Thoughts on the Passing of Christopher Hitchens

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And welcome to the program on a special Friday edition of the
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Dividing Line, 877 -753 -3341. The phone lines are open for you, 877 -753 -3341.
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We don't have Skype up today, sorry about that, 877 -753 -3341.
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Open phones, haven't had open phones in a long, long, long, long, in a very long time. And so if you want to get in today, of course, probably not wise to do it on a day when you've actually changed the day and people don't know when you're doing it.
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And some people don't follow me on Twitter and so they don't get that stuff. And it is
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Friday, Friday, Friday, yes, that horrible song. Everyone, by the way, you all should be thankful that we resisted the temptation of playing the
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Friday song as the introduction because I don't think that we would have had any listeners left if we had done that.
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And Rich has no idea what the Friday song is. He lives in a lead mine and we can all mock him for his absolute cultural insensitivity at that point in time.
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But he's from Prescott, so what does it matter? Now you have to, when you're done, we're going to have to show you the
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Friday song. But Ralph will tell you, do not listen to the Friday song because you can't get it out of your mind.
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Once it's there, it's pretty well stuck. We weren't planning on having to wear a shirt, but it's cold down on this side of the planet.
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Nice flannel. Do you just bring the flannel shirt just because you have to come down to my side of the office? Is that why you've got that on there?
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Yeah, it's pretty much. Well, actually, it was a little chilly out this morning. Not much. Well, for you,
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I mean, you're Mr. Freeze. Well, not necessarily. I was cold yesterday and we rode, Sean and I and a guy named
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John, riding out past Superstition Trust me, they were colder than you were. Maybe.
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I don't know. It's just the nature of how you are. Even Sean was wearing multiple layers. So, yeah. You're the only person
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I know of that likes to work within a 50 degree office. Okay, whatever you say. It's actually 61 in my office, but that's okay.
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Anyhow, 877 -753 -3341. I wanted to start off on actually a little bit more of a sober note.
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Yes, folks, we know. We know. You can stop sending emails. You can stop coming to the channel and telling us that Christopher Hitchens passed away.
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That was one of the first things that I noted this morning upon rising was the passing of Christopher Hitchens.
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And I noted on Twitter, and if you listen to this program, you don't have to do anything on Twitter to follow somebody on Twitter.
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It really is a good way to keep track of what's going on around here. As I noted on Twitter 18 months ago,
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I was listening to his debates.
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I had just, if I recall correctly, I forget exactly when it was that we scheduled the debate.
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It was supposed to be going on in early August of 2010.
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And so many, many months before that, I mean, I've listened to Christopher Hitchens for years. And interestingly enough,
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I think as most people would have to admit, in most of the debates that I have listened to him in,
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I've had pretty much as much criticism for his opponents as I did for him.
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I mean, I certainly responded to him and responded to his assertions and things like that. But there were many times that I had to applaud
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Hitchens for recognizing the inconsistencies of his opponents.
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And of course, one of the more interesting experiences we had was playing the audio of his debate from Biola with William Lane Craig.
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And one of the more interesting exchanges where Hitchens asked him about false
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Christians and about the thing he came up with. The only thing he came up with, he didn't talk about the papacy, he didn't talk about cults.
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He talked about Calvinists. Yes, it was the only thing that Craig could come up with at that point.
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So I had been listening, and I think the day before, or maybe the day of my hearing that he had had to cancel the debate because of his diagnosis of esophageal cancer, was the same day that his
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Hitch 22 audiobook arrived. I purchased it on Kindle, but of course, they had disabled the
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Kindle's ability to read it because they wanted to sell the audiobook. So I had had to get the audiobook.
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And right as it arrived was when I heard that that debate would not be taking place.
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And, well, a debate did take place, but it was certainly not with Christopher Hitchens.
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And the subject was still the same as the New Testament evil, but it was with a opponent that was very, very different in his perspective and his argumentation in Christopher Hitchens.
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I've said many times it is difficult not to admire elements of Christopher Hitchens' obvious giftedness.
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He was a wordsmith. He was an excellent writer. And he had a kind of level of humor that just made it difficult to be consistently angry with Christopher Hitchens, despite his obvious desire to blaspheme.
