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 carm.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers. Taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. There we go. Everybody, welcome to the show. It's Matt Slick Live. Listen to me, Matt Slick.

If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 8772072276.

However, we've got a guest on, and I'm going to introduce him in a second. He will be at the conference as well. And I'll be going out to, let's see, I'll be going out there. I'll be out there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday out there. And Anthony Rogers, he's going to.

And I've met Anthony numerous times. He's a great guy, Anthony. Are you there? I am here. Hey, buddy, how you doing, man?

I'm doing great. Looking forward to seeing you soon. That's not what most people say, but they've met me once or twice, but that's okay. But uh well we're in the same club then. Yes, we are.

Yeah.

Well, you know, that's how it is. And uh yeah, looking forward to seeing you and uh and the others out there. And and uh so I tell you what, because the conference is uh Thursday, I mean, excuse me, Friday, Saturday, Why don't you, if you would, introduce yourself to everybody, because you're one of the speakers at this conference that I'll be out there at Kannapolis. We have the information, we'll get it to you in a sec. I mean to everybody on the air.

But introduce yourself, what you'll be speaking on, what the conference is on, and everything like that. Sure.

So my name is Anthony Rogers. I'm a pastor in the Presbyterian Church of America. I spend most of my time, most of my pastoral labors ministering to prisoners.

So I go to various prisons preaching, teaching, seeking to call men to faith in Christ and build them up. And then I also do all sorts of evangelistic and apologetic related stuff. People can find some of that on my YouTube page, which is just under my name, Anthony Rogers. I've been engaging in apologetics for a long time now. In fact, I don't know when I first noticed your stuff, Matt, but it was way back somewhere in the Remote past.

So, your work was always a resource along the way. And yeah, so that's who I am. I've been doing stuff with ministry to Muslims for quite a while. They started a conference on the west coast called Our Strong Tower. That they've been doing every year since 9/11.

So it happens on the anniversary of 9-11 every year. And they do a bunch of other events during the year as well, but This one that we're going to be doing Here on the East Coast is sort of a new thing they've been doing the past couple of years, kind of duplicating what they do on the West Coast over here on the East Coast. And so there's going to be a number of good speakers. I think I've spoken with all of them, or I know I have, and I think you probably have too.

So, a number of good speakers, all kinds of good topics, good opportunity for people to. meet some of the people they listen to or read. and also other Christians who are interested in this sort of thing. Yeah.

So, uh what are you going to be speaking on? What's your uh your topic of choice?

So the main thing he's going to have me talk about is the doctrine of the trinity. That's always a big one, you know. cults and pseudo-Christian groups. They usually want to attack the doctrine of the Trinity Christians Then they should be prepared. I mean, they should know this, of course, because they're Christians.

This is their God.

So, all of us should have a robust understanding of what Scripture says about God as triune. But then, if we're going to engage non-Christians, this is a topic that we should know well because it's the doctrine they love to hate above all else. And so Also, I mean, it's apart from an understanding of God as triune, we can't really understand any other aspect of the faith properly. in a biblical or Christian way.

So you know, miss this and you miss the whole boat. That's true. Actually, I kind of covet the topic because it's one of my favorite topics to teach on, is the Trinity. But I'm going to tell you something. You don't know something.

Years ago, I forgot where, what venue you and I were on. You mentioned, I think it was you, mentioned something in context of witnessing to oneness. Pentecostals. And it was John 6:39, I believe it was. And when I use it, I use it now.

have adapted it and modified it. But uh It was, this is the will of Him who sent me. And you talked about which nature was speaking. Do you remember that at all? That ring a bell?

No, it doesn't.

Well, I remember you were talking about it. It strikes me, though, that this may well be, I could have talked about it, but it may well be an insight picked up from Dr. Dalpour.

Alright, Alcor. Idiot Core. Yeah, there's just so many things that we have blended and stuff. But I just remember that. I think about you a lot.

We talked about that. But anyway, I was just curious.

Okay, so. You know, okay, I got some questions for you about about the Muslim stuff, uh Islam. I know you can do the Trinity, and I think it's going to be a well-attended seminar that we do. And it's really needed.

So it really is. It's it's a great thing.

So I'm just curious, what's your do you have a first encounter or memorable encounter with uh a Muslim that got you interested in doing this or with uh with Islam or what?

Well, it's sort of it's an incident that happened. A few years. out from my conversion and and my first exposure to Islam, Uh but it was a A certain setting that kind of makes it memorable.

