Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. I have a lot to get to today. I wanted to have open phones today, but I was told we could not do that. I will not name any names. You know, there's just so many people involved with this particular program and ministry that as long as you don't name names, no one will have any idea who you might be referring to. So that's very helpful to be able to do that. Anyway, I was going to do that, but like I said, we've got things in the way, evidently, of being able to do that. So we will not be able to take your phone calls today. Please address all complaints to other people in the ministry. So with that, we have other stuff to talk about. And we have a lot of stuff to talk about, actually. I'm going to go back over some things from yesterday because I've been pretty amazed at some of the responses that we have gotten from just yesterday's program. Who would have thought that saying completely uncontroversial things 10-15 years ago would today bring out the torches and everything else? Things are changing fast, and I'd sometimes just wish it would slow down just a little bit, but that doesn't seem to be happening. One of the things I want to address is I have been hearing about this ReVoice conference, and I've read a number of articles. I saw the Covenant Seminary commentary on it, statement about it. And I don't remember, I think it's been within the past year, maybe a little more than that, I read a book by a self-identified, same-sex attracted Christian individual. And I reviewed it on the program, and at the time I, again, noted the reality of same-sex attraction and the concern that I had that it seemed to becoming mainstreamed that this is something that should be expected to be the normative identifying factor in a person's experience. and that hence they either need to choose as a Christian to not engage in the fulfillment of said desires, a life of celibacy. Which, of course, is what Matthew Vines and the others say is unfair. You have to be given that gift. If you don't have that gift, then you should be given the freedom to be able to have intimacy, even if that means a violation of Christian sexual ethics in the New Testament. But one of the big issues that's coming up, when I see the phrase gay Christianity, I'm mostly accustomed to seeing that from the likes of the Reformation project movement with Matthew Vines and people like that. People that are saying, no, God may be this way, and it's good and it's proper, and as long as it's monogamous, then it's okay, because everything in the Bible is about something other than same-sex attraction and fulfillment of same-sex attraction desires. So to see this coming into what was once what we might call orthodox spaces. I realize the vast majority of church members in reformed churches, whether it be the conservative wing of the PCA, and you've got to start identifying that because there's the non-conservative wing of the PCA, You know, just any looking at denominations in the United States, Baptists, Presbyterians, it's the same process over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. There is just a constant leftward turn that eventually results in those who will not go with the next step of compromise leaving Starting over again, normally with less and less and less because it's the liberals that keep all the endowments and everything else. But history shows this to be just the reality of how things are. In the conservative element of the PCA, the OPC, the other conservative Presbyterian groups, the conservative Baptists, not the American Baptists or people like that, that head left at a breakneck speed. To see the acceptance of this phraseology of gay Christianity, There is a fundamental problem, in my mind, in attaching to the term Christianity a sinful identifier. gluttonous Christianity, or angry Christianity, or covetous Christianity, or murderous Christianity, or thieving Christianity. None of these would make any sense. But people say, but the difference here is we're talking about something that actually identifies the individual as they have been created by God. And therefore, now, of course, people in all of those sins and in the entire range of sexual sin could make the same argument. And I really wonder if people have thought through this. But people in those conservative churches have not been exposed until now to the kind of mindset that identifies these things as identifying markers I've read far too many books, far more than I ever wanted to, on the subject of homosexuality and people defending it and all the things associated with it since 2000. I think it was right around, so over the past almost 20 years. I certainly haven't read all of them and I don't know that anyone could. They're coming out so rapidly anymore that I think it would be a full-time job. It just strikes me that there hasn't been a lot of thought on many people's part. None of us had to be thinking about this not too many decades ago in any serious fashion. It's just there wasn't any movement to mainstream this kind of stuff. So many of us have really not thought through what the difference is about homosexuality. Why is it that the Apostle could specifically utilize homosexuality in Romans chapter 1 as an illustration. What was he illustrating? What was the issue? Well, let's take a look at it. Romans chapter 1, you may recall About a year ago, we started going through a presentation that Dr. Brownson had made. We never finished it. We got to the point where we explained his fundamental error in trying to cram Paul's teaching into a Stoic philosophical concept, rather than the Old Testament, which is clearly its background. And we never finished it up, because it was sort of like, well, we got to the heart of the matter, other things came up, we never finished it. One of the many things I've done like that, I'm afraid. But it has been a little while since we walked through Romans chapter 1. If you have my book, The God Who Justifies, I spent quite some time on Romans 1 as a background and foundation for dealing with Romans 2 and Romans 3, which I think is important in dealing with justification as a whole. But after the introduction of the fact that sin impacts man's self-knowledge, it impacts all of man, so that even his reasoning, even his thinking is impacted by being separated from, out of fellowship with, the source of his life, the source of his meaning, For example, verse 21, even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. And so, speculations, the very term, dialogus mois, and their hearts becoming asunetas, without understanding. That's the central core of man's being. That's as intimate as it gets. Sin is not just external to us. It's not just what goes on around us. It is very, very internal. It has impacted us. And I really think part of the defenselessness defenselessness of many churches today to the influx of this identity politics, leftist worldview-leaning attack is because many of those churches have not had a true biblical anthropology. If you have a true biblical theology, doctrine of God, then it's going to give you a lot better position to come up with true biblical anthropology, a doctrine of man and a recognition of the impact of sin, a hamartiology, a study of sin and the impact upon man. And the result is the darkening of the reasoning, the resulting in foolishness. futility, emptiness in man's thoughts. And