Q&A with Dr James White

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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March 25, 2015

00:02: Good morning, everybody Good morning, everybody I'm dr.
00:09: James R.
00:10: White of Alpha Omega ministries For the first time publicly announced my conversion to Sweden Borgian My name is Chris Arntzen a longtime friend of dr.
00:22: White.
00:22: Well, at least I cherish his friendship.
00:25: I'm not sure about The other way around We have been friends for decades and Dr.
00:33: White was a part were actually the debater of the great debate series that I Established in the mid 90s for over a decade.
00:44: We had dr.
00:44: White coming out to New York where I previously live Primarily, he would debate Roman Catholic apologists and he also debated some Muslims some liberal Protestants atheist agnostic and He travels globally the staff of WMCA Now he travels globally doing that and primarily he is debating Muslims and even in Muslim and mosques and in South Africa and debated in the largest mosque in Europe, which is in London, correct and And It's so good to see first of all I have to say that I it's so good for me personally to see a Dear brother in Christ that I haven't seen in 25 years pastor.
01:29: Andy Montoro is in the back there He was one of my late wife's pastors and the memories are just flowing back Now that I've seen him for the first time in so long and I thank you very much for coming here, brother I Host a program called iron sharpens iron Which is currently on hiatus But it is due to be relaunched in three or four weeks and you can hear it on the internet anywhere So I'm going to be informing your pastor here as to the link and so forth where you could listen on the internet It's a live show and I have interviewed such folks as your guest speaker.
02:05: Dr.
02:06: James are white I've also interviewed RC sprawl and John MacArthur Josh McDowell Michael Horton VA Carson and many other people that you may recognize and love the program exists due to the generosity of my sponsors the publishers of the New American Standard Bible as well as the sponsorship of Linbrook Baptist Church in New York and Waiting River Baptist Church in New York Interestingly enough, I'm not a member of either of those churches for some reason my own church doesn't want to sponsor Well, I get it.
02:42: They just don't have the financial resources to do so, but I am so happy to Be here and I'm looking forward to the question and answers that we're going to be involved in today I hope that you have good penmanship because that's really going to make the job rougher for me As I'm going to be reading these questions and which was always a blessing when we had Catholic debates because I knew at least half The audience the Catholics would be printing allegedly because the Catholic schools are at least good for something But Dr.
03:16: James are white Is the author of 24 books? He has been involved in 144 public moderated debates as I said with people from a wide range of theological backgrounds both those who oppose biblical Christianity and brothers in Christ to disagree on some comparatively minor issues LB at very important ones and He is as I said a very dear friend of mine He is an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
03:48: And here he is my friend.
03:49: Dr.
03:49: James are white Thank you very much.
03:56: This is the first time I think I've ever Spoken on a Wednesday morning to be perfectly honest with you Wednesday night That's that's a little more standard.
04:04: But as you know, we have a odd travel schedule.
04:08: I have a flight In what is that coming up to two and a half hours? So that's why at right quarter after I'm going to vanish Because we only have a certain amount of time and they want you there a certain amount of time ahead They won't accept your luggage.
04:24: So I'd like to get to Pensacola with my luggage Really helps a lot on the second day.
04:28: You're there And then especially the third day about a fourth day.
04:32: It's really necessary.
04:32: So That's why we're going to be moving pretty quickly It's good to be with you.
04:38: It obviously is Humbling to me that anyone would want to ask me questions I'm really not anybody special.
04:47: I've gotten to do some pretty amazing things.
04:50: But the reality is that Anybody who does anything in the body of Christ is completely by grace.
04:58: None of us are any Closer than anybody else when it comes to our standing before God and and I hope your faith is is Focused firmly upon Christ and his truth and not anybody in the body We have seen over the years what happens when we elevate folks to a position of a special authority and then Things go south things go wrong We're all we're all individuals who are are subject to this flesh in which we live So make sure that your focus is always upon Christ's truth.
05:32: I have a feeling I'll be perfectly honest with you I've been saying this for quite some time Especially with the cultural pressures coming upon the church at a incredibly rapid pace I think we're going to be seeing more and more collapse and failure of churches abandonment of biblical principles if you are committed to The Bible is the Word of God if you actually believe that what it says is true No matter what the society around us says that what it defines as good is what is good? Well society says it's evil or not You're gonna see more and more big names Abandoning that kind of belief so as to allegedly remain relevant to the society Well, let me tell you something salt Is very good for preserving Against decay, but the decay doesn't like the salt and if you love decay, you're not going to like the salt and If we are going to be salt and light in this society your entire sufficiency and joy and Needs to be coming from your relationship to God and your love of the gospel because if you're looking at it If you're looking for it from any place else you're not going to be finding it and if you if you know what your foundation is you will remain strong, but unfortunately a lot of people don't and We have already seen certain people don't shock us That they have collapsed on certain moral and ethical issues But there will be others that will shock us that will surprise us so Some of you may have seen the little clip that Todd Friel put up a couple weeks ago I saw it sort of explode on the internet James White scary predictions Todd is so good at that kind of stuff.