So quickly, my background is I grew up in Southern California, used to get in a lot of trouble. At eighteen, I got in trouble for stealing a car.

So this was back in nineteen ninety three. Wow. I did two point five years for this, and that's where I was converted.

So the Lord graciously plucked me up out of my formerly criminal ways and Ever since then, I loved to speak to people about the Lord Jesus, and that began in. Prison, and there I was exposed to Muslims as well as others and started learning stuff about their faith. and how to engage them.

Well, when I got out, I lived in Las Vegas. And I lived there for 20 years. And I hadn't interacted with any Muslims for quite a while until one day on a University campus, I went to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. And I was there witnessing to people, you know, preaching and stuff in an open area. And this Muslim that I had talked to the day before.

He was coming towards me, and he was obviously enrankled from our previous conversation. Because I saw him coming down the way, and he was a good football field away from me, but he was yelling. And I thought, who's this guy yelling at? And as he keeps coming closer to me, I think, hey, he doesn't look like He's talking to somebody else, talking to me. And he started throwing down stuff that he was carrying.

He threw down his backpack, he threw down books. He was taking off his watch, and I could tell this guy intended to have more than a conversation with me. You know, again, he was obviously upset from the previous conversation. And I imagine, you know, I had told him Muhammad's a false prophet, Allah's a false God, the Quran is a false book, and that didn't go over well, evidently. And as he's approaching me, he began hurling insults on the Lord Jesus.

He was saying things like, you know, your God came out of a woman, your God had his diapers changed, your God was whipped, spit upon, nailed to a cross. And as I'm listening to this, I'm thinking he's causing a scene, for one. And my initial thought was to push back against this and point to all the majestic and glorious and wondrous things that Jesus did, walking on water, commanding the winds and the waves, uh casting out demons, raising the dead. And so forth, but as he's talking more and more, I began to realize: hey, this guy's preaching the gospel. Yeah, he doesn't know what he's doing and So as he gets close to me and he's like ten feet away, I Just sort of looked at him and I said, Preach it, brother.

And as soon as I said that, his face flushed red with embarrassment, and he started looking around. And I tell people jokingly: you know, I think a couple of people may well have gotten saved that day through that Muslim's preaching. And uh So Yeah, this was actually really memorable to me. Yeah, it was in the in the yard of the of the university. Oh, okay, I gotcha.

Wow, did he become a Christian? I don't know what happened to him. That was kind of, you know, our last encounter. And you know but my my point was Yeah, this This is what the Lord Jesus did to save people. to save sinners.

And it's not an argument against the Christian faith that all this is true. This is the very thing we glory in: that our God. condescended to become flesh and endure the accursed death of the cross.

So you don't refute Christianity by proclaiming it, even if they think you do. Right. Yeah, I just tell him, I say, You're exactly right and that's so that he could become one of us to die for our sins to guarantee us heaven and I say, Are you guys guaranteed that? Yeah, same kind of a thing.

So like I said at the when we first started talking, I covet the idea of talking about the Trinity. Why don't you if you would, um maybe you could go over, I don't know, what the uh Muslims say about it or think about it, why it's Why is it why is it so critical? What what's the what's up with it? Yeah, so In the Quran, it has a number of statements that are directed at Christians. And Uh it's it's Obviously, intended to refute what Christians believe, however.

it doesn't accurately describe it. And this puts Muslims in the On the one hand, it makes them Yeah. good insight into what we believe and why it's wrong. They think the Quran is Allah's Direct speech.

So when Allah says these things, they believe they have. Allah's explicit instruction with respect to this Christian doctrine. At the same time, though, it's not accurate. And so Muslims have to turn around and try and say that it's not really directed at the Trinity. But anybody reading these comments will know that.

that it is trying to address the Trinity But it describes it as belief in three gods, and the three gods that comprise this Trinity are the Father. the mother and the son. And that's why you get numerous comments in the Quran when attacking Christian beliefs that say things like. Don't you know that Jesus and his mother both ate food? And the idea is they were both dependent beings.

But there again, you see that it's assuming that Mary's one of the members of the Trinity.

So the Quran is all wrong. It miscasts our doctrine, says it's belief in three gods. And it's one thing if they want to argue that it's an incoherent concept, we can talk about that, of course. If they want to say that we make this claim, but it's not true, but The problem is that it's pretending to address what our claim is. And that's just fallacious.