man, all you got to do is go on social media and say almost anything and you're going to see a good example of that. I mean, this is sort of related. Did you see that guy who was fired from CrossFit because as a minister he had said online that it is sinful And the way he put it was, he didn't say it was sinful to celebrate gay pride. The point was that it's sinful to be prideful. It happened to be in reference to a gay pride event. And everybody's just assumed that. But he actually said it was sinful to be prideful. Can you imagine anyone only 50 years ago getting fired for saying that it's sinful to be prideful, to celebrate pride? Can you imagine that? How far we have fallen as a society. But man, CrossFit got rid of him quick. You can't have Christians working in your companies. Not if you want to be cutting-edge, even though all you're doing is doing workout stuff and stuff like that. But anyway, their foolish hearts have been darkened. And as a result, there is this exchange of the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, of birds, four-foot animals, and crawling creatures." In other words, man is a worshipping creature and that impulse to worship is going to be expressed whether it is... if it's not directed toward the one true God, then it's going to be directed at the creation. and this is what takes place. Then he gives an illustration of this, and people go, you know, the standard thing you're going to hear on the interwebs these days is, well, see, this doesn't have anything to do with loving, monogamous, homosexual relationships or with faithful homosexuals. This is only about idolatrous homosexuals. Well, that's not how anyone who has the background of the Old Testament in mind, as you have to for interpreting Paul, on anything else. Anybody who tries to separate that out from Paul is obviously trying to avoid an element of his teaching that they don't like. So I'm going to have to keep that tweet that I just saw up there. I will definitely be responding to Joseph the Berean. I'll be responding to you in just a little while. Let Joseph the Berean on Twitter know that I'm going to read his tweet on the dividing line and I'm going to demonstrate that he is no Berean. He has no clue what being a Berean is. So let Joseph know. Somebody pop onto Twitter, let Joseph the Berean know. And he might want to tune in because what he said demonstrates he has no clue what the Bereans actually did. But we'll get to that. So back to the issue here. So why would Paul, having just said what he said, use homosexuality as an illustration? I think it's very important to recognize that the reason that he does this is that there is something about homosexuality that illustrates the point that he's making in this section. And the point that he's been making is the core of man's being is impacted by sin. It's right there. What makes man, man? is impacted by sin. So we read, therefore, God, and paretican is from paradidomi, that's the same term that's used of the betrayal of Jesus. It's to give over. But here it's God gave them over in the desires of their hearts unto uncleanness or impurity. That is the dishonoring of their bodies amongst themselves. So there is a... and the Soma is pretty much definitely the issue of the physical body. So there is a dishonoring of that in which has been made in the image of God, the somata. For they exchanged, and alexan, metalexan, that's just a strengthened form of the exchange motif that's here in Romans 1. For they exchanged the truth of God for the lie or in the lie and worshipped and served the creature or the creation rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. So there is a exchange that has gone on, an exchanging of the truth of God for the lie. This is necessary if you are not in right relationship to God. You don't want the truth of God about your own rebellion, you don't want the truth of God regarding your coming judgment, and so you exchange it for something else. Now, for this reason, diatouta, God gave them over, same paradigm, unto Pathe Atamias. Anyone remember when I asked Barry Lynn, yo those 17 years ago, about what Pathe Atamias meant? Because he was trying to say there's two different sin lists, and some are just expected things, and it just made absolutely no sense. So, degrading passions, is that a sin or not a sin? Obviously, he had gotten way too used to being on liberal media and being tossed. Or taking on Christians, would never challenge him. That's why, by the end of that debate, he was not a happy camper. And it wasn't just at the end of the debate, either, as the resulting lawsuit later on indicated. Anyway, for this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions, passions of dishonor, pathe atamias. Haite gar. I think haite gar They lie, I their their women I think the best way to for even their women I think there is a There there's actually I think an honoring of women and what is said here, you know why? Because the idea is that It is shocking and amazing that the woman with her maternal instinct, the woman with her focus upon family and children and nurture and all the things that God has equipped her to be, that even women could be impacted at the very center point of their being so as to twist and turn. The whole thing in Romans 1 is about the creator-creation relationship. So as to twist and turn at that very issue, that very element. And so, for even their women exchanged, and there's your metaloxone, again, this is the term. It's either in the strengthened form here or the less strengthened form. It's being used throughout Romans 1, the exchange, the exchange. So, even their women exchanged the fusacane, the natural cresin function for that which is parafusin. Now, I'm not going to go back over this, but the only sensical, consistently exegetical way, if you were talking about anything else with Paul, you'd go to the Old Testament here, you'd go to the parameters that are laid out by the Tanakh. He's already, in Romans 1, been paralleling creation narrative language anyway. the natural function for that which is unnatural. And the honest way of reading this is this is the only reference in the Bible to lesbianism. Exchanging a natural function for that which is unnatural. That's just all there is to it. So, the point is that this exchange is not just external, it's not just minor, it is definitional. Once the creator-creation relationship gets broken, and twisted. It touches all the way to the very core identity of even the woman with her beautiful, created, God-given ability to nurture life. She stops nurturing life. And if you didn't see that last week in Ireland, you weren't looking. You weren't looking. Every time as Western culture just flies off the cliff towards self-destruction and the culture of death is victorious when you'd see these women rejoicing And being granted the ability to murder their offspring There it is there's there's Romans 1 there's Romans 1 So that which is unnatural. And in the same way, so the parallel holds in the same way, likewise also, the man abandoning the natural function of the woman. I mean, since it's Hamoyos here, and natural function of woman is obvious, we know exactly what that is. We're talking about sexual relationships here. No question about it. So that reads back into the proceeding, if anyone's trying to get verse 26 to mean something else. The man abandoned the natural function of the woman, and this is not