Matt Slick Live

A previously recorded Matt Slick show. It's Matt Slick live. Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at karm.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick live. Francis, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone. Welcome to the show. I hope you're going to have a good time listening, and if people want to call, that's how it does work, you know. All you have to do is give me a ring here at 877-207-2276. We have five open lines.

Nobody's waiting right now. And for those of you who might be new to the show, just listening, not sure what it's about, it's a Christian apologetic show. We defend the Christian faith. And I might go so far as to say I do a little bit differently than a lot of people, and I've been doing it for almost 16 years. You know, I was thinking about that. In January, it'll be 16 years that I've been doing radio five days a week. 16 years, you know, in January. Man, it's a long time.

And speaking of, well, a long time, the KARM ministry, the KARM website will be 25 years old on the 25th. And what I'm probably going to do is have a conference, an online conference, have people sign up and have speakers and things like that. I've got to start setting it up this weekend. But let's see, I've got a debate tonight, and that's on Apologetics Live, if you want to check it out. Apologeticslive.com. It's scheduled. I posted debate in atheist, and I don't even know how it's going to go. It'll be moderated, but it's going to be what I think is more of just a kind of a back and forth discussion, a point counterpoint and things like that, which I like, which is fine. And if you're interested in that, it'll be at eight o'clock Eastern time.

Just go to apologeticslive, I think it's dot com, apologeticslive.com, and you can check it out there. And on Saturday also, I'm supposed to be in another debate with an atheist. And the topic is, let's see, does the Christian God exist? And so these atheists are asking me to debate.

Of course, this one, I challenged this guy tonight because I'd heard him speak a few weeks ago, and I thought, man, I want a piece of this guy. He's just not adding to this properly, you know, deal with it. So we'll see how that goes. Let's see what else, what else, what else else? There's always stuff to go. If you want to give me a call, five open lines, 8772072276.

Let's see. And we have three online schools. You can check them out, a school of theology, a school of apologetics, and a school of critical thinking. And they're designed to be able to allow you to go through at your own pace, self-testing, so you can learn a lot about the Christian faith. Now, I want to tell you that it's really good to learn about your Christian faith. And as a matter of fact, of all things I study, last night I was studying infant baptism, you know, the arguments for, I'm going to read some stuff against and go through some stuff. And I was reading through some of the material.

This is just an exercise here of just, you know, how we learned. And I saw something that one of the commentators said in a verse. And I went to that verse and I looked and I went, that's a good point. And so I hadn't thought of a couple of things in that light before. And the issue of baptism really is, and circumcision really is, and out of, let's see, Romans 4.11.

Now I've got to start memorizing a new set of verses for all of this stuff. At any rate, so I thought I would, you know, just check things out. And I like learning. I like being challenged. I like it when people offer me things that I don't agree with, you know, and that's fine, you know, and say, well, what do you got to tell me? And, uh, sometimes they, they, uh, they correct me. Um, you know, and that's fine. I like that.

I don't have all the answers, but I do like to be challenged. And, uh, if you want to do that, if you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. We have nobody waiting. It's very unusual from the beginning of the call.

We usually have people at the end of the call, the last half hour, I think it's when people get off work and then we have a lot of people calling. Um, and if you want to check out those schools, all you got to do is go to carm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, the right hand side of any page, any page. All you have to do is click on the school stuff. Hold on.

Clear my throat. There we go. And you can check them out. Now we charge $33 per school, or you can sign up for all three and you get a discount. And I got to say this, look, we, uh, uh, we want to, um, uh, you know, we, we need to make money, uh, in order to keep the lights on, pay the radio bills and things like that. Uh, that's what we do.

We have to do that. So, uh, we use the schools to help finance, uh, the ministry. However, if you want the schools and you just can't afford them, uh, just email us and say, look, I want the schools.

I can't afford them. We're not going to question you. We're not going to ask you any questions about it. We're just going to say, okay, and we'll give you the password and stuff for free and you can go check them out. All right. So our primary goal is to reach out and to, to minister as many people as possible with the truth of the gospel. But we do have to pay the lights and things like that. And so in light of that, if you would be so kind as to consider, um, all you have to do is, uh, you know, support us. We ask five or $10 a month and you can do that by going to the CARM.org website, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G on the right hand side of any page. You'll see a link there that says donate or, you know, support. And, uh, we ask $5 a month, you know, five or $10 a month is plenty.

