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.

Everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. You're listening to Matt Slick Live. If you want to give me a call, as usual, all you gotta do. Is dial 8772072276?

I want to hear from you. Give me a call and um Boy, I'll tell you. Oh man, am I working? You know, uh If you own your own business out there, you'll know what you'll get this. Man, you worked a lot.

People are nodding. Yeah, that's right. It's what you do. It's what you do. So I've spent two days doing tech work.

And um I got to tell you something. Uh I I use AI for some things. And AI helped me so much. helped me so much with some of the stuff I had to do. Um I had to do what's called a compliance for something.

It's all ministry related and. legal and everything and And there was, and you know what gets me about sometimes the things that people will say in these texts, you know. They'll uh They'll say, okay, just go comply with this, do that. And all I have to do is fill out this form. The first sentence, you're like, whoa.

What the heck is that? I don't know that English? And um You know, you say you just don't know. And So that's what was happening.

So I go to AI and I go, what does this mean in English normal? And it would explain things and it go, oh, okay. And so it's very helpful, very helpful. I was a lot of knowledge and uh And I was able to work through, you don't trust everything, but I was able to go through and just verify stuff and get the right directions. It helps quite a bit.

So, you know, thanks for that.

So, I actually have been writing some articles occasionally on AI. And you can go to this section on Carmen's look of artificial intelligence or just think it's just AI. And you can check to see if what's there. I need to write a lot more articles, too. But there's just so much to do.

So much to do. Oh, yeah. Um I need a million dollars in the bank so that I'm just going to dream out loud. It's so that we can hire somebody to be a gopher whose job it is to figure all this stuff out that I don't want to do.

So, I can just write and research. That'd be nice. That'd be nice. Hey, you have not because you ask not. I'm asking I've been asking the Lord.

But he says, according to his will.

Well, I guess his will is that we.

Sometimes don't know. what his will is. I think it's the will of God sometimes. Lord, what's your will? My will is for you not to know my will right now.

Walk in faith.

Okay, yes, sir.

So uh that's what's happening a lot. and just doing a lot of a lot of work out of tech stuff. hardly doing any writing for the last uh bit of time, but you know, I I think now I think. I think I'm they were Be able to work. You know, I'm afraid of saying anything.

You know, like, okay, good.

Now, tomorrow, I can start writing articles again. You know, I remember once, I said, I remember this.

So remember this, when I was living in San Diego, and uh my friend Bill McKeever. Up in Salt Lake City, where he and I went up together, I don't know, it's so long ago, and we went up to Salt Lake for the Olympics. And we uh We went up there to witness, you know, and share our literature to the Mormons and all this stuff, you know, thousands and thousands of people coming in. And I remember I still remember this. God must have heard it.

I remember looking at some Idahoans.

Someone said, Hey, like people over there, they're they're down here from Idaho. Yeah. And I actually said to myself, Who'd wanna live in Idaho?

Well, what's there? Why go to Idaho? And I think God heard that because where do I live now? I live in Idaho.

So what I've been saying is, who'd want to live in Hawaii? But uh I've been saying that for 20 years now. I think God's got me figured out.

So, anyway, you know, you got to try what you got to try. Let's go. And uh Here I am in Idaho now, trying to figure things out, do all kinds of stuff. Work for the Lord. Do uh Just do, you know, there's just so much to do.

There's so much to do.

Well, hey, look, anyway, if you want, you can give me a call, and if you stop my whining rambling a little bit. You can give me a call. All you gotta do is is uh just send an email to Give me a call, so I mean you will see. Just give me a call at 877-207-2276. You can give me an A call there.

And you can also send an email. That's easy to do also. An email at info at CARM.org. Send an email there and put the subject line, radio comment, radio question, one of those. And we can get to it.

Now, I had to rebuild my Outlook. The file got corrupted. I had to rebuild the whole thing. And so I'm looking for some of my folders that I have all my questions in. They're there.

I just had to rebuild everything and um That's one of the things, you know. You're working on something, and then all of a sudden this thing breaks. Like, oh man. And so I had to stop and fix that. Go into OST files, PST files, stuff I used to know when I was a.

