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.

I hope you're all having a good day and you'll hope you had a good weekend. If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. And boy, so we have nobody waiting right now. Why don't you give me a call and we can blab, we can talk. So it's up to you.

Let me know what you want. And let's see, I had some good conversations over the weekend. I was discussing theology with some atheists and stuff. And this morning I was in another venue talking with an atheist. And the more I talk with atheists, the more I realize seriously the lack of substance, the lack of depth of their thinking and their belief system. Now, atheism is a belief. And they're going to tell you, no, it's a lack of belief. No, no, no, no, you can call me if we can talk about that.

But Rumbles having trouble going to Rumble, huh? Okay, I'll have to figure that out later. So I had an encounter with one today. And what I'm going to do is give you the information that I gave. And I started thinking about this. This is an example. See if you can follow this.

It's not very difficult. I'll go through it slowly. And I went through this with this guy like three or four times. And he just couldn't get it. And he said something about, and you'll get this when I read this. He goes, well, plants, plants are the same thing.

And you'll see it was a ridiculous comment on his own. But I asked him, you know, here's a question you can ask people. What happens to you when you die? And so when I ask this of atheists, if they say that when you die you cease to exist, then that's problematic. It's ultimately a self-refuting belief system.

And I'll show you why. Because if they say that when you die you cease to exist, they are saying that the mind dies when the physical brain dies. Then this means that the mind is dependent on the physical brain.

So not a big deal. If a person ceases to exist, that means his consciousness ceases to exist when the body dies. That means that the mind is dependent upon the physical brain. Well, then if the physical brain produces the mind and the mind is dependent upon that physical brain, then the mind must operate within the limits of the physical brain. That's it.

It's real simple. And the physical brain, in turn, must operate under the limits of the laws of physics and chemistry. Okay? So I'm talking to this guy.

And he's going, yeah, he's real suspicious. And I say, well, that's what the physical brain must, it can't operate. The physical brain cannot operate outside the laws of physics and chemistry.

And so it's limited and must operate only within those laws. And because it can only operate within those laws, then the mind also must operate within those limited laws. Well, if that's the case, then what it means is that the mind itself is simply the product of chemical reactions. But if the mind is a product of chemical reactions, then how can you know that the chemical reactions are producing truth? Simple. If the mind is a product of the brain and the brain is restricted to the laws of chemistry, then it means the mind is restricted to the laws of chemistry. But if the mind is restricted to the laws of chemistry, how can it produce truth? Real simple.

Real simple stuff. And so when I asked this guy this, he wasn't sure what to do. And he said, well, plants have minds. And, you know, when you hear stuff like this at that point, you know, it's just like you stare, you know, what do I do? How do you continue having a conversation with people like that?

I find it to be quite difficult to have a conversation with someone who can't think critically. Now, when I talk about that, I am reminded of something that happened in my high school days. I graduated in 1975. And I remember before my graduation being frustrated.

I was a little unusual, I guess, being frustrated that I wasn't learning anything in school. I remember in high school not wanting to do homework and not wanting to do all that stuff, but I also remember the frustration I had at not being taught anything. Now, the only places I really learned anything was in physics and math classes. And so I really learned a lot there, you know, how to do physics and mathematics and a little bit of biology.

So those were hard sciences then, and I learned. But aside from that, nah, we weren't being taught much. We were just being taught how to regurgitate information for a test. And I remember that the teachers just really weren't presenting much. I remember thinking, why is that?

We have a great opportunity here as we're going through high school to learn, and yet we weren't really being taught much of anything. And I was frustrated by that. I remember that. And so I believe that there has been a dumbing down of the American mind. Now, I'm not the only one who has said that. I'm not the only one who stated that.

I've met a lot of people who have said the same thing. And I see it on a regular basis within the Christian church and outside the Christian church. You know, one of the things I'll do is, you know, I'll talk to people and I'll say, we have two roads, I'll talk to atheists, two roads. We have the Christian road and the atheist road. And we're going down parallel, down this road of knowledge. And I said to the atheist, what's going to happen is he's going to be forced to stop at a certain place because he can't go any further because he doesn't have the necessary foundations that can justify his thoughts and his reasoning. But the Christian can walk further down that road because we have that ultimate justification. Now, we can't go down the road infinitely. It's God's knowledge. But the fact is, we're able to do that because we do have the foundation of God's truth.

