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. Welcome, everyone. Hey, it's 2022.

How about that? And I just hope you all had a great holidays and a great, great Christmas. We did.

And, you know, loved it. I had the family over and I'm sure that a lot of people had family. Now, here in Idaho, we're allowed to walk on the streets without being tackled for not wearing a mask. And we're not like the totalitarian regime in Australia.

And we're not on the left coast. So we had a good time. You know, we had people coming over and eats and fun and someone brought over some puffy dry snowball things made of cotton. And we had a snowball fight in the house and it was stupid fun. We had a good time. So, hey, look, folks, so we have five open lines.

Give me a call. All right. This is January 4th, 2022 for the podcasters.

And if you want to know if this is live or not, yes, it is. Why? And get a little bit of announcement. Small one to make after I give the number out again.

877-207-2276. I want you to give me a call if you have a question on theology, the Bible, Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Islam, Baha'i. You have questions about Eastern Orthodoxy. You want to know if something is biblical or not biblical.

We can talk eschatology, soteriology, pneumatology, ecclesiology. Should women be pastors and elders? What about baptism?

Is it necessary for salvation? How do Christians relate and interact in the real world? What do we do?

What do we do about censorship and even some COVID stuff? If you want to talk about that, all kinds of things. So it's up to you if you want to give me a call.

877-207-2276. Now get this, okay, today is January 4th. But on the 2nd, it was Sunday. And that's when I started radio full time. Well, not full time, but I mean five days a week, an hour a day. 17 years ago, I've been doing radio 17 years, five days a week.

How about that? And not many people know this, but I did radio for two years before that once a week. And so basically 19 years of radio, but 17 radio years, five days a week, an hour a day. And enjoying it, enjoying it. Now, I'll be doing radio for the rest of this week, but what we're going to be doing next week is I can have Luke Wayne, he's going to take over, or I might have him on with me one day or something.

Well, it depends on how comfortable he is. We're going to start having him do the radio show once a week or for one week every three months, and we're going to prep him up because, hey, I'm 65 years old, got to raise up people to replace me. Now, that's going to be pretty much impossible because I'm extraordinarily good at being obnoxious and irritating, and not many people can master that as well as I have.

So I'm going to have to train him, as long as his wife's not around, how to be more obnoxious and irritating because if she hears what I'm doing, she'll just say, no, don't listen to him. But we've got to get past that. So I'm really good at that.

That's what I tell people. All right. And so congratulations, 17 years on the radio. And I don't know how long I've been on this network. I think it's four years, three, four, five years.

I don't know. It's been a while. Things do fly by quickly. And by God's grace, just have a good time. I've had a great time doing it. I really enjoy radio. It's a lot of fun. It is.

It's not easy sometimes, but most of the time it is. All right. So and if you're a new listener, Matt Slick is my real name.

Not radio name, but Matt Slick, S-L-I-C-K. And I think that's about it. So give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get on the air with Will from Charlotte, North Carolina. Will, you're on the air. Go ahead. How you doing, sir? First, I'd like to say that I appreciate everything you do.

You're an awesome teacher. I wish I stayed with you today so I could get up under you and just suck up everything I could. Well, it all depends.

It all depends. See, if you're irritating and obnoxious like I am, your brain is fine tuned. And you can just memorize stuff all over the place.

You got to be perfect at something. And that's why. That's why. See, so that's what I tell my wife anyway.

But she rubs her forehead a lot around me. I don't know what that's about, but I don't worry about it. Right, right.

So what do you got, man? My first question that I had was I hear people say a lot, Jesus Christ is God all by himself and stands alone, missed that in the third. But I couldn't understand that because, of course, we had the Holy Spirit and we had the Father. So I'm just trying to figure out why would they say that.

I don't know. OK, so let me. I hear people often mention Jesus Christ is God and don't mention the Holy Spirit or the Father. And that throws me off.

