Zakir Naik

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence

Our host is dr. James white director of alpha to make a minister at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation if you'd like to talk with dr.

White call now It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll -free across the

United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five Three three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James white And good morning, welcome to the dividing line on a

Tuesday morning and this will be the last dividing line for Let me see here look at ye olde calendar

Did it to two weeks till the 1st of April April Fool's Day.

Yes has nothing to do with that all That'll be it because I leave on Thursday debate

Friday evening moderate debates over the weekend speak on Long Island a starting a week from tonight and I know that Wednesday night.

I'm gonna be a grace -reformed Baptist Church on Thursday night. I'm gonna be at the Mass Pico Church of God and So there's three places

I'm speaking on Long Island next week. That would be the 25th through the 27th and Then getting to attend yet another wedding

On the 28th and then get home after that So the next dividing line would naturally fall on April Fool's Day April 1st

That's probably going to be an interesting program. Anyways, so That's when we'll be back again.

So if you have some burning issues you wish to get to You might want to do so today at eight seven seven seven five three three three four one

Because if you're waiting for Thursday and ain't gonna get you much at least not this this time around So that's phone number eight seven seven seven five three three three four one that's the number that says

I've been called by at least one person and I'm hoping that that's an indication that they're asking about Russian hermeneutics given the way it's spelled there on the screen.

Yeah, okay It's with a K instead of a yeah, okay. All right Okay, well, let's go ahead and talk with James and Glendale hi

James Doing good. Hi. Um, I took a

Biblical interpretation from dr. Barrett at Green King University. Mm -hmm, so we obviously covered hermeneutics, but I've heard of recently

Heard you mentioned in passing efforts and let me wish and or reform Hermeneutic And I just was wondering if you could tell me what that is because I'm not

I'm not really from I mean I'm reformed my psychics there myself reform, but I'm not Familiar with what that is.

Well Obviously those who are reformed would simply view that as being a consistently biblical hermeneutic that is not overridden by certain issues

Which normally are unbiblical in their origination specifically? Any concept of human autonomy

External philosophical considerations necessary to prop up a particular philosophical system

Whatever it might be. It's also Reformed hermeneutic would allow For the highest view of Scripture.

In other words, there are there are some perspectives today where you cannot

Go beyond merely a narrow context because you cannot assume

The consistency of an author with himself can assume the consistency of authors with each other in other words, you cannot even address issues of a canonical approach because you don't believe that the

Bible's consistent with itself anyways, and so you have to stop at a certain point and You can't you can't move on from there.

So When I would hear someone say a reformed hermeneutic, I would imagine it'd be they're just simply referring to Allowing the scripture to interpret itself in teaching things that are offensive to the natural man specifically

The sovereignty of God is holiness his complete otherness Man's deadness and sin, etc, etc

And instead of just filtering those things out allowing those things to enter into one's interpretation of a text

I don't think there would be fundamentally any real difference at the at the text level any sound form of hermeneutics is going to take into consideration of course the

The language and the context and the author and so on so forth the flow of thought things like that But it is amazing to me

Just yesterday. We we had a gentleman in channel And he was there for hours.

I mean The the regular folks were taking shifts talking to this fellow and going back over the same issues and when you see someone like that or You know a well -known example a

Norman Geisler Looking at John 644 and coming to the conclusion that ah, there's human free will

That's the kind of thing where you go. Wow I guess there is an Arminian hermeneutic

I guess That needs to be identified and and that is one that inserts that concept of human autonomy into every text that it's other than counters and so maybe the term reformed hermeneutics is just meant to respond to To that kind of really non hermeneutic that doesn't allow the scripture to speak as a whole

So, when did you when did you take that class It was a couple of years ago.

I took it my I Think it was my sophomore year. Okay So it's been it's been about two years.

Yeah. Well, it's I understand that Dr. Barrett's gonna be teaching out at Golden Gate in the fall, and I'm hoping to run into him again because When I first I was at Grand Canyon when dr.

Barrett first arrived there and began teaching and Took seven years of Greek with him.

And when I started Greek with dr. Barrett He had hair and of course by the time we got done most of the that on the top it disappeared

So I've often accredited myself with that some So anyways, good man, okay.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. God bless eight seven seven seven five three three three four one and dr.

Barrett, of course studied under J Niles Puckett who studied under a

T Robertson. So there's there's my my Greek Heritage there as far as Greek professors go going back quite quite some distance there

Let's go on up to Colorado and talk with Bill. Hi Bill. Oh Yeah, I was talking to a

Jehovah's Witness over the internet and I was asking her Jehovah's Witnesses on the internet. Oh, no

Yeah, they've been around for a while in fact back before Back just as you know,

AOL was still most people's access to the internet. I remember Spending far too much time in AOL chat rooms

With well, actually wasn't even chat rooms. It was message board type things With this one

Nick of a Jehovah's Witness and this this this person could produce Volumes overnight.

