Roman Catholicism and Issues of Forgiveness | Apologetics Live 0014

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This is Apologetics Live with Matt Slick and Andrew Rappaport, part of the

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Christian Podcast community. All right, we are live,

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Apologetics Live, every Thursday night, 8 o 'clock Eastern time, here to answer your apologetic questions, challenges, whatever it may be that you have that you want someone to give an answer to.

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And now I can answer any question that you have, because I don't know is a perfectly good answer.

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Matt gives better answers than that. And so that's why we hand him the more difficult questions like, how much water have you had today,

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Matt? Pretty much, I've had several glasses of water. Now I'm doing my juice, carrot, apple, cucumber, and here's another glass of water right here.

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I liked it better when you weren't juicing, I'm just saying. I feel better. Man, I'll tell you,

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I feel better. Disgusting. Do we need to get a new juicer, do we need to get one that masticates so I can start using green leafy vegetables instead of fruits and big vegetables, don't want leafy stuff.

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The one like I have, the Blendtec, and the nice thing about the Blendtec is you can throw everything in there. They actually, you should go check this out,

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Matt, you'd love it. But if you go Blendtec's video, their YouTube page, they basically just throw everything into it.

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iPhones, Samsung Galaxies, iPads, anything. They just toss it in there and they turn the thing on and within a few minutes, it's just nothing but dust.

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Well, if we could see if one would work for what we do, I'd put all the veggies, everything in there, and it just turns it into a liquid, then

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I would drink it. But at any rate. Yeah, well, you're going to come back over to my place and we'll show you.

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Yeah. I want you to come out to Arizona and bring it. Oh, yeah. And leave it behind. Right.

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Mm hmm. Yeah. I'll get one if it's good. So next week, folks, next week,

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I will not be here. I'll be in Atlanta, Georgia at the G3 conference. If you are going to be attending

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G3, check out the Striving for Eternity booth. We're going to be giving away lots and lots of books.

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I mean, lots and lots of books, about fifteen hundred to two thousand books we're bringing down to give away.

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That's how we make money. We give them all now. And John Wilkinson won't get any of them because he still has my

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Bible in my theory. I was just going to ask, are you going to be giving out a particular Bible that I may have?

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No. You're looking for it. I know. So, Matt, you've been working on some articles on Karm that are basic articles that we would think most

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Christians would know, but probably don't. You're doing some searching recently where you found that the most some commonly

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Googled questions within Christianity, like what is the gospel and what is love? And so you've been working on some articles on that recently.

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What can you share with us about that? I've been working on it for a while. That's great detail.

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I love it. Everyone was educated from that, right? That's right. Actually, I'm doing some

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SEO experiments to see positioning and things like that. And so what

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I did was I looked, I did some analysis of some stuff and I'll skip things, but I'll do some analysis and try to,

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I'm applying something. And basically, things are getting worse, seriously.

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You got some great analysis. Seriously. Yeah. I did word analysis and converted things and did stuff and we're just losing traffic.

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Well, from your study. So let's just say, what is the gospel? Because we had someone last week that didn't know what it was.

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So what is the gospel? Especially with, I know we got some Catholics who are in, you know, watching on YouTube and stuff.

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I can tell because they're commenting. They don't know the gospel. They have a different gospel. What is the

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Bible's view of the gospel? The gospel is Eulangelia, 1 Corinthians 15, one through four, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our sins.

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That's what it's defined as. What Catholics like to do is say that it's a series of works and things.

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The gospel is everything that Jesus said. You got to do everything that he said in order to be saved and things like that. They don't have the true gospel because they are not true

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Christians. And that's just a flat out fact. They're not. And as a matter of fact,

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I was teaching on this, let's see, let me get into your, I'm learning from Trent, the heresy fest,

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Trent, this is what Canon, Trent, Trent, in the 1500s, the

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Council of Trent, November, excuse me, in November of 1544, it was to try to counteract the reformers.

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And then in 1546, they added extra books of the Bible and then the Catholics today say, no, you guys took them out.

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No, no, no, no, no, no, we didn't. And in Galatians 189, the word anathema is used in the

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Greek, means to curse. And so the context is, if you preach a different gospel, you're cursed, you're anathema.

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So what is, what's going on there is that the, what Paul the Apostle is saying, if you preach a false gospel, you're damned, you're cursed, that's what he's saying.

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This is what's, I'm going to read Canon 9 for the Council of Trent on justification. And Canon 24, both of these are anti -Christ doctrines that the

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Roman Catholic Church teaches as official. Canon 9, if anyone saith that by faith alone the impious is justified, in which wise as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining the grace of justification, in that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will, let him be anathema.

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So what he's saying here is if the faith are justified, they believe that by faith alone you're justified and that nothing else other than your faith in God, faith in the

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Lord is what is required in order to cooperate to the obtaining of the grace of justification.

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You understand something, in Roman Catholicism, grace is like a substance that's infused into you upon their sacraments.

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So the more grace you have, the more righteous you are. So Canon 9, what it does is it curses justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

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And then Canon 24, if anyone saith that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works, but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof, let him be anathema, cursed.

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So if anyone says that the justice received is not preserved, kept, and increased by your good works, so the justification that you get before God, that you obtain before God, it has to be, if you say it's not preserved, kept, that is, or increased by what we do in good works, let it be cursed.

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So the Roman Catholic Church curses the saving gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed through the

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New Testament, and it is a demonic organization. It's just, it's demonic.

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It anathematizes the true gospel. How do we know it's a true gospel? Because the Bible says, we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

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Justified by faith apart from the works of the law. What Catholics will typically do is say, well, that works of the law is a mosaic law.

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Some say it's just the 10 commandments. It doesn't say that, but some will say it's just the 10 commandments. But it's a problem, because in paragraph 20, 68, no, 20, 20, oh,

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I've got to remember this, 2036, I think it is, the precepts of the natural law are a manifestation, manifested in the 10 commandments.

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In 2036, it says in the Catholic catechism, you have to keep them in order to be saved. So they're teaching that the 10 commandments are necessary to be saved, if, however, that the, in regards to Romans 3, 28, that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

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If they say it's just the whole mosaic law that it's talking about, and that you have to keep New Testament law, then

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I ask them, what New Testament law do you have to keep, and love your neighbor, and help people, and be, you know, works of charity?

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And then what I do, I don't have it memorized, I go back to the Old Testament, and I quote the Old Testament laws where it says those exact same things.

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And so what we have in Roman Catholicism is a completely apostate, false church that promotes idolatry and works righteousness, and is in league with the devil himself, and I believe that in the

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Vatican, there are demonic forces, this is my opinion,

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I can't prove it, demonic forces that are working to promote their satanic doctrines regarding justification, and that all who believe in official

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Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation are doomed to eternal hell. I'm glad you actually brought up the issue of Trent, because so many people with what you said toward the end of that will get so upset with you, how can you say that they're

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Christian too, how can you say that they're going to hell, and yet, you read, they condemn us to hell, so why should they have a problem if we're saying the same thing with them?

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I don't mind if they tell me that I'm condemned to hell, according to their doctrine, I would be, I'd rather than be honest with that, instead of trying to placate it, but I have no problem saying the same with them, their doctrine is not biblical.

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Yeah, their doctrine is not biblical, and it's a false doctrine, and unfortunately, what it's going to do is lead people to eternal damnation, and this is why no

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Protestant should ever unite with the Catholic Church, and anything that's related to this doctrine and the doctrines of Mary, in their incredible idolatry that they promote in there.

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Let me just kind of expand on a little bit of something here that's worth mentioning at this point. They have,

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I could explain this, what a Roman Catholic will do is they'll say that we're not saved by the works, and we're not saved by grace, by faith and works, a lot of Catholics will tell me this, not faith and works, but a faith that's manifested in works, that's a faith that has to be real, and we would agree with them to that point, because we would say that true faith has manifestation, as James 2, 14 -26 talks about, and I talked about that in a radio today, and someone had a problem with it.

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Anyway, so what they have, which is really interesting, in Catholic theology, there is what is called condign merit and congruent merit, but they also have what's called strict merit.

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Let me get rid of strict first, we can talk about the other things. Strict merit is reward due to, you know, for direct relationship of something.

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If you work $10 an hour, you work 10 hours, you are owed $100, they call it strict merit.

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What's really interesting is why they put the word merit in there, which is really interesting, but nevertheless, condign merit, reward for an action because of God's promise to reward good works, so condign deals with God's promise.

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So, if he's going to promise you that he'll do something, if you perform something, he promises to bless you, but this is only for those who are in God's grace, and they're accomplishing

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God's will, so that's what condign merit is. So an example would be honoring your parents, so you have the reward of a blessing from God since God said you'd be blessed.

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So condign is like the Ten Commandments honoring your mother and your father, and if you do that, you're blessed.

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God doesn't owe it to you, but he's committed himself to do it. That's condign merit. Congruent merit, reward for an action based on the kindness and desire of the one giving the merit.

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It is a reward that is not owed, it is based on the kindness of the one who gives a reward. So you clean your parents' house, though it was not required, and they reward you with ice cream.

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So it's just a, you know, a gratuitous kind of a, hey, we just love what you did, here's some, here's a blessing.

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And there's no obligation in congruent merit, but there is in condign merit.

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You're obligated because you committed yourself to do it. So if you honor your mother and your father, that's condign merit, then

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God is obligated to bless you for that. But in congruent merit, God's not obligated to do anything for you, just an unconditional kind of a blessing.

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And so this is what they're going to do. So when they're talking about salvation, what they're going to be talking about is the issue of, you don't earn your salvation through your works.

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But now, I'm going to study this some more, but your works are both, from what

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I understand, are both condign and congruent in their meritorious effect. And so if you were to honor your mother and your father, you're bending the

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Ten Commandments and there's a blessing guaranteed upon you because God has committed Himself to it, hence condign merit.

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But if you were to help an old lady cross the street, so to speak, and there's nothing in the Bible that says to do that exact thing, whatever, whatever it might be that you've done,

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God rewards you for that, what you've done, and they call it congruent merit. Now what

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I need to do is sit with an expert in Catholic theology and sit down and go over these differences and issues of condign merit, because the term merit is problematic.

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Because with merit, it's something earned, it's something you've gotten, but what they're going to say is, no, you've not earned it, not in a strict sense where it's obligated to be given to you, but in a gracious sense, condign and congruent.

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So condign God commits Himself, where congruent He doesn't, to bless you.

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And so what they're going to do is say that these works are both condign and congruent.

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And in this effort that you do, then these works, though they don't have any merit in themselves because God is watching you do them, so to speak, then

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He rewards you. And so you are then to be blessed. Now the problem here, of course, is that this is tied to salvation.

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So with a condign merit, or congruent merit is the case, then God is effecting grace upon you based upon your performance.

