Matt Slick Live: October 31, 2024

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

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

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

Here's Matt Slick. Hey everybody, how are you doing? Today's a nice day, and it's

Halloween, and it's also Reformation Day, so we'll talk about those in a little bit. If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276,

I want to hear from you, give me a call. And I have a cough, I'm getting over, slowly getting over the, whatever it is

I caught on the way back from Istanbul, and did a 19 -day tour, gone 21 days.

We went to three countries, Turkey, and Greece, and then Italy. And so, if you want to give me a call, you have questions, you have comments, easy, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

Now what's interesting, in Clubhouse, there's an anti -Calvinist who says,

Matt won't speak about the morals of Calvinist God. Call me up, okay, just call me up, and we can talk, okay?

And we can talk about this. There's a lot of people, it's 877 -207 -2276, there's a lot of people who, they think they understand stuff, and then they don't.

And then they don't listen, they don't seem to learn, and aren't interested in that sometimes.

They have an idea of what they think Reformed Theology teaches, and then you can't correct them. And kind of a lot, let's see this guy, if he calls, is he different?

Maybe he's, you know, a little more adaptable. But like I said, if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276, and if you want to give me an email, it's easy, just send it to, let's see, info at CARM .org.

Info at CARM .org, C -A -R -M dot O -R -G, and put the subject line, radio comment, radio question, and we'll get to them, okay?

So, okay, I hope you guys can hear me and everything's sound. We had a little bit of an issue, so let's see how it works, let's get to, we had a sound issue that I'm saying, let's get to Jermaine from California, Jermaine, welcome, you're on the air.

Oh, hey, man, good to talk to you again. Hey, man, okay, nice calling, man. Yeah, so, yeah,

I wanted to ask about Genesis 12, 3, about the scripture, say

I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. I believe a lot of that has been kind of hijacked and taken out of context, but as far as concerning right now, like I know people that don't even want you to say anything bad about Israel, and for me, it's just a critique, but what exactly constitutes a curse in the context of that scripture, because it doesn't seem to say you can't say anything that's truthful that may be bad, but what is it that is a curse?

A curse is when you say something bad about a country, person, whatever it is, and wish upon it ill and harm of some sort, and then you say, may you die a horrible death, may your children suffer, blah, blah, blah, this kind of stuff is what a curse is, okay?

Okay, because a lot of people are taking that to mean you can't say anything at all, and I just don't find that in the

Bible, so that's why I wanted to call you. Yeah, I agree with you. You know, I don't agree with everything Israel does, but as a whole,

I'm supporting Israel because of that verse, and they're God's people, covenant people.

He's not done with them, so it doesn't mean I have to agree with everything, but it does mean that overall, that's

God's people, and we know God's people, Christians included, make a lot of mistakes.

So we are to basically support one another in the work of God through Israel and other stuff.

No big deal, okay? All right, thank you, and just to clarify, when

I say something truthful, I'm talking about videos I've seen where people got spat on for preaching the gospel and that kind of stuff.

I'm not criticizing every single decision with any malice, just calling out what I see is something that's kind of blasphemous, so from any country, it doesn't matter where it's from.

Yeah, and that's the case. There's unfairness and pain, bad stuff, let's just say, everywhere, and so I agree, and the

Jews aren't perfect, that's for sure, okay? Yep. All right, well, thank you,

Matt. All right, brother. God bless. God bless. Okay, all right.

Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

Let's get to Rick from Ohio. Rick, welcome. You are on the air. Hello, Matt. I have a question that's kind of related to Halloween, but it's also a question that I've been wanting to—I asked my pastor, but I haven't gotten an answer yet.

Is there anything in the Bible that tells the

Christians not to partake about eating flesh of the humans or drinking blood, like so -called the—what are they, little lizard people?

Cannibals? Or whatever that they're—yeah, yeah. So is there anything?

In Leviticus 17, 14, there's a verse that is really important, and it says,

For the life of all flesh, its blood is identified with its life. Therefore, I said to the sons of Israel, You are not to eat the blood of any flesh.

For the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. So this was an admonition by God to Israel that they were not to drink blood, consume blood as a food of any sort, not to do that.

