A G3 Dividing Line from the AOMin Booth

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:31

Well, greetings. Welcome to the dividing line. We are coming to you from G3. That means there are all sorts of people all around us.

00:39

You may actually...I'm not sure if we're violating G3's live streaming policy because if you listen really carefully, you might pick up something that's taking place in the main sessions.

00:49

I don't know. But we are here at our booth. It's backwards in the video. Sorry about that.

00:55

We have been doing everything we can to try to make stuff work, and it's a challenge.

01:01

No two ways about it. But just wanted to do a program. Not sure how long it'll go, but a program here at G3.

01:10

There are so many people walking by. I happen to be looking down the rows here.

01:16

I haven't even had a chance yet, honestly, to even go around the corner here and visit with Post Tenebrous Lux and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

01:27

And Chris Arnzen wants me to go down and do an interview, and I'm just like, ugh. So we will see.

01:34

But I can see two or three Apologia Church members down the road at a competing booth.

01:42

I'm not sure if that's really the appropriate thing to be doing. But we've got some guys down there and former members at other places.

01:52

Here we are. Has somebody heard a number? How many people are signed up for this thing?

01:58

How many? 6 ,400. 6 ,400 people signed up here in Atlanta.

02:06

I had never even seen this building before, I'll be honest with you. Is it fairly new?

02:13

I don't know. Early 70s. Really? Early 70s? All right. Well, it's so old, it's about to fall over.

02:20

So there you go. But it looks fairly new. I had never even seen it before. I came in last evening to do a

02:27

Q &A session, which was really interesting. And all the roads down here were closed.

02:35

Couldn't get to where I was supposed to park because there was a, as they say in America, soccer game, as they say anywhere else in the world, football game going on.

02:45

And so it was just a zoo down here. Getting in this time was a whole lot easier.

02:52

So I'm thankful for that. But so we got in here a little afternoon and started greeting people.

02:58

Did that for about an hour and a half or so. And I just recorded a bunch of stuff for G3.

03:06

Phil Johnson was, I'm not sure what, I'm a little worried about this, I'll be honest. Because Josh Bice sent me the questions last night that we were going to be asked.

03:19

I'm not used to that. Actually, I don't think I'm as good answering questions when

03:26

I know what they're going to be than when I don't know where they're going to be. So that's sort of weird. But they're asking a bunch of us the same questions.

03:34

So after me was Paul Washer, before me was Phil Johnson. And so I'm sort of a little worried that, you know, what do you do when you're the editor?

03:44

And you've got all these different guys, we didn't answer, we were all answering the exact same question.

03:51

You could, you could come up with some pretty interesting stuff with some creative editing there, which is a little bit scary.

03:57

But anyways, we just got done doing that. And then we've just been, it's weird for me to look over and see myself backwards.

04:04

I hate that backwards thing. I'm sure there's a way to make this camera go the other way. But we're just, we're flying by the seat of our pants.

04:12

We've never done anything like this before. And so we're just trying to make it make it work. This is actually for anybody who cares, the same light that I use in the

04:21

RV. And then I, I left my camera at home. And so this is a whole new camera setup.

04:28

But normally I'd be using zoom. And so I that one goes the right direction. And so, and, and this is the, this is that can't get far enough over there.

04:42

If I pull it far enough, it'll definitely unplug the new microphone that nananet, don't worry about that.

04:49

Rich wanted to make sure that I was using. So we have, I had this really neat, you know, one that goes over the ear and stuff like that.

04:56

And he decided that wasn't, wasn't going to do it. So, but this is what I use in the, in the

05:02

RV when we're doing the program. And we just normally don't have as much competition as far as the background noise goes.

05:09

So anyways, we had a, had a Q and a last night on social justice issues, and we covered a lot of, we covered a lot of ground.

05:18

I'm not sure if that's been posted yet. I'm sure I've already heard that there are some people that are a little upset about some of the things that were said, which

05:33

I guess I can understand why, why that would be the case. But we were all pretty much in agreement that we are facing an amazing time in our lives, an amazing time in the life of the church.

05:48

I'll be honest with you, unless there is an extension of grace and mercy and a restraint of the evil of men and women,

06:00

I'm not sure we'll be able to do this again in the future. At least not without a tremendous amount of capitulation to the demands that have nothing to do with health.

06:15

I would like to think that most of us now realize that so much of this stuff had one excuse, but it had another application.

06:26

And I can certainly see things happening to where I wonder whether Christians like us are going to be allowed to gather together and to, because we're encouraging each other right now.

06:40

That's, that's the problem. And I just, I just wonder how long we'll be able to do this, whether there'll be another one.

06:48

I honestly don't know. I hope and pray there will be, but today the big news this morning was that YouTube was taking down any videos that questioned the safety and efficacy of the current vaccines, which would mean they would have to take down any video that gives you any of the data coming out of the

07:12

UK, Scotland, Israel, anything like that. So they have, they have decided that they are the new determiners of truth.

07:23

And you just get to, you just get to believe what you're told to believe. They are controlling the horizontal and the vertical, and they know they need to have that kind of control to be able to promote the stuff that they're promoting.

07:40

So we've obviously said all sorts of things in the past and their algorithms certainly understand my speaking voice.

07:51

So if all of a sudden, you know, 90 % of the last year and a half's dividing lines disappear, you'll know what happened.

08:01

And obviously we have plans to set up in other contexts. When that happens, we've been saying it would happen for a long, long, long, long time.

08:12

But we'll see. We'll see. I've, I've wondered if the Lord wouldn't just sort of, the

08:20

Lord can control algorithms too, by the way. And he can blind eyes and deafen ears.

08:27

And if he can do that, then he can, he can also keep people from seeing what's being said.

08:34

So who knows what'll happen. Let's all sing together, shall we? We're just,

08:42

I guess, I'm not sure when the next session is starting, but it's 4 .51

08:50

p .m. here. And so I'm not sure why we are now competing with music.

08:58

But anyway, so for those of you who haven't been here before, I don't even know this year where the actual meeting is going on.

09:07

And it's right back there. That's going through the jumbotron behind us.

