Matt Slick Live

A previously recorded Matt Slick show. It's Matt Slick live. Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at karm.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick live.

Francis, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show.

It's me, Matt Slick, and you're listening to Matt Slick live. If you want to give me a call, we have five open lines. All you got to do is dial 877-207-2276.

The last four numbers spell C-A-R-M on your phone, and that's from C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. That's what we've been doing. In fact, the site will be 25 years old in about two weeks, and it'll be great. I'm thinking about, let's see, what day is that going to be on the week? That's going to be on a Sunday. I think what might do on a Monday is have people call in, things like that, what to think of the site and stuff.

You never know. Let's see, Saturday I was in a debate with an atheist. He was rather obstreperous, which means boisterously recalcitrant. That was an interesting about two and a half hour debate.

Then I spent a half hour in an after show talking, and then after that I went in and spent another hour in another discussion and talked to an atheist and went through the reasons for believing the Bible and things like that. So Saturday was quite a packed day. Yesterday, I was going to say this because I might as well, so yesterday my wife and I were driving around in Boise, Idaho. Now, if you know where Idaho is, good for you. There's only two million people in the entire state, and in fact, it has the largest landmass, surface area, I should say, surface area of any state in the country. That's what I was told.

If you were to flatten it, there's so many mountains in Idaho, but whatever, it's just trivia. So I get the idea. There's not that many people here. So yesterday, I'm driving with my wife. I'm turning left across the boulevard into a driveway. We're looking for cars.

We need another car. So I see a movement down the road a little bit by a quarter of a mile, if that, maybe a thousand feet at the top, and I see a car landing upside down. So I turn, instantly gun it. I'm one of the guys that reacts. I head towards an issue and get to the chase here. So I ended up helping a guy pull a woman out of the car. The cabin area was crushed. He was there before me, and he's working on her right behind him.

He pulls her out, picks her up. I get inside down in the cab looking for somebody else, make sure nobody's there, and nobody was there. And I remember this too, because someone else said, the car's smoking. The car's smoking.

There's a fire someplace. So I'm sticking my head inside of there and going, okay, okay, don't panic. Just focus.

Make sure you don't overlook somebody, because you never know. It's crushed, and all this debris and everything, and I made a good, careful sweep. Okay, there's nobody in the car. Got away from it, and then the paramedics came, and everybody came. And this woman, she was unconscious, and she finally comes to, and she's pale. And so I asked her, do you speak English? Because she was dressed in the kind of garb. It doesn't look like she's from around here.

And she said, no. And she said, Farsi. She speaks Farsi. It's like Arabic. It's kind of those languages way over there. And I said, oh my goodness. So I get on the phone, and I'm looking up for Farsi English translation, so we can talk to her, see if she feels injured, whatever it might be. And this guy walks up and goes, I speak Farsi.

So, in Boise, Idaho. Got a big kick out of that. Then a nurse showed up, and then the paramedics, and everybody showed up after a bit, and they got my info, and I went and ran errands. And it took about an hour for the adrenaline to go away, I'll tell you. It did. That was my day yesterday. That was my day yesterday.

I had a debating and teaching on debating an atheist and teaching on the Bible, another atheist later, and then from operations. And I have a friend named Dave. Dave Kimble is a great guy. I've known him for like 40 years, and he's a border patrol agent. So I told him this story today. And I said, of course, what I experienced is nothing compared to some of the stories you've got.

He's chuckling. And because he's told me some stories. Oh, man, the kind of stories that make movies out of, you know. And so we were laughing about that.

But hey, that was an interesting weekend. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Julia from South Carolina. Julia, welcome. You're on the air with Matt Slick. Hey, Matt. I'm glad to talk to you. Good. I'm glad to talk to you too.

What do you got? Well, today at lunchtime, I was with two of my nephews. And somehow they started talking about people that are not Christian and about how they're going to go to hell. And my nephew Sam was being very unkind. And he said, well, it's their own fault. They had a choice. It's their own fault if they go to hell with Julia. And I didn't know what to say because of predestination.

Wow, that's a good question. So let me help you out. Election is the act of God choosing people for salvation before the foundation of the world, as the Bible says in Ephesians 1 4.

