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! For answers, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. and your list of match look live. Hope you're having a good time, a good day, and hope you had a good weekend.

If you want to give me a call, all you've got to do is dial 877-207-2276. And so I'm trying to think of anything interesting happened over. That should be good. That should be working. Anyway, if anything good happened or interesting happened over the weekend, I want to say that.

So my wife and I went, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember now I wanted to talk about something. My wife and I went to church, and, you know, she doesn't get out very often. And so we went, and I'm not going to say what church and where, but we went to a church and got in there, packed, you know, overflow area, three services. And it's just, I don't know.

Okay, so we went, and hopefully we had a good time. Everything was fine. And I listened to the sermon. And let's just say it was pretty not good. And it really bothered me a great deal because, let me tell you a little story.

back in seminary. I preached out of 2 Chronicles 20. I was assigned a text in a preaching class. And I really examined that text. I really looked at it.

And I was as faithful as I could be to the text. And my professor, we were becoming friends, and my professor gave me a B+. And I could tell, I don't know how I could tell, he made a comment, he wrote a comment, And I could tell, you know, there was more to it.

So I talked to him, and he said, come over for dinner. And, you know, I brought my wife, and we went over to his house. And after dinner and everything, we went back into his office. And we were talking about the sermon. And he was talking to me about various things.

He says, Matt, you've got to find Christ in that chapter. and I said but he's not there because not until the New Testament and he says no he's there you gotta find him I said well then what do I say he goes I can't tell you that this has to be between you and the Lord and you know it's kind of frustrating but I understood I understood and I wasn't really worrying about that and we got talking I still remember sitting in his chair in his chair in his office at his home and he finally asked me this question and it really shocked me. He said, Matt, could the sermon you have preached been preached in a Mormon church unchanged? Would they have accepted it? And I tilted my head thinking and I thought for about 30 seconds.

And I looked at him and I said, yeah, it could. And that's a problem. And he says, that's right, it's a problem. If what you preach can be preached without change in a cult, something's wrong. And that really taught me a great lesson.

He actually helped keep me in seminary. It was so difficult. Seminary was very difficult. And I was frustrated several times. But this was one of them.

And I said, okay, I think I understand. And so I went back to 2 Chronicles 20, and I re-read it, re-studied it, re-wrote the sermon, because in the class, what we were to do was preach the sermon twice. Once, then feedback, and then again. And the class would listen. Our fellow students would listen.

It was a really intimidating kind of a situation because you're classmates. This is what you're going there for, and here it comes. And so I read the 2 Chronicles 20. What it was about, this is the very basic summation of that chapter, is the Israelites were in trouble and the Ammonites, Cushites, and the Gazintites, I used to like to say, were coming out of the north to destroy Israel. And Israel, what they did was they had confidence in God.

God then confused the armies that were there and they killed each other. And so Israel was spared. And my sermon was dealing with the issue of trusting God. You've got to trust God. the first sermon, trust God because he will deliver you.

He's faithful. And it was all true, but it wasn't a good paper, a good sermon. And so he said, you've got to find Christ in there. Because, you know, John 5, 39, the scriptures are about Jesus. He says so.

That's right where he says it. and so I rewrote the sermon and preached it, and I got an A+. And what I did then, and what I made it different was, yeah, everything was the same except for one major inclusion. The reason the enemy was coming forth to destroy Israel was to destroy us, because it was ultimately a spiritual battle, and the enemy of the gospel, the enemy of Christ, the devil, was using his people to try and destroy Israel, ultimately to destroy the Messianic line, so that all people would be damned. This is why God stepped in and said, this is not your battle, this is mine.

And he got in there and he cleaned their clocks. And I never forgot that lesson. I never forgot that lesson. It's one of the most important lessons I learned in seminary. It was a good seminary.

I know a lot of people call them cemeteries. And there's some bad ones out there, but this was a very good one. And very godly men who were very dedicated to the authority and inspiration of Scripture as the final word of God. And so over the years, when I would preach, I got out of seminary, graduated, and I did, oh, I don't know, three years or so, three or five years, I don't remember, of pulpit supply in Southern California. There's 22 million people in Southern California, at least back 20 years ago.

