Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. It's Matt Slick live. Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at KARM.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick live. Francis taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. If you're interested, if you want to email me, you can do that too. All you've got to do is go to your email and type in info at KARM.org, info at KARM.org. We can get right to it, just put in the subject matter, put something like, let's see, radio question or radio comment, and I can get to it. All right. All right. Sounds good. Sounds good.

All right. So, I had a good weekend and busy. I'm always busy. I've always got things to do. Working on an article today, how is Jesus going to return, because that was an issue.

I was dealing with some people in the pre-or-ism stuff last week, and the one guy who was saying that Jesus returned in 70 AD, it just, man, it doesn't make sense. So, there's that issue, and working with others as well. We'll do some videos tonight before we release a bunch. So, there you go. All right. All right.

Since nobody is calling me right now, but if you want to, 877-207-2276. So, let's get some questions here. Let's see, what's your take on the three men who appeared to Abraham in Genesis 18? So, let me go there.

I'm familiar with it. It's where the Lord appeared to Abram in Genesis 18. It's Abraham in Genesis 17.

It's Abram. So, he got his name changed at that point. So, it says the Lord appeared to him, and the word Lord there is Yahweh, appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the tent door at the heat of the day. When he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him. Now, why three? That's really interesting.

At any rate, he ran to the tent door and bowed himself to the earth, saying, My Lord, if you found favor in your sight, please let I pass your servant by. Now, I've actually been to that place. It's like there's a bunch of buildings around it in Israel, a bunch of buildings, and there's a school next to it.

And this is a true story. Nothing big happened, but there's a school with a lot of Muslims in it. And so, when we went there, 30 of us were walking around the area where the ruins are from Mamre, where Abraham was so long ago. So, myself and another friend of mine, Dave, and another guy, we kind of, you know, we've done martial arts, we've done stuff, and, you know, security-minded.

And so, you know, none of that big deal. We just kind of paid attention to the kids in the yard, and they came over the fence. And we've been told that sometimes they'll throw rocks at the tourists because, whatever. So, I walked over and just said, Hey, how are you doing, and do you speak English?

And some spoke English. So, they ended up coming through the fence, and we ended up talking to them and laughing and stuff like that, so that turned out nicely. So, there you go. It was no big deal. But we've been to that place. It was interesting. It's not that big.

It's like 150 feet by 150 feet, you know, 200 feet by 200 feet area next to a street. So, who was it who appeared? Well, you know, it says, you know, Yahweh appeared to him. Then there were three men. So, I don't know how to answer that.

I don't know what the actual thing is that really went on. But it does say that it appeared. Now, this is one chapter earlier, Genesis 17, 1. Now, when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord, that's Yahweh, appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty.

Walk before me and be blameless. I'll establish my covenant with you. So, Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him saying, as for my covenant with you, you know, it's very good talking about it. So, what it says is Yahweh appeared to Abram. And Abram bowed down, and he said, I'm God Almighty. Now, could you imagine something like that? I mean, you know, you're out there someplace, and lo and behold, somebody comes up, because it had to be a theophany, a pre-incarnate Christ most probably, and just walks up and says, I'm God Almighty.

What do you do? You know? Yeah, sure you are, you lightning bolt, I don't know. How did he know? So, probably a lot more going on than the text reveals. I think what they did was just, Moses just got the, you know, the Lord appeared to him.

Okay? And that was it, because that was the information. So, what I like is that three men appeared to him in Genesis 18, 1, but I also think as interesting as in Genesis 1, 26, notice the three plurals, then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and there's a more, there's the three plurals again. So, I can't help but wonder if something's going on with the hint of the Trinity there in the Old Testament, and so that's what I like to say. So, at the very least, I would say that the three men that appeared were, at the very least, angels, and at the very most, one of them may have been the pre-incarnate Christ, who appeared and says, I'm God Almighty, which would make sense.

So, that's my take on that. We have three open lines, if you want to give me a call, 8772072276, and let's go to Tim from Memphis. You're welcome. You're on the air. Hi, Matt.

Thanks for taking my call. I just had one question about Jonathan Cahn, and then my larger question for you is just to hear what you have to say about what's going on day by day right now in Israel. I don't know who Jonathan Cahn is, but personally, I'm glad that Israel is a cleaning house. Wait a minute, you say you don't know who Jonathan Cahn is? Correct.