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I think it was almost something about the honesty of Hitchens' detestation of God that was refreshing in a day when so many are functional atheists, but don't have the spines or the guts to be open about their blasphemy.
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I would prefer a Christopher Hitchens to a hypocritical liberal
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Episcopalian who pretends to honor the name of Christ and yet is having
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Wiccan meetings with some woman who calls herself a bishop in what used to be a church.
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You know, I'd prefer to deal with a Hitchens than someone like that, to be perfectly honest with you.
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And I'm not sure why line one is ringing and nothing's going on. But line one is, according to mine, is ringing.
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It's on hold? Says ringing on my side. Oh, then my side's not working anymore.
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That's not a good thing. Oh, well, just a little. Don't worry. We're live here,
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I guess. Oh, OK. Now, all of a sudden, everything popped up.
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Up until then, it just said, now I see a name and everything. Up until then, it just said ring. So it's having, it's maybe it's cold.
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It's sorry. Anyway, you know, Hitchens was a very, very intelligent man, a very intelligent man.
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And yet he was a very foolish man. Very foolish. Now, there's going to be
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Christians running around, they're going to be going, oh, the fool has said in his heart, there is no
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God. And that's what Psalm 14, one says. But one of the problems that a lot of evangelicals have, a lot of conservative
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Christians, is they think that that term foolish means stupid. And it doesn't mean stupid.
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Naval, remember, remember Nabil, we call him Nabil, it's actually Naval, that's that's a term for foolish.
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And it really, I mean, it could be used in certain contexts of a stupid person, of a person who's just not bright.
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OK, but that's that's not what the psalmist is talking about. And in fact, the
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Greek Septuagint uses Afron as its translation of that term. And it's it's one who does not utilize the capacity of understanding that is theirs, has the ability to understand, but does not do so.
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And that's the kind of atheism that Christopher Hitchens represented.
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He had tremendous gifts from God. And you cannot deny his capacity to speak, even to reason, but not to recognize the inconsistency of his own position.
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A brilliant man, widely read. And yet foolish.
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Foolish, foolish because he did not utilize the capacity to understand that was his, the fool has said in his heart, there is no
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God, the one lacking understanding. And it's remember what Calvin said at the beginning of the
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Institutes in that excellent opening section where he he raises the ages old question.
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Which comes first, our knowledge of God or our knowledge of ourselves? And we've answered that in various ways.
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Calvin primarily comes to the answer that it is knowledge of God that gives us the only true foundation for knowledge of ourself.
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And of course, we depend upon God's revelation for that. But Christopher Hitchens was a man who didn't know himself because for various reasons, and they came out in some of the things that he said.
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He hated the God that he knew was there. I mean, the term detestation is not too strong.
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For the terminology that Hitchens himself uses as to his dislike of the
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God of the the cosmic North Korea, as he liked to express it.
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He did not want to worship a God who was sovereign and who was omniscient to the point of knowing even the thoughts and intents of Christopher Hitchens heart.
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He might have been willing to worship a powerful deity who is limited in some way, shape or form, but he would not worship the
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God that he knew the scriptures represented. And he was very good at recognizing when he was debating Christians who are basically wimps.
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I mean, he knew enough about the God of the Bible to know which one was which. And he frequently called out his his opponents for, in essence,
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I don't know, dodging, hiding the truth about the
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God they were supposedly defending. And so here is a man who on from the from the world's perspective was wise and intelligent and insightful.
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And yet, from the Christian perspective, from God's perspective, from the perspective of the creator, as he has revealed himself in scripture, he suffered from the same foolishness that all idolaters do because Christopher Hitchens was an idolater.
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If you refuse to give the worship to God that he is due, you are an idolater.
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And in his sickness, Christopher turned to the only God that he had. I am certain that he received the absolute best medical treatment in the world.
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They were doing genetic therapy and all sorts of stuff. I mean, they they he had access to treatment that many of us would not have access to, but he died.
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And we can thank God for science and we can thank God for medicine, but it is all under the authority of the very
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God that Christopher Hitchens even worried himself that he might give in to at the end.
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One of the things we noted in the articles that Hitchens wrote shortly after his after he began chemotherapy and his voice began to fail and and his appearance began to change.
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One of the things we noted was there seemed to be a fear on his part that he might give in.
