Matt Slick Live

A previously recorded Matt Slick show. Give me a call. All you gotta do, as usual, is dial 877-207-2276. And 2276 on your phone is CARM. That's the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry. CARM is the website address, CARM.org.

You know, I know a lot of people listen to me on the radio, but a lot of people have never been on the website and you might want to check it out. We are in the process, however, it could take another couple of months. We're in the process of converting the files over to the new format. And once we release this site, it'll be substantially different looking.

The articles will be the same. We're going to have a lot more graphics and a lot more, you know, bells and whistles and some tools and some stuff like that. We really want to expand a great deal and do a lot more videos. It's kind of frustrating because there's so many issues I wanted to discuss and do research on right now, particularly in social justice issues. But I have to devote this time to getting the articles converted to get the website going.

And it's been tough to let kind of that thing go. But this is how it is, you know. But I have actually begun a little research on social justice issues. And I'm creating a, and it's not ready yet, but I'm creating a section on CARM called Social Justice and dealing with ageism, Black Lives Matter, which I've already written on, which if you're a true Christian, you cannot support Black Lives Matter. Not because we're not against equality among the so-called races.

That's not an issue. Black Lives Matter is basically a Marxist anti-family organization that promotes far leftist agenda. These Christians just can't support it. Let me discuss the issues of what it means to be woke and a canceled culture, critical race theory, economic equality, the education and stuff. And I've got some information that I have to check out from Glenn Beck about some of the stuff that's going on with education. Real perverse things that they're trying to push through.

I think it's in 21 states, someone told me. Perverse stuff about how to teach their children about sexuality and some of the stuff I can't even say for the radio. So I need to do an analysis on that. I'll be working on gender equality and identity, healthcare, social justice, social mobility of the 1619 Project and this thing called white privilege. I'm not so sure what that is since I certainly haven't experienced it.

I don't know what it is. I have to work my tail off and I work as hard as anybody I know and have for decades just to get where I'm at. And still paying off bills and school loans and stuff like that, you know. I always believe you've got a problem, try your best to take care of it.

If you can't, you need help and do what you've got to do. Anyway, so these are some of the issues. And also intersectionality, got to work on that. There's some of the stuff waiting for me to do some more research on. I need to do it.

Just got to get the CARM website converted. It takes a lot of time. I can do on a good day about 50 articles in one day. And got some people helping so we can get about 75 to 100 done a day.

And we've got 6,000 articles. Oh, man. So there you go.

A little bit of whining. But I think that's good for you sometime. All right. Let's get on the phones after I get the number out again.

877-207-2276. Let's get to Jay from California. Jay, welcome. You're on the air, man. Welcome. Hey, what do you got? Thank you.

Sure. So in the book of Acts, the Philippian jailer is told he just needs to believe in the Lord Jesus. Why is there no mention of repentance? Repentance – it depends what you mean. Repentance is – okay, this is a good discussion.

Repentance is from the Greek metanoia, which means to change the mind and to turn from doing what is wrong. So we have a question to ask. Must an unbeliever repent of his sins in order to become a Christian? Now, I'm going to give the answer, and you have to hear me out, everybody.

Don't take me out of context. But the answer is no. And the reason is because they cannot repent because they're slaves of sin, Romans 6, 14-20. They are haters of God who do no good, Romans 3, 10, 11 and 12. They're dead in their sins, Ephesians 2-1, and by nature, children of wrath, Ephesians 2-3.

They cannot receive and understand and do these spiritual things, 1 Corinthians 2-14. So if repentance was necessary, what that would mean is that in order to be saved, a person would have to comply with the law. So the law says do not lie. If a person is lying and you say you have to repent of lying, are we saying then you have to obey the law in order to be saved? You have to comply with that law so that you don't lie anymore. And that's what we have to talk about, right?

Is that how you get it taken care of? And if we were to say that we have to repent in order to be saved, then in that sense, it would be a works righteousness issue, and we can't have that. We can't do it. But on the other hand, we can't be Christians and continue in sin. We must turn or have an attitude of turning from sin as we come to Christ.