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Even though they might say, well, it's not owed, but it's promised, or not promised or owed, whatever. And so you can be blessed that way.

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And so this is the kind of thing that they say. And so the problem here, of course, is Titus 3 .5 says you're not saved on the basis of any works that you've done in your justification, in your relationship with God, in your salvation, in your righteousness.

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And so that refutes condign and congruent merit. So what the Roman Catholic Church is trying to do is say that they have an excuse for doing good works that leads to salvation, but not strictly speaking, but in a condign and congruent manner, it leads to salvation.

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In that the grace that God gives to you in condign merit is owed to you because God promised that He'll do it to you.

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It's not owed in that sense that it's direct, but He promises to reward you. Where congruent merit,

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He hasn't promised to reward you, but He gives it to you. And so these merits given to you,

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I believe, are in relationship to sanctifying grace or justifying grace, and that that is what gets you saved.

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And they'll say, but it's not by any strict merit. Because what they'll do is they'll say, we say that they're doing it by strict merit, and they go, no, it's condign and congruent, if that makes sense.

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Yeah, and I would hope that there's a someone by the name of Catholic Traditionalist on YouTube who's commenting, so you're welcome to come in here and explain how

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Matt's got that wrong. More than welcome. Because they all say

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I have it wrong, OK, and I'm trying to represent them accurately. I mean, in all seriousness, it's...

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Hold on. OK, so what he said, actually, I'll read what he said, because that may help, at least we could interact with that.

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He says, Matt, Trent doesn't say by what we do. Instead, Trent is speaking of the works

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God does through us. Trent is simply making the case that we must say yes, we must say yes to accepting the

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Lord working through us. We must say yes. Hey, God, you can't do it unless I say yes.

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Look at how great I am. It reminds me of that song by Hillsong, I think it's

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Hillsong, God, we give you permission to come into our lives. What? It's a heresy.

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Yeah, it's a bad song. I have not heard that. Yeah, it's a beautiful song.

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And then we give you permission. My God, man. But at any rate, Matt, but it's not our works whereby we are meritorious in Catholicism.

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That's that's what I said. Instead, it's by saying yes to accepting God's working through us whereby we merit our good.

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Catholic tradition, you need to get in here if you want to talk to me, OK, unless you can't and you want to just put those statements and I'll comment on them.

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That's fine. But this thing is not as good as having a dialogue. Yeah. Well, what are you saying?

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To say yes to God's work means then that by our our declaration of yes to what

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God wants to do to us, that's how we get saved. It's still on your effort, on your sincerity, on your declaration.

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It's humanistic philosophy woven into Roman Catholicism. Now, the fact is now,

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I guess Catholic traditionalist is a sort of a cantor. So the Catholic catechism, you know, won't do any good to him.

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But the fact is that Trent has actually anathematized the gospel itself.

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And anyone who believes and accepts Trent in the doctrine of salvation is anathema.

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So there you go. Yeah. And the thing is, is that, you know,

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I mean, I hope he does come in so we could dialogue with him. Let's go. Let's go. Cat actually has a question. She's usually here and watching.

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Speaking of cats, we see we see John having a cat walk all over him. But the other cat is here and has a question for you.

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So, Cat, you can unmute yourself. Can I really? No, actually, read the mind.

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No, actually, I was going to ask a little bit about forgiveness. And I know what scripture says as far as like Colossians 3, 13,

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Matthew 6, 14, 15, Luke 17, 3, 4, all that. And I feel like I've got a good grasp on the forgiveness and being able to forgive others.

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But, you know, it's sort of like that follow up afterwards. OK, I have forgiven you for how you've wronged me or whatnot.

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But are there, do we also, how would

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I phrase this, using caution afterwards, depending on what somebody has done and their actions or behaviors?

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So, I mean, specifically, I'm thinking about a church I had attended that I won't, you know, I won't say their name. It's the church, not

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God. That was at fault. And they had an elder that was actually listed on a sex registry.

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And I, I didn't, because I have children, that's why I had looked sometimes. I just looked to see who's around me and saw him on there.

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And I brought it to the church and they, you know, dismissed it like it was no big deal. But this was somebody who also worked with the children as well.

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Well, let me interrupt and ask questions because some of these, I'm not saying it's

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OK, but some of these sex offender accusations are false.

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And sometimes they're for a stupid little something and they get registered. And it was, it was innocent.

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Sometimes it's bad. So you're going to find out more. But yeah. Well, the church wasn't willing to, and I respect people's right to privacy, especially for some things, you know, especially with a lot of things.

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And I have a lot of leeway in my life for people. But this was something where this this person was definitely in their 30s and it was for something that was a young girl.

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And that it was something that was a young girl that was associated. I'm sorry. Some sort of contact.

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I didn't know what it was because the church was never forthcoming on what. But it was some sort of inappropriate behavior with a young girl.

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At this point, you know, what do you do if, you know, I'm not trying to justify just saying we have to understand circumstances.

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Let's say there was a seven, an 18 year old boy with raging hormones. He has a 17 year old girlfriend, blah, blah, blah.

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And now he's registered as a sex offender. And at 23, he becomes a hardcore Christian. Now he's registered. But now if the church knows about all of this and says, look, you know, there's there was just stupid.

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We registered. But it's OK that we're going to trust the, you know, the church at that point. Right. So that's OK then to have people that are in that position as church leadership, things like that.

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You know, as you know, as long as the church has the people in the church feel that he is definitely, you know, moved on from this.

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Then it should be OK, we trust in that. Yeah. OK. And then another.

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If the elders know and they said, look, we've studied this, we know all the circumstances, it's OK. Then you can trust the elders at that point, because if I say

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I was at a pastor and a guy came to me and said, this is what happened and blah, blah, blah, and I don't want it out, but I need to tell you everything.

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And I'd say, OK, but then, you know, me, I would say, you know, it'd be a difficult one because he's a you know, let's say he was ninety five percent innocent, if you know what

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I mean, not completely innocent, but he screwed up and whatever. Then I would have to tell him, you know,

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I say, look, you can understand something if I can't say anything to anybody about this and they find out we got a problem.

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So you just can't work with children, period, because we can't have that kind of a problem be hanging over our heads and not be able to defend ourselves.

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It's opening ourselves up to problems. Right, exactly. Actually, Matt, there's a legal thing there that you also have to be,

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I mean, if especially if you're in a position of a pastor or someone like that who knows of something like that, if it is dealing with younger children, even even teenagers and you allow it was younger, oh, even younger.

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OK, so, you know, but even even with teenagers, though, it's still the same thing is that you you can't.

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First off, as pastors, pastors are mandatory reporters. Yes, they are.

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Yeah. Some may not know what that means, but there's certain people, pastors, police that they are obligated to report things if they rape things like that.

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So there's some areas where you must report it. There's also you have to keep in mind that, you know,

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I had in my church someone who their own children were removed from their house because of abuse.

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Well, they wanted to serve with the children's ministry. There was no way because they had they already had a record of physically abusing children, not sexually, but physically.

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And it's the safety of of the other children. You want to think the best, but that's not the only area they can serve in.

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Now, if they're saying that's the only area they want to serve in, that actually could be an issue because. Yeah, that'd be a problem.

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That'd be a red flag. Do you want to work with the children? Oh, OK, really? Yeah, I mean, the reality is, unfortunately, and, you know, we have a guy at Striving Fraternity who is one of Georgia's leading experts on on sexual abuse.

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He does counseling of basically like all the Georgia's sexual offenders. And a lot of them, they, you know, they go to church and that's where they find victims because people are trusting, people are open, they want to think the best of people.

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And we just we have to be aware that people can fake it. I mean, I had a guy in our church that we wanted to date a young girl.

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He was not a he knew she was a believer. Turns out he wasn't a believer, but he actually faked it for three years.

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I mean, he he did a good job faking it. And it was announced she was getting married and he disappeared.

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He went right back to the bar where he used to bartend. I I went out after hours after the bar was over. I sat by his car.

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He walks to the car, sees me, which is never a good thing at three in the morning. But, you know, and I talked to him,

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I said, what are you doing? And he's like, I was actually just faking it that all that whole time. I just wanted to date her. I just was hoping to get married.

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And so people can fake it and play. I mean, do it. I mean, he never missed a Bible study.

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He was at every church event. You thought that he really changed. And he admitted to me he was putting on an act.

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And so people can do that just to earn that trust. So if you have someone that's saying they want to serve in a ministry with children having that background, that would be a real red flag.

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Right. Yeah, I didn't I don't know the specifics on behind that and why he was associated with the children's ministry.

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They weren't going to say anything. They just said, oh, it's fine. So and then sort of just to veer off real quick a little bit, but still with the forgiveness thing, if you've got somebody who

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I know that scriptures teaches us, you know, if somebody sins against you seven times, you forgive them seven times, 77, all that fun stuff.

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But what if, you know, and you're supposed to sort of not hold a record of wrongs that have been done to you.

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But what if there is somebody that continuously, you know, you know, you're trying to forgive them each time that they wrong you, let's just say.

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And you know, you're doing your best to forgive that. And but it's a recurring action. And then years go by.

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I mean, are you supposed to come at them as you've just done this to me this one time and let's talk about it?

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Or can you bring up the fact, you know, this has continued on for years and years and years and it's not, you know what

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I mean? Like, I'm not, you know, you don't want to hold it all against them, but if they're, it's the same thing again and again.

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Um, I guess it's maybe splitting hairs. I'm not sure, like about forgiveness.

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Well, I'll say this because there's something I would want to say and then see what your reaction is to it. But people talk about forgiveness and there's one thing you have to understand.

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People think that if I don't say anything, I don't address it, that somehow that's better for them.

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I'm going to, you know, it's going to help them. It doesn't. Not confronting someone's sin is a harmful thing to do to that person.

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You're not doing them any good by not confronting them with their sin. Because if you, if you don't address it, they start to think it's more acceptable or they can get away with it.

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And, and that's why you end up seeing people who go from church to church to church and do this, and you're not doing them any good.

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You're actually harming their spiritual wellbeing if you don't confront them. Right.

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But if you have been confronting them and they're okay, you know, they ask for forgiveness for this and you know, okay, you know,

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I forgive you. Let's move on. But then, you know, let's say every week I'm stealing money from your wallet.

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And then after years of this going on and years of the confrontation and I forgive you,

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I forgive you, I forgive you, but I'm not showing signs of wanting to discontinue my actions. Do you still hold the,

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I'm sorry, go on. There's a, there's a, you know, there's wisdom, wisdom and forgiveness.

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You forgive and you forgive. In a marriage situation, you're going to forgive over and over and over and continue on in the same situation sometimes.

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With a friend, you don't necessarily have to. So circumstances and situations and motives and, you know, the things, all this is so subjective in a lot of areas that you can't, you know, neither

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Andrew nor I can give just a blanket, here's what you do kind of a statement. Each one, like a marriage situation, each one has specific things that are related to that situation and then solutions are catered to that.

