Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the I put in the links in the chat, and so these links are recorded in the video, and so when people go to look later, they can see related links to Karm and stuff like that. So there you go. Hey, we could use your prayers too. And if you wanna give me a call, please call, 877-207-2276. Let's see, Sunday is Father's Day, so I just wanna say Happy Father's Day to everybody out there who's a father. And I wanna say this, that I know that there are fathers out there and moms who don't have any children with them due to miscarriages. And I just wanna say that, biblically speaking, you're a parent. You don't become a parent when a child is born. That doesn't make you a parent. It's when the fertilization occurs, when that person is in that womb, you're a father. You are a mother, and so as Father's Day approaches, that we be thankful to the Lord, all of us who have had children, and for those of you who have had miscarriages and stuff, don't have any children and things like that with you, you'll see, if you're a Christian, you'll see your child again.

And you're a dad, and you're a mom. Just wanna say that and give encouragement to people because being a parent is difficult, and it can be heart-wrenching sometimes, particularly when you lose a child, as my wife and I have. After being born, he perished, and we also have had miscarriages. And so, not to bring this thing up, and people sad, but to point to Jesus, and to celebrate what he provides for us. He is good, and he does allow things to happen to us, but you know what? We have to just kinda move through them the best we can with fellowship, with friendship, with help from others, and I trusted him.

So happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there. All right, now, hey folks, we have a prayer ministry. If you need to be prayed for, or you wanna join in prayer, you can just contact us at prayer at karm.org, prayer at C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. If you wanna watch the show and participate in the chat, what you can do is go to karm.org, and on the, I just scrolled down on the right-hand side, you'll see Matt Slick live, and you can click on that.

And it'll take you to the video. It's right there, and you can watch the show, and we have a nice community of people. I recognize the similar names constantly as I look to the screen and see who's here, and friendships have been made in there, because, well, you know, they're common people who apparently like what I do, and I think there's some who don't like what I do, but for the most part, people are pretty positive in the room, and a nice community of people. I've got the privilege of meeting a few of them, and they're great.

And let's see what else. We stay on the air by your donations. We are helping individuals. We are helping people. Oh, I forgot to mention this yesterday.

That reminds me. If you have been blessed of KARM, or the radio show, or both, or whatever, I would love to hear your testimony. You could write it out if you want. Then email it to us at info at karm.org, because what I'm probably gonna end up doing is maybe mentioning a few of them periodically on the air, and I only do first names of people.

I don't want to expose people's first and last names, safety reasons, security reasons, privacy reasons, unless they specifically want me to. But as we want to do, so if KARM's been a blessing to you, and you've liked the radio show, and you are inclined, you could just email us at info at karm.org. That would be great stuff. We have open lines 877-207-2276. Let's get to Cindy from Virginia. Cindy, welcome. You're on the air. Hi. I have two questions for you. Yes, I do like your show very, very much. Okay, good. Very informative, and I learn a lot. So you mentioned a book on Monday, I think, at the beginning of your show.

I think it was by a Robert Tredinger. Oh, Live Not by Lies, Dreher, D-R-E-H-E-R. Hold on a minute, hold on a minute. Live Not by Lies. Say the name again. By Dreher, D-R-E-H-E-R. Oh, okay.

And I really do recommend that people get it. Yeah, yeah, I trust you. I believe that you know what you're talking about. So I have another question. I happened to walk in, and I caught you talking to somebody about, they must have had a question about pre-trib rapture, and it sounded like you were giving verses against it.

I'm not exactly sure. That's correct. Yeah, I do not affirm pre-trib rapture. I don't believe it's in scripture. I don't call people who believe it heretics, or I don't worry about it. But when the topic is examined, you quickly find that the pre-tribulation verses that people use just fall away.

It's just not there. Could you repeat those verses for me? Well, there aren't any pre-tribulation verses that really are, but people will generally go to things like, as it was in the days of Noah, social would be the days of the coming of the Son of Man, for they were eating, they were drinking, they were giving in marriage to the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and took them all away.

