Matt Slick Live

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

Today's date is May 22nd, 2024. If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 8772072276. And if you want, you can email me at info at karm.org. C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. And just put in the subject line, radio comment or radio question.

Real easy to do. We have a list of them. And then what I do sometimes during downtime and Fridays, a lot of downtime on Fridays, is I'll get to them. So if you have a question, please consider doing that.

Or, as usual, you can give me a call, 8772072276. All right. Now, so we are working to improve the KARM site. And I sent a newsletter out last night and working on improving that. We're working on stuff. And so if you have suggestions I can see on KARM articles and things like that, let us know.

Just email us at info at karm.org. Also, just want to let you know that I'll be in a debate on the last Friday of this month down in Ogden, Utah. For me, it's down.

Or you, it might be up or over. And what I'll be doing is debating with a Mormon on does the Bible teach that salvation is by faith or works. So I like to say that all false religions add works to salvation. I'll be going through the scriptures to teach what it says.

And so does the Bible teach it? That's what the topic is. So I'm doing that. And it'll be at Weber State University, the Wildcat Theater, on Friday, the 31st of May from 4 to 6 p.m. So as I frequently say, sorry that it's 4 to 6. I wish it was like 7 to 9 or 6 to 8 or something like that.

Because people often get off work at 4 or 5 and may not be able to make it. But nevertheless, if you get down there in time or whatever, I think I'd been there before when I did a debate on Islam or did a presentation on Islam. This will be the first time for a debate. I don't know who the moderator is actually.

That's a question I don't have an answer to. But if you want to get the information, all you have to do is go to karm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, forward slash debate. Debates. And right there's all the information. I'll go down there and you'll see upcoming debates. You'll see that head, that title. And if you click on that, it says upcoming debates.

Debate 5, 31, 24. You can click on that. It'll open up another little tab and everything you need is right there regarding the debate time, location, and everything. And also, if you have any questions or anything you want to talk about or ask, you can call Russ East. He's a great guy. I've met him several times. He really is a great guy.

He's a humble man of God. And his number is 801-645-7433. And so you can check it out and on my little map there. Well, not the map, but on the debate.

I think if you go to debates, karm.org forward slash debates, click on upcoming debates. I have on that page, I have some maps. I got out of Google and put it there. Plus, you just get the address and the address is there. Ogden.

Hey, that's an interesting thing. Ogden, Utah. I would assume that if you just type it in your GPS, it'll find it.

Yeah, Weber State University Wildcat Theater. That's all you got to do. And I'm looking at the link. If you click on that link, it'll take you to that. I also put a link up for that there.

Anyway, no big deal. It's off of Harrison Boulevard. Harrison Boulevard. Ooh, almost heresy Boulevard. Harrison Boulevard. Belliston. No, that's not it. 420 South. Anyway, I'm rambling. Hey, why don't you give me a call?

877-207-2276. We broadcast. That's interesting. Nobody's typing anything. We broadcast to Facebook and, okay, you got to tell me in private chat. Laura, where are all the places we're live now? I know we're going to YouTube, but I know we're going to Rumble. And if you want to go to Rumble, folks, and watch the show and stuff like that, you can do that. All you have to do is go there. rumble.com forward slash mattslicklive.

One word there. And we'll go to CARM, Facebook, YouTube, and Rumble. We're going to see by getting on to X and Pinterest, Instagram. I don't know if they can do that on Instagram. And we're going to try and get into TikTok and things like that. I think I was supposed to.

X doesn't work too well. Well, I don't know if we can do it or not. Or if we put a URL there or whatever. Anyway, and so YouTube often will shut us down because we don't tote the party line in lockstep. And, you know, I say things about COVID, you know, and there's a lot more information coming out about COVID too.

I just talked to just an hour ago, talked to someone who says that the missus has have is having all kinds of problems. And they think it's from the COVID shut. And this is a lot of stuff. And they don't talk about it in the news. You know, it's suppressed information, but it's there. Now, will this get me banned on YouTube for a while? Because I said that, you know, the powers that be.

