Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network.

and it is, let's see, October 19th, 2021 for the podcasters. Hey, I tried a little bit of an experiment today, just a little bit. We're going to see how it works. I put the URL for the YouTube viewing of this show.

Because it's live, it goes to YouTube. And I also put it in the KARM Twitter account, the Matt Slick Twitter account. I put it in several Facebook accounts and stuff like that. So we're going to see if the count comes in because I'll be able to see the total count. And that's it.

No big deal. We're just trying different ways to reach out. And we want you to give me a call, 877-207-2276.

All right. Now, if you're new to the show, what we do here, or what I do, is take callers and answer questions on theology, apologetics, the defense of the Christian faith. We talk about government. We talk about COVID. We talk about UFOs. We talk about the occult. Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science Unity by Islam, all kinds of stuff. Theology, logic, and debates.

And speaking of which, I forgot, I'm in a debate tomorrow night. And so I started prepping today. I took a break from my COVID research and stuff like that. And I'll tell you this stuff I'm finding.

Oh, my goodness. And so I'll be releasing more and more articles here in the next few days. I get a lot of articles I work on simultaneously and then release like three or four or five at a time, because one article might have to link to something else, verification.

And I need to produce the information in that other article. So it works like that. And so anyway, we talk about all kinds of stuff. And because all things are under the purview, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and Christians have no business in ignoring any part of life, any part of our society and our life, all of it is to be under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It does not mean we push people around, but it does mean that we are to work to bring all things in subjection to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the perfect King, the perfect Lord. That's what we're to do as Christians, which means don't sit on your hands.

It means do stuff for the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, four open lines, 8772072276. Now, let's see. I'm looking at my calendar.

Wait, I've got to go to Carmen and look at my calendar. And let's see if the link is there. Because if it's not there for tomorrow night's debate, I'll put it up. I've got the info. I think I have it up. Let me see. Come on.

Hurry up. There we go. And I'm going to debate, let's see, on the 20th.

Yep, that's right. And it will be between myself and a guy named Taylor Stewart. He's a Unitarian. And I have been debating Unitarians recently quite a bit. On the 12th, I debated Shavir Ali.

And let's see. I also debated Carlos Xavier on October 1st. Oh, that's interesting. Look at that. Oh, yeah, discussion there.

I'm just reviewing some of the stuff. I opened discussion on oneness and Trinity. Did that on September 1th.

1th? So I did that then. Anyway, we've been doing a lot of discussion on the issue of the Trinity and oneness. And I do something a little bit different than a lot of people who are defenders of Trinity. I not only defend the Trinity, I attack Unitarianism.

I go after its logical problems. And when I did that with Shavir Ali, he wasn't able to handle that. Now, I think he's written me, and I've been so busy with stuff, I haven't gotten to it. I've got to go see what he says about that because he said he would check that out and then try to provide a response. So hopefully, I'll be able to do that in a week or so. I'm just so busy. You know, I'm almost 65, and you're supposed to retire about now, right?

Go fishing and relax in your hammock while you're overlooking something pretty. But no, I am even more busy now than I've ever been. There's so much to do. So much to do. I still want to get a T-shirt company going.

You know, just a little drop shipping thing, which I don't know how to do, but I've got to set it up. Because people ask me about the sayings I say, and they're good T-shirts. So people say, oh, I'll do it in T-shirts. That's another project. Things like so much heresy, so little time. You know, things like that because that's truth, you know?

And just a bunch of stuff that way. So anyway, yeah, there's just a lot to do. Preparing for debates, researching COVID. Research is really slowing me down because what I have to do is read a lot of highfalutin material from doctors who write in their highfalutin way. And so I read through it, and most of it I don't understand. If I don't understand something, I don't take a quote out of it because I don't understand it.