It was incredible. We learned later on It was five different Jehovah's Witnesses that were using the same login and they're tag -teaming everybody and nobody could possibly keep up with them because they were there was just That's I think that's how they're fulfilling their service ministry duty.

Actually, I'm not sure if the society lets him get away with that anymore But anyways, yes, there are lots and lots of Jehovah's Witnesses on the net and what did this one have to say?

Well, I was asking him how Jesus can be a God and When there's only one God and I gave him

Isaiah 43 10. Mm -hmm And now he pointed out the following verse which says there's only one

Savior but uh If someone were to save that drowning kid from a swimming pool or whatever, he would be that kid's

Savior and he said so as there are sub Saviors in spite of Isaiah 43 11 so there can be sub

God in spite of Isaiah 43 10 Well, you know that takes us back to The debate that I did with with Greg Stafford back in 2003

I believe now my that sounds like a long time ago coming up on five years ago now where we address this very issue and the the

Internet's version of Jehovah's Witnesses You got to realize you're you are watching or Experiencing a major change in the society up until the advent of the

Internet The witnesses were pretty much insulated From any contact that they did not initiate with Christians in other words, you know going door -to -door

You're gonna hear certain things, but they can sort of control when they pack up their book bag and head out the door Up until that time they lived in a very very controlled society of Jehovah's Witnesses and they were told not to read anti -witness books and things like that and so That has changed a great deal over the past 20 -25 years now with the especially over the past 15 with the advent of the

Internet The society has tried to crack down on Witnesses who utilize the

Internet in the sense of putting up websites defending watchtower doctrine They don't want them doing that kind of thing.

They want to control how they do that kind of stuff. And so Despite that those that do continue to actively proselytize on the

Internet tend to know each other and they tend to read each other's materials and borrow from each other and so the mechanism that Greg Stafford and those associated with him, even though he may be very critical of society today on his theology of God Still remains quite

Jehovah's Witness along those lines what they've decided to do is to try to blunt The normal arguments that Christians present they recognize that the idea of a

God Inevitably leads to at least he no theism one main

God with lesser deities or some sort of polytheistic idea it is a compromise of Absolute monotheism and so they try to create categories that will allow them to maintain absolute monotheism while in essence

Containing Jesus in a lesser a lesser position a a relative position and What you've encountered is that kind of an idea?

And so what Christians need to be prepared to do is To demonstrate that the presentation of Jesus in the

New Testament What is given to Jesus what is claimed by Jesus and for Jesus in the

New Testament is? utterly inappropriate For this kind of relative worship that they want to assign to Jesus this doing obeisance to him this idea that he is a

God a Sub deity in the sense of someone who saved someone from a pool being their

Savior, but not the ultimate Savior blah blah blah blah what needs to be pointed out to them is that Jesus is presented in such a fashion as to In essence jettison that kind of a concept and so what

I did is I went to a Revelation chapters four and five I Demonstrated that the worship that is given to Jesus To the lamb and to he who sits on the throne in Revelation chapter 5 is the same worship

It's not some lesser worship There's no distinction made between who he who sits upon the throne and the lamb is to the worship that is given the praise that is

Given etc. Etc. Etc. So that's just one of a number of places you can go of course

Jesus own words in John chapter 17 where he talks about sharing the glory the glory which he had in the

Father's presence before the world was and Jehovah says he will give his glory to none other They might try to then argue a relative glory, but again

It really isn't any one Text that you go to it is an entire teaching of Scripture that demonstrates that the worship that Christ receives the

The functions that are his the names are given to him The fact that Christians are known as those who call upon his name epical a turn for prayer all of these things together present the truth about Christ and and remember one of the primary problems that Christians have when speaking to any

Cult or false T false group Whatever their background or that whatever their ploy might be is that they will often get you into this

Situation where okay? Here's one text they argue with you about that text

And if you can't just absolutely demonstrate beyond all question exactly what the answer that text is well

That's deadlock and now we move to another one. We just look at one text we're always looking at just the trees rather than the forest and I use this analogy first with the

Mormons, and they're they're attempting to get around the first vision information the information demonstrates that Joseph Smith's first vision did not take place in the spring of 1820 and I've said it's it's a little bit like Recognizing that theoretically

