A Response to Sheikh Awal

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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

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

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

James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line on a Tuesday morning. I think it's Tuesday morning.

I don't think it's Thursday afternoon. So by process of elimination, it must be Tuesday morning. Someone in this channel is just talking about running into folks and yes,

I'm going to tell the story. I have to. Running into folks and then getting tongue -tied and he said, when

I met C .J. Mahaney, I fumbled while asking him about charismaticism and then thanked him for being in America.

That's hilarious. I really wish people wouldn't do that, right, because I'm trying to come on the air.

I can just see that. Some people go to me. Thank you for being in America. Well, you know, I've been here a while. I wasn't born in Turkey.

Let me tell you that much. Robbinsdale, Minnesota.

You can check it out. Anyway, today on The Dividing Line, I was sitting there thinking, some of you saw the video that I uploaded last night and I had spent all this time, you know,

I like to use graphics and make things pretty and useful and, you know, if I'm going to put a video up,

I've got 452 of them on the YouTube site now, I'd like it to be useful for a while, you know, and so you put some time and effort into it and for some reason, iMovie

HD, the old version of iMovie, which is a lot better than the new version of iMovie on Mac anyways.

If you use graphics, the MP4 that it spits out, YouTube chokes on it and it doesn't sync sound right and as soon as the graphic hits, then it gets all messed up and I don't know.

I've figured out how to fix it, but it's just a whole nother about hour long step in it that I'm just going to have to do all the time,

I guess. Anyway, some of you saw that the version went up last night, the sound went all out of sync on it and I had to redo it this morning and all that stuff.

So I wanted to do a series of videos in response to Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed Awal.

And by the way, we had a beautiful graphic, Micah, I'm sorry if you're listening. I hope that he is, but he may not be able to be right now.

But a number of those debates have been canceled because evidently, because David Wood posts on his website, cartoons, images, whatever.

He posted a clip from the South Park episode and says, this is what

Muslims kill other people about. This is what Muslims murder about. Since he does that, then some

Muslims contacted Sheikh Awal says, he blasphemes a prophet, therefore don't debate him. And so he pulled out of those debates.

And at least as far as I know, my debate is still scheduled. I hope that it will continue to be scheduled. I want to engage what this man is saying because he represents

Ahmed Dida. He represents that perspective. But it does strike me as an amazing thing that someone would pull out of a debate because someone is pointing out things that Muslims do.

That almost sounds like he supports the Muslims who are killing people because of cartoons.

And may I just point out that if we're if we're going to start wearing our emotions on our sleeves and be offended by everything, and people have rightly said there are many

Muslims who engage in the religion of perpetual offense. I'm offended by everything.

Remember Sheikh Jalal Abou Alrub, I'm angry here today. You ascribed a son to God. So in other words,

I'm just always angry at Christians. Well, what if we were to do that? What if my response was to be, you know, it really, you know, because I leave this to God.

And since I love the Muslim people that I put the offense to the side. But let me just be straightforward.

God is offended when Muslims deny who Jesus is. If Jesus is truly who he says that is incredibly offensive to God.

Well, if I'm going to communicate that the Muslim people, then I need to communicate to them with clarity, not just simply by fact of me being offended.

It really is a very self -centered thing to them, I'm offended, I'm offended. Well, OK, it's easy for all of us to be offended every single day.

Why has Western culture become so fearful of offense? I thought becoming an adult was growing up and not being offended by everybody all the time.

Isn't that isn't that what being an adult is? Isn't that what marriage is?

I mean, we step on each other's toes all the time and it's a matter of forgiveness and maturity and not taking offense at everything.

Isn't that what growing up is all about? So, please, this this this amazing

I'm offended by that. Well, I'm offended by this. How can we accomplish anything?

Isn't the truth more important than your personal offense? It's sort of relevant to a certain other situation we've been dealing with recently as well.

But anyway, so I want to talk about I want to I want to play a shake a

Wallace opening statement in this debate that I listened to last week. We go tomorrow as I was riding up Mount Lemmon.

And I want to respond to it because the fact the matter is, the Christian he was debating should not do debates and did not respond to almost anything he had to say.

And and that's that's a shame. And so I would like to respond to it. But since we have someone who snuck in early here,

I'm going to go ahead and take this call and then let's hold off on calls until we because what

I was saying was, if I do this in my office with graphics and stuff like that, it's going to take forever.

So I figured let's do it on the dividing line and I'm recording this and we'll make it available that way.

And it'll just be it'll move a lot faster. No graphics, but, you know, I'll try to read things and try to be accurate anyways.

But let's go ahead and take a call from Jason in Ohio. Hi, Jason.

Hey, Dr. White, how are you today? Doing good. OK, I'll try not to take up too much of your time.

And I was wondering if you could help me with something that someone put up on my YouTube channel about a video.

Yes. Turn off. Yes. Turn off your comments. That's that's how I handle everything on my

YouTube channel. Just turn off your comments and they won't post anything there anymore. That's that's I handle that. This was on my main page of my channel, not on the this person did post some comments on the video itself.

But I put up a video over a year ago called An Obvious Anomaly of KGB Defender from KGB Defenders.

