Who Is Matt Slick?

Welcome to Truth Talk Live. All right, let's talk the truth news. I can't hide. I can hold it in somewhere. A daily program powered by the Truth Network.

This is kind of a great thing, and I'll tell you what. Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together. Seek your mind. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. What is your biggest, toughest, hardest Bible Question.

What is it that just kind of racks your brain? There you were on the college campus talking to someone who. Absolutely obliterated your mind with deep thoughts about the. Atmospheric changes in enviroscience and evolution atheism. How did dinosaurs get on the ark, or were there dinosaurs on the ark?

How did Cain find his wife? How did that work? Questions relevant to the atonement. What about the Trinity? What about all these false cults out there that don't believe the gospel?

Sitting in front of me, friends, today. is Matt Slick. And he is slick in a good way. And he is Matt. Matt, put that mic on your chin.

All right, I'm here. You're wired up. I'm ready. And usually you're the host today on Truth Talk Live and Truth Talk. You're the guest.

Yep, it's a Switch. It's a Switch. We're glad that you're a Switch hitter and we're honored to have you in the house. We just had a wonderful coffee with a bunch of pastors. Yeah, it was great.

In High Point, North Carolina. Right. At the Che Ray, a gospel-named coffee shop right there on the corner of University and East Chester, right across the street from High Point University. City Lights Church graciously hosted us. Pastor Matt McCarthy, Matt Slick, another Matt.

How was it like to walk in there and be blessed by those guys? And this is kind of like a shout out to them, too. Talk about that, the spirit there. They were great guys. In fact, that reminds me, I wanted to bring it up when we were talking in there.

In Idaho, where I'm from, there is a spiritual blanket, and that's what I call it. You can feel it when you go into the area. But here in North Carolina, I don't feel it at all. I feel something different, more of an openness for the things of the Lord. And I really like that.

I really appreciate that quite a bit. Yeah, it was really, it was not combative. It was almost like, hey, we're on the same team here. Absolutely. And some of the pastors are like, hey, listen, Matt's blowing my mind.

Of course, I tried to take notes and I just couldn't even spell half the words you were saying. Yeah, you said big words. They're theological and philosophical terms, but that's part of apologetics. Yes, let's get out of the gate here and let's talk about doctrine. Let's talk about theology because sometimes.

These become bad words in our culture, in Christianity. Like, well, you know, we got to lower the bar. We got to be seeker-sensitive. We don't want to scare unbelievers off, but. Theology and doctrine.

Why are they so important, Matt Slick? And this is what you've the whole foundation of CARM, your ministry, is based on. We're going to hear your testimony this hour. We're going to talk about some of the tough questions. And if no one calls 866-34TRUTH, 866-348-7884.

If no one calls that number... I'm not too upset because I have got a book of questions here for Matt. Slick, I've been looking forward, longing for this day for many hours. I have a hostage, right? A captive audience, maybe is a better way of saying it.

But, Matt, why is theology doctrine important? And why have you dedicated your life and your technology and your time to answering questions every day on national radio, international radio, for an hour? about theology, about the gospel, about the truth. Talk to us.

Well, without theology, you don't know God. In fact, theology says Jesus is God in flesh, died on the cross for our sins, and that you trust in him, put your faith in him, and you'll be justified before him and escape damnation. That is, that's doctrine. That's theology. And we all have theology.

We all have doctrines. And so in Christianity, we have the revelation of God. He has given us what he wants us to know in the word of God. I'm going to tell you, the word of God is deep, but it's also, not in a sense, shallow in a bad way, but you can understand it at different levels. Just a quick dip in, but you can also get very, very deep.

And sometimes what I'll do is I will kind of go between them and teach people advanced theology to, you know, just average stuff. And I try and help them out so they can understand that as a Christian apologist, which means to defend the Christian faith. That's what I do for a living. And I love theology, love the Lord, love the word, and love to be able to teach people about it. And why is apologetics so important?

And back to that definition, which was really cool and really quick. And I hope folks will go back and listen to this whole. podcast when we when our awesome team and producer Grayson uploads it. Why is Apologetics so important in the church today. And Matt Slick, why is apologetics not a bad word?

Because it almost sounds like I'm apologizing for the faith.

Well, it comes from the Greek word apologia, which is out of 1 Peter 3:15, which means to make a defense for the faith. That's what defense is, apologia. And so we are obligated as Christians to give an answer to everyone who would ask us for the reason of the faith that lies within us, yet with gentleness and reverence. And that's 1 Peter 3:15 again. Every Christian is obligated to do that.

And 2 Corinthians 10:5 talks about holding every thought captive to the truth of who God is and the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the scriptures.

So every Christian is obligated one way or another to present the truth of who Christ is.

Now, what I do is I delve into far deeper areas than the average Christian would do, because they don't need to, but I do. And I debate, teach, write books, do radio. My website, which is 30 years old in October, 30 years old. Congratulations. And that website is CARM.

