Matt Slick Meals and Mormons | Rapp Report Weekly 0016 | Striving for Eternity

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Welcome to The Wrap Report with Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is the ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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Okay, warning, I have no idea what is going to happen on this podcast. This may be the most out -of -control podcast we have ever had because I know who our guest is, and I know what happens when we get together.

00:36

So we have a special guest. We just got back from an event, and we're going to talk about that.

00:42

I would like to introduce none other than the slick one himself, Mr. Matt Slick from karm .org.

00:50

Matt, how are you doing? Whatever. I'm doing okay. Now, folks who may know,

00:59

Matt and I used to do a program called Slick Answers. It was a program where he would answer questions, and I would just sit there and make him look good.

01:11

I would just sit there and go, you know, okay, Matt, what's happening? Just kind of like normal, yeah.

01:18

All right. So we're going to get into talking about where you and I just were. Before we were in the bathroom, you were puking,

01:29

I was puking. That was when we got back from Manta. I'm thinking of that.

01:37

When you and I got back from Manta, you know, I put out a text, is anybody else sick?

01:44

Like four of us were just hurling. For about like over 24 hours.

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And I was convinced, I was thoroughly convinced that the Mormons poisoned our room. Because Nathan didn't eat at the only restaurant that all four of us were at, and I would put out a message to Eric and Bill, like, hey, you guys get sick, and they didn't.

02:06

So it wasn't the room, we don't know what it is, but boy, we were out of commission. I mean,

02:11

I lost five pounds, literally five pounds in one day. I don't notice a difference.

02:18

Oh. Because, you know, fathead. No. I mean, and then I'm still not recovered, nausea.

02:24

I lost another pound the next day. So at any rate. But yeah, I had the Manta Miracle Diet.

02:33

Manta Miracle Diet. So we're referring to the Manta Miracle Pageant. Oh, that's what it was.

02:39

Yeah. And so, so listen, before we get to that, I got some housekeeping I have to do.

02:44

Because we were mentioned on a podcast, and there's been an ongoing battle between the podcast

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Theology Driven and Voice of Reason Radio, and you know one of the hosts of Voice of Reason Radio, Chris Honholtz.

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He was actually your hero one day, wasn't he? He's a loser. See, I joke because he's a hero.

03:06

He dresses as Captain America, but he's actually a police officer in real life.

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But he was an actual hero to you one day, wasn't he? Why don't you describe that before we start ripping him up?

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Yeah. About, I don't know, three years ago, my aunt died, my mom's sister.

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And so we're in Idaho, and she was in Southern California, and so my wife and I were on our way down for the funeral.

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And so in Nevada, not too far from where Chris lived, my car literally just broke down.

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I went to pass a car, accelerated, and it was the weirdest sensation to start accelerating when you hit the gas pedal, and the car decelerates.

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It was weird vertigo. And there we are in the desert, and cars are passing us up on the side of the road.

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I can't figure out what's wrong with the car, it won't start. Just out of the blue, there it is. And so— Wait, hold on.

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The car wouldn't start. So almost—and guys from Theology Driven would understand this.

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This was the sound you didn't hear. I did not hear that. That's right. So we didn't know what to do, and we're sitting there, you know, okay, we've got to figure out who to call, figure out what's going on.

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We started calling for various things. And I got on Facebook, and I said,

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I need some help if anybody in the area knows something or whatever. Bang. Chris Holtz.

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He came to the rescue. And what happened was, we got a tow truck driver to come out and tow the car in, and I didn't take a picture of it.

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I did, but I won't show it. But at any rate, he was basically, in my opinion, a war hero. He was in Mogadishu and some other stuff.

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We got talking about that. And so my wife and I ended up spending two days in a certain town, and it was a bad weekend because all of the, not all the hotels, but almost all the hotels were rented.

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And there was something going on nearby, and all the cars were taken or something.

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It was just, we couldn't get, we were stuck for two days. We did find a hotel, and it was Chris who ferried us around.

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And the only place I could get a car was Reno. So Chris drove out to where I was at this hotel, picked

05:30

Anik and I up. We went to Reno, rented a car, and then

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I drove home. And he, and then the tow truck driver, we had taken my car to a mechanic, which was closed.

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We put a note in the door with my, you know, my phone number and information, told the symptoms. Got a call from the mechanic.

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And then long story short, it got fixed, only cost $600. And then I had to fly back down to, or drive to Reno with the car to turn the car back into Reno.

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And then Chris picked me up at Reno, took me back to the car, which he got from the mechanic and drove home.

06:08

I mean, he's just, he's, and, oh man, I just realized this. He bought us dinner.

06:16

He bought us dinner. And uh - That's going to come up later, I'm sure.

06:21

It's going to come up later. Yeah. And so he bought us dinner that night when he first picked us up. And I said, no, Chris, let me buy dinner.

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He goes, no, no, no. I want to buy dinner. It'll be a blessing to us to be able to do that because he appreciates what

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I do in the web. I'm like, oh, yeah. I said, no, you're helping us. He goes, no, we want to do this. All right.

06:38

You know, because, okay. And so it's going to be a thing where everybody's buying me dinner.

06:43

I'm starting to realize that. And okay. So we're going to get to that, but there's someone who, there is a person we're going to end up talking about because someone thinks that you're setting people up with that.

06:54

But I think not. I think not. I'm going to be able to prove that. I think later on in the show,

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I think I can prove that you're, you're not setting people up. I think

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I clearly proved, but let us, I want to play a little bit and we're going to, we're going to chop it up. We'll stop it at parts.

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There's going to be some funny parts in here. You're going to want to have comments. I know. So I want to play what they played on voice of reason radio.

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Now I will say that we don't criticize typically any podcast on this show that we don't approve of.

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So I thoroughly approve of a theology driven and voice of reason radio.

07:33

So just for the record, but we do like to have a little bit of fun at each other's expense.

07:38

And this is what they said on their show. I have to ask you this. I listened to your interview with Andrew Rappaport and first, okay, first off Richard's story.

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There's a T at the end of Rappaport, Rappaport. Get the T in there.

07:56

All right, let's continue. All kidding aside. You did a wonderful job. I was really proud of you and you did great, but on the next issue,

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Andrew tweeted something out hinting that you were basically throwing me under the bus or something.

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I have no idea what he's talking about. They don't know what

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I was talking about. Now, Matt, I'm sure you're going to agree with, with me on this, but during the episode that I had with Chris Honholz, he referred to me as Richard's story.

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He recalled me Richard instead of Andrew. Now don't you think that that would be an insult to Richard and a compliment to me with, and you don't even know

08:34

Richard, obviously, and they didn't pick up on that.

08:40

I even said it in the show, but they must not have been paying it close enough attention.

08:45

You would have picked up on it quicker, I think. Yeah, I would have offered the insult. Yeah, I never could figure out what he was talking about.

08:55

So I was just going to ask you straight out, what was it you said that threw me under the bus? I don't know.

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I'm going to have to go back and listen to it. I have no clue. I think Andrew lost his mind. I have no idea.

09:09

Now, would you ever accuse me of losing my mind, Matt? Yeah. Dude, look, the fact that you asked the question shows you're losing your mind.

09:23

What a door. Of course, I'm going to have to walk through that one. Well, you're going to have a lot more fun in a minute.

09:29

Wait. The only thing I heard was the implication, again, that I've somehow rigged his contest and I think you and I had joked about it.

09:40

Okay, so the contest he's referring to is this book. We're giving away a

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Preacher's Bible. This is the second one that we're giving away and Richard Story won the first one, but I'm convinced he used some

09:52

Jedi magic tricks to get his name pulled. But folks, if you want to enter to get the giveaway, this is designed by John MacArthur.

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Matt, you'd like this because it's a new American standard. Oh, good.