09:13

So yeah. So that's, that's what's varying. While we're out of here,

09:19

I would like to note that since you're using a Mac, the, the, the, the logo here on your side is, is backwards, but on my side using a

09:30

PC, it's, it's, it's straight. It's correct. So I just wanted to mention that. This is a camera that we, we just purchased, never used before.

09:40

And when I do the next dividing line from the RV with this, it will look perfectly fine because it will be set up properly.

09:48

So there you go. Anyway, that had nothing to do with what we're talking about here.

09:55

There is, I don't know how many square feet there are here, but Ligonier is right over here. And this is a place where, you know, the

10:05

BMA seminary, and I'm thinking, I'm thinking that that guy looks like he's about to fall asleep.

10:12

Could you get his attention for me? Could you get his attention for me? You're, are you near Lindale?

10:21

Yes. Okay. So I'm doing something for you guys next week. BMA seminary in Jacksonville, Texas.

10:27

BMA seminary, look at that, right across the way is BMA seminary in Jacksonville, Texas. And, uh, so, uh, next

10:37

Thursday, I think Wednesday, I think it's Thursday. I think next Thursday, uh, you're going to find this interesting.

10:45

I've, I've dragged, I don't know how many volumes of all the current

10:50

CBGM volumes, ECM volumes in the back of my truck, all the way across the United States, just for you guys.

10:58

Oh man, we appreciate that. Okay. So these guys, now you're part of the staff or you want the students or what?

11:05

Alumni work at the booth. I work with the Baptist Publishing House, which produces, okay. All right.

11:11

And I've spoken in your guys' chapel. Yeah. We've had you at least once or twice. Right. In fact, I spoke on John 8 for some reason.

11:17

I remember that. I'm not sure why. Uh, but, um, so these guys are near and Tom Buck has some kind of friendly relationship.

11:24

We do things with the G3 preaching workshop. He's sponsoring preaching workshops. We partner with those that sponsor those.

11:30

And he's a friend of the seminary. He lectures a lot. He's always, whenever I've talked about coming, he's always,

11:35

I'll talk to the seminary. We'll see if they can't get you in and stuff like that. So, so well, great. And you're Jordan. Thank you,

11:41

Jordan. I appreciate that. Uh, we're going to see you guys next week and I'm going to get the opportunity of doing something for them that I honestly, um, have not done for anybody yet.

11:55

Um, I had wanted to do a session at Grace Bible Theological Seminary on CBGM and introduce people to what

12:06

CBGM is and how it's impacting your Greek New Testament and, and your New Testament as a whole.

12:13

Um, but we didn't have the time to do it and I'm going to do it in the future for them.

12:19

So these guys are gonna be the first ones to get the, uh, the, uh, discussion. And I, like I said,

12:24

I've got all the volumes, the currently published volumes out of my truck and, uh, still get a chance to look those over and see what the, because right now, for those that are not aware of what

12:35

I'm talking about, I don't, I don't have my Greek New Testament with me right now, but if, if you, most of us who went to seminary, um, did you, did you take

12:45

Greek brother? So did you use the red one or the blue one? Red one. So the UBS fourth edition.

12:51

So you have, what's called a manual Greek New Testament. It's single volume. Now the

12:57

UBS that, that a lot of people use only has about, if I recall correctly, around 400 variants noted, but very full information given because that particular one is meant for translators.

13:10

So that's meant for people that are doing translation work in the field in like missionary work and stuff like that.

13:16

And so they've chosen the variants that would most impact the translation of the text. What's normally called the blue text, the

13:23

Nessie Olin text has over 20 ,000 variants listed, but much less information on each one.

13:31

But for most people, most seminary graduates, that's all we've seen. You may have gone to the library once and seen, uh,

13:38

Tischendorf's Greek New Testament or seen some multi -volume ones. The ECM, the

13:44

Editio Critico Mayor, which is being produced in Munster, Germany, primarily in Munster, Germany right now, right now,

13:51

Mark, Acts and the General Epistles have been published.

13:56

It's all supposed to be done by 2030. With COVID, I'm, I've got the feeling that it might be delayed a little bit, but that's all that's out right now.

14:08

And that currently is three, seven, that's currently 10 volumes.

14:16

So it's, it's at least this wide and that's just Mark, Acts and then little books like Jude and 1st, 2nd

14:25

Peter and stuff like that. Can you imagine how big the final product is going to be? It's going to be humongous.

14:32

And Mark cost, well, you bought it, but I think it was about 280. Yeah. Mark, Mark was about $280 for the three volumes of Mark.

14:42

Okay. So this is not something that most people are going to have in their libraries, if you know what I mean.

14:48

Um, but seminaries need to have them. And, uh, and it's, it's a really positive thing, but a lot of people really struggle to understand the role that computers are having in determining the text of New Testament.

15:08

And it's not determining the text. It's just a new tool that involves the collation.

15:15

That is the, the, you take manuscripts and you note where they're very from one another.

15:23

You collate them against the standard. This is the largest collation of Greek manuscripts has ever been done.

15:30

And you would think that would be a positive thing. You would think that most people would be like, wow, this is fantastic.

15:36

We're going to have all this information available to us online. And it's going to massively increase. For example, one of the things that CBGM allows you to do is to point to how much various texts agree with one another.

15:51

We've always just, we've always just estimated that, you know, this, this, this scholar says this, this scholar says that, but no scholar has translated all that stuff.

16:00

So it's always just an estimation. Now we can say, for example, for the gospel of Mark, we can have the computer readout of exactly what the amount of absolute agreement between the manuscripts is between any two manuscripts or between all of them that we've collated.

16:19

So apologetically, this is a big positive thing, but I'm one of the only people

16:25

I hear talking about it. And maybe that's because there might be four dozen people in the world that really understand how

16:36

CBGM works right now. But that has to change. That really has to change.

16:43

Because I think this is an important thing. And your, your New Testament, when the

16:49

Nessiel and 29th edition comes out, there will be 60 to 100, it depends on when they do it.

16:57

If they, if they wait till John comes out, then there might be more. But the vast majority of the changes, you can't, you don't even, you don't even recognize them.

