Matt Slick Live: January 16, 2025

Another program powered by the Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live!

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

When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877 -207 -2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Hi everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. Here's to Matt Slick Live.

If you want, you can give me a call. It is easy to do. Just dial 877 -207 -2276 and we can talk on this nice January 16th, 2025.

I have a friend that, his birthday was yesterday. We've known each other 58 years.

And so we talked, we always catch up. On my birthday, his birthday was yesterday in SoCal.

I'm up here in Idaho. But hey, you know, it's good to have friends that you've known for a long time.

Boy, I'll tell you, that's a long time. So, there you go. Hey, like I said, if you want to give me a call, the number is easy.

Just 877 -207 -2276.

And if you want, you can send an email. Sorry, I have to do something else.

Send an email, if you want, to info at CARM .org. Info at C -A -R -M dot

O -R -G. And in the subject line, please put in radio comment or radio question and stuff like that.

We can get to them. And also, we've got a little something going on. So, if you ask something, you know, something, let's see, in one of the chat systems.

Laura puts it into another thing. So, if we get, I can see questions that people are putting in.

That's what we're doing there. All right. All that stuff. Okay. There's radio show questions right there.

I'm looking at it. We've got some questions that have come in. And there we go. All right. So, what's happening?

I got, man, I got so much stuff going on. I'm not sure what to tell you. We've got a lot of stuff happening.

A lot of stuff happening behind the scenes with CARM. There's a lot of good stuff. And a lot of good stuff.

I'll tell you more and more about it later as things actually occur. Good stuff. So, praise

God in that. Please pray that God will continue to bless in the ways and what he's been doing.

And the new stuff that's recently arrived, so to speak, at the threshold of the

CARM intergalactic headquarter. So, you know, I'm not going to get too many details right now because I don't want to do that.

But we do want to ask for your prayers on continued blessing, continued aspects of what

God is starting to do, apparently. So, a lot of good stuff there. All right.

So, we don't have anybody waiting right now. Today is Thursday, the 16th of January. And so, people send in questions.

And if you want to do, like I said, you can just email info at CARM .org. And we can get to them.

So, I got some questions right here. Let me check this one out. How do you reconcile determinism with free will if it's acting according to our desires?

Why did God will that we sin by giving us a desire? Okay. First of all,

God did not give us the desire to sin. God made people good.

He made Adam and Eve and they were good. They had no desire to sin. They didn't have a fallen nature. But he allowed them to sin and they did sin.

They rebelled against God. And in so doing, then the fall occurred.

And then we inherit a sinful nature. We inherit a sinful nature from them and or from Adam, I should say.

And that's why we sin. So, we are acting in a manner consistent with our freedom.

So, free will is the ability to make a choice that's consistent with your nature, consistent with what you are.

And it's not forced on you. And the reason I say it this way is because God himself cannot choose to do evil.

He cannot. It's not possible for him to choose evil.

He can only do that which is good and that which is consistent with his nature. A lot of people say free will is the ability to be able to choose between good and bad.

You can do either one. It's up to your choice. But if you use that definition, then you can't have a definition that includes

God himself. And if God isn't the center of the truth of what it is, free will, since we're made in his image, if he's not the center and the standard of that, then we're being humanistic in our philosophy.

We don't want to do that. So, free will is the ability to make choices consistent with our nature.

So, can God determine what occurs and also we have free will? And the answer, of course.

Of course he can. Let me give you a simple illustration of something. So, let's just say that I'm at a restaurant with a friend.

And we're sitting at a window. And to my right is the window. To his left is the window sitting across from me at a table.

And what I want him to do is look out the window. Can I force him to do it?

Can I cause him to do that without violating his free will? The answer is, well, yeah, it's easy.

All I have to do is at a certain point in time is look out the window point and say something like, what the heck is that?

And he looks. So, I caused him to look out the window, but I didn't violate his will.

I didn't stand up there and force him, get him in a headlock and put his eyes towards the window and things like that.

I didn't do that. So, it's a really simple example of something. But God can certainly bring certain circumstances to bear just to get us to do what he wants us to do.

And we're certainly free within those circumstances, free within the ability to do what we want to do at that place and time.

It's not that hard. So, when God determines things, and he does, he works all things after the counsel of his will.

That's what the Bible says. He works all things after the counsel of his will. That's Ephesians 1 .11.

If he works all things after the counsel of his will, then that means that he's working your free will choices after the counsel of his will.

