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. All right. Welcome everyone. It's Matt Slick live. Hey, I'm your host, Matt Slick. All right.
If you want to give me a call, as usual, 877-207-2276. And I got a cough. So it just started like a minute ago. It happens. And well, there we go. So hold on. Yep.
Coughing. Oh man. I just had some coffee.
Maybe that's what did it. Anyway, if you want to give me a call, like I said, 877-207-2276. I want to hear from you. And if you're a newbie, this is a Christian kind of a talk show, but it's not, but it is. People call in, they ask questions, try and answer them. We have discussions, disagreements sometimes.
Occasionally we have an obstreperous individual and I get nasty emails afterwards. You know, just various stuff, but hey, that's life and that's radio. And so if you want to give me a call again, 877-207-2276. All right.
Just want to lift up somebody. COVID has been a bad thing for a lot of people. I had it. My wife had it.
Two of our daughters have had it that we know of and we've all survived it just basically like a cold. And so one of our good friends, I'm going to give his sister's name. Madeline is in bad shape from COVID and I just figured I'd have the opportunity to mention an individual and ask that you pray for Madeline for her recovery.
So it doesn't look good right now, they say, but you know what? The Lord's good and Madeline's a Christian and just ask that you would lift her up in prayer. And we also have a prayer ministry here at CARM. If you need prayer, if you would like to have a team of people praying for you or some need, all you have to do is email us at prayer at CARM.org. Prayer at CARM.org. C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. And we hope that if you have needs that you'll let us know. And also we stay on the air by your support. So if you'd be so interested, so inclined, if you might consider supporting us at $5 a month, all you have to do is go to CARM.org forward slash donate.
And the information is there and you can just click sign up and you can stop anytime you want. We don't need a whole bunch. We just need enough. And we don't go on the air saying, if you put a hundred dollars in, you get seed faith money, it'll be doubled. We don't believe in that idiocy. That's not what the Bible teaches. We're not into sorcery.
You put something in a spiritual realm, guaranteed a spiritual result. Now, look, we just tell people, look, here's a need. We stay on the air by your support. Please support us. If you don't want to, don't. If you do, great.
Thanks. And we have some schools. If you want to check it out, just go to CARM.org. Type in the word schools. I think forward slash schools will also give you the right information and you can sign up and study. There's a lot of good information on those schools. One on theology, one on apologetics, and one on critical thinking.
Please consider checking them out. And we have three open lines. 877-207-2276. Courtney from Ohio. Hey, Courtney. Welcome. You're on the air. Hey.
Hi. Before I ask my question, I have to ask, what was that $10 word that you used when you were talking about, is it some kind of individual? It sounded like... Obstreperous. It means boisterously recalcitrant.
Whew. That's another $10 word. Okay. How do you spell the first one? O-B-S-T-R-E-P. I think it's E-R-R-E-O-U-S. Obstreperous. I'm a sesquipedalian. I like big words. That's someone who likes big words.
So I will use words like recalcitrant, deontological, epistemological. I actually do it with my friends. And I do it on purpose to tease them and make them look bad. And then they threaten me usually when I use words like that in a mocking tone as I decry their lack of education and intelligence and humility like me.
And they just shake their heads, close their eyes, you know. So that's the payment they had to make for being my friends. So anyway. I love big words, too.
So when I heard that one, I was like, ooh, what's that one? Okay. Oh, yeah.
I know a lot of them. Okay. So my question was... Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. That's all right.
So what do you got? I was just going to say... Yeah, I didn't want to take up too much of your time. My question was, you know how in the book of Daniel it says that he found in the book of Jeremiah that God said he was going to bring back his people after 70 years. So he prayed. So my question is, would that not have happened if... I'm not saying it had to be Daniel, but would it not have happened if somebody didn't pray or would it have happened anyway?
Well, let's just say that it's kind of an enigma paradox. If he prayed, it would have happened, but if he didn't pray, God could have done it anyway. So why do you have him pray?