The Harbinger, all these books on prophecy? I don't know who he is, sorry. Oh, that's okay.

He's just pretty famous, I thought for sure you'd be aware of him. But anyway, talk about Israel, and I'm going to hang up, I'd rather hear you talk, okay? I don't have any more questions. Okay. All right. Okay, thanks, Matt.

Appreciate it. Well, so yeah, personally, I'm glad that Israel is going into the Gaza Strip and getting rid of Hamas. Hamas is a dangerous, ungodly, horrible group of Muslims who want to kill, destroy, and stuff like that. So there's a lot of morons who were brainwashed by leftist media and leftist indoctrination camps called schools that think that Israel is the aggressor. No, it's Hamas, it's the Muslims who in the Quran, it specifically teaches to destroy all those who don't submit to Islam.

That's what it says. And so they're just carrying out what their false prophet Muhammad said. And they attack, you can go to Surah 9-5, Surah 9-29, you can go to where it says there to fight those unbelievers, and Surah 5-51, it says, don't take Jews and Christians as your friends. So Islam is against Israel, and they want to destroy Israel. And so when I was in Israel five, seven years ago, we were in the northern part of Israel and a rocket flew over our head. We didn't even know it, but we just got reported later that a rocket just went into Israel and it exploded.

That particular rocket didn't do any damage. So this is what they'll do, is they're destructive. And another thing that happens when I've been into two areas of Muslim-controlled areas in Israel is that as soon as you cross over into their territory, it becomes filthy.

Trash everywhere, filthy, unkempt, broken buildings, cement that's cracked, unrepaired roads that are bad, and this is how it is. They don't take care of what they've got. And they want to destroy Israel. So anyway, I'm glad that Israel's cleaning their clocks right now, personally. Get rid of Hamas. And that's it, unfortunately the civilians are getting caught in between. What Hamas does is, see, look this way, Israelis and Christians and America, all right, we would not take our infantry and hide them in a hospital or an orphanage and say, here come get us. We don't do that kind of a thing, but Muslims do. And so when they get attacked and anybody on the sideline gets injured, you see how bad you are for attacking the civilians? They use lies. And this is what the media is purporting, they just hate Israel.

This causes me to think about other things. In my opinion, I think our country's lost. I don't have much hope for our country. And the reason is because our media is taken over by the left, the movies, TV taken over by the left, the schools have been taken over by the left, and the churches are divided, the churches aren't doing anything.

The churches aren't standing up for righteousness sake. And I'm going to talk about something else, if that reminds me. And so the salt, it's lost its saltiness here, and God's taking his blessing off of this country. We're being invaded from the south, et cetera.

So you know that a lot of people who hate America have used this opportunity by the Biden crime family to be able to just enter our country and they're going to go into sleeper cells and then it'll strike. That's what I believe will happen. That's me. That's my opinion. And if you don't agree, well, okay, that's what I think is going to happen.

So that reminds me, you know, I don't know why it does, but it kind of does. Last night or yesterday I was on, I just checked my Facebook every now and then I checked and I stumbled on a thread of Christians who were insulting education. One guy started off a post or a comment in a post, he said, if I had my way, and I was on a search committee for a pastor, I would take all of the resumes that have seminary degrees and I would just put them in the trash automatically. And people, instead of saying, well, why would you do that, you know, what's the reasons, they were starting to say the same thing. That's right, because they're just egocentric people who want degrees to boast of.

And I was like, are you kidding me? What is wrong with the Christians today that they think like that? And it wasn't just one person or two, there's a whole bunch. And one of them was semi well known, I won't mention his name. And I jumped in and I said, that's a wrong attitude to have.

And I wrote some stuff and I got on them. I said, yeah, of course, some seminaries are bad, but look at the state of the Christian church today. I mean, people don't even know if Jesus is God in flesh, they can't even define what the Trinity is. They don't even know what the logic is and the issues and how to defend the Christian faith. And what they're taught is mamby-pamby theology from the pulpits and stories that go on for five to 10 minutes. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I was, I went to a church and won't say which one. And okay, great, a pastor, they're preaching and I'm gonna check this out. And I think it was seven minutes before he got to the actual scripture, seven minutes of intro warmup stories and a couple of jokes kind of a thing. And I was just, this is ridiculous.