When you are in a landslide when you are in an avalanche theoretically on paper

You could dodge each rock That's coming at you but avalanches don't come at you one rock at a time, and that's the problem and truth

Biblical truth needs to be viewed in the same way It's not like well you have the truth in one verse

And then you have the truth in another verse and so you dodge this one Then you dodge that one then you dodge the next one see if we present it in that way

We are in essence letting them try to dodge the avalanche one rock at a time because we're only rolling one rock down the hill at a time truth doesn't have that nature and so it helps if we see the entirety of The presentation of who

Christ is because then we will not You know these people will not be allowed To get away with what they're in essence getting away with when they they dodge the single rock at a time so it's the same thing with the deity of Christ the same thing with with when it when we speak of him as as God what is it that we are actually saying and How do we demonstrate that and you can demonstrate from a number of different perspectives that the idea?

This is just some lesser creature who is in a in a very narrow context being called a deity

But is not in any other context appropriately identified as God just simply doesn't work so But that does require.

I mean there are very few groups that require as much in -depth biblical knowledge Especially of the doctrine of God then

Jehovah's Witnesses do because they spend so much time preparing to respond to us that Surface level brief responses from us generally are ineffective in that context

All right, thank you, okay. I hope that was helpful to you bill if it was all right. Thanks for calling Bye -bye eight seven seven seven five three three three four one

I do have a Zakir Nike Thing I want to play eventually, but I I had just found it on YouTube because I download the whole file from another source and What I've been doing since I've been rowing more recently is is watching this stuff while rowing drives my family nuts

You know they come out in the morning, and here's this guy Rattling off Arabic phrases and quoting the

Quran, and I'm sitting there rowing away on the rowing machine watching all this stuff And it's just so like wow that's really exciting

And they just sort of go someplace else because they don't find that to be very exciting, but anyway I didn't have the right file.

Well. I've only got four minutes for the program Let me see if I can find this on YouTube, and I found it, but it's a 55 -minute file

So I wasn't I was I've got it downloaded now so during the break. Hopefully. I'll be able to find exactly

Looking for so we can listen to that after after the break, but first let's

Let's go all the way out to Florida and talk with Tamra. Hi Tamra. Hi.

How are you doing good? Good, I was wondering my husband And I were talking last night about how airmen part airmen gets quoted by Muslims now mm -hmm and we were wondering if there are other atheists or other people that the

Muslims like to use and I mean former Christians not I Guess former

Christians is what I what we were talking about mostly that they quote that We aren't familiar with besides him hmm.

Well. He's certainly the favorites Shabir Ali Has has made a career out of digging out

Various and sundry liberal Christians for example the her name's

Femi Feni's whatever name was he quoted a ultra -liberal female

Roman Catholic scholar from Boston College in In our debate at Biola in support of his claim that the gospel of Thomas Is actually older than the gospel of Mark?

And so They're they're more than happy to use any source, but I don't know of I don't know very many quote -unquote former

Christians Who are overly? Favorited by the Muslims other than Bart Ehrman just off the top of my head

But they they will use any source Whatsoever whether it be former

Christian or even better current quote -unquote Christian but of course Then one of the main problems with this type of argumentation is they are utilizing the vague

Definition of Christian while using a very specific definition of Muslim. They would never let us get away with that kind of definition of Islam If we wanted to quote a in fact

They're very angry when when the when the media does this I should note in passing that as I read

Various resources on the net especially Islamic resources on the net They're they're really upset when former

Muslims or quote -unquote liberal Muslims are interviewed in the media Why don't you let us speak for ourselves?

You know they they get very very angry Especially when they're former Muslims, but then they'll turn around and have no problem whatsoever

Quoting a quote -unquote former Christian as if somehow he should have more weight or something like that than than anybody else does so there's a there's a tremendous inconsistency in the utilization of resources on the part of Islamic apologists, but as far as as that particular question goes

I don't know anybody other than Bart Ehrman who is quite as popular amongst them and of course popular amongst the radical atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and people like that Fred Harris, then then is

Bart Ehrman Does Bart Ehrman consider himself an atheist? He considers himself an agnostic

Now most atheists consider agnosticism just wimpy atheism, but He he says

I don't think we can know I'm not saying there is no God. I just don't see any evidence that compels me to believe that there is and He says but one thing

I am certain of is if there is a God He doesn't look anything like or in any way

Is any way similar? to the Christian God Okay, great, okay

Thanks for answering my question. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for calling. Yeah, bye -bye Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one.

Let's go over to California and talk with Johnny. Hi, Johnny Already doing pretty good.

I Actually, I have the question that he wasn't able to ask last Thursday Regarding Van Til I know this is a really complicated question.

