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. Hope you can enjoy today. It's a nice Friday.

It is December 4th, 2020. And may the Lord bless you greatly. If you want to give me a call, we have three open lines to excuse me, 877-207-2276. That's 877 toll free, 207-2276.

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All right. Why don't we just jump on the phones. Let's get to Tim from Richmond, Virginia. Tim, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. Enjoy your show. Oh, good. I'm glad. That just means you're super intelligent. Good. I like that. Well, that's debatable.

But yesterday you had a call around at the beginning. You're talking a little bit about evolution. And you're making some arguments about younger creationism. And I fall more into humanist agnostic camp. But I listen to your show. I find it interesting. Maybe not as smart as I thought then. Sorry, man.

Good to help. But I want to ask you why is a young earth like 6,000-year-old earth so critical? I mean, we do have trees that are older than that. We also have ice cores from Greenland and Siberia that are hundreds of thousands of years in age. And we have meteorites. We have minerals that we can test with uranium decay that we can determine that the earth is probably four and a half billion years old. And that's really where the preponderance of evidence leads right now.

And I'm not making an argument for evolution or anything like that. But I do think, like, part of the evidence that we have to consider are these. It's hard to make the argument for a 6,000-year-old earth and really be taken seriously given the evidence that exists out there.

So I just want to ask why is this so critical? There's a lot of uncertainty about it. Let me jump in and try and respond. Yeah. You've never heard me say that I believe the earth is 6,000 years old. Okay.

You've never heard me say it because I don't say it. I don't know how old the earth is. I don't believe it's millions of years old, however. I would have no problem with it being 20,000 years.

I assume that it's less than 10. As far as the radiometric dating methodology goes, that assumes certain things. It assumes the uniformity of nature, which cannot be justified in the scientific world, which is a philosophical approach. And there's some counterfactual evidence or counter evidences for that as well. And I just made a note.

This has come up lately. I'm going to have to start honing up on Age of the Earth issues from a scientific perspective. But as far as trees being older than that, well, maybe.

I've heard that there's some trees I think in California that are like 6,000, 7,000 years old. I don't have a problem with that. No big deal. But what other thing you said, though? What was it? Oh, man. I can't remember. I was going to respond to it, but I forgot. In biblical cosmology, like in Genesis, you have this idea that there's a firmament that actually was understood as a dome that separates oceans above from below. I mean, how is that possible?

No. Because I feel like the Age of the Earth issue is similar to that misinterpretation that we get from Genesis. Yeah, the word dome in Hebrew, if you know what it is, is used the way we would use other words that can have literal meaning or not literal meaning, depending. And the idea is that there was a firmament of water that was suspended high in the atmosphere. And then at Noah's flood, it descended. It broke loose along with the floods of the earth breaking open. And I've read and heard of, I should say, of pilots flying their jets, planes, whatever, in perfectly clear skies, no clouds, and all of a sudden, wham, water everywhere.

They're flying through it. And so it does happen that you can have large amounts of water suspended in the atmosphere without clouds. And this has been documented. So it's not impossible to say that the firmament had a lot of water in it early on. How else?

Now, think about this. We know that oil comes mainly from plants, biodegradable plants. All plants are biodegradable. But what we find is that it's all over the world.

We have oil deposits of varying kinds, coal and stuff like that, which comes mainly from plants and some from animals. Well, one of the theories is that if this canopy theory was in effect, not that it had to be a dome, like it's a brass that you bump into with your rocket ship and you fall back to earth. We didn't know there was a dome up there. It's not like that. Some people say it is. That's not what it is. It's just used as a thing to kind of show a designation of boundaries. But nevertheless, now I forgot how I made them get older.

I hate it when I do that. Well, the oil comes from the sea bed. That's not where there's oil today. That's all the decomposed marine life. No, it's not just marine life. It's not just marine life. It's from plant life.

