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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 602 973 460 to or toll-free across the United States.
It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. And now with today's topic here is James white and good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line on a beautiful Saturday afternoon last the last Saturday in the year 2002 it went by at an incredible speed six debates last year.
And it looks like we're on track for at least that many next year actually. Already looking at six scheduled debates in various places of planning. At the moment for next year and that's more than we normally have the beginning of year many debates sort of develop over the time over the course of the year, so Don't know if we can if we can do many more than one every other month.
And a bunch of these are our two to debate series on two different nights. That's always a good way to lose some weight and age actually when I'm doing that kind of thing. It's good to have you with us on this Saturday afternoon.
We are live some of the folks. Some of the folks in the chat channel will come in an hour from now and go well I thought it was two o 'clock and even though the time changed well over about two months ago, they still haven't figured things out yet and It's amazing you have to list okay 2 p .m.. Mountain time is 1 p .m.. Pacific.
That's 4 p .m.. Eastern, and we'll let the people in the middle of the country figure out where between two and four they fall. Just just just unbelievable anyways before we get to our topic today, which according to the According to the topic line in the channel is a study in hermeneutics and homiletics.
That's we're gonna be looking at the very very unusual dividing line today. No two ways about it never done anything like this before. But before we get to that people have requested a little bit of updates on a couple things.
No new developments this week. Didn't expect there to be any. This particular week on the book with with Dave hunt. Exactly what's going to happen with that as far as where we are how certain things gonna be handled whether there's going to be any Editing as to keeping things on topic.
It's all up in the air at the moment. We will see what happens with that and Nothing no no new developments on that front as I said didn't expect any this week. I mean gracious what what does happen this this week at all really is one thing you might want to ask and let's see as far as traveling heading to Connecticut the look at the thing here before the 16th of January and Coming back home on the 27th.
So be gone about 11 days. Connecticut. Long Island. For those of you on Long Island. I know about the only thing I'm absolutely certain of is on the 22nd I'll be at the Massapequa Church of God. Where I get to I The poor folks there have to hear me almost every six months.
I mean, I really feel for them. Love the pastor there love the folks there. They love to have me and Folks who really enjoy listening to to what I have to say for some strange reason. I really enjoy Preaching there past Jim Capo wonderful guy drove me all the way to New Jersey once poor guy.
Anyways, I I'm almost 100 certain that I'll be there Wednesday night the 22nd and I know that Sunday night the 26th of January I will be preaching at the Hope Reform Baptist Church, though. I will not look very good and what I mean by.
Well, people's. Oh, really? There's a prediction that prophecy has just been just been made. Didn't you watch Dateline last night? Don't you know what happens to people who make prophecies like Benny him?
They make a hundred million dollars a year. No, I know that I never really looked good. But what I meant by that was. We do the youth retreat the poor youth there at Hope Reform Baptist Church have been stuck with me for this.
I think I think this will be the fourth year. Fourth year. Does that make sense? I think I think four years. They've they've been stuck with me now and so We come back during the day. We have services Sunday morning who drive back.
In the afternoon, we get back eat pizza and have the evening service on the 26th. And so Generally, you don't get all dressed up. We look like people who've just spent a weekend over in Tuscarora, Pennsylvania at the retreat center there.
And and so it's just not as formal as normal. But anyways, and then the 31st and the 1st I'm gonna be up in Omaha, Nebraska. At Pat Abendroth's Church up there in Omaha, Nebraska. It'll probably be a little on the nippy side.
But I'm gonna be doing a men's Breakfast, it's me a Friday night thing the Saturday morning thing and then boom straight back again. I won't be able to the dividing line that day. I think I'll be landing right around this time.
Well, probably actually a little bit after this. But anyways. That that weekend so that's the main stuff coming up right away anyways. And then we've got stuff back in in Midwest and you know all sorts of neat fun stuff like that and.
Then the general conference the 4th and 5th of April and I think Easter is late in April this year. So we don't know what's gonna happen with the King James only folks showing up with their signs and all the rest of stuff.
So that's a report on what is going on there. Now what I invite you to do today is. First of all, you may once in a while it may get a little quiet for a second. Second folks and I'll I'll go do something.
You've just got to understand The the geek level that is being experienced in my office today. Most of you know that I have a really nice personal digital assistant a palm tungsten tea and. Some of you if you've read my bio know that I really enjoy chess.
Well, I just recently got around the holiday season Fritz 8 and as those of you who aren't into chess. Don't know what Fritz 8 is but Fritz 8 is the computer program that tied with the world champion kramnik in Bahrain Two months ago a 4 -4 tie.
So it's an excellent computer chess program. And I also have a program called chess tiger on my PDA. And so what I'm doing over here beside me is this games been going on since last night I've sort of put on pause over the nighttime hours.
But Fritz 8 is in the middle of a of a very intensive attack at the moment that may end this game very quickly. I'm not sure and I've got the palm sitting here in its in its cradle and it's got chess tiger and then the Fritz 8 is over on on the laptop on a 1 gig Laptop and they're playing each other and each time one of moves I have to make the move so that the other one knows what's going on see.
So anyways, if it gets quiet, it's quiet and if you'd like I can let you know who wins though I'm not sure that it's necessarily gonna be done by that time right now, as I said chess tiger is thinking and it's in check at the moment, so that's it's.
It's you know, it's one of those tough situations anyways. Does dr. O have deep blue? No, I do not have deep blue Fritz 8 is a better program than deep blue but anyways, what we're doing today is I'm going to invite you to Take your Bible and if if you have a obviously most well.
So I was about to say if you have a computer. Well, if you're listening to this, that's probably a foregone conclusion actually now that we think about that if you have a. It's the dividing line on Not sure time it is here divide line on.
