The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network Podcast. and putting the subject line radio comment radio question.
Easy to do easy to do. All right so we've been working hard on the site just let you guys know we're working hard on the site. Diane and I. Diane, wow!
Joann and I mean wow two I messed up on. Laura and I have been working really hard on it and Charlie also has been helping out and doing some stuff. So we've got some people who are helping us who are really just aiding and we're overhauling the site.
We're overhauling it in order to make it more better, more better, gooder and that's what we're doing. So there you go. All right. Okay.
I hope the audio should be good right now. I'm looking at that. We've got a caller coming in. I think what I'm going to do is get the email thing going because we get a lot of emails. We do get a lot of emails. We have a crew that answers emails.
We have Dave. He overruns. Overruns? Man, I'm messing up today.
He oversees the email helpers and he does a great deal of good with them. All right. So I do have a debate it looks like. It'll be on Friday the 29th and it's going to be on is unconditional election biblical. And so I'll be debating a guy and only reason I'm doing it is because I said I would months ago but then I found out, eh, these guys don't really know their stuff but I gave my word so let your yes be yes or no be no. So they are, the obstreperous antis are delighted and they have been, I've been hearing that they are confident that he's going to absolutely destroy me and just prove how evil Calvinism is.
They say that Calvinists aren't even Christians. It really is just, it's bad. So it'll be an interesting encounter. And then, let's see, what's the, let's see, I got another, something coming up on it. I get my calendar going on December, December 6th, I think it is, or it's the 2nd, no, it's a, come on, no, what am I doing, looking over there like that. So here we go. I could get to it.
Sorry. It's December 6th, which is another Friday. I'll be debating an issue. Does the Old Testament imply the Trinity? Now this kind of a topic is, it's hard to win or lose to it because what does it mean to imply and how do you measure implication? Does it imply it or does it not imply it? Well I could say, yeah, it does imply it, my opponent could say, no, it doesn't imply it. That's the problem with that particular word. You know, a better descriptor might be something like, can the Trinity be found in the Old Testament, and that would be a better one, and yes it can, and I can show how.
But you know, it'll suffice. Does the Old Testament imply the Trinity? And yes it does, and I can show verses, I've got lots of information on that. I've debated it many times. So there's that, and then I look at my calendar to see if there's any other debate I've got coming up.
I don't think so, I'm just looking. And let's see, today's Wednesday, oh, hey look at that, I've got that over there, appointment tomorrow. I'm checking out so I can tell you guys there's any other debates, and it doesn't look like it. All right, good. So having said that, if you want you can give me a call, 877-207-2276, and what I can do is go to some radio questions, and you know there's a place where we have tons of questions that have been put in via a submission form, so I'm going to get that, and we can go through those as well.
Okay, here's a question, here's a thing. I've read that the, I've read what the Council of Trent teaches, I think I don't know about this but I'll go over it again, that if one believes in salvation by faith alone, let them be anathema, that's right, cursed. But I'd be interested to know where the RC teaches that specific works can help one obtain salvation.
Yeah, I've gone over this before, but let me just go over it again. It's Matthew, not Matthew, it's the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2068, and it says that they attain salvation through faith, baptism, and the observance of the commandments, and that works, observance of the commandments. And in paragraph 2037, or 2036 I believe it is, and 2070 of the Catechism, what it says in there is that the precepts of the natural law, you have to keep them, because observing them is necessary for salvation, necessary, and the precepts of the natural law are exemplified as the Ten Commandments, paragraph 2036 and 2070 talks about this. So what they're saying is that keeping the Ten Commandments is necessary for salvation. So whenever anybody teaches something like this, they are back under the law, and anyone who's back under the law does not have the gospel, they don't understand what the gospel is, and that's unfortunate because the Roman Catholic Church has buried the gospel in its tradition and its own authority and its own false teachings, and it is not, I'll say it again, it is not a Christian church. Let me read to you something that it took me, I think it took me two weeks to research and write. So what I'm going to do is read something that is documented, and I'll read the first three or so documentations where it's found, and I won't keep doing that because it just gets old doing the numbers.
