Marty Sampson’s Instagram Article, Faithfulness, and then 30 Minutes of Open Phones

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name's James White. It's the bottom of the hour, which is unusual for us, but I'm headed for South Africa tomorrow, so I've got a lot of stuff going on, and we just gotta get it in when we can sneak it in.

That's how it works. So I just read this, so I wanted to go ahead and start with this.

It is time for the Church to rediscover the preeminence of the Word and to value the teaching of the

Word. We need to value truth over feeling, truth over emotion. And what we are seeing now is the result of the

Church raising up influencers who did not supremely value truth, who have led a generation who also did not believe in the supremacy of truth.

And now, those disavowed leaders are proudly still leading and influencing boldly away from the truth.

Is it any wonder that some of our disavowed Christian leaders are letting go of the absolute truth of the Bible, and subsequently, their lives are falling apart?

Further and further, they are sinking in the sea, all the while shouting, Now I have found the truth! Follow me! Brothers and sisters in the faith all around the world, pastors, teachers, worship leaders, influencers,

I implore you, please, please, in your search for relevancy for the Gospel, let us not find creative ways to shape

God's Word into the image of our culture by stifling inconvenient truths, but rather let us hold on even tighter to the anchor of the living

Word of God, for He changes not. The grass withers, and the flowers fade away, but the Word of our

God stands forever. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 8, I was just reading from a

Facebook article that was posted by John Cooper.

If you don't know who John Cooper is, he is lead singer for a Christian heavy metal band,

I guess. I don't know how to define the various ones. Skillet. Skillet.

Yes, they are. Yes, they are. Nice to welcome you to this century. But yes,

Skillet is the name, and obviously, he's referring to what has taken place in regards to Marty Sampson and what has taken place in, you know, there's already numerous articles have been written and posted, and of course, this happened very shortly after the

Joshua Harris situation. I mentioned sort of third person at some point in something

I wrote recently that someone had coined the phrase, tsunami of apostasy.

Well, that someone was me. I put that in the third person, so certain people are running around,

I wonder who did that? No, that was me. And, you know, we're seeing this.

I said, I also said, I think this morning, yesterday, that apostasy is for those who are in love with the acclaim of this society, it's virtue signaling.

It's see how virtuous I am? I'm willing to give up my Christianity to be a good person culturally.

Because you need to understand, the culture is moving as fast as it possibly can to a position where everything

Jesus says is good, they are going to say is bad, and you need to admit that.

And if you ever once believed it, you will be just burned alive.

I mean, there is one thing is absolutely certain about the new religion of critical theory in our society.

There is no redemption in it. There is no forgiveness. I didn't save it, but there was a, there was some, oh, there was an actress who was fired from a position in some show they're doing because one picture turned up of her wearing blackface.

Now, why? Was it in college? It doesn't matter. You're out.

You're gone. There's no, she could be the most woke person on the planet now.

It does not make any difference. There is no redemption. There is no forgiveness.

There is no work salvation in this religion. It is unforgiving.

It's thoroughly pagan, just like the old pagan religions where there was, there was no second chance.

Well, there's no second chance here either. It's, it's, it's pretty, pretty intensive.

But anyway, John Cooper was referring to the Marty Samson situation.

And when I read the Instagram post, which has now been pulled down, I made the comment on Facebook, somebody else posted,

I think Jeff Durbin posted it. And I said, you could drive a truck through the holes in that argumentation.

And it's absolutely true. And of course, let me just mention a bunch of people have jumped onto the bandwagon saying, oh, well, we saw this coming a long time ago because, because his, the lyrics are just terrible.

It only took a little while before someone put up a post I saw someplace else saying, be a little bit more slow here, be a little bit more careful.

Well, the reason being that most of us do not know the names of the authors of even, even if you stick to the

Trinity Hymnal, okay, about as conservative a source of hymnology as you're going to find, the

Trinity Hymnal actually has a theological standard in regards to what is included in it.

And even if you were to go to the Trinity Hymnal, I could point you to hymns written by people who may be later apostatized.

One of the most beautiful hymns, one of the most meaningful hymns

I have ever sung, and most of us have sung it more than once, is

It Is Well With My Soul. And you've probably heard the story, the man's loss of his, his wife and daughters and, and, you know, he's on a ship and the captain says, this is where the ship went down and, and this is when he starts writing it and, you know, all that's beautiful, but there's also some evidence, it's disputed on some levels, but there's, there's evidence that that particular author then went to Israel and got involved with basically a cult.

So does that mean you don't sing It Is Well With My Soul? For some people, yes. I mean, I honestly,

I know some people and, and I know some people that's exactly the position they would take.

And, and in fact, they are probably right now doing doctrinal checks on the names of any authors who wrote either the music or the lyrics for any hymn that they will ever willingly sing in public again.

There are people like that. Most of us don't do that and don't feel the need to do that, unless, you know, there, there is, there are two songs in the

Trinity Hymnal and I always mix them up. One of them is by Faber and I think it's

Faith of Our Fathers. Yeah, I mix up Faith of Our Fathers and The Church's One Foundation, but Faber did

Faith of Our Fathers and Faber was a Roman Catholic. The song initially had a verse praying to Mary to convert

England back to Romanism. And I just don't sing it. But there are a lot of other people that do.

I know how much reinterpretation of the originally intended meaning is required to sing that song.

And I, since I know that, you know, most people, in fact, I probably just ruined it for a bunch of you.

You're now going to be Googling it. You're gonna be finding that verse and going, ah, and, and okay, I get it.

But what if you sung that song and you, you put it in the right context and you interpret things in, in the right way, theologically speaking, which means not interpreting it in the originally intended view of the author.

Well, the author is dead and this isn't scripture. So I don't see a problem with that.

But if I know it and can't get it out of my mind, then it's a problem. And so there are hymns that are hymn books written by Unitarians and stuff like that.

And if you know it and it causes you a problem, fine, but why go looking for it?

Why, why, why try to drag that up? And you'd never be able to sing congregationally again.

Not that many people sing congregationally anymore anyways. When I mean congregationally, I mean in harmony of parts and stuff like that anyway.

So there have been a bunch of people I've, I don't know. I don't know

Hillsong music. I'm sure that I've been to church someplace that sang a Hillsong song, but I, you know, how could you know until you get the last slide anyways, if they even bother putting that information on it?

So I'm not, I'm not sitting there, you know, I'm not going to sing a single thing in here until I've examined all of the slides and know exactly who wrote what.

But I've been told anyways, that Marty Sampson had some of the better of Hillsong's songs.

I mean, you look them up and my screen filled up with all the songs that this guy has written over the years, a large number.

