A Special Edition of the Dividing Line with Pictures and Audio

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James returns from South Africa and gives us an extensive review of the trip.

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And welcome to a special Monday edition of the Dividing Eye. I was just looking around the studio here and when the cat's away, the mice will play.
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And I guess John was concerned that he wasn't going to remember the song because it's taped to the back of the
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Queen's face. The ESV only, yes, that's the book for me. I stand alone in the word of God. The ESV only.
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Yes. Sola ESV tickets. There you go. There's the things that people leave in the studio when
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I'm out of town. Well, we want to get together today to give you a report solely on what took place in South Africa over the past number of days.
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Well, it hasn't actually hasn't been the past number of days. I've been home since Friday evening, sometime a little 43 hour jaunt home from Durban to Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Heathrow, long, long, long layover in Heathrow.
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Heathrow Terminal 5 isn't a bad place, but they have no fast food. I know everything in Heathrow Terminal 5 now.
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Anyways, and then thankfully straight shot, man, if I had had to go through like Philadelphia or something way back,
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I think I would have lost my mind. But a straight shot from Heathrow back to Phoenix and so here we are and no sickness.
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Thank you very much for praying. And of course, I I also took advantage of the means. I was washing my hands and doing everything else.
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And so we are back home. And what I want to do is give report. There's so much to catch up on the dividing line that I didn't want to just, you know, cram this in sort of in the corner someplace and then move on to other things.
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I mean, who knows, by tomorrow we might have some really interesting stuff out of the Synod in Rome. That'll I can just see
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Rome's apologists are girding their loins to be explaining this one.
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But it's it's going to be going to be interesting, whatever whatever comes out of all that.
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But I want to talk to you specifically about what took place in South Africa, because I didn't see coming what ended up happening on a good level.
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And I just wanted to say thanks to everybody who was involved, too, but let you know what took place.
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Flew out, was met at the Johannesburg airport by Rudolf Bischoff.
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Many of the pictures you will see, I'm going to play some clips from the debates. Again, thanks to my
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Livescribe pen. And no, I don't get any free material for promoting them, but thanks to my
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Livescribe pen, I will be able to play some sections. Yes, you keep saying it's it's only what I was saying.
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True. That's mainly because I take my pen with me up to the podium and therefore it's right there and the sound quality is good.
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The sound quality for the other guy isn't gonna be as good because the pen's in my hand. I'm taking notes and he's over there someplace.
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So that's one of the main reasons that for the real quick stuff right after the debate.
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It's pretty much just what what is happening when I was speaking. But anyway, I'm going to play some clips for you.
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One from the debate at the at the Juma Masjid, Gray Street Mosque in Durban, the historic mosque, 130 years old.
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First Christian Muslim debate that's ever taken place there. I'm the first Christian to stand that place and present the gospel.
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Other Christians have spoken there, but not in a debate, not in a situation where it was a give and take and proclamation of the gospel in contrast to Islam, etc.
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And then I'm going to play my opening statement from the debate with Ayub Karim the next night because we spent quite some time on the dividing line looking at Ahmadiyyat's crucifixion or crucifixion presentation.
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And even even the moderator, who himself is a Muslim apologist, engages in Da 'wah, described
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Ayub Karim as having a DD, a doctorate in Didat, a disciple of Didat.
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That's what, disciple of Didat. He he stood as Didat stood. He dressed as Didat dressed.
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He spoke as Didat spoke and he presented Didat's arguments all the way through.
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So that was I was very thankful that that's what I wanted to have happen. I wanted to have a debate in South Africa, in Durban, the city of Didat, where his most famous presentation was presented and the arguments for it and have the opportunity of thoroughly refuting them.
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And we did. And I will play you the opening statement, which basically, as most people in the audience, at least
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Christians, the audience said the debate was over in the first five minutes of your opening statement. And the rest was just an appeal to the
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Muslims. You've got to pick up your game. You can't. Didat cannot be your big man because he was not a scholar.
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He was not accurate. He did not know Christianity. And as a result, his arguments are really, really, really, really bad.
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And we demonstrated that. And I'll play the opening statement from that as well. And while those are playing,
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I will I have, I think, three hundred and eighty four pictures from the trip to South Africa from my phone.
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And well, actually, I've got some that I've imported as well from Adrian's phone,
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I think Adrian's camera down there in Durban. And so total three hundred and eighty four.
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And I'll just have them running on a slideshow. And that's what we'll have up while we're listening to the audio.
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So that's how we will. That's how we'll do that. Anyways, flew into Johannesburg. You'll see a number of pictures of Rudolph in there a couple of times
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Rudolph got pushed into doing things he didn't know he was going to be doing. I think it was the very next morning.
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Yeah, the next morning we recorded about a little over an hour and a half with Akhmed Pondor and Mohamed and his last name starts the
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G. Forgive me, I don't have any notes in front of me at all. This is all off top of my head at the proclaim offices.
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And since they had set the things up with two and two, they asked Rudolph to join in.
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And he did. And he participated somewhat at one point, made some good points, but then left most of that to me.
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And we had 40 minutes of them asking me questions, 40 minutes of me asking them questions, and it was all recorded.
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And I don't know when we'll see that, but it was it was interesting. Once again, it was it was focused on, you know,
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I got to ask some specific questions about some interesting Hadith and things like that. It was it was very friendly.
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And I'd like to engage Akhmed Pondor more as well in the future.
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He's he gave me a little book on Mohamed in Song of Solomon 516.
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And so I'll I'll try to find the time to respond to that. But we had we had a very good time there.
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And then if I recall correctly, I should have written all this stuff down, but I've been moving pretty fast.
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I'm so far behind on everything. When you're gone for that long, you've just got so much just regular life stuff.
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And then, of course, this morning, I was I was just about jumping the car and head here. And, you know, that stupid little lights on my on my dash, you know,
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I need to need to fill up my tires. And I've got one of those things in my car where I can plug it in and fill it up.
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So I fill up the passenger side and I move around to the driver's side. And I unscrew the thing on the driver's side front wheel.
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And I look and there are splits this long all the way around the sidewall.
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I mean, that tire is trash, hasn't lost air. But I was driving home from church on the freeway with it the night before.
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Oh, boy. So my day has been, you know, discount tire and a few other things that the car required me to do.
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That's what cars do to you. So I don't know when you get some of these things. But we'll especially because I've only got like two weeks before I leave for New Jersey and New York.
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There's gonna be a debate with Shadid Lewis at New Hyde Park Baptist Church. I need to get that information.
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Is that information isn't up? Not information isn't up on the on the on the website yet, as far as anything with the debate with Shadid.
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No, actually, didn't we send Yeah, I think I think Chris did send Micah some stuff on the schedule for New York, New Jersey, because it's been finalized for a while.
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Anyways, we need to get it up there. I think it may have been blogged just we just don't have a banner ad for it. I think that's I think it's what it was.
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I think it's on the blog someplace. Anyways, that's coming up. Then I've got just a couple weeks after that and going to Kiev and Berlin.
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And then a month after that, it's Norway and the G3 conference in Georgia. And now we're arranging another
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Muslim debate in Florida in March. And wow. So anyway, we'll do our best to try to catch up.
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I believe it was that evening that we then had the debate at the mosque in Lanasia.
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You'll see some shots from that with Bashir Varnia. Once again,
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Bashir, wonderful, nice guy. The folks there at the mosque very kind in allowing us to be there.
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There are just times that I go Bashir doesn't hear what I'm saying. I will make an objection to one thing and he'll respond to a different question.
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But it was on who was the true founder of Christianity, Jesus or Paul. So I got to make some, I think, strong arguments in regards to the consistency of the message of the
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Apostle Paul. And I really emphasized to my
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Muslim friends in all the debates, the idea of equal scales, equal weights, applying the same standards again.