Let me go over this a little bit and lay the foundation down here for you. So Ephesians 1 4 says this, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that's what election is. To choose, there's eklegami. Now there's different Greek words that are Greek that we use in English, or translated in English, for choose, chosen, elect, choice, things like that.

And eklegai, which is this one, eklectas, and eklegami. Now the word for church is ekklesia, which is the called out ones. Now the reason they're called out is because all people are born under sin and are slaves of sin, Romans 6 14-20, and they can do no good, Romans 3 10 11 12. And by nature, children of wrath, Ephesians 2 3. So if God does not choose people for salvation, no one will be saved.

That's just how it is, because people cannot of their own free will and their sinfully enslaved free will simply understand and believe the things of God because the Bible says they can't. 1 Corinthians 2 14 says so. And Jesus says in John 6 65, he says, you cannot come to me unless it's been granted to you from the Father. This is what scripture teaches.

I know a lot of people don't like this, but hey, not my problem, it's yours. If you don't like what the Bible says, that's what it says, John 6 65. So he chooses, and then predestination is his working of the elect into the place of salvation. And it says he predestined us to adoption as sons. So he works this.

All right. Well then how is it that people are responsible for their own choices? Well, here we get into a little bit of logic. People are responsible whenever they act in a manner that's free. If they do something that's free, that are not forced to do anything, then they are responsible for their choices. So if I were to hold a gun to someone's head and say, push that button, and the button hurts somebody else, you know, they're not culpable.

They're not responsible because they're under duress and they're forced to do it. So the general idea of free will is that you, you have free will when you have the ability to make an unforced choice that's consistent with what you are, what your nature is. Okay. Now the unbeliever, the unbeliever is a, I didn't give you all the references, but I'll skip them. It's a, the unbeliever is a slave of sin, a hater of God, can do no good, is by nature a child of wrath, is dead in his sins, does not seek for God, does not receive the things of God, cannot do it. That's what the Bible says. I'm just skipping the references as I quote the scripture verses, parts of those verses.

So that's what it says. That means that they have a nature that's fallen. They are still responsible for their choices and their choices are to act in sinful manners. So therefore they are responsible for their sin and they're responsible for the sinfulness of their choices and the results of those choices. No one's forcing them in to do it. So how then does predestination work and election work?

Well, it just does this. If there's a hundred men in prison and they all deserve without a doubt to be executed for their crimes and someone with super great powers and riches and financial this and legal that and whatever goes in and let's just say he saves 10 people, he pays the bills, however it works, he chooses 10. That's what he has done. He's chosen some out of all who belong judged and he's saved some. And the others are responsible for their actions. But the fact that he chooses only 10 to save, let's just say 10, it could be 20, but let's just say 10, does not mean that the others aren't responsible for their actions. So what God does is he chooses people for salvation. We don't know how many, we don't know the percent, but as Jesus says, more people go to hell than heaven. So we'll just say 10 percent, whatever. Maybe 7 percent is a biblical number.

Who knows? But at any rate, so the issue is that God chooses out of all of those who belong judged, he predestines, he elects and predestines those to be saved, and he grants to them belief, Philippians 1 29, he grants a repentance, 2 Timothy 2 25. Okay. Well, what do you say to someone who's being hateful and saying it's their own choice? It is their own choice. They have people choose to sin and rebel against God.

It is their own choice. Well, I know, and I believe all of that, but it worries me that there are people who God has already decided can't go to heaven. Well, let me read something to you, okay? Let's see what the Bible says. Okay.

All right. Let's read scripture. And not only this, but there was Rebecca also when she had conceived twins by one man or father Isaac, for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad so that God's purpose according to his choice would stand not because of works, but because of him who calls, it was said to her, the older will serve the younger, just as it is written, Jacob, I loved, but Esau, I hated. What then shall we say? There is no injustice with God, is there?

May it never be. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but upon God who has mercy.

For the scripture says to Pharaoh for this very purpose, I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth. So he has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who resists his will? That's what you're basically asking. He doesn't say them all, why?

That's what's wrong. On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this, will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy which he prepared beforehand for glory. That's Romans 9, 9 through 23. Romans 9, 9 through 23.

That's the answer. People say, well we don't like that. Then read the scripture and see what it says.