You know, I'm not going to do that. And they use these big medical terms and procedures. And so what I do is read through, and a lot of times I'll have conclusions. And so I'll read through the conclusions, and I'll quote the conclusions because it's in normal English. And then what I'm doing is I'm providing links. Now, what I have been doing is keeping my commentary to the very minimal when it comes to articles. And I have found myself just producing outlines, outlines of information, like on the deleterious effects of COVID. And so, you know, I've got a lot of articles open right now. And one article I'm going to be doing is countries that have restricted or banned certain COVID vaccines. And believe it or not, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway have cut back and even banned the English country.

Moderna, because of some bad side effects. Japan has found metal in some of the vaccine stuff in Moderna. So, you know, it's like, whoa, but you don't hear this on the news. And I watch news.

I don't hear anything about this. You've got to go find stuff. So what I'm doing, for example, is like that, I'm just doing a quote and providing the links so that people can go check it out for themselves, go check it out. And here's an interesting thing. Sometimes the quotes have footnotes. I go check out those footnotes. I have discovered stuff from going to those footnotes. Oh, my goodness. And I'll be releasing it.

It's really interesting. So anyway, let's get to Chris from Austin, Texas. Chris, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks.

So what do you got? Okay. Hey, I'll preface my question with explaining that in my background, you know, I'm opposed to women pastors and elders.

Good. I was curious what your position is on men coming into the teaching of women, either through, say, a small group setting, a Sunday school, or even in books and such, in podcasts. What are your thoughts on that?

Well, that's a good question. Let's see, women teachers. So I'm going to give you an, you know, absolutely, women are not to be pastors and elders and deacons. They shouldn't be deacons either.

Right. So that's what the Scriptures teach, and I can defend that very well, and I still, I'll just do this again. I'll offer anybody for a debate. You know, they won't debate me on this. You know, let's do it televised or videoed or whatever it is. I'll go out to your church. Let's get some people.

Let's do it. And I've been saying this for years, and I never get anybody to take me up on this offer of a debate. Using the Bible, that is. You know, what does the Bible say? But nevertheless, so back in the seminary.

Now, I went to Westminster Theological... Oh, wait, wait. Stop a minute, Matt. Sure. Hey, Matt.

Yeah? I'm not real strong about women being, against women being deacons. Our church, by the way, does not allow that. But the reason I say that is, you know, I'm kind of, anyway, the way I see it in the Scriptures, you know, I do see deaconesses, and so how do you take the stance? You know, for example, as long as a woman is not teaching as a deacon, she could be in an administrative role, like, you know, an usher or something like that.

Right? And then she could still be a deacon. The word diakonos... Anyway, I'm not going to argue on this point. I was just curious how you come down on that.

Let me jump in on that one. So the word diakonos is the Greek word for, you know, to serve, and it could be used of all kinds of people in different ways. And certainly women served in that sense. But if you go to 1 Timothy 3, it says that the elders must be those men who manage their own household well, a husband of one wife, etc. Deacons, likewise, must be men of dignity, not double-minded, or double-tongued or addicted to much wine or fond of sordid gain.

These men are first to be tested. And that's what it says. And it says right here in 1 Timothy 3, 12. This is what it says. I'm looking at it, and I'll look at it in the Greek. Deacons must be, it says, andres mias gonaikas, husbands of one wife.

A woman can fill that, okay? And I agree with that. I don't argue with that. I'm just curious, though, what about the places where it talks about deaconesses? Well, I was going to say that in situations in the church where you call a woman a deaconess, you've got to be careful, because if the Bible says deacons must be men of one woman or men of one wife or husband of one wife, then if you use the word deacon for a woman, and someone comes across this and says, well, the church is now saying that deacon can be a woman, even though it says husband of one wife.

When you read elder, it must be husband of one wife. Well, it must not always mean that either. So if you use the term, it's confusing. So just say, you know, just have a different title.

But that's it, and we don't want to confuse people, and we don't want to cause them to stumble. All right, now back in seminary, we had a whole week, a week-long time, where all the classes in seminary were open to the public. Anybody from the public could just come in and sit in the class as long as there was a room, and you could stand around the windows and doors, which happened in a few classes. And so people from all over just kind of came in, and, you know, we regular students, we sat, and then people filtered in. And one of the things the seminary did was fly in a particular woman who was going to teach a class during this week on how women can be used in the church.

