Matt Slick Live Broadcast of

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network.

If you want, you can give me a call today at 8772072276. We are streaming broadcast live here, not only over radio, but we're also on Rumble. If you want to go to rumble.com forward slash match slick live. We're also on Clubhouse, which is a phone app.

Just to do it today, I don't normally do this, but I thought today would be fun. I'm broadcasting to Discord as well, and probably won't be able to find me, but that's okay. It's on the CARM server, just look for my name if you want.

We're also broadcasting to Facebook, so no big deal. All right, so today I talked with Bill McKeever of Mormonism Research Ministry, and I'll be down in Draper on the 17th. Draper's about a half hour south of Salt Lake City, give or take. So I'll be speaking at 9 o'clock in the morning at the Utah Christian Research Center.

So they've developed that thing. It'll be the first time I've been there, and looking forward to going there. So if you want to check it out, you can go to carm.org forward slash calendar and view the details. That's what I'm doing right now.

Oh, we have two things up there like that, look at that. So I'll be teaching on one topic, what does it take to defend the Christian faith? So that's what I'll be talking on, and if that sounds interesting, what I'll be going over is the basics of the Christian faith and issues of proper reasoning and knowing the basics. And I'll probably have a handout of some of the basic stuff, basic Christian doctrines and ways of, you know, a little bit of the laws of logic thing.

They're not very complicated, just, you know, don't make mistakes like equivocation, you know, and the genetic fallacy, you know, just go over a few examples like that. But, you know, of course, more stuff like prayer, study the word, and how to be patient with people, which is something I am still practicing, still working on. You know, no one's perfect, we're going to give it a shot. All right, all right. Now, as I said yesterday, I asked for prayer, and I do need your prayer. Just things have been a lot of stress lately, a great deal of stress just how it is. And just want to lift it up and say, would you please pray?

All right, there's that, but also Charlie Spine, he works with us in the ministry, he's a great guy. And I'm not going to get into specifics unless he tells me I can in the private chat, but the Lord knows what he needs, and he definitely needs some prayer. So there's some medical stuff, you know. I mean, just stuff that happens, and if you'd lift it up in prayer so that he can be covered, that would be great.

Maybe he'll tell me if I can tell you what it is or not. It's not a big deal. Well, it is, but it's not. You know how those things kind of be.

They can be a big deal, and they can also not be a big deal, but it's a big deal for someone going under the meds, the knife, whatever you want to call it, and someone like myself sitting here in a comfortable chair. It's not that big a deal. So there you go. All right, all right, all right. Like I said, give me a call, 877-207-2276.

I want to hear from you. Give me a call. All right, let's just jump on with Ryan from Pennsylvania. Ryan, welcome. You're on the air.

Thank you for taking my call. I was wanting to ask this question in your after show segment, but I was unable to make any entries there for whatever reason. My question is about Judges Chapter 19, and to get a little bit of background, back in 1986 I went to a series of lectures about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I was in the middle of a bunch of studies about it, and the lectures were delivered by Yigal Yadin, who was the guy who first found the first Dead Sea Scrolls and did some of its translation, and I got to know of one of his understudies, who was a cultural anthropologist in the area of the Holy Land in Israel, and this was a chapter that I've heard probably, oh, two dozen sermons on and teachings on, and all the ones that I had heard, they talked about it being a matter of courtesy or hospitality and things like this, and when I talked with the cultural anthropologist from Israel, we had quite a bit of discussion about it because it seemed really weird to me to have this particular chapter in this particular portion of Scripture, and this person, I was wondering if you found this to be the case also, so the Judges Chapter 19 is actually a homosexual seduction scene. I don't know. That one I'd have to look at to see if that's it. There's the issue of the daughter that was given over, the concubine and stuff like that, but it might be. I'd have to look at the exact verses under question to see. It follows the entire chapter as they go through it and everything, and I found that quite striking, but apparently, according to the most ancient sources, that's what it is, is a couple of men trying to seduce the messengers.

That's what it looks like. Like I said, I didn't know if you had run across that or not. I know it was the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, but here also it's talking about Bethlehem area, whatever. They were celebrating, behold, the men of the city, certain worthless fellows surrounded the house pounding the door, and they spoke to the owner of the house, the old man, saying, Bring out the men who came to your house that we may have relations with them. The owner of the house went in and said to them, No, my fellows, don't act so wickedly.

