Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. It's Matt Slick live. Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at KARM.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick live.

Francis taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick.

You're listening to Matt Slick live. I hope you all had a great day or a great weekend, I should say, with the Fourth of July. Today's date is July 8th, 2024. So I hope you all had a good time. I had a good time, went to some friend's house and watch fireworks.

It's kind of an annual thing we do. And it was great. A lot of good time. A lot of good. A lot of good.

It was good anyway. So if you want to give me a call, as usual, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. And you can give me a call there. You can also, if you want, you can email me info at KARM.org, info at KARM.org.

And I just put in the subject line, radio comment or radio question. And we can get to those. We like to do those.

A lot of fun. And all right. Hey. Oh, hey, let's get to Juanita from Michigan. Juanita, welcome. You're on the air. Welcome. Hey there, Matt.

Good afternoon or evening, actually. So I'm a non Trinitarian, just to remind you. I was I wanted to make sure I understood this correctly.

I kind of took it off your website and to understand writing something. And so the Trinity proposes that Christ had two natures, one human and one divine in his human nature. It was the role he played as a man.

He was able to be tempted. He was able to die, unlike God. So Jesus had a human role he played in his divine nature. He was the same essence as God, divine. He was God simultaneously. Although acting as a man, he was not separate, but one in nature and relationship with God.

So it's the word simultaneously that kind of has me perplexed. My question actually is what you feel the nature of God is or what is God's essence? That's actually my question. Well, I can't answer that.

No one can. God's essence is simply what his essence is. He's completely other in theology.

We have a phrase. He is wholly other, W-H-O-L-L-Y. He's completely different than what we are.

We can only get an idea of him based on his self-revelation inscription through the person of Jesus. And just so you know, the wording of the word was the wording of your statement wasn't very good. I can offer a correction if you want to send it to me. I can polish it up for you if you want.

I believe I took it right off your Web site, but I'll go back and recheck that. So but it says in Christ's divine nature, he was the same essence as God. So but we don't know what essence or nature God was, but Christ was that.

What about the words omnipotent or omnipotent, you know, all knowing, all powerful? Those aren't what would you term those? Those aren't what would you term those if not God's essence or nature?

What would you term those terms? Those are attributes. But I was referring to you said the Trinity attributes. You said the Trinity proposes that Jesus has two natures. That's not accurate.

It's the Trinity says there are three persons in one God and the hypostatic union says that Jesus has two natures. OK, they're related. OK, right. OK, that's what I was referring to. Right.

OK, so I'll go back and check the Web site. So the omnipotent and the all knowing and everything are attributes of God. OK, but what his essence or nature is, we don't really know.

It's just the God nature, whatever it is, he's just God. OK. OK. All right. Well, you cleared that up for me.

Thank you. The other the other two things, um, the simultaneous that doesn't ring a bell or I have that wrong in his OK, go ahead. The three persons are simultaneous and distinct.

Mm hmm. So there could you then would a correct statement be that the Trinity claims that the three persons are separate but equal? Let's put it this way. And I modified the article, what is a Trinity today?

As a matter of fact. But the Trinity is one being, one essence, one substance who exists as three distinct simultaneous persons. But each person shares all the attributes of divinity, because that's what divinity is. The question then becomes, how do they have distinction? Because if all the attributes are identical to divine nature and each possesses a divine nature, how then can there be distinction if the identity and the predication or the essence and the attributes are identical?

And the answer is found in the doctrine of relationship or the economic trinity in that they are they show distinction between, for example, the father begets, the son is begotten and the Holy Spirit proceeds. So the distinction is understood through the relationship between the other persons. And that's how we see distinction.

So we can have simultaneous essence, simultaneous natures, simultaneous persons, yet also retaining distinction. OK, so then would you say that you could say that they were separate but equal? Well, there we say that they're distinct. We don't say separate. We say distinct. That's the best way to say it, really. They are three distinct, simultaneous persons. We don't say separate.

I hope I didn't put that on the website any place. But if I did, I'll change it. But it should be just distinct. OK, I can see that there would be a distinction between separate, separate and distinct, I think.

