April 10, 2012

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 at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line on a Tuesday morning, going to get to the mailbag today and your calls as well, 877 -753 -3341, or dividing .line

via Skype, if I can get the phone thing working because it says

Google Chrome could not connect to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's not even trying anymore, unfortunately.

We have a technical difficulty. It just it says it ain't there. It's not even on the planet.

So I have no access to the phones. So we'll have to do some other way of doing it unless our highly paid broadcast professionals can figure out why that just doesn't work anymore for me.

And if they can, then we can figure that out. Hopefully, by the time

I have to get around to doing that, maybe we will see. I'll try bringing up a different browser, possibly, or who knows what,

I don't know. But anyhow, good to be with you. I was in Cincinnati over the course of the weekend, and I had a great time there.

For those of you who know Lane Chaplin and Susan Yenser, I officiated at their wedding, and that was a great honor.

I felt very small. I've never, ever, ever seen as tall a woman as Susan's maid of honor.

Never. When I first saw her, I'm like, no way. No. But she was wearing these big pumps, these big heels, and she did not need them.

Let me assure you, she did not need them because with them on, she was seven feet tall.

And so she's staying right to my right. I'm just sort of like, I mean, there's more than a foot, you know?

It's like, wow, that's, mm -hmm, okay. But anyway, had a great time with them.

Many of you have benefited from Lane's YouTube channel. He has a lot of Paul Washer's stuff and stuff like that.

And so you know Lane, and we've known that this wedding was coming eventually.

It just took a while to get there, that's all. And it was really an honor for it to be the one to pronounce them as husband and wife and all that kind of stuff.

And it was great. So great to see two young Christian people joined together in marriage in that way, and that was a great thing.

Then we got to speak at First Baptist Church of Mount Healthy. Mount Healthy.

Everybody has a question. What is Mount Healthy? How does a mount get named healthy?

How does that happen? Well, it's actually on their website, and someone told me about it. I guess back in the 1850s or something, there was a cholera epidemic.

And for some reason, it only affected the people down the valley and not up on the mountain.

So it became known as Mount Healthy because the people on the mountain were healthy and the people down in the valley were sick.

So it became Mount Healthy. Well, yeah, I don't know.

Maybe all the people in the valley moved up to the people on the mountain, I don't know. But anyway, that's how it got named

Mount Healthy. So anyways, I did the Good Friday service there, and then I spoke with the youth on Saturday concerning the reliability of the text of the

New Testament, and I did a Common Objections to the

Resurrection presentation on Sunday morning. So I did some ministry while there, but the main reason we were there was for the wedding of Lane and Sue, who are now happily married.

Do you think I can see that from here? PM. Yeah, I know that scrolls and I can't see it very well, but I did see that.

But yeah, the phones are dead because neither of my systems even...

It's not even... Evidently, it's no longer connected to the net, the internal network at all.

So as soon as you hit it, it doesn't say anything other than it's not there.

There is no .120 anymore. So evidently, it's using a different IP address now or something.

I don't know, but I can't get to it. So that is something that we will need to put on the...

Let's not forget to fix this by the time we do the next program list of things to do because it's been happening a lot and it needs to stop.

Let's... Yes. I'll get right on replacing the stack then. Okay. Well... It's probably about $2 ,000.

Well, I don't really think it needs to be replaced. I think it needs to know which IP it's supposed to be on or something.

It may have moved. I mean, you said we had a surge and it knocked out one of the cameras.

So maybe it confused it. Except it was off during the surge. Yeah, well... And it's on now.

Okay. Well, my system says it's not where it's supposed to be anymore. I'm looking at it through my Windows unit there, but your

Mac unit over there can't see it anywhere. Well, it probably doesn't have anything to do with that.

But anyways, in the mailbag, we have some interesting emails that have been sent in.

And I rarely have time to write lengthy email responses to folks.

I try to look through. And if there is a way of making it educational to other folks, then

I will try to do so. And so, for example, we have someone who has written in from across the pond.

And he was talking with a Muslim friend, which happens a lot.

Some of you saw on Twitter on my trip back from Cincinnati, I had two different opportunities the same day to talk with Muslims.

One was the cab driver from Morocco, who was driving me from the church to the

Cincinnati airport. And we had a very interesting conversation. And then

I had brand new shoes. I bought some brand new shoes, very comfy. But they didn't really have a nice shine on them when they come out of the box.

I guess because they've got some silicone stuff on them or something like that. I don't know. So I want to get a shoe shine. At the only place to do that is in an airport.

