Matt Slick Live: February 3, 2025

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

The Program Introduction and Show Setup

It's Matt Slick Live! Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at karm .org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live! For answers, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877 -207 -2276.

Here's Matt Slick.

Hey everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick, and you're listening to Matt Slick Live! If you want to give me a call, it's easy, 877 -207 -2276. I had a good weekend. I did a lot of learning this weekend.

I did some studies. I may share that with you on the radio here. It's actually kind of interesting, some of the stuff I've been studying recently. But if you want, you can give me an email. Send an email to me.

That's easy. Just direct your email to info, info at karm .org, info at c-a-r-m dot o-r-g. And you can put the subject line, radio comment, radio question. And then we can get to the stuff that we got.

In fact, I don't know if Laura's putting in radio questions in there for today's date.

I don't know.

I'll look at that. And we have a lot of emails that people have sent us. So I get to do that as well. So I'll tell you a couple of things. This weekend was interesting for me. So as you know, I debate and kind of teach slash debate, kind of engage, I don't know what the right word would be, with people in Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, etc.

And something interesting occurred in one of the discussions that I had with some Roman Catholics. I'm going to get my notes out because I'm sure that others have thought of this. I'm sure others have thought of this.

But for me, it has been something I've been just kind of thinking about, just trying to put it together in words and in a good order to make it make sense. And it did. I think it was Saturday night. Saturday night, Friday night, it doesn't matter.

And so we're having this discussion with Roman Catholics. And I've been saying this for a while, this one thing, that the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, they both are so similar.

Each, I'm talking to Catholics this time, each have a false gospel, a false priesthood, and a false Mary. Now the false gospel I've talked about numerous times. A false Mary I've talked about numerous times.

But I hadn't talked about their false priesthood. And so I did. I had done an article where I was examining the issue of the Roman Catholic priesthood. And I found that, well, the Roman Catholic priesthood is not in the Bible.

It's very simple, very easy to verify, but it's just not there. And so as I was talking to the Catholics, I said, look, there is no Roman Catholic style priesthood in the New Testament. It doesn't exist.

It's just not there. There's no mention in the New Testament of the Mass that is continually offered by Catholics and by their priests, by which they're then repeatedly cleansed. There's no New Testament priesthood that's passed down from the apostles.

It's just not there. I said, if the repetitious offerings of the Mass is critical to salvation, why is it not found in the New Testament? Now, you've got to think about this, because the Roman Catholic priest offers the Mass regularly, and it only temporarily cleanses you of sin, just like the Old Testament animal sacrifices.

And when you look in the New Testament, you don't find that. I'll go into it a little bit. You find something interesting, something quite different, actually. I was talking about this. So the Roman Catholic priesthood is modeled after the Old Testament covenant-style priesthood that involved repeated offerings of sacrifices where the priests mediated between God and man.

And they had to do this because the Old Covenant, their repeated sacrifices did not cleanse once and for all. And so they had to go through and offer a repeated sacrifice. Now, that's not what the New Testament says.

It's not that way in the New Testament at all. And let me go through some of the verses that I was researching. I'm still putting a lot of it together. Learn how to articulate it better. But something that's very interesting that I have to look at, and I saw this over the weekend as I was reading through Hebrews going, wait a minute, that is really interesting.

And it's Hebrews 8 .4. Now, if he, that's Jesus, were on earth, he would not be a priest at all. And I have to figure out why that's the case. I think I have an idea. It has to do with the priestly, excuse me, with the heavenly tabernacle.

But I have to research it some more. And Hebrews 8 .6 says Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant. Now, the Old Covenant is when they had to, the priests had to continually offer sacrifices. In the New Covenant, only one sacrifice is offered once.

That's the sacrifice of Christ. So the New Testament priesthood is held by Jesus alone in heaven, and only one sacrifice was offered one time, the sacrifice of Christ. Yet the Roman Catholic priesthood is celebrated repeatedly, and it only temporarily cleanses you of all your sins.

It has to be offered over and over and over. This is the Old Testament priesthood. It's not the New Testament priesthood. Period. The Old Testament priesthood style is that of Roman Catholicism, which means they're back under the law.

Because they do not have the single high priest sacrifice of Christ that cleanses once for all. Let me go through some more of these verses. This is the first time I'm really saying this this way after doing some research.

So in Hebrews 10 .10, it says, By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all. In Hebrews 10 .11, every priest stands daily ministering and offering time and time, time after time, excuse me, the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

Now, the Catholic might respond and say, well, the Mass does take away sin. You know, just for up to that point. Then you got to take it again because you commit sins each time. So the Roman Catholic Mass doesn't represent Christ's sacrifice.