17:06

They do not impact the meaning of the text enough for you to recognize it. But there have been a few, I've pointed out

17:12

Jude 5, I've pointed out that the previous readings was the Lord saved the people out of Egypt.

17:19

Because of CBGM, the analysis of the text, the ESV, for example, says Jesus delivered a people out of Egypt.

17:26

That's a, that's a big one. In Mark, there haven't been all that many big things, but the longer ending of the first verse, some of you have seen my debate with Shabir Ali from Biola.

17:40

And you remember that Shabir threw that out and said there were manuscripts, some said the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then stopped there, and then some said beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the

17:52

Son of God. And he pointed out the textual variant. And he's right, there is a textual variant there. The CBGM databases, the collation of the text, has the

18:07

Son of God as its main reading. So in other words, it's saying the manuscripts that say the

18:13

Son of God are more coherent and consistent with one another than the manuscripts that do not contain that phraseology.

18:23

And the idea being, the more coherent they are, the better they've been copied, in other words, is the issue.

18:29

And so we'll be explaining all of that, and I know I need to explain that on the dividing line. I know I need to do graphics and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

18:37

But I've been waiting for Mark to come out for my own project on P45. Now that it's out,

18:43

Lord willing, I'll be able to pursue that project a little bit farther. But I'm sorry that there are a lot of Christians that are somewhat afraid of recognizing how we receive the

18:59

New Testament. And this is not really the context to be doing a lot of this stuff, but I think we need to recognize that we are in the most blessed time period in all of church history to be able to defend the veracity of the

19:15

New Testament text at the very time that you have the most widespread attacks against the veracity of the

19:21

New Testament text. You know, this is the generation that knows more about the humanity of the pre -born child than any generation ever before.

19:33

We literally have an open window to the womb now, and that's had an impact.

19:40

But what that does is it increases the sinfulness of the people that murdered those unborn children, because there's no excuse for it.

19:46

At the same time, right now, we have the greatest amount of information about how

19:52

God has preserved the text of the New Testament for us, and it happens to be at the very same time where Bart Ehrman and everybody else is using the same technology that we're using right now to speak to you to present doubts about that.

20:10

And I think that's the providence of God. I think that's a wonderful thing, and so I'm blessed by that.

20:17

Was that Philip Webb just singing just now? It sounded like that to me.

20:23

So I'm trying to compete with a set of lungs second to none other, and hopefully you could hear all that anyways.

20:32

Let's hope YouTube doesn't get on our case first. Yeah, YouTube will probably go, sorry that you have copyrighted music.

20:38

No, we don't. We're just sitting at G3 and someone sang musics and stuff like that.

20:43

So anyway, so on the way home, I just happen to look across, and I see

20:50

BMA Seminary, and I'm looking at Jacksonville. I'm going, I think that's the school that I'm going to be doing something for on CBGM on the way home.

20:59

And of course, you and all of you make that possible when you support us and give to the travel fund because my truck takes gas.

21:13

Yeah, yeah, it's not solar powered, I can assure you. I'm not riding my bike, and this trip's been easier than the last one because I was going up and down mountains on the last one.

21:24

But this one, I'll be honest with you, the only thing that has raised the blood pressure and the heart rate on this trip so far has been the number of places of road construction where you narrow it down to one lane and then you use those concrete barriers on both sides.

21:45

And man, there have been a few that I really wondered if I had any more than a foot on each side and maybe less.

21:53

And you're on uneven road surfaces, so it's throwing you around and so far, no damage.

22:01

I haven't broken anything, but I'm not going, I will not call myself a veteran

22:08

RVer until I have 20 ,000 miles under the belt. And at the rate

22:14

I'm going, that'll be late next year sometime, I think, is when that'll happen.

22:19

But anyways, it gives us the opportunity to not only come to places like this, and I do have to say, just today, a bunch of folks were coming up, and I think,

22:35

I didn't keep count, where is, Josh, I think he, oh there you are, holding the camera, sorry.

22:44

I didn't look at the guy holding the camera. Did you count how many people had said, right, but I was, what

22:54

I was wondering is, I counted four or five who said that they came to Christ through our ministry.

23:04

And I've talked to countless others. And what was amazing was we did not actually personally meet any of those individuals.

23:14

It was the debates, especially. It was the debates brought them out of various groups that we've debated and things like that.

23:21

And it's just, it's stunning to have that opportunity.

23:27

And what it reminded me of is I've told some of you, if you've watched, I was in a teeny little town in Montana.

23:37

And I spoke, it was super hot. They're having a heat wave. The church I was at didn't have air conditioning because it's

23:44

Montana. And so I was dying of the heat, and I was soaking wet after I got done speaking on Christian worldview issues.

23:55

Wow, that was exciting. I got a lot of amens, and no, I really didn't. And I sit down on the front pew, and I'm rehydrating, basically.

24:04

And this woman sits down next to me, and she said, I want to show you something. And she shows me a text message from her son that said, if James White is speaking in your area, you need to go hear him.

24:17

He's a wealth of information. And then it said it was through his ministry that I came to Christ here in New Zealand.

24:26

And she tells me that he had taken a job on a cruise ship and then jumped ship, didn't like it, jumped ship in like Singapore.

24:37

She hadn't seen him for years. He was wandering around the South Pacific, ended up in New Zealand.

24:43

Don't ask me how in the world he ended up watching The Dividing Line or catching one of our webcasts or something.

24:53

I have no earthly idea. But here I am sitting with his mom, who's thanking me for being the one to be used to bring her son she hasn't seen for years to faith in New Zealand.

25:08

And we're in Montana. Okay. And that's what I'm like, yeah, this is sort of fun to do.

25:14

This is worthwhile, getting to get out and to meet with people in some amazing contexts and amazing places.

25:24

And that's what we've already done. I was at a little church last night. And now here, I didn't tell you about this.

25:31

The church that I was at, and I'm looking around because I've seen some of the guys from the church. The little startup church that I was at is pastored.

25:45

Well, first of all, I don't know how I ended up there. Because he sent me a note in Facebook.

25:53

I do not read Facebook stuff that is not from because it doesn't even show up.

