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

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Christian Podcast Community. All right.

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We are live, Apologetics Live, glad to have you with us, but we are minus one, the slick one.

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Folks, be praying for Matt Slick if you don't know. I hope I'm not spilling any beans, but his sister, or sorry, his brother -in -law, his wife's brother passed away this week.

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And so I don't know if Matt's coming in or not. I have not heard from him in like actually a couple of days, like since I think yesterday.

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So I don't know if he's coming in or not, but I figured I'd start on time. There's a chance we won't have him in here just because, well, he's got a lot to be planning.

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They're not quite sure what's going to be going on, a funeral or what. He's actually did his other brother -in -law's funeral.

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Folks who know, if you listen regularly, you know Matt's wife has a very, very rare disease.

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And actually her and her siblings are the only ones in the world, unfortunately, that they all have this disease.

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So she lost one brother already. Now she lost a second one. And so that is why we are at least minus Matt for now.

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Maybe he'll come in later. I don't know. So I am Andrew Rappaport from strivingforeternity .org.

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If you want to join us here in the discussion, you can go to apologeticslive .com,

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apologeticslive .com. There is a link to join in there. And it is right now just me, which means we're going to end up doing, well, probably going to do a

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Bible study because Matt's not here for me to ask him lots of questions. So folks, if you have questions, if you want to join, and I guess what

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I could do is look at some of the questions that we do have in our Apologetics Live Facebook group.

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I do know there was one we didn't answer from last week as I pull this up and look.

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But one of the questions we had in Apologetics Live from last week that we didn't get to is,

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I'm going to try to find it, but it had to do with whether, I'm trying to remember, oh, is salvation a conditional gift is how it was worded.

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Is salvation a conditional gift? And it's sort of a trick question.

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I think many of the people there figured out the trick question. My answer is, my answer was only if God is a liar according to Romans chapter 11 and verses 29, because he says he's not going to take away salvation there.

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But actually many people said, yeah, it's conditional on the work that God did. So, seeing in the chat, someone from Jersey, Kelly, you're from Jersey.

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Well, that's where this is being done at live right now. So I'm going to bring in,

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Cody came in, I'm going to bring Cody in since there's no banter this week between Matt and I or whoever would be our guest apologist because I don't have one.

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So maybe Cody's our guest apologist. Cody, you've now become the guest apologist. I'm honored, but I'm kind of in the country working, so I don't have much of a signal.

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So I don't know if I'm breaking up or not. You're sounding fine so far. Okay. You're in Texas though, right?

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Yes, sir. Yeah. There's an inside joke there, folks.

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How many times, Cody, did you introduce yourself or reintroduce yourself to Matt and have to explain that you met him at the debates in Texas?

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Yeah, it's an exhaustive process, but I can empathize to an extent.

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And then he's really old, too, so there's that, you know. You said that, not me.

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It can be too hard on the guy, so. Yeah. Yeah.

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This getting old stuff isn't fun, I'm just saying. So did you have any questions tonight?

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No. I just want to, not yet, I may think of something as the conversation develops, but I'll tell you,

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James Watkins, I give a shout out to him for, he sent me a Scripture Alone shirt from Five Solas and some tracks for getting on a thing that he did, and just want to give a shout out for that.

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Well, he's here right now, and so I quoted him, so he could just respond to you himself.

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Glad you like him. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, James. I got the shirt. I just,

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I hadn't, I've been too dirty to put it on yet and take pictures and upload it to Facebook and all that stuff. Give you some props.

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No problem. No problem. Thanks for the shout out. Yeah, man. So, you know, this is the thing,

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Cody, I love this, you know, if you know, James is like all over the place, posting, promoting that he's given money to CARM for the shirts they sell.

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You know, all the proceeds are going to help out CARM and all this, and then you get them on here and it's like, mention the website, maybe?

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No, nothing. Nothing. How about a promo there? Don't forget the obvious, man.

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Yeah. James, how about a promo for Five Solas Ministry?

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Yeah, sure. So for the month of July, so that means that there's only, I don't even know what day it is.

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Like, I guess we have six days left in the month now. We're donating 15 % of all of our sales, the

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Gospel Tracks t -shirts, phone cases, all to CARM. And you can get all of that at fivesolasministries .com.

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That's the number five, solasministries .com. What's that website again?

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Five solasministries .com. So it's solas, plural, ministries, plural.

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Yes. Okay. Just checking. Just checking. Was fivesolas .com taken?

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It was. We tried a bunch of different ones, actually. The number five solas, number five sola.

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And at first we were like, maybe it's just too simple of a web domain for them to sell off.

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But yeah, they were all taken. And one of the domains, they actually don't even do anything with it, but somebody's bought it.

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Yeah. Well, that's what a lot of people do. They actually buy domains and then try to sell them. There's actually a guy

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I know that that's what he used to do. When he saw people that were starting to become famous, he bought billclinton .com

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and he sold it to Bill Clinton. So you'd have all these people would do this.

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And for some of the people that are really well known that have the money, they, I guess, pay very well for that stuff.

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Hey, they weren't going to get a lot of money for five solas. No one's going to pay a lot of money for five solas.

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No. Well, somebody's holding out hope that they will. All right.

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I added Andrew. Go ahead. I do have a question, Andrew. I was talking with a guy the other day who would identify himself while he grew up Southern Baptist.

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Right. But now he identifies himself as Noah Hyde. As Noah Hyde?

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Yeah. I don't even know what that is. Some type of Judaistic belief is basically what he holds to now.

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He says in his and his main argument comes from and I can't give you the specifics, but maybe you're familiar with it and you can address it.

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But he talks about I think it's in Daniel chapter 11. I think he says that or maybe it is what he's talking about, attack his epiphanies.

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That he was the one that fulfilled this particular prophecy. Not Jesus.

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Jesus didn't fulfill this prophecy. And he's not the Messiah. And that was his argument, because this particular prophecy was clearly fulfilled in that period of time.

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Have you heard a similar argument? Well, yes and no, whether it was fulfilled in that time.

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One of the things with Old Testament prophecies is most of them, especially the ones that have a long term fulfillment, something hundreds of years later, they have a near term and a long term fulfillment.

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So, you know, what a lot of people think of with Isaiah saying a virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, right?

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You know, we'll call his name Emmanuel. Well, many people think that he was speaking of a virgin at that time, not that she would be a virgin, not be a virgin conception.

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But so some see that as being something where there was a meaning of it at one point and then later a later fulfillment of it.

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Now, that is common with prophecies. OK, you think about the book of Daniel and you have this law,

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I mean, a fulfillment that he's he's saying is 490 years. Can we would we be able to say that Daniel was a false prophet until that was fulfilled?

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No, you can't. How do they know he wasn't a false prophet? Because with that long term prophecy, he gave a lot of short term prophecies, some of which, you know, a type of Tiffany's, I can't pronounce it, but he actually did fulfill some of those prophecies that was also prophesied of Messiah.

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But he didn't complete all of the prophecy. OK, and you'll often see that like for the people who say, well, there was a virgin in Isaiah's time that gave birth to a son and they called him

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Emmanuel. But that's OK. That doesn't you know, like that wasn't as fully complete as what it is with Christ.

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So you'll often see that because how else do you know if you think about it, how else do you know that a prophet is a false prophet unless the prophecies are fulfilled in his lifetime?

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Well, you're not going to stone him if he's already dead, right? If you have a. A prophet from that says,

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OK, in 2000 years, this is going to happen. That prophecy stays true until 2000 years.

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And so. You know, that would be the way to to examine it is to have a prophecy that you can compare against.

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Look, these these prophecies were fulfilled literally, then those would be. So I don't think it's a problem.

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Well, clearly, I didn't think about at the time I was trying to listen and understand and I was in the middle of doing something.

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But, you know, he still thinks the Messiah is going to come. I mean, if that's his argument regarding that prophecy.

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You still got the same problem if he believes that's a messianic prophecy and he believes that it's like his epiphanies fulfilled that, then.

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Then wouldn't Antiochus be the Messiah? Well, or, you know.

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Or. Or you throw it out as a messianic prophecy, but.

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That's another option. But that doesn't negate all the other prophecies regarding Christ, even if you did that.

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I don't see how. Yeah, I guess now think about it. That doesn't.

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It's not consistent. But but it brings up another interesting thing in regards to what you said just real quick and then

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I'll let somebody else go in regards to hermeneutical interpretation.

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You know, we see you're talking about the different prophecies and how they don't mean they mean something then and then they mean something in the future.

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It got me thinking about when Paul references repeatedly different scriptures from the

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Old Testament out of context. And throws them in and random areas.

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And that's and it makes sense in the context of what he's saying, but it doesn't make sense in the context of what he pulled it out of a lot.

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A lot of times. How do we reconcile that? Yeah. And there are there. I don't know which ones you might be thinking of with Paul.

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But if you look in the book of Matthew. Matthew gives a number of.

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References to the Old Testament and some of them are really problematic.

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Okay. And, you know, so some would see problematic where he says a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and calls name

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Emmanuel. Because some would see an issue there and. But the one that is more interesting with it is in Matthew chapter 2.

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It says in verse 13. Now they went and departed and behold an angel of the

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Lord came to Joseph in a dream said rise and take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you for Herod is about to search for the child and destroy him and he rose and took the child by night and departed to Egypt and remain there until the death of Herod.

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This was to fulfill what the Lord spoke had spoken by the prophet quote out of Egypt.

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I will I called my son. Now, that's really interesting. Why? Because if we go to Hosea chapter 11 in verse 1.

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Here's that context. When Israel was a child,

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I loved him. And out of Egypt. I called my son.

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So in Hosea, this is referring to the nation of Israel and in Matthew.

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This is referring to the person of Christ. Now, this is this is one by the way.

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I mean like if if the people who want to say there's contradictions in the Bible and stuff like that.

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I always find it interesting that they take ones. They're so easy to answer. Like oh one verse.

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It says tube, you know, two blind people were healed in the other one. It's one blind person.

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So that's contradiction. No, this one's mentioning two and there were two and the other writers only focused on the one of the two like that's not hard to answer.

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These are actually the ones if I was that if I was a professing Atheist, these are the ones I'd go to these are a little bit harder, but because there's this is the thing that you end up saying one.

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There is we do see here that it seems like you said out of context.

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Okay. Now we're going to say okay if God is going to give this new a new meaning he can do that if he if he understood a meaning we didn't know he can do that.

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But when we look at this passages like this I and this is where we get into some of our differences.

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If your dispensation or Covenantal or wherever you may be on this because some of us are going to interpret these things a little different based on our backgrounds.

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So I I believe that you interpret first. So we're going to take the Hosea passage.

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We first interpret that in light of what he's saying here. And so here he was speaking of Israel.

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And if we keep reading their their they're talking about sacrifices and things like that. So clearly he's speaking of Israel calling them out.

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Now, how do we reconcile that with what Matthew says? Well, there's a couple of ways to reconcile this that are kind of easy to do one

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Matthew doesn't tell us which prophet he was referring to and not all of the prophets.

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For example, Matthew is going to refer to a prophecy that Jesus would be a

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Nazarene. We don't have that in the Old Testament. What prophet was he referring to?

