Matt Slick Live: December 18, 2024

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The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at CARM .org.

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When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live! For answers, take in your calls and respond to your questions at 877 -207 -2276.

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Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody, welcome to the show with me, Matt Slick. Check your list of Matt Slick Live!

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And if you want to give me a call, as usual, it's easy, 877 -207 -2276.

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And if you want, you can send me an email, that's easy as well. Just direct an email to info at CARM .org,

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info at CARM .org. And put in the subject line, radio comment, radio question, and we can get to it.

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We have nobody waiting right now, just want to let you know that this is December, our matching funds drive.

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So if that sounds like a good thing you want to support, please consider that. We don't, you know, we don't,

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I don't like asking, I really don't. People on the board and people who work with me, you know, you got to ask more.

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But it's just, I'd rather write, teach, answer questions and things like that, let the Lord take care of stuff.

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But, we are having a drive for the end of the month, matching funds drive.

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So if you want to support this ministry and the radio show, please, all you have to do is go to CARM .org

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forward slash donate, and you can check it out. You can do that, it's pretty easy. And it's, yeah, it's right there.

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All right, having said that, we've got nobody waiting, why don't you give me a call. Oh, get a yawn, hold on.

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Oh, man, that's a good one. You know, sorry about that. That's a good yawn. Sometimes yawns are just good.

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All right, I think what I'm going to do is get you some emails because, well, we've got people emailing, we've got a caller coming in, and we can get you some stuff and I want to,

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I like doing, I like doing the emails, I like, I just like answering questions. There have always been some that do that,

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I don't know, ever since I was a young, you know, taught, I guess, you always wanted to help and when

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I got into school, I liked helping people answering questions. So I always did that, you know,

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I was a little, just a little more advanced than the average bear in throughout classes, and, you know,

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I just would study this stuff. I remember once, I just remembered something, I went to a trade school to learn how to be a mechanical draftsman, and I did that for a few years.

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And we had to go to this school, and back in the 80s, I think it was, 80s, yeah, early 80s.

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Anyway, so I did that, and in the class they gave us a math book, and, get the math book, and so it had different levels of math.

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And it didn't go up to trig, it just went up to some algebra. So they gave us the book, and,

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I don't know, it, I don't know, it's 50, 70, 100 pages, I don't remember. And all this stuff you had to do.

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And the professor said, just turn it in on a weekly basis. And so I went home that,

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I don't know, Friday, and I went home, and I did all of them. I did everything.

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And then I took it, a stack of like 50 pages of answers, and I just plopped it down. The next day,

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I go, here's all done, it's all done. And you can't do that, I go, yeah, I did, he said, no, you don't, she said, no, there's too much to do.

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I said, no, it's not, it's easy, and I did it all, and here it is. And so, that was it, you know, what I was going to do, just sat in the class, was bored the rest of the time.

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But I always, I liked math and science, and that was a lot of fun for me, I always liked that kind of stuff.

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I did. Okay, now that we're wasting time, let's see if we can get to Alan from Virginia.

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Alan, welcome, you're on the air. Hey, Matt, how you doing?

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Oh, doing all right, just hanging in there, reminiscing. So, what do you got, man? So, what is the exact definition of the gospel?

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Because whenever I ask that to someone, they'll be like, it's the good news, it's this verse, or that verse, and I'm just looking at right now, we're from Paul, and apparently there's like three different verses talking about what the gospel exactly is.

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Can you give us some insight into that? Sure, in 1 Corinthians 15, it says,

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Brethren, I make known to you the gospel. Now, when they say the good news, that's what the

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Greek word, euangelia, good news, good word, is, that's translated into the

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English, the gospel. The gospel by which you received, which you stand, namely that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, he was buried, he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

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So that is the primary place where the gospel is defined, and it's used in other places as well.

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In fact, what I'm gonna do right now is do this, I'm gonna count how many times the word gospel occurs in the

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New Testament, and it occurs 76 times, 76 times.

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So Jesus speaks of the gospel in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, it's actually

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Matthew and Mark, he mentions the gospel. And so what's interesting is before Christ was crucified, the gospel was the good news of the kingdom.