Right. Well, it's just a matter of understanding the doctrine and the terms and then be a little more clear than most people are. So we have to go through what's called monotheism, which is a teaching that there's only one God in all places, in all time, and the Christian God, by necessity, has always existed. So there is no place or condition or situation in which the Christian God could not or might not exist. And the Christian God has eternally existed as a trinity. Now, the trinity is not three parts, but what we call three persons. And yet, at the same time, the three persons share the same divine essence, but they express themselves differently in different functions in creation. So the Father and Holy Spirit are all the one being. Now, there's a doctrine called divine simplicity.

Divine simplicity means that God is just one, one thing, not three parts, not aspects, not a bunch of characteristics that are separate and kind of flowing around. So I like to do this sometimes, just to illustrate it by saying, imagine a carbon sphere. It's pure carbon, carbon-12, it's just a sphere, and it's 20 centimeters in diameter. It is one thing and only one thing, and that's what God is. And even as a trinity, that's what he is, is one thing. So in that carbon sphere, now this is only an analogy, there's not three parts, but only one thing.

But only one substance. But how that one substance is manifested to us is in three persons. The three persons share that same divine essence, we call that the ontological trinity, but they express different functions in creation, and we call that the economic trinity. And what that means is, for example, the Father sent the Son. The Son did not send the Father, only the Son became incarnate, but not the Father, not the Holy Spirit. And so stuff like that.

There's differences in how they function. So that's that. Now, so who's Jesus? Well, people don't understand initially what I mean when I say Jesus came into existence 2,000 years ago. Now they'll say, well, no, Jesus is eternal.

No, that's not correct. Jesus came into existence 2,000 years ago. And what we mean by Jesus is that the second person of the eternal trinity added human nature or was made in union with human nature, and that union occurred 2,000 years ago, and we call him Jesus. So we say that Jesus has two distinct natures, the divine nature and the human nature.

And there's a big term for this called the hypostatic union. And verses for that are Colossians 2, 9, Philippians 2, 5 through 8, things like that. Hebrews 1, 6 through 8. And so what we see in the person of Jesus is that he has a divine nature and a human nature, that union of those two natures. The union started 2,000 years ago, but the divine aspect or the divine nature, of course, is eternal.

But the union began 2,000 years ago. So when people say that Jesus is God, now we have to be careful because when we say there's one God as a Christian, we're saying there's one eternal being who exists as three distinct simultaneous persons. So when we say Jesus is God, we have to be careful that we don't say that God there means the trinity. Jesus is God, the trinity is God or God's a trinity, so therefore Jesus is a trinity. No, we don't want to say that.

That's called equivocation. So the word God changes its meaning slightly in its usage. When we say there's one God, we're saying one being who exists simultaneously and eternally as three distinct persons. When we say Jesus is God, what we're saying is that he has that divine nature. We're not saying he's a trinity, but he has a divine nature because there's one being who is God, God is a trinity. When we say Jesus is God, we're saying he's divine. It's in what we call the ontological aspect that the nature and the essence of the divine being, the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

So when we say Jesus is God, that's what we mean. And that's the clarification that needs to be had. I gave you a lot of information there, but I hope that helps.

So did it? Some way, some way. That's all right.

I need to study more, that's all. And the last question that I had was, I also hear people saying Satan has peaked into your future and seen this, that, and whatever, whatever. And I couldn't understand that because I was like, well, if Satan could see into the future, why would he allow or why would he do what he did to Jesus on the cross and defeat himself? If he's seen with Jesus being crucified, his defeat comes, why would he do that if he can see into the future? Well, you see, the idea that Satan peaked into your future is found in the book called 2nd Maronicles, okay? It's not there.

Nice, nice. So it's, you know, or, you know, or 3rd Deuterectomy, or, you know, it's just, it's just not there in scripture. Okay, people say things, they do this all the time, and they say it as though it's true. What I am known to say to people is show me that in scripture.

I say that so many times to people that they basically are getting irritated. And so I had discussions over the holidays with people online, and I said, show me that in the Bible, show me that in God's word, show that to me in scripture. And I say, if you don't show it to me in scripture, or the verses that support that concept, I'm going to reject it, flat out.

