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. Welcome to the show, everyone. It's me, Matt Slick. And let's see, it's the last day of August.

So it's August 31st, 2021 for the podcasters. Hope you're all having a good time. I just thought of something just now. Hey, Cameron, how you doing, buddy? Hope you're having a good time delivering mail. I have a friend who he delivers mail. He listens to me on podcasts later on, so I know he'll get a kick out of that.

He'll smile. So if you want to give me a call, four open lines, 877-207-2276. I'm supposed to have a little discussion tonight on Reformed theology. There's some people who are saying some stuff and I go, Hey, well, let's just talk about it.

And a really hostile, but we'll see. I've offered this every now and then. And usually people don't show up because they, they, I think they like to just say things, but they want to back it up.

And I just say, could you show me that scripture? And we'll see. And I'll put the link up on the CARM Facebook page. And tomorrow night, that's for tonight. Tomorrow night, we'll have a discussion, a similar discussion with some oneness people who just want to discuss varying issues of oneness theology. And so, uh, we'll be just doing that tomorrow night.

I'll put the link up for there as well. And Thursday night, I got a Bible study, but I teach. And what we're going to do is something different is this, uh, this Thursday, I'm going to take a break from going through Galatians. And we're going to do a study where I'm going to teach people how to study the Bible and how to interpret the Bible. And then what's going to happen is I'm going to give them an assignment.

I'm going to teach people who are at my house and have them interpret, study a passage. So it'll be like 15 minutes of dead time and they'll come up with something that they got to teach me what they've learned. And we'll go through stuff like that. So, uh, maybe we could do is have people out there who are watching do the same thing and we can see type things in. So I'm not sure what we'll do during that dead time. I'll put the camera on everybody and you can watch them, um, as they're prepping and I can go relax someplace. I don't know.

And go watch the movie aliens for 20 minutes, then come back. Uh, so who knows? Who knows?

You never know what will happen. That's right. So, Hey, look, if you want to give me a call 877-207-2276 for the newbies listening. This is a Christian show, a Christian apologetic show. We defend the Christian faith and talk about all kinds of stuff. So if you have questions, I mean anything Catholicism, Islam, uh, you want to talk about, uh, aliens, UFOs, the occult Bible stuff, different groups. Okay.

That's what we talk about. So you can give me a call if you want 877-207-2276. Let's get to Kim from rural home, North Carolina. Kim, welcome. You're on the air.

Thank you, man. Uh, my question is coming from Ephesians 5 24 where it says the wife should submit to her husband and everything. So she has a husband who is the born again.

Feel the Holy Spirit. Is she supposed to listen to him when it comes to spiritual knowledge and understanding over any other man or passage? Yeah, to a degree. Now what this is talking about here is normative and it says wives be subject to your husbands as to the Lord. And so what he's saying there in verse 22 is that, you know, as you would to Jesus, Jesus is our Lord and he's always good and helpful and things like that.

And so we submit that way. Why is it to the husbands? And is this an old patriarchal white supremacy thing that's going on? And no, it's not because Jesus willingly subjected himself to the will of the father and he came to do the will of him who sent him. You know, John 6 35 through 40 talks about this and the husband is the head of the wife. It doesn't mean he's better.

Doesn't mean he's superior. It's a difference of position as Adam and Eve were in the garden. She sent first sin entered the world through Adam.

Romans 5 12 not through her, even though she sent first. So the idea of headship is what's talking about here. Why is we subject to your own husbands as to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ's also is the head of the church. He himself being the savior of the body, but as a church is subject to Christ. So also at the wise be subject to their husbands and everything. Now what that means is he has that spiritual authority, that place in the home, but yet he follows it immediately with this husband. Love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, gave himself up for her. So as I'll use my own wife and my is an example. And so my wife will, if I put the foot down, so to speak, say, no, I don't want to do that.

I want to do this. I think is what the Lord wants. She will say, okay, you know, that's fine. And if it goes bad, I'm the one to blame. If it goes good, then you know, praise God.

Okay. And, but it says I'm to love my wife as Christ does the bride and gave himself up. That's a higher calling than a wife being submissive in submission or husband doesn't mean whatever he says you disobey. That's not what it says. Because submission is willing submission.

It's willing to do that. You're voluntarily doing that. It is not obey. Well, I don't know that that our wedding vows, I asked the pastor to take the word obey out just for that reason, because it's not in the Bible.

