Matt Slick Live: October 30, 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. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. Thank you for listening to Matt Slick Live, and like yesterday,

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I am fighting a bad head cold. My voice is a little off, but it's good enough to be able to do this show today.

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If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

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And if you want to email me, it's easy, info at karm .org, info at karm,

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C -A -R -M, dot O -R -G. And you can just put in the subject line, radio comment or radio question, and we'll get to it.

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You know, we do that usually on Fridays. So excuse me while I do frequent, you know, cough breaks here,

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I'm really fighting a bad head cold. I caught it coming back from Istanbul on a 12 -hour flight, and on the next day, you know, it began.

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And it happens. But I didn't really get a chance to talk too much about the Europe trip, and I wanted to mention something.

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There's a takeaway. You know, we were in the airport, and I was asking some of the fellow travelers who were on this trip.

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I said, what's your biggest takeaway? And I got different answers, and I'm not saying one is better than the other, it's just different ones.

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And for one person, it was seeing the history validates the Bible, seeing the sites, which is magnificent, was awe -inspiring, things like this, different people.

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And for me, it was something different. And I'm not trying to say I'm more spiritual, nothing like that. But for me, it was the need to preach the gospel.

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And the reason I'm saying that is because when we were in Turkey, and it's a

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Muslim country, and you know, it was interesting.

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We went to the seven churches of Revelation and enjoyed that, all the geographical locations.

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Oh, here's a little bit of trivia. When we were at Philadelphia, someone was saying it looked like it was

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Alice Cooper over at a better tour group. And I said, what?

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And they said, look, look. And I forgot about this. I looked over, and it looked like Alice Cooper.

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Alice Cooper is a Christian. I didn't go over to ask anything. But people were asking for his autograph, whoever this guy was.

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He was tall, looked just like him. And so someone said, yeah, that's him. And so maybe we saw

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Alice Cooper while we were in Turkey. I got a kick out of that. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't.

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I don't know, because it didn't verify. But he said people were asking him for his autograph, and he was taking pictures and autographing stuff.

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And I saw Alice Cooper last night on something that looks like the guy. So anyway,

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I wish I could sit down and teach him theology. I don't know if he's got good instruction, because he's a

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Christian. There's a couple of guys I wish I could do that with. There's that British guy, I forgot his name.

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I'm not good with names, but he certainly seems to be a Christian. The name's almost there.

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Maybe someone can type his name out, and I can repeat it.

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Russell Brand or something like that, I think. And so I'd love to be able to teach these guys what biblical theology is, so they can make better statements and stuff like that.

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Because a lot of the pastors that they come in contact with, they're good guys, but they don't know their theology as well.

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So I think they need to know for the people who are in the public eye. Anyway, quite a side note.

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So we're in Turkey, and people treated us fine, it was fine. I was actually a little worried about getting recognized, because I speak about Islam.

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And I was wondering if there might be a problem there, and there was no problem at all. And then we went to Turkey.

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We flew into Thessalonica, or Thessaloniki. And that was really interesting, because everything was in Greek.

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And I could read some of the Greek, and sometimes I understood something, and sometimes, most of the time, I did not. But it was a lot of fun checking that out.

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And so I had to do a devotion there, in Thessalonica, and also in Corinth. And we had a really nice, really good guy, great

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English, a tour guide. And he was Eastern Orthodox. Well, I've been debating

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Eastern Orthodox people for a while. And Eastern Orthodoxy is just not

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Christian. It teaches a false gospel, flat out, it just teaches a false gospel.

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So there were people on the bus, some knew who I was. I'm not trying to sound arrogant, you know, look who

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I am. No, no, it's not it. But some knew who I was, and some didn't. That's fine, I don't care. But some people would ask me questions, theology questions.

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And so I got a rep there of being able to answer questions on the bus. And at dinner, and breakfast, and things like that, and lunch.

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It was a lot of fun. It wasn't about all that, but when they'd ask, you know, okay. So we went to these

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Eastern Orthodox churches. And it was really interesting, this one that I went into,

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I got pictures. I still haven't put anything up on the web on CARM yet, because I've just been too busy catching up with stuff after three weeks.