And I come around a corner and lo and behold, there's a guy and there's no line.

So I go over and tell him, you know, I've got these shoes. And he starts working on them. And I notice his shirt and his name on his shirt is

Malik. And so I'm like, hmm. And so I start the conversation.

And it was a very good conversation, very useful conversation with Malik at the end.

And he did a great job. If you are looking for a great shoe shine in the Charlotte International Airport over...

Where was that? That's between... It's sort of over toward the

TSA entrance between B and C. No, no, no, no, no.

Oh, it's just past where the Chili's is, where all the restaurants are in the middle, where the rocking chairs are, if that tells you anything.

I think it's B and C concourses, if I recall correctly. But it might be C and D.

I don't know. Anyway, that's where he was. And he did a great job. I mean, I even compared them with...

I got two pairs and I got compared to the other one. Not even a beginning of a comparison.

Did a great job. So anyways, we had a great conversation as well. So these things come up. So here's a guy over in the

UK. And he's speaking with a

Muslim. And he says, during the discussion, he asked me about when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane.

And when he pleaded out to God to see if there was any other way for salvation and the blood covenant to happen rather than crucifixion.

Well, that's... Boy, there is a large insertion of theology into that we'll have to deal with.

His argument was that Jesus could not be part of the Trinity, just a holy man or a prophet. As if he was all -knowing and all -powerful, he wouldn't be asking

God for other possibilities. He would already know the answer. It seemed to him that this was a manly act, not a godly one.

He further argued that Jesus was, in this way, subordinate to God the Father, as if he was asking permission. I would like to hear your thoughts on this.

I may not have the best understanding of the scripture of the Trinity, but your help would be gladly appreciated. Well, it is very common for Muslims to raise objections based upon the prayers of the

Lord Jesus in the Garden. Partly because they have the wrong idea of what the

Trinity is. They have a tritheistic viewpoint rather than a

Trinitarian viewpoint. They think we are tritheists and they think that we believe in many gods and all the rest of that stuff.

And so that leads them to a general misunderstanding at that point. But also because they do not understand the sin -bearing that the

Lord Jesus undertakes and that he was fully aware, fully aware of what it was that he was going to be doing in taking on the sins of the world.

He who knew no sin was going to be made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

And that becomes really the issue that needs to be addressed.

The Muslim simply does not have the background at that point to really understand what's going on in the

Garden. And so they view Jesus in a way there that is inaccurate and you have to somehow overcome that particular problem.

They don't have an understanding that there is a need for atonement.

They don't have an understanding that there is a need for substitution. So all these things come together and they're interpreting, therefore, that particular text of Scripture in a foreign context.

And so if someone were to raise that objection to me, I would say, well, first of all, you need to realize that Jesus is the

God -man. And as he was a perfect man, the idea of coming under the wrath of the

Father, he was not afraid of death. There's been many a man who has gone to his death bravely.

There's been many a man who knew in the upcoming battle or whatever else it might be that he was going to probably lose his life.

And there have been many who have engaged in that in a perfectly brave fashion.

And unless you're going to accuse Jesus of being a coward—and I have actually, believe it or not, had a few amazingly odd Muslims who have made that accusation, which is a sad one, but it has happened—unless you're going to make that type of accusation, then clearly

Jesus' words do not indicate some fear of the beating or the crucifixion.

What is it that causes the Lord Jesus to cry out in the garden the way that he does, and yet to say, not my will but thine be done, and to go through?

I mean, he knew this was coming. He had already prophesied this to the disciples. It is necessary, he said, that the

Son of Man go to Jerusalem. He'd be betrayed in the hands of the leaders, and that he'd be crucified and buried and rise again the third day.

It was part and parcel of what he had told the disciples, and the disciples had rejected it.

I mean, remember, that was Peter's statement of, you know, may it never be, far be it,

Lord. And what does Jesus say to Peter? Get behind me. Get behind me, Satan. You're not mine, the things of God, but the things of men.

And so he had prophesied this. He knew this was coming. He knew that it was absolutely necessary. And yet to be the holy

Son of God, who has had perfect communion with the

Father for eternity, and yet to then become the object of the wrath of God for every sin, for every vile thought and action of everyone who believes in Christ, for all of God's people to be laid upon him, all of the elect's sin laid upon the sinless

Son of God. Certainly, certainly that would be something that if Jesus was truly the

God -Man, he wouldn't just go walking into that without concern.

