Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 8772072276.

It's a hate voicemail, so what I want to do is play it tomorrow. We'll see how it goes, because sometimes people call up and we do all day show of stuff. It also is going to let you know that we're going to do, starting in January, starting in December, we're going to be doing a matching funds drive. So whatever you donate to CARM will be doubled. So if you donate 10, it will become 20, and we'll be going through that starting tomorrow.

The month of December, just a heads up for that, praise God. We always do need that kind of support, because that's how we stay on the air. We stay on the air by your support. And if you don't support us, well, then we don't run the air.

It's just that simple. So I want to say thanks to all of you who are helping. In fact, I don't get to say this very often. I just thought of something. I'm the face, unfortunately, I'm the face of CARM and the voice of CARM as well.

And so I've been doing this for so long. However, there are people behind the scenes that really do help out. Now, one of them is Dara, D-A-R-A. She oversees the forums. Now, the forums have been a problem, and I need to get in and fix them.

I need to decide what I'm going to do. But she's very helpful. And we also have Joanne, and what Joanne does is she runs the prayer ministry, and she kind of oversees the clubhouse room when we're doing that. And we have Laura, and what Laura does is she helps out with S-E-O and a little bit of editing stuff. She'll go through and look at my articles, because when you write something, you can't see your own stuff, and she'll go through.

Oh, there's a little typo. She'll do that every now and then, and that's helpful. And then we have Ernie. And Ernie, he does some video work, and for those of you who may know, we did a fundraising for him to get a computer so that he could do better graphic work because his computer was so old, couldn't handle what was needed to be done. So now we're turning a lot of stuff that I do here online into videos and some other stuff into videos. It's great because that's what I've been praying for, but what I've been wanting is someone who will do the video work.

Well, I just produce the raw stuff, and that way I can get more stuff out. So Ernie's been doing that, and he helps with social media. And then there's Charlie. And Charlie, he's the guy who introduced me to apologetics by reading a quote from Joseph Smith to me back in 1980, or 79 or 80. We don't remember.

We just say 1980, and it might be 79, though. I don't know. What do you think, Charlie? You think it could be?

It could be, yeah, because we're both pretty old. So he read me this quote, and I snatched it out of his head. Who said this? And it was the quote where Joseph Smith boasted he did more than Jesus to keep the church together.

It made me mad. So he said Joseph Smith. And then he introduced me to Jerry and Marion Bodine, who are working with Walter Martin at CRI, Christian Research Institute in Southern California.

And that's how it all started. Anyway, we have people who help. We also have on the outskirts of people who help, we have Ken. He helps us with a few things now and then. He doesn't really work with us much, but he's always there to help us out. We also have a guy named Ryan, and he does missionary support and some other things.

So we've got a lot of people that are helping out, and we're looking for, I'm looking for writers. And get this. Now, here's a little something. The church I used to go to, Calvary Chapel in Eagle, which is just 20 minutes from where I live, 15 minutes. And so he retired. They have a new pastor in there. And I don't go to that church anymore because I'm not fond of how they do the new stuff. I like the way Pastor Mike did it. And so he's a Calvary Chapel guy.

And so he's retired, but he's still kind of serving there a little bit here and there. And I ran an idea by him because I thought, you know, it'd be cool to have him write for Carm. As long as he doesn't step on some of the things that we believe in, you know, like eternal security.

He's wishy-washy on that. And I want to sit there and go for a Bible study with him sometime. But nevertheless, so, you know, maybe he'll end up writing for us.

And also in the doctorate program that I'm in, which I may or may not continue. I keep saying that, but I don't know if I'm going to do it. There's a couple of women in there who really are sharp. And I would love it if they were to write for Carm, because we need women writing for Carm. We need the ladies who can get in there and answer questions from the ladies about women issues from a biblical perspective. That would be great. I would love to have that.

So I'm going to ask them about that kind of a thing sometime. So there you go. Oh, I forgot.

I forgot one really important person who really helped us out. That's my wife. So my wife, Anik, even though she's mostly bedridden because of her bad condition of deterioration.