It's simple. And a lot of people don't like this. I've met a lot of people who just rebel against the idea of God knowing all things and being sovereign over all things and us having freedom.

And I've given them illustrations, and they just continue, a lot of times, people just continue to say, to just say, well, no,

I don't accept that. Well, okay, then don't accept it. Because a lot of people just don't want a solution.

I don't know what it is about some people sometimes. A lot of times, they just don't want a solution to something. They just want something to whine about and complain about.

That's often the case. It is. Anyway, let's try another one. What's your comment on the

God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life evangelism approach and tools from CRU compared to the

Way of the Master approach used by Ray, Comfort of Living Waters, and which approach is better? I don't know what

CRU is, and I don't know the Way of the Master in particular.

I know Ray, and we've done a few things together. And so he's a great guy.

What I will say is that I never say to somebody, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

I don't say that to people, and I'll lead them to Christ. I don't. What I say is, among many things,

I'll say, look, God loves His people, and God does have a plan for your life.

But I'll tell you, sometimes that plan can be tough. Sometimes it can be difficult. But a lot of times, it's really good.

And there's millions and millions and millions of Christians all over the world, and they live this way, and they're happy being with Christ and being servants of the

Lord. And sometimes what He requires us to do is be honest when it's going to hurt us.

Sometimes He desires that we go through some pruning times in our life and some difficulties so that we can improve our relationship with Him.

And I said, that can certainly happen to Christians. I just don't say, it's a wonderful plan, because then people want the blond -haired, blue -eyed,

Caucasian, surfer Jesus. We'll give them a wonderful plan, a wonderful thing for their life. And when it doesn't work out that way, then they can say,

I tried Jesus once. It didn't work for me. I don't need to go that way anymore. And that's one of the dangers of saying that.

Okay? All right, here's another one. I thought I sold my soul to the devil.

Why does Jesus not address Himself as the Son of David? Okay. If you guys are going to put in questions in Clubhouse or in Rumble or wherever it might be, and then

Laura is the one who transfers these into this document, if you would be so kind as to write in coherent sentences, it would just be easy, instead of just throwing something out and hoping

I'll figure it out. Because it's not always easy. See, look, I thought I sold my soul to the devil at Matt Slick.

Why does Jesus not address Himself as the Son of David? He never explicitly says He's the Son of David until the book of Revelation, by stating

He is of the sprong and shoot of David.

So you see, you know, I'm just going to ask that, for those of you who are listening, if you would be so kind as to actually write complete sentences, use periods, do several short sentences, and that would be great because I can't make heads or tails out of that one.

And here's another one. In my adolescent years, I thought I will end up in hell for that. For what?

I searched for a solution. Okay, I don't know what's going on. Okay, let's try this. I had my ups and downs with my sin nature, but my approach to life and sharing the gospel message with others went into rocket mode compared to life.

Now, I don't know what all this means. So how about this one from Robert? The approach in which the circumstances are the ways of evangelism more effective than rays are a good person approach.

Okay, we've got a slew of things that I can't make heads or tails of for questions.

So I'm going to say this again. If you write out a question for me, then please write it more succinctly, a little bit more carefully, and then we'll try and get to stuff like that.

All right, okay. Hey, you know what I'm going to do now is go over to some e -mails. And let's see. Hold on.

Get the e -mail. Where did the e -mail thing go? I got it right there. You know what gets me sometimes is you open up a program, and then you can't find it.

Why is that? Because sometimes those things just happen like that. There we go.

All right. So I've got some radio questions. Let's get to some of those. Sometimes they lead to really good discussions and really good things.

Hey, Matt, my question is about idolatry. I have been told that an idol is anything that takes priority in your life or thoughts.

Well, not necessarily. You know, lately, for example, the past couple, three days, my back has been hurting.

There's been something going on. And I tried to take some painkillers today, some aspirin and stuff. And now it's becoming a priority in my life to sit properly, to, you know, what did

I do, you know, just whatever. So because it's hurting more and more, it's like, you know, that happens.

You get older and things happen. So it's becoming a priority to make sure that I can take care of that problem, whatever it is.

It doesn't mean it's an idol, okay? Anything that takes a priority in your life. Well, what about going to your child's surgery?

That's a priority in your life. And it may take precedence over everything. It's not an idol. So that general statement is not accurate.

But what we talk about in idolatry is when we give reverence and devotion to someone or something that belongs to God.

