Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network Podcast. Please see the complete disclaimer at https://sites.google.com/+PID-MGN-DQ The first one has to do with inserting pop culture in Christian dialogue. Like, maybe a pastor inserts a lyric from a song in his sermon. I know there's a dear preacher that I love to hear on actually on this bag, if you don't mind me saying his name. He quotes a lot of Beatles songs, Matt. Is that being of the world, sir? And then I'll hit you with my second question. It depends.

How is it being used? The scriptures themselves need to be the centrality, the backbone, the skeleton from which a sermon goes. And inside of that, it needs to be Christocentric and ultimately has to talk about the cross of Christ as the ultimate reason for whatever it is he's preaching about. So, you know, I could preach, I could quote a sermon, you know, I could quote the Beatles, like, all you need is love. And what's not true? Okay, it's not true. There's lots of things to say.

The world has its wisdom, but its wisdom is insufficient. And so, you know, if you're using that kind of stuff, that's fine. But it just depends. You know, it's a gray area. You know, is he using it in order to get more people in and sound more hip?

Well, then forget it. You know, let the word of God be powerful, not sermon illustrations. And along those lines, this isn't my second question there, my friend, but did not Paul quote his local rock stars in the book of Acts, the two poets? Yes, he did. Erastus, Menander, he quoted people, and I was thinking about that, actually.

But yeah, you can. It's just, what's the reason for it? He quoted them in order to point to Christ. And that's fine. If you want to use, you know, a BTO, Bachman-Turner overdrive, you know, you get up every morning at one o'clock in the morning, you know, if you can turn that into a sermon, I don't know. I mean, or as an illustration in a sermon, you know, if that's okay, you have to get up early and go to work, just like BTO said, okay, fine. But, you know, the focus shouldn't be pop culture as though it's a gimmick by which we then reach people. The Word of God is powerful, and it needs to be what is the central message. And in my opinion, people who use pop culture things in order to bolster the sermon, in order to make it better, are weak preachers to begin with. Okay?

Yeah. Which I doubt that this dear pastor that I quoted, and I won't say his name just in case he's listening. Hey, if you are, he is absolutely on point. I love his teaching.

And no, the way I heard it, and when he does quote a lyric here and there, it does seem like the way Paul quoted those two poets of his day. So, yeah, so it's really a hard issue then, and what's your main intent, and what's your focal point is your point. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And when I preach, I've even moonwalked in the pulpit once, and it was appropriate, okay? And it was.

Don't make a habit of something like that. But there are times when something is funny in a sermon. You can have that when a sermon illustration goes that way.

And I have a good sense of humor, and so I use that kind of stuff. But it's also very, very serious. You know, 90% of the time, you can be very serious when you're preaching. So you can use certain illustrations and things as long as it's not the mainstay of the sermon. That's all.

Yeah. And it doesn't take the thunder of your biblical point or precedent that you're trying to teach the congregation. Or, like in my case, Matt, is when I'm just dialoguing with a fellow human being, like out on the grounds where I work, for instance. And when people realize, you know, I wear a fish on my safety vest, they know, at least the Christians know, you know, hey, this guy's a Christian.

But Matt, I grew up on HBO and the radio. So a lot of those things that were lodged in my head from knee high to the grasshopper, seems like they come out, and it's kind of cool because it sort of connects with the people that aren't Christian, that I'll be sharing the Gospel with or a Christian story with. And when I can appeal to them, you know, on a pop culture, it's kind of a cool connecting point. But the purpose is always to get them to Christ.

Yeah, it's valid. I used to, back in the day, I used to dress up a little bit like a punker. I'd go down to the beach and talk to the people there. I'd witness them. And so there's nothing wrong with that. Is that what he's referring to? Or could you expound on that?

Yeah, you are identifying with the people in their culture at that time, without compromise of the Gospel, in order to reach them. So if you have a beach community is a good example. You should live in Southern California. So you go down to the beach, I mean, people carrying surfboards, they got sand in their hair.

All right. And you don't want to walk down there with a tuxedo on and say, let me tell you about Jesus, you know, or a three piece suit. It just doesn't fit. So when I went down once, there was a bunch of just mods and punkers in a circle. And I just walked into them, had some high boots on and some weird stuff and spiked hair and a Bible tucked into my back. My big jacket was a puffy jacket, you know, I fit, I fit in. And I just walked right in the group and started talking to them.