Because God ordains the means as well as the ends. And it's a theological issue where we have to deal with predestination, election, foreordination, ordination, decorative will, prescriptive will, permissive will, and things like this. And all these big words and theological terms, a lot of people just tune out.
And that's okay. But when we get into these kinds of discussions and people who like those discussions, then we really get into some interesting stuff. And as we relate compatibilist free will, not libertarian free will, with the ordination of God who works all things after the counsel of his will and how he predestines various things to occur, then we have to deal with a lot of subtopics and it takes a while to work through the iterations. So that's what we say in the shortcut version is God ordains the means as well as the ends. So the means being the prayer.
Right. So he ordains that we pray about such things. Now some people think ordination means direct causation.
Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. God can ordain all things. He does. He ordains all things that come to pass. Ephesians 1.11. But he ordains sin to exist, but he doesn't cause sin to exist. The ordination means that within the economy of God and his work that nothing can occur unless it's by his direct will or his permissive will. We say he permits. So God says don't lie, but it's his will to permit you to lie.
So he wills to permit you to lie. Is that because we have free will? Free will, yes, but then there's different kinds of free will. The two major groups of free will are called libertarian and compatibilist in Christian theology. So it has to do with the nature of the fallen person. Well right, because he doesn't want us to lie, but it happens.
Yes. But free will is the ability to make choices that are consistent with your nature and that are not forced. And so an unbeliever is a slave of sin, a hater of God.
He can do no good. So his free choices are always going to be sinful. And so God works with sinful choices of people to bring about certain events. You can go to Acts 4, 27 and 28 as an example where we see the hand of God and it's in the issue of the crucifixion. And God says for truly, actually Peter says it but it's inspired, for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.
So he's talking to God. In this city you gathered, you put them together and the anointed one of Jesus and you gathered Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, the peoples to do whatever your hand predestined to occur. The predestination was the crucifixion of Christ. And so wicked things had to occur in order for that to be carried out. So one of the things to deal with then, well then people will say well then that means that God is the one responsible. Nope, because if you go to Acts 2, 23 this man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. So God uses the sinful desires and plans of wicked people to accomplish his greater good. That's what he does. It gets complicated and I could talk about it more in varying degrees but that's basically what it is.
Okay. Okay so like that, what he said through Jeremiah, would that be considered a prophecy for 70 years? Oh yeah, well if I remember correctly what that was is that Israel was put in bondage for 70 years, right?
In that one? And it was because they were supposed to give the land rest once every seven years. And so God put them in bondage for 490 years, or excuse me, excuse me, for 70 years. He put them in bondage for 70 years and it gave the land rest because Israel for 490 years did not give the land rest. Against what they had done. I guess like what I'm also asking too is like, so there's our Bible is just full, like chock full of prophecy and some of them don't have anything to do with people praying.
Some of them, right? Like for instance when it says Jesus will be born in Bethlehem Ephratah, nobody prayed for that to happen and it happened because God said it would happen, right? So there's some times where it's just, it's going to happen because God said so and other times like you said about the means to an end. Well yeah, you know, he sent the angel to talk to Joseph, go take Mary and go take care of her because he was going to divorce her even though they weren't technically married.
It was a cultural thing and put her away so that she wouldn't be disgraced and an angel said don't do that, you know, take care of her. And so we can see that God intervened by sending an angel and so God brings about what he desires. A lot of people don't realize that God is bigger and smarter than we are, period.
Oh sure, yeah. They don't grasp how vastly intelligent and capable he is. There is nothing he has to learn and every event and every location of every atom in the entire universe is known all the time. And this is how God is. So when people do something evil, it's already known by God and ordained by God. Again, not that he caused it but that it's within his sovereign plan to allow it and that's what ordination means because it can't occur unless God gives it permission to occur.
And yet he uses the evil of people to bring about greater good. You know, one of the things my wife and I like to do is we like to watch detective kind of things where true stories, you know, someone gets killed or whatever it is and then the story of how they find out who did it. And my wife's a lot better than I am at figuring out who did it first.
