Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. It's Matt Slick live. Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry found online at karm.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick live.

Francis, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick.

You're listening to Matt Slick live. If you want, you can give me a call as usual. All you've got to do is dial 877-207-2276 and we can talk. If you want to email me, you can do that as well.

The number or the email you should say is info at karm.org, info at karm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. Put in the subject line radio comment, radio question, one of those. We can get to them and I'll check on some of those today. Fridays are often slow so I sometimes do emails and stuff like that. All right, so I've released some articles today on, let's see what I released. I think I did two or three articles today. I've been working on some stuff.

Sometimes the articles I work on, they lend to each other, they're interrelated. I did a thing on the church fathers and penal substitutionary atonement that was today. Yesterday I released an article, what is idolatry, went in through that. Also today, the early church or church father quotes about the demonic realm being saved. There's actually two or three early church fathers that implied that the demonic realm would be saved and things like that.

I'm just gathering information. It's not a proof of anything. What it is for me a lot of times is demonstrating that the early church fathers don't always agree with everything and with each other.

A lot of good stuff. What's why I raise this issue is because the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics, what they'll often do is say the church fathers, their church has the church fathers and that whatever the church fathers taught, that's what their church teaches. They don't use the word of God as the final authority.

They use the church fathers and then their church, blah, blah, blah. That's what it was. I do research when I get like that. That reminds me, last night I was having a discussion with a guy. It was really an interesting discussion because I'm going to read, it was amazing to me. I've done this so many times. I read a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and say, well, what do you think about this? Then they are just stuck. What they do is try and defend this quote without agreeing with the quote.

It's really interesting. The quote from paragraph 972 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says this, after speaking of the church, her origin, mission and destiny, we can find no better way to conclude than by looking to Mary. I said, so is that correct? Obviously, it's wrong. When speaking of the church's origin, mission and destiny, the one you need to look to is Jesus. But no, the Catechism says there's no better way to conclude than by looking to Mary. Then this guy starts talking about how Mary's the one who delivers us. Mary's this. Dude, you're just being idolatrous. That was our conversation we had last night.

For me, I've done it a hundred times. I'm just blown away still by the lack of discernment that people have when they are in a cult or false organization or whatever. They just believe whatever it says and they've got to defend it because their self-identity is tied into and tied up with what that true church really is. They are a member of the true church, so that's how they know that they have the truth.

If I mess with their true church and topple their idol, they get obstreperous. That's what happens. Let's get to Jose from North Carolina. Jose, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matthew. I just had one quick question. I know a girl that is married to her mom's uncle's son, so I really have a question for my mind. I need you to give me some opinion or the answer if it is okay for them to be married. I don't know what the laws are and I don't know what the genetics are in that situation because you can have your mom's uncle on which side, the mother or the father or adopted or not or who or what. So it's hard to- It's biological uncles, mom's uncle. The mom's uncle. Okay, so who what? Married to what?

What was this again? To her mom's uncle's son. Her mom's uncle's son. It's like a cousin once removed or something.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Is that okay for them to be married? Because they are married. I don't know. I just had that question.

I don't know. I don't know what the- According to the Bible, it does come in. Well, the incest in the Bible, what it's talking about is really close relatives, you know, sisters and brothers and things like that. That's a no-no. So when they're removed like that, I don't know how that would fit because I think that's called a cousin once removed or something.

I forgot what the term and how it works. And so I just can't tell you. I can't tell you. I just don't know.

It's forbidden on a father's wife, on a step-sister, on an aunt, a daughter-in-law, a sister-in-law. So it doesn't say that one that I'm aware of. Okay? Okay. Okay.

That takes me off my shoulder then. All right, man. Well, God bless. I wish I could give a better answer, but that's a good question. I just don't have a great answer for you. Okay. Okay.

That's all I have. God bless. Okay. All right.

You too, man. God bless. Okay. Bye-bye. All right. All right. So if you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. And if you want to email me, you can direct your email to info at karm.org, info at karm.org. I can put in the subject line radio comments or radio question, and hopefully we can get to them.

Not a big deal. In fact, what I'll do is go to some of them right now. I think I'll do that. Let's see. Let's see. Question.

Radio questions. Here we go. All right. Okay. Let's see. Get to this one. I had a dispensationalist tell me that Romans 9 was only meant for Israel.