C-A-R-N. And CARM stands for what? Those initials stand for what? Christian Apologetics Research Ministry. I was going to call it Christian Research Apologetics People, but I didn't think the acronym would be good to see if you get that joke.

And so it's been around, and we've had 164 million visitors to the site, and returning visitors is, I think, 92 million, or 94, I can't remember.

So we've had emails from everybody all over the world. My favorite, though, I can tell you my favorite, I got an email from a guy in Vietnam. And in broken English, just enough to communicate the meaning, he would take the karma articles, print them up, get on his motorcycle, go into the hills of Vietnam, and use them to teach Bible studies to people. I just love that.

Well, everywhere the gospel goes, you think of China, you think of the third world, you think of even in America, a new church pops up. There's going to be wolves, there's going to be tares, there's going to be thorns among the wheat that's going to destroy, that's going to try to attack. The devil, a la Matthew 13, is constantly going after those seeds, those newborn babies, to destroy them, to malnourish them, to turn them away.

So this is important to that we it's important that we know what we believe. And why we believe it, Matt Slick. Talk about how important how quintessential that is.

Well, if you don't know what it is you believe and why you believe it, then you don't know what it is you believe. You don't know if it's true or not.

Now, there are false religions out there like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. These are not Christian religions, and people don't know that they are not Christian religions because they don't understand ecclesiology, church doctrine, satiriology, the doctrine of salvation, hermartiology, the doctrine of sin. We have redemptive works. We have imputation, propitiation. These are basic things I teach people that if you understand them, then you'll know why the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox churches are false, why Mormonism is not true.

Let's see, Christadelphianism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Islam.

Well, with the Jehovah's Witnesses, they say, well, we have Bible study and they have these recruiters everywhere. And they say, well, we all believe the same stuff, but what's wrong with that? I mean, they carry what looks like a Bible, and they're.

Well manicured. Yeah. And I'm not out of the park in 90 degree weather.

Soliciting people for the faith. I'm out there enjoying myself, not even thinking about lost souls as a believer.

So how could that be so bad? What they're doing?

Well, what they're doing is preaching a demonic doctrine, and that's it. There's only two doctrines in the world, the doctrine of truth that comes from God, and then everything else. And it all falls under the doctrine of demons. And so, Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, deny the Trinity, deny the deity of Christ, deny the crucifixion and the resurrection. They say he's crucified, but not on the cross, but on the stake.

But they deny his physical resurrection. They deny justification by faith alone in Christ alone. They deny all of the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. It's a non-Christian cult. And people don't know.

They don't know. They just do not know what the Bible really teaches. And that's what I do. I teach a lot of people biblical theology they've never heard of. And then I have a lot of people come away from my, the times when I teach, sometimes they come away saying, I don't know whether to thank you or curse you because you're hurting my head.

Well, you're hurting people's head, but you just offended like half the universe because we haven't even talked about Islam yet. You just did a whole conference in North Carolina, another part of North Carolina, on Islam and winning Muslims to Christ. But a a a nice Well-spoken Muslim might say, and I've had many friends who are Muslim who might say, well, we believe in the same God. We have the same belief system and we believe in family and children. And look at the.

The peace that we're generating. How could you say that they're wrong, Amat Shlik?

Well, because they say Christianity is wrong, for one thing. It's interesting in Surah 4, 157, that's in the Quran, Surah means chapter, Ayat means verse. In Surah 4, 157.

Well, that's the break coming. That's the break. He's coming to come back and quote from the Quran, and we'll take your calls. He's set the table. If he's offended you or upset you or you're in one of those categories, call us.

Let's have a good conversation. 866-34TRUTH. More Truth Talk Live with Matt Slick as our guest. After this quick break, hang on. Oh, and many times we take Yeah, I don't think anyone would take up the switch places with Matchlick challenge and sit on the radio for an hour.

Answering who knows what from all kinds of listeners, but that Matt Slick is what you do every day. That's what I do. On the Matt Slick show. Describe it for our listeners that haven't joined you at six o'clock, that haven't taken that journey. Those that have, as soon as I say your name, like my friend Jamal Caleb, a bunch of guys we met with at lunch today, even pastors, they're like, we love this guy.

Some guys drove in from Reidsville to hear you, to meet you today, which is a good hour away. But talk about what you do. What's it like? What is a daily. Matt Slick Show.

A show. Oh, by the way, my real name is Slick. And some people think it's a radio name.

Okay. They go, no, it's your radio name. No, it's my real name. Mom and Paul knew what they were doing, huh? Yeah, well, you know, I learned that.

The Matthew part, the Matt part is definitely a Bible name.

Now, the Slick part, I'm trying to think. I don't know the etymology, but we don't have to go there necessarily. That's a German schlichten became slick.

Okay. So, anyway, it's God's way of keeping you humble, right? Oh, I'm humble. Oh, yeah. I'm proud of my humility.