And I want to make sure that it was biblical as possible. So anyway, so I'm to love my wife and to give myself up for her. So if we're out someplace, if someone threatens her, I will stand in between the threat and her.

I did this before. Once I was in France with her and some wild and with some dogs, big dogs were coming at us. I mean, salivating, barking, yelling, everything in French, these French dogs, they were coming at us. And I stood between her and these dogs, got into martial arts stance. I was writing and they were big dogs. And I wanted to do what I had to do to protect my wife. And then they just stopped three feet from me and then the guy called them back. I was scared to death, I'll tell you.

But that's an example of something. I should be able to die for my wife and also live for her as well. Because, you know, my wife has a lot of medical things, so I help her. I opened the doors for her.

I was my arm. She has the nicer vehicle. She has this and that.

I really try and help her out. Because that's what it means to love someone else, to become other-centered. The issue of subjection does not mean that the male is better. It just means he's in a different spiritual position.

And as far as he's exercising that in a godly way, a wife should be subject to that. So this means, believe it or not, let's just say a husband and wife team are going about doing their business, whatever it is they do in their lives. And the husband and the wife have disagreement about selling something.

It doesn't matter. And he wants to sell it for $100. She wants to sell it for $200.

Let's just say it doesn't really matter. And he says, no, I want to do it for $100. And she goes, okay, we'll do it for $100.

And then they found out later they could have sold it for $150 very easily. Now, what's her job? Is she mark him?

I told you he could have got more. No. That's not subjection.

That's attack. What she should do is say, okay, it worked out. Everything's fine. And when a wife does that, then what he will do later is say, well, you know what, she didn't get all over me. I'm going to listen to her and see if she's got some good ideas. And that's how it works. And so I teach on this when I teach on these in Bible studies.

I give a lot of examples. But it's a voluntary thing. It's a relationship. And that's how it's supposed to be.

Now, what do you do if a husband is an unbeliever? Then you have a different set of things that fall in place. What if he's abusive? You have another set of things that fall in place so we can talk about those and stuff like that. But that's a general rule, the general stuff I'm telling you, okay? So if he is the spiritual head, then she should listen to him over any other means. Unless he's blatantly wrong. But yes.

Okay. So if he says, let's go out and do something wrong, you know, go out and do drugs, he says, nope. He said, well, I'm your head.

Yeah, that's right. When it comes to the Word, the Word, giving her the Word, and he is knowledge to go in the Word. Well, there's more to this. I'm just saying, basically, she has to listen to him.

Yes and no. But the idea, you've got to be careful. Make a rule. You've got to listen to him. That means whatever he says spiritually, not necessarily.

No, no. Because he has to use wisdom. He's lining up with the Word. If it's lining up with the Word of God. So if he says, look, we have to do good works to keep our salvation, she's not obligated to follow that because it's against Scripture. So when I talk about it, I say, normatively speaking, a good husband, a good wife, here's the rules, and then we expand out, and the further we get out, the more wrinkles we find in life.

And then we have to apply the principles to those wrinkles. Okay? Okay, buddy? Okay, one other question. Sure. One other question. Let's just say that she has a pastor or they have a pastor, and his definition or his interpretation of a particular scripture doesn't line up with their pastor.

He has to go with him until the Holy Spirit tells a difference. I can't say yes to that. Okay, what are you saying?

No, no, no. I can't say yes to that because I had to always have a specific example. You always have to have a specific because you can't make one little rule and then you apply it because it can be misapplied. So the general principle is that, but you've got to always check with Scripture. And so she always, her obligation is to the Lord first, her husband second. So she's obligated to follow him only as he so far is correct according to Scripture as she sees it. And she has the right to look at Scripture. She has the right to make those judgments as well. But the idea is when there are disagreements, and if it's not a big deal, go with what the husband says, he's the leader.

You only have one leader in the home. Now what my wife and I do is we discuss everything and we make decisions mutually. But sometimes I think it's better to do something better or what I think is a different way, and we go that way. Not very often because, and trust me, not very often. Not because I'm afraid of her.

I'm not. But because I love her and she has assets that I don't have and I want her input. And if I don't take her input, which she wants me to, that's just the way it goes. Just as I might have some for her, she may or may not. But she submits to the Lord, and so therefore she submits to her husband.

