Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Today is March 18, 2024 The Truth Network Podcast is produced by the Truth Network. The Truth Network Podcast is produced by the Truth Network Podcast is produced by the Truth Network Podcast The Truth Network Podcast is produced by the Truth Network Podcast the Truth Network Podcast you the Truth Network Podcast The Truth Network The Truth Network Podcast is produced by the Truth Network The Truth Network Podcast is produced by the Truth Network probably where he got that from.

Yeah, I found that. So he says in verse thirteen, this is Philippians 1.13, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well-known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else. Alright, so what we know is that, um, we can know very quickly that Paul, Paul was an interesting guy in that he was performing miracles. They had a, he had a reputation, so when he's in jail, people are going to be talking to him and about him.

They're going to be, want to know who this guy is. I'm sure he had great wisdom, maybe he healed some people, maybe did some miracles in prison, I don't know, doesn't say so, but you just never know. So, the thing is, uh, it's not the case that they would just say, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't have any communication, because they did have the ability to communicate, and they did, and so obviously the letters got out. And so the praetorian, when I understand the praetorian guard, what happened was that they would chain Paul to one guard at a time. And so then he would be with them, and he'd be talking to them, and you know that, uh, they're just doing their job, but he's known in the whole household of Caesar as well.

So, uh, they had communication. Okay. Well, thank you very much.

You're welcome very much, no problem at all. All right. Take care. God bless.

You too. Well, let's see, okay, we have three open lines, if any of you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276, and we can talk, all right? And you can also email me at info at karn.org, and just put in the subject line, put in a radio question or radio comment.

All right. So, let's get to, oops, here we go, let's get to Rebecca from Salt Lake City. Rebecca, welcome.

You are on the air. Hello, Mr. Schick, uh, Pastor Schick. Um, I wanted to know, perhaps you've answered it before, but I didn't hear you, what is the significance of forty days when it rained for forty days and forty nights, and then Jesus was uh, taunted by the devil for forty days, and then Ezekiel laying on his right side, taking the inequity of Judah for forty days, et cetera, et cetera. It's, uh, the Bible is full of numbers and patterns, and so, uh, we have what, number five is number of grace, because, uh, David picked up five smooth stones to fight Goliath, Israel came out of Egypt five in rank, the holy anointing oil was pure and composed of five parts. The number of man is, uh, six, because man was created on the sixth day, he labors for six days, the serpent was created on the sixth day, et cetera. Seven is the number of spiritual perfection, seven days in a week, seven colors in the spectrum, seven of the ten commandments begin with the word not. There are seven seals, seven trumpets, seven parables.

And it goes on. Forty is the number of probation or trial. The Israelites wandered for forty years.

Moses was on the mount for forty days, forty days of Jonah and Nineveh, and Jesus was tempted for forty days. Okay. So it just means, uh, again, I have to write that down, it means what again, sir?

Probation, trial, testing. Okay. So that's what that is basically. Okay. Well, I appreciate your answer, and you have a good day. No problem. God bless. Thank you.

God bless you too. Bye bye. So, uh, yeah, there are a number of patterns in the Bible. Twelve is the number of governmental perfection.

There are twelve tribes of Israel, twelve apostles, twelve foundations in the heavenly Jerusalem, twelve gates, twelve pearls, twelve angels, and measurements of New Jerusalem are twelve thousand furlongs or stadia, while the wall will be twelve by twelve cubits. Let's see, I already did ten. Number nine is that of judgment.

There are thirty-nine Greek words derived from the root word meaning uh... judgment, decay, and uh... following each word occurs nine times in the Bible, et cetera. Let's see, I did seven. I did six, five, four. So, uh, three. Let's see. There's a lot of interesting stuff. I got my notes.

I haven't looked at them for a long time. Three appearance of Christ, past, present, future. What is three? What's the three?

Let's see. One is number of unity. Two is the number of division. And uh... Jesus has two natures. And uh... we're male and female. They're two testaments. There's the sheep and the goats.

There's this age and the age to come. Three is divine perfection. The trinity consists of father, son, holy spirit. There are three qualities of the universe, time, space, and matter.

And uh... let's see uh... we go on here. Three shepherds. Christ is three shepherds.