Now, this is important because the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church deal with this issue of changing the

Eucharist into the body of blood, and then they take it. So they're violating this, and—well, at least they would have said that Jesus was violating this.

There's more theology we can get into this, because Jesus, before his crucifixion, was still under the law, as were the disciples, and so therefore they were required to follow this law.

They would not have drank blood. Now, as far as cannibalism goes, there's nothing in the Scripture I'm aware of, after all these years, that says don't eat human flesh.

But what is said is that the Bible says that God has given us the animals and the plants for food.

So that's an exclusion of people, because people are made in God's image where the others are not.

You know, plants and animals. Okay, so that doesn't relate to cows or anything like that?

No, no. We can eat cows. You can eat a rare steak. Yes, you can. You can eat a rare steak if you want. The idea is you're not drinking—but then again, let's say you're out there in the forest, and you're dying, and blood of an animal is what can keep you alive.

You eat it. All right? That kind of a thing is not—because that law now is, with the new covenant, with the death of Christ, Romans 8—excuse me,

Hebrews 8 .13, Hebrews 9 .15 -16—with the new covenants, all foods are clean now.

Right, right. So you can take it. Okay? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

Have a great day, Matt, and thank you for all your information. I listen to you every night on the way home from work, so I just thought

I'd— Oh, you're a smart man. I know, right? Thanks a lot. Have a great day.

Bye -bye. You too, man. All right. Hey, if you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

Let's get to Randall from North Carolina, and then we'll get to St. B. Let's see how that goes. Randall, welcome.

You're on the air. Hey, what's up, Slick? Well, between coughs, doing a radio show.

So I'm still fighting this head cold. No, I'm calling regarding Halloween.

Should people celebrate Halloween? Well, it depends.

You see— Like the world or Christians, should they be celebrating Halloween? Is it a door opening to the spiritual things?

Here's the thing. We are free in Christ. Now, in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul said it's okay to eat meat sacrificed to idols.

And as long as you're not convicted by it, as long as it's not a problem, because those things have no power.

So what about Halloween? Is there a principle there? Well, I would say, yes, there is. Like myself, tonight,

I am just looking forward to seeing all the little kids coming by with their great outfits. And they're handing out candy and just going, oh, that's a great outfit.

Look at that. And I enjoy that. That's really wonderful. They aren't celebrating evil.

They're just having fun. It's just for them. It's just a night to go get candy, go door to door.

And their parents are out there on the street corner, you know. The reason why I ask you this is because the

Reformation is celebrated today. And nobody talks about the Reformation.

All they do is talk about Halloween. So I look at it as a way of the evil influence in the world in order to get rid of it.

So nobody talks about the Bible. See what I mean? Well, it used to be years ago that they did talk about the

Reformation Day on this day. But our society is becoming more secular. And so Halloween is replacing it like Christmas has now become a secular holiday.

So this is just the way of the world. And it's it's it's demise and it's fall into evil and stuff.

But that's why the reason why I say churches and Christians will be celebrating because I never celebrate and my kids never celebrate

Halloween. OK, but I didn't allow it. It's OK if you don't want to. That's that's

OK. You don't have to. And it's your right to have them not do that. My wife and I, we would take the kids to a trunk or treat at churches.

And we felt it was safe. It was fun. And we did that kind of thing. And, you know, it was great. You know, again, see you dress up a little whatever's and taken to meet other people in the church.

And first of all, it was fun. So we're free to do it. We're free not to do it. Thanks very much.

You're welcome. Very much. All right, man. God bless. God bless. All right.

Boy, a lot of coughs coming up. Folks, you're free to celebrate Halloween or not celebrate Halloween. You're not free to celebrate anything occultic within it, though.

You can't celebrate anything demonic or anything evil and celebrate that. That's not what's to happen.

But little kids dressed up as zebras. Oh, my goodness. They're so cute. All right. Let's try this.

Saint B. Welcome. You're on the air. Hey, good evening. Hi. Okay.

So what do you have, buddy? My objection to Calvinism is the morality of the

God. Like, for instance, Adam's sin made it so everybody goes to hell after him.