You know, the whole thing about, you know, a lot of it stemmed from Steve Anderson, who's out in your neck of the woods.

Yeah, his rabid defense of the King James Version. And yet he has a very anti -reform theology.

Yeah, I think. Oh, yeah. Yes, he does. At any rate, I'm going to state these two comments back to back that he left on my channel.

Okay. Okay. He goes, I'm aware that KGB is not translated directly from Latin. However, the translation of Tasso forms as predestinate are influenced by the

Latin predestined there. However, a pre predestination can only be assumed in certain tenses, aspects of Tasso, for example,

Calvinist site. And this is where he actually got it off by one verse. He cited it in Greek and asked 1348,

I am interlinear. It's 1349. But it goes, oh, no, I have some type of,

I know, it's going, I own the arm. But that is that is actually 48.

Oh, it is 48. It is 40. Ah, that's also a son to talk mentally. I, Zoane, I own the arm.

As many as were appointed to eternal life, believed I've there's numerous articles on this on my blog.

And if you want to hear a rather in -depth discussion of not just the meaning of tetragonal and the term

Tasso, but the fact that 98 percent of people who address this subject demonstrate their ignorance of the

Greek language by the fact they look only at Tasso. Tasso, in this case, this is called a periphrastic construction.

It's a son to talk mentally. And one of the one of the things that that is a sure indicator of someone who is using only secondary resources and not really translating the language themselves or cannot read the language themselves is when they have discussions of vocabulary terms and they don't recognize a basic fundamental construction such as a periphrastic, which is what you have in Acts 1348.

And so I've provided a rather full discussion of that in. Well, I do address it in The Potter's Freedom, I think

I even addressed it in light of Dave Hunt's ignorance of it in debating Calvinism, but I know of addressed it rather fully on the website a number of times because it came up in the

Steve Gregg stuff and things like that. So that's that's an important thing to look at. Yeah, because I found that interesting because he was trying to sound like he was a

Greek scholar, which obviously it appears that whoever this shadow figure is not, you know, for lack of a better term, with all due respect to him.

But it's like he goes on to say, I support for protest the nation, even though the Greek -Burman question is in the perfect middle participle, which is virtually stated.

And I already got the impression that obviously he is wrong in the way that you've refuted.

Well, well, no, what they try to do, what some people try to do and what happens here is once somebody throws this out, then it just takes on a life of its own, just gets repeated all over all over the place, whether it's valid or not.

And that's why we've often said a little Greek is a dangerous thing. And so when you look at Tasso and then they then they try to emphasize the middle and very few people have any knowledge of how the middle is used.

But even more so, they have very little understanding of the fact that there is a fundamental difference in the language and vocabulary of Luke -Acts in comparison to anything else in the

New Testament. Hebrews is closest to it. It's very classical. And so they will they will grab hold of Pauline usage and try to parallel it with Lucan usage.

And it's just it's just invalid. It might it might it might shed some light on things. But the reality is that Luke is very classical in his syntax and he's very purposeful in his use of what's called the paraphrastic instruction.

And so, you know, to say, well, the King James translators were unduly influenced by the

Latin Vulgate, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Look, the fact of the matter is that to try to get around the paraphrastic in Acts 1348 just simply doesn't work.

And I've gone into depth on just do a search on on 13 colon 48 on the blog and you probably will will pull up more stuff than you actually wanted.

But you'll you'll find a rather full discussion of it there. It does get somewhat complex because we are talking about Greek syntax here.

We're talking about paraphrastics and participles and and, you know, the classical usage versus a coin a usage and stuff like that.

But once you dig down to the bottom of it, you discover it is primarily a smokescreen.

Now, I do not cite Act 1348 as a primary text. It is because Luke does not expand upon this so as to make it the primary point of what he's saying.

But it is reflective of the fact that the the early Christians clearly saw and and understood that.

I don't know what just happened out here, but it's like an elephant just ran to the building. I don't know what it is.

But anyways, while someone goes to check what in the world that was, it's a little distracting.

The fact of the matter is that the early church recognized God's sovereignty in this matter. And this is just a passing statement that is reflective of that.

So, OK, OK. All right. All right. Can I mention one other real quick? Sure. Not a problem.

I'm going to try. I know we've been talking about Eric and Cainer and everything like that. What I should have realized was everybody keeps saying

Cainer, it's Cainer, it's Eric and Cainer, Cainer, Cainer, Cainer. Yes.

That I don't know if maybe you were aware of that debate that he had with the incident.

Well, not not a debate, but that he appeared he appeared on an actually infidel guy.

I thought it was the rational response squad. It was the infidel guy.

But he did. If I remember correctly, he had people on there from the infidel guy had people from the rational response squad on with that.

So I hope I got my facts straight with that. If I don't, I apologize. But it was on the infidel guy.

And when I heard the back and forth that was going on, that I that was that should have been my first clue that for someone that has all of these supposedly accredited degrees that he could not state his case nor defend nor apologetically defend, you know, the

Christian faith or anything like that. Well, you may recall, I actually within a week of that appearance, we did a dividing line.