10:07

The one Paul the Apostle used. Well, I'll stick with the

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Holman Christian standard, the one that Jesus used. No, no. Jesus wouldn't have used the Bible. He would have written one.

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Doofus. Man. He didn't need to read one because he wrote it. He wrote it.

10:24

That's right. So, for folks that want to enter the contest, it's really simple. Follow Andrew Rapport on Twitter, follow

10:32

Striving for Attorney Ministries on Facebook. You need to either write a review in iTunes, which is in the show notes, or you can email us at info at strivingforattorney .org.

10:42

Let us know what you think of the show or some topics you want us to discuss. The Bible will be given away

10:48

July 1st. Nice thing about this Bible is it is very thick paper so that it doesn't bleed through.

10:55

Nice wide margins for you to take notes. Really what it's designed for is you to pass on to the next generation, to your children and grandchildren, to have your notes as commentary.

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But that's what he's referring to. We're having another contest and he's not eligible to win again, for the record.

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I told you to tell Andrew that really I'm Yoda in disguise and I manipulated the outcome with my

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Jedi mind tricks, but other than that. You have to understand. This is also the same Andrew who of his own accord decided to make it sound like we were mocking the guys over at Theology Driven, which we can do easily because they are mockable at times.

11:41

Okay. Did he just get himself in trouble? Did he just say that the guys at Theology Driven are mockable?

11:47

I think he did. Not saying that I agree with them guys at Theology Driven.

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Just saying. Oh, I'm in so much trouble for that. I guess you are, Chris. He came up with this idea and before the show even posted, the night the recording was done, he's throwing me under the bus, telling the guys

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I had nothing to do with it. It's all Chris's fault. It was Chris's fault. Excuse me, Andrew. You have control of the recording instrument.

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I was simply a passive bystander in this one. Well, I have to say he did a really good job.

12:19

It almost sounded like he almost said he was a passenger, didn't it? I think he meant he was a passenger in a car because the

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Theology Driven guys, they drive while they do their show and so they have this kind of noise the whole time they do their show.

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Having a sound effect set up and ready for that show. He had that planned and knew what he was going to do going into it.

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Yes. Andrew is a master. Okay, Matt. You're going to get ready for this.

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This is where you're going to be mentioned and we're going to have fun. You're going to be referred to in just a moment and I think that he's going to describe me in an incorrect way,

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I think. A manipulator, master planner, master, you know, whatever it is he's going to do because he knows well in advance how he's going to twist you up in circles and then try to make it look like it was your fault.

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So just ask Matt Slick, ask Matt Slick, that poor guy is getting no mercy from Andrew since Andrew's been out there this week.

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In Idaho, they were, okay, for the record, was I, were we in Idaho? We were in Utah.

13:34

You're in Utah. Okay, so Chris got that one wrong. I'm ministering to the Mormon community out there and that poor

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Matt can't even buy dinner without Andrew mocking him saying, I beat you to it and putting him on video to do it.

13:49

Okay, so Matt, was I, was I saying I beat you to it or what? Yeah, you're mocking me, making me feel bad, putting video up for public.

13:58

It was, yeah, it's been going on for a long time and now, now it's starting to get physical.

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So we're wrestling at the, at the, see,

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I'm always talking to people. You go right in, you get right there to the line. I'm interacting with people and so by the time

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I figure out, wait a minute, I got to take care of this. You're already ahead, but I'm onto you and we're going to,

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I'm going to get you one day. You and I have been having this back and forth for a while. I buy you, I out slick you.

14:29

There's some video on my Facebook wall that people saw where you and I were physically wrestling for a credit card.

14:37

Now you actually went to the restaurant early to beat me to the restaurant to make sure the waiter, the waiter, yeah, wait, did you actually convince the waiter to lie?

14:48

I told the waiter was, I said, look, that guy over there, the ugly guy goes, oh, that one. And uh,

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I said, look, we've been having this battle about buying dinners for each other. I said, he's been killing me.

14:59

I said, look, I said, here's my, I should've said, here's my card right now. Hey, you know, don't take kids no matter what.

15:05

That's what I should've done. I said, look, when the check comes, just, just put his bill on mine. And uh, he goes, okay.

15:11

He comes back and he did, he showed it to me where yours was on mine. He goes, here it is. I go, great. I don't have to worry about it.

15:18

So I go up to pay. You take my card. Actually, before I took your card, the look on your face was great.

15:25

You got up cause the guy's telling me, no, it's already paid. He wouldn't take my card. It's already paid. I'm telling him we'll refund it.

15:32

Just refund his card and give it up mine. And you got up, you turned around and he had this nice smug look on your face.

15:40

Like ha ha. I got you. Yeah. That's right. And then you take my card out of his hand.

15:48

So he couldn't do anything. And then, so you ended up buying me a lunch. And I handed it to the girl.

15:53

Now the irony of this, the irony was I accidentally got the right card. I would have taken the

15:59

American express card and forgot that they don't take it there. And because I was wrestling with you,

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I took out a visa card and gave her the right card. But the waiter, the waiter was being obedient to you.

16:12

He would not, he was not taking my card at all. He was totally on your side.

16:18

Oh, well, yeah. Until you took my card and you couldn't do anything about it. Loser. Yeah. Well, I, you know,

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I, I did have a case. People think that this is all a con on my part to get him to pay.

16:33

Was it that night or the next night? It was that night. But because there was someone, Ethan on Facebook said,

16:38

I don't know, I, I, I feel like Matt has been tricking you into paying for his meals for a few years.

16:46

You keep falling for it all about the end game. I told him, I don't think so.

16:52

What happened at McDonald's that night. Oh man. So you were starting to get sick that night,

16:59

I believe, or get something. Yeah, I was out of it. I was wiped out. Yeah, you were. You look pretty bad.

17:04

Almost like you do now. And so we went to McDonald's because you, I'm sorry, we, we passed it and then you were weren't feeling good.

17:12

So we just turned around. I needed food. Yeah. Yeah. You needed something. So we go in there and, um, and you and I had a little bit of a struggle trying to pay for your meal.

17:20

I tried to get the card in and, and, uh, you beat me on that one again. Well, I beat you because I had this thing called a phone, which was quicker to the draw.

17:30

That's right. And so, uh, so I'm going to have to figure something out like that, but at any rate, so, uh, anyway, he, you know, he pays and, uh, we're wrestling, you can see me shoving him out of the way and the whole bit, but, um, so then he, he goes over to get his food.

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So I take my card out. This really happened. I take my card out and I ordered my food and I do the swipe thing, whatever it is.

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And I hit the buttons and I go, I look over, I go, at least I'm buying my own meal.

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And, uh, it's in there and I still remember seeing, it's saying, uh, you know, like remove card.

18:06

I remember that remove the card, it's done, remove the cards, remove the card, right? And she goes, okay, order number, whatever, something like that.

18:14

And I will, I go over to get my iced tea and now Andrew's between me and the cashier. And then

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Nathan says, Hey Matt, your card didn't go through. I look over and you're over there going here. I'll pay for that crap.

18:27

And I have the evidence right here in my hands, your receipt for your meal at McDonald's.

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It was just classic. Cause she goes, Oh, the card didn't go through your way over by the soda machine, getting your drink.

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And I just look at her. I look at you and Nathan comes running over to try to get you over there before I could do anything.

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And I'm quick on the draw with my phone and I'm like, all right, that's it. I just waved my phone over and there was a video of me gloating, holding me.

18:59

I had gloated first, he gave my own and then look what happens. I have to eat crow.

19:05

Now look, I will state for the record, if you ever, ever win on this,

19:12

I am going to have to eat crow for you. I mean, I will never live down the abuse. That's right. Oh yeah.

19:18

People are going to mock you. It's going to happen on social media, but Aaron on F on Facebook had said your food feud with slick has literally been the greatest and greatest is an all caps.

