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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.
Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.
If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five. Three three three four one and now with today's topic.
Here is James white.
And good morning. Good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line on a Tuesday. We're here in Phoenix, Arizona. Believe it or not We have in the forecast for Thursday. I was just listening to the radio and they confirmed it.
We have in the forecast for Thursday. No, let it snow. Let it snow. Snow now, of course, we live in the desert in Phoenix and the ground is always so hot here That it's a it'll it'll. Any good stick but they say they say even a camelback might have snow on it.
Yeah Thursday morning.
In fact, they're saying all the mountains around the valley here will have snow and it's gonna be really hard for me to resist riding Up South Mountain to see that. That would be interesting, right? Yes, you could borrow my mountain bike.
But but the roads the roads wouldn't have. Yeah. Well, man, they might be a little slick might even be frozen.
Oh, that'd be cool. Like black ice. Oh now that would be fun coming up.
Couple those turns. You wouldn't you wouldn't hit a boulder for 400 feet till.
Smack. Yeah, that'd be good. Yeah, it's good. It's it's I've I only but would you would you say it was 1990?
I believe the last Recollection I have of a snow where it actually in Phoenix snowed in downtown Phoenix and actually stuck a little. Stuck a little but define stuck a little the ground turned white for a bit.
How long is a bit like? But I believe it was like December 22nd 1990 the company I was working for at the time a bunch of guys went out You know all these sales and they got to be entrepreneurs. So they had a whole bunch of t-shirts printed up and brought him back in.
Yes, and the teachers t-shirts said I survived the blizzard of Phoenix. Yeah, right, right.
Yeah, I remember I remember driving up someone's house on New Year's Eve at some point in the past 30 years and there were there was snow in my headlights. I remember seeing the snow coming across the headlights which is for us an amazing thing for many people listening to this are going.
Oh boy, you people really don't get out much. But that's just you know, you live in a desert. That's what other way. I mean 74 and Christmas. It was 74 stinging degrees went outside. It was you know, if you had stuck one of those horrible Christmas sweaters on you almost died.
So yeah, it's gonna be a it's gonna be a big one. And my concern is where is this storm going? Because a few days later I have to fly to Kentucky via Chicago and.
I'm just sort of wondering if I'm gonna get anywhere. I don't know that they can predict that with this one. It's doing this weird turn and it's like coming out of the the Pacific. It all comes out of the Gulf of Alaska.
Well, yeah, but this one's kind of dipped low and then it's doing this kind of a an arch over, California and then it's Dipping right down dead on for Phoenix. Huh? Who knows what it's gonna do after that.
I've never seen a storm that I can recollect do that. I just hope I make it to the Plymouth's class. That's all it cuz.
They they did they did it the cheapest way possible via American and it goes through Chicago. I'm worried about that. I Don't want to sleep in the Chicago Airport or get snowed into the Chicago Airport or anything else like that.
That would really be Unfun. So anyhow, I really wasn't gonna start the program off with that. But it's a pretty unusual weather event for us and I'm sort of looking forward to seeing snow on the peaks around.
We do live in a valley. So it will be rather visible. Galatians chapter 6 by the way, the phone number is 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 dividing dot line via Skype dividing dot line 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 the standard old phone line way if you want to go that direction.
Galatians chapter 6. Paul having completed writing to the churches in Galatia in the strongest language possible. In a way that communicates certainly to me. I Can read Galatians and compare it with Ephesians or Romans and the person who wrote Galatians is is in a hurry is emotional is is Involved in his topic in a very strong way.
Having gone through all of that Paul says in Galatians chapter 6 see with what large letters. I'm writing to you with my own hand. Which Some people have interpreted that. Like the King James says see how large a letter I've written on to use my own hand.
So. But some feel that he did not use an amanuensis for Galatians. That is he did not dictate this. He wrote with his own hand because it was so important or maybe maybe he couldn't wait for somebody that could do it properly.
I don't know what the reasons would be but That's how they interpret that it is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh. Who would force you to be circumcised and only in order that? They may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ for even.
And it's that's such a strong strong language that is used there. It's amazing to me. In order that they may not be persecuted across. These are people who claim to be Christians. These are people who were who were perverting the gospel.
Who would force the believers to be circumcised? So that they would not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised about themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.
But Paul then gives the proper apostolic balance to this. He says but far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. By which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.
Galatians 614 is a verse that as we would stand outside the Mormon temple in Mesa. Or in Salt Lake City back when we did that outreach every six months to the well. It was every year in Mesa, but every six months in Salt Lake City.