That's when it becomes idolatry. So, you know, if I love my wife, it does not mean

I'm committing idolatry when, you know, I used to be loving God.

So we are to do both. And idolatry, again, is the phenomenon of giving to the created thing that which belongs to God.

The Catholics do that. They commit idolatry. The Catholic Church teaches idolatry. The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches idolatry.

The Muslim religion is completely idolatrous, as is Mormonism.

It teaches a false god. And it's committing idolatry as well, as are the Jehovah's Witnesses, because they have false gods and false gospels and false beings and stuff that they pray to and seek and give glory to that belongs to God alone.

That's idolatry. Hey, there's the music for the break. If you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276.

We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Everybody, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, it's 877 -207 -2276.

All right. Now let's get on with Seth from Maryland. Seth, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt.

How are you? Oh, hanging in there, you know. What do you got, man? I was calling in.

Something I've been wanting to do for a while, to call in and ask, kind of pick your brain. I left the denomination recently, the

CREC. Correct? I'm not sure if you're familiar with it. No, but keep going.

So CREC is kind of like based out of, well, I mean, it's all around the world, but it's a communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.

And before I joined the church, I didn't know what, I'd heard briefly John Piper talk about federal vision in the past.

And after being in it for a while, there's a lot of good Christians there, but there's also a lot of fake Christians. And by that I mean people that will say that they're

Christian, but they tout works as a part of faith. And when they teach it, it's really, they'll say, oh, no, no, no, we're

Reformed. They believe in the three forms of unity. They teach it, but then they really hamper down on,

I'm saved by my works. In fact, if you follow the meme culture with the church, they're bigging in the meme culture.

They really hamper down on it. And Benon Tennant, I don't know if I'm saying his name right, he wrote a book with Michael Foster a few years back called

It's Good to Be a Man. And Benon Tennant had been declared a heretic by his denomination, apparently, for the whole faith and works thing.

And so this stuff is kind of concerning to me, because when we were a part of the church, they do paedo -communion, and one of the elders had given me a book called

Paedo -Faith. And the book basically teaches that children, because John the

Baptist sleeped in the womb, therefore children can have faith at a young age, which nothing's impossible with God.

But at the same time, my concern is the works -based salvation teaching, and then coupled with that, with the baptism considering themselves

Presbyterian, it's essentially baptismal regeneration that they're teaching with the paedo -faith and communing children.

Wow. Okay, several things to talk about here. All right, for one thing,

I do not see how paedo -communion is possible, since it says you must discern the body in communion when you do that.

And that does not seem to be the case with infants. I understand that God can certainly grant belief to anyone at any time.

Like you, I agree, you can do that in Psalm 22 .9. It says, you did make me believe while at my mother's breast.

So that's certainly possible, but the Bible does say that you are obligated to discern the body rightly.

And without being able to do that, they can't take communion. I think it's in Luke 24, John 5 talks about that.

So I would absolutely go against paedo -communion for that reason alone. Now, as far as, we'll get to the works thing last.

Federal vision, the accusation has been made against it.

It denies justification by faith alone. And from what I've gathered, and now

I just need to do some more research on it, because this has come up a couple of times. Now, you're saying it, and you've been on the inside.

I'm actually very curious, and maybe if you'd like, you could email me your contact information, and maybe you and I can talk about this off the air.

And I can get some more documentation and some experience and things like that, because I think it needs to be addressed. But the issue here of federal vision, what

I've understood, is that you keep yourself right with God by keeping covenant boundaries.

That's basically what I've gathered, and that would be a heresy. So if that's what they're teaching, then that's it.

So I'm going to have to do some research to find out if that's what they're teaching. And then they'll do—go ahead.

They're very tricky, too. Like, they won't tell you straight up what they believe when you first get there.

And, you know, it's very hampered on meme culture, and it's essentially like—I don't want to waste your time here by stammering.

No, no, no, just go. So along with that, it's like they're very into hospitality, and cults are very into—

I'm not saying that everybody there is a cult member. But the reality is that my experience has been they're very heavy on hospitality, welcoming, and the downtrodden.

And it's heavily relying on the culture's wicked, but then they really hamper down on works, which

I'm— You know, Peter says, you know, add to your faith virtue, right? And that's important for us to work out our own salvation with fear and troubling to be faithful.

But it's not our works we're trusting in. But these guys, like, man, if you were in it, like, you sat down at a fireside chat, you'd be like, this is nonsense, right?

