The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. If you are listening to Match Lick Live, I hope you all have a good day listening today. Well, all you have to do is go to your email and send an email to info at karm.org. And put in the subject line radio comment, radio question, something like that, and then we can get to them. Usually we do them on Fridays today, so we'll check it out.
Today's date is August 16th, 2024. I hope the Lord's going to bless you and this show. So why don't we just jump on the line and get to Jamal from North Carolina. Jamal, welcome. You're on the air. Hello, brother Slick.
This is your vice president of Slick Congress calling again. How are you doing, Will, sir? Doing okay, man, by God's grace. I like that. So what do you got, buddy?
Doing good. I had a question about tithing. I wanted to see if it's okay to take that 10% and divvy it up to several different entities that does that 10% and then some difficulty to go to one single place.
That's a good question. When I reflect on the scriptures about the issue of tithing, the purpose of it is to help those who are in the ministry and working for the Lord to help them do the things that God has called them to do. Generally speaking, in the Old Testament, that was for the priesthood and the people who worked in that full time and they were able to be uplifted by the work that they did. When you go to 1 Timothy 5.17, it says the elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.
The scripture says you shall not muzzle the oxwell, the threshing of the fork, the laborer is worthy of his wages. So what we're seeing there is a general principle that the people who work in that ministry or in ministry as a whole are to be supported by the ministry. All right, so now when we talk about church and you support your church. Now let's say there's a thousand people in your church and they've got a lot of money.
Let's just say that's how it is. And you want to support a ministry that's not particularly related to that church. Is it okay to do that? I can't see any reason why it would be wrong. I can't see any thing in scripture that says, no, you can't do that. I can't see something that says you must tithe to a local church. My thing in scripture says that. So I say to people, you are free to tithe where you believe the Lord wants you to go and support. If you think it should be at your church, then do that.
If you think it should be someplace else, do that. My wife and I, as an example, we knew some people who were, let's just say, one example. A woman whose husband committed adultery and left her.
And she was left with kids. And so what we did was we directed our support to her directly. Because that's ultimately what it's for.
And she was going to her church and she needed help and it wasn't fast enough in the church and things like that. So is that wrong? No, that's not wrong at all.
So we have the ability to give the money where we want as we see the Lord open the doors and stuff like that. So it's up to you. Okay. Okay. All right. And you might have answered this question.
Forgive me if you did. I just want to kind of put it in my own words. So it kind of makes sense. So I know we don't have to tithe to the church. Now, what percentage does it have to be in if it has to be in any kind of percentage? Does the church have to get the 10% all or can I put 5% in the church and 5% somewhere else? I say do what you want. Do whatever you want.
Okay. I don't see anything in the New Testament that says your tithe has to go to a church. It has to be 10%.
It's just not there. If I were the pastor of a church and you're in the congregation and a bunch of people are there and the topic of tithing would come up, I would say you're not obligated in the New Testament to tithe. Nothing in the scripture says the Christians shall tithe. It doesn't say that.
Right. I say you're not obligated to tithe. You're free to tithe and you're free to do as you desire. If you want to give it to the church, all of what you tithe, if it's 1% or 100%, whatever it is, you do what you want. If you want to give it to your neighbor next door because they can't make groceries, give it to your neighbor next door.
Oh, man, that's good. I wouldn't have your problem with that. Now generally the people in the church who work in the church need to be supported. Amen. If there's only 20 people in a church, let's say, in the middle of nowhere and the pastor is struggling to make ends meet, I think the people should support him.
But if you have a church with hundreds and hundreds of members and that's not even a problem, they're not going to miss $100, $200, $500 a month, whatever it might be that any individual might say, I'm going to give it to my neighbor who just got in a car accident and can't work for two months. There you go. Hey, here you go.
You don't owe him anything. It's just tithing to the body of Christ or things like that. Wow.
Wow. I was thinking about that very same thing. I think the Lord is talking to me through you, maybe some other people as well, because I came up saying, when I say I came up here, you've got to tithe, you've got to tithe, and it's an obligation and all that. And I was like, okay, well, cool.
But then I hear this guy named Slick on the radio saying you don't have to. And this thing, he showed me a scripture, and I couldn't really find it in the scripture. I mean, I didn't do that much looking, but, you know, I've never seen it in the scripture.