Many times the young Mormon people would come up to us and we might have a cross on our lapel or around our neck. Or there might be a cross on the track. We were passing out or something like that. And and you may have noticed that Mormon Ward chapels and temples don't have crosses on them and You'd get the same sort of pat answer.
But it was it was an objection that they all really felt seriously about and and that was you know, if your son was killed By someone who murdered him with a knife, would you would you have a knife around your neck?
If if your son was executed in electric chair, would you have an electric chair on your neck? And They really did not understand The role of the cross because the cross is not central in in Mormon theology even the fact that they begin the atonement in the Garden of Gethsemane the fact that Joseph Smith taught that Animal sacrifices would be reinstituted during the millennial period and the priesthood concepts and and of course Mormonism is just just utter collapse on the doctrine of sin.
Leads to well, you know that that theology thing really matters and it leads to certain ramifications and This would be the text that we would often respond with Galatians 614. But far be it from me or as the King James says but God forbid even though it's hardly a May it never be may Genoita is the Greek term.
May it never be. That I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to me and I to.
The world.
Now, why do I start the program off this way? Well Since I will be gone next week and I'm gone most of the week after that At the Southern Founders Conference Which by the way will include a debate at the Southern Founders Conference on the Free will of man specifically the bondage of the will or the freedom of the will we're gonna Redo the Luther Erasmus debate, I guess but Since I'm gonna be gone a lot.
I'm really trying to you know pile on the miles. This week sort of make up for that so that I don't get too far behind in my goals and things like that. So this morning I was writing I was listening to This lengthy Series 18 hour series a little over halfway through it.
I am listening to it at high speed help some but an 18 hour series guiding to Allah which is a Seminar by Muhammad Ashraf from the Almagrib Institute on the subject of Dawa Fika Tawa the the understanding of how to call people to Islam and so far it's Primarily not not totally it's starting to change now, but the first number of CDs was all on marketing what colors to use in your flyers and how to name things and it was very much like what you would expect to see and Seeker friendly churches and things like that though.
There's a theological reason here as well. That is interesting hopefully I'll expand upon sometime in the future, but Today at a certain point in the ride this morning because we have the dividing line the morning had to keep it a fairly short Ride is 25 miler.
At one point and I don't think I'll ever forget where this was. He was talking about how? Muslims should not attack other missile Muslims, even if they think that the other Muslims are doing things that are wrong in the sense of innovation or heresy or what's called bid 'ah bid 'ah in Arabic is innovation is something that is not found in the Sunnah.
It is something that you shouldn't do because the the companions of the Prophet or the problem self and the Hadith did not command you to do these things and He was talking about how these imams in Saudi Arabia where he studied in Medina Would not condemn various groups in the West.
They would you know people come to that while they're doing this bid 'ah and they're doing that bid 'ah. Should we boycott them and you go? No, you shouldn't. Oh, but buddy mom. They're doing this my shake.
They're doing this. No, you shouldn't and He was saying well think about I mean, I mean The West is a place of Dawa the West is a place where you're calling to Islam it's not like Saudi Arabia, which is an Islamic state and so if you have two groups doing Dawa and one is Calling to Sunni Islam and and one has bid 'ah in it and is but it's still calling you to say la ilaha illa la.
Then.
Don't attack them and here is the argument. Here's what here's what he said. This is what I I think I will probably always remember because it really struck me. He said because if you if you attack that other group at least if they're calling to Islam a Person who is guided by them Will have la ilaha illa la and bid 'ah.
But if you destroy their Dawa work and people are not called to Islam then they will die with a cross around their neck and.
I.
Heard that and I did not immediately think. Some of you saw the article that I put up on the blog sometime around Christmas before Christmas, I think. From Toronto Muslim, it's interesting. Muhammad Sharif is from that.
I think the very same mosque. Yeah, he's still calling you and His gmail address was cross hater and Refers to Christians as cross worshipers now. You've never seen me and will never see me kissing a cross or bowing before a cross or worshiping a cross Unlike seeing Muslims kissing a black stone at the Kaaba and Mecca.
But you.
You hear this type of terminology and You hear you you read the hadith where where Jesus is gonna return. He's gonna destroy the cross. He's gonna destroy the cross and you think about. As I've been listening to this particular series and I've been listening to other Audio series from this particular company that this I'm a good Institute and Iman rush audio and stuff like that.
Over and over again you get this same Indication from listening to Muslims speak in it and it really bothers me tremendously and That is when they when they talk about Christians doing dawah now dawah for Muslims is a combination of apologetics and evangelism.
It's a much wider term. Are you know? We tend to limit evangelism to just the proclamation of the gospel and yet when you live in Western countries It's sort of hard to do that without doing apologetics because there's so many objections and so on so forth.