07:29: He asked me a question during a radio program What do you what do you see for the church in the United States five years from now? And I said well, you know if God does not grant repentance it seems like these are the things that are going to happen and Everyone was who you must not be a post-millennialist well even if you are you've got to admit that what we see happening in our society today is It shouldn't be frightening, but it should be very troubling because it demonstrates that our society is Well a Pope came up with this terminology, but it doesn't mean that it's wrong our society is in love with the culture of death and has become a culture of death and Is doing everything it can to separate itself from the very source of life and Those who are marching to the tune of death Do not love those who are marching to the tune of life, and they're gonna be everything they can to disrupt us in our continuing to follow after the Lordship of Christ and The reality is the church has faced this situation many times before it's pretty much the same situation the early church faced with Rome Rome said offer that pinch of incense upon the altar and say Kaiser courios Caesar is Lord we can't do that because we've already said Jesus courios Jesus is Lord and They don't like that and Don't expect justice in this life And this is look the fact the matter is folks our brothers and sisters all around the world Already experienced all this we've just been really blessed And we're gonna find out who the real believers are and they're not too distant future So your eyes have better not be on on people on individuals myself or anybody else Your eyes better be on Christ because that's the only way you're gonna.
09:20: You're gonna stand strong, so we have we have questions And if any of them are on eschatology, I will smile and babble something and move on so Now of course I think it's somewhat humorous that we're having Chris do this because That means we have to actually assume that Chris will not engage in a certain kind of interpretive Reading of the questions, so if you notice that every question has something to a Sweden Borgian ism That's probably not because I have anyone actually asked, but Chris has this really strange fascination with Sweden Borgian ism And how many of you had never heard of Sweden Borgian ism before that okay? See that explains more about Chris than it does All right so brother Aronson Okay Our first question is do you believe theonomy to be a heresy if not do you believe it to be? aberrant enough to warn people to stay away from Wow this is a bit.
10:30: This is sort of exploded in social media recently.
10:34: I know Brethren who would self-profess to be theonomists that I don't have any questions Are my fellow believers? In fact to be honest with you.
10:49: How many of you have heard any of? Right now I'm preaching through the holiness code in Leviticus of course I've been bringing a lot of other stuff into it But I'm preaching through the holiness code Leviticus at PRVC and we put those sermons on sermon audio if any Look those up.
11:08: I Hold it very very high view of God's moral law I believe that it is it remains binding upon us But I do not self-identify as a theonomist because there are certain Structures involved in the definition of that term that I had especially as a Baptist have real issues with I Yes, sir I'm defined Sort of defining it right now Theonomy just simply means God's law the law of God and Generally, it's defined as the idea that And this is where the issue comes in that all of God's law in Not even that that the civil element of God's law the civil laws that God gave to Israel including the penalties are What we as Christians should be seeking to establish when we have the freedom to do so within the governments that we participate in And that the nations of the world will be judged for whether they did or did not Establish those civil aspects of God's law Everyone hopefully agrees that the moral aspects of God's law remain binding for any Any nation any people etc.
12:30: Etc.
12:30: I mean the 10 You know, you know murder is wrong no matter where you are, etc.
12:35: Etc but the question really comes down to Mapping out what is Moral law what is civil law? What is ceremonial law? What was fulfilled in Christ? What was given only to the theocratic nation of Israel? What was something that pointed forward to Christ and therefore would no longer have relevance after Christ's coming that he fulfills? that this is where all the real questions come up and Obviously as I have been preaching through the law code I think there would be some people who would listen to what I was saying that you're a theonomist Well, no, I'm a Baptist and as a Baptist I especially am very concerned about the state bearing the sword with theological authority I'm very concerned with the original form of the Westminster Confession of Faith said that the magistrate had the duty of Protecting the purity of doctrine in the church Now I do not want the Obama administration having anything to do with theology But at the same time If you don't recognize the Obama administration is deeply theological you're missing it So this is this is a difficult issue.
13:56: It's an issue that we need to be thinking through and I'm just it If you know anything about the history of theonomy some of the big names were rush to me Bonson today there are people like Gary Tamar Joel McDermott and people like that.
14:11: I See a huge difference between Bonson and Russia a huge difference and I knew Greg Bonson And Greg Bonson did a lot of great work But I just I may I assert that there are certain laws that were given to the theocratic nation of Israel that when you talk about the punishments the punishments would require the people bringing the punishment to be in right relationship to God and You can't expect that of a non Covenanted people who have not been called out by God to be a specific Nation unto his service and that's where I have a problem with just the blanket Assertion that all of God's civil laws need to be binding upon every nation I have one other concern and then it will move on because I want to get to as many as we can One of the main points that I have made in speaking on the subject of Islam is That the huge difference when you think about what what is what's the world get all scared about when they talk about Islam? well they want to they want to bring Sharia into every nation and they want to subjugate everything under a law and And this is just terrible and then I go um Someday every knee will bow every tongue will confess what? That Jesus Christ is Lord the glory of God the Father and Revelation describes Jesus is doing what? Ruling over the nations with a rod of iron.
15:37: We've got to be careful about what we get upset about Because the Christian faith says that someday Jesus Christ is going to Completely and with finality reign over the entirety of his creation.