And her husband tries to do what's right because I'm going to be accountable to God. So it's a general principle. And when you get specifics, that's what I want to know.

And then we apply principles about those specifics. Okay? All right, man? Okay. Bless you, man. All right, buddy. God bless. All right, let's get to Rudolph from Raleigh, North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air.

Maybe if I hit the button, that might be a good idea. What do you think? There we go. I was listening to a pastor, and he was talking about how Satan can sometimes come at spiritual leaders leading their life. Well, he mentioned Rodney Zacharias, and I didn't know that anything had happened to him. And your God that I was talking to earlier told me that it happened. I didn't know that anything had happened to him. Well, he passed away.

Hello? He passed away, but it was also found out that he was abusing women. And he also mentioned that he had a massage parlor. Yeah, there's some issues. Well, you could have a massage parlor, but it's just legitimate. But if there's anything illegitimate going on, that's a problem.

And if the elders associated with him had known what he was doing beforehand, he should have been immediately removed from all ministry. Period. Okay. Okay, my other question was, I agree with what you said about female pastors and female elders.

We shouldn't have those. I do understand that. But my question was, what if... We got a break. Can you hold on? We got a break.

So ask your question. We'll get back to the break, okay? All right. Hey, folks, we have one open line, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick.

Welcome back to the show, Rudolph. Are you still there? Yes, sir, I am.

All right. Yeah, my other question was about female pastors. Because like I said, I agree with what you said about them not being pastors and elders and all those things.

But I'm wondering... Like, because on here, they have... And we have lots sometimes. And she's a... Not my pastor, but she's a... I mean, she has some good things to say sometimes. But are we supposed to listen to female pastors or not? I wouldn't listen to a female pastor.

Now, there's nothing wrong with a woman who's a good teacher. But pastoring is a place in the church. And it's a spiritual authority position in the church that's not for women, period. But a woman can certainly... Why do you think they play homes? Oh, I'm sorry.

That's all right. But women can certainly be good teachers in other areas and they can have insights in the Bible. But then we have to be careful how that authority as derived from scriptural teaching is administered in the church.

And that's where it becomes a little gray area sometimes. Okay. Why do you think they play her on the truth network, Ben? Because I wouldn't... I'm thinking about... She's not a pastor, is she?

On this. Is she a pastor? What's that? Is Anne Graham-Watt? She said she was.

Yeah, Anne Graham-Watt, Billy Graham's daughter. Okay. I don't know if she's a pastor.

She said she was a pastor. Okay. She said that the other day. Hold on.

I was going to ask you. I've not heard that. And I've listened to her many times and heard her breaks.

So if you've got documentation for that, I'd love to see that. Okay. I just heard her say she was a pastor the other day. That's why I didn't ask you because I was going to call you and ask if you knew. But when she said that, I said, well, I'm not going to ask that.

I was just wondering. So it's not okay to listen to them for as long as they're not being... Okay.

Here's the thing. I don't know if she teaches women pastors are okay. If she does, then she's wrong. If she does. I don't know if she does.

I'm going to ask documentation for that where I can go verify it. I could write a piece on her really quickly. But here's the thing. We've got to be careful of how dedicated to this truth of God's word we want to be. Nobody should be listening to Joyce Meyer, for example. She has absolutely taught damnable heresy.

And I've got it documented. So she's a false teacher. And so no one should be listening to her.

That's my opinion. Okay. And I know that a lot of people aren't going to like that and whatever. But she teaches false doctrine, and that's what I'm basing it on. And if she's repented of that, that's fine. We can talk about it. But I've not heard of any repentance on that.

So how far do we go? Joel Osteen. He couldn't argue his way or teach his way to have a wet paper bag. He doesn't know what theology is. He doesn't know a lot of stuff. I bet you I could interview and ask him questions and quickly find out that he doesn't know very much.

And I'm not saying, ah, look at me. I know stuff he doesn't. I've heard him say Mormons are Christians. He doesn't understand what the truth is. I don't know if he knows what the atonement necessity is. I don't know if he understands what justification and propitiation are. I don't know. These are things that are basics for pastors to know. So, you know, there's just a lot of problems out there in America because the Christians aren't studying the word and not holding the pastors to accountability.

They should. So, you know, it just depends on situations and what things are. Anyway, if you have documentation about Ann Graham Lots, let me know. You know, just e-mail us because we're always looking. Well, if I find them, where do I send it to?