But we've made lots of subcategories thing like that. It's just one big thing of dawah if you do a soccer camp and then talk about Islam that's dawah we call those evangelism projects things like that and when they talk about Christians and How Christians do dawah?
I've never heard a Muslim say that the Christians proclaim the Lordship of Christ over all things and Call you To obey Christ as Lord. I've never heard him said not once nobody ever. Now I haven't listened to everybody.
So maybe there's somebody out there, but you know what they normally how they normally put it How they normally put it is well, the Christians will invite you to accept Jesus. The Christians will invite you to accept Jesus and though they don't always Bring this up.
You can just sense that for the vast majority of them. It is such a That they not only have they interpreted it, but I think they've probably interpreted it correctly in most situations. It is such a.
Weak.
Thing. It's it's not a proclamation of power. It's not a proclamation that that the gospel is true That Jesus Christ is Lord and that every knee will bow. It's all about. Well, you know, it's all up to you and it's just struck me over and over and over again.
That.
Theology matters and here you hear it you hear the difference between proclaiming a sovereign God a Sovereign Lord a powerful Savior who saves to the uttermost. The difference between that and the man-centered Jesus standing at the noblest door meekly knocking message and What the Muslims here they they hear the one and not the other.
And.
They interpret it in that way. And so it was in that same context then That I'm thinking Die with a cross around your neck. And I immediately started thinking of Paul's words May it never be that I should boast except in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.
I wonder if one of the problems my friends Is that so many people have a cross around their neck? but they live like the world and Hence make a mockery of that cross because We can talk all we want to about the cross, but unless The world has been crucified to me on that cross Unless I have been crucified to the world on that cross then it means nothing.
It's just a religious symbol. But if that cross if you understand what that cross really meant if you understand what that cross really was if you understand what really happened there if you understand the demonstration of God's wrath against sin the the absolute demonstration of his holiness and Then the depth of his self-giving Loving-kindness that is demonstrating that cross you None of us can ever begin to plumb the depths of that, but I think the world can tell when we're at least trying.
The world can tell when we are really dedicated to something. The world can tell when we really love something when we are passionate about something and when something has impacted our lives and If you're gonna boast in the cross the Lord Jesus Christ.
Follow the entire verse. By which the world has been crucified to me. And that's Honestly. That's where Western Christianity struggles the most because we still have so much love of the world. We still have so much love of the world.
It is it is it takes a tremendous amount of maturity to be greatly blessed physically and To not have those physical blessings become an idol in your life. There's something that takes the passion the central place of passion in your thinking.
That is a lifelong struggle. That a lot of people have just given up on but there is. You know, it's that time of year where everyone's thinking about the new year and the New Year's go by so fast now that they all start blurring together, but and People are talking about so, you know how to be successful in the new year and I made the mistake of having Talk radio on in the way Down the in the car and I was about ready to shoot myself by time.
I got here doom and gloom and 2011 is gonna be the end of everything and they weren't even talking about Harold camping for crying out loud. That was the Rush Limbaugh show. What? Oh, it's just it just depressing and and you can just get caught caught up in all that stuff but honestly.
The issue really is For Christians for believers. How will I be pleasing to God in this coming year? What what can I do? Do I have to have a desire to be pleasing to God? And if I do, how do I fit into this verse by which the world has been crucified to me?
How can I experience that and I to the world? And remember these words. Oh how they they don't strike us with near the dissonance. That they did the original audience. They don't. We are so accustomed to the cross we are so accustomed to the term crucify it's has such a theological pedigree for us.
The jarring nature of these words, we don't we don't pick it up. At least not as we should when you remember when you remember That this was the worst way to die. There were people in the ancient world who would not even use this language because it would he would not be considered polite in public Places to even talk about this.
It was the unmentionable way of death and yet Paul actually presents it by saying he boasts. He boasts in that which to the world showed Jesus to be weak and we certainly see that in The hatred expressed toward the cross by the world and by false religions by the Muslims either in gross and open ways by the radicals or in less open ways, but still quite discernible by Muslims in general.
And so it's. It's a time of year where we can think about the future and we can think about how we as believers can prepare ourselves. To Walk in a way that is pleasing to God and to do so as people who have been crucified to the world and the world crucified to us and boast in the cross for our Lord Jesus Christ.
The only way to boast in that is to see that I had nothing to do with it other than it was my sin. That put him there. There can be no boasting in the sense of being better than anyone else. The only boasting we can do is boasting in the Lord.