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And so one of the first things he said was, well, if you ever hear that Christopher Hitchens called out to God right toward the end, just chalk it up to the disease or the medicine.
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He was trying as best he could to not let the home team down because they were pretty much all he had when you think about it.
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Now, will there be stories circulating? I'm sure there will be, because the inevitable desire of the
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Christian is, well, you know, I hope right at the end. But the fact is, we have here a man who dedicated a major portion of the last years of his life.
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If he didn't realize they were going to be the last years of his life, but the last years of his life to a campaign against the creator himself.
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And it might be easier for a lot of folks to say, well, you know, I'd rather see I'd rather see a hypocrite punished than an honest rebel.
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And I guess in a sense, you could at least say that in many ways, Christopher Hitchens was more honest about his rebellion than most people are.
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That's for sure. But once again, when we are faced with the death of the ungodly, we are faced with the need to look at our priorities and to not allow our priorities to be determined by emotional feelings.
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And I think many evangelicals fall into that particular area of problem.
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And that is, well, you know, he said he's going to stand before God someday. If he stands before God someday, he's going to say, why didn't you make it easier?
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Why didn't you make it clearer? Why didn't you? And the reality is Christopher Hitchens heard more of the truth than the vast majority of mankind.
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If Christopher Hitchens cannot be justly punished, who could be? Who could be?
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I mean, when major portions of the world's population lived and died without even being literate, dependent upon hearing a message from somebody else.
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When most people in Europe in the medieval period didn't move more than seven miles from the place they were born in any one direction.
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Here's a man who traveled the world, was fully literate, widely read, and had tremendous access to the truth.
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A brightness of light beyond compare, unapologia, without an apologetic, without a defense.
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And knowing all of that, remained adamant as far as we know. Even in the face, he had to know.
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He had to know that his death was inevitable. Now, of course, it was complications from the cancer and treatment of the cancer.
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Pneumonia, very frequently one of the things that is involved. That took him.
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But the fact of the matter is, he knew. And what does this show us?
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That no matter how much light one has, unless there is grace.
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If any mind should have been capable of turning itself, wouldn't it have been
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Christopher Hitchens? How many arguments were presented to him?
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How many people looked him in the eye and said, I'll pray for you. But no matter how intelligent you are, no matter how convinced you are of the coming of your own demise.
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Yet there was this insistence upon remaining in rebellion.
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And so, I am saddened in the sadness of the prophets when they spoke of, why will you perish?
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Why will you perish? Really did pray that God would be merciful to Christopher Hitchens.
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But at the same time, at the same time, I must recognize that God's purpose in Christopher Hitchens will be fulfilled.
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You look at Pharaoh. You look at Nebuchadnezzar. How many examples do we need from scripture to be convinced that God even has a purpose in the ungodly?
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And do we value our emotional feelings about a fellow creature above the very honor and glory of our creator, sustainer and redeemer?
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And I would suggest to you that if we succumb the temptation to whitewash the reality of the judgment that is justly due to Christopher Hitchens and to every single one of us, then we do so because we really, truly do not have a godly set of priorities as to what is really important.
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For a Christian, it should be our desire. It should be our desire that God's name and God's glory,
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God's power be made known. And in fact, this is the radical element of it.
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Our lives should be laid upon the line because our lives are not our own.
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We've died. Our life is hidden with Christ and God. God can do with us as he wishes.
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And if he so wishes to use us in that way, to bring about his honor and glory, then that should be our desire.
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And so Christopher Hitchens has passed from this world and I do not know what conversation took place upon Christopher's recognition that there is more to man than, well, as Douglas Wilson so often said to him,
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Adam's baying around. But something tells me that despite the bravado that Christopher Hitchens offered so often during his life, despite that brave claim to stand before God and say,
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I refused to submit to you because you didn't make your revelation clear enough and you didn't do this the way
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I thought and I will not submit to the celestial North Korea. Something tells me that when any creature, no matter how inveterate they are in their detestation of God, when they see their creator in his glory, knowing now truly who they are and who he is,
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I don't think that that bravado is going to last very long.
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I think it will be removed immediately. Much more that could be said about Christopher Hitchens, but the phones are open.
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877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341.
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Your thoughts on Christopher Hitchens and Bart Ehrman or Diya Muhammad or whatever else it might be at 877 -753 -3341.