And that obviously is causing a lot of people to go, well, how does this work?

How can that be? I mean, how, and I understand, let's say that, let's say that one of your favorite worship ballads, worship songs was written by Marty Sampson and that you have had strong spiritual experiences of encouragement to pray and to serve

Christ and so on and so forth. And they've been connected with that song. And now you're sitting there going, wait a minute.

Does that mean what I experienced was invalid, untrue?

And the same question comes up, you know, a lot of young people, I remember

I just drove by, I was driving back from California, Colorado, and the route that I took this time took me through New Mexico and I drove by Glorietta, which is just outside of Santa Fe, a lot closer to Santa Fe than I remembered when we were on the bus.

Anyway, and I went to a large Southern Baptist church back in high school and my junior and senior years in my junior, senior summers, we went to Glorietta and they were great experiences, very formative, very important.

What if I found out that one of the preachers that the Lord had used to encourage me or challenge me ends up becoming an apostate?

Does that mean the Lord didn't use that to encourage me? No, none of that follows.

I was looking at, and I'm going to look at Marty Sampson's statement, but I wanted to, remember from Colorado, I mentioned

Demas and Paul's experience with Demas.

Did you look them up? It's fascinating. There are three references to Demas in the

New Testament, all, of course, in Paul's epistles. When Paul writes to the church at Colossae, he says,

Luke, the beloved physician sends you his greetings and also Demas.

So in greeting the church there in Colossae, Demas sends his greetings and is with Paul when he writes this.

Likewise, you have greetings in Philemon verse 24, as do

Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, and my fellow workers. So what do we see from these two references?

We see that Demas was in the inner circle. He was involved in apostolic ministry.

He was acknowledged by an apostle of Jesus Christ as a valued brother, someone he would include greetings from, both to Philemon and to the church at Colossae.

So he is in the inner circle. He's not just someone on the outside. This would be someone with whom

Paul would have had many intimate conversations. He would have been aware of, well, as anybody knows, you get involved in ministry and there are wonderful, great things that you share amongst the pastors and elders of a church.

And then there's all the other stuff, all the sin and the disappointment and the failure and repentance and restoration, sometimes sin and failure and no repentance and restoration.

It all goes with the territory. And Demas was in the middle of it.

He would have seen all of it, would have heard all of it. And there is nothing. There is no reason to believe that when

Paul writes Colossians and Paul writes Philemon, that he suspects anything.

No. Demas is listed right along with Luke, who remains his beloved brother right to the end.

Luke does. So, that's what makes 2

Timothy 4 .10 all the more important, because if you look at the text, for Demas, having loved this present age, this present age, not world, it's not cosmos, it's

Iona, having loved this present age, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

It's literally Demas, for Demas, me abandoned, having loved the present age and has gone to Thessalonica.

I think there's personal hurt there.

He pushes the accusative pronoun right to the front, me, he has abandoned.

And then the description is, having loved the now age, this present age, he loved it and that's why he abandoned me and he went to Thessalonica.

I had never thought about this before, but was he with Paul when

Paul was in Thessalonica? Had something caught his eye? Had someone caught his eye?

I don't know. I don't know where Demas was from. But there seems to be something really personal in that particular section.

Someone on Twitter just pointed out that there's positive things said about everybody except Demas.

I don't think you can read anything into that in Colossians 4, because it's just giving greetings.

Colossians 4 .14, Aspazitai humaso, Luke greets,

Luke, the beloved physician, greets you and Demas. It's just, I don't think you can read anything into that at that particular point in time.

But certainly, once you get to 2 Timothy, which is right at the end of Paul's life and Paul's ministry, there is a, if you dare open yourself up in ministry to establishing relationships, putting your heart out there, if you're in seminary, if you're in Bible college, can

I just tell you something ahead of time? Here's what you're going to be facing.

You are going to get that heart stabbed repeatedly by people that you've given the shirt off your back to, that you've, by people you've prayed for, sacrificed for, who've professed their love for you, it's going to happen.

And one of two things, on the natural realm, there are only a couple of ways you can respond to that, and I've seen both many times.

Either you develop a rhinoceros hide so that someone can try to stab at you all they want and they can't get through because your skin is just so hard.

Which also means you don't have any more meaningful relationships. You become isolated, there are a number, you look down through history, there are a number of theologians who basically, by the end of their life, you could tell that's the route that they went, and they were now loners.

They might speak highly of the church, but they weren't involved in it any longer because they couldn't get along with anybody, and had been hurt too many times, and were just, they just pushed everything out of the way.

So that's it, that's no more. Or you get the people who just get burned out, and in our day they become

IT guys. Seems to be the direction to go. I mean, how many former ministers have you heard of that are working in the computer field now?

It's a very large number. It's a very large number. Just decide, you know what? I can't keep doing this.

The, you know, a battery has to be recharged once in a while, or it will go flat.

And, you know, I've got a new Garmin thing, a little teeny tiny watch, and it does an amazing amount of stuff for a teeny tiny little thing.

And one of the new things it's got is body battery. It's basically an algorithm that analyzes your sleep, and how much working out and stuff you've done, and says, this is about where your battery is for the day.

It's, so far, it's been interesting to look at anyways. I suppose the longer you wear it, the better it is.

If there was a spiritual battery that Garmin could come up with to help you out, maybe it would show just how close to, you know, yellow and red most ministers are, spiritually speaking.

And many just decide, you know what? Just going to move on, going to move on.

That's what happens. Somewhere in between those two is the balance.

You have to recognize there's going to be the hurt.

There's going to be, that's a reality. But you can't become so enslaved to that that you can't be so enslaved to the that you lose the calling.

And I told the story before about the very wise minister that I had seen mistreated by a fellow

Christian. I followed him into his office and said, how do you put up with that? And he looked at me and he said, if you ever get your eyes off the shepherd and onto the sheep, you'll burn out of the ministry very quickly.

And he was exactly right. It has to be, you know, Paul endured the end because it was the high calling of Jesus Christ, not the high calling of this person or Demas or whatever else it might be.

And he recognized that, and certainly, you know,

Paul probably would have, Paul probably would have really,

I mean, he had supernatural insight into things, and yet there was someone close to him.

Remember, he had Onesimus almost dies, and Paul does not heal him, because it wasn't

God's will. Did he feel fooled, deceived by Demas?

How many things he had shared with Demas? Did he feel like he had failed with Demas? That's a possibility.

Hard to say. But anyway, the wife's asking me if I'm at the airport.

She's got, got the wrong day. Yeah, that's tomorrow.