877 -753 -3341 dividing dot line is the phone number. Let's start off and talk to John mark. Hello John.
Good quick question, I'm conversing with a friend who doesn't believe in perseverance of the Saints and gently Exegeted with him John 6 and 27 through 28 until it's often over the 40s an example that and he says this might sound as if The looking and believing our one-time acts that happened in the past That's not mean they are continued on the Sun and continues to believe in him should continue to have Paralyzed.
And he said the same thing with John 10 and he says what I'm yeah.
Your friend your friend your friend is is very very focused upon man. That's a shame because he's right and that's a point that if you've read any of my books on the subject I've raised freedom. Yeah Potter's freedom.
John 6 I emphasized over and over again in my exegesis the text present tense participles the one looking the one believing. That's how John differentiates between false faith, which is in the aorist like in John 8.
In John this is just that's just that's just something John uses it's not something that's all across the New Testament. But in John chapter 2 he uses the aorist of those who had believed in Jesus and yet Jesus did not believe himself to them.
He did not entrust himself them because he knew it was in their hearts. True saving faith in the gospel of John is present tense. It is ongoing but again. That's exactly the whole point and that is true saving faith is ongoing.
Where does that come from? It's a it's a gift of God. It's the work of the Holy Spirit in the person's heart. So perseverance, you know, if if you if you are it sounds like your friend is Just doesn't believe that God can actually save the uttermost that somehow it's up to God to make us cooperate with him.
And he tries and fails and tries and succeeds and all that's all dependent upon us. No, the fact the matter is the only the only way to deal with all of what scripture says in this matter is To avoid the two extremes on the one extreme you have those people who see faith and the entire work of salvation is something that comes from mankind it comes up out of ourselves and.
Every person has the ability to have saving faith and sins really not all that big of a deal. You're not really dead in sin blah blah blah. But since that saving faith comes up from within them they have no ground upon which to believe in perseverance of the Saints because if if you're the one who has to you know, sort of Get that faith going.
Well, you might fall apart. You might not make it and.
Really any other way John could have my friend to be satisfied or isn't that just well.
Your friend's problem isn't with Greek tenses. Your friend's problem is with his own heart. I'm sorry, but anybody who thinks that Who reads the New Testament in an anthropocentric way rather than the theocentric way focused upon man and man's Capacities rather than what God is doing if you can look at John chapter 6 and think that that's all run by man based upon the verb tenses and Miss the fact that it is the father who gives and the result the father's giving is our coming.
It is the father's will for the son of the son lose none of those the son raised them all up on last day. All these things and our coming our present tense coming our present. Are all the results of divine actions if a person can't see that well that that's that's something that's Spiritually brought to someone you you can't force anybody to say you can point to him you can you can point out to the me that that's the only consistent way to see it all through scripture, but You can't you can't shove that down somebody's throat.
You can you can point it out. You can preach it. You can emphasize it you can say without this you're gonna be stuck with work salvation. You're gonna have no no consistent message you're gonna have the conflict between the the Concept of Okay, I'm getting stuff in a in a in a window here.
That's so confusing me, but anyway You're gonna have all that kind of stuff over on the one side or on the other side. Then you're gonna have the libertarians and the people who? Have a have a cheap gospel that say oh no no no no we don't we don't have to do anything at all.
I mean we all you got to do is believe in Jesus. And then you can go and do whatever you want, and you've got your ticket punch you're going to heaven. There's no repentance is no Lordship of Christ. The only way to hold all this together and believe in sola gratia and sola fide and believe Romans 328 as well as James chapter 2 believe it all is if you read the New Testament in a theocentric way rather than Anthropocentric way if you read it if you read it from a man-centered perspective it's a mishmash of Incomprehensible silliness, but if you read it and recognize the gospel is what God is doing.
Then it makes perfect sense it all fits together, and so if you're reading something and one way. It's a mishmash of contradiction, which is what how most liberals and others read it another way you read it, and it's it's this harmonious interwoven consistent beautiful testimony.
Sort of obvious which one you should be reading it as but that's not how people read.
Has to do with our presuppositions, but hyphen John doesn't mean a dwelling in your soul presently. I know that's not right either, but well well.
Why would anyone define eternal life as as Legally ready to enter heaven or something like that. The point is what what is what is Jesus on teaching in John chapter 5? We have already passed out of death into life.
We shall not come into judgment. We've already been judged in Christ Jesus, and we already possess the present present possession eternal life. Yes, it is having fellowship with the triune God. That's part of eternal life.
But having already passed out of death into life and the wrath of God no longer abiding upon us well. How can the wrath of God no longer abide upon us well because of Christ's cross work. Obviously so I mean again You can you can tear things into shreds.
