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. All right. But welcome to the show. Today's date is March 20th, 2020. Oops, I have to do something here. March 20th, 2020. Oh, man.

I always forget to do one thing right at the show. Anyway, March 20th, 2025. Sorry about that. So, if you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. And, all right.

So, we have nobody waiting right now. All right. I had to go douche and shopping today, and I'd listened to different radio stations, listened to Sean Hannity on the way home. And, of all things, this guy calls up on the radio on the show, Sean Hannity's show, and Sean did a pretty good job. He did a pretty good job. This obstreperous, hate-filled, you could tell it was hatred for the Christian God. And, in his tone, he was saying, our God is evil, and he was saying that there's, you know, these commercials with children who are suffering from various sicknesses, and why, where's your God, and things like this.

And so, I thought, okay, you know, I could answer that, but I'm listening to what Sean said. And, he did a good job. He did. He was adequate, a little more than adequate, actually.

I was kind of surprised, I'm not knocking him. I mean, he's just not a theologian, but he did a good job. And, I was thinking, man, I'd like to call them up and say, hey, if you need an apologist, you know, get questions like this, send them to my website or whatever it is, you know, and that'd be fun.

I'm able to do that if they can find out. But, so this guy, he was just complaining that God doesn't exist, God is evil, because people are suffering, and children are suffering, little babies and stuff like that are suffering. Well, you know, one of the things I ask when atheists, you know, they'll call me up, or they'll argue with me online, and they'll say, well, your God, where is he?

Why doesn't he help people who are sick? You mean like my wife, or babies who are at the supper? I say, you mean like my son? And, I said, look, let me ask you a question. I say, if bad things happen means that God is not there, then if good things happen, does it mean that God is there? And, they can't answer the question, because all they're interested in is one side of the equation. If it's bad, God's not there, because he didn't take care of it. And, well, okay, well, then let's do the corollary. So, when good things happen, that means he's there, right?

But, he won't say that. They're only interested in the negative, because they want to suppress the truth of God in their unrighteousness. Now, why is it that there's evil in the world?

Well, it's because Adam sinned, and sin entered the world through Adam, and we fell in him, Romans 5-18, Romans 5-19, and sin affected the world, and it moans, the creation moans and groans for its redemption in the new heavens and the new earth that will be made when Christ comes back. So, the inside of that fallen world are problems, and some of the problems are such things as, you know, sickness and children hurting. And, you know, my heart goes out to the children. It's one of the things I wish I could do is just go into a hospital, just go room by room and lay hands on people, pray for them, they're healed, and just leave. I wish I could do that. I really do. I wish.

God hasn't given me that ability, and hasn't given it to anybody else other than the apostles and or Jesus himself, but apparently not now. Now, that's one issue to deal with. Another one, the problem of evil is I like to ask atheists, well, then define what evil is. It reminds me of the trans argument, you know, a trans woman, which to me is just a guy pretending to be a girl. And I say, well, okay, a trans woman, right? They go, yeah, trans woman. I say, define what a woman is so we can know if you're trans or not.

And they can't define what a woman is. So, you know, so what is evil? Well, evil is bad things.

Well, that doesn't say anything. What's bad? That bad's what's evil. What's evil? That evil's what's bad. It's circular.

It doesn't do nothing. So, what's your standard of evil? What's your standard by which you can say something is right or wrong? Do you have a universal standard that you're in touch with that you can then say, yeah, this is good, this is bad?

Do you have that ability to do that? I'm just curious. Are you able to say what is good and what is not good and what is evil and what is not evil? And do you have the ability to say that God ought to do something? I mean, who are these arrogant people who stand on their high thrones, their high horses, and they start saying, look, I'll judge what is good and bad? Man, they're going to be in for a rude awakening on that day when they die. And if God gives them that ability before their death to understand what's happening, I'm afraid that so many of them are just going to say, oh, no, something's wrong. They've complained, and they've insulted God.

