Matt Slick Live

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The Truth Network Podcast is produced by Truth Network Podcast. The good people. The hard people.

The good people. And they can't see that the solution is not by tying the hands, it's by changing the heart. But their hearts are wicked. They don't understand that when the Lord is in you that the goodness within in your hearts, in your heart, that the Lord Jesus stops your hand. You see, we need to return to the things of God. But the left doesn't want it. The left wants its fornications and its pornography and its violence and its hypocrisy and its socialism and communism and oppression and power. And when things go wrong, they will use a situation to gain more power, to enslave more people and restrict their freedoms, all the while saying that they are the ones who are the moral ones doing what's right and they can't see. They can't see that their denial of the true and living God, they're exercising him of society and culture, politics, schools, entertainment, getting rid of him and his foundational truths of loving God and loving your neighbor and being accountable to him.

These things are no longer in place in our society. And so, the void is filled with the tragedies of our own hearts, filled with varying forms of evil. Now there are a lot of good people out there, but when the weak, when the crazy, when the insane, dare I say demonically oppressed act, then those who have contributed to that with their policies and their negation of the truth of who God is and his goodness and why we need him in society, those who have helped build that vacuum then punish inadvertently or on purpose, those who are guiltless in this.

They want control and ultimately you have to understand something that's very important here. I'm going to go to Ephesians chapter 6 and remind us all of what the scriptures teach us. Verse 12, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of weakness in the heavenly places. Now coincidentally, it's interesting that we're talking about this as a tragedy, but I'm rewriting my novel, The Influence, I'm going to re-release it, and I just went through the section where the character Leech is possessed and the thoughts of the demonic force in my fictional novel, the thoughts of this demonic force speak into the mind of this poor man and it thinks it's doing good when it's doing evil. He thinks he's doing right and so pain and suffering are the result. It's just kind of interesting because as the Bible says, you wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities, it's not saying that men and women aren't sinful and don't have their sinful natures, but the ultimate battle is against these spiritual forces and we need to be very aware of this.

There are spiritual forces that are all around us according to the revelation of scripture, the word of Jesus Christ, the revelation of the New Testament, and we need to be aware and we need to be praying appropriately. For those people in Uvalde, Texas who have suffered such a great loss, I can only hope and pray that in God's grace, that though he allowed this to occur, that their hearts are not darkened and that they don't turn from him, but that they recognize instead what the presence of evil does. When you get rid of God, then this is the consequence.

This is the effect. May they see and turn to God and may they turn to him. That's what my prayer is for them. We are so sorry for those people who are suffering, moms and dads who have dropped their kids off at an elementary school only to get a call or see on the news the tragedy at their elementary school and then they rush there and it's just the incredible pain and loss of the death of a child and I know I've experienced it and it's just horrible.

It's horrible and my heart breaks with them and for them. We need to pray, ladies and gentlemen, we need to pray as Christians for the binding of the evil one and for the work of the kingdom of God to occur in society and that our own country would repent and turn from its wickedness and reinstate God where he's supposed to be in our society. Only through him can we find ultimate truth and ultimate morals, but without him then everything is relative and those in power who deny him but give him lip service only for their convenience to gain power and those who don't know him and don't believe in the absolutes of truth and moral truth, what will happen is they will use circumstances and sin and tragedy and death to gain more power based upon their whims of what is right and wrong, what they think is true and because of that this is why things are getting worse. So we as Christians need to repent and not put our trust or our faith in government or in the trucks that bring food to the stores that we go by. We don't need to trust, put our trust in those things, but our trust needs to be in Jesus Christ and we need to turn to him. All of us in the Christian church need to do that, we need to pray for the repentance of this country, the renewal of this country and we Christians are the ones who are responsible for praying that.

The unbelievers won't, therefore it falls on us and we should all be praying it regularly for the repentance of our country for a sweep, a movement, a pouring of the Holy Spirit upon this nation and that people would come to repentance and turn to him. That is what is needed. Sorry for the downer opening today, but because of this tragedy in Texas, and I'm looking at a headline, Uvalde, Texas, school shooting 14 students, one teacher killed, suspected shooter dead.