And the Trinity is being the necessary preconditions for all intelligibility. Maybe I'll go into that here because you never know. Maybe I'll teach some stuff to you guys that you may never have heard before. In fact, since nobody's calling, maybe I will. Just because I'm kind of feeling like it a little.

Let me run something by. I've said this before. I want to show you that Christianity is far deeper and far better than any, and I mean any other worldview, and I mean that confidently, any other worldview. Only the Christian Trinitarian position can provide the necessary preconditions for intelligibility and morality and truth. And all other systems and all other theological systems just simply fail. I believe that.

So, oh, boy, got a yawn coming up. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through that a little bit and try and explain some things. I think it might be useful to a lot of people to hear how this works because a lot of people, however, are not familiar with the idea that I'm going to get into. There are some semi-sophisticated arguments, and I'm going to try and keep it simple because I do believe that, as Christians, we need to understand that God is the one who is the foundation for all truth.

God is the one who is that foundation. Now, we've got a caller coming in. I think we'll get to the caller because what I want to talk about may take about five minutes, but we don't have that much time before the break. So if you do want to call 877-207-2276 and give me a call, and we can blam all you want.

Nevertheless, let's try this. Let's get to Nelson from Bakersfield. Nelson, welcome. You're on the air. Nelson, you're on.

Hey, brother, God bless. Yes, I got a quick question. No, you can elaborate on this. In Matthew 22, beginning in verse 11, I believe it's through 14.

Can you read that, and I'll ask my question? Sure, but when the king came to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes. He said to him, Friend, how do you come here without wedding clothes?

The man was speechless. He said to the serpent, Bind him hand and foot, throw him into outer darkness, for it will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, for many are called, but few are chosen. Yes, my interpretation of that, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that person that is showing up with no wedding garment, is that an unsaved person? Yes.

Yeah, that's what I figured, yeah. Now you go to Revelation 3-5. He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not erase his name for the book of life. Clothing, for clothed in the righteousness of God, and so to be found naked is to not be covered by what God has provided, okay?

Okay, okay. Yeah, because I have a friend one that, and also, ah, that parable where above the talons, the one with the one talon that hid it in the earth, he also said that he is turning to outer darkness, where there's no food and has no teeth, and my friend tells me that that is, those are believers, including this one here, and the ghosts are being purified for a thousand years during the millennium. Being purified for a thousand years during the millennium. Um, because these are Christians being purified. Wow, that's, during a thousand years, that's actually heresy.

Okay, that's heresy. I tell him, bro, that to me sounds like, why would God send people to be tormented for a thousand years, and come back to be saved? Right, and because, yeah, we are purified because of the blood of Jesus Christ, not because of our own suffering, so that's a heresy he's teaching, and he needs to be corrected, and he needs to repent of that false teaching.

Okay. And maybe, also, because he, in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, where it talks about the silver, gold, and then it talks about, like, five or six different things, and then what their soul will be saved, but it goes to the fire or something like that, that's what he uses that to interpret what he means. Yeah, it's like Catholics will say that, first Peter. Because what he's sharing to me is like, my bro, this is, you're talking about, like, I guess like a tomb of purgatory, which doesn't exist. Yeah, he's got some problems, and he needs to be corrected. Um, find out where he's getting this information from, or these ideas from.

You're gonna cut the feet out from underneath the source. He, um, well, I think he's like 65 years old, he's been reading the Bible for a long time. Yeah, he's got problems, he doesn't understand them. There's a break, buddy, okay? We gotta take off, all right, ma'am? Okay, brother, all right, God bless. All right, God bless. Hey, folks, five open lines, if you wanna 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.

