Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. 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. Hey, everybody. Welcome. Hope you all had a great weekend. I had an interesting weekend just doing stuff, writing articles, relaxing a little bit, you know, that kind of thing. Hope you had a great weekend and a service, you know, a resurrection service. I went to a different church last night to check out a service months ago.

Months ago. Before we get into that, I just want to tell you we have five open lines. If you want to give me a call, please do. 877-207-2276.

Give me a call. And anyway, so months ago, I'm up here in Idaho, and there are men and knights up here. And the women wear long dresses, and they have that little kind of a cap in the back of their head and stuff like that.

The men wear beards. And so I talked to a woman with her children there. She's very polite.

This is months ago. And long story short, went over to their house, like about a month later or so, to discuss theology, just to see where they were at. They were really nice people, and a bunch of them there, and had a good time. And they don't like Reformed theology.

But they're Trinitarian and believe in justification by faith alone and all that good stuff. Well, I got an invite a couple months later, you know, three months later, I guess. You know, I got an invite to go to their Sunday Easter resurrection service. So I went there last night with a friend of mine, Joe, and so they were a lot of bearded guys and some not bearded guys, and a lot of long-dressed women and not long-dressed women, all kind of mixed and interspersed and the whole bit. And they sang a capella. They had children get up, children as teenagers and young ones get up, and sing a capella. I'm not an a capella fan.

I'm sorry, it's just not for me. But I got to tell you, wow, it was really nice. I was really surprised at how nice it was.

Their harmonies, their music, the tunes, I never even heard them before. And they were beautiful. I really enjoyed it. It was really great. So anyway, that was my experience last night, and I had a good time up here in Idaho. I got to see that and say hi to the people that I met before, and they were very nice. So there you go.

That's what I did. Anyway, why don't you give me a call? Five open lines, 877-207-2276.

Want to hear from you? And let's see, we're going to Israel, just letting you guys know. It's actually filling up. We got 20, 25 people already signed up, and excuse me, I'm clearing my throat there. And that's next year in March, right around March 11th or so. We're going to be going out to Israel.

If you aren't interested in checking it out, just go to karmisrael.com, and you can check it out. Looks like we're going to be having our missionary from Colombia. He's going to be going, so praise God. And my wife's going. One of my daughters is going, so we'll see, you know, we'll just see as things go. And then those of you who know me and have listened to me for a while, if you go and you meet my wife, then you can commiserate with her and say, what's it like being married to that guy? And she'll just stare at you. Probably take her a couple of days to come up with an answer, but it'll be worth it. So anyway, all right, four open lines, give me a call, 877-207-2276. My wife sent me something.

I'm going to read this. Senator Raphael Warnock, who is a minister, a reverend, he faced criticism over a tweet that he posted on Sunday, Easter Sunday, saying the meaning of the holiday is more transcendent than the actual resurrection of Jesus. And apparently this guy is in the Senate or something like that. He became a senator or a congressman, I forgot which.

So the tweet was deleted, but it was picked up by a website and the Daily Wire. The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the senior pastor of New Ebenezer Baptist Church's account said, whether you are a Christian or not, the commitment to helping others, we are able to save ourselves. Maybe he wasn't a senator, I don't know, but my wife read that to me and I just said, send it to me, I want to talk about it on the phone. That guy's a heretic and I wouldn't even say that he's a brother in Christ. I would say that he's a non-Christian. And the reason is because to say that the meaning of the holiday is more transcendent than the actual resurrection is basically stupidification. It is really lame, obviously he doesn't know what he's talking about, supposed to be a minister of the gospel, he's not even a minister of the Christian gospel. And to say that through a commitment, let me read this again, the meaning of the Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ, whether you are a Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others, we are able to save ourselves. That is flaming heresy, that is heresy, capital H-E-R-E-S-Y, that is damnable doctrine to say that unbelievers can save themselves through commitment to helping others is just blasphemy. This guy does not know what he's talking about.

He could not argue his way out of a wet paper bag if it was facing downhill and there was a neon light pointing to him, pointing the way out. So anyway, bad news for him, we have heretics all over the place. And people, they'll see me or hear me talk about this kind of a thing sometimes. And I'll say, hey, he's a heretic, he's not a Christian.

They might get upset, who are you to judge? Well, the Bible says, Jesus says, unless you believe that I am, you'll die in your sins. John 8 24, hey, it's not me saying it, it's Jesus saying it.