It does not represent Christ's sacrifice because Christ's sacrifice cleansed of all of our sin. So I'm going to write this down because it's important. Christ's sacrifice cleansed us permanently once for all.

And it was in Colossians 2 .14 that he canceled the sin at the cross, not when you repeatedly get baptized or repeatedly take the Mass. So this is really significant. So I'm going to apply this later to the Eastern Orthodox priesthood because they do basically the same thing.

Now, for by one offering, Jesus has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Now, that's a critical verse. By one offering, he did it for all time. But yet in the Catholic Church, it's not for all time.

That's critical. It's not for all time because they have to take the Mass regularly. And if they have to take it regularly, it's not sufficient to cleanse us all time, is it? So this is really important stuff that I've been going through and thinking about and researching.

And I think it's interesting. Anyway, so Hebrews 10 .16 says, 16, 17, 18. This is the covenant I will make with them. After those days, says the Lord, I'll put my laws upon their heart and on their mind, I will write them, he then says.

And their sins, their lawless deeds, I'll remember no more. Now, where there is forgiveness of these things, there's no longer any offering of sin. Ooh, that is critical. There's no longer any offering for sin, but yet the Catholic Church offers it over and over again.

So it's just ridiculous. So anyway, as I was coming through this, looking at this, so there's no Roman Catholic style priesthood in the New Testament. There's no mention of the New Testament in the New Testament of the Mass that is continually offered.

There is no priesthood that is passed down from the apostles. Because a priesthood is the Old Testament economy. That's really important. And so I'm writing as I'm talking, because sometimes when I talk, these things just come out better than what I've written, because that's how it works.

So that's why I write this stuff out. This is how I learn. I learn by teaching. I learn by putting things together. And I think it's really interesting to go through this. And I'm seeing more and more how the priesthood of the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches are just simply ungodly, unbiblical, and they demonstrate the lack of conversion, and they are back under the Old Testament law.

It's not a true priesthood. It is bad, bad, bad. Let's get to Chuck from North Carolina. Chuck, welcome in. You're on the air.

Catholic Confession, the Rosary, and the Queen of Heaven

Good evening. I've never heard a Catholic say that it was the Mass that gave them forgiveness. I was Catholic for about the first 28 years of my life. I'm now 82 and still recovering. I heard a lot of those lies, and I looked up at what it actually said in the Bible, and I would love to sit down with the Pope and show him in the Bible where he's wrong.

A Catholic priest actually says in the confessional, you come in and you say, Father, bless me for I have sinned. It's been so many weeks or months or whatever since my last confession, and you give a litany of your sins.

He then says, I absolve you of all your sins, and here's your penance, and he tells you what to say. And the real abomination is one of the things they tell you to say is a rosary. And I don't know if you're familiar with a rosary, but a rosary has the crucifix, and you say the Apostles' Creed of the Crucifix, and then on the next thing you say a Lord's Prayer, three Hail Marys, another Lord's Prayer, and then you go ten Hail Marys, a Lord's Prayer, ten.

So you say a total of six Lord's Prayers and a total of 53 Hail Marys. And the Hail Mary starts off with the first part is a quote from the Bible, Hail Mary, full of grace, Lord is with thee. But then it goes, you know, and it says, Blessed are thou among women, blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

But then the second part is a real abomination. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for our sinners now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

Hey, I'm loving this, taking notes, because you repeat that. I've not been, never, a Catholic, but you said 53 times they say the Hail Mary.

Yeah, 53 times you say this Hail Mary, and it starts off with a quote, you know, when the angel appeared to Mary, but then it finishes up with, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

And they say that 53 times, the Lord's Prayer only five times, and the Apostle Creed once.

So that's what they call a Rosary. Okay, let me get this straight. I just say the Lord's Prayer five times. So this is, is this after a confession? Oh, wait, hold on, I got to break. Hold on, Chuck, I want to get this down.

I want you to tell me the steps again. I'm writing them down, because I want to get this down. I need to do research on this as well, because it's going to be related to it. So hold on, buddy. Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, the number is 877 -207 -2276.

I want to hear from you. 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.

All right, and welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, the number is easy, 877 -207 -2276. Let's get back on with Chuck from North Carolina. Are you still there?

Yes, sir.

All right, so let me get this straight. Okay, this is one of the things I've been wanting to see and to learn, but I can't go into a confessional and do all this stuff, so I have to take it from sources of people who've been there.

