Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network Podcast.

Okay, now, get this. KARM, the website, used to get 50, 60, 70, 80,000 page views a day. A page view is when someone comes in, looks at it, say, one page, and then goes to another page and looks, goes to another page and looks. That's three page views. So one person could do three page views, or three people could just look at one page each, and that's three page views. So each time a page is accessed.

I've been keeping records on this for, I don't know how long, 20 years, 25 years. So lately, we've had a change in technology, and lately, the traffic is increasing drastically. So we're really encouraged about that. So the articles, the information is going out a lot more, and we're grateful, and we just praise God for that. So a little something, just saying thanks for all your prayers and support, which reminds me.

Now, in my opinion, it's just me. I'm not really confident in our government. In my opinion, I think things are going to get worse before they get better.

The recession's here and stuff. But nevertheless, what I'd like to do, I need to, I don't really like to actually, but I need to, I just need to let you know that we could use your support. If you want, and you want to consider supporting us at $5 a month, it's not very much.

If you would kindly consider that, all you have to do is go to karm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, and on the homepage, though, it's also on the bottom left. But just forward slash donate, you can set things up, and that's what we ask, $5 a month, because it would be helpful. And if we get enough people, all we need is 1,000 people doing $5 a month, and that would actually cover what we need. Let's just say, because things have gotten a little tight, and that's what we need. It's not like we're out there doing helicopter rides and free trips to Disneyland or anything like that. I haven't even had a raise in five, six, seven years.

And so, that's a good thing that Medicare, Social Security for me is coming up in a while, and so that'll help out. But nevertheless, we do have missionaries, and if you're so interested and so inclined, please consider just $5 a month, and you can stop at any time you want. Just go to karm.org forward slash donate, and that would be great. Let's get to Rudolph from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Rudolph, welcome. You're on the air. Yes, sir. Doing the flood of NOAA. Did the fish die?

Well, I suppose some fish did, but I don't think there was any necessity for NOAA to have fish on the ark. Okay. Are you there? Yeah, I'm just thinking. I was just thinking.

Okay. Because in the categorization that is used in the Bible, whale is considered a fish. We call it a mammal, and people will say, oh, see, it doesn't even know what a fish is. The Bible is just wrong.

No. If it categorizes, if it has a word, then it uses all those things swimming in the ocean, and that's what its word is. We just translated it into fish. It doesn't mean that they were wrong. It just means it's a translation issue.

They didn't have as definitive categorization techniques that we did, or that we do now. So a whale, for example, wouldn't be needed on the ark. Killer whales, dolphins. Right. But remember that the Word says that God says that everything that has a breath of life in it would die.

Right? So wouldn't that include mammals? Well, it could include insects.

It could include microbes. But see, what does it mean by the breath of life? That's the question, if it has a breath of life. So do plants have the breath of life?

I would say not. But they are alive. So what about fish? I don't see them as having that breath of life either. So undoubtedly there were fish that died just as normal things die in normal situations.

But I don't see any necessity of any fish being needed beyond the ark. So I don't see a problem. Okay. Okay. Well, well, thank you. Okay. Appreciate that.

No problem. But it's a good question, man. I never heard anybody, I never heard anybody mention it. So I was thinking about it.

And I wouldn't undo it if anybody knew. Oh, yeah. You can go to ICR, Institute for Creation Research. They discuss this kind of stuff.

Oh, yeah. And you see, then there's the issue of saltwater fish versus freshwater fish. And they have answers and analyses about that thing. Because if there was a flood, if there was a flood of freshwater from the skies, what about that would get into the oceans would mix, but it caused fish to die?

Well, then there's some adaptation issues that would be worth discussing. Like for example, in Nicaragua, there are two lakes, Lake Managua, and there are freshwater sharks. They're actually sharks, and they live in the lake. Now, how'd they get there? Right. Well, it looks like they came from the ocean.

Go ahead. But you know that the bull shark can live in freshwater and saltwater too. Because down here in North Carolina, they found a bull shark from the ocean in the Cape Fear River, and it was 27 miles from the ocean.

So they can live in freshwater. Yeah, yes, they can. They are quite capable of doing that.