Okay, had to let her know that. So there you go. Anyway, didn't mean to be distracted there.

There are a lot of feelings that Paul could have had about this, and so if it could happen to an apostle, then we should recognize that it can and does happen.

It doesn't make it any less painful, any less spiritually dangerous, not only for the person committing the act of apostasy, obviously, but for those around, it has some, it has spiritual parallels to suicide, because it's incredibly,

I mean, suicide is just one of the most damaging things to everyone around you you could ever do.

I mean, when I was a hospital chaplain, you know, when someone died of natural causes, someone died of an accident, a car accident, or whatever else it might be, at least there was the possibility of resolution, acceptance.

There was such, you know, suicide is just, puts in a completely different plane, that resolution is next to impossible.

There's always the questions, and there's always every loved one around you, rejection.

Rejection, I wasn't enough, what did I do? I mean, it just complicates the grieving process horribly, and there are spiritual parallels, because on a spiritual level, you walk away from Christ, the book of Hebrews is pretty clear about what that means, and what it says, and what the results are going to be, and everything else, so you have to recognize that, and yet the people around, deeply influenced by it as well, deeply hurt by it,

I mean, this man has stood in front of thousands, and you can dislike the music, musical style, context, lights, whatever, but you can't sit there and say he's never sung in front of Christians.

He did, and so you look at that, and you go, what does that mean in regards to the gospel, and God's ability to keep, and the whole nine yards?

So, I point this out just simply so that, again, we can see that in this era of the

New Covenant, there are still those who have false faith, and so, like I said,

I read what he said, and my immediate comment was, there's got to be something more here.

There's got to be something more here. So, here's what it says, time for some real talk.

I'm genuinely losing my faith, and it doesn't bother me. Like, what bothers me now is nothing.

I'm so happy now. So at peace the world. It's crazy. This is a soapbox moment here, so here

I go. How many preachers fall? Many. No one talks about it. How many miracles happen?

Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it.

How can God be loved, yet send four billion people to a place all because they don't believe? No one talks about it.

Christians can be the most judgmental people on the planet. They can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people, but it's not for me.

I am not in anymore. I want genuine truth, not the I -just -believe -it kind of truth.

Science keeps piercing the truth of every religion. Lots of things help people change their lives, not just one version of God.

Got so much more to say, but for me, I'm keeping it real. Unfollow if you want. I've never been about living my life for others.

All I know is what's true to right now, and Christianity just seems to me like another religion at this point.

I could go on, but I won't. Love and forgive absolutely. Be kind absolutely. Be generous and do good to others absolutely.

Some things are good no matter what you believe. Let the rain fall. The sun will come up tomorrow. Let's look through this.

I'm genuinely losing my faith, and it doesn't bother me.

Now, immediately, I just have to go, it doesn't bother you? What bothers me now is nothing.

I am so happy now, so at peace with the world. Nothing that he's going to say in this provides us with any reason not only why we should believe this, but even understand how this is a rational thought.

I guess, I mean, I could read into it that he was not at peace with the world because he was believing untrue things, but to say that Marty Sampson's current epistemology is incoherent and self -contradictory would be to speak very kindly.

So he asks, how many preachers fall?

Many. No one talks about it. Now, let's just stop right here. Um, no one talks about it?

I suppose it's possible because if he's as big a name as people say he was, maybe, maybe people assumed something.

I've had a lot of people say, I don't have any personal experience with it, but I've had a lot of people say that Hillsong as a movement, very shallow in its theology, very shallow in its teaching.

Um, but it's really, I made the comment on Facebook, it would have taken 30 seconds for him to Google answers to any one of the objections that he raises.

Serious answers, in -depth answers, answers that men like myself and others have been providing really since the second and third centuries, quite honestly.

Um, so here's someone who seemingly lives in an echo chamber in a very small glib, uh, little world.

And lots of, lots of preachers fall and many people talk about it, not necessarily talking about it overly well, um, or overly fairly or anything else.

But, um, yeah. Uh, no one talks about it.

No, they do. How many miracles happen? Not many. No one talks about it.

Well, we've been talking about that for a long time and there's a lot of discussion of that particular issue and how to define things.

But it, here is a situation where theology matters and how you define what is and what is not actually a miracle, uh, is very, very, very important.

Um, but is it probable that Marty Sampson has never read B .B.

Warfield's work on the nature of miracles and things like that? Yeah, that's, that's highly, highly likely, in fact.

Um, why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it.

Yeah, well, um, which is why I can promise you, I can promise you that not this coming weekend, um, well, it might come out this coming weekend, uh, depending, but the weekend after that in Durban, South Africa, especially in one of the two debates,

I can assure you that in my debate with a particular

Muslim opponent, that I will have to explain minimally, minimally eight alleged contradictions, minimally.

And I think I'll do so successfully because they are issues that I've dealt with literally for years.

And so once again, I sort of doubt that Marty Sampson read any commentaries on the

Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, any of the lengthy books that have been written on the whole subject, encyclopedias, whatever it might be.

Um, this, no one talks about it, tells me that maybe we have here a situation where wisdom would say that if you're going to put people in a position of ministry in the church, and especially a ministry that requires them to travel, you might want to make sure they're firmly grounded first, or somewhere down the road, no matter how talented they are, their soul might get destroyed and it'll be your responsibility.

Little bit of wisdom there. Um, how can God be loved yet send four billion people to a place all because they don't believe?

Now there's someone who does not understand. I mean, I wonder,

I didn't take the time, I didn't, sorry, I do not have the time with this trip coming up, but it would be interesting to see in how many of his songs he actually answered that question if he had understood what he was writing.

That's what, that's what causes so many people to be confused and concerned, because how could someone like this say these words if they once wrote words that answered their own questions, and the only answer is they were using language that they really didn't know what it meant or what it meant had no reality in their own life.

And does that mean I could be seeing them in that way? That's, that's where the issue,

I think, comes up for most people, really does. Um, so, uh, the whole issue of sin, well, well, look, let's just, let's be straight up.

Most evangelical Christians' anthropology does not include actually believing that God's judgment is just to bring condemnation for a single sin.

I mean, we have been so deeply influenced by worldly thought at that point that, there you go.

Uh, and it's not because they don't believe. There could be a theological issue right there.

It's because they're sinners and God is just. Um, grace is an issue there.

Christians can be the most judgmental people on the planet. They can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people.

I'm not sure exactly what that's supposed to mean. Um, not only can Christians be some of the most judgmental people on the planet,

Calvinists can be some of the most judgmental people on the planet. Um, but it's not for me.

Why? What do you have that's better? If it's not for you, then,

Marty, you need to adopt a worldview that's consistent, but you don't.

