue, which comes out in July, and then the next issue will come out in January on the
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New Covenant. And the first half is exegetical, very exegetical in Hebrews 8 and Hebrews 10.
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And then the second half, I interact with the Greg Strawbridge book that came out last year,
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A Covenantal Offense of Paedo -Baptism, specifically dealing with Jeff Neal's chapter on the subject of the newness of the
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New Covenant. And so that is going to be in the RBTR. Someone just posted that in channel, and I just would highly recommend it.
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And you can also help to get it off the ground and keep it going by subscribing to it at an early point and then keeping your subscription up.
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And so I would highly recommend that to you and hope that will be useful to you. That's what
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I'll be addressing at the Hope Reformed Baptist Church on the 20th of June, and then real quickly on the 23rd at the
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Bible Church of Port Washington, I'll be speaking about the Jehovah's Witnesses. Then Friday and Saturday, I'll be speaking at the
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American Bible Society get together. Then Sunday, June 27th,
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I will be speaking at New Hyde Park Baptist Church in New Hyde Park. Pastor Gary there, a good group of folks in the morning.
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I'll be speaking on Acts chapter 13, especially verse 48 and the evening on Mormonism, because when we come back,
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I need to report on my trip to the Manhattan LDS Temple, the
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Manhattan LDS Temple. We'll be talking about that. We take our break and come back here on The Dividing Line.
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Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.
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Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.
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In their book, The Same Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the
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Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including
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Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.
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In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.
32:01
The Same Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at AOMN .org.
32:09
Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the word of God. James White, in his book,
32:15
The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
32:22
Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
32:36
You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .AOMN
32:45
.org. What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free, A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?
32:54
No, Dr. 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.
33:07
In his book, The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, But the potter's freedom is much more than just a reply.
33:13
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.
33:21
In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
33:28
Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the
33:33
Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Potter's Freedom, a defense of the
33:39
Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at AOMN .org.
33:53
Welcome back to Dividing Line.
34:08
Hey, I was just informed by the powers that be that I need to make a special announcement.
34:15
In fact, what you should do here, turn my sound up there, Mr. Board Operator something. Here we go. This is how you do a announcement.
34:28
You know what's supposed to come right after that?
34:44
You know how you can tell if you were alive and really kicking in like 1977 or so?
34:51
Because what comes right after that sound is this sound.
35:07
Yeah, I saw that like 11 times. Okay, you can turn my sounds down now. Anyway, big announcement.
35:17
The big announcement is that the special early. Okay, let me put this way.
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We have had the special early deposit date that was the 31st of May moved to June 30th.
35:32
In other words, folks can take advantage of our early savings rates up until June 30th.
35:37
This is for the cruise. And I've had a lot of folks when I was traveling say, man, I'd sure like to go on that cruise.
35:43
I just don't know. I just don't know. Well, here's another opportunity, because rates go up the closer you get.
35:51
They have to, by the nature of the fact you're trying to fill up certain space. And if you wait to the last second, you're not going to get the same deal that somebody got that got into it six months ago.
36:04
And so the point is you have another 30 days. And that is not a reason for procrastination, but it is for those of you who are going, man, if I just had a little while longer, you know,
36:16
I got this coming in. I can't make it by May 31st. It's just not going to happen. So I give up. If you gave up, don't give up.
36:24
Specifically for you folks, especially, this is going to be useful to you. So the special sort of early sign up rate extended through June 30th.
36:34
Don't push it past then. That's the big voice. I've just been doing it. Okay, so keep that in mind.
36:42
I imagine we'll probably put something up on the website. I haven't given the phone number because I don't know that to be honest with you,
36:49
I'm going to get phone calls today. And so that's why I haven't actually mentioned the phone number, because we haven't haven't done the dividing line in quite some time.
36:59
And hence we are trying to get caught up. So anyway,
37:05
Manhattan Temple. I forget who mentioned it to me.
37:11
I think it might have been Mike from Utah, New Jersey, which is a very odd combination of places to live, quite honestly.