And now it's time to pay because of their evil of rejecting the true and living God. Well, anyway, just a topic. I thought it was interesting, and Sean Hannity did a good job. If you're listening out there, Sean, hey, good job, buddy. All right, let's get to Jamal from North Carolina. Jamal, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt, thank you for taking my call, sir. Sure, man, no sweat, buddy.

What do you got? Wanted to ask if we could justify the death penalty. Oh, yeah, yeah, we can.

It's easy. In Romans 13, we go there, Romans 13, and it says this. Every person should be subjection to the governing authorities, for there's no authority except from God, and those who exist are established by God.

And let's see, I'm looking for the word, one particular word, and there we go. All right, here it is, verse 4. For it, the government, is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for nothing.

It is a minister of God, the avenger, who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. So there's capital punishment right there. The sword is a means of execution, of killing. That's what they would do.

Okay? Okay, yeah, I was kind of wondering, because at first I was against the death penalty, but now I kind of have maybe a different kind of view, because people who are on death row, not on death row, but people who have life sentences and continue doing crimes, there's no other punishment that they can get other than the death penalty, and they threaten guards and threaten the guards' families, it's like, well, what else can be done? Oh, well, there's death penalty, you know, they're incarcerated, and they really can't do much, but if they get out, yeah. In fact, the Old Testament talks about it as well, as people being executed for certain crimes.

Yeah. Murder and rape, oh yeah, they were taken out, so, all right, it's, it's, yeah, it makes a lot of sense, and it's a strong deterrent, sorry, go ahead, okay, that, that's good, and I apologize, my GPS is going off, I wanted to give that quick call, and it's dinging left and right, so I'll just go ahead and get off the phone, and thank you for answering my call, and I'll call back later on. All right, man, thanks, no problem, buddy, all right, God bless, okay, all right, yeah, the death penalty, a lot of people don't like it, and that's okay, but can it be justified in scripture? Yes, it can, in the New Testament, yes, it can, in Romans 13, so it just can, so, but we need to be careful with it, of course, and that's what we have to do, all right, so what does the New Testament say about capital punishment?

You can go to karm.org and look up that, and there is an article that I wrote, let's see when did I write that article, oh, unbalanced footnote, I've got to fix that, in 2012, 2012 was when I wrote that, and so out of that, out of Romans 13 is also, let's see, I'm looking at some other verses and stuff, I could find them, but that's good enough, I think. Let's get to Andrew from Maryland, Andrew, welcome, you are on the air. Hey, Matt, how are you doing tonight? Oh, hanging in there, man, hanging in there, more hanging in there, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, and just to piggyback off of what was just said, you know, I mean, I, and I speak this from personal experience, you know, when we come to the Bible, we need to surrender what we think is right and wrong for what God says is right and wrong, you know, and that's a hard thing to do, you know. Yeah, it is, yeah, there's some things in the Bible I'm not really fond of, but, so, yes, this doesn't mean I'm right, yeah, yeah, right, absolutely, well, the reason why I felt was, one, to, you know, thank you for your ministry specifically with Jehovah's Witnesses, I actually had the great opportunity to witness to some witnesses yesterday, actually, and just so you know, like, I had done hours and hours of preparation to understand what they believed to where they were actually, like, shocked in the first couple minutes of, because they asked me, like, hey, you know, what, you know, do you know a lot about us and stuff, and it's because, you know, I've read a lot of that material that you and others have put out there, and so if you want to articulate good doctrine to, you know, to Jehovah's Witnesses, you have to understand what they believe so you can talk their language and, you know, get to the heart of the matter, you know, so. Absolutely true, you've got to know what they believe. Yeah, absolutely, and the conversation went very well, you know, long story short, I listened very patiently to them, I was a very patient witness, I told them, yeah, I didn't want to dog pile on them, I thanked them for coming to my house and everything, and I eventually got around to Psalms 102, Hebrews 1, John 12 and John 6, and you know, because I put quarters in the bank of being patient with them and letting them talk and interacting with them, you know, and that was just awesome, so I just want to thank you for that material and, you know, it was just a great blessing for me to, as a foolish man, to have that opportunity to spread God's truth to, in my opinion, well-meaning people but lost people, you know. Well, good for you, good for you, you studied, you took the opportunity and spent time with them and I know that through it you have planted seeds, so.

