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.

Well, there we go. Welcome to the show, everybody. If you want to give me a call, as usual, all you've got to do is dial 877-207-2276. I want to hear from you, give me a call. And, boy, let's see.

Got some good news.

So, you know, a lot of people have known that I wasn't going to go to the Jordan trip in November.

Well, now I'm going. And my wife's health is stabilized enough that I'm going to risk going and all that's associated with that.

So just to let you know that I should be getting a go on that, and that's good. Looking forward to being able to go to Jordan and see Petra and the place of Sodom and Gomorrah. That'll be interesting.

So looking forward to it, and hopefully everything will work out with that. All right. Having said that, why don't you give me a call? 877-207-2276.

Now I've got a question for the listeners, and I want you to call me up and give me an answer. Yesterday, I spoke about the American church isn't doing that well. It needs to be doing better. And, you know, there's always room for improvement. And I'm not his judge.

But, well, I've been thinking. And so I'm going to ask you, as you call me up, what would you like to see? What would you like to see a church provide? What kind of things would you like to see in a church that you don't think are being provided for? You know, better teaching, doctrinal studies.

witnessing evangelism things, guest speakers, whatever it might be? Or do you think your church is just great and not a problem? And I'm not saying maybe it is. Maybe you've got a really good church. There are a lot of good pastors out there.

There really are.

So I was just kind of curious about that. And I've got a reason for asking. And I want to know what your opinion is on that. I'd like to get the feedback from people.

so it's a serious question I have no reason for asking so there's that you can call me at 877-207-2276 and also you can email me if you want you can email me at info at carm.org info at carm.org and put in the subject line radio comments or radio question I want to hear from you so give me a call alright so I'm working on an article right now I've been thinking about something and I'll tell you what the article is about it's not released yet it's about out of Islam because in Islam they say Muhammad is the best example of what it means to be a man he's the excellent pattern and that's Surah 3321. And yet the Quran says that Jesus never sinned, yet Muhammad sinned. Just basic questions. Then why is it that Muhammad is the one we should be following? How can he be the best example of what it means to be a man if Jesus, the man, never sinned, but Muhammad did?

That's just a question I'm asking. I'm writing an article on this with possible responses responses and I'm breaking it down because I want to be able to ask the question of Muslims. And I have asked this question of Muslims and they don't do very well answering it. Seriously, they don't.

Well, he's the, he's the one we're supposed to follow. Why? But he, he sinned.

So how do you know that what he did was right or wrong? If Jesus, every single thing he did was right or wrong, was right because he never sinned, then doesn't make more sense to emulate him and go for him. And they've not given me a good answer. And this just demonstrates that the loyalty is not to the truth, not to Jesus, but to Muhammad because it's brainwashed.

Now, in February, I'm supposed to be out in Dallas, Texas for a debate with Nadir Ahmed. And the topic will be, he's a Muslim, the topic will be, is Jesus God or Prophet? And I do hope to really bring some good stuff to bear I'm going to be working on that for a while. And if by any chance you have good resources from him, like videos you've seen, particular quotes that are interesting that you've noticed, send them to me. Say, hey, in this video, he says such and such, and go check it out.

But I'm going to be doing a lot of research anyway, but I want to be able to just get ahead a little bit and know stuff, because I really plan on dismantling him. I do. That's my plan. Will it occur? We'll see what will happen.

Let's get to Rich from Ohio. Rich, welcome. You are on the air. Thank you. Sure.

I was contemplating your question there, and I believe it's complacency in the church and the Holy Spirit that they're not striving to have a one-on-one with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Yeah, they are. Yeah, that's, you know, complacency is the word that strikes me because I'm trying to be careful here. I'm not the judge of people in the church and how God's working and pastors and stuff. But I do have my finger on the pulse of a lot of false religions, and they're gaining ground.

And is the Christian church gaining ground?

Well, you know, the false religion of Roman Catholicism is growing, as is Eastern Orthodoxy and Islam. That's funny. I was just thinking that as you said that. Yeah, they are. They're false religions.

And people don't know. I remember once I went to a seminar, and about 100 people there at this one. And I asked them a question. I said, how many of you believe in the Trinity? Just show me your hands.

And the hands went up, you know, everybody.

So let's just say, there were 100 people, you know, basically already raised their hands.