Okay, so to be forgiven of your sins, you confess to a priest. That's the first thing, right?

Right.

And he says, I absolve you of all your sins, and then he gives you this penance that you're supposed to say that's supposed to compensate for the things you did wrong. I was never assigned to do a whole rosary.

I suppose I wasn't real bad, but they might say, say, five Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys. That's the sort of thing they tell you to do. And you're supposed to go out and sit in the church and say those prayers before you leave, and then you walk out totally clean record until next Saturday.

Wow.

Then you would count all your errors of the week again.

So it can vary. So confess your sins to a priest. I know that. He absolves you of all of your sins because he's... Yeah.

Right.

And then he gives you something to do. He makes that statement. What's that?

Right.

What was that?

Yeah.

Was that a statement? What was that?

He actually says, I absolve you of all your sins, but then the penance is supposed to be your part in making up for your sinning.

I think the penance to do to... Now, this is to make up for your sins?

Right.

To kind of make things better for God.

Kind of penitize for it, if you will.

Good. Yes.

I've heard them talk about this. There are different ways, and they have different ways of talking about it. So it might be something like five Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys.

Right.

But it could be more.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. Okay.

And so what's this praying the rosary 53 times? And what was that?

Well, the rosary, you know, it's a bunch of beads with a crucifix hanging down on them, a little extension for one. It's a circle and then has an extension about four inches long. And at the end of that is a crucifix, which is the cross with Christ still on it.

And on that extension, there are two Our Fathers with three Hail Marys in between. And then as you go around the circle, there are ten Hail Marys, one Our Father, ten Hail Marys, one Our Father all the way around.

That's a complete rosary.

Yeah, I'm going to get one of those. Just order one just so I can have it and use it for illustrations. Yeah, I've heard that before. The beads, the rosary, what it is. So, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, it's interesting because. Go ahead.

One of the neat things is the way they mess up their own thoughts. For example, they call her Queen of Heaven. And if they read Ezekiel in chapter seven, I think again in 21, they explain that the Queen of Heaven, that's Ishtar.

They talk about praying to the Queen of Heaven. And he's telling them to quit praying to her. And they say, oh, no, because the laws we give offerings to the Queen of Heaven. Everything goes well for us.

And yet the Catholics call Mary the Queen of Heaven. They don't even read the Bible.

Oh, no, they don't.

Yeah, I had a Jeremiah 7.

That's the problem.

When I was in school, I went to Catholic schools all the way through 12 years. And we were told not to read the Bible. We were not smart enough to understand it properly. We were supposed to listen to the priests who had been educated on telling us what it said.

But then when I got older and got a Bible and I started finding out it didn't say what they said. And they didn't say a lot of what it did say. So, I started reading between the lines. And I ended up teaching Sunday school for over 40 years, trying to undo the wrong that had been done to me.

Teaching Sunday school. Where?

Oh, I taught Sunday school at different Christian churches, three different churches. The last one, 35 years. And I was retired because I lost my eyesight.

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

I do one every fifth Sunday on a topic I can research on my own. I use Alexa. And I send notes to my wife and she writes it down so I can call on that for the class.

You know, there's a trick for memorizing stuff. Did you know about it? It's called the Link Method.

You ever heard of that?

Called what?

The Link Method. You're blind, but you have memories of a room, for example. Or you can put objects in a room, a certain order of things, like 20 objects. And you have to know those objects naturally, so that you've lived there, touched them, whatever.

So that when you go in that room, you know exactly where everything is. It's just, that's the map. And then number one is...

Okay.

What we're teaching, this is what I do sometimes, is I'll do a Link Method, but you associate one concept with the first object. And then you move to the second object and you associate something with it.

And the more ridiculous... Oh, that's good. ...the association is, the better it works, you know.

Yeah, easier to remember, sure.

Right, like the Queen of...

Can I make another comment?

Yeah, please do.

What were you going to say about Queen of Heaven? Go ahead.

Oh, no, no. I was going to say you could use, like, the Queen of Heaven would be a crown, you know, on object one, you know, with Mary sitting there, you know, sitting on the throne. And number two might be whatever.

And then you could put verses with it. There's ways to memorize verses, too. By using numbers associated with objects, too. That's more complicated. But at any rate, go ahead.

Right. Sorry.

Well, I usually only do about ten verses, and they're all associated, like, with faith. And then I have a discussion on it, and then tell them, you know, my part, what I think it means. What I wanted to make a comment on, I turned on late one night last week, and I think you were talking about when Jesus on the cross said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Yes.

Did you discuss that last week?