I'm always trying to be objective and stuff like that and weigh the evidence more but she puts it together quicker than I do and she's usually right. But nevertheless, I watch all these people do these bad things and they're documented. Why does God allow that?
Why doesn't he just step in? Some of these things that are done to people are horrendous. They're horrendous and God doesn't stop them. There's got to be a reason and I think what the overall reason is is that God is allowing people to have the freedom in their own sinfulness and sin affects other people, not just yourself. And so he's letting it occur for the Christians who get martyred like John Huss and the Christians thrown into lion's dens and burned alive and things like this. God let it occur. Why would he let it occur? And I think in part is because the Christians who are thus martyred will receive far greater glory in heaven which will have an eternal lasting effect.
And it's a greater thing for them and that's what I'm thinking. But anyway, there's the break, okay? All right. Okay, thank you. All right, Courtney. God bless.
All right. Hey folks, we have two open lines. Give me a call. 877-207-2276.
We will write that down. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Hey, welcome back everyone.
We have two open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Matt from Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome. You're on the air. Hello, Matt. Thank you for taking my call.
Sure. I had a question for you on what are your thoughts on aliens and UFOs and do you believe that they're part of the end times deception, strong delusion that the Bible speaks of? Well, this is what happens. I've been studying aliens off and on for probably 30 or 40 years and I don't talk about it too much. In fact, just this weekend I was watching alien stuff, UFOs and films.
So I've had a mediocre interest in it for a while. And one of the things that I've discovered is that aliens teach theology, not all of them, but the theology they do teach is that Jesus is not God. We are all divine.
Reincarnation is true. This is obviously anti-Christ theology. So what are these things? There are different theories about what they are, spiritual manifestations of demonic forces.
Some say possibly the Nephilim where the half-breeds from the fallen angels and women and they've been continuing on and had developed technology. So we don't know what they are for sure. Now mathematically it's impossible for life to form by chance any place in the universe. It just cannot happen. I can go through the math and I can show it.
I can explain it to people over the air. It's just not possible. So the only way life can exist is if God creates it.
That's it. So we don't hold to the fantasy, the myths that life comes from non-life and information comes from non-information and organization comes from non-organization and something comes from nothing, which is what a lot of the scientists hold to now. So we don't hold to that kind of mythology. We hold to logical truth and the foundational principles of revealed, the revealed Word of God in the scriptures. So what are these things?
Don't know. But here's something that's interesting is that in Genesis 6 it talks about the Nephilim. Well, maybe not, but yeah, it does. Anyway, if you go to verse 9 it says these are the records of the generation of Noah. Noah was righteous man, blameless in all his generations. So it looks like what it's talking about there is that he is pure in his generations, blameless in all his generations. So some people think that that's talking about his genealogical past and some think that it might be due to the idea of the Nephilim, the half-breed influence.
Now the Jews always taught that this is what was the case and the Christian church always taught that's what was the case up until the 1500s when it became unpopular. Also, here's a verse that is really interesting. It's in the book of Daniel and the fishing up of the prophecy. And I'll put things together for fun here, but in Daniel chapter 2 verse 43 it's finishing of the prophecy about the statue, Nebuchadnezzar statues, gold at the head down to the feet, clay and iron mixed. And it says in verse 42, as the toes of feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle.
Verse 43, and in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay. They will combine with one another in the seed of men. And I remember hearing a talk on this and apparently in the Hebrew, and I'm no Hebrew expert so I can't verify it, that they can't be people, the way it's juxtaposed. They will combine with one another in the seed of men.
So it's like, okay, what's going on? When you go to Matthew 24, 37, the coming of the son of man will be like the days of Noah, for in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking and marrying and given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and they did not understand how the flood came and took them all away. That's Matthew 24, Luke 17 says, the flood came and destroyed them all. So the ones who are eating and drinking are the wicked. And that's what Luke 17 says.
It says the same thing, and then it just says they were destroyed. So will the coming of the son of man will be, there will be two men in the field, one is taken, one is left. And so it says there, the ones who are taken in the context are the wicked.
