Matt Slick Live

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Click live if you want to give me a call at 877-207-2276. I hope you guys all have a good resurrection day of the Lord Jesus who died on that cross and then rose from the dead. We thank you Lord for your sacrifice.

We thank you Lord for your goodness and kindness to us. So you may be able to tell I have a bit of a head cold, so I'm sniffing a little bit. I don't know where or why. It just is.

I went over to a house with some kids yesterday, so maybe that's what did it. So bear with me with that a little bit. Alright, look, we have nobody waiting. I want you to give me a call at 877-207-2276. And we can talk. If you also would like to email me or maybe you don't want to call in and you want to just do an email, you can do that at info at karm.org. You can email me there and if you have a question or a comment, you can ask for, you know, ask right there. You can do that.

Alright, and I've still been studying AI stuff and learning more about it, interesting stuff. So I'll be talking about that maybe sometime. If you want to talk about Christianity, theology, Mormonism, how it's not Christian, along with Jehovah's Witnesses, how they're not Christian. How the Roman Catholic Church appears to be Christian, but it's not.

How it violates the central doctrine of the Christian faith and things like that. So if you're interested in talking about those kinds of things and other kinds of things, please let me know and we can talk. And all you do is give me a call or you can email me at 877-207-2276. Alright, so I'm letting you guys know that we are on YouTube for the radio show, but we only do ten minutes of it. And then what we do is we go to Rumble. Well, we're on Rumble the whole time and we just kind of stop. We stop at ten minutes on YouTube. So that way we can still get some information out and some stuff and people can go over to Rumble.

So we're getting about four to five signups a day. And I just want to let you know that if you're interested in following us on Rumble, rumble.com, R-U-M-B-L-E, it's a replacement for or an alternative, I should say, for YouTube. And the reason we're doing that is because Rumble is designed to not be so woke, let's just put it that way. The woke crowd over at YouTube makes it a little bit difficult for me to say things like when I quote the CDC, the CDC website, run off the stats from their website and talk about deaths related to vaccines and things like that.

I'm not supposed to do that kind of thing, apparently, even though anybody can get the same information by going to the CDC website. And so on Rumble, you don't get penalized for doing that. Or on Rumble, you don't get penalized for saying what you believe. And, you know, as long as you're not trying to hurt anybody, you're not trying to be malicious or cause problems.

That's that. Now, speaking of problems, I'm interested in a little bit of help from you guys out there in radio land. What I'm looking for are just real life examples of, how do I put this, the LGBTQ, ABCD, whatever it is, all the letters, the alphabet Nazis, and how they are using sexual identity, which is really, to me, is fascinating theologically. And I'm looking for examples, news clips, whatever it is, of how the trans people, how the gender identity alterations, all of this stuff is oppressing Christians and causing problems. And so I read an article, or the title of an article, I read a little bit of it, where a man, because of his religious convictions, would not use the pronouns a certain student wanted him to use. And he was fired for that.

Which is really interesting. Where's the law? The law in the books, it says you have to use a pronoun that someone wants you to call them by.

So I was thinking about that, and I don't know any laws, but apparently this is not a country much left of laws anymore. It's of woke ideology, and if you don't step on board and walk step with the woke crowd, then you'll pay the price. You know, I wonder if they can get a circle slash W in the middle of it and sew it onto our lapels. We're non-woke people. I don't know.

People think I'm joking about this, but I'm not. If you look at the rise of the Gestapo, the Nazis, what they did was they needed someone to blame for certain economic problems and social problems. So they found the Jews and started belittling them.

And it took, I don't know, like ten years or so of pressure until the Nazi party got in control, and they got in control by using the Jews as a scapegoat. So that won't be as easy to do here in America, but it is starting where if you have a Christian worldview, I've heard stories that you can't be on a jury. One guy was kicked off a jury or prevented from coming in because he had a Christian worldview.

There are people in Hollywood I know who have Christian worldview, no of I should say, and they've been penalized from being hired for certain jobs and acting things. And so I'm interested in that. So if you want to, you can. You can just send me information at info at karm.org, info at karm.org, and you can send me stuff like that out of news clips. You've got to send me the URL, though.

The URL or a book or whatever it is, an article, where I can find it. A lot of times what people will do is they'll just give me a quote and say, here you go. Well, I get to document the quote because anybody can say anything. So I like to document things, and if it's not documentable, then I can't use it.