15:49: In fact, he already does reign as Lord over all men So what's the difference? Well, the difference is the means by which he subjugates people For Christ it is taking out a heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh.
16:04: It's regeneration.
16:05: It's the work of the Spirit In Islam, it's saying la ilaha illallah wa mahammada nazzullah.
16:10: It's saying the shahada in Arabic You can't say it in any other language and and convert to Islam.
16:16: You have to say it in Arabic Now you said you just said it in Arabic, right? Yes, don't worry There are seven requirements that have to accompany that to becoming Muslim So I didn't just become a Muslim in case you're worried about that so So there's a there's a massive difference You cannot subjugate a nation and say ah, you're all now Christians In fact, we've seen that happen in Europe where a king converts and everybody else is like, okay Well, let's follow the king.
16:43: Excuse me.
16:43: That led to something called nominalism people who are Christians in name only They haven't been changed or has been changed and that has been extremely disruptive disruptive to Christianity now years so One of my arguments is that the difference between Christianity and Islam is Acts chapter 15 in this sense in Acts chapter 15 We had the Jerusalem Council where it was decided that you didn't have to become a Jew before you became a Christian you didn't have to join the Old Covenant before you joined the New Covenant and Islam never had that So the gospel can transcend every language every geopolitical boundary it can go into all the world Whereas Sharia has to come along and bring a culture with it.
17:27: It has to fundamentally change the culture before you can actually Please God Now, of course, I believe that if a culture has more is blessed by God to have more and more people in it Who are Christian that's going to be a great great benefit to that culture And in fact, that's one of the crazy things our own nation is doing is saying we don't want that influence Well, okay, you don't want the influence of God's people amongst yourselves you're gonna you're gonna reap the reap the results of that, but I am concerned about the idea that We have to have a specific law code that we bring in to a particular culture As part of the proclamation of the gospel I think that's something the Spirit does within us and and as we act as salt and light We will have that positive influence upon the culture.
18:13: So in answer to the question.
18:15: No, I I would not I certainly do believe that there are things that Rush Dooney said that that go way beyond the bounds But I think that there are responsible people who are aware of those issues that hold that position Even though I respectfully disagree on certain elements of it.
18:35: Oh I'm sorry Something It's exactly how it was during most of the debates for a guy who has to leave here in an early that was question one How should we approach gays that call themselves Christian well About two years ago.
19:00: I actually right back two years ago right now.
19:03: I did a non-debate With Justin Lee who is the head of the gay Christian Network? Amazingly enough this took place in Montana Strangest place in the world That's where it happened and It was one of the strangest experiences ever had because it was one of the few times I was in a debate Where I knew that at any moment my opponent might just get up and walk out And so I was constantly walking on on eggshells and I in fact had to completely throw out everything I had prepared for the debate once I realized how extremely skittish he was and How he didn't want to be doing this and etc.
19:46: It ended up being one of the best discussions We've we've ever had and if the audio is available online and so to the person who asked the question I would highly recommend to you it ended up being a rather pastoral Encounter between myself and a young man who? Says that he had a great Christian family upbringing.
20:10: He was never abused He was loved by his parents the simple fact the matter is he has never ever ever experienced desire for one He only experiences desire for one And I have spoken with individuals Within Christian churches Who likewise have testified that from their earliest recollections All they have ever experienced was same-sex attraction.
20:39: All right.
20:39: What do you do about that? Well, you have to think about it from a biblical perspective There is same-sex attraction There is no reason to deny other same-sex attraction just because there are there are men who experience Desires for many women and one woman is not sufficient and vice versa there are all sorts of temptations and desires that human beings in a fallen world can experience as Christians we have to look at those desires From a biblical perspective.
21:16: The problem is many people in the church today come into the church with a secular perspective Whitewash it with religiosity and then wonder why the Bible just doesn't seem to work for them if we are not purposely challenging our people to abandon the Secular worldview that they've grown up with and every day Be adopting the Christian worldview Which means to think like Christ thought to to have a biblical understanding of man and God's providence We're not doing that this battle the reason that that my position is Already a minority and will be a greater minority in the future is because of this very reason That we do not ground our people in a firm conviction that the scriptures are a divine revelation from God that transcend anything that man will ever be able to Come up with and any of man's wisdom that he he thinks that he has and so if we look at someone who says I've spoken with people who say I Experienced same-sex attraction, but I will not demand that Christianity change So that my desires become good things.
22:38: I Recognize that Christ's lordship defines who I am not my sexual desires And therefore I look to his lordship his lordship says this is what marriage is This is what is good and true and honest and therefore in light of that I will live my life praying that God will change my desires but if he chooses not to I will live in such a way as to honor and glorify him and Therefore I will not act upon those desires I've spoken with those people and folks if they can't come into our churches and find us to be helpful What is wrong with us? But most of us have to admit we would have a hard time with someone who can't I'm old enough that I know my parents and grandparents never talked about this stuff.