I don't know how many there are now. But there were churches everywhere. And I mean, in our direction, in any direction, and you draw a circle, there's probably 100,000 churches. I mean, it's just incredible. And so I was constantly being asked to preach.

And one day I preached in three different churches. And I loved pulpit supply. I loved doing that. But I never forgot the lesson. And whatever I would preach on, Jesus had to be the reason.

The reason why we, whatever the lesson is about. And let's just say the marriage topic comes up in a sermon, or child-rearing. Let's say marriage. And responsibilities are doled out biblically.

Well, the reason we are to honor our wives and our husbands and do things like this is because Jesus purchased us at the cross. And we are called to sanctification and holiness and obedience to the truth of who he is. Because we're no longer our own. Therefore, we ought to do what is right before him. We have been purchased with the very blood of God, Acts 20, 28.

All right. The sermon that I heard yesterday was moralism. Be good. Do these good things. Here's some wise statements.

These are the kinds of ultimate statements that I could have heard by fortune cookies. Maybe a Bible verse and then an application. And it's not that they weren't true. They were. And they were out of God's word.

And people had their Bibles open taking notes. And all that is good. But I couldn't help but feel dismayed because the level of what was being taught was shallow, just basic. Here's some nice wisdom statements that we glean out of the scriptures.

Now go be happy. And there was no call to repentance, no call to submit to Christ, no call to put your eyes upon the blood of God on that sacrificial offering, that altar by which we are sanctified and justified. There was no call to that. And I glanced around the people feeling as though they were being robbed. And it upsets me.

My wife and I went to lunch that day, yesterday, first time we've done that in a while. And it was nice. It was nice to have lunch with my wife out in public. And I got sashimi. Oh, I love sashimi.

Anyway, and so she said, well, what did you think of the sermon? And I wasn't going to say anything because, really, because Matt's critical again. And I talked about it earlier. I said I wasn't very impressed by it. And then we got to the restaurant.

we talked about it again and I said look I said the work of the pastor is to equip the Christians for the work of ministry we are in a war we are in a war in our culture a war where it the culture the secularists want to destroy our faith where Islam is on the rise where Eastern Orthodoxy that false religion is on the rise, where Catholicism pretends and masquerades as the truth and deceives people into damnation. We have Jehovah's Witnesses going door to door, Mormons going door to door, and the average Christian doesn't even know what the Trinity is. The average Christian doesn't even know if Jesus is a man right now or why he got baptized. The average Christian is ignorant. And I said, but it doesn't mean they have to know what I know and seminary graduate level this and that, but they need to know the basics of the faith, and most don't.

And very few Christians are equipped to deal with the attacks upon the faith. And I said, what we get is Sunday morning hammock theology. Lay down, kuchiku, we'll tell some nice stories and some funny things, and you'll be comforted.

Well, God is the one who says, pick up your cross daily and follow after me. He doesn't say, just recline and rest. He does not say that. In fact, when he addresses that issue, it's in condemnation. And the Christian church is ineffective in this culture that we live in Because well pre rapture we going to get out of here so don worry about it That lie sorry but that what it is not true That lie has got to be stopped because it's hamstringing way too many people and that they're not doing what they need to do to go forward and preach that gospel and get people saved.

You know, churches should have, you know, Wednesday night, whatever week, you know, every day of the week. Wednesday night equipping or something like that, you know, where, you know, if I were a pastor of a church, I would say, okay, Wednesday night, we're going to do six weeks on Islam. We're going to do six weeks on Christian theology. We're going to do six weeks on Mormonism, on Roman Catholicism, on East Orthodoxy. We're going to have handouts.

We're going to have notebooks. you can assemble. We're going to give you stuff that you can take at home so that you will know what to say. You don't have to memorize everything, but you have these notebooks and you can talk to people. I'll teach you how to put it in your phones.