It wouldn't be just something, ah, well, hey, you know, I'm God, I can do anything. No, he's the God -Man. And to become the object of God's wrath, what a, the

Father's wrath, what a tremendous, tremendous thing that would be. And so there is the prayer, and there is that struggle, and there is the sweat as if blood.

It doesn't say it was blood. It was as if he was, he was, he was laboring so in prayer, not trying to change the

Father's mind, but in light of what was about to happen.

And I just don't think that, well, I don't think most Christians have ever, well, no Christian has ever plumbed the depth of the great exchange of, of the, you know, he who knew no sin being made sin in my behalf that I might become the righteous of God in him.

I mean, that is a theme and a subject that we will be pondering for eternity to come, the great condescension that is seen there.

And so if we don't even have an appropriate appreciation and probably do not spend the kind of time that we should contemplating that particular aspect of our own redemption, it would be something that should take up our mind regularly.

Then certainly we can understand that the Muslim will not have that kind of a mindset either, unfortunately.

And unfortunately, if we do not contemplate it, if it is not something that's precious to us, we will struggle to explain it to the

Muslim. But on the positive side, there can be a tremendous benefit in expressing the great condescension and love of God, the triune

God, to a Muslim, especially when you can make it personal.

When you can say, you know, he's talking to this Muslim who is, I can tell it's from the

UK because he says, my Muslim flatmate. That does not mean that he lays flat.

That means his roommate for those of us on this side of the pond. To explain to him that my very eternal life, my acceptance with God, my forgiveness, my adoption in the family of God, all of this is based upon what

Jesus Christ did for me. That allows you the opportunity of answering the question, answering the objection and saying, what else would you expect from the

God man? Because again, really what's behind this is a fundamental rejection of the incarnation, not so much anything else.

It's just, you know, I mean, you'll see the same kind of objections coming from Abdullah Kunda in our debate in Sydney.

Well, the practical ramifications are this doesn't fit into our paradigm because we don't allow for a paradigm where there could be such thing as the

God man, where there can be such a situation as where God takes on perfect human nature.

But if that happened for the purpose of the voluntary self -giving of the

Son in the place of God's people, so that they might have eternal life, would he not see that experience as, well, the very pinnacle of the incarnation, the pinnacle of his purpose in coming, and to be something of a tremendous challenge to experience the wrath of the

Father? I mean, if he just went waltzing into that, if there wasn't a garden,

I would say that would be more of an objection. When you think about it, I mean, if there was, if Jesus just came walking into that, like, well,

I'm going to Jerusalem now, guys, this is what's going to happen, but hey, don't worry about it. In fact, you know, let's play some games tonight.

Let's not worry about it because, you know, I'm God. I can just—no, that would be an objection. That would be—that would show a lack of seriousness and a lack of depth to the actual understanding of what's going on.

And so this is not an argument against Jesus being a deity.

And how would I respond to it? I would point out that Jesus prophesied this, the nature of what he was going to undertake, that he struggled with truly taking on the sins of his people as you would expect any perfectly holy person to do.

But it was not a matter of—how did I put it here? As if he was all -knowing and all -powerful, he wouldn't be asking

God for other possibilities. He would already know the answer. Well, it's not a matter of knowing the answer.

It's not a matter that he didn't know that in the eternity past, the Father, Son, and Spirit had chosen this as the one way by which the triune

God would be glorified. But again, if you are perfectly holy and you have had unbroken, perfect communion with the

Father for all of eternity, and now the wrath due to all of the impurity and unholiness and unrighteousness of man was going to fall upon you, how else would a godly man respond but in prayer and to cry out as Jesus did?

And so I would express that reality and go to 2 Corinthians 5 .21, the explanation of what the result of that is, and then use that as an opening to then present the gospel and the absolute necessity.

And you know what I would finish with? I would say, if Jesus' words here are true, and if the

Father lays upon the Son the wrath due to all of God's people, could there possibly be any other way of salvation?

If there's some other way, then you are saying that what the Father did to the

Son here was absurd. Isn't that Paul's point in Galatians? He says, if righteousness come by any means, then

Christ died needlessly. It was a charade.

And so I would press the Muslim at that point and say, think about it.

If this really is what you have going on here, then the idea that there can be any other way or the idea that it could be a simple matter of just, well, you know, you just trust in God and that's all that's necessary and you don't have to worry about it.

No, this must be the only way.

This must be the only way of salvation. And that is how

I would respond to that. Well, look at that. I have a connection, but it's no longer allowing me to have a username.