19:30

So Aaron, yeah, this girl, Aaron, we, so, so we've been able to entertain people in our feud.

19:37

No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I did not get it on video by the way, for the record, those are two totally different.

19:43

Two people happened to be there, happened to get video. Um, clearly the, the, the people behind the counters taking our money never knew what was happening.

19:56

Yeah, it was a lot of fun. So at any rate, so it's not a joke.

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And, uh, you know, we've had a few wrestling matches, but, uh, it's going to change. I thought about using some

20:09

Krav Maga on you, but I go, no, I can't escalate a dead eye. You know, you, you, Nick, you hit my knee in to like cause me to, which would have been good if there wasn't anything there.

20:20

Yeah. There was, there was a counter right in front of it. So the counter blocked it and totally deflected your, your attempt to get me to It was a week.

20:29

Well, you see the thing is I could do a hair pull and a chin twist, knock you down, but I'm not going to, you know, we're not going to get into a full on brawl.

20:35

So it's like, uh, it's gotta be with more finesse. It's gotta be a lot of more finesse here. Are you saying you have to actually out slick me,

20:43

Mr. Slick? Well, I'm going to, I'm going to out slick you guys for sure. All right.

20:49

So let's see what the rest of these guys say. Cause I think there's some at the end you may enjoy. I know that. And we love

20:54

Andrew. We're really good at that. They love me. He knows that we're just teasing and messing with him there, but, um, theology driven.

21:05

I agree with Andrew. At some point we're going to hear, you know, during that show. And I don't have fancy special effects,

21:12

Andrew. So I had to make those up. So, okay. The special effects that he wants is something that sounds like this. That's the effects he wants.

21:21

Come on, Chris. Uh, okay. So for our listeners who are now completely clueless as to what we're talking about,

21:29

Andrew Rappaport head of striving for eternity ministries, uh, puts on the various, uh,

21:39

I equip Ohio equipped, New Jersey. And they're finally making their way back to California, uh, for, uh, with that same kind of conference to put on training for evangelism, get people out there sharing the gospel, fantastic ministry.

21:52

Also, uh, dedicated to equipping people with systematic understanding of theology, hermeneutics, et cetera.

21:59

So if you look up striving for eternity on the internet, you'll find a great deal of resources there.

22:06

And you'll find Andrew Rappaport's, uh, podcast of his own called the rap report. That's R A P P report.

22:12

And you can find that on iTunes. He does a daily two minute podcast and then a weekly one hour program.

22:20

And I, and Matt has never listened to one of them just for the record. I don't even know you're doing it.

22:29

I, you know, I used to record them as videos and I think I tried to do one in your, in your house, in your office, actually,

22:37

I should say. And I think we have a video of me being slicked by you trying to record.

22:44

And you just were cracking me up so much that I just kept that because it was hilarious. So you can look on our

22:52

YouTube channel, uh, and find that, but, and that's a great one. Just, I think it's a, you know, rap report gets slicked or something.

22:59

Mm. I want to say blessed to be on the show, but Andrew, that's, that's kind of a mixed bag.

23:06

What do you think? You think it's a mixed bag being, being, being on the show, Matt? Do you feel not a mixed plus mix?

23:12

It's just crap. It's just a bad all around. It's just bad all around. They haven't got quite, quite got it right yet.

23:21

That's all. But, uh, I got to be, uh, his guest.

23:27

But, uh, and the other guys over at theology driven, uh, our, our good friends, Kevin, uh, also known as Anonymous, Scott Hunt, James, all those guys.

23:36

Fantastic, uh, program every week. Yes. It's called theology driven because they, unlike Andrew sound effects, they actually are in a car.

23:43

They actually do nearly run over deer and people staring at statues and drive into swamps. And, um, the whole time that they're doing this, they're talking about specific issues and highly encouraged both programs recommend you, you listen to them both.

23:59

Uh, they're certainly getting a lot more downloads than you and I are rich. So maybe, maybe we're doing this wrong.

24:04

Maybe we keep redirecting people to the wrong shows, but, uh, grateful to, um, we have a constant sparring session with the folks over at, uh, at theology driven.

24:17

I don't know how that started, but we had it.

24:22

That feud doesn't seem to end. So we're just going to keep running with it. And I encourage that feud to continue for voice of reason radio and theology driven.

24:31

You guys should continue that feud because we enjoy watching it. Just saying that they, uh, we'll talk about squirrels all the time because Matt, you and I kind of have some

24:41

ADD. We like to go on tangents, but you've never seen tangents like theology driven.

24:48

Well, tangents can be good. Yeah. They go on tangents. All right. And then they just walked in.

24:55

My wife just walked in, let the cat in. So if I'm a little distracted, that's why, but no big deal. Go ahead. Okay.

25:00

So, so you and I went this week to be on the more serious side. Actually, I guess I should play a commercial before we get to the serious stuff.

25:08

Uh, all this kidding around, you know, just, we need to stop and play a commercial and then we'll get to more serious stuff.

25:17

Looking for strategies that will help you engage in meaningful conversations with members of the Mormon church?

25:22

Well, if so, take a look at Sharing the Good News with Mormons, a new book produced by Harvest House Publishers and edited by Mormonism Research Ministries, Eric Johnson and Sean McDowell.

25:33

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25:40

Pick up your copy at the Utah Lighthouse Bookstore or order directly from mrm .org.

25:46

You can also get that at strivingforeturning .org at our store. Great. I mean, there are a number of authors here.

25:54

Sean McDowell, Mark Milberg, Matt Slick. Wait a minute.

26:00

Throw this book out. Now you, you contributed to this as well as myself, Bill McKeever, Sandra Tanner, Eric Johnson.

26:08

There's, there's a number of, I think 26 authors in total that contribute to this.

26:14

You contributed a chapter, Matt, and you spoke about it last week. It was fun.

26:20

Manti pageant. So at the conference part. So first off, what was your chapter about in the book?

26:26

Do you remember? No. Something about the

26:33

Bible. Yeah, it was on, is the Bible reliable and inspired on the

26:39

New Testament? And yeah. So I just wrote about that and modify some stuff and did it and then spoke about it at the church.

26:48

A lot of fun doing that. You got to follow Sandra Tanner. I was just going to say, so how nervous were you?

26:53

You've spoken many, many times, many, many places. How nervous were you speaking at the, at that conference?

27:00

Well, to be honest, I wasn't, I don't get nervous speaking anymore. Even following Sandra Tanner?

27:07

No, I, no, it doesn't bother me. Uh, Sandra Tanner. I mean, come on.

27:12

I just said to them, Hey, look, Sandra Tanner. There she is. I got to follow Sandra Tanner. What, you know, it's great.

27:17

It's awesome. Just fed into it and then kept going. And, um, so I don't, I don't get nervous speaking.

27:23

I don't know if you do. I don't, but, uh, I love it. But no, it was fun, but it was, you know, I mean, come on.

27:29

That's why everybody was there to see Sandra. She seriously, I don't mind.

27:34

I'll ride her coattails. Doesn't bother me any. Well, it would actually, I mean, like, I think you had it started by saying, you know, like, look, there's no expectation now.

27:42

I mean, no, there's no one that has any expectation after Sandra get done speaking for you at all.

27:50

So they were stocked. They had to listen to me. So that's what happened for folks who are not familiar with Sandra Tanner or don't follow

27:57

Mormonism. Can you describe or give the listeners a description of who

28:03

Sandra Tanner is? Yeah, uh, she and her husband, uh, Gerald Tanner, they started the first, what you want to call the real anti -Mormon outreach.

28:13

Um, when they started discovering that things were wrong with Mormonism, they started, he liked to do the research and she liked to do the writing and printing.

28:22

So they developed, uh, over years, a printing house and they published millions of pages of material, uh, to say that she's, you know, how many books they've written.