And it sounds like your friend is trying to do that and trying to set certain parts of Scripture against other parts of Scripture. But it also sounds like he's only hearing parts of what the text says and trying to For some text to address things that that they were never intended to address in the first place.
So there's obviously some kind of presupposition Operating in your in your friends theological system. That's overriding biblical exegesis. Okay, thanks, sir. Thanks for calling in today. All right. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number and.
Bottom of the hour, and I think we have Christopher calling in. We'll get to him in just a moment, but we would like to have your phone calls as well at eight seven seven Seven five three three three four one dividing dot line on Skype.
We're gonna take a break and we'll be right back.
Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the Word of God. James White in his book the King James only controversy examines allegations that modern translators Conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true Christian faith in a readable and responsible style.
Author James White traces the development of Bible translations old and new and Investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611. You can order your copy of James White's book the King James only controversy by going to our website at www .aomin .org.
What is dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book chosen, but free a new cult secularism false prophecy scenarios. No, dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism.
He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent Philosophically insufficient and morally repugnant. In his book the potter's freedom James White replies to dr. Geisler. But the potter's freedom is much more than just a reply.
It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed it is a defense of the very gospel itself in a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate.
James White masterfully counters the evidence against so-called extreme Calvinism. Defines what the Reformed faith actually is and concludes that the gospel preached by the Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture.
The potter's freedom a defense of the Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's chosen. But free you'll find it in the reformed theology section of our bookstore at a omen Org, this portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.
The morning Bible study begins at 9 30 a .m. And the worship service is at 10 45. Evening services are at 6 30 p .m. On Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.
You can call for further information at 602 6026 grace. If you're unable to attend you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org. Where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.
How the pilgrims progress? It's not an easy way. It's a journey to the Sun. And.
Welcome back to the dividing line on a Tuesday getting ready to wrap up 2010 and launch into 2011 which promises to be quite the year on every front. I don't know about you, but I'm awful glad I can trust that.
Like I said on Twitter yesterday I think a day before yesterday. I'm all glad I'm not. I'm not an open theist. God knows exactly what's going to be going on in 2011 if he didn't. Anyway, let's talk to Christopher.
Hi Christopher. Hi.
Something on Facebook about The ESA movement where you have Muslims who are claiming that they're Christians and Muslims at the same time. I.
Don't know anything about it. I've heard a few people that have made reference to a kind of movement where people are teaching people to Just join Jesus to Islam and and when you do your prayers Instead of praying to Allah you're praying to Jesus and and to maintain your external Involvement in the Muslim community and things like that.
If that's what you're referring to. I hadn't Seen it referred to as the Lisa movement, but if it is Then there's there's been a lot that has been written on that.
It's not really a big area. I get into because certainly none of the the Muslims I would be debating Would be presenting anything like that and certainly none of the Christians who would be supporting my work and evangelizing Muslims would be Supporting anything like that, but obviously from any from either perspective.
From from either a Muslim or Christian perspective such a movement is just nothing less than reprehensible. I mean, it's it's reprehensible from the Islamic perspective because it's pure hypocrisy and it's reprehensible from the Christian perspective.
Because it's also pure hypocrisy. I mean, it's it's so unbiblical so far removed from what you see in the New Testament that My understanding is that movements similar to that which seek to allow new believers to Not be open about their profession of faith in Christ are almost always linked with exceptionally liberal quote-unquote Christian groups you'd have to because you just you could not take the Bible as a Standard in that situation because when you look at the early church They likewise faced persecution for their profession of faith in Christ and what they do the day that they pretend to be Jews.
Did they pretend to be something else? No. They were open about their profession even Paul's words and I can just hear a few people in the audience. But didn't Paul say I become all things to all men.
He was talking about Voluntarily limiting the expressions of his freedom so as to not cause stumbling to others. He was not talking about pretending to be something that he wasn't so. So I I don't know much more about it than that other than I have heard of movements similar to that and it's just so far removed from from the New Testament that it's It's it's hard to even identify it as a Christian movement.
I'm wondering if that's coming out of the syncretism that would allow people to go to say the Glenn Beck rally and pray with Mormons and Yeah, and Muslims and Christians and still say they're Christian.
Yeah.
I think I think it really does find a lot of its origin in a postmodern way of thought that where there isn't really any objective truth and therefore you have your own truth and as long as you're Being true to your own truth in your heart your external actions aren't overly overly relevant.
So yeah, there is there is a lot of that I think out there and we do we do see a lot of that in Quote-unquote evangelicalism day such as the the Glenn Beck phenomena. Which is in and of itself rather interesting.