Here's my virgin daughter. Yeah, he blew up with that one too. So yeah, it does seem to be an issue of homosexuality, absolutely. Yeah. Okay.

I was curious if that's what you saw also. I would like to be able to come into your after show on Rumble if I was able to. Like you said, my comments were blocked. I don't know about it. Okay. All right.

Thank you. But we don't see, maybe they'll let you in, whatever. I don't know because I just go there and talk, and others kind of guard and do stuff, so I don't know.

They watch stuff, so I don't know. Okay. All right. All right. Okay.

Thanks. Yeah, this is interesting. You know, the issue there, I'm going to read it.

It's an issue, but I'm going to have to not read everything because there might be children listening in cars, so I'll be very careful. I already read verse 22 of Judges 19 where one of the men there said, here's my virgin daughter, and then they did bad stuff all night and stuff like that. So why would such a man do that? Why would he offer his virgin daughter for that? My opinion is the guy absolutely, unequivocally did the wrong thing and was in great sin by not protecting his daughter and not rebuking those men. So that's what I think is the case there. It's reprehensible what was done.

His father should have given his life to protect his daughter and the honor of his daughter, not to deliver her over to such treachery. So anyway, there you go. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. We don't have anybody waiting right now, so maybe what I'll do is I will go over to the radio questions. Tracy says, I'm interested in hearing your impression on a teaching on Psalm 82 from the Hebrew Bible. I had people telling me about this author, his teaching, brief overview.

Michael Heiser teaching on the Psalm, why I felt. Yeah, you can get the gist if you want. You can listen for 30, 45 minutes, 30 to 45 minutes.

So I'll have to check it out. I don't know. I don't know what he's saying and can't do it right now, obviously. So there we go. All right.

Let's see what we've got by way. Oh, wait a minute. I think there was some good hate mail too. I think. Yeah, that's right.

Where was that? Dave, we talked today, and he's supposed to put this in. It was hate mail, and it was kind of laughable, and he read it to me today. I can't find it, so I won't be able to go through that. That's all right.

Okay. Does Satan and his demons know what is written about their faith? Hmm, about their faith. Hmm, that's an interesting way to word that about their faith, about them, I think is what it really should mean. In Luke 4, 34, it says, the demons there said, what business do we have with each other? Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One. And so there's that.

Seems like they don't know when it will happen. Is eating pork still a sin? No, it's not. Is this an abomination?

No, it's not. How does it apply to John 3, 36? Let's go see what John 3, 36 says.

He who believes in the sun has eternal life, but he who does not obey the sun will not see life, but the wrath of God abide joined him. Oh, man. You know, I got a good cup of coffee here. I'd like to get a good cup of coffee here before the show.

And my wife got some chai that she got from a nice restaurant or coffee shop, actually. And I put a small scoop. I don't like too much of it. It makes it taste good.

A little bit of chocolate creamer. Yeah, I'm spoiled. All right.

So that was because of the yawn. So how does this apply to John 3, 36 and Revelation 21, 8, which says, but for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all their liars, their part will be in a lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Man, I should use that verse on the Catholics. You know, the idolaters. Man, they're idolaters. Anyway, that's another topic, too.

A lot of good topics. Let's see. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure what John is asking. Does Satan and the demons know what's written about them?

I think that's what he means. And yeah, of course they do, because it's written in the Bible. I know what the Bible says. And so the demons come here to destroy us in another version that says, before the time. So they know that their destruction being cast in the lake of fire is coming. But they just don't know what it is. And it's not a sin to eat pork.

That's okay. You go to Romans 14, 1 through 5 for that. And please explain John 3, 36. He believes in the Son as eternal life.

That's right. If you believe and trust in Christ, you possess eternal life. But he who does not obey the Son will not see life.

What does it mean to obey the Son? The word there. Oh, interesting.

The word is pistouon. Present active part is simple. And that's from belief. So the NASB says obey. But I think the NASB is a great translation.

But every now and then, I just wonder why they translate things certain ways. Let me go check this out. Other versions. Yeah. ESV says obey. King James says believeth. RSV obey. LEB. Oh, disobeys.

That's tough. Interesting. Hey, there's the music. We'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. 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. So I did a little bit of research on that Greek. And I clicked on something incorrectly the first time.

And I was looking. And during the break, he who believes in the sun is eternal life. But he who does not obey the sun. The Greek word is apatheon.

