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.

Alright everyone, welcome to the show. Hope you had a good weekend. Today's date. Is Monday, the 13th of July, July 13th, 2026. For those who are listening later on, I want to know what the dates are.

I don't know why they would want to, but I guess it's not a big deal.

Sometimes what we do is we put stuff up in different places, so maybe the dates are necessary. I don't know. If you want to give me a call, as usual, all you got to do is dial 87720-7222. Seven six.

Okay, now So, um I've released a new section on Carm. Not just an article, but a new section called Outlines. If you go to carm.org forward slash outlines, you'll see a bunch of them. And I just released the last one, I think. I haven't checked all the links yet.

Um, on various outlines that I've worked on.

Some of them are over 200 pages long.

So, like, let's go to Catholicism.

Now, my computer is It's fast. But I don't know how fast it would be on your computer, and they're hyperlinked and all these things, and there's all kinds of stuff. And I'll go back into the files and modify them periodically. But what they are are the actual notes, my actual notes that I do when I'm. Researching a topic.

Um That is so uh That's what I'm doing. And I've been working on them for years. And I thought, you know, people like them. And so I put them up. And I got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

13 of them. I've got actually another ten uh or so. We just haven't gotten to yet. There's a lot, a lot of stuff, and I use them a lot when I am debating. Teaching, doing things, and you'll notice if you go check out those outlines, you'll notice that.

Sometimes there'll be spelling errors or um Incomplete sentences or repetition of material. That's just natural to the issue of the outline style that I work. I just do it quickly and it was in my own notes, but I did try and go through and fix a few things. One of the things that's really interesting for, I think, for a lot of people would be Uh It would be go to the baptism outline. Yeah.

I put this up a year ago. And I'm telling you, the stuff I teach on baptism. Phew. be interesting. You could go there, you go read through stuff, and a lot what it is, let me just tell you, it's lot of times it's not explanation, it's just references.

And sometimes little explanations I'll have.

So, uh Do quotes from people and groups and stuff, and uh. Scriptural references, baptized forward. Look at all this stuff. Oh man, oh I yawn. Oh, that was a good yawn.

Sorry about that.

So, um there's a lot of stuff there. A lot of stuff. Oh, I got some. And one thing I need to do is put the words of Christ in red. But it takes a lot of work to open up the file and then go in and just look at everything.

But hey. It's okay. I do a lot of work, and there it is for you. It's for free. You can go check it out, the outline stuff.

Outlines, it's in the plural. And uh let's see. Let me make sure it is right there. I want to make sure. saying it right 'cause yeah it is it's outlines.

And I've got more to add. All right, so I spent four hours on Friday on a TikTok. and had some interesting discussions. Nothing really big occurred. A Mormon, however.

And I'm going to say he was intelligent and he was articulate and he was knowledgeable. And it took me a while to catch up to him. What I mean is. Took me a while to figure out, oh, this guy knows more than than the average uh person. And he was arguing, and I went, oh, oh, I'm getting it.

Now I know what he's doing, and now I know what he's saying. I didn't, because a lot of times I talked to Mormons, and they don't know very many things. They don't know much, they don't know philosophy, logic, they don't know presuppositions, they don't know stuff. This guy did. And it took me a bit to figure out that he knew what he was talking about in some areas.

And what he was doing was trying to show a logical problem with the Trinity. And Hmm. Hold on a sec here and cough. And um I still remember the basics of the argument. He was trying to show the fullness of God and the incarnation and.

And the person of Christ, the person of God, all this stuff. And he's trying to create a problem so that the doctrine of the Trinity can't work. And it became interesting in that We had this discussion, it got down to the issue of time. When is it that he's looking at the issue of the incarnation and the word as it relates before or after the incarnation? And he said, Well, there's no time with God.

And that's what started another conversation on timelessness. His whole presuppositional argument, or his whole argument, was based upon the idea of time duration. and events as it relates to God. And I kept saying to him, Look, I don't know how time relates to God. I can't say a statement is true or false.

From the statements he was saying, I can't say they're true, I can't say they're not true. Because he said, well, you know, the church fathers and the creed say that God is timeless. And I'd say, well, if I was back then, I'd say, well, what does that mean? What does timelessness mean? Because I don't know what timelessness means.

