Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by Slick Live.

Let's see, we have five open lines, no callers, 877-207-2276, and a couple things we're gonna talk about. One is the Karm Israel trip. I got the package in the mail, all the stuff that's gonna be associated with it in videos. I'm looking forward to going next year for the Karm Israel trip.

A bunch of us are going and it's gonna be a blast. If you're curious about it, go to karmisrael.com and check it out, you can do that. All right, let's see, so I do a thing called Patreon. And you can check it out if you want, patreon.com, type in my name. But I just released a video there.

Now Patreon's a thing where you pay to support video production and things like that and things like that. So that's what I do, it helps curb some of the costs and things like that. Well, I'm gonna talk about what I released a little bit. There's an opening statement here. I'm not gonna go through everything like I did in the video, but I've been working on something for a while. Now, as I've said before, when I study a group, I study a topic, what happens is at first I just dive in and I learn and I write notes and I write articles and I understand this particular thing and I write an article about it. Then I learn about that particular thing and I write an article about it.

And as I do that, I start seeing more and more of the overall picture. So in the issue of social justice, I've written articles on Black Lives Matter, on being woke, the cancel culture, critical race theory, doxing, gender equality, gender identity, intersectionality, reproductive justice, the 1619 Project, the Equality Act, the Lincoln Project, the social credit system, the social gospel, virtue signaling, white privilege, and I've even analyzed the book, Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, which is used by the left to foment change in society. Incidentally, Rules for Radicals was dedicated to Lucifer.

This is no joke. It's dedicated to Lucifer, you can check it out. I've also written on social justice and Christianity. I've got social justice Bible verses, transgenderism and the gender pronouns war, and that kind of a thing that's going on.

So there's a lot of things that need to be discussed, and I've even written something called The New Society, and that's worth, I think, checking out, but I've been working on something else, and it's one of those things where when you're reading and you're studying something, that the coalescing of what it's about starts to occur, and that's what's happened, finally, in the social justice area, and so I'm working on an article based on the idea of the beliefs, goals, danger of the secular left along with its social justice, so that's the working title so far, and I want to go over a couple of premises about this. Oh, man, that's right, Eric. Yes, I have gained weight.

Someone just saw it in the video. That's right, I'm 220 pounds, so I'm six feet tall, too, though. So someone in the chat room just made the comment, so I got a kick out of it.

I used to be six feet tall and like 120 pounds, so wow. At any rate, okay, so back on track. Oh, by the way, folks, if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276, you can give me a call, five open lines. So you can tell what someone believes by what they do because beliefs are what lead to behavior. You base your behavior not on what you don't believe but on what you do believe. It's a basic principle, so you can learn what the social justice warriors, the secular left, believe based on their actions.

So having done that, and I'm writing an article about it, but nevertheless, yeah, there you go, yep. Anyway, they basically believe there is no God. Now, this is important because though a lot on the left believe there is a God, there's a qualification with it, that they believe in a God made in their own image, not the other way around, the true, living God.

They want God to serve them and their ideology. And they also teach that man is basically good. Now, this is a hugely important principle.

Man is basically good. It's society that is bad. This is a fundamental issue. One of the basic principles of the leftist secular movement in social justice is that man is basically good and society is basically bad.

Why? Because society is what foments white supremacy, racism, the unequal distribution of wealth, rights, et cetera. And so it's society that needs to be fixed. Now, do they acknowledge they're actually bad people?

Of course they do. But society needs to be the thing that needs to be changed. Not individuals, because individuals are basically good, which explains why so many on the left, for example, the COVID relief package, that a lot of hardworking people don't get it, but felons, child molesters, and others get guilty and convicted of major crimes who don't work, they get the leftist package, right? Because we've got to help them out.

This is why the left will release prisoners from jail who've committed horrendous crimes. It's why they have no problem with letting in illegals who have been committed of crimes in their own respective countries, because people are basically good. They're just trying to escape an oppressive social system, governmental system. Now, folks, don't underestimate that principle, that people are basically good in the social justice ideology. People are basically good. It is society that is basically bad. Bad society produces inequity, which produces injustice, which produces people doing desperate things and becoming bad. And so society needs to be fixed.

Now, remember this. What does Christianity teach? That people are basically bad. That it's called the doctrine of total depravity. That we are sinners, we are fallen, we are enslaved to sin, et cetera.

