Matt Slick Live

A previously recorded Matt Slick show. And if you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276 and we're trying to figure out, I was trying to figure out how to do a Facebook watch party. Because we have the show put out on Facebook and in YouTube and so they're recorded in both venues. And we use something called StreamYard, which is great, StreamYard.com.

They didn't pay me for the advertisement or anything like that. It's just a great little program. And so if any of you have knowledge on that, let me know. We're just trying to get the word out as much as possible.

And if you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. And by way of reminder, just letting you know that we can always use your support if you are so inclined. If you want to take a chance and you want to support us at say $5 or even $10 a month, all you have to do is go to CARM.org. And on the right hand side of any page, you'll see the little donate thing. And we ask because, well, you got to keep the lights on, pay the missionaries, you know, pay for the internet, do the radio and, you know, this stuff. So just let me know.

All right. And we have three online schools if you're interested and you want to learn some theology. Now, you can just go to the CARM website. But this, these things are arranged in logical order, bit by bit, adapted from the main information and with some other stuff not really on the site. If you're interested in checking those out, too, go to CARM, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, and look for the schools.

The home page is a great place to go look. There we go. I think that's about it. Four open lines if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to John from New Jersey. John, welcome. You're on the air.

Hello, Matt. Yeah. I have a question. Now, when the Bible says in 2 Timothy 3 16 that all Scripture is inspired by God. So it's a twofold question. What does inspired mean by God?

God breathed. And how it works out is that everything that is recorded in the Bible is accurate. So if it records a murder, it's accurately recorded. If it records that someone lied, that too. If it records a historical event, that too, et cetera. And it's inspired of God in that way.

It records good and bad and everything. All right? Okay. So in 1 Corinthians 7 12, if Paul is giving his opinion, is that opinion from God? That's a good question. You see what I'm saying?

Absolutely. And so some people, what they'll do is they'll say, well, if Paul's only giving his opinion, then I'm not going to listen to it because it's his opinion. And then I'm going to say, okay, so is your opinion equal to Paul the Apostle's opinion?

And they better not say yes because he was called by Jesus, performed miracles, and was ordained by God to write Scripture, which he's doing in 1 Corinthians 7. So even his opinion as he is writing is under inspiration in the sense that he's writing, this is what I believe, this is what I say. And that is accurate. And it's true.

He is the one saying it. So what do we do with it? Well, what we do with it is we submit to what Paul teaches. We submit to his truth. Because if we don't, then, well, hey, what else is just an opinion? You know, maybe Peter said something just an opinion. Hey, let's just go with just opinions.

And next thing you know, they submit the word of God to their own opinions. Okay. Are you there? Okay. All right. That makes sense. That makes sense. Oh, on the baptism thing, I saw some of that debate you were doing with that guy who believed, you know, you need to be saved.

Be baptized to be saved. That was a really good debate because I met someone who believed that, too. And when I brought it up, you know, people on the cross, he was, you know, he said that was only one rare case.

Oh, so he admits it then. Here's the problem. You know, it's necessary that baptism occur if by definition, if something is necessary, there isn't an exception to it. Otherwise, it's not necessary. That's just how it works. So if he says it's an exception, then he refutes his own position that it's necessary.

This is simple logic. It's like when I asked the opponent, A.K. Richardson, I asked him, you know, Colossians 2.14, you know, he agreed that the sin debt was canceled by Jesus at the cross. Then I asked him, what do you believe? I said, did baptism or does baptism, is that where the sin gets canceled?

He said, yes. So, well, wait a minute. If it's canceled at the cross, it doesn't exist anymore. How can it also be canceled again at baptism? Which means it wasn't canceled.

You know, what do you do? This is simple logic. He did not do well in responding to that, because that just refuted this whole idea that you have to be baptized to be saved.

Well, it's a simple logic issue. If he canceled at the cross, there's nothing left to be canceled later. And baptism isn't the place where it's canceled. And nothing in the scripture says so about baptism, but it is at the cross. So people don't like logic a lot of times.

And they think they're logical, but they don't really adhere to it because they submit the word of God to their feelings, their sensibilities, and their agendas. And it's a real problem. So, yeah, you know, there you go. Are you there? Alright, man, thank you. And I'm praying for you, you know, the ministry.