Is it a real thing? Does it even have an ontological essence? Or does it just a measurement of sequences of events that we put upon as a concept and measure? And so to say time, excuse me, God is timeless to me doesn't make any sense. And I'm serious, it doesn't make any sense.

And I wasn't just saying this for this guy's argument. I've been saying this for a long time. I don't know what it means to say God's outside of time. I don't know what it means to say he's timeless. People say these things.

What does that mean? and they can't tell me. He uses a phrase, well, he's outside of time.

Okay, what's outside of time mean? What's your reference point? How do you know it? Can you define that?

Well, there's no time.

Now you gotta define what time is. And then there's problems with that. And this was the discussion that I had with this guy, and he got very frustrated because I know what he wanted to do was to continue with the argument and show that there was a problem. But when I undermined it, and not intentionally, I just said, look. We can't even define what these terms are, timeless and outside of time, and how they apply to God or the sequence of events that have it on toss or whatever.

And he just gave up after a while. And he had to go take care of his kid and he didn't come back in. And um And that's fine, that's fine. But I think we had the opportunity to come back in, he chose not to. to cut back into our discussion area.

But this is the thing. If you're going to make a statement in an argument and the statement can't be validated and the terms can't be defined, then your statements are just invalid. And this brings me into another issue here. with Mormonism. Because if you're a Mormon How if I were to ask you How would you define God?

What would you say? And I mean the idea of what godness is, what is it. And If you were to define God, I would ask you. to give me the citations that state what that is. If you were to just make it up From what you collectively have concluded about God, that's okay, then we would check it.

You know, against what?

Sources of revelation would you use?

Well, there's a problem in Mormonism. Alma 11, 26 through 29 said there's only one God. There's only one God, none but that's it, just one.

Now We have a problem. Because in D and C one thirty twenty two, It says that the Father is a God with a body, the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost is a God without a body. Yeah. Yet there's only one God, but you have a God with a body, you have another God without a body. And people can become gods in DNC 132, 19-20.

So We got problems here. What does God mean in Mormonism? Because if you say God is whatever, then it has to fit all the definitions, all the instances. Where the eternal God without a body, but there's another eternal God with a body, and you become gods.

So, what does God mean? If you can't define it based on your revelation, your scriptures, then you don't even know what it is. You can't even talk about it. It's just meaningless. What does God mean?

And what we have here I call the three-God problem. God with a body, God without a body, and you become gods. And so the three types of gods, but yet they're all of the one God essence. But one's eternal and one's not? You can't have that.

The essence of a category of God being eternal, another category of God but not being eternal, another category of God being with a body, eternal with a body, another category eternal without a body. How do you have that? What does God mean at that?

Sounds. This is a problem. And I've yet to have a Mormon answer it. And it's called The Three God Problem. You can research it.

On um On karma, if you want three god problems. Oof. There we go. If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 87720. 72276.

Let's get to Alberto from Georgia. Alberto, welcome. You're on the air. Yes, good evening, Matt Slick. My question is: let me get outside because there's much noise in the background here in the restaurant.

Uh why do we farm Calvin has spent so much time debating so much about you know, theological debate so fiercely among themselves, sometimes they get so hot. Between the debates, like their terminism and stuff, but Your questions often are so lengthy. With so many things thrown in.

Okay, okay, okay. Why don't there's more people going to win the loss out there?

Well, some people need it more. All that knowledge. sh you know, share it out there with the people needed out in the community, you know, are lost. We're dying all around. You're doing it again.

You're doing it again. You're doing it again. You're asking a 500-word question.

Okay. Why don't you okay, why don't they spend more time trying to win the loss instead of spending so much time all these debating constantly all the time? Uh, I don't know. You have to ask them.

Okay, I can't speak for all Calvinists. I can only speak for myself. I witness and I evangelize. And if the Reformed perspective comes up, I'll defend it. And that's so that people represent God accurately or the position accurately.