23:26: They didn't have to they might have Thought about you know, maybe why that they weren't talking about these things, but now we can't we can't dodge it And if someone who wants to live in the lordship of Christ and is honest the same This is what I experience if they can't find us to be people who come alongside them We've got a problem Now I don't have any problem with a person who says I experience same-sex attraction, and I'm a Christian What I do have a problem is a person who says I experience same-sex attraction I'm a Christian and that means my my desires are good and God made me that way And you need to celebrate my desires and even worse when they decide to act upon those desires You need to celebrate my acting upon the desires And in fact what you really need to do is completely change everything you believe about sin salvation and marriage just so I feel good That is the petulance of a two-year-old Sorry to the two-year-olds in the audience It is immaturity and yet it is exactly what is being enshrined in the law of our land and Maybe with finality by June or July of this year There's two huge differences there and so How would I respond to someone it depends on which one of those two groups they fall into? Are they the one saying I am who I am God made me this way celebrate it I don't care what the Word of God says I don't care what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 19 about what marriage is You need to change everything to Celebrate me or the type of person who says this is what I experience.
25:05: I know this is not honoring to Christ I will not act upon these things Help me to walk under the Lordship of Christ huge difference between those two things So the answer the question depends on who that person is you may have covered some of this with this next question But this is one question where I will Give my own addition to the question to maybe make it a little different from what you do I think about Swedenborg When a homosexual says we all have our pet sins How do you approach that and what I'm getting out of that question is I? Think even her Christians say yeah, we all said homosexuality is a sin.
25:52: It's like gluttony and stealing pencils from work and so on and The thing that I would add to that is don't we sometimes Go overboard when we try to be kind to the Homosexual by making of that sin just like every other sin and we fail to mention the fact that it's unnatural It's something completely against the order of creation.
26:19: Well a couple things There is a truthful Statement that sin is sin because sin brings death and sin separates from God and so on and so forth however Obviously I am completely unaware of any major movements in our culture to promote gluttony as A God-given gift that needs to be celebrated.
26:43: I don't know of any Christian thieves Organizations that are that are actually asking denominations to celebrate Christian thievery And to have seminars about how you can steal to the glory of God But that's what we have a homosexuality and so there's a huge difference there secondly there does The Apostle Paul when he wants to illustrate in Romans chapter 1 the twisting of the creation creator order and the effect of the suppression of the knowledge of God he uses as his final and ultimate example of How deeply this impacts the very nature of mankind himself? Homosexuality and that would mean that and this is in the context of giving over so there is a sense of which Which scripture reveals that this is once it gets to the point where it fundamentally alters the very Way in which God has created us to relate to one another So much so that we become focused upon a mirror image of ourselves Rather than seeing the natural beauty of the created order and the reality of the necessity of the male-female relationship and so on so forth That makes it unnatural that makes it cataphysis against nature and therefore Does place it in a class of sins that Paul describes there that that we need to recognize is is Indicative of God's judgment upon a people and upon a person that is very very severe And so when someone says well, we just all have our own you know we all have our own pets and so on and so forth that's a trivialization of The biblical discussion of the subject found in Romans 1 which is why we all need to know Romans 1 really well There's so so many redefinitions of it out.
28:40: There are so many revisions of it out there today It's amazing, but we need to know really what Romans 1 is is all about and by the way I did spend a little time on that.
28:49: I'm not sure whose books these are but in this book right here There's a there's a chapter on Romans 1 that even though it's not about Homosexuality would give you a lot of the foundation for that so all right.
28:59: This is the last question in that category Well many Christians speak of it being a reality That same-sex attraction exists amongst truly born-again people Why is it that very few would dare to say the same of some of the abominations? Recorded in Scripture such as bestiality and necrophilia well If someone were to say that I have a desire for that at least when you're talking about homosexuality we're talking about something that The scriptures recognize exists amongst people speak of a number of times and I Honestly have never ever spoken to anyone that doesn't it doesn't mean anything My experience isn't that wide, but I've never spoken to anyone who said I experience that kind of temptation but There is there is at least At least when we're talking about homosexuality you're talking about human sexual activity It doesn't make it any less abominable But at least it's it's human sexual activity when we're talking about the other things that you just mentioned you're talking about something that is even outside of any kind of Understandable human relationship and it has always it's always been such a Rarity in human experience that that it only exists in certain extreme extreme situations unfortunately homosexuality has Existed in a much wider a wider experience.
30:48: That's probably why it's not discussed What part if any do you believe Islam plays in the end times? Well of course I believe we're in the end times therefore You know if the question is asking do I believe that Islam is prophesied Specifically in scripture or something like that.
31:10: No, I I don't I don't believe so I would not try to make that type of an argument any kind of Religious movement that seeks to undercut and overthrow the lordship of Jesus Christ is a part of the religion of Antichrist That's what Antichrist means and I would include Liberal Protestantism in that when you're trying to when you're under when you're seeking to deny That Jesus Christ is Lord that he is God come in the flesh when you're denying the reality of the resurrection the centrality of the cross Whatever you become opposed to Christ and there have always been those who have stood in opposition to Christ and Here you have a major world religion That as a part of its very tenets Denies the Jesus Christ the Son of God Denies the Son of God came to flesh.
