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. Let's see, the 17th of February 2021, if you want to give me a call please do. We have five open lines 877-207-2276. So I talked to the producer today at the show, and they are going to have a really big snowstorm coming in tomorrow. So I will not be live on the radio tomorrow, and Friday they don't know if it's going to be there another storm or not or what, and people are out anyway. So long story short, I will not be on live tomorrow or Friday. It's not a big deal, but just letting you guys know that's the case, and for those of you who are hardcore Carmites and slick-ites, I hope you can survive four days without me.

It'll be tough, I know, but you can manage. My wife does when I go to the store. She barely goes, were you gone?

Yes. So if you want to give me a call, oh, that's right, I've got to fix the audio on this. So if you want to give me a call, folks, five open lines, 877-207-2276, and why don't you give me a call. So the Israel trip, it looks like we've got more people signing up, more people want to go, so if you are really seriously interested, please go to karmisrael.com, there's a form to fill out, and we're going to start taking registrations soon here, I think maybe today, I don't know, and there's some good info on there. You're going to love going, and I just found out that, yesterday I found out that we're going to have Joel Kramer, he's an archaeologist, and he knows stuff, oh my goodness, the stuff that he says, the stuff that he teaches, it's just amazing.

He loves archaeology, and I remember this, that when we went there, he took us to a place where they have real old pottery, and there's an area of just junk pottery that they really don't do anything with, that's 2,000 years old, he goes, here, take a piece, you can go, take it and go, you know, and so we were able to take some samples and stuff like that, and one of the things I think is cool, you remember where Jesus said these rocks would cry out if he didn't proclaim the truth and do what he did, so what I did was, last time I took a couple of pebbles, so that I could say these are the rocks that did not cry out, so if you can do that too, you go there, take a couple of pebbles back from Israel and say, these are the rocks that did not cry out that Jesus was talking about, so it's a lot of fun. All right, we have nobody waiting on line, why don't you give me a call, 877-207-2276, you may have heard, Rush Limbaugh passed away today, and I'm looking forward tonight to hearing stuff, what the people had to say about him, you know, I watch Hannity, I watch Tucker Carlson, and I think I might even watch a little bit of CNN to see what they do and how they spin it, MSNBC and all those guys, let's see what the other side is doing, so I actually, what I could do is, I have like 10 to 15 news sources I go to, some of them are leftist and some of them are fart right, and I like the ones in the middle, and I like to get as much information as I can about things to find out what the truth really is about, well, I can't find out. And that reminds me, what I've been doing for a while is, hold on a second, is I've been collecting articles, you can go to CARM and see this list of articles, of media articles categorized by topic, and what you do is just go to the navigation and just news media articles, just type in news media articles in the navigation, or excuse me, in the search engine, and what I've done is categorize them under First Amendment, Second Amendment, cancel culture, censorship, and just articles, where you can read the articles, titles, they're pretty good, you know, like for example, video of Kamala Harris on Ellen Show resurfaces showing then-Senator joke about killing President Trump, you know, it's important because, hey, Trump was brought up on insurrection charges, so is Kamala Harris going to be brought up on insurrection charges saying that, you know, talking about killing the President, you know, and things like this.

And I've got stuff on coronavirus, on election stuff, heterosexuality, I even have a section called Good News, one on hypocrisy, immigration, another one on media, the police force, persecution, and religious persecution, and social justice, BLM, critical race, I've been categorizing these things, so you can go there and check out the articles, and I keep adding to them, I don't know, this is going to get big, so what I'm going to do is eventually break it up somehow, I'll figure it out then, no big deal. All right, again, if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276, we have four open lines, I want you to give me a call so we can talk, remember, I'll be off the rest of the week because of snowstorm stuff, where the headquarters is for the radio show, and I'll be back on Monday, Lord willing. Let's get to Mike from Raleigh, North Carolina, Mike, welcome, you are on the air. Hey! Hey. Hey, I love the show, I learned so much. Well, I'm glad, I'm glad.

