A Little Camping, A Little Islam, A Little of Everything…

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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May 19, 2011

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00:14: Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
00:20: 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.
00:29: Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
00:35: 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
00:44: United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
00:51: James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line. According to someone in channel, the last opening before the end, the last program before the end.
01:04: And lest I forget, I did promise a certain British fellow whose infamous brother has been banished to the
01:14: British penal colony of Australia to mention his,
01:22: I guess it's his website, it doesn't say, but I'm assuming that this is
01:28: Peter's website called Rapture Fail, www .rapturefail
01:33: .org. And it's a pretty cute idea. I wonder where they got the graphic of the rapture thing.
01:42: It looks like a jack chick thing or something, I don't know, but it's pretty wild. What's that?
01:49: Yeah, well, no, no, no, no, no. It looks like something out of the 70s though. Someone in channel said they recognized it from some,
01:57: I don't know, some comic strip or something in the past, I don't know, but it has the rapture fail map.
02:06: And what you can do as when you sign up for it is you can register a rapture fail.
02:15: So as six o 'clock passes in your area and cars aren't driving off the road and there's been no 14 on the
02:23: Richter scale earthquake that throws all the bodies out of the graves, which by the way is what's supposed to be happening in case you're not aware of how this all works, that's the humiliation of the dead is that their bodies are cast out upon the earth and there's no one to bury them.
02:39: And that's eternal punishment, by the way, that's all you get because that's it. So as that doesn't happen, you can register a rapture fail and it'll show up on this map as the sun moves across the earth as a testimony.
02:56: And you know, I like what it said here. It says rapture fail has been set up to allow people around the world to catalog.
03:04: And of course catalog is misspelled because he's British. Catalog the failure of Harold Camping's rapture prophecy the 21st of May, 2011.
03:14: Notice he's also British because he put 21 before the month. And that's again, it's just a British thing.
03:20: It's just they can't help it. As Christians who take the Bible seriously, we believe that prophecies like these demean the church's witness in the world.
03:27: The purpose of this site is to demonstrate very clearly and to mock gently, again, he's British, that this is a false prophecy and that Harold Camping is a false prophet.
03:37: At 6 p .m. on the 21st of May passes around the world, rapture fail will show the rapture is not occurring by utilizing the power of the internet and global user input.
03:46: Everybody who participates in this project will be part of the undermining of this embarrassment to the body of Christ. So you sign in and you can register a rapture fail and it'll show up on the rapture fail map as it develops during the day.
03:58: And you'll just get to see this thing. Now, I have been thinking a little bit about this because I was trying to go, all right, how do you figure out what the first occurrence of 6 p .m.
04:15: is in the world? And obviously what you do is you go to your national date line and then find out what major cities or anything are immediately on the other side of that and find out when it'll be 6 p .m.
04:29: there and find out what time it is where you are when it's 6 p .m.
04:34: there. And this is very important. And there are very few people who actually know this.
04:41: You have to be a Herald Camping expert. And I have my Herald Camping expert card in my wallet.
04:48: You have to take it out very slowly though. And read it very slowly too.
04:58: But it's not daylight savings time. It's not 6 p .m. daylight savings time. It has to be standard time, which is good for us because we're on mountain standard time anyways.
05:09: But everybody else is on daylight savings time. So you have to add that in there. So it's actually like 7 o 'clock is the real time because it has to be the standard time and not the daylight savings time.
05:20: So you have to keep that in mind. But of course, we acknowledge God's sovereignty over time and don't play with our clocks.
05:27: I know that. But looking at everybody else's time though, they are. And so we're the ones that have to do all the playing around.
05:33: So let me get this straight. Are we saying that there's going to be like a rolling rapture? Yes. It's a rolling rapture.
05:39: It's a rolling rapture based on man's time zones, which of course, remember, everything
05:45: Harold says comes straight from the Bible. You know what the first thing he's going to say on Monday when his show opens?
05:52: I don't expect him to be on Monday. It would seem that I may have overestimated the number of people who are actually safe.
06:03: Including myself. So anyway,
06:09: I was trying to figure that out. And a Turretin fan was right. He pretty much said, well,
06:15: I think Guam is sort of what we need to look at. Guam sort of starts things off a bit. And maybe.
06:22: And so I'm just going to be looking at Guam. And I figure using the time zone thing by 3 a .m.
06:33: Saturday morning. That whole hour, the 6 to 7 p .m.
06:38: time period for Guam will have passed. Now, do you have on your droid?
06:45: Do you have the earthquake app? Everybody's got the earthquake app because it's so fun to look at. You don't have the earthquake app?
06:51: Oh, brother. There's actually a couple earthquake apps. But get the earthquake app because it will actually report for you all the earthquakes in the world.
06:59: And it's amazing to get this thing. There are earthquakes everywhere. The earth be moving all the time.
07:07: Does your droid vibrate when one occurs? If I set it that way, yes. If it's within a certain distance or something of me,
07:12: I can set it to vibrate. And so I can feel how much the earth is moving all the time if I want to. Yes, it's very cool.
07:18: It's available in the Apple iPod.
07:23: So it's kind of an Irwin Allen kind of thing. It's got that. No, it's not. No, it really wouldn't help with muscle strain or anything like that.
07:29: But the point is, it works really well. Like when the Japanese earthquake hit, there you can see it.
07:35: I think it first came up as 8 .9 and they eventually changed it to 9 and stuff like that. But it'll zoom in on Google, tell you exactly where it is.
07:43: So basically, by 3 o 'clock Saturday morning, I can fire up my droid here.