I'm sorry mark. I didn't mean to do that. But mark should mark especially marquee should know That the dividing line is on right now. I mean, come on, it's it's anyways Take your take your computer. Take your Bible and if you have a Bible program Fire it up because what I'm gonna do today is I have the privilege of Preaching tomorrow and I'm working on my sermon and A lot of people will come into channel and they say well, how do you you know?
How do you study this and how do you say that and and and what what tools do you use and how do you put things together and and All sorts of things like that. And so what I thought I would do it doesn't make exactly the most scintillating broadcast methodology, but for someone who's interested in in how you would Approach a passage and the thought processes that go into how to Present the material in a passage maybe just maybe This would give you some insight at the very least.
It's going to convince a number of you that that I'm That I'm weird because I don't follow a really normal methodology and how I put together a sermon and I I do it a little bit differently. In fact, maybe I say hey, it's Saturday and you're still working on this.
Well, I've worked on it for a couple days. I mean, this is obviously a strange week. It was Christmas week and said obviously Interrupts your normal schedule, but I know some folks. I know some folks are listening right now who get to work on their sermons on Monday.
Maybe even Sunday night in fact and I I simply couldn't do that unless there was unless something was gonna happen to where the only time I was gonna have to work on something was on Sunday and Monday and Then I was just not gonna be able to do anything for the next I don't know Five days.
Okay, then I could do that. But otherwise if I finished my notes up on a Monday At least the way I think and the way I function those notes would be stale I guess would be the word Come Sunday morning.
Now, you might say well you could review them. Yeah, but Again and this is why no two people can use the exact same methodology. No, two people can can absolutely positively say well, you know, okay, if you just do it this way then You know, you'll be a great preacher or you know Spurgeon did it this way?
Therefore this must be the way to excuse me. I need to make a move here. Oh Boy that thing is fast that is that is such a fast processor. It's just incredible anyways. Okay. Now it's back to the palm and the palm just doesn't move as fast as the laptop does.
Anyways, you can't you can't just copy somebody else's methodology. It just doesn't work preaching is a personal thing and Yeah, I know you can learn lots from observing someone else you can learn Good things you can also learn to avoid bad things and I think you should learn from observing others, but At the same time have you I bet you most of you have seen somebody and you could tell Exactly who they had studied under because you could tell they were basically trying to in essence copy that one particular person and Yeah, the description of this one is gonna be it's gonna be sort of interesting, isn't it?
Everybody's you know, if I don't announce who won by the end of the the end of the program. People are gonna be really upset with me. But anyways You can tell that they're sort of modeling themselves after somebody else and and it seems I don't know to me at times it can seem contrived and That's that that's something I want to try to avoid anyways, so I try to work on things a little bit closer So that I'm still fresh I mean as I'm looking at materials as I'm translating as I'm parsing and syntaxing and and Looking up other references the excitement because I get excited doing that.
I get excited studying the scriptures the excitement of that needs to be fairly recent. It's it's difficult for me to for example You know, there's a there's a vast difference between preaching regularly in a church and Traveling around and having a set number of sermons that you deliver.
I mean, there are certain sermons that honestly I could deliver you could you could wake me up and kick me out of bed and give me five minutes to to get a drink of water and Throw on some clothes and I could preach certain sermons without any preparation at all without it without a single note John 6 Romans 8 Romans 4 4 through through 9 there are certain passages.
I could just Really do a decent job on because I know those passages so well. That's one thing to be able to go from place to place and have a set number of sermons but man when you are in the same pulpit and you have to Feed the same flock with regularity boy.
That is where the rubber meets the road. That's where you really have to do the work of Exegesis and the work of study and and there's a there's a lot more to it. So for me anyways there needs to be some passion involved and that passion comes from the study that passion comes from Spending time in the word and being in the word and if I did that back on Monday Tuesday or Wednesday and a bunch of stuff's gotten in the way since then it's hard to recapture it and I I don't use some people use extremely specific notes.
I understand that I If you saw my notes once in a while, I know what was it about it was like December 11th as I recall I did a Wednesday evening devotional for for prayer meeting and Please brush your teeth, too.
Well, okay. Thank you very much. That was sort of in my mind I just didn't you know take that mention them. Anyways, I did a Wednesday evening service and afterwards I gave my notes I think I gave him to Warren and They basically were just the the Hebrew text with some Like three or four points and and the points were not paragraphs or something.
It was just just a little outline. That's all it was and that's generally what I use. Some people will you know, write everything out and have everything, you know, very very specific and again, that's a personal thing I want to be a little freer having a Outline and for me, it's generally an original language outline either in Greek Greek or Hebrew.
Having those words there those words trigger things again. If my study has been fairly recent if it's gone back too far, it doesn't trigger quite as much. You know, that's it's that 40 year old brain just doesn't kick it out quite as quite as quickly as as it's you know has in the past and So anyways Each person needs to these approaches their way and when you do your outline, you know.
If you were taught to to do a certain kind of outline if you were taught to use bulleted points. You know, however, you do it. That's fine. I don't Generally, my notes are gonna be much more of a point by point by point well, I can tell you what my notes look like right now, in fact, I can I can bring the file up here and Generally Basically what I have is I have an opening an opening example to sort of introduce the topic I'm going to be addressing then that's only two.
Let's see one two. The first is three sentence two sentences the second two sentences each so total of four sentences then right below that I have My passage which if you're interested is Jude verses 24 through 25, which for some strange reason for most For most Bible programs you have to put in Jude chapter 1 as if there was a chapter 2 someplace.
But it just gets all confused if you try to tell it Jude 24 to 25 because it's looking for chapters. But anyways, I have Jude verses 24 through 25 In Greek and then below that I have the New American Standard rendering of that sometimes I'll put that there sometimes I won't it all depends if You know just just how I'm putting my things do then below that I have some some parallel passages that I want to to point out specifically Romans 16 25 through 27 and Ephesians chapter 3 verses 20 to 21 and again, depending on the week I will either put The the Greek text for those if those are passages that I know real well.