Maybe I will, it depends how the flow goes. They're all from the catechism, except for one, one I think is someplace else, but let me read to you what the process of salvation is in the Roman Catholic Church. To begin, God grants actual grace to a person which enables him to believe in Christ, paragraph 2000, and also believe in the truth of the Catholic Church, that's 1814 by the catechism. After belief, the person must be baptized, which is necessary for salvation, that's 1257. This baptism erases original sin, 405, unites the person with Christ, 977, infuses grace into the person, 1999, and grants justification, 1992 and 2020. After baptism, he is saved, but to maintain his salvation, it is necessary for him to perform good works, that's paragraph 2010, 2036, 2068, 2070, and 2080, and participate in the sacraments, paragraph 1129, which provide the grace that is, quote, proper to each sacrament, close quote, paragraph 1129, 2003.
This is necessary in order to maintain infused grace, 987, 1468. Grace can be lessened by venial sins or completely lost by mortal sins. Venial sins, paragraph 1862, remove part of the infused grace, but not the saving grace known as sanctifying grace, that's 1863. To remedy the problem of venial sins, a Catholic is to take the Eucharist, which the Church teaches forgives venial sin, paragraph 1416. He must also perform various penance, which must be done in concert with perfect contrition, that means a perfectly sincere heart, paragraph 1452.
But there's a problem. Sin requires punishment. Even though sins are absolved by a priest, 1463 and 1495, the punishment due to a person because of his sin can remain. To deal with that remaining punishment, indulgences are administered to deal with the punishment due to the guilt of the sins already forgiven, paragraph 1471 and 1498. These indulgences draw upon the good works of the Blessed Virgin, 1477, and also of Christ and the saints, as so as to obtain the remission of the temporal punishment due for their sins, wow, paragraph 1478. Furthermore, indulgences can be applied to themselves or to the dead, that's 1471, who are in purgatory, 1498. In case the Catholic has committed a mortal sin, then all his infused grace is lost.
To regain this grace, he must partake of special penance, 980, since it helps restore the grace that was lost, 1468 and 1496. To conclude, the Roman Catholic must have faith, participate in the sacraments, take the Eucharist, keep the commandments, perform penance, and do indulgences in order to attain and maintain and regain his salvation, as well as reduce the punishment due to him for the sins of which he's already been forgiven. All right, so that's false doctrine, okay, all of that is false doctrine. This is something I teach on about Roman Catholic Church, and I'm going to continue to say it. The Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian church, it's a false church.
I don't hate the Catholics, I'm just saying it's not a Christian church because it teaches the false gospel, and I believe that we could then say that when Trent occurred in 1546, roughly, that that's when they were officially when apostate as they cursed the gospel, that if anybody who were to say that they are justified by faith alone in Christ alone, let them be anathema. They had to do good works and all that kind of stuff. This is a sign that they do not understand the concomitants of belief and regeneration. This is something I find all over the place, where I talk to R.C., Roman Catholics, and E.O., Eastern Orthodox, and they'll say, oh, so once you believe, then you can just go out and murder and kill and steal and you go to heaven, and they always forget the issue of regeneration that occurs with the belief. God changes you, God lives in you, and they never bring this up.
And I believe, this is my opinion, I believe that it's because they don't understand regeneration. They think that regeneration is their intellectual conversion, but you have to do good works, and then you've got to maintain your position with God through your efforts. To them, if you go out and once you're saved by faith, well, then you go out and kill and steal. You see, that's easy to do, but I say to them, don't you understand that God's the one who regenerates us, along with the faith that we have, that both are together, and a regenerate person doesn't want to do these things? Don't you understand that out of scripture? And they don't, because they don't have the true gospel, they don't understand the relationship between regeneration and forgiveness of sins and our faith and our justification. They don't get it.
This is why they are false religions, both of them, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics are false religions. Now, if you want to call me, if you want to debate me on this, you don't want to disagree, that's fine. Please do. You can call me at 877-207-2276.