As long as you are also learning how to be irritating for your wife, because that's also part of this. Yeah, I know it, I understand. Hey, I had a question about communion, the Lord's Supper, I've attended several churches in the past, and they seem to have different protocols, and maybe you can comment on that, some have the open type, I'm not exactly sure what that means, and some more restrictive, they advocate where communion can only be done at like 30 authority of the church membership where you are. Could you comment on some of that, really kind of not well versed in that area?

Sure. So what we do is go to the Bible for the standard, and we see that Jesus administered communion, and he did it to the disciples, nothing in scripture that I have seen requires clergy being the only ones who can perform or administer communion. I don't see any requirement for that. If a church says that they have to have ordained elders to give communion, well if that's what they want to do, then that's what they want to do. If they say that's how it's supposed to be in all churches, I'd say show me that in scripture, because I don't see that in scripture. So I'm reticent about that, but they call it open table and closed table.

Now this is an interesting thing, because, let's see, I'll do something here, get this going, all right, there we go, and good, got it. So open table is that anybody in the church can go and take communion. You don't have to be a member of the church or of that denomination. Now that's fine, no problem, except that it must be accompanied with a statement, this is only for believers, those who trust it in Christ. If you're not a believer, no offense, but don't take it.

You're right, that's true. Yeah, and that's okay. And then closed table means that you can't take it unless you are a member of that denomination or a member of that church, that kind of a thing. And I remember back when I went to a Lutheran college, they had closed communion, you had to be a Lutheran in good standing. And so I went to the dean, whose name was Dean, so we called him Dean Dean, and I talked to him and I said, look, am I a Christian? He said, well, yeah. I said, okay, is communion for Christians? He said, yeah. And I said, so what you're doing here at a very Lutheran college, I said, you're saying that I can't take communion because I'm not a Lutheran.

Is this biblical? And he said, you know, that's a good point. And I said, so you're stopping Christians from the communion that you only want Lutherans to have, are you saying they're better than us? And you know, et cetera. So within, I think, a month or two, they stopped the closed communion thing.

They opened it up. I said, if you're a believer, because that's what it's supposed to be, if you're a believer. If you're a believer, you've trusted in Christ, take communion. And can a mom do it for their children at home? I don't see any reason why she could not.

I don't see any reason why a father couldn't do it at home. I just don't see it in scripture. You know me, I'm very biblically minded. Show me in scripture. So I don't see any restrictions on this at all, as far as who can deliver it.

Okay. Now here's a question. Let's say that there's an atheist who's a pastor, and he's never told anybody that he is an atheist. And this happens, okay? There are atheist pastors out there.

They play the game. But not that it's right, because it is and it's wrong, but nevertheless. Let's say the atheist pastor gives communion.

Is the communion valid or invalid? What would you say? Because I know the answer.

What would you say? This is just a quiz. Okay.

I'm sorry. What was the question again? Oh, look, a good question. So if an atheist pastor were to give communion, is the communion valid or invalid? What would you say? I would probably say it's not. Well that's the only two options, it is or isn't. And I had a 50-50 chance on that one.

You had a 50-50 chance, yes. And I'm going to go with, yes, it's valid. And the reason it's valid is because it's not dependent upon the man who gives it, but on who it's in and the name and what it's done for. And so that's it.

Oh, yeah. And let's get some theology behind that and stuff like that, just like, is baptism valid if an atheist does it? Well, you know what, buddy, I had a question. I had a question. I had another question about baptism. Do I have time to ask that question?

Sure. I was baptized a pretty long time ago, and by the minister of the church, and he was later found out to have improper relations with another woman. Would that invalidate my communion?

No. It would not invalidate your baptism, it would not invalidate communion. The power of the ceremony. I'm sorry, but baptism, when you have that. Right.

And baptism. Your baptism is valid. All right. It's valid. Okay, good.

The validity of the baptism is not in the individual who administers it, but in the ceremony itself that is in harmony with the teachings of scripture. And that's it. Okay. So, yeah, it's certainly valid. All right.

And if he turned out to be a pagan jerk, your baptism is still valid. All right. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, those are good comments, and I appreciate that, Matt. No problem. No problem. All right, buddy. Have a good evening. Bless you, now. You, too. God bless. All right.