Info at karm.org. And you'd say documentation on in the subjects. We know exactly what it is. And just so you know, anybody who's listening, sometimes people will send me a video. It's a two-hour video.

They'll say, here's that proof, right? Here's the video. I'm not going to listen for two hours.

You know, they have to say it's at 57 minutes and 14 seconds. Start listening there. And then I can go in. I can check it out because I've done this before. Listen to a video. I'm done after an hour and a half. And it didn't say what they said it was going to say.

A waste of time. So, I need that documentation. And I'm open to it, you know, to be corrected either way. Yes, sir. I'm making sure. But thank you. Okay. All right.

Yeah, that'd be very important to know. Okay. Well, God bless. Okay. Let's get to Jared from Durham, North Carolina. Jared, welcome. You're on the air.

How you doing there? Am I pronouncing your name right, Matt Slick? That's it.

S-L-I-C-K. Like an oil slick. Okay. Well, if I mispronounce it, I'm not trying to be sarcastic. That's okay. But my question was did I understand you? Am I correct in understanding you saying that God is in three separate bodies involving the Trinity? Now, if I'm wrong, I'll accept that I misunderstood you.

Yeah. He's not in three separate bodies. What we say in theology that God is three distinct, simultaneous persons. We say person, don't think like you and me as a person with a body, flesh, and bones. That's not what it means theologically. What it means is that each one can speak, has a will, can think, says you and yours and me and mine, things like that. It's called personhood. We see the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each exemplify the attributes of personhood, yet they speak to each other, so therefore they're three separate persons and not three separate gods.

One God in three simultaneous distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, okay? That answered the question, though, buddy. Thank you. Good for...

Check it out, Bobby. Good for you. May God bless.

All right. Let's get to Gerald from Durham, North Carolina. Gerald, welcome. We know we're on the air. Hello.

I did hit the button. Yes. Come on. There we go. Yeah.

So what do you got? Yes. I called yesterday about some passages in the book of Revelation, chapter 21. Jesus says he puts the cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, murderers, immeral persons, and all sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, and their part will be in the lake of fire, burns with power and brimstone. Now in chapter 22, it talks about, Blessed are those who wash their roves, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter the gates into the city, outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the immoral persons, and the murderers, and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying. Now I thought they were assigned to the lake of fire, but this says that they are outside the gates of the New Jerusalem. Outside the gates of Jerusalem was Gehenna, which was the permanent, it was permanent in one sense, but permanent, not permanent in another, of the fires that were burning as the garbage was thrown out there.

Right. Yes, that's what it was historically. And so Jerusalem is probably, in this context, this New Jerusalem, the New City, is probably building on that imagery.

They're outside the city, see, and so Jerusalem here in the New City represents heaven, salvation, and the others are outside of that, in that place of fire. And it's just an analogy. The thing is, because it says I'm the Alpha and the Omega, well that's literally the first letter and the last letter of the Greek. Well he's a Greek letter and he's a, two Greek letters, is that it?

No he's not. So it's analogy. Blessed are those who wash their robes, what does it mean to have a robe? So that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the gates into the city. There's a lot of symbolism here. So robes symbolize our righteousness, but we don't have a righteousness that's our own, it rests in Christ, Philippians 3.9.

So they're washed, it's a symbol of us being cleansed by the blood of Christ. Hold on, we've got a break coming up, okay? We're going to carry out. Hey folks, we have two 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. Hey everybody, welcome back.

I'm Matt Slick. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. All right, let's see, I'm doing all kinds of stuff here. Here we go, Gerald from Durham. Gerald, you're back on.

Okay. Okay, I was just wondering if part of the ruling and reigning with Jesus in the end times would be trying to transform some outside the city. No, they're outside, they're lost. That's what I was thinking from chapter 21, you know, it said all were cast into the lake of fire and then 22 was saying there was some outside the city, so there was a little confusion there. Well, the thing is outside the city is a reference to being in that place of judgment and where the fire is, that did not go out because it burned continuously. Now, eventually it went out, but the point is that they would perceive it as not going out because it was just continuous.

And that's the illustration that God uses about the idea of torment and outside the city gates because the refuse was outside the city gates. So that's what's going on. Okay, well that makes a little more sense than just being out there roaming around.

That's right. Okay. All right. Okay. Thanks a lot. All right, man. God bless.

