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Matt Slick Live

Matt Slick Live! / Matt Slick
The Truth Network Radio
June 29, 2021 1:32 am

Matt Slick Live

Matt Slick Live! / Matt Slick

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June 29, 2021 1:32 am

Open calls, questions, and discussion with Matt Slick LIVE in the studio. Questions include---1- Matt discusses the issue of suicide from a Christian perspective.--2- How was God justified in telling the Israelites to kill everyone in the conquest, including babies---3- I was divorced and I want to re-marry- she was divorced previously as well.--4- Do babies who die during or shortly after birth go to heaven---5- How is infant baptism correct if only regenerate people are in the new covenant-

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The following program is recorded content created and you want to pray about, or you need some prayer, or you want to join in a prayer group, then all you've got to do is email us, and that's at prayer at karm.org, sorry I'm doing two things at once. Prayer at karm.org, if you want to watch me, which isn't any big deal, you can see me where I'm sitting in my office, and with the headset on, and you can just do that by going to karm.org, and you can watch, it's not that big a deal, but a lot of people do, and we have a nice community too of people who are coming in and chatting and things like that, so if that sounds like something you want to get involved with, well then just go check out the website, karm.org, in the front page, about middle-ish, to the right you'll see a link, or a big thing, you know, Matt's Library, you can click on that, and you can watch, you know, not a big deal.

All right, so, let's see, how do we talk about this, politely and easily? It's an issue of suicide, so I have a good friend, Nathan, and a guy he's grown up with, committed suicide a few days ago, and so Nathan, I'll just use that name, Nathan and his wife went out to where it was, and a lot of gathering, and there was a memorial service on Saturday, and so I went to support my friend, and I had met this guy who committed suicide before, and spent some time with him, we did various things together, and you know, it was a tough time, a few years ago, my wife's niece committed suicide, and you know, when we talk about this, a lot of people don't know, well what happens if you commit suicide, do you go to heaven or hell, if you're a Christian? Well this touches on a lot of topics, because if you're a Christian, can you lose your salvation?

Well my position is that you cannot lose your salvation, Jesus paid for our sin debt on the cross, Colossians 2.14, he didn't cancel it conditionally, it depends on how good we are, or if we believe or not, the sin debt's cancelled when Jesus died on the cross, and this necessitates certain theological conclusions out of it, because Jesus cancelled all of our sin debt, I believe the sin debt of the elect, and of those who are given to him, and so if someone is a true Christian, and they end up committing suicide, I do not believe they go to hell, I don't believe it's a mortal sin, as Roman Catholicism would assert, I believe that people who do that are not in their right frame of mind. There are, there are always circumstances about this kind of a thing, because we know that there are demonic forces, we know that they can oppress, they can't possess Christians, but they can oppress Christians, we know that people can become clinically depressed, we know that there can be biological imbalances in the body, and hormones in the brain, God is the one who sorts this out, but what do you do about other things related to this kind of issue? I used to know a guy in San Diego, and he said that cancer saved his life, what do you mean cancer saved your life? And he told me that he had kidney cancer, and they took one kidney out, and half of another one, and he was able to make it, and while he was in the hospital, they ran some tests and they found something else out, and this other thing would have killed him pretty quickly, and they did not, they would not have found it, because it's non-symptomatic, but they would not have found it if he hadn't been in the hospital, and so it, you know, he says cancer saved his life. What was interesting is I talked to some friends who knew him before his surgery, and this thing that would have killed him was in the brain, there was something going on in the brain, I don't remember what the details were, they had to do some brain surgery on him, and they did, saved his life, and then afterwards, they said, his friends said that he was slightly different in his personality, and he ended up giving up Christianity, and he became a Jew, and he gave up Christianity, interesting.

There are people who have had brain injuries, and their personalities change, and what do you do about that? Well, I was driving up and back with my friend Cameron to the place, and we had a discussion about this, and the conclusion is, well, God can sort it out. God knows all things, he knows the condition, because what do you do if someone says they believe in God, maybe they were a real Christian, had a brain injury, and then deny Jesus, or don't even remember anything about it afterwards, and dies, what do you do then? Well, the Bible doesn't talk about such things, and I know that God is sovereign, God is the king, God knows all things, whatever happens is right, and so if they are ultimately saved, had been saved, then I believe they'll stay in that state of salvation, because they can have injuries, they can have things.