All right. We have three open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Kelly from Los Angeles. Kelly, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. So I just want to ask you a quick question, and it's about God speaking through circumstances. And a circumstance in particular, Matt, would be mine, because I'd like to say that for the past 10 years, I've been praying and asking God to open up a door for me to have a permanent job. However, those doors never open. But the minute I call a temp agency, those doors open. And so I'm just wondering, what could God be doing in my circumstances through sovereignty and providence that He wants me to just continuously move around Los Angeles working at all these different companies, but won't put me somewhere at a permanent job so I can be established? And I'm just wondering, what would be your take on that?

I know you're not God, so I know you can't give a full answer, but in your expertise, what would you say? All right, I'll give it a shot after the break, okay? All right, all right.

All right. Hey, folks, four open lines. I want you 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. We'll be right back after these messages. Hey, folks, four open lines. I want you to give me a call, 877-207-2276. I want you to give me a call, 877-207-2276.

Let's get back on the line with Kelly from L.A. All right, circumstances. Okay, I'm here. Mm-hmm. Okay. Now, I don't know what to tell you, because, see, all that, right, a big drum roll, really?

I don't know. The thing is, God speaks through circumstances, and sometimes what he does is he prepares us through things for something later on. And you may be experiencing that. You can't find a job. And L.A., they're losing a lot of people in California, so you should be able to find a job.

That's what I did. I did the temp agencies for a while and ended up working for years in places. And I remember trying to get permanent jobs in different areas after I was in the ministry for a while and tried to do a secular thing for a bit, and I learned how to do computers. I learned how to do Excel. I learned how to do Word. I learned how to do security. I learned how to do all kinds of things because I did these different jobs, computer security.

And then I found out later when this invention called the internet came around, I was well-suited to tackle the internet because I needed all of those things in place to be able to do the job. And so sometimes what we have to do is trust, and this is the hard part, but trust that God actually knows what he's doing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

It's tough because he's prepping us a lot of times. And I remember once I signed a contract with God before I got married, and I still have it. It's a blank piece of paper. My name on the side on the bottom and put a date at the top, and it is blank. I said, Lord, you fill this in.

I don't care what you put in there. You just fill it in, and I want to be used by you. So I got married and then moved a lot. And I was praying for several years. I said, Lord, what's going on? I can't seem to find something and nail it down to be able to serve you. What's going on?

Complaining a little bit politely, whining, whining. And I heard a voice in my heart say that you signed that contract. And yeah, yeah, yeah, and this went on and on like this weird voice thing.

It was just like this impression, it was strange. And then when did you sign that? Well, you know, I remember praying. I remember this whole thing, and I don't know when I signed it. You know, it was years ago. Well, where is it? Long story short, I went and found it. It took me a while to find it, and it was seven years to the day that I had signed it.

Well, that's very significant, seven years to the day. So I got back on my knees, and I apologized to God for having any doubt that he was in control because he was. He was preparing me. He's preparing you, and your obligation during this time is to trust him and do the best job you can at any and all of those jobs. And you learn as much as you can and volunteer for stuff and say, I want to do this, I'll do that. That's what people want to see. They want to see a go-getting attitude.

You learn, you go, and pretty soon something opens up, and you're there, and then things usually make sense when you can look back and see. That's what I would tell you. Got it. And that confirms what it is that I have been thinking because, Matt, it's not like he doesn't take care of me. He certainly provides. So it's not like I'm ever on drastic hard times. I have breaks from employment, and then he'll get me right back working right again, but just through the agency.

So he definitely provides, and he takes care of me. And I just always say, Lord, but you just won't put me nowhere permanent. And I've just been really fascinated by sovereignty and providence once I learned it over the pandemic.

And no teacher out here in LA has ever taught me that. I actually learned those words from apologists like yourself. And so once I found out about them, that helped me with my depression because I was like, no, God is sovereign over all of this, and he's providentially caring for me, and he knows everything that's going on in my life. So yeah, I just want to trust, and I definitely thank you for that answer, and I always thank you for your radio show, Matt, because you taught me a lot.

