Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network.

I am your host Matt Slick and for the newbies, Slick is my real name, it's not a radio name though it does kind of work, doesn't it? If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276 and I made mention of something yesterday. If you go to the CARM homepage, I have an article, it's the latest CARM articles on the right hand side. It says, Elected Officials in Federal State Contact Information. So I've been slowly working on it and improving it. As I've said before, I believe that we Christians need to be involved in government and petitioning and doing what we can as it fits under the category of Occupy till the Lord returns and praise God for that. So I'm slowly adding in states, I've got Alabama, Alaska, Arizona and Arkansas done and I'll be doing some more.

So there you go, trending Boise, Idaho, legislator might shut down due to COVID outbreak, really. Okay, anyway, a lot of new stuff going on if you want to give me a call, we have three open lines 877-207-2276 and oh, we have two open lines now, that's good. Let's see, oh yes, so if you're interested in checking out the Israel trip, just go to CARMIsrael.com and it looks like it's going to be happening for sure, it looks really good.

You've got people signing up and I think it's going to be a great trip next year. We also have schools, if you're interested in checking out our schools, all you have to do is go to CARM.org and just type in schools and it's really easy to do and there we go. You can check out the schools, we have three online schools, one of theology, one of apologetics, one on critical thinking and I just found out today that our connections in Africa, one of them is they're using, what they're doing, get this, they're taking CARM articles, printing them up and distributing to pastors because the pastors aren't very educated about a lot of stuff and so a lot of pastors are preaching false gospels. They're saying as long as you're baptized or you're sincere or whatever it is, do good works, you'll be fine and so this guy named Moses, he's great and he is printing up articles and distributing them to pastors and meeting with pastors to try and get them to understand the truth and also they're having Bible studies, they're printing up some of the critical thinking issues and they are teaching people how to think and do some other stuff.

I need to write a school on how to interpret the Bible too, I need to do that. It just, you know, only got 18 million things to do but that's what I want to do. Okay, having said all of that, lickety split, let's get to the calls, let's get to Jared from Indiana. Jared, welcome. You're on the air. Hey. Hey. What's going on? Oh, not much. You're doing radio. I was the last caller in yesterday, I wanted to talk to you about Calvinism.

Sure. It's maybe a broader question when I ask it but maybe you can condense it for me a little bit but I wanted to, I asked yesterday about how do you determine who is Calvinist and I understand the five, the tool, the five points of Calvinism and obviously you have to, I mean everybody I think that the Christian would adhere to the five souls, I mean that's ridiculous if you didn't but I understand that a lot of times when it comes with Calvinist that they don't, they use, and I obviously come from a background where they preach King James only and things and I like a lot of Calvinist preaching, I think there's a lot of preaching that's shallow, 30 minutes, it's not expository but they use a lot of different versions of the Bible and wouldn't that sometimes cross your point when you're trying to put that point across as a Calvinist? Well generally just to answer the question what's a Calvinist, it's someone who holds to the five points of Calvinism and that's basically it. There are varieties within the Calvinist camp of adherents, some believe in the charismatic gifts like I do, some don't, some are amillennial like I am, some are not, some are dispensational and where I'm not, I'm covenantal, so it's a bit of an umbrella and it's mainly defined by the five points, five solas, if you hold to those you're in the reformed camp and then you have particulars about various things you want to hold to also. Okay well I understand about the five solas and I get that and I know that between Arminianism and then the Calvinist camp, some people believe when you're saved you're always saved, some people believe that you can lose your salvation, I've never believed that before I even knew about Calvinism, that you could lose your salvation once you're saved but what I don't get, like I do believe I am a continuous but I also hold to the points but I also don't get the free will argument as between Calvinist and Arminianist, I can't bridge the gap. Here, yeah there's a major difference there, so let me just kind of simplify what's going on, there's both hold to a doctrine of total depravity and that sin has touched all of what we are. In reformed theology or Calvinism but in reformed theology we teach that that touch of sin in our heart, soul, mind, body, etc. has affected the free will and we're still free, we still have free will but the will is enslaved to sin, Romans 6, 14-20, cannot receive spiritual things, 1 Corinthians 2, 14, does not seek for God, does not do any good, Romans 3, 10, 11 and 12, is that by nature a child of wrath, Ephesians 2, 3, etc., I can go through a whole bunch of these. Calvinists don't deny free will, people say that they do but we don't, we believe that free will is the ability to make choices that are not forced on you, you freely make them and we believe that but we believe that the Bible states that the free will of the unbeliever is restricted to its sinfulness, the unbeliever is completely free to do whatever he wants and whatever he's capable of doing, he's just not going to believe in God on his own. This is why the Bible says we have to be predestined from the foundation of the world and that's Ephesians 1, 4 and 5, that God has to grant that we believe, Philippians 1, 29, he grants us repentance, 2 Timothy 2, 25, as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed, Acts 13, 48. Jesus says you cannot come to me, let's have been granted you from the Father, John 6, 65. So these verses I'm quoting are consistent with the teaching that everybody's free but their free will has different levels of freedom, you know, a one-year-old baby's free to do whatever it wants but it's only capable of doing what it's capable of doing, different than a three-year-old.

