A previously recorded Matt Slick show. Have a good day. Right hand side of any page, you will find the link to the schools. You can check them out. I wrote them. It took years to write all three of them. You know, about two years.
Maybe three. At any rate, if you're interested in checking them out, all you gotta do is go there and just check them out. And like I said, four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276.
Why don't we just jump right on the lines and get to Josiah from Arkansas. Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, man. Can you hear me?
Yes, I can. Alright. Well, it's cool to hear from you. I've been listening to you for a while. I found you on the podcast, actually, so thanks for putting those out. Yeah.
Yeah, no problem, man. So, my question, are you familiar with Hugh Ross and the Reason I Believe organization? Yeah, a little bit. What do you think about him?
To be honest, I haven't studied his stuff enough to be able to tell you. I just haven't. Okay. Well, I've got another question that kind of goes with it. Can you believe in evolution? Can you be a theistic evolutionist and still be a Christian? It would depend on what level of theistic evolution someone's holding to.
Because if they teach that we evolved from lower primates, hominid ancestors, and evolved upward and God directed it, that's not the biblical position at all. But evolution is a broad thing. And so, what about, it's called allele frequency reduction. What about microevolution, where we have speciation of, say, a flock of birds that gets blown out to an island hundreds of miles off the shore.
And through centuries, they speciate because of predation, environmental pressures. That would be a reduction of genetic information, not an increase of genetic information. So, that's a type of evolution to adapt to one's environment, but it's a reduction of gene pool information. And so, can you believe in that?
Because I believe in that. I believe that species can form, but it's a reduction of the gene pool. And so, that's a form of evolution. We've always got to define our terms. Just always define our terms.
So, that's why. Well, I have an atheist friend, and his argument is always, like, what do you say about the hominids? What about the hominids?
Are they just like an ape-like creature that God created an animal? Well, try this. Ask them this question. Say, how do you know that they're human ancestors? Just ask them a simple question. How do you know they're human ancestors? What are you going to say?
How do you know? And basically, what they're going to say is, well, they have attributes. They look like it.
And what I'll say is, so let me get this straight. So, you're saying they're hominid ancestors because they look like it? That's it? Yeah. That's not scientific.
And besides that, from what I've understood, all of the hominid ancestor fossils can fit on one or two pool tables. Oh, wow. Yeah.
And if you start doing the research, you'll see that there's a lot of them that have been fake. And so I would just ask them, as I do with evolutionists, have you done your research? Have you done your research into hominid ancestor? Yeah. Okay.
So, you know, I would just say, do your homework. And one of the things I've also done with atheists who affirm evolution is I'll say, have you read any counter-evidence books that go through the other side of the argument? I've heard them say, no, why would I bother with that? And I say, then don't talk to me about how true it is. Because if you're going to say that you're convinced it is and you haven't studied both sides of the argument, then why should I listen to you?
At least I've read both. Yeah. Okay. All right?
You've got a baby in your background, you know. All right, man. Yeah, my daughter's back here.
I think crazy. But, man, I appreciate you answering me. And on one of your podcasts I was listening to, did you say you've got a brother in Clarksville, Arkansas? Yes. He's just moved there. I'm in Clarksville. That's so funny.
Wow. Well... And I'm a mailman here, so I bet you I might know him. Well, his name is Eric. And he just moved there a couple weeks ago.
Eric Slick. He's... I'm the smallest in my family of my two brothers. And I'm six feet tall, 220 pounds. And he's like six, two or three, close to like 280.
Yeah. What does he do for a living? He's a programmer. And he makes a ton of money. Yeah, he's told me how... He's a game programmer. He's told me how people will call him up and they want jobs, want to offer him a new job. In fact, when I visited him in L.A. once, the phone rang. He goes, ah, just another headhunter. And he just hangs up on them. And they offer him 200 a year and stuff like that. Yeah, he has this ability to do good work and be able to communicate with the nerds.
So, yeah, that's what he does. It's crazy. You said Clarksville, Arkansas. It's like in the middle of nowhere, you know. Yeah. It's awesome.
