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. All right, everyone. Welcome to the show. It's Matt Slick live. Listen to Matt Slick.

And today's date is, let's see, November 18th, 2021. All right. Hey, we have wide open calls. Why don't you give me a ring and we can blab. All you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. We have nobody waiting right now, so I want to hear from you. Just let people know.

Just reminded them for a while that we're moving from YouTube over to Odyssey O D Y S E E. And all you got to do is go there, odyssey.com and sign up and then just do a search for Karm. And then you can follow us. And that's what we'll be doing. We're going to be I'm going to be doing some stuff.

The plan, the plan is for me to start doing one minute seminary videos and uploading them in different places. And audio sounds like a can. I got to fix that. Thanks. OK.

Inside the inside. Boy, I had all this time to do that. That's for the video portion.

People are watching. All right. Got that taken care of. All right. Like I said, five open lines.

877-207-2276. And so, yeah, one of the things I've noticed online is that there's just a lot of misinformation, bad information, false information that's out there theologically. A lot of people just don't understand biblical theology.

They don't understand this key logic. Yeah. Hi. Just let you know, I had to re boot our stack, so we do have some calls coming in.

I have to resign in or something. OK, so my near. Yeah, you still in there. Oh, I had to reboot on my end.

But I'm saying we have calls coming in that you probably can't see right now. OK, I can't see anything. Well, OK. All right. All right.

So why the reboot line? No. Yeah.

Yeah, I'll do mine. Is everybody here and you talk to me? Yeah.

Yeah. OK. Everybody, this is Keith. Hey, everybody. OK. OK. All right.

All right. Yeah, that's Keith. And he's a good guy.

I like him. Don't tell him I said that. Probably heard that, though. That's probably out of the bag right now. All right. So like I say, we have OK, we have three open lines.

877-207-2276. And we're moving over to Odyssey. So check that out if you want.

And also, if you want to watch the show, you can see me sitting here with a headset on in my office. It is so exciting. But the good thing about that is that there are a lot of people in the chat room and we have a good fellowship there.

We really do. And so a lot of good time, a lot of good fun. So I hope the audio is fixed now to fix an adjustment. I had all this time ready. And that's the one thing I forget to do. I got to do some switches and some flipping of switches and things like that each time. And I forgot to do one of them.

Half the time I forget something. Oh, well. All right. Want to give me a call?

877-207-2276. Let's get to Alberto from Georgia. Alberto, welcome. You're on the air. Yeah.

Good evening, Matt Slick. I was watching the video you were debating Dr. Shabir Ali about that one or three divine persons. And I was here with both of y'all. And you were saying that Shabir Ali was saying that, well, he believes that God is a person, an eternal person. And you were saying, well, that means that you have no other person to fellowship or love to be seen in torture forever, basically. So my question to you is, since you said that, I thought if God is complete and he's got almighty, he's self sufficient, why would God have to express love to another being if he's content with himself and also Shabir Ali was saying, well, he doesn't believe that Jesus is God almighty, but in Revelation chapter 1, verse 8 says that he is. And also in Hebrew chapter 1, verse 8 says he is.

Let's do one of these at a time because there's a lot there. So first of all, the issue of the eternal nature of God. And one of the things I was saying in the debate is that if God is one person, then questions arise. Since the Bible says that God is love, 1 John 4, 8, and Jesus said in John 15, 13, the greatest act of love is to lay your life down for a friend, then the question that becomes in Trinitarianism, can God manifest the greatest act of love in his self-sacrifice?

Yes, he can. In Unitarianism, where God is one, how does he express this aspect of love? How does he express fellowship?

In Unitarianism, God would eternally be alone since we understand God by analogy in the sense that we are made in his image, Genesis 1.26, and we understand that we need fellowship, we need awareness of others, things like that, then what we do is we try to understand how the single person of God would exist without a full manifestation of personhood. And so it's a difficult issue to address. There are strengths and weaknesses to that argument, the question that was raised, actually.

Okay. He was saying also about, he considered Jesus as being God Almighty, but as a God. But according to the Scriptures, it says in Revelation 1.8, the Almighty God, there was, there was, there was to come.

