Matt Slick Live: September 20, 2024

Ezekiel 28 and the Fall of Satan

The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network.

It's Matt Slick Live! Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at karm .org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers.

Taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right, everyone. Welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. I just messed up. You're listening to Matt Slick Live. If you want to give me a call, as usual, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

And if you want to email me, you can. That's easy to do. All you have to do is send an email to info at karm .org, info at karm .org. And I put a couple of questions for the radio that people sent in.

I looked at today and got them in there so I can get to them a little bit if nobody calls right away. I've been working really hard getting stuff ready for publication on manuals I've written, putting them on Amazon and all that kind of stuff.

Just doing a lot of work. So I won't be writing as many articles for a while. And that's just the way that is. So no big deal. And we've got a caller coming in. I've got some hate mail today, which I think we've got a good one, too.

One good one.

It's long.

Let's see. That's a real question. What's that doing in there? And that goes over there. So I've got a nice hate mail. We'll be getting into that. Why don't we just jump on the air here? Let's get to Cole from Virginia.

Cole, welcome. You're on the air.

Matt Slick, how are you doing, sir?

Oh, hanging in there, just working hard as always. So what do you got, man?

What's up?

I know. Hey, I got a question about Ezekiel chapter 28.

Okay.

Verses 11 through 19.

Think of lamentation for Tyre. Yeah, it's every precious stone which you're covering. This is a pericope that deals, most commentators say, deals with Satan. Even though it starts off with the issue of, say, the king of Tyre.

Thus says Jehovah Elohim. He says, you had to steal a perfection full of wisdom and perfected beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. And because of that, that's where people start saying, well, no, this is a lament to him.

It's addressed to him, but it's about something else. So it says, this is really interesting stuff in here, too. You are in Eden, the garden of God, every precious stone which you're covering. So this is a description, it looks like, of the devil, of Lucifer, which means light bearer.

Now, think about this. These stones, ruby, topaz, diamond, beryl, onyx, jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and the emerald. The gold of your workmanship, et cetera. These would be beautiful in the reflection of light.

And so some think that, you got me started here. Some think that this might be evidence of the greatness of Lucifer. And as Isaiah 14 talks about, the five I wills, I'll lift myself above the high heaven, like the most high, the fall of Satan.

That it looks like he might, because of this in Ezekiel 28, 12 through 14, that he was very beautiful and became conceited. But what else is interesting is, in the end of verse 13, the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets.

But another translation could say tambourines and flutes. So because of that, they think that he may have been involved as a beautiful creature, incredibly beautiful creature. May have been involved in the adoration and worship of God, and then was lifted up in his own pride, in his own beauty.

And wanted to be like God and be worshipped and adored, because he was just tremendously wonderful. And he fell. And he goes on, the gold of your workmanship was your tambourines and flutes, was in you on the day that you were created.

They were prepared, you were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there, you're in the holy mountain, et cetera. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you.

So, there you go, there's a lot of information there, but I don't know if that helped or not, but there you go.

Yeah, it confused me because the previous two chapters, you know, the Lord was telling Ezekiel, you know, all these prophecies about how he's going to get the king of Tyria. You know, he was naming all that, and then I got to that chapter.

It confused me. It does sound like it might be referring to Satan, so I was confused on that one.

Well, and that's okay. It's just that sometimes the way God speaks to people through other means is he will just be talking about something, and all of a sudden, there's a shift. Then it goes back. Why is that shift there?

Now, think about Ezekiel writing this. Say to the king of Tyria, right? Take up this lament, et cetera, et cetera. Ezekiel's writing, he must have known something was up when he wrote this section of scripture.

He must have known this is from God, and he's writing about the evil one or something like that. I don't think it's the case that Ezekiel's like, what am I writing?

I don't get it.

I don't believe that was the case. I believe that God works through people in a very real way, and they're aware of a lot of things. So anyway, it's interesting stuff. And just so you know, a parallel is found in Isaiah 14, starting at verse 12.

This is Ezekiel 28, 12, and Isaiah 14, 12, which is interesting, because half of 28 is 14, and both start at 12. Not a big deal, but there you go. It says, how you have fallen...

Could it be possible?

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Could it be possible that that king of Tyre was possessed by the devil? Could that be possible?

That's an interesting theory. Maybe that's an interesting theory. I haven't thought about that. I don't know if it's possible or not possible, depending what the text is. But, you know, I think it's worth considering.