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But it was really disturbing. It was really disturbing.

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We went into this church, and then sat outside of a large landing, stood out there, and then there happened to be an elevated platform, and I got up there and gave a 15 -minute devotion.

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And having first gone into the Eastern Orthodox church, I could sum it up with just a few words.

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Excessive pagan tradition. That's what I was seeing. It was paganism and tradition.

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Traditions of men, traditions of history. And so I had pictures of that place.

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And there were icons everywhere of Mary and saints and just others and these great teachers, supposedly great teachers.

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And so, can you guys hear me okay? Everybody hears me okay? Charlie, everything, okay, good.

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And so we went in this place, and I watched the people. They would pay money, and they could light candles for different whatever.

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Then they had, this is what got me. I go into these churches. You just got to imagine this.

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You just got to imagine. And I'll get the pictures up sometime. But you go in, and it's hard to describe.

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Gold and silver, ornate tapestries and items and chairs and things on the walls, gold chains, and just all this stuff.

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And framed pictures. Well, I don't know what pictures or paintings. All over the place.

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Statues, and Mary holding Jesus, little baby Jesus, and people going up and kissing the icons, kissing them, kissing them, and rubbing them in a statue and then doing the sign of the cross.

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And it was upsetting. I didn't cause a scene. It's not going to help anything to do that.

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And I didn't speak the language, so it's not going to make any difference. I wish I had charismatic occurrence right there of tongues.

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That would have been great. But this tradition, these icons, these things to kiss and to touch, and I know what

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Eastern Orthodox theology teaches about salvation. And it teaches a demonic doctrine of salvation.

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It teaches that justification is not instantaneous. You're not justified by faith alone in Christ alone.

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You're justified by faith that works through many, many years of participating in the graces of God that are worked through the

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Eastern Orthodox Church that you hope to achieve theosis, the right relationship with God, and that achieves justification.

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And that's just demonic crap. That's what it is. I'll just flat out say it.

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It's just demonic. It's filth. And so knowing that, knowing that these people were entrenched and trapped in those lies, that they're just going about, they don't know any better.

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They don't know any better. I didn't see any Bibles there. Now, I wasn't exactly looking for them, but I didn't see a

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Bible. And I've got to say, though, that I don't recall, now that I'm thinking about it,

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I don't recall seeing any Bibles in any of these Orthodox churches. That's interesting. I'm going to ask some other people who went there if they saw any

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Bibles. I didn't see any Bibles there. That's interesting. Yeah, really interesting.

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No Bibles. So it doesn't mean it weren't there, because there were lots of places

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I couldn't go to, and up, like in this church, there was a service going on, and I'm not going to go up to the front and check and see if there was a

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Bible. It would not have been appropriate. So I'm not saying they didn't have Bibles. I'm just saying I didn't notice them.

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If they did have them, maybe they were someplace. I don't know. So I'm just going to be fair about that. But to see the people, these poor people, just waddling in like ducks, just doing the genuflecting, the kissing, bowing, kissing these objects, kissing, putting their fingers on something and then touching it to their chest or their lips, these objects, and I just want to tell them, you need

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Jesus. You need Jesus. And so this went on for 15 minutes in here.

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It's really upsetting to me to see how the devil has entrenched himself so well in churches that pretend to be

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Christian like that and Catholicism. Oh, my goodness. It's even worse.

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So we had to go outside, and that's when I had to give my devotion. The tour guide is a real nice guy.

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I'm not knocking him at all. He was great. The tour guide was Eastern Orthodox. Now there's a story in the

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Bible about Jesus, the parable saying the shepherd left the 99, went looking for the one, one lost sheep.

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And what I did during my devotion, which I'd already prepared, is in the middle of it

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I catered it a little bit to that situation, going after the lost sheep.

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And it was appropriate. It was appropriate for what I was talking about. But the issue of we're justified by faith alone in Christ alone, not faith and baptism, not faith and tradition, not faith and kissing an icon, not faith and kissing a statue, not faith and going to a confession of your priest and you get your sins forgiven, or not faith and your sacraments, not faith and, and, and.

