Political Pulpits....

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Everybody, how are you doing out there? It is me, Matt Slick, and it's a nice Friday. I hope you're going to have a great day.

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I am already. And if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276.

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This is Matt Slick Live with your host, Matt Slick, founder of CARM .org,

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the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry. Call now with your questions, Bible questions, God questions, hard questions, toll free across the nation, 877 -207 -2276.

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That's 877 -207 -2276. No fluff. Straight answers. And now, your full contact dealer.

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Here's Matt Slick. Hey, everybody. How are you doing out there? Nice Friday. And hopefully, what we're going to do is get into some hate mail, wacko mail.

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My wife found some and said it was good, and she was cracking up. So I said, put her in the wacko mail area.

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And I've just found out via Facebook that there are people who actually enjoy the wacko and hate mail stuff that I do.

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So praise God for that. If you are interested in giving me a call, the number is 877 -207 -2276.

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And if you want to get in direct line, 208 -377 -3790.

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I'd love to hear from you. And let's see, we've got

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Bible study going on Wednesday night, and we have been going through the

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Gospel of John. There's been a decent turnout for that. It turns out that people are really interested in topical issues.

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So I'm thinking about doing a series of various topics, and I'll put it up on a calendar on the website, and people can come in and decide which ones they want to go to, which ones they want to see, things like that, which is fine, and have people come into the things that they're interested in.

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In fact, I may put up a survey on CARM and ask, what kind of topics would you like covered?

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Because not only do people show up physically, but also because people watch it online.

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And we've been doing this on Facebook, which you can get on and watch right now by going to facebook .carm .org.

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And you can also watch on YouTube, and the link for that is on the

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CARM homepage, which I just updated just a little bit ago. So you can click on that, and you can watch and hopefully enjoy the show that way.

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So there you go for that. Now for those of you who may be tuning in new, and you're not sure what the show is about, this is a

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Christian -based show, and it is dealing with the issue of Christian theology and apologetics.

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Now apologetics is that branch of Christian theology that deals with the defense and the establishment of the

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Christian faith. And so I started doing that in 1980, when I just started studying on Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, and then going out and occasionally witnessing.

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And over the years, I've done all kinds of things, door -to -door evangelism, beach evangelism, prison ministry, swab ministry, phone ministry, now doing radio, been on TV, in fact

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I'm going to be on ABN Satellite TV here pretty soon, I think next week I'll get the schedule up on that, and other things, just getting out there, reaching and teaching.

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And so I'm grateful for the opportunity to be able to do that. It's a great thing to be able to serve

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God in the capacity that He's given for a broken vessel like myself.

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We are all sinners, saved by grace and kept by grace. And so I teach various theological doctrines, some people agree, some people don't agree, and of course

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I teach the eternal security of the believer, I don't believe that we can lose our salvation, because to be honest,

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God doesn't make any mistakes, and Jesus clearly told us that He will not lose any of whom the

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Father has given Him. And I can get into those kinds of issues, so I definitely believe in biblical orthodoxy.

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And we'll get to the caller here in a minute. I had a discussion with some gentlemen last night on the issue of Molinism, and maybe we'll go over some of that, if you're interested in discussing

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Molinism, you can type in questions in the Facebook and or the chat on the

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YouTube thing, you can call in as well. And Molinism is the idea of what's called counterfactuals and libertarian free will, and some other stuff.

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And let's just say the conversation didn't go well, and we can talk about that maybe a little bit later on those issues,

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I've been working on things trying to demonstrate biblical theology and show why certain things just can't be biblically true.

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And that's what I try and do, and hopefully people enjoy that. I don't mind if people don't agree.

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I think disagreeing is fine. I think it's healthy, and I think it should be done in a godly way.

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I think that those who just say, you know, I don't agree, okay, well, let's just talk about it. And that's how we should be done politely.

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So anyway, that's what we do in the radio show, we've been doing this 11 years. And for the new listeners, sometimes on Fridays, depending on how the calls go,

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I will do hate mail and whack -o -mail. Hate mail is just basically stuff that says that I'm no good, and horrible, and things like that.

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And whack -o -mail, basically, the category is they don't have all their paws in the litter box, and then they'll write things, and sometimes they're kind of interesting.

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And so we've done that. My favorite, of course, has been Atomic Body Man, which years ago,

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I did on a hate mail whack -o -mail thing, and people still talk about Atomic Body Man. And the thing is,

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I've got it someplace, and I like to play it, but I don't know even what year it was in, or what month.

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So we've got 2 ,000 shows, and I just don't know which one it is. So if someone knows out there, you can let me know, and maybe

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I can resurrect it, and you can play it. It was kind of funny. People still loved Atomic Body Man.

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It had to do with a certain pastor that someone said his body on a certain date would be changed to an atomic body.

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And I just had a load of fun with that one. What happens if he eats chili? You know, you have some problems.

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And so it was a lot of fun, and people still like that. All right. Let's just jump right in.

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Let's get to Stephanie from Meridian. Hey, Stephanie. How are you? Hey.

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I'm doing good. How are you? By God's grace, doing really well. What do you got? Well, I just wanted your—if you could help me out.

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My husband and I have been, for the past six months, been approached by a group called the

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Local Church by Witness Lee. And while they're very generous and friendly people, there's a lot of things that are raising some cautionary flags to us.

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And we're just trying to discern everything, and just wanted to get your help in understanding really what they believe and how to go about approaching them.

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It's been a long time since I had to deal with them. So my memory of what they teach is pretty rusty.

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So let me see if I can find some—because as soon as I find a little bit of information, all of a sudden, you know, it all comes back.

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I can remember some stuff. But Witness Lee, the Local Church, I recommend people stay away from.

