Matt Slick Live

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

Alright. The question I want to answer is that all of our ideas, and part of that is knowledge, is grounded in concepts that we generate in our own minds based on our observations of reality. And there's no, there's nothing beyond that. There's no external, like, what are called platonic ideals of things existing in the universe beyond our minds. One of the things I wanted to say is I think...

Okay. You're saying you're grounded in observation, which you're then presupposing that what you observe actually represents reality. You're presupposing that your senses are accurate. It's called empiricism. And empiricism has lots of problems because it's subjective.

How do you know what sense awareness you have of the environment is the same sense awareness somebody else has? For you to say that it just is can't be grounded because your experience is subjective and not universal. This is one of the reasons it has problems. Alright. So it's not a valid option. Okay. Well, let me read my response to why a concept is universal in your, or why, you asked the question why is a, in the example it was, why is the example of the two universal between mine? Right.

And this is my answer. The concept is not universal. What is happening is that different people with different rational minds are generating nearly identical concepts in their minds based on their individual observations and experiences of reality.

The reason the concepts are in harmony is that the concepts formed by each individual correspond to the same mutually shared reality of the existing universe. This is why people will disagree on more complex subjects. Two is a simple enough concept that most people can easily generate a useful and accurate concept of it and their ideas will conform with each other. However, for more complex subjects and concepts, people will have different abilities to form accurate mental constructs. And the example I would give is a car.

Now there are different levels. Car is a concept like two is a concept. Well, hold on. Okay.

You're going on for quite a bit. I need to interject and say, all you're doing is begging the question. You're just going back to the issue of empiricism. You say these concepts are generated or these nearly identical concepts are generated based on basically what they observe. This is empiricism. Right.

So would you, would you acknowledge that there... Hold on. Hold on. Okay. Hold on.

Hold on. Okay. I already told you what the problem with empiricism is. Okay.

Let me do it again. I often have to explain this over and over to people who don't have a biblical worldview because they are beginning with their legs tied together and they're trying to enter into a race with a Christian logician theologian. They can't compete, but they don't know they can't compete because their worldview is insufficient. The Christian worldview is complete and provides the ultimate authority which rests in God's nature. What you're doing is trying to rest ultimate authority and truth values and epistemological issues in human concepts, in human level. So you're automatically not in a God perspective.

You're a humanist. And when you say that generating concepts, we generate them because of based on observations, then what you're saying is there is a universal concept that relates to actuality from a physical sense. Then what is that bridge between the actuality that exists and the concept?

Why is it that one person whose senses are different than your senses would come up with the same thing? If epistemological issues are based on empiricism, then it would imply then that the subjectivity of experience and perception somehow has a universal awareness. But that's self refuting because subjective experience cannot be universal. So empiricism is self refuting in that sense. Alright, so let's deal with, so you want to move to the topic of empiricism, which I would like to defend. Would you agree that there is an external reality to be observed, that God has created the universe and it actually exists?

Of course. Would you agree that our senses are capable, at least at some level, of observing this universe and basically forming concepts about what we're observing in our mind? Can our minds do that? Can we observe the universe and form concepts of its actuality in our minds?

That's the problem. The question is, can you? How do you know that what you observe is actual? So here's an illustration I give to people when we discuss these things.

How empiricism is based upon observation and in conclusions based on observation. A man is walking down a road. To the left five feet is a cliff. To the right five feet is a forest.

And this road, this path, is a thousand feet long. He's walking down this path and a tiger jumps out at him from the forest. He ducks. The tiger goes over the cliff and the man's idea is, all I have to do is duck whenever a tiger jumps at me. He's observing this and he's drawing a conclusion based on his observation. He goes on and he wants to test his theory and, lo and behold, a hundred feet later, the second tiger jumps, he ducks again, goes over the cliff, the man is saved.