07:51: 3 a .m. Saturday morning. I can fire up my droid. And if there are no 14 level earthquakes in Guam by that time, then you will have the first rapture fail for Herald Camping.
08:09: That'll be the first one. Maybe we should do a special edition 3 a .m. dividing line.
08:14: Could we set that up? Well, we could set that up. You know, technically, we probably could, you know, we probably could.
08:25: But I'm not really certain we'd have any listeners, to be perfectly honest with you. Yeah, because I think we're all going to be snoozing away in bed.
08:32: I might actually go ahead and wake up at 3, just to check.
08:37: And what I'll do is I'll line up a blog article to go at, like, 310.
08:43: And, you know, if I get up and there's a 14 Richter earthquake, then I can stop the posting of the blog article.
08:51: Give yourself a 10 minute window, huh? Yeah, let's give myself a 10 minute window. Get out there and get the computer going. Yep, that's what we can do.
08:59: Yeah, well, it wouldn't be a very exciting show with the two of us sitting there going, anything? Anything?
09:05: You got anything on yours? Yeah, I could have the Apple one. You could have the Droid one. How about you? Yeah, no, nothing. Nope, nothing, nothing.
09:11: Hey, what was that on the monitor? Oh, no, the cat walking by. OK, nothing. I think you can do the rest of the day.
09:16: No, not much. That would be fun. Let's sleep for a while. Yeah, well, we could all should be watching the
09:22: Rapture Fail map, too. There you go. I would suggest having the Rapture Fail map up. That would be sort of fun to watch it as it goes across.
09:29: So make sure to get ready to register on www .rapturefail .org. And now, of course, you know, one of the things about all this,
09:37: I was on Wretched Radio today. As soon as I'm done here, by the way, I mean, the theme is that we will not be going long today.
09:47: That's just we've gone long recently. Cannot go long today. 877 -753 -2341, by the way.
09:56: Dividing that line on Skype. And we will not be going long today because I will be on KFAX in San Francisco.
10:04: As soon as the theme music of this program ends, basically. So I will have done two today.
10:09: I did one, was it yesterday or the day before yesterday? I don't know. Well, yesterday was on King James Only -ism.
10:16: So really, though we did talk about Harold a little bit. But doing a lot of radio stuff.
10:21: And I'll be on KFAX for, I don't know, how long do they say? Two segments.
10:27: How long? You know, I really should not be able to hear you unless you, I mean,
10:32: I can because we haven't done anything with that door yet. How long do you think that door is going to stand there without being insulated and sealed in?
10:40: That door is insulated. Well, you know what I mean. We didn't finish. No, I can. OK, so I need to paint it.
10:46: No, the thing around the outside, it's wide open. You can see through it. That's why I can hear you so well.
10:52: I should not be able to hear you. There's casing on my side. Look, when
10:58: I can see through it, that ain't done yet. And how long, how long we've been in these offices? We moved in 2006.
11:05: So five years. OK, who's in charge of that?
11:10: A little bit of change. When I get around to it. OK, I need to get a box of those things.
11:18: What were we talking about? I don't know. How long are we going to be on KFAX? Oh, 24 minutes.
11:24: OK. Two segments. Two segments. You know, Salem standard time. Yeah, that's in 12 minutes.
11:29: Yeah, I know. It'll be fast. Well, Wretched was fast. Yes. I even had something queued up I wanted to play on Wretched.
11:38: Anyway, so we'll be on KFAX after this. And if you want to listen to that, they do have a live stream.
11:46: Please do not ask me for the URL, because there's no reason for me to do that. Because you can
11:51: Google just as well as I can Google. It's funny when people do that. And you're like, what?
11:57: You can't bring up google .com? It's not overly difficult. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.
12:04: You can join with us. I did want to play something from Brother Kanner.
12:12: I guess I should mention, I was sort of looking around. I've gotten a lot of people have contacted me.
12:20: And, you know, we announced on Tuesday that Ergon Kanner is going to Arlington Baptist College, a very small
12:32: Bible college. Very small Bible college. I mean, going from Liberty to Arlington. I mean,
12:38: I think Kanner had some classes that had more kids in them than attend Arlington Baptist College.
12:47: And we announced that on Tuesday at the beginning of the program. And since then,
12:54: I've had a few people contact me. And I just don't see how this fits. I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
13:00: This is sort of your independent, fundamentalist, Baptist, King James only type school. OK, we're talking straight lace.
13:06: And I'm sitting here remembering back to how Ergon Kanner comes out on stage and his how he dresses and getting tazed during chapel.
13:20: And I've never heard him preach from the King James version of the Bible. And something tells me he's probably being asked to preach from the King James version of the
13:25: Bible. And I just go, this is a stopgap measure.
13:32: This is not going to work for long. This ain't going to happen. No, no,
13:37: I think you've, one thing we know about Ergon Kanner, he's a chameleon.
13:43: He will adapt. Maybe. I think he will. I think he will adapt. OK, well, we will have to disagree about that.
13:50: I just, a guy who is a professional wrestling addict flourishing at Arlington Baptist College.
14:02: I don't know, man. I just don't know. You know, all the scuttlebutt was that he was going to Veritas.
14:08: But I don't think Geisler was able to get the funds because he's damaged goods and he's going to stay that way.
14:15: The longer he refused, the longer that Geisler keeps hosting the fully refuted silliness on his website that is just so transparently ridiculous.
14:26: I just don't see that happening. Well, the other thing you have to wonder is with two personalities there, who's running the show?
