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. Everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick, listening to Matt Slick Live. It is 222-9, wait a minute, 222-21. It'll be interesting next year when it's 222-22.

Yeah, that'd be hard to say. Anyway, hey, look, if you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. And I want to hear from you. If you're new to the show, we do Christian Apologetics. I teach sometimes advanced theology and try and get down, get people to understand what the basics of the Christian faith is and why you should not follow such false teachers out there. Beth Moore, you know, Kent Copeland, Joyce Meyer. Let's see, Joel Osteen.

Yeah, I name names and people don't like it, but it's like, hey, that's what it is. I stick with the scriptures, the word of God. Don't believe in this revolutionary knowledge stuff that they get on stage. And they teach that Jesus went to hell and suffered in hell and finished atonement there. That's blasphemy. And just stuff like this.

A lot of bad teachers out there. And also talk about Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Unity, Baha'i, Islam. We talk about all kinds of stuff.

Love talking about atheism. And I think that is it. We got four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Also, I just want to say thanks to the people who are filling out the forms for the Israel trip we're going to go on.

By God's grace, next year in March. And if you are interested in checking it out with more detail, then all you got to do is go to karmisrael.com. It'll forward you to the right website. And it'll be a different website.

Go karmisrael.com and it'll just forward you to the website that Eric Johnson from MRM, Mormonism Research Ministry. He is heading it up and arranging everything. And he's done it many times before. We're going to have a really good archaeologist on the trip. When I went there about five years ago, he was with us. And I'm telling you, it's really worth it to have a full-fledged, real, excellent, world-class archaeologist for three days with us at various sites pointing things out. It's pretty incredible. And I loved it. So maybe, maybe we'll get to go to Qumran Cave 1 where they found a Dead Sea Scrolls. And we did that last time. Hope to do it again.

If you want to go, check it out karmisrael.com. There's all kinds of info there. We have three open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Andrew from Pennsylvania. Andrew, welcome. You're on the air. Yes, Matt. I'd like to talk to you about gifts. You know, the kind of gifts that show up at your door, in the middle of a live show. What happened to me by someone who I've abused for 10 years, for years.

It was only nine. You can't explain why I don't call you a jerk. Yeah.

So people don't know. I have to give an opportunity to gloat. I busted on you.

I've called in your program. I embarrass you. I owe it to you.

That is right. I shamed you. So everybody, this is Andrew Rappaport. And he runs Striving for Eternity Ministries. A good guy. We've known each other for years.

Andrew, I call him a jerk. And because he has repeatedly, for years, just outsmarted me buying lunches and dinners. We'd be out someplace and I'll get the line ahead of him to pay for something and it's already paid for.

How does he do that? And there's been all kinds of stories where he's just gotten me. And so, you know, I've been threatening him for years. I'm going to find a way.

I'm going to get you back. I'm going to buy at least one dinner. So Thursday night you had your 100th show on Apologetics Live, right?

That's right. Your 100th show. And somebody had food delivered while you were on the air to your house.

I wonder who that could have been. Yes, while you were on the show. What's that? While you were on the show, so you could see my face when I realized that I've been door dashed. That's right.

That's right. And what was great about the show was I was on just to help you out. And what do you do? You didn't even know. I had already bought the food that was on its way. And you said, Hey, Matt, tell everybody how I bought you food all the time and you call me a jerk. And so I'm like, I had to play the part. I had to play the part.

And I'm like, Oh man, this guy doesn't know what's coming for him. And so about a half hour later, sure enough, it got delivered. And you had to accept it. And the people who were there in the video knew the story.

And they were on YouTube. It was glorious. Oh, it was it was it was classic.

It was very classic. I'm like trying to do it. The doorbell rings.

And I'm like, there's no one named Matthew here. You got the wrong house. But I'm like, sending her away. And and so and you knew her smart enough to get sushi, which you know, my wife doesn't eat.

But it only leaves me to eat it. It was kudos to you. I admit I knew you at some point you were going to win. And I did. I at least it took you nine years. And it's great epic way.

It was epic. That's right. And for folks who don't understand you actually went there was a Chinese restaurant in Utah, you were there like an hour before hand, just to make sure that you'd get the bill. And you got it first paid that still built beat me. And then there was a time when you weren't feeling well. And we were at McDonald's coming back out of Utah.