You just moved there. Man, I'll let you go. It's good to hear from you. And I appreciate you. All right, man. Well, God bless, buddy. All right. Thank you. Bye. Okay. Hey, folks. Excuse me there. I had to clear my throat. We have nobody waiting on line. Why don't you give me a call?
877-207-2276. Let's talk about evolution a little bit. Because I don't talk about that very often. I would suggest that if you are interested in studying the topic, get books on intelligent design. If you know anything about intelligent design, it's probably because it's been ridiculed in the media.
The reason, this is my opinion, the reason it's been ridiculed in the media is because it's potentially dangerous to secularism. Intelligent design, what it does is it postulates information development and encoding and patterning inside of biological structures. And how does it occur? And where does it come from? And there are such things as irreducible complexity. And evolutionists have a huge problem trying to explain irreducible complexity.
For example, let me give you something. This is all true. The woodpecker, you guys know what a woodpecker is, right? A woodpecker's tongue, the tongue of a woodpecker goes down its throat, leaves its mouth area, travels back down by the neck bones, back up to the back of the head, and travels between the scalp and the skull, and there's a groove in the skull for the tongue to fit.
It goes right up the top of the head, down between the eyes, and then enters into a nostril, goes down into the mouth. And that's the tongue. Now, the question is, how does evolution explain that? Because the idea of a woodpecker being able to have a long tongue to be able to peck holes in a tree and something, and then take its tongue and eject it way, way into cavities to be able to get bugs. So evolution, what it says is that mutations, varying forms of mutations, what happens is they cause, for example, the tongue to get longer.
Okay, great. Well, that means they can survive better because they can reach further into cavities of dead trees and get bugs. Well, how do you explain the idea that a tongue gets stuck down the bottom of the neck? How does that help? How does that help in survivability?
It certainly doesn't. You know, I could just see an evolutionist trying to explain this, and they tried with a woodpecker. And the things that they do, oh, man, it's just gymnastics, verbal, logical gymnastics trying to make it fit. Well, what's most logical is it was all designed and put in place because you have to have the groove in the skull. You have to have the neck muscles. You have to have the vertebra constructed a certain way. You even have to have eye sockets with padding in them so the eyes don't blow out from the head going back and forth. You have to have cushioning in the brain area.
All of this has to be simultaneously there in order for this to work, and all of it can only work if the tongue goes up back of the head down through the nostril and out the beak. So how does evolution explain this? Well, they can't.
This is only one of many, many, many kinds of biological problems like that. It makes sense to say that it's intelligently designed, but the evolutionists don't want that. They presuppose it cannot be the case, so what they automatically do is denounce the idea of a designer. That means that there be a god, and because they're materialists and they're secularists, they have their idols that they bow down to, secularism, evolution, all the stuff that goes in with the materialistic ideology. They bow down before those altars, and anything that would come in to knock the altars over must be attacked and destroyed. And that's how it works in the secular world.
They are very intolerant, that's for sure. So these are just one of the issues. Then there's a bombardier beetle, then we have the bacterium flagellum, the little motor on it.
If you were to take any of these parts away, they don't work anymore. The best explanation is intelligent design, and we haven't even gotten into the issue of what information is. And what evolution is is a biological structure that contains information. But the complexity of information existing in DNA is just immense. The odds of it are just, you can't even imagine, you can't even fathom in your mind what the odds are against it. If you were to look at every single atom in the universe, every one of them, the entire universe, all the millions and millions of galaxies, full of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of stars and planets, and all the atoms that are in the entire universe, and those objects, and the dust in between, and all the matter that's out there in space, all the atoms, like one in ten to the eighties, like the one with eighty zeros, that's about how many particles are out there, they estimate. The odds of information coming together genetically is like one to two thousandth power.
It's just insanely huge. So evolution just doesn't work. It does not work.
It cannot work. There's a designer, his name is Yahweh, and he became one of us in the form of Jesus Christ. You've got to trust in him for your salvation. Let's get to Amias, Amias from Florida. Welcome. You're on the air. Hi Matt, how are you?