Go ahead. Oh, I've also heard too that God is free as well but only in his holiness because his holiness is only, well, won't limit him to be sinful. I understand that but didn't the, maybe you can clear it up for it, but maybe doesn't somehow skew people's theology and their doctrine based a lot on the version of the Bible that they decide to learn out of because, you know, I know a lot of people will say whosoever wasn't in, like John 3.16, whosoever wasn't, a lot of them will say in the, you know, in some of the Alexandria and some of that, it's not in there but then the other people say in the received text it is. Yeah, it's not in the Greek.

No, it says pashapistuon in the Greek in John 3.16. The word for whoever is hos and it's just not there but we don't say all the believing one, pashapistuon, and it's good enough to say whoever but whoever believes, well, of course whoever believes, Calvinists believe that. Whoever believes will be saved but what people do is they'll say, well, that means you have the free will choice to be able to do it but it doesn't say that.

People read into the text what they say they think it means. We say whoever believes. Well, how are they able to believe the Arminian is going to say it's by the sinfully enslaved free will all they need is the gospel message and they'll be able to believe and the Calvinist says nope because he's enslaved to sin, is a hater of God who can do no good, doesn't see for God and cannot receive spiritual things.

God has to appoint him to eternal life, predestinate him, grant him faith, grant him repentance, cause him to be born again. So we're the ones who win the argument and as I've talked to many people about this topic I'm the one quoting scriptures left and right and they aren't. They're saying, well, I don't like what that means God would do.

So what? Then take Romans 9 out of your Bible. It's what it says. What are they going to do, submit the Bible to their desires and their wants or their wants and desires to the Bible? Well, the Bible says that God chooses us and he predestines us and he elects us and he grants us faith and he grants that we have repentance and that he grants that we come to Christ. It's what the Bible says. If it's just simply up to a sinful person's free will, then why are those verses in the Bible? If it was just up to a person's sinfully enslaved free will, it wouldn't be necessary for God to say he has to grant that we believe or grant that we come to Christ. It wouldn't make any sense.

And so the Armenians, I'll just say it, the Armenians just, you know, they're playing loose with the text. And the solution that you try and give is this thing called prevenient grace, which I call kindergarten theology. Prevenient grace is the grace that comes before to enable the enslaved sinner to be at a neutral kind of a position to be able to choose God or not. And I say, show me that in the Bible. It's not in the Bible.

You know, it's second moronicals. It's just, it's not there. And so I'd say, well, and if that's, if it's the case, then why is it that Bob believes and Frank does not when God gives prevenient grace? Well, it's because of their free will. Well, why does one person's free will enable them to believe and another one does not? Because that's what free will, but that doesn't answer the question.

See, why? Would God do it who makes them? Doesn't God know exactly what to do and how to get someone to believe and Proverbs 31 says he turns the heart of the King where he wishes it to go. So the Armenians, they, this is what my discussions with them over the years, I've been defending this for 30 years and I'll tell you maybe longer than that probably, but at any rate, they don't have as many answers as, as people think they do.