Governor Abbott says that a subheading, Salvador Romas, 18, killed multiple children in teacher net elementary school, a small city located 80 miles west of San Antonio. More details are going to be coming, of course, and man, it's horrible. Well having said that, if any of you dare want to call, the number is 877-207-2276, please give me a call and we can talk about that or talk about whatever you want to talk about. I just want to offer that. So there you go. All right, may the Lord bless this show today. Let's just get on the air. I'm going to jump right on with Alberto from Georgia. Hey, Alberto. Welcome, buddy. You're on the air. Yes.

Go ahead, Matt Slick. My question is, why do Pentecostals teach that we're going to keep ourselves in Christ Jesus when the Bible says once we accept Christ, he draws in us, permanently, forever, why do we have to teach the book of Romans chapter 8 that says that there's no more convention than those who are in Christ Jesus? Basically, the Bible says that we have to keep ourselves in Christ Jesus in order not to be saved.

Wait, wait, wait. So what's your question? I'm not sure I'm following your question. My question is, do we have to keep ourselves in Christ Jesus in order not to be convinced? We don't do the work of keeping ourselves saved, and that's the thing.

We don't do that work. God is faithful. He indwells us.

He has guaranteed that we will not fail. Those who are truly redeemed. We don't want to take credit for what God is doing, but the Pentecostals often, because they teach you can lose your salvation, will then teach that you keep it by your obedience, your submission, your goodness, and your faithfulness. And so it's very problematic.

Okay. Yeah, because they think by your holy living that you've got to get yourself into heaven. Basically, like, you're saved by faith the moment you get saved, but then after that by your own holy living, they think it's off into heaven. That's right. That's what they say.

Or resurrection of Christ. Well, you're right, buddy. Amen. There's a break, so we're going to move along. Okay? Good stuff. All right. Keep following up, Bert. All right.

Thank you. Hey, folks, 4 Open Lines, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. Please stay tuned. Welcome back to the show, everybody. Let's get to... Well, we have 4 Open Lines, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Pearl from Virginia. Pearl, welcome.

You're on the air. Sir Matt, would you please give me your mind and opinion, your learnedness on Job 37-19, where it says, teach me. Of course, Job speaking to God the Almighty, what I shall say unto thee, for I cannot order my speech by reason of darkness. What I want to know is, after we are born again by the blood of the Lamb, can we do anything except, in other words, can we do anything to please God except that it's done through and of and because of God the Holy Spirit? You know, first of all, I'm not a King James fan speaking in Thees and Thou's, but somehow when you quote the King James, it just sounds good.

I don't know what it is. But when you quote it, that sounds really nice. So first of all, that was good. And how do we please God? We can please God by being in his will. And we are not perfect at it, but we want to obey the Lord Jesus Christ.

We're to love others. John 14-15, we're to be sacrificial, patient, and kind, and these things please God. Now, of course, we don't do them perfectly, but still, God is pleased with the attempt that we have to live as Christ lived and to seek to do what Christ did. And this is a good thing because the goal is Jesus, the standard is Jesus, and we're trying to emulate him.

So therefore, sir, and I'm being rude, interrupting you, my feeling is that even though I am born again and washed in the blood of the Lamb, I can't say it enough because we don't hear it from our pulpits, and that the Lord Jesus is God. And that the only ticket, if you please, that's not a very good way to say it, about God's life, he tells us in Acts 22-28, or 20-28, God's life, his blood, his life that flowed through the veins of the Lord Jesus Christ. I just feel like what I can do, I don't care how good it is, of course not bad, but how good it is, unless it's God the Holy Spirit in me doing it, it's not what pleases God, or what he accepts. Well he accepts our spiritual service of sacrifice and worship, which is to, let's see, oops, I've got the wrong thing there, I'm going to find that. It's in Hebrews, yeah, there's a spiritual service of worship, therefore I urge you, this is Romans 12-1, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.

