MSL: March 20, 2024

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

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

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

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Here's Matt Slick. Hi everybody. Welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. You're listening to Matt Slick Live and today's date is

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March 20th, 2024. For the podcasters, I hope you want to, you know, if you're a podcaster and you're listening, hey, thanks for listening.

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All right. We have nobody waiting on the lines right now. If you want to give me a call, it's easy. All you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276 and let's see, have we got any hate mail?

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We've got some radio questions we can get to and stuff like that.

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All right. Look at this stuff that's happening. Now I just want to let you know that we do stay on the air by your generous support.

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So if you like what you hear on the radio and you want to see the Karm website continue, you want to have more information and articles up there, then all you have to do is go to karm .org

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forward slash donate and all the information you need is right there. Now some of you may have not gotten your end of year tax receipts that we sent out.

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We sent out, we did it. And because people who said not getting them, so we don't understand what's going on.

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I'll be looking into all of that and next year I'm gonna do a different system to make sure it all gets out there. But just let you guys know.

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And I think that's it. I think that's it. So we have two open lines, 877 -207 -2276.

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And if you want, you can email us at info at karm .org,

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info at karm .org and put in the subject line, radio comment or radio question and we can get to them on the air.

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We do that sometimes. So there you go. Let's get to Christopher from Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Christopher, welcome. You're on the air. Hey Matt. Yeah. Thank you so much for taking my call.

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I really appreciate it. Appreciate what you do for the body of Christ and all your knowledge and devotion.

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So my question is regarding, I'm not sure if you heard about it, but it's either called shepherding movement or heavy shepherding.

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So I recently left a church that has a lot of the characteristics of that church.

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Now my question regarding that is how, other than praying, and maybe that's all

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I should do, but how could I go about like presenting to like people that I love in that church?

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Like, Hey, I believe this church is operating under this. Like, so that's my question and I'm just kind of getting some wisdom and seeing what

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I can do. All right. So we need to define our terms. What is a shepherding movement?

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And it's an old movement, not like millions of years old, kind of old, but it's been around for a few decades.

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And basically what it is is that a true discipleship, true Christianity means that you will be governed by the elders, by the pastorate, and they will shepherd you, guide you, run things through them, make sure everything's okay with them in your life decisions, et cetera.

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And that's the basics of the shepherding movement. Is that what you've seen happening at this church?

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Oh, a hundred percent. And I've like experienced things where it's like, you know, they were like propping me up to be a leader and stuff.

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And then when I wasn't quote unquote being good, I kind of got put on the shelf and forgot about almost and other various different things too.

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Yeah. So, okay, now this is, this is difficult to diagnose and talk about over the radio because I'm not in that church sitting there seeing what's being said, experiencing all of it.

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However, normally speaking, the kind of generic characteristics that this deals with are the, the, the, the admonition to subject the body of Christ and that local body, you know, to the leadership of that group to a heavy handed and controlling level.

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All right. And so what they'll do often, yeah, what's going to do is they're going to be from the pulpit.

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They're going to be preaching sermons about how the elders are the ones in the charge. Submit yourself to the elders, submit to this and that they're in control.

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And so you're supposed to do that. And this is dangerous because that's only as good as the people in charge are and they should be pointing to the

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Lordship of Christ, not their own Lordship. All right. So that's, this is what the basics are. Okay.

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So, uh, what they want to do, what they're doing to a large degree is replacing

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Christ with themselves to in some areas. And this is dangerous, of course, to replacing him because they want to be able to tell you everything that you need to know.

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Well, I've seen this kind of, I've heard of people who've been in it and talk to people who've been in it and what they've said and how they've said it worked has been pretty bad, um, where they are in being controlled a lot.

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And so I remember I talked to some people locally where a church pastor was the one that you had to go to in order to find out what decisions to make in life in order to make, well, just to run your life.

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And it also came to the point where the, uh, the people started serving the pasture and going over to his house, washing dishes, cleaning up, fixing the yard and things like that as service and what it meant to be in subjection to the leadership.

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Okay. Yeah. So this is the kind of thing that is that kind of stuff happening there too?

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Not to that degree. Um, I know you've got a lot of calls. Can I just give you an example?

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Sure. No problem. Um, real quick. Uh, so don't get me wrong.

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I believe as, as like Christians, we should serve the church and stuff. But there was one particular time where, um, they were renovating the foyer and, um, the, the house that I was living in, which is a whole nother part of this whole thing.