Well, and you know, I don't like it. And I grew up with predestination and I still don't like it. I know that God has the right to choose whoever he wants to choose.

That's right. But I worry that some of my little young nieces and nephews that I'm praying to be saved are not chosen. Well, here's the thing, and I'm with you on that, okay, but that's what the Bible says.

Now, here's a funny thing about this. The more we pray for people, the more we preach, apparently the more people are predestined. There's something about the preaching of the power of the word of God. Romans 1 16 says that the gospel is the power of God to salvation. Well, when we preach it, people get saved. We don't know how it all works. We don't know how God is working through us to bring more in. So your prayers matter.

As James 5 says, they influence God. Okay? We got a break there. Oh, that makes me feel so much better. Yes, thank you so much. All right, God bless you. All right, God bless.

Okay. Hey, folks, we'll be right back. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Everybody, welcome back to the show. Let's get on the air with, let's see, the next longest waiting is Jamal from North Carolina. Jamal, welcome.

You're on the air. Matt, thanks once again for picking up my phone call. Yeah, I had a few questions that I probably have asked before, but I'm able to take better notes this time.

So hopefully I won't ask a third time. One of them was asking about stoning in the Bible, and how can we justify that. When we're asked about, how can we, you know, explain, you know, stoning in the Bible. Let's do that. Let's do one at a time.

Okay. Stoning in the Bible, execution. People will often raise an objection like this, and then what I will do is I'll say, excuse me, do you have a standard that we should take seriously? A standard of morality. See, the people stone them in that culture at that time. If they had their reasons for doing this, and you're saying you disagree with it, use your disagreement, a personal opinion.

If it's a personal opinion, you're certainly entitled to it, but personal opinions don't make anything right or wrong. So what standard of morality do you have by which you can then judge and say stoning someone to death is somehow immoral? You need to provide that in order for me to take your argument or your objection seriously.

Now, this is one of the things that I will say just like this to atheists and others who complain about the morality in the Bible. I'll say, well, what standard have you got? What standard have you got by which we must listen and it applies to God himself? It applies to all people everywhere. Outside of the revelation of scripture, you show me a standard. And it's a serious question. This is not a judge, because we're not going to play in their field.

They either come and play in our field. They're coming to the Christian area, the Christian worldview, and they're saying, within the Christian worldview, why would God do this? Are you judging the Christian worldview from your own? Are you coming out there as an atheist worldview, for example, and saying that you don't like what happened in the Bible, therefore the Bible is wrong? What justifies you in your worldview to be able to say that?

You can't. So therefore, you have no basis to complain. Now, see, now, the reason internally why this was done was to keep the Messianic line pure and to keep the people of Israel pure so that they would not fall prey to false doctrines, false theologies, and thus have the Messianic line destroyed by which people would be saved. Now, you don't have to like it, but that's within the Christian and the biblical worldview. And it makes perfect sense, and it's consistent with the call of God and the work of God. Now, if you don't like it, okay. But don't go telling me that it is wrong, because I'm going to ask you to provide a means by which you can bridge the is-ought gap in a deontological study.

And you have to have a transcendental necessity, which is a moral abstract principle set that you can then apply, is to defend necessary preconditions that would bring that moral abstract set into an actuality. And I'll ask them this stuff without those big words. They can't do it. So those are the two ways to address it, okay? Yeah, that does make sense. What was that pre-word?

I'll mark that one down. Pre-condition, like when we talk about the laws of logic, for example. The laws of logic, the law of identity, something is what it is and is not what it is not. Or the law of non-contradiction, which says a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time, in the same sense, at the same time. The law of excluded middle, a statement is either true or it's false. The law of proper inference, if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. There's basic laws that we use to communicate. Well, what I'll do, like I did this on Saturday with this atheist debate, which he couldn't answer, no atheist can. At least not any I've encountered can.

I've been doing this for years. But I'll say these laws are abstractions. They occur in the mind. You don't find these laws under rocks. You don't find them behind trees.

You can't take pictures of them. So they are not dependent upon the physical world because they don't have the properties of the physical world. They're independent of the physical world. And they are transcendent in that they don't depend upon your mind or my mind.