Sorry, this is what it is. But she works in bed on a laptop, and then sometimes she'll stand for 10 minutes to 15 minutes a day trying working at a desk. And that's about what she can do. She does stuff like the data entry, which I hate doing. I hate doing that.

It just drives me crazy. And she doesn't mind it. Great, you do what you're good at. And she is training someone named Tracy, who comes to the Bible study. And Tracy's a sweetie. So she's volunteering to help out and takes some of the slack off of my wife.

So I think that's it. And I can't think of anybody else. Oh, we have email.

Oh, I forgot. We have Dave Kimball. Dave and Charlie and I have known each other for over 40 years. Dave and Charlie are on the board of directors. So there's Charlie Spine, Dave Kimball. And so he helps with legal stuff.

We have a legal issue. He foots the bill to contact the legal people and be the liaison of all of that. It really helps. And he oversees the email helpers. And Tim is the only one I remember his name in there.

And they help with the emails. So I think that's everybody. Do you think of anybody else, Charlie?

I'm looking at his picture, and I can't think of anybody. And then there's the help that I know that Charlie's wife gives to him, which is usually arm hits. And that's usually medicinal arm hits. That's always good. And I can't think of anything else. Let's see.

It's like in a private chat. So I'm just kind of thinking through. Oh, thanks. Our missionaries. I forgot all about that. Man.

Man, okay. So we have a missionary in Turkey that we're supporting. But he's not doing mission work, so it sounds odd to have a missionary who's not doing mission work. But we're supporting him as a future missionary because he's been going through a seminary for a few years.

We've been supporting him so that he can do that. And he speaks three languages, Turkish, English, and he also speaks Russian. And he's trying to learn Spanish. I think he's learning Spanish.

He might even know another language. And so when he gets his degree, he wants to work with Karm. And I've told him.

I said, look, we're supporting you. But don't feel obligated to have to work with Karm. If some ministry hires you that you can take care of your family better, there's no hard feelings because this is support for the kingdom of God, not just for the kingdom of Karm. And so he's expressed definite interest to continue to work with us. So praise God for that. And we have Moses, and he's in Nigeria. And we help him out every now and then, and he's preaching and teaching the gospel out there to a lot of people. And then we have Joster, and he is in Malawi. And he does a lot of work where he travels around the area in South Africa, and he goes to the neighboring nations. And he preaches and teaches, and we support him, and others do too.

We kind of share the support. Then we have David, who is David Brito. He's in Brazil, and he's a missionary that we have in Brazil. He runs the Portuguese website.

And then finally, last but not least, we have Carlos Carbírez. And he is in Bogota, Colombia, and I practice my Spanish with him. And he runs the Spanish version of Karm, miapic.org, M-I-A-P-I-C. He's really good at his theology too. And, of course, when you translate a lot of stuff, you learn stuff. And so he's translated a lot, he's learned a lot.

And I've met him a couple of three times. In fact, David Brito and Carlos and myself and Dave Kimball, we all went to Israel earlier this year. It was great.

We were hoping Charlie could make it, but he couldn't make it. And so just have a great time of all of us. And so I get to meet the missionaries altogether. It was so great to see them.

It really was a blessing to be able to do that. And there you go. I think that is it. I cannot think of anybody else. You got anybody else that you can think of, Charlie or Laura or Ernie?

No, I don't think there's anyone else. So there you go. That's just an impromptu little... Yeah, I got all them. That's right. That's right.

People are helping out with names and stuff. I think that's all. And then we have.

And this is a support, believe it or not. Oh, did I say Joanne? That's right, I did. I did mention Joanne already. We've got so many I'm talking about.

Yeah, okay. And one of the things that I find supportive, believe it or not, are the people in the chat room when we do the show. And I have four monitors.

