Matt Slick Live

It's Matt Slick Live! Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apologetics of the Christian Apolog TEST as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as how as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as as That's the, and I don't know of another adjective to describe God in this way, he's not a thing of course, but isn't it true that the only thing that satisfies God Almighty is God Almighty? Ultimately, yes. Because only he is good enough for his own perfection and holiness. He requires nothing less than perfection. So that's right, sir.

Yes. Now we can say that he indwells us and we can please him by seeking even in our failures and our imperfection as we seek to honor him and to live for him, and that pleases him. But even that has to be filtered to the blood of Christ, so yeah, okay, good stuff. Amen.

That we are saved through the most precious, priceless, powerful substance that ever touched planet earth, and that's the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. Amen. That is absolutely true. That's absolutely correct. Yep. Now pastors don't teach the blood very much.

Well, maybe they don't teach very much, that might be the case. But let me ask you this, sir, isn't it true that God alone is love? And he is teaching those that belong to him every day, closer and closer to being lost in his love, because that's the only love that there is.

That's the only true love that there is. Yeah. He's the source of love.

I couldn't hear you, sir. Yeah, he's the source of love, and his nature is to- But isn't he the only, he is love. Yep. Yes. Right. First time 4-8, he's love. He's the source of all love.

He's the standard of all that is loving and good. That's him. Okay?

Yeah. Well, I just wanted to ask you, sir, because you, I thank God for you, I praise God for you, and that you, and I hope you don't get off the radio, because it's, you delve into the, I would say the deep things of God is what I love, and you don't often hear that in- That's true. In the church. That's true. Churches. That's right.

Often they don't. So I want to thank you, and I, yeah, the Lord Jesus brought your dear wife to me today when I was in prayer, that he would heal her. Oh, good. Thank you. Well, there's, thanks a lot, Pearl. There's a break ahead of go, so God bless, and thanks for calling, okay? When you put something else in my mind, I'll call you. Okay. God bless.

Okay. May folks be right back after these messages. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back to the show.

If you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. So last night, I did something interesting. I went to Oculus.

It's a thing you put over your eyes. You can go into the virtual world, and I have it in order to witness, and that's what I do. Now, the one I have is old, but it gets it done.

It's blurry and not that good, but I wish I had a new one, but that's okay. I went in, and the funny thing is I wasn't even thinking about it. I was just working on something, and all of a sudden, it popped into my head real clear. Go. Go in there. And I literally just stopped what I was doing, and I put it on, and I went into this room, and within just a few minutes, I'm there, and I go into this place, and it's a room, and there's like 10 people in it that are avatars, and you can see 3-D. It's really cool. And this guy goes, oh, hey, you're Matt Slick, and we'd interacted before.

He says, everybody, look, listen, this is Matt Slick. He answers questions and teaches and stuff like that. It was really nice, a nice opening, and people started asking me questions, and I ended up teaching for about 45 minutes and answering questions. Now, the reason I'm bringing this up is because of what Pearl said, and Pearl said in the last caller, she said that people, the pastors aren't really teaching much, very deep stuff anymore. Okay, so that caused me to think about what happened last night, because in the Oculus, you have a device in each hand, and you can move, you can go forward, backward, you can go up and down, you can jump, you can do all kinds of stuff, and you have these things. You can raise your hand, you can put your fingers. And so I said, okay, in the room here, how many of you here are Christians? This is after 20 minutes of talking and stuff, and the majority of the people raised their hand. I said, okay, for the Christians, I'm going to just ask you a question, and I said, is Jesus a man right now? And the ones who answered all said, no, which is false.

And I didn't jump on them. I just said, okay, and what's the Trinity? And I think I remember saying it past that, and they didn't know. These are Christians, and it reminded me, what Pearl said, reminded me of that encounter, which is surprisingly very typical in Christian churches, where they don't know stuff. Now, I'm not saying that patches are horrible, but it's just that the Christians across the board can't even tell me what the Trinity is, or how many natures Jesus has, or what's the difference between justification and sanctification. Now, I know Christians who can. I know some guys and girls who, they can articulate it very well, but they're very, very few.

They're the people who kind of float to the surface in things, and you get to know them. But for the most part, when I go to seminars, when I go to stuff, and I ask questions, do some teaching, Christians just across the board don't know anything. That's a concern.

It is a big concern, and it's a concern. I think Christians need to be taught not only what it means to satisfy God in your walk with him and turn to Christ, but it also requires pastors should be teaching what the doctrines of the faith really are. And I don't think they do that very much, and I don't know why.