I've read lots of stories of sharks doing that, but moving upstream quite a bit. Yep. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Thank you, and God bless you.

I will try to get on there and donate to you. Oh, appreciate that. Thank you.

Yes, sir. God bless you. Bye-bye.

God bless, Rudolph. Appreciate that. All right. Where's my mouse on my screen? There we go.

I have four large monitors, and that mouse gets lost. All right. Three open lines if you want to give me a call. 877-207-2276. Owl from Georgia, welcome. You're on the air.

Yes, good evening, Mass Slick. I know the Bible teaches that you're saved by grace to pray alone to get into heaven. So how do you balance the verse with Matthew 11, verse 24 and 25? How do you balance those between the Ephesians 2, 8, and 9? So Matthew 11, 24 and 25, more tolerable for the land of Sodom and the Day of Judgment than for you.

I praise you, Father of heaven and earth. So I'm not sure what the problem is because it's just the issue of Capernaum and the miracles, and people were rejecting the miracles that Christ was performing, and he condemns them. So even Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented if they had seen this.

So I'm not sure how it relates. So what about, how do you say what the Bible talks about, you know, if you said Christ in addition to heaven, but that you don't deny yourself until you cross daily, you know, you're not, you know, Christ said, you know, you cannot be my disciple. So if you don't deny yourself until you cross daily to follow him, then you do not have disciples. That means you can't go into heaven either then, right? You don't deny yourself daily. It doesn't go into salvation by words. So how do you balance that out? Well, Jesus isn't saying that every single day we have to do this. Now he does say daily, but what do you mean when you say every single day? What if you're in the hospital?

What if you're recovering from a sickness or surgery? Does that count? Well, no. What he's doing is he's talking about the issue of regular, it's supposed to be daily in a normal situation, you're supposed to be living for the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's all that he's talking about. Okay. Yes, but if a person doesn't want to follow the Lord and listen to the beast that was that that showed proof that you're a Christian, I'm not understanding you. I'm not understanding.

It's breaking up. Okay. If I say, okay, if I say I'm a Christ state, then I say I'm a Christian. I'm going to have a performance or not. I'm not Alberto.

Alberto. I'm not understanding you. Okay. It's breaking up and there's, there's noises and I'm not able to understand you. Okay.

So call back, maybe get a better connection. Okay. Alberto. All right, man.

I couldn't understand him. All right. Hey, four open lines, 8772072276. Let's get to William from North Carolina. William.

Welcome. You're on the air. So Mike Slick. Um, anyway, I would like to ask you in Genesis three, eight is the Lord appearing in the garden, walking in the garden. Is that a, um, Christ in the old Testament? Yes.

Pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ. Yes. Yes.

Okay. So, and I'm just going to ask this in general, like in general, in Genesis, when Abraham, I'm sorry, when Lot is joined by the Lord in, or the angels of the Lord, I believe it says and is that also Christ? It depends on the context. I don't have all of those instances memorized, so I can't tell you, but there is, I guess that my question is anytime there's an anti-morphic, um, an anti-morphic, uh, like, uh, Israel struggling with the angel is, is that Jesus in the old Testament?

Yes. Uh, so Jesus says that no man has ever seen the father, John six 46 and Paul in first Timothy six 16 in the context is saying that the father does an unapproachable like who no man has seen or can see. He's not paused on possible to see the father. That's what the Bible says. And Jesus says, no one's ever seen the father. So who are they seeing in the old Testament? Well, they were not seeing God, the father, but they were seeing God almighty because we know that from Exodus six, two and three where God spoke for the Moses and said to him, I am Yahweh and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God almighty. So he appears and there's other verses I can quote those to you where he appears. Now the holy spirit manifests in flames and a wind and things like that. So that's the typological manifestation of the holy spirit, never in a humanoid or called anthropomorphic form.

And since the father can't be seen, that leaves out a two out of the three ones left. That's the pre incarnate Christ. It's simple. So yeah. Okay. And so going back to Genesis three, eight, my version in the American standard version says Jehovah God called to the man and said to him, where art thou?

