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. Everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick.

And you're listening to Matt Slick live. Hope you're having a good time. Hope you had a good weekend. Hope everything worked out for you.

And by God's grace, here we are. All right, we have no callers waiting right now if you want to give me a call. All you've got to do is dial 877-207-2276. All right, tonight I'm going to be doing a little bit of a thing in Spanish. My Spanish is okay, but not as good as it needs to be. And so I've got a friend who is a police officer in a major city who does work in his spare time against false cult groups. And so he and I will be doing some chatting.

He speaks English really well, of course. And so I get to practice my Spanish a little bit. Doing that, I might put that link up on the web on karm.org forward slash calendar.

Maybe. We'll just see how that goes. And if you want to give me a call, like I said, four open lines now, 877-207-2276. Today, I released a couple of articles. And one is on how to do apologetics with unbelievers. Another one is if God is on the benevolent. And I released two over the weekend, God Exists Because and one on the Granville Sharp Rule. So I've been busy the past three days.

I've written four articles. And the Granville Sharp Rule is a really interesting rule. And dealing with Titus 2.13 and 2 Peter 1.1 showing the deity of Christ. And God Exists Because, and that's the title.

And I explain that if people want to know why. And then God is omnibenevolent. Here's something that the atheists say. If God's omnibenevolent, why is there suffering in the world?

And so I wrote an article about that because they often ask that question. And I say, who says he's omnibenevolent? What does it mean? Show me that in scripture.

Does it mean that he doesn't have justice and doesn't have mercy if he's all of one thing? Well, what are you guys talking about? And then the other article I wrote dealing, believe it or not, with how I've been observing a lot of Christians who are doing apologetics on the web. Some of them are quite rude, condescending, showing little patience. And I've been telling them, directly and indirectly, that they need to be more biblical in their approaches with the unbelievers. And we'll see how that goes. So I wrote an article about that. How ought we practice apologetics with unbelievers?

I really do try and be patient with them and gentle, as the Bible says, and put that in there. And anyway, there you go. Wow, there's a lot of stuff happening, you know?

A lot of stuff happening, so good stuff. All right, all right, all right. Why don't we get on the air with Ray from Iowa. Ray, welcome.

You're on the air. Hey, brother. I just have a question for you, as I'm studying about genealogy. Jeconiah was cursed from the throne, and none of his children still sit on the throne. And we know Jesus got his lineage through Mary and Nathan, but in Haggai 2.23, Jeconiah's grandson, a signet ring was placed upon him, and it appears like the curse was reversed.

Could you shed any light on that? Well, the issue here is, that's interesting, I missed that. Oh, that's right. So there are two genealogies, one through Joseph, one through Mary, and Jeconiah is the one cursed through the genealogy of Joseph. So the biological line is through Mary, and the legal line is through Jeconiah, and the curse was directly on a direct descendant. Well, Jesus is not a direct descendant biologically, but he did retain the legal obligations with that. So that's a solution there, is that the biological descendants, he was through Mary, the legal was through, in a sense, the legal was through Joseph, and Jeconiah was in that genealogy. Okay. I get all that, I understand that. As I was reading, and even in Talmud, they were saying that Jeconiah repented, and then in Haggai 2.23, it seems like that was restored, that God reversed the curse, so that wouldn't necessarily have been so any longer.

I just wasn't sure what you thought about that. Well, I hadn't really thought about the issue of removing the curse. What verse is that in Scripture? Haggai 2.23. Haggai 2.23. On that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I'll take you as a rubbable son of Shealtiel.

My servant, declares the Lord, I'll make him like a signet ring, for I have chosen you. Well, I don't see that as being what you said there, unless his name... No, because I was reading down at the bottom of the NASB in the comments and that too, and they were saying that it was as Jeconiah's grandson is placed in authority and that the curse was removed. Okay, I have to check that out and see. I don't know, that's not what I've heard, but you know, if it's what it is, I'm always learning new stuff.

Yeah, it was very curious to me. Okay, I have the last verse in Haggai. Okay. Yeah. I'll see if I can find out and see what the lineage is and if that's qualified in there. I don't know if that's correct, but I'll be able to check that out if I remember to have time. Alright. Alrighty, well thanks a lot brother. Alright man, God bless. Alright, thanks a lot. God bless. Okay. Hey, we have four open lines if you want to give me a call. All you have to do is dial 8772072276. Let's get to Rudolph from Raleigh, North Carolina. Rudolph, welcome.