He concludes that his ducking is what saves him. But it's incorrect. It's only part of the solution, but the condition only works in that particular environment. So observation depends on your environment and the rationale that you put with it. This is why empiricism is weak. You can't base knowledge on empiricism.

You have to be able to test it and you have to be able to test it in a way that's consistent and outside of yourself. And in order to do that, you have to impose rationalism, which is that knowledge is gained through rational means. So I'm just trying to show you, empiricism and rationalism are bedfellows, but they each have to have presuppositions.

And then what justifies are presuppositions. Look, I've had these conversations a million times, okay? Right, I think you're still... I want to be polite, but I think you're failing because empiricism can be used... No, I'm not.

You are. Okay, well... You don't understand. We can't test... You don't understand. I'm not saying you can't look at something and learn. I'm saying...

This is what you guys don't get. You can't justify ultimate knowledge using empiricism. I think you can because, wait, let's say you generate a concept of two... Then tell me.

Tell me. What's ultimate? What's ultimate knowledge? What's ultimate is God and the reality that he's created. And empiricism can't be used because God is not determined or known empirically. There are different categories. But some aspects, but his creation is... Wait, hold on. Look, if your ultimate is God and yet you want to be an empiricist, then you're saying that empiricism has to be that which judges God and the truth values that come out of his nature and his essence.

And that's a category error. Empiricism is not a total answer, but it can be used to establish some truth. It's not every truth, but some truth. Let me ask you. If empiricism is true, did you use empiricism to validate empiricism? You have to use some rational... Did you? Did you use... No, you use rational ideas. Then if you don't use empiricism to validate empiricism, then you refute empiricism.

If you use rational... Let me finish. If you use something else to validate empiricism, then empiricism is invalidated because it depends on something else. Empiricism is not the way you want to go to determine ultimate truth. It can only give you theoretical ideas of truth, but you don't even know if those are right because they're not grounded in anything other than the empirical method, which ultimately is self refuting.

You've got to study this. I guess what I'm arguing is that you're arguing this general concept of empiricism. What I'm arguing is that we can use our senses to gain an accurate understanding of reality at a basic level. How do you know? How do you know? Because otherwise... E equals MC squared is an accurate representation of reality, but it's not determined by your senses.

It's not because empiricism is not a complete answer to all... We can use what's called rationality as an adjunct to empiricism. Anthony, do me a favor, buddy. Just do me a quick favor. Put your hand in front of your face. Okay? Okay.

Look to your left. Okay? Now, just slap yourself upside the head. Several times, get this out of your head.

Let me ask you one more question, Matt. If our senses cannot be used as an accurate determination of what's real... You didn't hear me. You did not hear me. You don't listen to me.

Okay. Well, if we can't trust our senses... No, I didn't say that, Anthony. You don't listen. You don't listen. I didn't say you can't use your senses or you can't trust your senses. I keep telling you your senses are not the basis for ultimate truth. Ultimate.

U-L-T-I-M-A-T-E. They are tools. It's not the basis of ultimate truth. It's not.

You're right. I'm just... You keep misrepresenting me. You don't understand what I'm saying.

This is very difficult for a lot of people who aren't Christians. I'm not arguing that empiricism is a basis for ultimate truth. I'm using... I'm arguing that our senses... Dude. Dude, that's what we're talking about. Okay, buddy. Call back another time, man. You've got to listen to what's said. I'm going to continue this conversation. Okay, he's got to listen to what's said and he's not listening.

Which is often the case with nonbelievers. Hey, folks. We'll be right back.

Three open lines. 8772072276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live. Taking your calls at 8772072276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right, buddy. This is one of the comments. Jimmy says... Let's see.

Where would it get moved? And... I was clear, but Anthony's senses were getting in the way.

That's clever. All right. Hey, folks. Give me a call.

Three open lines. 8772072276. Let's get to Reverend R.V.

from Georgia. Welcome. You're on the air. Thank you, Matt, for taking my call. I called you the other day about the discussion on your quorum forums about the penal substitutionary atonement. So I have another question today.