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And I saw a number of Muslims in the audience there in Lanasia and they understand that. Lanasia, by the way, is a very
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Indian area, as is Durban. A lot of Indian Muslims that I was interacting with this time around, not so much
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Arabic Muslims, but Indian Muslims there. And so we had a nice debate with Bashir there in Lanasia.
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And then the second year in a row, we didn't plan it this way.
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It's just that, well, as soon as I got to Johannesburg and I was staying just outside of Weston area on the one side of Johannesburg, I was informed by Yusuf Ismail that the debate, which we've been trying to find a location for, he had been trying to find a location for, and we've been disappointed because we had hoped it would be in the mosque in Durban, that in fact it was going to be in the mosque.
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But I did not know until the night of the debate that it would actually be in the masjid, just like we did in Erasmus last year, that I would be debating in stocking feet because I would be standing before the
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Mimbar in front of the Qibla and actually in the masjid once again, and now in Ahmed Didat's home mosque.
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We'll get to that in a moment, but I was informed that basically as I arrived in South Africa.
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And so for the second year in a row, I was able to be in Johannesburg with Tim Cantrell and his folks at Antioch Bible Church for their conference.
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And it did turn out to be exactly one year. And in fact, last year I was there when
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South Africa played New Zealand, when the Springboks played the All Blacks in rugby, which is big, big, big, big, big in South Africa.
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And then lo and behold, they were playing again this year, same weekend.
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In fact, we watched the game before I then gave my second presentation on the subject of New Testament reliability.
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So since this time, right at the end of the game, the Springboks came from behind and won.
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The All Blacks are just, everybody recognizes they're the best in the world. And so to beat them and South Africa is number two in the world this year.
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So they were all very happy and we had a very happy time. But you'll see some of the pictures.
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Last year they gave me this nice green Springboks jersey. And this year I've got the nice white Springboks jersey.
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So I've got a collection now of both the home and away jerseys for the Springboks, the
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South African rugby team. And so we had a great time there. And then the next morning
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I preached for them in their services. And then they've got a church plant.
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And so as soon as I got done preaching, we jetted and I preached at the church plant across Johannesburg a bit.
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And it was at that church plant. I'm going to forget a bunch of stuff because I mean, it's a long trip.
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I'm going to forget a lot of things. But it was at that church plant that I was talking with some young black brothers.
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And this one young man said something to me. And again, when I travel,
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I am absolutely amazed, absolutely amazed at where this program goes.
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I mentioned to you the fellow in Australia years ago that came up to me. And this program had gotten him out of Aryanism.
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He had been converted in an Aryan church. And it just didn't seem right. And it was YouTube and The Dividing Line that got him out of that.
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And going to Potsdam last year, and a couple came up to me and how much
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The Dividing Line meant to them. And in Ukraine, and Germany, and it's just amazing the places that this little webcast goes.
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And so this young man is talking to me and he says, you know, I went to uni, which is how it's said outside the
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United States. I went to uni in Durban. And he said, it was The Dividing Line that kept me sane and in the faith.
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It gave me the ability to respond to liberalism and to just not lose my mind in the midst of all the unbelief.
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And it's just amazing to hear those kinds of stories.
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And it happens wherever I go. So it always reminds me the responsibility that is ours to do this, but it also just amazes me where this program ends up in the world.
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So I preached on Colossians chapter one there and in both places, and then had a wonderful,
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I suppose I should mention this. We had, we ate right as I left last year, we ate at this restaurant called
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Spur at the airport. And when
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I got in, we went to Spur for breakfast, lunch, whatever it was.
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I mean, after you fly around halfway around the world, you don't really know what time it is anyways. And so Rudolph and I ate at Spur and I was just noticing the total political incorrectness of this restaurant because it's all a
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Native American theme. And the menu has this guy dressed up like a chieftain on the front.
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He looks Italian to me. He looks like some guy from Italy that they put feathers on.
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And there's all this American Indian stuff. I mean, they're going after the Redskins here in the
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United States and yet down there in South Africa. And then one of the other really popular restaurants, it's a burger place called
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Wimpy's. Yeah, Wimpy's. Can you imagine the advertising campaign in the
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United States? I want a Wimpy burger. Yeah, right. Sure. And then I took a picture, it might pop up in the screen thing.
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I was running, I got a chance to run along the beach in Durban a couple of times. And I passed this thing that was open later on the second day, but it was closed.
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Dinky Donuts. Dinky Donuts. So we got Wimpy's, Dinky Donuts, and Spur's.
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Three things that would never fly. Never fly in the US, but they're doing okay down in South Africa.
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I found that was funny. Anyway, we had a great lunch Sunday afternoon, Tim and some others.
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And we were... Tim just comes up with questions like, I don't know what. He did it to me last year during the
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Worldview Conference, but I was the only one to answer the questions. This time, there were two other guys that sort of helped answer questions, but he can come up with the questions.
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And then that evening, oh boy.
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What did I do that evening? Oh yeah, it just blew right out of my mind.
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Oh yeah, I went back. Okay, sorry. Antioch Bible Church, because there's a different location.
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All these things, everything was in a different place. And so we did a seminar on reaching
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Roman Catholics at Antioch Bible. And it's really funny.
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I managed to find this presentation on my Mac on Roman Catholicism that was perfect for what
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I wanted to do that night. Problem is, I don't remember ever having made that presentation. I don't know when it was made, for whom, anything else, but it was perfect.
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It had video clips in it. And I'm just like, I don't remember making that. So that's what I used.
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And they seemed to enjoy it. It went really well. So I had a great time with Tim and the folks at Antioch Bible.
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And then the next morning, Rudolph and I flew to Durban.
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And that night, I spoke at a church there in Durban. I've only got one picture of that in here.
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Next morning, I spoke to another group, same morning as a debate. I normally don't do that, but that's how it had been arranged.
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And so we did a lot of speaking. And then Tuesday night was the debate at the mosque.
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And like I said, until we got there, I did not know where it would be.
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Was it going to be in a room associated? This mosque did, and I posted pictures on Facebook.
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It's for a long time was the largest mosque in the Southern Hemisphere. And it has three levels.
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So they're stacked on top of each other. And room for 3 ,200 prayer mats.
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So it's historic. It's very old.
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It's rather ornate, as you'll see in the pictures. And it was
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Ahmed Didat's home mosque, home masjid. That's where he prayed. That's where he would have spoken.
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And so as we got there, that's when I discovered we're going to be doing what we did the year before in Erasmus.
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And so I did not think that a digital presentation would be possible. So I had not made one.
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But Yusuf did use one. I don't know that it was an advantage because Yusuf will probably listen to this.
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But Yusuf's use of slides, way too much text, way too fast.
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And I think it leaves most people just going, ah. I think I was clearer without slides than Yusuf was with slides.
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I really do. Great debate. Two -part debate. It was on the
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Christology of the Gospel of John. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to have a Muslim deal with the
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New Testament text in a more focused fashion. Me deal with the Quranic text in a more focused fashion.
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Initially, what I had suggested was John 5, John chapter 5 alone versus Surah 5 alone.
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Narrow it down. Get deeper into the text. I think Yusuf probably agrees with me now. That's the way to do it.
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At least that's the feeling I'm getting. But it ended up being all of John versus all the
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Quran. And I thought it was very, very useful.
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I really felt that I was able to communicate. I've posted the opening statement from the first part of the debate on the blog.
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I got that uploaded from Heathrow during my layover there. And I'm going to play the closing statement from the
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Quran portion for the whole debate here in a moment. We were very warmly received.
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IPCI did a very good job putting it together. There was never any feeling of animosity.
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And in both situations, there has never been any indication that I was to compromise, back off.
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And the reality is I didn't. Yusuf brought up some stuff that I like Yusuf.
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I like Yusuf. But the problem is the study that Yusuf has done in these areas has been of material that just doesn't fly.
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And he made comments about John 1 -1 and John 20 -28 and John 8 -58 that just...
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And so I was straightforward in my refutation. And then when he got up and made his presentation in response to what
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I said about the Quran, he was all over the place. He went after Jay Smith. He went after Sam Shamoon.
