Matt Slick Live (Guest Host Luke Wayne)

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.

For answers, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Good afternoon and welcome to the show. This is Luke Wayne filling in for Matt Slick. I'm a colleague of Matt's at the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. You can find us online at karm.org. That is C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. And I've been working with Matt at KARM for about seven years now.

It'll be seven come January. And it has been fantastic to get to be a part of this ministry. If you are joining us for the first time today, this is a radio outreach of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. And what we do on this show is we talk about apologetics, which is the branch of Christian theology concerned with the defense of the faith. So if you have questions about challenges that critics of the faith bring, questions about difficult passages in the Bible, questions brought by false religions that bring objections and challenges to your faith. That's what this show is all about, to help provide answers, to help dig deep into those things. And so give us a call.

We want to hear from you. Call us at 877-2276. Again, that's 877-207-2276.

And the lines are open. But as I said, Matt's out today because he is engaged in ministry. Right now he is working with the Aramaic Broadcast Ministry to preach the gospel and to preach Christian truth across the world to people coming out of Muslim background and people from a variety of situations across the United States and in other countries. And that's what God has blessed us with the opportunity to do, when decades ago Matt started this ministry by creating one of the first Christian apologetics websites. The whole point was to equip Christians everywhere with the resources and the answers they need to be able to engage in evangelistic conversations with their neighbors, to be able to find answers to the questions they themselves are struggling with, dig deeper in God's word, know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ more deeply and intimately, and to be a resource to the church, to help pastors and youth pastors and Sunday school teachers to be able to study and prepare and equip their people Sunday after Sunday and midweek Bible study after midweek Bible study. We are here to support the kingdom, equipping churches and individuals for the work of ministry. And if you've benefited from CARMS ministry over the years, if this radio show or CARMS website, the articles we write or the seminars that we've done, have been a benefit and a help to you. We ask that you help us to pass that on to others. You can partner with us by going to CARMS.org or bring it to our partnership page where you can give as little or as much as you can a one-time gift or what really helps us as a monthly gift.

$5 a month, $10 a month, $20 a month, whatever you can afford. Ministries like ours, God supports us through listeners and viewers like you, through Christians at home, who support what we do. Thank you so much, those of you who have already partnered with us. God uses you to make this work possible. And so we're able to be online, on the airwaves and on the streets sharing the gospel with people and handing out tracts because you guys prayerfully and generously partner with us. Thank you for that. So if you're not partnered with us yet, go over to CARMS.org and while you're there, sign up for our weekly newsletter to keep up with the work that CARMS is doing and seminars that might be coming up near you or online events you might want to tune in for, new articles that you might be interested in reading.

That website and the newsletter through that is a great way to keep in touch with CARMS and stay a part of what we're doing. With that said, let's go ahead and jump to the phones. We've got Herb from Raleigh, North Carolina. Herb, you are on the air.

Yes sir, thank you so much. I'm a Christian, so what I'm asking you, I'm not doubting or questioning the Lord. I just want to try to get a better understanding of how it works. When your body dies, when you die, and it says, absent from the body, present with the Lord. So you're with the Lord when you do die. When God comes back in the clouds to take the people from here on earth who are Christians, those who are dead in Christ, and those who are still on earth, how does that fit in together? If you're already dead and you're with the Lord in heaven when you die, what is He coming back to get if your soul is already in hell? You know what I'm saying? It's confusing.

Absolutely, yes. It's an excellent question, so let me try to see if I can answer that simply for you. So, when we die, if you are a believer, if you have put your trust completely and fully in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone for your salvation and trusted Him and His perfect work on the cross for your eternal life. When you die, your spirit, your soul, will be immediately in the presence of the Lord. As Paul describes it, as you just said, absent from the body, present with the Lord.

And yet that is not the final hope of the Christian. It's for us to be disembodied souls in the presence of the Lord. In a sense, Paul says, it is better by far that I be dead and in God's presence than alive and absent from the Lord. But what we have ultimately is the even greater hope of the resurrection of our bodies. That our soul and body will be reunited, that we will be resurrected, ever-living humans, perfected, the consequence of sin and death taken away, the sickness and pain and mortality done away with. As Paul says elsewhere, that this mortal must put on immortality, this corruptible must put on incorruptible. And so God, it's not that we want to ditch our body, that in the end we want our body made perfect and to live resurrected, alive, physically and spiritually, in the presence of God.