I'm okay. So, this is maybe a silly question, and I believe all scripture is inspired and it's the word of God, but if someone were to ask me how to prove that fulfilled prophecy, so in the New Testament, a revelation, how can I prove that it wasn't the apostles just borrowing from the Old Testament from the idea or They were borrowing. They were borrowing from Isaiah and Micah and Psalms. They were. They had the Old Testament and they said, this is what you saw here in Micah, this is what it says in Isaiah, this is what it says over here in Psalms. They did it all the time.
I know there's eyewitnesses to, you know, Santa Cruz Affection, but, you know, how do I tell someone that it's actually fulfilled prophecy and not the apostles just after the fact kind of filling in the blanks? Okay, let's talk about it when we get back from the break, okay? Because it's a good question. Okay, thank you. All right. Hey, folks, we'll be right back. We have two open lines, 877-207-2276. Give me a call. I'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.
Here's Matt Slick. Welcome back to the show. So, Amias, Amias, Amias, how do you pronounce your name? Amias. Amias, okay.
So, your question is basically, how do we know the New Testament wasn't written to make it look like Jesus fulfilled prophecies? Is that your question? You're breaking up, I'm sorry. Is that your question? Oh, I can't hear you.
So, you're breaking up a lot. I think that's the question, though. Well, the New Testament quotes the Old Testament prophecies because there are prophecies that the New Testament writers cited. They're there. See, the only way they could make the New Testament look like it was written to appear as though Jesus fulfilled prophecies is to find things in the Old Testament and apply them in the New Testament. They can do it because the prophecies are there. Now, literally, during the break, I found the article that I'd written on this and I added that paragraph in while I was on the break waiting. It would expand on it. But that's just it.
They can do it because the prophecies are there. Are you still there? Are you with me? Okay, one of the things I'll do when they say, I'm sorry, go ahead. What?
How do you? I can't understand you because you're breaking up so badly. Why don't you call right back, if you want, or move to a different part of wherever you are because I can't understand you. Try it again.
Let's just see if it's any better now. Are you there? No? Nope, can't understand you. Call back, okay, if you want. We'll get to the top of the line, okay?
I'll talk with us a little bit. Okay, so, folks, when people have told me, well, the New Testament writers just made it look like Jesus fulfilled prophecies. Well, okay, and how were they able to do that? How were they able to do that? By going back to the Old Testament and finding stuff, right? That's how they would do it.
They had to look and the Old Testament would say, see, he did that. And then what I'll do is I'll say, well, let's go here. Where it says, read them something. Be not far from me, for trouble is near.
For there is none to help. Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bastion have encircled me.
They opened wide their mouth at me as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws.
And you lay me the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me. A band of evildoers has encompassed me. They pierce my hands and my feet.
I can count all my bones. They look. They stare at me. They divide my garments among them.
And for my clothing, they cast lots. And I've asked critics, I said, what does that sound like? And, you know, they'll say, well, like you've just been crucified. I said, yeah, because that was written 2,000 years before Christ was born. And he quoted that psalm on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Psalm 22, verse 1. And, well, then we'll come back to, with, generally we'll come back with the idea, let's see if it may, this is still there, we'll get a better connection. Are you still there? Yep, I'm here. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can. Let me finish this thought and see if we're on the right track. And so sometimes what they'll say is, Jesus didn't do anything. He didn't really do anything. He just wrote it so it looked like it was fulfilling prophecies. Well, what that would mean is then that they're admitting the Old Testament has prophecies. That's what it would mean. Plus, then how would they explain other issues? If it's the case that the New Testament writers invented Jesus, made it just look like he fulfilled stuff, then please explain why they would do that when it would cost them their lives, when it would cost them their families, when the Roman Empire would go against them, when the Jewish people would go against them. I could just see a bunch of them in a room saying, hey guys, I got an idea. And one guy goes, what? What's your idea? Well, let's make up this character called Jesus, and let's say he fulfilled a whole bunch of Old Testament prophecies.