I know how to back them into corners and ask them difficult questions. So, you know, well, I, I appreciate, I appreciate your time and maybe if I, if I jump off, maybe just two real quick last points, maybe you could hit on, um, the, the, it says that, uh, God chose the foolishness of preaching to save those who are lost and then, and then if God, if God is the pre-determiner, then does it, if he predestined us, are, is he not, is it not violating why he's put us on here to be free creatures if he is being a respecter of persons to some that are and some that aren't? Where does it say he put us on the earth to be free creatures?

Well I didn't say that, I'm saying if he did, if he, if he, but he didn't, he did not. We have to go with the Bible says Isaiah 43, seven, he created us for his glory. And he does, it does not say what a lot of people think the Bible says about, uh, about us and stuff like that. And so Romans nine is the answer to the people's objections, Romans nine, nine through 23. And you know, I'm forced to say this because this is what the Bible teaches. This is clearly what the Bible teaches is what it teaches.

So the gap, the gap is not, so he didn't put us here to be free creatures, but, and so it doesn't, his decision, you would say then does not violate what happens with people going to heaven and hell. Right. Once you call back, get the line, we'll talk about it some more. Okay. There's more to it.

That's the second line. Yep. All right. All right, folks, we've got a break coming up.

May the Lord bless you. We'll be right back after these messages. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Welcome back to the show. Let's get to Tom from Tennessee. Tom, welcome. You're on the air.

Tom. Whoops. Wait a minute.

It helps if I hit the right button. Okay. Now, there you go. Hey, Matt, how are you doing? You're doing all right by God's grace, buddy. What do you got, man?

All right. I have some questions I just wanted to ask concerning, you know, the prophecy from Isaiah when it said they would have eyes that could not see, you know, ears could not hear and their heart could not understand. And then in Matthew 13, Jesus kind of made it clear that it was because their heart had waxed gross. You know, they'd hardened because of their sin, and we know that there was blood on their hands. But we also know that God chose such a time to put Christ in this and that his will had to be done like Judas. Even Jesus chose the son of perdition, even though, you know, because of the will of the Lord, for him to be put up on the cross. Now, my understanding, though, is that it was so that they didn't hear the glorious gospel unless they could see with their eyes and hear with their ears and their heart be converted, then Jesus would save them.

What he was showing that if that was to happen, that Jesus would have saved him, you know, because we know in 2 Corinthians 4, it says those that are not saved are the ones blinded by the devil and they don't believe. Right. So I guess my question is, should we take this in context and apply it to the election of grace? The election of what? Grace. The election of grace.

Which is those that are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the new covenant. Okay. Individuals are elected and nations are elected. So I see what you're saying, though. So I'm not sure I understand the question. So you are drawing it up. Well, my question is, I've seen how you've applied this.

I just want to make this clear, because maybe I'm not clear on the question. I've seen how you've applied this as an example of God chooses, you know, who's to be saved and who's not. And I believe he does. I believe that is true in saying that. But I also believe, just like you did with Cornelius, in Acts 15, Peter mentioned that God looked at their heart, right?

And with Lydia, he pricked her heart, you know. So in this instance, could we not say that if people don't truly repent and believe, those are the ones that cannot be saved, right? Because the devil's blind. God, from the foundation of the world, chose, and I'll read this, Ephesians 1, 4, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we'd be holy and blameless before him, in love he predestined us with adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself. He chose us before the foundation of the world. Now he did not look into the future, didn't see what people would do under different circumstances in their goodness of their hearts, deciding to believe in Jesus and then pick them. That would be violating the condemnation of partiality, spoken of in James 2, 2-4.

In there it says someone comes into your assembly, he's got money or fine clothes or whatever it is, and you say, sit at the head of the table. He says, are you not making judgments? This is partiality that's condemned. In other words, what God does is he does not look at the person to see what quality they have in order to save that person. The reason for his election is that rests in his mind only from eternity, and we don't know how that works.

We don't know what criteria it is. We just know that God is the one who does that, and it happens before the foundation of the world. I recently prayed a prayer to the Lord about someone's salvation, and I said, Lord, if you're not elect, please elect them.

