February 23, 2006

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Around the world, from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded
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Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Well good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line on the 23rd of February, the first Dividing Line back from my tour of the
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United Kingdom. Got home, well actually it was this morning now that I think about it, it was after midnight at some point in time, thank you very much
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United Airlines baggage handlers. Anyway, you fly all the way from Heathrow and then you sit in the smallest area of Sky Harbor, the smallest of the three terminals, which means the plane's not that far away and the amazing thing was we had to go downstairs out of the plane.
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Now I got used to that, the United Kingdom version of Southwest is called
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EasyJet and EasyJet doesn't use gates, I guess they don't have to pay for them, I don't know.
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They do use stairs and they roll up the front and the back of the plane so you can get on and off faster, so that's their version of doing that.
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So I've done that a few times and it's like, well, okay, I can survive it, but we pulled in to Sky Harbor and they rolled up, they rolled the stairs up and everybody's like, what's going on?
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And it was 45 minutes. Anyways, got back from Heathrow, pretty uneventful experience, though whenever you, if you've done this, you've flown internationally, when you come back into the
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States, you have to go through customs and then you have to get your baggage and you have to carry it 10 yards and then recheck it in and go back through security.
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It's just, it's just so exciting and so utterly worthless, but anyway, that's what we do.
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That stuff there, all of it. The trip was great. I got a lot of reading done. In fact, I read a book even before, we barely, hardly even got to the
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Atlantic before I was finished with the book, but there's a book I'm going to be vlogging about a little bit later, actually written by one of my hosts, one of the pastors that I stayed with up in Glasgow.
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Some of you will appreciate the fact that Pastor Handyside, Jim Handyside, his name is, wonderful wife
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Chrissy, Chrissy went with Roger Brazier and I to the Wallace Monument in Stirling.
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For those of you who saw Braveheart, you know something about that, even though Braveheart was not exactly historically accurate, but it was fun and we parked at the bottom before we went to the
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Wallace Monument and Chrissy is 72 years old and Roger and I were having to work to keep up with her going up a very steep hill.
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She is just unstoppable. She's just, just great. Something else, if I live to be that age,
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I hope I'm in as good a shape as she is. But anyway, some of you will appreciate the fact that Pastor Jim Handyside, who always says it with a twinkle in his eye, it takes a little while, you know last time
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I was there I was sick and I really wasn't on the top of my game, I had pretty decent health this whole time around,
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I didn't get sickness or anything like that, my head and back problems were better than that. And Pastor Handyside is very, very much a
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Scotsman. And so in the evening service I had, I spoke at his church three nights in a row, we had really good turnouts, especially the first and the third night, the middle was, that's because it was
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Wednesday night and other churches had their meetings, so it was still quite good. And I had,
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I had used, yes, I had used my Scottish accent at one point in the night before. I think
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I was talking about the fact that I was wearing a tartan tie and stuff like that. And he says to me, he says,
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Brother James, I don't want to, to unnecessarily hurt you, he says, but I must say, brother, that your
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Scottish accent sounds more like a mixture between Pakistani and Italian. I can hear
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Rich in the other room. That was funny.
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It was good. But I must say, I, I, I must say, and I can do this because Pastor Handyside is in the
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United States right now. So I know that he's not going to be listening to this program. But he's, he's actually, he's here in the
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States for six weeks. And I, I really would like to be able to track down his schedule.
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I have his schedule, but it's not, it doesn't have the names of the churches on it. Which is, which is a bummer because I really think you would appreciate hearing a, an old
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Scottish preacher. And I don't mean old in the sense of the fact that he's 75, he doesn't look at all 75.
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And I was very surprised to find out that he was. But just to hear someone who is well known for his blunt proclamation of the truth, shall we say.
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And so he's traveling around in Florida, Georgia, the southern part, part of the
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States, as he does. I guess he's done this now for 35 years. Every single year it comes over here and does that.
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So anyway, he'll be over here. And what was
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I going to say about him? Now I've totally, now I've totally forgotten what it was I was going to say about Pastor Handyside at that point.
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But oh well, he's, he's the one who wrote the book that I'm going to be telling you a little bit about that I was reading on the way over.
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And it's a very good book. I hope it's, hope to be able to carry it and make it available and so on and so forth.
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We had a great time. We really, really did. I, I, I mentioned this in the blog, but I just want to take a moment because I know that Roger Brazier listens to the program.
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But Pastor Brazier from the Edmonton Baptist Chapel was with me all the way through this.
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He was, so we flew up together to Scotland on that EasyJet and we rented a car up there.
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We got an upgrade to a, a Mercedes C -Class, which was really nice, still got to be very small up there.
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If you've ever driven in Scotland, the United Kingdom, you know that if you, for example, want to park anywhere, you need a very small car, so it's not, not huge, but it was still a
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Mercedes. And so we had fun with it, including trying to figure out how to get the windows to work and how to get the cruise control to work.
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And we were just getting the car down. We had to turn it back in. It was, it was, it was too bad. But he and I drove all over Scotland, basically, and I was his navigator.
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I, I don't, didn't know Scotland. I know it now. I didn't know it then. But I was the navigator, of course, and we, we managed to always get where we were going on time, including a
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Minister's Returnal in Kirramere, and then up to, from Kirramere down to Dundee.