So if you could try to tackle it for me that there was the first one is What was the issue because I'm very ignorant about this.

I know very little bit about it What was the issue between? Van Til and Gordon Clark I've read something about it read something about about 15 years ago.

Don't have a clue anymore Don't know don't I've never make no claims to being a

Van Til expert in any way shape or form read his books read them had to read them more than once just simply to figure out what it's about but as to any specifics of Gordon Clark There are thousands who can answer that question better than me make no make no claim to expertise in that area.

Okay The second part then because I've actually heard that, you know,

John frame and Dr. Bondsman have both both studied under Dr.

Van Til, you know, and apparently there there has been among those who have followed the

Ventilion School of Apologetics That have had some disagreements on some areas.

I'm not particular Particularly really well read as to what those particulars are and like I listened to a lecture by Mr.

Lane Tipton. I don't know if it's dr. Lane Tipton where he actually emphasized the fact that dr.

Bondsman's Apologetic approach was not identical to dr

Van Til because he didn't develop the become covenantal aspect of it. Do you know much about that?

Nope Nope and You can ask about eschatology.

You can ask about Buddhism Hinduism I'll have the same answers to all those two. Nope. I Am aware of differences between frames approach and Bondsman's approach but I do not even begin to pretend to waste folks time giving you any comments on that because I It's not something that I spend my time reading on and wouldn't have any meaningful comment to make

All right. Okay. Sorry Johnny. Thanks a lot. No problem. I Have never claimed to be encyclopedic having encyclopedic knowledge.

There are just certain things. Let's go. You know what? I Could spend my time pursuing that or I can spend my time pursuing this.

It's not my area. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna pretend to know stuff

I don't know and Johnny there does seem to feel that I have all knowledge ever because he will call in on a

Call -in program where I have no I've got I've got a computer in front of me, but I can hardly, you know

Have time to be looking stuff up and doing research in 12 seconds And he'll ask about you know, some decree by some

Pope in 1312 and Is the Latin verb there in the passive or the active, you know?

I mean and I just look at this and I just shake my head sometimes and go how in the world could anyone ever know?

That I'd you have to admit that boy has got interesting range of curiosity Areas, although I've got an excellent sound but I've got a clip from that where he says, do you know anything about that?

You go. Nope. Yep, just grab that sound bite and we'll start making commercials. That's that's fine.

You know, I Wow, you know you know it happens in channel to you know, people just pop in the channel all the time and Once they find out who

I am all of a sudden evidently I I don't I I'm not supposed to be working or anything I'm supposed to just stop everything

I'm doing and you know start rewriting my books for them and it's just like Okay.

All right. Well, you know But you know, it's it's worthwhile pointing out once again as we've done in the past We haven't done it for a while and that is that unlike other shows that claim to Have all

Bible and Bible related knowledge We don't go down that road.

We have a specific range of topics and areas That you you deal with and you've never claimed to be, you know

All things to all people or be the complete answer man Shall we say no on all things and I I want to try to help the person at the door either

Someone's probably looking for looking for the school or something as Often as the case around here.

Anyway, it's seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number and Like I said during the break coming right up.

I will see if I can find the Zacher Nike section that I wanted to look at here and If I can then then

I'll play that for you. I'll play that for you And then I I got a phone call Not a phone call.

I'm sorry. I got an email When was it? I think it was before the weekend and William William was was telling us that he was gonna be calling today and Unless I didn't respond to his email, which

I did said. Well, there's only one One dividing line this week. It'll be on Tuesday.

So That's it so whether he calls a day or not I have no way of knowing but we will we will find out when when the phone rings

I suppose eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number and I'm stretching things out here until I can find out from rich who's running around doing various things out there when we're gonna do that and Trying to decide whether I want to Play a clip from from William anyways, because in since he's sent me the note and I'm sort of like whatever and One of the things that he's been bouncing up and down repeatedly about recently has been you miss quoted

Augustin You are so bad and I found out I found out what the misquote was today

And he's right. I Had a typographical error of one letter

Yeah, one one letter And it's from a text file that I've had for I don't know how long and it's the difference between the word

Eve and even on The even or on the Eve.

That's it I'm just making Augustin say things. He never thought to say because of one letter

I I saw it as sort of sit there staring at this thing Wow What must it be like to to to think that's somehow a relevant thing really hard to Really hard to comprehend.