I just don't know why. In 1 Timothy 6, 1, it says, all who are under the oak as slaves are to regard with their own masters as worthy of double honor, or excuse me, of honor, so that the name of our Lord and our doctrine will not be spoken against. And in 1 Timothy 6, 3, if anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words, et cetera, and he says in 1 Timothy 6, 3, again, he says, with doctrines conforming to godliness. And 2 Timothy 4, 3, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but wanting to have their ears tickled. In Titus 1, 9, it says that the elder, a pastor is an elder, is supposed to be able to exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict. And Titus 2, 1, but as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine.

In Titus 2, 7, and all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds with purity and doctrine, Titus 2, 10, it's showing all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect. So it's there in scripture. I'm just puzzled. I am. Why is it pastors aren't teaching it, or are they?

I don't know. Let's get to Jacob from Missouri. Jacob, welcome, you're on the air. Hey, Matt. I had an analogy for the Trinity that I wanted to run by you.

All right, go ahead. So it helped me kind of understand it and grasp it. So imagine God being like water that's surrounding the world, and then Jesus is like a droplet of that, of God, of the water that came down into human form. Is that kind of a good analogy for that and like the Holy Spirit kind of mist that surrounds everything? I can see a value in that illustration when you want to say that Christ has divine quality in nature and became one of us and that the presence of God around us is there like that water and then a drop came down. That drop, by definition, is just as much water as the whole and became one of us. I could see that, but it has a potential of denying then where the Holy Spirit fits in, because how would you then fit him in this?

So that's why I wouldn't use that one. The analogy that I found that is the best that I've heard of is relating it to time. Time is one thing and it's just nature's time, but time has three aspects.

Don't say parts, don't say parts, but say aspects, past, present, and future. Each one of them is distinct from the other, but is by nature still time, and we are aware of their distinction as they relate to each other. So the past happened before the present, the future happens after the present, so there's a relationship between them and that's where we draw their distinction. The same way God is one substance with three, we sort of aspect here, we'll say persons, and we discover their relationship or their distinction in their relationship to one another.

This way the people can get what time is and see the equality of all, by analogy, of all three persons, and that they are differentiated by their relationship to one another, okay? Okay, yeah, wow, that helps, and that's perfect as time with the three aspects, not properties? Yeah, I don't want to say properties. Properties emanate out of the ontos, and for someone who might be knowledgeable about difference between properties and ontos, you might get into some trouble, and that's why I say aspect because it's vague enough that they can't just jump in.

If they say, well, what do you mean by aspect, you say, well, you know, I just go back to what time is, it's past, present, and future, and then sometimes I'll even say, time has, we could say it has parts, but I don't want to, I'll say to them, but I don't want to use the word part because that's not what Christian Trinitarianism is, but I'm just giving you an analogy how one thing can have three aspects to it, past, present, and future, all be one substance, but you'd understand them in relationship to one another, and then it's revealed to us, and that's how it is in the Trinity. Okay? All right, I love it. I appreciate it.

You're welcome. Well, God bless. All right. God bless. Bye.

Okay. All right, now let's get to Laura from Utah. Laura, welcome.

You're on the air. Well, hello, hello. I had to sneak outside and run. Huh? What's that?

I thought I had to sneak outside and run for a minute because I got so many computer screens going and noises that I could call ya. All right. Remember this, Laura, she works with us. She's great.

So what do you got? You know, it's a blessing to work with Karm and I'm going to throw it out there. Everybody needs to go to Karm.org, Matt has written so many articles that are just so important for us to read and to glean and to learn so that we can know the truth. But my question is, I keep seeing with so many, so many people keep saying that we need to leave politics at a church, and they're just adamantly against, and we've had people leave church if politics are brought up and just wanted to know your take on that. Yes, politics does need to be in the church. The pastor needs to talk about issues that relate to politics because all things are under the subjection and sovereignty of God. And if a Christian thinks that politics is excluded from that, then the Christian does not have a good biblical theological position. We don't want to say that God should stay out of our kitchen.

Of course he should be in our kitchen, our bedroom, of course he should be there. Now, I'm not talking about being in person and being in a bed, but I mean the idea of the sovereignty of God in all areas of our lives, how we drive, how we work, everything. Now why would people then say, politics has to be the exception? And the Christian who would say such a thing has to defend the position that politics is something we should not do, from the pulpit.

And so I can't see that as being biblical, and there you go, okay, we have a break. Amen, I agree Matt, thank you. All right, Laura, God bless, thanks for calling. 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. Hello everyone, welcome back to the show, we have nobody waiting right now. If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276, I'm going to be at Yorba Linda in Southern California, speaking at a conference on, it'll be two weeks, I'll be down there, on Friday the 13th, I'll be flying in, so I'll be speaking on, I'll be on a panel on Friday evening, and I'll be speaking three times, doing three workshops or whatever it is, on the 14th, and I'm preaching at Norco, Calvary Chapel Norco, on the 15th, two sermons.

