January 18, 2005

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From the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
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The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good morning, and good morning, and now I can't hear anything, am
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I? I don't even know if I'm on at the moment. Somebody was playing with stuff, and so now we don't have any idea what in the world's going on, and I can hear myself now.
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Wow, that's really weird. Hi. I was told
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I was getting a new microphone, and I didn't get a new microphone, but now the old microphone doesn't want to work because I can't hear it.
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And it's, you know, you get these professionals and they just, you know, they just think because they're all cool, they just know how to do everything.
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But anyway, 877 -753 -3341. I have a couple of different topics to get to today, and yeah,
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I sound like he was in a box. Yeah, don't ask me what I'm... I don't touch it, man. I see it out there.
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I don't touch it. You know, I'm... There's other people that touch it, and they like touching it and adjusting things and stuff like that.
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So anyhow, but we already have some callers online, and so I think
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I'll just start with this first clip first, and we'll go to our callers, and then... Is there any particular reason why we need music now?
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Is that what's... I guess the discussion, it's your
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PC. Oh, I see. All right. Well, there. Now the
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PC should be not talking anymore. At least we hope so.
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Well, we're having lots of fun this morning. You know? Let's go to the first clip anyways.
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I've been noticing something interestingly lately. Someone's going back over the old
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Catholic Answers programs, and they are outlying the calls, and so I take time to look at them, see, you know, every once in a blue moon, somebody will throw something out there that is of great interest, and it just so happened that one of the phone calls that appeared in the current description of,
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I think they're back in July of last year, Catholic Answers program, was a little bit relevant, somewhat relevant to the current series that I think just finished up on the blog on Mark Bonacori and his comments on Isaiah chapter 22 and Matthew 16 and so on and so forth, and, oh,
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Coach, you've got a lacerated spleen? How in the world do you lacerate your spleen? That's terrible. Sorry about that, big guy.
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I hope you're feeling better. And in fact, today, another one of our channel regulars, Richard Braselis, is having surgery, so we need to be thinking about him as well.
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So, boy, we just go to very odd and strange thoughts as we go along, don't we?
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Well, you're watching, somebody comes to the channel that's been in for a while and says, yeah, I've got a lacerated spleen.
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How do you do that? You've got to run into something. Ow! Four units of blood internally?
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Okay, all right. I think we'll move on from here. Anyways, how did it do that?
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Man alive, the gremlins are in the stuff again. I was, you didn't do that.
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I clicked in one window and it did something in another window, and, you know,
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I don't know how that works, you know? That's not supposed to work that way.
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Anyway, I'm not exactly sure where we are on the blog at the moment, because I've been trying to sort of work forward.
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I know that I have come, I think there might be another Bonacori response later today, if I'm recalling correctly, and so anyway,
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I just happened to notice that there was a call on Catholic Answers back in July about Matthew 16 and about the singular or plural, what you'll see here in a moment, discussion in Matthew chapter 16, and, you know,
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I realize if you're not really into Roman Catholicism, maybe reading stuff about Irenaeus and about, you know,
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Cassian and all these various people, and you're sort of like, yeah, boy, how about something, you know, about today or something really, you know,
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John Cassian is not exactly the first person I want to be reading about today. So anyway, I understand that, but here's an example of where having a solid understanding here, and obviously some of you do have
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Roman Catholic families, you want to be very prepared about this stuff, and you're going, no, no, no, no, the more detail the better.
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But this call, I think, sort of reflects the type of conversation that might take place, and I just want to make some comments on it.
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I had my daughter and family visiting me, and my son -in -law asked me a question, we were discussing the
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Bible, and his comment to me was, the Lord promised to Peter, I will give you the keys to the kingdom.
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And his question is regarding the Greek word you, s -o -i, he said, he is plural.
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So his question is, to me, was, were the keys being given to all of the apostles and not just to Peter?
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Okay, if that's what he said, what he said was wrong. The word soi is the dative singular form of the pronoun you in Greek.
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So he's clearly saying, I give to you, singular, talking to Peter, the keys to the kingdom.
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And in that passage, when he goes on to say, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven, he continues to use singular pronouns in talking to Peter.
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So in Matthew 16, he's using singulars all the way through. Now, in Matthew 18, we have another passage where he says something similar, but a little different.
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In that passage, he is talking to the disciples as a group, and he uses a plural pronoun.
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The difference, though, or a difference between these passages is that in the Peter one, he says,
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I give you the keys to the kingdom. And then he goes on to give the binding and loosening promise.
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But in the Matthew 18 passage, where he's talking to all of them, he does not say,
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I give to y 'all the keys to the kingdom. He only says that to Peter. What he does do is he goes on to say, and whatever y 'all bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever y 'all loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
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He does say that to them. So it would seem he's giving them a measure of the same authority he gave to Peter, but not the fullness of it as represented by the fact he doesn't say,
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I give to y 'all the keys. I see. And this is very clear in Greek.