Yes, we did.

I have a very strong opinion on that.

Sure.

I think, if you'll hear me out, Jesus was calling attention to Psalm 22.

Right.

At the time that David wrote Psalm 22, he was in the depths of despair. And if you read through Psalm 22, you actually get a description of some of the scene of the crucifixion. And then as you get to the end of Psalm 22, he comes out of the dark end into a bright place, and then go right on to Psalm 23.

So if you read Psalm 22 and Psalm 23 together, to me it's clear that's what Jesus was saying, even though this is a horrible situation that I find myself in. When you find yourself in a similar situation, essentially remember there's light at the end of the tunnel.

So I think he very deliberately called our attention to that psalm so we would learn that lesson.

Oh, I like that. Thank you. That's good. Good.

See?

I love learning. I love being told new things.

Oh, me too. I have to listen to Alexa mostly. Most of the radio preachers aren't any good anymore. They say silly stuff. They're in their entertainment, not enlightenment.

Right.

Yeah, I totally agree.

Yes, I agree. Well, thank you, and may the Lord bless you, and I look forward to meeting you in heaven.

Oh, me too. Thank you. God bless.

Okay, God bless.

All right.

Well, that was an interesting call. I love that. I love that. I love when people who've been there can say this is what happens.

I love that.

Now, there's the music. So we're going to take the break, and then we'll get back to Bob from Nebraska on Catholic Confession, and then Patrick from North Carolina, as well, on election. So 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.

Catholic Confession, Penance, and the Authority of John 20:23

All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. We have two open lines if you want to give me a call. 877 -207 -2276. Let's get to Bob from Nebraska.

Bob, welcome. You're on the air.

Well, thanks, Matt. Thanks for having me. I was just interested in that last call that you had from the gentleman who says he's left the Catholic Church and wanted to talk a little bit about confession and stuff.

So I thought I'd give you a call because I'm still in the Catholic Church and have probably a lot more recent experience with stuff like that than somebody who's left the church decades ago.

Sure. Okay. Can I ask you questions, then?

You can, yeah, and I might ask you a few, too, but yeah, go ahead.

That's fine. I know that's why you called, to talk about questions. So your sin's forgiven. You have to go to a Catholic priest in confession. Is that right?

No, not for all sins, but for the mortal sins, for the deadly sins. You certainly do need the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

So this is for mortal sin, right?

Yes.

So you confess to a priest, right, and he absolves you of all your sins.

Well, it's really Christ doing the absolution. The priest is just part of the sacrament process, just the representative on earth. It was actually the power given to the priest clear back in John 21, 23, where Christ came into the upper room and gave the first bishops, the apostles, the authority to forgive sins on Christ's behalf.

I've argued that countless times with Catholics. I have to set them straight on what the Greek actually says, but that's another topic. So then he gives you penance to do what?

The penance is just to kind of reorient yourself back toward God, because you've come into, in order to make a good confession, you have to be sorry for your sins. And so you come in with a sorrowful request to be forgiven.

And because these sins are serious, and you can confess venial sins as well, the non-deadly sins as well. But any sin you confess or any sin you commit harms your relationship with God. It's kind of like just in our human relationships, rupturing our relationship with somebody else.

So then in order to rebuild that relationship, we need to get back into prayer. And so it's just basically reorienting. If your sins are already forgiven, you don't have to do the penance to get the sins forgiven.

It is, but it's something that is healthy to do is to return to prayer.

Then why is penance given?

For that reason, so that it says, OK, you know, your sins and actually the sins are forgiven before you do the penance. But then it's it's this reminder to you. So you can't just walk out of here and act like none of this ever happened.

You need to make sure that you go back in and start repairing your relationship. And actually, it's repairing your own heart because God loves you just as much as he did before you committed the sins.

But but it's really repairing your own heart.

So isn't that penance, though? Paragraph 1446 offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification by your penance.

Right. Yeah. So it's yeah, it's that conversion. It's that process of conversion that follows the forgiveness of sins.

So the penance, the things that you do helps recover the grace of justification. So you get that grace back through penance. Right.

It naturally is for human condition. I mean, if so, for instance, if I went to confession and felt like all I had to do was, you know, just go in there and say, here's what I've done. Give me my give me my forgiveness so I can go out and basically continue the life the way that I was leading it.

That caused me to fall into sin. Then, you know, that would fall probably into the noose and a presumption. But but it wouldn't do you any good. So it would actually be harmful. So this act of penance, which is usually a couple of prayers, to be honest with you.