28:35

It's, it's, it's 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, who knows books, pamphlets.

28:41

It's just ridiculous. And, uh, loot a lighthouse, a Utah lighthouse ministry .org.

28:47

Sandra Tanner. She's, she is probably the number one person in the world.

28:52

In fact, that book right there, I highly recommend people get that book, this book that I'm holding up, which, and so let me give you the time and I'm for folks on, on YouTube.

29:02

You can see how thick this is. This is the fact. Let's do an experiment. I'm going to get, get something.

29:08

Okay. This is the 3 ,913 changes in the book of Mormon.

29:15

And there's actually more of them now than when, when they produce this and you can see how thick this is.

29:21

This is the sort of stuff they produce. And now why Matt, hold on, watch this.

29:28

I want you to do an experiment here. This is what I do. But Sandra told me that what she did was she had an original book of Mormon and Gerald would go through the then contemporary one and they read word by word and they would mark up.

29:43

And that's what that book is. Mark up the changes. Now, what I recommend people do is get that book.

29:48

I have on my back shelf, a couple of copies of it back over there and also get this.

29:55

Okay. Greek New Testament dictionary testament. You don't have to, uh, with dictionary, you don't have to know

30:02

Greek. So here's Greek. All right. I'm gonna tell you, I use this, this thing, but look at the bottom.

30:08

That's the apparatus. It's called the textual apparatus. Now what

30:14

I'm gonna do is just pick a random page. Okay. I'm looking down here and this is, this is the bottom part.

30:22

These are all the textual areas and issues. And so what you'll see is on a certain page, you'll see a number like this.

30:31

This is the verse number right here. And there's a verse number and a verse number. That means that verse has an issue and different manuscripts have it this way and different manuscripts have it that way.

30:42

So you can have 10 manuscripts, five and five. It's only one, one variation because five of the manuscripts have it this way, whatever.

30:49

So what I do with Mormons is I say, Hey, Hey, let's, let's do this.

30:55

I explain what this is. You don't have to know Greek. I'll say, say, stop. They say stop. And I do this.

31:01

I go one, two variants. We'll just pick another page.

31:07

Okay. One, two. Okay. One, two, three.

31:15

Oh, look at this. One, two, three, four, five variants. Pick a page.

31:22

Do that three or four times in the Book of Mormon. Well, I don't know if folks can see, they can see all the highlights, but let me just look at one page here and we got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13.

31:37

The next page. One, just pick a random, just fan through it. Nine, 10. Just fan through it.

31:44

Stop. So they can see on the screen, fan through it without even knowing where you're going. And you'll see it's ridiculous.

31:50

I mean, for folks who are watching on YouTube, you could see there are dozens of variances per page, and we're just grabbing randomly.

32:01

I mean, those you can see, I'm just flipping, no special. This one has a little bit fewer, but still a ton.

32:09

You know, this is just randomly looking. Now, why this is important is the

32:15

Book of Mormon, Matt, was developed after the printing press, wasn't it? Yes, it was.

32:20

And when Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, he did it with a seer stone in a hat, and Oliver Cowdery would record one letter at a time.

32:30

So the English is inspired. That's right. The English is inspired of God.

32:36

Oh, then why do they keep changing it? You know, it's very interesting. Mormonism Research Ministries, Bill McKeever, Eric Johnson, have a podcast that they play.

32:49

And this, what they've been doing this week, or I think it was this week, but it's called

32:55

Viewpoint on Mormonism. Great podcast to listen to. They were dealing with the translation, because the

33:02

Mormonism is translating the Book of Mormon to other languages. And they were saying, well, gee, why don't they use that seer stone that you just referred to?

33:09

I mean, if it was good enough for Joseph and the president of the church supposedly has the power, the authority to translate, why doesn't he stick his head into a hat with the seer stone inside and do the translation perfectly?

33:25

Why do you think they don't do that, Matt? Because they'll be busted. Actually, they have the seer stone.

33:33

The rumor, the evidence, they have released photos. They say they have the seer stone.

33:41

Okay, they got a profit. They have the seer stone. All they need now is a hat. Put their head in a hat, put a top hat kind of a thing, make sure that they're in darkness, and then try and translate, you know, get some more revelations from God.

33:56

No, I guess it only works if you have the golden plates. You have to have the golden plates. But the Book of Abraham, papyri.

34:01

So I guess the translation method isn't going to work anymore because you have to have more scriptures. Yeah, well, they should be able to translate, though, the scriptures that they have, you would think.

34:12

Into other languages. Different languages. And so you'd think that that would be possible.

34:20

Yeah, oh boy. You know, I've been to the Museum of the

34:26

Bible, and I've seen old, you know, they've had manuscripts that they have out for people to see.

34:35

I've gotten to see when I was in Israel, the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now, in Christianity, we like to put the evidence out there for people to see.

34:45

You took me in Utah in Temple Square through a museum. The one thing

34:50

I didn't notice was I saw a picture of the seer stone and things like that. Where do you think the originals are?

34:59

Well, I got some interesting theories about that. But the original seer stone, there's a vault in the prophet's office.

35:08

And I'll tell you what, I'll tell you a story. This is third hand, so you can do with it what you want.

35:16

When Bill McKeever and I both lived in Southern California, we drove up to Utah before he moved up there.

35:24

We met a guy, and he was talking to us. So this guy told us his friend, this is what his friend told, it happened.

35:31

His friend left Mormonism, and he was a secretary of some sort to the prophet.

35:39

And this secretary was an expert on the Solomon Spaulding Manuscript. So in this vault that they have, they have all kinds of artifacts.

35:49

And they have the seer stone, they've got various documents from old time and various writings and handwritings from Joseph Smith and others, as well as what's called the

36:02

Solomon Spaulding Manuscript, where it looks like, I think it was a

36:07

Presbyterian minister was writing a novel, he passed away. And it looks like Joseph Smith took that novel and then incorporated it into the

36:15

Book of Mormon, because witnesses said that what is in the Book of Mormon is what Solomon Spaulding had been writing.

36:22

And anyway, so this guy, the secretary to the prophet, was an expert on this topic as one of his hobbies.

36:31

And the prophet was in using the restroom, and the secretary went into the room, and on the desk was,

36:39

I think, the Book of Nephi, one of the Book of Nephi, written in Solomon Spaulding's manuscript, handwriting upside down.

36:46

He could read it upside down, recognize Solomon Spaulding's handwriting, and recognized the Nephi stuff.

36:52

It was right there from Nephi. And instantly he knew Mormonism was false. The prophet came back into the room, closed this file, and said, you will say nothing about this.

37:03

And the man went straight out down the elevator and left and was gone, disappeared, and left

37:11

Mormonism. Now, third hand, we can deal with it. But it's apocryphal, so to speak, anecdotal.

37:18

I believe something like that is true, though. Yeah, well, you know, one of the things, you and I did a lot of evangelism this week.

37:25

You know, you got to speak to a lot of Mormons, definitely more than me this week.

37:33

I did some open air evangelism. But, you know, I want to tell one account, and I think

37:40

I shared a little bit with this with you, but I posted when I was getting on a flight,

37:46

I said, I'm going to Utah to evangelize Mormons. And I had a woman who contacted or responded saying, why would you want to evangelize

37:54

Mormons? They're Christian. And I said, no, they have a false Christ, a false church, a false

38:00

God. They're not Christian. And she took offense at contacting me privately. We're going back and forth.

38:06

And we had been going back and forth literally almost all day every day that I was out in Utah. And I directed her to mrm .org,

38:15

which is Mormonism Research Ministry, Eric and Bill's ministry. Right. I said, just read some things here so you can see.

38:24

This was the email I got back on Thursday. So I got out there Tuesday. I flew out

38:29

Monday. So that's when this really started. Here's what she said by Thursday. I just went on the website.

