Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live. Mac 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.

Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Schlick. You're listening to Matt Slick Live. Today's date is August 18th. Hey, I am live.

Now, I had said I was going to not be on until Wednesday because I am in North Carolina. And they asked me, hey, come on into the studio and do the show live.

So that's what I'm doing right now. And so as usual, if you want to give me a call and we can talk, you got questions or comments, the number is 877-207-2276. If you want to give me a call, please do. You can also email me, and the email is info at carm.org, info at carm.org. And put in a subject line, radio comment, or radio question.

Now, we've got nobody waiting right now, but if you want to give me a call, like I said, 877-2072.

So today I had a meeting with some pastors here in the Winston-St. Lemon area. It was a nice meeting for about an hour or so, and got to meet with them and find out some questions and things like that. And I want to talk a little bit about that, but. We have a celebrity here, Stu.

And Stu, he, in fact, I was in his chair. We switched chairs here about an hour and a half ago. He interviewed me.

Now I'm going to just talk to him a little bit. He's the guy who founded the Truth Network. And Stu, welcome. Hey, it's good to be here on your show, the Matt Slick Show. This is amazing.

It's surreal. Yeah. And now I'm in the hot seat, but you did a great job on Truth Talk Live a couple hours ago. For those that don't hear that, or you may have the truth app if you don't download it, we're going to make that a podcast because I got to hear your testimony. Firsthand, I got to ask you some tough questions.

We had some callers, but we were like almost discouraging callers because I wanted to really lay it on you, and you responded, brother.

Well, you know, it's what I like to do. I like to answer questions. But I've actually, you know, we've known each other indirectly through the phones and stuff like that for, I don't know, five, six years now. We've met a few times. Going on a decade, yes, sir.

Yeah, Truth Network. I mean, no, NRB. We've gone to National Religious Broadcasting and stuff. And now, first time I'm here, I'm sitting in your chair, actually. How about that?

Yeah, that's kind of fun. You look pretty good in there. I tell you, you might look better to me. We both have faces for radio, but your next level, brother. Yeah, that's right way down there.

So it's a lot of fun.

Now, I actually did actually want you on here while I'm doing this because I knew I was going to be here. And I wanted to ask you a few questions.

Okay. I'll be here. I can't stay over the whole time. That's all right. Usually when you got to go, no big deal.

But if you want to call, the number is 877-2072276.

Now, Stu. Uh simple question. What's your passion? Jesus Knowing them, making them known. That's right.

Those two things.

Sounds cliche, but honestly, what else is there? And who else is there, right? You know, is it you know, like a guy said, you want to spend your whole life climbing a ladder only to recognize that it's leaning against the wrong building, right?

So, On Christ, the solid rock, I stand, all underground. Is sinking sand. And I really share your heart when you talk about. Even on the air. Hey, I'm a struggling.

Human being. I'm frail. And I realize the more and more the more weak we are, The more powerful he can shine. Amen. And so I'm, you know, that's my passion.

My passion is also. Recognizing how much I need the Lord every day and how much I need, you know, the three things Daniel asked for in Daniel chapter 2 in that beautiful prayer as God gave him the answer to the dream in a night vision. He basically said, he praised God for his. Mercy because we're desperate sinners deserving hell. He praised God for his wisdom because we don't have a clue, even though we think we do.

Right? And God, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. And God knows everything, He's omniscient, and He praises God for His power. Because we can't do it. We're dead in our trespasses and sins.

So we need regenerative, resurrected power. And You hath he quickened, that great King James word, you hath he made alive. Who were dead in your trespasses and sins. Christ, we were enemies, we were made friends, we were, we were. Orphans, we were made sons.

We were dead. We were made alive. He died so we could live.

So I'm passionate about telling everybody that, which is why we started the Truth Network. I figured it's a whole lot easier to turn a mic on and put a guy like you behind it to talk to a lot of people. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

At once, then, you know, I was just going crazy yelling out my car window like I did a little bit today on the way here and giving that homeless guy some beef jerky in Jesus' name. You know, so that's why we started the truth network, just to be a microphone, a megaphone to proclaim the good news of Christ while we still have time. Colossians 1:25, Him we proclaim.

Okay. Admonishing every man. That's what we do on this. We will warn you of a false doctrine, but teaching every man. That we may mature everyone in Christ.

So the goal is maturity in Christ. And so, Truth Network, we go deeper so that we can bless and encourage people. With in the rails of apologetics, like you do, and that whole trail, and then on the track of just solid Bible teaching. And so, I just was so passionate about sharing. All of this with people, and that's why we started.

And we'll go anywhere God opens the door for us to go. And that's why we love programs like yours because you're a nice just right here, exactly the heart of what we're about. That's right. Now, I'm curious. Mm-hmm.