And people love it because they've been fed candy, they crave candy instead of meat. Anyway, hey, we'll be right back, 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. Everybody, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, all you're going to do is dial 877-2007-2276.

I want to give me a call. And so I was talking about the issue of education and how so many Christians now don't like education. And I think they're being fed, my opinion, this is my opinion, okay, this is my opinion. I think they're being fed a lot of mamby-pamby stuff and not really getting into weaving into the theological perspective of God's very holy and deep word. When I preach and I teach, I usually give some theology just for a minute or two to tie things in so they understand how the broader picture of stuff works in scripture. And I find repeatedly that people are very interested in that and they'd say they don't hear that kind of stuff from the pulpit, generally speaking, that what the Trinity is and why it's important. So if I'm speaking on, say, something that talks about, you know, there's only one God, and I'll say, hey, and by the way, you know, I'll do two minutes, God is a Trinity of three distinct simultaneous co-eternal persons, and I'll maybe go to Romans 1-20 and talk about how the invisible attributes of God are made known in creation, and I might talk about God being Trinitarian and space and matter and time are actually of three aspects each. I show how this works and then say this is why it works, and then I'll say, in fact, look at this, and I'll say, I could connect all the dots, but I won't do it right now, but think about this, marriage is a Trinitarian covenant, it's between the couple and that's one covenant, it's between the couple and God, that's two covenants, it's between the couple and the other people, that's three covenants right there. The Trinitarian essence of God is all around us, we need to understand it, and there you go, and then go back into the sermon. You know, I do stuff like that, and people need to have that kind of a thing, and I absolutely never hear anything like that at all in any of the preaching I've ever heard. I don't hear stuff about the hypostatic union and the two natures of Christ, right, or the communication of the properties, or why you had to be God and man in order to atone for our sins, or why justification must be and can only be by faith alone and Christ alone and by grace alone, and go through the scriptures and talk about it. There's only a handful of the essentials, but I'm so ingrained to know them that when I preach about things like this, I teach people the basics of the Christian faith that need to be interjected into the text, not into the text, into the sermon. But what I find that people are doing more and more, pastors, I think it's a shame, I do, it's my opinion, I think it's a shame, is five minutes of illustration of a sermon and a story to begin something with.

Turn the crowd up, warm them up, and make them so that they're laughing and having a good comfortable time. And I think that is the wrong approach. And I think that pastors and teachers need to preach historical redemptive theological sermon. That means is that everything ultimately points to the cross, and that they need to also abandon humanistic philosophy, man-centeredness, I give you permission, God, the stupidity of that blasphemous statement, I give you permission to work in my life, I give you permission to come to my heart, the arrogance and foolishness of such statements, which are taught in pulpits across America and in songs. Good theologically trained individual would never say anything like that. But yet we have such heresies growing to the Christian church, the Christian church is so ineffective, because they don't see the theology, let me tell you what theology is, here's some theology, Jesus Christ is Lord, Jesus is Lord of your life, you need to trust in Christ by faith, you need to confess your sins before God, you need to realize that there's only one God in all existence, in all place, in all time, you need to understand that Jesus died on the cross and three days later rose from the dead in the same body he died in, there was a glorified body, you need to know that he ascended into heaven physically and will physically return, and that this is prophesied in Acts 1, 9-11. These are the basics, and do you hear these kinds of things taught from pulpits, do you hear them taught, do you hear pastors teach the basics of the faith, sprinkled here and there through various sermons, or let me ask you, do you get stories, big illustrations, as if that is what makes the word of God powerful, that's a problem. Isaiah 55-11 says the word of God will not come back empty without accomplishing what he desires it to do.

It's one of the things about speaking and public speaking, and by the way, thanks Mr. Kidd for the $12 rent, I appreciate it buddy, Mr. Kidd's great. I believe that the power of God, the very nature of the preaching of the word of God is powerful, and that the more we're in the scriptures, the more we're reading from the scriptures, the more we're looking at the scriptures, the better. That's one of the things I like about Calvary Chapel, and not all of them do the same thing. Just to tell you, Calvary Chapel's theology is not very deep, it's sufficient, and people can certainly grow in their relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and of all the churches that have ever attended, that's the one I've attended most, okay, I'm not knocking them.