And so I was able to at least muscle my way through and buy my own lunch and for dinner that night and then walk over to cook. Yeah. And then the lady goes, Hey, your car didn't go through and you're right there.

And you just zip your thing in the crowd. So you got me there. But yeah, it took nine years, but I got you. So there you go, buddy. And I always said, you know, if you actually win, I will allow you to gloat because I've rubbed it in for many years.

I guess I could say one thing that Bill McKeever can't. That's another story. That's another story. Because this all started years ago, Bill McKeever from Mormonism Research Ministry, when we both lived in San Diego, back, you know, 20 years ago, I said, Hey, Bill, I'll buy you lunch. And so I drove down to pick him up. And we went to lunch. And I forgot my wallet, you know, and it happens, you know, we've all done it. And so he kind of laughed and he paid. No, Matt, we all haven't done that.

Yeah, we have, you have. And so a month later, a month later, I call up Bill and I said, Look, I owe you a lunch. Now you owe you two lunches, basically. So I'm gonna come down and buy you lunch. He goes, Okay. And so I got down there. And when I reached my wallet, I realized I'd forgot it for the second time.

And I could still see his face, because I knew as soon as he realized that by for the second time, I'm never gonna live it down. Sure enough. Yeah. So that's it. It's a running joke. Part of that, Matt was, whenever people got together with Bill McKeever, you would like tell them, Hey, tell Bill, he owes me a lunch. You've never told me why. That's right.

That's why Bill have to say to Bill that you owe Matt slick a lunch and he'll laugh. So Yep. Well, there you go, buddy. It took nine years, but I got you and you.

That's right. Was the sushi good? It was actually. I'll have to tell me where it was from after after you're up there. But I'm glad you got these numbers down.

It was really good at beginning of the show. You clearly know it's a date that, you know, which year it is. Numbers are your thing too, huh? That's right. Numbers are my thing.

That is right. You must be getting old. I'm getting old. I'm getting older. I'm older than you are.

Yeah. Well, I do thank you for the meal and I owed it to you since I've called up making you have to explain the story. I had, I owed it to you to let you gloat and admit it. And I admit defeat you won once.

I'll find a way to get you back. It can't be that epic though. It can't be epic. So like that was, so there you go. I got, I got the epic one. So there you go. Well, there were, there was an epic one in home Depot over a grill.

If you remember that one, and that was almost a fist fight. You got me on that one. I didn't tell you, but there's another one. I could tell you about the guy with a battery, but in your rate, we got callers waiting, but, but, uh, we got stories. All right. Well, I encourage you to keep folks. If, uh, those that are listening, if you could help calm.org, go to calm.org and help donate support there. Keep this radio program on the air. It's a good thing to be doing a few.

And if you get any value out of mess with live, the way to keep it on the airwaves is to go to calm.org and support monthly. Just throw that in. That's right. Thanks. Appreciate that. All right. Have a good night. All right, man.

God bless you, Andrew. All right. Bye. Bye. That was Andrew. Oh man. Nine years to be nine years to get that guy back, but I got him.

All right. 877-207-2276. Let's get to John from North Carolina. John, welcome.

You're on the air. Hey brother. I was wondering, did you hear about the bill that they're trying to pass? Um, sometimes I don't know what it's called, but it's something to do with equality. It'll be, uh, they're trying to make it illegal to discriminate against, uh, a person against their kids in the background. I'm sorry. That's my granddaughter. Yeah.

I don't want to ruin the room if you can, but, uh, prohibit, prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, uh, things like that. Right. Yep. You heard about that, right? Yeah. And it's, uh, generally it, it sounds good on the surface.

And then what happens is people like Christians and normal people, uh, get penalized, uh, for not affirming what they have. I'm going to have to, uh, do some more research on it. I'm, I'm doing an article now called, um, gender equality and the pronoun wars. So, uh, I'll have to do something on gender. I think I already have gender equality yet. No, I don't.

No, I'll do, I'll do it. There's possible there's far reaching implications. Oh yeah.