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He said Irenaeus was bumped off for questioning Paul. This is some really wild stuff in there.
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He went over his time, so I had to give him more time for my rebuttal. And I was very straightforward in what
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I said. This was going to be my last opportunity to speak to these guys. And we had lost some of the audience by then. It was late.
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It was getting toward midnight because we hadn't started till late 15. And it was a full three -hour debate. And so it was getting toward midnight by the time we were wrapping up.
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And so these were the serious guys. And man, when it was over, these young guys went up and they're shaking my hand.
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And the imam had stayed there the whole time. The chairman of the board of the mosque had stayed there the whole time.
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The imam and I had a real nice conversation afterwards. It was just amazing to stand in Ahmed Didat's mosque and defend
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John 1, John 1 -1 and John 8 -58 and John 20 -28 and proclaim the gospel and to say the things
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I got to say. It was just, I'm still processing it. Every one of you who helped, who donated toward that to make that possible,
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I hope when you see these pictures and eventually when you watch the video of the debate, you will feel
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I had something to do with that. I mean, this was historic. It was amazing. And I think we have the opportunity of doing it again.
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The doors are open. And South Africa is a place where there's a tremendous
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Muslim population and you've got a concentration of dawah that takes place there because of Didat, because of IPCI.
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It's there. And there are still Muslims there that I have yet to engage.
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And with Rudolph and his ability to, with integrity, set these things up.
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Yeah. Now, what I skipped up to this point was, because you can see some pictures of this, it wasn't specifically on the subject of debating
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Muslims, but before the stuff with Bashir, we went out to Pachastrum, to Northwest University.
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And you'll see some pictures of me and John Gilchrist, Rick Oaks out there talking to the students about reaching out to Muslims.
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And I'm getting more involved with Northwest University, great folks. I want to,
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Prof. Hank there is a wonderful guy and I want to be of all the encouragement I can to them. And I was talking to them.
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One of the things that I want to really pursue with them is next year, doing a lecture series in Pachastrum in response to Bart Ehrman's book on the deity of Christ, How Jesus Became God.
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And I think doing an entire series going in depth, something I've wanted to do on The Dividing Line, announced we're going to get around to it.
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There's just only so many hours in the day. But especially if I could do something in cooperation with Northwestern University there in the theology department, that would give me even more impetus to be able to get around to finally doing that.
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Who knows, maybe publication of something along those lines. But definitely want to, the door is wide open in Pachastrum for doing scholarly work at NWU on this subject as well.
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So another major reason why this amazing South African connection, pure providence, pure providence, because I won't even go into it right now, but how
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Rudolph and I got together is just supernatural. That's the only way to put it. I thought he had been contacted by someone that I had contacted at SES.
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Nope, he just happened to email. And I thought it was because Simon Brace had put him in touch with me.
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Nope, it just happened. And we know things don't just happen.
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So amazing stuff, amazing stuff. So let's try this first run here. Let's, let's listen to my closing statement.
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It is a pleasure. Whoa, whoa, not that fast. At least I know that's how it's going to work.
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Let's listen to my closing statement. And I will fire up the slideshow here.
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So you'll see all sorts of stuff. But here's the actually, okay, gray street open.
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I hope it's, I'll start it and we'll get to the right one. How's that?
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And let's, we almost got there. There, here we go. I confess I'm disappointed.
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I was hoping for a contextual Islamic reading of those particular texts.
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Instead, I got attacks on J. Smith, Sam Shamoon. We had conspiracy theories about Irenaeus being murdered.
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Well, that's a new one. I teach church history. And if he was killed, it was by the Romans as a part of persecution of Christians.
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But that was because he said something about Paul. Absolutely no scholar I know of has any meaningful scholar has any, we got stuff about areas.
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We got, we got low level internet arguments. One plus one plus one equals one. The standard.
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And then, and then first John five, seven, with all due respect, since he brought up low level internet arguments, excuse me, edit first John five, seven, one plus one plus one equals one.
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Those are low level internet arguments. And my friends until Muslims get past that level, we will never have meaningful dialogue.
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We will never have meaningful dialogue. Why do I take the time to understand the forms of Tauheed and hence the levels of shirk when the best
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Islam has to offer won't get past the fact that first John five, seven was irrelevant to the development of the doctrine of the
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Trinity. It's not a part of the new Testament. We've known that for a long time. We've explained this for hundreds of years.
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How are we ever going to get beyond that? That's low level internet argumentation. And soon you're going, well, you, you believe the father's holy
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God, the son's fully gotten that makes three gods. No, there's one being of God shared by three persons. You've got to at least try to address the difference between being in person.
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I've already explained it. No attempt to do so. It's just so much easier to just play on prejudice. It's so much easier to play on prejudice.
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And I'm disappointed because, well, you know I mean, the number of things that were brought up here were amazing.
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Evidently, what's being suggested is that even though Mohammed in his day would have known about the argumentations concerning, concerning Theotokos and the
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Nestorians, and that's the background of the usage there. He knows all that stuff, but wait a minute, then why isn't there any clear statement of what the doctor is?
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Well, cause you people didn't know. Yes, we did. All these people would have agreed that Mary, for example, was not a deity that wasn't at issue.
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Exaltation of Mary and stuff like that to the level of deity that has nothing to do with Theotokos. Theotokos is a Christological title.
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It's a title of it's saying that the one who was born of Mary was truly God. There's just so many of these things here that in even 12 minutes,
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I could not even begin to respond to them, and if I did, here's the problem. We wouldn't actually get to the subject of what we're supposed to be talking about, and so I'm going to focus on one thing in the few minutes that I have.
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I was accused of a lot of things, and I'm glad we're recording this because then you can watch the video when it goes on YouTube.
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You can listen to the audio. You can start and stop it. You can look up stuff, and I challenge you to do that. Please do that.
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Don't, don't believe what I have to say. I mean, when Yusuf is putting images up of Semiramis and trying to say it has something to do with the
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Trinity, that is so disappointing. I might as well sit here and say Allah is the moon god.
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It's just as bad an argument. It's just as fallacious, just as ridiculous to any serious -minded person.
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It's so disappointing. I hope for such better, but let me try at least to the accusation you've been inconsistent in your dealing with the
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Quran. I read through the Quran. I read more of the Quran than I needed to give so it would be context.
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He says, you went someplace else that had nothing to do with that. Where? He didn't give us, he didn't give me an example. In fact, he ended up going to the same text
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I did as if they were relevant. Accusations with no foundation, but I want to look primarily at surah 547.
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Let the people of the gospel judge by He says, you didn't do this intertextually and all the rest of this stuff.
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Okay, let's try in the seven minutes that I have left to speak to you, to listen to this text and see what it says to us.
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Did I mishandle it? Did I quote it out of context? I submit to you, I did not. What does it mean?
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I'm not really sure what we were being told it meant. It seems that Yusuf is assuming a meaning of the term
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Allah, a term in geo in this text without demonstrating and proving from us that the
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Quranic definition is correct. What I'm saying is it would be very easy to misunderstand what the people of the book said about their scriptures because they would refer and we even to this day refer to the gospel as a general summary of all the new testament teachings and we also refer to individual books.
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Where's the evidence? The author of Quran knew what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were. Where's the evidence? I've not seen an iota offered.
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The author of the Quran didn't know and so there's no interaction with that. There's no interaction in what's in those gospels and there's no interaction with what the people of the book actually believed the gospel was.
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The assumption is made that this was something given to Jesus. Well, we would agree in the sense that Jesus said that his apostles would be indwelt by the
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Holy Spirit of God and the Holy Spirit of God would lead them into all truth. So that does come from Jesus, but that's sort of irrelevant because the
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Quran doesn't understand that either. Let's listen to the text one more time and see if I'm being inconsistent in a contextual and let the people of the gospel judged by what
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Allah has revealed therein. What does therein refer to grammatically? Fihi.
