Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live. Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at Carm.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers. Taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Uh Hey everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slicker, listen to Matt Slick Live, and today's date is, let's see, February 17th. twenty twenty six. I was off Friday and Monday.

Because I had a really bad head cold, chest cold, I guess you could say. My voice is still deeper than normal, but I'm coming out of it.

So, sorry about that, but that's just what happens sometimes. And as usual, if you want to give me a call, the number. This is 8772-072276. I want to hear from you. Give me a call.

Alright, now I've got a couple of things I want to talk about. Several things, actually.

So uh I married a couple Um years ago. And uh Mm-hmm. Jake and Rachel. I know they won't mind me giving their names all out. And the reason I'm bringing them up is I'm asking for prayers for their little boy.

Uh Zach. And um Long story short, five weeks ago, uh She gave birth and Zach's in uh pediatric ICU. And his name's Zach, Little Zach, and I was there today. And uh they've had to do all kinds of stuff to Um Keep them going. And it's gonna it's working.

And uh he's uh he's doing pretty well. And they were really concerned there for a while.

Some of the stuff that they wrote uh in a general text There were a group of us on the phone. was very concerned. And um all I can say is by God's grace. That are doing well. And uh well enough, they're not out of ICU yet.

So if you would uh be so kind as dismember Zach. And uh And and that's yeah. For his healing.

Now, on the way out of the hospital, I was in the elevator with a woman. And I you know I'm Curious how people are there. And I said, How you doing? And Long story short, uh she was there uh for her daughter, uh like I think uh fifteen months. old range.

has leukemia. And I said, you know, I said, I'm going to do a radio show today. I'm going to have everybody pray for you. And her name was Melania. That's right, Melania, the little girl, and she was very thankful.

And um When I said I'll have them pray, long story short, she's a Roman Catholic, and I smile and I said, Well, we could talk about that, but I'll tell you what, I'm going to have my audience just pray and bring it up.

So we have two things to talk about. or two things to pray about. That is uh little Zach in ICU. and also uh Melania, uh who is b battling leukemia. See, there you go.

All right. You know, like to do that and lift things up and people up. All right. Let's get to Jermaine from California. Jermaine, welcome, brother.

You're on the air. Hey Matt, um Yeah, I had a question about believers who have, you know, they're they're done with their former lifestyle, they've repented, but They still struggle. Yeah. And in particular, you know, it could be anything but One thing that always intrigued me was people who have come out of uh a homosexual lifestyle But they may still have desire, but they're denying that desire. I don't see a problem as far as like people who say, hey, I may have proclivities this way, but I'm not going there.

Just you know, because of what God's done for me. Is there a problem with that? Because I've heard some others say that Well, if they're still having a desire, they're still sinning and to me, it just seems a little overly harsh when you're not walking in someone else's shoes.

So I just kind of wanted to hear what you have to say about that. Yeah, I I totally agree. Um Totally agree with you. There are people who will struggle, they'll become saved, and they'll struggle with different things. People can struggle with narcissism.

with selfishness, with anger, with pride. And uh Well they can struggle with with homosexual tendencies.

So You know, we struggle against our sin, and one of the The things about being a Christian is the demonstration of the war that we have against our own flesh and the desires of our flesh.

So, if someone were to say to me they still have those tendencies, you know, homosexuality, But no, it's wrong, and they're they're fighting it. I say, Well, okay, praise God. You know, I have my tendencies, you have yours that we're still struggling with.

So I would say good. Praise God. And keep, you know, support them as they struggle. It's what we do as Christians. Yep.

Okay.

Well, just um a quick follow up, because I I know a lot of people didn't focus on that particular area or Sim because it's kind of repulsive to a lot of folks. But I've even known some gentlemen to even go so far as to just completely stay celibate. And uh you know, which is no different from anyone else who it's trying to d deny their flesh, but You know, I've seen people just say some of the meanest things and them, you know. It just perplexes me a little bit because truth be told, I stay away from certain things in certain areas that I know place being like. I do not want to stare at scamming class women clad women 'cause I'm straight.

And eventually it might look good, and I don't want those thoughts in my head.