So Jehovah God being the highest name of God, you're saying that Jesus, which would be consistent with what John one one says, would you agree with that? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. So that that's, that's really where I was coming from, because I was seeing where in the beginning, God created the heavens earth and the spirit was moving along the surface of the earth. And so I'm going, okay, I got God, I got the spirit, and then Jesus and John one one says, he's there. So we've got the trinity right there. Would I be correct in saying that?

Yeah, depends on how you want to go with it. But yeah. So think about this. And right there, incidentally, this is for the Mormons who might be listening. They heard the sound of the Lord God, it's actually in Hebrew, Jehovah Elohim.

That's who it is. Jehovah is Elohim. First Corinthians 860. But we'll get back to the break. Let me talk to you about who was in the garden with Adam and Eve and what that means. Okay. Hey folks, Four Open Lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276.

I want to hear from you. Give me a call. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls 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 Four Open Lines 877-207-2276. All right, let's get on the air back again with William from North Carolina. Welcome. You're back on there. Okay.

Now we're talking about, they're called Christophanies. Okay. You there?

Hello? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I'm here. All right. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. So let me explain a little bit more about them. Okay.

Because, uh, it's really an interesting study actually. When you go to Genesis three, the one walking with Adam and Eve was a pre-incarnate Christ. And he is the one who instituted the gospel, the protoingalia. The first mention or the first idea and aspect of that gospel message was instituted by the pre-incarnate Christ because Adam and Eve sinned and they hid themselves, they covered themselves with fig leaves.

And the fig leaves are a symbol of their own efforts and their own works. And they're done in sin. And so what happened is the Lord, pre-incarnate Christ, the Lord, took away those fig leaves and covered them with animal skins. The implication is that the animals were killed. Now sin entered the world through one man, Adam, Romans five 12. So sin had already just entered.

And so there was death coming. And so even though the Bible does not say that, uh, the pre-incarnate Christ killed an animal, uh, which I think is really interesting because I don't, let me take a risk here. No one dies in Christ's presence and the pre-incarnate Christ, I don't see any instance where anyone dies. And so I think this kind of a thing is carried over to the idea of animal sacrifice, but I don't know.

I still get to work on that, but nevertheless, so the idea is, uh, you covered them with animal skins, probably an animal died in the process. In Leviticus 1711, it says without the shedding of blood is no forgiveness of sins. So there they were covered by the work of God, not by the work of their own hand. And this is really important because this is the first mention of the gospel concept of justification and salvation by the work of God, not by us, not by our works covering ourselves with our own works combined with what God did, because that's what false doctrines are. And all kinds of churches teach that that you're saved by your faith and what you do in your sincerity and your goodness before God. Well, that's just exactly what Adam and Eve were doing to cover themselves with their fig leaves. And God rejected it and covered them with animal skins, the shedding of blood and without the forgiveness, without the shedding of blood is no forgiveness of sin. So there we have right there in the garden, the pre-incarnate Christ instituting the gospel message in the garden.

And don't forget in the garden is where Jesus sweat blood and was in prayer with the father as he began the atoning work or getting ready to accomplish the atoning work as he went to the Gethsemane. Okay, that's just one of the points. Interesting. Sure. Are you there? Yeah. Can I ask a follow up? Sure. Can you hear me? Yes.

I'd like to follow up with this. It says in, I'm sorry, in Exodus 3320, it says, you know, you cannot see my face for no one may see me and live. Yes.

Right? Go to verse 11. In Genesis 3230, it says, I'm not, I'm sorry, in 3311, it describes Moses speaking to God face to face. So was he speaking to Christ at that point? Alright, so the Trinity comes in and aids us. So in Exodus 3320, you cannot see my face for no man can see me and live. Alright, so who's speaking?

Now that's what's interesting because you can't see my face. But nine verses earlier in verse 11, that's the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face. So what does the phrase face to face mean? It means personal encounter. It means personal encounter.

So I've done research on the phrase face to face. It does occur, I think, 11 times in the Bible. Lord spoke to you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire in Deuteronomy 5, 4.