And I can give you all the references for that. And so religion stands in the way of the social justice warriors who want to affirm the basic goodness of man and the basic badness of society. Religion then becomes an obstacle, particularly Christianity, since it teaches that men are basically bad and that certain governmental structures must be in place to guard against the rise of evil.

They don't believe that. The Constitution, that's why it has the three governmental branches. It's because of that that the founding fathers, because they knew the fallenness of man, they put these safeguards in place in the government. Well, this means that the leftists don't believe in, nor do they trust, the constitutional arrangement of the powers. This is why they manipulate so many of those powers in order to get what they want and do what they want to do because they think they're inadequate. This is why the Constitution is now said to be a living document.

The living document can be reinterpreted to anything they want. And they gain control in the House and the Senate, things like that, when they gain control. And in the judiciary, they have liberal judges, an executive branch with a liberal president and a liberal vice president.

They are then in control and have the power and the ability to force upon society those social changes through legislation. And if we Christians don't stand up against this, we are going to be persecuted all the more. This is a serious issue. Now, I'm gonna give you another principle here. This is a principle. If people are not free to speak and they're not free to act, then they're not free to defend their freedoms. If people are not free to speak and act, then they cannot defend their freedoms.

Now, this is important. If people are not free to speak and to act, then they are not able to defend their freedoms, okay? Do you understand this? What is the left doing?

The left is restricting freedom of speech and they want to take away our guns and our right of self-protection to ensure the freedom of speech. And if we don't have the freedom of speech and the right to protect ourselves and to enforce the idea of the freedom of speech, we will not be able to defend our freedoms that we have now. This is a truth and this is important. Now, the Bible tells us that we are sinners by nature and that it is not society that's the problem, but it's the people who are in society that is the problem. The only way to rectify this is through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Only through Jesus and the indwelling of God in us, the regeneration of our souls, can any society work properly.

The problem is at the basics. It's in the heart of man. The heart of man is desperately wicked, deceitful, cannot be trusted. This is what the Bible teaches us. We are by nature children of wrath. Because of this, we have to preach and teach the redemptive work of Christ. We have to preach and teach the need to coming to Jesus, but this means that there's an absolute God. It means there's an absolute truth.

It means the absolute validity of our depravity and it means the absolute necessity of redemptive work of Christ, who said the absolute truth, that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and nobody comes of the Father but by Him. Without this basic truth premise working through our society, our society won't function properly. The left, the secular left will move in, push us out, and replace us with secular values, secular morality, and it's occurring. We have in Hollywood the promotion of pornography, abortion, violence, bigotry, LGBTQ, and the denunciation of religious principles, particularly Christian ones. We have our schools that are teaching Marxism and socialism and they're producing brainwashed individuals who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag. They want to get our children and so they don't want us to have the right to homeschool. They're putting more restrictions on that and they are then trying to brainwash our children into secularism by having values clarification and ungodly principles taught in our schools to our youth.

And if we disagree, we're the bigots and you talk. Let me tell you, folks, it's not gonna stop unless there's a revival where we Christians stand up and say that's enough. There's the break coming up. We have five open lines. Give me a call, 877-207-2276.

Ask me any questions. I'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking of calls at 877-207-2276.

Three open lines. Give me a call. Let's get to Ryan from North Carolina. Ryan, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, hey, Matt. I got a quick question in regards to what you were just talking about previously. With the black community as such and the inequalities they do face, personally, do you feel as though it's because of the people or is it because of society? I have my opinions about that and what I do is I compare the history of the Chinese and the blacks here in America. The Chinese were treated very, very badly also, or the Asians, I'll say, and I believe that you choose your destiny by dwelling on the past.

If you dwell on the past failures, it's like an anchor and it will prevent you from moving forward. I'm going to just tell you that I moved 26 times before I was 12. I've moved 40 total times, 12 different elementary schools. I was anorexic as a male, which is very rare. I had buck teeth. My last name was Slick.

I didn't start having dreams of being murdered till I was 35. And I had plenty of reason to present a great deal of people. And I lost my pastorate after years and years and years of schooling, work, and preparation. And I lost a pastorate over a simple issue of the charismatic gifts, which I believe continued, and they said no. This cost me a great deal.