I looked at my upper left. And there's people in there. There's Steve and Laura, Ernie, and some others. And we have 38 in there right now, but sometimes they'll type their names in where they'll say something. And Marcia.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia is in there. Well, anyway, there's others. And if they type their name in really fast, I'll say it really quickly over the air. But I really enjoy watching them. I enjoy the fact that they're there together, fellowshipping, and things are happening. And I find that helpful.

It's encouraging to me to see that and stuff like that. Matt announced donations being doubled in December. That's right, I did. That's right. If you want to help us out, if you want to help us out, please let us know. Or you can just go to – I'll just tell you how to do it. I mean, you can do it tomorrow, but just tomorrow is December 1st. And you just go to karm.org forward slash donate. And whatever you donate for the entire month of December. So if you're already donating on a regular basis, like $5 a month, it won't be double this already.

It's just what it is. But anything new that comes in, that will be doubled. So if it's a one-time or a recurring.

So if you do a recurring for, say, $10 a month for the whole – you start that for the next year, well, that's $120, and then that will be doubled. So you see? All right. How about that? All right. There we go. All right, all right, all right. Let's get to Alberto from Georgia.

Alberto, welcome. You are on the air. Yeah, my question is, how come when Christians, if they behave worldly or in the world, Christians in the world consider them hypocrites, but when the Roman Catholic people who claim to be childless of God, they behave worldly and, you know, the world doesn't accuse them of being hypocrites either by Christians or the world.

For example, like a lot of Roman Catholics, they've been saying Patrick Drake drinking, I've been all crazy and yet they're the Christians of Catholics, but nobody's saying nothing to them. There's so much to say about that, but there's a break. So hold on, buddy. We'll come back after the break. All right. Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, 2OpenLines, 877-207-2276, we'll be right back. All right, everyone, welcome back. We have 2 out of 4 lines open if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Alberto, are you still there?

Yeah, I'm still here. All right, so why is there a bit of hypocrisy going on with people who claim to be Christians and like Catholics and stuff and yet get drunk and do stuff, right? Yeah, why they treat the Christians wrongly, but other Catholics, they don't get the same treatment.

Why is that? Well, I understand it's not exactly true, but it generally is true. The Catholics are known for being able to do things because they can go to their priests and be forgiven. So Catholicism is an apostate religion, and any adherence to the official doctrine are not saved.

They've given themselves to a religion instead of Christ. And so with that religion, the way you do things is you can sin, not that you're supposed to because the Catholic church has not to, but if you do, just go to a priest and he just absolves you and you're okay. And so this attitude has developed in people in Catholicism the attitude that they can be forgiven. It's okay not to live that much of a sanctified life, and that's one of the signs of lack of regeneration of people.

And so that's one of the reasons because they're known for that. And so in Protestantism, less so. That's not to say that some Protestants aren't like that as well, but far less so because they understand.

They're supposed to understand we live for Christ because we're justified by faith and that we don't look to priests to forgive us in a confessional to go make things right. We look to Jesus. We've got to face him directly. And that's a point is that as a Protestant, one of the differences, as Protestants we go straight to Jesus.

We've got to face him directly. But what's interesting is in Catholicism you don't. You don't go to Christ directly.

You go to an intermediary. So you don't have to face Jesus. You face what the church tells you to face. And it's easier to deal with your sin that way because when you sin you go face Christ directly with him.

You're in his presence and it stings because you've saddened Christ. You've injured Christ's reputation in our sin and our fellowship is affected. But with Catholicism, for example, that's not the case. Your sin causes a separation, but you just go to the church and the church will make it right. And so you don't face Christ, you face the church. You face the priest. And it's just one of the ways the Roman Catholic Church has replaced Christ with itself. And so it's idolatrous in that sense. But at any rate, so that's one of the things that lays the foundation for that observation that they can go out and sin because they can go to the priest or the confessional and have it taken care of. My thing is, are Christians being most persecuted worldwide and mocked by the world as Roman Catholics treated the same way around the world?

I can't tell you. I don't know how they're all treated around the world. I've just not done research and I can't say they're treated equally. But I am aware of culturally, at least here in America, where Catholics are kind of known to be able to go do stuff that's less than sanctified and then go be forgiven, like the Mafia. They have a lot of Catholic stuff in the Mafia.