When it was coming, Jesus backed the church, so it had to be burned to Jesus, God Almighty. Like he said also, when in Hebrews 1a, he says, oh, he's your throne, oh God, according to Jesus, who is God. And also in Matthew 1, chapter 1, verse 23, when he says, shall call his name Immanuel, who means translated, means God with us. But then, but the Holy Spirit, he was saying with the Holy Spirit, well, it was moved upon the face of the deep, you know, in Genesis. If you read Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3, it says that, that you are sealed with the promise of that Holy Spirit. So why did it, why did it say that Holy Spirit, yet in John 14, 17, it says that, that the, that the peace, the comforter, it will be in you, in you old, you know, all that. So right there, John 14, 17 is different to the person. Okay, wait, hold on, you're just saying a lot of stuff, and I don't, I can't follow everything you're saying, so break it down into a question.

What do you got? Okay, okay, first deal with the part where he says that Jesus is not our God Almighty. He's saying, because he doesn't recognize Jesus as God Almighty, yes, the Bible does say he is. Yeah, Jesus is God Almighty, yeah. Revelation 1a. Yeah, so what about it?

I don't know, maybe. Yes, I'm familiar with it, Revelation 1. Yeah, he is God Almighty, and there's ways of showing it out of the Old Testament as well, that's right. But the Trinity, as a matter of fact, I worked on, I reworked one of my articles that I wrote in 2008.

I reworked it yesterday on the Trinity. And it mentioned the economic Trinity and the ontological Trinity and perichoresis, but we have to understand that there's only one God who has one essence and one nature, and therefore there's one will. But what we see are the manifestation of God in three simultaneous distinct persons. Now the question here is this, and this is a question I'm going to think about. I need to talk to some theologians about this, because if God is a Trinity, then it implies an eternal fellowship.

And that makes sense. If God is one essence and he is, then how is it that the one essence can be perceived as three persons? This is something I've been thinking about for different levels and different ways, on one person, two persons, three persons, and the necessary efficiency, what would be the most logical, efficient, etc., as a revelation out of God's nature. And when we see the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what we're seeing is a relationship. There's a relation between the Father and the Son. One is the sender, one is the sent, and then the Son is the one who's begotten. And then we have what we call the spiration of the Spirit, the proceeding of the Spirit from the Father. Now, there's a filioque issue in some churches, whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son or only from the Father. But the issue is here that there's a procession, the spiration, as it's called. And this is in the doctrine of the Trinity. And so I'm thinking through a lot of these things and still trying to work out how it can work in some other areas.

It's not easy. But in light of that, the divine simplicity of God is the teaching that God is one eternal thing. He's not three parts, but God is simply one thing, one substance. We perceive that one thing, one substance in subsistencees, subsistencees.

They're like, it's a sub-quality of real existence that's not different, but is a sub-thing. And this gets, it's hard to explain. So it looks like the Trinity is the explanation that would then mean that there would be no problem with God's eternal fellowship, love, and covenant aspect. Though some think that covenantalism inside the Trinity would imply three gods, but I don't believe so. I don't think we can understand this all completely.

It really gets deep. I'm sorry, I'm just kind of thinking out loud about all this. Yeah, because some type of verses imply that the Holy Spirit is like a thing, in a way, and not an actual person, like in Ephesians 1-3. And you know, like in Genesis, the Spirit moves upon it.

The Spirit of, yes, but the Holy Spirit speaks, has a will, can be grieved. So he has attributes of personhood that are simultaneous with that of the Son. Right. Now, also, I don't know what he was saying, you know, you and him, he's asking about the philosophy of the personhood and not the person of God.

You know, he didn't view it, you know. Some other things you mentioned, you know, some theological terms, I can't remember or not. Right. You also mentioned about the ducks and all that stuff, and all that kind of stuff. Right, the nature, yeah, it has to do with the one and the many issue.

How do you recognize a chair? Yeah, yeah. What is the ultimate? And that's the question. It's a very significant philosophical question that's been asked for the centuries. What's the ultimate of nature?