They're always true if you're here or there or yesterday or tomorrow. And they undergird the principles of proper thought and discussion. So I asked, I said, the properties of these things, these logical absolutes, these laws of logic, the properties are that they are always true everywhere all the time, but they're also of the mind, their conceptions. How then can you account for them in your worldview? How do you account for the universal transcendent abstractions, which are the laws of logic? The Christian worldview can do this because these laws reflect the transcendent mind of the Christian God.

So that's the short version. So you can apply this principle to the issue of morality because morality is also an abstraction. If someone wants to say something is morally wrong, it just is morally wrong.

Well, then what standard are they using? And just as you and myself might apprehend and use the law of non-contradiction and cite that someone contradicted themselves and say your argument's invalid because you contradicted yourself. We are both citing that same abstraction, that same universal truth. But how are we doing that? We're doing it because we're made in the image of God.

So these things are abstractions that you and I both would be able to utilize, but they're not dependent upon us. The same thing with universal morals. And so with universal morals, we have the same principle here. And because of that, if anybody wants to say anything is right or is wrong, stoning, whatever it is, then they are appealing to a universal principle. And then what you have to do is say, show me how from your worldview, you can justify your universal principle.

And I'll tell you, you can just hear their faces smashing into walls as they're trying to run away. Okay. Right. This is how I argue.

This is more advanced stuff. But I do that every now and then. I'll just say stuff like this on the radio. And I hope people, you know, don't get their brains get hurt too much.

But some people go, Yeah, I love it. Okay. Well, yeah, I believe that people know that stuff is complex, and that we can kind of talk on any kind of level from a basic to a more complex follow up question real quick.

This is what I asked you. This wouldn't matter what somebody made about it in there, wanted to see how we can prove that the Bible is true versus other books like the Quran and whatnot. Proof is for mathematics and logic.

Proof requires an absolute conclusion that something is true. Now, the problem here with proving the Bible is it's history. How do you prove Alexander the Great lived? You can't. How do you prove Jesus lived?

Well, you can't. You can't prove it to the point where you can present the evidence. We have film, we have the 8000 witnesses, we have all this stuff.

They're all in court. And, you know, these are historical events. But what we can do, but what we can do at the risk of getting overloaded, I have a Bible presentation in PowerPoint. And it covers some of this stuff. And if people want it, they can just email me at Karm, info at karm.org. And I'll send it to you as long as it's not in the hundreds.

I can do it. But, um, okay, let's give it to you. So the thing is that the evidence for the inspiration of scripture is found in the prophecy and in what's called gematria in mathematical improbability of these prophecies happening by chance of patterns in the Bible. There's various things and evidences that are there that lend themselves to the inspiration and authority of scripture.

And in the scriptures, Jesus says, on the way to truth and the life, nobody comes to the father, but by me, that means all other religions are false. Okay, buddy. Sound good? Thanks, sir. All right, man.

God bless. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. If you want to call, we have one open line 877-207-2276.

Craig from Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome. You're on the air. Hey Matt, how you doing? Doing all right, man. Hanging in there.

What do you got, buddy? Good. Yeah, I'm going to talk to you about the nature of the atonement here. See what you thought about this. Really quick, I guess, the overview is that it seems like there's a corporal aspect and an individual aspect to the atonement, and that the corporal aspect is in between the son and the father, where the son bears the punishment for sin, therefore the wrath of the father is satisfied.

And then there's the individual component where then man is called to be reconciled through the gospel and submit to Jesus Christ so that when we get judged, the father will see Christ as opposed to us and our sin. Would you disagree with any of that? I would word it slightly differently, but yeah, it's pretty good. Okay.

There's some issues there, but you know, it's good. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. But I would say that I've heard you numerous times harp on the sin debt has been paid. That's what the Bible says. And canceled at the cross.

Colossians 2, 14. Yeah. And that's correct. And so that's what I'm saying. That's the corporal aspect there. So that reconciliation between the son and the father has occurred, and that's all in between them.

There's no man aspect to that. But then, you know, 2 Corinthians 5 tells us that the apostles have been given the ministry of reconciliation and that we're called to be reconciled. And so the sin debt's already paid at the cross between the father and the son.