Now, we have nobody waiting to. So here's another thing, I might as well do this, I have my file open. Now, I'm developing a file from Eastern Orthodoxy, well, it's just an outline, and the file that I have on Catholicism is 231 pages. It's just my outline notes, I'm opening up my Eastern Orthodox document, and it's not nearly as long. I'll open it up and I'll tell you how many pages it is, but it's not a big deal.
This length of something doesn't mean it's good or true or whatever. But when we get back to the break, I'll tell you, and we'll talk a little bit about these two religions, okay, their similarities and why they're both false religions and both their official doctrines lead to eternal damnation. We'll be right back after these messages, please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.
Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. We have a caller coming in, if you want to give me a call, it's easy, 877-207-2276.
Why don't we just jump over to the phone with Herb, Herb, Herb, let's get to Herb from Raleigh, North Carolina. Welcome, man, you're on the air. Thank you, Matt. It's always so good to talk to you.
I listen to you every day and I love your ministry and I pray for you and your family every day. My question is this, buddy, and I'll try to be brief. If God, and I don't doubt, but on the premise, if God created all the people in the world, which he did, certain warrants he's going to choose to go to heaven, those he does not choose are going to go to hell. You've probably never been asked this before and I'm being sarcastic, why did he create all of those people that he already was not going to choose to go to heaven? Because they are freely choosing to rebel against him in federal headship where Adam represents mankind.
That is an actuality because Jesus, God in flesh, represented his people. He's the last Adam, 1 Corinthians 15, 45. So the people who have died in Adam, Romans 5, 18, Romans 5, 19, they have inherited that sin nature and everybody nature killed in the wrath of Ephesians 2, 3.
So they're just going to go where they're going to go naturally. God's mercy is to not judge somebody and his grace is to give them heaven. He chooses whom out of those lost, whom he will do this to. And for whatever reason that he does, and we do not know, he does not tell us why.
We don't understand how it works and it's just not something he's privileged us with. So we do know from Job, not Job, but Proverbs 31, no, Proverbs 16, 4, it says God makes all things, even the wicked, for the day of destruction. Now, to more specifically answer your question, I think the answer is found in Romans 9, 22, and 23. It says, what if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And he did so to make known. So he's saying they're prepared for destruction. And he did that so that he could make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy. Which he prepared beforehand for glory. I think that maybe the hint here is that all people belong down because we fell in Adam and we fall in our own nature. People don't have to like it, but that's the theology of the scriptures. And that they belong there and he just chooses out of the lost the ones he does as vessels of mercy.
And so it says he did this to show mercy on others, so that they're there to show his right of evil, or they're there to show his righteousness, and the elect are there to show his grace. So I think that's what's going on. Yeah. Well, that makes perfect sense. It's always got the best of me.
I could not figure it out. I don't doubt, I totally do believe I became a Christian at 12 years old. I'm definitely a full-fledged Christian in every way. And I worry about people who don't get to heaven, though I know it's not for me to decide that. It's God's decision.
But I know several people who just don't, just refuse to accept Jesus. And I worry for their salvation, though I know I can't control that. So it's just something that, you know, I have to leave it in the Lord's hands, obviously, but it just really sticks with me a lot, bugs me a lot.
I care about people's future and well-being, and it just bothers me a lot. But I knew you'd have the best answer of anybody I've heard, and you did. So thank you, Matt, and God bless you and your family.
Well, can I throw something else out there? That it's a puzzle. And this, to me, reflects on this issue. This is what it says in James 5.16. It says, therefore, confess your sins one to another, pray for one another, so that they'll be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much, that we're righteous in Christ.
Now, the specific issue here is talking about those who are sick and making them better. And that the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish this stuff. Well, this isn't talking about election predestination.
This is talking about the issue of healing. But what it's suggesting is that we're able to influence God. The question then becomes, how do we influence God? Well, from eternity, he ordained that we influence him. And that's a real head-scratcher, because we're in Christ, our prayers make a difference, and all this is known because God has ordained that it be known from eternity past that he's influenced by the things he's ordained we influence him by, because that's what he wanted.
It just gets to the point where we say, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, it's a mind-boggler, because I boggled with it a lot, just thinking about it. Well, Buddy, thank you so much is all.