What is it? Is it one thing or many things? And if it's one thing, like the concept of chairness, then how do we relate to different chairs, different styles, different manifestations, and different places?

They're called particulars. What unites the particulars if the ultimate is a single thing like chair? But if the ultimate is the particulars, then how do you have a shared essence if the particulars are the ultimate and not the chairness? Well, this is the kind of problem that would arise in Unitarianism but not in Trinitarianism because the ultimate is both the one and the many, the essence and the particulars. Yeah, like you were saying, universal and the particulars. Yeah.

This is way over a lot of people's heads. Even if we could comprehend God, he won't be worthy to be God because our finite minds can never comprehend the eternal being. That's right. So we can never completely understand him because he won't be worthy to be called God.

If our little finite wicked sinful nature we are, you know, can figure out God, I mean, he won't be worthy to be called God then if we could figure him out. Yep. Yep. All right. All right, man.

I just have a question that popped up in my head, but wasn't video confirmed in the Bible verses. I mean, it's a little bit complex. He admitted he could not answer the first three challenges. Yeah. And so he just denied to address them. He wasn't prepared for it, he said he'd understand.

Yeah, he was prepared for something different and I went a different way. Yeah, but logic. That's right. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And I have a debate coming up next week with another one, this guy, and I'll be debating a slightly different method. So, yep. Okay. All right. All right, buddy. Thank you. That was a good debate though. I learned a lot from that. Good.

I'm glad you did. All right. All right.

There's Alberto from Georgia, folks. We have two open lines, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back after these messages.

Please stay tuned. Welcome back, everyone, two open lines, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Elias from Massachusetts. Elias, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. How's it going? Oh, it's going, man. It's going.

So what do you got? I just wanted to ask you a question. What advice would you give for someone maybe who is, you know, walking with the Lord and just maybe having some struggle with insurance? What is the struggle based on? You're not good enough or you're not sure if you believe or what? It's more like maybe like struggling with devotional life and then you look at the devotional life and it's like you struggle with that and it's like, okay, it kind of brings up thoughts like, wow, am I really saved? And if my devotional life isn't up to par, what it should be. Wow, we should talk because my devotional life lately has been pretty bad. Yeah, I know that God's calling me to pray more and I just have always found excuses not to, always found kind of too busy. And then I realize, wait a minute, why come I didn't pray? And, you know, I do pray, but my wife and I pray and stuff, but, you know, I got to read the Bible more, got this more.

I just get so stinking busy. I'm right there. But, you see, I don't put my faith and my trust in my devotional life. I put it in Jesus. The manifestation of my salvation is in orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Orthodoxy is the right belief and orthopraxy is the right works, the right doing.

We're not saved by our works. But if you believe the truth of who Christ is, you know, God in flesh died the cross rose from the dead, and justification by faith alone in Christ alone, that's orthodoxy. Orthopraxy is, you know, you're faithful to your wife, you don't lie to people, you're honest, you're a man of integrity before God. We're not talking perfection here because nobody's perfect, but, you know, the idea of you're walking it and you're seeking to walk it.

You mess up, you deal with it. And so that's where we should be looking, is Christ is the center of all of that, like the sun. And what orbits around him is orthodoxy and orthopraxy, the regenerative work of God's indwelling of Jesus in us. It's like two worlds out there, and they orbit, and both of them are equally important, orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Because without orthodoxy, you can't be saved.

Without orthopraxy, you are demonstrating you're not saved. Mm-hmm. Okay. Makes sense? Right. And it does make sense.

And obviously, me and my wife are, you know, we're performed Baptist, so we go to a biblical church, and obviously I talk with my pastor, my local pastor, as I should, on this, and he helps me a great deal. And he also does say, like, don't look to your own works and obviously look to trust in Jesus. He's exactly right.

Because if you look to your own works, well, you're in trouble because they're never, ever going to merit anything. Right. And I'll tell you, we hung out, you and me hung out, it wouldn't take very long for you to whisper to your wife, oh, this guy, he's got a lot of problems. Boy, is he a sinner.