So I'm like, no, I don't need to. not be gazing or looking at anything So I don't see any difference in. and what idol might struggle with. And Right. versus someone else who's come out at Lifestyle.

And just for me, the struggle at all means that That's the spirit working in them, the fact that they're able to recognize this is wrong and I'm just not going to indulge into it. Absolutely, brother. I'm with yo. We struggle and that's one of the signs of being saved, and I'm with you. And incidentally, I know how to cure the idea of looking at women and stuff like that.

It's easy. You just carry a mirror, and when that happens, you look at yourself in the mirror, it'll shock you right out of it. Mm-hmm. It's a j joke. Yeah, that mirror crack a few a thousand times with In the what?

Okay.

Hehehehe Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, try to put a little levity into it. That's correct. You know, just bring a mirror and go, you know, you're done.

You're done for a while. It's shockers. But um Yeah. It's how it is. And um You know, someone it seems to me that someone who points a finger at others like with a homosexual issue and says, oh, you can't have it, even have those desires, it sounds to me like they're struggling with their own judgmentalism and they're not not being forgiving as Christ would.

We're repentant. I knew a guy who was homosexual and he had become a Christian, and he said he still struggled with those same-sex attractions. And I said, Well, okay, how do you handle that? And he says, I just judge it as sin. and give it to the Lord Jesus and move ahead.

And he says I've been doing this for a few years now like that. And it's getting better. That's okay. You know, we all have our things. Let's not look down our noses at others who are struggling.

Yeah. Okay.

Okay.

Yes, sounds good. I appreciate the insight in that. Yeah. Well, good for you, brother. Good for you, Jermaine.

All right. Okay.

You know, Jermaine's, he's got good stuff. You know, he's got a good head on his shoulders. He asks good questions. Really appreciate that guy. All right, so I just want to say that let's see, I think it was Thursday.

In, I guess, I have to say it again, I don't think it's in there, but Steve in Rumble gave a $10 rant. I want to say thanks about that, but I got sick Friday. Not sick, but my voice was shocked. Friday and Monday.

So, anyways, what happens? Hey, let's get to Vicki from Virginia. Vicki, welcome. You're on the air. 'Kay.

Hi, Matt. How you doing? Doing all right, except for a chest hold on her net. Doing fine. I know, we're just getting over it ourselves.

My question was on a verse we were reading this morning, my husband and I, in 1 Corinthians. 11. I think it was verse 10, but I'm not for sure. It's about But when um that the women have ha need power on their head because of the angels. And I wonder if you could expound on that.

Yeah, well I don't know what it means. Seriously, I've been asked that question many times because of the angels.

Now, Paul doesn't tell us what he means by it.

So, what we can do is we can offer ideas. The angels fell, some fell, and some remained in submission to God. Is it something related to both or either? Or is it related to the idea of angels being those who are the guardians, who help in the issue of worship? And they exemplify submission and things like that.

So there's theories we could get into about that. But what the head coverings was back in that time was a public display of a woman being under the authority, protection, and covering of her husband. And then to remove that was a public sign of rebellion against the family.

Okay.

Okay.

Second. Right. Go ahead. All right. Um Do you feel that women today in the church should have a head covering?

I mean, we're we're not Catholic or anything, but Since I mean, Paul was writing to believers In the New Testament. Yes. Or at least in the context of the text. He was writing in a context, too. And the head coverings, you know, it says it's a shame if you don't have your head covered.

Well, is that how Adam and Eve were in the garden?

Well, was she made there with a head covering?

Well, nothing says she was, nothing says she wasn't, but we really can't say, well, yeah, she had a head covering. No, we can't. It just seems to be a very important cultural norm. And so, if I were to go to another country and they had certain cultural norms, I'm not going to violate those, as long as they're not anti-Christian or anything. I'm not going to violate them.

There's no need to do that. And this is the idea: we don't have to, women don't have to wear those head coverings now. If they do, I think it's awesome. I think it's attractive myself. But if they want to, great.

If they don't, that's fine too.

Okay.

Okay.

All right. Well, thanks for your time. I hope you feel better.

Well, thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Okay.

Bye-bye.

Sounds good.