But I evangelize. Yeah, but I'm talking about like the regular common people who don't know nothing about this, you know, theologically just regular gang neighborhoods with all drugs like Chicago. It's important that there's different levels of Christian discipleship. There's the initial, you know, become a Christian. Then they need to get grounded in the faith.

We have to ask questions. Does the grounding of the faith mean that your faith is completely up to your goodness, your wisdom, your ability to keep yourself right with God? Or is it God is the one who has chosen you from the beginning for salvation? Only one of those is true, and the other one is being taught in most churches today. which is false.

So it's worth defending the biblical revelation because God has given it to us. Calvinists often want to do that because they want to defend biblical truth. And so that's one of the reasons they want to, okay? All right. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Sometimes a church I used to go to, like a Pentecostal Church of God.

Sometimes people argue as much as at the church about About salvation, losing salvation, but then in the church I was attended to for a couple of years. I never seen them go out, evangelize the community, or nothing. They're too busy trying to focus how to hire people. nick picking about how people live by pointing out their sins all the time, but they're not witnessing others. You know what I mean?

They're too busy pointing other people's such a self righteousness inside church. You know what I mean? Yes, I know. It's a common problem amongst all Christians and all Christian groups. It is.

Now hold on, hey Brunner, we've got a break, and if you stay on, we'll give it to you after the break. Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, the number is 87720722. 7-6, be right back. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

Rodwin, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it is easy. All you have to do is dial 87720722. 76. And you can also email me, and the address is info at carm.org.

Info at CARM. Dot org. Put in the subject line, radio comment, or radio question. Let's get to. Alberto, you still there?

Yeah, I'm still here. You can finish your talk, go ahead. No, I I've basically done, that was it. Just uh you only came up with the break so we had to end it quickly.

So any more you want to add or ask?

Well, you were saying that's a common problem in the among Christians, that if that's how they spend too much time pok poking you know, poking pickers and everybody else's. Live. that are busy doing with the great commissions should do, you know, try to win the losses. And that's why the churches don't grow. Like it's a example, like years ago, I read an article: like thousands of churches in Southern Baptist conventions were closing.

because people are not Witnessing that going out, it reaches a lot. And so, if you don't have enough people coming inside the churches, their churches are going to close because nobody's doing the great commission. They just they just Attending church and Sunday and go home, attend church, go home, they're not doing a great commission. That's why the churches are closing now all over America. People are not filming the Great Commission.

I wouldn't say it's as simple as that, but I think that's definitely part of it. I think also the creature comforts that we have. tend it to atrophy our spiritual muscles. We have everything we need, so we don't need to pray for God for sustenance and provision, and so therefore we become laxadaisical. I think also, in contribution to that issue of comfort, is the theological position of the pre-tribulation rapture.

We're going to get called out of here. And there's a future thousand years when Christ is going to reign. Right now, it's a devil's kingdom, so why bother? I think this is a faulty position. In fact, I just released an article an hour ago: Are Christians reigning and ruling in Christ's kingdom now?

And I say, yes, they are. Because the Bible says so. But they people it's not taught from uh pulpits. I really think, in my opinion, I think a lot of what's taught from pulpits today is just bunk. It is no good.

A lot of it. Yep. What do you think about this too? About the Roman Catholic priest? I I I never seen about a billion Catholics.

I never seen any Catholics evangelized or preaching in the streets I don't you know You know, are they afraid? They're chicken, they don't want to be persecuted by the LGBT or the sinners out there, they don't want to get attacked or what?

Well, I'm glad they're not out evangelizing. I'm I'm glad they're not out there. I don't want the Catholics to uh go out and evangelize 'cause their religion's a false religion. I wish the Mormons uh 'cause they're a cult, I wish they would not evangelize, but they do. But uh Born again, real Christians are supposed to be As a whole, working to expand the kingdom of God, how that's done.

depends on the individual's uh status, state, condition. Maturity, ability, etc. And most people are not very good at this, not called to it. That's okay. They just need to support those who do, either financially and/or.

That's all.

Okay. But I see in my YouTube videos all the time: you know, people these guys be preaching. But you make a lot of noise. Make a lot of noise. Hold on.