But that's the point. It's important because why does it exist all over the place and there's super amounts of plant life and super amounts of oil? One of the theories is because of this canopy effect that light that was diffused all over the atmosphere throughout the entire planet, which would allow for humongous growths in vegetation for many, many years, which could account for the large oil deposits and shale deposit. Just saying, there's different things. Plus, what do you do with the trees that are fossilized through like 600 million years of rock strata vertically?

I don't know if you've heard of that. Yeah, I mean, that's not my expertise, but I think we have to be open to the uncertainty and suggestion that the earth is older than a lot of the young earth creationists like Ken Ham and his Museum of the Bible are proposing. Let me ask you this.

Let me ask you this. Let's say that the earth is a million years old. Let's just use that as a number. The Bible doesn't say it can only be a certain age. If it was a million years old, does it still mean that Jesus did not rise from the dead? Or does it mean he didn't rise from the dead? That's a theological issue. That's not my concern really.

I guess I don't have an argument to make either way. But if the age of the earth is an excuse for not affirming God, what if it didn't have any relationship? You're still stuck with the issue of, because you listen to me, did Jesus rise from the dead? Because what's the most important question? The age of the earth?

Or what's going to happen to your eternal soul? Well, if Jesus rose from the dead and they say the earth is a million years old or 6,000 years old, either one doesn't have any bearing on whether or not he rose from the dead. That becomes really the ultimate issue you should be dealing with.

And then we can talk about other issues too. I'm going to start learning more on the age of the earth cosmology issues if I have to. I think you said yesterday that science is propositional, but there's an important element of that, which is that science is concerned with certainty and uncertainty. And part of the practice of achieving certainty is that propositions are tested, hypotheses are tested, and the more that they're proven, the more certainty that adds to our understanding of things. So when things have more certainty, they are elevated to theories. And then things that are not, you know, when we have scientific laws like the law of gravity, that's a hypothesis that there's been no experiment that disputes it. So that's why it's become a law.

I understand that. But what justifies it? See, I can ask the questions of people who talk about this, I can ask other questions that they cannot deal with in the scientific realm. What justifies, for example, the uniformity of nature? Cos the scientific method, which is based on philosophy, the assumption of the uniformity of nature, the assumption of the laws of logic. Well, okay, so it's a philosophical assumption about a material world.

So it begins philosophically, so it's fair for me to ask philosophical questions. What justifies philosophically the uniformity of nature issues inside of science? Well, if you say science, every atom we've tested, every rock we've tested behaves the same way, it doesn't mean that it will behave the same way in every place. It's an assumption. Everywhere in the universe. Cos we can't observe everywhere in the universe.

I agree with you. You know, we have to have an open mind, a soul, philosophically speaking, but I think, you know, you can't close yourself off from any idea, so. Well, I don't know, I think agnostics do. But philosophically speaking, if we were to assume the uniformity of nature is because of God's uniform nature and his fingerprints all over the universe, then we can assume that and we have an actual philosophical foundation to do that, which the scientific method can't provide. So if one can provide, the other one cannot provide, there's a question to ask.

Well, which one is a better model? Yeah, but you have to be careful about making supernatural arguments without observation sometimes. Like, Why?

You know, Why? Well, let me put it this way. It used to be the case that people didn't understand the physics and mechanics of how birds fly. There's even a proverb in the Bible, right, where he says, the psalmist says, I don't understand how birds fly or how snakes crawl. I mean, but we understand that today because of physics and mechanics, but we don't make an explanation like, well, it's angels that keep the birds in the air. You know, it's similarly, you know, we can argue that there is a God that, you know, is behind all this, but without observation, it's highly speculative, so. Um, except that, uh, everything, even the rationale on the basis of a rationality is due to our assumptions that we have, even in the issue of science. And those assumptions are automatically philosophical, automatically and ethical. And so if we were to say, I'm not going to look at the philosophical, so to speak, and only look at the material, then that's a self refuting system, which I can explain how it's self refuting. And so it's invalid to do that, which means that a greater set of truths is lying behind these issues.