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So there were prophets that they knew of oral prophecies that weren't part of Scripture or prophets that may have said way more than they wrote in Scripture and people know what was attributed to them.

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And so that is one possibility in some of these. OK, and the one where we don't have any record in the

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Old Testament. Well, that that would be the assumption is he's referring to a prophet that they were aware of.

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Having said that, and by the way, that one is a little problematic because it's referring to a

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Nazarite versus a Nazarite vow. And so he's a Nazarite because he was born in Nazareth.

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But many would think of it that he's a Nazarite because there is a Nazarite vow that you look at Sam Samson as an example.

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He held to the Nazarite vow. He so or at least was supposed to. And so the

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Nazarite vow had a couple things. You're not to drink anything from the vine. So no, no wine. You're not to touch anything dead and you're not to cut your hair.

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Now, most people didn't do that vow for life. Paul did that. And, you know,

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Samson, we see. So it was around back in Samson's time. And he was a

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Nazarite as well. Jesus was called a Nazarite for living in Nazareth, maybe.

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I mean, that's the context there. But he probably we think was also a Nazarite vow, which is why the pictures you see of Jesus, he has long hair.

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So I would say with this one, it is it's a little bit harder to reconcile unless maybe out of Egypt, I call my son is something that was commonly known by one of the prophets that just didn't write that down or one of the other prophets that didn't write scripture.

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Not sure because here Matthew doesn't tell us. And so these are ones that we end up saying,

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OK, we're going to take this. We ultimately we look at this and say, well, because we we accept that the

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New Testament is inspired by God, then with God writing inspired scripture.

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Then it is going to be accurate because God can't lie. So we may not fully understand it.

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And so that's how each one of might have to look. I don't know which one's from Paul you're thinking of.

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But I know the ones in Matthew or and I actually knew someone he did his doctorate thesis on just on these prophecies in Matthew.

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And he he went through each one of them and had had a given lengthy, lengthy, like each one of these.

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He had a book's worth of explanation for and he sent me the full document. His full dissertation was like, oh, like 900 plus pages on each one of these.

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So I could go try to look that up and get an answer. But I don't know. I'm reading all 900 pages, Cody, during this time of the show.

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Just saying. Does that help you at all? Or did I just get even more confused?

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No, no, that was great. I appreciate it. OK, that was helpful. It's nice to know you're outside in nature.

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I hear the birds. Indeed. Yeah. Thanks, man.

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All right, Andrew, you're next in here. Do you know if you have any questions for us tonight or for me since it's just me?

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I do, actually. Did I have you? Your volume is up, I think.

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Right now it isn't. There we go. I'm sorry. OK, you're right. Trying to think of the phrasing.

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I was watching another of those clips. With Amr or Aaron Ross, sorry, demanding scientific evidence for God and then losing his mind.

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I guess I was wondering what scientific evidence was, what he would mean by scientific evidence.

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It seems to me that's a word you can just throw something behind the evidence.

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So there's a reason that you get people like him doing this. One, because it is an impossible question.

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It's a logical fallacy. And therefore, it sounds like we have science on our side and you just have faith.

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And that's how he wants it to sound. But let's break down the question and examine it.

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So first, define science. Well, science is the study of the material world, the natural world, right?

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Yes, totally. Let's define God. God is a spirit. That means he's immaterial.

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He's not made of material things. Therefore, it is impossible to use science to study anything that's immaterial.

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You can't use science to prove I love my wife.

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Yeah, that's exactly right. Science has limits. For example, the example

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I always give is when people say we could use science to prove everything. I say, okay, prove to me scientifically that George Washington was the first American president.

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And they have to appeal to history. Well, that's a different branch of study. You see?

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Yeah, that's the way I try and guide myself. Yeah. And so we're going to use for something like that.

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We're going to use history. Well, if we're going to study the nature and the immaterial, well, now we're going to get into philosophy.

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Because that's that study. If you want to be scientific and do that of God, then we're going to get into religion.

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And we're going to use that branch of study. Because each of these is a separate branch of study.

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Now, when we get into religion, can I, from religious studies, show objectively that which religion is true?

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Yes, I can. Objectively. And you may have heard me do this before,

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Andrew, but for maybe some new listeners and viewers, there's only two religions in the world. There's a man -made religion and the divine religion.

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Okay? So there's the one God set up and the one that men set up. And so the question is, how do we judge which one is man -made and which one is the one that God wants us to do?

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And the way to do that is to recognize one simple thing about human nature. We always add our efforts to everything so we can claim some credit.

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Well, that's what we have. And what we end up having is the fact that you can look at any religion and say, okay, if you add human works.

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Now, I know we have our Catholic friends who are watching. This is where I'm going to say they have a man -made religion.

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Because they have faith plus works. Well, once you add that human work, that's man -made.

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If you have Islam, one good deed counts for ten bad deeds.

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Well, then you have works. If you want to do Second Temple Judaism, you can look at that and say, okay, that is doing

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Torah, doing the law. So you end up having these different things that you look at this and just say, is there human effort added?

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Any religion where human effort is added, man -made, done. What's the only one that doesn't have man -made that's in that category?

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It's biblical Christianity where God does all the work at the cross. Now, objectively examine this and objectively say which category every religion is in.

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Now, that tells us which religion is true. You could argue from philosophy and the philosophical argument would be to examine can you even reason about there being a

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God without first having an ability to reason? No, you can't. You need the ability to reason first.

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If we have an ability to reason, this is what so many people don't understand of Descartes when he said, I think, therefore

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I am. He was being the ultimate skeptic. People should know and read the history of that.

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They know that quote and think that quote proves that God doesn't exist. And they don't even know that's a fallacy.

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That's wrong. Because the thing he was trying to prove in his skepticism is that God doesn't exist.

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And in that, what he ended up realizing is I think, therefore I am. I think the fact that I think means that I have being.

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The fact that I'm a being means God exists. I think therefore I am was Descartes' argument for the existence of God.

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The fact that we have an ability to reason requires God. Because chemical reactions cannot produce an ability to reason.

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Chemical reactions are. Now, if we're going to argue from a creation science perspective, and now this isn't so much an argument for God.

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This is an argument against evolutionist view of a Big Bang.

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You only have a couple options for the beginning of the universe. Either the universe always existed.

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The universe created itself. Someone or something created the universe.

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Those are your three options. Einstein proved that the universe had a beginning.

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So it couldn't be eternal. Okay, so that's science proving that. Logically, it couldn't have created itself because to create itself, it first must exist.

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This is the reason that anytime you talk to an atheist and they want to argue, they always argue from the beginning of the universe having already existed or life already existing.

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They don't ask the question of the origin of it because that's where they have a problem. When you get to the origin of the universe, it did have a beginning.

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And it's logically impossible that it created itself because it would first have to exist. So what do we have? Well, the only thing we have left is someone or something created the universe.

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And the question is, what is that someone or something? Well, that's where we're going to look into philosophy.

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We're going to look into religion and realize the only plausible answer is God. Because whatever created the universe is what we're calling

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God because that is the creator. Okay, so which

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God? That's where we go into religion, and we use my two -religion argument. Which is pretty good, yeah.

29:45

So that's how I would do that. Hey, James Watkins, are you seeing the chat in here?

29:54

No, I don't see the chat. Well, you should because someone's telling you that there's a website that is available for you to go grab right now.

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Uh -oh. Is it 5Sola? 5Solas? Yes, it is.

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I'll send it to you. Okay. Well, here's the thing, too. We got to purchase another domain name because we got our

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Glory to God Alone tracks in today, and Shelby typed in the wrong web address. So I've got to go purchase that domain.

30:24

Oh, I've done that before. So, okay, you know those

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CDs that I used to have? Yeah. That, you know, they say…

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Most important message all over here? Yeah. So when they first were printed, it was done incorrectly.

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Someone put strivingforeturnitiesministry or strivingforeturnities .org.

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And so I had to go buy that domain. That's a lot of eternities. Yeah, there were a lot of eternities.

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Yeah. Well, she put 5Sola Ministries and not 5Solas. So I was like, well,

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I guess worse things have happened in the world. Well, just as long as that one's available. Yeah, hopefully.

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You know. And so… If not, somebody will be getting some free web traffic. Yeah. Awesome.

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So I'm just letting someone know who's calling me and should be actually in here.

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So I'm just telling him, hey, don't be calling me. When the person that was talking about R &R, the whole issue of he wants scientific evidence, the thing about that is that whenever you ask them for the origin of life itself, they never can tell you where it originated from.

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Rather, they go ahead and start with life itself. So whenever they can give a scientific explanation for what actually calls life in general without appealing to life first, then

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I think we can get on the same level playing field. Well, it's good to know that you weren't paying attention when

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I said that. Yeah. He was busy printing t -shirts.

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No, I'm planning a trip to Ohio right now, so I'm a little… Yeah. All right.

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So… Actually, what do you mean to put it together? That showed the clip that I'm talking about.

32:30

Say that again? What do you mean? The Evangelist, Urban Evangelist… Oh, that clip that he has?

32:39

Okay. Yeah, so he's got that clip. So if you want to go and watch it, it's on his channel.

32:45

Yeah, Arden Ra is… There's some atheists

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I don't mind debating. I mean, there's… Matt… I don't know if we're going to be doing it with the death in Matt's family, but he and I are supposed to be in Texas this weekend.

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And, you know, we are going to try to set up to meet with Matt Delahunty, which would be great and fun.

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Matt Delahunty, I'd have no problem having a debate and dialogue with. David Smalley, you know, there's a lot of guys like that.

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But Arden Ra is just… He's not reasonable. He's not…

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He just… All it is is a lot of an emotional appeal and talking over people.

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That's exactly what it is. I'd agree with you. And the eyes. Yeah, and the guys who follow him love it.

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But there's… I mean, there's people… Look, there's some Christian… I'm not going to make excuses. There's some Christians that do the same thing.

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And there's people that just… It's like throwing meat, you know, before tigers, you know, or putting blood in the water.

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I mean, they just… They think that's the best. And they think someone made great arguments. But the people who actually debate and they listen, it's like you didn't actually make an argument there.

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You just… Yeah. Really loudly and with a lot of emotional appeal and wouldn't let anyone else talk.

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And that's actually not a debate. Well, he gets really exposed in moderated debates to where he can't interrupt or talk over.

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He really gets exposed. Tyler Bella had one with him that Tyler did really well in where he couldn't interrupt him every two seconds.

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Well, that's the thing. Yeah. If I were to do that, you know,

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I'm going to be having a debate with a guy and it's coming up in September, I think, 29th.

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And that debate is going to be… And I love this. I mean, I was thrilled that they asked for this to be the topic.

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Is secular humanism better than Christianity?

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I was like, no. Think about it.

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Think about it. Right? I mean, I'm not going to give away… No, and we win. Huh? Well, you know, you have to define what better is because…

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I said no and we win. There's a delay with you, Andrew. Sorry. Yeah, sorry.

35:27

I'm getting a delay with you too. I've just had my line fixed. It's because it's going all the way down under in Australia and coming back and, you know, it's amazing…

35:40

We're doing something. We've got the NBN, which is trying to do that. It's amazing with the flat earth because I see the light coming in through the window over you and, you know, the earth is flat.