And what what some of my critics will be shocked at is I said very little about Eric and Cainer.

I said I was rather disappointed with how he he did. But I focused primarily upon the claims of Rook, the from the rational response squad and his comments in regards to church history that took place after the 2006 debacle.

I think it was early 2007. And so I, you know, I played that, but I really, you know,

I I wasn't impressed with what Eric and Cainer did. And the fact matter is he doesn't do this type of work.

And, you know, he just he just pretends to. But, yeah, we did we did address that at that particular time.

And I just simply point out the man's doctoral study was in the concept of just war in the

Crusades and the Inquisition. That does not make you an expert in apologetics. In fact, may

I suggest that outside of doing meaningful study in the in the fundamental areas that give rise that the only way to really gain expertise in apologetics is doing apologetics.

And that's the whole issue here. Is that he's been going around saying he does it when in reality he doesn't do it.

And you can't gain expertise in something by talking about doing it. You've actually got to do it.

You know, I mean, right now that the tour of California is on and the tally is on. I'm a cyclist.

And so I know those races are going on and there are people sitting around, you know, Tour de France is coming up in July and there are people who can sit around and can talk about the climbs and the

Alps and the Pyrenees. And they can talk about descending and they can talk about time trialing. But if you don't go out there and do it, you're not a cyclist for crying out loud.

You can talk about it forever. But when I see some guy that weighs, you know, two hundred ninety three pounds sitting on a couch someplace talking about cycling,

I'm probably not looking at someone who's actually going out and doing it unless he's, you know, some champion from 50 years ago and hasn't been on a bike for all that amount of time.

I suppose that could happen. But that's the problem here is you gain expertise, you demonstrate your ability to be an apologist by doing apologetics.

And he just doesn't do that. So anyway, OK, yeah, yeah, because I know my wife and I would listen to that thing going on.

And all we could say was this guy's playing right into their hands. But any but all right. If you. Yeah, OK, thanks,

Jason. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for calling. God bless for that. All right. Like I said, let's hold off on some calls to later.

I do want to try to get through at least this opening state, which I probably won't be able to do in the time period we have.

But now, once again, I have to I did this years ago. I played

Achmed Didot debates and I went through them point by point. And there was one thing that caused a lot of people to tune out, make that their favorite dividing line.

And that was the accent. The accent. Now, this man does speak quickly.

I think it's a little bit easier to understand because I realized I had my iPod on fast. It's trying to listen to someone like Achmed Didot is being very quickly is is very, very difficult.

In fact, I did want to mention one thing. I apologize. Let me mention one thing. Peter Hitchens was on the

Unbelievable Radio program. Justin, Justin Brierley's Unbelievable Radio program last weekend, Peter Hitchens was on with an atheist.

It was a fascinating discussion. And I need to write to Justin and I need to link to this and try to get more people to listen to it because it's a very interesting program.

But the thought that I had was English people sound absolutely brilliant at high speed because, you know,

Peter Hitchens has an even thicker accent than Christopher Hitchens has. And so put him on fast and they just they just sound absolutely brilliant.

It was it was something else. I'm not quite as brilliant at slower speed, but it was very good. But he's got a new book out that I'm going to be listening to on my rides this week,

The Rage Against God. And from that conversation, it sounded like something you might want to pick up and read.

Or as I did, I purchased it on my Kindle and will be recording it to my system this evening and listening to it while riding.

So you might want to do that. But anyway, you do need to tune in and listen. This is it's difficult to be doing other things at this point in time in listening to what

Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed Awal is saying because of the accent.

I think he could probably make it a little bit clearer because I've heard him in other instances and he spoke much more slowly, much more clearly.

But I think we have another instance here of you got an audience, you got people out there, you got some some juices flowing and your your speed picks up.

And I've fallen into that situation many, many times myself. So here is his opening statement.

I'm going to be stopping and starting responding as necessary to what he had to say.

Truth have come and falsehood have perished. Anytime truth comes, falsehood is bound by nature to perish.

Mr. Chairman, respected guest and honorable speaker, Mr. Lopez, between myself and Pastor Lopez, God Almighty is the witness that Brother Lopez has stood here for 30 minutes and he never solved the issue.

The issue was salvation through the Quran or salvation through the

Bible, which as you can see, you bear witness that he never taught the subject. So I have already compute what

I'm going to say in my head already. But because of what he said, I have rechanneled what

I'm going to be speaking. So I'm going to be speaking on salvation through the Bible and the Quran as I go.

Both, Inshallah. Where do I begin from the beginning? You see, the concept of salvation in Christendom is actually based on the fact that Jesus Christ died for the sin of mankind.

So I remember in the Bible, the book of Corinthians chapter 15, verse 14,

Paul said, if Christ did not die, or if Christ did not rise from the dead, our salvation, our preaching is vain and our faith is vain.

That means Christ have to die. If he did not die, our preaching is vain, is garbage.

And our faiths, our religion is also garbage according to Paul. So the concept of Christendom is for Jesus Christ to die.

Very briefly, and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain. Your faith also is in vain.