32:06: Those are the very definitions given in 1st John of the Antichrist and at the end of the conversation that Imam Muslim and I had on the Saturday at RTS one of the things he said was that that It's necessary for us and going forward for for Christians to think about granting validity To the Muslims in the sense of saying well It's possible that that they do actually have a prophet from God And that God has spoken to them and in my response I pointed out what's problem with with believing that is that Their prophet came after Jesus and said Jesus wasn't who Jesus claimed to be and so I Do believe that we can have? appropriate proper respectful dialogue With Muslim people, but the idea that well you have to start by granting equal validity To a prophet who comes after Christ claims to be in the line of Christ Gives a book that specifically addresses Christians and Jews and says that we have gone into excess In our beliefs and in our worship of Jesus you you can't start by abandoning your own faith and So Do I believe that it's prophesied no You know I'm an amillennialist if you want to know and so the end times Have been going on for a long time now So I I don't I don't see that this is I'm not looking for something in Revelation going Oh, that looks like the last Muslim.
33:42: I talked to you I'm not doing that kind of interpretation, but God could certainly use Islam as a means of Accomplishing all sorts of things and certainly when you look at how the reformers Interpreted Islam, that's fascinating.
33:57: That's fascinating.
33:58: Did you know that Luther? believed that Roman Catholicism was the spiritual antichrist and Islam was the physical antichrist He had two different kinds of antichrist one physical one spiritual and differentiate between the two of them so Am I suggesting that no? I'm just simply saying even the reformers at the time because they were under tremendous pressure from Islam Islam was was Sieged in the siege of Vienna and all the rest of that stuff going on there And we sort of forget our world history at that point, but it is it is fascinating I do it to applaud all of you for the printings Do you agree that the Abrahamic Covenant is a Covenant of promise to believers and their children and is an eternal covenant So how is the New Covenant any different? Well, somebody evidently attended the debate Monday night and It's interesting When when you talk about eternal covenant, there's all sorts of places in the scriptures where Certain things circumcision is to be an eternal covenant.
35:22: Well, what does that mean? I believe that means that it is is valid throughout the time period where the conditions That it's relevant to are going to obtain.
35:34: So if you're talking about the people of Israel then that remains a covenant sign for the people of Israel, but What happens to the people of Israel? Is is there a biblical teaching that that nation as the covenant people of God continues? after the coming of the Messiah And I would say that no the covenant people of God today are Everyone who has faith in Jesus Christ with a Jew or Gentile and so the idea The thing that needs to be understood is that the promises of any preceding covenant Have to be interpreted in light of the finality of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ And that's why I began the debate on Monday night with the assertion that The new covenant scriptures must define the fulfillment of any old covenant promises and So when we have Hebrews chapter 8 quoting from Jeremiah chapter 31 about the nature of the new covenant We allow the writer to the Hebrews to interpret how that is to be fulfilled We don't go back to Jeremiah 31 and say oh Well, it says this is the beginning of chapter says that the end of chapter and therefore I'm going to force this on to The new covenant scriptures, and they have to take into consideration everything.
36:53: I think is important here No, you go to the writer of Hebrews.
36:56: He quotes those things he gets to define what the fulfillment of Those types and shadows are for the new covenant believer And if you don't do that my argument on Monday night was you're going to have a real hard time fulfilling messianic prophecy I asked I Asked someone in a comment thread since Monday.
37:18: I think it was on Tuesday morning I asked them if you really believe that The old covenant gets to define these things then in psalm 22 Where you have clearly there's no question you have a messianic song I mean psalm 22 is just you know, you know, you know, I'm a suboxonee my god Forsaken me and Piercing his side and all the rest that kind of stuff is found there But if you're going to take that perspective and say okay everything in psalm 22 Therefore needs to be brought into its new covenant fulfillment.
37:53: What are you going to do? With verse 20, which says deliver my soul from the sword my precious life from the power of the dog Did the father deliver Jesus from the cross? No, he didn't he had to go through that death now He did deliver him but in a different way than psalm 22 and vision because what's the deliverance resurrection? but you have to allow that if you take the old covenant text and Limit the fulfillment to only that which they allow you can't have the new covenant be the great huge thing that it is and So I asked them and so so, you know, what do you what do you do with this? And it's it's so obvious that when we deal with messianic prophecies and we look at Isaiah 9 6 when you look at Isaiah 7 The Virgin shall be with child Calls me Emmanuel.
38:46: You know how liberals get around that they force the context of Isaiah 7 upon the fulfillment they limit it and say well this had to have been in that particular day and it's during this reign of this king and That particular Hebrew word doesn't necessarily mean virgin and that's how they get rid of all this stuff and we go No No No The new covenant scripture has to define what the scope and size of that fulfillment is except we talk about that And that's the one time where all of a sudden We change all of that and that to me is the indication of the inconsistency because from my perspective What happened at the time of Reformation and with with Calvin? Is that because of the the princes, you know, you know Zwingli played with the idea of getting rid of infant baptism because he didn't see it in the New Testament But the political powers of the day said no no, no, no, no Because the tax rolls were based upon the infant baptism rolls the church.