35:50

So it's like, how does that do that? That's amazing. Yeah, I just tried that one with the

35:59

Russian Air Force taking up people in MiG -31s and going right up into the thing and you actually see the curve.

36:05

Yeah, well, so there are some ways. Actually, I had a guy in the church

36:12

I used to attend. He got really into flat earth. And, I mean, he was all in.

36:19

Two of the other pastors just said, they were like, Andrew, can you… because I was on my way out of the church and I was going to another church to help plant one.

36:29

And literally two of the guys were like, could you talk to this guy? He's starting to get into this.

36:34

And he wasn't starting. He was full on. I mean, he convinced his cousin. And so he was full on.

36:42

And I was like, uh -oh. Because usually when they're full on, it's hard. But this guy was a – he's a teachable guy, which is the main difference.

36:50

A lot of the guys that believe that stuff just aren't teachable. He is. And he's just got a sweetheart.

36:57

And so he doesn't want to be deceived. He wants to know truth. And so I gave him an experiment he could do to show whether the earth is flat or not.

37:04

It's very simple things that you could do anywhere. If you have a mountain range by you, just go to the mountain range at sunrise.

37:13

Because if you think about a mountain range, if the sunlight is coming in a circle, okay, then the light is going to hit the mountain range on a vertical and come across vertically.

37:26

So all you've got to do is go to the mountain range, watch the sunlight. If the light comes from the top of the mountains down horizontally, then it's coming over a sphere because it's a rotation.

37:37

If it's going in a circular motion over a disk, then it's going to be vertical. So you could do that. If you want another experiment, you go to the ocean at sunrise.

37:48

And what you do is you watch the sunrise standing up, and you see it go, and then quickly fall to the ground.

38:01

Or actually, no, it's reversed. Watch it from the ground, and then you stand up. If you watch it when you're low, and then you stand up, you get to see two sunrises.

38:11

And I actually did that because I was in Florida and trying to get a sunset.

38:17

I was trying to get the picture of the sunset. And I'm sitting there with the camera, and I realized

38:24

I missed the – like there was this great spot, but a cloud just kind of got in the way. So what

38:29

I did was I quickly fell to the ground and took the picture from there. I had another second or so to get the video that I wanted.

38:38

So a simple experiment. And you can – the argument they usually have for flat

38:45

Earth is the fact that what you could do if you go on like a fall day over water – this only works over water, by the way.

38:52

But we can only see – I forget how many miles, like six or seven miles because of the curvature of the

38:58

Earth. And yet there are times when we can see further, like 14 miles.

39:05

How do you explain that? Well, the actual thing is – and you watch any of these flat

39:11

Earth things explaining this, they will always say, you could do this experiment. Do it on a fall day.

39:16

Why does it have to be a fall day though? I mean, because if the Earth was flat, we should be able to do that any time, not just first thing in the morning on a fall day.

39:26

But see, on the first thing in the morning on a fall day with the water temperatures, because that's what it has to do with, when the water temperatures are warmer than the air temperature, as you start to see some, you see that the light actually bends and reflects around the curvature of the

39:43

Earth and you can see further. You do that same experiment at a different time of the year or a different time of the day and it doesn't work.

39:54

So it might always work. That is – if – sorry.

40:10

I don't know if you're still there. My problem is if the world's a disc, it's not going to roll.

40:17

It's going to go like that. Watch my finger. It's not going to go like a disc.

40:23

It's going to go like this. Well, no. See, the flat earthers believe that the Earth is a disc that doesn't move at all.

40:31

It's the sun that moves around, not the Earth, and it doesn't spin at all. Yeah, they believe the

40:38

Earth is fixed. Right. Didn't Galileo destroy that one? Yeah, well –

40:43

Yeah, but didn't Galileo destroy that one? Sorry. He was Catholic, so that doesn't count, right?

40:49

Oh, no. I just said that for our Catholic traditionalists. That got him in all sorts of hot water with the

40:59

Catholic Church, didn't it? It did because of the fact that it went against what they thought, what the present -day scientists believed.

41:11

Mm -hmm. Yep. Okay. Catholic traditionalists is giving us a question.

41:18

And let me answer. I didn't see this earlier, so forgive me. His question is, you said you'd be debating some

41:25

Jew. By the way, Catholic traditionalists, I forgot your first name.

41:30

Sorry. But the term Jew is actually a derogatory name, just so you know. Many Jewish people don't like being called a

41:38

Jew, just so you know. People don't always know that. So he said, when will the debate be?

41:46

I'll watch it live. Would it be next week on Apologetics Live? It will be done here on Apologetics Live when we have that debate.

41:54

I haven't set up with him when. I emailed him. Haven't heard back. He did ask me to give a phone call, so I guess when

42:02

I get back from Texas, I will be looking to give him a call and try to set that up.

42:07

That will be an interesting debate. I'll—I don't—like, that's one. It's going to be hard for me to do some of the prep for that.

42:15

I just don't know how to prep for that. And one of the things is, is that we've, you know, folks who are familiar or who follow me online, on Facebook and stuff, or Twitter, I put out on Twitter and Facebook that we're moving our email, and so from one

42:38

G Suite account to another, and so we have no email, which means I've, you know, if you've been emailing any of us at Striving Fraternity, we didn't get it.

42:48

Okay. So, we've got someone in chat saying he's got a question on Believer's Baptism.

42:54

Well, the thing to do is to join us and ask, and so I'm going to drop the link right in here, but you can always go to apologeticslive .com.

43:04

That's the link to where you'll find the link to join, and what I'm looking for is to answer our

43:11

Catholic Friends debate, a question about the debate. I'm looking for the email so I can tell you what the debate was supposed to be, what it is supposed to be about, and I'm just trying to go through mail, but we have a ton of mail here, and so this is

43:37

William, who I contacted to try to debate Matt Slick. He wants to debate on Purgatory.

43:47

Okay, so this was the debate topic. The person wants to debate Judaism versus Christianity, and he said

43:54

Rabbinic Judaism side would argue reincarnation is true, is a truth.

44:00

Well, there we're going to agree, so I don't think there's much debate. And then the other is that there's no eternal hell.

44:10

Well, I've debated that topic before, so we could deal with that. I could argue from the Old Testament. Now, the one I don't know, and this is where if we're debating this,

44:18

I don't know how to answer, but he says we come back as animals. I don't even know the context there to be able to say yes or no to that.

44:26

And then he wants to argue Isaiah 7 and Isaiah 53 does not prove

44:32

Christianity. That would be interesting because no one said that that's proof of Christianity. We would say the resurrection is, so yeah,

44:40

I don't know. I would have said Isaiah 53 .5. Say again? I would have said

44:46

Isaiah 53 .5 proves it. Yeah, well, that would prove that the

44:55

New Testament, you know, that there's prophecy that was fulfilled, but I think the resurrection is what proves

45:01

Christianity. You know, as Paul makes the argument there in,

45:06

I want to say Romans 15 or 1 Corinthians 15, I can't forget which. Jason Manning is asking where is the slickster?

45:15

So, Jason, you came in a little bit late, but if others came in late, and Charlie's here, maybe he may know more information, but Matt's brother -in -law passed away this week, and so he is wrapped up.

45:31

I have not spoken to him. I talked to him yesterday for a bit.

45:37

I have not heard from him at all today, so we started the show not knowing if he was going to be here or not.

45:46

I didn't want to wait around because he may not have his phone on him. He hasn't been sleeping much this past week, and then he had the death of his brother -in -law, so he's not doing well.

45:59

Charlie came in. I don't know if you have any more that you know of. Have you heard more from Matt? No, I messaged him and called him and went to voicemail.

46:11

I've had the same. Four messages went to voicemail immediately. No response to text, so yeah.

46:21

We did it a little bit differently. We sent him a letter by snail mail. You sent him a letter by snail mail, and you're expecting a response back?

46:31

No, not at all. Okay. I seen it the other day. His wife posted about the passing, so we sat down and wrote a letter.

46:42

Just trying to be a little bit more personal about it. It's a tough law, so. Okay, so we have –

46:50

I'm not sure if I'm going to pronounce the name right in chat. Aurelio, I think, is your name.

46:56

You're saying that you're not sure how Google Hangouts works. You said you're a

47:02

Reformed Baptist. You love the ministry, grace, and peace. I'm trying to look what the – you said you had a question on Believer's Baptism.

47:10

I just don't know what the question is, so I can't answer it. But if you do want to join, you just go to apologiacslive .com.

47:19

There's a link to join. You click on it. It brings up the Google Hangout, and if you're on a phone, it automatically uses your phone and it's all from the camera and the mic from the phone.

47:30

If not, you need to have a mic of some kind. Not necessarily a camera, but something to talk through.

47:38

Someone is saying that I would not be post Mill. I think – I don't think, and Mr.

47:45

Slick is Amill. I would be pre -tribulational, so premillennial, pre -tribulational is my position.

47:54

I'm not dogmatic on a lot of these things. Matt has a very interesting Amill view.

48:00

So if you're familiar with Matt Slick, he's got on CARM – and I'm sure Charlie is going to pull this up before I even can say it because Charlie is just that quick.

48:09

But he's got an article that he often references on the two, this world and the world to come.

48:18

And so that's where really that article helps in understanding his – where he came about in his view, his

48:26

Amill. But what throws a lot of people off with Matt's view of Amill is he has some premillennial views as well mixed into that.

48:36

In other words, Matt believes in a future for Israel, and that is something that most Amills do not.

48:43

And so Matt comes to the scriptures and he sees that, and with a lot of this stuff, it's not so easy to work out because it's still future to us, and we think we got it all figured out, but we don't always.

48:55

And so just like the first coming, everyone thought at that time they had the first coming as the only coming, and it turned out that there was another.

49:08

So Charlie posted that. If you go to karm .org, it is an examination of this age and the age to come amillennialism.

49:18

That's the title of it. So if you want to go search that, that'll give you Matt's view. Clearly, I disagree with that, but it's a thing.

49:28

I have more concern. I mean, Matt and I disagree on that. You don't see us have a problem with it. And this is the thing, a lot of people, they just can't get along with people that have different views.

49:38

And end times, seriously, we don't get along on that. That's not a big – yeah, there's bigger issues.

49:49

Different hairs to split. Didn't hear you,

49:56

Andrew. I'm sorry. Sorry, different hairs to split. Different hairs to split, yes.

50:02

No, no, no. I was agreeing with you.

50:08

Just like bigger fish to fry. Like where these people are going to spend eternity. It's a little bit more prominent to me than end times.

50:17

Not saying it's not important, but I think we make it very primary a lot of times whenever it's very secondary.

50:27

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. James, can you say that again? I think it sounded like – folks, maybe you could tell me.

50:34

It sounded like James said he agrees with me on something. James, say that again. Actually, I agree with you on a lot more than I admit.

50:45

That is going to be – I'm clipping that. I'm grabbing that. James, you're really going to enjoy

50:53

What Are We Even Doing Here podcast. And I think you're going to enjoy my next podcast that I did.

51:00

I had Jamal on. Two guys who've been on your show, regulars. Yeah.

51:06

We talked about your Five Solas podcast, and they both have been guests on there, unlike me.