Now that's what I believe. It would be interesting to have some theological discussions like that with some philosophically minded very astute Christian theologians, because there are certain issues we have to deal with in that. The reason I'm talking about this is I know that there's a lot of people out there who have loved ones who have died, and some have committed suicide, and you wonder, are they with the Lord or not with the Lord? They made a profession of faith, but then the fruit wasn't there, let's just say. Well, individual cases need to be weighed on individual circumstances, so we can't say if all people were or were not saved, but we can say this, that if they were saved, Christ will never leave us or forsake us, and he's faithful even when we're not. Now I'm not saying it's okay to say you're a Christian and then abandon the faith and do all kinds of evil things and you're still a Christian, I'm not saying that. As I said, things need to be dealt with on an individual basis, but my hope is in Christ, and this person who committed suicide, call him Jay, that's not his real name, but we'll call him Jay, had made a profession of faith and had had deep interest in the Word of God and the things of God and the person of Christ, and lived with a bunch of unbelievers who worked on him to abandon his faith. He never denied Christ, but it was in that place that he killed himself, and all I can say is God knows and will trust God, and for those of you who are out there, God is faithful. God is so wondrous and his love is so good that I believe that all who have truly trusted in Christ, though they slide, they backslide, though they can venture into things that are not very holy, God often loves them so completely and totally that he will just never forsake them.

Sometimes he lets them die for reasons that we just don't know, but my hope is in Christ. I hope yours is too. So anyway, I just thought I'd talk about that because it's life. All right, folks, we have several open lines, if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to John from Georgia. Hey, John.

Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, how you doing today, Matt? Doing all right. So what do you got, buddy? Good.

Yes, sir. I just wanted to ask you, I'm not a believer, but I'm not here to fuss with you. I believe it's 1 Samuel 15 and 3, you probably know better than me, where God's telling the Israelites when they're going to take over land to kill everybody, including the babies. My question to you is, I understand that that's a different time and they're going through stuff, but is it ever justified to kill babies? How do you justify that? Well let me ask you, are you an atheist? I wouldn't say atheist. I grew up in church, I struggle, I just have a question, you know.

I'm just in the middle. The reason I ask is because sometimes atheists will bring this up, and one of the things that's necessary in the discussion is to say, well, why is it wrong for God to order the killing of babies? And atheists will say, well, this is wrong, and I'll say, well, why?

And the point I'm trying to get to is that if it's wrong, there has to be a standard by which someone could say it's wrong. Now you're not doing that, but you're asking, well, why would he have the order to kill infants as well, babies? Well, there could be several possible reasons. One here, we'll just talk about this, the Amalekites were very evil people, and they were infecting, hold on, they were infecting the Israelite people with their false gods, false practices, and God guards the people of Israel in different ways to make sure that the Messiah, Jesus, will come. And so what he would often do is clear a path out so that the people who were then a problem and the people who would become a problem would not be problems. So when God says to the Israelites, go kill all of them, well, one thing he's doing, is removing a present problem and preventing a future problem. Because if the future problem persists and the Israelites succumb to the paganism and et cetera, then the risk of the Messiah not being born and everybody goes to hell. So why babies though? Well babies, if they grow up, there were several possibilities here, if they grow up and know their heritage, might be raised in order to fight against the Israelites later on. And then the Messiah's line would be threatened again. And then to wipe them out again, and if they didn't kill the babies then, it would be a cycle that would continue.

This way, it stopped. Furthermore, there's another possibility that babies who die in infancy, it seems to be the case in scripture, that they are with the Lord, they go to be with the Lord. And this gets a little more complicated about predestination and election, I won't get into, but the thing is that if they were to grow up and become Amalekites and they're followed to paganism, they go to hell. And so it could be a very good case that God is destroying all of them so that the youth, the babies, go to heaven with him. And the threat to the Israelites is removed, and the future threat is removed.

So God could do it this way. Hey, there's a break. You want to hold on, John? I'll wait for your response after the break, okay, buddy? Hold on. Hey, folks, we have three open lines, give me a call, 877-207-2276. Give me a call.

It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276, here's Matt Slick. Welcome back, everybody. Let's get back on here with John from Georgia. We lost John.