I've seen Mafia movies where they have crosses on or Mother Mary is a part of their culture and stuff like this. So it's just a religion. It's not true Christianity.

Okay. Yeah, it's like the Pope. He befriends the Muslims. He befriends all the other religions in the world. So they're not going to be attacked in a manner as a Christian will. The Christians believe exclusively that Christ alone is the bread of heaven and to God.

But what my Catholics, they don't see it that way. Correct? Yeah. Right. I think there's some of that. And that's what it is, just how it is.

It would take a lot of research to really kind of deal with that issue. I don't have that right now. All right. All right. Thank you. All right, big man. God bless.

God bless. All right, let's get to Jeff from Ohio. Hey, Jeff, welcome. You're on the air. Hi.

Hi, Matt. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Oh, okay. I just got a few unanswered questions or answers and some things I understand, but some things I don't.

Okay. God wanted to heal me, and I told him I didn't want him to heal me because my prayer life wasn't up to snuff. And I said to myself, well, he took this my sin upon himself, and I just wanted to like suffer a little bit because, of course, the Bible says, I mean, we've got to bear each another's burdens and pick up our cross daily, and I just feel like one of the Hebrew, three Hebrew children right now. And when I think it was, I don't know, it was Jehoshaphat or whoever it was, told him to get into the fiery furnace.

Well, what's your, I'm not sure exactly where you're going, do you have a specific question? Yeah, it was, like I said, he wanted to heal me and I didn't want to, and I didn't know if that was sin or if he would still heal me anyway and let me in. Let's talk about that. So if he didn't want him to heal you, that's not sinful. If you have a reason, that's probably why you don't want to be, it's not sinful, it's not sinful. Yeah, that's true, yeah. Okay, so it's not sinful in and of itself, it just depends on what's going on and the motivation behind that, all right? If you want him to heal you now, you can ask him to heal you, that's okay.

Yeah, he will, he will. I've seen a little bit of the big picture and some of heaven and of course I read the Bible all the way through and I just, I don't know. I just have to keep like fasting and believing and asking and knocking and just do that. Yeah, okay, you answered my question then. All right. You have a good day then. You too, well God bless, thanks. Okay, bye-bye.

Bye. All right, we have nobody waiting right now and during the break I was looking at a couple of emails and one of them stuck out and I want to address that email right now from someone who apparently was listening to the show on Monday and failed to understand what I was saying and wrote to me. Oh, I'll have to tell you what it is because there's the music and when we get back, I hope she's listening Carolyn and I hope you're listening about what I'm going to say about the issue of walking out on a church, what I did on Sunday and why. We'll get back after these messages and please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, well welcome back to the show. I hope you're enjoying it and before the break I mentioned an email I got. I'm going to read it to you and then address it. It says, do you have children? Your radio show last evening was sad. You walked out of a service because there are children present and then it says Matthew 9, 33 to 37 comes to mind.

And that's the email. And so what I spoke on Monday was having gone to a church and just left during the sermon and it had nothing to do with children being there. It had to do with the lack of, in my opinion, depth and fidelity of the scripture. And I get very tired of going to a church where stories, illustrations, anecdotes and quotes from varying books that are not biblical is the substance of the sermon. And I'm just fed up with it.

I'm tired of it. It's as though the preachers and teachers in so many places, they think that the word of God needs help. And so they have to cater their messages to the lowest common denominator, which is the uneducated Christian who doesn't know anything.

And the reason they don't know anything is because they're not been taught much of anything. I'd like to be in a church, be an impromptu discussion. I say the pastor is, say there's a thousand people in a church and there's an unusual situation on a Sunday morning and he asks me to come up and just quiz the congregation. Let's just say there's a weird thing like that that would happen.

And I'm going to preach out of it too. And I said, okay, let me ask you some questions. I just want to see if your hands and how many believe that there's only one God, you know, just stuff like this.