And I don't agree with their pre-trib rapture stance, I don't agree with that at all, but that's okay, that's not what I divide over. But I'll tell you, I've heard different pastors speak over the years, and I sat under Chuck Smith, the founder of Calvary Chapel. Did that for several years in Southern California, heard him preach many, many times, and he was right to the scriptures, right to the word, and I think that's part of the success of the Calvary Chapel movement, is the word.

I want to know if part of that success is now just momentum of the style that they have. I long personally, I long for the power of God's word to be preached, I long for the exhortation of God's word to come forth, and that's something I don't really hear from God's word anymore. Now let me tell you what it means, exhortation, because it says here in Romans 12.8, the one who serves and is serving, and teaching and is teaching, he exhorts in his exhortation. And in 1 Corinthians 1.10, Paul says, now I exhort you, brethren. Now he's going to tell us what an exhortation is, okay, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and the same judgment.

For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas, I'm of Christ. Has Christ been divided? Paul is without crucified for you, was he? Or are you baptized in the name of Paul?

Notice what he's doing. He's doing an exhortation. To exhort means to call people on the carpet, to give them admonition, to give them warning, to speak strongly. Do you get that from your church? Do you get that kind of thing from the pulpit of the church that you attend? You get exhortation. I'm not saying all the time, you know, sometimes you don't need that at all, and sometimes the scriptures aren't doing that at all.

That's fine. But when you go through the scriptures, there's exhortation. It should be part of the sermons, occasionally, and I said, what should happen? But is it? I don't think so. I've not heard it. And I'm saddened by the, in my opinion, is the weakness of the preaching of God's word that is rampant in America.

Though I do know some pastors that do preach with exhortation, but not enough. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Give me a call.

Wide open lines. I'll be waiting for you. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, and welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. I want to hear from you.

Give me a call. All right. All right. Let's get back to some more emails. All right. Yeah.

I like doing emails every now and then. It's nice. All right. So we got that. All right.

All right. So, uh, I hope you guys don't get too upset when I talk about preaching and teaching. Maybe you go to a church and you go, no, it's not like that at my church.

Praise God. I'm not saying all of them are bad, you know, and all of them like that. I'm just saying what I've seen, of course I get bored in church pretty easily. Yeah, I do.

My wife, she says she gets stuff out of sermons. I'm like, come on, get this and that, you know, so we've got to take it from the source here. All right. Let's see. How about this one? Okay. Hi, Matt. I'm learning a lot through the live show. Good.

I've trusted your website for years, but didn't discover the live broadcast until recently. Two questions, if you forget the time, and reformed thinking. Is it possible for one to become a genuine born again regenerated Christian if that one is somehow not predestined for salvation?

No, it's not possible to become born again without being predestined to salvation in Reformed theology because that's how you get saved is by predestining you. That's the election of predestination. God chooses and then God predestines, okay? That's out of Ephesians 1.4. That's what it says, you know, he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we be holy and blameless and love he predestined us to adoption.

So election predestination are tied together in Ephesians 1.4 and 5. What if one, what if one, what, begs, begs, what? With all of their, oh, begs, that's the wrong spelling. With all their being, is it possible that it would not be God's will? People are not going to beg for salvation unless God is working on them because the Bible says you cannot come to me unless it's granted you from the Father, John 6.65, and he draws you, John 6.44, the natural man cannot receive the things of God, 1 Corinthians 2.14. So whenever anybody is being, has this inclination, this desire to pursue God is because God is working in their hearts and they have the ability to resist, they absolutely do. And we don't understand how God works if he, you know, overcomes resistance or what or changes. We don't, I'm not getting to the possibilities here, but someone would not beg to be saved and then they couldn't be saved because God didn't predestine them.

They wouldn't work like that. It does not work like anyone who wants to be saved is they're having a good thought and these good things come from God. Is God working? Okay. A lot of people think that Reformed theology also known as Calvinism is this robotic kind of mechanistic kind of a thing.

It's not it. God woos, God draws, God desires that people come to know him and he works in them. We don't know all the particulars, but he does do that. Or by the fact, he goes on the email, or by the fact that one earnestly begs for salvation despite the ungodliness of one's character and behavior that is this plea is in fact evidence of God choosing or it is, it's evidence of God's work.