And I mean a great deal. And so I'm just saying that there's things that have happened. And so I've learned that when I dwell on those failures, the failures that are often because of others, as well as some of the things, or just the way things happen, that whenever I would do that, I found myself restricting my own freedom in thought and attitude, restricting my own ability to heal, and becoming narcissistic, and give me, give me, I, I, me, me.

When I started to get rid of those things and focus on the issue of the cross and what Christ has done for me, I became far more other-centered and caring and was able to release a great deal. If the blacks, if the Asians, if anybody, in my opinion, were to look to the history of their people and dwell on that history, and that's where their identity lies, then they themselves are injuring themselves and not moving forward. Any people in any nation, in any group, needs to set the example of what they want to be, not what they used to be. And if they decry the present situation, they need to change it by setting an example of what is good, instead of being stereotypically that which is bad. The Asians have changed that image so that now, if you use an Asian image in school, it's because they're hardworking, intelligent, and capable.

They've done that because that's what they've aimed for. What are the blacks doing? Well, the blacks have suffered greatly because of slavery and the matriarchal system that's come out of the blasphemy of selling husbands away because they were strong and breaking up families. We're reaping the whirlwind because of that great sin. But we can't dwell, nor can they dwell, on the past atrocities and say, give me, give me.

No. They need to wake up and stand up on their own like anybody does, like I've had to do. People say, well, you've had white privilege, Matt. I don't know what white privilege is. All I know is I've had to work my tail off to get where I'm at.

I have worked so hard for so many decades that I probably could take a year off just to work out all the vacation time that I've not taken over the years, working 50, 60, sometimes 70-hour weeks, working hard, going into debt to get an education. I mean, I could go on and on. But what are people doing? Well, if anybody looks to their past and that's where their heart, their mind, their attitude resides, then they're doing the damage to themselves, and it's their own fault. Move forward. Change things by changing yourself.

And group together and seek righteousness and judgment. Stop whining about the old. Start moving towards the new. It will take time. It takes work. It takes effort. It's not easy, but it's what's right. That's what needs to be done.

Gotcha. It's just the problem that when they do come together, it seems as though they're still suffering from inequality. You know, the Chinese and such. I understand what you're saying, but the Chinese and such, they were in China. They weren't enslaved.

You get what I'm saying? Blacks were enslaved here. So once it came out of by their own people, by Chinese, correct? The Chinese were enslaved in Chinese, correct?

No. Yes, they were actually in China. Many of them came away from that. But at any rate, the thing is that, you know, the blacks, they've suffered greatly in the past because of the inequities. You know, it's shameful.

It is. But what they have to do, what all people have to do, is throw off the chains of the old times. Stop having a slave mentality and look at me. Look how oppressed I am mentality. Start moving forward. If everybody in a particular group starts doing what's right and doing what's good, that's how they're perceived eventually.

It takes time. But that's what happens. I guess, because from my standpoint, I've experienced both sides of the world. I went to a majority white school. I was literally, me and my brother were the only black kids in the entire school district, that is. And then I went to a completely black school where there were probably about two or three white children. And I can say, there is white privilege.

Racism is huge. I'm a good guy. I've never, I didn't even, when I came into the school where I was at, where I was this whole black person, there were good people there and such, but I did experience inequality. And that was because of society. I'm a good person. I'm not racist or anything. But that was society. It had nothing to do with me. Yep.

Hey, I'm with you. You know, I used to live in the military. My dad was in the military. And when I got out, I was persecuted heavily by whites. I'm a white guy, because I didn't fit into the secular mold, the non-military lifestyle.

I mean, it happens. And I know there's a lot of injustices. But what's the solution? The solution is to, is Jesus.

Jesus is a solution. That's what we need, because racism is wrong. You're right about that.

That's right. Oppression is wrong. You know, white supremacy is wrong.

Black supremacy is wrong. Black lives matter. White lives matter. Yellow lives matter. Brown lives matter. That's how it should be. We should all look and be considered equal. Well, with that being said, though, I don't have a whole Black Lives Matter situation when it comes to abortion and such.

I'm a pro-life guy. So I don't go into all that. But what I do understand is, if blacks are a minority, how come they take up the majority of the prisons and jails?

You get what I'm saying? Is that just saying that the blacks are bad? That can't be. That can't be. You can't say that.