39:47: So we're not playing with that And Luther played with the idea of a free church He knew that the only time you'd have a holy church is if it was a free church But the princes wouldn't support that so by the time Calvin comes along he's a second-generation Reformer he develops a theology to maintain infant baptism In the context of that day and he was the first person to believe in covenantal infant baptism there have been infant baptisms since the Second third centuries, but it was for salvation.
40:15: It was for regeneration.
40:16: It wasn't it wasn't how Presbyterians understand it today And so I believe that that's where it came from.
40:24: I believe that it has a historical grounding I believe that's what motivated Calvin to do what he did and that we have to examine our beliefs to identify those places where tradition Causes us to use a different hermeneutic than it would otherwise that's what the debate was about and if you're wondering when will the audio be available probably about a week the audio will be out and then Michael Fallon and the crew at Sovereign Did a great job of doing a six camera shoot on that video So it should be once the video comes out really really cool.
40:56: So Except I'm in it.
40:57: So that really makes it less cool.
40:59: But other than that he was showing me some of the video and I'm a little nervous when they have these lenses.
41:06: They're this long So during the cross-examination, you know, he caught me going You know, this is this type of thing like really honestly, you know There's no place to hide man, you know when you've got one of those little teeny you got some with an iPhone down there Okay, you can get away with stuff.
41:24: But when the lens is that long HD, you know 4k stuff, you know In an interview with the King James only guy you made the comment about Paul quoting an Old Testament Barrier, I don't remember the verse Will would you please comment? and how And How that would Affect the Word of God being perfect.
41:56: I think What is being referred to is the very interesting interview I had with Steven Anderson who is a King James only fellow in Tempe, Arizona and Probably what is being referred to It wasn't Paul even though Paul does quotes and some types of variance we've accepted it But I was pointing to Hebrews chapter 8 you may be assuming that Paul wrote Hebrews So maybe that's where it's coming from.
42:24: But in in Hebrews chapter 8 The author well all through Hebrews the author of Hebrews, which I believe was a sermon preached by Paul written down by Luke As to why it differs so much from Paul's normal vocabulary grammar syntax, so on so forth But it's very much like Luke's so I think it's it's something that Paul probably preached in Aramaic or Hebrew and Luke Wrote down in in Greek, but in any case the author to the book of Hebrews in chapter 8 If you if you compare Jeremiah 31 with Hebrews 8, you'll discover that there's a difference I don't remember which verse it is, but the end of one of the verses If you read Jeremiah 31, it'll say even though I was a husband to them And in Hebrews chapter 8 it will say though.
43:25: I did not care for them.
43:27: There's a big difference there and The reason there's a difference is that the writer of the Hebrews is quoting from the Greek Septuagint He's quoting from the Greek translation of the Old Testament and the vast majority of instances or a few exceptions, but the vast majority of instances throughout the New Testament the New Testament writers quote from the Greek translation of the Old Testament rather from the Hebrew text itself and The issue that mr.
43:54: Anderson and I were discussing was the validity of identifying a translation as the Word of God and That the Apostles did not follow his perspective because they would Quote from the Hebrew once in a while most often they'd quote from the Greek even when the Greek Had a different reading than the Hebrew did as it did there in Hebrews chapter 8 Now by the way those who are concerned about how big the variant is it actually isn't a big variant What do I mean by that? Well in Hebrew the difference between Husband and to disregard is Baal versus Gaal and a Bet and a Gimel Are very similar to one another in their form and so the reason for the variant is pretty easy to understand As to where it came from it's not like there's been some huge editing and so on and so forth involved.
44:55: It's a one-letter difference, but The point is that Mr.
45:00: Anderson's rather naive view of the origination of Scripture simply doesn't Give him the basis for really being able to struggle with some of the toughest questions that we have to deal with that come about from the fact that we have a New Testament that is quoting from and Dealing with in depth the Old Testament His position does not allow him to really honestly deal With the reality of what we have and when you have a position that doesn't let you really deal with the Bible as it stands Today that's not a position that's going to get you anywhere, and it's not an honest position So that's my assumption is is what's being referred to there If it was some other interview or something I wouldn't I wouldn't know without specifics as to what I was referring to but that's my best guess How great of a danger do you see presented by the prosperity gospel as compared to other religion? Religious or spiritual movements well obviously in this situation, I'm My I'm going to assume that what you mean is Religious movements that claim to be Christian so internally to the church, but even then I'll be perfectly honest with you For the vast majority of prosperity gospel teachers.
46:21: I don't consider them to be in the church in the first place I consider them to be a cancer on the body of Christ I struggle greatly It's not difficult for me, and it is difficult for some Christians.
46:36: I understand that so Christians Just don't understand how I can do this but but Saturday when I sit for a number of hours with Imam Musavi in front of an audience and we dialogue I wasn't feigning concern for this man, and I was not feigning respect for this man as even as he demonstrated that that he Does not understand what I believe and does not have an accurate knowledge and has not done the kind of study of Christianity that I've done of Islam in Seeking to use their sources appropriately and study in depth their own material Still my my concern for him is real My desire to see him come to know Christ is very very real and a lot of Christians for some reason struggle with that and we shouldn't be struggling with that and if you struggle with loving Muslims and I would suggest that prayer is is in order because there is over a billion of them and Christ calls us to love those people who have never heard and they have never heard You can say oh they talk about Jesus all the time if you ever read what the Quran says about Jesus You could never love the Jesus of the Quran.
