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, how are you doing? Um, today's a nice day and it's Halloween and it's also Reformation Day.
So we'll talk about those a little bit. If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. I want to hear from you. Give me a call. And I have a cough. I'm getting over, slowly getting over the, uh, whatever it is I caught on the way back from Istanbul and, uh, did a 19 day tour, gone 21 days.
Uh, we went to three countries, Turkey and Greece and in Italy. And so if you want to give me a call, you have questions, you have comments, easy. All I have to do is dial 877-207-2276.
Now what's interesting in, uh, in Clubhouse, there's a, uh, an anti-Calvinist who says, uh, Matt won't speak about the morals of Calvinist God. Call me up. Okay. Just call me up. And, uh, we can talk. Okay. And we can talk about this.
There's a lot of people, it's the 877-207-2276. There's a lot of people who they think they understand stuff and then they don't. And then they, they, um, they don't listen. They don't seem to learn and aren't interested in that sometimes.
They have an idea of what they think Reformed theology teaches, and then you can't correct them. Uh, and Kevin had a lot. Let's see this guy, if he calls, uh, uh, isn't he different?
Maybe he's, uh, you know, a little more adaptable, but like I said, if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276, and if you want to give me an email, it's easy to send it to, uh, let's see info at karm.org, info at karm.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G and and put the subject line, radio comment, radio question, and we'll get to them. Okay. So, uh, okay. I hope you guys can hear me.
Everything's sad. We had a little bit of a, of an issue, so let's see how it works. Let's get to, we had a sound issue that I'm saying, let's get to, uh, Jermaine from California.
Jermaine, you're on the air. Oh, Hey man. Good to talk to you again. Hey man. Okay. Nice calling, man.
Yeah. So, uh, you know, I want to ask about Genesis 12, three about the, uh, scripture sound bless those bless you and curse those who curse you. I, I believe a lot of that has been kind of hijacked and taken out of context, but as far as concerning right now, like I know people that don't even want you to say anything bad about Israel. Um, and for me, it's just a critique, but what exactly constitutes a curse in that context of that scripture? Because I, it doesn't seem to say, you can't say anything that's truthful that may be bad, but what is it that is a curse? A curse is when you say something bad about a country person, whatever it is, and wish upon it ill and harm of some sort. And then you say, may you, uh, die a horrible death. May your children, um, suffer, blah, blah, blah.
This kind of stuff is what a curse is. Okay. Okay. There's a lot of people taking that to mean you can't say anything at all. And I just don't find that in the Bible.
So then that's why I wanted to call you. Yeah, I agree with you. You know, I don't agree with everything Israel does, but, um, as a whole, I'm supporting Israel because of that verse. And, uh, they're God's people, covenant people.
He's not done with them. So it doesn't mean I have to agree with everything, but it does mean that overall that's God's people. And we know God's people, Christians included, make a lot of mistakes.
So we are to, uh, basically support one another and the work of God to, uh, through Israel and other stuff. No big deal. Okay. All right.
Thank you. And just to clarify, do when I say, say something, you know, truthful, I'm talking about videos I've seen where people got spat on for preaching the gospel and that kind of stuff. I'm not criticizing every single decision with any malice, just, just calling out what I see is something that's, that's kind of blasphemous.
So many country, it doesn't matter where it's from. Yeah. And that's the case is there's unfairness and pain, bad stuff, let's just say everywhere. Um, and so I agree.
And the Jews aren't perfect. That's for sure. Okay.
Yup. All right. Well, thank you, Matt. All right, brother. God bless. God bless. Okay.
All right. Hey folks, if you want to give me a call, all you gotta do is dial 877-207-2276. Let's get to Rick from Ohio. Rick, welcome. You are on the air.
Hello, Matt. Um, I have a question. It's kind of related to a Halloween, but it's also a question that I've been wanting to, I asked my pastor, but I haven't gotten the answer yet. Is there anything in the Bible that says, uh, that tells the Christians not to, uh, partake about eating flesh of the humans or drinking blood, like so-called the, uh, the, what are they little desert people, uh, or whatever that they're, yeah. Yeah.