No, I think that the black community has suffered from the effects of slavery, even up to now, when they've destroyed the families during the slave time. Come on. That takes generations to get here.

It does. Yeah. But the way to fix it is through Jesus Christ and the redemptive work done in him. Amen. All right, brother? Amen, man. Society needs to change in regards to Jesus Christ. Amen, brother.

That we need to change from his side. God bless. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, well, welcome back to the show. Let's get to Bill from Raleigh, North Carolina. Bill, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt. I appreciate all you're doing.

I love listening to your show. And I've heard you make a few comments about how you grew up. And I'm sorry you've been through some difficult times. It's not easy for anybody.

It was very traumatizing, seriously. And that's not even all of it. But that's life. Yeah. I know. But I empathize with that.

Hey, I have a question. My wife and I are going through the Bible in a year. And I had never really been aware of the Nephilim.

And I don't know where I missed that. I've been a Christian for a long time. And what I'm talking about, you know, the Nephilim is, and I wanted to find out if it's true, I guess is what I'm calling it. Nephilim is that when God cast the angels that followed Lucifer from heaven, they were here on earth. They intermingled with humans and produced offspring that were almost half man, half spiritual. And if you read on in Numbers and Deuteronomy, I think somewhere in there they reference a king named Og, whose bed was like 13 feet long or something. And so there's this concept of giants. And even when the Israelites were crossing over the River Jordan, there are, you know, this idea of giants. But they're also potentially spiritual beings. And for me, it changes so much of how I look at the Old Testament and the spiritual warfare that was going on there, but I didn't know if I was hearing that the right way or not. I thought you would know, though.

So I wanted to ask you if you don't mind. Right. The Nephilim were taught by the Jews and the early Christian church always unanimously as being the offspring between fallen angels and women. People say, well, how is that possible? We don't know how it's possible, but it's what the scriptures were teaching. And so one of the theories about the flood is that it came in order to destroy the propagation of the Nephilim, which was apparently an attempt by the evil one to destroy the messianic line. So when you go to Genesis chapter 6, verse 9, this is where the Nephilim were talked about, et cetera. It says, these are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generations.

So there's a hint there that his genealogy was not corrupted. And so the flood came to destroy the ungodly. Now, incidentally, Matthew 24, Luke 17, Jesus says that the days of Noah, two men will be taken, one is left. The ones who were taken are the wicked in the context of Matthew 24, Luke 17, just as when the flood came, it was the wicked who were destroyed in Genesis 6.

So he's saying that this is what it's going to be like in the present day, when he comes back. Now, so the flood came and wiped them out. But the Nephilim and the Anakim are those after the flood who were also giants. So what I understand is that the Nephilim were translated in the Septuagint into the Greek gigantas, which we get gigantic from. And they were huge. They were big people. And so it looks like that's what it was.

That's the position I hold to, incidentally. Because I just Is that your view? That is, they were giants. And they were almost, is it a half-breed being?

Is that the way to think of them? OK. Now, it could be possible that they would interbreed furthermore with other women. And so that would be a quarter Nephilim kind of a thing. I don't know how that would work. I've not heard any discussions about that.

But this seems to be what's going on. And it wasn't until the 1500s when this theory, or this position, was mocked by a lot of people that the Sethite theory was then propagated. And I don't agree with the Sethite theory that the Sethites, the descendants of Seth, were the ones who were the Anakim, and the Nephilim, and the great people of renown.

So I don't buy that at all. And it looks like Goliath was also one of them, because he was huge. And David killed him. And incidentally, this is just trivia, he picked up five stones. And yet the first one is what felled Goliath. So why did he pick up five stones? Because there were two brothers and two cousins that would have come after him. And so five was a token. Oh, really?

I didn't know that. OK. Yeah, OK. Well, thank you for answering that. And if you ever have commentary on what's going on with Ravi and the church more broad, Ravi Zacharias and others, I don't know if you've said anything. But I'd love to hear that sometime.

And I just want to tell you I appreciate it. Ravi blew it. And what he did was wrong. And it's unfortunate he brought great disdain upon the name of Christ and his hypocrisy. So we had to pick up the pieces, and we moved forward. And there's another apologist who's left apologetics, Seitan Rudenkate, recently. And we don't know what reasons. But anyway, the elders have said, you're done. And so apologists, myself included, need to be prayed for because we are often under different kinds of attacks than most people.