Unless God picks you. So, like, nobody has a chance to or everybody is going to burn in hell forever because of Adam's sin, because nobody can have faith in God afterwards.

Like, I don't. I don't. Okay, I gotcha. But what does the scripture say? For as through the one man's disobedience that many were made sinners.

That's Romans 5. Yeah. So I believe that. Okay. So that through Adam's sin, everybody was made a sinner, right?

100%. Okay. Well, that's reformed theology. So that's good. I'm glad you agree with that. And then you said, but they can't believe, right?

Of their own free will. Okay. Okay. Well, there's a question. They don't.

Adam's sin made it. So you agree with that, right? So Adam's sin made it that nobody could have faith in God afterwards.

No, it, the Adam's sin means that when he fell, we fell in him and we inherited the sinful nature.

The question then becomes, what does the Bible say about that sinful nature? So the

Bible says, for example, that that we are by nature, children of wrath,

Ephesians two, three in Romans, Romans three, 10 through 12. It says that no one seeks for God.

No one does good. Oh, we've got to break. Hold up. Hold on, buddy. We're going to break. Okay. We'll get back to some more.

All right. So hold on. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages and continue this discussion.

I've had this kind of discussion countless times before, and hopefully we can get this gentleman to, to understand a little bit more biblical theology.

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

It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, buddy. Welcome back to the show. Unfortunately, that gentleman who was on holding,

I was hoping he was going to continue to hold. Maybe he's at work or something and had to take a break. I don't know. We could talk about this issue.

I'll talk about it here a little bit. There are different outlets for discussions.

One of them is PalTalk. And another one is Clubhouse. Another is Discord. There are different ways and different places where you can go and have live discussions with people, usually with voice.

And they're good places to learn. In Clubhouse, there's a rabid group of anti -reform people.

And apparently someone's written a book about me. I don't know.

How bad I am or something as a reformed individual, as a Calvinist. And it's like, whatever.

So I don't know who this gentleman was, but when he called. A lot of times I find that the people who are that critical of reform theology really don't understand it.

And it's very common that that is the case. They have a misunderstanding of it. And so I was hoping to be able to work with him.

Hope you can call back later. Maybe we can continue our conversation to discuss the issue of the sovereignty and the work of God.

So I think the basic thing he was saying was it wasn't fair or wasn't right, I guess. I'm not trying to misrepresent him.

But the idea that everybody dies and then can't receive Christ on their own. Well, I was going to go and show him scriptures, which

Jesus says, John 6, 65. He says, you cannot come to me. Let us grant it to you from the Father.

There it is. And a lot of times when I quote this to people, they say, no,

God grants you the opportunity to believe. They have to change the word of God to make it fit their theology, which is greatly sinful.

And they'll do that so quickly, so automatically, they can't even see their own sin when they alter the word of God and make it say what they want it to say.

And that doesn't mean we can't interpret God's word and try and look how he uses, look at how he uses various words in various contexts.

That's OK. But we do need to be able to examine things and look and stuff like that.

Anyway. All right. So if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276.

David from North Carolina. Dave, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt. For many years now,

I have read books about the transmission of the New Testament text, and I've often read about scribes.

They were very meticulous. They would count each letter, and they knew what the word in the center of the page was.

And if that word was not there, they would throw it in the trash can and rewrite it.

That's what I read. I find that hard to believe, though, because I found out there were 400 ,000 textual variations in the

New Testament manuscripts. Now, they say most of them are spelling, word order, other excuses.

I just can't see how you can have 400 ,000 variations if the scribes were as meticulous as they claim they were.

Okay. So when you say 400 ,000, where did you get this number?

I was reading Bart Ehrman's book, and then I went online to see if anyone challenged him.

And there was a preacher that admitted there were 400 ,000 variations, but he claimed that those were word order, synonyms, and different other things like misspellings and stuff, and they were harmless variations.

But how do you get 400 ,000 variations when the scribes were as meticulous as they were?

All right. So I was taking a note there. Well, it's interesting. In the New Testament, there's about 138 ,000 words.

So 400 ,000 mistakes or variants, let's talk about this, would mean that in every single word, there's problems.