Or I'll just put the English. I have the English there right now. Mainly because if it's not the primary passage I'm looking at I don't want The trans to the work of doing the translation if there's any terms in there.
That's a hotbox legomena. That is a place where the only that words only used one time New Testament to trip me up if it's not relevant to what? I'm doing I don't want to necessarily, you know invest the time in that so I've Typed out or inserted obviously from my Bible program Romans 16 25 to 27 and Ephesians 3 20 to 21.
Then what I've done below that and and here's where you really need to make a decision and. And and that is What did he do? What did he do oh look at that did I mean Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, oh, yeah. You know these little touch touch thing.
Oh Bobby Wobbers. Oh Man, I have to pause it. I moved it to the wrong square. Now. It won't let me take it back. Anyways, I Know a lot of folks and I'm not gonna be able to tell you I'm not gonna tell you what happened because I well What's take back?
Anyone know what take back is? I haven't been see Insert game new game move now. No resign. You know that what's really weird is this this program will mock you if you if you tell it to It will it will allow you to actually Set it up and it will with voice not just with not just with with with anything else.
It will actually Replay and I don't want to replay a view. Oh Man, what a bummer. Oh cancel move edit. Cancel move. There we go. All right now stay there. Boom. Okay. Now we got it going again. I'm sorry, please forgive me anyways.
Now my son's trying to get hold of me and I'm in the middle of doing something someone might want to inform him that I'm a bit busy anyways. Here's the point people have been taught. I was taught this you need to have three points in a poem three points in a poem.
Three points in a poem. Well, I You know, I I came up with three points in a poem when I was in the homiletics class and I I Didn't like it. There are a couple passages in Scripture possibly that You could force into three points or something like that maybe.
But be honest with you. I Feel that sort of Strictures thing it structures you into something that's that's artificial. I mean as I look at Jude 24 and 25 I Don't see three points now. I could artificially come up with one.
I imagine and there's folks who are considerably more talented than I am that probably could divide this up into three points and That works fine. I just can't do it. I just it's just not the way I teach.
I like to teach directly from the text and as such. Basically, what I do is I want to bring the person in the pew along with me. I want to bring them along so that they can can follow the meaning of the text and they can I Want the person to walk out going, you know, I had never really heard that.
That text in that context before last summer was the last summer that was the summer before last. Yeah summer for last I went through Hebrews. What happens during the summer is normally Don Frye who does the preaching in our church goes on vacation for only two weeks.
He's only gone actually one Lord's Day, but I get to do a series of sermons. And I went through Hebrews 6 7 8 9 and 10 in an outline form as an unusual way of doing things. But basically what I wanted to do is as I wanted to let people know.
What is this book all about it seems to be the most mysterious book in the whole new testament for most folks. Let's look at it in context and let's let's understand what the message was and people really appreciated that and what I want to do with Jude 24 and 25 is is basically do the same thing, but obviously We need to I need to do so at a deeper level than doing entire chapters when we were doing Hebrews.
And so I need to get down to the level of the text now. Not everyone sitting in front of me reads Greek or Hebrew a number of them. However, do read one or the other. It is a strange at our church how many Greek texts pop open when you're in a New Testament passage.
I can think of one two three four. Five. At least five maybe more in our small little fellowship where people pop open that that Greek text when? When we're in the New Testament, and so I I do make reference to the original languages and I will explain grammatical things when they're relevant, but I won't if they'll simply get in the way and Where do you draw that line?
Well, it depends on the individual depends on the passage. I mean if I'm preaching on a passage and I part of my purpose in doing so is to prepare the people in the audience to deal with a particular apologetic issue if I want to if I'm dealing with John 1 1.
And I want them to be able to talk to the individuals who come to their door. Well, I have to go to a certain level to be able to do that in the same way if I'm talking the congregation about The nature of worship and the specific form of the word Isn't relevant to that then then you're only getting that in the way if you try to bring it out you tend to lose folks that don't want to listen that type of thing at that particular point in time, so You have to make a decision as to where you're gonna go with that.
And how much detail you're going to be you're going to be including and so I'm probably not going to be pronouncing many of These terms, but what I've done going back to my notes after I note those parallel passages is Then I have taken the text and I've broken it into phrases in the original language and so the first I guess you might call it sub point or something along those lines is the first three words of the text today doing a meno and I will probably mention something about that because of the term dunamis Dunami and I'm gonna expand a good deal upon that because to be honest with you that is what Drew me to this passage in fact what drew me this passage was I well, I'm not exactly sure what caused me to be looking at it, but I was looking at this phrase to him who is able and Obviously as I'm working on the the Dave Hunt book and and constantly dealing with folks who attempt to Insert Man into the work of salvation so as to rob God of his glory.
That's the result not necessarily their intention. But that's there and that's the result this phrase of ability ability on the part of God and inability on the part of man is a Constant part of what I'm studying and I was looking at this passage in fact.
What I ended up doing is I ended up challenging some friends of mine to memorize it in a Greek with me in the course Of only two days only one managed to do that. And I suppose given how often we mock him and how often we threaten the entire channel With him singing Elvis.
I should I should admit that With Sunday night, I challenged he and someone who remained nameless because they completely blew us off challenged these gentlemen to memorize Jude 24 and 25 not in English, but in Greek and it was only two of us did it myself and Warren yes indeed.
There's the Warren just opened the door to make sure that I I pronounced his name, right? We we memorized it in Greek and Which you know was not overly difficult to do because it's not it's not a difficult passage grammatically.
It is it's a beautiful passage as well worth doing it, but anyways That's what drew my attention to it. And then the the more I thought about it the contrast between God's ability and man's inability and how evangelicalism seems so Absolutely bent I mean remember last couple weeks well, I wasn't last week, but the week before that week before that when we were playing Dave Hunt stuff and Dave's arguing with Paul About no one does good and no one is able well They must have do the job must have been good to know I must he's arguing with Paul this this constant desire to insert into the Into the work of salvation the the work of man.