Yeah? I wanted to ask about the difference between the two open lines. And I'm going to ask you about the difference between the two open lines. I wanted to ask about the difference between imputation and impartation, especially regarding Jesus bearing our sin. Can sin be imputed to Jesus without contaminating him through impartation? Yes, because to impute is a legal transfer, and to impart is a substance transfer.

Those are basically the differences. So to impart something to somebody has a similar meaning to impute, but impute is strictly a legal thing. And so to impart is kind of a transference of more than just legality or something other than legality, but a kind of presence or essence or something like that to impart this to him.

It gave him the ability to see imparted him. But to impute is a legal transfer. And so our sins were imputed to Christ. Yeah, I appreciate that. That's what I agree with. I support the penal substitutionary atonement.

It seems like some of the people who don't are complaining imputation and with impartation. Yeah, Catholics and cults. Yeah, Catholics and cults do that. Eastern Orthodox Catholics and the cults. It's like confusing justification and sanctification. Justification is legal and sanctification is more internal where God imparts to us the spiritual presence. And so they confuse them, and that's why.

They're false because they don't see the difference. Okay. Well, we'd still love to have you on the Arminianism and Calvinism forums. I can't get in. I tried to get in. You can't?

No. No, I can't get in. I tried. I tried for an hour. I went through different passwords. I can't get in at all. It even locked me out. I had to call up Dara, who's the one who runs it.

She does it for me. And she couldn't get me in either. Wow.

Yeah. So it's a bit of a problem, and we're waiting for the system to give me a reset, and I went in to do it, and it wouldn't work. And so now I have to go in via SFTP.

I've got to find out which file to download, alter the file, and then upload it with the right chmod settings. Then I can hopefully get in. I have to learn how to do that.

It's a project. Well, we'd still love to have you, and we appreciate the forum. We discuss a lot of interesting and deep things over there. I don't know if you could tell by the questions we ask or whatever, but we'd be glad to have you. Well, I'd like to get in there, and I'd like to set up a discussion time. I've offered it for many people who are anti-Reformed, and on Facebook I've done it many times in different venues or different forums there, I mean different Facebook pages. I said, hey, look, I know Reformed theology well. I know how it's arrived at biblically.

If any of you have any questions, I'm going to open up a visual, verbal chat room. Here's the thing. It'll happen on this date at this time, and I open it up, and all the critics, all of the critics who hate Reformed theology don't show up. Then when I ask them why, they say, oh, because it won't be fair.

What? So they have their excuses, which are bad, to not actually have someone answer their questions in real time. What they want is written stuff. I don't have time to write all this stuff out, and then have them ignore the points that I raise in a written form. Then it takes more and more and more writing in order to get it done where I can just answer them. I understand what's going on and say, oh, that's incorrect. Here's why, and I can go in, and they're not interested in that, and it's interesting.

So why is that? Maybe you could ask, would you be interested in having Matt Slick come in or arrange a Zoom call, or we can have a bunch of people meeting in a different place, and we can have discussions on this. You can fire questions, and I can show you stuff, et cetera. Let's see what they say, and they'll give you excuses right away.

This will happen. Give it a shot. Well, I'll go ahead and tag this video in over there on the forum so that they can, several of them I'm sure will be willing, and we'll just wait for you then. Yeah, I'll try again tonight just to see if I can figure it out. But ask them, and just say, would you be interested.

Matt's trying to get in, but he's having trouble getting in, believe it or not, even though I own the forums. But just a tech problem, it happens, and just ask them. See what they've been interested in.

See what excuses they give. All right, and I thank you for what you do for us. Thank you. All right, man. Okay, God bless. All right. Let's make this clear. Yeah, I am Reformed in my theology, and if you are not, that's okay with me.