Yeah, that's right. But no, so on the radio show, I've been doing radio now for over 20 years, actually, about 22. And with you, with you guys, I don't know how long I've been on your network. I think four or five years or something like that. Yeah.

Yes, sir. At least five years. Yeah. And which I've really enjoyed. We're on more stations and stuff like that.

So what I do, I just do the radio show, Matt Slick Live. And hopefully in a couple hours, I'll be doing that here and taking calls. And then that's it. I just answer all kinds of questions about all kinds of talks. I love it.

Yeah. And so I want to ask you, Matt, you know, anyone has a question, a tough Bible question. Yeah. Someone's been on their heart. It's interesting, your show, you'll get a tough question about the Trinity.

You'll get a tough question. You know, well, if Jesus was God, and then who is He talking on the cross? You know, you'll get someone that has a wrong view, a misguided view of doctrine will call in and you'll graciously talk through that. But, you know, people call in. I've heard people call in about.

A struggle in a relationship. Sure. A struggle in their marriage, man. And you have, God's given you the gift of dexterity to go into that as well. Why is that important to you that you deal with not just the cerebral nature questions, but the heart, really at the heart level questions?

Well, part of the reason, believe it or not, is because when my wife and I got married, we've been married 38 years. And our first year or two of marriage, we just, it was not good. And I went into a counseling office who was my professor in seminary, and basically he Let's just say politely corrected me on some stuff. And it was really informative because of the biblical position that he granted in the issue and the theology of marriage is what he did. And then he taught me a lot.

And that was the basis for a lot of stuff.

So, anyway, I've counseled people and I never charge. I've counseled lots of marriages and saved lots of marriages. I'm not taking the credit, I'm just teaching biblical theology. And I have a thing I do called the theology of marriage. And a lot of people don't know that you have to start with the doctrine of the Trinity for that.

So, anyway, marriage is important because a lot of marriages are under stress and strain. And here's a question for you, Stu, if you want to take a gander, a guess. Out of 30, I think it's 36 people. Couples that I've counseled in depth over, let's just say, 20 years. I'm not a biblical counselor, but when they come to me, et cetera, how many, this is interesting, out of 36, how many where the man has been the problem out of 36?

24 and a half. Not bad, 33. Shoot. 33 out of 36. The man?

The man. I can't imagine that. Yeah. I can't imagine that. I mean, Matt, come on.

It's really been interesting. And when it's a woman who's the problem, it's a radically different kind of a problem than it is with the men. And so, what I teach is the doctrine of the Trinity as a solution to this, and then the doctrine of what's called federal headship, male representation and authority that's there. And I tell men what their job is, whether they like it or not, because they're responsible. And then I just teach theology.

And I tell people when I counsel them, I say, look, just block out a minimum two hours. For each session, minimum. They have homework, they have stuff, and we do it. But anyway, it's all based on the theology of the Trinity. The Trinity is the necessary precondition for all intelligibility.

It is the foundation of marriage, the foundation of logic, of our existence, of morality, of truth, and of everything. That relationship, that precious, tender relationship before we even got here between the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, in eternity, going past, present, future.

So, wow, so it's interesting. I I g I'm my guess My prognostication. Without you telling me anything about the 33 out of 36 cases of marriage counseling where it was the men at fault, is somewhere in there you say something like, Ma'am, sir. You are exactly where this gentleman has led you. This gentleman who's blaming you for everything, you're exactly where he has led you.

Yeah. I find that men don't know what it means to be Christian men. And I'm not saying I got it down perfectly. I mean, good thing my wife's not here and she could correct all that. She'd keep us humble, wouldn't she?

Yeah, that's right. She would say, yeah, she'd be rubbing her forehead a lot. But, you know, it's the Trinity is inside the Trinity. Let me slow down and explain something. The Father, it says this: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Father is the one who sent the Son. The Son is the one who became under the law to do the will of the Father. The Son in this. Issue relates to the wife where the father relates to the husband. And the son is not inferior to the father or to the head because he's the same nature, just in a different position.

And that's what I do. I talk about the hierarchical structure within the Trinity. It's called the economic trinity. I explain theology for 10 to 15, sometimes 20 minutes before we get into biblical counseling because they have to know what the standard of truth is. The standard of truth is not their feelings.

The standard of truth is not, did you leave underwear on the ground or who didn't take the trash out? That's not the standard of what righteousness is. It's our obligation as As husbands and wives, to do what the role of a husband is and the role of a wife. And here's another thing: a lot of women don't know what their roles are. And you can do this.

I've done this many seminars I've taught. I say, a man will know, if we're to say in the crowd, what are the things that a man's supposed to do according to the Bible to love his wife? And a list will come out. And then I'll say, what are the things a wife's supposed to do to respect her husband? It's silence.

Because no one knows what that aspect is. And it's in the Word of God. Like the Word of God speaks to this. We all say we believe the Bible, but are we going in? Are we mining those gems and those important nuggets?