I'm not quite sure I have to meditate on that. Did you say that the attribute and the essence were the same? Back a couple of sentences ago, you said something about attributes and essence. So any object, whether it's concrete or abstract, has a nature. A concrete object is something you can hold in your hand, you can touch, has occupied space and time. An abstract object is not. So an abstract object would be like the laws of logic or the concept of roundness or things like that. And so, in philosophy, they're called concrete and abstract objects. When something has an essence, it has a property, it has an ontos. Ontology is a study, it's a metaphysical category, dealing with the nature of things. Whatever exists, you get the being, ontos. Whatever exists has properties related to the existence. So you can't transfer the properties of an ontos to something else, a different ontos. It doesn't make any sense.

This is why transubstantiation doesn't work. But anyway, so the attributes of the divine being are, he has omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, omnisapience, holiness, aseity, et cetera. And by logical necessity, each person of the Trinity possesses all those attributes, because those are necessary attributes related to the ontos.

OK, so I just did, I don't want to make a mistake here. So you're saying that each of the three persons of the Trinity have those attributes? I think you just said that?

Yes, they have to. OK, so each person of the Trinity has, are all powerful, all knowing, blah, blah, blah, the attributes, each person. OK, because I thought before you said that they didn't.

That they didn't. OK, I want to make sure that I have this right. So each person of the Trinity has the attributes, which are those things that we were talking about. Now, how is an attribute different from an essence?

Attributes emanate from the essence. So let's take a bowling ball. So a bowling ball, a typical bowling ball, just say a black one. OK, a black bowling ball has mass and mass relates to weight, but that relates to gravity. But mass, it has density, it has spherosity.

And so we can measure the volume. Could you say, excuse me, could you say that it exists in time and space then? Yes, it's a concrete object. So a concrete object would be bowling ball, but an abstract object would be bowling ball-ness.

Because you could be in a bowling alley, there could be 100 bowling balls around you, and you're seeing the manifestation of the concept or the abstract object called bowling ball-ness. And there's particular manifestations of it we call bowling balls. But each bowling ball has to share characteristics common to them.

Some that are necessary and some that are accidental. So a necessary quality of a bowling ball is being a sphere. But a non-necessary attribute would be color. One could be black, one could be pink, one could be yellow, one could be colored. So those are called an accidental property.

So a required property or an essential property is something that, if taken away, then it doesn't make any sense because it's necessary with the essence. OK, you can't have a square or a pyramid bowling ball-ness or a pyramid bowling ball. It doesn't make any sense. It's not a bowling ball.

It's a pyramid at that point. So you can't transfer the properties of a bowling ball and you can't transfer to the tree outside. Because each nature has properties related to the nature that are necessary and essential to it. So basically to restate that again, so the shared essence of the three persons of the Trinity, the shared essence are the attributes that we were talking about. Could that be a correct statement? Yes, they all are divine by nature.

And since the divine nature has necessary characteristics to it or properties, then they all share in those properties necessarily. OK, thank you very much. I'll have to kind of think this over and try to try to understand I scribbled notes here. Thank you, Matt. Take care.

You also need to study something else, though. OK. A doctrine called inseparable operations. Inseparable operations.

Are you there still? Yeah. OK, so if if this is the case, that the Trinity is true and I know you didn't have the Trinity, but I'm glad that you want to at least understand it. If the Trinity is true and each person shares all the attributes of the divine nature, then when Christ, who is who he is, he's divine and human, then all the attributes of divinity are also his. And this is called the communication of the properties or the communicatio idiomatum, that he has the the properties of the divine nature communicated to him. Now, the access to them is another topic. We'll get into that right now.