And she, of course, held to the biblical position on women and eldership and stuff like that. And I thought, this is going to be awesome, because I wanted to be a pastor at that time, and this was way before the Internet, before CARM, et cetera. And so I thought, I need to go to this class.

I'm making sure I go. The place was packed, and I was the only male in the entire class, which really bothered me. Seriously, it really bothered me, because a lot of men, I believe, did not want to be instructed from a woman. And I don't agree with that. A woman can certainly instruct men, no problem, but she's not to be a pastor, she's not to be an elder, she shouldn't be a deacon, because those are positions in the church of spiritual authority. A seminary is not a church. It's not an ecclesiastical structure. It's a learning situation.

So if I went to seminary, see, I was going to go do some post-graduate work, which I want to do but don't have the money, get a doctorate. Let's say I went to a school and there's a woman teacher. Hey, I'll go in there, I don't care.

I don't care. Because she's not an elder, she's not a pastor. So can I read books written by women?

Sure. Do women have good things to offer? You better believe they do. See, my wife does not know about theology and the Bible as much as I do. That's a fact. But I'll ask her questions about things every now and then, because I want to hear her opinion. And about half the time, she will say something to me I just hadn't thought of, because she has a different perspective. And she's taught me things, and I've learned from them, not in a doctrinal sense, but in a different sense, experiential and relational, and how these things might fit in the Word, which is a whole other level of truth. And so I value that from her.

So of course I don't value everything she says, because she married me and I can't trust her judgment. But, you know, you have to work with what you've got. So stuff like that. I hope that helps. I hope that helps, all right?

Yeah, very good food for thought. I appreciate that, Matt. I don't know if we're on necessarily a total agreement, but in general, yes. Okay, well, that's good. Study it.

Read 1 Timothy 3. All right, buddy, God bless. Okay.

I've got a break. You too. Bye. Talk to you later. Why don't you 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. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Justin. Justin, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

It's Justin, by the way, with a C. Hey, I'm a big fan. I listen to your show every chance I get. Good. All praise to the Lord, but I praise you for being in the midst, and thank you for what you do.

I've got, well, just a bit of background on my question. I didn't get saved until I was 27. I'm 52 now, but after I got saved, I first started reading my Bible, starting with the New Testament, and I noticed that the things it said referencing the rapture just weren't lining up with what I was being preached to or preached about. Everybody believes this pre-tribulation rapture, false teaching, and that's clearly not what the Bible states is going to happen. You know, it talks about the great persecution, and it clearly states that the Antichrist and Mark of the Beast will come before the Second Coming and the rapture.

I guess I have a two-part question. The first part of my question is, why do you think preachers preach this? Some of them have to know that that's not biblical.

And the second part of my question is... Let's do that one first. Okay, why do preachers preach pre-tribulation rapture? I wouldn't say that they believe it's not biblical and just teach it anyway. I believe, my opinion is, that they've not done a thorough examination of Scripture and they've not looked at counter-evidence, namely the motif of this age and the age to come and what happens when you examine that and what happens at the end of this age. That's one thing.

And the other thing is that, well, basically that's what they're taught, because in America where everything is easy for us, so to speak, pre-trib rapture fits right into our narcissistic ways. Itching ears. Yeah.

Itching ears, that's it. Well, and that leads me into... Go ahead. Well, I was going to say I was going to read a little bit of Scripture because people who might be listening might be going, wait a minute, what are you talking about? And I'm going to read out of Matthew 24 just a little bit here. This is what Jesus says in verse 1 because he came down to teach. And in verse 2, do you not see all these things? Truly, truly I say to you, he says, not one stone here will be left upon another which will not be torn down. And they said, tell us, when will these things happen and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?

