Matt Slick Live

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Please see the complete disclaimer at your own risk. Sirrah 9 is the second to last chapter that was written chronologically, but in the Quran it appears as Sirrah 9, it's the ninth one you read. And then the 114th is the last one, but actually chronologically Sirrah 9 was written just before Sirrah 114, which means that Sirrah 9 is the final revelation from Allah on whatever it refers to. And Sirrah 114 is very short and doesn't say anything relative to Sirrah 9. In other words, what is said in Sirrah 114 does not abrogate anything in Sirrah 9. So this Sirrah 9 is the last revelation of the varying topics and the Muslim is to follow it. But when the forbidden months are passed, then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them and seize them, beleaguered them and lie and wait for them and strategize. But if they repent and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them for Allah is oft forgiving, most merciful. In other words, this is at Sirrah 9-5. So in other words, kill them, but if they submit to your rule, see Allah is merciful. He's forgiving. So in the meantime, go kill them.

Yeah. And then this is Sirrah 929. Now I know someone named Dakhduk and Osama Dakhduk, and he speaks Arabic. He's raised in an Arabic speaking country and he's a hardcore Christian.

And so he and I were doing some work together on ABN Sat TV. And so during a break, we were talking about Sirrah 9 and he told me something and I'm going to tell it to you. He told me that the next one I'm going to read to you, the first word is fight. And he said in Arabic, the word fight means fight to kill.

That's what he told me. Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day nor hold to the forbidden, which had been forbidden by Allah and his apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of truth of the people of the book. That's the Christians until they pay the Jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.

The Jizya is a heavy, heavy tax. So the Muslim is told to seek out and kill the people of the book, the Christians, even them, until they submit to the rule of Islam and pay the Jizya, a heavy tax. So when people call it radical Islam, because they're around killing people, it's not. It's Islam. Okay.

And I could do more on that. And so that's why I'm saying pray for the Christians in Africa, particularly in Nigeria. So I wrote an article I wrote an article a while back, uh, months ago, do Christians have the right of self-defense? Most people think Christians supposed to just do nothing. That's not what the Bible says. We have the right of self-defense.

We do not have the right of vengeance. And I wrote this and it's being distributed, I don't know, 30, 40,000 copies or so. It's just all over the place in Nigeria. And so now I'm writing two more articles. One is Christianity true defending Christianity. And another one is Islam true and attacking Islam because Islam is a false religion. And I'm going to the Quran and the Hadith and I'm showing what the Quran actually says. And, uh, so for example, the Quran says a man's seed is formed in his chest. Mary is a sister of Aaron and Moses, and then it's okay to beat your wives. The Quran says this.

Okay. And, uh, then I talk about what's the real Quran, compare the Quran to the Bible and then quote a little bit out of the Hadith, which is a deeds and the sayings of Muhammad, where it says that Adam was 90 feet tall and also lovingly Muhammad owned a black slave and Muhammad said women, more women are in hell than men because their intelligence is so lacking. And then I show how Allah is a deceiver. Then I have a section comparing Jesus and Muhammad. And then I'm tackling the issue of salvation in Islam. Is there salvation in Islam?

No, there's not. So this is part of what it means to be a Christian. And not all people are called to do this obviously, but some people are called to go out and expose the lies of the enemy, not just be passive, but to be aggressive in exposing them. Second Corinthians 10 five to hold every thought captive as we go out preaching and teachings of Paul, the apostle did with the Peter, Peter did, John did, they went out and they taught the gospel.

It costs them their lives. And Jesus says, pick up your cross daily, follow after me. And here we go. Your part, ladies and gentlemen, your part is to pray for us. You pray for my protection, protection of my family.

You pray for the protection of those who will distribute these tracks, this information in Nigeria, in Malawi, in Zimbabwe, and maybe even in Kenya, we've got connections there. You pray for the protection of those. And you pray.

This is your job. You intercede. You pray. You ask God to expand the kingdom. You ask God to, to bring people into faith.

You can do this. I don't want you to think you can't do anything. And you know, you're not writing tracks and have a radio show that don't have people over there in Africa. So you pray and say, Lord, please open the door and close those doors, prevent the enemy from hindering the spread of the gospel, embolden the people or your people. May those tracks reach far and wide into the hands of people. You pray for that. You pray that God's will will be accomplished.

