Matt Slick Live

A previously recorded Matt Slick Show. If you enjoy the show, whatever the Lord has for us via the caller. So just let you know we have five open lines if you want to give me a call.

877-207-2276. And if you're a newbie, you want to know what the show is about, it's a Christian show, but it's a little bit different in that we take callers and we deal with some very sophisticated topics as well as devotional material and answer Bible questions. And I attack unbelieving belief systems, unbelieving faith systems like evolution, atheism, and the like. As a matter of fact, I'll be in a debate with an atheist who wants to debate me tonight at, let's see, it'll be two hours from now.

And so I'll put the link up on Facebook, on Karm Facebook, and he and I are going to go at it. So I'm going to dismantle atheism and demonstrate why it is incoherent and everybody should abandon atheism and especially come to the faith of our Savior Jesus Christ, God in flesh, second person of the Trinity. Speaking of which, if you do not know Jesus as your Savior, not the Jesus of Mormonism, not the false gospel of Catholicism, not the vacuous teachings of Islam, not Jehovah's Witness theology, but Jesus of Scripture, second person of the Trinity, God in flesh who died on the cross rose from the dead. And if you don't trust in him, if you don't believe in what he did, then you're going to be lost in the day of judgment. You're going to face an eternal consequence.

It's an eternal consequence because Jesus being God is eternal in value and to reject his sacrifices, to reject the eternal truth and the eternal value of God for the redemption of those people who would put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. You must have him. You must trust in Jesus. If you don't, you're going to be lost. And I don't want that. I want you to trust in him. All right. We have five open lines.

If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Nobody's waiting right now. We have only 32 people in the watching online, different venues, usually goes up to 60, 70, 80 by the end of the show. You can watch on Facebook, you can watch on YouTube. If you're interested in finding out, you just go to carm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. And on the right hand side, you'll see the links for the watch. It's not the big deal. It just says your headsets on and discuss whatever people call it about. And I got a yawn waiting to claw its way up and express itself.

So that's why I'm waiting for the yawn. All right. So just to let you know, the holidays are coming up and a lot of people use Amazon. And if you don't know this already, go to smile.amazon.com.

It's a subdomain of Amazon and that means it's a website that Amazon produces. And so if you go to smile.amazon.com, you can sign up for a nonprofit organization or whatever it is, a charity, that you just lay the information out. And then when you purchase something normally, you have to go to smile.amazon.com to do it each time though. If you go to amazon.com and you buy something, that's it. But if you go to smile.amazon.com, it's the same thing.

Or just go to Amazon, do all the work you do, and right when you're going to check out, just put smile in the front of it, smile.amazon. And then it'll kick in, the charity thing kicks in for whoever, whatever group that you were to do. Also, on the 11th, which is a week from tomorrow, we're going to start our end of year matching funds drive. We've got a donor who does this each year, praise God, really helps us a great deal.

Oh boy, does it. And so whatever you donate to Karm will be counted as double. Now if you're already donating, that's just already donating, it doesn't count. But if you add anything new, like if you were to up it from $5 to $10, if you up it from $5 to $10, then that $5 difference is counted for the entire year, it's coming up, and it's matched.

If you donate an extra $100, then it's matched another $100. That's how it works from the 11th through the end of the year. Okay, there's that yawn. Okay, that took a while.

Man, that took a while to manifest. I wonder how many people are yawning because I talked about it and then yawned. All right, three open lines if you want to give me a call. 877-207-2276. Let's get to Herb from North Carolina. Herb, welcome to the show.

You're on the air. Herb. What do you think the Bible says about the age of the earth? The earth is not millions of years old.

The Bible does not allow that. God created it in six days. He could have done it in six seconds.

He could have done it in 60 years. It doesn't make any difference. The Bible clearly teaches that God in his creative power did this. It's hard to hear you. Well, I'm not sure why, but let me just speak up a little bit further. Maybe that will help right there.