Sure. Once I thought I had it grasped, I got it, and then I heard this pshh in my head, and it was gone. I know the feeling. I think I got something figured out about God, and I said, no, you idiot. What were you thinking? You know you don't know all the answers about God. He wants us to worship him and believe in him, and we obviously do, but sometimes I think when I think I've got something figured out, I realize, nope, you're still wrong. Call Matt. Well, let me tell you, again, I appreciate your confidence in me, but remember, you're talking to a radio guy named Slick, so you've got to be real careful of who your confidence is in. Well, I try best to ignore that, though that's in my mind, too, just as bad as this problem.
I'm thinking that, too, when I'm dialing. I only said, I'll be doing this, Lord. You said we're talking to a guy named Slick, yeah, so that's right, I'm here for him. Well, Matt, God bless you and your family.
I hope you have a good Christmas, good holiday, Thanksgiving, and New Year's, too. I deliver pizzas every day. I'm almost 60 years old. I'm still working because I enjoy it, and I need the money, but I love listening to you from six to seven every day. I'm in my car right now, listening to you as I'm delivering, and you're a joy to hear on the radio. Oh, wow. Thanks. Hey, listen.
Hey, thanks. I really appreciate that. Let the Truth Network know, because, I don't know, it's always good to hear that feedback, you know. It's good, so they can know.
Yeah. I will definitely do that, buddy. I'll send them an email or something.
I'll let them know. I absolutely will. Okay. I appreciate that. All right. All right. Well, God bless.
Thank you so much for that. Thank you. God bless you, too, sir. Okay, you too. Good night. God bless.
Drive safely. All right. Well, I enjoyed that call. It was nice, and a good question. It's really a good question. It really is, and it's a tough one to answer, and the best, in my opinion, the best we can do is approach it and talk about it from what Scripture says, and then just leave it alone. I don't think we should try and solve too many problems, and the reason is because if you try and solve a problem that God hasn't revealed to us, it's easy to make mistakes, and that's why I say, well, I say frequently, I don't know.
The Bible doesn't tell us, and that's it. So there you go. Hey, look. If you want to call me, 877-207-2276. Technically, you can call me the number if you want, or you can call me at the number.
I'm kind of a linguistic nerd. You can call me 877, but I won't answer to it. But if you call the number, 877-207-2276, and you want to talk, that's how you do it. All right, simple.
All right. Let me get back into this Catholicism Eastern Orthodoxy, and I say these statements that are bold statements. I'm going to say it again.
Official Roman Catholic theology regarding salvation, official Eastern Orthodox doctrine regarding salvation, both are damnable heresies, and any and all who put their trust in those systems of salvation will be damned to hell unless they repent of them. That's how serious this is, and there's a break and a caller coming in. So maybe we'll get to this issue after the break, and we'll see. So may the Lord bless you, and 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.
We had a caller, but the caller dropped off. So what I'm going to do is jump into the issue of salvation in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Now this is similar, very similar, to the Roman Catholic Church.
And let me just say that both of them teach a false gospel. So check this out. This is what it says.
These are from goarch.org, G-O-A-R-C-H dot org. It's an Eastern Orthodox website. And so that's where it's documented from. So according to Saint Paul, not only loving deeds, but also the sacraments of baptism, the Eucharist, are decisive to salvation. So in order to be decisive towards salvation, that means they help you for salvation. It's baptism, Eucharist, and your loving deeds.
So your works, your baptism, and partaking in the Eucharist, these are decisive to salvation. So what they teach right here is a false gospel. False gospel.
I'll say it again. It's a false gospel. The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches a false gospel. It's not a true Christian church.
It's in the service of the evil one. It's a false gospel. It's a false church. So it says also, what is the event at which salvation truly takes hold? Baptism. Now, you see, salvation is the deliverance from God's righteous judgment, being saved from it. We're justified by faith. Romans 3.28, Romans 4.5, Romans 5.1, Galatians 2.16, 2.21. That's what the Bible teaches us, and baptism is not necessary for salvation. I get into all the verses about salvation, about baptism. I know them well.