14:34: What do you mean two personalities? Well, Geisler and Kanner. Kanner is absolutely subservient to Geisler.
14:43: Almost anybody who meets him is. It's a very interesting dynamic to observe. Anyways, it'll be very, very interesting.
14:51: And Arlington Baptist College are the ABC Patriots. What's interesting is their
14:57: Patriot logo looks almost identical to that of the Independence Patriots, my high school from 1978 when we became the
15:06: Independence Patriots. 1977, actually, was when that school opened. And we tried to burn it down 12 days later, actually.
15:14: Anyway, well, we didn't. Oh, we didn't know that? Yeah, I had a sophomore, a really troubled.
15:21: They were only freshmen and sophomore in that first year. And 12 days into that first year, he snuck out of class or did something and lit up a bunch of as yet unpacked desks in an unused portion of the school.
15:32: And we didn't get to use the bottom portion of the school for the rest of that school year while they rebuilt it. Because it burned. Well, while we're on the subject, your depraved classmates weren't as depraved as mine.
15:43: Oh? They blew up the shop teacher with acetylene gas. They filled balloons with them and packed them, hit them around the property.
15:51: Did they kill the shop teacher? After he got out of the hospital, he decided it was a good time to retire. Oh, well, that's nice.
15:58: Okay, well, anyway, 877 -753 -341. I did want to play this because I think this is one of the most important elements.
16:07: It's unfortunately gotten lost. Have you noticed that the doctrinal element of Camping's heresies has just pretty much disappeared?
16:15: Everything's focused on May 21st and all the rest of this stuff. There is one thing.
16:22: I am very concerned. And I have expressed this more than once. I'm going to express it again.
16:29: Jesus could return today, tomorrow, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th.
16:35: One of the things I just don't think is even avoidable in this is that when we point out the errors of Harold Camping, there's collateral damage.
16:47: And the collateral damage is anyone who really is, as Titus 2 .13 describes us, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of our great
16:56: God and Savior, Jesus Christ. That was one of the first concerns I expressed, was that when we mock
17:05: Camping's silliness, and it's not difficult to do. When, I mean, I got a wretched today. I just ran through his argumentation.
17:12: And when you do it fast, it really sounds silly. Of course, Harold Camping's never done it fast, but so it sounds a little bit better when you do it slowly.
17:21: But when you do it fast, it sounds really silly. And the problem is it sounds like you're mocking the whole idea of Christ's return.
17:28: And you're not, because the whole issue is the Bible has clearly said, no man knows the day or the hour, not even the sun.
17:36: And when Harold Camping has to twist that into, well, the sun could be the devil, then you know that there's a real problem with the guy's system.
17:46: But his other heresies, like his Jesus died twice heresy, I almost never hear anybody talking about that.
17:53: That Jesus died in eternity past, and then he died in time on Calvary. But the one on Calvary was not perpetuatory.
18:00: It was the one in eternity past. Hello? How absurd can that be?
18:07: I mean, that's just, I've never heard of anybody who came up with that one before. But this man, he, you know,
18:14: I was looking at the last one, the last video that was posted on Ezekiel 33 .3's
18:20: channel. These really high quality videos that someone in family radio has been putting up. And here's this little old man and his little wife.
18:31: You know what? They've been married for 68 years. I mean, that's, that's, that's amazing.
18:39: And you look at this little old man, he's got his Bible and he's dressed, you know, he's got his tie and his jacket on and, you know, and it's real easy for us to just let our emotions override the reality of the situation and the lives this man has ruined.
18:56: And the arrogance, the deep seated arrogance that one must possess to be able to behave as this man has behaved for decades, not for a few months.
19:12: This isn't just some guy that was on the beam and then, you know, has swerved off suddenly.
19:20: No, no, no. This is a settled detestation of authority and truce.
19:26: No question about it. And I was refreshing this to see if we could bring up, you know, the new video.
19:36: I'll try to remember to do that later in the program because it sometimes gets posted sometimes around this time. But I want you to hear this section because this was, this was what
19:50: I responded to initially from camping and it needs to be kept in mind.
19:56: And listen, listen to what he says. This is the beginning of the 11 days left until Judgment Day. I'll go ahead and let it go a little bit longer and I want you to hear.
20:04: These are the very same arguments Mormons use to promote their concept of an absolute apostasy on the part of the
20:12: Christian church. Listen to what we have here. Well, the fact is, whether, whether you're a male or a female pastor or whether you've been a pastor a long time or a short time, if you are still preaching in a church, you are a servant of Satan.
20:32: That is one of the more shocking things to hear that Satan is ruling in the churches.
20:39: Yes, it is. And you know, we would never believe that.
20:44: But we read in second Thessalonians, let no man deceive you by any means for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed to Satan as an angel of light and his ministers of righteousness.
21:04: When you see the abomination of desolation, that is Satan, Satan sitting in the holy place, then let those who are in Judea flee to the hills.
21:17: And there are other passages that tell us, get out of the churches, because if you remain there, you are going to be worshiping
21:27: Satan. Can you think of anything more horrible than that? So what can you say from his perspective?
21:40: If you are a minister in a church, as I am, I'm worshiping Satan. And if you go to a church, you're making sure that your children can never be saved.
21:52: You are worshiping Satan yourself. I mean, this man is an enemy of the cause of Christ and has been for quite some time.
22:00: But because he carries his Bible, and I don't know about the rest of you, but it just seems freaky to me every time
22:08: I turn on 88 .9. It's 88 .9. The repeater here in Phoenix is 88 .9. I mean, you would think they would at least be playing wall -to -wall open forum programs from the past.