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It just makes me mad. And I didn't say any of that in any mocking tone.

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I wasn't upset, but I said the biblical truth. Someone showed a picture of him while I was preaching that exact stuff and he was frowning.

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He did not like what I was saying. And this is, was, was interesting to me because they showed me the picture and sure enough, he didn't like what

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I was saying. And so I preached anyway.

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Just preached the truth of faith in Christ alone. And, you know, praise

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God, thank you, thank you, thank you. So two days later, we went from Thessalonica, now we're in Corinth, and I did another devotion.

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And there were a lot of people doing devotions there at Corinth. And one

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Catholic group was breaking up. And we're going to take their spot. And when we get back from the break,

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I'll tell you what happened. Not a big deal, but I'll tell you what happened. It's kind of interesting. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

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If you want to give me a call, the number is 877 -207 -2276.

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We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick Live!

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

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

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And you can also email me info at carm .org, c -a -r -m dot o -r -g, info at carm .org.

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And I want to hear from you. Give me a call. If you send an email, just put in the subject line, radio comment, radio question, and then we can get to it.

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All right, so I was going to continue on a little bit. Just to give you some feedback about the trip. I was gone for three weeks, 19 days.

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Three weeks, 21 days, because we had a couple of days to travel. Anyway, so we went to Turkey, then

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Greece, and then Italy. And so I'm talking about what happened in Greece. So I preached, and our tour guide, great guy, good guy, he didn't like the message, because I wasn't preaching the false doctrine of the

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Eastern Orthodox Church. So then we went to Corinth a day or two later.

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How was that Corinth? It's just awesome. The Church of Thessalonica, I was there.

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Man, you know, I was on Mars Hill in Italy. Was it

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Italy? No, it wasn't. We were on Mars Hill, and my nose, hold on.

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There we go. All right, so we went to Corinth, and so I remember it very well.

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There were different groups that were staged in different areas. They just found places to do devotions, and we heard a

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Korean group. It was really nice. They were singing songs, and then there was a

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Catholic group. We could see a priest over there, and that's where we ended up going when they broke up. We moved right in, and we weren't rude or anything, but we just kind of, hey, well, you know.

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And they were really polite, and I wanted to talk to the priest, and incidentally, I talked to a priest and two monks.

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I'll tell you what happened. It's not like a joke. It was a priest and two monks. Anyway, so on the grounds of Corinth, I wanted to ask the priest a question, and I did in English, but he didn't understand it well enough.

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The question was, are all of your sins forgiven right now? And he couldn't quite understand it, and I tried it in Spanish.

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You know, maybe they speak Spanish because Spain's not too far away. That didn't work, and the people who were waiting for me to give a devotion because I'm always over -witnessing.

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And another place there the day earlier, I was witnessing the two Jehovah's Witnesses. They were actually

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Greek Jehovah's Witnesses, and they showed me the Greek Bible, and I was able to read it, and they go, no, no, no. Their English was pretty decent.

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No, no, that's not what it says here. It was kind of fun. So at any rate,

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I gave a devotion there at Corinth. All right, so we were someplace, so many places.

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Where was that? Maybe it was in Italy when we first got there. Yeah, it had to be. Yeah, and so we were in Italy, and we were the first day,

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I think, and we're getting lunch someplace. Breakfast and dinner are provided in the cost of the tour, and lunch, you just say, okay, everybody, here's the area to go eat.

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And they just disperse. They'd be back in an hour, you know, and that kind of thing. And so two buds of mine,

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Dave and Anthony, we were getting some pizza, some

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Italian pizza, and it's really nice. And the Filipino girl was helping us out, and she spoke great

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English, and we're just having a great time, and I look to my right, and a priest is walking by.

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And I go, hey, do you speak English? And he says, yeah. So I asked him, I said, are all of your sins forgiven right now?

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And he kind of looked at me, and he said, well, of course not. And I said, well, why not? He says, you have to repent.

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So I said, okay, you have to repent. So does repentance get you the forgiveness of sins? And he stopped.

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Because repentance, folks, doesn't get us forgiveness of sins. Trust in Christ does. Repentance doesn't bring us forgiveness of sin.