Well, by God's grace, okay, because if you'd known that person, you'd really say, wow, there are miracles today. Oh, stop, stop. But it's true. All right, Matt. That's true. Well, hey, I always tell people I trust a man named Matt, I mean, I'm sorry, named Flick on the radio.

That's where I get my answer from. It never sounds good. It just doesn't sound good. But that's okay. All right. Well, Matt, you take care, and God bless. All right. Well, you too.

God bless, Kelly. All right. Bye-bye.

All right. I'm going to turn it over to George in Virginia, right off the gate, the phone number, 877-207-2276. We have four open lines, folks. Give me a call.

Remember, I'll be off tomorrow and Friday because of storm stuff in the radio area out there, and so I'll be back on live Monday. George, are you there? What do you mean, Matt? God bless. God bless. So what do you got, Matt?

I just want to let you know, you were chosen, big blessing. Well, by God's grace, that's all I can say, is when I listen to myself, you know, on the radio, I go to a recording, I go, I wouldn't listen to that guy. So I don't know.

People see. It's all right, though. My question is regarding 1 Corinthians 11, 29. You were talking about baptism, and in 1 Corinthians 11, 29, it says, for those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ.

Right. Eat and drink judgment upon themselves, so what is the verse talking about, and is he discerning, is he talking about wanting to repent of any sins before we eat and drink the supper? Well, it's a controversial text. The Roman Catholics will say that it means that it's transubstantiation, which I deny because transubstantiation, the Catholic view, is heretical. So it can't mean that view. So when it says this, we always look at the context, okay, and it says, therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, well, what does that mean?

So we go back even further. I received from the Lord and delivered to you the night that Jesus was betrayed, took the bread and broke it, took the cup and gave it, and he says, do this in remembrance of me. So as often as you drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of Christ. So one of the things that I read when I was doing research on this decades ago that kind of stuck with me was the communion supper wasn't like what we do now. It's a little piece of bread and a little cup of wine or grape juice.

Little bitty, little thing, you're done. No, they had meals, and when Jesus broke the bread, it was a big piece of bread, and they had either one common glass of wine or they drank the wine out of separate cups. It doesn't really matter. And so it looks like that some of the people were going in during the communion time when there would be food because that's what they would do. And they were going to eat the food and drink the wine and have that bread during the communion for the purpose of just simply eating. And so one commentator that I read, it was echoed by others, alluded to this is the kind of problem, they weren't discerning it as a memorial but as a means to just simply be the flesh.

And that was an unworthy manner to do that. Hold on, we've got a break coming up, okay? Hey folks, four open lines, give me a call, 877-207-227, we'll be right back. Here's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show, George, are you still there?

Yes, I am, sir. So in the Bible, I don't know where it is in the New Testament, Jesus is telling, he's talking about, if you eat my flesh, my flesh is life where you drink my blood, I think you know what I'm talking about. Would that be an unworthy manner, an unworthy manner, let's say from people who might pick that. That's one of the possibilities, and one of the possibilities is that there's several, and I have an article on this on quorum that I wrote years ago, you can go check it out, but there are other possibilities that may be included because we're running out of time, but the other one could be that you have to take the communion, it can't be in an unworthy state. Now, that's very, very careful, we're not going to say that. Let's say that you've really got a problem with somebody, they've wronged you, you're just full of anger about it, and then you go to church and you want to take communion. Well, the Bible tells us to not do that, not to be angry and righteously with a brother, but to be reconciled and leave your offering, Matthew 5-22 talks about this.

So that's one of the considerations is that. So sometimes what I tell people is I don't like taking communion and I don't like giving communion, and what I mean by that is I don't like taking it because I have to make sure I got everything right. I got to make sure I'm all confessed up and I'm dealing with stuff in my life because it's a serious thing, and that's what I mean by it.