And I'm thinking, okay, well, I do know people that could use it. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, you're not in the New Testament, but go ahead, sorry. Yep. No, it's all right. All right, yeah, thank you for that distinction there.
Yeah. So I was thinking, well, I know a few people that could use it, and would this be considered a blessing unto God's eyes? And I'm pretty sure a lot of listeners know people that are struggling as well. And the church, to paraphrase, is supposed to be, we're supposed to be like Jesus to each other and not looking for the government to help us out if we know somebody that needs help. Well, we're supposed to be the good Samaritan and help out our neighbor that needs help. Amen, brother.
Amen. I love what you said, not the government helping you, but the church helping. That's what the church is supposed to be doing.
That's right. So if your church is there, and let's say there's a family you know, and the husband dies, and she's a widow, and she's got a young child, two, three years old, and she's trying to make ends meet, she's struggling. Well, what does the church do? Hey, we'll pray for you, see you later. No, the church is saying something to the effect of, you know, look at your finances, get the elders involved, the deacons involved, and we're going to support you, et cetera, which is right, you know. Here, check this out. This is 1 Corinthians 9, verses 3 through 10.
This is related to this. Paul says, my defense to those who examine me is this. Do we not have a right to eat and drink? Do we not have a right to take along a believing life even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working?
Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock? I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I?
Or does not the law also say these things? For it is written in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle the ox while he's threshing. God is not concerned about oxen, is he? Or is he speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it is written because the plowman ought to plow in hope and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing of the crops. Now that's 1 Corinthians 9. So what Paul has done is referred to the Old Testament as being related to them now, that he, a workman of the Gospel, has the right to be fed from the Gospel and sustained from it. So a pastor who's working full time, he has the right to be supported by the people in the congregation.
He has that right. And so then we get into the issue of parachurch ministries like the one that I run, karm.org. We literally live, so to speak, on the donations of people. That's what happens. They donate, we have P.O.
Box, we have various things, and we do that. And so people recognize the value of something that a normal church can't do. So is that biblical? Well, yeah, it is. Just as you brought up the Good Samaritan, and he put his money aside to help someone.
He didn't know who it was. It wasn't, so to speak, allocated to the church. So here's another thing.
There's a lot, not two of this, okay, so I'm going through this so much. Is that some people will say that ten percent goes to the church, and then above that your offerings can go elsewhere. Some will say you are obligated to give ten percent to the church. I don't see such an obligation in Scripture. I do see the obligation of Christians to support the people who work in ministry.
And that's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9 verses 3 through 10, okay? And one more thing, and I'll go ahead and get off here and let other people call in. Oh, you're the only one.
You're the only one right now. So in their call they dropped off, but go ahead. Sorry, listeners.
I'll stay on for just a few more moments real quick. So I heard that people have had their faith renewed or took another look at their faith when they had questions about the Christian faith, when they saw Christians being Christians. I think I heard a Muslim say that he was converted by the love of Christians. I heard this other guy who spoke at a Bible study this morning at River Birch Lodge saying that I had my questions about Christianity. No, sorry, this was on the radio, Truth Network.
Sorry, I got my sources confused. But the person on the radio said I overheard a conversation, and from what you were talking it renewed my faith. So my point is what you do is seen and heard by other people, and you might not know what kind of conversion story or what kind of conversion action you might plant in somebody else by somebody else seeing and hearing what you do. You mean me personally or just Christians in general?
Is that what you're meaning? Yeah, Christians in general. If they see the church being the church, then I'm pretty sure we have a lot more people coming into the church filling out the pews and whatnot, and we're filling our numbers. Not as a numbers game, but Christ said he wished that none would be lost.
So we're trying to get as many people to heaven as we can, and if the people see the church being the church, then we will bring more people in than we would not have before. That's right. Okay, we've got a break, but let me tell you this. Jesus says in John 13, 35, By this all men would know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. There you go.
That's what you're saying. Amen. God bless you.
Hey, brother. All right, man. God bless. All right.
Hey, there's the break. May the Lord bless you. 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, everyone, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it is easy. All you have to do is dial 877-207-2276, and if you want, you can give me a call as well. That's easy.
I already said that. If you want to give me an e-mail, that's easy to do. All you have to do is direct an e-mail to info at karm.org, info at karm.org, and you can e-mail me there. I just put in the subject line radio comment, radio question.