Okay.

Bye. All right, well, we have nobody waiting right now. If you want to give me a call, it is easy. All you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. Um.

So Here's something else I plan on doing. I uh I've been collecting information for years on uh varying groups it's And I have outlines, maybe 20 or 30 outlines of material, like my outlines on Roman Catholicism, over 260 pages. On Eastern Orthodoxy is over 200 pages, things like that. What I'm doing is converting some of the sections of my documents. into uh web pages.

Excuse me.

So, what I'm going to do is today, the plan is to do it today in front of the radio show. I'm going to release One or two articles dealing with the Eastern Orthodox view of Mary, and I'm also working on the one on salvation or the issue of their false gospel. Because it's, I'm just going to say it again: Eastern Orthodoxy is not Christian. It's a false religion, false apostate Christian. Christian-ish was apostate.

And what I'm going to do. Is put the articles up, and you'll be able to see them on the homepage, or go into the Eastern Orthodox area on the create a new subsection on documentation. With quotes from their own sources. And then, what I want to do is go into varying chat rooms, open up rooms with the headings, like, for example, the Eastern Orthodox View of Mary. And send them to the URL and say let's go over the quotes let's go over what this is So I was doing this, reading some stuff to some Eastern Orthodox people about Mary before.

And it made him quite uncomfortable.

Some of the things the EO church says about Mary, and I mean. rightfully so, very uncomfortable because they're just basically idolatrous. And when I get back from the break, I'll tell you what else. to be working on as a research project. Be right back after these messages.

We have four open lines. If you want to give me a call, the number is 8772. 0722. Seven, six. right back.

It's Matt Slick Live, taking a call at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All Robert, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it is easy. All you're going to do.

is dial eight seven seven two zero seven two two. 7-6 and we've got people watching The show in Rumble. You can go to rumble.com forward slash match look live. You can also go to YouTube for, I just want to look for Matt's Look Live All One Word, and you can watch. It's not a big deal, but there you go.

So, um, okay, so I. Before the break, I mentioned that I'm going to be releasing some notes. And, um,. The reason I'm going to start Doing this kind of a thing is to go after the false church of Eastern Orthodoxy. And it is a false church.

I'm going to say it again, it's not Christian. It has a false gospel, a false priesthood, it promotes idolatry. And I've said it a thousand times. I'll say it again. And this is not true of Christian Christianity.

The Eastern Orthodox don't like what I say, of course, and then they defend their false doctrines and things like that.

Okay.

Well anyway, so One of the things that uh I'm going to do is do an analysis of the emperor worship of ancient Rome.

Now the reason this is important is because Rome at the time of Christ, was still very powerful. and existed for about three, four hundred years after that. until it fell. And the early church did not practice this idolatrous stuff of making idols. and icons and uh statues and bow bowing down to them.

and venerating them. as they want to call it.

Well I've got some information. And I haven't I'm gonna release it yet, but uh I'm going to be writing on the practices. that are described of emperor worship from Pliny the Younger Life of Caligula and Tertullian. These are ancient writers and stuff like that. And, um In there I'm finding, let's just say, discovering, let's just say, um quotes where the idea Of of Roman emperor worship was to have an image.

of the Emperor, and you had to bow down before it. and venerate it. And if you didn't they would uh discipline you and or execute you. Yeah. One of the tests that the Romans had To see if the Christians would fall into what's called Caesaropapism.

which is emperor worship. to see if they would acknowledged that the emperor was divine. They would bring out a statue, an image of the emperor, and ask the Christian people. bow down to it. But down in front of it.

And Christians wouldn't do it. And so that's how they would find out they're not they're Christians. And then they would deal with them very harshly.

So, the issue here is the early church wouldn't even bow down to these things. But what does the Roman Catholic and East Orthodox Church do? They bowed down to him. Images of Mary and the saints. They bow down to them.

So, what I'm going to be doing is going through and documenting this as much as I can. And I've already got some interesting information. And hopefully it'll come together well. as I do research looking for further uh s uh site now i have I have on my computer, I have a humongous file. Of early church fathers.

