Matt Slick Live: July 9, 2024

The Trinity and Why the True God Matters

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. Everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. You're listening to Matt Slick Live. Today's date is July 9th, 2024.

If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276. And if you want to give me an email, you can send one to info at karm .org, info at karm .org. And you just put in the subject line, radio comment, radio question, and then we can get.

To them.

We do it on Fridays a lot. And sometimes it's during the day or during the week when the callers are slow. So we will see. So the newsletter is going out tonight. And you know what? People, I'm going to say this, people ask every now and then, they ask me to put stuff in the Amazon wish list.

And so, you know, I do. And I put stuff in there. But the problem is that there's only so many things I can put in there. There's only so many things I can do. And you know, staplers and paper and these things, and there's nothing left.

So I don't know. We have a printer. We have a desk. I've got a light behind me. And you know, lights behind everything here. Even the shadows look good. Let's see. The only thing that doesn't look good is my face.

But we're saving up money for an ugly filter. And it makes me look good. So it's a cross-media interface for radio. And apparently the ugly filter that I need is like a super level. So anyway, you know, aside from that, I really can't think of anything.

So I do put stuff in there occasionally. We have an extra camera that I use, but it's kind of expensive, about 230 bucks. And that's just for backup and for dual usage and stuff like that. But I cannot even think of anything else that we need.

I could put some stuff in there just for backups and stuff like that. I could do that maybe. Maybe I'll do that. Yeah, I don't know. And if you want to sign up for the newsletter, you can do that by going to carm .org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G.

And on the bottom of any page, I think it's any page, it says join our newsletter down there. We don't do anything with your numbers, with your information. We don't do that. We just, it's just for us.

And I wrote the newsletter today. It'll go out tonight at 1 a .m. And then people read it on Wednesdays. So, and we've got people who, get this, there's a guy named Sam. And he, when I put little things up on the stuff, little things, very helpful, you know, a bag of rubber bands and various, a stand or a microphone, a small microphone.

You know, he's pretty quick at just getting them. And so I write back these thank you things for emails and stuff like that on Amazon. You know, a lot of good people out there really enjoying this ministry.

And I'm just so thankful that I'm able to help people and do some teaching. And so may the Lord bless you. There you go.

Okay.

The Trinity, Idolatry, and the Need to Know the True God

Hey, like I said, 877 -207 -2276. Let's get to Jan from North Carolina. Welcome, Jan.

You're on the air.

Hey, how are you today?

I am fine. How are you?

Good. Good.

I have a question. I really am trying to understand the Trinity, but what I really want to know is why is it so important or probabilistic that you believe in a three-in-one unity type of a Trinity versus three separate, equally attributable, good, you know, quality entities?

Why is it so important to believe in the three-in-one?

Because God tells us to serve Him and Him only. This is found in Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments. It's very important. We find that God says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, et cetera.

You shall have no other gods before me. Don't make an idol for yourself, et cetera. So God wants you to serve Him and to know who He is. The reason, ultimately, is because we're saved from God's righteous judgment by the faith that we have in what He did.

So if you have faith, like in a Mormon God, who's an exalted man from another planet who has a goddess wife. That's not the real God. So that means faith in that God is the same as no faith because it's useless.

Well, it's not a Mormon, it's not, you know, I don't have a Mormon belief, I have a strong faith, but it's just to understand when there's so many, you know, there's so many different types of references to God and the Son and the Holy Spirit separate, and then again as together, those references to each, and it's hard to know exactly, you know, exactly where it falls.

Well, if you want to know, you can go to my website, karm .org, and just type in the search engine, what is the Trinity? You can go in there.

I've gone to your website and found some good answers before. I will go back.

Yes. Okay.

And you could also do a search for an in-depth examination of the Trinity. So what is a Trinity is one level, an in-depth examination is far deeper. But between those two...

I think I need more information.

Yeah. Go ahead.

Between those two, you'll get a lot of information, all right? And I know what the Trinity is.

Yeah.

I've debated it hundreds and hundreds of times, over 40 years, all right?

Right.

So there it is.

Okay.

Well, what piqued my interest was this lady Juanita who calls you constantly and says that she doesn't believe, and I'm like, what is making her so sure that she doesn't believe? You know, and you give good information, but she doesn't seem to be falling into the line.

