Matt Slick Live

A previously recorded Matt Slick show. Matt Slick.

Matt Slick. Tonight in three hours, three hours from now, I'm supposed to have a debate on another venue on abortion, and I'm looking forward to that because I'm very much against it, and I have a lot of arguments against it, and I have counter arguments for the people who say that it's a good thing or whatever, and so if it manifests, I hope it does. I don't have any of the information. I think it's going to be on Discord tonight. Which I get asked to do debates there frequently, and I also get asked to go into rooms and just answer questions, and so I do. That happens a lot. Just go in there and answer questions. You know, people say, hey, you're going to be in there and answer questions. So 20, 30, 40, 50 people will show up, and I get all kinds of questions. It's like a fast paced radio show.

I get a lot of questions. They would call up on the radio. That'd be good.

Let me see if we can get this put into Discord and see what happens. Anyway, we have four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Tommy from Greensboro, North Carolina. Tommy, welcome.

Yeah, Matt. Good afternoon. Colin, I had a conversation with an acquaintance about the Seventh-day Adventist and practicing the Sabbath from Friday sundown into Saturday. And just talking Bible scripture and it all sounded good on the surface, but I didn't know where they may stray from biblical teaching, perhaps. And in defending the faith, what do I need to be on the lookout for within those conversations? Well, you always have to find out what a person affirms or denies. You can just ask questions.

And that's what I would say to do is that people need to just start asking those kinds of questions. So, let's see. The Seventh-day Adventists teach that you should worship on Saturday instead of Sunday in order to be in the truth. And I don't agree with that at all.

It's okay to worship on Saturday, and if any group says that you must worship on Saturday in order to be a true Christian, then they're adding a work to the finished work of Christ, and that's bad. So we don't want that. Hold on.

Clear my throat there for a little bit. And so, they also teach that Jesus is Michael the Archangel, but when they say that, they don't mean that Jesus is an angel, they mean that Michael the Archangel is a pre-incarnate form of Jesus, God in flesh. So they actually get Michael the Archangel wrong, but that doesn't mean that they are not Christian. Are you with me so far?

Yes, I am. I would agree if they're getting Jesus mixed up with anyone that they're all. Yeah, they're doing that, but the thing is, they're not denying that Jesus is God in flesh, they're not denying that he's the second person of the Trinity, they're just making a mistake when it comes to Seventh-day Adventism. I mean, it's becoming in regard to Michael the Archangel.

That's the problem that they're having. So, they also teach that there is no eternal hell, and that they teach something called soul sleep, and that's bad, because both of those are false. There is an eternal hell, there's no such thing as soul sleep. It's just made up stuff by people who want the Bible to teach what they want it to teach. And they deny Reformed theology, they deny total depravity and things like that, and that's neither here nor there, that doesn't make them Christian or non-Christian. They are generally pre-millennial. They would deny the idea of infant baptism, and that's okay. They deny predestination, which is stupid, because the Bible teaches predestination.

I don't understand why anybody would deny it, who claims to be a Christian, a Bible reader, when it's what it says. It's right there. Right. You hit on that last night, I believe, a little bit.

What's that? I said you hit on that a little bit yesterday evening on that predestination, the predestination of the saints, I believe, speaking to a gentleman in Virginia. Oh, you mean yesterday's show. Yeah. Yeah, because for me, it's evening.

I guess for you, it's afternoon, and for you it's evening, so that's why. Right, right. And so they also teach, this is a heresy, that our sins will ultimately be placed on Satan. And that is ridiculous, because if you think about it, if everybody's sins are going to be placed on Satan and Satan's cast out, then that means everyone's sins paid for, and that means everybody has to go to heaven. And you can't have that.

Right. And plus, it's just not true that he's the one who is going to take care of our sins and things like that, okay? So it just doesn't work. And also they teach that on October 22nd of 1844, Jesus entered his second and last phase of his atoning work.

And then there's this thing called the investigative judgment, which the fate of all people will be decided based on that day and stuff like that. So I can never recommend anybody go to the SDA church. I just don't recommend it. Some aspects of it are cultic, and some are not, and some groups within the SDA are definitely cultic, and some are not. So you see? Right.