Okay. Let's get to Armando from Las Vegas. Armando, welcome. You're on the air.

Hello, Matt. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I have a question about 1 Corinthians 15 and 29. Baptism for the dead, yeah.

So I was talking to some young Mormon elders and they were saying that basically if you're not, they're saying that baptism is a requirement of salvation and that if somebody's not baptized while they're alive, then by proxy somebody else can be baptized for them while they're dead, but they still receive salvation. And they use that scripture. And I responded to them, well this is basically a question that's not saying, hey, the scripture is a question, but how would you respond to that? Okay. Well, I don't know, just before I answer, do you know that Mormonism is a non-Christian religion? Absolutely.

Okay, good. So the context is dealing with the issue of the resurrection. And if you go to 1 Corinthians 15, 14 for example, it talks about if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is in vain. It talks about the order of the resurrection after that. And if the resurrection's not true and if we don't have any hope, then why do they get baptized for the dead? Not we. They.

Yeah. Otherwise, well, those who are not baptized for the dead, if the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them? Paul was not saying we do it. He wasn't doing it because it was not something the Christian church did. And so he's talking in reference to the unbelievers, the pagans out there who believed there was an afterlife that you could get saved in. And this is false teaching.

Joseph Smith just picked up this kind of stuff and made it up as he went. That's all that's going on. It's not we. Yeah. It didn't make sense to me. Yeah. It didn't make sense to me because they're just saying, hey, you know, one, that they were contradicting ourselves. They're like, hey, salvation is a requirement for salvation.

I'm like, okay, so what if somebody did a chance against, you know, baptized, you know, baptized for the dead. Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, or it's not. Right. So they're, they're kind of contradicting themselves there, but then they brought up this and I've never really kind of seen that. So I just wanted to ask you about it.

That's what it is. And you always ask them how they read it in context. And then you ask them, why does it say they baptized for them? Because if Paul the apostle is preaching the true gospel, then he would be the ones going in proxy for baptism for the dead as the Mormon's claim is the process of the ancient church. But then he would, if that's the case, he said, if the dead are not raised at all, why then do we baptize for them?

It doesn't say that. Why do they, even the pagans believe in the resurrection? That's why they're the ones doing it. We don't do it. So the Mormons don't realize, they don't know the historical context.

And so they've taken this verse out of its context and then make it fit into what they want because that false prophet Joseph Smith said so, and we can prove that Joseph Smith lied. There's a way to prove it very quickly and very easily, but yeah, that's what's going on there. Okay. I appreciate your time, sir. Hey, no problem, man. God bless.

All right. Let's get to Herb from North Carolina. Herb, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt.

Listen, buddy. I don't have but a minute that I'm so glad I got through to you. Did I hear you asking about if Anlots preaches from the coal pit? No, someone called up and said something about her being a pastor or approving, and I don't know. So I don't know. Yeah. Let me tell you this. I got some information. I heard the tail end of it.

I'm delivering pizza. But anyway, she does preach at Duke Chapel. I don't know if it's currently, but I know there's recordings of her every Sunday morning on our local radio station, WPDF here in Raleigh. What church is that? Well, it's at Duke Chapel where she... I don't understand the first word. Dude Chapel.

That's what I'm hearing better. I know it's not right. Duke University. Oh, Duke.

Did you put that? Okay. I'm sorry.

My hearing's a little bad. Duke University? Yeah.

D-U-K-E. Okay. Is that a church?

Actually, you've heard of Duke University and Chapel in Durham, North Carolina. No. I haven't. Sorry.

I don't watch any sports, so I think it's probably why. I don't know. Stuff like that.

Yeah. Well, buddy, she does preach there. She does. She does a service. Now, the recordings come on WPDF radio, 680 AM in Raleigh here, and it's every Sunday. Every Sunday morning, I believe it's nine o'clock our time, Eastern Standard Time, and there's recordings, I believe, on YouTube of her preaching there. Yeah.

I'd love to see that. Yeah. That's why I wanted to give you that information.

You can look it up. But I know if you're able to get up that early in the morning, which I wouldn't, on your time change, if you listen to WPDF online at about 8 to 9 o'clock Eastern Time on Sunday morning, you will hear her preach. So she's preaching in a pulpit.

Right. It's called Duke Chapel. It's a big chapel on the college campus in Durham. And it is called D-U-K-E, like Dumb, Up, Kentucky, Edward. So that's Duke Chapel?