You got a story that sticks out because you do radio. I want to know something that maybe sticks out that where this radio station or whatever it is, you know, administration radio here has really affected somebody. One of the good stories that you've heard. Oh, my soul.

Well, I carry it around with me. It's in my book in the lobby. But you know who you are, Mike. You're probably listening right now. He just wrote a letter and he just said, Man, some things you've said and some things I've heard on the Truth Network changed my whole life.

And he just said the things, and he just went on and on about how he opens up at a gas station every morning with coffee and he turns on the Truth Network, and it's been a support, it's been an encouragement, it's been a blessing in his life. And I get calls like that all the time. I mean, I walk into a restaurant in Greensboro with a buddy of mine who's a partner with us on the Truth Network named David, and the lady stops me. She sees my logo on my shirt, and she's with tears in her eyes, says, I have been listening to your network, your station AMA30. Forever, you know, for over a decade.

It's been such a blessing. Thank you, thank you, thank you. God's used it to heal my marriage, this and that. And so, those are the kind of stories we get a lot of stories like that. We get stories from all over Utah, from Everywhere we, you know, Ohio, we're in Lynchford, Virginia now, 93.7 FM, wherever we have, you know, station signals.

And those are so incredible. Friends. If you've been blessed by this, by this guy's show, by Matt's show, by any of this stuff on the Truth Network, send us a little voicemail or a devotional or a, not a devotional, a testimonial that we can, because we'll read it to our staff and I'll share it with other people. I'll send Dr. Jeremiah occasionally like a little note we got and just say, hey, thank you, Dr.

Jeremiah, for being on the air with us. You know, this is from a listener. that has been touched because of your investment. With us.

So, those are some. There's a whole bunch more. Man, if we had all day, we got a notebook in the other room. that thick with letter after letter email after email going back to 1998 and 99 from people. who heard the radio, who saw us they saw someone saw our ugly van.

And he was driving down the road taking his daughter to school, turning on the radio station. He said, I never turned it off. He said we were going through an absolute tornado in our life at that time and we heard programming that changed our life. Changed our whole life. And so a promoter, wealthy guy.

Blessed. Huge promoter. was listening at nine thirty at night. to a powerful program that we carried at nighttime. on family.

And he called them and said, I want to do a cruise for your ministry. They did a cruise inviting families, couples.

Now that's one of the biggest cruises in the Christian world now. Because he heard them on the radio and said, Hey, have you? Have you thought about this? Good stuff. I love hearing testimonies and how things affect others.

And I was telling you earlier on your show that one of my favorite things about Carm is I got an email from a guy in Vietnam who would take the Carm articles on his motorcycle up into the hills until the roads wouldn't work anymore. Then he'd walk into villages and he would use the articles to help teach theology and church and get them saved.

So it's a small thing, but it's just an awesome thing. You just never know what the outreach is going to be.

Well, you don't, along the lines of my passion, my passion is that I would infect everyone. Yes. Or let's just leave that to God. The Holy Spirit would use what they hear on the Truth Network to infect everyone to be ambitious. About sharing the gospel.

What are you ambitious about? What are you passionate about? What are you excited about? What do you wake up? Do you wake up at night worrying about your own junk, your own problems, or do you worry about the three billion with a B people who've never heard about Jesus, who are on their way to a Christless eternity.

So that's where we should live. When's the last time that caped you up at night? When's the last time you looked at a lost person and pictured, as my disciple in college told me, pictured them with flames coming off their body. And ask God, God, break my heart for that person and give me the boldest of courage and the love to point them to you. Because someone invited Matt Slick to church when he was 17 years old.

You went forward and got saved.

Someone poured into me when I was a snotty-nosed, know-it-all religious kid that everyone thought he's good to go to heaven. I was on my way to hell because I had it all up here, but not in my heart. And so, who are we? Reach out. If every believer.

We'll share the gospel. Think about the revival that would happen. It's every believer.

So don't worry about everyone else. That's right. You worry about you. Right here. You worry about you at the gas station.

You can barely speak those guys' language, and you're trying to share with them to escucha a lot audio. Yeah, listen to the radio. And I pointed to you guys that he said that was fun. We had a little evangelism moment. It was quick, right?

They were on their way out, but we had a little moment, and you speak better Spanish than me, and you jump right in. And they're like, we don't know who that dummy is there, but that guy knows our language. A little bit. That's right. Yeah, it was great.

You know, and I was telling someone recently, one of my favorite encounters, witnessing, I heard a guy coming up to a, I was getting gas at a gas station, and he had his radio open or his window open, listening to the radio, and foul stuff was coming out, this foul music. And I ran across the street, and he was at the red light, getting ready to turn left. And I started talking to him, almost yelling, you need to stop listening to that. You need to listen to Jesus and a whole bit. And he's like, okay.