They get brought up about the eternal being in hell for eternity, and things like that, and that obviously was a red flag to me. Yeah. Because doesn't Scripture also say to be absent of the body is to be present with the Lord? And the context in that, assuming obviously your faith is in Christ. Yeah. Is that correct? Yeah. That's 2 Corinthians 5.8, to be absent of the body is to be home with the Lord. So what they'll do is they'll say that it means that you have soul sleep, and then when you wake up, you're in the presence of the Lord.

They just, I guess they're tired of lame theology. You know, I just go, come on. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Well listen, I appreciate you taking my call.

Yeah. All right, man. All right. Thanks for taking my call, man. All right, buddy.

God bless. Hey, folks, you have four open lines. If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 8772072276. Let's get to Cliff from Florida. Hey, Cliff, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, man, how you doing? Quick question. Just the debate last night, who was it against? I'm just trying to look for it. And then the debate tonight, how can I find that as well? Well, I didn't do the debate on my forum and set up.

People have their own set up, so they just invite me in to come, and they arrange everything, and that's fine. And the debate link to watch it is on the CARM Facebook page. Just look for last night. They're going to put, hey, it's a debate, you know.

And I put the date, and you can see the link, and you can watch it. And there you go. The supposed debate for tonight, which I'm hoping will occur, at 9 p.m. Eastern time, I believe it's supposed to be on Discord. And I forgot which server it's going to be inside of Discord.

But that's that. So I'm actually trying something new right now, as a matter of fact, as I'm on the Discord server in the CARM room, in the general voice room, broadcasting this show and audio. And I'm hoping that people can go in there, check it out, and see if it works. So I'm trying to make my technology more available for everybody so that they can hear more stuff. But what I can try and do is if this debate does occur tonight, I can try and put the information up on the Facebook page, and people can go check it out.

But I would suggest that if you're interested in watching or listening, listening would be what it is, then you can go to Discord.com, download the stuff, sign up, and then we'll see if we can figure things out. Because we're going to have somebody in there who will help govern the, it's called a server, and we'll just see what happens. Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm learning as I go. Have a good one.

What's that? I said I appreciate it. All right. So I guess you like debates, huh?

Like to hear them? Yeah, yeah, man. It helps me learn about you, James White. Oh, yeah, man. Well, good. Y'all really are a big help, man.

I appreciate it. Well, good, the debate last night was, some people called it a dumpster fire. My opponent did not, they called it that. And he did not, I mean, some of the stuff that happened was interesting. Because we had no callers waiting, so I might as well keep you on a little bit and fill the airwaves and talk about what happened. But this guy, I got some of the statements that he made. I'm like, what?

He's supposed to be this guy. What was the topic? What's that? What was the topic? Morality. And he's an atheist and saying that I cannot defend any universal morals and things like that. And he says, Christianity teaches blind faith. I said, no, it doesn't. I give him the example in the scriptures where that's not the case. He just rejects it. He said, our God is arbitrary. I explain why it's not. He actually said it. Here's a direct quote from him. Total nothingness is bad at everything because it can't do anything.

Total nothingness is bad at everything because it can't do anything. I'm like, what? And then he said, existence is good by definition.

Okay. And he goes by the nickname, this snake was right. So this is what he does. And I'm like, dude, you're doubting God's word and you're siding with the devil, so you are siding with satanic ideology. He didn't like that at all. Anyway, yeah. And then when I asked him, I said, so are you an atheist or an agnostic? He goes, I don't have to tell you.

It's not relevant. I'm like, dude. Dude.

I said, I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from so I can cater my answers. He goes, I don't have to tell you. I'm like, wow. It was bad. It was bad.

So anyway, he made a lot of mistakes. But it's just what it was. Okay. Yeah. Hey. So we had an after show.

And the one guy came in and he actually had his image that he used for your name, the image you go with it, he put a dumpster on fire. So it was something else. So I told the guy, you need to study, dude.

I enjoy debates mostly. Well, there you go, buddy. I got a couple of laughs out of that one.

And I'm just trying to show the futility of non-Christian thought. And it was certainly easy with that guy. All right, buddy? Hey, I appreciate it, man. Have a good one. You too, man.