So is there anything. Um, in Leviticus 17, 14, there's a verse that was really important and it says for, as for the life of all flesh, its blood is identified with its life. Therefore I said to the sons of Israel, you are not to eat the blood of any flesh for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. So this was an admonition by God to Israel that you are not to drink blood consumed blood as a food of any sort.
Not to do that. Now, this is important because the Roman Catholic church and Eastern Orthodox church deal with this issue of changing the Eucharist into the body of blood and then they take it. So they're violating this and, uh, well, at least they would have said that Jesus was violating this. There's more theology. We can get into this because Jesus, uh, before the, his crucifixion was still under the law as were the disciples.
And so therefore they were required to follow this law. They would not have drank blood. Now, as far as cannibalism goes, there's nothing in the scripture I'm aware of after all these years that says don't eat human flesh. But, uh, what is said is that the Bible says that God has given us the animals and the plants for food. So that's an exclusion of people because people are made in God's image where the others are not, you know, plants and animals.
Okay. So that doesn't, that doesn't relate to cattle or anything like that. No, no, we can eat cows. We can eat a rare steak.
Yes, you can. You can eat a rare steak if you want. The idea is you're not drinking it. But then again, let's say you're, you're out there, you know, in the forest and you're dying and blood is of an animal is what can keep you alive.
You eat it. All right. That kind of a thing is not because that law now is, uh, with new covenant, with the death of Christ, Romans eight, excuse me, Hebrews eight, 13, Hebrews nine, 15 through 16 with the new covenants. Uh, all foods are clean now. Right, right. You can take it. Okay. Okay.
All right. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Have a great day, Matt. And thank you. Thank you for all your information.
I listen to you every night on the way home from work. So I just thought I'd know you're a smart water about that today. I know.
Right. Thanks a lot. Have a great day. Bye bye. You too, man. God bless.
All right. Hey, if you want to give me a call, all you gotta do is dial 8 7 7 2 0 7 2 2 7 6. Let's get to Randall from North Carolina and then we'll get to St B. Let's see how that goes. Randall.
Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, what's up slick?
Well, between coughs doing a radio show, so I'm still fighting this head cold. Yeah, no, I'm calling regarding Halloween shoot. Should people, uh, celebrate Halloween? Well, it depends. You see the world or Christians.
So they be celebrating Halloween. Is it a door open, open into the, uh, spiritually, you know, spiritual things. Here's the thing. We are free in Christ. Now in first Corinthians 10, Paul said, it's okay to eat meat, sacrifice to idols.
And as long as you're not convicted by it long, it's not a problem because those things have no power. So what about Halloween is a principle there? Well, I would say yes, there is like, uh, myself tonight, I am just looking forward to seeing all the little kids coming by with a great outfits and I'll be, they're handing out candy and just going, oh, that's a great outfit. Look at that. And I enjoy that.
That's really wonderful. They aren't celebrating evil. They're just having fun. It's just for them. It's just a night to go get candy, go door to door. And their parents are out there on the street corner, you know, the reason why I ask you this is because the reformation is, is celebrated today and nobody talks about the reformation. All they do is talk about Halloween. So I look at it as a way of the evil influence in the world in order to, you know, get rid of it. And so nobody talks about the Bible.
See what I mean? Well, it used to be years ago that they did talk about the reformation day on this day, but our society is becoming more secular. And so Halloween is replacing it. Like Christmas has now become a secular holiday.
So this is just the way of the world and it's, it's, uh, it's demise and it's fall into evil and stuff. But that's why the reason why I say churches and men and Christians, you'll be celebrating because I never celebrate and my kids never celebrate Halloween. Okay. I didn't allow it. It's okay. If you don't want to, that's, that's okay. You don't have to.
And, uh, it's your right, uh, to have them not do that. My wife and I, we would take the kids to a trunk or treat at churches and we felt it was safe. That was fun. And we did that kind of thing and you know, it was great.
You know, get them, see you dress up as little whatevers and take them to meet other people in the church. And first of all, it was fun. So we're free to do it. We're free not to do it. Thanks very much. You're welcome very much. All right, man.