Every single thing you say after this screams that you have not thought this through at all.

And you've never seen the foundational truths of the faith that give rise to concepts such as beauty and truth and forgiveness and everything else.

Or you've forgotten them or you're just simply denying them. I mean, I don't, my gut feeling is there's something going out, going out, something else going on in this situation.

That's, that's my gut feeling. We may never know in this life anyways.

And I don't know that we'll know in the next. Um, I want genuine truth, not the,

I just believe it kind of truth. If what you thought was the

Christian faith is just a, I just believe it kind of truth, then you are in essence, a victim.

It doesn't give you any rights and it doesn't give you, doesn't, isn't going to be an excuse for God. But if all you've been exposed to is the,

I just believe it kind of truth, um, what you're going to find out is that's all secularism can grant you in toto.

And that's not what the Christian faith is based upon. It's not just an, I just believe it.

Um, but your next line is science keeps piercing the truth of every religion.

Um, does it sound like you've thought through what the basis of science even is or what science is or how science can guarantee you truthfulness, how you can have truthfulness in an utterly random world?

Why? And, and the biggest thing, Marty, is why did you even say

I want genuine truth? Where does that come from? If you have abandoned a rational ground for thinking that truth exists and that you should want it and want to live in light of it, if you are nothing but a soon to cease fizzing bag of chemicals with no past and no future, no design, no transcendent value, then why,

Marty, why do you want genuine truth?

Where does this desire come from? Have you thought through how you could even obtain it?

You're, you're borrowing from the worldview you're abandoning. If you didn't know that, then it's time for you to learn that.

And my prayer would be that you would learn that. That before going off and joining homosexual marches, like some people have done in their apostasy, before you do that, you might want to find out that when you kept saying no one talks about, no one talks about, you were wrong.

You were simply factually wrong. And a lot of people have talked about it and talked about it in depth and consistently.

You might want to think about that. Lots of things help people change their lives, not just one version of God.

Well, Marty, you're really focused primarily upon yourself right now.

And so I guess you don't recognize how man -centered all of that is. No one's going to argue that there hasn't been some type of, for example, positive impact upon someone joining the

Marines, getting some discipline, getting some order in their life, getting their hair cut.

But when you say change their life, why, Marty, does your new worldview, which you clearly haven't even begun...

It is amazing how many people will abandon one when they have nothing to put in its place.

Nothing there. It's just, well, I want out of this one, so I'm going to go somewhere else.

Even if you haven't figured out where it is, you're going to go. That's sort of what you're talking about here.

But you are making conclusions where you're borrowing from the system that you're then saying you've decided is wrong.

And you don't have a foundation in whatever new system you're going to adopt for even thinking that your previous actions were rational or truthful.

It's really weird. That's why I said you could just drive a bus through the logical holes.

It's an Instagram post. I get it. It may have been tapped away on a phone. I think phones suck out most logic just because they're phones and you're typing with your thumbs.

But then you say, not just one version of God. Version of God.

See, everything you're saying is a creature putting himself in the middle and trying to judge everything around him.

If you had ever had any meaningful instruction in the

Christian faith, you would know that as a Christian, you recognize your creatureliness, which means you're not in the center.

God is in the center. You relate to God and through God relate to everything else, science, history, art, law, whatever it might be, through God, because he's big enough to be in the center and we're not big enough to be in the center.

But anything you could go to from here, especially with your scientism talk, you're going to have to be in the center and you're going to have to do all this figuring out on your own.

It's a tough job. Real tough job. It's an impossible job. But people keep trying.

So when you talk about just one version of God, it's like mankind gets to make these things up on his own rather than dealing with what you should have been taught was the triune

God, who is the only source for absolute truth, a proper understanding of our role in the universe, transcendent meaning, morality, ethics, these things like that.

Got so much more to say, but for me, I'm keeping it real. Well, actually, if it wasn't real before,

I suppose you're in a better position now. It's hard to talk to people who think they're believers and really not. At least you're getting to the point where you recognize you're not.

Maybe you'll hear what we're saying. Unfollow if you want. I've never been about living my life for others.

All I know is what's true to me right now, and Christianity just seems to me like another religion at this point.

Well, you don't tell us what's true to you right now, but you do go on to say, love and forgive absolutely.

Why? Give me your new worldview that gives me a rational reason for believing this.

What does love mean? What does forgive mean? Forgive what? Forgive based upon what standard?

Why would there need to be forgiveness? If you are nothing but the accidental conjunction of stardust, and everything is according to current cosmologies, then there's no meaning to the term love.

As soon as your brain stops functioning, anything you loved is irrelevant.

Anything you wrote is irrelevant. Every song you ever wrote is irrelevant.

The beauty of music is irrelevant, and certainly forgiveness is.

Forgive what? Your body's going to decay and become stardust again, and that's all there is to it.

Why use these terms? Because you're made in the image of God, Marty, that's why.

You're made in the image of God. You have to use these terms. That's how God made us. Be kind absolutely.

You have nothing to define absolutely with. Absolutely by what standard?

Absolutely amongst humans, but not animals? Absolutely amongst all? You could become a vegan tomorrow? And maybe you're just going to starve yourself to death because it's not very nice to plants to eat them either, and they're just as much stardust as you are.

So, be kind absolutely. What's kind? Why isn't it kindness for you to spread your genotype far and wide in the human population?

Because that's the best way to leave part of you behind. Why isn't that kind? I can come up with a worldview where that's kindness, right?

Be generous and do good to others absolutely. You are such a thief.

You are stealing from the entire worldview that you're now saying you don't believe to prop up this thing that sounds like a bunch of virtue signaling to me.

I'm so virtuous. Listen to me. I'm going to use all these buzzwords though they have zero meaning.

None in my worldview. Sounds great. Be generous.

Do good to others absolutely. Just don't ask me to define what good to others is or what generous is.

Some things are good no matter what you believe. Have you tried to...

Have you written this out, Marty, and seen if it actually makes any sense?

Because some things are good because God made them to be good, and whether you believe it or not doesn't matter, but you're going exactly away from that.

You can't tell us what's good. So what you believe is irrelevant.

None of this makes a lick of sense. Let the rain fall.

The sun will come up tomorrow. You sure about that? I think we could get into some radical skepticism now that you have no theistic worldview, but this sounds like some sort of fatalism.

Let the rain fall. The sun will come up tomorrow, and yeah, eventually the bag of water that is you, the bag of fizzing chemicals that is you, will cease functioning and be absorbed back into the system, and therefore everything you did, everything you ever will do, is meaningless.