But I am trying to gather more information. I've been saying this for years and years that the sexual movement, the idea of homosexuality, the gender thing, is going to be the thing used to denounce and oppress Christians. I've been saying this for a long time, and it's important that we Christians realize that. So that's just, this is one of the things, and I'm reminded of the place where in Sodom and Gomorrah, when the angels were pressing in, where the angels were in Lot's house, and the people outside were pressing in to, they wanted to get a hold of them. They wouldn't stop at the door. They wanted inside the house.

And this principle, I believe, is true. They will not stop at your door. They're going to come in after your kids, you, who knows.

They're going to make it so that maybe the Bible is illegal, or it's considered hate speech, or I don't know what's going to happen. I can't predict. But these are the things I'm concerned about. So what are you concerned about out there if you want to give me a call?

877-207-2276. And whenever you give me a call, and you can also email me at info at karm.org, info at karm.org. And I've got nobody waiting right now, so what I think I'll do is go through the radio questions.

So I think I'll just do some of that. It's an idiom. Okay, so someone said, I asked about this.

He doesn't have all his feet in a litter box, or all his paws in a litter box. It's an idiom. That's what Joanne says. I wonder if it is.

Matt, I believe you would call those things idioms. Someone else says that. I don't know if it is, but maybe it is. I don't know. Hello, Matt.

Yesterday, a mother of two. Oh, that's right. I've got to talk about that. We've already got to that as well. All right. You had a calling woman at your show a couple of days ago.

Children being threatened. We went through that already. Let's go here. I'll do what I'll do. All right. At the start of the second radio show, the 22nd of December, Matt requested listeners' assistance regarding info and articles. There you go.

Provide background details and insight about the New Testament story of the wedding feast. There you go. Oh, man.

I love when people come through and give me assistance on that. That is awesome. And I just now saw that. So, Jif, thanks a lot. Oh, Peter.

Peter. That's what we said. So, thank you very much. Let's see. I asked you in Clubhouse, the other night, about scripture and the doctrine of grace. You offered to send me your incomplete work on Reformed theology.

Agree? Okay. We sent that.

Let's see. So, the Catholics tell us, they say, that we gave you the Bible. What do they mean by that?

This is an email that came in. What they mean is that they want to take authority to be able to decide what is true and not true and decide what the Bible is and is not because their church has the authority to do it. Since they gave you the Bible, their church has the authority. And you have to trust their authority. That's what's going on.

That's why they're doing that. And, of course, it's not true. They did not give us the Bible. God gave us the Bible. And they did not give us the Old Testament. The Jews were given the Old Testament.

So, for the Catholic Church to come along and people say the Catholic Church gave us the Bible, it's just ridiculous. It's just inaccurate and it's sad. It is sad. It is bad. All right.

Thanks for the great show. I was reading Genesis for you. To me, it was bizarre that Jacob would win a wrestling match against God. I must be understanding this the third time in this passage. Well, obviously, it's not like God was doing his very best to beat Jacob. It's a symbol in an actuality of the idea of persisting with God, of wrestling with God, of seeking him, of doing what is right, and not letting him go until you get a blessing. The idea here is not that you can outthink God or out argue God or out wrestle God, but that God will, on our level, work.

He'll condescend to our level and let us struggle with him. And so, in that struggle, not that we're superior or even in any way equal, but God welcomes the intention of the people who struggle with him, who desire to have his will. And that reminds me, I just began a new prayer thing topic with God about something a couple of days ago.

Yesterday, I think it was. So, I was thinking about something and just a thought came into my mind. It was so true that it affected me. And so, I'm in prayer, wrestling with God in prayer, so to speak, in a respectful way. No complaints. It's just, Lord, help me to be used more and that kind of a topic. So, anyway, it's okay.

You can wrestle with God in that sense and you can seek him and just be persistent in your dedication and your trust with him. I'll hand it to Jimmy from North Carolina. Jimmy, welcome.

You are on the air. Hey, Matt. How you doing, sir? Doing all right.

I'm hanging in there, man. What do you got, buddy? All right. I have two questions.

And my third question, I was wondering if I could ask you something off the air. Well, you'd have to. Oh, sorry about that.