I wonder if they walk around with, you know, lockstep boots and stuff like that. And, you know, I don't know. You know, we'll see, because our country's becoming less and less tolerant of free speech and more towards the intolerance of woke ideology. You know, it's misinformation, even though what I was saying about COVID for a couple of years on the radio is true. And I had, I did research, I did all kinds of stuff.

And you know what, I'm going to get myself banned. You watch, I remember saying, and I can show people how to do it. You go to the CDC website, the CDC website, and I can show people how to do a report on related COVID related this's and that's. And I show, I just read what the COVID, what the CDC website says. And I think it was from that they said it was misinformation.

Yeah, it's not tolerated. Sorry. We will tell you what information is. We will tell you what is good.

You must sit and listen. What are your papers? Papers right now. So anyway, there you go. There you go. Let's see.

Okay. And so what I'm talking about there to the producer is apparently there's a radio ad from the CARM show debate for the debate. And it says something about the Christian outreach ministry. That's what someone told me. And so the Christian Christian apologetics research ministry, CARM, that's running on the Truth Network.

That's what it was. All right. Oh, Russ East is the moderator. He's listening.

And if he wants to call in and say hi to everybody, he certainly is welcome to. Russ is a great guy. He really is. He's tall too. And he's a humble guy.

He's probably saying right now, aw shucks. But he's a great guy. He loves the Lord.

Does a great work down there in the Salt Lake City area. He's awesome. And so there you go.

All right. Hey, let's get to Luke from Washington, D.C. Luke, welcome. You're on the air. Luke, are you there? Luke. Luke, come on, buddy. Get to the phone.

Or maybe there's a connection problem too. Hoping you're there listening. Luke.

Well, maybe we'll have to hang up on him and have him call back. Hello. Oh, boy, I was just getting ready to hit the drop button. Hello. Yeah, I hear you now. What do you got, man? What's up?

This is Matt. Can you hear me? Yes, I hear you.

Yes, what do you got? Hold on a second. OK. Can you hear me?

Yes, I hear you. Yeah, my question is does Calvinism is the gospel or Paulism is the gospel or Jesus Christ is the gospel? Well, I got two out of three. Calvinism, Jesus. What was the other one?

I couldn't understand. Oh, Paulin, Paulinism, Paulinism. None of those is the gospel. The gospel is a death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. So the gospel is the biblical truth that the Lord Jesus Christ bore our sins in his body on the cross, died with our sins and was raised from the dead three days later, and that all who put their faith and trust in Jesus will be saved.

And if they don't do that, they're going to be lost. It has to be the real Jesus, not the Jesus of Mormonism or the Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses or Christadelphians. It has to be the real Christ. So Calvinism is not that, okay? And Jesus, be careful, isn't that, but it is because it's him, but it's the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. And then the other one, what was the other one you said? Paul.

Paul just expounded on the gospel, on what it is, what Jesus accomplished. That's all. Okay?

Yeah. And also, infant baptism versus credo baptism. They want to debate with you.

Are you ready to debate with some non-Calvinist Indian group? Look, my position on infant baptism is just something inferred from scripture, and all I can do is present it and say, this is what I hold to it. And if you want to say you don't like it, okay, you don't like it. Well, now what do you want to talk about? You know, I just say the issue, I can explain it in two minutes. And that's all. So I don't really debate it. I just say to people, yeah, well, it's not explicitly taught in scripture.

This is why I hold to it right here. If you disagree, explain why you disagree. And it's okay. So it's not a big deal to me. I really don't need to debate it, you know, because it's not something to park my truck on, on that hill.

You know what I mean? So, whatever. But if some people want to debate me on Reformed theology, now, you know, that I'm interested in. That I think is because it's so biblical. And it certainly is biblical. So what is the answer for infant baptism versus creed of baptism? What do you mean?

What's the question? You know, Presbyterians and some other Protestants believe in infant baptism. And basically Calvinists believe in infant baptism. Most of the non-Calvinists are making fun of infant Baptist believers. Their theology is wrong. So what did you say for this kind of people who are not Baptists? Pentecostals or brethren, have you heard about brethren community, brethren assembly? So the brethren assembly is Nelson Darby who found, a dispensationalist Nelson Darby found that church. And in an Indian group, there are some people who are, who hold brethren views. And they said this Calvinist.