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And after the crucifixion, it still is, but now we understand it's a death, burial, resurrection of Christ. So it is the power of God to salvation,

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Romans 1, 16, and it is the good news that you don't have to keep the law and do good works in order to be saved, that Christ did it all and put your faith and your trust in him.

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And then peripherally speaking with that, the issue of justification is crucial and salvation.

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Salvation is being delivered from the righteous judgment of God, and that is by grace through faith, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, by grace through faith you have been saved, it's a gift of God.

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But justification is the legal declaration of righteousness, and that's Romans 4, 1 through 5, and that justification is received by faith alone.

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So we would say then generically, putting all this together, the gospel is the good news that you don't have to keep the law to be saved, but through the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ for our sins, he did everything that was necessary, and that you can receive the righteousness of God by faith alone, through what he has done alone, and without your necessity to do good works in order to earn that favor.

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And that's basically what the gospel is, okay? Okay. So it's not necessarily all combined in a single verse.

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Sometimes it has like verses all over it, okay. Yep. In fact, like I said, it occurs 76 times.

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So he's imprisoned for the gospel in Philemon 13. And they don't obey the gospel in 1

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Peter 4 .17. Now what does it mean to obey the gospel? Well, Jesus is the founder of that gospel, and he says, come to me,

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I'll have you laid and I will give you rest, to trust in Christ Jesus, Matt 11 .28. And he says, don't love one another.

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Now, you do all these things because this is part of what the whole gospel is. Narrowly speaking, it's justification by faith alone, through what

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Christ did on the cross alone. Broadly speaking, it's the whole area that is provided for us through the work of Christ.

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Okay? Okay. Sounds good. I appreciate it, Matt. All right.

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Good. Okay. Sounds good? God bless. Anything else? Okay. Well, God bless. God bless. Okay. This reminds me of an incident that happened years and years ago, before I was married even.

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I was going, I think it was before I was married, anyway, I was going out to different places and preaching the gospel.

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And you know, I did it with Charlie and Dave, did it for two and a half years at the

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Swapnick ministry in Southern California, in the city of Orange, and did that for years.

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And then, I did this too, I went out in front of Mormon churches, Mormon wards, and I'd pass out literature to the people who'd go in.

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I wouldn't block traffic, I wouldn't be mean, I wouldn't yell. I would just pass out literature, you know, and just trying to witness to them, because they have a false gospel.

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And I remember this, I was standing on the sidewalk, and you know, from the sidewalk to the street, you know, that little strip of grass, three, four feet wide, and then there's the curb, and then there's the street.

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And this guy, he pulled up, he rolled down the passenger window, and he wasn't threatening me, like,

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I'll tell you that story too, like what happened in Twin Falls, Idaho. But this guy wasn't threatening me, he was just saying, what are you doing?

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He goes, I just got out of church, you know, out of the ward here, why are you doing this? And I said, well, because I'm trying to get you guys to know who the true

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Jesus is, and the true God, and the true gospel. And he says, well, we have the true God, we have the true Jesus, we have the true gospel.

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And it just occurred to me, right then, I still remember this, what's the gospel, I asked him.

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It was just out of nowhere. And I said, what is the gospel? He looked at me kind of confused.

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Now, maybe you're a Mormon listening to this, you know, what would you say the gospel is? And he thought about it, and he said, well, it's the, you know, it's the laws and the ordinances of the

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Mormon Church. And I said, are you sure that's what the gospel is? And he says, well, yeah, it's what it is, it's what we have to do, it's the laws and ordinances of the

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Mormon Church. He said it two or three times. And I said, okay, well, 1 Corinthians 15, one through five says the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for our sins.

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It specifically defines it that, and I said, you didn't know that, and I'll explain why you didn't.

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2 Corinthians 4, verses 3 and 4, and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the

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God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they may not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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He didn't know what to say. I still remember this. I remember his car, and it was a dark maroonish kind of red color, and a little faded.

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And he stared at me. He just stared at me because, you know, I said, you don't have the gospel.