And we get enough people, we can pay all of our bills and not have to worry about stuff. Hey, that's just, you know, just let you know. And, uh, you know, I remember when, um, who was that evangelist, uh, who said that the 600 foot Jesus appeared, what was his name? He's out there in Oklahoma.

I think someone will write it into text chat here. Um, and, uh, he said that if, if, uh, that I think I remember correctly, Oral Roberts, thank you very much. That, uh, if, um, if he didn't get the money to build a certain thing, God was going to kill him.

And I remember that, what a chill man. And so, uh, look, if we don't get your support, don't worry about it. Okay. I'm not going to die. And from it, I don't get $10 a month from you. I'm going to die.

It's just all the idiocy that's out there. So, uh, you know, if we don't get it, we don't get it. Hey, it's okay. Got to provide. He does.

And not worried about it. So there you go. If you want to give me a call for open lines, eight seven seven two zero seven two two seven six. The debate tonight is supposed to be at, uh, at, uh, eight PM tonight, uh, Eastern time. So that's about an hour.

It's about two hours from now. All right. So there you go. Just letting you guys know. All right. Wow.

Very interesting. Uh, Nolan from Des Moines, uh, Iowa. Welcome. You're on the air, man. Hi. Hi. Hi.

How are you? Good. Good. Okay. Do you have a question? Yes.

Okay. My question, my question would be, why did God create Adam and Eve if he knew they were going to send me hate sins? Um, you know what, as a matter of fact, uh, I was just working on an article, moving it over from one side to another. Why would God let Satan into the garden knowing what would happen?

And I just did it, uh, 15, about a half hour ago. So it's kind of funny that you're asking the same question that I went over. Uh, he did it because it was his sovereign plan, his desire to allow people and the angels to have the freedom to be able to do what they were going to do. And even though, uh, what we say is God's prescriptive will, it's like a prescription, like medicine you take, you know, um, God says, don't lie, don't steal that he doesn't want people to lie and steal, but he wants to let people do what they want.

And so he lets them lie and steal. And so in the garden, he doesn't want Adam and Eve to sin, in the garden, he doesn't want Adam and Eve to sin, but he let them sin. And part of the reason, I believe, is so that the Messiah could come, Jesus Christ could come into the world later on and redeem people. And Jesus said in John 15, 13, he says, greater love has no one than this, but that he lay his life down for his friend.

And since 1 John 4, 8 says that God is love and the greatest act of love is sacrifice, I can't help but wonder if one of the reasons God allowed people to sin, Adam and Eve, and sin in the garden was so that he might express the greatest act of love and self-sacrifice. So that's just one of the things. But anyway, I hope that helps. Does that help you? Yes, that helps me a lot. Thank you.

You're welcome. Can I ask how old you are? Just curious. I am 10.

You're 10? Well, good. Thanks for calling. I really appreciate it.

I hope you like the show if you're listening. And call in again when you have another question, okay? Okay, thank you. All right. You're welcome. God bless. Okay. All right.

That was Nolan, 10-year-old Nolan. Just love that. And let's get to Brian from North Carolina. Brian, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Maddock. I heard a debate tonight, and I was wondering how much preparation you usually put into it. And also, a second poll question is, when's the last time that you had a belief and changed that belief, and not something about the essentials? And I'll give you an example. You know, so ever I believed the pre-Trib rapture, and I don't necessarily believe the pre-Trib rapture, and I don't necessarily believe that anymore.

So those are the two questions I had. Well, sure. When I prepare for a debate, it depends on who I'm preparing for. Like, for tonight, I'm not trying to be arrogant or boastful. I'm not prepping very much. The reason is because it's just a talk with an atheist, and I don't know where it's going to go.

I don't know what direction it's going to be. I've had hundreds of discussions, hundreds and hundreds with atheists. And the basic premise with atheism, for example, is that the deficiency of it is it cannot account for the preconditions for intelligibility. It cannot account for any objective moral standard, and it cannot account for our existence. And so what I'll do, and if they're listening, I mean, I'll tell them right now.

This is what I'm going to be doing. I'm just going to be asking for the grounding of the principles and the comments and the truth statements that they might make. See, we can ground, as Christians, we can ground our statements in the revelation of God, in the personal work of God, for example. Are there any moral absolutes? Well, yes, there are, and we can get into that sometime.

Well, if there are, how do you ground it? As a Christian, we can say that there are. If an atheist couldn't say that there are any moral absolutes that apply universally, well, then that means morality is subjective. So how do you know what moral is right or wrong?