And then that light turned. I said, now it's time for you to go, but you need to. You just never know.

Well, you never know. And no one else in his life has told him that. That's right. Maybe. Think about that.

Same thing. You know, thank God someone told. D.L. Moody about Jesus. You know, the cobbler.

You know, thank God someone invited these people to someone took time with Charles Spurgeon to share the gospel with him, right? To take him to a Christian camp, however, he got saved. You know, so you be that person and watch what God does, right? You never know. Yeah, and I tell people, don't worry about having all this knowledge.

You don't need it. What you need is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the power of God to salvation, Romans 1.16. Just go forth and speak the word of God. Even if you fumble through it, that's okay.

What the issue here is, does God open up the hearts and the minds at the promotion of the gospel that you present? And that's what you got to do. And you can do it easily. You're introducing people to someone because I can't fix you. I'm too messed up myself.

We're in sales, not production. That's good. Hey, but let me introduce you to someone. who can set you on fire, who can heal the deepest wound in your soul. who can forgive you, who can bring Bring back wholeness to everything in your life.

that's messed up. It's in bad shape. And his name is Jesus. And that tomb is empty.

So your life can be full. Amen, brother. Amen. Now, I know we got a break coming up here in a minute, and I think you're going to take off after this break, right? Yeah, I got to take off.

All right. And then we'll get to Joanne from Gastonia. Awesome. I wish I was just in Gastonia. We're just there, 105.7 FM, Truth Network, AM 960.

Joanne, God bless you. Yeah, she's a good woman. Matt, thank you for being here. Thanks for. Putting me on the hot seat.

Yeah. Hot seat. Yeah, you like radio. I can tell. It's no problem at all.

But hey, thank you for having me on your network and the whole bit. I really appreciate it.

Well, we're going to have you back anytime. And we've got you loaded up with some goodies here. Yeah. And we're grateful for the Ministry of Carm. Yeah.

And we loved hanging out with pastors today. Wasn't that a cool coffee? It was great. We went to a church, had about fifteen, twenty pastors and just shared with them. Kind of let your hair down a little bit, asked some tough questions.

Of course, you're not tough to ask questions 'cause we're like, hey, We need to do that more, though, don't we? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got to be careful talking to pastors, too.

You don't want to offend them because it's easy. Everyone's coming from a different perspective. That's right. It's easy for me to offend people. I do it all the time.

Well, and that's the challenge, but also the blessing of what you're doing because you're modeling for people how do you have discussion? Right. How do you speak the truth in love? And how do you I mean, there's a fine line because you know Elijah laughed. At the Prophets of Baal.

He made crude jokes about them. And there's some, there's, you know, you know, we have the little poster in the lobby you'll see as you walk by where it says National Atheist Day. April 1st. That's right. She said, I don't have the faith to be an atheist.

So there's a sense, but there's also a way to be winsome, and there's also a way to make sure you care about people. as you're leading them to the one who cares for their soul the most, Jesus Christ on earth. All right, God bless too. We'll meet again. Appreciate you, bro.

All right. Be right back after these messages. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back to the show.

It's me, Matt Slicker. This is the Matt Slick Live. If you want to give me a call, it's easy, 877-207-2276. It's live today. I am in North Carolina at the headquarters of Truth Network and hung out with Stu a little bit today, talked to some pastors, some others, spoke at a conference out here in North Carolina in the Charlotte area, Kannapolis, did some speaking on the Trinity as it relates to some other topics.

And we had a lot of great people at the conference, a lot of great people who are really very qualified to speak on Islam. And I found out that I'll be doing a debate in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in February, debating a Muslim, and we'll give you more information on that. Let's get to Joanne from Gastonia. Joanne, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, I missed my opportunity. Stu said he was leaving, but I just wanted to thank him on behalf of All the Carm volunteers. not just Stu, the Troop Network and the ones that screen the calls and I wanted to let them know how much we appreciate them. and that we're able to get the word of God out through you, through the Truth Network. And so I just wanted to say thank you to Yeah.

Yeah, well, like a hill. Maybe he'll hear it. Yeah, he gets into the car. He's either making phone calls or he's listening to the radio. And Keith, I'm looking at Keith right now.

He's the guy who I always usually tease him, but looking at him through the window. And so last time, I think we were talking, I said, Hey, have your wife come into the studio when I'm there. And he goes, Hey, the phone's breaking up.

So, you know, I tease him. We joke a lot. He's a good guy. And it's really nice to see Keith. I'm looking right at him right now.

Hey, Keith, I'm waving it. He's waving back. See, there we are at the studio here. Wave the other hand for a minute.

Okay, there we go. See, now he's there he goes.

So he waved the other hand back.

Okay, so it works out. Be sure if you can, Matt, get a picture with Stu and Keith and let's put it on the Carm site and give them a shout out.