And he'd say, now I feel a lot better about myself. I didn't know how bad people could be until I hung out with this guy. Oh, man. You know? Right, right. That's how it is. That's how it is, you know? I just learned long ago, I know what my faith is and I know who my faith is in, and my works, they flow out of Christ who lives in me, but those works don't contribute to my salvation because if they did, then I'd be in trouble.

Why would I be in trouble? I wonder how many microseconds it would take for me to lose my salvation if it depended upon me in any way. Yeah, oh, yeah. It's funny, it's like, which I think to a certain degree, I think every believer might struggle with assurance at one point or another. But even myself, like, when I, obviously, when you're a believer, you still hear the gospel and it brings great joy even. And when I hear the gospel as a believer, it brings me assurance that I'm putting all the trust in Jesus.

Right. And it's like the enemy brings an attack almost where it's like, oh, you believe that, but yet look at your devotional life. It kind of like brings up a thought, okay, you know what I mean? You kind of have these thoughts that come up. Absolutely. And, okay, Vicki, sorry, somebody made a comment.

Yeah, I'm with you. You know, I look at my devotional life lately, it's not been good. And it's not saying, oh, that's okay, don't worry about it. It's like, okay, oh, man, you know, it's just not where it needs to be. And what do I do about it? Well, more pushups.

No, that's the wrong thing. I've got to, you know, read more and stuff. I think I'm suffering from burnout. I'm having a lot more trouble concentrating and doing this. I just don't take vacations and I need a vacation.

I think I'm taking a week or two off, you know, just do nothing except stare at a TV and let drool run down my shirt. But we have different reasons at different times that we feel closer, not feel so close. There can be such things as a hormonal problem. Now, women we know have hormonal issues, but a lot of people don't know men are on a 28-day cycle just like women. Their hormonal ups and downs are not as prevalent, however, but we certainly can suffer from that. We could be fighting something, you know, and just fighting depression.

We could fight worries and concerns with the way the government is going and our society is decaying. And, you know, it can just bring us down and we don't want to – that's a lot of energy and we need a break. And then devotion is just more responsibility added on.

We don't want to do it. And so I'm not saying it's all okay, but when I counsel people, I look at them as real people with real problems who are sinners saved by God's real grace. That's how I look at people. You're messed up, but you're loved. You don't do it right, but you're saved.

Welcome to the club. Right. That's what I say. Uh-huh. Seriously. Well. Yeah. Yeah. No. And I appreciate it, Matt.

I really do. Well, good. And your struggling with your insurance is another sense of good thing because you recognize what's right and you see where you are not.

Dead people don't struggle for life. So it's a good sign. Right. It's a good sign.

If you are not in any way caring about it – we're talking months on end, not a few minutes or a day or two or three. Sometimes it's life. But that was just persistent. That'd be a problem. That'd be a problem. I'm going to talk to you.

Slap you around a little bit and take you back on the horse. Who knows? Right. Right.

Yeah. Go fishing. Fishing does it for me. I come back from fishing relaxed because I love the idea of looking at a plastic worm.

I hook a certain way and jiggle through the water, my light pound test, and watch the fish go for it or not go for it. To me it's incredibly soothing. Just that manipulation of the water, the line, and there's nothing else I'm focusing on. What a nice thing.

And I come back often refreshed. I think it's what we need sometimes. Take it easy, man. All right? All right. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it.

All right, Elias. God bless, buddy. Hey, folks, two open lines, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. Please stay tuned. We'll be right back, everyone, two open lines, 877-207-2276.

Andrea, or Andrea, I guess, from Raleigh, North Carolina, year on the year. Hey, how you doing? Doing all right. Hanging in there.

What do you got? It's interesting how the last conversation kind of goes right into what I'm going to be asking. I kind of wanted to find out what you know that the Bible has to say about mental health and medications or not doing medication. Because I know me as a person, personally, I'm a Christian, I love God. I have been going through a lot of struggle.