Uh, uh, a rapist, a male could say, he's identified as a woman and he can use woman women's locker rooms and showers. This is very bad. I know it is. And, uh, uh, it's going to cause problems. It, I mean, these are the kinds of things you do if you want to destroy our country. And I'm not just saying a little, I mean, if you want to destroy our country, this is what you do. You, you break down moral walls, you break down gender walls, you, uh, you increase homosexuality and abortion. You open up the borders so that the illegals can come flooding in. You, uh, destroy our economy with a virus that may or may not be necessary to shut everything down like that. You do all this, you pass laws, you get in control of the leftist media, you have an election that's not trustworthy, and this is what you do. And then you start attacking the people who believe in the first and second amendment and penalizing people.

This is the kind of thing you do to destroy a country. They want to do a, it's called the great reset. They want to change us into a socialist Marxist, uh, platform with secular ideas and secular morality. That's what they want to do.

Yes, I'm afraid they're headed that way. Is there any way, I just wanted to let everybody that's concerned about this and ask you, how do we get in? Can we send emails to our senators? Yeah.

I mean, I wish, I wish someone would put, if they would do it, if someone would collect the, the email addresses and you know, where you contact your relative senators and congressmen, I would put the entire thing up on the CARM website and say, here's where we go. We can't do that presently, right? No, we can't.

I just don't have all the information. I mean, I've got, let's just say I've, I've only had, it's a little bit of rest today. I've been going and going. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. I'm just saying I've got a lot to do. I would do that research, but why don't have somebody else do it?

Give me the information. That's all. You want to hold or we're going to break you? You're done? I'll hold real quick and that'll be done.

Okay. Hey folks, we have three open lines. If you want to give us a call, 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 everybody, welcome back.

We have three open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. So, are you still there, John? Yes, sir. Yeah. So a little bit more on the Equality Act. It'll force employers to conform to people's sexual identification, perversions, various things and affirm them and be fired for not using their proper pronouns.

For example, if someone's identified, who's born male and identifies as female, you have to say she. And if you don't, you can be fired. Right. Okay. Yeah, that's bad. This is very bad.

I'm sorry, I know there's a truck. I just want to urge Christians to pray, pray, pray, and try to get that to contact your Senator because it's going to pass the House, and it's going to be closed in the Senate, and if it's a tie, Kamala Harris gets the deciding vote. So I just... Yeah, this is what's happened. The population doesn't do their thinking, and so they vote these wackos in, and they're going to come after us.

It's not going to stop. So I have an idea. I was thinking about this. Let's just say I was at a job, and someone said to me, we want you to call this guy who's originally named Bob, let me call him Susan now and say she, and if I were to kneel down on one knee and say, this is my protest against that. You know, why not? People protest, right? It's my free speech protest.

Why not? You're right. You're absolutely right.

We have the right to do that peacefully, and I just, I don't know why more people don't. Okay, well, I appreciate, I appreciate the platform. All right, God bless. Yeah, we're in trouble. Our country's in trouble. Yeah.

All right. Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, call 877-207-2276. You know, the show here talking, we're talking more and more about this kind of stuff, gender identity, the Equality Act, intersectionality, white privilege, being woke, reproductive justice, the social gospel, and 1619 Project, Lincoln Project, I've written on these.

These are on the CARM website. There's a social re-engineering going on in our culture, and let me just tell you what's going to happen, folks, if it continues. Christianity will be attacked. Christians will be attacked.

It will not be known that they're being attacked very much because the leftist media won't raise the issue of the unfairness treatment that's happening to the Christians and Jews and others who hold religious convictions that were, by the First Amendment, guaranteed to be able to practice and that Congress will pass no law infringing on the free exercise of our religion. So I believe God made man and woman, Adam and Eve, male and female, Genesis 1.26-28. I believe that's how God did it, and I believe that when someone goes against that by saying, no, you call me girl, boy, or whatever it might be, I believe they are going against the word of God, against God's created order, and furthermore, they want me to participate in their denial of the truth of God's word. So they're asking me to participate in their sinfulness and rebellion against God, and I can't do that, but yet I would be forced to comply to those words, forced to comply to it. If I don't agree with them on a religious basis, it doesn't matter.

Their feelings are more important than the First Amendment rights. This is what happens when you get liberal whacko morons in power. Then truth becomes shaded. Truth becomes no longer black and white, but it's kind of gray, and that gray area moves where they want it to go. And I'll tell you, what'll happen is at the end, you will start saying something like, I love Big Brother.