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Because if repentance in itself did, then an atheist could be forgiven if an atheist stopped sinning, stopped doing something wrong.

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So I said, so does that get you forgiveness? And he said, well, you have to do stuff.

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You can't just believe, you have to do. And I said, so when the Bible says, having therefore been justified by faith, or Romans 4, 5, the one that does not work.

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He says, what? I said, yeah, let's go. Let's look at Romans 4. I started actually quoting it to him.

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And actually, I remember now, he got his cell phone, he got a Bible on the cell phone. I got mine, my folding open phone, my

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Galaxy 5, Fold 5. I love that thing. And so I'm showing him the

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NSB. He's looking at whatever version it was. And we got to verse 3 in Romans chapter 4.

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And it was, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. And I said, what was reckoned as righteousness?

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Was it faith or his works? And he just looked at it, and he goes,

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I got to go. And that was it. He took off. So that was interesting.

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So just imagine that conversation two more times with monks. They weren't priests.

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They were monks. And one was around the Colosseum in Rome. Went to the

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Colosseum, and I got separated from my group. And I had to wait an hour and a half.

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I knew where they were going to be at a certain time. I just waited, and they showed up at a certain time. There's so much going on everywhere.

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It was no big deal. So, you know, by God's grace, I was able to witness. And I love witnessing.

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I love to talk to people. And that's the question I've been asking more and more. Are all of your sins forgiven right now?

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And the monks gave the same answer as the priests. And one monk could talk longer than another.

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Another one couldn't. You know, not trying to be mean, not trying to be rude. The guy goes, look, I really got to go.

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I said, okay, I got it. I said, just think about it. You know, all your sins forgiven. I said, I know mine aren't.

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Because I've trusted Christ alone. And he goes, well, thank you for this time. And that was very polite.

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So I don't want to give a wrong impression of these three guys I talked to. Because they were all polite.

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They were. And there were good conversations. But they gave the same answers.

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They gave the false gospel answer. The false gospel answer.

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I coughed there, you see. I'm coughing still. What is the gospel?

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Well, the gospel is really simple. It's so simple that it needs to be proclaimed. It needs to be taught.

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The gospel is that Jesus, that Jesus is the one who died for our sins.

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Jesus is the one who did what was necessary for us to have our sins forgiven. Jesus did everything.

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We don't have to do anything. We believe, but God grants that we believe.

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Philippians 1 .29. That's what it is. And so, when we believe, we're justified.

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To be justified means to be declared righteous. Why is it like that? Why is it so simple?

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Well, it's simple because God did everything. And when you have to do something, you know, your faith in Christ and his sacrifice on the cross, and you have to get baptized.

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That's all the devil wants to do. Add one little thing. Because if you add anything to the work of Christ, you're not trusting completely in the work of Christ, are you?

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Simple. This is why they have a false gospel. There's the break. Give me a call. We have nobody waiting.

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877 -207 -2276. Be right back. It's Matt Slick Live!

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

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All right, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Now, we've got a caller coming in, but I want to say one more thing, and you've got a reason for saying this.

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Cameron is a friend of mine, and he lives just a few miles from me. He went on the trip. And I want to give a shout -out to Cameron because he's a postman, and he listens to my show afterwards.

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You know, the next day or two or three, he just listens. He's pretty knowledgeable. He's learned a lot of stuff from me and others.

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And so when I was in the ER in Turkey because my feet swelled up and I had a blood vessel break, and they were concerned about that, so I had to go in.

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I don't know what. I still need to go get a doctor and just get checked up, but at any rate, everything turned out okay. He selflessly stayed up all night with me, basically.

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Got two hours sleep, and we had to walk eight miles the next day. And just want to give a shout -out to Cameron.

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Appreciate it, buddy. Great. And a lot of people don't know this, but I have a very, very, very bad fear of heights.

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I got traumatized when I was a kid. It was very bad, and I had to face a lot of that on the trip, going up upstairs in varying conditions, which are difficult for me.

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Some aren't. Some aren't. And Cameron was there a lot of times, just helping me through a lot of that stuff. He's a good guy. So I'm giving a shout -out to you.

