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.

All right. Welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick, and you're listening to Matt Slick live. Today is November 10th, 2023. So if you want to give me a call, you can.

We have wide open lines, 877-207-2276. And I just want to say thanks for all the listeners out there. And I know that most of you enjoy the show, not all. And I just want to thank you for your participation and for your kindness. And I don't do this very often.

I just, I wasn't even planning this until just a second. But we do stay on the air by your support. Please consider supporting us. We do need that.

I know that the finances for everybody is getting tough, and it is. But if you could spare $5 a month or even a little bit more, that would be fine. You can go to CARM.org forward slash donate.

C-A-R-M dot O-R-G forward slash donate, and all the information needs right there. We don't need a whole bunch. We just need enough. That's all it is. Just like Abraham Lincoln said when asked, how long should your legs be?

And he says long enough to reach the ground. Well, we just need enough to reach what we need. That's all we're asking, by God's grace. So there you go. Now, often on Fridays, I read hate mail and wacko mail because, well, I like it. And so if you have any comments or questions that you want to ask me via email, you can just email me at info at CARM dot org.

Info at C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, and just put in the subject line, like, you know, radio comment or radio question. That's all I need. And check it out.

And having said all of that, I think what I'm going to do, let's see what else I got to do. We only need 17 more subscribers to reach 500 on YouTube. In which area? In which one of those, Laura?

Which one? We have a couple different three, whatever it is, different YouTube channels. Matt Slick Live, or she pronounced it as she wrote Matt Slick... Lickville.

So I think she misspelled it. Anyway, Matt Slick Live, not what? That was Ernie? Matt Slick Live? Okay. So Matt Slick Live, and if you go to YouTube and just type in Matt Slick Live, we need 17 more to reach subscribers. It does help us out.

And what we're doing, see, we keep the radio, and I'll get this, we keep the radio YouTube thing going separate from the CARM YouTube ones. Because if I say things like the CDC COVID report doesn't really support what people are telling us on the news, well, you know what? By saying a comment like that, I'd get banned for two weeks. You can't talk like that, but you can put things up on YouTube about demanding use of pronouns a certain way and down with certain nations and stuff like that. But hey, if I say something factual, I can't do that because it doesn't fit the politically correct stuff. So anyway, that's what happens. So Matt Slick Live on YouTube, I think it's just, not hyphen live, it's just Matt Slick Live, right? I think it's what it is.

Maybe you could put the URL in there and I can take a look. All right. So what I'm going to do now is, I do, I like hate mail.

I like whacko mail and hate mail. And so let's see, let me just jump in with this one. You are sorry, wait, I think I read this one last week, but I'm going to go into it now. You are sorry that I beseech you to be obedient to God's word, question mark, okay?

Don't be sorry, just read God's word and abandon man-made traditions. You know, this is interesting because right now, before the show, I'm working on an article on 2 Peter 1.4, Partakers of the Divine Nature. But what does the phrase mean? And I'm writing this article and so what I've done is I've looked at the Greek, I've looked at each word, the phrase partakers of the divine nature, and I've gone through it. Now what I'm doing is looking at every, well, I looked at every occurrence, I scanned every occurrence of each of the words and I put up a table, I haven't released the article yet, saying this is where each of the words occurs, the three words, partakers of the divine nature in Greek, it's three words. And so now, you know, there's no phrase where that phrase is only used in one place. So we can't look in another place to see what it means, we can only look here in the scriptures to see what it means in the scripture and the context, that's what I'm doing, going through the context and analyzing the context and I think I understand what it means.

Well, I'm going to release the article maybe today or tomorrow and maybe do a video with it. You know, some people, they do this, they'll say, don't be sorry, just read God's word and abandon man-made traditions. It's really kind of interesting because here, for example, this is what I do when I examine a word or a phrase or a verse, I examine the Greek or the Hebrew, I'll go examine the language, I'll examine the context, I go look at it, I see how the phrase might be used or referenced or the concept in other places, I thoroughly do that. And people come along and then they say, hey, why don't you read God's word? And I think what they're really getting at is, why don't you agree with me what I think it means? I think that's what they really want because if I don't agree with them, well, then I'm not studying God's word now, am I? That's the implication. The person goes on, remember, don't listen to any man or woman, not me, not your pastor, not anyone, if they don't teach God's word, well, that's right, I would agree with that and that's what I've been saying for a long time.