That's critical. What's the sign of your coming and the end of the age? And Jesus answers. And he goes on, and I'm not going to read the whole thing, but you go down to verse 29 of Matthew 24 and he says, but immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, the powers of the heavens will be shaken, then the Son of Man will appear in the sky, then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds.

And they'll say, great power, great glory. And he will send forth his angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of the sky to the other. Which is the rapture. That's the rapture, after the tribulation. Which clearly does not happen until after the advent of the Antichrist, the mark of the beast system, and the great persecution because I believe that Greek word that is translated tribulation flips this, is also translated as persecution.

And I believe that is a more correct translation in this context. The Lord is talking about the great persecution of those days. Because when you say the great tribulation of those days, well we just believe the word tribulation means hard time, difficult time. That doesn't make much sense, but if you say the great persecution, such as the world has never seen, well that makes a little more sense.

Yeah, you've got to be careful though. Because, and the reason is because, a word can have a semantic domain. And that means a range of meanings in different contexts. And the word flips this, which I'm impressed that you said that, because that's correct, is the word that occurs 45 times. And affliction, tribulation, persecution, and let's see what else is it, basically those are all of them.

Distress. So, we've got to be careful. But still, it's going to be a time, tribulation will be a time of persecution, absolutely. Absolutely, and also of course the book of Revelation clearly references several times all the saints, the Antichrist going to war with the church and the saints, and all of them that will be killed during that time.

Obviously we can't be killed if we're gone. Well, what they'll say is, to be fair, on the other side, they're going to say that people become Christians during the tribulation period after the rapture happens. I don't believe anybody's going to get saved.

I know that's what they'll say, but personally I don't think... Let me read something else that's even better. Because at the end of the age, I'd better read out of Matthew 13, the wheat and the tares. Jesus says allow both to go together till the harvest. At the time of the harvest, I'll say to the reapers, first gather up the tares. The first ones gathered are the tares. And then Jesus says that the gathering is at the end of the age. And at the end of the age, that's when the wicked are gathered, the judgment of the wicked occurs, the elect are gathered, the harvest occurs, and Jesus returns as well as the rapture. Oh, yeah.

I love debating this stuff, because the evidence against pre-trib rapture is so strong. Oh, yeah. I immediately saw that.

Well, the second part of my question is because this is such a dangerous... Okay, let's see. I think we might have lost him. Let's see. I don't know. Let me put him on hold and try the other person. Oh, let's go back in here. All right. Can you hear me? All right.

Sometimes we have a little bit of a tech issue, and I think it might be happening right now, so I don't know. No, I think I'm going through a hole. Let's see.

Okay, well, let's try this. I think I'm going through a hole. Let's go to Pearl. Pearl, are you there?

Nope. Yeah, we're having a tech issue. So what I'm going to have to do is reboot Justin.

I'm so sorry about that. Hey, Justin, are you there? Yes, I'm still here.

I had to reboot a little tech piece. I had to reboot something, so we're back on the air. We're good. Okay, so what was your second question? Well, the second part of my question was more importantly, so I'm glad we held on there, is what... Oh, we got a break. Hold on, man. We got a break, all right?

Okay. We'll get back to you after the break. Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. Music It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, let's get back to Justin from Elkin, North Carolina. Justin, welcome.

You're back on the air. Hey, Matt, thanks so much for sticking with me through that, because I do think it's important, because the second part of my question is, people who've been taught this pre-Trib rapture their entire Christian life and have never researched it on their own, obviously it's easy to say, we'll go research it, but what is the best, most distinct way or thing to say to them or ask them to get them to think about it and really check into it on their own? Because so many people I think are going to be blindsided by the events of the end days that they think they're not going to be here for. Well, the things I would recommend that's very easy is in the parallel of Matthew 24 and Luke 17, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be the days of the coming of the Son of Man, for they were eating, they were drinking, they were giving in marriage, till the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came in, took them all away, that's what Matthew says, but Luke says the flood came in, destroyed them all. So the ones who were giving in marriage and all that kind of stuff were the ones who were destroyed, they were the wicked. So that's the ones who were taken. And when you go to Matthew 24 and you understand that, two men in a field and one is taken and one is left, the ones who were taken are the wicked.