Uh a a geek. uh back at uh fixing the computer days. And so, um, got all of that and uh did a lot of stuff, you know, did a lot of stuff so. It's a good thing, you know. I've been prepped.

I guess you could say I've been prepped for a lot of tech work. and uh I can figure things out. Mostly. Mostly. Anyway.

All right, so if you want to give me a call, like I said, 877. two zero seven 2276. You know, one of the things I've not done in a long time is read any hate mail and wacko mail and stuff like that. And I'm looking, well man, I'm looking through the folders. And they're all empty.

on my uh I love and hate mail. Why are they empty? They should be uh they should be filled with s with stuff.

Well that's interesting. Oh my goodness, all the That's interesting. All that stuff is now empty. That's alright. What I'm going to do is a little bit of teaching, and we'll get into some stuff anyway.

If you want to give me a call, the number is 877-20-722-76.

Now, what would you think if someone said this? Tail. Why is it Necessary to salvation, not only to believe, but also to confess the Blah blah blah. Church. I'll tell you what it is later.

You have to confess a certain church, okay? Why is it necessary to salvation, not only to believe, but also to confess the Blah blah blah, church Because if any one to preserve his temporal life or earthly goods, shrink from confessing this particular church. He shows thereby that he has not a true faith to be. In God the Savior and the life of happiness to come.

Now we think of that. What do you think of that? You think it's pretty good? You think it's pretty pompous? That you have to confess a particular church in order to be saved.

If you don't, that means you don't love the Savior. But to me That's Just Flamin'. Arrogance and pride. You've got to belong to our church to be saved. And if you don't, that means you don't love the Savior.

You mean I can't love the Saviour? love Jesus and fellowship with my Lord and my Saviour. Apart from confessing a particular church with lots of smells and bells. clangs and gangs? and uh all kinds of stuff.

Um Yeah, that's see that's a quote from the Orthodox Church. Why is it necessary to salvation, not only to believe, but also to confess to Orthodox faith? that the Orthodox Church is necessary to salvation to confess the Orthodox Church. And With all its it's all its crud. All its stuff it teaches.

I just I'm so It still blows me away after all these years reading stupidity like this. And it is. It's going to stay like it is. It's dumb. It's stupid.

They had a confession. It's called, this is from the longer catechism of the Eastern Orthodox Church, question 81. That's what it is. It's n you must confess to Eastern Orthodox faith to be saved. What?

I thought you had to confess Jesus. I thought it was about Jesus. No, they're replacing Jesus with themselves. They're replacing Jesus with the true church. Do you know of any people that teach that?

Any groups that teach that? That you have to belong to the true church in order to be saved? And their church is the restored church, or their church is the apostolic faith, or their church is whatever it is. But it's the true church, and you got to belong to it in order to be saved. True salvation is found in that.

And that's the whole thing. It's a Satan. Satan behind the scenes. He's just, all he's got to do is get you to believe that, hey, look, all you've got to do is believe in the true church and its true rituals, and you'll be saved as long as you believe in what. It tells you.

That's what it's saying. What do you think of that? I think it's pretty good. I think it's pretty bogus. That's for that's uh the doctrine out of the book of uh Second Moronicles.

or first ex laxicus. Let's get to Dave from Pennsylvania. Dave, welcome. You're on the air. Yeah.

Hey, Matt, how's it going? It's going. It's going. I'm hanging in there, man. What do you got for that?

Well, first, I just want to say I love your program, and I think truly you are doing a wonderful gift for God, and that you I really love everything you teach, and I think you do really great work.

Well Praise God. I don't take any credit because all I see is fumbles, mistakes, goofs, and somehow people are blessed. That's what I see.

Okay, so God's God is sovereign. That's right. All right, buddy, so what do you got, man?

Okay.

So I just have a question for you.

So I'm a youth pastor, and my wife also works at our church. We work at our church together as a team. And we have a huge youth department. We probably have like sixty kids that are coming in each day of the week. different kids each day.

We have eleven and under, twelve and opteen day, so a bunch of different kids. And we've had one new gentleman come in. He's a young teenager. He's probably thirteen or fourteen years old. And um he he's grown up Catholic.

