Matt Slick Q&A, 2/1/2017

All right. All right, so who's got a question? You want to talk about something? What? Man. Okay. My debates and James White's debates with atheists. You've been watching. Okay. Why do who? Why do what?

Why do they care? Right. Oh, they care because they hate God. And you are motivated out of what you believe. Now, if I say they hate God and atheists is listening and atheists are going to say, no, we don't hate God.

We don't believe God exists. No, they hate God. See, atheists tell me, for example, they lack belief in God. And so what we'll do is they'll say, we don't have a position. We don't let, we don't affirm or deny God.

And I'll say, I always do this. I'll go, oh, well, the Bible says God exists. So therefore he exists. Others say that. They don't say that. Why not? Because it doesn't make sense. I say, well, wait a minute.

I thought you said you didn't care. You didn't have a position. Well, they'll say, well, you're just being illogical. How am I being illogical? And I get the conversation. I just use that as a jumping off point.

What happens is I can find out what they believe. And I said, I'm not here to judge you guys or do anything like that. And my guy goes, you want to talk to so-and-so? He's a Mormon. You know, I said, that's probably not a good idea.

And they said, why? I just heard that hearing it back in here now in the feed, Lindsay, down here all of a sudden. No biggie. Just to let you know you're doing something that's fine. No problem. I can move it away from my ear.

And they just talk like that. That's fine. No big deal. We'll figure it out later. Just do what you got to do. Okay. I'll get to that in a sec. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. They said, it's a Mormon. Why don't you talk?

I said, probably wouldn't be a good idea. They go, no, this kind of stuff. He says, it's probably a good idea. And I try to avoid the conversation. And two weeks later, this Mormon comes up and talks to me, and no lie.

By the time we were done, and I was very polite. I was just countering him. I know stuff. I didn't know what I did. I didn't tell him what I do for a living. I didn't tell him what I was doing for 20 years at the time or whatever it was.

Actually, it was about 25 years at the time. And by the time this Mormon was done, he had his fists clenched and his jaw and his lips were quivering. I thought he's gonna take a swing at me. I just told you it wasn't a good idea.

Sorry, I'm not trying to offend you. I know what it is. And so that was the rev from then on. And then they understood. And the same things aren't happening. I don't want to make anybody feel bad. It's my job.

I try to avoid it. Look what happened. So what's the question? From YouTube? Chase? Yeah, I'm an Amillennialist. Yes, that's true. Yes. Next question. It's a yes or no question. Not an open-ended question.

But yes, I do hold some form of preterism. I'm a partial preterist. Not a full preterist. Full preterism is heresy. And yes, I'm Amillennial. And just to add this in, I believe that when Jesus returns, the first ones taken are the wicked, not the good.

And you go to Matthew 24, Luke 17, where it says, One of the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man, for they were eating, they were drinking, they were living in mirrors, till the day that Noah entered the ark, and a flood came and took them all away.

That's Matthew 24. Luke 17 says, and the flood came and destroyed them all. The ones who were taken are the ones who were destroyed. At the end of Luke 17, they asked Jesus, where are they taken? And he tells them, where the body is of vultures gather.

Then all you do is go to Matthew 13, verse 30 in particular, where it's a parable of the wheat and the tares. And Jesus says, allow both to grow together till the end of the age. That's a proper eschological view, this age, the age to come.

Allow both to go together till the end of the age, and it was the reapers first gathered the tares and bind them to be burned. Gather the wheat into the barn. Christians are the weak, the wicked are the tares.

Jesus says, the first ones taken are the wicked. That's my position. It's a very uncommon position, but I'm forced to believe it because that's what Jesus said. Hope that answers that question. And I can do an eschatology study here sometime if you guys want.

Take a break and do a map and put everything in from this age to come. If you want, I'll do it next week, whatever you want, and really mess you guys up. Good. And show you why pre-trib rapture didn't work.

If you want, is that what you guys want? All right then, we'll take a break from John 4. Next week, I'll do an eschatology study. I will announce it on the radio. I will defend colonialism post-trib rapture and why the wicked are taken first with the consequent, this age and the age to come.

We don't have to do verse by verse. We could do titles for a while if you guys want. I'm game, whatever you guys want. I want to finish John. We will take a year to finish John 4. Take a break. I could do whatever the people want because I like tangents.

John 4 first, and then you guys decide. You guys decide. I can do John. We can finish John 4 next week, and then we could do eschatology if you guys want. What? The rapture occurs concomitant with the return of Christ, not pre-wrath.