38:38

I did not know they believe God and Mary had intercourse to create baby

38:44

Jesus. I think I need to research Mormonism now. They even think we become gods.

38:52

That's crazy. Now I am where the crazy idea that Satan and Jesus are brothers.

38:59

The Bible don't teach this. I never went to any of the temples because I was not a full tithe payer.

39:07

So I was not worthy enough. I found a video on a

39:13

Mormon temple inside. This is insane. I am leaving. I am leaving this insane church.

39:21

They don't tell you this when you join. I just looked up Jesus brothers in the Bible and Satan is not mentioned in it.

39:30

She wanted a site that I had given her on how to leave the Mormon church. The real blessing is

39:38

I was able to get her on the phone with Eric Johnson and Bill McKeever. They shared the gospel with her.

39:46

At that point, she was convinced she had to get out of the Mormon church. But she wasn't a believer yet.

39:54

And Eric was sharing the gospel with her. And then I got this at 2 .17

40:00

on Saturday morning. It says it's 1 .15 a .m. in the morning.

40:08

I could not sleep. I gave my heart and life to the real Jesus. Thank you so much,

40:14

Andrew. I feel amazing and so blessed to have found the real Jesus.

40:20

Amen. There's a lot in her original thing that I'd like for you and I to go through a little bit because some people may not be familiar with Mormonism.

40:30

What does it mean to be temple worthy and why is the temple so important? That's why we went out there. There was a temple and I should mention, we're not describing so much of the details of what goes on at Manti.

40:42

I want to tell you this and there's a reason I don't want to get into that because I'm going to link a

40:48

Patreon video that goes to Matt Slick and I want you to do two things.

40:54

Watch the video. Well, first, actually, before you can watch the video, you have to donate, okay?

41:00

So donate and support Matt and then you can see a video because in the video, Matt goes through and shows you exactly where we are, shows you how the

41:09

Latter -day Saint church tried to shut us down, stop us. It is kind of funny.

41:14

They put up signs. Matt will show the signs where it says, no evangelism. And meanwhile, over the loudspeakers, you hear them keep saying, if you have any questions, please ask any of the people, any of the actors and I'm like, wait a minute.

41:29

If we ask questions and we disagree and we start explaining what we believe, are we violating the law now?

41:36

They even blocked the stinking public street so we couldn't go on a certain area.

41:43

I mean, a church or a public street to prevent us from evangelizing them.

41:48

And so I want, I will have the link in the show notes of the Patreon video so you can see that and get all of that detail because Matt's going to show you videos exactly where we're at and you'll see all that.

42:03

But Matt, what does it mean in Mormonism to be temple worthy? In order to go to the temple, you get certain tokens, certain privileges.

42:13

You have to pay full 10 % tithe of your income to the church and the past basic moral test that before the bishop, which is like a pastor of their particular church, their ward, their chapel, and then you get what's called a temple recommend.

42:31

And you have to be in good standing with the church, full 10 % tithe of your income. They check it. And then with that, you are allowed to go to the temple.

42:41

In the temple, you can go on the web. I recommend people do this. Go on the web and look up Mormon Temple Ceremony.

42:48

It's interesting. And pay attention to who does most of the teaching, God or Satan. And it's definitely

42:54

Satan. And what they do in there is learn handshakes, tokens, it's called four handshakes.

43:00

And they have their underwear. And wait, their underwear. Some people may not know about that.

43:07

Yeah. Temple garments. I call them funny undies. They're supposed to protect them from all harm and stuff, right?

43:14

Yeah. Yeah. There's all kinds of anecdotal stories about a Mormon missionary. You didn't get burned when he was in a car accident or just things like that.

43:24

And they say, see, it's the garments. So the whole idea is to go to the temple.

43:30

And if you're temple worthy, and then you keep celestial law, you have the potential of becoming a god or goddess of your own planet later on.

43:38

And in Mormonism, it teaches many, many gods. It teaches that God is an exalted man from another planet.

43:46

He's about six feet tall. He has a body of flesh and bones. His wife has a body of flesh and bones. They have sex in heaven, make spirit babies.

43:53

The first one born was Jesus. And we were all born in the pre -existence to God and his goddess wife.

44:00

And then we inhabit human bodies. And if you're really doing well, you get to become a potential god.

44:13

Hold on a second. There's an important message on doing some. And what you end up seeing with it is also in their temple, which we might think of a temple in the

44:24

Old Testament, where you have sacrifices for the atonement of sin. Theirs is all for marriage, for baptisms, for the dead, so they can get a second chance of salvation.

44:33

It's all about living with your family for eternity. Very different temple. Absolutely.

44:39

And in the biblical temple, the 12 oxen in the basin was outside the temple.

44:45

Theirs is on the inside. One of the questions I like asking the Mormons is real simple. Let's say in Matthew 27, 51, when

44:53

Jesus was crucified, God destroyed the temple veil. Now, technically, there's two veils.

45:00

One, when you enter the temple, there's that veil. But that's not the one we're talking about that was destroyed by God.

45:06

That was called the second veil, which is separated between the holy of holies and the holy place.

45:12

And that's the veil that was destroyed. And Josephus, a Roman historian, talks about that.

45:17

But nevertheless, so that veil that separates God from the presence of man is the one that was destroyed.

45:25

All right. So in Mormonism, they go to the temple, they have a veil, and then there's these slits in the veil, and they shake hands with an actor, someone who's playing

45:37

God on the other side in these secret handshakes. And the reason is because when they get to heaven, each time

45:45

I say this, I just got to stop. I can't believe this. It's just, I'm not making this up. They're going to shake hands with God.

45:52

And they know, God knows, they've had the special tokens given to them in the Mormon temple ceremony. And this is part of the process of becoming a god of your own planet.

46:02

And this veil that they have is very, very thin. Okay. So what I'll say, I'll ask them,

46:07

I'll say, when Jesus was crucified, God destroyed the veil. They go, yeah. And I said, why did the

46:13

Mormons put back into the temple what God destroyed? Can you answer that, please?

46:19

And they don't have an answer. In fact, you asked three people when we were at Temple Square, and the look on their face was just like horror and run.

46:33

Yeah, they don't know what to do with that. You know, why do you put back what God himself got rid of?

46:40

And I expand on it with some Mormons. I'll say, look, the veil was useful for those who are under the law, who are not redeemed by the blood of Christ, because the sacrifice of Christ redeemed people.

46:53

And so the veil was necessary before the redemptive work of Christ. And so what you have is you are back under that law, going through the same thing that the veil represents.

47:05

And they'll say, well, we don't have the sacrifices because Jesus is sacrificed. I got you. But you still have the veil because of Jesus' sacrifice and the veil is destroyed by God.

47:13

Then you don't need the veil at all. So why do you have it back? And they don't like that question.

47:22

No, they don't. And, you know, we were doing a lot of different ways of evangelizing out there.

47:29

You actually did something within their own, a very tactical way. When you were within their own museum, you were talking with Cameron and you're sharing some things about Mormonism with a gentleman who is overhearing you.

47:47

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we were in the Mormon Museum, second floor, and I was talking to Cameron, that's right.

47:54

And I said to Cameron, I noticed as I turned my head to Cameron, there's a guy three feet away from him.

48:00

I just talked to Cameron normally. And I said, yeah, that's Joseph Smith. I forgot what the thing was. I said, the context,

48:07

I said, yeah, he married well over, oh, Cameron asked me how many wives that he had. I said, well over 20.

48:13

Some say well over, some say 34 to 6, but he had at least 26,

48:20

I believe. And some of the women were married to other men at the same time.

48:25

And that's when I saw this guy's head turn and his body froze.

48:31

And I knew that he had heard me. And so I just kept talking to Cameron about it.

48:36

Not many Mormons know that. But he actually did that. He would say that God told him as the prophet that they needed to be sealed for later on.