And two men will be in the field, one is taken, one is left, right? And that's a pre-trib rapture verse, right? That's what people say. But it's not. Right, I guess the verse is against it, because you were talking about during the rapture, with the evil people, okay, I'm sorry.

I'll shut up. Yeah, I was gonna explain that the verses that I just quoted are often used for pre-tribulation rapture support, but those verses are not about the good being taken, they're about the wicked being taken. And all you gotta do is read the context. And this is significant, because it's the wicked who are taken, and you can go to Matthew 24, 37, and Luke 17, 26, and start reading in parallel. And then they ask Jesus, where are they taken? And he answers in Luke 17, 37, where the body is there also, where also the vultures will be gathered.

So that's what they're taken to. Now, the rapture does occur, I'll show you, okay. It's 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, 16. And this is what is really interesting, is that when you read this, and you combine it with something else, and I'll do this and I'll show you something else afterwards that means that pre-trib rapture just can't work. So it says here in 1 Thessalonians 4, 16, through chapter five, verse two, and as I begin to read it, I'm thinking, how many people in the deep south are hearing me speak about this and are offended? How could I ever say such a thing? Well, let's let the scriptures speak, because I know that people get ingrained in their traditions and what their churches and people they love and trust have taught, but they haven't really examined them.

That's usually the case. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. That means those who died believing. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

Now as to the times and the epics, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you, for you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. So the day of the Lord that comes like a thief in the night is the rapture, right? Right. Right.

Sounds like it. It sure does. Now if you go to 2 Peter 3, 10, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up. What that does, it shows that the day of the Lord that comes like a thief is the same day of the new heavens and new earth.

It's also the same day of the rapture. Mm-hmm. Makes sense. It does make sense.

Now... Yeah. So we know that Jesus teaches us something in Matthew 13. When you go to the parable of the wheat and the tares, and then Jesus interprets it, you have the wheat and the tares, and so we tear up the tares. He says, no, verse 30 of Matthew 13, 30, allow both to grow together until the harvest and the time of the harvest. I'll say to the reapers, first, gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up, but gather the wheat in my barn. According to Jesus' own words, the first ones gathered are the wicked.

That's what he says. Okay. Matthew 13, 30.

Okay. Then you go down to verse 40, and Jesus is interpreting that parable. Just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The son of man will send forth his angels.

They'll gather out of his kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness. So if the pre-tribulation rapture is true, then it has to be that the wicked are taken first. Right. But that doesn't work at all.

It does not work. Right. You're right. I'm glad that I heard this from you. So I'm not going to really comment on it. I'm one of these people. I need to go in and look at the verses, and I need to think it through and decipher it for myself. Good for you.

Good for everybody else, obviously. But thank you so much. I've been wanting to do this all week, so I appreciate you. You have a great session.

Thanks a lot. We'll appreciate that. God bless, Cindy. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye.

All right. Now, I really like what she said. She's not trusting some guy in the radio named Slick. She's going to go check it out on her own. That's exactly what she's supposed to do. And if she still concludes her position, okay. At least she has whatever her position is.

At least she has studied according to the Word of God, and that's what we want. Praise God. Let's get to Joel from Washington, D.C. Welcome, Joel. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. So I'm going to be hosting an apologetic study, and we're talking about the nature of God. And one of the elements we wanted to go over is the Trinity, and I'll try to keep it simple.

But we are – I've been looking up a whole lot of stuff about dealing with different ways of explaining it, and I can understand that there are attempts being made to explain it. The thing that's frustrating is that usually when we're looking at other religions, we point out, okay, this is a clear contradiction where the prophet Muhammad said this over here, and then he said something opposite over here. Yeah, he's no prophet. He's no prophet. I don't call him prophet Muhammad. He's a false prophet. Okay, I'm sorry.

Yeah, but – yeah, yeah, you're right. But as an example, where we're seeing clear contradictions spoken of by the same person, and when I'm looking at something like the Trinity, I want to be able to distinguish what we know of the Trinity from something that is a clear contradiction. Like, for instance, the describing of a – trying to distinguish a being versus a person when describing the Trinity feels like a stretch. Like, in my gut, feels like a stretch of an argument from an outside perspective. Who are you going to be discussing this with?