I don't care. What I have a problem with is people who attack another Christian perspective and do it unfairly with gossip, with misrepresentation, and they're not open to being corrected. Not that everything I say is right, but not open to being corrected, because a lot of people who attack Reformed theology don't understand it, and it's very true. And then they'll say, oh, you just say we don't understand anything. No, you don't understand this concept that we teach about decree and ordination. They don't understand the Reformed perspective very often. They misrepresent it. When I offer to correct them politely, they say, no, there's a position.

Here's a documentation. Oh, this is your opinion. Okay, I'm not going to just talk with you. I just say to them, you're just demonstrating your own total depravity.

Hopefully they don't like that. I often offer opportunities for people to ask questions, and I'll be doing that on Patreon. I'm going to be working more on Patreon. You can go to patreon.com forward slash Matt Slick and sign up if you want.

I'm going to be having some open Q&A sessions there as well. Okay, having said all that, let's go to Josh from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Josh, welcome. You're on the air. Thanks, Matt. Thanks for taking my question.

Sure. So over the last few months, I've been talking to a bunch of Mormon missionaries and sharing the true gospel with them, and my question is more of a practical question. So say God saves one of them, grants them salvation by means of the conversation. Now I'm thinking they're away from their families. Everybody's going to disown them. They're living with other Mormon missionaries. Do you have any advice practically of, okay, now they're saved.

What do I do with them? You know what I mean? Yes, they need to understand.

I forgot the exact reference. Jesus says that you must give up mother and father, brother, sister for him, that he's greater than all, and this is a risk that they have to face, because I tell people when they become Christians, I tell them you have to count the cost. There's always a cost. In Luke 11, Jesus says count the cost. And so a lot of people tell others, a lot of Christians tell them, hey, you become a Christian, everything will be fine.

That's not necessarily true. And we'll expand more on this after the break and we'll talk about some other issues related to it. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned, okay? We'll be right back. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, we have three open lines, 877-207-2276. Let's get back to Josh from Pittsburgh.

You there? Yes, sir. Okay, so they have to know what they're getting involved with, because we don't want to have a false convert. That's one of the points I like to make with people. Now, what are they going to do? Well, if they leave their mission, they're going to be ostracized, ridiculed, shunned by their community. And so I've known people who have offered Mormon missionaries who are on the verge of leaving to say, look, whatever happens, you can come stay with us and we'll provide for you, take it in your feet. That's how severe it can be for Mormon missionaries. And it can be difficult. So what do you tell them? It just depends on their particular situation. You can ask them, do you think your parents are going to kick you out? Do you think all of your friends are going to hate you? Do you think the Mormon job you might have is going to fall through because the Mormons, what they do is they shoot their own.

They eat their own. And I can tell you, I've got a story from a guy who's a Mormon, horrible at his true story, horrible how the church treated him, horrible for just asking some questions. And so the Mormon church can turn on you, turn on them, and they have to know that. And it's best I give them an escape venue just in case.

Not that you want that to happen, but it's that serious. So go ahead and ask more questions because I could talk a lot more about this, but I'm going to dominate. Yeah, for sure. And my approach typically, you know, I read I think your chapter in the one book on Mormonism going through when they, you know, hit on some of the Scriptures. But my approach has been, all right, everything subsequent to Scripture must, anything that claims to be prophecy, the Word of God, cannot contradict what is already established as the Word of God. So typically I get them to claim or to make the claim that, OK, yes, the Bible is Scripture. The Bible is God's Word. And then I say, OK, and I take their teachings kind of side by side with Scripture, is the God of Mormonism the God of the Bible?

Is the Gospel of Mormonism the Gospel of the Bible? And I kind of approach it that way and just show them the contradiction. What you're trying, you mean about how to get them out?

You're talking about how to get them out. Yeah. Right, right. I'm just, you know, is that a good approach, would you say? Yeah, absolutely. And then after God brings some salvation through that conversation, I'm fine with having them, you know, come stay at my house or I'm trying to put together even a network within our church saying, hey, who would be willing, you know, because we have a lot of Mormons, there's a big Mormon temple going in in Pittsburgh.