Yeah. Tell you what, if they want to have a discussion with me, we can go over theology. Be glad to talk to them. Okay. And that's all.

You know, I go on the web a lot and I go in different chat rooms and people have, we have discussions. And they might say, why do you believe in infant baptism? I say, this is why I give them a reason. And you know, it's not for salvation.

I believe it's a covenant sign. That's all. And if they don't agree, well, okay, that's fine. I mean, I have people on staff here who don't agree with me on that. Okay. Whatever. It's not something I need to debate. If they want to discuss the issue of, of reform theology, that'd be more than happy to do because I don't want them to cause unnecessary division in the body of Christ. And mock the things that they should not be mocking.

That's dangerous for them. And that's worth the discussion for me. Hey, hold on.

We've got a break. Okay. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. If you want to give me a call 877-207-2276. Be right back. All right, everyone. If you want to give me a call 877-207-2276, let's get back on with Luke.

Are you still there? Yes, sir. So I told the guy that some who attend Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a Reformed church, are Baptist, a Reformed Baptist who do not believe in the practice of infant baptism. And although subscription to the Confession is required for officers, a reservation on infant baptism would not prevent someone from becoming a member of the church if they are willing to.

We are leaving peace with us on that point. But, you know, these people are blaming that Calvinists are infant Baptists, especially this impersonationist brother and assembly, they are open or cross or inclusive or exclusive, I don't know, they are always there, effect in Indian, Indian continent. And they're always against this Reformed theology.

And I mentioned to you a couple of months ago about Dr. Johnson C. Phillips, he wrote a book against Calvinists and his heretics. That guy, at that time, he doesn't want to debate with you. He's ready to debate in the beginning. Yeah, right now, at that time I asked him by email, he said he doesn't want to debate.

Now, you know, he may, he's listening to this radio show, I told all the people in India to listen. This radio show, I'm asking a question to Reverend Maslick, he's an international debater. He's debating with all the people. You have any questions? You know, atheism or Islam or colonialism or any question, he's debating for the last 40 years.

So, and then, you can ask any question. He's a Calvinist, he's an international Calvinist and he's been doing this 40 years and he has school. He has lots of, I know, he lives by this. And I don't know, are they hearing this one? And they can also debate.

His number is always in this radio show also. Can you please explain this infant baptism versus credo baptism? Thank you. I'll give the reason I affirm infant baptism and then you guys can, they can do what they want with it. It's very simple. The Abrahamic Covenant was required by God to include infants.

It just was. The Abrahamic Covenant is still in effect because God said to Abraham and you, all the nations shall be blessed. That's Genesis 12, 3.

Paul quotes that in Galatians 3, 8 and calls it the gospel. That means the Abrahamic Covenant is still in effect. I need to find from them or some place where the infants are now excluded from the same Abrahamic Covenant.

That's what I'm asking. And so since it says entire households are baptized in the book of Acts, and the Jews understood the covenant aspect of God's work, included their children, then I think it's consistent to say that God's covenantal faithfulness still includes the children. Furthermore, a covenant is a pact or agreement between two or more parties. And when you make a covenant with God, you know, my covenant with God and my wife, you know, I promise before God my wife and I are to be married and my covenant sign is a ring. And the Ten Commandments are covenant documents. Ten and ten, that's another topic, and there's a covenant sign. The tree in the garden, covenant sign. Okay, so the consistent manner of biblical covenant is to have a sign along with the covenant.

So when people get up to church and they take their babies up front, and they dedicate the baby to the Lord and before the church, you know, and I've seen many churches that do that. I'm not saying all churches do it, but when those churches do it, my question is, since you're making a covenant with God, be biblical, what's the covenant sign? And they will often not have a covenant sign of any sort, they just make a commitment. Well, that's fine, I'm not going to, you know, call them heretics or anything, but they're just being inconsistent because covenants and the Bible always have signs. And so, what's the covenant sign? And when Abrahamic covenant is still in effect, and since circumcision is related to baptism, I can get into that, then I just need to ask them, please show me where it's excluded, where infants are excluded from the same covenant. And that's it. If they can show me, great.