Yeah. So— Yeah, you sound pretty articulate that you're familiar with the issues and know what's going on.

So let me introduce some concepts to you. And there's nobody waiting right now, so we can just talk about this a little bit, because I think it'd be worth looking at.

In Roman Catholicism, all right? I'm going to deviate here and go to Roman Catholicism. There is what's called condign merit and congruent merit.

There's also strict merit. A strict merit is the idea, you know, you work for $10 an hour for 10 hours, you get $100.

It's strict merit based on that obligation. Their congruent merit and condign merit are similar.

Congruent merit is basically for the unbeliever. Condign merit is for the believer, those who are in a state of grace.

And congruent merit, they're not in a state of grace. Okay, so let me just simplify this. With congruent merit, the unbeliever does good things, and God rewards him for those good things.

But God doesn't owe him the reward, because it's not strict merit.

It's just something he blesses you with because you're doing the right thing. Condign merit is the same thing, except for those who are true believers already.

That's what they teach. So when a true believer follows God and does the things that are good, and they do good works,

God rewards them and blesses them. But God doesn't owe you that blessing based on your works.

He freely gives you that blessing, and you're rewarded. And so a lot of times what the

Catholics will say is something like this. We're saved by grace alone through faith alone, but you have to show the works, and God rewards you with salvation or justification based on those works, but it's not owed, it's freely given.

So I'm wondering if something like this is what the Federal Vision adherents are advocating.

Does that sound familiar at all to you? So I think it's more or less like the covenantal bounds of what you had mentioned previously.

Like, if you step out of that, you lose your salvation. That's the way it was really kind of pushed.

It's like you have to stay within this, and they always say remember your baptism, but my concern is, like, there's so much nonsense here with this denomination.

It's really a damper on the gospel, and especially with everything that happened with the woke culture, everybody went to this correct denomination, because I've seen them.

Like, young people, I'm 40, so I've seen, you know, the Emergent Church, I've seen the movement where everybody flocked to the

Mark Driscoll thing, and, you know, the Next New Thing. And to me, it seems like this is the

Next New Thing that everybody's flocked to at the sake of the gospel, though, because it's not necessarily you're saved by grace alone, right?

It's, no, you have to work, and then if you step outside the church, you're a heretic kind of thing, which, I mean, there's, you know, obviously church discipline and things like that.

We're talking about, like, covenant. Hold on. Hold on. We've got a break. So I want you to continue after the break, okay?

This is important stuff. Okay. Sorry about that. Hold on. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned.

This is good and important stuff. It's Matt Slick Live!

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

All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. We're talking about federal vision. It's a very important topic. With Seth from Maryland, buddy.

Are you still there? Hello? Yep. You still there? I'm still here,

Matt. Okay, good. Yep. So I've got a bit of a story for you. You know that Doug Wilson is one of the founders and adherents of this, right?

Back before I moved, maybe 25 years ago, I was in California someplace.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. And I would sometimes go up from San Diego, fly up to the

Bay Area, and I would preach at a particular church. And there was this Bible study one night that was going on at this church's founder's home.

And I met Doug Wilson's son there. And so it was in Santa Cruz. And so I had a discussion with him.

And I remember this very clearly, being very concerned about what he was teaching. But I was saying, well, wait a minute.

You know, I'm asking, are you saying you keep yourself right with God by keeping the covenant boundaries? He said, yes.

I said, but that's heresy. And he kind of shuffled as he smiled, right, and looked away, and then kind of came back to me.

It was one of the body language signals to me that he was saying, I don't understand, and I'm really just wrong.

I don't get it. But I was asking. I don't know what question to ask. What's that? Sorry. Yeah, I was going to say, that's common in the correct culture.

It's like they roll their eyes and scoff whenever they're confronted with that. It's like you don't know what you're talking about.

It's just like Mormons do. Yeah, yeah, that's true. We know better. We have a testimony. So I remember that, and I remember being very concerned.

I said, wait a minute. You're saying you retain your salvation justification. You do this by as long as you maintain the covenant requirements that God has given, you're okay, and if you don't, you're outside.

He says, yes. That's a false gospel. Yep, it is.

It is. So then we couldn't talk anymore because the Bible study was starting, and it was time to break up and sit down and stuff like that.