Have a good one. Hey, folks, we have four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276.

Guess what? We've got people signing up who are interested in going to Israel next year. We've got a few sign-ups on it. If you want to check it out, just go to karmisrael.com. All one word, karmisrael.com.

It'll forward you to another page. You can check out the information. Hey, we have four 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, everybody, welcome back to the show. We have two open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Herb from New York.

Welcome. You're on the air. Are you there?

Herb, Herb. I clicked. I'm waiting. I don't hear anything. Let's see. I'll give you another few seconds here. Let's see.

Unless there's something wrong. I'm hearing. I don't hear him. All right, let's go to CJ from Boise. Hey, CJ, are you there? Yes, sir, can you hear me? There we go. Yes, I can.

I thought we had a glitch problem there, but okay. So what do you got, buddy? What's up? Well, so first I just want to thank you for taking the call, of course. So my question actually pertains to a sensuality of understanding the Godhead. So I got to be honest, I agree with virtually everything on the KARM website, and that's a refreshing thing to see from an apologist, but there's something that I personally have an issue with, and that is that I don't see how understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity could be considered to be essential. It doesn't seem to me like there's anywhere in Scripture that says understanding the Godhead is essential.

For what? You know, if I think of something essential for salvation or to consider oneself a Christian, it seems to me like, you know, if you look at the Scripture, there's nothing that... So if I were to, for example, talk to a muscle, right? Well, I have explicit Scriptures that teach me that Jesus is God, right? He prophesies in Malachi, in Isaiah, explicit testimony of Thomas, right?

I can tell them explicitly where it is that they're wrong. The best I ever get from people when they're saying the Trinity is 1 John 2, 2, but that's not something that works at all. I've never heard an apologist be able to explain an answer to my personal objection to that, which is John 2, 2, 20 through 22 is very clearly saying to not have the Son is to not accept Jesus as Messiah. And that verse in a vacuum doesn't even actually contradict Jehovah's Widgets theology, let alone like a semiarian or a one that's Pentecostal. So let me ask you, what is your specific question?

What do you got? So where is it that we get the idea that this is an essential doctrine? Like, how is it that a one that's Pentecostal or a semiarian wouldn't be somebody that we consider Christian? And especially in light of the fact that it does seem like virtually all of the anti-Nicene fathers had a view that is different from what we would consider a orthodox Trinitarian view.

All right. So what I tell people is that the doctrine of the Trinity is essential in the proper definition of who God is and what the Christian position on God is. I teach that you don't have to affirm the Trinity in order to become a Christian. What I mean is that there are a lot of people who just don't understand what the Trinity is. You don't have to accept the Trinity in order to become a Christian. You trust in Christ by faith and then the truth will be made manifest to you and you will gradually come to acknowledge the doctrine of the Trinity.

So the doctrine of the Trinity is a proper understanding of who God is. And if someone were to deny the Trinity, that's a problem. So when I meet people online and I'm talking to them and they say, well, I don't believe in the Trinity.

I don't judge whether there's Christian or not. At least not yet, because they may have a faulty understanding of what it is. They may not realize how it's derived in Scripture and I'll work with them. And several times that I've done this with people and I say, well, let's talk about it.

You know, cause they'll say, well, I don't accept the Trinity. It says, okay, let's, let's talk about it. And I've had several times where people said, Oh, now I understand what you're saying.

Oh, I see. And I go, okay, great. And so they didn't become Christian because they accepted the Trinity, but they became a Trinitarian because they accepted the truth of God's word, which is something that they do because they're regenerate. So you want someone to reject it. Even after that point, I still don't, you know, say, well, you're not a true believer.

I say, you know, we need to work with this some more, you know, very gentle and patient with them and, and say, let's, let's talk about it some more and maybe next day or next week or something like that. And so that's what we mean is essential, essential for what? Essential to become a Christian? No. Is it essential for the proper definition of what Christianity is?

Yes. We're not saved by doctrine. We're saved by Jesus Christ and his shed blood. And then we become believers in the truth as we regenerate.