Right. I'm not interested, I don't mean to be impolite when I say this, but I'm going to reject it. I'm going to be impolite when I say this. I'm not interested in your opinion as fact, but as God's word as fact. So when people say that, Satan could look into your future.

Really? Where does that say in the Bible? Show me.

Second hesitations? You don't understand it. It doesn't make sense. So people very often, this is one of the problems that's happening in the Christian church today, is that people have a word from God. I believe in the charismatic gifts, but they have a word and I know that this is what God put in my heart. And as though they have a straight line to God and they don't submit it to the word of God, because if they did, it would require them studying the word of God. And most people would rather just feel their way through theology instead of studying what God has revealed.

This is why so many people are in error and they'll say things like, Satan could peek into your future, blah, blah, blah. Okay. It's not in the Bible. That's sad. Oh, you don't have any friends that teach in Charlotte, North Carolina, do you? Or somebody that you can recommend?

No, I don't. But I have a friend who used to live there and he'll know some good churches in the area. So you can always write us and info at carnet.org with some good churches in Charlotte. I think Charlie here knows a website that he's going to probably put in the text and I'll repeat it where they have some places researched.

What are some good churches? So I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll get a break and we'll just move on to the next caller. And then after the break, I'll give you that information.

You guys listen for it. Okay, buddy? All right, ma'am? Thank you very much, sir. All right, Will.

God bless. Hey, folks, Four Open Lines. What's your email calling? 877-207-2276. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live. Taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. We're having fun in the text. And so I was writing in the break that, you know, I've been laying off sugar and carbs and feeling really good working out to change my diet quite a bit. And then I said, I'm also perfecting how to be obnoxious to my wife and the ladies.

Poor woman. They're typing stuff. It's a lot of fun. So if you want to participate in that, all you got to do is go to CARM.org.

C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. In the right-hand side, you'll find the... I believe the link should work. We're kind of changing things around a little bit, but you can also just go to Facebook if you want and just look up Matt Slick live on Facebook.

Matt Slick live. You can watch it. You can join and text. A lot of good people there. We have a lot of good conversations. All right. So the information to find a church...

Thanks, Charlie Spine. Just go to TMS The Master's Seminary dot E-D-U. TMS dot E-D-U. So The Master's Seminary.

TDS dot E-D-U. And I found out that all you got to do is go to the search thing on that site and just type in find a church and it'll give you the page. So it's TMS dot E-D-U forward slash find hyphen A hyphen church. But it's The Master's Seminary dot E-D-U. Then you just search in there for find a church and they have a good listing there.

And The Master's Seminary is good stuff. Hey, we have three open lines. If you want to give me a call. 877-207-2276.

Let's get to Amor from North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air, buddy.

Yes, Matt. I'm becoming a regular leader. It's my third time to call. And I hope you have more and more and more years to come. I really love listening to you. I'm a regular listener.

Thanks. Can you talk a little louder? I have you, I have you maxed on my thing. Is that better? I think so.

Maybe Keith can up it a little bit or something too. But we'll see. We'll just work it out. Go ahead. Is that better?

I think so. I can hear you talk more. Well, I said Happy New Year. And you said you have 17 years doing the radio.

And I hope you have prayed for you for a long, more and more years to do this, what you're doing. But my question to you is that a lot of preacher evangelists, at least in many years, churches like that, big, big picture. They wrote books. They wrote books about the Bible, everything.

Or sometimes they didn't make a DVD. I don't think it's already obsolete now. But anyway, they write books and sell it to people like that. Is that biblical much? Sure.

Sure. We have the right to make a living out of what we do. That's what the pastor said, the Bible says about the pastor. And so, and the minister of the gospel. So I've written several books, the Christian Defense Manual, some science fiction novel called Time Trap, a science fiction, well, not science fiction, but an atheistic, I think it's kind of a fiction novel, an apologetics and atheism, a fiction novel called The Influence, Right Answers for Wrong Beliefs, a course on Islam. So written several books, and we have the right to do that. And it benefits others, just like I'm writing articles on Karm. And if you think about it, I've written about 5,000 articles. Well, that's equivalent to 100 books. Okay, so we have the right to, you know, people have the right to write books and study. No big deal. And sometimes they even make movies, you know, so I just want to double check with you because you know about the Bible.