So I remember that. Now, I live in Idaho, and Moscow, Moscow, people call it this Moscow, it's spelled the same as Moscow, but it's

Moscow, Idaho. It's only about five or six hours north of me, and I've been up in the area before, and I have a friend up there.

He moved up there from literally next door, right next door. He moved up there to be at that church, and let's just say

I've got some concerns. I've got concerns. And federal vision has been rejected by the

OPC and the PCA. So I trust those denominations,

OPC and PCA. They're pretty stinking good. So if they're rejecting this, you know there's some serious problems.

But anyway, those are some of the more comments. Yeah. I say you want to add anything?

Oh, I've got a question for you about it, too. Okay. So do they say that baptism saves them from their sins?

Kind of. It's like, let me try to think about this. Yes, it's, you know, yeah, that's what, yeah, you're right.

They do teach that. It's basically baptismal regeneration because when they do, you're baptized as a child, obviously being

Presbyterian is what they call themselves, and they say that, I was told before they joined that we had joined a few years ago that there were some

Baptist churches, and I'm Baptist in my background, you know, Baptistic, you know, churches, upbringing.

But so anyways, it's basically when your child's baptized, well, now they're a member of the church, right?

And then they commune them because they say they believe in paedo -faith. I don't believe in any of that. I never did. I told them that from day one.

And I told the last meeting I had with one of the elders, I told him that. And it was just, there's some good

Christians there, but my fear is that they're leading people away because you're going to have a, you're going to have generations of children growing up in this denomination that where they're not being taught to repent of their sins and trust in Christ to learn for their salvation because they're basically already declared a

Christian as an infant. And so they're baptized as an infant, they're communed as an infant, and now they're told to remember their baptism because it's baptism that saves.

And so essentially, you've denied the gospel at that point. There is no need for any child to ever actually be examined by an elder to see if they're in the faith.

And then when they grow up and they have doubts and say, well, I don't think I'm a Christian. Oh, well, then you're not.

You're outside the covenantal boundaries. And so it's cult -like in the sense that you never want to leave because you've formed all these great relationships, this hospitality, and it's just,

I think it's a very dangerous, dangerous place for Christians to go. And so that's why

I wanted to call and talk to you and pick your brain about it because you know a lot more about this, like how to address pseudo -Roman

Catholicism stuff than I do. Yeah. Now, just for clarification, for those who are listening, there are

Reformed groups that affirm infant baptism, but as a covenant sign, and certainly that they do not say they're saved by that or that they don't address the children as being saved and saying that to others.

Because I hold infant baptism as a covenant sign, not as salvific, not regenerative, etc.

It's just something that we do, but that's a whole other topic. So, okay.

And if you disagree, that's fine. You know, it's whatever. But, boy, that's really, that is really disturbing.

See, I need more documentation on this kind of stuff. I need more. I can get you more. I've got, you know,

I'm good friends with a pastor, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm pretty sure he's a Christian, because there's, like, rifts of different people.

He came from a Baptist church, but the thing is, it's like when you join a church, a lot of pastors, unfortunately, will, you know, teach what the denomination teaches instead of teaching

God's Word, because it's a paycheck. It's a job, right? Right. And I've had pastors at a church with a brethren tell me that once.

He's like, oh, yeah, well, or I can't remember. It wasn't a church with a brethren. It was one of the

Reformed churches, Reformed brethren church, I think, where they baptized by immersion three times, and I think it was

Tertullian who started that, and he said, in this we go above the Lord, and I brought that up to him in conversation. He goes, yeah,

I used to believe what you believe, but we're working here. I've come to agree with them. I'm like, okay, well, in my opinion, he just didn't keep his paycheck, but...

Actually, it's in the didache. Yeah, it's in the didache before Tertullian, but okay, that's nice.

It's not scripture still, but there we go. So, yeah, so if you have the ability to get documentation of who says what and things like that,

I would like to get into it more because, you know, I tell people that Calvinism is one of the best theological systems you can have.

It puts more things in place and answers more questions than any other systematic. That's my honest opinion, but I also say if you want to mess something up, you just need two things.

People and time, and we Calvinists are not exempt from that, and this is a good example of it where people get too covenantal, too knowledgeable covenantally for their own britches, and they fail, and then they violate the word of God.

That's what I'm seeing. My concern is with this. Yeah. Yeah, and I've personally struggled with thinking through my salvation of like because of that, because of the federal vision stuff, you know, the last year before we left, it's like not to whine about it, but it's been very distracting.