The good shepherd, the great shepherd, and the chief shepherd. And he has appeared, is appearing, and will appear. And the father spoke from heaven three times in Matthew 3 17. This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Matthew 17 5. This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.

Listen to him. And John 12 28. I have both glorified it. That's the father's name.

And we'll glorify it again. The tabernacle, a temple, consists of three parts. The court, the holy place, and the sanctuary. Regarding the tabernacle, the holy of holies was a set of three. Ten cubits by ten cubits by ten cubits. And the holy of holies was a cube.

Twenty cubits by twenty by twenty. And so it goes on. Number four is creation. And number thirty-nine, which I don't have listed here in my notes, is the number of mercy. Thirty-nine. They got thirty-nine stripes instead of forty.

They were supposed to be called merciful. They only would think it was thirty-nine times. And there's some other stuff about that, which uh... there you go. So let's get on the air with Carl from Dayton, Ohio. Carl, welcome. You are on the air.

I can't believe it. I'm on the air. That's right. There you go, man. Okay. I'll make this kind of quick-ish.

Um... I want to talk about apostates. Apostasy. Um... And I want to know if, like... And it's not really a fair question to you because you don't know when God gives someone up when he just turns them over to their own way of thinking.

He won't allow the Spirit to convict them. I don't know. You don't know.

Only the Holy Spirit knows. I've heard from all of you. Can you hold on? We've got a break.

Can you hold on? We've got another break. Okay, buddy?

This is an interesting topic because you've got me curious. So I want to talk about it. And we'll be right back, folks. After these messages, if you want to give me a call, it's 877-207-2276. 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, buddy.

Welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. 877-207-2276.

877-207-2276. Carl, you're back on the air. Okay, you can hear me? Yeah, I hear you fine, man. Good stuff. Where are you going? Okay, I guess this is not a question I want you to answer.

I guess I just want you to give me a commentary on what you think. So I have a brother-in-law. I love him to death. Love him hard. He's 71 years old.

He was actually a sitter. You're getting muffled. Okay, hold on. Can you hear me?

Yeah. Can you hear me clearly? He was actually being considered for being a pastor of two churches. He was being considered.

He did not get the job. And he kept giving me indicators over the years of who he really is. And one day I was just at work. I just went downstairs and I just asked him. I said, tell me something. He was a good Sunday school teacher.

A lot of people probably get saved by hearing his words, you know, with the help of the Holy Spirit. So I just went downstairs and asked him. He said, do you believe in the virgin birth? He said, no. I said, do you believe in the duty of Christ?

He says, no. And from that point, it was like something that was not discussed but understood. We knew that our relationship was going to change. And he makes a mockery of the cross. And for years and years and years, I knew that he was a true believer. And he told me he didn't talk about Christ anymore.

I mean, all these years, he's been teaching Sunday school and, you know, going through all these antics. So what I want to know is and I and I continue to pray for him. Now, if he knew that I was praying for him to come under conviction, he would probably say, why are you praying for me?

Why are you doing that? I don't need to pray for me. I'm fine. So he actually believes that he's going to be accepted by God because he's a good boy.

He was good works. He doesn't need Christ. So do I continue to pray for someone like him? I mean, I don't know when God turns someone over when he, you know, didn't allow the Holy Spirit to convict someone.

So I don't know, Mr. Matt. So do I continue to pray for him? Am I wasting my prayer? What do I do in this instance? What do you think?

My advice is to err on the side of caution and just keep praying. OK. You know, unless God communicates to you that this is a wasted effort, you know, but I would just continue to pray and ask God to give him repentance and that he would see the truth. And if he said he doesn't need Christ and he could make it on his own goodness, then I would just call it what it is. I'd say that that's pride. That's prideful. I just know. Oh, my goodness.

The stinking bride. Yeah. He is a classic Gnostic and a classic theist. You know, very, very, very good looking, smart, charismatic, good at arguing. He's he's just he's fascinating. It is fascinating, you know.

Yeah, I can understand why heretics are interesting. Yeah, I get it. Yes. Yeah. So I call it.

Yeah. Now, I'll tell you this really quick. Now, this shocked me because he's normally Mr. Coo, Mr. Coo. So I called him once. I said, now I'm not going to call his name. I said, so I just say Eddie.