And Paul clearly teaches that justification or salvation is through faith alone and Christ alone. And you can go to Romans 3 20, 3 28, Romans 4, 1 through 7, Galatians 2 16, 2 21, Galatians 3, 1 through 5. You can go through and read these things, the Bible clearly teaches this stuff. And Jesus warned us in the last days when he false Christ and false prophets would arise and deceive many and that guy is a deceiver. He doesn't know he's a deceiver but he definitely is a false prophet.

And now, how do I know that? Because I know what the Bible says. You see, if you know what the Bible says, if you study the Bible, you study the trinity, the hypostatic union, justification, imputation, satisfaction, the judicial, forensic, substitutionary atonement. You study these things, you'll recognize that God gave us the word of God for a reason and since we're justified by faith, not by doing good works and helping neighbors but by faith alone and Christ alone, that's what the Bible says. That if you're to deviate from that, you can't have salvation and you'd be lost. So the spirit of the antichrist is alive and well and that, my friends and neighbors here listening, that is antichrist theology that this guy was saying. Seriously, antichrist theology.

He just doesn't know enough to know enough. All right, four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Chris from Ohio, welcome. You're on the air. What's going on, brother? Hey, not much, man. What are you doing, buddy? I got a quick question for you.

I'm doing good. So I was on a Dr. Brown live maybe a week ago and I talked to him about how, you know what Jesus Christ says, that no man knows the day or the hour, only the Father. And I heard you one time say that, you know, that basically that he was burnt to tradition, how the Father would know this and you know what I'm talking about. I told Dr. Brown that and I said, what do you think about this? And he just emphatically said that it's a made-up lie. He did his research. He spoke with rabbis and that they told him that was a lie and it was just like a big old internet lie.

So I want to get your input on that. What do you think about that? Well, it's not what I'd heard. And if he talked to a rabbi who said it was a lie, then that would make sense.

A rabbi would deny that because rabbis don't want to admit that Jesus knew what he was talking about, was prophesying his own return. So, you know, I remember reading about it just so long ago. I've read so much over the years that I can't even tell you where I got stuff.

But I read it in a book on ancient cultural norms and things like that. And I've talked to other Jews, completed Jews who are now Christians. One guy, I remember in particular, I was in Texas near Bordertown. I was out there speaking years ago. And we met at a hotel afterwards. We were talking and I brought this up to some of the people that were sitting there because they came in and they said, hey, this is talking theology.

Matt, you teach us. I said, okay. And so they were all around talking. And this guy was a Jew who became a Christian. And he was very dedicated to the Lord and very dedicated to studying Old Testament theology and covenants and weaving them into the New Testament and had a lot of good information.

I mentioned this issue of the wedding supper and no man knowing the hour. And he said, nobody knows about that. He said, how did you know about that? I said, I read it someplace. And he said he was impressed that a Gentile would know that. And he had done his research too.

So I could talk to Michael Brown and see what he says. But maybe I'll do some more research on it. Because that's what I'd heard that the, I've heard it read it in more than one place. So, you know? Okay. Okay. It's always possible that I'm wrong.

But that's what I'd known for years and read it. So, you know. Right. And can I ask one more thing?

Sure. This is more on a personal level. I just want to know how do you, you seem like a person that really don't care about what people think too much as far as like negativity and you're going to be confident in yourself and in the Lord. So how did you go about not caring about what people thought about you? Like you're going to go to this place, you don't care what they think about you.

You're going to be confident in your own skin. How did you go about getting that word? Well, I was raised that way. See, my last name is Slick. And my dad was in the service and my dad stuttered.

He stuttered badly. And my mom's IQ was genius. And we moved 26 times before I was 12 years old. I went to 12 different elementary schools. Now, when I was 12 years old, I weighed 66 pounds.

And when I was 17 years old, or not 19 years old, excuse me, I weighed 117 pounds when I was six feet tall. So I was extremely skinny. And I went to so many different schools. Now, because of this, I was traumatized. And I didn't stop having nightmares of being murdered until I was 35.

So the thing is, I had to learn how to survive emotionally and mentally. And what I did was I realized that people, a lot of them are just jerks. And why should I care about what morons, wackos, and losers, who are thieves, who are bullies, who are all these things, why should I care what they think? Who cares? So if I care about them or don't care about them, it doesn't change me any, it doesn't change them any. So if they call me names, OK, whatever, let's go do something else. So what? What does it matter? So when someone, I'm a public figure, and someone will email me, you're the biggest idiot I've ever heard of, et cetera, et cetera, I just chuckle.