If they can't, then that's why I hold to it, and then we can move on. And does the Bible teach any explicit place where infants are baptized? Of course not.

It doesn't say it in any place. And I acknowledge that. And that's not proof, though, because the Bible doesn't explicitly teach the doctrine of the Trinity, either. And so, it doesn't have to be explicitly taught in order for it to be true. So, those are the basics. And people disagree, I say, okay, disagree, all right.

Now what do you want to talk about? That's how it is, okay? So, one more question. Is Calvinism biblical?

I believe it is, yeah. So, he's only talking about Calvinism. Any other people talking about Calvinism, I mean, predestination and election? Yeah, what amazes me is how people will deny God's election and predestination when the Bible teaches it. I mean, I can show the verses where it says it. I cannot tell you how many times I've talked to people, and I just say, well, the Bible says people are elected.

No, it does not. And I read it to them. You know, Ephesians 1, 4, and 5, he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. The choosing is what we call election.

That's what it is. And I'll say, I believe that God chose us from the beginning for salvation. And they'll say, no, he did not.

I say, yes, he did. I just quoted 2 Thessalonians 2, 13. And so, I'm surprised that people reject God's election and predestination. And I think it's because they have humanist philosophy woven into their Christian theology. And they don't realize what's happening. That's just my opinion. And when I talk to people who aren't Reformed, that's fine.

That's fine. In fact, again, I don't even know if everybody who works with me on the Karn ministry is Reformed or not. And the reason I don't know is because I don't bother asking them.

Because it's not a big deal to me. But if people want to debate me on it or have basic discussions, we go through the five points. We show you where in the scripture we find these things.

And why it's that way. And if they want to have a nice discussion. And if they want to say, all men saved, trust me, I can deal with that very well. It's a topic I'm very familiar with in scripture. And I show people things about how God uses these terms.

And they're often really surprised by what God says. And so, you know, I'd be willing to do what people want. If not, that's okay. All right?

No big deal. So it's not the Pauline theology, right? People say this is Paul. Apostle Paul's theology. It's not biblical theology. Well, whenever someone says it's Pauline theology, not biblical theology, that's really kind of a non-sequitur. Because Paul's epistles are in the Bible. He taught it, therefore it's biblical.

You see? To say it's Pauline and not biblical really means that they don't believe what the word of God says. And then there are people who deny that Paul was called by Jesus, as Acts 9 says.

And so then we have a whole other set of problems we've got to deal with. And this is what happens a lot. When people are man-centered, then they don't like the idea of God's sovereignty, God's election, God's granting faith, God's granting repentance, God's appointing those eternal life. And I've got all these references.

I can quote you about those. They don't like that, so what they'll do is they'll attack the word of God. And then the psalmist goes so far as to say, Paul taught these things, we reject Paul. Well, what they're doing is they are developing their own theology apart from God. And then they're holding God accountable to their own theology.

And the evidence of their sin in that is that they believe it and don't have any conviction about it because that's a judgment of God upon them for Romans 1. Hey folks, we got to go, okay buddy? So there you go.

All right, man. 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. All right, buddy, welcome back to the show. Let's get to Ryan from Pennsylvania. Ryan, welcome. You're on the air. Thank you, Matt.

I appreciate you taking my call. I was looking through some of your articles on CARM and came across an article that you entitled, Interbeing and Causality Uses Proof for God's Existence. And kind of the synopsis of this is what you put in that the universe is not infinitely old because it has not run down. If the universe were infinitely old, it would have reached a state where all usable energy was gone. But we are not in that state, therefore the universe is not infinitely old. I noticed you wrote this in 2008, but the problem is in 2011, three physicists won the Nobel Prize for Physics because they discovered that the universe is not only expanding, it's accelerating. So it could be indeed expand infinitely and never run out of energy.

Well, no, that's a conjecture. And, yes, they're introducing dark matter and dark energy to explain this problem. And they don't know what it is. They don't know what the solution is.

They don't know why it's accelerating. And it is a problem. So what is it about the universe that has that ability? But we're talking about the universe being infinitely old in the past, not in the future.