Anyways, let's see if I can find that soccer Nike thing here And we'll take our break and be back with your calls to eight seven seven seven five three three three four one

Hello everyone. This is Rich Pierce In a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program

The need for a no -nonsense presentation of the gospel has never been greater I am convinced that a great many go to church every

Sunday yet. They have never been confronted with their sin Alpha and Omega ministries is dedicated to presenting the gospel in a clear and concise manner making no excuses

Man is sinful and God is holy That sinful man is in need of a perfect Savior and Jesus Christ is that perfect Savior?

We are to come before the Holy God with an empty hand of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ Alpha and Omega takes that message to every group that we deal with while equipping the body of Christ as well

Support Alpha and Omega ministries and help us to reach even more with the pure message of God's glorious grace.

Thank you Public crimes the criminal mishandling of God's Word may be

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And welcome back to the dividing line right as the music was starting. I found found the clip

Yes, yes. Yes, and we have it turned down so as I can make all sorts of noises Okay, right as we got the music started.

I found the clip I was looking for in this Zakir Naik lecture, which is is in front of a a group of Muslims and he's actually

Lecturing on Muhammad in various religious scriptures. He he began with With Hindu scriptures and stuff like that and I was sitting here going man never heard of half this stuff

But then he started into the Christian scriptures And of course, I'm familiar with all the arguments there as far as in the

Old Testament and of course going to really Zakir Naik I I don't want to be unnecessarily offensive

But he Vast majority of the time he's doing nothing But regurgitating

Achaemenid word -for -word sometimes even including hand gestures. I mean, you know

Amongst Reformed Baptists the most famous preacher of them all hails from from Montville, New Jersey, Al Martin and You can to this day go to many churches

Reformed Baptist churches the United States and it's like there's a little Al Martin staying in the pulpit because people will preach just like Al Martin and They will mimic his his

Intonations and his forms and even his movements and if you've seen

Martin and you see that you see the impact that someone can have and and to a certain extent that's

Understandable, but goodness when you're when you're quoting word -for -word for years The same stuff it does get a little bit interesting.

But anyway Zakir Naik is talking about Just now starting in this presentation the section on The Christian scriptures, but he starts off by telling a joke that Achaemenid told and I've heard

D dot tell it and It's funny if I'm gonna play it I'm gonna let it play through to the end because he's gonna quote from the from the

Quran where specifically we are told by the Quran to Present arguments for Allah that are that are beautiful arguments.

Well, if he thinks this is a beautiful argument Then once again, we have one of those situations where people just don't seem to understand what

Christians believe and Some people might identify this as a blasphemous argument and in a sense it might be but what makes this blasphemous is that Any knowledgeable Christian recognizes this isn't relevant to Christianity to begin with and you may have seen

On YouTube Achaemenid tell this joke because I believe he told it in the same section.

I've been working through for a couple months now in the same video, so if you've looked at that and Managed to make it through because of the rather poor quality

Then you will recognize it. But here here is Zakir Naik's Version of it and the only problem with the dividing line

Is I can't show these things to you because the camera a couple time cuts out to the audience who are

Laughing uproariously at at the punchline and the conclusion of this particular story, but let's let's listen in Before we discuss that I'd like to relate to you an incident which took place between Reverend Paul fender and Moulana him with a look around me

Before we got independence Reverend Paul fender asked

Moulana him with a look around me to have a debate The Moulana said that I don't know

English. I only know Urdu. So after a few months Paul fender He learned

Urdu and said okay. Now I know Urdu. Let's have a debate in Urdu So during the debate

Paul fender said that why don't you start the Moulana Sahib said since you are our guest you should start first So Reverend Paul he said

That is your prophet Muhammad peace be upon him.

Is he dead or alive? so Moulana Sahib said That spiritually he's alive.

He's Hayat -un -Nabi, but physically he's dead. He's buried in Medina the next question the

Reverend asked That where is your prophet Muhammad peace be upon him now?

The Moulana thought for a while and said that he is next to Allah subhanahu wa'ta 'ala in Jannat -e -Firdaus

The Reverend asked the next question There was your prophet. Let me just pause it there for a second in case you're wondering where he's saying

He was he's saying that he is in the highest level of Jannah the highest level of heaven it's reserved as really sort of for Muhammad Muhammad has a special place in in heaven in very presence of Allah, it's got a lot of parallels to be honest with you with Position of Jesus as a mediator and and stuff like that, but that's what he's saying as to where Muhammad is during the

Battle of Karbala So the Moulana gave the same reply with Allah subhanahu wa'ta 'ala in Jannat -e -Firdaus

So Moulana asked the next question Where was he when his grandson Hussain and Hassan may

Allah be pleased with them when they were being martyred in Karbala where was the Prophet the Moulana paused for a while and then said

That he was with Allah subhanahu wa'ta 'ala in Jannat -e -Firdaus So the

Reverend asked the next question when your prophet was with Allah subhanahu wa'ta 'ala with God Almighty when his

Grandsons were being killed Why didn't he request why didn't he tell

God Almighty to save his grandsons? So there was a long pause

Moulana Sahib was silent and the Muslim audience thought Moulana Sahib is gone.