God bless. All right. Folks, you're free to celebrate Halloween or not celebrate Halloween. You're not free to celebrate anything occultic within it though. You can't celebrate anything demonic or anything evil and celebrate that. That's not what's to happen. But little kids dressed up as zebras. Oh my goodness.
They're so cute. All right. Let's try this.
Saint B. Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, good evening. Hi. Okay.
So what do you got, buddy? My objection to Calvinism is the morality of the God. Like for instance, Adam's sin made it so everybody goes to hell after him unless God picks you. So like, nobody has a chance to, or everybody's going to burn in hell forever because of Adam's sin because nobody can have faith in God afterwards.
Like, I don't, I don't believe. I gotcha. But what does the scripture say? For as through the one man's disobedience, that many were made sinners.
That's Romans 5, 19. So I believe that. Okay. So then through Adam's sin, everybody was made a sinner, right?
100 percent. Okay. Well, that's reformed theology. So that's good. I'm glad you agree with that. And then you said, but they can't believe, right?
Of their own free will. Is that what you're saying? Okay.
Okay. Well, here's a question. They don't, Adam's sin made it. So you agree with that, right? So Adam's sin made it that nobody could have faith in God afterwards. No, it, Adam's sin means that when he fell, we fell in him and we inherited the sinful nature. The question then becomes, what does the Bible say about that sinful nature? So the Bible says, for example, that that we are by nature, children of wrath, Ephesians two, three in Romans, Romans three, 10 through 12.
It says that no one seeks for God. No one does good. Oh, we got to get a break. Hold them. Hold on, buddy.
We're going to break. Okay. We'll get back to some more. All right. So hold on. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages and continue this discussion.
I've had this kind of discussion countless times before, and hopefully we can get this gentleman to, to understand a little more biblical theology. We'll see 877-207-2276. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking a call at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, buddy. Welcome back to the show.
And fortunately, that gentleman who was on holding, I was hoping he was going to continue to hold, maybe he's at work or something and had to take a break. I don't know. And we could talk about this issue. I'll talk about it here a little bit. There are different outlets for discussions. One of them is PalTalk and another one is Clubhouse. Another is Discord. There are different ways and different places where you can go and have live discussions with people, usually with voice.
And they're good places to learn. In Clubhouse, there's a rabid group of anti-reformed people. And apparently, someone's written a book about me, I don't know how bad I am or something as a reformed individual, as a Calvinist.
And it's like, whatever. So I don't know who this gentleman was, but when he called. A lot of times, I find that the people who are that critical of reformed theology really don't understand it.
And it's very common that that is the case. They have a misunderstanding of it. And so I was hoping to be able to work with him. Hope he can call back later. Maybe we can continue our conversation to discuss the issue of the sovereignty and the work of God. So I think the basic thing he was saying was it wasn't fair or wasn't right, I guess. I'm not trying to misrepresent him. But the idea that everybody dies and then can't receive Christ on their own. Well, I was going to go and show him scriptures, which Jesus says in John 665. He says, you cannot come to me unless it's granted to you from the Father.
There it is. And a lot of times when I quote this to people, they say, no, God grants you the opportunity to believe. They have to change the word of God to make it fit their theology, which is greatly sinful. And they'll do that so quickly, so automatically, they can't even see their own sin when they alter the word of God and make it say what they want it to say. And now that doesn't mean we can't interpret God's word and try and look at how he uses various words in various contexts. That's OK.
But we do need to be able to, you know, examine things and look and stuff like that. Anyway, all right. So if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. David from North Carolina. Dave, welcome. You're on the air.
Hey, Matt. For many years now, I have read books about the transmission of the New Testament text. And I've often read about scribes.
They were very meticulous. They would count each letter and they knew what the word in the center of the page was. And if that word was not there, they would throw it in the trash can and rewrite it.
That's what I read. I find that hard to believe, though, because I found out there were four hundred thousand textual variations in the New Testament manuscripts. Now, they say most of them are spelling, word order, other excuses. I just can't see how you can have four hundred thousand variations. If the scribes were as meticulous as they claim they were. OK, so when you say four hundred thousand, where did you get this number?