And so when we look at this, we look at the problem. If we look at repentance as a compliance with the law, then no, repentance is not necessary for salvation because compliance with the law is not necessary because no one can keep the law. On the other hand, yes, we're to repent from our sins because we can't continue and walk in them as Romans 6, 1, 2, 3 talks about.

So when we get to this issue, it's a tough one to get so quickly. Now, when he says here in Acts 16, 30, what must I do to be saved? Believe the Lord Jesus and he'll be saved in your household. Well, that's the answer. Baptism isn't mentioned. Repentance isn't mentioned.

Nothing is mentioned like that. It's just belief. Yeah, but demons believed. Yeah, but that's James 2.19 and that's called ascensia. Ascensia is the Latin term in theology we use to describe just a mental ascent. The devil goes, yeah, Jesus is real.

That's different than fiducia, which is a faithful trust. It's more like saying the devil and the demons are aware of God's existence, but they don't want to put their trust in him. And that's what we do as Christians. We have fiducia, we trust, where the demons have ascensia.

It's ascent, mental ascent. So that's different in James 2, different context all together. So what he says, the other question I would have relating to this is, doesn't the Holy Spirit give us the desire to repent as part of us turning to God? The Holy Spirit gives us both the desire to repent and the faith?

Well there's a yes and no to that. God grants that we have repentance, 2 Timothy 2.5. He grants that we believe, Philippians 1.29. And he causes us to be born again, 1 Peter 1.3, and we're born again not of our own will, John 1.13. So because of the regeneration, we are then enabled to be able to turn from our sins. So the Holy Spirit works these things, but this Bible specifically says God grants that we have repentance.

So it's God's work in us. So when he says in John, excuse me John, in Acts 16, 31, believe in the Lord Jesus, you and your house, you'll be saved. What he's talking about is justification by faith. This is what you need, that you're saved by faith, not by faith and repentance or and going to church or and baptism or and anything.

And that's what he's getting at there. I guess I lost that argument, Matt. Which argument? With my Bible study group.

Well what was the argument that you proposed? Well, a bunch of us said, because we've been hearing it from various pastors, that you need both repentance and faith. And even though it's not really, as you explain it, from your own, because we don't have that within us, but that the Holy Spirit would give you the desire to repent and the faith that you needed. See I'm annoying in Bible studies, my hand goes up, where does it say that the Holy Spirit gives us the desire for repentance?

I'm going to have to look. I've got notes on it from way back and but you give me a great response as I knew you would. And so that's why I called.

Well that's good. Here's the thing, when I'm at Bible studies and someone's leading it, it's hard for me to keep my mouth shut, I'll tell you, because they'll assume so many things in scripture. And they might be correct, but I'm just saying, where does it say that? And it gets annoying. People don't want to have to go to the Bible to find out if it says it or not.

They want to just be able to study and believe what they think is true. And to me that's dangerous. So if I were there and someone said, well the Holy Spirit grants us the ability to repent, my hand's going to go up, can you show me a verse for that? Because I don't know of any verse for that. I've been studying the Bible for decades, I just don't know any verse. I do know the verse. How about when John's calling to repent when he first goes out before Christ comes and he's out in the wilderness calling out for everybody to repent?

Does that not have to carry any weight to it at all? Of course it does. We're supposed to turn from our sin. In fact, in John, excuse me, in Acts 17, 30, God commands everyone everywhere to repent. And the reason he does that is because he's a standard of holiness and righteousness and everyone ought to turn from their sins. So he commands that because that's what should happen. A friend of mine actually, we had this discussion yesterday, I think it was yesterday, and he brought up a really good point which I never thought of.

And so I'm going to give him credit, name's Dave, Dave Kimball. And he brought this up, he said, when John the Baptist was commanding people to be baptized, and if people say baptism is necessary for salvation, he asked this great question. He said, were the people there still obligated to go and offer sacrifices in the temple?