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So generically speaking, you want to be as forgiving as you, as you can, but you want to be wise and you don't want to endanger anybody unless God is calling you to do that and how would you know that?

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Well, that's another discussion, but for the most part, you know, the basics is you forgive as much as possible.

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But if the person's having a problem manifesting true repentance and you continue to forgive, that's okay, but then wisdom would say, be careful, you know, and stuff like that, that's all.

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And like a guy who's got an addiction to porn and his wife's forgiving and forgiving and forgiving, and every few months he falls and she's been patient and stuff, then what do you do then?

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Well, you know, you keep forgiving, but you restrict certain access in the home and things like that, because that's what's necessary, that's wisdom.

30:26

So, you know, it just depends on situations and what's going on and things like that. All right.

30:32

Thank you. All right. So, I think next up was...

30:39

Well, then I'm going to say something to the Catholic traditionalist. You know, I said, let's talk about this stuff. He says, well, I'd like to discuss it, but Matt and I always end up talking over each other and I'll just get muted, so it's not edifying to the viewers.

30:53

Well, then you can type it out in here, make your statements here, and I'll comment and correct your errors. Yeah. And then he'll just make the excuse that you're not representing him right or, you know, it's always good to have the excuse to bail out.

31:09

The reason that I try to moderate in here and try not to have the talking over is so that you don't have that.

31:16

And I mean, there are times where you talk over folks and a lot of times what it is, is you're trying to get further information, clarity to answer things.

31:24

And people don't always understand that. Before we bring the next person in, let me ask about that so people can understand that and learn.

31:34

Why is clarity important when discussing apologetics, Matt? I'm not sure what you just said.

31:39

Could you clarify? Why is it? Well, let me put it directly to you. Why do you, you know,

31:45

I'm trying to be clear. You fell into that one. It's like the guy at that radio station back a year or two ago.

31:51

The guy comes up, he's from college, and he's like, what's your major? And for real, he said, and I did this.

31:59

He goes, communications. I go, what? And he goes, communications. And I said,

32:05

I said, okay, I'm not sure I understand. So your major is what? He goes, communications.

32:11

And I said, what? He goes, communique. And he stops himself and he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

32:23

Charlie says that was lame, Matt, but he fell for it. Okay, why clarify? Was that Josh from the radio station?

32:31

No, it was somebody else. I did it to Josh, too. I did it to Josh, too.

32:36

I always got Josh. You know, Josh was good. He was fun. Okay, so why do you need specificity?

32:44

Specificity is like the finer your cutting instrument. The more precise you are, the more you can cut.

32:54

And so what you need is precision. If someone says, like, you know,

32:59

I'm a Calvinist. Someone will say, well, you don't believe in free will. What do you mean by free will?

33:05

You know what you mean. Yeah, I know what I mean. What do you think it means? Well, you know, free will, you know, choices.

33:11

I believe you make choices. No, you don't. Yes, I do. And so what they're doing is defining it in such a way and imposing it upon me.

33:19

Well, I want to know what they think, what they believe. And this is why I asked for definitions. It's one of the things I tell people. Get definitions.

33:25

Get definitions. Be precise as you can and go on. But unfortunately, a lot of times what people will do when they realize

33:31

I'm doing that with them, they think I'm playing a game. I go, no, I'm not. I get to be very, very precise because I know my theology so well in many areas that I need to know exactly what particular nuance of something they're holding to to know what area of theology it's going to relate to.

33:45

So that's what I do. And it's also that they may not even understand the terminology well enough to know the differences.

33:53

And so sometimes you may answer something and not give them the right answer. That really is the answer they're looking for unless you know what they're asking.

34:01

So, yeah, with that, let's see. The first one in After Cat was

34:06

Edward. So, Edward, if you want to unmute yourself, I added you to the

34:12

Hangout. If you have any questions. Okay, he unmuted himself.

34:22

I got his volume up here. I don't know if he's, I think he's on a phone.

34:28

So he shouldn't have to worry about a mic. We're going to give him a couple more seconds.

34:38

You could try typing something in chat. I'll add Edison. And when we hear from Edward, then we'll come back to him.

34:48

So we haven't forgotten about you, Edward. We'll just come back when you get the mic working. You may have to come out and come back in.

34:54

So, Edison, I've unmuted you, or I've added you, I should say, if you want to unmute yourself.

35:00

And if you have any questions, you can ask them. All right.

35:10

Maybe we have to do something. Let's see. Control room.

35:19

Okay. I could try to unmute Edison. Atomic, Charlie. I don't see anybody else in there.

35:26

Edward, let's try. He's unmuted. Let me mute him. And then unmute him. Because I know that'll do that.

35:32

Sometimes it'll work that way. Okay. Edison said something's wrong.

35:37

My mic's not working. Okay. There we go. Yes, we hear you now.

35:43

Yeah, we hear you. Hold on. I got it. Hold on. Hold on. The audience doesn't hear him.

35:50

So I'm going to eject your other one so that we don't take up a spot. All right.

35:58

Now you're in, and people can hear you online. So go ahead. What's your question,

36:03

Edward? Yes. I've been dealing with a situation.

36:11

I got saved in 2008, and I understand that, you know,

36:19

I have been saved, and God has taken care of my past sins.

36:26

The issue that I'm dealing with is that I know that God has, you know, forgiven me for those things.

36:34

But I can't seem to find the space to really forgive myself.

36:44

And not only that, I'm also having issues with a lot of the stuff that, like bad habits and stuff like that that I've tried to break, and I haven't been able to do it.

37:00

Let's talk about something. You're talking about a lot of things here. But you said forgive yourself. Yeah.

37:08

So is that in the Bible? 1

37:16

John 1, 9 says... If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

37:23

So that's Him forgiving us, confessing our sins to God. Right. But you said forgive yourself.

37:32

Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm going off on the wrong way here.

37:38

But it seems to me that if my faith is strong enough and my understanding, that is.

37:47

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's just that people will say things, and they mean what they say generally.

37:54

So no, they don't. And there's something underlying in that, forgiving yourself. This is the first thing you said.

38:00

Well, actually, I think it was the second. God forgives you. But you're having trouble forgiving yourself. And we didn't talk about that because, for one thing, it's not a

38:10

Biblical concept. Okay. And so you're not forgiving yourself.

38:16

God is forgiving you. And so one thing I could say is, so who the heck are you then to not accept and trust in the complete forgiveness of God?

38:26

That could be a comment I could say. Or sometimes people, when they say they have to forgive themselves, what they're trying to do is get rid of the guilt of the feeling and things like that that's associated with that, because if they forgive themselves, so to speak, then they don't feel the guilt anymore.

38:42

Is that really what's going on? Well, you kind of hit it from both ends.

38:49

Okay. So let me tell you something. Years ago,

38:56

I did something really bad, really bad. And I was forgiven by the

39:03

Lord, but I wasn't letting it go. Some people might use the phrase, forgive yourself.

39:10

What I did was really wrong, really, really bad. And yet God, in his mercy, forgave me. And I had trouble letting that go, getting rid of it.

39:21

Until finally, someone sat me down and talked to me and lectured me and rebuked me in love, saying, who are you to hold on to that which

39:32

God has released? And I said, yes, I understand that, but I feel bad.

39:39

And who are you? How dare you hold on to this when God has forgiven it by his blood? Well, yes, but who are you?

39:46

This conversation went on like this for like a half hour until finally I realized that this idea of holding on to guilt and not forgiving ourselves, that phrase, is something we do because, first of all, we know we're unrighteous, we know we're guilty, and we deserve punishment.

40:05

That's true. But then what we do is we look at the cross without going to the cross.

40:11

We look at that place of forgiveness, but sometimes we don't go and, so to speak, reach our hands out and touch that wood and know that that place of forgiveness wipes away what we've done.

40:27

And at that point, we're obligated to release it because if we don't release it, we're holding on to that which

40:36

God has released, and that would be warring against God, and that is another sin.

40:43

See the problem? Yeah. I know.

40:49

That's what I used to do a lot. Also, on a biblical standpoint, isn't the forgiveness of sins requiring shed blood?

41:00

Yeah, in a biblical sense, yeah. And since he's a Christian, that's already occurred, and he's trusted in Christ.

41:05

Right. So if it requires shed blood, how is one forgiving himself when the sin is already given by Christ?

41:14

Right. That's what we're talking about. What does that phrase mean? It means they're not letting go of it. Well, I guess probably the real underlying issue would be trust.

41:29

In what? Well, all my life, I've had problems with trusting people, trusting things.

41:41

You trust God? Back in my past. You trust God? I say that I do, but sometimes my actions don't really show it.

41:52

Yeah, I'm glad you said that, because welcome to the club. Yeah. Honesty. We trust

41:59

God for our salvation, but sometimes nothing more. We trust God to forgive us, but sometimes we don't want to trust him to really, really, really forgive us in such a way that what we could do is literally stand before the person of Jesus.

42:16

Our eyes are filled with tears as they run down our cheeks, and we know our sin and what is aching and what is hurting us, and yet he knows too, and we take a step towards him, and he opens his arms, and no condemnation at all is there in that embrace.

42:35

This is the thing we as Christians have to learn to accept, and it's hard to do because we know we're not worthy of it, and accepting such great grace is hard to do because we're sinners at the core.

42:49

This is why it's important to know what the truth is in your head, and then ask

42:55

God to work it down into your heart. Let the truth massage your soul into compliance of forgiveness.

43:02

Once you have that, you'll have assurance as well, and you'll have release, and then you'll be able to minister to others as well.

43:11

Well, you know, I've actually got quite a testimony that I've never told anybody about because I left—well,

43:24

I pretty much had to leave home when I was about 15 years old just to survive, and I ended up on the streets of Los Angeles, and at that age, that got pretty bad, and, you know, it just—there was a lot of years

43:46

I did nothing but just hijack up and down the country, staying in shelters and stuff, and it wasn't until about 94 until I actually stabilized and was able to land in one spot and, you know, start trying to make something out of my life as late as it was.

44:14

Right. That's okay. You know, and there's a lot of times, you know,

44:21

I did a lot of bad, bad things back then. I put it in the mode of survival, but it really is—

44:32

You were in great, great, great sin. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, and you need to be judged for it, and you should go to hell for it, you filthy, vile, scummy sinner for doing what you had to do and doing what you did.

44:46

Absolutely, you deserve it. But God. But God.

44:52

Yeah. But God in the person of Jesus Christ on that cross knew exactly what you would do, even on that cross, and yet chose to save you and chose to cleanse you.

45:06

Man, what the heck? Why would He do that, knowing what you were like, knowing what you're going to do?

45:14

Why would He dare save someone like you, you filthy, scummy scoundrel of a heathen slime dog?