It should be easy. All right. All right, let's get to David from Salt Lake City. David, welcome. You're on the air.
Hi, Matt. Hey. Can you hear me all right? Yes, I hear you fine, man.
So what do you got? Great. So I've listened to you before for quite some time, and you were talking about something about Jeremiah 29-11 regarding, I know the plan, the Lord has you to prosper, right, not to harm you. And correct me if I'm wrong, but did you say that that was more directed towards the Israelites? Yes.
Yes. See, what a lot of people do is they'll find something someplace in Scripture and say, oh, that applies to you. Well, you've got to be very careful about that. So let's look at this in Jeremiah 29. It's the message to the exiles. That's what's going on there.
So let me do this. So in verse 1, he says these are the words of the letter with Jeremiah, the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile, the priests, the prophets, and the people who Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. So that's who this is going to. The letter was sent by the hand of Elisa, it says, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. So the letter is sent about what God says.
Build houses, live in them, take wives, seek the welfare of the city, for thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets who are in your midst and your diviners deceive you. They prophesy falsely, thus says the Lord, for the 70 years have been completed for Babylon, I'll visit you. It says, I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity, give you future hope. Is it to the Christians? In this case, no, directly not, right?
That's right. So, and I guess, and this is part of a bigger picture as far as different scripture that talks about God's provision and, you know, obviously he's sovereign, right? So, there's also lots of scripture that points to, such as within Romans Paul teaching that, you know, it's not, you might go through tribulation, it's that you will, right?
There are various trials that we'll experience. And so, I understand that the Bible does not, you know, if you like to talk about the blonde hair and blue-eyed surfer Jesus, right? So, I understand that taking up a cross and, you know, bearing just the persecution that, you know, he promises will come if we, you know, so does that necessarily mean that he will not also, you know, give us this day our daily bread, if you will, that if we're living a righteous life, yeah, I don't know, I guess that's the conundrum that I'm feeling.
Well, here's the thing. What people often do is take verses like that, and Jeremiah 29-11 is a perfect example of taking a verse that's intended and designed for specific people at a certain time and then say it belongs to you now. And because he has the plans, you know, not for calamity to give you a future and a hope, therefore, pre-tribulation rapture is true. They'll do stuff like that.
Yeah, right, sure. And it's horrible, it's horrible exegesis. And so, what they're doing is taking one verse out of context and applying it. Now, Christians are going to have to stop doing that because they're violating basic interpretive principles. Now, that doesn't mean, though, that God doesn't have a plan for us. Well, of course he does.
What is that plan? Right. Is it really nice all the time? No, it's not.
No, it is not. Sometimes we've got to go through some pretty bad stuff. And we have to understand as Christians that God is sovereign and that the sovereignty that he exercises upon us is for our shaping and the sanctification of our souls to be made more like Christ. And sometimes what it takes for people is to go through trauma, to go through tribulation, to go through death, to go through sickness, to go through bankruptcy, to go through challenges. And sometimes it means God blesses your socks off and he has the right to do that and present you with great wonders and blessings.
He can do that as well. God does both of these. And we have to understand that as Christians, we're receiving both of these from God and we must receive both of them with gratitude and appreciation. Christians too often want to say, I need to be blessed, I need a big bank account, I need me, me, me. But when I look back on my own life as an example and I look at the times when I was blessed the most, it was when things were the worst, when my child died in our arms, my wife and I's arms after being born. We had the presence of God and the love of people there. I can't go into details right now, but it was miraculous when we didn't have enough money for rent and we just prayed and just trusted God and miraculously to the penny the exact amount of money we needed came in and met our need.
You don't experience these things sometimes unless you go through the difficulties and people are too ready to say, no, I don't want any more difficulties because God's promised me health and wealth and blessings, maybe, maybe not. Let's go to Jeremiah 29, 11. See, that's where it is. That's not what it is.
It's more Christian than this big creeping into the church. Okay? Right, yeah. I lost my mom at 11 to cancer and saw God work through that and a number of other things in my life. So I truly get what you're talking about regarding God working in the hardest times, right?
Yeah, he does. And that's what makes us stronger, right? That's why we get tested. That's right. In fact, Jesus went through incredibly difficult times. We're to be like Christ, but people don't want to be like Christ.
