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 CARM.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 to the show. It's me, Matt Slick.

You're listening to Matt Slick live. If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. And if you want to, you can email me, info at CARM.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, info at CARM.org. I want to hear from you. Give me a call and hopefully everything will be fine. It'll work nicely and all of that stuff. So give me a call if you want.

That's if you're afraid to call. All right. So I just did a two-hour interview. Someone interviewed me on a variety of topics. We talked about eschatology and aliens.

And I have some other stuff. We just talked, oh, the church, how things are going, the apostasy coming. So that's what we did. And it ended about an hour ago.

So I forgot I had to do it. He calls me, are you ready? Well, for what? And he told me, well, that's right. Give me five minutes. And I got some water and changed the shirt and it was on. I'm just so busy.

Yeah, that's what it is. All right. Do you want to give me a call? 877-207-2276. And I think what I'm going to do, because we have nobody waiting right now, I want you to give me a call. I think I'll get into some Q&A. Oh, there's calls coming in. We can do that. Oh, yeah. One person says, where are the CARM T-shirts to be found? Type that in, Charlie. What's in the private chat? I guess you can do that.

Or, no, do it in the public. It doesn't really matter. Charlie, he does CARM shirts and we have to get that linked in and do some other stuff. We've got to take care of a couple formalities beforehand. CARMChristianWitness.com. So that's the site he's using and does a lot of CARM-related stuff there. So you can go check that out if you want. You can do that.

All right. We have four open lines. 877-207-2276. Let's just jump on and get with Rudolph from Raleigh, North Carolina. Rudolph, welcome. You're on the air.

Yes, sir. What do the different gates in this temple stand for? Such as the sheet gate, the dung gate.

What do they mean? I don't know. That's a good question. I'm going to write that question down.

I'll open up my program where I add a list of questions and what do the different gates mean in the temple. That's a good question. That's a good question. Let's see. What?

Because I don't know the answer. What do the different – you can hear me typing. See? You're causing me to work, man.

What do the different gates mean in the temple? All right. There. So there you go. That's adding to my list.

And that list has quite a few. Wow. Oh, my goodness.

Look at that. So when do I call back and find out the answer? After I figure it out? I don't know when that's going to be though. That's the problem.

Yeah, I don't know what that problem is going to be. All right, Paul. Have a good – have a happy Mother's Day meeting with your wife and take care. Oh, that's right. Mother's Day. I've got to get something for my wife. Oh, man. Oh, it's so tough. Yeah, okay. Now I've got to figure something out.

Man, man, it just doesn't stop coming. Okay. All right.

Sounds good. All right. Thank you. All right, you too, man. God bless. Yes, sir. Bye-bye. Okay.

So that's Rudolph. And, man, I'm in trouble. That just tells you how busy I get and the kind of stuff I have to work on. Now I have to – I whine about it because I'm telling you, my wife, she's a good woman except for the taste of men, but I do not like buying gifts from my wife because I can't figure her out. Now, listen, after 35 years of marriage, we dated several years beforehand, so we've known each other well over 40 years, and I still can't figure her out, okay, because – well, I can get myself in such trouble here because, well, she's a female, so right there. I'm at a disadvantage because I've got to figure out, well, what does she want? And I have to know, let's see, what she's thinking and feeling from a distance for several days so that I get the right gift. And, man, that's a tough one.

So I'm trying – see, I'm easy to buy for. My wife, she gets stuff, she just – she wins. And she gets me like Bose headphones with a noise reducer. Yeah, there you go.

Perfect. She got me once for Christmas. She got me the Oculus VR set.

Yeah, that's right. See, I just like tech stuff. Just give me tech stuff, right, with the tech stuff, and I can figure – you know, I'm good.

It doesn't matter, computer stuff, tech stuff, a tool, something like that so that I can get something done. But that's not fair with the other way around because you've got to figure out what your wife wants, and it's governed by feelings. So, you know, you just have to figure things out, and maybe some of you ladies can call me up, and we can talk about this and give me some help because my wife's not here right now.

So then maybe I can figure it out. Because, well, what does she like? The good question. She likes flowers sometimes. A nice dinner – well, I make dinners sometimes. What else? You know, I'm not so sure. Oh, man, this is tough.