And from apatheo. And it means to disbelieve. And it also means to be disobedient. So it has two meanings from apatheos, disobedient. Not to allow oneself to be persuaded or believe, to disbelieve. Be disobedient apatheo.

Interesting. So either way is good. Most of the Bibles that I've looked at say obey. But some of them say believeth or believe. And ASV and refuses to believe.

Yeah, so either one seems to be a legitimate translation. Because different translations or different Bibles render it as either believe or obey. Because apatheon from apatheo can be both believe and disobey. So to believe Christ is to obey Christ. Because he says believe in me. And I believe that that is John 14. Let me see. John 14 1. I believe that is.

Do not lead heart trouble. Believe in God. Believe also in me. He is telling them to believe in him.

And they should. So this is interesting because a lot of times the anti-Calvinists in their mockery. How do you know you're elect? What if you want to believe and you're not elect?

They don't understand what's going on. And he who believes in the Son of God has eternal life. That's what I like. And I'm thinking through this because there are a lot of verses in the Bible that talk about believing in eternal life and you'll still never perish. John 3 16. John 10 27 28. So if you believe you have eternal life you'll not perish.

So anyway not a big deal. I'm just thinking it gets interesting. So I like studying like that. And I enjoy it when people ask questions that are not perplexing but they're provocative. And that was provocative because it provoked me to do a little bit of study in a good way.

And I appreciate those kind of comments and questions. All right there's so many more things to learn. You know I know a lot of stuff but to be honest I'm not joking. I feel like I don't know very much. I really feel like that because there's just so much to learn. Man there's just so much.

I have so much more to learn about God's word. Wow. All right let's get to Cindy from Ohio. Hey Lisa welcome.

You are on the air. Hi Matt. Hi Joanne. Hi Ernie. Hi Jimmy. Hi everybody.

Hey Matt. I'm talking about whatever verse it was you were just referencing. Talking about in some versions it's KJV it's translated obedient or I mean believing but in NASB it's translated obedient.

I have and David Rocky knows this. I have several Torah observant friends and we go back and forth and back and forth. So you know I'll quote scripture says Abraham believed God and counted to him as righteousness and they vote. It's like my proof text can beat up your proof text. And then they quote the one which I can't think of what it is and I don't have time to look it up that you know refers to Abraham's obedience. So tell me if this is correct please. I tell them the obedience was his faith because John 6 29 and I quote this one to them all the time.

This is the work which God requires that you believe on him who he has sent. So when they try and say that Abraham was justified by his obedience I say his obedience was his faith. Is that technically incorrect.

Can I get by with that. I'm not sure. I won't say things like that because obedience is not faith because obedience is different than faith but they're related. They're different words different definitions.

Faith is to believe but in it you're also obedient when it comes to Christ and obedience necessitates faith in Christ. So they're definitely related. So these Torah observant are they Jews or supposed to be Christians. No. Yes they claim that Jesus is a messiah. Oh so they claim to be Christians right.

Yes. So are they saying you have to keep the law to be saved. They will not answer that question. I have asked over and over again why do you keep the law and they won't answer it. So to me that's an admission that they think that they're somehow enhancing their salvation or their justification. Then you need to. If I was there with them and I asked them the question must you do good works in order to keep yourself right with God.

I need an answer. Is the end of the case yes or is the case no which is that they won't respond. If they were to avoid the question I'm going to say that I can't call you Christians. I will call you false converts. I will call you Judaizers.

I will call you legalists. You cannot affirm the simplicity of justification by faith alone and Christ alone because you can't and because you refuse to do it publicly. Then I will just consider you to be a false converts. You are like the Judaizers and Galatians 3 through 5 applies to you. Yes I quote a lot of Galatians. Okay.

Thank you. Yeah and so where are these so-called messianic believers? Well they're Facebook friends actually. Most of them don't attend congregations anywhere.

They just usually meet in like house churches you know or whatever they would call them. Yeah that's often a problem. So one of the things you could do in that context of Facebook is you write posts that are aimed at everybody paying attention to what you're saying to them. I do that. Good. And also say what are the things you have to do to keep yourself saved or get saved. Whatever it is. What's the list of things?

Please tell us. And if they won't answer the question of justification by faith alone and Christ alone and they don't give you an issue of works then the Bible says let your yes be yes, your no be no. And everything else is evil. So you just have to pronounce this on them. So you're just being evil and just keep saying it to them.