I'm turning the volume up even more. Okay, so the Bible doesn't tell us how old the earth is, but it's not millions of years old. I know that science supposedly says it's millions of years old, but there's a lot of counter evidence to that. The problem is that the scientists don't allow counter evidence to be presented because it would not then support the idea of evolution. And if evolution is true, then they have an intellectual justification, but they really don't, but they think they do, an intellectual justification to abandon the necessity of God and our submission to him. Have you considered that Genesis 1 is all about God, that we have no right to impose our 24-hour days on God's days? The word in Hebrew for God, for day, is yom, and it occurs in different contexts and in different ways.

It seems to be the pattern in the first chapter of Genesis that is 24-hour periods. That seems to be the illusion of what's going on. Okay? No, no.

Are you there? Well, on Job 38, God says to Job, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? That says that it took more time. No, it just says that Job wasn't there.

It doesn't say how much time it took. So what apparently you're doing is believing that science is superior to the word of God, and that's not the case. The problem with science is it's propositional. What that means is it proposes something. Science does.

Hold on, let me explain. Science proposes solutions and answers to things, but it's not absolute. There can be evidence that contradicts certain theories, certain hypotheses, and what science does, the scientific method supposedly, is supposed to produce better and better answers as new information comes up. So science cannot be used to falsify Christianity or God's existence.

Science is a propositional practice that seeks to learn more and more. Plus, people don't realize this, but there are trees that are fossilized vertically through hundreds of millions of years of rock strata. These exist in different places in the world. They falsify the idea of the strata being all these hundreds of millions of years old. It just falsifies it, but the information is suppressed. Well, they may be exaggerating, is there?

Yes. Well, why would Jesus tell us to build our house on a foundation on a rock in Luke 7 if he didn't take time to make a solid foundation for the earth when he made the earth? You're mixing categories, and also you're equivocating. So the rock that is being spoken of is Jesus himself.

The truth of who he is. So you think the Bible says the earth is six to ten thousand years old? I didn't say how old I think the Bible says it is. I'm just saying that the Bible does not allow millions of years, and I don't believe it, and the science, I don't believe, allows it either.

There are too many issues. There's the plioclo-calos, there's the salinity issue in the ocean, there's the rate of decrease of spin of the earth. If you go backwards, it increases to such a speed that nothing can stay on the surface of the planet. You go back a few hundred thousand years, or less than a million years, or something like that. There are trees that are fossilized through hundreds of millions of years of rock strata, which as I've already said, there are places on the earth where the oldest rock is on the top layer, and the bottom has the older, instead of the other way around, which it's supposedly supposed to be. And it happens not because of an earthquake rock that slides up six or eight feet of it and turns over.

No, it's for hundreds of miles in various locations. There are too many problems to say that evolution is just true, that the earth is just this old. There are just too many issues. But you won't find them to be spoken of in science books. And the reason, I believe, is because they suppress the truth in their unrighteousness. As Hebrews 1.18 says, they suppress the truth of God in their unrighteousness. They want to be their own sovereigns, they want to be autonomous from God. I understand that evolutionists do want to be their own God. But the point being is the Bible does not say the earth was created in six 24-hour days. It says it was created in six days.

So what you would do is then go to the Bible and look up the word day and creation and see what it implies in the scripture. Okay? I recommend you do. All right, we're going to move along. And let's get to the next caller. Let's get to Ryan from Texas.

Ryan, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Yes, sir.

Yeah, without your help, I'm kind of searching here. And I was curious, I've been interested in Reformed theology, and I guess I was curious, if someone believed that baptism forgives sin, could that person be saved? There's a yes and a no. They could be saved if they are actually saved, and then someone starts telling them that, and then they believe it for a little while because they'd be believing an error in ignorance. But they will eventually come to know that baptism is not necessary for salvation and baptism is not the thing that wipes away our sins and that we're saved by faith, not by faith in a ceremony. However, if someone were to actually believe that you must be baptized in water by whatever means, say immersion, and if you don't get submerged in water, you cannot be a true Christian, then they're believing a false gospel, and I would not say that they were true Christians or regenerate.

I'd say they're false converts. Okay, because the challenge I have is I'm reading a lot of the early church believers, and they seem to all be kind of falling on the side of it being required. All right, so let me ask you about the church.