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What's the antecedent? The gospel. That's the only thing in the Arabic that is the antecedent.
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So how can we, the people of the gospel, judge by something we no longer possess?
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How can we do it? It is not the assumption of this text and if you can show me something in the context that changes this, please do.
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I wasn't shown anything that changes this. I was just thrown out there, you reading it a contextually.
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I'm trying to read it contextually and I want to ask what does it mean? You can ask me what does 2
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Corinthians 13 14 mean, which is a Trinitarian passage by the way. What does Matthew 28 19 baptizing them in the name of the father, the son,
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Holy Spirit. You can ask me what that means and I'll tell you. So I'm asking you. I am one of the people of the gospel.
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This is addressed to me. What am I supposed to do with it? Who am I supposed to judge? What am
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I supposed to judge? How am I supposed to judge by if I no longer have the gospel? If the gospel is a book given to Jesus and it disappeared by the days of Muhammad, how could anyone to whom this was addressed and anyone down through the centuries thereafter obey this text?
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How am I supposed to obey the Quran in light of your beliefs? If I can't, then doesn't it make it meaningless?
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Now, how is that a low -level internet argument? I'm looking at it and I think that's a very fair question because it says whoever does not judge by what
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Allah has revealed, that just referred to the gospel. Then it is those who are defiantly disobedient.
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I don't want to be defiantly disobedient and yet this text is saying to me judge by the
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Injil. Just as the Jews were told in the preceding section to judge by the Torah. Now we know the
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Torah still exists. We know that because even the Quran says that it's like the
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Quran itself. No one could ever write a book like it. So we know the Torah still existed in this day. So if the
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Injil didn't exist, how do these words make any sense? You can make accusations and try to get people's emotions going, but that doesn't actually answer the question.
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Now there's all sorts of interesting questions about the Melkites, Jacobites, and historians. I know what those people believe.
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I know what their differences were. And if you're actually telling me that now the Quran actually understands those differences, that makes things a lot worse.
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It makes things a lot worse for you because now you don't just have ignorance of the Trinity in general and no meaningful interaction with that.
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Now you don't have any meaningful interaction with the differences between these various Christological controversies.
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I mean, if the best you can come up with is, well, you know, they did use the term Theotokos, and it does refer to Mary.
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And so maybe that's the background. That only makes things worse because if this is supposed to be
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Mubinun, if it's supposed to be clear, if it's supposed to be the final revelation, then now we should have even more intertextuality.
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He used that term, but I don't think Yusuf wanted to use intertextuality because, you see, intertextuality is what you have in the relationship between the
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Old and New Testaments. It's what you don't have between the Quran and the preceding revelations. So what
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I had hoped for, what I had really hoped for in the response was a Muslim reading, not stuff about Irenaeus or conspiracy theories or Semiramis or any of this other stuff that is just completely irrelevant to what we're actually talking about, especially because it's just so far removed from any historically meaningful theory in regards to the development of the
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Doctrine of the Trinity, or quotes from Raymond Brown and people that, again, are so far off on the left that they would never believe.
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Raymond Brown would never believe that a single word of the Quran quoted to Jesus, ascribed to Jesus, was true.
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Not a one. Why'd he quote him? Why'd he quote him? He would never believe that there's anything historical in the
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Quran about Jesus at all. Well, he wouldn't. Oh, he's dead. But he wouldn't. Even scales.
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Okay, last minute. This is the last chance I'm going to have to say anything to you. First of all, to every one of you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here.
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Thank you. You've been listening. Even when I take my glasses off, I can see. You guys stuck through the end.
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You may disagree with me. You may think, man, you've talked about stuff that I'm not sure about. But I hope you understand there's one thing that's true tonight.
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There's a man that flew from Phoenix, Arizona to stand in his stocking feet in your mosque and to try to talk to you because I love you.
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I care about you. I care first about my God and his truth. We don't agree. We need to argue, but we can argue with respect for one another.
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And I hope if you've heard anything, you've at least heard that. Check us out.
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Check out his his writings. Listen to him carefully. Check out my writings. Listen carefully to me, even if I'm different.
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It's amazing what I've learned about you guys by honestly listening to people like Sheikh Yasir Qadhi and listening to what they have to say.
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It's enriched my understanding of where you're coming from, and it's helped me to be more clear even in my objections.
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Please do that. Thank you. And God bless all of you this evening. Here. I'm not sure if you can.
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Yeah, that's Pastor Dennis. I stayed with Pastor Dennis and his wife in their home.
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They were tremendously kind to me and hospitable to me.
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His wife was recovering from cancer surgery and there I was in their home. And by the way, this man, this man makes a cola tonic worthy of flying across the world to drink.
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It's so good. It's sort of like ginger ale, but better.
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And I think I ran him out of all his his recipe for that.
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And I need to get the recipe. But also one of the funniest guys. And he also made curry for me.
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Can you believe I ate curry, Rich? Really? I did. Yeah, I did. I ate curry there.
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Wow, that's almost as surprising as you eating vegetables. I probably ate some vegetables while I was there too.
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I'm sure there was two or three there somewhere. They were hiding. They were lurking. But that's
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Pastor Dennis. Adrian, who was my contact person there, that's his dad. So there was the connection.
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There was a connection there. Oh yeah, there's the one that I have to rotate counterclockwise.
41:26
There we go. Anyway, um, so I was staying with Pastor Dennis and he, he was asked, they, they did, um, a, obviously a
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Quran presentation at the beginning of the next debate. We didn't have a, we did not have a, anything at the beginning of the debate, um, in, in the mosque.
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We had to dive right into it. They just done the prayers anyways. And, uh, but then the next night and I need to keep going here because this is a half hour one and, uh,
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I don't want this program to go overly long. Uh, and we will be doing a program tomorrow too. So, uh, on other topics, but, um, since they were going to have
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Tajweed, they were going to have the recitation of the Quran. Uh, they asked us to ask someone to open the
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Christian side in prayer. And so that is, uh, Pastor Dennis, uh, leading in prayer. And it was more of a mini gospel presentation.
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It was very good. It was very good. And there was, I don't remember which night it was. Maybe it was that night or the previous night after them.
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Yeah, it was that night. Uh, we were at his house and, um, having something to eat before we all went our different ways, went to bed and it was late.
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And I just remember thinking, you know, I'm saying, you know, it's amazing fly around the world and here is a brother and you know, we're saying the same thing.
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We're preaching the same message. It was just such a wonderful example of the, the fact that Christ builds his church and he has his people, uh, everywhere and, uh, a wonderful guy, wonderful guy, uh, wonderful folks down there in Durban.
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Okay. So the next night, let's get to the next thing. Uh, Ayub Karim, first time
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I had met him, um, I guess he had been at the debate at the gray street mosque, but hadn't introduced himself to me.
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And, um, very nice fellow. I want to have what I would like to do. And I just sent an email off to make sure that the email address
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I have is the right one to go directly to him. What I would love to do is in the future, when
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I engage Ayub Karim, let's take one of the major presentations by Akhmed Didat and let's debate it.
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Um, I would like Ayub Karim to be my modern day Akhmed Didat because I think that he accurately represents
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Didat's arguments. He did. And that's exactly what I wanted. Now, of course, the problem is what
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I'm saying is Akhmed Didat's arguments are fallacious. And so my goal would be that he would stop using
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Akhmed Didat's arguments. So sort of weird. Um, would you present his arguments? But I'm saying you should really not be presenting his arguments.
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It's a strange situation, but obviously by the end of the debate, he didn't feel like I had demonstrated that Didat's arguments were wrong.
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Um, but I did. Um, and I think that'll be very, very clear when you, when you listen to the whole thing.
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Now, one of the problems was where I was, where Rudolph and I were seated, seated on the stage.
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I think this was the hardest of audio I ever had to deal with in a debate.
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And by the way, the debate in the, um, with Ayub, Ayub Karim was my 140th, 140th debate.