It'll be with, I believe, mostly Christians, and then people who are all on the same page about it. Okay. But it's a way of being able to flesh out these ideas. Well, after the break, we'll get into discussing this. It's very important. And also, I'll just volunteer if you would like me to help you out during a discussion. I'd be glad to. If not, that's okay. But hold on.

Okay, we've got a break. And folks, we'll be right back after these messages. We'll talk about the Trinity in Jesus' name. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. Welcome back, everybody. Let's get back on the phone here with Joel.

Are you still there? Yes, sir. All right. So the audience is critical whenever discussing the doctrine of the Trinity. And I could teach on the Trinity for a good hour. But we don't have that much time. So I tell you what, ask me a specific question, and I'll address specifics as best I can, and we'll move through a few things. Okay? Okay. Well, I'm pretty familiar with the concept, and I've seen some of your studies and things. But I want to be able to distinguish the way that things are being described though it feels like it could be seen as a contradiction anyway, and just maybe a way of dancing around that. Okay, two things. But how would I be able to distinguish the Trinity from a... Oh, go ahead.

Okay, two things. First, always define what a contradiction is. This is the study of the second law of logic, the law of non-contradiction, called LNC. A statement cannot be both true and false at the same time, the same sense, the same way. And two, statements that contradict each other cannot be true and both true at the same time and the same way since one excludes the possibility of the other.

That's the critical issue. So if I were to... Like, I have my cell phone in my hand right now, and if I were to say in my left hand, if I were to say it is the case that I'm holding my cell phone in my left hand, it is also the case that I'm not holding my cell phone in my left hand. Both those statements cannot be true at the same time and the same sense because each one makes the other one impossible. All right, this is the concept you've got to get. Second, definitions are critical.

The Trinity is one God in three persons, but person must be defined. Person does not mean a God, and that's where the problem of equivocation comes in. The lack of understanding is on the part of the hearer in that they are equivocating. Now, equivocation means a word changes its meaning during a discussion. So we don't want to have equivocation and a confusion of terms. You must define your terms. You must write these out.

You can go to CARM and copy from that and use it. That's fine. But God is a being, an entity, one thing. What is God comprised of? Three persons as revealed in Scripture. Three persons does not negate God being one, one that way. The word person is from the Latin persona, and it's used in acting when actors would have a mask on a stick, and they would use the persona to do different parts, and the audience would know that they were playing this part and that part.

All right. And so the theologians borrowed it for a specific theological reason, and what I like to say is that the word person in the concept of the Trinity does not mean the exact same thing as you might think it when you're talking to your neighbor. When we see a person next door, we think of another being, but that's not how it's used in theological discussion with the doctrine of the Trinity. And I'll explain what it is here a little bit, but sometimes people will object to that, and I'll say if you want to understand what it is the Trinity is, you must understand what the terms mean according to what it is, not what you think it is, because if you are the one defining it in a way in contradiction to the history and the theology of the Christian church, then you're not discussing the Trinity.

You're discussing something else. So sometimes I'll talk to Muslims, and they'll say, well, the Trinity's three gods, and I say, no, it's not. The Trinity is one god. Tritheism is three gods. We don't believe in tritheism. We believe in one god. And they'll say, no, you don't. I say, yes, I do. I know what I believe, and I know what the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is.

I've been defending it for decades. And I'll say, you guys don't know. You don't know what it is, and your Qur'an gets it wrong and you go into other stuff. So the one person in a theological discussion demonstrates self-awareness, awareness of others, can speak, can say you and your and me and mine and has a will. We see these exemplified in the Scriptures. If you've been to Qarm, you know the Trinity table, the Trinity chart.

Yes, sir. And so that's very useful. And we can see that the doctrine of the Trinity, this is another point, the doctrine of the Trinity is not arrived at by one verse. And one verse does not refute the doctrine of the Trinity. So when it says there's only one god, that does not mean that God is not a Trinity because if they say, you see, the Bible says one god, but you believe in the Trinity. Well, that means you don't understand that the Trinity is monotheistic.