I use this a lot. 2 Thessalonians 2, I'm going to teach you something here. 2 Thessalonians 2 is where Paul the Apostle had been teaching, and he says, do you not remember? While I was still with you, I was telling you these things. So he was telling.

That's oral. He was telling them about the return of Christ. That's the context.

All right? And they were getting things wrong. They were thinking, oh, he already returned. The church was getting it wrong, and these are the people who heard it directly from Paul with their own ears.

Now, if they were getting things wrong here, do you think the church fathers are going to get all of it right 2, 3, 400 years afterwards? Hold on, there's more. Okay, sure. Stay tuned, folks.

We've got more on this after the next break, if you reckon. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back to the show, everyone. Ryan, are you still there? Yes.

Can you still hear me? Yes. All right. So what I was trying to say before the break is that error was creeping into the church even while the apostles were alive, and their direct teaching, people still got it wrong.

So it had to be written down. So now I've got a question for you. How many ultimate authorities can you have?

1, 2, 3, 4. How many ultimate authorities can you have? Just one.

Just one. So what is the ultimate authority? Is it church tradition, church fathers, or the scriptures, or what? Well, God, ultimately. Yes, ultimately it's God, but he's revealing himself to us in the word, which is what we have.

We don't have a phone call that we can call God and ask him a question. We have his word revealed. So that word is the ultimate authority, right? Right.

Sure. So if the Bible says that we're justified without any works, Romans 4-5, then we're justified without any works. Is baptism a work? Uh, yeah. Yes, it is.

So if any church father were to teach that baptism is necessary for salvation, like Irenaeus did, Origen, Tertullian, and Ambrose did, then they'd be heretics, wouldn't they? Right, and we're on the same page. That's kind of where I was going with this. There's more. When you have so many... I got more.

What's that? On the other hand, Clement of Rome denied baptism was necessary for salvation, as did Polycarp and Marius Victorinus. So I have a saying, my church father can beat up your church father. The church fathers contradict each other.

Not in every detail, but a lot of times they did. Now, check this out. Chrysostom, if you know who Chrysostom was, he died around 407 AD. He said that he would adhere to faith alone was cursed, but he shows that he who adhered to faith alone is blessed. He also said that those who were enemies and sinners neither justified by the law nor by work should immediately through faith alone be advanced to the highest favor. Theodoret said through faith alone I look for finding the mercy in the day of the Lord's appearing. And get this.

This is really interesting. Vincent of Lorenz, he died in 445 AD. He said that profane novelties must be rejected and that faith alone adhered to which the universal church has held consensciently from the earliest times. Consensciently means consistent agreement. The profane novelties must be rejected and that faith alone adhered to which the universal church has held consensciently from the earliest times. So the church fathers don't always teach the same thing. You can't use them as a basis for truth.

No, well, wait. But the interesting thing is if you look at the liturgies of what they were doing in worship, it seems to show a work-based mentality. If you look at, I don't know if you've read the liturgy of St. James or the liturgy of St. Mark from Alexandria. No, there's just so much.

I just can't get to it. Oh, there is. Would you be admitting then that they're heretics if their teaching works are necessary? Would you say that they're heretics? Well, sure, but is the entire church heretical at this time? The entire church is heretical if the entire church teaches that you have to have works for salvation.

When you trust the word of God, the answers are easy. The Bible says we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. That's Romans 3.28.

To the one who does not work but believes, his faith is counted as righteousness. That's Romans 4.5. So we know that people in Acts 2.38, those who repent and are baptized will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But we find in Acts 10.44-48 that they speak in tongues and receive the Holy Spirit before they get baptized. This is right in Scripture. Anybody who takes their eyes off of Scripture and considers that truth that we might have to believe is found in the early church fathers and use them on an equal level or close to equal level because the word of God is committing a heresy. It always must be.

I'm sorry to interrupt you. I was just thinking it seems like it's more using them as a commentary to see what the right reading would be. How do you know what the right reading is?

They can't get some things right. How do you know they're getting anything else right? How are you going to know if the church fathers got anything right? How would you do? What would you do to find out if they taught something that's correct?