Which I do every day. It says acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. So he's saying that this is acceptable, presenting our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice. A sacrifice is something given to make things right, to make things better for others even. And so when he talks like this, a holy sacrifice, he's not saying that we repair our own sins, but that we are living sacrificially before Christ, because that's what he did. And so this is acceptable to God, and that's what's going on. Well sir, give me your opinion, I pray, and God Almighty has led me to pray this, because I couldn't do it myself, of my flesh, to kill everything in me but himself. Yeah, I've only wished that about 8,000 times, praying for that, I've even gotten to the point sometimes when I want to pray, I don't want to pray, because what's the point? Not that he can't hear me, but because my prayers, how are they perfect?

How are they pure? How are they doing exactly what God wants? I don't even know what to pray for sometimes, so sometimes I just sit there.

That's right. Is there any higher prayer that I can pray? Yeah, for the will of God, in the person of Christ, in your life.

Is higher than to kill everything in me but himself. Well it's a good prayer. You could just do what Jesus did, nevertheless not my will, but your will be done. I pray for the will of the Father, and the will of the Father is that our sin in us die. The will of the Father is that I go to that store tomorrow. The will of the Father is that I love my wife. The love of the Father is that blah, blah, blah. Because the will of the Father, he's the sovereign king. So theologically, I like to say the will of the Father, because even Jesus submitted to the will of the Father who sent him. So I think that is what we ultimately need to do.

But what you said is correct. It's a great prayer. It's a high prayer to say, Lord, kill that evil in me. But you know what?

He doesn't. And the flesh is, even as I understand it, the flesh can do good, and it can do bad, but it's not anything that God accepts. If it's the flesh, if it's a pearl, if it's me. Well how do you know? Here's the problem. That's right, sir. How do I know?

Yeah. How do I know? How do you know? See, I'll pray to write an article. Okay, Lord, I want to pray to write this article, and I ask it to glorify you. How much of that prayer in my heart is so that people will look at me and think how great I am?

How much is there? I understand you. And so it's like, oh, I know a part of that is there.

That is wrong. Lord, please get rid of that. But then I'm thinking, get rid of it, because that's what I need so I can be great again. My heart is deceptive and deceitful, and so I just pray so much, Lord, I can't even trust myself. I don't trust my own heart. There's wickedness where I don't want it to be. Well, Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Desperate.

Who can know it? That's right. Desperately. Can't get any more wicked. And that's why I know he's saved me and he's washed me, and I pray every day that the Holy Spirit will swallow me up, not that the precious blood has not done it all, but that he will swallow me up in the blood of the Lamb and saturate me in the oil of the Holy Spirit. And another thing I want to ask you – That sounds so good. It is so good. I'd love to hear that.

That is awesome. Oh, yes. And then, well, God, the Father says, if you, being evil, know how to give your children good gifts, how much more shall the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Well, now tell me, sir, when I was born again, did I not receive the Holy Spirit to live within my heart?

Of course you did. But why, then, does he say, for them that ask? Because he's living in our heart, and we are to ask. We are to ask God for more. And I can go on about this, but 1 Corinthians 14, 1, seek spiritual gifts, seek that you can prophesy.

Prophesy. Ask God for more. So it's not wrong to ask him for the Holy Spirit. For more of the Holy Spirit. You already have them. Okay.

For more of the Holy Spirit. All right. Okay, Kate. All right. You've got to go.

God bless. I'm sorry that I kept you so long. That's all right. Hey, folks, we have four 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, well, and welcome back to the show. We're at the bottom of the hour, and I wanted to just give you a little bit of a heads up. I got an email today, and I think we're on to something here. This is from Joseph, and that's as far as I'll go with his name. It says, you got me today. This is from yesterday. You got me today when with the quote, if we only had 1,000 people donate $5 a month, comment.