Okay, thank you for call I just I just want you to clarify because I like when they when somebody said I was a Muslim and a Christians like.
Something something doesn't compute here. No. No it and it wouldn't for an orthodox Muslim either. I mean I That the Muslims that I enjoy having interaction with the ones that would Be 100 on board with me on this one and they we'd all agree.
That's just not a possibility. That's that's not possible. But at least with them We have a foundation upon which to speak once people get into that mushy middle where there is no foundation left. There is no truth that you can really discuss either on the Islamic or Christian side of things.
That's where I just throw my hands up and say hey this is for somebody else because I God did not give me the patience to deal with people that are like nailing jello to a wall. It just Doesn't work. All righty.
Thank you. Thanks Christopher. All right. God bless. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is The phone number for you to call or dividing dot line Dividing dot line on Skype you may have thought that Christopher was sitting right next to me.
You could hear him tapping on his computer. You could You could hear everything and it's not because Christopher was sitting across from me in the studio here is because he was on Skype and So that's that's the question.
That's the way that you can get in touch with us. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one. Please make your questions apologetically Oriented if at all possible. The next question, I'm not sure is one that I'm going to be really in a position to handle.
But let's go ahead and try it anyways and talk with Dimitri. Hi Dimitri.
Hi, James. Just want to say thank you for your ministry and it's a I had the privilege of watching that you're doing then. Oh, I Got to meet you and got a book signed even.
I'm looking forward to seeing those tapes myself. Well, we have not we haven't heard about that. Yeah, we've been told that they were sent to our post office box and we haven't seen the hide-and-heart of them.
So We're trying to find out where in the world they went because we'd like to make that available. I will hopefully get those.
Yeah, my my question Have to do. I think it's Romans chapter 11. I I'm pretty sure that's what it is. As far as I remember because it's kind of after it in paraphrasing or in my own words. Don't boast unless you also be cut off.
Mm-hmm. And so this is kind of a reformed theology kind of thing. Does that mean that you know that you have these people who were Christians and who were believers and then they have a chance of well.
I think you have to look at the fact this is being addressed to groups and that the the point of what's being said is that While the Jews boasted about their their covenant position and We see in the ministry of Jesus over and over again We are the children of Abraham.
Well, what is Jesus's response when they say we are the children of Abraham? Well, if you were the children of Abraham, then you would do it Abraham did and You would not be seeking to kill me a man has told you the truth and you would believe as Abraham believed and they had become.
When when Promises and and and privileges blessings are announced the natural tendency of mankind is to take advantage of those things and to become Apathetic about those things and to boast about those things and to start looking at oneself as being better than others in light of that and so the Jews had been cut off.
Not in Toto obviously there is a remnant that that that you know Paul himself represents who are the heirs of grace or it always been that remnant God always preserved that remnant down through history, but the point is that Just as the Gentiles had now been engrafted in they had received privileges.
Were not naturally theirs as the children of the promise to Abraham now by faith those promises could be theirs and so you have interestingly enough a warning in Romans 11 that was pretty much completely ignored by the church over the next.
Well in many ways almost 2 ,000 years. Because and when I say the church, I don't necessarily mean the true church. Yeah, but I mean the external church because let's face it. I mean stuff that happened during the Crusades a lot of people don't don't know what happened during the Crusades or the fact that.
That crusading spirit and the inquisition so on so forth was very frequently aimed internally not just at heretics that we would call True believers but also against the Jews and There was there was a tremendous amount of boasting in essence.
That you know were the true church and and you're Christ killers. And so, you know You know Matthew Records your forefathers of saying his blood be upon us and upon our children forever. And so therefore we're gonna behave in this fashion and this whole idea of boasting Was just completely ignored and so the the point of saying Lest you be cut off as well.
Is that a person who is or I should say a people Who like the Jews as a people? Presumed upon God's grace and upon God's blessing and upon God's covenant mercies the way that the Jews had an experience being cut off like themselves.
Will will find themselves in the same situation and you look at all the dead churches and the dead ends that litter history. Where people became complacent? I mean, let's I've got a I've got a map over here on my wall.
You can't normally see it because the door is normally open, but then when the door is closed during the program. It's an old map. This is from like 1991. It's still got the USSR and all that kind of stuff, but the landmasses haven't changed much and it's pretty much Europe North Africa Middle East and part of Russia and and all the way up to.
You know Denmark and Sweden and stuff like that and It's all out of date now, but I it's on the wall. I just don't want to take it there. I pay a lot of money to have that thing made a long time ago. So anyways, I look over at that every once a while during the program and I think about Europe and I think about the Hodgepodge of religiosity that Europe represents, but I think about how there were times that if you were orbiting this planet and What you could see from space was spiritual light.