about pederasty, this is not about anything like that. burned in their desire toward one another. This is mutual homosexual desire. It's the only way you can read it. Men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. The point of the illustration is not to condemn homosexuality because in Paul's mind that was already given. That was already given. His high view of the law, the moral and ethical content of the law, his high view of the law made that a given. You're not throwing out the moral content of the law. The same apostle who in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 holds the Corinthians accountable for what the Holiness Code said about incest clearly held the same views in regards to homosexuality, which then comes out in 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1. But he's not introducing that here, because that isn't even a question. It's not necessary for him to be repeating the Old Testament law. The moral content is a given. Sorry to some of my friends who think that the New Testament has to repeat everything from the Old Testament for it to be valid anymore. That's not the case. He's not introducing something new here. He's using it as an illustration. Yes, God has already said, this is wrong. This is not how I created you. But what it's illustrating in his argument is how deeply to the very core of the human being sin can go. Now, some people looking at this text say, well, then there's no reason to evangelize homosexuals because it says God has given them over. But you have to let Paul speak for Paul. 1 Corinthians 6, he mentions homosexuality and says, such were some of you, but you were cleansed. You were justified. Salvation came to those individuals and they were cleansed. It says, such were some of you, not such are some of you. And that brings us to why I've been talking about all this for nearly half an hour now. Specifically, Is homosexuality in any way different than any other sin? It seems that people are trying to promote the idea that it's just the same as any other sexual sin. So, if a husband or a wife falls into immorality in a marriage, There is infidelity that takes place, sexual sin outside of marriage. It's just the same as if homosexuality takes place. And the desire for sex between a man and a woman is directly parallel to the desire for sex between two men or two women. There's no difference. as long as it's in marriage, but it can't be in marriage for same-sex couples as in the Christian ethic, and so you have to be chaste and you have to be celibate. But here's the question, is the desire no different? It seems that many people are functioning on the basis that the desire, there's no difference in the desire. And this is where I have to go there is a difference in the desire. The desire of a man to have sexual intercourse with a woman is a natural desire. It becomes inordinate, excessive, when that desire is outside of marriage. but it remains a natural if overdriven or excessive desire. But it's still a natural desire. There is a fundamental difference between having a natural attraction to a beautiful woman and having a natural attraction to a horse. There's a fundamental difference. And I would hope we're not quite to the point yet where someone would argue that there is no difference there. that it would be, you know, if someone happens to have that kind of desire, that, you know, as long as they don't act on it, then it's not sinful. No, that is, you know, the Roman Church in its magisterial documents has referred to homosexuality as a disordered desire because it is It's, you know, confusion. Tevil is the Hebrew term from the Old Testament. It's confusion. It's confusion of categories. It's confusion of the created categories of order, which we find right here, the natural use, because there's a creator who defines these things. And so the desire, you all saw, you know, in in the social media last week. I think it was last week. Well, the past few weeks, it's been a little bit hard to follow. In the social media of the past few weeks, there was a story about this guy, I think in Virginia or somewhere back east or south or something, openly promoting pedophilia, abuse of women, just a complete sexual pervert. If you can even use that term anymore. I mean, that term used to have meaning. I'm not sure that it does anymore in our society. But there was outrage. I don't know how long there will logically be able to be any outrage towards something like that. We recognize that is absolutely disordered, it is inappropriate, it is wrong to have a desire like that man has expressed. So that's not parallel. There is a fundamental violation of categories represented. The desire for a man, for a woman, is a natural desire, but it can become excessive. But it's still a natural desire. Children, animals, and the same sex. involves a corruption of the categories of the natural desire. It is disordered. And therefore, when you talk with someone who is same-sex attracted, it seems to me that there is a massive, huge category distinction between counseling them by saying, Well, by saying what the Pope said to that guy a couple weeks ago, God made you like that. Okay, that's way out there. We can throw the Pope and his sexual ethics out the window. But there is a difference between saying your same-sex attraction needs to be controlled, but you can identify yourself by it and say that that is how God has made you. as long as you don't act upon. And saying to someone it's a disordered desire and the desire itself is displeasing before God. Now please don't tell me, as I've been seeing a lot in social media, please don't tell me that you can limit the area of sin solely to that of activity and not of desire. Because covetousness, thou shalt not covet, covetousness is an attitude. It's solely in the heart. It's solely in the heart. Greed is solely in the heart. So God does address that and identify as sin attitudes in the heart. How is it any different? To say, I mean, there is a sense of greediness. in a person who wants to commit adultery, to go beyond what God has provided in his wife or his husband. But that's not a twisted desire in the way that homosexuality is, or bestiality would be, or pedophilia would be, or any of these things that involve tevil, the fundamental confusion of the categories of creation itself. Now, I don't I've seen arguments from both sides on this conference, and I've seen some of the workshops just make me go, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. I seriously reject the idea of a Christian finding their identity in a disordered, sinful desire for same-sex encounter. Along these lines, I listened to I listened to about a two-year-old interview that Eric Metaxas did with a fellow by the name of Dr. Nate Collins. Dr. Collins is a graduate of Southern Seminary and as far as I've seen indication, he's still at least teaching for them in online classes for Southern Seminary. He is a married gay man by his own description in a mixed orientation marriage. So that he's married to a woman, he has children by her, they are his children through natural sexual intercourse. But he said right in the interview, I cannot imagine having the feelings for any other woman than for my wife, but I can imagine having them for men. So he calls himself a gay man. And he defines it in the context of beauty, that in which he finds beauty. Now, of course, we're talking about