Just it's just all the time and it and it becomes maddening and it really really does and Yet the biblical teaching has to do With God's ability and man's inability and that should be glorious to us. It should be glorious for us to confess the ability of God Over against the inability of man, but we we instead choose to limit God.
That's what open theism is all about is To limit God so as to exalt man that that is man's religion. It's what man's religion is all about. And that's what that's what attracted me to it. Well, I'm going to obviously expand upon the phrase today do no meno and I'm going to spend some time on and I don't have to put a bunch of notes beneath that Greek phrase mainly because That's fresh in my mind.
I'm thinking about that all the time right now. In fact, the only thing I'm gonna need to do is watch the clock. Because just seeing those three Greek words is going to bring so much stuff to mind That the main thing I'm gonna have to do is make sure I don't take all my time in that particular context so as to So as to have no time left for the rest of what I want to say.
That's gonna be the main thing that I'm gonna be looking at. Well, anyways, let's take our first break and then we come back talk a little bit more about how I'm trying to fit this into The time frame that I have right after this Doing the bass part there for Steve camp who I finally got his new album this week some great stuff on there a real tough song To listen to head of a broken home.
That's a that's a that's. Well, maybe we'll fire that up toward the end the program today anyways. Great stuff one song. That's that I heard him sing. I don't know last year When we were together in Nashville.
That's maybe we'll close the program with or something like that. But anyhow now we're talking a little bit about hermeneutics homiletics. Just giving you a little bit of an insight don't know if it's worth it to anybody but a little bit of an insight into The thought process at least that I go through in Approaching a passage of scripture specifically Jude verses 24 to 25 the doxology at the end of Jude.
Is my text for tomorrow now, I'm preaching both services Sunday morning and Sunday evening. We have a Sunday morning and Sunday evening service. I know that that does demonstrate that we are dinosaurs because we actually ask people to come back twice on the Lord's Day but At our church the proclamation the word is the central aspect of the worship service and so we have a good 45 to 50 minutes in which I will be preaching in the morning and About 40 to 45 minutes in the evening and What I frequently do and I I know this isn't normal this is this is not what what for example pastor Frye does Generally our tradition and it is a tradition it doesn't it's not written in stone someplace, but generally our tradition is to have a Sunday morning sermon from the New Testament and The Sunday evening sermon from the Old Testament.
We do our New Testament reading in the morning our Old Testament reading at night part of our worship service is reading through the scriptures Chapter by chapter sometimes breaking that up if the chapter is excessively long, but that's generally how we do it and Normally not always right now.
It's not but normally the it is a book study we've been going through some of the pastoral's first and second Timothy in the morning and Getting ready to move back into book studies for both morning and evenings now generally what I do Is I let you know, I don't always do it this way but what I will do tomorrow is I will break this passage up and I will preach in the morning on it and I will continue that in the evening now.
Some might object to that because I don't have Totally the same audience in both services and that's true. I don't. It's Mainly the same group, but there are people who are both providentially hindered and not so providentially hindered In being at one or the other of the services but at the same time It allows me to go to a little bit more depth.
Then I might otherwise and and if a person is truly providentially hindered from either Either service they can of course, you know, we record these things. We put them on the Internet. There's there's various and sundry ways of You know hearing the other the other part that you missed but I like to to do it that way so that the people who are there Sunday morning come back on Sunday evening and the the the thought is continued it can sort of make a Whole day focused upon the same thing and maybe it'll stick a little bit more, you know.
Maybe because it's it's sort of repeated or the context is looked at a second time. That will make it to more memorable people will remember what you you preached on. You know later on that said that might be one way of looking at it.
So I Intend to present this text Within the context of two sermons Sunday morning and Sunday evening now if you'll look at the text with me for just a moment if you've got your Bible or if you've got your text on on the screen look at Jude 24 through 25 with me for just a moment and As we're reading it ask yourself.
How would you divide this up? Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory blameless with great joy To the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory Majesty dominion and authority before all time and now and forever Amen.
Now you would think just looking at it. Well You divide it up you do them in the morning service to do verse 24 in the evening service to do 25 and that That would work. I could certainly see how that could be done.
I'm not doing it that way I will do The first phrase now to him who is able and verse 25 in the morning and the rest of verse 24 in the evening and you might say Why in the world you're going to do that?
Because Those of you who might look at it in the original language Probably see why if you look at in the original language the first phrase to him who is able The article toe that begins verse 24 goes not only with Duna Menno.
But it also goes with Mono Theo the beginning of verse 25 The only God our Savior to the only God our Savior Through Jesus Christ our Lord be glories and so on and so forth. You could take all of verse 24 out starting with day and The grammar would would remain the same the doxology is to the only God our Savior Through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory majesty dominion authority before all time now and forever.
The description of the why the description of what he's able to do that then gives the basis for the ascription of praise is what takes up verse 24 and So what I've chosen to do and I could have done it differently, but what I've chosen to do is to Go first with the doxology with the ascription of praise to The only God our Savior to him who is able To the only God our Savior now I'm going to have to introduce the fact that yes, this description is going to talk about God's ability.
Why are we praising him? He is able to keep you from stumbling he is able to make you stand and so I will introduce That and then I will reintroduce that in the evening and that will form the connection that will form the the bond in essence.
That will hold the two sermons together. But the emphasis in the morning will be upon the doxology to the only God our Savior. There's that phrase Monotheo monotheism there is there is monotheism in the direct text of the New Testament.
There is the foundation of monotheism to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord and if you just look at the text you can sort of what I try to do is I as I look at the text and Before I really start studying things.
I Want to start getting some ideas of where where the text is going. And so if I just sort of sit back and I look at you 24 to 25. Here's the things that just go through my mind as I'm initially looking at it.