So sorry about that. So this would necessitate then that all members of the Trinity, which is one being as one works, that's all who are working as one thinks it's all who are thinking. And so inseparable operations says that in the one essence of God and the three persons, which are the one essence, we have then the issue of Jesus saying, for example, I can only do what I see the father do, present tense. This is inseparable because the nature is not divided into parts, but the divine nature has inseparable qualities to it. They belong to the son, the Holy Spirit and to the the father. And so the father, whatever the son says, you know, for example, you can look up on my website. I can do only those things I hear or see the father do. That's in support of what's called inseparable operations. So this inseparable operation is a way of explaining and don't take offense to this, explaining in a way that scriptures that say that that kind of indicate that Jesus was not all powerful or all knowing.

Not necessarily. Hold on after the break and I'll explain. Deal with that a little bit, OK?

Because it's worth talking about. All right, hold on. Hey, folks, we're going to.

I just read something else. We got a break, so please stay tuned. We'll get back to some more.

Hopefully, some good advanced theology. 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. Let's get back on with Juanita. Are you still there? I am. All right.

Could you rephrase what you said before? And then I could focus on that. I'll make sure we're going to get. Oh, my, I hope we went through quite a bit. I, I, you did help me with a couple of things. So I guess right now I'm thinking, so you have these terms or these theories as far as, you know, I'm concerned from my side, inseparable operations and how to have a static union. You know, these were created in order to explain the Trinity theory. But what I'm interested, I guess right now is, is there any scripture to prove or even indicate that the independent operations or, you know, is there any scripture to back this up? I see.

OK, go ahead. Go to Karm and just look up inseparable operations. Look up what is the Trinity?

Look up economic Trinity, ontological Trinity. OK. Yes.

And that you'll have scripture there then that will prove these theories. Absolutely. Wonderful. I will do that, Matt. Thank you very much. I will. I will look it up. And also look up hypostatic union. OK. Yes.

No, I know it was Korea. I don't know who came up with the hopsteady union, which explains, you know, the two natures that the union, the union of the divine and human nature, the combination, the two natures of Jesus is not a combination of, you know. Yeah, that would be that would be monophysitism or eutachianism.

But we hold to what's called the hypostatic union. So you need it. I mean, you know it. You got to know those terms. OK, there will there will be scripture.

And that's all I'm looking for is the scripture that will indicate that Christ had two natures. Not that that was OK. Wonderful. You got it. Thank you very much. All right. Take care. Bye bye. All right. So she's an anti Trinitarian and she's polite here. I was answering your question, but I'm really kind of intrigued now.

I want to know what she's going to develop, because I would have I should have asked her, have you ever developed? Send it to me. Oh, I will analyze it and put an article up on Karm. Anyway, if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Sean from Japan. Hey, John, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt, it's actually Renzo from Japan. They're actually in America right now. So I thought I would give you a call and ask a question. Sure. Where are you in the States now?

I'm in Wisconsin. Oh, sorry to hear that. OK. I know we can talk about that another time. I give the caller the monitor a different question, but I would actually like to ask you about closed communion and what if you think it's biblical or not?

Yes. Closed communion is biblical because it says you must discern the body. And there's a warning attached in First Corinthians 11. Let's see.

Let me get to it and move my window over here. First Corinthians 11. And what closed communion is, for those who don't know, communion is only for those who trusted in Christ.

It's not for everybody. And furthermore, the table is to be guarded against those who claim to be Christians, but are in unrepentant, direct, bad sin. OK, so so it says in verse 27 of First Corinthians 11, whoever eats or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. So you must examine himself.

And in so doing, excuse me, he is to eat and drink the cup. Whoever eats and drinks unworthily is it brings judgment, et cetera. So from those basic verses, we say that you've got to guard it so people don't come in and eat it unworthily. So, you know that I'm a Presbyterian and I went to a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church last week that was near this house. And they told me that even though I'm a Christian, but because I'm of a different domination affirming the Westminster, that they would not administer the Lord's Supper.

Do you also believe that that's still that that level of closed community is still biblical? No, they're wrong for that. Absolutely wrong. And I would have killed her face. In fact, I agree.

Yeah. I went to a Lutheran college, actually, LCMS Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. You're in the Wisconsin Synod area, so it might have been Wisconsin.