Absolutely. I mean, how many of you, if you think about it out there, you know, are Christians now and before you became a Christian, you felt that tug, that subtle movements and the speech into your heart, conviction, we will call it of the spirit working on you or you just feel something. You just know you get this drawing, that kind of a thing. A lot of people have had that. That's God working. He doesn't just come along and just elbow you upside the head and now you're saved. And a lot of people think that's what Reformed theology teaches. That's not what Reformed theology teaches.

That's not it at all. We do teach that God desires people to be saved and that he works in people's lives and that we need to trust in him. And how that works, there's particulars and some nuances, but the Bible does say you cannot come to him unless it's granted to you from the Father. So this person goes on, what is your analysis or commentary about a born again, regenerated Christian who lives a lifelong cycle of earnestly following the Lord and then falling into serious immorality, sin over a lengthy period and then seriously repenting and trying to change with zealous seeking of God, serving God, and then again falling into a protracted period of immorality and then again entering into a serious season of desperate repentance seeking God's salvation from actual sin, et cetera, what would you counsel such a person who is a Christian? And this is what the statement is, he is a Christian. I would say that such a person who is a Christian is a Christian who's struggling. And we all do this to different degrees.

There are some who go into some pretty bad sin and some who don't. And we struggle, okay? We all have these periods of time. So we could say the period of time is a few minutes to a few hours to a few days to a few weeks to a few months. And would someone say, well, if it's a few months, it means you're not saved. Well, how do you know?

Why not a few minutes? Where's the dividing line that says a few minutes of struggle is okay and a few months of struggle is not as far as being a Christian goes? And I'm not saying it's okay to struggle and we don't take care of our sins and it's okay not to repent. I'm not saying that at all, but we all have our struggles. And so what I'd like to see in someone who struggles is, I don't want to see them sin, I don't want to see them struggle in their sin, that's not what I want. But when I talk to people who are struggling and they don't like what they see, they don't like what they are, they don't like how they've been and they're struggling and they're failing, well, that to me is a sign of life in them. It's telling me that they are saved and they're struggling, they are working to sanctify themselves and sometimes people just get tired and they have a bad idea of what God wants of them. And they think that God's going to be unhappy with them and they're going to go to hell because they sinned for a little bit.

No, that's not the case. God doesn't abandon us, he doesn't leave us on the curb, he doesn't kick us out, okay. And that's another something. That's another something. I've got to do a video. I keep forgetting about this.

I've got to do a video on this. But I've talked to some atheists and there's one atheist in particular I spoke with and we talked over the phone about this issue. And I'm going to say this, I've heard other atheists say this too, just a couple three, who've talked to me like a normal person instead of a combat, someone to combat because I'm a Christian and debate, but just in conversations, you know. They've said that a lot of times in Christian homes, one of their children might become homosexual and the parents will kick them out just because of that.

And I said, really? And I've had two of them tell me, two atheists tell me that they have the place to go. And so they turn to the atheists and the atheists will take them into their homes and give them shelter and food and love. And so they become atheists. They reject God.

And parents will do this because they're Christians and there does come a time with tough love, we'll talk about that in a second, but if you have a son or a daughter who just comes to you and says, look, I'm struggling with homosexuality or whatever it is, you don't kick them out. You say, really? Well, let's talk. What's going on? And well, I've been doing this for months now, a couple of years, I've been hiding it and, you know, et cetera, et cetera, what are you going to do, kick them out?

No. You say, well, you know, I love you and you know, I believe it's sin and that cannot be allowed in the house, but you're welcome to stay here. You're welcome to stay here and, you know, until you get your feet, but I'm not going to approve of your actions, but I want you to know I love you. This kind of a thing is what Christians need to be doing, and I've heard so many accounts from atheists of the, mom and dad find out a son or a daughter's, you know, homosexual lesbian, and they're out within 24 hours, they kick them out, and it's horrible. Where's the love of Christ?

Where's the love of the Lord Jesus? Now, if they are, the children are being deceptive repeatedly and going against your wishes repeatedly, say they're doing bad things, doing drugs in the house, stuff like that, and they won't repent, then it gets to the point where you give them a warning, I'm sorry, but you can't do this. You're going to have to be out of the house. You've got two weeks to get your stuff together and then you've got to be gone. That's okay, but this automatic get rid of them thing, it's a problem, it's a problem. This issue here is started by the email this guy gives, you know, someone's struggling with their sin.