25:59

It goes into a different folder that are not in the friends list. Or I'd be overwhelmed. I couldn't do it.

26:05

I don't even know how he saw it. I don't know how it popped up on my screen. I found out that he wrote that to me flat on his back with COVID.

26:15

He was really knocked for a loop by it for like three weeks. And lo and behold, what caught my attention was he's the son of a pastor.

26:27

He is the son of the pastor of the church that I spoke at on John 6, when we got off the

26:37

Zondom in Florida in 2003.

26:42

Yeah, December. And I was sick as a dog. And I've been sick on the cruise.

26:50

It wasn't COVID in 2003. I just want to point that out in case anyone says something about it. I did not feel well.

26:58

I flew from Florida to Phoenix, passed through. I wanted to go home so bad.

27:05

Flew to Southern California, was put up in a hotel by Grace To You.

27:13

And you know what I did the next day? The George Bryson debate on the

27:19

Bible Antsy Man broadcast. And so the pastor of the church that I spoke at before I flew there was this guy's dad who passed.

27:33

His dad passed away last year. And it was seeing that name that caught my attention.

27:39

And that's how I ended up in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

27:46

And talking with folks about the doctrines of grace and stuff like that last night.

27:52

Yeah, was that last night? Night before last. Lose track eventually. Yeah, last night was Q &A.

27:58

And that's why I went as far north as I did on the route because I went from Conway to Jonesboro.

28:06

How do you even see all these connections coming? You don't, you don't, you don't.

28:13

So when I was in Conway, I met with a guy whose life

28:18

I ruined. But he would say blessed because he's leaving a massive church where he does the music because his theology has now become such that he just can't do it anymore.

28:38

He's got to have a connection between the theology and the music to where there's a consistency.

28:44

And to meet folks like that, and to get a chance to shake their hands. And it's just, it's just fantastic.

28:52

It really, really is. It's a great, it's a great benefit, a great joy to be able to do that kind of stuff.

28:58

And to stand here, I'll be honest with you, I don't know why, but after an hour and a half of staying here,

29:04

I was exhausted. Because I am listening to what people are saying.

29:10

I want to be able to respond to questions properly and stuff like that. So it is, you might think it's just easier to stand there, just shaking hands.

29:20

I'm not sure how much COVID I've been exposed to so far, but you know, probably a good bit.

29:27

But it is, I want to enter into what folks are saying.

29:33

And so it's exciting to get a chance to do this. And when I was asked a question recording for G3, they said, how has

29:41

G3 been a blessing to you, etc, etc. And my primary thing was, originally, when

29:47

I came here, I was focused on my presentations and getting to meet the other speakers and stuff like that.

29:53

But I'll be honest with you now, it's, it's getting to talk with people. And you can't do it forever.

30:01

You know, what's really funny is it was only two years ago.

30:06

Well, even last year, I think. A year and a half ago. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because it's been 18 months, you know, since, since it happened last.

30:15

But Virgil Walker, who is now in charge of working all this, when

30:21

I was staying there talking and greeting people, came up and said, do you need anything? I said, dude, they have

30:28

Chick -fil -A out there? He's like, yeah. And I remember two times, Virgil, Virgil was the one who went and got us food so we could keep talking to people and shaking hands with folks and stuff like that.

30:41

And now he's in charge of everything. And then he was just simply running around doing what Virgil does. In fact,

30:47

I knew Virgil before Virgil met Daryl. Now they were already doing their program, but they hadn't met in person.

30:56

So the funny thing was, I had met Daryl and I had met Virgil, but they hadn't met each other in person.

31:01

And I met them both before they ended up meeting each other in person. So I think that's sort of interesting or whatever. But that's what's exciting about a place like this.

31:11

You get to meet folks. You look familiar. Have we met before? No? Okay. Well, you look familiar.

31:19

I'm just looking around at the people here. Brian, Brian of the Beard, I know from Twitter.

31:28

And I love the pants from 1970. I think that's just great. I had pants like that in 1972.

31:35

So I'm panning the crowd here. Oh, okay. All right. We have quite an audience going on here.

31:42

We do. Not as big as it might be. And these guys are over here because they can hear me best on that side.

31:51

But it's a pretty motley crew, actually, when you think about it. Let's see. We've got one clean -shaven person.

31:59

Well, I'm on watching. Well, two.

32:05

Okay. We've got another one over here. But this is a bearded. Oh, we've got another one over here. But it's a pretty bearded place.

32:12

See, he actually notices. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true. Yeah, you guys are strange.

32:19

There's no two ways about it. But why are you guys watching this rather than being in the session? That's what

32:24

I want to know. I can watch Steve Lawson. You can watch. Oh, that's right.

32:30

Okay. Now, let me point something out here. Steve Lawson. Oh, look who just walked up.

32:38

Look who just walked up. We're live right now. Should have put a chair there for me. Well, we didn't.

32:45

Look, this is the third time we've run into each other at G3 this year.

32:53

And you didn't say anything about being on the program or anything like that. Do you all know who this troublemaker is?

33:00

No. Amelia Ross. Yeah, I got you. I won't bother with the

33:07

DL. No, no, no. Now you're stuck. Now you're on. Oh, man.

33:12

Now look and talk about it. Wow. Now we've got one from you. Are you going to pull him away from me?

33:19

Okay. If you don't know Mark Spence, then you've never watched anything from Way of the Master. That's right.

33:24

If you don't know Amelia, you've never watched anything from Red Something. Yeah. We have a similar color, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

33:35

So see, all the good people. Talk about unpopular. But yeah, we should.

33:41

We should do unpopular. But this man, I want you to know something about him. He is not nice to people he's interviewing.

33:50

Okay. All right. Because I want these guys dragged me over in 2019,

33:57

July of 2019, wasn't it? You do hold the record for the most videos. I thought somebody else beat you. Yeah, but I gave the better answers.

34:05

You definitely gave the better answers. I think somebody did more questions, but I gave much longer responses. I would give,

34:11

I would ask questions to this other individual, and he would say, well, that's not what the Bible says. That's not what the

34:16

Bible says. That's not what the Bible says. Whereas you would give me the reasons why. So I went, we went, how many hours?