What would you do? Well, I mean, if it's something that's universally believed in the church... No, no, no. No, no, no, no. You don't see if it's universally believed. That's called argumentum et populum. It's true because the majority or everyone believes it.

That's false. What would you do when you want to find out if the church father is teaching something right or wrong? What do you do?

What do you do? Well, I wouldn't want to just rely on my own interpretation of the Bible. Okay, hold on a sec. First of all, the thing you do is you go to the Bible. You should not be hesitating. You should say you go to the word of God. But then if you're going to say, I can't rely just on my interpretation, well, guess what? You just told me by saying that that I'm seven feet tall.

So I thank you for that, but I'm not quite that big. Okay? Okay. I'm not sure what you're saying, that seven feet reference. No, my wife, no, she's out shopping. Why?

Why would you ask? My point is this. If you're just going to say you can't trust interpretation, then it means interpretation is up for grabs. And if your interpretation is up for grabs, then I can make your statements mean anything I want. You have to be consistent. If you're going to argue with logic and if you're going to be logical and consistent, as you read something, like I'm looking at a statement here. Do some of the early church fathers teach the doctrine of faith alone?

Yes, some did. Now, would you say, well, I can't understand that statement. I can't trust my understanding. Well, then you can't trust anything. When you come up to a stop sign, the word stop, does it mean stop or does it mean kind of stop?

Only on Tuesday. You can't do this. You can't say, I understand how language works, except when it comes to God's word. Then I need church fathers or somebody else to tell me.

You might as well join the Mormon church. But if the people who canonized the scriptures took a very different view, I would put weight on what their view was, right? Okay, you put weight on what their view was. Now, take a scale. Take all the way the church fathers put it on one side of the scale, and it drops down. Take the Bible, put it on the other side of the scale.

What happens? Plank. No, their view of what the scripture is saying. Who cares what their view of the scripture says? Why do you care? I would value their view over my local pastor.

Why? How do you know they're correct over your local pastor? What standard do you have by what you judge? Well, they're the ones that formed the scriptures. They formed the scriptures?

Where did you get that? The canon. They formed the canon.

Did they form, for example, the Old Testament? They recognized that... I didn't ask, did they recognize? I asked what you said.

Did they form? That's what I asked. That's what I meant. That's not what you said. I found that.

That's not what you said, though. Hold on. I'll show you something right after the break, okay?

This is important. Please stay tuned. We'll be right back after these messages. Welcome back to the show. Let's get back to Ryan from Texas.

Ryan, are you still there? Yes, sir. Sorry to monopolize your time here. No, this is important. I appreciate your conversation. This is important because there are a lot of people who have the same, I'm going to just say it plainly, faulty view that you do. I'm going to ask you a question, okay? What standard do you have by which you judge whether your pastor is correct or the church fathers are correct about a particular interpretation of scripture?

What standard do you have? Well, I guess it would depend on, I would say, scripture. But I guess it depends on... Scripture. Is that your answer? Is that your answer?

Yeah, but in a material sufficiency sense, whatever the true meaning of scripture is, I think that's where we have the... Are you really a Roman Catholic? We're looking into it. Okay. We haven't joined the church yet.

Yet. Okay. So you're on your way to eternal damnation by joining the false gospel of Roman Catholicism. This is what you're doing. I'm going to tell you... Well, I want to hear that for real.

You're using terms that they use in the issues of inspiration and stuff. What you're going to have to do is realize something. Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice. I know them.

They follow me. That's what Jesus says. His voice is the scriptures. What the Roman Catholic Church does is it seeks to put its own authority above the word of God. It says that it has the authority from Christ, and it gave us the Bible, which it did not, and I'll show you. They'll say it has the authority to decide what the canon is.

Therefore, its authority is what you have to bow to. The Roman Catholic Church is a false church. It puts its authority above the word of God.

Now, you may say, well, maybe they don't. Well, yeah, no, they do, because they say they are the ones who gave us the Bible, and you were just parroting what they were saying. The Bible says in Romans 3.2 that God entrusted the oracles of God to the Jews. Did the Roman Catholic Church give us the Old Testament? The answer, of course, is no, they did not. Did the Roman Catholic Church give us the New Testament?