You do? So I'm trying to be proactive, reactive. So wait, they're building a temple out there?

Yeah, yeah, probably about a half hour outside of Pittsburgh, 20 minutes. Because one of the things I do is go out with, sometimes I try to make it to the Pocatello one, I couldn't make it, but I've flown different places and driven different places to be at temple openings and hold up signs. And so we've gone to different places and I know, in fact, if you were to contact MRM, and they may be listening right now because Bill McKeever, Eric Johnson with Mormonism Research Ministry, they are absolutely fantastic, and Eric Johnson goes out and he does a lot of that and he passes out literature, goes into the areas, and I like to help him. He does it faithfully.

I'm not very faithful at it. But, you know, you never know because if he's going to tell me, he says, hey, Matt, we're going out to Pittsburgh, you want to go? I go, hey, yeah, let's go. So you never know. We always look for places for people to put us up in because it costs money to go out there and everything. And stuff like that.

And then he tries to get speaking engagements out there. I would do the same thing if we're out there. But, anyway, contact MRM, MRM.org. In fact, when I have questions – Yeah, I'm familiar with it. Yeah, they're awesome. When I have questions, those are the guys I call up. If I want to know Mormonism, because I don't know it all, these guys do.

They're incredible. Great. Yeah, I have a group ready to go out to the temple and everything. I'm starting an apologetics class next week. Diving into some of that stuff.

Or, more generally, fundamentals intro class. But your ministry has been a huge help to me. So I appreciate you a lot.

Well, hey, man. I appreciate that. And MRM would be glad to do video teaching.

I would do that as well. I've just got to say, Bill and Eric are the experts. They are the experts. And Sandra Tanner – and I know Sandra – she's the world's expert on it, on Mormons. She does Mormons better than Mormons do.

And she's right there in Salt Lake City proper. Oh, awesome. Anyway, so, yeah, you never know, man.

You never know. Okay. Okay, cool.

I'll send some emails out and get stuff rolling down here. One more thing. Look up The Impossible Gospel, okay? And it was developed by Keith Walker, I think. The Impossible Gospel. And what it does, it goes through Mormon teachings.

I've got it on my website, too, but I forgot where. And basically the Mormon theology says you can't get to heaven if you have sin. You can't be forgiven if you have sin. You have to forsake all of your sins. But if you commit the same sin, then all of your former sins come back upon you.

This is out of D&C, I think it's 86. And so you can say – and I haven't listed it. It's been a long time, so I've had to use it. But if the Mormon Gospel is laid out to Mormons, it's impossible to be forgiven, according to Mormonism. You have to be perfect.

And I also love Mormon Right 1032, which I'll talk to them. It says you have to deny yourself of all ungodliness. And if you deny yourself of all ungodliness, then God's grace is sufficient for you. And I ask them, have you denied yourself of all ungodliness? Well, I'm trying. Oh, so you have not. And that's what it says. And so Mormonism, it doesn't work.

In 2 Nephi 25, 23, you're saved by grace through faith after all you can do. Have you done all you can do? No. Well, Lloyd, it's interesting when you show them these things, because I saw that on your website. They don't even know that themselves a lot of the time.

Of course not. This is really interesting. Once I picked up a couple my age at the time, or a little bit older, and they had a flat tire. And, hey, come on, let's take you to a store, a gas station, you can work it out.

Because they didn't have cell phones back then. And we got talking, and I'm always looking for an opportunity to talk. And they said they were just converts to the Mormon church two years ago. I said, really?

Well, what were you before? They said, oh, Baptist. I said, oh, okay. So then do you know that Mormonism teaches God used to be a man on another planet?

And they looked at me like I was a moron. They said, it doesn't teach that. They said, yeah, it does. And that you have to keep the laws, the celestial law, and you have to have secret handshakes and underwear and you go to the temple and get all these rituals.

