March 24, 2005

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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World, from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is

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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.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll free across the

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

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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line, whatever time it is, wherever it is you are.

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Where I am, it is 1046 p .m. currently, in the greater

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London area of the United Kingdom. They also call it England. I'm not going to get into all of the various sundry arguments

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I've heard over the past few days. All I know is that both the English and the

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Scottish pick on the Irish. That seems to be the consensus opinion here in the

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United Kingdom. If you've been following the blog at all, then you know that I brought a good

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American bacteriological infection with me.

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I would like to thank the kind gentleman, whose name I did not catch, who sat next to me at 1131, there on American Airlines, and who for three solid and consistent hours shared with me, in a most wonderful fashion, his bacteriological infection.

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Forty -eight hours later, well, let's just say it was a good one.

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It was a dizzy, and obviously has impacted some of the things we wanted to do here in London and in the surrounding area, but the

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Lord has been good, and I've been well taken care of, and so we've got some exciting things to talk about anyways.

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I would like to take your phone calls as well, at 877 -753 -3341,

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I hope. I don't know. It's on a piece of paper, and it's taped to my desk back there in Phoenix, which is seven hours and how many thousands of miles the other direction.

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So I'm going to have to put that in the chat channel up in the title, the proper number.

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I think it's 877, but not having the same number for how long now? How many years have

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I been saying that same number, and I can't remember it now? Well, I'm just going to blame it on the antibiotics, 877,

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I got it right, 753 -3341, there it is. If you'd like to talk with us here in the

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United Kingdom, I did. By the way, for those of you wondering, I'm sure that this is the first thought on everyone's mind, did

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I get to meet Jason from the UK? Yes, I met him in Glasgow, Scotland last night, not night before last,

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I was in Inverness, Scotland last night, and the night before that we were in Glasgow, and he came out for the

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Thanks, tired of New Jersey, now I just changed the entire topic line to a single number. Maybe someone could then put a few other things into it, like this is the dividing line and things like that.

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A little bit of literalism there, folks from New Jersey tend to be very literalistic in that way.

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But anyways, 877 -753 -3341, got to meet

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Jason, and I must admit, he sounds exactly in person as he does on the telephone.

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But you're going to hear that a few times, please don't let it bother you too much. That's just what the leftovers, shall we say, of a wonderful respiratory infection.

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Now, before it landed me completely in bed for a while,

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I did get a couple of opportunities, and the first opportunity that I had, of course, was to go with my kind guest, and I am currently with, and this is one of the advances that I have now made in my understanding of English culture and the language.

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And that is that I now know how to pronounce my host's last name, which I had been mispronouncing as any

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American would, being lacking the level of culture that is required for the proper pronunciation. So anyway,

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I was very blessed to have the opportunity of going into the

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Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon on the day that I arrived, and I've got some wonderful pictures of some great old aircraft.

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And Pastor Roger Brazier, the French pronunciation, but we don't want to talk about the

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French. In fact, someone suggested, you're not going to appreciate this, but someone suggested when we started the program that I start off saying, from an island off the coast of France.

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Oh my, oh, that would have caused a major international incident had

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I given in to that very, very bad suggestion, and it's a very bad man.

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Bad man. The person in the channel knows who that was, a very bad man who suggested that. Anyway, we went into Hendon, and I've got some great pictures of Spitfires and Hurricanes and V -17s and all sorts of wonderful fun stuff that we had to do there.

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And somehow I managed to not pass my, at that point, burgeoning affection on to anybody else because I didn't know anything about it yet.

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But, of course, the big thing for me, and I had mentioned this, well,

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I don't know, but I did mention this on the blog, now that I think about it, was I knew that we were going to have the opportunity on Friday, Saturday was going to be, those of you who saw the web and the blog saw that,

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I guess I should let everyone know that not only do

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I see the chat channel, but my hosts are logged in, too, so they're watching this whole thing as well.

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So, well, then that's every person's a very bad, bad person, too.

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Anyhow, we had a day of special studies scheduled for Saturday, and I was going to be speaking basically from 10 a .m.

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in the morning until about 8 p .m. in the evening, covering the Watchtower Society, the

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Mormon Church, Roman Catholicism, Islam, and Atheism. And I was ready to do that.

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We had arranged for a digital projector, and that was going to be the long day of presentations and preaching the next morning.

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But Friday was the day we got to go into London, and they get to go see the

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British Library and the British Museum. And thankfully, in God's providence,

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I did not start feeling the effects of the illness until right in the middle of the

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British Museum, I would say. And I didn't really even realize that, I just figured it was jet lag, until I got on the train and was traveling back out toward Enfield Loch.