Absolutely, absolutely. There are a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses who've come out who said, you know, they go to somebody's door and they'll say something, they're shocked or whatever it is, and there's people like you who do that, so praise God, man, good for you. Well, yeah, all glory to God and, you know, and just to kind of explain, when you pull out the great sword of Psalms 102, Hebrews 1, you know, I didn't twist it in their hearts and, ooh, I beat you today, you know, I told them, I don't want you to give me an answer, I want you to think about this, you know, and I want you to pray about that and think about why you will stay the same, says the Psalter, and how could that be said of a being who was the Archangel Michael and is now Jesus and now is the Archangel Michael again, because that's not staying the same, you know, so, anyway. Well, good for you.

Well, I just want to thank you, yeah, well, well, well, no, no, no, I just want to thank you for your ministry, in my opinion, a lot of people don't get enough, you know, just thank you is really what I'm trying to say, I listen to you often, I listen to a lot of other people too in regards to all witnessing topics, and I just wanted to encourage you because I know that apologetics and ministry is a very lonely field, so I just wanted to say thank you, sir. Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah, it is.

Yeah. It's a lonely, difficult field, and woe is me, I'm about to eat some worms, nobody likes me, you know, the basic stuff, so, even my wife can't take it, you know, she's like, you're an apologist? Oh, you know, kidding, but, yeah, it's a difficult field, I'm constantly studying, and it's a tough one, but yeah, but hey, man, praise God, and I'm glad that God used it, so praise God, man. Hey, have a good night, sir. You too, man, thanks.

Yeah, absolutely, amen. Have a good night. All right. Bye. Hey, folks, be right back after these messages, please stay tuned.

All right, welcome back to the show, if you want to give me a call, the number is 877-207-2276. So the previous caller talked about, you know, J-Dub's apologetics and made a comment about apologetics. Let me expand on this a little bit. There are different kinds of Christian apologetics. There's what's called classical. Classical apologetics deals with the use of logic and reason and trying to demonstrate the truth of Christianity, God's existence, and things like that. Then there's evidential apologetics, focuses on things like history and evidence, facts, things like that, the evidence of the resurrection, for example, or the reliability of the scriptures and things. There's what's called presuppositional apologetics, and what it does, it's an interesting way to do things. It just starts from the assumption of the validity of Christianity and when you do that, everything falls in place, and that if you denounce the presuppositions of Christian thought revealed in the scriptures, then nothing can make sense.

It's really an interesting approach. And then there's experiential apologetics, and this is dealing with testimonies and transformation and things like that that people go through in their own lives because they can say to someone, look, I used to be this, this, and that, and I received Christ and it was a big change and, you know, he changed my life and it's experiential. Now there are lots of different topics inside of apologetics. All kinds of stuff that we can deal with. So one, for example, is the existence of God, okay, the reliability of the Bible is another one. A lot of people don't really study that very much, and it's a good study, though.

It's good. Then we have, you know, you could do all kinds of stuff, you could do resurrection of Jesus, you could do prophecy, you could do mathematics, information theory. I mean, there's all kinds of topics you can use to deal with various things. And so the Bible tells us, it says in 1 Peter 3.15, it says, to sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, but with gentleness and respect. So when it says make a defense, that's the Greek word apologia. And from apologia, we get apologetics, which is that branch of Christian theology dealing with the defense and the establishment of the Christian faith. So then we have 2 Corinthians 10.5, we are destroying arguments and all arrogance raised against the knowledge of God, and we're taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Well, that's an interesting verse, because in 1 Peter 3.15, you're defending. And in 2 Corinthians 10.5, you're offending, in the sense of being offensive. So there's defensive-type apologetics, and there's offensive.