And I say, you keep getting it wrong. I tell people, you get it wrong because you're not paying attention to what the doctrine actually is. One god and three simultaneous and distinct persons. That's what the Trinity is, and it's arrived at systematically. It's not arrived at by looking at one verse. It's not arrived at by looking at two verses, but from Genesis to Revelation. And as you can see in the Trinity chart, and it's very important.

It's a very important point. As you can see in the Trinity chart that I wrote years ago, that it's arrived at by looking at the whole of Scripture and seeing, for example, that the Father, Son, Holy Spirit are each called God. That the Father, Son, Holy Spirit we each have fellowship with. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit each are powerful.

And we see these attributes that are attributed to each of them, but yet they speak to each other. And so, therefore, we say theologically there's three persons. This is why one verse can't refute the Trinity because if they say, well, the Bible says one god, well, that's what we agree at.

We agree. And furthermore, if the Trinity is false, and this is an important point, if the Trinity is false, then the system used approaching the Scriptures is faulty. And what I'll do with people is I'll say, so is the Trinity false? And they'll say, yes, it's false. And I say, how's the Trinity arrived at? And this is what they always say, oh, by being illogical. I say, no, it's not correct.

How is it? Look, we have a system. We go to the Scriptures and we look at the Scriptures and we conclude the Trinity.

Tell me what that is. And they never know. They never know. They never get it right.

They never say, since the doctrine of the Trinity has arrived at systematically, and since you're not aware of how it's arrived at in that system, therefore, you cannot say that system is false, therefore, you cannot say the Trinity is false. Okay? So maybe a comparison to that is investigating a murder and multiple witnesses all mentioned a large flying blue cow at the seat of the crime. Don't say that. Because they are all bringing it up? Don't say that. Okay, no, I get it. No, no, no.

Don't say why. Because you immediately introduce something ridiculous that they're going to attack. You say, at a murder scene, everyone saw a black car drive away. Then there'd be no objection about that possibility. So keep going. Yes. But then, well, then maybe this actually needs investigated, even though it seems like a stretch or it seems like a thing that I don't understand.

Because there are multiple sources that are mentioning it, and all are seemingly consistent within that. Let me give you something that'll help you, okay? I use this all the time when I teach what the Trinity is and I have to teach what a contradiction is, because they think there's a contradiction.

This is the thing. They can't even define what a contradiction is, and they can't define what the Trinity is, so they don't know. But nevertheless, I'll clear my throat. So in the issue of a contradiction, I'll say, you and I are standing kitty-corner at an intersection, and there's a break coming up. So when we get back to the break, I'll continue with this illustration to demonstrate what a contradiction is and is not, so that you can teach that, and it's very useful.

I use it all the time, and it works, okay? So, hey, folks, 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. All right. Welcome back, everybody.

Joel, you still there? Yes, sir. I appreciate the time you're taking. Sure. This is important, and it is.

It's important, so no problem. All right, so here's an illustration I use about contradiction. So you and I are at an intersection on foot on opposite sides, you know, kitty-corner, you know, and we're waving to each other and yelling, you know, hey, I'll be over there when the light changes, you know, and in front of both of us, we see a black car and a white car collide, not too bad, you know, no ambulance needed.

They collide in the intersection. The police come and are taking reports from you and from me, and you say I saw three people get out of the white car, and I say I saw two people get out of the white car. Is that a contradiction? And the answer is no, because I did not say there were only two people in the white car. If there's only two people, it cannot be the case that there's three. But if I say I saw two get out, that's all I saw, it doesn't mean there wasn't more.

I just only saw those two. If you saw three and I only saw two from different perspectives, that's not a contradiction. So I teach this to people and say just because they have different perspectives doesn't mean it's a contradiction. A contradiction occurs when I say, no, there were not three people in that white car, there was only two, and you say, yeah, I saw three people in the white car. Now we have a contradiction, and both of us cannot be right in that sense. It's possible both of us are wrong because maybe there was four.

If you said only three and I said only two and it was really four. But this is an example of what a contradiction is. People can see it in their minds and they can understand the logic. So the point is that when one statement makes another one impossible, that's when you have a contradiction, when both are said to be true. So the doctrine of the Trinity is one God in three persons. When you define the Trinity and you define what persons is, there is no contradiction. So as long as those points were not excluded, then it's not a contradiction? Right.