Make sense? Well, so yes, sir. But if I may, what then, cause I agree with that wholeheartedly actually. With the exception being, I personally have had very heavy modalist leanings in the past and I've only recently come out of that. I'm still not quite comfortable using the term Trinitarian, but I do like the term triunity that I heard from Dr. Michael Brown.

That seems to make everybody happy. No, Trinitarian's the right word, Dr. Michael Brown needs to come on board the proper ship. And, you know, I, I've talked to him before that Trinity is the proper doctrine that is derived out of the Christian church throughout history. That's the, it should be that.

Yeah. It's a kind of, I don't know, I guess to be pressing though, my question would be what then, cause that's the only thing it seems to me that separates a oneness Pentecostal or a message believer or something along the lines of other people who believe modalism. Modalism is a denial of the true and living God. And there's, I'll go through very quickly without getting into this, but in modalism they teach that there's only one person in the Godhead. And if one person is going to have personhood, some of the requirements of personhood means expression, awareness of others, awareness of yourself, the expression of love, things like that. But if God is one person for eternity in the past, then none of those attributes can be expressed. How then can you exhibit true personhood? And this is a serious issue within the doctrine of the idea of a single person God, whether it's a dynamic monarchism or modal monarchism.

And so this is another issue I could impact that in more detail. Plus you can't have the intertrinitarian eternal covenant spoken of in Hebrews 1320. Plus, you could not have Ephesians 1.4, that he chose us in him. The Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.

You also could not have John 6.39, which is a very important verse at this point, which says, this is the will of him who sent me, that all that he has given me I lose none. Well, this is the will of him who sent me. That means that Jesus was in a place with the Father, the will of him who sent me.

The Father sent him. That's what it said in verse 38. I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. That means Jesus said he was in heaven with the Father. You can't have that be the case in modalism.

Furthermore, there's another problem. In Luke 22 42, Jesus says, not my will, but your will be done. When I talk to modalists, when it's Pentecostalist, I'll say, who was he praying to? And they'll say, well, praying to, you know, get different answers, praying to God.

I'll say, well, wait a minute. Isn't he God in flesh? Well, yes. Is he praying to himself? Was he praying to himself?

Is that what you're saying? Well, no, he's not praying to himself. He's praying to the Spirit.

Well, wait a minute. Are you saying that Jesus is not God? He's praying to God the Spirit someplace else?

Well, no, that's not it. It's the flesh praying to the Spirit. Well, why does it say the Spirit in heaven? Because he sent our Father who art in heaven. That's who he's praying to. So are you saying that there's no true incarnation now? You see, when you start asking the questions, you start realizing that the one that's Pentecostal stuff is cultic, plus one that's Pentecostal, and they add works to salvation and requirement of baptism by immersion.

In the name of Jesus, not in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but in the name of Jesus, which they fail to properly understand in Scripture. We've got a break, so hold on, buddy. We'll be right back.

All right? Hey, folks, two open lines. 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, everyone. Welcome back to the show.

We have two open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. CJ, you still there? Yes, sir. All right. Now, do we know each other? Because you're in Boise. We met before. You sound familiar and stuff. So we wouldn't have met before, I don't think. I am actually sort of starting my own apologetics thing at the moment.

You may potentially, although unlikely, I'm not very big, have heard of the synagogue. That is my YouTube channel. I'm actually debating a modern-day debate tonight. Okay. Good. What are you debating? I'm going to be debating the question, who was Jesus? There's a guy there, I think his name is Brenton Michael and another gentleman named, no, Michael Fitzgerald and Brenton something else.

I'm not sure Brenton, but Michael Fitzgerald is a mythicist and Brenton is a Buddhist. Okay, so good. Yeah. Who is Jesus? But yeah, because he's still God in flesh, et cetera. Well, good. You know, if you're interested, there's a guy who wants me to start teaching a study here, and I may start doing that, going through and teaching, but I don't know if you're interested in joining in to learn more about this issue because the Trinitarian issue is very important and there's other issues related to the doctrine of the Trinity, the economic Trinity, the ontological Trinity, and the more we unpack the issue of modalism, the more we find out that it is heretical and it is damnable heresy.