Oh, wait a minute. It wasn't like God had a face. So it's an expression of personal encounter right then and there. So when it talks about God talking to Moses, you can understand that's Exodus 33, 11, but also in Exodus 24, 9 to 11, it says, Moses, Aaron, and Nadab and Abihu and the 70 of the elders of Israel went up and they saw the God of Israel and under his feet, there appeared to be a placement of sapphire as clear as the sky itself. Yet he did not stretch out his hands against the sons of the nobles of Israel and they beheld God and they ate and they drank. And if you go to Numbers chapter 12, verses six through eight, after Miriam and Aaron were a little bit irritated that Moses had married a Cushite woman. She happened to be black, incidentally.

It's at number 12, three, or two. But that's not the issue. Why they were upset because he was not a specific Jewish lineage, that kind of a thing. But at any rate, so God says, Hear not my words. If there's a prophet among you, I the Lord, I Jehovah, will make myself known to him in a visionary dream, but not so with my servant Moses.

He is faithful in all my household. With him I speak openly and not in dark sayings and he beholds the form of Jehovah. So Moses saw God, but it cannot be the Father because Jesus says in John 6, 46, no one's ever seen the Father.

So what's going on? We know that the Trinity is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and we know that the Trinity is eternally existing. So when we see in Exodus 33, 11, God spoke to Moses face to face, it doesn't mean that God has a face. Now Mormons will say, Yeah, he has a face. He's got a body, flesh, and bones.

He's six feet tall, you know, and that's not what's going on here. So what it does say in Exodus 33, 20 is, you can't see my face, right? But if you read the context, it says he put him between a rock and then the glory of God passed by him. So what's going on is it looks like, yeah, right.

Yeah. And what it looks like is happening is the Lord, I'll put it this way, the Lord is communicating with him not in a physical face to face manifestation, which would be a Christophany, but in another way of communication, as in Moses being face to face with God in the burning bush. And so the encounter is right there. He says, You cannot see my face, for no man can see me and live. So God doesn't have a face. So why is God saying that?

Because the face represents the personhood and essence of what a person, what someone is, as you see them, you recognize them. And that is not to be between the Father and the Son, the Father and people. So it could be, pull these things out and see which one sticks to the wall. It could be that the Father is speaking in one context and the Son is speaking in another, the pre-incarnate Christ. So these are, it gets complicated, but these are some of the things I've been thinking about for decades on these things. And I can go into other verses that should talk about this, too. But, yeah.

No, you've answered my question. Bless you and what you do. And people out there, send your support.

I appreciate that. And by the way, William, on CARM is an article. Just look up the Plurality Study.

Plurality Study. I've got it pulled up right now. I'll do that. All right.

Because there it is. I go through this a lot in there with more verses. All right. Okay, buddy. And I'll talk to you again.

I'll see you in the air. Okay, man. All right. God bless, man.

All right. Hey, let's get to somebody. After the break, so what can we say here? There's a break. We're at the bottom of the hour. Give me a call.

Three open lines. 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Bottom of the hour. Give me a call.

877-207-2276. Let's get to Renee from North Carolina. Renee, welcome. You're on the air. Hello. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. I hear you. So what do you got? Hello. I hear you. Do you hear me? Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. How are you, Matt? I'm fine.

By God's grace. Good. So quick question. I was listening randomly to Leighton Flowers and he talked about the conundrum of Calvin. Is that, you know, and you just know what he's talking about.

Right. I know he did. And I just, I just randomly listened to him.

I like to listen to all five of everything. So I was listening to him and the conundrum is why did Jesus have to speak in parables if those who aren't elect are spiritually dead. So regardless of what he said, because they're not regenerate, they will never respond.

So what was the purpose of speaking in parables? And I think I remember hearing you talk about this before. I couldn't remember your, um, your explanation of that.

So you can give me an explanation. I would appreciate it. Sure.

Yeah, I'll be glad to. But Leighton needs to stop what he's doing and he needs to stop attacking reformed theology and causing division in the body of Christ in his ignorance. He's been corrected so many times and I've met him in person and he's a nice guy, but he needs to stop doing that because he's causing problems in the body of Christ that he and I need to, he'd have a public debate on this issue and he did deal with them.