I'm glad. I always take it because it's like, oh, thank you Lord. And it's even more so when I'm preaching or teaching and giving communion, it really sobers me up for days and days beforehand knowing that I'm going to be doing that. It's just how it affects me because I don't want to be taking anything like that in an unworthy manner. I know that it's a memorial of Christ and what he did on that cross, and I take it very seriously. I'm not going there to eat and be gluttonous. I'm not going there with anger in my heart towards somebody or unconfessed sin or whatever it might be. And so the unworthy manner, I kind of put in a lump sum and say it's not a gluttonous thing. I recognize it's representing the sacrifice of Christ.

I don't have any unconfessed sin or issue to deal with within myself, before the Lord, or with somebody else. And so that's my snapshot, the whole thing. Thank you so much for your answer. God bless you. Well, thank you.

Hope that helps. Okay. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Okay. All right. God bless. Oh, boy.

I got a good yawn on that one. Sorry about that, folks. Andrew from Ohio. Andrew, welcome. Thanks, Matt, for taking my call.

You're welcome. My question would be about a lot of presuppositionalist apologists say that this is pretty much the only way to do it. And I don't see any verses in the Bible that basically says that this is the default position to do presuppositional apologetics. I wanted your opinion on that. Well, I am a presuppositionalist, so I definitely hold to it being the better way.

But you're right. Nothing in the Scripture says you have to do that. In fact, Jesus said to Thomas in John 20, 25 through 28, he said, look at my hands and my feet. Now believe.

Look at the scars or the holes, no scars but holes. So he presented the evidence and said believe based on the evidence. In Acts 17, Paul reasoned with the people there, and so he used reason and logic in order to show this is the idol to the unknown God, you worship him in ignorance, and he used this. In John 4, Jesus is talking to the woman at the well and says you presuppose, I'm injecting that word in there, that you worship God on this mountain, but I'll tell you that you worship on the other mountain.

That's where it's supposed to be. So he's talking about the idea of presuppositions, and the Bible never defends God's existence. It just presupposes it.

It never defends the truth of God's word. It just presupposes it. So presuppositionalism has a lot of power.

If you know how to do it, it could become very, very powerful and very good. And so that's why I use it more than the other things. I use the other areas to bolster the idea of presuppositional apologetics. And I can explain more if you want, but, you know.

So are you there? Well I guess my question is, every debate I see any apologist, whether it's you, it's us having the burden of proof. But let's say, when I've argued with Matt Delahunty, and I brought up his mythological naturalism, he will change the subject. So what is the atheist's burden of proof? They have a burden.

Why is it? Of course they do. If they're going to have methodological naturalism, that means they're presupposing the validity of that argumentation system for epistemological reasons.

Well what justifies that? They have to ground it. They've got to ground it one way or another.

It's called a grounding problem. Here's the thing. The basics of presuppositionalism, not that it's just this simple, but it is a good basis, it's a good skeleton, is that how many ultimates are there in the world, or in the universe? There's only one ultimate. What we mean by that, in the issue of truth, determining truth, and what is and is not, there can only be one ultimate source. You can't have two ultimates, otherwise there is no single ultimate. Without a single ultimate, you can't have any absolutes, because if there's two ultimates, which doesn't make any sense, if they're equal, then how do you know that they're consistent with each other? For example, you can't have an ultimate of God's existence and theistic evolution, because one would say that God is the beginner and the creator of all things, theistic evolution would say that the ultimate truth about our existence is that God used evolution to bring us to this place.

Now that's not the best example, but it shows problems. So what I'll do with atheists, when we talk about the issue of morality, I'll say, what is your, and I use the word terminus, what's your terminus? For determining what standard by which we would use to judge whether something's right or wrong. It's, what they're doing is looking for an ultimate, and I'm using the word ultimate sometimes, I use the word terminus. I do the terminus thing, I prefer that, because I like to say, in Christian theology, God is the terminus. We can ask, where do we come from, the universe, well, where do the universe come from? God. And God's a terminus, because he can't go any further back than that. With an atheist, no matter what topic it is, I'll say, well, where'd it come from?

How do you justify that? Where's the foundation for this? Where's the terminus, the ultimate beginning, the ultimate source, beyond which there is nothing more beyond that, because then that would be the ultimate.