Let me give you a Windows machine that will hold the connection. Well, no, it's got a connection, but... Yeah, for now. And that's not a problem because the

Windows machine will hold it. That's not an issue for a Windows machine. Timing is everything.

I have a nice connection up right now. Thank you very much. On my Mac machine here, y 'all need to forgive

Rich. He clearly has a very bad case of Mac envy and it's a sad thing to see, but we've all seen it.

I, you know, I was once one of those that walked in darkness and now I've seen a great light.

And so we'll go from there. Yeah, well, when that fails, just look to your right and you'll see the

Mac, that the Windows machine still holds it without any sweat. You know, no timing issues. It really doesn't.

Since this has worked very, very well in the past, then clearly something has happened in the network because everything is still working just fine.

Really, when was the last time you got a Mac upgrade or change or modification?

No, that never happens. Not nearly as often as Windows does it, buddy. Let me tell you.

Again, it drops a whole lot more often than that. Let me tell you. Look at that screen over there. It's still on.

Yeah, so is mine. Okay. So is mine right in front of me here. Anyway, before we go to the phone calls and try to help

Rich to get over his Mac envy, I have another one here that I wanted to get to.

There's one longer one, one short one. Let me do a short one right now. Then we'll take the call. Then we'll go with the long one, depending on how many folks get online at 877 -753 -3341 or dividing .line

via Skype. This one, I don't know. It's so short that it's hard to read things into it.

But I just sort of wonder where the author is coming from. This is the whole email.

Regarding your view on James the Just and his role in the early church, from what I have read, it looks as if he presided over the

Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. Do you agree that he held a position of authority? Yeah.

In fact, when I debated Jerry Matitix back in... When was that?

When was Denver? That was 93? Okay. So we're coming up on the...

Are we coming up on the 20th? Oh my goodness. 20 years ago? Man, I'm really...

Could you get me some Geritol, Rich? You got to have some extra because you're older than me. Wow, man.

We're coming up on... We got to do some special 20th anniversary special edition of that or something.

I mean, seven and a half hours with Jerry Matitix. And you know what bums me out the most?

We didn't take a picture of his desk after the second night of that debate. Oh, do you remember it?

Oh my goodness. I forget. I was standing there talking. Was I talking to you?

I was talking with somebody else. Oh, was it him? Okay. We're standing there. We're up on the stage of this

Presbyterian Church, second night of this debate we did in 1993 in Denver with Jerry Matitix. First night was the

Denver Seminary. Second night was this Presbyterian Church. And I hate to tell you this, but a live update screen just popped up on your

Windows machine. Yeah. But is Stack still there?

Uh -huh. Yeah. The ACES live update wants to do a bunch of stuff.

That's the machine, that's not Windows. Yeah. Anyway. And we're standing there after the debate, and we look over at Jerry's...

Now, Jerry Matitix today. And the split had already pretty much happened with Catholic Answers.

It had started. It had started. And today,

Jerry Matitix is running around. He goes to holiday inns, and he talks to half a dozen people about the

Illuminati and all the conspiracy stuff. And he has just gone so far out into the woods that even his

Roman Catholic friends have no idea where he is on the radar screen any longer. Yes. Oh, well, you put the microphone in front of you.

I was just going to chime in after you told the story and ask you, you remember when we ran into Carl on the street? It was in between.

Yes. Oh, yes. Yes. Was he with Patrick? I think he was. Was that Patrick with him? Yes. And they had been talking to some

Seventh -day Adventist or something. Right. And then, of course, they were debating... Who was it they were debating?

They debated... But they wouldn't have anything to do with you for a debate during that time. Right. They debated Jackson and Nemec.

Yes. Remember? In the great disaster of Denver. Oh, yeah. Oh, that was one of the most painful debates.

Which they, I think, fully well knew that was... They knew exactly what they were doing. They better believe they did. Oh, no question about it.

But anyway, we're standing there after the debate. And they had set...

They were like six -foot tables, just your standard sort of... And you have in churches, you have six -foot tables everywhere.

And each one of us had had one. And I'm standing there talking with... I think it was

Tim Filibaugian. And I've already packed all my stuff up. I had...

This was before I had digital copies of the early church fathers and stuff like that, even though I'd still like to get the

Logos version of that. I've only got PDFs. But anyway, and so there's a...

My silver metal book bag and another book bag are on the edge of the table.

The chair's pushed in. And that's all there is. And then you look over at Jerry's table.

There is... You can see about two square feet of the top of the table.

Everywhere else, there are books open on other books that are open.