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God bless. And I know he'll be listening to this in a later podcast. All right. Let's get to Alberto from Georgia.

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Alberto, welcome. You're on the air, man. Yeah, good evening, Ashley. You remember with all the other kids who were getting upset because Kamala Harris told them, two young men that took her rally when they said

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Jesus is Lord, and she said that, you know, they're on the wrong rally, you know. Right. And, you know, the smaller one.

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Well, the kids got upset about that. They said she was mocking Jesus, but in Luke 12, 40, it says that you can, you know, if you say anything against the father, you'll be forgiven.

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Against the son, you'll be forgiven. So why do kids get upset? You should be expect that from a lost person who's blind, who doesn't know the

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Lord. And the Bible said that she's the God of this world, God to people blind. So why should kids get upset by her saying that to the young fellas?

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Why should kids get bent out of shape about it? Because it's wrong. If you know that, if you know people are going to steal, and they steal, you should be upset about it, even if you know what happens.

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Just because you know it in advance doesn't mean that you shouldn't be upset when it occurs. So that's why. And I think, you know,

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I'll tell people. I wouldn't vote for Kamala Harris. I don't think Christians should. I think Kamala Harris is a

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Marxist. She's pro -abortion. She is pro -homosexual. She's pro -all this gender crap,

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ABC, the alphabet mob. I don't see how Christians could vote for her. They may not like Trump, but man, how do you vote for a socialist

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Marxist who opened the borders, let people flood in. People are being killed because of this.

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And the FEMA money, which is supposed to be for the people who grew up here, paid taxes, and worked, was directed to the illegals.

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And now FEMA basically doesn't have the money for the people who paid into the system. This is all the left's doing.

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You know, how can people vote? I agree with you 100%, 100%.

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But the point is, what I'm trying to say is, but why do Christians should be so surprised? I mean, you should expect that from a law center.

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I mean, they're going to, the Bible says that Christ said, you know, you're going to be persecuted. They're going to mock Jesus. They're going to hate me.

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They're going to hate you. So you should expect that. That's my whole point. Yeah. And I teach that.

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I teach that we need to be expecting persecution. But we can slow it down and we can resist it.

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But the Christians need to do it. And it's going to take a concerted effort by the pastors all across America to start focusing on equipping the saints instead of babysitting the saints.

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That's what needs to happen. You're right, exactly. Mm -hmm. Yeah, the problem is Christians today, I mean, I don't know,

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I'm not judging nobody or nobody, but Christians today, they're too weepy. They're the little things that start yanking and crying.

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You know what I mean? They're not soldiers. They're not, they're not, they need to go to the fire trials. Mm -hmm.

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You know, forging and the fire, we come out, you know, forging fire like a steel.

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I mean, once you're fired, you have to go to the trials and to test. That's the only way you're going to know truly that you are born of the spirit of God.

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That's right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know. People are going to find out later if they're really believers or not, because right now it's

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Christianity so comfortable that a lot of people are just riding high on the comfort and the hope of pre -tribulation rapture.

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And they think that's going to be. So, you know, we'll see when, when the temperature gets raised, we'll see how people do.

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Yeah. We got too many, we got, we got, we got too many nominal Christians in America. Yes, I agree.

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Yeah. Uh -huh. Yeah. Excuse me, I'm coughing a lot, but yes, we do.

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And persecution is what strengthens the church. And so the church has become weak, which is why

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America is weak. And therefore, a persecution is coming.

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And that'll, we'll see what happens. Yeah, I, I, I, I, I, I was saying that to myself. I think

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God, look, we've got to allow persecution in this country. That's the only way the church is going to do the job that you commanded them to do, because that's the only way they're going to do it.

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You have to allow persecution come to this country. I've been thinking of that the last several months. Yeah.

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You know, God, you have to allow it because, because you don't have to allow it. That's what

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I was thinking in my mind for a long couple of times now. You know, unfortunately, you know, I witnessed this all the time that people in the street, people don't persecute me.

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I just, you know, give them stuff all the time. People accept it. Some don't, you know, I don't, not like other videos. I've seen the internet,

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I've seen guys preaching in the streets and people attack them, you know, attack, bad at them, actually attack them physically.