I just want to make sure they are biblical. That's why I've been playing that in my mind. And you are the best one who can answer that. Well, I don't know about that, but, you know, a lot of people write books and explain things. So I've done that.

And people have benefited from my writings on the website, as well as in book form. So, you know, praise God. That's all.

It's just for the glory of God. Before I let you go, I know you have other callers. There is a caller, I think, about, I don't know, maybe months, but there is a lady caller one time from North Carolina and also about our Lieutenant Governor here, Mark Robinson, which I know him. I've been to some of his meetings because I'm very active in the party here in our county. And if you have a chance, I know you're vigilant, but he is really, every time he speaks, and of course I believe him, every time he speaks, he's very, I mean, biblical. He's telling it in the legislature. I said, be careful, Mark, because I know him for a little bit.

Be careful because they're going to come after you with all this Christianity against the same set, everything. And he's so loud because he's a big guy. He's a tall black guy. Well, do you have a question, though? You have a question about this? I'll say it again. You have a question about him or something?

I mean, what I'm saying is if you have a chance to maybe check on his profile or something, he's really spreading. He said one time in his speech, if the lab hates me, Jesus Christ is my boss. I don't care. Something like that. Something like that. And I really want to share that with you. That's all. Oh, okay. I see.

He's planning to run for maybe higher, we will see. But I just want to share that with you. And I hope you have a long, long more years of your show. And I listen to you every day. And God bless you. And God bless you much. Well, thank you.

And God bless you. All right, man. Okay, thank you for taking my call. Okay, no problem. God bless. All right. Hey, folks, you want to give me a call?

Three open lines. Eight seven seven two zero seven two two seven six Mason from Winston Salem, North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air. Hello, Matt.

Hey, so what do you got? Hey, I had a kind of a statement now about a question that a couple of calls ago was talking about wanting to find a good church in Charlotte, North Carolina. That's where my mom lives near there. And when I go and visit her, I go to Sardis Baptist Church, which is in the Mathews area. And then there's also a cavalry church. The pastor there is John Monroe. I have never been there, but I listen to him on the Truth Network.

He is on there and it seems like a very good biblical teacher. Okay, that has been profitable for me. All right.

Just a suggestion. But my question comes from First John four, 19, 20, 21. When it says, whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar, or whoever does not love their brother and sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. I understand the the exaltation of the commandment there. But my question is, I kind of read it.

I'm confused because it says no man has seen God. Well, hold on. We're going to break. And we're going to break. And we can talk about this.

Because I wonder if your question is, what about the verses where no one has seen God but yet they seem to have? If that's your question. So hold on. We'll see. We'll get to that maybe after the break.

And that's his question. We have two open lines, 877-207-2276. We'd like that. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the show. They had a little tech problem.

I hope we're talking to Keith, the producer, during the break there. And something just went bad. It happens.

Not a big deal. So we're back on the air. All right. So let me get back to Mason. Let's see.

We should be back on the air. What's a Mason? Are you still there? Yeah.

Mason? OK. So what's your question?

Make sure I understand your question. So my question was, there in the passage in 1 John chapter 4, when I was reading it, I got the impression that it was saying that no man has seen God. And I kind of went back to before the fall when there was a hope and fellowship between Avonlea and God, so that was my understanding in reading it. And it just said, no man has ever seen God. And I was wondering if that just meant what exactly that meant.

Well, you're right. Adam and Eve are walking with God, the pre-incarnate Christ in the Old Testament there. And also in Genesis 17, 1 and 18, 1, the Lord Yahweh appeared to Abraham. In Exodus 6, 2 and 3, God says that God appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty. And he calls himself God Almighty, he says, I am Yahweh. I appeared to them as God Almighty. In Exodus 24, 9 through 11, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and 70 of the elders went up, and they saw the God of Israel.