All right. Another point I was going to bring up in regard to this is something called federal headship, and that's where the male represents the sentence. And I won't get into it too much, but just as it is the case per Romans 5, 19, that the many were made sinners through the sin of Adam, where he represented, this is a proof of federal headship. It could be that the judgment upon all the people of the Amalekites was due in part to the issue of federal headship and representation of the leaders. But that's another topic that's more complicated, but one more thing to mention is that the Kenites were not destroyed along with the Amalekites in that verse.

So there was a special reason, apparently, with the Amalekites that God knew and ordained would be taken care of. All right. So if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276, let's get on the phone with David from North Carolina. David, welcome, man. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. Thanks for taking my call. Sure, buddy. I just wanted to, well, I got a couple of different questions, man, I've been wanting to ask you for quite some time, long-time listener. Sure. So I'm getting, well, I am getting remarried, and I just got a couple questions for you about that. It'll be my second marriage, and it'll be my wife's second marriage, and I just want to know your thoughts on getting remarried. Okay. I just want to make sure that my marriage is biblical, and it is just in front of the eyes of God, I guess that's my first question to hear. Let's deal with that, then. Is your fiancée, is she a Christian?

Yes, sir, absolutely. What was the grounds of your divorce? What was the reason, just in one sentence?

My first marriage, I was in a marriage, I had two stepchildren in it, one was awesome, one very troublesome, but that had nothing to, well, it did, it had a lot to do with the divorce. Let me ask you, was it due to adultery at all? Yes, there was. On whose part? On my part. Were you a Christian at the time? Matt, I mean, you know, that's a very, I'll tell you that I was not an all-in Christian, so I mean, I guess maybe I just answered my own. I got baptized in 2018 and kind of rededicated my life to Christ, so I mean, you know.

Did the adultery occur after this baptism? No, sir, no, before. How long before, just curious, roughly, how many years before?

It was about three to four years before. Okay, now let's go talk about your fiancée. What was the grounds of the reason for her divorce? To sum it up in a nutshell, very, very, very bad situation, a lot of misery there. Was it adultery? I think that there was some emotional adultery on her part. Okay, so she was involved with another guy? Yes, there was communication there with another guy. But nothing physical? That's to my knowledge.

Right, nothing physical? No, sir, not to my knowledge. All right, and how long has she been a Christian? She's been a Christian all of her life, like me, I guess, I don't know if you want to say, we were both obviously in backslidden conditions and we were both very miserable in our situations and made mistakes. Let me ask you, are you going to church? Oh, yes, sir, we are heavily involved. Are you both going to the same church? Yes, sir, we are, and she has been, we've been dating for 15 months and she's been to church with me every week and we are one of the big grounds.

Okay, this is what I want you to do. I want you to go to the elders and lay all of this before the elders because I'm sure that the elders, someone in their church will be performing the wedding ceremony. If I was to perform your wedding ceremony, I don't know if I would do it.

The reason is because I'd have to have more details and I don't want you to give all these details over the air. I do, however, like to err on the side of grace rather than legalism. If you were a Christian walking with the Lord and you committed adultery, this would be something that would have to be severely dealt with before you ever got married again because there could be the case that you are not eligible for marriage because you have done this.

But then again, it's not that easy to say it's absolute. You see, the thing is you're backslidden, you're walking, and then now you're walking and you're repentant. Well, then if Christ forgives us of all of our sins and you are aware of it, then this is why the elders need to be involved and they need to weigh it.

Then you need to subject yourself to the elders in that church because they'll spend a lot more time with you over the radio than I would hear or could hear. There are people who would say you cannot get remarried and your wife, your fiancé could not get remarried. There are people who say absolutely not. With adultery, you're a Christian, so you're ineligible. There would be some who would say you are eligible to be remarried because everything is under the blood of Christ, you're repentant, you've confessed it, the Lord's forgiven you, and as long as you're not messing up now and fornicating now and everything else, I'm hoping that's the case, that you're being pure that way, right?