But nevertheless, so this is a typical thing. Now, what Jesus said in John and Mark 4, 10 through 12, they ask him, why are you speaking in parables? He says to you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables so that while seeing they may not perceive and while hearing they may not hear and understand otherwise they might return to be forgiven. So why would he do that? Because he speaks in parables specifically so that people will not be forgiven.

Well, wait a minute. So, so what Leighton and others will say is, okay, if someone's elect or not elected, why speak in parables or not? Well, for one thing, they speak in parables because only those who are given the ears to hear and the eyes to see by God, because God grants that they believe, Philippians 1 29 and not as Leighton says, God grants the opportunity to believe. That's, that's what he does. He changes the text and I know he does. I've, I've talked to him about it and he flat out changes and alters the word of God.

He's got to stop doing that. So what happens here is Jesus is speaking. Now he's God in flesh. If Jesus commands something because he's God, it'll occur. So he speaks in parables so that the non-elect won't hear that command. They won't come because not chosen by God to be saved. It's perfect. It makes sense because if he's going to speak an absolute truth and say, you need this, you need that, you need that.

Okay. Then they're going to have to come to faith, but there's the non-elect. So God has an ordinary here or grant that grant that faith to them. So they're not going to believe.

So he speaks in parables to hide that from them. That's all that's going on. Okay. Okay. Makes sense that not even when you started talking, I said, okay, that's what you're talking about. I said, I think I remember hearing you saying that before, but I couldn't specifically remember everything. So make sense. All right. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. I wish he would stop what he's doing. He, you know, there's so many people who attack reform theology and in my opinion, they just don't have a good grasp of what it is mostly. And they don't understand how to even respond to things like this.

I'm sure he's been told this answer before and, you know, anyway, it's just, it's ridiculous. Okay. All right. Yeah.

It's pretty recent video too. So he's apparently still out there saying the same thing then. So yeah. All right. You're welcome. Okay. God bless. All right. Let's get back to albedo from someplace. So, okay, buddy, let's try it again.

See how your connection is. Okay. Thank you. That's what happens.

Yes. My question is again, is if a person is saved by faith through grace and patience, and then the, the, the, the verse I was, I got the wrong verse last time. That was the Matthew 16, verse 24 and 25. So if I'm saved by my faith through grace and Christ alone, then I'll come in verse 16 and Matthew verse 24. In Matthew, Matthew 16, he's not talking about being saved. He's talking about being a disciple.

I know, but the verse 25 says, read it. Yeah. It says, whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for his sake will find it.

Yeah. And he's talking, uh, before crucifixion, he's talking about the discipleship issue and the cost of discipleship. And you're going to lose your life. What does it mean? Salvation? Doesn't say salvation there. A lot of people say, well, it means you lose your salvation.

Does it? If you lose your life, your wishes to save his life will lose it. Whoever wishes to lose, uh, loses his life for my sake will find it. And what's he mean by that? He's talking about the cost of discipleship, which is severe. And too many Christians today don't understand that cost. And I'm not saying I've got it down, but I'm telling you, a lot of people don't understand that it means to pick up your cross daily, follow after him.

And, uh, because who says Matthew 16, 24. And if you want to keep your life, you say, cause he's saying, look, what Jesus is really doing is saying, look, you gotta understand something. You gotta follow me. Are you willing to follow me even to death? Are you willing to, or you want to keep your own life? Cause if you're not going to follow me, even at the point of death, then you're not worthy of me.

He wants complete and total commitment. That's the level that Jesus is requiring of his disciples of his people. And this is what we have to seek for and strive for in our Christian walk. And so sometimes I wonder if someone held a gun to my head and said, deny Jesus, what would I do? I can't tell you what I would do.

I can only tell you what I hope I would do. And as a teacher in college, Rod Rosenblatt, a well-known Lutheran guy, when someone asked him in the class, professor, professor Rod, you know, if someone held a gun to your hand, to your head and said, deny Jesus, what would you do? And the room went quiet and he thought for a while and he said, finally said, if I deny Christ, it's because of my sin. And if I don't, it's because of his grace.