22:22: I mean, according to these folks, in 36 hours, am
22:27: I right there? Yeah, 35 hours. According to our clock, the rapture is going to start somewhere in the world.
22:35: 35 hours from now. And you can turn on and get a barbershop quartet singing some kind of old hymn.
22:46: Where's the disconnection here? Hello? Anybody home? It is truly, truly amazing.
22:56: I don't know. Let's listen to some of the rest of what this had to say here. I don't remember what the rest of it was.
23:04: But thank you for calling and sharing. Well, thank you. And shall we take our next call, please?
23:10: Welcome to Open Forum. Yes, Mr. Camping. Thursday night, a gentleman called, and he said that he belonged to a church that teaches the proper way of salvation.
23:24: Well, here's the problem. We don't look at the churches to find truth.
23:30: We look at the Bible to find truth. For that day, talking about Judgment Day, shall not come except there come a falling away first, and a man of sin be revealed.
23:42: Until 1988 was the end of the church age, representing the kingdom of God.
23:48: And at that time, God installed Satan to rule in the churches as well as over all the world.
23:58: And of course, you likewise have an issue with the fact that it was also 1988 when
24:08: Harold himself was removed from teaching in the CRC. What an amazing thing.
24:17: And he may say, well, it has nothing to do with it. Really? Honestly, Harold, it just happens to coincide when you got kicked out of your teaching position because you would not teach in an orthodox fashion?
24:34: The churches are a shambles. Many of the pastors are divorced, women in the pulpit, elders and deacons that are not nearly matching what the
24:46: Bible calls for, where the music is going down the tubes, totally contrary to the law of God.
24:53: So there you have, because there are bad churches, and there are, because there are literally synagogues of Satan, well,
25:00: I guess there always have been, huh? That means the true church has disappeared as well. Oh, no, no. The true church still exists.
25:07: It's the invisible church. And it follows Harold Camping. You know,
25:14: Todd Friel asked me a question. Is this a cult? Yes. I mean, I don't know how else you could define one.
25:22: The heresies, the denial of the gospel, the addition of authorities outside of scripture, no matter how many times he says he doesn't, makes just as much sense as Jehovah's Witness saying, well, just go by the
25:33: Bible. Yeah, right. The governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses isn't your ultimate authority. Of course it is.
25:39: And what's the ultimate authority for a campingite? Harold Camping. He's the ultimate authority. He's the one who claims that he's gotten the book of Daniel 12 in the sense of coming to these understandings and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
25:50: Same thing. Same thing over and over again. This one's almost over here. Oh, God, it's easy to defend my church.
25:58: I love my church. They love the pastor, and they are convinced they have the truth.
26:03: We have a salvation plan that we are convinced is saving us, and yet it's not saving us at all, because only
26:11: God's salvation plan can save us. And see, that bothers us because, of course, there's only one gospel.
26:17: There is only one way of salvation. It has nothing to do with believing in May 21st, 2011.
26:23: But, you know, he says these things. He still uses the language of orthodoxy.
26:30: He's just filled it with completely different meanings. It's difficult to listen.
26:36: Experience is that earthquake. Satan's rule over mankind is gone.
26:41: So don't worry about evil men. Don't worry about Satan. And just beg the
26:46: Lord. Just beseech the Lord and implore him. My, my, we only have 11 days left.
26:53: Are you praying for your loved ones? Are you praying for yourself? It's still time, by God's mercy.
27:00: But it's going to happen. So it's serious business. So that was the
27:07: May, that was the 11 -day one here. I'm going to go ahead and do a refresh on the screen here and see if, by any possibility, the new one is up.
27:23: Because that would be, that'd be interesting to see. We could listen to it together.
27:29: Let's see what comes up here. I've got it muted for the moment. So even if it does come up.
27:36: Nope, still says three days left. This is the three -day left one. So we'll see what happens when the two -day left one.
27:43: I'll still hit it a couple times. 877 -753 -3341. We had some really, really good phone calls on the last program.
27:52: In fact, the last two programs with Michael Brown and then that one, I think, go into the top 10 category of the dividing lines.
28:01: And no, I do not feel any particular pressure to try to repeat. You know, you come in here and you talk about what's on your heart and what's going on.
28:12: And that means it changes from week to week. And sometimes that means you're going to be addressing
28:18: Roman Catholicism, sometimes atheism, sometimes all sorts of things. You know, I didn't even fire up, should have, could have fired up a, one of the many debates that I want to try to get to.
28:31: I've been listening to, Michael Brown sent me. I sent him a number of my debates.
28:37: He sent me a number of his debates. And I listened to two of his debates with Shmuley Botiak, Rabbi Shmuley Botiak.
28:48: And we having a phone problem out there? Oh, okay. 877 -753 -3341 and dividing that line on Skype.
28:58: One was on, did Jesus die for our sins? And I think the other one was, what was the other one on?
29:04: Well, it's sort of Isaiah 50, was Jesus the Messiah. Okay. One was on Isaiah 53, that was on, was
29:10: Jesus the Messiah. And then he had a debate with a Rabbi Gold that I listened to that was very interesting.
29:16: Shmuley Botiak, I played some segments of his comments on the dividing line in the past and was just taken aback with the kind of argumentation that he utilizes.
29:28: It's, as I said to Michael, I said, it's 99 % emotion and 1 % substance.
29:34: And it really is. It talk about rhetoric, oftentimes resulting in an amazing set of arguments being set forth.