I love Big Brother. Those of you who know what that means, you'll get it. All right, let's get on the phones with Tom from Florida. Tom, we lost Tom on eschatology. If you want call back, Tom, we'll get you ahead of the line. I love talking about eschatology. Let's get to Cliff from Florida.

We lost Cliff. Something about abortion. So if you want to call back about that, let's go there. Let's try Kit. I don't even know where you're from or what's up. Hey, Kit, are you there?

Yeah, I'm here. All right, Kit, what do you got, buddy? I'm a little confused, and I'm on the same side with you on this, but the Bible seems to say that God decrees everything that happens. So how much am I responsible for what I do? How much is the devil responsible for what I do?

And how much is the decree of God responsible for what I do? This is Kit from Discord. Aren't you? Yeah, that's right. Okay.

Well, how much? That's a difficult thing to do because we can't say 40%, 30%, 20%, 8 out of 10, this time not. What we can do is say that God, Ephesians 1-11 says, God works all things after the counsel of his will. God works all things after the counsel of his will.

I was talking to an open theist on Discord last night, and he didn't like that verse, but nevertheless, the idea is we have to understand that God is in control of all things, and nothing occurs without his permission. That within causation, we have three different levels of causation. We have the ultimate, proximate, and efficient cause. The ultimate cause of all things is God. He created the universe, created all the angelic realm.

He's the ultimate cause. The proximate cause is the condition that precedes the efficient cause. The efficient cause is me choosing to throw a ball at a wall, that I'm the efficient cause of that action. No one forced me.

I did that. I took the ball, I threw it against the wall and bounced back and caught it. So I'm the efficient cause of the ball being thrown to the wall, and it came bouncing back and into my hand. The proximate cause would be that God allowed me to live, and the builders built the house, and things like that. So there are conditions that must be in place in order for the ultimate, or the efficient cause action to occur. The wall has to be there. I have to be standing up.

I have to have a ball in my hand. And so when we get to the efficient cause, we understand that though God is the one who created all things, he created all things, and he put things in motion. We are the ones who bring about our free will choices, and therefore we're the ones who are responsible.

Okay? So he doesn't decree for like a woman to get an abortion or something like that. I mean she's responsible for that decision.

She and whoever she makes that decision with, obviously he causes us to be accountable for it. He didn't decree it, right? Well we have to define our terms. What does it mean to decree? Because there are different understandings.

That's what I'm trying to figure out. Yeah. And so, for example, if I were to go to the Bible dictionary and look up decree and things like that, God's eternal decree by which all creatures are foreordained to eternal life or death. Now that's an eternal decree. And so when we look at that word decree can just mean an official... Oh man, I just had it and I just clicked on it backwards.

Okay, let me get to it again. There we go. So expressions of the will of God, particularly described in 17th century reform scholasticism, or the ways by which God enacts the divine plan of salvation in history. Theological elements considered to be part of God's decrees include election, the fall, salvation, eternal life.

These are understood in different manners. So we got a break coming up. Hold on and we'll expand a little more when we get back, okay?

Hey folks, here's a break. 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. All right everybody, welcome back to the show. Let's get back to Kit. Kit, are you still there? You there? Hello?

Yes, you still there? Oh yeah. So I mean, I guess what I'm getting at is like Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery. God doesn't cause them to do that, but he uses it for good. It says in Genesis 50.

Am I getting all of that right? Right. There are different levels of decree. One is a permissive decree and a direct decree. So a direct decree of God would be something that he directly causes by his action.

Let there be light. And it occurs. And in his permissive decree, Adam and Eve were created by God in a direct decree, but in its indirect decree or permissive decree, he allows them to sin. So it's decreed that they sin by God's permission. So some people want to say that ordination and decree mean that God causes them to sin, but he does not.

Okay, he does not. Right, because if he caused them to sin, they wouldn't be responsible for it. I understand. I'm not trying to get off the hook for any of my sins. No problem.

I know I'm the one who made those decisions. That's right. In fact, what we can go to is supporting scriptures for this. And for example, Acts 427-28, it says this. 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 God predestined that they do the bad things.