You're on the air. Yes sir. Yeah, my question was, is why can't Democrats vote, my question is why can't black Democrats or conservative Democrats vote? They don't vote Republicans a lot. And the reason why they can't is because I'm not understanding you.

I'm not understanding you. The question is what? Well how come Democrats don't vote what?

No. I know that you don't, well because a lot of blacks in the Democratic side, they have to side with Democrats even though they may be against abortion and things like. Wait, so what are you asking? Are you asking why are the blacks voting for Democrats?

No, I was saying, I actually was making a comment. Why I think that, because a lot of black people that I know, they have some of the same things against Democrats that Republicans do, but Republicans do not vote in the same issues that blacks need, like social programs and things like that. Let me ask you, do you have a question?

Yeah, I'll try to add this. Okay. Okay, why do you think, why do you think conservative Democrats cannot vote for Republican, Republican party? I don't know if they do or don't. I don't know all of them to be able to tell you if they do or don't.

Statistically maybe they don't generally. I think the Republican party is un-American and I think it's socialistic. I think the Democrats and a lot of the rhinos are doing harm to our country and our Constitution and are trampling the Constitution underfoot. That's what I believe. Well, I will definitely tell you that some of the things, like I said, because I'm black and a lot of my friends reason to be black and a lot of things that they need, they might not necessarily agree with the things that the Republicans, I mean, Democrats are doing, but the Republicans don't offer that same thing for the blacks or the minorities. Well, I'm not sure where you're going with this. It's hard to kind of follow you, but, you know, so I'm not sure what to say, okay? If you have a question, you know, I could try and direct an answer to a specific question, but I don't know where you're going with all this.

I guess I think my question to you is, I don't know, because I know I was listening to you last week. Well, I tell you what, I tell you what, I tell you what, why don't you think about writing, you know, getting a specific question, then call me back and ask me a specific question, all right? Okay, I'll do that. All right. All right, buddy, that sounds good, Rudolph. All right. Hey, we have five open lines if you want to give me a call.

Wide open, 877-207-2276. You know, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the condition of our country. He's got a little bit of a commentary. You know, so there was a shooting at the school in Texas, and then what they wanted to do was get rid of the guns. And then Biden, I'm sorry, but he's just not mentally with it.

It's kind of obvious, but now he's saying that 9mm is too big of a caliber to have, and he doesn't know what he's talking about. But what I see is, in my opinion, is that the leftists have gotten in control of our country, and they've ruined our country. They have removed God out of everything that they can.

They have instituted liberal agendas like pro-homosexuality, pro-abortion, socialistic principles, heavy taxation. They are subject to, and I don't even know why, but they're subject to this save the earth right now thing. The earth is dying.

It's ridiculous. We do need to take care of our resources, but they use this to gain power. And so when things get really bad, they pass laws to cover the problems they've created.

So think about this. The guns that are in our country, you know, there were, from what I understand statistically, more people owned guns 50 years ago than do now. But there weren't these mass shootings and going into schools.

It's not guns that are the problem. It's society. Society is caving in on itself. The morals are gone. God is no longer there.

The vacuum left by removing God has resulted in so many bad things happening. And then what do the leftists do to solve the problems that they've created? Well, they punish those who are law abiding. This is their way. This is what the leftists do. This is what the Democrats do. And just so you know, I don't support the Republicans either.

I'm not a Republican. I'm a constitutionalist. The Constitution needs to be upheld and really understood and defended. It's a great document.

It's not perfect because people aren't perfect who implement it. But nevertheless, this is what needs to be done. And I just think our country is on the downfall. It's going bad. It's going to continue. Anyway, if you want to give me a call, five open lines, give me a comment.

877-207-2276. So that's right, Canada. We'll talk about that after the break. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the show. And like I said before the break, I was going to mention Canada. Trudeau's proposed a national freeze on gun ownership.

Can't buy, sell, trade, do anything. It's just one step further towards totalitarianism as when the people in power fear the possession of guns. They want to remove the guns because then the people can't rise up and say we've had enough of this. And they'll use different excuses in order to get this done.