We can talk about them. But this is what they do. It's really good that salvation occurs at your ceremony. You see, folks, you've got to understand something. If you have faith in Christ, sorry, ladies and gentlemen, not enough. You see, if you trust in Jesus, you depend on his sacrifice, I'm sorry, doesn't mean you're going to go to heaven. You have to go to a ceremony in our church. Once you go to the ceremony in our church, then you can have salvation. We'll tell you how to do it, because we have the priesthood, we have the authority, we have the right ceremonies, because we're the true church. That's how it works with false religions.
Check this out. This is another one. Fornication, idolatry, sorcery, selfishness, drunkenness, carousing will not inherit the kingdom of God. In other words, those who do such things, including Christians, to whom he is writing will suffer ultimate loss of salvation. This is a topic worth discussing. Can you lose your salvation? And that's another topic.
But what they're saying is you can if you do these bad things. So then when they tell me this, I say, okay, what are the good things you've got to do to keep it? Give me the list of how you are. I've had them give me a list of things they've got to do to keep themselves right with God. An actual list that they do to keep themselves right with the infinitely holy God of the universe.
Baptism, continued repentance, continued sincerity, go to the priesthood in their church, do deeds of righteousness, works of charity, and you do these things, you can keep yourself right with the infinitely holy God. Such blasphemy. It's blasphemy. I've heard him say it so many times.
And here's another one. He can think even of justification as a, great, hold on. The reception of the gift of salvation is not a one time event, but a lifetime process. He can think even of justification as a future event and part of the final judgment.
This reminds me of Seventh Day Adventist and the investigative judgment that Ellen G. White taught that on that final day, there's an investigative judgment about your faith and your works and salvation determined through this. It's false. It is false. Folks, the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches a false gospel. I'm going to say it again, officially, publicly, it is not a Christian church. It's a pseudo-Christian church. It's a false church.
And those who are in it are in trouble. Let's get to, let's see, Cameron from North Carolina. Cameron, welcome. You're on the air.
Hey, Matt. How you doing? Doing all right. Hanging in there, man.
What do you got? Nice to talk to you again. Hey man, so I've been, uh, eating with Jehovah's Witnesses, uh, weekly now for probably like seven months trying to evangelize and kind of iron out a correct gospel with them. Good for you.
Uh, it's, it's fine. It's becoming harder and harder and harder with just like how knowledgeable and in depth they are within their deception. And I dare say even delusion, but they kind of rocked me. I met with them today and was a little bit caught off guard just because of like, I'm trying to dismantle the legitimacy that they think that, uh, the heavenly kingdom was going to be like a spiritual kingdom that came down in 1914. Yeah. Yeah. It was actually 1800s first. Yeah. It was in the 1800s first and then they moved into 1914. Okay.
That the return of Christ and et cetera, it was in 1914, but it was a spiritual return in the heavenlies. That's what they're saying. Okay. Yeah. So I guess, uh, I mean, are you, are you pretty familiar with like Jehovah's Witness theology? Yes. Fairly familiar. Yeah. So I guess I'm like, I don't know if I've studied enough myself to be able to correctly interpret the passages that they take out of context, but I mean, do you think it's, it's plausible to use Daniel too, to kind of construct their, their timing mechanism that they applied from six Oh seven BCE to arrive at 1914, like, are they just entirely misreading Daniel too, or let's say I wrote an article on this years ago and, uh, so here it is, it's 18, 1914, six Oh seven BC, five 86 BC, the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Okay. And, uh, it's been a long time since I've gone through it. So the conclusion though, is that they're wrong about six or seven BC date upon which they place so much of the end times theology. If they're wrong about such basic events, they'll be wrong about other stuff. And I go through and show why they hold this. Uh, so, but what they do in the wash tower in, uh, 1958, if we measure back that many years from 1914, let me, let me back up from that even here's their, their thinking, the, the mark time began in the year 1914 in that important year, the appointed times of the nations, 2,520 years long ran out and they get that from some convoluted logic of looking at days and years and some other stuff from 360 days, uh, and seven times they come up with 2,520 years.
Okay. And if you measure back that many years from 1914, we'd come to the ancient data six Oh seven BC. So what they're doing is 1914 had to be special and it is part of the false prophecies.