It is irrelevant. There's no transcendent meaning. Nothing there. It's dead end, man, and you're sitting here trying to make it sound all lovely by stealing from the very worldview that once gave you these.

It gave you these words. It gave you these concepts. You may not have recognized that.

You may not have been taught that. I'm sorry. Maybe it's now time for you to start finding out what you were singing about all those years.

Maybe it's time to find out what you were singing about all those years. So that's what

John Cooper was talking about, and he is exactly right. And like I said, any of you out there know

John Cooper, I would like to talk to John Cooper. I would like an email, something, follow on Facebook, whatever, because I really, really appreciated what he had to say, and his music has powered me up more than one hill in the past.

It does help keep the legs pounding when you're on a... Well, let's see the...

Well, last Saturday was Mount Lemmon. That was pretty tough. That's not what I was listening to. I was listening to lectures on Mount Lemmon.

It's probably why I didn't go all that fast, but if I want to go fast, that definitely is an assistance along those lines.

So look, I know everyone, I'm seeing all sorts of discussion.

It's one of the reasons I think God allows this kind of thing to happen. I mean, if you've ever struggled with Hebrews, you've already worked through all this.

Maybe not in the sense of making application to your favorite songwriter or performer, whatever else it might be, but if you have dealt with what

Hebrews says to us, if you have dealt with the reality that it specifically makes reference to those who have walked away from the faith, and then turns around and says, we are convinced of better things concerning you, things which accompany salvation, even though we speak in this fashion.

Again, put this together with what I said from Colorado a couple of weeks ago, where we went through the parable of the soils.

We went through 1 John 2. Hope Chapel, the sermon that I preached, Hope Chapel in Colorado Springs a week ago

Sunday, was from Hebrews 6. So I touched on that specific section as well.

And you have to put it all together. You have to see how it all relates.

And when you do, you really find a major chasm between the consistency of Reformed theology in being able to maintain the centrality of Christ, the power of Christ to save all of those that are given to him.

Solus Christus, sola Deo gloria, sola fide, sola gratia, four of the five solas will be demonstrated when you look at this and have a biblical understanding of the concept of apostasy.

You don't get that with one saved, always saved. You don't get that with the anti -lordship stuff.

They just skip the whole problem by saying everyone who's ever tipped the hat toward God, they're getting there.

That's it. They don't have to worry about the Demases of the New Testament or the

Demases that we encounter in our lives. They just, doesn't matter. Talk to me about that.

But on the other side, if you don't have a God -centered soteriology, if you don't have a

God -centered understanding of election and predestination and all of that, if you have a man -centered understanding, if it's

God trying to save as many as he can and it's up to man, this is a very troubling subject.

Because I don't see how you can have any ground for confidence or perseverance.

Because you look at these folks, you've done the same thing they did.

Now they're gone. From the Reformed perspective, there's a purpose of God in that.

From the Reformed perspective, you see, it's the nature of saving faith. That really is the key.

You see, when we say faith is a gift of God, a lot of people get angry.

Saving faith is a gift of God. A lot of people get angry because that takes it out of man's hands.

And now God is the one who's doing election and all the rest of that stuff. And man wants to hold on to that.

It's the idol of free will. But then, on the other hand, we say, and if it is saving faith and it's the gift of the

Holy Spirit of God and regeneration, guess what? It's going to persevere. It's going to persevere.

If they had been of us, they would have remained with us. So we have both bases covered consistently because it's

God -centered. But once you lose that God -centeredness and you enter into any form of synergistic system, you're going to have serious problems.

A serious inability to remain balanced. And I forgot to turn my iPhone upside down.

And I don't know what just happened, but Siri, when

I said, oh, serious. Did you get that? And her response to me was,

I'm serious. I guess that means Siri's reformed.

Did Siri just confess to being a Calvinist? I'm going to have to go back and review that. I know that I need to turn the phone upside down.

I have the ringer off because Siri won't talk to you if it's upside down. Some of you don't know that.

But the problem is I have the flashing thing on. And so if I get a call, all of a sudden, that bright light starts flashing over there.

And everyone's, I'm going to see it. Everyone's going to see it. Modern technology.

But who knew that at the end of a show of apostasy, un -apostasy, we would discover that Siri is actually a

Calvinist. Well, and she said, I'm serious. So we're going to have to believe her.

Oh, goodness. Anyway, well, um, I suppose,

I suppose we, we do have the time to do this. Um, take some phone calls.

What were you just telling people? No. I just told the poor guy, no, huh? Um, I mean,

I don't have to, I don't have to be out in the East Valley till, till about 10 minutes after four. So, um, and it's the last program we're going to be able to do for a while.

What? I actually have something up my sleeve. So I was planning on doing a couple of shows next week, uh, on Colossians 3.

Oh. So I, believe it or not, I've, I've actually. But that, but you wouldn't be taking phone calls.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's, uh, I didn't think you would. We're actually beyond the issue of, because we have the, this board, the video board now in the sequence,

I can't do a one -man show live anymore. So I would have to actually mix it. Oh, I understand.

So, uh, even, even in that, so no, you're, you're right about that. So yeah, if you want to, I'll get the software fired up here and we'll get it rolling.

If I can find my pointer. Um, well, for some reason

I'm trying to bring the, uh, phone system up and it's, it's being blocked in this.

Maybe I have to bring up the other browser. Mine is too. That's wild. What's up with that? You're having the same problem.

I am. That's weird. Uh, I wonder if there's some new.

Flash has been blocked on this page. Okay. Uh, let me try a different software and the phones are starting to ring.

Yeah, this is really weird. We, we, we, we may not be able to. I just set up auto answer here. So it'll auto answer it here, but, um, let's try here.

Yeah. So let me, let me, let me try this one more time. And all right, there's, there's the proper address.

Yeah. I'm doing it too. And put over in Safari. I'm working. All right. I think, I think.

There you go. That one will, that one gave me the option to go ahead and, uh, click through it.

Screen. Are you in? So yeah, this says you logged in. All right. Yeah. I'm there. All right.

8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. We are professionals here. Uh, 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1.

We already had three people online and I hadn't even put the number out. So, uh, we'll, we'll let's see.

Yeah. I should be able to, if we go to the top of the hour, uh, I should be able to get it blogged and to, to get out of here in time to get to my appointments.

We, uh, we have a new members class at Apologia tonight. And, uh, for some reason,

Luke thought it might be a good idea, you know, if, if all the elders are actually there, but given how much

I travel these days, um, that's not always, uh, easy, easy to, um, easy to do.

So, um, and it is on the other side of the Valley. I am, there are some people who actually do drive farther, but my wife and I are amongst the most, um, displaced, shall we say?