You have the potential of becoming a god of your own planet. And they both looked at me and said, you have no idea what you're talking about. I said, no, I've been studying this. And they said, no, it doesn't teach that. I said, go ask your bishop.

And I dropped them off. You never know what happened, but that's just an example of how they, most Mormons don't know what Mormonism teaches. Most Mormons don't know about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, where the Mormons officially murdered over 120 men, women, and children.

Mountain Meadows Massacre or the Hans Mill Massacre. What happened because of that, what the Mormon people did when they hacked, tried to hack to death a soldier with a sword. And they don't hear all the stuff. Or how the DNC, Doctrine and Covenants, have been altered severely. Or how Abraham Papyri has been discovered, the exact papyri that Joseph Smith had in his own hands and wrote on the back of it and said, it's the Book of Mormon. And they've been able to translate, the Book of Abraham, excuse me, they've been able to translate it, and it has nothing to do with what he said.

Absolutely nothing. There's so much fact out there that Mormons don't care about, don't want to know. And if you say, I can prove that it's false, they go, I don't care. So there are deceptions upon them.

Right. They pray and the Holy Spirit told most truth, all relatives. And the problem with that is the Holy Spirit is sent by Jesus, but their Jesus is not the God of the Bible, not the Jesus of the Bible, because the Jesus of the Bible is prayed to, worshipped and called God. But their Jesus, you don't pray to them, you don't worship them, you don't call them their Lord and their God. So they don't have the Jesus of the Bible, and therefore the true Jesus sends the Holy Spirit who bears witness of truth. They don't have the true Jesus, they don't have the true Holy Spirit.

Something is impersonating the Holy Spirit. Right. You've got to almost teach them Mormonism to convert them out of Mormonism. That is so true. I've said that so many times.

You've got to teach them Mormonism to show how bad it is. Yep. Yep. You're right.

Interesting. All right, Josh. Hey, I've got to head into somewhere, but I appreciate you so much. Okay, man. God bless, buddy. All right.

That was Josh from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's see.

Tiberius for New Jersey. We're coming up, but let's see what you've got. What do you got, buddy? Hey, man.

How are you? Thanks for taking my call. I'm a long-time listener. I just have a quick question for you regarding... Good.

And there's the break. Okay. Sorry. Okay. All right. Hey, man. You're the first one right after the break. Hold on. Hey, folks.

Three 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. Welcome back to the show, Tiberius. Boy, there you go. Yes. Get back on, buddy. Hey, Matt. Thanks so much.

Okay. Quick question for you regarding 1 Corinthians 15 and 4. Now, the third verse says, For what I received I pressed upon you as first importance, that Christ die for our sins according to the scriptures. Easy, because you can find that at Old Testament scripture. But in the fourth verse, he goes on to say that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. I cannot find that anywhere in Old Testament scripture.

I'm wondering if you have a perspective on that. I think if you go to Psalm 116, it will not allow his holy one to see corruption. And that's what it's in reference to. Aha.

It's not about three days necessarily, but Jonah represents the three days in the belly of the creature, the whale, most probably. Got it. You said that was Psalm 116? I think so. Let's see.

I can double check it. It's, wait. There it is. Yeah.

Psalm 116, I mean, Psalm 16 10. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will you allow your holy one to undergo decay. Got it. Got it. Perfect. I know it would be easy for you, Matt. I appreciate it. And thanks for everything you do. That's because I'm slick. I'm a supporter.

I'm slick. You know? That's it. And more ways than one, Matt.

And more ways than one. But God bless you and thank you for all you do. Okay, man. All right. God bless. Also, I just happened to have a Good Bible program in front of me that has cross-references, and I went, I know it's back in the Old Testament.

I think it's on. And it gave me the reference. So that's why. Don't think I'm all that smart. I just practiced at my tools. All right. Let's get to Mitchell from Charlotte, North Carolina. Mitchell, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt. How you doing? Doing all right, man.