I've been encouraged by a lot of the things that John MacArthur has been preaching on, you know, basically saying it's faith alone, not our works, and really distinguishing and making that distinction, and you would never really hear that at a correct church.

You'd hear it predominantly, you know, works as a part of faith, and I like to kind of coin the term faith works bros.

Somebody probably also said that too, but the reality is it's like there's a lot of younger men that have joined the church because it's very masculine in the nature of the denomination stemming from Moscow and Doug Wilson and that kind of culture.

You know, we're not, you know, I don't know if you've heard of No Quarter November that he does every year.

No. Where like they do a big promotion in November where Doug Wilson just does like a video where one time he sat on the couch littering on fire, and the latest one was kind of actually really disgusting and disturbing where he comes in dressed up like Mr.

Rogers, and at the end of the set, he lights the set on fire, this train set, and it says, and if you're a fed, you can be under the bridge as the bridge is burning down, and I'm like, this is not even

Christlike, this kind of behavior, and this is coming from one of the leaders of the denomination, right?

A major leader, and to me, I'm just, with all that said, it's like you've got so much focus on doing, being manly, doing these things, right, and not on Christ, not on resting in Christ, and yeah.

Now keep going, keep going. We have nobody waiting right now. People are interested in this. So I think it's like just from the past year, just with, you know, you had mentioned like the covenantal boundaries and stuff like that, and that kind of teaching, it's,

I've experienced that kind of pressure from a lot of people, like within the denomination, and it's just when you hear this stuff, and you experience it, and you live like day to day in it, like we sing psalms, we sang psalms at the church and everything, wonderful, loved it, you know, very,

I don't know, jubilant is the right word to use, but there's a lot of joyful singing there, it's great, there's a lot of good people there, but the thing that I really always had a problem with is the paedo -communion thing, and the works -based salvation, and teaching faith and works, that works is a part of faith, and I pressed our pastor, like I said,

I think he's a Christian, because... We've got a break, hold on, come back, works is a part of faith, come back after the break, talk about that, because that's an important phrase that Catholics use also.

Hold on, I'll be right back folks, after these messages, this is interesting, please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Everybody welcome back to the show, this is interesting stuff, we've got Seth from Maryland still there, buddy, still there?

Yep, I'm still here. Alright, so that phrase, go over that again. Faith, well, works is a part of faith.

Yeah. I hear that from Catholics and East Orthodox all the time.

When you define faith, they always define faith with works included. Always.

That's what the crux does. Really? Yeah, especially, and so the thing is, when

I press my pastor, like I said, I think he's a Christian, like I don't doubt that, but the thing is that makes me upset is the fact that like,

I think it's hard for you to remain in it. If you were like, just like R .C. Sproul said, if a

Catholic became a Christian, it'd be hard for them to remain in the Catholic church long term. To me, it's like upsetting too, because I'm like, you're a real

Christian, and when I pressed him on it, I said, well, works is separate from faith, and he goes, well, technically, yeah, in a systematic theology speaking, yes, works is separate from faith, and it's, to me, it's just mind -blowing, because even the

Westminster Confession says that, you know, that faith is the fruit. It's like the offspring of, or I mean, not faith, works is the offspring of faith, right?

It's what we do as a result of having faith. They're separate, like they're clearly separate, and it's just, to me, it just, they're so deceptive in the way they word it, and they'll always go to James, you know, like every

Catholic, and even some Mennonites will do. There are some Reformed Mennonite churches, I know, but it's just, it's concerning to me, because it's keep, it's drawing people away from Christ, away from the gospel, and making the church more of a club, right, and a culture in a sense of like, do these things to maintain your covenantal, you know, you know, community with the church, and then it's,

I mean, there's good Christians there, like I said, but that's a false gospel. It's, you can't say that it works as a part of faith, and say that you're, like, how are you ever going to, it just blows my mind how anybody could ever think that that's actually the gospel.

Like, you're trying to free people from the boundary of the law, not tell them to keep it as a part of maintaining their salvation.

Right. Okay. You know,

I was, when I first heard this stuff, I actually, I thought, I have to be not understanding it properly.

There has to be a nuance of something in there that I'm just not understanding. I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The more I look into this, like I said, you know, the more, the worse it becomes, and you've been on the inside, so I'm really curious about this, and I really do want to have some documentation on things like this.