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In English, it's more ambiguous because standardized English only wants to use you for both singular and plural.
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But in Greek, there's a very, and in Hebrew and Aramaic, there's a very clear distinction between you and y 'all.
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And in Matthew 16, it's you all the way through. And in Matthew 18, it's y 'all, but it doesn't have the keys part.
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I see. Well, thank you very much. Well, now, there's nothing that I disagree with in what was just said.
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Uh, it is singular and, uh, the stuff in Matthew 18, everything there was accurate.
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And that was James Aiken, Jimmy Aiken responding to the call. All of that is accurate, um, right down to the, the
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Texas style y 'all accent that, uh, that Mr. Aiken brings to the
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Greek language. Um, all of that was accurate, but it's what
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I would think would need to be addressed. Or maybe, you know, maybe the caller didn't hear, uh, the family member properly raising the issue or whatever.
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I don't know. But when we're talking about the issue of Peter and the keys at Matthew chapter 16, the thing you have to keep in mind is while Jesus only says to Peter, he uses the singular at that point,
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I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. While that is all quite true, uh, the little thing that I don't hear a lot of discussion of is the fact that it is will give.
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It is future tense. It does not say I am giving what, whatever else you do with the, the passage.
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However, you want to make Peter singularly different than the other apostles, which in modern
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Roman Catholic theology, uh, you have to do to establish a, a, uh, supremacy of the position of Peter as, as the greatest of the apostles, the prince of the apostles, the one to whom, uh, the, the, uh, keys are given in a special way.
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Then you have to explain somehow, if you're going to really deal with this issue and deal with it in such a way as to be, uh, compelling to those who know what the subjects are.
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You need to explain when this took place. It's not in Matthew 16.
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That's where the big focus is, but this is a promise of a future event. And where does this happen?
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Well, the only, you know, I've gotten, I don't know how many different answers as to when this happens.
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Rome has not defined it in an infallible fashion to my knowledge.
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And so all you get speculation, uh, even though it's normally couched in claims of absolute certainty, but you, you get speculation one way or the other.
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And when did it happen? Well, it happened before the resurrection or it happened, uh, before the
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Ascension or you get all this stuff, but it's not, it's never put into a, uh, a form of, of saying, well, uh, such and such a council said this.
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So you get speculation. If you don't have to worry about Rome and you don't have to worry about substantiating
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Rome's claims, there seems to be a very obvious fulfillment of Matthew 16 in Matthew 18, where all of the apostles as a group, as Mr.
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Akin pointed out, all the apostles are given this power of binding and loosing. And it has been well said if binding and loosing is locking and unlocking.
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Well, whether you use the specific keys terminology or not, you're still talking about the same authority, aren't you?
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I mean, are we really going to say that when it said, I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind to the, that there's no connection between those two that I can give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and on a completely different subject, whatever you buy.
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No, obviously whatever the key is referring to is related to binding and loosing. And in Matthew 18, it's all of the apostles, not a promise of some future thing.
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It's all of the apostles who receive this authority. And so you either have to, you know,
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I only see two options here. You either have to see
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Matthew 18 for what it is, and that is the fulfillment, I think it is, of Matthew 16. If you didn't have a papacy, would anyone argue about this?
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I mean, honestly, if we were just looking at the text of the gospel of Matthew and we didn't have all the historical baggage about the development of the
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Roman Catholic papacy over time, would anyone looking at the gospel of Matthew come up with the idea that Matthew 18 is not the fulfillment of the promise of Matthew 16?
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I don't believe so. I don't believe so. I think very clearly that's what it is. The only other option that they can say is we don't, it's not recorded for us.
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This great, huge, vitally important thing that's foundational to the infallible authority of the
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Roman see was not important enough to record in any of the gospels or in Acts.
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It's not important enough to be referred to in any of the epistles. It just happened, but we don't know when or how or so on and so forth.
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Those are the options as I see them. I really think that that needs to be addressed if you're going to make a compelling argument.
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Now, there's different kinds of arguments you can make. You can go ahead and make arguments that are only meant to satiate the people who are already your followers or people who are looking at becoming your followers but who are not going to look very closely, or you can have a standard of truth wherein you believe you need to truly address the most compelling arguments against your position, even if that means your responses may not be as attractive to people as they would be otherwise.
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Look, this is something we've addressed many, many times. When I've written books on Mormonism, you know what?
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It's not my kind of books on Mormonism that sell. It's the books on Mormonism that have conspiracy theories and that appeal to the lowest common denominator.
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Those are the ones that do quite well. If you spend 70, 80, 90 pages documenting exactly what
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Mormons believe on the doctrine of God and covering every base and being fair and explaining various levels of authority in statements in the church and so on and so forth, that is not the way to make it to the top of the bestseller charts.