So, Eddie, now, you know, when you die, you know that there's no do overs, you know, Hebrews 927 said, you know, there's no do overs, right? He said, I know I taught it. I know. And I just and I said this. I just casually said out of my mouth, casual.

I said, well, you're lost. He went. It's like it was something in him coming out of him. He went off. I've never heard him go off like that.

He went off on me so bad he couldn't even talk to me any longer. And he started mumbling something. I didn't know what he was saying. It sounded like it was somebody else in him talking.

It was fascinating. And I just casually said, well, you lost. And he said, you're a liar.

You're a liar. You're totally out of his character. And we got the phone. We didn't talk for about two months. And I called him back because I love him. Anyone who's married to my sister can become my brother.

And I love my brother. But it was just it was like a dual personality. I've never seen him like that before. And I just casually said, you're lost.

And you went off. Well, it sounds like he's demonically oppressed, if not possessed. Who knows? But it's bad. And, you know, you can keep praying for him and you can also pray imprecatorily. What that means is to pray that God would discipline him heavily in order to bring him to repentance.

That's that's the idea. OK. One more quick thing. My sister, whom he's married to, she's been a father, was a pastor for 36 years. He was truly in the kingdom.

He died. You know, we all went to church because we were good pastors, kids. This didn't mean anything. Sitting in the brick and mortar building didn't make you a Christ follower. But anyway, so I asked her because I was curious because I know that if she is in the kingdom, she's going to have a hard time dealing with him because he's totally opposed to it. So I said, my sister asked her, so how are you going to be accepted by God?

Like, like tell me, like, I mean, how are you going to be accepted? And she said she didn't mention Christ when she said, well, I love people. And she just kept talking about love because that's what he talks about. Well, Jeff, I love people, so I'm fine.

She didn't mention Christ one time. So should I be concerned about my sister? You know, my other sister said, well, Jeff, she watches The Chosen.

I'm like, what do you mean? What does that mean that she watches The Chosen? Doesn't mean that you're in the kingdom because you watch a TV show.

So would you be, should I be concerned about my sister? Of course. See, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And so if what comes out of her heart isn't Jesus, well, then he's not in her heart. That would be the logical conclusion. Wow. Wow. OK. OK, Mr. Matt, thank you for taking my call. You have a great day.

OK. It doesn't mean she's not a Christian, but it's that's just definitely a warning flag, you know, and that's all. So you got someone to ask me, Jeff, Jeff, how are you going to get in the kingdom? I'm like, oh, it's only because of Christ is because of absolutely nothing what I do.

And I you know, the closer I get to him, the closer I get to know him, the more violent, wicked I see. I know people think, oh, Jeff, he's so nice. Oh, I know me.

I know me. I'm not because I understand God's. And I really have to use the word perfection because what he is is really beyond what we think perfection is.

It's way beyond that. Right. And so I know that I have never entered the kingdom on my very best day.

But it's going to be good. Never without Christ. So on that note, I'll let you go. You have a great day.

You too, brother. God bless. I like that.

Well, that's Carl from Dayton, Ohio. He is right. The closer you get to God, the more you realize what you really are and how we're saved by grace and faith and kept by grace.

Praise God. Let's get to Chris from Georgia. Chris, welcome.

You are on the air. Hey, Matt, thanks for taking my call. Appreciate it, man. Sure, man.

No problem. OK, I just got a quick question about the Lord's Supper. I just want to know what your opinion about it is when, you know, Paul talks about it in First Corinthians, chapter 11, for we know when he says, you know, whosoever eats in an unworthy manner and what you think that means, because I always feel really nervous when we do the Lord's Supper at my church.

We do it like once a month. And sometimes I don't partake of it because, you know, I know the stuff I struggle with and I don't feel like I'm worthy of it. And so I really have a major issue with it because it's like something every month that comes up, I'm really nervous about it.

So I just want to watch what Paul was talking about there. Well, you remind me of me. I go through the same thing every time. Dead serious. I'm serious. Yeah, I've even said I don't like taking communion because it makes me feel bad about myself because I don't like looking at myself, you know.