Well, I got pictures taken, so I had some of them send them to me. I just did a little video with him, and we'll see what we can do. All right?

Okay. Well, have fun. Be safe. God bless. Thanks a lot, Joanne.

All right. We have no open lines. If you want to give me a call, the number is 877207-2276.

So that's Joanne. She actually runs the prayer ministry at CARMCARM.org. You can check it out, Christian Apologetics Research Ministry. We hung out with her, and she and her husband, Matt, None and Matt. My wife, when we were flying out here last week, she let's just say misplaced some important stuff, medicines and things like that.

It happens. And they really went out of their way above and beyond to help her run down stuff. And it really made a huge difference. And it set me free to be able to, let's just say, do the seminar. And that was a good time, too.

We had a good time. And we did it with ministrytomuslims.com, ministry2tomuslims.com.

So we had some great speakers, some great stuff. It's a great time. All right. Now, one of the things that I did today was I got to meet some pastors. I love speaking to a group of pastors.

Now, it's a little intimidating because what do I know? I mean, these pastors are good men of God. They want to serve God. And what am I going to say to them? I mean, I'm not a pastor anymore.

I'm a Christian apologist. But I did say one thing that I think is important. And I'm sure they're aware of it. I know they are. They're great guys.

We had good conversations. And this is, what is the job of the pastor? And I've talked about this over the air many times, and I've written articles on it and taught about it. We need to understand. And the pastors, of course, need to understand that their job is to equip the Christians for the work of ministry.

Their job isn't to babysit. Their job isn't to coddle. Their job is to equip, because we know what the Bible says. It says that he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. Excuse me.

So that's out of Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11, 12, and 13. This is what we're called to do. And this is what this radio station does in the network. It tries to get the gospel out there as much as possible. And it's a nice little headquarters here.

It's the first time I've been here. But the issue here, what do pastors need? They need to, well, they need to study the Word of God, of course, and that goes without saying. And they do that and they preach the Word and they try and be faithful as they can. But a lot of times, I think that we all, you know, we kind of fall in our strength as well as our weaknesses.

We want to judge the The truth and success of our message by how many people listen, how many people attend, or how many people shake our hands and say thank you. And that was really good. And that should not be our ultimate judge, though that can be helpful to help us understand what we're doing and if we're doing it properly. But the final judge, the final arbiter, is the Word of God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, who's given to us through the apostles and the prophets. He's given us the Word of God, the Scriptures.

And so, what we need to do is judge the truth by the Word of God.

Now, all truth belongs to God, He's the one who reveals truth. And what we want to do is represent Him accurately. And so, our sermons need to be Bible-based and Christocentric and cross-how to put this. I'm trying to think of the right way of saying this the polite way. A lot of times, what pastors do is when they preach, excuse me.

When they preach, they will preach a sermon that has illustrations but is not cross-centered.

Now, let me go over this again because this is a really important concept that needs to be talked about every now and then. We don't want to preach or have someone preach to us moralistic sermons. A moral sermon is something along the lines of God says don't lie, don't lie because lying is bad, lying is a sin, God doesn't want you to sin, so don't lie. And you know, the sermon and the illustrations of how lying hurt people and how not lying helped people. And it goes on for a half-hour, 40-minute sermon.

Everybody claps her hands and then they go eat later that day. That kind of a sermon, overly simplified, of course, is not a good sermon because we don't just want to not lie because it offends God. We want to not lie because we've been purchased with the blood of God. That's Acts 20:28. We have been purchased with his blood.

We've been cleansed by the blood of Christ. That's Leviticus 17, 11. And John. 1 John 1, 7 through 9. We have been bought with a price.

We don't belong to ourselves anymore. We belong to Him. And so, boy, I got something in my throat.

Sorry. What we want to do is we want to please God in what we do. And in the sermons, we need to be Christ-centered, cross-centered. We want to be able to teach and say, you know what? The reason that we don't lie is because we no longer belong to ourselves or no longer belong to the evil one.

We're no longer of this world. We have been bought with the blood of God and we are obligated to serve him, to love him, and to spread his truth because of what Christ did for us. That's a Christocentric, cross-sided or cross-centered message that needs to be there. We don't want to teach moralism so that this is an important point. If a pastor is teaching moralistic sermons, not Christ-centered, cross-centered, as the ultimate reason for what it is we learn, do, repent of, et cetera, then what they're doing is prepping them to go to moralistic churches, even cults later on.

They go to a church like Mormonism that's a non-Christian cult that teaches moralistic sermons and they're at home with it because they've been taught that. Or the same thing in the false church of Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Both of those are false churches. They're not true Christian churches. And so we don't want moralism, do-good-ism, to be the reason or the central message.