What they say on one hand, they don't listen to on the other. They say they want to save lives. Well, statistically, far more people are saved by the possession of guns in self-defense than are killed in these shootings. And so if their concern is to save lives, then logic would demand that they equip more people with guns. Now that's just logic.

Of course, they're not going to do that because it's not politically correct. If everyone has guns, everyone's equal. And what we're finding, because of varying morons who go out and shoot people up, then the governments respond by taking away the guns of the law-abiding. This is ludicrous. It's idiotic.

It's stupid. What Canada is doing now, Trudeau, I think, is a dictator, behaves like one. He is going to now start confiscating the guns and, you know, it'll happen. And as, you know, the saying goes, crud rolls downhill, and so it's going to come to the United States next. They're going to try.

We're just going to be careful, folks. The Second Amendment is for the protection of the people against the government as well as self-protection. But that's why it was instituted. The Second Amendment was instituted because the populists wanted to make sure that the government could not come in with its weaponry and take over and then force the people to do what they wanted to do. The Second Amendment was for the self-defense against tyranny.

That's what it was for. Now, let me ask you, is tyranny approaching? Let's get to Ruskman from Ohio. Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, it's once again, Matt. Always a pleasure talking to you, sir.

Thanks for having me on again. I've got a question. I was listening to the show up to this point, and I thought, okay, there's four lines I want to see if I can get through. Matt, what do we do, how do we handle our pastors who say, I don't care who's in the White House, I'm for King Jesus?

And then everybody in the room shouts hallelujah and amen and claps. Yeah, it's stupid. It's just like in a state like it is, it's stupid. It is. I don't care who's in control.

Yeah. So what if it's a communist atheist who hates Christianity and wants to close all churches? I don't care who's in control. I don't care who's over us. Why should we be concerned with the secularists who promote homosexuality, who promote transgenderism, who promote socialism, who want to confiscate our rights?

Why should we be worried about that? Because we have Jesus. Jesus is on the throne.

Yeah. He is on the throne. And you know what, God who's always been on the throne often would send in a foreign nation to destroy Israel and take them home. He did, sir. That's right.

He did. Because the leaders in Israel were not obeying God and the people of God were not doing what they were supposed to be doing. So if a pastor gets up there and says, I don't worry about it, I'm not concerned about it, we don't need to be concerned about it, it doesn't matter, that's wrong.

It's flat out wrong. Now, what do we as the listener, what do we as the listener in that room, Matt, what do we do? You go talk to the pastor and you say, why are you telling us not to be concerned about the unbelievers who hate God who are ruling over us?

Why would that not be a concern? Yeah. I came across this awesome quote from Pastor Charles Finney and if you'll indulge me, are you familiar? It was called, the church must speak about politics or there will be no God given freedom. Have you heard of that, Matt? No, but it's like this, the church must speak of politics or there won't be a church.

Yeah. That's basically what Pastor Charles Finney said seven years ago and I sent it to a dear brother of mine for his review and he texted me back, great quote. And I said, not only is it a great quote, but it's a convicting one because Charles Finney just goes right in, Matt, and says, I'll just quote one of his lines, if there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. And he goes all the way down to if our government becomes corrupt and falls away, the pulpit is responsible for it. And I thought, wow, and that was part of it. Whoa, whoa. The hint of that is it's not responsible until something bad happens.

No. No, we are responsible now before something bad happens, preaching the truth. Amen. Christians need to be involved in politics. They need to be involved in government.

They need to be involved in schools. We need to be the light and the salt in the world and not let the unbelievers rule. Look what's happening around us. Look what the unbelievers are doing. They're letting criminals go loose and then calling moms who protest about the transgender stupidity that's being forced down their kindergartners' first, second, third graders' throats, and they're being called terrorists. This is insane.

It's insane. This is what the unbelievers do. And to say we shouldn't be involved with that is ludicrous stupidity. We, of course, are to be involved with it. If someone in there's home and you have someone in the home committing adultery or going out and stealing and you find out, then that needs to be addressed. You can't just say, it's okay, it's not my concern.

Of course it's your concern. Jesus will take care of it. Jesus will take care of it by using people.

That's what he does. What people want to do, what Christians want to do is find an excuse to do nothing. They want to find an excuse to lay the cross down and sit. They want to find an excuse to do nothing. If we Christians were to be united in this country, and not with violence, but to say, we've had enough of this.