Okay to God God's ability. To keep you from stumbling need to look at what stumbling means need to look at the word keep fluoxi. And I'm gonna look at what I'm gonna do that is I'm gonna look at each one of these words.
I'm going to use Bible works to look at all the other places where that specific form is used or that specific root is used. Both in the New Testament then if that shows me some interesting range of meaning I'll expand that to the septuagint.
Which I've already done with fluoxi to guard to keep. But why does why is it keep you from stumbling rather than guarding you from stumbling something along those lines? Okay. What does stumbling mean.
Stumbling in reference to what stumbling in reference to losing of one's salvation. Stumbling in reference to? Being deceived by false teachers. Stumbling in reference to personal sin. Those are all the questions that immediately come to my mind as I look at this keep you from stumbling and to make you stand.
The presence of his glory blameless with great joy make you stand. What is make. Stand in the presence of his glory. Is that an eschatological thing? Is this is this the same thing that we talked about we talked about?
Christ presenting the church in all of her glory. Is there a connection there? What does it mean to make? To make you stand in the presence of his glory. What is Involved in standing in the presence of the glory of God.
I Mean we hear people use that term all the time. But what does it mean? That immediately comes to mind his glory. Presence of his glory in the presence of glory. I'm gonna be looking at every single one of those phrases and to see how else they're used.
Are any of these used in a sort of a stereo typical way? Are any of these used in a in a particular fashion? That might make them almost an element of a creedal statement. And in fact, that's what I've discovered is the case for a number of these things here.
All right, then after that. What does it mean with great joy blameless with great joy are those two used together? Is this in regards to judgment because of the term blamelessness? And hence to make you stand the presence of his glory blameless.
Doesn't that have satirical issues? Is this in regards to redemption forgiveness? And remember this is all something God is able to do so if he can make you stand blameless with great joy, then this obviously has ramifications in regards to work salvation.
Synergism, I mean is God able to make you stand or is God only able to give a System in which you can make yourself stand. I mean those are two different things. Do I want to bring those things out? It's another thing you always have to be considering.
So many of these passages are so rich That you literally can go too many directions with them and never actually communicate the fundamental thrust of the passage and. So you have to ask yourself a question.
Given my audience given my time frame. What do I do when I travel? That's one of the toughest things in traveling is I rarely know Before I get someplace. What kind of time I'm gonna have and I have many times come to a place with a 45-minute sermon and found out I had 30 minutes to deliver it in and Editing on the fly without any time whatsoever to sit there with a to sit there with with your your notes and X stuff out or without any time at all you stand up there.
You've right as the song service began the pastor leaned over and said, oh by the way We need to be done by this time and you know what else always happens. We'll have you up there by quarter after and you'll have a full 45 minutes.
I'm always getting up there at 25 after and and Frequently since you're the guest speaker you need to you know, bring some greetings do some introduction break some ice. That's gonna take some extra time so you're looking at 30 minutes instead of having 45 minutes and now you're looking at your notes and it is a it is not a An easy thing to take that information and go.
All right, how do I cut this down? Which illustrations do I cut out? What do I cut out a point? Do I make it a two-point sermon set a three-point sermon? How do I do this? It's it's it's not easily done.
I I can't give you a specific Process outside of I think there's a an ability to know whether you're communicating something Relevant or not basically is what you need to use as your standard if is you are you still making people understand the passage that sort of might be the way to to summarize How I would how I put it.
So anyways and Back to just looking at the text great joy rejoicing. Is that a term that's used in regards to our presence? Through Jesus Christ our Lord and again if you're sort of like the Puritans feel like John Owen you could easily preach 10 12 14 sermons on this text because what the Puritans would do is the Puritans would would preach one sermon on Him who is able one sermon on keep you from stumbling one sermon on make you stand in his presence.
One sermon on his glory one sermon on blamelessness one sermon on great joy. I mean, that's literally how they would do it and there's nothing wrong with that. It just you don't get through all well There's nothing wrong with at all.
I mean you do end up covering a whole lot of scripture because When you're only preaching on three words, you're going to be bringing a lot of stuff in from other passages, obviously. But anyways, you know some people like that.
Some people don't. It all depends. But anyways. So you could develop a tremendous amount through Jesus Christ our Lord the role of the mediator. The the fact that we are we are invited to boldly approach the throne of grace.
But we are only invited to approach the throne of grace. Because of what Christ has done and in Jesus Christ union with Jesus Christ all these things Could be brought out in that phrase through Jesus Christ.
And then of course be glory majesty dominion and authority before all time and now and forever. Each of those terms glory majesty dominion and authority are used in other doxologies in the Old and New Testaments and.
So again, you could do an entire study on glory on majesty and dominion authority. I won't do that tomorrow. I Won't do that tomorrow morning. I will point to other passages where glory majesty dominion authority are used in doxologies in Revelation 1 5.
And in by Paul and 1st 1st 2nd Timothy and and in 1st Peter and 2nd Peter and so on so forth. I will draw parallels to each one of those and draw those things out explain what the words mean. And of course one of the big questions will be how can we?
Give God glory magic to Dominion Authority since he has all glory magic Dominion Authority. What does what does it mean now to the only God be glory? Since he is all-glorious to the only God be majesty since he has all majesty the only glory God Be dominion since he is king of kings and lord of lords.
How does how are we to understand that. Would be obviously a major portion of the work that needs to be done. And then how do we put it in this context before all time and now and forever? There is a there is a a phrase that if any phrase in the New Testament Calls out The the word forever, you know, I've encountered all these people.
Who will say well? The the New Testament really doesn't know the word forever. I remember some Mormons who would do I remember where was that Westgate? I? You sit back he's our thing. Oh, yeah, there's trees over to my left and I'm facing me.
Yeah, it's got a Westgate. Haven't had a lot of conversations of Westgate in many years now sadly. Anyways that over at the Westgate of the temple saw like I remember this one guy and all he was just as confident as can be.