There will be even more uppity than the Missouri. So they had it during college, they had a service where the whole it was a long service anyway, where people came together on campus and they had communion and they closed it. They said, if you're not Lutheran, you can't take it. And I went and talked to the dean later, whose name was Dean. So he was Dean Dean.

And I talked to him. I said, isn't the Bible doesn't the Bible say communion is for the believers? Yes, it's not for unbelievers. Correct. OK. Am I a believer? I mean, you say, well, yes, I said, so what right do you have as a Christian to say another Christian can't take communion? Unless there's sin, which is no sin.

Why? What right do you have to say that? And he actually said to me, you know, that's a good point. And for real, they changed their communion and they opened it up to non Lutherans after that.

Yeah, I don't think I'm going to change the he actually when I was talking to the the pastor of this church, he did say he was Missouri sin, not Wisconsin, cannot, but they were very emphatic about it. I did kind of question ridiculous. You mean? Yeah. And actually in on their pamphlet, I'm not going to quote it word for word verbatim, but it does sit on the back. And I'm pretty sure I'm right about this. Or it says we are not judging the faith of the other person, but you are by denying the faith of the other person. But you are by denying them the Lord's Supper. We're not judging the faith of the other person, but we are practicing close communion, which we believe to be biblical based on our creedal statements. Yeah.

And it's something like that. But it is it actually is a judgment and a condemnation to deny somebody the Lord's Supper. So even though they think they're not judging, they in fact are.

Exactly correct. And I would have pointed it out to them. And I would have said Jesus said that this is for those who are in the new covenant. So am I in the new covenant or not as a believer, someone for whom Christ died? Or you want to deny my right to communion with my Lord and my savior because of a catechism? Is it now above or equal to scripture? Of course not.

You need to stick with scripture, not the catechism at this point. Now, when you say that to an LCMS guy, even a PCA guy, you can watch what I call I call it the PCA called the Reform Butt Shuffle. And then the LCMS would be the Lutheran Butt Shuffle. I saw it once the first time when I was preaching at a CRC church, Christian Reform Church, and I was preaching up there and 250 people down in the congregation. And and I just had a cough and I coughed, put my hand over the microphone and I coughed and it coughed into the into the mic. It just echoed really loud. It was like, oops, one of those, you know, just oops. And I said, wow, sound like God coughed. And so I said, you know, God coughed in. And that's when I first saw the Reform Butt Shuffle, when every single person in the this is a very traditional church.

Every single person shifted from one butt cheek to the other all simultaneously. So I called it the Reform Butt Shuffle. So it exists in the Lutheran's church to the Lutheran Butt Shuffle.

Slightly upset with that statement. OK. Yeah, well, unfortunately, I did like the guy's sermon. It was very nice on the Ten Commandments.

He did a very good job with what they call divine liturgy. Well, hold on. I got a break. Hold on. Hold on after if you can. OK, hold on, buddy. Yeah. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

That's Sean. We've talked many times. We'll be right back. 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, 877-207-2276. I want to hear from you. Let's get back on here with Sean. But are you still there? I'm still here. How are you doing? Oh, man, busy during the break, working on an answer to the issue of the is of identity related to the is of predication and why it's supposedly referred to Dr. the Trinity, and I'm showing why it doesn't.

Yeah. So a lot of work ahead. Well, then, I think I'll try to do is try to, you know, bring a couple of scriptural verses. I'll write him a little email. And they're very I'll word it nicely and kind of a subtle thing.

But any Bible verse recommendations that you would offer as a rebuttal for him doing closed community against other Christians? Yes, actually, there's something I've been working on called me if I can find it. It's the New Covenant. And hold on a sec. Let me see if I can get it going here.

The New Covenant, where is it? Have it over here. And so within it, oh, man, I got to find this.

I know I've got it. But within it, I discovered some stuff and I want to open it up. It might take me 30 seconds here to find it. But working on that, it might be a good idea.

Just just for the current website to do is denominational closed communion biblical. That might be a really good article. I don't think you would be a good article. Let me let me write that down. You got me going here in different directions. So hold on. Let me see.