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And, uh, trying to watch the discussion channel and tell the story at the same time is somewhat difficult, especially when you've got a cough hiding right down there.

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Anyway, the British Library is the current location, of course, of Codex Sinaiticus.

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I did not know until, I would say, about two weeks prior, when

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Pastor Roger told me, that it also is the home of Codex Alexandrinus as well.

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And I really didn't know what to expect, whether I would be able to be very close to it, whether I'd be able to really see it very well.

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But that was the first place we headed, and thank you, wow, pick up your lung, yes.

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I've coughed a number of lungs out, thank you, over the past few days. We drove through London traffic, and I should describe a little bit.

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If you've never traveled over here, you know that our

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British friends and our Scottish friends, who believe themselves to be very superior to their British friends, drive upon the wrong side of the road.

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They've completely altered their vehicles and everything else, and of course, they drive on the left side of the road, which, when you first get here, is somewhat disconcerting.

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First of all, you make a fool of yourself by constantly walking over to the driver's side door, even though you're a guest.

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That's the first thing you do that's all along. And then, as you're going around corners, you automatically flinch when you see cars coming, because they're going down the wrong side of the road as well.

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But I was warned that I was going to get to drive in the traffic of London, and I've heard all about how crowded and terrible the traffic in London is.

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I must admit, tonight on the M25, it was pretty bad, there's no two ways about it, but still,

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I was expecting something similar to the experience that I had when

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I was in Manhattan, and my daughter and I were trying to get to a play, and I literally almost ended up on the floor of a taxi cab, because it was so utterly frightening how they drive in Manhattan.

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So that's what I expected. And when I was picked up from Heathrow Airport, we were only driving for 10 minutes before we were in the countryside, and I've been commenting over and over again ever since then, this is a very rural nation,

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I mean, London's huge, of course, but still, there's a lot of wide, open spaces in England and up in Scotland, and it was,

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I mean, I think I saw more sheep up in Scotland than I saw cars, so it's a beautiful, beautiful country, no two ways about it.

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I've had very excellent weather while I've been here, too, I've gotten some beautiful pictures. Musical interlude for just a moment, thank you, it was either that or I was going to be doing another one of those lung -coughing -upping things, but anyway.

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So we get in a van, and we're heading toward London. Now, I must admit, even though at first it just seemed so wrong, they have these wonderful things called coughing things, they have what we sometimes call in America traffic circles.

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I ran into one in America, and it's in Florida, and Michael Fallon will tell you that people who run into them haven't a clue what in the world to do with them.

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And so here, they are everywhere, and I guess you just become accustomed to how to work with these turnabouts, these traffic circles, these roundabouts, and there's just certain rules you're supposed to follow, and they really do work rather well,

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I must confess. They seem to be rather effective. I've only run into one that had us sitting there forever, and that was on the way, that was up in the

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Inverness just recently, so that was earlier today.

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So anyway, those are an interesting thing to experience, and so we got down to, actually,

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Roger and I took the train from here, and we met someone down in London, and we went to the

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British Library, and I don't know what I was expecting, but you can simply walk in, and you walk into this singularly,

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I would say, dark display room, this collection room, and I walked directly to Codex Sinaiticus.

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I don't think I took a turn to the right or the left, it was like a magnet that drew me, and I saw no signs,

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I just went directly to it, and there was no one else around. There was no...

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I had honestly expected it to be in some sort of glass encasement, you know, five yards away, and you could just barely, you know, even see it, but you could walk right up to it, and it is, of course, in a glass encasement, but you could stand right over it, you could read it, what it's open to, of course, not brightly lit, for obvious reasons, but right next to it, then, is

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Codex Alexandris, in the exact same glass case, and you can stand right there, you can, if you lean over, you're leaning directly over Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, and I don't know how to describe the feeling, there were so many other tremendous treasures,

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I mean, right behind me was a 1611 authorized version, that's the preferred term here in Britain, is the authorized version, not the

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King James version, but the authorized version, and it was just sort of like, oh yeah, there's a 1611 over there, they had a copy of the

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Wycliffe Bible, and I enjoyed looking at those, but to stand over Sinaiticus, and it was open to the end of Luke, the beginning of John, and to be able to stand there and read and translate what you're looking at there, and if you've been following the blog, know that I've been discussing

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Codex Sinaiticus for two months now, in regards to the Beverly Book and the attacks upon it by Muslim apologists.

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Here you have that, well, the king of the city, the codices, one of the most important Biblical manuscripts in the world, and I'm looking at it, and then right next to it is

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Codex Alexandrus, which interestingly enough was about 20 % smaller, I would say, just physically sized, and the size of the printing and things.