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We walked around downtown Dundee a little bit, because that's where my great -grandparents were born, were married in 1884, and then we went from there all the way up to Inverness, which is quite a drive up through the mountains.
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So we got to go all over the place and have a wonderful time. But we really, for me, it was, it was extremely encouraging to get to talk to everybody, to get to meet folks.
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I did three different fraternals, one at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, with, of course,
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Pastor Peter Masters, and the fine folks there, and then in Kirramere, and then, actually, then in Glasgow.
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So yeah, those are the three Minister's Fraternals. Got to meet the, the men of God there, and it was a real good thing to get to do that.
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But then also got to preach a number of times at Inverness, the Ministry of the Word up there, Nick Needham, a church historian, a scholar, and Jack Seton and his wife,
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Katrina, have all sorts of wonderful stories to tell. In fact, by the way, I had the opportunity of, of seeing some original
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Spurgeon writings. Peter Masters showed me some, and he also showed, also mentioned some of the little sheets of paper that, that Spurgeon would write when he would, you know, someone would come to him and he would send them to someone at the
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Metropolitan Tabernacle for some money. You know, people would come to him, were asking for help with something, something like that. And they displayed a tremendous humor on Spurgeon's part, and he himself,
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I guess, said, if you had any idea how much I was holding in. So I think
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I laughed more than I have in a long time, just meeting with all the brethren, with Pastor Seton and Nick Needham and Pastor Nick and Pastor Roger, and I were really struggling on the
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Lord's Day afternoon because a certain topic kept coming up, and it eventually just got so funny, we just couldn't, we couldn't help ourselves if anything even close to that topic came up, we'd just start laughing.
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It was just a great time together, it really was. And I mentioned on the blog that I'm going right back.
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I'm going to be going back the very beginning of July because I've been invited by Dr.
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Masters to give two presentations, two sessions of the School of Theology at the
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Metropolitan Tabernacle, which always takes place in July. Some of you may recall last year, pyromaniac
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Phil Johnson was in London when the bomb went off on July 7th. The bombs went off and he was there doing the same thing.
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He was speaking at the School of Theology at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. So that was very enjoyable to get to see, for example, that original painting of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, also in Dr.
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Masters' vestry. They call it a vestry. We call it office here, but a vestry was the painting of John Gill that is well known.
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And you may know the funny story along with it. He has this rather sour look on his face. And his grandson sort of circulated the story, at least that's what
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I was told, that the reason he had such a dour look on his face was that Dr.
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Gill had just spied an Armenian walking by his office. So he wasn't happy about that.
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So anyway, so that's going to be very, very exciting and I'm very much looking forward to it.
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It was interesting hearing some of the differences apologetically, some of the subjects that I was addressing, some of the differences that face us over here, over against, across the ocean there in the
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United Kingdom. Many things are the same, but we have a lot more freedom here. It is significantly more normal in the
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United States, especially within media for religion to be mentioned. Now, of course, you know, we're sitting here going, yeah, but it's always being bashed.
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The ACLU, ABC, all this type of stuff. Yes. But there's also positive references and that just doesn't happen over there.
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You're just not allowed to talk about that stuff in the media. It's just it's a secular, secular, secular, secular society.
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It really, really is. And that's one of the biggest things that they have to fight. It's one of the biggest things they have to have to deal with.
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And so I could go on and on and on about that, but I will not do so. I know that Justin, Pastor Roger Brazier's son, arranged that we would have a portable
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MP3 player that we took with us and we recorded a number of these presentations and they're being made available at the
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Edmonton Baptist Chapel. So you might want to look that up. And if you'd like to some of the topics, you know, some of them you've heard.
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Sola Scriptura, things like that. I did the Da Vinci Code and things like that. But I was also dealing with other issues as well.
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So especially new perspectivism, things like that. We had a number of interesting discussions, especially at the
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Minister's Fraternal at Karamere. There was an Anglican there who, of course, knew N .T.
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Wright. And it was very, very interesting. By the way, N .T. Wright is viewed considerably more, he's viewed to be much more conservative here in the
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United States than he is in England. Nobody over there, N .T. Wright, conservative? What? What are you people talking about?
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They just roll their eyes and laugh when it is said that N .T. Wright is in any way, shape or form conservative.
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They go, no, you folks don't understand. So it is interesting the differing ways in which he was viewed over there than he is over here.
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877 -753 -3341, before I go on with the discussion of the current issue on my blog, and that is the invitation that I have offered to Dr.
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Ergin Kainer of Liberty University to, in essence, discuss his own statements in regards to Reformed theology,
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I wanted to read something to you. And I would be interested in knowing what you think about it.
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It's a commentary. It's an editorial, I should say. And here's the editorial.
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The tagline for the new movie Brokeback Mountain, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, or is that Gyllenhaal?
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Anyways, is love is a force of nature. Unfortunately, it is never explained what kind of love they're referring to.
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I am robbed of space to explain the entire story here. However, because of all the buzz around the Venice Film Festival movie, most of us know the main idea.
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Two cowboys working for a summer in the mountains fall madly, quote, in love, end quote. The rest of the movie is spent spanning a 20 year time period in which the two merry women build families and rendezvous with each other under the guise of fishing trips.