I was reading Bart Ehrman's book and then I went online to see if he challenged him. And there was a preacher that admitted there were four hundred thousand variations, but he claimed that those were word order synonyms and different other things like misspellings and stuff. And those were harmless variations. But how do you get four hundred thousand variations when the scribes were as meticulous as they were?
All right, so I'm taking a note there. Well, it's interesting, in the New Testament, there's about one hundred and thirty eight thousand words. So four hundred thousand mistakes or variants, let's talk about this, would mean that in every single word there's problems.
Every single word. Four hundred thousand. And yet the New Testament alone is just one hundred and thirty eight thousand. Yeah, and I wonder why didn't that preacher that discredited Bart Ehrman correct him on the number of variations when he wrote his defense of the variations?
I can't answer why he didn't do it, but I can talk a little bit more about this. OK, so in the entire Bible, there's around seven hundred and eighty thousand words. So let's just round it up to eight hundred thousand words. Well, there's four hundred thousand variants.
If we take the entire Bible, that means every other word has a problem. And it's just ridiculous. So something's not right in these statistics. So have you heard a statistic? Seventy percent of statistics are wrong.
Eighty percent of the time. It's a joke. Yeah, I've heard that. But I got a question to ask you. Let me let me work with this a little bit, OK, because there's some stuff we need to get out.
OK, hold on. Now, we have roughly six thousand Greek manuscripts. And you're right that the Greek the scribes were very, very, very meticulous. Let's talk about how an error might come in if there was a problem that you probably already know this. You know, they might have a monk copying a document and might make a single letter mistake. And then on the right hand side of the margin could make a correction. And that document was then used for teaching, not preaching.
Have you heard of this kind of thing? Yes, but I've also heard they made a mistake. They threw it away and recopied the whole page. Some did.
Is that true? Yes, some did. Some did not.
Because hold on. Because copying was expensive and laborious. And so after a while, some people, what they would do is make a mistake on purpose to make a mistake, copying a letter like the word the, which is the single letter O in Greek.
And they would forget the letter O. And so they would on the right make a margin note. OK, they take that page and they would then classify it as a work.
They knew exactly what the issue was, was no problem. They'd use it as a means of teaching and testing, but not as being official in the document area that they would say this is a perfect copy. Well, what happens is sometimes those things with a marginal variance in them would, you know, they'd be put away. And a generation or two later, someone would find them.
Hey, what's this? And it would be counted as a variant. So let's take this, for example. Let's say that there's a variant on the word ha, the Greek word the, and that is a single variant. But let's say that a manuscript copies from that variant. Let's say the word ha is missing in a certain place when it was originally there in the Greek, which isn't a big deal in Greek.
I can tell you why, but that's another thing. And so let's say it's missing. Then they copy 10 copies out of that. Now we have the original variant and 10 copies of that variant. So it's 11 variants. Or is it one variant copied 10 times?
Do you see what I'm saying? Yes, I still can't comprehend the 400,000 variant. That's a lot of variants. Yes. And you yourself admit there's not even that many words in the New Testament.
And so how do you get 400,000 variants out? I trust Bart Ehrman to a certain point. No, I don't trust him, but yeah.
Yeah, but when I see a preacher... Hold on, we've got to break, hold on, we've got to break, so we'll continue after the break, okay. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. We'll talk to Dave, and if you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.
Here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back to the show. We're at the bottom of the hour. If you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. Give me a call. Dave, are you still there? Hi, I wanted to ask you, I want you to understand, even though I hear 400,000 variations, I don't believe it.
Can I help you out? I usually trust Bart Ehrman when it comes to Greek, explaining your Greek variants and everything, but he claimed 400,000. And because of the way I studied how meticulous scribes were, I don't see how you can have 50,000 variants. I don't see how you can have 10,000 variants. I got you, I got you.
Let me help you out, okay? So what this 400,000 is, is including church father quotes, other language quotes, because otherwise you're going to have, it's supposed to be 400,000 in the New Testament alone. That's what the, it's not the whole Bible, this is the whole, the New Testament, which would mean roughly three variants for every word.