That's what you do. You need to pray for them and pray for others as well. So I'm just letting you know, you see, I believe that it says God works all things after the counsel of his will. Yes. That's what Ephesians 1 11 says that if you are a Christian, you're hearing me because this has worked after the counsel of God's will, that you pray lift up the people of Africa and of India.

They're being killed in India too, and persecuted in China. You can intercede and you can embolden through prayer, beseeching the Lord and asking the Lord to work. And he remembers your prayers. You're not ineffective.

You can do great things in prayer. Okay. Now, having said all of that, if you want to give me a call, folks, we have three open lines.

877-207-2276. Let's get to Mitchell from Charlotte, North Carolina. Mitchell, welcome.

You're on the air. Hey, Matt. How you doing? Doing all right. Doing all right.

What's up, buddy? I just want to just say a quick definition on the ontological and the economic trinity. Sure. The trinity is the teaching that there's one God in three distinct simultaneous persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Okay. The ontological trinity deals with the nature, ontos, which means the essence, the nature. The ontological trinity states that the Father, Son, Holy Spirit are all divine. They all have that divine essence, divine thing.

God is one simple thing that's called divine simplicity. And so in the doctrine of the trinity, we have sub-doctrines. One of them is called the ontological trinity, which teaches that the Father, Son, Holy Spirit are all divine.

They are all God. The economic trinity comes from the Greek word oikonomia. And it has to do with an arrangement of things.

And so we get the word economy from that. And so the economic trinity deals with the distinction of the function between the members of the Godhead. So the Father sent the Son. The Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not send the Father or the Son. Only the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And things like this. So there's a differentiation between them. It is said that the Holy Spirit convicts the world, but it does not say that the Father convicts the world.

So there's a differentiation between their, so to speak, functions or roles, we should say. Okay. Thank you, buddy. Have a good one. Okay, man. Have a quick and slick. There you go, buddy. All right. Hey, folks, guess what?

Four open lines. Why don't you give me a call? 877-207-2276. Carl from South Carolina. Welcome here on the air.

Hi, Matt. I got a question. When Jesus brought up the question of when he healed the paralytic and asked the people if it's, what is easier, to forgive people of sin or heal this paralytic? Just to kind of elaborate on that.

I'm under the impression it is easier to heal that paralytic than to give sin due to Christ going to the cross and suffering from the cross. Can you just elaborate on that? Yeah, I will after the break because you understand the context and he's talking to the people. And we'll get to that in a minute. Hey, folks, we have two open lines. Give me a call.

877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right. Welcome back, everybody. Let's get back on the air with Carl. Hey, Carl, you still there? Yes, Matt.

All right. So what he was saying there, he was talking to the Jews and they had been complaining about him that he was healing on the Sabbath. He was making very grandiose claims. So getting into the boat, Jesus crossed over the sea and came to his own city and they brought him a paralytic laying on a bed seeking their, seeing their faith. Jesus had the paralytic take courage, son, your sins are forgiven. And some of the scribes said to them, this fellow blasphemes.

And Jesus, knowing their thoughts addressed them. Now notice what he says, take courage, son, your sins are forgiven. And wait a minute, how could he say their sins are forgiven? He's just saying this, he's blaspheming. He can't do that.

That's what the scribe, he can't do that. And so he says, knowing your thoughts, he says, why are you thinking evil in your hearts? Which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven or to say, get up and walk. So, but so that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, get up, pick up your bed and go home.

And he got up and went home. So what Jesus is doing there is he's saying, look, you can say one thing, but I'm proving it to you. Yeah, I can forgive sins. And here's the proof I can do it.

You get up, take your paralytic, get up and rise. The proof was in his ability to do the miracles. It was backing up what he said. And so he was saying that he can forgive sins. They said, no, you can't. And he says, yes, I can. Here's the proof of this.

Get up and head to the guy, do that. That's what's going on. So he wasn't asking a question in that sense of, you know, that forgiveness of sins through, through him, he's acknowledging that he is God. And, and, but I thought it would be kind of tracking to when he goes to the cross, suffers and forgives us for our sins. That's what he was kind of implying. But here's the thing.