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It's just not. That's not what people are looking for. And I know that. That's why we don't worry about trying to get the world's largest audience and the world's largest constituency, because it's not going to happen.
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That's just all there is to it. So anyhow, I just found it interesting that the response was completely true.
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Everything that I heard there was true about the Greek and about the whole nine yards. But what would need to actually be addressed in regards to giving the keys is, when did it happen?
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When did it happen? It's not Matthew 16. It needs to be put out there in the open. It didn't happen in Matthew 16.
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So when did it happen? And if you go looking for the obvious fulfillment, it ends up being
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Matthew 18. But Peter isn't singled out there. You don't have the
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Prince of the Apostles stuff. And that's what causes folks a problem. So just a little discussion of a question as it was asked.
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And what would happen if you had the equivalent of Hannity and Combs, White and Aiken?
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We'll just let you figure out who would be who on that one. I don't think you'd appreciate that, because Jimmy Aiken's a very conservative fellow, too.
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And so he would not want to be made the Combs part of that one.
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Anyhow, 877 -753 -3341. We'll continue with the review of the sermon by Pastor Herb Revis on the subject of Calvinism.
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But first, we want to travel off to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and talk with Jeff.
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Hi, Jeff. Dr. White, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Good. I think I'm the first caller two years in a row. First caller two years in a row?
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First caller of 2004. And I think I'm the first caller of 2004. Oh, well, you know, I'm not good at keeping up with those kinds of statistics.
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Well, yeah, I know. You don't care about us, Pennsylvanians. Oh, well, you know,
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Pennsylvania, I lived there. I lived in Pennsylvania. I lived in Harrisburg, well, actually, Mechanicsburg and Camp Hill for six years.
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So yeah, it's New Jersey I have a problem with. Well, that's where I live.
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I just work in Pennsylvania. So thanks, Dr. White. You're most welcome.
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I love you, too. Hey, I've driven across from Staten Island in New Jersey, and I have to close the vents.
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Okay, what can I say? You know, haven't you had to do that, too? I live in the godly part of the state.
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Oh, you live with the remnants. Okay. I was listening to the radio show you were on.
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With Chuck Grissmeyer? The one with Calvin -ism. Yeah, I forget that.
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It was the debate with Dave Hunt. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yes. In fact, I can be back on that program the 31st.
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Right. Yes. He described it on his website as Calvin -ism. Yeah, okay. And I kind of wanted to get your thoughts.
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What I'm thinking is going on with a lot of them is they view the final judgment as kind of just simplistically in terms of whether or not you believe, as opposed to judgment for your sin.
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In general. Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's true. So the problem is when they view it as just about whether or not you have this one ticket or something, is that when we come along and say, expand our views, they're viewing it through that lens.
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And I think that's where that host was kind of freaking out. Well, yeah. Let's face it.
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I could understand, even from my own background, given the fact that there is not a lot of, that I didn't have a lot of the vocabulary in my youth.
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I mean, I did not have the strong emotional dislike of the system.
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I never even heard of the system within the context which I grew up. But I did believe in the security of the believer and election and things like that.
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But I can understand if I came from a lot of their backgrounds, how just running smack into it, not slowly being introduced to certain concepts and building upon the sovereignty of God, just running, you know, if you run past the sovereignty of God and the total power of man, the holiness of God, right into, for example, limited atonement,
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I can see why there isn't a real major hurdle that needs to get over of bias and quite simply prejudice that explains a lot of the language you end up hearing being used.
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You know, it's quite honestly, for many of them, they use cultic language of what we believe.
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There's no question about that. And I understand why, if you've never even pondered these things before and you're used to every
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Sunday, hearing your pastor from the day of your conversion to the present time, doing the invitation and putting it all on you and explaining election as if God's voted for you and the devil's vote against you.
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And now you've got the tie breaking vote. And I heard that one, too. I can understand why it's like, whoa, that is so freaky wrong that I could never possibly believe that.
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And what about this? And what about that? I understand that. And that's why you try anyways.
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And I fail very frequently. But you try to be very, very patient and say, hey, let's you know, could we could we really think about this?
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Could we go to the word of God? Could we read John six together and, you know, do things like that? But I understand why they would feel that way.
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And my hope, obviously, is over time. Let's say this next program goes well.
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We do another program. My hope over time is to get enough information out there that people start going, well, you know,
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I never thought about that. And wow. Then they start reading their Bibles and they go, wow, that sounds like what that guy on the radio was saying, you know.
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So I try to take the sort of the optimistic Calvinist viewpoint at that point and say, you know what?
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If you just get God's word into people's hearing and get it to where they're not automatically discounting it on the basis of their tradition, it's amazing what the word of God can do in people's lives.
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It really is. Well, yeah, and I was just thinking that was a major stumbling block because I'm not sure how they handle the judgment according to work sort of passages.
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But yeah, I don't know that those two would have done it together, because remember, the host ended up being farther on the other side than Dave Hunt.