And they were shocked that a preacher teacher would meet them on their level. Yes, yes. So anyway, it's okay.

It's okay. You know, it just depends on how it's done. But some people like what really drives me crazy. I hear sermons where the majority of the sermon is illustrations. And then you get a little bit of text. No, no, no, no.

So go to the word, let the word speak and use other things to illustrate the truth of the word, just as Paul did in Acts 17. Okay, sure. Sounds good. All right. All right. Thanks, Matt. All right, man. God bless. Bye bye. Hey, if you want to give me a call, everybody, the number is 877-207-2276.

It's four open lines. If you want to give me a call, please do. This is going to be interesting topic, I hope. Rudolph from Raleigh, North Carolina. Welcome. How are you doing? You there? Oh, let me hit the right button. There we go. Operator here.

Now you're there. All right. Yes, I hear you. Okay. Yes, I was asked.

I was asked this today. And I said, I will call in in person's listening, because I say you can answer this a lot better than I can. He asked me, was Joyce Myers a biblical Christian? No, she's not.

No, flat out no. She teaches a false gospel. It's been well documented. And, you know, I have no problem saying that.

And she says this. Jesus, he could have helped himself up until the point where he said, I commend my spirit into your hands. At that point, he couldn't do nothing for himself anymore. He had become sin. He was no longer the son of God. He was sin. I got the audio.

I could put my headset down and you could hear it. She says that. Without reading everything, I mean, I got him. But she says Jesus was the first human being who was born again. She said Jesus paid for our sins in hell, which is damnable heresy. He finished the atonement on the cross. He did not pay for our sins in hell. She said that Jesus went to hell in our place and was tormented. And that if you don't believe Jesus went to hell, you cannot be saved. So she is preaching a false gospel. I do not, will not, cannot call her a sister and fellow believer. Okay.

Are you there? Yes, sir. What about the fact that she's a female pastor? That's another problem. Women are not supposed to be pastors and elders. In fact, someone sent me an email. There's a church in the local area here.

And I'm trying to debate, I'm not trying to debate, debate what I'm going to do. They have women pastors. And I'm thinking about calling them up and say, hey, would you be willing to talk to me about this? And I expect them to say no.

And then pick up, I have an 8f by 11 sheet, double-sided, and stand up in front of the church and pass out literature on why women are not to be pastors and elders. And people think that, you know, I'm being ridiculous and I'm not being ridiculous. This is what the scriptures teach and they're in error. And so they shouldn't be doing that. Women in pastor positions, it's a rebellion against God's revealed word.

And again, here we go again, I'll say this. Anybody want to debate me on it publicly, formally? Does the Bible support? We have a topic. Does the Bible support the idea of women pastors and elders? We could have that as a topic. I've been offering this debate for 17 years off and on.

Not a single taker. Now, why do you think that is? I know why it is because they know where I'll go in scripture and I'll have a point and they won't. And so they need to be rebuked politely.

They need to be corrected. They need to repent. But Joyce Meyer, I cannot call a sister in Christ because she denied his eternal sonship. She says he's born again. Only sinners need to be born again. Said that he went to hell in our place and was tormented and that you can't be saved unless you believe that. She says we're called little gods.

She says she's not a sinner anymore. It says the host of hell was literally on Jesus in hell and was laughing, literally on him, standing on him, jumping on him. This is idiocy.

It's stupidity. It's filth that she's teaching. And then she says, get this, the Bible can't even find any way to explain this, not really. That is why you have got to get it by revelation. There are no words to explain what I'm telling you.

You've got to just trust God that he's putting it into your spirit like he put it into mine. So what she does, she's saying, I get revelation knowledge from God. And so what she's done is trampled the word of God underfoot. She has violated the essentials of the Christian faith and she needs to be rebuked. She should not be in the position she's in. She is a false teacher.

Flat out, I'm saying it publicly. She's a false teacher. I cannot call her a sister in Christ.

And we try to contact her organization to ask specific questions. No response. Now why is that? Oh, they don't want to deal with you. They don't want to deal with the truth. Well, thank you. What's that?

They don't want to deal with the truth. That's what it is. That's right. All right. God bless, buddy. Okay. Thank you. All right.

Now we've got a little bit of time. I'm going to just tell you before the break what happened two times. I went to two different churches here in Idaho where, on the same day, where women pastors and elders were. This one church in Meridian called the cops on me. Even though they had said earlier they would meet with me and talk with me, they said that they wouldn't. They went back on their word. I'm going to pass out literature in front. They called the cops on me.