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But I never encountered that problem. You know, maybe I guess I'm an ugly, tall, ugly guy or something.

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They don't want to do something to me. I don't know. But I don't know about that. You know, but yeah,

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I'm concerned for our country. And, you know, we're getting what we deserve with the, the failure in our government, the failure all over the place, failure in society.

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Yeah. As the unbelievers are now in control and they're, the communist manifesto is, is alive and well in America.

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Yeah. Yeah. I'm playing the pastor's majority because they're not doing their job, but they should. That's what

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I say. All of them. But yeah, the majority, the problem is the pastors are, I just want to, you know, just, uh, how

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I say just keep the sheep comfortable inside the church, but they don't want to prepare them for war.

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Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. That's right. No Christians are supposed to be prepared for the work of ministry.

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And that includes fighting the fight, fighting, learning Kung Fu. It means spiritual battle.

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That's what it means. Right. Well, let's see. Yeah. I don't think the

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Russians are being trained personally. That's just me. All right.

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Thank you. All right, man. Well, God bless buddy. All right. Great work, sir.

30:37

God bless you. All right. Thanks. Okay. Now I know that a lot of times, uh,

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Christian radios and ministries, you're not supposed to support a candidate and publicly say it. I think Kamala Harris is, is horrible.

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Trump is not, he's not perfect, but he's much better. What's going to happen in the election.

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You guys got any predictions? It looks like Trump's going to win. Do you think the left will let that happen?

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Particularly since he said he'll clean house. And if Elon Musk gets in also pointed to, to clean out a lot of the government, you think they're gonna let that happen?

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I think, you know, I don't know. They might try and kill Trump again. Who knows? You think that happened?

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Because it, I think it was Stalin who said, it's not how many people vote. It's who counts the votes.

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And well, we'll, we'll see. I know I'm not, uh, I don't have much confidence in the system anymore.

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I don't have much confidence in the FBI. I don't have much confidence in the CIA, the

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DOJ. I don't have any confidence in these guys. I don't. Um, and, um, sometimes

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I wonder, like it might get a knock on the door at night. You know, Matt Slick, you're under arrest.

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For what? For saying something we didn't like. Now, that's in these third world countries that happens.

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Will it happen here? I don't know. But I don't have much faith in them.

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But I do in my Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one in control. He's the one that I serve.

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And that's what we Christians need to understand, is that we serve God. We serve a risen Lord. He's in control of everything.

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And the funny thing is, no matter what happens, and who's ever in office, God can be glorified, and the

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Christian church can prosper. And I don't mean monetarily prosper, I said preaching of the gospel, promoting of Jesus Christ, coming to unity of the faith.

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Because that's what we're supposed to be doing. And I think that's easily doable if the pastors will start preaching and teaching that.

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Because that's what they're supposed to be doing. And I think it needs to be done all over America. And it's costly, it's difficult, it's not easy.

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That's one of the jobs of the pastor. A lot of pastors, I don't know, I can't speak about all of them, but the pastor's supposed to equip the

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Christians for the work of ministry. That's what they're supposed to do. That's what the Bible says in Ephesians 4.

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And teach sound doctrine and refute error. And so get the Christians ready. Get them ready for battle.

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And what does that mean? It means teach them how to pray, teach them how to study God's word, teach them what things to vote on, what things to oppose, what things to support, to understand the word of God, to learn how to trust

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God, to learn how to do mission work, how to support financially, varying ministries and things like that.

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That's what needs to be done. And it's important because we are

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Christians. We are called to give the Great Commission the priority in our life.

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That's what Jesus says. Go make disciples of all nations. That's what we're to do. Hey look, we've got nobody waiting.

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

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We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick Live!

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

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Alright, welcome back to the show. If you want to call me, 877 -207 -2276.

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Let's get to Jim from Charlotte, North Carolina. Jim, welcome. You're on the air. Yes, I spoke with someone today that talked about,

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I've been married before, got a divorce, and then remarried.

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And I'm just curious, I know the Bible says you're supposed to remain single or else reconcile, but that was not an option for me.