No, absolutely. There's been a transformation in my life, man. I just feel like that's what grace and mercy is all about. So what I want you to do is contact the elders and tell them everything, and you and she probably will have to meet together with them and whoever is going to perform the marriage ceremony to make sure that everything has been dealt with, everything has been confessed laid before the cross of Christ, and then I tend to lean, like I said, tend to lean towards the side of grace and say, once that's all taken care of, the elders say it's okay, then get married. Right, so my pastor is fully aware. We've been counseling for the last three years, he's seen the transformation in my life. What's your pastor say? Well, he's wanting to marry us. So then what I would do, if I were you, is this. I would get on your knees and you make sure that God is preparing your heart to be a good husband.

Not that she has to be a good wife, because you want that, of course, but that you're a man who will, no matter what, be faithful and stay with her to thicken thin before Jesus. Then you enter into that, and that's how it is. We've got a break. Matt, I've got one more question.

Yes, sir. Hold on, we'll cut off the break, okay? Hey folks, sorry about that bad timing, but that's the way it is sometimes. Hey, we'll be right back after these messages, we have a few open lines, I just want to give you a call, 877-207-2276, we'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276, here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back everybody, let's get back on the phone with David from North Carolina.

Dave, welcome, you're on here. Hey, thanks, Matt, and I guess my second question tonight is, so I've heard you speak about intrusive thoughts, I believe is the proper term. The what?

Within our mind, and I just seem to be struggling with that. I'm sorry, with what? Intrusive thoughts. Oh, okay.

All right. Have you had trouble with that? Yeah, I am, I mean, I'm someone I have a, you know, I kind of struggle with anxiety and kind of some OCD in my past, and I was just like, you know, I've been done pretty wrong in my job, I've been in my job 23 years, and this past March I was, let's just say, feeling pretty wrong within the office there, and so I've handled it a lot differently than I would have three or four years ago, but I've just found myself a late kind of battling thoughts that I know should not be there in my mind, and I really don't like it, it just really bothered me.

So what do you do? You know, I've prayed about it, I've asked the Holy Spirit to guide me to what I should do, and I've asked God to just remove them from my mind, and sometimes it's almost a daily battle, it seems, but I know I've heard you speak about that in the past, I just wonder what your thoughts on it is, and anything I could do to just get them out of my mind. Well, I don't know about getting them out of your mind, but I know what you're supposed to do. Okay.

Because we are depraved, we are fallen, and because we're fallen, we're going to be having struggles, and you might be driving along, and all of a sudden this thought comes in your mind, like, what the heck, where did that come from? That can happen. Right. You can be at work, you can be triggered, you can start thinking things, let your mind go with it, you're like, no, I shouldn't be thinking that. I understand. What I recommend is that you memorize Philippians 4, 8, finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. And it literally is ponder, let your mind be on them. And so if you have scripture in your mind, the Holy Spirit can bring it up, and that's not going to say, that's not to say that you don't have a struggle and bad things can come in your mind, but if this is here, it can help you focus on the things that are good, true and pure. And so I'd recommend that you memorize that, Philippians 4, 8, and when something comes up and you mess up, because, hey, you're a human, I'm a human, when you mess up, you reference that in your mind and say, Lord, what can I think of instead? How can I, you know, I'll pray for them, you know, let my heart have love for them, you know, in things like that, these thoughts, you know, rebuke them or whatever it is. And this is a battle that we're going to have to go under, or undergo, I should say, for the rest of our lives, because it's just how we are. And Paul struggled and he depended on the Lord, and that's what you need to do as well.

That's what I would say. Alright, yep. Alright, well I appreciate it, Matt, and I ask that you pray for me and keep me in your prayers, my friend. And you know what, I would suggest that you email us at prayer at karm.org, and we have people ready to pray, that's what they do, they love it, alright? Alright, yes sir, I appreciate it, man, God bless. God bless you. Alright. Thank you. Sure. Alright, well let's get on the phone with Nathan from Virginia, Nathan, welcome, you're on the air.

Hey, Matt. Hey, I have a question, I was reading, I'm trying to read the Bible from cover to cover, and I was in Job yesterday, in Job 3, verses 11-19, if you could bring it up. It seems to me when I read that, it seems to imply that infants that are, that died or in childbirth or shortly after, whatnot, are, they go to heaven, I don't know if that's the correct context of those verses, but that's what I got out of them, I wanted to ask your opinion. I'm not sure what version you're reading, but, you know, why did I not die at birth? ESV.