Every single word. 400 ,000, and yet the New Testament alone is just 138 ,000.

Yeah. And I wonder why didn't that preacher, that discredited

Bart Ehrman, correct him on the number of variations when he wrote his defense of the variations?

I can't answer why he didn't do it, but I can talk a little more about this. Okay. So in the entire

Bible, there's around 780 ,000 words. So let's just round it up to 800 ,000 words.

Well, if there's 400 ,000 variants, if we take the entire Bible, that means every other word has a problem.

And it's just ridiculous. So something's not right in these statistics.

So have you heard a statistic, 70 % of statistics are wrong 80 % of the time?

It's a joke. Yeah, I've heard that. But I got a question to ask you. Let me work with this a little bit, okay?

Because there's some stuff we need to get out, okay? Hold on. Now, we have roughly 6 ,000

Greek manuscripts. And you're right that the Greek, the scribes were very, very, very meticulous.

So let's talk about how an error might come in if there was a problem. You probably already know this.

You know, they might have a monk copying a document and might make a single letter mistake.

And then on the right -hand side of the margin, make a correction. And that document was then used for teaching, not preaching.

Have you heard of this kind of thing? Yes, but I've also heard that they made a mistake.

They threw it away and recopied the whole page. Some did. Is that true? Yes, some did.

Some did not. Hold on. Because copying was expensive and laborious.

And so after a while, some people, what they would do is make a mistake on purpose.

They make a mistake copying a letter like the word the, which is the single letter O in Greek. And they would forget the letter

O. And so they would, on the right, make a margin note. OK, they take that page and they would then classify it as a work.

They knew exactly what the issue was, was no problem. They'd use it as a means of teaching and testing.

But not as being official in the document area that they would say this is a perfect copy.

Well, what happens is sometimes those things with a marginal variance in them would, you know, they'd be put away and a generation or two later, someone would find them.

Hey, what's this? And it would be counted as a variant. So let's take this, for example. Let's say that there's a variant on the word ha, the

Greek word the. And that is a single variant. But let's say that a manuscript copies from that variant.

Let's say the word ha is missing in a certain place when it was originally there in the Greek, which isn't a big deal in Greek.

I can tell you why, but it's not another thing. And so let's say it's missing. Then they copy 10 copies out of that.

Now we have the original variant and 10 copies of that variant. So it's 11 variants.

Or is it one variant copied 10 times? Do you see what I'm saying?

Yes, I still can't comprehend the 400 ,000 variants. That's a lot of variants.

Yes, and I don't. You yourself admit there's not even that many words in the

New Testament. And so how do you get 400 ,000 variants that I trust

Bart Ehrman to a certain point? No, I don't trust that. But yeah. Yeah. But when I got a break, we got a break.

We got a break. Although we got a break. So we'll continue after the break. Okay. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

We'll talk to Dave. And if you want to give me a call, the number is 877 -207 -2276.

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

Here's Matt Slick. All right. Welcome back to the show. We're at the bottom of the hour. You want to give me a call?

The number is 877 -207 -2276.

Give me a call. Dave, are you still there? Hi, I wanted to ask you.

I want you to understand, even though I hear 400 ,000 variations,

I don't believe it. I usually trust Bart Ehrman when it comes to Greek explaining, you know,

Greek variants and everything. But he claimed 400 ,000. And because of the way

I studied how meticulous scribes were, I don't see how you can have 50 ,000 variants.

I don't see how you can have 10 ,000 variants. I got you. I got you. Let me let me help you out. Okay. So what this 400 ,000 is, is including church father quotes, other language quotes, because otherwise you're going to have, uh, it's supposed to be 400 ,000 in the new

Testament alone. That's what the, it's not the whole Bible. This is the whole, the new Testament, which would mean roughly, uh, three variants for every word.

It doesn't make any sense. So something else is going on. So the church fathers would quote them and they would quote them differently.

They would quote the scriptures differently. They would often spell a word differently out of the Greek because there's no set reason or no set way all the time when they would do things.

So there's a lot of variation in the quotes and the references and the alternate books, the, uh, uh, you know, quotes for the church fathers, spelling things.