And that's clear from what it says. And then just throw more fuel in the confusing fire. If you go to Matthew 13, and it's the two ages that Jesus speaks of in the wheat and the tares, he says, allow both to go together until the time of the harvest. Now, most people say the harvest is the rapture.
Okay. The time of the harvest, I'll say to the reapers, first gather up the tares and bind them in bundles. So the first ones gathered are the tares. They asked Jesus about the parable and he interprets it. In verse 40, just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, socially at the end of the age, the son of man will send forth his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom, all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness. So his kingdom will exist and the wicked will be taken out of his kingdom, which is very fascinating. Could it be, and this is one of the theories that the Nephilim are the aliens making stuff and they're corrupting the kingdom of God here on earth now, and that the first one's taken when Christ comes back with the wicked and he'll take them and destroy them. And just for fun, I love stuff like this because I don't know if it's true or not, but it's fun. When we talk about the frogs, there's three unclean spirits like frogs, Revelation 16, 13.
And this is for fun. And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. There's spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kingdom of the world to gather them together for the war of the great day of God almighty, Armageddon. So it's gathered for Armageddon. The demons gather them, so is it the same thing as the wicked being taken out of the kingdom and put where they're going to be burned and destroyed?
Could it be that they're taken to Armageddon? Don't know. But with all this stuff put together, it's fun and I don't know what the truth is about it. But I just thought I'd throw that out for people to go, what?
Because it's a lot of fun. Okay. Yeah, I've heard way too many stories over the years to discredit that these things are happening. But obviously, I believe what Christ said that you're either for them or against them. And these beings, whatever they are, they're not for him. I've heard, I'm sure you've heard of, I think his name, Stephen Bancars. Something like that. He used to be in the New Age.
And now he runs a site, Reasons for Jesus, I think. Okay. Oh, wait a minute. Is he a young guy? I think I know who he is. Yeah. Yeah, we've talked. He and I have talked. I read some months ago last year that he's also heard a lot of stories and that these beings are absolutely terrified at the name of Jesus Christ.
And they just completely run away. Yeah, that seems to be the evidence. Yeah, for sure. Now, a sales guy I worked with, he came into work today and we got to talking a little bit about spiritual things. And he pointed me to an interview done by Joe Rogan, this guy who claims he in the 80s worked at Area 51. And I don't know if you've heard the story, but he says that he was told to reverse engineer this extraterrestrial spacecraft. And it was doing all sorts of bizarre stuff with like anti-gravity or anti-gravity, like the gravitational mechanism was unlike anything we've ever developed. That's with plates and photons. Yep.
Plate angstroms apart. Yep. I know about that too. Oh, yeah.
I've said this for a long time and there's a lot of stuff there, but we don't know. Hey, buddy, there's a break. Gotta go, okay? All right, man. Talk to you later.
All right. Hey, folks, three open lines are going to give me a call. 877-207-2276. We'll be right back after these messages. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.
Here's Matt Slick. All right. Before we get to the callers, just want to let you guys know that we're trying to get together a trip to Israel next year, in March of next year, 22. If you're interested in wanting to check out the information of where I'll be going and teaching, and some others will be too, all you have to do is go to karmisrael.org.
C-A-R-M-I-S-R-A-E-L. One word. karmisrael.com. It'll forward you to another website. It's an auto-forward. And then you can check out the information there. And there's a form to fill out, a little one, four questions, just to see if you're interested, because in order to set it up, we have to know if people plan to go or seriously interested in going in order to reserve the time, the plane, the fare, the hotels, and things like that. So there you go.
All right. And there's COVID allowances, and you can get insurance in case it doesn't work, and money down. And you can get, I think, almost all of it back, except for $100, or something. I forgot all the details, but it's like that.
So it's not a big deal. Go check it out. karmisrael.com. Oh, we have three open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Lawrence from Missouri.
Lawrence, welcome. You're on the air. Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes, I can. I hear you fine. Okay. I spent a fair amount of time online. I got rid of my television.