Um, so I'm watching. I have no earthy idea who that is.

Just so you know, I have no earthy idea who that is, but I'll, I'll run with it anyways.

Cause you know, we'll see what we'll see what comes of it. All right.

So let's start taking some, uh, phone calls and let's talk with, uh, Thomas.

Hi Thomas. Hi Dr. White. I have no earthly idea who Libby Schrader is. Okay. Okay.

So, uh, I actually posted a comment in, uh, in T -Textual Criticism, uh,

Facebook group, um, or at least a, um, an article

Libby Schrader, who's been going through the Gospel of John. And it's actually been shared quite a bit, at least in liberal circles, um, showing how

Mary Magdalene might have been minimized. Uh, she's going back to manuscript evidence and, and, uh,

I, I just wondering if you had heard about that at all. Um, and, and if you knew anything about it.

Nope. Haven't heard a thing about it. Okay. Don't know. I, I, someone's always coming to say,

I don't know how you can say someone was minimized based upon textual variance, but, um, haven't read it.

Uh, don't know anybody that has. So. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That, that's the claim she's making based on textual variance, uh, that scribes, um, were attempting to make

Mary Magdalene less prominent, uh, in the Gospel of John. Uh, and so, okay.

Oh, I, I just had one quick follow -up question then. Well, I can't follow up on something I've not read, so what, what's, uh.

Yeah, sorry. No, no, not follow -up on something you've not read. Sorry, I apologize. I have one quick question aside from that.

Okay. Okay. So, um, in dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses, uh,

I know that there are a lot of, uh, different, I guess, trigger words. Like, say, if they find out that you're a

Christian or a minister, I'm a minister at a local congregation, um, a lot of times it just kind of shuts the conversation down.

Um, as far as making an appeal for the Gospel, uh, because my inclination would be going, you know, straight to talking about the holiness of God, the deity of Christ.

Like, what do you usually enter in with that, um, maybe not necessarily catches them off guard, but, but kind of brings down a lot of the barriers they have set up.

Are you, you talking about Jehovah's Witnesses? Yes. Um, well, um, yeah,

I've, I've, I've done a number of, uh, programs on this. In fact, we did a, um, uh, actually an

Apology Radio episode, uh, a couple months ago where I, where I talked about this, and I, I think

I did it with joy, um, trying to recollect that, but where I walked through the, the key texts, uh, to, to demonstrate that Jesus is

Jehovah, that is, and I'm pretty certain I did the same thing in the presentation that I did, uh, in Hawaii that has been real popular, has been watched many, many times, um, on the

Watchtower Rival and Track Society as one of the most effective, uh, approaches to get the attention of, of a, uh, a

Jehovah's Witness, uh, is the demonstration that Jesus is, is Jehovah, because all the discussions about the deity of Christ, whether he's

God, a God, or anything else is irrelevant if he's actually identified as Jehovah. So you should be able to find, uh, a number of recordings of that, uh, in various, uh, formats, uh, online.

Okay, awesome. You said the, uh, you did that with Apology Radio not long ago, and then also a presentation you did in Hawaii?

Yeah, yeah. Uh, if you put Jehovah's Witnesses, James White, Hawaii, it'll probably come up. Okay, perfect.

Uh, Dr. White, thank you so much. Uh, your ministry has been absolutely invaluable for us up here in the Pacific Northwest.

Okay. Um, we do a lot of work with college students and deal with a lot of the post -modern era ideas that you deal with on the divining line, so, uh, thank you for standing for truth whenever, uh, there are a lot of things creeping into the

Church. All right, I'll see if I can find some time to track down whatever Libby Schrader's saying, but, uh, no, no promises in the near future.

Okay. All right, talk to you later. All right. All right, thank you. Bye. Okay, let me see here.

Let's talk with Russ in Illinois. Hi, Russ. Hello, Dr. Uh, somewhere in times past, you made a comment that I've been trying to find, where you talked about, uh, in the

Old Testament, it might have been Psalms 110 .1, where the Lord said unto my

Lord, and you said that the Jewish people had translated the same word two different ways to, uh, change what it's saying there about, uh, the

Lord, capital L -O -R -D, saying to my Lord, L -O -R -D, when they should be the same word?

Well, no. Um, what it is, is, um, in Psalm 110, uh, in the, in the

Greek translation, uh, it says, Aipen ha -kurias to -kurio, Lord said to my

Lord, but in the Hebrew, it's Yahweh, is the first Lord, said to, uh,

Adeni, my Lord. And it's actually Ladeni.

But, um, the, the argument that is made by, uh, certain

Unitarians, uh, today is that the vowel pointing, um, of the

Hebrew Masoretic text, um, should be made determinative here, that instead of Adeni, it's

Adeni, and that this would be a mere human ruler, rather than my

Lord, as Yahweh is normally identified, or something along those lines. And so, here is the point.

The point is that the vowel points did not exist in the days of the

New Testament. The Hebrew, all the Hebrew texts we have found from Qumran, things like that, um, are, do not contain the vowel pointing system that the

Masoretes developed many centuries later. And by the time they got around to, uh, putting the vowel points into Psalm 110 .1,

they well knew that Psalm 110 .1 is the most commonly cited verse from the

Hebrew Scriptures in the New Testament. And they well knew how Christians interpreted

Psalm 110 .1. And so, when they, vowel pointing is an editorial choice.

Uh, it's not part of the original manuscripts, not part of inspiration. And so, you have

Jewish scribes who reject the Messianic claims of Jesus, and reject

Christianity, putting the vowel points in. And obviously, they're going to point it in such a fashion as to be consistent with their own position.

Knowing how Christians use this, uh, they pointed it in such a way as to try to indicate the inferiority, uh, of the

Lord, the second Lord, in Psalm 110 .1. And so,

I've just simply pointed out that anyone who uses the post -Christian, centuries after Christ, invention of the vowel points to try to make a point here.

Because see, Hebrew is a primarily continental language, there are vowel letters, but, um, uh, it's written like other

Semitic languages, uh, in such a form that the letters that would have existed in Jesus's day would have to be interpreted.

And once you put vowel pointing in, then you're putting your interpretation on it and limiting what it could mean.

And that was done after the days of the New Testament. That was done after the Jewish people would have known how the

Christians were using this text, and therefore all it does is represent the Jewish rejection of Jesus and his exalted status.

And so, when Unitarians try to use that argument, I'm just pointing out that historically, they're playing games with us.