I say, really, the biggest? Wow, that's pretty impressive. Then I'll write them back, and I'll say, can you give me some examples, because I would like to know in what areas I am better at being an idiot than anybody else.

That would be awesome to know. And I do, I write back. And then they'll write back off, and they'd insult me. And I say, but that wasn't a good answer. I want to know it. And so I just enjoy it. So what's the big deal? Someone calls me a name, yeah, so now what do you want me to do? They can say anything they want. You know, you're a coward, you're a liar, you're a thief. Certain things I'll say, no, it's not true. I've been accused of various sins.

No, no, it's not true. Don't say that. I've never done that, never will do that, et cetera. But other than that, what's the big deal? Seriously, who cares what people think?

That's why the social media stuff, I do not understand why someone will type something into Facebook or Twitter, whatever it is, and they get a negative response, and they're days ruined. So, does it change anything? Well, you don't like me, so who cares?

Who cares? So what if they don't like you? Does that mean you're not a person?

Does it mean you're not worth anything? Of course not. Okay.

What's the matter? Thank you. All right, man. Everybody, God bless.

All right. That was Chris from Ohio, we have four open lines, three open lines now if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276, give me a call, we'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276, here's Matt Slick. Everybody, welcome back to the show. Let's get on the phones with Rick from Iowa.

Rick, welcome, you're on the air. All right, thank you. I just wanted to find out if you are aware of Rhema Bible College in Oklahoma and what your opinion of them was. Yeah, I would never go there.

It's associated with Kenneth Hagin and a positive confession, a name it and claim it, blab it and grab it, that God always wants you healthy, always wants you wealthy, doesn't want you to be anything but prosperous, send your money in, your seed faith and you'll get $10, you get $100 kind of a thing and it's not to be, I would recommend people stay away from it with my opinion. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. All right, man. Okay.

God bless. All right, three open lines, if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276, Tyler from New York. Tyler, welcome. You're on the air. What do you got, buddy? Good evening, brother. How are you? Doing all right. Hanging in there. What do you got, man?

Good. I just have a quick question about the federal vision. It's been coming up a lot in reform circles lately. I know only vaguely about it. Some people have been mentioning some guy named Peter Lightheart who wrote a book called The Baptized Body and this goes way back to around 2007, like I know the PCA had something going on where he eventually lost his credentials and his license to preach in the denomination because of his preaching of it and I know guys like Doug Wilson and stuff have picked up on it. I've heard, you know, it's like heretical and bringing us back to Roman Catholicism so, I mean, I've heard some parts of it and I don't really buy it but maybe you could give me more of an educated idea of what it's about because I'm not really too sure much about it. Well, basically what it comes down to is understanding that reform theology, which is very good, also teaches covenant theology and covenant theology is a teaching that a covenant, well, God works theologically. He works covenantally. That's a theological perspective called covenantalism. So God makes a covenant and in Hebrews 1320, it's the blood of the eternal covenant where the intertrinitarian communion, the father gave to the son, the elect, and the son was to become man and then redeem them and the Holy Spirit would apply the redemptive work to the elect and so this is the covenant. Well, also there's aspects of covenants and different covenants.

The word for Latin for covenant is testamentum, so Old Testament, New Testament. So in the third millennium BC, there was what's called the suzerain vassal treaty pattern and I'm narrowing this down to give the background or to answer you why this is my federal vision here with the covenant aspect is a problem. So in the covenant aspect of the suzerain vassal treaty pattern and the Ten Commandments fit it. It's the big king and the little king.

So suzerain is a big king, a vassal is the lesser king in a geographical area. They would make a covenant and the big king would say, this is who I am, this is what I've done. Ten Commandments, I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. You shall have no other God before me, honor your mother and father for he who does will prosper and who doesn't will be judged, etc. So the pattern of the covenant is that there is an opening, this is who I am, what I've done here.

The manipulations or the boundaries of the covenant. You do this and I do that. If you don't do this, here's a consequence.

If I don't do that, here's a consequence. And here's our obligations. So these obligations and consequences are the covenant boundaries. Federal vision is getting into the aspect of covenant boundaries and saying that you got to remain in the covenant of the redemptive work of God, the covenant, by maintaining the covenant boundaries. As long as you maintain and keep those covenant boundaries, then you're inside the covenant, you're saved. And of course, that's the Roman Catholicism, which says that there's certain things you got to do to keep yourself right with God. And so now the federal vision issue, from what I understand, is saying the similar things that you got to keep the covenant boundaries in order to be inside that faithfulness of God. And as long as you do that, you're okay.