I'm still kind of figuring out what it is. It's not like suicidal depression or anything like that, but it's a depression of some sort, whether it's something chemically going on with me or the change of life. Funny that you talk about women's hormones. I'm not really sure exactly, but I have people in my life that believe not to do medication, which I am a nurse, and I know that, yes, you have to be careful doing medication, but if I am having chemical imbalances and the medication is helping me, I wasn't sure if there was something in the Bible that I'm missing. Is it not good to do because I feel like God gave us abilities like doctors and there's mental health doctors and there's physical health. Let me turn to Proverbs 31, 6, and 7.

They didn't have medications, antidepressants, anesthesia, and things like that, but they did have this. It says in Proverbs 31, 6, and 7, Give strong drink to him who is perishing and wine to him whose life is bitter. Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his trouble no more. This is in Proverbs. It's not saying just get drunk and just forget everything. The wine was used medicinally.

Take a little wine for your stomach, the New Testament says, so the idea of medications in the broad sense are approved of in Scripture. Diane was a woman who used to work with us, and she's since passed away. She was a retired clinical psych nurse. We had many discussions about this very issue. She very clearly said to me many times, she said that there were many drugs that were very, very helpful to people, and if you do them properly, no problem, no problem at all.

So I have no problem. I don't see anything wrong biblically with someone taking antidepressants, for example, or my wife is on several drugs and not for antidepressants but because of stuff that she's got. You know what Marfan's syndrome is?

She has something called Louise Dietz, which is worse than that by far, and she's on various medications for various things, and part of it is for pain, pain management. Well, we should take those things and do what we have to do because as our bodies get older, as our environment has a lot of carcinogens in it, as our foods have additives in there, we can have deleterious effects on our psyche, our emotions, and everything. As a matter of fact, just lately I'm having trouble sleeping. I'm having trouble concentrating. I'm having trouble in all kinds of ways.

I can't sleep right. I can't concentrate for very long, and I'm thinking I need to do a cleansing diet or try something because I'll be turning 65 here pretty soon. I'm getting up there, and our bodies just get older. I'm going to talk to my doctor. I have a doctor's appointment next month about a follow-up on something. I'm going to bring this up, and maybe my thyroid is going down. You know what it is.

All this stuff. What we need to do as Christians is trust that God has provided doctors and medicines and various things and used them appropriately and not become dependent upon them. If I know this, I know that doctors have saved my life at least two times. One, I had pneumonia so bad I was going to die. Another one, my gallbladder was on the verge of rupturing, and it did rupture while they were taking it out. If it hadn't been for medicine, those are killers.

There's anesthesia that they give you. It's all good. It's all good stuff. There's something that can depend upon them. That's all. Yes, that's the thing. I feel like there are certain people either in Christianity or not in Christianity that there's some kind of taboo thing, like, oh, you're a Christian, going through all this. I'm like, eh, we are not perfect. We're not. It riddles the problem that Jesus is our doctor, and if we didn't need him, perfect, we didn't need him. That's right.

We didn't have enough people. Well, if you have a toothache and you go to the dentist and they give you Novocain or whatever the latest stuff is, that's wise. What if your father dies, your mother dies, you just lost your job, and you just got hit with a major medical bill, and you're fighting through this constantly, constantly, constantly, and then something else happens and you're exhausted because the serotonin levels can't be kept up anymore because of mental stress. Is it okay to take an antidepressant?

Of course it is. That's basically what I'm going through, yeah. My life has been like one thing after another, after another, and I'm like 38 and I'm finally like normal stress stuff going on now, and I'm like, my body's tired. And I'm like, I love you, God.

Why is my body not going anymore? Like, what's going on? Oh, yep. You know what? There is no stigma.

At least in my mind, biblically and all of that, there's no stigma. If you take it, you know, you or whoever, anyone out there taking an antidepressant, take it. Who cares?

So what? Under medical supervision, you know, don't abuse it, then fine. We would take an aspirin for a headache. Why not take an antidepressant when your brain whacks out because of the distress? And if you're a nurse, you know, and I've studied this, you know the physical organ, the brain, can get depleted, and it takes a while to come back, and this is what leads off into depression. There's certain, I forget what kind of chemicals, but they're in there, and they get wiped out over long periods of stress, not to mention the adrenals that go forward and what that does to your body. And when you, in fact, get this, I was in such high stress when I was younger, I won't give all the details, but it was such incredible stress I was under that when I quit the job, it was a job because of it, I started having the shakes for hours one particular night, and then it passed. And afterwards, I felt better. It was just, my body was vibrating because it was stress-related. I had a friend who knew a doctor who gave the symptoms, so that's stress.