And you start asking these questions, and how are they going to answer it? Well, they're right because people say they're right. Well, that's argument of ad populum.

The majority of people say it's right, so therefore it's right. No, that doesn't have anything to do with truth. And are moral statements true? Because we have truth statements, which is the third law of classical logic, in that statements, whether they're true or false. So I am speaking to you is a true statement. I am an elephant in disguise is not true. So statements are true or false. It's called the law of excluded middle.

So if moral statements exist, are the moral statements true or false? And so I can ask all kinds of difficult questions of the atheist, and they just end up backpedaling very quickly. And then there's other approaches.

So I don't need to prep a whole bunch. Now, if I were going into a formal debate with an atheist in front of a church, in front of this on a particular topic, I would have an outline all presented. So when I did my debate, for example, with Dan Barker, I read his books and I listened to his debates, and I used them against him. And I quoted him and asked some very, very difficult questions that he couldn't answer. And so it depends on the situation. As far as have I changed my position on things?

Yeah, yeah, I do. I think it may have changed one just last night, as a matter of fact, where the issue of baptism as a covenant sign, I'm, I'm, well, I may or may not, it's a bit how I understand the word sign, but it has to do with the issue of it being a sign of righteousness and a sign of salvation. And so I'm reassessing that.

And there's a couple other things recently have changed. If you want to hold on, I'll be right back after the break, and I'll tell you about them. Hey folks, we have two open lines, 877-207-2276. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Okay.

We lost that guy. I was going to say that, uh, at the, uh, well to go through, yeah, I've changed my view on a few things, but it's always in the minors, uh, minor things. Uh, about two years ago, three years ago or so, I concluded that the first ones taken when Jesus comes back are the wicked, not the good. And that's out of, out of Matthew 24, Luke 17 and Matthew 13, when Jesus says allow both to go together till the end of the age, I'll say to the reapers, first gather the tares. And, uh, that's Matthew 13, 30 and, uh, you know, stuff like that.

So, um, as far as the essentials go, those won't ever change because I've gone over those a thousand times in scripture and they'll teach the same thing. So that's that. If you've got a call, well, no, we don't have any open lines. So let me get to the next caller waiting. And that will be Bill from Raleigh, North Carolina. Bill, welcome. You're on the air. Yes, Matt.

Uh, thanks for taking my call. I'm a widower and my, my first son got married, uh, last month and I, at the rehearsal dinner, I of course wanted to recognize my wife. And so I, I phrased it maybe a little bit unbiblically. I said, she'd be looking down from heaven and be proud of him and who he married. And so I'm not really sure that I've ever read anything about that in the Bible. Would that be incorrect to say, or, you know, with my wife, she's so focused on Jesus that she's not concerned with the things of earth? Well, I know nothing of scripture or in scripture that says that they know what's going on here on earth, that they're aware that they can look, that they can see, they can perceive. And you think about that because let's just say that a person is in heaven looking down on earth.

What does that mean? Where is heaven? The third heaven is the only place of God. Is it another dimension? Let's just say that somehow they can see, uh, the room you're in. Can they only see one thing at a time?

How is it that they're located there? Do they see, uh, two other people at different places? Do they see them at the same time?

Do they have to go back and forth? It becomes problematic. We start just asking questions like this.

This is not to be mean. It's just, well, what about that? And if they hear our prayers, as the Catholics like to say, well, then we have problems about them hearing things, spoken and thought, different languages all over the place.

There's all kinds of problems. Now, there seems to be a couple of inclement hints. I forget exactly where in the Bible, where, uh, there's certain forms of awareness. And if we go to 1 Samuel 28, the witch of Endor was having a, let's just say, a seance with Saul and Samuel came forth.

And why are you calling me forth? Well, it doesn't mean that he was aware of what was going on. It may or may not be. What I'm saying is logic says that we can't assert that he was hearing the prayers or hearing what was going on or seeing it, but he was just called forth. We don't know what that means.

So we can't read too much into it. So if I would have been there and you'd have said that, you know, okay, you know, looking down from heaven, you know what, I'm not going to object. I'm not going to go up and say, Hey, you know what, you're a heretic. I'm not going to say that, you know, and, and stuff. Cause we just don't know, and we don't know what God gives them and allows them. And so though I, I know nothing in scripture that says it, uh, you know, but nothing in scripture that says they can't, uh, either.