The answer is no, they did not. God is the one who gave us the Old Testament, and he gave us the New Testament. And the early church was in disarray because of persecution in the first two, three hundred years. It wasn't until that it became legal that councils could then be held. Now, the Roman Catholic Church, what it does is it claims the authority and say, we're the ones whose councils it was, and we gave you the Bible.

Well, that's a load of crud. They didn't give us the Bible. They're trying to take credit for God's work. It's Christians who recognize the word of God.

What the Roman Catholic Church will do is try and get you to take your eyes... When you said Christians recognize the word of God, how did that work? Because they're indwelt by God, John 14.23. The Holy Spirit bears witness of the truth, John 14.26, John 15.26. The Scriptures bear witness of Jesus, John 5.

You just said they were in disarray, though. You asked me, I'm giving you Scripture and you interrupt. Well, I'm giving you an answer based on God's word. Well, I'm verifying.

No, no, no. You don't verify by interrupting. You wait, let me finish what the Scripture says. Because my authority is the word of God. Why do you want to join the Roman Catholic Church anyway?

What's that? Why do you want to join it? Why do you want to join the Roman Catholic Church? Do you want some hierarchical structure over you?

Somebody to believe in and control you? No, I want to hear their full argument before we make a decision. Oh, you want to hear their full argument. Okay, great. Let me tell you what their method of salvation is.

Because you need to know this. Before I do, do you acknowledge that the Bible teaches that we're justified by faith without any works? Do you acknowledge that? Do you acknowledge that?

Ryan, are you there? Are you justified by faith without works? I didn't ask you faith without works.

I asked you a specific question. Do you acknowledge that the Bible says that we are justified by faith without works? Doesn't it say that we're justified by works and not faith alone?

You need to go to my website. You need to type in are we justified by faith or by works and read the article. James chapter 2 starting in verse 14 and the Ghost of 226.

And you can read what the context of James is. The Roman Catholic Church cannot argue its way out of a wet paper heresy. They add things into the Scriptures that are not there. They want to say that you have to do good works in order to be saved.

And I'll tell you why they do. But before I do that, I'm going to read you what the Word of God says. The Word of God says this. To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is credit as righteousness. That's Romans 4 and 5.

Let me say it again. To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is credit as righteousness. Now, do you accept that verse?

Well, yeah, I do. But I also accept James 2 and 24. There has to be a way to reconcile them, right? You need to go to Carm and you need to look up the article on justification with James. James is not talking about justification before God. He's talking about justification before people. Verse 18 says, you show me your faith by your works, I'll show you my faith by my works. That's the justification that faith must be with works before people in order for them to recognize it. The fact that you haven't even learned this means you're not even reading the Scriptures. You're not looking at the Word.

What do you do with the Roman Catholic Church? No, I am. No, you're not.

They have a view as well. No, you're not. I'm comparing views.

No, you're not. Because you misapplied that verse. Because you're not looking at the context.

You don't even read the context. What the Catholic Church says in paragraph 2068 of the Catechism, it says that we obtain salvation through faith, baptism, and the observance of the commandments. And the observance of the commandments. That's how you get salvation. Paul says to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credit is righteousness.

You cannot believe both. But because you're not listening to the voice of your master, the master Jesus Christ, you're going to go after a false shepherd. Now, I'm going to tell you how salvation works in Catholicism. All I'm saying is... I'm going to tell you how it works.

You need to know what you are getting into. In Roman Catholicism, grace is like a substance that's infused into the soul. It's infused. Something that exists can be infused. A physical form, whatever it is, is infused.

Paragraph 1999 says so. It's infused into the soul. Where does the grace come from? Through the works of Christ, the works of Mary, and the works of the saints.

In heaven there's a treasury. When you get baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, all of your sin is removed instantly. If you die right then, you go to heaven because you are full of grace. You're full of this substance called grace. But if you lust after a girl, within one minute, you lost a little bit of grace. Well, now you've got to get that grace back. How do you get the grace back into your soul?