sexuality here. And it would be nice if you can create all these divisions and distinctions, but we all know those divisions and distinctions become very very blurred in human experience and in human fallenness. But what has to be, as far as I can see, what has to be said to have any kind of meaningful understanding of a biblical homarcheology, biblical doctrine of sin, is that the desire for any of that kind of behavior orientation that fundamentally redefines the categories of what God says through creation we are to experience, is sinful, and should never be, for a Christian, that by which we identify ourselves. And it just seems that so much of the titling at the Revoice conference just is not based upon that. And in looking at some of Nate Collins' stuff, you know, is homosexual desire sinful? In short, no. In short, no. But then he goes on to say, but you can't act on it. Well, I have a real problem with that. And I think there's a lot of reasons why this is growing. and becoming a thing with more and more people. But I think what's causing a lot of confusion in a lot of people's parts is we're seeing this within contexts that we just never dreamed it would be there. But we were naive. Because the reason that we were rejecting this kind of thinking is because we'd never encountered it. We'd never heard anyone presenting it. And now that it's found allies within our own circle, we're having to think these things through. And we're way behind on the curve. And besides, the societal flow, the tidal wave of the society making us basically completely rethink our entire worldview so as to be acceptable to them or lose our jobs like the guy at CrossFit is really part of the issues. So, there is no question that for the believer in the audience right now that maybe has been following this program for a long time, We are going to have to spend much more of our time in the future reading, thinking, and teaching our children and our grandchildren. Because the world gets all day long to do it. And we get very little time to do it. And that means we have to give up a lot of the things that we call our freedoms. to do these things. Or just watch our children and grandchildren sucked into the dark vortex of a dead Christianity that no longer has the very core of what is definitional about the faith. That's what's going on. I'm not the only one sounding the alarm, but Certainly, I was one of the first ones, not first in the sense of a Francis Schaeffer, but certainly in the current battle. I mean, the Barry Lynn debate, I think was 2001, and had a debate with a homosexual in Salt Lake City on gay marriage shortly after that. I think it was like 2003 or 2004, because I remember the videos. I'm still very, very large. So it was prior to 2005. Yeah, all the debates are on YouTube. The sound in the Lynn one is horrible, but that was just part of what happened. So there you go. Gay Christianity? There isn't any such thing. That is a misnomer. It's misleading. It shows, I think, an inappropriate foundation, and I don't think it can go anywhere other than down or into unbelief, one of the two. So, with that, let's press forward. We have looked at one text of scripture. I would like to look briefly at another text of scripture. And I want to revisit a topic from yesterday. There is a I'll scroll back here to this gentleman that I mentioned to you. A guy named Joseph the Berean, Jay Kimoni, I-2017. Oh, he's from Nairobi. Well, okay. And Joseph the Berean writes just half an hour ago. Who made you the yardstick when it comes to Christian apologetics? Let David Wood, Sam Vocab, and the entire crew of Islamicize Me series do their thing. Your methodology doesn't work. Useful idiot. And then a little bit later on, get out of the way and let Muslims be evangelized. Stick to your polemics to Roman Catholicism and Mormonism. Learn your area of gifting. and then shows a guy writing to Acts 17, I'm a former Muslim who turned to Christ nine years ago and I approve of your methods. Keep up the good work. Well, Joseph the Berean, if you're actually a Berean, which clearly you are not, there's only one question, Joseph the Berean. What do the scriptures say? Do they address how we are to speak to unbelievers? Do they address how we ourselves are to speak, what our standards are to be, what our morals are to be, Joseph the Berean? And the fact is, the Scriptures do. In the past 24 hours, as I've heard a lot of argument about this, what I haven't heard is anybody who bothered to take up the Bible and provide counter-argumentation for what I said from the Bible. No counter-exegesis, no counter-argument. It's all, well, it's worked here. What about that guy over there? That's not being Berean, Joseph, and everybody else. I have been stunned and deeply disappointed at how many people claim to believe the Bible, but when it comes to actually taking the time to read it, don't even touch it. There is not the slightest room for debate as to what the Scriptures teach us, as to what our behavior is to be marked as. And it's not a Western thing versus an Eastern thing, or Westernized versus non-Westernized, or anything else. I am stunned at the pragmatism of people involved in apologetics. Well, it works. Really? It works? I haven't seen a shred of gospel in the Islamicize Me series. There is none. It's all a mockumentary. There's no gospel there. And when challenged on that, the response has been, hey, if we can get him out of Islam, that's all that matters. Doesn't matter if we get him into Christianity. We can work on that later. Just got to get him out of Islam. That's helpful. I remember the apostles doing that a lot. No, they never did that. You have no apostolic examples of engaging in this kind of behavior ever anywhere. Nowhere. Well, they use sarcasm. That's not what you're doing. That's not what you're doing. Don't pretend that it is. That's not what's in this series. I got a couple screenshots. I'm still debating myself. These are so vile. They are so disgusting that I don't even know if I should even describe them, let alone show them. It's that bad. And if you haven't watched them, if you think I'm exaggerating, well, I guess you're just going to have to take the time to watch them yourself. And then don't come back to me and say, you should have warned me because I've warned you. I've warned you. Let's go back, and this is where it just stuns me. Why are you folks even involved, Mr. Berean Man, in doing evangelism to Muslims when it doesn't seem like your first default source is called the Bible? Scripture? What's the power of God unto salvation? It's not your pragmatism. It's not your methods. It's not your trickery. It's not your sarcasm. It's not your mockery. You want to talk about getting in the way? Every time we use something other than what God has given us, we are wasting everyone's time and playing right into the hand of the enemy. Right into the hand of the enemy. Now, I pointed out, and no one bothered to even mention it, no one even mentioned it, that 1 Peter 3.15, which is considered to be the classical text on apologetics, gives us specific commandment in regards to how we are to respond to those who ask us a reason for the hope that's within us. Now, if you go back to about the 2012 Wretched Conference, somewhere around back then, it was at a Mennonite church back in Ohio someplace. I gave a lengthy sermon on the background of 1 Peter 3, which takes us back into Isaiah 