And the great majority of these are spelling variants. Like in England is colors,

C O L O U R. But here it's C O L O R. Well, if that's the case, is that a mistake?

Yes. And no, no, it's not going on with the intention is. So that's all that's going on.

Otherwise, it would mean that every word in the new Testament had three errors in it, which is, it's just ridiculous.

So this has to do with, well, I want you to realize, I don't believe the 400 ,000 myself and came from Bart Ehrman.

Yeah, that's why I stay away from Bart Ehrman. So, uh, I've read other works that say that in the new

Testament documents, there's like 0 .5 % textual variation among the, uh, roughly 6 ,000

Greek manuscripts. There's only three areas of any significance. The ending of Mark was called the common

Johannium and the woman caught in adultery. And those are the major issues. And there are a slight variance of spelling and word order in a couple of places in several places, things like that.

Okay. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. I want you to know, to be perfectly honest,

I'm not a Christian, but, uh, I was raised Christian and I study the

Bible still when I, I had different personalities. And sometimes when I'm a

Christian, I really studied the Bible. And, um, uh, I like to read, uh, work from,

I don't know how to pronounce his name, but, uh, William Muncy, a

Greek scholar, uh, that may not be the correct way to pronounce his name.

I like reading Bart Ehrman's works because he takes the unusual approach that Jesus, uh, uh, was not, uh, literally

Christ. And, uh, I don't know. I'm, I'm just trying to be honest with you.

I'm not a Christian, but I do go through my, but you said

Bart Ehrman said Jesus was not the Christ. Yeah, I think so.

I think he says Jesus was not the Christ, but since I'm not religious, uh, it doesn't bother me that much.

Now, when I'm, uh, in one of my Christian personalities, uh, I tend to go for a

Bill Muncy and read his works. Uh, I read something on the internet from him the other day, and now

I can't remember what it was. Uh, but I would go online reading his works, and he seems to be very knowledgeable about the

Greek Bible. And I will defer to Greek scholars because I don't have knowledge of Greek, so I'm dependent on others who do know

Greek. And, uh, from what I understand, William Muncy, uh, is one of the most renowned

Greek scholars in the world. Maybe you don't, uh, uh, maybe

I'm pronouncing his name wrong because you don't seem to show that you're aware of who William Muncy is.

M -O -U -N -C -E. I have books by him. Yes. Yeah, I hear he's the most renowned

Greek scholar in the world, and he, I think he helped contribute to the

Brown, Driver, and Briggs, or... Yeah, B -A -G -D. Uh, B -D -G -A -G lexicon.

Um, and, uh, I, uh, liked some of his comments. I was looking up Sabbatismos the other day.

Uh, I can't remember now for sure what it is, because I know the Greek alphabet, but I don't know Greek, so I can use a

Greek lexicon without the number system. And, uh, I, uh,

Sabbath, uh, was easy to find because it's on the first page where you have the

Greek S, uh, it was on the very first page, and I was studying about why, uh,

Matthew 28, 1, Mark 16, 1, Luke 24, 1, and John 21, uh, the first of the week came from first of the

Sabbaths, plural. And I always wondered why the fathers, the church fathers and everything, uh, translated it first of the week, because it actually says first of the

Sabbaths. You're going into all kinds of stuff. So I don't know what, you know, if you have a question, but, um, that, that particular issue is, is deep.

Uh, Sabbaths, there are different kinds of Sabbaths in the Bible, and how the church fathers would reference them, that's a huge study.

So, you know, that's a dissertation kind of a study. But, uh, do you have any other questions at all?

No, I just wanted to, uh, let you know, I don't understand the 400 ,000.

You mentioned there was three variations per word because of the fathers. Uh, didn't the fathers have a text to translate instead of translating in their own words?

Different church fathers, okay, I'm not an expert in this, so I haven't studied it to be able to tell you, but, uh, there are different manuscript trees,

Alexandrian, Byzantine, Western, and, uh, I don't know which church fathers had which access to which manuscript.

So other than that, I can't tell you. We'd have to have an expert on who knows this and then talk and ask questions.

