The Dividing Line August 28, 2008

Opening Announcements and Upcoming Debates

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 omega ministries and an elder 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 at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free.

Across the united states it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic.

Here is james white. And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line. Special time today starting half an hour early uh to do penance uh for wrapping things up too early on tuesday. We won't go into any discussion of whether penances appropriate terminology there.

We had lots of other things we wanted to play on the program and of course the phone lines are open at 877 -753 -3341 as well. And so let's get right to it. Oh first first. First uh please note on at aomin .org uh there is uh some new things in our banner ads at the top.

Please notice them. Micah works very hard on these things and does a tremendous job. We have the truth war uh the conference coming up in november and the reason that we are advertising that even though i'm just one of the speakers there is that we need your help to help it to happen and especially need your help to make sure that the debate with zulfikar shah takes place the day before.

So the more folks they have signed up to be there a number of us will be speaking. Phil johnson. I will both be there. And so it's always good when i and the original pyromaniac get together. And so those of you in the east coast area might want to be jumping online there and letting them know of your interest and that you're going to be a part of those attending.

Then you'll also notice we now have some of the information up and i thought i would have the rest of the information at this point in time but i didn't get it. Hope to have it have gotten it before now but it didn't come through but at least we have the first portion of the information on the southern california muslim debates posted.

And that is the saturday information. Oh i really am glad i don't have mcafee anymore on my mac because it's on stuff like this. And the sad thing is if i tell it not to do this first of all it's wants it wants to update something i don't even use and i can't turn the stupid thing off.

But if i tell it to go away an hour from now and this is gonna be a long program it's gonna do that again right in the middle of something. So um maybe i'll go remind me later and like put in uh you know uh forever.

Two days. How's that. Two days. Yeah as if that's gonna work anyway. Uh yeah yeah yeah. Anyway mcafee is another whole nother story. Um the information we have up on the banner right now is for the saturday debates.

There's three debates. Was jesus christ crucified or substituted. Can we trust new testament. Those are two i'm doing against osama abdullah and then david wood in the afternoon is going to be doing uh another debate.

So there's gonna be three debates on that saturday. And then lord willing as early as this evening or close to this time we will be adding the information on the san diego county debates. Um lord will.

And that hasn't. There hasn't been a problem there. They were just waiting for some things to get cleared up before releasing information. And for my friends down at westminster seminary in escondido uh we could probably use a whole group of guys that would be available to help out that afternoon as far as volunteers for that particular debate that will be taking place at that time.

So a lot of stuff going on. And the banner ads are much prettier than the calendar page that i updated. I don't know four or five six times over the course of seven or eight years. Remember the calendar page.

Uh the history. You don't. You don't remember the calendar page been too long since it was last updated. It was normally more of a look what you're doing about a year and a half ago page so but uh not not any longer.

So uh we we now have. Hey look what you missed. Yeah look what you which look what you could have done a year ago. Uh just look at our calendar page but make sure that you uh look at those banner ads.

Tim Staples on Prayer to Mary and Marian Dogmas

Uh just for no other reason than micah spends a lot of time uh putting those things together. But uh actually they tell you a lot about what is going on. So make sure to take a look at them. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four.

One is the phone number. Let's get to the clips that we had lined up on tuesday and we've had actually added one. Once again uh it is you know if if james swan was a roman catholic i would say that he was earning time out of purgatory by listening to all the roman catholic programming he does.

And then sends me these clips to play. And uh that's that's very kind of him. I deeply appreciate it uh because i'm already listening to all sorts of stuff. I'm i'm listening to uh to bart ehrman and to muslims and stuff like that.

I just don't have as much time to listen to our roman catholic friends anymore uh so it's good that uh that this information is here so let's uh let's start off the tim staples clip. Uh tim staples is always fun fun to listen to.

And this is in regards to prayer to mary. Let's see what tim staples has to say in the meantime. We do.

Have plenty more questions and this apparently is what god wants us to do right now. There you go tim staples answering your questions and we're going to get the next one. Is it from carrie. Is that right.

Carrie who is with us here at the huffines home in dallas. Carrie says tim do all catholics pray to mary and believe that she is sinless. If so why. Where in the bible is this found.