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And it also meant that I have now, the group I've debated most often, uh, are the Muslims. Roman Catholics are now second.
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Uh, so there we're up to, up to 140. Um, oh, and by the way, we've got to fix my short bio on the website, which
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I don't think is, I still don't think I have access to, uh, because, um, it doesn't have Clementine.
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And I had to keep correcting that, uh, as people would draw, would use that. It's on WordPress now.
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It has been for a year now. Well, and, uh, it first went up there. I didn't have access to it.
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And you can, um, you can do whatever you want with it. Well, I thought I had, and I remembered putting something about Clementine in it, and it's not there.
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So anyway, There's a, there's a, I'll fix it. There's a button in there. It's called, Yeah. Yeah. Publish.
45:34
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I'm well aware of that. Anyway, um, uh, this was on the crucifixion and, uh, he presented
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Akhmed did not, he didn't go through the 30 arguments, but he presented.
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And what I was saying was I could not hear. I mean, I'm sitting, I'm straining and I may have gotten 50 % of what he said because it was, the sound was so much, there was no fullback monitor.
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The sound was so mushy. I eventually complained. And what they did is they turned one of the speakers around toward the stage, which would normally cause feedback.
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Somehow it didn't. And for the rest of the debate, I was able to hear clearly. What that means is my pen, if I couldn't hear my pen, couldn't hear either.
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And so I don't think I could ever recover his opening statement from my pen because it was just like,
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Oh, it's horrible. Um, it's not that for the people in the audience,
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I'm sure it was just fine, but for us up on the stage, it was really, really bad. So I was really straining, but what
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I'm going to play for you while firing up the pictures again, uh, what I'm gonna play for you was, hence he, he made his presentation.
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Then I took my pen up with me to the podium and that's why we can hear it. Um, is my response to DDOT's presentation, which would had just been done by Ayub Karim.
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And, um, it was painfully obvious that the entirety of that presentation was based on two fundamental errors, misunderstanding of what anastasis means, what resurrection is, because in DDOT's mind, a resurrected body is a spiritual body.
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Uh, and therefore it has no physical component. And that's one of the reasons why he was alive. He was alive.
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Yeah. Okay. Doesn't know what anastasis means. That which died coming to life again, simple, basic thing.
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Uh, and then the sign of Jonah and how the Jews tell time and the difference between Roman time,
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Jewish time, et cetera, et cetera. And there's a, there's a fellow who gave me his email address and I, I need to write to him.
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He wants me to explain that to him in email. And I'm going to take the time to do it. Uh, he even asked a question during the
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Q and A. I don't have that queued up, but, um, so, so here we are.
47:54
It's a 90 % Muslim, 10 % Christian, maybe actually less than that might've been 92, 8%, something like that, uh, in Durban, South Africa, in a
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Muslim area, uh, with, uh, you have Kareem and, uh, I finally have the opportunity of responding to Akhmed Ddot's arguments.
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And, um, here is, uh, what happened as a result. This is a vitally important subject and it's great to see a full crowd here this evening.
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And I would like to thank, uh, you Kareem for presenting, uh, Akhmed Ddot's position on this.
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I have been looking for a long time. I have listened to much of Akhmed Ddot's, uh, teaching and I've been looking forward for a long time to be able to respond to someone, uh, who would present the same arguments.
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And there were some arguments that weren't presented, but in general, uh, this was exactly what you would hear in Akhmed Ddot's crucifixion or crucifixion lecture.
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And so I'm very, very happy about that. One of the reasons I wanted to do this is because I believe that this particular lecture is one of the primary stumbling blocks standing in the way of Christians and Muslims moving forward in their understanding of each other's faith.
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Now I'm going to have to say some very strong things tonight, but I will back them up and I will ask you to be the judges this evening.
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I'm challenging everyone in this room this evening, check out what each one of us says, listen to our references, get the videos when they're, when they're available and check out what we say against the best that scholarship has to offer.
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Because I say this is standing in our way because this particular form of argumentation is fundamentally flawed on a scholarly level.
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And I want to show that to you today. I want to show why it is that to any Christian who knows church history, knows the original languages of the
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Bible, knows the cultural context of the new Testament, the arguments that were presented just now hold no weight whatsoever.
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They have no possibility of being true. None. Let me begin with just two basic errors.
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And I want to go on to a positive presentation of what the Bible actually says. These two errors undo everything that was just presented to you in 35 minutes.
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Error number one, instead of going to what the new Testament says about what resurrection means and what the
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Greek term for resurrection means, we had no discussion of that. We had a misunderstanding of first Corinthians chapter 15 that goes against all of modern scholarship in regards to what it means, natural body versus spiritual body.
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The assumption that DDOT made, and it was made this evening, is that resurrection means you come out as a spirit. That is not what resurrection means.
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The Greek term is anastasis. Anastasis means that which died coming to life again.
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That's exactly why when Paul preached resurrection on Mars Hill in Acts chapter 17, as soon as he made reference to the term anastasis, the
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Greeks, who were dualists, stopped him in his tracks because they knew exactly what he was saying.
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He was saying that the physical body rose from the dead. They knew exactly what he meant.
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And that's exactly what the term means. You can look it up in Bauer, Donker, Arngegrich, the current standard
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Greek lexicon of Koine Greek. You can look it up in Lolanita. I have all of those references with me. And I will challenge you,
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Karim, show me any scholarly reference in the Greek language that's accepted by scholarship today that defines anastasis as being spiritual.
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And there you go. You won't be able to find it. And in fact, I have debated some of the leading liberal scholars in the world who've tried to present a kind of spiritual resurrection.
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And you can go watch those debates. So the first fundamental error, the entire argument that DDOT made was that Jesus was alive.
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Yes, he was resurrected, but he had a physical body. Yes, that's what resurrection means.
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And that's what every Jew in the first century would have understood it to mean. No Jew in the first century would ever have made the argument you just heard.
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Not a one. Not a one. That's the first error. Second error is the sign of Jonah. What was the essence of the sign of Jonah?
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Three days and three nights. It wasn't alive versus dead or anything else. He was simply giving that issue of the three days and three nights.
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But it wasn't three days and three nights. Yes, it was. The Jews counted any portion of a day as a full day.
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And so the fact of the matter is, all the Gospels say, including John, that Jesus was crucified on Parvus Skewe.
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Now that is normally translated in English Bibles. And one of the issues we have here this evening is that I've been asked, well, what translation of the
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Bible do you use? I won't use a translation of the Bible. I teach both Greek and Hebrew. I read it in the original languages. And the original term is
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Parvus Skewe. And Parvus Skewe is normally translated as preparation.
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Preparation day. But there's a little problem. It's also the formal word for Friday. And all the
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Gospels agree that Jesus was crucified on Friday before sundown because the
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Sabbath was coming on. And so you've got Friday. He's in the tomb on Saturday. He rises on Sunday morning in Jewish reckoning.
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That's three days. Now, you don't may not like Jewish reckoning. You may want to argue with it. You won't be able to make any sense out of succession list and everything else in the
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Old Testament if you do. But everyone who listened to what Jesus said in his context would have understood exactly that.
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And the reality is Jesus defined what he meant by that. We didn't hear this.
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But over and over again, as we're going to see, Jesus said to his disciples, the son of man is going to go and he is going to be turned over to the leaders.
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He is going to be scourged. He's going to be crucified. He's going to be buried. He's going to rise again. And he told his disciples exactly that.
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So once you understand what the people themselves would have understood the sign of Jonah to mean, and once you understand what anastasis means, the entire presentation that was repeated this evening collapses on just simply those facts.
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And they are facts. If you say they're not facts, then you need to refute them from the original languages.
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And that's the challenge this evening. Now, is the New Testament not clear on the crucifixion?
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Akhmed did not actually made it sound like and this evening, Mr. Kareem, it sound like that the
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New Testament writers themselves did not believe that Jesus died upon a cross. And yet any meaningful reading of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, and all of them, they all referred to Jesus Christ as the crucified and the risen one using that term anastasis.