I give a list of a list of articles. Let's see. If you hear that, it'll be a rough hour after this.

I got them going. That's right. It's crossed a number.

How do you how do you word that? Me is it is cross denominational or sorry, is a denominational closed communion biblical. Denominating the nation closed communion biblical. And I think part of the answer could be yes, because we're not going to, you know, share communion with Mormons or Catholic, Roman Catholic, Eastern or right or the Eastern Orthodox or the Coptic Orthodox necessarily. So I think part of the answer would be correct.

But then at the same time, we would not consider some of those other denominations Christian at all. So it could be a really nice detailed article, I believe. Oh, yes. And that's why I changed it to is Christian denominational closed communion biblical. There you so. Yeah. So what I was doing was working on I can't believe I can't find it.

That's so strange. I got it someplace is I've been working on the issue of the New Covenant and I got so many things going. And so I just have a real simple paragraph. Wait a minute, where's the New Covenant, New Covenant, New Covenant?

Let me go over here on the I think I put it over here, too, because I summarize something. So let me go to Jeremiah 31 31. My Bible program don't have it there. Hebrews 813, you slimeball.

Do I talk to my computer doesn't do what I want. OK, anyway, I have a whole bunch of stuff I've discovered, not discovered, but you know, I mean, it's already been known. But the issue of the New Covenant and what's going on with it.

There's a lot there. And so it is for everybody. OK, it's for those who have trusted in Christ. And that's the and the symbol of the New Covenant is the Lord's Supper. So the question then is, are we in the New Covenant as Christians, even across denominations? And the answer, of course, is yes. And the New Covenant is for the elect who have been chosen of God.

And that's what the Bible says in the New Covenant. So. I can write an article on this and be real helpful. I just find my information, which I spent hours getting that information together. Now I'm just going to find out where it is. I think there's a lot even in even in just the Last Supper that I think with the words of Christ that are very clear and powerful, as well as the words in Corinthians with from Apostle Paul. And so I think that there's a I think maybe four or five, you know, Bible verses to solidify the case, I think will be fantastic.

So I'll do some research as well before I write to him. You know, in fact, I found the paragraph that I summarized. See, the New Covenant was prophesied in the Old Testament.

I get all these references. It was fulfilled in the New when Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper. It was ratified with his death. The New Covenant replaced the Old Covenant and included both Jews and gentiles. Jesus said the blood of the New Covenant is poured out for many. The New Covenant sign is the cup of the Lord's Supper, which represented the shedding of his blood on the cross. Jesus is the mediator of that New Covenant. He's the priest of the New Covenant, which is better than the Old Covenant. And those in the New Covenant will have God's law written on their hearts. Their sins will be forgiven. And those who are called will receive the promise of eternal life and the Lord will be their God. Those last ones mean that we're in the New Covenant and the symbol of the New Covenant is the communion supper and the elements that is. And so therefore, all who are in that covenant should be able to take it.

And what you're what the Lutherans have done, in my opinion, has sinned against them, against you. OK. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time. God bless you and I'll keep you in our prayers. All right. God bless. OK. Appreciate that. All right. Now let's get to.

Alberto from Georgia, Alberto, welcome. You're on the air. It's good to do my sleep. My question is, did you ever contact Dr. Beko Brown and Craig Keener about, you know, the pre trip, you know, teachings? No, no. I mean, you got a lot of wind in your phone. So, no, I haven't.

It's not a big deal. I mean, you know, I would do a debate with him. Yeah, but he wrote a book, he wrote a book called Not to be Afraid of the Antichrist. Not to be afraid of the Antichrist?

Well, I would be afraid of the Antichrist. Man. Well, he wrote a book that.

Yeah. Well, I don't know. You should, because he could kill you, torture you, hurt your family. He'll control much of the world.

He's a servant of the devil. Now, we should fear him in that sense, but we shouldn't fear him in another sense. So I didn't know what sense that he's talking about in there.