So I just say, well, the Bible doesn't say, and so I won't say, uh, but I would think that there's problems with the whole idea if they were to be suddenly have this ability to see and be aware and know us and things like that. There's logistical issues involved. So, you know, I don't know if that helps or not, but, but there you go. Yeah, it helps.

Yeah. I'm 70, almost 74 and, uh, last vestiges of Catholicism are still departing. Well, you know, one of the things you can do is give yourself the, uh, the Heimlich.

You go up to a chair and you just put it on your lower ribcage. You start, you know, until the Catholic stuff comes out and you can try it into a garbage can and then you can toss it out. So that's one thing. Absolutely true. Yeah. So, uh, yeah. You know, I'm sorry to hear that kid that you lost your wife.

Um, but, uh, if you're both believers, which I assume God would lady. Yep. She was all right. Well then yes.

See her again. Yes. Very much so. Yes, I will. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it. All right, bill. Well, God bless. All right.

Okay. Let's get to Greg from North Carolina. We lost Greg.

It was about Isaac and the sacrifice. Ooh, I love to talk about that. Once you call back, we can blab. Let's get to Kristen from Cleveland. Hey, Kristen, welcome. You are on the air. Hi. Thanks for your show. Praise God.

So what do you got? Um, so I've been studying church history, um, and I know there's several, um, groups of Christianity, like, uh, Eastern Orthodox, for example, who say, um, God doesn't need to pour or Jesus doesn't need to pour the wrath. God can just forgive, um, different thoughts like that.

Um, I know, um, right. So, um, I was just wondering the belief that Jesus bore the wrath of God on the cross. Um, is that a post enlightenment belief or is there any trace of that throughout church history?

Um, where does that first come up? Well, uh, surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, but he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our inequities, a chastening of, for our wellbeing fell upon him and by his scourging we are healed.

So what we see here is a substitutionary atoning work. And this is what I just read was Isaiah 53 verses four and five. And, um, there's debate about, did he bear the wrath of God? Well, what does it mean to bear the wrath of God?

We always have to define our terms. The wrath of God in one sense is eternal damnation. And that's not something that Jesus could experience. The wrath of God in another sense is, um, discipline and the anguish associated with discipline due to sin. Well, Jesus never sinned, so he couldn't experience that, but there is a sense in which Jesus took our place and he represented us.

Now the Eastern Orthodox Roman Catholics, they don't like the idea of what's called penal substitutionary atoning, uh, theory where Jesus took our place and it says he bore our sin in his body on the cross. First Peter 2 24. And that, uh, the Bible says in first, uh, St. Corinthians 5 21, he who knew God made him, who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. Now, Jesus said on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When he was doing was quote quoting Psalm 22 verse one. And in Psalm 22 verse one, we have Psalm 22 as a whole written a thousand BC and 400 years before crucifixion was invented. We see a depiction of the crucifixion hands and fears feet being pierced. You can count all those bones, which means they're not broken.

Divide the garments for among them for the first cast lots for them. So we see this prophetic utterance and judgment and pain and suffering were part of the atonement. So now we have to ask the question, was the wrath of God in some sense taken out upon the sun because he bore our sin. And then when we say in some sense, the answer must be, well, yes. But when we say, well, exactly, what does that mean? It becomes problematic saying that. So when we bore the wrath of Christ bore the wrath of God, there's a sense in which he did. There's a sense in which he is not. He did not bear it in the sense of being damned. But there seems to be an effect upon the fellowship and the pain and suffering due to sinfulness, which is imputed to him, to his account.

Then we can make the case for that. If you want to hold on and be right back after these messages, please stay tuned. Folks, you have two open lines. 877-207-2276. 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. Kristin, are you still there?

I'm still here. Okay. One more point I wanted to make was that it seems to be consistent with the wrath of God issue upon Christ in that the wages of sin is death and Jesus died.

So it seems to fit the bill that there was a form of wrath and judgment that Jesus underwent in our place so that we could be redeemed. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, so that's a great answer.

I agree. I think it's seamlessly biblical. I was just wondering if there's any trace of early church, you know, historians or church fathers, anybody who made note of that. And that's probably, I probably just need to do more digging to find that. Well, if you do find it, let me know because I'm always adding to the church fathers by category and topics. And recently I did a search on faith alone and found out that a lot of the church fathers believe in justification by faith alone. And you'll find the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics laying claim to the church fathers, saying the church fathers are the ones that we have to look to, to interpret the Bible. They don't go to the Bible, they go to the church fathers and then they pick and choose what church fathers they like. And my objection to that is, well, the Christian church was moving into apostasy when the apostles were still around and they had to write letters to correct them. What makes you think that these guys two, three, 400 years later had it any better than the early church did?