I just coughed. So, you'd have to type it out or give it to the producer and he could type it out. Or you can email me at info at karm.org if you want it off the air. Okay. There's actually more of a statement than a question. Oh, well, okay.

You can do that. Oh, we have a break right now, so hold on, okay? Got a break coming up. We'll be right back, folks. After these messages, we have four open lines. I want you 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. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, we have several open lines, 877-207-2276. Give me a call. Let's get back on the air with Jimmy. Jimmy, welcome. You're on the air. All right. All right.

So, thank you, sir. My question, when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane right before he was betrayed, when he was crying and praying to God, all right, was he crying because he was going to face his being? He was going to be separated from God, or was he going to be crucified, or why was he exactly crying for? Well, it doesn't say he was crying. It says, and being in agony, he was praying very fervently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down from the ground when he rose from prayer, et cetera.

So that's what it says. But he was in great distress, and so the question still applies. Did he want to go through it? Why was he in such great distress?

Well, remember, he's a single person, and he has two natures, and the attributes of both natures are ascribed to him as a single person. He had the fullness of the deity and the attributes of deity within his person, but also the fullness and the attributes of humanity within his person, and he would feel the physical pain and the crucifixion and the whipping, the beating, the spitting, the driving of the nails through the wrists and into the feet. This would be horrible, and it's the one person of Christ who would experience this, and he knew it, and it would be real to him. And so he's in agony, and as we know, Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done. He was expressing in that Luke 22 42 his desire to not to go through it, which is normal. Who would want to go through such a horrifically bad, painful death? Right. He didn't want to go through it, but yet he submitted to the will of the Father, yet not my will but yours be done. And this is an incredible reality that we need to understand.

We're so used to hearing it. Not my will but your will be done. He went to the cross. No, he was in agony. Sweat was like drops of blood, and there's been different theories offered about why it says that. Some say because people under incredible distress sometimes have sweat, blood to their pores. An incredible level, that's what I've heard.

Was that what was happening? I don't know, but it seems to fit. He knew what he was going to go through, and not only was there the physical thing, but what about the spiritual? Because he would take on the sins of the world, and then there's the issue of fellowship with the Father. And all these things we don't know about, the Bible doesn't tell us. I suspect that there was an effect in that realm as well. And I think that what he was going through, about to go through and he knew, was so incredibly stressful to him.

That we cannot fathom the depth of it. And as it says, he was in agony and he was praying fervently. He's praying fervently. And that word is ektenisteron, and it means intense, earnest. And so he was very involved in this prayer. Not in casual prayers, we might say, over dinner. But completely and totally focused and in agony while he's praying. So he was going through a lot.

Because of what was coming. That's amazing. Okay. That answers that question. Who would be the modern day Pharisees? The legalists within the Christian church, and then outside the Christian church, for example. The modern day Pharisees would be in the Catholic church, the hierarchical structure. In the Eastern Orthodox, the same thing, hierarchical structure. But within the Protestant movement, the Pharisees would be those who are legalistic. And that they put burdens upon you to maintain your salvation through goodness. And your ability to achieve, your ability to continue to believe, your ability to not do the bad and do the good. And as you continue to believe in Christ, and this is what maintains your place with God. That's modern day Pharisaical teaching.

Okay. All right, yeah, I just know throughout the centuries, is that particular group just, you know, faded away? Or if they just remained under different group titles? Now, when Israel was destroyed, basically, in 70 AD, a lot of things just fell apart. And, of course, the Jews were expelled from their land. And that's why we had to return in 1948 after the Holocaust.

But, so, yeah, the whole thing fell apart. They missed the Messiah because they did. They rejected the Messiah that God had promised Israel. And then the judgment of God came upon them and they suffered the covenantal aspect of their failure.

The covenantal requirements of punishment. Yes, what happened? Okay. Well, sir, I thank you very much for your insight. Well, you're welcome.

God bless. Okay. All right, have a nice evening. You too. Take care. All right.

Folks, look, if you want to give me a call, we have light-open lines 8772072276. You're reminded of the issue of the crucifixion. I don't talk about it very much about what Christ was going to go through. And every now and then I'll talk about what the physical aspect of the crucifixion was. I think I might just do that right now.

We don't have anybody waiting, so I'll just do that. You guys can get a feel for it, so to speak. But it's going to get a little bit graphic.