And that's what the issue is. What prevents it from – well, my point is that you're saying that it would have run out of energy. Well, it hasn't run out of energy. And it never will run out of energy according to what we're seeing here. It could accelerate forever. And one of the things that is conjectured about this is that in about 22 billion years, it could actually accelerate beyond the capability of the space-time continuum to tolerate and absolutely rip the space-time continuum apart. So the rate of acceleration is increasing, right?

Yes. Then that would mean then that given enough time, it will reach the speed of light, which means that the mass will grow so huge and infinite that we're going to have a problem. And so the degree of relativity doesn't allow that.

Well, again, the point that I'm making is, and this is what they're saying, is at some point it will accelerate to the point where it rips the space-time continuum apart. These guys are philosophers. They're guessers.

They guess. Rips it apart. What does that mean, rips it apart? Again, it's accelerating beyond the capabilities of the space-time continuum to contain. But the point is that it could be infinitely old because it's not going to run out of energy because it's accelerating. There's no reason to assume that what you're concluding here makes any sense because we now know it doesn't have to run down.

It could continually expand forever and accelerate forever. Science is provisional, which means it adapts to new information. So I've heard recently that James Webb, and I have to find the article and go through, suggests that the Earth universe is static. And I don't know why, but this is one of the things I've heard, some new evidence is coming out. I don't know if it's true or not, but the idea of science being a philosophical provisional system doesn't mean it arrives at absolute truth.

It arrives at people, arrives at theories and ideas. So you've got to be careful about saying at this point of science, we're now going to stop and say this is the universal truth that we know of. All you can say is at this point, it seems to be the case that. And if it's true, then here's what they conclude.

But like I said, it's provisional in its conjunction. Well, all of science is conditional and contingent upon more and better science. Just as logic is conditional and contingent upon more and better logic, mathematics is contingent and conditional upon more and better mathematics. As we discover more of the world around us, the more logic and mathematics and science changes.

I mean, that's the nature of those things. Do you think the universe is infinitely old? I think that, well, I find it an interesting thing that it is accelerating. And as to whether or not it's infinitely old, as a conjecture, I would say it probably is. That it's probably always been here, yes.

Okay. If you say it's always been here, then that means an infinite amount of time has occurred to get to now, right? How do you cross an infinite amount of time to get to now? The same way we cross an infinite number of half steps between zero and one. And we have different kinds of infinities. You'll go to an infinite number because near the Planck's constant, 10 to the negative 40 if I've understood, there's science, the physicists and quantum physicists say distance becomes meaningless.

It doesn't exist anymore. I don't understand it. So if an infinite amount of time has occurred, how do you get through an infinite amount of time to get to now?

How is that possible? Because we're in a fractional division of that infinite amount of time. A fractional division. So an infinite number of fractional divisions have occurred? Yeah.

Okay. So an infinite number has occurred. That means it's a finite set. Therefore, it's not an actual infinite. Well, there's different kinds of infinity and there's different levels of infinity. Then there's larger infinities and smaller infinities. If you have a line that's a meter long and you have points on it, you can have an infinite number. You take half of that same line, you can also have an infinite number. How's half of that infinite equal to the whole of the infinite? This is one of the problems of what I call actual infinities. Okay.

And? There's a lot of philosophical problems to it. I don't know if you've studied the difference between an actual and potential infinite. So the universe had a beginning. It's not infinitely old.

And the COBE experiment with the background radiation showed that it has a beginning. Now if it's expanding, you don't know if it's expanding or not. Because it could be that space-time itself is being fractured, torn, ripped, stretched, whatever. And it's only perceived as expanding. We don't know yet. They're not out there with measurements and distances and things like that to be able to say.

They're only using them from observations from here, which can be pretty good. But like I said, science is provisional, so you've got to be careful. Also, about a year ago I sent you what I thought was a conclusive proof against presuppositional apologetics. And you said you'd respond and you haven't. And several weeks ago I sent you a condensed version of the same sort of thing. And you still have not responded. I was wondering if you were going to respond or not. I want to. I just forget because I'm so busy. That's all.