Now it's up to us to submit to Jesus Christ. When you say between the father, this is the issue, between the father and the son, that's not a clear phrase in the context. The sin is then paid between the father and the son.

The trinity, the whole nature of God himself is involved in the atoning work. So there's that issue, but when you mean between the father and the son, I'm not sure what you mean by that. Yeah.

Okay. Christ bears the punishment. He bears, he becomes sin for us, correct? Yes, 2 Corinthians 5.21. He became sin on our behalf, right, bore our sins at his body, 1 Peter 2.24. So that means sin is legal debt, legal transgression, so they were transferred to Christ, right? So the punishment for sin has been bore by Christ. He's bore the punishment. I would say, yeah, he took our place. That's Isaiah 53, 4 through 6.

He bore our stripes. So what was due to us came to him, and so our sin was imputed to him. That means to transfer legally to another's account. I wouldn't dispute that necessarily, but I would just say that, so yes, if it's transferred to Christ, then all that's left is for us to be reconciled, because everything's not done when Christ accomplished work. When you say everything's not done, you mean the work of Christ is finished, but we are not yet justified, which has to occur by faith. Correct. Yes. Okay.

Yeah. So the sin debt's cancelled at the cross, but I just don't understand why you don't seem to think that there's not a man. You say the sin debt's cancelled at the cross, and therefore it's like everything's done, but that's just between the Father and the Son.

Man still is responsible himself for submitting anything. It's not just between the Father and the Son, because it's our sins that were cancelled at the cross. But you said they were transferred to Christ, though. We were involved in it, but in a passive sense. We didn't do the action of the transference. We presume God the Father imputed our sin to the Son on the cross. Then that means that the sin debt's cancelled at the cross, Colossians 2.14, and then we are justified when we believe, Romans 5.1. And that's up to man.

So, synergism, I don't see how you can... It's not up to man. It's not up to man.

It's not up to man. You just said we're justified when we believe, when we have faith. Yes, but we're caused to be born again, 1 Peter 1.3. We're born again not of our own will, John 1.13. We cannot come to Christ unless God grants it to us, John 6.65. We're granted belief, Philippians 1.29. We're granted repentance, 2 Timothy 2.25. So we're regenerated, and then our regeneration allows us to freely believe.

Yeah, I don't think that's necessarily what happens. I just quoted you scripture. How could you say it's not what happened when the Bible says? Yeah, I'm saying I think we interpret that differently. But I just quoted it. I didn't interpret it. The Bible says we're caused to be born again.

That's quoting it. He caused us to be born again, 1 Peter 1.3. It says in John 1.12. I'll read John 1.13 to you. It's in the context of being born again, right?

Those who received him. And it says, who were born not of the blood, nor the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Yes, we're born of God when we put on Jesus Christ.

That's correct. We're reborn. How do we put on Jesus? How do we put on – let me ask you a question.

You just said something that caused a flag to go up. How do we put on Jesus? What do we do to do that? When we submit to Christ in faith unto obedience and water baptism. Okay, that's what I thought you were going to say. So you require water baptism for salvation. That's correct. Okay, you're a heretic, false teacher, believe in a false gospel.

Now look, I'm going to tell you something, flat out. Are we justified by faith? Are we justified by faith? We are justified by faith. Justified by faith.

Okay, question. We're justified by faith. Faith unto obedience.

Wait a second. I didn't ask you that. I said are we justified by faith? Because the Bible says, having therefore been justified by faith. Romans 5.1. Romans 3.28 says, we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Now, are we justified by faith? Apart from the works of the law. Hey, dude, dude, dude, dude.

I'm asking you specific questions. Don't get in your cult stuff with me. Are we justified by faith?

The laws of Jericho fall. Okay, guys, I just hung up on him, because we can get into an argument, and that's all that's going to happen. So what he was trying to do is build a case for a false gospel. And I would debate this guy in another context, but here we're on the radio. He's already demonstrated. He doesn't understand the scripture. He's demonstrated. He's trying to twist the scripture. And he won't answer specific questions. He's trying to and he won't answer specific questions. When people don't answer specific questions after I've asked them several times, I know.

We just move along. Because that means they know. They know their position is weak. If I ask somebody, are we justified by faith? And I quote the scriptures that say so.