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Let's go ahead and take our first call and talk with Tom. Hi, Tom. My interface is not working, unable to bring it up.
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Hello, Tom. Our phones are having problems. There we go.
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There he is. Hi, Tom. Sorry, Tom. It's really, really delayed. I'm noticing about a 10 to 15 second delay between when
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I tell. I think I just plugged in a 386 SX with about 640k of RAM.
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Anyway, what can we do for you today? All right. Well, thank you very much for taking my call. My question is on,
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I don't know if you're familiar with the simple foreknowledge view. Yeah. Of God's foreknowledge. Yeah. David Hunt, not
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Dave Hunt, but David Hunt, a philosopher over in California is probably best known for his promotion of the simple foreknowledge view.
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I know he was the one that represented it in the 2001 book, Four Views that included
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Greg Boyd and William Lane Craig. Oh, okay. I was actually,
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I haven't read this book myself, but I understand that Roger Olsen defended the view in a book called
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Perspectives on the Doctrine of God. Well, now, see, that's interesting because I was left wondering what
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Olsen, Roger Olsen's view was upon reading his Against Calvinism, because while he certainly, it seemed like he was ascribing a foreknowledge view to God.
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But then after I talked about Olsen's book, I had, and I can't bring it up right now, it's on my computer in the room, but I had someone send me a graphic of a page, not from an
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Olsen book, but from someone who was referring to Olsen and quoting Olsen saying something that sounded very
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Molinistic, a middle knowledge perspective. Now, I haven't heard
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Olsen do that, so good question. I will not claim any expertise on exactly where Olsen comes down on that particular topic.
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I'm just not sure. Oh, okay. Would you be able to tell me how,
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I guess, how you would argue against the simple foreknowledge view, as it was told to me, is that basically
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God doesn't know counterfactuals and only knows future things that will actually happen? I don't know how you would refute that from the
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Bible. Well, I'm not sure. It would depend on how the person is presenting it. The question, if you're simply saying that, if you're trying to simplify the nature of God's knowledge and say that, and removing the concept of quote -unquote counterfactuals, first of all, from,
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I think, a historic position that is much more Orthodox, and I think biblically substantiatable,
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God's knowledge, the reason I reject middle knowledge is because I see no room for it.
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I don't see anything between His free knowledge and His natural knowledge.
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That is, God has perfect knowledge of Himself, and then because God chooses to create, then
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He has complete knowledge of that which He creates. So when someone tries to squeeze middle knowledge in, and I'll do this and then we can talk about simple foreknowledge, when someone tries to squeeze middle knowledge in between, they're basically introducing a second creator in the sense that if you say that God would have knowledge of what creatures would do in given circumstances, what
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I will do in given circumstances is based upon my nature as a created being. To say that God has a passive knowledge of what
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I would do in certain circumstances that precedes His decree to create me means that my nature is no longer determined by God, and that's the real problem.
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That's why I sort of had a cowl last week when William Lane Craig on his podcast said, well, you just need to understand, that's the hand
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God has been dealt with, and He's got to play with the hand He has. So I'm like, who dealt Him this hand? Where did this come from?
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There's another creator out there all of a sudden that is determining these things, and then God, just the
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God of creation, then does the best He can with the hand that He has been given. So I can understand why people just want to get away from that, and my understanding is that the simple foreknowledge view is based upon the idea that God is eternal and hence does not experience a progression of time and therefore has perfect knowledge of everything that takes place within time.
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But the real issue, again, you can call that simple foreknowledge all you want, you still have to answer the question, how does
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God have knowledge of those future events? How does this relate to His decree to create?
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And if He decreed to create, then is not
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His knowledge of those future events dependent upon His creative act?
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And they would say no. But then that would, in essence, I suppose one of the positions they could take is that would, in essence, reduce
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God's knowledge of future events to a merely passive knowledge.
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That is, He basically tosses the cosmic dice and, hey, cool,
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I win, look, I came out good in the end. Well, what if He tosses the cosmic dice and He doesn't?
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Does He just scrap it and start all over again until He gets the right toss of the dice? I don't know.
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But it's a little bit like the problem we had about, let's see, 2003, eight years ago, when
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I was on a particularly well -known national broadcast, and the illustration of God's knowledge of future events was presented, that we all know that Sonny and Cher got divorced, but just because we all know it doesn't mean we caused it.