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Every single one of them. They all made this statement without any question. For example, let's look at Matthew, Matthew chapter 17, verse 22.
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As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, the son of man is about to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him and he will be raised on the third day.
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Do you believe that Esau was a prophet? Was he a false prophet? Well, here he says in Matthew 17, the son of man is about to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him and he'll be raised on the third day.
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And they were greatly distressed. Is that a true prophecy or false prophecy? I say it's true prophecy. In Matthew chapter 21, verse 37.
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Finally, he sent, this is in a parable. This is in a parable that Jesus is telling. Finally, he sent his son to them saying they will respect my son.
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But when the tenants saw the son, they said themselves, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance. And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
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Jesus is making the application to the Jews, what they're going to do to him and what they can do to him. They're going to kill him. Matthew chapter 26.
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When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, you know that after two days, the Passover is coming and the son of man will be delivered up to be what?
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Crucified. Was he a true prophet or a false prophet? I believe Jesus was a true prophet. If you're going to deny the crucifixion, you're going to have to call
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Jesus a false prophet. And I know why you deny the crucifixion. I know Surah 4, 157 very well, but my friends think about something for a moment.
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Surah 4, 157, 40 Arabic words written six centuries after the days of Jesus in a different language, 700 miles away.
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Would you accept without any foundation historically whatsoever, someone who comes along 600 years after Muhammad and decides the barrage in the
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Israel never took place. There was never any trip to heaven. There was never any trip to Jerusalem. There was no, no, no winged beast.
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All of that didn't take place. And when you ask him why, he simply says, because I'm a prophet. Would you accept that? That's what you're asking us to accept.
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The 40 Arabic words, and most of you know, there is no Hadith commentary on Surah 4, 157.
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Nothing. And so on the basis of 40 Arabic words, we're supposed to overthrow everything the
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New Testament says and every single historical fact concerning the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
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There, there is no question whatsoever in the minds of even the most radical skeptics that Jesus Christ was crucified.
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So I know why you don't accept these things, but I ask you, do you really have a consistent basis for doing so?
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I go back to the testimony of the NGO itself that we are told that we are to follow in a, how about we looked at, we looked at Matthew and we see that he used to be crucified and killed.
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How about Mark? They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know for. He was teaching his disciples saying to them, the son of man is going to be delivered to the hands of men and they will kill him.
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And when he is killed after three days, he will rise. But they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask.
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How about Mark chapter 10 saying, see, we are going to Jerusalem. The son of man will be delivered over the chief priest and the scribes and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the
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Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise. Those are the words of Jesus.
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Was he telling the truth or was he not telling the truth? Mark chapter 15, verse 24.
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And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take.
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And it was the third hour when they crucified him. By the way, the only difference, the only reason there's a difference between the hours of Matthew, Mark and Luke and John is because Matthew, Mark and Luke are using
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Jewish timing, which begins at sunrise. John is using Roman timing because he's writing later and Jerusalem has been destroyed by them.
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And so he uses Roman timing, which begins at midnight. If you take that correction into consideration, they all say the same thing.
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There's no contradiction. You see folks, even scales, the Quran says we're to use even scales, right?
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That means you need to apply the same standards and looking at my scriptures that you use and looking at your own.
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You allow the Quran to define its own terms. You will not take one section, ignore another section. Don't do that to the
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New Testament. Don't ignore everything in the New Testament says here. Now we see Matthew intended to communicate that Jesus was going to die.
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Mark intended to indicate that Jesus was going to be died. He was, he was going to be crucified. And he says in Mark 1537, and Jesus uttered a loud cry, loud cry and read his last.
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That means to die, to swoon. Nobody who would ever read that in the original language would go,
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Oh, he's not dead. No, he died. And it's interesting in math,
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Mark chapter 15, pilot was surprised to hear that he should already have died. Why?
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Well, that's pretty quick folks. The Bible says Jesus gave his life. He had control of this situation.
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He said, no one takes my life from me. I give it my own accord. He breathed his last, he gave his life and he determined when he was going to die.
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And that's exactly what he did. And if you sit before me today, thinking that the moon can be split and the prophets can fly on little beasts to Jerusalem, you can't look at me and say that Jesus couldn't do that because we're all supernaturalists in this room.
01:00:01
We all believe God has that kind of power, even scales, even scales, uh,
01:00:08
Mark chapter 16. Uh, this wasn't presented this evening. I I'd like to ask a
01:00:14
Ukraine if he accepts a D dots argument on this, but when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint him.
01:00:25
And in the crucifixion or crucifixion presentation, D dot said that meant to massage.
01:00:33
I've always been shocked by that. The Greek word means to anoint. It never means massage. And I would challenge anyone to show me any place in all of ancient literature where that's the word where he speaks of the
01:00:44
Hebrew word. How does he know what the Hebrew word was that Mark was supposed Mark was written in Greek and wasn't written in Hebrew.
01:00:51
And the Hebrew term is Mashiach, which means to anoint, not to massage. It's an error on every possible level.
01:00:58
And he repeated it over and over and over again. I'd like to know if a Ukraine would make that same assertion that Mary had seen signs of life and was going to massage the body of Jesus after he's had no water and been in a cold, dark tomb for three days.
01:01:14
Yeah. How about we've seen Matthew, we've seen Mark. How about Luke free? He'll be delivered over. The Gentiles will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon.
01:01:21
And after flogging him, they will kill him. And the third day he will rise. But they just stood out of these things there. You've got the prophecy of Jesus again in Luke chapter 23.
01:01:29
And when they came to the places called the skull there, they crucified him and the criminals, one on his right hand and one on his left. They crucified him.
01:01:36
Matthew, Luke 23, 46, and Jesus calling out loud voice, father into your hands. I commit my spirit.
01:01:42
And having said this, he breathes his last. And again, you show me anywhere where that language in the first century met anything other than die.
01:01:49
Give me some scholarship. Give me something serious. If I make an assertion, if I say that a phrase in the
01:01:55
Quran had such and such a meaning, it's up to me to provide a foundation for that. Same thing here.
01:02:03
Even scales, even uh, the son of man must be delivered in the hands of sinful men and be crucified.
01:02:13
And on the third day rise, John then adds to this John chapter 19. So they took Jesus and he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of the skull, which in Aramaic is called
01:02:22
Golgotha there. They crucified him with him to others, one on either side and Jesus between them.
01:02:27
Pilot also an inscription and put it on the cross, read Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews, John 1931.
01:02:34
She has received the sour wine. He said it is finished. He bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
01:02:39
That means he died. John 1932.
01:02:45
So the soldiers came in both the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
01:02:54
Now the argument is frequently made, well, that's the mistake. That was the mistake that the Jews referred to. And they said, the second mistake would be greater than the first.
01:03:01
No, it is not. The first mistake that Jews referred to was the acceptance of the idea that Jesus was a prophet of the
01:03:08
Messiah. The second would be to allow his body to be taken away so that it could be said that he was resurrected. That is what the scripture is talking about.
01:03:15
It has nothing to do with this. These individuals who determined he was dead.
01:03:20
Remember, remember in Mark, we are told that it was a centurion pilot inquired of a centurion as to whether Jesus was dead.
01:03:30
Centurions were experts at death. They knew a dead man and how to make somebody dead.
01:03:38
And so you have a centurion certifying. And remember, if he's wrong and Jesus wasn't dead, it's the centurion who dies.
01:03:48
So he's going to make sure of these things. And so he certifies to pilot that Jesus is dead.
01:03:56
And here in John 19, they see. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
01:04:06
Very clear. John chapter 19. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloth with the spices.
01:04:12
Do you have any idea the damage that is done to the physical body by taking it off of a cross?
01:04:17
It's bad enough to put it on. Think about what it's like to take it off. Do you really think someone who is swooned is not going to respond to be taken off across?