So there's passive, and then there's active, or passive and aggressive. So that's what I do, is I do aggressive apologetics a lot. I will go into chat rooms for a while, and I'll just go into the Catholic rooms, into the Muslim rooms. I'll go in there and ask difficult questions. I seek to expose their errors and point them to Jesus. And the Bible says in Jude 3, we are to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all delivered to us. So there's a lot there, we can talk about apologetics, and it's really a worthwhile topic. If you're like me and you enjoy that, then it's great.

If you don't, eh, it's all right, don't worry about it. Let's get to Dan from North Carolina. Dan, welcome. You are on the air.

Hey, Matt. I was wondering, do you believe that the spiritual gifts are still available today? I'm talking specifically healing.

Yes, I do. Yeah, I believe in all the charismatic gifts are present for today, which is not common among Calvinists. Right. The reason I ask is so, so you could, like if I was in a church and I knew, okay, hey, Matt has the gift of healing, wouldn't I want everybody in the church to go to you because you have this gift?

Sure. And I know that, you know, God doesn't heal every single time and stuff, but. Yep, that's exactly right. Yeah, I believe that God uses individuals more than he might use another individual to accomplish certain things. I don't believe these things are all normative and they're guaranteed, but God certainly can use people and their giftings to further his kingdom, as being done in submission to his ultimate will.

Okay. Yeah, no, I, I, I guess, so, so what if, you know, what, like how many people, I guess what I'm trying to say is like, would it happen every time then? I mean, if somebody has the gift of healing, is that a hundred percent? Is that 10%? What, you know, what is it? Well, there was no percentage, but Jesus, he, he had trouble healing some people because of their lack of belief and Paul, the apostle and Peter didn't heal everybody all the time either.

So we have to act in a manner that's consistent with the will of God. So for example, my wife, this is no joke, my wife has one of the rarest connective tissue disorders in the world called Louise Dietz, just discovered in the nineties. And she and her brothers all have it and they're the only ones in the world that they know of where all the siblings have it.

That's how rare it is. And so she, she's hurting and she fell and just, she probably doesn't want me saying all this, but she's in a lot of pain. She's been in a lot of pain for about eight days now and I mean pain. Okay. I have prayed for her healing.

I have laid hands on her and asked the Lord to heal her and I continue to pray to ask the Lord to heal her. He's not seen fit to heal her. Why? I don't know. I just don't know. But that's what he does. Okay. He doesn't, but he doesn't. Yeah.

With a deal with it. It's hard. Yeah, yeah, no, I, yeah, I guess so, but I, and I, man, I haven't listened to you for very long. So do you feel like you have the gift of healing? No, I have the gift of being annoying and irritating.

That's what my wife says. I'm quite good at that. And, and I have, and I have criticism as well, so I know exactly what you're dealing with. But, but, um, I will say this, that, uh, I suspect it might have the, the gift of, of, um, a word of knowledge because that's happened several times and, uh, not to try, I'm not trying to draw attention to myself, nothing like that, but, um, there's just, there's some things that have happened and, uh, you know, so anyway, uh, but you know, and we had to practice them and it's risky because if you make a, a judgment and it's wrong, you don't want to do anything and people might look at you and it's a very difficult thing to do. And I prophesied over a girl once and it came to pass. It was detailed and there's been many times when all of a sudden I've just known something about somebody or what's going to happen. And I've told my wife about certain things, this is blah, blah, blah.

And she even got to the point where she'd say, what, did you get anything on this one? And it started bothering me because I'm sitting there going, well, what am I doing by reading this circumstances or this really from God? And I started pushing it back.

So it's a tough thing, you know, what did we do? Yeah, we do it as a stop. Hey, there's the break. Hold on. Hold on.

We've got a break. I appreciate it. Thanks, man. I'll be, I'll pray for your wife. Thank you. Thank you.

That was Dan from North Carolina. We'll be right back after these messages, please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Hello and welcome back to the show if you want to call me, the number is 877-207-2276. So the charismatic gifts within the reformed camp, there's basically a universal denial of their continuation. The reason that I've discovered seems to be primary for the reason of their denial is because in the reformed camp, the view of scripture is so high, which is good, that anything extra or next to it is looked down upon with great suspicion. Now from that presupposition, which I think is good, there seems to have been a development of a denial of the idea of continuing revelation. So revelation is the issue. Revelation being something that God gives you, a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom and things like that, interpretation of tongue.