No, the The scriptures never talk about eternity the scriptures never have any you know Discussion of that and here would be a phrase just just screams it out before all time and now and forever. But again how it screams that and then what that means.
Obviously this transcends merely creaturely ascription of praise in the sense that we didn't exist before all time. So obviously that that tells us something about what it means To ascribe glory majesty dominion authority so on so forth to God.
So those are some of the questions that immediately just come into my mind and then I go back and notice some of you are going so when do you When do you get to the to the Commentaries, I haven't gone to a commentaries yet and To be honest with you unless there is something that just in the text just Just doesn't make any sense or that I can see there's a real Boy, you know if if Jude says this here and I know that over here Peter said this and Paul said this over here.
You know, I wonder how others have worked through a seeming contradiction or something like that I I stick with with the fact that the greatest commentary on the New Testament is the New Testament in Greek and Oh here it elitist.
I can just hear people saying screaming that right now, but that's That's what the You know Mike my Greek teacher said that and I have found that to be absolutely positively true the the greatest commentary in the New Testament is New Testament its original language and Unless there is a need to go beyond that and or an abundance of in a plethora of times of time To to go through it as well.
I'm not going to be searching out a lot of commentaries. And I'm certainly not going to be doing that in the middle of the exegesis unless I encounter something that just I Want to have another set of eyes in essence to look at it and that's what I view commentaries as and If I could just for a moment Sort of get on my my hobby horse and and preach for a second.
That's One of the main reasons why our seminaries whatever seminaries we're looking at simply can never give in to the postmodern movement, which makes the biblical languages a Secondary study for the person in the pulpit.
Many seminaries are giving in and they're saying look. Our surveys have shown survey says our surveys have shown that the the pastor who learns Greek in seminary. The vast majority of them do not use it in their work, they just don't use it and Therefore there is no reason to put them through it.
There are plenty of Greek tools available. There's plenty of commentaries available. And so we're not going to make it a requirement for the Master of Divinity or any of these other graduate level degrees and I am NOT trying to say that there are not wonderful exegetes of scripture who do not know the original languages.
But those who seriously work with the text will tell you they wish they did know the original languages. If they haven't had the opportunity of learning it. Um. They will tell you that they would like to be able to do that and that is a hindrance to them that they cannot and So many of the errors that we have to deal with Come from the fact that people will not engage in serious exegesis think again a few weeks ago dealing with Dave Hunt.
You have You have well whosoever is used a hundred and sixty-seven times in the Bible. No, it's not whosoever is an English phrase and Whosoever translates a number of different Hebrew and Greek words or phrases that may or may not have the same meaning so to run off to Strong's exhaustive concordance and Ignore the differences in the underlying text leads to all sorts of problems and difficulties and in fact errors and that's the kind of thing we're talking about here and so a person who doesn't have access to those languages is Dependent upon secondary sources and folks even the best commentators even the guys you like and respect Have their own hobby horses.
I have them and I've told the story many times before in various contexts of Of the the the minister who who came to me with a with an insight this is this was back I was man. I had lots of hair and I was skinny.
That was the early years of my 20s not even late years of my 20s, but I Had studied the original languages and so he came to me said hey, you know this commentator. And I'm I have forgotten now over the years which commentator it was but it was someone who was pretty well-known.
It may have been Hendrickson. I'm not sure. But this commentator had made a comment about something in Hungering and thirsting for righteousness in the Beatitudes and he said man this preaches, but I've never heard anyone else say it.
Could you check it out and see if he's you know out left field someplace because I've never. I looked at a couple other commentaries. Nobody said anything like this at all. And so I looked into it and I wrote him a report.
It was only about two or three pages long, but it was single-space small print. So it's fairly lengthy and I went through and I said well, you know, it's it's a possibility but here are the issues that you need to be aware of and in point of fact You really can't make the claims that he's making and these the these are the reasons why and these are the things he left out.
And I'm not really sure why he came to this conclusion. Maybe it was one of his favorite sermons. I don't know. But fundamentally, sorry, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't it doesn't it doesn't work and I could tell he was visibly disappointed when I gave him that that report and Gave him my summary of it, which said sorry, it doesn't pan out.
Well a couple weeks later That that fellow got chance to preach and yes, he still preached on that passage and as I'm listening to him. What does he do when he got to that section? Well, he preached it anyways and later on I I Happened to be walking past him.
It was a very very large church. We were at and he saw me and he sort of put his head down a little bit and he got this Guilty grin on his face and he looked at me and said But it really preaches. And you see aside from what that says about what we do we interpret as preaching the point is that this individual was Was in a position of being dependent upon that commentary.
And in fact, he was didn't he was dependent upon me to tell him whether the commentary was right or wrong. That's not a position that we want to be in and so if you have the opportunity avail yourself of the opportunity.
That's not elitism as mr. Hunt would like to say. That is honoring God's Word. So many of us to make a buck Will learn all sorts of complex things. Many of you who work in the computer area you have had to sit there and stare at these manuals to learn PHP and PNP and HTTP and Java and and Pearl and and all these variants and all the rest of stuff and these Manuals are stinking thick and you know what when you die.
That knowledge is going to go to the grave with you and no one's gonna care and in fact after the next generation of operating Systems come by it's gonna be irrelevant. Remember back at y2k when They had the joke about You know how they were having to find all these people who could write C Language the old basic stuff from back in the 70s and stuff to update these computer systems and people who knew these old old systems.
We're getting paid, you know megabucks to get everything y2k compliant and all the rest that stuff. Well, that's the way everybody who knows everything there is know about Java today is gonna be in ten years.
There's gonna be a new standard then there's gonna be something else is being run then. But we spent hours and hours Learning these things and studying these things so we can put up these websites and we can make it nice and that's all fine and good.