We'll use a Bible program you can put notes in. On your phones, you can have stuff and you can have your notes there. I'll show you how to do it. That's what I'd like to do. but I just think it's a sad state of affairs that most Christians don't want to study and don't want to learn and I know why it's because they're comfortable the cure for it is persecution when the persecution comes then people are going to be interested in learning they're going to have questions they want answers to instead of what restaurant we go to after sermon today that's a problem folks we'll be right back after these messages please stay tuned if you want to give me a call it's 877-207-2276 we'll be right back it's Matt Slick Live Taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. I wonder if you're upset with what I said. Maybe your church is guilty of that.

Maybe your church is not. I don't know. Are they quipped? What does it mean to be quipped? I think it's an important topic.

Let's get to Jermaine from California, the People's Republic of California. Welcome, buddy. You're on the air. hey Matt before I ask my question I appreciate what you said in that first segment and I hope you put that in some kind of real or short because I think that's the kind of thing that would get you a lot more people listening as far as being online because that's something very convicting that I think a lot of folks need to hear yeah yeah yeah uh huh Uh-huh, yeah. But anyway, on to my question.

Those guys, you know, certain church offices like First Lady, hearing titles, armor bearer, are these more traditions of men and not exactly biblical offices? Because you don't find them anymore in Scripture.

Well, they're not in Scripture, not biblical in that sense, unless there's something that can be deduced as it. We have the Queen of Heaven, which is paganism in there, but we say Christ is Lord. We don't want to give titles to people. We can say pastor, we can say elder, deacon, and things like that, because those are just biblical terms that God has instituted through the apostles. But, you know, like if it's queen of heaven, you know, give me a break.

Or the queen of the church, first lady of the church, you know. No, it's not biblical. I would never use those titles of a person.

Okay, yeah, and I see a lot of places doing that, And, of course, we give honor and respect to the wives of anyone. But, you know, my pastor's wife, he's a Bible teaching pastor as well. I noticed his wife is conspicuously just like silent. Like a lot of times she'll kind of move in silence. She's a very wonderful lady, but she does not ever take any undue, you know, I guess praise or anything.

Because she's not a pastor or she's not a preacher or a ministry at all. And it seems like some folks will elevate the wife of the pastor as if she's also a co-preacher. And I've never been comfortable with that in some churches. Yeah, I've seen that too. And the wife is, I think, worthy of a little bit of respect.

A little bit. Because she's helping the man preach the word by equipping him, by freeing him, I should say. and that's valuable and so there's there's some value in that but uh i remember when my my first pastorate uh assistant pastor and uh they asked me they said how much will your wife be involved in the work of the church and i said i don't know it's up to her i said her first ministry is to the children at home and that's it so don't expect her to be doing all this kind of stuff in the church. Her job is to take care of the kids. And that was my answer to them.

And I thought that would, you know, upset them, but they'd never made a comment about it after that.

So, yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I think that's all I have on that one.

Now, even though those titles aren't mentioned in scripture, with churches that choose to participate in that style of respect, I guess, or whatever they want to call it, are they in the wrong for doing so?

Well, probably. Probably. The Bible says don't exceed what's written, 1 Corinthians 4.6.

So I would think that if they are giving titles to people like, you know, the exalted title, the first lady of the church, you know, be careful with it. if they're at a gathering and they say, here's the first lady of the church, and people kind of chuckle at that. It's not meant to be taken seriously. Oh, okay, you know, it's a joke, or we get it. But if it's a regular title given, then that's problematic.

I would say it's problematic.

Okay. Okay. All right. Well, I think I've exhausted that one, so I appreciate your answers as usual. Thank you, Matt.

I appreciate it. All right, man. God bless. All right. Now, I troubleshot Club Deck, for those who don't know, a weird thing.

I had to get out and get back into the very same output or input device, and for some reason it worked for those who are listening. And if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. And you can also email me at info at carm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G.

Now, about the new website coming up, it's going to be postponed a few weeks. And, you know, and it's all good.

So all this is part of kind of stuff that was probable or could be expected. And we are hoping to raise the funds to complete it.

now the reason i'm saying that is because um we had a lot of money donated to get it going and it turns out that uh it's just there's a little bit more and uh that's in the contract we signed a contract it's in the contract that that's a possibility and both of these these guys who are involved with developing the site i would trust them uh implicitly they are good godly men who honor the Lord and have families to feed. There's no conning going on. There's nothing like that. I'd give them the keys to my house and say, here, stay here for a year. I don't care.