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All the talk surrounding the film is mainly in regards to the fact that it is the most publicized homosexual movie to date.
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In light of political conflict dealing with the issue of homosexual marriage, a movie of this subject matter will hardly go unnoticed.
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Gay rights groups are absolutely ecstatic about the attention the film is getting. However, my biggest beef with this movie is not the homosexuality that it sells.
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No, I don't agree with it. But what I find especially disturbing about the film is that it does not deal with the pain that the two men's adultery causes to the families they chose to build.
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The film is labeled real love as a painful burden, but it is made quite clear that neither know the true meaning of the word love.
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Love is an action, a commitment. Love takes work, effort, patience and self -sacrifice. Nowhere in the movie, other than on the behalf of the wives, are any of those characteristics practiced.
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The two men engage in adultery, lie to their wives, are often violent and cruel to their families. How is it the men of such dishonest and uncaring characters are lauded, adored and can be made the heroes of a socially significant film?
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What is so socially significant? Is it not deathly clear that the lesson being taught is that being homosexual gives you super rights?
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As long as you're committing adultery with someone of the same sex, it's OK. It seems that the tagline of this movie should be edited.
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Lust is a force of nature would seem to be more fitting. Love does not compromise. Love does not fail.
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The version of love sold in this movie does both. It compromises their health, their jobs and well -being of the ones they're supposed to be the most interested in.
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The devastation of their own lives becomes apparent when their unhealthy attachment holds them both in a deep depression for the rest of their lives.
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Sorry to ruin the movie for you, but they aren't together in the end. Gay rights groups rallying for equal rights would unjustly be able to rally behind Brokeback Mountain.
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The movie does not sell equal rights. It sells super rights. Most groups of any sexual orientation would not encourage cruelty or adultery.
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But this movie promotes both while hiding under a pro homosexual banner. And no one seems to be speaking out against it.
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The zeal to promote the gay society is blinding society to what else this movie is selling. The idea of equal rights stops dead at this point.
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The boundary is crossed and the heterosexual group is put in its place, while most adulterous husbands in the majority of films are portrayed as the antagonist and not put upon a pedestal.
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The characters that Ledger and Gyllenhaal play are being given applause and marked as important cultural and social advocates.
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The hypocrisy is astounding. Well, yes, I saw someone in Channel that guessed what that was.
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That editorial was written by my daughter. Yes, indeed. My now 17 year old daughter,
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Summer, and it was published in the school newspaper in the school that she is in.
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And. It's it's stirred up a little bit of controversy, and she's already aware of the fact that there is going to be a letter written to the editor, which is like sort of her, and they are going to be taking issue with this and she's going to get to respond.
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I'm going to leave that one there because I'm there's something about apples falling off of trees and whatever there is.
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Yeah, I think I know where she got some of that, but I'm not going to let's not go there.
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Any. Yeah, a little bit of a little bit of a proud, proud papa there.
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Yeah. Someone just mentioned Channel and the school published it. Yeah. Especially since in this particular newspaper, there's a very strong oversight from the the leadership of school, from the faculty that it's it only the reason it got in.
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The reason that it got in was because the fact that it was so well written, that was that was really that was that was why.
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And so anyway, I'm very thankful for the
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Lord's mercies in that area and looking forward to other things that that will be written in the future.
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Yeah, I would wouldn't mind to get get her to write a few things for my blog once in a while. Could help your old man out.
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You type faster than I do, I think. Anyway, big issue on the blog today.
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And I would be interested in your commentaries at eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one, eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one.
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Oh, by the way, in regards to summer, one thing she mentioned, you know what? One group was was behind her all the way. The Mormons.
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Yeah. The Mormon students, because, you know, they're taught an outward, you know, an outward morality.
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And there you go. So they're there and they're in support of it. And that's that's that's how that works.
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So anyhow, that that I found very, very, very interesting. Big issue on the on the website today.
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Well, I don't know how big it is, to be perfectly honest with you, I obviously spent a fair amount of time.
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Over the course of the 21st, while I was at Roger's home, thankfully has a wireless and I was able to utilize it.
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Was engaging in the discussion, which I now posted this morning, if you haven't gone to the website and look the blog
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I posted on the website. The discussion has gone back and forth between myself and Dr.
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Ergen -Kainer. Now, let me give you a little background. I don't recall exactly how
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I first heard of Dr. Kainer. He and his brother are both converts from Islam.
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They're both Southern Baptist professors. They've written together or separately a number of books, especially on the subject of Islam, such as Unveiling Islam.
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And. While I found those books to be fairly basic and not not the best materials, they're not horrific or anything like that, but not not, you know, that's not frontline material as far as I'm concerned, as far as debating likes of a
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Shabir Ali. You know, I was like, OK, here's someone who's, you know, taking a stand and saying something that's important.
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Great. That's that's good. But then I began hearing his.
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Anti -reformed statements, and they very much are on the level of a of a, well, radio free
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Geneva type of thing. I have not found them to to really demonstrate any deep understanding of reformed theology in any way, shape or form.
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And so. I forget my recollection and I didn't go back to look at all of this, but my recollection is.
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That a young man contacted me, I'm assuming it's a young man, I know it's email, how are you supposed to know it could be 120,
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I suppose, but I assumed it was a younger man had contacted me and had.