And yellow pieces of paper everywhere. And then under his desk, this was what caught my attention.

Under his desk on the floor, the only spot that is... Where you can see the carpet directly under his desk, that's not covered with yellow notebook paper and books and bags and everything else is where his feet were.

It is a disaster area. And he's standing there talking to somebody and I'm standing there and I sort of look over at him and he sees me looking at his stuff.

And he says to me, he says, okay, you win the organization part or the debate or something along those lines.

It was absolutely hilarious. It's one of those things I've just never forgotten.

Anyway, I brought out the issue of James as part of my argumentation because Peter was at that council.

And it is clear that James is the one who gives the decision of the council.

I have argued that in Acts chapter 15, he's the only one that uses the imperative voice and all the rest of this stuff.

And so I've not had any problems whatsoever in pointing out that James had authority in that context, including when

Peter is there. But if Peter was viewed as the way Rome says he was viewed at that time, then how could that possibly be?

How could that follow? And so, yes,

James had, I mean, we had bishops and churches. And my suggestion to whoever it was that wrote this question would be, look especially at the debate that I did with Mitch Pacwa on the subject of the

Roman Catholic priesthood. Because we went into a fair amount of detail on the subject of what the offices of the church, what the officers and offices and officers of the church were.

And so I think it would be important to maybe take a look at that. That would be of help to you. So that was the short one.

The longer one sort of takes us away from this particular subject. And Greg in Texas has a subject that's be relevant here.

So let's talk to Greg in Texas. Hi, Greg. Hey there, Dr. White, how are you?

Doing good. Yeah, I have a question. I've been studying

Roman Catholicism not too long ago. I just started. And it's funny because I ran into some

Roman Catholics. We're friends now. And it just really encouraged me to study the subject more.

And I come from a Roman Catholic perspective. But I've been really struggling on where to start studying

Roman Catholicism as a apologetic way. Well, a couple things.

You need to have a—you can get a fairly basic setup of books that you need from the

Roman Catholic perspective. You need to have their resources. You need to have the Universal Catholic Catechism. You need to have the documents of Vatican II.

There's a compendium book that comes with Vatican II.

It's the documents cited by Vatican II. It's another big honking thing. You need to have

Trent and you need to have some good church history material, such as Schaff's work, especially as he deals with Vatican I and the issue of papal infallibility and stuff like that.

But I would say as far as subjects goes, every subject you're going to address—I mean, you can go into the

Marian dogmas. You can go into the Eucharistic sacrifice. You can go into the concept of the priesthood.

You can go into purgatory. You can go into the papacy and history and all of these issues.

And every single time—I don't care who you're debating or what the context is—you're eventually going to get back to the fundamental issue, which is

Sola Scriptura versus Sola Ecclesia. Yeah, that's something I realized right off the bat.

And I bought a book called The Sheep of Sola Scriptura, and that's a really good book so far.

It's been helping me out a lot. Yeah, it's helpful. I think that you need to—some of the issues it raises regarding Solo versus Sola I don't necessarily agree with, especially the view of tradition that it presents.

I think that you need to—I would recommend the three -volume set that we have available by David King and William Webster.

I think I just bought that. Okay, good. The other day. Yeah, it's only 1 ,100 pages, so I get to that right away.

But it is a good—obviously, especially the third volume is primarily for resource, but the first two volumes,

I would recommend working through all of them because that's extremely helpful. And then there are classic works from history that are excellent, such as George Salmon's work,

The Infallibility of the Church, which—do we have—I don't—was

Infallibility of the Church reprinted? Do we have that in our bookstore or not? Don't think so. But we have—what's the one that we do have from—no, not the

Holy Scripture one. Name's escaping me. I know it's out there on the shelf, so I know it's in our thing.

It's a great Puritan scholar, and it's just blown right out of my mind, unfortunately.

There's an excellent—I'll look it up eventually. Whittaker, thank you. Farshad and Channel helped me out.

Whittaker's Disputation in Holy Scripture. There we go. Okay, okay. If you've got

Whittaker, Salmon, and the Webster King stuff, you've got a real good start there as far as dealing with the development of doctrine and history.

Unfortunately, no matter what you do in dealing with Roman Catholicism, church history is exceptionally important, especially the early period.

And so there's a number of, like, Chadwick's book on the history of the early church and stuff like that.

And you'll discover the early church is a mixed bag. I mean, just like today, you've got people that are really solid and people that are not all that really solid.

Well, you had the same thing in the early church. And unfortunately, most Roman Catholics have a very unrealistic and ahistorical and, in a way, forcibly anachronistic view of the early church.