And they won't answer the question. They're disagreeing with what this word of God says. And what he did was he went to Hebrews 11 and saying that the faith that you're going to have has to have works. Now, I didn't say that, and neither did the texts that I quoted say that.

And that's the thing. So what he's doing is refusing to hear the word of God, because he has a ceremony. He's going to participate in order to be saved. It's a false gospel, folks. He's a false convert. Anybody who would teach that in order to be saved, you have to get water baptized by immersion, whatever it is. In order to be saved, then they have a false gospel. They're not teaching justification by faith alone in Christ alone, but by faith and a ceremony.

The ceremony of baptism. So when I ask, are we justified by faith? The answer, of course, is, well, yeah. Then I'm going to ask the question, are we justified by faith when we have faith?

And he's going to have to say no. Well, then if we're not justified by faith when we have faith, then how are we justified by faith? It doesn't make any sense. What I'm trying to do is expose his heresy. Folks, Church of Christ is a heretical false church. Do not get mixed up in any church that has women pastors and elders, that teaches that Trinity is not true, that requires baptism in their church or whatever church in order to be saved, or says that you have to have sacraments by which grace is infused into you to keep your salvation. All of that is false gospel. All of that is a false theology.

And all who adhere to it, in spite of what the scriptures say, are going to be judged to eternal damnation. Melissa from Asheboro, North Carolina, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt, how are you today?

Oh, I'm fine. I get to deal with heretics. I love dealing with heretics.

What do you got? Well, the question I have is, what exactly does it mean in the Bible when it says, seek ye first the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God in Matthew 633, which you're quoting, the kingdom of God deals with the reign of Christ and the truth and the teaching of Christ in this world. The kingdom of God is among you. I forgot the exact verse is what he says. And later on, the wicked will be taken out of his kingdom. And that has to do with Matthew 13. Matthew 13, 40 talks about this.

So the kingdom of God deals with his righteousness, his reign, the sovereignty of Christ, and the whole bit. Seek Christ. That's the best way to get a break. I'll let you respond after the break if you want to if you want to hold on. Okay. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. All right. Welcome back to the show, everybody. All right.

Stuff in the chat room. Melissa, are you still there? Yes. All right.

I know it went kind of quickly because we're up against a break there, but did that help any? Melissa, you're saying basically when it says, seek ye first the kingdom of God, does that mean put in Jesus first? That's basically what it means. In the kingdom of God, Christ is the one who rules. He's the sovereign over our lives, the lives of others. We are to act in a manner that is consistent with that belief. Some people think the kingdom of God will come later on, but that's not the case. Now, Matthew 13, let's see, I think it's, let's see, yeah, here we go. So when Jesus gives a parable of the wheat and the tares, he says, allow them both to go together till the end of the age. And I will say to the reapers, first gather the tares and then gathered the wheat into the barn.

The first ones gathered at the return of Christ are the wicked, not the good, according to what Jesus says in Matthew 13 30. They ask about the parable. He interprets the parable. He says in verse 39, the enemy who sowed them is the devil.

That's the tares. The harvest is at the end of the age. And the reapers are angels. So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall be at the end of the age, the son of man will send forth his angels. They will gather out of his kingdom, all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness.

Well, what he's teaching, and a lot of people don't agree with this because they don't really study Romans, I mean, Matthew 13, to see what Jesus is actually saying. But what he's actually saying there is that the wicked are going to be taken out. In fact, when you go to Matthew 27, Luke 17, two men in a field, one is taken, one is left. The context of who's taken are the wicked, not the good. The rapture does occur, folks. It's just not there in those verses. The wicked are the ones who are taken in the context and they ask, where are they taken? And Jesus answers, where the body is, the vultures gather. So the implication is that the wicked are the ones taken. And he says they'll gather out of his kingdom, which means Jesus' kingdom is now.

It's now. Well, people say, well, it's not running very nicely. Well, how do you know?

Because people assume too many things. And Satan was already bound in Matthew 12, 22 through 32, as Jesus said. So, you know, the kingdom of God is not just a future thing. The kingdom of God is now. The kingdom of God is here. And we as Christians can lay hold of the feet of the king and serve him and follow him out into the world. Or we can hide inside of his kingdom and we can put the light under the bushel and we can wait and hope that someone else might do the work of ministry. And so the world goes.