34:24

It was long. Do you realize how exhausted people are? Are you going to come back?

34:30

I would love to, if you weren't in California. I don't, I don't generally invade communist countries, and that's just not my thing.

34:39

Arizona is still free, and I've got an

34:45

RV you can, you can live in. Would you make the journey if I have you come back? Yeah, well,

34:52

I want to do stuff with you guys. I just honestly would feel like a hermit, because I couldn't go anywhere.

35:00

Well, we'll bring the RV and pick you up. So which county is very conservative.

35:05

I know, but you still have the insane governor. We do have an insane governor, but I preach every

35:11

Saturday. As long as I can get there without getting arrested, it's good.

35:17

Can I take you out open -air preaching? Would you do that? Oh, that could be fun. As long as you're able to do it.

35:24

We can do it. Without, you know, with freedom, yeah. But yeah, let's, let's, let's do it again, because I, I honestly,

35:31

I did enjoy it. And how would people access what we did? So it's not out until next year.

35:38

Oh, you're kidding? Yeah. Oh, come on. Yeah. Come on, man. I mean,

35:43

I mean, I worked so hard on it. Living water's equipped. Yes, yes. Living water's equipped.

35:49

Okay, all right. We'll do more. We'll do more. Thanks, Mark Spence. Mark Spence from, from Ray Comfort.

35:55

And by the way, let me, let me tell you something. I haven't actually mentioned this to anybody, but I hope you realize

36:01

Ray Comfort is, is real and he is so giving.

36:09

A couple of months ago, my, my, my granddaughters love

36:15

Ray Comfort. In fact, when I told them that I know him, when I picked up my phone and showed them he's in my contact list,

36:23

I can call him. They, they all of a sudden thought that their, their grandfather was a whole lot cooler than they, than they thought before.

36:31

And so when I saw just how, well, they had gone out, my two oldest granddaughters had gone out street witnessing, basically with a, a, there's a, there's a girls group at Apologia.

36:47

And so they had, they had worked through Ray's evangelism stuff and memorized the, the text and stuff.

36:55

And so they went out with adults because they're 11 and 8. And they went out with adults and they, they found a food truck.

37:04

And so they started passing out tracks and witnessing people and giving out the million dollar tracks to people, the food truck.

37:14

And my, my granddaughter Clementine, if you know anything about, my daughter is

37:21

Summer, Summer Yeager, Sheologians. You get the idea that she is me in a female body, which is a frightening combination.

37:31

And so Clementine, people just look at her and then they look at pictures of Summer and they go, oh boy, because she is just a chip off the old block.

37:43

And so she was witnessing to people and she was using Ray Comfort stuff.

37:49

And they had told the girls don't use all of the 10 commandments because how young you are. So in other words, don't do the, are you an adult or a thing?

37:58

She forgot and went right through it anyways. And, and that both she and Cadence just had a really great experience.

38:07

And so when I heard them telling me about this, I thought, you know, so I texted

38:13

Ray and I said, would, would, would you work with me and do a little something for my granddaughters?

38:23

He's like, sure. And so I told him what had happened. And I said, I'll tell you what

38:28

I'll do. He said, I said, I'll get you on my iPad on, on FaceTime.

38:35

And I will tell them that I've got a friend who's a little nervous about going out and witnessing to people.

38:42

And if they could talk to him about how they had done it, then maybe that would help him with his nervousness.

38:49

Okay. He said, okay, cool. So I go over, set up the time and I get

38:55

Ray on and he's at his house. And so I'm holding it facing me so he can see me.

39:01

They can't see who it is. And so I tell him, you know what I said? Okay. Yeah. And they're looking at me like, well, all right.

39:10

And I said, okay, his name is Ray Comfort. And when they first looked at it, they thought it was like a picture or something.

39:18

And then it started moving. Hi, it's Ray. And they're like, is this for real?

39:24

Yeah. Hi. How are you doing Cadence? How are you Summer? Summer. See, I did it. I did it

39:29

Clementine. And, and, and Jannie was there and, and Waylon was there too. So he starts talking to them and then he, he walks them through his house and shows him his birds and, and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

39:44

And they were just, I mean, if you want points as grandfather, then you might want to know

39:51

Ray Comfort because, because that was that, that really, that really, that really did it, but he is a really, really neat guy.

39:57

So it was great to see Mark Spence coming by. And I had wondered why all those hours, cause

40:04

I think I was there three days and hours and hours of just asking question after question after question with different there, they would change out the host, but not the guy answering the questions and you just exhausted by the end of the day.

40:21

And I'd wondered why I hadn't gotten a link as to when that would be available because it's not available yet.

40:28

Um, so it will be eventually, I guess they're putting together a big thing. So, so anyways,

40:33

I'm sorry that, um, yes, I do see who just pulled up next to us. Hi Mike.

40:41

We're doing the dividing line. That's not a beauty ring. It's a light.

40:47

You crazy person. Somebody doesn't, isn't caught up on all the technology to know what a webcam light is and stuff like that.

40:56

It's okay. But, but, uh, yes, Michael Fallon's over there at, and I don't know how we always end up sitting next to their, their booth, but, uh, that that's the way it was last year too.

41:08

And that's because he's in charge of where the booths go. But, um, if you've watched, well, who died a couple of weeks ago?

41:19

John Shelby Spong. Remember John Shelby Spong passed away and, um, no one knows.

41:28

He said absolutely worst debate he's ever not moderated. You didn't moderate it. No, he did.

41:34

Oh, that you did moderate. Okay. Yeah. It says the worst he's ever moderated. Um, if you've seen the debate with John Shelby Spong, who has now, who, who now has absolute certainty as to the debate resolution in that particular debate, uh, it was put together for all of you who don't know, all of that was arranged by that guy right there.

41:57

If you've seen the John Dominic Crossan debate, Bart Ehrman.

42:03

Okay. You get, you get the feeling, uh, you know, what, uh, the Shabir Ali debate, uh, that we're on the debate on the cruise on the resurrection.

42:12

Um, that was all arranged there. The, um, papal infallibility debate, the self moderated.