OK. I got a quick question. You know, the Bible talks about the last trumpet. I was confused by that verse. OK, the last trumpet. It's referring to exactly what is the last trumpet when it talks about it. If some people say it's like during the future or before the trip, like, you know, when it comes about, when it says about, you know, the apostasy and all that stuff.

Yes. In first Corinthians 15, 52, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, the trumpet will sound, the dead will be released. That's the first basic, basically, that's the first resurrection.

And then we have the the dead who of Christ, who have died in Christ, or the believers who died ahead of the time of the rapture. The last trumpet is when the dead are raised. The last trumpet also I can show it to you. Well, I get my notes from something else.

So many things open. Hold on. Let's see. OK, hold on. Because there's when the new the last trumpet occurs, I have it all in a chart, but I think I did. And it's the last trumpet is when the resurrection occurs. It's also when the rapture occurs. OK, so I have the scriptures on.

OK. All right. So the problem here is when the last trumpet occurs, it's it's the same time as the rapture and the resurrection. But the resurrection is on the last day, which is called the day of the Lord. So therefore, in the last day, which is called the day of the Lord is when the rapture occurs, which happens at the last trumpet. And also, this is at the resurrection. The last trumpet, let's see, which also is when the rapture occurs. So the last trumpet is when the rapture and the resurrection occur, but also is with the return of Christ. So the return of Christ isn't a double return. And then seven years later, he comes back again.

But they all happen at the same time. OK, so that's a pretty clear belief that he comes only by himself in the clouds. The second time he comes back with the saints and the holy angels.

But in the white horse. Right, except on the last trumpet is when the resurrection occurs. And that's the day of the Lord. But the day of the Lord, when the new heavens and new earth are made. So the day of the Lord is when the new heavens and new earth are made, which also occurred at the time of the last trumpet.

Then the rapture occurs at the last trumpet, which is also the day of the Lord, when the new heavens and new earth are made. There's no literal thousand years. It just doesn't work. Oh, OK. Oh, you're saying that it doesn't work. That's a little thousand years.

You don't believe in a thousand years, right? I have a study that I've done that I think is pretty solid. It's called an examination of this age and the age to come. And you go to Carmine, you can look at it. And what I've done, what I've taught it is is have the people who are sitting there. I say, where does this go? We have two ages, this age and the age to come where and this haven't put things where it goes, make a chart of their own.

And it comes up with something they're not used to. Just say that. OK, buddy, check it out. OK. All right. All right. OK. Thank you.

All right. Talk to you later. Hey, folks, we have one one person waiting. 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, everybody. Welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. Let's get to James from Lexington, North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air. Thank you, Matt, for taking my call.

I have a question. I hear preachers preach all the time, and they say that you have to ask God to come into your heart to be saved. And I cannot find that scripture in the Bible.

I cannot find it. You're right, because it doesn't say any place in order to be saved with the ask him into our heart. That is ridiculous theology that is taught from pulpits all across the country, and it is false. I'm glad that you caught on to it.

Yes. OK, well, now, by you. OK, but with but they'll go to Romans 10 through nine and they'll read that. And I understand it.

It's no longer your heart than the first. Yes, but believe. But when I get to verse 13, they say, for whosoever shall call upon the Lord, he'll be saved. Then they they do not tell them what the rest of the chapter says there. You know, how can you how can you believe in something you haven't heard?

And how can you hear? You know, if if if a preacher has a preacher, how can you preach and they should be saved? Right. So let's put some of this together, OK? Because in John one of 12, it says as many as received him to them, it gave the right to be called the children of God. So we are to receive Christ. We are to believe in Christ. Jesus has believed in God.

Believe also in me. John 14 one. We're to confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord. Now, if you're mute and you can't speak, you know, this is not a legalistic thing, but it's a confession that goes for the idea. But then what if you have someone who, you know, doesn't have the ability to confess and they're not of time or whatever?

These are just normative things. So what we need to do to be saved is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, going to trust in who he is. He's God in flesh. He died on the cross, rose from the dead. And he bore our sins in his body.