Right or wrong, I'm a non-millennialist, which means that I believe we're in the millennial reign of Christ, that the term thousand is a figurative usage in John 20. I don't have a problem with the pre-millennial view.

I just don't believe it. I believe that when Jesus comes back, I don't exactly have these minutiae worked out, but the wicked will be taken first, and then we're going to be raptured, and then we'll have new worth, I believe.

I mean, it's going to happen like in the same day, or the same minute, or a couple hours difference. I don't know. That kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Now, just so you know, no eschatological position has all the answers.

There's strengths and weaknesses to all of them, but the argument that I'll present when I do this is pretty strong. I've done it a couple of times in the past years. I've been teaching here in the area, and people are, oh, wow.

What I'll do is, we'll get the camera. We'll do the board. I'll put stuff out. We'll get it going. I'd really like to do it a PowerPoint. If I get a PowerPoint, I could do it that way, but I don't have it yet for projector, I guess.

Yeah. Well, no, I wouldn't. I don't know if it's wrong or not. Depends on what you mean by it, and does the text allow that. As you know, what I'll do is, I'll read a text. It reminds me, and I'll jump over here in immediate context, but it is a relationship.

Sometimes I just go off. Destruction of Jerusalem in AD, it could be worth a discussion because on this mountain or in Jerusalem, and then, you know, be a precursor to a discussion of the destruction of Jerusalem.

Absolutely. Yeah. There's so many things we could talk about all the time. Yes. Uh-huh. Right. Well, right. Jesus didn't return in 70 in the armies. That's clear, and the reputation for that is in Acts chapter 1, verses 9 through 11, where the angels prophesy he'll return in the same way you can go up into the sky.

So I don't care what preachers say. They're wrong. They don't interpret that just for what it says, period. It's just ridiculous, but that tangent caused me to forget what you asked. What'd you ask? Dang it.

Oh, when's it going to happen? Yeah. Right. Well, see, 100 million men that comes up, dried up Euphrates River. The only nation that can supply that so far is China, and a dam on the river that can divert the river to another direction if need be.

I understand that's the case. Magog, some think, is Moscow or Russia. I forget how the connection is. Long time since I've seen that. And so it's supposed to come down from the north, and the other ones from the east, and all nations, et cetera, gathered against Israel.

Right. Now, it does say, what bothers me, it says, all the nations. Now, all means what it means in context. I can show you how all means every individual, and all does not mean every individual, just depending.

As it says, all the world was attacked, right? Although census over the whole world. No, it wasn't. I mean, the aborigines in Australia didn't have them. So sometimes there's an exaggeration. But nevertheless, if it's literal all, then that would mean America has turned its back on Israel.

That bothers me. It scares me. But maybe it won't be the case. I don't know. But nevertheless, generally understand, in a premillennial view, you have this period that works like this. I'm not an expert in this.

It's been a while since I've studied this stuff. I don't study eschatology very much. People are really interested in it every now and then. So here goes. So we have the cross, and then we have the seven years here, and then we have the 1 ,000 years here, and then new heavens and new earth.

All right? So this is generally the premillennial view. This is the most dominant view in America. And understand the reason is because the Schofield Reference Bible in the early 1900s taught it, and it was disseminated.

People believe it. And I just don't think it holds any water. But nevertheless, so when does the 1 ,000 years? So this is what I believe, the amill without a literal seven years. It's a figurative. I'll talk about when we do this.

So where would that occur here? Roughly in this period of time. That's what premillennialists have held generally towards the end, that Satan was bound here, Matthew 12, 22 -32, at the time of Christ.

And then I've had one amillennialist tell me that he thought World War I was the fingerprints of Satan being released as he gathers the nations toward each other. You think about that. 2 ,000 years ago, such a concept would make no sense.

What if we were talking about, we know what we know, we're back there 2 ,000 years ago talking to somebody, to an interpreter. Oh yeah, all the world, the world's globe, it takes a couple of days to get them, nations all over, and we're all going to war with each other, be able to communicate and get to each side of the world within a day.

They go, you're crazy. No concept. This idea, it only makes sense in modern times, nations against nations, the whole world, and things like that. Really? Switzerland? Right. Islam's responsible for a large percentage of them too.

Got a question, another one? Questions are piling up. If you abide, John 15, you'll remain. Now, the vine has different eschatological values to it, and different representations can be understood what the vine is, but he who abides will have eternal life.