You see? So what is truth? There's universal truths, which can only occur if there's a universal truth giver. So even science necessitates God's existence in order for it to work. Even the philosophies based on necessitates God's existence. And then what scientists do is they narrow the field, close their eyes, put blinders on and say, now we're going to say science can't include God.

Well, what justifies that? You see, I think there's a way of thinking and some religious people do it and some atheists do it, which is that they're very certain about what they believe is true. I'm, I'm more comfortable with a higher degree of uncertainty and openness to ideas.

Are you certain about that? Anyway, good conversation. Okay. We'll talk to you later.

Okay, bye. All right, 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. Welcome back, everybody. We have two open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276.

Let's get to Andrea from Long Island. Welcome. You're on the air.

Hi, thank you for taking my call. My question is regarding the manifestation of divine healing. As a Christian filled with the Holy Spirit, I follow the word going from Old Testament to New Testament, where by His stripes, we are healed, we were healed, we are healed, and following Jesus's command to lay hands on the sick, raise the dead and cast out demons. And I am questioning why if I follow that command and I'm doing my job with laying on the hands, I mean the healing is not from me, it's from God to Jesus to the Holy Spirit using me, why isn't that divine healing manifestation always present?

Because God doesn't want it always present. But the word says that if we do it, it happens. Where does it say that? Does it not say that lay hands on the sick and they will recover? James, and what does it talk about there anointing with the loyal? What's the context?

I'm sorry, I don't have that handy. You read the context, you'll find out that it also is talking about a spiritual sickness in that context. And when it says will, it doesn't mean that everybody will always be healed. Paul the Apostle himself, if anybody is going to be healed because he has faith, Paul the Apostle would, but he was not healed. In fact, Paul even said he left, I forgot who it was, so and so sick as he went about his ministry. So what you're probably listening to, have you heard of Kenneth Copeland and stuff like that?

Yes. Do you listen to Kenneth Copeland? I listen to him, I listen to Curry Blake, I've taken the divine healing training, and it's just frustrating. So you listen to Kenneth Copeland. Here, let me read something to you and tell me what you think.

Just some opinions about something. Heaven has a north and a south and an east and a west. Consequently, it must be a planet. Faith is a power force, it's a tangible force, it's a conductive force. The earth is a copy of the mother planet where God lives.

He made just a little one here. God's reason for creating Adam was his desire to reproduce himself. Adam was not subordinate to God even. Adam is as much like God as you could get, just the same as Jesus. Adam in the garden of God was God, manifested in the flesh. God has no avenue of lasting faith or moving on the earth unless he has permission to hear someone here. What do you think of those statements? Well, God is sovereign.

That's what I take from that. I know that the devil has ability. So heaven has a north and a south, heaven is a planet. That's heresy. That's a false teaching from Kenneth Copeland. Okay, when you say do I follow him, I listen to...

I have a reason for doing this. Okay. I did not hear that teaching. I guess I'm picking and choosing from various pastors. No, you don't know what he's teaching in a lot of areas and you don't know if he's a good teacher. He's not.

What do you think about Curry Blake? I don't know. I'm a big proponent.

I don't know if I can't comment. But Kenneth Copeland is a bad teacher. Joyce Meyer is a bad teacher because she teaches heresies. Yes, I do not follow her.

I agree with that. Joel Osteen is a bad teacher. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. The only teacher... Hold on.

I do follow Curry Blake. I don't know who it is. I can't comment. What I'm saying is that when you're talking you were saying things that are consistent with what's called the positive confession movement. That because God said something, therefore you're supposed to be healed.

You're supposed to be healthy and wealthy. Right. And if you're sick, it's because you don't have enough faith. Right? No, I don't believe that. Okay. This is what they teach. This is part of what they teach.

So what you're doing is listening to these people. I don't know this other guy, Curry Blake. Maybe someone I know. Yes, Curry. See, he's JGLM and he's extremely... Hold on. I don't want you to tell everybody who it is because... Oh, I'm sorry.