It doesn't mean that everybody who automatically believes it is automatically dead in sin and going to hell because people can be saved in varying levels of ignorance and mistake and that's another topic, but modalism is bad and Trinitarianism is the proper doctrine. Okay. So if you ever want to get together and talk about it, let me know. All right? Yeah, absolutely.

I'd absolutely love to do that. Okay. You can always contact me on Karma. You know, I live here in Nampa, so no big deal. Maybe we'll have, so again, once we start studies on Thursdays and just go through scripture and we'll see.

Maybe I'll do it because he loves scripture. Yeah, absolutely. And well, and so do you mind if I just kind of just throw like one little more question at you before I head out? Sure.

Real fast. Sure. Absolutely. Um, so you know, you, you, you, um, had a lot of, uh, points about, you know, why the, why modalism would be false and why Trinitarianism would be true. Um, and saying, you know, we take away from certain parts of God's character, but as a Calvinist, you wouldn't, you believe the same about the predestination question, right?

That that would take away from certain elements of God's character. If you believe in Armenianism and things like that. You, at least I had assumed, I guess, um, I may not be too familiar with your work.

I've only recently started listening as like four or five months ago, um, with your debate with Sam Shamoun actually, whenever that was. But the point being, um, it doesn't seem like you think that Armenians aren't saved, right? But wouldn't that be like a similar situation? I also believe a lot of Calvinist things, by the way.

Uh, good. Uh, similar, I should say yes to, but, uh, the issue of the nature of God, uh, God defines himself, who he is, where to believe in him, in his nature, uh, how we understand God's action is different. The action of election and predestination is different than his nature of Trinitarianism or modalistic, one person or three persons.

So that's why. And if you understand the true nature of the doctrine of the Trinity, then election predestination makes sense. Covenant makes sense. Eternal covenant makes sense.

Eternal generation of the sun. It makes sense. Otherwise it does not make sense and you cannot justify in modalism. You cannot justify the true incarnation and therefore it risks very seriously risks the sufficiency of the toning work. Well, this is very serious stuff.

I'd be willing to talk to you about it. If you're going to be in apologetics, you need to get this done, right? You need to get it down, right?

Because if you don't, you're going to shipwreck a lot of people and you'll be held responsible by God. So, you know, you're local. I'm willing to work with you if you want. Okay. Yeah, absolutely.

I hope we can arrange that at some point and I appreciate that. Sure. No problem. All right. So you can always contact me. Okay.

On Karma's email address there. All right, buddy. Absolutely. Thank you. And God bless you. God bless. Okay. All right. Let's get back on the phone.

Let's try Herb from New York. Have we lost? Oh, we just lost somebody else too. Let's get to Mitch from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Hey, Mitch.

Welcome. You're on the air. Are you there? Hello? Uh-oh. Look at that. Yeah.

Good evening. I was just, I was raised in a Christian home. We didn't talk much about Calvinism. I didn't know it.

We weren't really taught it. And as a big proponent of, I would just like to get a synopsis of Calvinism. Okay.

Sure. In reference to Arminianism and such. Here, I'll compare them. So a lot of people don't know that Arminianism is a lot more Calvinistic than most Arminians realize. Arminians affirm total depravity, total depravity, as Calvinists do. Total depravity is the teaching that the person is, whoever he is or she, is touched by sin in all areas of his life, his existence, so his heart, soul, mind, body are all touched by sin. And both teach that the average person is not as bad as he could be. Calvinists will say, however, that the result of that effect of sin, total depravity, means that the unbeliever cannot freely, of his own sinfully enslaved free will, simply believe in Jesus. He needs regeneration first, where the Arminian would say that God gives them prevenient grace, a kind of gracious movement that enables that person to then freely choose in God. And that's one of the major differences.

And I call, personally I call that the Arminian position on prevenient grace, I call it kindergarten theology. I heard that. Yeah. It's got a lot of problems with it. So there's that. It's just so... Go ahead. There's other stuff, but yeah.

Are you there? It's just so hard to take in the, because I was, that the Lord, we were elected before the foundation of the world. That mean that certain people were elected and that's it? What about the unsaved?