8. Actually, it's really 6 through 11. There's this incredible section in Isaiah where you've got the Immanuel passages, the Son will be given to us, a child born to us, so on and so forth. All these passages about Christ, prophetically. in this material. It's really deep, it's really beautiful. And I gave a sermon on that particular subject, which gives us the background for what we have in 1 Peter 3. And it's specifically, and you can sort of see this here in, if we see it on the screen here for a moment, if we could bring this up. You'll notice that New American Standard over here says, and do not fear their intimidation and do not be troubled. Now notice that's all in caps, which is the NASB's way of saying this is citation from the Greek Septuagint. And here you have over in the Greek, the Greek is likewise in italics for that section. But what's weird is once you get into 15, They don't put LORD in caps, and they don't put SANCTIFY in caps, but in the Nessiolan text, it is in italics, because it is a continuation of the citation. Now, why is that important? Because what's being said is, but, Kurion here is, in the Greek subjugate, is replacing the Hebrew Yahweh. Jehovah. So, you have Kurion, and then you've got Tan-Kriston, they're both in the accusative, as the direct object of Hagiocetate, to treat as holy, to sanctify. So, treat the Messiah as Yahweh in a worshipful, sanctifying manner of holiness. I mean, we just, we struggle to, you know, the verb is not just sanctify, but it's to treat as holy. So treat as holy, the Christ as Yahweh in your hearts, always being ready, pros apologion, to give a defense. to everyone asking you a reason for the hope that is within you. So the point is that if you have that central ordering principle of the recognition of who Jesus is, the Lordship of Jesus Christ, which here very plainly is connected to his deity, If on a daily basis you rise in the morning and say, I am a servant of the Incarnate One, the Creator who made all the universe, entered into His own creation in the person of Jesus Christ, left behind that empty grave, that's going to order your priorities in such a way that you are going to respond to the difficulties and trials of life in such a fashion that people are going to ask you A reason, where'd you get that hope? We don't have that hope. Where'd you get that hope? And when you're asked that question, we are then, and it's interesting, the Greek, I don't know why the NASB does it this way, but notice it puts yet with jealous and reverence in verse 15, but the Greek has it in verse 16. The answer that you're to give is, Allah, Meta, Proutetas, Kai, Fabu. Proutetas, Kai, Fabu. So, Proutetas is gentleness. It's gentleness, and then some say, you know, Fabas is fear, but in its semantic domain you have reverence, that kind of attitude. So Peter recognizes that when we are asked to give a reason, our flesh can get in the way. And so there needs to be a reminder that when we are engaged as representatives of the King, that we do so as redeemed persons and therefore given the danger of sin, and hence becoming an impediment, then with gentleness and reverence, engage in those conversations. You could ask, well, reverence toward... well, you're not going to do reverence toward false teaching, but you can have reverence and respect toward those who have been entrapped in false teaching, it might be reverence toward God. The gentleness doesn't make any sense in thinking that's toward God. You don't have gentleness toward God. So that's why most noting that it's metā, prāte, tās, kāi, phābu, it's just one phrase, it's hard to necessarily divide them up and say, well, it's gentleness toward the person you're talking to, reverence toward God, reverence toward the material. Might be, but in all likelihood, exegetically, they're going together with the same object. And so there is to be an attitude of reverence in our conversations. Why? And verse 16 in NASB, but continues on the same section of the Greek. Having a good conscience or keeping, possessing a good conscience. Please mark that. Good conscience. When you walk away from a conversation, if there has been anger, if there has been vitriol, It shouldn't have come from you. It's so wonderful to be able to walk away from a conversation with a good conscience. And if your only goal is pragmatic shock and awe, I'm not sure you're gonna have a good conscience. If you will use any means at your disposal, I'm not sure you're gonna have a good conscience. I wanna walk away from every debate knowing that I did everything in my power to honor God, honor His truth, but I never violated the very standards of truth that He has provided to me. That He says, this is the arena in which you are to function. You can't go outside of it. And every time I do, you don't have a good conscience. In order that, so that in the thing in which you are slandered, spoken against, spoken evil against. The ones reviling your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame. They'll be put to shame. So, here's my question. If we apply this to these videos. If we apply this to these videos, what happened? I could not, with good conscience, direct any Muslim to these videos. I couldn't direct Christians to these videos. I've decided, even though I have the screen caps, I can't show them. even if i gave you the warning and said send the children out and everything else i i can't even show you the screen captures that i have that i just grabbed before the program it it is lewd it is so far beneath any kind of Christian standard of thought, presentation, behavior. It is mockery taken to the... And it's not just the content of the mockery. It is the utterly inappropriate... You might say, well, but Mohammed did it. I'll look at another text in a moment to address that. But I can't even show them to you. But I don't know how you can present this and say, I've got a good conscience. I've got a good conscience. You know the things that I did the things I portrayed myself as doing I just I just pointed to the one on breastfeeding and just watch at the end Watch what vocab and and David do and that that woman. Oh my gosh I don't have words. It's just abuse. It's just I don't know who came up with it, but it is so far beyond the bounds that it's... If they won't hear it, fine. But I did ask a question, and you know what? Let me look here. Haven't gotten an answer? You've been watching? I asked vocab on Twitter today. Let me see if... I'll read you what I wrote. Brother, did the elders of any sound recognize church? review or have input on the content of the Islamicize Me video series, are the participants in that series members in good standing in such churches? Is that a fair? Can someone actually take offense to that question? I cannot imagine the elders, plural, of any sound church reviewing these materials and going, oh yeah, hey, we'll show this in the Sunday morning service. No, they won't. Or the Sunday night service, the Wednesday night service. No, they won't. Yeah, we're behind 100%. I don't think so. I don't think so. In Ephesians chapter 5, we have these words, beginning of verse 3. But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among the Hagiois, the saints. And there must be no filthiness and silly talk or coarse jesting which are not fitting, but rather eucharistia, the giving of thanks. Now this term right here, coarse jesting. Loewenita defined this as coarse