Hey, everybody, welcome to the show, if you wanna give me a call, it's 877-207-2276. All right, now I was talking about how the Trinity is, and Christianity is, um, necessary. I've been studying this for so long, in so many different ways, that I have the utmost confidence to be able to say that the Christian worldview can account for everything, and no other worldview can. Just that simple. Now, there are other theological systems, you have Islam, for example, but it's not Trinitarian, it's ultimately self-refuting.

In my debate with a well-known Islamic apologist, Shabir Ali, I ran some stuff by him, and he admitted during the debate, he didn't have answers to some of the difficult questions I proposed, because his worldview is one person, God didn't make any sense, ultimately. So, here's a question I wanna ask, and I'm just gonna tie this together. Is everything of one substance or multiple substances? It's a simple question.

That question right there is incredible. People have been wondering, what's the ultimate stuff of the universe? Is it one thing, or more than one thing? Is it water? Is it light, is it number, is it mind? Is it electrons, what is it? What's the ultimate substance of what the universe is?

People have been talking about this. Now, let's take a number two, for example. The number two is what we call a universal. It's a concept. It's a universal that's a concept. See, two is not something that you find under a rock.

You can't take a picture of it. And it doesn't have physical properties, the way an apple might, you know, it has certain size and mass and weight and shape. But that's not the case with the number two, for example. Yet, we can't survive without number two. I mean, you know, we've gotta count, you know, we've gotta count our checkbook, and count how much money we spend, and the number two is necessary in all of that.

We wouldn't be able to function without it. So, what is it about the universe where, for example, the number two exists, or the concept of what a chair is exists? Now, these are real questions that philosophers and people who think logically about things, and they wonder, what is, what must be in place in order for the number two to exist, or just our thinking mutually?

What must be in place in order for whatever it is to exist? So, when they talk about this kind of stuff, and they ask questions, one of the things that has surfaced is the issue of particulars and universals. Now, the number two is a universal, but you could write with a pencil or a pen or chalk. You could write on a piece of paper or sidewalk, whatever, the number two.

And I could do the same thing. And so, what we are doing is representing a universal concept with a symbol. But that, let's just say, that number two on a piece of paper, let's say you wrote it with a pencil. Now, is that the number two?

And the answer is, well, no, it's not. It's a representation of the number two, because if it were the actual number two, if you erase that number two, then all of the number two everywhere is gone, because that would be what two is. No, it's a symbol of a representation of a universal, a universal symbol, a universal thing.

All right, so, number two, number three, number four, number five, these are universals. They have a universal quality to them. But they don't exist on paper. They don't exist under rocks. They exist in our minds.

Now, that's really interesting. But are they dependent upon our minds? You see, because if the number two is dependent upon your mind and you die, then does the number two disappear because it was dependent on your mind?

Well, obviously not. So when people die, the number two does not disappear. But others are able to use the number two, this universal. It's weird. The number two and other mathematical values are universals.

And this universal principle applies to all kinds of things, objects and categories. And I won't get into all that. But I'm going to stick with the number two.

It's real easy. So if I were to write a number two on a piece of paper and you were to write the number two on a piece of paper, here's a question. What unites them? What brings unity to my writing the number two and you writing the number two?

What unifies them? Is it our language? Is it our speech?

Well, it doesn't work. Because you can say, number two, dos en español. You know? Puedo español un poco. So you could say number two in Spanish.

And dos. You know? So it is a symbol. But two is some sort of an actuality out there. All right.

Well, that's interesting. What unifies them? It has to be a unifying principle. Something behind them has to be there in order for them to have a universal quality.

Now, this is where it's going to get interesting. What must be in place in order for the number two to have a universal value, a universal truth, a universal existence, a universal actuality that we can come in contact with and talk about? What must be the case? Well, the number two is a concept. Well, then there must be a concept behind it. And the number two is universal. So therefore, the concept of two is a universal mind concept.

Well, what must be in place for that? Well, you have to have a universal mind. So you see, the universal mind is God. It makes perfect sense. But here's a question.

We'll get to this. The number two is a concept. It's a universal with particular manifestations between the particulars. So how are the particulars brought in unity with one another? Because if you can't do that, there's no congruence between them, no relationship between them. Are these particulars unrelated? Well, of course, they're not unrelated. They're related.