I love what you do, man. I want to get out there and start spreading the gospel myself, you know, with the virus and stuff like that. I think, I don't know, what do you think? Is it a good time to spread the gospel? Of course it is. Of course it is. The gospel doesn't have validity based on whether or not we're wearing a mask or there's a virus running around. Or we have Democrats or Republicans in the office. It just is, now is the time of salvation. So preach that gospel when you can. If I lived over there in New York, I'd be going down out to, I did it before, not Times Square, but there's a place down there, I forget the name of it, and there's, across the street, there's a sign, electronic sign with numbers.

Just a number sign, it's increasing. I don't know if that rings a bell or not, but there's a park across the street from there, and that's where I was doing open air before. So I'd be out there going, you know, doing that.

So, you know? Are you there? Yeah, I'm not too far from New York.

I'm like probably 20, 30 minutes. Yeah, well, it's a good place to witness. I don't know.

It's harsh right now because of the, you know, with all the laws and stuff like that. Yeah, well, call the police department up and you ask them what you're able to do. And you get a name and you talk to so-and-so and then you go out there. That's what I would do. No problem. Okay?

Yeah, that's the smart way to go about it. All right, Matt, thank you. All right. Well, God bless, buddy. All right. Hey, we have four open lines if you want to give me a call.

The number is 877-207-2276. Let's get to Michael from New York. Michael, welcome. You're on the air. Always a pleasure.

Appreciate the work you do. I had a question. I don't know if you ever looked into the origins of Yahweh, Yahwehism, how this all began. There's many theories, as you know, in scholarship and none of them really are. What's Yahwehism? I guess it's the introduction of Yahweh worship or the worship of the God called Yahweh. You mean as in monolatry or henotheism where there are many gods and just the concept of Yahweh came to being and that became a dominant one out of many and that's all it is?

Actually, yes. I guess I misspoke in that Yahweh, I just use Yahwehism as the origin for Yahweh and I didn't put a context to it. Are you a Christian? There's that theory. Yahweh was consorting with Asherah.

What I'm saying is there's a lot of scholarship. Have you ever looked into it and what is your sort of conclusion on the origin of Yahweh? Are you a Christian?

I am, yeah. Do you believe that Yahweh is a true and living God? Do you believe that Yahweh is the true and living God?

Yes, sir. I'm curious now why you want to know what this Yahwehism is as though it means that it was just a concept that was just originated out of a culture that became dominant. Yeah, I try to apply critical thinking and not just listen to one view. Yeah, I don't know how to put it all together. I'm sure I'm wondering if you've looked into it and I could look at the Bible and say, okay, well, Adam and Eve, Moses and Yahweh. Do you believe Adam and Eve existed? I do, sir, yeah. Okay. What the archaeological finds that they have with these inscriptions together with El and Asherah. So they exist. I can't just sweep them all over the table. So I don't know if you had any more insight other than what's in the Bible.

Okay, no. Or how you put the Bible together. Well, here's the thing is there's archaeological evidence for all kinds of things, but what does it mean?

How does the evidence fit into any paradigm? Undoubtedly, there were false gods that were known or believed in, taught around the Mediterranean area at a time when the Jews became the Jews. When Abraham was there, there were false gods in Egypt, false gods in Samaria. All over the place there were false gods. And God called Abraham out of the Ur of the Chaldees and created out of him a nation and revealed himself as the true and living God. So you would expect historically and archaeologically to find archaeological remains, mentions of other gods. Not that they're real, but other gods and things like that. They would find Yahweh developing archaeologically because there would be a time when he introduced himself as the true and living God.

So it's no big deal. A liberal would simply say, well, that just means that they've thought it up and it's just one of the same of the other ones. Well, if it's one of the same of the other ones, how do you explain then the prophecies of the scriptures and the fulfillment in Jesus Christ? How do you explain his death, burial, resurrection? How do you explain him claiming to be the I Am, which is what Yahweh means in the Hebrew out of Exodus 3, 14, 15?

I Am that I Am. Just their stale, secular viewpoint doesn't mean that they're on the right track in understanding what the facts really mean. So that's what I would say.

You spoke something that I can glean, is that the introduction of Yahweh, some people may have taken it and mixed it with other gods and some may have worshipped him alone. But either way, that's what you would expect to find. Of course it would. Yeah, you'd expect it.