In my experience, most priests will just have you say, you know, they are a father or meditate on scripture or maybe a couple of Hail Marys or something like that is is pretty standard for most priests in confession.

So it's very minimal, but it's just that, you know, just getting you back facing toward God, working toward him.

OK, and then you have to do the say Hail Marys. Is that what the priest gives you to do to?

It depends on the priest. So some priests will, you know, say, OK, now go back and say to Hail Marys to our fathers or something like that. Some will do things like, you know, like if you make the confession right before a mass, they'll ask you to meditate on the gospel or one of the readings or something like that sometimes.

And to offer the mass, you know, for the people who you send against. So you might offer up your mass for, you know, somebody that you offended in committing that sin if it was against another person.

And so it really the penance can be a lot of different things. And oftentimes it's specific to the type of things that you just confessed.

So, so interesting. I'm not trying to argue too much with you because I certainly could.

But I just want to get to lose.

But go ahead. You know.

Oh, what a nice challenge. Let me ask you some questions that right here. Jesus is God, right?

He sure is.

Does he have all authority in heaven and earth?

He does.

He did. He say in John 14, 14, ask me anything in my name and I will do it.

Yep.

So if you were to ask Jesus to forgive you of all of your sins and you meant it, you're sincere. Will he forgive you of all of your sins?

I believe he will.

Yeah.

Then why do you need a priest to absolve you of your sins if you go straight to Christ? Who's the one mediator for Timothy to five?

Because in John 21 through 23, or excuse me, John 21, 19 through 23, Christ specifically laid out the sacrament of reconciliation. And so he's given us a specific mechanism in scripture to follow that if you wish to avail yourself of it, you're wise to do so.

Because I take God on his word and do as well.

I think you're, I think you're mistaken.

When I don't, I got the sacrament of confession to come back to.

Yeah, you're mistaken about John 20, 23. Have you ever looked at it in the Greek to see what it actually says?

Well, in fact, I have because I've heard you, I've heard your explanation of it before and it doesn't, it doesn't jive. It doesn't make sense.

So is it the case that it says, if you forgive the sins of any, that it's in the aorist active voice, right?

Is it?

Is it or isn't it?

Is the whole thing, is all of, you know, 19 through 23, is it all in the aorist form?

No, I didn't ask that. I said, if you forgive the sins of any, you forgive as the aorist with past tense, right?

Well, you know, the Greek, I don't.

Okay, it is. And then they have been forgiven. Your sins have been forgiven as he switches from aorist active to pass to perfect passive, which is a past continued action of the present that you receive the action of.

Okay, so it's like saying, if you forgive the sins of any, if you, if you did, if you forgave them, their sins already have been forgiven because it's in the past. Let me ask you a question. If a priest, let's say in his authority, because he has the authority of God, as you guys say, and he not, not on purpose.

But, you know, he's a human. He makes mistakes. He mistakenly offers forgiveness to someone who really, in this case, shouldn't be.

Okay.

Is God obligated to forgive him? Because the priest did.

I'm not sure if you understand the sacrament well enough to to ask that question, because the priest cannot make a mistake. It's the person who is making the confession that has to come in with a contrite heart.

Be sorry for their sins and firmly intend not to commit those sins again. If the person comes in with those with with that on their heart and that on their in their will, then the. You know, the forgiveness is is from God and it's done.

The priest is simply a conduit there. Now, the priest really can't make a mistake in that situation because God knows what's on the person's heart. So if the person comes in and secretly say is not sorry for their sins, but says, you know, has the demeanor of somebody that that is and says it.

The priest, as a human being, doesn't know. You know, if that person is in that case deceiving them, then that person has robbed themselves of the forgiveness because God knows their heart.

OK, so. Yes. If the person is not sorry for their sins, the priest forgiving them doesn't occur.

Right. That's right.

And if the priest knows that the sins get sometimes a personal hold on this father, then the priest won't forgive them.

Yeah, this is what Catholics do a lot. And I ask a very direct question. They go on and on and on in different directions. I notice this a lot.

They want to explain. I was just responding to what you said.

But go ahead. No, no, you didn't. It's a simple answer to simple questions. If the person is not sorry for the sins, the priest forgiving them, the forgiveness does not occur. That's correct. Right.

Yeah. Yep.

That's right.

So then how is the priest forgiving them out of his authority?

Because you go back to John 20, 21 through 23. And so let's look at that a little closer.

You know, the answer to the question. So we're looking at it. Music's going here. Think about this before I get back to the break. You said if he has the authority to forgive, aorist active means he's doing the action of forgiving.