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He was clearly disappointed that Dave Hunt believed in any form of eternal security or perseverance of saints or anything at all.
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Of course, Dave Hunt's view is a very shallow view because he follows Bob Wilkin and the
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Gracie Evangelical Theological Society stuff of anti -lordship and so on and so forth.
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So his view is, I think, extremely inconsistent. But still, you could just hear in his voice this sort of like, oh,
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I've got two Calvinists on the program. And when you make Dave Hunt a Calvinist, let me tell you something, that's saying a lot.
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Okay. All righty. Thanks, Jeff. All right. All right. God bless. Bye. 877 -753 -3341 is a phone number that, you know,
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Jason in the United Kingdom called. Jason's up very late again, and Jason's moved. Hello, Jason. Hi.
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How are you doing? It's not that late. Yeah, I'm fine. It's not that late tonight. It's only 23 minutes past six.
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Oh, that's right, because it's the morning program. But you know, I heard you call into the narrow mind. Yes, it's a nice surprise to hear you calling after me.
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Yes. I wasn't expecting that. Oh, yes. I was like, oh, so Jason, you must not have a lot of British programs to call.
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No. Could we ask for a tithe on your phone bill? Goodness gracious.
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Anyways, I'm sorry. What's up? You're at least you're right on topic today. What's up? Yeah, well,
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I used to be an Armenian. And really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And there are
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Armenians in England. Isn't that where Spurgeon preached? So many
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Armenians in England. Oh, my. Isn't that where Spurgeon preached, though? Yes, but I don't think many people have probably heard of Spurgeon over here now.
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Oh, that's a very sad statement, you know. Anyway, so you used to be an
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Armenian. I did. And I used to actually make an argument out of Ephesians chapter one, would you believe?
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And I was wondering if I could put that argument to you. Arminian Jace calling tonight.
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And. Oh, no. Oh, in the sovereignty of God.
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What happened there? He dropped. Oh, that's times up.
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Yep. Give us a call back, Jason. We'll finish with your Ephesians chapter one.
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He got cut off. He's even channel someone saying, get another quarter.
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Poor guy. Give us a call back. We'll see if we can't get you back on somehow. Oh, he's he's asking if he can if he can private message me his argument.
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He saw his phone bill this month, too, didn't he? Yes, go ahead, Jason. But I'll go ahead with Herb Revis, and we'll try to get to your your question as we as we get along.
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Anyhow. Poor guy. Yes, the phone bill had definitely become too much.
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It's probably that first minute that's so expensive. I don't know. And he's put another 20 pounds in the phone.
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Yes, indeed. That's that's a shame. Well, anyhow, we do appreciate our our foreign callers, especially when they speak that wonderful English accent.
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We've been looking at and so I guess I heard from someone that, you know, a slight complaint that we haven't finished the
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Paige Patterson series. It's a much longer series. I don't want to fill the dividing line with just nothing but just playing the one thing.
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We will get back to that. I still have the information written down as to where I was last.
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And so, oh, pence, not pounds. Well, it could be very expensive anyway.
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Oh, what on earth? Someone needs to let a certain person in channel know about about Nick's and not stealing somebody else's.
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OK, just just so that that person knows to do today.
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Well, there's there's Jason's question, and I'll have to read it in British, though. So it's it's authentic.
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Ephesians one for says that God chose us in him him. It does not say that God chose us and then put us in him.
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In God's foresight, we were already in him when he chose us. See, at this point,
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I would I would be asking on the basis of that foresight. He predestined us to the adoption as sons.
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OK, well. This term foresight, I don't see that in Ephesians one for it says, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love.
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Now, the the problem here is, of course, that. It seems that this is just another form of the foreknowledge argument, which we've addressed many, many times in the past, and that is that the verbal form does not mean looking in the future and seeing events or seeing actions.
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Furthermore, when it says he chose us in him, the the in him. Is the sphere or the realm of the choice all of?
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In fact, I address this. I just realized it's not posted on the blog yet. I write stuff and then
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I tell the software to post it at particular times in the future so that I can work on other things and and that's sort of how it works out.
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And I will be addressing this in a blog article between now and Thursday anyway. In regards to union with Christ, one of the issues in the conversation, and it is a conversation that has been taking place between myself and Dr.
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Eric Svensson on the issue of the extent intention subject of the atonement is in reference to the concept of substitution, substitutionary atonement, and hence the concept of union with Christ.
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When is that union with Christ? Are we united with Christ only in time or are we united with Christ in eternity so that his death is our death?
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And yet we does that does that not then it would be argued by some mean that you have to believe that all of the satirical work of the
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Trinity is fulfilled in eternity and and there's really nothing to be done in time. I address those issues in the blog article, but the point is that this choice takes place only in Christ.
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It is only in him and the text is not addressing the issue of how one becomes united to Christ in time.
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That obviously is the work of the Holy Spirit that does so, but the point is not that that the discussion is choosing us and then we get in him by some other means.