And why? Because God revealed himself. In fact, if you want, do a little bit of research on ancient Chinese characters and ancient Chinese culture. And it turns out that they go back like 6,000 years and they were monotheistic way back 6,000 years ago.

It's interesting, way before all this stuff, just like the Bible teaches. So, anyway. Okay, thank you, sir. All right, then. Talk to you later. God bless.

Thanks. All right, folks, we have four open lines. Give me a call, okay? 877-207-2276. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the show. We have three open lines. If you want to get in line, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. Let's get on the line with Angela from Georgia. Angela, welcome. You're on the air.

Hi. I'm nervous about calling you, folks. That's all right. You'll be fine. No big deal. You're just talking to someone on the phone.

So what do you got? I sent in your messenger, I sent you a video of the church that I come out of. I grew up in that church. And that particular video, I don't know if you had a chance to watch it, was against the Trinity. And they teach modalism and work salvation and baptismal regeneration in Jesus' name only.

All of the purists that you can think of, they're teaching it there. And I wanted to know if I was supposed to expose them or not. Well, there's a sense in which the answer is yes and another one which we could say we don't know. Because we don't know if God particularly wants you to do it. But then again, on the other hand, is it biblical to do such a thing? And so I saw the message that you had here. So during the break, I researched some verses. 1 Timothy 1-20, among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so they'll be taught not to blaspheme. 2 Timothy 4-14, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds. In Matthew 18-17, this is more germane to what we're talking about. When you go to correct someone, if he refuses to listen, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be the gentile, a tax gatherer. So it's definitely biblical to expose heresies. And that's what I do for a living, for one thing, is tackle these false teachings all over the place. So are you supposed to do that?

Well... I don't go there anymore, obviously. I was saved about seven years ago and I had quit going back when I was 15. But it's right here in my community. And this church has been doing this for long before I even knew of them.

It's only been 27 years, so it's been at least that long, if not longer. Well, here's some of the things I can suggest or offer to think about. And some of them are, well, here's something I do. Because I know web stuff a little bit. I can get a domain name. Look, I have the domain name and website rjwscristian.com, ismormonismchristian.com. And so I have signs that have those. And so sometimes when the temples open up, the Mormon temples, I'll just stand out there for hours and days in a row with a sign, ismormonismchristian.com. Because I want people to go to the site and check it out.

Well, you could have a similar kind of a thing where you just, I'm not necessarily going to do this, it's kind of scary, maybe, I don't know, but for me it's not. But you could have a sign, you know, ismormonismchristian.com, whatever. You could have research information, the whole bit. That's an option.

Another option is to create a pamphlet of information, like eight and a half by eleven, double-sided, because that's just easier to do, one page. And you could just hand it out to people as they're going into the church. There's several things you could do. You could pray, you can get a print out of paper, you know, be careful of this church.

You can get an ad on the radio, be careful. Or you can do what I used to do, I used to just, I used to do this. When I was younger, for about a two-year period, I could just walk up to buildings, church buildings, and the doors would open. I'd just go, I'd be driving along, and all of a sudden, go in there. And I would just, like at a Mormon ward. And I would just walk up to a Mormon ward, there's no cars, there's nobody around, nothing.

It's awful if you're locked up. I'd just pull out a door and walk in. And I had tracts with me, and I would put tracts in their hymnals, and stuff like that. And I'd go into their bookstores and do the same thing at random places. There's different things you can do.

And, you know, it depends on what you want to do. And if you feel led to do something, you could start a Bible study with women. You could try and talk to the pastor. You could have them call me, see if they can set up a debate, an online debate. I'd be glad to debate them.

So there's different things. Yeah, he mentioned something in the video about, I'll debate somebody. Some of the stuff he says, I can't understand. But I know for a fact the sermon was on the Trinity of the lie, or something like that.

I'd be glad to debate him on that. But why it bothers me so is because my in-laws, my mother and father-in-law, died in that lie. And it bothers me that there's people who I know are dying in that lie. It kept me so messed up for so many years. Yeah, that's what cults do.

They're oppressive, legalistic. I'm sorry that your parents died in that. We only hope by God's grace that they were saved anyway. I hope that, you know, I had such a messed up understanding of the character of God. And I always was told that the Trinity was a Catholic thing. And it turns out that that was a lie. So when I went through the Scriptures to try to understand, I kept seeing the Trinity.