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You don't have the true gospel. And he just drove off. That's all he could do, you know. He didn't know what it was, and the reason is because he went to a false church.

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And all cults teach false gospels, and this is what they do. There's two ways to mess up the gospel.

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It's really easy. One is simply to just have a false object of faith, like Jesus in Mormonism, the brother of the devil, begotten through sexual relations between God and his goddess wife who came from another world.

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Well, that's a false Christ. You put faith in a false Christ, you're not going to be saved. Or if you go to the

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Catholic church, which they teach, they curse the gospel in Council of Trent's Canons on Justification, Canon 9 and 24.

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They curse the gospel. They say anyone who believes you're justified by faith alone and nothing else is needed to the obtaining of the grace of God, then let him be accursed.

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And then in Paragraph 2068, they say you obtain salvation or attain salvation through faith, baptism, and the observance of the commandments.

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So what they're doing is teaching a false gospel. They have a true Christ, but they teach a false gospel.

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In order to invalidate the saving work of God, all the devil has to do is get you to believe in a false

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God, hence a false Christ, or add works to the finished work of Christ being a false gospel.

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Simple. False God, false gospel. And then the way he masks it, the way the devil masks it is, for example, in Mormons.

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Mormons are a great example of this. They use the Bible and they have the same words, but they have different definitions.

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So when they say God, they mean a God who's an exalted man who's about six feet tall, has a body of flesh and bones.

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But when you say, do you believe in the God of the Bible, they'll say, yes, but they're not saying, you know, the same thing you are.

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Or do you believe in the Trinity? They say, yeah. And you go, oh, I thought they didn't believe in the Trinity. But they think the Trinity is three separate gods.

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They'd redefine things, you know. So that's one thing. And they think they believe the truth, but they don't.

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And then there are those who say, well, on the gospel, the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, well, you've got to do good works because it's part of salvation.

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I say, yeah, it is part, but it's not what gets you salvation. Our good works are because of God and his work in us.

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And then they'll say, well, they're done by the grace of God. And so we're saved by grace, you see? So the devil's clever when he works through both of these churches and other churches to get a false

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Christ spoken of and a false gospel. Make it sound good, but it really isn't.

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And you have to be well -trained in theology and in the errors of those two groups in order to know exactly what's going on and what the problem is.

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If you want to give me a call, it's 877 -207 -2276.

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It'll be right there. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

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Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. If you want to give me a call, the number, 877 -207 -2276.

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I want to hear from you. Give me a call. We have been working on SEMrush quite a bit, making the site better.

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You may have noticed it, some areas, or you may not have because a lot of it is behind the scenes, but we are working hard.

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A lot of us are working hard trying to get things going. And there you go with that. Now, I was talking about the issue of the gospel.

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I've got a question for you. Do you believe in the gospel? Sometimes the gospel needs to be preached to the believers as well.

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And even though you may trust in Christ, do you know more about that gospel?

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I mean, it's the death, burial, and resurrection. But along with it, the gospel is that God no longer has a wrathful attitude towards us because we're now covered in the blood of Christ, our sins have been removed, and we are justified.

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We are made right before God. This is important for a lot of people to understand because a lot of times

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Christians get a woe -is -me mentality, and they think that God's out to get them, or God's out to hurt them.

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Now, there may be times when God's going to discipline you. Now, that's a different topic. I mean, we deserve to be disciplined, and God will do that.

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I mean, I've been disciplined by the Lord myself on several occasions, and I'm thankful for that. But in the gospel is that place where Jesus, God in flesh, bore our sins in His body on that cross, 1

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Peter 2 .24. And He did everything necessary. We can't.

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Now, this means, then, that the commitment that God has to you is sealed in the blood of Christ.

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Now, one of the things I love about Reformed theology is the issue of God's eternal decrees and God's eternal work.

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And in Ephesians, I'm going to explain this, why this is important with the gospel and why it's important to you.

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In Ephesians 1 .4, it says, Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

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In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the contention of His will.

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Now, what I want you to think about, this is theology. I love theology. See, it says,

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Just as He chose us in Him. He is the Father. He chose.