And I would get to the point where I'd say, how many believe that Jesus is a man right now? And to see what the hands would be, because generally people don't know. And you know, what is justification?

How many could define justification? If I called on you, just raise your hand, you know, and most people can't do it. It's just this basics like this. I've seen this is the case so many times, and I think that the pastors are making a huge, huge mistake by not teaching from the pulpit, the theology that needs to be woven into and through and revealed from the scriptures that they're preaching out of. It's called, I don't like, you know, skipping stone theology. You just skip over the surface of the topic and you don't get down deep. And I'm sick and tired of it. It's just me.

I'm sick and tired of it. And so when I go to a church, I go, okay, you know, let's see, get to the word. And I remember recently I went to a church. It was seven minutes of introduction and stories before they got to the text. Seven minutes. What the heck is wrong? And another one, they got to the text after two minutes and then went to the text and turned it into a, you know, a step by step procedure and then went to a book and then quoted the book for a few minutes.

Just some secular, I mean, not secular, but a Christian book. What's this got to do with, you know, what's it got to do with anything? I just said, I'm out. And I just want to be there.

I'm leaving because I'm not being fed. And I think they're doing a disservice to the body of Christ. That's my opinion. Well, what I did on Monday, I mentioned this kind of a thing, but what I've said was that there are good pastors out there. And two of them, two of them, they're good congregations, good pastors. They teach the depth of God's word, but they have children in the sanctuary.

And I also mentioned, and I hope Carolyn's listening to this. The reason I can't handle children in there is because of my autism. Because I have a hearing problem and a hearing disorder and I tend to focus. And when there's too many sounds around me, I can't process too much. And I get overloaded and I can't focus and I have to leave.

It's just the way I am. I'm not knocking anybody having children in congregation. That's what they want to do. That's what they want to do.

They want to raise God. I don't care about that. What I care about is my inability due to my Asperger's and my 80 decibel ringing in both ears that has caused me to not be able to process too many sounds all at once. And this is why when I'm in the car with my wife, we can't have the radio on because I can't handle the road noise conversation ringing in my ears and radio. It's just too much sound for me.

That's why when I go to churches, if they have children in the congregation, I'm not able to enjoy the sermon because I get distracted by the noises that the children do. Most people, they don't have that problem. And that's okay.

Praise God. It's not their problem. It's a concern that I have. It's a problem that I have.

And my friends, if they were here in a room, I could just hand a mic to them and say, do I have hearing problems when I'm with you guys? They go, yes. This is how it is. So that's why. And I kind of resented that someone would be so judgmental about me and just say, I'm going to leave because children are present. That's not what I said. If children are present and they're not disruptive, that's okay.

It's just that children are disruptive. And God bless them. I've been in churches. I can still remember. Oh, I was in this good church in Boise. And they had kids in the congregation. Okay, fine.

Praise God. And to my right, there's a kid with a crayon tapping on a book, scribbling and tapping. And no one's paying attention to the kid. I'm like, I'm staring at the kid. Like, excuse me?

And so, you know, I move back and try and get, but then there's more kids behind me. It's like, ah, so I can't handle it. That's all. In fact, you know how Superman has kryptonite as his weakness?

I have one and people know about it. It's crinkling bottles. You know those really thin plastic bottles?

You have water and the crinkling sound of those things. If I was in a debate with someone and they just started crinkling their bottle, that's it. It's over for me. I lose. I can't handle it. I can't process it. And it's kind of funny. So plastic bags don't bother me that much. But maybe Laura, maybe somebody can call up and tell me your experiences with my hearing stuff. Yeah, that's right, man. It'd be good for people to do that.

I think they could complain publicly. How are you? I remember we were in a car together and I couldn't believe it. Whatever. All right. So there you go. All right.

So I hope that helps and hope that's interesting. But you know what? Before I get to the caller, God uses broken vessels. And that's it.

People have all kinds of problems, all kinds of different ways. And so he just uses us. You know what? He's good. Praise God. Let's get to Ryan from Pennsylvania. Ryan, welcome. You're on the air.