Okay? Yes, so where it says in the verse, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So basically that's saying, as long as you keep Jesus first, that God will take care of you.

Basically, that's it. Now, if you read, it'll talk about some of the Beatitudes, and it's about all these blessings. But you've got to understand something. A lot of times what the positive confession heretic wacko loser morons will say on TV, God wants you healthy, God wants you wealthy.

And they'll do things like this, say all these will be added to you. Well, yes, but there's also talk in there about persecutions. And so we have to realize that as Christians that we're going to be persecuted for righteousness sake.

This is the way that it is. That's why Jesus says, pick up your cross and follow after me. Because truth and love and sacrifice, they're the things that are manifested when unrighteousness and evil become strong. Because love and sacrifice don't really exist so much when everything's hunky-dory super smooth. The truth of what real love and sacrifice is, is in the context of the rise of wickedness. And Christians don't realize this. I'm not saying that we want wickedness, but to realize that we're called as Christians to fight against unrighteousness and wickedness, and there'll be persecution in the process.

And we ought to be willing to undergo that persecution and suffer loss and risk of loss of things. Seek the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you. The clothing of the lilies, the treasures in heaven, the various things that He speaks of, and the will of God as He prays.

There's so many things. The speaking of truth, nigh for nigh, tooth for tooth, loving the evil people. This is what Christ wants of us. Seek these things.

The kingdom of God will be added to you. Okay? Well, that's about it. Thank you so much for answering my question, Mr. Slick. You're welcome.

Well, God bless, Melissa. All right. Thank you.

You too. Okay. Bye-bye. Okay. Let's get to Kelly from Los Angeles.

Kelly, you've been waiting a long time. I hope you're still there. Are you? I'm here. All right.

So what do you got? Okay. So Matt, my question is, um, I'm a little embarrassed that I don't really know the answer to this question, but here it goes. Um, whenever I'm praying for my brothers and sisters in Christ and the prayer gets answered, I know without a shadow of a doubt, God delivered, God answered that prayer. However, when I'm praying for an unbeliever and it happens, it gets answered. Can I count that as answered prayer or was that merely a coincidence for the unbeliever? Yeah, you have to ask God that one. Oh. Because, well, for one thing, there are no coincidences. There are no coincidences.

Okay. Um, God ordains whoever shall come to pass Ephesians 1 11. But the thing is that, um, that if we're praying, we don't know sometimes if our prayers made a difference. We don't know if they did or didn't. That's not our job. Our job is to pray and trust God. And so when we get to heaven, we might have some of those answers. And God might say, your prayers were heard, but I already had my plan. And so your prayers did not move the hand of God, but your prayers were heard.

And it's a blessing for you. And God rewards you for those prayers anyway, because you're trusting in Christ. And so if the prayers, if he says, well, your prayers did make a difference in how he did things, which, you know, give us some loose theology here, but that's okay. Then you receive glory as well, or not. He receives glory, but you receive a little bit of honor there as well. So our job is to trust in his will, not ours.

Okay. So, Matt, the truth of the matter is, I may never know while I'm here on earth if a particular prayer was answered. Like I don't, so I'll never know if I pray for healing for someone and it happens.

Oh, we never know. So I don't need to be saying, oh my God. So I don't need to be saying, oh good, that's answered prayer. I should stop saying that then.

No, you could, no, no, no. Just go move by faith. Hey, Lord, I was praying for this.

It seemed to happen. Answered prayer. Praise God. Move forward. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It wants us to pray.

Absolutely. But we don't know technically in the nuances of the intermascinations of the mind of God, we don't know exactly how it works, but that's okay. Hey, you know, I pray for my daughters. I pray for friends' healings. And if, you know, if someone's healed through a surgery, praise God, he was healed. Give glory to God. Move forward. God will sort it all out.

All right. And you just taught me something new today. I didn't know we would get a reward for that. If God says, you know, when we get to heaven, we get to eternity. If he says, I heard your prayer and that helped and we get like a reward for that.

I didn't know that. Well, you know, there's no verse that says we get a reward if we pray. But the idea is that we are being faithful to God and we're bringing glory to God in our prayers because prayers are trusting God. And that of course glorifies him.