Of course, they can't answer the question. Well, because they're inspired because our church says so, you know, blah, blah, blah. So I'm always doing a little bit more research here and there about that kind of a thing. And I need to get a t-shirt. I keep saying I need to get a t-shirt. I got to get a t-shirt thing going, but I want to have a t-shirt that says my church father can beat up your church father because they don't always agree with each other. And the unanimous decisions or the unanimous consensus that the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics say that they have is not the case.

They were great. But for example, they'll say to me, because I have firm limited atonement, but I haven't seen that taught by the early church father. So they say, therefore it can't be true.

Well, that's, really? Who says, therefore it can't be true? Did the church fathers have all the answers? And here's another little fun thing I was thinking last night.

So I'm glad I remembered it. I get to say for the first time, I'm going to ask them this question, because if you were to take the church fathers and you were to print them up and put them in books, say half by 11, it's like two or three feet thick of all these volumes. Well, they're telling us that the church fathers had the tradition passed down from the apostles. Well, wait a minute. Did the apostles write two or three feet of stuff? Did they speak all this stuff and all these guys passed all this stuff down? Something's not right there.

They just weave too much into all of this. Okay. Thanks for your help. You're welcome. Well, God bless.

All right. We have three open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Chuck from North Carolina.

Chuck, you're on the air. Yes, sir. Matt, your school on critical thinking, does that teach a lot of the rules of logic that you bring up?

Yes. The laws of logic and it gives examples of logical fallacies. It goes through a little bit of dialogues. It's not super in-depth.

It's not like a graduate level in logical formulations, but it's real practical. The feet on the ground kind of stuff. When someone says this, here's what you do. You analyze it this way.

Here's the principles and stuff like that. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Thanks a lot, Matt. I appreciate it. You're welcome, man. God bless.

All right. We have four open lines. If you want to give me a call, folks, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Jack from Las Vegas. Jack, you're on the air.

Hello, sir. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Can you hear me clearly?

Yes, I can. Mr. Slick, I've been reading your website for the past few years. I really appreciate the work you're doing. It's helped me to always just be centered and strong in my face. I come from a background. My dad was a preacher.

He taught me a lot. I kind of got to the point in my life where I was like, okay, I need to start going out and seeking my own answers. Reading your work has definitely helped me out a lot, especially when Las Vegas runs into all these crazy doctrines and stuff. That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today is crazy doctrines that I run into.

But this one's a little different than anything I've experienced before. I've been through quite a bit of a twist recently. I just said, okay, I was worldly. I was doing a lot of wicked stuff. Some people that I care about, some people close to me got affected by that and I feel responsible. So I'm like, you know what?

I've been a bad example. And that pain that I've gone through from not only seeing what they've been through, but how it's helped push me to seek God again. And so, you know, I've been going to this great church, started, you know, sitting back in the word and, you know, just said, hey, you know what?

I'm going to truly, really seek God. And what that culminated in was me going to church. I remember I went up to the altar and, you know, I just pretty much everything that was in me, I had let out and I prayed like I've never prayed that hard before. I prayed so deep I forgot where I was. But I was praying, somebody came to me and said, hey, you should think about getting baptized.

So I've been really, you know, just thinking about it for a while. Like I had been baptized before. And so I started asking one of the people at the church about baptism. And one of the things that he told me was, you know, that he believed in this thing called the oneness of Christ.

And, you know, I was like, and I just listened to him like, okay, I wanted to know where he was coming from. Well, he doesn't believe specifically in the Trinity per se. He believes in different, I don't want to put words in the guy's mouth.

You know, but there's several things that he believes like, you know, that, you know, baptism, you do it in Jesus name instead of doing it in the Godhead. Okay, let me let me jump in. It's a cult. Okay, need to get out of there. Really?

Yeah. It's called the Jesus only movement. One is Pentecostalism. And it denies a doctrine of the Trinity and says that God is only one person and that you don't get baptized in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, like Jesus said, but you get baptized, quote, in Jesus name, close quote. And they add works to salvation, namely baptism is required, usually in their particular church or their denomination or to be saved. And you can lose your salvation. And the way to keep your salvation is by abiding by the laws and ordinances that God has given. And because you obtain it through faith and the ceremony of baptism, and you can't get saved until you're baptized. And so even though you might trust in Christ, you're not saved.