And so that is that future hope. And so those who are dead in Christ now, they have the great comfort of being in His presence while they await that day. But they're still awaiting their ultimate hope of resurrection when they will be both body and soul with Christ forever. So are they in heaven now, with God right now in heaven, or are they in a different place with Jesus, waiting for the Lord to come back to unite our body and soul, and then actually go to actual heaven? Well, we know that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father in heaven, right? So if those who are dead in Christ are with the Lord, then they must do, at this moment, spiritually, be consciously in heaven, in the presence of God. That's a wonderful thing. It's a great comfort for those of us who know a brother or sister, a friend or neighbor, a parent who has died in Christ. It's a great comfort to know that that's where they are right now. And yet it's also a great comfort to know that one day they will be in the body again. And we will be able to embrace them again in the flesh and dwell with them as men and women in Christ's presence.

Well, let me ask one last part of that whole equation. They talk about a new heaven, a new earth. When the Lord destroys the earth by fire, gets rid of all the sin and the ugliness and the evil, all of that, will... Okay, Matt explained to me the other day that we'll be on the same earth we're on now, but it'll be like upgraded, remodeled, however you want to say it. The Lord will make it perfect again, like it once was before Adam and Eve sinned. So will heaven be actually on this planet earth when the Lord comes back and comes with a new earth, a new Jerusalem? Is that all still going to take place on the existing earth we have now after the Lord has made it perfect again?

Great question, and of course there's room for believers to disagree on some of the details of this, but at the core of it, what the Scripture seems to teach is just as our bodies will be resurrected, made perfect and new, but ultimately still the same body that we have, just like when Jesus was resurrected, right? Yes, sir. His same body got up and came out of the grave, but now it's immortal, resurrected, eternal, right?

Yes, sir. And so in the same way, the earth itself, all creation will be resurrected. It's under the curse of sin, it's broken under groaning for that day of redemption, and after it's judged, after judgment is poured out in the fiery wrath of God, the earth of this fallen creation will itself be, in a sense we might say, resurrected. It'll be restored, it'll be made new, a continuation of what it was, but made new, made better. All the consequences of sin removed from it, the curse relinquished, now perfected.

Yes, sir. To your earlier question, where you said, will heaven be on earth, in a very real sense, the answer to that question is yes, because ultimately heaven is where the presence of God is. And so when Revelation says, because of that glorious truth, and the last day when, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, when God himself is dwelling in our midst perfectly and completely, on that day, wherever we are with him, that's heaven.

His presence is there. And so when he is dwelling with us on the earth, it will be heaven, because his presence is there. Well, all of those things are just so comforting and so wonderful. I'm 66 years old, I became a Christian at age 12. And all the years of being a Christian has been wonderful. But as you get older, and naturally as you think about, you're closer to the end of your life than you were in your 20s, teens, whatever. But as you think about that, instead of being sad about it, it's really, I have a thrill inside knowing that I'm at least getting closer to that day, more than when I'll get to be with the Lord. And that's not so bad. Amen.

Well, thank you so much. That is a very healthy way to look at that. And praise God for the wisdom he's given you in being able to see and rejoice at that, because it's true that, you know, aging and death is hard, but it's not the end. And after it comes something so much better.

And as believers who truly trust in Christ, we can rejoice, even in the pains of age or sickness or death, because we know what he will give us afterwards. Well, have you got time? If you don't have time, that's okay. We're going to a break right now, but if you can hold, I'll bring you back on for another question right after this. Will that work for you, Herb? Yes, sir.

Thank you, sir. All right, we'll be back right after this break. Welcome back to the show. This is Luke Wayne, a colleague of Matt's at the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. I'm filling in for Matt today while he is doing some ministry with the Aramaic Broadcasting Network, and so I'm able to step in for him here. And if you are new to the show, again, this is a Christian apologetics ministry. We answer your difficult questions about challenging passages of Scripture, objections to the faith, false religions, cults, anything in those categories, Christian theology and doctrine. If you have questions, please call us at 877-207-2276. We are eager to be a resource to you to answer your questions and to hear from you. Speaking of which, let's get back to the phones. We've got Herb from Raleigh still on the line. Yes, sir. Herb, you are on the air. Yes, sir.

Thank you so much again. My last question is, people who are Catholic, they believe in the Catholic, their beliefs, in other words. What I'm asking, I've got a friend who is a devout Catholic, but she doesn't actually pray to Mary per se, but she's dead set on believing as a Catholic believes. My question is, will that person go to Heaven? If you're praying to Mary or accepting the majority of the Catholic belief, do those people just do not make it to Heaven?