That's an excellent question. Because Christ had not yet been crucified. If he had not yet been crucified, then it was still necessary under the old covenant to offer sacrifices. But if you get baptized, or whatever, after the crucifixion of Christ is resurrection, the issue of animal sacrifice is no longer necessary. That's out of Hebrews 8, 13, Hebrews 9, 15-16. Because the new covenant abrogates the old one, and we don't need the blood stuff anymore. So baptism in the Old Testament covenant, which is recorded in the New Testament, a lot of people think that the old covenant ends as soon as Jesus is born, or it's all the Old Testament stuff.

Nope. The Old Testament era, so to speak, not the Old Testament because we know the books, but I mean that place up until the new covenant, hold on, that went right up to the point of the crucifixion. So John's baptism was a baptism of repentance, and yet it would appear that those who got baptized in John, the baptism, would still have to go offer animal sacrifices, which would mean that they weren't saved by the baptism. It's a very good observation, my friend said, and it was so good that I told him, that is a great insight.

So I'll give him credit and then I'll be using it on my own later. But this is the thing, that repentance is something we're obligated to do because it's righteous. We're obligated to be right before God. Be holy for I am holy, 1 Peter 1 16. But we can't be holy.

God has to give it to us. Make sense? Thank you, man. Thank you so much.

I appreciate it. Hey folks, you have five open lines. If you want to give me a call, 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, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Believe it or not, we have nobody waiting on line, so why don't you jump in.

877-207-2276. You know, just to play off the last call before the break, let me state that, in my opinion, there's a great deal of ignorance about biblical theology among pastors and especially among the laity. I'm not bragging. I'm not saying I have all the answers, nothing like that. It's just that having studied so much over the years, it's just something I've seen, I've noticed. I understand the lady doesn't understand something.

That's not a problem because they've got jobs to do, and they don't get to study like I do and stuff like that. But the pastors are supposed to know more than the average person, and for the most part they do. But when we get into issues like repentance necessary for salvation and things like that, the nuances of those kinds of issues, I find a lot of times that there's some shortcomings there. And when I've gone to Bible studies, I've found that it's a little disturbing sometimes to hear some of the things that are said. Anyway, my desire is to get people to understand biblical theology. You don't have to have big, thick glasses and 18 really big books in order to understand biblical theology. You don't need to.

You can go to Carm and you can read the articles on theology and just learn. But the issue is we should be learning this stuff. We should be knowing what this stuff is. And I think it's important. We need to learn how to carry the cross as we're walking towards Christ and not carrying a hammock as we're walking away from him.

You don't have to be comforted and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, it's just what I'm thinking. Okay, four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Vicki from North Carolina. Vicki, you're on the air.

Hey, Matt. How are you doing today? Doing all right. Hanging in there.

Great. Ava, I just wanted to see if you could point me to some good reference or scriptures. I have a grand niece, always like the most sweetest, smartest, most sensible girl in the world. She went away to college. And she's still sweet. She's got into this tarot card reading thing.

And there's other things too that have changed. They've changed or warped her mind a little bit. But I was wondering what scripture I could speak to her about. I don't want to upset her or offend her or push her away or make her feel like I'm judging her because I'm not. But I also want her to be safe.

Okay. Does she say she's a Christian? Does she have any Christian background? She always has, yeah.

Definitely. She's getting mixed up in tarot cards. What I'll do with people... Now, I can do things like say, hey, that's occultic and you're opening yourself up to do some potential demonic oppression. Some people, you say that directly and it's okay, and some people not. So you got to be careful how you say things. And even over the radio, I'm rather direct, but I'm still trying to be patient and in real life, so to speak, talking to people. You got to really kind of feel them out in the situation. That's what you have to do.

I am really. It's really hard for me to approach stuff like that because I don't want to offend or push somebody away or upset them or, you know. Well, we'll try this.