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Now, a big project has been undertaken to digitize

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Codex Sinaiticus and to make it available electronically, and I'm very much looking forward to that, but I'm awful glad they hadn't started it before I got there and had an opportunity to look at it.

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And so this is Codex Sinaiticus, if you're not remembering this, it's

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Aleph in the textual apparatus of your

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Nessie Olland or CBS 4th edition, it's from around the time of the Council of Nicaea, and it is the one that Count von

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Tischendorf found at St. Catherine's Monastery, and Alexandrinus is another one of the great unsealed manuscripts, and it is just absolutely incredible to have had the opportunity of standing there.

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While I was standing there, some other folks would come by, and they could, in fact,

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Rich will tell you all that he's seen this before. He probably can picture exactly what this looked like, because he was with me when

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I saw a single page from manuscript P72 at the

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Papal Treasures Exhibit in 1993 up in Denver, Colorado, and I would be standing there over this tiny piece of papyri, and Rich would be standing to one side, and a person would come up, and they would...

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No, I cannot hear you, I'm sorry. You can't hear me? Oh, now I can hear you, yes. Oh, okay. I was going to say,

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I can actually tell them exactly how many thousands of miles away. I can tell them exactly what people were saying.

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Well, no one said what they said up in Denver, because there wasn't something displayed up above it that told what it was.

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It was sort of down below, but go ahead and tell them what they're saying while I get a drink of water.

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Okay, well, I could do it in a British accent. No, I can't do a British accent, but in Denver, we literally had people kind of gathering around James as he's staring at these things, and suddenly they realize, and they turn to me, and they go, is he reading that?

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He's reading that. So imagine that with British accents all around, and I'm sure that's exactly what happened.

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Well, there were a couple of people who came up while I was looking at it, and I engaged them in conversation, and I must confess,

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I will confess, and I've said on my blog already, it was a very emotional experience for me, and I don't know if the people

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I talked to found me to be exceptionally odd or not, but one of them patted me on the back and said, you're like a kid in a candy store.

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So anyway, I just had a tremendous time just basking in the opportunity of seeing

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Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, and I did manage to look around a few other things. When you consider the tremendous number of valuable relics that were in that room, not relics in the religious sense, but works of literature, ancient manuscripts that untold value just in that single room, and there weren't that many people in there.

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It was very quiet, and it was a good time to be there. And so we went into the gift shop, and I asked if they had a book on Codex Sinaiticus.

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Actually, Pastor Roger did. And did you get the feeling he wasn't quite certain what we were even talking about?

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Yeah, it was obviously not something they get a lot of requests for, which is sort of sad. And so eventually, he said,

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I think we might have a postcard. And even he couldn't find the postcard. I'm the one that had to find the postcard, because I knew what

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Sinaiticus looked like. And so I bought the

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Codex Sinaiticus postcard there at the British Library.

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And a very beautiful building. We looked around a little bit, some other things, and then we took a pretty short little drive.

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And if you've not been to London, at least in this area, you know, while the roads are fairly narrow, and a bit of a challenge, they built open spaces into London, where there'll just be a section of a block that's open with grass and a field, and that makes it much nicer than a lot of cities.

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You know, you're not going to run into that in Manhattan at all. But it was a fairly quick drive over to the

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British Museum, and I was dropped off. And there I met a fellow from the

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Metropolitan Tabernacle, who was very kind to me, and he started taking me around.

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He was using Dr. Peter Masters' book, Evidences in the

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British Museum, something along those lines. He was kind enough to give me a copy of it. And an excellent book.

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And he started taking me around and showing me all these tremendous ancient artifacts that are tied into direct biblical texts, evidences for the historicity and the accuracy of the

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Bible, based upon things you can find in the British Museum. And I was shooting all sorts of pictures and things like that.

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But the one thing that I was most interested in looking for was, I knew that the

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British Museum would have a tremendous section of Egyptology, ancient

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Egyptian artifacts, and you may be wondering why in the world I would have an interest in that.

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Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, by the way, had once been there at the museum before moving over to the library.

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But the reason, of course, for those of you who know my history, that I was interested in looking for such things in the

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British Museum has to do, of course, with the book of Abraham in the

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LDS Scriptures. And so I was keeping my eyes on that. I was starting to feel really tired for some reason.

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Again, at this point, I only thought it was jet lag and maybe wearing the wrong shoes or something.