And so they had to go to six Oh seven. And that year was marked for the overthrow of the earthly throne of Jehovah and for the destruction of the throne of the city of Jerusalem and its sanctuary. So what they've done is they said that destruction of, of Jerusalem, the throne there occurred in six Oh seven BC. That's what they're saying. And then they have other quotes that do that, that, that start talking about that.
But according to encyclopedia.com, the Babylonian captivity is defined as the period from the fall of Jerusalem, five 86 BC to the reconstruction from five 38 BC in biblical archeological review it says, you will recall that the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar after twice laying siege to Jerusalem, finally captured it in five 86 BC, uh, and, uh, uh, under Merrill's, uh, Bible dictionary, it says Nebuchadnezzar promptly invaded his unhappy country and besieged Jerusalem for a year and a half in five 87 BC, Jerusalem fell. And then, um, so my note here is you'll notice that five 87 is offered instead of five 86. There's something, a difference of opinion as to which year is the exact one. Nevertheless, it's obvious that six Oh seven BC is not even close. And so I can read more stuff.
So this is what you do is you can go to the website and you can look up the documentation, which I've got. And it shows that the archeological dates are wrong. If you show them that, and what I would do is, and I'm willing to write this, wrote this back in 2008. So it might be new information and you can take these quotes, copy them, and then you can just go verify them. Okay. Because sometimes these things change.
Sometimes they have removed stuff from different places and that just happens. And then once you've verified it, then you can present it to them and say, here's what the archeologists are saying. Why should we trust what the watchtower says since it's made false prophecies and that's what you want to get to the false prophecies of the watchtower. The thing that concerns me though, is that like their logic for believing in six Oh seven BC versus five 86 is derived from scripture and like first or second Kings and just following the chronology and the years and like, so it seems almost like or biblical, like I would rather side with understanding something directly revealed from the word of God than kind of well tell you what, well, yeah, I agree. I totally agree with you. If I were you once you tried this, once you show me those verses that you think suggest that and email them to me and I'll do some research, I'll check them out and see cause I'm with you.
Scripture trumps anything else and let's see if the analysis is accurate and we'll check it out. Okay. Do some research on it. All right.
Where can I find your email at best just info at carm.org info at carm.org all right, thank you very much. All right, man. God bless.
There's a break. We've got to go. All right, man. We'll talk to you later. Okay.
God bless. Bye. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages.
And then we got Patrick again, the guy, he doesn't have all this on the litter box. He's waiting after the break. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.
Here's Matt Slick. Okay. Everybody, welcome back to the show. If you want to call me, we have three open lines, 877-207-2276, we'll be right back.
Oh, no, excuse me, I'm reading something else. Let's get to Patrick again. Patrick, welcome. You're on the air.
Hi, Matt, it's me again. My question is, is the baptism of the Holy Spirit a requirement for salvation? Depends what you mean by baptism of the Holy Spirit. Well, I mean like at Pentecost, when Jesus told the apostles to wait for the gift my father promised, and he said the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And that was what they received at Pentecost. Yeah, that was the movement of the charismatic gifts. And that's a gift, the charismatic gifts are given to the believers. They're already believers, they're already saved. The Holy Spirit came down upon them as a fulfillment of prophecy of Joel 2, 28, 29.
Okay. Yeah, but believers today have to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, right, to be a born again Christian. No, they're baptized with the Holy Spirit if we understand it to be the inclusion upon a Christian of the charismatic gifts. That seems to be what it is to some extent, and I'm not saying it's only what it is. So that would mean that you're already saved in order to receive that.
Okay. Yeah, but that don't make sense because Jesus said you must be born again. When do you get born again? You're caused to be born again by God, 1 Peter 1-3. And you're born, not of your own will, born again, not of your own will, but of the Lord, John 1-13. And that occurs when you receive Christ, John 1-12, okay, when you receive Christ. Right, that's when Jesus baptizes you with the Holy Spirit, right, and comes into your heart. Yeah, it doesn't say come into your heart, but that's, generically we could say yes at that point.