Your sins aren't forgiven until you get dumped in water in Jesus name. So it's a cult. Okay.

That's amazing. Because, you know, I mean, I knew better when I heard that. And it was also crazy because the sermon that I heard that morning, I don't know if it's just this one individual, or if this is how the whole church thinks, but, you know, when I was there and talking to, you know, just hearing the messages and, you know, like hearing the sermon, I didn't get a weird negative vibe. And so I didn't get a weird or negative.

I heard, you know, I started talking to him and he's the one who started saying this. Okay. It's kind of hard to find a church. I don't want to stay in a cult. Definitely don't want to do that. Okay. Now the issue of the weird negative vibe, don't put any credence in that.

Okay. Unless it's something that really agreed to the scripture, but what does he say? Now, if he's up there preaching and this is what he's teaching, that's heretical. It's bad news. Get out of there. Now I would recommend that you go to the Southern Baptist Church, but the Southern Baptist Church domination is going south.

I'd recommend maybe you might want to get into the PCA. That's where I used to be a pastor, the Presbyterian Church in America, but they're starting to go south. Then there's the, uh, why are all these denominations going south? Oh, because they're not believing in the word of God or not trusting in the word of God completely. That's not to say all groups and all churches within those denominations are bad.

I'm not saying that, but it just generally started moving bad. The assemblies of God is already going bad. The Nazarene church is going bad and it's just the movement towards apostasy. So the difficulty of finding a church is paramount. So this is what I suggest. If I were you, what I would do is go to CARM, the website, and look up what do I look for in a church or the things to look for in a church?

Find that article and just read through it and then go through the yellow pages, so to speak. You know, go to the internet, look for churches in your area online, and then make sure, and then go to the website, look in their statement of faith. If they have women pastors and elders, get, don't, don't even bother. If they teach, um, that, uh, let's do it this way.

If they have related websites that go to Bethel music or Kenneth Copeland or Kenneth, they can get, you know, go away. If you find, Hey, this looks good. That looks good. Then call them up and ask questions.

Here's a list of questions I've got. And then you can find a church that way without having to waste your time too much. Okay. I understand that. So, so like, I mean, me going up to the office because he gave, like I said, the guy gave a great sermon and it was in line with everything.

I believe he was talking about Jericho in a hard time, especially with the pandemic and everything that's been going on. Hold on. We got a break. Hold on. We got a break.

We got a break, buddy. Okay. Hold on.

Cause we want to, I want to hear what you had to say. All right. Hey folks, be right back after these messages.

We have three open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right. Welcome back everybody.

We have three open lines, 877-207-2276. And I'll just say one more time. I'll be in a debate in about an hour and 15 minutes. Supposed to have a debate slash discussion with an atheist.

We'll see if it continues or if it does manifest. And that'll be on apologeticslive.com. Apologeticslive.com tonight at 8 PM Eastern time.

You can check it out if you want. Let's get back to the guy just lost. Oh no. I hate it when I do that. I just clicked him off.

Well, that's about the 10th time I've done it this past couple of months. Hey, call back buddy. Sorry about that.

Chelsea from Iowa. Welcome. You're on the air. Thank you.

Thanks for your ministry. I had a lifelong best friend, a 17 year long friendship just, and unexpectedly. She went to Europe for a couple of years and when she came back, I just started to sense back in our conversation, whereas we both kind of grew up conservative, Christian, pretty firm in our beliefs. And there was just all of a sudden this conflict on different topics where it seemed like she was moving more liberal. And, you know, I just kind of backed off.

I was surprised, but I didn't, it's not like I was pushing at her. But she ended up saying a few weeks ago after we went out that she texted me after and said that if our friendship was going to continue, I needed to be more respectful of her and her views. And I asked, you know, what specifically she was talking about. She said she didn't want to talk specifics, but it was more just like a general, that I am disrespectful of opinions that are different than mine, and that I act like I have the right answers and that it's my job to convince people. And I asked for specifics just because I was like, if I sinned against it, I want to make it right. Like I, you know, I laid off my spirit, like God, show me if there was sin in this relationship, show me.