And that can go on. And yet it says in John 1, 18, no man has ever seen God. And 1 Timothy 6, 16, and 17, God dwells in an unapproachable light whom no man has seen nor can see.

So how do we reconcile this? Well, it becomes very easy when we understand the doctrine of the Trinity. So when it says no man has ever seen God, for example, in John 1, 18, you'll find that the word God there, after verse 14, means God the Father. We know this because John 1, 1 says, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God. And in verse 14, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

In verse 14, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So that's Jesus. When he's speaking, he is speaking of God, he's speaking of the Father. And John does that, and John speaks that way when he writes what's meant by God. And we know that because Jesus says in John 6, 46, he says, no man has seen the Father at any time. So he's specifically referencing the Father is not the one who has been seen. They were seeing God in the Old Testament.

It was God Almighty, but it was the pre-incarnate Christ whom they were seeing. And that's how you reconcile it. Okay? Okay, absolutely. I appreciate that. Thank you. Hey, no problem at all, man. God bless. All right. Hey, folks.

Four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 8772072276. I want to hear him give me a call.

And let's see. Let's get on the air with Carson from Minnesota. Hey, Carson, welcome. You're on the air. Are you there, Carson? Yes, I am. All right.

Sorry, was I late? Okay. So when you said a second ago when they saw the pre-incarnate Christ, do you mean the angels of God or just in general every time they saw God? The word angel means messenger. And so there's debate and discussions about is it a created being as reference to a messenger or is it actually the pre-incarnate Christ who was that? And some say that there's an angel, a created being who carries the name of God. And therefore, it can say he is God.

And I disagree with that. If you go to Exodus 6, 2 and 3, this is what it says there. This is really important because a lot of people fail to take this into consideration about the angel of the Lord being a created being. It says God spoke further than Moses and said to him, I am Yahweh. Now, there is no way that's an angel because it says God is speaking and calls himself Yahweh. He says, I appear to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty. So we know that that is the case.

So at least in there. OK, so I'm sorry. No, in Exodus 6, it says God spoke further than Moses. So because it says God spoke further than Moses, I'm concluding that it was God who is speaking to Moses. It says God. And he says, I am Yahweh.

I'm sorry? So you would say that the angel of the Lord is Christ, right? I would not say he's the angel of the Lord, Jesus. I would say he's a pre-incarnate Christ.

What does that mean? Like, is it Jesus or no? What church do you go to? I go to a Lutheran church. What kind of Lutheran church?

What's the denomination? I think we're L.C.M.S. All right, I went to an L.C.M.S.

college. Just check him because you're asking questions. Sometimes people who deny who Christ is, they ask those kind of questions. I'm not saying you are. Are you making noises in the background there, too? Doing something?

Oh, sorry. Do you hear someone? Well, people who are driving might be hearing clicks and sounds that people are doing on the radio while we're talking. And they might be looking around going, what's that noise? Is that in my car? Is it what?

And so, you know, we want to make sure that it's as clean as much as possible. So the angel of the Lord, there's different discussions about it, but at least here in Exodus 6, it's God Almighty who's speaking and who appeared because that's what God says. It's not an angel as in a created being who represents God.

It's actually God himself. And the only way that can make sense is to understand in John 6, 46, the father is the one who's never been seen. And so it can't be the father who was there. Pre-incarnate Christ makes a lot of sense. Wait, does Adam and Eve also see God as well?

Yeah, they would have seen the pre-incarnate Christ. See, the father, out of 1 Timothy 6, 16, the context is the father. He dwells in unapproachable light who no man has seen nor can see. You said 1 Timothy 6? 1 Timothy 6, 16.

14, 16. I thought that was referring to Jesus. No, because it says he dwells in unapproachable light who no man has seen or can see.

They've seen Jesus. Okay. Um, and also in, um, I have a, did you answer John 1, 1 question?