That's from eternity back in time. I'm just saying, I don't know how it works. I just know what the Bible says, and I've got to repeat what the Bible says.

On your term predestined, can I ask you a question about that? I know God can foresee all things, because they say he's all knowing. I mean, we know that he does for us. I mean, he doesn't live in the concepts of time. He lives eternal. I can understand that, and so he sees everything from beginning to end. But I believe that wholeheartedly, because the Bible says that, but let me ask you this. In predestination, you know, God spoke, and the world come, and they said, well, how did God foreknow? I said, well, I believe in creation.

He did everything, and it was good, and for it to continue to the end of time, it was good. Okay. Do you have a question? I'm waiting. I'm trying to understand. You've got a question there. Go ahead.

I'm sorry about that. Yeah, but the question is, isn't everything predestined according to his word? There's a yes and a no to it, depending on how we were to define the terms. It's like everything's ordained by God, but not everything's caused by God, and God can predestine people to salvation. In Acts 4-28, it's talking in the context about Herod and the four groups, the Gentiles, the Jews, Herod, and I forget everyone, who were brought together by God to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur in their killing of Jesus. So this was predestined to occur, certain events, and he used sinners to do it. And then we're predestined to become conformed to the image of God's Son. That's Romans 8-29. Those whom he predestined, he also called, and the calling has to do with election. That's Romans 8-30. Those whom he predestined, he also called. And to the same group, 1 Corinthians 2-7 says that the mystery hidden of wisdom, which God predestined before the aid is to our glory. I just read Ephesians 1-5, he predestined us to adoptions, and Ephesians 1-11, he predestined according to the whole verse, also we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will.

So that's what's going on. God's in control, and nothing occurs without the will of God, whether it's direct or indirect. God can directly will the universe come into existence, let there be light. And he wills that people not sin, he says, thou shalt not lie. But he also wills to allow people to lie. And within all of this, God predestines and ordains.

Now there's discussions about how he does this, and we don't know. But this is what the Bible teaches, and I have to teach it because that's what the Bible teaches. And that's what it says. Well, on the ordained part, let me ask you this, I'm with you on this, but I think the only difference between you and I is I believe, you know, since Adam and Eve, and even to the Christ returned to the Father and accomplished salvation, there was a reason for the predestined and the election, you know, keeping the bloodline and making sure that his will was done. And that's what I was kind of hitting at with the Pharisees, you know, the Pharisees did. Because they were going to be the very one. Because what's happening is you'll say a few things, I need to correct how it's used in a sentence to be more precise.

Okay, yeah, let me narrow this down more precisely. I believe because of the will of God that his, you know, the bloodline that was kept for Jesus and for him to die on the cross and to sit back to the Father, the will of God. I think it was spoken of me, that's why there was certain people that were elected and certain people that he chose and all this, but after that, it's whosoever believes, you know, even went out to the Gentile. Yeah, yeah. And so I believe... Hold on, let me interject, let me interject, let me interject. So okay, now we got the break coming up. Okay, we'll move on from this, okay, because we got a lot of callers waiting. Call back, get in line, and we can go some more through it, okay?

Because it's an important topic, all right? Okay. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. We have one open line.

Oh, maybe we'll call back and get in there. We'll be right back after these messages, please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Let's get on the phones with Matt from Texas. Matt, you're on the air. Dang, I keep hitting the wrong button.

I got all these buttons going. Hey Matt, you there? Yep, can you hear me all right? Yes, I can. What do you got buddy? Awesome. I had a question.

I wanted some advice, or I guess just your past experience when it comes to sample culture, when it... As a somewhat of an influencer, just because I've had some experiences with being online and having people basically try to dog pile on me because of my opinions, or just in general, and I just wanted to know if you've had experience with that. Oh, yeah, I've had experience with being threatened with death, pursued, late night noises at the house. I go downstairs and check, no one's there. I've been swatted, I've had sickness threaten to kill me. I've had atheists say that they're going to destroy the ministry. People have spammed me. I can go on and on and on.