ESV? Okay, that's good. Why did the knees receive, why did the knees receive me, and why the breasts that should I suck, that I should suck, that's right. For now I would have lain down and been quiet, would have slept, then I would have been at rest with kings and with the cultures of the earth, who rebuilt ruins for themselves or with the princes who had gold, or like a miscarriage which is discarded, I would not be, as infants that never saw light. Job is poetry, for one thing. Yes, it seemed very figurative to me.

Yes. And so sometimes people will go to the Old Testament, particularly in the areas of the poetry, and try to make doctrine out of them, and you can sometimes, but we always have to remember that inside of the poetic flow, this is, I think it's rhymed in prose style in the Hebrew. I'm not sure if that's correct, but I think it is. And so when it says like a miscarriage which is discarded, it would not be, as infants that never saw light. Annihilationists might use this and say, you know, you'll die, you don't exist anymore. And then there could be the pagans who would use this and say that a boarded baby is not alive.

Well, that would be problematic, because what if it was miscarried one day before regular birth? You know, there's logistic issues. So when I look at this, Job is pretty pessimistic. He has gone through a lot of crud. He's whining and complaining, rightfully so, because of all the bad that has come upon him. And he is lamenting. And so what he's doing is speaking from a human perspective, because he is under great duress. And that's what he's doing. And he's speaking out of his great lament and his great sorrow that I wish I'd never been. Like a baby doesn't know anything. And that's what's going on. And so inside of that, I wouldn't say that it's a support for abortion or anything like that, but I don't see it saying that they go to heaven. Maybe the ESV has a better translation, I don't know, but having looked at that, that's where I'm at so far, if that makes any sense. It was where he went from talking about infants and then talking about princes and kings. Yeah.

Over 16. That's where I thought, okay, this is figurative. What's he getting figurative at?

Right. Yeah, he says, or was I not in the ESV as a hidden, stillborn child as infants who have never seen the light, there the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary are at rest. Yeah, it's like Ecclesiastes, from a human perspective, it's just seeing how things are on the earth. That's what it looks like. Because that's what he's saying, the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. Where the prisoners were at rest, they hear not the voice of the taskmaster. I get the impression that what's going on is just speaking of a human perspective.

It's not a theological treatise on what happens after death, but what happens from the perspective of seeing somebody in that state now. Let me see. All right. Thank you very much.

I love your show. I'll call you later. All right, man. God bless. Bye.

All right. Hey, folks. You want to give me a call? We have open lines 877-207-2276. Give me a call. Let's talk to Thomas from Florida.

Thomas, welcome. You're on the air. Howdy. How's your day been? Bitsy, as always.

So what do you got? I would like to add to the last person's call real quick, if I may, that context just happened after Job lost everything. I think by Chapter 3, he even had the physical amens of leprosy, I think, at that time. So in that poetry form, he's basically lamenting, like, I wish I'd never been born so I didn't have to feel all these tragedies right now.

Right. So, yeah, he's like, I just wish I was never born, basically. So, yeah, I think I agree with you that you might not be able to build a theological statement off it.

But anyway, I digress. I was challenged by some theological experts on the YouTube comment section today on infant baptism. I don't know, forgive me, Matt, I don't know what position you take on infant baptism, because me and my wife just became members of a Reformed church, and we were Reformed Baptists going in. And then they challenged us a few books, and then I think we've gone over to infant baptism. Though I'm not as dogmatic on it as I am other things, unfortunately, I'm just not as well-educated. And a Baptist's objection to it was that repentance precedes baptism, was their first argument, and second, only regenerated people are within the New Covenant.

And I was hard-pressed to find any biblical responses to that. Well, tell you what, let's, after the break, we'll see if we can tackle that, okay? Right, Matt. Folks, we have three, four open lines, give me a call, 877-207-2276, we'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show, Thomas, are you still there? Still here, sir. All right, so just so you know, I affirm infant baptism, not for salvation, but as a covenant sign. And it's not a very popular position, but it's what I see in Scripture, covenantally. And so if you would like, I can lay it out, give you some foundation for it, and it might help you to respond to them. Sound good?

Yes, sir. All right, the first thing is what a covenant is. Now, a covenant is a pact or an agreement between two or more parties. Covenants always have signs, that's the biblical pattern. So in Adam and Eve's case in the garden, the tree was the sign, and God promised after they fell that he would redeem them, and the covenant sign was the shed blood. We have Noah, the covenant sign was a rainbow. With Abraham, the covenant sign was circumcision.