Sure, sure. Cause I had a question cause some people said with the usage of John 1, 1 that says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Some people will get, you know, whether you're someone's like a, what a modalist or, um, some even try to use this against Trinitarians to be like, Jesus is the father. Jesus is the father, they'll say, since the word was God, um, it says in the beginning was the word was with God and the word was God. So I'm trying to use that to say, look, Jesus is the father because you believe that, um, when it says with God it's referring to the father. Well, you know, they're reading into the text, uh, and they want to make it say what they want it to say, but it's not what's going on. It says in the beginning was the word. Remember in the beginning is Genesis in the beginning, God said, let there be light. So in beginning, God said, that's his word in the beginning was the word and the word was with God. So if, and the word we know is not just a spoken thing. It's actually, uh, you know, the person, okay. It was with God and yet was God.

So it's a great verse to show the plurality of God and it is, but the oneness, you know, it's a non-Christian cult religion, the oneness Pentecostals. So they just rip it to destruction. That's all, unfortunately.

Yeah. But how would I be able to like show them that their interpretation is wrong of saying You can't, you don't understand, you can't because it's a little vague and they just and they just going to believe what they want. That's all. They're just going to believe you could argue with them, but how are you going to prove it? Well, it's just them.

Separately with this point on the level that they have, you're not going to be able to get through to them. It's just what it is. We just have to be like, well, I disagree. Well, you say, no, you, you say, you say that because you're oneness.

And so you're reading that text in light of oneness theology. That's why you hold to that position. That's what you do. Okay. And then what I'll do is I'll say, I'll say, so we disagree here and I can show you where, you know, what it actually means, but you're not going to agree with me. So here we go back and forth.

We're not going to really get very far. So what I do is I take him to John, um, uh, it was a John. Yeah. John six 38. It's a good verse. And you ask oneness people for, I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. That verse is a problem for them because it says, I came down from heaven. Who's the I who came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. That means he was sent from heaven.

He was already in heaven, the I. So you see, how can you have that if, if God's only one person in heaven, when there's no incarnation yet, if he's been sent, you see the problem that they would have. Now that's more of a, of a direct problem for them.

John six 38, and it is a problem and I've heard them try and get around it. And what they do is, is just a atrocious, oh, there's a break, but hold on, buddy. We've got a break. Okay.

Well, hold on. We had a break in formula tech questions. We'll get back, back to you after these messages. Hey folks, for open lines, why don't you 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. Let's get back on the air with Carson from Minnesota. Carson, are you still there? Yes, I am. All right.

So what was your question? So I think I'm going to go back to the, uh, the aims of the Lord thing as well. So when you said that one verse in Exodus where it says like, I am God or whatever, right? Yeah. He says, God spoke for the Moses said to him, I am Yahweh.

That's not an angel. Okay. And which verse is that?

Exodus six, two and three. Okay. One second. Well, I can read it to you. Okay. What are you trying to demonstrate? What's your point? Are you saying that it is an angel? No, I'm just, I'm not, cause some people believe that the angel of the Lord is Jesus, right?

Well, it depends. You see, like I said, what do they mean by that? Do they mean a created being or do they mean the pre-incarnate Christ as an angelic representation? That's weak, but it's doable. If they say that it just simply means messenger from the Lord.

And then they got to be careful with all that. Okay. Okay. But I don't think, yeah, when they say that they're not saying he's created because doesn't the angel of the Lord say things like, I am the God of Beth Eel? You have to find me the verse. Always find the scriptures and read the context to see what's going on.

Yeah, I can, I can find you the verse. Um, but, so have you like listened to the angel of the Lord stuff? Of course I have. Yes, I have. Uh huh. Oh, have you come to a conclusion and said, no, I don't think that's Christ?

It's been a while. And, uh, and so it occurs at different times in different places and, uh, it's been a while since I've looked, I was mainly concerned about it as it relates to, um, the new Testament, because, uh, I wanted to find that if the angel of the Lord is Christ, uh, or potentially Christ, then I would not expect the angel of the Lord to appear in the new Testament, the phrase, a danger of the Lord. That's what I would have expected, but it does in actually 26, 12, seven, 12, 23.

12, 23. And so then I had to reevaluate stuff that occurs several times in the new Testament, an angel of the Lord, but now I want to go to the angel of the Lord. And, uh, that's a little bit different.

