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. Hey everybody. Welcome. Welcome to the show.

It's 12 9, uh, 2022. And I hope you're all going to have a good time listening over at Good Show. I know that, uh, there's a lot of people out there driving and doing some shopping.

I went out and did a little bit today and I'll tell you, roads were packed. That's just how it goes. So if you want to talk about something, you want to give me a call, all you gotta do is dial 877-207-2276.

Whew, man. Okay. Okay. So, oh yeah, we are doing the rumble thing again. Just letting you guys know out there that we have, uh, the rumble, well this must be working and uh, I guess it's working so they can check and Laura will check and she'll let me know. We're trying to do stuff, trying to fit, set things up. So I'm hoping it's all working cause we're just doing new technology and everything. So I got people coming into the chat room. If you are interested in participating in that, all you gotta do is go to the karm.org website, carm.org and um, on the right hand side of the homepage, you'll see my picture with a microphone thing on my head. And um, and then all you gotta do is click on that and you can, you can watch, you can, it's not a big deal. I'm just sitting here in the office. But what's fun is that we have others who participate in the chat room.

And so we have a good time with that. All right, so we've got hate mail today, which I'll hopefully be doing. And also before we get to that, I wanted to let you know that if you would consider praying for the people in Nigeria, we have our meeting on Fridays and we have a connection there in Nigeria and I don't know if the news is going to cover it, but what's happened is the Muslims have come into villages and murdered a lot of people and they took a lot of them captive. Um, and then what's happened is they collected, uh, in, in this village, they collected their Bibles and with the captured people, they took them away and um, then made a fire where they threw the Bibles in and then told these Christians that if they don't repent of following Jesus and follow Muhammad, they have to say the Shahada. Uh, if they don't do that, they're going to be thrown into the same fire with the Bibles.

And we're told that the Christians are renouncing their faith because of this. So in Islam, uh, the evil, evil religion that it is, uh, saying the Shahada is what gets you become a Muslim. You know, there is no God, but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. That's the Shahada. You get the confessed acts.

You do it publicly. And what by saying that you're saying that the Christian God is not true. Jesus is not who he said he was and other things and that Muhammad was a true prophet. Muhammad's not a true prophet. He's a false prophet. And, uh, he, he was an evil man and I know that Muslims like to say that he was a good man and he's the greatest man to follow.

Uh, that's not the case. Uh, he, uh, he's definitely not the case that that's, that's, uh, I've offered to have debates on who was a better man, a Jesus or Muhammad. No Muslim has ever taken me up on it. And from what I understand, uh, other Christians, uh, have offered to debate that very topic. Uh, and from what I've heard, uh, no Muslims ever taken him up on it. So that's not to say it hasn't happened. I'm just not aware of it, but it looks as though the Muslims will not debate who was a better man, Jesus or Muhammad because there is so much bad stuff that Muhammad did. Uh, he had people killed, he had took their wives, he had, uh, raids and he'd steal money from people.

Uh, it, you know, it's just, it's just horrible how this guy is, what he was. So, um, there you go for that. And I guess the live stream is working. And if you could put that in the private chat so I can keep it a record on it cause I might be able to look, I got things going on here. All right. We have a four open lines. If you want to give me a call, you can. All I gotta do is dial 877-207-2276 and then we can talk. Let's get on the air with, let's see, that would be Mike from Winston Salem. Mike, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Hey Matt. I had called you several weeks ago, um, about the gospel of the kingdom as to what the gospel is and you, you put me on a search to find out exactly what it is. And I think it's really no more complicated than a song that we sing every year called joy to the world. You know, it says joy to the world, the world's come, let earth receive her King, joy to the world, the savior reigns, uh, let men their songs employ. And then when you go through even the old and new Testament and it talks about, um, in Daniel, for instance, it talks about, uh, Jesus coming up to the ancient of days and the nations will come up and, and, and, and follow him. And to me, um, and of course in, in the new Testament, um, in first Corinthians, it talks about, uh, Jesus is raining now. And I was listening to you the other day and you were talking about that Jesus is raining. Now he's on the throne because that's what the Bible says.

Um, until all his enemies are placed under his feet. And I think that's the gospel of the kingdom. It's, it's, it's the, the kingdom that, um, John the Baptist announced in Matthew when he says, you know, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Uh, and, and Jesus says the same thing. So I read this and, and as I studied this, I, I, I ended the conclusion that we Christians have already won the battle. We won the battle. The battles won. All we got to do is get off our butts and do what the Bible tells us to do, which is to go out and win the people, disciple people and win, win the nations, which is something you're telling people. Um, so anyway, that's what my research pointed out.