Matt Slick, how did you come to know Christ? I was tricked into getting saved by walking in front of a church and suddenly I had a super dramatic encounter with the Holy Spirit. How about that? Reducing me to just a massive sobbing repentance. And then the Lord Jesus was there next to me.

He stepped into me, forgave me of my sins. It was an incredible experience that happened when I was 17. I'm 68, so 51 years ago. And I've calmed down a little bit since then.

So an altar call turned into an altercation, and God saved your soul. Yeah, in spite of me. Let's just say I'm a recalcitrant twit a lot of times and obstreperous as well. And so, but God, you know, His great mercy. He uses broken vessels and fools for his kingdom, which is why he picked me.

And he called you into gospel ministry. How did karm start? How did you end up being an apologist on the radio for all these years? Yeah, well, a lot of people don't know, but I'm autistic. I have Asperger's.

I've been diagnosed with it. And so. I'm able to remember patterns, remember things, so I'm able to answer questions. And so I was answering questions a lot, and I started Carm because I got tired of repeating the questions to people online live. And I thought, I'm going to invent this website thing for me, you know.

And I just put my questions or answers to those things up there and said, here's an answer. Not that I had all the right answers. I'm saying, here's my answer, because I've always been able to do that kind of a thing. And that was 30 years ago in October. It'll be 30 years.

And we've had 164 million visitors to the site.

So, like I said, and I've written, I think the accurate, more accurate count is 4,700 articles.

So that's just how it is. Love doing it. And just do it for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and by His grace. He'll give me more years to do that. And hopefully, I'll enter kingdom.

When I entered His kingdom, you know, after physically dying, maybe He might say to me, Well done. And that's good enough.

Well, we know he's going to say that. Matt Slick, it's so good to have you on Truth Talk Live. I'm Stu Eberson. We're also going to replay this on Truth Talk. We're going to come back and do what we didn't do this last segment.

We're going to go back into that tough question about the Koran and what makes Islam different from biblical Christianity. And we'll talk about that and we'll take any of your calls if you have a tough question or a softball or something that you just need prayer for. Matt Slick is in the house on Truth Talk Live. He's on, and this is a tune-up for his live show coming up in an hour and a half or so from now. We'll be back right after this.

TruthNetwork.com is our main website. Don't touch that dial. Back on the air at Truth Talk Live, the Christian Carr guy has stepped in. This is like a. Uh just a what I don't even know like a veritable who's who mat slicks overwhelmed.

All these people are in here. And Robbie Dilmore, you put his podcast, you load it every day on the radio. Grayson. Put the mic up. How can people get Matt Slick's podcast, Robbie Dillmore?

Let's see if we can get you fired up here. Can we light this one up, Jason? Yes. This one, Matt Slake's greatest. Sherry, right in here, right in here, right in here, right in here.

I'll do it over here. Matt Slake's greatest hits there. If one of our podcasts have hit, you know, uh Keith, essentially goes through his weekly programs, picks out the best stuff and puts it into a podcast. He comes out every week. And it's it's published.

If you go to truth network dot com, pretty easy. It'll you'll see our list of shows and it's right there. That's tremendous. And Robbie, this podcast network we've launched has helps people to listen in real time.

So many radio listeners that say, hey, I wanted to hear what Matt said, because we're about to jump into some deep weeds with Islam and some of the cultural Christian worldview issues. And so they can go hear, like, that's like a best of, right? Like, every week we upload kind of highlights from each week's of Matt Slick's, like his top five, right? Exactly. I think it's called actually Matt Slick's top six.

Yeah. So what Robbie is behind the scenes. doing a lot of work to make these Podcast on our podcast network, like Peter Rosenberger. He has a wonderful Hope for the Caregiver podcast. Wednesday in the Word, we just launched a new podcast with it to give our leaders and others that want to journey through the book of the Bible.

We're going through right now is Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

So we do that with a Bible scholar. We go through each week. And of course, this show's made a podcast too.

So, Robbie, thanks for your hard work on that. Oh, it works out one. It's beautiful to see how God uses that. Because the podcast network, there's sometimes $15,000, $20,000, $20,000 downloads that we get per month. And shout out to our friends in India who are listening.

Oh, yeah, we got all over the place. It's all over the world. And Matt just shared about someone in Vietnam that sent him a nice note that takes his carm articles. And shares those everywhere.

So it's a real resource, Matt. We're grateful for what you do, and we're just trying to be a bigger microphone for you. And Robbie, thanks for what you do, man, to get just part of the assembly line. But people don't realize that. They hear you as a big-time host.

And by the way, Matt, when Robbie's hosting this show, the ratings are a lot bigger. I believe it. Then, when I'm sitting behind the mic, me too. He's amazingly gifted him. And Dr.

Carson, date the word Carson. What's your birthday? Matt. Mine? Yeah.

December. December what? Ninth. December 9th, 12-9. Oh, I'm thinking Hebrews.