You make a lot of noise in the background. Yeah, yeah, my friends get off of the car anyway. I was watching this VTube, a lot of these guys get attacked by the public, you know, like LTB crowd, all the people talk to guys. That's how I say guys who preach. That's how they don't use proper wisdoms.

That's how the people are polite to them. Can you please lower? you know, their that sound on their mic or or or whatever sorry. Ah. My friends that slammed the door.

So I saw one guy, the people told him, please, can you lower the mic because you're too loud? They were nice to him, but he refused to do it. And I think he was wrong. The Christian guy was wrong because he didn't he didn't want to comply with the people's decision. They didn't tell him, you know, you could still preach, just Lord, the sound of your might, your sound.

What he refused to do is because you can't reach the people. But me, I don't do I don't do street preaching like that, I just get out. I just give They just give out, you know BBN cars or I give uh these pamphlets I buy from the Dollar Tree. you know, and write YouTube videos. You know, write you know, or send or write down your website, carm.org media, stuff like that.

Even to people. Good. And and and I don't have to uh deal with uh fighting and arguing with people. Yeah, there's a lot of people who are called to do different things. Me, I do radio and I go into chat rooms and I have in-depth discussions, debates, but not everybody is called to do that.

Passing on a track or wearing a shirt and going to you know, I think that I think what they should be doing, I really do, Christians who don't want to go door to door, who don't really feel comfortable evangelizing, they need to put some money into ministries that do it. and support 'em. That's what I think. Yep. I think they should because then they can share in the blessing.

I know a guy who's local here. He goes evangelizing. He has a motorhome and he'll travel across the country and he just lives off the donations of people. He literally goes out to street corners and goes to different places and evangelizes, preaches the gospel, goes to churches, teaches them how to do it. And he just has to survive on what people give him.

And that's that's legitimate. You know, so I think this should be something that I think every church should have a ministry fund and a missionary fund and. You know, trying to equip Christians for the work of ministry and things like that. And a lot of churches do, a lot of churches don't, depending on their situation.

Okay? Yeah. I mean I said I said give my thousands attractive church. I said going to. That's what I passed through the order for me because my friend mine gave me the ministries, they clean them out tracks and all that.

but none of the church members were doing it. I'm the only one who does it 'cause most of the people They're old, they're not gonna walk. They're not gonna walk. And you know, a lot of them are just too scared to go to certain areas in the neighborhoods. I go everywhere.

I go. And you just have to. People have to adapt to what they can do and where they're called to go. And they don't have to make themselves always uncomfortable in in danger. They have different ways.

They can they can support ministries that uh They do the work. I think it's a legitimate form of support. of of making disciples.

Alright?

Okay, brother? Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I understand. I know, but sometimes my friend of mine told him, look. I know he he doesn't do it.

He said he wants to live by by by example.

Okay, I told him it's okay, but you can open your but you got to open up your mouth. I mean, you can't can't be a secret agent Christian. Different Christi Different Christians are called differently, okay? My wife, before she passed away, was terrified of speaking in public or getting on the radio, even to say hi. Me, I love it.

Not a problem. She wasn't called to do that. She was different. And that's okay. People are different, all right?

All right, brother, we're going to get going.

Okay. All right, God bless. God bless. All right. Now, if you want to give me a call, we have three open lines: 8772072276.

Let's get to Jessica from Ohio. Jessica, welcome. You're on the air. Hello. Bye.

So what do you got? I just have a question. If you're a Christian and you believe Jesus is our Savior and all that, um But you knowingly and willingly sin Okay. but still ask for forgiveness. Do you think that you're still forgiven?

Okay. Well, it depends what those sins are.

Some people have a real struggle with old habits and they don't want them. They struggle against them and occasionally fall, occasionally fail in those. I'd say those are real Christians. Then you could have someone who professes to be a Christian and then, for example, commits adultery. and just keep doing it.

I wouldn't call that person a Christian because they're not warring against such an easily repentable sin. How can you hold on?

Well we gotta break some of them. Hey folks, we're right back after these messages and if you want to give me a call, the number is 877-20722. 7-6, be right back. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

Rodwyn, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it's easy. Just dial 877-207-2276. Let's get back on with Jessica. You still there?