Yeah. Well, if that's the case, when Catholics say you must be baptized, they don't mention water, are they referring to the baptism of the Holy Spirit in order to be saved? Catholics? No, I'm talking about baptism of water, either by sprinkling, pouring, generally those two, and sometimes by immersion. Yeah, but you just mentioned the requirements from a Catholic church, and you said they have to be baptized, but you never said in water. So could that mean that they have to be baptized with the Holy Spirit to be saved?
No, they mean water. But that is normative, because I've talked to hundreds of Catholics who've told me this, hundreds, over years. No, Matthew 28, 19, it never mentions water. You ask me a question about what the Catholics teach, then you go to Matthew 28, there's something else. I'm telling you, this is what they say, it's by water, but you can have a baptism of desire, they say, also. You don't have water available, but you can desire to be baptized, and they give that as an account.
Okay? Yeah, but because they don't mention water, it could be they mean the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which you agree has to be done in order to be a Christian. I tell you what, I tell you what, why don't you go look on Catholic websites and see if what you're saying they mean could mean, and find that documentation. I've told you hundreds of times... Well, you don't have to talk about Catholics, I'm just asking you. You agree that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is part of salvation?
It depends what you mean by part, in order to get, or something that happens to people because they're already saved. Well, I'm, okay, what is the baptism of the Holy Spirit to you? Well, that's the question, because the phrase occurs, you ask me a question, look, you ask me questions, I start to answer them, then you interrupt, you keep going.
Why do you do that? Okay, at Pentecost, were they baptized with the Holy Spirit? Okay, we're done.
I ask them a question, and he just ignores the question, and keeps going. Let's talk about what baptism of the Holy Spirit is a little bit here, and I'll read the scriptures that deal with this, because we've got to go to the Word of God, okay? In Matthew 3.11, Jesus says, as for me, excuse me, John the Baptist, he says, I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who's coming after me is mightier than I, I'm not fit to remove his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. So it's a prophecy of the Holy Spirit baptism coming upon people. He'll baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. In Mark 1a, John says, I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. So we have this phrase, baptize you with the Holy Spirit, but what is it?
Let's continue. Luke 3.16, John answered and said to them, as for me, I baptize you with water, but one who's coming after me is mightier, etc., he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Now notice the contrast. He says, I baptize you with water, but he's going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Just so you know, ladies and gentlemen, the way the Holy Spirit is prophesied in the Old Testament as arriving is by being poured.
Now this is something a lot of people are just not aware of. I'm not making it up. That's what the Bible teaches, the Holy Spirit is poured. Let me see if I can find my notes on this. I think it's Acts 1.5, let's see if I have my notes, and I do have my notes, and my notes are empty.
Why are my notes empty right there? So anyway, in Joel 2.28, 29, and other places, God says, I will pour his Spirit out upon all mankind. And then when we go to Acts 2, verse 17, and the people are already speaking in tongues, the Spirit of tongues have come upon them, and he says, and it shall, this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel, and that's what he said. This is what Joel was talking about, the Holy Spirit being poured on them. He says, and it shall be the last days, God says, that will pour forth my Spirit on all mankind, and verse 18, in those days I'll pour forth my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
So notice what's going on here. According to Peter, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the occurrence of the pouring of the Spirit upon you. Because it says, John, in Acts 1.5, John baptizes with water, but you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. That means the pouring of the Spirit upon them.
Well, what is that? And he says in verse 8, and you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. The pouring. Now, notice this. People say to me, the word baptism always means to be immersed, wrong. It's not true.
And here's the proof, I mean proof. John baptized with water, but you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. That's not immersed in the Holy Spirit, it's the Holy Spirit being poured on you. So that baptism right there is by pouring. So what happened in that context? Well, we have the upper room where the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they were speaking in tongues.
They were doing stuff like that, and different languages and stuff. And then we see in Acts chapter 2 that Peter says this is the fulfillment of Joel, that the Holy Spirit will be poured out. That's what he says. Then when you go to Acts 2, 38, it says that Peter said, repent and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
What's the gift? It's the charismatic movement, the charismatic stuff. That's what it is. Okay?