So The Quran directly assaults the doctrine of the Trinity, and it also assaults. other things that are essential Aspects of the Trinity.

So, for example, It says that Allah doesn't beget, nor is He begotten. That's in Surah 112. one of the chapters of the Quran. It repeatedly rejects the notion that Jesus is the Son, and in fact, it rejects any notion of fatherhood. With respect to God at all.

So a Muslim doesn't think he is a son by grace or adoption as we believe through Christ. He thinks that the highest relationship that one can have with Allah is that of a master and slave. And there's just a whole host of things that come along with this that make the Islamic religion. decidedly different than Christianity. You know, it's not like Uh some Christians think, and I I often try and remind Christians Even when they're dealing with like Jehovah's Witnesses and so forth, a lot of people think that we have in common with these false religions.

The belief in the Father, and what we need to do is get them to believe also in the Son. and in the spirit. But it's not even true that the Jehovah's Witnesses don't have the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Anthony, could you hold on? We've got a break coming up.

There's the music. To hold on, we're going to be right back with you after the break, okay, brother? Hold on. Hey, folks, if you want, you can give me a call and we can talk to Anthony. If you have questions on Islam, 877-207-2276.

It's Matt Slick Live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Alright, everybody, welcome back to the show. We're talking to Anthony Rogers, and he and I and others will be speaking at the conference in Kannapolis this coming weekend. And he's going to be speaking on the doctrine of the Trinity.

He's quite knowledgeable on it.

So Anthony, where were we before the break? Yeah, so I was Mentioning that as Christians when we speak of God the Father, We were speaking of Yeah. God in a way that is not properly Found in other religions. Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, might use the term father or Mormons, but obviously they have a quite different meaning behind all of that. For the Mormons, of course, God is a embodied being who became a God and he's cranking out spiritual children with his Embodied wife.

That's just not the conception of fatherhood found in the Bible with respect to God. And similarly with the Jehovah's Witnesses, when they think of anyone as a son, it's only in a created sense. But for Christians, God is eternally Father because He has an eternal Son. a coeternal coessential sun.

So It's not the case that we're just trying to get people to believe additionally in the Son and in the Spirit. We want them to come to faith in the one true God who is. Father, Son, and Spirit. And wh when it comes to Islam, I was saying that this changes the whole character of the religion Uh I mean, it doesn't change it as though it's went from believing in a father to not, but I mean, changes it from what one might think it is to something altogether different. When, for example, one way to bring this out is to think of how Allah relates to human beings.

As I said, he's nothing more. For the Muslim than a master relating to a slave. And obviously, that kind of a relationship is. different than that of a father to a son. a master Doesn't Just naturally love his slave.

He may not like the slave at all. He may He may come to love him, but this is very much a contingent thing. In the case of a father-son relationship, Love is just sort of Part of it, right? It's a natural part of it. And When you look in the Bible, we see that God's love is higher than ours, it precedes ours, it gives rise to ours.

Like John says, for example, we love him because he first loved us. You won't find anything like that in the Quran. Allah's love is always contingent And it's always precarious. It's always potentially you know, gonna be dashed upon the rocks. By your latest act of indiscretion.

One of the things that really got me into ministering to Muslims is. I saw a comment by a Muslim once who was an apologist and he said, The reason I do this Is because I want Allah to love me. And I thought, man, how pitiable. This man Don't know if his God loves him, and he's desperately looking for it. And I'm thinking.

The God of the Bible is eternally loving. The Father loves the Son, the Son and the Father love the Spirit, the Spirit loves the Father and the Son. This is who and what God is from eternity, and this overflows to us, and it's seen supremely in the giving of the Son. The Father giving the Son, the Son giving himself, the Spirit taking things of Christ and applying them to us. Uh you know, so much can be said about what this entails that but I think people can At least see something of a beginning of this just by contemplating this.

It's a radically different. Form of religion that results from these two radically different conceptions of God. Yeah.

Yeah, it's one of the things I'll talk to them about: it's fellowship and relationship with God because He's so distant and so other. And uh, you know, try and point them to Jesus and relationship and fellowship and um forgiveness of sins. What what's the greatest challenge you faced talking to Muslims, or is number one?

Well A lot of it is is just a profound spiritual blindness. You can Say something. It's like it goes through this. a system of filters and ends up Entering their minds as something decidedly different than what you just said. And we can experience that with all non-Christians.