Well, you've got to go to the priest. And the priest will give you things to do. And then by doing those things, sacramentals, then by doing them, you get that grace re-infused into you. Now, the more grace you have, the more righteous you are before God. But if you were to commit a mortal sin, if you murder somebody, then all of that grace is lost.

And if you die right then, then you go to hell. But no, what you have to do, you commit a mortal sin, which is a mortal sin is not going to mass every single week. So if you commit a mortal sin, you've got to get your grace back. Now you go to a priest, you confess the sin, he gives you a bunch of stuff to do, works to do to get God's grace infused back into your soul.

So they own you. The apostles in John 20, I guess. No, it's not in John 20, 23.

You are being so brainwashed by them. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven. No, John 20, 23. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven. If they forgive, the apostles forgive sins, then is God obligated to forgive what the apostles have forgiven?

No. They are then in the authority over God. This is what the Catholic Church says. But what it actually says in the Greek is their sins have been forgiven, which is the perfect passive, which means it's already occurred in the past. They're only pronouncing what's already done in the past.

They're not the ones pronouncing the forgiveness as it's going to occur, but they're pronouncing it because it's already done. You are listening to a false gospel. You are not listening to Christ. So you probably are not even saved. You're not hearing the truth of the gospel of Christ. Well, that was my original question.

Salvation is found in Jesus alone and faith alone in Christ alone, not in baptism and not in the sacramentals of the Roman Catholic Church. Well, that was my original question. Why do so many people in church history seem to take a different view? It just seems like that would indicate there's another way to, another hermeneutic to... Oh, I can tell you exactly why.

I can tell you exactly why. Because they're not of God. They're of the devil.

It's simple. So the folks that, like I was reading... The Roman Catholic Church is not of God.

Yeah. It is a den of iniquity teaching false gospels, teaching idolatry as regarding Mary. It teaches a false gospel. These are the people that gave us... They did not give us the Bible.

No, I said these are the people that were involved in that process. Okay, you're not trusting in Christ. We've got to go because we've got people waiting. Call back tomorrow and I will diss all over the Roman Catholic Church even more.

Gladly, hopefully, you'll put your faith and your trust in Christ and not the traditions and the works of man. We'll be right back. Folks, after these messages, please do too. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right. Welcome back to the show. Let's get to Mary from Utah. Mary, welcome. You're on the air. Hello. Hi, Matt. How are you doing?

I'm doing okay. I just pray that God will protect you through your ministry and others like you who are trying to direct people to the word of God. I have a question. I see a lot of Christians that leave the church and leave the faith simply because they go into a church and, like you said, they say they believe they're safe, but they're really not safe. And so when they do accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, it seems like there's no follow-up with these people, and so they eventually just leave. Then they go on searching through a different church. So I think there's a lot of confusion with a lot of people now, and I pray for that because I, for one, have fallen into that area. So people are saying, Well, I don't want to go to your church because the gospel has gone apostate, and I'm not sure if it's a true church.

So what's your question? Jesus kind of gives some guidance there to people who are listening and are searching for a church. How can you tell when the gospel has gone apostate?

Well, boy, different directions to take. I have on CARM an article, What to Look For in a Church, and if someone wants to trust a guy on a radio named Slick and read that, take your risk and go with that. The issue is we always have to trust the Word of God. Now, what happens is that when people say, Well, can I trust my interpretation or your interpretation?

This is what I did with this earlier caller. I said, Oh, then I'm seven feet tall. Because if you can't trust the basic interpretation of things, then anything means whatever you want. But they don't argue that way. They only apply it when it comes to Scripture. They don't apply it to their marriage vows. They don't apply it to contracts. They apply it to Scripture.

They're inconsistent. And the reason they do that, in my opinion, is because they're looking for a reason to deny God's truth. Now, this is what's interesting, is that Satan, this is Genesis 3.1, Now the servant was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Indeed has God said?

He shall not eat? Another way of saying that is, Well, let's reinterpret what that statement means. How do we know what it really means? Has he really said that?