I just thought just for a moment i could not help but thinking and by the way i'm listening to this for the first time as well so this is gonna be like a fresh interaction on my part. I couldn't help but thinking about.

Um uh frank beckwith. Frank beckwith. And that call that he got while he was on catholic answers. Have you prayed to mary yet. Well no. And you can just hear the disappointment that lady's voice. Like what you haven't prayed to mary.

Uh how can that be. Uh.

You're not really a catholic yet if you haven't prayed to mary. And then there is a second why. References of scripture here. Romans 3 23. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god. What's what's the deal with that number one.

Yes all catholics pray to mary. Or they should. If they don't tell them to give me a call because we've got a problem in their spirituality. The catechism of catholic church tells us that devotion to mary is not optional.

It's intrinsic to christian worship. I mean that would be like saying you know we as catholics you know. That would be like asking do all christians honor their mother and father. Well yes. Why. It's one of the big 10.

Right. God's top 10. We call it the 10 commandments. It's not optional to honor your mother and father if you feel like it. Well mary is our mother. She was given to us by jesus in that.

Most sacred moment on the very cross. If you really want a good illustration of just how utterly disconnected modern roman catholicism is from the early church here you've got it because this was not what marked those early centuries of the christian faith and it was clearly something that developed over time.

And so now if yes you must do this uh isn't that a real illustration of what we've been saying all along uh that modern roman catholicism despite all its repeated claims to being the continuation of the ancient church uh is nothing more than what happens uh when sola scriptura is denied the the walls fall down.

You wander off into all sorts of odd speculations and certainly as regards the marion dogmas uh here you have a real illustration.

Of where he says to john who's by the way his mother was right there with him or was nearby. He says a woman to his mother behold your son son behold your mother. Of course there john is in the.

An interpretation of that text that only comes along much later and is not the early or patristic.

Interpretation of that text of all of us and by the way john himself ought to know the implications of that text because it's the same john the apostle who wrote the book of revelation. And he tells us in revelation 12 that uh the woman clothed with the son who gives birth to the messiah with.

Pain and birth pain is a part of the curse and mary wasn't cursed and so maybe that's why the church didn't interpret revelation 12 the way that modern rome does in verses four five and six.

Also gives birth to all of us. In verse 17 the woman is the mother of all those who keep the commandments of god and have the testimony of jesus christ. She's our mother so of course we.

Honor her now. I would love to debate tim staples on the subject of mary. You know just put it out here right now. You know tim. Let's do it. Let's. Uh it's been a long time since i debated the subject of mary and you've been cranking out stuff and you're just so confident this stuff.

I really think there needs to be some some debates on these things. Because uh you're saying that anybody who's you know right with the church right with the one true church should be uh praying to mary.

And i say that's blasphemy. I say that's idolatry. I say mary has never heard a single prayer ever sent to her. Uh because that would be a violation not only of biblical teaching concerning contact with the dead but most importantly mary is at rest.

And i am so thankful that mary is not in heaven hearing all about all the trials and sins and sufferings of humankind. She would be so devastated if she had any idea that there were so many people seeking her intercession rather than going directly to jesus christ.

Her heart would be crushed. I am certain that god has kept her from that knowledge because it would be certainly is the the greatest degradation of the true biblical mary to have abused her in the way that modern rome catholicism does.

It is a gross injustice as far as her her.

Sinlessness and by the way praying to also is essential for us to understand because we as christians the the bible makes very clear need each other. And i think all christians should agree. First. Corinthians 12 verses 12 through 26 tells us that we are a body.

Can the eye say to the hand i have no need of you. Can any member of the body say to another i have no need of you. The answer is no. We need each other as members of the body of christ. What do you think we would need our mother in heaven.

You better believe it if i need you. If i need jerry usher how much more do i need. Our blessed mother in heaven who is depicted in revelation 12. Is this glorious woman clothed with the son who gives birth to all of us but real quickly on the sinlessness issue.

And we can only touch on this. Of course you know i'll never forget jerry. It was it was a a sergeant in the marine corps matt doula who said to me 22 years ago when i said that very thing to him all have sinned.