Now one more thing real quickly. If God is a single person and we understand what personhood is, according to the Bible, since we're made in his image, it means we have the communicable attributes of God, which means God thinks we think, God loves we love. So he has personhood and we have personhood, but if God is one person eternally, then he cannot manifest the fullness of what personhood is in the sense of fellowship, awareness of others, intimacy, love, et cetera. And so the idea of God being one person has its natural problems. If God is two persons, then they could have fellowship and love between one another, but the aspect of the fellowship between them would be an abstraction that is nonpersonal in the essence, in the idea that love itself and appreciation itself, these are abstractions. You can't take appreciation and put it in a jar. It's an abstraction.

It's mental. But if God was two persons, and then there's this doctrine called the perichoresis, where the persons of God inter-dwell each other. And so that would mean the two inter-dwell, but the essence between them in fellowship would be impersonal because it would be an abstraction, and that's problematic. If God is three persons, then each of the two can have fellowship that is mediated by the third. And then we would not have abstraction being a fundamental aspect of a personal being.

Okay? Okay, mediated love by the third. Okay, then the actual embodiment of love, if God is love, God equals love, that would require an object to love? How is love possible if there's no one to love since Jesus says the greatest act of love is to give your life for another? And God shall love the world he gave. The nature of love is other-centered. How could God manifest love if he loved 1 John 4.8 and there's no one to love, no one to have fellowship with?

Furthermore, he would be alone forever. That's torture. So there's problems. I've been having difficulty with that one, but I appreciate you flushing that out. I've done a great deal of studying the Trinity. You also need to study what's called the economic Trinity and the ontological Trinity. And you need to discuss the aseity of God. Okay, his eternal non-contingency. Aseity? Aseity, A-S-E-I-T-Y. That he is eternally self-sufficient and non-contingent. And so therefore, the ramifications of that true doctrine is that he is the ultimate standard of all that is good and right and the ultimate standard of truth. And what unbelievers do is they negate God's aseity because they negate God, therefore they have no ultimate.

And so their morality and standard of truth is always subjective and provisional, which means you can never know that what you believe in that sense is even true. Sounds stressful. You can tell I do a lot of discussion on this kind of stuff, all right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, this is great. All right, well, hey, thank you so much.

You're welcome so much. If you need help, okay, buddy? Okay, God bless. Yes, sir. All right.

Okay. Well, that's Joel from Washington, D.C. And let's get to the next longest waiting is Jim from North Carolina. Jim, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt, how are you doing? Doing all right. Hang in there. What do you got, buddy?

Yes, sir. Well, okay, my wife and I are on a road trip coming back from seeing the grandbabies. We got a new one. Oh, congratulations.

And we're in the car about an hour and a half. Yeah, it's amazing. We're definitely a blessed family. And we listened to your podcast. My wife hasn't listened to your podcast before, and she's starting to become a fan.

Oh. She's a smart woman. And she had bad-tasting men, just like your wife does.

Well, it's a common fault among women, you know. I mean, women look good, so I can see why we marry them. But what do we look like? We look like a bag of logs, you know, and then they have to marry us.

You're complimenting me more than I think you are. So she asked the question, and I looked at her and went, huh? Okay, so if with the rapture of the tribulation and the tares are taken first, she looked at me and asked the question, well, if the tares are taken first, then who's going to be here to do what occurs in the tribulation? That's assuming that the rapture occurs before the tribulation. We go through the tribulation. And so the tribulation period, Satan's alive and well doing his stuff. The unbelievers, the zombocrats and everything else who are left as progressive wackos are doing their left as progressive wacko stuff, confiscating weapons, causing worship to be given only to the antichrist, eventually, eventually all this stuff. And so that means we go through the tribulation period, and then at the end of the tribulation period, and I'm going to do a study on this next week, believe it or not, in my Bible study on Thursday nights.