You guys are evil. This is a post. If I may read it to you just very quick and I got this from it's not an exact quote but I got this from listening to Theocast which is a podcast by two 1689 reform Baptist guys. So this is what I posted. Keeping the law for justification is the attempt by the natural man to obtain righteousness. Believing in the gospel is the supernatural act of God whereby we are given the righteousness of Christ.

You cannot obtain the supernatural through your own works. Would you agree or disagree with that? Oh that's very good. Yes those guys are right on.

Yeah I thought so too. So I posted it. Good.

Good for good. And you just need to keep labeling them. Yeah I've never heard that twist.

Yeah I've never heard that. Just keep labeling them. Say you're false converts. You won't answer the truth. You seem to be ashamed.

I thought I kept trying. Yeah and also Romans 4-5. Just go over it. You should study Romans 4 1-5. It's critical.

I don't know if you know about it but it talks about what justification is and how it's obtained. Okay? Alright we can go through it if you want to. If you can call back we can go through it. Okay there's a break.

We've got to go. Okay well God bless. Alright good for her. Good for her.

May the Lord bless her. Hey folks if you want 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. Alright everyone welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. Okay so when the previous caller said 1689 Baptist my brain instantly went to a King James only kind of thing. And I went oh no. But I was wrong so that's what it was. So the 1689 Baptist confession is a good confession as long as they don't judge truth by it.

But they just like it. That's okay. Let's get to Samuel from Lynchburg, Virginia. Samuel welcome. You're on the air.

Hey Matt. So I have an initial question for you. Would you self-identify as Reformed or Calvinist? Yes.

Okay. So my follow up question is I'd like to ask someone of that belief system about this that they can properly defend themselves instead of just looking up arguments against that. So growing up I was always given the – when you ask the question why does God allow sin to persist in the world, you're given – I was often given this answer that well God allows sin to exist so that you can have freedom to choose him. So because if he were controlling all of our actions it would be, you know, it wouldn't be true love that we could give to him. So my question is as a person who believes Reformed theology my understanding of that is that it kind of has a more restricted look on your free will.

No. Like what you're doing and what instead the Holy Spirit is doing through you and it's not actually you doing it so that they can avoid people having to choose something for salvation. Do you understand what I'm getting at?

Yeah, yeah. You know I get these kinds of things a lot and generally they're from people who don't understand the Reformed perspective. They think they do. They haven't really studied it and so they don't know.

And you know not being disrespectful is just that's not on the mark. So one of the things I wrote down what you said, people say if God were controlling our actions it wouldn't be true love. Well I'd like to see them just as a point of logic. I'd say show me scripture for that or present a logical argument why that's true.

The reason I would do that is because a lot of people just assume certain values and then they just build an entire case on it. And so I would say how do you know that if God is controlling our actions that isn't being loving? And are you saying God isn't in control of all things? Are you saying things happen outside of his control?

What are you saying? Because there's all kinds of stuff that people don't realize that they're saying. And when I speak on Reformed theology, Calvinism and the Gospel in a couple three weeks in a Tennessee area, I'll be addressing this kind of an issue where people they think they understand stuff and they don't they haven't studied enough.

And I'm not looking down my nose at them I'm just saying there's more to this and they need to study. So just define what free will is. Sometimes what I'll do is I'll trick people and I'll say look I want to trick you.

Is it okay if I try and trick you? And they say well go ahead. I say okay here we go. And I say is free will the ability to be able to choose between a good action and a bad action? And you can do either one. You can choose either one.

You can do either one. And no one forces you and that's it. And you make a choice. And I ask them is that free will?

What do you say? Is that free will? Is it? Are you asking me? Yeah.

I'm still here. I mean I think it's tough to define it. And I've heard this.

I've gone down this rabbit hole with my cousin who was reformed before where it's kind of like then you just get into this kind of shit back and forth argument about what's defined. Is it focus? Is that free will? That's the question.

Focus. So is it free will to say that as long as you have the free ability, no one's forcing you to be able to choose between good and bad. You can do either one. You make a choice. That's free will, right? I mean I kind of disagree with that because I mean I don't think you can ever totally be free to choose something.

There's always going to be pressures. Let me focus on this, okay? The reason that's a false definition is because God cannot choose to do evil. And the thing I try and show people is that what they're doing without realizing it is they're being humanists. They're defining something in relationship to their own common sense and not using the standard of God himself to define what free will is.