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But that may be who mentioned, somebody mentioned the URL. And now I think about it, it was
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Mike. And so all of a sudden I realized, wow, Manhattan Temple. I didn't even heard about it. So it's going on when
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I'm going to be in Manhattan, or I'm going to be in New York anyway. And there's going to be some period of time when
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I can get in there. And so I got my tickets and then
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Mike changed his so he could come up from New Jersey and we could run into each other, which we did.
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We got there a little bit early. They sort of shuffled us through. And so we weren't in the same group, which, you know, as I was thinking about, and I know
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Mike's on channel right now, that probably was best because I don't know.
38:06
So I went through with Chris Arnzen and Chris isn't, you know, all Chris knows about Mormonism is from the couple of missionaries you talked to many, many, many years ago and what he's heard me say about over the years.
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And Mormonism is not a big topic on Long Island. I mean, trust me, Jehovah's Witnesses are the big topic back east,
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Mormons out west. It's just sort of the way that is. And so Chris and I went through and I sort of as we were going out on the train,
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Long Island Railroad into Penn Station and we we took a cab. Oh, Lord, I'm going to tell you something.
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There are rides. Honestly, there are rides in theme parks that you pay money to get on that are not nearly as exciting or dangerous as taking a cab ride in Manhattan.
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Now, the people who do it all the time don't care. They are numb. And that's why
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I don't think many that's why there's you know, I don't think many of those folks travel down to Six Flags or anything like that because it's boring to them.
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They've survived driving in a cab in Manhattan. A New York cab driver can put a full size cab into a space
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I could not get my motorcycle into. OK, I mean, there was one time there was a full size truck right next to right outside my door and we took his lane.
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I don't know physically how we did that, but we did it. Just just incredible.
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Just and the the messengers on their bikes in the middle of this mess.
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I mean, if you've not been there, you just you you can't understand.
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It's just there are guys and they're not even wearing helmets and they're whipping through stuff.
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Oh, it's just well, anyhow. Mm hmm. My heart rate went up a lot there just thinking about that particular experience.
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Oh, it's the the Arizona boy in Manhattan. It is absolutely an amazing thing.
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So anyway, I was telling Chris on the train about, you know, watch for this and you're going to see this.
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And and I was just sort of giving him a bird's eye view of temples and endowment ceremonies and the priesthood and and stuff like that.
40:34
And so when we were going through things, I was sort of pointing stuff out to Chris. Well, if Mike had been with us and Mike knows what goes on in there, we would have gotten in trouble because there's no way other people wouldn't have seen us looking at each other.
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And I don't know that we actually could have behaved properly at a couple points when things were said by the things were said by the by the tour guide that I know he's just doing what he was supposed to do.
41:06
OK, you know, I don't hold the guy accountable for any of this, but they were just sometimes excuse me, that it was it was it was sort of humorous.
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So anyway, it's probably best that they showed up after Mike showed up after he did with his parents.
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And so I saw them as we're going in. And then we waited for him to come out at the end and waited for a long time.
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I thought that maybe, you know, blood atonement had been reinstituted or something like that. And they had figured out who he was or something. I don't know.
41:34
But anyhow, anyhow, we we take the cab ride down to Columbus Avenue and we got out at 65th and it's a 66.
41:42
So we were right there and they're still working on the facade and stuff. They weren't completely done. In fact, it's really interesting.
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Mike mentioned to me that their tour guide said something that ours didn't. And that was that the it's what was it, six floors, six floors, the temple is on the first, fifth and sixth.
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And I believe the second, third and fourth, I got the feeling was multiple ward chapels.
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And they said this is the only their only other temple in the world that houses both a public meeting house, a ward chapel and the temple.
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And it made sense was in Hong Kong. Why? Well, because space is that such a premium in these places.
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And so you have this what Mike told me, their tour guide said was that the temple parts itself do not share a common wall with the outside.
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It's actually built inside the preexisting structure. So it has a separate external wall inside the other wall.