It doesn't make any sense, so something else is going on. So the church fathers would quote them, and they would quote them differently. They would quote the scriptures differently. They would often spell a word differently out of the Greek, because there was no set reason or no set way all the time when they would do things. So there's a lot of variation in the quotes and the references and the alternate books, the, you know, quotes from the church fathers, spelling things, and the great majority of these are spelling variants.
Like in England, it's color, C-O-L-O-U-R, but here it's C-O-L-O-R. Well, if that's the case, is that a mistake? Yes and no. No, it's not. What's going on, what the intention is. So that's all that's going on.
Otherwise, it would mean that every word in the New Testament had three errors in it, which is, it's just ridiculous. So this has to do with... Yes. Well, I want you to realize I don't believe the 400,000 thing myself.
Yes. And it came from Bart Ehrman. Yeah, that's why I stay away from Bart Ehrman. So I've read other works that say that in the New Testament documents, there's like 0.5% textual variation among the roughly 6,000 Greek manuscripts.
There's only three areas of any significance. The ending of Mark, what's called the comma gehenium, and the woman caught in adultery. And those are the major issues, and there are slight variants of spelling and word order in a couple of places, in several places, things like that.
Yeah. Okay, well, I appreciate that. I want you to know, to be perfectly honest, I'm not a Christian, but I was raised a Christian, and I study the Bible still when I have different personalities, and sometimes when I'm a Christian, I really study the Bible. And I like to read works from, I don't know how to pronounce his name, but William Muncy, a Greek scholar. That may not be the correct way to pronounce his name. I like reading Bart Ehrman's works because he takes the unusual approach that Jesus was not literally Christ. And I don't know, I'm just trying to be honest with you. I'm not a Christian, I don't know how I can say him, but I do go through my Christian experience. Wait, hold on, hold on, back up, back up. But you said Bart Ehrman said Jesus was not the Christ?
Yeah, I think so. I think he says Jesus was not the Christ. But see, since I'm not religious, it doesn't bother me that much. Now, when I'm in one of my Christian personalities, I tend to go for Bill Muncy and read his works. I read some on the internet from him the other day, and now I can't remember what it was, but I would go online reading his works. And he seems to be very knowledgeable about the Greek Bible.
And I will defer to Greek scholars because I don't have knowledge of Greek, so I'm dependent on others who do know Greek. And from what I understand, William Muncy is one of the most renowned Greek scholars in the world. Maybe you don't, maybe I'm pronouncing his name wrong, because you don't seem to show that you're aware of who William Muncy is. M-O-U-N-C-E-I, I have books by him, yes. Yeah, I hear he's the most renowned Greek scholar in the world. And I think he helped contribute to the Brown, Driver, and Briggs, or B-A-G-D, B-D-G-A-G lexicon.
And I liked some of his comments. I was looking up Cybotismos the other day. I can't remember now for sure what it is, because I know the Greek alphabet, but I don't know Greek. So I can use a Greek lexicon without my number system. And I, the Sabbath was easy to find, because it's on the first page, where you have the Greek S, it was on the very first page, and I was studying about why Matthew 28, 1, Mark 16, 1, Luke 24, 1, and John 21, the first of the week came from first of the Sabbaths, plural.
And I always wonder why the fathers, the church fathers and everything, translated it first of the week, because it actually says first of the Sabbath. You're going into all kinds of stuff. So I don't know if you have a question, but that particular issue is deep. Sabbaths, there are different kinds of Sabbaths in the Bible, and how the church fathers would reference them, that's just a huge study. So that's a dissertation kind of a study. But do you have any other questions at all?
No, I just wanted to let you know, I don't understand the 400,000. You mentioned there was three variations per word because of the fathers. Didn't the fathers have a text to translate instead of translating it in their own words?
Different church fathers, okay, I'm not an expert in this, I haven't studied it to be able to tell you, but there are different manuscript trees, Alexandria and Byzantine, Western, and I don't know which church fathers had which access to which manuscript. So other than that, I can't tell you. We'd have to have an expert on who knows this, and then talk and ask questions of that person. Okay, I appreciate your time, you take care now. Okay, you too. All right, talk to you later. All right, interesting, for a lot of reasons there. If you want to give me a call, we have nobody waiting.