And I could see his buddies going, are you kidding? What prophecies? Well, let's go over here about being crucified. Let's go over here about being born in Bethlehem.
Let's go over here about 30 pieces of silver. Let's just say that he fulfilled all these things, and that he's the Messiah, as the Bible talks about, the prophecies. And the guys would say, are you out of your mind? You think they'll do to us if we start teaching this? They will seek to kill us. Because in Rome there was Caesaral Papism, which is emperor worship. And all of the empire was supposed to bow the knee to the emperor, to Caesar. But the Jews wouldn't do it. And so the Romans let them have their own little worship as long as they were under control out there in the far east of the Mediterranean Empire of Rome. And so they had a puppet ruler in Israel, and the Jews were working with a puppet leader in order to keep the peace so that the Roman garrisons wouldn't come in and clean Israel out. And so they didn't want any problems. So this would mean that if these guys just made it up, that they would be teaching about how to be honest and loving and sacrificial all the time while lying and risking their lives for it.
It just makes no sense. So anyway, so are you still there? Yes, I'm here. No, that's a great explanation. Thank you. If I could just add on to the question a little bit. So let's say a month long, we're going to say, okay, well then what about the suicide bombers? Why are they willing to give up their lives for Muhammad?
Well, that's easy. The suicide bombers give up their lives for what they believe. The disciples gave up their lives for what they saw. That's different because the disciples saw the risen Lord Jesus.
That's different than just having a belief because varying people have varying degrees of belief for all kinds of reasons, but that's not the case with the disciples. They saw the risen Lord. Now, I'd ask the Muslims, have you seen the risen Lord Jesus? Have you seen Muhammad rise from the dead? Have you seen any of these things?
Or are you just believing because you've been told? Which is it? And that's the difference, okay? Okay. Thank you. That was really helpful. All right.
Well, you're welcome. Thank you. Okay. God bless.
All right. Let's get on the phones with Tom from Des Moines, Iowa. Tom, welcome. We lost you. And I hit the wrong button.
Every now and then I do that. I hit the wrong button. I just hung up on Tom from Des Moines. So, Tom, call right back and we'll get you right back at the top of the stack. It's my bad, buddy.
I goofed up on that one. Let's get to Steve from Utah. Steve, welcome. You are on the air.
Hello, Matt. How are you today? Doing all right. Hanging in there.
What do you got, buddy? Hey, I was kind of wondering on what your take is on old Earth versus new Earth, the old universe versus new universe. How do you reconcile that? I've been a Christian for about four years now. And I still – and I'm a major scientist, too. Oh, good. But I'm an old Earth guy.
How old? And I don't know if, like, four billion-year-old Earth. Okay. And not the 6,000-year-old Earth that I hear people talk about because I just don't see how that could be, you know.
I mean, I understand, you know, God created all this stuff and everything else, but it took – I believe it took place over billions of years, not thousands of years. Well, I tell you what. What I would do is hold on for after the break and then I'll tell you. Okay? So hold on, buddy. Okay. All right.
That's the show. Please join us there. We'll be right back after this. All right. It's Matt Slick Live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right. 7-6, here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show.
Make sure I get this right. Don't click the wrong button again. Steve from Utah, are you still there?
Yeah, I'm still here. All right, what I was going to suggest is if you believe in the old Earth, OK, do some research on young Earth creationism just to see, just see what the evidence is. Because if you're like me and sound like you are, you love science, and I do. I just love science. I like to watch science documentaries. I just love it. I watch sports. I watch that stuff. And my wife thinks I'm odd. But I say, hey, I can all watch sports.
And she goes, no, that's OK. So there you go. So some of the things that I've, over the years, have discovered, seen that have convinced me the Earth is young are such things as sedimentary rock levels all over the world. They require a universal flood.
That's something to look into. Don't know if you know this, but there are trees fossilized through millions of years of rock strata. Yeah, they're in the layers, though. They're through the layers.