Many times I've faced the arguments from those in the reformed camp and I'm reformed. I've faced arguments that, for example, if someone has a prophecy or a word of knowledge that's from God, therefore it's equal to scripture. And this violates the sufficiency of God's word. What I do is I take them to 1 Corinthians 14 and in 1 Corinthians 14 it talks about people having a revelation, knowledge, prophecy, teaching, 1 Corinthians 14 and interpretation of tongues. I say right there we see inside of God's word, we see that people did this in churches and none of what they were saying had to be inscripturated. None of what they were doing in speaking in tongues, exercising the charismatic gift, none of them violated the sufficiency of God's word. So to say that the sufficiency of God's word is denied or challenged by a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, a prophecy, interpretation of tongues, etc., is simply not biblically based. In fact, it's contradicted by the scriptures. So that argument fails. I remember during my pastorate's examination that the issue of the gifts came up and it was quite a discussion.

I've talked about it occasionally over the radio. One of the areas of scripture that they go to, to say that the gifts have ceased, is 1 Corinthians 13, 8 through 12. It says, Love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they'll be done away with. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away. For now, we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. They say the perfect means the Bible. When the Bible is completed, we won't need prophecy, tongues, and word of knowledge. They assert that that's the case. Well, exegetically, when I look at the pericope, I don't see that being supported. The next verse is, when I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child.

When I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now, the word then in Greek, tote, we want to know what the antecedent is of it.

The antecedent means the thing it's referring to previously. For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Then what is referring back to when the perfect comes? It says when the perfect comes, then we'll see face to face. Well, I did a study on the phrase face to face. In every instance, it deals with personal encounter.

It occurs 13 times. In the NASB-95 Bible. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, I have seen God face to face, yet my life was preserved. That's Genesis 32-30. In Exodus 33-11, the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks with his friend. Deuteronomy 5-4, the Lord spoke to you face to face at the mountain. Deuteronomy 34-10, since that time, no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses, who the Lord knew face to face.

And it goes on like this. Face to face means personal encounter. That's what it means. So if the Bible is what the perfect is, when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. So if it's the Bible, then when the Bible is completed, that's what we see face to face. But it doesn't fit. It doesn't fit at all.

Not at all. In fact, what might the perfect be referring to? I think the clue was found in 1 Corinthians 1-7, the same book, first chapter, verse 7. You say, into the Corinthians, now remember, it says in verse 2, to the church of God, which is at Corinth, I've been to Corinth, it's cool, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord and ours. This is a universal address to all the saints in every place who call upon the name of Jesus. So this is not just at the Corinthian church, just everybody. And then in that epistle, it says, so that you're not lacking in any gift, and the word gift there in Greek is karismata, or karisma. It's karismati, actually, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus.

So we're not to lack any karismatic gift while we're waiting for the return of Christ. So back to 1 Corinthians 13, when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with, the antecedent of, then we'll see face to face. Then makes more sense to say that's the return of Christ. And it goes on in verse 12 of 1 Corinthians 13, now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I have been fully known. To do research on this was really fun for me, to be fully known means that you're known by God. There's many verses where the Bible talks about God knowing us in John 10, 27, 28, my sheep hear my voice, I know them, and I give eternal life to them.

Or Matthew 7, 23, Jesus says, get away from me, I never knew you. The idea here is that when you're known by God, it's a saving relationship, that's what is going on there. So when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. The perfect is the return of Christ. Then we'll meet him face to face, and then we'll be known as we're fully known.

That makes sense. This is why I believe all the charismatic gifts are for today. But we need to be careful that we don't use them and abuse them for our own vain glory, because it's exceedingly easy to do. Look at me, look what I can do.