Now this gets very interesting. Forgiveness of sins is dependent and only possible through the atonement of Christ. And yet he said, your sins are forgiven and are already forgiven. Now, wait a minute.

How can that be? There is something we call the now and the not yet. Right now your sins are forgiven, but the atonement that makes it possible is not yet. So now you're glorified Romans 8, 29 and 30, but not yet.

So what this means is that we have a disparity, a tension, I should say, between what is happening and what's going to happen or what is guaranteed to happen and what's happening. So Jesus, because he's God in flesh and because all things were ordained by God knows, and it's, it's a fact that the atoning sacrifice is going to happen. It's been ordained from the foundation of the world.

It's not possible not to happen because God is at work. So he says, your sins are forgiven. Now under the Old Testament economy, what's going on here is they had the Old Testament covenant still because it was not done away with until the death of Christ according to Hebrews 8, 13, Hebrews 9, 15 through 16. So they were still under the Old Testament sacrificial system, which ultimately pointed ahead to Christ. So by going through the issue of the sacrificial system, they had their sins functionally forgiven. This means that the sacrifice of the Old Testament are ultimately pointing ahead to Christ. That's where the true forgiveness is because Hebrews talks about, I think it's Hebrews 10, the sacrifice of animals doesn't forgive. It's only the sacrifice of God and flesh. So what we have there in the Old Testament for them was a continual, hundreds of years of now, now they were doing the blood sacrifice, the animal sacrifices, but they ultimately don't forgive. Only the blood of Christ does that. And so the now and the not yet is a constant tension, not in a bad way, but it's this, it's not here yet, but it's coming. You know, it's not here, but it's coming. And so this is where the tension also manifests. Your sins are forgiven.

Plus he has the authority to do that, but ultimately it has to be through the blood shed of Christ, which fulfills a sacrifice. So there's a perfect example of the now and not yet. I hope that helps. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Matt, with that being said, in a sense for forgiveness, as we are Christian and we forgive others in the sense of true forgiveness, is it only through as being a Christian with faith in Christ and being anointed through the Holy Spirit that we can actually say we have true forgiveness for others. And would you say that a non-believer then in the sense that they cannot have or act in that sense of forgiveness?

Yeah. In that sense, uh, there is no ultimate forgiveness for an unbeliever. They, they, in, in their forgiving as well as, um, being forgiven, they are not ultimately forgiven because they don't have the blood of Christ covering them. Their sins are still upon them. And when they forgive that, we aren't any different than unbelievers in this.

Uh, maybe, maybe not, but you'll get my point here. When I forgive someone, well, I don't even know if in my heart I'm a hundred percent forgiving. See, I remember once, this is just experience, not that experience makes a doctrine, but I was greatly offended by somebody and I forgave until a few years later, I found out I hadn't because I still was harboring anger, but that anger was hidden and I had to deal with it again and then later again. And so if as a Christian, not that I'm representative of all Christians, but if as a Christian, we have a trouble forgiving completely and totally, how much more will an unbeliever? So I don't believe that any individual is perfectly capable of forgiving because, well, we're just not perfect.

But on the, but on the other hand, yeah, we Christians, yeah, we can forgive and we do, and we do it through Christ to the best of our ability. And, um, and, and that's it. Okay.

Okay. Hey, appreciate your ministry, Matt. You have a blessed day. You too, Carl, man. God bless.

All right. Let's get on the phone with, let's see next longest waiting is Al from North Carolina. Al welcome. You're on the air. Hi Matt.

Thanks for taking my call. I have heard recently that the Dead Sea Scrolls, when they were discovered included a book of Enoch. And I think the book of Enoch is referenced in the new Testament someplace, maybe first or second, Peter, I can't remember Jude and Jude.

Okay. So the questions that my son was asking me about the, the desk, your shows, why isn't the book of Enoch included in the Bible? And I didn't have a good answer because, because it's not included in the Bible.

It never was. The Jews never recognized it as being included the Dead Sea Scrolls and here's bragging. This is bragging. I have actually been literally inside Qumran cave one where the first set of scrolls were discovered. I've actually been in it. Oh, that's a brag.