They're in a spiritual stupor, their eyes are covered over. And we just got to plod on, proclaiming the truth and praying that the Spirit causes it to penetrate their hearts. And he does that, right? He does that in the case of people. He translates them out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's beloved Son.

Uh but Yeah, just just that issue of you can say something and it's like they they hear something entirely different. And so you feel like you're you're speaking to a s a block of wood sometimes. Yeah.

Yeah, when I talk to them, it's the same kind of spiritual blindness, at least my opinion, that I find when talking to atheists. Because you can just tell them a fact. You can show them something. And it's just like there's just a cement wall, and it's just impenetrable. They just can't see, won't see.

They refuse to see. My impression is they're very similar in feel. To atheists when I talk to them. I don't know if you have a similar kind of a feel with them, but that's mine. What do you think?

Yeah, yeah.

So Paul speaks of people suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. elsewhere in his writings he speaks of the Gentiles walking in darkness. It's the Christians who are in the light. And Jesus said The depth. the light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light.

and won't come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. And so you have this active opposition to the truth. And it always I mean, I get it because the scriptures tell us what's going on here. There's a spiritual blindness There's also involved in that spiritual demonic activity that is operative. Uh and uh you know uh but Um I was talking to guys out at the prison today, actually, when I was ministering to them.

I I mentioned that one of my first ex Experiences when I started proclaiming Christ to people. I was so overjoyed at hearing the good news that my sins were forgiven. And I thought everybody would leap at this good news, and all I have to do is tell them, and they'll jump at it. I was sadly mistaken. I didn't know all that Scripture says about the the natural man and his uh spiritual condition, his depravity and so forth.

But um You know, I would go to people and I would say I have good news. God has provided a Redeemer. Your sins can all be forgiven. And the response I would get is: How dare you call me a sinner?

Now, you've heard that a thousand times. But but the th the way it strikes me is like You know, imagine going to somebody and saying, Hey, look, All your economic debt I've got good news. I'm going to give you one million dollars.

Now imagine somebody replying back to you and saying, how dare you say I am poor? Yeah, it's like Uh yeah, I guess I am saying you're poor. But that's kinda not where I was Ending with this, right? I'm giving you good news. And so while I am Saying to an unbeliever, you're a sinner, the whole point isn't just to tear them down, but to tell them, here's good news, there's a There's a Savior for your s you know, you and your sins.

Um So it's an incredible thing. We know that they're blind, but it's still a wonder to behold when they resist such good news. And do so in ways that, you know, just it's like, you know, it's like I often feel like I'm fighting for their soul. And they're fighting against it, right? It's sort of like you see an animal caught.

You ever seen an animal caught in a trap, and then somebody comes along and they want to try and get the animal out, but the animal just takes the person as a person. Hey, hold on, brother. We got another break, and then I want to ask you what they can learn from you at the seminar after the break. We'll be right back, folks. Please stay tuned.

It's Matt Slick Live, taking a call at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, I've been welcome back to the show. Uh let's get back in with Anthony. Uh all right, Anthony, I'm gonna give them some more information on on where they can go for the conference after uh you're done, after this this segment here.

Uh maybe get some callers. Uh let's see, don't have anybody waiting for on Yeah, okay, we gotta. I want to bring a caller on to have him ask you a question. But. What uh What can the attendees of the conference next weekend?

They're in Kannapolis, North Carolina, what can they learn from you? What are they going to come away? having uh been in your class. Yes.

So I'll be doing several talks and I think all related to the Trinity. And one will just be sort of a simple presentation Of what we believe as Christians with respect to God as triune, and then I'll. steadily ramp it up in subsequent talks. looking more and more at the details and demonstrations of this and Overall, I mean, one of the things that I really like to do is oh, Christians, that the doctrine of the Trinity. is something found in the Old Testament itself.

And the importance of this is that it just it cuts past a lot of stuff.

So you'll get people that claim the Trinity wasn't taught until the Council of Nicaea. And these are the folks that want to say it's not part of the Word of God at all. Then you'll get some people who might be willing to concede it's found, at least in a nascent form, in some of the later New Testament writings, and these are people who. Don't believe in the Christian faith either, but they want to basically undermine the veracity of this by saying it's not the witness of all the apostles. It's a later innovation.