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Uh, they call it the guy's house, AKA like a discipleship house. And if you live there, you, you had, you had, there was no option.

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You had to do it or you would get rebuked for not serving. Um, and I mean, we had to do like some professional work and not that I'm trying to get paid, but it was like, it was almost like, no, you need to serve or you're in sin kind of thing.

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So stuff like that happens like, oh, you're not serving your, so you need to do this kind of thing.

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Yeah. Yeah. It's a dangerous thing. And so then your spirituality is judged.

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And then when people see that you are, are being shunned a little bit of rebuke by the leadership, then you're an outcast and, uh, and then becomes manipulative.

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Uh, yeah, it's, it's bad. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh.

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So one of the solutions is to, um, to lock all the doors, change all the locks on the church, put barriers up and, uh, put motion detectors so that when everybody walks up a super loud screaming, a bell goes off and people don't want to go there anymore.

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That's one solution. Probably not really effective. Uh, what you can do, uh, is the biblical model is to go to the elders of the church first and bring the charges, bring the issues to them.

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And you want to document everything. This is what's happening. This is not in scripture. It's a overreaching and it's controlling.

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And you present this to the elders. I would expect that the elders would reject it at that point.

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You then have the option of going to the church. And one of the options is to work up a one page, two page document.

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And this is the kind of thing I will, I've actually done this, gone to a church and done this and passed out literature to the congregation members about what's going on.

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And they don't like that. I got the cops called on me by the, uh, by the, uh, the church.

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And when I did this here in Boise once, so, uh, it's just options.

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You could just say, Hey, I'm out of here. But if they're controlling, then one of the dangers is, uh, a danger is that it could become a cult.

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So, yeah. And, you know, nothing is going to, okay. It could be that you're completely off your rocker and you're just spewing a bunch of lies because you're from the devil.

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However, uh, you know, it's possible. Okay. But, uh, generally speaking, if you're familiar with what's called the shepherding movement and you've experienced it, and you're telling me the stuff that is consistent with the oppression of the shepherding movement and it becomes controlling, manipulative and spiritually damaging.

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Okay. And it, uh, it can cause others to become prideful because you're not living up to it.

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That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right,

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Matt. Well, I, I really appreciate it. I'm going to be very prayerful because there's people who I do love that, um, honestly, like there is a situation happened.

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I'm going to try to be real quick. Um, recently a lot of people had left because of all of this. And, um, and honestly, after the people that had left, there was, and I told my fiance this,

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I said, watch, cause she doesn't, she didn't go to the church. She moved. Anyway. Um, I told her, I was like, watch every, every meeting that we're going to, the church has is going to be about how, um, someone is full of demons and they're being operated by from Satan and all this.

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And sure enough, Matt, every meeting they were talking about people being disobedient and all this, and they're, they're being there, um, you know, under the operation of demonic powers.

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Um, and I called it from a mile away and they broke, one person broke fellowship, um, because of it.

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And, and it's, you know, the person that got hurt is like, well, I'm sorry. Like I think it's good to, you know,

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I need to break, you know, take a step back as friends and stuff. And it just, it blew me away.

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I was like, man, these are hurting people, but yeah, um, you know, you are, uh, you're right in the middle of it and you've experienced it.

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Now you, you, you accurately predicted what's going to happen. Yes. It becomes dangerous and can become cult.

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Like if it were to, to progress unchecked, then they become a group that, you know, only true

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Christians are there. And if you leave is because you're not a true Christian, that kind of thing. It becomes, yeah, yeah, man.

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So here's a question for you. What do you do about it? Because you called me up and maybe, maybe,

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I don't know, between you and God, I'm not going to put pressure on you or not or whatever. Maybe, uh, God wants you to do something about it.

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Maybe he wants you to write something up, distribute it to the church. Maybe he wants you to go to the elders. Maybe he wants you to just do nothing.

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Who knows? So, uh, but, uh, you know, I'm a little bit obstreperous and so I have gone to churches and talk to, try to talk to the leadership about various issues at the end.

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And basically what you're going to get is what I've always gotten, rejection and hostility from Christian churches.

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When you say, why? You know, when I was doing it for women pastors, why do you women pastors? Oh yeah. Yeah. I got the cops called on me.

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I was threatened with another, another place. It's bad. So yeah, yeah.

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And you, and also, um, it sounds to me like there's a demonic influence already working in that church, in the leadership.

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And if you were to try and, uh, work through to correcting it, you could come under a demonic attack.