I mean, you said telling people that for a while. Mm hmm. I sent you an email on it a while back, um, that had all the passages and there's probably a whole lot more.

I came up with about 15 or 20 of them that to me, allude to what this gospel of the kingdom is in both the old and the new Testament. So, and I, and, and I'm kind of glad you put me on it. Cause now I got a bunch of other questions that I'm having to research. Every time I research something, I come up with something else that I got to go and see.

That's exactly what happens to me is one thing usually leads to two or three others and sometimes you just got to give up searching some of those other tangents and get back on the original, but you always learned. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, anyway, thank you for that. And, uh, we Christians as we sing that song joy to the world, we need to realize that what we're doing is we're singing about the gospel and wasn't that written by Isaac Watts? Did he write that?

No, I do in like 17 something or other 17, 19, 17, 20, something like that. But anyway, um, that's it. We've already, we've already won the battle. Um, I think the Japanese, I think the Japanese stole that from us. You know, the, uh, the samurai believed in a, in an old saying that said, uh, win first, fight later. That, that was their motto. Win first, fight later. So we've won. All we got to do is get out there and fight.

That's what I sell people. You know, and when you go to Matthew 16, 18 the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Well, what are gates do? They resist, right? They stand, but that's it. They don't go out and go after you.

This means we're doing the aggression and we're going to win. I've told people this, but I've also said, because the Christians aren't doing their job, you know, they, they are pacified and they're not doing what they need to do. This is why they're having problems. This is why things are this, as they are. Yeah, it's bad.

It's frustrating. Yeah. Historically, historically led to that because it used to be that the church was involved in, uh, in politics and in getting, you know, running people for office.

I mean, if you go back to where, uh, you know, it was like the church was the center of town, uh, where people met and, um, decisions were made and, and, and the church was very active. And it's like in the 20th century, we've kind of all fallen back and like, you know, just let it go. Right. Um, well, here's something that, uh, check this out. This is, uh, because you talk about what we did as a country, what we did before, the treaty of Paris in 1783, this treaty signed, uh, was between the American colonies and great Britain ending the American revolution and formally recognized the United States as an independent nation. And here's the transcript of it. The opening line in the name of the most Holy and undivided Trinity. And then it goes on it, having pleased the divine providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the third. And it goes on.

It begins with a doctrine of the Trinity, the, the undivided, the Holy and undivided Trinity. This is what is, that's what's going on. This is what was done as a treaty. And so what's happening now.

They turned her back on God. Yeah. Yeah. That's why we're losing. I'm, I'm encouraging my fellow brothers and sisters to get off the tail ends. And, uh, you know, we really need to get even more active. Um, I totally agree because the Gates will not prevail. If we organize and move forward, we'll win. That's right.

Yeah. But so here's the question, why are the Christians not, uh, mobilizing? Why are the Christians, um, apathetic? Why are the pastors and teachers not teaching what needs to be taught?

Maybe it's because it's pre-millennial pre-millennialism is a dominant view, which says the kingdom of Christ is not now, but later, maybe that's part of the problem. I don't know. Uh, that could be it too, because I, I have talked to someone, some of my fellow brothers and sisters about, and they say, well, this is, this is all happening because it's been preordained, you know, it is in the book of revelation and it, and I say, no, you're reading it wrong. Um, yeah, I mean, the, I think the dispensation was, um, um, has, uh, has really done a lot of damage. Yeah.

Technically speaking. Yes, it's preordained, but people don't understand what that means. They kind of get the idea that preordination means this is what God wants you to happen. And it's just going to happen.

You can't do anything about it because he's want this bad stuff to happen. That's not what it means. Preordained means in the sovereign plan of God, this has been allowed to occur because it can't occur unless God gives it permission to occur. That's what it means by, by ordination. But also it could be preordained that we stand up, unite and fight as we're supposed to do according to the scripture.

And that would be preordained too. See, so many people use the scriptures as a reason to do nothing. They do the opposite of what it says. You know, Jesus says, pick up your cross daily and follow after me. How many Christians are doing that? I won't make disciples of all nations.

How many Christians are doing that? Pre-Trib rapture, let's get out. Uh, pre-millennialism, it'll all happen later. So worry about it. Don't worry about it now.

It's just the way it is. It's going to get bad. And then we're going to get raptured out. This is the kind of stuff that makes people apathetic and weak. It's exactly what the enemy wants. Right. Yeah. Well, why do any people get raptured out? I guess, you know.