And sometimes Muslims. You get liberal critics that will grant that it can be found in John or Hebrews. But then you get you'll get even Christians who will say that it's found in the New Testament as a whole, but not in the Old. And what this does is it the problem here is it opens the door to objections from Jews, for example, who say if it's not taught in the Old Testament, then we are to reject it. Deuteronomy 13 says: if somebody comes to you proclaiming another God, some God other than the one that made himself known to you, then you're to reject that.

Even if the person proclaiming it performs a miracle. And so this can't but look to them like the introduction of a new God. Christians often who take this approach will respond to it by saying, Well, it's progressive revelation. God didn't tell us everything about Himself in the Old Testament. This is.

Given in the new, but it's still. looks problematic from the perspective of a Jewish person. It still looks like This is something entirely foreign to the Old Testament. And you know from interacting with oneness Pentecostals, with quote unquote biblical Unitarians and others, that a lot of their momentum when they attack the notion that the New Testament teaches the Trinity, it comes from what they think is the Unitarianism of the Old Testament.

So they'll quote, I mean, I could pick up off the shelf books by Unitarians like Anthony Buzzard. Uh and others and One thing you'll find over and over and over again are appeals to the Shema, Deuteronomy six, four, Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And what Anthony Buzzard does is he frequently tries to deal with a New Testament text That Says Jesus is God and says, Well, it can't mean that because this would be a violation of what the Old Testament says. And so he tries to use this idea of the Old Testament as Unitarianism. Or, as Unitarian, to flatten out the witness of the New Testament and reinterpret it.

And so I like to go right to the Old Testament and show that already God is revealing himself as triune. And there's really a wealth of information there that that Many Christians lamentably aren't familiar with, but it really is. Quite considerable. I mean, the evidence is really impressive, and so much so that. It's even demonstrably the case that Second Temple Jews, Jews during the time of our Lord and prior, believed that God is multi-personal, they weren't Unitarians.

And so while it might be the case that a contemporary Jew is not a Trinitarian, These aren't representative of what ancient Jews believed. Very good. Yeah, I often use the Old Testament to go support the doctrine of the Trinity. And a lot of people in false religions just are not prepared for that. They don't just like you said, they don't think it's there, but it is.

All right, so we've got a break coming up in three minutes, and then we'll We won't we'll get regular callers after that. But uh we got a caller I want to bring on. And uh but before that, just real quickly, is there anything you'd like anybody to study before they get to your class? Any any books, any articles, anything like that really quickly before? Just in prep?

I can mention some stuff. I don't know how much of it they'll be able to wade through before the conference, but. I mentioned Jewish belief in the Trinity pre Christian And Interestingly, a lot of the best scholarship on this has been done by Jews.

So one Jewish guy, for example, is Daniel A'aran. He's a Talmudic scholar. And He has a book called Borderlines. In the book, there are a number of different articles, but some of them relate to this question.

So he has an article called, for example, The Crucifixion of the Memra. and or the the crucifixion of the Logos. And and what he's referring to is not Christ's crucifixion, per se, he's referring to the fact that post-Christian Jews. excised from their belief system A belief in the Logos, the Word of God, which previous Jews believed in.

So he calls this the crucifixion of the Logos. Right, so they're they're getting rid of this belief that prior Jews had.

So they could pick up Boyerin, that would be really helpful. He's got articles and other things that are available on the Internet. At least they used to be, maybe not as much anymore. But another one would be Alan Segal, his book, Two Powers in Heaven. Uh he talks about the Talmudic evidence of Jews trying to deal with this idea of more than one divine person.

And here it's post-Christian, but the interesting thing is In many cases, this belief that it's trying to oppose and get rid of. Is something ascribed to some of the early rabbis, like one of the most famed rabbis of the ancient. Uh at least Early rabbinic but post-Christian rabbis was Rabbi Akiva. He's one of their foremost rabbis, and he's charged with having held this belief. Before being brought to repentance.

So, but it's very striking, right?

So, pre-Christian Jews, there's evidence that they believed in the Trinity, and even post-Christian Jews are struggling still with this because. They see it as catering to Christianity if they hold on to this belief. I think I see the documentation on that. Maybe I'll sit in your class. Come on.

Be fun. Hey, let me get to Buskman here really fast, and he'll have a question for you. Hey, Buskman, man, you're on the air, buddy. You got a question for Anthony? I do.

Hey, thanks, Matt. And it's nice to meet you, Anthony. First, I'm going to ask this on behalf of our friend in the chat. What's your take on the Islamic dilemma? Anthony.

