PDA's, Islam, Open Lines and Marty Luther and the Reformers

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:01

Yes indeed that is the phone number 866 -854 -6763. We're live, well we're not in studio are we?

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This isn't a studio. This is my desk and this is a microphone hanging from the bookshelf next to my desk so I guess it's really not a studio but we're live in office.

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I guess, well in office sounds like you're like a political person. I'm not, I'm not in office in that way but anyways we're live and we're live -streaming at least we hope we are and the number 866 -854 -6763 if you'd like to participate today.

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We have 40, well we have 40 things in channel. I think that's about 37 people actually because let's see one, two, yeah at least three bots in there so they don't really count but anyhow 40 participants whether human or whatever in channel at the moment.

00:51

That's pretty much a standard number for this time of Saturday afternoon. We do the webcast live and what are we talking about today?

00:59

Well I like to say religious topics is always what we talk about. I just happen to be reading an article actually and I wanted to sort of look a little bit at what that was saying.

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A little more, there we go. Take a look at that was saying because I only saw a little section of it on television as I was running out of the room recently and lo and behold

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Pat Robertson's gotten himself into some trouble again but what for? For saying everything that I've said for quite some time.

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Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson drew criticism Friday from Arab -Americans and others after describing

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Islam as a violent religion that wants to dominate and then if need be destroy. Robertson made the comment

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Thursday on his 700 Club television program after watching a segment about Muslims views on terrorism.

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Spokeswoman Angel Watts said Robertson was only responding to what some

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American Muslims are saying themselves. Co -host Lee Webb asked Robertson why he thought

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Muslim immigrants would want to live in the United States if they have such contempt for our foreign policy. Robertson replied well as missionaries possibly to spread the doctrine of Islam.

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He went on to say that Islam is not a peaceful religion that wants to coexist. They want to coexist until they can control, dominate and then if need be destroy.

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The rhetoric is exactly the same as traditional anti -Semitism. All you can do is change the word

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Jew to Arab or Muslim said Hussein Ibish, a spokesman for the American Arab Anti -Discrimination

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Committee, a Washington -based civil rights group. He said remarks like Robertson's and the

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Reverend Franklin Graham's comments NBC last fall that Islam quote is a very evil and wicked religion unquote, actually that's end quote, there's no such thing as an unquote, are a quote slightly warmed over version of the hatred that led to the

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Holocaust end quote. And then here's what caught my attention as I was reading this particular story off Yahoo.

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The Reverend Barry Lynn, a frequent Robertson critic and executive director of the group

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Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the episode quote is just one in a long history of Robertson's bigotry toward non -Christians end quote.

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Watts said Robertson's comments related to a news report in which Muslims interviewed by his

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Virginia Beach based Christian broadcasting network staff were quote as saying quote, America has a lot of enemies, anyone will wish, anyone will wish this, what?

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Anyone will wish this blow to this country because it is not fair in its foreign policy end quote.

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I don't think that was really what they said but you know what I mean. Quote, Robertson is bringing to the

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American people the truth that we must all be aware of, that militant Islam is dedicated to the destruction of America and the killing of the

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Jews and Christians around the world end quote. Watts said Friday quote, to deny that the Quran promotes violence to many followers would be to deny the truth end quote.

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After September 11th, Robertson was criticized for agreeing with the Reverend Jerry Falwell during a 700

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Club broadcast when Falwell said the attacks happened because Americans had insulted God by allowing abortion, feminism and pornography.

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Falwell later apologized and Robertson issued a statement calling Falwell's remarks severe and harsh in tone and saying he had not fully understood them.

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Well all I can hope is that Robertson will not back off at this point. It is amazing the absolutely incredible level of political correctness that has infested our land so we cannot even speak the truth about Islam.

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How in the world does it work that Islam becomes the protected religion when it's

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Islam that is attacking our nation? What kind of absolute self -abhorrence do we have that Islam all of a sudden becomes, you can say anything about Christianity you want, you can mock

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Christianity, the media can be just so incredibly anti -Christian it's biased, it's not even funny, you can put out films that mock

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Christianity and all the rest of this stuff but if you dare speak the truth, the truth that is verifiable from reading the

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Quran, the Hadith, from reading the historical actions of Islamic countries down through the centuries and say look

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Islam and violence go hand in hand, Islam doesn't mean peace, it means submission, that submission can be brought about through jihad, it can be brought about through war, all the rest of stuff, why can't we say that?

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Why can't we speak the truth? And if you want just another of the many, many, many, many reasons why we should be very afraid when we see the government grabbing control over free speech, here's another reason for it, and that happened recently, you can no longer use your own money to buy, well we don't know if it's gonna be vetoed and all the rest of that stuff, but the

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House of Representatives passed a bill saying you can no longer use your own money to criticize, run advertisements that would criticize someone, identify them for example as pro -abortion or anything else in a certain period of time, all of a sudden

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First Amendment rights are now able to be suspended during certain periods of time, it's incredible, and anyone who thinks that there are not people who will utilize that same kind of power to attempt to silence the church, to silence the voice of morality, to silence the voice that would say this is

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God's law and if you break God's law then God's wrath abides upon you, if you don't think that people use that to identify anything that would for example be against homosexuality, that would be against any type of apologetic conversation whatsoever in religion, if you don't think there are people out there that would like to stifle those things, well then you're living in a dream world because there are people who will, and of course they only quoted good old

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Barry Lynn here once, but it certainly sounds like a quote, is just one in a long history of Robertson's bigotry toward non -christians, in other words if you speak the truth you're a bigot.

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I thought Reverend Lynn that bigotry had something to do with whether what you're saying was true or false and that if what you're saying is false and comes from mere bias and dislike of a group, then it's bigotry.

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But we saw in the debate with Mr. Lynn, which is available from Alpha Omega Ministries, that in reality he uses that term in a much wider fashion, so keep that in mind, that's just another one of the many many things going on out there where there is an apologetic slant to that.

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Probably something we might be discussing in, I suppose I should come up with some music or something like that for something like this.

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What kind of music should I come up with to put in the background of, what poor denomination ordained

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Barry Lynn? United Church of Christ actually is where his ordination came from.

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I'm gonna find some music here, I'm gonna play some music in the background while I, oh well this would be a good one,

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I really, now you have to mix this in the other room, you have to mix this because I want to talk about something on our website, sort of in a commercial format here, and I'm gonna have some music in the background, here we go.

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A little bit more, there we go. This is a vocal isn't it?

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Oh bummer. This is called mixing on the air.

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Thank you Michael W. Smith, I appreciate that. I thought that wasn't a vocal. Oh well, I don't have any vocals there.

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I do have vocals elsewhere. Anyways, I want everybody who has the ability to do so to look at our website and to click on the little link for our cruise.

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I'd like to make mention of this, I have been asked to make mention of this.

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In fact, I know what I can do. This is a pretty one, here we go, here we go. Isn't that cruise music?

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I like that. Anyways, we're going on a cruise at the end of the summer, and you know after a long hot summer here in Phoenix, going to Alaska is a really, really, really good thing to do actually, but August 31st through September 8th.