So where'd he get this? And when you use these principles, discussing things with anybody, you'll find out that you don't need, in a sense, evidence. You don't need, in a sense, rational thought. I mean, we are rational, but I mean, rationalism is in the sense of classical apologetics where you use all kinds of logic. We certainly want to be logical, but the thing is that if you can ask them for their ultimate standard by which they judge our existence, our ability to know, rationality, morality, things like that, they don't have a terminus.

And if they want to propose one, it's always based in subjectivity or ignorance. And this is where you go in and you just thrash them. In fact, when I do this with atheists sometimes, I literally have said this within the past week or two, I said, why do I keep visualizing a barrel with some fish in it, you know? And I got my AK. And that's because I'm saying I'm shooting fish in a barrel because they've got nothing, because they can't defend anything.

And then what they'll do, they go into a different epistemological, philosophical things, you know, they'll go to nominalism, they'll go to objectivism, foundationalism, you know, trying to justify stuff. I'm just rambling. But anyway, makes sense? No, I appreciate it. Is there any other callers?

Yeah, we've got another one waiting, but we've got another 20 minutes in the show, so go ahead real fast. Well, in Second Corinthians 10.5, so when Paul is addressed, we destroy arguments in every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, so. The thing about presuppositionalists, it's not really, are we getting to, because I think evolution is, they've tried to present their evidence, and there's been so many frauds over the years, so what is your opinion on, what, I guess, how am I addressing the atheist position? Are they having a presuppositional argument as well? Well, of course they do. Everybody presupposes something, you've got to understand that when you presuppose the validity of God, his existence, and the truth of the word of God, you are begging the question.

This is an important principle. You're assuming the thing to be true that you're beginning with in order to validate that it is true. The Bible says it's true, therefore it's true, begging the question. They say it's invalid argumentation. Whenever an atheist brings this up to me, I say, you beg the question as well. You presuppose the validity of the laws of logic by which you can then assert that I'm begging the question.

So you yourself is begging the question. You're making assumptions that the laws of logic are absolute, eternal, and universal. Otherwise you could not apprehend them and apply them to me and my argumentation as you seek to invalidate my argument. So you're presupposing those laws.

So how do you justify that those laws exist and that they're universal? Then what they'll do is they'll come back and say, well, they're just axioms. They're just true because they're true. Oh, they're just true because they're true?

Well, then God is true because God's true. And then so you see, you get back to where they have no place to go because they're backed up against the laws. Hold on, we've got a break coming up. Hey folks, we have three open lines, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Hey, ready? Welcome back to the show. All right, Andrew, you still there? Are you there? Oops. Maybe if I hit the right button, that might help. Are you there, Andrew?

Yeah, I'm here. So look- On presuppositions versus circular reasoning, can you explain that? Everybody is circular in their reasoning. You must presuppose certain things that are consistent with their worldview. Otherwise, yours is simply inconsistent.

All people beg the question. All people presuppose certain values. You cannot intellectually, evidentially, rationally validate every belief that you have. Every fact. And facts can only exist in the context of other facts and other truths. So you can't validate every fact in every way, in every context. So every individual presupposes certain truths in order to operate, in order to think. So when you realize that, then you realize that any unbeliever has made presuppositions. Therefore, what justifies their presuppositions as being true?

What we do as presuppositionalists is we presuppose the validity of the Trinitarian God and that the Bible, the word of God is true. And I tell atheists this on a regular basis. I say, of course I presuppose it. They say, can you prove it? Can you prove it's all true? I say, yeah, but by the possibility of the contrary, it takes time. And I say, but the thing is, if I presuppose God exists as a Trinitarian God, I can explain everything.

But you can't. So the fact that you can't do it, that your worldview leads to intellectual bankruptcy, means that, well, since yours fails, mine's got, you know, mine's worth a lot that's going to work. I'm only going to defend the Trinitarian God. And from Trinitarianism, I can account for the one and the many issue, I don't know if you know what that is, you know, the manifestation of matter and the essence, the ontos of existence. Is there one thing with many representations or with one essence or different essences with one major appearance? It's a philosophical issue.