Maybe Revelation. Yeah, well, there's an Old Testament book where it says, and they cut their heads off and pursued them. I don't think that's a good one. But Dr. Carson gives a verse, Bible verse, for every day of the year.

So he would spring a verse on you, like quick. For the 12 and the 9. Oh, I see. Yes, sir. And so I'll go to his app and I'll find it before the show's out.

But come back to. Sura 127 because a lot of people have relationships g the answer to Reaching the world is not missiles, it's missions. And I heard a great man of God say that once. How can we reach Muslims more effectively? You just did an Islam conference not too far in Cannapolis with our buddy George Siege.

Talk about reaching Muslims, and the things that separate us are massive. I mean, it's not a Christian religion. No. No. But God is calling Muslims.

And Muslims are coming to know Christ all over the world. Talk about from the surahs and what you were saying before. To segue off what you just said, a lot of people don't know this, but the biggest underground church in the Middle East is in Iran. Believe it or not, it's Iran. And Al Jazeera has stated many times that thousands of Muslims are coming to the faith monthly.

They don't know what to do about it. They're having visions and dreams of Jesus in the Middle East. And yet we have Muslims here in America, and a lot of Christians just don't know how to reach them, don't know what to do, don't know what to say. And you can go to my website, carm.org, and look up this section on Islam, and I've written over 150 articles about that. And you can learn what they teach, and you can learn some of the approaches to witnessing to them.

But the basic thing here is that Islam teaches that there is no Trinity, and it teaches Jesus is not God in flesh. It teaches that Jesus was not crucified on the cross. It teaches he was not resurrected from the dead. And it does not teach salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ's work alone.

So it denies every single essential doctrine of the Christian faith.

Now, they're going to say that they have the truth because Muhammad was the last prophet, and there's some doubt about his actual existence, but that's another topic. And so, what we do is we talk about what I do with them: I say, hey, look, you know, are your sins forgiven right now? Do you know if they are or not? And, you know, 1 John 5:13 says these things. Are written so you may know you have eternal life.

And I tell the Christians, you can know right now that you have eternal life, but you can't know if your salvation depends in any part on your goodness, your faithfulness. If that's the case, you can't know if you're going to be saved, and if that's the case, you might lose your salvation. But the Bible says, and I can get to the verses and show you, you can't lose your salvation. And that aggravates a lot of people, but you can't, according to what Jesus says in John 6:37 through 40. I can go through that sometime.

But I'll talk to the Muslims and I'll ask them. Are all your sins forgiven? And they say, well, of course not. I say, do you want to know how you can have all of them forgiven? And then go into the gospel message and go into this.

Now, that's super short, so I like to say quick and slick, but that's the basic approach. And what you do is you learn how to fill in the blanks. By a few times that you've talked to Muslims, you realize there's a couple things I need to know extra, and you learn and you go and you preach. And the one thing that encouraged me about your program, Matt Slick, the Matt Slick show, Matt Slick Live, CARM, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G, for those that just jumped on, listening to this, what's the. CARM stand for?

Just tell everyone. Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. I didn't know what to call it. I just made it up back in 1995. Wow.

And it's interesting, the people out there I know, pastors, leaders of diverse congregations and denominations, that when I mentioned CARM, They say, oh, I know that guy. Oh, he came and spoke in our group. I mean, you're out there sharing, encouraging. And the spirit of what you do that encourages me so much. On your show, even today with the pastors who hit you with some pretty tough questions about the church, about ecclesiology, about eschatology, about all kinds of tough Bible passages, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

I mean, all these came up in this pastor session. It was really rich, but You made a comment that really encouraged me there that seems to be emblematic of your whole ministry: that you're not for the faith and for what you're trying to teach, what we're trying to really espouse here at the Truth Network, is you're not trying to win. Arguments. You're trying to win souls. Elaborate on that and the importance of that.

Where all this is going. It's not to one-up someone on being smarter than they are. That's not the ultimate goal.

Now, in a debate, it is. To some degree, you want to win an argument because you're being judged by that particular topic, informal debates. And I got one coming up in February with a Muslim in Dallas. But the goal is not to win an argument. The goal is to point them to Jesus Christ.

An illustration I have is there's a field, and the field is full of thorns and thistles and rocks and little divots in the ground and things that can get you caught up and entangled. And in the middle of this humongous field is a garden, a walled garden, and there's a single door. And inside of that walled area is this beautiful, perfect garden. And that's salvation. That is heaven.

The one door is Jesus. And that field, full of all the problems and the issues, is the world we live in. The apologists. Job in this sense, theologically speaking, and every Christian's job ultimately is to remove the barriers, the things that would prevent them from getting to that one door, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, what I try and do is equip Christians with the work and the ability to know what they believe, know why they believe it. That's why it's on Carm, all these articles I've written. And so they can hopefully lead people through the right path to get to that place of where Jesus is so they can hear that gospel and believe in that gospel by God's grace. I love it. We have a question from a caller in North Carolina.