Yeah. And, and, you know, I'm not saying that if you believe in the rapture, you know, Pre-Trib rapture, you're wrong. But sheesh, you know, uh, we're supposed to be, uh, we're supposed to be fighting against the enemy. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

That means the church has to be moving forward. You know, listen to the radio I was doing, running errands today. And, um, and it was, uh, somebody was talking about something as a political thing and they said, uh, the abortion, the pro-choice group, blah, blah, blah. And this is on a conservative website, a conservative news thing. They're saying, uh, the, uh, the pro-choice people and I'm saying, don't say pro-choice say, pro-abortion, you know, why is it? It just gets me. Why is it that people give up so easily and let the wicked prosper that the wicked have their ways.

That's even a little way that they should, we should not allow partners instead of husbands and wives pro-choice instead of killing the babies. You know, we need to fight for righteousness whether people like it or not. Hey buddy, there's a break. We got to go. All right. Talk to you later, man. God bless.

All right. Four open lines, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Everybody. Welcome back to the show. Let's see, we have three open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276.

Dana from Liberty, Indiana, I guess. Welcome. You're on the air. Well, thanks for having me. Um, I've been a pastor for 24 and a half years. Um, I'm not a pre-tripper. As a matter of fact, I really, the pre-trip you really kind of sets me off because they break all kinds of rules of hermeneutics.

Um, um, I'm not sure why we allow us to break the rules of hermeneutics when it comes to end time teaching term eschatology. Um, I'm a, are you familiar with the pre-raft position? A little bit. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Yes, a little bit. Okay. Um, that's the position I adhere to. Um, I'm not sure why we allow the sim symbolism, the reading into scriptures. Um, you know, the passage is the four primary ones. Pre-trippers use are our jokes because they don't teach a pre-trip rapture at all. Um, and I'm just kind of curious to get your thoughts on why we allow the breaking of the rules of hermeneutics when it comes to eschatology. First of all, for those who don't know, hermeneutics is the science of interpretation and readings, things in context, looking at parallels, uh, cultural context, linguistic context, historical context, et cetera. And, um, it's because I think most people aren't familiar with a proper hermeneutical principles.

One of the things I've wanted to do is actually write a fourth school for CARM dealing with hermeneutics on how to interpret things. And so one of the things I have done before is use two men in a field, one is taken, one is left, which is a common pre-tribulation rapture verse, which is not, it has nothing to do with a pre-trip rapture. And when you put it in context, right. And so, you know, that doesn't mean the, the rapture doesn't occur. It's just those verses aren't about it.

It's a good example of failure. And I believe that they do it because, um, we have a habit of filtering information through our worldview. Whatever our worldview is, well, it's the right one. And we all automatically put stuff in place that's consistent with it. So we reformed people out of your reform, but I am, um, I, I'll admit I interpret things through reformed, uh, eyeglasses.

I wasn't always reformed, but I am now. And so, uh, if someone says, well, man, I don't think you're correct on this. I always just listen. Okay. Maybe this person is onto something because I want to make sure that I don't misrepresent something, but that's all. And I don't say I have all the answers. And this is an attitude we need to have, but I'm finding that a lot of people don't. It's like, you know, I believe in the continuation of the charismatic gifts and about a month or so ago, I was on a little bit of a online conference and I was treated badly by Christians.

I was before. And you know, it's like, why? Because people get so embedded in a position and then they identify themselves in this position and then they identify with the position more than they do with Jesus in some areas. I would agree a hundred percent with what you're saying. Uh, they they'll go to battle for a position rather than scripture. Um, I, I'm a Calvinist and, um, I really, um, think a good example for, in my mind anyway between Calvinism and Armenianism is the simple fact that I think Arminius did not, number one, they've not searched the scriptures deep enough. Number two, um, anytime you read a book on them, they tend to espouse their own ideas and thoughts and they leave scripture set aside. That's been my experience anyway. Mine too.

They tend to, here's an example of something. Also, uh, there's a guy named Leighton Flowers and I wanted to debate him and he's an Armenian anti-Calvinist and he and I have had discussions. I've got his cell number. We've met.

He's a nice enough guy. But, but, uh, we had a discussion about the Philippians 1 29, you know, it says there to you, it has been granted to believe. And I said, this is what it says. It supports reform theology. He says, no, it means is granted you the opportunity to believe. And I said, you are altering the text to make it fit your theology.