And he comes in and You know, one of the first things he says to me, this is the first time he's in our church, he goes, You know, I I really could work here. I shouldn't even be like considered a student here. And like just seems very prideful. And then He had a situation where he wanted to debate and pretend that he was an atheist. Um and giving atheist arguments to some of the teens.

And seeing how they would answer as a Christian. And when I asked them to reverse the role play in him to give, you know, defend Christianity. He's a Catholic, though, like I said. He wasn't willing to do so.

So he really just. every time he comes in, keeps promoting Catholicism and saying that the Reformation was a horrible thing, that Catholicism started at the Christ's resurrection, Protestant Reformation didn't happen for one thousand five hundred years, and that the Catholic is the one and only true way, that faith alone is not true. And I was just wondering if you had any advice on like kindly and humbly like trying to get somebody a teen who's like just so prideful and not willing to learn to try and learn. Yeah, I would just, you know, very calmly just ask and and um Where'd you get this information from? Just, you know, where'd you get it?

Is it from? From the Word of God or someplace else? Just ask a question. See what he does. Because you want to get him to the Word of God.

You want to look into the word of God. He says, Well, our church says, you know, okay, I just wait till they're done talking and say, So your church says it. Uh I'm just my curiosity is how do you How do you know it's true? You want to ask these questions that will hopefully cause him not to respond. negatively But with maybe with curiosity when you ask the questions or diagnostic questions, and how do you know that this is the case?

Because I don't know, I believe the word. And there's a verse that you might want to be aware of. I'm sure you probably are. First Corinthians. 4-6.

1 Kings, 4-6 or 6-4. Hold on. And I'll read it to you. Is 6-6-4. Thank you.

Oh, no, it's 4-6. I always get these mixed up. I got so many verses in my head. But this is a verse that I've used with Catholics. And uh No, it's First Corinthians six, four.

Yeah, I guess it's the one. No, it's not, what the heck?

Okay, we got a break, I'll find it. Um and we'll go I'll read it to you. We'll talk from it, okay? Hold on, brother. Hold on.

Okay, hey, folks, we write back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your call at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Alright everybody, welcome back to the show.

Let's get back on the air with... David, you still there, brother? The family.

Alright, now this verse, something weird happened to my computer because I know the verse. I look at it and it didn't say what I said. I think I just scrolled wrong and made myself mess up. But anyway, it's 1 Corinthians 4:6. And it says this.

1 Corinthians 4, 6. It says Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written.

so that no one of you will become arrogant in behalf of one against the other.

So when I'm talking to a lot of Catholics a lot of times is they do what this guy does. is I'll I'll let him you know, let them talk and then ask questions.

Well, do you believe that uh that it's okay to go beyond To exceed what's written in the Word of God. And they'll say, Of course, of course you can't. And I quote them this verse And I show them. I said, well, the Bible says the opposite of what you just said. You can't exceed what is written.

That means if it's written, you cannot exceed what he's already addressed.

So that's the standard of truth.

So I'm going to say, you know, and ask them, okay, so how do you validate your church as being true? From what source do you validate it? if they say it's from their own source, their own authority. then their authority is independent of God. And that's sin.

If they say it's fr derived from the Word of God, Well, then they're on the right track. That means the authority is in the Word of God, not their church, because the church has to get authority from the Word of God.

So, if they say the church and the authority are equal, I'm going to say, well, where do you get that? If they go to the Word of God to say that, then they're still appealing to the supremacy of Scripture. They're using the scripture for their authority.

So that's what I'll do. I would say, well, can you show me from God's Word? your position that you're stating. And I just wait. A lot of times I'm walking around the block.

I have a mile circuit, and I'll do two, three, four miles sometimes. I have a headset on. I'm just talking to people, I'll talk to Catholics and East Orthodox. And I very often will ask a question. four second question and I'd get a two minute response.

I do this all the time. Can you show this from scripture? And they go on, they bloviate, and they don't answer the question.

Well, I don't grant that we have to have the scripture. I don't grant because you see, when popes are, I just wait till they're done. I said, So, you are you admitting you can't find. support for your beliefs in God's Word? Where's your belief come from then?