And in the second church I went to that same day, different church, I was afraid of my own safety, physical safety, because of the aggression of the people in that church, including the pastor. It was incredible. Hey, folks, four open lines, 877-207-2276. Give me a call. Let's talk. Be ready. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the show. We have four open lines, so I want you to give me a call.

877-207-2276. Let's get to Yvette from Cary, North Carolina. Yvette, welcome. You're on the air. Hello. Thank you for taking my call. I enjoy you on the radio, and I love listening and learning.

Good. So my question is, my question was asked by my college-age nephew. He's a senior in college, and he came home with quite a few questions over his last break. And his question is, how did different races, he particularly wants to know African Americans, how did we evolve to African Americans if everyone came from Adam and Eve or if everyone descended from Noah and his family, you know, considering that the flood, everyone died?

No problem. They came from Adam and Eve, then they came from Noah, and that's it. And the genetic information for dark skin, light skin, blue eyes, brown eyes, blonde hair, red hair, it's all existent genetic information that God created in our ancient parents Adam and Eve. So when the line was narrowed through Noah, the same information was there that people went to different areas. Now, it just so happens that people with white skin do better in northern latitudes because of vitamin D, and they need sunshine and they absorb sunshine better. That's why I remember reading an article about this.

People with black skin, dark skin, and lower latitudes like the equator do better than people with white skin because the white skin people tend to get burned, and that's damaging and can cause skin cancer and other things, so the darker ones just do better in that environment. So this is the kind of stuff that it is. So an illustration I have of something is that I had a friend in college, we were buds and hung around all the time, and I thought he was just a light-skinned Mexican. He had that kind of look to me.

I don't care, you know. And so I went over to his dorm one time, and we'd been friends for, I don't know, months and months and hung around, and he had this picture. He was in the midst of a bunch of black people, and I said, hey, what's up with this? And he said, oh, it's his family.

It turns out he was a black guy, except he didn't look it. And I said, come on, you're adopted. He said, no, I'm not.

He says, I'm just born this way. I said, really? And so it was really kind of interesting.

And so I was like, whatever. But he just said that everybody else is born the way they were, and he said born that way with lighter skin. The genetic information was there. That's all that's going on with the different races, the same kind of a thing. Just the different genetics that were built into Adam and Eve, Noah, and et cetera, and then depending on where people live, it affected their skin tones as well.

Sure. See, natural selection is a true phenomenon, and what I mean by that is that, let's take a set of birds. I use this illustration when I'm teaching people about evolution as many problems.

I don't believe it. Macroevolution, I reject. We didn't get here by evolution.

But God provided the genetic information for species for different groups to be able to adapt to different environmental pressures. That's what's going on. So I'm six feet tall. I have two brothers. I'm six feet tall, roughly 214 pounds. And I'm the small one in my family.

I am. So same mom, same dad, right? And it's just how it is. Genetics are just different, and we manifest differently.

I like to say I'm the super smart one, and they're all the big strong ones, and I'm also the more humble one, so I tell them that too. But that's just all it is. It's just genetic manifestation, and those who have better genetics that aid survivability in that environment just pass on their genes. It's basic.

It's not a problem. So God created a bunch of birds. There's a thousand mated pairs of a certain bird on an island, and it's isolated from any other environmental areas. It's just there. If there's a drought on the island, then only those birds that have the surfacing characteristics that allow survivability, maybe the berries or nuts, shells, get thicker because of a drought.

Well, the ones that have stronger bills, so to speak, the ones that are able to survive or the ones that have weaker ones don't. That's it, like the peppered moth thing, and that's a whole other thing of evolution. That's all it is. That's why we can get subspecies and things like that.

God is real smart. That makes sense. That makes sense. Thank you so much. You're welcome so much. No problem at all. I'll share that with them. Have a good one.

All right. Well, have them call up sometime. I do research on, believe it or not, on science. Wow. I do quite a bit.

In fact, nobody's waiting. I will have them call. What's that? I said I'll have them call because he had another interesting question.

Sure. And that was the time span between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and he started saying that at his university they were teaching something about the Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Dark Ages. Now, the time span between the Middle, excuse me, between the Old Testament and the New Testament is 400 years. That's all. And then the New Testament was written in the first century, so roughly 2,000 years ago.