Yes, so the Islamic dilemma stems from the fact that the Quran says that the Bible was not only given by God, but has been preserved. and is still authoritative for Jews and Christians. This is clearly taught in the Quran. It's what the earliest Muslims believed. It only later was rejected in favor of the idea that the Bible's been corrupted By later Muslims, when they came into contact with Jews and Christians, who could point them to the scriptures.

and show that they contradict the Quran.

So the dilemma is this. If the Bible is the Word of God as the Quran says, then the Quran is false because the Quran contradicts the Bible. On the other hand, if the Bible is not the preserved Word of God, then the Quran is false because the Quran says it's the preserved Word of God.

So it's a real dilemma, and I, you know, this is a long standing dilemma.

Some Muslims are pretending that it's new because they want us, you know. dismiss it as innovation that nobody's seen before, but it's ancient and I think it's a quite good and devastating argument. Wow. My second question would be, Anthony, what as a Christian? what is our best tactic for reaching A Muslim.

Well, the Islamic dilemma is one very useful tool, right? If we can point to the Quran and show that it affirms the previous scriptures, then we have everything we need to refute Islam.

So, to give a couple of examples, in Surah 1094 of the Quran, Allah is supposedly directly addressing Muhammad. And he says, if you are in doubt about what we send down to you, then ask those who have been reading the scripture from before you.

So the idea is that the previous scriptures will Uh Prove that what Muhammad's receiving is a body.

So it assumes that they are from God, that they're authoritative, and they can be used as a standard to judge by.

Now, of course, when we look to the scriptures, we don't find confirmation of Muhammad, but. The Quran requires that to be the case for the Muslims' case to to hold up.

So that's huge. One of the things that Muslims try to do here, I heard this recently, is I heard a Muslim say, Well, when it's affirming the previous scriptures, it it's only refirming its basic or recurring teachings. It doesn't mean every single thing that's found in the Old Testament or the New Testament. The problem here is the basic recurring teachings of the Bible contradict the Quran. The Bible repeatedly calls God Father from uh the Torah to the book of Revelation.

And that's not a teaching of Islam. The Old Testament teaches all sorts of things that Islam contradicts. and these are recurrent teachings.

So I think this is a very useful tool.

Alright.

Well, hey, thanks, you guys. There's the break. We're going to get to the regular callers. Anthony, God bless, buddy. Thanks for coming on, and we'll see you this weekend, man.

Looking forward to it. All right.

Alright, Anthony. God bless, brother. All right, hey everybody, 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. Welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it's easy. 87720-72276. Greg from North Carolina.

You're on the air, buddy. Hey, I have a question about um I d I was I I've never seen in the Bible clarification on Some of the spiritual gifts, and I was just curious. Out. I'll be going up to somebody and I'll just Say to um Uh Are you from Morocco? Are you from ETOP or E from and and a lot of tim and most of the time they are from that country and never have seen them or heard or talked to them or anything like that.

And I was just wondering if that had anything Um Did you do it with the spare? Yeah.

Yeah, it could be that you have uh what might be called uh word of knowledge or uh discernment. that you're just aware.

Now it's also possible Possible that you are very good at body language, dress, style, mannerisms, and you can associate and have figure things out.

So I'm just saying that logically, there's two different categories we could look at. But what I would do if I were you is just pray about that and see if it is the Lord who's granting you certain kinds of information or impressions or whatever that you can use for his glory and for ministering to others.

Now, I personally believe in the continuation of every single gift of the charismatic nature from the Old Testament, excuse me, from the New Testament to the present.

Now, I don't believe that it's all normative and everybody walks around doing everything all the time. I just think that things like what you're talking about are legit. God certainly can communicate to us and through us various things.

So I think what you should do is see if you can develop it and support it with Scripture, make sure, and see if God would increase that in you that you could use it for His glory and for helping others. Yeah, well, I appreciate it because I was just wondering, because I was like, For sure, 'cause I am a believer, so I I was thinking that hope, you know, it could beef and the devil. I knew that 'cause it's like you know, you can't serve two masters and you got You know, God doesn't could Tom share like evolved like we've always heard. No. And stuff like that.

So, but um Yeah. Um I'm on my way to a prison ministry right now, as a matter of fact you guys are talking about him being in prison and stuff. That's what happens. But that was good talking to you. I wish I could make it to the conference I'm working weekends and Campus is a couple of hours away from where I live, so I would But they don't do it, but how Have a nice night.