How? They're related by a universal something behind them. And we can look at the universal. But now we have to ask the question, is it the universal that is the ultimate source of everything? Well, we would say in one sense, yes. But if we're to say that the universal number two is there, how do we say that it connects with the particular manifestations so that we're all in touch with that universal? That's a question.

What must be in place in order for that to occur? Enter the Trinity. The Trinity is one and many, one God, three persons. The one and the many has to deal with the universal and the particulars. One idea of chair can have millions of manifestations or particular manifestations. What is the ultimate? The chair, the quality of chairness, or the particulars all over the place? If it's the chairness, how do you relate them to the particulars and vice versa?

Only in the Trinity does the precondition that accounts for the particulars and the universals match in the very essence of God's nature. And he himself provides the answer to the problem. Anyway, here's a break. 4 Open Lines is going to give me a call, 877-207-2276. It's Matt Slick live, taking a call at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Hey, everybody.

Welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, we have 4 Open Lines, 877-207-2276. Give me a call, and we can blab. Let's get to Trey from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Trey, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, good evening, Matt. How you doing? Doing all right. Hanging in there, man. Good.

What do you got? Good. Yeah, I was listening to you talk about this stuff, and it's pretty interesting on where you're at with this. You know, I was thinking on this in Genesis. It says, in the beginning, the earth was without form.

It was void and without form. And then it says, the face of God moved among the waters. And when God started moving and doing things, he started shaping things.

And one thing, you're talking about the water and the different things, like having a water aspect, a solid aspect. And I like what Colossians says, Matt. It says, in Colossians 1.17, it's talking about Christ. It says, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And then it goes on to say, in verse 19, it says, for it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. So to me, God is the one that makes all the structure happen.

He keeps the molecules in check. You know, without God, there would be no boundaries. Everything would be going back into a void state. Am I right on that? I agree. Yep. And Colossians 1.17 talks about that, that he holds it all together. In fact, I've been studying quantum physics recently.

And I was reading for about an hour in bed last night. And it's really interesting what quantum physics is teaching. And there are different views on it. But one of the things that they're saying is that in the Copenhagen interpretation, which has kind of fallen out of favor, but there's some other, I won't get into all the details of the others, but the idea, let me say this.

Quantum physics, what it does is it looks at super small particles. And they don't behave the same way you'd think they were in what's called a macro environment, the environment we live in. And they find all kinds of difficulties to explain and understand. But they have formulas that predict everything within reason. And I read last night that a third of our economy depends on the formulas inside of quantum physics of super positioning, varying relationships. It gets really complicated and interesting. So what they're talking about is that everything is a probability.

And so that there are a number of particles that can be projected by an electron gun onto a surface. And they all have a probability of arrival, mathematical probability. Could be here.

It could be there. And there's a formula. There's mathematics and probability.

But when you enter, this is what gets interesting. When you enter into that phenomena and observe it, then the probability becomes actualized. What's freaky is that observation, and I was reading last night, some say even the requirement of consciousness is necessary in order to cause or to bring to effect possibility into actuality when they do this experiment. And so everything has a probability of existence like all electron locations. And yet when you observe them, they have an actuality. But they don't have any actuality until they're observed. So some are looking into this.

I just got another book last night. I don't want to read on it, where it's the solution that some are proposing as a universal mind that brings into actuality from an infinite number of probabilities, this is God. It's really strange. And also, there's something called superpositioning. And it's where quantum entanglement. They have a way of taking particles and entangling them so they're united. Then they separate them. And what you do to one particle instantaneously occurs to the other faster than the speed of light.

Some experiments are showing that it's up to 10,000 times faster, but they can't tell because the equipment isn't sensitive enough. So they think it might even just be instant. Well, if that's the case, then the implication, one of the theories is that the whole universe is one thing that's interconnected with an infinite number of possibilities. And yet, through the observer, the possibilities become actualized. And so we have an instantaneous movement in effect from one to another because everything is of one thing.

So what you do to one thing occurs to another. It's very interesting. I see that.