Actually, our bail code was pumped for me to do this. That's another story. What I want to ask you is, ever since the failed Trump prophecy fiasco, these so-called problems of proliferation, like ticks on a deer. Wait, I'm having difficulty. I'm having difficulty understanding you. Could you speak just a little bit slower? Okay.
Okay. Ever since the failed Trump prophecy fiasco, these so-called problems of proliferation, like ticks on a deer. What do you think about all these problems popping up online? Well, um, I always take them with a grain of salt.
And we get very careful about stuff like that. So I've only seen one, I think it was one, where a guy said he doesn't know if it's from the Lord or not. He just talked about dreams. I think that's fair to do. He's not prophesying in the name of the Lord God.
If anybody does do that, and they say they're speaking for God himself, and then it fails, then we don't have to listen to him anymore. That's it. Right.
So that's how that goes. Because, uh, prior to this Trump thing, I've never hunted mostly people, now they're all over the place. Or maybe Pat Robinson actually said that God told him that Trump would be re-elected. I was just a propaganda freak that guy told me.
I just wanted to take on it. Maybe he was. Maybe he was what? Re-elected. I'm one of the guys who doesn't trust the election results. The Dominion software being housed on foreign soil, and that's what was used in the counts. And the multiple reports, multiple, not just two or three, I mean tens and twenties, thirties, fifties, sixties of them, hundreds of them, of fraud. And so the fact is that I remember reading an article about it where a guy, one of the politicians, I forgot who it was, said if this had happened, what happened here, it had happened in a foreign country, we wouldn't recognize the validity of the election.
And the leftist news media just basically buried all the information, and its hypocrisy is just, it's incredible, it's astounding. And it's important that we- Okay. So you think Biden is the vice president? I don't know if he is legit or not. I don't know who.
That's just me. I'm not trying to be a conspiratorialist here, but my wife watched a lot more of these things than I did. We watch alternative news things. I'll check out CNN. Okay.
I have it on my web. I check out USA Today. But you also check out other stuff, conservative things. The conservative stuff will cite things that the other ones won't do. And when they do cover the same story, the twists on both sides, as you would call it, are really amazing.
I'm not afraid to look at both sides. And I happen to know from first-hand experience from someone who ran for the Senate in one of the states here in America, that fraud goes on. And so I just don't, I'm not convinced that the election is legitimate.
It may have been, but I'm not convinced it is. And I want to see an inquiry brought into this. There are still lawsuits going on.
There's still challenges going on. And you'll notice that the leftist news never talks about it. And yeah, I don't trust the leftist news anymore.
Okay. I guess we'll have four years to find out. Well, actually some friends of mine are, we kind of have a quiet gentleman's ladies debate and bet on who's going to come the closest.
We're not betting anything, but who's going to come the closest when Kamala Harris becomes president. And I said, oh, June 28th, I just popped into my head because Biden, he's got some dementia. That's what close friends of his are saying. Obviously during the election, the time when he was running, he was fumbling his words repeatedly, forgetting where he was, forgetting what's going on. And the left, if that had been happening with Trump, they would have paraded that as headlines, as mental disorder. That's true. And yet, oh yeah, it's true. But when Biden did it, they just buried the information. So you can't trust the media. You just can't.
I'm sorry. That's just, you're not interested in truth. And so, I don't know. So when are they going to get rid of Harris?
Maybe, I mean, get rid of Biden and Harris takes over. And so this is, my friends are, we're talking. And so it's just a fun bet. We'll find out again. Thank you.
We'll find out. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Hey folks, we have four open line if you want to give me a call. 877-207-2276.
I want to hear from you. Okay. Give me a call.
Jamal from North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air. Are you there?
Pleasure. Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, I hear you.
Hello? Yes, I hear you. Okay. Good. All right. Good. Good. But yeah, again, always a pleasure. Enjoy your show thoroughly.
Listen as much as I can. My question is about the Jewish flag. I've gotten some notification about the flag or not about Jewish matters.
And I was, I saw the flag on these different notifications. I was like, Hmm, that looks kind of peculiar. And it's a star and it's a six pointed star. Now could be way off base here, but, you know, I just wanted to get your take on that to see if there was anything bad or ominous, you know, with that star.