But I don't understand the thought process that goes into well I will I will invest tremendous amounts of my own time To learn these things. However, I Think it's downright elitist for you to say that I should learn the Greek of the New Testament so I can preach better.
No, I don't think it's elitist at all. It just makes sense to be able to do what you need to do. Well, anyways, we will continue looking at Hermeneutics and the homiletics on the other side of this break.
We'll be right back. And welcome back to the dividing line, my name is James white. We're looking at a little example of hermeneutics and homiletics today. And in case any of you are wondering I'm not really sure What's going on over here?
Oh The Palm Pilots thinking Fritz eight has got quite the attack going here. But I think he I think he's just going for an endgame victory here. He wants to wipe out all the pawns on the Queen side and then the King side and then just march him down there.
And that's how it's gonna end. I'm not sure but I don't think it's gonna end today. Well, it will today. I mean during the program here, but in case you're wondering that's what's what's going on. Anyhow, we're looking at Jude versus 24th 25 Various sundry issues that go into a presentation of this particular passage.
And so going back to my notes, I have already Put to the one who is able. Then I moved down to verse 25 the only God discussed monotheism the most basic truth of Christian theism and I Expanded what does it mean that there is only one God that he is the only God does that does that have any meaning to?
Us or is that just something we should you know that had meaning back when there were competing religious systems, but now urban's a monotheist aren't they? Well, no, not really and I think we miss a lot of the richness of worship when we do not Ponder the fact that he is the only true God so on and so forth.
So no others the self-sufficiency of God the fact that he created all things the only object of worship men are not gods. And then I Transitioned to the next phrase if he is the only God then he is the only Savior.
Which is what the next phrase is our Savior expand upon the meaning of that and of course the use of our. Does he want to ask this on on the air. And besides that it's not how you spell it. Yes. All right, put monkey foo on the air.
Right now go ahead throw them on there. It's okay. We do things faster. Hello, I can hardly hear you too not only that but. You sound like you're on another planet right now. In fact, nobody else can hear you either.
Did he do we're just sitting here waiting for a rich to find the right button because you know. This happens each week, but we're not sure why that button likes to move when it shouldn't be there still can't hear you.
Should I play a song or something while we figure out how to get him get him up or or what? I could sing a blue Yes. Our technician is working on it feverishly. Well tell tell the technician to to put it in one spot tape it down.
You're getting a little louder. Oh. There you are. Hey, isn't that amazing how that works? There you go. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Hey, so did you know? He spelled your name m o n k e y. And Horrible that is how can anyone look in the channel and think that it's that that would be spelled that way.
Yeah, well, I mean right now you're a monkey lurks. Anyways, that's right. Okay, that's right.
All right from time to time. That's a good place to preach in. Yeah, generally it beats Walmart. Sometimes. Take a sort of technical question for those out there. Of course. Yes first is about your notes.
Feature maybe you're going behind someone or you happen to see their notes. Mm-hmm. Yep, some people have like other people it can outline roughly as you know what I mean? Oh, yes, you did. Yeah, and so that's kind of more my line.
What type of technique do you take on that? Well?
You'll see you'll see two different kinds of notes. I I literally have a one of those little pieces of hotel Note paper stuck in a Bible somewhere that had three verses and a Greek word on it That I used when I was traveling so my traveling notes do tend to be significantly Shorter.
Because again when I travel I'm basically being asked to speak on subjects That are related to the debates I've done or the books and articles that I've written. And so there are already things that I've done a lot of research on and so I don't need a lot in the way of notes and so I Have gone from Number of times traveling no notes at all nothing, but the Greek text open it up.
That's what I was saying if John 6 just open it up do it because that's that's all the notes I need to having a little bit of an outline to when Churches will ask me to do something that's gonna take it's gonna.
Take me a little bit out of my normal area. Obviously that expands then interestingly enough when I'm at home. When I'm preaching at Phoenix Reformed my notes are fairly full in the sense that I'll have the the text in it.
I'll print it out on Generally an eight and a half by eleven sometimes. I will even use my PDA as my source of notes. And this new one that I have actually works that way in other words. I can actually see the text well enough to do that but generally I Feel more comfortable if I can print it out with a large enough print Font on it that I can read it very easily While standing up and that's another issue.
I mean, this is a really practical thing that a lot of people may not think about but For example once in a while in fact this September. I'll be going up to Globe, Arizona the metropolitan Mecca of Globe, Arizona and John Skaggs is up there Continuing the the work he's done there for many many years in Globe, and he does a conference the last weekend of seven in September and John Skaggs is huge.
He is tall is all get out and His pulpit. I mean it just dwarfs me it you see you know the shiny dome. You know sticking out the top. That's about all you get and you know My chin's almost down where the notes are but then you'll have other places where where you've got you know a rather diminutive Speaker normally, and it's not like you can it's not like MacArthur's Church where I Spoke back in September where you've got the hydraulic.
The hydraulic pulpit you can just adjust it to where you want it. So you have to make your notes Depending on your eyesight something you can actually look back down. And you don't want to have to be searching for where in the world you are.
They're not really functioning so right now, and I'm not done with them. I'm looking at three pages of Of Notes, but these are at 12-point font and The Greek text is fairly large, and there's a fair amount of white space, so it's not it's not super tight all right.
It's fairly large. And I'm looking at about about three pages. Probably about three between three and five pages when I get all done with it in an outline form is what I'll be using. I Have more notes when I preach if he makes reform because these folks hear me every week.
Right either teaching in Sunday school, or when I get an opportunity to preach and so I've got to do more work basically.
Figured out after doing and I'm maybe going on three years now. I guess I'm Billy right and Come into play.
No, it's and it's easy to lose your place. In fact I completely I completely did that. I made it I made it and it was. It didn't work well. At Grace Community Church back in September was I was doing my introduction which I hadn't developed a lot in my notes.