Oh, yeah, I know what it is. Here's the thing, I don't understand what the big deal is about cancel culture. They don't like you.

I have to say, so? Whatever. They don't like it. They don't like it. They've got some diapers. Go wear the diapers. Go cry someplace else. You don't like it.

You said, Matt, so we're going to cancel you. Okay, nice talking to you. Whatever.

Someone intelligent. That's my view. Who cares?

If they criticize you on Facebook, let them criticize you. Big stinking deal. I call them wannies. W-A-N-N-I-E-S, wannies. They're like wannies. They're little babies.

I also call them diaparenians. It's like, so what? You just answer them back. What I'll do is I'll do an article or I'll do something and say, here's a response to what you said.

Can I use that from then on as a response to something? Of course, I can write about it. I can speak about it, so I'll have a little bit more feedback, but I'll ask questions of people.

Let me give you a pointer. Someone says they don't like what you said or did, whatever it is. You want to get them to the point of them justifying why their moral standard is the right one. Where do they get their standard from? What is it that they're doing? You can write up a list of questions.

What standard of righteousness do you have by which you make this judgment? You ask them. If they don't answer, you say, oh, so you can't answer because the question's too difficult for you? Is this because I'm asking you to do some thinking? Or are you just saying this because you don't like me and that's it and you want everybody else to not like me?

Is that it? I go on the tack and I chase them. That's what I do. I don't believe in sitting around doing nothing.

They're going to try to cancel me, so what, but I'm going to turn it around on them. Oh, I've done it many times over the years. Gotcha.

Yeah. It's just like I've had scenarios where some people don't want to listen to what I have to say. That's okay. They'll just take whatever I said out of context and blow it out of proportion and then that leads to other people who just don't like me for whatever reason or just accuse me of a bunch of horrible, horrible things or illegal things. I'm just sitting here. I literally can't do anything and now there's like hundreds of thousands of people just like yelling at me.

Yes, you can. What you do, what you do, I still have the file. I was in a different chat system and people would do things like this and what I would do is go in under another name. They wouldn't recognize me and I would go in and I would start a topic where my name would come up and then I would copy the stuff that people said, the URLs and document everything in their hatred. I kept a file.

I still have a file. It's about 40 pages and word in this old place and I did that along with under my real name just talking to them and they would say things and I kept records because it always came back to haunt them. Now I would say, I've done this many times, well on August 12th, 2012, you said in this room blah, blah, blah, you said blah, blah, blah.

Why is it that you say that then but now what's wrong with you? You start doing stuff like that, people will back down because they know you're keeping record of what it is they've said and you can show inconsistencies. It works.

It takes a little bit of work but you do it. I have that file. Let's see, where is that file?

I still have that file, yup, and I use it every now and then when necessary. I believe in fighting back, not laying down and being walked on. I don't get dirty, I don't get mean but that's what I do. Here's one thing else I did, this really happened once. This guy years and years ago was saying all kinds of bad stuff about me and he was just prolific in his attacks on my character and people are starting to ask questions. Well, is this true?

Is that true? I kept responding, no it's not true, I had a standard thing. I said, who is this guy? What they often do is hide behind a nickname and I'll say, oh you're pretty brave for someone who hides behind a nickname. At least I'm brave enough and man enough to use my real name, you're not so I should take you seriously.

That would be that kind of thing. So what I did was I did an IP trace, there's a way to find stuff out and I found out the IP trace route, I found out where he worked and I went to the website of the company and I emailed every email I could find on the entire website and I said this person is coming from your, during work hours and he's posting things about me. I said I don't know exactly who it is but this is what's happening, this is the time. I did this.

Two days later he actually contacted me via email and said I won't ever bother you again, please don't contact the company again. Fight, fight back. Don't think that because they call you a name that that means you can't do anything.

They're diaparenians, they're babies, they're children, they don't have a standard of morality or righteousness by which they can make judgment stick. You know, I'm against Black Lives Matter. It's a leftist anti-family Marxist movement. I'm against it. If people don't like that, I don't care if they don't like it, I'm going to stand on the truth. You don't like it, don't listen to me, don't go to my website, wherever. Fight back.