John, jump on the air with us. Thanks for calling in. You're on Truth Talk Live with Stu and our special guest, Matt Slick. Go ahead, sir. Hey, Matt Slake.

It was great to meet you today.

Well, this is Baller Nation. This is a legend. This is like. How did we get on his call list? Unbelievable.

He's above the rim, if he's not on the air. How about that? And I am. Just wanted to ask you the same questions I asked you today. On live radio, of how do you reach people in a sports ministry?

I have friends, Crossfire Ministries, and they're an amazing ministry that reaches young people all the way from Two years old, all the way up to pro-basketball players, and how do we meet them with the gospel? Yeah. Well, we talked about it earlier today. You know, one of the things we've got to do as Christians is let them know that we care about them. It's not just an issue of just having answers, and that's one of my faults because we fall in our strengths as well as our weaknesses because I've got so many answers to so many things.

For me, sometimes it becomes an issue of providing an answer, but that's not always a solution.

Sometimes it's just a hand on a shoulder. It's just let's just sit down and talk about whatever. And they get to trust you, get to know you, and be loved by you because that's what Jesus wants us to do. And then, as the opportunity opens up, you give them answers to things.

So, when John takes an interest in a kid, rebounding for them, teaching them some skills, skills and drills, shooting drills, beef, like Randy Shepherd, who's with the Lord, Jamie Johnson, Crossfire Ministries, you know, they've done that for years. You just do that. You do that through intellectual discussion. You do that through your martial arts training, other things. Anything is an open door.

Paul said, all things to all men, so that I can reach the lost.

So, thank you, John, for that. Call, man. God bless you. What a blessing that guy is. And thanks for what he does.

I know he's doing that with a lot of young people. And that's an encouragement. But that's really the goal. is evangelism. Casting the net, but you gotta know the truth.

So it's important that John and other folks that are out there sharing the gospel, they need to know what the gospel is, and it needs to be real in their life and active in their life. Like it's gotta be operational. Talk about that. You can't give away something you don't have, Matt Slick. Talk about that.

You've got to know what it is you believe. Simple, and you have to be able to articulate it. And I'm going to just tell you: as I've told people, I'm autistic. And the advantage of that is that I tend to just write things quickly. I call it quick and slick.

Just get to the point. You can go to the website, you can learn, you can get answers to things, but you've got to know what it is you believe and why you believe it so that you can be able to give it out to people. And what's really amazing, if you read that word and you study that word, and you ask God to put it into your heart, into your mind, what it is He wants you to know for whatever reason, and you read articles, you read whatever God points to you to, and then you have this opportunity to be used. And I've got to warn people about this, though. If you ask to be used, God will take you up on it, but He'll change you, He'll shape you to make you an instrument in His hand.

Like a piece of paper, you crumble it up, it's going to take the form of the hand that's crumpling it. And we are like that. When God takes us, He's going to make us, break us, shape us for His use. And you'll be surprised how many times you'll just start talking about something, and you'll just see in your own heart and mind. All these answers come forth.

And I remember my wife will say to me, So, what did you talk about? I really don't remember. You know, a lot of stuff came out. I just don't really recall. And I always consider that to be a work of God, that the Spirit of God is moving.

Because if you can remember every detail you said, in my opinion, I think that's a little bit of the flesh in there. And the foundation of this, again, is God's word. The foundation of this is God's Son. It's building your house on that rock, right?

So when the winds come. When the political Winds change, suddenly all these Christians are following this false teaching. Suddenly, all these Christians are voting for an immoral, blasphemous agenda right out of hell. Because they never really were rooted in Jesus in what? In biblical sexuality, biblical doctrine, you know, the the the you know that that is uh you know stand fast in the faith like you know Jude challenges this when we come back and you got a mess message to the pastors the importance of The kind of church you need to be in.

And a word of encouragement to pastors, too, a little bit of what we talked about today at that special coffee that we had in High Point with some pastors, informal. And then you're getting ready for your show up at six. We'll promote that. Your website, some more, and a cool resource that connects with AI to reach the world with the good news of Christ with Matt Slick. It's all coming up in just a second on Truth Talk Live.

Don't touch that dial. Here we come. We ready? Yep. All hour long we have been asking the question and our guest has been ready with an answer.

Who is? Matt Slick. How do you answer that? Who is Matt Slick? Just some guy who's saved by God's grace and then talks a lot about him.

That's all. That's not a bad answer. I love it. Hey, so Matt. I love what Keith Green said.

He said, being a Christian, he said, doesn't make you a Christian. He popularized that phrase, being a Christian, going to church doesn't make you a Christian, because going to McDonald's doesn't make you a happy meal or Big Mac. And then he said, praying doesn't make you a Christian. He said, all religions pray. But he said, I love this definition.

I know you probably heard this. You may have heard it in real time. He said, I love this definition of a Christian. He said, someone who's bananas about Jesus.