So there's, like, for reasons, go ahead. There's an insider correct memes page that I'm a part of that I joined when

I first joined the church. Okay. And somebody just posted this recently. There was a guy that posted this, and let me bring it up on my phone here, but it had to do with faith and works, and this literally just happened before I called you, and like I said,

I've been thinking about calling you for a while about it, but it goes, it's a picture of, like, you know, meme culture, where it's, you take a screen, it's like a screenshot of a video from a movie or a

TV show, and then people change the captions on it, so it says, my co -workers, when

I tell them, been a house was saved by works, and it's Spongebob looking, like, really concerned and says, please say psych, and the guy that posted it goes, not psych bro, dot, dot, dot.

And so I commented, I said, oh, yeah, exactly. This is, and this is approved by pastors that run the page.

I think it's, I'm pretty sure it's run by a pastor, and so, and I'm pretty sure

I actually know him because I've heard him preach, but here's the thing, I said, only the works of Christ. I said, what are you,

Catholic? Like, just, because I'm like, this needs to be addressed. It's not something that you can just turn a blind eye to, and if you, if you go on the, you know, internet and you see any kind of comments from people that are part of the denomination, a large part of, like, younger men, you know, where it's just, their comments are solely focused on, like, hey, it's cool to go ahead and espouse federal vision.

It's like a thing. I had no idea when we joined the church how, how wicked this stuff was until, like,

I observed it, and I'm like, my goodness, you guys are really beating, beating the war drums for your works.

I mean, it's not just a, a little bit, like out in town, like, I don't even know if any of them actually preach the gospel out in town.

You know, they can quote scripture, but, you know, Mormons do that, but, in essence, telling people to trust in Christ alone.

It's like, if you actually took them at face value for what they talk about in their own inner circles, you would see, like, this is not the gospel.

You're, this is a club. Okay. Okay.

What I want you to do, seriously, I want you to email me at info at carm .org. Give me your cell number and stuff like that and I'll give you a call.

Okay. And we can just kind of keep in contact with them, because you've been on the inside and I need to learn more about it and get some documentation or places to go.

I can't trust anything. I'm not saying I don't trust anything you say. I'm saying, I can't just trust someone. I have to go verify everything, but what

I have seen already is, is right in line with what you're saying. I need to have documentation and things like that.

I'd love to get in, I'd love to get into that thing, that inside thing. I'd love to get into that and if that's possible.

I don't know if it is or not. Yeah. Whatever, how it works. And do some more follow -up.

We've got a lot of things going on at CARM, so a lot of stuff is taking a lot of my time away from research and writing because of some other things that are happening with the

CARM ministry. There's a lot of good changes happening. And so, I've got to work the time in.

But I will definitely do that. I'm definitely going Federal Vision is something I've been concerned about. I'm hearing more and more about it and it's getting worse and worse the more

I hear. It's just like Roman Catholicism. Yeah, absolutely. It's like a Presbyterian Roman Catholic combo.

Pretty much, yeah. In fact, Peter Lightheart, who heads up a ministry called

Theopolis Institute, Peter Lightheart, some of the stuff he says is okay, but I told my wife maybe a couple of years ago it was, he said something with his wife ministry,

Theopolis Institute, where he said there will be some in the church that, what is it, where you have reverence for the saints or whatever, the wording, how

Catholics word it. Adoration. It was kind of something like that. Okay, obeisance, adoration.

No. Okay, all right. Either way, it was basically revere the saints.

Veneration. Yes, venerate the saints. And I'm like, are you kidding me? How can you, as a pastor, teach that it's acceptable for people in the church?

Like, this is the norm, that there's going to be people with different beliefs that a veneration of the saints is acceptable. That was declared heresy in the

Reformation. Okay, this is not, and you could say that, well, it was the wording he meant like have respect for, because by definition you say, well, venerate, and it's like, nobody in the right mind as a

Christian, a good godly Christian would use terminology that's confusing, right? To me. So, like, if I'm going to teach,

I have to teach clearly. I teach my children, I teach my family, Bible study. I have to let them know like the full gospel, all of it, all the truth, and not leave things like that where it's like, it's almost like a tricky, like, let me introduce this concept to make it seem okay, and I told my wife at the time,

I was like, that's very Roman Catholic. I don't appreciate that at all. I don't like the way these things are coming out, and I think that as the denomination grows, they're becoming more bold in the way that they're going about it, and my fear is that eventually over time, right, as more churches join, because there was a church that was trying to get,

I guess, sponsorship by the church we were attending, as more churches say, oh, well, you know, they're Reformed.