That's it. The Middle Ages are, I think, in the 1400s, 1500s, 1600s. The Dark Ages were the 10, 11, and 12, and I believe it's because of the Roman Catholic Church that hid information and oppressed people so that they were not free.

That's my theory. The Roman Catholic Church is really bad. It's a lot of bad stuff. People just don't know. So that's all that is. It's not a big deal.

In fact, tell him this. Right, because, yes. Science works in a Christian worldview, and it was the secularists who were getting it wrong. It was the Christians who believed in the regularity of nature because of the regularity and predictability of God in his absolute quality as an essence, and he would reflect that in the created order.

So it was the Christians who developed the scientific method, not the unbelievers. Wow. Okay. That's interesting. All right?

Yes. Well, that is helpful. Thank you very much.

You're welcome very much. Well, God bless. Okay. You too. Bye-bye. Okay. Bye.

All right. I have a question for you guys, if you want to give me a call. 877-207-2276. Marcia from Rock Hill, North Carolina.

Or South Carolina, excuse me. Welcome. You're on the air. Right. Thank you. Thank you for taking my call. Oh, sure.

I'll take your call now. I was thinking about this the other day, and I was reading in the Scripture about paradise, the Lord Jesus spoke of going to Paradise, and that thief on the cross would be there. Then in John 14, 1 through 3, Jesus talks about going to prepare a place for us, and then in Revelation, with the New Jerusalem that will be coming down, that will be our heavenly home.

I was wondering if all the same people are living in these places, if it's one in the same, or if it has the same occupant. Like if that... Hold on, we've got a break, okay? We've got a break, so I want to hear what you have to say. It'll be interesting, and we'll talk about it when we get back, okay? Hey folks, for Open Lines 877-207-2276, give me a call. We'll be right back after these messages. All right, welcome back everyone.

It's the bottom of the hour. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Marcia, are you still there? I am.

Okay. All right, so where were we? So, I would like, if you could explain to me, or if you had some knowledge of the place called Paradise, the place where the Lord Jesus went, and where the Old Testament saints were, and then he took Paradise to heaven. So, Paradise... No, no, no, he didn't take Paradise to heaven, okay, just so you know. He took the Old Testament saints to heaven. To the saints, right, right.

Okay, yes. Well, it's divided between hell, the lost, and the saints. Paradise is a place, was a place, and it still is, but because in 2 Corinthians 12-2, Paul the Apostle talked about someone who's caught up into Paradise, whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know. It seems to be heaven he's talking about, but in Luke 16, 19-31, there's the story of Lazarus the rich man, where Lazarus went to Paradise. It looks like the Old Testament saints went to a place, a holding place, that Jesus, after the crucifixion and before his resurrection, went and proclaimed what was going on, what he was, what had been done, and then led captive, a host of captives, it says in Ephesians 4-8-12, and it seems to be what it was about. And applied the blood, applied his blood, to those Old Testament saints.

I didn't hear you say something. What about the blood? He applied his blood. Oh, in the heavenly sanctuary, as some people call it, yeah, right. But I mean to those Old Testament saints, because in our humanity we could never enter heaven unless the blood has been applied. So what church do you go to? My question, I'm Baptist, Southern Baptist.

Okay. But my question was, is Paradise, and what Christ had in John 14, verse 1-3, that he's gone to prepare a place for us, and definitely that was for the church, and then the New Jerusalem, that would be the saints of all time. I was wondering if this is actually the same place, or has the same occupants. Some people think, and I think it's Revelation, what was it, I forgot, 9 or something like that, it talks about the New Jerusalem, and it's supposed to be like a 1400 mile cube, and it comes down from heaven and rests on the earth. I don't believe that's literal. It is some sort of construction, or location, or whatever, that we will indwell.

And it won't be that way, we're going to be restricted to it. But I think it's representative of a lot of things. Our place and our abiding with God. Because Jerusalem is the city of God, and so we're going to be in the New Jerusalem with God. I think that's what's going on there in the symbolism. When Jesus talks about going to prepare a place, he's talking about the wedding feast, the wedding procedures. That the arrangement of the bride, the father would send the son to go get his bride, and the trumpeters would go and get the bride, and they would come back and have a ceremony, and then they would enter into the chamber, the bridegroom's chamber for the consummation of the wedding, in that context.

And so he had to build a room, build a place, in order to house his new wife and himself, and the upcoming family. So this is the model that Christ is appealing to in that. So, in John 21, and this is the new heaven and new earth, almost to the end of the scripture, and it says in verse 3, it says, Okay, do you have a question?