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Yeah, Black Hawk Down, that would be a good soundtrack in the background. August 31st through September 8th, we are going to be heading up to Alaska on an

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Apologetics cruise. Myself, Mike Gendron, Dr. Eugene Merrill from Dallas Seminary are going to be going along and we're going to be presenting various talks on various issues.

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I honestly don't know what I'm talking about yet, and most of you say that's pretty normal, but last time we did a cruise like this down into the

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Bahamas and places like that, Dr. Merrill gave some absolutely wonderful presentations on the canon of the

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Old Testament, the Apocrypha. This man's an Old Testament scholar and was just very enjoyable to listen to.

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Not only that, but for a formal night on the cruise, boy I'll tell you, when Dr. Merrill wears a, oh good grief, what's the really fancy thing?

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A tuxedo! There we go, he even had his own tuxedo. Someone just suggested we play the

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Titanic soundtrack for the cruise. Thank you very much, I really appreciate that.

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I don't think that would be really good music, but anyways, it's a beautiful time, we're going to be up there in the midst of God's beautiful creation, and we're going to have some great sessions together where we talk about God's truth in the

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Bible and frequently have fellowships, as well as getting to just relax.

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I'm not going to do what I did last year. Last year I need to cut it down just a little bit on the volume.

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Last year I brought my laptop and I worked. I'm not going to do that.

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I don't care what deadlines I'm behind on, because I'm behind on all my deadlines now anyways, it doesn't really matter anymore to me.

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I'm not bringing it, well I may bring it, but I'm not going to bring it for that, and I'm going to sit out on the deck and I'm going to watch the glaciers go by and I'm going to have myself a good old time, because I haven't had an actual,

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I'm not going to be working vacation since like 1980 something or other, and I'm going to do it.

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So if you'd like to come along, you need to let folks know. There is a link down at the bottom of the page.

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There are folks you can contact. Michael Fallon, let him know. He will help you to get things arranged, and it's just a lot of fun.

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It truly is. It's a great time. So if you have the opportunity of doing that, maybe you'd like to schedule that this coming summer, right before school starts, or unfortunately right as school starts for some people, if you have kids, but anyways.

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Okay, thank you Mr. Tesh for providing that beautiful, beautiful background music. That's called

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Grand Passion, by the way, those of you who are interested in what that was by John Tesh. 866 -854 -6763.

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We're sort of throw the phones open if there's some things you'd like to talk about. I am not going to be able to guarantee to answer off -the -wall questions, but if you'd like to talk about something, you'd feel free to give us a call.

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And I'm going to talk about something right now that only a few of you would like to...

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may have any knowledge of, but those of you who do, this may be of use to you.

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Specifically, some of... keep the elevator music going. So I sound better with music in the background?

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Is that how that works? That's not fair. Anyways, some of you have seen the debate that I did with Father Peter Stravinskas on Purgatory.

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Some of you have seen the debate with Mitch Pacwa on Sola Scriptura from San Diego.

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And you'll notice that I use a little device called a

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PDA. Now, when my parents were kids, PDA meant Public Display of Affection, but it no longer means that anymore.

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Now it means Personal Digital Assistant. I'm not sure where they got that, but Personal Digital Assistant.

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And some people know them as PalmPilots, even though, of course, there are many brands and makes today.

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And I'm not going to spend too much time on all different brands and makes, but people frequently ask, all right, why do you use one of those things, and what's the advantages or disadvantages?

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I suppose I should mention there's all different kinds, and some are far more expensive than others. Some have really pretty color screens, and they run on a modified version of Windows, and all the rest of the stuff.

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Compaq's little unit, for example, is like that, and has all sorts of, you know, 256 megs of RAM or whatever it is, 64 megs of RAM, whatever it is.

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They're basically laptops without disk drives and hard drives and things like that.

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I do not use the super advanced versions. I actually use the

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PalmPilot version that Father Stravinskas identified as your gizmo, the gizmo.

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It's now become the gizmo, is now the term that we use. Actually, I have a handspring visor edge.

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Now, that's the same Palm OS as the PalmPilot, but made by handspring, and I have the visor edge, which is a very small, very thin version.

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It's very nice to be able to just, you know, throw in a pocket. It fits in a jacket pocket very easily, things like that.

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And some people ask, well, what programs do you use to be able to do debates and things like that?

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Because twice, I hate to confess this, but twice in trying to get to the program, or I'm sorry, get to the debate,

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I'm seeing people asking questions in channel. I have the handspring visor edge only has 8 megabytes of RAM.

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The handspring professional has 16 megs. I don't have that one. I have the visor edge that has 8, but I have expansion modules that give me up to 72 megs beyond that, which is more than what

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I need right now. Anyways, twice trying to get to debates on Long Island, I forgot to grab my

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Bible. Now, that sounds downright sacrilegious until you realize that, of course,

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I still had my Bible with me. And most of the time, the Bible that I use is on my visor edge.

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And there are basically two major Bible programs for PDAs that work real well.

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I don't have one of them, and I think that comes from, one that comes from, was it Liridian?

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Is that the name? My Bible, something along those lines. I've only seen it. I have not used it.

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It looks like a pretty nice program because it does do a little better job in concordancing than the program that I have.

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But I've used all along from olivetree .com, the Bible reader program.

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And one of the main reasons that I use the Bible reader program is because they have made available for it the

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Nessie Olin 27th edition of the Greek New Testament, along with, and it's in Greek, fully pointed with all the diacritical marks, so on and so forth.

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And along with that, Gramcord, which parses words and gives you meanings based upon the

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UBS lexicon. Now, anyone who has these little devices knows that memory is at a premium.

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That is, when you've only got 8 megs, a Bible normally takes up 1 .4 to 1 .6

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megabytes, and so that's a big section right there. And so you can only put so many things into your

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PDA until you start having to use expansion modules and things like that, which is what I've certainly been doing.

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I carry available to my PDA all the text to my books and various early church fathers, all the text to all of my debate notes, and so on and so forth.

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So that's available to me as well. The other thing is, by the way, this is just a little pet peeve of mine.

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If you travel, as I have to travel a whole lot more than I'd like to travel, to be honest with you, but if you travel and you fly, and you want to get something done, some of these flights are very long, and you sort of, you know, if you're going someplace, almost every time

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I'm going somewhere, I'm behind on deadlines, I've got to get notes done, I've got, when I flew back to New York this last time,

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I was trying to organize all of the Harold Camping clips that I played during my presentations.

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And by the way, I don't even have the URL in front of me. I think I may have sent that over to Rich to be added to the website, but I don't think we've had a chance to do it yet.

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But the MP3s of the presentations that I made on Harold Camping are now on the web.

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They can be downloaded. You know, I think I have, maybe it's, maybe it's, nope, not there.

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You know, you would think that I would have put that into the section called Harold Camping. You know, I mean, doesn't that make sense?

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You put that in the section on Harold Camping. But no, I sit here and look around, and it's not in the section on Harold Camping.

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That's brilliant, James. What in the world are you doing? Anyways, I'll try to find the URL eventually, but it's out there someplace.

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And those MP3s are available. Well, I was trying to organize all the WAV files that I was going to use.

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I wanted Harold Camping to express Harold Camping's own perspective, his own words.

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Well, I was good to have my laptop, and I have a very nice laptop. I have a Compaq 1700T Presario, and it's a really nice laptop.