51:16

Well, hey, I do need to have you on for my series for August at some point on evangelizing the cults.

51:24

I was, I think, the first guy you said you wanted to have on as a guest. Say what now?

51:31

I was the first guy you said you wanted to have on as a guest. Yeah. We're waiting. Which one do you want to do?

51:37

Do you want to do Mormons? Do you want to do Catholics? Well, look. Well, look. Well, I think for Catholics, you get traditional

51:45

Catholic to come on. Yeah, there you go. I mean, he can tell you what he believes. You guys could just – like, okay, there you go, folks.

51:51

Work salvation. There you go. But, no, seriously,

52:01

I mean, we did schedule for me to come on, and you used some, I mean, some lame excuse like a death of your grandmother.

52:09

I mean – Yeah. I wanted evidence. Like, I'm like an airline. Like, show me the proof. Give me the obituary, you know?

52:16

Hold on just a second. He couldn't forget it. Wow. Wow.

52:25

Okay. Just took a picture of it. It's coming to you. It's coming to – oh, I thought you were going to put it on for everyone to see here.

52:31

Yeah. Well, I'm on my phone, so I don't know how to do that. How to use it? How to use your phone?

52:37

Yeah. I don't really know how to use it too much, but you just let me know whenever you get it, buddy.

52:48

Well, I haven't gotten it. I even opened it up so that way you could see that I was officiating the funeral as well.

52:56

Well, I also don't know how you sent it. Well, I texted it over to you. Yeah. Okay. Well, I didn't get it.

53:03

You probably texted the wrong number. The number that you texted me a second ago saying 5sola .com

53:09

is available. And now that you said that, someone's going to grab it and then charge you twice as much. Well, it's not –

53:15

Wait a minute. Hey, James, hold on a second. Can I just have to go to my account over here and grab a website domain real quick?

53:24

Just grab the domain that I need to get to when we get to the gospel track. All right.

53:32

So that came through. There's your grandmother. The only problem is

53:38

I find it hard to believe that you'd actually be related to her. I mean, she looks like a very nice looking woman.

53:47

And then there's you. Well, she was about 90 – well, she was 90 years old.

53:55

She aged very well. Well, all right.

54:04

So, Melissa, you're in here. You came in. I don't know if you have any questions. I added you to the broadcast.

54:10

I do have a question. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. That was your question. That was easy to answer.

54:16

No, I was thinking about – well, it says you shall not kill in the

54:26

Ten Commandments. But then in the Old Testament, God tells people to kill people.

54:32

I'm like, isn't that a contradiction? No, because it doesn't say thou shall not kill.

54:38

It says thou shall not murder. Okay. So, there is a difference between murdering and killing.

54:46

So, you can kill someone. Capital punishment would be killing. So, when you have a case of murder, it's basically whether it's a just killing or not a just killing.

55:02

Okay. So, it would be capital punishment when God says – Or warfare.

55:12

I'm glad she asked that question, Andrew. I was just looking at my Hebrew lexicon, and it was showing me there that the

55:19

Hebrew is thou shall do no murder. And then the explanatory note would be the unnecessary taking of an innocent life would qualify as doing murder, and that was forbidden.

55:32

Yeah. And so, the difference is the motive. Exactly. In warfare, that could be a just killing.

55:38

In capital punishment, that could be a just killing. In self -defense, that is a just killing. But when you take a life in an unjust way, so it comes down to the reasons why and the motive, then that becomes murder.

55:54

So, it's that distinction that makes – And you'll hear this often, Melissa, by people that are professing atheists and the like who are trying to argue against Christianity.

56:07

They try to say, oh, see, God kills, and yet he says thou shall not kill. He says thou shall not murder.

56:15

Yeah. Right. That's an unfortunate English way of putting the expression, which is a lot more precise when you look at it.

56:24

Yeah. That's all I had to ask. So, thanks. Good question.

56:30

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. So, anyone else here have some questions tonight?

56:39

And folks, those who are watching live, if you have a question, just go to ApologeticsLive .com. You can join us in the

56:45

Hangout. I know some people had some questions in the chat, and you can certainly do that.

56:51

I still never got Arillo's question about – He said he had a question about believers' baptism, but I never saw the question.

57:01

If any of you guys saw it, just let me know. I've got an observation on believers' baptism.

57:10

Okay. Yeah. I know, for one thing, an unbeliever that gets baptized will end up all wet, and that's about it.

57:23

You know, let's – So, let's deal with one thing. As folks know who watch regularly,

57:28

Matt Slick would be a Presbyterian. I would be a Baptist. We would have a differing view when it comes to baptism on the mode of baptism and who do get baptized.

57:40

Now, Matt would be in favor of infants being baptized. I would not. However, and this surprises folks, there are some people who say to Presbyterians, well, you don't believe in a believer's baptism.

57:54

False. Matt, for example, as most Presbyterians, almost all Presbyterians I know, do believe in a believer's baptism.

58:02

In other words, if you have an adult who becomes a Christian, they would get baptized as a believer, not as an infant.

58:13

And so, there is this distinction that people –

58:18

I think believer's baptism is a bad name for it. Okay. For one reason.

58:24

Because the fact that really what people are trying to make a difference of is the infants being baptized as part of a covenant relationship.

58:34

They're not being baptized to save them. They're not being baptized in Presbyterian view. They're not being baptized, the infants, to wash away sin.

58:45

The baptism view of the Presbyterians, such as like Matt would have, would be that they're baptized into a covenant relationship with God.

58:54

So, not that they're saved, but they're part of a family of believers and they're going to reward, get some of the benefits of that.

59:03

And it's just a covenant sign of that. And that's not salvation.

59:08

Now, there are some who would say that that child would go to heaven if he dies up until some age of accountability, and then he's on his own.

59:16

Okay, that would be some differences. But when we say believer's baptism, it would be a baptism that is for people who are believers.

59:28

Well, Presbyterians would hold to that as well. And so, Aurelio says, well, I was just wondering, how does a dispensationalist come to credo baptism, just asking out of curiosity in a friendly manner?

59:44

Which is good because sometimes, you know, when we talk about baptism, you can't really talk about that in a friendly manner with some people.

59:53

I'm trying to look, I'm debating whether I want to say what I'm looking for in CARM to see if I can get there before my friend,

01:00:02

Charlie, because he doesn't know what I'm looking for. Okay, well, I did get to it. I was looking for credo baptism on CARM to see if he had something, and I figured

01:00:12

Charlie will now give the links. And he has one paragraph, that's it. So, I'll make it short enough.

01:00:21

Credo baptism is the practice of baptizing only those who are able to make a profession of faith.

01:00:28

The word credo comes from the Latin creed, which is right. Credo baptism is also called believer's baptism.

01:00:35

Credo Baptists maintain that it is improper to baptize infants since there is no account in scripture where infants are baptized.

01:00:47

Credo Baptists would also practice baptism by immersion. Now, let me point something out with you.

01:00:53

If you take a look at that article Matt has, after what I've just said, Matt's view would not be in credo

01:00:59

Baptist. And yet, he can accurately explain what it is.

01:01:05

Now, he doesn't give a whole lot of detail there. I bet he's got a link here, also related credo Baptists.

01:01:10

Let's see if that has more. Yep, there we go. There's like, what, three, four, five paragraphs.

01:01:18

So, too much to read. But, he might be a little biased there.

01:01:25

But, a couple things to point out. One, his definition is accurate. I prefer the term credo

01:01:31

Baptist or credo baptism because of the fact that what you see there is, as Matt says, it's based on a creed, a profession of faith.

01:01:41

And so, the baptism is not to save a person. It's not even to bring them into a covenant relationship with God.

01:01:49

I would say that happens when the Holy Spirit indwells them, and that's the sign of that covenant. So, I would argue that baptism is an outward sign of an inward change.

01:01:58

And that is why we end up having people give their testimony. That's the creed. That's the announcement of what happened to them.

01:02:05

So, it's their testimony. And now, in a Presbyterian church,

01:02:11

I can't speak for all Presbyterian churches, but at least the one that I was in when someone had a believer's baptism.

01:02:17

In other words, they became a believer and was baptized. That is going to be something where they didn't give a testimony.

01:02:27

Again, because they're being baptized into a covenant relationship with God. Covenant relationship does not mean salvation, by the way.

01:02:35

So, be clear on that. And so, that's something that you want to be clear on with the terminology.

01:02:42

So, I would hold to a credo baptism. I actually like credo baptism as a better term than believer's baptism, if that answers the question,

01:02:51

Aurelio. And so, that's where I would end up holding to.

01:02:57

And I'm glad this is a good example where you could see, you know, just because Matt doesn't hold to a position on his website, he can accurately define a position he doesn't hold to.

01:03:08

This is hard for some people to do, it seems. But, yeah, it is good to do that.

01:03:15

So, Aurelio, I hope that answered your question. I don't know. I'm going to look in the chat here to see if you had any more.

01:03:22

I guess you said you were wondering, how do the dispensationalists come to credo baptism?

01:03:30

I guess I'm not understanding completely the issue. Dispensationalism is a way of interpreting

01:03:37

Scripture. And it's a hermeneutical method. And therefore, it's not like most people think of systematic theology.

01:03:49

So, Andrew, I'm just going to mute you because we're getting feedback from you. If you want to unmute yourself later, that's fine.

01:03:58

So, I hope that answers your question. Charlie, did you have any questions tonight?

01:04:08

I saw you came in. I should have asked you if you had any questions. Oh, no. And you did a fair representation of Matt's view of the pater baptism as well.

01:04:17

Yeah. That's the thing that I think people—I mean, I try to do that. I pride myself on pride in a good way, not a sinful way.

01:04:24

But I try to represent other people's position well. I think that's why

01:04:29

Matt and I can get along even where we disagree. There's things we don't agree on, but we understand each other's definitions and how we come to those conclusions.

01:04:41

And so, Aurelio is saying, me too, but no, it doesn't.

01:04:48

Let me see. Okay. He's just saying, thanks a lot. Liked your hermeneutical videos.

01:04:54

So, all right. Well, that's good. I'll mention what he's referring to.

01:04:59

We have classes on how to interpret the Bible that you can get at strivingforeternity .org. If you go to the

01:05:06

Academy page, we have them all on YouTube. So, you can watch them for free. We have 20 lessons on how to interpret the

01:05:11

Bible called The School of Hermeneutics. And that's what he's referring to that he enjoyed. And that helps people to understand how to interpret the

01:05:20

Bible, just some basic tools to help you with that. So, you can check that out.

01:05:26

I've just added Chad Pridmore. He is one of our newest podcasters.

01:05:32

He's actually had his podcast around for a while on the Christian podcast community.

01:05:37

He just wasn't putting out episodes for a while. But not to worry. He still beat

01:05:43

Justin Peters, who's had the podcast up for like a year almost and hasn't started yet.

01:05:49

But he's starting soon. So, Chad, welcome. Thanks, Andrew. Can you see me?

01:05:55

I can't tell if it's working right or not. Yeah, we can see you. I mean, I hope that there's light behind you and so you look a little bit more demonic.

01:06:05

You know? No, it's good. That has a good effect for you. It's better than if it was you making your head glow and then it would look like you're an angel.