And i'll add another one. First john chapter 1 verse 8 says if any man says he has no sin he is a liar. And the truth is not in him. So how in the world can you say mary has no sin. And my buddy responded to me jerry he said well you're the first christian i've ever heard.

Who believes jesus christ was a sinner. It's truly an amazing thing. Uh the facile argumentation that rome continues to utilize uh ignoring the the direct statements of scripture as to the sinlessness of jesus christ is absolutely unique nature.

And to say well if there is one exception then mary must be another. Um the problem is you have mary speaking about god as her savior. Now i know exactly how roman catholics get around that i i can present the the whole idea of you know if you're walking along a path and you're about to fall into a muddy pit and i reach out and save you from falling into the muddy pit then i'm your savior from falling into the muddy pit and you never actually got muddied.

And that must be what happened with mary. Well that's very nice. But where do the inspired writers actually teach that. And of course they do not. Um the idea that that's what mary had in mind when she rejoiced and got her savior is absolutely positively absurd on its face.

Which is why most of these folks don't want to debate these issues. Because if you really do have time to dig in them. In fact on the blog right now and if you're listening by archive you can go uh when was that late august.

Look at late august of 2008 on the blog right now i linked to a article that james swan put up where he he gave one of the early arguments uh in regards to the when you just start reading these things instead of reading you know the modern presentations these things that you know on down the road's place read the early representatives of these things.

The arguments are ridiculous. They are without merit. You know remember when we reviewed the patrick madrid thing we're gonna need to take a break at the half hour so i can i forgot to cue up a patrick madrid clip i want to play too.

And i can't do that at the same time that i've got this running. But um hopefully i have it in the sound in my sound file. Subdirector. I think i do uh because patrick's going around patrick has won every debate against me i've i am zero for for two according to patrick madrid uh he is victorious in all things.

Which i think if that's the case why aren't we doing more debates if if i'm so easy to beat it beat up on i would think that uh he'd want to debate the papacy and the marion dogmas and all these other things because from his perspective i've never even come close uh to even competing with the guy.

But remember when we looked at uh the the marion or the uh arguments in regards to veneration of saints and angels i point out look at what nicaea to the second nicing council not the first the second nicing council which spoke of veneration of saints and angels and so on.

So look at the argumentation they used. It is absurd. It is ridiculous. It's so bad that even modern rome has had to develop the idea that the the path that you take to get to the final conclusions is irrelevant.

The church's authority is such that the the data and the argument can all be bad but the result's still infallible. And when you really start digging into that a lot of people go you know that doesn't sound overly trustworthy now it it probably isn't uh and that's what.

You've got to go on here too. And i looked at him like huh i didn't say jesus. Yes you did. If you say if any man was jesus christ man you better believe it. He was more man than anybody in this room or anybody listening to me.

Well then you've just declared jesus to be a sinner. Well of course not. He's not a sinner. How do we know that will. Hebrews 4 15 tells us he was tempted on all points even as we are and yet he was without sin.

He was an exception. But i had to acknowledge.

There was at least one exception. Yep there's one exception. Uh the god man and i guess in many ways. Uh you know i've defended rome in the past from people who said that. Uh rome is in essence uh making a quadernity.

But functionally. So you officially say oh no no no no no. But functionally. Especially with this fifth mary and dogma stuff where you have mary's co-redemptrix and co-mediatrix and all these other things.

Functionally are you not making her deity. I mean you're attributing all these actions that are that they're only paralleled in jesus christ. And that's why it's idolatrous. That's why it has to be identified for what it is.

I know the modern way of doing things as well. You know we just we just need to appreciate what other people believe. And la la la la. Well you know it all goes back to the idea that you know only in religion.

Is there really no truth. We don't appreciate quacks when they practice silly medicine that can kill people. Well this.

Is silly theology that can kill the soul. Well guess what. What if what if my friend said me. What if i could show you. There are millions of exceptions to to those verses. And my brain started spinning.

What in the world is he. Well if you look at romans 3 23 and first john chapter one you'll find both of those refer to personal sin not original sin. How do you know that. Look at first john 1 8. And then look at verse 9.

It says. Everybody sins. But if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. What does that tell you. He's not talking about original sin. Because you don't confess original sin.