Of a sermon. We want to be able to preach the truth. And that's just a thing I like to talk about every now and then. All right, now, if you want to give me a call, we have two open lines: 877-207-2276. And we have two open lines to guys waiting.

We got Omar and DJ. And we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. Yeah. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. You're listening to Matt Slick Live. If you want to give me a call, as usual, the number is 877-207-2276.

Let's get to Omar from North Carolina. Omar, welcome here on the air. Hey, Matt S. Thank you for taking my call, man. I've been listening to you for for Years now.

It's not my first time to call. I talked to a friend, a nurse from the Philippines. I don't know if you remember her, but I. I plan to come see you in Cannopolis in the Charlotte area, but I just saw Short to the help at the hospital, and I cannot leave.

So I really wanted to see and meet you. If not, I can maybe travel to Idaho and see you. I I'm glad you're in the area. I live in the Raleigh Durham area. Um And you're talking with I I uh hook up with the uh truth network every day.

Uh Are you listening to the Uh The one you said that uh you're talking is that It's two Efferson, the Ponger of Truth Network, you see? Right, that's who I was talking to earlier. Yeah, that's Tu Everson. I hear him all the time. And I know Truth Network, I think it's.

If I'm not mistaken, I think it's only when Wake Forest University is in the Integral, Dora Media, Duke, UNC, Wake Forest. of the weakest university in here there's like like I'm sure you I hope you have a big university college basketball staying. But anyway, um I'm glad to hear you. I plan to come and see you at Chinapolis. I I can just have a uh request somebody nurse to work for me.

And I cannot be able to say, but I want to really meet you. But what I want to Uh when I hear your topic in Cannopolis in uh in uh sh in the southern area because that's Annapolis Charlotte area is that's close, that's just uh Uh neighboring City. You are saying about you're going to be, and I know the church that you went to, Charity Baptist Church. Uh uh Muslim And you did in a debate and I know you talk about Muslim the uh the uh M Mormons and everything, but I I would like because I was grown up Catholic. Even my sister is a Catholic in the Philippines and I'm planning to go back there and Uh do it like what you do when it ex exactly how you do it, but uh Uh Because uh like uh Mike Gendron, I know I'm sure you know him.

He's a very cut. Yeah. Yeah. No, he's no. He's uh Callings like to evangelize the whole Catholic world, and I really want you to do more about that because.

I'm not saying that the Muslim n know to be saved, the Jehovah the Jehovah or Buddhas and everything. But the thing that bothered me, the Catholics uh And all this. Joe Williams Tina, all this Joyce Mariano, I listen to you every day. I knew your I I I hear what you're saying all the time. But this Happily I formally grew up like Mike Jenkins.

Uh there we are almost the same day. Yeah. They believed the Jesus, but they are adding merit to it so it's it's how it's it's even more You said this. I heard the I heard you always. You got a question you kind of want to get to with her?

Yeah, I w I asked you. My question is, I know you always ask that what's the question sometimes. People calling you, what's the question? I know, I know you.

So I'm not even going to ask that. But my question is. I well, it's not a question, a request from you that If you can focus more on this We kind of We are almost the same, all this from pro the Muslim and The Yehuba or Or uh more. I mean, they already are they're not They are not in the Holy Spirit. I mean, they are not.

Okay, so what? Let's get to what is your question, though?

Well, my question is. What is my question? I want you to uh one of my requests is I want you to more also focus on the Catholic debate on all this uh Uh Joel Austin. prosperity preacher because we are almost the same.

Some people Okay, hold on. Let's let's land a plane here.

So what l if you had to just say what your question was in one sentence, what would be the beginning of the well, I guess uh My question Pushing the integration area. You but Mm-hmm. The USU pocus, there is nothing wrong with it, and the Mormons in the Muslim Or say Buddhist ah you can add that. But they they They're already out there. Yeah.

Okay, do you want to know why they're why they're not true? Like like uh Mormons or n Catholics? No, uh Mo Mormons and uh Jehovah or uh or or uh Muslim They don't believe in Jesus. Christ at all. Let me jump in and kind of help you.

Yeah, let me jump in a little bit.

So, Mormonism teaches that God needs to be a man in another world. He has a goddess wife. They have relations. They don't believe in Jesus Christ. Hold on.

Let me get in here and help you out here. And so they teach that he came from another planet, has a wife, they're married in heaven, have spirit babies in heaven that inhabit human bodies.

Now, Jesus, to them, is a brother of the devil begotten through sexual relations from his goddess wife. God is Goddess wife. That's not the Jesus of the Bible. They may say they believe in the Jesus of the Bible, but they don't.

Now, as far as Roman Catholics go, they have the true God, the true Christ, but they have a false gospel. And so they violate the true nature of the gospel of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. And this is why the Roman Catholic Church, among other reasons, but that's the main one, is why it's not a true Christian church. It's an apostate false church, as is the Eastern Orthodoxy. Neither one of those churches are true churches.