That there was a time when there were great swaths of light Across that part of the world there really were. Yeah, but if we were there we had the same satellite in orbit now. Oh how dark so many of those places would be.
And I think that's what you've got going on in Romans chapter 11 is do not presume. Do not think that well, you know, we are the offspring of Spurgeon. We are the offspring of Luther. We're the offspring of Calvin.
Do not think in such a fashion for the very ones who think that way will find themselves Without the blessing of God's Spirit. Keeping them in the truth and giving them a passion for truth. And as soon as God withdraws that passion for truth the insatiable desire of man will be for that which is innovation and new and.
Isn't that what's happened in so many of those places? Either there is no longer any interest in religion at all the secularism and France for example. Or the the soul destroying liberalism that constantly flows out of Germany and many of the the higher critical schools in Germany and and What's going on?
And well even Holland in in places that once were so extremely conservative the the Liberalism of the society now, it's just absolutely amazing. So I think that's what's what's going on. There is it's not addressed to individuals so much as it is to entire Peoples as it was the Jews as well as it's a word of the Gentiles.
Do not look at the hardening that has taken place to the Jews and boast against them.
Yeah, that's yeah. When reading that that's what that's the interpretation that I got from and I more understood I mean yet. It's still kind of thing. You know what? Yeah, so maybe have this one person.
That's kind of the other side.
I'm trying to think of oh Man I hate when this happens. I had in fact, I was reading it sitting right where I'm sitting right now in this studio. Not six months ago. Of a book maybe somebody in the channel will know which I'm talking about.
I was reading a book and the last chapter was an exegesis of Romans chapter 11 that has been identified as one of the best around and I can't remember what it was. I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to look around if I can remember.
If I can track it down before I blog today's Program, I'll put it into the I'll put it into the blog entry because I did read that that chapter and it was. It was excellent. It was it was very very good.
So if if I can remember what it was and I'll try to make that notation. Okay? Yeah, that'd be great.
And it's kind of turn 9 where you have the talk about Esau and Jacob and then when it's talking about nations and then then you go to chapter 11 and then Darminian side of notice that position 2 at one point and people even though the context is yeah or body of people.
Interesting. All righty, man. Thanks for your call today. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for calling. I appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 4 1. I never got to these. I've got something to take us right up to the Was it the Israel of God? by by O Palmer Robinson.
I'm gonna have to look it might be it might be. Johnny Mac might be right about that. I'm gonna have to look at that. I think I think he might be right about that but I'll. I'll scan through my books and see if I can see if I can find it and.
Because it was it was a very good exegesis. I do have something to get to here real quick. I totally forgot about doing this. I had a few more basams awadi Clips to throw in and we've got about eight nine minutes and that's about right, too.
So let's cue this back up over there and going back to again, this is a presentation 2008 basams awadi was making on on Christianity and Responding to Christians and this section was primarily interesting because it dealt with textual criticism inspiration things like that.
Let's listen to just a couple more clips here as we have time.
If you get the new international version if you go to these verses. They'll put a footnote and on the footnote below they'll say these verses are doubtful. These verses are not found in the earliest manuscripts.
So imagine you grab a Quran and next to Surah 2 82 it says yeah, that's that verse is doubtful. You're like what's going on here, but they're perfectly okay with that. So that doesn't really bother them.
So.
But the thing is don't bother people like us.
Um, well actually it bothers lots of people that's why there's an entire King James only movement and It's not just an international version. The King James itself had Many thousands of textual notes in it as well when it was initially published.
It's not something as the Salman said before was just something had been discovered 60 years ago or something like that. This has been going on all along but I did want to what I found interesting about that was the fact the matter is the corpus chronicum project is Working on producing a Quran that will have exactly that it'll have exactly those notes.
When it gets to Surah 2 222 it will give the variant readings that are found there and the fact that they're that the Ibn Masud reading is Is completely different in the sense that it is is not just a synonym or something.
But it is different word order in different forms the verbs and and and the whole nine yards. And it's gonna have to be there in the margins. There's gonna have to be a critical Apparatus just as we have a critical apparatus in the Ness Yoland 28th edition of the Greek New Testament of the United Bible Society's edition or The CN TTS or whatever you might have access to and so what's gonna happen then?
Don't you want to have that information you see I fully understand the mindset of people like Basam Zawadi at this point. Well, I just but he knows that there are variants there if you've heard his debate with Nabil Qureshi, he knows that they're there and so he knows that you could create a critical edition of the Quran If people just get around to doing it.