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The point is his choice of us and we are the object of the word choice. They're not
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Christ. It's very easy for people to try to ground Ephesians one. They say Christ is the elect one and then we get in him and therefore become left in that way.
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That's not what Ephesians one says. The direct object of the verb is us, not Christ.
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Christ is the sphere, the realm in which we are chosen. We are chosen in him.
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There is no part of the gospel that takes place outside of Christ. So that's what the text is referring to.
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It's not referring to anything beyond that. So as best I can understand a very briefly written form of that question, that is how
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I would have responded to that. So with that, I do not hear any music or know if we are going to be taking a break or not.
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I haven't been told that. I do not foreknow it. But we have more calls.
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So I'm just waiting to find out. I do humming when
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I'm waiting to find out. Still waiting for the important stuff here.
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And that's to do to do to do to do to do to do.
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So I just yell it to me since you can't seem to type. Are we taking a break? Thank you.
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There we go. All righty, folks.
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We'll be right back right after this. The Trinity is a basic teaching of the
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Christian faith. It defines God's essence and describes how he relates to us. James White's book,
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The Forgotten Trinity, is a concise, understandable explanation of what the Trinity is and why it matters. It refutes cultic distortions of God, as well as showing how a grasp of the significant teaching leads to renewed worship and deeper understanding of what it means to be a
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Christian. And amid today's emphasis on the renewing work of the Holy Spirit, the Forgotten Trinity is a balanced look at all three persons of the
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Trinity. Dr. John MacArthur, senior pastor of Grace Community Church, says James White's lucid presentation will help layperson and pastor alike.
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Highly recommended. You can order the Forgotten Trinity by going to our website at AOMin .org.
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Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the word of God, James White, in his book,
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The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
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Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .AOMin
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.org. The history of the Christian church pivots on the doctrine of justification by faith.
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Once the core of the Reformation, the church today often ignores or misunderstands this foundational doctrine.
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In his book, The God Who Justifies, theologian James White calls believers to a fresh appreciation of, understanding of, and dedication to the great doctrine of justification, and then provides an exegesis of the key scripture texts on this theme.
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Justification is the heart of the gospel. In today's culture where tolerance is the new absolute,
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James White proclaims with passion the truth and centrality of the doctrine of justification by faith.
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Dr. Jay Adams says, I lost sleep over this book. I simply couldn't put it down. James White writes the way an exegetically and theologically oriented pastor appreciates.
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This is no book for casual reading. There is solid meat throughout, an outstanding contribution in every sense of the words.
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The God Who Justifies by Dr. James White. Get your copy today at www .AOMin .org.
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Lots of phone calls today.
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I guess we haven't been taking a lot recently, so maybe we've just been building up out there, all this stuff.
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So let's go on down to Rio Rico, Arizona, and talk with Jim.
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Hi, Jim. Hi. How are you doing, Dr.? Doing good. Just a question here about the permissive will of God.
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A lot of what's being said today about the tsunami and so forth. As a matter of fact, I got one of my emails today.
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It says something to this effect. It says, God is in control and there's nothing that happens, but His hand is not watching over.
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God did not cause this tsunami, but He did allow it to happen.
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Uh -oh. From your interaction on that, what are people actually trying to say there about God being in control and yet not causing it, yet allowing it?
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Is it an attempt to try to get God off the hook, or what do you think? Well, evidently, that's the only way
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I can understand that, is if we're speaking about someone who has the ability to either cause something to happen or to not allow something to happen, if they're confessing that He has the ability to keep it from happening and yet did not, and then just simply say, well,
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He didn't cause it. He didn't actually actively put out some kind of energy to cause the tectonic plates to move, but He knew it was going to happen, but He didn't stop it from happening because this is just the way a cursed world works and so on and so forth.
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Yeah, at that point, it becomes a semantics game, which to me doesn't have a whole lot of meaning to it.
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And I don't think a lot of folks have thought through what the result of that would be. If you're going to say, well,
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He knew it was coming, He could have stopped it, He didn't cause it, but He allowed it to happen, then the big question
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I want to ask is, all right, if all you're saying is He didn't have to put out power to make it happen because of the way the world's made, earthquakes will happen, that's one thing.
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But the key question I would ask of anyone who would make that kind of a statement is, is there a purpose in the decree of God for what took place in the tsunami, in any type of quote -unquote natural disaster, whether it be a fire, a flood, an earthquake, a tornado, a hurricane, all of these things.
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Is the person willing to confess that, for example, Christians die in these things? If they do so, will they say that the date of a
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Christian's death has been fixed by God? That, I don't think you can get around in Psalm 139, you can't get around in the
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Book of Job. If that's the case, then these things have to have been under the sovereignty of God, and they have to have a purpose in the sovereignty of God.