And he has these things. He says about the rewards that we receive in heaven. I don't pray for someone's healing to get a reward.

I pray for someone's healing because I trust God and I want them to be healed. And besides, if I'm not if, but when I get to heaven and if by chance, God were to look towards me and say, well done, I'm going to be turning my head and looking behind me. Because you talking about me?

Are you kidding? Every prayer I've ever uttered that I can remember and even contemplate has somehow been touched by my sinfulness. Nothing in me is good except Christ. So what I do is I don't worry about it. I just trust God and go.

I pray. And I don't do it for reward. I just do it because I'm supposed to. And I love my Lord.

And I love others. And if all God gives me in heaven is a mop and a broom and say, clean up that corner of heaven, I'll be skipping and rejoicing forever. Me too. Amen.

Well, you and I could clean up the same area together then, singing praises to God. Yeah. That'd be good enough. I'm just, you know, some days, Matt, I'm just happy to be a part of the elect. There you go. I'm just, yeah, I'm just, I sometimes I'd say, I'm glad, glad God predestined me from the foundation of the world.

Because if you look at me now, he wouldn't pick me, you know? Right. That's right. Amen. Well, thank you again, Matt, for answering my question. I appreciate you and God bless you.

God bless you. All right. All right. Whoops.

Cut it off there. All right. Let's get to Derek from Tennessee. Derek, welcome.

Thanks for the long wait. You're on the air. Hey, how's it going, Matt? Can you hear me? It's going. Yes, again.

What do you got, buddy? Cool. Cool. Yeah.

I wasn't going to mention this, but when I heard that Church of Christ guy come out of the woodwork, I was going to say that last night I debated AK Richardson, which I know you have some familiarity with. Okay. But anyway, my actual question for today is about transubstantiation. On the one hand, yeah, yeah, yeah. On the one hand, this is an aberrant, satanic, horrific lie and fraud of the Roman Catholic Church that is very easy to receive from the scripture. The question is, though, on the other hand, how do we go about it? Where do we start and tackle it when they appeal to extra biblical authority?

Thank you. I just say I don't recognize your extra biblical authority. I recognize the word of God. If you have to go outside of God's inspired word in order to make your case, you don't have a case.

I just tell them flat out. I say you're wasting my time if you're going to quote church fathers. And you can go to Carm and you can read about transubstantiation. I believe there's a church father quote about it. But the thing is, look, go from the word of God. They're then going to go and they're going to say this is my body, this is my blood. Right? That's what they're going to do. Then what you do is you've got to remember this, Leviticus 17, 11 and 14.

Leviticus 17, 11, Leviticus 17, 14. So you with me this? You with me so far? Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Are you familiar with those verses?

Yeah, yeah. Leviticus is about blood, consuming blood of animals and I think humans too. Right. This is verse 14. The life of all flesh, its blood is identified with its life. Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, you are not to eat the blood of any flesh. For the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. So I asked them, was Jesus then telling the Jews to literally violate Leviticus 17, 14?

Now what they're going to do is come back and say, well, this is only for animals. You said, oh, so it's okay for Jews to drink human blood then? Was that your saying?

Of course, I really can't say that. What verse are you going to go to for the Jews to say that they can't drink any blood? It's Leviticus 17, 14.

So don't let them off the hook on that. So you're saying then that Jesus said that that's literally his blood. Now here's another question.

We had to go quickly here. Was it his sacrificed blood that's in transubstantiation? They'll say, yes. Well, when he offered it, it wasn't sacrificed. So how's it sacrificed? Furthermore, are you saying his body and his blood sitting there are actually his body and blood?

Yes. Well, isn't it by definition a man could only be one place at a time? How then is he able to be in more than one place at a time? Plus Jesus quickly, Jesus also said that I will not drink again of the wine till after.

And he said it after the communion was offered, which means he still called it wine, not blood. Okay. There's more. Thanks, Matt. All right, buddy. God bless. Hey, folks, we'll be back on the air tomorrow by God's great grace. Sorry, Jeff from Michigan, Nick from Minnesota. Call back tomorrow. We'll talk to everybody. God bless. Bye.