But I take it because I need it. But we'll talk about that when we get back because there's a break. Okay. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. We have one open line, 877-207-2276. Please give me a call. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. As soon as Chris has reactivated there in the waiting list, we'll get right there and get back to him.

There we go. Let's get to Chris. Hey, Chris, you're back on the air. Hey, Matt.

Welcome back. Yeah, my question about the Lord's Supper, you know, like I was saying, you know, I just get nervous every time we have it. I'm like, you know, I know the stuff I struggle with and, you know, I know what Paul talked about and sometimes I just abstain from it. I don't partake of it. And so I just, like I said, I just want to know what your take is on that. All right.

So there are different possibilities here. And what we have to understand is that we are not worthy to take it, period. We are not. But we take it by faith. Because what we're doing is we're trusting that Jesus Christ is God in flesh, died on the cross, rose from the dead.

He shed his blood for us. And that when we take the elements, what we're doing is proclaiming that. That's what verse 26 says in 1 Corinthians 11. As often as you eat the bread, drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Now whoever eats in an unworthy manner, from what I understand in some research I've done on this, is that a lot of times what the people would do is get together for binging and eating in a gluttonous kind of a way. So when we take the bread and wine, we take a little bitty cup and a little bitty piece of bread.

That's not how it was. The first supper, the disciples were having a meal, a big meal. So there was a big thing of wine, probably, and a big loaf of bread. And so we would tear pieces off.

This is because people would come together. So one of the theories about this is eating it in an unworthy manner is that you're not eating it and participating in it as a remembrance of what Christ has done, but as a means to just get food while you go to the communion supper. You don't have to do that. So don't eat and drink in an unworthy manner. Another interpretation could be that you are in a particular sin on purpose and you have been partaking in it and then it's time for communion.

Now, some have said that would be in an unworthy manner because there's hypocrisy there. Because what you're doing is you're saying, I need to have communion, but I'm not repentant of my sin. Because communion, when we take it, is in part a designation of our turning from sin. So that's what's interesting is because let's say that you, me, whoever, has a sin, X, Y, Z, that we've been struggling with.

And maybe we won't conquer it our whole life. And the morning of communion, you fall into that sin. Maybe it's unrighteous anger. Maybe it's pride, selfishness. Who knows?

It could be all kinds of things. Now you go to church and you're like, oh, yeah, what do I do? Well, if I say I'm not going to take it because I have just sinned, then you have to ask yourself, if I'm not taking it because I sinned, but am I repentant? Because if you say, well, I've repented a hundred times, but I still struggle. Well, take the communion. In the intention of your heart, you're saying, I need you, Lord, and I'm proclaiming the salvific work that you have done in this. And I want to partake in it because of what you've done. And I'm just depending on you all the more, even through this. Now, if someone were to say, well, hey, it's no problem.

I'll just do this. I'll go do my own sin anymore. Again, I don't care.

That's a different story. Because then you're abusing what the communion is supposed to be about, the forgiveness of sin, which is related to our repentance of sin. And so we should repent. Yeah, it would come down maybe like a godly sorrow. You can have godly sorrow. You can struggle with things, but have godly sorrow. I mean, there's a difference between the guy that struggles with things and has godly sorrow and says, Lord, forgive me. I'm not worthy. And then the guy that sins and says, well, hey, God's grace covers this.

I'm good to go. And there's a difference between those two people. And I think the former is the one that is talked about when he says, you know, talking about godly sorrow. Right. Yeah, and so I remember once my wife and I were on our way to church and we got into an argument in the car on the way to church.

All right. And, you know, it's one of those things that happens in marriage sometimes. And I get there and I remember, oh, boy, we're taking communion today.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just swallowed all my pride, you know, and I said, look, hun, I'm sorry. You know, I apologize, ask forgiveness, you know, for my part. I think she did too at that point because we're facing this very issue of communion and we took. And does it mean we never had a fight again or never argued or disagreed again?

Of course not. But the idea is to be contrite as much as possible when we go to that table. And so when I'm, especially when I'm giving communion, I'm like, oh, man, because I'm extra careful for days ahead of time, which is kind of hypocritical because for days ahead of time I'm extra nice, extra this, extra that because I'm going to give communion, right? I don't really like it the whole time.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, so I'm like, oh, man, you know, it's just, I just can't win. You know, I'm just, boy, I'm really wretched.