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In essence, got me involved in he hadn't asked me to, but but he sent me some correspondence was going back and forth between himself and Ergen -Kainer on the possibility of a debate on the subject of Calvinism in light of Ergen -Kainer's comments on the subject that he makes fairly regularly, though I have yet.
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To find an MP3 online of Ergen -Kainer preaching against Calvinism, if anyone happens to know where I could obtain that so that I could interact with that,
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I would appreciate it. I haven't been able to find anything like that. Everything I've found so far related to Ergen -Kainer's name has been on the subject of Islam or political subjects.
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Hasn't not a whole lot of theology, but Islam and and political subjects is what I've been able to track down.
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So anyway, I had not found him to be overly interested in any type of meaningful conversation.
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He had made comments about Calvinism basically being heretical and a perversion of scripture.
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And every time I'd challenge that, I'd never get a response back. And he just stopped writing and poof, that was it. I know that the folks in Sedalia who have set up the debate that's taking place in April tried to get him to come to do that debate.
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He would not do that as well. And so he's been challenged a number of times to stand up and be counted on this particular issue.
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So while I was traveling in Scotland, I was sent some comments that he was making on the subject of Calvinism and someone, this was from the founders blog,
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Tom Askell's blog, and someone had said, I would love to see a debate between James White and Ergen -Kainer.
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Now, some people have pointed out that I happen to look a good bit like Dr. Kainer, looked more like him before I got back on the bike than I do now when
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I was more focusing upon weightlifting. So but still, let's just put it this way, they would have to be very careful with the overhead lights in any such debate for either one of us.
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OK, so anyway, there is a, you know,
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I don't know, I was just sent these comments and someone said, well, be great to see that.
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And all of a sudden there's a discussion of, well, why would I bother to debate him? And he's already been refuted by Geiser and Hunt and all the rest of this stuff.
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And so when I first started seeing this, I was actually at someone's home between services and Inverness and they had the
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Internet, but I didn't have, I couldn't get my laptop online. And so I'm sitting here, you know, with somebody else's system and all the rest of this, it was very difficult.
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Finally, I was able to get to where I could actually start corresponding with him and I went ahead and quoted what he said and I started writing to him.
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Now, you all have this. You can you can see the link on the on the blog. Of course, if you're listening to this later down the road, you might have to search for it, but it should come up fairly easily.
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You'll see the link on the blog and you'll see the conversation that took place. And I really, to me, what is useful in in reading the exchange that took place on the 21st, mainly the 21st, started on the 20th, 21st, finished up on the 22nd.
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Remember, there was a seven hour time difference between he and I. So that had something to do with with the speed with which it was able to take place.
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And the reason I posted it was I can sit here and I can say, you know.
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It's just amazing that those who oppose reformed theology, who ravage it, who call us hyper
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Calvinist, they they just don't seem to want to be corrected.
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They don't. Well, obviously, I don't believe they're wrong, first of all, but they don't want to have a dialogue. They do not want to they well, the only
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I can put this is they lack the courage of their convictions. They they want to have a monologue. They want to be able to yell and scream and do remember the fellow in the in St.
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Louis. He's not even at that church anymore. But I would never have a Calvinist or a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness in my pulpit, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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And. When you try your best to to patiently point out that even is as they are, as they are responding to you, even as they are trying to talk about your own work.
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They are simply incapable of being accurate and and showing any respect, let's put that way.
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I mean, it is disrespectful to comment about people when you haven't even bothered to read their material.
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I just I cannot even begin to understand the mindset that allows Dr. Caner to to say the things that he said in his letters to me when it is painfully clear.
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He's not read my book. He says he did. But if he has, why doesn't he cite a single thing? There's never a single citation, and I would
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I said it in the opening of the article, I said, I if I were you note the questions that I ask of Dr.
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Caner and note the questions he asked of me and see who responds. He called my exegesis laughable.
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And so I asked him specific questions. I asked him to deal with Tetugmenoi, the the periphrastic
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Aeson Tetugmenoi, Act 1348, periphrastic instruction there. Tell me what was laughable, what
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I said, my response to to Norman Geisler. Dave Hunt doesn't read enough Greek to know what in the world I said to him.
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So it's that and he calls him Dr. Hunt, by the way, obviously has no idea of what Dave Hunt's scholastic achievements have been.
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And I asked for for specifics. No, no response. I asked him. He said he's done 60 debates.
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That's more than I've done. I'd like to hear some of these. I'd like to hear especially his debates on Islam.
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I would I would be loading them on my MP3 player in a moment. But I go to his website.
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I can't find him. Something tells me he's counting every radio program, every
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TV program, not these aren't 60 moderated public debates. These are 60 encounters where someone disagreed with him.
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And that becomes a debate. That's my guess. But how am I supposed to know? Because I asked him where I could get these.
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No response. I asked about John 6. No response. I asked about what
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I I sent him page after page after page of my refutation of Geisler demonstrating errors in what pages.
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And, you know, I mean, just in depth, no response, no citations, no counter citations, no interaction, no scholarship, nothing.
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Just, you know, offering these responses that are that are vacuous and have absolutely positively no meaning to them.
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And you can you know, you can sense my frustration. I'm not like, you know, we just had a sinless we just had a sinlessly perfect man in channel recently.