45:21

Why would He do that? Why would He do that for any of us? Your sins. I've got some similar stuff that I don't like to talk about, only in private conversation.

45:32

Why is God saving us? Because of what's in Him, not because of what's in us, because of who

45:39

He is, not because of who you are. And this is the thing you've got to love or learn to accept.

45:46

And I know I can say it, and I know you know it, but I also know it's a hard thing to let loose.

45:53

But the thing is, the blood of Christ is far greater than your greatest sin multiplied a million times.

46:01

Because there is no comparison to the infinite value of God's sacrifice on that cross.

46:08

And nothing that you have done or can do will separate you from the love of God.

46:16

And you've just got to realize that you are worth damning. But because of God's love for you, now your worth is in Christ.

46:27

And His love for you is inviolate, immovable, and unconditional.

46:33

You've got to let it go and fall into that love embrace of the

46:39

Lord. Just picture Him on that road as you walk up to Him. And He's standing there looking at you.

46:45

You're walking towards Him. And you are remembering and going through the memories of the vile sins you've committed.

46:55

And the closer you get to Him, the more His arms open up for you. And when you fall into them,

47:04

He just says He loves you and He forgives you. That's it. Matt, what might be helpful for Edward is for you to maybe go through the

47:16

Scriptures to show when it was his sin was paid for. Because I think that helps him to realize that it's not an issue of him letting it go.

47:28

Ed, what do you think of what I said, though? Well, I know that what you said is right.

47:37

Okay. But it's very... It's hard. Difficult. It's not something that you just snap your fingers and it happens.

47:51

I know. But you know He paid for all your sins on the cross, right? Right. I do definitely know that.

47:58

All right. Then what I would do if I were in the room with you, with a smile on my face,

48:03

I'd point my finger in your face and say, Stop it. And each time you do that, I'd say, Stop it. Stop it.

48:10

And it would take a while until you broke in your heart and gave that to God as well.

48:21

It just takes time. I know. I know. It takes time. You know, and then, you know, some of the bad habits that I've got that I've tried and tried to break and stop.

48:37

And, you know, I do all kinds of stuff like I'm on a calendar and I'm on an

48:43

X every day that I don't do this, you know, and stuff like that. And none of that just seems to work.

48:50

And it's, you know, it's got to the point to where I'm even having a difficult time trying to pray because, you know,

49:05

I feel like, you know, why am I going to ask God to forgive me for this if I know

49:14

I'm going to turn around and do it again? Because his love for you is greater than your bad habits and your failures.

49:24

Welcome to the club. Every one of us does this. I'm not saying it's OK. But every one of us does this.

49:33

OK. Yeah. Every one of us. When you're at the cross, kneeling on your knees in that dirty, that dirty ground, and you can see the blood mixing with the dirt, and you look to your right and look to your left, you'll see others just like you there, myself included.

49:58

And all we have is our trust in Christ. And it takes time, particularly for sometimes with people who've gone through such things that it's the sin has left a brand and an imprint upon our hearts.

50:13

Sometimes it's hard to let it go and to rip it away from us because it's painful to do that. Because in a sense, we keep them because we want to punish ourselves in order to make ourselves feel worthy enough to come to the cross.

50:28

Sometimes that's the case. And that is a greater sin. Self -mortification.

50:38

Yeah. Well, self -mortification is good in one sense. But if it's for the punishment of ourselves to be made worthy to come to the cross, then it becomes heresy.

50:47

OK. So I used to do that. I had a certain issue, which I don't have anymore, but years ago.

50:54

And I would not come to the cross and be forgiven or receive that forgiveness or trust in Christ until three or four days had gone by after I'd punished myself by feeling guilty and beating myself up enough.

51:05

Then I felt worthy to go to the cross. Literally could not see that until one day in prayer after I spent a few days, you know, once again doing this.

51:14

The Holy Spirit just said, you arrogant fool. You know, you had to make yourself feel bad in order to be worthy to be forgiven.

51:22

And the light went on. And I repented of that as well. We sin in all kinds of ways.

51:31

The solution is the blood of Christ on that cross. And you've got to trust it even beyond your ability to understand and beyond your ability to feel.

51:43

It takes practice, man, OK? Yeah. All right. Wow. That help any?

51:49

Thank you. Sure. I'm reminded of what

51:56

David said, and I think it's in Psalms where he says he felt that the

52:01

Lord's hand was heavy upon him because of unconfessed sin. And, you know,

52:07

I feel that, you know, you're feeling that weight that, you know, like God is kind of pressing you on.

52:14

And the only thing I can really, really recommend you do is to confess that sin.

52:20

Get it out in the open. Get it. Share it with your pastor. Share it with your friends. Share it with your spouse, whatever you have.

52:28

And get that weight lifted from you. You know, it's what helps us to become more free from that sin, that burden that we carry.

52:39

I've shared it before, but it just, I don't know, for some reason, I guess

52:45

I'm just not letting it go. Well, you know, there's a couple of things to keep in mind, too,

52:51

Edward, that we can tend to get used to something, even something that's harmful to us.

52:59

We tend to get more comfortable with that and not want to let things go because we're more comfortable with beating ourselves up than the unknown of what is it like if we just let it go.

53:15

And I think the thing to recognize, it's not an issue of, is

53:21

God going to forgive me or something like that? Because, you know, Christ died 2 ,000 years ago.

53:28

That's when that punishment was paid. Whatever sin it is in your life, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, that was paid at the cross, not when you asked for forgiveness.

53:40

So it's already been paid for. It's already done. It's already been forgiven. The issue is, you know, we can get ourselves in a state of bitterness where we hold on to something.

53:53

Bitterness doesn't always have to be against another person. It could be against ourselves. But we hold on to something in the past, and that actually stops us from moving forward in the future.

54:04

And so you'd actually be stunting your own spiritual growth by holding on to it. That's what

54:11

I'm afraid is happening. Because, you know,

54:16

I go to church, and I come home, and I just feel like the worst

54:26

Christian that could ever be on the face of the earth sometimes. It just, you know, when

54:35

I'm in the building, it seems to feel good. But when I come out the doors, it's like reality just kind of slaps me in the face and says, here you are again.

54:47

You know, so. Well, many of us have, you know, things that we just don't want to let go of.

54:59

Because, you know, weird sense, like Matt was saying, I mean, you know, some people think like they feel better about themselves by thinking they somehow owe something.

55:10

You and I and Matt and John, none of us can pay what it would take for our sin.

55:19

It took an eternal being, God, to do it. So, but we feel like we have to somehow earn it.

55:28

I mean, so a thing is, is for there's many people who believe that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

55:37

And yet, when it comes to our sanctification after we're regenerate, they live life as if we're saved by works, as if we have to earn that righteousness somehow.

55:49

We can't earn it at all. We can't earn it to get into the kingdom and we can't earn it to stay in the kingdom. It's all done by Christ.

55:59

And that's where sometimes you feel just kind of helpless. Because, you know, there's really just nothing, you know, it's in God's hands.

56:14

It's up to you to accept it. But, you know, I know what

56:24

I'm trying to say, but it's hard to explain. Well, the thing is, is that it's something you've gotten used to and it's going to take a change.

56:36

And like Matt said, I mean, you have to stop. And it's not, it's not an issue of, it's not a thinking issue as much as it is an emotional issue.

56:46

That's why Matt was saying you just have to know what's right. And then, you know, ask

56:51

God to work it down into your heart. Okay. And hey,

56:59

Matt, I'm going to, I'm going to, this is two minutes, but I don't know if this is what you're, you're talking to Edward.

57:04

You were, you were saying to him, you know, you just have to stop it.

57:10

And it made me think of this. I don't know if you've, this is a show from years ago that someone sent me, but you'll find this funny.

57:19

So this, this goes along with what you were saying is Bob Newhart. Can you hear that?

57:27

I have this fear of being buried alive in a box. Can you hear that?

57:35

Okay. Yeah. I start thinking about being buried alive and I begin to panic.

57:41

Has, has, has anyone ever, ever tried to bury you alive in a box? No, no, but truly thinking about it does make my life horrible.

57:52

I mean, I can't go through tunnels or be in an elevator or in a house, anything boxy.

58:01

So what you're saying is you're, you're claustrophobic. Yes, that's it.

58:08

All right. Well, let's go, Catherine. I'm, I'm going to say two words to you right now.

58:13

I want you to listen to them very, very carefully. Then I want you to take them out of the office with you and incorporate them in, into your life.

58:23

Shall I write them down? Well, if it makes you comfortable, it's just two words.

58:30

Most, you'll find most people can, can remember them. Okay. You ready?

58:36

Yes. Okay. You're there. Stop it! I'm sorry?

58:45

Stop it! Yes. I get it.

58:54

So what are you saying? You know, it's funny. I say two simple words and I cannot tell you the amount of people who say exactly the same thing you're saying.

59:07

I mean, this, you know, this is not Yiddish, Catherine. This is English. Stop it! So I should just stop it.

59:14

There you go. I mean, you, you, you don't want to go through life being scared of being buried alive in a box, do you?

59:21

I mean, that sounds frightening. Then stop it!

59:28

I can't. I mean, it's been with me since childhood. No, no, no. So, so that's the shorter version of it.

59:35

Yeah. There's a nine minute version where he just keeps yelling at the person, stop it!

59:40

Stop it! But I, so you could go see that one. I don't know if Matt's ever seen that, but Matt, you should definitely watch the eight minute version.

59:50

Oh yeah, stop it. Yep. That's right. Yeah. Stop it!

59:56

He's pretty funny, actually. He was a comedian before he got on the show and he was quite talented.

01:00:02

It's pretty good. So I think what you were telling Edward is that he should stop it.

01:00:10

Yeah, and I mean that with a smile on my face, but I know that it's not easy to do that, but that's what we're obligated to do and aim for.

01:00:16

And it takes practice. That's why I said it takes practice. It takes a while. And it does. It's just not, you know, you can say stop it, but, you know, and that's funny, but that's what we're intended, intending to do.

01:00:28

But it's not always easy. Yeah. Yeah. It's continuous work. It is.

01:00:35

And you'll get better at it. Just, just remember that God loves you, even though he knows everything about you.

01:00:46

Well, thank you very much. Sure. Sounds good. If this makes you feel any better,

01:00:51

God even loves Matt Slick. So if he could love him, he could love you. Just saying.

01:01:00

And I also know somebody else who's had a similar experience to you. And he has overcome it.

01:01:10

Seriously. Anyway. All right.

01:01:16

Well, thank you again and God bless and have a good evening. You too.

01:01:21

You're always welcome to come back in. Maybe not. Yeah, you are. Yeah, that's right. He is.

01:01:29

Matt, I've met you before. Okay. Sorry. I don't recall.

01:01:35

I put your faucet on your sink. Dude. I think about you every now and then, man.

01:01:43

You came over and helped. That was awesome. I remember that. Yeah.