Man, you know, it's just bad. So that's what, and I say to myself, oh, man, boy, do I really need him all the more. Yeah, yeah, and it's just like that last call we said, you know, the closer we get to God, the more wretched we see ourselves as. I can definitely relate to that. It's like sometimes I feel like I'm worse, and I've been a Christian for over 30 years. I feel like sometimes I feel like I'm worse now than the day that I became a Christian, you know. And I can definitely relate with what Paul was saying in Romans chapter 7 and all that. Yes, I relate to Romans chapter 7 a great deal. And I remember once I was praying, and I was very contrite and confessing all my sins.

I couldn't even think of any more. And then the next breath I said, Lord, thank you for not making me like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, which is what, you know, Jesus said, you know, the Pharisee said, don't, you know, thank you for not making me like that tax gatherer. And I recognized, oh, my goodness, I got pride even when I'm humble. Yeah, I've been there. Yeah, absolutely.

So that's why I take that communion, because that's where their forgiveness, redemption is, and I need to cling to that. Yep. Yes, amen. Absolutely. Well, that was very helpful advice, Matt. I really do appreciate it.

I really do. Well, praise God. And, boy, you were less like repeating my exact thoughts. So, yep.

All right. You must be as big a filthy, vile sinner as I am, you poor guy. Well, you know, Paul said he was the chief of sinners, and sometimes a lot. Well, I don't know, Paul, I think I can give you good running for that. Yeah, that's, yeah, I'm there, too. I'm like, I heard someone, I love this saying, I believe in predestination, you know, and it says, I'm glad God predestined me from the foundation of the world, because if he looked at me now, he wouldn't pick me. Yeah, yeah, I think Spurgeon said something like that, you know. Yeah, okay. You know, I think, I don't know if he was the original one, but yeah, I definitely agree with that. Yeah, amen.

That's right, amen, brother. Well, all right. Well, thanks for calling, man. I appreciate it. No problem.

I always appreciate your advice. You have a good day, Matt. Okay, you too, man. God bless.

God bless. All right. Okay.

All right. That was Chris. Now let's get on the phone with Derek from Virginia. Derek, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt. It's me again. Got a long drive home. Yeah, I just have a question.

Thank you for taking my call again. My question, I guess it's about God in relation to time. I've heard a lot of different speakers say that time is irrelevant to God. You know, they've said he knows the past, present, and the future. So he knows the end from the beginning. So for him to know the beginning, he had to have been there. And then for him to know the future, I guess like with prophecy, then he would either have seen it or have been there.

I guess my main question is, is God in the past, present, and future all at the same time? I don't know. Okay.

I don't know. And the reason I don't, the reason I don't is we have to define our terms first. Well, we have defined terms. Right. And so time is a fundamental aspect of physics.

And generally it represents a series of events, progression, change, alteration. So here's a question. Does time have an ontos? See, the coffee cup in my hand right there has an ontos, has a nature, has an essence. And this one I can pick up, measure, et cetera.

I can heat up the coffee inside of it. Thought. What about a thought? Is a thought, does it have an ontological essence? Does it have properties? What about time? Does it? Well, if we can't answer these questions, we can't say, well, how does it relate to God?

Because God and time, is time part of his nature? Well, how's it? We just have a lot of questions. So hold on.

We've got a break too. So we're out of time. Okay. So hold on, buddy. We'll be right back. 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. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Derek, are you still there? Yes, sir.

All right. The difficulty here is we don't know the nature of time. Is it an actual objective reality that has an existence?

Or is it subjective experience as we perceive things, and we just put a label on it? Now, I'm not a physicist, so I don't know. Maybe a physicist could come up and say, hey, we actually learned some new stuff about it. You could tell it's like it has a mass. It has a dimensionality. It has whatever it might want to say.

I don't know. So the problem here is that I've had people say, and I used to say, but I don't say it anymore, God's outside of time. Well, what does that mean?

I don't know what that means. I don't know what it means to be outside of time. Because if time is a measurement of sequence of events, then by definition, God has time related to him because he created in six days. But then we might say, well, did time come into existence when he first created the first day? Then time came in because some physicists have said time is a property of the physical world.