And that's, it was a perfect answer. We don't know what we're going to do, but the, but the whole idea about back to what Christ is saying is to follow after him, to follow after him means to risk your life, even if that need be, not every single day, but you need to be willing to be able to give up your life for the Lord Jesus. And that's the idea. And if he gives you that grace, should it ever be necessary to actually happen? Then that's just between you and God.

And that's really what's going on there. Okay. Okay. So I'm just saying, but if you, if you, if you don't deny him, that means you truly are saved. But if I thought you saved by faith through grace, you know, it was, if you, if you don't, if you do deny him, you're still going to heaven, right?

You say by faith through grace, not by your reaction, your response to the moment, it's in your forehead. Right now, this is a complicated topic because someone could easily take those verses and say, see, you have to earn your salvation. You can lose your salvation because if you don't follow him, you're not going to be a disciple and you're going to lose your life. You can lose your eternal life.

They could say that. And I'll say, well, is that what it's teaching? Because it doesn't say anywhere that you lose your salvation. And he's not talking about losing salvation. He's talking about those who wish to come after him, must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. And so that's what he's saying.

You can't deny yourself. And that's what's going on. How do you compare these ministers today are seeking more material wealth and prosperity, gospel preaching and all that. They're not denying themselves and put them after Christ. They're heretics.

They're seeking more of the things of this world. They're Kenneth Copeland heretic, Joyce Meyer heretic. There's a lot of heretics out there who are teaching false doctrine that God wants us to be healthy and wealthy and things like that. They don't sin anymore and false doctrines that they're teaching.

And the reason they succeed is because the Christian church is ignorant largely about what the truth is. They don't preach picking up your cross and follow after him into darkness, into danger, into a long life of service to a sick family member or working well and hard in a job while you're providing for your family or doing the things that are necessary for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in difficulty. But no, they teach, hey, I don't sin anymore. And the Lord was telling me blah, blah, blah. And God wants you to be healthy and wealthy because people want to be comforted. They don't know about that cross upon their backs and the splinters and the wood and the roughness and the weight of that cross. And as you move, it rubs up against your body and injures you. And Jesus says, pick it up and come after me because what he's saying is deny yourself.

You've got to be willing to deny yourself in whatever station, whatever place you are. And the pastors who say, nope, that's not what you're supposed to be doing. God wants you to be healthy. Jesus wore designer robes.

I've actually heard him say it. And the foolishness and the filth that they teach. And it's part of the apostasy of the Christian church. So what Jesus is saying is talking about the cost of discipleship and it's a severe cost. And that's why he says, many will say to me on that date, Lord, Lord, I'm going to prophesy and do many good works, et cetera, because get away from me. I never knew you.

Where's their hope? All right, buddy. There's a break, man. We got to go.

All right. Hey folks, wide open lines, five lines. If 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, everybody. Welcome back to the show.

If you want to give me a call, we have wide open lines, 877-207-2276. You know, I was thinking about something in the break there. The issue of the parables. And I thought what I would do is teach on the unjust steward out of Luke 16, one through eight. The unjust steward is where Jesus praises a guy for his dishonesty.

For real. What I want to do is read it and then I'll go through and explain it so that you understand what's going on. Because the parables are awesome. Now, when the one person called earlier, why did Jesus speak in parables? Well, it was so people would not be saved.

But that's not the only reason. Parables are time bombs in the sense that they are messages and ideas that need to be taught and understood. And if you think about them and you learn through them, they're really deep. Now, this is what out of Luke 16. Now, he was also saying this to the disciples. There was a certain rich man who had a steward and the steward was reported to him as squandering his possessions.

And he called him and said to him, what is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward. And the steward said to himself, what shall I do since my master has taken the stewardship away from me? I'm not strong enough to dig. I am ashamed to beg.

I know what I'll do. So that when I'm removed from the stewardship, they will receive me into their homes. And he summoned each one of his master's debtors. And he began saying to the first, how much do you owe my master? And he said, a hundred measures of oil. And he said to them, to him, take your bill and sit down quickly and write 50. Then he said to another, and how much do you owe? And he said, a hundred measures of wheat. And he said to him, take your bill and write 80. And his master praised the unrighteous steward because he acted shrewdly for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light.