Yes, I am.

Okay. Alright, no, that helped any because they had to kind of wrap it up for the break, but um What do you think?

So you think that like if it's addict like an addiction to like drugs or alcohol and like they relapse that they could be forgiven. You see, we struggle against our sins, and some of us struggle more than others. And this struggle against sin in the name of Jesus is. one of the evidences that such a person is saved. But some Christians make the mistake of thinking as soon as you're saved all of these problems just vanish, not necessarily.

We all have our problems we struggle with, that God deals with. you know, pride or selfishness or quick temper, or whatever it might be. And some sins are less noticeable.

Some are more internal, like a person's pride, where others might be more external, like adultery or drug abuse, which is kind of in the middle of those. And if a person is really failing, really struggling, and they really are struggling and they want to serve God, but they succumb to this, then they need help. It doesn't mean they're not saved. It would mean that they are probably not capable of handling it on their own, and they need to turn to those who are qualified to help and seek that help. Because God often, you know, He uses doctors.

Well, we have faith that uh God'll do stuff. My wife, late wife, she had open heart surgery seven years ago. And uh Well, we asked for God to heal her heart. And he did by surgery.

So sometimes it's just what you have to do.

Okay. Okay. Okay. That does help. Thank you.

Is this about and p and we have to we don't have to get into this, but is it about you or somebody else? If you want to talk any more about it? No, it's just um it's just about a couple different people in my life that struggle with issues and then you know, I'll I'll say something about, you know, you shouldn't do that and Okay. um, they'll always say, Well, it's okay because No, it's not okay. I'll be forgiven.

See, that is called antinomianism. And it's a sin. That the law of God is not valid, so we can just go ahead and sin. And this is important because of what it says in Romans 6. Romans 6.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Romans 6. Yeah, Romans 6, I'll read it to you, starting at verse 1. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin, that grace may abound?

May it never be. How shall we who have died to sin still live in it?

So it's a quick condemnation.

Now, there's a difference between someone who says, Look, I'm really struggling with this. I really have a problem. I've had victories and then I fail. I'm really working on it. That's different than it's okay.

God understands. I'm going to go ahead and sin. The first one is typically of someone who's saved. The second is typically of someone who's not saved. Gotcha.

Okay. Typically, it doesn't mean it's always the case. Each case must be examined, you know. Just by the individual circumstances. But if you have friends who are saying, it's okay, gotta understand, don't go ahead and sin.

Then If they are believers, God may kill em. to stop them from sinning. That's 1 Corinthians 5. This occurred. And if they're not Christians because they don't understand what Christianity is, or just using the grace of God as an excuse to sin, then I would say don't call yourself a Christian.

Because 1 John 2:4 says, If you say you know him and don't keep his commandments, the truth is not in you, and you're a liar. If you just go ahead and use the the grace of God to to justify sinning. Ugh That's not Christian.

Okay. Okay. All right, thank you. You're welcome.

Alright, God bless. All right, folks, if you want to give me a call, you can. It's wide open lines 877-237. Zero seven. Two two seven six.

Um Oh Okay, let's see.

So I'm going to do some questions. And could we have nobody waiting right now? Let's go to the emails. And before I do that, I just want to let you guys know that we stay on the air by your support. And one of the things I can do is I can go into our new system and I can check to see what's coming in.

And it's all over the map. And you know, it's the average is what we're concerned about. But we still need help in order to. Pay the bills.

So I went to the bank today and paid two of our missionaries in Africa. And that knocks our Our making countdown quite a bit. And it's not a threat. It's not, you know, me whining or anything. I'm just saying, hey, if you want to continue to support, thank you.

If you want to support, It's easy. All you have to do is go to carm.org forward slash donate or carm.org and the top of the page, there's a donate link. And we just ask people to help out $5, $10, $15 a month, something like that, if they can. And if you can't, that's okay. Just pray for us.

We need it, okay?

Alright, here's a question. Hey, Matt, how would you try to answer the impossible question? Hmm. I've been asked this a few times and would love your response. All right.

So it's If God predestines the elect and humans will only choose God after He changes our will, why do more people go to hell than heaven? That's a good question. And um It's a very good question. And I pondered that exact thing so many times over the years. And I mean many, many, many times for many years.