I in essence Jumped down to my second point, and I had a hard time working the first point back in. It was very hard with my notes even though man that thing is huge I mean we're talking acreage on the top of that pulpit.
Well, that's that's why I don't once you start getting into it particularly even if you have the notes when you start to preach yourself you you. Your heart starts to swell up, and you just wanna you get so much you want to say right and then you have to Discipline yourself, okay wait.
I'm speaking about this though. It's so easy to run off in 15 rabbit trails. He is it is and some people do as we well know well.
And then and then and then they blame the spirit for their lack of discipline right. Yes.
That's where you get the problem. Exactly like. Well. You know. No. Wait a minute. What was the point of this. You know. Um, but I have one other question, too. It's very interesting. I.
Know that I have it. I don't remember reading it now. Certainly you don't get the feeling from sermon spurge from Spurgeon's sermons there you go that he was nervous. And and people ask me well are you nervous when you speak.
And generally I'm not anymore. I know I was initially, but I I've always learned to to turn nervous energy into into a positive thing. But generally anymore. I've spoken so often in public now. I'm not nervous in the sense of Fearful which I think is what he's talking about III, but I do I have a respect.
For what's going on? I think there's a line that needs to be maintained there. I do not buy into the let's wear Hawaiian shirts and shorts and Flip-flops because there's nothing really special going on here anyway.
It's just one guy talking to everybody else. No, I think there's there's more to it than that. And at the same time there though, there's you know the The Roman Catholic. You know elevation of the person standing up there to some special position that they don't actually hold so it's always a matter of balance.
It's like do I do I turn my head or am I looking down or up a little few things from him that day. And to be honest the main thing that I got is who preach do really talking this thing. My wife just laughs.
You know mm-hmm, and I do have a tendency to speak quickly, so it's advantage. Yeah, how much can you cram yep? It's so I've learned to really slow down in my parents. I'm a little different with and we started talking about it.
He goes yeah, that's it. He goes man. You slow down a lot. And I said yeah, I'd rather I'd rather three-point deal. So anyway, yeah, very well. I remember when I.
Was debating Jerry Matitix in Denver we did a two-night debate and and after the first debate a Fella came up to me, and he patted me on the back, and he I said you do a great job. Just just one suggestion.
He said he said Make make slow down and make a connection with your audience first because my thought really was in the first number of debates I did. Get as much in as you possibly can because it's time.
There's so much I need to say and if I don't say it then I'm not gonna get a chance to say it and a debate is really how much you get in there and cram it all in and at first you know almost any Criticism even if it's constructive you you sort of you the the sinful tendency is to bristle and you don't know what you're talking about.
How many debates have you done? But I really thought about it and the the next evening we continued to debate the next night I I started off the debate and a bacon hear this it's on straight gate, and we have our mp3 list.
I started off the second half of the debate the next night at a Presbyterian Church. By pointing the audience to the fact that up in the corner was one of the windows they had these straight stained-glass windows.
Had the Alpha Omega symbol in it, and I apologized to my my Roman Catholic opponent for this obvious demonstration of bias. And everybody laughed and it really helped. I mean, I think it probably you know okay.
It took me 30 seconds. That's 30 seconds less of a church father I'm reading, but did they listen more to what I said because I demonstrated I was human or would they have listened or they've been totally turned off completely if I just simply Just been throwing stuff at him, so yeah, there's all sorts of things like that, and and I I I'm not trained in that area.
I took a homiletics class, but I don't know if I even stuck. I just I preach as a teacher primarily and A lot of folks say I communicate in such a way that they can understand what I'm saying. So I'm not exactly sure that I could teach that it's just something part of it was.
I grew up doing radio. I grew up behind a microphone, and so they do not intimidate me at all. That helps a lot. Yep. Oh Yeah, well I was taught. I was taught because I went to a Southern Baptist school.
I was taught that part and parcel of your sermon preparation was learning how to Make it into the altar call so you basically if you had if you had 35 minutes to preach. At with 10 minutes to go you need to start transitioning into a gospel presentation even if the passage had Absolutely positively nothing to do with calling sinners to repentance at all even if it was completely about husbands and wives or something you had to find some way of Getting that altar call going because I was basically taught that was the central aspect and the main purpose of the preaching exactly.
It's like all I have to do is mention Christ, and it's a speaking of Christ, and then that's it. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, like oh here. We go. Yep. That's how it works anyway. Alrighty alright. Thank you very much for your call, sir. Great. We'll make sure that Warren finds out how to spell monk. And it was not fair because it was Warren the spelled monkey.
Foo and Warren's driving computer problems. He hasn't been the channel for a long time. So he hasn't seen your Nick. So we're gonna have to let that one have mercy on. We will have to have mercy after all he.
Did memorize didn't he there he did they did. Well that. So what's which is more important? Memorizing jude 24 and 25 in Greek or knowing how to spell monkey. Thanks for the comment all right god bless all right.
Hey, you know what I want to do. I think we've we've covered a lot of this stuff. Make sure my computer is up and ready to go. I mentioned a song earlier, and I'm go ahead and play it here for you. Steve camps come out with a new new CD called desiring God based on Piper's book of the same title and I've gotten to hear Steve sing this this next this song.
I'm gonna play for you. It's called my sins my sins my Savior and I heard it in its early stages when it was still being being written and developed and Beautiful song. Just wanted to give you an idea of what Steve's up to these days like I said his new new CD called desiring God.
And Save only Christ. My sins my sins my Savior. Steve camps new album desiring God for those of you who like.
Orthodox music. There you go. You might want to pick up that CD as it is available now. I'm certainly enjoying it. Enjoying it myself by the way for those of you who care. Fritz eight eight Tiger. Fritz eight the victor.
Well, I didn't force it to checkmate, but hey it just took the other guys Queens. That's pretty much the end of the game I'd say so. Fritz eight world champion again. Thanks for listening to dividing line, and we'll see you again next week right here.
God bless.