Okay? So it's kind of like a confusion of justification and sanctification almost? Yes.

It's kind of like that. Sanctification is just simply as being more like Jesus. But the covenant aspect is, you know, Jesus has, for example, make a new covenant with you. And it was prophesied in Jeremiah 31, 31, and Jesus is the one who initiates the new covenant with his own death, Hebrews 9, 15 through 16.

So with that, we have certain covenant obligations. Now within covenant theology, we can then justify infant baptism, because covenant includes members of the household and members of the family. So for example, in Acts 16, 14 through 16, God opened up Lydia's heart or mind to understand the things that Paul was saying, and then it says her whole household then got baptized. And so why would the whole household get baptized if she was the one who believed? The idea here is the covenant aspect inside of covenant Israel.

They understood this. And you can go into Acts 16, 31, when the jailer, he became a Christian and his whole household was baptized also. This is best understood in the light of covenant theology. Now some people say, well, the whole household got baptized because they believed.

Well, it doesn't say that, except that one of them says their whole household, you and your whole household, if you believe, will, and then they all got baptized. It's better understood in the idea of covenant theology, because the Old Testament covenant system was extremely detailed with different kinds of covenants, and that's just how it was in the Old Testament. And so Jesus didn't do away with covenant, he continued it. In fact, in Genesis 12, 3, God says to Abraham, in you all the nations shall be blessed. And the sign of that covenant was circumcision, and that's in Genesis 17.

So that phrase, in you all the nations shall be blessed, in Genesis 12, 3, is quoted by Paul in Galatians 3, 8, and he calls it the gospel. So the covenant faithfulness of God to the Abrahamic covenant is that in the covenant he had with Abraham, all the nations will be blessed, it's still a valid covenant. Well, the Abrahamic covenant had children in it. And so the covenantalists will say, well, then we can continue with the same covenant.

So you see, I can go into other areas. It gets deep. There's the covenant of works, covenant of grace. There's the Abrahamic covenant, Noahic covenant, Davidic covenant.

And so it's really, it's deep. All right, now, having said all that, when people start saying that you have to keep covenant boundaries in order to stay saved, that's salvation by works, okay? And that makes a mistake. That's like the same mistake the Pharisees made, like where Paul says, like they sought it by works and not by faith and stumbled over Christ. That's right. Wow, that makes sense. So being a Jew always was spiritual, never physical.

Wow. No, no, there is a physical aspect of Judaism because they were the ones who were circumcised who are the actual blood descendants. And God is not done with national Israel per Romans 11, 24 to 26. So there's a spiritual Israel. That's true Israel, but covenantal Israel. This is what's interesting is that a covenant, for example, a man in the Old Testament would become a Jew and his whole household would get circumcised, period. Slaves get circumcised. The children get circumcised. Why? Because they were under the headship of that father, it's called federal headship, federal vision. You see the relationship.

So I talked to Doug Wilson's son about this once and I said, dude, that's heresy. And we didn't have enough time to finish the conversation, but there you go. We got time to take the break. So you want to stay on or is that good? Oh, that's good, brother.

Thanks for your help. Have a great night. Thank you.

God bless. That was Tyler in New York. Folks, give me a call at 877-207-2276. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show.

We have four wide open lines. Why don't you give me a call? 877-207-2276. I want to hear from you.

Give me a call. Jay from Boise, not too far away. How are you doing, Jay? Are you there? Okay. Jay. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. Now I hear you. What do you got, buddy? I'm doing pretty well. Thank you. I hope you're doing well as well.

Hang in there. I actually had a couple of things. My full name, at least people know me by, is CJ Cox, and I run a small YouTube channel here called The Synagogue. I only point that out simply to say that I wanted to actually, I didn't know how else to get in contact with you, and I wanted to have a discussion or a debate with you on annihilationism. Are you an annihilationist?

You are an annihilationist? Yes, sir. Okay. Yes, sir. And I figured that if that was something that you would be interested in, you would probably want to know a little bit about me rather than just jumping in, and you think, so that's the only reason I say anything about that.

So what's a particular issue? What kind of annihilationist? Are you a physicalist annihilationist?