And he just, like, I know he doesn't want to hide that from me. And if I'm asking, and I just, I just couldn't see anything. And I just ended up saying that it would feel like the worst friend in the world and not even like a friendship to, you know, if a friend is walking in a sin or is holding to a view that you could potentially see as harmful, that to not speak up or to not in love, point that out to that person. I don't know, is this just kind of to be expected when you hold a standard?

Did I do something wrong? Maybe it's a postmodern thing where it's like, you know, be weak and snivelly in your belief, you know, I don't know. I'm, I feel like I am whole, but I'm also the first to say what a mess I am and what Christ has made me from.

I don't know. I just, is this, or I guess going forward in intimate relationships. When you stand on truth, it can be difficult. And I've lost friends over it. People I've known, and that's just, that's just what happens. I'm not saying it's, it's okay. And don't worry about it.

But that's just what happens. So this is what the Bible says here. Conduct yourself with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace as though seasoned with salt so that you may know how you should respond to each person.

Now that's Colossians four, five, and six. And so what he's talking there about is the issue of being patient and kind. And it's not always easy to do that. Particularly when you meet people who, if they're liberal, my opinion and my experience about the liberals is they're not very tolerant. It's their idea of liberalism is that you have to accept them, but you don't have to accept, or they don't have to accept you. Their idea of, yeah, that's what it is. And if you point that out, you're the bigot. So yeah, and, and, and it's because they're brainwashed, you know, don't want to happen with their frontal lobes are just whacked.

So, so what do you do? You know, uh, the Bible says here, second Timothy two 24, the Lord's bond servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all able to teach patient when wronged with gentleness, correcting those who are in opposition. If perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth. So let me just tell you, if you've listened to me at all, you know, I know some stuff and, um, yeah, I'm able to basically bulldoze people over if I choose to.

And I used to do that. And I've really taken these two verses to heart and I've tried over the years to be gentle and be a lot more gentle. And I want to be, because I want to be a good witness.

But on other, on the other hand, there's time to be bold and strong and you have to decide when those are. If it's for the issue of righteousness, let's just say your liberal friend says abortion is a good thing. I wouldn't say, well, that's okay.

That's fine. I'd say, well, I, I just don't agree with you. Um, but you still be frank, but, but I just don't agree.

And if she's, you know, just want to be your friend because of it. Okay. If she said, well, you're not respecting my view. Well, didn't say, well, what do you mean by respecting your view?

Because I don't agree with you. How am I supposed to respect something I think is, is not good. And then what you're doing is you're asking me to compromise my position in favor of you.

But is that what you want? I'm trying to understand and say, if you want to respect, want me to respect your view, you need to respect mine. And if I say, I don't agree, then we just say, okay, well, we'll just move past it. One of the things and the goals that you might want to consider is to continue in a friendship with her for the purpose of being a witness.

And then you would have to be in a longterm thing there, praying and witnessing and trying to look for opportunities. But I'll tell you, if she's liberal minded, what she's going to do, this is my experience, not just going to be the same with this, with your friend, but what I found is they will fake tolerance and patience, and they wait for an excuse to say enough of you because you're the one close minded and you're the one who can't see the truth. And by asking questions for them to defend themselves or their position, just asking, then you're obviously attacking and you don't respect them.

And this is the liberal mindset of idiocy that is pervasive. And so she's, you know, she would claim to be a believer. And I think that I have tons of witnessing type relationships where it's, where it's going fine.

And of course to disagree, but you know, it's a witness. But when it's, I feel like when someone's claiming to be a believer, it gets more urgent, it feels urgent, like, but ask her if her beliefs are consistent with scripture. And one of the ways you can do this is to say, is your beliefs consistent with scripture?

Tell them right now. You don't do it like that. You say, if your view is consistent with scripture, I want to know, because then I would need to change my view. I need to change my view.

If your view is consistent with scripture, can you please show me? Okay. And I feel like possibly that might be why she wouldn't give me specifics because she knew that it wasn't. And so that's right. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. And one more quick thing I just wanted to share. I did a study with my neighbor over quarantine, who is a Roman Catholic, and we worked through Stranger on the Road to Emmaus. And toward the end, I directed her to your website and you're teaching, you know, you just see how you went through Roman Catholicism. And she didn't end up making, or she did end up accepting Christ as her savior. Oh, praise God.

She, she sent me screenshots from that website. She's like, oh, this all makes so much sense. And so God used you in her life and she's being discipled now and she's a believer. Good. Praise God. Oh, praise God for his great mercy. Well, you know, praise God for being used.