jesting involving vulgar expressions or indecent content. Vulgar speech, indecent talk. And then Ephesians 5, 4, the reference. These things are not fitting. They have no place amongst the saints. You might say, well, this isn't about the saints. This is only meant, these videos aren't meant for Christians. They're meant to shock Muslims into reading their own sources. I do think there is great value in getting Muslims to read their own sources. Here's the problem. When you do it in this fashion, you might say, oh, we've seen people leave Islam. Into what? Into what? Well, first of all, there's no gospel here. I think you'd admit that. These are not evangelism videos. These are thoroughly only anti-Muslim videos. There's no redeeming value to them, unless you think that getting someone to leave Islam is redeeming in and of itself. I think that when you get somebody to leave a religion, the reason to leave that religion is to embrace the truth. You might be saying, well, it's better to have them as a burned out religious person, then we can reach them with the gospel. It's not been my experience. My experience, vast majority of people who leave a religion because they have concluded that it's false, end up being irreligious the rest of their life. Over a million people, you know, David was talking about, I know 30 people have left Islam. A million people left the Watchtower Battlement Track Society after the 1975 failed prophecy. A million. 99.999% of them never found the truth. Never. They became the religiously abused. There are people pouring out of Mormonism today. They're finding out all sorts of stuff about Mormonism and not ending up in true churches. There are many wonderful people like Sandra Tanner and Bill up in Salt Lake, that are doing everything they can to direct them away from agnosticism and just a complete rejection of Christ and scripture and things like that because the perversion of Mormonism. That's wonderful, but the reality is the vast majority of people leaving Mormonism aren't leaving it because they've gotten a Christian witness. They've just discovered that it's not what they were told. And they'll end up religiously abused. But more than that, aside from the obvious error of pragmatism, Where do you have any biblical warrant? Where did the apostles do this? And don't give me, well, they were sarcastic. I mean, look at Isaiah. He mocks, he mocks idolatry. He did in the context of presenting the truth. He didn't do it by describing the kind of stuff that you're doing in these videos. That's just It's below junior high school level. That's not what you have anywhere in scripture. It's just not there. You have no apostolic command to engage in this kind of activity, let alone one from the elders of your churches. It's interesting, this same chapter, you go on down, Do not, verse 11, participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead, even... and New Mercantile has exposed, that's not a good translation of elencate. Elencate means to reprove, convict, refute. And so, you are to refute the false teachings. I just changed the space on that. Sorry about that. I guess I can sort of go like that and make it look good without having to make you do any work. Anyway, there is to be exposure, but that exposure should be done in the context of truth, fairness, respect, and always with the eye. to consistently presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, you know what one of the criticisms I've gotten over the past 24 hours? You think you're the only one who knows how to do this because you say you're the only way to do this. So when I sit here and say that we should always have as our central focus the presentation of the gospel, that's something about me being arrogant? What are you people thinking? Come on! That is a basic truth. If I get run over by a truck this weekend riding my bike, it's not going to change that truth. It has nothing to do with me. I'm a nobody. This is what the Bible says. Show me someplace else. Come to me with an open Bible and tell me that what I'm saying is not true. But I'm going to hold you to the same standards. Because, you see, the exegetical standard that I'm using at looking at these texts is the same standard that those guys on that video and I have used in the same studio to demonstrate the deity of Christ. I'm being the consistent one here. You cannot use the same exegetical method by which we defend the central aspects of the Christian faith and then come up with a defense for the kind of representations that have been central in this presentation. This is just on the basic stuff that's way over the line, let alone just simply recognizing that we have to be consistent in our apologetic toward others. Or they have every reason to turn it around on us. That doesn't accomplish anything. Now, I was watching one of the episodes and, you know, I'll say something. How about I say something positive? Tough to find something, but I'll say something positive. Sam Shamoon role plays an imam in a mosque teaching these three guys. Absolutely frightening. I mean, it is spot on. He could walk into a mosque. He could walk into a mosque, if they didn't know who he was, take the place of the guest speaker or something, and he'd get away with it. has all of the phraseology down, everything, everything. It's amazing. And I just sit back and go, man, that could have been used. That could have been used in an appropriate way, in such a devastatingly powerful way. If there had just been a trust, in what the church has been given rather than pragmatism. What you win them with is what you win them to. If you can mock them out of Islam, somebody else can then mock them out of Christianity if they happen to stumble into it. I really think this is a matter, this is a theological matter. If you believe that the gospel is the power of God and the salvation, then you're not going to go looking for doing this kind of thing. You're going to trust what God has given us. His word, the gospel, his spirit, it's still enough. Ah, but there's just so many people going to hell today. Yeah, maybe we're under the judgment of God in the world right now. God has never said that Christianity is going to be the majority port in every generation. There have been dark times. We are simply called to remain faithful to what God has given us, not to run around and find something new. This is about why you do what you do and the content of the gospel that you are presenting. So, if y'all are gonna fire back, I challenge you, do it on the basis of the Bible, not your pragmatism, not your, well, it worked over here. And I demand every one of you, because I've worked with every one of you but one, the exact same standard, the original languages of the Bible. Don't you say a word to me until you're ready to go there. Don't say a word to me unless you're ready to go there. I thought we were on the same page on that. We need to be, we need to be. I'm going to say what's in there. Water. It's dry in Phoenix right now. Won't be for long, but it will be. Okay. Wow, look at that. Ten minutes after three. All right, one more subject. And I'm at least thankful that it is not at all controversial. I mean, we haven't... I am so glad that we have avoided controversy so far on The Dividing Line today. This has been very, very easy, light program. Didn't you say I was supposed to take this week off? You know, you should learn to listen to