There's just so many things going on. Well, I put it under the title of Make Me a Liar. And it goes through a condensed version of what I think is the primary weaknesses of presuppositional apologetics. Also, I have a question for you. By the way, I don't make you a liar. You do that yourself.

That's how it works. But go ahead. I was reading through once again the debate between Greg Bonson and Gordon Stein. And Stein asked Bonson a question that I would like to ask you. Sure. He asked Bonson that if there was no rational reason for his faith, would he relinquish his belief in God?

And Bonson said yes. So if presuppositional apologetics was defeated, would you relinquish your faith? No.

Okay. That's the same camp that I'm in. That my faith is not dependent upon my apologetics and not dependent upon my logical arguments and so forth.

So you and I are in the same camp with that. My faith is not dependent upon those things. It's dependent upon my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has revealed to me that he exists.

It was under my heart and mind and granted me faith and repentance. So that's what I just depend on. But I presuppose that he is true and I presuppose that Trinity is a necessary precondition for all intelligibility. And I presuppose the ability of the Bible. And when I presuppose those two things, then everything makes sense.

And so that's what I do. Okay. Well, so you disagree with Bonson in that, right? No, I agree with what he said. If there was no, and I believe that if you went on and listened to it, he said, because if there is no rational basis, then we have a problem where that doesn't mean no rationality exists, or does it mean that God himself is irrational? And if God was irrational, then he wouldn't be God. And the reason logic exists because it's an emanation of the mind and the heart of God, the ubiquitous mind.

So therefore the laws of logic are reflections of his character. So there's no logical argument for God's existence, then it can't work that God exists because the logic would be based out of God himself. I believe that the existence of logic is proof that God exists. I believe everything that exists proves that God exists.

And I can get into that if necessary. So you've mistaken something, though, because you said if it's not rational, it's irrational. There is another alternative that could be non-rational, and that is what I contend is that our belief is not rational, it's not irrational, it's non-rational. That it is rational. That it's something other than rational.

I don't think that's rational. But anyway, hey, look, there's a break. We've got to go. And so coming back again sometime. I found your email, too. I'll take a look at it. Okay, buddy? Alright, thank you.

Okay. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Alright, and welcome back to the show. Let's get to Scott from Spokane, Washington.

Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt. How's it going? Oh, it's going. Hanging in there. Hanging in there, man.

What do you got, buddy? How's the wife doing, by the way? Today she's doing a little bit better. And she actually smiled at me. And that's different. Usually she's rubbing her forehead and getting ready to pick up an object to toss my direction.

But so she's doing better today. Okay. Well, hey, I just had a quick question. So, you know, there's a few areas doctrinally that sort of I don't really know where I land just yet, maybe with eschatology and another one, but also be with the spiritual gifts or maybe more relatively the sign gifts. And so I figured, you know, I remember hearing you mention the other day that you've prophesied once and you're, you know, you're a friend of mine and I trust you more than someone who I don't know as much. And so I'm just asking if you could tell me your experience and what happened with you and that regard.

Sure. And before I tell you, I just want people to know that I don't look at myself as some great charismatic this or that. It only happened once and it was by God's grace. And so that's it.

And all I can tell you, that's it. And I was taking the girl home from a Bible study, dropping her off at her house and she needed a book and I said, I got it at my house, my apartment and we stopped. And I can still remember, I can still see this.

I can still see her standing there. And she said she's going to go to Australia for a mission work. And out of nowhere, I just said, you're not going to do it.

Not going to happen. I said, you're going to stay. And in five months, you're going to meet a guy. He's going to become your spiritual mentor. And in 18 months, you and he are going to have a special bond.

You can do ministry work together. And it was just like that. I still remember saying it. And she looked at me and she was just blown away and she was upset. And like, you know, the air was pretty thick. And so I got called into the pastor's office a day later or two days later and said, what are you doing? What did you say that for? She's really upset.

I don't know what that was. I just knew. And well, anyway, two weeks later, she gets on a plane and she goes to Australia.