42:24

I guess we can go ahead and tell that story. Mike's going crazy over there.

42:32

You got to understand there's some, someday before I die, uh, I've got to do either a video or a book about all the behind the scenes stuff at 175 so far moderated public debates.

42:47

But one of the big wows was, uh, we were at, was it

42:53

Calvary Baptist? The one, the one that I self -moderated with Robert Zagenas.

42:59

That was at Calvary Baptist. Okay. So we're in Florida and Mike here is setting up the debate on papal infallibility with Robert Zagenas.

43:11

Now I debated Tim Staples on the same topic on the other side of the nation, um, in Fullerton, California.

43:20

And so we needed to have a moderator and Mike was not yet aware of his true callings, uh, because back then you were still teaching, weren't you?

43:36

Okay. All right. So Mike did want to moderate the debate. Okay. But the pastor, his pastor, it was his church of the church insisted on that he had moderated.

43:46

He told, he told us he had moderated stuff before, right? Oh, all the time. All the time.

43:51

I'm, I'm, I'm, oh yeah, yeah. I'm good. There's Mike. Okay. You got Mike.

43:56

Okay. All right. So, cause I saw you were sitting a little bit down front.

44:02

I remember the look on your face when this happened. It's sort of like right now. So we do the introduction that the pastor does the introductions.

44:13

He's got a little thing to read about me and Robert Zagenas. And then he basically says, okay, gentlemen, you go ahead and get at it and sits down.

44:27

And there's nothing about what the timeframes are going to be. There's nothing about who's going to go first. And I remember seeing

44:33

Mike, he's sitting down there. Well, because what you were witnessing is evangelicals and Catholics together three.

44:40

Yeah. Now we had to get along to debate. Yeah. Now we had to get along even to debate. Yeah. And, and I look over and Zagenas is looking at me like, you know what, you set this up well, didn't you?

44:51

And thankfully Bob, Bob behaved well that night.

44:57

He really did. I mean, there have been, there have been other debates where Bob didn't behave well, but he did that night.

45:06

And so we were, I, I had to keep the time myself and, and know who was coming next and stuff like that.

45:13

And the pastor, did he even stay for the whole thing? Uh, physically. Yes. Physically.

45:21

Yes. Okay. All right. There's, there's, there's the backside to that. Uh, so yeah, that was a very, very, very interesting evening.

45:28

There's, there's no two ways about that. But Mike also arranged the debate we did with John Dominic Cross and Marcus Borg.

45:35

You know what? That was great. Marcus Borg is dead too. I'm starting to, there's a pattern here.

45:41

Uh, we're, we're slowly knocking off all of our, all of our opponents. Um, that was a good week and a half though.

45:47

That was really good. It was a good debate. And, and what, what people don't know is that we, after I debated

45:54

John Dominic Cross and that was Seattle, wasn't it? Yes. In Seattle, just one -on -one, then we debated, the issue of the resurrection,

46:05

Jim Renahan and I debated he and Marcus Borg on the resurrection on ship. What ship was that?

46:11

It was the, I believe, Sea Princess. Sea Princess. We were sort of in, in Alaska, sort of.

46:19

So, um, I wish you could have seen how our people, the people on the cruise treated those guys.

46:31

They just loved on them. I've got, I found a picture recently. Don't even know where I found it. I found a picture recently, um, of my wife.

46:39

We played some kind of a game we got on the bus. Remember? Yeah. You had to ask people questions and stuff like that.

46:45

And so I've got this wonderful picture of my dear wife with John Dominic Cross. And I think she had to ask him questions and she was having to write down his answers or so you could get to know people and stuff like that.

46:58

But our folks just loved on these guys.

47:03

They really, really did. And knowing how completely different their perspectives were, our people really,

47:10

I thought, gave a real witness to the gospel as to how we treated them and how they were treated.

47:17

And because especially Marcus Borg knew about us type of people.

47:22

But for John Dominic Cross, we were like aliens from another planet. Reformed Baptist.

47:29

I mean, this guy was a priest most of his life. He spent the entire decade of the 60s studying the

47:34

Gospels in a cell. I mean, he, he was blown away when

47:40

I, he started telling me something. I said, oh, and then you did this because I read his autobiography. He had no idea that someone would take the time to like read his books.

47:51

I spent months preparing to, because this guy has an IQ 40 points above mine.

47:58

I mean, he's, he's one of the most brilliant men I've ever met. Lost as a goose, but, but a brilliant, brilliant man.

48:04

And I show respect for him by being very well prepared for our debate. But I was, I thought it was wonderful that we treated him the way he was.

48:12

And then I'll never forget, about halfway through the debate, I think it was during cross -examination, if I recall correctly.

48:20

Halfway through the debate, I remember, I think it was Croston. Might've been Borg, but I think it was

48:25

Croston who leaned forward and he goes, so let me understand.

48:33

Are you saying you think that the grave was empty because Jesus was physically resurrected from the dead and left the grave?

48:45

And I'm like, yeah, that's what we've been saying all along. It just demonstrated how completely disconnected from Christian orthodoxy, the whole realm.

49:00

I mean, Croston was one of the co -founders of the Jesus Center. So it gives you, it gives you an idea of really what that was all about.

49:08

That was a, that was an amazing, amazing experience. It really, really was.

49:14

So anyway, so you have now been seeing Mike moderating all those debates, but you don't know all the backstories about how it all got started.

49:26

And someday we're going to either have to do a long video or write a book or something because some of the backstories, most of the time they don't end up really impacting the debate, but sometimes they do.

49:40

And it gives people sort of an interesting new thing to be thinking about when they listen to, listen to the debates.

49:48

So anyway, so bro, you, you've heard me referring multiple times over the past year and a half to my friend that warned me about all this stuff that was coming, starting in 2016.

50:00

That's, that's, that's what I'm talking about. He was giving me books and he was telling me stuff and we were looking at him like, yeah.

50:08

Oh, he called Rich and Rich would say, so Mike called again. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah.

50:15

So, so, so I'm trying to figure out where I can get my custom tinfoil hat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then in 2017, when he said medical emergency powers are going to be used to destroy our liberties.