Yeah, vertical, like through 600 million years. And that right there, just one of them, just one of them proves that this evolution stuff isn't that old. It just proves it. Because what they'll do is they'll just ignore it.
It's a freak. We don't know how to explain it. Let's ignore the evidence and go to what we like. Then there's the dust on the moon issue. Now, we don't know exactly all the rates for the whole time, but at the present rate of dust settling on the moon, the calculations, it's exactly, not exactly, but it's equal to roughly 6,000 year calculation. That's how much dust is there.
They expected much more, and it was just consistent with the rate of moon dust fall at that rate. There's also the slowing down of the Earth's rotation. And I did calculations back when I knew my math 30 years ago, 35 years ago. Did some math calculations on the Earth's slowing down. The rotation is like 2 seconds a century or something like that, or 1.5 seconds a century. And I just accelerated it back, just to see, and found out that within just a few hundred thousand years, nothing could stay in the surface of the planet.
It would be going so fast. DNA is being found in fossils that are supposed to be millions of years old, but that can't be. Yeah, I've heard the soft tissue, dinosaur bones kind of thing, and all that kind of stuff. But I mean, it's not just that. It's the universe itself, where you've got things that are millions and billions of light years away. Well, here's something to think about.
I'm going to see if I can make this make sense when I try and say it. I suspect that as the universe stretches outward, and I'm not saying these are the right words to use, but I'm going to try and get the concept. As the universe stretches outward, if God were to have created the universe, let's say, a billion miles in diameter, the universe. Let's just say that. I'm just going to pick it. And there's a star out there that would be born in a billion, let's say a trillion, quadrillion, whatever.
It doesn't matter. The light's going to take three days to get here, let's just say, at the speed of light, which is no big deal. Let's just say that's the case, but the universe is expanding. As it expands, the fabric of space is expanding, light will take longer to get here. And as the universe is expanding, then it will appear that it's older than it is.
Simply off the hook. Yeah, I hadn't really considered it that way. I mean, even things on Earth itself, like Fibonacci spiral, it goes everywhere from a snail to how a galaxy's formed. But that's information.
It's a precise mathematical calculation. Somebody had to create all this. There's no way that could have been created. You mean accidentally evolved? No, it could not have accidentally evolved. Somebody had to fine tune the knobs to get it, because everything has to be so perfect for this Earth and the universe to even exist.
Well, I'm with you on that. That's information theory that is woven in, not to mention the abstraction of mathematics. And why is it mathematics relates to actuality? What is the bridge between 2 plus 2 equals 4 in our mind and the actuality of it there?
How is it that math, which is universally proper and absolute in its abstraction, applies to materiality? This is a real interesting topic. We can't get into it here.
It gets too deep. But there are evidences for young Earth. And you should check them out.
Just go look. Yeah, and I've looked at all of it. And I've listened to people like Kevin Ham and stuff like that, but I've been a Christ follower for at least four years now. And I really believe in the Bible. And I love history, too. And that's how I really got interested in the Bible. And I found out that, hey, all this stuff's real.
I still have that thing where I just build it. It gave me some things to consider on the expansion of invertors and all that sort of thing because it's getting further and further away. And it's expanding pretty quickly.
Yes, it is. And you don't know why it's accelerating. So something's happening to the very fabric of the nature of space where it's accelerating. So if that's the case, we're never going to be able, even if we're at the speed of light, we'll never be able to get to other galaxies.
It would be physically impossible. That is some time warp thing to do it. Well, that's the case. That means the light will take longer to get here the further out it is. Because it's expanding, therefore, it's going to give the appearance of kabillions of years old. And it could be easily explained with the starlight issue if that's the case.
Because if it remains constant, and that's another question, they don't know if the speed of light is constant, there's some issues with that. So the universe had to be created. So if you, I mean, I take it with Genesis and science when they say, God says, let there be light.