That's what it says. To do what your purpose, your hand and your purpose predestined to occur. So Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, the peoples of Israel sinned in order to bring Christ to the cross. And so they did what God's hand and purpose predestined to occur.

Yet in Acts 223, 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 the blame laid at their feet because they were the efficient cause. They were the ones who actually did it. They weren't forced to do it.

They did it because they freely chose to do it. People then say, how is it we can be free if God makes us do something? And I'll give an example. I use this example all the time.

I just used it last night with an open theist. But at any rate, it's like this. I can cause someone to do exactly what I want them to do without violating their free will. And they say, that's not possible.

I say, yes it is. See, we're at a table at a restaurant at a coffee place and we're having coffee and you're facing me. You're about three feet apart. And I want you to look to my right, which is your left. So whatever moment I choose, I point to my right, look over to my right and exclaim, what is that?

What are you going to do? You're going to look. I've caused you to freely look to do exactly what I wanted you to do, but didn't violate your free will.

You freely chose to look. So I say, there are levels like this with God and even more so that he has the ability to be sovereign over so that we can be directed and yet we're still responsible. And that's how it works. And nobody's forcing us to sin, not the devil, not God, not anybody. We're choosing it.

No, I don't need any help from anybody for me to sin. I got that down myself. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. About me or about you? I know you know me. Like you know, this comes up on discord many, many times a day.

Yeah. Well, here's the thing is when they say that when they make the statement, I'm going to ask them, you know, if it means that God decrees means we don't have free will, I'm going to say, show me the logical necessity of that. Or if they say, when God decreased something, it means he's responsible for sin.

I'm going to say, show me the logical necessity because there is none. They have to get to the point of what free will is. They're going to define what free will is. They don't understand what free will is. And then when we have to define those terms and then we need to find the terms, then they can see that there is no direct connection of causation and thereby culpability on God's part. We are the ones held responsible. And if they're Christians, they have to accept Acts 4, 27 and Acts 2, 23.

If they're not Christians, then it's up to them to prove that God's decrees means that he's responsible for people's sin. And he, you know, and we aren't, and it doesn't work. I've had many discussions like this with them. Right. Absolutely.

This comes up a lot. Anyway, thank you for your time. God bless you. Look, we continue to pray for your ministry and of course for your wife. Thanks. I appreciate that.

You're having a try and be on Discord later tonight. So maybe we'll get some Q and A going again. We'll know.

Who knows? All right, buddy, keep up the good work. I'm in the middle of a move, so I don't know if I'll be there to hear it or not. Okay. Well, sorry about that. All right, man. Well, God bless. Okay. All right. Three open lines, 877-207-2276.

Let's get to Monique from North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air. Thank you.

Good evening to you. I'm going to pray I can be clear and succinct because I'm so exhausted. But I was, before I even heard that conversation, the reason I posed this question for you is you have spoken and extrapolated in depth about free will and the application of it. And you have a wife, which is the second closest relevant thing, I think, to someone who is actually enduring a long-standing affliction where we're believing God and we're walking with him, as far as we know. No discernible cause.

I don't know your wife's whole story with him, of course, but no discernible reason. I'm on dialysis. I have been for almost 11 years. And my question, and I'm 41. I've never been married. I don't have any help. So it is that much more impossible.

Both parents have died within this 20 years, one just recently in November. So I'm literally by myself. And I'm standing on the Word. My question about the application of the free will, of course, I prayed. Of course, I didn't believe in God. I learned very early faith is not believing him for a specific outcome. And then you're not in faith if you don't, you know, it wasn't a faith outcome if it comes that way. But I'm having trouble with all the darkness of the world and clear darkness and Christians even seeming voting for craziness. The question of free will and how to direct my prayers, much less set my mind with the grace of God, has been a question for me. He says he works in you to will and to do. So I always see any good thing, like Paul says, is the grace of God. There's no good thing within me. But how to walk this out with such a very practical, immediate problem. Dialysis is every other day, even the days you don't affect, it's not there.

It's affecting everything. You're eating, you're sleeping, whatever. And this is all by myself. So it seems very impossible, save for the fact that I'm still actually breathing. That's the only evidence I have that it's not impossible. So how do I direct or use my understanding of free will, if at all, in my prayers?