Because she's not a Christian, she's not saved, she's not indwelled by God, she doesn't have the true faith. Simple. Because these things are spiritually discerned, 1 Corinthians 2 .14 says that natural men cannot receive the things of God from their foolish sustenance.

In Acts 16 .14, God opens the mind of Lydia to believe the things that were taught by.

Paul.

Right.

So she has to be born again. She has to trust in Christ. Because she has a false god and she's learning ways to defend the false god, what happens is the judgment of God is upon her. And you can go to Romans 1.

Is she a Jehovah's Witness or something then? Is that a Jehovah's Witness belief?

It's going to say you go to Romans 1 .18 -32 and you can read how the judgment of God is upon people who preach and teach false things. So I don't know if she's a Jehovah's Witness or what.

Yeah.

But it just didn't seem like, you know, the bad thing, so I was curious. Okay, I'm going to just go to your website and get more information. I don't like to try to speak on things I don't understand or don't know, so I need to become more informed.

But I do appreciate you having the information and I will look at it.

Thank you.

Good. I'm glad. It's there for you. Okay.

I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I hope you have a good day.

You too.

Thank you.

All right.

God bless. Bye.

Okay.

How Churches Should Protect the Flock and Teach Apologetics

Let's get to Isaac from Tampa Bay, Florida. Isaac, welcome. You're on the air. Hey there.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, I can.

All right. Great.

First, I want to just say thank you so much for your website. It's been very helpful, specifically with Mormonism. So recently I had a school project because I'm in school in Lancaster, PA. I live in Tampa, though I work in Tampa.

And so one of the assignments was to interview one, like another culture or specifically another religion. So I chose Mormonism because their website is pretty easy to just request a missionary. And so I started doing research on how I can witness to Mormons, and I came up to your site, and I'm so grateful for that.

And when I was talking in one of my previous discussions, in fact, I've got another discussion coming up at 7 with them, but long story short, it was so sad to see that an older gentleman in the faith, in the Baptist faith, had conformed to the Mormon faith because he felt there was more belonging there.

So how do you, I guess you could say like protect your flock when you're, I'm currently in a Baptist church and where I work and reside, so how do you keep your flock? Of course you use God's word, but how do you show that the other religions are false?

You teach the truth first. What churches need to do is have a regular set of courses that they either use from some other ministry or develop themselves where they go through the basics of the Christian.

Faith.

They need to do this on a regular basis. Most people don't know the basics of the Christian faith, so you have to know what the truth is in order to recognize what the lies are, just like you spend time with real money to recognize counterfeit money.

You have to know what the truth is. So for example, I'm going to ask, not ask you, but I'll ask a bunch of questions, that the average Christian should know, okay, like what is the trinity? What is the economic trinity?

What's the ontological trinity? What does it mean to have perichoresis? What is divine simplicity? What is justification? What is imputation? What is sanctification? What is propitiation? What's the hypostatic union?

What's the communicatio idiomatum? What is security? What is salvation? What is damnation? Most Christians can't answer but maybe one in four or five of these questions. And these are the basics. I know some of the words are unfamiliar, but this doesn't take long to learn.

And these are the basics of the Christian faith. They are the basics. These are things that I go over all the time with people. I've been doing it for decades. So these are the things that need to be known.

And pastors aren't teaching across the board. They're not teaching these things. They're not providing opportunities to learn these things. Because the pastor, in my opinion, God bless him, is just dealing with the issues of the church.

But you're not an apologist like I am. And I know what's out there and I know what challenges there are to the Christian faith. And so if you don't know the truth, you're going to be sucked into lies.

Thank you very much. That's helpful.

Yeah.

I'd like to, I mean, if churches would use it, I would develop a series with PowerPoint and Word handouts where they could just use it. I would just ask for donations just to help pay for whatever, you know, and they want to use it for free.

Use it for free.

I don't care. Where they could take the PowerPoints and they could take the slides and they could go through the, in fact, I've already, now that I remember, I've already done it. There's a book, a booklet that I have called The Basic Christian Doctrine.

And it's tied in with a PowerPoint presentation slide. I'd forgotten about it. I'd done it about 10 years ago. We've got one on Catholicism as well. And by going through the basics of the faith, you can learn this stuff.

In fact, let me tell you something. When I was at a conference once and I spoke, I asked people, let's just say there's about a hundred people there. There was about a hundred. And so this is a good representation.

And it's not exact, but this is what I generally remember. I remember saying, okay, so how many of you here are Christian? Please raise your hands. You know, like all the hands went up.