48:47

And the sealing meant that they... Well, and the interesting thing with it is, these were women who were married to men who were still alive, and they were still married.

48:59

Now, in Mormonism, I think that creates a huge problem. Because if they're supposed to be married for eternity, sealed for eternity, and they're married to a gentleman, and now all of a sudden they're married to Joseph Smith at the same time, so whose wife is she in the next life?

49:18

I think that was a question that came up a bit differently from some Pharisees to Jesus. Yeah, that's a bit of a problem.

49:25

Yeah, I think Jesus' response was, there is no marriage in the next life. Yeah, all right, so let me play a commercial.

49:39

If folks want to get more information on Mormonism and other religions, here's a book that you can get.

49:47

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49:52

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49:57

Do you know what to do? Muslim and Jewish friends believe. You will if you get Andrew Rappaport's book,

50:04

What Do They Believe? When we witness to people, we need to present the truth, but it is very wise to know what they believe.

50:11

And you will get Andrew Rappaport's book at whatdotheybelieve .com. And that'll be a good resource if you're saying, hey,

50:19

I don't understand all the things that Matt is talking about on Mormonism. That would be a good book for you to get and get started to learn about Mormonism.

50:29

You should also go to carm .org, go to the Mormonism section, tons of material there.

50:37

And I think Matt would agree as much material as he has, which is far more than you're going to see at Striving for Eternity.

50:45

Well, if you go to mrm .org, you're going to see more than Matt has.

50:50

Oh, yeah. Those guys probably, other than the Tanners, Mormonism Research Ministry, probably have more information on Mormonism than anyone else

51:02

I know, including maybe the Mormon Church. Oh, yeah. I've got a lot, but yeah,

51:09

MRM, that's the main Mormon site. It's incredible. I think they've forgotten more about Mormonism than most people know.

51:15

Yeah, probably. They're prophets, I'm speaking. Oh, so listen,

51:23

I want to play a game, Matt, with you. And you know, because you've been to some of our conferences, so all the pressure is off you on this game.

51:34

No pressure on you, all on me, so you'll like that. But you know that we play a spiritual transition game and where we try to transition from the natural to the spiritual.

51:46

And before we play the game, and before Matt gives me something, and he's probably going to give me something difficult,

51:53

I know him. But you know, there's a podcast called Theology Gals. Now, Matt, you would like them because they're

52:00

Presbyterians. So they agree with you on the wrong mode of baptism and things like that, you know.

52:09

And you know, dunking those children, okay, you don't dunk.

52:17

But they mentioned this game and they gave a shot at it. I want to listen to how they did and we'll see.

52:25

Maybe we shouldn't critique it, but let's see. It's funny you're talking about some people are better at it than others.

52:31

It made me think of, you know, I listened to your episode with Andrew Rappaport a few weeks ago.

52:37

And I loved that he had a game where you could bring up any subject and he's supposed to be able to bring it back to the gospel and share the gospel.

52:45

And that was a really cool little game there, you know, just for practice, if you want to sort of build your chops and being able to just drop the gospel on somebody.

52:57

But that's not everybody's style. And you know, we have now said it several times now, but you know, moms at home, where who you're encountering day by day is your kids, you can work it into what's going on in your life.

53:13

And so that's a cool little skill to develop, but you don't have to awkwardly force it into every single conversation that you have with a stranger.

53:22

So right, right. You're at the grocery store and you're in the checkout line and you pull out the

53:31

National Enquirer and say, now this is an example of total depravity.

53:37

And then you go from there. Yes, yes. Oh, I see that you're buying bread there. Yes. Did you know

53:43

Jesus is the bread of life? There you go. Boy, we could really, we could actually literally make that into a game right there.

53:52

Somebody called John Chris. I feel like we're... I was just thinking that. I feel like we're going to give him a run for his money here.

54:00

Okay. So we're going to see whether I do the transitions the same way they just depicted it.

54:05

But let's start the show music, Matt. That'll give you time to think of something to give me that I'm going to have to transition from the natural world to spiritual, from whatever you give me as a topic.

54:18

I have to transition to the gospel somehow. Spiritual transition game.

54:29

And I am nervous having you be the one to give me something. You're probably going to use some big word that I don't even understand the meaning of it.

54:38

You like big words. It happens all the time. Okay.

54:47

Avogadro's number. Say what? Avogadro's number. 6 .02

54:53

times 10 to the 23rd. Go ahead. What is that? It's a mole.

55:00

It's a unit of atoms. Okay, nevermind. That won't work. Let's see. Angstrom.

55:08

You like big words. You have Angstrom, the distance between electron and a nucleus.

55:16

Let's see. How about a gyroscope? You know what a gyroscope is. Go ahead. Well, the gyroscope, actually,

55:23

I think you were with me when I was on the boardwalk that time with the Segway.

55:29

Right? Were you with me that time? Something from here? Yeah, I was hoping to, but because that's based off the gyroscope.

55:38

Isn't it? That's based off a gyroscope. But, you know, so try to think of a gyroscope.

55:47

My pressure's on, man. I knew that. Yeah, and see, we don't edit this part out. So, this is where I stumble because I knew

55:55

Matt would give me. This was one person I feared more than anyone else. Gyroscope, okay. Look, like what

56:00

I would say, someone's over the gyroscope. I'd go, hey, you know that thing, the physics of that is awesome because the only way we can account for the physics that makes it work is by presupposing that God exists.

56:11

Let me talk to you about why the gyroscope works and the laws of physics. All right, so let me get my gyroscope out that I actually happen to have here, a small little gyroscope.

56:23

But yes, the physics of it is kind of neat because what it'll actually do, especially if you have one of these small ones like I have, where you can, you spin it in your hand and once it starts, although that really failed completely, it didn't spin at all.

56:39

But it - Well, that's a wrist one. You want to just get it going and then, you know. Yeah, then it will actually continue moving on its own.

56:47

And it's one of the nice things about the segues is that you have the same concept where there's not really a motor to it.

56:55

So, here now, if I have it going and you can probably hear it. And as long as I keep spinning this, it will continue to go.

57:05

In fact, if there was some device, some electronic device that would keep it spinning, it would literally spin forever, which is how the segues work.

57:16

They have an electronic device that keeps it spinning and keeps it moving. And the reality is we think of everything as having entropy, as having that it's breaking down, that it's falling apart.

57:30

And the reason that we have entropy and we have things like that where we don't expect things to continue forever as they are is because of something that happened many, many, many years ago when two people decided to violate, well, more specifically, one person decided to violate

57:45

God's law and bring sin into the world. And when Adam and Eve chose to violate

57:51

God's law, sin entered the world. Because of that, the curse of sin entered all of mankind through Adam.

57:58

And that is why every one of us are born with a sin nature. And we need a means of escape of that.

58:05

We are under God's judgment. And Jesus Christ is that means escape. God himself, who came to earth, died on a cross as a payment of sin that we could be set free.

58:15

So, that's my pathetic attempt at transitioning. If I saw someone with a gyroscope,

58:21

I would just say, cool gyroscope, dude. That'd be it. You'd be like, cool gyroscope, believe in Jesus.

58:30

I'd say, you know, look, gyroscope, hey, you got any questions about the Lord? And we can talk, you know.

58:39

I'm right. I just go to it. You go to it. You know, there is one way whenever I'm kind of stuck in a conversation that I've already gotten it into the spiritual, like if I'm out on the streets,

58:48

I'm evangelizing. And we've already started discussing spiritual things.

58:54

One way I can always get back no matter where anyone goes is this one question. And I remembered it.

59:00

I used it once. And ever since then, I've remembered it is this question. They go blabbering on as one guy did about, you know, pagan

59:07

Celtic gods and how the Irish were really the ancestors of all of humanity.

59:13

And he's going on for 20 minutes. And I just looked at him and said, that's great. How does all that help you on judgment day?