Not saying we're better or more valuable. It's just, hey, when you do that kind of a thing, a lot of people pray against you, like the Mormons and the Catholics and the Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslims. And they are in contact with demonic forces inadvertently and send them.

And there's a lot of things that happen. So this is a spiritual battle, as Ephesians 6 says. OK? Amen. OK, hey, I won't take any more of your time. But thank you, Matt.

And keep on keeping on. I appreciate you taking my call. Hey, no problem, Bill. God bless, buddy.

All right, three open lines, 877-207-2276. Marty from Virginia, you're on the air. Hey, Matt, how are you doing?

Doing OK. Listen, I have a question. I guess my question is, I have a complaint, and I wanted to know if you think my complaint is warranted. Maybe you could just comment on it. Now, you earlier did talk about the problems that we're having right now and did offer solutions, such as revival and Christ and everything like that. Now, I think that is a little broad, but I agree with you. I listen to a lot of conservative talk radio, and I love it, and I hear a lot of complaining and really not a lot of solutions. I almost can picture the Democratic Party assigning liberals to listen to all the stations and get back to them and let them know what's going on, and the liberals would get back to them and say, hey, we hear a lot of complaining about how bad we are, but nobody's really coming up with any solution as to how to fight back. Do you get that feeling?

Yes. What I'm actually working on is elected officials and federal and state contact information. I've got an article on that.

You can go to CARM and look up elected officials. Just find it. And I've been doing research.

I'm going to continue to do it. There's ways to contact Biden, locate your senators, locate your US representatives, find your state governor, state legislation. I've got links for it. How to contact your elected officials links, and I've also got stuff I've done in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, and Arkansas, where I'm finding out particular information and links that are there. You can just click on them. It opens up. For example, Alabama, email the governor.

You click on the link, it opens up. So what I'm trying to do is provide a means by which people can quickly and easily voice their opinions. And personally, I'm a little bit more aggressive. I believe in doing things like mailing a slug, a piece of metal, or a nut and a bolt to elected representatives by the millions. I believe in doing that kind of a thing, with a note that says whatever. And that represents what we're doing.

A small stone in small packages that get sent in, different kinds of objects that weigh an ounce or two ounces, and you get mailed. Because all they've got to do is, OK, yeah, they email us, we just dismiss them. I believe in that. I also believe in this.

I don't have the ability to arrange it, but I like the idea of somebody with a lot of influence who has the means getting an organization together where people who are conservative can stand up for their rights, and they do it by standing out in front of the capitals of their respective states. So we have 26 letters, A through Z. We have people whose last names start with A, start with B, and the first day of, say, September 1st, whatever it would be, all the people with the letter A start with, they go out with signs, and they stand out in front of the capital. The next day, it's the letter B.

The next day, letter C. And they do this kind of a thing. And people sign up, and they do this, and $5 a month is put in, and it's for lawsuits and defense of lawsuits and things like that. And the signs point to websites. We want our rights back. Don't do this.

Give us our religious freedom back. And if this happened all over the country in every capital, people are starting to do this. This is the kind of stuff I'm proposing to do. Takes a lot of groundwork and a lot of preparation. We need lawyers involved and the whole deck. I believe if we're organized, we can do things, and we can change this country. And we also need to stop being Christians who just sit on their hands and wait for the blond-haired, blue-white Caucasian surfer Jesus to come back and rescue them and get them out in the preacher of rapture so that everything's fine. I don't believe in that. We need to be like Christ.

And as Luke 9 23 says, pick up your cross daily and follow after him. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

Hey, buddy, welcome back to the show. Let's see, we have four open lines. Why don't you give me a call? 877-207-2276. Let's get to Boyce.

And we just lost Boyce. But his question was, will the Jews be taken up in the rapture with the Christians? Let me answer that. But first, let me give you the phone number. I ask you guys to give me a call. You have the last segment of the show. 877-207-2276.

Give me a call. Will the Jews be taken up in the rapture? No. Not if they don't believe and trust in Jesus Christ. Just because they're Jews doesn't mean they get a pass. The only way to salvation is through Jesus. Anybody who's Jewish, anybody who's whatever, believes and trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ, when he returns, then they will be saved. They will be raptured. That's how it is.