What are you? As soon as you die, are you... A physicalist, the spirit is a product of the physical brain. When the physical bearing body dies, the person ceases to have existence but is resurrected unto judgment and then annihilation. The one believes that as people die, they are unconscious in soul sleep, and then they continue till the resurrection and annihilation. And some say that they are conscious after death, and then in judgment they are annihilated. So which one are you? Just curious.

It would be closer to the third one, I believe basically that the Bible, when it's talking about throwing a shaft into the oven and stuff like that, or into the furnace rather, and all the fiery image that we have with hell, I do think that is literal and that there is conscious torment. I just don't think it's eternal. I think it does what fires do and eventually destroys.

Okay. So then they're destroyed after they pay their debt? Basically, yeah. And I think that also, to kind of give you some insight as to some of the stuff I believe, I think that's part of the explanation as to like, for example, why someone would, you know. So would a murderer, you know, a serial killer or murderer receive a lot more punishment time than say just a little old lady who just didn't believe and she made cookies for people but, you know, they both die, so one suffers longer and then before they're annihilated, is that it? So I do tend to believe that. I don't necessarily, I wouldn't teach that in any sort of a dogmatic way, simply because I don't, like God's justice is obviously more advanced than mine and I don't know. So then that's your position. But I lean towards that.

It's just not something that I'm quite as strong on as the other things. And that's your position. Well, the problem is then that the reason one suffers more is because they've broken more of the law. So what they're doing is they've punished according to the law. So after they've finished the requirements of the law, why are they annihilated? Why aren't they saved? Because they've done what the law requires. Because the wages of sin is death and the ultimate wage of any sin, I think, is death.

You didn't ask my question. If they have paid the price of that sin through their suffering, when the suffering's done, they paid that price according to the law, why aren't they then saved instead of annihilated? Well, because if the wages of sin is ultimately death, and we ought to keep in mind the context of that verse, right? He's saying that the gift of Jesus Christ is eternal life, right? That seems to indicate to me, at least fairly strongly, that the ultimate penalty for sin is ultimate death or an annihilation.

But we do not suffer that, rather, we get eternal life, which would be the exact inverse of an annihilation. You're not answering my question. This is what I would do to you in a debate.

I'd ask the same question over and over again. You're not answering it. The reason you can't answer it is because your theology's insufficient and it's incorrect. If you're going to say that people suffered varying degrees because of the intensity of their sin, then that means it's according to the severity of the law that's given to them.

And there are different degrees of punishment. So then what you're saying is that after they've suffered according to the law, they fulfill the requirements of the law, then why aren't they saved after they've met the requirements that God has for them, according to the law? Why aren't they saved then? Well, because that is the requirement, though, because the scripture is clear that the requirement is ultimately death, right? Yeah, but you don't get it.

You don't get it. Death, what kind of death? Romans 6 23, the way it is said is death. So I think it would be the kind of death that is in direct contrast with eternal life, right, as the verse would seemingly indicate. Yeah, eternal death, right. And death is spoken of in the scriptures as conscious, many times, in many ways.

Why would you pick non-existence as what it means? Since we know that there are people who are alive after death, you can go to 1 Samuel 28 for that, 2 Corinthians 12 2, I know a man in the body or out of the body do not know such a man was caught up at the third heaven and he heard things and saw things. So he's conscious after death. In fact, they were going to kill Jesus, right? And yet we know that even after his death, he was still human, right? You would agree with that, right? Right.

Okay. So then the death, the physical death, means they continued on after their physical death. So how do you know the wages of sin is in death? That death is physical. How do you know it also isn't just eternal separation from God and not just what you claim to be annihilation? You have to demonstrate that Romans 6 23 means non-existent death. You're begging the question. Well, I think so.

I would point to a little bit of, again, the fact that I think that it's in direct, like that in direct contrast with eternal, literal eternal life would be the opposite of eternal life, of course, temporal and the opposite of life, death. You're making noise? There's noise in the background? Sorry.

That's a little wind outside. Oh, okay. Yeah, but you see, so what?

You can contrast that. The thing is is I would want to- See, eternal life is with God. Eternal death would be eternal life without God. Eternal like this is without him. Eternal life is unending life with God. I could just say the same thing.