I've been looking at Romans and see Paul's reference in multiple areas to ethnic Israel and spiritual Israel. I see how they can see that, but I don't believe this is the case. I'm trying to formulate a proper response. Okay. Let's go look at it then. And I know what context.

I know what they're talking about. Romans 9, 9 through 23, and I'll show you why it's not just Israel. And here's the thing. It says, for the word of promise at this time, for this is the word of promise, at this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son. And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac.

For though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad so that God's purpose according to his choice would stand, not because of works but because of him who calls, it was said to her, the older will serve the younger just as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. And so generally what they'll do is they'll say Jacob and Esau are nations, and they are. They're nations. And so God blessed one nation, a group, or descendants of another. And they'll say that's why it talked about these nation groups. Well, if that's the case, it's not a problem, okay, for the Arminian, for the one who doesn't like the idea of God's sovereignty and his right of choice and things like this.

They don't like that. So what we do is we look at what the next verse is and it says what shall we say then? There is no injustice with God as there may never be. So Paul is raising a question in light of the thing he had just written, the things he had just said.

Jacob I loved, Esau I hated, not because of works but because of him who calls. Said to the older, so is it nations or is it individuals? If it's nations, why the objection? There's no injustice with God, is there? Because most people would say, well, it has to be with nations.

That makes the section of scripture more palatable. That's what he's talking about, so there's no real problem. But then why is there the objection? There's no injustice with God, is there? May it never be. So if we think that it's dealing with individuals, that God chose one over the other, not because of works, but because of him who calls.

Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. Then the natural inclination is to ask, well, is that fair? So it seems to be the flow of the case in the context. Then he was on verse 15 where he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. The word whom in there is in the singular. Or at least not that big a deal, because could we refer to a nation as a singular thing?

Yeah, we can, but nevertheless. It goes on in verse 16, so then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but upon God who has mercy. So now what Paul is doing is dealing with the issue of individuals, the man, not the group, not the nation, not the ethnos, but the man. Then he says in verse 17, for the scripture says to Pharaoh, this is an individual, for this very purpose I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth. Now what Paul is doing is talking about whom he has mercy has mercy. It does not depend upon the man who wills or the man who runs, but upon God who has mercy. For what?

Well, a lot of discussions about this. What did God raise him up for? For the purpose of destruction? It certainly looks like that in verse 17 when he says it raised him up to demonstrate his power. He destroyed Pharaoh and Egypt and stuff like that. Then in verse 18, so he has mercy on whom he desires, he hardens whom he desires. Now the whom, again, is in the singular.

Well, why is that important? Because he's talking in context about individuals, the man, verse 16, and Pharaoh, verse 17. You can certainly make the case that he's talking about individuals because he says he has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires.

You don't harden groups of people, a nation, you harden individuals. Because if you say there's 100 people and I hardened 100 people, what, 50% of them are hardened? 80%?

30%? What does it mean? But if you say individuals, he hardens their hearts, then now we're talking because that's what he did with Pharaoh. He hardened Pharaoh's heart specifically so that Pharaoh would not let the people go. Verse 19, you will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who resists his will? And then he goes on, on the contrary, who are you?

Oh, man. That's not nation group. Who answers back to God, the thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this? Well, it's not about nations, it's about individuals. Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? So I did a study on the word vessel in Greek and sceus, and I found out every instance where it occurs, and I discovered that when it's talking about one individual, it's talking about one vessel as individuals. Unless it's one vessel full of water, you know. But when it's talking about people and vessels, it's talking about individuals. And so one vessel for honorable use and another for common use, what if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? Vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. A cross reference of 1 Peter 2, 8, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word and to this doom they were also appointed. And then, let's see, God has made all things even the wicked for the day of evil. Ecclesiastes 3, 11, he's made everything appropriate in its time. He's also turned into their heart, et cetera. And then it says in verse 23, yet he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared before him for glory. I know that was really fast, but the context in Romans 9, 9-23 is not about nation groups, it's about individuals.

Otherwise, the objections don't make any sense. Hey, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show.

Hope you're having a good time. If you want to give me a call, you can do that very easy. Just dial 877-207-2276. Let's get to David from North Carolina. Dave, welcome. You are on the air. Thank you, Matt. Thank you for taking my call.