That's what the Bible teaches. So there you go. Now, about that rapture, I know I step on the toes. I was thinking about this, because we've got no callers waiting, so I'm going to ramble a little bit.

Sometimes I think people would say that I'm my worst enemy. Because if I want a lot of callers coming in, if I want a lot of people following what I say and do, then I need to not say so many controversial things. Well, you know what? Jesus did it. Paul did it. They taught things, and they mentioned things that were hard to hear, hard to understand, that made people unhappy, and I had to take their lead. Jesus went into the temple, and he overturned the temple tables.

He called people whitewashed sepulchers. And he also sat with people and loved them and fellowshiped with them. The whole of who Jesus is is what I try and emulate here in the radio show and other places. There will be times when I'm speaking when I'm going to be very compassionate and very patient and, I hope, very kind, and it's needed. But there are also times when we've got to be strong and say, no, that is wrong. That's blasphemy, et cetera, et cetera. And I know that a lot of people are very comfortable in what they think and how they feel, and that they identify with certain past problems, certain past or present expectations, I could say even, and they identify with things.

And a lot of times, I will step on their toes, and they don't like it, and they don't want to hear. Well, OK. And for example, since it was the last call, the issue of the pre-tribulation rapture. Now, I know that the majority of the Christians in America believe that we're going to be raptured out of here before it gets bad. And that's a great idea. It's a great sentiment. It's wonderful to believe.

But the question is, is it true? And when I talk to people about it, and I say, please show me a pre-tribulation rapture verse, they can't do it when I ask them. Show me where these verses are.

Show me where we get out before all the problems. Show me where it's just show me the scripture. And to be honest, I've not had anybody show me anything that demonstrates that the pre-trib rapture is true. Maybe it is, but I don't see it in scripture. The reason I'm kind of focusing on this and trying to kill two, three, four birds with one stone is that I believe that Christians need to be united. And I think they need to be united in the essentials of the Christian faith. And the essentials are such things as the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, the virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus, justification by faith alone, in Christ alone. These are the basics of the Christian faith. And I call them like a fence around the truth, the home of where we abide in truth. And inside that, we all belong as Christians. But outside that fence are the things that are debatable, like what day do you worship on, what musical instruments are not, charismatic gifts are not.

Those are on the outside. And unfortunately, those things on the outside is where most people focus. And they don't want to unite with someone on the inside of the fence unless they also unite with them on the outside. In other words, I'm trying to say these things that are debatable are where denominations occur. And because of it, we're fragmented.

Our eyes are often on the debatable issues, not on the essential issues. I can work with someone who doesn't believe in amillennialism like I do, doesn't believe in the charismatic gifts like I do. I can work with them. It's not a problem. I'm not challenged.

I'm not offended. We have a common enemy. And that common enemy is the devil. And we need to be united against him and against his workings in this world. And we can't do that if we're not united. And so when I step on people's toes, it's to wake them up. That's what discomfort does.

It wakes people up. Are people so comfortable, or do we get so comfortable in an ideology, in a philosophy, in a particular theological doctrine, that we identify with that and put our hope with that instead of in the person of Jesus Christ to the amount that we do, then we are committing idolatry. If we were to put our hope in a rapture, it'll get us out beforehand. And that's where our hope and faith is. Then that's idolatrous, because it's not in Jesus, but it's in an action. If me, as a Calvinist, were to put my faith in Calvinism as it weighed the truth and the life, well, that would be idolatry, too.

I don't put my faith in that. I put my faith in Jesus Christ. And when I do, I'm free, then, to work with others who don't agree with me in debatable issues, as we can move forward to promote the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's where our eyes should be. And I think we, as Christians, need to be united in our doctrine and our faith in the essentials, so that we all dwell inside that fence of the essentials of the Christian faith, and that we show charity and love and patience with those with whom we disagree in those debatable issues. And Romans 14 says, don't pass judgment on the debatable issues on those people who hold different opinions about you on these debatables. And if we can get this through our head, we can start saying, you know what? What does Jesus want for us to do in this country? And if we're going to have a national influence on the country, we need to be nationally united. This needs to happen inside of Christianity.