We're done. And protest. Gather in the streets and do peaceful protests.

And I mean all over the place. Say, we are done with this. It will change society. But what do Christians do? They look to the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian surfer, Jesus, dressed in a woman's nightgown. Standing at the door of your sovereign heart asking permission for you to let him in so that he can pre-trib rapture you out of here. So you have to worry about it because Jesus is on the throne.

Don't worry about anything. And yet what happens is our world is becoming more and more pagan. And so Jesus called us to be the disciple makers and to be the balance of the world. The unbelievers aren't going to do it. And so every pastor should be concerned about this.

Doesn't mean you've got to preach it every day, but every pastor should be concerned about this. I think of the song that was written by the great, I love this guy, the great Mark Hall of Passions and Crowns. Hold on. I have to talk to the break.

I want to hear this. Hey folks, we have three open lines. You want to 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.

Welcome back to the show, Buskman. Are you still there? I am still here, Matt.

Thank you for holding on for me. The thought of Christ being on the throne, obviously he is in the hearts and minds of the Christians. 1 Corinthians 12 jumps out at me, Matt, that says, verse 27, Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. So if Christ is our pastors, he's sitting on the throne.

I don't care who's in the White House. If we are the body of Christ, shouldn't we be doing all we can, as you have so greatly spoken of, be part of our political process and not disconnected? Or would they say, Matt, that Jesus never was? Yes, he was. He confronted the issue of Herod and Pontius Pilate and Caesar and the Centurion.

He did not rebuke to go do your job well. So politics is what he came for. He came to be a sin sacrifice. But what we're supposed to do is make disciples of all nations. And if the Christians in this country who were so populous and powerful have given up so much, then it's our fault. And God's going to hold us accountable for it. He's going to hold us accountable for it.

I believe so too, brother. I keep thinking if we as Christians keep keeping God on the ethereal plane, if you will, you know, Paul taught us to think of things heavenly and not things below. I get it, but we should be the body of Christ. And that's where I was quoting Mark Hall from Casting Crowns saying, if we are the body, why aren't his arms reaching?

Why aren't his hands healing? Why aren't his words teaching? Because Christianity as a whole has dropped the cross and left it behind. That's an amazing statement, brother. As a whole, there are lots of Christians who are working daily in their lives to follow Christ.

But as a whole, the church is ineffective and there needs to be some change. All right, brother? Sounds great. Always great talking to you, Matt. Thank you for your time, sir. All right, man. God bless. All right, Four Open Lines.

If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Before we get to the next caller, I want to tell you that what you need to watch out for with any political system is control, is desire for control. The more control it rests from you, the more control it gets and will want. So the more you give it, the more it wants. The more you give, the less you have. The less you have, the less freedom you have. And so this is what you've got to watch out for.

Think of this. What political party is seeking to gain control and to gain power and to lessen your control, lessen your power? That's what you've got to watch out for. It's as simple as that. Let me repeat it. Which political candidate, party, whatever, doesn't matter, is moving or preaching or teaching to gain power in the state and lessen power from you? And that's what you've got to watch for.

Listen to that. Are they moving to remove your rights and give them to the state that will then control you? Why is that important? China. China is a controlled state.

Now we're not yet, but we're moving towards it. So what's China doing with Christianity? Well, did you know this? What's happening regularly is China is now closing churches, Christian churches, closing them, requiring pastors that are extant in other areas. It's a huge country requiring pastors to preach patriotism, which is loyalty to the Communist Party. That's what it's requiring pastors to preach from the pulpit. Schools in China have been brainwashing children to think that Christianity is an evil cult.

Now get this. The Communist Party has begun a ten-year program to rewrite the Bible. And, for example, this has been leaked. The woman caught in adultery, where Jesus forgives her, says go and sin no more.

In the Communist Bible, when everyone went out, Jesus stoned the woman himself and said, I am also a sinner. So when people say, well, China's too far removed, we're not going to get that bad. Really? How do you know? If things go the way they are, where's it going to end? Do you think they're going to stop at your church door? Do you think they're going to stop at your own home? Are they going to come in?