All right, let's get another one. You do not know the truth, a very stupid person to write such crud about God's word. I feel so sorry for you un-learned. See, I feel so sorry for you comma and then the word A-N and then the word unlearned. I feel so sorry for you un-learned. Actually I'm un-learned. God will come down hard on you, if not now, but will at the judgment of your actions.

You need to study the Hebrew and Greek. What did I just say? I feel you have some kind of hate in your brain.

I love that. I have hate in my brain, not my mind. The brain is an organ, it's like saying a bicep, a femur, you have hate in your femur. That's what it's like saying in your brain.

Well, it should be your mind, your heart, your spirit, things like that, but I feel you have some kind of hate in your brain. So I get that, I like that as Susanna in Clubhouse says, Matt's got a hateful brain, so I'm sorry but I can't help it laughing. It's funny.

I didn't know I had a hateful brain. So that's good stuff. I like that kind of thing.

I think that's good stuff. Let's study Hebrew and Greek. I've done it on graduate level work.

Yeah, I have studied that stuff. It doesn't mean I write about everything, but sheesh, duh. Let me see. Let's try another one.

I read your article on Mormons not being Christians and I was appalled at your idiocy. Oh, this is good stuff for me. Oh, I love it. All right. You know, I'm laughing when my voice gets really high and I crack up.

It's so funny. All right. Let's hold on. So, okay, I'm going to start this over again because it's good.

I read your article on Mormons not being Christians and I was appalled at your idiocy and I'm an 18-year-old kid and not even Mormon. Let me enlighten you. Okay. Well, here it comes.

Get the flashlight out. You're going to enlighten me. Okay. The person who wrote it is uneducated.

Okay. I guess a bachelor's in social science and a master's of divinity is not educated, I guess. Okay, and while he posts passages from both the Bible and the Book of Mormon to prove he's correct, he isn't. Martin Luther, who would Martin Luther have got to do with this? Martin Luther wrote the 95 Theses in 1517 because he felt Catholicism, the single form of Christianity, wow, had been going in the wrong direction. The church had gained too much power.

What's this got to do with anything? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He distributed around the world, creating every form of Protestant Christianity, including the LDS church. Sorry, but the LDS church is not Christian. It's not Christian.

Okay. I mean, come on. It teaches God came from another planet and that he has a goddess wife. He's about six feet tall. He used to be a man. He could have been a sinner.

He became a god by following laws and ordinances of this god on another planet. I mean, that's not biblical. All right.

That's what Mormonism teaches. All right. They become gods, I mean, all right, sorry. Let's see. Okay.

I got to go on. I got to go to the Bible stuff and let's see. We'll get some of the Mormon stuff here. They also believe that Jesus died for our sins on the cross. Mormons don't.

No, they don't. They don't believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. They believe that the brother of the devil died for our sins. That's not Jesus. Jesus of the Bible is not the Jesus of Mormonism. Jesus of the Bible is not the brother of the devil who got through sexual relations between god and his goddess wife who came from another planet. See, they use the same words and it's essentially identity theft.

They use the same words, but they have a different meaning. It's like someone who took someone else's identity, assumes their name, assumes their age, their social security, but there's this different person and they're living under that assumed name. That's what's going on. The Mormon church has committed identity theft with God Jesus.

Okay. That's where it is. And they also believe, which is why the King James Bible is a version of the Bible, big all caps, has always accompanied the Book of Mormon. Yeah, but you see, they say that, but they always study out of the Book of Mormon. They don't study the Bible. They don't believe the Bible. They used the Bible to support Mormonism and then they say that the Bible is not correct. It's only correct as far as it is correctly translated in the eighth article of the Mormon church. He goes on. The Mormons refer me more to the Bible than they do the Book of Mormon when they teach.

Why? Oh, you know, I went to a meeting once where, uh, in Southern California, San Diego County 20, 25 years ago or so. And uh, they had this meeting at a house and they'd been putting this flyer out all over the area trying to get people to come in and, uh, go to this Bible study, Bible study, right? Led by Mormons.