They want to be like a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian surfer dude dressed through his night cap. Right. So one other quick question.
Are you familiar with the study experiencing God? No, I don't think so. Okay. And I can't think of the offer. I want to say Blackburn. I'm driving now, so I can't look it up safely right now.
But I think their last name is Blackburn. I'm about a third into it with another Christian brother. It seems very solid, biblically, really enjoying the study. I'd love to, maybe I can shoot an email, but get your feedback and get a chance to check it out. Experiencing God.
Experiencing God. Well, send me some information. Maybe I can take a look at it.
I only have over 800 questions to get to, and that's not even counting the videos. Yeah, I heard you mention that the other day. So yeah, I guess I won't hold my breath. So that's all right. I understand. I appreciate your ministry and just the dedication that you put into apologetics.
It's really impressive. Well, God gets the glory. He receives the glory. Amen. Amen. Yeah, that's right. Praise God.
God bless you, man. Thanks for your time. Okay. All right. So I just looked at my list of how many questions, and it's 880.
At the beginning of the week, it was like 874. Hey, there's the music. We'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned.
All right? Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, and welcome back to the show.
If you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. Let's get to Kenny from Tennessee. Kenny, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, how you doing, Mr. Slick? Oh, I'm hanging in there, buddy. Nice Friday.
Hanging in there. Can you hear me? Yeah. Can you hear me all right? Sure. No problem.
You're great. This is kind of an uncomfortable question. So I am a believer, and I've had Christ in my life for a long time, but I continue to... I've always smoked weed, and then when I quit that, I moved over to the pills, and it's been 15 years. Even right before I do a pill or something like that, I think I know it's not right, and I know God doesn't want me to do it, and I still do it anyway.
Do you think that if I died right now today, I'd get a pill? All right, this is a tough question. I need to be careful how I answer it publicly, so I'm going to go through this slowly, okay? First of all, you need to be involved with the elders of your church.
You need to talk to them about this, and you need to get their help and work through this. That's what you need to do first, okay, after praying and talking to the Lord Jesus about this. All right, so one of the things that's interesting about Christianity is that we can be saved at different levels of purity, different levels of sanctification. And I don't want to encourage anybody in sin and have them say it's okay, but I want you to know that if you're a true Christian, the Lord Jesus will never abandon you. He will never give up on you. He always will be with you.
He was ten-five. He says he will never leave you or forsake you. There can be Christians who are still enslaved to various sinful passions, who are warring against it and want to serve God but often fail to. An illustration I give is you're out in the ocean, and you're cruising around.
It's a great day. And you notice in the water are two men, and they're struggling. You throw a life preserver to them with a rope, and you're yelling, you know, come on, grab it, grab it. And this one man is reaching for it, and he's struggling, and he's not doing very well. And the other man is face down in the water, and he's not struggling.
The question is which one of those two is alive. The one who's struggling is alive. Dead men, dead in Christ, don't struggle against their sin. So if you claim to be a Christian, and you're struggling against your sin, and you're failing, it doesn't mean you're not a Christian. It means you're a Christian struggling and failing. It means you haven't learned yet how to have that victory over particular sins. Something you have to understand is Jesus saves you, but your salvation is not based on your goodness. It's based on His goodness.
It's not based on how good you are but how good He is. Now, we are to turn away from lying and drugs and porn and coveting and anger and all this stuff. But sometimes people, they're bound by them, and they struggle, and they can struggle for a long time. Another illustration is there's a man who has a particular sin, and he falls into it periodically, and every time he does, afterwards he goes to the cross and he asks for forgiveness. He trusts in the Lord, and he trusts and he trusts. That's kind of how I am right now. There you go.
Okay. And he does this his whole life, and he's never had complete victory over this sin. Every now and then he falls into it, goes to the cross, then he dies. Does he go to heaven or hell? Well, he goes to heaven. He goes to heaven because he's saved, because he's seeking Christ, because even when he fails and in his sin, he turns to the cross. And in that he's glorifying God.
He didn't have victory, but he's glorifying God because he's depending on God. He's depending on the work of Christ, not his own goodness. And so I'm not saying it's okay to sin.