And so I'll do things like this, and that's the idea. And you've got to watch his body language. And if he's young and arrogant and stuff, and if he's not listening to you, just be patient. you know, love on him and and um so that his guard emotional guard will come down and he might start considering the Word of God instead of th the false Catholic Church. Jeeze, false and so false.

Okay?

Okay, thank you so much. Yeah, no problem, brother. Let me know how it goes, you know. You know, it's easy to say it over the radio, but sometimes people just don't react the way you hope they would.

So it's just up to you to Kind of play by ear and see what happens.

Okay?

Right. Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Those are some really insightful questions that I definitely will ask him.

Sure.

Well, praise God, brother. Praise God. Thank you so much. I won't take up any more of your time. And God bless you and have a wonderful day.

You too. God bless, Runner. God bless.

Okay.

Well, that was Dave from Pennsylvania. I was there a couple of years ago speaking, two or three years ago. It was nice. It was really nice. The people there were great, too.

Let's get to Alberto from Georgia, Alberto. Welcome. You're on the air. Yes, good after evening, Maslick. My question is: why do pastors tell their members?

So get right with God. When they could never get right with God because Jesus Christ. What do you mean by get right with God? What does that mean?

Well, as the pastors tell members, you gotta get right with God, but you can never get right with God because Christ is the one that makes us right with God.

So we can never get right with God to meet God's standards for his right. Hold on, hold on. Can we be right with God through Christ? I hear pastors tell their members who are like. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Can we be right with God through Christ? Yes, I know that.

Okay.

But the point is, I hear Pet. I help pastors Tell their members who are already saved that they need to get right with God, who would have been saved already through Christ.

So, why did they get right with God? They're going to get right with God through Christ. Look, you're kind of not really focusing here, okay? To be right with Christ can have different levels of understanding. You're right with Christ when you have trusted in Him.

It doesn't mean that everything you do in your life is perfect. If, on the other hand, a pastor is saying, get right with Christ in that a person or two or three, whatever, is having a bit of a struggle in a sinful area, they need to get right with Christ. They need to confess it and repent of it. There's different levels of what it means to get right with Christ.

Okay?

So it just depends on the market. Welcome back to our network questions. Why do pastors also tell their members to get ready to meet Christ or meet God? When the Bible and book of Ephesians say we're already sitting in a heavenly place with Christ Jesus, so why are we ready to meet God? Hold on, hold on.

You say a lot of things very quickly. You have these complex sentences. And so as I listen, I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're saying because you kind of shift topics in the middle of a sentence. As you go through.

Okay, my s what I'm okay. What I'm saying is, why do pastors tell their members? to get ready to meet God. or Christ When the Bible says already in the book of Ephesians, that we are already sitting in the heavenly places of Christ Jesus.

Okay.

There's different contexts.

Okay.

So we're already seating with him in the fact of our adoption in Christ. And that he is the sovereign king, the sovereign Lord.

So, in that sense, we're already there. But it's the now and the not yet. But on the other hand, a pastor can rightfully say, You need to prepare for the day when you die and you go be with the Lord and make sure you're doing what's right before Him. It doesn't mean you lose your salvation or anything like that, but it just means you know you need to be checking yourself and repenting where necessary and using your giftings for the Lord and things like that. And it's all good, it's all okay.

So so when he would preacher say, Examine yourself. Uh that's what I said closing in depth. And it's when you're part. Yeah, ex it's right. You're supposed to examine yourself on a regular basis.

I do that frequently. I never like what I find. But that we're supposed to examine ourselves on a regular basis, see what our motives are. What our directions are, asking God to guide us to open things in our hearts that we he wants us to know about. to teach us correctness.

All of this is um He's part of all that, okay?

Okay.

All right. Let's make make make sure that You know. my good understanding with these terminology these preachers say all the time to their church members. Yeah, you always have to listen to context. Context determines what's going on.

So that's all you gotta do is listen to the context of things, okay?

Okay, thank you. Have a nice evening.

Okay, you too, brother. God bless.

Hey, if you want to give me a call, you can. All you have to do is dial 877207-2276. I just want to let you know that we stay on the air by your support, and we can't stay on the air without it. And um Lately, these months are a little bit tough. And if uh Well, things don't don't change.

financially, then other things have to change to meet the level.