877-207-2276, we don't have anybody waiting, so I think what I'm going to do is get to some of the emails, and just jump right in, let's see. Do you know if every one human would have sinned if placed in the Garden of Eden? Do I know? I don't know, but I believe that any would. Anybody given enough time in the Bible in the Garden of Eden would have sinned. That's what I believe, it's just a matter of time, because we don't possess the quality of holiness, and it's a quality that belongs to God alone, and I think that's an inability to sin, and after the regenerative work, which something is going to happen to us, there's another question about that, sin related to that.
We'll get into that now. So I think that anybody would have sinned, given enough time. Romans 3 10-12 says, Nobody who sees God makes me think all would have chosen our flesh and sinned. Yes, but that's a reference for after the fall, not before it. And then the question goes on, but then I think, would we have sought God if originally it didn't happen?
I'm not sure what the question is there, but these are these kinds of questions about what would have happened if things were different in the Garden of Eden with different people. It's just a matter of time, that's what I believe. All right, let's try another one. Did you say you just returned from Turkey? Yes, I have friends going there on November. I was curious about their safety.
Yeah, no problem, Jay. I was in Turkey three weeks ago for about a week, and then two weeks ago for about a week in Greece, and then a week ago was in Italy. And I was actually a little concerned about my safety there, because I speak against Islam, and Turkey is an Islamic nation, but there was nothing. It was fine, and no one came up behind me and asked me questions, and it was no big deal. So I felt safe, but something interesting did happen. Something interesting did happen. After getting out of the Roman cistern near the Hagia Sophia and near the Blue Mosque, we got out of the cistern and I'm walking around and this guy looks at me.
He's about 17, 18, 19. He goes, Matt Slick. And I'm like, what?
It just makes sense. I don't know who this guy is, and he points at my name tag on my chest. You're Matt Slick? I'm laughing, because I get recognized every now and then. I was not expecting it there, and it wasn't. You didn't recognize me. You just read my name tag, and I had a big kick out of that.
I laughed, told a few of my friends with a joke. Hey, there's the music. I'll be right back, folks, after these messages. Please stay tuned. 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, you can, 877-207-2276. I'm going to do now, so we have nobody waiting. I'll get us some more emails. Now, we do them normally on Friday, but that's okay. If you want, give me a call or send me an email. Send me an email to info at karm.org.
Info at karm.org, and put the subject line radio comment, radio question. Let's get to some of them right now. What do you have to say about the church in response to Halloween, trunk or treat parties? Already addressed that. I have no problem with Christians who want to do trunk or treat, go to the churches, dress up with the kids, go door to door, get candy. It's just fun for the kids. If they're celebrating demonic stuff, that's a problem. We shouldn't do that. We're free in Christ. And so this is we're free to eat meat, sacrifice to idols.
It's not going to hurt us. We're free to go door to door with the kids and get candy. I'm actually personally looking very much forward to the children who come to our door. My wife gets a kick out of me watching me.
Oh, look, another door. You know, and I go, I just love the kids with the outfits. I just think they're awesome. And so it's a lot of fun for me. All right, let's see. Okay.
Um, also, can you let me know what day you answered this? Uh, let's see. Should we be concerned with our Jewish friends salvation?
Yes, you should. Does God have a plan for them with their unbelief? No, he, they cannot be saved outside of Christ. Now God is working through the Jews. I have a friend who he works to the Jewish community. Jewish community, he's Jewish all the way. And he, he looks Jewish. I mean, he's so Jewish.
He's a great guy. And he's a completed Jew. He's a Christian. And he, he's telling me that there's a great deal of conversions going on inside the Jewish community all over. So praise God. God's not done with it with them yet. And they need Jesus to same as anybody else. All right, let's see.
Should we be concerned? Oh yeah, I got that one. That was the other one. How about this, um, Christ is sovereign. Can a person resist the Holy Spirit's conviction or calling?
