MS Top 6 #10

Looking for that perfect Christmas gift for the family? Why not a chicken? Stick a bow on top, put the chicken under the tree, and who knows, you may even have a couple eggs to fry up for breakfast Christmas morning.

Give the gift that keeps on clucking. A chicken. Okay, maybe it's not the perfect gift for your family, but it is the perfect gift for a poor family in Asia. A chicken can break the cycle of poverty for a poor family. Yes, a chicken.

A chicken's eggs provide food and nourishment for a family, and they can sell those eggs at the market for income. When you donate a chicken or any other animal through Gospel for Asia, 100% of what you give goes to the field. And the best gift of all, when Gospel for Asia gives a poor family an animal, it opens the door to the love of Jesus. So give the perfect gift for a family in Asia this Christmas. Give them a chicken.

Call 866-WINASIA or to see chickens and other animals to donate, go to CritterCampaign.org. 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Matt Slick is president and founder of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. Matt is a masters of divinity and is ordained. He's passionate, and Matt stands firm and lives to defend and promote the Christian faith. Matt Slick doesn't take any ****. Monday through Friday, Matt takes calls from all around the world on his radio show. We've compiled this week's best. Matt Slick's Top 6.

6. Are God's sovereignty and providence interchangeable terms or are those different things? Sovereignty is his right to administer providence.

It means that God has the right to do with his creation as he desires. Providence is his means of providing. So providentially, he provides the rain.

Outside my house right now it's raining. That's God providing for the land with rain. And also water for us to drink and animals for us to eat and plants for us to eat. So that's God's providence. And sovereignty is his right and ability within that right to do with creation as he desires, as he is sovereign.

5. If Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin and all the other bad people who did bad horrible things to people asked Jesus for forgiveness before they died, do you think Jesus would have forgiven them? If anybody would have trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, truly and honestly done that, they would have been forgiven. The blood of Christ is greater than a Holocaust. And because Christ is God in flesh, his blood is of infinite value.

That we cannot weigh the infinitely valuable blood of Christ to people of the Holocaust or the murderous actions of Stalin. If they had repented and come to Christ, they would have been forgiven. And that repentance would have been granted by God, 2 Timothy 2.25, and their belief would have been granted by God, Philippians 1.29. But it doesn't appear that that was the case. So they're probably, unless they repented, which I'm obliged by, they did their suffering in hell.

4. Is there anything that indicates in the rest of the Bible that there was anything going on before Genesis 1.1? Yes, Ephesians 1.4. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. So the election of the people for salvation occurred before the foundation of the world. John 17.5, Now Father glorify me together with yourself with the glory I had with you before the world was.

3. For the end times, will the Christian denominations drop their statuses and join up as one Christian church? The Bible doesn't tell us, except the things that relate to it. One world government, all the nations that Zechariah talks about would be gathered against Israel out of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 that there's going to be an apostasy. And the apostasy discussed by Paul, he talks about the issue of the apostasy and the arrival of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is going to be in power, and he's going to be empowered by the evil one. We might be able to make the case that a lot of the churches, Protestants are going to go bad, Catholics already bad, and Eastern Orthodox is already bad. Within Protestantism, a lot of it's going to happen.

So it would make sense to say that they might join into a unified kind of conglomerate theological heresy in order to serve the Antichrist. So it might happen. Can't prove it.

Don't know for sure, but it might be. Number 2. He also says DEF can happen to you as well. Prosperity teachers on TV, they only give you the positive side. They don't tell you about God's discipline. They don't tell you about how God will be with you through the desert times, and that these difficulties do come. And you have to realize that sometimes the perfection of the work of God in you means you don't even know where He's at. You don't even feel like He's there with you. Sometimes His circumstances are just imploding. Sometimes you just don't know. That's how I feel right now.

It's very alone, and the pandemic doesn't help. Yeah, I know. But here's the thing. You have a rare opportunity right now, and that is to go into your prayer closet, wherever that is, and lift your hands up to God and praise Him.

Number 1. Is it okay to look for the sovereignty of God in everything? Well, what it means is you're maturing in your faith. In all things, we have to understand God works all things after the counsel of His will. The critical issue then becomes, what do we do? My wife has a lot of problems. You know, besides stupid as her husband does, she also has a whole bunch of stuff. It would take me a full minute to list the medical problems she has. And as she gets older, they're getting worse.

This is what it is. So we pray each night before we go to bed, and I pray for her. I pray for her healing. I pray for her sleep. I pray for her pain level to go down.

I also prayed last night that she would praise God in the midst of all that. In seminary, a professor went up to the board and he said, gentlemen, I'm going to teach you one of the most important things you're ever going to learn in seminary. And he went up to the board and he wrote two sentences. There is a God.

You are not Him. And now the end is near. The show's over.

It's good. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Matt Slick's Top Six. For more on Matt and his live syndicated call-in radio show, go to truthnetwork.com. Got a question? Matt Slick has your answer. This is the Truth Network.