But if I ever mentioned it, they would tell, they would rebuke me for it. And so I stayed away from the Bible and fell deeper into sin and had all kinds of problems. It was really bad. God even put me in a sick bed for six years. Oh my goodness. Well isn't it good though, sorry I went through that, but isn't it good that God's grace and mercy have just been extended to you by his great hand? It's a wonderful thing. I'm glad to hear that. It's great. Every day I'm always wanting to learn something and desire the Word. And that's something I've never had before.

And I have peace with God now and I didn't have that before. But it makes me angry that this preacher is teaching them this stuff. They're cultic because they do the whole clothing thing, the hair thing, you know what I mean? They don't touch their hair. On heads. Yeah, there's a lot of burdens on them, lots of burdens.

And you can tell it in their face that they're just burned down with all this work. It's never going to earn them anything. They don't deserve it.

We don't deserve it. Well I'll tell you what, you can talk to your husband. He's a Christian, right? Yes he is. And you too can pray about this if it's upon your heart and ask the Lord what to do.

He needs to be in there. Your husband needs to be in there involved with you spiritually because he's your federal head. He's the head of the house. And so put it before him and see what he says. And then if you feel led to go out in front, he needs to be out there to protect you and things like that. Well that's what I told him. Besides the fact that it's not my role, I told him that they wouldn't listen to me because I'm a woman anyway.

I need somebody, I'm a man, to do this. That's just what I'm saying. I don't want to be the one standing out there because they don't take me seriously anyway. Well they should take you seriously. You're a woman of God. And your gender doesn't have anything to do with being able to stand out there and be truthful. See if you can challenge this guy to debate me. Do an online debate on the doctrine of the Trinity, whether it's biblical or not.

Tell him you've got this guy on the radio named Slick. Be glad to debate him on this. I think I did say something about a debate, but then they blocked me from making comments on their Facebook page. Well what you do is just sign up on another name and then you have a crafted paragraph and you give it to people.

And you have them get in too. And then you go in and you put this. Say, this guy here will be glad to have an online debate with you, which you said you would do. And so here's the information. And you can put it Matt at CARM.org or info at CARM.org as the thing to debate. And I'll do it.

And I'll do my best to expose his false teaching. Okay? All right. Got to go. Thanks a lot Angela.

All right, that's Angela. We have one open line if you want to sneak in. 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live.

Taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Welcome back everyone. Let's get to Kyle from Florida.

Kyle, you're on the air. Hey Matt, can you hear me all right? Yes, I hear you. I hear you fine. All right, cool.

This is first time caller to you and first time caller to any sort of program. Oh, well-imprivileged. Okay.

All right. So I was told to go to your ministry through a friend after experiencing the International Church of Christ on UF campus. And so I've basically just dived into a lot more of what they believe and their theology. And I was just wanting to kind of understand how much of the overlap between Church of Christ proper and International Church of Christ there are or something. Because I know you've done a lot of work in debating churches of Christ, Church of Christ, International Church of Christ. And I just didn't know how much of that was strictly International Church of Christ or how much of that was Church of Christ.

Was that large? The Church of Christ at large teaches you have to baptize in water by immersion in order to be saved. And that you can lose your salvation because if you gain it by what you do, by your baptism, you can lose it by what you do or don't do. And so they deny predestination and election, for example, they'll deny those things. Because salvation isn't dependent upon God's election and predestination, but it's upon man's choice and free will. They also will generally go to what's called Pelagianism.

And if they're going to be very good, they might even go to semi-Pelagianism. But that means that babies are born without a sin nature and they become sinful by sinning, which is a false teaching. And it's been condemned throughout history by basically every church council, Protestant, even Catholic, whatever.

They're just wrong. The International Church of Christ, Kip McKean, founded it 30, 40 years ago, I forgot, and my information on the ICOC is a little bit out of date. But they have requirements of sin lists, at least they used to, and disciplers. So what the ICOC gets into is heavy discipling where you have to confess everything to your discipler who then keeps a list of various things and then controls what you can and can't do.