Now, can you beat that definition? Not bad. Not bad at all. You know, it comes to a passion. You know, it comes to, you know, I love what Piper did in the middle of the lordship controversy.

You know, MacArthur and Ryrie are going at it with books back and forth. You know, Piper ends in the middle of that, writes this book, Desiring God, and it effectively says, hey, a Christian. Christian hedonist, you know, which could be taken in a screwy wrong way, but in effect, he's saying, hey, do you love Jesus? I mean, do you really. You know what, what's the passion of your heart?

And really, Edwards, in Jonathan Edwards, in his books, in his writing, he really honed in on that. You know, the passions of the heart. That's right. Do you really love the Lord? And if you love me, On and on and on, right all throughout John 14, all throughout 1 John, you know.

So Matt's lick. You're doing this program every day live. We have a special guest caller who wants to give you a pre. Birthday Gift. You know, you publicly on this show said your birthday is 12-9.

That's December the 9th. December 9th. There's a lot riding on this. And rather than going into my app, which I could have done in milliseconds.

Okay. The doctor himself, the doctor of date the word. Dr. Dwayne Carson is on the line right now. I don't know how he got him.

This guy's all over the world. He's got a new book coming out. He's blessing people on their birthdays everywhere, including me. I'll show you a little wooden plaque, beautifully engraved, outside my office with my 1016, October 16th. I say that a lot in case someone wants to drop me some cash.

That's the best, right? Dr. Carson! Hey, good evening. How are you guys doing?

You couldn't have called in at a better time. Matt Slick says his birthday is December 9th. Have you got anything for him, Doc? I don't know. I'm thinking Proverbs, but then again, Hebrews, but maybe Jeremiah.

How about Romans twelve nine? Oh my Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. Oh my soul. Matt Slick, you just walked right into that one, brother. Yeah, I gotta learn how to apply that to myself now.

I think that may be his ministry verse. That's a great ministry verse. 12-9. Man, I love it. Yeah, it's a good verse.

It is a good verse. I'd love to ask you a question if I'm okay. Sure. Jump in. Uh What was the question that you got That then changed who you are.

Oh, simple. Do you want to receive Jesus as your Savior? That was it. Yeah. And I was 17 years old, and then I had a kind of a flippant attitude at the moment, which was, yeah, give him a try.

For real, that was my attitude. And then I thought, well, if I'm going to be praying about Jesus, I better be sincere. I'll try and be sincere. And then I'll give it a shot. And all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit came over me with such power that I was reduced to just a pile of tears and weeping in the presence of incredible holiness.

And this is how I was introduced into the presence of God, not so much Christianity, but Him. And it's been about Him ever since. Wow. Isn't that something? That's simple, Doc.

That's simple. Which really begs the question: how many people are we inviting? Into this glorious journey. You know, how many people were we inviting to just do it? You know, DL Moody.

Once was confronted by someone, it was either Moody or one of those guys, but he was confronted by someone, whoever it was, and that person said, I just don't like your style. I don't like your way of evangelism, you know, what you're doing out here. And you all remember what he said. He said, well, listen, my way of doing it is far better of your way of not doing it. That's right.

Just saying to someone, have you been saved? And they say, saved, what does it mean? I haven't heard a fire alarm go off in the apartment building or saved. I don't have a police car chasing me. I'm not an armed robber or anything.

Well, then you've got them to the point where you can say, well, have you been lost?

Well, what does that mean? And then you bring the law in.

Well, how do you stack up, right? You Ray comfort him. You bring in Pell's best kept secret, right? Which he rebranded that book to call The Way of the Master. And so, and Matt, really effectively, that's what you're doing now on Radio Nation.

Why? That's what Doc Carson, you're doing. With the Bible, with date the word, right, Doc, inviting people to Christ. through their birthday. Amen.

That works.

So you ask what their physical birthday is, and yours is December the 9th, mine's December the 23rd. But then you follow that question up with: do you happen to have a date for your second birth? How about that? And then if they don't have any idea what you're talking about, you just opened up an opportunity to share. Jesus said, man must be born again if they want to see the kingdom of God.

And you've got a gospel conversation started by simply asking them about their physical birthday leading into their spiritual birthday. And I tell you what, I pity the person born on March the 3rd, 3.3. Unless a man is born again, he will not enter the kingdom of God. That's a good thing, and that's a good day. Hey, Doc Carson, so here's what we're going to do.

I'm gonna get you two thoroughbreds on the radio together. Matt Slick on your birthday, 12-9. I think it's a Thursday this year. He's going to call in. He's going to give you that verse.

He's going to give you a word of blessing. And then you can ask him about his new book. Just in time for Christmas, because by then it'll be ready to go, right, Doc? Am I speaking? You better believe it.

Okay. He's got to date the word book. We'll get you a copy, too, just to be a blessing to you. You better believe it.

And what's your wife's birthday? We'll do a special blessing to your wife. What's her birthday? Mine? Your wife, yeah.

She was born on Friday the 13th. You better know that. Which explains a lot why she's married me. What month? February.