And how do we find the terminus or the ultimate source, the ultimate stopping point regarding the justification of knowledge, rationality, morality, existence, et cetera? It becomes very effective very quickly. And it's the easiest, quickest way to teach a Christian how to undermine false worldviews because they presuppose God doesn't exist. Really?

Why do they do that? And then they'll come back with, well, I haven't seen any convincing evidence. So you're telling me then that all the evidence you've ever seen, all the light, all the sound, all the colors, all the ground, the trees, the water, the cooing of doves, the birth of babies, the swimming of fish, everything is not evidence for God? Are you saying that everything there just says there is no God?

How have you concluded that this is the case? Because all you're saying is a subjective experience by what it is you want to have God prove to you. And yet he's provided everything because his fingerprints are made known in creation.

Romans chapter one, verses 18 through 31, you've got to read. You presuppose it and you argue from that perspective and that's what you're supposed to do as a Christian. It doesn't mean you don't use evidence.

It doesn't mean you don't use logic. Okay? All right. So I am presupposing, so does everyone know that the triune God exists if I'm using presupposition with the apostles? What does the Bible say?

Okay. Everyone knows, but does everyone know that the triune God exists, I guess is my question. Well the Bible doesn't say the triune God, but the Bible says that the evidence of God is made, that God's knowledge or the knowledge of God is made evident within them, but they suppress the truth in their unrighteousness, Romans 1, 18 and 19. And you should, actually you should study Romans 1, 18, 19 and 20, 18, 19, 20. And that should be the basis of your apologetics. You said something great about that one time when I called in, that the Christian suppresses the truth when they sin, right? It applies to everyone.

Yes, Romans 1, the wrath of God is being revealed against all ungodliness from heaven. Yes. That's pretty powerful.

That was probably the most profound thing I've ever heard from you and I've heard a lot of great things. Well, okay. That's pretty... But it's true. When I think about that like once a week, that was probably, yeah, because I never read it like that.

That's what it says. That's a pretty powerful argument, yeah. And I use those verses, incidentally, a lot when I'm talking to unbelievers. I say, you, according to the Scriptures, you are suppressing the truth in your sinfulness or in righteousness, Romans 1, 18. I quote it to them all the time and I say, the evidence of God is within you. You know that God's there. You are just suppressing it because you want your own godness, your own desire. I'll preach like that and then I go in and I try and disrupt their arguments and I will use logic a lot when I'm doing that. And then one of the things I'm doing a lot lately is they'll say, well, show me God exists. I'll say, the resurrection of Christ.

There's the evidence because Jesus applied appeal to that to Thomas. Look at my hands and my feet, see? I'm here. I believe.

So I do the same thing. I just tell them, you need Jesus. You need to have that resurrection.

You need to understand the proof of Christianity and the resurrection. Okay? All right, buddy? Yeah. All right. We got to go.

When you're all right. I'm sorry. All right. That's okay.

Yeah. I'll let you go. Go to Discord.

Go to Discord and find me on Discord. I'm in there frequently in the evenings discussing, debating, and answering questions and I do this a lot there. Okay? All right. Thank you very much. All right. God bless. Let's get to Marlon.

Is Karm part of a church? No, it is not. Let's get to Michael from Uthaa. Wow. Michael, welcome. You are on the air. Hey, Matt.

How's it going? Can you hear me? Yes, I can. And what do you got there? Wow. That was quick.

I had a question about John 3.13. Okay. Do you want to read it or should I? Sure.

I'll read it. No problem. John 3.13 says, no one has ascended into heaven, but he who is descended from heaven, the Son of Man. Yep. Okay. We were in a little Bible study last night and we brought up the issue about knockin' Elijah because they did ascend. Did they not?

Yes, they did. You want the answer? Yeah, I do.

Okay. So the heaven that Jesus is talking about is the presence and the dwelling place of God and that's John 3.13. In Jewish cosmology, there are three heavens.

I have an article on this on Carm. Look up three heavens. But so the first heaven is where the air is, the birds and things like that, the clouds, the wind. The second heaven in Jewish cosmology is where the sun is, the stars and the moon are. The third heaven is the dwelling place of God. So when it says Elijah and Enoch were taken up into heaven, it's talking about the first level.