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And what that is presenting is a passive concept of God's knowledge.
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He takes in knowledge when He creates, but what He creates, the decree of His creation, does not actually determine what takes place in time.
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And evidently, that's the simple foreknowledge view, but it doesn't really, in my perspective, answer the big question.
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And when you ask how would I respond to that biblically, Isaiah 41, the challenge to the false gods, not only tell us what is going to happen, the simple foreknowledge view would, well,
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God knows what's going to happen in the future, but tell us what happened in the past and why it happened.
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And that can't be answered, because if it's simple foreknowledge, then there isn't a purpose for what happens in the future.
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And therefore, you can't answer the why question. There is no why answer, but God has the why answer, because God is sovereign over events in time.
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So it also raises the conundrum, which I find to be reprehensible, and that is the idea that God created, and at the moment of His creation,
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He knew all of this evil that was going to come about as a result of His creating, and yet He had no purpose in all of that evil.
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And yet He created anyways. I think that's a theodicy that's next to impossible to actually defend.
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But there are certainly people who will go that direction. From what
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I've heard of it, the way they defend against that is that He didn't know what was going to happen until He made the decision to create, and then at that point, it was too late for Him not to create once He realized that evil was going to happen and create it anyway.
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Okay, so He couldn't stop Himself? I mean, so once the dice left
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His hand, then all of a sudden He knew, but it's too late to grab them before they land type of a situation?
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I mean, again, it presents God as passively taking in knowledge and doing so in such a way that He is not in control of it.
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So if He is not in control of the evil, why do we glorify Him for the good?
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If He's not in control of the evil, and this doesn't make any sense as far as, again,
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God is active in time. From a reformed perspective, God has a decree. That decree includes
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His activity in time, which includes His restraining of evil, His giving of common grace, His giving of special grace,
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His bringing about all the good that happens in the world and everything else. All that is a part of His decree.
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It actually is the foundation of the reality of His interaction with us in time. But if you don't have a divine decree like that, and you simply have an act of creation, and the resultant form of creation and activities in time of creation are, in essence, random or are determined by man, well, why should
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God be anything but blamed for all the senseless evil? And why should
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He be glorified for any of the good? I mean, it all ends up on man at that point, or creatures.
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And that doesn't really then deal with natural evil, because, I mean, when
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He created, He couldn't stop tsunamis or earthquakes or stuff like that.
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Again, if there's no purpose for these things, why are they a part of the creation? Did He not see they were coming? I mean, that's why
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I've always said the only really consistent Arminian is an open theist. I mean, you've got to get rid of this foreknowledge idea.
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Or you're always stuck with the question of meaningfulness in the creation itself.
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And so, does that help you? It does.
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Thank you very much. I'll look over Isaiah 41, and I think that makes a lot of sense. And I also wanted to thank you very much for your work with explaining
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Reform Theology, and then also your work with Islam.
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That's been very helpful in me and my wife witnessing Muslims here. So, I really appreciate it.
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Even up there in the frozen tundra, huh? That's right, yeah. There's a lot of Muslims.
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Oh, well, then I probably need to get back up there to Omaha sometime. I don't think
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I've done my Muslim presentations up there in Omaha. So maybe we can get back up there.
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It's been a number of years since I was there last. So, look forward to it. All righty, sir. All right. Thank you very much.
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Thank you. God bless. Bye -bye. Bye. Hey, there it worked. Oh, yay. Yeah, I know,
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I know. I don't know what's... I had trouble logging in, and then it just doesn't want to...
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I kept hitting... I hit error three times, and then about, I don't know, 10 seconds later, it's like, oh, would you like me to put them on error?
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Okay. Never seen that happen before. It's what? No, it has nothing to do with that.
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It's on the other side's fault, I assure you. 877 -753 -3341.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number if you want to get involved with the program today.
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I realize it is a Friday. I realize it is the... It's not the last
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Friday before Christmas, but it's getting close. And so I understand that there are probably a lot of folks, if they are not working at this time of day, they're out doing stuff that you're supposed to be doing at this time of year, which
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I fully understand. But if you'd like to get in, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.
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If not, I still have all my debates lined up and queued up, so we could still make some progress.