It's the same kind of a thing. What they're saying is you can't just understand God's word. They're looking for excuses to deny God and the truth of God's word. So if people don't want to be deceived, you have to read the word of God.

You have to seek your time with the Lord Jesus Christ. And you have to study the word. But Christians don't want to study the word. They want to read it for two minutes a week, and they think that's going to be enough, and they say, Well, what do I believe? Believe anything you want, because you don't study the word of God enough to know what the truth is, to recognize his voice. If you spend time with a guy for two minutes a week, hypothetically, and then he comes to you a week later and he says something, do you recognize that voice or not? Maybe you heard it, maybe you don't. You don't know.

It takes time to become familiar. But Christians are taught in this convenient world of instant this and quick that. And if you don't get an answer very quickly, then don't dig, don't look, be lazy. Now, I spend my life searching the scriptures. I spend my life digging, working hard to understand the word of God.

It doesn't mean I got everything right, but I'll tell you something. The more you study God's word, the more sure you become of the truth. Now, Roman Catholics, for example, they don't study God's word. They study the church fathers and what the church says about the word of God.

That's what they do. We Christians. Yeah, I used to be a Catholic, I know. Yeah.

Absolutely. In fact, when Catholic priests go to seminary, they are required to study philosophy for two years before they get to the scriptures so that the brains have been thoroughly brainwashed. And then they'll believe whatever the Catholic church tells them.

This previous caller, the issue is, who are you going to listen to? Jesus. Go read Jesus. Go study Jesus.

Is that what he means by my yoke is easy? That's in the issue of Matthew 11, 23. It's in the issue of salvation. Because he says in the previous verse that he reveals the Father. No one comes to the Father but through him, and whoever he wills to reveal him, come to me, all who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon me, for it is easy. And he's talking about the issue of knowing God and knowing what truth is. You come to Christ. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father but by me, John 14, 6. So you have to go to the one who is the author of truth. But there are all these different voices in the world who say things like, No, don't do that. Listen to our church council, our church Father, our tradition. And what they're doing is actually blaspheming the truth of God's word in the process. Now, unfortunately, I'm going to say this.

I'm going to make some people mad. There are not enough men and women in the world today who have the confidence to stand on God's word and to say, This is what it says, and if you don't like it, you are the one in trouble. You've got to stand on God's word. And the pulpits need to hit that pulpit with a fist and say, Believe God's word. Open it up. Read it. Not just come here on Sunday for 20 minutes, and that will suffice.

It won't. This is the word of the infinitely holy God, and Christianity should be the number one priority in your entire life, following Jesus Christ. I have a lot of people that tell me they don't believe in religion. They don't believe in religion?

Well then, ask them this. What does that mean? They don't believe in religion. What does it mean? They say, I'm not religious.

I don't believe in religion. Okay, what does that mean? What does it mean? To me? No, what does it mean?

You ask them. What does it mean? What do you think they mean by that?

Yeah. They don't believe in religion. So define religion that you don't believe in. So religion is what? It's what? You don't believe in it. So what is it? A set of rules?

A structure like the Catholic Church, or what? Oh, well, they don't drive a car. There's all kinds of rules when you drive cars.

Don't do that. The reasons that they give are never right. You need to study Romans chapter 1, verse 18 and following. They suppress the truth of God in their unrighteousness. They are denying God, and it's an ethical thing. In their unrighteousness, before the law of God, which is a revelation of God's character, therefore deals with morality and ethics. They are denying the truth of God's word. So when they say they don't believe in religion, they're looking for an excuse not to follow God.

And I just ask them, what does it mean? And do you know who Jesus is? Just go right to Christ. Point them to Jesus, okay? Okay.

Okay, thank you so much. You know, because I pray and I even cry sometimes for the people. Well, you know, I'm not perfect, and I even ask people to pray for me too. But, you know, a lot of the young people that are being deceived these days, you know, and it's just so sad. You know, I always pray for God to give us more time to reach out to the young people.

Like, a lot of us had time when we were young to go through what we went through, and then we finally got it right. But, you know, I pray for the young people because they're being misled, and they're, you know, they can be on fire for the Lord, and we just need more time. I know the time is near. I can feel it.