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I I kicked him out. I'm not sure that he actually remained sinlessly perfect after that, but he was claiming to be sinlessly perfect.
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And I don't make that claim. And there are probably a couple of places where I started to get impatient, but I truly tried as best
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I could to remain focused upon what the issue was and to ask the question over and over again to keep pressing it.
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Dr. Kainor, if you're going to make these statements, can you back them up? Can you can you give me a citation? You say
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I was refuted. Give me an example. Just just just one something that I can I can dig into here.
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And nothing, nothing. Just repeat. Oh, they they're a few to do. Oh, they they they took your arguments apart.
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Well, given that Dave Hunt won't respond, he won't even show up on on radio with me at the same time.
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Norman Geisler has not responded to the refutation of his appendix, a demonstration of all of the unbelievable errors found there.
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How can anyone make this kind of claim? Oh, well, they did it. They did it. But, sir, could you back that up?
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I really believe that they did it. You're a hypercalvinist. You're a hypercalvinist. I bet you there's only one thing you focus upon.
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But, sir, could you could you back up what you're saying? You're a hypercalvinist. I can just tell, you know, and I'm go save some souls. But but, sir, could you back that up?
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Well, you're you're a hypercalvinist. I know you are. Yeah, there's no reason going on there.
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I you know, and his his own website promotes himself as this this great apologist basically.
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And, you know, the pit bull of the Evangelical Church. Well, the intellectual pit bull of the
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Evangelical Church. Well, if if you could put that on your own website, along with, you know, about three dozen glossy pictures of yourself, then there needs to be some substance there.
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You know how? I don't know. It's very frustrating. Very, very, very frustrating. And eventually said, well, we can we can do a written thing.
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And they talk about that to break. We're gonna take a break. And we've got one one one caller right now. And the phone lines are open for you.
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You might be a defender of Dr. Kainer. I'd like to hear from you. I'd like to hear from somebody who will interact.
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Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one. We'll be right back right after this. But your day is done.
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What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen but Free, a new cult, secularism, false prophecy scenarios?
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No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient and morally repugnant.
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In his book, The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but the body's freedom is much more than just a reply.
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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself in a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate.
31:59
James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme Calvinism, defines what the reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture.
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The Potter's Freedom, a defense of the Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the reformed theology section of our bookstore at AOMN .org.
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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.
32:33
The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the
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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning
32:45
Bible study begins at 930 a .m. and the worship service is at 1045. Evening services are at 630 p .m.
32:53
on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805
33:00
North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE.
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If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at PRBC .org,
33:15
where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.
33:22
Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.
33:28
Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.
33:34
In their book, The Same Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the
33:40
Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including
33:47
Genesis, Leviticus and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.
33:58
In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.
34:07
The Same Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at AOMIN .org.
34:16
Back to the dividing line, we are back after our
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United Kingdom trip and getting focused on the future, one of those things in the future.
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And there are a lot of things in the future. By the way, by the way, two things.
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I need to get this up on the blog, especially if any of you are planning travel plans. But the date of the
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Shabir Ali debate has been moved back by 24 hours. And I know that puts it on a
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Sunday and I didn't want a Sunday. But that was going farther than that weekend and you're starting to lose people because of the finals at the school.
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And we want it for May 6th, Saturday night. The facility was already booked for a evening at the
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Pops musical thing. And obviously, Sunday for a
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Muslim works out fairly well. I realize what that means is the churches that would have been there to support me aren't going to be able to be there.
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But there's nothing I can do about it. I would rather have the debate take place and hopefully be foundational for future debates than to just say, well, we're going to have to just not do it and forget about it and things like that.
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And so it's going to be on May 7th instead of May 6th. And I will get that up on the blog.
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And that may mean the majority of you can't make it, but it'll still be videotaped.
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And I would still appreciate your prayers for that encounter on the subject of the inspiration of the text of the
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New Testament. Secondly, as is my duty and my joy, someone when
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I was traveling, I think it was in in Scotland or something, looked on the website and made comment about the fact that I was going to be debating
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John Shelby Spong at Disney World. And he said, I found something just very ironic about that.
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And he made some comment about a large rodent attending the debate. And so the humor was not lost, even upon our friends from across the pond, who
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I think some of them, if they could find their way to Orlando from Heathrow or something like that, would be more than happy to do so because they were quite happy about the fact that that subject was to be debated.
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Once again, an issue that would not, in essence, be debated in the UK. And in light of of a debate,
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I'm sorry, a law that they managed to have. Rejected, but you know how this works, it just keeps coming back, keeps coming back, keeps coming back.
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But there was a law that had been proposed in the legislative process of the parliament in the parliamentary procedure there in the
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United Kingdom that would have, in essence, created a hate crime statute in regards to inciting religious hatred.
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And you know how that could be used against proclamation of the gospel. And at the very least, even though the law didn't go through this time, it certainly causes people to to question whether they can, in fact, make statements that someone could consider to be especially a
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Muslim, because don't ask me why, despite the fact of what's going on today, despite the fact of the violence that we see associated with Islam, that's the great protected minority.
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You can't offend Muslims. Look what happened with the cartoon issue and the fact that I mean, the
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Muslims even had to start making up cartoons that were extremely offensive to to keep this thing going.