Hanging in there. So what do you got, buddy? You got a quick question.

Do you have any books, I guess, or articles that you would recommend to learn about the, I guess, culture, I don't know, I guess Jewish culture in the Old Testament? Sure. Okay.

I'll talk to somebody. And they recommended a book by Josephus Flavius. I don't know how you pronounce it. Flavius Josephus. He was a Roman historian around the year 90-ish, give or take. But if you want to know, you know, manners and customs of the Jewish time, you can literally just look it up on, you know, whatever book thing you do online, whatever. Manners and customs of the Bible by James Freeman is one. And manners and customs of Bible lands by Fred White, W-I-G-H-T. Handbook of Bible customs by Freeman.

So, you know, there's just, there's lots of them. And the one that I have learned a lot out of is Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes by Kenneth Bailey. But there's something in that book. Oh yeah, there's something in that book people don't know about, which I'll tell you. It's a two-volume set, Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes by Kenneth Bailey, B-A-I-L-E-Y. But go on the web and also just look up books that show the customs and manners or manners and customs of the Bible.

And you'll find just a plethora of books. But this one, Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes, not only will show you culture, but it will also introduce you to chiastic structuring. And it's a very interesting chiastic structure.

All right? I'm sorry, can you say it one more time? It'll introduce you to chiasm, C-H-I-A-S-M, chiasm. And it's not very known among Christian students now. Chiasm was a linguistic tool used by the ancients to be able to memorize long portions of scripture. And so, for example, a chiasm, this is called a step chiasm. Ask, seek, knock. It has to be A-S-K, ask, and it'd be given seeking. So Jesus says, ask, and you'll find seek in this, knock in that. And then he says, for he who asks, for he who seeks, for he who knocks.

So it's A-S-K, A-S-K in English. Well, they would do the same thing, but they would just memorize it according to the pattern that they understood. But it would be ask, then seek, then knock, and then repeat, ask, then seek, then knock. So you'll have to memorize one thing, and you've got two memorized.

Let's call it a step chiasm. It goes down, it repeats, it goes down the same way. But then you can go and do kind of a chiasm where, let's just say, hypothetically, you have five verses, five thoughts. So one, two, three, four, five, let's say. And the first thought and the fifth thought are the same. They discuss the same thing. The second and the fourth discuss the same thing, and the third is by itself.

And so it is the point of the discussion. So it's a chiastic structure. So people would memorize like one, two, three, then it would go three, four, five.

One, two, three is left to right, and three, four, five is right to left, where they would go backwards, memorizing the points. And it turns out that this is in the scriptures a great deal. And if you want to know about it, go to CARM.

Okay, I'll do it right now. CARM.org forward slash, let's see, parables. Let's see if I have it forwarded for parables yet. And, yeah, and for example, the Good Samaritan, I think it is.

I think it's a good Samaritan. No, do the prodigal son. And I think I have the chiastic structure.

Yeah, there it is, chiastic structure. Because in the first part of that pericope, of the whole thing, a son is lost. At the very last, a son is found. In the second part, towards the beginning, goods are wasted on extravagant living and goods used in joyful celebration towards the end. The middle point is a change of mind, an initial repentance. That's the whole thing. Anyway, you can see what it is, and you can go check it out and read the book. We'll show this, and it is extremely helpful.

It's a whole new concept. Okay, I'll do that. Okay? All right, buddy. All right, thank you, buddy. God bless you.

All right, man. God bless. Okay, let's get to Julie from Virginia. Julie, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt, thanks for taking my call. I have a question. I just want your thought on the gap theory.

I just learned about it, and I'm a little confused. Yeah, the gap theory is an idea that between Genesis chapter 1, verse 1 and verse 2, there was a gap. So verse 1 says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Verse 2 is after the gap. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. So they say between there was a gap and that everything was fine, and then the angelic realm happened, and the fall happened, and God had to do stuff again and kind of move again, kind of recreate, kind of. There's a gap. So that's the issue, and I don't hold to it at all.