Okay. Yeah, that's out of my league. Okay. Yeah. I appreciate your time.

Uh, you take care now. Okay, you too. All right. Talk to you later. Hi. All right.

Interesting for a lot of reasons there. If you want to give me a call, we have nobody waiting. 877 -207 -2276.

We don't have buddy waiting. So I think what I'm going to do is get to some of the emails and just jump right in.

Let's see. Do you know if every, every one human would have sent if placed in the garden of Eden?

Uh, do I know? I don't know, but I believe that any, uh, would anybody given enough time in the

Bible, uh, in the garden of Eden would have sinned. That's what I believe. Just a matter of time because we don't possess the quality of holiness.

And, uh, it's a quality that belongs to God alone. And I think that's an inability of sin. And after the regenerative work, which something's going to happen to us, uh, there's another question about that.

Sin related to that. We'll get into that now. So, uh, I think that, uh, anybody would have sinned given enough time.

Romans 3, 10 to 12 says, uh, nobody sees God makes me think all would have chosen our flesh and sinned.

Yes, but that's a reference for after the fall, not before it. And then the question goes on.

But then I think, would we have sought God if originally didn't happen? I'm not sure what the question is there, but, um, these are these kinds of questions about what would have happened if the things were different in the garden of Eden, different people.

Uh, it's just a matter of time. That's what I believe. All right, let's try another one. Uh, did you say you just returned from Turkey?

Yes. I have friends going there in November. I was curious about their safety. Yeah, no, no problem.

Uh, Jay, I was in Turkey three weeks ago for about a week and then two weeks ago for about a week in Greece.

And then a week ago was in Italy. And, um, I was actually a little concerned about my safety there because, you know,

I speak against Islam and Turkey is an Islamic nation, but there was nothing.

It was fine. And no one came up behind me and asked me questions. And, and, uh, you know, it was no big deal.

So I felt safe. But something interesting did happen. Something interesting did happen after going, getting out of the

Roman cistern. Near the Hagia Sophia and near the, the blue mosque.

Oh, we got out of the cistern. I'm walking around and this guy looks at me. He's about 17, 18, 19.

He goes, Matt Slick. And I'm like, what? That doesn't make sense. I don't know who this guy is.

And he looks, points at my name tag on my chest. You're Matt Slick. I'm laughing because I get recognized every now and then.

I was not expecting it there. And it wasn't, you didn't recognize me. Just read my name tag. And we got, I had a big kick out of that.

I laughed. Told a few of my friends with a joke. Hey, there's the music. I'll be right back, folks.

After these messages, please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right. Welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, you can 877 -207 -2276.

I'm going to do now. So we have nobody waiting. I'll get us some more emails. Now we do them normally on Friday.

But that's okay. If you want, give me a call and or send me an email. Send me an email to info at karm .org.

Info at karm .org. And put the subject line, radio comment, radio question.

Let's get to some of them right now. What do you have to say about the church in response to Halloween trunk retreat parties?

Already addressed that. I have no problem with Christians who want to do trunk retreat, go to the churches, dress up with the kids, go door to door, get candy.

It's just fun for the kids. If they're celebrating demonic stuff, that's a problem. We shouldn't do that.

We're free in Christ. And so just as we're free to eat meat, sacrifice to idols, it's not going to hurt us.

We're free to go door to door with the kids and get candy. I'm actually personally looking very much forward to the children who come to our door.

My wife gets a kick out of me watching me. Oh, look, another door, you know, and I go, I just love the kids with the outfits.

I just think they're awesome. And so it's a lot of a lot of fun for me. All right.

Let's see. Okay. Also, can you let me know what day you answered this?

Let's see. Should we be concerned with our Jewish friend salvation? Yes, you should. Does God have a plan for them?

They're unbelief. No, they cannot be saved outside of Christ. No, God is working through the

Jews. I have a friend who he works to the Jewish community.

He's Jewish all the way. And he he looks

Jewish. I mean, he's so Jewish. He's a great guy. And he's a completed Jew.

He's a Christian. And he he's telling me that there's a great deal of conversions going on inside the

Jewish community all over. So praise God. God's not done with it with them yet.