Thank you. A little background to my question. My daughter, who is a believer, was studying abroad and met a gentleman, and they've been dating for seven years. And they're recently talking marriage. So she lives over there right now, and he is agnostic.

England. So a little bit of background on him, but she currently lives in England, and they're talking marriage. And with him being agnostic, would that be considered being yoked to an unbeliever?

Yes. Biblically, she cannot do that. So she's not supposed to marry an unbeliever.

She'd be uniquely yoked. Flat out. So 2 Corinthians 6, 14-15. Do not be bound together with unbelievers, for what partnership has righteousness and lawlessness, etc. So he denies God. So what she's doing is if she's compromising in that area, she's probably compromising in other areas.

But that's usually the case, and so then her feelings lead. Can you give the definition of agnostic, just so I'm clear? Sure. Agnostic says he doesn't know if God exists or does not exist. Just doesn't know.

From the Greek gnosis, or gnosis, but it's G. So G, gnosis. A is a negator. So doesn't know if God has no knowledge of God's existence or non-existence. So gnosticism is a subdivision of atheism. Because the agnostic does not include God, the Christian God in particular, in his quiver of explanatory arrows. In other words, if he's trying to understand the world, nature, logic, morality, truth, God is not a principle that he would use to justify any of that. And making decisions, child-rearing, to kill a child in the womb or not, he's an unbeliever.

So he's a servant indirectly, he's a servant of the evil one. And if your daughter really is a Christian, you know, I think that I've talked to her politely. And I've encountered a lot of people that say, well, you know, the Bible says this, you ought to make a decision. But then their hormones and their hearts get involved, then they get married, and often what happens is the believer apostatizes to keep things happy. Would the best advice to her be just to end the relationship or just not get married?

She can't be married and she shouldn't be dating someone she's not going to marry. So dating is ultimately for the purpose of finding a marriage partner. It's not as the secularists like to say, go out and have a good time.

But you need to be involved and find people the opposite sex in order to see if you're compatible. And then sexual relations should be abstained until marriage and this kind of thing. I have a course, not a course, but I have an outline I teach from called The Theology of Marriage. And it takes me a while to go through stuff and I lay stuff out for those who are thinking about getting married when they're believers. But when it's an unbeliever, then I have to address the believer and just say, basically, you have no business doing this before God. You shouldn't do that. Well, that answers my question.

Thank you. And if she does, if she marries him anyway, then she's in open rebellion against God and God will probably let her have her rebellion, which will mean her heart will grow hard. But then if she's married, it doesn't mean it's going to happen.

But if then she's married and she realizes she's made a huge mistake. So, you know, a lot of stuff. All right. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. All right, brother. Well, God bless. Thank you. Thank you. All right. OK. All right.

Yeah, those are tough words, but they are true words. And unbelievers, excuse me, believers have no business dating unbelievers and being engaged to unbelievers. Believers have no business being living with someone of the opposite sex.

If you're not married to them, you don't have any business doing that. If you're doing that, if you're listening to me and you're guilty of that sin, you need to stop now, right now. And you need to move out now, tonight. You need to get out.

You need to go find someone else to stay with, you know, parents or whoever. So you can stop this sinful rebellion against God. These are harsh words, but that's the nature of truth. Truth doesn't care about your feelings. Doesn't care about your feelings.

OK. Truth is what God has stated. And these are times when we need to speak the truth of people.

And I do. When I do marriage counseling, I speak the truth. I'm very gentle when I do. On the radio, I'm just more direct. But when I'm really talking to people, like, you know, you've got to understand what the scripture says.

And I ask them a question and then show them the scripture. What do you think about this? Let's go in and what's your goals, you know, and work with it. So there you go. Let's get on the air with Christine from North Carolina. Christine, welcome. You're on the air.

Thank you. My question, I've been thinking about on and off for years. I know I was wondering, why didn't the apostles recognize Jesus after he was risen from the dead? I know they said at the crucifixion he was not recognized as a man any longer. But why didn't they recognize him? I didn't know what happened, but they didn't recognize the risen Christ. In Luke 24, 16, it says their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.

It specifically says that. Now that's one part of the puzzle. Another part is, you've got to remember, that in John 20, 25-28, that doubting Thomas said, I'm not going to believe unless I can see him and touch him. And Jesus says, put your hand into my side, which means Jesus retained the crucifixion wounds.