It's coming. But the pastors need to start teaching with authority and the power of the truth of God's word and not be worried about babysitting. I recommend that they go out into a forest or an open field where no one's around and preach their sermon on Saturday before they preach it on Sunday because then they're preaching to God and see if their sermon changes the next day. Who are they preaching to? They're preaching the word of God to the believer is what they're supposed to do for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. That's Ephesians 4, 10, 11, and 12.

That's what they're supposed to do. But if they alter the word that they're preaching, because God is the primary audience of who they have to appeal, and they can certainly speak to the people, but it's God who is their judge, they have to be careful that they're not catering to the needs of people to the expense of the truth of God's word. I'm not saying don't speak to their needs, but you can't put that as the priority. It has to be the truth of God's word. And when people don't put the truth of God's word as a priority, they're listening to another voice, they're teaching falsely, and they're leading the congregations astray.

You know, one more thing, Matt, before I let you go. In my family, like my mom, she gets kind of confused. She has faith, and she prays with me.

But she gets kind of confused. She wants to go check out another church, like the Assembly of God. And she says, well, I keep hearing rumors about, in these last days, that when they're going to make the Sunday, they're going to make the Sunday day of worship, it's going to be a legal thing. And those who go... She's listening to the SDA.

Yeah, they go worship on Sunday, then they will have the mark of the beast on their forehead or something. She's listening to false, she's listening to a lot of false stuff. Don't listen to Shepherd's Chapel, don't listen to Seventh-day Adventist churches. Just have her read the Bible. Yeah, she's not reading it like she used to. And I have to go... Read it with her. I'll start going with her, yeah. I'll start going through her little cafe and sharing with her and her husband, you know.

And then if she can reach out to other people. Okay. Yeah. Okay, thanks, Matt. God bless you, and may the Lord be with you, and everybody in the ministries and all the leaders. In Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, God bless. All right, let's get to Andrew from Illinois. Andrew, welcome. You're on the air. Hi, Matt. God's blessing. I know you only have a couple minutes left here, but I've been watching your broadcast here for the last couple days only.

I had a sister in Christ hook me up with the podcast. But I really agree with you on everything you've been saying. You seem to be gospel-centered and right with all the doctrine that you're speaking on defending God's word and things like that. Real briefly... You have a question?

Because we only have a minute and a half. Right. I was just curious to see where you stand on.

That's the pathology. I believe in a post-tribulation rapture that we're going to go through the tribulation period that Christians are going to be sorely persecuted and that there will not be a literal 1,000-year reign, but it will be the culmination of the millennial reign of Christ, which is figurative in its users and its context out of Revelation 20, and that at the return of Christ, a new heavens, new earth will be made and the judgment of the wicked will occur. And I also affirm that those who are wicked will be taken before Christ because Jesus says so in Matthew 13, 30 and verse 40. Okay, that's a quick version. Right, and that's perfect. I really appreciate it and thank you for all you're doing for the kingdom. Okay. Well, God bless. All right. You have a blessed day as well. Bye-bye. You too. Let's jump on with Nivun from Sri Lanka. I don't know if you're there.

We only got about a minute at the most. How are you doing? I just told you to thank you because I got paid by reading your article on the Internet. I was brought up Catholic. Can you hear me? Yes. You said you got saved by reading the articles on Carm. Good. Praise God. Yeah, I was brought up Catholic and I just got out of the Catholic Church because they were teaching a lot of false people.

Yes, they were. And I'm really thankful to you because of your website. I just read the article and I got saved. I just read salvation by faith alone article from you.

Are we justified by works of faith? That's the article that I read. Oh, man. We're out of time. You know, you're calling from Sri Lanka. I know it's late. I'd love it if you called back tomorrow. We can talk some more. I apologize for that, but we've got to go. Praise God.

I'm glad God saved you out of the false teaching of the Catholic Church. Call back tomorrow if you can, okay, Nivun? And Lao from California, please call back as well. May the Lord bless you all. By His grace, we'll be back on air tomorrow. Talk to you next week. See you. God bless you. We'll be right back.