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And it was very, very quiet. I mean, you're you're right on Columbus Avenue in Manhattan there.
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So you've got all that kind of stuff going on outside all the time. So it was both for acoustics and I think for other reasons as well.
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But it's actually built inside of it. And so we went in and I told
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I told Chris beforehand about the fact that in the old temple and open houses years and years ago, they would bring people in.
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And after all us Gentiles get done going through the temple, they would rip all the carpets up and put in new carpet.
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Why? Because we as Gentiles profane the temple.
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And so it has to be cleansed and purified and before it can be dedicated.
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And so what they started doing a number of years ago is instead of doing that, they make you a little wear plastic little plastic booties look like shower caps on your shoes so they don't have to rip up the carpets because that's expensive.
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And so I told Chris about this and so they may as watch this little 10 minute movie, which really made me wish that my books on Mormonism were back in print and I need to contact someone about that very issue because I tell you, it was like the first vision and just so many things that have been addressed so many times before and it just keeps on going.
44:39
But then they told then they asked us to put on these these little booties that we that we had sitting on our chairs.
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And they told us it was to save the carpet. Yeah, it's to save the carpet. All right. It's to save the carpet from not being ripped up because we're defiling the temples.
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They didn't really tell us. And, you know, you can understand. Well, we don't want to tell you that that in reality we have, you know, we believe that you're profaning this place because you're
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Gentiles. You know, that doesn't go over too well. So they didn't do that. And so Chris gave me an odd look at that point.
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And they took us out down the elevator, down to the first floor and into the into the temple. And they took us down to the baptismal font for the first.
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They took us to one of the changing rooms. And this is a mini temple. This is a small temple. I don't think they can handle more than 40 people at a shot in this in this temple.
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They really couldn't. There isn't a large LDS population there. It's mainly for people who are visiting
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Mormons who are visiting New York on business. They're really trying to encourage temple participation by their people.
45:41
And so we went down to the baptismal font and you go up these stairs because it's built on the back of 12 oxen.
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And I did get information that I had never seen, that I had not figured out before.
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I had known that up to the Atlanta Temple, the building of the Atlanta Temple, all baptismal fonts in the
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Mormon temples were underground. But then starting with the Atlanta Temple, they stopped doing that.
46:09
And so at the end of the tour, the guide sat down, talked to Chris and I, and I just honestly told him who
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I was, what I do. I told him I've read Talmudges, Temples of the Lord and stuff like that. And so he opened up more because obviously
46:24
I knew more about it than your average person walking through there. And I mentioned that.
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I said now up until up until Atlanta, all baptismal fonts were underground, but they're not anymore.
46:38
Do you know why? He says, well, they don't have to be underground, but they're always under the other levels of the temple.
46:45
It's meant to be a progression thing. And then it hit me like, duh, if you look at the Salt Lake Temple, the stones there at the lowest point are the of the terrestrial kingdom, a telestial kingdom, the stars.
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And then you have the moon up above. Then you have the sun at the top. It's all a vertical progression thing. Duh. It starts down there and goes up.
47:08
That made perfect sense. I went, yep, OK, makes sense to me. We walk up these stairs and this baptismal font,
47:16
I'm telling you, I don't think they could baptize Shaquille O 'Neal in there. It was that small. I mean, if they don't position themselves just right, you could you could knock somebody silly in that thing.
47:28
I mean, it was it was not I don't think that it had as much space in a vertical line as the baptistry at my church.
47:38
That's how small it is. But the first thing I was looking for as I walked up the stairs to the to the area, the circular area around it, was where does the recorder sit?
47:50
Because you see, there's this recorder and he sits there and he has a computer screen in front of him.
47:58
And when you're being baptized in the dead, you've already turned in your names and that that has been put into the computer so that you don't you're not carrying papers around.
48:06
It comes up on the screen, your name and who you're being baptized for. It's very efficient that way. Well, there were no computer screens, but I did notice that there were chairs around the outside and a couple of them were rolling chairs without arms on them.