I have never had anybody deny that. Once they've read it and gone back and forth between Matthew 24 and Luke 17 and just seen what it says, they go back and forth, they go, oh my goodness, you're right. So that part of Scripture is not about the rapture. The rapture occurs, that's 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 16 and following. But these verses are not about the rapture. They're about the wicked who were taken because in Luke 17 they asked Jesus where are they taken and he says, with the body as the vultures gather. So it's a place of death.

So when you meet somebody, when you meet someone, I'm sorry, go ahead. And then when you have that in mind and then you go to Matthew 13, the parable of the wheat and the tares, where the wheat are the good and the tares are the bad and it says, Jesus says in verse 30 that he says, at the time of the harvest I'll say to the reapers, first gather the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up. The first ones gathered are the tares. That's the unbelievers. That's what Jesus says in Matthew 13, 30. And then finally when you go to 13, 40, just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire so shall it be at the end of the age.

Now check this out. The Son of Man will send forth his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness. So this is what Jesus is teaching and it's not what is being taught from far too many pulpits. So Matthew 24, Luke 17, Matthew 13. So the simple form is Matthew 13 and 24, Luke 17.

You read those and your preacher of rapture should come tumbling down. Thank you so much, Matt. I really appreciate you taking my call. Thank you so much. All right, buddy. God bless. Okay. All right, let's get to Pearl from Rockdale, Virginia. Hey, Pearl, welcome back. Thank you, sir. I didn't get a chance to finish what I wanted to ask you the other day. I admire you very much to sticking to the only truth that ever was is ever shall be the Lord Jesus Christ. And I wanted to ask you to please, if you could give me a definition of the hypostatic union of God. Sure. Is that too much to ask you on the radio?

I do it all the time. The hypostatic union deals with Jesus. And it means that Jesus as one person has two natures, the divine nature and the human nature. And so we have the attributes of divinity, the divine, and the attributes of humanity, the human, that are in the one person. And so Jesus, the one person, says, I'm hungry or I'm thirsty, and I'll be with you always even at the end of the earth. This deals with the hypostatic union. And that's what it is.

One person, Jesus, who's one person with two distinct natures, the divine and the human. That's it. Oh, my, I didn't know it was that. I don't mean that anything is simple from God Almighty, but I didn't realize it would be that simple. It's easy.

I have an international standard biblical encyclopedia, and I had looked through it and never could find it. Oh, well, there is this website that I know about called CAR. I don't have a computer. Oh, you have a smartphone? No. Well, if you did, go to my website.

You can read all this stuff. What's that? I'm antediluvian. You actually used that word. That is awesome. I never hear people use that word, antediluvian. That is awesome.

It means folks before the flood. Wow. That's awesome. Well, anyway, you understand me because you are very intelligent. God Almighty gave you a beautiful brain.

It's pretty defective, I'll tell you. Let me just ask you one thing again. How would you, in the hypostatic union, how would you, I want to know for myself, how would you explain that to me as the Trinity? I mean, I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, but I thought, and you very succinctly and kindly corrected me and told me that, you know, it was not that God was manifesting himself in three different persons, personalities. Personalities, right. Persons, yes, not personality, because there's actually... Persons, but not personality. Right, yeah. And I thought that, you know, since he made us in his image, that maybe nobody had told me this, but I thought that it meant that he is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and that that is the Triune Godhead.

That's correct. And yet, but we say the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct persons. They are distinct persons. Yeah, and so the one God exists as three simultaneous and distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That's all, and I will be debating that tomorrow night, as a matter of fact.

I've been debating it a lot recently. No way I can get it in print or anything like that. Well, if you had a smartphone, even a cheap one. No, no, no, no, I just have a wireless phone. Okay, oh, you have a landline with a wireless thing. Well, yeah, one of the things you could do is write us and ask for copies of certain things, and we can send them to you. But we're an Internet-based ministry, and so we do send some material out, and you can order stuff, but you have to order it online.