Okay, so I was wrong. And then the next day, she was back. And it turns out that she wasn't supposed to be there. She said she got off the plane and knew she wasn't supposed to be there. So she got on the plane, came back to the United States. Five months later, she met a guy. He became her spiritual mentor. And they got married at 18 months, went and did a mission and worked to England. And I still remember where I was sitting in the church, where she'd come up to me before she left and said, everything you prophesied came to pass. So, I mean, that's just an experience. I don't make doctrine out of experience. That's just what happened.

And it's not secondhand. It's what happened. Okay.

Sure. Well, that's it. Well, thank you.

I appreciate it. And, you know, I believe in the continuation of all the sign gifts, but I don't believe it's normative, like they do on TV, swinging the chandeliers, and everybody gets a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, and then they go up there and they're yelling and screaming. I don't believe any of that idiocy. I believe that God uses these things in the middle of context of evangelism, when you really need something that is according to his will. And he can certainly use his instruments, his people, his vessels to bring others to the faith and to demonstrate the truth of things. Now, why did God let me have that one thing once? Maybe so I could repeat it over the radio. I don't know. But that's just what happened. And I had another experience, a different one, a charismatic experience. And I can tell you about that if you want. But I'm just saying, you know, I don't judge truth by them.

I judge them by the truth of God's word. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Amen to that. Sure.

I'd like to hear that as well. Well, sure. I was back in the early 80s. And my Dave, actually, Charlie Spine and I, he's in the room here. He and I started a swap ministry together. And then after about a year, a year and a half, Dave Kimball, a friend of mine, he started doing it. And Charlie didn't do it quite as often. I don't know what I remembered. And so Dave and I were roommates, and we would pack up stuff and we'd go out to the swap meet. And it was off the 22 freeway, the Orange Drive-In off the 22 freeway in Southern California.

And it's gone now. And so we would, you know, I did this for two and a half years each Saturday, almost every single Saturday. You know, rain and shine and wind and everything. Oh, man, it was tough. Learned a lot out there.

Nevertheless, so this gentleman comes up to me once. And Dave and I would take turns going to the table. We had these tables set up at the swap meet. We had rocks, small rocks, that we would put on top of tracks. And we were just there to pass out tracks and answer Bible questions. We had assigned Bible questions, this and that.

And I'll tell you a couple stories that were kind of fun. Anyway, because we've got nobody waiting. But that was it. And we would just sit in a chair. We'd have water and get something to eat. And people would come up, what's this?

What's the traction about Jesus? If you have questions, let us know. We could try and answer them. So what Dave and I did was we learned to alternate. We would just take turns. The next person would come up, and it's your turn. You know, and he would talk, and then I would talk.

And this one guy came up, and it was my turn. And we're talking. I still remember this guy. What he looked like. I remember his size.

I remember everything. And he was telling me that he used to be a Christian. And that he was having problems with the idea of God in some areas. And I'm listening to him. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, I knew exactly what his issue was. And I mean, I knew it. It wasn't like I could guess.

I knew. And I started telling him what God had been speaking to him in his own heart. And when I did, this guy's eyes absolutely bugged out.

He bugged out, and he literally took us. He stumbled backwards one step. He just stumbled. He couldn't believe it. His head shook. His eyes were bugged out.

And you could tell he was severely affected. And I started telling him, this is what God has said to you. This is what you're doing. This is that. And he's talked to you about this and that.

And you're rebelling because of this. I don't remember all the details what it was, but I remember going through this with him. And then it was suddenly done. And this guy stared at me, and he didn't say anything.

And he literally turned and stumbled a little bit as he turned, and he walked off. And I turned to Dave. And I said, Dave, did you feel that? And what had happened was, during this time, I felt something. It was just, I don't know how to describe it.

It was something that was there and gave me knowledge. And I said, did you feel that? And he said, yes. He could feel it sitting down. And he told me that while it was happening, he said, Matt, like the mirage you see on a road, looking down the distance of a road in the heat of the day, the shimmering, he says, that was around you. I said, what? He says, it was around you. Well, this was happening. And what do you do with that?

I don't know. And here's another story. This is a fun story.

I can tell you another story. We were down there for two and a half years. And Dave and I, we quit after a while. But we were praying about stopping, because it's pretty hard. We worked five days a week, do this all day on Saturday, get up and go to church on Sunday at half a day of rest each week. It was tough. And the heat, I mean, you're sweating, and it would take hours for us to recover from this on Saturday nights.