It's a Reformed denomination, right? They comply with the three, they agree with the three forms of unity.

Over time, it'll eventually ruin a large majority of people, and really younger generation children, and younger men and women that don't really understand how to defend against this heresy of faith and works being the same.

Yeah. Okay. All right.

All right. Yeah. You know, I have a T -shirt, So Much Heresy, So Little Time.

So, you know, what you're saying, let me, there's nobody waiting right now, so we're just, it's just you and me.

I'm going to just say something to the audience right now. This is a serious issue, because the Bible says Romans 3 .28,

we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Romans 4 .5, the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.

I can go into a lot of verses like this. There's lots, but those are the ones that really signify that we're justified, made legally right before God by faith apart from works.

Now, the covenantal aspect, what they're probably going to be saying is that it's like a condign merit thing. God will give you the meritorious reward of your works, but that's not what saves you.

This is the double talk that the Catholics do. I'm familiar with it very much, and I bet you they're doing the same thing.

I bet you they're, and I wouldn't be surprised if they come back into fellowship, or not come back into, they go into an apostasy fellowship with the

Catholics or the East Orthodox. And by the way, the East Orthodox church is growing by leaps and bounds from what

I'm hearing. More and more people are going to it. I think it's because of the bankruptcy of so much theological systems that are in weak, mamby -mamby churches all over the place that people want the bells and smells.

They want the robes and orbs and things like that to keep them right, and they don't have that relationship with Christ.

They want religion. So this is a turn back into that kind of a thing through, I mean, covenant.

If God, if in any way, people don't know what a covenant is. A covenant, folks, is a pact or an agreement between two or more parties.

So my wife and I, for example, have a covenant I will keep to her. She will keep to me. I'll provide for her.

And, you know, she'll be faithful to each other and, you know, things like this. Till death do us part. And the covenant sign is the wedding ring.

All right, so it's a covenant. The Ten Commandments are a covenant document. And you guys can call me tomorrow. We can talk about that and explain how it, the

Ten Commandments themselves are actually a covenant document. And the word in Latin for covenant is testamentum.

So Old Testament, New Testament, Old Covenant, New Covenant. Covenant is based on God's nature because it's based on His word.

And a covenant is a binding of one's word. So covenants have boundaries. You should do this and not that.

These kind of things. Okay, so having said that, so, folks, what we're talking about here is the idea that there are supposedly

Christians who are affirming the idea of justification by faith alone as long as you keep the covenant boundaries.

When we say covenant boundaries, we mean things like you have to take communion. You have to be baptized. You have to, submit to the elders, whatever the covenant might be in a particular area.

And if you don't do these things, you're outside the covenant boundaries. And if you die in that state, you're no longer saved because you weren't keeping the covenant boundaries.

That's exactly what they teach. Okay, then that's, that's a, that's a, okay. I don't,

I got to watch myself. I'm on radio. That's a, that is a, a damnable heresy.

I'll just say it that way. That's from the pit of hell. If they're, if they're saying that. Yeah. Yeah, they are.

I thought they were saying that, but if that's the independent then, then I would call it a cult. I would say the federal vision cult, and I would write an article and do videos on it, specifically saying the federal vision culture cult of today.

Because if they're going to add that, I know I'm going quickly here. No, but we're almost out of time. I'm not loyal to any denomination.

I'm a, I'm independent so I can write and teach and preach whatever I see. Scripture teaches the best of my ability, not that I get it right all the time.

So I'm not loyal to a denomination at the total denominational line. So I'm not gonna worry about anything just gonna research it and find out you need to send me your email address your phone number

Say hey, Matt. We just got on the phone about federal vision. Give me a phone number I'll call you here within you know next within the next hour so that we can connect

We have each other phone number so we can keep in contact and work through this okay? Okay, we'll do

Does he sound articulate? You know tissues are okay. Sorry go ahead. I'm sorry No, I really appreciate it

Yeah, it's a it's really helpful, and I really appreciate you taking the time to address it too, so thank you

We need to All right, all right brother like I said man. You give me a call all right, or you email me now.

I'll call you all right Okay, I will email. Yes, sir Okay Hey folks

Why don't people just leave this stuff alone and believe God's Word? Man so much heresy so little time the

Lord bless you by his grace We're back on air tomorrow. We'll talk to you then have a great evening Another program powered by the truth