David, the covenant sign was future, was prophetic, fulfilled in Christ, which is the wine and the bread. And covenants have signs. So when, I don't know if you're married, but when you get married, you have a covenant sign.

It's a wedding ring. This is how God works. And you can talk to them and you can say, do you agree that God uses covenant signs with the covenant?

And they're going to say, well, yes, of course. And would you agree that he's always using covenant signs with a covenant? Yes. Do you dedicate your babies?

Yes. Where's the covenant sign? Because a covenant sign represents the covenant.

If they're dedicating their babies, what they're doing is dedicating a covenant. They're making a covenant, an agreement, a promise before God. If they're going to do this, where's the covenant sign? This is what I asked them, and they're stumped because they don't have a covenant sign even though they're making a covenant. And they agree that covenants biblically have signs.

So where's the sign? That's one thing. Another thing is the Abrahamic covenant was, in Genesis 12, 3, God says to Abraham, in you, all the nations shall be blessed. The Abrahamic covenant was commanded by God to have infants in it through circumcision. And the females were not circumcised for obvious reasons because they, well, obvious reasons. But there's also the obvious thing about the shedding of blood and the male representation of stuff.

I'm trying to get too detailed here. So the females were counted in the males and particularly in the father. Now when the circumcision of the heart occurs, it's related to baptism in Colossians 2, 11 and 12. And so Paul relates them. Now circumcision was a sign of the seal of faith that Abraham had before he was circumcised. And so it's a sign of the thing that's in actuality, Romans 4, 11. So what we're seeing here is that God works covenantally and that the infants were commanded to be included in the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant begins in Genesis 12, 3 when God says, in you, all the nations shall be blessed. That means the all people groups, not just the nation of Israel, but that all nation groups will be blessed in Christ or in Adam because Christ is coming through them. And Paul quotes Galatians, in Galatians 3, 8, he quotes Genesis 12, 3, in you, all the nations shall be blessed.

And he calls that the gospel. So the Abrahamic covenant is still in effect. So I asked them, where is the command for the infants to be excluded from the same Abrahamic covenant that's still in effect? I said, the Abrahamic covenant commands the infants to be in it.

It's still in effect. You have to provide a testimony of some sort in the scriptures that demonstrates that they're not to be included anymore. That's what I say to them.

They can't find it because it's not there. Sometimes they'll say, you know, the new covenant only has believers in it. And I say, well, how do you know that?

How do you know it? Show me where in scripture, where it says in the new covenant that only believers, adult believers are in it. When you go to Hebrews, what's really interesting is, and I'm still going to have to study this, but in Hebrews, it says that the new covenant is for Israel, for Judah and for the house of Judah and the house of Israel. And when God promises the new covenant, Jeremiah 31 31, he talks about this as a context of the house of Israel, which means the national Israel. My question then becomes, I don't have an answer to this yet. To what extent are we, the Gentiles included in that new covenant?

Because we are to some degree, but here's the thing. A covenant to Israel included the children, period. There wouldn't be any Jews who'd be walking around, who'd thought that God's covenant faithfulness did not include children because as the father was circumcised, the whole house was circumcised.

As a father went, the whole house went. The servants were circumcised. The covenant meant that the father of the house was the leader and all people in that house followed suit. It's just the covenant and they would participate in the covenant sign. So servants and children, if they were converts, would be circumcised in the Old Testament covenant. And they were required to be in it, but it doesn't mean they were saved, but they were required to be in that covenant sign. The new covenant, they have to demonstrate that the new covenant excludes infants and excludes children because a new covenant with Israel naturally would include children. So one of the illustrations I have are two Jews.

Two Jews are walking along the road. They do this once a week after the Sabbath. They would walk to a certain and do a certain job that they had to do and they would always talk to each other about their families. And one of them heard Paul the apostle and became a Christian and then says to his friend who he's been walking with for years like this, he says, now I understand that the Messiah has come. Now I understand that God excludes his infants from his covenant faithfulness to his people.