And so it's pretty difficult. And we had had a donation box on one of the tables. And we'd had it for like two years.

And it was like four bucks in it in two years. That's not why we're doing it. Someone said we need to have a donation box there. So okay, fine. So we would just put it in the box full of tracts and stuff. Occasionally, once every few months, we'd count it.

Hey, look, we're at the $4.35, woohoo. It was like that. And so we just left it in there.

We didn't care. Maybe someone could use something out of it. We'd get them here and take them. So this guy walks up one day, and he's interesting. He gives us tracts. And he's out of nowhere giving us tracts. And he looks at the box, and he says, people don't need them?

No, not really. He says, they should be. He says, okay.

So Dave and I, we went home, and we're starting to discuss this issue of quitting. And we decided that if God wanted us to continue, that what he'd have to do is provide the money that we needed to continue, because it costs, I don't remember the exact cost. It was like $42.50 a month. This is back in the early 80s.

So it's closer to $100 now. And each month, we'd split the cost. And so we agreed that if God wanted us to continue, that he needed to, that we'd asked, Lord, if it's what you want, please provide the funds for us to continue this.

And we'll know that from you. The next Saturday, we went out there. Somebody put some money in. And then we're talking a half hour later, someone put some money in. And we noticed it pretty quickly, that people are putting money in. And we're kind of surprised, because it would happen once every two, three, four months.

And now, constantly during the day. And we didn't ask. So we didn't look at it until we got home.

And this is no lie, no exaggeration. I still remember him sitting at his desk, and I was looking at mine. And we just took this box. It wasn't very big. It was 8 inches by 4 inches by 3 inches kind of thing.

Maybe smaller. I don't know. And I just dumped it out on the table. And I couldn't believe it was in there.

It's like, what is going on? And we divided it. Just put the hand in the middle, divide it here. You count that. I'll count this. So he counted.

I counted. We added it up. It came to what we needed, to the penny.

Not a penny more, not a penny under. To the exact number that we needed. So I still remember Dave turning away, because his eyes were tearing up. And we were quiet for another 20 minutes. We just thanked God. That happened out there.

Stuff like that. All right? That's incredible. Yeah? God's good. All right? Amen.

Indeed. Okay. Well, thank you, Matt.

I will talk to you soon. All right, man. God bless. All right. Let's get on with Nate from North Carolina.

Nate, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, man. How you doing?

Reverend Jones. I haven't talked to you for a long time. We got three minutes. Well, I just want to say- A little bit less, but yes.

Yeah. The Lord has been good. I've been listening to you. How will I listen to you on Fridays? Well, I call the day to say an experience that has never happened to me, and I am not a Christian.

It happened to me, and I am 71 years old. Okay. It's been a very long time, Matt. Now, I went to visit my parents in Chapel Hill, and a classmate of mine lived down the street. We got one minute, just to let you know.

We got one minute. Go ahead. I didn't know she was sick, and the Spirit spoke to my heart. I went down, and I stood there, and my mother, because she's changing, and she's got some kind of evil spirit. I just stood there, and was calling on the name of Jesus, and I opened the front door, and I said, be gone in the name of Jesus.

Leave this person. The Spirit left her. She wiggled like a snake on the floor, and came to her right mind, and she was fine. Some kind of sound came out of her when she went out the door, and I had never experienced it, and I searched the scripture. Was that evil spirit in her? Well, evil spirit can't be in Christians. Okay.

They can't be in Christians. She wasn't Christian. Okay. If she was not a Christian, then it's certainly possible, but here's the thing.

If you cast out a demon, you've got to make sure that the person wants to become a Christian. Okay. Oh, there's the music.

Man, look. We're out of time. Why don't you call back tomorrow? We can talk about it some more. Okay?

Talk about this. You take care, God bless you. Okay. All right, man.

God bless. Okay. All right. Hey, folks. There we go. We're out of time. May the Lord bless you, and by His grace, we're back on there tomorrow, and we'll talk to you then. So have a good evening, everyone. God bless. This is another program powered by the Truth Network.