So the Dead Sea Scrolls contained, uh, different manuscripts, but also other non biblical documents, the scenes copied all kinds of stuff, but they'd recognize what was scripture and the book of Enoch was never scripture. Hold on. We got a break. We'll be right back. Okay. Folks be right back after these messages.

One open line, eight seven seven two zero seven two two seven six. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show. Al, are you still there? Yes, I am. Thank you. All right.

So the break was fortuitous. I did a little bit of research and, and, um, found that there are many more books. They're not biblically, uh, considered to be by biblical that were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, including books of the Apocrypha, which are never considered, the Jews never considered to be, um, scripture and also, uh, calendar, calendary, uh, excuse me, calendar texts and varying historical texts. I'm looking at a website on this legal texts, pair of the parabiblical texts, poetic literature, uh, sectarian texts.

And so this is from a deadseascrolls.org. And so I just did a little bit of research. So there are just lots of books that, uh, that were in the Dead Sea Scrolls that are not scripture. They knew that the Essenes knew what was scripture. They just copied other things as well because a lot of these books, you understand a lot of these Apocryphal books are historical books and they're valuable for history. So they were copied. That's all they just were kept in the, in there as well. And the Jews knew those aren't scripture. We know that we know which ones are.

It was just not even a discussion. So it's only later people say, Oh, they were in the Dead Sea Scrolls. So therefore they're scripture. No, the Essenes never considered them scripture. It never was part of that.

Okay. So I did want to ask one follow up around how did the Bible, I know that the Bible, uh, when they, when they determined which books are canonical or not, or are in the Canon, you know, I know that there was criteria that they had to judge at the time. And I don't remember when that actually occurred. Was that like 300 or 400 AD?

Nope. See the Old Testament was already known and already accepted. What the Christian church did was recognize scripture. It did not determine scripture.

This is a very important point. It did not say that scripture. It says, we recognize what is scripture.

It's a, there's a difference. The authority of the church is not what declares something authoritative scripturally. The church is subservient to God himself and the scriptures because the scriptures are inspired. The church is not the church.

As Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. The church hears the voice of the Lord and recognizes those scriptures. Now that's not to say that they didn't analyze and have disagreements, but God in his sovereignty worked through church people and determined or, and worked so that they would recognize what he intended to be scripture.

And that's what happened. Now there were certain criteria that they would use as they would do these things. Like, was it written in a New Testament sense, written by an apostle or an amanuensis of the apostle? A lot of people don't know this, but Mark, for example, hold on. Mark was not a disciple of Jesus. Paul was later a disciple of Jesus and Paul and Peter and John, these are just great disciples, but they had amanuensis, people who were scribes who would write for them. Luke, for example, did this. And so Luke was someone who wrote, he wrote most of the New Testament, as a matter of fact, in the book of Acts, the book of Luke, volume-wise. And the disciples recognized this and the church recognized that what he did was inspired because it's from the apostles. Make sense?

Yeah, no, I get that. And I guess, you know, since there were other books available at the time, what, is there a place where I could go look and see and understand how the criteria was that the sermon was considered scripture? There are. I've read articles on it. And one of the things, some of the things that the early church used, apostolic, and I forgot where the sources are, so you have to look upon yourself. But some of the things were things where the early church didn't have apostolic authority or the authority under the apostles. Was it addressed to the church?

Does it have that power? Is it consistent with scripture, with the Old Testament? Did the church recognize it early on?

You've got to understand something. A lot of people forget something very important, that Christianity was considered by the Romans to be a division or a sect inside of Judaism. And in 70 AD, Rome came in and destroyed Jerusalem. And this is called the diaspora, the dispersion. And so the Christians spread out to the Mediterranean area. But before that 70 AD event, Nero was persecuting the Christians and burning them at a stake and doing evil things. And Christians fled. So now when the empire of Rome was against the Christians, because what the Jews did, and they thought the Christians were a sect of Judaism, Christians, they got the short end of the stick as well. So they're fleeing.

They don't have time in those situations to say, hey, let's have a big council. Because the Romans would have come in and wiped them out. So they were hiding. And the scriptures were already known by the early church well before the 300s, because they knew these are from the apostles. And it wasn't until after Rome let up on his persecution of the Christians that they could then have councils in roughly 325 AD-ish. There's some stuff before that. They had these councils.