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I'm not saying it's something that's going to happen, you know, but I mean it just sometimes it gets spiritually rough. Trust me.

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I know about this. Yeah. In this ministry for so long, uh, demonic attacks are, uh, not regular, but it's kind of regular.

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Okay. So yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thanks man. I really appreciate your, um, your insight, your wisdom and man, you, you are such a blessing to the body of Christ.

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I mean, seriously, I'm, I'm grateful and I pray that God blesses you even more and, and increase and, um, you know, but thank you so much for your time.

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Hey, you're welcome so much brother. I really appreciate that. God bless buddy. Yes. All right. Hey folks, there's a break.

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

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Here's Matt Slick. Hi everybody. Welcome back to the show. Let's get to Paul from Salt Lake City.

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Paul, welcome. You're on the air. Hey Matt, thanks for taking my call.

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Um, just wanted to preface a little bit. Um, I just barely started listening to you well, uh, a bit ago, uh, stumbled upon your program and, uh,

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I gotta be completely honest. Some of the things that I heard you say were a little bit, uh, going against what

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I believed at that point in time, I was, uh, raised, uh, Roman Catholic and you know, it was like, eh, well this is a shock, but you know, once again, when you're stepping on, like somebody says, you know, stepping on somebody's toes, at least you're getting their attention, which it did.

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Um, when I grew up, like I said, in the, in the Roman Catholic church was an altar boy, got into the

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Knights of Columbus thing to that, and then, um, fell away because it just, it just didn't seem for me, right.

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They kind of rebelled and then just recently came back, went on to CARM after some of your, um, uh, radio programs and was looking into the differences of, you know, the

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Roman Catholic, uh, canonized Bible, uh, you know, having 77 books as opposed to all the other

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Bibles that I've seen. And if we looked into having the 66 books, um, and I've tried to find a copy of the

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Roman Catholic book with the 77, um, or Bible with the 77 books, and I can't necessarily find one.

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Can you kind of go into a little bit more detail of how the 77 books relate to, um, the canonization and how that makes the

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Roman Catholic church, as you say, an apostasy as it were, and, you know, going from the apostate, right, uh, you know, from putting it back on demand from the

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Pope aspect, um, you know, and kind of get into that a little bit more just for my ex -Roman

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Catholic brain. Okay. Well, there's a lot you asked and let's see if I can go through a few of them.

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So when Luther nailed the 95 theses to the Wittenberg door in Germany, 1531, um,

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October 31st, I think it was 31, he, uh, ignited a firestorm.

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And the reason the kindling lit is because it was all ready to be lit.

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That means is people were already under the great oppression of the

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Roman Catholic church, which had become intertwined politically and with a military force, uh, throughout

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Europe in some areas and different degrees in different countries. And the, uh, the issue of having a

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Bible in your own possession was punishable by death. A lot, a lot of the Roman Catholic teachings and stuff, they would, they, uh, they burn people at the stake for this.

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So it was pretty bad. Okay. Well, anyway, the printing press had been developed.

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And so Luther was able to, um, he was sequestered in a castle after the

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Roman Catholic church sent some people to kill him. And so he got sequestered and, uh, translated the, the

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Bible into, uh, into German because he knew the original languages and then printed it.

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And this caused problems for the Roman Catholic church. So the reformation started because of, of this whole kind of thing.

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I'm not getting exact details, right. Every order, but this is what fomented the, the reformation.

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People started reading the texts of the Bible for themselves. The printing press is what did this.

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All right. So in 1546, the Roman Catholic church then officially said the apocryphal books are scripture.

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Now I talked to Catholics all the time and they tell me that the Protestants took out the books of the

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Bible and it was never the case that they were in the, the, uh, the church, the Catholic church officially recognized them in 1546.

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Okay. So that's, that's a fact that's history. Now there's, that's just a little bit of information. I can tell you why the apocryphal books were not included if you're interested, or I can kind of go a different direction.

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If you have another question, I can kind of focus on that because you didn't have a lot of stuff, which is fine. I'm just saying, which one do you want me to focus on, uh, the, the, how, why they were included or taken out from the other books that they were not taken out because they never were in, but, uh, in, in the book of Luke 1151,

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Jesus says this from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God.

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Yes. I tell you it shall be charged against this generation. So what that means is the blood of Abel, that's

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Genesis and, uh, Zechariah was chronicles in the Jewish canon arrangement of the old

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Testament books at that time. Chronicles was the last one today. It's Malachi for us.