How does that work? Well, as the Bible says, Jesus says in Mark 1320, unless the Lord had shortened those days, talking about the days, the end of the age and stuff, no life would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days. So he talked about shortening the days for the sake of the elect. We talk about the elect, this is what the Bible teaches.

A lot of people don't like this. I'm just reading scripture. And it says in Ephesians 1, 4, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

So that's election. And the choosing is before the foundation of the world. And then it says that we'd be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us with doctrine as sons. Most people don't want to hear about election and predestination because they've been taught false doctrines from so many churches. And the false doctrine is that election and predestination are not true.

But they are. I'm just reading it. It's right there in scripture. And yet people resist it because they don't like it. And so what they're doing is submitting God's word to their feelings and their preferences. And that's sinful. My pastor and some of the members of our church are Calvinistic persuasion. And the greatest preacher of all time, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, I read him constantly. And I know through his works and so on that he was very Calvinistic. So you know, since then, since I've been reading and studying, because I didn't grow up with Calvinism.

That's alright. I grew up and you accepted the Lord, you were saved. Not saved to a life of licentiousness, but you were saved and we do get out of line. We do falter, fail, and then we ask forgiveness.

It doesn't mean that he's earned us or thrown us out of the house. Like the Armenians wouldn't leave. I've been in both camps.

That's why I'm using them both. I've seen the situation, the Armenianism, people go to the altar on Sunday for something and they say they're healed. And then the very next service they're at the altar for the same thing and it's over and over.

So I heard your comments before the last phone call that he was somewhat of a, I don't know, it's very confusing to me. Well here's the thing I teach people is that whether you're reformed, that's called Calvinism, reformed or non-reformed, or Armenian, the issue is not all of that. The issue is do you love Jesus Christ, do you believe he's God in flesh, died on the cross. That's what's important because I want people to believe in election and predestination because that's what the Bible teaches. I can't deny it and I won't not teach it because it makes people uncomfortable.

That's what it says. But not affirming it, which I think is a mistake, but not affirming it doesn't mean you're not a true Christian. It doesn't mean you don't love the Lord.

People are saved at different levels of understanding and they grow in different directions, and that's okay within Christianity. You want to hold? Okay, we've got a break coming up, okay? Okay.

Okay. Hey folks, we have four open lines. Why don't you give me a call?

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

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. I just want to let you, just to give you a reminder that we're doing an Israel trip next year. If you want to join us and you want to check it out, all you got to do is go to karmisrael.com, C-A-R-M Israel, one word, and it'll forward you to another page. You can check it out and there's some stuff in there. We have a little questionnaire for questions if you want to let us know if you'd like to go or want to go or plan to go.

That way it helps us decide if we're going to ultimately set it up because we've got to make reservations and stuff like that. Let's get back on the phone with Mitch from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Are you still there? Yes, sir. All right.

Don't know if I helped you enough. There's a lot more I could talk about if you're interested, but if you've got a question then go ahead. I went to Piedmont years ago, and as far as I could see, when I was going there, they had a dim view of Calvinism, and so I was in the fighting fundamentals, if you know what I mean.

I used the King James Bible only and a few other things. After years of pushing around, I just have been confronted with Calvinism, and I'm just trying to flesh it out and see what's what. I know they used to talk about the five points of Calvinism, and we're not five pointers and such of that nature, and I'm just looking for a little counseling on that.

Here's the thing. Ask yourself the question, is God sovereign or is he not sovereign? Is he the king or is he not the king? Are we able of our own free will in our sinfulness able to pick God, or must it be that God has to pick us? We have to ask these kinds of questions, and the Bible tells us that the unbeliever is a slave of sin, Romans 6, 14 through 20, he's a hater of God who does no good, Romans 3, 10, 11, and 12. His heart is full of wickedness, Jeremiah 17, 9. He cannot receive the things of God, 1 Corinthians 2, 14. He's dead in his sins, Ephesians 2, 1. He's by nature a child of wrath, Ephesians 2, 3. And Ephesians 2, 15 says he's at enmity with God, in a hating state of relationship with God. And therefore, it is God who causes us to be born again, 1 Peter 1, 3, who grants that we believe, Philippians 1, 29, who works faith in us, John 6, 28, 29, who grants that we believe, 2 Timothy 2, 25, who makes us born again not of our own wills, John 1, 13. We cannot come to Christ unless it's been granted to us from the Father, John 6, 65.