Yeah, because he... I mean, God got rid of him, man. He got annihilated, you know. Well, I won't say murdered, but he had a violent death in the ocean, you know.

Yeah.

Like I say, it's a lot of... He's like... I don't know. It's weird, but, you know, it's interesting. But, you know, if it's from the Lord, it means something. You know what I'm saying? I just wanted to get your take on it.

It sounds pretty good what you said, though.

Yeah. And that's what it seems to be in there. But since we're talking about this, let me go to Isaiah 14 .12 and notice what we call the five eye wills of Satan. He says this. I'm going to start up a little bit earlier.

Verse 11. Your pomp and the music of your harps have been brought down to Sheol. Maggots are spread out as your bed underneath you and worms are your covering. How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning.

That's interesting, right? It means shining one, which is what Lucifer was.

Anyway.

O star of the morning, sun of the dawn, you have been cut down to the earth. You who have weakened the nations. But you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God and I will sit on the mount of the assembly in the recesses of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high. Nevertheless, you shall be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit. And so a lot of people think that's about Satan, too.

I call it the five eye wills.

What you're saying makes sense because in the previous chapters, God was condemning him for his pride. That king had a lot of pride and a lot of riches. He was saying that he did it. He did it. And he had a lot.

He put his trust in his riches. And he was like a God. And God says, OK, I'll show you who's God.

Yes.

Interesting what you said. That's very interesting.

Yeah.

OK, well, thanks a lot, man. That was enlightening.

Sure.

No problem.

I hope that's helpful.

OK, there you go.

Yeah. Thank you. Have a good weekend.

You, too.

God bless. All right.

Bye.

All right. Well, we have nobody waiting right now. If you want to give me a call, you can. All you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276. You can also give me an email. And that's easy to do. Just send your email to info at karm .org, info at karm .org.

You can put in the subject line, radio question or radio comment. And we can get to it. All right. All right. We have nobody waiting right now. We've got a break coming up in a couple of minutes. So I think what I'm going to do is get to some of the emails because I'm thinking about.

Something else.

I might do something else before I get to that. Because in regard to the issue of the fall of the devil, there is also a comment about the elect angels that's in the scriptures. I'll find a verse here.

And I was thinking about this a while back. Why would it talk about elect angels? Now, this is in 1 Timothy 5 .21. And it says, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and his chosen angels to maintain these principles without bias, doing nothing in the spirit of partiality.

And the word there is eclectos, which means to choose, to elect. So I was thinking because of this. I'm just going to throw this out. Stir the pot and think a little bit. If Satan was so great and he fell, and Adam and Eve fell, why did they fall?

And why is it that 1 Timothy 5 .21 talks about elect angels or chosen angels? So I was thinking about that one day. And it kind of came to mind that it says in the Bible, 1 Peter 1 .16, be holy for I am.

Holy.

Okay, so God alone possesses holiness because holiness is a property, a characteristic of his nature. And in that holiness is the inability to sin. God cannot contradict his own holy nature. So he cannot sin.

He can't violate that. But angels and people who are created don't have that thing called holiness, something that is part of God's character that belongs to him alone. And I was thinking about that, and I concluded probably that this is why we fell and the angels fell, except for the ones that were chosen by God not to fall, the elect angels.

So here's a theory that any sentient being, angel or human, that's self-aware, has personhood, things like that, consciousness, will fall, will end up in sin because they don't possess the quality of holiness.

And God has to elect angels, 1 Timothy 5 .21, so they would not sin, but he elects Christians to be saved by Christ from the foundation of the world. The people have a Redeemer, so we're elect from then, back then, to be saved, and the angels don't have a Redeemer, so God elected them so that some of them would not fall.

And that's the theory I kind of came up with, and I'm just throwing that out at you to see what you think. You can call me about that if you want, and say, hey, I think that's good, or hey, I think that's no good.

Or whatever you want to do, you can do that. And what we'll do, we have the music coming up here in a minute after the break, I will get to an email, a pretty good hate mail, which I haven't had a hate mail in a while, and I love hate mails, we'll get to that.

And I want to remind you that we stay on the air by your support. Please consider supporting us, we definitely do need that, and we hope that you would be so kind as to commit to five or ten dollars a month in support, and you can do that by going to karm .org forward slash donate.

Everything you need is right there, hope you'll do it, check it out. And there's the music, we'll be right back after these messages.

Please stay tuned.

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

Hate Mail, Atheism, and Straw Man Critiques

Alright, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, you can. It's easy, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276. And tell you what, we've got nobody waiting right now, it's a nice Friday.