So I go, you know, I go and I listen and this guy really nicely dressed. And, uh, eloquent and a nice looking guy, you know, appropriate and all that speaks about the Bible. I wonder what the Bible is, the Bible, the Bible, the Bible, and then, uh, he wants it. If you want to know more about Mormonism here, come to our church, blah, blah, blah. Well, that's, that's shady because they don't, they don't, they don't use the Bible like that. What he did was use the Bible in order to get people to, to, uh, join the Mormon church so they can start the Book of Mormon, which is more correct of the Bible.

According to them in history, the church volume six, page four 81 or the four 61. So anyway, after the meeting was over, I walked up to the guy, really nice, full of smiles. And I said, Hey, I enjoyed your talk, but he didn't know why I enjoyed the talk.

But I said, he was all the thank you, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, why is it you quoted the Bible so much more than the Book of Mormon since the article says that it's, you know, since, uh, correct. Basically so far translated and he changed his facial expression, became hostile and mean. He said, the Bible's corrupted.

You can't trust it. It was really interesting. The turn of his expression, his face and his attitude against God's word, but he had no problem using it to get them to believe that come into this cult.

Oh man, this guy in the email goes on. In fact, the Old Testament is actually a Jewish Torah while the New Testament is written by Christians. Whoa. Actually, the Torah is the first five books, it's not the Old Testament, but it's in the Old Testament. He doesn't know that. Mormons believe in one God. No, they don't. They believe there's many, many, many, many gods, but they only believe in one of them of the many. What that means is when you say, do you believe in one God?

Yes. Which really means of all the gods that exist, they only worship one of them. It's called henotheism. And that is going on the same of it.

And this is the same as the Muslims believe. This guy could not argue his way out of a wet paper bag. It was a weight pulling him out with a large chain. Hey, there's the music. We're not going to get out of here for the break. We'll be right back after these messages and we'll talk to Clay right after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Hope you're enjoying the hate mail. Maybe we'll get back to it after the callers.

Clay from North Carolina. Welcome brother. You're on the air. Brother Matt, how are you, sir? Um, fine. Just dealing with some inane persoflage while the obstreperousness of it all, you know, assaults my sensibilities and my reaction is to laugh.

So there you go. Well, I just, I heard what you were sharing, saying and sharing, you know, I'm a big time indicator for Truth Radio and I give thanks to the Lord that you are on here. I was laughing.

I was trying to drive while I was laughing and not make sure I hit the curb or anybody else because of what you were saying. I find that interesting, you hate on the brain because I'm like, man, you had to repeat it like several times, but I just want to give thanks to you because I just, I mean, I'm just like, I enjoy laughing, but I mean, when I hear certain things like you were saying and sharing, but my thing is, is that you might have hate on the brain, but you've got love for Jesus in your heart. That's the main thing and I share with many people, I said, listen to your heart, not your head because your heart is the most important instrument of your body and I said, that's something that we all need to take into consideration. So anyway, I know you've got the love of Jesus in your heart, brother. I've talked to you many, not as many times as other people, but I know that you don't have hate on the brain, I know you don't. And I really give thanks to the Lord for, you know, you doing what you're doing and that's just interesting, but yet sad to me that somebody's will say, that's what gets hate on the brain. I'm trying to picture that.

I'm trying to get a Christian picture of you having that, but I know that's not there. I know that you, many people get in contact with you and are thankful to the Lord for what you do and everything that you sing and share on the radio. I just want to give thanks. Also tomorrow is going to be a special day. I would like to say a big, I give thanks to the Lord for any person that's listening to you right now, for any veteran, Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, anybody, any branch that I'm against, tomorrow is a special day and I just want to commend, you know, you for doing what you're doing.

And I don't have a question, but I just want, I just want to call and share what I heard. And I hope and pray that people will come to know Jesus because they won't have that hate. They'll know that there is love because God the Father so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

And that's the most important thing. You know, you don't have to have hate, you can have love and know the difference there. But I just want to say God bless you, brother.

I give thanks to the Lord for you and I'm looking forward to hearing you talk about love from here on out. Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate everybody's laugh because the phrase hate on the brain reminded me of this. It's insane in the brain.