They're good guys. But I said, look, we're just going to trust God, and we're going to just ask the Lord to provide, and then that's it. And we have to make an additional last or two payments more, which I thought was a little I thought we were going to get it done before but at any rate, by the end of the month and the reason I'm saying this is because, you know, you just let the body of Christ know you have needs and let's just say karma needs support alright and I hate talking about it like, hey this won't happen unless you come forward I hate that kind of manipulation stuff I don't like it I like to just let the Lord or encourage the Lord in prayer to put upon people's hearts to support this ministry or not. And that's it. I remember reading George Mueller.

He died in like 1898. He was the orphan king. He was just an incredible role model. And they asked him to be a pastor of a church, and he said he would under two conditions. and the first one was that the paid pews in the front was removed because it was something they did back then and you got special privileges.

If you paid extra money to the church, you had to set up front, which was a status symbol. He says, get rid of that. They agreed. And he said the other thing is that the elders were not to tell the congregation that he would live off of the money, and he and his family live off the money in the parsonage with whatever was in the tithe box because the tithe box was just for the pastor and for the family. And he said, I'll know when I'm supposed to leave when the tithes no longer come in.

He says, you don't tell anybody about this. This is just how it's going to be. And that's it. It's before God. And they said, okay.

And he wrote that there would be times when they'd have no food, and he would just go into the parsonage or into the church, look in the money box, and there would be just enough money to buy dinner that night. And this is how he lived. I never forgot that. He was a good man of God. And he built an orphanage and stuff.

And so that principle is always echoing in my heart. But every now and then, and he even did this, to let people know, yeah, there's a need. And if you want to help out, you can go to carm.org forward slash donate. That's it. C-A-R-M dot O-R-G forward slash donate.

and the need is a little bit deeper than I'm letting you know but we could use that support. We'll be right back. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live. Taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it's easy. 877-207-2276. All right, Oscar, you're on the air.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. My question is about salvation. Do we have a choice or do we respond to God? Both.

We are not independent from God. God grants that we believe. Philippians 1.29, it's granted to us. He does the action and we do the believing. It's a bit of a mystery how it all works, but it appears to be the case because it says he grants that we have faith Philippians 1 in Greek is the aorist active indicative And what that means is aorist is past tense And active voice means God is the one performing the action To you it has been granted to believe.

So God grants you the ability, the action of believing and you believe. Jesus says in John 6, 29, this is the work of God that you believe on him in whom he has sent. in John 1, 12, 13, it talks about people being born again. It says we receive Christ, and we're born not of our own will, but the will of God.

So what we generally kind of do to answer the question this way is to say that the regenerative work of God upon us enables us to believe. God grants us that faith, and we believe. I don't know how it all works logically, perfectly, in the spiritual realm and in our souls, but I know what the Bible says, and I can only quote what it says. He grants that we have faith and are coming to Christ as the work of God.

So that's what it says.

Okay. Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Okay, bye-bye. Hey, no problem. God bless. Bye. All right, let's get to Paul from Virginia.

Paul, welcome. You're on the air. Hello there. Hi. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

okay yes it's been quite some time since i've called you okay um yes and um so i agreed with everything that you said at the top of the show today um and um i guess it gave me several reflections. But I know if it had not been for this particular radio station, I would never have heard of you. And I always listened. I don't get to listen as often as I did. But I guess one of my questions was, is there a way where you could get a larger platform?

Well, there is a way. It just costs money.

So the Truth Network, just to be straight, you know, I was with Stu last week. We talked about stuff. The reason they have me on the show is because Stu says I'm faithful to the word, and I don't compromise the word. But without saying too much, what I pay him to be on the air on the numerous stations in his network, I wouldn't be able to afford one day on like a Salem broadcasting.