So there you go, and I'll be doing that. And next week, check this out, yeah, next week, yeah, next week I'm going to go down to Provo, Utah, to hear Ed, just a friend, he's a good guy, I'm going to go down there and see him preach, and I always tease him, he's a good guy, I always tease him, like I'm going to sit in the front row and just bug out my eyes, like, you said what? And give him a hard time, but no, I'm just going to sit in the back and just enjoy him preach the word of God.

So that'll be, you know, on the 7th and 8th, I'll be down there doing that, we can drive down on Saturday, come back on a Sunday, you know, just stuff, so there you go, and maybe I'll say hi to Terry, if she's listening, because a lot of times I know Terry, she's at her kitchen or doing stuff for the family, and I mention her name and she always smiles, so she's great, be staying over there. So Ed prefers me over James White, for what, looks? Or buffoonery?

So it just depends, it just depends, well what's he looking at? Or am I more humble, yeah, I'm more humble than James, you know, that wouldn't work, either. So anyway, just having fun, okay.

So Humble Clay, you're going to hit Newport or Huntington Beach, Matt, you should hook up with the Banana Man, I have no idea what that is, I haven't been to Huntington Beach in a long time, the last time I was down there, though, the last time, the second to last time, anyway, it was years ago, I was down there, and Ray Comfort was preaching, and I go, hey, look, there's Ray, you know, and so I'm in the crowd just watching and he sees me, and long story short, he goes, come up here, your turn, so I started doing some open air preaching, it was fun, he's a good guy. All right, now, let's get back to, let's get back to some of the comments and questions, you know, I was looking for the Catholic stuff, though, I was hoping, I was hoping that they would do something more, but besides just, just talk in circles without getting any substance. Let's see, here's a, my next email, coincidentally, is Brother Matt, my question is on Roman Catholicism and suppliant omnipotence, suppliant omnipotence, they dedicate a date of Mary and they, oh, I see, to supplication, supplicant should be not suppliant. And the date of Mary, and they say, suppliant, I gotta check to see if that's the right word, omnipotence, please explain this, I don't know what that is, I don't know what that, I'm gonna look that up and see if there's an actual phrase, because I'm still learning about Catholicism, I don't have all the stuff down on what it is. Let's see if there's a phrase that works like that. Now, suppliant omnipotence is a paradoxical concept that posits a being who is both all-powerful and also in need of supplication, what? This idea often arises in religious or philosophical context, paradox, being which is all-powerful and in need creates a logical contradiction, what?

Let's not Christian thought. So I'm not sure what that is about, I'm not sure what that is about. Hey folks, if you wanna give me a call, 877-207-2276, I just had a thought, and the reason I'm thinking about something here, I'm thinking about the three online schools. I've just found out before the radio show that there's a problem with the schools and our web guy is in contact with the firm that produced the software in which the schools run and that there's a problem and they're working on solving it. I mean, I don't know what the problem is exactly, I've heard people say they sign up and then there's a little problem, they can't see the schools, we have to give them access.

It should already be there automatically, I think that's what the problem is. But if you have taken the schools, I wanna hear what you have to say. If you're gonna call me up really fast, let me know, but I'm also interested in something else. Maybe people could let me know, you could even email me or call up and say, I'd like to see a calm school on a particular topic because I have schools on theology, on apologetics and I have schools on critical thinking. And I've thought about writing one for biblical interpretation and I've also thought about doing stuff like how to learn to witness to the Catholics or learn what Catholicism really teaches and have a school, like here's what the premises are, here's this, here's this. And you go through and you do questions and answers as you go through like 50 lessons or something like that and I could do that.

So I am curious, so those who are listening on Rumble and or those who are listening on YouTube and Facebook, you can let me know. I wanna know, I wanna know. And I think Laura said hermeneutics, which is how to interpret scripture. I've written on that before and I can teach on it.

So anyway, that's a thought, it's a thought, I got so much to do. Let's see, this person, the email says, asked a Catholic brother a question about it and God skated around with no answer. Instead he attacked my own interpretation, so I don't know what the question is, so I'm sorry, I can't answer it.

Let's try this. I have some concerns regarding your article about the concept of adiaphora. Now, adiaphora, ladies and gentlemen, is the teaching, there are doctrines that are not essential to the Christian faith that you can affirm or deny certain aspects and you're still a Christian. That's what adiaphora is. All right, like you explained, adiaphora prefers to beliefs and practices that are non-essential, et cetera.