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But I asked if we could hit the Egyptology section, and I explained to him exactly what

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I was looking for. I was looking for a section on the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and I was looking for specific parallels to the documents utilized by Joseph Smith in the alleged translation of the book of Abraham in the

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Pearl of Great Price in the LDS Scriptures. And I have a very nice camera with me, and I just wanted to get some shots if there was anything available.

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And lo and behold, we walked into this one room, and here is an entire display case on the

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Egyptian Book of the Dead. And we know that what Joseph Smith utilized to translate the book of Abraham, it was a portion of the

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Sen Sen Papyrus. It's a portion of the Book of Breathings of the Book of the Dead. And we can certainly, and even if we ignore all of the manuscript evidence that was discovered in the 1960s and turned back over to the

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LDS Church, even if you just go with the facsimiles that are printed as a part of the

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Book of Abraham itself, what I found there was simply incredible.

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The facsimile number two in the Book of Abraham is an

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Egyptian hypocephalus. A hypocephalus is something you place beneath the head of the deceased, and it is to give them guidance and light in the afterlife as they go about their various activities there.

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And for some reason, I don't know why,

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I had assumed that a hypocephalus would be a fairly small item, a fairly small thing, and I was wrong.

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I will be bringing back, and I'll be putting on the blog when

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I survive, pictures that I took of three hypocephali there at the

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British Museum, and I would put them at about eight inches circular, approximately.

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A good bit larger than I expected them to be. But there is absolutely no question that the materials that I saw there come from the same time period and contain the exact same material as that of the

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Joseph Smith hypocephalus that is reproduced in the

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Book of Abraham. The figures are identical, including some that have been altered by Mormon leaders over the years for various reasons, reasons that we discussed in our track,

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Men Is Not God, and I was able to get high quality five megapixel shots of these hypocephali, the rest of the

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Book of the Dead, other scenes identical to facsimiles one and three.

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I got some pictures of the canopic jars that were used for the holding of the internal organs of the person who was being mummified that are seen in facsimile number one in the

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Book of Abraham. Just all sorts of neat stuff there that I was able to take pictures of. Though I had started dragging a little bit at that point,

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I completely stopped dragging when I saw that.

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By the way, for those of you who wished I'd gotten the right title there, it's Heritage of Evidence in the

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British Museum by Peter Masters. And I don't know if this is available, do you think it's available on Amazon or something like that possibly?

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The Tabernacle Bookshop would be where you'd want to get it. So, very, very interesting particular book you might want to get.

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So, anyway, I was shooting those pictures and so then my host took me in a

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London cab. And it's really funny, London cabs are smaller, I would say, lengthwise than the yellow cabs you see crawling all over Manhattan.

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But when you get into the back of one, there's a lot of room. There really is.

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I was very surprised how very roomy they were. And we took the taxi back across to Liverpool Street, as I recall, to the train station.

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And I was very proud of myself. While my host was off looking for the proper train to Enfield, I found the proper train to Enfield on my own there in London.

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And it was on that train coming back that I started this dry cough and very quickly realized that, well, anyway,

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I was going to be getting sick. So, that's what happened. And I'll fill you in a little bit more on that when we take a break.

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And if you'd like to get on the telly, as they say, and give us a ring me up, you can do so at 877 -753 -3341.

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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. And we're going to take a break and be right back.

29:06

Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

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Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

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In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the

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Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including

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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.

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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.

29:56

The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at alaska .org.

30:06

Alaska, the unspoiled land of nature and immensity. Both in its realities and its possibilities,

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Alaska can stir our hearts and minds like no other place on earth. Join us this summer for the 2005

30:19

Alpha and Omega Ministries Alaskan Cruise as we cruise the inside passage to the great land of Alaska with Dr.

30:26

James White and Christian recording artist Steve Camp as they explore the great doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

30:32

For our guests, the journey north is an odyssey of glorious landscapes and majestic wildlife as we sail on the luxury five -star

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Sun Princess by towering glaciers into some of the most remarkable points on earth. All this, and at prices beginning at $624 per person, plus port taxes and fees.

30:51

Half the price of other offerings to Alaska with other groups. Contact us today at aomin .org

30:59

or at 877 -SOV -CRUISE. Millions of petitioners from around the world are employing

31:07

Pope John Paul II to recognize the Virgin Mary as co -redeemer with Christ, elevating the topic of Roman Catholic views of Mary to national headlines and widespread discussion.

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In his book, Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic.

31:26

He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant and chosen vessel of God, has become the immaculately conceived bodily assumed queen of heaven, viewed as co -mediator with Christ and now recognized as co -redeemer by many in the

31:42

Roman Catholic Church. Mary, Another Redeemer is fresh insight into the woman the

31:47

Bible calls blessed among women and an invitation to single -minded devotion to God's truth.