This is the nature of oppression. Study history. Don't look at Pre-Trib Rapture. We're going to get out. It'll all be fine. Don't worry about it. That's the wrong attitude to have. That's a sinful attitude. Not to believe in Pre-Trib Rapture, but to be disregarding our responsibility now to pick up the cross daily and march forward to make disciples of all nations. Don't use the Pre-Trib Rapture as an excuse to let the world go bad and say we're going to get out of it. See, the thing is that when the unbelievers get control, history tells us what happens. And if you don't know what happens... I'm going to read from an article on Karm. Is religion the number one cause of war?

Which is something that atheists always say. Stalin. Stalin.

Non-religious dictator. He's in control. He was in control of Russia. 42 million people died as a result of his work, of his killing people, executing them, putting them in prison, going after ministers, going after Christians, going after the intellectual elite. He was in control. And when he was in control, 42 million died.

He was in the 1900s. Mao Zedong. 38 million people from China. Adolf Hitler. 21 million people. Chiang Kai-shek. 10 million.

Vladimir Lenin. 4 million. And it goes on. One quote here is almost 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death, buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of a myriad of ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could be conceivably as high as 36 million people. It is though our species has been devastated by a modern black plague, and indeed it has, but it's a plague of power, not germs. When people get in power, then they become oppressive. And as Christians, we need to realize that our flesh and blood is not the issue. It's the powers and principalities that we're at war with. How many of you think that maybe when such people get into such great control, there's not a demonic influence with them? This is something we as Christians have to entertain and we have to think about. And it is time, and it has been time, for us to pick up the cross daily and follow after Christ and raise up children for the glory of God, to get involved in politics and writing and movies and schools and teaching, because the unbelievers are now in control of all those things. And look what's happening.

It's simple. What's our responsibility? Raise children. Make them godly, the best we can. And go out and make disciples and support ministries that witness, support legal lawsuits and groups, ACLJ, that works to defend our rights, support the preaching of the Gospel. That's what we're to do, among other things.

It's simple. What we're called to do. Let's get to Jacob from Wisconsin.

Jacob, welcome here on the air. I was wondering about the Lutheran view of baptismal regeneration and what's the best thing to refute that? Well, I went to a Lutheran college, got my bachelor's degree from an LCMS college, Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. And what I understood, I still remember the bit of confusion that I had with them. And the best of my recollection, they said that it's ex opera operata, by the doing it is done, that is Latin. That the child, thus baptized, is in a state of salvation.

And I never could accept that. I do believe in baptism, but not for that. I believe it as a covenant sign. When you dedicate a child, you have a sign with a covenant. Because it's biblical to have covenant signs.

But not this issue of by the baptism with the headship of the father and the family and the church, the authority, that therefore the child is to be considered saved, and it actually is. And that's what I understood. I remember thinking, that doesn't make any sense.

How did you get that? And I was never satisfied with the answers. So if I were to talk to an LCMS person now about that, I would ask more pointed questions about the nature of regeneration and find out what they teach. And I have done it over the years, and their answers are ambiguous.

They're not very clear. But nevertheless, we've got a break coming up. Hold on, buddy. We'll be right back. Folks, we have four 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. Everyone, welcome back to the show. Let's get back on here with Jacob. Yeah, that's right, Jacob.

Sorry about that, buddy. Okay, go ahead. So some of the Lutherans that I've listened to, what they've said is that God gives the infant faith via the baptism. Right. So you can say that they are totally believing faith well, but they also believe in baptismal regen rights. Yeah, they're saying that baptism is the instrument of faith's imputation, but that's not stated to be the case in Scripture. God grants that we believe, Philippians 1, 29 and Psalm 22, 60, to make me believe while at my mother's breast. So this issue of faith is something that comes from God. Now, I won't say that God cannot give faith to an infant.

I just don't know enough to be able to say yes or no to that. God is God, and he's the supreme one. But I don't see their sacerdotal system as being legitimate because what they're doing is they're saying, yeah, by the instrument it is done, ex opera operata is what it is. By the doing, by the instrument, by the practice, by the ritual, by the whatever, then it's accomplished, and that's a problem. And then how does baptismal regeneration work for adults?

How does what? How does baptism for adults in the Lutheran view? From what I remember, they're justified by faith, and they are to be baptized as a proof or demonstration of the faith that they already have. I never found anything contrary to that when I went to the Lutheran college.