He's talking about personal sin. Same thing in romans 3 23. In verse 10 he just said there's an unrighteous no not one. All go astray the poison of asps is on their lips and so forth. He's talking about personal sin.

Well guess what. There are millions of exceptions to romans 3 23 and first john 1 9 or 1 8 namely babies in the womb who according to romans chapter 9 verse 5 have not done any good or any evil.

Uh wow what. The the lengths to which one will go. Um the term original sin is not a biblical phrase to begin with uh that's a later theological description of what's being described in the uh the the fact that mankind as a whole is together from god's perspective uh and under the condemnation of sin itself.

And so the idea of confessing original sin. And so what you're doing here is the only sins we confess the sins we've committed. And so if you're confessing those sins well that's not original sin. And so there's all these exceptions to original sin.

So mary can be one of millions of exceptions to original sin uh or to personal sin uh because you know babies haven't committed actual sin. The sense of uh you know they're still in the womb they haven't done anything good or bad and blah blah blah fascinating has nothing to do with anything the bible is talking about.

I mean this is this is the kind of argumentations used to prove space aliens and all sorts of other stuff like that. You're taking an external subject external authority. You're forcing into scripture and creating categories to create room for this all on the authority of your external your external uh leaders.

So the mormons do it and the jehovah's witnesses do it. And the roman catholics do it. And yes i know you get offended when you put it all together. But you need to recognize that the idea of the infallible scriptures plus an infallible external authority is not unique to romanism mormonism the watchtower all those groups all do the same thing.

And as eric's fenson has pointed out the fair analysis would be how unified are the groups that say bible plus infallible authority versus those that say bible alone. And when you put it in that category there is no unity.

They can't even the groups that have bible plus infallible authority can't even come up with a common god let alone anything else. And yet that's not the category. That's not the way that these individuals want to view it.

Uh they want to view it uh in a considerably uh different way so that to cast a better light upon roman catholicism alone. The.

The Immaculate Conception, Original Sin, and Roman Catholic Authority

Severely retarded who don't have the use of their intellect and wills they have not and in fact cannot send. Well mary is another exception and uniquely. So why she is revealed to us in scripture in luke chapter 1 verse 28 8.

In fact she's named by the angel full of grace. Folks folks folks i'm.

Going to expand on a simple uh greeting here i'm going to read into a word so much stuff now. I'm not going to deal with the other uses this word and how this would destroy my argumentation because that's why this is a monologue not a dialogue.

But folks folks an angelic greeting is big enough to create an entire spectrum of mary and dogma. That's uh that's what we're about to hear in a nutshell. That means she has no sin. She is kakaratame means she has no sin.

I'm sorry that again. Utterly indefensible utterly indefensible. There's no way this man could stand in front of an audience and defend this against a meaningful opponent that would demand he go into the language and prove it because that would mean we are too.

And he knows that he knows that if those standards were to be applied and he were to be putting himself in that place he his position would.

Collapse like the house of cards that it actually is full of grace. Kakaratame in greek. Now you and i how many here can say you're full of grace. Well folks you and i sin because we're not full of grace.

It's not because of grace we sense because of a lack of grace or a lack of cooperation. Mary.

Is named full of grace in luke 128. Named. So if you're greeted that's your name. Wow. Again. As long as it has to do with mary roman catholic scholarship would never apply these standards to any other context.

This wouldn't do it. But when it comes to mary all all bets are off. You can do whatever you want to do say whatever you want to say extend analogies read into words it doesn't matter. Solo scripture has been denied and so have at it just run with it.

As far as you can take mary is.

Also called or referred to as the ark of the covenant in luke chapter 1 verse 43 referencing.

Second samuel chapter 6 verse 9. Mary here we go again. All they do is they quote each other. They just go each other. Uh just recently uh on a i think it was in one of the youtube videos um or in a blog article i forget which one what it was i i posted uh my response to jerry matatix on this very ark of the covenant stuff.

And again you can just shred this stuff. You can tear it apart. All you gotta do is go into the text and say oh you. You say that this is actually the term that was used in this kind of liturgical dance.