So no, and it's clearly, he was clearly, and so people are, they identify with certain things and everything has to be filtered through it. Here's the thing, you know, I went to, it's just a little bit of history here. You know, I was raised, you know, a nominal Christian family, whatever. They went to church or use Lord's name in vain. I got tricked into being saved after I was in the occult for a long time. And then I went to Calvary chapel and that, and Chuck Smith, the founder of Calvary chapel baptized, my wife and I went to a Baptist church. I went to a Lutheran college, a Presbyterian seminary, and I've worked, I was a pastor in CRC, the Christian reform church in Dutch. You know what? God casts his net further than I would have.

There's people everywhere. I'm not loyal to any denomination, not loyal to any perspective. I want to say, show me scripture.

That's what needs to be the case. I don't see it too much in, uh, in the Christian body anymore. Yeah, honestly, I think you're one of the very few, uh, reformers that I be honestly, that I know of who would say he still believes in the gifts I do too.

Um, I think I don't display them a lot in my own life. Uh, but I think that, um, Paul says, seek the gifts. Um, and, and the other sort of that thing is God gives us the gifts according to his will, but there again, I think they play that game where they break the rules of hermeneutics and they read into, um, scripture, what they want to see support themselves. You know, years ago I was on a discussion, I won't say who it was, but I know who it was.

And I was there discussion with a well-known apologist and on first Corinthians one seven, uh, where it says, you're not to lack any charismatic gift, while you're waiting for the return of Christ. And, uh, this person gave me an exegesis or what I thought was an eisegesis. And I said very politely, I said, you know, I don't think you, you got that right. I think you're reading into the text.

I don't mean to be offensive. I just think you did. And I remember this very clearly. He said, I take the offense. I remember. Yeah. So you should be saying, well, let me look again here, you know, let me chew this over some more.

Um, I wanted to hear somebody confront you with your teaching. Right. Right.

Exactly. Well, I appreciate your time. I just, um, wanted to get your thoughts on that and appreciate you having me on the radio. Well, Hey, call back, you know, and, and, uh, you know, you and I are tough in the same, uh, the same cloth because we have the same attitude and someone in the, uh, someone in the, uh, here said something really nice. He says, uh, I'm a six point Calvinist. Is that a five is a six point.

The sixth point is that you don't have to believe all of the first five points to be my brother or sister in Christ. That is good. Right. Right.

I would deal with that. Yeah. Randall said that Randall Dobbins. That was, that's good. And so I'm going to, I want to copy that because it's really good. Yeah.

That'd be a good t-shirt. Yeah. Hint Charlie.

Charlie's writing. All right. All right. Good.

Well, there was so much scripture to support all that. So, yeah, I agree. Well, thank you again. Well, God bless. All right, brother. God bless to you. Okay. All right. Hey folks, if you want to give me a call, we have four open lines, eight seven seven two zero seven two two seven six.

Roger from North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air. Yeah, we're doing that. Doing okay. Hang it in there.

What do you got, man? My question is, uh, whoops. There's a break.

I want to know your question. So, but I hope you got a break. So hold on.

Okay. We'll get right back brother and we'll get back to you and just please hold. Hey folks, we have four open lines. Give me a call. Eight seven seven two zero seven two two seven six.

Be right back. It's Matt Slick live. Taking your calls at eight seven seven two zero seven two two seven six.

Here's Matt Slick. All right. When welcome back to the show, if you want, you can give me a call.

All you gotta do is dial eight seven seven two zero seven two zero seven two two seven six. I just want to remind you that we're having an end of years matching fund drive through the end of the month. If you support us with anything new, well, then it'll be doubled. So whatever you support with, just think of it as twice as much. So if you give 10, it'll become 20 and we do need that support. So we're just asking that you would consider supporting us at $5 a month. All you gotta do is go to karm.org, c-a-r-m dot o-r-g forward slash donate. We would really appreciate it.

People are doing it. And my wife says, yep, cause she checks. She goes, yep, it's coming in. I want to thank all of you who have supported us. We'll continue to support us. It's a big help. And this is for the effort of furthering the kingdom of God. And it's one of the many ways that God has ordained through his body for the preaching, the teaching of his gospel. If you want to support that work of God through varying peoples, people that are only going to do is not consider supporting us a karm.org forward slash donate.

And that would be a huge help. Let's get to or back to Roger from North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air. How are we doing, man? Doing all right, man.

Take it in there. My question is, is, uh, in act two and x four, it says God plan and predestined the, you know, the, the murder of Jesus Christ. Mm hmm. So those men that, uh, did that to Jesus, was that murder or, or they just killed him? They were murderers. So they murdered him. Yeah, because he didn't, there was no just legal reason to do it. There was nothing in the scriptures, uh, that, uh, they could use to say that he, uh, had, had committed, uh, a sin worthy of death. They accused him of blasphemy, which was punishable by death in the old Testament, but he never blasphemed.

So they had sinned in it and because of it, they murdered him. Okay. Have you ever heard the idea that since Jesus laid down his life and he gave it up, you know, and God planned it that they only killed him because he was a sacrifice. Okay. And have you ever heard anything like that?

Of course. And because God had planned that in the rebellion of those wicked people that he had ordained would occur, that they then did what he said would occur, ordained would occur. And yet at the same time, they are the ones who are responsible. Acts 2 23, this man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. So the blame goes upon them.

So people don't, they don't think through these things very well. A lot of times, and I have to deal with this sometimes with atheists who will ask these kind of questions. Well, if God foreordained it and he's the one who ordained it, then he's the cause of it.

Nope. Because we get into the issue of, uh, of indirect and direct causation and how God can certainly permit things and ordain certain things. And yet his hands are cleaned or washed from any sin that people would have committed, but nobody can do anything unless it's by God's will. And by the will, we mean by his direct or indirect will, by his permission, he permits people to rebel against him.

So he knows exactly how all things are to work. And it's, and also a lot of discussions have been had about this kind of thing in Christian circles. And largely we just say, we don't have all the answers because we don't, we're dealing with the things of God, but we know what the scriptures say. God ordained it, yet they were responsible.

And then how we work that out, how we work that out, that is a worth a big discussion. Would you say the same thing as God planned it for like a Joseph and his brothers? It was more than just allowing God kind of planned it to use that, right?

Yeah. Genesis 50, 20, uh, you meant it for evil. God meant it for good.

How can God mean it for something? See, an illustration I give is you have a piece of paper and it's blank. There's no lines.

There's nothing on it in the middle. You draw a little dot, that's God. And then you draw a squiggly line out to the edge and that's a potential universe with all the events that can occur into it.

Well, none of this isn't real yet. God's just thinking about potentials and you draw another one, another one, another line out to the, you could draw a thousand of these squiggly lines out to the edges of the entire piece of paper. And each one represents a possible existence. All of which events are included in each particular line, but these are all known in the mind of God. And on one particular line, a certain person does a certain same thing because that's what they choose to do, but they couldn't do it unless God brought them into existence.

They couldn't do it unless the circumstances that God brought into this were there, but they could freely do it anyway. So God chooses one out of all of those lines of possible existences to come into existence, which means then everything in it is ordained. But yet at the same time in that the people do what they desire to do, but they can't do it unless God's given them the ability to do what they desire to do, but they can't even do that unless he's arranged, they exist in order to do it in the world that he created. So he ordained whichever shall come to pass. Ephesians 1 11, God works all things after the counsel of his will. But as it says in, in, um, Acts 4, 27, 28, that these people, by the predetermined plan of God, they put Jesus to death and yet in Acts 2 23, they're the ones responsible.

This is a tough one, but this is how it works in Christianity. Okay. Okay. So you would say God can even plan an ordained sin to happen and declare it to happen, but in such a way that the men do what they want to do, but in God's not responsible.

So he's, God's not sick. Yes, that's right. Okay. Yep. Are you a Christian or what? Yeah, I'm a Christian. Okay.

Somebody, somebody, uh, I go to, uh, grace at the reform Baptist church. Okay, good, good, good. Okay. Um, somebody, you know, had this idea I was talking to about it and they're like, well, you know, God may have planned it, but they didn't murder Jesus. They killed him because God can't ordain sin or murder or stuff like that to happen.

No, it doesn't work. No, they don't understand. And with respect, you know, I would tell people this and say, I just say to them, no disrespect meant, but you don't have a sufficient understanding of the theology theology behind the idea of ordination and causation and relationships. And I said, not being insulting. It's just, it's a new concept. And we can work with it.

I can, I can teach it to you. And I've done this before where I have to work with people and, you know, Ephesians one 11 says, God works all things after the council of his will, all things. This means the atheist who curses God. This means the person who murdered that guy.

It means the blessing of someone helping a little old lady cross the street. All of it is ordained by God. It works after the council of his will. But the ordination does not mean he has a direct hand on every event because he's not going to force somebody to do something sinful.

That's a lot of times. These Christians don't understand this. You know, God has not put your hand to take your hand, put it on the gun, put his finger on your finger and pull the trigger and then blame you. That's what they're trying to say. And when they say, well, it's not murder.

It's just killing. Well, then what they don't understand is God isn't the one who killed them. They did. They're the ones who drove the nails through Jesus' hands and feet. They're the ones who beat him and did these things.

God didn't do it. They're the efficient cause of their own actions. They were generated out of their own hearts and their own minds. And so they are the ones responsible for their own actions.

Because if you're going to be consistent, they have to be consistent. If they want to say, no, it's not murder, it's just killing, then you, how are you held responsible for your own sin? Since if God has ordained that people even sin, well, then how can it be held responsible? Because of what God wanted to do. So there's no sin because there's no murder. It's just killing. Then there's no sin because it's just doing what God wants. Then how can God send people to hell? And so they're not thinking these things through.

They're not thinking their things through. Okay. Yeah. This discussion came up with Isaiah 46, I believe, where God declared the end from the beginning. That's, that's pretty much everything in talks.

Well, yeah. Which God do they serve? Who do they think God is? And I talked to Christians about this.

I say, and I try to be polite. They say, look, who do you think he is? Do you think he's the blonde haired, black Caucasian surfer dude, dressed in a woman's night camp, staying at the door of your heart, asking permission to, you know, to do something? Or is he the God who from all eternity knows all things that were were potentially possible to exist because they could only exist if he were to bring it into existence. And he had an infinite number of possibilities that he knew about and ordained one set. This is the God of Christianity and that in this one set, he ordained that he would become one of them and work in the world. And yet he's sovereign over the world while he's in the world.

Have you thought about this? Have you thought about God creating the universe and then creating the garden of Adam and Eve and putting Adam and Eve in there and allowing Satan to come in. And yet it was Adam and Eve who freely chose to rebel. No one caused them to. Therefore they are responsible for their own actions. God simply put everything in place and then they chose.

Well, that means he set them up. You can call it whatever you want, but the fact is they made their own choice and they are responsible for their own choice, particularly since God instructed them what not to do. And then they freely chose to do it. Did God force them to? And I asked the Christian, well, no, that who's responsible, what they want to do.

Even Christians sometimes want to blame God, man. I'll tell you, you better be careful. You better be careful. That's right.

Go ahead. The, uh, um, the parts of what kind of got him is when I went to, uh, Pharaoh in Romans nine, where it says, you know, you know, God told him to let his people go, but then he hardened his heart, you know, to stop him from doing it. And it's like, well, how can you do that? That's not fair. Uh, you know, I'm not fair. So they're in touch with a universal concept of fairness that they're applying to God now. I don't really know what you're saying. Exactly.

That's not fair. I don't know if you take, well, I'm gonna put you on hold. If you want to hang up, go ahead and I'll try you after the break. And if you're back there, we'll continue to talk.

If not, no big deal. Have a three open lines, eight seven seven two zero seven two two seven six. We'll be right back. It's Matt slick live taking your calls at eight seven seven two zero seven two two seven six is Matt slick.

Everybody. Welcome back to the show. Just want to let you know the last segment of this hour for this Friday that we do need your support. Please consider just going to carm.org forward slash donate. And we asked $5 a month. And if you donate anything, then whatever you donate this month will be matched. It'll be doubled. So that is what I'm letting you know about. And it's easy to do.

Just go to carm.org forward slash donate, and it's very helpful. We do need it and please consider that. All right. Let's see. Um, Roger, you still there? Yes, I'm stuck here. All right, man.

All right. So where were we? Did you want to follow up on anything? Could we kind of ran out of time there? Yeah, I think, uh, I think the question comes down that he's asking is if God declares everything that comes to pass and it's going to come to cast because God declares it and like, even like Pharaoh and Pharaoh was told to let his people go and God hardened his heart. So it could, the question that he's asking is why is that fair? Kind of like the Romans nine question.

Yes. Um, well, when people say it's, excuse me, when people ask the question, how is that fair? What they inadvertently are doing is saying that there is another standard of righteousness apart from God that is motivating their question.

If the truth is that God has revealed himself in the scriptures, there are going to be things about him that are going to be difficult to deal with because he's infinite. What people want to do is submit God to their own understanding and they want God to satisfy their desires and their needs and their intellectual ability. God doesn't do that. He declares it from the beginning.

That's what he does. So when they say, well, that's not fair. Well, on what standard is it not fair? What, what do you mean it's not fair for God to harden someone's heart? Why, why is that not fair?

Please tell me. And they only have two possibilities. You see if they're going to, well, three possibilities. If they're going to use the God of Christianity, well then to ask why it's fair would be redundant or be self refuting because it automatically is fair if God does it. But if they're going to say, well, there's something besides that, I'm going to say, well, there's something besides God, a universal truth principle of morality that it's out there. Then are they in touch with that? They're going to apply God to it.

And now God submitted to what they think is what should be fair. Well, that's ridiculous. And then there's the other option is, well, their personal preferences. They don't like it. Well, if they don't like it, that's fine. You don't have to like it, but that your subjective opinion doesn't mean God is obligated or is not obligated to do anything. What we're trying to show is that people don't have a right. They don't have a justification for saying what is right and what is wrong and what God ought to do or what God ought not to do. They like to elevate themselves and say, that's not fair.

I'll tell you what's fair, God. That's what even the Christians do when they reject Romans chapter nine, nine to 23. They don't like it. They don't like God's sovereignty over man.

They want their own. It's the adenic lie echoing down through the centuries into the hearts of all people. The adenic lie, you will be like God's knowing good and evil. You will decide what it is. That's the adenic lie and we Christians are not immune from it.

Okay. Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with tradition to what you've been taught when you grow up and then you start hearing people say, you know, well, this is not the way it is if you read the Bible and you start bringing that up and it just, it's foreign to them, which is crazy. The God of the Bible is foreign to them a lot and it's because they serve the blonde haired black Caucasian surfer, Jesus, it's idolatrous, you know, I would all do sometime is trick people and I'll say, you know, I believe that God would even create the evil, even for the day of, of, of, of destruction and they go, no, he would never do that. And I said, I just quoted you Proverbs 16 four, the Lord made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil, I said, there it is, says, you didn't even know what it was and I quoted it and you reject it because you have your own standard of righteousness. This is something in the church that needs to be, um, needs to be gotten rid of. And when I go to seminars or I teach in Bible studies, when I'm asked, not very frequently, if I ever have to do this, but to go into a study, I'm going to do this, but to go into a study and just, uh, mess them up where I say, I can, I can say to, I can say to any group, I can mess you up on any doctrine that you believe what within reason, I'm not going to deny the essentials. And I say for the purpose though, of showing you that there are other positions and that maybe, uh, the competence of understanding needs to be improved and let's take a good, all the answers, but I can do this. I've been, I've done it a few times over the years and at Bible studies and, when they say, Hey, you're a master, like you'd come over and do this. And I do, and I mess them up fast and they're surprised.

And I say, the reason is because you're not being taught in my opinion sufficiently, the scope of understanding of varying things so that it's, it shouldn't be that easy to, uh, to mess you up, you know, like my favorite is two men in the field. One is taken, one is left. That's a rapture, right? Oh yeah, that's a rapture.

Read the context. And so there, it's not, not at all. And they're surprised or shocked to see why is it that pastors are teaching this and they can't get it right. And it's not what it is. And they're doing it for decades.

They're not examining the word sufficiently there. Why? And other things that go like this. Anyway.

Yeah. All right, man. Thank you so much for your time. You're welcome, man.

God bless Roger. Have a great weekend. Okay.

All right. Yeah, I've done that. I have done that before in groups, particularly online when Christians are going to say, Hey, you guys want, I'll mess you up. And they laugh and they go, okay, let's do it. And I mess them up.

They go, man, you weren't kidding. I go, I know. All right, let's get on with Jamal from North Carolina.

Jamal. Welcome buddy. You're on the air. Hey brother slick. How are you doing today, sir?

By God's grace doing well. That's right. Good. Good. Um, let's see.

Uh, I had a question that I heard from a pastor, uh, radio pastor. Uh, he says that, uh, he doesn't believe that Jesus felt pain while he was on the cross. I wanted to see what you thought about that. Yeah. Uh, that's wrong. That, uh, felt pain.

I'm writing this out. Of course he felt pain because he's a human. Right. So, so Jesus has two distinct natures, God and man. And, uh, so on the cross, he would have felt everything that a biologically structured human male would have felt if he was struck, if he was pushed, if he was, had a nail driven through his wrist, he would have felt it because that's what normal humans do and are. Now, if you want to say, no, that's part of the fall. He was not fallen. Pain's part of the fall. I'd say, show me in the Bible where it says, pain's part of the fall. Are you telling me that if Adam was before the fall and stubbed his toe, that he wouldn't have felt anything? Because if that's the case, he'll keep stubbing his toe and he'll damage himself.

That's what pain is for. It's good. It warns us.

So, you know, this is the kind of logic we're going to go through. Okay. Okay. All right.

That, that, that makes sense. It was a pretty quick and slick question at the end, but I still wanted to run it by you. Um, one more thing, uh, just for the, the, the listener audience, I've donated to Matt Slick before, put on, do it in again, especially during the matching challenge and also Mr. Slick, I sent you an email about some ideas on, uh, to, you know, to raise some, uh, some more donations or income. And if you type up, uh, my name's Jamal, you'll find that email since a while ago. Uh, I just wanted to see what your thoughts were on that email.

Did you put your phone number and stuff for email? Well, it'd be in there, wouldn't it? So I'm looking, I don't see, well, I'll do a broader search. Uh, broader search later, but I'll look it up.

I'll look it up. Okay. Okay. Cause we're always, yeah, that's fine.

If I don't email you soon, like in the next day or two or three, then just email me again and then call me up on the radio and go, why didn't you answer my email? And I'll beg forgiveness. Okay. Yes, sir.

Most definitely. All right. And if I will talk to you then I'll be at the Merry Christmas. And in fact, you and your family, you too, man.

God bless brother. All right. All right, there you go.

Now, look, we've got about five minutes or so, four minutes left in the show. I want to get to a hate mail because people say, why did you not do a hate mail? And so I want to do one hate mail. I think I'm just got one.

I don't, I'm going to check it out. Let's see. No hate mail. Here we go. Let's see.

Interesting. How you mock and downplay the, the above when then uplift and that you King James only ism, Texas receptors, Masoretic texts, okay. Mocking our creator will reap his wrath. What are you talking about? As we can, as we can be seen by large as can be seen by large numbers of critical texts, people remember Herod Agrippa, how he lost all the perspective and wisdom. You know, I was hoping for a good hate mail. Let's see.

I've been struggling ever since my, I left my church two years ago, struggling with spirituality, the character and heart of God, the importance of reality of love in this world, but that's been coming up lately in some discussions I've been having and some other stuff. I ended up at your website by mistake when trying to find something else. I, if anyone knew, if, if anyone new has received a burning times award anyway, but now I had been to your wonderful website, like to nominate you for one of the burning times award, good, this is good.

Heat mail is usually given to a politician that makes a remark that goes against the first amendment of the United States constitution. Let's see most of your website that I have seen so far does this. What, how does my website go against the first amendment of freedom of its religious expression and belief? I'm doing exactly what the constitution says. I guess if you disagree with somebody that violates the first amendment, it's a liberal. Look, yeah, they take an x-ray of a liberal's brain. I wonder if they would see like leaking areas or the leaking is coming out of their brain or something because you know, it's like, uh, all their, their, their sockets are loose and their gaskets are cracked.

He goes on. If you would like to learn the truth about some of the religions, you are doing a great job of misinforming others about to learn, how do you see? Look, people tell me you don't know about this one religion, but I've only studied it for 20 years. Let's see, how do you know what the truth is? I've had people tell me this, you know, and I tell what Mormonism teaches.

They say, no, that's not what Mormonism teaches. Yes, it is a good documentation from their own sources. And, uh, you know, that happens a lot. So people will say, you don't know what you're talking about. Well, then show me you document from their sources, whatever it is, you document it to me, send it to me.

And I am hoping that does happen because if I am wrong, well, then they're helping me get it even better. I don't have a problem with that, but they don't do it. Okay.

I think one person did once and it didn't accomplish what they hoped. If you would like to learn more about blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. I would like to see you nominated for this stupid award or whatever it is. Please check out my favorite website. And then he gives a website. Oh, I've been to that website and it is just a neutral, secular based website that tries to analyze things and does not have the truth of God's word.

Anyway, thank you for taking time to read this and I'm not, I am thankful. Not every Christian on the planet feels like Karm does towards those other beliefs. Well, I'll tell you what, what I believe is that Jesus is the only way. He's God in flesh, second person of the Trinity, he died on the cross for our sins, and if you do not trust, put your faith in him and you follow a God like Mormonism or Jehovah's witnesses or Muslims, whatever it is, you will go to go to eternal damnation upon your death because you've rejected the true and living God, and if you add baptism to salvation, you add ceremonies, you add the means of grace by which you maintain your salvation with God and on the day of judgment, you will join the others in damnation because you've rejected the true gospel. That's what I believe.

Now, if I'm wrong, show me from the Bible, show me from God's word, and if you can't, well, I'm not going to take you seriously. There you go, folks. We're out of time. May the Lord bless you. Please remember supporting us. We do need it karm.rogue forward slash donate, and we ask $5 a month.

It'll be matched for the rest of the month for this year, matching funds drive. We hope you will consider supporting us. I hope you have a great weekend too. May the Lord bless you and by his grace, we'll be back on the air on Monday. We'll talk to you then. Have a great weekend, everyone. God bless. Bye. Another program powered by the truth network.