And around that time, they recognized and officiated what they knew was already scripture. So that's why it took so long. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

You're right, Al. God bless, buddy. Hey, let's get over to Troy from Virginia. Troy, welcome.

You're on the air. All right. Yeah, man.

I have some questions about defending yourself as a Christian and where the break line is between vengeance and defending yourself. The difference between... Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. No, it is. Good question.

No, it is. Vengeance and self-defense. Okay.

Self-defense occurs. There are some gray areas we'll talk about a little bit. The break's coming up.

I'm sure we'll go past it. So I use these illustrations. Okay. If someone comes into my house and is breaking down the door and, let's just say, threatening to kill me, I know who you are, Matt.

I know you live here. I'm going to come in. I'm going to kill you. At that point, I have the right of self-defense. So let's say that this guy breaks my door down and he doesn't come in, but he says, I'm going to come back and get you.

And then he takes off. I don't have the right at that point to shoot him in the back because the threat is gone. And I don't have the right to find out where he lives and then go kill him. And if he were to harm one of my family members, this is vengeance. I don't have the right to go find him and harm him. Self-defense generally deals with the issue of the imminent danger that's right there.

Now, this is not exactly an easy thing to work through. So I have a friend who's an ex-federal agent, and we talked about this. And he was giving me United States laws and variations.

We talked generically. And so this is a good illustration. If someone's outside, I say on the sidewalk, and they have, say, an AR-15, and it's pointed to the ground and they say they're going to come in to kill. I don't have the right to shoot him from my door because the threat is not imminent. If they raise the gun and it's in an aggressive manner that they're going to shoot into the house, now I have that right of self-defense. So self-defense is something that deals with something that's imminent.

Here's another gray area, though. What do you do if you know, for example, in Nigeria, a bunch of Muslims on motorcycles with AK-47s are coming to a pass, and you know for a fact they're coming in to kill hundreds of villagers? Now what do you do? So in my opinion, you have the right for a preemptive strike. It's not vengeance, but it's to stop the harm that's coming in because the Bible says defend the helpless. So now we have a command to defend the helpless.

And so you see, these particulars we have to look at in each one. So vengeance is going after. So let's say they came in, they destroyed a village, and then they took off. And then what happens is people are getting together to go find them in order to kill them.

Now that's vengeance, and that's a problem. So you see? Yeah, I do from the standpoint of someone risking your life. I have an issue I've been going through from an economic standpoint of a particular group that's been targeting me every way they can. And basically to destroy me in every way they can because the things I'm covered that they were doing that are very harmful to people.

And it's basically just to shut me up. And so I defend myself constantly from it, but it's very trying and expensive all the time. Yeah, that's the way of the wicked. You have the right of preemptive striking. That's not an issue of killing. We have the right of legal recourse to go after them.

And I'll tell you, if someone was threatening me legally, I'd go after them. Okay? Hold on, we've got to break.

We've got to break. Hold on. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

Two open lines, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show.

Troy, are you still there? Oh yeah. All right. I agree with the idea of the legal standpoint, but I live in a state that turned blue quite some time ago. And through the whole legal process, everyone I hired got bought from the other side. So, you know, it was a total collapse of the legal system.

And, you know, so exposure is the only way I know to go and help, you know, and, you know, with the idea that I'll get some type of help from a part that isn't for sale. You know, it seems like the majority of... Well, what's your question though? You have a question about this though? Well, you know, your answer was, you know, to follow it from a legal standpoint. So the legal standpoint is totally collapsed. There's nothing to follow there.

That's true. So, you know, so if you have a collapse of the legal system, and of course I'm not a benchball person, you know, where do you go from there? Well, what you do is there are imprecatory psalms, believe it or not, God get them. And if the legal recourse is breaking down, as our system is becoming more corrupt and wickedness will continue to prosper, then it's just a fact that we're going to be lied to and things are going to go wrong.

And then what you can, you have the options. One of them is to pray. Well, you always want to pray for their salvation, but you can also pray, Lord, you know, get them. They have sought to have sought evil against your servant. They have sought to destroy your servant, Lord, reward them according to their evil. Ultimately, Lord, for the work of salvation, but deal with them accordingly.