Thank you, Bob. YouTube, but God bless. God bless. All right, that's good stuff. Love that.

I did nine years of prison ministry, and it really is educational. You learn a lot. You learn a lot about yourself. It's really a good ministry. It really is.

Let's get to Jim from Iowa. Jim, welcome. You're on the air. Yeah, they got something on the Book of Mormon. I don't know if you ever heard.

Joseph Smith had was an editor of his own newspaper called The Times and Seasons. Yeah.

And uh most don't know that. Anyway, and uh they had a place where you could write in and ask questions and someone wrote in and said, What does the word Mormon mean?

So Joseph Smith said MOR is an English word meaning more. MON is an Egyptian word meaning good. The problem is, there's no such Egyptian word M-O-N- that means good. And the Book of Mourners written three thousand years, supposedly, before the English language was even invented.

So Joseph Smith, when he made that up, he didn't catch that. You're right. That's it in the Times and Seasons, May 15th, 1843 edition. Yeah, what worked? A Times and Seasons, May 15th, 1843 edition, I believe it is.

If you call the church library in Missouri and also Utah, They'll photocopy that page for you and send it to you. Yeah, they will. Yeah, he did a lot of 1843 May edition. May 15th, 1843. Yeah.

May 15, 1843. You already knew about it. One other quick question: the Bible says disciples are called Christians first at Antioch. The Book of Mormon hasn't been called Christians in 3,000 years before.

So, who are you going to believe? Hey, that's a good point. I like that. Yeah, they'll say yeah, I won't get into that, but yes. Good stuff, brother.

Good stuff. I see you're talking about it.

Okay, I'm sorry. Give me that newspaper again. May the 15th, 1843. That's right.

Okay, hey, thanks. Sure, brother, no problem at all.

Alright.

Okay, folks, look, a couple things. One, I'm gonna give you the address and the stuff where we'll be. on the web. If you go check it out there, I'll give you the address of the church we're going to be at in Charity Baptist Church in Cannapolis. I'll be there Friday night and Saturday teaching.

I'm going to go up to San Winston Salem on looks like on Monday. And some other areas around there. Tuesday and fly back Wednesday, what it looks like. Unless somebody really wants me to stay and speak someplace, and I'll move the flight back. But it'll be at 2420 Brant Lee Road, Kannapolis, North Carolina, at Charity Baptist Church in Cannapolis, North Carolina, this Friday.

Coming up, which is the 15th.

So it'll be the 15th and 16th. I'll be there, Anthony Rogers, who was just on, and others will be there as well, speaking on the issues of Islam, trying to ground Christians in the Christian faith and provide opportunities for them to learn. I'll be teaching on the contrast between Islam and Christianity.

So it'll be a, what I'm going to be teaching is a 10,000-view look at various things. And I'm going to do that on as an intro, uh intro level on Friday night. And then just to warn you, I'll be doing the same thing on Saturday. And the reason I'm warning you is because I'll be going over some more uh Some deeper things about how to witness to them, and then I'm going to get into an argument that is intellectually a little bit challenging. And but it's an important argument nonetheless.

And by learning about this with Islam, you'll learn about some other stuff too. And so it'll have to do with the issue of the one in the many particulars, universals, and things like that. I'll go through it slowly, that's slides, and I'll be going through that. and dealing with that. And it would be good also, if you want to prep for Anthony's classes on the Trinity, you could go to my website, carm.org, C A R M dot O R G.

And I've written many, many articles on the Trinity. That one of the things you could do, if you're interested in, is just go to the web and type in carm.org forward slash Trinity. It will forward you to an article that will tell you what it is and how it's arrived at in the scriptures. And so I know Anthony. I've known him for a few years.

He's quite good at being able to. Express his ideas and convey them. And his research is great.

So I would recommend you go check out his stuff. A very good, very good. Apologetics.

Alright, so that'll be at Charity Baptist Church, Kinnapolis, North Carolina. And I think the door is open at 7:30, 7 o'clock, 7:30. But you can go to, if you're interested in more information, go to Ministry to Muslims. And that's ministrytomuslims.com. MinistrytoMuslims.com.

Look at the M2M upcoming events, and you can look at the East Coast stuff. It'll be Friday starting at 6:30, actually. It starts at 6:30 Friday night. And there's going to be, let's see, Maine Conference, Mediterranean Cuisine lectures, panel discussion, Islam and the church.