I don't know if he's good or bad. So the thing is, biblically speaking, God doesn't always heal. He's not obligated to heal. Just because we say something or we claim that the Bible says something doesn't mean that's what it actually says. It actually says in Matthew 8, let me see if I can find this. Matthew 8, I think it's verse 17.

I can't believe I remembered that one. When Jesus came to Peter's home, this is verse 14, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever. He touched her hand. Fever had left.

She got up and waited on him. When evening came, they brought him to many to him who were demon-possessed and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were ill. This was to fulfill what was spoken to Isaiah the prophet. He himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.

Right. Now, it was fulfilled before the crucifixion. But people will... What they'll do, they'll go to 1 Peter 2, 24, where it says, he himself bore sins in his body, etc. By his wounds, you're healed. So he carried away our diseases, but it was fulfilled there. By your wounds, you're healed, which is an allusion to Isaiah 53. That's correct.

So people are using different things, but they're taking them out of context and they don't use the whole thing. You're not getting a proper message. Well, then what do you think about being part of a healing ministry where you go up to strangers, go to various places, whatever, put yourself out there, lay hands, and in the name of Jesus, command healing? Where does it say you can command healing in the Bible?

Who are you calling to? Well, I'm pretty sure in the New Testament, it says, in Jesus' name, cast out demons, raise the dead, lay hands, and heal the sick. Jesus says, on that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, I will not prophesy in your name, perform many miracles, cast out demons. So they're appealing to that work for salvation, and they're damned for it. But when he talks about this issue, you're talking about Matthew 10 is what you're talking about, actually.

Right, right. And what's happening in Matthew 10 is Jesus is giving the authority to the disciples, the 12 disciples. I'm going to read it, but I'm going to say something. Most of the time, these people who teach this healing stuff, they don't know a four-letter word, context. To them, it's a four-letter word, context. Because if they teach you the context, then their theology doesn't fit. Then they can't get people to give tithes and money and attention to them because they're claiming that you're supposed to be healthy and wealthy and wise.

Well, I want to hear that, so I'll give you money to keep teaching me, tickle my ears. But this is what it says in Matthew 10. Jesus summoned his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits that cast them out to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Does that apply to you and me today? But didn't he also, say, go out into the world and then the 12 got 70?

I asked you a question. Does that apply to us today since it was to the 12 disciples? No, we're not one of the 12.

Then we have to go to other verses because the ones you quoted there don't apply to us. See, that's how it works. Here, hold on. Okay, we've got a break.

Okay, thank you. Hey, folks, we've got a break. Please stay tuned. We'll be right back after these messages. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

Welcome back to the show, everyone. If you want to give me a call, we have three open lines, 877-207-2276. Let's see. Got a note here. Curry Blake is a leader of the current apostolic prophetic healing movement. He's considered a spiritual mentor to a large number of ministries birthed in this current move of God. Yeah, that's not sounding good. So, excuse me, Andrea, are you still there?

Yes, I am. All right, so you're talking about this methodology of people going and just praying over people, asking them, and then commanding healing in Jesus' name. Right, and also seeing many videos where you can see the manifestation of the healing. How do you know it's from God? Well, if you're covering with the blood and you're asking in the name of Jesus. So, people, in the book of Acts, there were people who were excited in the name of Jesus. Demons were responding, but they weren't even Christian. I forgot exactly where it is. Let's see.

Demons, let's see. I can find the verse. Maybe someone is listening, but it's in the book of Acts.

I should memorize where that location is. Here in Acts, in Matthew 7, 22 and 23, they said that, Jesus says, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, etc. And he says, get away from me, I never knew you. Just because the miracles do occur doesn't mean it's from God. How do we know they're not from God, though? Now that's the right question. You're a good teacher.

What's that? I said you're a good teacher. I'm trying to get people to think.

I'm trying to teach them how to fish. Here's the thing. Orthodoxy leads to orthopraxy. That means good doctrine leads to good practice. Can God heal? Of course he can. Should we be praying for people's healing?

Of course we should. Does God heal today? Of course he does. Does he use us to accomplish that?