People ask me, I'm going to go through this in detail, step by step. Anyway, at the end of the tribulation period, I believe is when the new heavens and new earth are made, the rapture occurs, the wicked are judged, everything. We go through it. I thought before, when you were in the podcast and your show, you mentioned, though, I thought that the tears, like in the field, the tears are taken first.

Yes, they are. So I thought then that the Christians then are left, and then they're going to go through the tribulation. Nope. No, that's why she looked at me and said, well, the tears are taken first, and who's going to be here to do what occurs during the tribulation? Yeah, that's assuming pre-tribulation rapture. No, we go through the tribulation, the rapture happens at the end of the tribulation. All right, so the tears are taken at the end of the tribulation.

Yes. And then we are cut up to meet the Lord. Because that's what Jesus says in Matthew 13, 30, first gather the tears. And then he interprets it and says it happens at the end of the ages, and that the reapers are angels as they gather people together. And if you go to Matthew 24, Luke 17, two men in the field, one is taken, that is the wicked who are taken, it's not the good. And this is clear. I mean, that when I will, that's a hill I will die on. That is the wicked who are taken first.

Because what Jesus says... Yeah. Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, I think we were just misunderstanding the sequencing then, it sounds like. That's okay. That's okay.

Which is good too. And last night, by the way, you keep your pay, I was watching your video show last night, and you... You keep your patience. With the post-show? Oh yeah, afterwards, yeah, with Patrick. Yes, Patrick.

I don't know the people... Yeah, he's a false convert. Uh-huh. Yeah, he is.

But anyway, I get a kick out of watching that, so that's fine. Okay. What's your wife's first name? I'll say Heideberg over the air. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg. Heideberg.

Heideberg. Who's the guy from the movie, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Who's the guy from the movie? Who's the guy from the movie? I don't know. Who's the guy from the movie?

I don't know. Well, actually, I called her out to the car and called her to the car, and her name's Carmen. Carmen?

She must be electrifying. Yeah. Hey, Carmen!

I'm waving. Hey. All right. Well, good. You had good questions. Yeah, good questions.

I looked at her and I was like, well, I don't know, I might have to call this guy name I've been thinking about this for a long time. You too. God bless. God bless. Hey, perfect timing.

Look at that. We've got a break. Hey, folks. We have some open lines if you want to give me a call.

877-207-2276. We'll be right back after these messages. We're going to talk about the difference between God and the universe.

That's going to be interesting. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody.

Looking back to the show, I'd love it if Jamie Russell would give me a call and say what he said in the chat room. All right, let's get to David from Charlotte, North Carolina. David, welcome.

You are on the air. Hello, Mr. Slick. How are you? I'm okay. I'm hanging in there, man.

What do you got? Hello. Welcome to a friend at work. I was just kind of sharing my beliefs, and he was explaining that he believes in the universe, as in the fact of the universe knows what you need, and the universe applies with whatever. He said he tried Christianity, but it didn't work for him.

I'm going to talk to him tomorrow a little bit more, and I was just kind of seeing what exactly can I say. First of all, when he says, it didn't work for me, that's what people say. It didn't work for me.

Okay, then what didn't work? What were you looking for that it did not meet your needs? They might say something like, well, I wanted these girls.

I wanted that car. You find that they have ungodly desires and needs, and they say, you didn't go to God for what God wants you to go to him for. You went to God to get what you wanted, and no wonder. This is why you're still confused.

This is the kind of a thing you've got to get into. I don't say that bluntly, but that's the short version of it. If he believes in the universe, that means he has a proclamation of assurance about something, what he believes in. What you do is you ask him, why does he believe that? Why does he believe the universe can hear him? And then there are questions that go along. Is the universe absolute? Is truth absolute in this universe?

Is there morality that's absolute in this universe? How do you get, we get more sophisticated things, how do you get the universal laws of logic from your universe, since it's material? You could go the other direction and say, well, if the universe is material and atoms are just there with supernovas and quasars, white dwarfs, you know, dark matter, dark energy, all this stuff, well, then how does consciousness come into existence?