And the sun wasn't there for like three, four days. But when he said, let there be light, could that have been the big bang? Well, I don't have a good problem with that in that sense, because something cannot come from nothing. And without getting into the logic of it, but there's only two possibilities, too far in the logic, there's only two possibilities to account for the existence of the universe, a personal cause or a non-personal cause. If it's a non-personal cause, the non-personal cause which preceded the universe would have to have inherent in its nature the necessary and sufficient conditions to bring about the cause of the universe. But if it possessed those necessary and sufficient conditions, it would have had to have possessed it eternally. If that's the case, then since it's not sentient, then it's just part and parcel of its nature, it would have brought the universe into existence an infinitely long time ago. But the universe is not infinitely old. Therefore, that option cannot work. That means the non-personal cause of the universe cannot work. It's impossible, logically impossible, in the course of personal cause.
No, I totally believe that, because of the odds of everything happening is that it is impossible. And there was, for a long time there, I was pretty much agnostic for quite a while. And got going and learning about Christ and stuff like that, and going through some of the history of it. I was amazed. So I became a believer. But I still have that. I will tell you what.
I have that. I'm going to recommend a book for you, OK? And I think it would be worth it. Starlight and Time by Humphreys. Time's a whole other issue. But it's critically important in this issue. So just look up Starlight and Time by Russell Humphreys.
You can get it on Amazon. Just start reading through it, OK? OK. All right. All right. OK, buddy.
I'd like to do that. So I appreciate it, Matt. OK. No problem, Matt. Thanks. All right. Thank you. God bless. God bless you. You too.
All right. Let's get over to Matt from Minnesota. And we lost Matt. He must have been an intelligent and humble guy, because his name's Matt.
Let's see. How about Robert from Salt Lake City, Utah. Robert, welcome.
You're on the air. Yeah, hi, Matt. My question deals with Catholicism. And I'll just start by saying that I love my Catholic brothers and sisters. This is not to challenge the faith. It's to understand.
So my question is two-pronged, Matt. Number one, why, when the scriptures tell us, call no man father, but your father in heaven, and yet the priest is called father. And then the other part is Virgin Mary is placed in such high regard, there seems to be more emphasis on the Virgin Mary, as far as I can tell, than Jesus Christ. Well, let's get to one at a time.
Let's do the first thing. You're right about the issue of call no man father and why Jesus is saying that. Now, of course, we recognize I have a dad and call him my father, but it's not talking about that in that context. It's talking about the spiritual issue of authority and supremacy.
And don't do that to anybody other than God. It's a form of idolatry, a subtle form, but it is. The Roman Catholic Church is guilty of it. And it's guilty of it on the same page as the issues of Mary. And I believe that the reason they focus on Mary more than Jesus is because they're unregenerate people on their way to hell. And because of this, they don't understand the truth of the gospel and the personal work of Christ.
So they're idolaters in the heart. Now, I just had a lot. There's a break. Hold on. We'll be right back, folks. After these messages, give me a call to open lines 877-207-2276. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.
Bill, we lost him. OK. All right. That was interesting. Yeah, so what I said about the Roman Catholic Church, I stand behind. I believe it's an apostate false church. The reason I do that, I say that is because it teaches a false gospel.
Paragraph 2068 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that you obtain salvation through faith, baptism, and the observance of the commandments. And that is blasphemous. It is a false teaching, the Bible says, to the one who does not work but believes. His faith is credited as righteousness. That's Romans 4-5.
Romans 3-28, we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. The Roman Catholic Church violates the very nature of scripture and what it teaches about that. And it basically exalts Mary to the level of a goddess.
She can hear millions of prayers simultaneously from all over the world, all the people who'd pray to her, both spoken and thought in different languages, all simultaneously, and she can answer them. And this is just nothing but idolatry. They are idolaters. They promote idolatry. They promote a false gospel. And when they die, unfortunately, those who hold to official, notice I said official, Roman Catholic theology will find themselves in the lake of fire.