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The kind of chair that you would sit at a computer terminal with. And so I started looking around and very quickly
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I found in the flooring two power and network cable input boxes right near where a person goes down into the into the baptistry.
48:44
And so I said, I know what that is. It's 106 degrees outside. Oh, good grief. And so so later on, again, we were talking.
48:53
I verified with the guy and Chris was just about to step on one when I when I sort of touched him and I pointed down and he backed away from it like,
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OK, I guess I shouldn't step on that. But that's not what it was about. So that I didn't care about that. The point was notice that.
49:09
And I'll talk to you about later. I'm taking a lot of time here very quickly since we've only got a few minutes left.
49:14
We went from there into let's see, we didn't see the ceiling rooms because there'd have to be ceiling rooms nearby for the receiving of the
49:23
Holy Spirit stuff. And then we went up to the fifth floor and we went into the creation room.
49:28
The creation room has the mural of what's supposed to be the Garden of Eden. But they told us that they actually took the pictures from upstate
49:36
New York so they would be more culturally and geographically relevant and stuff like that.
49:41
They really emphasized a lot about New York and the whole thing, you know, how it started in New York and all the rest, that kind of stuff.
49:50
And so anyway, we went in there and I pointed to the holes in the wall where the projection would come through and the the altar.
50:00
And of course, I'm having to do this, you know, I'm not doing this openly. Yeah, you're supposed to stay fairly quiet and stuff.
50:06
And so I was just pointing things out to Chris, hoping you'd remember him so I could, you know, mention a little bit later on.
50:15
Then we went from there into the next room in the progression, which would be where you'd receive all the instructions on the signs, tokens, used to be penalties.
50:25
And the veil was there. So I knew we were getting close to the celestial room. And so what the guide said is that he wasn't going to say anything in the celestial room.
50:36
We were just to let, we were just to feel the spirit. Like, OK. So we walk into this room and all through this tour, when we look at the grand hallway, outside the ceiling rooms, going into the celestial room, all this stuff.
50:55
Uh, actually, I just realized that was the sixth floor and the fifth floor. We went down to the fifth floor from there. It was so 1900, 1800s, 19th century
51:07
Americana. It was so American. It was, I mean, there were wood and and these wooden,
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I don't know, like not like cabinets, but just decorative things with drawers and just so 1850s
51:26
America that it really struck you just how, in fact, this is truly an
51:31
American religion. It really is. And that's been one of the difficulties for the
51:36
Mormon church in becoming a world religion is it's very American.
51:42
It's very, you know, connected to that. And so it was striking to see that as we as we went through stuff, we go into the into the celestial room and it's it's small.
51:55
It's very tall. It's meant to, you know, like a cathedral, supposed to bring your thoughts upward and things like that.
52:01
But I'm sorry, I was just utterly unimpressed. I mean, this is supposed to be the pinnacle.
52:07
This is the only place in the world where you can speak about the endowment ceremonies and and talk about things like that and supposed to represent heaven.
52:14
And and I was just sort of like, OK, and I did notice, Chris, he while he was standing there, he just put his hands on one of the chairs, just like,
52:26
I wonder what's going to happen that year. And then as as we left, one of his booties fell off right in the celestial room.
52:33
So I don't know what's going to happen there. But, you know, that's it wasn't wasn't intentional, but it happened anyway.
52:42
So so we went down from there to the ceiling rooms and I told Chris, I said, now, keep an eye open.
52:51
When we go into the ceiling rooms, you're going to see an altar and one you can kneel at.
52:57
And then there are mirrors on both sides, supposed to create like the eternity effect.
53:04
And so we walk in there. There it is. There's the altar kneeling things around it. The mirrors whole nine yards.
53:12
And so we're standing there and he's looking at it and he started giving me the look like, oh, OK, that's what you said.
53:18
And this lady asks a question. She says, what what is the altar for? And the guide says so.
53:24
She said there's been alters. No, what's the altar for? So it doesn't have doesn't have a specific purpose. No, no, it just symbolizes service.