Maybe if you have a friend who has an Internet connection, you could go on there and figure it out. Oh, then I did not finish what I wanted to say, I'm sorry. This was not something that I read, but I just assumed that since God created us in three different, how shall I say this, bodies, soul, and spirit. That's called tricotony.

Try unity like that. I thought if someone asked me that, that we could compare it. Well, I would not.

Like the Lord Jesus would be the body. No, I would not do that. No, that's not right. Because these kinds of analogies are stretching, and they can fall apart and cause problems. What I tell people is try not to use an analogy. Try not to. But the best one I know is time, which is past, present, and future. Past, present, and future. But all three are the same thing, time.

They're distinct from each other at the same time. So that's how I'll say to people to use that. But one quick thing.

We're going to have a break here in a second, or a minute or two. But to be made in God's image means, and I'm going to throw some theology at you here, it means that we are made in his communicable attributes, not his non-communicable attributes. They can be communicated to us. Theologically, what this means is God loves, we can love. God hates, we can hate. God reasons, we can reason. God has fellowship, we can have fellowship. These are the communicable attributes that we participate in that belong to God. The non-communicable, or they're called incommunicable, but the non-communicable attributes are he's everywhere, we're not. He knows everything, we don't. He has all wisdom, we don't. So it means that the attributes of God that can be communicated to us, that's how we're made in his image.

That's what it means. Let me just ask you one more thing. Sure. If God Almighty is uncreated, he's almighty, he's unconquerable, he's sovereign, do you believe, or is there a quick answer to this, that he has a, I don't know how to say this, he is not the author of evil, but yet he is God the Almighty? Almighty. Who's sovereign over evil.

He can use it for his benefit as it occurs. We've got a break, we've got a break. Okay, we'll get to the recallers afterwards. Call back tomorrow, okay, Pearl? All right, God bless. Thank you.

All right, she's a sweetie. All right, folks, two open lines, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody, we're having fun in the chat room.

A lot of fun. Let's get to Mr., let's see, I cannot pronounce that, Mums from Durham, North Carolina. Welcome, you're on the air. Hey, Matt. Hey.

How's everything going? Hey, Matt, what I was calling about, I've noticed, talking to a lot of the pastors in Jerusalem and Israel, a lot of the things in the Bible have been translated, and I heard a lot of people say a lot of things, it doesn't matter. It's just a translation.

But my students, I found out that a lot of the things in the Bible have been translated, it's been translated from a lie to the truth, and why is that? I don't even know how to approach answering you, because I'm not sure what you're getting at. You're not being specific.

So, we'll try one more time with specificity? I said a lot of things in the Bible have been translated, like the Bibles we use had those translations, and translations of the Jehovah's Witnesses, translations of the King James versions, and translations are, what I mean by translations in a lot of the Bibles, have been translated. Yes, a lot of Bibles, the Bibles aren't translated, the New Testament and the Old Testament, from the original language, are translated into different Bibles.

Okay? And I noticed, when I did my studies, I noticed that a lot of it's translated. When it says translation, I know what's happened, they have translated the truth into a lie in a lot of these situations. Oh, you're just saying the translations are bad. You're saying translations are bad.

That's what you're saying. Okay. A lot of them have been tampered with. How do you know? A lot of the translations.

How do you know they've been tampered with? By my tribals and my travels to Israel and Jerusalem and Rome and Greece, and I advise people to start traveling and getting knowledge, because a lot of this stuff has been translated. Okay. Well, I've traveled also to Jerusalem and to the seven churches in Turkey, and I just learned stuff that confirmed what the Bible says, even in the English. So you've got to give me something specific.

You can't just say subjectively. For example, when I went to Israel, those are not the original Jews. Everything in Israel is not true. I mean- The original Jews died a couple thousand years ago, and their descendants are here, so these are the descendants of the original Jews. No, it's not. Actually, they're not Jews.