Gotcha. It's kind of difficult because I'm kind of on and off and most of the time when I come back to reality it's like, you know, I'm totally fine, God's in control and it's not going to matter. The people that are attacking me, it's not going to matter down the line, but it's kind of hard because these people that attack me will sometimes bring the people that I work with on social media and I can't work with them anymore and now I don't feel like I can ever partner with any other company or brand ever again at risk of them getting dragged in and it's stuck to my name, even though it's not true, but it has a lot of weight. Yes, unfortunately it does because people don't know how to think for themselves and stand on their own. Because there's no absolute morality in our country anymore, except in Christianity which the country kicks under the table, doesn't want anything to do with it, then everybody does what's right in his own eyes.

That means there is no moral absolute and so the people in power, all they're interested in is the dollar, they're leftists, they don't know what righteous standard to stand on, so your job is to stand on that standard of righteousness biblically. Do it with wisdom, but I'm telling you, if you collect information about people, you can do the same thing back to them and there are ways to find out where they work. Just look up on the web, how do I find out this and that, there's a lot of procedures in which, but you can also do other things.

You can also go to emails, look up email techniques for adding a little something attachment to an email in a service that you send out to somebody as soon as they open it, you have their home address or their home IP and then you can correlate where they are with any work and things like that. I'm telling you, there are things you can do and I've done it. I don't take kindly to being threatened because I've been threatened so many times in my life, so many, even to the point where guns pointed at me because they sent the police after me.

They lied about me, said that I, I don't want to sit over the radio, but let's just say that someone called up the police department here and said my name is Matt Slick and I just blah, blah, blah, and there was a SWAT team out there and I had to walk backwards in the dark, my hands up, handcuffed, put in a cop car because someone did this. This is what it means to fight for Christ, okay, so this is what it is. We've got to realize, we've got to fight.

It costs us to pick up your cross daily, Luke 9 23, okay, do what you can though, all right? If you can't, then don't, but you know, be wise, all right, all right, okay, all right buddy, God bless, all right, that's Matt from Texas, yeah, I hate bullies, you know, and the reason is because when I was 12 years old, I weighed 66 pounds. My last name is Slick, I moved 26 times before I was 12 and 12 different elementary schools and so I got beat up and chased a lot.

I learned, I don't like bullies, so I tackle them and you know, you got to do what you got to do. All right folks, hey, we'll be right back after these messages, there's a break, God bless, we'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Welcome back everyone. Let's see, the last segment of the hour, if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to John from New Jersey.

Hey John, welcome, you're on the air. Hey Matt, yeah, so I was talking to a buddy of mine, he doesn't say he's a Jehovah's Witness, I think I caught up about this before. He doesn't label himself as a Jehovah's Witness, but he believes a lot of what they believe in. So my question is, since, why was Jesus given authority if he was God? Because he was made Lord of the angels, Hebrews 2-9, and made under the law, Galatians 4-4. Under the law, he was obligated to have the Father be the one he would worship, and he didn't perform his miracles until after his baptism, when the Holy Spirit came upon him, because he was under the requirement of the law, and at the age of 30, that he could enter into that priesthood, according to the Old Testament law, the priesthood of Melchizedek.

That's why the authority had to be given to him, because he was humbled, Philippians 2-5-8, made under the law, Galatians 4-4, made for a little while Lord of the angels, Hebrews 2-9. Okay? Okay, wow. Alright, that answers my question, thanks Matt. You're welcome John, God bless buddy. Bye. Alright, let's get to Phil from California, been waiting a long time, almost 40 minutes. You're on the air buddy.

Hey, thank you. You there? My question is, I'm in 1 Corinthians 2-4, that God desires all men to be saved. I'm going to go into Calvinism, I would answer someone that says that God desires all men. There's different ways he desires all men could be all the nations, because covenantally God sent Jesus only to Israel, not to the whole world, not to all men, not to all people. And we know that because Jesus says so in Matthew 15-24, he says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He was not sent to the whole world, he was not sent to all men. But the gospel inclusion of all people is prophesied in Genesis 12-3, when God says to Abraham and you, all the nations shall be blessed. And it's called the gospel by Paul in Galatians 3-8, and he calls that, quote, the gospel.