29:43: And I know Michael likes Shmuley and they get along. But as far as debates goes, I'm just sort of left going, what on earth?
29:56: Anyways, I didn't get a chance this morning. I plan to tomorrow get a chance to listen to Bart Ehrman's appearance on Issues, etc.
30:06: Because I remember the first time I ever heard of Bart Ehrman's claim that if the Bible had been inspired, there would be no textual variance.
30:16: Was on Issues, etc. So Issues, etc. does tend to get to the heart of the matter and ask direct questions.
30:25: And so I will catch that tomorrow, actually, Lord willing. I'll get that one and be able to, who knows, maybe we'll do something along those lines.
30:44: I'm doing the hand signal thing. I look like one of the guys on the edge of a carrier trying to bring the plane in right now trying to get
30:51: Rich's attention while also talking at the same time. It's an interesting thing to do. But I think we're going to try to go ahead and take a break.
30:58: I'm not sure if we're lining up some phone calls right now or not. But we'll try to take a break. And during that time, appreciate your participation.
31:05: Maybe you have some thoughts on the phone calls last time on the Michael Brown program, whatever it might be.
31:12: Hey, for some of you, this might be your last shot. Because today is the 19th of May 2011.
31:22: So we'll be right back right after this. Conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
31:45: 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.
31:59: You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin
32:07: .org. Pulpit crimes. The criminal mishandling of God's word may be
32:13: James White's most provocative book yet. White sets out to examine numerous crimes being committed in pulpits throughout our land every week as he seeks to leave no stone unturned.
32:23: Based firmly upon the bedrock of scripture, one crime after another is laid bare for all to see. The pulpit is to be a place where God speaks from his word.
32:32: What has happened to this sacred duty in our day? The charges are as follows. Prostitution using the gospel for financial gain, pandering to pluralism, cowardice under fire, felonious eisegesis, entertainment without a license, and cross -dressing, ignoring
32:49: God's ordinance regarding the roles of men and women. Is a pulpit crime occurring in your town? Get pulpit crimes in the bookstore at www .aomin
32:58: .org. Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.
33:13: Even more disturbing, some within the Church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.
33:19: In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the
33:25: Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including
33:32: Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.
33:42: In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for His people.
33:52: The Same -Sex Controversy, Defending and Clarifying the Bible's Message about Homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at www .aomin
34:00: .org. And welcome back to The Dividing Line on a
34:13: Thursday afternoon. I said to mute that thing and it unmuted itself.
34:19: That's fine. I'm still trying to see if they get the new video up there. We do have some phone calls coming in and we appreciate that.
34:27: Let's go ahead and get started with them. And let's talk with Vincent in Dallas.
34:32: Hi, Vincent. Hi, Dr. White. How are you? Oh, pretty good for being right at the end of the world.
34:40: Close to it. Actually, I had a question on—I've heard you say, and I could be mistaken,
34:46: I could just misunderstand you. What is the nature of—I thought
34:52: I heard you say at one point that people in the
34:57: Old Testament could lose their salvation. And I've heard Reformed pastors say, or at least from how
35:07: I gather, from what I'm hearing from them, some of them wouldn't think so. And I'm just kind of confused about it.
35:15: Well, no, I was raised as a—and I sound really odd here, Rich. I'm not really sure why, but it sounds like I'm getting feedback or something on my mic when the phone's on.
35:25: I'm not sure what it is. But anyway, we may still have it way up because we were trying to get that feed to Todd Friel.
35:31: But anyhow, no. In fact, I have emphasized that the argument that Paul makes in Romans 3 and 4 is that Abraham was justified in the same way that we're justified, that men have always been justified by faith.
35:47: I was raised as a dispensationalist, and there are all sorts of forms of dispensationalism today, and I can't even keep track of all of them anymore.
35:55: But those forms, the older forms that posited different gospels and different ways of salvation for different peoples,
36:04: I think goes directly against what the Apostle himself says. Specifically, he argues that Abraham was justified by faith and uses him as the example of our own justification by faith.
36:20: And he talks about the fact that those before Christ had their sins forgiven.
36:28: God, in essence, passed over those things in light of the certainty of the cross itself. Now, there are some differences as far as the role of the
36:38: Holy Spirit in the New Covenant and things like that. There's certainly greater benefits,
36:46: I would say, but there's not a different way of salvation. There are instances where the
36:52: Holy Spirit came upon men for particular purposes in the Old Covenant, which would be different than the role of the
36:59: Holy Spirit, who is the arabone, the down payment of our salvation and comes with clarity in our confession of faith in Christ, regeneration, so on and so forth.
37:13: But, you know, for example, the building of the tabernacle and things like that, the Holy Spirit would come upon men, give them special skills, things like that.
37:20: But that's different than what we're really talking about when we talk about how people are saved. And it's always been by faith in what's called the covenant of grace.
37:30: So, no, I would be in the covenant community at that point rather clearly.
37:37: Okay. Okay, that explains a whole lot. I mean, maybe you found an old, old, old, old tape when
37:42: I was still a recovering dispensationalist or something. I made some statement, I don't know. I don't know. But, you know, from 1980 -something, but my voice probably would have been higher back then,
37:52: I would imagine. That explains a lot. Yeah, I was kind of confused. And I'm trying to study it now.
38:01: Would you know of any resources to kind of read up on? Well, yeah, there's lots of stuff.
38:07: I'll be honest with you, I stay out of it pretty much because the sparks fly and the emotions get very, very high in two areas.
38:16: Eschatology, which I avoid pretty much like the plague, even though we're sort of touching on it a little bit these days. Can't sort of avoid it with Harold Camping running around.