Stress does powerful things to us, and we need breaks. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we do, and sometimes we can't get out. Yeah, and I deal with PTSD, and I've learned a lot, God's been teaching me a lot of things is that if you don't deal with things mentally correctly, you're not going to sit there and be like, oh, I love God, whatever, God's good, and I should be happy, and just wipe it on the rug. No, he'll come back and bite you in the butt.

That's right. You have to deal with it and process. Don't push it under the rug. Deal with it when you can.

Yeah. When you can. Sometimes you've got to push it under the rug for a little bit of time before you can tackle it. But the Bible says in Philippians 4, 6 through 7, do not be anxious for anything, and everything with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is one of the verses that we're to do, and we trust that God loves us.

He's allowing us to go through things for a reason. It's not easy. Yeah. No. Don't let those Christians who might look down their nose at you taking a medicine.

I mean, if I was in a room and they said that, I'd be on them, like a monkey in a cupcake, politely ripping it apart. Okay. I love that one.

I'm going to use that later. All right. Thank you so much. All right. Have a good night. Okay, Audrey. God bless. Okay. You too. All right.

Okay. Let's get to David from Georgia. David, welcome, you're on the air. Hey, Matt. Hey. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. All right. Well, it's so good to talk to you, man.

Oh, thanks. I've been listening to your show a lot lately. Probably over the last few months, I've listened to an entire year of podcasts of your show.

Of my show? You got problems. Yeah. Okay. All right.

They'll come up later. I know. Yes. So anyway, there's something I wanted to address real quick before I get to my question.

Can I do that? Sure. Okay. All right.

So I work for the United States Postal Service, and I've heard you say a few times to people to mail rocks and pebbles to the government. Yes, I did. Yeah, that's right. I did. Yep. And I was going to just tell you, I know you probably don't know this, but the letters, they go through little conveyor belts and these machines. Oh, that would mess them up.

Now, of course, it gives people plenty of job security because they have to go in there and pull those rocks and pebbles. Well, hold on, Dave. Okay.

Dave, I could be on a break. I want to hear this. You need to continue to rebuke me because I need to hear it. Okay. All right. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

You open lines, 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. All right, Dave.

Welcome back, buddy. Okay, keep going. So don't send pebbles and stuff. All right. So, you know, it's not my job to clean the rocks and the pebbles and stuff out of the mail sorting machine, but I do have my oldest son actually works for the post office as well, and that's his actual job.

I'm doing this for him. Really? Okay. I work on the truck, so I don't.

All right. But, yeah, people will mail coins. They'll mail, you know, different hard things in envelopes, and it goes through this machine and there's really only room enough to pass a piece of paper. So if there's anything, like, bulky in the envelope, it'll just shred it all to pieces. Oh, we don't want that.

Belts and, yeah. Well, how about this? Instead of letters, can they mail little packages, you know, little boxes, you know, because then it's a different thing altogether.

They do have the really big, like, cardboard kind of envelopes that you mail, like, sticker things in. You can do that because they don't go through the mail sorting machine. All right. That's what I'm going to do. Okay. So I just want to get that straight. Well, thank you. That's good.

I don't want to cause any problems, but I'll tell you. You can tell. No, you know, it's not my job, so it doesn't bother me.

I just work on the truck, so. That's all right. Okay. Well, good. In that case, we can have them send 300-pound packages.

Then you've got to deal with them on the truck. How about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that'd be great. But we have.

That'd be good. All right. So my question was, I went to a Bible study last night at my church, and apparently they've been, I haven't gone in a few weeks, but they've been talking about pre-tribulation and post-tribulation rapture and all that kind of stuff.

Okay. And he actually brought up something that I hadn't heard before. I've been pre-trib pretty much my whole Christian life, I guess.