That happens about this time of the year, Fridays get slow. So, I am going to read a hate mail. It's a long one, I may not go through all of it, but since I enjoy hate mail so much. And I only read the first line, and then I went, yes!

That's all I did, this is good!

And so, I'm going to get into the hate mail, and you can tell my voice, my tone, I'm excited. I know I have issues, but when someone writes a good email that's full of hate, I get a.

Kick out of it. I just love them.

And for a long time, we haven't had any really good emails that were full of good hate. Here's a good one. Let's see.

You, you're a disgusting pig.

Now that, see, that's good. If you're going to insult somebody, just start right off. And get right in there, you're a disgusting pig. It's simple, one, two, three, four words. And it's just very descriptive, I like it, I get it right away.

That sets the good tone. Okay, I wish there was a heaven so you could watch all the good people enjoying themselves as you burn in hell. But alas, God is as real as a Catholic priest who, oh boy, I can't, I'm not going to read the rest of that.

Do Catholics get into the priesthood to, I can't read that either. He says, your God is a joke. Well, I don't know about that. But anyway, is human suffering just something your God enjoys watching? Well, no.

Wow.

So, my mom was extremely intelligent for more than, far more than you claim to be. I don't claim to be extremely intelligent. I thought I would finally stump her by asking if God is all loving, why does it allow so much human suffering?

Well, we don't say God's all loving. People who ask the question don't understand the true nature of God. He's not just all loving. He is loving and kind and merciful and holy and just and righteous. So you had to put all those together.

And if you were to take, for example, a rainbow, it has several colors. You took one of the rainbow colors. You said, this is the whole, this represents the whole thing. It wouldn't be a rainbow then, would it?

So it would be inaccurate. Okay, he goes, as always, she stumped you by saying, it's to teach us compassion. She stumped you? Well, let's see, she's so intelligent. What an amazing response, right? She's passed away now.

Okay, her soul is in the dark nothingness of death. You know, when people tell me that, and I talk to atheists, and they will come off and they'll say, I say, what happens when you die? Nothing happens.

You just stop being. I say, how do you know? And it's a question. I mean, they are putting their eternal destiny on the line on nothing. And I say, look, think about this. There's only two possibilities, right?

You continue or you don't continue.

That's it.

If you don't continue, you'll never know if you continue or not. Because there's nothing. But the only thing you got to be worried about is continuing. Because if you don't continue, you wouldn't know.

So the smart choice is, what if you do? Anyway, when someone says that you don't exist anymore, I ask them, how do you know that?

Well, here's what I believe.

And then there's logical problems with that, because then they'll jump into what's called property dualism. They'll say that the mind is a property of the physical brain. So when the physical brain dies, your mind dies.

You just go back to nothing, to nothingness.

I say, well, wait a minute.

If that's true, then that means then that your mind is nothing more than the chemical reactions of your brain. And if that's the case, all you are is necessary chemical reactions. And so you don't have freedom.

You don't even know if what you believe in or don't believe in is true or not, because it's just chemical reactions. This is a problem with that. And then they say things like, yeah, I don't want to talk to you anymore.

And then they go away. Okay, so he goes on. The nothingness of death. Because although she deserved eternal happiness after death and, of course, divine intervention, instead she got neither, because God in heaven is as real as Santa in the North Pole.

Well, the North Pole is real, but I don't think Santa is. Actually, I guess North Pole is technically. Ooh, see?

He said. Okay.

So then he's only half right. Okay, let's see. How many million do you think have died in the name of God?

Lots.

It must be one despicable violence. I can't read what this person is saying. People who slaughtered his name. They don't do it in God's name, because God says in Jesus Christ you don't do that kind of stuff.

So this guy. You know, a lot of times, this is typical. This is pretty typical of a lot of the critics, who they don't know what we teach. They have no idea.

They have no clue.

They only think the most awful things, and that becomes what they believe that God really is or whatever. It's called a straw man. It's not a steel man. A straw man is a weak position that you attack.

A steel man is the actual position. And what atheists regularly do is straw man issues. This goes on. The Vatican has a hush fund to quietly pay off victims of abuse from the clergy. I believe that's true.

Oh, and white supremacists using the cross as their symbol and their work to keep the whites as superior class, because that is their God's will. No, it's not God's will. That's another thing. That's racist.

He's racist. You know, me, I believe there's only one race.

I do.

Just one race. The human race. And we have different skin colors. We have different skin tones. We have different eye colors and tones. We have different hair colors and tones and heights and things like that.