You can pray that, believe it or not. It's not un-biblical to do that. But then you see the thing is Jesus has prayed for your enemies. And that's what you're supposed to do. Ultimately, you want to pray for their salvation because they're going to go to eternal damnation. You want them to be saved. So that's your primary thing in this case. And sometimes you just have to accept, not that I think it's okay, but you just have to accept the fact that that's how it is.

Sometimes things go bad and the wicked prosper. What are you going to do? Okay. Yep.

Well, I thank you very much, man. Yeah. It's frustrating. Trust me. I know I've been there. It's various things. I heard you discussing it a couple of months ago. You were trying to figure out the differences yourself. I thought I would tune back in and see if you got anywhere with it. A little bit, but yeah.

There are difficulties and every situation has to be looked at individually and weighed carefully. That's correct. Yep. All right. Well, anyway, I thank you very much, sir. All right, Troy. God bless, buddy.

All right. Let's get on the phone with David from Kansas City. Dave, welcome. You're on the air.

Thanks, man. I have a question. I was reading... I can barely hear you, man.

I have you turned up too. All right. You can hear me now?

A little better. Go ahead. I was reading a book where it talked about the fact that if you hold to biblical inspiration in the original manuscript, then you have to believe 100% reliable transmission of those texts in the modern language. No, you don't. Explain how I can diffuse that. Well, it's not a logical necessity. They're making a claim.

They can't verify that it's true. Inspiration deals with the originals or what we call the autographs. That's what it is. Inspiration means that the apostles and the prophets wrote what they did under the breath of God as he worked through them. What they penned was absolutely authentic, accurate, and inspired. And now what we have are copies of those inspired documents, but the copies are not perfect.

That's it. Now, when someone says you have to believe in their accurate transmission, well, then you get a problem because though the copies are incredibly well-preserved, incredibly accurate, there are discrepancies and nothing significant. And so they're 99.8% textually identical.

There's enough redundancy and issues. I mean, we have the word of God. It's accurate. But to say, look, if you believe in the original, you also have to believe in the inspiration of the transmission process. And that's just, no, you don't. Okay.

That help? Yes. Okay. Who's saying this? Who's saying this to you? Oh, I read a book. It's actually called, it's about Francis Schaeffer and C.S. Lewis, and it compares the two of them.

It says 20th century prophet for a new century. It's talking comparing Schaeffer and Lewis' theology. Well, okay. But the issue of inerrancy though, I'm big on logic.

All right. And nothing in scripture, which is our source of truth, states that transmission must also be inspired. It only states that that which is written is inspired, but God certainly is capable of preserving his word.

And he has, and he does. And then what do you do about a translation? Because when you translate something like in Spanish to say, I'm hungry, you say, yo tengo hambre, which is literally, I have hunger, but we don't talk like that. So we don't translate it super literally.

We just say, I'm hungry. Is it accurate? Yes. Is it a literal translation? No. But on the other hand, is it literal?

Yeah. And you can do the same kind of thing with Greek. New Testament, for example, it says, agathos anthropos, the good man. And you can take anthropos out, which is the word man.

And because both ha, the definite article, and agathos, the word good, are both in what's called a masculine singular nominative, then you can say the good man. And so you can, there's a little bit of variation in how things are translated, but it's accurate. So how this issue of the transmission issue and then translation issues, they're related. And it's not as simple as people just want to say, you know, you have to believe if you believe in the, uh, the, uh, inspiration of the autographs, you have to believe in the inspiration of the transmissions of the documents. No, you don't, you know, you don't.

Okay. You know, that's the argument. It's a weak argument. If someone were to say that to me, no, believe me, I believe in the accuracy of the Bible. I believe in the incredible accuracy of the transmission and the incredible accuracy of, of, of, um, translation. I believe that.

I defend it. I'm not knocking the Bible. Okay. But there is a fact there are textual variants from copies. That's a fact.

Okay. It doesn't mean the Bible is not trustworthy. So if someone were to say to me, if you can believe in inerrancy, Matt, you also have to believe in the inerrancy of the transmission process. They'd say, why, why, where, show me where it says that. Show me what logical principle must be in place.

Where does it say in scripture that I must believe that where it show me that all they're doing is, is inventing a necessity, but they can't demonstrate it logically. I can't demonstrate it. I'm going to email you that, that, that page out of the book. Sure. Okay.