01:01:49

Thanks, man. I still use that. I wonder what happened to that guy. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. I'm no good at that kind of thing.

01:01:56

And this guy came over and helped out. It was really good. I had a good time with you, man. Appreciate that.

01:02:02

Thank you. Sure. All right. No problem. I'll let you get on to somebody else. Edward, to make you feel better, the next person that's going to come in,

01:02:11

Matt couldn't remember him either. In fact, we went to Washington, D .C.

01:02:20

We're sitting outside a sushi place. Matt's like, who are we going to meet? I'm like, this guy,

01:02:26

Josh, he's the one that called into the show. I give the background. He goes, okay.

01:02:32

A couple minutes later. So, who are we here meeting? Josh. Who's Josh? The guy that called in the show. Used CARM as a way to try to figure out if a girl was right to date him.

01:02:43

So, we're sitting down. We're now sitting down. Josh gets there. We're sitting. Matt turns to me. Who's he? Who's this guy again?

01:02:48

It's Josh! Now, Matt knows Josh. Josh who?

01:02:56

Yeah, we sat across from each other and Josh was just, I could tell. He couldn't believe he's sitting across the table from Matt Slick.

01:03:03

He was like, wow, I can't believe this. Then he told me that he could have helped me on the subway and refused to do it.

01:03:12

It was a really interesting time. Right, Josh? No, I'm kidding.

01:03:19

No, it was great. I remember being out there and going, who are we meeting? Because there were so many things going on. I was trying to remember.

01:03:24

Then Josh came in. We all had a great time. It was good. So, Josh. That's how I got there.

01:03:30

So, you could ask your question. Come on,

01:03:36

Josh. You know how to use this technology. For some reason, I couldn't do it until just now. Here we go. Okay. Sure, sure.

01:03:42

Am I coming through okay? Yeah. Yeah, you are, man. Okay. Well, I actually had a question for a friend that I asked

01:03:49

Andrew a couple weeks ago. I'll throw this one out first. A friend of mine, he contributes to both

01:03:58

Karma and Striving for Eternity. He wanted to ask… Tell him to get off the fence and decide one or the other. Luke Warm stuff isn't going to work.

01:04:10

So, he was wondering your guys' thoughts on the analogy of faith, like Scripture interprets

01:04:17

Scripture, and how those would differ between Andrew's Dispensational Theology and Matt's Covenantal Theology.

01:04:27

It has to do with intelligence. And so, there's the answer. Yes. I must be…

01:04:35

Actually, I think your IQ is higher than mine. Have you been tested?

01:04:42

Well, I don't… You know, when I've been tested, I think on the internet, you know. You take something that was like in the 130s, the 140s, and it varied quite a bit.

01:04:51

I didn't do anything after that. You know, I don't know what my IQ is. You know what Abraham Lincoln said about the internet, right?

01:04:57

Abraham Lincoln said you can't trust anything on the internet. That's for sure. Some people are still trying to figure that out.

01:05:04

Abraham Lincoln wasn't alive. And then someone asked Abraham Lincoln, how long should a man's legs be? And he said, just long enough to reach the ground.

01:05:16

You know who invented the internet, right? Right, Matt? Yeah, what was his name? Al Gore.

01:05:22

Al Gore. That's right. He claimed he created the internet. He didn't realize what was happening. Okay. So, Josh had a question or something like that.

01:05:30

I don't know what he's looking at. He's not looking at us, but… No, I… Hey, how's your marriage going?

01:05:36

He's looking at his wife. I'm still married. You know, I have rings on and everything.

01:05:41

So, it hasn't gone that bad. Bless. It's definitely a bless. Good. Yeah, she's a good woman.

01:05:48

I don't know what the heck. Anyway, go ahead. So, my friend just had a question about…

01:05:56

Actually, you guys both met him, and you both know. You met him at a conference, but he wanted me to ask the analogy of faith,

01:06:04

Scripture interprets Scripture, and how that relates. Where does that cause differences in Andrew's dispensational theology versus your covenant theology,

01:06:13

Matt? Presbyterian covenant theology. Where does it cause differences? Interpreted. It is different. Interpreted differences.

01:06:19

Like, interpreted differences, and Scripture interprets Scripture. Oh, he imposes things upon Scripture. I get things out of Scripture.

01:06:27

I would say the reverse is true. I'm a covenantalist, and he's a man -made humanist dispensationalist.

01:06:35

Yeah. Yeah, so he's going to read the covenant into Scripture, and I'm just going to look at the Scripture and see what it says. No, I think…

01:06:42

Here would be the thing, Matt. Maybe we could talk about this part, because this is where we'd see a difference, right? I would look at the

01:06:49

Old Testament. This is really where it usually comes in, is how do we interpret the Old Testament? I would interpret the

01:06:55

Old Testament in its context and then look to carry into it to see if the

01:07:01

New Testament gives further revelation to what the Old Testament says. So I personally wouldn't look to see that I have to find

01:07:09

Christ in every book of the Bible, right? I can look at this book of Song of Solomon and say that it describes what the love within a marriage should be.

01:07:19

I don't have to say that that's Jesus Christ in the church. I don't know if you would go there with Song of Solomon, but…

01:07:26

Yeah, it's about a husband and a wife and having love for each other, but there is something there in Christ, because Jesus said in John 5, 30, 90, certain

01:07:33

Scriptures, because in them you think of eternal life, but it is these that bear witness of me. Yeah, and I would say that the

01:07:39

Scriptures do. I just wouldn't say that every verse does, which some say that every verse has to point to Christ.

01:07:47

And would you say that you interpret the Old Testament in light of the

01:07:53

New? Would you hold to that position? Of course. It's the New Testament that sheds light on the

01:07:59

New, not the other way around. Okay, it sheds light, because this is where I think we might have differences.

01:08:05

I would interpret the Old Testament and look to the New to shed light on it, but I would interpret the

01:08:11

Old Testament in light of the Old Testament in its context. Of course you do. Yeah. Of course you do. In hermeneutics, you look at what it says in its immediate context.

01:08:20

That's it, period. That's what you do. However, whenever the New Testament addresses anything in the Old Testament, the

01:08:25

New Testament automatically takes validity and superiority over any possible interpretation anyone might have in the

01:08:31

Old Testament. Yeah, and I would agree with that. And that's the thing. A lot of people, some of the nuances,

01:08:40

I think some folks don't. It's easier to build a straw man and attack that than actually deal with what each other's position would be.

01:08:51

I think the differences there are less than people make them out to be.

01:08:56

I'll put it that way. They can be carried too far. Yeah. Yeah, I mean,

01:09:04

I think here would be a good difference that you and I would have taken the

01:09:09

Old Testament, right? Let's take an example you and I have talked about. And folks, if you want to see a longer discussion, Matt and I have discussed our differences on covenant theology and dispensationalism on the

01:09:19

Striving Fraternity YouTube channel and the theological discussions playlist. There will be one on covenant theology versus dispensationalism.

01:09:28

And one of the areas you and I disagreed, Matt, was on whether the offering,

01:09:34

Abraham's offering of Isaac was a type of Christ. You say that you think he is a type of Christ, and I say there's a lot of similarities, but I don't go as far as saying a definite type because the

01:09:46

New Testament or the Scriptures don't say specifically he is a type of Christ.

01:09:52

So I stop at saying if the Scriptures say it's a type, then it's a type. If it doesn't, I say there's similarities.

01:09:59

You, I think, would go further, and maybe you could expound that, and that would explain some of the differences.

01:10:06

Yeah, I just use my head. And the similarities are so strong that it obviously is a type of Christ.

01:10:14

Well, I agree that the similarities are strong. I just don't say it is. I say that similarities are strong.

01:10:21

That would be the difference. Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. And that's what Jesus says in John 8, 57.

01:10:30

Or 56. You're not yet 40 years old. 50 years old, you've seen Abraham. Truly, truly,

01:10:36

I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. So he was saying that Abraham saw his day.

01:10:42

So Jesus is relating back to Abraham. And the only place that that would relate to say he saw my day, you're talking about the crucifixion and the issue, and that's

01:10:50

Genesis 22 through 23. But Jesus himself points to that as being something representative of him.

01:10:56

Yeah, but I wouldn't assume that that's a connection to the offering. That's all.

01:11:03

What day was he talking about? He was talking about the future. To Abraham, it would be the future crucifixion of Christ.

01:11:11

Okay, there you go. And so where's the only place where Abraham and Isaac did anything that would be similar to anything like the crucifixion?

01:11:19

We don't have everything recorded in Scripture. What do we have in Scripture? And it would be what?

01:11:25

Yeah, and this is where we make the real distinction.

01:11:31

I won't, I take a, to use the Presbyterian view, since you're a

01:11:37

Presbyterian, I'll take a regulative principle to interpretation and not go beyond what

01:11:42

Scripture says. And that's my position. I'll disagree with John and YouTube.

01:11:49

Irenic Pelagian, who says dispensationalism turns Jesus into Antichrist, doesn't understand dispensationalism if he's arguing that.

01:11:57

Yeah, I wouldn't agree with that either. But, you know, it's just, it's not a leap to say that Isaac is a type when he carried wood up the hill.

01:12:06

Jesus carried wood up on the hill. He's the only begotten son. The only begotten son. The three people were there, the

01:12:14

Trinity, and going up more types and stuff like that. But yeah, it's there. But anyway, let's move on. Let's let someone else ask some questions and stuff, because that'd be good.

01:12:23

Yeah, because I think I agree. There's some strong similarities. So what was your, Josh, what was your second, your follow -up question?

01:12:32

So the second question, and I guess I can make this the one, the one that I posted on the side, was just about similarities between the concept of prevenient grace and condign merit.

01:12:47

Is there similarity or different kinds of merit in the Roman Catholic system? Well, prevenient grace is the grace that comes before that enables a person's free will to then be able to be neutralized enough to be able to choose

01:13:03

God out of its own free action and free will -ness. And so it's kind of a restorative state to the pre -fall condition.

01:13:13

There's different ways it's been stated. Condign merit is merit that God, I can see why you'd say it was similar, but there's differences.

01:13:24

Condign merit would be that merit that God, like I said, on your mother and your father, you know, where he obligates himself to reward the person for those things.

01:13:33

But condign merit is for those who are already in the grace of God, according to Catholicism. And where prevenient grace is not for someone in the grace of God in a state of salvation, but something that comes before they're saved.

01:13:46

Sorry, I should have said, I should have specified and said, the one of the end goals of prevenient grace and congruent merit.

01:13:59

And condign in this case. No, I'm sorry, and condign merit. Yeah, and condign merit. Sorry. But one of this, yeah,

01:14:05

I should have stated that more. Like one of the ends, which is, you know, like regeneration, an effecting of God's salvation, and condign merit, just in the way that they, in like their mode of operation kind of a thing.