See, your problem. Right, but I don't think that it just, the reason that I think that that doesn't work is because right now, as a believer, I believe that I have life with God, or to put it another way, and I think you'd agree with this, I believe that I am regenerate, right, and that the people who are around me who do not, at least at this current point in time, because who knows, of course, ultimately God knows, that very often are not regenerate, or spiritually speaking, you could say that they are dead, but they're physically alive, like they're literally alive speaking to them, right? So in the self-same way, if I'm expecting literal life, I would expect that the opposite, the inverse of that, is literal death, because I already have spiritual life, you know what I mean?

I have spiritual life here, in the now. So you're saying then that immortality is given only to those who believe in Christ, right? Yes, I would be conditional in mortality, I would believe in that, yes. And what the angels, what happens to the angels? Do they have immortality? It's never said that the angels have immortality. Do they have immortality?

I guess I wouldn't be able to give a definitive scriptural answer, but I would assume yes. So they have immortality. They could also be killed, though. So they have immortality, and yet it's not said they do. And then there's the eternal fire for the angels, right?

Right, and that's why I was saying, I know that they can certainly be destroyed, I think, because of the... Really? Like a fire, right? Obviously we need... Well, then he says to those on his left, depart from me, of course it runs into the eternal fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels. Eternal fire, that's gonna, does it end if it's eternal? The fire itself, no, but the book of Jude also says that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with eternal fire, but Sodom and Gomorrah aren't still burning, at least in the physical. So Matthew 25, 41, there's one verse at a time, because I'm teaching through Jude presently, believe it or not, occurs to the ones into the eternal fire. So does that fire end, that the devil and his angels have been prepared for? No, I believe that that fire, and the way that I would describe that is... So then the angels are gonna be eternally, those bad angels, the devil, will be eternally punished consciously, right, without end? Well, I do believe, and I will definitely grant that there is one place that I believe explicitly teaches eternal conscious torment, and it is for the false prophet and the beast.

It says that they are tormented day and night, forever and ever. So they're people, those are people. False prophet, the beast, are people. So now you believe... But they're also specific people, right?

Yes, they are, and they are people. And so you're saying that they are gonna have eternal existence, but then you pick and choose which ones... See, I'm just giving you a warning. If you want to debate me, this is how it would be. Because you're already not answering all the questions I'm asking you. You sure you want to do this? Well, I certainly would, and to be honest with you, I feel that, at least with this last one, I feel that there's definitely something that could go back and forth.

But honestly, with a lot of these, I think that I've been given pretty solid answers. It does seem to me like, again, with the regeneration part, we can say that to be dead is to be separated from Christ, and I absolutely believe that. But again, I have that life right now. You have that life right now. As Christians, we all have that life right now.

But we're expecting a literal, physical, eternal life in the afterlife. Before the break, I want to correct you on Jude. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them said, stay in the same way as these. In the same way, in reality, when after strange flesh are exhibited, is in the present tense as an example of undergoing the punishment, which is a present participle. You have a present participle that's preceded by a present tense.

That means that the participle tense takes on that present tense, which means they're presently undergoing the punishment of eternal fire, presently, not the cities, but the people in. Okay? Hold on.

We've got a break. All right. Hey, folks. We'll be right back after these messages. Give me a call, 877-207-2276.

We'll be right back. Give me a call. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right. Welcome back, everybody. If you want to give me a call, we have four open lines. Give me a call, 877-207-2276-J from Boise, Idaho. You actually are in Boise? How's it going?

How's it going? You're in Boise? Where in Boise are you? Roughly. Well, technically, I'm in Eagle, but I just usually say Boise because that's what people typically know. Okay.

I go to church periodically, the Calvert Chapel in Eagle, just off of state, north of state. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I go out to Eagle State and Chinden. I go out there.

Not Chinden, but State and Eagle, and I go out of state and Eagle. Yeah. There's ponds there.

I go fishing there. I'm going to start up pretty soon here. Anyway. So, yeah. Okay. So, back to this. Have you read my material on Annihilationism on Carm?

I wouldn't say that I've read all of it, but I have certainly read some of it. Okay. All right. See, the view you hold does not invalidate your Christianity. You believe that when Christ died, that his human nature continued. Now, let me ask you, do you affirm soul sleep of Christ at that point? I don't really...

I guess the answer, honestly, would probably be no. I haven't necessarily... It's a back and forth thing that I've had, that I've been leaning more towards now, and the more that I listen to Seventh Day Adventist, the more that I feel like it's not the correct theology.

Well, let me help you out. Let me go to the full heretical view, all right? Chris Dait holds to physicalism, which means that when the human body dies, the human soul ceases to exist. Now, that's heretical, because it would mean that the hypostatic union is destroyed.