This is one of the things I've done in that situation. I've said tarot cards, huh? Okay. So explain to me how they work. I just ask them. You explain. That means a person's going to say, well, you do this, you do that, blah, blah, blah. Okay, just sort of pop up here. And I'm starting to get distracted.

No problem. Now, explain what it is. Now, what I'm going to do is ask, well, do they work? And they're going to say, well, yes.

Can you show me how they work? And you're not participating in tarot card reading, but you could say, well, a card means this, a card means that. How do you know? How do you know?

And who says so? And I'm going to be gradually moving towards more difficult questions. And what I want to get to is what's the source of power behind it? That's what I want to get to.

So I'm gradually going to be pushing that envelope a little bit until I can get to that place. What is the source behind it? Is it good or is it bad? How do you know if it's good or bad? How do you know if it's not something that's being deceptive? I mean, why is it that cards can determine your future?

Why? What's behind them? Are you randomly shuffling them and the randomness is what produces the truth? Or is there something controlling you that causes the cards to be arranged in a certain order?

What's this going because either way, that means something other than you has to be involved. If it's just the person randomly shuffling, then the randomness can't be of any value. It's just random and you'll read whatever you want into the cards. Because I could do that. I could literally make up a set of cards, have them professionally designed and make them weird stuff and then I could, without having done it before, deal out cards to somebody.

And I would never do this, but I could. And say, well, this card right here, this is not a good sign. And I watch a body language.

Not a good sign. Something to do with family members. And this is about family members. And they'll go, yeah, that's right. I look for clues that they're going to feed me. It's what you do.

And I would be able to figure things out and to get things done that way. And this is what a lot of these people do who are in that profession. They watch, they know, they say generic things and then the victim, what they do is they confirm through body language or deny.

I watch body language a lot. So you do this. And you get very skilled at it.

You can help people out. Anyway, so that's just one of the things that can, that's for the back of your head because that's what really is happening. But if it is a spiritual connection, then is it good or bad? And if she claims to have been a Christian, well, the Bible talks about things like this. It talks about sorcery. And it's sorcery. And it's contacting a spiritual force other than God. Because God doesn't work through tarot cards. So if he doesn't work through tarot cards, then what does?

And that's where you want to ask the final question. How serious do you think something like that is? Very. Very serious. It could be up to demonic oppression.

Flat out. Tarot cards, astrology, the Ouija board, necromancy, centering in prayer, auras, chakra balancing, astral projection. Certain drugs can lead to this. There's lots of things. Seeking the inner divinity within you. Crystals, using crystals in order to get in touch with the harmonic principles of the universe. All this is from the New Age movement, which I used to study a lot back in the 80s. And it's just occultic stuff, and it opens people up.

It doesn't mean they can be possessed, but it's not a good thing. Okay? Right.

Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Matt. I appreciate your help on that.

Sure. God bless. Take care, sir.

You, too. Hey, folks, you have three 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. Welcome back, everyone. We have three open lines.

Let's see. Give me a call. 877-207-2276. Joe from Florida. Joe, welcome.

You're on the air. How are you doing, Joe? I'm doing fine, Matt. Doing all right. Hanging in there. What do you got, buddy? Good. Good. I understand that before we actually talk, I know that you were amillennial.

At least you mentioned it one time before. And what I'm doing, I'm doing a study trying to actually grasp the three different positions, premillennial, postmillennial, and amillennial. And my question is, what caused you, what key passages caused you to, or convinced you, I should say, convinced you, in your mind, to settle on the amillennial position? And if you could, just kind of give me an idea of what made the difference, distinctions between pre, post, and am, because I'm dealing with an individual that is premillennial, and he's emphasizing the clear distinctions between Israel and the church.

He's a dispensationalist, too. Well, I tell you what, I can actually, what I'll do, I'll read you the verses, and I'll tell you a little back story behind it. I was in Southern California in San Diego County in El Cajon at a friend's apartment.