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They're the same books are disarranged in a different pattern. I don't know why they got changed, but that's what it is. So what

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Jesus was saying was from the first to the last book of the old Testament, and that excluded the Apocrypha.

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He knew about the Apocrypha. Furthermore, in Luke 2444, Jesus says, uh, these are my words, which

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I've spoken to you while I was still with you, that all the things written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the

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Psalms must be fulfilled. So the law, the prophets and the

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Psalms were the divisions of the old Testament canon, which excluded the

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Apocrypha. So what Jesus said is that these are my words. He says, uh, all the things which were written about me in the law, the prophets and the

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Psalms. So he was, because he says in John five 39, the scriptures are about him and John five 39.

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You search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life, but it is these that bear witness of me. The scriptures bear witness of Christ.

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And then Jesus says that he spoke to the disciples about what were written about him in the law, the prophets and the

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Psalms and the Apocrypha he excluded. So Jesus himself rejected the

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Apocrypha books because he said the scriptures are about him. And then he spoke about what was written about him in the law, the prophets and the

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Psalms. That's the Jewish division of the old Testament books, which they did not recognize included the

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Apocrypha books. This is what Jesus said. So this is proof right there that he rejected the Apocrypha books.

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Okay. Gotcha. Okay. And then just a real quick follow up question on that.

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So with, uh, you were talking about, uh, you know, Luther, um, and the reformation and stuff like that.

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So is it just the Roman Catholic, um, aspect of it as opposed to like the Lutheran Catholic, uh, uh, division, um, that is the

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Lutheran Catholic, uh, the Lutheran and okay, um, to go as opposed to from the

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Roman Catholic. So yes and no. Uh, I went to a Lutheran college and a

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Presbyterian seminary. So when, when Luther did what he did, it caused a firestorm and all of a sudden, you know,

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Europe's in an uproar over all of this stuff and anyway, and there was some bad stuff done on both sides.

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It's just a fact of history. People made a lot of mistakes. And then Calvin, John Calvin, who was in France, he was part of the reformation movement, but he was a generation after Luther.

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And Calvin wrote what's called the Institute of the Christian Religion. Probably aside from the

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Bible, probably the single most influential book ever written in the past thousand years, aside from the scriptures, you know, the translations and because it shaped the, the, uh, the foundations, uh, ethically and politically of Western civilization as they move through.

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Uh, that's a whole nother story. Okay. So you have Luther and then you have

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Calvin. Well, as, as is the case, if you want to mess something up, all you need is two things, people and time.

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So Lutheranism is divided into some good and bad Calvinism or Presbyterianism is divided into some good and bad groups.

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And we can talk about that in a little bit cause there's a break. So if you want to hold, okay, we got plenty of time here. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

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Let's get back with Paul after the break and hopefully you're still listening. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

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Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

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Paul, you're back on the air. Yes, sir. Thank you. Okay. So what do you got, buddy?

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Well, that was it. Thank you. I appreciate your explanation. And I've gone on to your website.

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That's where I got a lot of this information as well. I just wanted to kind of get your take on it directly. You know, coming back to Christianity as it were, you know, there's a lot of information out there and I'm finding my way back.

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So I appreciate you and what you're doing. Can I talk to you for a few more minutes about this?

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Because I'm very concerned. I don't want you to go back to Catholicism because it's not Christian. It's a bold statement.

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I know a lot of Catholics are hearing this, but the reason it's not is because the gospel itself, which is around the death, burial, and resurrection.

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The Apostle Paul called by Jesus in Acts nine, he clearly teaches us as Jesus does.

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I can show you the references that our salvation, our forgiveness of sins is by faith alone in what

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God has done. The Roman Catholic church curses that. And it says in paragraph 2068 that you attain salvation through faith, baptism, and the observance of the commandments.

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In paragraph 2036 it says keeping the natural law, the precept of the natural law is necessary for salvation.

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Necessary. And in paragraph 2070 it says that the 10 commandments are an expression of the natural law.

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So it's saying you must keep the 10 commandments to be saved. Well, we can't do that. We can't because we're not good enough.

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Yeah. Right. And so the Roman Catholic church says that you have to. And I debate this all the time with people, all the time with Catholics.

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I know the topic very well. And so I can go into quite a bit about this and I've written a great deal on it.

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But not only that, it teaches the prayer and adoration of prayer to an adoration of, of Mary.

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And if you were to go to calm and you look up the apparitions of Mary, I use the apparitions as a proof that the

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Roman Catholic church is false because the apparitions in Guadalupe and Fatima that the

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Catholic church says are official really is Mary. They teach demonic doctrine.