Some people just don't want to raise their hands for things. But it was like in a 90 percentile range. I said, okay, good, okay, good, no problem. I said, now, how many of you could define what the Trinity is, and if you raise your hand, I'll call on you? And, you know, three, four hands went up, and I called them.

And they didn't do perfect, but it was pretty good. They were okay. And I said, now I'm going to ask you more difficult questions. What's the difference between justification and sanctification? Nobody raised their hand.

Is Jesus a man right now? Half the hands went up. Say, he's not a man right now. About half the hands went up. You know, I was baptized.

And, you know, I said, give me some answers. Shout some answers out. And they said, you know, identify with sinners. You know, and they don't even know. And this is pretty typical.

And it's not like you have to know all these highfalutin things. but it's just that they very often don't even know the basics. It's really disturbing.

Well, I always break it down into three crosses. And one denied, one was in the middle, and he is God. His blood was shed, and the other one said, remember me. And that's it. What else is there to know?

Well, in a hostile world where the attack of Christianity is on the rise, and people in churches aren't really aware of this very much.

Some are, but there's lots and lots and lots of stories of people at work being told you can't have a Bible on your desk, but people can have the Koran on their desk, the hypocrisy that's there, where you're not allowed to have a Bible verse showing on your desk where schools will say to a child, you can't wear a shirt that promotes Jesus, but others can do what they want to do. This kind of thing. There's an increase in number of hostile attitudes with the desire for harm to Christians. That's on the rise in America as well. Then we have Islam.

Like Dearborn, Michigan is basically an Islamic country. I just talked about this 10 minutes ago. All right. I've been up there. They're even changing the motor vehicles to their language.

Yeah, and that's ridiculous. And this is a serious problem. It should never be allowed to occur in this country because what they will do is spread. It's a cancer. Islam is a cancer.

Yeah. When you get a religion in that is anti-republic, we're a constitutional republic, not a democracy. The news needs to stop saying that we're a democracy. If we're a democracy, we're not.

So when you have a religion that's gaining foothold, doesn't adapt to our culture, doesn't learn, you know, largely, doesn't speak our language, and wants to promote a religious system that will ultimately overthrow the country, this is a problem. And you can't just hope it goes away and hope that they're going to change. They don't. Everywhere they go into the, every country they go, like Sweden now. Sweden used to be one of the highest safe places around.

And now in the past 20, 30 years, it's become, there's a lot of violence that's there. And it's because of Muslim immigrants. They don't adapt.

Well, you know, the Europeans are now regretting it. Yeah, I know. Yep, I know. Because they don't understand Islam. Islam is not just a religion you think about like Christians do.

Hey, you know, particularly state-run Christian religions in Europe. To them, Muslims, it's a lifestyle. It is eternity. It's a law and a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle.

It's law. It's in their families. It's in how they drive. It's in what they eat. Constant.

Everything is governed by Islam. Everything. And so to move away from any part of it is to reject Islam. And so they can't do that. They have to gather in groups.

They have to find strength in their groups. And then what they do is they have lots of kids. England, mathematically, from what I understand, to verify this, is lost to Islam already. Even though it's not in control of everything, the breeding rate, the offspring rate, the Muslims are going to be the dominant political force within, I think, 50 or 60 years or something like that. It's really bad.

England a poor source because they rejected Christ for a long time Yeah that right Yep so it just bad Anyway but the thing is I know what we can do. I know how to answer Muslims. I know how to refute Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. I know how to equip Christians. I've been doing this for so long.

It's my passion. But complacency, how do you put fire in complacency with the Holy Spirit when they're lulled into capitalism and leaving alone. There's nothing wrong with capitalism. That's a biblical approach. The thing is that they are complacent because they're not under persecution.

That's why. It's common, though. Yeah, we're very comfortable. We're very comfortable in the country. Mark Zuckerberg just built a market...

What is that? Facebook facility, 500 acres on the other side of Columbus, Ohio.

Okay. All right. And so when you put in the Old Testament, AI was conquered by Joshua and the Israelites. Does history repeat itself? Possibly.

Well, there's a lot of... I want to talk about the actual facts of what our country's in. And that's the thing that concerns me, is why is it that the Christian churches that I'm aware of aren't going door to door? I know there are churches that do that. People are fearful.

Yes.

Well, they don't need to be. The pastors and the elders should be leading them. Here's an example. We're going to go out door to door, just pass out tracts, do it for a half hour. But the pastors are fearful of losing their congregants.

Maybe. That's one of the problems. Hey, look, we've got a break, so we're going to get going.