I don't want anybody to get that idea or take me out of context. Oh, Matt Slick said it's okay to sin as long as you believe in God. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that true Christians war against the sin of the flesh, and the habits that have us captured. And this is why you need to go to the elders and friends that you can trust. And you talk to them, and you become accountable to them, and you work through it.
And if and when you fail, you continue at the cross, and you continue working with those people to help you. That's Christianity. Do you think it's demonic or just sin nature?
Well, it could be both. Undoubtedly, it's your sin nature. Trust me here, I'm not pointing fingers at you, just you, because you remind me of me.
I got some stuff I'm still working on in my life. So I'm not just pointing things at you and go, hey, I'm fine. So is it just sin nature?
Absolutely. It's absolutely sin nature. Could there be a demonic influence?
Well, sure there could be. So this is why you need to be involved with the elders of your church. And good elders will be patient with you and loving with you and stuff like that. But I want you to understand something.
I want you to understand something. The love of Christ is greater than your sin. The blood of Christ is greater than your sin. His commitment to you is greater than your sin. And if you've trusted in Christ, you truly have. And you're struggling against your sin, welcome to the club.
You need help. You can have victory. You go to the elders and you lean on those who are gifted in varying areas. But it does not mean that you're not saved. And if you were to die right now, in my opinion, provided you believe in Christ as God in flesh, die on the cross, salvation by grace through faith alone, all the basics, which I assume you do, if you were to die today, you do go to heaven. You go to heaven. Don't let people say, don't let people say, oh, you don't have victory over this in your life, therefore you're not a true Christian.
No, that's not how it works. We struggle against our sin as a sign of regeneration in life in us. And even if we don't have victory, and I'm 67, there's some areas I still don't have victory over.
And I struggle with them. It doesn't mean I'm not saved. And also, this doesn't have to do with what we were just talking about. But say there's a, you know how pastors say, you know, I think scripture says to just to repent to, do I have to repent to someone and God, or would I be all right if I just repented and told God and asked him for forgiveness of a certain sin? I mean, I know God ultimately forgives me, but it depends on what.
It depends on what it is. Let's say you're married, okay, and you lied to your wife, let's say. Okay, well then you need to go to her and confess it to her because you've offended her. And she doesn't know it, but you confess it. But let's say there's a woman that you've lusted at and you'll never see her again.
Well, you can't go and make it right with her. You talk to God and you make it right there. The general idea is if you've sinned against an individual, generally speaking, you go to the individual and make it right with that person. So I've got memories of things like that too. We do those kinds of things. So it just depends on the circumstances and it depends on stuff. This is why you've got to talk to the elders.
Hopefully you're going to a church. Yes, sir. All right, well, I appreciate it. I've been contemplating for a while on calling you and talking about that, talking about it. Good, I'm glad you're talking.
I figured Friday would be a good day to do it. So look, brother, the fact that you're calling your concern is good and that you want to have victory. This is a sign of Christ in you. What you need to do is learn how to live in that victory he's already given you.
Sometimes he doesn't give it to you quickly because he wants you to learn, and sometimes in that learning you're being prepared for something later on that he has for you. So get involved with your church. Yes, because I do go to church where I don't do the things I'm talking about, and I'm on fire for the Lord during those times. But I feel what I'm using, there's a sense of guilt, and I feel like I can't be that close to the Lord. We've got a break coming up. I'll call you back. Okay, brother, sorry.
There's a break. All right. No, you're good. You're good. All right.
Yes. Hey, folks. Handy's prayer.
Prayer for him. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Welcome back to the show if you want to give me a call.
We have three open lines, 877-207-2276. Let's get on the air with Chad from Charlotte, North Carolina. Chad, welcome. You are on the air. Hey, Matt. Love the show. Pray for you and your family every day. Quick question.
I'll take it off the air. Basically, just want to know what's going to keep us from sinning in heaven. I know people say we'll have communion with God, but we had that in the garden and we still managed to screw that up, so what's going to be different in heaven? Well, there's different ideas about it. An analogy I use is if you have a room with objects in the room and there's a single light source, there's shadows. But if the light is everywhere, the shadows don't exist. In heaven, we'll be living in the light of God's glory everywhere with no shadows. What I mean by that is could it be then that because God is so pervasively good and wondrous that though we might have the capacity to sin, we never will because we're in his presence? It's just a theory we don't know. Another theory is that we'll be changed and this carnality of our physical body, whatever that nature is in the depraved sense, will be removed by God in the resurrection and then we will not desire to sin anymore.