The term there is kine, it does not mean garbage. He goes on to say, moreover, we're even found to be false witnesses of God because we testified against God that he raised

Christ, whom he did not raise. If in fact, the dead are not raised, this is in context, and I struggle, shake a wall, very frequently does not seem to take context into consideration in his interpretation of the

Bible. And this will come out very clearly because what he's starting here is an argument that the

Bible itself says that Jesus did not die upon the cross, therefore was not buried, did not rise again the third day.

Every citation he's going to use, every citation he's going to use is from an author who clearly, openly, unequivocally, and without question affirms that Jesus Christ died, was buried and rose again the third day.

So he has to take authors and say that those authors are contradicting each other themselves internally in their own writings, which

I do not believe that shake a wall would ever allow anyone to do to the Quran. If we were to apply the exact same standards to the

Quran, I could take any verse, ignore its context and say, it says this. If we were to be consistent, but of course they would never allow that to happen.

And that again is the big issue. The very first, you know, debate, you know,

I sort of consider my Shabir Ali debate be the first debate that I did because the debate with Hamza al -Dumalik,

I was just simply defending the deity of Christ, was not studying Islam. My first debate that I did where I had actually begun the study of Islam was with Shabir Ali.

And from that point onwards, what have you heard me say over and over again? Looking for that consistent

Muslim who will use the same standards of interpretation, exegesis and scholarly resources in his study of the

Quran that he does in his criticism of the New Testament. And I have not yet found that that person.

But that's where we're going in in a shake of walls. His blood to clean the sin of mankind.

And we read in the Bible again, in 2 Timothy 2, verse 8,

Paul said, remember that Jesus Christ, the seed of David, raised from the dead, according to my gospel, according to my gospel, meaning there were many gospels out there at that time that are actually fighting with the gospel of Paul that Christ did not die.

So he said, remember now, catch that. That is a completely unwarranted insertion for which there is absolutely no historical evidence whatsoever.

What what do I mean by that? Well, notice what he just said, that there were many gospels. Well, Paul does make reference to false gospels.

He makes reference to Judaizers, for example, and he talks about a gospel that does not save that.

That's true. But notice the interpretation that he added that has no foundation whatsoever, that there were other gospels in which

Jesus did not die. There is nothing in this text, remember,

Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel, for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal.

There's nothing here about a gospel in which Jesus does not die or is not raised. That is a wholly unwarranted insertion.

And the historical fact of the matter is that no matter how hard you try, you cannot find first century advocates of the idea of a non -crucifixion.

The Gnostics are second century. The Gnostics have theological reasons that no

Muslim should ever find himself even close to embracing for their denial of the crucifixion.

Specifically, Jesus had no physical body. In other words, the Gnostics deny the fundamental revelation of the

Quran, and yet they will grab the Gnostics and say, well, this must reflect something that's going on in the first century when there is no evidence of that whatsoever.

So once again, inconsistency in there, an insertion of something that is nowhere to be found in the text itself.

Do you see how fast that was done? It was done very, very quickly. And it's done very, very much in passing.

That is something that you have to be listening for in in polemics.

That's a term that's often used very negatively. Oh, you're a polemicist. It just simply means you engage in arguments.

And as long as your goal in polemics is truth, then to be a polemicist is a good thing.

Paul was engaging in polemics when he wrote Romans. Jesus was engaging in polemics all the time in his teaching.

So we have to listen very, very closely to that. Christ, the seed of David, raised from the dead according to my gospel.

Then again, we read in the book of Galatians chapter three, verse 13, Paul trying so hard to crucify and kill

Jesus in the book of Galatians chapter three. Paul trying so hard to crucify

Jesus, obviously, as as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, first Corinthians chapter 15.

He had received the very same message he had passed on to them. They were all recipients of the same tradition, the same primitive

Christian belief. And what was that Christian belief? That Christ died for our sins, according to scriptures. And he was buried and he rose again the third day, according to scriptures.

And he was seen of these witnesses. That is the basic Christian message. That is the earliest stratum of of revelation that we can discern in the writings that we have.

And that is what Christians have always believed. And I won't, in this particular context, get into this.

But I think one of the topics was supposed to be, was Jesus Christ crucified in the debates?

I wish that would happen. I really wish that would happen. If that topic, if Sheik Awal will not debate that topic,

I would be glad to debate that topic. I'd add a third debate because this is just such a historical slam dunk.

It is a biblical slam dunk. The Islamic denial, the crucifixion is utterly untenable on any rational grounds.

I mean, the only reason that Muslims reject the crucifixion is because of 40 Arabic words written over six centuries after the events, 700 miles distant.

And those 40 Arabic words are not Mubinun. They are not clear. They are not perspicuous.

They have given rise to numerous different kinds of interpretations themselves. And so I would be happy to engage that.

Verse 13, Galatians 3, verse 13, Paul said. Let me get a drink here.

Galatians 3, 13, Paul said, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law inasmuch that he became a curse for us because it is written.

Whosoever is hung on a tree is a curse of God. May the curse of God be upon him.

The Bible say that. So why would Paul say Christ became a curse for us?

Christ became a curse for us. And he came, became a curse for us.

Christ becoming a curse for us. I don't understand how could Christ become a curse? Well, Paul explains exactly what he's saying.