Okay, Rich, thanks for calling, buddy. I really appreciate it. Hey, folks, we have two open lines, 877-207. 877-2276. Be right back.

It's Matt Slick Live. Taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right, welcome back to the show.

So if you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. Let's get on with Jermaine from California. Jermaine, brother, welcome, man. You're on. Hey, Matt.

I wanted to ask about, I guess, I told the call screener about all worship, but I see a lot of, like, gangs, fraternities, and all these other people who are doing these horrible crimes, and you start to dig into it, and it looks like more ritualistic worship of something demonic. And I was just kind of wondering, does the Bible, I mean, you hear about Baal worship and societies being wiped out for this, but does it elaborate on what that is, or do we take it for granted, like, people just knew that in the past, like, exactly what those practices were?

Well, not sure what you're asking, but Baal worship was paganism with idols, ritual prostitution, sacrifice of the young. I won't say too much here because and varying mutilations and various stuff that that they did. And so God warned them, stop, they didn't. And then God had had them wiped out.

So is your question, is that happening today, this kind of thing or what? You know, yeah, I guess I should have clarified a little better.

So when I said just researching like the cartels and some of these gangs that do just extreme forms of wickedness, they they find altars and then they look at the numbers of people who have been slaughtered. And I'll be discreet because I know there might be young people listening, but just the numbers and the methods of of basically tortures in a way.

Some of these people are killed is beyond simple homicide. It's like there's a point to this and it seems ritualistic.

So I guess that's what I was more asking. Is this reminiscent of what God wiped out? Because I find certain people come out of the mafia. They mention when they're told a made man how they have these blood rituals, blood covenants, literal mock baptisms involving blood. And they have to swear on effigies and then they're burning, you know, saints.

And I'm like, wait a minute, this is beyond normal here. This sounds like a bunch of people are involved in some ritualistic stuff, and maybe the lower levels are not aware of it, but clearly someone is directing this.

Well, I can't say a lot of things that I'm familiar with over the air. but there are some exceedingly demonic manifestations in people who will do, I'm going to say this very carefully, who will do some pretty heinous, torturous things to people for ritualistic practices to their false gods. and this is Bohemian Grove some aspects of it groups that serve the evil one and different types of groups then there's subgroups that exist and I'm trying to be careful here but it's one of the reasons there are disappearances of Jung and other things. And so the stronger the demonic forces get, the larger the doors of demonic forces open, and it can perpetuate.

So, you know, I did an article, Signs of the End Times, and I have 23 things I found in Scripture. Presence of false Christs, false prophets, war, persecution of the faithful, Apostasy, that means a Christian church is going to go bad, which is one of the things I've been talking about this week so far. Lawlessness will increase. Love will go cold. Increase of selfishness, ungodliness, unholiness, mocking of Jesus, and a rise of spiritism.

Spiritism is contacting forces that are out there. I was in a room in Oculus, which is 3D rooms. I go to different places and I witness. And I witness everywhere I can. But at any rate, so I need to get a new Oculus, one of the new ones, because mine's getting old.

But I was in this room, and this guy was telling me about how he creates his own theology out of his preferences of what he desires in a new age type emphasis. And he has a family. And apparently he was doing nice things, but he was trying to make his own religion. And he was very articulate about how to do it and what truth really was. And I had to undermine him logically.

Say, well, that doesn't make sense because of this, and tried to point him to Jesus.

So that was just an example of the kind of spiritism, which has many facets that's alive and well today. And I could tell you other stories. There's another story I can tell you, but I've been talking a lot. Go ahead.

Okay, is this the kind of conversation that would be okay for the after show? We can talk more about it on the after show, particularly when it's not being recorded, than I can say things. But here's an example of something. Years ago, before I was married, I went to a Masonic lodge. I didn't go into it.

I wasn't participating. I was in an adjacent building. And, hey, look, a Masonic Lodge. I went over and just opened the door and walked in. What was really weird is for about two years at that time, I went to a lot of buildings, religious buildings, and just opened the door and walked in.

There'd be nobody there. It happened over and over and over again. I mean, strange. Like driving down the road and having an urge to stop at a particular Mormon ward. I still remember it.

Driving down, and something in me said, go in there. What? I pull off, and the first door I go to, it's open. And I go in. I'm the only one in the entire building.

And just things like this.