Well actually it's not. Here's the reference. Here's. Here's the term. Here's the greek section. Show me where i'm wrong. Do these people go back and check themselves. No someone came up with this stuff threw it out there.

And then they start repeating each other. They just quote each other over and over and over and over again. And they don't check these things out. And they don't care if they've been refuted because they know that their audience probably isn't going to be aware of that.

And it's it's amazing to me. I mean if i had done what jerry matatix did years ago and produced that tape on mary. And then in a debate i had challenged all those things. One of the first things i'd be doing would be producing some documentation to rehabilitate my argumentation.

They don't do that. They just simply don't care what is being said uh by people like myself they don't care. They don't care if they've been refuted. They don't care if their facts are contested. They're just going to keep repeating them over and over again.

And their hope is that people won't be aware of the fact that they're.

Basically being misled he is also referred to as the new eve. She's alluded to by her very son as the new eve when he calls her woman in john 2 5 and from the cross woman behold your son woman what have i to do with the my hour has not yet come in revelation or in john 2 5 and in revelation chapter 12 she's called woman eight times.

She is the prophetic fulfillment of genesis 3 15 the woman who along with her seed the messiah would crush the head of lucifer and bring salvation to us all.

Folks folks folks folks don't don't follow don't follow my hermeneutics here folks. Don't hold me to any kind of meaningful biblical interpretation here folks. Because once you come to mary we don't use any of that.

We just get to get to connect anything together that we jolly well want to put together. And we can you know if you're full of grace and you're sinless and and uh if if you're called woman and that's that's that's the woman from genesis 3 15.

And so every woman is well no you see it's only about mary. We we're not going to use this typology for anybody else. We're only gonna use it for mary. So what's the consistent standard. Well there isn't a consistent standard.

We are the church. We get to do what we jolly well want to do.

That is rome for you this is just a sketch because i we got to get the other callers but this is just a sketch. Folks there is much much more that demonstrates mary's without sin. But when you understand mary is the woman the prophetic woman of genesis 3 15 you know she could not have original sin.

And she could not have sin. Biblically speaking why. Because to say mary the fulfillment the new eve were to have sin let's say original sin you would make her inferior to the first eve which is unthinkable in biblical theology.

Hebrews chapter 10 verse 1 tells us old testament types the temple the priesthood the ark of the covenant are mere shadows in relation to their fulfillments.

In the new testament their fulfillments in what in christ in the new testament in christ. And once again we see rome paralleling jesus and mary just as i documented in mary and other redeemer many years ago.

You can put together an entire listing of all the places where rome parallels the unique offices and functions and powers of christ in mary and it is unbiblical. It involves a complete rejection of any meaningful form of exegesis of text of scripture and it is simply.

Idolatrous well eve was created without sin. To say mary would have you know been conceived in sin would be like saying jesus was inferior to adam. Now would any christian say that. No of course not. The new adam is superior to the old adam and that's because he's the incarnate.

Son of god mr staples. And mary was not the incarnation of anything despite the fact that your papacy uh has spoken highly of men who have written books that have referred to her as the incarnation of the holy spirit.

More gross utter blasphemy due to the fact that romanism denies solo scripture. Unbelievable stuff to listen to. But we're going to take a break and continue on with. There's a few more minutes of this and i'm going to see if i can track down that patrick.

Madrid clip. While we're at it during the break we'll be right back and welcome back to the.

Dividing line on a thursday afternoon if you're just now tuning in we start half an hour early. I did mention that on the blog. We are doing penance for uh wrapping up too early on a tuesday due to a physical weakness.

And i suppose we should also keep in mind we need to be praying for our brothers and sisters uh wherever gustav is going. Um we have a number of folks down in the nolan's area uh who are getting ready to board up and head out once again.

And of course my i i asked a question of one of our nolan's people i said wouldn't it be better to live someplace that's actually maybe above sea level. And he said nope. I said okay there you go. You know um these things happen each each summer uh they they come this direction.

And that very same person uh you know this one's right on cue too. Yeah i know this is right around the time. Exact same week two years ago. Yep i know i know. And uh two years ago three or four years ago i think i don't know i didn't live down there but when we're where we it was the debate with crossing.