And I'll say this to qualify that because honestly, even on the radio, I would say, if I had a choice that I knew it would be pleasing to God, either way, I would just stop, meaning go die. I mean, I'm just that. Do you have a question?

Almost an 11 year old. Do you have a question? Yeah. And see, this is also why I didn't almost call because for some reason you don't seem to hear it. I don't know what my problem is and articulate to you. My question again is how would I apply my understanding of free will or the proper understanding of free will to influence my prayers, of course, praying according to the will of God, not my own. Oh, okay. So then what you do is you just pray and just say, Lord, I don't know what your perfect will is in this, but here's what I believe. Here's what I think. Here's what I sense.

Here's what I think I need. And I'm going to just pray those things and submit them all to you. But nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. And you just pray the best to your knowledge. And then you ask God to direct you and to guide you to answer the prayers in affirmative that he wants to answer an affirmative and negative that he wants to answer a negative. Your job is to spend time with him praying and asking and seeking. And he has a way in his great mercy and his great grace and his great knowledge to work things out and through us and through our situations. And we need to be praying. So if you don't know exactly what it is, just pray anyway and tell them, I don't know exactly what it is. And you just pray and you trust. And again, the reason I ask that of you, because I've been walking with them for years, there's not much I can hear that I've never heard before. You can just get obviously more information.

But because I know I've heard you draw it out what free will really is and how it's applied in the different cases. And the fact that you're close to a person who again, I have no idea of her story beyond what you've said. But I do know that she's obviously dealt with something ongoing. She's got serious issues. Yes, she does. Yeah. But also know she has help.

I can't find any exact. But I did want to ask you because a man is truly one with his wife would be the second or vice versa, whatever the case would be the second more credible person I would think to even glean from any anything that has some kind of credibility as far as living it and not answering theoretically. Well, my wife is is she's the one who's having to go through daily pain. She's lost height because of scoliosis. She's got osteoporosis. She's got she's had open heart surgery. She's got a pacemaker. She's got other things. I throw in there stupidest husbandess, all kinds of stuff she's dealing with. And she's a godly woman, a good woman.

And she is seeking to honor him with whatever means she can and the level she's at. That's what we have to do. Okay, is that good enough?

Monique? We got a break. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're welcome.

Well, God bless. Folks, you have four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Let's get to Mike from Connecticut. Mike, you're on the air. Hey, Matt, can you hear me okay? Yes, I can. Yes, I can.

What do you got? All right, just wondering your response. What was your response to a Roman Catholic saying, Jesus left us the church and not the Bible? He's simply working out of his idolatrous ideology, because in Roman Catholicism, the church is the means of salvation, their official Roman Catholic Church, with its magisterium, its bishops, its everything. That church system is salvation, not Jesus. Jesus is part of their church, and the priesthood is part of their church. Their church has the authority, their church, their church, their church. So when they say, you know, Jesus left us the church, not the scriptures, that's just ignorance.

First of all, the church. Have you heard that? Anything like that before? Because I feel like I've actually heard that from like Catholic answers and like articles before. And someone said it to me the other day, and it kind of reminded me, I felt like I heard it before.

Yeah, yes, I've heard it. And so what they're doing is they say that he left us the church, they mean the physical church, their organization, which they claim to be the true church descendant of that. And it says, Jesus didn't leave us a scripture, they want to say the church gave us a scripture. So take Jesus and then move them out of the way and put the Roman Catholic Church in place. That's how you have to understand Catholicism.

It's oversimplified, not entirely accurate, but that's functionally very close. It's their church that has the authority, their church that can dispense grace. Their church is where salvation is. Their church is where you have to go in order to find Jesus and salvation. So that's why they'll say things like he gave us the church, not the scriptures, because what they're doing is submitting the scriptures to their church. It's a gigantic false religion.

Okay. It's just a, you know, I'd say cult, but it's, you know, it's the definition of cult, but it's just an apostate false religion because of what it does. And I've been studying it for decades and I'm more convinced now than I ever was that it's the greatest gate of damnation of any religion in the planet. Seriously.

Yeah, I agree. I know what it teaches. I know what it teaches. I know it's official doctrines. And it's not to say there aren't Catholics in the Christian, in the Catholic church who are Christian.