01:04:29
And the pain of wrapping the body. So he took the body of Jesus and bound in linen cloth with the spices, as is the burial custom of the
01:04:38
Jews. Now, the place where he was crucified, there was a garden and the garden, a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.
01:04:44
So because the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there. My friends, no one can possibly fairly read
01:04:56
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John without coming to the conclusion that each one of those authors fully and completely intended to communicate to their audiences that Jesus Christ was crucified.
01:05:14
You cannot read them in any other way. It is impossible. You have to isolate one little phrase here, one little phrase there, connect these things together, and then throw everything out.
01:05:28
I would be embarrassed to deal with the Quran in that way. And yet that's exactly what
01:05:34
Ahmed did with the New Testament. Exactly. And so my friends, the
01:05:41
Quran commands you to use beautiful arguments in dealing with the people of the book.
01:05:49
I would not consider it a beautiful argument for someone to come along and to try to take the words of the
01:05:57
Quran and string them together so that the claim of the author of the
01:06:02
Quran is exactly opposite of what it obviously is. If someone came along and tried to string together a phrase here and a phrase there to make it sound like the author of the
01:06:13
Quran was actually telling us to worship multiple gods, wouldn't it be rather obvious that they were misrepresenting the
01:06:20
Quran and the author of the Quran? And so when it is the absolutely unquestionable intention of the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, we haven't even gotten to Paul and everything else yet, to communicate to us that Jesus Christ was crucified, that he was dead, buried, and then resurrected, that which died coming to life again.
01:06:43
That's what anastasis means. How then can we even begin to countenance an argument that would say, well, no, actually they're telling us that Jesus didn't die, that Mary was going to massage the body.
01:07:00
None of this has any basis in the text whatsoever. None. Now, when you think of Surah 4, 157 and its claims, and this is the, let's be honest, this is the only reason you sit here this evening as a
01:07:16
Muslim denying the crucifixion. If you think about it, if you didn't have Surah 4, 157, and you read
01:07:23
Surah 355, and you read Surah 1933, and the standard translation of the
01:07:29
Arabic there is to die, talks about the death of Jesus. If you didn't have Surah 4, 157, we wouldn't be here this evening.
01:07:38
Because the only people, physical crucifixion of Jesus for the first 300 years of Christian history were people called
01:07:48
Gnostics. You do not want to be on the same side as the Gnostics. The Gnostics are not your friends.
01:07:56
The Gnostics denied the crucifixion of Jesus because they were dualists, and they believed that anything physical is evil, and anything is spiritual is good.
01:08:06
So since Jesus was a good guy, then he could not have had a physical body. So they denied that Jesus even had a physical body.
01:08:11
You believe he did have a physical body. They also believe that the creator of this world was an evil demiurge, an evil god, which means they believe that Yahweh was an evil god, or in your theology, the way it was said, that Allah is an evil god.
01:08:25
That's why I said you do not want to be on the side of the Gnostics. They're not your friends. But they denied the crucifixion for a simple reason.
01:08:32
Jesus couldn't have a physical body, and it's very hard to crucify a spirit. And so they're the only people.
01:08:41
Every source other than the Gnostics, secular, Christian, Jewish, every source that even makes reference to this, affirms the crucifixion.
01:08:50
It's so clear and so compelling that even the unbelievers know that Jesus was crucified.
01:08:56
Let me give you two quotes. One fellow that I've debated myself is a fellow by the name of Bart Ehrman, and he's probably the leading
01:09:04
English -speaking critic of New Testament Christianity today in the world. He's an apostate.
01:09:10
He used to be a Christian, and now he calls himself a happy agnostic, but I'll be perfectly honest with you,
01:09:16
I've met him. He is an agnostic, but he didn't seem very happy. And so even he has said these words.
01:09:24
One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the
01:09:30
Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate. He's a hyper -skeptical critic, and he says one of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the
01:09:40
Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate. Another man that I have debated, John Dominic Cross, a brilliant man, a raving heretic, but a brilliant man, and I've told him he's my favorite heretic.
01:09:53
He doesn't really believe that there is a personal God. He doesn't really believe in afterlife.
01:09:59
He's a former Roman Catholic monk, but he's considered one of the leading historical Jesus scholars in the world today.
01:10:06
And here's what he said, that he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.
01:10:15
That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.
01:10:21
So if the most amazing critics will say, you know, the one thing we know for certain is the crucifixion.
01:10:29
So you've got them. You have the Christian sources. You have secular sources like so forth.
01:10:39
You have the only denials are people on a religious basis who aren't really concerned about history anyways.
01:10:45
They're more concerned about their religious rituals. And then 600 years later, you have 40
01:10:52
Arabic words about which you as Muslims know nothing in regards to their revelation, their background.
01:10:59
There's no Hadith commentary on it. And that's a solid basis for me to abandon everything.
01:11:07
History says everything that I have from the first century. And by the way, from eyewitnesses,
01:11:13
I am, I really would like to point something out. My friends,
01:11:19
John 1926, John was an eyewitness. You have to call him a liar, but according to John 1926,
01:11:30
John was there. And I don't know how many times I've heard D dot debate and speak on this.
01:11:35
Never talked about it. Why not? Because he was an eyewitness. He kept going to mark.
01:11:41
They all fled, but they didn't stay. Fled. Peter was there, not at the cross, but at the trial and John was there.
01:11:49
And in fact, Jesus from the cross entrusts his mother, Mary to John's care in John chapter 19.
01:11:56
That makes him an eyewitness. And he's the first one to run to the tomb. Hmm. We do have eyewitness testimony, don't we?
01:12:04
And that comes from the first century. And so can you give me a reason of just saying, well, we believe it.
01:12:10
Can you give me a reason why everything from the first century, everything from the second century, everything in the third century, other than some weird
01:12:18
Gnostic people who think whoever created this world is evil, said the same thing. And then you tell me 600 years later, someone comes along in a different language who was never in Jerusalem, at least not physically that we know of, and was not there at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus.
01:12:36
And he writes 40 Arabic words, never explains them. No one for 250 years after Muhammad can remember a single word he ever said about these 40
01:12:46
Arabic words. And I'm supposed to abandon everything that history and the first century writers in the
01:12:52
Injil itself, the Injil, which is described as being sent down by a law containing light and guidance.
01:12:58
I'm supposed to ignore all that. That's what we're being asked this evening. As I said last evening in the debate, and as I will say again this evening, we must have equal scales.
01:13:13
If you apply to the New Testament the standards of interpretation and fairness that you will rightly demand
01:13:22
I use in reading the Quran, you will never substantiate surah 4, verse 1 to 7.
01:13:29
You can't do it. So that's a question you're going to have to answer. I don't expect you to go, wow, that's it.
01:13:37
He must be right. But I do expect you to think and to consider it and to ask yourself the question.
01:13:45
If you were in my shoes, would you find that a compelling argument? The argument that was presented this evening did not understand anastasis, did not understand the sign of Jonah, did not understand paraskew, and is wrong in each one of those things.
01:14:03
And those are the foundation. Wash them away. And there was no argument made this evening. There really wasn't.
01:14:10
So how do we move forward from here? My suggestion, quite honestly, is that we think about these things.
01:14:21
A, when you read the New Testament, and I would invite you to do so, I've read the
01:14:27
Quran many times. I think it's important for my people to hear what your book says to us.
01:14:34
But the reality is, most Christians have never read the Quran, and most Muslims I know have never read the
01:14:39
Bible. Read the Gospel of Luke. Read Jesus' interaction with his disciples after the resurrection.
01:14:48
How he points them to the scriptures. How he has to open their minds to understand the scriptures. The reality of the resurrection.
01:14:56
I know the argument, he was alive, he was alive. Yes, when you are resurrected, you are alive. And you eat fish, and you can walk with people, and all those things.
01:15:08
But the resurrected body is a glorified body. It is not a corruptible body any longer.