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But you know what happens? I don't get to travel first class. I get to travel back there with all the rest of the cattle.

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And you know what happens to me every time, no matter where I sit? Unless, of course,

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I, you know, this last time I flew southwest. And so on the way back,

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I managed to get there like an hour and a half before you'd normally get there. And so I was able to be the first one in line, and I was able to get, you know, the best card and run down there and get in there and get to the exit row.

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So I could get into some seats that either wouldn't recline in front of me or that one seat that doesn't have anything in front of it at all.

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Well, on the way out, that didn't happen. And you know what always happens. The guy or gal, it doesn't matter who it is, in front of you will always crank their seat all the way back.

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And I've watched. Most of the time, they don't even crank their seat all the way back and go to sleep. They just crank their seat all the way back, and then they end up sitting forward, and they'd be more comfortable if they'd bring their seat back up, but they won't do it.

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And you know what happens? I have no place to put a laptop. You can't get to it. But if you've got a

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PDA and one of those neat, cool, fold -up keyboards that is extremely small, you can almost always,

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I suppose if you were in the very back row of a very old 737, maybe, just maybe, that seat in front of you would come back far enough to keep you from even using that, because I flew back from Minneapolis once in that back row, and I honestly, if I had opened my mouth and leaned forward half an inch,

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I could have bit the guy in front of me. I mean, it was just that bad. But anyways, most of the time, then you can use this.

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And the neat thing is they now have excellent programs. I use WordSmith. Many of you have Documents2Go.

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If you have PDAs, Eric Nielsen and Tim Dudek in the channel turned me on to WordSmith, and it beats

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Documents2Go all over the place. It is incredible. I can take all the book files that I've written, and I use

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Microsoft Word, all the book files that have, for example, the mounts font, the

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Greek font that I use in my books, and I can now install all those fonts on my

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PDA, all the footnotes in the same format, everything, including all the fonts with all the Greek words, end up exactly where they're supposed to be.

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So it's really, really, really, really neat to be able to utilize that type of program.

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Anyways, I can sit there, and I can continue working on whatever I need to work on, even when the person in front of me cranks that seat all the way back, because I have the ability to do so on the

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PDA. So those are some of the programs you might be looking for. There's also the

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Lyridian program on the Bible. Bible Reader has NA27. I don't think, for example,

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Bible Reader, to my knowledge, doesn't have the NIV. It does have the NET, even though the Lyridian has the NIV. So you want to see which ones are available and all the rest, that kind of stuff, and utilize that.

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There's also a neat program I've got on here called P -Greek. For those of you who know

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Greek, it will quiz you on your Greek words, an excellent little thing to use for that.

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And for those of you wondering, but I've got someone going yawn and channel. Well, excuse me.

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I'm so sorry. Turn the channel. Go find the Olympics or something. Why did

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I just get turned down? Something just happened. Everything just changed. Everything in my headset just changed.

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It's like I'm no longer... Am I still talking? Hello, hello, hello. I don't know what just happened.

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This is... Oh, it's coming back slowly but surely. Somebody bumped something and my headset just disappeared.

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And it sounds like I just sort of... Ah, now we're slowly... Keep going, keep going.

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Hey, we're back to where we were supposed to be. Still sounds really muffled, but something happened. I don't know what it was. Anyways, for those of you who...

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We hear you good. And it just disappeared again. So I'm just going to take my headphones off because I can't... That's driving me nuts. I can't hear anything.

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For those of you who have a desire to have the

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Hebrew text available to you, there is a way to do that too.

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And it utilizes one of the programs, one of the document readers called

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TealDoc, which you can get at tealpoint .com. And then you have to have what's called

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Hebrew Plus support. And they will provide you with all of the files that will allow you to open up each individual book of the

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Old Testament in a very, very readable, not a pointed, but a very readable

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Hebrew text right on your palm. And you can do a search at palmgear .com

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if you're looking for that. So those are what I use. I use Bible Reader. I use TealDoc with the Hebrew.

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And then I use WordSmith. I've converted all of my note files from my debates, all the rest of that stuff, into the format that allows me to then have this information available to me pretty much at the drop of a hat.

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And for those of you who do apologetics, for example, out on the street corner, we'll be out in Mesa at the

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LDS Easter pageant. And we will be standing on a street corner.

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And you can also, of course, purchase for free, actually, the

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LDS scriptures available in various formats for the

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Palm. And the neat thing is when we're out in Mesa, there are some places where you have, let's say, minimal lighting conditions.

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And so as a result, you can, of course, use the backlighting on your PDA. And the result is you can pull up the passages you want to pull up in Talking to the

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Mormons right there on the street corner. I've also used it to pull up the King James, New Testament, or wherever else it might be to be able to talk to folks in that context as well.

26:42

So you don't have to carry all that stuff. But you can certainly, I load, generally, 2

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Nephi, Alma 1 -11, Moroni, of course, for Chapter 10, and the

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Doctrine and Covenants and Progret Prison. And that really doesn't take up a whole lot of space. And the rest of the Book of Mormon, nobody ever reads it anyways, and it really isn't relevant.

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So you don't have to take up all your precious PDA space with stuff like that. So those are some of the programs that I find extremely useful.

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And, of course, I do use this as my scheduler. The whole nine yards, it's very, very useful.

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And that seemingly is why Father Stravinskas referred to it as my gizmo.

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But my gizmo also happened to contain everything that Peter Stravinskas had ever published on the subject of purgatory.

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So at least I had done my homework, could quote him, even though it was obvious he had not read any of my books or had any quotes from me in his notes,

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I had all that material just sitting there waiting to be used, and still have that should we ever encounter one another again and discuss the topic of purgatory, which

27:53

I really don't think that is probably going to be happening anytime soon. Anyways, we have one caller online.

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At least we had one caller online. I'm not sure if we still do or not. But we have one caller online, and we'll take your phone calls on various subjects, 866 -854 -6763.

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866 -854 -6763. We'll be right back. And welcome back to Dividing Line.

28:54

My name is James White. And one thing I did mention, folks are mentioning, for example, on the channel, the Compaq iPaq, which looks like a really nice,

29:01

I think that runs on Windows CE, doesn't it? Something like that. I had a really nice phone. What was that called? It wasn't from Luridian.

29:07

It was a Korean company. And I used that in one of my debates. It was really nice. Unfortunately, they went out of business.

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And that really bothers me when the company that you're trying to work with goes out of business. That's not a good thing at all.

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But anyways, one of the things to keep in mind when you're looking at different kinds of PDAs is how long they last on a battery charge.

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What kind of batteries they have. The handspring visors I have, depending on whether I've got a springboard module in, will last for many, many days.

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I can get on a flight and know that no matter how long that flight is, I'm going to be able to utilize that particular program, that particular unit anyways, without it running out of juice in the process.

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And if you start getting fancy colors and stuff like that, as far as the color screen and things like that, realize that takes juice.

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It takes power. And that's just sort of the way it works. So anyways, those of you who have absolutely no interest in PDAs are now really upset that I've been talking about this all day long.

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But that's okay. I've had people who have asked me, and I can now refer them to this program and tell them, well,

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I talked about my handspring visor and the programs I use and the fact that I have the little keyboard and the 64 -meg

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RAM drive I can put on the back and has all my neat stuff in it and things like that. And my headphones are playing again.