He said he canceled his rarely used subscription to Hulu and started sending $10 a month to Hulu. He says, I know it will be used to further the kingdom of God, so only 998 more people. I thought I'd tell you that it's not a bad idea to keep this going. When people know there's a feasible goal, they might be quicker to jump in.

Maybe not. Just an idea. I'd like to see you expand. You are a major part of my rededicating my life to the Lord and my newfound love of Reformed theology. Thanks again for all you do. God bless.

Hey, thanks, Joe. So my wife showed this to me, and she is now keeping track, and so we've got $10 from him, and we have $5 from Rook, I think, and $5 from Ludwig that have come in. So what we're going to do, I think we'll give it a shot. I'll just keep mentioning it, that we're looking for 1,000 donors at $5 a month, and if we can have that, it would really help us out a great deal.

And as I've said before, we have missionaries all over the world and stuff. $5 a month isn't much, so if you're interested in supporting us, all you've got to do is go to karm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G forward slash donate, and you can donate $5 a month and stuff like that. If you want, you can email us and say, hey, this is from the call or from the radio or it's for the radio, whatever you want, and we can then tie those together and know what's going on. So that's what we're talking about, and I just want to let you guys know, if you want to do that and support us, all you have to do is go to karm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G forward slash donate, and you can help us out.

$5 a month is a great little bit. For Open Lives, you're going to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Jason from Utah, hey, welcome back, you're on the air. Hey, Matt. I just want to say, God bless the last caller, it was awesome. Anyway, my question is, you said something about you don't like the King James Version.

I would like to know why and what do you like and why do you like what you like, if you don't like that. Yeah, I'm not fond of the King James because of the thes and thes. It's just as simple as when you're talking to somebody, the thes and thes just don't fit. And so when I was, my early days of witnessing, I would quote the King James and people would look at me like, what?

I lived in Southern California, I'd go down, you know, go boogie board, go surf, body surfing, talk to the people. You didn't talk in King James Elizabethan English, you know, you didn't do that. And so I very quickly learned to just avoid all that kind of stuff. And I went to a translation that turned out to be a very good one, the NASB, which is very true to the Greek, and more so than even the ESV and NIV in a lot of areas.

So that's why I use the NASB 95 version, I probably will switch to the 2020 pretty soon. But I just say that's when the Paul the Apostle used good enough for him, good enough for me, that kind of thing. Okay. Oh, okay. That actually changes my little perspective, too. I appreciate that.

Also... I've been using the King James, I thought everybody just kind of liked the King James because of the... kind of get you out of the deep south stuff, but I can kind of see... that actually changes a lot. Yeah. Well, you know, I just think it's important, because I'm evangelistic, but a lot of people love the King James, and I'm not knocking it, I'm not saying it's bad, you know, it's just okay, that's fine, if you want to use it, then use it, and if you want to witness using it, then witness using it. That's between you and God. My personal preference is not to have to deal with these thou's and archaic terminology and phrases.

So I just want to remove things. Plus the NASB, because of its literalness, taught me theology that the ESV would not have, or the NIV would not have. And so I've learned some theology. I need the literalness as much as possible, because I want to know as much as possible of what it says.

And so I've studied Greek in college and seminary, and so I have a pretty good idea of what it says. And I have a particular verse I go to, Romans 5.18, which the NASB says, and I believe a very good translation, through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. That verse is problematic because of what it actually says in the Greek, and that is what it actually says in the Greek. So other versions have downplayed it, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification of life to all men. But that's not what the Greek is saying. And the King James, therefore as the one, by the offense of the one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of the one, the free gift came upon all men into justification of life. It doesn't say free gift in the Greek. And when I started seeing this, I started noticing a difference, and I started to be studying, and I learned, because of Romans 5.18 and the NASB, I learned about federal headship, representation.

I learned about other theological perspectives and how they're tied together, and how God uses words, and it set me on a course of study that was very profitable. So there you go. Okay. I appreciate that. I really do. Thank you. Okay.

I really do. Sure. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. You have a good day. You're welcome. All right. You too. God bless. God bless.