He also said, put your finger into my hand. So Jesus retained the crucifixion wounds, but part of the crucifixion wounds, was the beating he took, where his beard was plucked from his face, and the beating. So his face was swollen by the time he got to the cross, beard ripped out, and so their eyes were beheld.

And then in Luke 24, it wasn't until he broke bread that their eyes were opened. Now that's really interesting because the breaking of the bread, the communion relationship there, but also, just so you know, the hand, back in that time, the wrist was part of the hand. They didn't have a word for wrist, from what I understand. And the crucifixion wounds would be in the wrist. Because if it's in the palms, it can't support the weight. So the garments that a lot of times men would wear, would come down to where the palms were. So when he broke bread, the wrist would become open, exposed, as he's ripping the bread in half.

So some think maybe that's what did it also. Okay? Where's the brick? We've got to go. Okay. All right. Thank you. Bye-bye. Okay. God bless.

Bye. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages, please. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the show.

Excuse me there. If you want to give me a call, we have two open lines, 877-207-2276. If you want to give me a call, you can.

And I would love to hear from you. Let's get to Ebeneezer from California. Ebeneezer, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. Yeah. You remember how I told you about that guy, Ryan, from needgod.net, that has a YouTube channel that does the same thing? Okay. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So he used 1 Corinthians 7, 10 to support his argument about that. Like, I was just wondering if you could expound on that. He used that divorce is unbiblical.

Yeah. To say it's unbiblical has different meanings. And biblical is not in the Bible.

You're breathing into the mic, by the way. Oh, I'm sorry. So 1 Corinthians 7, 10 says, but to the married I give instruction, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband. So it's what you ought to do. Don't leave. The next verse says, but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, which means that if she leaves, she's now not married, or else be reconciled to her husband and that the husband should not divorce his wife. So don't get divorced if she should not leave. But to the rest, he says, I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who's an unbeliever and she contends to live with him, he must not divorce her. If a woman is an unbelieving husband, blah, blah, blah. And it says in verse 15, this is critical, yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave. The brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. So if you're going to go to 1 Corinthians 7, 10 and say that alone means one thing and that divorce can never happen or should never happen, then you have to read five verses later in verse 15 where if the person leaves, let him go, and you're not under bondage, which means that person is leaving, has divorced you. There's a divorce that's here.

Let him go. You're not under bondage at that point. That's what Paul is saying. Now, people then come back and say, well, that was Paul speaking, not the Lord.

And then I say to them, is your opinion worth more than Paul the Apostle? And then we have a problem there. So there's that, and then there's the issue of Jesus saying in Matthew 19, 9, and I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual impurity and marries another woman commits adultery. So whoever divorces his wife except for this reason commits adultery.

So there's a reason to divorce. By Jesus' own words in Matthew 19, 9. Furthermore, in Jeremiah 3, 8, and I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, God says, I sent her away and gave her a writ of divorce.

Yet her sister Judah did not fear. So God divorced Israel. That's what he says, give her a writ of divorce. So is God not supposed to do that? Well, idolatry is spiritual adultery. So this is why Jesus allows the exception in adultery. So I tell people when a spouse has committed adultery, the one who is offended has the freedom to divorce but not the obligation. The person can divorce but doesn't have to.

They want to work in the marriage, reconcile if that's okay, which is often the better thing to do. So there you go, okay? Okay. I also had another question. Sure. So you remember that argument when you were talking about, I think the law, something about equivocation with images and stuff like that?

Okay, keep going and we'll see if we can figure it out. When you was talking to a Catholic about images in their churches? Oh, yeah.

Okay, now I've got you. Yeah, Jesus is the image of the invisible God. That's Colossians 1.15. So I worship an image, Jesus. And so therefore they can have images in their churches because I worship an image. And so that's called equivocation where the word changes meaning. So when it says Jesus is the image of the invisible God, he is the invisible God.

And they would look against him because... Go ahead. So I'm saying, okay, because I heard that exactly what you said. It's crazy because I heard that from an Orthodox guy. They would say we don't pray to the icons. We pray something like we pray to something. Are you familiar with that argument? Yes, what they represent.