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Whether that means that God has to put out some sort of positive energy to make them happen, or they're just simply a part of the creation that is a part that is a result of His sovereign decree,
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I don't think has any meaningful moral element to it as far as trying to escape
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God's sovereignty and the purposes therein. So, most of the time, that's not the issue.
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Most of the time, the issue is that makes it a whole lot easier if someone's lost someone or someone's, you know, one of these great tragedies, you're generally just trying to help
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God get off the line at that point and not have to answer for His actions and so on and so forth.
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That's at least, as I have heard people addressing this, that's the normal reason why they're doing that.
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Well, along with that, are they saying that He couldn't have stopped it if He wanted to?
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I don't know. Evidently, in many of these systems, the idea is that somehow
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God has, in essence, wound up a particular mechanism, and partly so that free will gets to exist, and partly because somehow
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He's under some kind of necessary need to let the system run on its own without performing miracles regularly, that He can't intercede.
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He can't get involved in these things. And I don't see any reason for any of that, to be perfectly honest with you.
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I don't see any reason to at all posit the idea that God has, in essence, wound up a mechanism, and now
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He's just letting it run, and that's a part of His will. But the details of it are sort of just, we don't need to worry about actually thinking about details.
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We don't need to worry about, especially, thinking about wrath or judgment or anything like that.
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We can maintain our omnibenevolence, aka Dave Hunt, equal love for everybody, no matter whether they are a sinner under your wrath or not.
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And that way, we don't have to worry about the idea that God brings
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His judgment to bear, and sometimes He calls sinners out of this world in a very, very sudden and dramatic fashion, and sometimes
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He calls a lot of them out of this world in a very sudden and dramatic fashion, which is supposed to have the result of making us see the sovereignty of God and the holiness of God and the judgment of God and the wrath of God and His name be proclaimed, and the result is repentance.
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But as long as you keep trying to just simply turn all this into the random tremors of a insignificant swirling ball of dust around an insignificant sun in an insignificant galaxy, then it's easy to see why people have become dulled to seeing the wrath of God when it actually breaks forth upon us.
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But, and along with that, if something is allowed, isn't there some measure of control over the situation?
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You would think so. I mean, just by the very use of that language, if you allow something, it means that you can disallow it.
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Or you could make it much less, or you could make it much greater. You could direct where it goes.
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All of those things would have to be a part of that. But the idea of actually thinking these things through and doing so and actually seeking to have a specifically biblical worldview just simply isn't a part of a lot of evangelicalism today.
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Well, is there, along with that, a permissive will of God? Well, what do you mean by a permissive will of God?
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If that means outside of his decree, no.
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Normally when I hear the phrase permissive will of God, it is in regards to what
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God allows to take place to fulfill his purpose in contrast with the perfect will of God, which would be expressed within his law.
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You shall not murder. And yet it is obviously, being God's permissive will, that murder takes place. You shall not sell your brother into slavery.
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But we know in Genesis 50 -20 that that was part of God's decree that it take place to send
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Joseph down to Egypt to save many people alive. So that's generally the difference, at least as far as I have understood the use of those terms.
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But in a Calvinistic soteriology and framework, there is a concept of a permissive will, isn't there?
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Yeah, but I don't see that being applied to something like a natural disaster, because we're talking here about what
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God permits men to do in regards to their actions and their will, not tectonic plates and things like that.
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It's not my experience that that is the utilization of that terminology. OK. All right? Thanks.
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Thanks, Jim. Thanks. God bless. Bye. Bye -bye. All right, we've got calls coming in.
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The phone lines must be open. We'll have to probably pick up with the Herb Revis sermon and the issue of invitations
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Thursday. And by the way, this week we'll be back on our regular schedule. The Jan Term class is over.
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I had a good time teaching that, but that's over. And so have Thursday afternoons available for the
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Dividing Line again. So we'll be back to our regular time on Thursday this week. No early Dividing Line this week on Thursday.
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Let's talk all the way down in Sydney, Australia, to Matt. Hi, Matt. Hello, Matt.
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How are you? Yeah, this is Tartan Army here, James, from Sydney, Australia. How are you?
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Hi, doing well. I've been meaning to call in for about two years now.
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Oh, well, I'm glad you're listening. What time is it down there? It's actually about quarter to six in the morning.
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Now, you're not going to start doing my accent, are you? Do you want me to? Well, you can have a go.
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If you want, I can teach you. You know, I'm going to England and Scotland, you know.
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Yes, I know. And if I sound like you, will they like me or dislike me? I think they'll like you.
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This is what you have to say. If you listen carefully, see if you can repeat this, OK? OK.
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There's a rare pair of pearls out by the stair there. No, what
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I'll do is I'll use my Australian accent and give you the translation. Oh, please. There's a rare pair of pears over there by the stair there.
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Ah, I was going to say, I wanted you to translate that before I said it, because I didn't want to say anything wrong.
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Yeah, there's a rare pair of pears out by the stair there. So you're telling me that you're volunteering to fly to Scotland to be my translator?