What do you do with that? You know, on the radio I'm very, very to the point, and I tell people how it is, but you know what? You know, in real life, you know, I'm very patient, loving, and you know, I've had homosexuals here in the house, trans here in the house, and treated them all fairly, and that's just the way it is.

I love them, but I don't approve of their sin, and they know that, and they know that's not permitted here, but they're welcome to be here. I'm going to help them out, show them the love of Christ. All right, hey look, there's a break, last segment coming up, 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. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. Let's get to Catherine from Salt Lake City. Catherine, welcome, you're on the air.

Thank you. I just have a question about Psalm 91. It just says, like in verse 3, God will keep us from deadly pestilence. Well, I know Christians who died from COVID, and that, you know, a thousand may fall at your side, but it won't approach you. You know, we know Christians who've been in accidents and maims, so I just ask the Lord Jesus, what can I claim here? Is it ultimately that we will be saved and protected? So I don't find Psalm 91 comforting just because I don't know what I can claim here.

Claim, that's interesting. Have you listened to Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyer, by any chance? You know, I don't.

I understand what they're teaching. This is just my reading in my Bible study, we're doing Psalm 91 now, and nobody's been able to answer this question for me. Alright, so it says, He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say to the Lord my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. Now that's very important, in God whom I trust. You're trusting the Lord. There's a verse that says, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. Is that in Job? I don't know. Yet I will trust in him.

Let's see. And it's, oh, you're good, Job 13.15, okay, very good. So we have to understand the theological perspective here. Though he slay me, I will hope in him, nevertheless I will argue my ways before him.

That's what Job 13.15, good call. So when we look at scripture, we have to understand that it's not a formula, a bag of formula things and fortune cookie things we can live our lives by in every single area. So when it says, in my God whom I trust, we know that God allows certain things to come to us. We know that he will, it's in his will to allow us to physically die, and that death can be by varying things, car accident, deformity, sickness, old age, whatever it might be.

So that's an overall thing. So we look at these kinds of statements and psalms as praise through song and poetry. Where it is, he who delivers you from the snare of the trapper, what do you mean? So God delivers you from a snare of a trapper?

These are meant for small animals, so not people. So he's being poetic. And for the deadly pestilence. Now he knows, the psalmist knows, because the people in Israel had many pestilences that came through and killed them.

He knows that. And he will cover you with his pinions, right, his feathers, and under his wings you may seek refuge, his faithfulness is a shield and a bulwark. So what he's saying is, when God delivers, he delivers you from these things. And that we should praise him accordingly as we trust in him. Now what happens if you pray for traveling mercies on a trip from here to the neighboring state?

And then you get in a bad car accident. Does that mean that your prayers didn't work? Well, it's not an issue of working as though it's a formula that you claim before God and say, this is now mine, therefore I'm safe. Oh, the prayer didn't work, I got in an accident.

That's not our attitude. It always must be, Lord, we pray that you would deliver us from evil, from accidents, from stuff, but nevertheless, Lord, if you allow it, may it only be a little fender-pender or whatever. And what we're doing is we're trusting him through it.

And like when I travel and I fly on a plane, I go someplace to come back, I thank the Lord for safe delivery. Thank you for that. And so this is what's going on. That's what's been. It's not a formula that we need to understand that, you know, like COVID. I had COVID for one day. My wife had it for 10 days. And with me, it was like just a head cold and I was done.

And she had it for 10 days, took her while to recover. So different people, different stuff. So how would she, you know, and I look at that?

God delivered me and one day delivered her in 10, you see? And when we trust, whether it's one day, whether it's death, but whatever, the bottom line is, you know, like the first part said, we trust him, regardless of what he allows. And we trust through it. That's right. We trust God through it. Okay.

So just writing it down, this is very, very helpful. Good. Because we've got to make sure that we don't look at, you know, we, I claim this promise for myself and therefore COVID, you have no power over me. Okay. People do that. Right. Yeah, I've heard that.

Yeah. And that's wrong. We say, Lord, if it's your will that I'd be sick and die, then so be it. Lord also, if it's your will that I not be sick and die, so be it.

May I serve you either way. This is an act of faith. You know, George Mueller was, he called him the orphan king and he was an extremely dedicated man of prayer, extremely dedicated.

He's worth reading and studying. He died in the 1800, late 1800s and just a magnificent, godly man of prayer. Did magnificent things. And so he and his wife and her daughter was dying from some sickness and nothing the doctors did would save her, nothing.