All right. Hey, folks, we are wide open. If you want to give me a call, 8772072276. And I'm actually curious, seriously, just thought about this, because we don't have any callers waiting, so I'm going to talk about this. I'm actually curious to know where you're hearing me from. If you're driving in your car and you want to call, or if you're at home listening on a radio station, I'd like to hear from you calling.

What city and state, just briefly. If you want to call and say, hey, just whatever. Or even if you just told Keith, the producer, he'll just type it into a little connecting chat thing we have behind the scenes, and you could tell me. I'm curious. And one of the reasons is because I want to move towards the idea of expanding the radio show and other stations. And so I want to talk to the station owner and just see. It's very early. I want to look. Which reminds me, we are looking for volunteers to work with CARM.

We need to use the body of Christ. I have to tell you, I'm tapped out. I've got so much to do. And rewriting and writing and research and speaking and debating, impromptu debates and discussions online, doing stuff, it's just I keep myself very, very busy. And now that I'm 65 years old, when I'm supposed to be retiring, I'm just as busy as I have ever been, if not more busy.

And I love being able to continue. And we have Charlie. Maybe Charlie could call up if he wants and tell us what he does. Laura could call up and tell us what she does.

Luke, if he wants to call up, he could tell us what he does. He could introduce themselves to you guys really briefly for a minute or two each and say what you do. Because I want you to know out there that we do a lot, and we do have people who we're involved with. And they are very helpful, but we need more help and not just a mental kind, as my wife would say.

But we do need help. So okay, so someone's listening from American Fork and Emma, West Virginia, Goochland, Virginia, they're listening from. And Terry, who could that be who's listening in Sandy, Utah, and she's standing in her kitchen. I know she's smiling right now as I talk about her. She's a great godly woman. She's great.

And her husband, Eric, he's a great guy, too. They helped us out. I like to tell that story every now and then, when my wife had open-heart surgery. We had to go down to Salt Lake City, and we stayed with them for two or three weeks. I was there for a week, and then Aneek, my wife, was there for another two weeks.

We were there about three weeks total because she was in the hospital recovering. And they put themselves out for us, and they were such great people. So she's one of my favorite people.

She's awesome. And let's see, okay, so we have Clinton, Iowa. We have Jackson, North Carolina, Massachusetts. Let's see, Charlie says he's in FEMA, Region 10.

I love that. And Leavenworth, Kansas, but you guys aren't listening on the radio. I want to know if it's actual radio stations. That's what I'm curious about, actual radio stations. And then Jimmy says the free half of South Jersey.

How about that? Let's get on the air with Brian from Gastonia, North Carolina. Brian, welcome. You're on the air. Are you there? Hey, brother.

Yeah, I'm here. I am listening from my car, and you said to call if we're listening, so anyway, I appreciate you very much. Well, okay. You're driving down the road listening on the radio. Good. On Gastonia, North Carolina. Well, that's just nice.

Yeah. I hope that more people are listening and smiling. You know what would be fun is if you waved out the window and see how many people are listening on the way back. Where are you, Matt?

I live in Idaho, near the Boise, Idaho area. Tell you what, we've got a break. Hold on if you want. If not, you can hang up, but hold on. We'll talk when we get back.

We have two open lines, folks, 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, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Let's see if Brian is still on, but he's not.

That's okay. Brian is driving down the road. Waving to you, Brian. Let's just jump over to Keith from High Point, North Carolina.

Keith, welcome. You're on the air. Hello? Hello. Oh, I'm on the air. Yes, you are. So you're calling in response to where you're listening from. Good.

Yeah, where I'm listening from High Point. Okay. You mentioned something earlier about people donating $5 a month, and that comes up to almost 17 cents per day, and that would be a little over $5 a month if it's 17 cents per day. I wanted to make that comment in case somebody was listening and thinking, I don't know about that, but it's a pretty cheap investment right there to get what we're getting. But I had a question also. I think it's in the book of Proverbs that was talking about something that you opened up your show about, but it's talking about the wicked and how they do not rest.