No, I don't. I've wondered about it. It's two overlapping triangles and forming a six a six pointed star.
It's called the Star of David and six is the number of man. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know of anything about its origins in particular. So I don't know, you know? Okay.
All right. Well, hey, you know, that's a fair answer. And I'm glad that you say you don't know sometimes.
That's why I respect you and respect to your show. Well, if you want to hear me say, I don't know a lot, just come over to my house, you'll hear my wife and I talk. And I just, I don't know, you know, ask me questions.
I don't know. I just say, I'm a, I'm a theologian. I don't know how to fix that.
It works great. I'm a theologian. And then I don't know how to, whatever it is, you know? And, uh, she rubs her forehead a lot around me. I don't know why.
Maybe she needs some more aspirin or something, but obviously it's not my fault. Gotcha. Gotcha.
Well, let me ask this real quick question. Um, um, why is the Jewish people God's chosen people? Because he chose them.
That's, that's just it. He's the, they are the chosen people, not because of anything in them, but because of what God decided to do. So whoever he would have chosen, he chose Abraham. And then out of them came out of him, came the descendants of Israel because God chose to. Why did God choose to? We don't know. He just did.
And that's it. He chose Abraham, which means he elected Abraham for a specific reason. And it was not because Abraham was a good guy and he elected the nation of Israel.
Not because Israel was great, because a lot of bad stuff about Israel is recorded in the Old Testament. Just like he elects individuals and he, you know, various people, he elected, um, he chose, that's what it means, election and choosing the same thing and in the Bible. And so he chose, uh, Paul on the road of Damascus.
I mean, uh, yeah, in Acts, in Acts chapter nine, Paul was going to have to kill Christians. God does what he does because he does what he does. And he doesn't tell us why. Right.
That's it. So I don't know why. There's two. I didn't want to say that. I was thinking it. I didn't want to say that. All right. I beat you to it. All right, brother.
Well, thanks and God bless you. Hey folks, we're wide open. We've got five open lines. Why don't you give me a call after the break or during the break and we'll get on 877-207-2276. Give me a call.
I want to hear from you. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Okay.
Hey, we have nobody waiting. So why don't you give me a call at 877-207-2276. So someone in the chat asks, um, give my perspective on Bob Wilkin and the free grace movement. Well, I think I guess you call in and ask, or they could talk about it because free grace is, is basically, you know, it's a pretty good movement. Um, I don't know all the particulars if there's something in the free grace movement that is, uh, problematic, but basically it, uh, it just says that you're saved by grace alone through faith alone, not by any works. It affirms eternal security, but it also says, and this is what I've said too, is that we're going to be judged for our works, not for our salvation. And the wicked will be judged for their, uh, their sinful works and more or less degrees of punishment will be given to them. And so JP says that he debated James White if, uh, on whether or not repentance is necessary for salvation. And that would have been an interesting, uh, so to speak, debate to, uh, to watch or listen, because I think that the answer depends, excuse me, on how we define what repentance is and who and how it is arrived at, who grants it, how it's arrived at. Because if we want to say that repentance is necessary for salvation, and if we define repentance as the unbeliever having to stop his sin in order to become a Christian, then that would be works righteousness. Because repentance means to turn from doing what's wrong to turning to do what is right. So if, uh, unbelievers are, are lying as an example, and then a Christian says, in order for you to become a Christian, you got to stop lying. You have to obey the law.
Then that would be a problem. What I tell people is that, uh, in order to become a Christian, you need to trust in Christ. You need to have faith and trust in what Christ did to see you're a sinner.
You've broken the law of God. There's a judgment and that you need to trust in what Jesus did. And you need to repent also, but this repentance will come because God is going to work in you and he will bring this about in you. But you got to realize that when you trust in Christ, it also means to turn from sin. And I'll say, it's not your repentance that saves you. It's not your compliance with the law that saves you, but your faith and trust in Christ. And that you ought to turn from sin because that was what is right. And as you trust in Christ, he will help you to do that. And he will require that of you.