There's actually been reports of, you can't go to the store unless you call your discipler and ask permission, that kind of a thing. So it's a mind control cult and they have toned things down from what I've heard because they've been attacked so much, and you know, apologetically, you know, and apologetics. But they still are strong on campuses, various ones, and they're pretty well trained and the average Joe doesn't know how to refute them. Are they strong on U.S. campuses?

Yes, they are. And I can beat them, I can refute them, I know how, but most people just don't. So they do well as far as getting converts. Yeah, that was one of the big concerns I had at first was just because I had never heard of this group until I got on campus. And it wasn't until one of my friends saw me about to go to one of their Bible studies or whatever, which is just one of their, like, you know, eight or nine kind of Bible study, kind of just shepherding. So they basically just need to teach more. They're teaching as they go and whatever. Yeah, it's a cult. It needs to be stayed away from.

There's a particular church of Christ that teaches that you have to be baptized by immersion in water, and usually they'll even say by their particular church or their particular denomination. So it just becomes legalistic and oppressive. They don't have freedom in Christ. Yeah, and that's just another thing that I, you know, would want to do is when I was trying to figure out, because it was honestly, I think it was God's sovereignty kicking me in the pants, making me really figure out what theology really was.

And so I'm very thankful to God for that happening, even though it was a little bit scary. But it's just another one of those things where, you know, a lot of my friends don't know of it too well. I mean, I'm part of campus ministry on here.

You are? Yeah, and that's just collegiate ministry. Well, you know what?

A lot of people that know of it, but yeah. You said you're involved with a campus ministry? Yes, sir. Okay. Just so you know, if you wanted, you could arrange a, you know, an online thing in Zoom or whatever. I'd be glad to field questions and coach people how to answer things and stuff like that if you think that would be beneficial to the online campus.

It is one of the things I want to be able to do is start contacting ministries on campuses and just set it up so they can, we can have meetings and I can train them how to answer these questions that are difficult on campuses. But, you know, I'm just offering. Yeah, I mean, I can forward it up to people in case they would want to do it and stuff. Yeah, I mean, I would love it.

I don't know how many other people would like it all that much. Right. I've done it before. Yeah, I'll forward that up. Yeah, I've done it before and people have enjoyed it.

They ask me questions and I teach them a little bit more than they realize they didn't know, you know, and they go, wow, I didn't know about that, you know. So anyway, if it helps, it helps. If not, that's okay. All right? Cool. Yeah, thank you. All right, man.

God bless. Okay. All right, let's get to Kyla from Los Angeles. Kyla, you're on the air. Hey, Matt.

Oh, okay. So my question is, is that over the years I was taught to pray when going to God in prayer, I always say, Father God, in the name, I come before you in the name of Jesus. So today while I was praying, I was wondering, was that even biblical?

And I believe they taught me to say it that way because I need to say that I come before you in the name of Jesus to even go before the throne to get my prayers answered. Is that biblical? Wow.

Yes and no. Okay. So it sounds to me, it sounds to me like, you know, a little bit legalistic. There's no formula for prayer other than Matthew 6 and Luke 11 where, you know, our Father, heart and heaven, hallowed be thy name. It's not a prayer to be stated and recited as though that has some power in it. The idea is to pray to the Father. But you can also pray to the Holy Spirit. You can pray to Jesus. And so what I do when I pray, I just say, I just say, Lord. Okay.

It's not because my way is better. I just say, Lord. He's my Lord. I just say, Lord. And I don't visualize who God is.

I don't visualize fathers and Holy Spirit. I just say, Lord. And I just speak to God. And, you know, I will pray and I'll say, you know, in Jesus' name.

And even if I don't say that, it's okay. Because the phrase in Jesus' name occurs in the Bible in a lot of places, but it means by the authority of Christ. Well, the fact that you're a Christian means you're coming to Christ. If you don't say in Jesus' name, let's say you're praying, for example, for two hours. And, you know, you have really good prayers and then at the end you're going to say all this in Jesus' name and you just nod off right before that.

Oh, I guess all the prayers didn't matter, did it? Because you didn't say the phrase. That's not how it works in Scripture. It's not a legalistic, magic phrase with power embedded in it. So you've got to be careful because that's what they're getting into.

It's a form of sorcery. You've got to say it with this phrase. Otherwise your prayers won't be answered.

What? Who says that? Where do you get it's just the phrase? You know, it's got to be in Jesus' name. So because you're a Christian, you're already praying in Jesus' name. But it is good to say, just in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus, you know.