You abide because God is in you, abiding in you. I would say that the, my voice is starting to go, the abiding is because God's in you. Now, some people say, well, yeah, but it says if you're, if you don't abide, then you cut off, which means you can lose your salvation.

It doesn't say you went out from us because they never were of us. If they had been of us, they would have remained. It says clearly they would have remained. So you can't lose your salvation. So that abiding there can't mean that you, you know, that you're able to forfeit your salvation with God.

What I understand what it means is that those who don't abide were never true Christians to begin with. That's how I understand with the rest of scripture. You had a question? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know where that is in the text, Ezekiel.

It's going to happen. And now the question is, is it literal or is it symbolic? So the premillennialist, yeah. Yeah. It's really kind of interesting language and it seems to be metaphoric. It's representing things, but some will say in the premillennial view that this is going to happen at some point here.

I've heard that. And then some say at here. Okay. I've heard different views. I'm just telling you what I've heard. I think what it is talking about is the new here, the new heavens, new earth, and that we're going to have complete peace and things like that.

That's what I think. Seven years would also be about, uh, right about there. Yeah. Uh, maybe a be over there, but, uh, seven years, even a seven year period with the revelation of the Christ. So there are a lot of analysts who take umbrage with that degree.

Yes. I don't know. But let me say this, that I bet the new heavens and new earth are necessary because of the effect of sin in the world. When Adam, who represented mankind and the world, when he sinned and entered the world and our hearts.

And so decay entropy entered the universe as well as our hearts. We'd have new bodies. I think the universe is going to be remade. So like that's going to happen or how it's going to work, but he can't, I believe it's some of that effect going to yes.

Predestination Old Testament. Uh, you can find where, uh, yeah. Uh, where ideas of the doctrine of predestination Todd, they're talking about election or predestination for God, using salvation nation, uh, versus, uh, I find atonement limited atonement verse in the Old Testament predestination election, maybe as a 53.

I don't know. It's a good question, but no, I could think of any top of my head. I'm thinking, I'm thinking part of Joseph who was sold into slavery, uh, chosen with that specifically. And then there was Abraham who was specifically chosen by God out of the earth localities.

And so he was elected and chosen for that. And then he was justified by faith Romans four or five. And so that makes no sense. Uh, but I'm going to repeat it so that they can hear that you're saying that you don't make it, but what you're hearing him say doesn't make any sense in that, uh, some Armenians will say predestination that can be of individuals and then partial of others who then make their freewill choices to believe in God, uh, that, that doesn't work biblically.

Uh, it doesn't work like that because God is not a Molinist. Uh, God doesn't believe in middle knowledge, despite what a lot of middle knowledge, middle knowledge will affirm that God does not know what different people will do under different circumstances by extrapolation or by means, and then chooses what will occur based on what he knows they will choose.

Then that becomes reactionary and it implies God had to learn. They would say, no, it doesn't, but there's some logic is there. So the question was a long question. I guess people like doing this. Oh, good.

Paul corrected Peter. And so how do we know the Peters are inspired? Paul himself was corrected. Jesus, you knock him off the horse. So then people might say, well, wait a minute. So Jesus did this then.

And then Paul became inspired. Okay. True. But it doesn't mean that everything Peter said and did was inspired. What does inspiration mean? That's the question. Inspiration means that it's God God breathed.

Can it be inspired? Do a little play in words. Can it be inspired with what Satan speaks? Now that's a tricky question because in Matthew four, the very words of Satan are recorded. Are they inspired?

Depends on being inspired. Are they inspired that they came from God? No, but the recording of it came from God. So the recording of those words is inspired means it's God breathed. So we get to Peter made mistakes and Paul had to correct them.

And Paul had to correct them. It means that anything else that Peter said is now suspect. It means that the disciples themselves, the apostles themselves had to learn. They didn't have all instant knowledge.

And what it also means, inspiration means that when it came time for them to write inspired words, pen to paper, that when that occurred, that's when they were inspired of the Holy Spirit. Now, how do we know that they were inspired?

Debatable issue, but we generally know that they're inspired basically out of John chapter 10 point seven. My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. We know the voice of God. So the church, the church through history has recognized the voice of God through the prophets, through the apostles who've written that word and the church through God's sovereignty and the healing of the spirit within the church people has said Peter's epistle is inspired.

Paul's epistle is inspired. Hebrews who don't know exactly wrote it is inspired. Mark, who was not a disciple, but Immanuensis as well as Luke, they were inspired as well. So that's recognized. I hope that answers that.

Karma schools. Yeah. Identity. Oh, love identity. How does that work with the hypothetic union? All right. Just to find terms. Identity is the first logic, classical logic, which says something is what it is.