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That's important for us to understand. He chose us. Now, 2 Thessalonians 2 .13,

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it says, God has chosen us from the beginning for salvation. In Acts 13 .48,

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it says, As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. Now, there's three things here to look at.

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The He, that's the Father, chose us, that's the elect, in Him, that's Jesus. And this deals with federal headship.

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Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this, okay? I've got to lay this down first. I want you to understand something, though. In Him is federal headship, which is a teaching that the male represents the descendants.

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Jesus represented us. He represented His people. When was this representation decided?

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Before the foundation of the world. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.

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If you're a Christian, when did God choose you for salvation? Before the universe existed.

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And it was chosen, He chose you, not because of any good quality in you, because there's nothing good in you that would merit

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God's favor towards you. Otherwise, that wouldn't be grace. No, He chose you.

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And what's weird, He chose you knowing everything about you, because He knows all things, all future events, everything.

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He knows everything about you, the wickedness of some of your thoughts, the evil intention of some of your motives, the hypocrisy that you struggle with, the sins that you've tried to forsake so many times and still have you, the rebellion, the anger, all of it, along with your humble supplication before God through Christ.

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You're seeking Him and His will. All of this, your failures, your mistakes, your successes, all of it,

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He's known every bit of it since before the foundation of the world, and yet He chose you and He loved you.

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To me, that's incredibly helpful. And I heard someone once say,

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I'm glad that God chose me from the foundation of the world, because if He'd look at me now,

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He wouldn't pick me. And what we're saying when we reference that is, we know that our hearts are not that good.

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We know that we make mistakes. We know we sin, even as Christians. We struggle with our sin, just like Paul did in Romans 7, 18 -25, who will deliver me from this body of death, the struggle of sin.

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And yet He chose us in Him. That's the Gospel. In Him is Jesus, and the only way we could be chosen is if Christ represented us.

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The Father gave us to the Son, and the Son became flesh and redeemed us by His blood.

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Now, this means that it was planned before the foundation of the world that He chose you.

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It wasn't based on your wisdom. Oh, I'm wise enough, I chose Jesus and others didn't.

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Nope. It's not because of your sincerity. Why, look at the goodness of my heart. Isn't that what

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God chose me because of how good I am? See, these things are pride. God doesn't look to us for His goodness.

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It flows from Him. And His election, His choosing, before the foundation of the world, is so that we behold

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Him blameless. This means all of what you are, and the stuff that you know about yourself that's not good, and all of that, and yet He's loved you.

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And He died and bore your sin in His body on the cross, and all you have to do is just trust Him. Lean on Him.

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Believe in Him. And you can do this throughout your Christian life. Throughout your

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Christian life. You don't keep your salvation by being good. Sorry, you're just not going to be good enough. You don't lose it by being bad, because you made a new creature.

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2 Corinthians 5 .17 You're born again. John 3 .3 -8 Jesus lives in you.

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John 14 .23 We're different. We have been changed.

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Now, it doesn't mean we're perfect. But we struggle. Oh yeah, we struggle. And we move forward.

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And all this is the work of God in us and through us. But, He has loved you.

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Eternally. His thoughts for you, His love for you is unfathomable, because it is eternal.

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It has always existed in the mind of the Trinitarian God. And His decision to save you, to grant you repentance.

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2 Timothy 2 .25 To grant you faith. Philippians 1 .29 To cause you to be born again.

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1 Peter 1 .3 That He is the one who did this. And nothing that you do can cause

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God to leave you. Nothing that you can do can cause

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Him to leave you. In Hebrews, He says, He will never leave us. He will never forsake us.

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It's just not possible. It can't happen that He would leave you.

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You see, the Lord God is faithful to His own word. And He has given us to the

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Son for safekeeping. And we will not be lost. And you need to know this about yourself. When we get back from the break, we'll talk a little bit more about this.

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And why you need to hear this gospel message on a regular basis. We'll be right back after these messages. Please give me a call.

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877 -207 -2276 We'll be right back.