01:14:27

Yeah, there are some similarities there, I would think. I could see that. Think about that some more, so you can find out some more similarities.

01:14:35

I know, it boils down to cooperation with grace. Like that's, that's really.

01:14:41

Oh yeah, that's humanism. Humanism, you know, it's man, it's a man's final word.

01:14:48

You know, I give you permission, God. I have to be the one who says yes to God.

01:14:53

It's, he can't do these things. He can't move me. I have to say yes.

01:14:58

It's just arrogance. It's humanistic philosophy. That's what it is. Oh, another question, and I'll make,

01:15:06

I can make this the last one. I have a whole, whole list of them that have been stacking up over the past number of weeks.

01:15:13

By the way, I'm not, I'm not looking away from you guys. I got another, I got another computer screen here that doesn't yet,

01:15:20

I don't have the computer for it yet. And so you guys are on this screen. You have a computer screen.

01:15:25

It doesn't have a computer for it yet. So you're staring at a blank screen. No, no, I'm staring at you guys over here.

01:15:31

Blank screen is like right in front of the, you know, right, or right behind the camera right now.

01:15:36

Once you put the camera on the screen that works. Whoa, whoa, that was a toughie.

01:15:43

I'd have to pick, it's huge. I'd have to like, anyway. It's huge. I don't, it's huge.

01:15:50

It's a simple thing. So, and I heard, so Matt mentioned this a couple weeks ago and I love that he mentioned it.

01:15:58

And I wanted to get both of your guys' thoughts on this. But Matt, you went into the doctrine of divine simplicity a little bit, a couple, few weeks ago.

01:16:08

I was, so I was, I guess my question about that would be, could you, like, could you go over that again?

01:16:17

And I just wanted to get Andrew's thoughts and I guess what it is and biblically, how do we establish that?

01:16:24

Because that's, I think that's such an important concept to grasp in theology and in like apologetics with several groups.

01:16:33

Well, divine simplicity basically is saying that God is without parts. Right? Right. So I agree.

01:16:42

He's not without parts. He doesn't have parts like a left part, an up part, a down part, front part, back part. So he's, there's, he's, that's it.

01:16:53

Well, and you mentioned, I think the other week, like free of, like, is it all composition or is it just, is it just a composition in a sense of like, like spatial and with, you know.

01:17:08

If it was spatial, there'd be a left and a right and a front and a back. Yeah. So that can't be with God.

01:17:15

Okay. I'm waiting. I'm drawing stuff out of you on purpose. I'm giving you a hard time.

01:17:22

I want you to speak in here. Because, well, because in a lot of, a lot of people. What's the first thing we do?

01:17:28

First thing we do? Define, define. Define our terms. Okay. So let's define our terms. What's define, what is divine simplicity?

01:17:37

Yes. Oh, I want to ask you that. I want to ask like your, your thoughts on it. Your. Divine simplicity is basically, and there's different levels of it, but it's basically that there are no parts to God's existence.

01:17:53

One part isn't really different than another part. That is all one, one whole kind of a thing.

01:18:00

But attributes manifest out of this divine simplicity. Well, it all becomes an issue of, of what is divine simplicity.

01:18:07

And if we can't figure that out, we really can't discuss or answer the questions. Right. So, so he doesn't have any physical form.

01:18:19

We know that. And yet what we're just, it's a problem to discuss the simplicity of God when we can't relate to God.

01:18:28

One of the doctrines I like about God is that he is wholly other, completely other than what we are.

01:18:35

And so we can't relate to him in a good way and understand him completely and totally.

01:18:42

So when we talk about divine simplicity, what we're actually talking about is the ontological essence of God's nature. And so to begin the question is problematic.

01:18:52

And so what we have to do is postulate logical possibilities when we come to this. And we want to not say that God has parts.

01:19:00

Because when we say parts, you know, a triangle has three parts, so to speak, a left, right leg, a bottom leg.

01:19:06

And so then we have three parts. But that's not what God is. He's not a, you know, a triangular issue where the parts give him totality.

01:19:19

And so when we talk about the issue of the doctrine of the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, are we going to say he has parts?

01:19:26

Well, no, we're not. Now, unfortunately, sometimes when I'm talking to somebody on the radio and they have a very, very, very rudimentary level of understanding and logic and analogies and particularly

01:19:41

Christian revelation, sometimes I will say, just look at them. Father, Son, Holy Spirit has three parts of the same thing.

01:19:49

And I say, I often will say, but I don't like using the term parts because it's not the right way to say it. But because of our discussion where we're at right now, we can start there and move on beyond that.

01:20:02

And the reason I have that difficulty there is because it's a difficult thing to discuss the very nature and essence of God, period.

01:20:09

You know, the term, you know, on the divine simplicity, we're discussing the very ontological nature and essence of God who manifests himself as a triune being.

01:20:20

Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Well, some would say, well, that's parts, but it's not. But we say that the totality of God is one essence, divinity.

01:20:31

That divinity has its nature that when we see it through the lens of Scripture, we see three persons.

01:20:41

And just as a colored lens or refracting lens or whatever lens will distort to some degree that which we're saying, if there's no distortion, it's not doing anything.

01:20:50

We're not about a camera lens to take a picture, but something that interprets one thing to another. These kind of lenses that are refracting or put colors or whatever, where it changes in order to make us see things like, you know, like x -rays.

01:21:03

We can't see with our naked eye. We need something there to make it visible to us.

01:21:08

And so this differentiation, this lensing effect alters the actuality to bring it into a place where we can see it.

01:21:18

And so with the divine nature of God, the Scriptures take that kind of a place.

01:21:24

And the person of Jesus does, too, in that there is a lensing in that sense of the true nature of God.

01:21:31

And what we are left with is the triune being, the essence of God. But we know on the other side of that lens that God is one whole essence and one whole nature.

01:21:43

The ontological essence of God is He is divine, and the nature, that divinity, when expressed through the lens of Scripture results in three persons.

01:21:51

We wouldn't say that there are three parts, but we would say three persons in the one

01:21:56

God, but they're not parts. Because a part can be taken apart and separated, but not so in the divine

01:22:04

Godhead. So this is why the terminology, each terminology regarding this becomes problematic.

01:22:12

And this is why I believe that's divine simplicity. The simplicity of God is nature. God needs to be more thoroughly explained.

01:22:23

But there are aspects of God, too. We see, it's like when we talk about decrees of God.

01:22:30

There's the wills of God, the decretive will, the prescriptive will, the permissive will.

01:22:36

Well, we wouldn't say that there's actually a will in God that's a decretive, but another will separate from that, and there's a part of His will that is prescriptive, and another part of His will that is, we wouldn't say that.

01:22:49

We would say that the manifestation of that is seen in different ways that we comprehend. And this points back to the simplicity of God, which actually is an issue dealing with His very nature and essence.

01:23:00

Anyway, I'm repeating myself, but go ahead. Yeah, no, that's a—did you want to say something,

01:23:05

Andrew? Thank you for elaborating on that. No, I think Matt did a fine job.

01:23:12

I don't know, I think— Don't let them know I said that, though. I think it's an important discussion because, especially when we're talking to different groups, like Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or something like that, or even when we're discussing issues like Calvinism or something like that, because I think a lot of people read

01:23:38

Scripture, and they think that when it describes God's actions, that He acts in the same manner that we do, and there's not— like kind of anthropomorphism and things like that are not taken into account.

01:23:50

But I think that's completely—it's relevant to the discussion because if God is simple— well, and this is—actually,

01:24:01

I should ask this first, but do you think that— like what would the relation be between God's simplicity and God's impassibility?

01:24:11

Because if God's without parts, then is it not true that God doesn't experience states?

01:24:17

Are there different categories that you're talking about? Because a part is different than effect, because can

01:24:26

God be affected by our emotions? Impassibility, for those who don't know, means that God doesn't feel emotions, because emotions tend to imply, on a human level, an effect upon our essence and our nature, so God can't be affected because He's immutable.

01:24:44

Therefore, not the best answer, but therefore a lot of people say that He's impassible, that He's not able to be affected and feel pain and suffering, except that the

01:24:55

Bible speaks to the contrary. You know, God regretted that He made man.

01:25:01

I think I wrote an article on this, the impassibility of God, and I think it found some Scriptures that talk about these things.

01:25:08

Let's see, impassibility, let's see if I got it. I remember going through, looking for verses that show that God feels, and He does.

01:25:23

Here we go. He loves, and I can give you the references. I have references for each one of these. He loves,

01:25:28

He hates, He has compassion, He grieves, He expresses joy, He rejoices. So, if impassibility means

01:25:34

God can't really feel these things, then why does the Bible say He can? So, the way they're defining their impassibility has to be examined.

01:25:43

Can God be emotionally affected by what we do? Yes, the

01:25:50

Bible says so. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart,

01:25:57

Genesis 6. Well, why was He sorry? Because of their sin, His grieved. So, I mean,

01:26:03

I would have to say it looks like He was affected. Well, then the question comes up, how can He be affected if He ordained it?

01:26:09

Well, the analogy I use in this context is my wife and I are going to decide to have children.

01:26:16

And we decide to have children. Well, because we know that our children are going to be rebellious. We know that they're going to be recalcitrant.

01:26:24

We know that they're going to be wonderful. We know that they're going to be whatever. Well, when it occurs, it doesn't mean that I'm not going to experience it.

01:26:30

I knew you would do that, so I don't feel anything. I knew that you'd say that, I don't feel anything. I knew that, and that's why

01:26:36

I don't care. It wouldn't be like that. And so, one of the things that I think is relevant at this point is to understand that God has emotions.

01:26:44

He has emotions. Love is an emotion, as well as a commitment and a decision. Hatred is an emotion as well, and He clearly hates.

01:26:51

He has compassion. He expresses joy. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength, Nehemiah 8 .10.

01:26:58

And God rejoices, for as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you. And as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your

01:27:04

God will rejoice over you. These are emotional conditions and states. So, God is expressing to us what represents what's going on inside of Him.

01:27:14

And it's an anthropomorphism, of course, through the lens of Scripture. But the thing is, it's saying

01:27:19

He rejoices, has joy, grieves, compassion, hates, and loves. So, that we should say the same thing.

01:27:29

Yeah, I think the issue comes in when – and not with – just like with certain people when we're talking about this, is that they think that God experiences changes in emotional state in the same way that we do.

01:27:46

And it kind of – Well, we can't say yes or no. Well, I mean like – well, and can you explain a little bit?

01:27:58

Well, they said He experiences emotions the same way we do. Well, in some ways yes, in some ways no.

01:28:05

In some ways yes, because He rejoices and we rejoice. So, in that similar –

01:28:10

He does – there's a sense in which that's the case. But, how can we say that the infinite

01:28:15

God of the universe, we know how He feels things? Get off of the throne and get down in the gutter.