Yeah, I could see that. I know right now they're doing a lot of experimentations and stuff to try to get people in comatose states to leave their body and actually do tasks and being like an out-of-body experience and stuff. And a lot of people are dying from that. It's very dangerous because your body is almost really dead.

They tell you where to get you to that point. And that's very dangerous. Not only are they dealing with the destruction of the body, but also destruction of the soul if those are not born again and have Christ as their leader of salt. That's another topic.

It definitely is. But what you brought up with Colossians 1.17 certainly is corroborated with science. And also, he holds all things together. The nucleus of an atom has what's called a neutron and proton. And when there are multiple cases of protons inside of a nucleus, they are like charges. They repel each other, but they don't. They're glued together. And so I understand they've invented what's called a gluon.

It's a hypothetical particle that doesn't have any mass that exists and holds together certain things like quarks inside there. So they're trying to figure this out. But the Bible says God holds all things together by the power of his word. Simple.

Amen. Yeah, I think they just try to overanalyze things just to try to avoid the truth. And that's kind of what I was getting at. Another good point I like too bad is when Christ, after the crucifixion, over 5,000 people saw him resurrected in his body. And they've actually discovered ancient artifacts of people, eyewitness accounts of people writing to loved ones saying that they saw their dead ancestors walking through the streets of Jerusalem. And a lot of people don't talk about that, but it's an event that actually happened.

It's a reality. And I don't discredit them. If you had the documentation for that, I need to see that.

I'd love to have that because I'm very useful. I've got to do some more studying where I found that. But I did some digging.

I was studying actually in Israel. And I come across all kinds of interesting things. And one of the things that I did was one of the archaeologists actually discovered that. It was actually pamphlets that were in rocks.

And they were pulling them out. And it was eyewitness testimony that was writing and actually giving a credibility to what the scriptures said when the people were walking through Jerusalem. You know, the archaeology. If you have the documentation, I would love to have that. If you can somehow connect back. Let me see if I can go back. Yeah, I'll try to go back in my stuff because I research a lot still. And I'll see if I can't find that for you. And you can then email it to me at info at karm.org.

It would be very useful. Sure, I will. I will do that. All right. Well, thank you.

Yes, sir. Well, you have a good day. God bless. You too. God bless.

Thanks a lot. All right. So folks, as you can tell, I study a lot of esoteric stuff. And the reason I do is because I deal with so much in apologetics with a lot of atheists, with a lot of people who are in science who make certain claims. So I have to go study. And I've been doing this for a long time. And I'm discovering that the more and more I study these more esoteric things, the more Christianity is validated.

I just love that. The scriptures are full of wisdom and truth. And I believe that there are things in there that we may not even recognize unless we have a broader education scope. For example, when it says in Colossians 1.17, he's before all things. And in him, all things hold together.

I think that's very, very interesting. And the Greek word is sunistemi. And it means to set in place, to stand, meaning to cause to stand, to cause to be there. And so he, that's the word, that's Jesus, who is the word.

Think about this. God said, let there be light. It was speech. And light was there. And he formed the heavens and the earth. Because that is really, I think, interesting. And so by doing this, he's speaking. And the energy that is there, reflection of his character, is organized.

And God is the one who's holding it all together. It's just great. Hey, we have five open lines, wide open. Why don't you give me a call? 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show.

If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. I just want to play off of the previous caller about the issue of Colossians 1.17, where Christ himself holds things together by the exertion of his will. Now, I'm going to kill two birds with one stone. I'm going to read something, and then I'm going to get to another verse that talks about something related to this. This is, first I want to go to 1 Thessalonians 4.16, where it says, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So we'll always be with the Lord. Now, that's the rapture, OK?

And so it goes on. It says, therefore, comfort one another with these words. Now, as to the times and the epics, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you, for you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief of the night. So the rapture is a day of the Lord to come like a thief of the night. All right, now, so we go to 2 Peter 3.10, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief. We'll talk about the same thing. In which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Now, two things here. One, well, if you're pre-Tribulation rapture, that's a problem because the new heavens and new earth happen after the 1,000-year reign, but yet this says they happen at the time of the rapture.