I remember this so clearly. And he came up to me, and he said, hey, Matt, I've got some verses for you to read. I was over at his house or his apartment just visiting. I said, well, what's it about? He goes, I'm not going to tell you. I just want you to read. Well, what's it about?

He goes, just, I just want you to read. He didn't say anything other than that. Now, at this point, I was premillennial. Now, in premillennialism, we have the idea that before the millennial reign is when the rapture occurs.

And at the end of the millennial reign, the thousand year, the literal thousand years, is when the new heavens and new earth are made. Right? Right. Okay. So he didn't bring this up.

That's just part of what I'm setting up because it's in my head. And so I started reading. He goes, here, read this. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will arise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words.

Now, as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. That's 1 Thessalonians 4, 16 through chapter 5, verse 2. So that's the rapture. The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Right?

No problem. Then he flipped me over to 2 Peter 3, 10. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up.

And I read that and I looked at him and I said, there's no millennium. Just that fast. Now, there's no literal method to do what I meant. But he goes, I know. That's what did it for me. I was unsuspecting.

Can you see what the problem is? When you jump to 2 Peter 3, 10. Okay, here's the thing. We know that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. That's the rapture. Right? Right. Correct. The day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away and roar with the elements.

We destroy the intense heat. That's the new heavens and the new earth. It's the same day. That's what did it for me. Yeah. And I'm like, whoa.

In fact, you know what, that reminds me. I was watching a Bible. I hate watching Bible programs because I want to yell at TV. But this guy, he was talking prophecy. He was doing a great job. And then he says, in the rapture, I'm listening, and he went and he just, he butchered, he just butchered the stuff out of Luke 17.

Two men in field one is taken. That's the rapture. No, it's not. It's the wicked who were taken. I couldn't believe it. So anyway, I'm like, oh, click.

I've got to watch something more interesting like a documentary on, you know, whales or something. So that's what did it for me because the day of the Lord come like a thief in the night in 1 Thessalonians 4, that's the rapture. But in 2 Peter 3, 10, the day of the Lord will come like a thief, but it doesn't say in the night. But it does say, why is that?

I think there's a reason. No, it says the day of the Lord will come like a thief. Both of them say that. There's only one, the day of the Lord. And one comes like a thief in the night. The other one just doesn't say so. I believe it's because the earth is a sphere. And it'll happen when it's night.

It'll happen when it's day. Well, there's two points that I'm having a problem with, battling. And I'm kind of one of the thousand year stuff, which, you know, the post and the ah basically say that it's symbolic. It is symbolic. Well, how about this? It's in the middle of symbolic speech in Revelation 20. But think about this. I saw an angel come down from heaven, right?

An angel is living. Yeah, that one is not too hard. That one is not too much of a, I kind of battled with that one and kind of leaning where you're going with it and kind of understanding that.

You can see that it could be, yeah. Where's the ruling and reigning coming in? This is where the millennialists, to me, have a pretty good argument where, you know, if we're already in, if the post kind of have an answer to it, in that, you know, they are basically saying that we're doing that now in a spiritual world, kind of spiritual kingdom. We're ruling and reigning with him.

I don't know about God. I gotcha. I gotcha.

You ready? Yeah. Now, Jesus said in Matthew 12, 22, 32, he said Satan was already bound.

You can go check it out. He comes down. No, no, no, I know.

Okay. Now, that's supposed to be a bind. Okay, so you're saying that, okay, so you're looking at it from the standpoint that he is already in the, is he in the pit? Well, it just says he was. Or has he just, you know, been broken? It just says, it just says he was bound.

Okay, so what about the pit? Well, it says in Revelation 20, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him. Yeah, that could be very true. We don't need Satan to be bad and it doesn't mean that demonic forces aren't working either. Now, a lot of Amalennialists affirm the idea that Satan was let loose sometime late 1800s, whatever, and World War I, World War II, World Wars, there's been famines, plagues, all over the place. And so some people think that might be one of the markers, but we don't know for sure.