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And I know this because I know the Bible says it's not just my personal interpretation like they'd like to say.

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That's not what it is. It's, it's, you know, the apparitions say, you know, all who come to me,

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I promise salvation. Everyone who loves me, you know, it's, these apparitions are, it's demonic.

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It's not talking about Jesus. And so, and then, then one last thing, this is in, uh, the

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Neil Lobstadt, the imprimatur are seals of approval from bishops that state that a certain writing, uh, is approved of the

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Roman Catholic system and worthy of being taught to the Catholic members. The imprimatur and Neil Lobstadt are in the book fundamentals of Catholic dogma by Ludwig Ott, OTT.

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And on page 213, it says this, that Mary by her entering into the divine sacrifice of her son made atonement for our sins.

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So they're elevating her to a level that is just unwarranted. So the

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Roman Catholic church teaches a false gospel and promotes idolatry. Okay. It's not

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Christian. And you know, and I completely agree with that. Oh, go ahead. Good. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, and that's where I, my biggest, uh, well,

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I, I believe what, uh, what you're saying about that, because I've, I've cross -referenced a lot of things with the

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Bible, you know, the whole purgatory thing and things of that nature as well, you know, and, you know, praying to Mary, that's not in the

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Bible. Um, so, you know, I've, I've, I've, I've come to know and trust that the

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Bible is what, you know, is the gospel is the truth and, and to measure everything against that.

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So, and that's why, you know, like I said at the beginning, the shock to me was growing up and, you know, the

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Roman Catholic way was the way, and now it's, it's clearly for me, it's not. Um, and I just want to make sure that I'm, you know,

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I want to do what I can to, to not follow that to a point, but also I still want to be part of the body of Christ.

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You know, I want to, um, uh, do what is the great commission. You know, I want to evangelize and, and, and things of that nature, but I still want to be part of a, of a church as well, because that's, you know, kind of what we're, we're asked to do.

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So, um, Can I ask what city you're in down there? Say what? Can I, you're in Salt Lake City or proper or like in Sandy or Actually I'm, I'm up North.

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I'm in, I'm in Ogden actually. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Um, Ogden.

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Yeah. I may be down there doing a debate, uh, in June or July anyway, in Ogden area.

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But I know some people, uh, in, uh, Sandy and they, you know, they've been there for years and years and they're good

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Christians and they know Mormonism inside out backwards forward. They could tell you what churches are good, but I don't know about Ogden area.

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That's the only problem. Okay. So, but on CARM, there's an article, what to look for in a church.

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You can just look it up, what to look for in a church and check it out. If you've got questions about something, you know, call me up or email and say,

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Hey, is this a good church? You know, and then, um, we'll, you know, take a look, you know? Okay. Yeah.

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I'll definitely do that. Thanks, Matt. Again, bless you for what you're doing. Um, you know, radio program has kind of brought me back.

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So, you know, I, I spend a lot of time listening now and, you know, reading my Bible every day. You know,

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I just want to, I just want to make sure that, uh, again, it feels right. But again, we know how my heart is, right?

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Um, I just want to make sure that, uh, you know, I'm doing what God is asking me to do and praying on it every day. So thank you for what you do.

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Wow, man. I keep listening because I'm, there's a possibility in a couple of weeks of me being down there for, um, uh, a general conference at the

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LDS temple. So, uh, you know, if I do, if I do go down right now, I want to stuff like that.

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Uh, but at any rate, so, but, but good for you, man. Good for you. Okay. So praise God. Keep, uh, just keep reading that word and find a good church.

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All right. Will do. Thanks, Matt. God bless you. All right, man. God bless. All right.

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Well, praise God. Praise God. All right. Let's see the next long. Ooh, waiting a long time. Andrew from Ohio.

30:06

Andrew, welcome. Um, sorry, but we had a long half hour, um, but you're on. It's all right, Matt. No problem.

30:13

How you doing? Doing all right. Um, I guess continuing on the, uh, oh, sorry.

30:22

Um, from what, sort of what the last caller was talking about, can you, um, kind of give a, like an apologetic defense of why

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Paul's letters are included in scripture? And I'm just going to be a rant. Sure.

30:35

Sure. Because if you go to Acts, uh, go to Acts chapter nine, what happened in Acts nine is that Paul was called by Jesus to be the witness and the apostle to the

30:47

Gentiles. So Jesus himself called him. Now, Peter himself was also called by Jesus.