That would mean that the two natures of Christ ceases to exist as a union, and therefore the person of Christ is destroyed, and that's absolute heresy. That's what I understand he teaches, okay, in physicalism. You making noise back there?

Just a little bit more wind, I apologize. Okay. So another view is called soul sleep, that when the human being dies, their soul goes to sleep. Well, that's problematic as well, because if the soul goes to sleep, there's no activity of the human nature. Well, Jesus is the high priest after the order of Melchizedek, and he has to be a man in order to be a high priest, and I can give you the scriptures for that, but nevertheless, if there was no activity of the human nature, though in one sense the hypostatic union is not invalidated, in another sense it is, because there's no activity and involvement of the human nature in the person, therefore there is no high priest, no high priest functioning for those days, that's heretical. Your position is that he was conscious and continued on, and that you only hold to the final judgment being annihilation, so that wouldn't be heretical. I just think you're an error, but it wouldn't be heretical in that sense. Well, and that was actually the question that I aimed to ask today, other than of course the debate thing, was I did want to know if you felt that my view was heretical or not. I know that there's differentiation between people, and I wasn't quite sure on your particular view. I personally don't see it as a salvific issue.

Of course, I do see actually, though, how it can be a salvific issue, and one of the things that I even think that it's not necessarily a fleshed-out theology, but I find it to be not necessarily salvific but problematic, is the idea that people are like Jehovah's Witnesses, you're just annihilated entirely, because there's no real punishment for the sin, in my opinion. Well, you have logical problems. I would suggest you go see my articles and read.

If you still want to debate me, just email me at info.com.org, and we'll see if we can set something up. Right. Maybe. Okay? Sorry. All right? Yeah, absolutely. Okay.

I teach a Bible lesson on Thursday nights here in Nampa. If you want to come, you can come too, so it's fine. All right.

I am actually off on Thursday nights, so that would be perfect. I'll email you, but that's karmet.mat.org. Mat.com.org. Right. Okay.

Mat.com.org. Yeah. I'll absolutely get on that, and I appreciate you talking to me. All right, man. Talk to you later, buddy. Okay. All right. It was Jay from Boise, and it's Boycie, not Boy-Z.

I found that out when I was here. Let's get to Dan from Minnesota. Dan, welcome. You're on the air. Hey there, Matt. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. Hangin' in there, buddy. Where you going, man? It's been a long time.

I called into your show about 10 years ago, even more, probably. Wow. I'm a guy who is kind of in an interesting marriage. My wife is Roman Catholic, and I'm not, so we've been trying to work things out for a long time.

It's been interesting. Yeah. Try this.

That's the issue that I was calling about, though. Try this, though, with her wife. Ask her if she believes Jesus is God in flesh, and she'll say yes. Ask her if it's okay to pray to Him.

She should say yes. If you pray to Jesus and ask Him to forgive you of all of your sins, will He forgive you of all of your sins? Ask her that, and see what she says, because you'll put a seed of truth in her mind, because Jesus says, come to me, Matthew 11.27-28, come to me and I'll give you rest, Matthew 11.28. Well, if they can pray to Jesus, and they can pray to Him and ask Him to forgive them, will He? And Jesus says, ask me anything in my name and I will do it, John 14.14. So will He forgive them? Of course.

Of course. And the underlying thing is, if she does that, she doesn't need a priest anymore, right? Yeah, it's interesting, you know, the whole issue of imputed versus infused righteousness, she just won't accept that, you know, she listened to Catholic apologetics and they call it a legal fiction, you know, and it's so sad because they don't understand that we can never be righteous on our own, right? You know, we have to have His righteousness applied to us. That's right.

She doesn't get it. That's right. Yeah, the foolishness of their gospel that damns millions to hell. Yeah.

It's an anti-Christ gospel. Yeah. But I'm just trying to be a good husband and, you know, we don't talk about it as much anymore just because it never gets anywhere, you know, it's probably not up to me to change her. Do you pray with her? Not really, because... Okay.

So the answer is not really. You need to be praying with her on a regular basis, and what you can do is just say, hon, I want to pray with you once a night, once every night, whatever it is, before you go to bed, and you pray to Jesus. You're the federal head, you're the leader of the family, and you pray, and you pray to Christ.