Or, Jesus, I'm talking to you and it's in your name I'm coming before the throne. You know, it's just like that. That's all.

It's not a big deal. Okay? Perfect. Thank you, Matt.

And by the way, I always trust a guy named Matt Slick on the radio. Well, there you go. All right. Well, thank you, Matt. Thanks for answering all my questions and God bless. God bless you too, Kyla. Bye. Bye.

Okay. She always trusts a guy named Slick on the radio. Ken from North Carolina. Ken, you're on the air.

Hi, Matt. I have a question regarding the Preterist view. The Preterist view, yes.

Pardon? Yes, Preterism, uh-huh. Yeah, as it relates to the book of Revelation, as it relates also to 70 AD being fulfilled there. Well, the Preterist... I was looking for your view. Okay. Preterism is refuted, full Preterism, is refuted the 70 AD era, which a lot of people in Revelation interpret means 70 AD.

So we'll lump them both in together for now. But it's refuted by what is said in Acts 1, 9 through 11, because it says there how Jesus will return. He will return in the same way that he left. That is, he left up in the clouds, he's going to return in the clouds. Because the angels say, why are you looking into the sky? This Jesus who's been taken up from you from heaven will come in just the same way as you've watched him go into heaven. That's the angelic prophecy recorded.

70 AD, he didn't return like that. So they're wrong. It's just that simple. Okay.

Well, they give a lot of, they give a lot of seemingly good information, and especially about the second Jesus that showed up prior to 70 AD that was preached for, well, I guess he preached, he called woe to Jerusalem, woe, woe to Jerusalem. Okay. Well, hold on.

About three and a half years. Hold on. I've never heard the second Jesus thing. I never heard that. But you have got to go to Acts 1, verses 9 through 11. It refutes them.

Whether they admit it or not, it does. Okay, buddy? Okay. Well, thank you.

Yeah, thank you. All right, man, God bless. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

One open line, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Let's get to Sal from California. Sal, welcome.

You're on the air. Oh, how you doing, Matt? I just want to say God bless you and your ministry.

Hey, thanks. I had a recent call from one of my friends, and the topic was, well, it was about a certain pastor. And I said, I kind of don't like listening to that guy too much because he says the little, you know, things that are a little out there. I'm pretty sure you're familiar with him, Stephen Puretake or something. Yeah, Furtick. Yeah, stay with him, Furtick.

Yeah, Furtick. Yeah. Okay, well, I'm glad you said that. That's what I told him. And all of a sudden, like, whoa, he got real defensive, you know? And he says, oh, man, he's a, you know, I mean, he's a great man of God. And, you know.

Is he? You know, he just went with that. So he goes, well, who do you like? He asked me, who do I like listening to? And I go, I like Greg Laurie, Charles Stanley, David Jeremiah. Oh, he goes, ah, those guys are okay. They're just very basic. Anyways, he was recommending me to watch some people and I don't know, some little red flags, you know, started shooting up because, you know, they started, you know, calling them like modern day prophets and stuff then.

And I guess he attends the Bethel Church in Reddy. And the more I started, I thought, yeah, I started seeing some of the stuff that they do. And I thought, wow, I would just, I would just say, wow. And I just wanted to get your take on, on things that, you know what I mean, that you can enlighten me on and. Well.

Well, you know. What I would say, I suggest that you say to your friend, can you show me what these people are teaching? Show me in the Bible that it's okay. Just constantly say, where does it say that in the Bible?

Because you can refute individual points, but it takes a lot of work. And he, in his resentment, he may just say, well, I don't care what you say. The thing to do is just say, show me this in scripture. Show it to me in scripture.

And if he doesn't do it, say, why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep believing in something and you don't check the word of God? Just because they quote a verse doesn't mean that it's properly used. And to say, are you checking what they're saying in context? And if you're not doing that, you're just believing, how do you know they're telling you the truth?

Because there's all, as I say, there's a lot of people who, who are calling them on the carpet saying that they're ripping things out of context and don't know what they're doing in that direction, teaching false doctrines. And they are, and just put that seed in his head and just keep saying, are you checking it out? Are you just believing blindly following and put that in your head? Cause that's what he's going to have to think about.