So it gets really difficult. Then there's A theory of time, and then there's B theory of time. A theory, I believe A theory is that everything exists simultaneously, and then B theory is the, it's consecutive. I forgot. I think I got that right. I might have them reversed.

Well, if B theory is consecutive, then that would be more the concept of what's called open theism, where God can only know present things exhaustively because he's restricted to time in the B theory sense. Right. So it's like, okay, it gets to be very difficult. And so that's why I'm saying, I don't know. Okay? Yeah. You see what I'm saying? Yeah.

I understand. It's just something I always thought about. Could he be past, present, future all at the same time? And I've often wondered, too, Satan, he knows, I guess, from scriptures and everything, how the end is going to be. And I've often wondered, why doesn't he try to do something different?

Or maybe he does. It always seems to bend back to the will of God of how he, you know. I'm thinking to myself that I'm Satan.

I want to try to do something all that I can differently to try to avoid the outcome. But I guess God is like a chess game. He's always one step ahead. I'd say about a kabillion steps ahead. Yeah.

Yeah, he's way ahead. And so, you know, everything that happens happens by his decree, either directly or indirectly, his permission, his will. And I've had discussions like this, very in-depth conversations with people about this. And just to be frank, I can't figure it out. I don't know. Right.

And it just requires a level of knowledge that we don't have. Okay? That's right. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm not even sure how to answer the question. Oh, yeah, I know how to answer it. I don't know. Okay?

I don't know. That's it. Thank you, sir. Okay, man. God bless you. All right, well, God bless, buddy. You too. All right. All right. Bye. All right, let's get to Byron from Greensboro, North Carolina.

Byron, welcome here on YouTube. Hey, how are you? Oh, a little exasperated melancholy. I guess it's a tinge of a streparousness kind of waiting in the shadows. Other than that, I'm okay.

Man, you know it's coming then. Hey, I had a quick question. I couldn't phrase it as well as I wanted to to you, the guy who answered the phone. But I have a friend who's not – I'm a Christian. I have a friend who's not a Christian. And he's always talking about, well, you Christians – and we never get into an argument. It's more like, hey, it's just a conversation.

And we've made it clear from the – or I have from the very beginning. I'm not going to be another Christian where he leaves a bad taste in the gospel and kind of witness how God wants me to witness led by the Spirit. But we were talking today, and I was talking to him about – okay, forget the Bible right now, because he doesn't want to talk about the Bible as far as the facts behind was Jesus an actual person and did he die, did he resurrect and all that kind of stuff.

I hear – he hears what I say, but it doesn't make sense to him. So I said, well, you know what, I don't know whether – and this is the question to you. I don't know whether there's a secular or a historical document from back then, not a Christian writing, but just historically whether it shows the death, and I think that's definite, but whether there's anything written historically about the rise and the end from a non-Christian – Yes, there are.

Yes, there are. Flavius Josephus, and he was born in roughly 37 and died in 101. Now, Christ died in 33, but Flavius Josephus was around during the time when the apostles were there, and he wrote – he was a historian, so he would do his research, and it was well known all over Mediterranean area that this man named Jesus had risen.

Now, is it a fact or is it a rumor? Well, Flavius Josephus wrote about it. Tacitus wrote about it. Excuse me, was it Tacitus?

Let's see, yeah, Tacitus did. And he was born in 55 AD, and so he wrote his research. What he said, he mentioned people who had believed in and affirmed that Christ had risen, and there's Thallus, and he wrote not of Christ, but of something else. Pliny the Younger wrote of Christ, and he died around AD 112, so he probably was not around at the time of Christ, and saw him with his own eyes. And the Talmud mentions that Jesus was hanged on the Passover 40 days before the crucifixion, etc.

Lucian, who was born in 120, mentions Jesus as well. So, there are accounts. Now, if you give them to this guy, he'll probably say, well, that wasn't eyewitnesses. Oh, you want eyewitness accounts? Yes, okay, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, you know. And then he'll just deny them. So, you say, look, the evidence here was written by the eyewitnesses.

And they'll say, well, why isn't it written by others? Well, for one thing, here's some information that needs to be understood. The Roman Empire was in control geographically of that little strip of land over there on the east side of the Mediterranean. This little strip of land was called Israel, and around Israel were mountains and deserts. So, this strip of land made it possible for armies to march instead of going across the Mediterranean, which was costly, difficult strategically, and sometimes dangerous.