You better believe it. But what do we do with a group who doesn't evangelize but just goes out and prays for healing? Let's just say there's a group that, like the Redlands, New Apostolic Reformation, Redlands Bill Johnson group, that what they do, and I've talked to people, eyewitnesses, who know this, that they'll come up, some of their disciples, some of their people in their evangelism healing school, and I've been to that church to check it out, and they have a lot of dubious things going on. But at any rate, hey, you want a healing? Yes. Well, here's a healing. Thank you.

And then you leave. No gospel presentation. Let's just say they've healed somebody by God's grace. Let's say it's by demonic healing.

We don't know. Let's say there's a healing occurred, but no gospel's given. Is that right or wrong? No, that's wrong. The healing is a segue to get the attention of the atheist, the Muslim, whomever. The healing is the segue to present the gospel. Now that I agree with. Yes.

So if someone were to say that they wanted to use healing as a means by which they can present the gospel. Yes, that's what I mean. Then that's fine. Yes. Okay. But they've got to be careful because what they'll do is take verses out of context.

They do it a great deal. Like they'll say, he gave the authority to cast demons out. He didn't give it to us. He gave it to the disciples.

And I just read the context. So you've got to be careful because just like a lot of pastors in America, a lot of good ones too, but a lot of pastors can't argue their way to have a wet paper bag and don't know what it means to exegete scripture and are leading people astray accidentally and unintentionally. So too, a lot of these people in this movement, the NAR healing movement, are doing the same thing. Because, you know, as an example, when I went to Matthew 10 one, Jesus summoned his 12 disciples, gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out to heal every kind of disease, every kind of sickness. See, brothers and sisters, this is what Jesus gave to the disciples and you're a disciple so you can do what he can do. All you've got to do is have that faith. Without faith it's impossible to please God. Romans 11 6, you have got to believe, brothers and sisters, say Amen, Amen, Amen, now stand on your feet. Okay, let's pray for healing. And I'm up there going, with my hand in the air, excuse me, you took the verse out of context. It says to the 12 disciples, you have to find a way to demonstrate that it's carried down from others or to others.

How do you get this? Why did you take it out of context? This is the kind of thing that happens a lot. I could get up and do the same thing they're doing and get the same reaction out of a crowd.

I do the same thing. I'll never do it. Because it would be sinful for me to manipulate a crowd even to illustrate something. But then are you saying that the healing was for the disciples? When he said, I leave you and I leave, I leave you, you will do greater works than I? Ah, now we're talking. Does that mean that when the last of the disciples died, John, does that mean that the laying on the hands and casting out demons, does that mean that that went away?

No, no, no, I'm not a cessationist. All the charismatic gifts are still around for us. The charismatic gifts.

Do you go to 1 Corinthians 14? There are healings. People do speak in tongues. Right. We have to be able to know the difference between manipulation and truth. Right. And the misapplication of scriptures to people to get them to do and believe something that's not biblical. Greater works than these you shall do, said Jesus.

Right. What's a greater work than what Jesus did? I guess reaching more people. Could be. Because we don't know how many he reached, maybe a few thousand, maybe 10, 20, 30, we don't know. Right, he couldn't reach across the different continents, that's why he sent the disciples out. Maybe.

I think it's a fair thing. It could be that we can lead people to Christ. His walking on water is a miracle indeed, but leading someone to Christ by God's grace who would use us for his grace. Not that we save people, we don't. But, you know, in God's proximity of usage, that's a greater thing than walking on water, is to have someone come to faith and trust in Christ.

So you see, the thing I'm discovering and seeing more and more, particularly in the NAR movement, is a lack of critical thinking and proper application of hermeneutical principles when it comes to reading the word of God and applying it. And people, sheeple, what they'll do is they'll flock to these teachers and saying, you know, tickle my ears, tell me some more, tell me how great I am, tell me how many great things I can do. Well, if I'm going to tell people how great you are, it's not because you are great, it's because of what Jesus does in you, because of what Jesus thinks of you. Can you be used by God to perform miracles? Absolutely. But you must keep your heart humble before him and seek his will because sometimes it's not God's will to heal, as was the case with Paul the apostle. Do we have more faith in Paul? No.