Or how does that work? There are so many people who are Catholic, and I kind of worry. My sister married a Catholic, and they don't pray to Mary, but they do consider themselves Catholic, so I worry about them not being saved, even though my younger sister did accept the Lord when she was young in the Baptist church, but now she's converted to Catholicism because of her husband.

I guess that's my angle. I'm concerned about her salvation, but I don't want to step on toes. If it's something I need to talk to her about, I just don't know which way to go after that. I understand very much where you're coming from, and that is especially when it's a family member or somebody who we know and love.

It gets personal, and it should. The answer to your question is, if somebody goes along with all of official Roman Catholic doctrine, including their teachings on justification, on works, on things like that, then that person has accepted a different gospel, and that's a serious matter. But not everyone who identifies as a Roman Catholic, or who attends a Roman Catholic church and thinks of themselves as Catholic, accepts every single part of Roman Catholic doctrine, even if they think they do. If you ask, hey, do you accept all of Roman Catholic doctrine? Of course I do. You ask what they mean about that.

One of the best things you can do is to ask them personally what they believe about the core issues, and really dig into that. It's interesting, you should ask this question today. You might not realize, October 31st, this is Reformation Day.

The day is commemorated when Martin Luther nailed the 95 species to the castle door in Wittenberg, which is one of the events that sparked the Protestant Reformation, that really makes this conversation that we're having today possible. And so, you know, these are one of the core issues, and that is what we're talking about right here, that justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, not by grace and faith and works, not beginning by grace and faith and then finished through works and meritorious acts, and not by the grace of Christ and the merit of the saints and Mary, and so where is this person putting their faith? All the other issues aside, what is the question that you need to get down to is, if this person were to die today and stand before God, on what basis do they believe they would be justified in His presence, and give an eternal life with Him? Well, she became a Christian at age 12, now she's 50-something years old, and she's in the Catholic Church, so did she stop being the Christian? You know, you become a Christian, they say you won't lose your salvation, could she have lost her salvation by switching to the Catholic Church, and if she does accept all of their current doctrines?

That's kind of interrelated to what we're talking about. If someone professes faith in the true Gospel, but then later walks away from it and embraces a false Gospel, and joins a false religion and never comes back, then what Scripture leads us to conclude is that that person did not have a genuine saving faith in the first place. It's not that they lost it, it's that the faith they had was a superficial faith, and not a genuine faith. If you look, for example, at the parable of the sower, Jesus talks about people who get really excited and seem to grow really fast in their faith, but they actually have no root, and the trials and troubles of life scorch and destroy, and they fall away. And others who grow up among thorns to temptations that choke out their faith and they fall away because they're tempted and drawn away by something else, and in both those cases, they never bear any fruit. That person never genuinely had the life of faith in them. When you read this account in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell of this parable, and when you read it, it's only of the good soil that grows up and bears fruit that Jesus says that they genuinely understood the Gospel, and so that they understood, and therefore... So there is a false faith, a superficial faith, where somebody can hear about Jesus, hear the Gospel, get excited, and kind of follow along with it for a while, but the trials and troubles of life or the temptations and snares that lead us away will expose if that faith was genuine. As later was rewritten in 1 John, they went out from us because they were not of us. If they were of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out with us to show that they were not of us. So that departure... Now, does that mean that a true Christian can't get caught up in a wrong thing for a while and then realize their error and come back? No, that happens.

That's different. And so we should not give up on somebody who seems to be wandering down a wrong path. We should lovingly urge them to return to the simplicity of the Gospel, and the grace alone does Himself preach.

Does that make sense? Yes, sir, it makes a lot of sense, and I really appreciate your help on this. There's been things that have been on my mind, and I said, I've got to call Matt or whoever's available and just get their feeling on it, because I care about her salvation, and I want to do whatever I can to make sure she's right with the Lord. Well, I will be praying for her too, Herb, and call back any time and we can talk more about it. All right, we're going to a break now. Thank you so much for your call, Herb. You have a wonderful day.

You too, God bless. Please stay with us. We will be back after this break.