The next verse says in order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the spirit through faith.

Jesus bears in his body on the tree our sins. He becomes a curse for us.

The curse of the law. Now he's going to show fundamental confusion of what Christians believe here in just a moment because he's going to say the law was not a curse.

He's not saying that the law is the curse. The law curses anyone who breaks it.

The law brings a curse upon anyone who is not perfect in their obedience to the law. Galatians 3 10 for as many as are of the works of the law are under curse for it is written curse it is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident for the righteous man shall live by faith.

However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, he who practices them shall live by them.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of law having become a curse for us for his written curse is everyone who hangs on a tree.

So the point is that Jesus takes that curse that wrath that is due from God upon himself.

He takes that curse of the law so that we might have his righteousness.

He does so voluntarily. He does so purposefully.

This is in perfect accord with the gospel narratives. Jesus says, what does he say?

It is necessary that the son of man go to Jerusalem, be betrayed, killed, rise the third day.

In John chapter 70, I give my life freely. No one takes it from me. And so this is a consistent teaching.

If we will allow the New Testament to be the New Testament, if we do not begin with the assumption that we're just going to tear it apart, we're not going to allow it to speak with one voice.

In other words, if we interpret the New Testament the same way, the Muslim will absolutely demand that you interpret the Quran. If they're consistent, then they have to allow the

New Testament to say what the New Testament actually says. It's right there.

It's explained in the text. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, which law the law of Moses, the law of Moses is not a curse.

It is. The law of Moses isn't a curse, but that wasn't Paul's point. It says the law of Moses curses anyone who does not live in perfect and perfect obedience to it.

Those who do these things, well, we don't do these things, we fail to keep the letter of the law, therefore it pronounces a curse upon us,

Deuteronomy 28 and 29. So Paul is being very accurate in his handling of the

Old Testament text at this point, and Sheikhawal does not understand the argument that he's presenting.

It's not a curse, but this is what Paul said, that Jesus Christ is a curse for us having died on the cross so that his blood will cleanse us.

So now this is what Paul is saying, but I'm going to ask Jesus here, did you actually die on the cross?

And I'm going to quote as many scriptures as possible to substantiate that Christ did not die on the cross according to the

Bible. Now, did you catch that? His assertion, his argument is Christ did not die upon the cross according to the

Bible. But listen carefully, make a note of his references, and you will discover that every single citation he's going to give will come from a book that is written by an author who will affirm directly and without question the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, every single one.

And so he has to interpret the writers against themselves, not in the original context.

And what he's going to do, remember I played this last week, we're going to listen to it again, obviously not today. What he's going to do is he's going to promote the idea that these books were just cobbled together over time.

He's going to specifically say they weren't written until the Council of Nicaea, which is historically, utterly disproven by historical fact.

We have papyri fragments or entire copies of the gospels that long predate

Nicaea. But the idea is to, for his own people, to promote the idea that the

New Testament is this completely unreliable text that has undergone this massive amount of editing. And then for the

Christians and folks, this is why I keep emphasizing this. This is why I have now given my

New Testament presentation. I don't know how many times, the reliability of the text in the New Testament, things like that.

Most evangelicals, when they hear this kind of thing, just sit back and go, uh,

I don't know anything about that. I don't know anything about manuscripts and things like that. The day when we can remain in ignorance about the history of the text, the

New Testament has long passed us by. It has long passed us by.

My friends, we have to be aware of the truth about the

New Testament text. And here is a very good reason why. Christ did not die.

Paul said, if Christ died on the cross, our preaching is vain, our salvation is vain, and our teaching is vain.

Inshallah, I'm going to prove tonight that Christ did not die on the cross according to Christ himself.

Where do I begin? I begin from the gospels, the book of Matthew chapter five, verse 17,

Jesus Christ said, do not think that I, Jesus Christ have come to destroy the law of Moses and the prophet,

I have not come to destroy, I have come to confirm. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but a dot from the law shall not pass till all is fulfilled.

And whoso therefore do the law of Moses and teach somebody so will become great in the kingdom of heaven.

But whosoever cancel the law of Moses and teach somebody so will become least in the kingdom of heaven.

How could Christ become a curse when he is saying that if you want to go to heaven, the law of Moses. That's not what

Jesus said. There is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means until the law is accomplished.

There's a fundamental and gross misunderstanding of Jesus' fulfillment of the law, the continuing abiding validity of the moral law, but the fulfillment of the law in Jesus Christ.

And just as Ahmed did not shake a wall, normally quotes his text.

Now that's, you know, I appreciate that. That is, that is impressive. Unfortunately, he frequently does not quote them overly accurately.

Uh, at the very same time, you'll notice that he reversed some of the material in, uh, in verse, uh, verses 18 and 19.

Um, I wonder why it doesn't go on with verse 20. Uh, for I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

So what does that mean? I mean, these are the most righteous people, according to the works law possible.

The whole point is they don't have that righteousness. And he's going to go to what seems to be their favorite text, uh, the rich young ruler here in a moment.