Wasn't it because we were in alaska. No we were in alaska. Yeah they're in alaska dude. Yeah i was crossing this 2005 73 years ago. Yeah anyway uh that's the very same fellow who took me around uh new orleans uh years before that and said you know someday a category four or five is gonna nail us and flood this place out.

And uh then again then again he really wasn't uh prophesying much there. So uh yeah see even people in channel don't know one saying 2004 one saying 2005 whatever uh that's the way the way it is. But um okay coming back to what we're uh doing here uh let's hope and pray that gustav lands someplace where uh i could do a whole lot of damage to anybody.

But uh anyway going back to i did find the other clip i want to play so we'll be able to do that. Let's go back to tim staples here as he wraps up all this stuff.

About so the necessity and propriety of prayer to mary new eve is superior to the old. I wish we could do more but i'm using it well and you know we do that. We will get on to some other ones just and we can't get into this right now.

But obviously tim this is in in in light of the merits of jesus christ not something mary uh you know does on her own as some sort of deity or what have you. She relies on jesus as scripture says to be her savior as well.

Absolutely. And see we understand because of her unique calling. And remember you know romans chapter 12 verse 5 you know talks about how we are members of christ and members one of another of another.

And each member of the body of christ have different gifts and with different gifts come to different graces. Mary was given a unique grace. But we say in catholic theology that the final cause of mary's sinlessness was her calling to be the mother of god.

It was because of god's grace and choosing her to be the mother of god to bear god in her womb to be that ark of the covenant that he preserved her by the grace of our lord and savior jesus christ in a prevenient sense by this unique privilege of grace.

But she was prepared to be the tabernacle of god the ark of the covenant that would bear god in her very.

Womb can you see why rome cannot allow scripture to be scripture. Isn't it really obvious here. I mean can just just think of the massive process you have to go through to try to make that kind of conclusion have anything to do with the biblical text itself or anything that the apostles were concerned about or anything.

Uh even semi-biblical. You can't find this kind of stuff in scripture. You don't find as part of the early proclamation of the church. It develops slowly over time. But you see why rome has to attack sola scriptura.

Because if this becomes the essence of of the of roman piety uh the leaps you have to go through to come to that kind of conclusion just on the basis of hail kakar to many you know. Or well you've got this woman in revelation 12 closed the sun and so on.

So forth. And the stars. And well yes he has birth pangs and yeah that's a part of the curse. But yeah we'll just ignore that. And yeah okay the early christians thought it was the church and not mary.

But we'll ignore that too. And you know we can just find this little thing here and that little words. We'll just throw types and shadows at it and create our entire our entire dogma. And that's what you do.

She was.

Preserved from she was saved but she was saved in a most sublime way. She was preserved free from all.

And again folks folks folks just think for a moment is that what mary meant when she uttered those words. You know what i bet some roman catholics would say it doesn't matter what mary meant it doesn't even matter what luke thought i'll bet you anything to be roman catholics who would say it doesn't matter what mary meant it doesn't matter what luke thought the scripture is under the authority of the church and the church has defined these things and that's all that matters.

I'll bet there are people who would actually state that and if they do that's the greatest evidence of the absolute falseness of roman catholicism i could ever think.

Salvation in scripture is not only about being saved from sins. You've committed jude verse 25 for example you know uh saint jude tells us now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and present you spotless at the coming of our lord and savior jesus christ.

That's a wonderful text for monarchism isn't it it most certainly is. Isn't it. Sad that's being applied here to some kind of preservation of mary rather than seeing the clear implications it has the entire false gospel of rome be glory.

And so so on and so forth. Right. God is able to preserve. That is a powerful way of god saving us is keeping us from sin. Well mary was saved most perfectly in order to be that precious ark of the covenant preserved free from all sin both original and personal.

So there's tim staples uh spinning his uh his mary and weave um i again uh would love the opportunity of debating those dogmas and not as fast as we had to do with jerry. I would love to see cross-examination now of course the question is would tim staples allow for cross-examination.

Uh remember the last debate we had with him he broke every rule there was in the book in cross-examination. Uh he ignored everything we had. And by the way you should be aware of this um we stood behind that stage and we agreed to how cross-examination was going to go before that debate started and he looked at me and he said yes.