I mean, it's simple. You read the context. Some people say the gift of the Holy Spirit is salvation. That's not what it says.
It's not what it is in the context, okay? So furthermore, we know that this is the case, because check this out in Acts 10, okay, 1044. While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those, fell upon.
He's poured out upon, right? Fell upon those who are listening to the message. All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.
How do you know? For they were hearing him speaking with tongues and exalting God. That's what the gift is.
That's what the gift is. Then Peter says, surely no one can refuse water for these to be baptized. So what we're seeing is, this is what I believe, okay? I just read why I believe it, because the gift of the Holy Spirit is the movement of the charismatic gifts. What's really interesting to me is that there are people today who say all the charismatic gifts are gone. Well then, wait a minute, is the baptism of the Holy Spirit only for Acts chapter two?
Is that what they're saying? Because in Acts chapter 10, the Gentiles have this, but then they say, well, once the canon is completed, the Bible is completed, then the baptism of the Holy Spirit is no longer valid. You know, I just look at them and go, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. What do you do with stuff like that? Well, you tackle it and you start helping them out and you start to say, well, not exactly, and then you go through stuff. So that's what that is, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Now let me go on. John baptized Acts one, five, I already went over that, Acts 11, 16, and I remembered the word of the Lord, how he used to say, John baptizes with water, but you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So what is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Is it salvation or is it the movement of the charismatic gifts? And that's what I believe it is. That is my opinion of what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is.
It's the arrival and movement and operation of the charismatic gifts upon the believer. That's what I believe. Now, you can disagree and that's fine. And if you disagree, maybe you are correct and I'd say, well, call me up and let's talk because if I don't know, I'll say, I don't know. And if you have a point, I haven't thought it, we'll say, that's a really good point.
I need to check that out. I don't have any problem doing that. I'm not tied to, uh, to this, you know, it's an, I have to believe it or my denomination set it up.
I have to, or whatever it might be, you know, it's not the case. So I'm always open to being corrected. I'm open to learning and I don't have all the answers, but from what I see, that's what it seems to be in the issue of baptism of the Holy Spirit. So when people ask, what is that, that's why I say it's the movement of charismatic gifts. And notice this when you, and also, this is something I think is important because a lot of times the people, the people who say baptism is necessary for salvation, they go to Acts 2, 38. I remember the context of Acts 2, Acts 1 and 2, they're speaking in tongues, they're glorifying God, and Peter says that they're speaking in tongues is the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Holy Spirit coming upon them, that he's being poured out. That's how the Holy Spirit is perceived by being poured. And so there you go. And then baptism there means pouring and not immersion in Acts 1, 5.
It's really interesting. But then he goes on, he says, I'll start in verse 37 of Acts 2. Now when they heard this, they were pierced at the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brethren, what do we do? Peter said, repent and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now he wasn't offering a formula for two reasons. One, faith is not mentioned there, and two, the order is reversed in Acts 10, 44-48 where baptism is received after they have the gift of the Holy Spirit, but in Acts 2, 38 baptism is received before they have the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The people in Acts 2, 38 who use it as a baptismal requirement verse for immersion, whatever it is, fail to understand the context, fail to understand what the gift of the Holy Spirit is, and fail to contrast it with Acts 10, 44-48. They make lots of mistakes. This is what happens, folks, let me tell you something. Error begets error. Error is never by itself. Heresy is never by itself. This is why it's so critical. If you want to get yourself right and understanding, start with the Trinity, understand the Trinity inside out, backwards, forwards, not just five minutes, start it for weeks, then go to the hypostatic union, the person of Christ, justification, sanctification, go through these things, get them weighed down, understood, and let other things fall in place around the basic truth of the Christian faith. And there you go.
There's the music. May the Lord bless you. I am out of here, by God's grace, hopefully we're back on here tomorrow, which is I believe Thursday.
Yes, it is. And I hope you have a great evening. May the Lord bless you, by His grace, be back on here tomorrow, and we'll talk to you then. See you, bye. Bye-bye.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-11-21 22:16:45 / 2024-11-21 22:36:03 / 19