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And I did go to their headquarters in Anaheim, California, when I lived there in that area, and went there and spent an hour or so with them on their campus, on their church facility.

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And let's just say that—well, let's just say—I don't know how to say this. I received a letter afterwards.

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I had a good conversation with them. Received a letter a week or so afterwards that, in my opinion, was a veiled threat, because what they said in that letter was that sometimes people will write negative things about them and say negative things about them.

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And then what they're forced to do is go into litigation to deal with that.

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And he says, and I'm glad you're not like that. It was how the letter was, you know. It was really nice. But you could tell what they were saying was, if I said anything, they would sue me.

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So that's one of the things that I remember. They hold some other weird doctrines, and I can't remember which ones they are.

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But let me ask you a question. There's a couple—oh, okay. Yeah, there's a couple with the Triune God, and they only hand out their version of the

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Bible, and they stick to that. And then they also really focus on some ministry books other than the

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Word, and they're only written by Witness Lee and Watchman Lee. And that was just another cautionary thing for me.

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I was like, why can't we go beyond other people? Why do we have to just stick here? And so that was just my question today, was, you know, it just doesn't feel—it doesn't look right when, according to Scripture, it doesn't—it just feels weird, too.

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Right. They're—okay, I'm sorry, it's been so long.

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I can visualize and remember the place I was at when I went in the building, and I bought books and bought some literature and stuff like that, and they're very close to being good.

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They're very close to a lot of areas that are good, but there are some problems.

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And they tend to be inclusive and an us -versus -them kind of mentality.

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And Witness Lee and his material, even though I haven't read through a lot of it in 20 years, is very problematic.

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I just don't recommend anybody go there. Now, if they are—if they're there at your place, and they're going to come back, you can have me come over.

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I'll be glad to meet with them. Okay. I have no problem with that at all. I would like that, and do some analysis.

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I have a way of being able to find out what people believe, and then demonstrate what they believe is either

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Biblical or not Biblical. Well, they were saying some interesting things, like when we pray, we need to pray in a trance, and just some really mystical things that they do.

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And I just feel this spirit in me, like being quenched, like raising—this is a flag, this is caution, stay away.

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And we listen to your show regularly, and your website, and we just kind of wanted to get your view, because they do seem very loving and generous.

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And, I mean, they seem like a very loving people, so we just wanted to get your view on what they believe.

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Yeah, it's been a while. I'm sorry. We're trying to be different in every area of our lives. Yeah. No, I appreciate what you've said, though.

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It is helpful, because, like I said, it's been about six months since we've met them, and while some of the things they say are right on, there's a lot of cautionary things, too, that we just wanted to discuss.

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Well, seriously, I'm motivated now to do some more study on them, but I'm looking through various websites.

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What I like, when I do a listing or an analysis of a group, I'll say, here's what they teach. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

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Because that's what we want to know. And a lot of articles, what they'll do is they'll go in, and they talk about generalities. I like to get more specific.

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But if you want, if they come back, if you can set it up, let me know. I'll come on over, and we can talk.

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Okay. Great. I'm serious. All right. Okay. I would love that, and that would be helpful.

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So, thank you very much. Hey, no problem at all. No problem at all. Have a good day. You, too. Thanks. God bless.

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All right. If you are interested in giving me a call, 877 -207 -2276.

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That's right. Prayer reading. I remember that now. A prayer reading, where you pray over every single verse as you're reading it in a kind of a mantra stance.

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That's problematic. They have some mystical kind of things that they incorporate into it, into their church.

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And you know what? I just got to, I got to find out what it is they say in a document. And hopefully they won't sue me.

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That's how it works, you know. Been threatened with several lawsuits over the years for some of the things

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I've written about groups. But that's what it is, you know. I mean, hey, if the Bible says it, I'm going to stand on it, and we'll just see.

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All right. Since we have no other callers waiting right now, if you want to give me a call, folks, you can get in line, though, 208 -377 -3790.

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And if you want to get in toll -free, it's 877 -207 -2276.

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And let's, let me jump into some hate mail, or some whack -o -mail, actually, the one that my wife was laughing about.

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I don't know if it's all that good, but I'm going to give it a shot. Here goes. Let's see, Ant Day, A -N -T,

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Ant Day, a hive of misrepresenting morons that should keep their uneducated eyes from Scripture and prophecy if they choose wrong and tread on a true divine king such as me and my blue -blood crown.

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Now, folks, you see, this is the kind of thing that definitely qualifies as whack -o -mail. You know, we don't know if they have all their paws in the litter box.

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All right. It's never a good idea, this person goes on, it's never a good idea to be cursed by a true divine king for using his voice to make your own salaries without paying a tithe.

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Word. Just one word with a period of it. Whole groups and countries of people got cursed for disrespecting one crowned by a god, if you read your

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Scriptures correctly. So I guess this person's a polytheist, and he's a true king, and there's many gods.

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Wow. Oh, that's interesting. Um, also, let's see. It says, I don't rely on armies.

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I use a power that is much, much greater than that of man. Your Jesus was my cousin.

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You, oh, man, I'm smiling. Try not to lose it here. You normies are but a grain of salt to the power.

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Uh, I wield, I wield. Oh, man, it's hard to read because it's not written very well. But a grain of salt to the power.

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I wield through my crown. And again, you, Jesus, is not returning. Am a direct descendant of David, the

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Davidic line, that of Abraham and the Levites, a natural born sorcerer of the divine, just as Jesus was.

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Good day. So, uh, obviously here we have someone who's, uh, I would say deranged, maybe demonically oppressed, uh, definitely, uh, is not on the meds, um, and stuff like that.

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Um, now this person goes on and says, Jesus is dead and won't be coming back.