Yeah. Duke Chapel is a big, I've never been there, but it's a big Christian chapel on the campus. I don't know what the denomination is, but yeah, this is on the campus there.

And I've often wondered, is it proper for, I love Billy Graham and all that, but I used to wonder when you would say it's not appropriate for a lady to be preaching, and I often wondered about that. Well, somebody brought it up today, so I wanted to get a chance to get that information. Well, you know what, if I can document it that she's doing that and that they are doing that, I'll call them up and ask them about it too. Why are you doing this, and I'll write an article. Because what's going to happen is, and I've done this before, well, you see, and it always starts off, well, you see, and I just wait for the excuse, and I say, well, can we talk about it?

Well, no, not really. We've already gone through this, and I say, okay, so I just want to understand, you're saying that when the Bible says you don't allow a woman to teach or exercise authority for men, it's in the church context. You're saying it's okay to do that. I just want to make sure you're getting that, and so that's how I do it with people. Yeah. Well, the thing that surprised me about it is when I, and I've been listening to you for over two years now, it's worked religiously every day, no pun intended, but when you said something about women preaching from the pulpit, I thought of her right away, and I think she's on the Truth Network as well. I don't know if you can get information on that, but WPTS online would show a schedule of their programming. You could check and probably, you know, see it on there, or document it that way, but Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I'm going to, if I do this, if I find a documentation, I'll call an open contact. And, you know, not intentionally, but it's just an issue of integrity before the Word of God. If they're going to be a Christian university, then be a Christian university.

Yeah. Well, Duke is a big, a good university. D isn't, U is in, K is in Kentucky, E is in Edwood, Duke University, it's a great school, it's a big university here in Durham, North Carolina, but I don't see this, and I don't know if these are current sermons, it might have been years ago, he used to preach there, you know, but they're on there, if you can ever get out of PTF with their website.

Yeah, if that's the case, they've blown it, they have, Duke University has blown it. I wish people would just listen to the Word of God and not fall in line with someone's celebrity, if that's the case. Yeah, that's right. Well, that's the thing, and when you said what you had said about this, I just had wondered the same thing, you know, preaching from the pulpit, by the Bible, it says you're not supposed to do that, and it's Billy Graham's daughter, so, you know, I love Billy Graham, I'm not criticizing, but I just didn't understand that, that was the thing. Well, here's something that's going to make a lot of people mad, we've got a break coming up, but actually, Billy Graham spoke some heresy too, and I haven't documented it. Yeah, I know, yeah, it's not, I heard it twice, years apart, he said it. Anyway, got to go, okay, buddy, talk to you later, man, hey, folks, two open lines, 877-207-2276, be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276, here's Matt Slick.

Welcome back, everyone, let's get to Barb from Ohio, hey, Mark, welcome, you're on the air. Hi, Mr. Slick, I just had a question, I tuned in the other day, and I think I caught at the end of a conversation regarding the Catholic faith, and your view of them, of that faith as Christian or not, I just wanted a brief explanation to see if I got your context. Sure, Roman Catholicism, in its official doctrine of salvation, is anti-Christ. Now, this is not just me, someone, you know, I'm not an ex-Catholic, I wasn't molested by anybody, it's nothing like that, but the Catholic Church is teaching a damnable doctrine when it comes to salvation, and the Bible clearly says to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, that's Romans 4-5, Romans 5-1 says that we having therefore been justified by faith, and Romans 3-28, Paul says we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. In Galatians 5, 1-5, Paul talks about just receiving circumcision means you're guilty, and that you've been severed from Christ, just doing one thing according to the law in order to be saved, just one thing. So I can go through quite a bit more, but the Roman Catholic Church has what's called the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2068, says that you obtain salvation through faith, baptism, and the observance of the commandments. It says that baptism is necessary for salvation, paragraph 12-57, along with the church, paragraph 8-46, penance in paragraph 980, sacraments in paragraph 11-29, service and witness of the faith, paragraph 18-16, and keeping the natural law. The natural law is necessary for salvation, paragraph 20-36, and the natural law is defined as including the Ten Commandments, paragraph 20-70, along with detachment from riches are necessary, paragraph 25-56. So in summation in Roman Catholicism, that which is necessary for salvation includes the church, baptism, penance, sacraments, service and witness of the faith, keeping the Ten Commandments, and detachment from riches, but the Bible says, having therefore been justified by faith.