I hear you. Well, just remember the opposite of that is love in the heart. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. So, uh, I appreciate it. Brother, I give thanks to the Lord for you and I always enjoy hearing you talk to people and trying to straighten them out. Well, I try. I mess up sometimes, but I certainly try, you know.

I want to help people. Well, I will testify and be your witness for you. All right, brother. I appreciate it, man. God bless. All right. All right. God bless you, sir. All right. Thanks. Our next song is called Cypress Hill, Insane in the Brain, and that's what it reminded me of.

It hated the brain. Eddie Redd can't help it. So let's get to Gerald from North Carolina. Gerald, welcome.

You're on the air. Hey, brother. I talked to you about a month ago on the Mormon Bible that I picked up recently, and it has the King James Bible, it has the Book of Mormon, plus a few other things in it, but when I went to car and started looking for all the wacky stuff, they left all that out. When did they try to go mainstream and avoid people reading all the wacky stuff they proposed? Well, they've been trying to appear more Christian. It used to be decades ago that they were distinct from Christianity.

Then they were trying to sound similar to it using the same words. So the things that are of Mormonism that are whacked, they're there. They're in there, but you just have to know where to look in what's called the four standard works. The Bible's okay, but the Book of Mormon, I mean, the Book of Mormon's got some weird stuff in it, and Doctrine and Covenants, and for the great price, the Book of Abraham.

What's that? I found that part. I mean, but they left out the books that Carm refers to, that all the juicy stuff is in, and I can see where they're trying to go. Well, what I do is I quote, no, I quote all kinds of stuff. I quote the Journal of Discourses and the Articles of Faith from Mormonism. I quote their prophets, their 70s quorum, their writings, and various stuff. So some of it is not- And they left all that good stuff out of the new text and everything.

No, no, no. It's a huge book, but it has supposedly everything in it, but it has none of the stuff that Carm presents because it excludes all the books that have the wacky stuff in it. Well, it's not- There's a yes and no to that, but they do hold to odd things, okay? So like, you know, becoming a god is not found in the Book of Mormon, but it is found in D&C, Doctrine and Covenants 132-20, for example, or that many gods is- You get a lot of noise back there. Anyway, there's many gods, it's found in the Book of Abraham, 4, verse 3. But you don't find the Mother Goddess doctrine taught in those books, you find it in Articles of Faith by James Talmadge, page 443. So you- See, it's just different stuff in different places, okay? But I have it documented in my website, all right?

Well, I found a lot of stuff, but I couldn't find the books in this volume of God and it's a huge book, but I think they're trying to do a lot, like the nights that had things as far as secret rituals and everything, and the higher levels that you don't really- normal people get to. Yeah. And they have an idea of the lessons from them.

What Mormonism is doing, and what it has been doing for years, is try and appear Christian, using the same words, but it has radically different definitions of those words. And that's a fact, and I've got lots of documentation for that, and it's not hard to do, okay? So that's why. All right, buddy? They're doing a good job of deception because, like I said, I've got this big volume and I can't find anything objectionable in it because the stuff that has in it refers to the Bible, except for a few things, and that's when it gets crazy.

Go to CARM and look up the stuff that's taught and look for those four standard works and find the references and then you'll find stuff. It's in there. There's a break. We've got to go, buddy. All right?

So God bless. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Time. I'll wait until the music goes down. There we go.

We're having a good time, and I'm going to do some more hate mail because we don't have anybody waiting or calling right now. Okay. Ooh, gotcha.

That's why. I need to step away from the board here. All right, let's see. I'm going to do some more hate mail. We've got nobody waiting.

Let's see. To every Christian who can possibly read this. Now here's a question because the guy emailed it to me, but there's only just one email.

Mine. Now you would think if he CC'd it, I'd have all these other ones, all the other Christians out there. But to every Christian who can possibly read this, which is just one guy, I'm giving it to Matt. Anyway, please stop your crud. Maybe do some research about how your religion came to be instead of putting all your faith in a book.

Wow. Most books that teach anything are outdated, and on top of that, everyone knows about God, Jesus, blah, blah, blah. We all know that your holy book, which plagiarized off of the hundreds of older stories like the books of Gilgamesh. Oh, my gosh, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. Stop forcing yourselves on other people.

That's what's interesting. They'll say, stop forcing yourself with other people. What do I come to your house and knock the door down and say, believe, believe? I'm forcing you. What?