31:53

You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary, Another Redeemer at aomin .org.

32:00

This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.

32:11

The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the

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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning

32:23

Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45. Evening services are at 6 .30

32:31

p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805

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North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE.

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If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org,

32:53

where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

33:31

Back to the dividing line, I don't know if that just sort of shut off, as it did to me once before. So it sounded like, but I don't know,

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I'm a little bit far away today. That just keeps getting shorter and shorter, I think. It's like something's eaten away at it.

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That's right. Now, one of the most famous things here in England is that they know about Alaska.

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Did you know that, Rich? I did not know that.

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You did not know that. That is big news to me. I think we need to let Mike know that he has almost a cult following in England.

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Do they know about it? Everyone wants to steel drum Bahamas vacation in Alaska. Alaska.

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It has preceded us here. It's wonderful. It's great. But anyway, do we have any phone calls?

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Not at this point. No one wants to talk to me. I think they're really terrified of the

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British accent that you'll whip out on them. I don't know. Well, I've just been talking like everyone else talks over here.

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When you're in London, do as the Londoners do. There is that. It is a little bit different than the

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Dick Van Dyke one, isn't it? Yeah, I would say, what did he use, like a

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Cockney accent or something like that? The Cockney accent. My problem has been that I've gotten to hear a true

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Scottish accent and then a British accent. And you couldn't understand a word the man was saying?

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No, I understood what my Scottish friends were saying. At least one out of three. There was one man, a pastor

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Jim, who, well, I started stuttering a little bit after he ran that one red light, but other than that, if you didn't catch the first couple of words, you were doomed.

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He'd say a sentence and there were times I just had to look at him and just smile and nod my head and go, okay, that works.

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But other than that, I did understand everyone that I've heard speaking, except for the people in the trains.

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And of course, you can't understand them in America, for that matter. I'm sure the phone calls are just about to come flooding in.

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Well, I will tell you that I am very excited about the picture that you've taken. I've seen, you sent me a small representative sample of it.

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Looks pretty good, doesn't it? Yes, it looks awesome. And as we're having that particular tract redone and redesigned, that is going to come in very handy.

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I really look forward to seeing that in a four -color process glossy tract. I will tell you that we're currently out of that tract and it's something we're really missing this week in Mesa.

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Yes, yes. Well, and I must admit, I'm missing being there.

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In fact, I understand that it has been demonstrated that I'm a heartless and cruel man once again, because I don't care about the people in Mesa because I'm in England right now.

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Is that true? Something to that effect. We've had a couple of comments on that scale of things.

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It is interesting that the fellows we've run into every now and then up in Salt Lake City, the

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King James Only folks have shown up again. Not nearly as many of them, but a couple of them, the ones that were out last year.

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It's interesting the commentary that they've had. We had one fellow that is known as Rusty in the channel.

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He came out last night and as he was walking from his car down to meet me down on the corner one, he had to stop across the street and the guys were over there and they tried to talk to him.

37:44

He engaged them for a little bit and somehow along the line, the fact that he goes to Feeding for Foreign Baptists came out and oh my goodness, they went ballistic.

37:56

You're one of those white guys, huh? He doesn't believe the

38:02

Bible. What was that? Rusty is a bit on the pale side. Well, it was very quickly turned into the

38:12

James White doesn't believe the Bible and all that other good stuff. He needs to preach from a

38:18

King James. Of course, it never ever enters into their thinking when we reply to the fact that if we don't believe the

38:28

King James, why are we out here using them? I pull a

38:33

King James Bible out of my pocket because I want to witness to Mormons because they only accept the

38:38

King James and yet this man is standing in front of a Mormon temple with a giant sign berating anyone who doesn't believe the

38:47

King James or use the King James and it's kind of like, um, hello?

38:53

Well, it's always been, well, hello with those folks, but what's the attendance been like at the

39:00

Easter pageant this year? It's an early Easter pageant early in the year. The weather's been a little bit of a factor last night.

39:07

A lot of wind and it was chilly, but I will give the Mormon folk one major piece of credit and that is they are a resilient people and if they decide that they're going to go to this thing on a particular night, there's nothing going to stop them and they go and so the crowds have been a real good size.

39:29

I'd say everything's pretty much been in what we've normally seen as it gradually grows every year in the way of size.

39:38

Well, I have a long, long flight home and I don't get home until very early on Saturday morning and that, of course, is assuming that I make all my flights and nothing's delayed and actually so far that has been my case, but I'm going to try to avoid getting a blanked this year as far as getting a chance to go out to Mesa.