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This time they've gotten louder. I'm not sure what in the world is going on. I'm going to break someone's fingers. Leave it where it is. Thank you very much.

30:39

Anyways, question about the growth of Islam in America. Okay. I think we can handle that.

30:47

So let's go ahead and let's start letting the crowds in.

30:53

Let's start taking the huge number of phone calls that we have coming our direction.

30:59

And let's talk with Christine down in Texas, I do believe, if I'm guessing correctly.

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Christine, you there? I'm here. Hello. Hello, Dr. White. It's good to talk to you. Good to talk to you.

31:15

Again, I was your very first caller. That's right. That's right. We should have sent you a plaque or something for that.

31:23

Oh, sure. Or a PDA. A PDA, yes. I've got my husband all riled. He's desperate to have one. Thanks a lot.

31:30

You know, there are a lot of women who really don't like me because they used to have a husband who just watched football, and now he wants to buy books.

31:40

Yes. He's going to get my shoes budget for the next year. Oh, your shoes budget. That's a bad thing because my wife, you know what my wife's handle in the channel is?

31:50

Is what? Shoe Freak. Shoe Freak. Shoe Freak. So my front room is filled with those little porcelain miniature shoes.

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And when I say filled, I mean truly filled. I mean, I think you can sit there and count like 127 of them or something.

32:07

Oh, my goodness. Around the room. So for some reason, somebody in the channel keeps saying, ask her about the ravioli.

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And I don't know what that means. Do you have any idea what that could possibly mean? Ask me about ravioli?

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Yeah. Oh, I was at a tan one night, and he was in the channel crying and whining because he was having to eat ravioli from a can.

32:26

I know. Actually, it's a sad, sad thing. Please don't leave him alone because he just falls apart when you're gone.

32:36

He whines and complains, and the rest of us mainly just put him on ignore, actually. Well, good. Well, I'm not sure how that's different from his typical persona.

32:47

Okay. Well, I'll let you deal with that one. Anyways, that's not why you called, is it?

32:52

It's not. No. So my question is about the growth of Islam in America. To return to your first topic.

32:58

Yes. And I thought it was fascinating. I'm so glad you were talking about it. But I'm wondering, why is it growing so strong, and why is it being given such a protected status nowadays?

33:06

Well, you know, I'm not sure I can answer that. I've got some theories. I think if we sort of start on just a really general spiritual basis,

33:18

I think that people recognize that Islam does not challenge the sinner who is in his sin the way that the message of a crucified

33:31

Savior does. The person recognizes that the knowledge of God they're suppressing, that isn't

33:38

Allah. That's not that kind of religion. And so it doesn't have that kind of a challenge to the natural man that the gospel does.

33:49

And so it doesn't bring out the same kind of hatred. You would think if there was consistency in the way that the men and women of the world think, that they would be just as angry at a religious system that shows it has law, and it has retribution, it has punishment.

34:08

You would think they'd be just as angry about Islam as they profess to be about the

34:15

Bible having law, and God's wrath coming against them, and things like that. But as we can all see, they're not.

34:22

Is that partially out of ignorance of Islam? Is it partially because all they see around them are these nice Islamic folks who don't seem to be interested in crashing planes into buildings?

34:35

I don't know. But I do know that those who live in Islamic countries and see what

34:41

Islam is when it is in control, when they go to Indonesia, they go to those places where Islam predominates, then they recognize what happens when the culture really does become

34:53

Islamic. But I think most people in the West don't understand that. Most sort of look at the situation in a place like Afghanistan and separate the religion out of it because in their own experiences religion isn't all that central the way that it is for most

35:08

Muslims. So I really think there is, in America anyways, a willingness to be politically correct in allowing people to be religious as long as it's not the religion that formed the moral fabric that they're constantly fighting against in our own nation.

35:30

I think that's another important element of it. That is, you look at someone like Barry Lynn and Americans Deny the

35:36

Separation of Church States and so on and so forth. What are they constantly fighting against? They're constantly fighting against God's law as it was contained in the

35:46

Christian scriptures, not the Islamic scriptures. It's not Islam that gave us the very moral standards that they are attempting to get around constantly.

35:55

And so I think that might be the other half of the explanation is that it's politically correct to allow

36:04

Islam a tremendous amount of leeway because the focus of so many of these people is the undoing of the

36:13

Judeo -Christian worldview and not the undoing of an Islamic worldview that really has never existed in our society.

36:21

But I think once they got a taste of it, if they really would look with any type of fairness at the

36:28

Islamic world, I think they would realize just how very different that is. Not that it would change their hearts, but they would at least realize that's not something they want to live under.

36:37

So maybe that's two possible reasons right there. The other one is it's such a minority religion still in our land that you're not really giving away the store to be nice to it.

36:50

You can still live your life without ever really having to deal with what Islam has to say because it's still such a minority religion.

36:57

Possibly once that stops, that could change as well. Well, thank you.

37:02

That's a wonderful answer. You give me a lot to think about. Okay. Well, thank you very much for calling. Thank you. All right. God bless. Bye -bye.

37:09

866 -854 -6763 is the phone number. And we are taking a wide variety of calls.

37:15

It doesn't have to be on PDAs. It can be on Islam. It can be on Mormonism.

37:24

Did I mention last week? If I did, I need to make an emendation. I think I mentioned.

37:31

Good call, wifey, except for that cutting down of the husband part. Why do you think she was cutting you down?

37:38

I mean, truth is an absolute defense in the court of God. Is it not, MDH? Yes, indeedy.

37:45

Anyways, it's strange. I say these things. Then I sit back and I wait for like 30 seconds before it hits the channel.

37:53

And I start seeing people typing LOL and ROFL and all those little things we've learned to type in a channel that say things.

38:03

You can always tell you've become a complete and total IRC addict. When AOMN is coming into your office to bring you

38:13

M &Ms? Am I talking slowly today?

38:19

Do you think I need sugar? I need sugar. That's not what they're saying in the channel. They think I've been drinking too much coffee.

38:25

How am I supposed to eat M &Ms? Those little teeny tiny M &Ms, they are so good.

38:33

Anyways, what was I talking about? I have the foggiest idea of what in the world. Cough button? Oh, I'm supposed to hit the cough button when

38:39

I talk to Rich? That's not how Rush does it. Rush talks to his guys. He just talks straight to them.

38:45

Oh, while I chew! Oh, that's a good idea. I could play some music and the whole nine yards because it's really tempting to have these little things here.

38:55

He's got a little blue guy on the front. Anyways, I'll hold off on them because as the guys around here will tell you,

39:02

I have been drinking Diet Coke for three weeks now. Diet Coke.

39:08

Now, I used to describe that as radiator fluid with some sugar in it. Well, actually, what is it?

39:15

It's not saccharin. That causes cancer or something, doesn't it? I don't know. But I've switched over because I actually sat down.

39:24

Oh, aspartame. Thank you. Oh, great. That will kill you too. I switched over and I'm going to have to tell you,

39:33

I'm starting to like it. I'm actually starting to like Diet Coke. They say if you can do something for like three weeks, then you can change your taste.