I think it's an excellent question. The funny thing is that the more we preach, apparently the more God is predestined. There's something about us preaching and teaching Presenting the Word of God. to people. and God's eternal plan.

I don't know how it all works. I I just don't know. But Um I I know this. that God wants the Christians to preach and teach and make disciples. And so, if we had a thousand people out there and they were all non-believers.

And the Lord Jesus came up to twelve disciples and said, Go to that thousand people and preach and teach. then there will be people who are saved because of God's grace. Yeah. What if those people, those twelve, did not preach? They disobeyed Christ and didn't preach and teach.

then will those thousand or any of them be saved.

Well, they have to hear the word and the preaching of the gospel to be saved.

So then it seems as though they wouldn't be saved.

So, somehow, some way, the free will of the believers. matters When it comes to uh people being saved.

Now This can get very complicated very very quickly. Because God ordains the means as well as the ends, and He can put it upon our heart to actually go preach and teach. and yet we can also suppress it. in our own selfishness and fear. And so How does all that work in the sovereignty of God?

That is way beyond me to uh to really get into very deeply at all. And so I think this question is a very good question. If God predestines select and humans will only choose God after these changes, our will, which is true.

Okay. Why do people more people go to hell than heaven? Because God hasn't chosen to do what He's done for more people. And that's a question I've asked God about. And when I pray and I deal with this issue before the Lord.

One of the first things I do in this prayer is confess my ignorance, confess my sin, and just politely say, Lord, I'm just asking because I don't understand. I want to know. You are the sovereign king. You're the Lord, you're the However, I want to know Or, is it okay for me to ask? I'm pretty cautious: Lord, why is it you don't save more?

And maybe it's tied to the preaching of the teaching of the body of Christ. And if that's the case, then how does God predestine through people's free will choices? He certainly can. Jesus had free will. And yet he could only do what he saw the Father do in John five, nineteen.

And so this issue of free will And what it is. and predestination is a humongous topic.

Now I have ways of illustrating that God is the sovereign king even over our free will. And here's another question. This is a question I've been asking more and more people lately who are against the idea that God predestines and God elects. And they hate it. They hate it.

It's all about man's choice. Man, man, man. And I ask him this question, and I've asked it so many times in the past few months now. And It stumps everybody. Who's against the idea of God's election or predestination?

It stumps them, and they can't answer it. I say, does God know whatever it would take to save anybody, anytime? Under any condition Without violating their free will. And I add that without violating their free will, because the people who are Adamantly opposed to God's predestination and God's election are the ones who are also universally in favor of human free will as the final arbiter of truth and salvation, human free will. And I ask them the question and they say, after grudgingly, they say yes.

And I say, then, why doesn't he do it? That's a question and they can't answer it.

So, hey. There you go. We write back after these messages. If you want to give me a call, we have wide open lines: 877-207-2276. We write back.

It's Matt Slick live, taking a call at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right, and welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it's easy. 877-2077. All right, all right, all right.

So, um Let's do another email. I'm just looking at some stuff. Is the free will gospel a false gospel and is it heretical? Um I would say, no, it's not. We have to define our terms.

A free will gospel is the. The gospel commonly known about the Friedel Gospel that. When you a person hears the gospel, it's completely up to that individual's free will to be able to believe. And that is a false teaching, but it doesn't mean it's heretical. And it's not a false gospel in that they're not preaching what people need to be saved.

They're just mistaken. Often, what they'll do is use their own experience as the basis for understanding how this salvation works. They'll say, Well, I believed in Christ, I trusted in Christ, it was my free will to do it, so therefore. And it's legitimate to do that when there's no special revelation, that is Scripture, that informs us, for example, on such things as you cannot come to me unless the Father drags you, John 6.44. You cannot come to me unless it has been granted to you from the Father, John 6, 65.

Okay. And that God grants that you have repent, you have faith. Philippians 1:29.

So, since these are revelational statements, out of special revelation, the revelation of God in Scripture. then we can modify. And the free willer should say, the free will gospel adherent should then modify his position. And hopefully, say, the reason I was able to choose in my free will is because God granted that I am able to.