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It was clearly, clearly, clearly orchestrated to gain them political power. It was just unbelievable.
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Well, anyway, that kind of encounter, like we're going to be having on homosexuality, it's not going to happen in the
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UK. If they if they want to see a biblically based encounter on the subject of homosexuality, remember what happened last time?
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When when I debated Barry Lynn on this subject. Remember, we had to go through a legal process to make it available to people.
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This kind of thing is not. A normal everyday thing.
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And I know we're going to be videotaping it and you can you can watch the DVD and things like that. But, you know,
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DVDs are wonderful and they're great when people can't get there. But there's also something very, very special about being there and being a part of it yourself.
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And so just a reminder to everyone that every year
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I get people saying, hey. You know, two weeks out, oh, oh,
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I didn't know about this. Oh, oh, can I go? Oh, oh, I can't get off to work now. Oh, oh.
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And it's like we've we've been talking about this since last year. And it's, you know, right there.
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And people procrastinate. They put it off and they don't do what they need to do. And you know what?
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It doesn't get cheaper the closer you get. That's just all there is to it. So do the right thing if you're if you recognize, wow, this is an opportunity, tremendous opportunity to speak to the abiding application, the abiding power of the word of God to speak today.
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I mean, let's let let let me back this up and put this way. You all know what's going to happen in the
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Academy Awards, right? You know who's going to win. And so this is going to put everything right back on the front burners again.
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And I get Bishop Spong's weekly little commentary that he writes. And he's constantly harping on this issue, constantly harping about how the church has to change, constantly harping how the
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Bible doesn't teach these things. And where are what are we supposed to be doing?
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How are we supposed to give response? That's what's going to be taking place in November. All the information is on the website. The cruise that goes afterwards is going to be, you know, pulpit crimes.
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Boy, you just turn on the television. I Rick Walston at Columbia Evangelical Seminary just sent me a scan of an article in Christianity Today about a church that just closed.
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They just foreclosed on this huge property because the pastor back about 2001, 2000, somewhere around there, all of a sudden became a universalist and he would not back down.
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And despite all the condemnations of other people, he wouldn't back down. The vast majority of people left the church. It was just foreclosed and it's gone.
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And as soon as I saw the picture, I remember seeing him on TBN. He was big. That kind of thing.
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What was the foundation of that? Where did that come from? It came from the fact that we put up with pulpit crimes.
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We put up with the abuse, not only of the word of God, but the ministry of the word of God.
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And that is going to be the subject of the conference and the cruise that comes afterwards. Lord Willen book going to be coming out by that name at that very same time available at that time for the first time there at the conference and the cruise.
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So don't don't let that pass. Don't let that pass. Oh, my goodness. Have I gone that long? I'm sorry.
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I needed to make reps to that. Haven't for a number of weeks needed to do so. Um, let's go ahead and take a phone call because it continues the subject of the
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Ergun Kainer challenge to debate the subject of Calvinism. And by the way,
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I, I am absolutely. Upfront in what I've said on my blog.
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I will travel to Lynchburg, Virginia. I will do this in the chapel at Liberty University.
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As long as I have a moderator who is at least semi unbiased or at least semi willing to, you know, be fair and we can videotape and record it.
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I don't care if I and the two cameramen are the only
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Calvinists in the room. I don't care. I am so convinced that the word of God.
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That the word of God teaches that Jesus Christ is a perfect savior. He is not dependent upon sinners to bring about his own glory.
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I'll do that. I will debate at Liberty University. I will debate in front of Ergun Kainer's students without anybody else to support my side.
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Be happy to do it. Be happy to do it. We'll do it anywhere, Dr. Kainer.
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We'll do it in Lynchburg. Maybe you're wise enough to realize that's not a good place to do it. How about someplace else?
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Doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter to me. Let's just get it set up. Let's do it for the benefit of the people of God who are sick and tired and rightfully so of hearing.
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One side, then the other side, one side, then the other side. We all know that if you want to hear the truth, you need to have cross -examination.
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Everybody knows that. Anybody who says otherwise just isn't speaking honestly.
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That's all there is to it. So I'm being straight up front with that. Let's go ahead and talk to Adam.
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Hi, Adam. How are you? Hi, Dr. White. What's up? I was wondering, this is going to sound a little off topic, but it's not.
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Are you a dispensationalist? No. Because I think that's a lot of the things that are going on here.
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With Irving Kainer and people like Jerry Falwell, a lot of this defining
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Calvinism as extreme Calvinism or hyper -Calvinism and moving on, it all goes back to the fact that most dispensationalists think their view is the proper
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Calvinistic view. And they think anything beyond that is going to, of course, be hyper.
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Right. And I think that a lot of this also has to do with the fact that dispensationalism within, you know,
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Baptist circles is very, very popular. I mean, you've got all the Tim LaHaye's and people running around and promoting this stuff, and it just seems like it's coming out a lot of the fact that Reformed theologians have had a lot of heated discussions with dispensationalists, and, you know, most dispensationalists just don't want to hear it anymore.
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And they're just, you know, I think that dispensationalism is coming to an end, honestly.
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Well, Adam, there's a couple things. You have Calvinistic dispensationalists.