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But I will stretch here for just a moment to see if anybody else wants to get in today. At 877 -753 -3341.
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Leshawn in channel is threatening to... I should call and ask
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Doc a really tough question. Well, that last one was involved some depth,
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I would imagine. So possibility, I suppose. That'd be good. Just don't ask me anything about the upcoming
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NBA season. Please don't ask for my picks for... Can Tim Tebow beat the
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Patriots in Denver? I don't know. But it has been very, very interesting to watch the cultural response to Tim Tebow.
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It really has been. And I think it is illustrative, personally.
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Someone well put it, and I think they were secular. If Tim Tebow was a
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Muslim, would you have linemen mocking him after sacking him by maybe pretending to put out a prayer rug and bowing on it?
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Now, they didn't ask that, but I know something about Islam. So can you imagine what would happen, honestly, honestly, if a linebacker sacked a
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Muslim quarterback? I don't know of any Muslim quarterbacks. There might be one. I don't know. Are there? If there are, they don't make any noise about it.
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But if there was a Muslim quarterback, let's say that went on Hajj or something like that, okay, was well known for being a practicing
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Muslim, and a linebacker, somebody comes through, sacks him, and then pretends to roll out a prayer rug and bows on it, how long would he even be in the league?
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I mean, minimum, massive fine, minimum, massive fine, but I think he'd be gone.
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I think he'd be history. I really do. But you can pretend you're praying after sacking a
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Christian, and when the Christian quarterback doesn't respond in the sense of, oh, hey, you know, he made a good, you know,
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Tim was a class act at that point. He made a good, made a great play, just sloughed it off. That's the only way you can do it.
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But what a massive difference there would be. What a massive difference there would be. There's no question about it.
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So it is interesting to look at the way the culture is in the
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United States. And I have no earthly idea what that means, but we'll go ahead and go for it anyways.
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Let's go back to the phones and go back down to St. Kitts and talk with Gregory. Hi, Gregory.
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Good day, Dr. White. Yes, sir. Yes, I'm calling on a cell phone, so I guess I have to make my question quick.
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Okay. Yes, my question is, there's a place in the Bible that says Saul committed suicide, and then
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I think there's another place that says, I think it was the Philistines or the Amichalites who killed him. Right.
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And that is used by some as a contradiction.
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How would you go about explaining it? That is not a contradiction. Okay. Are you listening online so you could...
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Yes, I'm listening to your website. Okay, so I'll go ahead and answer offline if you want, so your call will be less than expensive.
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Okay, can I give another quick question, please? Okay. Yeah, another quick one. Me and a gentleman had a discussion, and he brought a passage to me that said
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David had only transgressed in the issue of Bathsheba and her husband, and he wanted to say that that scripture is saying that that was the only time he sinned, because the
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Bible said that was the only time he turned away from God. And I tried to explain it to him, but I was very interested in how you would explain that passage as well, when it says it's only in the matter of Bathsheba he turned away from God.
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Someone who would say that's the only time he sinned. I would need to know what reference you're referring to there, because I am not familiar with any reference where it said the only place that David turned away from God was in regards to Bathsheba.
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I mean, certainly Psalm 51 is connected with that, but there are many other places where David sinned.
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I'm not familiar with any text that says that was the only place. Yeah, like I'm calling you now, and all of a sudden
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I haven't had time to really look it up again. Okay. Well, maybe someone could suggest it in chat or something, but without a reference
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I would just simply say, while the sin of David with Bathsheba, and the murder of Uriah, and the
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Hittite, and so on and so forth, was a tremendous sin, it certainly was not the only time
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David sinned. I mean, David sinned in the census as well. So I just don't know of any text that makes that claim at all.
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Yes, okay, okay. All right. I don't remember the passage.
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I'm sorry, I don't remember the passage. I'll get to your first question. Yes, hello. Check 2
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Samuel chapter 11, I think, the matter how David turned his back. Sorry, that might not be it.
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I will try to do a quick thing on the internet, but that doesn't seem to be it. Okay, all right. Okay, but the first question.
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I'll get to it. Thank you. All right, thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right, bye -bye. Yeah, I know when you're on a cell phone from St.