First Peter two twenty four. And we trust in what he did. We received that sin offering at sin sacrifice. We put our faith and our hope in him. That's what it means to be to become a Christian. OK. Yes. And also, when I go back to John three, 16, he said, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth, not ask him into your heart, but believeth on him to not perish, but have everlasting life. Amen. And I just don't understand how how the the the preachers are leaders and they're supposed to teach this.

I don't I just I've heard that all my life. Yeah. And it's because in America, the preaching of the gospel is pretty watered down. OK, it is.

Yeah, it's pretty watered down. And people are teaching bad theology all over the place. So when I preach the gospel to people, OK, and let's see to find a certain verse, I should know this, but I don't know all the verses. We're supposed to count the cost.

I believe it's Luke nine. Actually, there's another parallel. It says, Well, I'll explain what I'm going to. When you preach the gospel, it has to be law gospel cost law. You know, God says, Don't lie. You've lied. You're a sinner. You're under his judgment. The gospel is that Jesus is the one who fulfilled the law. And if you trust in what he did, he's got in flesh, died in the cross, rose from the dead, all of that. OK. And the cost for which of you and intending to build a tower, sit down first, it counts the cost.

You have enough to finish it. You better know what you're getting into. So they say to people, just ask Jesus into your heart. And remember, the Jesus you're talking about is the blond haired, blue eyed Caucasian surfer dude dressed on a woman's nightgown, asking for permission to come into your heart and save you.

And this is the crap that's being taught across the country by all kinds of people. And it's false doctrine. They need to repent of it. You don't have Jesus in your heart. You confess him as Lord.

You believe and trust in what he has done, knowing who he is, what he's done on that cross. And you better know what you're getting into. You better count the cost, because it may cost you your life. It will definitely cost you your pride and a lot of other things in your life.

Maybe some friends don't know what you're getting into. That's what needs to be preached across the American pulpits. OK, go ahead. I'm sorry.

I've heard, like I say, I've heard this all my life. And I searched and I cannot find her. And there's other verses in the Bible that say they're like to see her forgetfulness and stuff like that.

And I can't find it. It says in the depths of the sea to remember them against you no more. But to be saved, I think Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross of Calvary, the Bible says that he died for the sins of the world, for the whole world. He died for our sins of the end. OK, so we have to ask him to forgive us of our sins.

Well, it helps. If we accept him as believers. Yeah, we should. Yeah. Confession and it's good if we ask him to forgive and to forgive because Jesus says in John 14, 14, ask me anything in my name and I will do it. So we ask him to forgive us our sins. Yep. My question is, he did that on Calvary.

He paid the sin debt on Calvary and he canceled the sin debt at the cross, Colossians 2 14. Yeah, he can't. I got you. I got you. OK, well, it's been nice talking to you and I just wanted your opinion on that. And and it's hard for me to I'm a member of a missionary Baptist church and they want me to be a deacon. And I don't know if I can if I can do that or not, because I hear the pastor say these words practically every Sunday. So ask him this.

Just ask him, can you please show me in scripture where it says to ask Jesus into your heart and just leave it at that. For now. Yeah.

And you won't be able to find it. Yeah. Yeah. And if you can't find it, you ask him, why are you saying that if it's not in the Bible? Yeah, you have to believe in faith.

You have to have the faith to hear the word. Am I correct? Yes.

And also, just so you know, in Philippines, one twenty nine is God who grants that we have faith. Yes. Yes.

Because without faith, it's impossible to please him. He was right. Yeah. OK, well, it's been good talking to you. Nice talking to you. God bless you. And I love your ministry. I listen to you a lot. Well, thanks.

Let's get out of here to Ohio sometime to meet people. But praise God. Yeah. OK, God bless.

OK. All right. Now let's go to Andrew from Dayton, Ohio. Andrew, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, brother, slick, how you doing? Oh, hanging in there, man, hanging in there.

What do you got, buddy? Well, I heard that guy talk about closed communion and you made the comment to guard that is it is the church's job or the elders job, pastor's job to guard the table. Is that correct?