So I'm just going to ask that you consider supporting us. And you can do that by going to carm.org at the top of the page, there's a donate option. And I just spent hours with past couple of days working on stuff, getting everything They switched some stuff on, as the company did, that we use, and now it's all fixed. Anyway. Uh, carm.org and go to the donate page.

We'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live, taking a call at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All Revi, welcome back to the show.

If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. See how easy it is. And you can also email info at carm.org. I'm looking at.

Some of the emails that have come in for radio questions. I'm going to get to some of them. Is not obeying or is disobeying a commandment a sin. Yes, it is. If you disobey a command from God, then it's a sin.

Now, if the command applies to you, now when he's talking to the high priest in the Old Testament, it doesn't apply to you. But if God has said, love your neighbor and be honest, and be truthful, and you disobey that, then it's a sin.

Now, is worrying a sin? Wow, that's a tough one, because the Bible says be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your request be made known to God. And that's Philippians 4, 6 through 8, talks about this. And so we are to not worry. We are to trust God.

Now, what do you do if you worry? See, then you can start worrying about worrying. Am I worrying too much? Am I worrying?

Okay, so. What you have to do is trust God. I have the saying: trust him beyond your ability to understand. And I have another one, phasing. They go together.

Let me give you an example. Running a ministry requires a great deal of faith, particularly. When you rely on the donations of others to pay the bills and to. Keep the lights on and pay the missionaries. And so there have been times, an example, when the Carm ministry has been very, very low financially.

We just don't have it. And then all of a sudden, at the last moment, something comes in and we're saved. And so So when we can have the opportunity in any situation, it could be you have a low bank account, it could be that you don't have a job, it could be you don't where you get the money to fix the car, it could be all kinds of stuff, and you're worried, you're concerned. And then you go and you lift this up to the Lord.

Well, there's two things. is I recommend. One is trusting him beyond your ability to understand. And that means you make a decision to understand that you don't have all the answers, he does. And that you trust him in that level.

beyond your ability to even understand how it can work. You say, okay, I don't get how you're going to do this. But I know you can work through it or around it in spite of it. That's one thing. And the other thing I do, I call it faithing.

to have faith, but I call it faith in. What does that mean?

Well, it means. to actively intentionally Yield your heart and trust to Him. who he is. I think this is really critical. Yeah.

If we really believe in who Jesus is and what he's done on the cross, And We realize that God allows us to go through things. He allows us to go through sicknesses. You know, my wife, for example, passed away from a long-term illness. we prayed countless times for her healing, and now she's with the Lord. And she trusted him through everything.

She's a good woman. and she trusted uh the Lord Jesus. And now she's with him.

Well She actively faithed. Her faith did not depend on her circumstances. And that goes back to the first thing: to trust God in spite of your circumstances. Beyond your ability to understand what he can do in those circumstances or why those circumstances exist. You know, I have a friend, Ed Romine, and he might be listening.

He sometimes does, and he's got cerebral palsy. And he's a great guy. I hope he doesn't hear me say that because I don't like to compliment him because he gets a big head because, you know, I always tease him. And so he is a good guy, though. Uh he just praises God.

in spite of his situation. And he's in a wheelchair. And I've been to his church where he has to preach, where he preaches occasionally. And they literally, two guys, would lift up his chair up onto the stage so he could then go up to the pulpit and preach. He doesn't mind.

But he's using his situation, and God often doesn't heal us in our situations, doesn't deliver us from our situations, but works in the situation. And that's something that We have to understand when it comes to the issue of trusting him beyond our ability to understand. Why doesn't he heal? Why didn't he heal my wife? Why didn't he heal doesn't he heal Ed?

Why does he allow You'd go broke. Why does he I don't know. Don't know.

So I trust him when I know all those circumstances. And I don't have answers. And then what I do is I quiet my heart, but I turned to him, and I just faith, I just trust in him for the sake of who he is. where nothing else is in my mind except, Lord, I trust you. You could.

You've loved me from eternity past. You've called me, you've given me salvation. and the difficulties I am in are nothing. They're nothing compared to what could have been if I didn't know you. I'm thankful.

And I just trust you because of who you are. Called faithing, and you rest in that, you decide to rest in that.