So what we should do is pray that God's will will be done. My wife, for example, who I'm trying to get on the radio and talk, she has one of the rarest connective tissue disorders in the world. Really? In the world.

Absolutely, yes. She's had open heart surgery, she's got a pacemaker, she's had, she's got a hand surgery coming up later this month. Another hand surgery. She's had two feet surgery, she's had two back, three, four, five back surgeries. Okay, she has to take special medicine for osteoporosis. This poor woman, plus she has stupidus husbandus. Okay, she's really good at that.

All right? And she has prayed for healing and every night when we pray, I mean, I think technically every night, maybe not technically every night, but every night when we pray, I pray for her healing. We hold hands and I pray for her healing. God has not chosen to heal her.

Is it because they don't have faith? No. No. Because she doesn't have faith?

No. Because God has chosen not to do that. Why? Maybe it's because she gets on the radio one day when she finally does what she needs to do and she can talk about what it's like to trust in Christ through all of these difficulties. And I'm telling you, she's gone through such difficulties.

Wow. That she was, she's suffering from PTSD, from some of the pain and suffering she's had to go through physically. We're talking having to call paramedics, we're talking about having to go to the emergency room, we're talking about pain. She's gone through it. And she, her faith is not affected.

Right. Of her circumstances. So if God, if God were to have healed her, well, and then she gets on the radio, yeah, God healed me years ago. And I'm not mocking that.

I'm making light of it. Praise God if God chooses that. But what about through her faith? I mean, through her illness, through her sickness, through her pain and suffering, she praises God.

How many more people might that reach? Oh, sure. That's a testimony for sure. It is. That's a testimony.

It is. And I know there are people who want her on the radio. She won't go like, oh, she's listening. Trying to guilt her.

Why is that? Oh, she's not a public speaker like I am. Okay. That's all. She's good on the radio too. She can certainly answer your questions like I'm trying to. She's a good woman except for her taste in men. That's all I say. I can say about the same thing but reverse it for my husband. So we're in an even playing field here. Well, it's a tough one, the quiz.

I can lay hands if my husband has a bad back and it seems to work. And yet my son who struggles with so many things, so many physical things. Because it's God deciding to heal.

Yeah. You've given me so much time. Where can I follow you?

Because you're terrific. Karm.org. Karm.org. Thank you for everything. Okay. Thank you.

God bless you. Okay, folks, we'll be right back. Sorry about that. We'll be right back after these messages. Three open lines 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick live taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right. Welcome, everyone. We lost some callers during the break if you want to give me a call. We have four open lines, 877-207-2276. I want to hear from you. Give me a call. 877-207-2276. Wow.

From California. Welcome. You're on the air. Hi, Matt. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you.

What do you got? All right. Okay, my question is, I believe I heard you say years ago there's a scripture where Jesus tells the disciples to, when they're going out to preach the gospel, I believe it is, and he said, take a sword. And if I remember correctly, I believe you said that this was, like, a defining verse to say, well, maybe one of many to say that Jesus is encouraging believers to potentially defend themselves if they're going out there. Yes. So I brought that up. I used that. It was a Facebook post. But someone responded back saying that I completely took that entire verse out of context and that I'm hearing a squeaking.

There's a squeaking sound. Is that if you still hear it now? Kind of. Go ahead. I think so. Go ahead.

No, I don't know. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. How about now?

Hopefully that's better. Okay. So yeah, so someone responded. Someone responded saying, you know, that I completely took that verse out of context and it was almost, the response was kind of, you know, equivalent to saying, you know, that's elementary, the way you're looking at it. And if you were to go deeper, you would eventually see that this is not standing in that verse to defend yourself. Let's read the context, okay?

Right. Can you hear me? Yes, I can.