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It's Matt Slick Live! Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276

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Here's Matt Slick. Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, the number is easy.

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877 -207 -2276 You can also email me at info at carm .org

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info at c -a -r -m dot o -r -g Just put in the subject line, radio comment, radio question.

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We can get to it. So I was talking about the gospel.

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And a lot of times when I counsel people, I have to tell them the gospel. I have to tell them what

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Jesus has done. And I have to tell them about the theology out of Ephesians 1 -4.

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That He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. I need to tell them that God's love for them is eternal.

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It cannot be quenched. It cannot be removed. It cannot be canceled. And this is so helpful to so many people.

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When they see themselves struggling against different types of sin and failing, as we all do, not that it's okay to sin,

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I'm not saying that. I'm not saying we should not repent. I'm not saying we should not strive for sanctification and the goodness that comes through us by the power of the

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Holy Spirit. I'm not saying we shouldn't seek for all those good things. We should. But I want people to understand that you don't get yourself saved by your obedience and your goodness and your sincerity.

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You don't keep yourself saved by your goodness, your obedience, and your sincerity. You just don't.

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People need to hear this. And it's so necessary. It is so necessary.

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Let me give you an example of something. I don't want to get too specific. It was out of my own life.

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There was an instance back a long time ago. And I was having the worst time letting go of it, of my sin.

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It was something I had repented of. It was something I had regretted. It was something I was so sorry for. And I was just not doing well.

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You know, it was just constantly upon my heart. And the

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Lord arranged it so that someone counseled me and said,

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Matt, you're not depending on the cross, are you? I said, of course I am. She said, no, you're not.

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He said, you're keeping this for yourself, this guilt, the shame, and that you are holding on to it, suffering through it.

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I said, that's true, because I'm so bad, and I have such a big regret for this instance, what I did.

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They said, well, Jesus took care of it. You need to let it go and give it to Him. And it was so hard to do that.

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It was so hard because I wanted to beat myself up for the guilt that rightly was mine.

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And I wanted to allow myself to suffer for it. And then maybe

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God would be pleased with me after I suffered enough. And of course, that's just false teaching.

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God isn't pleased with you if you beat yourself up enough. Oh, now you're worthy to be with Jesus. That's a false gospel.

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It's a sinful thing, and I had to repent of that as well. And it took a while before I was able to give to God my sin and let it go.

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It was hard, because I knew how guilty I was. I know that there's a lot of people out there who have similar issues that they either don't want to let them go, even though they claim to be

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Christians. They probably are Christians. They don't want to let them go or have trouble letting them go.

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Women, I think, are a little more susceptible to this because they're more emotional. And I'm not knocking that.

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I just think that's just my opinion. I haven't done any research to verify, but I just think that's the case. Because women, they feel things deeper.

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And I think that they are aware, more so a lot of times than guys, about the condition of their hearts and before the

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Lord. And I also think that women are a little bit better sometimes than men at really resting in Christ.

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So that's what I've seen. That's just my experience. It doesn't mean it's universally true. It's just my experience.

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But either way, I've talked to men as well who've had great struggles in their past, and I do the same thing.

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I talk to them about what it means to give something up and give it to Christ. I know.

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Oh, I know what it means. To let go. To let go of your companion sin, the thing that you've allowed yourself to suffer over because you realize how dark it is and what you've done.

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You don't want to let it go because you don't deserve to be free from it. You just don't. You know.

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And it's true, you don't. But Jesus takes care of it. It's hard sometimes to let go and to accept the full forgiveness of Christ in our hearts and our minds, to rely on Him completely and totally and recognize that the love that God has had for us is eternal.

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It has no cap. It has no depth that can be plumbed. It has no strength that can be broken.

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It is resting in the nature, in the heart, in the mind of God forever. And He chose you.

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He knows everything about you. And He loves you. And He's not going to bring up your sins.

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He's not going to rub them in your face. And He's going to love you and embrace you with His great forgiveness.

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That's what Jesus has done on the cross. And that's what I hope that people who hear this would let the gospel wash over them yet again, if they have believed in Christ, to let it wash upon you.