40:06

We'll see. I may not be able to be out there the whole time, but then again, if I'm causing disappointment on the part of some of our opponents, they're unhappy that I'm not there and they're disappointed as a result, that doesn't bother me in the slightest bit.

40:25

It's real clear they miss you, man. They really do. They really miss me. Well, you know what? I've really missed them too and that's supposed to have a lot of sarcasm in it.

40:36

So anyway, well, I knew that scheduling was just been very difficult and in fact,

40:45

I should pick up where I was before and explain something here and just let me know if anyone wants to call in.

40:52

It's 877 -753 -3341. That's our phone number, 877 -753 -3341.

41:02

Anyway, I woke up Saturday morning after visiting the museum and library and it was very bad.

41:13

I could tell that I had a raging infection going on and I was feeling very weak.

41:22

So my hosts have been absolute angels and that doesn't mean angels as in Anglo -Saxons.

41:29

Let's leave all that stuff out. They've been perfect angels. So we got to the church and we got set up and they've provided a projector for me and I made it through the

41:44

Jehovah's Witness presentation without too much indication of how difficult things were becoming.

41:53

But during the lunch break, I just was feeling really, really bad.

42:03

So at this point, I was just using over -the -counter stuff and things like that.

42:09

We went into the afternoon sessions. I did Mormonism while sitting on the front pew, using my laser pointer to point to things on our presentation of the

42:19

Eternal Law of Progression. And then we took a brief break and I sat in a chair up front for only about half an hour,

42:28

I believe, on the subject of Roman Catholicism. And when I go only half an hour on Roman Catholicism, I assure you,

42:39

I went to the point where I was absolutely convinced that within the next two minutes

42:44

I would pass out. That was going to be it. I was going to just, my eyes were going to roll back in my head and I was going to pass out on the floor and that was going to be the end of that.

42:54

And so that's when I wrapped it up. And I felt very badly, very, very badly because I didn't address

43:00

Islam. I didn't address Atheism. I didn't really fully address Roman Catholicism. And there were people, they did not say there was someone there who had traveled from Germany just for those studies.

43:14

And I just, you know, had to,

43:19

Pastor Roger and his wife and his son have kept reminding me over the course of especially those days that God's providence is

43:29

God's providence. And he lays us aside.

43:34

It's a reminder of our mortality. It's a reminder to thank him for every time we do have the opportunity of ministering and being able to do so with freedom.

43:45

And that he was not caught being surprised by this. And you know, when you think about it, I've debated open theists and God was not surprised by this.

43:54

And so we had to call it off. And I was taken back to the room where I'm staying.

44:06

I'm staying at a very nice place. It sort of looks like a castle, at least part of it looks like a castle at one point.

44:13

And later in the evening, I told him that if I was to ever sort of picture a

44:21

British doctor, a family doctor, that would be him. And that's when he informed me he was

44:26

Australian. I'm not sure if that really did me any good. But anyway, he came by and he prescribed antibiotics for me.

44:41

And unfortunately, at that point in the evening, where we are in London, all of the chemists, now that was a good

44:49

British word there, all the chemists were closed. And so the next morning,

44:54

I got my antibiotics and began them. But the next morning,

45:01

I was supposed to be preaching for Pastor Roger, and I could not do so. And he wouldn't have wanted me passing out in his pulpit either, for that matter.

45:11

And so that Sunday, I just started working on getting rid of this stuff, sleeping as much as possible, which was next to impossible.

45:19

If you all know what I had this kind of cough that is just gut -wrenching, you can't sleep for very long.

45:26

And so it's difficult to get over because you can't rest. And so I rested on Sunday and Pastor Roger came to the room and said, you know, we're planning on flying to Scotland in the morning, and we're going to be visiting

45:41

Glasgow, Inverness, and Edinburgh. And we just had to move everything back a day and cut some things out.

45:49

There was just no way around it. And when Monday came, and I got up that morning,

45:56

I realized once again that Pastor Roger is wiser than I am, because he was right.

46:03

And I could never have done it. In fact, to be perfectly honest with you, as he'll tell you, I barely made it Tuesday morning. When we flew up to Glasgow, we were at a gate that was, you know, how many gates closer than the ones we had to walk half a mile to get to this gate.

46:22

And, ah, let me tell you, we got through security and went about another 20 yards, and I said, could we sit down for a while?

46:33

I felt like I had run a marathon at that point. And he's carrying my bag. This is just, oh, talk about bodily weakness.

46:42

Oh, just, oh, unbelievable. And so we flew up there to Glasgow, and let me look here.

46:50

Oh, okay. We've got a couple callers. That'll be good. So we'll, I'll just, let me just very, very briefly wrap everything else up.