And then when the birthday comes around, man, wow. All right, let's get on the air with Rick from North Carolina. Rick, welcome. You're on the air.

Matt Slick, it's been a while. I could not wait to call you. Okay. All right. So what's up? You know, you're familiar with Dr. John MacArthur, right? Yes.

Okay. I don't know your opinion on him or not, but oh, here's my confusion. Okay, he's talking about, you know, in Genesis, the origin of man, God made this, God made that. And so the earth, technically, it was null and broad, and it goes back to six or seven thousand years. Matt, my problem with this here, and which he's right, I mean, that's what the Bible says, but Matt, how do scientists and people say that when they find skeletons and bones and stuff at three and four million and five and ten million years old?

Because they deny the truth of God's word, and so they look for something else, because evolution requires long amounts of time, and so they presuppose the ability of evolution, and then the facts have to fit. That's what they do. All right? So, like dating methodology, okay? Dating methodology.

Okay. So, look at this. A Pleistocene rock layer from the Rubidian strontium method is 773 million years old, but the rock layer position is 1.6 million years old.

So, I have these notes, I'm looking at my notes. Pleistocene rock layer, it's 1.6 million years ago, but when they date it with rubidium, they get 773 million years old. Upper Miocene to Pleistocene lava is 5 to 9 million years ago, using potassium argon, but rubidium strontium gives you 31 to 39 million years old.

And I can go on. It's just that there's different dating results that they get. Well, they might say, well, they're all millions of years old.

Well, that's what they say, but there's the issue of carbon-12 or carbon-14, which has a half-life of 5,380. Let's see. Let me find this. I want to get the right number.

I want to memorize the wrong number. Okay. So, in carbon-14 dating, and let me explain what carbon-14 is.

This is an example of something. Okay. Because in carbon-14, it has a half-life of 5,730. So, 5,730 years. What that means is a gram of pure carbon-14 after 5,730 years is a half a gram. Nothing happens to it.

Okay. It's just the half-life. It just dissolves. It disappears.

Now, the reason this is important is because, for example, this is an issue. An example is a squirrel. I use a squirrel. So, a squirrel is eating and breathing, and because it's eating and breathing, then it's taking in carbon-14. It's not produced in the body of an organism.

It's different. So, it breathes it in and it eats it. So, when the squirrel dies, then there's no more introduction of carbon-14 into the organism.

It dies. Let's say it's covered with mud and is preserved really well. Well, because of the half-life, carbon-14 disappears completely from an organism after 93,000 years.

93,000 years. So, an organic something that was alive that respirates plants do this too, that take nourishment and nutrients from the ground, that carbon-14 is in the plants. Okay, so why is that important? That means that after 93,000 years of their death, no carbon-14 is supposed to exist in them. But they're finding carbon-14 in coal shells, which are millions of years old. Why is it there?

It doesn't make sense. Or in diamonds, which take millions of years of pressure to produce. Why are they there? Why are they finding carbon-14 in, I won't go that far, because I don't know if I have any documentation yet on it. They're finding in dinosaur bones, they're finding soft tissue in the marrow areas. And apparently there's some DNA and there's some carbon. So, how's that existing if they're millions of years old?

There's counter evidence, but it's generally suppressed. A woman did a study and released information on soft tissue being extant in dinosaur bones. She was an atheist, I guess, in the scientific community, and she was ostracized.

It can't happen, it's not possible. And she did her test like four times. There it is, and she produced it. And even then they were ridiculing her a great deal.

She stood her ground for the evidence. And now they're starting to realize this is true. So they have their ways of suppressing information. So basically what these scientists are doing is manipulating numbers. Some do, not all. Most scientists are people of integrity and they want to solve problems. But what I'm saying is just like you just did. They have factual anomalies and then they see the pre-data, back-data, on and on and on.

Now let me ask you a question. Genesis says the earth was void and without matter. So nobody really knows, decimal-wise, how old the earth is, right? One of the theories that is floated on in Christianity is that the first day could have been a long beginning time.

So that's a possibility. Another one is that the word yom, which is the word day, when it's used with ordinal numbers, generally means 24 hours. Ordinal numbers meaning first, second, third, fourth. And in Genesis the seventh day does not have a day and night. So the first six days do, but the seventh one doesn't. So the question then becomes why is that a change? So is it that it's a longer period of time before Adam and Eve fell, maybe a few thousand years, maybe a few hundred? We don't know.

So there are people talking about this and all I'm doing is presenting different bits of information. So I don't believe the earth is more than three years old. I reject that. I find it hard to believe.

But it's for the God's creation theory, I looked into it this morning, he was leaning toward between six and seven thousand years. Does that sound about right? Yeah. Okay.

That sounds dual. Well, I knew I needed to power you. All right. Thank you so much, Matt.

You're welcome. Well, God bless, man. Okay. All right.

That's Rick from North Carolina. Let me read you a quote. It's a break, so it won't be the quote just yet. On soft tissue being found by an 80 million year old fossils.

This is from a science magazine. How can that be? There's a lot of problems.

There are. Hey, guess what? We'll be right back after this break. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Coming on a yawn right there.

Hey, let's see. Red from YT is now a monthly supporter. Praise God. Thank you. And one dollar there.

That is awesome. Every bid helps. And if you want to watch us, folks, all you got to do is go to rumble.com forward slash Matt Slick live. And you can see, you can watch. You can participate with the people in the room. There's 50 watching right now. We don't know how many we have in the chat room. But we have a lot of people that go in and we talk and chat. A lot of fun. All right. Let's get on the air with Devin from Utah.

Devin, welcome here on the air, man. My question is regarding, I'm trying to reconcile two verses with John chapter 20 verse 22, which apostles, or when he says he breathed on them the Holy Spirit. And how do I reconcile that with Acts chapter 2 verse 4 when they are filled with the Holy Spirit at that time? So I guess my question is, when did the apostles actually receive the Holy Spirit?

Well, they received it when Jesus says, received the Holy Spirit in John 20, 22. Right? Would you agree? Acts 2, 4 then. I would.

I would. Okay. So notice, now here's a principle that's important to understand. Every word in the Bible is inspired. So he says, receive the Holy Spirit in Acts 20, 22. Acts 2, 4, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Is that the exact same thing? That's the question. Okay.

So if we assume it's the same thing, then why is the same word not used if it's the same thing? To be filled with the Holy Spirit is speaking of the movement of the Holy Spirit, which is prophesied in the Old Testament where the Holy Spirit is poured upon people. And that's, you go to Acts 2, 17, yeah, let's see, Acts 1, 17 and 18, sorry. And I'm trying to get to it right there.

Let me get over there. Acts 1. No, it's Acts 2, 17.

I was scrolling too far. And so, it shall be the last days. God said, I'll pour forth my Spirit in all mankind. This is Acts 2, 17. And what he's doing is he's quoting out a book of Joel.

Joel 2, 28 to 32. The Holy Spirit is poured. So to receive the Holy Spirit is not the pouring of the Holy Spirit.

It's a movement of the Holy Spirit by which they can then do miraculous things, et cetera. But the pouring of the Holy Spirit is dealing with the charismatic movement. And you can find that out by just reading Acts 1, verse 5, John baptizes with water, you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So baptism with the Holy Spirit is the pouring of the Spirit. It says in verse 8, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

So you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. So in Acts 1, 5, it talks about being baptized with the Holy Spirit. And then it talks about the Holy Spirit coming upon you. And then it says the Holy Spirit is poured. So in the context of the pouring of the Holy Spirit, that's when you see people in Acts chapter 2 speaking in tongues. They're speaking in tongues, glorifying God, et cetera.

It also happens in Acts 10, 44 through 48, when they're speaking in tongues, glorifying God. And Peter says the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them. So the pouring of the Spirit seems to be something that does a movement of the charismatic gifts, or the unction, something really strong. The receiving of the Spirit, of course, is before the crucifixion, where the pouring of the Spirit is after the crucifixion.

So that's important because of covenant aspect. So it looks like in John 20, 22, this receive is just the Holy Spirit coming with them, not being poured on them, but working within them. Because you don't see any speaking in tongues and things like that with the apostles. You see them casting out demons.

So the reception of the Holy Spirit seems to be an empowering for that, where the Holy Spirit coming upon them and receiving the Holy Spirit in the charismatic sense, which has talked about the Holy Spirit will come upon you when you'll have power. That seems to be the difference. Okay? You there? Yes, can you hear me? Yeah, no, I do. I guess my question, Ben, follow-up is, is that something that the believers today still experience?

I believe so. I'm Reformed. In the Reformed camp, a lot of people deny the continuation of the charismatic gifts, and I affirm all of them for today.

So let me just say it again publicly. I affirm that all the charismatic gifts are for today, that the Christian church can experience them all. That's not to say that I believe that a person has the gift of, and this is how he or she always works, like prophetic. And I certainly don't agree with the idiocy of the name it and claim it crowd, speaking in tongues in public and telling jokes in tongues and all this stupidity.

I don't believe in that at all. And so some people say, yes, this is for today. Some say, no. It's a big division in the body of Christ, largely because of the stupidity and the idiocy of the positive confession movement, Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, and the like.

And so are these for today? Yeah. God could certainly cause someone to speak in a language he doesn't know in order to spread the gospel. He could certainly give someone a prophetic word. It happened to me once. I had an absolute prophecy. It came to pass in detail. That happened once.

Why can't it? I don't say I have the gift of prophecy, but God condescended to speak through me one time. Okay. Well, I've heard of others. They have words of knowledge and things.

They just know something's coming, and it happens. These are the movements of God through the Spirit of God upon people. I don't have any problem with that, as long as it's being submitted to the Scriptures and not looked upon and sought after in the thing itself. Okay. I appreciate it. Okay.

We keep losing it for a second or two. That's my position. It's not a common position in the Reformed camp, but that's what I hold to exegetically. All right. All right. Thank you much. All right, man. God bless. Okay.

That was Devin from Utah. Hey, Mr. Kitt, thanks for the $5 rant that you gave. Folks, if you want to watch the rest of the show and participate with the chatters in text, you can go to rumble.com forward slash mattslicklive one word, and you'll find the stuff there. Let's get to Stacia from Washington. Hey, Stacia. How you doing? Okay.

Today's a good day, so good. Yeah. Yeah. But I wanted to call because on Friday sometimes you do whack e-mail, and I have two somewhat short stories that I wanted to share with you. Okay.

I know that flat-earther people tend to call you and talk to you about the world being flat. Not very often they don't, because I'm going to nail them if they do. I ask them tough questions they can't answer. But go ahead. Okay. Well, my son is an exterminator, and it's summertime.

So he was at a person's home, and they are a flat-earther person. Oh, man. Yes. They wanted him to get rid of the ants that they had, to kill the ants specifically. Okay.

But they told him they did not want him to drive the ants off the end of the earth because it's flat, and they didn't want him to drive them off into oblivion. They said that? Yes. Yep. Whoa.

And he just looked at them and said, I'm here to kill them. If you want something else, you'll have to do that. Whoa. Yep. Wow. That's an awesome story. Hold on.

They've got a break. Wow. Okay. Oh, man.

We just had an exterminator at our house a few days ago, and they're gone. We'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, all you've got to do is dial 877-207-2276. Give me a call. I'll call from you.

All right. Let's get back with Stacia. Hey, Stacia.

You're back on the air. Hi. Hi. Okay. So I have one more story.

All right. Corey, my son, was out at a person's house to set up rat traps, get rid of rats. And when he got there, the gentleman looked at him and told him, this is Tuesday, that he was there on the wrong day because he doesn't believe in the government propaganda of Monday, Tuesday, of the days of the week, that those are all a lie, and that he, in his view, it was Friday, and he asked Corey to come back the next day being Saturday. So Corey looked at him and said, I'm sorry, sir.

I'm not able to come back tomorrow as it being Saturday, in your view, because I'm not allowed to work on the weekend. But have you heard of that before? No. I've not heard that before. That's pretty bad. That's just a good example of people not able to think critically and believing stuff.

They're easily let around. That's a problem. That is amazing. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I was surprised at how quickly my son came up with the response to that.

I would have looked at him like, excuse me, what planet are you on? But he just flowed with it and I don't work on Saturday. Sorry.

Can't come back tomorrow. You know, you just got to stare at people like that. Like what?

Yeah. The government's been lying to us for years and years and the days of the week aren't real days of the week. They're wrong. I would ask him, I'm just curious of you. I'd be like, okay, so what day is today really? Okay, whatever. How do you know that's true? I could just hear the explanation. That would be interesting.

Well, yeah. He said that it was, in his view, it was Friday and he wanted Corey to come back on Saturday. Corey is too busy and frankly doesn't really like talking to people when he's doing his job, so he didn't get into why he thought that way or he just simply, sorry, I can't come back tomorrow. I can do it today. I'm here.

Let me do my job and get out here physically. He probably encounters a lot of weird people. We had an ant guy over, or an insect guy over a few weeks ago, about a month ago, and just say, hey, what's some interesting stories? He kind of chuckled. They're stories.

He encountered people and they'll say odd things and do odd things and believe odd things, but yeah. Those are good. The flat earth one, that one's pretty good. It doesn't want to push the ants off the edge of the earth. Yep. Killing them was fine, but not pushing them off the end of the earth as if Corey's the pied piper and can make ants follow him wherever he wants them to go. Wow.

Even in the flat earth model, the edge of the earth is surrounded by a wall of ice and it's super far away, thousands of miles. These little ant legs, are they going to be able to do it? Are they going to make it? I don't know. Wow. I don't know. I just, I just, yeah, I just laughed and I thought about you and I thought, you know, every once in a while a flat earth person calls and you know, but yeah, kill the ants, but don't push them off the edge of the planet. I hope it's just that the guy said that and so that later you can say it with his friends, and then I said to him and he looked at me. It's got to be a joke, you know, you just kind of wonder, but yeah, those are good ones.

Those are good for Fridays. That's good. Yeah. Corey felt that those people were totally honest and not kidding him. They were totally. Oh, they meant it. Yeah, they meant it.

The day of the week guy argued with him a little bit and Corey ended up saying, if you want to call my boss and ask him if I can work Saturdays and be paid double time, I'll be happy to come back on your Saturday, but you'd have to call my boss about it. So he was very, very serious, which is kind of scary, but. Wow. Wow.

I appreciate that. Wow. Okay. Good stuff.

Good stuff. All right. Have a good day.

Thanks a lot, Stacia. Okay. Bye. God bless. Okay. You know, before we get to Orlando from North Carolina, you know, we had a Bible study last night and I taught something that was different.

I never taught it before. If any of you heard what I said, I'd be interested in some comments if you want to call up and tell me what you think. Orlando from North Carolina. Orlando, welcome. You're on the air. How you doing Slick? Doing all right. Hanging in there.

What do you got? All right. Uh, could you explain, uh, what you believes are when he talks about end time, because apparently you believe that we're living in the millennial. Is that right? Yeah, I do. Uh huh.

Yup. So we are living in the millennial, the wolves sleep with the sheep, then nothing happens and all that stuff. Could you explain some people, try to figure it out why you believe that? I believe it because, um, there's no room for the literal thousand years and those things that are spoken of, like you mentioned, are, are, uh, new heavens, new earth, and also metaphoric in that everyone's going to get along and have peace and the age to come. But, uh, you'll find that in the premillennial view, the rapture occurs a thousand years before the end of, of, uh, things when new heavens and new earth are made, except that when you go to first Thessalonians four, 16 through chapter five, verse two, it talks about the rapture and Jesus Christ comes back with a trumpet and the dead in Christ will rise and we should be caught up to the matter to meet him in the year.

Now it's at the time that you believe in, you do believe in a rapture. Of course. Yeah.

Yeah. We were going to go through the tribulation though. That's what I believe. I don't believe in pre-trib rapture, but, uh, so he says, he says, uh, you know, you don't need to know, but don't worry about it for the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. So the rapture is the day of the Lord. That's for the unbeliever. That's for the unbeliever.

Right? No. The believers are the ones who are going to be raptured. The unbelievers are taken before the Christians.

Yeah. That's what Matthew 13 says. That's what Matthew 13 says. That's right.

A wheat and a tares. And Jesus says, allow both to go together until the end of the age. And I'll say to the reapers, first to gather the tears for the first one's gathered of the wicked.

That's what he says. The wicked. Right.

And burned. And now, and then he says, I believe, I believe in a pre-rap, pre-rap rapture, but that's almost at the end of the tribulation. Yeah. I gotcha.

Uh huh. But, uh, I was going to say that I believe there'll be a millennial and you don't believe that you believe. I'm trying to explain it.

I keep trying to explain it. You keep jumping in and let me, let me get to this. Okay. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Go ahead. That's all right.

Okay. So in first Thessalonians four, uh, verse 16 through chapter five, verse two, it talks about the rapture and it says in that thing there, I'm going to read it to you. This is what's really important. It says, now as to the times and the epics, you have no need of anything to be written to you for yourself know full well that the day of the Lord come like a thief of the night. That's the rapture. The day of the Lord come like a thief of the night. When you go to second Peter three, 10, it says the day of the Lord come like a thief. It's the same day in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat. Well, if they're the same day, then that the remaking of the new heavens, new earth happens after the thousand years, then why does the Bible teach it happens on the same day? The rapture and the new heavens, new earth. Okay.

You see, are you there? Well, there is debate on that. Well, you have to debate it. You can also look at the day of the Lord as a thousand years because it's one day.

No, no, no, no. Because it says the rapture is a specific event, a specific event, and it happens very quickly. That's what he's talking about in first Thessalonians four.

He says, we'll be with the Lord and comfort each other with these words. Now, as to the times and the epics, you have no need of anything to be written to you for you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord come like a thief in the night. The day of the Lord is a single event, a thief in the night.

It's quick. It's not over several hundred years and it's a specific event. It's related to the rapture. And then the same phraseology is used for a specific event of the new heavens and new earth and are referred to in the same sense. The day of the Lord in one context could be in the day of the Lord.

When he did this, it could be a long period of time. But when the day of the Lord is used specifically in the context of two events and each event are rapid and very quick, then we have a problem. The pre-millennialists have a problem. I'm not seeing anybody refute this yet. I'm not seeing anybody, you know, answer it. So you know, it's up to think about it. Hold on. We've got a break coming up. Okay.

Orlando. So hold on. You still didn't believe. You still didn't say why you believe the millennium. We've got a break. We'll live in the millennium.

We've got a break. So hold on. Okay. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, buddy, welcome back to the last segment of the show. Let's get back to Orlando. Are you still there? Yes, sir. All right, now, you want me to respond to the lion laying down with the lamb thing? Okay. Yes, sir.

I'm eating. Okay. That's out of Isaiah 11.

Go ahead. So if you start reading it, what most people do is they'll quote parts of it, but they ignore the rest of it. It says in verse 1, not the paraphrasing, I want to read everything, but it says, A shoot will spring up from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The spirit of the Lord will rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

And he will not judge by what his eyes see, nor make his decision by what his ears hear. Who's this referring to? Jesus? Probably?

Yeah. But with the righteous, he will judge the poor, and decide with fairness for the afflictive of the earth, and he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. This during the millennial reign, because you wait, you see what happens. And with his breath of his lips, he will slay the wicked, and righteousness will be the belt around his loins, and faith will be the belt of his waist. And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion will fathom together, and it goes on, it talks like that, the nursing child will play with a cobra, and it says, with a cobra, yeah, and it will not hurt or destroy in my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Then, in that day, the nations will resort to the root of Jesse, who will stand as a signal for the peoples, and his resting place will be glorious. Then it will happen in that day that the Lord will gain again cover the second time with his hand, and the remnant of his people who will remain from Assyria, Egypt, Pathos, etc., from the islands of the sea, and will lift up a standard for the nations, and assemble the banished ones from Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

Is this the millennial reign? There's too much in there that doesn't fit that idea. The issue here is that, people hear so many times, like two men in the field, one is taken, one is left, that's the rapture, it's not. The rapture occurs, but that's not the rapture, that's taken of the wicked. And so they'll go to verses like this in Isaiah 11, about the line with the Lamb, and they'll say, well that just means it's the new heavens and new earth, or the millennium. Does it? Have they looked at the context of what it says?

And they don't. But if we go to Revelation, Revelation talks about a thousand years, it's a little thousand years, it says a thousand years. How do you know it's literal? Maybe a thousand years, or... Well look, let's go to Revelation 20.

I can go over what it says, it says a thousand years. Well let's look at it, Revelation 20 verse 1, and I'm going to ask you if it's literal or figurative. Yes. Okay, then I saw an angel come down from heaven, literal or figurative. That's literal, an angel came down.

I would agree. Holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand, literal or figurative? That's literal, he's bringing something tied up to the... No, no, no, no, no, didn't say something. It says a key and a chain. Does he have a literal key and a literal chain in his hand, the angel? Just tied up to the serpent?

Of course not. Not literal, it's a symbol. This is figurative.

And he laid hold of the dragon. That's figurative. The serpent of old, that would be literal.

Who's the devil and Satan? That's literal. And bound him for a thousand years. So is a thousand years literal or figurative? It's literal. How do you know? For a thousand years. Maybe it is, but how do you know?

That's what he said. Since the context, since the context has figurative usage in it, how do you know it's literal? Particularly when you look at... No, it says grab the dragon, the dragon is Satan and we know that. Yeah, but you don't understand what I'm saying, that word dragon is a symbol, a representation of the serpent of old. He's not a literal dragon. There's not a literal chain. The angel isn't coming out of heaven and he literally has a chain in his hand. And then he has a key and he's going to go lay hold of the dragon, the devil and he's going to bind him with a key and a chain for a thousand years?

Of course not. No, the key is to open something. The key is to open something. You're not hearing me.

I got it. The key is to open something, which is exactly what I would agree with the key, to bind something. But the key is not a literal key, like we would hold in our hand and put in our pocket.

That's the whole point of trying to say, is that this is figurative usage. Is it going to be a spiritual key? It's spiritual something because the devil is not physical. You don't bind him with a physical chain.

Exactly. So it's not a chain, it's a spiritual chain. It's something to tie him up. I don't know.

We don't know. It's a physical, it's a spiritual chain. It's figurative. You're right.

And that's how the word thousand is, is in stuff like that. And it says he threw him into the abyss. Well, I think it's a literal abyss. I think that's literal.

And shed it and sealed it over him. That is literal. There's some literalness to there. So he'd not to see the nations any longer until the thousand years were completed. Now the thing is about the word thousand when you see that the Lord uses it in different ways, in different senses. So he owns a cattle in a thousand hills, days but a thousand years. Is it literal?

No. These are figurative usages. So I'm just saying this. All I'm saying is don't assume Revelation 20 verse 2 is a literal thousand. It might be, but you can't just say it is and that's just how it is. It doesn't work like that, okay?

I agree with you on that part, but I still believe it's a thousand years. That's okay. That's fine. That's okay.

And if you do, that's fine. I'm just saying when you go to Revelation 20 verse 2, be careful of just asserting it's a thousand since it's used in figurative usage. That's all I'm saying.

It might be a literal. You can't prove it from there. That's all I'm saying.

Try to get people to think. It might be the case, but it's not the place you want to prove it. Is this the teaching that comes out of seminaries nowadays? I don't know, but don't think that seminaries are bad automatically because they're seminaries and that's unfortunate.

A lot of people just say, oh, it's a cemetery instead of a seminary. I went to a seminary and I graduated. I learned a great deal. Very good, godly people. We learned a lot and there are good seminaries and bad ones.

Oh yeah, I understand. Studying the Bible is very good. I love to study the Bible. My thing is that some people teach some things and other people teach some other things.

And there are good seminaries and there are bad seminaries, so we can't just lump them all together. That's it. There you go. Okay. All right. All right. You have a good day, man. You too, brother.

God bless, man. All right. Right. Okay.

See, what I'm trying to do is get people to understand the approach to something. Don't just make assumptions. Examine your assumption, particularly with the word of God.

That's all I'm saying. Revelation 20, verse 2, found it for a thousand years. If you believe it's a literal thousand, well, that's your privilege. But you can't prove it's the case from there. And I mean proof. You can't prove it because there's figurative usage within the context, but there's also literal usage within the context.

If you say, I'm appealing to the literal usage to make it literal, then I could say, I'm appealing to the figurative usage to make it figurative. Both are equally valid, which is all I'm saying is you can't be that assertive about that position from that verse. It might be the case that there's a literal thousand years. Might be. But here's something else to think about, because in the thousand years, that's his kingdom.

Right? That's the kingdom of God. Well, what is interesting is that Jesus says in Matthew 13, he says that at the end of the age, the time of the harvest, he'll say to the angels, first gather the tares. So the first ones gathered at the end of the age, at the harvest when Christ returns, is the wicked. And then he interprets it in Matthew 13, 40 through 43, he interprets it and says that the wicked will be taken out of his kingdom.

That's what it says. Out of his kingdom. So the kingdom of Christ has to be extant, that means existing, in order for them to be in it, to be taken out. And is Jesus king right now? Of course he's king. Over what?

Over something that's not yet real? There's lots of questions. Let's get to Lamas from Levington, New Jersey, North Carolina. Welcome you're on the air. Hello? Hello? James.

James. Hello. Hello.

I'm sorry. There you go. Okay.

So what do you got? Okay. I'd like for you to help me explain what a carnal Christian is. Well, it can be understood in different terms, different definitions. Some say a carnal Christian is not a Christian. Some say a carnal Christian is a Christian who's backsliding and still a believer and is making mistakes and delving into sin a little bit too much. Not that any sin's okay.

But so it depends on what kind of view you want to go to. A carnal Christian means of the flesh. That's a problem because if you're a true Christian then Jesus is Lord of your life and he's Lord of you. It doesn't mean, however, that you can't slide a little bit. We all do every day. We backslide a little bit in some areas. We may covet a little bit. We may be prideful and selfish a little bit. That's a form of backsliding. We're not reaching towards God and submitting to his lordship in that area of our life. Actually carnal Christian is referring to someone out there carousing, getting drunk, doing bad stuff until he's a Christian. No, that's not a Christian because the Bible says in 1 John 2, 4, if you say you know him and don't keep his commandments, the truth is not in you and you're a liar. This is why some say carnal Christian is not a Christian. Some say you can be for a little bit while God is going to discipline you and bring you back and things like that. It's not a universally accepted definition of what it exactly is, okay? Well in Romans chapter 8, it says to be calmly minded is death, but to be firmly minded is life and peace, but because you are carnal mind is enmity against God. Does that mean that you are an enemy, for he is not subject to the laws of God, neither need can be, because the male heart is flesh and cannot please God. But that's not a Christian, is it?

Right? Well, that's the way I look at it. Yes, but hold on.

I got you. It's not a Christian, but the term is a carnal Christian. So now you're saying a non-Christian Christian. That's the way that definition would go then and it's a problem. This is why I say there's differences of opinion with the phrase means and how it's used. Because some could say a carnal Christian is just a poser, not really saved, claims to be it, but he's not. And some say that he can be really saved and he's backsliding and God's going to discipline him and take care of him, which happens. You see, that's all I'm saying is there's just differences of opinion. In I think it's Galatians 5 and 22 or something like that, he says, he lists the works of the flesh against the spirit, okay, and against the flesh they are contrary, one and the other.

So they cannot do the things that you would. I agree. Are you hearing?

Yes, I'm hearing it down in 22. But James, did you hear what I said about the different ways of looking at it, the way the term is used? Yes. You seem to only be looking at it one way and I totally agree with you.

Those things, and you're talking about Galatians 5 and 19 and following, those things are not what a Christian does and participates in and practices, but can a Christian backslide a little? Yeah, you can. Oh, yeah. It happens. And we're out of time.

I agree. Yeah, yeah. We're out of time, James. Sorry, we should ferret this out more, but you have to call back on Monday, okay, because we're just out of time.

At the top of the hour. Okay. Sorry, brother. All right, man. God bless. Hey, folks. Hope you enjoyed the show and by his grace, we're back on the air tomorrow of Monday, and I hope you have a great weekend. God bless everybody. Bye. Another program powered by the Truth Network.