50:30

2017 is four years ago and I'm like, I couldn't even see how something like that would happen.

50:38

And now we're looking at it. So there you go. Give Mike his credit and he doesn't want it because he hasn't enjoyed being the only person watching the

50:48

Hindenburg out to explode. And it's the sparks coming. I'm telling you there's going to be, it's going to go any second.

50:57

And everybody's like, what, what? And now it's in flames and the radio going,

51:02

Oh, that's fascinating. And yeah, that's, that's the look of the face right there.

51:08

So anyways, we've been gone for a while now. Haven't we've gone, we've actually gone over an hour. Haven't we? No, no.

51:14

50 minutes in. Really? It just, it just feels that way. Well, my, my screen hit, my screen had blanked out twice and I thought that was half an hour, but I guess it's only,

51:24

I guess it's only 20 minutes. So imagine how I feel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You all see now what

51:29

I have to put up with all the time. It's, it's, Oh, it's just the, it's a bird. I know.

51:36

I don't even have glass between us. It's I've told you many times you ever come to the office, you'll see his office is as far away from my office as physically.

51:47

The most common question I get at G3 and it's happened this year again is why isn't

51:53

James nicer to you? I know. It's just the most common question. It's one of the great urban myths that I'm not nice to you.

52:02

Um, I'm just trying to survive is what I'm trying to do. It looks mean cause they only hear my side, but the reality is sometimes you can't,

52:12

I can't repeat the things that Rich says because it would get us into too much trouble. And I know it would get us in there.

52:17

I mean, I get us into too much trouble. So let's, let's be authentic with the sound here. Yeah. Nope.

52:24

Can't say that. Nope, not going there. Nope, not gonna, not gonna happen. So, so in the last few minutes here, since we got a, you got a group here, um, you got a, you got a question you want to throw out that you want to become famous for asking at the, uh, the

52:39

G3 dividing line. Now remember this is, this is, this goes on your permanent record.

52:51

It requires a little bit of history. Oh, it has to be a brief question. Okay. The, um,

52:58

I went to UNC Chapel Hill and majored in religious studies. I'm sorry. Before Bart Ehrman was there.

53:05

Oh, okay. I still had the book of Isaiah under John Van Cedars. And it was at that moment when it's just blowing my mind left and right where I separated my faith from my studies.

53:19

Okay. And I got into all kinds of things. I'm not now like a denomination. I'm none of those things now.

53:28

What are some things that we can give or point for?

53:34

I mean, Dr. Martin was my guy for the longest time, but there's more. And I just started getting back into it about 12 years ago, maybe 15.

53:45

And I'm worried about these kids because, because their, their job is to destroy them.

53:53

So what sort of things can we prepare? Well, wouldn't it be nice to summarize the question?

54:00

Yeah. Right. Right. Well, I think it will be in, it will be in the question, in the, in the answer. Um, wouldn't it have been nice if before you went to Chapel Hill in your church, you had been given a grounding in the truth, in a

54:16

Christian worldview, and even just the ability to critically analyze that which is presented as scholarship.

54:25

Because when you, when you think about why you have what you, you mentioned and for everybody else's benefit, you mentioned the fact that I would say 80 to 85 % of the currently available published commentaries on Isaiah will say that Isaiah finishes in chapter 39 and starting with chapter 40 or right around there, you have

54:54

Deutero -Isaiah, which is written by someone else and it's redacted in at a later time.

55:00

And it's not actually Isaiah. And so I'd say about 85, minimally 85 % of the available commentaries, including most at evangelical seminaries, uh, would have that kind of a perspective.

55:14

And so if you have a Christian worldview, you step back and the first thing you ask is, do

55:20

I have any evidence that Jesus held that view? Do I have any evidence that the apostles viewed

55:28

Isaiah in this way? And then you go, why do scholars take this perspective?

55:37

And when you do, you come up with two primary reasons. The two primary reasons are stylistic.

55:45

And then the biggest reason is it names Cyrus by name.

55:51

And we know God can't do that before Cyrus comes along. And as a

55:57

Christian, you go, wait a minute. The very first thing that Jesus does when he rises from the dead is he says to his disciples, he literally rebukes them for their unbelief in Moses and the prophets that testified of me.

56:21

So the first thing Jesus identifies as unbelief is an unwillingness to believe the prophecies of the

56:29

Hebrew scriptures. And so it's, how then do you accept the argumentation that, oh yeah, this has to be

56:39

Deutero -Isaiah because it specifically mentioned Cyrus by name. The, the mindset that's behind that, it's the same thing.

56:49

Um, if you, if you know, if you're familiar with New Testament scholarship, you know that Bart Ehrman, for example, only believes that Paul wrote seven of the epistles.

56:58

So he would not believe that Paul wrote, um, for example, Ephesians and Colossians. And so when you dig into the whys of why they say that, you discover the very same kind of circular reasoning that has been accepted.

57:19

It's taught by someone with a big name at a big place. They accept it and then repeat it to other people.

57:26

Very rarely are they challenged to think through what the actual reasons for these things are. And so I know that people back in my day, back in,

57:40

I'm not sure what that was about, but back in my day, I was married at 19 and I was raised to believe when

57:51

I turned 18, I needed to be responsible for myself, different than today's young people.

57:58

And so when I went to college, I already had the idea that I needed to stand firm in my faith, learn as much as I could, be willing to hear and everything else.

58:09

But I already had that idea. That's not where a lot of people are going to college today. But I remember one young man at my church, at PRBC, when

58:20

I was there for almost 30 years, he went to a

58:25

Christian college. And after about two years, he came back and he said to me, he said, you know, when you teach

58:31

Sunday school and you'd go off on these tangents and say, now, listen to me now, if you go off to college, go off to university, be aware, this is what you're going to hear.

58:42

And here's how you need to respond to it in regards to this text. He said at the time,

58:47

I just sort of thought that was, I was going to go to a Christian university. You know, he says,

58:52

I can't thank you enough for having prepared me even at a Christian university to defend my faith.

59:01

And we need to be doing that for our young people. We need to be, and we need to be doing that for our adults too.