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Kitts it's probably costing arm and a leg, so we'll get through that. In regards to the issue of the death of Saul, I think this is a pretty straightforward alleged contradiction, which, again, it was very common for those who were military leaders, kings, of course, but also for those who would be very high up in Eastern warfare to not allow themselves to be profaned in being killed by those who have taken them.
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For example, you may recall that when Joshua defeated many of the kings there in the
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Holy Land as they moved into what we call today the Land of Israel, those kings would be brought before him, and very often the foot placed upon their neck.
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And remember, some of the kings of Israel were taken into captivity blinded and naked and paraded through the streets, and this was a mechanism of denigrating the people that you have conquered.
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And so very often the general or the king or whoever else it might be did not want that to happen, would not allow that to happen.
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If they're going to desecrate my body, there's nothing I can do about that, but I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of taking me.
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And so they would fall upon their sword. And this is what Saul does. And yet, likewise, because that was done in the midst of battle against a foe and the foe had been victorious, it would be said to have been done by them.
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So it's just a matter of recognizing that you go out to, let's say
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Custer at the last moment decided not to be scalped.
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Okay, so he shoots himself. Well, who won the battle of Little Bighorn? Does that mean they didn't win the battle?
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They didn't kill Custer? No, obviously when you're talking about a situation of warfare and battle, when you've lost the battle, if you do not allow yourself to be taken, it's still the other side that defeated you and still the other side that killed you.
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So it's just a matter of recognizing the use of speech and the concept of agency.
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There are many times, you know, David defeated the Philistines. Well, actually it's David's army. I mean, I know atheists that will go to that level.
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Remember Dennis McKenzie? I think he's still around. Is biblical errancy still around? I think it is. Yeah, okay. Dennis McKenzie, a key practitioner of this particular form of inability or unwillingness to read the text for what it's actually saying, would actually make arguments that, well, see, the
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Bible's not telling the truth because it's not David that defeated the Amalekites. It was David's army. Well, it's a matter of allowing agency and usage and leaders and so on and so forth to speak.
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So the Amalekites killed Saul, but Saul stole from them the ability to humiliate him by falling upon his own sword.
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But since it was in battle and a result of battle, and even his armor bearer, if I recall correctly, likewise committed harry -carry, again, totally a part of the kind of language was used of battle and warfare in that day, and there's no contradiction between them at all.
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So it's a matter of just allowing the text to speak for itself. Okay, we've got just a few minutes left in the program.
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It's about 10 minutes left in the program, and so I'm going to go ahead and dive back into Bart Ehrman's presentation, get a few more minutes covered of that.
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Next week, we should be okay for Tuesday, but we may have to rearrange things toward the end of the week.
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We'll see. Just keep an eye on, again, it's the easiest way to do it, but the easiest way to do it is to follow my
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Twitter feed because that's fast, and it's easier for me to throw a quick announcement up on Twitter than it is to open up a blogging program and open up an article and do all the rest of that stuff.
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So I would highly suggest that as the direction to go to do that.
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Actually, I'm stretching a little bit here because it looks like we have a phone call coming in, and hopefully we'll be able to...
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We didn't. I'm sorry? Oh, I don't see...
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I posted the version channel. He called back with a... Oh, okay. First Kings. Yeah, well,
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First Kings 15 .5, because David did what was right in the sight of the Lord and had not turned aside from anything. He commanded him all days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the
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Hittite. I guess you could take that as an assertion of the sinlessness of David, but that would make absolutely no sense whatsoever in light of the fact that both
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Kings and Chronicles records David's census and other acts of sin on David's part.
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There is that phrase that he commanded him specifically, but then again, what was the commandment in regards to Uriah the
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Hittite other than simply the law itself? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either, but let me look at...
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It's always good to look at context of such things. Nevertheless, for David's sake, the
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Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him and establishing Jerusalem, because David did what was right in the eyes of the
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Lord and had not turned aside from anything. He commanded him all days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. Then there was war between Rehoboam.
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So it's specifically saying that King Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, began to reign over Judah.
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He reigned for three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Maka, the son of Abishalom, and he walked in all the sins that his father did before him, and his heart was not wholly true to the
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Lord his God as the heart of his father. Nevertheless, for David's sake, the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem.
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So here you have extension of grace to Jeroboam solely because of God's love for David, which he really describes here.
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His heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God as the heart of David, his father.