And I say, yeah, you still shouldn't do that. You don't pray to creatures because the icons and their idols, it's paganism and what they're doing, is they'll have an icon in the Eastern Orthodox Church and they'll pray to these images. Not to the images but what the images represent. So if it's an image of Mary, an image of Joseph, an image of Athanasius, whatever, Saint so and so. They're praying to the individuals and that's idolatry because we're not supposed to be addressing our prayers to anyone but God. So they're idolaters when they do this. And so, yeah, I'm familiar with it.

I battle them on a regular basis and call them out for their idolatry. Yeah, no, I've seen that icon that they made. I was cracking up. Wait, wait, the one on me?

The one on me you mean? Yeah. Isn't that awesome? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you saw that?

Are you on Discord? Hey, you can put that on a shirt, man. I know, it's awesome. I think it's great. That's dope. It's dope. For those who don't know what he's talking about, I'm on Discord and somebody, Discord's a chat thing, and someone made an icon of me. And when I saw it, I just started busting up because it was awesome.

It actually looks like me. Yeah, it was fire. And it has with me the headset and a microphone in my hand with the fingers of this and that in the old style robe. It was really well done. Yeah, I liked it a lot, man. That was fire.

So did I. Yeah, yeah, I got one more question, just one more question. Okay, that's true. A lot of these orthodox, they get days because they like to debate on TikTok, right? And so every time they get me is with regards to the canon, right? And so I know that it was affirmed in Laodicea, but I mean, I know it was scripture reporting, but okay, so what's the history behind that? Like literally, like what's the literal history behind that?

Like a lot of times when they talk about canon, I noticed that they don't know what inspiration scripture is. Like they immediately go... Let's get back to, let's get back. So I want to know, I want you to email me where it is on TikTok that they have their conversations because I want to stick my nose in there.

I want to get in there. Okay, yeah, I was about to talk to you. I was about to talk to one, but I didn't because I know he was going to bring up something.

So I want to talk to you real quick about this real quick before I talk to him. Yeah, because they tend to, it's like multiple of them and they like jump me in the last. They talk about, oh, so how do you, so that's your, where are you getting your interpretation of this?

Where are you getting your interpretation of that? And so I'm like, you know, my mind just goes blank because it's like they're shooting questions at me. What you do is you write down those questions and then you think of responses later to those questions and you write them out. Then you read your response and you go over it logically.

That's what you do, and that'll help you a lot. So when they say, they'll say all kinds of things. I can get into this, but until the break here, they'll say that, how do you know what the Bible really is? And I say, well, I just trust that God in his sovereignty gave us the Bible because what they want me to do is to say the church fathers, their church, their authority.

I say, no, no, God did it through his people, in his sovereignty because he's the sovereign king. He predestined that people would get this right. Yeah, I mean, you know, I say that, I say that, I say that, but then they say, how do you know, that's your interpretation.

How do you know who gave you that interpretation? Well, wait a minute, you say, look, God says in Romans 14.5 that each person must be fully convinced in his own mind when it comes to eating habits and worship days. And so there's no admonition there to have to submit myself to an authority of a church in order to know something. And I can certainly trust that God is capable of bringing the word to bear to his church and people who hear the voice of God. That's not a problem.

Do you have a problem with that? So I'm familiar with their arguments and they're lame because they want to claim that they're the true church, blah, blah, blah. They're the true church.

We gave you the Bible. We can tell you what it means, you know, inter-idolators. This is a big cult.

These Orthodox are big cults. Yeah, exactly, man. Well, thanks, Matt. I appreciate you, man. All right, hey, send me the info, you know, where they are, what the names of the groups are, TikTok.

I want to get in there and see if I can get in and talk to them. All right, buddy, I got to go. All right. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages, please. Stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Everybody, welcome back to the show. Let's get on.

The next longest waiting is 19 minutes. Jacob from Virginia. Jacob, welcome. Get on here, buddy. Hey, Matt, how you doing? Doing all right, man.

Hang it in there. So what do you got? Hey, I didn't get a chance to look at that.

I'm going to look at it this weekend. I don't even know if you remember, but I'll call back and remind you. Anyway, I'm going to piggyback off the third to last call about the yoked couple getting married, possibly. Okay. So should we not have relationships with family and friends?