Can you explain that? You could ask all kinds of questions. He won't have any answers because there aren't any. The universe came into existence. That's a fact, and there's ways to demonstrate that logically and evidentially, but the universe came into existence, does that mean that there's something greater than the universe? Because whatever brought the universe into existence is the cause, and then there's an effect. And the cause is usually greater than the effect. So if the universe is, has been caused to come into existence, then what caused the universe to come into existence?

Then that which caused the universe to come into existence is greater than the universe. Why would you settle for, you know, second rate? See? All kinds of things you can say.

Okay. So is there, would you recommend like any scripture or anything I could bring up? Because he was telling me that his dad is a pastor, and he just kind of doesn't have anything to do with Christianity anymore. With the dad? The dad doesn't have anything to do with Christianity?

Is that correct? The dad does not have anything to do with Christianity anymore? No, no, no, no, no, sorry, no, his dad is a pastor, but the guy, he has nothing to do with Christianity anymore.

Okay. I don't know if something happened to him, but he just said that he didn't have nothing to do with Christianity. Well, I would suggest he called me up on the show, and we could talk, and I could answer his objections and demonstrate that his worldview is faulty. So here's a principle. Every worldview, except Christianity, has internal contradictions and problems and cannot be justified. Period.

I don't care what it is. Only the Christian worldview makes sense of everything. If you can learn that principle and learn how to tackle certain issues, and what you do is you have a discussion with somebody, and you find out what their worldview is, this is why I will have a very confident discussion with anybody.

If they're not a Christian, I'm going to look and listen to what they say until I find their internal contradictions. Not only will there be internal contradictions, there will be a lack of ability for the foundation, to found something, to ground something. For example, the laws of logic. The laws of logic are universally true abstractions. The law of identity, law of non-contradiction, law of excluded middle, law of proper inference, these are things that occur in the mind. You don't find them in a rock, et cetera. If they're abstractions, they require a mind, because abstractions require a mind. That's where they come from.

Mind. Well, then I ask atheists, for example, people who believe in the universe as materialistic, and I'll say, well, how then can you demonstrate from your worldview and account for the laws of logic being universally true? How can you do that? If you hear people discuss that, like myself and others, you'll find that the other view, they can't do it, and they really fumble when they try and get to that. That's one approach. Here's another approach.

Ask them this. Is the universe all there is? If he says yes, then you got him, because if the universe is all there is, then that would mean the universe operates under the laws of physics, and chemistry, and motion, and matter, right? You'll say, well, yeah. Okay. Then does your brain, your physical brain, operate under the laws of physics, and chemistry, et cetera? Yes. So then isn't your brain required to operate, not logically, but according to chemical reactions in your brain, right?

He's going to have to say yes. Well, if one chemical reaction leads to another chemical reaction in the brain, how do you know what is produced is true? You cannot. It's just chemical reactions reacting and combining. How do you know it produces truth? This is a huge weakness in what's called materialism, that the material world is all there is. It leads to self-refutation, because materialism means you can't know materialism is true, because it's just chemical reactions in your brain that say materialism is true. So I had a debate with...

I've done this many times with atheists, Matt De La Hante in Dallas a while back. We had a discussion, and I ended up saying, well, your brain made you say that, because he's a materialist, and this is a problem. So if your friend is going to believe that the universe is all there is, then it's operating under the laws of chemistry, laws of physics, motion, matter.

So is the physical brain. It cannot exceed that, therefore it's self-refuting. Now if he says what's called substance dualism, which means the soul or the mind is separate from the body, just ask him, well, how do you know that?

So when people make assertions, you ask for validation to their assertions, and you'll find that they can't do it inside of their worldviews, because the worldviews are not based in the true living Trinitarian being. And then I haven't even told you about the problem of the one and the many issues. And that's a whole other issue that they can't deal with.

If the universe has one substance, how do you have particulars, particular individuals, particular truths? And it gets more complicated, but okay, there's all kinds of stuff to talk about. All right. I don't know if that helps or not. Okay.

Oh yeah, it does. I appreciate your input. I'll talk to him and whatnot and see what happens.

I'll probably give you a call and just kind of get some more advice. Okay. Sounds good, buddy. All right.

God bless. Right on, brother. Take care. Okay.

All right. Let's get to Jamie from Seattle. Jamie, welcome.