They would march. So, they needed that geographical area. So, they had puppet masters that were in that area that would enter to Rome. The Jews and the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin, were in cahoots to a degree with the Roman leaders who were puppets. So, the Romans could send a whole legion out to destroy Israel if they wanted, but they didn't want to do that. It's expensive, difficult, why bother? Just let the puppet masters rule over them as long as the peace is held.

All right. So, there had been Jews who had rebelled against this system. They didn't like it. And they had been killed many times before. So, when Jesus comes along, the Sanhedrin could be really nervous about this, as well as every other person.

Wait a minute. We don't want the Romans to come in and destroy us, because they did in 70 AD. They're a big powerful, okay?

World-class armies, okay? So, they wanted things to be copacetic. Let's keep it nice.

Let's keep it cool. So, if you were to say, as a Jew, yeah, Jesus rose from the dead, and he's God in flesh, the Jews would consider it to be blasphemy, for one thing, and would kill him, because he was going to pick up stone to throw at Jesus. But the Jews weren't supposed to be able to execute anybody, because Rome had said, you can't do that without a trial, because if they're born under the Roman province, then they're Roman citizens. They had to have a trial, a hearing. So, when the Jews want to kill Jesus, they're risking their own lives.

This is very serious stuff. So, plus Herod and Pilate and these guys, they have to answer to Rome. They're not going to want any problems.

So, what's going to happen? Hey, let's get together and write about everything. Furthermore, people didn't write. The scribes would do that. Trained people would do that.

The average Joe did not read or write. All right, now what do we do? So, what we have are those people who were trained, who were with Jesus, who actually wrote the Gospels. We don't have Jews who would write this stuff, because they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't do that, because that means they're going to be ostracized by their own Jewish community, and they don't want that. Furthermore, are the Romans going to start writing, hey, Jesus, this guy who claimed to be God, rose from the dead?

Well, there's another problem. Rome practiced what's called Caesaropapism, emperor worship. He was considered a god. So, now if Roman soldiers or historians or whoever were to start writing about all of this stuff, they are risking a lot. So, this is why you don't have a whole bunch of stuff written outside of Israel, because it was geographically precise, but it was the eyewitnesses who did write, and in so doing, they talked and preached and taught about what Jesus did, and it cost them their own lives.

So, this is why you don't have all this extra biblical stuff. Well, of course people would be writing it all down. I mean, it's what you would do, wouldn't it?

Well, of course you'd be doing that. No. And when you understand the historical cultural context, you go, oh, I guess not. But Flavius Josephus did.

He was a Jewish historian. Okay? So. No, that's awesome.

You put it together really nicely. Okay. And ultimately, it's God nudging him and him accepting, but I'm just looking at a human man. You know, I'm still trying to prove my argument, and then I started thinking, I said, you know what? I mean, if he's not ready to hear my repeated, you know, you ought to do this.

Christ changed my life in these and those ways, but it's not tangible to him, or he doesn't want it to be tangible. And then you're trying to think in human terms, but thank you for answering that. Right. Okay. I hope that helps. All right.

Yeah, it does. I think I'm driving down the road, but I made a mental note of those names, and I guess I can just Google it, and hopefully my memory serves me. But if it does come up, I mean, are those writings that you were talking about, even though it was after Christ, and some of them, are they easily attainable on the Internet? Yes, they are. Okay.

And if you go to my website, CARM, and you look up non-biblical accounts of New Testament events, or New Testament people, non-biblical accounts of New Testament people, you'll find the article, which is what I was reading. Oh, really? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Now, what is your website?

CARM.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, and it's about 28 years old, and I've written about 6,000 articles on it. Oh, man. Yes. That's awesome. Okay, I'm gonna look it up. Thank you so much. Okay, man. All right, buddy. Okay, see ya. God bless. Bye. Okay. You too. All right, that's perfect timing.

There's the music. This is great. We're back on the air tomorrow. Hopefully, we'll talk to you then. And I hope you have a great evening. God bless everybody. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Bye. Another program powered by the Truth Network.