That's what you want to have happen. Yeah. And that's what I try to explain, you know, a little bit to him, but then, and then he starts coming back, like, do not, uh, like talk about, they try to use that bad scripture, you know, like, uh, what was it again? Don't touch God's anointing.

Yeah. Do not touch God's anointing to, you know, the prophet, you know, like, you know, saying that it's saying that it's wrong to start. I go, man, if they're false teachers, you got to expose them. You know, the Bible clearly says to stay away from them or if they preach another gospel, you don't, you know, don't let them be accursed. And, and, and, and the more I started looking into his church, cause I thought, cause he invited me to go watch some guy in Fresno coming. He's coming pretty recently.

His name is Mario Morello. I haven't really checked him out too much, but, uh, you know, he wants to go watch him. And, um, and I said, I go, I want to check everybody out before I start, you know, just going, if somebody recommends a book, I like to know a little background about him, you know, what, you know, where, what denomination they're coming from or what it gives an idea of a little bit of what, what it's all about, you know what I mean? Right. So, yeah, like I'm starting to get like, uh, cause some of these guys I hadn't heard of, you know, like Jeremiah Johnson, he said, uh, Mario Morello, then he was from Bethel church and I was just like, wow, every single thing that he was saying was just all red flags.

Good for you. But I would say that just generally have him check everything with scripture. Keep putting that into his head. Are you checking with the word of God as the Bible tells us to do? And if he's not doing it, rebuke him for that.

Get him to start checking the word of God. Okay, buddy. Okay. All right. God bless, Sal.

All right. We've got a bunch of callers waiting. Let's get to Erasmus from Richmond, Virginia.

Erasmus, welcome. You're on the air. Thank you, man. Thanks for having me on, brother.

Sure. Um, the shop, the barber shop that I work at, uh, every so often, um, there's a pastor that comes in and, uh, we all ask him questions and he told us that heaven and hell was a place of mine and that that was not true about, um, a loving God would want to punish his, uh, creation eternally. So I always tell him that, you know, I believe God has a wrath and that he will and has had punished the wicked. So Matt, I just want you to go ahead and preach on it, brother. Thank you for everything you've done so much for me and God bless you, your wife, your family, Ernie, all you guys, man, Charlie, I appreciate all you guys, man.

Well, praise God, Erasmus. Um, I'm going to go ahead and hang up. You just go ahead and do your thing, brother. Okay. I'll try to.

All right. God bless. Um, when someone comes in like that, if I were there, I would say, uh, I'd ask other diagnostic questions. If he's going to be denying heaven and hell, which they're clearly taught in scripture, what else might he be denying? So I would ask, does he believe in the doctrine of the Trinity? And if he says yes, I'd ask him, can you please explain it to me so I can understand it better? Maybe he might have some insight, maybe he won't, but the idea is to have him explain it. And, uh, I'd always ask if Jesus is God in flesh, if he believes that in his resurrection and what he can do to be saved.

These are the basics and you might find that he might have some weird stuff. So what I would do is, is preach and teach on that, but here's the thing that, that he's not qualified to be a pastor because he cannot discern truth from error. The Bible does teach the existence of heaven and it does teach the existence of hell. And a pastor and an elder out of, uh, Titus chapter one and first Timothy three, they are supposed to build a refute error and teach sound doctrine and to deny hell and heaven is clearly, um, a recognition or proclamation from him that he does not know what he's doing. So he's not qualified to be a pastor. He cannot teach a sound doctrine, refute error, but I would also ask him those, like I said earlier, the doctrine of the Trinity, the hypo, excuse me, the, uh, the person and work of Christ, who he is, et cetera, and find out if there's other things that he's denying because obviously he's putting his emotions in front of the scriptures because the basic argument of, well, a loving God wouldn't, how do you know what a loving God would do? And if you just say that God is love, but you don't say he's also holy and also just and you're misrepresenting God and you're committing an idolatrous act just to say, well, he's love and he wouldn't do this.

Really? What is the standard of you, God, by which you would say that God would or would not because he's love. And don't forget, God is also holy. God is also just. God is also merciful. He must deal with the sinners. If he doesn't, then God himself is unholy. So how do we deal with that?

What do we say? And so what this guy is doing is he's just wetting his finger, lifting up into the air to see which way the doctrinal wind is blowing and is going with this sentimentality. He needs to be rebuked. He needs to repent.