39:41

And that's what I've done. And, folks, for those of you, people going, ooh, that's vile, oh, that's disgusting.

39:47

Hey, I was with you guys. I was with you guys. I just wanted to say one thing. What's next?

39:54

Cigars? No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not going to happen.

40:01

No cigars. Not in this life. Anyways, what I was going to say is sit down with a can, a 12 -ounce can of non -diet something, and look at the number of calories that it has.

40:16

Then multiply that like by about two or three a day, and you can see that's just an easy thing to do.

40:22

Just cut that out, and it's truly, truly amazing. Anyways, you can call on Mormonism because we have, oh, that's what

40:31

I was talking about. I don't remember if I mentioned this. Is this N .A.'s version of Journey Home?

40:38

I'm playing for the other team now. I have apostatized. Yeah, I know.

40:44

I may have mentioned this last week. April 2nd, and since we haven't signed all the stuff yet and done all the rest of the stuff, but tentatively scheduled to be debating

40:54

George Bryson of Calvary Chapel on the doctrine of election over in L .A. at Biola.

41:00

And then on the, look at my little calendar here on my

41:06

WebShot's desktop. That would be April 5th, which I can now see.

41:12

Isn't that a wonderful teeny, tiny font? But I can see it. April 5th, we are trying to have a debate in Salt Lake City.

41:20

We had it set up last week, but my debate partner's mother had a stroke, and that obviously is a very, very good reason not to be involved in a debate, if that means you're going to be having to do things.

41:33

And so we certainly want to pray for Martin Tanner's mom, and our condolences go out to him for her sickness, and we certainly understand that.

41:47

And so there is some work being done right now to see if we can still get a debate set up for April 5th.

41:55

And so if I did mention that, and you were sort of planning to be a part of that, if you're up in the

42:03

Salt Lake area, then that's sort of up in the air. We will keep you. The last thing

42:11

I got from ChristianBook .com is that it had been pushed back to, I think it was

42:16

March 6th, as the next publication date, something along those lines. And so no,

42:22

I have not, and I'm looking forward to doing so, not in the sense of, oh,

42:27

I can't wait to read this book! But those of you who've listened to my critiques of Mr.

42:33

Hunt's critiques of Calvinism know that I have demonstrated that I honestly don't believe that Mr.

42:38

Hunt understands it. And in fact, I really, in fact,

42:44

I'll bring this up here, file and open, I think I can demonstrate that. Some of you may recall from, how long ago did we do this?

42:53

I've forgotten now how many weeks ago it was that we did this.

43:00

Let's see here. Where did the subdirectories go?

43:07

Must not be under sound files, must be under, no, it's not under sounds either. Oh, wait a minute, there it is.

43:13

Oh, turn me up. I'm very ignorant of the reformers. I have not...

43:21

This is a sound clip that I pulled from...

43:27

The first half of this sound clip is from a radio program that I did in, what was it, August of 2000?

43:35

Yeah, August of 2000. And with Mr. Hunt, I had asked him a question about why it was that he holds to synergism the same way that the

43:44

Roman Catholics did at the time of the Reformation. He stands in opposition to the reformers and their monergistic view of salvation.

43:52

And then you'll hear a change in the quality, and the next thing is from,

43:58

I believe, January of 2001. So this is, what, six months, five months later? Mr.

44:03

Hunt on his own radio program, and I think you can just sort of see the contrast between these two things. Let's listen in.

44:08

Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. I have not had time to read them.

44:17

There are truckloads, I guess, of their writings. I like to just kind of pretend that we're back there in the days of the apostles before all of these things were written.

44:28

And I like to go to the Bible. So whether the reformers said this or that,

44:34

I don't know. I disagree with a lot of Martin Luther, for example, when I read his 95

44:40

Theses on indulgences. And when I read the

44:45

Augsburg Confession, it sounds to me like they were still pretty much Catholics. That's one of the things that concerns me,

44:52

Tom, because we've gotten some very angry letters accusing me of not knowing anything about Calvinism.

44:58

Well, if they want to walk in my study and see the many, many books that I have read by leading

45:04

Calvinists, both past and present, Calvin's Institutes that I have all highlighted, and Augustine, whom

45:11

I've read, and Luther, and so forth, I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves

45:18

Calvinists. Well, that's the section we played before.

45:25

And I think you can see five or six months passed between those two particular statements.

45:30

And I find it fascinating that anyone could go from going, well, really, you haven't read much about him at all, to six months later,

45:40

I know more about that than 90 % of those people. I obviously don't think that that is probably a valid argument on Mr.

45:51

Hunt's part. We have challenged Dave Hunt to debate. We knew of a debate opportunity back east.

46:01

We even contacted the people. They would not have me debate Mr. Hunt. Our debate challenge stands.

46:08

We really want to respond to this, because I honestly believe that Mr.

46:15

Hunt is misrepresenting. His book is called Calvinism's Misrepresentation of God.

46:21

But I think the misrepresentation is actually going the other direction. It is

46:27

Mr. Hunt that is misrepresenting the Reformed perspective. But, of course, the main thing is that I would like to get into the biblical text and demonstrate that meaningful exegesis always results in the affirmation of the absolute sovereignty and freedom and power of God, and the inability of man in his sin.

46:50

That is what happens when you actually get into the text, quit playing with the text, do exegesis of the text, and actually apply sola scriptura.

47:05

Anyways, I would like to see that taking place. So if you've got questions about that subject, 866 -854 -6763.

47:15

And that's what I was saying. You could also call on Mormonism. We have our Mormon ministry coming up very soon.

47:23

It is only a matter of weeks, amazingly enough, before we're all going to be standing out.

47:29

Unless someone can pray for and help Rich Pierce, we're just going to be standing there.

47:36

And we're not going to have anything to pass out, but we're just going to be standing there. And we'll put little signs on that says,

47:44

I will talk to you about the Bible, please stop. You know, something along those lines. You know, we might want to do that anyways.

47:50

I mean, it might be a new way of doing things. And you know,

47:55

Rich, the easiest way to do this, especially in Mesa, would be to update the this is not a program tract.

48:08

Because that's one side, and you get lots of them out of a single sheet. And we could make that really look pretty and maybe update it, come up with some new thoughts for that one.

48:17

That would probably be a really good way to go. And maybe we could actually change it to where it would apply to both

48:25

Salt Lake and Mesa. Because we've never passed anything out like that in Salt Lake City.

48:31

So who knows? But anyways, we have that coming up. And you may want to call in and ask about the changes in Mormonism.

48:39

Because I know that I was having a very interesting conversation with a minister who ministers in the

48:44

Salt Lake area. And he was telling me about how many of the Mormons up there are now talking about the

48:51

God of this planet as the first God. And in a situation like that, there's much discussion, much, much discussion in various printed form and in the

49:12

Internet and amongst those who minister to Mormons. What is the future of the

49:18

LDS Church? And I don't think anybody does know. I know that when

49:24

I see the LDS Church pulling the clear teachings that it has had over the years on the nature of God, salvation, and the priesthood, when those things are removed from the manuals of religion that they give to their own people, then

49:45

I'm going to come to the conclusion that one of two things is happening. Either there is an actual doctrinal change going on within the hierarchy of Mormonism, or there is a purposeful, almost a move to a more obvious form of Gnosticism.