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And if any of you out there are not Christians and you want the guilt of your sins and the past that you have, the evil that you've committed in your past, the things that you've done, maybe no one knows about it.

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They just, they drag you back, they drag you down. And you're so ashamed. All you have to do is go to the

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King. Go to the Lord God Jesus. And just in your heart, you humble yourself.

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And you just let your soul just be broken in His presence.

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And admit that your heart betrays you and that you have nothing to offer Him. And you just say, please forgive me.

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Please cleanse me. I've got nothing except guilt. I'm just wrong.

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Please forgive me. Trust in Jesus. Not the Jesus of Mormonism. Not the

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Jesus of Jehovah's Witnesses. And not the false gospel of the Eastern Orthodox Church or the

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Roman Catholic Church. But you trust in the true Jesus, second person of the Trinity, God in flesh, creator of all things, who did everything.

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And all you have to do is receive it by faith. Not by faith and baptism. Not by faith and sacraments.

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Not by faith and your sincerity and goodness. But by faith in Him. Strip away all the stuff that comes from you.

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Get rid of it. Because even the faith that you have in Him is from Him. Because it says in Philippians 129, to you it has been granted to believe.

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And Jesus says, this is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent. You see, this is what the gospel is.

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This is what the truth is. And you have to understand something else. I thought about going to this verse earlier.

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But I want you to understand, in John 6, 37 -40, Jesus says,

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He says, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the ones who come to me

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I certainly will not cast out. He will not get rid of you. He can't.

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Because the Father has given you to the Son for safekeeping.

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That's how it works. And in John 10, 27, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them.

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They follow me, and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand.

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My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of my

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Father's hand. That's who Jesus is to you. Put your faith and your trust in Jesus.

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Put your faith and trust in what Christ has done. And by faith alone, not by faith in your sincerity and your goodness.

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Don't put any hope in your ability. Just in what He has done. Receive Him by faith.

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I've got to warn you, though. I have to warn you, that anybody who does that,

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He will take you as you are, but He won't leave you as you are. It's tough sometimes when

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He wants you to be honest and to confess and to deal with things you've done because He wants purity from you.

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Now, those things are tough. And whether you do well or not in them has no bearing on your salvation.

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You trust in Christ alone and you let Him work in you. It's good, and it works.

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It's the work of God in you. And He will bless you. And He will take care of you over the rest of your life.

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He'll never leave you. He'll never forsake you. Alright. Well, there you go.

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I just had to preach that gospel. I don't know why. It just kind of came up on me. So, there you go. Now, if you want to give me a call, we have a break coming up here in a little bit.

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But if you want to call me, the number is 877 -207 -2276.

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And we've got some comments coming in. We keep having them about divorce.

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We can talk about that. We can talk about the issue of divorce, too. Folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

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Please, stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

34:17

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. I just want to remind you that December is our matching funds drive month.

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So, whatever you donate, whatever you give to us will be doubled. And I just want to let you know about that.

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It's easy to support us. Just go to karm .org forward slash donate. Karm .org

34:37

forward slash donate. And everything you need is right there. Easy peasy. We really appreciate it.

34:44

So, this issue of divorce, this was raised here a little bit ago before the break about divorce.

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So, divorce is not always sinful. In that, it doesn't mean both parties have sinned.

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Always. At least one party has sinned. Otherwise, the divorce wouldn't occur. So, the reason

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I'm saying this is because in Jeremiah 3 .8, God says something most interesting. He says,

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And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce.

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Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she went and was a harlot also.

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So, God issued a writ of divorce. So, if it's a sinful thing to do automatically, why would

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God say that he had issued a writ of divorce? Now, it's a metaphor.

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And he didn't take a paper out of heaven and put it down there in a sanctuary. See, there it is. That's not what's going on.

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But the point here is that God has done nothing wrong, and yet there was a writ of divorce offered.

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And that the person, in this case, the guilty party, is the one who has caused that divorce to occur.

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And so, some people think just because you're divorced, it means you automatically are continually and permanently in sin.