He agrees. What's confusing me is you also say in the article that pre-Trib rapture or post-Trib rapture would be a non-essential, so it would be adiaphora. While it is true some Christians might consider it to be adiaphora, I don't think it is accurate to say it's definitely adiaphora. Well, I'm confused because he just defines it properly and then says that it's not adiaphora, but pre-Trib post-Trib rapture debate, both are acceptable within the Christian worldview and does not negate someone's faith in Christ because of either one. Anyway, he goes on, because if a Christian sincerely believes pre-Trib rapture is the scriptural view, it wouldn't be adiaphora in their eyes. It would be the scriptural...

Okay, no. Adiaphora is that person has a view they believe is biblical, but it's an opinion. For example, there are people who believe that the scriptures teach that we'll be raptured out before the tribulation. Others like myself teach we're going to go through the tribulation, we'll be raptured out after it.

Both of those positions cannot be true in the same time, in the same sense. But if I hold to post-Trib and someone else holds to pre-Trib, it doesn't mean they're a Christian or not a Christian. It just means they hold to a position which is not stated as being an essential doctrine of the Christian faith. Essential doctrines are those things that are stated as being essential, like Jesus says in John 8-24, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sin. So you've got to believe he is the I am, John 8-24, or his physical resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15, 14, and 17, Paul says, he repeats himself, he says that if Christ be not raised, our faith is in vain. So that's an essential doctrine of the Christian faith, a resurrection of Christ. But nothing in the Bible says thou shalt believe and preach of rapture, otherwise thou shalt go to hell. There's nothing that says a statement like that which would then declare it as being an essential. No, it's an Adiaphora. It is a non-essential, which means there's a range of doctrines that people can believe in and have differences of opinion on, and it'll still be okay, it'll still be true. That's what's going on. That's what it means. And so Adiaphora includes the rapture, the millennium, and things like that. Okay? Hope that helped. So now, let's see if we can get to another one.

Can you please answer this question on the radio? Are there any examples in the Bible of God Jesus changing his mind? None, I'm aware of Jesus, but there are places in the Old Testament where it says God changed his mind. And so, what do we do with those? Well, I have a whole section written on this kind of stuff dealing with open theism. Open theism is the position that the future is open because God can't know what your free will choices are going to be, because if he knew what they're going to be, then you're not free anymore. That's illogical, but that's what they hold. And so one of the things they will do is cite instances where God says, you know, he repented of this, or he changed God's mind and does this and that.

So the general response to them is simple. God is speaking to us in human terms, not in the divine relationship, that he will do something and then alter what he said he would do. For example, he said he was going to destroy Nineveh.

And he didn't. Well, does that mean that God made a mistake? No, it does not, because when you go to, for example, Jeremiah 18.8, God says, if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I plan to bring on it. So God can say to a nation, I'm going to destroy you. I'm going to do this to you.

I'm going to do that to you. And then that motivates them to turn from their sin. They repent. And God says, okay, I won't. So God knew the ultimate truth that they were going to repent. But part of the requirement of their repentance was God saying what he did to get him to repent. So then God can say that I'm going to do this. And then he says, okay, well then. But he gives the conditions why.

And this is dealing with the issue of the now, the not yet, and some other theological perspectives. That's the first level answer. All right. So let's try this one. Here's a question.

Listening to the show right now in Clubhouse, this is from, when is this, oh, this is a while back. My question for you is this, what are your views on lordship salvation versus free grace theology? Lordship salvation is the idea, there's a bit of a variation in its teaching, understanding, but it's the idea that Jesus has to be Lord of every aspect of your life in order to be a true Christian and saved. Free grace theology generally says you're just saved by grace through faith and you've gotten sin and it's okay.

Both of those have their problems, obviously, and we're running out of time here to be able to get to them. But we don't have to make Jesus Lord of everything in our lives in order for him to be Lord or be our savior. We don't make him Lord of every single area of our life, but upon that condition that we do, he becomes our savior.

That's not true. He is that automatically, which is even including government, we've got to make sure of that. Free grace theology violates 1 John 2, 4, you say you know him, but don't keep his commandments and the truth is not in you and you're a liar. We don't want to say that we're just saved by grace and then we can go sin and actually go out and do it and then deny the truth of God's word and what he requires of us. That would be a mistake.

Both of those exaggerations would be error and heretical. All right? So there you go.

I am out of time. The music is going to start here in a few seconds. I just want to let everybody know we will not be live on the air on Monday because it's a holiday and so we'll be back on the air live on the radio on Tuesday next week. And may the Lord bless you and please consider supporting us. We would need that and we would just appreciate it. Go to karm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G forward slash radio. That would be awesome.

I mean not radio, forward slash donate, I'm thinking. May the Lord bless you. Have a great weekend everybody. God bless. We'll talk to you next week.