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And he calls us idiots. Um, folk even called me

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Jesus because of my abilities, sick of morons like you writing your idiocy. Oh, and I hate religious buildings.

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This person says biggest waste of taxpayer money, taxpayer money, religious buildings. I didn't get that one.

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In the U .S., uh, oh, and those silly cracker pasty Jesus sticker idols that remind me of marshmallow.

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Okay. So, you know, I'm gonna tell you something, you know, people might say, well, Matt, you're making fun of this person. Well, you know,

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I'm not trying to, I'm just reading the mail and going through some of this stuff. But I want to tell you that I have to deal with people like this for real.

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I'm not kidding. There are people who, um, you know, this is what they say.

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This is what they do. This is, uh, this is their idea of, um, of truth.

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And they'll argue with me in various ways on the web, various written forms versus whatever it is, you know, social medias.

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And then when I don't respond to them, what they do is they get mad at me and they claim victory because I couldn't refute them.

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I'm telling you, it's tough. That's why if you were to go to car, excuse me, go to the web and type in my name, you'll see all kinds of stuff.

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But nevertheless, we'll get us some more, uh, wacko and hate mail in a minute. We got a caller. So if you want to give me a call though, get in line two zero eight three seven seven three seven nine zero.

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And of course you can get in, um, uh, toll free eight seven seven two zero seven two two seven six.

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Uh, let's get to Chris. Hey, Chris, how are you? Hi, I'm I'm okay.

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How are you? By God's grace doing pretty well. What's up? Well, I, I, I hope

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I don't sound crazy. Um, so I, I called maybe about a week or so ago and I felt first off,

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I wanted to apologize because I kind of got cut off in the middle when you were talking and I didn't want you to think that I had hung up on you.

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I kind of have bad cell reception. So no big deal. It happens all the time. Um, the second thing, and this is going to sound crazy.

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I don't know if you remember me. I call cause my friends had like a debate and then they wanted me to moderate.

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And I, anyway, I learned a whole lot about, I was learning a whole lot about Christianity from you.

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And then my phone, I lost reception and dropped the call. Um, the truth of the matter is

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I don't honestly know why I'm calling. All I know is like for the last couple of days, I've just had like,

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I don't want to sound crazy, but it's almost like, like a little voice. This is like, you should call that Matt guy again. You should call him again.

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And I have no idea why. So I hope this doesn't sound crazy, but maybe, you know, am

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I like a race? Sorry. I'm a little embarrassed cause

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I don't know. All right. Well, Chris, you're in Utah, right? That's right.

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All right. And, uh, do you go to church? Uh, no, I didn't never grow up with a religion.

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And I, all of a sudden, all of my friends are trying to get me to go to theirs now.

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So, well, so you're not a Christian then are you? I have lots of invitations now. You're not a

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Christian? I suppose not. Okay. Uh, well, uh,

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I would recommend that you become a Christian. I recommend that you trust in Jesus.

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Uh, have you read the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John in the Bible? Um, I am familiar with what my friends have told me and, you know, cultural osmosis,

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I suppose. Have you read it? Have you read it?

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Uh, no, actually. One of my friends gave me one of those. Well, hold on.

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Indian Bibles? That has like, that's the New Testament? Yeah. See, yeah.

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I just, I asked, you know, this is how it works. I'll, I'm like this. Uh, I have Asperger's and I ask very direct questions.

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So people just say, yes or no, we go on to the next question. So have you read the gospels? No, we go on, we go, it's no big deal.

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So I would recommend that you read the gospels, get a Bible, stay away from the King James because it's got these and vows in it.

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It's just hard to understand. You know, the NIV is good. The ESV is good. Uh, the

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NASB is good. And just check them out and, and read. You gotta, you gotta study who Jesus is.

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Well, can I, can I ask a, what might be a stupid question? Well, I don't know if it's stupid, but probably not stupid.

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Go ahead. Well, do I just start in Genesis or where do

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I, like, I mean, I'm not a poet reading long books. I read Les Miserables, but it's just kind of daunting.

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Les Miserables was a great book. Uh, it really was. I read it, loved it. But no, no, the gospels,

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Matthew, Mark, Luke, John in the New Testament. I would start with, uh, uh, maybe you could start with,

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I don't know, you know, just, just, you know, start at the beginning of the New Testament, read a little bit, read the red words about what

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Jesus said, and then just go through the New Testament a little bit and start reading things. What'll happen is you'll get all kinds of questions and you can call me.

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We can talk about those things and you could learn, but let me give you a heads up. Okay. Let me kind of condense stuff about Christianity and what it is.

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Okay. Can I, can I do that for you really fast? I'd like that, actually. All right. Okay.

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Christianity is the teaching that there's only one God in all existence, all place, and all time.

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That means Mormonism's false. Okay? Okay. Period. All right. It teaches a doctrine of the

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Trinity, that there's one God who exists as three simultaneous persons, not three gods.

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It's kind of like time is composed of past, present, and future. The one being is composed of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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And the word or the Son became flesh and dwelt among us.

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That's Jesus. So Jesus is both divine and human. He's both God and man.

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And he came to the world and born of a virgin. You've heard of that, I'm sure. And he lived a perfect life.

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And then a lot of people got upset with him because he was doing so many good things and not teaching the status quo in ancient

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Israel. And so they had the Romans kill him and they crucified him. And this is all part of God's big plan.

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And Jesus rose from the dead physically three days later. He retained the crucifixion wounds.

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And that is the proof that what he said was true.

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He claimed to be God. He performed miracles. He said that salvation or forgiveness of sins can only be accomplished through him.

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Okay. So if you break a law and you're arrested and you stand before the judge and he's going to sentence you, there's a punishment due to you breaking the law, right?