You see? This is what the Bible teaches, but let me tell you something. If you go back to Genesis chapter 3, God had already spoken, and then the devil comes in and says, did God really say? He cast doubt on the word of God and the truth of God, and effectively what happened was Adam and Eve decided to judge the word of God by their experience, their sensibilities.

And in so doing, they were doubting and denying the truth of God's word. If God is sovereign, he does what he wants in all of creation. If you go to Daniel, I think it's 4, 35, I think it is. Let me see if I can find it really fast.

I want to read you. It says, all the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, but he does according to his will in the host of heaven, and among the inhabitants of earth, and no one can ward off his hand or say to him, what have you done? And the Bible says in Ephesians 1, 11, it says that he works all things after the counsel of his will. This is what the Bible says. God is the one who's sovereign.

He's the king. You should read Romans 9, 9 through 23 and see. This is what the Bible teaches, that God has the right to do with his creation as he desires.

Well, most people don't like that. Most people want the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian surfer Jesus dressed in a woman's nightgown standing at the door of your heart asking permission for you to let him in, because they're humanistic. When Adam and Eve were in that garden, what they did was they used their own feelings and sentimentality to judge the word of God, and they were in error for doing it. And this is what happens in the Christian church today. People say, well, we don't affirm what they call it Calvinism. And what they're saying is, we don't affirm that God elects and predestines, but the Bible teaches he does.

It does. We don't affirm that God grants that we believe, but it teaches that, Philippians 1.29. And I trick them. I'll say, well, I believe that God makes everything, even the wicked, for the day of evil. And they'll say, no, he doesn't.

I go, yeah, he does. I just quoted Proverbs 16.4 to you, verbatim. And so this is what the word of God says. See, what we do as people, because we are sinners by nature, is we lower God and exalt ourselves. We want God to be on our level, so it's our freedom, our free will, our wisdom is what's going to enable us to believe in God, so that we can then take credit for our own believing. And this is the humanistic philosophy that's invading the Christian church, and it's part of the apostasy to come. So what we have to understand is that you're not saved by Reformed theology, not by Calvinism.

You're saved by the Lord Jesus Christ and your faith and trust in him. But to what extent, once we're saved, are we going to affirm the great sovereignty and majesty of God? Or are we going to, so to speak, by definition and expectation, lower his capabilities and say, but I'm the one who keeps myself right with God through my faithfulness?

What are we going to do? And so what Reformed theology does is it exalts God and it lowers man. What Arminianism does, to a degree, is lower God and exalt man. What Wesleyanism does is even more of that.

What Catholicism does is far even more than that. And what the cults do is swap, so that man is sovereign over God. And so we have to understand, there is a God, you are not him. He's the sovereign in control, and yet he loves us, and yet he died for us, and he calls us to himself, and he works in us. And for some reason, the more we pray for people, the more we preach that gospel, apparently the more people are elected from the foundation of the world to be saved. We don't know how it works.

We just know that God is the one who's in sovereign control of everything. And yet we bow the knee, and I'm a very strong Calvinist. I've been defending it close to 30 years. I've written a document, outlines, or notes on Calvinism.

It's on Amazon, and it's like, I don't know, 90 pages. And I can, from, you know, when I was quoting you versus, I wasn't reading it, I'm just quoting it to you from memory, and I'm not boasting, I'm just saying, I really believe this stuff. I really do study it.

Well, I know you do, because I listen to you off and on. And the first time I heard you, and, no way, this guy's Calvinistic, and I just, slowly but surely, I have questions, and need answers, just trying to, so, do you counsel, get your information off of Amazon? Or do you know any literature or books that I can?

Yeah, there's, you know, I've written a lot of books, and you can go to Amazon, look up my name, and you'll find some, but, you know, if you're interested in that, go check it out. But my concern is not that. If you, you know, if you want to learn more, well, then by all means, do that. I want people to understand, I'm not trying to convert anybody to Calvinism. I want them to understand who Jesus is and crucified. I know you're not.