Okay, so let me show you this. It's whatever, but here's one of the things that got me, is in Matthew 13, it says, allow, the parable of the wheat and the tares. And the wheat are the Christians and the tares are the wicked. And should we tear up the tares?

And he says, no, unless you tear up the wheat also. Verse 30 of Matthew 13, allow both to go together until the harvest. Now, most people think that's the rapture. In the time of the harvest, I'll say to the reapers, first gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up. Now, wait a minute. So the first ones gather the tares.

Okay, well that's interesting. When you go to verse 40, this is Matthew 13, 30, then 10 verses later 40, and 41, Jesus says this, so just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The son of man will send forth his angels and they'll gather out of his kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness.

Well, wait a minute. If the wicked are taken first before the good, and that's the rapture, then the wicked are here and Jesus says they're taken out of his kingdom. That means his kingdom is here. Yeah, as I hear the case, and I speak to more people about the post odds, it seems to make a lot more sense to me, scripturalism, more scripturalism seems to kind of coordinate that scenario and then when Christ comes, when he comes, that being the summation of all things and then going into the eternal state. I guess the, it was just for me, kind of the point where I've been battling is really just the thousand years and the physical ruling and reigning part which.

I tell you what, don't assume it has to be a physical ruling and reigning because Jesus is reigning and he is king right now and it does say they'll take the wicked out of his kingdom, which has to be now. I mean, I don't know how you get out of that. Check this out. Go to CARM and look up this age and the age to come. Just type in the phrase in the search engine, this age and the age to come. You'll see something there and I'll guarantee you, you can call me up and say, you know, guarantee was right, that it will have a very strong effect on your eschatological view.

I've taught this many times and without exception, everybody has had some very strong reactions to it, usually in the affirmative. Yeah, well, I've been, like you said, I've been dabbling, dabbling a lot more into it because, you know, for decades, I was, you know, I was up the. There's a break. We've got to go. All right, well, thanks a lot, man. God bless you. Okay. Remember, this age, the age to come.

Go look it up. All right, buddy. Talk to you later. All right, hey, folks, we have three 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, welcome back once again.

And it's the last segment of the show. So if you want to give me a call, three open lines, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Wendell from Fort Worth, Texas. Wendell, you're on the air. Hello, brother Matt.

Thank you so much for taking my calls. Again, we're dealing with Reformed theology. Okay.

Excuse me, sir. You gave me two fundamentals the last time we talked about Reformed theology. And basically, the first two, the first two we agreed with based on my training here at Southwestern and Dallas Theological. But the last one we talked about, I think the one that I'm confused with, I think it's free will or a person can, I don't think a person can fall from salvation.

I think it was one other thing that you and I talked about and I did not, I failed to write it down because we were at the last minute of the show and I couldn't get everything written down that I wanted to. So could you enlighten me again, please? Yeah, Reformed theology is faith alone and Christ alone. And it is a belief in the sovereignty of God and what we call election and predestination. Election is God's choosing people for salvation. And that's 2 Thessalonians 2, 13, we've been chosen for salvation.

That's what it says. And Ephesians 1, 4, and 5, he chose us in him in Christ before the foundation of the world. And verse 5, he predestined us and so that's election predestination.

We teach it because the Bible clearly teaches it. And Reformed theology also holds to TULIP, T-U-L-I-P, total depravity, T for total depravity, which says that a person is touched by sin in all of what he is, heart, soul, mind, body, strength, it doesn't matter. Everything is touched by sin.

It doesn't mean he's as bad as he can be because not everybody is as bad as they can be. But it does mean that he's touched by sin and the effect of that is that the unbeliever will not be able of his own free will to come to Christ because his free will is enslaved. He's freely of his own choices choosing to do what is consistent with his sinful nature. And he freely chooses to do sinful things and he won't come to Christ on his own.

Trust me, I can really expand on this quite a bit and quote you the scriptures on that, but nevertheless. You is called unconditional election. And what that means is that God has chosen people for salvation not based on anything in them and not based on anything he would see that he could do with them.