Thank you for taking my call. I wanted to kind of agree with you about what you're seeing in churches and things like this. I was contemplating going into the ministry, and back in 1980, I started seeing that sermons were becoming sales pitches rather than teachings, and that the pastoral position that, when I was growing up, was called a noble calling, just became a career, just like any other career.

A doctor, lawyer, accountant. Oh yeah, you can be a pastor too. And the consequence of this has been that churches do not treat congregations like disciples. They treat them like customers, that they've got a product to sell, and they're the ones who are supposed to buy it.

And that's the conclusion I came to. And that's why congregations want to pay money to the pastor or pay money to the staff. Let them do the job of Christianity, because that's what they're paying them to do. And congregations don't want to be made disciples because they would be responsible. And pastors don't want to teach them because it's going to jeopardize the product that they're selling, which is the gospel of Christ and its idolatry from beginning to end. Okay, so Ryan, you and I have disagreed on a lot of things, but man, I'm taking notes from what you're saying. Oh, sales pitch, treated like customers, from a noble calling to another profession. Wow, I so agree with you.

I don't think it's as bad as you said, but man, there's a lot of truth in there. I agree with you. Well, Matt, right now, the way people determine what is a successful ministry is whether or not they increase in membership and increase in money.

Nothing else. That's what I've been saying. That's how they judge it. That's how they judge it, yes. And it's being taught in seminaries in just about every denomination. The purpose-driven church is nothing more than a marketing and advertising scheme to sell the gospel. It is nothing more than that.

Wow. Well, you know, the seminary I went to, that wasn't part of it, I can tell you. It wasn't about congregation size. It was about fidelity to the scripture and preaching the word of God. And they took the profession, so to speak, or the calling, I should say, of pastor.

They took it very seriously. And I can tell you, that is a case from the seminary I went to. But I can't speak for other seminaries. But, man, I like what you said. It's like a sales pitch. And I don't know if you heard me talk about it. It's like turning the scriptures into a five-point or a five-step procedure to get a better whatever it is.

And I hate that stuff. What is scripture here for? Do a Google search on this. See what the structure is of a sales pitch.

See what the structure is for political speech. Our sermons are exactly the same thing. Exactly.

You go to just about any church on any Sunday morning, they were selling the gospel, just like they would sell a box of wine or anything else. Okay, hold on. We've got a break.

I want to hear you. Because this is good stuff. And I'm surprised you're saying this. But I totally agree with you. And I'm not liking that I agree with you.

But I do. So hold on, buddy. We'll be right back after these messages.

We have three open lines, 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. Let's get back on with Ryan. All right. Thank you for letting me hang around. Yeah.

But Ryan, seriously, I just got to give you some kudos. I did just what you said during the break. Wow.

So I went to constant contact. Now to start a sales pitch. A successful sales pitch starts with a captivating opener. The goal of crafting a strong opening to your sales presentation is ultimately to entice potential customers and hold their attention long enough to incite them to hear you out. And it also says provide a warm welcome. Introducing yourself with a personal detail or two. Explain why your product or service is special. I'm like, dude, that really is good. In fact, you've actually motivated me to write an article on this.

Seriously. And at the end of the sales pitch, you ask for the sale. Well, at the end of the sermon, you ask for an altar call.

It's exactly the same thing, exactly the same procedure. Now, here's the thing, though, because I agree with you. However, there's still truth in the idea of I don't have a problem with an altar call personally. Not that an altar call in itself saves you, but it's just the act of publicly proclaiming and receiving.

I don't have any problem with that. And so I got saved an altar call, not that that makes it right or wrong. But the idea of what I've complained about, and I was on a church service Sunday, and I just walked out halfway through the sermon because I got tired of the scriptures being, I coined a new phrase here, skipping stone theology.

It's just over the surface of stuff. And then it went into a book. It's a book. I don't want to hear about some book, you know? Well, let me explain something to you.