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That's proper, right? Well, right. I actually just had to pay a speeding ticket, so I know all about that.

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Yeah, well, there you go. Okay. And so it's the same thing. When we sin, we break the law of God.

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And, you know, don't lie. God says don't lie. So when we lie, we sin. And there's a penalty. And you've sinned,

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I've sinned. The penalty is that fine. Well, it just so happens that the penalty that God gives to us is an eternal penalty because we offend him.

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So if I were to slap you, say we're just talking and I just slap you upside the head, you might take a swing back at me. You might say, what was that for?

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Whatever. And, you know, whatever. If I were to slap President Trump, even though it's the same action,

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I get a different result. I would go to jail. It's a felony, probably. I don't know the exact law on the president, but, you know, you go to jail.

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Well, why does the exact same action get different results? Because of who it's against.

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Well, if we were to, so to speak, go to the infinite God and slap him by sinning against him, then we have an infinite result.

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And that's separation from God, Isaiah 59 too, and it's death, which is separation.

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I can get into that. So since sin is breaking the law of God, it's a legal problem.

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And like your debt, you know, the judge, this isn't exactly one for one relationship, but this is how it works.

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A judge could just say, your sins are forgiven or, you know, forget the fine. He can do that.

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He can reduce it. But in biblical theology, God can't ignore his own law. Otherwise, he's not righteous.

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So what he does is he takes it upon himself, Jesus. Jesus fulfilled the law.

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Jesus took our sin because sin is breaking the law of God, and it's a legal debt, and legal debts could be transferred, transferred to Jesus.

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He died with them, paying the price, paying the penalty. So what we do is trust in what

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Jesus did. And that's all we can do. You're not good enough. I'm not good enough.

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We are not good enough. And even though groups like the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholics say we are good enough in our own effort to be able to make it with God, that's just not biblical.

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I could go into the theology of that in the Bible, too. That's basically what's going on. So if you were to read... Well, I... Go ahead.

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I actually, if I can interject, like, because this is... I don't want to sound mean, but my friends seem kind of like they're warring against one another to get me to go to their church, so I'm kind of inundated with stuff.

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Like, I got... Which church? My Jehovah's Witness friend gave me a Bible. My Mormon friend gave me their book.

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I got the Bible from my evangelical friend, the one that doesn't have the Old Testament, except for...

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And he's just giving you a New Testament version. That's fine. No big deal. Just start reading at the beginning of the

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New Testament and say the Gospel of John. So that's the one I should read? Yeah, try it. It's no big deal.

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But the Mormons are not Christian. Do I just not read them, or do

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I give them... I don't want to be rude, but I don't want to accidentally read something that's bad.

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Well... And I don't want to get confused, but I don't... Let me tell you...

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I've heard some really bad things about the Jehovah's Witness Bible, but I was like, I don't know. It sounds like a Bible to me.

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The only Bible I know, when we were talking last week about the Catholic Bible, that it has extra books. So I figured

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I probably shouldn't read that one. Right. You don't want to trust the... Okay, go to my website and look up the stuff on Roman Catholicism.

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Go to the Cut and Paste section, and you can read stuff on Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Roman Catholicism. Mormonism teaches that God used to be a man on another planet, and he became a god by following the laws and ordinances of that god on that planet.

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He brought one of his wives with him to this world. They have sexual relations in heaven, and they make spirit babies that inhabit human bodies at birth.

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When you become a full Mormon, pay a full 10 % tithe if you're in, come to the church, you get to go to the temple ceremony.

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In the temple ceremony, I'm skipping details, but in the temple, you get handshakes and hugs, a new name, and if you are good enough, you have the potential of becoming a god of your own planet, starting it over again.

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That's Mormonism, and it was invented by Joseph Smith in the 1830s, and even though Joseph Smith says it's the restored gospel, it is not.

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Jehovah's Witnesses deny the doctrine of the Trinity. They deny that Jesus is God in flesh.

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They deny that the Holy Spirit has a self -awareness and has personhood. They also, like the

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Mormons, teach that you have to be good and keep the law in order to be saved. The Jehovah's Witnesses deny that Jesus physically rose from the dead, and they teach that when you die, you don't exist anymore.

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The Roman Catholics, though they affirm the proper doctrine of the Trinity and who Jesus is, unfortunately what they do is they commit idolatry in the worship and adoration of Mary, which ultimately these apparitions that occur over the world are demonic manifestations, and we can determine that by reading what these apparitions say.

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They also add works to salvation, and like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, they also teach that you have to do good works to keep yourself right with God and things like that, and the

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Bible clearly refutes that. But the Roman Catholics are very astute at imposing philosophy upon their scriptures and resting it to their own destruction.

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If you have a Baptist church to go to, for the most part, it's a good church. Now, do you live anywhere near Sandy, Utah?

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That's actually where I live. All right. What I'd like you to do, seriously, is go to the web.

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You have an internet connection? You can get to the internet, right? Yeah. Okay, and go look up mrm .org,

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mormonismresearchministry .org. It's run by Bill McKeever.

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Bill's a friend of mine. He lives in Sandy. Okay. And Bill can tell you.

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You can contact him. You can call the office, tell him. Matt Slick on the radio recommended him, and he can tell you what churches are good to go to in the area.

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You can even go to his church. Meet him. He's one of the world's top experts on Mormonism. No joke.

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And Eric Johnson works with him. Oh, I don't know. Wait a second. Eric Johnson works with him. Oh, man,

29:01

I just realized something. I think Bill's in Israel. I'm not sure. I think he is right now. So you could contact

29:07

Eric Johnson at mrm, email him, and he's—I don't know if he's there, too. Heck, I don't know.

29:13

I don't think he is. Whatever. Anyway, they can tell you. They can tell you what churches are good in the area.