I mean, did you, you know, you were used of God and just give him the glory, but you know, praise God for your faithfulness. All right. Thank you. That's awesome. Great news.

Love to hear it. Yes. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. All right. Well, have a call the show sometime.

It'd be fun. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I will.

That'd be great. All right. Thank you.

Well, God bless Chelsea. All right. God bless. All right. That's good news.

I love hearing stuff like that. Oh, praise God. Trusting in Christ, not a church.

Trust, trust in Jesus. Yeah. Okay. Hey Jack. Sorry about that, buddy. I put you off. So, all right.

Where are we now? Yeah. So I was saying that, you know, I mean, when I went up to the altar, cause the sermon that I heard was like magnificent. And what I mean by that is like, I mean, it was, I didn't find anything in the sermon that was out of line with the word of God.

The only thing the man was talking about was, Hey, right now you're going through hard times. Just like when they were going around the walls of Jericho, they don't understand what they were doing. Let me ask you a question.

Let me ask you a question. Review the sermon in your mind a little bit. Could the sermon have been preached just as it was in a Mormon church without any change?

And would they have liked it? Could it have been preached in a Mormon church? Sure it could have been preached in a Mormon Catholic church. I mean, it was a pretty generic sermon, but. So if it could be preached in a Mormon church, maybe even a Catholic church without any change, then there's a problem. Sometimes we don't know what to look for in the sermon to know it must be Christ centered in the blood of Christ as the reason why we're redeemed. And that's why whatever lesson it is because of what Christ has done on that cross. So if you didn't mention the cross, then that'd be a problem. And it'd be a moralistic sermon, but anyway, it just, you know, I don't know what the sermon was.

So, but you go ahead. Well, I mean, it got me, it got me, it got me really just, you know, I feel like it was exactly what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it. It got me up to the altar and I went and I prayed and I just, you know, like I said, everything that was in me, it felt kind of like, um, okay. That's Daniel's mother. When he goes to the altar, he just, and she just prays and she's like, you know, crying out to God.

Eventually God gave her a son. It was, it was kind of like that. That's the best thing I can kind of resemble too. But I guess my point is that right there was it, that right there was me just bearing everything I had, you know, in front of God, because I was like, Hey, you know, this is just, I need you right now. Like I've done it my way. I've lived my way and I'm tired of living my way.

And that's, that's, that's the kind of beginning. Whereas I was like, you know what, I've had this inward change and I want to, I want, I want to, and I was talking to the guy who, uh, who I've been, you know, chatting with, um, he was telling me all the things I was telling you. And, um, you know, I went up to him on Sunday after he gave a sermon where he was talking about baptism and stuff like that. And I said, Hey man, look, I don't agree with you on baptism, but I still want to get baptized. He wasn't saying those things in the sermon that day. These were things that we talked about last night, but I was saying, you know, I don't agree with baptism being necessary for salvation, but I still want to get baptized. His baptism, that baptism is not valid. Okay. It wouldn't be valid if I got it from him.

I don't think because, you know, he put it in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. But the thing I'm saying is like, just this whole, this whole, he was talking about Pentecostalism, uh, when we chatted last night, because I said, Hey, let's talk more about it on Wednesday, which was last night. We chatted more about it. And the more I chatted about it, I was like, okay, well, I would like to get baptized. But the thing is, I want to say, and this is just the conversation I had with myself.

I was like, I want to get baptized, but I want to do it right. And so I'm going to go ahead and do my own research. And that's what, when I went to your website, I was thinking, do some articles and I forwarded the article to him. I was like, Hey man, look, you know, not trying to get litigious or debate with you. I find your opinion on these things. What do you think about this? But I had made the decision when I sent that message to him via text that said, let me go ahead and call you, you know, get your take on it. That's what I'm doing. Cause I know there's a lot of heresies out there and there's a lot of craziness.

And, um, if I do something like baptism, I feel like it's very symbolic of, you know, I want to turn my life. There's a break. I mean, that's the end of the show, buddy. Wish we could continue, but that's it.

Uh, maybe come back tomorrow. We can continue. Okay. And, uh, you need to get baptized in the name of the father, son, and Holy spirit. All right. Okay. Hey buddy, got to go. That was Jack from Vegas. Hey folks, by his grace, we're back on here tomorrow. We'll talk to you then have a great evening, everyone.