So that's one way of understanding it. He desires all men to be saved, to become the knowledge of the truth, is that it's not just the Jews that he wants, but all people. There's another option in that God can desire one thing and arrange another. And I can back that up, because I have articles on that, where God can desire people to be saved, but then at the same time, in Mark 4, 10-12, Jesus speaks in parables so people will not be saved. So if he wants, he desires all men to be saved, why is it he's speaking so that not all can be saved?

That's a question that's worth exploring. A third possibility is that the word all refers only to the elect. And people might say, well, that's ridiculous, man. Well, no, it's not, because we find that the only ones who have died with Christ are the Christians. The only ones who died to sin, died with Christ, died to the law, et cetera, are Christians. And it says in 2 Corinthians 5, 14, it says, the love of God controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died. And the way to understand the all died can only mean that it's the people who died in Christ. And I can go to Romans 5, 18, where it says, justification of life resulted to all men. Well, the all can't be everybody who ever lived.

It can only be the limited group. And so, trust me, I can really expand on all of these. But that's what's going on.

Those are the three possibilities. OK? Are you there? Did I lose you? Let's try it under a few seconds here. And let's see. I guess we lost them. Let's get to Jay from Boise, Idaho.

Man, long way away. Hey, Jay. Welcome. You're on the air.

Thank you for taking my call. So I wanted to ask about the concept of modern prophets. Not any individual modern prophet claiming, but just the concept itself. It does seem to me that the, whether it's the two witnesses or the future tense of Elijah shall first come, or even just Amos saying, the guy can do nothing without the prophets, it does seem to indicate to me in all those instances that we should be looking towards at least some individuals, and potentially even those that are unnamed.

But even bigger than that, I've challenged a couple of apologists on this before, perhaps I just haven't challenged the right ones, but nobody's ever been able to actually give me any passages that actually say that there's no more prophets. The closest I've gotten is Hebrews 1, but Hebrews 1 can't possibly mean that, because John's a prophet, and John's writing Revelation after Hebrews 1. John's an apostle.

So that doesn't make any sense. What church do you go to? I go to a church called Grace.

Grace, okay. So you can go to Luke 16, 16, the law and the prophets were until John, and the law and the prophets is the division of the Old Testament, the law, the first five books, and then the prophets. They were until John. And what does that mean? It means that they prophesied, spoke of, in that sense, up to John the Baptist, and after that, that's it.

So the Old Testament style prophets, there's no more of those. So that's one verse that you can go to, all right? Are you making noise, or are you doing stuff? Because I'm hearing a lot of banging and stuff like that. Okay. Sorry, I do kind of have you, like, my headphones are in.

I'll mute it whenever I'm not talking. It's Luke 16, 16, incidentally, not John 14, 14, but Luke 16, 16, the law and the prophets were until John. So that's a verse that I would go to right there, but now there are prophets spoken of in 1 Corinthians 14 in the charismatic sense, and they are there, but not in the sense like Joseph Smith is a prophet.

No, he's not. He's a false prophet, or Muhammad is a false prophet, because they want to be prophets in the Old Testament style, and that they write scripture, they speak for God. That is done, and Luke 16, 16 talks about that. Okay, does that answer the question? Well, so, not exactly, if I may. So I know what you had said there about John being an apostle, and I certainly grant that he is, but I don't think that that's necessarily contradictory, number one, and I guess the second thing I would kind of want to be more specific about. What's contradictory? A prophet and an apostle, like in the same way that I can be both a... Can you show me where John is called a prophet? Well, so he is, the angel does say to him, I am one of your fellow servants of the prophets in Revelation, but even besides that, I think Revelation... Okay, so it doesn't say John's a prophet, so if it doesn't say it, you shouldn't say it.

Simple, and it avoids confusion. The word of God is there with the words that are there and the words that are not there are for a reason. So John's not called a prophet. John is called...