So the Roman Catholic Church curses the true gospel, and I've got documentation for that, adds works to salvation, and is not a true Christian church, just for that alone, and there's other issues. Okay? Okay.

Are you there? I am. I am. Are you a Catholic by any chance? I am.

I am a practicing Catholic, yes. Okay. Now most people don't know this stuff. Let's see, I'm going to read a quote, okay? Do you know what the Neolobstadt is, and the imprimatur? Yes.

Okay. So the issue of praying to Mary, and all the stuff about Mary, and saying that she's basically kind of a goddess. You can hear millions of prayers simultaneously, and answer prayers in different languages both spoken and thought. It gets really bad, and I could talk about Mary and the apparitions, what they've actually said, and that they're clearly not Christian, but nevertheless, so I'm going to read a quote. This is about Mary, and this is from The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ott, O.T.T.

It has the Neolobstadt and the imprimatur. Christ alone truly offered the sacrifice for the atonement on the cross, and the power of the grace of redemption merited by Christ. Mary, by her spiritual entering into the sacrifice of a divine Son for men, made atonement for the sins of man, and merited the application of the redemptive grace of Christ.

That's heresy. Pope Pius IX and Oedipus Deus said the most blessed virgin crushed the poisonous head of the serpent. No, that was Jesus who did that. Without reading all the references, which I have right in front of me, the Catholic Church teaches about Mary. It teaches so many things that, for example, devotion to Mary, trust our carers to Mary.

Nothing in the Bible says this. Ask Mary to pray for us, praying to Mary. She is the epitome of the Gospel. Mary is worshiped. No better way than to look to Mary.

No better way. That includes Jesus. Mary sits at the right hand of Christ. She is second only to Jesus. No one goes to Christ except through the mother, Mary.

Mary was taken up into heaven, and it goes on and on and on, and I've got a lot more. So the world in the Catholic Church makes Mary into a functional goddess and promotes idolatry in their admonition to pray to her in a saint's intercession. I haven't even gotten into the issue of the mass and the Eucharist and the problems that are there, which I'll give you one quick one. When Jesus instituted the supper, as the Catholics say, it's the re-sacrifice body. It is a sacrifice, and it's his body and blood. Well, Leviticus 17, 14, God forbids his followers to drink blood. This is under the Old Testament, and the New Testament covenant didn't come about until Jesus was crucified. So this is before he was crucified. If he was telling the disciples to take the blood, the bread and wine, the wine was actually the blood, then he would have been ordering them to violate the law of God.

That is one of many things. And if you want, I can even read some of the apparitions about Mary and what they say. The Roman Catholic Church is not a true Christian church.

I'm not mad and I'm not just being mean, but it's not a true Christian church. So let me ask you a question. Thank you for your time. Can I ask you a quick question if that's okay? You don't have to.

I'm just curious. Certainly. Okay, so if you were to die tonight when I hope it does not happen, okay, you know, hypothetically, and you were to face God and he were to say, why should I let you into heaven? What would you tell him? Because he's my Christ and he's my Savior. Are you justified? And he's in my heart, and I pray only to him. Good.

That's good. So are you justified and saved from your sins only by the work of Christ, or do you have to add any of your works to be saved? I follow him and do. I live my life following him and doing the best that I can. I don't know really what else to say.

Well, we're justified by faith alone in Christ alone, and our good works follow because we're saved, but they don't contribute to our salvation, nor do they get us saved. Right. Okay. Right.

So I'm looking to him, toward him, and wanting to be with him, and wanting to live the life. You know, I think that goes hand in hand. Do you confess your sins to priests?

I do not. Oh, good. You don't sound like much of a Catholic, because that's what the Catholic Church wants you to do.

Pray to Mary and go to the priest to get grace re-infused into your soul if you sin, and the priest has the authority to forgive sins, and they take verses out of context. I've written a great deal on that. I would definitely look at the priest and anybody as what you might look as an elder, you know, respectfully, but they're not, you know, they're not a stand-in, you know, for Jesus Christ.