Okay. Something is what it is. It's not what it's not. It's just is what it is. We recognize it. Chalk, sir, shoe, glasses. So we recognize that now in the hypostatic union, that's the teaching that in the one person of Christ are two natures, right?

So the two distinct natures, two natures, all right, are God and man. All right. That's a nature. So the nature, this statement is true for this. The statement is true for this. There's a human nature, divine nature.

The natures aren't combined to something new, monophysitism. But what it is is that we understand, yeah, that is nature. It is a nature. It is what it is. It's not the divine nature. It's not the human nature.

The human nature is not the divine nature. The divine, the human nature is the human. Two distinct natures, hypostatic union. Answer it? Okay. Then we get into the communicatio idiomatum, which how they relate to each other kind of.

Yes, sir. Nestorianism. Okay. So Nestorianism. All right. I'll just do this for short. Nestorianism. Okay. But it says is in the one person of Christ are two natures. Okay. Two natures. All right. There's the divine nature and the human nature.

I'm going to get a little complicated here. There's a doctrine called diathletism from the Greek thaleo, which means to will or to wish. Di means two. So Jesus, having two natures, has two wills. This is orthodox theology.

In that there's a will involved in the human nature, there's a will involved in the divine nature, because the word is a person and the human essence is a person. Hence two wills. Monothelitism, that's right, but diathletism.

All right. However, now I'm going to introduce communicatio idiomatum. Okay. Communication of the property, which is communicatio idiomatum, for communication of properties. Now, the divine nature and a human nature.

So the divine nature has properties and the human nature has properties. But there's one person. So the attributes of divinity are ascribed to the one person and the attributes of humanity are ascribed to the one person.

So Jesus would say, Jesus is one person, not two persons. And that's what Nestorianism would say. Okay, we'll get to that. So the one person would say, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm tired. The one person would say, I, the same I.

All right. I am hungry. I am thirsty. I am tired. I know all things. I know your heart. You know, things like this. So the one person, I, said, and the attributes of divinity as well Nestorianism is in error because what Nestorianism implies is two persons.

There's a person of the divine, a person of the human, and it denies the true nature of our nation in the hypothetic union. So this is what Nestorianism is basically known to be. Having two wills is orthodox theology.

A will divine, a will of the human, it's called diathelic. But in the manifestation of the hypothetic union where Jesus is one person, we only have one will that's expressed and understood. How that works, I don't know.

Okay. But this doctrine here, the communicatio properties, answers a question, a very important question a lot of Christians don't even know exists. If Jesus is both divine and human, which nature died on the cross?

The human nature. If that's the case, then how is sacrifice of divine value? If only the human nature died. Well, the sacrifice has to be a divine value. The answer is found in the communicatio idiomatum.

You can go on CARM and read about this. Communication of the properties, right? Well, person, the one person died on the cross who claimed human attributes and divine attributes. The one person died on the cross, hence the sacrifice of divine value.

Furthermore, what's really important is that we perceive the divine through the human. I'm just throwing a little bit of stuff in there. We perceive the divine through the human. If you were to translate that and you were to watch Jesus walking down a road like he doesn't know we're spying on him from behind a bush, and we're watching him walk down the road, and then we watch him walk out on the water, we are seeing actually divinity manifested through the humanity.

Because as I say to people, what is divine? What is divinity like? It's blue. It's mid-shaped. No, it's like a cylinder that's gaseous with radios coming out of it. What is divinity any more than what is humanity?

What is the essence of humanity? Can you put the essence of humanity in a jar? No. It's something else. It's something different. So God is other, completely other than us. We say in theology he's wholly other, W-H-O-L-L-Y, wholly different, wholly other than us.

The only way for us to experience him is for him to reveal himself to us. He did that in the Word. He does it in creation. He does it in the person of Jesus Christ. Now, if we were to see Jesus walking, we would see divinity.

Wait, excuse me. We would not be seeing divinity. We'd be seeing a human body. When you see me, do you see humanity? No. You see the properties of humanity. You see my profound ability to be irritating, obnoxious, obstreperous, and things like that.

You see me to be able to be rational, to love, to hate. You see the properties of humanity. And so properties emanate out of an essence. So if Jesus has divine properties, he has divine essence. If he has human properties, he has human essence.

So we can only perceive properties, not the essence. So this table has hard, flat, we're seeing properties of it, has mass, occupies space. But the essence of painlessness, we won't get into all that.