It's not conditioned on any quality in them or about them or because of them. It rests in God not in man. That's unconditional election. L is for limited atonement, which means that Jesus only legally bore the sins of the elect. He did not legally bear the sins of everybody because if he did, everybody would have to go to heaven because of sin that was canceled at the cross, Colossians 2.14. So we limit the scope but the other people limit the power.

That's where it is. I is irresistible grace. What that means is that at the time of regeneration, not during a person's life, it means at the point of regeneration, the grace of God cannot be resisted, not successfully resisted. You will be regenerated because it's God's work in you. He causes us to be born again, 1 Peter 1.3. And perseverance of the saints, P, once you're saved, you're always saved because Christ bore our sins and canceled all of our sin debt.

And he is faithful and he keeps us there and it's not up to our goodness or our faithfulness or our ability. It doesn't mean though that we can go sin because a lot of people who hear this don't understand the issue of regeneration which is simultaneous with this. When we're regenerated, God's living in us, we don't want to go out and sin. Come on, we're regenerate, we're saved so we're secure. And that's what Reformed theology is.

Okay, so the only issue that I think I have based on what I have heard or been taught and even teach is the idea that you say that Christ Jesus died only for the elect, for the sins of the elect. I have a problem with that simply because of John 3.16, for God so loved the whole wide world that he gave. What does the word world mean?

What's the word world mean? Cosmos. Cosmos is the Greek. Are you taking Greek at all? Are you in seminary? I have been, yes. I've been. I'm still learning. I'm still always learning, bro.

That's okay. So it's cosmos and it just means world. And the word world has at least five different contextual meanings. But Jesus was not sent to the whole world. I don't know if you know that or not.

A lot of people don't know that. Matthew 15, 24, Jesus specifically said, now quote it. He said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

The house of Israel is the nation of Israel. Correct. So when I ask the question, was he sent to the whole world?

The answer is, well, no. So what does the word world mean? The word world means what it means in this context. So if covenantally Jesus was only sent to Israel but Israel broke the covenant and so we were grafted in, okay, that's how that works, then he loved the world. All the people groups, all the nations, not just covenantally Israel.

Okay. And also people go to 1 John 2, 2. He's a propitiation not only for our sins but the sins of the whole world. Well, there again, what's the word world mean? Does it mean every individual who ever lived?

Well, it can't mean that for one thing because if you go to 1 Samuel 3, 14, God himself says that the sins of Eli's house will not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever. Forever. That's what he says. I wrote those scriptures down.

Yes, sir. That's what it says. And so the word propitiation, if you study it in Greek, holosmos means the sacrifice that turns away wrath. It does not mean expiation. It makes it potentially removed.

It actually means to remove it. So he is the sacrifice that actually removed the wrath from the world. Well, wait a minute, if world means every individual then that necessitates universalism.

But if the word world means nations then we have no problem. You see? Here's a question to ask. Jesus died for our sins, right? Great. He paid for our sins, right?

He did. He paid for our sins. So if you and I go out to dinner and you say, hey, man, I love you, man. You're awesome. I'm going to buy you dinner. And you forgot your wallet, let's just say. And so I pay the bill, no big deal, right? Things happen. So it's paid for, right?

Right. Is there any debt left? Is there anything left? No, it's paid for. Did Jesus pay for the sins of everyone who ever lived? You see? If he did, then where's the debt? Where's the debt?

It's gone. So if he paid for the sins of everybody ever lived and people say, well, you've got to accept it. No, you don't. Because what if we're at dinner and you said, look, I just don't accept this.

You pay me, man. I just can't do that. And I'll say, don't worry about it. And I just point behind you, hey, look at that. You turn around, I hand the waiter my card and the debt gets paid, right? I slip it up.

I was pretty slick. Well, you say, well, I don't like that. So what? It's done. You have to accept it for it to be done. The acceptance is not what makes a legal debt paid. What makes a legal debt paid is the blood of Jesus Christ, which did it on the cross. That's what took care of it.