Now Does it mean everything's going to work out perfectly every time? No. But that's the test of faith, isn't it? What's your faith in? Is your faith in faith?

Or is your faith in God?

Sometimes people have faith in faith. I have had the faith, so therefore, because I've had faith, therefore God's going to deliver me, because my faith is in faith. No, faith is in God. But when you have that faith in God, as 1 John 4 says, either pray according to His will.

So we have to ask according to his will. What is his will? His will often is not to heal us. Not to give us lots of money. not to work a problem out.

but to allow us to go through these things to experience difficulties in them. And a lot of times it's for the purpose of building us up. and breaking us down.

Now wait a minute, how can you say both?

Well He breaks us down in our hearts he humbles us. He very often will cause us to Examine ourselves. Or two. cry out in desperation because things are desperate and you just don't have an answer. as breaking us down.

so that we get quiet in our hearts. We raise our hands to the Lord. as we bow our heads and we say, Your will be done, not mine. I don't know how it's gonna work. But I trust you beyond my ability to understand how it's going to work.

And I trust you because of who you are. See, this is the breaking us down so that He can build us up. And what is the being built up in? Is it money, cars, possession? Of course not.

It's in Christ-likeness. That's it. When we get to heaven, we're not taking our cars with us, we're not taking our bank accounts with us, we're not taking our hobbies with us. What's going with us? our heart attitude and humility before Christ.

What we have become internally over the years. Have you become arrogant, prideful, stubborn? Have you become resistant? to those who are loving to you? Have you become Oh, wow.

Well, The word stubborn. Stubbornness takes many forms.

Some people, their stubbornness is a self-righteous attitude that they've been wronged and they won't let anybody else in and they won't forgive because they've been wronged. You've taken that with you to heaven. Maybe someone's done you something bad and you don't want to forgive them. You're taking that to heaven with you? What does the blood of God do?

It washes you clean. You're supposed to be forgiving as you've been forgiven. You're to be humble as though. Lord himself was humble. to give to us himself so that we could be redeemed.

This is what we're to become. And this is why God so often brings us to these places of desperation. Because a lot of times we just don't listen to him. I'm reminded of George Mueller. He's one of my favorite heroes, the Orphan King.

And he was in the 1800s, and read his book, Letters. No. Answers to Prayer by George Mueller. And there were very often, he was a very, very, very prayerful man. And he trusted God.

He trusted God so many times in so many ways. And A lot of times They were just at as the orphans go. and they had no food. and God would provide always at the last minute. I remember one story where he was delayed for something.

And they do pounds in England, not dollars. And he was delayed, he had to get some place, and something stopped him. You know, just life. And he was delayed, and he went out into a street to. To take a shortcut or something to get to where he had to go, and a man stopped him and said, Oh, I've been wanting to meet you.

Here is five pounds, it was the money back in the 1800s, for the orphans. And what did he need for food? five pounds. He needed exactly what was provided. This kind of thing happened all the time.

Why? Because he was a man of faith, a man of trust, and he got to the point where he knew God would provide. But how do you get to that point? by being in it so many times, that you learn to trust. And man, I'll tell you.

It's hard going through it. But it's good. once you've gone through it and you look back. This ministry is going through that a little bit now. I am not worried.

I'm trusting God. What are you going through? Are you going to trust God? What are you going through? What's he doing in your heart?

connect what he's doing in your heart. with what he's doing in your life. They're connected in the eyes of God. What does he want you to be? by going through what you're going through.

We'll be right back after these messages, please. Stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your call at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All Rudman, welcome back to the show.

If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 8772072276. Let's get to some more emails. Uh let's see. Um Today I realized This is an email. See, I realize when I go to heaven, none of my hardcore Catholic family will be there.

and I'll be alone there as I feel here. I know Jesus will fill that void. The thought is painful. What do I do to find comfort? Yeah, that's a tough one.

I don't know what to tell you to to find comfort because what we might Induce comfort for one person might not for you, and vice versa. But the generic thing I can say is Look to Christ. And Know that He's the sovereign king. You know, my own children. Let's just say they're not walking with Christ.

I pray for them. Um two or three times a day. Every day. And I ask the Lord to open their hearts, to redeem them. And I don't know if I'm going to be in heaven with him or not because I don't know.