Obviously, I'm much more cynical and skeptical about this than you are. And the reason is because in the 80s I was heavily involved in a church that I dearly, dearly loved. And I'm sure you're familiar with what happens in what they call a church split. Well, there's a group of people that are split out, and there's a bunch of people that are split in. Well, I was one of the ones that was split out, okay, which got me into researching these things and really caused a crisis in faith in my life. And so I actively pursued the greatest critics that history has to offer, and I wanted to see exactly what they said about my faith and find out whether or not my faith was worth believing.

And in the process I came across all of these things, and I talked to a lot of pastors that, you know, very, very conservative denominations and everything. And this is the pattern that they're teaching. It's exactly like a sales pitch, exactly like a political speech. It's designed to increase numbers and increase money, and that's the emphasis. And I remember talking with a guy that had just gotten out of seminary and had just gotten his first church, and he was writing down a sequence of things that he wanted to accomplish as a pastor. And it was like, in the first five years I want a church this size, then I want one larger than that in the next five years, larger than that in the next five years, just like you would plan out any other kind of career. And that's what it became. And you cozy up to the upper-ups in the denomination to get to the plum spots, and it's a corporate ladder to be climbed, just like any other corporate ladder.

And it's all about buying and selling the gospel. Yeah, there's some truth to it. I don't know how – you are more cynical about it than I am. But you actually made a really good – I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry. That's a good credit where it's due. You made a really good observation, sort of sales pitch. And it is. It kind of is.

And then I went and looked. Dude, you are absolutely spot on. And so, yeah, and you're right. It's to increase the numbers. That's not our job. I've told people over the radio our job is not to increase the numbers. Our job is to equip the Christians. And I've said so many times, preach to thin the church out. Not that we want to lose members, but you want to preach the truth such that those who God is calling to hear the word and be equipped by the word, they're going to be the ones who are going to stay and get fed. And the dross, the goats, are going to leave. And they'll go to the United Methodist Church or the Catholic Church.

Well, like you say, this has been something I've observed for 43 years now. This was the time I was involved in a church split. And in the midst of this church split that was going on, the senior pastor lied to the congregation about what was going on.

They purged the membership roles of the people that were split up so they never had a voice to be able to say anything within the church about what had happened. And they're shattered lives that are the results of these things that they simply do not care about because it's not a part of their numbers. It's not a part of increasing the numbers and increasing the money within their denomination.

And that's what they're focused on continually. Yeah, a lot of them do. I can tell you, though, I know some pastors here locally. They're godly men, and there's no way that that would fit.

They're not concerned about numbers. They're concerned about fidelity to the Scripture and teaching of the people of God. So they're there. I have no doubt there are sincere folks out there. I have no doubt about that. But if you ask any of them and ask them about these things that I just brought up, they're fighting these things all the time. They are, within their fellow preachers and the people that supervise them, they are fighting these trends all the time, every single one of them.

Well, you know why? I mean, because here in America, success is measured by material things. It's material measurement. You're exactly right. That's exactly right. And again, it's like they're marketing and selling the gospel, and as long as they keep increasing, then that's, like I say, take a look at the Purpose Driven Church. The Purpose Driven Church is a model of advertising, marketing, and selling the gospel for profit. That's it.

It's exactly the same thing as you would do with any other product. Yeah, that's a problem, increase of bank accounts, yeah. You know, I don't know if you've ever heard of George Mueller. Sure. Orphan King. Well, he's my hero. He died in, I think, 1898, and I just have such admiration for the guy. I've heard a lot of things by Mueller.

Oh, good. You'll probably know this then, that he was called eventually when he got saved and stuff, to serve God, and I never forgot this. He was called to a small church, and they wanted him to be his preacher. I'm trying to remember this as I'm speaking it, so I'm not articulating it as smooth as I'd like, but he said he would under two conditions, and one of them was to get rid of pew rentals or pew sales, which I never knew what that was, but to find out, it's where certain people in the church could pay a little bit extra in the tithing to sit in front of the church, and he said get rid of that. And the other thing he said that the elders were the only ones who were to know about this was that he would only be a pastor there as long as the tithing came in to support him, and that the elders were not to tell the congregation that he was relying on the tithes, but that they were just to tithe this freely, because he's got to live off the tithes.