30:53

And so that's, that's a given Peter. So this is what Peter says in second Peter three 16 and he's talking about Paul.

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Talk about it because he says this in verse 15, regard the patience of our Lord and salvation. Just as also our beloved brother,

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Paul, according to the wisdom given him wrote to you as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort as they do the rest of the scriptures to their own destruction.

31:27

So Peter related Paul's writings to scripture. Okay. Okay.

31:33

That's good. Yeah. And, uh, then there's also a verse I can see. I can find it really quickly.

31:38

I'm looking at my Bible program. Yes. This is second Corinthians seven 12 Paul's writing. It says the rest,

31:44

I say to you, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who's an unbeliever. So he's saying, well, you know, not the

31:50

Lord. So he knows when he's speaking of himself and when he's speaking of the Lord. Okay.

31:59

And I was, I was, I was wondering about, um, revelation and being, you know, on the law and the prophets and, um, the final prophecy and how can, how can revelation be, you know, in addition to that?

32:12

Or is it, you know, you don't think like, how is that, how does that work? No, just like, is it, is it, it's considered prophecy, right?

32:23

Yes. Or is it not? Yes, it is. Yes. Okay. So what is the final, like, you know, the end of prophecy or I guess it's not because go ahead.

32:37

Sorry. I think you know what I'm trying to do. Generally speaking, the book of revelations considered the last book of the

32:44

Bible that's written chronologically. Now there's some debate on it, but that's generally the view. And so, uh, this is because God is the one who is true and he knows the future and because he's ordained it and he's revealing what's going to be happening.

32:57

So that's all that's going on there. And so the book of revelation is recognized as being scripture by the

33:02

Christian church and then not declaring it's because you're recognizing it as okay. All right.

33:10

Well, thank you. Appreciate you. Right. Does that help? Yes, sir.

33:16

All right. Well, good. I hope you have a good day. Thanks. I need it.

33:22

All right. God bless. All right. Next, we're going to get to Chris, but we had a break coming up in the next 30 seconds.

33:29

So I'm going to hold off and get into him. And before the break, just want to tell you that we do stay on the air by your support.

33:34

And I rarely really talk about this, but I need to start doing it and letting you know that if you are interested in supporting this ministry, not just the radio, but the website as well, and the missionaries that we have in different parts of the world, please consider just going to carm .org,

33:50

C -A -R -M dot O -R -G forward slash donate. And you can set up something. We don't ask much, five or ten dollars a month.

33:57

Recurring is really great. One time donation is also very helpful. And we just lay it before you.

34:03

We'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

34:15

Here's Matt Slick. All right. Welcome back to the show. Last quarter of the hour.

34:21

If you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276. Let's get on with Chris from North Carolina.

34:29

Chris, welcome. You're on the air. Matt was shaking bacon.

34:38

Lots of stuff, man. You're making me smile. What's that? It's me again,

34:44

Margaret. That's my song. Look, quick question, Matt. About three weeks ago, you were talking, and I caught the tail end of the conversation.

34:54

And the caller was, I'm not sure what his initial question was, but you were talking about cults.

35:03

And you named a couple that you thought were cults. And I thought one of them was the

35:11

International Pentecostal Church. No, United Pentecostal. The United Pentecostal.

35:19

Yes. So what's your thoughts on the International Pentecostal holding this church? Well, it just so happens that because you were waiting and the producer typed in that name to know what you're talking about,

35:33

I researched it during the break. And often is the case with such a title, you don't want to judge a book by its title.

35:43

But often with a title, they're usually overly charismatic and deny the

35:50

Trinity. However, this looks like a good church in that it affirms a

35:56

Trinity because it says unity of Godhead. There are three persons of one substance of eternal being and equal in holiness.

36:02

You know, personally, I wish they were a little more precise in their statement of faith.

36:09

You know, I looked a lot of statement of faith. I think it worded better here and there that this, you know, it's a small thing.

36:16

But the only really and I looked at this stuff justification by faith alone. But here's something that bothered me.

36:21

And it might be because the writing is not as clear as it needs to be. Number seven, I'm going to read.

36:26

They go to 11 in their statement of faith. It says, number seven, we believe that Jesus Christ shed his blood for the remission of sins that are past for the regeneration of penitent sinners and for salvation from sin and from sinning.

36:41

So the wording is not very good because it implies the idea that their sins are paid for by the past.