It won't be part of our nature and our fallenness. These are some of the basic ideas that are dealt with in that. Thank you very much, Matt. I appreciate it. Thank you. God bless. Hey, folks.
We have wide open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. There's a question that just came in. Where is the article on would you vote Democrat? I don't know what article that is.
I did write an article a few weeks ago. What political party might the Antichrist belong to? Which principles of a political party would most align with the Antichrist? He'd be pro-LGBTQ. He'd be pro-abortion. He'd be anti-Christian.
He'd be pro-socialism, pro-control, oppressive, things like that. You can fill in the blanks there. I don't know what the question really is there. Let's see.
Here's another one. I was told that God's sovereignty extends to even our body composition. Yes, it does. Could this mean that for whatever reason, if God doesn't want you to lose weight, then under his sovereignty you won't lose it? If God desires specifically that you not lose weight and he's working to keep you from losing weight, then there's nothing you can do about it.
But such things like this, when we talk about this, God works all things after the counsel of his will, Ephesians 1-11. But it's also true that you can lose weight by following certain regiments and certain plans and certain things. It's a fact that if you go in and do zero carbs input, you're going to lose weight. It's a fact that if you fast, you're going to lose weight.
These are just necessities. This is why I tried the carnivore diet for about a month. I lost like 15 pounds and felt fine. I tried different things.
It's just what it is. I know that some people struggle more than others. My wife, she struggles to gain weight. She really does. She struggles to gain it. She has a friend and years ago, they went out and did something for an entire weekend and the friend struggles to lose weight. The friend only ate exactly what my wife ordered, the exact same thing, the exact same amount and ate everything. She gained weight. My wife didn't. She goes, that's not fair.
I remember that. Metabolisms are different. I'm 67 and I need to lose 20 pounds, but I'm not fat. It just happens. What do you do? You use discipline. You use what capabilities you have.
You work with it and you give it a go. When people tell me, you can't lose weight, it's not true. You can. You stop eating, you lose weight.
You reduce your carbs and calories, you lose weight. It's just facts. It's up to you.
Unless there's a super weird medical condition, then you go to see a doctor or something like that. I hope that helps. Let's see. Here, let's see. We'll go to some other questions.
Question. Hi, my friend is saying that Christian Gospel says, guilty until proven innocent. That's kind of interesting.
The Christian Gospel says, guilty. That's true. That's right.
Or something to that extent. He found a problem in this kind of idea. He said that he'd rather seek salvation anywhere else at other gods but at Christianity. Okay, then. Then I say to people like that, go ahead.
See if you can find salvation anywhere else. I ask people, are you guilty of anything you've done? Have you lied, cheated, stolen?
Yes. You're guilty. You don't like the idea of guilty until proven innocent? Actually, you're guilty until granted being innocent. You're just, by that nature, a child of wrath. You're guilty. It's like the guy says, I don't like this. I'm going to go someplace else. Well, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not true.
My diaper. It's ridiculous. Anyway, he goes on, I have heard that at least with judicial system of Jews and Old Testament and New Testament is actually the way it is in the United States. That's different. You see, in a trial of people, and this comes out of the Old Testament law, you had to have witnesses to establish someone's guilt.
But when he says in the gospel, this is the solution to your guilt before God, which is automatic in what you have because you've lied, you've cheated, you've stolen. That's different. Okay? Different things.
He goes on, let's see, I'd like to find anything that supports the innocent until proven guilty in court as part of the Bible. What do you say? That's interesting. Maybe I'll write an article on something like that. That'll be good. That'll be good. Oh, man. Look at all this stuff. Let me get over here to radio questions. We have nobody waiting.
Let's see. I'm an over-thinker. Is there a minimum amount of knowledge people need to be a Christian?
A minimum amount of knowledge is not an issue of knowledge. It's an issue of faith and commitment to Christ. And God grants that you have that faith. And so what faith do you have and who's it in?
Those are the real questions. Anyway, is trusting Romans 10, 9 sufficient? Believing Jesus is Lord, God raised from the dead?