50:09

I mean, Mormonism has always had Gnostic elements. And what

50:15

I mean by that is you have to go through these secret ceremonies to gain certain knowledge, handshakes and signs and tokens and keywords and all the rest of this stuff.

50:27

So there's always been that Gnostic element to it. But if you stop talking about things like the very nature of God, the idea that God became

50:38

God by obedience to law, the exaltation of men to Godhood and things like that, if you stop talking about those things to your own people, that's signaling a change.

50:50

And if you do it to where you're only going to talk about those things to the most initiated, within almost a secret way, maybe within the temple, within classes in the temple, whatever it might be, then you would really have a fundamental shift going on.

51:05

And of course, I think of the various LDS apologists out there who have gone to the mat in defense of Joseph Smith and I just wonder where many of these people would end up going.

51:20

They could not possibly, in fact, Rich and I talked to a sort of LDS apologist last general conference up in Salt Lake City and you could see in this person's face that we were touching a hot button in the sense that he is disturbed by what's going on in the church.

51:39

He's disturbed by the comments of Gordon B. Hinckley and the stance the church has taken that really says, you know, some of these doctrines just aren't all that important and so on and so forth.

51:51

Doctrines that, of course, Mormons had absolutely cherished as definitional of Mormonism.

51:57

In fact, I would say that the doctrine of God, the doctrine of salvation and exaltation of Godhood and the doctrines of priesthood, those are the foundational doctrines of the

52:11

LDS church and without them I don't think you have Mormonism. You may have some religious system but you do not have

52:21

Mormonism. It may call itself Mormonism but a fundamental change has taken place if you abandon those things and, of course, the church is not speaking nearly as much about those things as it used to.

52:36

And why is that? Is that because there's... Is this a Worldwide Church of God situation?

52:42

I don't see any evidence of that. The Worldwide Church of God situation, you had a single person in charge when he died.

52:49

The following leadership after that was open to looking to the scriptures. That's not what you have here.

52:55

The Worldwide Church of God was very small in comparison to the 11 million member

53:01

LDS church. And what kind of change would be required for Mormonism to actually mainstream itself?

53:13

It's mainstreaming itself in its presentations but not in its theology yet.

53:18

But what would be involved in doing that? Well, I think it would involve an absolute repudiation of its own history, of its own self -identity.

53:27

What would Mormonism be without Mormon theology? It would be a real nice big social club with real nice moral folks who live...

53:40

a lot of them live in Utah. I mean, that's not enough to keep a movement together.

53:48

And I don't see any evidence of a growth in desire to know the truth of scripture.

53:55

I don't see Mormons coming to realize, wow, the Bible says that we're saved by a powerful and all -successful grace and things like that.

54:06

They're starting to talk more about grace. But it's not a biblical grace. It's the type of stuff that fits in with our culture.

54:15

It's the type of stuff that fits in with what's around us. And that's not what happened amongst the leaders of the

54:21

Worldwide Church of God. And so I don't really see that happening. But what can happen,

54:27

I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen in the future with Mormonism.

54:33

We have to keep our eyes on it. It does actually cause more difficulties for us in what we're doing because we're running into more and more

54:43

Mormons who don't know their own historical beliefs. And it's becoming more and more difficult to define

54:49

Mormonism. And if it becomes something to where there is no definable way of saying this is

54:54

LDS doctrine, this isn't, well, what's left? Good question. 866 -854 -6763.

55:00

One caller online. And we'll invite others to join us when we come back from this break. And welcome back to The Dividing Line.

55:27

My name is James White. We've been talking about a little bit of everything today, actually.

55:34

And hopefully you have been able to keep up with what we've been talking about.

55:40

I'm looking through some stuff here. But you know, sometimes these get really small.

55:46

Did you know that? Is this the one? And the Lord spake, saying,

55:52

First shalt thou take out the holy pin. Then shalt thou count to three.

55:58

No more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three.

56:07

Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.

56:15

Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbeth thou thy holy hand -grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.

56:32

Amen. Amen. Right. One, two, five.

56:38

Three. One, two, five.

56:52

You know, there's... We don't even have

56:59

CDS and channel, which is the bad part. We're missing CDS right now. We have a regular

57:05

British member of our channel that isn't him.

57:12

And I have a specific wave for him. This is from VeggieTales. Those of you who have kids have heard this one before.

57:19

I'm not a robot. I'm British. I'm not a robot.

57:25

I'm British. Oh, we just love our British listeners. How many...

57:32

Has anyone seen the medal tally? How many medals has England won in the

57:37

Winter Games so far? They'll go,

57:42

Yeah, well, we started the rest of you off, you know. We still have the Empire. I have no idea why in the world

57:49

I played that. But anyways, yes, the holy hand -grenade of Antioch. It's wonderful.

57:55

Regular user. I've just been informed, and I'm going to assume that this is a

58:05

It's coming from, well, I was going to say a good source, but it's coming from a source on the other side of the wall. So, anyways,

58:12

Straitgate should be back up in the next couple of days. And many of you have been grousing and whining and complaining that Straitgate's been down.

58:22

And believe me, Steven Luker has been grousing and whining and complaining that Straitgate is down.

58:28

And we all have been grousing and complaining that Straitgate is down. And in fact,

58:34

I got an email from a friend of mine in Florida who was talking to a fellow with Ligonier Ministries and the fellow from Ligonier Ministries was complaining that Straitgate was down.

58:49

I mean, good grief. That's a that's a big big thing.

58:57

There's a lot of folks that are very much looking forward to having that back up. So, anyhow, coming back your direction with all the various files and archives and so on and so forth.

59:10

866 -854 -6763. Do we still have a caller online? I think we do, don't we? Because for some reason,

59:18

I've lost everything in my little window that tells me who's who. And so, are we talking to Ashraf still?

59:25

Hello! How are you, sir? I'm doing all right. With all the talking about Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses and Calvinism, I guess.

59:38

Well, I know, because this is what the question is about. It's about the economy of the Trinity. I'm not sure if that's a term that's properly used, but my question is really on regeneration and which persons of the

59:51

Godhead are involved in regeneration. Because, you know,

59:58

I recently talked to a couple Mormons, and just before that, Jehovah's Witnesses.

01:00:03

And I want to get, I want to make sure I have everything straight. Basically, is the

01:00:09

Father drawing the people to the Son the same thing as in Titus, the regeneration, the regenerating of the

01:00:16

Holy Spirit? Well, I think the drawing of the Father of those of the Son to the

01:00:22

Son, which is mentioned in John 6, beginning at verse 37 and all the way through verse 65 of the chapter, would involve as a subcategory the actual act of regeneration, but it would not exclude such things as the

01:00:40

Father's right to choose to give a person to the Son. So the

01:00:46

Father elects the Son, dies in the place of His people, the Spirit applies the work in their life at the time that the

01:00:57

Father decrees. And so it is a triune activity, but I would not say that the drawing of the

01:01:05

Father is limited to the work of the Spirit in regeneration.

01:01:11

It involves it, but it is larger than that because it is part and parcel of what the

01:01:17

Father has done in electing that individual from eternity itself. Ah, ok.