And so we do that. We find, let's see, uh, we find it does occur in Matthew 1 24, right? And did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary's wife. So that angel of the Lord is a created being and it's not Jesus, obviously. So you see, this is why it's not an easy one just to go over. I'd have to look at and remember, cause it was years ago. I did this and see how many times the phrase, the angel of the Lord appears in the old Testament and stuff, which it does occur.

I think 57 times total. So we've got callers waiting. Do you have, do you have anything else? Cause we have a full set of callers waiting. We're going to move on. Okay. Could we have four more callers waiting?

I want to get to them before the end of the hour. All right, buddy. Okay. Thank you. All right. God bless. All right. Let's get to Will from Wisconsin. Hey Will.

Welcome. You're on the air. Hey Matt, how you doing tonight? Oh, doing all right. Hanging in there.

Oh, awesome. Hey, I had a question for you more potentially advice on how to deal with the situation. So I have a actual physical brother.

Can you get away from the barking dog somehow? Yeah, put him in the other room. Sorry about that. So I have a brother, actual blood brother who is professing to be a believer. And, uh, over the last couple of months, he's done some wrongs, not only to me, but some people in the church as well, mainly dealing with like stealing and, uh, potentially may have some other issues behind that as well with the reason of the stealing, like potentially some addiction issues and whatever. Um, but my question is, so I went to him and confronted him about this and, uh, it didn't really go as planned. So then the next step that I did was following. Sorry about the dog, but yeah, I'm having a lot of trouble because I have Asperger's and, uh, so those kind of sounds in the background really hurt tough on me, just to let you know, but I'm, I'm working on it. I'm working it.

All right. So he's got, so he's got discipline. Yeah, so like dealing with discipline and we were going to the same church for a while, but since the confrontation, he has left our church and I don't know if he is going to church right now, he says he is, but a lot of things are, so what's your question?

You just don't know. Uh, so my question is the next step is to bring somebody else in. Um, and my pastor, since he knows both of us has, uh, volunteered in doing that. And so my next question is he keeps putting it off. Like he comes up with all these excuses. So I know the next thing is, I guess my question is, should I confront him again or what would be the next? You've already confronted him, right? Because he's your brother and he already talked about this. Right.

Okay. So Luke 18 is what, or Matthew 18 is what you're talking about here. And, uh, what you do is you go to him first and, uh, you talk to him. If you won't have that, you talk to the elders of the church he's going to and the elders need to confront him. And if he refuses to repent at that point, then you take it to the church and then you let the church know. And then, uh, you pray for him because, uh, you know, people often in drugs and things like that, uh, they have become enslaved and Jesus is not their Lord, but in that sense, you know, and if you are Christian, uh, God will discipline him or kill him, take him home.

Um, but if he's not, well, it's just the manifestation that he's not, you know. Okay. She's got to do talk to the elders. All right. That's what you got to do, buddy.

And pray for him. Of course. All right. All right. Well, all right, thank you. All right. God bless.

Okay, let's get to bill from Maryland bill. Welcome. You're on the air.

Hey Matt, thanks for taking my call. Sure. So what do you got, man? Hey, um, uh, Hey man, I have a question on free will. Um, I had heard you and, uh, Layton flowers, uh, talking about, uh, I think it was compatible with free will versus libertarian free will. I was just wondering if you could kind of expand, expand on those a little bit.

Sure. Um, Layton flowers is, you know, I've met him and, uh, and stuff. We disagree. I think he's in a great deal of error in particular because he attacks reformed theology unnecessarily. And he holds to libertarianism, which I believe is a form of free will. I believe is a form of humanism. Having said all that, uh, compatibilism is the view that man's free will is compatible with God's sovereignty, predestination and election that God is greater than our free will.

We have the freedom to make choices consistent with our nature that are not forced and that God's work and sovereignty is perfectly compatible with that. The libertarian would say, no, it's not that, and this is the problem. Libertarians would say, God can't, uh, either know what we're going to do because if he knows what we're going to do, then when it's time for us to do it, we're no, we're not able to do a thing different.