Yeah. Normatively speaking, it is. That's what the Bible says. For example, what if someone trusts in Christ as Lord but doesn't learn that he's born of a virgin until later? Well, that's not a problem. Or doesn't know he's a trinity until later.
That's not a problem either. We're not saved by doctrine. We're not saved by knowing that Jesus has two distinct natures, the hypostatic union and that the attributes of both natures are ascribed to the single person, the communication of the properties, and that the actions of all members of the Trinitarian being in the economic and economic sense, the ontological economic sense, is due to inseparable operations. You don't have to know all that kind of stuff. What you need to know is Jesus died for my sins. You believe he died, he rose. You have an innocent and sincere faith in who he is. And then you learn the rest of these things later on.
Okay? So don't worry about having perfect doctrine. We're not saved by doctrine. We're saved by faith in Jesus Christ. And God grants we have faith. Philippians 1, 29.
The work of God is that we believe in Jesus. John 6, 29. And we're saved by grace through faith without any works. Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is credited as righteousness.
That's Romans 4 and 5. So I hope that helps. Let's see. We've been under a few minutes.
Let me try this. I've been a regular visitor to your site for almost 15 years now, and it's been an amazing resource. Thank you for your faithfulness. Praise God.
I belong to a Facebook group, apologetics group, and recently got in a conversation with a guy who seemed right along the line of JW, but then I looked into his profile and found this. So it's got a link. I'm not going to tell you what it is. Ooh, that's uninteresting. And it's a link that goes to a page.
I could describe the page. Dark. It's dark. And it has silver light and stuff like that.
And it's hard to read because the words aren't white against the dark, but it's kind of like beige against the dark. Tisk, tisk. And it says Jesus is not the Logos. So right there, another one says Jesus is not God. So right there, it's a cult. Ooh, interesting.
Yeah. Oh, an organization dedicated to blah, blah, blah. I don't want to read too much because I don't want you to find the heresy.
This is a heresy fest right here. Ooh, look at that. Let's see what he said on our resource.
Nobody waiting right now. Let's see. The breath of his mouth alone. What? He said Jesus was a man. Yes.
Jesus was not a spirit. Oh, boy. I'm looking scanning and I am concluding that the people who wrote this don't understand basic logic, don't understand what they're criticizing, could not argue their way out of, everybody say it together, a wet paper bag. All right. So there's that. Let me try another. Hey, look at that over there.
How can I have two of those going? I'm going to, that's interesting. Oh, I messed up. Okay, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to read another email. Okay, let's get to the email.
Let's see if we can do a quick one. I'm a former born again evangelical Christian. I am now an advocate for science.
Oh, good. And a non-supernatural worldview. Ooh, science. Non-supernatural worldview. Hey, what's your science based on? It's based on philosophical assumptions. Anyway, I have developed what I believe to be the best method to defeat. Oh, I think I read this before, but I'm going to check it out.
The evangelical arguments of Christianity. Let's see. I'm going to open this up. You don't have time. Drum roll. This is, how many pages is it?
It's four pages. Conclusion, he says, that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is very strong, as strong as, not stronger than the evidence for blah, blah, blah, but no one who believes that Caesar crossed Rubicon believes that the spirit of Caesar dwells within him. You know, they need lessons in thinking, in logic. That's a big word, logic. And sometimes I talk to atheists and I shouldn't still be dumbfounded by the inane persiflage offered, but that doesn't, what?
Why are you saying that? It doesn't make sense. And I show them why it doesn't make sense. And they say intelligent things like, you're wrong. I'm right, you're wrong.
That's what they do a lot. And I say, no, you committed a fallacy of whatever it might be, you know, the fallacy of division or conflation or things like that. No, I'm right, you're wrong, because you're accoustic. You know, so that's how it goes sometimes.
And sometimes, however, they are intelligent and polite, but generally when they give me arguments, like the ones presented in that article I just looked at, it's not very good. Not very good. All right, now we've got about 15 seconds. I just wanted to say, hey, everybody, hope you had a good time listening and may the Lord bless you. And I hope that by his grace, we'll be back on the air on Monday. And I hope you have a great weekend. Please pray, tithe, give to the church, support people, go to church, listen, learn, have a great time with your family, pray for people. And I just hope that the Lord will bless you greatly and that by his grace he'll allow me to be on the air again on Monday. And we'll talk to you then. God bless everybody. See you.