01:06:14

We wouldn't want that. Right. Well, what's up, man?

01:06:21

So, Chad, you got a new podcast. You've just dropped three episodes on The Way Radio.

01:06:26

So, you could go subscribe to that. Why don't you, let's talk a little bit about your podcast.

01:06:33

I was thinking of bringing it up. I had someone on one of my podcasts,

01:06:40

So You Want to Be a Podcaster podcast, and she's very involved in Celebrate Recovery.

01:06:46

And I was just like, oh, here's a new podcast you should check out and not tell her what it is.

01:06:51

Or do I tell her what it's about? I mean, that's a lot.

01:06:58

I don't want it to be a lot of what the podcast addresses because my hope in this podcast is to really provide inspiration from God's Word, to really edify the saints, to share the gospel with people that don't know the

01:07:12

Lord. But obviously, we do have to engage in apologetics when necessary and expose the unfruitful works of darkness.

01:07:21

And I've been in this recovery ministry for 10 or 12 years now.

01:07:27

And it's just amazing how many Christians think that Alcoholics Anonymous and Celebrate Recovery, well, they think

01:07:34

Alcoholics Anonymous was Christian in its origins because somewhere along the line, somebody said it was, and nobody ever really checked.

01:07:43

But if you really look at how it was founded, it was founded through a lot of occult practices, a lot of spiritualism, just strange stuff that the founder actually communed with demonic spirits via Ouija board.

01:07:58

So there's all kinds of weird stuff. And then the writings of Alcoholics Anonymous directly contradict the gospel of Jesus Christ, claiming that as you work the

01:08:05

AA program and the steps, you will receive forgiveness of sins. You'll be reconciled with your Creator. But Jesus is no part of it.

01:08:12

So it's a spiritual train wreck. And then Celebrate Recovery came along through Saddleback Church 15 or 20 years ago.

01:08:20

And they just took the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, tried to make them

01:08:26

Christian by mixing in some Bible verses and the Beatitudes from the

01:08:31

Sermon on the Mount and then marketed as a Christian recovery program. But it's still just the 12 steps of AA.

01:08:37

It's void of the gospel. In my opinion, Celebrate Recovery is actually more dangerous than AA because with AA, you know what it is.

01:08:47

Celebrate Recovery is claiming to be Christian, but it's actually not. So I've had people that have contacted me who are

01:08:54

Christians that have gone through a period of backsliding and they've got a DUI and they've had to go to the court.

01:09:01

And the court has demanded that they attend a 12 -step meeting, a program. And they'll say, listen, I either go to AA or Celebrate Recovery.

01:09:09

What should I do? And I say, go to AA. You know it's evil.

01:09:14

It's right there in front of you. It's very easy to see what's going on. It doesn't have the sinister subtlety that Celebrate Recovery has.

01:09:23

And yeah, I just had to share that with somebody this morning on Facebook who was trying to promote

01:09:28

CR to somebody that was looking for help. So, you know, the thing is you're also a pastor there in Idaho.

01:09:36

And so, you know, you have your messages and your sermons, things like that.

01:09:42

So, and maybe I'm going to throw this question out to you as well. We got someone gave a super chat.

01:09:48

So folks that may not know what a super chat is. A super chat is for folks who are watching live on the video on YouTube.

01:09:58

There's a little dollar sign button. You click that and you can donate money. That money goes to CARM .org. I want clarity so people know.

01:10:06

We host this. This is an arrangement we have with CARM. They get all the money and we pay for the show.

01:10:13

That's sort of how it is. But, no, the way it is is we wanted to be able to monetize.

01:10:20

And because of something that we had, we can't, on Striving Fraternity, we don't monetize.

01:10:26

And so CARM does. So we do the videos on there so that the money can go to CARM.

01:10:33

I say that to say if you want to help Striving Fraternity, who actually owns the show and pays for the show, that you could do if you go to strivingfraternity .org

01:10:42

slash donate and donate there. And that's how you could get money for us to help put on the show.

01:10:49

But Justin gave $10. And I love this first part of it. He goes, my wife, four -week -old son, and I are watching tonight.

01:10:59

Who needs cable? Okay, we could just stop there, Justin, and agree. There you go.

01:11:06

You know, you really don't need. It's so much more stimulating than the Kardashians. There's just a little more depth.

01:11:14

Yeah, I don't even know who they are. Okay? So, okay, I forget where I was.

01:11:21

And someone, like, said to me, there's so -and -so Kardashian. And I'm like, who's that?

01:11:28

And they're like, you don't know who the Kardashians are? No, no, I don't.

01:11:33

And then they said there's some reality TV show. I'm like, well, there's why I don't. Yeah, I'm pop culture literate.

01:11:42

What can I say? But the thing is that we end up seeing is you really don't need cable

01:11:48

TV to get good, wholesome family entertainment. You could just come here.

01:11:56

And so we're here Thursday nights, 8 o 'clock Eastern time to 10. So here's this question.

01:12:02

And he says, is there scripture that we can reference for the activities we will participate in in heaven as we worship the

01:12:13

Lord? And so I don't know where you go, Chad. I'm thinking I'm just looking at Revelation 21 and 22 and looking at those.

01:12:22

The idea also that we would see where Christ speaks of a marriage feast. There are some references throughout scripture that we see both

01:12:35

Old and New Testament that we would see some references. But I'm really thinking that if we look at Revelation.

01:12:43

The question is scriptures that talk about what we will have, what activities will participate in in in heaven when we're worshiping the

01:12:53

Lord. I know I'm just trying to look because I forget where exactly this is.

01:12:59

I know that it says that we will work that may be to some. So work isn't necessarily bad.

01:13:06

It's just that because of the curse, it was changed. But there is work that we would do.

01:13:13

What that work is, I don't know of that. And that's why I'm drawing a blank looking for the scripture verse that refers to that.

01:13:21

I forget where it is. Yeah. See, this is the thing, like, you know, unless you have the mind like Matt Slick that just remembers every little detail of everything you've ever read, you know.

01:13:35

Yeah, he helped me write the statement of faith for our church a few years ago. And we're like writing these, you know, these paragraphs explaining what we believe.

01:13:44

And then he's just providing the supporting scripture out of his mind.

01:13:50

Yeah. And I'm like, are you even human? Yeah. Yeah.

01:13:56

It's a good question. But I agree with you. I think the wedding feast is the best picture of it.

01:14:03

But I think it's one of those things that the Lord left open because, in my opinion,

01:14:11

I don't think our finite, limited human minds have the ability to comprehend what we're going to be like in our glorified state.

01:14:21

Oh, yeah. What perfect is going to be. You know, when you look at the description and it's, you know, describing what heaven is going to look like.

01:14:29

And I don't think that's what heaven. I mean, I think that is the best that God can do through John to explain it.

01:14:38

Right. You know, I don't think that he can really put it into words well enough for us to understand it.

01:14:46

I like to think of heaven as, I mean, really, it says there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. Heaven is going to be here.

01:14:52

The earth is going to be what it was designed to be before corruption, before the fall. And I think it's going to be fascinating to see because creation is so beautiful and so amazing and so overwhelming.

01:15:06

The creation that we see now that's in a fallen state. And that's what I consider quite often. What really bums me out, being from Southern California and growing up surfing, is that it says there's not going to be a sea.

01:15:19

So, okay, you hit right on the one that my wife one day, I don't know if she's in the other room or not.

01:15:28

I could get myself in trouble. My wife one day was reading Revelation and all of a sudden she goes, oh,

01:15:35

I'm like, what's wrong? She goes, I just was reading that there's not going to be a sea in heaven.

01:15:42

I'm like, okay, what's the big deal about that? She goes, no sea means no seafood.

01:15:53

Obviously, she's a seafood lover. You see the surfing aspect of it, which we see the surfboard over your head there.

01:16:00

But yeah, my wife was very upset. But maybe this will put you at ease,

01:16:07

Chad. Okay. Maybe. Because my wife said she realized there may not be a sea, but there is a river.

01:16:17

She's still holding out hope that there will be river food instead of seafood. Yeah, and it's the river of life, so it's going to be massive.

01:16:28

I just don't know if you can surf it. Maybe it would be really cool waves that you can surf one side and go up the other side.

01:16:37

I mean, would you go from heaven to a surfer? You just go back and forth.

01:16:45

Yeah, that's one of my favorite things just to sit and sort of think about. Todd Freel actually did about a 15 or 20 minute talk a couple weeks ago on working in heaven, working in eternity.

01:16:57

Like you alluded to, what is that going to be like? It's really a fascinating topic to consider.

01:17:04

And I think it helps a lot of people because I know growing up in a Christian family, I used to sort of get bummed out because I thought heaven was just floating around with angels.

01:17:14

And how are we going to do that forever? You know, and so I think sometimes with kids...

01:17:22

You had to be floating on a cloud too. Yeah. Okay, so we have another question from Jess.

01:17:30

How do you respond to a sinless perfectionist? So sinless perfectionism is an interesting one.

01:17:38

The book that most of them go to is the very book I go to when talking to them, because it's the very book that actually undermines their argument.

01:17:49

They go to 1 John. Now the reason they go to 1 John is because 1 John makes it seem pretty clear you are either in sin, and you're doing sin, or you can't have any sin.

01:18:01

They would look at this and say that there should be no darkness in you at all.

01:18:09

And so when you look at that, the thing you end up seeing is that you have to first ask the question, or any time you study scripture, you must ask the question of...

01:18:25

The first question is what type of literature? The other question is who's the author writing to and why?

01:18:33

So this is instructional literature written by the Apostle John for the purpose of answering a question of Gnosticism.

01:18:44

And Gnosticism was this belief that anything physical was evil, anything spiritual was good.

01:18:53

So Gnostics actually didn't believe Jesus Christ came in the flesh. That was one of the problems.

01:18:58

That's why so many of the writers have to say that Jesus came in the flesh. That's why Jesus had to remind everyone he was the son of man, he was human, because they doubted his humanity at the time.

01:19:12

And so that is something to keep in mind in this book. Now, what were the Gnostics doing?

01:19:17

Gnostics were believing that they could do... There was the arguments they'd make that they could actually go and be with a prostitute, and as long as they didn't give their spirit over, they were okay.

01:19:28

It wasn't sin, because their flesh was doing it, not their spirit. And they felt that that was then not a sin.

01:19:37

This is what you end up seeing with Gnosticism. So he's answering that, and if you look at John throughout this book of 1

01:19:43

John, he's making everything, he's speaking of a pattern of life, and everything is clear -cut.

01:19:49

It's either there's all light or all darkness, nothing in the middle. And people will turn to that and go, well, see, here, this is what he's saying.

01:19:56

And therefore, if you say you have sin in your life, well, then you are not saved.

01:20:03

But then look at what he says to believers here. This is in 1

01:20:09

John 1. Actually, so we have context, because context is always important.

01:20:15

I will start in verse 5, but the focus we want is 8 through 10.

01:20:21

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you, that is, God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

01:20:30

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

01:20:40

Now, let's stop here. And if you remember, I've done this here on this podcast, this show.

01:20:47

I've also done this, I did an episode on my Rap Report podcast, which you should go and subscribe to.