So I'm not sure why he makes that exact comment.
What would they say to you they would say okay mark 16 9 through 20, what does it talk about anyways? It talks about Jesus resurrecting the resurrecting from the dead, which is important thing. So they would say we don't need mark 16.
We already have the other three Gospels which talk about that. It's kind of like me saying Who cares about ayatul kursi it talks about the oneness of God. Which talks about the oneness of God so we don't really need ayatul kursi for who cares if it's doubtful.
So that's the same logic that they're using but the point you're trying to make is this. The point is These verses have been in your Bible for centuries and they've gone Undetected by the whole Christian society as being forgeries and yet today you're finding out that they are false verses.
So, how do we know that there are not other verses there which you have not detected yet?
Now again, this seems to be based upon Bassam's Faulty thinking that textual criticism just developed over the past 60 years and And again that that takes us back to 1948 which the Dead Sea Scrolls, I guess I don't know.
It doesn't really make any sense to me. There certainly has been an explosion of study in the textual critical areas over the past 200 years and They discovered the papyri in Egypt at the beginning of the 20th century.
Very very important along those lines, too. But none of that. I don't think the discovery of the papyri really introduced any textual variant We didn't already know about. It may have changed what we thought about textual variants by demonstrating that the earlier unsealed manuscripts were indeed representing an earlier form of the text but This idea that that these verses had been running around and at least Christian scholars were completely ignorant of it just shows a great ignorance of the history of the New Testament text which Would not only afflict Bassam, but the vast majority of Evangelicals as well.
Sadly, that's why again I can at least on this on this level say I've been beating this drum for a long time. We were we were talking about unpopular stuff like this.
A.
Way way way way way back a long time ago. This is a fairly long clip and it should pretty much run us out of time. Here's just just not so much to refute this but just to give you a little bit of the taste of mindset.
You guys understand the point I was trying to make but definitely they don't believe in the inspiration of the Bible like We'll believe in the inspiration of the Quran. We believe that the Quran Verbatim word by word is from God.
They don't believe that and the thing is that Christians differ on the meaning of Inspiration of Scripture now, for example, some Christians will believe that all Christians will tell you human beings wrote the Bible.
They won't they're not going to dispute that but they will dispute how it was done. Some of them would say as the human beings were writing the books God was communicating to them and dictating to them what to write.
Some of them would say no that didn't happen. It was only God Inspiring the human being the human beings in a way in which they were able to write with accuracy. Some of them would say no He's only inspiring them to communicate the main message.
So there could be mistakes in The in the Bible, but God is inspiring me to communicate the main message. Which is Jesus got crucified Jesus got resurrected, etc. So you have Christians that believe in biblical inerrancy meaning there is no mistake in the Bible and You have Christians who don't believe in that.
They'll tell you yeah, I know that there's contradictions in the Bible. There's several well-respected Bible commentators. They would say yeah over here. Did you Jesus a story of the parable? In mark, it's contradicting with Matthew.
These are Christians. These are not non-christians. So but they don't believe that the Bible is Inerrant. Some Christians would say we only believe that the original copy has no mistakes. But then when the scribes took the originals and made copies out of them, they made mistakes, but that's a very weak argument.
That's a very weak argument that argument might work on that example. I gave besides of putting 4 ,000. You might put an extra zero 40 ,000, but there's other clear examples where it's not a scribal mistake.
It's clearly a deliberate and there's and you can see the motive behind why the person changed it. But we're not going to go into detail contradictions now, but so.
Just just simply to give you an idea, you know. The apologetic task would be a whole lot easier if all Christians were actually, you know. Actually believe what the Bible had to say. You know poor Basam has to go through this whole long thing because yeah, you're gonna especially over in England and places like that.
You're gonna end here. I mean if you run into some, you know, United Methodist guy, you know down at the bus stop Who who you know goes that United Methodist Church down on Indian school, you know with goddess worship and everything else.
Yeah, you're gonna run into some pretty wild stuff and some real weird views the Bible. I just don't think that most Muslims however are overly consistent at this point if people had a view of the Quran.
That that Muhammad was not a was just one just had some enlightened ideas wasn't truly called by guys a prophet that the Quran really isn't. Or would you really call them a Muslim and. So why are they so quick to identify as Christians people who compromise on those very foundational issues?
That really is a question that I often bring up to them. We are going to do I guess haven't been told why okay? We are going to do an early dividing line on Thursday again. I guess it's just the holiday season.
So we'll be back at this time Thursday morning. I'll make sure to blog that. We'll see you then.
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