They cannot rest because they're always seeking ways to do evil or something. There's a lot I've forgotten since I had a battle episode a couple years ago, and there's things I'm trying to relearn, and that's one of them in my Bible verses. But do you know what I'm speaking about somewhere in Proverbs? I use King James quite a bit. That's all right. And what is it in Proverbs?

Let me do a search. I'm looking in Proverbs right now. But something about the wicked, how they cannot rest and they don't sleep because they're always trying to think of evil things to do. Yeah. That's true. They don't even realize it's evil.

Wicked cannot rest. Let's see. Bible, Proverbs, you can find something like that. And I don't want to misquote it, because it's all right. So how about this verse? Proverbs 4.16.

Let's see. For they cannot sleep unless they do evil, and they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day. Amen.

That's true. Yeah. Proverbs 4.16.

Go ahead. Proverbs 4.16. Four times four is sixteen, right? So Proverbs 4.16. Four.

Sixteen. I got you. Sounds great. Thank you very much. You're welcome very much. Well, God bless. All right. Thank you. Have a blessed day.

Okay. You too. And thanks for calling. And all those in High Point, North Carolina, thanks for calling. Appreciate it.

Or listening, I should say. Four open lines, 877-207-2276, let's get to Salt Lake City, Marvellon, I guess that's the name. Welcome. You're on the air.

Yes. Hi. Hi. How are you doing? So, good.

I love your show, and what I'm calling for is, I believe, Once Saved, Always Saved. Okay. Do you believe that also? Yes. Do you think that...

Okay, great. We're secure in the work of Jesus. If my salvation depended on my ability to stay good and to stay right, I'd be in trouble right away. Yes, amen. So, and there's just been so many things, my pastor, I love my pastor, I love the church that I go to. Can you still hear me?

Yes, absolutely. Okay, he's preaching that you can lose your salvation, and I... Anyways, but when he's preaching that, I told him, I went up and told him afterwards, everything that you said just proved to me stronger that my salvation can't be stolen from me. There's nothing I can do. And anyways, I think that maybe we all have our journeys in life, and so there was a time that he preached, Once Saved, Always Saved. Ask him. There he is.

Just go up and ask him. Say, what do you have to do to keep yourself saved? Because if you do something to lose it, you do something to keep it.

So what do you do? And then, whatever they give, just ask for one, two, or three things, and say, just to say to him, are you doing those things? It's a question we all have to ask, if our salvation depends on our goodness, we're in trouble.

Right. And I know that he knows that. I think that what he's trying to say is, if you really love God and you're serving God, and then all of a sudden you turn your back on him, and you walk away, and then you die in that moment, because I was saved when I was 28, and now I'm 63. But when I got saved, I was only in the Word for about, well, I only went to church for a short while, because I was married to an atheist that refused to let me go to church.

Wow. So I still love God, but anyway, long story short, I became an alcoholic, and I suffered with it for 30 years. So that whole time, I knew I was saved, and so, you know, really, one of the things, so I told my pastor, I told my pastor, God, let me, out of my free will, you know, do that.

I knew it was wrong, and I tried to quit, and I tried to quit, and I tried to quit. And I told my Mormon family, I still confessed that I was saved, which made them just crazy mad. That's because I was a drunk one day. My brother, he came to me with a Bible verse, because that's the only thing I listened to, and he preached out of the Bible, and he came to me, he said, well, Mary Ann, you only believe in the Bible, right?

And I said, yes. And he said, well, you know, there's no drunks in heaven, and he read it to me. And I got so excited, I was like, oh, thank God, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be freed from alcoholism. I was totally sad.

Good way to look at it. Good for you. Yeah, I was totally sad, because that really is, and that's when I quit drinking, I surrendered everything to God, I was like, oh God, I knew he couldn't free me, and I'd been free from alcoholism. So my point being is, and I told my pastor, I did, I never lost my salvation in all those years. I just, I had walked away from God, I still love God, I still pray, and continue to get drunk. And God didn't let me die before I stopped being a drunk.