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And that's not the case. So, not always, sometimes it could be, but let me explain.

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Here's the thing, if you're an unbeliever and you just get a divorce because you don't like each other and then you go marry somebody else, you're in a state of rebellion against God in an adulterous relationship.

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And it needs to be taken care of. Now, what happens when they become

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Christians? Let's say this couple, they become Christians. Well, then what happens is that it is all washed clean.

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And from that point on, once they're both saved there, they just move forward and stay married and just move forward.

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And God is very forgiving and very gracious, very kind. So, He's not legalistic with us in the forgiveness.

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So, what do you do if a Christian couple just can't get along? You go see counseling.

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You go work on it. I've counseled many couples and I teach biblical theology every time so they understand what covenant is, what marriage is, what responsibilities are, and things like that.

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And as far as I am aware, none of the couples that I've counseled have gotten divorces.

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But I've lost contact with a lot of them too, so I can't say for a fact that they never have. I'm just saying that for the time that I knew them and the conditions and things that went on for a few years, then they moved away, we lost contact.

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No divorce had occurred during those times. So, I can just say that. That's all I can say. But I think it's important that we understand that God is very forgiving.

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And just like people who've had abortions, just like people who've divorced, people who've stolen, people who have done stuff, and they can't make it better because the person they've offended is gone, lost contact with, or passed away, or whatever.

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And you've got to make it right. Well, sometimes you just can't. So what you do is you go to the Lord and you just lay it all out before Him and just say,

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I can't do anything. Because you actually can't do anything. God understands.

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God cleanses. God sanctifies. You've got to trust in Him.

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We need that gospel. And, you know, even as a Christian apologist, as an ordained minister, someone who's been doing radio for so many years and written thousands of articles, counseled people,

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I need the gospel. I need the gospel. You know, there's some stuff in my life that is coming up again from past days, past years.

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And it's troublesome. And I'm going to be very generic on purpose, but I need to just let

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God take care of it. I need to let God work it out. And, man, that can be hard sometimes.

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There are just conditions. There are just things that are prevalent. There are things that come up. There are things that rear their ugly head again that you thought was taken care of and was fine.

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And all you can do sometimes is just lay them before God and just back away and say, I can't fix it.

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I don't know if it'll ever be fixed, but it's yours, Lord. Please make of it what you desire.

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And then that's basically all we can do. And don't let the naysayers mock you and condemn you.

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Your hope is in Christ, and your strength is in Him. It's almost like saying the more that you look to somebody else and are injured by others, it's almost like saying that means you're not trusting in Christ enough.

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Now, I don't want to give some legalistic thing. If you let yourself be bothered by somebody else and your feelings get hurt or you feel guilty all over again from years past, that means you're not trusting in Jesus enough.

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You need to repent. No, no, no, no. I'm just saying sometimes what God does is

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He allows things in our lives just to increase our dependence on Him and our faithful trust in Him beyond our ability to understand.

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That's what I'm trying to make out of that. And when people come up, and I've had it lots of times, oh, you this, you that, and years ago that and this.

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True, true, true. But my hope is in Jesus. You know, I visualize myself hearing them yak and accuse.

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And all I can do is say, yeah, it's true. And then I turn my eyes away from them onto the person of Jesus.

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And He's the one that matters. He's the one who forgives. He's the one who's there.

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That's hard to do sometimes. It's hard to do because, well, we have a habit of carrying around our chains.

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The chains that flow out from our hearts wrapped around our souls, these chains of regret.

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These chains of sorrow. The chains of trouble that we have. We just, they just drag us back and we're not free.

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But we can be free. We can be completely free. We can be, but only in Jesus.

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You've got to trust in Him. If you haven't trusted in Him, you've got to trust in Him. He can cleanse every sin you've ever committed permanently.

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On the Day of Judgment, He will embrace you and forgive you of everything because His blood is that powerful because He's God in flesh.

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And if you are a Christian and you're struggling with this, you know, just go back to the cross.

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Go back to your first love and just trust in Him. And just say, I trust you beyond my ability to understand, beyond my ability to feel.