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Is that the idea? Well, something could be arranged. I'm going to...
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I guess right now the plan is Inverness and Glasgow. That's where I'm going.
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At least I'm supposed to go. Yes, I have family in Glasgow. Oh, do you? OK. Yes, I do. Well, in fact, one of them's on the plane coming to Australia right now.
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Oh, my. That's... Mother -in -law. That's... Oh, that's probably... I don't know whether to congratulate you or give you condolences, but...
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So what kind of a flight is it to Australia from Scotland? It's a terrible flight.
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How long? Approximately 30 hours, I believe. Oh, oh. And I was complaining about the 12 over and the 14 back.
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Wow, that's... Yeah, it's a bit of a nightmare. Oh, just... So what are you doing in Australia?
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Well, actually, my family emigrated from Scotland back in 1973. So I really...
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I was five years old when I came out here. I'm now married, five children. And I actually grew up speaking
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Australian. And then when I became a man, I decided to go back to the Scottish accent. I think it was after I seen
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Braveheart. There you go. I've come to pick a fight. Do you look like him?
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I wish. No kidding. That was a big boy that said that. Yes, indeed.
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You know, I was... Who was it? It was... Was it Sinclair Ferguson?
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Who was it? There was a well -known Reformed theologian.
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And when Braveheart first came out, when the film first came out, a number of his students had seen it.
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And so they were telling him about it and how wonderful it was and stuff. And he says, well, I'll have to see it.
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And they said, oh, oh, doctor, it's very, very violent. I don't know if you'd like it.
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And he looked at him, he says, I want you to know that when you see Scotsman killing
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Englishman, that's not violence. That's patriotism. Well, that's why we built
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Adrian's Wall. Indeed. Well, you're going to have to let your family up in Glasgow know.
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Keep an eye on the website there and be happy to get to meet them if I get a chance to, if I get a chance to speak up there.
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Well, that would be really good. But I have to warn you, there's not much. No, there's not any Mexican food in Glasgow.
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Well, OK, but knowing my taste, what what should I eat and what shouldn't I eat?
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I think if you just stick with fish and chips, you'll be fine. Fish and chips. OK, yeah.
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And if you're really brave, you can try the haggis. Oh, they do deep fry it. Yes. Well, you know, it's a big difference.
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Trust me. I bet it does. Well, sir, thank you very, very much for for brightening our dividing line today.
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No, that's all right. I hope you get out to Australia one day, James. I'd love to meet you out here. Well, you know, we're talking with some folks in in Singapore about the possibility of coming over there.
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And obviously, what would be good if you're going to make that kind of an effort to go that far anyway, would be to swing by Australia and visit the visit the saints there and encourage them.
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And so I would really like to try to make something like that happen. Well, that'll be great. I'll be your personal tour guide.
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I'll hold you to it, brother. Thanks a lot. God bless you. All right. Bye bye. Was that a
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Welsh accent? I don't know. You're from England. I've got an Englishman asking me if that was a
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Welsh accent. How am I supposed to know? I haven't gotten over there yet. That's a few weeks ahead. It's in March.
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For those of you who don't know, I think one of the reasons we've got we're getting all these calls is because I updated the calendar and that people know what's going on.
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And they're going, hey, you're going to England and Scotland and Italy. At least we haven't had any Italians calling in.
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That's coming up there. So we're still here. Who's still here? You don't have a microphone anymore, so you have to type everything.
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And you are not the world's fastest typist. Never mind. OK. All right. Let's go to let's go about as far as we can get from a
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Scotsman in Australia to Adam in Vernon, Texas. Adam, you're going to have to have a really, really good
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Texas accent to keep up with what we've started in the program today. I don't know if I can accommodate you there.
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I probably have a little bit of a Texas accent, but I don't think I have a really good one. I can hear it. You're sort of getting those words down a little bit quicker than you should.
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Well, I'm glad that you I'm glad to be accommodating. There you go.
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So what can we help you with today? My question is about Acts 13, 48.
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I've heard of it. And it was an argument, and I read it online, and that somebody had said that the word in Acts 13, 48 that's translated as appointed in the
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N .I .S. and N .I .V. is the word taso, and it's used in some other places in the
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Bible. To mean something more like directives being issued, or accepted, or arrangements being made, and that there's nothing really necessarily predestinarian about that word.
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And they went on further to say that what they think that verse means is not that God appointed those people to belief, but that everyone who was present who heard the gospel message believed.
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And he likened it to when missionaries go into areas that have never heard the gospel before, and like entire tribes are converted.
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Oh, really? Yeah. That's interesting. And I wondered if you are familiar with that argument.
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Oh, yeah. Well, it's Acts 13, 48 is starting to become the runner up to John 6 as far as the wildest number of variant interpretations you can come up with to try to get around a rather obvious thing.