So I want to be able to reach as many people, but it's always a matter of funding. If we could get some multimillionaire who said, look, here's a million dollars a year for radio, hypothetically, let's say, that we can get onto even more networks and get the word out, among other things, you know, seminars and teaching and things like that. There's a lot of, in my opinion, average preaching out there and teaching that's not very well grounded. Right, well, that would bring me to my next point, because I'm going on 65 years old. I accepted Christ when I was nine years old, and I had questions about that, personal questions, but I remember certain things that I've learned over the years.

Like, I remember when I first found out that, you know, the Orthodox Jews, I guess they would be called, don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah, or either, like, when I found out that Jesus was really Yeshua, which I know that doesn't matter, that his name was Yeshua. And then, of course, when you were... Pardon me? Or Eshu in Aramaic, which he may have spoken. Go ahead.

Okay, and so things like that, and then, which I was always taught growing up in...

Well, first of all, my family was very dysfunctional, and my family did not attend church. I used to walk to church as a child about 55 years ago, but things were different back 55 years ago than they were now as a 9-year-old. I wouldn't let anybody walk anywhere at that age. But the things that you were talking about, the Catholic Church, that's what I was typically told in my upbringing, that the Catholic or Catholicism was not to be believed. And the other points that you brought up, which are very good, but there again, I guess what I'm trying to say is.

And if you look at what's on the television, or if you can still call it television, or streaming, or internet, or whatever the case may be, you've got TBN, and PTL, and others. And even on this same radio station, you have Olive Tree Ministries, which is definitely pre-trib. and it can be I would gladly debate someone on pre-trip rapture versus post-trip well that's another thing I was going to ask you about and you've probably already tried to do this but like Joyce Meyer and Kenneth Copeland and these people that you've mentioned is there any way you could ever get all of y'all together and do like a debate because I guess my overall, see, probably not, but I've just really enjoyed your initial opening, and I just believe that or think that, as I reflected on what you said, that the stuff that's just out there everywhere on YouTube or wherever it could be, or these Christian networks that are on the television, I hear very little of what I do consume of amillennialism, for example. Yeah, it's just a common thing. And as you said, it's very important.

Yeah, well, amillennialism makes sense, but premillennialism is the majority view, because, in my opinion, people aren't really doing in-depth studies. I just see... I mean, that's not to say that those who are pre-mill aren't smart or don't take it seriously, but there are models of theology that punch major holes in pre-millennialism, and I mean major ones, and they're just not explored. and so the amillennialists like myself are often put on the outskirts and uh since i'm reformed well that's another reason to uh to not listen or uh i leave the charismatic gifts so to reform people don't want to hear me so you know it's uh we we major in the minors too many times in the christian faith i mean i could go into a church and and uh and teach uh teach on christian theology why Mormonism is false, why East Orthodoxy is false, with documentation in order so they could work with stuff. They'd have no book to walk away with.

People don't want me to do that. People don't want me to do that. And why is that? I think it's because too many pastors are interested in the numbers of seats that are filled. Yes.

Well, I have a number of concerns. And let me ask just a couple more questions if you have the time. Sure. One of my questions is, is God fair and just, or is God just justice? No, no, no.

God, oops, excuse me, I just moved him. I voiced too loudly in the mic. God is all of those things. We don't want to separate God's attributes into one and say, what about this one attribute as it relates to God? We can discuss those things, but we need to be able to understand.

We need to understand that God is just and holy and righteous and merciful and judgmental and jealous. And all of these equally manifest in everything he does all the time. It's people like us who want to say, well, if he's so loving, then why is anybody to help? Because he's also just. He's love and justice.

So it's called the fallacy of composition. The upholstery in the car is blue, so therefore the entire car is blue. The one part of it is represented in the whole. And that's not true.

So, you know, hold on, we've got a break coming up. I get agitated. I get aggravated about the lackadaisical preaching and teaching in churches. I just think it's weak. There's a lot of weak stuff, and people are babysitting, and they're not equipping the Christians for the work of ministry.

We'll be right back, folks. After these messages, please stay tuned. We'll be back on with Paul from Virginia. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick Live!

Taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Everybody, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it's easy. 877-207-2276.

Let's get back on with Paul. All right, Paul, you're back on, buddy.