01:28:24

You know, we belong. We can't say that about God. But, through the revelation of the word, we can say, well, yeah, He expresses

01:28:29

Himself in emotional ways many times. And so, we can say yes, there's that sense.

01:28:36

What I'd like to say is that we can know God sufficiently, not exhaustively. And these issues deal with the difference between sufficiency and inexhaustibility, or exhaustibility in the knowledge of something.

01:28:48

So, we can say, yes, we know Him sufficiently. We understand His emotions sufficiently. But, it doesn't mean that we exhaustively understand how that works with God, and thereby can say, yes, this is how it works.

01:29:01

We just don't do that. Sorry, I made

01:29:07

Catholic leave traditional Catholic. Oh, here he's back. Let me give him the –

01:29:12

Well, no, because we have someone else that was in before him. Oh, okay. This is why people get in early.

01:29:18

The earlier you get in, you get in line. We do it in order, or try to. So, next one up is

01:29:28

Stan the man. So, Stan, you can unmute yourself. Let's see if I can.

01:29:35

All right, there I am. I unmuted you, so you should be good, Stan. All right,

01:29:41

Andrew. Can you hear me? Yes. Andrew, great. My question basically came up –

01:29:48

I had a conversation, a discussion with a woman named Holly, who claims to be a

01:29:53

Christian, as far as I can tell she is. And she brought up Genesis 2. When God used the word helper,

01:30:00

He used the word – I hope I pronounced it right – ezer, E -Z -E -R. And that word means strong helper or strong power.

01:30:09

And the initial intention when God created man and woman is that they would not be – they would not have roles like we see today.

01:30:19

Man was not to rule over woman. They were to be equal. They would be a strong power, strong helper to Adam.

01:30:27

No roles. Roles came as an afterthought or as a result of, I should say, of sin entering the world.

01:30:34

And thus, that is the end result. That's why today we have roles in church of which the male, the man, is to be pastor.

01:30:42

All of the roles can be filled by women as well as I understand it. So anyhow, if anyone can help on that word ezer and what the difference in men and women roles are in general and in the church,

01:30:55

I would appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, I'd love to jump on that one. Because you put that link and information in there earlier,

01:31:02

I was researching the word ezer. And it occurs 21 times in the Hebrew Bible.

01:31:09

And so I was looking at it. And when we look at Strong's Concordance, it says help, times of help, help sucker,

01:31:18

S -U -C -C -O -U -R, succor, I think is what I pronounced, I'm not sure, or one who helps.

01:31:25

So what's happening with that logic that the people were giving in that article is bad. Now, if you go to 1

01:31:31

Timothy 2, 12 and 13, So Paul the

01:31:42

Apostle is saying that the issue of authority is based upon the first created order.

01:31:48

And that was before the fall. So what Paul the Apostle is telling us is that there's an authoritative thing related to the order of creation.

01:31:56

And there's a doctrine called primogeniture. The firstborn male has more rights than a second and thirdborn male in a particular family.

01:32:04

And this concept, in part, is probably arrived at out of Genesis' created order. So furthermore, before the fall,

01:32:12

Adam named the animals, designating his authority over them to tell them, this is what you are, this is what you are, this is what you are.

01:32:21

And you don't do that if they're all equal. The animals could name him, which doesn't make sense. So then when

01:32:26

Eve came on the scene, he named her as well. And so this is a designation of basically a realm of authority that was there.

01:32:36

And Paul references that in 1 Timothy 2, 12 and 13 in relationship to the teaching order, which he relates back to before the fall.

01:32:45

So this bit about Ezra being something that is only after the fall, that this is the authority issues after the fall, and therefore women can hold those offices as pastor and elder, is really stupid.

01:33:04

And the reason is, is because the Bible says in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus chapter 1, that the elder is to be a man of one woman.

01:33:18

If the person wants to say, look, before the fall, this is how it's supposed to be. So that's how can we know that after the fall, it doesn't matter, which

01:33:25

I've already refuted with the issue of the authority issue. But I'd say, so what you're telling me then is that if the authority issue is before the fall and there's no authority, which isn't true, then you're saying that what it's supposed to be is that it's supposed to be completely equal so women can be pastors and elders.

01:33:42

That's right. And why does Paul command us to have the elders be a ne 'er, man, mias, only one, gunaikas, wife or woman?

01:33:55

Why does Paul tell us that? Well, what are they going to say? Well, because that was just a patriarchal society.

01:34:02

And why does Paul equate it in 1 Timothy 2, 12 and 13 back to before the fall as the issue of authority?

01:34:12

You see the problem that they have? Yes, I think

01:34:19

I do. Now it's getting Holly to climb on board. That'll be the hard part. Get who? Holly, the woman that initially put the note out.

01:34:28

Have her call up and I'll be polite and I'll answer her and I'll show you how that doctrine can lead to a denial of the atonement.

01:34:37

Not that it is, but that you connect the dots, and I can do it if you want, how it can lead to a denial of the atoning sacrifice.

01:34:46

Okay. I will advise her to come on out, apologetics live and ask. Yeah. And I'll be polite.

01:34:53

I'm not going to stomp her or anything like that. But just say, look, here's the thing. This is what it says. If you want to say that, let her make her case.

01:35:01

I read that article. I scanned through it. And this is a problem with someone making a doctrine out of a single word.

01:35:09

Not a good thing. I totally agree with that. And when she used a single word, that was my first thing is you got to read it in the context.

01:35:18

And I don't have the acumen off the top of my head to answer. An article like that. But thank you for your time and answering.

01:35:25

Sure, man. No problem, man. Anytime. God bless. Thanks. Sure. All right.

01:35:30

Thanks, Dan. And, you know, we should a couple of things to just give before we will bring it here.

01:35:39

Our Catholic friend. I don't know how Catholic. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, we may have to carry this over to next week.

01:35:47

Or the next thing. And yeah, go ahead tonight. Go ahead. Just real quick.

01:35:54

Give some shout outs to our advertisers and sponsors. And that would be my pillow, which is a great pillow that both

01:36:02

Matt and I use all the time. And love. And love. It's true. So it's not that we don't use this product.

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It is a great pillow. It is a great pillow. It's awesome. I feel like an idiot saying that.

01:36:17

But it's true. Okay. So I'm going to be interviewing, hopefully, this month,

01:36:24

Mike Liddell from MyPillow, the founder. And one of the things I'm going to ask him is like, where did you come with the name

01:36:29

MyPillow? Because it always sounds weird. I have my, my pillow. You know, Matt, do you have my pillow? You know, it's like.

01:36:35

No, I have my pillow. Why? What would I have your pillow for? Right. No, do you have my pillow? No, no, I have mine.

01:36:42

It's like the name is a little bit confusing, but it's a great pillow. I mean, it stays the same firmness.

01:36:47

It really does help. I mean, if you, if you have, you know, issues sleeping like Matt does, it can help you with if you can just fall asleep like I do.

01:36:57

Well, then maybe you just enjoy a jerk. But we, we, we do enjoy our

01:37:04

MyPillow. And if you want to pick one up and at the same time support the

01:37:10

Matt Slick live radio show, you can call 1 -800 -944 -5396.

01:37:16

That's 1 -800 -944 -5396. Let them know that you heard about the

01:37:23

MyPillow here on Apologetics Live. Also to let folks know the

01:37:28

Christian podcast community is going to be starting to take applications now for podcasters who want to podcast in our community and partner with us.

01:37:40

And the thing is, we're going to be starting to take them. We're going to be going slow at first, but starting the week after next,

01:37:48

Justin Peters is going to start up his podcast called Didache. You can actually subscribe to it now.

01:37:54

Didache? That's what he's calling it. Yeah. The teaching, but go ahead. Yeah, exactly.

01:38:00

Right. And that's, but he's a dispy, a dispy cessationist. I'm going to have to call him up and give him a hard time.

01:38:09

But yeah, so he's going to be starting a show called Didache. You could search for Justin Peters if you don't know how to spell

01:38:15

Didache, but there's actually a couple of shows I found that are something Didache or Didache something.

01:38:21

So, but he's going to be starting up. Theology Gals is moving over from their own onto ours.

01:38:32

There may be, we're in the works. Hopefully if we get a thumbs up, maybe from, from Mr.

01:38:38

John in the room here, but hopefully the council, which he does, who hosts our after show, they might be coming over soon, we hope.

01:38:47

And I'm trying to think we got a new podcast coming up. If you are interested in learning how to podcast, we're going to be starting one toward the end of this month called.

01:38:55

So you want to be a podcaster? You can subscribe to that one now as well too. And, uh, and then

01:39:00

I have mine split my, my rap report. I, I, I split myself. I have two personalities.

01:39:06

No, I was waiting for Matt to jump on that one. Oh man. I just, but you're not your role.

01:39:12

I thought I'd give you that one because I know that explains a lot. I have my weekly podcast rap report.

01:39:21

That's wrapped with two Ps. And then I have the rap report daily. That's that Monday through Friday, two minute one.

01:39:28

So those are some announcements we have. Let's see for the remaining time. Maybe we'll go a little bit long.

01:39:33

We have about 20 minutes left and I bring, I'm bringing in, uh, two, uh,

01:39:40

Catholic traditionalist. So you're unmuted. It looks like your volumes up.

01:39:46

So I know you were commenting in the chat room, so now you could ask the questions you have.

01:39:55

I hope his mic is working for everything. I can see it loud and clear.

01:40:02

There you go. Good. I don't know what it is with this, this tablet. Every time

01:40:07

I take the earphones off, then I'm able to communicate. Okay. Uh, so yeah.

01:40:14

Okay. No debate tonight. Um, I'm just going to go ahead and ask a question, but I'm glad you brought that up about the dedicate because, um,

01:40:21

I was listening to Tim Staples the other day on Catholic answers and he said that the dedicate actually proves that the

01:40:26

Catholic church is the one true church. So I never read the dedicate, so I don't know if that's true or not. We weren't talking about the dedicate.

01:40:34

We were talking about the word dedicate, but there is a book referred to as the dedicate, which is an early, uh, it's not scripture.

01:40:43

It's just, uh, an early instruction manual. And I don't see how it would support Catholic church.

01:40:49

Yeah. I'd love to see how, uh, how, what he said that it did. Okay. Which I'm looking at right now in CARM.

01:40:56

D I D A C H E did. Okay. The teaching. And, uh, it's written before the end of the first century.

01:41:05

Well, I do know that the dedicate proves baptism, uh, water baptism, uh, necessity of water baptism.

01:41:11

So, and then we never finished that debate. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It approves what?

01:41:16

The dedicate proves what? What'd you say? Baptism. Yeah. Baptism that you have to get baptized.

01:41:23

Of course you have to get baptized. Yeah. We don't say you shouldn't get baptized.

01:41:28

You believe you have to get baptized? You believe in that? We, we, yeah, we believe in getting baptized.