And they need Jesus the same as anybody else. All right. Let's see. Should we be construed?

Yeah, I got that one. That was the other one. How about this? Christ is sovereign.

Can a person resist the Holy Spirit's conviction or calling? Yes. When we say conviction,

God, the Holy Spirit will convict us of our sins. And there are many people who who resisted, who kind of let it go.

Christians do that, too. And God may have a calling on a person's life. And the Christian doesn't want to do it.

He may say, I want you to go here. And he goes, no, no, no. And it can happen. So, yeah,

Revelation 320. Jesus is asking permission to enter your heart. No, it's not.

Let's go to Revelation 320. All right, Revelation 320. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in on him and dine. It doesn't say he's asking permission.

This is very critical. When we make a statement related to a verse of Scripture, we don't want to interpret the verse in favor of our question.

So what Jesus says here in Revelation 320, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, it does not say we give Jesus permission.

So don't say that. It just says, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door. Well, what does that mean?

Does it mean we have all of us have the free will ability just in ourselves? Or does it mean whoever believes because God grants that people believe?

What does it mean? We can't just say here, this is what it means. I'm done. I'm not going to do any more thinking related to that verse.

And if anybody disagrees with me, then you're obviously wrong. Because I understand what the verse says. Because I read it once.

This happens way too often in Christian circles. And so it's really important that we understand that.

And this is to message to Laodicea, which I was just in Laodicea about two weeks ago.

And it was great. He was great, man. He really, I was there 10 years ago.

And from 10 years ago to two weeks ago. Wow. Man, they've uncovered a lot of stuff.

Laodicea, it's really amazing to go see. Been there. Loved it.

It was great. Had an ice cream there. Remember that? They're walking so much out in the heat.

It was a little warm that day. We went into this, they always have these little places you can grab little snacks and stuff.

And I saw an ice cream. I had an ice cream and people go, hey, that's a good idea. So a bunch of us had ice creams.

It was a lot of fun. Please bear with me, folks. As I'm hitting the cough button coughing through this head cold that I've been fighting now for about five days.

I'm getting better, but it's very, very slow progress I'm going through. Here's another email.

Good evening, Matt. My question is, how do I deal with my pastor and church members who won't allow me to express my views on certain types of scriptures or give my insight about certain doctrines like eternal security?

They scream at me, shout me down. Well, you know,

I can't tell you. I mean, I don't know what the circumstances are. There's so many variables.

I had to ask what circumstances, you know, you've met with the elders. You're just talking to them or what?

They shout you down to yelling at you, which doesn't seem realistic.

So I don't know. Are they being disrespectful, not behaving as Christlike, not showing the fruit of the spirit?

You think they're spiritual, but I can't answer because I just don't know the situation, so I can't answer it.

Hi, this is Ebenezer. I was wondering if you had Matt Slick's email. I wanted to send him a question, but this is the only email

I have. I've been talking a lot to Orthodox people, Christian Eastern Orthodox, and a lot of them are into Saint veneration.

They are, and they need to stop that idolatry. He goes on, and so a lot of them would use the explanation that God told the

Israelites to put cherubims on the Ark of the Covenant and told them to worship. You know, you know, how do

I say this politely? Amateur theologians who don't believe God's Word and are more loyal to their church need to keep quiet.

So these EO people, Eastern Orthodox people, who would use something like God said, put the cherubim there. The cherubim represent the holiness and the presence of God over the

Ark of the Covenant, the footstool of God, and it doesn't say anywhere that they're told to worship the angels or anything like that.

So it's, you know, when EO and Catholics say something like this, I say, show me the verse, show me the scriptures.

And just like the other version in Relation 320, stand at the door of your heart and ask, or I say the door at the door of your heart and knock.

If anyone hears me, he opens it. Well, it doesn't say there he's asking permission. A lot of people will do that.

They'll say, see, that's God waiting for permission for you. It doesn't say that. And so you got to always be very careful when people raise verses to support their view.

I always do that. I'd say, show me the verse, show me the verse. If you don't have a verse to back up what you're saying, you're just giving me your opinion and you're entitled to your opinion, but I don't want to debate your opinion.