And so it's a faulty logic or argument, but a lot of them use that. Or they'll say that in libertarianism, it means that you're just simply free as even as an unbeliever to choose God or not with us, not what the scriptures teach at all. And so libertarianism is my, my opinion is non-compatibilism.

Compatibilism is the biblical view. I will defend that. I'll debate it and I'll debate Leighton again on it. But, uh, that's the, that's the basics. Okay. Okay.

Well, thank you very much. I had never, uh, never, or I wasn't familiar with those terms and I just kind of wanted to share information on that before you go. Let me explain something.

A lot of people are humanists and without realizing it within the Christian church, humanism is the idea that the human being is the standard of righteousness, truth, morality. So one of the things I will do is I'll ask someone to say, I'm going to ask you a trick question. And I say, you're ready? They say, yes. Is free will the ability to, to have a choice of good and bad. You can do good or bad, and you're able to do them. No one forces you and you freely choose to do either one. And I asked, is that free will?

And what do you, what do you say? Is that a good definition of free will? The ability to have good and bad options.

You can do either one and then you can choose which one you want to do. Is that free will? Uh, no, because a man has a sin nature.

You're right. And also God wouldn't fit in that definition. And the point I'm trying to make with people is that they assume their own standard in their own selves as the standard, but God can't choose between good and evil.

He could only do good. And yet he has freedom. So free will must be defined in terms of God, not us. And so then you have the idea that God is the one who, or free will is the ability to make a choice that are not forced, but are also consistent with your nature. That includes God and man. And when we understand that man is a slave of sin, a hater, God can do no good, can't receive spiritual things, et cetera. Then we understand what free will is to the unbeliever. He's perfectly free to do what he wants. He will always choose to reject God.

That's it. Then we get into stuff. So, but libertarianism would say, nope, they're free to be able to believe in God. Compatibilism would say, no, they're not.

Because the Bible says they can't. And so that's where we get into other stuff. Okay. Okay. Sounds great, Matt.

Thank you so much. Hey, my wife and daughter bought me the Mother of All Notebooks from Karm for Christmas. And it's a pretty good resource. Well, you can work out with it, you know, because it's substantial. Mother of all, we call it the moan.

We call it the widow maker, the Mother of All Notebooks, the moan. You know? Yeah, it's fun.

It's like 10 years old. I got to update it because I could double the size now. I could, easily. Thank you very much, Matt. God bless. All right. God bless. Okay, cool. All right. Let's get to Anonymous from Indiana.

Welcome. You're on the air. Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, I can. So what do you got, man? I have a question on slavery in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy chapter 14. The spoils that the Jews are allowed to have, they're allowed to have the women and the little ones after they are commanded to kill all the men. My question is, is that chattel slavery?

Are these women being kidnapped against their own will? No. Are you an unbeliever or a non-Christian or what? Just curious.

I'm a Christian. Okay. Is it all right if I just get off here and listen to your answer? Sure. Sure.

And what do you want to me? What? Deuteronomy chapter 20 and verse 14. Is this chattel slavery? Are they kidnapped against their own will?

The women and the little ones. Okay. Okay.

I'll try and answer that. All right. Okay. All right. Thank you very much.

Sure. And so it says only the women and children and the animals, and they did kill the men and things like that. It's been a while since I've looked at the context, but it has with the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites. Wow.

Man, a lot of ites in there. And so chattel slavery means that a person who is chattel has no rights, has no freedoms, and you are completely owned by someone else. And that's what chattel slavery is. That's never the biblical position. So when the slaves of all kinds could be freed and could voluntarily, some could voluntarily decide to be slaves. And some, they all had to observe religious holidays and a mass who punished them would be punished themselves if he hurt them and were running out of time. There's more to this. And if they were to escape, they're not to be returned because chattel was property and it was to be returned, but slaves who escaped were not to be returned.

So it's not chattel slavery because it applies to all slaves. Hope that helps. Hey, we're out of time. May the Lord bless you and by His grace. We're back on here tomorrow. We'll talk to them. God bless you. Another program powered by the truth network.