That's it, yeah. Good, because he's Lord, and I'm going to be corrected one day when I get to heaven. I just don't know where it is yet, but it's going to happen. But, you know, anyway, so there you go. I can tell you a lot more about it, but I know it very well, and, you know, people don't agree with it.

I go, okay, you don't agree with it. Do you love Jesus? Are you out there witnessing? Are you sharing the Gospel? You know, you better be.

That's my main concern, okay? All right, thank you, sir. You are welcome. All right, well, God bless. Okay, that's Mitch, and let's get over to David from Charlotte, North Carolina. Dave, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, how are you? Can you hear me?

Yes, I can, loud and clear. I don't, yeah, I don't question, you know, why God does what he does. One thing I guess I'm having trouble with is, in the Old Testament, I think in the book of Joshua, why would God order the killing of innocent women and children? Well, he doesn't. He doesn't order the killing of innocent women and children, because the point I'm trying to make is nobody's innocent.

Okay. See, we have a doctrine called federal headship with a male-represented descendant, so in Adam all die, 1 Corinthians 15, 22. What this means is that we died in Adam, he represented us, and so we have a fallen nature. We are by nature children of wrath, Ephesians 2, 3, even babies.

A lot of people don't like this because babies are too cute, can't say that. So God has the right to execute judgment upon anybody and everybody for varying reasons. So if you look at Jericho, they were pagan, very pagan. I've been to Jericho.

I've stood on the walls. I've seen the destruction, and when God orders the destruction of a nation like that, of a group, of a city, it's not because, hey, I just decided one day I'm going to wake up and kill them all. It's not what it is. It's because they're involved in paganism, idolatry, and they're trying to get in and destroy the messianic line inside of Israel by corrupting Israel, and God won't let that happen, so he orders their complete destruction. There's logical reasons as well. Women can have more children, and women who are still left alive in that context, who are idolaters, they deserve judgment like we all do. It's just God's mercy to let people live. And so he executes them through the hand of Israel, and they will no longer produce more and more paganism and false doctrines and things like that. And the children, whether they go to heaven or hell, that's another topic. I believe that all babies go to heaven when they die. I can't prove it, but that's just my position.

And so if he delivers the babies into the hand of judgment, then they enter into the presence of God and saved, whereas if they had grown and become pagans, then they wouldn't have. So you see? It's a lot more nuanced than just, why would he do that? Okay. Okay. I understand.

That's all I got. Thank you so much, and God has really blessed me just this week. I mean, he's worked miracles, and I'm very grateful. I just thank you. Thank you for what you do, and praise God. Well, praise God is right. That's right.

Praise God. All right. Okay. Well, let's get on the phones with Kent from Durham, North Carolina. Kent, welcome to the show. Hey, Matt. How you doing? Doing okay. What have you got, man?

All right. Matt, I want to ask you a question. Why do the churches, and the philosophers, and the Nazis teach lies in the churches? Because they don't trust scripture. Sir? Because the less you trust scripture, the more you're going to substitute something else.

Okay? Well, because I think a lot of things have been hidden to these churches, and they're not asked to tell the truth. And that's why a Jesuit is stuck in the house of Elohim, because the truth is not there speaking in these churches. Because the name, everything in these churches are not teaching proper, they're not teaching the proper document in the Bible, what the Bible's in the Bible, in the Hebrew Bible. What about the New Testament? Should they teach out of the New Testament that Jesus Christ is God in flesh? A lot of things have been edited out of the Bible.

That's not the original Bible. How do you know? How do you know? How do you know?

How do you know? Where's the evidence? I know where the evidence is, sir, because where the evidence is, you have to tell me about it. Okay, tell you what, we're out of time. Call back tomorrow.

I'd love to talk to you. Sorry, we're out of time. Email me the evidence. Okay?

Because we're going to see. Hey, folks, we're out of time. May the Lord bless you, by his grace as usual, back on tomorrow. And may the Lord bless you this evening, and hey, have a great night.

Okay? God bless. God bless. God bless.