So I went into this Masonic Lodge. And I still remember it. A large room, all these chairs, and in the center area towards the front was a large podium kind of an area that was raised. that you'd step up into it. It might be six feet by five feet kind of size.

You step into it, and it had a little kind of an entrance and a chair or two in there. And there was a platform inside of it that you'd have books open, that you'd face the people that you'd talk about. You can imagine that setup.

So I looked at these books, and I fanned through the books for a bit, and I found two interesting statements. Jesus is not God, and Christians are a problem. We need to get rid of them. and I read it with my own eyes.

So this was back basically 40-some-odd years ago, and I thought about taking both of those books, but that would have been theft, so I couldn't have done it, because it was documented. I saw it with my own eyes.

Now, if you've ever heard of Bohemian Grove, I'll just say generically there's some really bad stuff associated with that. There's some really bad stuff associated with Hollywood in the upper echelons. I've talked to two people who worked in Hollywood and knew people, like one person knew. I wouldn't even say the names in case it gets out. But if I said the name of who this person knew, you'd recognize, are you kidding me, that person?

One of the top 20 people in the world as actors. And two people I talked to who worked in that industry told me to my face, straight up, that the stuff that goes on behind closed doors in those upper restaurants of the Hollywood elite is just horrible. Horrible. It's all worship.

So hold on, buddy. We've got a break. We've got a break. And be right back, folks, after these messages. 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 germain are you still there? Oh, yes, I am. All right. So anyway, we've got a break right there, but you got any more comments? Want to add anything?

So I guess I actually live just a couple hours from the infamous 12 and some of the stories I've heard. You're muffled a little bit. Go ahead.

Okay, can you hear me better now? Yeah, okay, go ahead. Yep.

Okay, yeah, I live a couple of hours from the Bay Area from the infamous Grove And you know these stories have been out for so long that they not the saddest part is they not necessarily secret but a lot of people don seem to believe or care and when you hear you hear enough of this stuff it's a trend and i think it would be at least worthy of if not investigation at least prayer and i think that's where a lot of believers they that kind of, you know, I heard your frustrations earlier, and I concur with that, but a lot of believers need to really be praying against this stuff because these people are organized, and they're following their practices religiously. And you have a lot of American westernized Christians who are way too comfortable, and that's how these groups, you know, they're able to kind of gain power and kind of stay there because I truly believe if we were focused on praying and combating these things and there's spiritual warfare so warfare doesn't always have to be in a tank it could be on your knees in prayer and through the study of god's word because that's the only thing that shuts a lot of this stuff down you know and that's why you just you know you become the oddball but if you're an oddball for the lord it's okay you know don't don't try to conform to this world they don't like you anyway so right i wish more believers would would be willing to talk about this stuff and at least just organize some prayer against it yes um yeah you know i've talked about this so many times over the year and uh the risk is matt slick sounds like an arrogant jerk trying to judge everybody in the church and I can understand that problem but you know the truth is that I've seen what the power of the gospel can do in my life and the lives of others and pastors I've been doing research on this what does it mean to equip the body of Christ what does it mean to do that in fact I've been researching it and I'm going to write an article on it and I'm going to write an article on the apostasy of 2 Thessalonians 2 and then an article on what can we do to fix it. And so complacency is the problem in the Christian church. And it's not bad to have a comfortable country to live in and have air conditioning and GPS cars and stuff. It's all good stuff, but we just get accustomed to it.

and people, our neighbors will be going to hell. And, you know, as I've said at some seminars, I've said, how many of you, let me see your hands. I'm not going to call on you, just how many have, you know, had Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses knock on your door? You know, 95% of the hands will go up. And I'll say, yeah, that's right.

And you know they're not Christian, right? And is that the case? You know, heads will nod all over the place, I'll say. And so you just say, you're not interested, right? And they go, yeah, that's right.

Okay, good.

Now let me rephrase that. How many of you have done this? The Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons come to your door and you say to them, excuse me, I know you're preaching a false god and a false gospel. I'm busy. Could you go to my neighbor?

Because that's essentially what's happening. And a lot of times Christians think that they have done their job by just saying no thank you. They close the door and go back into doing whatever they're doing. And these false teachers go to the next door. and I do not understand I don't understand how Christians can let that happen I don't get it you know they're preaching the false gospel false God and then they just go to their neighbors what I have done they don't come to my door anymore for some strange reason but what I'll do is I'll say no thank you Actually, I'll invite them in.