Here's some more noise. John is called an apostle, and that's what you should call him, okay? Cool, but just to clarify though, are all the... Just as an example with Amos, so just kind of pulled him out of the top of my head, could I go through all of the 12 minor prophets and see within those books them being called prophets? I know it'll say the word of the Lord came unto me, but that's kind of more of my point, I guess. Well, in Matthew 12, 17, this is what was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, and when Jesus says in Luke 16, 16, the law and the prophets, he's calling all of them prophets, all of those in the Old Testament besides Moses, the law and the prophets.

So he's declaring it, so that's it, that's done. So where does it say that John, for example, or Peter, for example, was a prophet? You got to find it in the scripture.

If you don't find it in the scripture, don't teach it that way, because it'll lead to confusion, because what you're doing is you're playing with the word prophet. You say, well, it means this and that, that means it applies to all of them. Really?

Well, then why didn't God say that? And this is where confusion comes in and problems arise, okay? All right? Well, I guess I would look into that more for sure.

Yeah, yeah. But remember, every word is there for a reason, and words not chosen are not there for a reason. And we have to get in the habit of saying, because if I'm going to say, for example, if I'm going to say John's a prophet, I need to prove that from scripture that he is, it either says it or what a prophet is is defined somewhere in scripture, and then he meets that qualification.

Then I can make the case, but if you can't do it, then don't say it. If I may though, because I do think in that second one, the case could definitely be made though, because he does, he does speak to the Lord and receive revelation, and then he also, um, he has visions, right, and they're visions of events that are supposed to come to pass. That's what, that's what happens with an apostle. There are people who, um, you know, I've had a word from the Lord before in prayer, a word from the Lord.

I know it was from God. It doesn't make me, make me a prophet at all, okay? Before once, and it came to pass in detail, so that doesn't make me a prophet, all right? So you've got to be very, very careful of trying to teach you a principle, stick as closely as you can to what the word actually says, okay? And there's a verse that's apropos here, and it's just a general verse, which is, you know, workable here. 1 Corinthians 4, 6, now these things brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sake, so that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written, so that none of you will become arrogant on behalf of one against the other. So don't exceed what's written is the principle.

That means that Bible, the word has to be the standard by which you judge it. Don't read into it, read out of it, and then you'll be okay, all right? Absolutely, and thanks for taking my call. Sure, buddy.

God bless. All right, let's see who's next. Let's get to Mark from Florida. Mark, welcome. You're on the air. We've only got a couple minutes. Hi, Matt. I'm a return caller. I'll be real quick. And Matthew 24, 36, when you're under attack from a Jehovah's Witness involving this, last time I called you gave me the quick and slick tip of the day, Revelations 19, 12.

And I also gave me the ancient Jewish cultural aspect of it, Father prepares wedding for the son. Right. I also went to karm.org and studied 1 Corinthians 1 verse to recall upon the lame of the Lord. I added that to my arsenal. Good. Very, very good. Yes, it is. Okay.

Have something else that I need to add, but I need to ask you about first. Okay. Prophecy, prophecy versus divination, two different things. Yes, divination is a process of trying to find out things about the other areas and or the future outside of the godly means by which it is established, using occult sources.

Okay. Jesus Christ was under a law, Galatians 4, 4, and we know that. Leviticus 19, 26 through 31. If Christ is under the law, does he have to abide by this forbidding of divination? Of course, and he would never practice divination.

He did not. Okay. Then would that apply to Matthew 24, 36 then?

Would that be consistent with not practicing divination by not knowing the day nor the hour? No. It's called a category mistake in logic. Okay. Gotcha. Okay.

The category of divination in Leviticus 19 is different than the category of the wedding feast knowledge issue that Jesus stated, alluded to. They're different categories. You can't mix them.

It's called a category error in logic. That's exactly what that is. Okay.

Wedding time. Darn. Gotcha. Okay. Gotcha. All right.

Sorry about that. Hey, Martin from California on Apostasy. Call back Monday. Let's talk about apostasy.

And Andrew from Ohio on 2 Timothy 4-11. Call back Monday. Okay. May the Lord bless you all. Have a great weekend, folks, and by his grace, be back on the air next week. We'll talk to you then. Bye. This is powered by the Truth Network.