01:01:24

I want to make sure I clear that up before talking to them. Well, realize that both those groups, and this surprises some people,

01:01:33

I know it surprised me a little bit when I first talked to Jehovah's Witnesses about the nature of God, because for some silly reason

01:01:40

I assumed that since they at least professed to be monotheists, and they professed to be believers in Jehovah's power and creatorship, that they would follow through in recognizing that Jehovah knows all things.

01:01:55

But in reality, both of these groups, one very, very openly, and the other less so, really have a hard time providing any kind of solid foundation for the concept of God having knowledge of future events.

01:02:13

In fact, the Watchtower specifically denies to God absolute omniscience of future events.

01:02:21

He in essence predicts things. They're basically open theists along those lines without really knowing it.

01:02:27

And of course Mormons, their God is extremely temporally based, at least in the official teachings of the

01:02:33

Church. And so both of them really struggle greatly because of their defective theology proper, that is, doctrine of God, to understand how

01:02:44

God then acts in grace in election because they just don't have a grounding in their

01:02:51

God to understand how that can happen. And of course, neither one of them have a sufficient view of man in the sense of his deadness and sin to see the necessity of God acting in that way.

01:03:01

So one of the things I always have to face when we look at printing tracts or developing a new tract or anything like that, or even just talking to a person on the sidewalk is, where do you start?

01:03:12

Because some people say, well, you just preached the Gospel. Well, do you just preach the

01:03:18

Gospel to those who do not have a God that can give them the Gospel? If they've been given a false

01:03:24

God that cannot provide sufficient grounding for the Gospel of Grace, do you not need to address that?

01:03:31

And so it's always a balancing act. It requires you to listen to the person's responses, to hear what they're saying and to respond and go the direction you need to go under the

01:03:45

Spirit's leadership and hopefully with the wisdom that God gives us as we minister to these people.

01:03:50

When I talk to them, I mention that I'm a Baptist and they have all these preconceived notions of what that means.

01:03:57

I'm totally surprised when, for example, I talk to the Jehovah Witness and I mention that Christ was the author and perfecter of faith.

01:04:08

And all of a sudden he was just shocked that I would actually say that because he right away said, you believe in an election.

01:04:19

Oh yeah, I have told the story many times of the Mormon missionary who actually returned more a missionary who stopped actually he stopped, took a track from us, he sort of walked past us, walked back to me and he asked me the question, why are there so many different Christian denominations?

01:04:39

And I gave him a response. One of the things I said in my response was, well, the main reason is because people pick and choose what they will and will not accept out of the

01:04:49

Scriptures. And that didn't really satisfy him so he started talking. He was a very sharp young man and it did not take him more than about five or six minutes to realize that I was talking about the freedom of God's grace and God's power and salvation.

01:05:01

He says, you don't believe in predestination, do you? And so I opened up my Bible and I read him

01:05:07

Ephesians 1 .11 that talks about the God who works all things at the counsel of His will and that uses the term, we have been predestined.

01:05:16

And so I read the verse and looked up at him and he goes, well, so you believe, and I stopped him and re -read

01:05:24

Ephesians 1 .11 and looked back at him and he says, so you're saying, and I stopped him again and re -read for the third time

01:05:33

Ephesians 1 .11 and at that point he reached over my Bible found where I had

01:05:40

Ephesians 1 .11 outlined pointed to it and he said that's wrong and I feel good saying that.

01:05:48

I remember reading, I think I read something like that on your website and that's what it reminded me of.

01:05:55

Right, and I closed my Bible up and I said to him, sir, when you first walked up to me you asked me why are there so many different churches and as I told you at that time it's because people will pick and choose what they will and will not believe in the

01:06:06

Bible and no one, sir, has ever given you me a better example than you just did. So, yeah, that's exactly what you're facing.

01:06:14

I mean, the same thing that I said to the Jehovah's Witnesses came up when I talked to a couple of Mormons earlier on this semester and they just had the same exact view that the

01:06:25

Jehovah's Witnesses did concerning the limitations of what God can do and what He can't and it was amazing talking to them about that but let me ask you, this is a question that I have, it's really interesting because every time

01:06:42

I think about Jehovah's Witnesses or one is Pentecostalism and then I compare that to Mormonism, they believe a complete contradicting view there.

01:06:53

The Mormons believe that there are at least three gods I guess and the

01:06:58

Jehovah's Witnesses will believe that there's only one God with one person who has that being of God and I just wanted to ask a

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Mormon and a Jehovah's Witness at the same table as to how they can come up with two completely contradicting views

01:07:19

Well, I don't know what they would say but the answer to the question is they can come up with two completely conflicting views because the fact that they do, neither one of them practice

01:07:28

Sola Scriptura since they both refuse to allow the Word of God and the Word of God alone to speak, that's where you get that kind of differences between them and it is an illustration of the error of the constant repetition of Roman Catholic apologists that Sola Scriptura is the reason why you have all these differences.

01:07:49

In reality this illustrates just the opposite of that and that is they have their other external sources and those external sources then determine for them what they will and will not see in Scripture and what they will and will not accept.

01:08:03

Now of course the Mormon is going to just simply very openly say,

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I reject Sola Scriptura and I don't believe that the Scriptures alone are sufficient because I have these other Scriptures but the

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Jehovah's Witness is going to accept Sola Scriptura but not practice in light of it because of the authority of the

01:08:20

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. That's so clear because I was quoting to the

01:08:25

Mormons that Joseph Smith's retranslation that you put up on your website that you talked about before on Romans and there was no phasing these people.

01:08:36

I went over their religion. I also brought up the idea of Elohim and Jehovah being different gods and I remember you talking about that and I brought that up and didn't phase them.

01:08:50

I mean they did not care. They didn't care at all almost. They were shaken up in the sense that they didn't know how to reply.

01:08:57

They kept their mouths closed but at the end they weren't persuaded either way. In fact at the end he just looked at me confused and he was shocked because he thought

01:09:07

I was just a Baptist who didn't really care about anything. But after giving him all these he just gave up.

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He said at the end, will you just do me this one favor and just ask

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God about Mormonism or just pray about it. I had to tell him, I go, listen I'm not going to do that and he kept asking me to do that and I got really fed up with him.

01:09:29

He asked me why I would and I told him I'd be making a fool out of God because he so clearly in Scriptures denies

01:09:36

Mormonism. Well you can't expect these folks are going to have a Christian worldview.

01:09:41

The idea of if they really loved the truth they would not be embracing the falsehood that they're embracing.

01:09:49

People who have a subjectivist view of truth, who believe that truth is defined by how

01:09:55

I feel about things find anyone who is an objectivist, who believes there is an objective standard to which we must bow and to which we must be shaped to be very, very, very strange people.

01:10:06

There's no two ways about it. And so that's always going to come up in these conversations it frequently does in the channel when we have people come in and they just don't understand how we can say no this is the truth right here.

01:10:21

Who are you to think you can know the truth? That kind of a worldview is the exact opposite of what we have in biblical

01:10:29

Christianity. But thanks for calling today. Thank you. 866 -854 -6763

01:10:35

We now go to Sam, also down in that state that's so big it might as well be its own nation down in Texas.