And once they realize, you know, I'm not going to join up and stuff, then they want to go, and they go to my neighbors. I can't stop them from that. But what I do is I go get in my car, and I just watch. Air-conditioned, nice, relaxed. And I make notes of what houses they go to and spend time at.

And I go back with literature. You know, it's just, it's not hard to do. I'm whining. I just see what the frustration is. I know that God, what he can do to wake us up is just under persecution.

That's what he'll do if he wants to wake us up. There's two ways, I say to people, there's two ways to get yourself right with God. One is voluntarily, the hardship now that you do with God as he works in you. Or the other one is involuntarily with the hardship that God puts you through to get you to come to him and trust him more.

So which one do you want it to be? And what happens is nothing. And I'd like to know if any pastors are listening. They call me up and just say, what are you doing to equip the body of Christ? It's not a judgment thing.

It's like, well, what are you doing? Give me some ideas. How are you doing things? Are you just preaching on a Sunday? Are you providing doctrine classes, evangelism classes, apologetics classes, marriage counseling classes, how to interpret the Bible classes, how to raise people up to teach Bible study classes to start them in your neighborhood.

There's so many things that can be done. And here I go reminiscing on my own whining. At least whining's biblical, I know that. Bible says take a little wine for your stomach, so I do that. Oh, he's gone.

I'm just talking to myself. Didn't even know it. Anyway, I was just rambling, thinking out loud. Let's get to Alan from Ohio. Alan, welcome.

You're on the air. Thank you. After listening to you engage with the previous callers, I'm thinking about the original question of what do you think about what can be done in church and the gathering of the true members of the body. You know, I think in these days and times we're living in now, we should be hearing about how to be prepared for all these false religions. and what we're up against and maybe reduce the recreational and entertainment where they're gathered at these buildings, wherever they're gathered, and preach the word to prepare and how to do all to stand and fight the good fight, keep the faith.

Right.

Well, what to do. You know, something interesting occurred when I was doing marriage counseling, when I was counseling couples. I did it for years and years. I haven't done hardly in a couple, three years now. And so I counseled 36 couples.

And when I counsel, it's two, three, a lot of noise in the background there. It's two, three, four hours at a time. and um are you there i'm hearing noises yes okay so yeah if there's a lot of noises coming back i always it distracts me i'm autistic but i always think of people on the freeway driving listening wondering what those clanks and those noises might be as it might be distracting i might want to be unsafe on the road but um one of the things i would do in in counseling is teach the doctrine of the Trinity, and I started with God. And believe it or not, and I can connect the dots this way, but a lot of times the marriages just got better because they understood what the reason was for the faith, what they were to do in relationship to God. Anyway, the point is this, that I believe that pastors need to teach the basics of the Christian faith and provide classes on a regular basis that does that, maybe on a year cycle, whatever they do, like the month of whatever, January is the basic doctrine.

And they work up a manual. And then the next month is learning what we've learned, how to witness to the Catholics, or the Catholics in the Orthodox, how to deal with the Mormons, how do we answer atheism, how do we answer evolution, and things like that, because we need to have that, and pastors need to do it. there needs to be a source that they can go to and that's trustworthy, where they could download free lessons and things like that. That's what needs to happen. Are you there?

There's a lot of noise, man. Are you done? I'm sitting here listening, yeah.

Okay. So anyway, the pastors need to be praying and asking God to send them and to use them. to equip the body. Because, and I can go, anyway, we've got a break, so let's move along and we'll talk about this some more afterwards. Thanks a lot for calling, Alex.

Good question, good issue. Hey folks, we have four phone lines if you want to call me, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. it's matt slick live taking your calls at 877-207-2276 here's matt slick all right welcome back to the show trying to think here should i continue on with the basic discussion i've been going through which probably is irritating and boring people but i feel it's necessary to talk about this kind of thing i'm hoping that uh people are motivated to study god's word and to risk the idea of picking up the cross daily and following after him and saying that they want to serve God and they want to just have a relationship with him in a, well, a stronger way, but to be used by him. And that could be in a lot of different ways.

It could be used, you know, raising kids is important and stuff. But as a whole, the Christian church needs to be be more evangelical. It needs to be more prepared. Ephesians 4, 11, and 12 says, and he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the working, excuse me, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service.

Some translations say the work of ministry to the building up of the body of Christ.

So different translations say different things, work of ministry, work of service, but the Greek there is from diakonios, which we get deacon, a servant.