36:50

Your past sins are paid for at the point of when you get saved. That's the implication because it says for their missions that are past.

36:58

And it should say if it's really biblical for all the sins past, present and future that Christ did this.

37:06

So it could be that they're just not wording it properly or it could be that there's a problem. I don't know.

37:12

And so then it says for the regeneration of penitent sinners. And then we get into some other theological things about that, which

37:19

I would ask him the logical versus temporal priority, regeneration, faith and things like that.

37:24

But those are nuances like to get in with people. And then 11 says, we believe that the

37:30

Pentecostal baptism of the Holy Ghost. And generally speaking, remember, I'm speaking generally.

37:36

But when people say Holy Ghost, they might say Holy Ghost or they might say Holy Ghost. Well, the emphasis is on the first very first syllable, the

37:46

Holy Ghost. And I noticed the commonality of that pronunciation among charismatic, hyper charismatic groups.

37:54

I don't know why, but I just noticed that in the same way. And so it became a like, oh, what's going on here when they say that?

38:02

But they don't say there's only just the word Holy Ghost. Two words. I don't know how they're pronouncing it. That means any big deal.

38:08

But it's just one of the things I've observed. But this is what concerned me. What we believe that the Pentecostal baptism of the

38:13

Holy Ghost and fire is obtainable by a definite act of appropriating faith on the part of the fully cleansed believer.

38:23

So this it kind of tells me or opens up the possibility that what's going on is that it is a hyper charismatic group that you're supposed to speak in tongues to manifest salvation in the presence of the

38:37

Holy Spirit. And that's what it says. And the initial evidence of reception of this experience is speaking with other tongues as a spirit of utterance.

38:44

And they're mistaken there. The fact is that people spoke in tongues in many places in the old in the

38:54

New Testament when the Holy Spirit came out on them. But it also says in verse 11 and not all speak with tongues because the

39:01

Lord doesn't give it to everybody. And so the tongues that were spoken of in Acts chapter two were probably the languages that were commonly understood by the individuals of that geographical area who had gathered.

39:14

And they're speaking in other tongues, not just the Hebrew tongue. So there's debate on this.

39:19

But but when they write something like this, it causes me concern. It doesn't mean I'm not Christian, but it causes me concern that.

39:28

Wait a minute. Are you saying then that, you know, you have the Holy Spirit if and only if you're speaking in tongues?

39:34

And if you never speak in tongues, does it mean you don't have the Holy Spirit? Those are the questions you have to ask. If they were to say, if you never speak in tongues for years and years and you're never a

39:42

Christian, then that would be a false teaching. If they say, no, some people do. Some people don't.

39:49

Then, you know, we just prefer that they do. Well, OK. I'd say that's a bit of an aberrant thing, but that they're within orthodoxy.

39:57

So you see the difficulty here where we're at. OK. Yeah. And then number 12 is also because what

40:05

I'm thinking, what you what you were just referring to was speaking in tongues is when they had

40:14

Paul out there in the front. No, no. Peter and they said, how is it that these are unlearned men, but we hear them in our own tongue?

40:28

Right. Right. OK. All right. But overall, overall, it looks

40:37

OK. Overall, it looks within orthodoxy from what the statement of faith says.

40:45

I have some concerns, but they're not like concerns of they're denying the

40:50

Trinity, denying the deity of resurrection. They don't think they said that. If you raised Christ my dad and buried my second.

41:02

And it doesn't say he was raised. That could just be an oversight.

41:09

Well, look at this. This is good, though. So that the two whole and perfect natures in Christ, that's good. The Godhead and the manhood were joined together in one person.

41:17

Very good. Never to be divided. That's very good, too. Whereas in one Christ, very God perfect man who actually suffered was crucified, dead and buried to reconcile the father to us.

41:27

Oh, it does say here it is. We believe that Christ did truly rise from the dead and took again his body with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature.

41:38

Interesting. And the heaven sits there. And yeah, so they yeah, they affirm all the essentials. It looks like they're within orthodoxy.

41:46

It just I think a little bit might be a bad thing in that there might be too charismatic, hyper charismatic stuff like that.

41:52

Name it and claim it. Because it also says in number 12, we believe in the healing as an atonement so that you're supposed to be healed.

41:59

But not always the case. It just depends. I do know the pastor. He said he referenced it a couple of times that he'll say something.

42:10

And he says, and I'm not talking about the name and claim it. But he said one that ripped me up.

42:16

He said, blab it and grab it. Yeah, the pastor is super awesome.