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Even the feelings I have are persistent in my guilt or my whatever. But I just trust you and lay that before you as well.

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Just admit, Lord, I'm defective. See, that's the simplicity and the wonder of the gospel.

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But it's only as good as who you put your faith in. And in our case, for the true Christians, not for the fake

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Christians like Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphians, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox.

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For the real Christians, we've trusted in the true God, the one single God who is the

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Trinity. And the second person of the Trinity became man, was made under the law, never sinned, went to the cross, falsely accused, and bore our sins in His body as He lay dying, or as He was hung up on that cross, suspended from it, dying.

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And that sacrifice wrought at the hands of evil men is the thing that cleanses us.

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And think about this, you weren't up there with Him. He was there by Himself.

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You weren't up there atoning for your own sins and your own guilt. You were not up there.

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He was. If there was any other way you were to be up there, it would happen some way, somehow.

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But no, He did it by Himself. And so as a Christian, we need to trust in Him every day.

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We need to trust in Him, what He has, what He's got for us. Every single day we've got to just trust in what

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He has. It's easy to do, and sometimes it's hard to do at the same time.

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But that's just the confusion that we sometimes experience in our lives as Christians as we try and just walk this path with our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, being more like Him, and being more faithful, and being more faithful to the forgiveness that He has for us, and not holding on to the past and letting it drag us down, and letting us guilt -witless.

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I know we deserve it, but He took it. So trust in Him. That's what

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I want you to do. All right, so we only have about three minutes left in the show, and I just want to remind you that this month is the

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Matching Funds Drive. And if you want to support us, all you have to do is go to karm .org,

44:38

C -A -R -M dot O -R -G forward slash donate, and everything you need is right there.

44:45

And if you put in or donate $5, it'll become $10. Whatever it is you do. And if you do a recurring, like $5 a month, that'll be $60 total next year, and we count the 60 and double that.

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That's how it works, so it's really nice. You can also email me your questions and your comments at info at karm .org,

45:07

C -A -R -M dot O -R -G. Put in a subject line, radio comment, radio question, and that should be easy.

45:17

Also, let's see, I will not be on the air live for the week of Christmas, so 23rd, 4th, 5th, all that won't be on.

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So I'll be on for two more days, Thursday the 19th, be on Friday the 20th, and after that,

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I'll be off for a week and a half or so, and be back on live on December 2nd,

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I mean December 2nd, on January 2nd, which happens to be the anniversary date of me starting radio 20 years ago on that day, 20 years ago, five days a week, doing radio five days a week.

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So that was 20 years ago. I've been doing radio, man, it's a long time. Wow, started back in 2005 on January 2nd.

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Yeah, man, at any rate, so there you go, and what else, there's something else

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I want to mention, I can't think of it right now, it was the, oh yeah, I've got a debate tomorrow night on the intercessory prayer of Mary, whether it's true or not, of course

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I deny that she has any intercessory power in heaven, and that she can't hear millions of prayers and stuff like that.

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And that'll be tomorrow night. Now if you want information on it, when I get more information on where it's going to be, so you can watch, just go to karm .org

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forward slash debates, karm .org forward slash debates, and it'll be there under the upcoming debate.

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I'll put it in as soon as I get the info, okay, which hopefully might be tonight or tomorrow sometime, and I'll put it up and then you can check it out, okay.

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It'll be a moderated, timed debate, should be interesting. And Roman Catholicism, bad news, bad news, teaches a false gospel.

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It really does. I've talked to so many Catholics over the years, and they've basically turned Mary into a functioning goddess.

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It is so bad. It is. It is what it is. And you know, having been to the

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Vatican recently, and to Italy and all of that, and saw stuff, it was interesting and we can comment on that.

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But that's about it. So may the Lord bless you. The music's going to start here in a sec. And I just hope you all have a great evening.

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And if these words have ministered to you, then just thank the Lord Jesus Christ for His kindness and His mercy.

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He deserves all the glory. God bless everybody. We'll talk to you later, and be right back.

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I'll be back tomorrow. God bless. Bye. Another program powered by the