Because I don't know what you're, I don't know what you're getting at, and I'm always cautious when I can't, I don't know. Go ahead. Yeah, it's so paradise. The Old Testament saints, and like Abraham. So in Hebrews it said, or Abraham was searching or looking for a city not built with hands. So would Abraham and David and Daniel, if they were in paradise, when Christ paid the sacrifice on the cross, and he took them to heaven, but right before his death, he said he's going to prepare a place for the church, or a place for us, the saints.

So is that place paradise? And John or Eve? Wait, you're asking a huge, wait, you're asking a very long question. See, you're doing your, it's almost, hold on, hold on, hold on. It's like you're teaching a whole bunch of stuff, and then you ask a question woven into what you're teaching.

And, so I'm always cautious when people do that, okay, because I don't know where they're going with it sometimes. So if you had to have a specific question, what would that be? I wanted to know if the creation of paradise, John 14, and the New Jerusalem, is one and the same. I don't believe so. If all the saints of all time will be there together. Because paradise existed before the New Jerusalem comes down. Now, some might make the case that they're one and the same, but I just don't think we can do that, because the symbolism of the New Jerusalem, don't assume it's a literal cube that's a city. It's 1400 by 1400 by 1400.

Don't assume that. No, but it's the place. It's the place. We don't know if it's a, we don't, wait, wait, wait, no, okay, it most probably is a place, but we can't say what it is until we know what New Jerusalem really is, and if it's a representation of something. Is it a place like a house, or is it a place like a location in the presence of God?

That's all I'm just saying. We don't know, and we don't want to say too much about it if we cannot figure it out. Well, okay, that location, whatever it is, will we all be together?

Will the Old Testament saints and all of the church be together with God, with the Lamb, with the Holy Spirit, for all eternity, in whatever place that he's created for us? Yes. Okay. That's all I want to know. Okay. I think that, I think that, I think, and I think maybe the Bible just identifies three different places, but I think it's the same.

I think the occupants are the same. I would be devastated if it weren't. I would be devastated, because I want us to all be together. I want us to enjoy, I want us to enjoy the Lord. We will. We will. We're all going to, we're going to all enjoy him. We absolutely are.

And the Old Testament saints, New Testament saints are going to be with Jesus, with the Lord. Yes. Okay?

Yes. Good. Okay. God bless you. You're welcome. I appreciate you talking with me. Thank you. Sure. No problem. Right. God bless. All right.

We have four open lines. 877-207-2276. I'm looking at how Keith has spelled someone's name. Mitchell or Mitchell from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, yeah.

It's Mitchell. How you doing? I'm doing all right, man.

What's up, buddy? He wrote close enough. Close enough. Yeah, he misspelled it. So anyways, buddy.

Yeah, a completely, completely random question. Sure. Are you familiar with the Georgia Guidestone? Yes. Is there any connection between like that and the New World Order?

When you say any, then I can't say yes or no. I would say that in the New World Order, which some people think is a one-world utopia of socialism, where equal distribution of all things and resources are given equally to all people for the betterment of everyone, because everyone's so good and wonderful, la-di-da, let's go skipping down the yellow brick road. And they only want the Georgia Guidestones, however, they only want 500 million people on the entire planet. So it means it'll be regulated resources, regulated what you do and don't do, regulated religion, because Christianity says, fill the earth. They don't want to do that, so they want to go against scripture. So that means Christianity has to be subjugated. All people and all things have to be subjugated under the New World Order. And the Georgia Guidestones would fit in line with it.

I'm not saying there is a connection, but it certainly seems like they're related. Okay. Well, that's really all I got. Is anybody waiting? Nobody's waiting. We've got a break, so we'll take off. Okay, buddy, God bless. Call back if you want to... All right, man. Take care.

All right, man. Hey, folks, white open lines 8772072276. We'll be right back. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 8772072276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, buddy, welcome back to the show.

We have nobody waiting right now. And sometimes when that happens, which isn't very often, what I'm going to do here is read a little bit of stuff about science. And the reason I want to do this is because the caller earlier talked about this stuff in science.