Okay, oh, 213th. Oh, oh, my soul, Doc. I'm sitting here thinking maybe Philippians. Oh my soul. Philippians 2:13 is an excellent verse.

It is God who works in you to will and do his good pleasure. I believe that's what that says. But, Doc, you're going to do better. That might be 14. Give him a 2:13.

You got a 2:13?

Well, Ephesians 2:13 says, But now in Christ Jesus, you have, you who were once. For all Have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

So share that with your wife, Matt. And everyone, pray for Matt's wife. She's had some health issues. What's your wife's first name? Anique.

A-N-I-C-K. It's French. She speaks French. Her mom is French. Wow, that's so cool.

And she's been by your side in ministry all these years, and she's had some health issues. We're going to keep her lifted up. Serious ones. And you're going to bless her with Ephesians 2:13. How about that?

Hey, Doc, thanks for calling in, man. You know, this is, we love having you here, man. You're a blessing. Blessing. I love the show.

You're awesome.

Well, thank you and blessings to you. Everyone, go to dateetheword.com and be sure you download that app and be sure you share with your spouse, your special someone, a birthday for their verse for their big birthday. Make sure they have a spiritual birthday. Matt Slick, we got to get out of here. But your word to pastors, I mean, it's just so.

It was so encouraging, but it was also, you're not afraid to step on toes in terms of. This movement afoot of pastors who are afraid to go deeper in the Word. They're afraid if they exposit the Word. If they go exegetical, if they teach the word verse by verse, That they're going to lose their audience. And then they're going to scare someone off who's, you know, they want to ask the unbeliever, what do you want to hear?

And then they want to create the environment and the ecosystem that accommodates unbelievers, as though the natural man. Knows what they want.

So, can you talk about why we don't need comedian pastor? We don't need TED Talk pastor, motivational speech pastor, we don't need storytelling pastor. We need a pastor who is faithful to the word. Not to be dull as dirt, it can be winsome to win some, but talk about the importance of that, that foundation, as it touches both apologetics and as people are starving to hear the word from their pastor. And encourage the pastors out there.

Well, let me start off with an encouragement by saying we don't want to set up idols in our hearts and think that we need to bow to popularity or we judge the truth of our preaching and effectiveness of it by how many people come to our services. Do not bow to that idol, do not bow to the thing of which is carnal in its nature. Your job is to preach the truth. Your job as a Christian minister is to equip the saints for the work of service of the building of the body of Christ. And that's Ephesians 4:12.

That's the job of the pastor, to teach and equip them.

Now, I've often said if someone were to say, hey, Matt, we want you to preach in our church for six months and The pastor's gone, I'd say, great. Half of your people will leave by the time I'm done because I'm going to preach the truth. I'm not going to babysit. I'm not going to teach what I call diaperinian theology. You know, diapers and little babies, coochie, coochie-coo.

Teach the word of God, let the power of God's word go forth. Think of the word of God as a lion let out of a cage. Just speak it. Let God's word work in the people. Your job is to preach and teach them and to equip the Christians for the work of ministry.

It's not the job of the pastor in a Sunday service to be an evangelist. That's the job of the Christians that you're supposed to teach. That's what the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 4. Isn't that foundational to apologetics? Because, Matt, I found that, like, I didn't take a lot of apologetics courses, but I was just so, you know, I went to MacArthur School, and I had all this teaching.

I was so grounded and pounded by these awesome professors and teachers. That I started answering apologetic questions. I didn't know where that answer came from. But it's like the Lord, isn't it true that our pastors, if they ground their people in the Word and build them up in the Word and disciple them, discipleship is so important, that that'll solve a whole lot of apologetic issues and equipping them to really go out there? What do you say to that, real quick, as we get out of here?

Yeah, just do that. Do what God has called you to do. Do what he's called you to do. Don't preach or teach to please men. Ask God to give you what needs to be done, to shape you for what needs to be done in the job He's called you to do, in the calling, the ministry He's called you to do.

That's what you've got to do. He is Matt Slick. He's the host of the Matt Slick Show, an international program on apologetics and a whole bunch of other stuff. And he tells it like it is.

So I open your show and people call in in tears. You lead them to Christ. And then if like 10 minutes later, someone's mad at you. They're blasting you. How dare you this?

And you have to turn their mute down because they won't listen to you. But you're trying to be fair. You're trying to be gracious. You're trying to model that because believers, even in-house issues, some of you are Sunday morning people.

Some of you are Sunday night people. There's other issues that are minor issues that we can disagree on and still love each other. But even there, we need to be gracious, right, Matt, in how we share. Close us out of here. Your final challenge from Carm.

What is your challenge to everyone out there listening on the importance of being grounded and sharing their faith? Easy. Study the Word of God, believe the Word of God, let the Word of God govern you and your heart.

Okay, learn more about Matt at his website, CARM. That's C-A-R-M. And many of you listening can tune in to him or down.