me. No, I told you, you know, you need to just relax. You know, Sid, drink a little wine, eat some cheese. Be cool. Take it easy. But no! I don't have time to take it easy. I've got to get packed up. I've got to get over to Southern California. There's over a hundred people in this class. Over a hundred people in this class. Thankfully, I don't have to grade anything, but there's over a hundred people in this class. Looking forward to being with the folks at Masters next week, and then immediately the next day. off to Dallas and be with Emilio and Trish there in Dallas on Father's Day. In the morning he wants me to be talking about textual variants in the New Testament, which I love to do! It's like, he's weird, but yeah, we'll be doing that and that'll be fun. Anyway, last subject. There's some guy And again, I've blocked a lot of these people, which is sort of dangerous because then you can't see what they're saying. You only see what other people are saying, and it's one of the problems with Twitter. But there's just a group of people out there. It doesn't matter what I say. They're going to twist it. They're only going to hear one part of it. They're going to do their thing. I happened to stumble onto one of it because I couldn't see it in my normal feed because they're all blocked. But I followed what somebody else said because I was like, what? What? And then you can go and you can find what other people are responding to and there's all this nastiness out there. There was pushback about my comments about what is happening in the SPC as well. And there's pushback in regards to the Paige Patterson situation, where evidently the way that people heard me was saying that it had nothing to do with what Patterson actually did, that it was just the Southern Baptist deep state. I didn't say that. In fact, I specifically said I know things that Paige Patterson did that were worse than at least the initial things that were publicly talked about. I mean, you know, they went after him for objectifying a 16-year-old girl. Did you watch the clip? He's telling the story about what two other kids said to their mom or something. I mean, it was a stretch. It was a massive stretch. But all I was addressing is the fact that there is massive politics going on in the SBC. Massive behind-the-scenes power struggles with lots of money involved. lots of money because you're controlling denominational structures and it is been documented that people who work for those denominational entities are being told you shall not in the public sphere comment on these things pretty much only on one side that's a fact no one bothered to deal with the facts and these these there's this john argyle guy i don't know his name or whatever but they don't care about the facts they're that's irrelevant to them They're just slander mongers. They're just trying to twist things and do their thing and cause problems. Fine. The real allegation that got Patterson out and got him to have to abandon his golden parachute, because when he was first retired, it wasn't much of anything. And it's like, you know, President Emeritus, you get to live on campus the rest of your life, you know, sweet deal. You know, everybody was looking at it going, man, I'd like to get fired like that. You know, it'd be pretty nice. But what was devastating was the accusation. And I don't know that this is even fully out there yet, but it's in court right now. But the big thing was the Pressler issue. Because what Judge Pressler has been accused of is just absolutely predatory, and it's not predatory toward women primarily, if you know what I mean. And so if you've got a guy who's picking up guys, young guys, on campus, and that gets covered over, what else is going to happen? I mean, that's more than a sufficient basis for whatever actions are taking place. Now, the problem is hasn't been proven yet. And these days, man, you know, mere accusation is more than enough to end everything in the current climate. No one seems to care about justice or anything like that anymore. It's just Once you're accused, that's it. You're gone. You're out of there. That would have been more than enough for the action that was taken. I never said that I was supporting some type of reinstatement of Paige Patterson or anything like that. No, of course not. But you have to have some wisdom here, folks. There is some strange stuff going on. in the Southern BAPS Convention. You look at how fast and radical the shift in fundamental worldview issues. I mean, most of this stuff happened, the stuff that Patterson was accused of in regards, was while he was still president of Southeastern, not Southwestern. And Southeastern, you look at where they are today. And you can barely see them way off to the left out there someplace. You know, doing the James Cone, did the screen just flicker or something? That was weird. The James Cone stuff and just doing social justice warrior CRT stuff right down the line. How has that happened in a relatively short period of time? The entire conservative resurgence, you know, you had to, back in the 90s, you had to sign a statement about inerrancy to teach in a Southern Baptist school. It didn't take long for people to find ways around that. You could sign it, you've just redefined what inerrancy is. But that whole resurgence, a lot of people thought, wow, you know, we've got the 2000 Baptist faith and message and we've got some good stuff in there and da, da, da, da, da, da, and the whole time, these folks were working slowly, but diligently, getting key positions. And it's all of a sudden like a switch was flipped this year. And I don't know what's going to happen next week in the convention. It's going to be confusing. It's going to be strange. to push back at me and say, well you're ignoring the real reasons and saying I was going off into weirdness. I'm sorry, you folks have no idea what you're talking about. Why should I believe you? I don't even think these people are Southern Baptists. I'm not a Southern Baptist either, but I know a lot of people who are and was. And I was, so you put it all together. I've had to deal with that political structure. I mean, I taught at a Southern Baptist institution for years as a Reformed Baptist, as other Reformed Baptists do. Yeah, and Paige Patterson is why I don't do that anymore, yeah. And I was open about that. One of the first things I said yesterday was, I'm not a unbiased observer here. Paige Patterson does not like me. But the main reason she doesn't like me is because of my theology. I'm one of those dreaded Calvinists. I mean, there were years at Southwestern. where you had to read the Potter's Freedom in a brown paper cover, quite literally, I'm not making that up. I can't tell you how many people from Southwestern I've talked to that literally would gather in dorm rooms and put pillows at the door and go to the far corner and whisper about Reformed theology and literally carried the Potter's Freedom in a brown paper cover. So I'm not a unbiased person here. I was open about that from the start, but I'm also not blind or overly naive. And in this situation, I'm just simply telling you, there's a whole lot more to it than what meets the eye. This flood of stuff, it's been known. The Pressler thing, that's probably the one thing. I think that's probably what emboldened people to say, hey, we can take out one of the key people standing against our movement. And you keep an eye