What will he answer? There was a long pause so the Reverend said Moulana Sahib.

Why don't you answer? Why didn't your prophet tell God Almighty to save his grandson when he was with Allah subhanahu wa'ta 'ala

After a long pause the Moulana said Allah subhanahu wa'ta 'ala cried

The Reverend said what Allah cried. He said yes Allah said when

I could not save my own son from the cross, how will I save your grandson? This is battle of wits.

The Holy Quran says speak with Hikmah Qudu ila sabili rabbika bil hikmah wal mawzatil hasna wa jaadilum billat ya ahsan

That is invite all the way of their Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching and argue with them and reason with them in the ways that are best and most gracious So here's here's the argument is that the the minister is basically saying well

Where was Allah when his grandsons were being martyred? I'm sorry. Where was Muhammad when his grandsons were being martyred and The response from God is well if I couldn't save my own son from the cross, then how could

I save your grandsons and At least in the DDot video you could hear the audience laughing you could see them in the video here on my screen

But you couldn't hear them in an audio, but they they got a nice little chuckle out of that the problem of course being that it's then followed up with this preach to them with wisdom and and beautiful preaching

Well if one of the 99 excellent names of Allah Is that he is truth if Allah is truth?

Then shouldn't the arguments you use to vindicate and present Allah likewise be true

Should they not be marked by truthfulness and hence accuracy in what they represent?

Because if anyone would read the Bible at least all of the Bible in its own context rather than just taking a little piece here and a little piece there and and pulling it all out and and everything it doesn't agree with the

Quran you just ignore it and and You refuse to interpret it in its own context and and what it how it read long before Muhammad ever came along If you actually read the

New Testament in its own language, what does it say? Does it say that God the father?

Was trying to save Jesus from the cross That this was beyond his control.

It was beyond his power. This was just something that evil men did is Is that really what is presented to us in Scripture?

and and if it's not then the question I have of Zakir Naik and I'm a D dot and and All of the lesser luminaries of the

Islamic world who keep repeating these particular arguments is why don't you use? Arguments that would actually be relevant to well -read

Christians Now I recognize there are a lot of ignorant people who call themselves

Christians who have no interest in the Word of God They don't take the time to study the Word of God or learn the

Word of God And if those the only people that you are interested in converting

Let me give you a warning if they weren't interested in their Christianity. There's a really good chance

They'll probably not be interested in their Islam either you know, so if that's the kind of converts you want well

Honestly, that's that's not of great concern to me because if someone is an apostate

Christian And they become something else their eternal destiny has not changed.

I Cannot be concerned about nor should it bother me when a hypocritical

Christian a false Christian becomes something else They were going to the same they had the same eternal destiny whether they were

Sitting in a Christian Church or where they're sitting in a mosque doesn't make any difference In in both cases they have not bowed the knee to the

Lordship of Christ, so You know, they're not difficult. It's not difficult to snatch those folks.

That's that's not overly overly hard to do So what kind of people do you really want to get is the question?

I have to ask these folks the reality is That the scriptures if they were to be read in in some sort of context

If you would go to for example the preaching of the early church You would see in in their prayers in Acts chapter 4 for truly in the city

They were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate Along with the

Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place

It was God's Intention. It was God's purpose that is fulfilled in the cross of Christ And so while we know that you reject the cross based upon a single ayah that has no

Hadith interpretation attached to it that goes against to the natural reading of two other texts of the

Quran In surah 3 and surah 19 Though we know you take that one

Confusing ayah of 40 Arabic words subject to so many possible

Interpretations that are it is not clear enough to actually establish anything

And on that basis you overthrow the testimony of of all of those who followed

Christ in The first century we know that you do that But at least if you're going to try to present what your own

Quran says Is to be wisdom and beautiful preaching you might want to try to avoid these kinds of really

Really bad arguments because I know for me. They just make me go well

Here's another person who has yet to truly Show me enough respect to know what

I believe and present to me a compelling argument and The vast majority of the most popular apologetic arguments for Islam fall in that category

Fact off top my head. I can't think of any that don't Now at least

I'm consistent because I likewise criticize surface level Christian arguments even in defense of faith or arguments against other faiths as well, so I try to be

Consistent at that point eight seven seven seven five three three three four one. I guess I'll go ahead and and expose