01:20:54

There's two of them, a daily and a weekly. But on the weekly one, I dealt with the issue of losing your salvation, and I dealt with James 2, and I go through when someone asks a question, and you're going to look at an answer to it.

01:21:09

It's good to know what the question is that they're answering. I mean, just basic thinking, right?

01:21:15

Here's the question John is answering. He says, if we say that we have fellowship with Christ, and yet we're practicing, we're walking in darkness, so we're saying we're believers, but we're walking, everything we do or the practice of our life is of the world, then we don't practice the truth.

01:21:38

That's the question, right? That's what he's answering. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.

01:21:51

Now, breaking this part down, walking in light, this is the pattern. So we have a pattern of being with Christ, okay?

01:21:59

Then what we're going to have, we're going to have fellowship with one another because of what Christ did. Well, the blood of Jesus that cleanses us, when did that blood get shed?

01:22:09

Back at the cross. That means all of our sin is all future to that event, all of it for us.

01:22:19

And so back at the cross is when the blood was shed. So back at the cross is when we are cleansed from all sin.

01:22:29

You say, but if I sin tomorrow, yeah, but it was paid for back at the cross.

01:22:35

Now, when you look at that passage, when people try to argue, well, it's, you know, I used to sin, but now

01:22:41

I'm saved. I don't sin. The issue is that sin you used to do and any other sin was all future to the cross when it was paid for.

01:22:50

But let's move on to the verses we need to look at. Verses 8, 1 John 1, 8, 9, and 10.

01:22:58

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

01:23:03

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

01:23:11

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. Two categories, because this is what they tried to do.

01:23:18

The second category, if we say we've not sinned, they'll say, ah, so that's someone saying they've never sinned.

01:23:24

That's who he's speaking of. Well, he is speaking of that, but he's speaking of people who are doing sinful things, but justifying those sinful things, and they're saying we haven't sinned.

01:23:36

Make it more clear is verse 8, where he says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.

01:23:44

That's kind of clear. If a sinless perfectionist is saying that they don't sin, then what

01:23:50

Scripture says is that they deceived themselves, and the truth is not in them. Because we still sin.

01:23:57

That's the point of that. That's why we still confess our sins. Now, they would try to argue that this is dealing with salvation.

01:24:04

That would be really strange when he's speaking to people that he calls, in the very next two words from this, my little children.

01:24:13

He's speaking to believers. Why would he tell believers that they would, you know, they need to confess their sin and be saved?

01:24:24

Would it make sense? So this is the book they go to because they don't understand its context, its purpose, and why it was written.

01:24:34

And those are the verses that I would go to, Jess. So I hope that answers. Since we have a pastor here,

01:24:41

I'll just ask him, Chad, how would you deal with sinless perfectionism, if differently?

01:24:49

I think you just nailed it beautifully. And we actually, being here in the Boise area, we're really close to the

01:24:56

Northwest Nazarene University, and they have quite a few professors out there that claim that they've never sinned.

01:25:03

It's part of that denomination. But I think your explanation of it was about the best that I've ever heard.

01:25:09

I like to go to, you know, Romans 3, 10 through 12. No one seeks after God. No one understands.

01:25:15

It's such a great picture of the fact that we're all sinners. We all sin. But I usually just go to the verses that you just spoke of right there and just try to break it down the way that you broke it down and show that – and it's one of those arguments that I struggle with because I don't want to sound arrogant, but it just seems like such a ridiculous statement.

01:25:38

And I've dealt with it within the last couple of weeks with someone who just – they said, I don't sin anymore.

01:25:44

And when somebody tells you that, it's like do you even realize what sin is?

01:25:50

I mean do you even grasp how prevalent sin is? I mean it's in every fiber of us. It's constantly attacking – not attacking, it's something that's always – that we're always wrestling with like Paul writes in Romans.

01:26:02

Am I making sense? Yeah, no, and what a lot of them try to do is they wiggle around it by saying it's no willful sin, and they add this word willful.

01:26:11

And so the issue is it's not a willful sin, which always gets – it always puzzles me because here's the question I ask. What sin were you forced to do?

01:26:20

Right? I mean every sin that you committed is willful. Exactly.

01:26:25

It's not like someone made you do it. Yeah, and God's law is so perfect, and that's what we really got to get across to people.

01:26:34

The one little transgression of that law is a horrific sin. And one thing that I've –

01:26:42

I think I talked to a couple of young Mormons about this one time. I almost laughed at them because they were claiming that they hadn't sinned because I asked them, well, if you died right now, are you going to heaven?

01:26:52

What's your condition now? Have you done what you need to do to go to heaven? Have you sinned today? And these kids are 18 years old.

01:27:01

If you're a guy, you've been 18 years old. You know how messed up your mind can be with lust.

01:27:10

So if that kid happens to knock on a door and a pretty woman opens the door, that kid just sinned that day.

01:27:18

You see the argument I'm making? And I brought that up to them, and you could tell that got them because I told them,

01:27:25

I said, listen, if you've lusted after a woman, you've committed adultery in your heart.

01:27:31

You've committed the sin of adultery. And that has helped me get through to those young Mormon missionaries because you know that their minds are very susceptible to lust.

01:27:42

And the willful argument just – to me, it's absurd. Yeah, I mean, you're up in Mormon country up there, so there's a lot of Mormons there who also would believe in this.

01:27:54

I think kind of the funniest, Matt did a debate with Jesse Murrell and Matt Slick, which was very funny in this sense, funny and sad at the same time.

01:28:05

Matt was saying that he sins every day, and they were aghast. And I was watching the video, so I couldn't see the audience.

01:28:14

I saw Matt, and Matt was just like, what? I mean, don't you sin? And I couldn't see it, and I couldn't hear it, but Matt said this.

01:28:22

Like one woman got up and was like, I don't sin. And he's like – and he said the whole room because they were all sinless perfectionists.

01:28:29

They were like all claiming they never sin. And the irony – here's the irony of it.

01:28:36

They're claiming they don't sin, and in the Q &A, they were taking questions from the web, right?

01:28:43

So one of these sinless perfectionists guys who said he doesn't sin is taking questions from the web, and I'm commenting that he's not asking any question from anybody who disagrees with his guy

01:28:58

Jesse Murrell. He's only asking questions from people that he agrees with.

01:29:04

The question that they kept wanting Matt to answer, they wanted Matt to answer the question of whether Matt thought

01:29:10

Jesse was saved. It was clear. They asked it three times, and they asked it twice, and Matt brushed it off because that wasn't part of the debate.

01:29:21

And so it was very interesting because I'm asking them. I'm challenging them. I'm saying you are being biased.

01:29:26

You're only asking questions that support your guy. I said we have dozens of people here asking questions.

01:29:34

You need to ask one of our questions. I kept asking a question over and over again, and so he ends up saying we have a question here from Andrew Rappaport.

01:29:43

So knowing that Matt knows me, Matt's more likely to answer. Do you think Jesse Murrell's saved? That was not my question.

01:29:49

He lied. As he's telling Matt that he doesn't sin, he lied to him and asked the question

01:29:59

I did not ask. And so I told

01:30:06

Matt, and Matt couldn't believe it. I was like I forget the question now, but I said this is the question that I asked.

01:30:12

And Matt was like that's not what he said. I was like yeah. Now if they're being consistent based upon Hebrews 6, he lost his salvation.

01:30:19

He can never get it back. Well, some of those guys are because Hebrews 6,

01:30:25

Hebrews 10, the issue that people when they say that those passages are speaking that you can lose your salvation, the thing is is that if you read those passages, if you lose your salvation, you can never be saved again.

01:30:37

It says it is impossible if you once tasted of the light to get it.

01:30:43

So if they believe that's speaking of losing your salvation, then once you lose it, that's it. You're done.

01:30:48

You can never get it back. Exactly right, Andrew. The same word impossible is used of God in that it is impossible for him to lie.

01:30:57

So yeah, they're done. They're cooked. Yeah. Now what that does is that's why they say they never sin because they'll say once.

01:31:06

That's why some say well willful sin. They play games with it at different times. Why? Because they have to try to excuse it away if they're going to hold to Hebrews 6,

01:31:15

Hebrews 10. Now some people just ignore that part of Hebrews 6 and 10. They say yes, that's speaking that you can lose your salvation, but you can lose it and gain it and lose it and gain it and lose it and gain it.

01:31:24

But there's at one point there'll be a time you can never gain it back again. What's that time? We don't know.

01:31:29

But if that's what that passage was speaking of, that would say you can never gain it again.

01:31:35

I think what that passage is speaking of clearly when we look at the context. I have a paper on this. If you just do a search for Hebrews 6 at strivingforeternity .org.

01:31:44

I have a paper on this passage about losing your salvation, and I've done a podcast episode with John who's in here.

01:31:53

He and I did this. We dealt with this topic, and we went through that passage in Hebrews 6.

01:32:00

And what you ended up seeing is that in the context it's talking about false believers, much like we're seeing in 1

01:32:06

John here. People that are in the church claim to be believers, but they're not. And they've tasted of the truth because they've sat in church, but they reject that truth.

01:32:17

And that's where if we look in the same book here in 1 John, and we go a little bit further, a passage we bring up often is 1

01:32:26

John 2 .19, which says they went out from among us because they went out from us, but they were not of us, for had they been of us, they would have continued with us.

01:32:41

But they went out from us that it might be plain that they were not of us.

01:32:46

So in other words, they went out from among us because they were not believers. They were false converts that stopped pretending, and they left us to expose the fact that they were false converts.

01:32:56

That's what I would say you have there, and that's a consistent message we see in Scripture. We see it right in this book that we were looking at earlier.

01:33:03

So, I mean, that would be the thing I would see there. So I think that—I hope that answers that,

01:33:10

Jess, for you. I'll ask—John came in. I don't know, John, if you have any questions.

01:33:16

We have about 30 minutes left in the show. I've got to say hi to John, too.

01:33:21

I haven't seen him in a while. Hey, Chad. How are you doing, man? Good, buddy. It's good to see you.

01:33:28

Good. Yeah, good to see you, too. I wrote in the side chat there concerning this

01:33:34

Sinless Perfectionist, how you can lose your salvation and regain it again. I kind of said it with tongue -in -cheek.

01:33:41

I said, you must be born again and again and again and again.

01:33:46

You know, it's ridiculous, you know, that they don't take the simple words of Christ and say, you know, we are secured in our salvation.

01:34:01

You know, and it's so annoying, you know, when you're confronting these kind of people. Yeah, I was so frustrated when

01:34:09

I watched that Jesse Morrell debate with Matt. And yeah, it was heresy galore.

01:34:16

Yeah. So Jess asked a follow -up question on this. And it was asked,

01:34:23

Jess says, do we have to confess our sins to others? Now, our

01:34:29

Catholic friends watching here may get a little bit upset with this, because no, you don't have to, unlike what the

01:34:38

Catholic Church says. So let's look at the passages that deal with that. James 5 .16,

01:34:44

therefore, confess your sins one to another and pray for one another for healing.

01:34:49

Now, this is, James 5 .18 is the one that a lot of people would look to.

01:34:57

And there you can, some people will see Galatians 6, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual, restore him.