That's not a problem, and so he said only in that condition. You don't tell them that, and he said that's how I'll know how long God wants me here, and I never forgot that, because it had nothing to do with money being the goal or the number of people being the goal. His concern was preaching the word to equip the Christians that people who were given to his charge by God Almighty, and he took it very seriously. Similar sorts of things John Wesley did, believe it or not, and Leonard Ravenhill and Spurgeon was very much like that. So, yeah, there's been, you know, John Wesley was making about 1,500 pounds a year at a time when 20 pounds a year was a lot of money. Well, he gave it all away except for 18 pounds, but he lived less and less than what the average person would live at that time.

You know, C.S. Lewis, with all the books that he sold and everything, it all went into a trust fund and went into charity work. So, I mean, there's examples that we can look at that show the way, but, you know, it's like you ask anybody, is there any ministerial position, any pastoral position that's worth a million dollars a year, you know? And, you know, take a look at how many are becoming millionaires and billionaires, and it's, again, I'm much more cynical and skeptical about this. I have no doubt that there are sincere folks out there that are genuinely interested in, you know, in authentic spreading the gospel and authentic discipleship and things like this. But like I say, these are the reasons why my experience with church splits and different things is the reason why I take a much more cynical and skeptical approach to it. It's very hard for me to sit in the congregation and listen to a sermon and not think, well, are they giving me this sermon because they are interested in my spiritual well-being, or are they preaching this because they want my money and they want my vote and they want my wife? Money, power, and sex. You're nailing it.

You don't even know what you're saying to me. My wife and I watched a thing on the FLDS, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I've been saying for years, you can tell a cult started by a man, money, power, and sex, you know, women. And FLDS is so much like that, and that's how Mormonism got started also, same kind of thing. But you just said the three exact same things I've been saying, yeah. And, you know, another example that I ran across, another friend of mine was born and raised in a very predominant denomination.

I won't say which one at this point. And he went to Bible school and seminary in this denomination and was being interviewed by a staff. Then he had a meeting with the senior pastor, and he said, I want to tell you that you're not going to have to worry about any skeletons in the log pile with me because I went through college and seminary and I remained virgin. And the senior pastor went out for a second and he said, well, we've got three women that will take care of that problem for you whenever you're ready. So the senior pastor was arranging liaisons for his staff, okay. These are the sorts of things that are going on right now. And those are the reasons why I remain skeptical.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, there's lots of stories like that. I know the church locally where the manipulation of the pastor to get the congregation to clean his house, take care of his personal needs, and there was violence associated.

Not all pastors are like that, but good persecution will clean all of them out, and that's what we will need. Not that I want that, but that's what would happen. They'll just find another career. They would have to.

They'll just find another career. Man, see, I like that. Boy, that's good stuff, Ryan. But I'm really tickled by the connection of the sales pitch.

I never thought about that, but you're right. Well, there was a gentleman a couple of months ago that published a book. His last name is Nussbaum, N-U-S-S-D-A-U-M, and he put together a book about political speeches.

And if you go through the list that he says this is what you do in a political speech, it's exactly the same thing as sermons today. Well, now what we should do, because we're almost out of time here, is to discuss what ought to be done. That's the thing now. You see, I'm intrigued, but I really like what you said.

We're almost out of time here. Okay, well, thanks for talking to Michael. I appreciate it. Yeah, I do. I appreciate what you had to say, really.

Seriously. I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. All right, thank you.

That was Ryan, and we've had a lot of disagreements, but man, he nailed it. Good stuff. Hey, there's the music. I'll be out of here on tomorrow's Friday and hate mail and stuff like that. If you want to give me a call, well, then you've got to wait until tomorrow. May the Lord bless you. Have a great evening. Oh, by the way, I'm teaching Bible study tonight. Maybe if people show up because people are sick, hey, we'll talk to you later.