59:20

Right there, it gets you right back to the key point, right? It's about judgment day. You're hosed, buddy.

59:26

Yeah. I still think I did better than theology gals. I'm just saying, I think

59:32

I did better than that. Oh, I see you got bread. I'm just saying, but they may call me out on it.

59:38

So Matt, before we end it, we should get your blood boiling, shall we say.

59:44

So Benny Hinn is coming to my state. And our mutual friend,

59:50

Justin Peters said, hey, Benny Hinn's coming to your town. You should go. And I will be in Texas this weekend.

59:56

And not, or actually by the time this drops, I'll be coming back from Texas. And so I got a bunch of the

01:00:04

New York team together to go to the Benny Hinn thing. And someone sent this out. It says, quote,

01:00:09

Benny Hinn regularly has people fall over violently. Sometimes he does it as if by magic, waving his coat or his hand at them.

01:00:20

Other times he pushes them backwards with considerable force. The fact that an elderly woman was once fatally injured in the process hasn't stopped him from making this a regular feature at his miracle crusades.

01:00:36

What do you think of that, Matt? I feel sorry for the guy on the

01:00:42

Day of Judgment. No doubt. He is going to be in so much trouble.

01:00:48

He's such an incredible charlatan. And it's just, you know, what a shame.

01:00:55

Yeah. When I get done with my annihilationism research and a couple of things I've got to take care of,

01:01:00

I'm going to be starting on the new way, apostolic reformational and cross -pollinate that with the Word of Faith teachers and preachers and exposing flaming heretics like him.

01:01:12

Yeah, he's a flaming heretic. Yeah, I mean, you said it right. I mean, I do feel bad for him on Judgment Day because when he stands before God, he's going to have to give an account for all these things that he has said, these people he's led astray.

01:01:30

It's going to be bad for him unless he repents. And that's the beautiful thing about Christ.

01:01:37

Even if a Benny Hinn repents, he could be forgiven of sin.

01:01:44

I think you're probably aware of this, but Benny Hinn's nephew, Costi Hinn, has become a believer in Christ.

01:01:53

He used to work with his uncle, Benny, and travel with him and deceive people. And he repented and believed on the

01:02:00

Lord Jesus Christ. And he's now a believer. He's got a new book out.

01:02:05

I don't remember the title of it. I think it's December. Just search for Costi Hinn. It's his only book, I think.

01:02:12

But yeah, I feel bad for him. Yeah, there are a lot of deceivers and charlatans out there.

01:02:19

And the cure is to know your doctrine and stick with good biblical theology, which we need to study.

01:02:25

But too many Christians don't want to study it. And where's a good place to go for people to learn theology, apologetics, what other world religions believe?

01:02:34

What would be a good place for them to go, Matt? You could go to strivingforeternity .com. Oh, wow.

01:02:42

I set this up on a tee. Okay, I'll give the other site you should go to.

01:02:50

Christian Apologetics Research Ministry at carm .org. What were you originally going to call that ministry, by the way?

01:02:57

Yeah, we were talking about Christian Research Apologetic People. We figured the acronym wasn't going to work.

01:03:06

And then there was a Christian Research Apologetic Ministry, which would be

01:03:11

CRAM. And we figured that wasn't going to work. So we came up with some other things. I was thinking like direct, something came up with doofus.

01:03:22

And anyway, I decided to go with CARM. I didn't think anything was going to happen. I only picked

01:03:28

CARM. I didn't know what to call it. I just needed something one day, I'll figure something out. I'll just call it this.

01:03:34

That's all. That's all it was. You figured CARM wasn't taken. So it was up for grabs. Yeah, it wasn't any big deal.

01:03:42

Because I didn't think anything was of it. I didn't think anything of CARM. Christian Apologetics, and I'll do research.

01:03:50

I'll call it CARM. Okay, and I told my wife about it. She goes, yeah, it sounds okay. I didn't know.

01:03:56

And now it's about 22 years later. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, 22 years later, we've got five full -time employees.

01:04:06

And I wish I had a better name for it. But you know, that's all right. It's what it is. And praise

01:04:11

God, that's what it is. And you know, so Matt, what's going on at CARM?

01:04:17

And for folks who, there may be, I don't know who, there may be someone who's done searching on the internet for apologetic -type material and not found

01:04:27

CARM. I don't know who that person is. Because like every pastor I know says when they were in seminary, CARM was where they were getting all their information from.

01:04:36

So you as a non -seminary professor have trained more seminary grads than probably any professor.

01:04:44

A lot of them, in that sense, yeah. So anyway, we're hoping to rebuild the site.

01:04:52

We had a server crash two years ago. And we were at 90 ,000 page views a day.

01:04:57

Now we're way below that. Finances are hurting. Security issues. The site's been hacked. We just got word today, as a matter of fact, that we got some more hacking problems.

01:05:08

And while we were talking, one of our guys that you and I both know asked for some security information so he could work on it.

01:05:13

I'm assuming that's what it is tonight. But the site's under heavy attack.

01:05:19

The ministry's under attack. My life is under attack. My wife has gone through open heart surgery.

01:05:25

We've had so many things happen to us recently. And that's just part and parcel for what it means to serve

01:05:31

God. Others who don't serve God don't have problems as well like that. But we have to deal with hackers putting porn links in our site.

01:05:41

DDoS attacks. Denial of service attacks that are supposed to just wipe the site out.

01:05:48

Security hacks. Email hacks. It's just what it is. And with all seriousness, you and I love to joke around with one another.

01:05:58

But you have really gone through a lot in the last year.

01:06:04

You mentioned your wife's health. Very serious health condition. Folks, I encourage you to be praying for Matt's wife and for Matt.

01:06:14

Major issues they have. And one of the things I appreciate is in all time

01:06:22

I've known you, in all of the struggles of life and ministry, you have times where, as with any of us, we'd have down times.

01:06:32

We'd have times that we feel that pressure. But I've never seen you ever come even close to saying,

01:06:39

I give up. In fact, one of the things I've seen about you, Matt, is the more trials that come your way, the more struggles that come your way.

01:06:52

The more, as when you and I used to do the Google Hangout program, where we would have people calling in or coming in and trying to challenge.

01:07:03

They would do things like kicking everyone out of the program because they found flaws. And they thought it would get you upset.

01:07:10

And all it did was get you more fired up to serve God, to proclaim the truth.

01:07:18

And that's a side I don't know many people know about you. I mean, they know you as the very serious, the radio show host.

01:07:25

Folks don't listen to Matt Slick Live. It is on some local radio stations.

01:07:31

It is also a podcast that you can listen to. So you can listen to Matt Slick Live. People know you from the research you do at karm .org.

01:07:40

Maybe some people got to hear, when you and I get together, some of the lighthearted side of you.

01:07:45

The side that those of us who know personally get to see. But not as many people get to see when you're struggling and you're being attacked.

01:07:54

How you just, you have a way of just digging in deeper and saying, you know what,

01:08:00

I'm gonna double down on serving God. And there's many of us who see that as an example to follow, myself included.

01:08:08

And so I thank you for that. I'm sure others, if they could, would thank you for that as well.

01:08:15

Because it is something that for many of us, we would just want to quit. I always remember when

01:08:21

I was, you know, may get more personal than we should on a podcast, right? But many years ago,

01:08:27

Striving for Journey was coming under attack by some people who were trying to build their own ministry and build it off, you know, basically build it off our name by attacking us.

01:08:37

And saying false things about us. And I remember coming to you and you gave me advice that I've held to this day, which is, you said,

01:08:45

Andrew, don't worry about what they say. Just keep producing good content and people are going to come and want to learn.

01:08:55

And that's really been the thing. All those, all the nonsense and drama that happens within Christianity, it's like, push it out and focus on what we have to, you know, do today.