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I'm not sure if you noticed on the blog, we had a fairly lengthy discussion of Dave Hunt's very unique ways of trying to get around Acts 13, 48, including coming up with a
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Hebrew original for Acts chapter 1, verses chapters 1 through 15, and all sorts of other.
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I mean, Dave, you might want to send this to the Breean Call because it'll end up in What Love Is This of Edition 4.
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And believe me. Yeah, here's the situation. In essence, what people are trying to argue is that tasso as a verb has a wide semantic meaning, which, of course, it does.
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But what they're ignoring, and the vast majority, I even had a conversation with a person who clearly has studied the original languages in our channel a couple of nights ago and has taken a look at a number of the commentaries that are out there that try to find a way around this.
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Let's just note something. All English translations that I know of that have been done by groups, committees of scholars, render this as had been appointed or ordained to eternal life.
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There's a reason for that. The only translations you find that say something different are either cultic translations, like the
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New World Translation, or translations done by a single individual rather than by an entire group of individuals.
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Translations done by groups are better than translations done by individuals for the simple reason that individuals have biases and groups tend to filter those biases out because the other people in the group may not happen to agree with your particular biases.
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And so what's going on here is the vast majority of comments on Acts 13 -48 that are offered are based upon a very common error in looking at the
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Greek language, and I'm afraid that it's an error that evangelicalism actually helps to promote, and that is they look at a single word, but none of us speak in single words.
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We all speak in phrases and sentences. And the verb tasso in Acts 13 -48 appears as a perfect passive participle, and it's in what's called a periphrastic construction.
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That means it has a particular tense meaning, and that also limits the semantic range, the range of meaning that the verb itself can have.
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And it's describing the people who believed. Who believed.
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When the message was preached, who believed? It was whosoever was this action to eternal life.
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Now, what they're trying to suggest, what most of them try to suggest, first of all, it's very clear if you look at Acts 13, not everybody believed.
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Paul's going to be chased around by the people who don't believe for quite some time, so it's ridiculous to say everybody believed.
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But what people try to say is, well, we need to take this in the middle voice, the passive voice, because they both have the same form, and what it really should mean is those who were disposed to eternal life believed.
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Those who had a softer heart, those who were more ready to receive the message, so on and so forth.
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To which I say, please, are you seriously suggesting that the Apostle Luke or the
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Apostle Paul believed there were such people? We're enemies of the gospel until our heart of stone is taken out and we're given a heart of flesh.
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I mean, that's just ridiculous, but beyond this, because of the periphrastic construction, the form it's found in, this is something that took place before the proclamation of the gospel.
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That's the point they keep missing. Whatever this action is, it didn't take place while Paul was preaching.
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It didn't take place after Paul was preaching. This took place before Paul was preaching.
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And so you actually have to seriously suggest to people that what's going on in Acts 13 -48 is that as many as had disposed themselves to eternal life prior to the proclamation of the gospel believed.
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You have to turn it into a Pelagian passage, a passage where, in essence, these people were better.
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They had already put themselves in a position where they were more ready to hear the gospel and they were just waiting for it.
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And these are good folks just waiting to hear the message. And that is not in there. There's nothing in the text even gets close to suggesting such an idea.
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All of that just to get around the normative use of this form of a perfect participle would be a passive.
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You will not find this being used by Luke in a middle voice, except in a finite verb in Acts 28.
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You're not going to find it being used in this form as a middle. And so the normal use of Luke, the normal use of the language at the time is as a passive.
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And when you translate it that way, it says, as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. And that is perfectly consistent with John 1, verses 12 -14, with 1
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John 5 -1, with Philippians 1 -29, etc., etc. To play this game is just that.
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It is to play a game with the text to try to get around the clear meaning of the text.
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Now, it's funny, people seem to think Acts 13 -48 is one of the strongest Calvinistic verses. I don't think that it is.
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Only because this is just simply mentioned in passing. It's not meant to be an entire discussion of election and predestination and everything else.
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It's mentioned in passing, but what it mentions in passing is only consistent with a consistent interpretation of Scripture that recognizes the sovereignty of God and salvation.
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So that is what's going on as far as Tasso and Acts 13 -48.
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I addressed that in The Potter's Freedom. I addressed that with Dave Hunt in debating
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Calvinism as well. All right. Well, thank you very much. You're most welcome. Thanks for calling. God bless.
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Well, I'll tell you, you never know. Sometimes I sit there and go, phone number is this, phone number is this, and it's just quiet as can be.
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And then sometimes I go, okay, we've got a bunch of clips to play, and boom, the phones light up.
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You never know. So we'll pick up with the Herb Rivas sermon. If we finish that off, move back to Paige Patterson and whatever else is going on.
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Thursday afternoon, our regular time, back to the regular time as on the website.
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Not going to be in the morning. It's going to be in the afternoon. And we hope you'll join us then. Thanks for listening. God bless.
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It's been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the
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World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.