And this is how I talk about it. And so it just depends on, on, uh, I think what is really important is the issue of, uh, in total depravity. Because think about this, total depravity says that the unbeliever is a slave of sin. Romans 6, 14 through 20 is a hater of God and doesn't do any good. Romans 3, 10, 11 and 12 cannot receive spiritual things, cannot understand them. First Corinthians 2, 14 is dead in this sense. Ephesians 2, 1 is by nature, a child of wrath. Ephesians 2, 3 his heart's desperately wicked, deceitful, cannot be trusted Jeremiah 17, 9. He's at enmity with God, Ephesians 2, 15, et cetera, et cetera. So how does someone like that do what's right and do a good thing in repentance?
I mean, that's the problem. Can an unbeliever repent? Well, there's a yes and a no to it because true repentance means you're doing something.
You're stopping, not just because you want to stop something, but in Christianity, true repentance must be because of the work of Christ. So if a preacher were to get up in a pulpit and say that you must stop lying, you know, there's a bunch of unbelievers there. And he talks about how bad lying is and the consequences of lying. And let's say a few unbelievers come up after a sermon, they happen to be there for church for whatever reason, and they say, hey, because of what you said, I'm going to stop lying. Well, is that a good thing?
No, not really. And the reason is because if the pastor is not preaching that the reason we stop these lies or the unbeliever should stop lying is because Christ is the one who has proven that such things are sinful and they are an offense against God. And we have the moral obligation to follow him and not our lies.
And that's the reason we should stop. Because the former is legalism. And the latter is Christ centeredness. And the question then becomes, is legalism the basis for goodness, or is the blood of Christ the basis of goodness?
And this is the kind of discussion that needs to be had. And it's not that easy to work through, but it kind of is on the other hand, is it depends on a few things. So is repentance necessary for salvation? In one sense, yes. In that, of course you have to repent.
Okay. But in another sense, no, it's not repentance that gets you saved. Not repentance and faith. It's only faith that saves you. But repentance isn't a necessary part of what is regenerative work of God in you. And he grants that repentance.
2 Timothy 2, 25. We have four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. John from Raleigh, North Carolina, you're on the air.
Hey, man. So good to talk to you. God bless you. God bless. I've got a quick question.
I'll try to keep it as brief as I can. They say in the Bible, the absence from the body is to be present with the Lord. So as I have understood it, that means, and I could be wrong, that means that when you die, your soul is with the Lord at that time. Yet they say, heaven, we won't be in heaven until Jesus comes back to get us. So our loved ones at this point who have died, who made it to heaven or made it to hell, are they actually in heaven right now with God or are they at the other place with the devil right now or are they in a holy place? I don't understand how that works out.
Okay. The general theory is that before the crucifixion, that the people who died went to, the good people who died in faith went to paradise. The bad people went to Hades. You can go to Luke 16 19 through 31 where Jesus talks about this. It's not a parable.
There's a proper name of an individual in there. And so if that's the case, some have leaned towards this idea that when Christ died and his blood was shed on the cross, therefore they were cleansed ultimately. Then he, as it says in Ephesians 4 8 and following, he led captive a host of captives and some think that he went to paradise, proclaimed the gospel, not so that they get converted, but they were informed about what it is that they had died in the hope expecting. And then he led them up into heaven and then came back to earth and was resurrected. And that seems to be the case so that right now, and that's the position I hold and that doesn't mean I'm right, but it's just, that's what I hold to.
Okay. I'm open to being corrected or changed if I find something new in scripture, but this is what I've seen. So when people die now, what you're quoting was 2 Corinthians 5 8 to be absent from the bodies, to be home with the Lord. And it means that as we have died, our spirit continues on in consciousness and we go to be with Jesus. Well, Jesus is in heaven.
We go to be with him. And so that's the idea. And there you go. All right. All right.
Thank you so much. I've always been confused on that. And I said, one person I know in the world that would probably know the answer is Matt Slick.