No, no, no, no. If your brother or sister is an unbeliever, that's your brother and sister. Spend time with them, love them, witness to them. The unequal yoke is a bondage and a contract, that you're not to be in that with the unbelievers. So a particular issue here of marriage, that's not to happen with a Christian, okay? That's what's going on, all right?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, me and my former Catholic wife have made it now. We're in a Baptist church, but we've never came back. So what about like brothers and family members and sister-in-laws that they're in the church, that they're part of, you know, watching the kids and doing all that, but then they don't treat you the same when you're around. But then when they come around you, when they come to my house, I'm kind of like old-school Jewish custom, hey, can I get you this? What do you need?

I'll let you know. And it's just continuous and kind of breaking the family a little bit. Well, excuse me, hold on. I'm not exactly sure what to tell you at that point because that's just family dynamics and rudeness and he said, she said, and, you know, it takes a lot of times, it takes counseling and working things out, what the particulars are. So I can't really diagnose that over the radio, but your obligation is not dependent upon theirs. Your obligation is to show them the love of Christ, whether they are reciprocal or not is not the issue. If you love them and you're patient with them but they're not loving and patient to you, that doesn't excuse you. Your job is to continually be a representative of Christ to the best of your ability.

It doesn't mean perfect every time. We all blow it, we get fed up sometimes with a crud, but that's what we're supposed to be doing. So you try and do that as a service to the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's what you should be doing. I'm definitely in the wrong with, say, my mom, when I really wanted her attention when we were all having kids and she kind of chose, maybe she chose or maybe I thought she chose my brother and his kids. Maybe. Now she's trying to make an effort, I should probably open the door to that. If she's trying to make up for that, praise God, that's a form of repentance. So that's on me. If you're injured by that, then you didn't talk to her at many times, right?

You just talked to her about it. Yes. It's tough. It's tough. I tried.

It is, and then you move forward from it the best you can. Okay. Okay. I have a Mormon neighbor and he brought me in the Mormon Bible, whatever it's called. The Mormon, yeah. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. And at first I wasn't going to, I was like, I can't have that in the house. But then he opened it and he wrote me this long, nice, beautiful letter and I was like, okay, I'll keep it, but this isn't what I believe.

And I eventually got out. But my question is, he stumped me with the Trinity, I should know. I need to know for myself too, can you break down the Trinity for me real quick? Sure. He's like, so who's God? Who's more important?

Is there an order? And he stumped me and I was like, man, I can't let him stop me. No, he didn't, yeah. He's, as a Mormon they teach that there's a God the Father, another God Jesus, another God the Holy Spirit, another God the Goddess wife from another world that's married to the Goddess Father. So there's at least four Gods right there. That's what they're thinking. Yeah, it's whacked. So the Trinity is actually, according to the Bible, and I've written a great deal on it and I love teaching on the Trinity.

I can get from low level to very deep and I love that whole thing. The Trinity is one God in three distinct simultaneous persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They're all of the same essence of what the one being is who's God, not three Gods. That's polytheism. That's what Mormonism teaches.

They're not Christians because they have a false God, false Christ, false gospel. So when they ask, here's a basic word of advice. Whenever they ask you a question, ask them to define their terms. If they say what the Trinity is, you say, well, what do you think it is? Please define it.

And you've got to be careful. Let's say, well, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then you have to ask questions. Is the Father a God?

Yes. Is the Son another God? That's when you start seeing that they don't hold to biblical theology. But nevertheless, the biblical God is one God in three distinct simultaneous persons. The analogy I use is time is one thing, but the one thing time is past, present, future. And we recognize the distinctions in the past, present, and future in the relationship to each other and in the relationship in the created order. So yesterday is not the same as today, which is not the same as tomorrow, as far as time goes. But all of the issues of time is still that thing called time. And we see the distinctions between them yesterday, today, and tomorrow, or past, present, future. So that's all that's going on, and that's the analogy I use with them. And I say to them, do you affirm that time is past, present, and future? That it's not three separate times, right?

And they go, yeah. Well, there you go. Now you're on your way to affirming what the doctrine of the Trinity is, one God and three persons. And they're distinct, but yet they're all the one being. Just as there's three distinct aspects of time, past, present, and future, but they're all the one thing time.

Okay? So say my daughter asked me, and I'm probably asking Jesus, who's the greatest? Like you said, they're all the same. It's a wrong question. People will sometimes assume something in a question. Like yesterday, a Mormon, an Eastern Orthodox guy said, what if God appeared to you and you knew it was God, and he said that Roman Catholicism is true? I'd say, well, that's impossible to occur. They said, no, what if it happened? They said it's impossible because Roman Catholicism was not true, and he would never do that.