And I guess I need to explain, because I don't think I've ever used that phrase before, but I think it's a good phrase. Forcibly anachronistic means that because of the later development of the doctrine of the infallibility of the church, and in particular the infallibility of the

Pope, once Rome says, you know, makes statements that, in her documents when she defines things, she will often say things along the lines of, as the church has always taught, or as the fathers have always said.

Well, what that means is, if you accept that authority, then that's what you have to find in the early fathers, whether they actually believe that or not.

And so it's a forcibly anachronistic interpretation to where, especially when it comes to the nature of Christ's presence in the supper, you have just an amazing amount of reading back into history concepts that just simply had no place in that original context.

You just – they can't help it. They have to do it because of the definitions that have been provided by the

Roman hierarchy. But fundamentally, you will need to really understand what Sola Scriptura is and what it is not, because it is almost never accurately represented by Roman Catholic apologists.

And you will have to avoid defending perspectives on that that we don't actually hold, because you will often have, again,

Roman Catholic apologists trying to force you to do that. But then it is also helpful to recognize that there's a bunch of garbage out there from non -Roman

Catholics on the subject of Roman Catholicism. So there's – basically, if it's a cartoon,

I'd avoid it. Okay? You get the hint there? You know? Yeah, yeah. If it's written in cartoon form, you might want to look for something a little more substantive than that.

Solid. Yeah, a little more solid than that. Yes, sir? What were the names of the authors, you said?

George Salmon. This one we don't have. I wish we did. But George Salmon's book, The Infallibility of the

Church, was very useful to me. It's well written, and really, it was written at the time of Cardinal Newman in England, and it's very well done.

They've tried to write some responses to it, but I don't think they did a very good job. And then Whitaker's book,

Disputations in Holy Scripture, I believe it's called, that we do have at almn .org.

What's that? On Holy Scripture. Thank you. And we have that available.

Ours actually is the condensation, the one -volume condensation, I believe. It's – oh, it's thick, I know. But the original is four volumes.

So it's – you can still get that in some places, but I don't think it's currently in print.

You might have to find it online or something like that. But if you've got Whitaker, Salmon, and the

Webster King set, you've got a real good start there. A real good start there. All right, well, thank you.

I also heard that you're – well, maybe another question if there's not that many people. Yeah, no, no, they're just beating down the door, but you go ahead.

I also heard you're going to be doing the Psalms 119 conference? Yes, yes.

Over here, close by? Yep, in Texas, yes. And I'll be doing a debate the day before.

So I need – in fact, that just crossed my mind. We need to get that information to Micah for a banner ad real quick, because it's coming up,

I think – what is that, September? I think it's – is it in September? Is that when the

Psalm 119 conference is? No, it's on October. Is it – it's in October? Okay, all right.

Yeah. I don't have my calendar in front of me, so I will have to get that information. All I know is

I'm going to be home like four days in October. The way it's going, I'm going to be very, very, very, very busy in October.

It's going to be really, really amazing. October 8th is whatever is saying. So yeah, so Psalm 119 conference, and then the day before the conference,

I'll be doing a debate on oneness theology. So that – we need to get a banner ad put together for that, and get it at the same church where the conference is being held.

So that'll be – Oh, okay. I heard the church is going to be my church.

I was just making sure, because I didn't remember. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. So we'll be having a debate there the day before, and then the conference as well.

So yep, going to be heading down there. Heading down there, and like I said, going to be a really, really, really busy month.

All right, well, thank you very much. Okay, well, thank you for your call, Greg. Have a good day. All right, God bless. Yeah, you know, it's funny that Greg would ask that question, because yesterday, or the day before, one of the two,

I listened to – it would be yesterday. It couldn't have been the day before.

Time is melding together here. Yesterday, I listened to – I had been told that –

I don't know when this happened. It was within the past two, three months. Over at Phoenix Seminary, an interesting conversation took place between one of the primary promoters of the free grace position, which

I identify as the anti -lordship, no -repentance, Dr. Wilkins perspective, and Dr.

Grudem. And a lot of people ask me, how can Dr. Grudem teach when there's such major differences in the staff on really fundamental issues?

And I'm like, I don't know. You'd have to ask him. I don't answer for him.

But there was a conversation in a class, and a number of the students had MP3 recorders going.

And so I got to listen to this impromptu debate between Dr.

Che and Dr. Grudem. And I was tempted to play sections, but I didn't necessarily know if that would be appropriate.