53:30
Now, I knew I missed really obvious. This altar is surrounded by pillows.
53:37
Hello. That's where they kneel during. That's where the couple kneels during the ceiling ceremony.
53:44
And so anyway, we leave. We can take a little booties off. They had some light refreshments.
53:50
When I say light refreshments, cups of water and cookies. Yes, we went all out there.
53:57
And so we're sitting there waiting for Mike and his parents to come through on the group after us.
54:03
And I'm chatting with Chris and the guy comes over. And so, like I said, I told him, I said, look, you know,
54:09
I've read this book. I mentioned the debates we've done up at U of U. He was at the U at BYU from 1996, 2000.
54:16
So he knew a number of the names that I mentioned. And and I said, now, you know, be straight up front with me.
54:22
I said, when that lady asked you about the altar in the ceiling room and you said it didn't have any particular, particular function, particular meaning.
54:31
He started to grin a little bit and he said, well, that just wasn't the place to get into it. I said, well, you know, I can understand that,
54:37
I guess. But my understanding, according to Mike, was that their guide had gone into much more detail than ours did at that particular point.
54:45
So it would be interesting to go through or have multiple people go through and compare notes as to exactly what was said by each guide and and things like that.
54:54
So we had a nice opportunity of talking with him about a number of issues. And I mentioned the last debate we did was on the subject of temples and whether whether the
55:03
New Testament teaches we should build temples. And I was debating the Mormons. I mean, he knew where I was coming from.
55:09
And you could like to like to feel or believe that it wouldn't be impossible for him to search the
55:19
Internet and come up with with our website as a result of throwing a few keywords in there at Google or something and track down that debate.
55:27
That would be very interesting. So it was very interesting.
55:32
It was the first temple opening I've ever been to. There have been many temple openings over the past, you know, 20 some odd years that I've witnessed
55:39
Mormons. But they've always been, well, I'll take that back. Mesa, I think, was rededicated or did
55:46
I just miss that? I don't remember. But it would always have involved traveling someplace. And it just wasn't something that there was any reason for me to have to undertake the trip to do so.
55:57
I mean, you can buy Talmage's Temples of the Lord and see in color pictures pretty much everything we saw in the
56:03
Manhattan Temple, but in even larger scope. Because the old temples,
56:11
Salt Lake and Manti and Logan and things like that, those temples are just much larger than this small temple in Manhattan.
56:22
And in fact, I even mentioned the guide at one point. I said, but I'll tell you, this looks a whole lot different than the
56:28
Provo Temple, which looks like it's about to be launched into space. And since he went to BYU, he chuckled because it does.
56:35
If you've ever seen the Provo Temple, Google it and get a picture of it. It truly looks like a
56:41
UFO. I mean, we are talking sci -fi design here.
56:47
It's just horrible. It's just, I wonder when they're going to take some money and just go, you know what, let's maybe come up with, let's totally redo this temple.
57:01
That would be a real good thing to do. But anyway, had a nice conversation.
57:07
And it was very, very interesting indeed to get an opportunity to go through the temple and to ask you questions, see some of those things and go, wow.
57:17
Still a real, real, real need to share the gospel of grace. These folks, even though they are baptized in the name of the
57:25
Father, the Son and the Spirit, still a real need to share the gospel of grace, the truth about who
57:32
God is with the LDS people. And that is something that we've been doing for a long, long time.
57:39
And it's always good to be reminded that that need continues on. It truly does.
57:45
So good to get a chance to catch you all up on the events.
57:51
We will have our phone lines open Thursday evening for those of you who have wanted to maybe comment on the debate on Long Island, comment on other things that's been going on, regards to reformed
58:04
Catholicism and all that kind of silliness that's developing out there. But it's good to be back.
58:10
Bet you'll be here for about two and a half weeks. And then, well, then we're gone again for a while. But anyway, good to have you back with us here on The Dividing Line.
58:18
We'll see you Thursday afternoon, 7 p .m. Eastern Daylight Time.