He needs to believe the truth of what God says in the word. Let's get to Nelson from California. Nelson. Welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, man. God bless. Yes. I got a question. A couple of days ago, first and foremost, I left your ministry. You have to tune in and have so much insight and praise God for that. Praise God. Yeah.

I was, you know, well, I'm blind, physically blind from my eyes and I was here at the house in Bakersfield and I was just flipping to the channels and I was, you know, I was here actually saw Kenneth Copeland just there and I changed it. And well, I came across this other preacher and he was preaching about the mark of the beast and he had a mention that I think it's, if I'm correct, that the mark is going to be on the right hand. Right hand or the forehead is what the revelation says.

Or the forehead, exactly. Yes. And he was saying something about that the right hand means like kind of power or something like that. Not the exact words, but like something like authority, is that it?

Well, generally it does. The right hand on the right hand of God in Acts 7, 55 through 60, stuff like that is a place of power. Jesus after the resurrection told the disciples to catch their net on the right side of the boat. On the day of judgment the wicked are on the left and the right are where the good are.

So those are those things. But one of the theories that is offered of why it's on the right hand is because in Islam you use your right hand for certain things, your left hand for other things. Left hand is kind of considered to be unclean. That's what you use to clean yourself and so the right hand is a place of authority and also the left hand is also sometimes what is cut off.

So some wonder if the right hand has to do with the Islamic culture and putting a mark that they will accept on that right hand. Oh. So we don't know.

That's just a conjecture. Yeah, yeah. Because it's not really clear. It just says right hand and forehead and in fact about the forehead that it's about the thinking process basically that you're going to believe the, I mean that's what it says. No.

No, it doesn't work. It's clear but it's not much clear in certain areas. No, it's not just that it's just a thinking process because you can't buy or sell unless you have that mark.

To buy and sell means you're dealing with commerce with somebody else. There has to be a way for that somebody else to be able to determine if you're with the antichrist who they will think is a good guy. So it's a mark. What is that mark? We don't know. Is it a tattoo? Is it a little chip? Is it what?

A fluorescent beanie? Who knows? It's just we don't know what it is yet. All right. So that's what's going on. Yeah. And then what threw me off, I mean I've heard you preach this before here and I grew up Catholic myself but God saved me from that and I've been walking with the Lord for about five years now and it's an amazing thing of course. And so what threw me off was, I mean I heard you say that the Catholic teaches different doctrines and I believe what they teach is heretical. A lot of what they teach is heretical, yes. Oh yeah. And what this preacher said, I never heard it come from a Catholic priest but he said the only way to find salvation is through the Catholic church and nowhere else.

I was like whoa. Set of acantists will teach that. Those who believe that the present pope is not a real pope and official teaching out of Trent was that there's no salvation outside the Roman Catholic church. So yeah, it's common. It's heretical. I mean it just, I just wanted to call in and ask about the mark. Yeah. Okay. Well thank you very much. You have a blessed day, brother. You too, Nelson. God bless, man.

All right. Let's get to James from Arkansas. James, welcome. You're on the air, brother. How's it going?

It's going, man. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. So this is kind of related to the question I was asking the other day about baptism but tell me more about faith and work.

All right. Do you believe that? So me and my cousin, we were talking about Noah and the ark today. I've seen a lot of people who basically try to prove that salvation is by faith plus work by the fact that Noah had to build the ark, you know.

Yeah, he had to build an ark in order to not physically die. It doesn't say there that justification before God is by what we do. The Bible says in Romans 3.28, we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Romans 4.5 very clearly states, but to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. And there's all kinds of verses like this.

So people who would go to Noah's ark and use it, which is a symbolic kind of a thing as well as actual history, and then use it out of its symbolism in areas to make a doctrinal statement by ignoring the clear teaching of the book of Romans and Ephesians and Galatians, well they're just whacked. Okay? And we are out of time. Darn. Yeah. Call back tomorrow. We can talk some more about it. Okay?

Before we got to go, buddy. Okay. Appreciate it. All right. God bless.

Hey, folks, we are out of time. May the Lord bless you greatly this evening. And by God's grace, back on there tomorrow. If you have a question, save it for then. Give me a call. We'll talk to you then. God bless. We'll see you then.