So I decided not to. But I was struck by many, many things.

I was struck by Dr. Che's insistence that the Gospel of John is to be given definitional preeminence in defining what faith is.

And since John doesn't use the term repent, that therefore repentance is not necessary.

And that Matthew is not a book about how one gains eternal life.

So, you know, I mean, just this real clear setting up of a system of what seemed to me to be just real obvious eisegesis.

You know, clearly having a paradigm that is determining. So that, for example, First John, and you all know

First John and James are two books that those who promote the law and lordship perspective, they just have to turn themselves inside out to try to find a way around these books.

Because the language is just so clear. You know, if you claim to walk in the light and you hate your brother, you don't have life in you.

There's something, you know, regeneration actually has results. And they are just so intent upon saying, no, no, no, no.

Remember when I debated Wilkins, the gymnastics that he engaged in to try to get around First John 2.

And it's plain and obvious teaching that the work of regeneration involves the entirety of man.

We are saved by faith, but not by a faith that is ever alone. And the one thing that did bother me, and toward the end, at least

Dr. Grudem did sort of make this, but I really felt that it was not as useful a conversation because Dr.

Grudem didn't do this from the start. But what bugged me all the way through was the fact that the focus was upon how we, as individuals, determine whether a person's a

Christian or not, and, you know, how many sins can you commit before you're not really a Christian anymore. And a bunch of the conversation was all about if you had a person that comes into your office as a pastor and he's swearing up a storm and he's visiting prostitutes, but he wants to get baptized, would you baptize him?

Because he heard your sermon the week before about free grace. He says, that sounds great, I want that.

And so he's prayed the prayer, so would you baptize him? Because if you don't, then you're expecting some kind of, you're adding something to faith.

And the free gracer says there's nothing to be added to faith, see? And it was all about, well, how much, you know?

You know, where do you draw the line? It was all focused on the man. There wasn't any discussion about the fact that, fundamentally, the gospel is

God -centered. It's about God's decree. It's about God's accomplishment. And it was all based on this other stuff, and it was very, very frustrating to me that it just wasn't, it was not placed on the wrong, it was not placed on the right foot from the very beginning.

But, you know, the whole thing that he was presenting, that, well, First John, you know, you can't really make application to that because First John is about fellowship, and it's not actually about being in Christ.

You can be in Christ, but not have fellowship with God. And the student's going, wait a minute, it says, but it says you do not know him.

I mean, the students could tell that there was just something really surface level about what

Che was saying when it came to First John. It just struck me as being very, very obvious. But the reason

I mention this in light of the last call, was later on, after Che left the room, the issue of Roman Catholicism came up.

And one of the students in the class basically said, well, you know, I just look at Roman Catholics like they're just, you know, just sort of like liberal

Protestants. I just let them be. I don't think there's any need to evangelize them.

And the topic of the class was supposed to be

Roman Catholic view of justification. And again, what bothered me, and this was the same thing, the same criticism

I had of C. Michael Patton, they look at the

Roman Catholic doctrine of justification as if you can atomize all this stuff, and it's a separate subject from the subject of the sacraments, the mass, the whole nine yards.

It's like, well, you know, Rome's a little off on justification, but you know, these guys over here are too, and it's no big deal, and la, la, la, la.

They don't see the connectedness. They don't see the connectedness. And it just reminded me that what we said a couple of weeks ago in response to C.

Michael Patton needs to be repeated over and over again. I just see so many people that just don't get the idea.

The gospel is the heart, and at the heart of the conflict with Rome is the gospel.

Now, to defend that, you have to deal with sola scriptura and the papacy and all the rest of that stuff. Yeah, but it all comes back to the gospel.

Rome's gospel does not give peace. It has no finished work. That is just absolutely vital.

It's absolutely central to the issue. And so it was troubling to hear that come up in the conversations that took place as well.

Okay, I need to get to this rather longer question here, because I said

I would, and so I've only got less than 10 minutes to do so. Here is, again, it's an

Islam question. And it says, Recently, one of the Muslims I was debating with pointed me towards events described in the

Old Testament, which were very hard to explain in light of the gospel. Now, I do know there are some very tough issues in the

Old Testament which are hard to explain, especially so when viewed from today's perspective. But I always could. God has punished nations for their sins, spared others when they repented from sin.

He has revealed his will and his law and never acts arbitrarily. But now I come across the destiny of Lot in respect to his daughters.

I know that whatever he does is just, and who am I to question his justice, but I can't explain that Lot's behavior has not only not been punished, but not even mentioned as being questionable.