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So David, his father, is described as one whose heart is wholly true, and yet David is the one who writes
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Psalm 51, and he describes his sinfulness from the time of his conception.
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Nowhere does David say, well, there's only one sin that I committed, but there is only one sin that is openly rebuked by God and that could be used by someone as an argument that David's heart was not right before God.
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And since the matter of Uriah, murder, and likewise, notice it doesn't say anything about Bathsheba, except in the matter of Uriah the
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Hittite. So you've got murder. You have all these other sins that are wrapped up in what
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David did in that situation. And so it would seem to me that the concern on the part of the historian here, we don't know who wrote 1
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Kings, obviously, is that in stating that God had established, what's the term they use?
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A light? What is that the term is used here? To go back up here, you know,
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I'm so used, I've already gotten used to lying. And so I'm scrolling the wrong direction and numbers keep getting bigger and bigger.
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They reversed the scroll perspective. Let me see here. Yeah, gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him and establishing
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Jerusalem. It seems that what he's talking about there is the public nature of the sin with Uriah, certainly because he sent a prophet to him in Nathan.
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That becomes the primary issue. That's my understanding. Again, if you want to cut this up and say, well, okay, yeah, this same writer does mention other sins of David, but here he was talking about David's sinlessness other than that one sin.
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You can do that if you want. There's no end to what you can do once you are willing to make one person contradict himself.
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But the reality is that the scriptures reveal more than one sin on the part of David and never make David an example of absolute sinlessness.
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What they do tell us is that his heart was wholly true to the
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Lord as God, which means that he was truly repentant even when he had sinned.
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And that is the example that we are to be following, certainly in that situation.
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So yeah, that's the kind of thing you will encounter when you're talking with all those atheists who want to try to find some way around actually believing what
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Jesus said about himself and about what the gospel is and things like that. Well, yeah, it talks about sin elsewhere, but we can't worry about that.
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We just have to pull it apart in pieces and assume certain things, that this is a statement of absolute sinlessness rather than a text speaking of the the fact that David's faith was a heart faith.
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And that's an important thing. Anyways, man, it's going to be almost worthless to attempt to do anything with Bart here.
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And we don't have anybody else to sneak in. So I'll just let you know that I did.
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And I'm not going to be playing these. I didn't even link to them. But I'll just let you know this. This is for only people who want to look for this stuff.
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But I have started Matthew 24 in the adult
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Sunday school class at PRBC. I've been reading it. I do not claim any expertise in this area.
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Eschatology is not my thing. There are so many books out there that you would have to read to even start being able to compare things that I've felt really, really, really hesitant to dive into it.
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But we're doing a synoptic study. So I have a choice. I've got to get through Matthew 24 to get to Matthew 26.
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If you want to get to the end of the book, you got to go through every part of it. And so I started.
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And we're looking at the questions that the disciples asked. And what are the questions?
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How to understand them? How did the disciples understand? What's the sign of your coming? If you've got
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John 14 coming after Matthew 24, then how much knowledge could they have before that?
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And there's just all sorts of stuff there. And so I think you would do much better, honestly, if you just, for example, found
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Dr. Riddlebarger's two -part series on Sermon Audio on Matthew 24 than anything that I would be doing.
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But if for some reason you want to listen, we have started that. And I will be preaching Christmas morning at PRBC.
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And my intention right now is to be looking at the Emmanuel sayings in Isaiah and how they're picked up in the
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New Testament. Because there's a whole section between Isaiah 8 and 11 where Emmanuel, God with us, becomes a very prominent portion.
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And my plan is to try to make something worthwhile and edifying for the saints by looking at Emmanuel and the full fulfillment of that in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
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That's the plan. Someone did just mention in the channel, it's true, Sam Waldron's book, Eschatology Made Simple.
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And that's certainly where I start as far as this age and the age to come, the nature of this age and the age to come.
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I think that's vitally important in understanding Matthew 24 as well. All right. Well, thanks for listening to The Dividing Line.
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Today, like I said, should be on regular schedule on Tuesday. Then after that, we'll just have to sort of play it by ear.
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Might be on regular schedule Thursday. We'll let you know one way or the other. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
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God bless. I believe we're standing at the crossroads
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57:23
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57:36
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57:44
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58:06
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