So I'll be on that panel discussion that night. And then we have optional trainings on Saturday on the 16th with several panel discussion plus several workshops. We're going to have them at 11, a workshop at 11, a workshop at 1:15, and lectures and panel discussion at 3. It's a long day, but let me just tell you that the people who are going there are good. They really know their stuff, and it would be very.

Beneficial for you to go if you have any interest at all in learning about Islam and how to witness to Muslims and things like that. But not only that, you will learn Christian theology. You learn your faith better.

So please consider checking it out if you are interested. You can go to ministrytomuslims.com. And just look up the stuff there. And we're going to be at the Charity Baptist Church in Kannapolis, North Carolina. We start Friday night at 6:30.

And Sunday, what day is Saturday? With doors open at 8:30, and we start at 9. All right, my name there.

So, hey, I've got to tell you what happened last night.

So I have a friend named Bill. And uh you know, we hang out and do stuff. He had some Mormon missionaries knock on his door. And This is about a week or two ago. I can't remember exactly details, no big deal.

And I went over and. He had a couple of meetings. Anyway, I went over uh last a few days ago. few several days ago, a week ago, and had a discussion with three three Mormons. Two missionaries and another guy thinking about doing a mission.

And Bill and I both spoke. It was really good. And it was really. surprised in that The Mormons wanted to meet again. Usually, when they find somebody who knows what they're talking about theologically, biblically.

They don't want to continue the conversation. And Bill said that he wasn't interested in joining Mormonism, but he wants to know what Mormonism is to actually represent it. Bill's a very honest man, and good for him. And so they they came back uh last night. And I was over there.

We had a four hour discussion. and they want to get together again.

So uh These two guys, two missionaries, but they were different than the first three. They were two different guys. And I'm just going to say the good stuff first. They were polite, they were intelligent, very competent. And they're some of the most competent Mormons I've ever met.

In in all seriousness, young men they were very uh well they're polite, uh articulate. We were able to state their views pretty well, pretty well, and it was very interesting. All right, so. Having said all that, Now I'm going to try and repeat what they said accurately. Because it was confusing.

But they were saying that God, there's only one God.

Now they were confused on how they represented things, but that was obvious. I pointed it out to them several times. They say there's only one eternal being who's always been God, and that's God the Father. And I said, Was there ever a time when he was not God? And they said, No.

I said, but is he is he an exalted man for another world? and they said no. I said, well, that's what Mormonism teaches. They said, no, it doesn't. And they said they know Mormonism better than me and I said, Well, perhaps you know that that's the case, but I can tell you that having been doing this for forty five years, that it seems that Mormonism's changing again.

And so we went through and had this discussion, and I asked him several times: Are you sure? And he said, Yeah, God has eternally been God. I said he wasn't exalted. And they weren't exactly clear on how to answer that, but they kept saying he was eternal.

Now, I think what's happening is they understand, but they don't want to say, to a certain degree, the accurate statements about Mormonism. And then we got into this discussion about how many gods there are. And I said, is the Father a God? They said, yes. And is the Son another God?

And they said yes. And is the Holy Ghost another God? And they said, yes. I said, that's three gods. And they said, no, it's only one God.

And I said, no, by definition, if you have three separate gods, then that is three gods. And they said, but they're one in purpose. I said, I understand what you're saying, but by nature, there's only three gods. And this conversation went on for a better part of an hour. just trying to get them to see that they're polytheists, that believe in many gods.

And when I told them that, he said, No, they're not polytheists. I said, yes, you are. And they said they're henotheists, which means that many gods exist, but they only serve and worship one. Of them. And I said, I understand that, but that means you believe others exist.

But when they say they only believe in one, they only serve and worship one of them.

So their word definitions were a little bit different. Uh then the standard uh We would talk theologically. But it was an interesting discussion, and I'm going quickly because we've only got 30 seconds of the show left. But. I can't help but wonder if Mormonism is going through yet another change, where it is.

Modifying, trying to sound more Christian. Because, on all the studies that I've done, what these two guys were saying, what the other three had been saying, were consistent. That it's not really. traditional Mormonism. Either that's the case that they're changing or or they're using words differently in another sense, trying to sound more Christian.

I don't know which is the case. I've got more to do, more to learn, but there you go. Hey. There's the music, I'm out of time, and the Lord bless you and by his grace, be back on there tomorrow. God bless her, buddy.

We'll talk to you later. Have a good one. Another program powered by the Truth Network.