Thanks. Okay. All right. Sounds good.

All right. Oh, let's get, let's get three open, uh, four open lines. You want to give me a call really quickly? 877-207-2276.

And I just hit the wrong button there. Joanne. Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, how are you? Yes. You just got quiet. Okay. This is not my question.

If somebody in the chat room that couldn't call, but I'm going to read it to you and hang up. Okay. Okay.

Go ahead. What are some evidences of fruit in our lives? And how does she know that it's from the spirit and not her self producing it? What are you laughing at? I'm watching you on television because it's you, people, people don't know that you, you run the prayer ministry for Carmen. You're such a sweetie. So I'm smiling. That's all. That's why I'm smiling. Okay. It's nice to have you on the air. What's that?

I believe that was a lie. I'm chuckling. It's okay.

It's like if Laura called, you know, I'd smile, you know, it's and people in the room. Huh? What's that? You want me to mail you a brick family? You want me to mail you a brick family? Sure.

Since women are so good with sandwiches. No problem. Okay. She's got her whole family waiting on you to answer that.

Do you remember it? Okay. So, uh, it has to do with how do you know if your fruit is from God or not? Right. Yes. And what are, what are, what are some, Matt wrote it down for me.

What are some evidences of fruit in our lives and how does she know that it's from the spirit and not her self produced in it? Okay. Sounds good.

I'll, I'll tackle that then. All right. Okay. Thank you. All right, Joanne. All right.

Yeah. Joanne works with us. She's a sweetie. Um, so how do you know what the fruit of the spirit are? You go to the Bible and that's Galatians five 22 through 23 and it's one fruit, ladies and gentlemen in the Greek. It's not fruits. It's fruit. One of them. The fruit, the one fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such things.

There is no law now. So can an unbeliever be loving and patient and kind? Yeah, they can. Would they say those are the fruit of the spirit? No, because they're not Christians. They are fruit of the flesh. Now, wait a minute, Matt, how can you say someone could be loving and peaceful and patient in a fleshly way? Of course they can because even atheists can be loving to their children.

They can be patient. They can be kind, but it's not a fruit of the spirit. It's a fruit of the flesh by definition. Then how would you know if your fruit is of the spirit or of the flesh? Because if the unbelievers can have fruit of the, that looks like for the spirit, but it's really the flesh. And how can you know what yours is for the spirit or flesh?

Because you submit to the spirit of God. What we do is we say, Lord Jesus, please teach me, work in my heart. And we struggle with our sins. And then we learn what real love is, not the atheist kind of love. We learn what real patience is, not the atheist kind of patience.

We learn what real kindness is, not the atheist kind. Our fruit of the spirit is centered on the work of Jesus and we emulate him. That's true fruit because the true fruit of God is the fruit of God, ultimately points to Christ and is the work of the Lord God. With an atheist, for example, they mimic the same things that we do.

They can be in a human level loving, but not in an ultimate sense because it's not sanctified by the blood of Christ and it's not for the glory of the Lord God. And this is a thing a lot of Christians don't understand, that our fruit, our patience, our kindness is for the glory of God. It's because we want to live for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And that is the fruit. You're going to have true fruit and false fruit. True fruit is Christ-centered, God-centered, and is for the glory of God. And it is dependent upon the work of Christ. False fruit imitates true fruit, but it ultimately is not glorifying God.

There's a difference because the goal of them is completely different. That's not to say an atheist can't be honest. It certainly can be honest, but it doesn't glorify God. It's not sanctified through the shed blood of Christ. When a Christian is honest, it's so so because he's honoring the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is a good work. But the atheist, equal, not lying, is not a good work.

It's ultimately stained and unacceptable. The fruit of the Spirit comes from God himself through the person who's a Christian. And that is where the fruit is. And we know that we have that fruit when our eyes are on Christ, and we're imitating Christ, and we're seeking to follow Christ.

That's how we know that it's the fruit of the Spirit. Okay? Hope that helps. May the Lord bless you all by his grace, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be on tomorrow. And hopefully to talk to you then. I hope you have a great evening. I'll talk to you later. God bless. Bye. Another program powered by the Truth Network.