Yes. OK, so say they have a church service on a Sunday morning and then after service, they're going to have a communion. How how would you suggest the elders, the pastors, the church to guard the table?

Because at that point, you're going to have a lot of visitors. You're going to have all different types of people in the congregation is what you do. There's two levels here. One is you just verbally say this is not for the unbeliever. You are not to participate in this. If you do, you're eating judgment to yourself and condemnation. Please don't take if you haven't trusted in Christ as Lord and Savior, then it's not for you.

Don't do this. And the other thing is if and this we're going to be more careful when you say stuff like this, because you might know of an individual in the congregation who might be in a very bad sin. Let's say there's a man and a woman, wife, husband, wife. And let's just say there's a pretty bad sin going on. And one of them is not repentant. And they're in church. Well, by that time, the elders have come together and said, you can't take communion because they're in, say, unrepentant state.

Let's just say very, very generic here. Then what you could say, what they say is also in the from there. You know, it's not for the unbelievers also. If you are under judgment and the elders of any church that you go to say you're not to have this, then you're not to take it here either. And so you guard it verbally.

You can't look into people's hearts and you can't know everything about everybody. So aside from that, there's really not a whole bunch to do, except if the elders see a couple who goes up that they knows under discipline and they do this anyway, then they're to be disciplined all the all the more. And if they continue in such rebellion, then the elders need to take a more stern action, like going to publicly to the church and then telling the church members what's going on about this couple or whatever. So it just depends.

OK. I was just wondering, because of church discipline and if we discipline someone as a church body and they're unrepentant and they're unrepentant and says they should not eat anymore with them and they're dismissed from even congregation because they're in open center rebellion. And in that same person, that's an open center rebellion of one church goes to another church and eats of that table because it's the prerequisites is only you must be a believer. It kind of goes against church discipline and causes a schism in it.

I it seems to me. Yes, that's one of the things I think I think I think I think there could be a danger with far as, you know, like the other guy was saying, he wouldn't allow another person from a different denomination. Well, he doesn't know you. He doesn't know really your walk with God. You could be under discipline. You could be a Satanist that just lies out of his teeth and says he's a believer. And so I was just curious how you how you thought about some. Yeah, yeah. That's why a verbal guarding is basically what you're responsible to do.

And so, like you said, you know, you can't know the hearts of individuals. And so if I'm going to another church, you know, out of state and I'm going in there and they have a communion service. I did this recently in a communion service. I'm going to take communion. I need to. Yeah, I think, you know, I'll take communion.

They don't know me. But OK, I think God and myself at that point, if I was under discipline for some strange reason at a church, I'm going to hold off because I'm under the eldership at that point. But yeah, so because I mean, so you do believe that the elders say say Jimmy is in fornication and he won't repent and he's had the terrible pride and all these things are going on. You do believe that the elders in the church can discipline them to the fact of like you cannot eat of the table, period.

That's correct. I believe that, too. And I just I just think that this idea of close, I would call close communion is kind of what you're believing. And that kind of hurts the Lord's table, in my opinion, because here you are saying I'm going to withhold it from this individual because I know what's going on with him. But then I open it up to the possibility of others. Yes.

I know you're guarding it verbally and you don't know men's hearts, but at the same time, it's you can you can withhold it from one person, but another person that don't know that just came off the street. You're just taking their word for it. And you're that's all you can do.

You're you're making the Lord's table. You're defiling it, in my opinion. But yeah, the elders are not defiling it. They've done their due diligence by saying this is not for everybody. It's Saturday.

Again, the parameters. That's all they can do. Yeah.

And that said, I mean, no system is perfect because we're people. But God knows. Yeah. And God will deal with it. OK, we've got to go because music. OK, well, God bless tomorrow. Call back tomorrow. We can talk some more about it.

It's important topic. All right. Appreciate you. All right, man. God bless. Hey, folks, sorry about that. We're out of time at a fast hour, and I hope by God's grace back on here tomorrow, may the Lord bless you. Talk to you then. God bless. Another program powered by the Truth Network.