And how do you think David actually meant it when he wrote it? Well, this is the exalted

Lord. I mean, this would be connected with Jesus's use of Daniel and the appearance of the

Son of Man there. So this would be a very exalted use, rather than saying, when it says

Adonai, Adonai is consistently used of lesser creatures.

But that's vowel pointing. That's the structure of the underlying language.

The consonants themselves do not communicate that. The consonants could communicate either one.

Context has to determine that. By vowel pointing it, then you're limiting it to your own interpretation.

And so, given the exaltation of this one, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet, you combine that with Psalm 1, between Psalm 110 with Psalm 2, the

Son, you go to Isaiah 53, you start seeing all the Old Testament passages that the

New Testament writers strung together, undoubtedly in light of the fact that in Luke chapter 24 we're told that after his resurrection,

Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures, he taught them how from Moses through all the prophets, the prophecies had been about him, etc.,

etc. So that's where that would have come from. I'll pray for more, more, more for my mind to be open.

I appreciate your program very much, and we'll be praying for you on your trip. Okay, thank you Russ, I appreciate it.

God bless. Bye -bye. All right, so we'll just go with these next three, if that's all right.

Well, no, we can't go all day, let's go ahead and take one more. Let's go with four,

I'll just have to try to sneak them all in. Okay, let's talk with Alex. Hi Alex.

Hi Dr. Wyatt, thanks for taking my call. Thank you. So my question is about Philippians 1, verse 6.

I've heard this verse being used as a verse that teaches eternal security.

Yes. Now, I believe in eternal security, because I've seen it in other passages, but I've sort of come to question whether or not this is actually teaching it, because I think that one other interpretation—and

I'm just asking, like, if you think that this could be a valid interpretation— that the work, the good work, that was begun in the

Philippians to be completed at the day of Christ Jesus was actually the spreading of the gospel. Well, he says that he is convinced or confident in this very thing, that the

One who began amongst you, it is plural, a good work will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

And so, certainly, it is not the continued existence of the

Philippian church, because that didn't last through until the day of Christ Jesus.

But at the same time, in the context, it is talking about their participation in the gospel from the first day until now, as well as the fact that they are partakers of grace with him, and therefore, his prayer, that their love would abound still more and more, real knowledge, discernment, approve the things which are excellent.

So, I do think that first, since it's addressed to the church, that's the first thing that needs to be recognized.

It does need to be recognized in its historical context. It does need to be recognized in regards to the ministry of the gospel and Toto.

But I don't think that that makes it irrelevant, because the fact that the

One who began a good work in you has the power and capacity to perfect it, to continue it until the day of Christ Jesus.

And so, as far as, and I don't like the phrase eternal security, but perseverance of the saints, is an issue relevant to the reality of God's power and capacity to work and to accomplish his purposes, then it would be definitely relevant, and that it is

God's intention to continue the work of the gospel, which is bringing about the salvation of the elect until the day of Christ Jesus.

He's bringing all those elect into that proper relationship. And so, it is sort of like John 1030 being relevant to the

Trinity, I and the Father are one, even though its actual immediate application is we are one in bringing about the salvation of the sheep.

But by extension, no mere creature could make that kind of a statement, and therefore it is relevant to the deity of Christ, but not in the direct way that a lot of people assume that it is, and that would be the same thing with Philippians 1 .6.

It is relevant because it speaks of God's ability to continue and to accomplish his purpose throughout all of time until the day of Christ Jesus, but it is talking about wider issues, and it would have to be narrowed down to that one particular issue.

Okay, that makes sense. I try to make sense, it's something

I strive for. That's kind of a good thing to do. And that's one of the things

I've definitely appreciated about what you've been doing over the past couple years. So thank you for taking my call, thank you for answering my question.

Thanks, Alex. Yeah, you have a good day. All right, let's talk to Max.

Hi, Max. Yeah, hey, Dr. White. I'm a huge fan of your ministry, and just a real quick story of how

I got introduced to you. I was talking to a friend of mine at a Bible study about two years ago, and we were, you know, just friendly arguing about Bible translations and which one's most accurate, and he said, you know, you should check out this

James White, have you heard of him? At that point, I think I had seen some stuff on YouTube, I said, is that the guy in the bowtie?

And he said, that's him. Is that the guy what? Ever since then. In the bowtie? Yeah, he said, well, that's what

I asked him. I was like, is he the one with the bowties? He said, yeah, that's him.

And ever since then, I've been following your ministry, so thank you for that. I had a question, had some, you know, with all this conversation about apostasy and people leaving the faith,

I've had some friends of mine that have recently left the faith, and they've gone into Catholicism.

I'm just trying to figure out exactly how to categorize that, how to handle that. Are they brothers, are they not?

And how can I tell? Yeah, yeah. Well, unfortunately, a subject that I know far too much about, dealing with this subject, really,

I think I started talking to my first converts to Romanism in the mid -1980s, probably, so we're coming up on 30, 35 years of dealing with this particular subject.

The orthodox Roman Catholicism, and this was easier in the 80s than it is today, and the reason being

Francis, and the fact that the gay mafia, the purple mafia, whatever they want to call it, the fact that Rome is somewhat adrift right now as far as its theology is concerned, at least when

I first started debating Roman Catholics and really dealing with the issue, there was a pretty clear understanding of what

Rome teaches in regards to justification, and the

Mass, and the Atonement of Christ, and the centrality of Mary, and what a dogma is, and what you have to believe, what's called de fide, by faith.

There was a much clearer understanding. It's not that there wasn't—there was a lot of nominalism back then, too.

People who claimed to be Roman Catholics but really aren't, that's just what they were raised, they don't really believe it, they don't live it.

There's much more of that today than even there was at that time. The orthodox understanding of Roman Catholicism is thoroughly opposed to the biblical gospel, and if Galatians chapter 1, verses 6 through 8 still has any meaning and can be applied to anyone at all,

I cannot possibly see how it would not have to be applied to Roman Catholicism with its dogmas, not just doctrines, but dogmas concerning Mary, concerning the

Mass being a perpetuatory sacrifice, concerning purgatory, and concerning the denial of the central affirmation of the gospel being the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.

I mean, these things are simply anathematized by the Roman system. And so, the answer to your question would be if your friends truly understood, for example, the imputed righteousness of Christ, being their soul standing before God, and what all that meant, and have purposefully rejected and anathematized that by embracing the sacrifice of the

Mass and Rome's teachings on those subjects, then that would be a formal act of apostasy.

Many people who join Roman Catholicism don't know what they once allegedly believed, first of all, and they're not 100 % certain exactly what

Rome teaches either. So, in that situation, you might have various states of confusion and things like that.