Now, that would be a biblical presentation. Yeah. But the question is: Is such a person who believes who's up to their free will is that a false gospel? And no, it's not. The reason is the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our sins.

Anybody who puts their faith in what he's done. is saved.

Now it's apart from works. You know, like trying to keep the law and only go to church on Sundays or Saturdays or whatever it is, or always being good and you keep yourself right with God by these works. A lot of people say that the idea of having free will, a choice, that it's up to you and your ability, they say that's a work. I don't see that as Scripture. Because even if I don't see this being scriptural.

Even if they, because when they believe, the reason someone will believe that Jesus Christ is God in flesh, died on the cross, rose from the dead, and that salvation is by faith alone and what Christ did alone, that is a spiritual nugget that can only be affirmed by the regenerate, by the saved.

So even though such a person as The um Free will gospel believer who rejects the idea of God's election predestination, and they just say that it was up to their free will. They still. Are believing in the true gospel, even though they're in error about the nature or the instrumental cause, which is the issue of God's faith working in them, or God's work upon them for their faith, I should say that way. And so that's the thing that they have to understand, and they should understand. It's one of the things I try and get Christians to affirm.

Now I cannot tell you how many times in the Bible studies that I have taught, over the years, People will be right in front of me and this topic will come up. not all the time, but when it does, I can tell you. From experience, a lot of times people just stare. And they say, What do you mean? It's not just up to our free will?

Say, no, it's not. But of course it is. And I don't jump on them, I just say, well, Tell you what, why don't we go to Scripture, take a look at what the Word of God says, and then let's modify our. Our belief system to fit scripture. What do you think?

And they go, what? They can't argue with that. And I said, okay, good. And so I show them scriptures. And A lot of time it takes uh several studies.

for them to submit to it. Because they're so ingrained in their ways that it's hard.

Some people it's very easy. They say, Well, that's what it says. That's what it says. I'm done.

Okay. Others, it's far more difficult.

Now I know a person who came out of a cult, of a mind control cult, And so it's very difficult for a person in a mind-controlled cult, a very bad one, it wasn't Mormonism, it was a different one, that it was very difficult. To trust that another person is in charge of your salvation, namely God. And so you see different people have different situations and different levels of knowledge, And experience with the Spirit of God that they have to work through. God is very patient with us. He's very kind.

I mean, think about yourselves. How many of your sins has God functionally overlooked. And what I mean is hadn't slapped you down for it. He's let you continue, let you go on. He's dealt with you in conviction and worked.

How many is that?

Well, we're all should be. That's right.

Well, you see. Our faith, so many people, what they'll do is they will just judge. Spiritual truth by their feelings. I know two rabid anti-Calvinists on some chat rooms I go to, rabid. And I mean, if you could take a photo of them, we're talking Calvinism, they'd be like rabid dogs foaming at the mouth, ripping the five-point tulip to shreds because they just hate it.

And they say anyone who believes in the God of Calvinism is going to hell. I mean, rabid, you know, people who you can't even reason with. And I know people like that, and this is because they are. to a degree idolaters in that they Elevate their own free will to the level such that it replaces the sovereignty of God.

Now, I don't call them unbelievers, even though they're rabidly against. God's, I keep thinking of stuff, they're rabid ravenously against the sovereignty of God, God's election, predestination. And then they'll say that the Calvinist God makes people do bad things. No, it's not a business. Yes, it is.

No, it's not. I go. And they go, yes, it is. I go, no, it's not. Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm kind of digressing because I get a kick out of.

Willing ignorance, and I digress.

So, back to the issue of free will.

So, we can be saved in different levels. of of ignorance. And we have to understand that the sin in our own lives is a lot more complete. and interwoven into our person. But then we realize Even as Christians, And the only way to have that be fixed.

is by submitting to God's Word. If God says, That he grants that we have repentance, 2 Timothy 2:25, then it's true. If it says you can't even come to him unless God grants it to you, John 6:65, then it's true. If people would then, in light of what Jesus Himself said in John 6:65, Say, no, it's up to my free will. And then I say, but Jesus says, you cannot come to me unless it has been granted to you from the Father.