Myself here as the as the the abuser of Augustine that I am

I'm sorry, but I just Sometimes you just have to chuckle when when you hear this stuff a little while ago

I Don't know exactly when this was was posted, but a little while ago. I started seeing notes from William Albrecht remember

William Albrecht is the fellow that Was recommended for his wonderful work by certain famous Roman Catholic apologists like Steve Ray who by the way,

I I forgot to mention this is in Phoenix right now and He is

He was in South Mountain well mate Maybe that's South Mountain now, but he may have been at South Mountain yesterday And what an irony if I had decided to ride

South Mountain yesterday It was I Certainly would have fallen off of my bike if I looked over and seen

Steve Ray and his camera guy out in the desert someplace chatting about Something I would have certainly ridden over and said hi, and and it would have been having problems that word there, huh big guy

We need a spell checker on the a little program we use the screen calls

Let me see nope didn't get that one right nope nope you have to didn't don't even have that one right sorry

I'm making fun of rich right now. It's sort of fun anyway shortly

Like as a few weeks ago. I started hearing about I prove that you even Missided Augustin you take everyone out of context and you changed

Augusta. What are you hiding James? You've been refuted, and I honestly with all

I've had going on. That's important I didn't take time to even buy to look at it But since he said he was gonna call in today or call in actually

I think he said this week So maybe Thursday of the only time we could do it. We don't have one I didn't hear back from so I don't know but um here's here's here.

We go. How many other people? allow their opponents airtime on their own program to demonstrate

Just how far off they are well. Let's let's listen to what William has to say my

My two -part series hopefully will remain two parts doing on Augustin and mr..

White's misrepresentation of him Moving on we come to an interesting quote construction of Augustin and mr..

White simply misuses Well first off I read the quote from James, and I reread it, and I knew there was simply something wrong

I did research into the very quote and read the whole thing in context now

Here's a real winner. It's a real jackpot prize Not only does mr.. White misuse

Augustin But he also incorrectly quotes him leaving a very very important word out

Mr.. White quoted Augustin like this listen carefully The Lord Jesus in the discourse which he addressed to his disciples after the supper

Which himself in immediate proximity to his passion and as it were on the even of depriving them of his?

Whoa whoa wait a minute. Here's where I stopped a woman and thought this just isn't right a

Allow me to give you the quote of what Augustin really said mr.. White listen carefully mr..

White turn your iPod off The Lord Jesus in the discourse which he addressed to his disciples after the supper

Which himself in immediate proximity to his passion and as it were on the eve not even on the eve of?

Departure yes his departure. Why was that left out and of depriving them of his bodily presence?

While continuing his spiritual presence to all his disciples to the very end of the world Exhorted them to endure the persecutions of the wicked whom he distinguished by the name of the world

Now Augustine goes on to speak about how the spirit will be sent the comfort of the pair now at this point we would if we were dealing with someone who is at all serious and Let me take that back

William is very very serious, but he just doesn't get it I Mean he he really

I do not question William's sincerity here. He really really does think That if and I just quoted in in channel

I actually popped up the pop -up because what I did is I have these files these text files and Years and years and years ago probably sometime 98 99

Somewhere in that area yeah right around there. I learned how to do something in the

IRC chat channel which is the utilization of Text files now you have to format the text files in a certain way and You know there's a certain syntax you have to use and and blah blah blah

And I still don't have all of it down perfectly But anyways the client that I use called Merck MIRC has the ability to allow you to do this kind of thing

So what I did was I took some of these citations And I put them as what are called pop -ups and so like right now

I'm I've got the channel up here, and so I I click in the channel and Here's what

I've got about quotes MIDI selections vital passages patristics scripture patristics duty of Christ Matthew 16 quotes theology

LDS quotes Roman materials and additional and Under the

Roman materials I have Augustan mass 1 Augustan mass 2 Augustan mass 3. Here's Augustan mass 1 so I'm gonna click

Augustan mass 1 and Now in channel is Appearing slowly thankfully in other words in respect of his divine presence in the flesh

It was rightly said the disciples Me will not have always in this respect the church enjoyed his presence only for a few days now

Possesses him by faith without seeing him with the eyes. He left the world by a bodily withdrawal He preceded the father by his ascension man, but he forsook not the world in the ruling activity of his presence

Lord Jesus And the discourse which he addressed to his disciples after the supper supper Went himself in immediate proximity to his passion and as it were on the even and that's what

I have even of depriving them of his bodily presence while continuing his spiritual presence to all his disciples till the very end of the world and Then I've got the references at the end of that from track

John track takes 1592 102 and 118 now That just appeared in channel at a certain delay

So it doesn't get you kicked out if you just dump a bunch of text in the channel that the the channel control Systems will kick you out

So there's a little bit of delay at each line and people can read it and and so on and so forth so what

I did is I just cut and pasted that out of the channel and I was putting some quotes into The video just threw it in there now let's say it's

Eve of his departure and It's not even

What would logically and rationally out here in the real world where things are supposed to have some meaning, you know

What would William have to demonstrate? I? mean, I'm gonna look at those tractates and if there's a problem in my text file if Sometimes a control character will get in the way.