47:44: They don't know what we know so they are ignorant Prosperity gospel preacher has 47 Bibles on his Learjet.
47:52: He's not ignorant And so there's a vast difference in my mind between the person who has been given a false gospel or has been given really nothing at all and Hence I should just absolutely lean over backwards I should extend myself to the maximum extent possible to show grace and show love and so on so forth There's a vast difference between that and how the Apostle Paul responded to the Judaizers in Galatia Where he simply smacked them upside the head When when you say Christ will be of no benefit to you you are severed from Christ, I wish you'd left let the knife slip Now you're talking about people who are making false professions, and they are literally profiting off the body of others and It maybe that explains why I have such a hard time Being overly patient with with people who are claiming to be servants of Christ But who are so obviously perverting the message of the gospel into a message of profit FIT not PHET It's really hard for me to to have any kind of patience in that context Anyone who thinks that the gospel is not? Take up your cross and follow me But redefine the cross so that it makes me feel better about myself that that person is is a despicable false teacher and Especially as I travel to other lands One of the things that really bothers me is now.
49:38: I've been to South Africa twice and going again Lord willing in October And what just boggles my mind is the fact that the church there has been crippled Crippled by the prosperity movement it is so popular there, and I can't understand why Because there are people who are part of this who live in tin huts And I just I don't understand well, maybe that's why it's so popular because they think it's a way out And yet they've got to see that it it doesn't work except for the one guy It's it's it's a it's a it's the worst pyramid scheme ever Because it's only the guy you're giving your money to who's getting out It just but but what I see is the fact that that likewise Has the Muslims watch that the Muslims see that and as a result they? Grossly disrespect what they think Christianity is because that's what they think Christianity is and so it's There there the judgment is going to be great.
50:49: It is going to be great every single penny that those people Deceived out of folks I think is is going to They're going to answer for it I was reminded recently that Instead of just beating those people especially the frauds on television we have to pray for them, and I was Dramatically reminded of that when I met John Sampson Yeah, who was a word-of-faith pastor and? Trinity Broadcasting Network host who is now a reformed pastor and frequent fill-in-the-host of changes The body God can save anyone he chooses look at Christ Just one How or should we condemn Unitarianism and modalism as damnable heresy Even if it maintains a view of Christ deity When at the same time many apologists many Christian apologists recognize That the majority of evangelicals in the pew could not Biblically define the Trinity without slipping into a modalist Acronym Well yeah, well in answer to the question itself yes There can be no compromise on who Christ is that's just not not a possibility and a Christ who is not truly God or who is not the second person the Trinity is not the Christ who brings salvation the gospel is Trinitarian it finds its origination the father its accomplishment the son its Application in the spirit yet.
52:41: They're clearly distinguished from one another there is a difference between a an open profession of Heresy and an ignorance of the truth As the question does point out which is something I have said sadly many many times if we were to If we were to ask most evangelical Christians after Sunday morning services this coming Sunday To take a brief quiz on the nature of the Trinity.
53:10: I am convinced that a large majority of Folks coming out of evangelical churches in the United States and in other Western countries well around the world would probably fall into a modalistic heresy They if I were to say well Jesus said I and the Father are one so would you agree that Jesus and the Father are one? person I'm afraid a large majority of people would say well.
53:37: Well.
53:37: Yeah, yeah, of course.
53:38: Yeah, and when Philip said if you see me You've seen the father so that would mean Jesus is the father right? Oh, yeah, okay? Yeah, that sounds good I am concerned that that would be the case and I have often said to my fellow Ministers that if we are not teaching our people The doctrine of the Trinity then we are we are hamstring them in worship in prayer I can't tell you how many times I hear people pray, and they'll say oh our loving Heavenly Father We thank you so much for coming and dying for us.
54:14: The father did not become incarnate.
54:16: That was the son and It wasn't the spirit either And you know we all want it's just a prayer But what it demonstrates is that the person is operating upon a fundamental misconception of what the biblical revelation actually contains and so We need to be preaching and teaching on those things, but there's a difference between someone who simply hasn't been taught And someone who has been taught falsehood so one is an ignorance of truth the other is a denial of truth and So when John addresses this issue in first John, what does he say who is the Antichrist not the ignorant person? but the one who denies That who denies the son he doesn't have the father who denies the son has come to flesh.
55:04: So there is an active Assertion of falsehood that is what makes a person culpable not their ignorance now of course being ignorant Means that you can then become susceptible to that But there is a difference between the two there really is a difference between the two we have to we have to walk that one Well, I'm going to turn the mic over to your pastor here, and I want to thank you very much for your excellent questions Thank you Chris And I appreciate your involvement and your humor Dr.
55:39: White, thank you so much.
55:39: We have come to the end of the questions, but we have a few minutes And what I'd like you to do if you don't mind for just the last couple minutes the last few months our church has really been Investing in training and evangelism and trying to increase our understanding of how to take the gospel into the world How would you in just a few moments? How would you feel or at least how would you teach the best way to approach a Muslim? with the gospel Is there anything unique that you would tell them that is that would be different Maybe than how you would approach someone else and we'll end with this.