So with Jesus, we see the divine through the human. We see the properties of humanity manifested through the human. Hence, he would walk on water, still, to the storm, and it would obey. Your sins are forgiven, et cetera.

So that's what that is. But anyway, back to your question. Historians would say that essentially there's two persons in one body, where hypostatic union says one person with two natures. And in historianism, it's basically two natures and two persons.

Can the two wills will different things? In Christ, in Luke 22, 40, not my will, but your will be done. Notice my will, a single will. In diathletism, we have a manifestation as one single will, nevertheless.

But I've already went over earlier in John 6, 28, 29. No, John 8, 28, 29. It's interesting. John 8, 28, 29, it says he doesn't want to do his will based on a different wording. He always does the will of the Father, does what's pleasing to him.

So could the human will and the divine will be at odds with each other in the person of Christ? I don't think so. But there's not enough information to be able to say definitively. But I would tend to say they're probably identical in everything because it's like saying, could Jesus have sinned?

No. Why? Attributes of holiness are attributed to the person. He could not have sinned because holiness can't sin. But yet he could be tempted. But temptation is different because people can tempt me to come watch sports.

We're tempting you to watch sports, Matt. You're boring me. I'm not tempted. But they said, hey, you want to take the laptop apart instead of talk to your wife about whatever? Oh, now I'm tempted. Okay.

That sounded like fun. Okay. So I can be tempted without being tempted, and I can be tempted and un-tempted. So it's a different sense. So in Psalm 104, I think it is. I think it's Psalm 104. They tempted in the wilderness, but God can't be tempted.

But they offered the temptation. And so Jesus intrinsically can't be tempted by sin because he has a quality of holiness. But they can offer a temptation and say he tempted him, but he's not tempted. We tempted him, but he's not tempted internally.

Make sense in Matthew 4? When it happened in Matthew 4, Satan tried to offer Jesus a way to tempt God and a different kind of a way to challenge God. And he says, no. And he answered with scripture, right, what we should do, which is why memorized scripture, memorized stuff.

So you can quote it. Another question from anybody? Are they done? They're getting started. A hundred comments already. Well, if they pay me a lot of money, maybe we can bump those up or chuck a few cookies.

Okay. Real fast? Sure. Different doctrines. Mention heresies. Oh, the heresy to do good stuff. Yeah. Okay. Knew a pastor, still know a pastor. The situation earlier, I won't say who, what, when, where, but he thought it'd be okay to listen to a particular heretical on TV and use his material in the church because the material was excellent.

But that guy denied the Trinity, won this guy. But I mean, just that, but this stuff is incredibly good. And it was a lot of good stuff. And I said, I wouldn't use it. Why? We're not discussing the issue of the Trinity anywhere.

I said, but what you're doing is, is you're saying to them, your congregation members, this guy's worthy of teaching you. They'll go look him up on the road and find out he's a Trinity. You're going to wound them inadvertently.

So what I say, for example, Joy Meyer, she's got a lot of good things to say. She said that if you don't believe that Jesus went to hell, et cetera, and finished atonement there, basically, you can't be truly saved.

That's heresy. She said she doesn't sin anymore. Spend five minutes with me. I can cure that. Trust me. I'm pretty good at that kind of stuff. And she said other things. She has revelation knowledge from God, and that Jesus stopped being the son of God when he died, that he's a man who's born again.

I mean, these are all heresies. Now, so millions of people might listen to her, right? She's got all these great things to say. 99 .9 is great, right? And she's denying essential doctrines of the faith.

Why listen to her? The fact that she succeeds is a revelation of how sick our church is. Our church is sick. It's anemic. It's weak. It's narrow-minded. It's blind. It doesn't know what the truth is.

She should never be a success. The elders of her church should have rebuked her long ago, but they don't have the huevos to do it because these so-to-speak men around her don't have what it takes to really do their job properly and rebuke her for her false teachings.

Yeah, I'm saying that's right. Someone's got to. Trust me. Reverend Slick, big churches, celebrity pastor churches, yeah, have a woman. Do a guest speak in the pulpit on Sunday morning? I mean, a woman guest speak on pulpit on Sunday morning?

See, she's teaching authority on a Sunday morning. People say, well, what if it's just a woman coming in and teaching the congregation something she's learned? See, it's pulpit. On Sunday morning, when the church gathers for the preaching and teaching of the word, which is by definition an authoritative position, she's in there, they've blown it.