And again, never completely cite the whole story. And as a result, grossly, uh, abused the text of the

Bible, uh, at, at this point in Jerusalem, as Christ was walking in Jerusalem, a man who wants to go to heaven, a man who wants to go to eternal life, a man who wants to be among the kingdom of God came to him in Jerusalem and the man said, and I'm quoting in the book of Matthew chapter 19, verse 16, the man said, good master.

What good must I do to enter heaven? This man is looking for salvation. So he came to the right person.

Jesus is a good master. What good thing must I do to enter life eternally in heaven?

Jesus Christ said, why do you call me good for don't begin by elevating me. Why does that call me good for the only one that is good is the father in heaven.

Now I stop immediately because, uh, it is very common for, for Muslims to abuse, uh, the statement of the young man and Jesus's response as if Jesus is saying he's not good, this is a fundamental misunderstanding.

Why do you call me good? I'm not good. Is that what Jesus is saying?

Even from the Islamic perspective, hasn't, hasn't any Muslim ever stopped and gone? Uh, we actually believe

Jesus was sinless. So he was good. So why would he say this?

What Jesus is doing is once again, seeking, he knows the heart of this man.

And what's the whole story. He goes through the commandments and young man says,

I've kept these from my, my youth up. And what is Jesus response, which you're not going to hear from Sheikha wall because Sheikha wall doesn't understand this text, but what's his, what, what does

Jesus do? He says, one thing you lack, go sell all you have and give it to the poor.

Come follow me. And the, what happens? The man goes away and he goes away sad.

And why does he go away sad? Uh, because he had many possessions and Jesus's response is then to talk about the difficulty with which the rich man enters in the kingdom of heaven because his love of earthly things.

That's the whole point of the tax. It's not to say, Oh, the means of salvation is to keep the law.

Well, if anybody could do that perfectly, that would be fine. But the whole point of the Bible Sheikha wall is that no one can do that.

We have all fallen short. And so to say, see, Jesus simply said, do good deeds and you'll go to heaven.

That's not what Jesus said. He said, unless your righteousness is ski exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven.

His whole point, if you will allow the text to speak for itself is to point to our sinfulness and our need for something beyond ourselves, which is the very thing that Islam denies.

And that is the whole point. And that's how we see the abuse of this text, uh, by Islamic apologists.

If you want to enter heaven, you want salvation. Keep the commandment of Moses. And the man said, master, what is the commandment?

And Jesus repeated exactly what Abraham said, what Moses said, what Isaiah said, what

Nehemiah said, what Nehum said, what Daniel said, what Ezekiel said, what Habakkuk said, what

Haggai said. Jesus spoke in Hebrew and he said, the only way you go to heaven is this. And he spoke in Hebrew.

Shema Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Eloheinu. Here, O Israel, the Lord, our

God, the Lord is one. If you believe in this, heaven is yours. Did he mention that he's going to die for mankind?

And I noticed that that's just a total misrepresentation of the text. Um, that this may be how he remembers it, but it's total misrepresentation of the text.

He has not only conflated two different stories because in another instance, a man comes before him and when he asked, what is the greatest commandment, he talks about loving

God and loving your neighbor's self. He's put those two together now, but he's not dealing with the text.

And this is not what Jesus was saying. Now, maybe he heard it that way.

Maybe he hasn't checked it out. Maybe he's memorized that way and said it so many times and never been challenged on it that he hasn't gone back.

I don't know. All I know is if you actually look at the text, that that's not what it says.

That the young man said to him, all these, I have kept, what do I still lack? And Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me.

When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful. He went away grieving as a new American standard says, for he had great possessions, and then that prompts the discussion of how difficult it is for the rich gender in it.

You just have to let the text be the text. And you see that it does not actually present, uh, what

Shea Kowal is saying. And just a note, um, to our

Muslim friends, shouting Allahu Akbar is not an argument in a debate.

It is nothing more than a demonstration that you lack self control. That's all it is.

Uh, and yet over and over again, they kept having to try to get these, these people just to not yell

Allahu Akbar. And notice what they just yelled Allahu Akbar at, at a gross misrepresentation of the text, which means nobody in the audience is actually looking at any of this.

They, they, they aren't checking it out. Why? You know, I don't see any difference between that and what happened when I debated

Tim Staples that first time. And the guy in the guy in the audience, you know, the

Eucharist, you know, and everybody gets all excited. Okay.

Um, don't you see that at least for the rational person who's actually examining arguments here, he just made a really bad argument.

He just conflated text and misrepresented it and ignored it and didn't cite the whole, whole text and didn't say it correctly.

And you all are going Allahu Akbar. Doesn't, doesn't that tell you something? It tells me something.

It tells me your dawah is weak. Your, your, your dawah is, is, is, is inaccurate, uh, because you're misrepresenting the facts.

So, uh, I would be very careful about, you know, uh, yelling out Allahu Akbar. Uh, you might want to make sure that what you're yelling at is actually true first.

I think that would be, that'd be helpful. So I'm quoting the master because the master himself said the set, the master is greater than the servant

Paul who has never seen Jesus for once, never seen Jesus out of nowhere, he began to write gospel,

Ephesian, Corinthian, Thessalonian, first John, second John, Timothy. Um, Paul didn't write in first or second

John. That would be John who wrote first and second John actually. You contradict any Christian, Timothy, Galatian.