On the radio, on my website, and people come. I've had that happen before. People will email me, you know, and they'll say, stop forcing your views on others. How am I doing, Dad? Just read an article. If you don't like it, don't read it.

I'm not forcing you. He goes on, let's see, acceptance. Like how we've accepted Christians invading my life and my space where if I ever tried spreading my religion, I would have so many of you angry, hate-driven, mindless monkeys.

Well, that's not too bad. Mindless monkeys is kind of a good insult. I like that. Mindless monkeys. What a mindless monkey.

Anyway, a lot of those are in Washington, D.C. I stopped being a Baptist from my mother's side and adopted my father's wick of faith after realizing Christians are mostly hypocritical, mindless idiots. Oh, yeah, so go into Wicca. You know what Wicca teaches?

Wicca teaches that you can make up your own God and decide which deity you want to believe in, go out and serve nature and do seances kind of a thing where you do rituals and get in tune with the feminine divine consciousness. But that's smart. Oh, man.

Yikes. All right, all right, all right, let's see if we can get another one here. Let's debate and engage the issue about the church being built upon St. Peter or are you a coward? See, now, that's not a good sentence. Let's debate or are you a coward? This will be good for our readers.

We can also address the issue of who clearly has the one true religion. You are a cowardly heretic running around from opponents. I didn't know that. I didn't know it's a cowardly heretic running around from opponents. You'd think it'd be running from, but no, I'm running around from them, which I'm not sure how you do that.

Try to visualize that. How do you run around from somebody? Maybe what you're doing is you're running away from them in circles, running around from them. That, you know, that's probably what it is. Deep down inside, you realize, oh, here we go, a mind reader.

I get those every now and then too. You know, I know what you think. Okay.

Down deep inside, you realize that you are scared as all heretics are when put to the test. Call me up. Call me up. Let's talk in the radio here. Publicly. You could expose me as being a heretic. Go ahead.

You can't stand the heat. Oh, boy, that's not true. You know that if I debated you, you'd have no place to run and hide, to cry for your mommy. Oh, that's awesome.

It's right. Mommy. He's debating me.

What am I going to do? Oh, man. That's good stuff. You trembling cower. Oh, wait a minute.

I misread that. You tremblingly cower. I don't even know if that's a word. You tremblingly cower before the truth and fear deeply in your Protestant heretic anguish to lose status in the eyes of your fellow insect heretics. Oh, man.

He just insulted everybody who likes what I do. Did you know that now you're all insect heretics? That's what it says. Insect. That's what the word is. It's insect. Your fellow insect heretics. Maybe that's what you can call. I'm a karmite, a fellow insect heretic.

That'd be a good t-shirt. Look to you and your heresies. You are a slick little girl. No, I'm a man, not a little girl. This guy's got some perception problems. I have twice your brain power with half my brain and both of... These are good insults. These are good. I have twice your brain power with half my brain and both my hands tied behind my back.

That's hard to do. All right. I could take you on... Man, this is good. This is a good one.

I like this one. I could take you on with many other heretic pests at the same time and debate. If you are a fraidy cat that needs the help of his little insect pets, this is awesome.

This is really good stuff. Man, who would have thought of that if he'd come up with this? Insect heretics?

Maybe that's why he used a heretic insect tick. Maybe? I don't know. But wow, that's pretty good. That's a good one. Oh man, I'm enjoying that one. Oh, okay.

Sorry. I couldn't get help it. That's good stuff.

I'm going to have to put that up on the website someplace. Oh, that's good. I love that. That's refreshing. It's refreshing to me. It is. All right.

Let's see. All right, let's get to Luis from Claremont, Florida. Welcome, Luis. You're on the air. Luis, sorry. Hey, it's Luis.

Yeah, it's okay. How you doing, Matt? So, I just want to start off and say I've been following your ministry since I was 15 years old. I'm turning 40 next year, so it's been a while, so I want to thank you for everything you've done. You really helped me out through high school. I recently converted to Catholicism, okay?

And that happened this year. And my question for you is this, I've recently found a lot of peace in the sacrament of reconciliation, and I just want to hear you discuss or talk about what the objection would be towards that sacrament. Tell me the procedure. What's the procedure?