38:25: And then that area, and the eschatology is, especially on the dispensational side, is deeply tied into that subject as well.
38:38: Trying to separate eschatology from dispensationalism just doesn't work. I remember, what was it,
38:44: Dwight Pentecost? Was it Dwight Pentecost's book, Things to Come? I remember that was a book from my childhood, as far as that goes.
38:53: And the intimate connection between them is very tight. So there are books specifically on the subject of dispensationalism.
39:03: Unfortunately, a lot of them are not overly gracious, but some might be.
39:09: I've not read them, and so I wouldn't be able to give you really good recommendations, because I'm busy with other stuff.
39:19: That's cool. And so in the Old Testament, as well as in the
39:24: New, I'm guessing, we would have the Spirit come upon somebody and then depart from them?
39:31: Well, for certain purposes, yeah. I think that we have to differentiate between the Holy Spirit coming upon someone specifically for the purpose of bringing about their regeneration, their union with Christ, and the
39:42: Holy Spirit coming upon someone to give them certain gifts to do something, for example, in the building of the tabernacle.
39:50: I don't think there's any reason for us to think that some of those men that had certain gifts given to them in the
39:56: Old Covenant, their bodies died in the wilderness. There were a lot of people like that in that generation, and we can learn from that.
40:06: I think we need to be careful to allow the New Covenant scriptures to define things for us with clarity, rather than going back and trying to figure out, well, does this mean this?
40:16: Does that mean that? That often leads to some problems. But anyway. All right, Vincent. Okay. Okay, thanks.
40:22: Thank you very much. All right, God bless. You're welcome. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.
40:29: Let's talk with Sam. Hi, Sam. Hi, Dr. White. How are you? Doing good.
40:35: I'm glad I got on before May 21st. That's a relief. Well, you know, I totally plan, however, on doing the dividing line on the 24th.
40:47: Who knows? Maybe if something really wild takes place over the weekend in the sense of...
40:54: Let's be honest. I'm a little concerned about some of Camping's followers. I really am. I mean,
40:59: Rich has raised the question, hey, if you're one of those guys that gave your entire life savings to this thing and nothing happens, would it be really all that far -fetched for somebody to go postal?
41:14: I don't think it would be. And so who knows? Maybe we'll have to have a program on the 23rd just because something's happened.
41:21: But I certainly plan to be here on the 24th. And we'll just be continuing to serve the
41:27: Lord. Because if the son didn't know during his human sojourn the date, neither does anybody else, including
41:32: Harold Camping. But anyways, that's not why you called. What's up? Well, yeah, and it's going to relate to that, and I appreciate your ministry highly.
41:41: Basically, here it is. I was listening to a Pentecostal radio show last Saturday, and they were emphasizing that we need to go by the
41:49: Bible. We need to believe the Word of God. Right. And of course, they were using that with the implication that most of the
41:56: Church isn't believing rightly. We don't believe in a second filling with tongues or a baptism of the
42:02: Spirit, as they would say. And, you know, I called as a Reformed Baptist.
42:08: Actually, I sent an email. I'm sorry. And I basically asked, you are absolutely right that we need to go by the Bible, I said.
42:14: But how do we know that we are interpreting it rightly? And basically, 80 % of the answer was 85 % on what are the best translations.
42:25: And I was thinking, yeah, that's important, but that wasn't my question. What I wanted to know was, assuming you have a good translation, how do you know is the best way to interpret?
42:37: And he spent a little time on that, mentioning Greek and grammar, very, very brief. But anyway, the point
42:43: I was trying to make is that not interpreting correctly is very, very dangerous.
42:50: And I think their teaching has some dangerous implications, but is not
42:55: Harold Campy the ultimate proof of not having a proper interpretive method?
43:01: Well, he is. And, you know, when someone asks the question, well, how do you know when you're handling the
43:06: Word of God or right? I think there are guidelines for that. And the main word to use there is the word consistency.
43:15: When you utilize different forms of interpretation for different passages of Scripture, when you switch your methodology, that is the clear indication of a tradition getting in the way.
43:29: And, you know, that's what I would say to the brothers on the program would be, well, you know, the things you're saying about what you believe the
43:40: Bible teaches, if we apply the same methods of interpretation that we would agree on, say, for example, in regards to the resurrection or something like that, it's funny.
43:48: They don't lead us to the conclusions you've come to on these issues of the Holy Spirit. That might be an indication of running into one of your traditions.
43:56: And that's one of the things to keep in mind at that point is the concept of consistency and really, fundamentally, the entire witness of Scripture.
44:07: And that's very easily abused. Well, there's dozens of verses, there's hundreds of verses, blah, blah, blah, blah.
44:13: But what you do is when you apply that same standard all across the canon of Scripture, that is where you really find the harmony of truth over time.
44:25: That's been my experience as I have sought to respond to the challenges that people make against the
44:32: Christian faith is that the deeper I dig, the more that consistency over the entire canon of Scripture comes to the fore.
44:41: And it's a beautiful thing, but it's not something that just lies on the surface. So in some ways, it's not something you can necessarily prove to a person who lacks faith unless they really want to invest the time into seeing how this works, which rarely they want to do that.
45:01: But certainly for the Christian who's willing to listen to Scripture, deeply delve into Scripture, look at its backgrounds, identify its themes, there's a beautiful consistency in the
45:13: Scripture at that point that to me is the fundamental answer to the question, how do you know that you're handling it right is the consistency you use.