Welcome back to the show. This is Luke Wayne, a colleague of Matt's Slick at CARM.org, the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. I'm showing in for Matt today while he is engaged in ministry elsewhere, and excited to be here with you guys answering your questions. If you have any questions about biblical doctrine, Christian theology, church history, comparative religions, cults, false religions, objections to the Christian faith, we're excited to hear from you guys here on the show, and so give us a call at 877-207-2276. That said, let's get right back to the phone lines, where we've got Mike from Durham, North Carolina. Mike, you are on the air.

Hello, thanks for taking my call. I have a question about Matthew 18-15. Different translations have it different. Some are sins against you, like the New King James Version, but the NIV just says it's for brother or sister sins. When I read it, I kind of tend to view it as if you see a brother or sister sinning, you should call them out on that, even if they're not sinning against you. But I can't, looking through concordance and stuff, I can't find what the true translation is supposed to be.

I was wondering if you could help me with that. Okay, give me just a second as I am pulling up the passage right now. Matthew 18-15.

So we have, over if my brother trespasses again. Okay, so your question is specifically dealing with the wording against you, which appears in some translations and not in others, is that correct? That is correct. You know, I think the way I had always viewed it was the NIV translation, and then someone has corrected me saying, no, it's sinned against you. If someone's sinning, that's different than if they sin against you. It's talking more about sinning against you, not just sinning in general.

I'm pulling up the concordance data here. In general, it is certainly true, your impulse to say, hey, if I see my brother in sin, regardless of whether it's directed towards me or I'm personally affected by it, I still ought to constructively, out of love for them and a desire to restore them to a proper walk and turn them away from evil, I ought to confront and rebuke and address that brother. That's certainly true. And so, regardless of where we land on which translations write on this verse, you can go to other passages where James 5, 19, my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will rescue his soul from death. That's a powerful testimony, that if we see someone wandering into sin, whether it's directed at us or not, we absolutely should intervene out of love and desire to deliver them from the consequences of that sin, right? So I think there's certainly an application there that the rest of scripture would say would still apply to the context of seeing a brother in sin, even if that sin is not directed specifically toward us. So, having said that, specifically dealing with Matthew 18, it appears, if I'm seeing this right, that if someone sins toward you, I'm seeing it in the Greek, that could be a textual variant there, that some of the translations are relying on manuscripts that do not have that, but my program's having trouble bringing that data up right now.

And so, it seems to me, from the Greek text I've got in front of me right now, that someone sins against you is a defensible translation here, and so the context of Matthew 18 is probably focused on what you should do in the case of an offense, how you should handle if someone has wronged you in some way, that you should not immediately go public and make some big scene about it, that there is a process you should handle to rightly address this wrong that has been done. So the most direct, immediate application to this text in Matthew does seem to be in how you respond when you have been wronged by the sin of a brother. That said, I do believe that the process laid out here is more broadly applicable, even if Jesus was most directly talking to where we have the greatest temptation to do things the wrong way.

When someone sins against us, when we are angered by it, hurt by it, offended by it, is when we're most likely to act out of the flesh and handle things the wrong way, and add our sin to their sin by abusing our brother instead of working to restore them and handle things rightly. And so I think Jesus would be right to emphasize that kind of situation in his instructions. But I do think that there is certainly a broader application when we look at this in light of the rest of Scripture to say, okay, if you're going to rebuke someone for a sin, even if you're not offended by it, out of love and desire to restore them, this is still a healthy process to follow. Because the desire is not to make a public scene out of their sin, but to restore them. And then we escalate along the lines of the discipline laid out here, first individually and then with witnesses, simply because they can verify the reality, look, yes, you committed the sin, we've all seen it, you need to turn from this. And finally, before the Church, only if that becomes absolutely necessary, with an abject refusal to repent. I believe that that process is certainly a healthy and biblical way for us to approach, you know, generally our rebuke of a brother in sin. That there is something distinctive about those times when your flesh wants to do more because the sin was against you. So I think it would be fitting for Jesus to single that context out when he offers these instructions. Does that make sense?

It does. I never thought of it as a way to kind of maybe suppress my anger or earthly, you know, desire for, I don't know, harming somebody. I think something that I haven't seen much of, though, is I think on a micro level between friends, you know, friends that I've had who are Christians and vice versa. You know, we try to hold each other accountable, and I think that's part of the fellowship of the Church. And I think on a small level, you know, I've been part of that, where I've pointed stuff out and people pointed out stuff about me, and it has been to build up the body of Christ. But I've almost never, or never that I can think of, seen it in a church setting. I've never seen it escalate. Is that because churches are afraid to do church discipline, or do you think things get resolved prior to getting to that level?

I think both of those things are true. I think that if the Matthew 18 process of confronting someone's sin is applied correctly, most of the time it will be dealt with before you'll ever have to see it happen. If you go and talk to someone and they repent, and you guys reconcile and it's over with, then you never have to tell anyone else about it, and no one else would see that.

No one else would know what happened. If you brought a couple witnesses along, and then the person repented, and you resolved it, and then, okay, you've restored them to fellowship. You don't need to go expose that sin any further and go trout it out and make a big scene out of it.

It's resolved, it's done. Now that sin may have affected someone else that they need to go on and deal with. There may be more, depending on the specific type of sin, more individuals will need to hear, but it won't become a big public scene. And so, if this is done right, the only times that it would become well-known and become a church-wide issue is the obstinate, unrepentant person who, regardless of being confronted, will not turn. So then that gets to your question, why don't we see that happening? Well, in some cases it might be because the church is healthy and the people are repenting before it ever comes to that, and so that just, hopefully that would be rare. But there are certainly also cases, unfortunately, where churches are so hesitant to follow through on this plain biblical teaching of taking discipline to that level. I have seen churches do it. It does happen.

But you are right, it is unfortunately, in our current day, we're so hesitant to follow through on that. Welcome back to the show, this is Luke Wayne, chilling in for Matt Slick today while he is out engaged in other ministry opportunities, and he will be back with you again, Lord willing, tomorrow. But for the rest of the day, I'll be with you answering your questions. If you have those questions, call me at 877-207-2276. Now let's get right back on the lines with Mike from Durham, North Carolina, who was talking about Matthew 18 and the process of church discipline.

Mike, you're back on the air. I think I have a little bit of follow-up with it, because I don't know if it's generational or it's always been like this, but people have always had, or it seems like people have a hard time dealing with difficult conversations. And I think the early stages of church discipline, that is having a very uncomfortable conversation with somebody that you should be fellowshipping with, or who may be a friend of yours that you might be kind of in fear of. And I think a lot of us are groomed with work and school and everything, there are discipline processes at those places that are well known, written down. Do churches write down kind of their interpretation of church discipline and have that written in some bylaws or something? Is that normal, or is this just kind of something that people turn to the scripture and use their own interpretation? Is there a standardization, I guess, in churches? And that would depend on the church. There are a number of churches that do, based on passages like Matthew 18, other passages in Corinthians and elsewhere, that deal specifically with rebuke confrontation and how that escalates to church-wide discipline. There are many churches that do have a systematized, they've taken all those passages and they've put together, okay, this is what the procedure looks like for our church, just to take some of the ambiguity away.

So people aren't left wondering, okay, what do I do next? They sort of lay it out for their people and have that systematic theology and approach, and would be written often in documents like bylaws, just like you said. There are other churches that do not, that let the scripture speak for themselves and allow a certain liberty in those matters. And unfortunately, there are churches that simply don't practice this at all and avoid these kinds of questions, and sadly that is the case. But yeah, so the answer is both approaches are taken by churches.

Okay. Yeah, I think that a lot of churches I've been at have encouraged small groups to do true fellowship, where you eat together, you pray together, you learn together, and you talk about issues together. And I do believe kind of on a small level that that's a great place for it. I think from the outside looking in, if I was going to a church, I would love for them to have kind of those bylaws, that process, maybe even talk to small group leaders and others about the process more. It just seems to be something I've never experienced in a church, a church talking about that or having something written down about it.

So I think that's why I'm curious about it. No, I think you're absolutely right. And for churches that are hesitant to put it in documentation for fear that they're going to add rules that are beyond the Bible and they want to be careful about that, I can understand that. But I would say, to the point you're making, that such a church needs to teach on this subject often, if they're using a small group ministry needs to make sure that their small group leaders are regularly trained in biblical teachings on church discipline and rebuking confrontation so that they know how to carry that out among the people that they are regularly doing life with, so that these things can be done physically, because it's for the individual who falls into sin needs their brothers and sisters to do this for them. They need it.

It's helpful. The soul is crushed under sin that is not repented of. We need that help from our brothers to guide us out of that. But also, the church as a whole, the church community is damaged by unrepentant sin. Even if you don't know about it, there is spiritual harm done to the church when unrepentant sin is thriving in the church. And so, for the sake of the whole and for the sake of the individual, I think you're absolutely right, this needs to be taught on more in our churches. Our leaders at every level, the pastors, the Sunday school teachers, the small group leaders, need to be well trained in this and able to equip their people and carry it out well. And there unfortunately are a lot of churches who have dropped the ball on that.