Why don't you call the master himself? The master said the master is greater than the servant.

So Jesus Christ is telling us how to go to heaven. Keep the commandment of Moses. The man asked him, master, what of the commandment?

And he said, thou shall not kill. Thou shall not bear false witness. Thou shall keep the Sabbath as a holy day.

Thou shall not bear false witness. Thou shall not covet your daughter's wife. And he has found the 10 commandments. And he said, if you keep this, salvation is yours, meaning you will enter heaven.

Um, that's not what he said because he then said, if you wish to be complete, go and sell all your possessions.

So I wonder, does Sheikha Wall own anything? Has he sold all his possessions? I mean, if, if that's the kind of interpretation that he wants to give, then, and if he wants to present this in our debate in Detroit, then

I just simply strongly suggest to him that he be consistent because I'm going to ask that he be so, uh, does he own anything?

Does he, does he want to say that Jesus' teaching was you could not own possessions that would not be consistent with Islamic understanding?

Or would he just simply dismiss this text? Because what was he going to do? It is interesting. He's quoting from Matthew 19 here later in the debate, when someone's going to ask him about another text in Matthew, where Jesus talks about going to Jerusalem and dying and being buried and rising.

Well, you see, uh, remember I played this last week. That's, you know, Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus and Alexanderus are from the 12th century and they don't contain anything after Matthew three, which is completely bogus, completely untrue.

Uh, I mean, you can go online. Codex Sinaiticus .org is online folks. Go look, go to Matthew and go to Matthew four and you'll find it right there.

Uh, it's just, I mean, it's factually untrue and yet that's going to be his response at that point.

But why is he quoting from Matthew 19? If that wasn't a part either? Uh, again, uh, inconsistency, sign of a failed argument.

This is the case. Christ did not die on the cross. Who said that? Jesus Christ said that.

Where? In the gospel. You see, Paul said, salvation,

I give you a quotation, the book of Romans chapter 10, verse nine, Paul said, if you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart that Christ raised from the dead, you are saved.

No way. Just believe in your, say with your lips and confirm in your heart that Christ was risen from the dead, you will be saved.

But Christ, let's see what Christ said about this. Jesus Christ said, Christ said in the book of Matthew chapter 15, verse eight,

Jesus Christ said, these people, they worship me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me.

In vain do they worship me, teaching the doctrine of men, men like Paul who wrote the books.

Okay. Uh, uh, okay. The men like Paul who wrote the books,

I don't have the foggiest idea. How you leap from the context of Matthew 15, which is, which is again, a text we've used over and over again in talking about Roman Catholicism.

It is, this is a specific quotation that is, that is actually being used here, uh, from the old

Testament, uh, that is talking, being applied by Jesus to the

Jews in regards to the core bound rule. How that then is to be transmitted to one of his most faithful apostles that he converts himself on the road to Damascus and how that's relevant to Paul.

We're not told, but that is a massive mixture of context. And there is no logical reason whatsoever to think that Matthew chapter 15 has anything to do with the apostle

Paul whatsoever. In fact, um, that description of those who will not listen to the word of God would be much better applied to Paul's opponents.

Um, not to the apostle Paul himself. There is really, uh, at that point, uh, an amazing breakdown of, of logic.

Paul said in Roman 10 .9 that you confess with your lips and you believe in your heart, but Christ said, these people, they worship me with their lips.

Their heart is far away from me. Okay. Uh, so if the word heart is used, um, there can't be anyone who has true faith in their heart because there are people who in their hearts are far from me.

So if they're hypocrites or can't be any true believers, uh, shake a wall. Are there Muslims that are hypocrites?

I happen to know that the Hadith talks about them. So if they don't have true, uh, faith in their hearts, their, their, their faith is, is false, how come you can make that distinction?

Their Iman is not true. And then there are Muslims who have true faith in God.

Um, if you can make the distinction, why, why can't we have that distinction in, in the New Testament?

Because that's what it's talking about. So in Matthew 15, we're talking about hypocrites who say one thing with their mouth and their heart's different.

Paul talks about having true faith in your heart that is represented by what you say, and yet you see a contradiction here.

Why? Logically speaking, uh, there's obviously no contradiction at all.

When are they worshiping me, teaching the doctrines of men, men wrote the book. Men wrote it.

Christ did not write it, nor did the disciple wrote it. It was written over 325 years after Christ left the earth, where in the council of Nisi, Constantine and the pagan king was the leader of that community.

Now that's, that's just, you know, really bad fiction being presented in a debate.

Um, uh, it's difficult. We, we played that before. I, I am uncertain as to whether he's talking about Paul's books there or the gospels or both.

Uh, but the fact of the matter is that in a court of law, you could demonstrate that the gospels were written long before, uh, the council of Nicaea because we have physical evidence.

Uh, we have over 100 papyri manuscripts. Uh, the vast majority of them would date before the council of Nicaea.