You just have this relationship with Jesus. Yeah, but he wants to pray to dead people and Mary especially. You're the head of the family, and you go to Ephesians 5, 22, 24, read through that. The head of the wife is the husband.

You're the head. You say, I want to pray, and I want to pray to Jesus. We both agree we can pray to Jesus, so we'll do what you both agree on, and we'll pray to Jesus. Yeah.

Okay? And in that, when she gets used to praying to Jesus, if she does want to pray to Jesus, that's a sign she's not regenerate, okay? And you can pray to Jesus, and in that, you can, you know, Lord Jesus, thank you for giving me my sins, et cetera.

She'll hear these seeds of truth, and hopefully she'll, you know, the truth of God's word will come through. Anyway, you had a question, though, I kind of jumped in and derailed you a little bit, so what was your question? No, that's good.

No, I could talk about that all day, because I've been studying Roman Catholicism for years, and you've helped me a lot through the years, you know, figure things out. I also listen to James White a lot, too. He's awesome. Yeah, he is.

He's great. But anyways, what I was talking about was my daughter, who's married, she's, you know, she's, you know, a rock-solid Christian, she's, you know, regenerate, and she's, all my kids are, fortunately, I'm very fortunate that we used to do BSF for about a decade, I was a leader in that, and I took the kids, and they all met Christ, so it was good, but right now she's married to a guy who's a Christian guy, he's a strong guy, he's, you know, they study the word, but they've been going to a church lately that's LGBT-inclusive, and my daughter's best friend is bisexual, and so they're very, they're very sensitive to this whole issue, and so I was just kind of wondering what, you know, how to talk to them in the best way, to not to... How about this? Would she be willing to talk to me over the phone? I'm very gentle when I talk to people on the radio, I'm a little bit different, but I could be very, very gentle, and we just ask questions, if she's willing to, I'd be glad to, we have a speakerphone thing, you know, listen in, and I can answer those questions and talk to her, and explain what's going on, or she can call on the radio and I can do that, but I mean, I'm willing to, okay, but what you need to do is be very, very loving and patient and kind, and ask her to search the scriptures about this issue, just ask her, can you search the word of God for what God has to say about this, I'd like to know, maybe we could, you could tell me, tell me what you find, as simple as that, because you want her to be changed by the word of God. Well, she's, you know, she's been listening to this teacher that is telling her that the word homosexual wasn't in the Bible until 1935, and that it's taken out of context, meaning that it was men sleeping with boys, you know, with all their consent.

Right, it's our sine coitus, and it's men betters, is what it means, in 1 Corinthians 6, 10, and the reason the word wasn't there in the Bible is because it hadn't been invented in English yet to describe it, but the proof of what homosexuality is, is found in 1 Corinthians, I mean, Romans 1, 26 through 32, men, you know, man lying with a man, yep, and in Hebrews, I mean, Leviticus 19 talks about it as well, so it's in the Old and the New Testament, and so the idea of this is, it's very critical, I can answer those objections, and the way God designed things was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, so that's how it's supposed to be, and this is what the Bible says in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, 5-7 talks about the elder to be husband of one wife, and this is how the model is of God, and our sine coitus means man better, men who go to bed with men, and so the leftists who don't know their theology will say it meant with children, no, coitus, we know what that means in English, men betters, that's what it's talking about, going to bed men, okay, or sine coitus, all right? Very good. Thank you, and I will talk to you about that, and contact you again then, if you're willing to do that.

I can be very nice, and I am, people are actually surprised when they meet me, they go, man you're a lot nicer than I thought you were, well I'm trying to be nice on the radio too, but when I'm with someone I can see their body language, and it's a different thing for me, so I see them, but on the phones too, I'm not going to win them over by throwing rocks at them, you know, you catch more bees with honey than a hammer. Yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah. Okay. I'm glad to hear that you're still doing this, and I've been away for a while, I've just been doing a lot of other things, but my faith has been strong all this time, and I'm always trying to learn more and more, if this came up to me, I thought I'd give you a call. Well thank you, and I'm glad I'm still here to be able to do this, this is only by God's grace, and this station, this network, really has been very gracious to me, to allow me to continue on, so that, you know, give them praise and support them too, folks, support them. All right, here we've got to go. God bless you, Matt. God bless you. All right. Hey everybody, we're out of time, may the Lord bless you, by his grace, once again, we'll be on tomorrow, Lord willing, and we'll talk again. May the Lord bless you, have a great evening, God bless, bye. Your program, powered by the Truth Network.