Okay, great.

Praise God. And we're here to learn a little bit about how to defend the faith, what the Christian faith was. I said, okay, now I'm going to ask you some questions and you can raise your hands if you want.

And I'm not going to call on you, I'm just going to see, just take a survey. How many believe that there's only one God in all creation and all the hands go up? How many believe in the Trinity and all hands go up?

And how many believe Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead and their hands go.

Up?

How many believe we're saved by grace?

Okay, good.

Now I'm going to call on you if you ask, raise your hand. How many can define what the Trinity is? Two hands go up. And I called on one person and they did okay, you know, okay. And so I offered a polish of it.

Okay, now how many believe that Jesus is a man right now? And about 40 of the hands went up. He's a man right now. And I said, does anybody know what verses you would use to show that Jesus is God in.

Flesh?

Basically, no hands go up. This is how bad it is in the Christian church. They cannot, for the most part, defend the faith. They don't know what the faith is, they don't have a good and deep understanding of it.

What I love to do, what I love to do is stand in front of a bunch of people in a seminar and just teach and interrelate the theological perspectives revealed in scripture and show how they're all balanced in and woven in onto one another.

So give people an understanding. I call it theology in sneakers. Just say, this is one God. Why is that important? Why is the Trinity important? What if God was one person? What does that mean? What if he was two persons?

What does that mean? If he's three, how does that work? Why is the incarnation necessary? How many natures does Jesus have? How is the sacrifice of divine value if only the human nature died? And I can bring it all together.

I'm just talking here, but hold on, okay? We've got to break, so hold on, buddy. Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. If you want to give me a call, please do, 877 -207 -2276.

We'll be right back.

It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, and welcome back to the show. I guess that was Isaac. Hey, you still there?

Yes, sir.

All right, so gave you a lot of stuff there kind of going, but you got any more comments or questions?

No, I really appreciate, like you said, we do need apologetics in the church. I think that's exactly what we lack, and just, again, a lot of the denominations. Is it okay if I ask you another question?

Sure, sure, go ahead.

Okay, yeah, a question I've got, too, because I've been really wrestling with the faith that I grew up in a Protestant church, you know, non-denominational, and so I really didn't know, like, Eastern Orthodox and Catholicism until just recently.

How would we go about, I don't know, like, how would we evangelize to them, or how do we approach them? Because their beliefs are a little different.

They're not a little different, they're a lot different. Now, they affirm the Trinity and the deity of Christ, but their doctrine of salvation is false. They have a false gospel in that they both add works to salvation and require cooperation with God in works and in effort in order to have grace imputed and reckoned and given to them so that over a long period of time, through the authority and the practice of their church and its priesthood, they hope to be saved from their sins.

It's a false gospel. They also both preach a false aspect of Mary. They teach that Mary can be in many places, well, not many places, but they teach that she can hear millions of prayers simultaneously all over the planet, spoken in thought, different languages, all at the same time, and that she can answer them, and this is a functioning goddess.

It's not the Mary of Scripture. They have a false priesthood, because in the Bible there is no New Testament priesthood, that nothing is taught in the New Testament like the priesthood of the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

They both say that their priesthood is the authority, the authority of God handed down through their true church, and their priesthood is enabled to administer the graces of God to you through the sacraments.

And so, in order to get to the one mediator, Jesus, you've got to go through the mediatory work of their priesthood. So, both of them are false religions. Both of them are official Roman Catholic theology, official Eastern Orthodox theology, lead to damnation.

That's not to say that there aren't true Christians in there, but if they believe official stuff, then it's damned.

They're damned.

It's damnable heresy.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's sad, but it's true, as Ben says. Let's just say it's sad, but true. But that's it. So, Metallica. So, they need the gospel, and I work with different ways. Here's... I'm going to give you something I've developed that's very simple.

I've said it over the radio many times, and I use it with Catholics and Eastern Orthodox to try and prove to them that they're more loyal to their church than they are to Jesus. And that offends them when I say that.

But I say, let me prove it to you. You can't prove it. Yes, I can. Let me show you. I ask them a series of questions. I say, look, is Jesus God?

They say, yes.

Okay, does he have all authority in heaven and earth?

Well, yes.

Does he forgive sins?

Well, yes.

Did Jesus say, come to me, all who are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest?

Yes.