46:57

I ministered at the Reformed Baptist Church. You've been using a name there. Anisland.

47:03

Anisland. Anisland in Glasgow itself. And in fact, that's where Jason met me.

47:09

And we spoke there. And then in Inverness, we spoke at the

47:16

Reformed Baptist Church there last evening. And tonight we were in Lane, Days Lane, in London proper.

47:27

Kent, in Kent. Okay. And so I've continued my speaking, and I think it's getting a little bit better, even though I'm still coughing no matter what.

47:37

We're still recovering, and we traveled back from Scotland today by jet.

47:43

We took an air, a train ride from Glasgow to Inverness. And by the way, I do need to mention this, and I'm going to take our phone calls.

47:53

I did not know this, and I don't think you realized this either, Pastor Roger, but Inverness is right there at Loch Ness.

48:02

And when we found out that Loch Ness was 15 minutes away, we went out for a drive.

48:09

And I have some pictures of Loch Ness. Now, you know, I think I might have seen something.

48:16

Didn't you see that one little thing? And you got a picture of me pointing, didn't you? Yes, indeed. So there we were at Loch Ness.

48:23

And you just never know. Maybe once I really enhance those pictures, maybe we'll finally have something there.

48:32

No, it's a beautiful, beautiful area. And I'll wait until I get back to talk to you about diving into my

48:45

Scottish heritage and finding out which clans I was associated with and everything else.

48:52

And I had just a wonderful time amongst the brethren up there. So I'll hold that off, however, for a little while until we get back and I can do a little more with that for them.

49:04

So let's go ahead and see if we can't make the phone calls work here toward the end of the program.

49:13

I just read someone's comment. Yes, Mark, that may be exactly what I saw at Loch Ness. It's certainly deep enough.

49:19

It's 700 some odd feet. So anyway, let's start with Marie.

49:27

I'm not sure who came in first, but let's start with Marie and see if I can hear her. Hello, Marie. I'm doing better.

49:46

It's a little more, it's a little more authentic because I discovered what I was doing wrong. It's a matter of not trying so hard.

49:56

It's a little, it's a, it's a, it's a small extension of vowels.

50:03

And now if I, if I was trying to do the Scottish one, that would be very, very difficult to do because it's hard to not work real hard at that actually.

50:12

So I just decided it was a lot safer to go with, with the British accent that I've learned from Pastor Roger.

50:19

He is, he is taking all the credit for my linguistic training and I'll be posting his email address for anyone who wishes to contact him for training and lessons in the future.

50:40

Well, no, it's actually, you know, when you're over here and, and you want it to rub off, it rubs off rather easily.

50:48

I was unfortunately on an aircraft today for about an hour with the people in front of me were drunk

50:54

Scotsmen and they did not rub off on me. So it really depends on whether you want to have it rub off on you or not.

51:03

But yes, no, it, it is a matter of, of, of, I knew I was going to be doing the program and, and I wanted to do it without inviting

51:13

Dick Van Dyke to co -host. You know, that was the other thing

51:27

I forgot to look for. Pastor Roger, we were just reminded, we forgot to look for Dave Hunt's redacted

51:32

Hebrew original scrolls at Loch Ness. You did look, he looked, he looked, he did check,

51:38

I, he's, he's on the ball. The man's just been, just been wonderful. He did look and I'm sorry we cannot find them.

51:44

They didn't find them. Sorry. Well, thank you, Marie. Thanks for calling.

51:50

God bless. Bye -bye. All right. So now let's go to, to Tired of New Jersey.

51:59

Um, and in fact, uh, I have met so many people over here, especially up in, in Scotland who have come to Montville, New Jersey for the pastors conference at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church.

52:14

You just, uh, the, the number of connections are really truly amazing. It is.

52:22

Yes. Well, and I, and I've asked the brethren as they've, as they've gone over there, isn't it a little bit scary to let a

52:38

British person fly over to the United States and rent a car? Uh, I mean, uh, we don't have roundabouts, so they drive on the wrong side of the road.

52:46

And, um, I, I know that I, I honestly don't believe I would come over here and rent a vehicle.

52:52

Uh, uh, as I have watched the brethren driving and that in and of itself has been somewhat of an education and, and, uh,

52:59

I have wanted to remind them of Romans 13 a few times. And in fact, it is interesting that over here, the pavement markings are, are only vague suggestions.

53:12

Uh, they, they really don't have almost any binding authority whatsoever. So, uh, it's pretty amazing that they come over and they travel all over our country and somehow, um, somehow managed to survive either that, or those are the people that we keep dodging going the wrong way.