You are on the air. Hey. Hey. How are you doing?

Doing all right. So what do you got, big guy? Well, about the coming of Christ, you said, do you believe that he's killed when Jesus returns or no? That what's killed? That the anti-Christ is destroyed when the Christ returns? I don't know.

I haven't studied it exactly. But the anti-Christ will, with the false prophet, some say he is the same, the beast, will go into hell and they'll be consciously tormented forever with the devil. Right. Although I forget what verse it is and I should have been more prepared, I guess, with verses.

But I know there's one that says he's destroyed. Sorry. What was that? Go ahead. Oh, okay. He says, at his appearing, that he'll destroy the man of sin with the breath of his mouth and the brightness of his coming.

Does that sound familiar? Yeah. And I've done a study on that and had to find the exact word. And then what I would do, I know you're a Unif, excuse me, a Annihilationist, then go to Carm and look up the particular Greek word to see how it's used in the scriptures. And to see that as what the Annihilationists generally do not do is their homework. And they don't look to see the semantic domain of how a particular word is used.

And then in the context of something, when it says he'll destroy you in hell, they say, see, it means you don't exist. You don't know if that's what it means. Destruction can be... Right. I agree. Existence.

Apology. Yeah, it can be quality and other things. And so they read into the text what is not necessary. So when Satan or the Antichrist is destroyed, well, what does it mean?

You have to ask the question. Does it mean it doesn't exist? Well, if that's the case, then how do you know? Since it says in Revelation 20.10 that the Antichrist, the false prophet, etc., will be... Here it is right here. There it is. It says the devil... Is apollumi the word? It might be. In Revelation 20.10, it says they'll be tormented day and night forever and ever.

So to be tormented, you have to be alive. Okay. Yeah, we've been looking at this in our little group. Yeah. Well, look at this too. In John... Excuse me.

Jude 7. It's a present participle that's being used here. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. So exhibited is in the present tense. Undergoing is a participle.

So when you have a present participle, which is what it is, it takes its tense, because you have an aorist form too, it takes its tense from the preceding verb. And so exhibited is in the present, which means they are presently undergoing punishment of eternal fire. Yeah, but can't that be in the context of the event being spoken of? I mean, it's not definitive, it seems to me, but I hear what you're saying. I can see it both ways.

They are exhibited. Well, okay. They are presently exhibited as an example in undergoing, that's a participle, presently going through it, the punishment of eternal fire. And don't be swayed by somebody who then goes to Josephus and quotes a similar grammatical construction to contradict the word of God. Well, what would you say if someone asked, well, the fire that destroyed the cities isn't still going, what would you say? Would you point to that being talking about the people? I mean, I've heard people say that, I've heard them just talking about the people of the city, not the city of themselves, although we know they were destroyed as well, both. I've written on this, okay, we only got a minute left, and it's a mistake that the annihilationists make because the eternal fire, like Gehenna outside the garbage dump, it was constantly burning, constantly burning, it just didn't go out. And so they'll say, see, it's eternal fire.

This is what we're using to illustrate, and then that's what's meant. And then someone comes along later and goes, well, it did burn out, so therefore it's not what they meant. And what they're doing is mixing the understanding that, of course the people knew the fire wasn't going to burn forever and ever and ever. Of course they knew that out of the city, they knew that. But they still called it an eternal fire because of what it represented, and that's how it's used in scripture. Then the lame annihilationists come along later and say, oh, no, it really did go out. And so that's how could we know that it wasn't eternal, but that are missing the point entirely.

Of course the people understood it. Well, I always understood it to be the eternal fire was because it's of God, like our God is an eternal fire. No, no, no, no. It's kind of how we thought of it. No, it's eternal fire in hell, not of God's presence. Right.

I didn't choose to believe if I was growing up with it. We're out of time. All right, thanks. Okay, call back next week. All right.

Hey, folks, we're out of time. May the Lord bless you. Have a great weekend. And by His grace, we're back on there tomorrow, I think tomorrow, Monday, and we'll talk to you then. Have a great weekend. God bless everybody. Thank you. Bye. Another program powered by the Truth Network.