They're Yahudim. Are you a black Hebrew-like person? No, sir.

No, sir. I don't follow that. I was a Christian. I no longer follow the Christian. I follow Hamashiach now, because it's all a lie.

All this is set up through the Catholic church. Okay. Well- His name is- Do you see lights out in your window at night?

I'm just curious if they're up in the sky. Let me see. So, I can tell you that you're inaccurate, you don't know. Okay? You're incorrect. You're incorrect. You are incorrect in that, all right? Okay? So, you need to read the Bible and believe what it says.

You need to believe it, and not your personal preferences and experiences. So, we're almost out of time. So, let's get to Linda. She asked, we can go first, then who does the persecution? That's presupposing the issue of the rapture happening before the tribulation.

If the rapture happens after the tribulation, then the persecutors are persecuting the Christians and the believers through the tribulation, and then what happens is the wicked are taken first, and then the good are taken, and the new heavens and the new earth occur right there. And so, let's get to Ron from Florida. Hey Ron, welcome. You're on the air. Hey.

You there? Yeah. This question came up with my sister. She's grounded in the Bible as well. Way back when COVID started, and she goes, do you think COVID is the rapture? I'm like, well, if it is, the rapture's a pretty long period of time, but I don't know how long the rapture could be. Well, if you go to 1 Corinthians 15, and what it says there is, Behold, I tell you a mystery.

This is verse 51. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. So it's talking about the rapture there in 1 Corinthians 15, 51 through 52, because it says at the last trumpet, and it happens in the twinkling of an eye.

So the twinkling of an eye is an eye blink. Boom. There's rapture. Okay?

So the rapture doesn't occur for days and hours, according to the scripture. All right. Okay. I appreciate that answer.

You're welcome. Any other questions? All right.

No? Okay. Well, God bless. I probably have a million, but I'll give them to you in a little time. Well, we've got nobody waiting right now if you've got another question, because you can stay on if you want.

Let people know we have four open lines, eight, seven. The hardest thing to think of is my brother. All of us kids were brought up in the same church. We at about the same age all came to believe in Christ. And then we all got baptized. And it was probably less than a month later, my brother said, Well, I can't understand the Bible anymore.

About a year later, he didn't want to talk about the Bible anymore. And the Bible doesn't exist. God doesn't exist. You can't prove that God exists. Yes, we can prove God exists.

I know I can. He won't listen. So what you do is you pray for him.

Tell him a cow gives milk, and he'll open that. Do you have a question related to this, though? Is that it? We've got callers coming in.

Not really. I mean, how can I do other than pray? There you go. You pray, and you be a good brother, and you just ask God to open his heart up again.

And sometimes what God does to do that is put someone very close to death or very difficult trials, and they wake up. So we'll see. Okay, buddy?

He's in those trials now. All right. Thank you, sir. Okay.

Then you be there for him. All right. God bless. All right. Let's get to Roger from North Carolina. Roger, welcome.

You're on the air. How are we doing, Matt? Doing all right.

How are you doing? My question is, is should Christians celebrate Halloween, like with dressing up as not very good stuff? Well, here's the thing. In 1 Corinthians 10, there's an instance of people eating meat sacrificed to idols. And they say, no, you shouldn't do that. And Paul says, no, you can do that.

You can eat meat sacrificed to idols. They're nothing. It's not going to hurt you.

Okay? But don't do it to stumble anybody else. Don't let your freedom be a stumbling block for anybody else.

The point I draw out of that is that there are things that have a bad, so to speak, origin. But because we're free in Christ, we can participate in things as long as we do it without sin. So can we go door to door? Would I take my kids door to door knowing who I am and what I do for a living? I'd say, yeah, heck yeah. As long as they're dressed up in something innocuous, a little rabbit, a bunny, but not a demon and something like that.