And so what they want you to do a lot of times is abandon their view, your own view, to jump into theirs. And you can't do that. So, here's something else. The Book of Mormon does not contain Mormonism. A lot of people don't know that. If you go to my website, karm.org, you find out, just do a search, things written in the Book of Mormon or things not found in the Book of Mormon.

And you'll find out, in fact, I'll do it right now. Things not found in the Book of Mormon. I know they're trying to distance themselves from Joseph Smith. To some degree.

It would have seemed like at least he was. Yeah, that's actually the wrong thing. Look at a quick look at the Book of Mormon.

That's what it is. And in there, the Book of Mormon said there's only one God, not multiple gods. It says a trinity is one God. It says the Father said the Holy Spirit, which is one God.

Not are one God, is. It says God is unchanging, but in Mormonism, God is changing. God is spirit, but in Mormonism, God's a body of flesh and bones. Hell is eternal, but Mormonism denies that. Polygamy is condemned in the Book of Mormon. And also what's not in there is church organization, plurality of gods, plurality of wives, word of wisdom, God is an exalted man, celestial marriage, men may become gods, three degrees of glory, baptism for the dead, eternal progression. And yet, it says in the history of the church, volume 4, page 461, that the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith said, is the most correct book of any book on earth and a man can get closer to the precepts of God by following it than by any other book.

Yet it doesn't even contain the parts of Mormonism. So, okay. So who is the greatest?

It's the wrong question. They're all equal in their nature, but Jesus was made under the law for a little while lower than the angels, Hebrews 2 and 9. So he was in a lesser position. So my wife is in a lesser position in the marriage in authority in our marriage, but she's not different or lesser than me. Okay?

So I can pray to all three and then be praying to one, two. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Okay? That's right. Okay. Thank you, sir.

You're welcome. I'll talk to you later. All right. All right, man. God bless.

All right. Let's get to Jermaine from North Carolina. Jermaine, welcome. Hello, sir. North California.

Oh, it says North Carolina, but I thought it was probably you. Okay. What's up, man? What do you got?

Yeah, I'll be real quick today. Just Matthew 7, I think it's verse 20 where it starts with Jesus, entails the famous, depart from me, I never knew you. Do you think that includes people who, or the reason that they're departing is not just because they take a work or works under his name and whatnot, but they just never really loved him. So I just, it's hard to imagine people being departed that truly love Jesus.

But they don't. People can say they love Jesus, but their works don't show it. If you love Jesus, you're going to trust what Jesus said.

And Jesus says, come to me and I'll give you rest. But there are those who say they love Jesus and pray to Mary. And so they're not loving Jesus by giving him the proper honor and do and the love that's for him. But in the context of Matthew 7, 22 and 23, many will say to me on that day, that's the day of judgment, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name? In your name cast out demons, in your name perform many miracles. They are appealing to their salvation on that day, the day of judgment. On their faith and their preaching, teaching, their casting out demons and their miracles they performed.

And he says, get away from me, I never knew you. These are people who said they knew Jesus, but he didn't know them. And we know that they didn't know Jesus because they're adding works to salvation. And that's why they're out. And so Jesus says, depart.

He's given them the command, leave. Okay? Okay. I'll call you back next week and we can maybe get a little more expounding on that.

I know I got to him at the end of the show. But yeah, that's a pretty solid answer so far. So thank you, Matt. Well, you're welcome, buddy. Appreciate it, man. All right.

Okay, well, that's Jermaine. He's always got good calls, good answers. Good questions, I should say. Now, folks, if you want to give me a call, you've got to wait on Monday.

I hope you all have a good evening tonight. And I want to just let you know that we do stay on the air by your support. I don't ask that very often, but I just let you know that we keep the show going by the support that people and the listeners give. If you like what you hear, would you please consider supporting us $5, maybe $10 a month? And to do that is easy, just go to karm.org forward slash donate, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G forward slash donate. And that's all you got to do is set it up right there. And we prefer $5 or $10 a month.

But if, hey, we'll just do one thing with $5, that's fine, too. But we do stay on the air by your support. So I hope you all have a great weekend. May the Lord bless you. And by his grace, we'll be back on the air on Monday. Talk to you later. God bless everyone. We'll see you next time.