You can't get to heaven. heaven by believing their official doctrines because they teach false gospel.

Okay. So so so so so I'm just glad that you spoke to Episode and I I hear him all the time but What I'm just my and I know you always say, What's the question? Because some people talk to you all those statements. What's the question? You always say, What's what's the question?

My question only to you, since you al always ask what's the question? Why you focus mostly on the And you're not only focused on Muslim. Jehuva or Monomon sports and the more disposable. Wait, wait, wait, what's your question? What's your question?

What's your question? Mark! One more. Watch. Let's try one more time.

They're all coming to the Bible. They don't believe in Jesus Christ. Okay, Omar, we're going to get going because we have other callers. We're going to get going here. But hey, man, thanks for calling.

Really appreciate it.

Okay, brother? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hope to meet you and I'm glad you talked to Stu. Person, I listen to Truth Network every day, but as I said, I listen to you, and you need to do more of this Catholic and this almost the same Christian type thing because it's some of the other listen to them, they almost like Christian, but they are not, and they need to hear that.

Yes, I appreciate yourself. But we're gonna get going, okay? Does it recall or so? Thanks a lot. Thanks so much.

Wow. All right, let's get to DJ from Raleigh, North Carolina. DJ, welcome. You're on the air. What's up, brother?

Never a double mama, huh? That's right, man. That's right. Oh, Mark. He's exuberant.

He's exuberant. That's right. That's awesome though.

So I sent you an email yesterday asking a question and I said that I would try to call in. By chance, did you have time to read it? No, I've been on the go and I only have a couple free hours tonight before I get up and fly out tomorrow. Yeah. I thought about that actually.

I figured you were probably pretty busy, but So, um Oh I was just wondering what if you even knew about it, and if you do, what your thoughts may be. On the numerous amount of testimonies coming in on YouTube. About people of all ages, children, people of all ages, older people, all having the same dream and vision, visitation with Jesus. about the rapture and the feast of trumpets in September. Have you heard about that?

No, I haven't. It's interesting. I've heard things like this over the years where and then the dates pass. But man, my hairs are standing up. I'm getting goosebumps just because you said you hadn't heard about it yet.

But yeah, they started coming out about a month ago, and it's just been coming and they keep on coming, man. There's more and more and more children are coming forward and coming to their mommies in the morning and telling them they had this dream. And so their mom starts filming them and then they post what the child is saying. And some of the stuff these children are saying, they're coming back. Talking about things that their parents never told them.

And never, some of the one of the kids' parents never told anybody about this. Child that she had before that child and decided to have an abortion. And the six-year-old child came back saying, You never told me I had a sister. And the mother had actually came up with a name, and it was a name that she discussed only with the Lord, and she decided not to have that baby.

Well, the Lord gave her that child that name in heaven. And this child came back from this dream saying, Yeah. You never told me I had a sister named Lena. And her mother was just in shock. And she did a video about a seven-minute video about this car.

So, you have a question you want me to address with all this, or do what I think about it?

Well, I wanted to know if you'd heard about it and if you'd what you thought about it. Everybody's coming back to the Yeah, I got it. Everybody's coming back saying the same they hear the same numbers. Most say 23, 24.

Some people say 22, 23, 24 in September. And so a lot of people are pretty solid about. This being something biblical. And then other people are saying that Jesus is going to make an appearance likely somewhere, maybe the Feast of Trumpets, and He's bringing gifts to the bride.

So I don't live, man. But yes. Yeah, there's the music.

Well, there's the music, brother. Gotta get going. There's a break, okay? Hey, check out the email, right? We'll check it out.

All right, brother. Thanks a lot, man. One more second.

Okay. 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. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. This is the Matt Slick Live, and it's live today, August 18th, 2025. If you want to give me a call, we have two open lines: 877-2077-7777. 2072276.

Let's get to Marie from North Carolina. Marie, welcome. You're on the air. Hello. Hi.

How are you? I'm all right. Hanging in there. What do you got?

Okay. I am going to make this as simple as possible. I think you'll get it. I heard you the other week, and you said you were an Emil Calvinist. Emil, yes.

And I had to look that up to understand what. That meant. And I'm rooted or grew up in the John Wesley Christianity. And so my question is, I know we're both that we're still both Christians, but In the things that you believe when you answer questions for people on the radio, is our two ways close enough the same that when you answer? That would be That would be our our answer too in the directly Sure, Dason.

Okay, 'cause I was like, Well, how do I know if when you answer something I should be looking at it different or not.