It'll cut off the end of the lines like that But I'll take a look at that But let's let's just ask a question if you're going to accuse someone of Misquoting misusing abusing taking out of context

What is required of you rationally and logically at this particular point?

Which of course William doesn't do this. He goes on to do other things, but what would be required here the

Demonstration that the change has Anything whatsoever to do with the actual argument

I was presenting Now, why wouldn't William bother to do this because as we have documented for William There is no need to be concerned about what the early church fathers wrote or taught in Context because the context is what

William believes how William interprets modern Rome is the context the early church They all believe like he believed every single one of them remember remember him staying there against the wall smack in his hand and they

All believe they're Catholics like me and they believe in the real presence of the papacy and Mary and you know

You're you're worried. He's gonna rush the camera and attack you you know got some real anger issues going there and That's his context.

And so even having the difference between on the eve or the even Was that relevant to anything that I said was that relevant to Augustine's doctrine of the depriving of the church of his bodily presence now he's gonna go on and talk about an amazing section elsewhere in in Augustine's writings where he

Tries and it's it's I would really invite folks to look it up. In fact

I'll even help you to do it. If you go to your little Google search thing there and put quote carried in his own hands and quote

This will pull up st. Augustine on the Psalms and it's his discourse first discourse in Psalm 33 and it's a

Google book Google book search Go look it up for yourself Augustine talks about Jesus carrying himself in his hands and of course for for William Since William has no concept of historical interpretation

But only anachronistic interpretation take Rome's modern doctrines read them back into the early church

For William, that's that's all the evidence you need. That's that's just a slam -dunk and Therefore the old church believe

Williams believe William believes and vice versa And it will always be that way and and there's no reasoning because there's no reasoning going on there to engage with But read the section yourself

What Augustine's trying to do is to draw some amazing parallel between David's acting insane

Outside the Philistine capital For example, he even goes so far as to and I'm not making this up very same section he says that that that David drummed on the city gate and We know that a drum is made by stretching skin across wood and Therefore that's a picture of the crucifixion

Jesus being stretched on wood. I ain't making this up read it for yourself

Now if that's the kind of allegorical metaphorical Stuff that you want to depend upon To make a point.

Hey go for it. Enjoy it There is not a theological concept known to man that you cannot find some way of defending once you start engaging in that kind of Okay, go for it.

Cool. Does that explain? These sections where Augustine actually takes the time to rather than just trying to find things in Old Testament Interpretation is actually teaching

That the bodily presence of Christ has been removed from the church stuff like that. Is that relevant to that?

Well, you know again If we're gonna sit around wait for William Albrecht to present to us a consistent theology of Augustine that's not gonna be happening anytime soon and So I I don't don't expect that to happen.

But this is the kind of stuff that you that you find out there and I At times

It can be somewhat frustrating to have to even take the time to look this kind of stuff up Sometimes though gotta admit.

Sometimes you'll you'll you'll stumble across some real jewels that you wouldn't have otherwise found so, you know,

I try to keep a positive attitude about it, but It is amazing the massive chasm that exists between Roman Catholic scholarship and the

Roman Catholic apologists and the most the most Talkative apologists are are a long ways away from where their scholarship is right now because let's face it.

I mean Rome has Ever since Vatican to has a very broad liberal streak in it and it seems to be getting broader and broader and broader and broader as as time goes by and I again

Got into all this trouble for daring to discuss all the reports in the media about Martin Luther and the

Pope You know, I can't do that. I can't I don't get to talk about things like that But I just remind you it wasn't that long ago.

I was debating a fellow in Salt Lake City who kept repeatedly referring to St. Martin Luther and saying that Martin Luther was right

And the Catholic Church has admitted it and blah blah blah blah and he was an RCIA instructor He had more standing a lot of folks that I've ended up debating on those various issues in the

Roman Catholic Church. So anyways, remember Next dividing line will be April 1st

Tuesday April 1st two weeks from today You've got lots of stuff going on between now and then watch the blog for that.

Thanks for listening. God bless The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries

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