And I guess that's just because I really listen to people like John MacArthur, and most of the teachers I listen to are pre-trib. He brought up Revelation 3, 10, and 11, and it was kind of compelling to me. Yeah.

And I was wondering if you had an answer for that. Yeah, until you look at the context, then it's not compelling anymore. Okay.

So I'm sure he did not look at the context. Okay. So look at, if you go to Genesis, Revelation 3, it says in verse 1, to the church of Sardis. Now, in Revelation 3, 10, and 11, it's the church of Philadelphia. Right.

And so somehow the church of Philadelphia represents the Christians now, who will escape the tribulation. Okay. Right? Well, then, okay, then who's the Sardis? Well, okay, yeah, I see what you're saying.

Then who's Sardis? Okay. Right. And that's a question.

And then when you go past, then who's later to see you? Is it to the Christians now, Christians then? Well, then what they'll do is they'll say the seven churches are seven dispensations. But if that's the case, then why is...

Okay. So that's where dispensation... That's one of the reasons. But if that's the case, then why is Philadelphia the second dispensation, so to speak? Furthermore, it says in verse 7, and to the angel of the church of Philadelphia, right, he who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says, I know your deeds. Wait a minute. What are you talking about?

If this is the pre-tribulation saints who would get raptured out, then this is to them, right? I know your deeds. Behold, I put before you an open door which no one can shut because you have little power. And I have kept my word and have not denied my name. Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are the Jews and are not, but lie. I will make them come down and bow at your feet and make them know that I have loved you. And then it goes on. Because you've kept my word, the word of my perseverance I will also keep you from the hour of testing.

Well, now wait a minute. Does that fit the pre-tribulation of saints all of a sudden? The synagogue of Satan and Jews will come down and bow at the Christian's feet? Right. So you would say that that is just in the context of what he was saying to the Philadelphia church only?

Yes. I mean, that's what he was saying. That's what the immediate context. The first thing you do in exegesis is look at what it actually says right there. Then you expand, like a picture of Target. It has a little circle and then a circle, a bigger circle, bigger, they're concentric. And that's what you do with understanding Scripture.

What does it say right there as a first little target? Then you expand it out, related things, context, culture. And you do, of course, look at other verses and other places and you compare them and you interrelate them. You do.

You do all of it. But when you look at Revelation 3 and 4 and so and you get these churches and things, well, here's the question. It's a good question. Okay, let's say that Revelation 3, 10 and 11 is about the pre-tribulation period saints who are going to escape the tribulation, which I don't know how they can get that out of there. Because the perseverance is probably in relationship to the perseverance that was coming in the first century to the Christians.

He says, keep you from my perseverance as I will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come on the whole world. Well, is that 2,000 years later? And then, go to Laodicea. Incidentally, this is just a brag, I've been to all locations of the seven churches of Revelation through Turkey. And Laodicea was awesome, Ephesus was a great place to see, but nevertheless. And it says, now do the angel Laodicea say?

Now, wait a minute, who's Laodicea? Because if Philadelphia is the Christian church to get raptured, then what's Laodicea? Is it the Christian church also? Amen, the faithful, the true witness?

I know your deeds, you're neither hot nor cold, I wish that you were hot or cold. Well, wait a minute, that can't be the Christians now, can it? Yeah, I don't want that applied to me. Right, what we want applied is Philadelphia church, so we can get out of stuff. And so people will take this and say, see, this is pre-tribulation rapture. If I was in a debate with them, politely, I wouldn't rip them off. But you know, I'd say, can you show me contextually how this is related to the pre-tribulation rapture saints?

Can you show me? Yeah, you know, I mean, you have definitely made me start thinking about this. I've really not put much thought into it, honestly, or much study into it. But the thing you said about the wicked being taken, taken before the saints. I've been trying to think about, like, what is the implications of that?

I mean, do you have any kind of a resource that shows a timeline of all of the events of the end times? Well, it is, you go to CARM and you look up two ages in support of, I think it's all you're going to type, two ages in support of, and okay, here it is, an examination of this age and age to come in support of all millennialism. So I'm just going to tell you right up front, I'm an all millennialist, which means I believe we're in the kingdom brain of Christ now. And I could be wrong. I'm not dying on that hill and I'm not saying everybody else is not as smart as me.