Well, we believe in the Trinity. We believe in the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the vicarious substitutionary atonement, resurrection, and salvation through grace alone and faith alone in Christ alone. And that's the essentials of the faith right there. And so we all affirm that, and that's not a problem. The differences are, however, in Reformed theology, we teach what's called total depravity, and that we are touched by sin to such a degree that our free will is enslaved by that sin, and we will not freely choose God of our own free will because it's enslaved to sin.

But Wesleyanism would teach that God's prevenient grace comes along and re-enables a person to be able to make a free will choice. And then we teach election, that God unconditionally elects people, that he chooses people for salvation, not based on any foreseen quality or ability in them. Where Wesleyanism would say that, yeah, he does. God knows who will pick him, and so he chooses to save those who knows who will pick him. And then grace.

Yeah. There's a little bit of a different misnomer here. Calvinists teach what's called irresistible grace, and what that means is that at the point of regeneration, not during your life, you know, when God's gracious to you, you resist that grace. It means at the point of regeneration that you cannot successfully resist that grace. And so that's, you know, Wesleyanism may or may not agree with that, depending on some more specific definitions of that from there.

But another one we teach, the nature of the atonement, we teach that Jesus only legally bore the sin of the elect, not of every individual who ever lived. And so where Wesleyan would say, no, he bore the sin of everybody who ever lived. And then we teach that you cannot lose your salvation because it's dependent upon God's faithfulness, not ours. Where Wesleyanism would basically say, yes, you can. It just depends on how you're going to maintain.

If you become an unbeliever, you're in rebellion, then you can lose your salvation. Those are the differences. Mm yeah.

Okay, that's what I thought, but I was just also I was, um thinking when you all when you're uh when a Calvinist God picks. Who he saves? Does that make sense? Am I referring to you correctly? He chooses or he elects.

It's at Ephesians 1:4. And is that at the time when you die? No. The election occurs before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1:4 and 5.

He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we'd be holy and blameless.

So the election of God occurs before the universe is made. According to Ephesians 1, 4 and 5. All right, well, thank you. I just wanted to know the differences for sure out of your mouth between us and Calvin. Thank you.

You should welcome.

Well, God bless. All right. All right. Thanks. Bye-bye.

Okay. We'll see you. Bye. All right, there you go. If you want to give me a call, we have two open lines: 8772-07-2276.

Slicks 2276. Let's get to Cameron from Raleigh, North Carolina. Cameron, welcome. You are on the air. Hey, thank you.

That's it. Um Hey, so I've called a number of times. I hadn't your number actually saved in my history, but it's good to talk to you again. Sure. I've actually been meditating on Luke seven Lately, started in like verse nineteen to thirty five.

And I guess I was marveling at Why do you think John the Baptist, who would have been someone who was keenly aware of Jesus. As Messiah? when he was in prison would Would start to doubt that.

So, I was wondering if there was like a certain set of messianic prophecies that. Uh like church or believers would kind of be privy to, that they were more expecting than what Jesus was actually doing. You mean why did John the Baptist start seemingly doubting who Jesus was?

Well uh see Uh John the Baptist was prophesied as a coming of Elijah. He wore the camelskin, the same as Elijah. And he came as a precursor to the Messiah.

Now, just because he's John the Baptist doesn't mean that he has every doctrinal thing understood accurately, because many of the Jews misunderstood who Jesus was and missed him. And this is not. This doesn't mean that John the Baptist is excluded from such misunderstandings because the Messiah would come and deliver people, forgive them their sins, and the like, all kinds of stuff. And he, of course, John the Baptist, was present. Prophesying, proclaiming, speaking of who Christ was, what he's to do.

And then here he comes, here comes Jesus, and he's doing miraculous things, but he's not delivering them politically. It may have been the case that John the Baptist might have been thinking that Jesus would be a political deliverer from the oppression of Rome. And he wasn't doing that, he was teaching something different. And so that's one of the theories about why they think maybe he was going, oh, are you sure? Because he had that understanding, but at the beginning, he knew, yeah, this is the Messiah, this is the one.

And so some wonder if that might have been the case, that he had those dealings intellectually.

Now, here's another thing: we don't normally put flesh and blood on this, but don't forget, he was in prison. And he was probably famished. He probably wasn't getting as much sleep as he needed. The conditions there are pretty bad.

So there could have been, just in as far as just human nature goes, he could have been distressed. And in that distress, he could have cried out to God, been wondering what's going on, where's the deliverance, and started doubting based on his own suffering and his own expectations.

So that's certainly possible because he was a human being, but it wasn't perfect like Jesus was.

So there's theories about this, and basically those are the ones I'd like to mention.

Okay, what I do. That is a great answer. For future study, are you aware of any kind of like focus of passages in the Old Testament. That would have been the messianic expectations of like first century Jews. Like, were there like go-to passages where they're like, hey, like, I definitely have opinions about.

prophecy because everybody knows that this means this.