It would never be that they would say something like that. So when someone says it's only for the adults, please show me the scriptures. What we do find in scripture, well, I could teach on this for, and I have for two hours at a time. We find, for example, in Acts 16, 15, a woman from Lydia, the Lord opened up her heart to believe the things by Paul. And then in verse 15, when she and her whole household had been baptized, she urged a saying, et cetera.

So her whole household was baptized. Are we going to say that there were no children in that household? It's possible. But the fact that it says her household had been baptized, well, then it's logical to say, well, it's certainly a possibility that the young were in there.

Is that not? If they say, if your friends say, no, it's not possible, well, they don't have any grounds to say that. They could have, they could say, well, it doesn't say that there were babies there. You're right.

It doesn't. But it doesn't exclude them either. So it's a logical possibility. Now they're stuck because if it's a logical possibility, then they are arguing against their own position. They're going to be forced to say, no, there were no infants, but then they can't demonstrate that. So logically, they have to entertain that possibility, and it's a problem for them.

So it's a problem. Now, I haven't even gotten into the mode of baptism, which most people assume is immersion. But I can show you where baptism means pouring and baptism necessitates sprinkling. I can.

I can do that. And I have done it with people before. If you were to go to Hebrews 9 and you were to read about the issue of the covenant that is there, and you read about what the context is in Hebrews 9, you'll see it speaks of sprinkling various issues. And it calls the washings about those sprinklings, the Greek word is baptismos.

Now, I've been talking on this for years, and I'm convinced that baptism means, it can mean immersion, but it most probably means something else. That's my position. I'm not going to die on that hill, but that's my concluding as I look at scriptures. I've got a lot of reasons for this, and when I teach people about it, their eyes just bug open because they're like, I never thought of this stuff.

I know. But nevertheless, the new covenant, if they say that the new covenant means that it's only for the adults, I want you to ask them a question. What's the sign of entrance into the new covenant?

What is that sign? Because Jesus said that the sign of the covenant is the new covenant, is communion. Paul, I believe Paul wrote Hebrews in Hebrews, talks about the new covenant for Israel, which logically would include the children. So if the covenant participation element is communion, what's the sign of entrance? And I would say that that sign of entrance is baptism. Just as circumcision was a sign of entrance into the Abrahamic covenant, there were covenant signs within the covenant that Israel was supposed to participate in. For example, the Passover, which is a representation of Christ's atoning work, particularly to get the bread and how it's done. So the entrance into that covenant was by circumcision. What's the sign of entrance into the Abrahamic covenant that's still around for today? I would say it's that baptism.

Then you have to ask them, can you give me a place where the same Abrahamic covenant, which commanded infants to be included, now excludes infants? Now the onus is on them to demonstrate it. Okay? Does that help? Yes, sir, that helped a lot.

And the answer we said earlier, I am married and my daughter was baptized about a month ago or less. So with all that, I say amen and amen. Just one of the people I respect a lot is James White, I'm sure you're aware of him. He would disagree with me. Great. Yeah, I know.

That's okay. I listened to the Divide Line, I've heard of his objections, and someone's response is just a man I highly respect, helped me with my Reformed faith. And one argument he used was the Didache, I believe, where they used the, yeah, they used the, for immersion, each one to justify that, and the Didache, if I'm pronouncing it wrong, sorry, that it said immersion. But that's not really, that was just for the point of how to get baptized, but I digress. Well, I'm going to look at the Didache and see if it says immersion, if it says baptized. Baptism may or may not mean immersion.

And I have good arguments. I have shown people stuff recently, and they are very surprised by some of the things that the Scriptures actually teach and reference. Think about this. The whole Samaria, Galilee and Judah, all the areas were going out to be baptized by John the Baptist.

It says that, and I'm going to do more research on it, the whole area, they were all going out. Well, not every single individual. Well, how many thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people had to be baptized?

Can he do it by immersion? It doesn't make sense, because one estimate, low estimate, was 10,000 people. You do the math on that. There's some problems, and I can get into it more, but I don't have time right now. Maybe we've got to go. Okay, buddy? All right. Hey, folks. Sorry about that.

Kate from Utah. Give me a call. I know what I'm saying is not popular, but if I can get you to think and read the Word, then that's worth it. May the Lord bless you. Talk to you tomorrow. By His grace. This is another program powered by the Truth Network.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-09-26 05:47:10 / 2023-09-26 06:04:49 / 18

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