01:09:08

Trying to deliver better content, better resources, better material for Christians to learn and defend the faith and share the gospel.

01:09:17

Amen. Just keep plugging. In fact, I got people try to hijack my radio show and force me into a debate with a

01:09:25

Catholic guy, which I'm going to debate this guy later on my schedule, not theirs.

01:09:31

And it makes me mad when people try and force and push and promote heresies. It makes me want to really study all the more.

01:09:38

I don't know just what it is. God put it in me. So just use all that for God's glory, not my own.

01:09:44

So Matt, before we sign off, anything you want to share about CARM? You know, there's a lot.

01:09:50

You got the Matt Slick Live. You have the schools, the CARM schools, obviously the

01:09:56

CARM website, working on CARM Africa, working on a brand new website. So a lot going on.

01:10:02

But is there anything we haven't mentioned that's going on at CARM? No, I'm doing annihilationism, extensive research on that.

01:10:11

And I got to finish my second novel. And I've got a novella.

01:10:17

I've got a release called Atheistica. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that because my wife's heart surgery put everything on hold.

01:10:25

But I've got that to read. Have you read that? I can send it to you to read.

01:10:31

No, I don't think I got that one. I got the short little book on questions for questioning atheism.

01:10:41

Oh, yeah, yeah. I forget. I got all kinds of stuff to do. So anyway, I got more to do.

01:10:46

And then there's the Patreon thing, trying to raise support that way. But yeah, we're working.

01:10:53

You know, we're just trying different things. So in other words, if people wanted to learn about what we did at Manti, when they give that support, these are some of the things they're helping you.

01:11:02

So you could do things like these books and all this stuff. You have a novel called

01:11:08

The Influence, which is really a theological novel.

01:11:14

It's teaching evangelism. It's teaching about angels and demons and different things like that.

01:11:20

And doctrine. In a compelling storyline. People like it.

01:11:25

I'm actually kind of surprised. You know, it's done very well. In fact, I haven't even looked at the reviews recently on Amazon, but a little over 350 or something like that.

01:11:37

A 4 .7 out of five. So I hate to admit that I like it.

01:11:43

You read it, huh? Yeah, I hate to admit it, but I, you know. You know, it's there and people want to check it out.

01:11:52

They go to Amazon, look up The Influence by Matt Slick. I'm working on the second one. People are asking me to hurry up and finish it.

01:12:00

In fact, when we were, you didn't know this, but we were driving back on Saturday from Utah.

01:12:07

We got talking about that and somebody asked about this. One of the guys, two of the guys in the car had read it.

01:12:14

And they go, where's your second one? And I got talking. So I read them a single page chapter from the second novel.

01:12:22

And they go, whoa, they liked it. So it was fun to do that. Anyway.

01:12:28

Yeah, and you know, there's a lot you got going on with the ministry.

01:12:34

And we want to see some of those books completed. And there's a lot planned for the future of CARM with all you got going on.

01:12:43

So folks, go to carm .org, listen to Matt Slick live.

01:12:49

If you can go to the Patreon, you'll get to see more what was going on at Manti. I want to close out with some of the reviews.

01:12:54

Since we're, again, to enter into the Preacher's Bible giveaway, we want you to write reviews on iTunes.

01:13:01

By the way, that does not help us get in the charts at iTunes. I know so many podcasters say that.

01:13:06

They say, oh, give us a review because it gets us higher ranked. It does nothing for the rankings.

01:13:13

But it makes us feel good to know what you think. Well, sometimes it does. If Matt writes a review,

01:13:18

I'm going to be in trouble. But so I don't even, I can't pronounce the handle.

01:13:25

But fortunately, this person gave it a name. Amazing ministry, five stars, striving for eternity has literally been the anchor for my family and I for the past several years.

01:13:35

Wonderful and engaging speaking that brings you God's word with no filter.

01:13:43

Everyone will definitely learn much. That's from Mitch. I'll give you one more.

01:13:50

Let's see. We'll grab a short one. This is from Kappa512, refreshing.

01:13:58

They say, I love the humor, the flow of the show. Most importantly, the emphasis on proper interpretation and importance of the issues today and addressing the culture with the gospel.

01:14:11

Thanks. Keep it going. So folks, whether you want to give us five stars or not, give us a review on iTunes or email us at info at strivingforeturning .org.

01:14:20

That'll help us to know what you think of the show, where things you may see that we need to improve, like, hey, never have that guy slick on again, you know, things like that.

01:14:34

And before I close out, I want to give one other reference to the woman,

01:14:40

Sonya, that I referenced earlier. You know, on Sunday, Matt, we told you she had believed in the real

01:14:46

Jesus. By Sunday at 1 .20 in the afternoon, I got this as a message.

01:14:52

She said, Andrew, you were sent to me by God. I am still rejoicing to find that Mormonism is false.

01:14:59

I am so blessed to be a child of God now. I know, since I know the real

01:15:05

Jesus, I am going to heaven now. And that's important because that was one of the questions Eric asked her. Do you know where you'd spend a turn if you were to die then?

01:15:13

And she couldn't really answer that. So she says, thanks to God's mercy and grace.

01:15:20

Andrew, you are a true vessel of God. And really what it was, was just trying to answer questions, folks.

01:15:28

That's what Matt tries to do all the time on his radio show, what I try to do. And so, folks, let me just let you know some places that I'm going to be.

01:15:38

And then I'm not sure, Matt, your schedule, but July 11th, actually,

01:15:44

July 12th to the 15th, I'm going to be out in Los Angeles, California, working with Living Waters on their

01:15:51

Ambassadors Academy. I'll be leading a team of evangelists out on the streets out there. And I know, Matt, you're familiar with Living Waters.

01:15:57

Actually, that's where you and I first met, was Living Waters, when you were on his show, The Comfort Zone. I didn't know you well enough to mock you back then.

01:16:07

That changed pretty quickly. Yeah. The first week of August, I will be, actually,

01:16:13

I should back up. The July 20th and 21st, I should mention that one, EquipJersey .org.

01:16:21

Matt, you've spoken at our conferences when they used to be called Jersey Fire. But we've changed the name ever since the

01:16:27

Strange Fire Conference. Everyone thinks they're charismatic conferences. So we've changed the name to what we really do there.

01:16:33

We equip people. EquipJersey .org, we're going to be training people up and then going out onto the boardwalk and sharing the gospel.

01:16:42

August, the first week of August, August 2nd to the 5th, I'm going to be in New York City with the

01:16:48

Repent and Witness Evangelism Camp. If you want to get some heavy, this is like boot training, boot camp for evangelism.

01:16:56

You go in New York City. Matt has been with me to Union Square. Anything can happen there.

01:17:02

So that's some of the events coming up. Matt, where are you going to be? Do you have any events coming up? I know you've kind of canceled most of your stuff because of your wife's health, but do you have any debates or anything coming up?

01:17:14

Nothing. Nothing? And I'm loving it. I think maybe what we could do, we should try to do, is when you get done with your stuff on annihilationism,

01:17:26

I think we should try to set up a debate with you and Chris Date and see if he'll take that.

01:17:33

Yeah, we'll see what happens. I think he may not want to debate anyone after George Alvarado gets done with him.

01:17:41

I'm just saying. Yeah, I know what he's going to say. And I've done so much research on annihilationism.

01:17:49

I'm so convinced that they are looking into the text to find what they want.

01:17:54

Exegetical errors abound. Logic errors abound. And when they find texts that don't agree with them, they really twist them.

01:18:03

Yeah. That's all that they can do. That's what they do. Folks, thanks for listening. Encourage you to go strivingforeternity .org.

01:18:11

Help support us as well as CARM. You can go there, see the articles we have out there.

01:18:18

Please share this podcast. If you've enjoyed it, share it with others. Share it in different places.

01:18:24

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