What's going to happen? But in the meantime I just trust and have the comfort to know that God's the sovereign King. I trust him beyond my ability to understand. That's what you have to do too. when you know that your loved ones are believing in lies.

and they will most likely end up in hell. Then Yeah. You pray for them. And you ask God to be merciful to them. And you witnessed to them.

Because it's God who grants them Come into Christ. John 6, 65. And Though the scriptures clearly teach that. They also Well They talk to us and they tell us that the more we pray, apparently the more people are chosen by God. I don't know how it all works.

So I take comfort in knowing that I don't know how it all works. I take comfort in knowing that God does, and He'll always do what's right. And I ask God to teach me how to pray better. those people. Is that a I witnessed to and a like to.

And that's all you can do. Take comfort in what God can do. And uh That's where you have to focus. If you focus on yourself, Or them. you'll find despair.

But if you focus on him you can find hope. Yeah. All right. Um Let's get to Tom from Ohio. Tom, welcome.

You're on air. Hey, Matt. My question is pertaining, I believe, is John chapter 8, 17. I've been listening to different ideas on what he was writing down, what he wrote down on the ground. When he stooped down, when he brought the A woman and adulterous Even though the man who was supposed to be with them, I would think, because they had to catch them both.

Right. Because they would have both been stoned to death But I'm just wondering, what's your take? Because I've heard two different stories two different viewpoints.

Well The general idea is he's writing down various sins. The closest I can find to this is Jeremiah seventeen thirteen. O Lord, The hope of Israel. All who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, because they have forsaken the fountain of living water.

even the Lord. Yep. that that was what he was doing. And right here. That's what I just heard recently, and I wrote that down.

It's just you must be using your different, what do you call. Version in the Bible. Yeah, NSB. What is yours? I use the NSB, and occasionally now the LSB.

I've got people who are rooting for me to say that. Yeah, sometimes that's a little difficult. Have you noticed? I mean, well, I mean, you probably have, and you're talking to somebody, you know, and you don't have your Bible with you, but you're talking to them and. You know the verse Under the new King James or whatever King James, and you forget when you speak of it, it sort of throws everything off.

Okay, well, I just wanted to get what your viewpoint was because I've heard so many different Well, I've only heard two, but What's the other one you've heard? Was the one where you were right. One is he was writing down. The names of the The peace. Out of the um The were the elders, I mean, those people who were there that were there to judge him, or, you know, I mean, they started with the oldest, the eldest.

to their youngest. Right. And he wrote their name down because the one guy on he had a pretty good thing on YouTube that I was listening to and he had spoke uh He's like, why would you worry about The s uh the sins when they all have sinned, you know, each one has probably done. several times on, you know. Oh yeah, they're good centers, yeah.

Yeah, so I I was and his point of view was It had to be their names, and they started out. He started out with the eldest, probably down to the youngest. That's what his point of view was. It could have been. could have been.

All who forsake put to shame. I'd like to find the references out of the Old Testament to see. But uh anyway, I I don't. Seen exactly.

So that's just you know, as you said, you know, it's that's what uh what it appears to be. Yeah. What's up? Yeah, easy. Yep.

All right. Very good.

Well, thank you for your help. You're welcome, ma'am. No problem. God bless.

That works. Take care. All right. Well, we've got a few minutes left in the show, and nobody's waiting right now.

So, if we have another question we can get to, before we do that, I want to let you know that we stay in the air by your support. Please consider supporting us. And. It's summer's often quite difficult for ministries, and this one is no exception.

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And that's what happens, that's what happens. And that's by God's glory, you know. And so there you go. All right, so just giving you a heads up on that, we could certainly use that support. All right, now.

Let me get into another email. And this is a this is interesting. It says, In your presuppositional framework, God is said to be necessary to ground logic and reality. But what does calling God necessary actually explain beyond asserting that He exists? How is that different from simply defining Him as a stopping point?

We're not defining him as a stopping point. What we're saying is that everything must have a terminus. It was called JTB, justified true belief.

So the illustration I give is: I'm sitting in a chair.