I have it in different formats, and so I can do some exhaustive searching. The the tough part is finding the key words. like bow down or Bow before an image, you look for phrases like that, or bow near the word image, or whatever it is, and you search through these entire uh corpus of church fathers and stuff, and you might get. you know, a hundred listings and you gotta read through them all. That's what I have to do.

And I'll sit there and go, okay, click on this link. It goes into that. I got to read before and after the context, find out where it is, and see what's going on. And most of the time, it's not what I need. But it takes a lot of research.

So, anyway, that's what I'm thinking about doing. I don't mind doing that kind of research. It's just time-consuming. But I've got some interesting stuff. becoming aware of, let's just say.

And it looks like the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic positions of Bowing before images and saying, Well, the image isn't really Mary, it's just helping us. uh as a focus point. Which is apparently the same thing you would do with the emperor worship. The same thing. And so we'll see.

It all depends on the quotes I find. And if it doesn't support my view, then I'll just abandon that project. But I won't know until I've really gotten down into it, and that's something I'll be starting tonight or tomorrow, probably tomorrow. I've got some information that's leading me. and and where to go.

And uh give me ideas and stuff like that. There you go. All right. So how about that? Is that interesting to you?

It is to me. Just like um researching on when I wrote articles on annihilationism. And uh I wrote 182 articles. And most of them were just word studies, and I'm kind of a nerd, so I enjoyed the idea of looking up a particular word in. in every single verse that occurs in the Bible.

and then converting it I did all this stuff. I would convert it to Excel uh spreadsheet. I'd copy it into an HTML table. and then clean up the the table, clean up the uh the HTML. Hypertext markup language.

That's what web pages are made of. And so I would clean it up, and then I would go in and categorize each. word for whatever the context was.

So I learned a lot. And one of the things I learned, for example, doing this. I learned something. critical About annihilationism that refutes it. It stops it.

It's done. Annihilationism is now annihilated. And what is that? It's simple. Whenever the Bible talks about someone experiencing punishment, that's exactly correct.

It is that they experience it. Punishment is not something they don't experience, it's something they experience. There's lots of verses. where people experience a period of time of punishment and then the punishment ends. And the person continues.

So here's the point. In In annihilationism, for example, let me go to a verse. And uh I'm gonna Two. Matthew 25, 46, right? And it says here, These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Now eternal life means you're always alive. And they're there. With the Lord, and eternal punishment, they will say, is non-existence. Eternal punishment means you don't exist, that's how you're p being punished. by non-existing.

Hmm. And how does non-existence How's that punishment? You're not existing. You're not experiencing anything. It's just nothing.

And think about this. condition One, two, and three. Condition one You don't exist. Condition two, you're born, you have a life, you exist. Condition three, You don't exist because you're annihilated.

Condition 1 and 3 are identical. then how come they're not both punishments? Doesn't make any sense. It's a way to easily prove the annihilationism is false. We write back out these messages, please.

Stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live, taking a call at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276.

All right, let's get to Gary from Utah. Gary, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt, how you doing?

Well, except for a cough, I'm doing fine. What do you got, buddy? Oh, yeah. I can tell your voice there. I've called you before many times.

I'm just getting ready to move out the door here in about maybe ten minutes, give or take. But I wanted to get your input. I know exactly what you said before about female pastors, and I agree with you because it's biblical what you're saying. Totally in agreement. But here's my situation.

The last two churches that I went to over here, one's in Leighton, one's in South Ogden, even though they preach the truth otherwise, they do have some female pastors on their staff.

Now, they're not the head pastors, they don't do the message, but they come out after the worship service and each both services, both churches, I should say, and they'll say, I'm one of the pastors here. And I'm just kind of cringing, going, Oh, no. Like, I don't do it out loud. I'm just thinking myself.

Well, I haven't been back since, and I'm going, what's the deal with that? Yeah, I would be glad to drive down to Ogden. and talk to them about it.

Okay, it'd only take me about four hours to drive from here. I'd be glad. I'd be I hope they're listening. I know their show I believe the show is into Ogden as well. And okay, fine.

Set it up. Let's go. But they're not going to do it.