So it's the work of ministry or the work of service. It refers to that labor that every believer is called to do in the Christian church and part of the Christian church's ministry and mission, commissioned by God. Because Jesus says, go out and make disciples of all nations. And this is what he said to do.

So, okay, well, we should be doing that.

Well what interesting is in Ephesians 4 this is before earlier in the chapter he says but to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good So, excuse me, I read the wrong verse. That's 1 Corinthians 12, 7. I'm going to go to Ephesians 4, 7. But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

So each one of us as Christians, we have gifts. each one of us his grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift each one of us and then now moving over to 1 Corinthians 12 7 here's a question I'm going to ask before I read this if the charismatic gifts have ceased for today then does that excuse us from operating in the giftings God has given us just a thought it says in 1 Corinthians 12 7-11 it says but to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good for to one is given the word of wisdom another the word of knowledge another faith the same spirit um another gift of healing another miracles another prophecy another distinguishing of spirits another various kinds of tongues and then interpretation of tongues but one and the same spirit works all these things distributing to each one individually as he wills now i can't help but wonder if the idea of, uh, cessationism that all these gifts are gone. Could it be used as an excuse to not move in the gifts that God has given us in the church and then go just sit in the church on Sundays and be babysat? I don't know. Just a thought I've got, but what we're called to do, what the pastors are called to do is build up the body of Christ, equip them for the work of service, the work of ministry.

That's what they're called to do. And when I was a pastor, that's what I did as well. and tried to get people to understand the word of God.

Now, I'm a little bit different in that I believe that they need to know some theology. I believe they do. I think it's necessary for all preaching. And that every now and then during the services, during the sermons, that when it's appropriate, a deeper theological perspective needs to be visited for a minute or two and to get into the theology so people can get a sense of what's going on. I also believe that churches should be offering, if possible, midweek studies where they can advance in theology.

Now, people think, no, you don't need theology. You just need Jesus. No, that's not true. To say that you don't need theology, you just need Jesus, is a theological position.

So it's self-refuting to say you don't need theology, you need Jesus. Theologically speaking, Jesus Christ is God in flesh, died on the cross, rose from the dead. You trust in him for your salvation. And that is theology. Everybody has it in the Christian church.

And too many excuses, in my opinion, have been made across denominations to not equip the body of Christ. This is what needs to be done. It needs to be done. It needs to be done. It does.

Let's get to Dan from North Carolina. Dan, welcome. You're on the air. hey hey matt um first of all i appreciate your show and thank you and god bless you for your service i've listened to you for many years never really called in but um my question is this sir respectfully you you know the in the and i'm driving i can't tell you in scripture but where the bible says where two or three are gathered in my name there i am also so my question to you is this. How do you feel about people who are at home who are unable to go to a Christian church, maybe because of sickness or whatever, but yet they tune into television on Sunday, and they do their church service in their living room, but yet at the same time, in comparison to going to a physical church where it might be much more spiritual, much more uplifting, but you're all alone there to where if you're doing it by television and i just wanted to get your sentiment or your thoughts on that yeah um normatively speaking people need to attend a local congregation normally okay but what do you do when uh you know something happens you can't drive or you're you just you're living on a fixed income and you literally can't afford gas and you had to get rid of your car you just have enough to live on these situations are real so then what do you to?

Well, turn on the TV. Find a good Sunday preacher and just fellowship the best you can with the Lord Jesus through the preaching, the teaching of the word. It's not a real church service, but it's better than nothing. And it's good. You know, I would say if you can't go to church, then do that.

Just don't listen to Kenneth Copeland. Don't listen to Joyce Meyer, false teachers, you know, or Joel Osteen. You know, there's a lot of charlatans out there, people who don't teach good biblical theology, who teach heresy. I don't want to promote, I'm not trying to promote a television ministry, but I'll be honest with you, I listen to the SBN Network.

Okay. And, of course, Jimmy Swigert passed away. But to make a little story short, and I know a lot of people now that they tune in at 12 o'clock on the East Coast and they're actually joining that church more and more and I feel it well let me say it this way going to a church I think is more spiritual uplifting than sometimes doing it by TV but again like you said there's some people who are unable to due to sickness so that's why I just want to see how you felt right well I agree it's an important thing because sickness in fact my own wife lately she's been improving and I'm so thankful for everybody all your prayers but we went to church on Sunday she went to the church for the first time in months and months and months because she beforehand has not been able to sit in one chair because it's so painful and now she's able to endure it and sounds really a lot of words Anyway, so we went.