Well, what's the chair resting on? The floor. What's the floor resting on? The foundation of the house. What's it resting on?

The earth. Where's the earth resting on?

Well, it doesn't really rest on anything. It's orbiting the sun. Where'd the sun come from?

Well, and we go back and back.

Well, where'd the universe come from?

Well, now we're looking back to the simple beginning of things, the terminus. If there is no terminus, there is no ultimate grounding, and nothing makes sense. And this is an issue of logic.

So if we go back infinitely and we cannot find any starting point, then how do we get to now from an infinite starting point? We can't. All these logical problems arise.

So we say that God is the starting point because in Christian theology, When we go with what the Word of God says. That God is The Trinitarian being who's always existed. Psalm 90, verse 2, Malachi 3:6 talks about this. When we just let we say, let's just work with this. Let's assume this position is true.

What happens if we do?

Okay.

And You find out that everything makes sense. Oh, that's interesting. I've had people, and atheists in particular, tell me that that's just irrational. And I'll say, well, let me ask you a question. You have fossils.

You haven't seen how fossils are made. How do you know what fossils support? Do they support the third evolution? Have you seen evolution work? I say, no, you gotta be careful because if you say that I'm just assigning certain values and it doesn't prove anything, well then you can't say that your belief in evolution is proved either by looking at fossils.

you are presupposing a world view, an explanatory phenomena, and if it has sufficient explanatory ability, then you retain it. If it doesn't, it doesn't. The problem with evidence is it exists in a framework.

So, the illustration I routinely give is: let's just say that there are footprints outside of a house. at houses in Florida. The window is broken, and the glass is on the inside. There's footprints of mud. On the inside, starting at that window, ransacked house is evident, and the footprints fade as they go out the front door.

The footprints outside would be evidence that the perpetrator entered in through that Window, broke the window and entered. That'd be the evidence for that because it fits that perspective. Yeah. If I said to you, well, that's evidence that I love my late wife. And here in Idaho.

How does I prove that? It does not become evidence. For such a phenomenon, it doesn't work. because it doesn't fit the paradigm. Evidence is an abstraction in the sense that a phenomena becomes supporting evidence if it fits within a framework.

And the evolutionists will do this. They have a framework of evolution, and they say this accounts for complexity of life. genetic formations, derivation, speciation, and various things. survival of the finest, Um hom homology, cladistics, they do all kinds of things. And so they'll say, see, our theory has explanatory values, so that's why we hold on to it.

And I say, we do the same thing with God. has explanatory power, so we hold on to it. And I bring this up with atheists a lot of time, incidentally. They want to say that their presuppositions of evolution are backed by science. I love that.

But mine is not. And I say, well, what's science based on? They're not used to that question. I say science is based on philosophy. It presupposes the scientists who operate under the scientific method presuppose the universality and the commonality of how matter itself behaves everywhere.

They assume the universality of the laws of physics that they're the same here as over there. They haven't tested them.

So, they can look across at the Andromeda Galaxy 4.5 light years away and say, here's what we see there, so therefore we know it works like this, so it has to work like that over there. It's an assumption. They also assume the validity of the universality of the laws of logic, that different scientists and different people will apply those laws fairly. And I say these are philosophical assumptions. What validates those assumptions for the very science you say is not philosophical?

But they're very premises of science is philos philosophical. How do you justify that? And of course then they don't like that conversation because they put their feet to the fire. And then they will find that they're guilty of what they're accusing us of doing. They assume certain values to see if their values that they assume can have explanation.

And I say, if you can do that, can't we? Of course we can.

So don't be uh No, hypocrite don't have a double standard here.

So we get to the issue of the Trinitarian being the necessary precondition for all intelligibility. And I can go over that another time when we have more time on the air because we're out of time. The music's going to start, and we're out of time.

So there you go. Hey, folks, just want to let you know we stay on the air by your support. Please consider supporting us. All you have to do. Is go to carm.org and look at the page up at the top, it says donate.

Go check it out. All right, Jesus, due. Everything's set up. I spent a lot of time yesterday and today polishing all of that, so it's all good. Hey, may the Lord bless you.

By His grace, we'll be back on here tomorrow. We'll talk to you then. Have a good one. Another program powered by the Truth Network.