It's not to say that there aren't true believers there, but if they are true believers, it's in spite of official Roman Catholic theology, which is Antichrist. I say that with boldness. I say it with confidence. I say it, and I go to sleep just fine at night after having said that because it's true.

So, all right. That's what they mean by church. Their church is above Jesus.

Well, they'll say it's not. Functionally it is because you have to have the authority of the church to interpret scripture, the authority of the church to get forgiveness of sins, the authority of the church, blah, blah, blah. The church gave you the scriptures.

Therefore, you got to understand what the church says about the scriptures. That's just how it works. Okay. All right. Gotcha. Appreciate it. All right, man.

God bless, buddy. All right. All right. God bless.

Okay. Let's get to Bernard from North Carolina. Bernard, welcome. You're on the air, buddy. What do you got, man? Hey, Matt. How are you? How are you doing today? Doing all right. But one of those days, busy. And it's a good busy day. Yeah.

That's always a good thing. Well, I thought I heard at the beginning of the show that you was mentioning that it wasn't a good idea to listen to TV pastors. Joyce Maguire and... Joyce Meyer, stay away from, because she has taught heresy. And Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen teaches mamby-pamby theology. He doesn't teach depth at all. And I would love to preach at his church.

Of course, they would throw me out. But he said Mormons are Christians. He doesn't know what he's doing.

Okay. He doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't preach the issue of sin, the necessity of repentance, coming to Christ.

I mean, with books like Your Best Life Now, all he's doing is appealing to the sensibilities of people and tickling their ears. I've been to his church. I've sat through his service. And I walked out feeling great because it was so positive and so uplifting. I felt great, but there was no depth.

And I went into the bookstore... So you think he's more like a motivational speaker? Yeah, he's more of a motivational speaker. Not a Christian theologian, not a proper pastor.

Pastors are not supposed to be motivational speakers, though a lot of them want to be able to get people into the church because they think that if they get more people into the church that they're more successful in doing God's will. And that's idolatry. Right. Gotcha. Okay. Wow.

All right, man. So what do you think about Charles Stanley? Do you think Charles Stanley is good? Charles Stanley is pretty good. Charles Stanley is pretty good. Yep. Charles Stanley is pretty good.

All right. There's some good guys out there. John MacArthur is good.

T.D. Jakes you can't listen to because he's a modalist, denies the Trinity. Kenneth Copeland said God gave him a planet, or there's a mother planet out there, and that Jesus never claimed to be God. Joyce Meyer says you have to believe in order to be a true Christian.

You've got to believe that Jesus paid the penalty for sins in hell. I mean, this is all blasphemy. Yeah, right.

So there's blasphemy. Wow. Okay. It is very interesting.

Yeah, it is. Well, I greatly appreciate it. All right, man. Well, God bless.

God bless you, man. Okay. All right. Let's get to Nadine.

We lost Romans and free will. That would have been an interesting discussion, I betcha. Betcha. We have four open lines. If you want to give me a call. 877-207-2276.

Cole from Louisiana. You're on the air. Hey, how you doing? How you doing? I'm doing all right. Hanging in there.

What do you got, big guy? Oh, okay. So, um, did you know that, uh, basically, you know, the majority of the whole word right now is basically, uh, confused on religion. They're what? They're confused on religion.

They got it all backwards. All religions are false, except for Christianity. And most Christians don't know what true Christianity is from what I understand so far.

We'll see. Well, not exactly most, but a lot. All right. So, um, got a question? Um, yeah, uh, that was the question. The question was, uh, you know, basically, you know, that all the religions were, they were misleading the, uh, religion.

They didn't have any true understanding of what they're reading because they're misinterpreting the scriptures. A lot of people do that. Kenneth Copeland. Kenneth Hagen.

Yes. Jan and Paul Krautz did that. Hagen did that. Benny Hinn does it. Benny Hinn couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag. You know, he's so weak theologically. There's no one he's doing. He's a con artist. Ear tickler. Yeah.

Yeah. And I, and I had the answers. I had the answers to, uh, to, to, to correcting the religion, the correct way through a Christian Bible, through the King James version. That's if there's a person to read. I could interpret any version, but I have, uh, uh, King James version because the majority of individuals look at from the Christian religion and I've talked to the preachers and pastors and none of them will even try to understand any of the information because they're kind of narcissistic and they kind of don't know. Well, the King James is a good Bible. I don't use it, but, uh, I use the new American standard, uh, 95 version.