Well, I get it, you know. And so I didn't say, you have to go. I said, well, when you're ready and you're able to, let's do it. And we went.

So praise God. But, yeah, there are people who just can't go and turn on TV.

Now, stay away from Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, Joyce Meyer. Those are my recommendations. Yes, sir. But I don't know about Swagger Ministries. Maybe they've gotten better.

Who knows? You know, so I just... Right.

Yeah, who knows?

Well, unfortunately, you're not alone on Sunday, or you don't have... Like you said, you don't minister no more. You do the Christian apologetics. Right.

And, you know, in reference to your wife, and, you know, I tell you, this is what I do. When I feel sickness or when I feel pain, I just raise my hands, and I just start praising and worshiping the Lord from my heart, and I say, you know, I thank you, God, for the pain in this muscle in my leg or a pinched nerve or whatever it is, and I just start praising and worshiping God, and I literally will take my hand, and I'll just start tapping that area. You know, the Bible says praise the Lord in all things, both good and bad, and when I do that, I find a lot of times he is my medicine. He makes the medicine work. But I was burdened for when you had talked originally about your wife, and I prayed for your wife, and I prayed for the current ministry, because it is a blessing and it is an inspiration.

And I'm not giving you glory. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I'm acknowledging your ministry, because you have really reached out to the general public, and you've made your stand, and I love that. And we don't have that in churches anymore. We don't have that like we used to have.

And I appreciate you, and God bless you for your stand and being affirmative in the Word. You know, and you always are a blessing to me. And I feel like there's a lot of people who don't call, but I'm sure they share that same sentiment, and they pray for you just like I do. But anyhow, I love you, brother, and God bless you, and thank you for taking my call. Sure, brother.

I really appreciate it. I appreciate the kind words as well.

So praise God. Sure, sure. Thank you. And thank you for controlling your callers, too, when they get a little bit carried away. Because we really want to hear.

Hey, hey, hey, I asked you, what is your question? Excuse me, sir. Can you put respectfully, can you just give me the question? Love you, man. God bless you.

God bless you. Thank you, sir. Bye-bye. God bless. You know what he just said, you know, referencing when I say, well, you got a question.

I can't tell you how many times people have referenced that very thing. That's one of the things, most common I've heard. Listen to your show, and they'll be talking. They'll say, and then look at somebody who just doesn't ask. You'll go, what's your question?

Three times. That's what I get the most comments about, which I get a kick out of. Let's get to Fred from Virginia. Fred, we've got about two minutes in the show. What's up, buddy?

Yeah, real quick. Thank you for taking my call. I really love listening to your show. I wanted to share my view on, you know, most churches don't disciple their people at any point, especially the new ones.

So anyway, I belong to a group which is called 2-7. It comes from Colossians 2-7, and they've been around for decades. It's been kind of a proven method of discipling people, and I just wanted to put that out there. You can look it up, and I love it. I've been a believer for years, and this is the first time I've ever really have been trained and equipped, because I believe that's the thing that is lacking, amongst other things.

So anyway, I just wanted to put that out there. And what's it called again? I want to check it out. What's it called?

Okay, it's by a group called the Navigators. Oh, Navigators. Yeah, they're a good group. Uh-huh. Yeah.

So, yeah, 2-7, a lot of people just, they don't really want to do it because they don't want to be discipled, you know. And I think when it comes down to it, I think Charles Spurgeon said if you're not discipling somebody, you're not a disciple. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever heard that or not. No, I haven't heard it, but it makes perfect.

Yeah, I agree with it. Yeah, I agree with it. But here's the thing. I don't want to guilt with people. We've got just a few seconds on the show here.

But what about a mom just staying home and raising kids? Is that discipling? Absolutely, yes, it is.

So there's different ways we can minister in the body of Christ. Oh, for sure. Yeah, that's right. I'm not saying you weren't saying that, but I'm just throwing it out. Yeah, right.

But just think about it. Who, most of all, would you want to disciple?

Well, your own children, you know, let alone anybody else.

So, yeah. I'm discipling my kids. late in life. God bless. I appreciate it.

Sorry, we're just out of time. There's a hard break. Thanks, man. God bless. Thanks for calling, Fred.

Hey, folks. We're out of time, and the Lord bless you by His grace. Back on there tomorrow. We'll talk to you then. Have a good evening.

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