29:18

Sorry about that. I just realized. I think they're in Israel. Okay. Contact him, okay?

29:24

Sure. Okay, then—well, then I guess here's what I'll do, then.

29:30

I'll give them a call, and I guess I'll just start reading from the first one of the

29:36

Gospels, and maybe I'll call you in a week, and I don't know.

29:42

This is all new to me, so I don't want to bug you, but— All right, now stay—

29:47

I'll probably have more questions when I read. Okay, let me give you some more advice. Stay away from any church that's got a woman pastor or elder, and I can go into why that's a problem, but it is.

29:58

These are not taking the Bible seriously. And also, stay away from any church with the word united in the front.

30:05

For some reason, about 95 % of wacko churches that have the word united in the title are also bad, like United Methodist, United Pentecostal.

30:15

If it has a united in it, just stay away. These are generic rules. Okay? I see a lot of assemblies.

30:22

Is that a good or a bad word to look for? I would not go to an assembly of God church because they're hyper -charismatic.

30:28

Teach you can lose your salvation. Have women pastors and elders, and they're becoming theologically liberal.

30:36

Okay. Okay. Then I will stay away from that one, too. Okay. Stay away from that, okay?

30:43

Okay, well, thank you, Matt. Try an evangelical free—try a Calvary Chapel. Try a Calvary Chapel. Nice, average, low -key, and comfortable.

30:51

You'll be fine, okay? Sure, okay. All right. All right, I will try and give you a call.

30:58

See if I have any more questions for you. All right, sounds good. All right, God bless. Thank you,

31:03

Matt. Okay. All right, that's Chris from Utah. Folks, I hope you would pray for him, that God would open up his heart and his mind to who

31:11

Jesus is, and that he'd also find a good church, that he wouldn't get sucked up into cults and false liberal groups.

31:17

And there's an increasing number of them, and I'll tell you, I am so busy trying to catch up and write about all the wacko stuff out there.

31:28

It is—it's hard. Man, I wish people would just settle down and give me 20 years to catch up, and then they can start going heretical again.

31:37

All right, Ben from Middleton. Hey, Ben, how are you? I'm doing good. How are you doing? By God's grace,

31:43

I'm doing very well. What do you got, buddy? Well, I just—after going through on YouTube of your

31:49

Bible study this past Wednesday, I decided to read that heresy festival book again, and then

31:56

I needed something good in theology, so I decided to read your book, The Influence, again. Oh, okay.

32:02

And I just wanted to thank you for that book, because it is just—your book is just incredible. Okay. Okay, I'm gonna be narcissistic here,

32:12

I gotta ask. So why is the book incredible? Well, it's simply that you're biblically based.

32:18

I mean, there's not a lot of Christian fiction out there that's really steady and strong with Bible teaching.

32:28

Yeah, I know. And not to say that I'm great or anything, but yeah, you could tell in the book—I really wove in, too, with the dialogue of Soter, the angel, and Mark—biblical theology, and you could just tell, you know, it's right there and stuff.

32:43

Oh, yeah. Did you enjoy the storyline, though? Was it gripping? It—the first time

32:49

I read it, I read it in about eight hours. Wow. And now I'm on reading number two,

32:55

I just couldn't put it down. Wouldn't it make a good movie? I think it'd make a fantastic movie.

33:03

It would, I think. You know, if you guys decide to do a low -budget thing and make it,

33:08

I volunteer to be the crazy whack job that gets to that. Well, that part would be taken by me.

33:16

I'm pretty good at that, and we know—I'm so talented when it comes to being obnoxious and irritating that I could play the bad parts very naturally.

33:24

But you know what? It would take a multi -million dollar budget to produce that movie because of the special effects necessary in the angelic realm, and it's not going to happen, but still, it's a good book.

33:36

I got number two I'm working on, and number three after that. I just got to get to it. I got so much to do, it's just—it's hard.

33:44

I know how crazy busy you are. I'm at your Bible study quite often, and just the work you have to put into just that is amazing.

33:52

I know. So where do you sit in the Bible study? I'm usually second row, your left, right on the aisle, right by—typically right by the camera.

34:05

Oh, you're that real doofus -y looking guy. I remember now. That would be me. That would be me.

34:13

Yeah, good. Oh, I like that. Okay, cool. All right. Well, good, man. Praise God.

34:19

I'm glad you like the book, and if people want to get it, you can go to the CARM website on the homepage, and it's there.

34:25

Just get the link and go order it. There you go. All right, man. All right. Thank you.

34:31

All right, buddy. God bless. All right. We have fun in the Bible study. We always laugh one way or another.

34:40

I always like to have fun, and I have a good sense of humor. I don't take myself seriously, and when guys ask me questions, they'll ask three or four in a row, and I'll slump my shoulders and go, what?

34:51

And we just have fun, and if you ever want to go, I'll give more information on it next week, but there you go.

34:59

All right. Hey, if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276, and if you want to get in, call free, 877 -207 -2276, and just get that out.

35:12

Actually, if you want to get direct line, 208 -377 -3790.

35:18

All right, Mons. Hey, Mons, how are you? I'm pretty good. Hey, you've been watching that series on Mars that was on a few months ago?

35:27

No. Come on, Olympus Mons on Mars. You've got to watch it.

35:33

It's good. Didn't watch it. Oh, too bad. All right, what's up, man? What do you got? Well, I can't pray in a trance.

35:41

Because I got a Buick. You can't pray in a trance? Yeah. Yeah, I would agree that trances aren't really where to go.

35:52

That's what some groups do and teach. But I pray in my Buick.

35:59

What's that? I pray in my Buick. You pray in your Buick. All right, well, good.

36:07

You need to continue to pray, too. Good for you. All right, well, do you have a question?