That's the point. Free will is the ability to make a choice that's not forced on you. It's freely generated from within, but it's also consistent with what you are, with your nature. This includes God. Because God is holy, he cannot lie. He cannot sin.

So that would be a better definition. Well, then what do you do with the verses that say that the unbeliever is a hater of God, doesn't seek for God, is by nature a child of wrath, is dead in his trespasses and sins, is a slave of sin, and cannot receive spiritual things. So that would be his nature. So then if we understand what free will is, that a person can only act in a manner consistent with his nature, and the nature of such a person is depraved, that he cannot receive spiritual things, that he's a hater of God, doesn't do good, doesn't seek for God, is a slave of sin, hearts desperately wicked, deceitful.

He's dead in his sins, by nature a child of wrath. Then we ask, how does he freely choose? And people say, well, free will means he can.

No, don't do that. Use free will's definition based on what God can do. Don't be humanist in your philosophy. And they don't realize that's what you're doing. And so what I try and show them is that we use God as a standard of what is right. And then we apply the question to that standard. And that's what we should be doing. Otherwise, we're inadvertently becoming idolaters.

So this is the point. And if an unbeliever is a slave of sin or a hater of God who can do no good, doesn't seek for God, et cetera, cannot receive spiritual things, then how does he freely choose? Well, he's completely free. He's free within his restricted nature.

He's free. You know, I have a restricted nature. I can conceive of things, but I can't accomplish everything I conceive of.

I want to fly to the moon, but I can't do it. And so we are restricted by our natures as to what we can apprehend, what we can know, as well as what we can accomplish. I also can't decide to want to do something that I'm not aware of. And I can't decide to do something that I can't comprehend. So we're restricted in our freedom right away by our natures. But too many people, what they do is they say, lo, no, we have free will. And they walk around strutting.

Just imagine some guy walking like a rooster, slowly strutting. Yeah, look at his head. That's right. I got free will.

That's right. God won't violate my free will. God is not in control of my free will. I can do whatever I choose.

And that's the arrogance of humanistic philosophy that's woven into Christian thought now. So I try and shape that into people's mind to get it to be right so that they won't continue to be in error. All right.

So that's the foundation part. Okay. You want to go any further than that?

Because there's more. Yeah, I see what you're saying. So, and I've, my past, I went to an EPC church growing up, and that's similar. That's pretty much on par with what you said is kind of trying to make sure I really understood. Like, look, you may think you have free will, but there's a ton of restrictions on that.

And this is not. Yeah, so I hear that, but I'm also kind of wondering, like, what, at what point does, do you have any action from yourself to move towards faith? And if so, is that the Holy Spirit? Sorry, you said something to move towards faith.

That's interesting. It's an interesting set of words because the Bible says God grants us faith, Philippians 1 29. How do you move towards faith? You mean how do we move towards God? Well, God draws us, John 6 44. But we can't come to him unless it's granted by the Father, John 6 65. But there is a, I hear what you're saying, but there is like, would you deny that there's ever a moment where you choose that from yourself?

Or is it only ever through you? Okay, so we've got a break coming up here. So let me start this and see if we can get through it. What I'll introduce you to, I'll preamble it and then we'll wait till the music starts. So we'll come back from the break and I'll teach you what the position is.

I'm going to talk about temporal priority and logical priority. Once I teach those concepts to you after the break, then we can apply the issue of belief to it because we Reformed folk do believe we have free will. And we do believe we freely choose Christ. We do.

I have a Masters of Divinity from a Calvinist Seminary and I've been defending this for 33 years. So when we get back to the break, I'll explain how and why. Okay, so hold on buddy. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages and I hope you still listen when we get back. God bless, we'll be right back. All right, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call 877-207-2276. Emil, are you still there? Yep.

All right. Okay, so a lot of people think that Reformed theology, Calvinism as it's also known, is deterministic. God steps on your free will, grinds it into the ground, yanks you kicking and screaming, et cetera, et cetera. And that's not the truth.

That's not what it is at all. And we do believe in free will. We define free will biblically though.

I showed you how, you know, what it is. And then we also affirm what the scripture says about the unbeliever, that he is a slave of sin. And so he's not going to choose God of his own sinfully.