Procedure in terms of? Well, what do you do? What do you do in the sacrament? Yeah. So, you confess your mortal sins to the priest. Okay. Okay.

And what else? And then the priest would listen to the confession and then absolve you of those sins. And you do penance, right?

And you do penance, yes. Okay. Okay. So, let me ask you some questions here, okay?

Is Jesus God in flesh? Yes. Okay. Does he forgive sins? Yes.

Okay. He said, ask me anything in my name and I will do it. John 14, 14, right?

Right? Correct. And Jesus says, come to me, all who are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Matthew 11, 28, right? Yes. So, are you obeying Christ when you go to your priest and confess to him?

Yes. So, when it says come to me, that means go to a priest? Well, no, I mean, because you're still Jesus, but I believe that he instituted that sacrament of confession. When you read John chapter 20 verse 23, if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. That's not what it says. And that's something that he had, he said, that's not what it says? That's not what it says. This is so common from the Catholics, okay? Because they don't believe the word of God, they don't trust it. But it actually says, if you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven. Have been.

It's very critical. Because it's a perfect tense. Perfect passive indicative. Perfect means it's an occurrence in the past with the effect going on right now. And forgive the sins in the present.

If you presently, or actually it's an aorist, it's an aorist subjunctive, which means that it's a past tense kind of a thing of possibility. If you kind of consider doing this, they have been forgiven. So is it the priest that's doing the forgiving of sins?

No. And it's not the priest doing the forgiving of the sins anyway in the sacrament of confession. It is Jesus. So when a priest says you're forgiven, then why does it say, if you forgive the sins, you can remember, you got to be careful what you do with the verse. Because if it says you forgive, does that mean that the priest is doing the forgiving? So my perspective on what's going on in the sacrament of confession is that Jesus is allowing for a way.

God is allowing for a way for you to be able to get something out, right, confessing to another person. Hold on. We've got a break. Sorry.

I'm sorry to bother you. Stop you at the middle of that. But we do have a break. We've got to go.

So hold on. And we'll get back afterwards. And we'll talk some more about this, okay?

Hey, folks. We'll be right back after these messages for the last segment on this Friday. 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. Let's get back on with Luis.

Luis. Okay. Go ahead. You're on.

It's Luis, but you could call me down and jump if you wanted to, because I do a great impersonation. Just kidding. Go ahead. That's pretty good.

Pretty good. Okay. All right. So you were saying. Then I'm going to ask you a difficult question, okay? But go ahead. Oh, man.

Okay. So I was saying that, you know, so basically in that sacrament of reconciliation, you're not only reconciling, you know, your relationship with God, but it's also reconciling your relationship with the church, right, and the community of believers. That's the sense that I'm getting from the sacrament of reconciliation versus, you know, because, look, I know if I ask Christ for forgiveness, I'm going to be forgiven, right? First John 1.9. I believe that this is, in a sense, reconciling yourself back into communion with the church and the rest of the believers.

That's not what he's talking about. First of all, he's talking to the disciples in John 2023, not priests. Priests are of the Old Testament. Priests are of the Old Testament, not the New Testament. And so you're back under the legality of the Old Testament law by the behest of the Roman Catholic Church.

It's just a real simple thing here. Now, I got a question. Now, if I got you correct, if I understood you correctly, you said if you forgive the sins, they've already been forgiven, right?

Say it again, I can make out what you said. Okay, my apologies. If I understood you correctly, were you saying that when the priest, when your Catholic priest pronounces forgiveness, they've already been forgiven, right? They've been forgiven. Okay. That's a good question.

That's a good question. When are they already forgiven? Right.

If the priest pronounces a forgiveness that is already done, well, then when were you already forgiven? Mm-hmm. Well? Yeah. I'm going to have to come back on that one.

Yeah, I appreciate that because you need to think about it. Remember, I'm a new Catholic. I'm a baby Catholic here, Matt.

You've got to forgive me. I don't want you to be a Catholic. I don't want you to be Catholic. I don't want you to go to hell.

Okay? I'm just being straight with you, you know? And if you've listened to me long enough, you know. Would I go to hell if, because I still have faith in Christ, Matt, you know, and I don't, you know, and I do believe I'm saved by grace alone, through faith alone. That's not what the Catholic Church teaches, okay? I can read stuff to you, all right?