36:13

Nope. You talked, okay. I did. I just said pray in a trance.

36:20

I said I'm on a trance on a Buick. Oh, okay, gotcha. All right.

36:26

Okay, well. I pray as I drive. All right, well, appreciate that, all right?

36:32

Okay. All right, God bless. All right, that was Mons, and he's been calling up for a few years.

36:41

And what he does is just calls up and comments, but doesn't really ask a question, and nice guy.

36:47

So if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276, you can also get in via Skype.

36:54

Just type in C -A -R -M -dot -O -R -G. No, you can't. I'm on Skype. Forget that.

37:00

If you want to get in direct line, 208 -377 -3790.

37:06

Love to hear from you. It's Friday. We sometimes do wacko mail and hate mail. And if you want to give me a call, we'll just talk about what you want to talk about, and then

37:15

I'll do some hate mail. So let's get to Eric. Hey, Eric, how are you?

37:22

I'm doing well. How are you doing, Matt? Doing all right, by God's grace. What do you got, buddy? Yeah, so lately

37:29

I've taken a very keen interest in the Book of Enoch and the

37:35

B 'nai Ha 'Elohim, the Sons of God, and the Nephilim, and I'm not sure what

37:42

I think about it, but it's definitely very interesting and entertaining to look at it. So I just wanted to get your take on, what are your thoughts on the

37:50

Book of Enoch and the implications that it has with the Nephilim and stuff like that? Well, you have to refresh my memory on the issue of what the

38:01

Nephilim are stated about in the Book of Enoch, but the Book of Enoch is not considered to be Scripture, and even though it's quoted by Jude, it doesn't mean that it's inspired.

38:12

There are lots of books in the Bible, at least 20, that are referred to but are not included in Scripture.

38:20

So the Book of Enoch is valuable, and it's historically interesting, but it's not

38:28

Scripture, okay? Right, right. I mean, yeah, no, absolutely.

38:36

And I wouldn't make the argument that it was, you know, that just because somebody like Jude quotes it, therefore it would have to be

38:44

Scripture, I think that'd be a weak argument. I mean, I think Paul quotes pagans.

38:50

Yeah, he does. Epimenides and Menander, but it doesn't mean they're inspired. Yeah, yeah, so that'd be a bad argument for it.

38:57

However, I mean, knowing that Enoch was only seven generations removed from Adam, he's a great -granddaddy of Noah, and the fact that the fragments that we do have of Enoch are found with the

39:09

Dead Sea Scrolls, and that it can be traced back to a language called Ge 'ez or something, that it's like even more ancient than Aramaic and Hebrew, it's like a

39:21

Sumerian language that was even... I mean, it's quite possible that if the Book of Enoch was authored by Enoch as is purported to be,

39:30

I mean, that's one of the oldest pieces of literature on the face of the earth, and the fact that Enoch walked so closely with God that he's one of the only two people that God liked him so much, he took him up into heaven without dying,

39:43

I mean, I don't know. I just find it really interesting. It's kind of... It is. I've read the Book of Enoch, and, you know...

39:51

It is interesting. If you like interesting stuff, read Emanuel Velikovsky. There's some interesting stuff that he's come up with in there as well.

39:59

There's all kinds of very interesting, intriguing things that are out there. The Book of Enoch has some interesting stuff in it, so does some of the books of the

40:05

Apocrypha, but they were never considered Scripture, and they're not. But, you know, it doesn't mean that they don't have some valuable insights of some things, and it's kind of fun to say, wow, that's really old, and look what it says.

40:17

Just like, if you've ever heard of Ebla, the Ebla tablets, have you ever heard of those? No, what's that?

40:25

They're... If I remember correctly, it's been a long time, in the 70s, I think it was the 70s, someone who knows this stuff can correct me easily,

40:33

I'm sure, but there was a discovery over in the Middle East of a library of cuneiform tablets, the

40:40

Ebla tablets, and the library was, I think they said at the present rate of translation would take 200 years to translate all the documents, that's how many there were there.

40:51

Maybe that's not accurate, but it was huge. And I also found out about 10 years ago that there's some references, apparently, in there to,

41:00

I think it's either Abraham or Abraham and Lot, and Sodom and Gomorrah, and they're in that area.

41:07

You know, it's just interesting stuff. Yeah. Right, right, right, definitely. So, I mean, why would you say that Enoch, what precludes it from being

41:17

Scripture? Like, what are some of the problems with it? I don't know what the problems are with it, but it's just not inspired, and if it's inspired, then

41:25

God will have it in the canon. The Christian Church recognizes the issue of what inspiration is, and its criteria for doing that has to be, you know, authored by...

41:37

Well, in the New Testament sense, it'd be different than the Old Testament, because the Jews are the ones who recognize the

41:43

Word of God in the Old Testament. The canon was closed by the time Jesus was around, and so it was not considered to be

41:50

Scripture by the Jews. So it just... That is correct, because they didn't accept it in their canon either.

41:58

Right. So why didn't they? You know, I don't know, but there's probably some things in it that are problematic, theologically,

42:05

I don't know. But, you know, Jesus says... And that's... Sorry, go ahead.

42:11

I was going to say, in Luke 1151, Jesus quotes or references the first and last book of the

42:16

Old Testament at the time of its... the way it was arranged then, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, and that was, you know, equivalent of Genesis to Malachi.

42:26

And the Book of Enoch and the apocryphal books are excluded from that listing. So Jesus also did not recognize the

42:32

Book of Enoch as being inspired. Okay? Interesting point. Because reading through it,

42:39

I can't really find too many things that would be a problem theologically, and I even found some things in the

42:45

Talmud for why some of the ancient rabbis rejected it. They didn't like the fact that Enoch was saying that 200 angels decided to rebel against God and then come down and mess around with the genetics of humans by, you know, impregnating human women.