I could be wrong. I mean that. But these are the reasons I believe what I do. And it's worth looking at and if people agree, great. If they don't, okay. You know, I'm not going to die on that hill. But if you go there, you'll see something that's not taught.

And what do I need to search on CARM? I'm sorry. That's okay. An examination of this age and the age to come. Just do an examination of this age and the age to come. And because there's two ages and it'll show up in the search engine right there at the top. Okay. So the main premise is this, that there's only two ages, this age and the age to come.

And I have it listed out in a table. In this age, blasphemy will not be forgiven. People marry are given in marriage, power and superiority of God in this age, et cetera. In the age to come, blasphemy will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come, Jesus says, right? You receive eternal life in the age to come, no marriage in the age to come. Power and superiority of God in the age to come. And so there are two ages. That's what the model is of Paul the Apostle and Jesus.

Well, the question then happens, what happens at the end of this age? And what I've done is gone through and done the research. Now, someone told me about this and gave me the idea years and years ago, and I've modified it and followed it ever since. And that's Kim Riddlebarger is the one who introduced me to that.

Some people may know who he is. And you'll find from the documents and the scriptures that I've got there that, well, I'll give you the summary. At the end of this age, the wicked are gathered, and those are scripture references, and judged. Also, that is when the elect are gathered, which is when the rapture occurs, which is at Jesus' return. On the last day, the wicked are judged, but that's also the day of the resurrection, which occurs at the last trumpet, which is also when the rapture occurs. The resurrection occurs on the day of the Lord, which is also Jesus' return and the rapture. This all happens after the tribulation.

The day of the Lord, which is Jesus' return, the rapture, and the resurrection, will come like a thief in the night, which is also when the new heavens and new earth are made. And that's the summation, but you can go through it, and you can see I have worked out different ways. It's a tough study. I'll definitely check that out. Yeah, check it out. Yeah, you know, the church I go to is not Reformed. That's okay.

I mean, I know that doesn't necessarily determine what their eschatology is. Okay, so I will look into that. Check it out and give me a call later and say, hey, let me know what you think, okay, what you like and don't like about it. That's fine, all right? Okay. Sounds good, Matt. Okay, God bless. Have a good evening.

You too. All right, let's get to Anonymous from North America. Hey, welcome. You're on the air. Hello? Hello. Hello. Yes, hi. Yeah, hi. How are you? Fine.

So, what's your question? My question is, I know that they made the tower to go to heaven and Genesis, but how did everyone get their color? Their skin tones? Their races, as they call them? Chinese and stuff like that.

It's easy. Yeah, I see that because I'm white, but then my shadow is black. It's all genetics and when people live in different environments, certain genetic traits will survive better than others. So, generally speaking, in Africa, darker skinned people do better because lighter skinned people are more susceptible to skin cancers.

But in northern latitudes, where there's not as much sun, white skinned people do better because of the vitamin D issue. And I don't know how it works with the, it was called the mongoloid. There's caucasoid, which is the white people, the nigroid, which is the black people, and the mongoloid, which is the Asian. That's the generic terms. Caucasoid, nigroid, and mongoloid.

Those are the terms I've learned years and years ago back in high school. But at any rate, so you can get all of them genetically from mom and dad, the ancient mom and dad. No big deal.

They just kind of surface in different areas as those who have better genes that surface upon birth will survive better. Not a problem. That's how it works. Okay? All right. We're out of time. We're out of time. We're out of time.

There's the music, buddy. We've got to go. Call back tomorrow.

We've got to go. Sorry about that. And, Myla, call back tomorrow about what that question was because we need to talk about it.

It's a really important question. May the Lord bless all of you. Tonight, I'll be teaching, Lord willing, on the last chapter of the book of Ruth. And you can go to Facebook and watch it later if you want. Talk to you later, everybody. God bless. Bye. This is another program powered by the Truth Network.