Okay, and so I think we left off at, you know, the different attributes of God. And I had asked you if God was fair and just, and you answered that. And I guess the reason I want to know is because I accepted Christ, as I said, when I was nine. I'm almost 65 now. And I have rededicated a few times.

I'm not currently active in a church for some of the reasons that you talk about. I've thought about it, but I just haven't. And, but I have an issue in my life that stems from childhood traumas and abuses that took place that I've struggled with for my entire life. I pray about it daily so it makes me question my salvation and so that's why I asked the question about does God look at what happened in other words maybe that's why he saved me at 9 because he knew I would have this issue later because I didn't at that time and so I was you know trying to understand that so that why I ask about God justice and his holiness versus his fairness or how he would look at a person's situation if that makes sense sure it does so So God knows that injustice occurs in the world. It occurs in the garden right away.

God knows that people are martyred for the faith, that they're persecuted for the faith unrighteously, and that very mockers, which I experienced yesterday online, a mocker, a severe mocker of Christianity. and yet what he allows is ultimately if we give it to him for our it can be used for our greater good and that's what we need to we need to trust him beyond our ability to understand and that's a phrase that i use you know um you know i moved 26 times before i was 12 years old i didn't stop having nightmares of being murdered until I was 35. My last name is Slick, and I went to 12 different elementary schools.

So because of it, I became anorexic, and I lost two inches of height, the doctor said. I'm six feet tall. My wife has a very rare connective tissue disorder with 25 surgeries. We lost a son to a birth defect.

So what do we do with them? How do we forgive? how do we endure all I can say is we stumble towards the cross as we're heading towards it distracted, failing, whining, complaining but the ultimate is that we need to trust in what Jesus allows even if it doesn't make sense and if we can't forgive we need to ask him to teach us how to forgive and it doesn't mean you're not saved it just means you're aware of a struggle and that's the thing you know this analogy i have is is uh we're out in a boat out in the ocean a couple miles from shore and it's a windy day and uh it's pretty choppy out there and we see as we're cruising back towards the land we see a couple of guys in the water in basically in street clothes like what the heck is going on and we throw a life preserver out to them you know and they're struggling or what one is but the but the other one is faced out in the water he's not moving and we're yelling you know come on come on come on grab the life preserver and one guy's trying the other guy is just floating face down the question is which one's alive the one that's alive is the one that's struggling and that's one of the signs of of spiritual life in christ is struggling against the things that have us in a headlock, that we fail so many times in our lives. And it's almost a glory to God because the one who struggles on a daily basis and fails, say he doesn't forgive, say he's struggling, whatever it might be, and he's really warring against it, and he goes to the cross constantly, doesn't mean he's not saved. Because salvation is not dependent on the success of your repentance, but it's dependent on your faith in Christ and God has granted that and so what we need to do is rest at the cross we stumble forward the closer we get the better we are and so we just need to struggle and stumble and continually trust and then on that day of death we enter into his presence and we enjoy his presence forever and that's what we have to believe and work as as christians okay yes yes that's great to know thanks i'm that's helped me some um my final question if you have time is about israel and from what i understand that i could get this wrong so if there's any you or any person listening No offense intended, but my understanding is that Netanyahu is not of the original Hebrew, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the like this thing in certain parts of the evangelical world that where they say you've got to you've got to support Israel no matter what, because God said, if you don't, you know, I will bless those that bless you and curse those that, you know, know the diverse and um but it's my understanding that there are different sects of jews like there are what they call even fake jews or ashkenazi jews or i don't even know all these terms and so that it almost uh if i'm making any sense here um in other words have you heard are you aware of that that he is not uh the uh he is not of uh the uh original hebrew yes we don't know most jews don't know don't know their ancestry they just don't they don't know okay have remnants of ideas or maybe rumors but you got to understand they were persecuted and dispersed and so a lot of times you know families were wiped out and the children might be alive and they don't remember and so things could be lost and then once that occurs and the more children born of them they don't know but they know they're jewish so uh that's okay god knows but uh whether netanyahu can trace his lineage so to speak back to one of the 12 tribes really isn't relevant he is born of the house of Israel is a nation and he speaks Hebrew and is Jewish and so he holds the Old Testament Jewish customs so he's Jewish but who knows furthermore you can be adopted into different tribes if I forgot the rules but has something to do with five or six generations once you're one of your parents is converted and and they stay converted generations, I think five or six, then you're grafted in as 100% Jew.