43:05

And so they found that to be almost blasphemy, so they just discounted it for that reason alone.

43:12

And another thing interesting about Enoch is that, other than Daniel, where Daniel explicitly refers to the

43:18

Messiah as the Son of Man, I mean, there are messianic, prosthetic words that are written there about the

43:27

Son of Man, and it says Son of Man over and over again, more so than most of the Old Testament, so...

43:32

I don't know. Well, yeah, but then have you ever heard of what's called the Didache? Yeah, the

43:39

Didache. Isn't the Didache, it's like a creed kind of thing, where it talks about, it lists a bunch of beliefs of the early

43:49

Christians. Okay, the Didache was written by the Apostles, or the disciple of the

43:54

Apostles, maybe Paul at Carpers in debate, within the first century, anywhere from 60 to 90 A .D.,

44:00

and it describes a lot of things very, very early, but it's not in the canon, either.

44:07

True, and from what I know, there's nothing theologically wrong with the Didache, it just wasn't part of the canon.

44:13

Right, right. So there's some issues, you know, I could do some research on the book of Enoch sometime and find out why there are problems in it, and maybe do a little article on it, you know, list out some of the things, just like I did in the book, in some of the apocryphal books that the

44:30

Catholic Church approves. In Tobit, there's the use of magic and money in order to get sins forgiven.

44:37

This is obviously counter -biblical and should not be in the canon, but they include it in 1546 in response to the

44:43

Protestant Reformation. But anyway, we've got other callers, buddy, we need to kind of move on, okay, buddy? All right, have a good one.

44:50

All right, man, God bless. Yeah, the book of Enoch, folks, is referenced by Jude, the brother of Jesus, and it's in the last book of the

44:58

New Testament. But it does not mean that it's inspired. It certainly has some historical validity and valuable content, but it's just not inspired.

45:08

And so there are, if you go to QARM, there are at least 20 books referenced in the Bible that are not in the

45:14

Bible. They're referenced, but not in the Bible. Just because somebody is quoted doesn't mean that that original person or individual or book is inspired in and of itself.

45:24

All right, let's get to Joe from Ontario, Canada. Hey, Joe, how are you? I'm doing well, thank you.

45:30

How are you? Doing all right, by God's grace. What's up? About two months ago,

45:37

I had a bit of a problem with my Bible study group, and we had a substitute teacher instead of my regular reverend.

45:48

And the topic became fear, and the fear in the world today, but the teacher chose to use an example of your election of Donald Trump recently, and that's okay from a starting point, but the problem became that she or he would not let up.

46:12

It went on for about 15 minutes, constantly talking about her problem or his problem with her choice with Donald Trump, and I walked out.

46:23

And ever since, I've had my spiritual family chastise me for walking out.

46:31

So my question is... What's wrong with walking out? You don't like it? You don't just stay there? Yeah.

46:37

Well, they don't like me walking out. So my question is, if there is anything in the

46:44

Bible that supports bringing up political views or Caesar? Well, yeah,

46:50

Jesus mentions giving to Caesar that which is Caesar, paying the taxes and things like that, and in Romans 13, it talks about submitting to the authorities there, the governing authorities.

47:00

Yeah, we're definitely to have a positive relationship with the governments around us, and that they're established by God.

47:07

We're to follow and obey them unless they go against Scripture. Now, I know

47:14

I've been to Canada. I know what it's like, and great people there, and here in America, there's this mistake called separation of church and state, which is not in the

47:22

Constitution, Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence, but it has been used as a hammer to drive

47:27

Christianity out of our culture. And in my opinion, I think that every single pastor should be involved in studying politics to some degree, and when it's appropriate to make political statements from the pulpit.

47:41

But in a generic sense, we should not support candidates who are pro -abortion or pro -homosexual.

47:48

We should not support Marxism and things like that. These are counter -scriptural.

47:54

We should not support segregation, because that's unbiblical as well, you know, like color differentiation.

48:01

And we should not have open borders. We should uphold the laws and, you know, help people who want to come into the country legally just do it according to the laws, which is what the

48:10

Bible says. According to laws, that's what it says. So, um... Well, even if it was

48:15

Hillary or even if she was talking about my prime minister, Trudeau, I don't need to hear it for 15 minutes without any reference to the

48:25

Bible or scripture or what Jesus says to show that he overcame fear. So, you know, what's a right to walk out, or...

48:35

Well, Trump's a much better president than Obama. She's... You sound like your friend's a leftist and stuff and hates

48:42

Trump. I didn't vote for Trump, but our government's in a lot of trouble and our culture's in a lot of trouble.

48:50

And Trump, the reason he got in is because Americans are sick and tired of what's happening. There's...

48:57

People are tired here of the bureaucracy, the leftist leanings, the liberal crap that's always shoved down our throats.

49:05

Uh, we're tired of it. And when Trump came in, the reason he made it is because so many

49:11

Americans are sick and tired of the leftist agenda that's constantly being shoved down our throats on TV and magazines and movies.

49:19

I mean, I've never seen the series 24. My wife and I watched that years ago. We thought it was great.

49:24

We just started watching the new series, and they got homosexual stuff in there, and Muslims are great.

49:30

And it's like, I'm so tired of it. Wow. It sure has changed from when

49:35

Keeper Sullivan was a star.

49:41

It was just about, you know, protecting family and co -workers and looking for the evidence to prove that somebody's conspiring to kill.

49:51

Right. And now, you know, you've got the politically correct homosexual relationships going, and that's okay.

49:57

And the Muslim issue, and, you know, my wife and I are watching.