01:35:06

Keep watch over yourself, that you're not tempted, bear with one another. And so some of this is, if you're caught in transgression, you should be confessing it.

01:35:19

The James passage, when we look at James, again, this is dealing in a passage, the

01:35:24

James 5, when we look at this, we're dealing with people who are struggling in prayer.

01:35:34

And there are times as this passage we'll end up dealing with that, and this is my interpretation, Chad may disagree, but what

01:35:41

I think you have here is people who are being so spiritually weak that they're at a point they cannot pray on their own.

01:35:50

They're just so struggling with whatever it is, with the suffering, maybe there's sin in their life.

01:35:59

And he goes through, this is where he says, call your elders to pray for you, put oil on you.

01:36:04

The oil is medicinal. So if you've been being beaten, you're going to rub oil in for the muscles.

01:36:12

They were being beaten as Christianity was being outlawed. So there's some of the suffering that would be that way.

01:36:18

That's what it says in verse 14, where it says, are there any among you sick? That word actually would be weak.

01:36:25

Is there any among you weak? So many people say, oh, if you're sick, you call the elders and they pray over you and then put oil.

01:36:32

Yes, they do that. But it was the idea here, I think, is that they were weak. And I think the idea that I see here is that someone was so spiritually weak, they can't even pray on their own.

01:36:44

And I don't know if any of you have experienced that. I know I have, and I know others who have, where you've gotten to a point that you're just,

01:36:52

I actually think, I don't know for sure, but Matt right now is under so much stress.

01:36:58

He may be at this point where he's just so weak. There is a point where you can't pray.

01:37:04

I've had that happen. You just, it's hard to even pray because you're just so, so weak from, you know, suffering and turmoil and trials and things like that.

01:37:18

And so sometimes it is sin, though. And that's why I think he says, therefore, confess your sins one to another.

01:37:24

Because in this case, if your weakness, if your spiritual weakness that is keeping you from prayer is something that's because of sin, then yeah, confess it.

01:37:35

Why do others? Well, we always confess to God. That's what 1 John would say. But here, confessing to others is because the others are coming alongside you to pray for you.

01:37:43

The whole idea here is that they're going to come alongside you and pray where you cannot. And I've been in this situation where I was just under such just a very dark time in my life where, you know,

01:37:56

I had to leave a church that I helped plant that I was in the beginning. I was in the leadership there.

01:38:02

And we made a mistake of calling a man who is not qualified. And I was just crushed. I was just crushed.

01:38:09

I didn't want to have to leave. And I remember being so weak. I just I literally was with a friend and I could not pray.

01:38:17

I couldn't. And I just was like, we got together for prayer. And I'm like, I can't pray.

01:38:23

I just don't have words. And I said, you know, I need you to pray for me.

01:38:30

And as he started praying for me, I actually felt strengthened. When he got done,

01:38:36

I was able to pray. And I think that's what you see in this in this passage, that this is dealing with people who are struggling.

01:38:44

So spiritually, through suffering, through turmoil, through trials, all this tribulation and just completely worn out.

01:38:56

You know, Dr. Martin called it a spiritual depression. And Andrew, this really helps me because I know

01:39:05

John's heard me talk about this before. But one thing I always tell people about the ministry

01:39:10

I run, Recovery Reformation, is it's an attempt to wake the modern church up to the fact that the church, in most instances, in the majority of instances, is not being the church.

01:39:24

If the church was being the church and reaching sinners the way it's supposed to reach sinners and acting out prayerfully the way that's talked about here in James 5, 13 through 20, my ministry wouldn't be needed.

01:39:38

But what happens, the sinner comes in, a drunk comes into a church, a drug addict comes into a church, goes up to the pastor and says,

01:39:45

I can't stop shooting heroin, snorting coke, drinking whatever it is. Can you help me? And they said, oh, yeah, we've got a 12 -step meeting right down the hall.

01:39:52

They take them into the 12 -step meeting. They never hear the gospel. They may or may not get sober. If the church was being the church, it would do exactly what's talked about right here in this portion of Scripture.

01:40:03

I mean, I was writing this down as you were talking about it because I thought, I need to implement. This helps explain.

01:40:08

And it's amazing how often you can read something in Scripture and then it just clicks. But this really helps me explain to people what we need to be doing to reach sinners, whether they're saved or they're somebody, like you said, that's going through a period of a prodigal period or a time of backsliding or just like you said, a time of struggle where you can't pray.

01:40:32

And I can relate to last year was one of my worst years. I had just two horrific situations happen with people that just got me to a point that I can relate to what you're sharing and what

01:40:43

I think Matt might be going through as well, where you just get to the point where there's so much going on, you can't pray.

01:40:50

It's like you become locked up. But this is one of these things.

01:40:55

This is one of the parts of the church that's missing so much nowadays. It's like I tell people, you know,

01:41:02

Alcoholics Anonymous does one thing very, very well, embraces people and provides fellowship. And churches aren't doing that enough.

01:41:11

And I think a lot more people would be set free from the sin or the depression or the struggles that they're going through if we acted out

01:41:19

James 5, 13 through 20, like you were just talking about. It's a beautiful portion of Scripture. Yeah, yeah.

01:41:25

And we need to, you know. I'd like to add something to that. What if it's not okay?

01:41:31

No, I'm kidding. Cody, go for it. Hey, what's up, dude? I was going to say our glorified bodies.

01:41:41

Chad was talking about that. But, you know, I'm pretty sure that they probably look like Chad did whenever he was a model in the late 80s and early 90s.

01:41:49

But he was an international supermodel. But for you guys who didn't know, you'll have to ask him about that later.

01:41:55

But anyways, what I was going to say about what you're talking about, confessing your sins to one another.

01:42:02

It makes me wonder, and not to offend my Catholic friends or the sinless perfectionist, how serious, how grieved you actually are over your personal sin.

01:42:14

Because you've got to understand that confession for the believer, like confession for the believer, there is no greater freedom than being known, truly known.

01:42:24

To the heart level. Your desires, all those wicked things.

01:42:31

To be able to express those in a community of people that will still love you and accept you and then walk alongside you to fight those battles with you.

01:42:42

You don't know freedom if that's all it is. And in regards to that, so like where Chad was mentioning the 12 steps and A and all that kind of stuff, where they get it right is that biblical concept of doing that.

01:43:00

However, in that environment, the shame and the guilt that comes with those sins is not absolved.

01:43:08

And I would argue for the Catholic that it's not absolved either. Right, because you're still going to wrestle with it with that shame and guilt inside.

01:43:19

If you are truly grieved over your sin as a regenerate person is right, you'll be grieved over your sin in such a way that that there is no there is only absolution and absolute forgiveness in Christ.

01:43:38

Absolute and total, complete forgiveness. There's only freedom from that shame in that environment. And again,

01:43:45

I would bring it back to how serious do you take your sin? I mean, if you're not, you know, if you're holding to one of those belief systems and you're not like Luther was in regards to climbing when he got to that, whatever that church was, that chaplain, he was going up the steps to the to the tower and he was crawling on his knees.

01:44:05

As some kind of punishment for himself, because he knew how wicked he like if that's not your thought process regarding your sins,

01:44:14

I would argue that you don't take them as seriously as God does.

01:44:21

And I think it comes down to. It's obviously comes down to worldly grief versus godly grief.

01:44:28

I preached on this a couple of weeks ago, and I saw this. Cody's talking about. I saw it.

01:44:34

I heard about it very vividly from my uncle. My uncle is he's Mormon. He's very high up in the

01:44:40

Mormon church. He's been clean and sober for like, I don't know, 45 years.

01:44:47

He helped me get sober when I originally got sober. Brilliant guy. He was an admiral in the

01:44:52

Navy. And it was so sad because my parents went down to Utah to visit him a few months ago.

01:44:59

And he kept asking me about what I was doing, what church was doing, because him and I have always been pretty close.

01:45:06

But we sort of had a distance come between us since I've really gotten into ministry the last 10 or 12 years.

01:45:11

And my mom told him, he said, well, does Chad still go to meetings? My mom goes, no. She said, Chad hasn't been doing a meeting in like 14 or 15 years.

01:45:20

You know, he's he's rejected all of that. He's set free in Christ. My uncle told her, he said, I still carry around all the guilt and shame of my drinking, you know, because he committed adultery.

01:45:33

He did a lot of really bad stuff. That's 45 years in the Mormon church and being sober.

01:45:39

And the guy still carries that that worldly guilt around, you know, and I think,

01:45:45

Cody, I think that really sort of exemplifies what you're talking about, if I understood you correctly. Yeah.

01:45:54

And, you know, that's the thing when I when I do open air, I I talk about that guilt because this is something we don't often talk about.

01:46:06

So many people, they commit sin. They know it's wrong. What do they do? Turn to drugs, turn to alcohol, turn to sex, turn to work, turn to a whole lot of things, try to forget about that guilt.

01:46:20

You know, they turn to religion. You know, Mormonism or others. And you have that because people are trying to get rid of that guilt that only comes through forgiveness with Jesus Christ.

01:46:33

That's how you have it. That's why you don't have that guilt anymore. It's because Christ forgave you.

01:46:39

You know, this is what the folks like this don't understand. And it is why we we go out and we do what we do in sharing the gospel and preaching is so people can have the forgiveness of sin and experience what,

01:46:55

Chad, you're talking about. Don't need to go to an AA meeting anymore. Don't need to worry about this because I'm free in Christ.

01:47:02

Exactly. Exactly. So with that,

01:47:08

I'm going to let anyone have any other questions for tonight. John, actually,

01:47:14

I wrote something on the side there. Oh, you did. OK. Oh, so you got topic change.

01:47:21

So go for it. Slightly topic change.

01:47:26

I just want to go ahead and actually share with people how helpful Andrew's book.

01:47:33

What do we what do they believe? You really helped me out a lot.

01:47:39

And it really you're breaking up. Maybe you're breaking up. Maybe turn your video down. OK, let me turn off my camera.

01:47:49

Maybe that'll help. Try again, because I didn't hear what you were saying. Yeah. Let me try that again.

01:47:56

So anyways, I just want to plug and let the other the listeners here know that I really recommend if you have not gotten the book yet, what do they believe?

01:48:08

They really helped me out. That book particularly helped me out here. About three weeks ago, I had JW's Jehovah's Witnesses come to my house and they hadn't been there for quite a while.

01:48:19

And and ever since the first time they came by, I wasn't prepared. I just was not prepared.

01:48:25

And so what happened was they showed up and I, you know, for the first time,

01:48:32

I felt like I was I was totally prepared to actually confront them and actually talk to them and really get what they were saying.

01:48:42

And it was just such a great conversation because once they realize that, you know, they're dealing with someone who knows the scriptures.

01:48:56

They really don't want to be there. And so it was just a really great experience.

01:49:04

I got to tell them about the gospel. You know, I asked them very poignant questions.

01:49:10

I even asked him, I go, is Jesus God? And they straight up for the first time ever. I've never never heard them ever say this, but they straight up just said, no,

01:49:19

Jesus is not God. And, you know, and then immediately I thought about, well, what do you think

01:49:26

Jesus meant when he says that he he is the

01:49:33

I am, you know, it's like before Abraham was I am. I mean, what do you think that means?