45:20: And only then can you call it the Word of God, because when you don't use a consistent hermeneutic, when you do what
45:27: Harold Camping does, this is the great tragedy is that all of this is just Harold Camping's fertile mind, and yet he over and over again is saying, just the
45:38: Bible, just the Bible. No, it's not. When he talks about, well, these are the rules of the Bible. No, they're your rules.
45:45: And well, five is the word for atonement, and 10 is the word for completion, and 17 is the word for heaven.
45:53: Where do you get this stuff? It's coming from your mind. It's not coming from the Bible. Yeah, it's a sad thing to listen to, and he's beyond correction.
46:04: He does not hear. His mind just automatically turns off when you say anything about it. So it's a sad thing to see.
46:11: Maybe we can use the example of his errors to maybe gently exhort some other brothers who don't have the best hermeneutic or interpretive method to really reconsider.
46:22: Let's hope so. That's certainly what I did in Dangerous Airwaves. I really tried to make that book a book that pointed to the necessity of using sound methods of exegesis, because without that, you cannot say, this is what the
46:36: Word of God says. The best you can say is, this is what I'm saying, and I'm trying to base it on the
46:41: Word of God. There's a difference between those two things. All right, Sam. Thank you, Dr. White. Have a good day.
46:46: Okay, all right. All right, so where are we going to go next? Do you want to—you sure you want—oh, we got to go there.
46:54: Okay, let's talk to Marcus. Hi, Marcus. Hi, Dr. White. How are you doing? I'm doing well.
47:02: I had a question about Islam, because I heard you're writing a book about the Qur 'an. Yes, well, I'm using the
47:09: Qur 'an as the—it's really on the entirety of Islam.
47:14: It's on the heart of the issues that separate Christianity and Islam, but I'm using particular key
47:20: Qur 'anic texts to identify what those issues are. In the process, a person will learn, hopefully, a lot about the
47:28: Qur 'an, but the primary purpose is to focus upon what really are the issues, why are they important, and how do we determine the truth about those things?
47:39: Yeah, okay. So I think my question would be really relevant, then. We have quite a
47:46: Muslim population here in Minneapolis, and my question is, how do you see the
47:53: Qur 'an fitting in with evangelism, especially with Muslims that really don't want to read the
48:01: Bible, they don't want to hear from the Bible? And there's a number of texts, I've heard you cite them in some of your debates, just about the word of God having—or the
48:09: Qur 'an confirms what went before it and that sort of stuff. How do you see—I mean, should we just stick with the
48:15: Bible and evangelism, or should—are there natural bridges in the Qur 'an? Well, the word of God is the power and the salvation, and—but you can't ignore the overriding commitment to the supremacy of the
48:31: Qur 'an, the fact that the vast majority of Muslims, including the Muslim we'll have on next, right after you, who he's called in, would believe that the
48:42: Qur 'an is the final standard, it's the final authority, that the scriptures have been corrupted.
48:47: And, of course, it depends on which Muslim you're talking to as to how much they believe the scriptures have been corrupted, but the vast majority of modern
48:53: Muslims really have been taught that what is found in the
49:00: Torah, in the Injil, has been so fundamentally altered that it does not really carry much in the way of authority any longer, even though, ironically, their apologists will frequently cite it when they think they can do so to their advantage.
49:14: So it does—we have to be aware of those issues, and some people will use the
49:21: Qur 'an more than others to try to build some bridges. What I'm concerned about is the movements that seek to build the bridges without the same time being very clear that the
49:35: Qur 'an itself is not the word of God. In other words, it just—I find it dishonest to try to use the
49:46: Qur 'an in a way that is fundamentally deceptive in saying, oh, but look what the
49:51: Qur 'an says here, accepting some kind of spiritual authority for it, but recognizing that as a book, as a revelation taken as a whole, there is a fundamental denial on its part of what it is you're trying to get the person to believe.
50:10: I mean, you know, unless you're going to chop the Qur 'an up into pieces, its view of who
50:17: Jesus is is fundamentally anti -Christian in its denial of the fact that he's the son of God.
50:25: And we can argue that, well, the Qur 'an doesn't understand the nature of sonship in a Christian way, and I agree, it does not.
50:30: That tells us something about the author of the Qur 'an, but the point is, there are people who are really trying to argue that, in essence, we can use it in such a way that we don't have to challenge its alleged spiritual authority and use it sort of as an innocuous bridge.
50:48: But where are you trying to get somebody at that point? Once you get them across the bridge, what are you going to have to do with the bridge?
50:53: You can't leave it standing there. So what do you do? It's a challenge at that point.
50:59: So I think that when I was out in London and talking with some
51:06: Muslims there, yeah, almost every conversation I have had, not everyone, but most of them have ended up having some connection to the
51:16: Qur 'an. We've been discussing something about what the Qur 'an says, but it was never in the context of, well,
51:23: I'm not going to challenge the authority of this. Have you ever thought that maybe what it means is this, and trying to just gently move them over toward a
51:31: Christian perspective? I just don't see that as being consistent with the apostolic testimony, the apostolic witness.
51:37: The apostles said, God has done this in Jesus Christ. He's going to judge you on the basis of his resurrection, and that's it.
51:43: And it wasn't a, well, you know, you have your pagan gods. Let's see if we can learn something nice from your pagan gods and move you a little bit closer to Christianity.
51:51: I just don't see that as a valid Christian approach. Great. So, I mean, it is a barrier.
51:58: There's no question about it. And if you're talking about, you know, you're up there in the Minneapolis area, you know, the problem is the barrier frequently is a barrier of ignorance, because many of the people you talk to, while they have an implicit faith in Qur 'an, they don't know it themselves.