53:28

And we just figured they were drunk, but actually they're British. That might be, can I handle the toll over here? Okay.

53:34

Uh, the tolls. Yeah, we had to actually pay some tolls today. And for now, believe me,

53:40

I had to exchange some money when I came over. And right now it's a whole lot easier for them to come over and visit us than it is for us to come over and visit them.

53:51

Since I heard the, uh, the pound to dollar ratio is 1 .87 today, and you're not going to get that.

53:57

That's just what it actually is. Once you actually have to exchange, uh, monies, it's, uh, it was about two to one.

54:04

So, uh, the money goes very, very, very quickly. That's, that's unfortunate.

54:11

So what was your question today? I decided to call in when you were talking about Egyptian proprietary law in England, then discussing

54:20

KJV Omnius in Mesa with Rich in New Jersey. And you're discussing revolve around my life elsewhere.

54:27

So I had to call in, but then I had to come up with some reason for it. So I'm curious with, in America, we have, uh, between like nominal

54:38

Roman Catholicism and then American evangelicalism and so forth. There's this discernible religious tenor, but, uh,

54:45

Europe is characterized commonly as very secular. And so I was wondering if there's anything like that going on over there, or are the people who claim to be religious, usually showing some signs of conversion?

54:56

Yes. Well, let me start off by, by, uh, doing something that my British brethren here, uh, sitting across from me will very much appreciate.

55:05

They are not Europeans. Uh, they, they take great offense at being called

55:11

Europeans. And in fact, uh, brother Roger was showing me his passport and expressing his disgust with the fact that without asking the

55:19

British people, they had made them European passports, uh, instead of British passports.

55:25

And so, uh, uh, but your, your, uh, insight is exactly correct. And that was one of the very first things that I began talking with Roger about when he picked me up at the airport, uh, after, uh,

55:36

I saw his sign looking for Dr. Oakley. Uh, and, uh, and that was the religious life of the people over here in, uh, in Britain.

55:45

And the fact that, um, America has so much more recognition of at least the existence of God and, and religious subjects in, in the cultural discussion than you have here.

55:59

People just will not discuss God. They are afraid, deathly afraid of offending minority groups at the, at the, at the cost of offending

56:12

Christians. Christians can be offended quite freely. That's all right. But, uh, minority groups cannot be, cannot be offended at all.

56:19

And hence discussion of God or anything along those lines, uh, is, um, just, just not a part of their experience any longer.

56:29

But what has been encouraging to me, uh, and I've mentioned this a number of times as, as I have been speaking over the past couple of days up in Scotland, is, um, while there is much nominalism and, uh, certainly while the major denominations, the historic churches here are filled with, with nominal, uh,

56:50

Christians who show no evidences of regeneration or conversion, um, their

56:56

God is building his church in every land. And, and it was, uh, uh, to me, it's been a tremendous encouragement to meet with Reformed Baptist, uh, uh, brothers and sisters and, uh, to, um, uh, to share in the things of the

57:13

Lord in, in such widely diverse places. And, and even in, in the situation, it's very hostile to their, to their existence.

57:21

And in fact, right now there, there is great concern about discussion, uh, once again, of, of a law that would, uh, uh, preclude offense in one's, uh, religious proclamations and things.

57:34

It would be very problematic, of course, to the proclamation of the gospel at all. And, and though we need to remember our brothers and sisters over here, for they, they fight a, a tremendous battle, uh, because of the secular society they live in, but also due to the fact that I'm, I'm sitting in a place where, where only, uh, a number of generations ago,

57:56

Charles Haddon Spurgeon ministered the word of God. Uh, this, this, this place has, has such, has had such a history of, of exposure to the truth and going up to Scotland, the same thing is there, um, that you, you just, um, truly have to wonder, uh, to have such light and then to, to seek to, uh, uh, walk away from that light.

58:23

That, that you cannot do that lightly. God brings judgment upon the people who does that.

58:29

And, and I've, I've been talking with my British friends. They've been talking about how things happen in their society are downright self -destructive.

58:38

I, I believe, am I not correct? You cannot even fly your flag any longer. That's it. That, uh, it, it patriotism is out.

58:46

It's just amazing. Well, I can hear the music in the background now. And, uh, so I need to be running and I need to be getting some sleep because I fly back home tomorrow, but I won't get there until the day after.

58:55

So I appreciate everyone's listening to The Dividing Line today and, uh, Lord willing next week,

59:01

Tuesday at our 11 a .m. Mountain Standard Time, we will be doing

59:07

The Dividing Line again. Thanks for listening. God bless. Next Tuesday morning at 11 a .m.