Uh, we have the writings of early church fathers like Ignatius. We have Clement's epistle from the

Romans to the Corinthians. Uh, we, we have Justin Martyr and we have Tertullian and, and we have all this material that quotes, uh, frequently from Paul and the gospels, all of which long predates the council of Nicaea.

And so this kind of assertion is documentably completely bogus.

It's not just false. It's bogus. It's, it's fiction. It is, it is Dan Brown fiction. Um, and I, I, I just strongly encourage shake a wall.

Don't, don't bring fiction to a scholarly debate in Detroit. Bring the facts, bring something you can actually substantiate.

Uh, don't bring fiction. Uh, because the assertion that any of the new Testament was written, the council of Nicaea is just that it's really, really bad fiction.

It's not even pulp fiction. It's just bad fiction. Christ did not die on the cross. I give you the book of John, the book of Matthew chapter seven, verse 21,

Christ said, not all those who call me Lord, Lord will enter heaven, but those who do the will of God in heaven, they will enter heaven.

And he said on that day, which day many will come to me saying, Lord, Lord, did we go prophesize in your name, in your name, we cast out devil in your name.

We do so many mighty work and Jesus Christ said, and I will tell them, get away from me. I don't know you, you who worship me for nothing on that day, the

Muslims called Jesus, Lord, Lord, the Jewish did they call Jesus, Lord, Lord, no, the

Hindus do they call Jesus, Lord, Lord, no, who called him Lord, the Christian. And he said on that day, many will come to me saying,

Lord, Lord, did we not prophesize in your name, in your name, we cast out devil in your name. We do mighty works.

And Jesus said, I don't know you get away from me. You who work iniquity, the word iniquity in Greek means those who worship me for nothing.

Okay. Too many things respond.

Let me respond to the last assertion that on a neon means worship me for nothing.

I would like to see a lexical resource that says that on a neon means lawlessness.

You can hear that. Namas is law, alpha privative, on a meal, lawlessness, you who work lawlessness.

So that's just, again, sort of Dan Brown fiction being thrown out there.

But again, context doesn't seem to enter into Shayk Awal's interpretation here, because there are a number of things here.

Jesus is called Lord all the time by his true followers in the

New Testament. The point of Matthew seven is that there are going to be false followers of Jesus.

But the fact that there are people who say, Lord, Lord, that do not do what he says, demonstrates their faults, right?

That means Christians, those who follow Jesus will call him Lord, and they will actually do what he says.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, one of the kingdom of heaven. Notice he didn't say not anyone. He said not everyone.

So by saying, do Muslims call him Lord, Lord, he's demonstrating that, um, Muslims aren't following Jesus, at least not the

Jesus of the Bible. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven.

So you call him Lord and you do the father's will. That's how you get into heaven. And Shayk Awal just said, we don't call him

Lord. So you're not doing the will of the father in heaven, are you? Remember Jesus said in John six, when people said, what, you know, what must we do?

What is it we might do that we might work the works of God? Jesus said, believe in the one whom he sent. On that day, many will say to me,

Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy your name, cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? So there are people who pretend to be

Christians and his answer is not what he gave. Again, he embellished the text a little bit.

Again, I think it's because he's quoting from memory. Then why declare them, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of iniquity or lawlessness.

Which again, like I said, doesn't mean that you worship me for nothing. And then

Jesus says something and since we're running out of time here, we will pick up at this point. We haven't gotten very far, but I hope this is useful to you to hear, again, just as we've gone through debates with Roman Catholics and others, to hear the mindset, be able to enter into the mindset and to be better prepared to give an answer to the hopeless within you.

But if you're listening and you're a Muslim or you're watching on the video, as we will be posting this on YouTube, notice what else

Jesus says. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came.

The winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been found on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house in the sand.

And the rain fell and the floods came, the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell. And great was the fall of it.

Now, I know how people respond to this. I know that people say, well, Jesus is talking about his teachings here.

But what prophet ever spoke as Jesus spoke and made these types of claims?

And is Sheikha Wall commending to you, the Jesus of the New Testament, that you would build your house upon his words?

The Jesus of the Koran is not even personal. All he does is say, worship

God. He is not like the Jesus of the New Testament that speaks of his word as God's word.

That's vitally important. I would invite you to look at that. Did you have something you wish to add, sir? I found interesting listening to that last clip.

Did I understand him to essentially go through all of that as proof that Jesus didn't die on the cross?

That's what I thought I heard him saying. Well, that's the argument that he's trying to make, is that Jesus did not die upon the cross because the

Mosaic law remains valid. And it's a very roundabout argument that doesn't really deal with the text very well.

But yeah, that's the argument being made. In this case, the argument that's being made is, well, it's

Christians who are misrepresenting Jesus, see. And it's the Christians who say Jesus died on the cross.

And so that's where the problem lies. We'll pick up with that particular argument the next time we get together here on the

Dividing Line. Unless, of course, major stuff happens between now and then that we have to address.

But we'll try to get back to it and get through all of this before the debates in Detroit.

Pray that they will all continue on and will be taking place as scheduled,

Lord willing. We'll see you on Thursday. Thanks for listening. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

World Wide Web at AOMIN .org. That's A -O -M -I -N -dot -O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks.