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. Hey, if you want to give me a call, all you've got to do is dial 877-207-2276 and we can talk. And if you don't want to call and you want a question or comment read over the air, you can just email me at info at CARM.org. And I can see that. So that's all you've got to do.

It's pretty easy. And we do have people giving us comments and questions and things like that. All right, so I'm looking at the chat and here we go.

Everything looks good. So if you want, you can watch us. Watch me.

I mean, it's not a big deal. I sit in the office and get colored lights on and nice little thing in the background and things like that. And if you want, just go to rumble.com forward slash Matt Slick live and click on today's show. And you will just participate with the people in the chat. It's pretty nice. It's going up.

You'll get about 70, 80, 90, I guess. I don't know how many people join us. And hopefully that'll be good. All right. All right. All right. So here we go.

Matt Slick live. OK. Oh, that's right. By the way.

By the way. So here I am working really hard. I did a 13 hour day yesterday. And maybe it was no, it was more like 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 any rate. So I was sitting down with my wife after everything was done radio show after show, did a couple of things, cleaned up this stuff. And then right when I was telling her about something, the phone rang and the guy goes, Well, are you getting on or not? I go, uh, I forgot that I was supposed to be on last night. And with Donny Babinski and we just, it was truth, not the Truth Network, but something truth, Stanford Truth, Stanford Truth. And so he wanted me to have it all set up, you know, instead of me doing a debate. It was just just do a Q and have people come in with questions. And this topic was a trinity.

We went for four hours, four hours. Okay. And there were, what's really interesting, I'm going to tell you, what I think is interesting is when people come on who are anti Trinitarians. And like this one guy, for example, he would ask me a question and very complicated question. A lot of times they ask these real complicated questions and you're like, what, what, what are you saying? And what they'll do is quote a verse and then put it with another verse and put another verse and another verse. And they'll say, that means this. Now answer that. And my general response is, no, no, no, we don't do it that way.

You look at each verse to see if it says what you think it means. And let's just say, you know, because if your premises aren't good, then your conclusions and your question don't really matter. And this happened a few times where the premises were just faulty. And I said, no, your question is invalid. You don't understand the issue. And, you know, explain what's going on and why this and why that. So anyway, this one guy comes on.

I remember him because I would start to answer him and he would jump in and interrupt me and say, you're not answering the question. And I'd go, look. And I said, look, can I answer my way? Or is it okay with you if I answer the way I want to answer, not the way you want me to answer? Okay, because I'm going to ask some questions, find out where you're at. I'm going to cater my, and he interrupts. Here he is stalling. Would you let me?

Would you let me answer, please? You know, just get out of the way. And so this went on, and then that very same guy said I got demolished. Oh, man, I always get a kick out of them because when they can't answer difficult questions, and I'll tell you what happened to a couple of them, they just go to another topic and then they claim victory.

And they remind me of the Muslims. And so I forgot who I was talking to. I mean, all these people last night for four hours, you know, different people. And this one guy said, you know, we got talking, and he said, God raised Jesus. I said, Jesus raised himself. And he says, no, he didn't. And I said, yes, because he's denying Jesus as God. And I said, of course he did, because I know that the Bible does teach that. And he says, no, it never says that. So I took him to John 2 19 through 21 where Jesus prophesied that he would resurrect his own body. And it was right there.

I mean, that's what it says. This temple, and in three days I will raise it up. And he's speaking the temple of his body. And I said, see right there, Jesus raised himself. And he says, it doesn't say that he did it after his resurrection.

Are you kidding me? I said, he prophesied right there. I said, this is what Jesus said he would do.

Did he do it or not? He wouldn't answer the question. It has to be after the resurrection. You had to find me a verse after. I said, no, I don't. This is where Jesus prophesied what he would do.

Are you denying it? It was stuff like this. The answer's right there. And there's the proof. And he just ignores it and goes on to something else.

This is what happened. And so here's another one. This guy was saying that Jesus is not God and stuff like that. They get in there with the Trinity. And there's Unitarians get in there. And there's one, this Pentecostal get in there, both cults.

And so they'll talk, right? Well, I have this thing I've been using for over 40 years. And it deals with the Old Testament theophanies where God is seen. And so what I do is I go to Exodus 6. I'm going to read it to you because this is a good thing.

I've done this so many times, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times I've done this. And I say, look, this is what it says in Exodus 6, 2, and 3. God spoke further to Moses and said to him, I am Yahweh. And I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty.

So I asked him. I said, who are they seeing? And the guy goes, it was the Father. They've seen the Father, huh? He goes, yes, they were seeing the Father.

Because he denies Jesus as God, right? I said, okay. So it says God spoke to Moses, said I am Yahweh, and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty. Yes, that's right. So it's the Father.

Good. I take him to John 6, 46 where Jesus says no man has ever seen the Father, except the one who's from God. He has seen the Father.

And he's confused. He tried to respond to it. I said, let's go here to 1 Timothy 6, 16. I read the context where it's talking of the Father who dwells in unapproachable light who no man has seen or can see. And I said, can anyone see the Father right there? He says, no.

Wait a minute. How can you say that no one can see the Father and yet you also say they saw the Father? And then the guy goes, he didn't see his face. That's what it was. It wasn't his face he saw.

He went to Exodus 33, 11 or 320. And so I'm like, dude, you keep changing the text. You keep changing things. And this is how it went. And then they claimed victory.

See, man, I couldn't answer. That was fun. And then this one guy towards the end, he challenged me. He was actually really cocky because he's so confident that Jesus is not God in flesh. And he said, show me one verse where it says he's God. They go, well, it's not like one verse.

I mean, I can show you. The Father calls Jesus God. Hebrews 1 to 8. The son, he says, I throw no goddess forever and ever.

I mean, there it is. When I quoted it to another guy earlier, well, that's out of Psalm 45. And the context there is about this. I said, yeah, but the New Testament writers applying it to Jesus. Yeah, but Moses was called God. I said, but this is what God's calling Jesus, quoting this issue.

Is he or is he not? Because it says worship him and all this stuff. They just, they work so hard at damning themselves. So anyway, this one guy, we're sitting there talking and he says, show me where the Bible says Jesus is God. I said, okay. And I got this long range plan because I know what they're going to say. And I said, go to John 8.58.

And John 8.58, Jesus says, before Abraham was, I am. And they pick up stones to throw at him. And he just jumps in and starts to answer it.

I go, wait, dude, wait, wait, wait, wait. I said, I got a question for you. And I said, why did the Jews want to kill him? Why did they want to kill him?

And he wouldn't, he ignored that question, went up to something else. Well, over here, 1 Corinthians 8.6, it says this. And over there, I go, dude, what does it say right here?

Right here in this verse, you know, John 8.58. And it says, why would they want to kill him? And then he was off in their direction. Come on, why would they, you know, what's going on? And I don't remember what he said because he wouldn't really, you know, these guys are squirming. Okay, they're squirming.

They don't want to face the real issue that the text has. So then I went to John 10.30 with him and I said, oh, look. And I said, did the Pharisees believe Jesus is God?

He said, no, of course they don't. And I said, okay. I said, John 10.30, I and the Father are one. The Jews picked up sons of Genneth, throw at him. And he said, many good works of the Father, I'm showing you.

For which of these are you stoning me? For good work we don't stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God. I said, now, I said, did the Pharisees believe he's God? He says, no, and you don't either. So you agree with the Pharisees. And he did not like that. And it, you know, I said, he goes, no, I don't.

Yes, you do. They deny he's God in flesh. And you deny he's God in flesh. You agree with the Pharisees.

This is what it is right here. They don't believe he's God in flesh. You agree with the Pharisees. I do not.

Yes, you do. If you, you agree with the same philosophy, the same thing about Jesus, that he's not God. They're denying it. And he didn't like that, okay. You know, he, and then he just talked really fast, and then went to, well, here, you know, in John 9. And it went, wait, wait, wait, right here. Look at what we're talking about.

Look at what we're saying, dude. What's it say, you know? And then I asked him, I says, what did he say that caused him to want to kill him? Where was it that he's claiming to be God?

Where is it? Now, this is the problem. I'll ask these guys, but some people, they just don't give you time to answer a question. They just jump in, and I ask them, please, let me finish. You know, and they just jump right in.

They don't care. And so I said, what was it he said? And then he finally answered it. I and the Father are one. I said, well, then what about that means that you're claiming to be God? Because I want to go to Deuteronomy 6.4. Here all is, or the Lord our God is one. Okay? And if that's what he's meaning, if that's what's going on, then you're saying that that verse means he's claiming he's to be God.

So which is it? So these guys, they don't like it when I put the theological vice grips on them. And then they got to, they try and dodge, I guess you could say. They dodge, and they try and get around things and don't want to participate anymore. And then they go, when they leave, then they claim victory.

Say, Matt couldn't answer anything. And stuff like that. Another one, I said to another guy, I said, look, in Psalm 116 4, Psalm 116 4, it says, I called upon the name of Yahweh. Oh, Yahweh, I beseech you, save my life. I said, that's a prayer, the phrase, call upon the name of Yahweh.

The phrase, right? And he goes, that's the God, right? And he said, yes.

He says, okay. So then the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation done by the Jews in around 200 B.C., give or take, they translated the Old Testament into Greek. It's called the Septuagint. And they translated the phrase like that phrase and other phrases like in the Bible. In the Old Testament, you call upon the name of the Lord. With me, he goes, yeah. So the phrase, call upon the name of the Lord, in Greek, is addressed to the God Almighty, right? He goes, yes.

All right. In 1 Corinthians 1, 2, the church and everyone everywhere who calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus, they call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. It's the same phrase. And I said, why would Paul the Apostle use that and apply it to Jesus? Because he's his representative.

That was the best they've got. He's his representative. Wait a minute. So that means the church calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus. It means they're praying to Jesus.

That's the title of a deity because you know it's to God Almighty only. So why would he do it? They just don't want to believe. And then someone asked me an interesting question.

I'll tell you my answer. He says, why didn't God just make it more clear about who Jesus is and the Trinity and all this stuff? And I said, I believe, in part, that it's because those who don't have eyes to see and ears to hear won't be able to discern the truth in God's word. And you will work hard at damning yourself by twisting it because you don't have that ability to see that truth. I said, I think that's one of the reasons it's written like that.

Anyway, that was a synopsis of four hours in about 10 minutes. Hey, we have nobody waiting. I want you to give me a call. Please do a 772072276. I want to hear from you. I want you to give me a call. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show.

Hope you enjoyed that little description summarization. In fact, I don't know if any of you were there last night, and you want to give me a call, tell me what you thought. I want to hear from you. I don't care if you agree with me.

Don't agree with me. Give me a call if you were there. We had, I don't know, 100 or 200 people watching, I think they said.

And so I don't know. And I didn't have time to let people know that I was going to go on. I had to just get on the phone and just get going.

And so I was on for four hours, and that does happen. Hey, if you want to give me a call, 8772072276, let's get to Sean from Ohio. Hey, Sean. Let me try this again.

Welcome. Oh, man. What do you got, buddy?

Hey. I mean, I have several questions on this black box. Several questions, and then we, okay, try it again. We kind of lost you there, but go ahead. I feel like the struggle is going to be with health.

Because there's feedback. Your struggle is going to be with what? If you're moving or walking or driving, it might be difficult. I don't know where you're at, but try it again. Well, I just parked. How do we sound? Oh, you sound pretty good now. Okay. Go ahead.

All right, perfect. So my wife and I are sitting here driving home from work, and we were curious as to your thoughts. Really about predestination? Okay. Or about if we have free will, or if we're called, how do we have free will? Well, we always define our terms first, okay? So predestination is God's action in willing and arranging certain events to occur, okay?

God brings about certain things, all right? Okay. You with me? Okay. Yeah. All right. So Ephesians 1-11 says, God works all things after the counsel of his will. Okay. So now let's define free will.

Now, we'll just cut to the chase here. Free will is the ability to make a choice that's not forced upon you. It's consistent with your nature. If God is holy, he can only choose holy things. If someone is a slave of sin, as Romans 6, 4-20 says, verse 6-20 says, well, then he can only choose sin, right?

All right. Well, right, we're all born with a sin nature. Yes, we are. We're all by nature children of wrath, Ephesians 2-3, and God regenerates us. So he causes us to be born again, 1 Peter 1-3. We're born again not of our own will, John 1-13. We're made new creatures, 2 Corinthians 5-17. Okay? And God grants that we believe, Philippians 1-29. He grants us repentance, 2 Timothy 2-25.

He also grants that we come to Christ, John 6-65. Okay? You with me? Yes. Okay.

Yes. So we would agree that Jesus had free will. No one forced him to do anything. He had free will. Would you agree he had free will?

I would agree. Okay, good. Now, in John 5-19, Jesus says, Truly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, unless it is something he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, he thinks the Son also doesn't like manner. So now Jesus is saying that he can't do anything unless it is something he sees the Father doing. John 5-19. In John 5-30, I can do nothing of my own initiative. As I hear, I judge.

My judgment is just. But Jesus has free will. I agree he does. So he says he can do nothing of himself.

I agree he does. He has free will, but he is also God incarnate. So, he is God in the flesh. And God is not capable of lying, and all these things that God just by nature is good. So, I mean, I agree with Jesus has free will, but being, you know, God incarnate. I mean, just by nature he is going to be the Divine. Go ahead.

Yes, okay. But Jesus had free will, and he could only do what the Father had for him to do. Jesus came to do the will of the Father, not his own will. In John 6-38, okay, he says, I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. He came down to do the will of the Father. He had free will, but he freely chose to come down and do the will of the Father and do nothing of his own initiative.

Why? Because in the inter-territarian communion, the Father ordained that the Son would be the one who would redeem. The Son chose to agree, and we get looser terminology here, but this is what happened. And yet he had free will. So, we can see free will operating in Christ, and yet he was ordained to do what he did because he's under the law as a man. Now, also, God works all things after the counsel of his will, even your free will choices.

You can choose to drive left, right, straight, fast, slow. You can choose to eat what you want tonight, to have a glass of water at exactly 8 p.m. or not exactly at 8 p.m. You can do what you want, no one's forcing you. So, you have free will, and God is encompassing all of that free will. So, imagine a fish in a goldfish bowl, a small bowl, and the fish is free to move wherever it wishes, wherever it desires, and you're free to take that bowl in your hands and move it where you want it to go. So, this is a brief analogy, but God is capable in his sovereignty to move your heart where he wishes it to go. Proverbs 21, 1 says he moves the heart of the king where he wishes it to go, and he's the one who can direct your steps, and yet you still have free will. It's easy for God to do. Are you with me?

Absolutely. Now, let me give you an illustration I use a lot. I preamble it by saying, I can cause you to do something I want you to do while you are exercising your free will. So, I can cause you to do what I want you to do.

Go ahead. My wife is actually sitting here with me, and she has posed a question that since God can, as you stated, change heart or cause the king to feel how he wishes him to feel, and none shall perish, no, not even one. That's what it says in Scripture as well.

No, no, no, no, no. It doesn't say none will perish. It says none that you have given me will perish, and there will be people who go to hell.

That's where I was going with that. Since he can't control what he wants to control, why would he allow anybody to go to hell? Wait, he can't control? You just said that he can, I forget how you termed it with the king's heart. He moves the heart of the king where he wishes it to go. Proverbs 21.1. Right, so he can move the heart of anybody.

Yes, he can. Where he wishes it to go. That's correct. So why would any of us go to hell if the Lord can move the heart where he wishes it to go?

Because God chooses not to redeem them. Okay. All right.

Are you there? Okay. You may not like that answer. We've got a break. We've got a break. We'll talk about this because this is true Christian theology, not the imitation stuff taught in a lot of churches where God has his hands tied and he's waiting for us to make salvation possible in our own lives.

That's a heresy being taught in a lot of churches. So hold on. If you want, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. Let's see how this goes. Let's see if he's still there. Sean, are you still there? Yes, sir.

All right. Here, let me just jump in to the deep end. A lot of churches teach that the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Caucasians serve for Jesus. He's dressed in a woman's nightgown and he's standing at the door of your heart asking for permission for you and your wisdom to let him in. That is a false doctrine that's taught in a lot of churches. It is not the case that he's waiting for us.

The power of God is infinite. He does what he desires. Now, in 2 Peter 3, 9, he doesn't want any to perish, right? People say he wants all to come, right? Yet Jesus speaks in parables so people will perish in Mark 4, 10 through 12. They ask him, why does he speak in parables? He specifically says, so they won't be forgiven.

He says that, Mark 4, 10 through 12. People are shocked by that. I could go to Romans chapter 9 and I could read about how God in his sovereignty chooses some and not others. People don't like it. They don't like it because they follow the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Caucasians serve for Jesus. They've been told that it's up to you, this humanism that's the corruption of the church. It's up to you and your wisdom. It's humanistic philosophy.

It's man-centered. And someone said, well, then why does he still find fault? This is Romans 9, 20. On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God?

The thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this, will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared before him for glory. And I could also go to Proverbs 16, 4. The Lord has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil. People are like, where? I've never been taught that.

I go, I know. Not that this is all it has to be focused on, but why is it people aren't taught these things? It's right in the scripture. Because too many churches have, I have to say it, sorry, but too many churches have a man-centered theological perspective. It's up to man's wisdom, man's ability. In fact, the cross only becomes efficacious when you apply it by your faith. That's when the power of Christ's blood becomes real.

Humanist philosophy all over the place. Check this out. I'll read some verses. John 13, 18. Jesus said, I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen.

The word chosen is eklegami. He says he's chosen them. In Acts 9, 15, Jesus says to the guy, Paul the Apostle got knocked off the horse and was sent to the tanner. And the Lord said to him, go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine.

So God specifically chose him, chose him specifically to be a minister to the Gentiles. Romans 11, 7. What then that Israel was seeking for it had not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it.

The rest were hardened. Colossians 3, 12. As those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion. 2 Thessalonians 2, 13. We should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation.

And it can go on and on and on. So you see, that's what the scriptures actually teach. Let me ask you this about the chosen versus the non-chosen. If somebody is not chosen by God to go to heaven, do you think that this individual will never succumb to Jesus and why he came down here to pay the penalty for our sins? They would just, you know, consider sin nature and just live that life and have no possibility of redemption? That's right.

That's right. And your wife is probably rolling her eyes or bugging her eyes out saying, that's not right. I would say, if you have any objections, this is what I say to people, I mean this politely, find it in scripture. That's always the key.

Let me give an illustration of something. I mean, I live off of, and I'm really enjoying what you're doing right now because, I mean, I've spent time in prison. I'm born again and we held Bible studies in the block. And if anybody said anything, you immediately said, where's that scripture, go find it.

I mean, that was our retort, anything said. Just so you know, I did nine years of prison ministry in many different prisons from low level to high level, under the gun and in the yard and things like that. And so I know I've taught many hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of times in prison.

And that's one thing I always liked about the men. Well, where does it say that? It's all across the prison system. They want to see it in scripture.

I love that. In fact, I was just going to give you an analogy of something. And so this is kind of apropos. Let's say that there's a prison with 100 men in it. We'll just use men and 100 of them. Every one of them is a sinner. Every one of them is covetous and has done bad things, murdered in his heart, maybe in real life, coveted, chosen, lying, stolen.

I mean, this is, you know, by analogy, this is us. But there's these 100 men in prison. They all deserve judgment. All people deserve judgment. Because all people are sinners by nature, Ephesians 2-3. In fact, if we go to Romans 5-19, this is what Paul the Apostle says. Through the one man's disobedience, that's Adam's sin, the many were made sinners. The were made sinners is what's called the aorist passive indicative in the Greek.

It means past tense and it happened to them. They didn't do it themselves. They were made sinners by Adam's sin.

Now, I'm going to get back to the prison thing in a sec. But they were made sinners by Adam's sin. The reason is because of the doctrine called federal headship. That the male represents the descendants, not the female. Adam and Eve were in the garden. She sinned first, but sin entered the world through Adam, not through her. Romans 5-12. So Adam is the first one and Jesus is called the last Adam in 1 Corinthians 15-45. The last Adam.

He's also our federal head. He represented his people. This is why Adam represented his.

This is a very slight dive into that topic, but it's worth getting into deeply. So, back to the prison analogy. There's these men in there and they all belong to them. They're by nature wrong. They're sinners.

They are condemned by nature. And someone goes and chooses, let's just say, ten of them. And he saves ten of them out of that punishment that's coming to them. And he just chooses to do it and he can. Is he wrong for not saving eleven?

Well, of course not. They all belong where they are. They should go to judgment.

They should. That's what's natural. No one can force him to go in and save more or not or less. He just chooses what he desires.

And he's gracious in that. The rest go where they belong to go. God's not stopping them from going.

Letting them do what they freely, of their own will, desire to do. Rebel against God. Just like last night I spent four hours talking to people who were denying the Trinity, denying the deity of Christ. They're working hard at damning themselves. Just like atheists. I'll give them arguments for God's existence. They continue to deny them. Only in God's mercy if he grants them repentance, 2 Timothy 2.25.

And grants that they have faith, Philippians 2.129. Now the question is, why doesn't he do it with more? And that's the question I can't answer. Why doesn't he do it with everybody? That's a good question.

That is the question. Like my wife just said, he's sovereign. He has the ability to do what he wishes, do what he wills.

So I've thought a lot about this a lot, and I can't help but wonder if somewhere, somehow, something has to do with us. And as Christians, what we do and how we preach and teach. And how much we get that gospel out.

Because the gospel is the power of God to salvation, Romans 1.16. So I have this saying that I pray and I say, Lord, if they're not elected from the foundation of the world to be saved, please elect them from the foundation of the world to be saved. And what I'm saying is, I just don't know how it all works. I don't know if God considers my prayers sanctified by the blood of Christ in part of his sovereign plan to redeem someone, because I'm asking. But then there's problems with that, but then there's solutions with it, and it gets really complicated.

So it's above my pay grade. And I just know that God's sovereign, and our job is to preach the gospel. And funny thing is, the more we preach, the more people get saved. So it works, you know?

Right. And we have the ability to do that. My wife and I both work in the recovery space. We help people, you know, struggling with substance use disorder and mental health diagnoses. You know, get clean and change their life. I mean, we get to, we, in essence, I believe we preach.

We just don't, we don't do it from behind the pulpit. Hey, we got another break. If you want to hold on, please do. If you don't, just hang up, and I'll continue on afterwards. Okay, who's going to vote? Matt.

Matt. Okay. Please continue the conversation, but I'm going to, I'm going to let you go. I want to thank you for your time. Okay. All right, man.

God bless. All right. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

We have five open lines. Give me a call. I'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the show. You know, years ago, when I was doing radio, I've been doing radio now for 18 years, but years and years ago, I remember thinking, you know, that I'm going to keep the reformed stuff, the hard stuff of scripture on the back burner so that people aren't just turned off. And then after a while, I realized, but that's what God's word says. And so what I do now, and I've done for many years, is just tell the truth, what God's word says. It's up to the people to deal with God's word. It's up to them to submit to it or reject it. It's not just my opinion about these verses.

I can quote others to you about this. That's what the word of God says, that he is the sovereign king, and we are not. And we can ask him to save more, and when we do, more gets saved. I don't know how it all works, but I know that God is the sovereign king, and he wants us Christians to come to his throne and seek him as well as the welfare of others. He asks us to do that.

He wants us to. Let's get to David from North Carolina. Dave, welcome. You're on the air. How you doing, Matt?

And I heard you just talking about it. What is the responsibility for someone, especially if they're not saved? What is the person's responsibility? You talked about before about, hey, God can move the fishbowl of where the person lives or all over the place.

And you also talked about, you said there were Jehovah's Witnesses refusing to believe in the unity of Christ. So what is the person's responsibility to, let's say they were not saved? What is their responsibility then? The unsaved, you mean? The unsaved? What's the unsaved responsibility? I'm not hearing anything. No, I missed one word.

Is it the, what's the responsibility of the saved or the unsaved? Hold on just a second. Let me change the speaker. That's okay. Okay.

Yeah, I got it. Yeah, so anyway, what's the responsibility of who? The believer or the unbeliever? Let's say the person who's an unbeliever, because I called before. Unbeliever. Okay. I wasn't sure about the lordship of Christ. I feel like, I like that.

I trust him. I'm not 100% sure about it. I don't know.

I feel like. Do you have a question though? What's your question?

What is the person's responsibility? Because you can't make stuff happen. You can't make God do anything for you. Let's hold on. David, David. David, I don't understand your question.

And when you start to get to a question, you kind of trail off and go off into another direction before asking the question. So I'm confused. So I'm not sure what your question is. Okay.

What is the. Okay. If a person is not saved, what is their responsibility being that God is the one who has to call?

Okay. So the unbeliever is responsible to do the right thing. People may say, well, they can't do the right thing. You're right. They can't.

But that does not excuse them from doing what's right. God says in 1 Peter 1 16, he says, be holy for I am holy. He doesn't say be holy, you know, but if you don't really make it, it's okay. He doesn't say that. He doesn't say, you know, give it a try.

And if you can't, you don't know about it. That's all right. He doesn't say that. He is the standard of righteousness. He is the standard of holiness and perfection. We're obligated to do what is right before God, because he's the standard. He doesn't lower his standard for people.

He does not do that at all. If he did, then Jesus wouldn't have died for us. We could have been redeemed by our efforts and our sincerity and our self-improvement and exaltation. So what we have here is the responsibility of the unbelievers to believe God. Jesus says believe in God, believe also in me. That's John 14 1. That's the obligation of all people. But God grants it to some and not to others. Philippians 1 29. So what we have to understand is the principle that everybody is obligated to do what's right, whether they can or cannot, is irrelevant to the obligation. What God does is give us what we need in Christ. And so then we can do what is right before God. Okay?

Okay. So like the person that you were talking about five minutes ago, they are denying the deity of Christ. Well, they should humble their self and try to believe what the Bible says about Christ?

They're obligated to believe God at his word because the Scriptures are his word inspired. They ought to believe. They ought to do what's right. And so you ought to do what's right in every single event of your life.

Me too. We ought to never lie, never covet, never tell half truths, never lust, never this. This is what we're obligated to do as Christians.

But neither you nor me do these things. We don't do them perfectly. But that doesn't mean we're not obligated before God. And the same thing goes with the unbelievers. Just as we're obligated to do what's right and we fail, they too are obligated to do what's right and they fail. The difference between us is we're redeemed because Christ paid for our sins.

And they are not trusting in him. And so that's just what it is. So you have to pray for such people that they would humble their self or that God would touch them?

Yep. I ask God all the time. Like I have three daughters and one of them is a Christian and the other two are not. And my wife and I pray every night for them. For all our daughters, we pray that God would save them, the other two.

We pray for that because that's what we're obligated to do. And we ask God to open their hearts, to open their minds, to be gracious to them. And it's up to God. And our two daughters have purposely, knowingly rejected what they were brought up with and what they knew and what my wife and I taught them. They made their choice. So they're responsible for their own choice. But we ask God in his grace to do to them what he did to my wife and I. To redeem us, to change us, to shape us. That's what we ask.

And we'll see. And sometimes, you know, I remember hearing a story about a woman once who prayed for 27 years, I think it was, for her son. 27 years. And he finally became a believer. I never forgot that. It stuck with me.

And I'm wondering how many years from now I'm going to have to pray for my daughters before they repent and come to faith in Christ. I don't know. But I'm never going to stop. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I guess that's all.

I asked you a while back about, are you still there? I asked you a while back about calling Jesus Lord. Yeah. But I think that answered my question for right now. Okay. Well, that's fine. Oh, excuse me. Whoa. There's a yawn. My first one of the day. Oh, sorry about that.

Right there on the air. How many people are yawning right now? I'll get off of you if somebody has coughed. That's okay. That's all right, buddy.

God bless, man. No problem. Okay. Bye-bye. Okay. Bye. All right. Well, we don't have anybody waiting.

We've got about five minutes or four minutes left in the show. Let's see. Jim Harmon, your logic is stating God made an earth of devils.

Nowhere does it indicate such. What? God did not make an earth of devils. You know, sometimes I'll get comments like that. People don't hear what I'm saying. They don't listen. They just read into it. That means everyone's a devil.

No. There's only one devil, and God didn't make an earth full of devils. And then they fail to understand federal headship and primogeniture and the incarnation. And then they just jump and react, and they don't really study. And that's another thing. You see, I have to study everything. And what I do for a living, I'm telling you, I'm 66. I'm not slowing down. I'm still working more than 40 hours a week and retiring.

It's just a concept I'm pushing back for years and years. I've got too much to do. And I have to do their homework for them. I've got to study everything. I have to study philosophy. I have to study biology, genetics, epigenetics, mathematics, logic, theology, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, unity behind Islam. I've got to study all of it.

And then they all expect me to know everything about all of them. Oh, man, I don't, but I'm just telling you that there's a lot to study there. At any rate, so what I'm hoping is that, as I was, I'll just play off what we're talking about here, the previous caller, is that we don't know how God saves people. What I mean is how does he work that conviction thing in the heart, speaking into the person's heart, drawing them, doing that, how does he do that? I don't know. Why does he do it with more? I don't know. What is it that is working his decisions certain ways? I don't know. There's a lot I just don't know about.

And that's okay. But what I want to encourage people to do is if you have family members who are unbelievers, you pray for them. If you know your Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, and they're not saved if they believe official Roman Catholic theology, pray for their salvation. If you know Mormons, pray for their salvation because they're an occult. If you know Jehovah's Witnesses, pray for them. If you know atheists, pray for their salvation because you're asking the true and living God, you're asking him to save people, to redeem people, to forgive them. It's a good thing and he wants us to do that. Now, I don't have all the answers of why God doesn't save more.

I don't know. I'm just beginning to think about that more seriously and I can sense a shadow of some distant idea creeping towards me. That's what happens to me sometimes. It sometimes takes months and then it gradually surfaces and then I get some ideas.

That's kind of weird but that's what happens. So I'm sensing, you know, thinking, wait a minute, there's this, there's that. I can just cut back in my head just a couple of things. But I've got to think through them. I'm not saying I've got all the answers.

I certainly don't. But I don't know why God doesn't save more and I wish he would save more. But our obligation as Christians is to continually ask the Father to save people, continually ask him to open their hearts.

Now, let me ask you or tell you something. If any of you pray and ask God to change people's hearts, to save them, to forgive them but to change their hearts, to speak into their hearts and convert them into their hearts, then you're asking God to intervene in his sovereignty. You're submitting to the sovereignty of God and you're asking God to choose. You're asking God to work. You're asking God to do those things.

And I could get into that tangent for quite a bit but I won't. And we're about out of time so I'll just leave it at that but may the Lord bless you. We've got about 10 seconds before the music starts. And we'll be back on the air, Lord willing, tomorrow. And I teach a Bible study on Thursday nights so hopefully somebody might want to tune into that. We're going through Romans 6 and hopefully it'll be good technologically. And thanks Sola Gratia 7 for the $15 donation you just now gave on Rumble. rumble.com for the ministry. Praise God, brother. Thanks a lot.

And there's the music. I am out of here. May the Lord bless you all. And by his grace, we'll talk to you tomorrow. We'll see you. Have a good evening. We'll see you tomorrow.