That's an interesting point, but that's not the main point I wanted to get to. The heavens will pass away with a roar, now that's interesting, a roar, sound, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat. Now, I remember reading that there are people who, or scientists who have written articles about scientists who have done some work. When energy or when matter is destroyed, it releases an incredible amount of energy, an incredible amount of heat. What would happen here, I'm trying to think of something because I was reading, when the atoms have the nucleus and the electrons around them, the further away the electron is from the nucleus, the more energy it has, because it's traveling faster. So energy equals mass times velocity.

It's traveling at a certain speed, it has a certain mass, so it has a certain mathematical energy value. Now, when the electrons are forced into another shell, a lower shell closer to the atom, they release energy. And this is where light comes from and some other stuff. Anyway, so if the atoms are let loose, the circular energy disappears. Where's it gonna go?

It doesn't disappear. The movement in circular form, orbit around the nucleus stops. What happens in that energy?

Now, I don't understand all this stuff, but I've read before where they say at this point when the atom is destroyed, the amount of energy that is released is just incredible. And what's really interesting is that if you were to take a baseball, I mean a football stadium, football stadium, and on the outside of the stadium, picture a circular stadium with 100,000 seats and all that kind of stuff, on the very edge of it is an electron, which is the size of a pinprick on a little speck of something. And in the middle is the nucleus. And imagine a nucleus being the size of a grain of rice. That's what the atom looks like. That's how it's spaced.

Something like 99.99% space, it's ridiculous. And there's an incredible amount of energy in there. So anyway, if these elements are destroyed, then the intense heat is released.

And that's what I'm thinking of here. And the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its work will be burned up. It looks like God's going to remake everything, destroy it, and then put it all back together. And it'll be fixed. And all the stuff that's in it that's bad and all of that will be gone and remade, God's gonna do it.

And I'm looking forward to that day. Now if he can do that with creation, can he do that with our bodies as well? And create new bodies for us?

And give us abilities that we didn't know that we're gonna have? Oh, I think so. I'm encouraged by that stuff. I like that kind of stuff.

That's just me. All right, Four Open Lines, why don't you give me a call? 877-207-2276. Randall from West Virginia, you're on the air.

Are you there? Hello, Matt. Hello. I haven't called in for a while. And you usually have a question. But I noticed you put in there wondering about how it was time to quit, no callers coming in. And I want to tell you, don't quit. You've helped us so much and you still are. And specifically, I wanted to tell you and thank you that my son TJ, who I hadn't talked to but once in like a year and a half, and I called in in January.

His birthday was January 4th. And I called in and was telling you and Charlie prayed with me on the air. And four months later, last month, he's had some medical problems and he called, he almost died and he is with me now. And he watches your show with me every day. And I thank God for that. And I wanted to thank you, thank you, God. Well, good, praise God. So he's there with you, how old is he?

Oh, he's 40 years old. Okay, well, praise God. Yeah, he's reading the Bible. And I think he's doing good now. But I really felt that prayer when you all prayed with me on the air, I felt that and God answered it.

Well, praise God. I'm glad your son's doing well. And I trust you're doing as well also, right? Yeah, I'm hanging in there.

Good. But don't lose heart about callers and stuff. We listen to you every day. We like your teaching. Even if there's no callers, we love to listen to you. And I'm gonna go ahead and let you know, I just wanted to call. I've been wanting to thank you guys for a long time. And thank God. Well, thank you, I appreciate that.

So thanks, thanks for calling, man. All right. Okay.

Okay. Well, that's Randall from West Virginia. And I'm glad that his son's doing better. And praise God for that. You know, God is good.

And we need to study his word and keep our hearts and our minds on him. And yeah, I was just texting during the break. Lately, the callers have not been coming in. I've been wondering about that. And I'm only bringing it up because he brought it up. Is it because of the summer?

Which is pretty bad. Is it because of the things I've been saying lately? I've been talking about some serious issues. And a lot of people don't like the idea of me saying the Democrats, or the Democratic Party's evil, because it is. I mean, they don't want to hear me because of that.