There are others who do great on it. I don't want to make blanket statements. I've been at churches where I've seen discipline done very well, and so I've seen great models of how it can be done.

And so there are super healthy churches that do this right, but there are a lot of churches that do it wrong. And I think you're right, I think our modern culture's squeamishness about confronting people and having difficult conversations lies at the heart of that a lot of times. Okay, great. Thank you for taking my call. I know myself, I need a lot of accountability. I need people around me to point out things that I may not recognize or I don't want to recognize. So I know for me this is going to keep my trust out of people. Go to the leaders of your church and be open about that and start a conversation at your church.

And if there's an absolute refusal of your church to be in line with that biblical teaching, then look for a church that takes it seriously. You're right, you do need to be, we all need to be, living in a context of Christian community that takes our sin seriously and is willing to confront it. And so I know you need that, because I need that.

We all do. All right. Well, very good. I'll let you get on to whoever's next. And thank you for taking my call. Thank you very much for calling in with your question, and for your patience with all the breaks and the wakes on that. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it. All right, no problem. Bye.

All right. Okay, that was Mike from Durham. We are now going to Alberto from Georgia. Alberto, you are on the air.

Yes. Good evening, Alberto. Good evening, good evening, sir.

Thank you for taking my call. My question is 1 Peter 1.5 versus Jude 1. I think it's verse 14 through 19. All right, so the first one you said was 1 Peter 1.5. 1 Peter 1.5, okay. So 1 Peter 1.5, which says, Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time? Okay, and then you said Jude verses 14 and...

Wait, wait, wait, wait. It's verse... Really, it's verses 1...1 21. Are you still there with me?

Yeah, I'm here, I'm here. Jude 1 21. Okay, so verse 21. So verse 21.

Keep yourselves in the love of God waiting for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. All right, so what's your question about these two verses? Okay, is it by God's power I'm kept, or is it my effort to keep myself in the love of God to be kept? I apologize, you're cutting in and out. You're cutting in and out just a little bit. I wasn't able to hear you. Is it by God's power I'm kept, or is it by my own effort that I'm kept?

Is it my question? If somebody is in Christ, if they have put their faith and trust in Him, if He has put His Spirit in that person, given them a new heart, forgiven them of their sins, granted them eternal life by His grace, through His perfect finished work, it is by God's power that that person is preserved. And so in Jude, yes, it says that you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. Now, we can hear that building yourselves up and keeping yourselves in the love of God and say, oh, it's all on me. But what does it go on to say in verse 24? Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time, now and forever.

Amen. So after talking about our responsibility and what we are supposed to do as believers, he goes on to say that it is ultimately Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and present you blameless on that day with glory and great joy. So Jude does not contradict Peter here at all. Jude puts it entirely, it is the power of God that does that. But the power of God does work itself out in us in a way that those who are genuine believers do respond in faith, and that faith will be lived out. And so we do have a responsibility and fear and trembling to follow God, and yet it is not that He has put it in our fleshly hands to preserve our own salvation, but rather even those warnings, even those passages that challenge us to do God's will and to do what is right, those are God's Word graciously working in the heart of the believer that the power of God will work itself out of us in every way. But at the end of the day, even Jude says that it is God who keeps you from stumbling. It is God who presents you blameless.

Not you who can keep yourself from stumbling or present yourself blameless. So I heard some other ministers, I just heard them just even today, before I call you, there was a woman asking about if a person walks away or forsakes the Lord, but like the example of Demas, Paul said he loved his present world, he was forsaken. So if a believer could be 20 years in church and suddenly decide not to serve the Lord no more, and he decides to go back in the world, or the appeal of this world draws him more than the love of God, even though he accepted Christ already, and based on these verses, like you say, it's God, not us, but what about if he goes back in the world again, he just completely abandons the things of God, he doesn't want to go to church no more, he doesn't care about Christ no longer. Will that person still be kept by God's power? Well, we're out of time, the show's wrapping up, but the simple answer is that Jesus says, as I mentioned earlier in the show, in places like the parable of the sower, the one who has genuine faith will go on to bear fruit. The one who falls away from the trials and temptations shows that they never really had the life of Christ in them. They never really understood the gospel and belief. It exposes the reality of... Another program powered by the Truth Network.