There's something like that.

Someone told me about this once. I went, oh, that's interesting.

So there's that possibility, and they wouldn't necessarily trace themselves biologically back to the original 12. I could be a descendant from the original 12.

So could you. We just don't know. Oh, yes, that brings my... Because I read that book called United States in Britain in Prophecy, which that is from Herbert W. Armstrong, and I know that may be an issue.

He's a cultist. He's a cultist. No, he denies the Trinity, denied the deity of Christ, denied the gospel. I wouldn't trust anything he says.

Okay, well, you know he's deceased. Yes, right. I've read about 40 years now. Yeah. Just don't trust anything the guy has written and stuff that he says, okay?

Okay. And so the offshoot of that with Gerald Flurry and the Philadelphia Church of God is the same thing? I don't know enough about him off the top of my head, but I do know that the Worldwide Church of God had a breakup back in the 90s, late 90s, where one of the branches became Orthodox in Orthodoxy. I mean, not Eastern Orthodoxy. But I don't know which group or which ones, so I can't tell you off the top of my head.

But be very wary of the connections with them. All right, just be wary. Yes, yes.

Okay, well, thank you very much. Good to speak with you again, and thank you very much. All right. Sounds good.

Okay. Take care. Bye-bye. God bless. All right.

We have nobody waiting. If you want to give me a call, you can. 877. Wow. Look at the time.

I had no idea it was this late. Wow. Time flies when you're having fun. We've got about three minutes left on this show.

So I was going to say give me a call if you want. 877-207-2276. But let me just say this. I know I upset a lot of people. I know I do.

I know there's a lot of people driving, listening, podcasting later on. You might scowl at some of the things I say.

Well, if you do, good. Good, good, good. The question is, is what I'm saying biblical or not? That's it. Ask yourself if what I'm making you scowl about, because of tradition in your heart or because of the truth of Christ in your heart, which one of those is holding the high mark and the throne in your own heart?

And so I'm not saying everything I say is right. I'm not saying that. But I don't affirm pre-trib rapture. I think it's very unfortunate. I think it's easily defeatable.

And I think that the Christians need to stop believing in the church, and they need to get off their hands and start working for the Lord Jesus Christ in the streets, in churches, in homes, at work, all over, speaking forth the gospel truth. Not annoyingly, but it needs to be something that changes in our church. And if the mentality is, we're going to get out of here, why worry about it? God's, you know, just don't worry about it. That's sinful.

And so we need to be involved. We need to be pre-mill, on-mill, post-mill, it doesn't matter. as long as you are working to expand the kingdom of God and giving him your talents, your time, your abilities, and asking him to mercifully use you in spite of what you are. That's what I ask. I say, oh man, I'm a broken vessel, leaky, and I've got problems, so please use me anyway.

I just want to be used as much as possible. I want to burn my candle from both ends until there's nothing left and I die, and I go be with my Lord. And I don't need any reward, not interested in the reward. I'm not doing this for any reward. I'm doing it because it honors the Lord Jesus and helps others to come to know faith and believers to become Christians by God's grace.

That's it. I don't need anything in heaven except one thing, just to be with my Lord. That's reward enough. To be with my Lord and my Savior Jesus, that's the only thing I want. I hope it's the only thing you want.

And in the meantime, I want to glorify him. Think about this. You're in a hospital and you're sick and you say, man, I wish I'd have been doing this to take care of myself. Pick yourself in heaven. Will you say the same thing about what you wish you'd have done on earth?

Now is the time. Ask God to use you and be ready. Hey, folks, we are out of time. There's the music. May the Lord bless you by his grace.

We're back on there tomorrow. We'll talk to you then.

So have a great evening, everyone. God bless. Another program powered by the Truth Network.