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I've waited for two years, and I met someone and remarried.

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When it says you commit adultery, is that for the rest of your life?

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Okay. So, what he was doing, Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, and the

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Jews, the religious people, what they would often do, sometimes do, is just write a certificate of divorce for their spouse, and go marry somebody else.

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And it was bad. So, what he was saying,

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I think it's Matthew 18 .8, it says that there are biblical grounds for divorce, but we'll get into this slowly.

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Divorce and abandonment. I mean, it's divorce. Adultery and abandonment.

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So, if your spouse committed adultery, you have the opportunity to divorce, but not the obligation.

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You can if you want, because that person is broken marriage bound. If the spouse leaves, then you're free to remarry.

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Okay, so let me ask you, were the conditions of your first divorce in those two categories? Yes. Okay, it was because she committed adultery?

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No, she left. She abandoned me. Okay, then you're free to remarry. Okay. Thank you for clearing that up for me.

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I've struggled with that for quite a few years, and today, it was brought back up.

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I didn't know if I would, if you're committing adultery, at the first initial act, would you consummate your second marriage, or if it's continual?

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Well, let's talk a little bit more about this. Let's just say that, let's say, hypothetically, that your divorce was unbiblical.

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Now, we've got conditions to talk about in that. Let's say you and your ex divorced unbiblically, and you were both unbelievers.

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Let's just look at that scenario. And then you later got married, and you became a

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Christian. Are you then in adultery? Well, no, because you're married, and you're legally divorced.

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And so, we would say then that all of it is under the blood of Christ, all forgiven.

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Just stay where you're at in the marriage, be faithful, be good, and move forward. That's what

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I say, err on the side of grace, not law. Because if you were to say, if some people, some

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Christians do this, they'll say, no, you need to divorce her. The woman you've been married to for ten years now is a Christian. Divorce her.

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Well, no, you don't do that, because then you're adding on one wrong to another wrong. You confess, you stay where you're at, you go forward.

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I remember in seminary we had a discussion about this kind of a thing. And it was an interesting situation where missionaries were coming across men who had several wives in different cultures, and they would become

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Christians. Well, what do you do? A guy's got four wives, five wives. Does he divorce all of them, except for one?

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The recommendation was, you stay married, don't divorce, but you can't have any more, and you're not eligible to be an elder.

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That kind of a thing. And so, they too wanted to...

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Thank you, Joanne, it's Matthew 19, 9. And so, not 18, 8. And so, the idea is, you're in the situation you are in, so deal with it, and move forward.

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It's forgiven. So, let's say that, in another situation, that a man and woman,

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Christians, and they divorce unbiblically. They just hate each other, they blow it, they get divorced, and then either one of them remarries.

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Let's say the husband remarries at this point. Now that's a problem. Now that technically would be adultery, because he's in a state now of an unbiblical divorce, and he's committed that adultery in that sense.

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Well, now what do we do? We say, stay married, you go confess it all to the

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Lord, you're forgiven, and you just continue on from there, and let it go. We don't want to cause more divorce in marriages.

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Marriages are sacred. So, the idea here is that we want to understand that in Christ, not that it's okay to sin, it certainly is not, but that the blood of Christ forgives us.

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It washes us clean. We need to trust in Him, confess our sins, repent of what we've done in the past, and then move where you are in that condition and go forward, keeping your eyes on the

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Lord. And that's what you should be doing. Does that make sense? Yes. Thank you.

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I appreciate that. So don't worry, all right? You need to rest in the forgiveness of Christ.

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You need to rest in the work of God on the cross, who is gracious.

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Just as the woman caught in adultery, He said, go sin no more. He says, go.

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He set her free. And that's what He does for people in these situations.

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He sets them free. And you need to be set free. You're not under bondage.

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And if you did it unbiblically, you are still free because in Christ, all things are new, wiped away.

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You stay where you're at. You keep going. Your divorce was biblical. She left you, abandoned you, and therefore you're free and you're married.

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Stay faithful to her and love her, etc., etc. And move on and praise God, okay?

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Okay. Thank you, sir. All right. Does that help? Good night. Yes, sir.