God works in me specially. This is the kind of arrogance we've got to be careful of, and the pride we've got to be very, very careful of. God's going to use an individual to move in the gifts. I would suspect that along with that, he'd have to humble that person a great deal.

A great deal. Just as Paul the apostle had incredible gifts, but God gave him an infirmity in the flesh to keep him humble. This is the nature of ourselves to be prideful and to take credit. So perhaps it's one of the reasons the charismatic gifts are not manifested as much as they need to be, or I think they need to be in my opinion, is because we are selfish, would draw attention to ourselves and not the glory of God. Maybe that's one of the reasons. I don't know. There could be other reasons.

But there's just a little bit, I would say, about the issue of the charismatic gifts. Let's get to Rosemarie from Ohio. Hey, Rosemarie, welcome. You're on the air. Thank you.

Hi. I had a question about eating certain foods. A friend of mine told me that she wouldn't eat food at this restaurant, which I believe is Indian food, because they said the person who owns it, maybe is Muslim, but they said that the food had been blessed by Allah, and I would never have thought of that, but there's a couple of comments or thoughts that came to me, and in the scriptures it says it's not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out, in other words, what he speaks, not what he eats. And also, if a person blesses their food in the name of Jesus, doesn't this reverse any curse that has been put on the food, because Jesus' name is greater than all? That's true.

That's true. All right. So let me read you some stuff out of the scripture, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, 1 Corinthians 10. And starting in verse 14, we'll read a little bit. We've got a break coming up in about a minute, so let me read this.

We'll get back after the break. He says, Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men.

You judge what I say. It is not the cup of blessing which we bless as sharing in the blood of Christ. Since there is one bread, verse 18, look at the nation of Israel, and it says, verse 19, what do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No.

But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to become sharers and demons. Now, we're going to get back, we're going to continue, and we're going to talk about this, because the answer is found in the scriptures here. All right? Hold on. Okay, Rosemarie. All right.

Hey, folks. We'll be right back after these messages. Stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Everybody, welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with Rosemarie from Ohio. Rosemarie, welcome.

You're back on the air. Thank you. All right. So I want to keep reading scripture, okay, because it's right there. The answer is there.

I want to give a good context, and it's worth discussing. So verse 21, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.

This would seem to apply to the situation. You can't have food sacrificed, so to speak, blessed by demonic forces like Islam. Verse 22, or do we provoke the Lord of jealousy?

We are not stronger than he, are we? Verse 23, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own good but that of his neighbor. Verse 25, eat anything that is sold in the meat market without asking questions for God's sake. Wait a minute.

What's going on here? Because Paul was saying, stay away from the bad stuff, but on the other hand, he's saying, look, meat sacrificed to idols sold in the meat market, you can eat it. He says you can eat it. Don't ask questions.

Don't worry about it. ...for the earth and all it contains. If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go, eat anything that is sent before you without asking questions for God's sake. So, if a Muslim invites a Christian over to his house, let's say the Muslim blesses the food in the name of Allah, he does it in Arabic right in front of you, you don't know, you can eat that food. I would have you probably eat the food. In fact, I've been to Turkey and I've eaten a lot of food cooked by Muslims, been there before. So, okay.

Not a problem, okay. So eat anything sent before you without asking questions for God's sake. And if anyone says to you, this is meat sacrificed to idols, do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for God's sake, I mean, not your own, but the other man's. For why is my freedom judged by another's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I slandered concerning that for which I give thanks? So he's saying, if someone says, yeah, this is meat sacrificed to idols, you can still eat it.

You can. He says, yeah. If someone says, if anyone says to you, this is meat sacrificed to idols, do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you.

Not for your own, but for his conscience. He's saying, for that conscience. So if someone says, now here's what gets tricky.

This is where it's a little gray area, it's hard to understand. So if a Muslim says, I bless this food to Allah, me, I could eat it. I say, well, I appreciate the sentiment, thank you very much, but I'm hungry, I'm going to eat it.