Now, isn't that interesting? So let me go through this and I'm going to explain what's going on because believe it or not, this is actually a very interesting parable that when you understand the context and what's going on and a little bit more what's in the text, then it'll make sense. So he says, there was a rich man who had a steward or a manager, is another way of saying it. And he said, he was squandering his possessions.

You got to understand the culture here. So a rich man, like who owned a lot of land. And what they would do is they would parcel out the land to different people who would live on the land, have a dwelling on the land, on it with their families, they would work the land. And then they would give a certain percentage of the produce of the land to the landowner. And then they would keep a percentage for themselves. So they were able to produce for the landowner as well as their own selves and their families and provide.

And so in this sense, everyone was winning. Now the thing is a steward or a manager is someone who was the go-between between the tenants and the landowner. The landowner wouldn't do all the business personally. He would hire someone to go out and do all this. You keep the records, you go talk to them because you'd have to go from place to place over this area of land. And then he would have to keep records and who did what. But turns out that this steward is a bad guy. Now the landowner doesn't know if he is or isn't. He says, what's this I hear about you?

He's hearing it. Give an accounting of your management for you can no longer be manager. He wants to see the facts. Now the manager is in trouble. He said, what should I do? My master's taking management away from me. I'm not strong enough to dig.

I'm ashamed to beg. So he doesn't have the ability to take care of himself outside of this job he's got. And apparently he's doing some bad stuff. Now you've got to understand something. The steward represents the landowner. This is a critical comment.

Okay. He goes, I know what I'll do so that when I'm removed from the management, people will help welcome me into their homes. And he summoned each one of his master's debtors. And he began saying to him, to the first, how much do you owe? He had a hundred measures of oil.

He said, take your bill and quite right down 50. Now also the, the steward, the land manager would also work on behalf of the land workers, the tenants and the land. And he would communicate his, their will or their desires or their issues to the land owner who would then make decisions. And then the steward would carry them out. So the steward was in a sense, a mediator between the two. And he would talk from the landowner to the people and the people to the landowner. So if the steward came to the land, uh, to the, uh, the people who live in the land were working in the land, the workers. And he says, look, right. How much you owe this much, write it in half. One of the things that they're probably going to assume is that he negotiated a deal with the landowner on their behalf, because the landowner is not going to voluntarily do that because they want their money.

And the rich were often oppressors of the, of the, uh, the poor. So now all of a sudden he, the steward knows that they are going to think that he negotiated a deal with the landowner. They're going to love the, uh, the steward.

They're going to say, dude, you're a great guy. Now he knows this. All right. And he said to another, how much do you owe? And he said, a hundred measures of wheat. He said to him, take your bill and write 80. Now this is what's interesting.

And the master praised the unrighteous manager. What, why would he do that? Oh, here's why. Because he acted trudely.

It says now why what's going on? The, in the rep in the, uh, culture, the reputation of the landowner and of men in general was very important, particularly if you had a stature of ownership of land ownership, whatever it was that you had that gave you stature in that culture in that time. And so his reputation was very, very important.

He had to be a man of integrity, man of honesty, et cetera. Now people are going to be thinking, hold on a sec. There we go. People are going to be thinking that the land owner approved of and, or initiated the merciful idea of reducing the debts. So the people who are working the land don't know if for sure, if it was the steward's idea, but though it's probably going to be one of the things you're going to think, or if it was a landowner's initiation, but probably not that, but it doesn't matter. Now, what are they going to be doing? These workers, they're going to be rejoicing, saying the landowner approved of this. He's a great guy.

And the steward, he's a great guy too. Let's have a party. Let's rejoice. Now what happens when the landowner finds out about this? What's he going to do?

Hey, I want everybody to pay me what they owe me anyway. His reputation now is sullied because now he has been caught with a steward who lied and misrepresented him. Then the landowner got busted by the failure of himself to know if this guy was good or not. So his reputation would be sullied or dirtied.