They were taken up into the air. It doesn't mean they went to the dwelling place of God because they couldn't yet because the sacrifice had not yet been offered. So when Jesus was sacrificed, he made proclamation of the spirits in prison in 1 Peter 3.18-20 and then in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 8-11, it talks about leading a host of captives as he ascended into heaven. So they think that after the atoning work, that the people who had died and went to paradise according to Luke 16, 19-31, Lazarus and the rich man and paradise and all that, they were in the holding place till after the sacrifice and Jesus proclaimed to the lost what was going on and rescued, not rescued, but took the believers into heaven with him after the resurrection. Into the heaven heaven of God's dwelling place. But Elijah and Enoch didn't go there, okay?

Until it came to heaven, alright? Okay well I still have a question about that because isn't Abraham's bosom in Sheol or Hades? Yeah, it's while lifting up in Hades, actually the rich man was in Hades, but yeah.

So isn't that below the earth? That wouldn't be the heaven, the first heaven, so did Enoch? He went there and took people up, one theory is, into the presence of God after the sacrifice had been offered. But Elijah and Enoch were way before the sacrifice of Christ. So they went to paradise also, but not to the dwelling place of God because the blood of Christ had not yet been offered. When it says they caught up into the heavens, it's talking about the air, the wind, that area. And then they were just in that area until the sacrifice was made so they could go to heaven or?

No, most probably what happened was they went up into the air and the sky like that and then they ended up in paradise. Abraham's bosom. Okay, which one? Okay, okay. Okay, well that makes sense. Okay, well God bless, buddy. Have a great weekend. Okay, thanks. Okay. Let's get to Andrea in Raleigh, North Carolina, we've got about two and a half minutes.

So what do you got? A quick question, it kind of popped in my head in regards to... I was listening to somebody on the radio station and it wasn't your show or anything like that, but they were talking about grounds of divorce and stuff like that and I thought it was kind of strange. They said it was like if that person was a beast is like a mentally or emotionally and causing uncertainty.

Well, let me deal with it because we only have a little bit of time. There are two grounds for divorce in the Bible. One is abandonment and the other one is adultery. Both are grounds for divorce, but in both cases divorce is not necessary. You have the freedom to divorce but not the obligation. So the issue of physical abuse, what do we do when one spouse is beating up physically on another spouse? At that point there needs to be a separation and the offender needs to be jailed or whatever is necessary and the question then comes up in the church and the elders need to be involved whether that's grounds under the category of abandonment. Because even though they're physically still there, there is an issue of them abandoning the covenantal requirements to love and protect, etc. and be faithful to. So there's a physical thing. So there needs to be a separation at the very least and I think we could under the right circumstances grant divorce under that circumstance since it's a form of abandonment.

We've got to be careful about it though. It needs to be detailed and stuff with elders, but yeah, go ahead. What about in regards to if somebody has very similar items like being a narcissist or personality disorder where they manipulate things or where they will put the person down? Emotionally abusive. To keep that person's peace and not go get God. Then it becomes an issue of counseling and the elders in the church need to be involved. Because if someone is married to a narcissist, it's going to be a real problem and that person needs to go through counseling. If the person is not willing to go through counseling, the elders need to be involved.

Things need to be documented over a long period of time, but I don't see any grounds for divorces because your spouse is a narcissist and is a selfish little baby and hasn't grown up yet and is still wearing diapers. So this is how it is sometimes. My poor wife I'm married to, she's got married to me and trust me, I've got issues. Right now she's in another room going, Amen! So, you know, she's stuck with me. God said, I hope this keeps the last kid.

That's what it is. Alright, we've got to go. Okay Andrea?

Alright, thank you. God bless. Hey folks, look, I'm off Thursday and Friday due to weather, equipment weather coming in where they do the radio show. So we're just taking off for the rest of the week. May the Lord bless you and by his grace we'll be back on the air on Monday and we'll talk to you then. God bless you, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you.