01:41:37

But you don't believe in necessity of baptism for salvation. No, we don't believe in salvation by works.

01:41:44

Well, you know, we should really continue that, that debate that we had. We never finished it, but, uh, we can do that another time, maybe next week.

01:41:51

But I wanted to ask all of you a question with regards to, you know, we know that Jesus, you know, when, when they took him, uh, you know, in the garden of Gethsemane, we know that he wasn't going to fight back, but I just,

01:42:08

I was curious about what if one of his apostles were taken by either the Romans or the

01:42:13

Jews? Uh, what do you think Jesus, what do you think his response would have been with regards to that when they were in Jerusalem?

01:42:24

I don't know. Well, personally, I don't think he would have allowed it.

01:42:31

That's my personal view. I don't know. It's just a hypothetical question. No, you didn't say that, that he would allow it. You said, what if they were taken?

01:42:37

That's different than they wouldn't have allowed it. So you just, you're not being consistent. Well, I'm, well,

01:42:43

I'm just saying that if they would have, if hypothetically they would have gone after one of his apostles,

01:42:49

I don't think he would have allowed them to do that. You read the

01:42:58

Bible, right? I mean, that's already there. Well, they didn't actually take Peter. I mean, they didn't, it's not like they actually went after Peter and took him to confiscate

01:43:07

Peter and, you know, put him on trial. That's what I'm talking about. If they attempted to do something like that,

01:43:14

I don't think Jesus would have allowed that. But I just wanted to get your opinions on that. I don't have an opinion on it because scripture doesn't tell us.

01:43:21

So whatever. Well, see, I guess the simple answer is it would never have happened if Jesus didn't allow it because he's

01:43:30

God. So it's not even worth. So do you have a different question?

01:43:36

That's not a hypothetical one that we could. No, that's it.

01:43:42

I mean, that's pretty much it. But so you're not going to be there, Andrew, next week, next

01:43:47

Thursday. Next Thursday, I won't. Matt will be here and either he'll host it himself or we'll get someone in.

01:43:53

Probably Charlie's point will help. Yeah, I was going to say probably Charlie. OK, Charlie.

01:43:59

Well, what do you say, Matt? You want to continue the discussion on baptism next week?

01:44:06

If you want, come on in. You can. Anybody else can. We've got people challenging me different times. They say, come on in Thursday.

01:44:12

Then they don't show up. But if you want to talk about baptism as a requirement for salvation, then I don't mind coming up on the floor with you again.

01:44:21

OK. OK. Then next Thursday it is. If you want to do that.

01:44:28

OK. Let me say one thing with baptism that I think a lot of folks don't understand and read into the

01:44:34

Scripture, some things about trying to see a necessity. And this may be where he's going, whoever you got this from, with the

01:44:43

Didache. It's trying to say that the Didache proves Catholicism is the only true church.

01:44:49

By the way, I should have said it about the floor with the guy. That's not a nice thing for me to say, so I retract that. But we'll talk baptism next week if you show up.

01:44:55

But how does a Didache support Catholicism? Well, I think what he was saying, and he dropped out, but I think what he was saying is that the

01:45:03

Didache does talk about the importance of baptism. And you see this as well. But there seems to be this connection between salvation and baptism.

01:45:13

And so many people make an argument as if you have to be baptized to be saved. And they don't understand the importance of baptism.

01:45:21

Baptism would be a command from God. After we're saved, this is what we do. Now, I'll just specify,

01:45:28

Matt, being a covenant theologian, is going to have a little bit of a difference because he will see the baptism as a covenant sign.

01:45:36

And therefore, he would say that a child can get baptized into the covenant family by the covenant.

01:45:43

And so the child wouldn't be saved but could be baptized. So there's going to be a difference there. But Matt and I both believe in believer's baptism, which would be after someone's saved, the first command that they should both do is to obey baptism, the command of baptism.

01:45:58

Get baptized. Correct. Now, where so many people have a hard time or see it as a mandatory thing for salvation is because of the close connection it has.

01:46:08

And in America, where people don't really have to sacrifice much to convert and be a

01:46:14

Christian, baptism is not that big of a deal. In Muslim countries, you get baptized.

01:46:20

It's like a death sentence. You're showing that anyone can kill you. And so baptism is a big deal.

01:46:27

And that's why they do it so publicly. And in many Muslim countries, if you're not baptized, they assume you're not saved.

01:46:34

Why? Because if you're not willing to display that you believe in Christ to the point where you'll be baptized, they question someone's salvation based on the fruit of this one thing, baptism.

01:46:49

Now, for me, the point where things got violent with my parents,

01:46:54

I'm coming from a Jewish background, was when my mother asked if I got baptized.

01:47:01

Because the fact that I was baptized was the thing that made a very clear distinction of who

01:47:09

I was standing with. And that was where, well, that's where it got violent. That's where my mother started throwing her slaps.

01:47:19

But the point being is that the reason baptism is so closely tied for salvation is not because it's necessary for salvation, because we clearly see that with the thief on the cross.

01:47:31

He wasn't baptized. We clearly see, as Matt said, we're not saved by works. So clearly, baptism doesn't save someone, especially since when you look in Scripture, someone's saved and then baptized.

01:47:43

The order would be wrong if baptism is necessary for salvation, then it has to precede it. Why is it listed in such a strong way?

01:47:51

Because the importance of it is it is the fruit in a culture that is very anti -conversion, like a

01:48:01

Muslim country today, a Jewish country back in the day that the scriptures were written, to be baptized.

01:48:08

And remember, this was a Jewish ceremony of someone becoming

01:48:14

Jew, of a conversion. They would have this, the mitzvahs, the baths, you'd be converted in.

01:48:23

And so it's a clear sign of conversion. That is like saying,

01:48:28

I'm going to give up my family. I'm going to give up my livelihood. I'm going to give up my friends. They all understood that.

01:48:34

So if someone wasn't willing to take a stand, they would question salvation.

01:48:39

Now, after the writing of Scripture, two, three hundreds, if you study church history, the

01:48:45

Romans came in and started demanding people give up their Bible. If you didn't give up your Bible, you were going to be imprisoned.

01:48:52

And then they searched your house anyway. So what a lot of people did was they gave up some of their scriptures, but not all of them.

01:48:58

Or they would deny that they had scriptures. And they didn't go to prison. And then when

01:49:04

Constantine ends up freeing everybody and saying that everyone's Christian now, all these people who went to prison because they wouldn't give up the scriptures come out and they looked at those people that claimed to be

01:49:15

Christian and wouldn't give, or would give up part of the scriptures or give up all the scriptures.

01:49:23

They called them compromisers. They questioned their salvation because they wouldn't hold on to the scriptures and deny the burning of the scriptures.

01:49:32

Now, would we say that allowing someone to take your Bible means you're not saved? Because that was put at the same watershed type argument as we saw with baptism in the first century for the same reason.

01:49:47

There'd be many who would say the same with other issues today. If you're going to take a position of allowing homosexuals as pastors or in the church and say that they can continue in that practice and claim to be a

01:50:02

Christian without them seeing that as a sin, that's now a watershed issue for many today.

01:50:09

Is that necessary for salvation? You see, the church has always had things that they put as a watershed issue to look at it and say, this is something that is so important.

01:50:20

If you don't stand for this, we're going to question your salvation. It's not what saves a person because it's after salvation.

01:50:29

And so next week, I'm sure Matt will do a fine job. But I'll just say that this is the reason it is an important thing, is because of the fact that it was a watershed issue to say, are you willing to stand for Christ?

01:50:42

And if you weren't, the early church questioned your salvation. And that's why we see so much similarity.

01:50:49

That's why the Didache is going to talk about baptism, the importance of baptism. And by the way, in the

01:50:54

Didache, it's going to talk about sprinkling, well, not sprinkling, pouring. OK, now

01:51:00

Matt would bring Presbyterian, believes in a sprinkling. Matt would believe that Jesus was sprinkled.

01:51:06

And immersion. Yeah, that's true. You accept both. But you would accept a pouring or sprinkling.

01:51:15

Pouring. You need to have two syllables in there. Pouring or sprinkling. Yes. And the interesting thing, the

01:51:24

Didache does mention that. And it mentions that where there's not much water, people can pour.

01:51:31

Now, some try to argue that that's proof. And if he tries to go there to say that proves the

01:51:39

Roman Catholic way of or the Roman Catholic mode, I don't think that'd be a strong argument because that's not from Scripture.

01:51:48

I mean, it's the practice of the church is the best you could argue. And that's what the Didache book.

01:51:54

It was an instruction manual for the early church. But it's not Scripture. It's just what they were instructing other churches to do is their practices.

01:52:05

Do you have the whole Didache up on car, Matt? Yep. Or do you have an article on it? It's reproduced.

01:52:12

I got it from someplace. I forgot what it was. Cool. And I have it in Lagos. Yeah. Lagos is great.

01:52:19

You got to help me figure out how to do some better stuff in Lagos. I know. I got it. I do have to. I kind of it's been a whole year since my last

01:52:26

Lagos training. It's becoming a yearly thing that I'm doing. Usually around like March timeframe,

01:52:32

I end up doing a Lagos training. I do have two out there. But yeah, we'll get together for an hour and do that.

01:52:38

Let me do this and let folks know if you do want to get Lagos, Striving Fraternity will give you, with our partnership with Lagos, will give you five free books and a discount on Lagos.

01:52:51

Lagos is expensive, but I think, Matt, you'd agree Lagos is worth it. If you do study like us, yeah, it's worth it.

01:53:01

Even if not, if you just want to do the searches, I mean, you don't have to get the big package. If you go to, let's see,

01:53:09

I think it's bit .ly. I got to check this out. bit .ly .com,

01:53:16

bit .ly .com slash SFE, that stands for Striving Fraternity, SFE Lagos.

01:53:22

So bit .ly, bit .ly .com slash SFE Lagos, L -O -G -O -S.

01:53:30

And if you go there, you'll get a discount on purchasing Lagos, and you'll get five free books from Striving Fraternity.

01:53:36

So I know Roel is here and had some questions, Matt, but we're kind of out of time.

01:53:43

We could... No, we can go to the after show and I can answer there. The after show or next week.

01:53:49

And I'm going to give a check with John to see if there's an after show. He dropped out and he usually drops out to start the show.

01:54:00

And he usually tells me what it is. So after show link question mark.

01:54:10

So I'll get that here. So folks, next week, Matt will be here if you have questions. My encouragement is to come early.

01:54:17

A lot of folks are coming in and coming in late, and then they want to know kind of where, you know, at the end when we're kind of leaving, they want to get in.

01:54:33

And so, Matt, I just dropped the link in for the after show. I'll drop that in chat in a minute. I'll give you a minute to get over there.

01:54:40

I'll go over there now. All right. You head over and folks that are here can head over.