That's it. That's it.

One race. The human race. That's how I look at stuff. So if I see somebody who looks different than me, I say, good.

That's a good thing.

That's good.

All right. The senseless killings in Israel as two religions fight over God. They're not fighting over God. It's the Muslims who are the intolerant ones. The Jews are, oh, I'll tell you. What do you guys think of what's happening over there?

Israel's really cleaning their clock over there. And wow. With the pagers that blew up and the walkie-talkies that have blown up, I heard, but I haven't seen it verified, that cars were igniting, too.

And today I was listening and someone said it was a 15-year plan that they put into place. It took 15 years for this to come to fruition. And now the Israelis are going in and they're cleaning their clock.

Anyway, and so he says, killing each other because a book written by men have different endings to a made-up story. That's just ridiculous. The only purpose a crucifix has, which I look at whatever this guy's, makes it psychological, that's all he says.

I would keep it. I can't say that either. I know I hate people because their beliefs, or I guess because what their beliefs make them do. I know I'm a hypocrite. Yeah, you are. Most people are not intelligent enough to handle something as philosophical as religion.

Oh, man, they're going to kick out of stuff like that.

Some people are going to think I'm the one. But, well, this guy's really vile. This guy is vile. A lot of stuff I can't even read out loud. And I even skip when I see what he's doing and saying. And so, how dare you tell me to limit my question to one?

What?

So, I guess it's wrong for me to say in an email, please just limit your email to one question. I guess it's wrong for me to do that? You know, this guy does not have all his paws in the litter box.

That's for sure.

Hey, folks, there's that music. We'll be right back. Why don't you give me a call? 877 -207 -2276. We'll be right back.

Protestantism, Roman Catholic Justification, and the Council of Trent

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

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the show. Welcome back.

If you want to give me a call, the number's easy. 877 -207 -2276. We've got nobody waiting right now, so what I'm going to do is get to some Q &A. Some questions. And I was looking at them during the break, and I found a good one.

And I don't know if I've gone over it before, but it brought to mind something else as well. So what I'm going to do is read this and then read something else. I'm going to talk to you about something.

So this person, I guess it's a hate mail, but it's kind of a question also. I have to inform you in charity that Protestantism is a false religion of man that leads to condemnation. It would seem that as a result of cognitive dissonance, you temporarily downplay the obvious inherent inconsistencies of your man-made religion.

One of the pillars of your false religion is that the Holy Spirit will guide the individual believer while reading the Bible. But obviously, the 50 ,000-plus daily growing Protestant denominations stand as a constant, irrefutable proof of that doctrine.

And so I'm going to address that. So it's not 50 ,000 growing denominations. This tells me that he's just heard something, and he hasn't verified anything. He doesn't know what's going on. And plus, there are factions within Catholicism as well that are growing.

There's more and more that occur as new movements and things develop. So it's not a really good argument. It just means to me what this guy is saying is that he doesn't know what he's talking about and that he hasn't researched it.

It's not a good argument. He goes on, Any person would realize that since the original founders of Protestantism disagreed with each other on crucial points of doctrine, like what? You see, crucial points.

You see, this is something that when I've discussed this with Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, they'll bring this argument up. And I say, do you understand what the difference is between the essentials and the nonessentials?

Do you understand the difference? Because the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14, excuse me, not 1 Corinthians 14, but Romans 14, that we have the right to disagree on debatable issues. That's in the Bible right there.

But we can't disagree on the essentials. And there's only like seven to ten, depending on how you want to define them, essentials of the Christian faith. And outside of those, we're allowed to have differences of opinions.

And that's where denominations come in. It doesn't mean that you're not Christian. So this person who's saying this is unfortunately quite ignorant about how that works. He says, but anyway, you must visit this one website for the most important information you can ever see.

There's absolutely, and this is important. There's absolutely no salvation outside the Catholic Church. And that Protestantism is a man-made religion. All Protestants are on the path to condemnation.

All right. Now, so notice this statement. This is interesting. There's no salvation outside the Catholic Church. Now, the Catholic Church is a system that is, of course, with the pope and magisterium.

And you have bishops. You have priests. You have stuff. And their earthly organization, they're saying, is the true church. That you have to belong to it. You have to belong to that true church in order to be saved.

Well, let's know what Jesus says. Jesus says, come to me, all who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He didn't say you have to belong to a church to be saved. So these people right here are preaching a false gospel.

Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to read some stuff from the Canons of Justification by the Council of Trent. So the Council of Trent was a council that occurred in the 1500s, the mid -1500s. And it was in different sessions, different first, second, and third.

So it happened from 1545 to 1563. So the reason this is important is because I'm going to read to you some of the stuff that it says. This is on justification. Now, before I read it, I need to go through and read what the Bible says.

I want you to be fresh in your mind about what the Bible says is what justification is and how it's obtained. Because I'm going to read what the Bible says, and then I'm going to read what the Catholic Church says.

And this is, I would say, this is, when I get to this, I read what the Catholic Church says. I'm going to show you where and everything. This is the, you could say, an official marker of when the Catholic Church went apostate during the Council of Trent.

Now, some will deny that I, they won't believe that, but that's what I kind of lean towards. This is what Romans chapter 4, verses 1 through 6 says. I'm going to read this. What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, is found?

For Abraham was justified by works, yes, something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. So he believed God, and that belief was credited as righteousness.

That's all that Paul is saying. Didn't say Abraham did anything or didn't do anything. He is writing here this issue and saying this is what justified him was his faith. In verse 4, not to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but what is due.

But to the one who does not work, but believes. In him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.

So clearly, God is crediting people's righteousness apart from works, and it's by faith alone. Because in verse 4, 5, it's Romans 4, 5, it says, but to the one who does not work, but believes. There's two things there, works and belief, and Paul is negating works.

Real simple, okay? Now, that means justifications by faith alone. This is what the Catechism, not the Catechism, but the Council of Trent said, which accordingly cannot be undone. It's supposed to be super official and can never be violated.

This is Canons on Justification, Canon 5. If anyone sayeth that it is an imposture to celebrate Masses in honor of the saints and for the obtaining their intercession with God as a church intends, let him be anathema.

So you're cursed if you don't take the Mass and believe that they intercede for you. The reason this is important is because the saints intercede and help you in your justification. This is verse 9, or Canon 9.

If anyone says that by faith alone the impious is justified in such ways as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining the grace of justification and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will, let him be anathema.

That's the word for cursed. Let him be cursed. So what has the Catholic Church done? It has cursed the Gospel. If anyone says by faith alone that a person is justified and that nothing else is required to obtain that grace of justification, let him be cursed.

Canon 14 says if anyone says that a man is truly absolved from his sins and justified because he assuredly believes himself absolved and justified or that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified and that by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected, let him be cursed.

Now, of course, this is faith in Christ, not just faith in faith. And so what's happening here is the Roman Catholic Church is cursing the Gospel. It's cursing the Gospel. The Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian church, folks, because it curses the Gospel.

And I can go on and read some quotes and stuff like that, but what I'm going to do now is get on the air. Let's get to Jermaine. Jermaine, welcome. You're on the air.

Oh, hi, Matt. I just found it very interesting not to search some of those articles on your website. Yeah, I just wanted to ask about Hezekiah and asking for more time for some believers to do that. It seems like some people think that's been granted and some people it has not.

But I'm kind of rethinking death. I was curious, is it possible that this is actually a blessing in disguise and you do give forewarning of possible death because you can donate there?

Well, it could be. Yeah, it could be a blessing. It could be highly traumatizing as well. But, you know, it just depends on the person and the condition. And a lot of people have felt that they have been forewarned and it didn't come to pass.

So we don't know. Okay?

Yeah. Okay.

I think I got to a point.

Okay.

That's all I got for today. I'm willing to see you next week.

All right, man.

Sounds good, buddy. God bless. Okay.

All right. Okay, let's get to Jeff from South Carolina. Jeff, welcome. You're on the air.

Good evening. Good evening. I noticed a couple weeks ago you were talking about, like, what the pre-trib rapture and when it started and everything. Uh-huh. Like it was Darby.

Yep, Charles Nelson, Darby.

And then it was put into the study bibles.

Yes, and it became in the Schofield Reference Bible, I believe it was adopted in there. And then it was spread across the United States and then became a pretty much accepted doctrine. Oh, hey, hold on.

There's a break, buddy. There's a break. Hold on.

Okay.

Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. If you want, you can give me a call, 877 -207 -2276. We'll be right back.

The Origins of the Pre-Trib Rapture and Dispensationalism

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

All right, buddy, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, the number is 877 -207 -2276. Jeff, are you still there?

Yes.

All right, so, yeah, basically, it was John Nelson Darby, and he promoted also dispensationalism, which became accepted through the promotion of, I think, like I said, I think it was a Schofield Reference Bible.