Sorry to interrupt you. Remind me what that verse was again about the total depravity argument. Those are such verses as Ephesians 2, 1 and verse 3. You can go to Jeremiah 17, 9. You can go to Romans 6, 14 through 20. You can go to 1 Corinthians 2, 14 and Romans 3, 10 through 12. What was the one you're mentioning specifically? What was I saying about it?

I've mentioned a lot of them. You brought up one particular verse about the unbeliever has no understanding of... 1 Corinthians 2, 14. They cannot receive the things of God for their foolishness to me. Cannot understand them.

Cannot receive them. That's what the Bible says. He cannot. See, what we do is we say, well, if the Bible says this, well, the Bible says whosoever. And I go, yes, it does, kind of, in John 3, 16. But we don't set scripture against scripture. But that's what happens a lot. I'll quote a verse and then say, well, that's not true because of this verse.

Are you realizing what you're doing? You're setting scripture against scripture. Don't do that. They do it all the time. See, no, don't do that.

It's about the solidity of God. I'm sorry, what? You said they do that all the time. Are you thinking of anybody in particular?

Just general Armenians who are obstreperous. And they misrepresent Reformed theology, insult it, just stuff like that. And that was one of the emails we got today that I was going to read over the year and go through it because it was complete misrepresentations.

And I've met so many that when I say, well, that's not what you believe. Yes, it is. No, it's not. And yes, it is. I studied it. I said, well, so have I. And that's not what I teach.

Oh, yes, it is. And I test them and they don't know. And I'm not trying to say I'm better than anybody, but it's just like, come on, you know, study this stuff.

Okay, so let me get into this issue of do we believe you actually freely choose God? The answer is yes, we do. We do. But let me explain what I mean by that. So I have to use an illustration. I don't know if you've heard me talk about it on the radio before about logical priority and temporal priority because these are concepts that are very important at this point. So the illustration I use is a light bulb. And so temporal priority, this would be an example. We flip the switch, electricity enters the light bulb, and five seconds later the light comes on.

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. This is temporal priority. The event, and then five seconds later there's another event that's related to the primary event. So this would be temporal priority. Logical priority is different. So when you flip the switch, electricity enters the light bulb, and electricity and light are simultaneous. So they're simultaneous, not temporally distinct, but logically distinct.

And what that means is that electricity must be there logically first and must be there in order for light to be there. But they both occur at the same time. So this is called logical priority. So let's apply it to the issue of faith and regeneration. Let's say we have a man who believes, and five seconds later he's regenerated.

This is temporal priority. Then we would have a problem because we'd have a believer who's not regenerate for a while. That seems to be rather incongruous from scripture. Let's reverse it and say that regeneration precedes faith by five seconds. Then you'd have a regenerate person who's not a believer for a period of time.

And that's problematic. So what we say as Reformed folk is that regeneration precedes faith logically. That it must be there in order for us to freely believe. And when it's there, we freely choose Christ.

We freely do it. And furthermore, God is the one who causes us to be born again. 1 Peter 1.3, we're born again not of our own will. 2 Timothy 2.13, as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed, Acts 13.48. He grants us repentance, 2 Timothy 2.25. He grants that we have faith, Philippians 1.29. And Jesus says you cannot come to him unless it's granted to you from the Father, John 6.65. And so we Reformed folk say, well, we believe all of them. And people will say, well, he wants all to be saved. Well, that's another topic. And then we go and look at how God uses the term all in reference to salvation.

And you'd be surprised what God says about it. Most people don't study. Most people say all means all. That's it. We're done. I'm not talking to you anymore. I say, okay, fine. You weren't talking to me. That's fine.

But for those who want to hear and hear a Bible study on this from the Word of God, I'll tell you. This is what I do in chat rooms. And I say, go ahead and teach. And I go, okay, look.

Check this out. I warn them. You can't trust a guy with his last name Slick. You always check what I say against Scripture. Okay. Well, I mean, it's true, you know.

I wouldn't trust a guy named Slick. All right? Yeah. So you're saying under that logical priority argument that God does the regeneration part and then your free will comes in after that or simultaneously with that, so to speak, with the next part. Is that right?

Yeah. And we choose to believe. And he also grants that we believe.

That's what the Bible says. God has been granted to believe and has been granted in the Greek is aorist, passive, indicative. That's significant because it means in the Greek, aorist is past tense. And passive means you receive the action of it. And indicative means it's a fact. So we receive the action of believing, yet we do the believing.

So what is that reference again? 1 Peter 1.29. Okay.