Can they dress up as Iron Man? Of course. And get candy. It's a lot of fun. And so I don't have any problem with that. Now, I wouldn't want them to do anything demonic, anything. And I would just tell them it's just a celebration and it's a good excuse to go out and get candy and stuff and make sure that I'd guard the candy, do all that a dad would do.

I don't see any problem with it. There are a lot of Christians who say you shouldn't because it was originated basically Hallows' Eve, which had to do with a celebration time and pagan practices. Well, so is the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree has a pagan origin too. And December 25th is not the birth of Christ.

December 25th is the winter solstice. And the Catholic church, what it did at that hundreds of hundreds of years ago is it could not get rid of their celebration of the solstice so it tried to purify it by celebrating the birth of Christ on that day. It was a decent attempt to try and sanctify something the pagans were doing. But it really didn't work out. And you can't know that until history tells you if it worked or not. So these things have pagan origins in that sense.

We've got to be careful not to use them too much. There's another logic error called the genetic fallacy. So let's just say you have an atheist next door who teaches you how to do algebra. Well, he's an atheist, so therefore you can't trust the algebra. It's called the genetic fallacy. The origins mean that what comes out of that origin is automatically bad. It's not true.

It could be, but it could also not be. So can you take your children out to go celebrate Halloween? Yeah, sure. Take them to a church thing.

Go door to door with them and have a good time. Okay. Okay, that was my question. All right, Roger. Okay, buddy. All right, thank you, buddy. Thank you. Okay, God bless. All right, let's get to Chris from Texas.

Chris, welcome. You're on the air. Yo, what's up, Matt? Nothing much. What's up?

You know, same old family. Got more questions for you. A couple of things regarding TikTok theology. You said earlier that you can prove God exists, so can you do that for me? Are you a Christian or not or what? Just so I know. Oh, I'm a Christian. I am. Okay. All right.

There's different ways. One of them is a transcendental argument for God's existence, and what it does is it discusses the issue of transcendentals. Transcendentals are nonmaterial actualities, and what that means is a transcendentalist is, for example, the concept of a duckness, catness, tableness, and we have material objects that have certain characteristics that we recognize, but these recognitions occur in the mind, and the things that tie them together are abstractions. They're called universal abstractions, and so tableness is not in a single table in such that if you destroy that table, then tableness is destroyed. It is something that cannot be measured. You cannot measure tableness or duckness because it is a quality that is not tied to the physical world in that sense.

I'm going quickly here. What we do is we move over towards things like logic and mathematics. Logic, the law of identity, law of noncontradiction, law of excluded middle, the number two, the number three, the number four. They're abstractions which have universal characteristics but are not dependent upon the physical realm, and we know they're not dependent on the physical realm because they're not measurable. You can measure hardness, you can measure redness, you can measure viscosity, refraction, you can measure things, but you can't measure the law of noncontradiction.

You can't measure the number two. So these things, the laws of logic and mathematics, which are interrelated because they're both logical, are transcendentals. Now the question then becomes, what must exist in order for transcendentals to exist? Because if the universe were to disappear, the transcendentals are still there because they're not dependent upon the physical universe. But another thing is transcendentals, like math, occur in the mind. Two plus two equals four. It's a process in my mind. It's not a process under a rock or in a waterfall. And so these actualities imply very strongly a universal mind.

Now, I'm going through it quickly. There's what's called a disjunctive syllogism, which means when you have two things that are opposite, like God, not God, when you only have the thing, the thing and the negation of the thing, there's only two options. There's no third option. When you have only two options, God's a necessary precondition for intelligibility or God is not the necessary precondition for intelligibility. When one is negated, the other is proven.

And when you can prove that the secular world cannot deal with transcendentals, then God's proof is verified. That was quick. So we'll come back tomorrow. We'll have a talk about it on the break. We're going to end the show.

Call back tomorrow, okay, buddy? We'll have to do that. Hey, folks, sorry about that. We're out of time.

I know that was deep, but it was also quick and slick. By His grace, we'll be back on here tomorrow. We'll talk to you then. Have a good day. Bye.