And just so you know, it's had some top Lutheran theologians in that college, so I got to learn from some good ones. But that's what I understand. Okay? Because what I was hearing them say is that with the baptism, there's a vow of baptism that God is always offering the grace through the baptism, but because they don't believe in irresistible grace, then that grace can be rejected, and that's why there's so many infants that are baptized that have been apostatized. Yeah. Irresistible grace means that you can't resist God's regenerative work in you. So I think they misapplied that. They're teaching what I understand to be sacerdotalism, that the ritual itself brings a movement of God's grace into a person by the ritual itself, and that to me is too close to sorcery, that you do a certain thing and you get a spiritual result.

That always makes me nervous when I hear stuff like that. Okay? All right. The other thing about their view that I was wondering is they say that they believe in monergism, but then they also believe in universal atonement. So how do you compare their system with the Reformed view? Well, they limit the power of the atoning work, or we limit the scope. That's what the difference is.

So though it's been a long time since I've had discussions with Lutherans, knowledgeable Lutherans about the nature and the extent of the atonement, they do hold to, from what I remember, they do hold to a vicarious legal substitutionary atonement. They just, in my opinion, are weak theologically on it. I remember that when I was there in college. I remember thinking, they don't have their stuff together. They're too Catholic, and they haven't gone far enough away. So they're inconsistent. And I had many discussions with people where their response was, well, we just don't understand it.

That's what we believe when they move on. But that doesn't make any sense. You're contradicting yourself, you know? And so, you know, anyway, that's what I remember. Okay, buddy?

All right, ma'am. They say that in, like, Arminianism being synergistic, but they claim that they're monergistic, like a Calvinist. So it's just, I don't understand how that's really compatible. Well, get them on the air with me and let's see what they particularly teach, because what you're saying may not be exactly what they teach. And so we would need someone who was in LCMS theology, for example, or Wisconsin Synod, or whatever it is, who are knowledgeable, and say, this is our position. And then we could have a little discussion. Okay? We've got some other callers.

I want to get going to the other callers. Okay, buddy? Okay? Okay. That would be nice if you could have a discussion with a Lutheran. Yes, it would be.

I'd love to do that. All right. Because I had a video, and he was responding to one of your videos. Well, okay, they can respond. But I've seen responses to my videos, and they misrepresent what I say often. And then when they try and give what they call a biblical response, I'm like, you're missing points here.

That's what I see all the time. So, you know, whatever, people respond. And I'd respond to them and then back and forth.

I can do that. But have them call. Give them the call sometime, okay? All right, buddy. All right, let's move along.

We'll get to Dwayne from North Carolina. Welcome. You are on the air. Yeah, thanks for taking my call. Sure.

I just have a real quick question here. I'm 78, and I said, well, I really want to read all the way through the Bible. And I looked through a whole lot of one-year Bible reading plans.

I looked up your website, and I don't believe there's one on there. And I was wondering if you could mention the end of a particular one. I do have to warn you, I won't be using my laptop or anything. I'll be using one or two study Bibles and two probably one-volume commentaries or something. Just read four chapters a day.

It'll be done in a year. That's if you give one day off a week, you know. But if you read basically 3.2, 3 and a quarter, hold on, I've got to hit something here.

I've got a little static coming in. Just read basically three chapters a day, seven days a week, you'll almost finish the entire Bible. But if you read four a day, you get a couple days off, you know, three, four, five days a week, a month off.

You can read it. That's all. Just read, just aim for four chapters a day.

That's all. You'll be fine. I was thinking about starting, they have all kinds of different things, but I was thinking about starting maybe reading one book in the old and then one book in the new or something like that. Sure, you can do whatever you want. You can read one book in Genesis, one book in Isaiah, or one chapter that is in Isaiah, one chapter in Matthew, one chapter in Romans. Just keep a record so that you go through.

Just read straight through or read two chapters in the Old Testament, two chapters in the New Testament, you know, or three chapters in the old and one chapter in the new, whatever you want to do. It's fine. There's all kinds of plans. Well, thank you very much, sir. Okay.

That's what I would read. I'd just go straight through it. And, you know, I've got to do it again. I haven't done it for a while, so I've got to do it again. But that's all you've got to do.