And if there's children, they might not want to hear this the next three, four minutes. But just to let you know, this is what Christ went through. We need to be aware of this every now and then as we revisit the pain and the suffering that he went through. So as Christ, before he even got to the cross, he was whipped. And the Ketonine tails that he was whipped with were extremely painful. And the way it was done was the punisher would, it's hard to describe this, he would whip the person and let the material stay on the back and then drag it across. So the whip was often just a strip of leather with tied in pieces of glass, little rocks, things like this. And they would use this and they would whip somebody hard and then it would often embed in the skin and they would pull it and it would rip and tear and do this like 39 times. And a lot of people just died from it.

It was just too much shock to the system and they would die. And so this is what happened to Christ before he was crucified. And then they took the cross beam and put it on him. He couldn't carry the whole cross, nobody can. It's just too big and heavy. But the cross beam would be something that he would carry. And then there was already, usually, there's different ways of doing it, but they had a hole in the ground with a single vertical post.

And then they would use different means to hoist up the person on the cross beam. But we'll get to that in a little bit because there's a break. 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, welcome back to the show. Let me just kind of finish up here in a minute or two on what Christ went through physically. And as I mentioned, the whipping of the back was severe and people often died just from that. And don't forget, before then, he had been beaten about the face and his beard ripped from his face. So he was already in bad shape. And then they would put the cross beam on him to carry. And, you know, he couldn't do it.

And this is why they got Simon of Cyrene to step in and carry it the rest of the way. And so then what they would do is lay him down. And remember, his back is open and bleeding and raw, just very raw. They lay him on the ground, and that means dirt and stuff would get into that wound. And then they would take the wrist, not the palm. That's a common mistake, but they'd take the wrist and they would nail through the wrist. Well, in doing that, there's a bone area and nerves right there in that area and cause a severe burning in the hands.

I remember reading about it and the doctors talked about it. There's a certain nerve, they have the name of it. And when it's severed, the pain is literally on fire. And so what they would do is nail one wrist to one side. And they would put it between the two bones right where the wrist is. And then they would take the other hand and pull it across the other side of that wood, that crossbar, and do the same thing.

So that means his arms are stretched out. So what happens is when they would tie rope to that crossbeam and lift it up, drag it up, you know, through a pulley and latch it into place up on the vertical piece that was there. That's often how it was done. There are some accounts of actually a small kind of a cross being carried by an individual that they could be able to carry it. And they would do it that way. So it wasn't as huge like we see in some movies, but it was something that a person could carry.

Maybe it might be, it wouldn't have to be very tall, six, seven feet tall, because they'd be suspended off the ground. And anyway, so then they would take the, whether it was a cross being lifted up or the cross tilted up. It doesn't really matter, but when they did that, the gravity would cause the joints to rip and tear.

Because if the hands are already spread as wide as they can go, when you nail them, when you put them up high, the body weight then is suspended, it's called vector forces and stuff. It causes the wrists to tear, the shoulders to pop out of joint, the elbows to tear and come out of joint. And that's incredibly painful. And then they would take his feet, of course, and they would have to bend his legs at the knees, of course, and put one nail through both feet. And this meant that incredible pain. So when they would lift a person up like that, it's horrifying, it's a horrible way to go. When they'd lift someone up like that, in order to get a breath, you had to push up on your nails on your feet. Because the legs are at an angle, then the quadriceps become extremely fatigued and extremely painful. And his heart, what's the word, vibrating, shaking, convulsed, what is the word I'm looking for?

Cramping, that's the word, cramping, because you can only do so much. Then the blood is leaving his body, draining out, and this causes thirst. And it also causes an increase of heartbeat rate and it causes an increase of respiration because there's less oxygen being transmitted throughout the body because the blood's leaving the body through the holes. And so in order to breathe, you've got to press up on your feet, on the nails. Well, his back is up against the wood. So every moment is agony and it's just not like a little bit for a minute or two like a woman in birth pangs. She just breaks in between the contractions. This isn't like that.

This is just constant. It's a horrible way to go, and it is. And so your body goes into shock and varying levels of pain, and that's what happened. And finally his heart ruptured and they speared him underneath his rib cage. And the reason they did that and the blood and water came out is because when the circulation stops, then the blood settles.

And there's a differentiation between the blood and the – I forgot the word for it, but you just call it water. They say that in the Bible. And so that means the person's dead.

And this is what went on for hours with Christ. And it's a horrible way to go. Some say he died of asphyxiation. Some say the broken heart, ruptured heart.

There are different ways of looking at it, but it was a horrible way to go and that's why he did not want to go through it. Let's get to Malcolm from North Carolina. Malcolm, Malcolm, you're on the air. Hey, Harry. I'm doing all right. Hanging in there, man.

What do you got? Good, man. So I just had a couple questions and wanted to know, like, have you ever heard of Gary Kasse? And what did you think about his teaching? No, I haven't. Pastor – was it Pastor – how do you spell his name?

G-A-R-Y and the last name I think is K-E-S-S-E. Okay. No, I'm looking him up right now. Gary Kasse Ministries, look at this.

Pastor finds $176,000 in his church parking lot. Okay. The 2023 Provision Conference. Oh, Jesse DePlantis, bad sign. Brenda Kesey, guest speaker. The territory is yours for the taking.

Oh, wow, it's not looking good. Because it's one of these pep talk things like they use Christianity to help you get worked up and just – God's going to bless you. God says the same kind of stuff. Right. Join Kingdom Advance. Oh, I like that. So I'm looking for a statement of faith or anything like that in staff to see if they have any – see, Gary Kasse is looking for staff because I want to know if they have any ideas.

It's one of the things I'll do. He wants to motivate, educate, inspire you to pursue success and embark on God's assignment for your life. God's Kingdom laws radically changed Gary's life and they can do the same for you. God's Kingdom laws.

He wants you to have success. Yeah. Uh-huh. I'd like to go to that church and take notes and do an expose. Which resource should you start with?

View all resources. Well, see, this is tickling the ears right from the very beginning. Oh, look at this. Uh-huh. For $40 mystery of marriage DVD and another $40 claiming your Kingdom inheritance. Claiming your – that's actually kind of bad because it reminds me of the prodigal son who said to his father, I want my inheritance now. I want my inheritance now. Okay. God claiming my Kingdom inheritance. Oh, my goodness. Oh, nine simple steps to financial freedom.

Fixing the main thing. Yeah. I have some – you got your phone?

I have some friends that actually are going through like the Kingdom Advance class and I wasn't really sure, you know, and I was like, man, if anybody would have an opinion and be biblically based, it would be you. You know, I can't make a noise, everybody, but I can't find a statement of faith. I can't find, you know, their staff. Maybe they have it. I just haven't seen it. I'm looking.

It says careers, mailing address. Oh, I could follow Drenda. I bet you she's a – yeah. Any rate, it doesn't look good.

Drenda, what an interesting name. So, oh, yeah, look at that. You know, maybe that's why people aren't calling as much because I'm not uplifting like everybody wants to hear. I don't do that. You know, I'm just telling them I know what's coming and I know what is coming and I'll tell you, it's not good. And people don't want to hear that. They want to hear about success.

They want to hear about – I know what is needed for the kind of success that we need. It's not about your personal finances. That's not what it's about. It's about being a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ and expanding his kingdom and being a tool in his hand. There's nothing wrong with making money. Make money if you can. You know, make money. Use biblical principles, but that should not be the goal. The goal of making money and being secure is for the furthering of the kingdom of God, for the glorification of God.

And that's what I don't see in these things. You talk about you getting money, you getting this, there's nine steps to financial freedom. It should be steps to financial freedom so that you might serve God all the more. It should be like that, but I never see those because who wants that? No, I don't want financial freedom so I can serve God more.

I want financial freedom so I can go on my vacations more. I can have a nicer car because God's going to help me. And that's the kind of thing that it's bad. It's just sad. And I've got to continue to teach about this and continue to expose some of these things that are just sad.

But people don't want to hear the stuff of the cross and what we're called to do and how we're called to march against the rise of the oppressors that are coming. Yeah, they are. Hey man, we've got a break. You want to hold or are we done? No, I'm fine, man.

I just really wanted to see your opinion. You pretty much said what I was thinking. Hey, God bless. Thanks. I appreciate it, man. Thank you. Hey folks, 4 Open Lines, 877-207-2276.

Be right back. I'm Dennis Ramey. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. We're in the last segment of the hour. If you want to give me a call, all you've got to do is dial 877-207-2276. Let's talk to Mel from Ohio. Hey, Mel, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, thank you, Matt.

I just found your show recently a few weeks ago and I thoroughly enjoy it. I had an experience a couple weeks ago. My aunt passed away. At this funeral home, somebody made the comment, which is a typical comment, about, well, now they'll be with their mom and dad up in heaven and stuff. I was thinking to myself, man, I hope so. I consider myself to be saved and a Christian and I was just wondering, having that moment, and it's not the first time that that's happened to where I truly believe, but yet it's all faith. I don't know 100% that it's true. I have a good friend that believes that when we die, that's it. I don't believe that way, but to have that doubt of hoping that I'm right, I'm just calling to see if that affects my salvation, in your opinion. It affects your salvation. What particular topic?

What particular subtopic are you talking about here? I'm just talking about being saved, but yet believing, but at the same time, having a doubt that maybe when you die, that is it. I'm struggling with that. Okay, how about this?

I can tackle this a couple of different ways. I'm going to tackle it the cold, dry, logical way first, and then we'll move along. If when we die, that's it, we stop existing, then that logically necessitates that our souls, our spirits, our minds are the product of our physical body, because if the physical body then dies, then it necessitates that our minds cease as we cease to exist.

Are you with me so far? Correct. If that's the case, then you can't know it's the case. The reason is that would mean then that we'll call it the mind, the soul, spirit, mind thing. It would mean then that the mind is nothing more than a product of the chemical reactions in your brain. So if that's the case, then how do you know the idea of when you die, that's all there is. How do you know it's true or not? Because it's just chemical reactions in your brain reacting to stimuli in the outside, and you're getting chemical necessities. So doubt is nothing more than a chemical necessity. Wondering is nothing more than chemical necessity.

Now here's the thing. If I were to say to you 2 plus 2 is 5, well, you'd say that's wrong. We're not supposed to believe things that are not true, and if something refutes itself, it's not true. So if I say to you while we're in a restaurant or in a coffee shop, you and I are sitting at a table, and we're having coffee, we've been talking, and I say, Mel, I'm not here talking to you right now.

You'd look at me like I was crazy because obviously I am there talking to you right now. So what's not true is not to be believed. So if it's the case that when we die we stop existing, then it necessitates that the brain is a function or the mind is a function of the physical brain. But the physical brain is limited to operating under the laws of chemistry, and that means all that you are is nothing more than chemical reactions. But that means you can't know that that is true because it's just chemical reactions. So that refutes itself. It casts doubt on its own position by saying, I believe that when we die we stop existing, so therefore the brain is the thing in control.

When it ceases, I cease. That means chemical reactions are ruining everything, and you can't know even if you're believing that is true. That refutes itself because it undermines its own truth value, therefore you reject it. This is just simple logic.

But simple logic doesn't always satisfy. So here's the thing. Jesus Christ, our Lord, fulfilled prophecies in the Old Testament, and he walked and talked with his disciples, and they wrote down what they saw. They wrote down what he did, and they wrote down how they were changed after his resurrection because they were hiding when he was crucified, like the good cowards that they were, just like me. I'd have been hiding, too, because their Messiah, their Deliverer, did all these miracles. Now he's dead. The Jews and the Romans are going to come after him. This is all consistent with how everything would have been if it really happened. Then all of a sudden these men are bold and they're changed.

What happened to change them? What suddenly worked in them from changing them from hiding inside of a room when the women had informed them that Jesus had risen to going out and being martyred for the faith? Well, they saw the risen Lord with the wounds in his feet and his hands. So this is information. This is historical information written by the eyewitnesses, and that's what I put my faith in. I don't put my faith in my logic or my knowledge, which I've got a lot of knowledge on a lot of topics. It doesn't mean I'm right. I don't put my faith in that.

I put it in this one thing. Did Jesus rise from the dead? Yeah, yeah, he did. I believe it, and that's it. If you have doubts, now, doubting is a sin because you're obligated to believe God for what he says. You don't sin when you doubt.

And I'll say about that, I'll say, well, welcome to the club. We doubt because we don't see him and touch him. We don't hear his voice.

We don't look into his eyes. This is such a thing of faith that it's difficult for us to move beyond that sometime. But yet it's what we're called to do. And so your doubt is real, and our doubts are real. Our doubts are things you have to deal with. And then we have to learn how to shift what our faith is in. Is our faith in our faith? Is our faith in our feelings? Is our faith in our whatever it might be?

Or is it in the risen Lord Jesus, God in flesh? And so God often lets us have doubt because it's the thing that is like a chain. It holds you back.

And as you're walking along the path to follow Christ, this chain is there. And it's not very heavy, but it's always there. And after a while, you get fed up and you stop and you turn around and you examine what it is you're carrying, what it is you're dragging through life.

And you know you can get rid of it, but all you have to do is decide to let go. But what we do is we hold onto it because it's in a strange way. Sometimes doubt is a security blanket. Now, that may sound odd, but sometimes doubt is a comfort thing because we're familiar with our own doubts. And I say wallow in it.

I don't mean it in a childish way. But even as adults, we sometimes flourish in our self-doubts about things because even though it's not good, it's a comfortable, familiar thing when we return to it. It's risky sometimes to take your eyes off of the thing you're dragging along and purposely turn around and look at Christ and ask yourself, is it him I'm believing in and anything else? And by that time, he has stopped. And he's watching you and waiting for you to turn around to stand up and turn around and look at him.

One-on-one, are you trusting in him? And that's it. And that's what he wants from you. So sometimes what we have to go through, I know, I've done it. We have to go through these things. And it's just not easy.

But it's real. I'm not mocking you. I'm not mocking you, not criticizing you. I'm just like, yeah, brother, I got it. Okay, well, you answered my questions and I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Enjoy your show. Okay, well, I'm glad you do. And just remember this, you can't lose your salvation. It's not something that's dependent on goodness. God loves you even though he knows everything about you. He loves you even though he knows about your lust and your pride, I should say, our lust, our pride, our selfishness.

It's not just you, it's us. He loves you even though he knows everything about you, all the crap that's in there. And he's not going to leave you and he's not going to forsake you.

But what he will often do is let you experience things due to your own sin. And, you know, it's not like we need to slap you. It's like, I get it. We've got to go through these things sometimes and have our faith purified. Right.

And it's okay. You have to go through things sometimes to really understand them. Yeah. Yeah.

You are so right. So what you could do is do something I call fazing, to faith, to have faith. And what I mean by that is you choose to believe. Now, you can do that for a minute or five minutes or an hour or a day and then the doubt comes back. And then you have to ask yourself, where's my faith? Is it and who is it in?

And what is it in? You just ask these questions and then when you get to a place, you say, okay, I'm going to choose to faith again. And you talk to God and you keep working through it. You know, and you're not okay.

And build that stronger faith. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I'm encouraged by what you're saying, actually, because I've been there and, man, I know what it is. But it's good. Not fun, but it's good.

And you've got to go through it sometimes because that means often he's prepping you for something later. Something good. You know. Okay. Well, again, thank you, Matt. I really enjoy your show.

I'm glad I found you on the dial a couple of weeks ago. Well, good. I'm glad you do. You did. Okay.

That's nice. And keep listening. Okay. I sure will. All right, brother. Bye. All right.

God bless. So, you know, this issue of faith is a tough one. And I know there are people out there and we struggle sometimes with things. We struggle with ourselves. And, you know, when I talk to people who are going through those things, in all seriousness, it's kind of hard to explain. But I feel good about it when they're struggling. And it sounds different, difficult, but it's not because I want them to struggle, but because I've experienced it and I know what the other side is. I know how God works through it and how we have to work through it. And I know it's a blessing. It's not easy. But I'm reminded of Mark 9, 24 and 25.

I'll read it quickly. And Jesus said to him, if you can, all things are possible to him who believes. Immediately the boy's father cried out and said, I do believe. Help my unbelief. When Jesus saw that a crowd had dropped and gathered, rebuked the unclean spirit saying, you deaf and mute spirit of command, you come out of him and do not enter him again. The man said in Mark 9, 24, you know, I believe. Help my unbelief.

And I've thought about that so many times over the years. I believe, but help my unbelief. Mark 9, 24. That's for all of us. May the Lord bless you.

There's the music. I've got to get out of here. And by God's grace, we're back on here tomorrow. If you've got questions, save them for then. Give me a call. I hope you have a great evening. God bless you. Bye. Another program powered by the truth network.