on what ends up happening at Southwestern. That's going to be fascinating. You see who ends up in leadership there. And if it goes the same direction as Southeastern, don't tell me I didn't tell you so, because I told you so. I told you so. So I didn't see much, to be honest with you, As far as the comments that I made on the sudden influx of egalitarianism, well, okay, they're not calling themselves egalitarian, but they are. The left knows how to do these things. You don't identify yourself as to what you really are until you have the power to identify yourself as what you really are. And that's happening in the politics. That's very, very clear in what's going on and what we're seeing. And just today, a few people reposted a short article that my daughter posted on the subject of the Gospel Coalition's women of color at TGCW18 and some discussion of that you might want to look up. I told people in Belfast, I said, you know, it's pretty cool getting old because then you can start learning from your kids. If you invested and I certainly tried to, if you invested in them when they were younger, lo and behold, all of a sudden they might be able to start teaching you stuff that you'll find useful because you gave them a good foundation later on in life. That's definitely a blessing from the Lord. So when it comes to intersectionality and all this other stuff that those of us on the far side of the half-century mark are sitting there going, but where did this all come from? Well, on Earth, it's nice to have someone you can contact and go, okay, another new term. What in the world is this about? And then they explain it and you go, oh, really? This is a thing? That's another thing. This is a thing? That's not how we spoke when I was younger. So yeah, there you go. So you might want to look up Summer's thing if you don't follow her on Facebook or Twitter. It's Summer Jaeger. J-A-E-G-E-R. She's certainly getting her share of... We're all getting our shares of nastiness these days. It just seems to be, you know, when you fire up the computer, get ready for the... Get ready for the nastiness because it's going to be there. I do want to try to figure out some way next week. I lecture in the evenings. I'm going to be busy during the days, but we might try to find out some way to comment, and I'd like to have a guest on if I can. It would all be done by Skype. Rich thinks we can figure it out. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. We'll try. We'll see if we can make it work because I don't want, I mean, I won't be back until a week from Thursday. So two weeks from today, I won't be back in, cause I'm in Dallas. So, There's just gonna be so much stuff going on that I, you know, this is my primary way I get to respond, and you know what? It may take an hour and a half, but it's a whole lot less time than typing. And it has a much larger audience, and it lasts longer. At least until YouTube gets rid of us, which will eventually happen. So there's the program for today. As I said, Rich has some folks lined up for next week, but I want to try to sneak in there if I can. We'll see if my, even if my hotel Wi-Fi, which is always fun, doesn't work real well, I probably could pop in early to class and use Wi-Fi there to get in. So we'll see if we can do so, because something tells me that there will be some responses to what we said today on the program. What do you think? You think it's a possibility? Maybe? Yeah, if Dr. Oakley has Risen, he can use his phone as a hotspot. I know that. I'm well aware of that. But even LTE, I don't know, is necessarily. The meme is going to have that finger pointing at the camera with it. Everything I do sitting in this chair gets memed. Did you see the meme where I became Thanos? Thanos. Oh, you never saw the movie, did you? You didn't see Eternity Wars. It was an eternally long movie. So you are completely out of the loop, dude. That was like a culture-defining moment. Well, 2 hours and 40 minutes were the moments. It was very, very long. But yeah, Thaunus is this big, huge, massive They actually did a good job putting my head on Thomas's body. At one point he's about to kill somebody and he says, I hope they remember you. He was actually being nice before he killed somebody. So somebody put me on that and said, this is what every person I debate hears right before the debate. I hope they remember you. Whoever did that, that was a good one. That was a good one. I kept that one. If I keep the meme, if I store the meme someplace, that means I like that one. That's a good one. Though, I'm sure somebody, that guy that you played that I didn't download, what was that guy? Theology student or something? Yeah, I'm sure that he probably would say something about I mean he was actually complaining that I gave a report on three weeks away in ministry in other places. Yeah, apparently you were bragging. I was arrogant or something? You were bragging. Bragging, oh yeah, that's nice. Yeah, you know, there seems to be a number of people that don't like you very much. I don't understand why that is. That's not actually all that new, but it does, the reasons get odder and odder over the years. So, yeah. I just kicked Ryan out of the channel while you were, yeah, because he Well, you know, he was posting the video from a year and a half ago, it was just before Christmas 2016, when he smuggled in the Left Behind book. When he posted a graphic of that. Oh, he did, yeah. He posted a link to it earlier and I was playing it. He posted a graphic and I sent him in the Prosper Gatorade. Oh, there you go. I only did it for one minute this time, but the next iteration is five minutes. I've got them all the way up to 20. So we'll see. It might be worth it. Anyways, we have now left the important stuff and are talking about stuff. Did y'all see the splash of color, though? I didn't mention it. See the splash of color back there? I got that beautiful, woven, African... Oh, well, yeah, I'm not sure if you can... This one's at a lower... Yeah, you can see it better on that one because it's higher up. But I got it in Johannesburg. And it's a beautiful, woven, African thing. But I'm sure that that means cultural appropriation. Yeah, cultural appropriation. By the way, I bought two beautiful African shirts in Johannesburg. I mean, they are stunning. They are really nice. And I'm going to have to wear one one day. But the first thing I thought of when I walked out of the shop was cultural appropriation. I asked people down there. I said, so, and they're all like, what? What? Why would someone be offended by you wearing an African shirt? What? It's nice. The insanity is pretty much here. And in Europe. Anyways. Oh, Ryan's back. Hi, Ryan. I'm glad that you're back. Okay, so. Those of you that don't go in-channel don't know what's going on there. But anyways. That's like an episode of The Honeymooners. To the moon! To the moon! Well, you've seen the cartoon where they find this lady that's up on the moon. What was her name? One of these days, Ryan. What was her name? Alice. Alice what? Cramden. Cramden. Alice Cramden. It's Alice Cramden. That was good. All right, we're done. In fact, we were done five minutes ago. I think most people will recognize that, but hey, that's okay. We filled up the time. So hopefully, at least once next week, me, and then it could end up being three programs, hence next week for the Dividing Line, but we'll see you then. God bless.