So, it really depends upon the state of knowledge and conviction of the person you're talking to as to whether you have a formal act of apostasy or you just have religious confusion going on.

That's, since I don't know your friends, I can't answer that specifically. And I think in this case, it's a little bit more of a, it does sound like it's a formal act.

I was talking to one of my good friends that I grew up with, and we were talking, and I said, you know,

Christ died for our sins. He said, you know, that's atonement theory. And I just,

I don't buy atonement theory, and I hadn't ever heard of people saying atonement theory like that.

And then he said something that I didn't know what to say in a moment, but he said that, you know, he rejects total depravity.

And he said that's something that Calvin thought of in the 1600s. It was what the Bible teaches, along with, you know, that he was made sin on our behalf.

But it does sound like, in this particular case, that it goes to what you're saying.

It does sound like a formal apostasy. It does. Of course, as soon as you start arguing any of these issues with the

Roman Catholic, they don't believe in sola scriptura, and therefore, you might say, well, the

Bible says, but their response is going to be, well, that's not enough for me. I need to have the

Church's statement on these things. And that's what we've done, the debates we've done for decades on sola scriptura, on justification by faith, the

Mass. I'd really suggest the debates I did with Mitchell Pacwa for you to review, because Mitch is a real scholar, and he doesn't play games at debates like a lot of the people that I've debated.

He's going to put the Roman Catholic position out there. He is a priest. And so, the ones on justification, the

Mass, are only available in audio. Unfortunately, the videos did exist, but they would never let them be seen. But the debates on sola scriptura, the priesthood, and one other are available on YouTube that you can watch.

They'll be useful. Yeah, I appreciate that. I'll definitely watch those.

I've seen quite a few of yours already, I don't think I've seen Mitch Pacwa's. Well, I appreciate it, Dr. White, and God's blessings of your upcoming trials in your ministry.

Okay, thanks, Max. Bye -bye. Bye. You snuck an extra one in there,

I see. But okay, let's talk with Raymond. Hi, Raymond. Hey, Dr.

White, thank you so much for taking my call. We didn't answer all your questions on the last call? Actually, pretty close.

Maybe you can expand real quickly. I was calling because, yeah, lots of friends that I have who are

Roman Catholics, them and their leaders seem to have very evangelical ideas mixed in with their

Catholicism, and I guess that makes it a little harder to show them the differences, and it makes them more comfortable remaining in Roman Consolacism, even when you show them some of the differences between actual

Roman Catholic doctrine and whatnot. So just real quick, maybe you could tell me, I don't know, any suggestions for dealing with that?

Well, yeah. The more liberal a

Roman Catholic is, the harder it is to deal with them. I mean, obviously, for me, the dogmatic definitions concerning Mary's bodily assumption, it's de fide, it's part of the

Gospel. You have to believe that Mary is bodily assumed into heaven, you have to believe in the Immaculate Conception, you have to believe perpetual virginity, so on and so forth.

These are things that are tied to the Gospel along with the Mass as a perpetuatory sacrifice.

The problem is they can find lots of Roman Catholic prelates, priests, and maybe even the Pope, that doesn't believe any of that stuff anymore, or believes it only in a symbolic fashion when that's not what

Rome taught. So it really sort of depends on whether you're dealing with a liberal, or if you're dealing with someone who,

I have encountered people who transport a lot of their former evangelicalism, or evangelical language, into Roman Catholicism and redefine things.

And the question is why? How do you even do that with what Rome actually teaches concerning Mary and things like that?

But it does complicate it a great deal. And so, I would simply – the one thing that Rome really has a hard time getting around, even though I was going to talk about this and I didn't today, how many, according to recent

Pew research, how many Roman Catholics do not even believe in transubstantiation, which is central to the concept of the

Mass as a perpetuatory sacrifice. Less than a third in the United States actually believe that. And so, you know, if they do believe that, at least you can go to, why would you want to believe that Jesus' sacrifice is represented over and over again when the whole message of the

Book of Hebrews is, once for all. The repetitive nature means you're not perfected.

If you have to keep going to Mass over and over again, you're not perfected. That's really the key issue. So, but if they take some kind of a wishy -washy view of that, yeah, it can be really, really challenging.

Really challenging. Okay, excellent. Okay? Thanks for your time. All right. Thanks, Raymond. All right.

God bless. Bye -bye. All right. Super, super, super fast here, Matthew. I probably don't have time looking at this title, but let's try it real quick.

Hey, thanks, Dr. White. I'm a big fan, long -time fan, and I'm a, like you said, this is probably a waste, but I appreciated your talk today about apostasy in light of Hebrews, and I was a

Reformed Baptist for a number of years, and thanks, in large part, due to your ministry. I kind of switched into Pato -Baptism, though, because of places like Hebrews 10, 29, which you know very well, you know, like,

I think it handles a slightly more, a robust review of how someone can trample underfoot the

Son of God, profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outrage the spirit of grace in a more, like, you know, a household covenant sort of Pato -Baptist structure.

I just kind of think that that kind of handles the extreme language that's being used there. What do you think about that?

I think you're wrong. You've talked about it a lot. I think you're wrong, and I think that historically, let's just remember one thing.

The covenantal understanding of infant baptism you're importing into Hebrews was unknown before Calvin. So nobody in church history ever read it the way you did until Calvin.

That's a problem to me, it's a theological novum, and it was developed because Calvin and Zwingli and the others were in a situation where they had to continue to maintain sacralism to keep the

Reformation from collapsing into absolute disorder. So there's a historical reason. Obviously, exegetically,

I think it turns Hebrews 10 on its head, because if you take that understanding of the end of the chapter, the beginning of the chapter, with its once -for -all perfection, which comes from the sacrifice and those for whom it's made, is overthrown.

And that's the argument that I made in debating Trent Horne on Roman Catholicism at G3, but I think

I also expanded upon that, if I recall correctly, in the debate with Greg Strawbridge in Florida as well.

And of course, there's an extended discussion of it in the

Reformed Baptist Work on Covenant Theology, where I did the two chapters on Hebrews 8 -10, so I'm not sure if you've seen that.

Okay, I'm writing this down. Thank you. But hey, it's three o 'clock, and I've got to get running, so I'm sorry.

Matthew, I appreciate your phone call. All right, thanks, have a good day. All right, folks,

I don't know what Rich has in mind for while I'm gone. When in South Africa is really hard to do programs, but I might try.

We might give it a shot. Just pray for three debates coming up, especially this one coming up Saturday, where I'll be debating on gay marriage with Graham Codrington in the

Randburg area. We really appreciate your prayers for that one the next weekend, two debates with Muslim friends there.