Uh, yes. When we say conviction, God, the Holy Spirit will convict us of our sins. And there are many people who, who resisted, who kind of just let it go. Christians do that too. Christians do that too, and God may have a calling on a person's life and the Christian doesn't want to do it. He may say, I want you to go here. And he goes, no, no, no.
And it can happen. So yeah, Revelation 3 20. Jesus is asking permission to enter your heart.
No, he's not. Let's go to Revelation 3 20. All right. Revelation 3 20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and him and dine. It doesn't say he's asking permission.
This is very critical. When we, uh, we make a statement related to a verse of scripture, we don't want to interpret the verse in favor of our question. So what Jesus says here in Revelation 3 20, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, it does not say we give Jesus permission.
So don't say that. It just says, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, well, what does that mean? Does it mean we have all of us have the free will ability just in ourselves or does it mean whoever believes because God grants that people believe? What does it mean? We can't just say, here, this is what it means. I'm done. I'm not going to do any more thinking related to that verse. And if anybody disagrees with me, then you're obviously wrong because I understand what the verse says. Cause I read it once.
This happens way too often in Christian circles. And so it's really important that we understand that. And this is to message to Laodicea, which I was just in Laodicea about two weeks ago and it was great. It was great, man. They really, I was there 10 years ago and from 10 years ago to two weeks ago. Wow.
Man, they've uncovered a lot of stuff. Laodicea, it's really amazing to go see. Been there, loved it. It was great. Had an ice cream there.
Remember that. They're walking so much out in the heat. It was a little warm that day. We went into this, they always have these little places you can grab little snacks and stuff. And I saw an ice cream and I had an ice cream and people go, Hey, that's a good idea. So a bunch of us had ice creams. It was a lot of fun. Please bear with me, folks, as I'm hitting the cough button, coughing through this head cold that I've been fighting now for about five days. I'm getting better, but it's very, very slow progress I'm going through. Here's another email.
Good evening, Matt. My question is how do I deal with my pastor and church members who won't allow me to express my views on certain topics of scriptures or give my insight about certain doctrines like eternal security? They scream and shout me down. Well, you know, I can't tell you. I mean, I don't know what the circumstances are.
There's so many variables. Had to ask what circumstances, you know, you've met with the elders. You're just talking to them. Or what? They shout you down and yelling at you, which doesn't seem realistic. So, I don't know.
Are they being disrespectful, not behaving as Christ-like, not showing the fruit of the Spirit, yet think they're spiritual? But I can't answer because I just don't know the situation, so I can't answer it. This is Ebeneezer. I was wondering if you had Matt Slick's email.
I wanted to send him a question, but this is the only email I have. I've been talking a lot to Orthodox people, Christian or Eastern Orthodox, and a lot of them are into Saint veneration. They are, and they need to stop that idolatry. He goes on, and so a lot of them would use the explanation that God told the Israelites to put cherubims on the Ark of the Covenant and told them to worship.
Oh, geez, you know, how do I say this politely? Amateur theologians who don't believe God's word and are more loyal to their church need to keep quiet. So, these EO people, Eastern Orthodox people, who would use something like God to put the cherubim there, the cherubim represent the holiness and the presence of God over the Ark of the Covenant, the footstool of God. And it doesn't say anywhere that they're told to worship the angels or anything like that. So it's, you know, when EO and Catholics say something like this, they say, show me the verse, show me the scriptures.
And just like the other version in relation 320, stand at the door of your heart and ask, or I say the door at the door of your heart and knock if anyone hears me opens it. Well, it doesn't say there exactly permission. A lot of people will do that. They'll say, see, that's God waiting for permission for you. It doesn't say that. And so you've got to always be very careful when people raise verses to support their view.
I always do that. I say, show me the verse, show me the verse. If you don't have a verse to back up what you're saying, you're just giving me your opinion and you're entitled to your opinion, but I don't want to debate your opinion. Okay, so the person says, I was just asking, just wondering, do you know anything I could say to them? And when they say that, yeah, show me the verse and see if it actually says what they're saying.