And I'm just going to go through some stuff. It's worth knowing a lot of Christians are afraid of science because they think it's so formidable against Christianity, against God, and they don't know what to do about it, so they kind of just don't worry about it. Well, let me just tell you that science is a philosophical approach to learning, and it's based upon assumptions. You can't use a scientific method to validate the scientific method without begging the question. It's a philosophy. It's a philosophy that begs the question in that it assumes the laws of logic, assumes the uniformity of nature, and then assumes that scientists will accurately and properly provide information. But that is not all the case.

It is not. That's just one issue right there. There's the issue of the Big Bang. The Big Bang, I could talk about that for a while.

I've been doing research on it, among many other things, and there are some scientific problems with it. And one of them is called the flatness problem. It's determined that the geometry of the universe is nearly flat. Now, we can look in any direction, and we see stars, and a lot of those stars are galaxies, but they're not stars or galaxies, but those points of light are galaxies. And we see it as a sphere around us. But if you look at the Milky Way, you see it's more or less flat. Well, it turns out the universe looks like that as well. This is one of the issues that are there.

You don't hear about it too much. Why is that if it's a Big Bang and it exploded? Everything should go out in a sphere.

That doesn't seem to be the case. And there's what's called the horizon problem. And that means distant regions of space are so far apart that they could never have been in contact with each other according to the model of a 14.6-million-year-old universe. They're that far apart. And so the expansion rate of the universe is increasing, and so the scientists have invented something called dark energy. They haven't detected it.

They haven't measured it. They said we're going to call this, whatever this is, dark energy that's causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. Well, really? I could get into more. We've got callers waiting, but I could get into a lot more about this kind of stuff. The science, it's great.

It helps us a great deal. But don't put any credence in the theory of evolution that we got here by evolutionary processes. It does not work, and I could. You guys call me up sometime and ask.

I'll give you some counter evidence that's verifiable, that works very much against the theory of transitional forms of evolution and stuff like that. Let's get to Nate from California. Nate, welcome. You're on the air.

Oh, Matt, it's been a while. How are you? I'm doing all right. Hanging in there.

What do you got? I'm doing good. No offense for that science thing.

I would just watch Word Science, the movie. I just want to laugh. Okay. Besides, yeah, well, you know, I'm old. Well, yeah, I'm in my 60s, so, you know, I'm up there too. I'm almost there in my 50s. Okay, yeah, I'm 65.

You know what I mean by Word Science, the movie, yeah. I'm not sure what you're saying, because your volume is decreasing and I'm having trouble hearing you. How about now? Is it louder? A little bit better. So what's your question?

What do you got, buddy? Better? It's about Samson. When he died, did he commit suicide?

In a general way, yes. He was being bound, blinded. He was being mocked.

They were mocking the God of Israel at the point, and he said, God, give me strength to take as many of them with me, because he knows he's going to die anyway. So in a general sense, yeah, he did. In another sense, well, it was going to happen anyway.

He just kind of expedited everything. Yeah, but isn't suicide against the Word of God? Murder is against the Word of God. Killing is not.

Now the question... You're killing yourself right there. That's the question we have to answer is, is killing yourself murder? And that's not an easy one to answer, because murder is the unlawful taking of life. So if someone breaks into my house and in order to save myself, my wife, my family, I have to dispatch that individual, not that I would ever want to, that is not murder. But if I don't like someone's shirt color and I dispatch them, then that is murder, because it's not justifiable. So all murder is killing, but not all killing is murder. So when we look at suicide, and I'm not advocating it. I'm not saying it's okay.

I don't mind if... Do you mind if I say something? I mean, it's all right to defend yourself with a bat or a gun or defend your family member or yourself and kill the person who's trying to attack you. Right, that's what I'm saying. The Bible permits that. I truly understand that.

I truly understand that. Right, but let's get to the issue of focus here on the individual. Let's say there's a Christian who, you know, kills himself.

Now what's the reason for it? Because people will say automatically, nope, that's a sin, they go to hell. I don't see that in Scripture any place where it says that suicide is an automatic ticket to hell. I don't see it in Scripture, and I have to say it. I'm not advocating it.

I don't believe we should do it. But what do you do, you know, with people who are in situations? Like one of the things I have raised, let's just say there's a battle going on. Our country's being invaded by the communists, and they are outlawing Christianity. They're torturing people.

I can't say everything they're doing to people on the radio here. And they capture someone who has information that he cannot allow to be revealed, because it would cost thousands of lives, you know, if the bad guys knew where something was, you know, whatever. Now what happens in that case? He's being tortured.