Okay? Okay, because this doctor, I guess, was given a video on YouTube about it. And he's saying if you don't believe in it, you're denying the truth of the Bible. And I'm like, oh my God.

Yeah, it's ridiculous, because look what it says. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Okay, he created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, so the thing that he created was without form and void. And now they're saying, oh, there's between there, there's a gap. Because it says the earth was with waste today, with waste and emptiness. And so now you have to have a theological construct in between there along with a whole bunch of others. And if you don't believe that, you're lost, or you don't know the truth.

Well, where did you get all that in there? But they're actually saying the gap. They're saying it's what's not there that they're arguing for, the gap.

It's supposed to be great amounts of time, eons of time. All right? Yeah. So we have an article on it written by a woman, Helen Fryman, years and years ago in 2008.

And so what is the gap theory? You can check it out. Okay. Okay. Will do. Will do.

Good. Thank you so much, Matt. You're welcome so much. God bless.

All right. Okay, let's get to JT from Virginia. JT, welcome.

You're on the air. JT. Whoops. I got to hit the button. My bad.

I messed up on that one. Okay. JT, you're on the air. Hey, I just had a question.

I want to start it off with this. I feel like I've come to the point where I don't really believe I'm saved anymore because I've been reading about regeneration and everything and all of the marks that you need to prove that you've actually been regenerated. And I feel like how do we know that we'll have enough obedience and good fruit and good works to prove that you're actually saved? You don't. Nothing. You don't have any.

Okay. You're on the wrong path. It's not your works that get you saved. It's your faith, the faith that God grants to you. God grants that you have faith, Philippians 1.29. And the faith that you have, he gives you to have in Christ Jesus. And that's John 6.29. And Paul the apostle says in Romans 4.5, to the one who does not work but believes. His faith is reckoned as righteousness. There's nothing you can do to prove it before God. Your works demonstrate it before people that you're faithful, that you believe. But you have to understand that your salvation is not based on your goodness. Now you may say, as some do, well I believe, but how come I'm not as good as I think I should be in certain areas?

That's the issue that most people are trying to talk about. And so, you see, what if there's a man who has a particular sin, and let's say every few months he falls into it, and he hates it. And he goes to Jesus each time and says, forgive me, you know, I just messed up. And he repents. A few months later he falls into it again, and he goes to the cross again.

A few months later it happens again. And he asks God to give him the power to resist that particular sin. It can be several sins, but let's use this one. And for 50 years of his life he never has complete victory over it. Now is the man saved? Yeah. It's not his success over his sin that makes him saved.

It's his faith in Christ and his continued appeal to Christ and trust in Christ is the evidence of his salvation, not how well he does. Okay. Are you there? Thank you. I just constantly just think about, you know, I know like works before salvation doesn't save you, but like after you're saved you're supposed to do good work. And I'm just like, wow, I don't have anything right now.

I don't have any obedience. I just feel like I've become very closed off right now. Well, I wish we had more time to talk about it because we're about out of time. How would you feel about calling back tomorrow and let's talk about this? Because you remind me of me.

I mean, there's so many things. God, why this? I wish I was better.

How come this? I've learned over the years to trust him more, more than me. But I know what you mean. There are certain things you got to get rid of. And that's the struggle is what we want to talk about. If we can, you know, go back tomorrow.

You want to do that? All right. Thank you. Call back tomorrow, man. I wish we had more time. All right. Or email us at carm, info at carm.org to talk to.

Hey, we're going to go. Sorry about that, buddy. And I do apologize for the timing.

That's the way it is. May the word bless him. Pray for him. Please, folks. And hopefully we'll go back tomorrow. Hey, everybody. I hope you have a great evening. May the word bless you. And by his grace, we're back on air tomorrow. We'll talk to you then. God bless. Bye. Another program powered by the Truth Network.