And if this were to happen, we can make changes in our country. But if we don't unite and pray repeatedly for the revival of this country and for the strength of the Christians, if we don't do this, the secularists will continue to win, we will continue to lose. Because Jesus even said it, a house divided will not stand. That's how the Christian church is largely today. It's divided even among the orthodox, the true believers, and it's also invaded by the false believers. The Christian church is weak because it's not strong enough to get rid of the people within its own doors that are false converts. But it's also weak in that it does not seek and demand the unity of the faith, which is what the pastors and teachers are supposed to be building the Christian body up for, Ephesians 4, 11 through 12 says. We need to start repenting on our own inside of our Christian house so that we can start moving outward into our society and promoting Jesus Christ and him crucified and the redemptive work that occurs in the soul, because it's the changed heart that guides the hand.

We don't need more laws, we need more Jesus. Let's get to Vicki from Raleigh, North Carolina. Vicki, welcome, you're on the air.

Hey, Matt. First of all, I appreciate that you tell the word the way that it's written, and that doesn't hurt my feelings or make me not want to call you because who wouldn't want to know what the truth is? I mean, seriously, but it reminded me of a question I have for you, and it was about the rapture thing. If God is going to take the bad people first, who's going to be left to do the bad things to us?

Sorry, I love that question. My view is that we go through the tribulation period, and that right at the end when mankind is about to destroy itself, that Jesus will then take the wicked, move them maybe to Armageddon, I don't know. And then the Christians will be raptured, and the destruction will occur at that point of the wicked. OK, so I was always thinking that you thought, I guess maybe because I was thinking, we were thought thinking, you know, because I was raised believing that we would be raptured before the tribulation. But you're saying when the rapture occurs, it's not for tribulation, it's that towards the end, and that's when the bad people will be taken. Yeah, and the reason I say that is because two men will be in the field, one is taken, one is left. The context is the wicked are the ones who are taken.

And that's pretty obvious. And then what gets me is what Jesus says in Matthew 13, 30 through 40, the range of those 30s and 40s in that chapter. He says, you know, the wheat and the tares allow both to grow together till the time of the harvest. I'll say the harvest first gather the tares. And Jesus says the first ones gathered are the wicked.

And I didn't know what to do with that for a long time, because that's what he said. And I don't believe in two raptures. I don't believe in two returns of Christ. I believe in one return, one rapture. And the rapture is at the end of the harvest. The resurrection is at the end of the harvest. And so logically for me, I had to conclude that the first ones taken when Jesus comes back are the wicked, because he says first gather the tares.

And then after that, you gather the wheat. That's what he says. And what gets me is, and this is what worries me, how come no one else is teaching it? And that worries me because, wait a minute, I'm the one teaching this. That's scary.

How come I'm the only one teaching this? So that really bothers me. I know I have this ADD brain, so it's hard for me to focus on things sometimes. But I need to make myself focus and go on your website, because I want to remember what the different verses were.

That whole thing. My brother went to seminary school, but so funny I can't ask you the question. But anyhow, to ask him what he believed, which I have a feeling it's going to be, that he believed like we were always raised to believe, which was that we would be raptured first and everything.

But all my little ducks in a row first. I always ask people, show it to me in scripture. And here's a verse that they'll use. 1 Thessalonians 5, 9, for God has not destined us for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. And they'll say, see, that's pre-tribulation rapture right there, because we're not going to be in the wrath.

And I say, well, what's the verse about? God has not destined us for wrath, but salvation. Salvation means going to heaven, being saved from eternal damnation, right? He's not destined us for wrath, God's judgment, but for salvation. It's not talking about the tribulation.

It's talking about the redemptive work of God, damnation and salvation. So they take verses out of context. That reminds me of watching a woman on TV rip verses out of context, talk about plant your seed, faith. And she actually took a verse so far out of context that the context was actually about the wicked, and she applied it to God.

It was incredible. But people take verses out of context all the time. And when I ask people, show me.

Two men still taken, one's left. Let's look at the context. Is the wicked any right, you know? Well, it's like you said, I mean, the easier thing is to believe the way the Lord is always great. It's not like it's something that you want to believe.

You have to believe it's true, but you're just basing it on the scripture. That's right. Well, we could talk more.

But there's the end of the show. Well, God bless Vicki. Thanks for calling. Thanks a lot, Matt. You have a great evening. OK, you too. May the Lord bless you all, and by his grace, back on your mind tomorrow, we'll talk again. God bless, bye. Another program powered by the Truth Network.