Okay, so person says, I was just asking, just wondering, do you know anything I could say to them?

And when they say that, yeah, show me the verse and see if it actually says what they're saying. That's what I would say.

Don't assume people are, when they referenced the, uh, the Bible that they're correct, particularly

Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics, because they very frequently will misread, read the word of God and interpret it in such a way to make it support their church.

It's either ecclesiologists, they worship and serve the church. Now they don't worship the church as in have incense.

They burn incense and have an image of the Vatican or whatever. And then they bow before the, I'm not saying that, but what they've functionally done is replaced

Jesus with their church. The church is the, the means of salvation. The church is the authority.

The church is, it tells you what scripture means. That's a Holy Spirit's job to open our minds. They replace

God with their own church and then they use God to venerate or to bolster their, their particular religion.

And as I say this, I'm reminded of being in, um, Thessalonica in Greece a couple of weeks ago when we went into an

Eastern Orthodox church and I was just appalled, appalled at what I saw appalled the icons, the statues, people kissing them, bowing before them constantly kissing them, putting their, their lips to, uh, to, to, um, objects, uh, do it sign of the cross and inside the churches, all this ornate stuff, gold and silvers everywhere as though that's what church is makes me mad, man.

I would love to be able to have an interpreter there and someone were to say, you were going to preach in that church.

I'd say, Oh, please. I would just drop to my knees and ask God to use me and then get up and preach.

And I'd preach justification by faith alone in Christ alone. You don't need icons. You don't need statues.

You don't need to venerate your saints. You don't need to venerate Mary. Go to Jesus. The devil himself,

Satan himself is the one who wants you to take your eyes off of Christ and put it onto the creature and we just venerate saint so -and -so.

That's all we're doing. Praying to the, there you go. Satan's work. You're following Satan's work.

He wants you to do that. You know, Jesus has come to me all who are heavy laden.

I will give you rest. That's what he says. You don't go to a saint and this stupidity of going to Mary to get to Jesus.

That's stupid. Oh, man. You know, heresy upsets me.

It does. Let's see. How about another one? Let's see.

Thank you again for taking my call today. Welcome. Whoever that was. I had sent you an email regarding the statements by the pastor that a person goes to a holding place.

Oh, that one. Yeah. For three days after death. That's not true. I don't get to listen to your radio show broadcast every day.

So you might have already answered this on the radio. Oh, it's from a

United Methodist Church. No wonder. United Methodist Church is pretty bad. As a rule of thumb, a denomination with the word united is bad.

The only exception I'm aware of is United Reformed. And I actually know the guy who gave the name to that denomination when they had a split 20 some odd years ago.

But so United Reformed is okay. But United Methodist.

No, you can't trust what's coming out of that. Sorry. As a rule. It's not to say there aren't some good pastors in there, you know, like they could be there.

But as a rule, as a rule, United Methodist Church is bad. United Pentecostal is bad.

United Apostolic is bad. United Presbyterian is bad. United Lutheran, you know,

United Methodist. Yeah, they're just bad. Bad. Yeah. Okay, let's see if we get one more time.

Here we go. Just listen to Matt Slick call trans people demonic. What did I call them demonic? I didn't say they're demonic.

And I have questions. I believe that trans people are deceived and they are under demonic influence.

Some may be or some may not be under demonic influence because they're going against what

God decrees, what God wants. That doesn't mean they are demonic in that they have demons in them.

If it is wrong for trans people to enact physical changes to feel more comfortable, are all cosmetic procedures wrong?

That's a different thing. See, physical changes to change what you're born with is different than putting makeup on.

It's not changing what you're born with, your gender and stuff. Is it demonic to get a nose job? No, it's not.

Is it demonic for an old man to wear a wig to attract more women? No, it's not. How about breast enhancement, mastectomy?

No, it's not. You said that, oh, we're out of time here. I gotta go. Maybe we'll do this tomorrow.

So someone's upset and they don't understand the issues, which is often the case.

And they mishear what I say, which also is often the case. All right, folks, we're out of time.

May the Lord bless you. And by His grace, we're back on air tomorrow, and we'll talk to you then.