56:14: We'll let this be the last thing Well Yes that they're there In approaching anyone you want to find out where they're coming from and so if you're approaching a nominal Roman Catholic It's good to know what Rome teaches in regards to how you receive forgiveness because even though they might not be practicing That's probably what they have they have absorbed in their family experience Knowing something about where someone is coming from it's going to allow you to interpret their words more accurately and What you want to be doing is looking for any signs of Self-righteousness of works righteousness of of them hearing you saying things they want you to be saying rather than things you actually are saying and Certainly that becomes very important in speaking to a Muslim you need to understand that there are three major barriers to a Muslim hearing the gospel and Unless they're just an incredibly nominal Muslim and just are really ignorant to Islam They will all three of these barriers will exist in almost any Muslims mind The first barrier is called shirk In Islam the central theological affirmation is called Tauheed You can't discuss Islam without using Arabic terms.
57:51: It's not possible.
57:52: No one can do it Tauheed means the oneness of Allah.
57:57: There is only one God Allah.
57:58: They believe we violate that they think that we are tritheists We have three gods To deny Tauheed is to commit the sin of shirk and Shirk is the association of anyone or anything with Allah.
58:12: Shirk is the only unforgivable sin If you die as a mushrik a person who's committed shirk You cannot be forgiven Allah will forgive mass murderers before he'll forgive someone who has died as an idolater as a person who is committed shirk and So the Quran specifically says there's no forgiveness for it.
58:33: And therefore there's a great fear on the part of the Muslim of never Committing shirk lest you then die upon that state and therefore you are literally toast For all of eternity and the descriptions of hellfire in Islam are very graphic so there's the first thing they think that we are inviting them to commit shirk because they believe our worship of Jesus is the Inappropriate elevation of a mere human prophet to the position of godhood.
59:05: And so we are asking them to commit shirk That's the first thing The second barrier is found in surah 4 157 in the Quran 40 arrogant words that deny the crucifixion of Jesus.
59:19: It's the only place in the Quran where it happens It's the only verse in the Quran that denies the crucifixion of Christ, but it's there and Therefore if you don't have crucifixion, you don't have you don't have resurrection.
59:32: You don't have redemption.
59:33: You don't have atonement They don't believe there's a necessity for atonement because Allah can simply forgive sins Without his law being fulfilled.
59:41: That's a major issue But if you don't have the cross then you don't have the gospel.
59:45: So shirk Denial the cross and then and this is this is really an issue for anybody and everybody in our day to be honest with you The vast majority of Muslims today believe that the Bible has been corrupted not just in interpretation but the vast majority of Muslims today believe that the actual text of the Bible has been corrupted and so if you if you attended the dialogue with Imam Musli He basically said well, you know We believe that the Torah was given to Moses, but it's been changed by the Jews We believe that there is a book called the gospel that was given to Jesus, but no one's ever found it and There are there are bits and pieces of those things that have survived in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, but the vast majority of it didn't come from God and Someday we find the real gospel of Jesus.
01:00:46: Well, then it'll be relevant but The reality is that the Christian scriptures have been greatly corrupted Now they'll pick and choose on that because the Quran also says in surah 61 6 and 7 1 7 that Muhammad is prophesied in our scriptures And when you ask Muslims where that is, they'll say Deuteronomy chapter 18 is about Muhammad You thought John 14 and 16 was about the Holy Spirit not to Muhammad the comforter from John 14 and 16 is Muhammad according to most Muslims and So it's interesting they'll look at those texts and somehow they survived they haven't been corrupted But if you quote from the chapter next to that, well, that's been corrupted.
01:01:35: So they they don't have a consistent standard As to how they deal with the text of the Bible but there is just this overarching lack of Confidence that what's in the Bible today is what was originally given which means you what you need is the Quran The Quran is the corrector.
01:01:56: So you look through the lens of the Quran and that's how you read the Bible So those are three big barriers Those are three big barriers.
01:02:03: And so One of the most important things I only have time for this one of the most important things to emphasize to the to the Muslim Is the fact that? Christ gave his life voluntarily They interpret the cross as a violent Unwilling removal of the life of Jesus and Allah would never allow one of his great prophets to die in such a ignominious and dishonorable fashion and so what they need to hear from us is Jesus own words.
01:02:39: No one takes my life from me.
01:02:41: I give it of my own accord the voluntary nature of Christ self-giving Key to Helping a Muslim to understand who Jesus is and then realize they don't know the biblical Jesus The Quranic Jesus is is not even a person and so if you can get them to read anything of the Gospels at all You are really making an advance in the information They have to deal with and I've met many a former Muslim and it was reading about the real Jesus That was the real issue for them that's really work or they got started so those would just be some of the issues You also Would be really helpful If like this brother back here like our music minister if you grow a huge beard Because then you'll just be able to just I mean Does anyone here call you Imam? You've got a better beard than most Muslims I know Now you see you trimmers don't you Yeah Here's going it out.
01:03:47: Okay.
01:03:47: All right.