They are, actually. A Holy Spirit. That type of thing. Well, I'm just telling you my viewpoint, and how I was raised, and, you know, that type of thing. And Mary, you know, absolutely respect, but, you know, as much as, you know, definitely not idol tree or praying towards her, so, to her. So, I just, I thought it was interesting. I just kind of wanted to hear your viewpoint on it. Yeah, and you can go to my website, just so you know, CARM.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, and look up this stuff on Catholicism. I've written well over a hundred articles, and I've debated many, many, many really Catholics about stuff like this.

I've been doing this for a long time. It's not a true Christian Church. It's a false Church. All right. Thank you. Thank you for your time. All right. Thank you. Okay. All right. Wow. Let's get to Alberto from Georgia. Thanks for the wait, Alberto. Sorry about that.

Right there. So, problem, sir. What if so many Christians mishandled the word of God? You know, the Bible says that the word of God is the spirit of the soul, or the spirit of the soul. Because? And the Christians end up being cut in their own arms off, or end up injuring other Christians with the word of God, because they don't know how to handle it.

So, what's your question? My question is, why so many Christians mishandled the word of God? Because they're not taught how to handle it properly. They're not taught by the pastors, and the elders, and the church, how to do exercises and understanding and interpreting the word of God. And the Christian Church doesn't seem, as a whole, to want to equip the Christians for the work of ministry, and most Christians I'm aware of don't want to be involved with the work of ministry. So. They don't love Jesus at all.

No, no, no. You can't say they don't love Jesus. But I say that they love the Lord, they're just not being taught the full depth of things and what they need in some areas. Because the Christian Church is ineffective in the world now, and at least here in America it is. And the Christians don't know very much about the faith.

When I do seminars and I ask diagnostic questions, the majority of them fail. I'm not just pointing fingers and getting mad, I'm just saying, this is just symptomatic of what it's like in the body of Christ, and we should be knowing more. The Christian body should be studying more.

And requiring another pastor to say, come on, teach us some doctrine, okay, do a study on doctrine. Let's go through some of this. They need to do that.

They need to. Okay? All right. Thank you. All right. I love you.

You too, man. God bless. All right, let's get to our last caller, which is Laura from Utah. Hey, Laura. Welcome to the show. Hello. Hi. Thank you, Matt, for taking my call. Hey, Laura.

Everybody, Laura works with Carmen and everything. She's good. Mostly good. Yeah.

It's all good. Yes, mostly good. Mostly good.

I'm a failure. I know you won't let her say that. That's good. Okay. You're all right.

Thank you, Matt. Thank you. You got to keep me busy, though. You know. Oh, I got stuff I can keep you busy with. Oh, yeah.

Teach how to do research. Oh, okay. Bring it on, mister. Oh, okay. Okay. So, anyway, I'm teaching Sunday school, and I'm going through Acts. We just go verse by verse. And when I got into 16, I was noticing that 16, let's see, 6 and 7, you've got the Holy Spirit, and then you have, in verse 7, the Spirit of Jesus. And I was showing that to somebody else there, and I was like, you know, to me, it's still the Holy Spirit.

I was thinking, and the Spirit of Jesus is just showing part of the Trinity. Is that correct? Yep. That's easy. Yep.

That's worth reading. And we see the interchangeability, yeah, we see the interchangeability of terms like that. Now, we've got to be careful, and sometimes it's worth bringing up in a Bible study, which I often do, is say, the cults will do something like this. They'll take this verse, they'll say, the Spirit of Jesus is the same as the Spirit of the Holy Spirit, so therefore there's one person, and therefore the Trinity is false. And so they misrepresent the context, misrepresent the verses, and don't represent the totality of scripture, because they have an agenda.

It's a good teaching time. But, yeah, you're right, and this is the kind of language we would expect to find if the Trinity was true, and exactly it is, because God is one, but yet also there's the existence of three persons, and so we would sometimes expect the words to be interchanged in the Trinitarian context, and that's exactly what we see. So, good for you, you're right. Yeah, and I think that's the first time that I've ever noticed, this time, you know, you're always catching new things as you're reading, but I think that's the first time I've ever noticed the Spirit of Jesus. Oh, yeah, it's there, and it's in scripture, and yeah, I've known about it for a long time, that's right.

And there's more verses like that. Like, the show's over, thank you, Matt, for taking my call, and God bless. Okay, God bless. Okay.

And that's Laura, she works with Karm, she's great. All right. Hey, folks, may the Lord bless you, and by His grace, live back on here tomorrow, and we'll talk you down. God bless. Have a great evening, everybody. God bless.