And I trust you, and I'm so happy to hear that you, you know that you believe the way I do, because you know the Bible, I'm just learning. Yeah, I believe we're secure in Christ, as Jesus says, and I can read the verses, and if people think that your salvation is dependent on your goodness, you know, you can't drink, you can't be a drunk, you can't, you know, be a bad person, and be a liar, and still go to heaven. Well, yes and no, when the Bible talks about that, it's talking about those who abide in it, who have rejected God, and they have sought after their own sin, they're not gonna be in heaven. But what do you do with those who are struggling, with those who know it's sin, and are enslaved by it? Does it mean they're not going to heaven? Or does it mean they're enslaved by it, and God in his patience is working through them? Because too many people think, yeah, they just think that, oh no, my salvation depends on my state of goodness, and if I become a drunk, well then I've lost my salvation. Or if I get into the habit of lying, I've lost my salvation. So your salvation depends on your goodness, and that is arrogant. It's arrogant. I'm not saying it's okay to sin, and we should repent of those things, but the thing is, if anybody thinks that they, in their wisdom and their ability to keep themselves right with the infinite holy God by abiding by things and not doing bad things, then they're arrogant fools. And I'll say it again, arrogant fools, if they think that they keep themselves right with God through their effort, their sincerity.

They're not doing bad things, and they're doing good things, because it's foolishness. Then they can sit, and they can judge others, well, I'm not a drunk like you, you're going to go to hell. Why? Because you're a drunk. Because you're addicted to alcohol, alcoholic.

Well okay, so that means that if I stop it, I get my salvation, based on not doing something and repenting of it, and that's what gets me saved. So how about you? Do you drink? They'll say no. What do you do? Are you perfect?

No. Well what sin is it that you are harboring in your own heart that is habitual? At that point, they should shut up, because we all have those, stubbornness, pride. So when the Bible says the drunk don't get into heaven, well, let's go to that verse. It's 1 Corinthians 9.6, and so it says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, these are fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, covenants, drunkards, revilers, swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. It says the unrighteous.

Notice what he's talking about. He's talking about those who are deceived, they're fornicators, idolaters, adulterers. These aren't people who love the Lord.

These aren't people struggling against their sin. They're the thieves, or the covetous, or the drunkards, and then what he does, these people they go, oh, you're enslaved to alcoholism, oh, sorry, you cannot go to heaven now. And they misapply 1 Corinthians 6.9.

They misapply it. They say, oh, you can be in a state of salvation and be a drunkard for a little while and then lose it. Can you be in a state of salvation and fornicator and be an idolater in a state of salvation and be an adulterer, be effeminate, homosexual, covetous, a thief, reviler, swindler?

To what degree are they going to say which one can and can't be? What Paul is doing is talking about those who are not righteous, who are not justified or not believers. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? He's talking about those who are not saved. He's not talking about those who are struggling because even Paul the apostle, he struggled. And when you go to Romans 7, he started around verse 18, for I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.

For the good that I want I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I'm doing the very thing I do not want, I'm no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. See, he's saying it is sin in him. He's not saying he's not saved.

And so people misapply so much of the word of God in their self-righteousness, and it is. Here's what Jesus says in John 10 27, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish. That's what he says. If you belong to him, you can never perish, but he will deal with you. He'll be patient and he'll discipline you. I know, I've experienced it too.

I almost died, I got so deathly ill. My pastor even told me that he prayed that I would get so sick and so deathly ill but not die. Well, okay. And I'm sorry, but there's the music, we got to go.

I'd love to just continue. I love you, Matt. Thank you.

Help me. Thank you. All right. Well, God bless. God bless you. God bless you. All right. Thank you. Hey folks, may the Lord bless you. Pray for those poor people, the victims there in Texas, it would be by his grace back on here tomorrow. Talk to you then. This is another program powered by the Truth Network.