That's what I would say. Don't assume people are, when they referenced the, uh, the Bible that they're correct, particularly Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics, because they very frequently will misread, read the word of God and interpret it in such a way to make it support their church. It's either ecclesialitrist, they worship and serve the church. Now they don't worship the churches and have incense.
They burn incense and have an image of the Vatican or whatever, and then they bow before the back. I'm not saying that, but what they functionally done is replace Jesus with their church. The church is the means of salvation. The church is the authority. The church is, it tells you what scripture means.
That's a Holy Spirit's job to open our minds. They replace God with their own church and then they use God to venerate or to bolster their particular religion. And as I say this, I'm reminded of being in Thessalonika in Greece a couple of weeks ago when we went into an Eastern Orthodox church and I was just appalled, appalled at what I saw. Appalled. The icons, the statues, people kissing them, bowing before them constantly, kissing them, putting their lips to objects, sign of the cross, and inside the churches, all this ornate stuff, gold and silver everywhere, as though that's what church is.
It makes me mad. Man, I would love to be able to have an interpreter there and someone were to say, you were going to preach in that church. I'd say, oh, please. I would just drop to my knees and ask God to use me and then get up and preach and I'd preach justification by faith alone in Christ alone. You don't need icons. You don't need statues. You don't need to venerate your saints. You don't need to venerate Mary. Go to Jesus.
The devil himself, Satan himself, is the one who wants you to take your eyes off of Christ and put it onto the creature. And we just venerate Saint so-and-so. That's all we're doing. Praying to the Saint.
There you go. Satan's work. You're following Satan's work. He wants you to do that. You know, Jesus has come to me. All who are heavy laden, I will give you rest. That's what he says.
That's 1128. You don't go to the Saint and the stupidity of going to Mary to get to Jesus. That's stupid. Oh, man.
You know, heresy upsets me. It does. Uh, let's see. How about another one?
Let's see. Thank you again for taking my call today. Welcome. Whoever that was. I had sent you an email regarding the statements by the pastor that a person goes to a holding place. Oh, that one.
Yeah, for three days after death. That's not true. I don't get to listen to your radio show broadcast every day.
So you might have already answered this on the radio. Oh, it's from a United Methodist Church. No wonder. The United Methodist Church is pretty bad. As a rule of thumb, a denomination with the word united is bad. The only exception I'm aware of is United Reformed.
And I actually know the guy who gave the name to that denomination when they had a split 20 some odd years ago. But, um, so, uh, United Reformed is okay. But, you know, United Methodist.
No, you can't trust what's coming out of that. Sorry. As a rule. That's not to say there aren't some good pastors in there. You know, like, you know, they could be there, but as a rule, as a rule, United Methodist Church is bad. United Pentecostal is bad. United Apostolic is bad. United Presbyterian is bad.
United, uh, United, uh, Lutheran, you know, uh, United Methodist. Yeah, they're just bad. Bad, you know? Okay, let's see if we get one more time.
Here we go. Just listen to Matt Slick call trans people demonic. What did I call them demonic? I didn't see their demonic.
Uh, and I have questions. They, I believe that trans people are deceived and they are under demonic influence. Some may be, or some may not be under demonic influence, uh, because they're going against what God decrees, what God wants.
That doesn't mean they are demonic, uh, in that they have demons in them. If it is wrong for trans people to enact physical changes, to feel more comfortable, are all cosmetic procedures wrong? Uh, that's a different thing. Uh, see, physical changes to change what you're born with is different than putting makeup on. It's not changing what you're born with, uh, your gender and stuff. Is it demonic to get a nose job? No, it's not. Is it demonic for an old man to wear a wig to attract more women? No, it's not.
How about breast enhancement, mastectomy? No, it's not. Uh, you said that, uh, oh, we're out of time here. Got to go. People do this enough tomorrow.
So someone's, uh, upset and, uh, they don't understand the issues, which is often the case and they miss hear what I say, which also is often the case. All right, folks, we're out of time. May the Lord bless you. And by his grace, we're back on there tomorrow. And we'll talk to you then. So have a great evening, a great Halloween evening. All right, God bless. Another program powered by the truth network.