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Good. Glad it helps, brother. All right. Oh, sorry about that.

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I may have cut him off. I know there's a lot of people out there who are facing divorce issues and stuff like that, abortions, and there's a lot of guilt in the

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Christian church. And I can't speak to all particulars, but I can say this, that if you are wrestling with the chains that drag you back, they're wrapped around your heart and your soul and you feel their weight because you are aware of your guilt and you've made bad decisions, sometimes willingly and sometimes not so willingly, and you want to move towards Christ and you don't feel worthy, you don't feel good enough, you don't understand how

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He could accept you, I just want you to understand that He does, that He already knows, and He already paid for all of that sin, that 2 ,000 years ago on the cross

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He took your sin, all of it, and died with it. And that if you were to stand before Him next to the water, next to the seashore as He got out of a fishing boat, and you walked up to Him and you dropped to your knees and He, being

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God, knows your heart and knows your situation, what do you think He would do? Do you think

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He'd push you away? Do you think He would ridicule you?

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Or do you think He would just get down on His knees with you, look you into your eyes and say, you're forgiven, go and sin no more.

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See, that's the Jesus that we serve, and that's the Jesus I want to present to you. If you've had an abortion and you've killed a child in you, and the pain of me even saying that, and the echo of the trauma can still be felt, let me tell you, that, that can be cleansed by simply looking into the eyes of Christ, seeing the blood, seeing the blood on the cross, seeing what

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God did for you, and trusting in what He did, and knowing that He knows you already, has known all of your sins, and loves you anyway.

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You can be forgiven. You can be forgiven so easily, so completely, by simply trusting in what

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Jesus did. Not Jesus and your baptism, not Jesus and your church, not Jesus and your goodness, not

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Jesus and your sacraments, Jesus alone. He has all authority in heaven and earth.

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Luke 20 and 18. Just go to Jesus and just confess your sin to Him. That's when they'll forgive you.

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Sometimes what happens is people will do that, and they don't feel released, because they know the guilt that they feel.

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They know what they've done. They're not worthy of such a forgiveness. And you're right, you're not. Sometimes people, what they'll do, is they will make themselves feel guilty, or allow themselves to feel guilty, or prevent themselves from experiencing the forgiveness of Christ, because they realize their sin is so great.

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And what they don't realize at that point is that they're heaping more sin upon themselves, and yet God still loves us.

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Now how are they heaping more sin on themselves? By not going to the cross, and trusting by faith that Jesus can cleanse, that He does.

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Sometimes what people need to do, they want to do, they shouldn't. I know,

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I used to do this. Do something wrong, make yourself feel guilty for a few days, or for a while, until you felt worthy enough to go talk to Jesus and be forgiven.

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What pride. What arrogance. I was guilty of that. And you have to understand that He's God, and He bore your sin in His body on the cross.

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And He died with them. And all of your sins were future to Him, on that cross, and yet He, He went there.

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And He died, and all you have to do is trust in Him. Now I know there are people listening.

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I know there are people who need that forgiveness, that touch of Jesus upon them. I know that there are people who have got other issues, not just abortion, maybe adultery, theft, and they have the guilt that's weighing upon them.

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Well, you need to confess it to the Lord, make it right if possible, and trust that Jesus will forgive, because He will.

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His love for you isn't based on your goodness, or your ability to repent, or your ability to restore something, or your ability to feel guilty long enough to make yourself worthy.

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His forgiveness is based on who He is, not on who you are. You need to abandon yourself, and drop on your knees, let your face fall to the ground before the cross.

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Admit that you're not worthy of anything, except damnation, and that you receive the gift of forgiveness from Christ, freely, because that's what

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He wants you to have. All the sin that you've committed, all the stuff you've done, is washed away by faith alone in Christ alone, what

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He did on that cross. That's what you have to do. That's what I've done, and that's what countless

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Christians have done, trusting in Christ. Amen, and amen.

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Alright? Hope that helps people. Well, may the Lord bless you, and by His grace, back on the air tomorrow, and hopefully, we'll talk to you then.

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So have a great evening, everyone. God bless. Bye. Another program powered by the