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You have mild Calvinistic dispensationalists. You have strong Calvinistic dispensationalists.
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And so I don't know that you can necessarily make an absolute connection between all of dispensationalism and that particular issue.
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I know that I would agree with you that there has been a massive splintering in dispensationalism, progressive dispensationalism, all the various viewpoints that are now represented, and it's difficult to name any one particular person to actually define things.
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But I don't know that you can necessarily make that kind of a connection. Obviously, I would see the connection more in the lines of an attitude of people who simply accept premillennial dispensationalism and a particular eschatological viewpoint, and take that as a given, as an absolute given that anyone who questions this, and I'll give you an example of this, a very clear example of this.
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I was listening to Dave Hunt talking about a man who had been in the ministry years earlier, and he, with sad voice, said, well, yes, that man went off into heresy, and he's, he's no longer worthwhile, he's no longer supportable.
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And someone says, oh, really, what happened to him? And they're all like, oh, you know. He says, well, he denied the pre -tribulation rapture.
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So that's going off into heresy for Dave Hunt, is to deny the pre -tribulation rapture. That becomes an attitude and a mindset that is very similar to the attitude and mindset that says, you know what, and I see this in what
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Ergen Kainer, in an email that I saw that he wrote today, he was talking about the offer of a general atonement.
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Normally you're talking about offer and general atonement. I understand how they're connected, but there's no concern for utilizing theological language in a historical sense, so that you can put yourself into that historical continuum and see what other people have said and things like that.
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There's this ability, well, for example, he's used the term hyper -Calvinism, which means anything, quote unquote, beyond Calvin, whatever, you know, none of these people have studied
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Calvin to any great extent, in my experience. Very, very few of them, anyways, have even tried to. But they take what someone says, assume this is what
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Calvin was, and then take a term that has a specific meaning. Hyper -Calvinism has a meaning.
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It is specifically in reference to a denial of the evangelistic call upon the church, a denial of an ability to preach the gospel, even a concern for the law.
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There's a meaning to hyper -Calvinism, and they don't care if there was historically.
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They don't care if, by using that term, they're actually painting you, to people who know history and know theology, they're painting you in a tremendously false way.
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Doesn't matter. They don't care. They just simply are willing to redefine terms, just the same way
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Norman Geisler did. He wanted to redefine Calvinism to fit his own parameters, and you just go, well, wait a minute.
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How can we have a meaningful conversation, especially on a topic that we know has been discussed by generation after generation?
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If we're not going to fall into the realm that says, well, since people disagree about this, then we can't actually come up with anything meaningful here, so we're just going to forget about it.
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We don't want to do that, because it's clearly something the Word of God talks about. The Word of God talks about predestination.
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The terms there, the term elect, the term saints, all that stuff is right there in the New Testament. We've got to deal with it if we still believe that this is the
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Word of God. So we can't go that direction. So if we're going to approach a subject where men have disagreed, godly men have disagreed over the course of the history of the church, when we can read about Wesley and Whitefield, and we can read their communications back and forth, and we can read
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Spurgeon defending the doctrines of grace in his day against the declension of belief in the inspiration of the
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Word of God, and the freeness of the gospel, and grace, and so on and so forth, if we can read these things, then we know we are actually dealing about important things.
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And what is driving me nuts is that these people behave in such a cavalier fashion.
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To change the meanings of words and think that you can come to this with some ability to redefine stuff is absolutely to approach the center and the core of Christian theology with a very cavalier attitude.
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There's no awe here. There's no respect here. There's no respect for the Word of God. No respect for the church.
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That, to me, is one of the biggest things. If we engage in apologetics for the glory of God, then part of that purpose is to benefit the church.
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It's to edify the church. There's no concern about the church when you run around and blast people who have— and even say they're not truly
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Baptists, as Kainer has tried to say about me. You know, we're all becoming paedo -Baptists. So excuse me!
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You know, I know that he hasn't read my Reformed Baptist Theological Review articles where I deal with the nature of the new covenant.
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And the sad thing is, he shows no interest in even being careful about such things.
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None whatsoever. Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I started preaching. Go ahead. Oh, I agree with just about everything.
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When I say dispensationalism, what I mean is the historic, like Schaeffer and Waldward and things like that.
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It just seems like their followers are becoming very, very defensive because of the fact that it's breaking up and it's going all sorts of different ways.
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And the traditional viewpoint, you know, has always held that they're the true
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Calvinists and they get the right to define this and so on and so forth. And you're right. It's really intellectual.
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But I mean, it's not just on this issue. I was discussing infant baptism. I'm a Presbyterian, by the way, and I was interested to see if you're going to be debating
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Bill Shishkoff, which will be a fun debate. One way of describing it, yeah.
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Well, these people were blasting Presbyterians. They were King James -only dispensationalists.
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They were blasting Presbyterians about this. And then I sat down and I must have written, oh, a good two or three pages discussing the connection between the covenant, discussing the issue of circumcision and baptism, the mode of baptism, the meaning of baptism.
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I sat there for a month, about an hour and a half, writing this stuff up. Go and post it. And I went and did something else because my eyes were tired.
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And then I came back and sat down at the computer and I wanted to see the response.
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And they said, it just looks like you don't want to believe the word of God. Oh, yeah, I know. I'm like, argument, please.