Okay, they're not going to do that. They're not going to do it. I'm going to see if I can ask them eventually. It's in the South House in Disney City. Just before you hit like in the back road, have you you know South Ogden pretty well, probably?

No, no, no, no, I've driven through it many times and and and I I've spoken at a church in Ogden and and gone through Layton on the way to Sandy, but uh because the the one in South Ogden is um Washington Washington Heights Baptist Church.

Okay.

And yeah, they certainly have been past the one in Layton. Right, not even on the staff, right? Got any other stuff. And here's the reason why. If you have a woman who's called a pastor on a staff thing, and she's not preaching, but she's called pastor, someone comes in who doesn't know the word of God.

Who's trusting that the people who are teaching them are teaching the word of God faithfully, and then they're not. Because they're having women pastors, but they don't know that. They think, oh, okay, well, it's a woman pastor, she's not really doing anything. And then they move to another church where they have a woman pastor.

Well, that's okay. Because at the previous church he had a pastor.

So Yeah, it just supports heresy, and uh those churches need to repent, the pastors need to repent. They need to, the elders need to repent of their false teachings, and they need to come to a proper understanding of biblical theology. And if they're listening, or any person are listening to these churches, and you mentioned one in Layton, I'll be glad. To come on down and have a just a slash discussion debate on it and go through the scriptures and. Try and get them to believe what the Bible actually says in this regard.

Yeah, that one little crank button is Exactly, I'm with you. That one in South August, Washington Heights Baptist, and then the one in Layton is Layton Christian Center, Christian Life Center. And my head pastor is Pastor Crowder. He's pretty well known. Um They're a good church, otherwise, but those two things there really, really didn't set well with me.

And I haven't been back there since. But I'm just like, how can these people do this? Why do they disobey God? I don't understand that. I mean not perfect, but I'm just saying.

Well, they're not believing what the Word of God says in this area. And I know this topic very well. And for over 20 years doing radio, I've regularly offered when a topic comes up, I say, look, I'll fly out to your church, drive down to your church, and at my expense, and we'll have a debate. At your church. Does the Bible support women, pastors, and elders?

Real simple. And not a single instance has a debate ever been set up. No one's ever accepted that challenge. Why is that? I think they know the downside.

Here's what I'm thinking too. If I'm going to try to ask them or whatever, maybe I have to ask one of the church offices there and say, Hey, you know, kind of go about it and just be bold and trust God and just say, Hey, I've got a radio station I listened to. There's this guy, his name's Matt Slick. He knows a lot about the Bible. He's done this for many years.

And maybe see, you know, try to get to the point and see if they'll be willing to be able to be open to such a healthy debate and be open. I would think that they hopefully would be. Good off. Hopefully, you know, the Bible says in 1 Peter 3:15, that you're commanded to give an answer for the reason of the faith that lies within you, yet with gentleness and reverence.

So they're obligated, you know, if someone comes in within reason, you know. I mean, you can't do it every individual, you know, all the time. But this is a serious issue, particularly when the Bible speaks against it. And they're doing it. And so, this is the kind of thing that needs to be addressed.

You know, I would do that. Let me tell you, I've met many people who hold this position, and I've been met with hostility many times. From those who hold it. And when I confront them with the word of God, they either get upset or they just deny what it says and say, That's just your interpretation. Oh, right.

Oh, yeah. Just your interpretation. That's such a weak argument. I hate when people say that, interpretation. And I'm like, that's how cults start.

You don't want that interpretation thing. It's as it's written. It's not hard to understand. You know, and that reminds me when they say that to me, I say, No, I don't think I'm particularly good looking or anything. Why would you say that?

And they they look at me like, What? And I go, and they'll say, well, that's what you said. And they go, No, I didn't say that There you go again, you just said it again See, I'm just interpreting whatever people say the way I want. It's not clumsy. It's not.

I'm trying to illustrate the idea that words mean what they mean, and you can actually understand what God says in them.

Okay.

It's okay. It's not an issue. It's their interpretation. They're hiding behind the idea of ambiguity.

So that they can justify their false teaching. And 2 Thessalonians 2 talks about the apostasy that's coming. One of the apostasies of the Protestant church is women, pastors, and elders. You're so right about that. I've been in agreement with that for a long time because, not because Matt says it, but because the Bible says it.

The Bible says it. And so. I see that and I look at it. I mean, you've even told us yourself. Say, like, don't just take my word for it.

Look it up for yourself. Here it is. This is the verse. This is the chapter. There you go.

It's not just because I'm saying it. You know? That's right. Don't trust a guy in a radio name, Slick. Go look up the word of God.

And by the way, if anybody wants to, I mean, I'm in the Boise, Idaho area, and I can drive down to Utah. I've done it many times. I have friends down there. And I'll come down. If a church wants me to do a seminar on this issue, and I'll teach on it politely, lovingly with the scripture, go into the, it's based out of the doctrine of the Trinity, believe it or not, and go in.

I'll explain it. And go through it. Mm-hmm. If they want. Very true.

That's right. That's true. I'll see if they can be open to set it up. But I just was going to leave you with that. What I'll do is I'll keep them in prayer.

I mean, hopefully they'll turn their weight because I don't know how God will handle it, but I would assume He'll correct them. I don't know if it's a punishment or what have you, but I'm sure God will correct it, you know. God has his ways, but he also lets people have their heresies. And in my studies, 80% of the denominations and churches that adopt women pastors within two generations are pro-homosexual. Yep, I've heard that before.

I've heard that. And real quick, before we go, because I got to get out the door here, but I was going to say, I know what you said last time when you pointed out this very subject, and you were saying, hey, and just for anybody out there, I know about Tleilith, I know about Esther, I know about all the other female ones in the Bible and what Paul said in that. And they just get scripture wrong, it's what it is. Yeah. Not a problem.

And I can do that too. You're welcome.

Alright, buddy.

Okay.

Appreciate you.

Okay.

Thanks, you two. All right. Hey, folks, yeah, it is a serious issue. People don't understand it's a serious issue. It's not just interpretation.

Paul says, I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man in the church, but to remain silent. For Adam was first created. He ties you into the created order. It's not just a culture. Richard from Michigan.

Man, you get a lot of background noise there. No background noise, Matt. How are you? Boy, now the background noise just stopped. I'm okay hanging in there, man.

What do you got? Um Question. Uh the Bible says that um I forget what um Part of the Bible says that um Adulterers, swindlers, homosexuals, all The above are not permitted in heaven. That's right. Can you explain if they repent, if they do an act of that, or is that living that life?

Um I I don't understand. And drunkards, you know, that's included. Right. Do you not know this is Romans 6? I mean, 1 Corinthians 6:9.

Do you not know that the unrighteous? will not inherit the kingdom of God. The unrighteous are those outside of Christ.

Okay.

They will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, covetous drunkards, or vilers, swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So, um. It's just those who practice those things and lead in those, live in those things. Because it goes on and he continues, it says, Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Spirit of our God.

Okay.

I understand that.

Okay, so, in other words, If um If you turn away from uh w any of them sins and repent and try to live a God fearing life and uh And being a Christian. Um it's You're not in doing it daily. And you ask for forgiveness, and your sins are forgiven. And thank you, Matt. And you have a good night, and God bless you.

You too, God bless.

Alright.

Well, folks, if you want to give me a call, then Berg, we have Wide Open Lines, 877-207. 2276. We're right back. Please give me a call. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. Let's get on here with Brittany. Brittany from Ohio. Brittany, welcome.

You're on here. Hi, thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to follow up with the previous caller. in uh first Corinthians um six nine through ten and And my question is, is that my husband was saved in 2015. And things were going really good up until COVID hit, and we've had some things that have just transpired in our life, and he has.

return to alcohol, he says. A daily drinker, um he he identifies as an alcoholic and does not want to turn from that and and I struggle a lot with it. Um I'm very active in my Church, as far as support and everything, and I'm not one to be abused or anything like that. physically But I worry a lot about his salvation. And this was a scripture that that I kind of questioned.

And I just kind of wanted to get your Your thoughts on that when somebody has been saved or walked with the Lord and then they turn away?

Well, let me ask you, is he attending church at all? He does. He goes to church with me every Sunday.

Okay.

Does he profess Christ as Lord? Yeah. Okay.

Alright, well not having talked to him, but only hearing what you're saying. We have to or I will conclude That he's still a Christian. That you can't lose your salvation, but that he is a Christian. Mm.

Now the question then becomes, what about this? Because the Bible says do not get drunk with wine, don't do that.

So he's in disobedience.

Now, God's patience, a lot of times, is such that it leads us to repentance. And. That's uh in Philippians two, it talks about that.

So There's a lot of things we could talk about. And because it's personal over the air, I can only speak in generalities, usually, I'll ask lots of questions. But um you need to be praying for him. With people in the church and/or friends for his deliverance. that he would Okay, yeah.

And if you If you, as a wife, harp on him about this, uh it doesn't tend to accomplish anything. Right. Someone else can say it, but not you. You know, that's how it is with married couples.

Okay.

And so your job then is to Live in a godly Christian wife manner. of Respect. And submission. to the Lord and to Him in those areas that you're able to do that. not in support of alcoholism at all.

He needs to be able to lower the guard. Generally speaking, when people are alcoholics, They are either physically addicted and/or they're burying something, dealing with something, they're self-medicating. and so because there's probably something of the latter going on, Then He doesn't, let me put it this way. And I don't know, I'm not accusing you of anything at all, but sometimes in relationships, you know, when either it could be husband or wife, it doesn't matter. They might point the finger and say, You got to stop this.

And so the spouse will put up a wall, an emotional wall. You know, put up with the this, I know, but put up a wall. If you, as an example, are just going, look, I'm going to support you, I love you, the wall comes down. It may take a bit, but it'll come down. and he would have less energy For that, you'll have more energy now to dealing with other issues.

And it's a real subtle thing. But if he can start seeing more and more of your godliness, and your your humility before Christ. We men we have thick skulls. and hard hearts.

Okay.

And sometimes what breaks it is gentleness. Because we like, we're strong, and we want to protect, we want to protect the gentle. Protect the weak. You know, generally speaking, okay. And if you become gentle and weak before him, not in a childish way.

but in a godly rife way. It will help him. to understand his position. as a Christian man. to be the provider protector.

As he sees that, and that the wall comes down against you.

So, I'm not saying there is one. I don't know. It's just general stuff. Yeah. Then he won't be fighting you.

He can then turn to self-examination instead of having to, I'm not going to listen to you, I'm not going to listen to you, and then that doesn't happen anymore. He's gonna have to listen to the Spirit of God. This kind of idea I'm talking about. And you need to talk to the elders of your church about this as well. And it needs to be done with great respect.

Now, a man like that might say, many people might say, well, he's not worthy of respect.

Well, you're not worthy of love. Yeah. Yeah. We're called to respect women are called to respect their husbands. Men are called to.

Love their wives, whether they are worthy of being loved or not, behaving like it or not, or being respect to be respected, is earning it or not. When you start doing that, men have a tendency. to rise up to the level of expectation. You don't say it by words. You demonstrate it by your submission and your humility before him, and it won't be easy.

You're going to need some help. And uh he's gonna blow it, okay? And what men tend to do If a woman's browbeating a guy, he tends to withdraw. Because of it. If she's saying he's great and he's that, he tends to puff out his chest and then he's ready to fight the bear for you.

It is kind of a thing. And so tap into that. of how God has made us. And you know, he's he works just like that. And he's masking it with alcohol.

But if the truth of who he is as a Christian man can be fed. And strengthened, it can break through the issue of his alcoholism. And then, when he comes to you, and says to you, I want to talk to you about something, or it kind of comes up that it wants to talk about this whole problem, an issue. Don't say I told you so. Don't nod like, oh, I've been saying as well, don't do that at all.

You just thank you and And you say, you know, you're just so grateful. for who he is as a as a man. and see what's going on. Let him Open up and then tell you, and when he does. You have to be gentle.

Because when a man opens up his heart to his wife... He is becoming very vulnerable, and a lot of women have trounced it, and never again will they open up and remember it.

Now, if you have done that and trounced it, then in your areas of repentance, you make it clear that you're repenting and confessing. But you're not responsible for his sin. You're not responsible for his repentance. You're responsible for your position with God in relationship with him. And so these are generic.

Okay.

Yes, yeah. And I appreciate that. I that that really hit on his last question and I just I thought it was worth giving it giving a call and following up a little bit on it.

So I really appreciate it. Yeah, and you know, I've done a lot of marriage counseling over the years with couples, and um. Out of thirty six couples I keep count. Thirty. 33.

It's been the men who've been the problem. Thirty-three out of thirty-six. Yeah, yeah. And I could really talk about why that is. I have some theories about it.

Uh I you know, generically speaking, I think men are under heavy attack. heavy attack. Yeah. it's either you gotta be Arnold Schwarzenegger or Kramer from Seinfeld, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It's hard. It's hard to be a man. Who doesn't get browbeat and put down and things like that? This is why respect for men is so critical.

So I have a friend, right? And I love the brother. He's a brother of mine. I mean, he's not a real brother, brother, but he's, you know, a friend who's a brother to Christ. And I love the guy.

And one of my favorite stories he told me was how he totally screwed up. His wife was right there with him up here in Idaho. He was going on his truck over a snow mound. And he He said to her, she says, you know, it's not going to work, you're not going to make it. He goes, duly noted.

And then he went ahead and did his thing, and he got stuck, just like she said. Yeah. And he's telling me the story, right with her sitting right there. And he just said, Yep, I blew it, I was wrong. And she was right.

You know, he just said it, he volunteered it. And I'm cracking up because. I would do the same thing. You know, yeah, I'll do it. Because we men like to boast in our failures as well as our successes.

And we men don't mock each other for a failure. We laugh because we know, yeah, I'd have done that too. And we laugh about it. Right. Yeah.

And so women don't get that. They need to understand. it's okay for men to fail, and when they do You're there with them. Not against them. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah.

I appreciate it a lot. Thank you so much. You're welcome so much. All right. Hope that helps.

Have a great night. All right. Okay.

Yeah, it does. It does. Thank you. Thank you. God bless you.

God bless you all. All right. Whew. Oh man, that is tough. It's just tough.

What I was giving was just general advice, and then particulars need to be worked out by. people that she knows.

Okay.

Let's get to let's see Joseph from Louisiana. Joseph, welcome. You're on the air. Hey Matt, how you doing? Doing all right.

We got about three minutes.

So what do you got, buddy? All right, well I Uh I'm looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 12. 'Kay. And it's it's all about Spiritual gifts, I believe. There's a lot of spiritual gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12, yes.

Uh-huh. Yeah. But it says down here in In verse twenty-eight of that chapter? Yeah. God has appointed in the church.

Uh Is that what it says in your Bible? I pointed in the church exactly. Yep.

Apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of healings, helps, administrations, and various kinds of tongues. That's what it says. And I still believe those are all for today. It's not the apostles and prophets 'cause that's the foundational stuff. Yeah.

Especially, did you say especially apostles and prophets? No, apostles were the ones who had seen Christ and were with him. And prophets of the Old Testament as a New Testament kind of prophet, and as long as we define that biblically, those who can offer prophecy. In 1 Corinthians 14, it's talked about, and that's okay, but not apostles, because Paul says, for example, in 1 Corinthians 8:1, or 9:1, he says, Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the risen Lord?

He defines his apostleship. by an association with directly with Christ. Modern people can't do that. unless Jesus appears to have in person commission them, which you know, that's another topic.

So, okay? Yeah, but it says God has appointed in the church.

So it looks like if you got a church, you should have apostles. No, it says, I just answered that about the apostles. I guess you didn't hear what I said. But the church is not a local individual building on a corner. The church as a whole.

Okay, there are teachers in the church, miracles, gifts of healing. Not every individual church building with people in it, you know, those people in there are going to do all this.

Okay.

Well, could could I call you back tomorrow, maybe? Go on with this. Sure, 'cause we're out of time. That's right. Okay.

All right. Thank you, Matt.

Okay.

Okay, we'll talk to you later. All right, folks, we're out of time. May the Lord bless you. Just want to let you know that we stay on the air by your support. Please consider supporting us.

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