It's about three to four chapters a day, depending on how much you read and how many days you do it. Okay? All right, man. Okay. Thank you.

All right. God bless. Let's get to Vicki from North Carolina. Vicki, welcome.

You are on the air. Hi, Matthew. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right.

Hang in there. I have a question. I'm just curious about, because, like, over time, as I've listened, I noticed people a lot of times seem to get really upset about the whole issue about baptism, the difference between sprinkling or inversion. And I guess I'm wondering if I'm missing something, because I don't know why people get upset about it one way or the other.

Well, yeah. If you get baptized, whether it's sprinkling or immersion, it's what the acts of your heart is and your obedience to God. I mean, or is there something I'm missing, you know?

Yeah, you're missing something. And what it is is that a lot of people are taught that baptism only can be by immersion and to do it any other way is not being biblical. So they will have a conniption fit if you try and say by sprinkling or pouring. Even though, biblically, I can defend the position that Jesus was sprinkled at his baptism, not immersed, or at the very least poured upon. Yeah, I've heard your explanation of that, and it makes good sense. Yeah, it makes sense, because just read what the scriptures teach. So I remember when I was first studying this, I came to the issue with the belief that baptism meant immersion. And so I started studying. And it took a couple, three years, but I came to the conclusion, nope, that's not the case. It can mean it, but not just that. And I have plenty of references on that.

In fact, let's see. If you go to karm.org, that's right, karm.org forward slash cut for the cut and paste stuff. And if you go down on that, you'll see outlines. This section I added on that page. And the bottom of there is baptism. And what I did was I put forth there the actual outlines, about 80% of what I actually use in Microsoft Word when I do debates, when I do teachings, because I don't memorize everything. And I have my notes there.

And I thought, I'm going to just publish these. And people can go through and see. There's no commentary. I think there's a little bit of commentary.

That's right, there's a little. But it's an outline, like baptism, the Greek immersion, washing and sprinkling, cleanse and washing, baptism of tribulation, washings, how it's used, pouring. The Holy Spirit is always poured upon us. And that's the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

But it's always spoken of as being a pouring. And the notes are right there. The notes are right there. People can go look it up. They can go check this stuff. And so that way they can make their own judgment. But regardless of which way you believe, though, don't you believe that it doesn't really matter which way you are baptized because it's really what the condition of your heart is and your obedience to God that you're doing this? I mean, it doesn't matter who is right about it, right?

For the most part, yes. As long as it's within the issue of either sprinkling, which is how it was done in the Old Testament a lot, the pouring, because it says in Acts 1.5 that John the Baptist baptized with water and Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit. If baptism means immerse, that's not how it works. It has to be pouring because the Holy Spirit is poured, Acts 2.28, for example. So there's sprinkling, pouring, and immersion, which are how B-A-P-T, the root, is used in its cognates in the entire New Testament.

So I would say that the sincerity of the heart is important, but that's not the only thing. I would not recognize baptism if they were to use motor oil or something like that. It would get a little ridiculous here. But the idea here is that, but then what do you do if you're in a desert, you know, and a person wants to be baptized and say they don't think they're going to live because they're dying of thirst out there, a plane crash, whatever. Someone preaches, someone gets baptized, and there's still no water, what do you do?

Well, I don't think God's going to condemn them because they didn't have any water, you know, the situation. So, yeah, you know, we need to be gracious here. Yep, be gracious, which I think is a good idea. Yeah, all right. Do you have another caller? No, I don't. We only have about half a minute left, but go ahead.

Okay, half a minute. Just wanted to say, one of your shows not too horribly long ago, you called in and you gave a point of view and spoke on a topic. Don't ask my ADD brain to remember what it was.

I thought it was really kind of neat, and you got a lot of callers who responded, and I thought maybe like even on Fridays, like people can call in like normal with their regular questions, but also, too, if you had a topic even that you wanted to share or give your point of view and invited people to call. I do that. I do that frequently.

I open up with something, and then we talk. But, yeah, hey, there's the music, got to go. Call back tomorrow. We'll talk some more about it, okay? Sorry, but we're out of time, Vicki. Yeah, bye-bye. God bless. All right. Hey, folks, may the Lord bless you. By His grace, Lord willing, we'll be back on there tomorrow and pick up that cross, okay? God bless. Another program powered by the Truth Network.