42:27

But you had referenced about going to calm and you said, go to telling the other caller.

42:34

You said, go to calm and go. And I couldn't follow it after that.

42:40

When I went to calm about determining cults and things like that.

42:46

Was it under heresy? Oh, no. Just type in what to look for in a church.

42:52

That was what I was talking about just recently on the radio. OK, so this was about three weeks ago and you were talking about, you know, it's called and all.

43:04

And you told the caller said, go to calm and then go to something and then something else.

43:14

And I didn't know if it was heresy or what, but I know what's going on. Yeah, I don't know what the topic was.

43:21

Yeah, that's an even better reason to research calm.

43:27

Well, Matt, thank you so much. I know you ain't got but a couple of minutes. So if there's anybody calling,

43:32

I'm going to let you scoop. But thank you, sir. All right. All right. Well, God bless. OK, we'll see you soon.

43:39

Take care now. All right, brother. All right. And also one last concern I have about that group is do they affirm women, pastors and elders?

43:47

And I was looking and I can't find that. And I'll be looking while I'm talking.

43:57

All right. Let's get to Herb from Raleigh, North Carolina.

44:02

Welcome. Hey, Matt, I know you don't have much time, but I want to ask you real quickly.

44:09

I saw a movie not long ago, Jesus of Nazareth. And it brought to my mind about the when

44:15

King Herod, I think it was, to kill wanted to have all the babies killed. Well, I looked it up online on computer on some site just to learn more about it.

44:24

And it said that they don't necessarily believe that actually happened, that Christians just dramatize that.

44:32

Now, have you ever heard of something that ridiculous or what's your feeling on the story?

44:38

I have no reason to doubt it. But I'm amazed at some people. Somebody in that article, they said they don't they don't put a lot of credence into that.

44:48

Yeah, it did happen because it's recorded in the scriptures and that's it.

44:53

It's not just a hyperbole exaggeration or anything. And so it did happen.

44:59

And yes, I do know of instances and people who will deny that such a thing did happen.

45:06

Yeah. But it did. Well, that's sad. I mean, as horrible as it was, I mean, people want to deny.

45:12

That's just unbelievable. But buddy, I appreciate it. I just wanted to catch that real quick.

45:18

I thought I thought about it. Let me call you before you get out there. And I listen to you every day and still pray for you.

45:24

Boy, do I need it. Boy, do I need it. Okay. You know, if you spend time with me,

45:31

I'll agree with that. It ended yesterday. I said I was wearing it Friday in my car.

45:37

So I'm recovering from that. So I need it right now. I'm pretty, pretty sore, but I'm OK.

45:44

Well, praise God. We've got a prayer team and Joanne's on it. So what she'll do automatically, because that's how she is.

45:50

She will just start having you lifted up on prayer. OK, well, tell me.

45:56

Thank you so much. And thank you as always, Matt. And God bless you all forever. You too, man.

46:01

God bless. Thanks. All right. Bye bye now. OK. All right.

46:08

Oh, man. So I'm going to just very generically say for those of you who are out there in in Karm land, would you please consider praying for this ministry?

46:23

There's, let's just say, let's just say some attacks are coming. You know, it's just part of ministry, just stuff.

46:30

And just ask you to just pray. Not to get into details. It's not a big deal. But if you would be so kind as to lift up this ministry and Karm and stuff.

46:44

God will put it on your heart what to pray for. OK. And also, I just want to say, if you'd be so kind as to consider supporting us.

46:51

And this is not what I was thinking about, you know, the financial stuff with this. It's a different issue altogether. But I just want to let you know that we do need your support.

47:00

And we're not dying here. But if you'd be so kind as to consider supporting us with five or ten dollars a month, that's what we ask.

47:08

All you have to do is go to Karm .org, C -A -R -M dot O -R -G and forward slash donate.

47:15

And all the information you need is right there. And you can set it up very easily. And you can stop it when you want.

47:22

And we do appreciate that. We like recurring, even if it's just a little bit. Because it tells us what the budget can be when we work on things.

47:29

We know what our finances are. And we do need that. Because we have missionaries in Colombia, Turkey, Brazil, Malawi, and Nigeria.

47:41

And we're supporting them as they preach the gospel. And they don't get a whole bunch, but I'll tell you.

47:47

They're great people of the Lord. Anyway, there's the music. I'm out of here. May the Lord bless you by His grace.

47:53

We're back on air tomorrow. And we'll talk to you then. God bless everybody. Bye. Another program powered by the