59:06

And it needs to be modeled in how we preach and teach the word of God, not only in Sunday school, but how we preach sermons, everything else.

59:14

And I've certainly always tried to do that. We do that at Apologia, but we need to be doing that all the way across.

59:21

So the older commentaries can be very useful, but it's the commentaries that go into the background issues of authorship that it could be the most useful to people in that way to give you that kind of information and be prepared for that kind of stuff.

59:40

But I'm sorry you experienced the years in the wilderness, even though you probably value the truth more highly now than if you hadn't had to go through that anyway.

59:52

So God has a purpose in all those things. Man, that was like 15 minutes. Sorry about that.

01:00:01

It was only seven? Wow. Wow. Okay. Time travel. So thank you.

01:00:07

Yes, sir. The man with the 1689 hat on, which sometimes scares me, even though I've got 1689 in all my

01:00:16

IDs. For God's knowledge, will you discuss...

01:00:21

Oh, we're going to do an easy one here. Short statements real quick, right? Open theism is inconsistent.

01:00:28

If you're not a reformed theologian, then that's the only alternative you really fall into. And so when you say on your show that God's knowledge is based on his decree, are we to understand it more of a linear process?

01:00:41

So God decrees, therefore, then he knows, which I know that's not accurate. So how could I explain a positive case for the alternative?

01:00:48

Well, there are only a certain number of options that you can have as to why

01:00:54

God would have omniscience of a universe where you have creatures like human beings.

01:01:01

You either deny omniscience, you become an open theist. If you have simple foreknowledge and say

01:01:08

God simply knows the future, then you still have the reality that there had to be a point where he determined to create and therefore create the grounds upon which you could know the future in the first place, which would involve learning what was going to happen.

01:01:29

If time and the very substance of all of creation flows from the decree of the triune

01:01:38

God, then it is the result of his decree and there is no learning process that would come into existence.

01:01:49

Now, that decree includes the interaction of eternity and time because this is where a lot of people struggle because, and this is why

01:02:02

I keep pointing to Jesus as the paradigm for this, because it's in the incarnation that you,

01:02:09

I think, have the answer to a philosophical problem that without a

01:02:15

Christian theistic understanding, I don't think you could ever really come to the conclusion of understanding. And that is

01:02:21

God decrees everything that takes place in time and decrees the interactions in time that bring those events about.

01:02:31

And so our actions are real. They're coming to get us.

01:02:40

The aliens are landing. I hope you couldn't hear that, but there was some odd sound going on there. The actions in time are real actions and they're meaningful actions because God has decreed that to be so.

01:02:55

But the events in time, therefore, do not find their origination in the creatures, but in God who makes all things.

01:03:06

If anything originates, if you've listened to Leighton Flowers, you've heard him say this. Leighton that's the case, then

01:03:21

God had to learn what those things were either at the point of creation or when those things come into existence as an open theism or some other limitation on God in that way.

01:03:33

So if it's known, it's because God decreed it to exist. And so therefore, and I know all sorts of people that's decreed.

01:03:43

Yes, I know. That's the whole point of Isaiah 40 through 48. What's Isaiah challenging the false gods about saying, tell us the future and tell us the past and why it happened.

01:03:57

That's what the true God can do. And so I can't see how you can avoid that and remain consistently

01:04:03

Christian anyways and fully biblical. There is no before.

01:04:11

There is no before. Yeah, there's no, if you're talking about the decree and all of creation, it's a decree that brings about creation.

01:04:21

So there's nothing to be known logically before the decree other than God himself and he has perfect knowledge of himself.

01:04:30

So, and that's what gets you into, if you start talking about middle knowledge, God's free knowledge and his natural knowledge, his natural knowledge of himself is eternal.

01:04:41

He knows himself perfectly. His free knowledge comes from the decree because he's decreed to create and therefore he has all knowledge of what will happen in the creation.

01:04:52

Middle knowledge, they try to sandwich between the two. That's why it's called middle knowledge. It's between his natural and his free knowledge.

01:05:00

And theologians up to that point had figured that was enough. And it was. But then they come along and try to sandwich this knowledge in between, which allows for who knows what, but it allows for this idea that you could be known as an individual and known what you would do in any given circumstance, but God has not decreed your existence.

01:05:25

Which to me, again, it's, yeah, but who dealt the cards? The card dealer becomes the one who's in charge of everything.

01:05:33

So you're welcome. Yeah, right, right.

01:05:39

He's going to force me to accept middle knowledge. Yeah, please. Every single time

01:05:44

I listened to that, I just go, how did that happen? I don't even know what

01:05:50

I'm talking about, the Steve Tassi debate, but anyways. All right. So, all right, guys, we have gone, how long have we gone there?

01:05:57

Oh, we're at an hour and six minutes. Okay, we've got, we've done our hour at G3 and we need to get this uploaded.

01:06:05

So we need to make sure we can find a place that has a long enough, a good enough bandwidth to get it uploaded. So I thank all of you who stood around the whole time and watched the program and for supporting us all the time.

01:06:16

And all of you, those of you who are not listening live, but you will when it looks, it'll sound the same.

01:06:22

I do want to say one last thing. Okay. Right over there is Steve Lawson is on a jumbo screen.

01:06:30

I want you all to know that the width of every stripe on that tie is not only consistent, but before he bought it, he knew exactly what it was.

01:06:46

I just want you to know that's one of the really interesting things about Steve Lawson is that that is a part of the uniform and every one of his ties will be the same.

01:06:57

They won't be the same color, but the width will be identical. And I just say, eat my

01:07:07

Rush Limbaugh tie, Steve Lawson. Anyway, it is a

01:07:13

Rush Limbaugh tie. See, that's what makes it a real Rush Limbaugh tie there. So God bless

01:07:19

Rush. Yes. I do have Jerry Garcia ties. They're very beautiful.

01:07:25

And I have fractal ties too. So, and I have Coogee ties. So there you go. There you go. I have

01:07:30

Coogee bow ties. Beware, beware. So, hey, thanks for watching the program today. We'll see you next time.

01:07:36

God bless. And that's a wrap boys.