You know? I can quote it to you. Paragraph 2068 of the Catholic Catechism says you obtain salvation through faith, baptism and the observance of the commandments. So you obtain salvation, you do the obtaining of salvation through faith. I have no problem with that. Baptism?

Yeah, I do have a problem with that. I can talk about baptism for a couple hours. And the observance of the commandments. See, that's, that's, how's that biblical?

You get salvation in part through your observing of commandments? How is that possible? Huh? What about this? I know it's a longer conversation to be had, and I know you got probably other callers and stuff like that. But... Nobody waiting. That's why I'm here.

Let me take it piece by piece. You know what I mean? But I did want to just talk about reconciliation, and you gave me some food for thought to go back and look up and, and to... Remember, the context of John 2023 is not to priests, it's to the disciples. In Protestantism, there's a common mistake that people make, where it says, God says to Israel, I know the plans that I have for you, but to prosper you. And Protestants will take that, rip it out of its context, and say, that means for us Christians today. Does it? Is that what it is?

Or was it for covered Israel? The questions. I urge Christians... Read it in context. Who is it addressed to?

What's going on? So in John 2023, because he's already saying that it's talking to his disciples, okay? This is after his resurrection. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord after his resurrection, you know?

Okay? He said to them, peace be with you. As the Father sent me, I send you. He's talking to the disciples. He said, receive the Holy Spirit. What? And see, if he's talking to the disciples, and if the Catholic Church were to say, well, we're all his disciples, then all of us can do this.

Why? Then only the Catholic priests have this supposed authority. If it's to the disciples. But if they say the disciples only means the Catholic priesthood, where do they get that? You see, they rip verses out of context, and you have fallen for it.

My heart aches, okay? You've been duped by this stuff, and I understand the sacrament of reconciliation is a procedure you go through. It's something you can touch, so to speak, you know? You're sitting there, you're standing there, whatever it is, and no disrespect meant in the description of this, but you're with a priest, and you're doing this verbally. It's cathartic, and it is, just like when I've done something, I said to my wife, and it is.

But is it right? Because Jesus has come to me. We often want to place something between us and Christ to make ourselves feel better, and I understand that, I really do, but it's not what he said, and that verse doesn't have anything to do with what the Catholics routinely tell me. When you're talking about, I knew, you know, John 20, 23, I've got notes on it. I've written a lot on it, and it's just, it's not the verse that anybody should go to for that priesthood thing, because he's talking to the disciples, and we're all his disciples, so therefore we can all do it.

Why just the priest? See, if you're talking to me, and you said something that was, you're confessing something you did wrong, you know, whatever it is, and I'm just talking, even over the phone, you know, just you and I one-on-one, not with thousands listening like they are right now, and I said, and you say, look, I've repented, I've come to the Lord, I've asked Jesus to forgive me. I say, hey, your sins are forgiven.

I'm not pronouncing anything, and I don't need special authority to do it, and you could do the same thing. Let's say I'm talking to you, you know, and I said, oh, man, you know, blah, blah, blah, this, that, and I'm forgetting that you're Catholic, and you say to me, man, your sins are forgiven. You're trusting faith in Christ. Well, that's right.

That's right. That's true words, but what does the Catholic Church do? Come to us, come to our church for the authority to do all of this stuff.

It's replacing Christ with itself, even though it says it doesn't, but functionally it does. I'm sorry, go ahead, I interrupted you. Well, that's okay. It's funny, because I was listening to the last couple of shows, and you had a woman on there, and it's the funniest thing to hear that interaction, so I just want to let you know that I don't think you've interrupted me at all this whole time, so, but no, I was going to tell you that, you know, so in that verse, when it says your sins would be retained if you retain the sins. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

What's going on? I mean, doesn't that say exactly what it says? I mean, doesn't it mean exactly what it says? Yes, well, what is exactly that it says?

They have been retained. It's perfectly passive and indicative. To the disciples, I guess I don't understand as to why you would say that. Because they're pronouncing what is or is not the case already, that's all. It's the aorist subjunctive.