He knows for a fact that he will break, I know that people break under torture. So does he have right to kill himself to stop the information from being disseminated or discovered or tortured out of him in order to save a lot of other people's lives? There's a question.

I'd say, well, I would think it would make sense to do that. What about you're on the battlefield, and somebody throws a grenade in, and one person jumps on the grenade to save others? That's a form of suicide.

Is that wrong? No, he's sacrificing himself. Even Jesus could be said to, in that broad sense, he allowed himself to be taken exactly where he knew what was going to happen, and he could have stopped it, and he didn't. So when we talk about this subject, there's different levels of what could be construed as suicide and different circumstances, and it's not just a simple black and white issue, okay? I'm still a little bit confused because I understand Jesus, but if it wasn't for him, you know, my life... What is your question, though? But what's your question? Did he commit suicide, even though I read that, and I do it for you, Lord?

Generally, suicide is understood as being an act, a physical act upon yourself that causes your own death. That's the basic, narrow definition, okay? Okay, let me ask you another question. Do you think he's in Heaven? Jesus? Yeah. No. Oh, Jesus, yes, of course.

Jesus is God. I understand. I know that. But I mean, Samson. Yes. Yeah, I believe Samson's in Heaven.

Yeah, I believe we'll see him. Absolutely. Uh-huh. Ben, I'm on your side.

I'm on your side. Good. And also... All right, buddy, we've got a couple calls waiting. I want to grab...

I want to get to them quickly, because we've only got a few minutes. All right, buddy? All right. Well, God bless and keep it up, and my prayers will always be to you and your family. God bless. All right, man.

Thanks a lot. All right, let's get to Nancy from Virginia. Nancy, welcome.

You're on the air. Hello. Hi. Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. My question is about the book of Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 2. It talks about the third Heaven.

Mm-hmm. What is the third Heaven? The dwelling place of God. In Jewish cosmology, there were three heavens, three places, realms that they called Heaven. The first one was where the birds are, the clouds are, the wind is, the trees. That's called the first Heaven.

The second is where the sun and the moon and the stars are, and the third is the dwelling place of God. That's what they called them. I have an article on my website.

It goes through it, explains it, cites the Scriptures and everything. That's what it is. Okay.

I never knew. Yeah. And that's all somewhere in the Old Testament? It's all over. It's a karm, three heavens.

I'm just doing a search on my website. Yeah, three heavens. So are there different levels of heaven? Three heavens?

Yeah. One is the atmospheric range. Hosea talks about it, Deuteronomy, Judges, Daniel, and I'm looking for New Testament things. The location of the third heaven is in Matthew, Luke, Revelation. The highest heaven is out of 1 Kings 8, Deuteronomy 10.

So there's an exchange. The planets and the stars are mentioned in Genesis, in Psalm, Jeremiah, Isaiah, in the heavens. So they call, they say the kings in the heavens.

They use the word heavens there, and yet there's three categories of how it's used. Okay. In which heaven do we all go to? We go to be with the Lord God in heaven heaven, okay?

Okay. We presently are in the lower level, the first heaven. It doesn't mean heaven as in the harps and the angels on clouds as wonderful.

It's just the way the Jews use the term to describe different things. The first heaven is just simply where the birds are, the clouds, the wind. That's all. So that's the first heaven. The second is the dwelling place of the stars, the moon.

The sun. And the third is the dwelling place of God. That's how they understood it. That's all it is. We just don't call the earth and the atmosphere.

We call it heaven. That's all. Just different terminology. Okay? Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Let's get to Mitchell from Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, me again. What is Abraham's bosom? It's the metaphorical place that is concomitant. Anyway, it's also the term for paradise, it seems to be what it is. It's just a place in their father Abraham called his bosom.

It's not really his chest. It's just called that. It's a metaphor. And it deals with the place of bliss and comfort that the people who died in faith before the crucifixion went to.

That seems to be the place. And then Jesus, during the interim of his death and resurrection, made proclamation of the spirits of prison. You go to 1 Peter 3, 16, 17, 18, 19 for that.

And it seems to be the case that also Ephesians 4 verses 8 through roughly 12 talks about it as well, they think. It's a theory. All right? Okay.

Thanks, buddy. Okay. God bless.

All right. That's good timing because now we're at the top of the hour. We've got to get going. May the Lord bless you. I hope you all have a great evening. By His grace, we're back on here tomorrow. And we'll talk to you then. So if you've got questions, save them for then. Okay? God bless everybody. We'll talk to you later.