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No, you're not. Don't pontificate. If we've learned anything in this program, you do not get responses to that kind of thing in that kind of a context.
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It's just not possible. And yeah, it's frustrating. And part of it, you can tell the frustration in my voice.
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But at the same time, this hasn't got me sitting around. It's all I think about and things like that in any way, shape or form.
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Because I recognize, look, there are folks like this. They love their traditions. They call their traditions the word of God, but they love their traditions.
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And I'm never going to impress them. They're never going to like me. They're never going to support me.
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They're never going to do anything along those lines at all. I shouldn't be looking for them to support me.
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I shouldn't be looking for them to be encouraging me in my apologetics against.
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You know, I've mentioned Ergun Kainer that I'm debating Shabir Ali. I don't believe Ergun Kainer has debated
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Shabir Ali. He should know who Shabir Ali is. And you would think that at least he would say, well, you know,
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Dr. White, he did make something. God bless you and all the things you do at one point. But specifically debating with a man who is one of the chief representatives of his former religion, you would think there'd be something there that would cause him to have some level of respect to go,
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OK, you know, maybe I should be a little bit more slow to jump on to, you know, something like this and attack you and assume that you are this, that, and the other thing.
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No, nothing. Nothing there at all. So there's no respect. Again, I don't know.
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It wasn't my experience, let's put it this way, being raised as a Wolverdian dispensationalist to ever hear the term
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Calvinist being used. So I don't know that they view themselves as a true Calvinist.
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You may have run into some who do. I did. I was raised in that. That's just not my experience.
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I got that. I was reading Gerstner. Yeah, well, yeah,
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OK, you know, you know, you don't like Gerstner too much. Well, no, he did some good stuff.
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But I, you know, I think you're probably talking about wrongly dividing the word of truth. And I think he deals with that kind of stuff.
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But that becomes sort of a situation where you're talking about, you know, personal experiences or what somebody you ran into said, blah, blah, blah, blah.
54:43
I just don't see that as being a term that at least historically those folks really attempt to attach themselves very much.
54:51
But I do see a direct connection between the attitude of individuals who take a particular eschatological viewpoint and make it the very bone of orthodoxy.
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It's the very means by which you determine what is true and false. And this type of attitude that says, well, look, you know, we know what you all believe and don't confuse us with the facts when we're not.
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We don't have to back up anything we say. We don't have to actually prove what we're saying.
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We can just simply say it. And as long as we say it, it must be true. That kind of attitude. I do see a connection between those two. So anyway, we'll see what happens.
55:26
I would like to see, you know, a written debate take place, if nothing else, though, I don't think that's near enough to actually substantiate the type of things that Dr.
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Kainer has been saying. But we'll see what happens. My question is, will anything of substance be said? I mean, when
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I read your debate with Dave Vaughn, it was just attack, attack, attack. You know, this is wrong because of this.
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And it all got done at the end of the book. And I'm like, there wasn't much of anything of substance from the other side in here.
55:53
No. Well, but, you know, there are other people. Well, even if you've read the Kainer material, even he says,
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I've never met anyone who thought that Hunt didn't, you know, defeat you. And so who are you running around talking about Calvinism with, too?
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Anyways, that's that's what I'd like to know, because, you know, but anyways. All right. Thanks for your call, brother. All right.
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Thanks a lot. Bye bye. Yeah, that did did leave me sort of going, exactly how do you come up with that?
56:22
And if this is not your big subject, how many people are you talking to that would actually have read those things?
56:28
But it's just so it's it is very, very frustrating to have someone continually say, well, you're wrong in this, you're wrong in that.
56:36
And you say, can you show me, please? No, I will not. I do not have enough respect for you as a believer, if you even are.
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I will not respect what you've done in the past. I will not respect the fact you've you've written more than twice as many books as I have.
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I won't respect any of that. I show you no respect. And I will I will demonstrate that by I won't even cite your materials.
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It's not even worth my time to back up what I have to say. It's just a given. It's a
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Dixit. Take my word. That is that that's how it works. And you just wonder,
57:12
OK, if they do that with in this context, how are they actually handling meaningful apologetics encounters with unbelievers?
57:20
How does that work? I even said and maybe somebody will say this is where you're you're, you know, we're too unkind or something.
57:30
But I specifically said to him, sir, please do not. I hope this is not the methodology you use.
57:36
In engaging in apologetics encounters with others. How?
57:44
Talk about giving the gospel a black eye. If you respond to Muslim scholars.
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With the kind of cavalier shallowness that you're responding to me, please don't do that.
57:56
I don't want to have to explain your kind of behavior. You know, that's just that's not something
58:03
I want to have to do. Well, there's the discussion. There's what's going on. What's going to happen? We'll we'll we'll.
58:09
Dr. Kainer, he wants to he doesn't want to do John six first. He wants to second Peter three nine, which I find absolutely humorous.
58:15
We're talking about salvation, right? John six or a section on the return of Christ. There you go.
58:22
There's there's context for you. There's exegesis for you. But we'll see what happens. I'd be happy to do second Peter three nine to start as long as we can get to John six and second
58:29
Peter three nine. That's what we're doing. Watch the blog. We'll be back. Lord willing, next Tuesday. God bless. We need a new reformation.
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