01:49:39

And, you know, they were just completely unequipped to even answer that question. I did share with them the gospel.

01:49:46

I pointed them to 1 Corinthians 15, 1 through 4 and had them read it out loud.

01:49:53

You know, and then as they're reading it, they were like, just completely like I can see the wheels turning in their heads.

01:50:00

You know that because I because it's funny because I asked them, I go, what's gospel? And I couldn't believe this.

01:50:07

They literally said, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I was like, you got to be kidding me.

01:50:15

You're breaking up a little bit, but I think we got we got that. I appreciate that. You know, you had is breaking up the book that you were referring to his book

01:50:24

I wrote called What Do They Believe? You can get it at what do they believe book dot com. And to me, that's a great testimony because I and Chad, you and I were talking about this earlier,

01:50:32

I think last week. And I'll let you share what you had said. But, you know, I wrote it in such a way that it is something to be a quick reference.

01:50:40

So you have them come to your door. You don't have to read a whole book. You could pull that out and just deal with a small section at a time.

01:50:47

You could read it with them and say, is this what you believe? Is this what you're and you have all the references there to to look at.

01:50:54

And that's that's kind of, you know, so when I hear testimonies like that, it really it really makes me feel good that, you know, what my goal was in the book was accomplished.

01:51:06

And Chad, you had said some things earlier as well. Yeah, I have it. It's right here in my house. I always keep it out.

01:51:11

And I had just I had just read it. And I had a couple or I had a J .W. come by a few weeks ago.

01:51:17

And same kind of thing. I just I had read it. And when this guy knocked on the door and we live in a neighborhood where I honestly

01:51:24

I rarely answer my door because we have people selling cookies, people selling cable. I mean,

01:51:29

I couldn't I can't get anything done, but I felt like I needed to answer it. So I talked to this guy and and I just asked him,

01:51:35

I said, all right, how do I how am I reconciled to God if I'm a sinner? You know, that's how I started the conversation. And then

01:51:41

I asked, like, John, you know, I said, do you believe Christ is God? And same thing. He said no. So we spent quite a while going through Scripture and I was refuting that.

01:51:51

But what really stumbled the guy I was talking to him, we talked about 45 minutes at the towards the end of the conversation.

01:51:57

We had a decent rapport going. I said, listen, I don't mean to be insulting, but I'm trying to get my head around.

01:52:03

How do you accept the fact that in the 70s they changed your number thing? Because you guys had been told that the hundred and forty four thousand in the

01:52:11

Book of Revelation were the Jehovah's Witnesses that were going to heaven. And then when you got so far over that number, you guys had to change that.

01:52:19

And he goes, well, you know, our religion was started by such and such. And then some of the stuff he did wasn't exactly right.

01:52:26

So we've had to change it over the years. And I go, I go, man, I go, that's sad because they could change it next week and tell you guys that you're all going to hell.

01:52:35

You know, and I said, look at my Christ. My my faith is the same from the start of Genesis to the end of Revelation.

01:52:43

Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. I can have faith that it's never going to change, you know, and that's when the guy got real uncomfortable.

01:52:50

And I gave him my card. I said, I'd love to go to coffee with you. You know, we could talk further, but you could tell that it sort of made his faith seem ridiculous.

01:53:00

I mean, how are you having faith in a belief system that they can change when the numbers don't work anymore? You know, or like Mormonism, when you're pressured by the

01:53:09

NAACP or whoever it was to allow black people to hold positions in your church, all of a sudden you're changing the way you look at black people.

01:53:18

But Andrew's book definitely helped me a lot because I had a basic I had a basic understanding of what questions to ask them because I knew how they were going to respond.

01:53:28

And that's and that's that's what I want to do. I want to tell you what they believe, not how to refute them in that sense, because then, you know, you have the dialogue.

01:53:37

And look, it's like having the answer key to a final exam. You know, dress.

01:53:45

Yeah. Yeah. And Andrew also has a new one out called

01:53:52

What Do the Leftists Believe? And yes, he has to do.

01:53:57

You have to subscribe for it because apparently there's new updates every week as they're always changing.

01:54:06

You must listen to the rap report this week. That's going to come out on Sunday. I was

01:54:12

I was joined by Jamal Brandy and that's exactly what we discussed.

01:54:18

We talked about definitions and how the left just they use the same words like racism and they just keep changing the definition of it to fit whatever they need it to be.

01:54:29

And you're always a racist because they could just they just change the definition. So, yeah, I guess maybe

01:54:35

I'm working on it. I got to interrupt real quick on this. I know you're limited for time. He's the guy.

01:54:41

He's the black guy with the cool hair that sits on the podcast community, right? Yes. My friend.

01:54:47

This happened today. My friend, Todd, who you've talked to, he's designing the website for me for the podcast. He sends me a text.

01:54:54

I'm out driving around with my wife and he goes, dude. We need to talk. He goes, I don't think

01:54:59

Andrew realizes who he's associated with. He goes, there's this black guy that is the most racist guy.

01:55:06

And he goes, you need to check this out. So my wife goes in a store. So I pull up this video and I'm like, what is this guy saying?

01:55:15

I mean, is it his is it his woke brother message? Yeah, I'm like this entry.

01:55:22

There's no way that he's agreeing with this guy. So I told Todd, I said, I said,

01:55:27

I'm not going to call him now. I said, I got to get back to my office and I'll pull up the video so I can really pay attention. And then when

01:55:33

I got back, by the time I got back, Todd texted me. He goes, dude, this has to be a parody. He goes, there's no way anybody believes that.

01:55:41

We talk on the podcast about parody because he it was hilarious. He basically was doing a message of the way the woke people are.

01:55:50

But he did it with these things like he he ends up explaining that he saw some article that they said that, you know, black people take like 30 percent more time to cross the street.

01:55:59

So he was like complaining that that the traffic lights, you know, it shows the white privilege that they don't give enough time for blacks to cross the street.

01:56:11

He goes, in fact, you see this because you see this. He goes, that's because you're racist.

01:56:17

Not because of what I eat. He goes, it's because of you. I mean, it was. So you've asked for it.

01:56:24

Let's let's do it. Let's I don't think it's that long of a parody. Let me bring up prescribed truth.

01:56:33

And. If I could type correctly, so his his his show is prescribed truth, prescribed truth, but it still came up.

01:56:43

So let me see if I could find one of the two. He's got two of them.

01:56:50

Let me. Let me bring this one up big and then I will share my screen.

01:56:58

And what I got to do, though, is change the audio so you guys can hear it.

01:57:06

And this is what, four minutes long. So it would be a great way to end the show. I don't know.

01:57:12

He has two of them. I don't know which one I'm grabbing here. So we'll just watch whichever one it is.

01:57:18

So this one, I think, was titled a message from a woke brother. So you guys in here, just give me a thumbs up if you can hear if you can hear it.

01:57:34

So y 'all been thinking it's a game the whole time. You didn't get the message, the memo that I sent last time.

01:57:43

Now, y 'all keep asking, where's the injustice? Well, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to reveal it to you.

01:57:50

Y 'all are trying to go across this bridge on our backs.

01:57:57

And it ain't happening. There's racial injustice against my people because blackness is where it's at.

01:58:06

It's where it's always been at. I told y 'all, wake up.

01:58:15

We ain't taking no more of your racism and your whiteness. And what

01:58:21

I've come to realize is that this has been going on for years. And it's showing up in many different ways.

01:58:29

I told y 'all, we woke. There's a reason why y 'all sleep. Now, I'm going to show you something.

01:58:36

I'm going to show you some more proof that your whiteness is perpetuating an evil.

01:58:43

That your whiteness is hurting us in many ways. And y 'all need to be held accountable.

01:58:50

And that's what I'm here to do. Black men who experience racism age quicker than those who don't.

01:58:59

That's evidence. See, you know what? You can't even see it right now.

01:59:04

But I got gray hair growing in my head. And that's because of y 'all. I'm aging quicker. I'm 30.

01:59:10

I shouldn't have this gray hair in my head. But we aging quicker. And I know other black men who got gray hair at younger ages than that.

01:59:18

It's because of the racism. Having to struggle in life because of y 'all causing us stress.

01:59:26

I told y 'all.

01:59:32

Black people have to wait 32 % longer than white people to cross the road.

01:59:42

32 % longer. You telling me I can't cross the road because of your racism?

01:59:49

Man, let me cross the road. If you can't cross the road, stop your car so I can walk across.

01:59:57

You do it for them white folks. If you can't cross the road, stop your car and let me pass.

02:00:09

Y 'all, racism, man, isn't affecting us on the road. Racism among drivers.

02:00:18

Let me show you one more thing. Let me show you something. Racism making people fat.

02:00:30

Look at this. This ain't from eating everything and overeating. This is from your racism.

02:00:38

Your racism is making people overeat. Y 'all don't even realize it. Take accountability for your actions, white people.

02:00:51

We're sick and tired. Y 'all finding ways to kill us off. And that's how y 'all doing it.

02:00:56

Why give us all these diet plans? No, don't give us no more diet plans. Stop your racism.

02:01:03

Stop hating on the black man. Then we'll see change.

02:01:10

Then we can lose weight. I'm talking about walking on these paths and all that crap, when all you got to do is stop hating on my skin.

02:01:27

I told y 'all, we ain't having it no more. We done with this. You got a decision to make.

02:01:34

I told you, next election, you better vote different. Y 'all voted whiteness, down with whiteness, up with blackness.

02:01:46

This has been another message from a woke brother. That is all parody.

02:01:57

It's funny because he had, like Chad said, he had some people who took him serious. He had people who didn't think he went far enough.

02:02:08

That is Jamal Bandy from the Prescribed Truth podcast.

02:02:19

He's got two of them out there. I think he's planning to do another one. I would love for him to call

02:02:30

Todd. That would be awesome. You're in the group with him.

02:02:41

Go in the secret group or message him. I will. If he called Todd and just started going off on him about that.

02:02:53

If Todd watches this, we're in trouble. It won't work, but get him to call up Todd and say, it's because of you that I'm on Weight Watchers.

02:03:06

Exactly. You need to pay my membership. You need to pay my membership. This is reparations.

02:03:12

You need to pay my membership to Weight Watchers. You need to pay my bill to 24

02:03:21

Hour Fitness. We can make that work.

02:03:29

You're doing it right now. All right. With that, that's a great way to end the show.

02:03:43

Be checking out my podcast, Andrew Rapaport's Rap Report, that's wrapped with two

02:03:48

Ps. You can just look for Rapaport if you want. This week's episode on my regular one, not my daily one,

02:03:55

Jamal will be on and we're going to be talking about some of this stuff. You'll want to check that out. I hope you guys got some questions answered tonight.

02:04:04

Be praying for Matt and his family, his wife, and their family as they're going through the loss of Nick's brother.

02:04:14

Not an easy year for them. If you would be able to bring them before the

02:04:21

Lord, have a time of prayer for them, that would be a good thing to do. Thanks, folks, who are here.

02:04:28

Thanks, folks, who are watching. You remember that you can help support this show at strivingforeternity .org/.donate.

02:04:35

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02:04:45

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02:04:53

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02:05:01

Thanks for watching. Until next week, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.