If you do this, past tense is aorist, subjunctive is possibility, would, could, should. If you were to do these things, their sins have been forgiven. It's not because they are doing the forgiving, no disciple has the authority to forgive sins. That's clear.

So what are they doing? When I go to somebody and they say, look, I'm repentant of this, of ABC sin, hey, your sins are forgiven. But what if they say, you know, I repented, but I'm going to go do it tomorrow. I go, do you think your sins are forgiven with your attitude of unrepentance and your willingness to go out and sin against God? They're not forgiven. You see, just pronouncing it.

That's what's going on. So as Christians, we have the authority. Don't trust a church. Don't trust a church. The Catholic church claims to be the true church, the pillar and foundation.

Come home to the Catholic church. The Catholic church has authority. The Catholic church can forgive you for sins. The Catholic church has the sacraments. The Catholic church gave you the Bible. The Catholic church reveals to you the truth, and it's got so many false things in it.

It just does. Look, you know, for example, you know, there's no way you or I can contribute to our salvation before God. I mean, we're sinners, right?

Everything we do is touched by sin in our hearts, minds, soul, body. There you go. Okay. Good stuff.

Okay. What does God offer him? Our sincerity? Hey, God, save me because of my sincerity. Look how good I am in my sincerity, God.

There's nothing there. But the Catholic church says in paragraph 2036, the authority, the magisterium extends also to the specific precepts of the natural law because their observance demanded by the creator is necessary for salvation. You got to keep the precepts of the natural law because they're necessary to obtain salvation for salvation.

Paragraph 2036, the natural law, paragraph 27, I'd read the whole thing, but it says to decalogue 10 commandments contains a privileged expression of the natural law. So the Catholic church is now teaching, as I said in paragraph 2068, you obtain salvation through faith, baptism, and the observers of the commandments and paragraph 2036 with 2070 that you have to keep the precepts of the natural law because they're necessary for salvation, the 10 commandments. So you got to keep the 10 commandments are necessary for you to be saved.

So in other words, you can do stuff to get yourself right with God through your own works and your own efforts. That's what the Catholic church is teaching. Yeah, I guess because if you, if you commit a mortal sin, right, you fall out of grace. So, and I'm talking in accordance with the Catholic faith. So in a sense having, but see, does that mean that if you, that you're having to keep the law because if you're, if you're saved, right, because of the work of Christ and Christ is continually keeping you, it's really in the committing of the, committing a mortal sin that you fall away from grace isn't actually working. That's false.

That's false. You fall away from grace by what you do. You get your grace back by what you do. How's grace and grace.

Okay. Well, you fall away from grace by your forgiveness. Grace is a substance in Catholicism infused into the soul.

Paragraph 1999. Grace is re-infused. You lose all of your grace by mortal sin, part of your grace by venial sin. So you have to go to the priest to get the grace re-infused in your soul.

So the Catholic church is now in charge of your salvation. Forgive me if I'm quiet. I was just working things out in my head while I'm talking. Okay. That's all right. We're almost out of time.

I got about one minute. I want to read a verse to you and you really need to study this. You should call me back on Monday if you can, you know, but the verse is Colossians 2.14 and I have to go through it, sorry, but I have to go through it so quickly, but put it in your head. Colossians 2.14, having canceled out the certificate of debt, the sin debt, okay, consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us.

He took it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. The sin debt is canceled by Jesus at the cross. How do you fall out of grace if Jesus is the one who canceled all of your sin? Do you fall out of grace because you did something bad? Now the grace of God isn't there with you. Now you've got to do something good to get the grace of God back to you. The Catholic church is in control.

The Catholic church is claiming to be the replacement of Christ. It will administer the grace through the sacraments to infuse into your soul to keep yourself right. But the Bible says Jesus canceled the sin debt at the cross. How then can you go in and out of grace? Because it's already done.

Doesn't mean we can sin. There's more to that. We're out of time, buddy. Call back on Monday, okay? Or even email me.

I'll call back on the phone if you want. All right? We got to go, though. All right? That's good. You got it. All right, man.

Okay. Hey, folks, pray for him. You know, the enlightenment of the Lord, you know, by God's grace. I hope you have a great weekend, everybody. May the Lord bless you, and by his grace, back on there on Monday, we'll talk to you then. God bless. This is another program powered by the Truth Network.