Are you ready? I'll read the context to you. This is, the verse you're talking about is Luke 22 36.

I'm going to start at verse 35. All right? Okay.

All right. And he said to them, when I sent you out without money belt and bag and sandals, you did not lack anything, did you? They said, no, nothing. He said to them, but now whoever has a money belt is to take it along. Likewise, also a bag and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one. For I tell you that this which is written must be fulfilled to me. And he was numbered with the transgressors for that which refers to me had his fulfillment. So there's the context.

So he specifically tells the disciples, if you don't have a coat or a sword, sell your coat and go buy one. That's what it says. I'm not interpreting it. Right.

That's what it says. Right. So, no, I would do you think, do you? Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. Ask.

Ask. No, I'm I agree with you 1000%. I'm just, you know, I know your mind has wrapped that Bible so many times. So my question was just a follow up question. Like, could you see even like, the, uh, that word, that verse potentially not meaning, you know, to defend yourself or you see it 1000% that it's just clear to defend yourself.

We're having a question here. Why would Jesus tell him to buy a sword? First of all, he tells him to buy a sword.

Why a sword? He's going to send them out into the world. When I sent you out before, you didn't lack anything, right?

But now when I send you out, do this. It had changed. For one thing, the words of Christ had changed. Not that he, his words teaching were contradicting, but that he, what I mean is his message had been going out to Israel and the more and more people were being divided over who he was and people become difficult when they're faced with the truth.

And most of the commentators that I've read agree. It's an issue of self-defense. We have the right of self-defense and so the sword was a means of judgment, of enforcement of law, of punishment and of defense. So the Christian is not obligated to have self-defense.

He's free to be able to. So I, you know, I carry a gun and I've done years of martial arts, so I have the right to self-defense. What does it mean I have the obligation to?

Okay. And it's from this verse. So if someone says it's taken out of context, it's like, show me the context and show me what it really means. A deeper meaning. So what's a deeper meaning? The sword really means to plant cucumbers in a garden. That's a deeper meaning. What's a deeper meaning, you know? Okay. Do you think there being like a little subliminal thing, I don't know, like potentially saying, you know, oh, the sword, he meant take the word. You know what I'm saying? No, no, no, no.

If they want it. Right. It does. It's not because you buy a sword. You buy a sword, your cloak, your coat, and buy a sword. Okay.

So it's not about the word of God. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you so much, Matt. You're welcome. Okay. God bless. Okay. Bye. Let's get to David from Oregon. David, welcome. You're on the air. Hi, Dr. Brown. Not Dr. Brown, it's Matt Slick, but that's okay. Oh, okay.

I just phoned in. That's okay. Yes, yes.

So I'm a Messianic Christian and we have a Jewish friend who is part of our congregation and is asking me to listen to a YouTube presentation called Caesar's Messiah. So I've never heard of that. I just wondered what you thought of that.

Not heard of it either. And a recommendation. Okay.

But I'm looking very quickly on the web, written, argues that the New Testament gospels were written as wartime propaganda by scholars connected to the Roman imperial court of the Flavian empires. Wow. It's a load of crud. Okay. So, yeah, it's a theory argued by a guy named Atwell. And it doesn't fit. It actually doesn't. Okay.

Just from that alone, written as wartime propaganda by scholars connected with 70 AD. Let me show you why it doesn't work. Okay.

You ready? Okay. The book of Acts is a book of history and it's the early church. The book of Acts records the death of Stephen in Acts 7. But it does not record the death of Peter and Paul, very significant figures in the church, more so than Stephen.

It did not record their deaths, which occurred roughly 63-ish, give or take, a couple, three years, in 63 AD. Why would the book of Acts not cover that? Well, logically, because the book of Acts was written before that. It makes sense, right? Yeah.

Okay. Luke wrote the book of Acts, but Luke wrote Luke also, and he wrote Luke before the book of Acts. You can read it by reading the first two verses, three verses of each book, book of Acts and book of Luke.