What do you do with that? And then what they'll do is they'll reinterpret Christ himself to make Jesus fit their theology.

Now does that mean you're not saved? No. but it does mean that they have idols in their hearts. and that they are serving the to a degree something that's not biblical. even though they might affirm that they have faith and trust in Jesus.

And who's God in flesh, died on the cross, rose from the dead, and salvation is by faith alone. They will affirm the essential relationship and relation of the gospel itself.

So, I don't say they're not Christians. I just say they're mistaken. But then they will jump on me. You're not Christians.

Okay, thanks. And I'll tell them: why am I not a Christian? I get it, digress. Again, man, I got a lot of digressions, man. I have so many stories.

So anyway, um That that's just it. And it's a good question. The free will gospel is still the gospel. It's the gospel. It's not the what they're doing.

Some people are asking the free will is how they obtain and that gospel to themselves. Um Some say it's by your free will choice, some say it's by God granting you the free will choice. And there's nuanced differences and ramifications of that. Anyway, so there you go. Woof, alright.

Now, if you want to give me a call, we have one caller coming in: 877-207-2276. We have three open lines. Just want to remind you. that We stay on the air by your support. If you would be, in the mood.

And if God would so graciously incline you to maybe support us at five or ten or fifteen dollars a month, you can do that very easily. Just go to carmcarm.org at the top of the page, you'll see Don't eat. Yeah. We have a brand new system, and it's really great. I can see all kinds of stuff I can go in and modify.

We have another system we've been using for many years, and we're getting away from it. And we're almost ready to turn that old one off.

So, we're trying to urge people to move from that old one to this new one so that everything is under one bag. And in fact, we're going to see if. Oh, we dropped the collar. I'm going to see if. We can get the schools rebuilt.

with a new set up, a new system, Which is interesting. And um I just thought of something. Anyway, 'cause I thought of something. And get a new system built and then have that integrated with the The new financial thing we have for donations. It's all it's just we're just making things so that people can access them and be able to.

Uh just use them. But I really got myself thinking about something, you know, about actually writing or having AI. There's some AIs out there that could write all the code. for uh developing a uh a school system. And it just occurred to me to give that a shot and see what would be necessary to implement it.

What if I can get a server someplace that I could practice with it? I don't even know how to program, but man. It's good. I know I happen to have a brother who is a programmer. and he's one of those rare kind of programmers uh that I've heard about.

where he's able to speak two languages. nerd and normal people. And he knows how to communicate normal requests to programming nerds, and he knows how to communicate nerd speak to normal average everyday people. And he's able to do that. And he's been in high demand for a long time.

And he's got stories about stuff like that. I remember once I was at his work, and we were going to go out to lunch. and he got a phone call and he glances back at the phone and goes, Oh, it's just another headhunter. What? He goes, yeah, I get two or three calls a week.

head hunters. They offer me double my salary. Are you serious? He goes, Yeah. How much are you making?

He goes, About $160 a year. What? And uh, you know, why did you go for a more he goes, meh. I like it here.

Okay. Okay. I don't want to move again. It's hard. And so.

I'm like, okay.

So that's one of my brothers. The other brother, I'm just rambling, we've got 30 seconds of the show, is a tennis pro. He's blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and he's a tennis pro in Southern California. And he loves teaching tennis, and he's been doing this for so many years. And I'm a Krishnapologist.

So three brothers, different directions: programming nerd, tennis pro, and a Krishna apologist. Who'd have thunk? At any rate, there you go. We're about out of time, and I know it's been kind of rambling for in the last few minutes. If you want to support us, we do need that.

You can do that by going to carm.org forward slash donate, or just go to a Carm site and look at the top of the page, donate. It's really helpful. And I would just ask that you pray for this ministry and the expansion of this ministry for the glory of God and the expansion of his kingdom. Oh, yeah, that's what we've got to do as Christians. All right, praise God, everybody.

And there's the end of the show. May the Lord bless you, and by his grace, we'll be back on there tomorrow. And we'll talk to you then. Have a good one. Another program powered by the Truth Network.