The steward knows this. So he's counting on the goodness of the landowner and his integrity to say, okay, then you're smart. In private room, you know, you can say, yep, yeah, you're smart. Okay. Uh-huh. I can't say anything because if I do, then I'm going to look bad.

And here you're looking good. Well, you're out of here anyway, so you got to go. Now what's the landowner going to do? He's stuck. And the steward, he gets to go out there and he's got a place to go because now the people will take him into their homes. Hey, you work this great deal.

You save this, you know, years of work and years of debt or whatever. Now he says, and his master praised the unrighteous manager because he acted shrewdly for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light. Now what's Jesus saying? He's saying, look, the people of this age, because in this age is corruption and sin and things like this. These are the unbelievers.

They're more shrewd in how they work with their, with themselves than the sons of light. And he says in verse nine, and I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness so that when it fails, they will receive you into eternal dwellings. Now, this is interesting because this is what Jesus says. He says, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness so that when it fails, they will receive you into eternal dwellings.

What's he talking about? Eternal dwellings. He talked about salvation here. Now people will say, you know what, when you come to Christ, the only way to come to Christ is with sincerity. Not because you're afraid of hell, because that's not, you don't want to be afraid of hell. That's not true salvation. I don't want to go to hell, so I'm going to trust in Jesus.

That's not true. I've had people say that. Well, wait a minute, this man here, the unrighteous steward says, I don't want to be caught. I don't want to be in trouble. So I'm going to take care of it. So Jesus right now is even saying in this parable of Luke 16, one through nine, he's saying, look, you have got to understand what the nature of eternal dwellings are.

It is so serious that you better make sure you get in. You better make sure that even by your means of unrighteousness here, you get into the kingdom. Now he's not saying by deception and hook and crook, but what he's saying is look at how they are. Look at how the unbelievers are. They're smart and you sons of light, you Jews, you're not even getting it. They're more shrewd than you are.

And by the unrighteousness that they have and they get in, that's okay. Now he's not saying you get in by deception because it's only through Christ. That's not what he's saying. He's saying you need to pay attention of how serious an issue this is. He's saying to the Jews, you're the sons of light and you don't even have this. You don't even know. You don't understand how serious this is.

Better wake up. That's what he's saying. So this parable is a fascinating parable.

When you understand the context, the culture, it opens up and you go, oh, I get it. It's not that Jesus was approving of wickedness or deception. What he was approving of was, and this is a parable he invented and he came up with, and what he's teaching is you better make sure that in the afterlife you go to the good place, the eternal dwellings. That's what he's saying. Even if it's in a shady way, you got to make sure you're in. That's how important it is. And that's the point he's trying to illustrate to them. He's saying you're not shrewd.

You're not shrewd. And to the Jews, because they're self-righteous. And so this is what's going on in the parable. Now I love the parables because the parables to me are magnificent teaching opportunities.

And I love teaching on them and I love preaching through them. And a lot of times people don't understand the cultural context and they're little gems like that. Like for example, the good Samaritan. So when the good Samaritan comes and finds this victim, he's unconscious and naked. The reason that's important is because if he's unconscious, you can't tell where he's from by his accent. And if he's naked, you can't tell where he's from by his clothing. So you don't know if he's a good guy, bad guy, who or what. He's just a person. And the Samaritan takes care of him. And Samaritans were hated by the Jews. And so this could be a Jew, a Samaritan, could be someone else, could be Egyptian, could be Syrian, could be a Jew right there.

We don't know. And so naked and unconscious is significant. And there's so many things. And my favorite of all of these accounts though, in the cultural context, is the woman who came into the place where Jesus was having that dinner with Simon the Pharisee.

And she let her hair down. I love, love that whole story because of the greatness of what she did in the light of the failures of others. It was a magnificent account of truth. I love that. Anyway, there you go. I hope that was interesting and it blessed you. May the Lord bless you indeed. And by his grace, we'll be back on there tomorrow. Tonight I'm teaching on continuing through the Book of Romans chapter one. And you can check that out.

All you do is go to the CARM page forward slash calendar information will be there. God bless everybody. Talk to you tomorrow. See you.