Well, if you were to pray to Jesus, no one else, just pray to Jesus and ask him to forgive you of all of your sins, will he? And this is when you'll say yes. Sometimes they say yes, but not very often.

What they'll do is they immediately invoke the authority of their church and the necessity of their priesthood and their sacraments. Well, Jesus set up the church. Jesus set up the sacraments. Jesus set up...

I didn't ask about that. I said, can you go to Jesus and just ask him?

I just...

Don't do all the other stuff.

I just...

Can you?

And once... This is no lie. This is no lie. I once asked a Catholic to pray directly to Jesus, not to Mary, in their intercession in order to get forgiveness. And I said, well, you pray straight to Jesus.

I'm not going to mock you in your prayer. We're in a social room. And he said he would do it. I said, okay, great. And the first thing he said was, dear Mary, blah, blah, blah. He couldn't even pray to Jesus.

Oh, wow.

They're so inculturated into the cult mentality that they can't even just see what the error.

Is.

So anyway, it's what I do. I asked him that. And when they say they have to go to their priesthood, I say, but I didn't ask that. I said, can you go to Jesus? And sometimes they'll say, yes, you can go to Jesus.

And I say, then if you do, will He forgive you of all of your sins? And if they say yes, which does happen occasionally, I say, then why do you need the Catholic priesthood? Why don't you go straight to Jesus?

Because there is no Catholic priesthood in the New Testament. It's not there. So why are you doing it? And that's one of the ways. And I give them the gospel.

Okay? Yeah.

Thank you. That's great.

I do it with Mormons as well, and with Jehovah's Witnesses, because I call it the true Jesus approach. In Mormonism, Jesus is, in 35, 1918, they did call Jesus their Lord and their God, or they did pray to Jesus, calling Him their Lord and their God.

And I say, well, in the Bible, Jesus is prayed to. And I go to Acts 7, 55 through 60, where Stephen had a vision of God the Father, the glory of God, and Jesus, and he addressed Jesus. And I said, doesn't he have all authority?

Yes.

Well, then why don't you go straight to Jesus? Because they're taught not to.

Right.

See, I always point people to Jesus. Go straight to Him by faith, and trust in what He did on the cross, but not anything.

Else.

And Mormons can't. Jehovah's Witnesses can't. Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholicism, they, for the most part, can't.

Yeah.

Okay?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I appreciate that insight as well, because even in the workplace, I think we're seeing a rise in Christians in the workplace ministering and sharing the gospel. And so there's a lot of limitations, especially in America, we see that.

And so I guess a follow-up question might be, I know, I believe it's in 2 Timothy, when Scripture talks about you, like, you will be persecuted for me.

Right?

We're called to live like Jesus and be servants of Him. And I understand that, but I think a lot of American Christians have become comfortable. And so how do we almost wake up our church, right? How do we wake up our church to not adhere to culture, right?

And to live a Jesus-centered life?

That's easy. No, it's easy to wake them up. All we need is a good persecution that God's going to send to us because we're not doing what He wants us to do right now. We're not out there picketing. We're not out there evangelizing.

We're not out there doing what we've got to do. So what God's going to do is discipline His church and His people and put them under persecution. And that will cause them to finally look up to God while they're bowing their knees.

Yeah.

Okay?

Yeah, that's good.

We're too comfortable here in America. We've got so much. We can go to church on a Sunday and we're not persecuted. Normatively speaking, it's on the rise, but we're not persecuted. And so Christians think that that's the fullness of the Christian faith.

And it's not. Some believe that. Now, we know, a lot of Christians know this truthfully, that they're to witness, they're to share the faith. But it's not a priority in their life. Something else is.

Exactly.

The priority should be the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the glorification of Him, let me show you something here. This is why this is so important. You go to Philippians 2, starting at verse 5.

I'm going to have to read a few verses. Because it's the last verse that is important. But it's about the gospel.

Okay?

Have this attitude in yourself, which also is in Christ Jesus. Oops, there's the break. So hold on after the break. I'll read this pericope to you and talk about why evangelism is for the glory of God.

And that is, we'll be right back.

Okay, buddy?

Hey folks, we're at the bottom of the hour. If you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick Live! Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone.

Welcome back to the show. Hey, let's get back on the air with Isaac. Are you still there?

Yes, sir.