52:13: Yeah, it's true. And so it is a difficulty that requires sometimes long periods of time and work and patience to overcome.
52:25: And obviously, I would suggest anyone who's going to be working with indigenous peoples that, or with people who've come over here from Muslim lands, you need to know what the
52:36: Qur 'an says and be familiar with what the Qur 'an says, not to use it in an inappropriate way, but to be able to interpret what's being said to you by others, so you can hear what they're saying.
52:47: And it's always up to us to bridge the communication gap. It always is. Yeah, great.
52:53: Well, thank you. Those are helpful thoughts. Those are helpful. Okay, great. Thanks, Marcus. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341.
53:02: And giving Rich a second here to get his Skype stuff together.
53:07: And we are joined from Australia. Now, this is going to be interesting, because we're joined by a gentleman
53:14: I've debated on and in person in Sydney, Australia, Abdullah Kunda.
53:22: Hi, Abdullah, how are you? Very well, thank you. Good afternoon, Dr. White, and thanks for having me on today.
53:27: Well, it's good to have you on. Now, this is a little bit weird, because according to what I see on my screen here, you want to comment on Herald Camping?
53:36: Yeah, well, probably enough. Well, look, first of all, I just wanted to say thank you for sending me copies of The God Who Justifies and The Forgotten Trinity.
53:44: I really appreciate that. And I'll go on the record as saying that you're a man of your word and certainly committed to getting your message out there.
53:53: And may I also say, without implying that I'm trying to boost your ego, that The God Who Justifies is extremely well -written.
54:01: And it's actually frustrated my wife a little bit, because it's taking an extra hour or two away from the time that I'd spend with her every day.
54:08: Well, let me return the compliment, Abdullah. You're one of those Muslim apologists
54:15: I enjoy encountering. You will have to testify, I apologized to you when we were on ABN, because I was aghast at the treatment that you received from the callers at that time.
54:29: I just wanted to beat my head on a desk. It does seem that the folks in the audience there do not understand the concept of the question mark.
54:40: It's frustrating to me, it really is. But I appreciate the fact that the book's got there, and I'm looking forward to, hopefully,
54:49: I don't know what's going to happen, we can't announce anything, but I do look forward in the future to some further encounters as we debate issues.
54:56: But I would be very interested, what does a Muslim think of Harold Camping? Well, funnily enough, actually, it was my wife and I were driving down a major freeway just near our house just about a week ago, and we noticed this huge billboard on the side of the road which said
55:14: Judgment Day coming 21st of May. And it was only when I was reading the blog updates on your website that I realized that the signs are from Harold Camping's ministry.
55:25: So he's made it all the way out here, unbelievably, in what would be premium advertising real estate,
55:32: I guess. And without getting into the specific stuff about the rapture and calculating the day specifically and all that, because I find that utterly ridiculous, and I dare say that without coming across as offensive, you would find it the same.
55:53: I'm actually interested to know what is your perspective on the figures that he gives for certain historical events that we know from Scripture.
56:07: You know, he's saying that the flood was 7 ,000 years ago. Would you say that that's a general
56:12: Christian understanding, or would that be your understanding? No. In fact, there have been a lot of calculations people have attempted to calculate.
56:19: I don't think that the Scriptures give us enough information to calculate that to any meaningful date and I don't think they were meant to do so.
56:28: And so there's a lot of problems with the calculations that he used. Did you get a chance to hear the debate that I did with him?
56:35: Not all of it, no. I just heard a couple of bits and pieces. Yeah, that actually would give you a lot of that information, including the follow -up programs that we did on it.
56:44: But no, I would not subscribe to the numbers that he assigns there, because a lot of them are based upon some very questionable reading on his part.
56:54: And you never know unless you really dig into it how much of this allegorical interpretation he's used, where he just assigns meanings to numbers.
57:03: The Scriptures don't do it, but he does it and then uses that to say, well, then that means this and we can interpret this in that way.
57:09: It's a very fevered way of interpretation. We're running short on time, but I did want to ask a quick question.
57:15: Is it not true, though, that there is a lot of Islamic eschatological writing as well, especially in Middle Eastern countries?
57:25: Isn't that a really popular genre of literature? I'm not aware of its popularity in the modern day,
57:31: I must admit. I know that certainly from the traditional scholars that I've read, so people like Jalal al -Din al -Saudi and those types, there was a tendency to suggest periods of time where it's likely that the end might be coming, but certainly no desire to set a day or a year.
57:59: We very much follow a foundational belief, which I guess is found in the
58:04: Gospels as well, that nobody actually knows the hour except for God Almighty, so for someone to sit down and actually start calculating it down to a day or even a week or a year, they'd actually be denying a fundamental belief.
58:22: So, yes, there's certainly not that, and I guess probably one of the chief differences with the
58:29: Islamic belief about end times is that we're not waiting on, I guess, a rapture to happen.
58:36: We're waiting more on the return of the Messiah. Well, but Christ will return in some form from the
58:43: Islamic perspective, right? Absolutely, yeah. Hey, Abdul, I'd love to go along with you, but I've got a
58:48: KFAX interview to do in 90 seconds, so thank you very, very much for your comments today, and we'll be in touch about what we'll be doing when we get down there to Sydney in October.
58:57: I look forward to seeing you then. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Thanks for listening to The Violent Line, folks. We're going to be here on Tuesday.
59:04: We'll talk to you then. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
59:52: If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.
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01:00:03: World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's a -o -m -i -n .org, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.