01:15:14
That's Paul's point. And so, read what Luke says. And read about how the resurrection is something that the
01:15:21
Spirit opens our hearts and minds to even understand. And to be able to grasp. And then ask yourself a question.
01:15:29
Does my religion teach me that there is a spiritual realm that requires spiritual enlightenment? And we both know the answer to that.
01:15:37
Allah guides who he wills, does he not? Are you being consistent to demand naturalistic answers from Christians, when you yourselves are supernaturalists?
01:15:49
When you believe in the miraculous? Are you being consistent? And then in light of that, how can we move forward?
01:15:59
My suggestion to you is this. Until this kind of argumentation is abandoned and no longer used, you will not be showing beautiful words, beautiful arguments to the
01:16:16
Allah -u -Kitab. Just as I have often rebuked
01:16:21
Christians who have presented less than meaningful argumentation against Islam.
01:16:28
And I see it all the time. I mean, I've taken heat today, because I dared to be kind and to have meaningful interaction with Brother Yusuf Ismail in the back of this room.
01:16:42
I took, there are Christians that think I'm compromising because I didn't call him names, and I didn't treat him with disrespect last evening because it's quite obvious I like him.
01:16:54
And I pray for him. And I don't want
01:16:59
God's curse upon him. I want God's blessing upon him. And every Muslim in this room,
01:17:05
I take heat from my own community for that. And I would imagine it probably goes the other direction too.
01:17:12
There are people in both of our communities, they don't want communication. They don't want us to understand each other.
01:17:19
For a lot of Muslims, I'm just a cougher. Don't listen to him. It doesn't matter how often he's read the
01:17:24
Quran. It doesn't matter whether he's read the Hadith. It doesn't matter whether he tries to understand what we believe. Ignore him.
01:17:29
I know those voices. They're on my side too. I blocked someone from Facebook this morning because I posted a picture, and one of their comments was, because it was in the mosque, one of their comments said, synagogue of Satan.
01:17:43
They're all reprobates. I rebuked the person and blocked them. Okay, we've got hotheads on both sides.
01:17:50
My question is, where are you? Where are you?
01:17:56
Do you hear the Quran's command to give beautiful words? Do you agree with me that Al -Haq, one of the beautiful names that the
01:18:04
Bible itself uses of God, is important, and that we need to know the truth? God's truth, but you know what?
01:18:10
You need to know the truth about people even when you disagree with them. Even when you disagree with them.
01:18:17
We have no right to misrepresent those even when we feel that they're wrong. Not if we're people of truth.
01:18:24
And so my suggestion to you is this line of argumentation, which completely misrepresents the text of the
01:18:31
New Testament, must be abandoned if we are going to move forward.
01:18:37
If we're always just back here on the basic level stuff, trying to go, I'm sorry, but you don't seem to understand resurrection is.
01:18:44
Resurrection is that which died, coming to life again. And so the resurrection is physical, and so all the physical stuff
01:18:49
Jesus does after the cross means he was resurrected. That's how everybody understood it in the first century.
01:18:55
If we have to keep going back over that again, and again, and again, how are we going to advance this discussion?
01:19:02
And folks, if we don't advance this discussion, who's going to? If we remain in ignorance about each other's faith, two communities that cannot argue knowledgeably and respectfully, the only thing they've got left is to fight.
01:19:17
And haven't we seen enough of what that brings in our world already? And so I say to you, when we address these issues, and you may disagree, last night you said you didn't handle
01:19:31
Surah 547 correctly, but we discussed it. We were able to talk about it, go to the text.
01:19:41
This kind of argumentation is simply so far removed from the obvious intention of the
01:19:47
New Testament writers that it needs to be abandoned. It doesn't matter how popular someone might be who presents it.
01:19:54
If we're going to move forward, that's the only way we're going to be able to do it. I've come across the entire globe, halfway around the world.
01:20:05
I've got a long trip tomorrow. And I've come here because I care about God's truth.
01:20:11
I care about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am his servant. My life is in his hand to use as he wishes.
01:20:18
But even your own Quran says that in the heart of the followers of Jesus, God has placed compassion.
01:20:26
Does it not say that? And I can assure you, I speak to you with compassion.
01:20:33
I speak to you because I care about you and I want you to know what
01:20:39
I believe. And I can trust the spirit of my God with the truth from that point forward.
01:20:46
I respect you. I love you. I care for you as well as for you.
01:20:52
And I want our discussion this evening to be marked by respect because of that.
01:20:58
And I'm not trying to be disrespectful to anyone by saying we need to stop using bad argumentation when it has been proven to be very bad.
01:21:07
And so unless in the next period, Mr. Karim can provide some pretty heavy -duty substantiation for what anastasis is supposed to mean, the original language and how the
01:21:19
Jews kept time and all these passages that I have read, then
01:21:24
I would say we need to abandon this form of argumentation and move forward in a more meaningful way to discuss what is surah 4157 about?
01:21:33
What does it really mean? How can we understand it within any meaningful view of history? That's something we need to discuss.
01:21:40
Maybe in my rebuttal time, I can discuss what some of those options have been that some people have taken.
01:21:47
Unfortunately, it's not the majority Muslim view, but some people have taken. Maybe we'll have the opportunity to discuss that.
01:21:52
We'll see now in how Mr. Karim responds. Thank you very much for your attention. Okay, so there you go.
01:22:07
There was the almost 34 -minute opening statement that I made in response to Ayub Karim's statement where he presented
01:22:18
Ahmad Didat's arguments against the crucifixion. I think I laid it out fairly clearly.
01:22:26
If you're sitting here going, well, did he come up with a meaning for anastasis? No. He did raise some more
01:22:34
Ahmad Didat arguments, but he did not resuscitate the ones that had already fallen upon the battlefield, shall we say.
01:22:43
Since I had a rebuttal period, then I was able to... I don't think there was a single thing that I was not able to fully and thoroughly address.
01:22:55
Again, it's not so much because of Ayub Karim, it's because of Ahmad Didat. It's because of the position that he's defending.
01:23:02
So that was there in Durban as well. Then, 43 -hour journey home.
01:23:11
It was made longer because you go to the Durban airport, you sit there, then you fly to Johannesburg, then you sit there, and then you fly to Heathrow at a nine -hour layover there.
01:23:25
So yeah, it makes for a trip home. But got home, seemingly in good health so far, and very thankful for that.
01:23:34
So once again, my thanks to Rudolf, Rudolf's wife, to Adrian and his family,
01:23:42
Pastor Dennis, Tim Cantrell, and all the folks there at Antioch Bible that were so kind to me, and Graham and his wife, just so many people that were so kind to me during that time.
01:23:57
And of course, to you, all of you who gave to make this possible, who give to keep
01:24:02
Alpha Omega Ministries functioning. I hope, again, when you see these pictures, you hear these debates from halfway around the world, the opportunities that we're having, that you realize that you make that possible by supporting this ministry.
01:24:16
So your prayers are appreciated. We're going back next year, and so please keep that in mind.
01:24:26
The door is wide open, and there's more people, there's more topics to discuss, and so many more focused discussions that need to take place.
01:24:39
As long as the Lord gives us the strength to do it, and the doors are open to do it there, then let's press on while we have the freedom to do it.
01:24:48
But also pray for what's coming up, the trip to New York, New Jersey in just a few weeks, the debate with Shadid Lewis, and then
01:24:56
Kiev and Berlin, right after that, Norway, Georgia, Florida, all sorts of stuff going on, and need to have strength and health for all of that.
01:25:11
And I've obviously got writing stuff I'm supposed to be doing right now too, which I'm not getting very far on, I'll admit, because it's very difficult to do this while traveling.
01:25:18
But lots of things going on, we're trying to say yes as often as we can, but with some level of wisdom as well.
01:25:25
But a wonderful trip, very thankful to the Lord for it. Thanks for listening to The Dividing Line today. I hope it's been encouraging to you, and we'll be back again tomorrow.