All right. So I'm going to read this pericope. A pericope is a section of the scripture. It can be big or small. This is Philippians 2, 5 through 11. Have this attitude in yourselves which also was in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God anything to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason, also, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

So, Isaiah 43, 8. I think it's 43, 8. 43, 6. Let me check. And it says that we are created for the glory of God.

All right.

And we're created for my glory.

Let's see.

So, I always try to get this.

Yeah.

43, 7. Anyway, Isaiah 43, 7. We're created for the glory of God. How do we glorify God? Well, in a lot of different ways, but one of them is the proclamation of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ because it glorifies God.

When Christ was crucified, it glorifies God the Father. So, when we start preaching that gospel, we start teaching people what it is, whether they accept it or not isn't the issue. We're bringing glory to God because we're showing the greatness of his sacrifice, the greatness of his love, the greatness of his humility, the greatness of what he has done for us so that we can be saved.

And so, the Christians should be doing this because it glorifies God. And if our attitude is to live for the glory of God, it'll become less self-centered. And all that we have and do will be ultimately for God's glory, and that includes preaching and teaching.

Okay?

Yeah, that's great. Yes, sir. Thank you for your help.

All right, big man. Well, God bless.

All right.

You as well. Thanks again.

All right.

God bless.

A Divided Nation, Antichrist, and Communist Influence

Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276. Jim from Raleigh, North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. I really appreciate you taking my call. I'll give you a couple of sense of the background right quick. I'm 85 years old, and I have never seen our country more divided in my whole life than it is right now.

And there are two verses in the Bible that are concerning me, and then I have a couple of questions following that. But there are two verses. One is Mark 324. If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

And the other is Matthew 1225. Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. Well, that's really worrisome right now for me, and I guess I hope probably for everybody. And I don't really understand why it has come to this.

It's all about politics, I think. But it's almost as if, for example, if you're a minister or something, you're trying to win souls for Christ, and if you give your position about politics, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, it doesn't matter which, you're going to lose about half your audience before you even get started.

That's how bad it's gotten to be about how people are almost like hating each other over this thing. So that is really concerning to me. And then my follow-up to that was I'm trying to find some information out about where is the best place in the Bible to go to find out about the Antichrist, and is there some things to look out for?

And also, is there more than one Antichrist?

Well, there's Antichrists as a concept, and many Antichrists are out there. You can go to 1 John 2 for that. But if you want to know about the Antichrist, what I'd recommend you do is go to QARM and look up who or what is the Antichrist.

There's an article there that I've written, and it goes into who he is. He's boastful, combative, injured on the head and the arm, no desire for women, things like that. Ooh, there's a typo in there. And you can go there and check it out.

It's just who or what is the Antichrist on QARM. Go check it out.

How do you spell QARM? I'm not familiar with QARM. How do you spell that?

C-A-R-M dot O-R-G.

C-A-R-M. I can just go on the ladder and look that up.

Okay.

Yeah, it's a website I've been working on for almost 29 years. In October, it'll be 29 years.

Wow, okay. All right, I'll go and look at that. But that's just been worrying me so much about it. We talk about all the other kinds of things, everything from sins of all kinds, and nobody really talks about this divisiveness.

I mean, if we're trying to follow the Lord or whatever we might be trying to do and we lose our whole country, so that all these things about abortion, same-sex marriage, all these kinds of things that we're debating on, they won't even count anymore if we don't even have a choice to even speak about them if somebody else is taking over, taking so.

Well, that's right. Here's something else. Here's something else you should check out on the website. The 45 Goals of Communism. You may not think this is related, but it absolutely is.

Okay?

I'll read you some of them, because this was first published in 1961, and it was read into the United States Congressional Record on January 10, 1963. And I have listed on the CARM website, number four, Permit free trade between all nations regardless of communist affiliation.

This is the movement of the communists and the socialists in different countries who have infiltrated America to try and get it to fall because it's too strong economically and militarily. So they couldn't defeat us externally.

They have to go internally. So it says, Capture one or both of the political parties in the U .S. Well, obviously the Communist Party is in control of the Democrats. The Democratic Party is anti-Christ, it's evil, and the Republican Party isn't too far behind it.

Number 17, get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and communist propaganda. Infiltrate the press. Control book review assignments, editorial writing, etc. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, motion pictures.

I mean, it's all true. They promote ungodliness. They promote evil. They promote adultery, fornication, lying, cheating, stealing, all kinds of stuff. I watch stuff on TV. I can see it. It's all over the place.

We're so used to it.