And if it's either paid or it's not paid, which is why it says in Colossians 2 14, he canceled the certificate of debt, having nailed it to the cross. It's canceled. It's what he canceled for. He canceled it for those who will believe, right? I have no problem with that one. And he grants that people believe that it's 129.

So you could say he canceled it for the ones that God grants to believe. Okay. I'm going to tell you something.

I know the radio show here goes out into the basically the south a lot. A lot of, you know, I know a lot of people right now are saying, no, I don't do not accept that. Okay.

Don't accept it. The question is, what does the Bible teach? And look at the word world, what it means in, in, uh, on the context. In fact, you brought up John three 16. You know what it actually says in the Greek for God's will of the world he gave his only begotten son that whosoever would believe the word whosoever in Greek is host.

It's a rough breathing mark over the Omega with a Sigma host. But what it actually says in Greek is pass hop is to own pass all ha the two own believing one. That's what it literally says in the Greek, all the believing one. So God's will of the world.

He gave his only begotten son that all the believing one would not perish, but have everlasting life. The word hosts exist in the Greek. It's not used there. Very, very interesting.

Why did he do that? Just something to think about. Something that, uh, as, uh, someone would say something to chew some cud over and try to understand that. Is this on your website as well? Some of it is, some of it isn't. You know, I don't really worry about this stuff too much. People on the radio will, um, talk and, uh, and so, and anyway, that's, you know, in fact, I think it says, uh, everyone who believes, uh, I think it's also in John six, 40 or one of those.

It's possible to do one in the Greek as well. And I forgot where exactly, but it's interesting when I show people this stuff, it shakes them up. And here, the reason I like to do this is not because I'm showing off. No, it's because I want people to be shaken up.

I want them to go, wait a minute. Is that what the Bible really says? Because that's the right question to ask. If it is what the Bible says, then we ought to believe it. And if we start believing stuff like this, one of the things that will happen is you start realizing God is the sovereign King. God knows what he's doing. God did elect. God did predestine. Christ didn't waste his blood.

It's not up to us and our wisdom to pick him because no one is good enough. We want to move away from those false teachings because they are false teachings. And they're very, very commonly taught in the Bible, excuse me, in the Christian church today. These are false teachings. And because of this, then people think that salvation is completely dependent upon their ability to obtain by their faith and their wisdom of their faith as also as well as maintain it by their continued faithfulness to God.

And that's not taught either. No. Who's the sovereign King? God.

Not you. I should get a t-shirt that says, there is a God, you are not him. That would be a good t-shirt.

It would be a good t-shirt. So I teach biblical theology. That's what it says. Even though I was actually asked, don't really focus on Calvinism or Reformed theology on the radio. Well, that's what the Bible teaches.

You know, it teaches this stuff. I'm just quoting scriptures. I'll challenge it.

Anybody wants to debate me on it, let's debate it. You know, that's fine. I'll just quote scripture. Well, I believe in the sovereignty of God.

I would definitely do that. We have no problem with that on it. I'm just going to have to wrestle with the very idea of whole world being a more local place, if you will. And I know Jesus was sent to the, I know he was sent to Israel, but I'm going to have to wrestle with this other. And that's good.

I don't mind wrestling with it. I want to be profound. I want to be precise when I teach the word of God.

That's right. And you don't want to trust a guy on the radio named Slick, okay? Hey, Matt has helped me a lot.

I'm not going to let you talk about Matt. He's helped me a lot. Hey, brother, go to CARM and look up the word world and grid. And it, you know, words mean what they mean in context.

Look up word world. And I did an analysis on them. Got to go. We're out of time. Okay, buddy. Thank you. All right, man.

Hey, sorry, Scott from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, folks. Be right back. Well, tomorrow, that is. May the Lord bless you. And I hope I challenge you tonight. We'll talk to you tomorrow. See you. Bye.