I may go to the 2020 here soon. I don't know. Depends. But, uh, I like something that doesn't have these and vows in it because we don't talk like that. I want it to be relative to the people around me, just as Jesus was. He spoke their language. Didn't speak something 500 years ago and then make people understand what he was saying 500 year, 500 year old language.

So I want something that's from today and it's just real simple. Okay. Okay. Yes, sir. I got this question here. So we got a couple other, uh, callers wait.

So we can get to them before the end of the show. Okay, buddy. All right. All right, man. Call back tomorrow. Okay.

All right. Let's get to David from Virginia. Hey Dave, welcome. You're on the air. Dave, Dave.

Hi. There we go. So why, why, yes. So why do we give the praise to Jesus? Like, I believe Jesus was the son of God and God thanked Jesus to forgive us of our sins and all of that. But whenever we talk about, there's so much praise given to Jesus, as opposed to God, what is, I mean, I know it probably goes back to the Trinity, but God, the Father is the God and he sent Jesus for our sins.

So I get that. Do you affirm the doctrine? Why do we hold, it seems like we hold, at least in the church I go to, it seems like we hold Jesus in higher regard than God. Let me, uh, let me ask you, do you affirm the doctrine of the Trinity? Do you affirm the doctrine? Okay.

One God in three distinct simultaneous ways. I believe so, so I'm, I'm a very young Christian person. So, um, you know, that's okay. What I'd like you to do, we only have a couple of minutes, so I'm going to answer your questions as briefly as I can, but I also want to tell you, or ask you to go to my website, karm.org, C-A-R-M, karm.org. Okay. And go to the Christian doctrine section and start reading on the Christian doctrine. All right. If you're a new Christian, you need to be grounded in the basics. So learn the Trinity and who Jesus is and things like that.

All right. The reason we focus on Jesus is because He is the one who walked with us. He's the one who said, come to me and I'll give you rest. Matthew 11, 27 and 28.

He talked about this. He's the way, the truth, and the life. John 14, 6. We're commanded by God the Father to have fellowship with Jesus. 1 Corinthians 1, 9. So we go to Him and we pray to Him as the church prayed to Him for 1 Corinthians 1 verses 1 and 2.

The entire church prayed to Him. So it's okay to seek Jesus because He is God in flesh. He has two natures, the divine nature and the human nature. And He's both God and man. And so as such, He's worthy of all praise, worship, and honor. And Jesus said in John 5, 20 to 23, He talked about giving Him the same honor that you give to the Father.

So this is why we can do that. You can pray to the Father. You can pray to the Son. You can pray to the Holy Spirit.

But because we are commanded to have fellowship with Jesus in 1 Corinthians 1, 9, that's usually why most people will address Jesus as I do in my prayers. But I have another reason for doing that as well. Does that help? Yes. Yes.

I'll look those up. Thank you. Sure.

But go to CARM website and if you can, look up those articles on the Christian doctrine section. Because I've been doing this a very long time. I've literally had thousands of conversations on stuff like this over 41 years. So I'm not saying I got it all down. But hey, you know, I write very simply and I get the answers right out there.

Go check it out and check everything I say against scripture. Because obviously you don't want to trust a guy on the radio with his name slick. You know, you got to trust. You got to be careful. Okay.

Trust the Word of God. All right. Thank you. All right. Okay. Thank you. All right, man. God bless. Okay. I don't know how much time we've got left.

I think 30, 40 seconds. Andrew from Durham. Welcome. You're on the air. What do you got, buddy? Hey, Matt. How you doing, buddy?

I'm doing fine. Hey, Mac, I heard that you were saying that the doctrine, all these other religions are false doctrines. That's right. And that Christianity was the only one I disagree with that. Because I will say that all religions have false doctrines, even down to Christianity.

I've been Christian for 40 years. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you got to go. You got a break and we're out of time and that guy does not know what he's talking about. He calls up all the time. Call back tomorrow and we can see if we can get this out and stuff like that.

Christianity is true because we have Jesus, God in flesh. Hey, folks, by God's grace, we're back on here tomorrow. May the Lord bless you and we'll talk to you then. We'll see you. God bless you.