We need to preach the gospel to them. The Bible warns about false doctrines and apostasy later on. And the Protestant Church now is moving towards apostasy as well. And just because we're Protestant doesn't mean we've got everything right. But I'll tell you, the scriptures are the foundation of truth. If we don't believe in the word of God, then we'll believe in anything. And that's what the Roman Catholic Church does, because it doesn't believe the word of God is true and superior and supreme to all things. It places it equally with its own sacred tradition, which means sacred tradition interprets the Bible because your tradition becomes something equal. And it's by man's wisdom and logic that he do this. And so it's an apostate false church.
And I will always teach that, because the Bible says what it says, and Catholicism says what it says, and the Catholic Church needs to repent and move towards Christ and become Christian. Amman from Des Moines, are you still there? I lost him. Man, we're losing people.
I don't know what's going on here. Let's get to Jan from Virginia. Jan, welcome. You are on the air. Hi there, Matt. Don't push the wrong button on me. Yep, I did it. I just wanted to make a quick comment about the lady that called Amias.
I have been asked that question many times. And I believe that the surefire way to know they're telling the truth is it would be very rare for 12 people to experience the exact same situation, and then many years later write the same details over and over again, even though they haven't stayed together to compare notes and keep their story straight. Yeah, that's a good point. And even at the worst of their lives in jail and prison and being stoned and everything that they went through, their stories were always the same. Yep, they're the same, and it changed their lives.
What would cause somebody to change their life to such a degree they'd die for it? An atheist would say, Muslims believe, and they'd die too. But the difference is, like I said earlier, the eyewitnesses died for what they saw. And that's what they said, we saw this. That's different. That is different. And they never changed their story. That's right. Ever.
It stayed the same forever, no matter the circumstances. That's why I truly believe that disciples were real. They did see what they saw, and we should believe it. Amen to that. I agree with you. All right, and I enjoy your show. Thanks for letting me come on and talk with you. Good. Now I'm going to hit the correct button and drop you here in a second.
So just give me a heads up. OK, bye. Have a good night.
You too. All right, Jan, God bless. OK, here we go. Click.
Boy, I guess sometimes I get button challenged, all these buttons. All right, let's get to James from Canada. James, welcome. You are on the air, buddy. Hi, Matt. Thanks for taking my call.
Yeah, you're welcome. How are you doing? I have a, sorry if there's a lot of noise. I'm driving my truck right now. I have a quick question about a personal situation that's come up, and I'm looking for some advice.
OK. With the whole economic situation, with the lockdown, me and my wife are looking at moving out of the city to a small village where my father actually lives right now. And I'm just two years reformed, a reformed Christian. I came to understand reformed theology about two years ago. But my father is a Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, minister. And so we had a discussion.
Yeah, we had a discussion. He's got the fundamentals about salvation by grace, through faith. Good, but the Pentecostal distinctives are a big issue. And I mentioned to him today that I would probably be looking at commuting to another community to go to church.
And that really affected him, hurt him. And so what kind of, I'm not sure if in good conscience I could attend his church, even though I can still call him a brother in Christ. I'm not sure how to navigate this. You just did. You say to him, according to what I believe and what I believed before my Lord, I can't in good conscience go and do such and such.
He can't argue with that, because he would not want you to violate your conscience before the Lord. OK? Right.
That's what I would say. Yeah, his main concern and my main concern with that decision would just be the effect it would have on the village, seeing that the son of the pastor of the only church in the community wants to go to another church. And I'm sure there's a way to navigate that.
Sure there is. So I'm Reformed also, and I attend a non-Reformed church. And I navigate it fine by not bringing those issues up in that context.
I don't do that there, because it's not what I'm there to do. And they're my brothers and sisters in Christ. So that's it. You could just say to everybody, hey, we're still brothers in the Lord. And the Bible says in Romans 14, 1 through 12, Romans 14, that each man must be fully convinced of his own mind. And that's what we're doing. And we still love each other as little Christians.
And that's it. And just say, I'm Reformed in my theology, and he's not. And someone might say, well, what does that mean?
And then you can start teaching them scripture. So my conscience before God, you would then say my conscience before God regarding doctrine is more important than how my father interprets honoring my father. Well, to honor your father, what does it mean? To do everything he says? Is that what it means?