That's okay. I must speak the truth, and I will speak the truth. And I'll say things, you know, like the stupidity of certain political figures, the necessity of Christians to learn more, do more, and be stronger.

These are not easy words. So that's one thing I'm thinking. But the other thing is, perhaps, just perhaps, it is because, people are saying stuff.

It's because maybe the Lord is closing the door. I've been on the radio now for over 17 and a half years. And I'll tell you, it's a lot of, you know, it's a privilege, it's a real privilege to be able to speak and teach people some of the things that I've learned. So anyway, no big deal.

And I wasn't planning on that becoming something to talk about over the year, but that's all right. So if you want to give me a call, all you gotta do is dial 877-207-2276. All right, we got another caller coming in. We'll just jump right on. And we've got about four minutes left on the air.

So let's get to Roy from Durham, North Carolina. Not on speakerphone, I guess I can talk louder. Hey, Roy, you're on air, buddy. I can hear you. Hello, sir. Hey. I, real quick, I know the speaker just showed you right now.

I'm just kind of maybe nitpicky, but transfiguration. And, you know, you were just saying that dead in Christ will rise first, but there's Elijah and Moses way before, you know. Yeah, that wasn't a resurrection, though.

Final Trump. Yeah. So I was just wondering, how's that possible that they're there? It wasn't a resurrection, it was just an appearance, just as in 1 Samuel 28, where Samuel appeared, came back. It was just a manifestation, not a resurrection.

We're gonna be resurrected in glorified bodies, and that's gonna happen, according to scripture, in the future. And what's interesting, I was bringing up, is that in that resurrection, it follows the rapture, according to 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 16. And what's interesting is that most people teach that the rapture occurs, and then seven year tribulation, and then a thousand years, and then the new heavens and new earth, after the thousand years. But when Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4, and he says that the resurrection occurs, the rapture occurs, and he says, now regarding the days and the epics, and he's talking about that. He says, the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. And that's what he's talking about, is that rapture, that whole event. The same phraseology is used by Peter, 2 Peter 3.10, when he says, the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will be melted, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat.

Well, wait a minute, that means then, that the day of the Lord to come like a thief is the same day as the rapture, which is the same day as the new heavens and new earth being created. So there cannot be a literal 1,000 year reign. It just can't. Real simple. Well, there is the 1,000 year reign, correct, you're saying? Nope.

I don't believe there is. I believe that the 1,000 year reign that is, I believe that the 1,000 year spoken of is figurative. Because Jesus said that Satan was bound while he was on earth. He actually said that in Matthew 12, 22 through 32. And then in Revelation 20, people say, well, it says 1,000 years.

Well, yeah, it does. But it says this, I saw an angel coming down from heaven. I think that's literal, an angel, holding the key of the abyss. Well, that's figurative, there is no literal key.

You know, like we have a key and a great chain. No, it's not a literal chain. In his hand, well, angels don't really have hands, so they can kind of manifest them. But anyway, he laid hold of the dragon, that's figurative. The serpent of old, I think that's literal, who is a devil and Satan, that's literal, and bound him for 1,000 years. So the question is, is it literal or figurative?

Since there's figurative usage right there in the context. And so when we look at that and other things, particularly, and I'll just stir the pot a little bit more. In Matthew 13, when we have the parable of the wheat and the tares, and they said, should we tear up the tares? And Jesus says, no, allow both to grow together until the harvest, that's the rapture. In a time of the harvest, I'll say to the reapers, first gather up the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them up.

For the first ones gathered are the wicked. But you don't believe we'll reign with Christ for 1,000 years on earth? I believe we're reigning now.

For the final judgment. I believe we're reigning now with Christ. That's another topic, I'll call back tomorrow and talk about that. And say, how are we reigning and what way?

Good stuff though. All right, hey, Martin from Virginia, please, please come call me back tomorrow. Let's talk about that. I wanna know what you have to say about the issue of science, okay? So may the Lord bless you, by His grace, back on here tomorrow, folks, and hopefully, we'll talk to you then. God bless everybody, have a great evening. Another program powered by the Truth Network.