Shouldn't happen. Why? Women are not to be pastors and elders. 1 Timothy 2, 12, and 13, Titus 5 -7, 1 Timothy 3, 1 -6, and also you can find support for women pastors in the book of Deuterectomy. Okay, they want me to preach the gospel?

Oh, that's the best request ever. All right. Gospel is this. God is holy, God is righteous, and God is pure. And everything he does, everything he says is always right. And we are touched by sin and nothing we do is right.

Therefore, we can never earn his presence. We can never earn or have that right to be in his presence. God gave us the law in the Old Testament, don't lie, don't steal. That's a reflection of his character.

Jesus says in Matthew 12 -34, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. God spoke, let there be light. And it was light. God spoke and said, don't lie, don't commit adultery. This is his character, his essence, which is pure.

Holy, 1 Peter 1 -16. But the law is a reflection of the character of God. And law gives the word law. No law is a law without a punishment. Because God does not punish the sinner, the lawbreaker, 1 John 3 -4, sinners breaking the law of God.

God would be approving of unholiness, which he can't do. So he's righteous, so he must punish the one who breaks that law. But the standard is himself, not our standard. The standard is God's perfection.

Be holy for I am holy, 1 Peter 1 -16. So we're obligated, as he reveals in the Old Testament, to keep the whole law, Deuteronomy 27 -26. Paul reiterates that in Galatians 3 -10. We can't keep that law.

Therefore, Paul wrote in Galatians 24, that law is a tutor that leads us to Christ, so that we might be saved by grace. In other words, we cannot do anything in any way enough to earn our place with God.

We are sinners in all that we are, our heart, our soul, our minds. We're desperately wicked and deceitful, Jeremiah 17. We don't do any good, Romans 3, 10, 11, and 12. We're slaves to sin, Romans 6, 14 -20.

We're by nature children of wrath, Ephesians 2 -3. Now, because of our slavery to sin and our enmity with God, Ephesians 2 -15, God has to intervene. He's got to become one of us to fulfill the laws, requirements that we cannot do.

So Jesus, made within the angels, Hebrews 2 -9, made under the law, Galatians 4 -4, never sinned, 1 Peter 2 -22. And he bore our sin in his body on the cross, 1 Peter 2 -24. He died with them and he rose from the dead three days later, Corinthians 15 -4.

And he's our substitute, Isaiah 53, 4 -6. What we do to have that is put our faith and our trust in what Jesus did. We're justified by Romans 5 -1, what works of the law, Romans 28. When we trust in Christ, the righteousness of God himself is imputed to us, Philippians 3 -9.

We have a righteousness that's not our own. We live forever. We're indwelled by God, John 14 -23. All right, I said it's way, the technical way, with all kinds of stuff. Let me break it a little way, the gospel.

We're all sinners, we've all offended God, and he's going to judge because he's holy and he's righteous. The only way to escape that judgment is to lean on, depend on what he has done for us. Without trusting what he's done, we're left with nothing except our own sin.

If you want to be saved from the righteous judgment of God, and you want to spend eternity with him, with your sins forgiven, then you need to trust Jesus Christ, God in flesh, who bore your sin in his body on the cross and died with and rose from the dead.

The only thing you've got to do, accept it, receive it by faith. If you do, you've got to count the cost. I think it's Luke 18 -28, I'm not sure. It says, count the cost. Jesus will take you as you are, but he'll never remove you as you are.

He'll cleanse you, he'll work with you. The gospel is the good news. We don't have to keep the law to please God and be with him. Jesus, and we leave his flesh by faith, and his law-keeping is counted as our law-keeping, and we're seen as holy before God.

We can enter heaven without judgment. That's the gospel. Yes. If Jesus says, pray expecting, then why should we pray expecting? If he says to do that, then do that. Taking off? See you. See you guys. We should pray with expectation.

1 John 5 -13 says, we're to pray according to the will of God, and if he hears us, it's within his will. We should be expecting that God hears us and answers us, but we also must be expecting that God's wisdom will trump our wisdom and our desires, and that we need to trust him and expect that he will answer our prayers, and he will answer yes, no, or wait.

That's how it is. Yeah. Pray trusting in him. I like to call it faithing, a continued attitude of having faith and trust in God. He'll answer. Sometimes the answer is no, and sometimes yes. As I get older, I look back, and I'm glad that so many of my prayers were with no.

I really hope that helped. Next question. A couple of good books to read. Romans, Hebrews is good. That's two right there. For what purpose? Okay. If you want devotional stuff, I don't do many devotional stuff, too many things, but apologetics, I know a lot about because that's what I focus on.