01:10:44

How are you doing, Sam? It's fine. How are you doing? I just wanted to ask one question. I'll probably hang up right after asking the question.

01:10:51

But you hear a lot about this trichotomy of man that man is the body, soul, and spirit.

01:10:56

I just wanted to get your thoughts on that. Whether you thought it was a legitimate position and how important you think it is.

01:11:04

Well, you can either stand in line or not. It's totally up to you. But I don't know that it's a majorly important issue.

01:11:13

I was raised as a trichotomist but my studies have led me to the position of dichotomy.

01:11:21

That is, I believe, that man is body and soul and that soul and spirit are used in an interchangeable fashion in Scripture.

01:11:31

I don't think there's the differentiation between soul and spirit that some would like to attempt to make to where they become separate entities or substances.

01:11:40

But I don't know that it's a major league deal. I suppose there might be some impact of holding one view over another view, but I certainly have not seen it as any type of major issue as far as any type of theology goes or anything in regards to apologetics.

01:12:00

Before I called, there was a scripture I was trying to find that said something about your whole body, soul, and spirit.

01:12:08

I don't remember the reference. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes, I do. I think it's in 1

01:12:16

Thessalonians 5, I believe, possibly. Let me see if...

01:12:26

I think that's probably one scripture that gets used to back up that view.

01:12:33

I just wonder if it necessarily implies that... No, I don't think that it does. I think that you can look at the subject of the...

01:12:42

You can see a person... I'm getting close to it here. You can see a person as...

01:12:48

1 Thessalonians 5, 23. Hey, I said 1 Thessalonians 5. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame of the coming of our

01:12:59

Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I thought. I knew it was 1 Thessalonians 5 in some places. I wasn't sure of the exact reference.

01:13:05

There are too many other places where you only have the spiritual aspect of man, the physical aspect of man mentioned that would also be referring to the completeness of man to say, well, in those situations the author did not have in view the other element that's not mentioned.

01:13:25

If they say body and soul, then well, they're specifically attempting to differentiate with the spirit or whatever else it might be.

01:13:32

And I think that the point of Paul here is entirety and you'd have a hard time saying, well,

01:13:40

Paul is presenting this strong distinction and therefore every time you see spirit in all of Paul's writings, you need to differentiate that from soul or vice versa since he does use them in synonymous with one another.

01:13:56

So I think he's just simply piling on the words here to emphasize sanctify you entirely not just a part of you.

01:14:04

It seems some in the Church of Thessalonica were having a problem with the idea of God's law and God's truth applying to every aspect of life.

01:14:14

Remember, there were some people that decided to stop working, for example. And there was a discussion also in the same passage about God's will is for your sanctification and it had to do with sexual purity.

01:14:27

And so I think he's just piling on the words here to say, look, God is interested in the whole of you.

01:14:33

The work of Christ in regeneration and sanctification is something that impacts the whole of man and he's just piling on the words to express that.

01:14:42

I would not see that as a solid basis for distinguishing between soul and spirit as two separate entities or something like that.

01:14:50

Those who do frequently will say that soul is just simply the animating principle of the body which then makes me wonder what in the world spirit, soul, and body would be because soul and body would always have to be together.

01:15:05

But I don't see it as a really big issue though. Well, I appreciate your help. I guess

01:15:10

I'll let you go now. Alright, thank you very much, sir. 866 -854 -6763 Probably just enough time for one last quick call if anyone would like to sneak in and throw in something.

01:15:26

Sometimes those last callers are always the ones who throw in something very strange or you know what we could do.

01:15:33

You know what we could do. We've got just enough time here actually. We got a lot of comments last week.

01:15:42

We got a lot of comments about my bud Chris Arnzen.

01:15:48

And we got a lot of comments about his songs. And some of you have never heard

01:15:56

Chris's songs and you know some people say they're in bad taste. I don't think they are at all.

01:16:01

In fact, I think they're identical to the kind of humor that is used, for example, in the cartoons in Envoy magazine.

01:16:10

I think anyone who laughs uproariously at the cartoons in Envoy magazine like someone that I happen to know who's in channel right now, would absolutely have to laugh uproariously at what

01:16:22

Mr. Arnzen recorded. So, I don't see any lights ringing.

01:16:28

I think it would be a good idea to let Brother Arnzen serenade us with his wonderful wonderful renditions.

01:16:37

Let's listen in to Marty Luther and the protesters. Hello, Marty Luther and the protesters.

01:17:02

... ... ...

01:17:11

... ... ... ...

01:17:17

... ... ... ... ... ...

01:17:33

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

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... ... ... ... ... ...

01:17:58

... cannon fire heard around the world and ignited the blaze of a holy inferno that is still burning brightly today.

01:18:07

This holy inferno is the Protestant Reformation. That Augustinian monk who ignited it was me.

01:18:14

Hello, I'm Martin Luther, and this is my story. Oh yeah,

01:18:29

I'm the great reformer, reforming the churches that I'm known for.

01:18:40

I made my protest before Zwingli and all of the rest, nailed it up to the

01:18:47

Wittenberg door. Oh yeah,

01:18:52

I'm the great reformer, reforming the church was my goal.

01:19:02

But the Pope threw me out like some bad sauerkraut, flushed me right down his

01:19:10

Vatican pole. I would not indulge that dirtbag

01:19:18

Johann Tetzel, so they threatened to twist my spine up just like a pretzel.

01:19:27

Yeah, I'm the great reformer. The Pope put a price on my head, but while out on the run,

01:19:42

I married a nun. She'll be living with guys who bake bread.

01:19:50

That's very bold guys wearing robes, baking bread. My lady

01:19:57

Sweet Katie gave up her old habit. She once dressed like a penguin, now multiplies like a rabbit.

01:20:10

Yeah, I'm the great reformer. I turned

01:20:16

Tetzel's church upside down. Tell those greaseballs at Trent, centuries after they came and went,

01:20:26

I'll be dead, but that won't keep me down. They wanted to slice me and dice me and feed me to the papal palace puppy dogs, but I'll bet you that in the 21st century that I'm still alive.

01:20:48

Oh boy, I was there the first time he performed it. I was there.

01:20:54

In fact, I have a tape even of that. Yes, indeed I do. And I want you all to know, if you really want to know what it's like to reach the pinnacle of your career, that only a few weeks ago, that same

01:21:11

Chris Arnson sang two songs. He had me come up and sit in a chair as he played

01:21:16

Marty Luther yet again and sang two songs for me. One of them was to the tune of Nobody Does It Better.

01:21:26

And then to the tune of Strangers in the Night, Marty Luther sang Debates in the

01:21:33

Night. Debates in the night, exchanging insults.

01:21:39

I don't have it yet. Don't ask me for it. I can't play it because I don't have it yet.

01:21:46

In fact, I need to get on the folks from the church that sponsored all this because they promised me that they'd be sending me the videotapes because at least

01:21:57

I could give you the videotape version of it, but not the professionally recorded one. But we're going to keep on good old

01:22:03

Chris to record those last two for me so we can play them for you as well. Well, thanks for being with us today on The Dividing Line.

01:22:11

A little more lighthearted than it's been in the past few weeks, but I needed that and you may have too.

01:22:17

So we'll be back again next week. Thanks for listening. God bless. James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks.