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 carn.org. When you have questions about Bible documents, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers, taking a call and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slicker. Listen to Matt Slick Live. As usual, if you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-2077. Two two seven six.

And uh you can also send me an email info at carm.org info at carm.org and uh put in the subject line radio comment or radio question. We can get to them. Um This will let you know let's see, we're getting all of it getting towards the end of the year. I mean the end of the month, excuse me. Tomorrow's the last day of April.

Friday the is the first of May. Um We uh I'll be going on a Lord Welling. I mean, that's how the plan is going on a trip to uh Reformation, Protestant History, and Men Who Returned the Bible to our Christian Faith, GermanyEngland.com. If you're interested in checking it out, going with me and some others from people who are in Utah here in Idaho, also. And I think we've got others going as well.

We have a couple three open lines, I mean, open slots if you're interested in checking it out. And I'll be on the tour. Um And Eric Johnson, he runs them. He's really good. He's done many of them.

many I've done I've gone to I've done I think two or three with him And the longest one we did was 19 days. We went to Uh Turkey, Greece, and Italy. And then I've been to uh Turkey Twice. Let's see what they meant. and uh Israel twice, uh really good good trips, he does a great he does a good job really, really.

So anyway, if that sounds interesting, if it sounds uh inviting and you want to check it out. Check out stuff with Martin Luther, Augsburg Confession, Worms, uh Those who know what that is, British Museum at Westminster Abbey. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's house. in Berlin. That's where my ancestors are from, is from uh Germany, because my last name is Slick.

It comes from the German Schlichteen, and it just became shortened Schlichtin. That's how it was pronounced. And uh you know, who's gonna say that here in America? He's got Slick, and that's what it became. And then my uh my my dad's mom My dad's mom just put on us on a sub certificate.

Just call last name Slick. That's how we got it. That's how I got my name Slick.

So anyway, um We it's in October, mid-two weeks of October. on October 14th. We leave from New York. Oh, Kennedy Airport. Go to Munich.

Oh, we go to Munich first off. I've never been to Germany. I want to go. We're going to go see the Dachau concentration camp, which is something I've always wanted to do. Then we're going to go to Rotherburg, Roth Rothenburg.

And uh for at Augsburg, the Heidelberg, ooh, really. Heidelberg Catechism is a great Heidelberg, made a great catechism. And then Wurtburg Castle. Islabin Go to Berlin. and we fly to London, Westminster Abbey, Parliament.

Buckingham Palace. the king. Hey, how you doing, buddy? That'd be great. Let's see.

Uh Saint Paul's Cathedral And then Tower of London. Oh, British Museum optional. play optional play in London and dinner on your own. Oh, that'll be interesting. I'll probably go find some place to witness if I could go show the faith.

And they call up Eric. Yeah, I'm in jail. Anyway, so then we go to Oxford. No, we go to Stonehenge. Oh, yeah.

I definitely want to go see Stonehenge. And then Oxford, and uh we come home on the twenty sixth. Anyway, hey, if that sounds if that sounds good, if it sounds inviting, just uh check out Germany. What is it? Germanyengland.com.

Just GermanyEngland.com. It'll forward you to another website. Let's get on with Germaine from California. Germaine, welcome, brother. You're on here.

Hey, Madam. I guess my question for today is concerning marriage. What constitutes an actual. The mayor, since there's no ceremony elaboration. in scripture and people seem to be playful with definitions.

Yes, a uh a a marriage uh Actually, you know what? I just did a marriage three weeks ago, I think it was. And um let's see if I can find the the Let's see, do I have it easily accessible? No, I don't. But um No, it's okay.

So marriage is a covenant. It's where you voluntarily Commit. to be the spouse of another individual. And in that commitment, You are binding yourself by your word. and marriage is a an increase in privileges and a restriction of privileges at the same time.

It's an increase in privileges of sexual union, companionship, living together. It's an increase. The decrease is that you can't do that with others. And so it becomes restrictive in that sense and expansive in another. And so marriage is the commitment, a biblical marriage, is a commitment before God where the male, female, single male, single female are committing themselves to one another in the presence of God to hopefully the purpose is to glorify God, expand his kingdom, bring glory to him.

There's other other reasons for marriage that are included. For the decrease in temptation, you know, satisfaction and temptation doesn't occur, companionship. Things like that. And uh When I do a marriage ceremony and I go over it. with a couple like I did uh you know last month I I um I did marriage counseling, and then they wanted me to do the marriage ceremony.

And I did, and we went over the covenant document. There's a certain area that makes them married, and it's where they commit one to another. I promise to take you, you know, so-and-so, to be my lovely wife. And you make these statements. And we make additional statements to keep them repeat after me, and I'll give these short sentences that they say.

And they say them out loud. And when they commit to each other, when one is committed, it doesn't mean they're married yet. But when the second one says the same thing, then they're married at that point. And then the rest of it is formality, putting the ring on, which is a symbol of the covenant, etc., etc., and then that's it.

So biblical marriage in a in a in a hard in in a short f form.

Okay, because I saw a pastor actually. broadened his definition to include people who are basically having sexual relations outside of marriage saying that they kind of have their own coverage and is not Fornication because fornication was pouring in, you know, just a bunch of wicked stuff, but. Just as it was way out of line, I thought. Yeah, that marriage needs a celestial groin kick. He needs to repent from that false doctrine.

Just because you say, well, why do we need a piece of paper? And they reduce marriage to a piece of paper. It's a misrepresentation. The piece of paper isn't the issue. It's the covenant promise before God, before people, before others.

And uh The sexual union is to occur only within the marriage covenant.

So, someone who and any pastor who'd say, Well, you know, you love each other, you're doing this. Yeah, you might as well consider yourself married. No, that pastor just needs to be gently forehead pushed. You know, you take your palm into a guy's forehead, push him back out of the pulpit. Get them out and then um They'd say the congregation.

Disregard what he just said.

Now let's get to the Bible and talk about what biblical theology is.

So that's what needs to happen. You know, not necessarily literally, though I wouldn't mind. But you get my strength, my gist. Yes, although I I I think some literal Pushing out of the pulpit would be good for some folks, though. I will disagree to us.

You know, I have visualized myself. Yeah. This is a visual. There's a man up there at the pulpit, and he's preaching heresy. And uh he's getting into stuff something that just and people d the Hardiation doesn't know.

And and someone they're filming it and what they see coming out of the camera off the from the right, I always visualize this, is me flying horizontally. Fucking leg tackle. And then, you know, then I do martial arts, get them into a wrist lock, and there's a way to wrist lock somebody, and you can move them and throw them a few feet without hurting them. There's a way to do that. And so grab him into a wrist lock and then just bind him up and then throw him off the stage and then start preaching.

So, uh, you know uh That kind of stuff needs to happen. Oh man, I'm sorry. I love visuals like that. And for me, they're fun. Yeah, I I prefer the clothesline from the WWF days there.

I'll say Warrior or Hogan or somebody just. You blaspheme the Lord. You got to get here. Just clothesline right out of the pulpit. That's for me.

Yeah. You know, and you can just see that. And another one. Another one I used to say the radio is, I say, what you do is you get your partner, your partner in crime, and you get him to get behind the pastor and get on his hands and knees. And then what you do is you just push the pastor over him so he rolls away.

Go away.

So just stuff like that, at this point that need to happen a lot. in pulpus today. I take the pulpit very seriously. I really do. And I haven't preached in a long time.

And I miss it. I really miss it. I wish churches occasionally around here would just say, Man, could you come preach for us? I'd love to do that. But Um When I'm I'm sitting there in the congregation and and worship, I usually will sit uh near the front when I I always sit in the back of a church, but when I'm going to preach I usually try and find some place up front so that I could just do a quick walk up of the pulpit when I'm introduced.

And during that time Um I I don't want to worship too much. I'm prepping myself. I'm prepping myself before my Lord. Lord, give me the wisdom. Let me speak your truth.

Let me speak of what you want. And, you know, and then I'll sing, you know, worship a little. I don't. My voice is as bad. It's the same, my same voice here for singing is the same as talking.

Most people have those really nice voices and they're. Then they sing as different, you know. It's the same. And so I don't want to torture anybody. But when it's finally time for me to get up there, I've already confessed sins a hundred times, asked for God's blessing a hundred times, and then get up in the pulpit.

And then, even then, at the beginning of the sermon, I pray again publicly. And uh I just take the pulpit very seriously. And um I wish more people did. It scares me. But I love it.

It scares me because I'm up there preaching the word of God. to the people of God. That is critically important. Oh, it's so important And so I take it very seriously. Anyway, sorry, I'm rambling now.

Oh no, no, I I agree, I think curve.

Well Thank you, Matt. I appreciate you all. Uh, hopefully get to talk to you again tomorrow. Hey Blair. Appreciate it, Jermaine.

God bless.

Alright. All right. Oh, yeah. You know, I used to do pulpit supply in Southern California. What that meant was I would go to, I don't know, ten, twelve, fifteen churches in inside of a year, preaching in different churches.

And it was a real privilege to do that. My name just got around in all the circles, and I'd get phone calls. Hey, could you come preach for us in three weeks? Yeah, sure, you know, and if I wasn't already preaching someplace else. And it was really nice.

You know, I get to meet the people of God. And one of the things I learned. It was interesting. is to see the different kinds of people that God had called to himself. who had the same heart for Jesus.

And I preached in Korean churches, in Chinese churches, where their heritage was of those, but in English, of course. I preached in Baptist churches in Lutheran. Non-denominational, Presbyterian, Reformed, Baptist. I preached in Calvary Chapel, pulpits. And I could see how a lot of denominations Want you to preach and teach according to their denominational line.

And I always tell people when I, you know, they call me on the phone. I'd say, okay, are there any particulars you don't want me to touch on? And in that, for example, there was a church split, there was a major problem. I don't want to unnecessarily touch a s a sensitive nerve. I would never compromise the preaching of God's Word.

But I would preach and always preach with confidence before God's word and before God look to his people. What a privilege it has been. It was. I wish I could do it again. But at any rate, there we go.

Hey, we'll write back after these messages, please. Stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live, taking a call at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show.

If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 87720. 72276. Let's get to Tommy from South Carolina. Tommy, welcome. You're on the air.

Hi, Matt. How are you? Oh, hanging in there, man. Hanging in there. Got the privilege.

Yeah. I've been following you for a couple months now. I remember back in the day, I used to listen to Hank Hannagraff a long time ago, but and came across you on the radio. And I really liked, you know, you really know your stuff. And by the way, I am sorry about your wife.

I wanted to read, I wanted to, I wanted to. also add to about the marriage.

Now I'm really not a big government fan. And uh And I can remember Taking, you know, going to some seminars, and plus, just like we learned in Sunday school. Where you know it's like the uh the triangle uh or the pyramid where You know, that covenant is between You, your wife and then God. And I if I ever get married, I will not in any way, shape or form have a marriage license. issued by any state because the state is nowhere in there Now, and back in the olden days, prior to FDR and stuff, when he started wanting licensing and stuff.

Then what had happened was you would have a marriage certificate. And of course it would be signed by you, your wife, and the preacher and of course, I believe, what, two witnesses. and it would be put in a family box, and that would be it.

So that's all I wanted to say.

Well, as Christians, we're obligated under Romans thirteen to submit. to the governing authorities over us. It's not an option of what the scriptures d declare.

So the state requires a marriage license as a legal precondition for the marriage that's already accomplished. That's all that it is. It doesn't decree it as being legitimate. It simply is recording it for legal reasons.

So I tell people when I do marriage counseling, when I do marriages, I say, look, the state doesn't make you married or not married. What makes you married is your commitment to each other before God. The state license is simply the official recognition of that position in a legal binding status. And it's something that the government requires, and we're obligated as Christians to submit to the government.

So do it. It's not a problem. It's not a problem at all.

So the State has no authority over a Biblical covenant. the biblical covenants made independent of the State. Marriage is not dependent on the state. It's dependent on God. But we, as Christians, want to submit to that and submit to that, and then produce a.

I have heard that. Yeah, I have heard that some states are actually dropping that requirement. I don't know if you heard about that, but I have. Several states have in the United States. It just depends.

I mean, but I know what you're saying, right. Yeah, well, it makes me wonder, what about the issue of a divorce? Not that I advocate divorce, but let's just say that a Christian couple, whatever reason, a divorce is imminent. And there was no legal declaration filed in the state. I'm just curious what kind of ramifications that would have on the dissolution of property rights to each other and vehicles and things like this.

I don't know. I'm not a lawyer, so I couldn't tell you. But that's.

Okay.

Well, thank you, Mr. Slick. Appreciate it. Sure, no problem, buddy. All right.

Alright, God bless. Take care.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Okay.

All right. Hey, if you want to give me a call. Eight seven seven two zero seven two two seven six. I want to hear Femme, give me a call, and let's get to John from Colorado. John, welcome.

You're on the air. I um So I have to go to church. Can I just go to the nearest one to me? 'Cause it it'll take me like an hour and a half to reach the one I want to go to. You can go where you want to go.

It's not an issue of distance. That's not it. Go find a body of believers to fellowship with. Good ones. Not Catholic, not Eastern Orthodox, or not Christians.

Not Mormons, not Jehovah's Witnesses, are not Christians. All right. Okay.

Well, uh there's a lot of churches out there. There's a ton. Yes, I know.

Well, I'm just saying, is there really a giant difference between one or the other? Yes, there are. Yes, there are. Roman Catholicism, for example, example, preaches the false gospel, promotes a false priesthood. and promotes idolatry.

You want to stay away. The same thing with Eastern Orthodoxy. Mormonism teaches a false prophet, Joseph Smith, a false god who is an exalted man for another world. Or you can't go there. Jehovah's Witnesses deny the Trinity, deny the deity of Christ, deny salvation by grace through faith, as do all the false religions that I mentioned.

You can't go there. Baptist churches are okay. Evangelical Free is okay. Calvary Chapels are okay. Find one.

Check out the Statement of Faith. Check out to see if they have any women, pastors, and elders. If they do. Then you don't want to go there because that's not what the Bible teaches to do. It teaches the contrary.

So there's really not a whole bunch that you have to look at, and you can find a decent church in your area. I'm sure you can.

Okay.

Thank you. All right, sure, no problem. All right. You know, sometimes I'll just say this so quickly. You know, the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church are not Christians.

The reason I say that is because they're not Christian. That's why. They teach a false gospel. Both of the of them advocate the requirement of keeping commandments of varying sorts in order to be saved, and that's just a false gospel. They have a false priesthood.

They say that it's called sacerdotalism. And that is that uh grace is administered from God through the priest in a church. There's no such thing as a priest in a church. It just doesn't exist. It's not in the Bible.

And it's made up. And when I bring this up to them, they say, well, the early church did it in the 300, 400s. Who cares? The Bible doesn't prescribe it.

Well, the early church knows what the truth is. How do you know? They don't care. They just want to go to their priests and do all this stuff. And it's just not in the Bible.

It's not advocated by Scripture. And there's only one priesthood that, well, there's two, actually. The priesthood of Jesus, the priesthood of all believers. And that's what's advocated in the New Testament. And if there's a priesthood of all believers, then you don't have a priesthood where a guy with special garments, special authority goes up to an altar in a church and presents a sacrifice.

This is all, it's just Old Testament stuff. It's paganism. And in the sense of doing it now, because the Old Testament was fulfilled in Christ, and so it's abrogated. It's done. We don't need to do that anymore.

Hebrews 8:13 says that the Old Covenant was made obsolete. The old covenant included that sacrificial system. What the false religions do is they put a sacrificial system into the New Testament church. It's just false, it's bad. It's bad.

Don't join Catholicism. Don't join Eastern Orthodoxy. They're false churches. They're not good. Stay away.

Don't go there. All right. Mormonism just simply teaches a false God. and false gospel as well. And so it is Jehovah's Witnesses.

They teach a false God and a false gospel. Look, ladies and gentlemen, I'm not just some guy just randomly picking this stuff up and making it up in whatever I feel or think. No, it's an examination of scripture over 46 years, in depth, debating this issue thousands, literally thousands of times. Over forty-six years in different venues, online, in person. Via emails, I mean, just all kinds of venues that have done this: informal debates, the whole thing, radio, even TV.

And so, I'm just saying that there's just a lot of experience there. I'm just going to tell you, they're not Christian. How do we know they're not Christian? Because if you believe what the Bible says, if you really do. You won't believe those churches.

You won't. If you believe the Bible says, you know, we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law, Romans 3:28, apart from the works of the law. Romans 4:5 says, To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. If you believe that, you can't believe any Orthodox Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, or Jehovah's Witnesses. It's just that simple.

Uh See, believe the truth, otherwise you're calling God a water. We'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

Oh, Robbie, welcome to or welcome back. Let's get on with Janet from North Carolina. Janet, welcome. You're on the air. Thanks, man.

How are you? Hang on in there. Hang on in there. What do you got? I'm good.

I was calling because I want to ask you if you have any book recommendations on apologetics. Yes, um What? Yeah, that's it. Why did you say that? Interesting.

Preferably ones that are easy to read. Yeah, I would try Apologetics to the Glory of God by John Frame. That's one of the books I would read. Howard's redemption.

Okay.

Apologetics to the Glory of God by John Frank. And he was actually my old professor in seminary, and when I read that book. I was really surprised at how How easy it was to understand. And how well Uh he did. Apologetics, uh Yeah.

But what was that name again? Apologetics to the Glory of God by John Frame. John, what's the last name? Frame, F R A M E.

Okay.

It's an introduction. Oh, introduction.

Okay.

So Would that be pretty good for a lay person to read? Yes, that would be a good uh a good one.

So uh He also has apologetics, a justification of Christian beliefs.

Now, the reason I'm pointing towards him is, well, one, I know who he was, he's my professor. But two, his IQ is up in the stratosphere, but he has this ability to be a great communicator. And that was the case. That's the case in his writing.

So he's really good at that. And um trying to open up my uh Kindle here because I've got some Uh There we go. My link doesn't want to work. And uh I'll get another one.

So I have several books there, and also I think I've written a book. And now I don't even I figured out. Let's see. No, let's see. Uh Amazon.

I think I've written some books on apologetics too. I can't remember so many things. Let's see. Let's see. Oh man, slime ball.

Like when I do stuff on the computer, it doesn't work like I want, I call it slime ball.

So let's see. Let's see, here we go. My books. I've written Apologetics and Atheism and That's there. And um So, written on, in fact, I don't know what kind of things you're interested in or what ways you want to learn.

Okay.

I'll tell you what I'm kind of. Looking for, or what I'm interested in, is just basically. kind of for myself because a lot of times I You know, I don't defend the gospel because I don't understand it. You know, personally, I have my own reasons why I believe, but I don't have enough. in me to share with anybody else.

So I'm kind of looking for Okay, if you were to go to Amazon and look up It's the basic Christian doctrine. Right, basic. Christian doctrine. By Matt Slick, all right? And it's a there it is.

It's a paperback thing and I wrote it for a church, a local church. They wanted me to do a series on apologetics, and I thought, you know what I'm going to do? is I'm going to develop a a document. And Um So I, anyway, self-published it on there because it was just something I thought, oh, this would be good for that. And I wrote this thing up and had it printed up in Spiral Note.

And it's very easy to understand. It's not heavy text. It's got pictures, graphics, spaces in it. It's really nice. And people, they really liked it.

They really enjoyed it.

So you can check that out. And basic doctrine there. And it's designed for a low-level but thorough introduction.

Now, something else you could do, believe it or not, is go to the Carm website and look up the statement of faith. And copy the statement of faith and print it up. And you go through it. It's short and sweet in varying topics, but if you go through that, you'll learn a lot. You'll learn a lot.

Each one I could expand in quite a bit. But let's say you wanted something, I don't know if what you're interested in, but let's say you wanted something that went over all of the basics of the Christian faith in, say, 100 words or less. You know, that kind of thing. That's what the statement of faith does. And it has scripture references.

You can go check things out. You can go look. You can do all kinds of referencing.

Some people have told me their churches have printed it up, or people at Bible studies have printed it up, and just gone through it. I need to go through it. And they learn that way.

So just different ways. Of learning. And what about something that would answer the question? Uh how would you put it? Uh We'll answer the question of um Why Why Christianity as opposed to every other religion out there?

Because Christianity, here's the basics. This is the one simple answer, okay? Ready? Why Christianity over all others? Because we have the resurrected Jesus Christ.

Okay.

Okay.

He rose from the dead.

So, this knocks out Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, everything. We have the risen Lord Jesus.

Now, that means then, now we have within that overarching umbrella, we have Catholicism, even Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness.

Well, they don't really believe in the resurrection, so that knocks them out. We have different cult groups, false religion groups that are in there. But the reason. overarching is Jesus is who we have. And then we have to get down into more particulars.

About justification and salvation, and what is taught in Scripture. But we have Jesus, they don't. That's what a golden mill comes down to, okay?

Okay, okay. I'm looking for, like I say, material that would just help me kind of. Go through those things so I can feel more confident about my faith and all of that.

Okay.

So do this. You can also go to Carm and you can look up the Christian theology section. And there's written 150 articles there. And what I'd recommend you do, I'm very serious about this. I want people to do this.

Is you can either do it on your computer or do it online. You can have an online document, which I recommend. Because if you have access to the same document on your phone, you can use different ways of doing this. I use Google Docs. I use.

I use OneNote, I have uh word documents anyway When you learn something who then write it down. Create an outline.

So let's say you're studying the the the Trinity.

Well, you go into your outline and you look up the you put in the word Trinity. and make it a a header one. And then you hit enter and tab. And you type in underneath it. And you type in what you learn.

The Trinity is. You put verses in there. You put in the information. And then you learn about Jesus. Then keep it alphabetical.

You know, J before T for Trinity, and type in Jesus and hit enter and hit tabs.

Now you're in there. You're creating an outline. And there's ways to use the outlines, very sophisticated ways. There's really good stuff. But I have outlines that are two hundred pages easily.

And you know, they're 8.5 by 11, and there's 200 pages of notes in there. And I have a system that I've developed over the years, but the reason I'm talking about this is because this is very useful, it's very helpful. And if you have it online, like Google Docs, whatever it is. Then you can access it on your phone and you can add to it on your phone. You can access it in church.

Someone will say something, you go, That's a good point. And you go on your phone, you go into whatever it is about Jesus, create another subcategory, and you type in what he said. This is what you do to learn, and it's always there with you. That's the that's the key. Mm-hmm.

I strongly recommend that. strongly. And I've been doing this for 46 years. And I have thirty to forty outlines. And that's not even counting.

My uh My one note notes which are probably printed up five hundred pages of material.

Okay.

Wow, wow. Yeah. Okay, I'll have to figure out how to do all that. I'm not very skilled on the computer, but just just go to uh just go to Google Docs, for example, and and uh just go to the web and say, How do I create an outline in Google Docs? It'll tell you.

You go, Oh, that's easy. Oh.

Okay, okay. Yeah, I'll check out some of these books because I'm really curious I'm like I I Really am interested in learning more about apologetics and how I could get more information that's accurate about scripture and the Bible and all of that. Just from our personal growth, really. You know, you're not the only one who said this recently, and when I hear this enough, It makes me want to start holding a class online where I can teach people. What it is and the basics and things like that.

But I go to Discord and I go to different venues where people say, I want to know when you're on, so at least come in and listen.

Now, I'm not saying I got all the answers, I'm not saying I'm great, but there are people who like my style, like what I have to say, and they say, Let me know, and I'm going to listen. I go, Okay, fine. And so I do that. And so that's another way to learn because you've got to go into a place where your faith is challenged. You know what holes you've got in your theology, and then you go to the outline and you write in a question.

You write in whatever it is. I have in my outlines, for example, I have a section on verses. And I have one of them, I have over 100 verses that I've just gone in and analyzed. Just in one category. Oh, yeah.

And you can come back.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, nice to know.

Well, thanks so much, Matt. I appreciate it. All right. Well, God bless. Have a good one.

All right. Bye-bye.

All right. Hey, we'll be right back with George from Ohio on The Church of Christ. That should be interesting. We'll be right back. Please stay tuned.

It's Matt Slick Live, taking your call at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it is easy. All you got to do is dial 877-207-2276.

Let's get to George from Ohio. George, welcome. You're on the air. Are you there, sir? Yes, I am.

Yes, I want to pick at your five decades of experience here, if you don't mind. In the last several years, I've attended a Church of Christ here in the county. If it helps you, and I want your thoughts on that, Church. If it helps you any or Our preacher here is a pretty young fellow and he attended that Freed Hartman. school than West Virginia, I believe it is.

if that uh kind of tells you what it's doing is what's the uh What's the name of the church? Church of Christ in what city and state? I'll see if I can find it on the web. If you don't want, I mean, bring it to our file. Ohio, Ohio.

Yes, sir. Greenville, Ohio.

Okay, let's see.

So, oh, there's several. There's one yeah, I'm trying to look communicable church of Christ Probably a couple of them listed. It's the one on Children's Home, Bradford Road. There it is. Got it.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay, so Church of Christ, does it require? I'm just going to verify, but generally, I'll read all the answers. Does it require baptism for salvation? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, it's a cult. As an adult.

So it's a cult. It's a non-Christian cult. Get out. Really? Explain to me if you would why you feel that way.

Because the Bible says we're saved by grace through faith and justification is obtained by faith. What they do is require baptism in order to be saved. Generally speaking, the Church of Christ people teach not only is baptism necessary for salvation, but you have to be baptized in their particular church or their particular denomination.

So what they're doing is Yeah, they're adding works to salvation, and uh they're just not a I would never call them Christian to begin with. Really.

Now what about baptism as a child, let's say, a child's baptizing, like in the Catholic Church? I know your feelings on the Catholic Church. I heard them a few moments ago.

Well, there's a yes and no to it. It depends on which theological perspective you are.

Now, personally, as a Presbyterian, I hold to infant baptism as a valid thing for children in the Christian community, but it's not salvific, doesn't save, it's a covenant sign for the parents who include the children in the covenant of Abraham. Because in the Old Testament, the children were required to be in the Abrahamic covenant, which God says, In you, all the nations shall be blessed, Genesis 12:3, and Paul quotes that in Galatians 3:8, calling it the gospel. And this initiation of the Abrahamic covenant was committed to include children, and so based on that, I say it's okay to include children as baptism for as a covenant sign.

However, There are very good, competent people who would not agree with me, who hold different views. And that's fine. In fact, I don't even know if, like Charlie, I'm looking at Charlie right now, I don't even know if he holds to my position. And he's, I've known him for 46 years. He's kind of like waving his hand if he's not so sure kind of now.

So, you know, it's not a big deal to me, you know. And.

So, if you hold to it, great. Just hold to it for the right reason. But if you don't, do it also for the right reason.

So, I say it's up to you at that point.

So that's just a different challenge. If that child were baptized as a child, let's say, you know, as as they become an adult, should they be baptized again, do you feel? This is another deep theological issue where I can't give you a definitive answer. We could, I could. I could literally have a debate where I'm the only one who's debating.

There's two chairs on infant baptism and adultery baptism, and I could sit in one and give an argument, walk over to the other and give the counter, and then give the counter to that, and then give the counter to that and go back and forth. I can do that. Yeah, you're right. And so So, what I say is, there's no explicit command or record of infants being baptized in the New Testament, but there are entire households who were baptized.

So, it's reasonable to say there were infants there. But then, if it's the case, then why were they baptized?

Well, I would say for the covenant aspect.

Now, here's the question. If you hold, if you particularly hold to the idea that covenant baptism is valid, Then you don't need to get baptized as an adult because the covenant baptism as a child or an infant was valid. But if you don't hold that position, then it would not be, and I'd say, then get baptized again. And the reason I seem a little ambivalent is because the scriptures just are not clear. And I can give arguments on both sides.

And I say to the people, you make up your own mind in this issue, and then you act accordingly. And I say, God's not going to get upset with you if you want to get baptized again. Because you don't you're not convinced of the when it you know when you're an infant, that's okay. Then you know, we get baptized, it's not a problem. He's not going to be mad at you.

All right? Yes, but because they require baptism in that church, that is a concern. They require baptism for salvation. That's different. That's different than a Presbyterian view, which is a covenant sign, because.

Covenants have signs, and so when a couple Gets up in front of a church and covenants with people and God to take care of the children, etc., for the glory of God. Where's the covenant sign?

So that's the issue. But at any rate, so the Church of Christ requires the ceremony of salvation in order to be saved.

Now that's adding a work to salvation. And they teach that you can lose your salvation, which means you've got to be good to keep it. It's a non-c we call it basically it's a cult, okay? They're just kind of adding a man man's rules and regulations to it. What do you feel about the it's an a cappella church.

What are your thoughts on the music end of that? You're free to be a cappella or not a cappella in the church, okay?

So you don't see anything in the Bible that directs that to be a cappella. Nothing in the Bible says that. But what it does say, I think I'm trying to remember the verse. It's in Ephesians, I think. I'm looking it up right now.

Ephesians 5:19. It says, which is interesting, it says, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.

Now, that's Ephesians 5. That's what's going on. They reject it. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

So Ephesians 5:19 says this, speaking to another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing, making melody.

Now, here's the thing: what are they singing? Are they singing those psalms? Because if they are in those Psalms that they're singing, it says in the Psalms to use. instruments. See, there's a it's an issue.

But as for just thinging out of the book, that's quite not the same thing. Let's see. Well, thank you. You're giving me some insight on it.

Okay.

Not right. I would leave. I'd leave that church. It's not a good church.

Sometimes it's just not the best place. You know That's right. Behind the scenes sometimes aren't synced out the best. All right. Thank you, sir.

Okay.

Alright, sounds good. All right, now, just because the New Testament does not expressly state that you're supposed to use instruments in worship, the lack of of affirmation does not support a denial of.

So some people will say, well, it doesn't tell us to do it.

Well, okay, I get it, but it doesn't mean then that you can't. And particularly when it says to communicate with one another in those Psalms, which tells us to use instruments.

So if you're quoting a Psalm to somebody and it says worship him, worship God with the stringed instrument, And you're saying this is what you're saying to each other.

Well, then you're saying to do that. And then you don't do it.

So this is an issue.

Now Let me just say this, folks. Baptism is not necessary for salvation. You should get baptized. I believe you get baptized by sprinkling, pouring, and dunking. That's my opinion.

I believe Jesus was sprinkled at his baptism according to the Old Testament law. That's what I believe. I actually believe that. And if you disagree, that's fine. Call me up sometime and I'll show you why and where out of the scriptures.

I have an article on it on my website. It took me two years before I finally would recognize it and say it over the air that, yeah, that's what it is, what it says, you know, because I wasn't sure. But he gets the right and get into the logic of it. But you should get baptized. Don't avoid getting baptized.

But don't get baptized in order to complete the work of Christ. Your salvation doesn't depend on your ceremony of baptism or your ceremony of circumcision or your ceremony taking the Eucharist or whatever it is that false religions want to add to the finished work of Christ. His blood on the cross is what cleanses us of our sins, 1 John 1, 7 through 9. He canceled the certificate of debt at the cross, Colossians 2:14. Our sin debts are removed there.

He bore our sin in his body on the cross, 1 Peter 2:24. The Bible says, having therefore been justified by faith, Romans 5:1.

So are we justified by faith? Yes. Are we justified by faith when we have faith?

Well, and some people I'll ask that question to them, those who say that you have to be baptized to be saved. Are we justified by faith when we have faith?

And then they'll say, you're justified by faith when you get baptized. Oh, so you aren't justified by faith when you have faith, are you? Because if you were, you'd already be justified before you got baptized, right? And then they're stuck. But we have these cults.

Who want to add something? It just drives me crazy. You don't Walk up to the cross of Christ in your mind, where Jesus is. And you say Hey, I gotta add stuff. I got to add baptism.

I gotta add circumcision. I gotta keep the Ten Commandments. I gotta, I gotta me, me, me, me. Look what I gotta do in order to go to heaven, along with what Jesus did. What foolishness is that?

No. Everything that was necessary. was done by God for our salvation. He even grants that we have the faith in what he did, Philippians 1:29. That faith is in Christ, John 6:29.

You can't even come to him unless it's granted to you by the Father, John 6:65. He's the author and perfecter and finisher of all of our faith, including everything dealing with it. He's the one who is that. Not you. You can't complete what Jesus did on the cross by going to get baptized, by taking communion, by being good.

Well, you got to show your faith.

Well, yeah, you got to show it. Just like James 2:14 through 26 says. But that justification is before people, not before God. We show our faith to one another to verify that we are Christians, but we don't have to verify our Christianity before God because he knows all things. He indwells our hearts, John 14, 23.

He doesn't need me to convince him by doing something or keep myself right with the infinitely holy God by my goodness. I don't keep myself right with God by how good I am, by the sincerity of my heart. That's like walking up to the cross and saying, you know, let me tell you something, Lord. I appreciate what you did. I appreciate your great sacrifice.

I know it was difficult, but I have to do stuff to complete this. I have to go and I have to be good. I have to keep the Ten Commandments. I have to do what is never necessary in order to apply what you did to my life and make sure that it's good enough for me to be right before you by what I do. And I just say to people, pat yourself on the back.

And just saunter back to your crib, your rocking chair, whatever it is you want to go to, and just say, Look at me, look at me, look what I was able to do, and keep myself right with God. This is what Satan wants. Satan wants you to join a church where either the false God is taught or a false gospel is taught, and then make it sound like you've got to do good works and add to the blood of Christ. You gotta be good. You've got to prove it.

You can't go out and just be mean. Can't go out and be evil. Of course not. But that's because we're regenerated, because God has made us born again, 1 Peter 1:3. And because we're born again, we're made new creatures, 2 Corinthians 5:17.

And then we live for Jesus. But living for Jesus isn't what makes us Christians, doesn't keep us becoming Christians, and doesn't make us stay Christians. And we don't regain our Christianity if we've lost it because we weren't good enough. Take all that foolishness and put it in a garbage disposal, turn it on high, and walk away. We'll be back on here tomorrow.

May the Lord bless you by His grace. We'll talk to you then. Have a great evening, everyone. God bless.

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