And so she was dying, he said, he wrote, he was dying and there was no hope. So they, they prayed and they said, Lord, if it's your will to take her, then you receive all the glory. We trust in you. We praise your name.

We know that for a while you let us have her, we thank you. But if you hear us, Lord, our will, our desires, that she stay with us, that you be merciful. And so this is the kind of prayer that he prayed and she recovered. Is it because of that prayer? I can't say yes, no. But that's the attitude we're to have in our prayers and not demand of God and make stupid claims. And the word you use, I'm thinking of Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyer and a pot of Confession heretics.

That's what I'm thinking of. You may say, man, I'm not into that at all. Good for you. Good for you.

Yeah, you're just level headed. But we can't say, Lord, you know, you deliver us from the deadly pestilence. And we could add, and even if you don't, Lord, I will praise you. Just like it says in Job 13, 15, though he slay me, I'll hope in him, who's the he who does the slinging? God.

Wow. So that's why I would never be a successful pastor. I teach the whole of scripture.

I'm not going to teach you what you want to hear. Right. But I love that. Even if he doesn't, we present our request. And even if he doesn't, then we trust and praise him that his will be done.

That's right. And then we ask... You know, like in Isaiah 41, 10, it says, So do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you. So we can claim his strength through whatever, right?

Yeah, yeah, we always do that. We always want to depend on God. You know, a real life situation, my wife and I had a son who we knew before he was born, he probably would die in our arms. He had holoprosencephaly, a very rare thing. And we constantly prayed for his healing and his deliverance. And well, he was born, and he passed away shortly after there. And he died in our arms. And so, I can say that God delivered him, God healed him by delivering him into his own hands.

That's a legitimate way of looking at it. It hurt us greatly, but we never complained to God. Never complained. Why this? Why that? Why us?

Why this? We don't do that. We don't do that with the Lord.

We say, Lord, why did you choose me because I'm nothing. Maybe that. Oh, man. Yeah. That's right. And so, we look to him and we trust him. Didn't David complain, start in the Psalms complaining? Yeah, there's this Psalm, it says, Why did the wicked prosper, for example.

Right. And the thing about the Psalms that I really like is they're real. They're songs of desperation, of imprecation, with wishing harm on someone else. Get the enemies. May they be hoisted by their own petard, that kind of thing. Lord, deliver my son. Lord, deliver me. If I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall not fear. It's all kinds of stuff of human life. And it's all there. There are imprecatory Psalms that's wishing harm upon people.

God, get them. Like Psalm 82, for example, is an imprecatory Psalm. Verse 7, it says, Nevertheless, you will die like men. And it's a judgment against the wicked judges. So there's so much found in the Psalms, and they're songs. So we have to remember they're songs that were sung, and that's what they were. Does it mean we can't trust them?

Of course, no. We trust them. It means take them as what they are, songs that were sung. Now, what do we take out of them? Well, we take the truth out of them, okay? Yeah.

Yeah, that's all I want, is just the truth. That's right. Yeah. Well, thank you. I know.

Let, you know, let you go so another caller has a chance. Thank you so much. Well, you're welcome so much. God bless, Catherine. God bless. Bye.

Okay. Well, we don't have any other callers waiting, but, you know, for some reason I'm on Psalm 42. I'm going to read 9, 10, and 11 in that Psalm. I will say to God my rock, why have you forsaken me?

Can we claim that for ourselves? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me. Well, they say to me all day long, where is your God? Why are you in despair, oh my soul, and why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him, the health of my countenance and my God. Even in despair, he's praising God. This is one of the things about Psalms. I love the Psalms for that. They're real issues, real life, and the Psalmist would write and sing as worship these things before God, before the king, and they were inscripturated. And you could see in that time and in that place, there's many difficulties for them to endure, and yet, hope in God, for I shall yet praise him in the midst of all the difficulties.

We need to claim those for ourselves as well. The help of my countenance and my God, he uplifts us and causes us to smile as we trust in him. And yet, this is the idea that's also there in the Psalms, but it's through the trials and tribulations, and those are often the best times of life, not going through them, but having gone through them.

For we've grown the most and learned how to be humble more than other ways. All right, we are out of time. May the Lord bless you. By his grace, we'll be back on there tomorrow, and we'll talk to you then. God bless everybody. Have a great evening.