Okay. Now, if I'm with somebody and they are new in the faith, if I suspect that the person I'm with who's a Christian, new and Christian, is upset by that, I'm not going to eat it. I'm not going to be offending that person. I'm not worried about it because just like you said, greater is he in you that he's in the world. We can bless the food and that these demonic things aren't greater than Jesus, so it's not going to hurt us. But we want to make sure that we're not causing others to stumble. That's why he says, if anyone says to you, this is meat sacrificed to idols, do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for conscience sake. I mean not your own conscience, but the others. So this is the issue of not wanting to stumble anybody else.

Why is my freedom judged by another's conscience? So here we go. So you go to a Muslim restaurant and they, if they bless the food in the name of Allah, I don't care. It doesn't mean anything to me. I just, you know, I'm going to prepare my food and bless the name of Jesus and that's it. Okay.

And then if I'm with a new believer who stumbles and I won't do it. Okay. Uh huh. All right. And so if I go to eat with this person, then I mean, well, I wouldn't eat, I probably wouldn't go there with her, but I, you know, if I went there with somebody else that didn't mind, I would still go ahead and eat it then. Yeah, you could.

It's not going to hurt you. All right. Thank you so kindly.

Appreciate your wisdom. And, you know, enjoy listening to your program. Well, I'm glad, I'd love to get out there to Ohio sometime and, and see people speak at a couple of churches.

It'd be fun to meet people who listen, but I'm glad people are out there listening. Where are you out of? I live in the Boise, Idaho area and the show is in Utah and it's also in, I think it's Georgia and the Carolinas, Virginia. And it's, I don't know, I've heard it, it goes up and down how many stations because the owner, he's always making deals and doing things.

So last count, I think was 16 or 19 stations that were on. So I don't know. Okay. Yeah.

I live in Ohio, so that's where we're close to here. All right. How long have you been listening? Oh, I don't know, a month or a little more. Okay.

Yeah. And just curious, I'm not even curious because we've got nobody waiting, how did you find out about the show? How'd you find out? I don't know, I just thought I want to listen to this station for, you know, for a few hours to see what they have on it.

And I came across yours and that's how I found it, six o'clock it comes on. Okay. And... Well, good.

Just by listening. Well, good. Have you been to the website CARM.org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G? Um, no.

Yeah. That's the website I've been working on for 29 years. This coming up October it'll be 30 years old and it's had 165 million visitors, I've written about 4,500 articles.

So that's what we do and it's good resource. I'll just give it a plug because we've got nobody waiting right now so I'm just asking you some questions to see how you can listen to stuff like that. How long have you been on the air? 22 years.

Two years doing one day a week and then 20 years five days a week. So I'm doing radio. I do it out of my home.

I have a set up at home. I just sit here and a lot of times I don't even know what I'm going to talk about when I just start. I've been doing it for so long, you know, it's comfortable.

People say I have a radio voice and I have a face for radio too. People tell me. That's what my friends tell me. That's what it all works out. Yeah. So that's great. It works out perfectly. Yeah but check out the website.

There's a lot of information there and I'm autistic so I've been diagnosed with Asperger's. Are you? Oh.

Yes, absolutely. So I write what I call quick and slick. I just get to the point.

You can read the first paragraph. Usually if something gets what you need you can move on and I like to write a lot of short answers to questions just to get them right there and stuff like that and they're giving plugs for the site because there's a lot of value in the site. There's a lot of work and I know my theology, I'm a master of divinity and I've been studying apologetics since 1980, the defense of the Christian faith. So I've written several books and, you know, a couple hundred debates, things like that. I'm not trying to boast or anything, I'm just saying, you know, I just love doing this.

I've been doing it for a long time and there's a lot of articles on the site and I write quickly and to the point. That's what it is. It's good.

You can trust what it is. Yeah. Just, you know, just recently found you, so yeah. All good.

All good. There's other Christian stations, Calvary Phatilite Network, that's a different one I think. Yes.

That's Calvary Chapel. Yeah. Uh-huh. They're good and I was baptized by the founder of Calvary Chapel in Southern California. Oh yeah? Yeah.