No, it doesn't mean that. But you honor him by respecting him. And he's a preacher of the words. You've got to be very careful not to disrespect him.
And you show honor and respect all that time. But in your conscience, you can't attend a hyper-Arminianism man-centered kind of teaching. And that is pretty serious. And I'm sure he teaches you can lose your salvation. And you've got to keep it by doing good things, which should be a false gospel.
And so it's a serious thing. OK. Well, I appreciate your advice, Matt. And I've got a verse for you you need to study.
And when it comes up, ask him about it. It's Colossians 2.14. OK, Colossians 2.14. So I'd recommend what you do is you study it for a little bit. If you're confused about why I'm bringing it up in this context, call me back.
Because that verse cannot be properly understood by anyone who's not Reformed. OK. All right. We'll do that. OK, man. All right, thank you. All right, well, God bless.
OK. Well, let's see. Let's get to Clay from Raleigh, North Carolina. Clay, you're on the air. Hey, brother Matt. God bless you, man.
Happy Friday to you as well. You know, it's interesting that you're talking to him about the honor thing. Because I would always have it thrown in my face from family members about you're not owning your mother or your father by what you're doing. But I also was going to touch base with you on what the conversation was about the United Methodist thing. I come from a Methodist background. And I'm a Baptist. But I learned that there's a difference between being sprinkled and being fully immersed.
It's a thing where you're being cleansed within and being cleansed without. And so I find it interesting if it'll help Brother James to understand a little bit more about the honor part. I was talking about it with somebody. And the Lord created this. And I truly believe that there's more to creation in Genesis than is there. Because when you have people that you're talking with, and they're a believer in stuff like this, that it's creation. God creates the moments that are there to be able to talk to a brother in the Lord or a sister in the Lord when you wear a hat or shirt that has something. And so the honor part is not only about respecting, but what you're doing in your life that people see that is honoring the parents that brought you into this world.
If you act any differently, then that's a different story. But the honoring part is what you are doing with your life that is bringing the mother and the father forward to honor the kingdom of God. OK. I'm listening, because we're at the end of the hour.
Did you have a question along with us, or do you just want to do that comment? Well, I'm just wondering what your thoughts are about that. Because I mean, I have been told by several family members at some point that I'm not honoring my mother or my father because of the way I do things. But I'm a faithful follower of Jesus.
Without knowing what those are to be touched, but yeah, OK. I'm a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, and I mean, I know that what I'm doing is I feel is honoring them, even though they tell me I'm evil or I'm whatever, and stuff like that. Why do they say you're evil?
Because of what? Because it's sometimes how I act or what I do when I say certain things that go against them or something like that. OK, I'm not sure what that means. But are you following the Lord Jesus Christ?
Well, I'm not either, but. Are you following the Lord Jesus Christ? Is he God in flesh? Yes, sir. OK. Yes, sir. I mean, you know, I feel I'm doing what I need to do in regards to my life and following him.
Yes, sir. Well, then why would they be upset with you? Are they pagans or what? I'm not sure about the pagan thing.
I really don't know. But I can honestly say that me, when you don't, people like them, they are not completely active like I am. But when you have somebody that sees or shares something, and I guess I'm beating, I'm not sure if I'm beating around the bush, but I just look at it and I say that I know where I stand with things in my life because of where I am in my heart, where I'm following things with the Lord, you know, going and being able to share things with people, you know, whether it's in Hebrews or Romans or the Old Testament and the New Testament, people see me and they see me grow. But sometimes when you have a family member that doesn't see that, they have a tendency to go against it. That's true, which is why it takes time.
Yeah, it does. And we're out of time, unfortunately. But I hope you have a great weekend, OK? OK. Well, thank you, brother. God bless you, man. And thanks for taking the call and taking the time to listen. No problem, man. God bless. Hey, folks, we are out of time. And I will be back on the air on Tuesday.
Take a Monday off because of the holiday. Have a great weekend, folks. God bless. God bless. Bye-bye.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-02-28 23:37:54 / 2024-02-28 23:58:07 / 20