50:05

But anyway, I have no problem talking to brothers and sisters outside of the pulpit about politics or whatever the problem it might be.

50:17

But when somebody, when a pastor or reverend or preacher or whatever opens up, you know, saying, well, you know,

50:24

I feel we need to talk about fear that is in the world. And then proceeds to not talk about only the fear and not about the

50:31

Bible and the Scriptures. Yeah. I can't help but feel cornered. Yeah, it's an agenda that's being shoved down your throat.

50:39

And I agree. Now, if I were preaching, if I were a pastor again, and politics was there, I'd say, folks, look, biblically speaking, you shouldn't be voting for people who are pro -abortion who want to kill babies.

50:49

You shouldn't be voting for people who are pro -homosexual. It's against the decrees of God. You shouldn't be voting for people like that.

50:56

You shouldn't. And if they get offended, let them get offended. But Christians don't have any business doing that.

51:03

Just like Christians should not have AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, in their churches. It's occult based.

51:10

And it's, you know, sure, it gets people to stop drinking, but it teaches a false God, a false gospel. It shouldn't be in a church.

51:16

So people are so used to liberalism in so many ways that when the bright light of truth comes on them, it's a glare.

51:24

They put up their hands to block it, and they don't like it. They want to be out of that light. And we

51:30

Christians are going to start standing up and start speaking the truth. You know, it's going to happen in your country as well as mine.

51:38

Oh yeah, well, right now we're dealing with a bill that is soon trying to become a law that's actually contradicting a current law we already have against hate crime.

51:52

But this new law is going to be trying to be pushed in, it's called, right now it's a bill called

51:57

M103, and they're calling it the anti -Islamic law, where you cannot say anything against Islam or Muslims or any sort of...

52:10

It's insane! That's insane! They'll push it, but they immediately try to push the detail about it, saying, well, it's against the discrimination against any religion, and most of us are looking at it like, so why are you putting

52:27

Islam on the title of it? Right. So a lot of people are starting to protest about that, but we have a true...

52:34

Our Prime Minister Trudeau and his cabinet are ignoring the public, and they just do whatever they please, so...

52:42

Yeah, you guys are in trouble, it's the same kind of things happening here. Yeah, so if I were to talk to you right now in Canada, you know, and quoting, you know, the bloody state of the

52:52

Quran, apparently if this law passed, I could have my door bashed down and be arrested tomorrow, if the law passed.

53:01

Yeah, well, that's exactly correct. It's moving towards that here. You're not allowed to criticize

53:06

Islam or homosexuality, but both homosexuals and Islam could criticize

53:13

Christians. That's how it's going. Now, think about it, you know, a quick analogy is you have fossils in the ground, you propose a theory, the theory seems to fit the evidence, so the theory is accepted.

53:27

Well, what would be the theory behind the systematic dismantling of righteousness and the persecution of Christians in your country and my country?

53:41

It would seem to me that there's an agenda, a political social agenda that's pushing things in a certain direction.

53:48

Islam is extremely dangerous, and all of the statistical evidence points to its danger.

53:56

Just look at what's happened in Sweden, in Norway, Denmark, with the immigrants coming in there from Islamic countries, crime rates soar, rape soars, it's a fact, and I've got documentation on the website, but the liberal agenda is,

54:14

I think liberalism is a mental disorder. I really do.

54:19

I think it needs to be examined, and it's a disorder. Something's wrong with these people.

54:25

But the media in your country and my country selectively decides what kind of things are going to be taught.

54:32

Like I said, in this movie, or in the series, the new one, 24, they said, oh, Islam is a religion of peace.

54:38

It is not a religion of peace. The Quran does not teach that. It teaches killing.

54:45

It teaches beheading. It teaches crucifixion of people who don't agree. That's what it teaches.

54:51

That's what it teaches, people, where I've actually been telling people that the peace that they preach is only peace towards those who believe in Allah and Muhammad.

55:01

That's right, under Sharia, which is oppressive. It's an evil religion.

55:10

I will debate any Muslim on it. I will debate any Muslim, and I'll quote the Hadith, and I'll quote the

55:15

Quran, and we'll go through abrogation. And they know, what I've just now said, if anybody's listening, they know

55:22

I'm right, and no one will debate me on, is Islam a religion of peace? Because they know.

55:28

They know I'm right. It will never happen. And Islam is not a religion of peace.

55:35

Why is it that the people in our country and your country, these officials, want it promoted? You know what's happening in California?

55:42

They actually had a case where, in the schools, that you had

55:47

Islam Week, and you had to dress like Muslims and recite from the Quran. Yeah, I heard about that, yeah.

55:53

I heard about that. Let's have Christian Week. Of course we can't have that. Because they're also giving the kids quizzes to fill out to test how much they know about Islamic history and the

56:06

Quran. I know, it's insane. Our country's being undermined.

56:12

The only way to make sense of all the facts is to say that there must be a direct conspiracy to do this, and there's an agenda, and it's being systematically implemented through the media and social structures and education.

56:27

That's what it has to be. It makes sense. There's the evidence. Here's the theory that supports it. Anyway, we've got to get going.

56:34

I've got about 30 seconds in the show, okay? All right. Hey, man, love that call.

56:41

Look, folks, Islam is not a religion of peace. It is not. Go to my website. Go to CARM. Look up Islam violence statistics.

56:51

Go look it up. You'd be surprised what the Muslims themselves say about ISIS and Al Qaeda.

56:57

And they say that ISIS represents Islam accurately. These Muslim countries, that's what they say.

57:05

Hey, folks, it's Friday. I'm out of here. May the Lord bless you. Have a great week, if you can. And by His grace, we'll be on the air again

57:12

Monday back in the studio. We'll talk to you then. God bless. Bye. Go online now to CARM .org.

57:31

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