It becomes very clear. The first book I wrote Theophilus and blah, blah, blah. And then Theophilus is spoken of in Luke.

So, Luke wrote him. Well, that means that Luke was written before the book of Acts. And if the book of Acts will just pick a number, let's just say 60 AD, because it's easy to work with that rounded number there, because it's before death of Peter and Paul. Well, Luke was written before that.

Let's just say five years. Well, that's 55 AD, let's just say. And most scholars agree that Matthew and Mark are written before then.

Well, if this Atwell guy is saying that the gospels are written as wartime propaganda dealing with the 70 AD thing, it just doesn't add up. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Okay. Very, very good.

Thank you for that answer. All right, man. God bless, David. Yeah, good. God bless. Okay.

All right. Let's get to John from Iowa. John, welcome.

You're on the air. Hey, Matt. Hey. Hello.

Yes. So, what do you got? My name is Juan.

My name is Juan. So, I have a quick question for you. This question, basically, I don't hear many from people teaching or kind of more like from Bible schools and stuff like that. Like marriage, you know, what things are allowed to do inside a marriage? Is it sex or wife? It's easier to say what's not permitted. Sodomy is not permitted. Okay. Pornography is not permitted. Multiple partners are not permitted. Thinking things during that you should not be thinking is not permitted.

Basically, everything else goes for it. I have a sexually calm written questions on sexuality. And I go through some very, let's say difficult questions, difficult issues, which I don't really want to speak about over the air because there might be children etc. And so they can get rather PG 14 or rated semi range because of the nature of the discussion.

So I would suggest you go there and read there because there are things that are spoken of in the book of Song of Solomon that talk about the garden and tasting the garden and various things that it uses in ways of alluding to certain things. I'm very careful here. Okay.

But a great deal is Are you talking about the book? Okay. Now do you have the web in Spanish that I can maybe go through and read through? I think we have the articles translated in MIAPIC.org. So you can go there and see if Carlos has it.

If it's not there, what you can do is just email Carlos at karm.org. And he's our Spanish guy. Okay.

And he's translating stuff. So I don't know if he's done the issue on sexuality yet. Okay. No social guru. Okay.

Is that like a Luceron or Mestores or Balsies? What's the denomination? Well, the website is non-denominational. Now I'm reformed on my theology. Yeah, I'm reformed.

And I think Carlos is too. Okay. But we don't push that in there. And besides the issues there, they don't have anything to do with Lutheran or Reformed. It just has to do with what does the Bible say?

And just go right in there. We have it in English. Okay. We have them in English.

Okay. It's kind of sad, you know, what's going on right now under many Spanish churches right now. There's really kind of disappointing different areas. And, you know, most of the things that I see is they don't preach well, preach well. And it's just kind of scared me because I got kids that are grown up right now and they come from this life, you know, there is like things that are, you know, that we're not prepared to kind of answer because, you know, our teachers, you know, they're not prepared. And I know we're supposed to study and teach us a tool, but it's difficult for us to manage, you know, we don't have a good teachers to help us. Right. And I agree.

It's very bad. It's one of the reasons, you know, I speak Spanish, but not fluently enough to be able to preach and teach in it. So if God were to put upon my heart, I would go to Colombia for two, three months and just speak Spanish until I got to the point where I could teach, you know, and learn because I know there's a need. But we do have Carlos Garbaras, and he's very good.

And I also have friends in Southern California who are reformed in their theology and speak perfect English, perfect Spanish. And, you know, I can always put you in contact with them, but go to miapic.org. M-I-A-P-I-C. And if the articles aren't there, what you need, just email carlos.com.org. Okay. Okay.

Thank you so much. Okay. Okay, buddy. God bless.

Let me know what happens. Okay. Okay. All right.

That was John from Iowa. And I'll be about out of time here, folks. I hope the Lord just gives you a great weekend. And even if it doesn't go all that well, keep your eyes on Him and praise Him through everything. May the Lord bless you by His grace. Talk to you then. See you. God bless you, buddy. Bye.