Okay. And also you can cross-reference it with John 6.29 where Jesus says this is the work of God that you believe in whom he has sent. So that's what we find. And so we Reformed folk, we believe in the sovereignty of God and the freedom of man. And the freedom of man to the unbeliever is, well, he's free. He's free to operate within the realm that the chain of depravity lets him go.

And so he's free. Like a wild dog on a chain, he's only able to go so far and the chain stops him. And the chain here is total depravity.

The scriptures that teach that his heart is wicked and deceitfully cannot receive spiritual things, does not understand them, does not seek for God, doesn't do any good, is dead in his trespasses and sins, is by nature a child of wrath. So the chain is there. But what unbelievers, well not unbelievers, let's say, what a lot of times Arminians want to say is, there is no chain, otherwise it's not true freedom. And I say, really? So then can you show me your definition from scripture? Can you show me why it's true? And they can't. And I say, but God can't lie.

What's that? You're saying that what is true, I miss that. The idea that human free will is restricted by its sinful nature, they don't like that. And they want to say that it's not restricted by their sinful nature, and that's when I say, please show me that in scripture. And they'll go to verses like John 3.16, what's that? Of course it's restricted to some degree, I don't think you can make a good argument that it's not restricted by that.

They do, they try all the time, seriously, they do. And they'll go to John 3.16, God's loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him. And I say, sorry to break the bad news to you, but the word whoever is not in the Greek.

The word whoever is hos, and it's not there. What is there is all the believing one. It says that the believing, all that believe. And even if it did say whoever in the Greek hos, I'd say, and how is it that they come to believe?

It's something they come to believe by their own sinful free will. And then I have another question I ask them, a question they can't answer. I say, look, here's Bob and Frank, they're identical twins. Even in their cesarean, they both came out at the same time. They married identical twin women.

They have two desks in the same job, they do the same thing, and they live next door to each other. I mean, everything in their lives is identical, Bob and Frank. They're not believers, and one day, they get invited to go to a church from someone across the street, and they both go, and Bob believes the gospel is regenerated and Frank does not. And I ask them, their main is to say, why did Bob believe and Frank did not? And the standard answer is, that's because of his free will.

And I say, why did Bob's free will enable him to believe and Frank's free will did not? And that's where the wheels come off the cart, because I say, you think about this, who made the will? God. Who made the mind? God. Who put him in that place, in that time? God. God did this. So why is it that one person, so to speak, free will, grants him access and another one does not? If you say it's because of the free will is, well, you're not answering the question, why does his free will allow and the other one does not, because that's what free will is. That's not what free will is. And so they don't realize they're adopting humanist philosophy.

And in my opinion, humanist philosophy is rampant in the Christian church. And I'm going to start writing an article, it'll take me a while to get more and more citations and stuff about this, but I'm seeing it more and more so. Well, I was going to your, you said you were doing a talk soon on this issue. Yeah, I'll be in Tennessee, in the 22nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, I'll be there for four or five days at a conference. I'm only going to speak once, but I'll be there for several days. Is it going to be streamed anywhere?

I hope so. I talked to the guys who were heading it up, I said, you guys should stream it. We don't know how. I said, I'll help you.

And then I heard it, they're going to stream it, but I don't know if I heard that right. So I'm not sure. Yeah. All right. Well, I'll look for it. That's fine.

Yeah. Well, thanks for your time, Matt. I appreciate it. No problem at all, man.

No problem at all. And please feel free to disagree with me and say, well, I'm not so convinced by that. That's okay.

That's your free will. Okay. Well, I'm more here to listen than speak.

I would probably fall more under the Armenian category, but I'm not running with the crowd of people that make arguments like the ones you're describing, but I do appreciate your perspective and definitely good to keep open dialogue so that we're not straw manning each other's positions all the time. You know? Well, let me just give you some kudos because let me give you some kudos really fast. We only got a few seconds, sorry, but I really appreciate that you called up to answer or to ask and you still don't agree and that's okay, but now you're informed more and that's fine. So praise God.

There's the music, buddy. All right. All right, then. God bless. Have a good one, Matt. You too. God bless. Bye. All right, buddy.

There's the music. I'm out of here. May the Lord bless you by his grace. We'll be back on the air tomorrow and hopefully we'll talk to you then. Have a good evening, everyone. God bless. Bye. This is a program powered by the Truth Network.