Instead, he has the status of a role model, Luke 17, 2

Peter 2. Can you explain this issue to me? I really want to understand. It's not about winning a debate. It's really a personal matter.

And, of course, we're talking here about Lot and his daughters. They get him drunk, and you have the incest taking place, this after the angels basically drag

Lot and his family out of Sodom and so on and so forth.

Now, when it's said that, you know, Lot is described as righteous

Lot, but I'm afraid that sometimes that is taken in a way that is not appropriate.

Let me give you some background as to why a Muslim would raise this issue. The Muslims believe that to be a prophet, to be one sent by God, you have to, well, some

Muslims are going to say, so far as to basically be sinless or at least free of all serious sin. For them, the authority of the message is directly linked to and dependent upon the righteousness of the person himself.

So that's why the Quran, in essence, cleans up the stories of the

Bible. And it all comes from this presupposition, this assumption that the authority of a message is dependent upon the character of the individual.

Now, Scripture, the New Testament says, and this depends, there's a textual variant here, and I think this is where a textual variant matters.

Peter described the coming of Scripture as men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. Now, if you've memorized that in the King James, it's holy men spoke from God.

But I don't think that's a proper translation. It's men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. You see, in the Christian concept, the authority of what is written is not based upon the character of the one through whom it came.

There were some people that God used that were unsavory characters.

I mean, well, once he used a donkey. Obviously, that had nothing to do with the character of the donkey.

But the issue is that if it's Scripture, it is theanoustos, it comes from God.

It is the being carried along by the Holy Spirit that is the issue, not the holiness of the person.

And so, for example, Muslims have a real problem. Solomon, how could he have had 700 wives and 300 concubines?

And how could his heart have been turned away? And that's just not possible. And so the Quran tries to find explanations or just basically deny that that's just the

Jews. They just change things, so on and so forth. So that's what is behind this issue in regards to Lot, okay?

And so you have in 2 Peter 2, 7, and if he rescued righteous Lot oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men, for by what he saw and heard, that righteous man while living among them felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds.

Then the Lord knows how to rescue the god from temptation to keep the unrighteous under punishment of the day of judgment. So Peter makes reference to the reality of the fact that since Lot was righteous, not perfectly righteous, that's the assumption that is made, but he knows what the truth is and he refuses to go along with what's going on in Sodom and Gomorrah.

He refuses to be engaged in the homosexuality that was rampant in the city.

And he saw it all around him. And we might, I think, rightly argue, it might have been, well,

I think the scriptures would substantiate that Lot was unwise to take the direction that he took. And Lot was probably unwise to stay where he was.

And clearly there was something wrong in Lot's family because the angels,

I mean, it's emphasized in the text itself.

That they're having to drag him out. I mean, there's delay. And maybe his possessions, his wife turns around, turned to Bill of Salt.

The daughters are clearly not, they've been clearly very negatively influenced by the society.

The men that they wanted to marry obviously didn't seem to have a godly bone in their body either.

And so clearly there were problems. The point of Peter, the point that Peter makes is that Lot did not engage in that activity.

And that he recognized it. And in fact, what does Lot himself say in Genesis 18? Do not engage in this what?

This evil behavior. And that's when they really go crazy. Who are you to judge us and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And so there was a righteousness on Lot's part that he stayed out of that.

That doesn't mean that Lot was a paradigm or a paragon of virtue. And then the

Luke chapter 17 issue.

I'm trying to remember what specifically is said in regards to Lot at that time.

You have 1728. It was the same as happened the days of Lot. They were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were playing, they were building.

But on the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone on heaven, destroyed them all. That doesn't, all that says is it uses

Lot as a historical figure. And that judgment came in the midst, there wasn't any warning or signs of judgment that was coming.

They were doing the normal activities of commerce and life. And there's nothing there that's outside of, it also says, remember

Lot's wife. But outside of that, Lot is not made any kind of example for anyone as to some perfect person.

Did I run out of time? Oh my goodness. I apologize. So this all goes back to what that background is.

And when it says Lot was righteous, it means he knew what the truth was and he did not engage in the activities of the people around him.

And I probably spent too much time on that. And the clock went by really quick. Sorry about that. Anyways, thanks for listening today.

Thanks for the phone calls and listening to the answers to the mailbag. We are here this week on a regular schedule and we will be back with you

Thursday, I assume at the normal time, unless, you know, something happens, but that's okay.

We'll see you then. Thanks for listening. God bless. It's a sign of the times.

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