Well, I know unanswered. Now there are people who would disagree with me. There are annihilationists who I think are false, who will say that as soon as you die, you either stop existing or you go into a state of soul sleep, which I can't get anybody to tell me what soul sleep is and give me any scriptural definitions of it. They just, they make it up as they go in my opinion. And they'll say about that verse that to be absent from the body is to be home with the Lord. They say that you die. You don't, you stop existing or have consciousness. And that when you wake up, you're with the Lord. So that's what that really means.
I'm like, give me a break. It says to be absent with the body is to be home in a present tense. Well, if they continue and say, well, it just means your soul's there, but you're in soul sleep. And then I have questions. Well, does the soul expand energy during this time?
Is there any energy going on? Yeah, that's the future of it. That's what's so confusing, you know, but how you just explained it makes a lot of sense. And I really appreciate you. Well, good. Okay.
Well, praise God, man. Hope that helps. All right. Thank you so much, man. You're welcome. God bless.
All right. Why don't we just jump on the phones and let's get to Justin from New York. Hey Justin, Justin. Hey, I just jumped in on you. There you go, buddy. You're on the air, buddy.
What's up? Awesome. Okay. Thank you, Matt.
Okay. And so my question is on in James. I think James 2 24, it says that we're, we're justified by our work. So are we like justified by what I do? Like not worth of the law. I know Romans talked about the work of the law.
No man is justified, but are we justified by our work of faith? No. Let's read the context. Okay.
I'll go through it quickly because we're towards the end of the hour. Let's start at verse 14. What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works, can that faith save him? What faith? The faith that's dead. Okay. If a brother or sisters without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warm, be filled, yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body. Well, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works is dead being buying itself. Well, what context is he talking about? Faith before people.
You say to your brother and your sister, do this. That's the faith he's talking about. And he goes on, he says verse 18, but some of them may well say you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without the works.
I will show you my faith by my works. This is the horizontal, not the vertical. Horizontal is between people and vertical is between God and men. And notice what it says here. You believe that God is one.
You do well. The demons also believe and shudder. You know, but are you willing to recognize what you foolish fellow that faith that works is useless. He's talking about faith before people and showing it before people. Let's hear it.
Let's see it. That's what's going on. And then he says that a man is justified by works, not by faith alone.
That's the context that he's talking about there. The justification before people, not before God. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.
That's what it is. All right, man. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Thank you. All right, buddy. God bless.
All right. Let's get to Gunther in California. We've got about a minute and a half in the show. What do you got buddy? Well, well, first of all, I want to say I love Jesus Christ, but you know, I've been listening to the radio shows forever and just, I don't understand anything. I know I can't grasp anything, but what my question was is, and I don't even know what it really means, but I feel that I have become either the best of the worst or I've become the worst of the best. And I'm at the end, I'm at the cross where there's no, you know, there is no, it's the end. You have a question?
Yeah. My question is what does that mean? What does what mean? I think that I am either the worst of the best or the best of the worst. I don't know what the context is.
So we can't, you know, comment on it. Are you a Christian? Are you a Christian? I believe in Jesus Christ. Do you believe he's God in flesh died in the cross?
Oh yeah. Do you believe that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone? I believe because of Jesus Christ, but he did on the cross. I'm saved. Do you go to church? Yeah, I've been going forever, but I got nothing.
Yes. What church do you go to? Just basic, you know, basic church.
What is it? I go to awaken. My son's a pastor there. Okay. Well, in that case, you should talk to your son about these issues that you're having and go through the word with them because that's what you should be doing. And we're out of time, which is why I was asking those questions so fast, but I knew we're running out of time. But call back tomorrow. Okay.
But talk to your son and then call back. Okay. That's good. We got to go. Sorry, brother. All right.
Hey folks, we're out of time. May the Lord bless you greatly this evening and tomorrow and every day. And by his grace, we'll be back on there tomorrow and we'll talk to you then. See you. God bless. Bye.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-12-26 21:11:38 / 2023-12-26 21:30:29 / 19