Uh-huh, Chuck Smith. Yeah, they have a different theological perspective than I do in some areas, but they're certainly Christian. And I recommend Calvary Chapel, generally speaking, because they're safe. It's a safe church.

You get the basics there and you move on to other stuff. Uh-huh. Okay.

Yeah. Oh, and here, by the way, I don't know what church you go to, but don't go to a church with the word United in it. Or if it has women pastors. Don't go to those. They're not churches. Oh, with the word United, and what was the other thing about the pastors?

Women pastors and women elders are unbiblical. Oh, women. Oh, no. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Well, Susan, you're... Go ahead. You're a Calvinist, right? Yes. I'm a slimy Calvinist, that's right. Okay. You know what that is? Um, not really.

Okay. It means that God elected people and chose them for salvation. Ephesians 1, 4, 2 Thessalonians 2, 13. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world. He chose us from the beginning for salvation.

Those are the verses. And that God, and we can't lose our salvation, that as Jesus says, he will lose none. And we believe that Jesus only legally bore the sin of the elect, not of the sin of everybody who ever lived. Because he canceled the sin dead at the cross. And so that's what we hold, behold of the sovereignty of God and predestination and things like that. Where God's on the throne, not us.

That he's the sovereign king. And that's what we teach. Uh-huh. Okay?

So you can't lose your salvation. That's interesting. That's true. Yeah. I believe that.

We are chosen. That was one of the theology things that had to do with the messianic congregation. I mean, now they call themselves a Christian church, but it's called Lion of Judah, the congregation I attend. Okay. Lion of Judah congregation in Toledo? Uh-huh.

Ohio. A lot of times what I'll do is I go look at their websites, and I can tell very quickly if they're good or bad by looking at their websites. Oh, look at the Wailing Wall right there.

I've been to the Wailing Wall, too. Let's see. What I do is go look at their statement of faith and see if they have it.

That's the first thing. What we believe. Let's see what they do. And I don't know if you want to do this now, we've got nobody waiting.

Just being casual right now. The Bible is infallible, word of God. One God in three persons, fathers of the Holy Spirit, that's good. The deity of the Lord Jesus for sinless life, virgin birth, vicarious, atoning sacrifice, good for them.

Good, good, good. Salvation of the lost, sinful people. Regeneration by the Holy Spirit, very good. Present ministry of the Holy Spirit, indwelling Christians, enabled good. Resurrection of both the saved and the lost, saved to a resurrection of life and the lost between.

Oh, this is good. Eternal separation. The spiritual unity of all believers in Jesus the Messiah, Lord of the fulfillment of the Old Testament.

He is the Messiah. Believers are blessed. Yeah, what it has there. It's a short statement of faith.

They need more, but it's good so far. No problem. Now let me see what they have about... Oh, and the senior pastor's name is Matthew. Oh, see, anybody who's named Matthew is obviously humble and good looking and intelligent. That's an obvious thing.

That's what I tell people, but they don't... For some reason they don't believe me. Same name. Okay.

That didn't... Yeah. That's right. Matthew. And my real name is Slick.

Matthew Slick. It's not a radio name. Oh, my God. Yeah, it really is. I know.

I learned to run as a kid because of that name. So they have a women's ministry director. They don't call them pastors. That's good. They don't call them elders. No.

Bruce. So it's good. They seem to be within orthodoxy on the first look. It's good. Okay. Mm-hmm. Good, good, good.

I'm checking. Good. Yeah. It seems okay. All right. As long as they don't require that you have to keep Old Testament rules and regulations in order to be saved or stay saved.

If they teach that, that would be bad. But other than that, it looks good. I don't believe so. Okay. Yeah. It's good. Mm-hmm.

So it's not a messy conversation. Oh, God. Mm-hmm.

Some do. It sounds like a good one. All right. We got to go. Okay.

God bless Rose. Thank you. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Likewise. All right. Hey, folks. There we go.

The end of the show. If you want to give me a call at Goodwill tomorrow. Have a good evening. God bless. We'll talk to you then. This is a program powered by the Truth Network.