Well, yeah, the ones that I'm more familiar with are those that fulfill the prophetic type of who he was. And so, you know, Psalm 22, Psalm 8, Isaiah 53, Zechariah 12, 10, Micah 5, 2, Isaiah 7, 14, 9, 16, 9, 6. And so there's different ones that I'm aware of, you know, even Genesis 3.15. And then there's typological representations, prophetic essences that work with the typology of Moses, assuming not Moses, but Abraham and Isaac. But anyway, so as far as the other ones go, like delivering, and I've read them, I just don't have memorized or addresses that he will deliver his people from oppression.

He will deliver them.

Well, when's this going to occur? A lot of people thought that this kind of deliverance was going to occur the first time he was manifested. And we find out that a lot of them are the second time when he's going to return and he will remove out of the kingdom the stumbling blocks. This is out of Matthew 13.

So we, you know, they're there, and a lot of the Jews, particularly under the oppression of the Roman Empire, would be looking for and hoping for the coming of the Messiah who would deliver them from such oppression. And John the Baptist would have been in that group of that time. Who's going to deliver us from the oppression of the Romans? And so Jesus didn't come to do that, he came to. Relieve us from the oppression of sin by being a sin sacrifice, and then later he'll be a political.

executor uh in a very broad sense.

Okay? Yeah. Awesome. Can I slip one more question in, or you got someone else? Go ahead really fast.

What do you got?

Yeah, absolutely. Do you think, like, all those Old Testament prophecies that you were quoting, like, you know, like Zechariah and stuff, do you think Old Testament believers or believers in the first century were expected? knew that those passages Were prophetic, or was it only until after they were like fulfilled by Jesus that they put two and two together?

Some would, that case, and some would have knowledge beforehand. You've got to understand: see, we have Bibles and radio and internet, and we can just think about these things. But a lot of times, the people in that culture wouldn't really be aware of too many things because they'd have to go to the synagogue to hear the word of God read and then interpreted by Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and things like that. And so, they may not have had as complete an education as we are privileged to have in our technologically advanced society.

So, the answer to your question is: some may, some may not have known those things. It's kind of an ambiguous kind of an answer, but that's because of the not exact science kind of situation that they were in back then. They would hear this, the preaching of the word, and discuss it and have discussions and theories and things like that later on. That's it, you know? Awesome.

Thank you so much, Matt. You're such a blessing, man.

Well, appreciate it, brother. Appreciate it, man. Keep listening. Will God bless.

Okay. All right. How are you going?

Okay. All right, that was Cameron out of Raleigh, North Carolina. I don't know if we've got this one gym thing that's not working. I don't see that working right.

So hey, folks, we've got about two minutes left on the show. I'm in North Carolina physically right now, and I'll be back in the studio probably Wednesday or Thursday, or at least in my house after I do the show out of the house. I have all the radio equipment right there and do that. And so I'll be traveling tomorrow, coming back. And by the grace of God, I'll be back on the air then.

I think we've got, let's see, time for one more caller. Let's get to Jim from Dayton, Ohio. Jim, welcome. You're on the air. Yeah, thanks for taking my call and thanks for the program.

Yeah. I'd just like for you to expound Matt on the balance that a believer should have. in their lives uh with the study of the book of Revelation And then the rest of the New Testament scriptures, a lot of Some churches don't ever get into the book of Revelation and some people seem to s spend most of their time in the book of Revelation. Yes, and that's because they may be called to that kind of a thing and because they're exceptionally curious about the end times doctrines and things.

So I don't know. It just depends on the individual. But there should be a balance overall of the entire Bible. You know, I will say, though, I spend most of my time in the New Testament and not as much in Revelation as I need to, or maybe should sometimes. But.

You know, people have different interests, and it's okay.

So God will work differently, different people with different motivations, interests, and it's okay to study as long as you're studying the Word of God. And if you're going to study Revelation, you've got to study the rest of the Bible, because that's how you can understand what Revelation means.

So that would require a good, broad understanding, examination. Yeah. Uh yes, amen. All right, yeah, thanks, Matt. Thanks.

Sure, Brother. Appreciate it. All right. Thank you. Okay.

Bye. God bless. All right. Well, there you go. We've got a few seconds left in the show.

Just want to say thank you for listening and for tuning in. And it's great being here in North Carolina right now, just visiting, did a conference, spoke at a conference on Islam. And by God's grace, back on the air in a day or two or three. And may the Lord bless you. I hope that all of you have a great evening.

And please pray for this ministry, myministry, carm.org, and also for the Truth Network, because it is a spiritual battle that we are all undergoing, and we need the warriors in prayer.

So God bless. We'll talk to you later. Have a good evening, everyone. God bless. Another program powered by the Truth Network.